I friend forwarded an email to me which rhetorically asked: which group of 535 has the following incidents: 29 arrested for spousal abuse, 7 arrested for fraud, 19 arrested for bad checks, 117 for bankrupting 2 businesses, 3 arrested for assault, 71 who can’t get a credit card in their own name, 14 arrested for drugs, 8 arrested for shoplifting, 84 arrested for drunk driving and 21 are current defendants in lawsuits, with the answer being the U.S. Congress.
The source of the info of this e-mail was unattributed and so I am suspicious about it. I’m not saying Congress is populated solely by saints, but this e-mail sounds like a UL to me. Any truth to it? Anybody know anything about the source document? Thanks!
The short story: It’s probably a UL, but like many of these stories, there’s not enough evidence to prove or disprove it. No year is given, nor names or locations of these incidents. And finally, even if it is true, who cares if these people have been “accused” or “stopped” or “sued” or “arrested”? What does that tell us? Sheesh. I’m sure there’s enough real things wrong with some congressmen that we don’t need nebulous and unverifiable stories about all of them to dilute our faith in the system.
I think this little tidbit may be what you’re
referring to :
After analyzing public records referring to members of Congress, the online news service
Capitol Hill Blue revealed in September that 29 current members have been accused of
spousal abuse and 19 of writing bad checks, and that 71 have bad credit reports and 117 members have been involved in two or more bankrupt businesses. Included also are seven arrests for fraud, 14 for drug-related charges, eight for shoplifting and three for assault.Also, just in 1998, 84 members were stopped on suspicion of drunk driving but were released when they claimed constitutional immunity.
This appeared in the San Jose Mercury News and probably many other papers. Sure doesn’t sound like a UL to me.
Listen, Congress is hardly the organization I want to be banging a drum for, but the website of Capitol Hill Blue (which I won’t link to, but is fairly obvious) is currently carrying the motto:
Yeah… sounds like an unbiased, objective source of trustworthy info to me. Just because this inflammatory little blurb was “reported” (another great qualifying verb) in several respected newspapers doesn’t mean it’s true.
It looks like I’m worse than the average member of Congress. Well, not really, since there’s no real meaning to the “average” member of Congress, but I probably have a terrible credit report, and I’ve been involved with at least one bankrupt business, and most members can’t say that. Also, once I was pulled over because my car matched the description of a murder suspect.
Yeah, and the other thing about “being involved with two or more bankrupt businesses” is that it could mean ANYTHING. They worked in the mail room when they were in high school. They once bought a box of pencils from the place. Or, and this one seems likely to be a high percentage of that 117, they were lawyers for the company either before or during the proceedings who personally had little or nothing to do with the actual practices and events that caused the bankruptcy.
I am here to state that Congress is indeed an Urban Legend. Congress does not really exist. It is a tale told by people to scare little children into being good little boys and girls so they do not grow up to be congress people.
No matter what you have heard Congress does not exist.