Ugh.

I was afraid of this: when I went over the various files to make the final cut, I had to leave out so many genuine miscreants whose presence as elected officials is a blight on America the Beautiful. Because I want to have the list evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, I couldn’t even find space for all the members of “The Squad.” Or Maxine Waters.

Back when I was doing the “Dirty Dozen,” the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, aka CREW, was a helpful resource because the group used to maintain its own list of corrupt officials. Oh, the list was heavily weighted toward Republicans, naturally, because while CREW claimed to be non-partisan, it clearly wasn’t. Eventually its ideological bias became undeniable, and now about half of its “investigations” involve Donald Trump.

Since the list is long, I won’t belabor the reasons for each honoree. In most cases, I shouldn’t have to. And, as in the past, most of these unethical candidates will win.

1. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky). He’s 82, making the fact that he’s running at all unethical. Then there is his destructive and wildly unethical—but legal!—refusal to allow Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, even come to a vote.

2. Nancy Pelosi (D-S.F.). Like McConnell, Pelosi is an ethics dunce just for running (she’s 84). Her Ethics Alarms dossier is thick and damning, and her despicable open disrespect for President Trump during his final State of the Union address was a low point in American political history. She is a lifetime Ethics Villain.

3. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla) is a walking, talking embarrassment to his state and his party. His EA dossier is pretty ugly, but he disqualified himself for any respect in his job when he said, “Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb.”

4. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). That someone as ignorant, vocal and incompetent as AOC can be elected to Congress is like discovering that your house’s foundation is rotting away. AOC is so absurd that she is firmly in Julie Principle territory, so I confess that I haven’t flagged her nonsense half as often as she deserves. Here is her dossier. It could be five times this size.

5. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) You knew she would be on the list, right? I really don’t want to think about her, much less write about her. Like the horrible George Santos, she makes the whole concept of a representative democracy look bad.

6. Senator Maizie Hirono (D-HI) It has long been clear that Hirono is the most metally-challenged member of the Senate, which does limit the damage she can do, it’s true. She once said that Democrats had trouble connecting with normal people because “we know so much,” a hilarious statement for a woman who is dumb as a box of pineapples, earning her the title of #1 Senatorial Dunning-Kruger Victim. She earned a permanent place on any “Do NOT vote for this person!” list by saying, in 2019, “Believe in climate change as though it’s a religion, it’s not a science– and all the things that need to be done, and there is a lot.”

7. North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R), running for Governor. I wrote about Robinson here. Great choice, GOP.

8. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) has been censored by the House once for her anti-Israel, anti-Jewish rhetoric. She has made it clear that she sympathizes with the October 7 terrorist attack on Israeli civilians, and has written that the slogan “From the river to the sea” is “aspirational,” in her view.

9. and 10. U.S. Reps. Ronny Jackson, (R-Amarillo) and Wesley Hunt (R-Houston) These two Texas Republicans are paired because they engaged in the same kind of petty graft. Both used campaign funds to pay bills at exclusive private clubs in Amarillo and Houston. Jackson spent nearly $12,000 since 2020 on membership at the Amarillo Club, and Hunt spent over $74,000 between April 2022 and January 2024 at the Post Oak Hotel, including membership fees at its exclusive Oak Room club. Using campaign funds for club membership can be permissible when the club is used exclusively for campaign events, but it is clear that that this wasn’t the case with either Jackson or Hunt.

11. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) Heck, we might get “The Squad” top three out of the way… Another anti-Semite like her pal Tlaib, she has all sorts of shady aspect to her past but it is sufficient to get her on this list that she tweeted earlier this year,

“The woman you sent to Congress is working day and night to protect your interest. She knows your plight and that of Somalia. I am as concerned about Somalia as you guys are…Together we will protect the interests of Somalia…We Somalis must have the confidence in ourselves that we call the shots in the U.S. The U.S. government will only do what Somalians in the U.S. tell them to do. They will do what we want and nothing else….[the U.S. government] must follow our orders and that is how we will safeguard the interest of Somalia… Sleep in comfort, knowing I am here to protect the interests of Somalia from inside the U.S. system.”

No, see, a member of Congress is sworn to act in the best interests of the United States of America, not a foreign nation. Omar not only has made it clear that her loyalties lie with Somalia, she boasts about it.

12. Angela Alsobrooks, Democratic nominee for the Maryland open Senate seat. Alsobrooks, the Prince George’s County executive, has more financial responsibility issues than my ne’re do well Uncle Barney, according to a complaint filed today by an ethics watchdog group. It details her unpaid property taxes, and her violation of federal law by omitting $47,500 tax debt from required financial disclosures. I have also seen the dishonest TV ads she is running against her opponent, former GOP governor Larry Hogan, accusing him of secretly planning on joining a Republican Senate majority if he wins to pass the fictional and unconstitutional national abortion ban that the Democratic Party is using as a boogieman to scare women to the polls. In hopelessly woke Maryland, Ma Barker could be elected Senator if she ran as a Democrat.

13. Derrick Anderson, Republican candidate for Congress in Virginia’s 7th District. Ick. I wrote about this guy here. He’s the one who used a “fake “borrowed” family in his campaign ads.

14. Eric Swalwell (D-Cal.) Is he the dumbest member of the House? It’s a close race; he certainly is in Sen. Hirono’s class as Stage 5 Dunning-Kruger victim: he’s so eager to say and tweet stupid things because he thinks he’s astute. Take his reaction to parents wanting a say in their children’s education, for example:

What was he missing? Oh, just everything. Like the fact that the doctor-patient relationship is no analogy for a teacher and student. Like the fact that a lawyer is required to consult a client regarding trial strategy. Like the fact that we stop trusting experts when they start being untrustworthy, like Rep. Swalwell. His EA dossier is here.

15. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), aka. “Fauxcahontas.” Warren has been mercifully out of the news since her failed Presidential run in 2020, but EA has a long memory.

16. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) Another example of the GOP sticking the public with a terrible character. Following his election to Congress in 2022, D’Esposito hired his fiancée’s daughter to work as a “special assistant” in his district office at a salary that eventually reached $3,800 a month. Then D’Esposito hired another woman with whom he was having an affair. She collected $2,000 a month for a part-time job in the same district office as his fiancée’s daughter. When D’Esposito’s fiancée discovered the affair with Faas in July of 2023, she broke up with him, and both of the dubious hires had to find other employment. On such thin reeds as this idiot does GOP control of the House depend. Brilliant.

17. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) Well, Bernie is a communist, let’s start with that. He applauds lying “for the public good,” as he made clear recently when he explained that Kamala Harris was still an extreme Leftist, but was just pretending to be otherwise so she could get elected. And Bernie is fine with that. He is also in the unethical geezer category: it is irresponsible for someone as old as Bernie (83) to run for a new six-year term. He’s doing it even after watching a Senate colleague, the once skilled and able Diane Feinstein, fall apart when she hit 88.

18. Byron Donalds (R-Fl) Donalds has been a busy Trump surrogate this year. He also is apparently following in the footsteps of his now rich inside trading colleagues in the House and Senate. Donalds failed to disclose over 100 stock trades he made totaling about $1.6 million, which violates the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. Lawmakers must file Periodic Transaction Reports (PTRs) within 45 days of trading any stock that exceeds $1,000. Rep. Donalds and his wife made 108 stock trades between 2022 and 2023 valued up to $1.6 million, yet he failed to file PTRs for any of these transactions. No, Donalds isn’t alone in doing this, but I needed another Republican for this list.

19. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Cal), now running for Senator in California against former LA Dodger star Steve Garvey. What a nasty piece of work he is! The Ethics Alarms assessment of his character is here along with details, but the commentary said in part,

“If Americans allow Schiff’s version of justice to be institutionalized, nobody is safe. “Sure we had nothing to justify investigating every aspect of your life, but look what we found!” That’s it—the end of liberty, the end of freedom, the end of dissent. That is what Adam Schiff represents, and what he wants. Naturally, Schiff being what he is, lied, claiming there was indeed Trump campaign collusion with Russia though both the Mueller investigation and the Durham investigation found evidence of none. For example, he falsely claimed that Michael Flynn had secret meetings with the Russian ambassador in which they discussed undermining bipartisan sanctions imposed on Russia, even though the discussion between Flynn and the Russian ambassador occurred after the 2016 election. This is truly a bad man, an unethical elected official, and a human cancer in our government. Anyone who trusts, supports, defends, or, ugh, votes for him is either an unwitting or a deliberate foe of democracy.”

He’s a bad man, and California voters are going to make him a U.S. Senator.

20. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Co) Last and maybe least, Boebert is a special case: she has the manners, taste and sense of decorum of the low-life mother in “Gone Baby Gone.” We really don’t need all kinds represented in Congress. We should send our best to represent us, not people like Boebert. The last time I wrote about her exploits, I opined, accurately, “She belongs in a trailer park.”

***

Whew. I’m both exhausted and depressed after that. Do vote tomorrow. And don’t vote for any of those candidates.