The new Speaker of the House is on record as objecting to what she characterized as a "culture of corruption"in Washington, which she blames on Republicans. And she has pledged to put an end to this alleged state of affairs.
Since then, she has recommended an unindicted co-conspirator in a major bribery scandal for majority leader, and attempted to get another person who was impeached and removed from the federal bench as head of the House Intelligence committee.
Now a person who was caught with 90K in bribe money in his freezer has won re-election in Louisiana, and the distinguished Speaker seems to have lost interest in combatting this supposed culture of corruption.
Points for debate -
[ul][li]This is bad, right? I mean, I was waiting for some of the lefties here who was really serious about clean politics to speak out about this, knowing as I do that the Usual Suspects will immediately deny, nitpick, ignore, distract, and fire off the usual barrage of tu quoques. After all, that’s what they do. But do the rest of y’all care about this? [/li][li]Does this cast any light on possible reasons why Katrina was not dealt with as perhaps it should? If this ass hole can get re-elected with the FBI catching him dead to rights, maybe the feds aren’t the only or the most incompetent politicians in disaster recovery.[/li][li]What are the rest of us supposed to do? There is so much screaming about Republicans hereabouts that it is sometimes difficult to work up the interest to start threads about anything else, because of the determined efforts of the dedicated asswipes to shout down anything other than Republican-hate. Is that how this collection of scandals, a few weeks after the elections, is going to go down on the SDMB and in the Congress? [/ul][/li]
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t think there’s any evidence that Pelosi ever really wanted Alcee Hastings as the head of the HIC. And what is she supposed to do about what’s-his-name from Lousiana other than what the House has already done? She can’t unelect him… Yes, LA has a long history of corrupt politicians, and there’s plenty of blame to go around for the Katrina disaster, but that doesn’t change the fact that Brownie was a very poor choice to head up FEMA.
Let’s give the Dems some time (they’re not even officially in power yet) before we start characterizing them as this or that.
Backing Murtha over Hoyer was stupid, but I see that Hoyer was given the job anyway. Hm. And as John Mace said, what’s Pelosi supposed to do? Promote a coup d’etat in Louisiana? This attack on Democratic reform efforts, however lackluste or awesome they turn out to be, strikes me as premature.
Right! There may be some disagreement about just how grave the complaints against Murtha are, but I don’t think anybody can call him any kind of poster child for clean government. As for “Dollar Bill” Jefferson in LA, I deplore his re-election too, but I kind of agree with John that there’s not really anything Pelosi can do about it. Your own link says that she already booted him off his “coveted committee assignment” once the magnitude of his sleaze factor became apparent.
You mean, because Jefferson is a corrupt Louisiana legislator? I don’t see the connection. Was he involved with the Katrina emergency measures? Was he bribing people to botch the rescue or diverting emergency resources to himself? AFAICT, he wasn’t: his corruption scandal involves bribery from a Nigerian telecom company, not anything to do with Katrina or FEMA.
My primary remedy for the Congressional culture of corruption: support publicly funded “Clean Elections” campaigns, such as Arizona and Maine (and I think N. Carolina?) have already instituted at the state level. We Americans have been trying to do elections on the cheap, expecting candidates to cover all their own costs and not make over public funds or airtime for campaigning. Well, it costs shitloads of money to run campaigns these days, so it’s no wonder we’ve got so many candidates climbing into the pockets of lobbyists who offer them shitloads of money. (A secondary effect is that we get legislatures made up disproportionately of the very rich, who can more easily afford to run winning campaigns but who don’t necessarily represent the rest of us.)
With a “Clean Elections” system, candidates who show a given amount of public support, and who pledge to eschew outside campaign contributions greater than a given maximum, are entitled to a certain amount of publicly financed campaign funds. I think we should expand this system by requiring TV channels and radio stations to give a certain number of free ad spots to candidates who meet certain qualifications. It’s a false economy to refuse to spend taxpayer money on our electoral system and just trust to luck, and to individual candidates’ consciences, that they won’t be corrupted by the special interests who can offer them the money they need to run a campaign.
Woe! Woe! Nanci d’Arc is not the pristine paragon of Prada populism that we have so foolishly worshipped! Shodan dares speak the truth, that she is the Whore of Babylon, cups overflowing with corruption, fornications and santorums. Worse is the cynicism, the stealthy cunning of pretended disapproval! Clearly, we are in for an age of cigar-chomping labor bosses and cigar chomping teacher’s unions dictating policy, gone are the halcyon days of The Duke, The Hammer, and The Cocksucker.
You know, she plans to open the Congressional session using a Castro Street steel dildo for a gavel! That’s a true fact, you could look it up.
Nominating Murtha was stupid on a number of levels - nevermind Abscam, he was public about not being a big fan of her ethics reform ideas. I don’t know why she even considered supporting Hastings. (Okay, yes I do. But she shouldn’t have.) That said… Murtha didn’t get the job, neither did Hastings, and Jefferson has jack squat to do with her. That one’s on the voters of Louisiana. Pelosi has proven she’s a politician, and she’s probably not a great one, but I’m not giving up on the possibility of ethics reform yet. Public demand for it is such that I hope it could push unenthusiastic pols into line.
There’s no direct tie between this and Katrina, but yes, on a very basic level I think there’s a connection. Representatives get into power, lose touch, and focus on nothing but getting re-elected while systemic issues don’t change. And voters don’t always hold up their end of the bargain either. Power corrupts, and aparthy corrupts absolutely.
Yup, its bad. However, its no worse than what the 'Pubs have been about for the last decade. Political corruption is like air…its all around us all the time.
There is enough shit to go around on Katrina. As I said at the time, a whole pile of it is all over the good folks in NO and in Louisiana. Only the true faithful want to lay the whole thing at GW’s feet…most everyone else realizes that the fuckups ran from top to bottom.
I’m inclined to take the stance John Mace is…I’m in wait and see mode. However, I’m not ready to just jump all over the Dems as yet, since they haven’t actually GOTTEN into power yet. The stuff you described in your OP is yawn stuff IMHO…its stuff that is ALWAYS happening in both parties. What will be interesting is to see how the faithful on this board handle the next 8 years or so as the Dems come back into power and inevitably fuck up in the same ways the 'Pubs always do. And it will be even more intersting to see what the 'Pub faithful do as they have the same knee jerk reaction to every wrong foot the Dem’s put.
I am extremely disappointed thus far. Nancy isn’t even Speaker yet, but it seems like she has already squandered the chance to prove the Democrats as the party with the moral highground.
The Jefferson victory disgusted me as well, but at least the other Democrats have distanced themselves from him (by removing him from his committee assignments, there’s not much else they can do).The voters in his district are the targets of my scorn. They had a choice between a crooked liberal and a clean one. They chose Jefferson. There’s simply no excuse for it.
I’m still willing to give Nancy a chance (after all, she hasn’t even taken office yet), but I’m not as optimistic about her as I used to be.
Is that not what this OP is all about? I seem to recall enormous effort among the Republicans in 2000 speaking loudly about “restoring integrity” to politics (and even the nation). So the Republicans wound up delivering business as usual, got caught with their hands in the till (and their eyes on the pages), and the Democrats used their weapon against them. Whoever has the most power in 2008 will discover that their hijinks are being exposed in record levels while the out-of-power party’s indiscretions will be shrugged off as the missteps of minor individuals.
Please stop nitpicking this OP with reminders that Pelosi is not in power yet, that the voters of Louisiana reelected Jefferson to office, or that Murtha did not accept money, wasn’t indicted, and wasn’t elected to the position that Pelosi had hoped for.
Following the principles of a democracy is no excuse. Jefferson is obviously guilty, trial or no trial, and the desires of the voters should be overruled by the Speaker of the House – whether she has been sworn in or not.
The same holds true for Murtha. I admit that he wasn’t indicted and he didn’t take the bribe. He was, however, present when they tried to bribe him! Explain that away! Even the House Ethics Committee didn’t reprimand him. That was in 1978. There was something fishy there. How many times have those crazy voters reelected him since then? They’ve been in on whatever the setup was.
Why our beloved House Republicans allowed him to continue to be serve term after term I do not understand.
Amazing how the name “Pelosi” triggers such a stringent demand for government accountability and ethics from friend Shodan when earlier names like “DeLay,” “Cunningham,” “Abramoff,” “Hastert,” “Frist,” “Santorum,” yadda yadda yadda failed to do so.
Actually, there is an excellent reason. Assuming Pelosi can count votes, a fairly safe bet, she knew Murtha would not win. But, Murtha, the darling of the anti-war Dems, got her support, which should help the anti-war dems fall into line and perhaps shut up about cutting funding for the war and leaving tomorrow.
There are other ways of running a party in Congress than telling everyone to fall into line or else.
I think of it more as people getting the government they deserve. If they are willing to re-elect so apparently dodgy a politico like Jefferson even when he was caught red-handed, my tendency is to believe that there are other dogs in the manger.
I think bribes go a little beyond apathy and trying for re-election above all.
Republicans? Murtha is a Democrat - was that a typo?
Again, ISTM that bribery of the sort Jefferson seems to have been involved in goes well beyond run-of-the-mill scandals. If the voters of NO and LA yawn when their representatives accept bribes, possibly that explains why their disaster recovery was not up to snuff, as I mentioned earlier.
I was comparing how Pelosi is dealing with the scandal vs. how the Foley scandal was handled. Pelosi is ignoring it, even after the evidence is public and rather over-whelming. At least when the dirty e-mails surfaced to the public, the House Republicans kicked the disgusting pervert out.
But I am bound to say that the misdeeds of the Dems and this debate on the SDMB are being handled more seriously than I expected (tomndebb’s attempts at dismissal and casting aspersions notwithstanding).
In America, unlike other democracies, each individual race is run on its own, separately, unlike some countries where there is a “party list” produced by the party which enables them to punish wayward members.
A person may become a member of Congress by winning their district’s election: the person who receives the most number of votes takes their place on Capitol Hill.
I think Murtha was a bad choice, but for political reasons. He refused a bribe, though for some reason it seems to have tarred him, and I’ve heard nothing bad about him since then.
I’ve no knowledge of Hastings being supported for the committee chair, other than statements that he was in line for it. He did not get it, so what’s your problem?
I would be pleased if the new House refuses to seat Jefferson.
Excuse me, but whay are people surprised by all of this? the fact is, we have 9by our own inaction) allowed the culture of corruption to go on, unhindered. The fact is, nobody is censured in any meaningful way; if you return a corrupt politician to office, he/she will just keep on stealing. Abramoff is a symptom, not a cause. we have to:
-limit terms in Congress
-remove ALL lobbyists
-fund election campaigns with public money
and (most important of all): have extremely harsh penalties for elected officials, convicted of crimes. PROSECUTE the crooks, and have substantial jail sentences for corrupt acts (no country club jails)-send them in with rapistsand murderers.
Tough huh? Well, if you want to serve, this should noy deter an HONEST man !
OLD CHINESE PROVERB: “A clear conscience doesn’t fear midnight knocking”
I am neither dismissing your post nor casting aspersions at you or anyone (well, maybe at politicians, in general). I have posted exactly the same sort of response to submissions from others (such as Reeder) who have expressed shock, (SHOCK, I say), at the actions of President Bush or the Republican Congress.
I simply put your rant in perspective while allowing you to leave it in GD instead of moving it to the Pit.
