Draining the Swamp

[Haggis@wk]

Man, I am going to have so much fun the next few years!!!!!!

Let’s start draining that swamp of Republican corruption!

Pelosi supports Murtha

” House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) endorsed Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) yesterday as the next House majority leader, thereby stepping into a contentious intraparty fight between Murtha and her current deputy, Maryland's Steny H. Hoyer.

The unexpected move signaled the sizable value Pelosi gives to personal loyalty and personality preferences. Hoyer competed with her in 2001 for the post of House minority whip, while Murtha managed her winning campaign. Pelosi has also all but decided she will not name the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) to chair that panel next year, a decision pregnant with personal animus.”

Hey, No big secret here, she’s just repaying Murtha for his favor

Roll Call

(subscription required)

” Republican lawmakers say that ties between Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and his brother's lobbying firm, KSA Consulting, may warrant investigation by the House ethics committee...

According to a June 13 article in The Los Angeles Times, the fiscal 2005 defense appropriations bill included more than $20 million in funding for at least 10 companies for whom KSA lobbied. Carmen Scialabba, a longtime Murtha aide, works at KSA as well. KSA directly lobbied Murtha's office on behalf of seven companies, and a Murtha aide told a defense contractor that it should retain KSA to represent it, according to the LA Times.

In early 2004, Murtha reportedly leaned on U.S. Navy officials to sign a contract to transfer the Hunters Point Shipyard to the city of San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A company called Lennar Inc. had right to the land, and Laurence Pelosi, nephew to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was an executive with the firm at that time.”

Isn’t it amazing how little of this was published in the press BEFORE the elections?

[Shapley]

Well, Murtha is the only member of the 'Keating Five' still in office, having bought his freedom by testifying against others.

In 1978, the Federal Bureau of Investigation embarked on a sting operation, labeled Abscam, in which agents posed as Middle Eastern businessmen offering bribes to senators and congressmen. The FBI targeted 31 government officials in total during the operation, including state officials in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Six congressmen, Democrats John Jenrette of South Carolina, Raymond Lederer of Pennsylvania, Michael Myers of Pennsylvania, John Murphy of New York and Frank Thompson of New Jersey, and Republican Richard Kelly of Florida, and one senator, Democrat Harrison Williams of New Jersey, were convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges in 1981.

Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania also was indicted but not prosecuted because he gave evidence against Murphy and Thompson. Only one lawmaker, Republican Sen. Larry Pressler of South Dakota, refused to take the bribe, saying at the time, "Wait a minute, what you are suggesting may be illegal."

Kelly initially had the conviction overturned when a judge ruled the sting amounted to illegal entrapment, but in 1984, a higher court sentenced Kelly to 13 months in prison. Kelly was famously caught on videotape packing his pockets with $25,000 in cash, asking the undercover agents, "Does it show?"

But as opposed to Abscam tarnishing Congress, it was the FBI that dealt with much of the long-term scrutiny as investigations into their probe brought up the entrapment issue. After Abscam, there have been no published accounts of efforts to catch lawmakers in the act, rather the focus became investigating wrongdoing after the act.

The Keating Five scandal from 1989 implicated five senators in another corruption probe. Democrats Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Donald Riegle of Michigan, John Glenn of Ohio and Alan Cranston of California, and Republican John McCain of Arizona, were accused of strong-arming federal officials to back off their investigation of Charles Keating, former chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan association. In exchange, the senators reportedly received close to $1.3 million in campaign contributions.

The Senate Ethics Committee concluded that Glenn and McCain's involvement in the scheme was minimal and dropped the charges against them. In August 1991, the committee ruled that the other three senators had acted improperly in interfering with the Federal Home Loan Banking Board's investigation.

DeConcini and Riegle did not run for re-election in 1994 and were succeeded by Republican Sens. John Kyl and Spencer Abraham.

Looks like we might have expect a detour on the road to a more ethical congress.

V/R
Shapley

[barfle]

Looks like we might have expect a detour on the road to a more ethical congress.

There's a road to an ethical congress? Nahhh.

[Shapley]

There's a road to an ethical congress? Nahhh.

You're probably right. It does seem to me, however, that each time Congress has changed hands the winning partly got there in part due to campaigning on the promise that they would create one.

[barfle]

It does seem to me, however, that each time Congress has changed hands the winning partly got there in part due to campaigning on the promise that they would create one.

Like I said, they lie.

[Shapley]

Oh, I know they lie. The difference is Republican voters hold their candidates accountable for their lies. Democrats just look at it as part of the job.

I said once before: Republicans send their candidates to Washington in the hopes that all congressional districts, collectively, steal no more than is needed to run the government, and will do so fairly from all the districts. Democrats send their candidates to Washington in hopes that they will steal more from the other districts, collectively, than the other districts, collectively, will steal from them. Since they're sending them there to steal in the first place, there's little wonder that they don't get bothered if they pocket a little bit of the take for their troubles.

V/R
Shapley

[GreatCarouser]

Oh, I know they lie. The difference is Republican voters hold their candidates accountable for their lies. Democrats just look at it as part of the job.

Can you say 'delusional'? I can. You're a laugh a minute.

[barfle]

I said once before: Republicans send their candidates to Washington in the hopes that all congressional districts, collectively, steal no more than is needed to run the government, and will do so fairly from all the districts.

I seem to recall a saying that went something like: "Doing the same thing over and over with the expectation of a different result is madness."

[OperaTenor]

Shap, Haggis, you guys are dangerously close to sniveling.

:p

[Shapley]

Can you say 'delusional'? I can. You're a laugh a minute.

How so. The numbers clearly show that Republicans stayed home in droves. That is how you hold a politician accountable, you don't re-elect him.

Democrats, on the other hand, have been known to send the same politicians back to office despite clear evidence of wrongdoing. William Jefferson won the majority of votes in his Louisiana district, despite all of his legal troubles. We've already pointed out the Studds/Foley parallel. You can look at the history of New Jersey politics. Haggis pointed out the situation of the impeached judge turned congressman from south Florida. How many more do you need?

V/R
Shapley

[Haggis@wk]

The Democrats won and the Republicans lost for the very same reason, they both distanced themselves from their base

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

:snivel:

[Shapley]

Shap, Haggis, you guys are dangerously close to sniveling.

How so? We're just pointing out that there is corruption in the Democratic Party. We didn't call it sniveling when corruption in the Repubican Party was pointed out by others on the board.

Are you suggesting that corruption is no longer an issue?

V/R
Shapley

[Haggis@wk]

Shap, Haggis, you guys are dangerously close to sniveling.

Oh Yeah Bubba!!! Haven't you heard? We're the snivelling voices in the wilderness, cast out from power and responsibility, barely subsisting on the fringes

I plan to have a ball whining about the corruption of the party in charge of the congress. I'm almost giddy with anticipation.

We've got Murtha, Reid and Pelosi already cutting their chunk of the pie and they haven't even officially taken over.

It's going to be a great two years

[OperaTenor]

Corruption's ALWAYS an issue.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind before you open the can of whoopass on the Dems.

For one thing, there have been a whole slew of crooked Pubs the past few years that makes anything alleged about the Dems so far look like junior varsity antics.

Second, let's look at the gross lack of oversight, internal and external, exercised by the Pub Congress over the same time period. We may as well have done away with the ethics committees. All the while, the Pubs kept what was going on within the party ranks, which had the two-edged effect of not only keeping their dirty little secrets a little better, but saddling them with all of the blame once the secrets came out.

Why don't you wait until we see a perpetuation of the lack of oversight before you start the orgy?

[Haggis@wk]

Nope, sorry, violation of union rules, us powerless types have no voice in congress, adrift as we are in the back allys of the red states and can only complain...sigh, we were so powerful once, now.........

[Shapley]

And who can we credit with the lack of oversight?

Since the Abscam scandal, Murtha has worked to limit the power of federal law enforcement officers.

In 1997, he spearheaded two measures -- one to prohibit non-members of Congress from filing complaints with the House Ethics Committee, and another to reimburse members and regular citizens for legal fees if they are ultimately cleared in a Justice Department probe.

This drew fire from Gary Ruskin, who at the time was director of the Congressional Accountability Project. "When it comes to institutional policing of corruption in Congress, John Murtha is a one-man wrecking crew," Ruskin said.

In response, Murtha argued that the legal fees amendment would "serve as a warning to the Justice Department to no longer interpret House rules to suit its own needs."

[Shapley]

For one thing, there have been a whole slew of crooked Pubs the past few years that makes anything alleged about the Dems so far look like junior varsity antics.

Not so! The Harry Reid scandal is at least as big as anything yet found on any Republican. I would say the William Jefferson scandal ranks right up there, as well. All the evidence indicates that all the blow-up about a 'Foley cover-up' was nonsense. The Abramoff scandal was brought to light and is being prosecuted, as it has been for years. The Haliburton 'scandals' were much ado over nothing.

What have the Republicans really done that you think is so bad? They have a lot to live down to if they are going to keep up with the Democrats. The Democrats have been out of power, so they've been 'under the radar' as far as their corruption is concerned, but it's been festering there ever since it got them kicked out of power all those years ago.

V/R
Shapley

[jamiebk]

The numbers clearly show that Republicans stayed home in droves. That is how you hold a politician accountable, you don't re-elect him.

V/R
Shapley

So....by NOT voting, they are actually holding the republican politicians accountable? Sorry Shap..you lose me on that logic. One holds ANY politician accountable by replacing him/her with a better candidate and VOTING for him/her. Seems like that's what happened.

[GreatCarouser]

Shap buries Haliburton and the Foley cover-up...he must be working up quite a sweat with that shovel. We'll see about the disappearance of some of these things once the new Congress is in session and the investigatory powers are not being frustrated by the Majority party. Keep digging and shredding......