As was mentioned before, he resigned before any action was taken against him. What is disgusting is that the House Republicans knew about Foley for years, and only when the emails were made public did they even consider lifting a finger about it. Before the fall of 2006, they dealt with it by hiding it from the Democrats and keeping it under cover. The fact that minors were endangered by their inaction apparently didn’t enter into their thinking.
Maybe sit back and let events play out a bit before judging the Democrats. It seems that some believe that any misconduct, however minor and however long ago, committed by a Democrat is an excuse for any and all high crimes and misdemeanors committed by Republicans in perpetuity.
I think Voyager is correct about Pelosi’s support for Murtha. It was a public show of support for an ally, while she knew that Hoyer had it wrapped up anyway.
What they delivered was not business as usual. They forced the lobbyists to`` purge their staffs of any one leaning left or clearly Democratic. They walked on the floor passing out checks. They kept reps up all night to force votes through. They were many times worse than anything done before and were proud of how they were remaking the system to serve them.
Being a former Louisiana resident, this is nothing new. When I lived there, all the people running for the head of the Agriculture Department were either under indictment or under investigation. However corruption is not equal to incompetence, as Chicago indicates. I don’t know of any evidence that corruption played any role in the Katrina mess; Brownie might have been incompetent, but he seems honest enough.
Keeping congresscritters up all night to force quora and get votes is a time-honored practice by both parties.
Compelling some lobbying groups to purge “wrong thinking” lobbyists was a bit odd, but I am not sure how unethical it was. (“Wrong thinking” lobbyists would hardly be getting the desired votes.)
I would have to see genuine evidence that either the RNC or right-wing lobbyists were actually passing out cash on the House or Senate floor before I accepted that as more than partisan hyperbole.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200602030010 Sorry I think this is on an unprecedented level. Delahttp://www.hsv.com/writers/tommytru/may2396.htmy and Frist finally paid but not enough. The act of passing out checks on the floor is well known. They had no brakes on their cottuption. Does Abramhof ring a bell.
AFAICT, the valid ethics concerns about Murtha aren’t so much about his (non-)involvement with the Abscam sting back in the '70s (although that was what the OP, rather absurdly, seemed to be emphasizing) as about his cozy relationships with defense lobbyists while on the House Appropriations subcommittee. IMHO Murtha’s conduct doesn’t approach Abramoff-sized or DeLay-sized levels of corruption, but that doesn’t mean it’s not matter for concern.
Yes, political corruption is a bad thing. I’m glad we could get this issue out in the open so that others know where each of us stands. As for the “Unindicted co-conspirator” jab (at Murtha?), if the OP has some evidence that Murtha is factually guilty of corruption but for some reason has not been prosecuted for it, feel free to post it. I’ll listen.
(Full disclosure: Murtha is congressman of the district I grew up in, I’ve voted for him in the past, and a family I’ve always been quite close to live right across the street from his family home in Johnstown, PA. Despite that, I don’t feel I have any particular averesion to hearing about ethics problems with Murtha if they exist).
Frankly, no, unless you or someone else can show that Jefferson was diverting money or goods intended for disaster recovery. I seem to recall reading something about him having commandeered a helicopter to retrieve something from his house during the aftermath of Katrina, but I don’t think that’s what the OP was referring to.
In any event, one can find anynumber of newsreports from the May-June 2006 period reporting that Jefferson had been forced off the House Ways and Means Committee, that Pelosi had called for an investigation of Jefferson by the House Ethics Committee, and for him to resign. Does the OP have any particular evidence that Pelosi has gone back on on any of these things?
Point of order: what is the constructive purpose of all the editorializing about what the OP perceives as “Republican-hate” on this board? Does the OP believe that most persons reading these threads are too effing stupid to figure out when someone is arguing purely from a partisan viewpoint?
Getting back to the OP’s claimed subject for debate, it seems to me he has not actually shown that there is a “collection of scandals” that has taken place “a few weeks after the elections”. The scandals that Murtha never actually seems to have been prosecuted for apparently refer to events somewhere in the 2002-2005 timeframe, or if the OP is referring to the ABSCAM sting, more than 20 years ago. Jefferson’s troubles took place well before the elections. So, just asking here, what are the post-election “collection of scandals” we’re supposed to be talking about ? Sorry, it’s just not clear to me.
Lastly, I’m interested in what the OP thinks we should do? Call a special election and vote the Republicans back in??
I find that Foley resigned before Hastert had a chance to ask for his resignation. Jefferson does not seem to feel the same need, thus giving Pelosi far more of an opportunity to ask him to do so - which she has thus far failed to do.
Well, it’s not like any of you are going to mention the subject, least of all someone who considers the expectation that Congressmen not have bribe money in their freezers to be a “stringent demand”.
Not that I find a content-free tu quoque from the person with whom you agree to be “amazing” in the slightest.
I find this amazing, however - tens of thousands in bribe money, and everyone reacts with indifference.
Is the Democratic party in Louisiana really that much of a sinkhole? The mind boggles.
Well, Pelosi certainly knows about the Jefferson bribe investigation and the money now - yet she has done nothing of note about it. Not even a word spoken. And I find it hard to believe she knew nothing of Murtha and the Abscam scandal - it was in all the papers.
Not from where I am sitting. The part that bothers me was the part on the videotape where Murtha says he is not interested in a bribe “right now - maybe later” after they have done some “business”.
I thought it was Democrats with sex scandals and Republicans with money scandals. Now it is the opposite - the world is turned on its ear.
The hell?! You’re seriously claiming that what “bothers” you most about John Murtha, as far as the “culture of corruption” issue is concerned, is not his present-day questionable relationships with powerful lobbyists, but rather the fact that almost thirty years ago he was recorded as saying that he might be open to a bribe at some unspecified point in the future? Even though he’d outright refused bribes from the same source several times already? Even though he’s never been accused of involvement in a similar open-bribery scandal since? That’s really the thing that “bothers” you?
Dude, get out of the way and let me defend your OP; I think I’m doing a better job of it than you are.
Good heavens. For being present when someone was trying to entrap him into a crime and then declining, this should be a scandal 20+ years later? What’s the angle- they wouldn’t have tried to entrap him if they didn’t think he was guilty and the fact that he declined the bribe is irrelevant?
So the voters in Louisiana reelected someone with some cash in the freezer. What was Pelosi to do, campaign against him? Or, before she becomes Speaker, refuse to seat him?
Yeah! And why stop at simple corruption which cost no lives? Refuse to seat the people who got thousands of innocent people killed to start with! Then we can refuse to seat pro-abortionists who don’t mind that we’re killing unborn children! Why stop there? We shouldn’t seat anyone not from MyFavoriteReligiousSect because I have all the answers and you don’t!
We will live with this until meaningful campaign financing reform arrives. We get part time legislators and full time money raisers. The Repubs did the work ,made the money available and made it clear what they expected in return. It was automation of the corrupting force in politics.
Please acknowledge my cites showing that Pelosi has called for Jefferson’s investigation and for his resignation.
Please explain why Pelosi MUST be required to drop Murtha from consideration for a post because of a more than 20-year-old investigation that exonerated him.
Sorry, but I really don’t think you are arguing your points very effectively.
Well, for the sake of the honor of the Party, I volunteer (reluctantly, of course) to be enmeshed in a tawdry sex scandal with Rep. Tom Udall. If that’s too respectably heterosexual for the image we’re striving after, I guess you could sign me up for Tammy Baldwin instead, but it would probably have to involve drugs and alcohol.
[qutoe]Well, Pelosi certainly knows about the Jefferson bribe investigation and the money now - yet she has done nothing of note about it. Not even a word spoken.
[/quote]
Go check the news from somebody other than Fox. She’s kicking Jefferson off his Ways and Means seat.
What you know of it is, well, what ? What do *you * think Murtha did wrong?
I just basically assume that politicians are going to be corrupt. I think it would be naive to the point of idiocy to vote for a political party out of any expectation that they’re going to cean anything up. Corruption in Congress is like cold in the winter. It’s just the order of things. I really don’t care as long as they can impede the current President and make conservatives unhappy.
The hell?! You’re seriously claiming that what “bothers” you most about John Murtha, as far as the “culture of corruption” issue is concerned, is not his present-day questionable relationships with powerful lobbyists, but rather the fact that almost thirty years ago he was recorded as saying that he might be open to a bribe at some unspecified point in the future? Even though he’d outright refused bribes from the same source several times already? Even though he’s never been accused of involvement in a similar open-bribery scandal since? That’s really the thing that “bothers” you?