Pete Sessions tops "Greed and Abuse" list

From Reader's Digest comes this list of the Top 7 Tales of Greed and Abuse In 2009. In the Number 1 slot is our congressman, Pete Sessions:

Air Pork One
On his congressional website, Texas Republican Pete Sessions called earmarks “a symbol to the American people of a broken Washington.” So how does Sessions explain the $1.6 million budget earmark for dirigible research that he steered to an Illinois company represented by one of his former aides? As politico.com reported in July, Sessions directed the money to Jim G. Ferguson & Associates, which is not located in the congressman's district—and whose founders have no experience in aviation or engineering, let alone blimp building. Sessions's office denied that the role of former aide Adrian Plesha, who made nearly $450,000 lobbying for the company, had anything to do with Sessions's support for the earmark. If you believe that, I've got a blimp to sell you.

Another Risqué Fundraiser For Pete Sessions

From The Sleuth:

Sessions, the Sleuth has learned, held a fundraiser in February at a racy venue in Las Vegas whose Web site features come-hither looking women scantily clad in lingerie slithering all over each other...

...The establishment - the Tao nightclub and restaurant on the Strip - isn't as risqué as the fundraiser Sessions held last year at the Forty Deuce burlesque club in Vegas. Still, Tao isn't exactly a paradigm of conservative family values. And it's doubtful such a fundraiser is what GOP leaders have in mind when they talk about rebranding the party...

...The Web site also boasts: "Tao Las Vegas is frequented by celebrities on a regular basis, such as Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, Tommy Lee, Britney Spears, Jamie Foxx, Janet Jackson, Bono andMadonna."

Who could have predicted five years ago, after Sessions scolded Super Bowl half-time entertainer Janet Jackson for forcing her "liberal values upon the rest of the country" that he and the pop star would wind up hanging at the same hot spots in Sin City?