The Captain has an interesting link and comment concerning Abramoff and his money:
Cycle .......... Dems ..........GOP
2000 .......$216,470........$409,513
2002........$552,230.......$1,478,740
2004........$620,503........$843,835
2006........$152,470.......$177,500
In fact, the ratio comes almost exactly 2-1 during this period, with Abramoff-linked donations accounting for $2.9 million to Republican coffers and $1.5 million for Democrats over this period. Over the last four cycles, the trend has not been towards the GOP, either; the Democrats got an ever-increasing share.
This doesn't exonerate the GOP for its association with Abramoff. But if people think that Abramoff represents a "culture of corruption" that relates only to Republicans, they obviously don't know Jack.
I think the Republican should clean this up.... but I also think there is a larger problem here and it goes beyond partisan politics.
We can have reform and new laws and I am sure we will, but will they be obeyed?
Updated: Great minds think alike. powerline has a post with the same title which makes note of the fact that 40 out of 45 Democratic Senators took money from Abramoff, his associates or his Indian tribe clients. hmmmmmm.....
76 comments:
cor·rupt·ed, cor·rupt·ing, cor·rupts. v. –tr. 1. To destroy or subvert the honesty or integrity of. 2. To ruin morally; pervert. 3. To taint; contaminate. 4. To cause to become rotten; spoil. 5. To change the original form of (a text, for example).
As you can see, "corrupt" is not a legal term, and whether or not something is corrupt is mostly a matter of opinion.
A lot of people who are offended by the very idea of lobbying are latching onto this with the idea of getting some more "reform" in Congress. They are joined of course by those who think they can use this as a partisan weapon against Republicans.
The fact is that lobbying is a long established and legal practice in DC. Perhaps it should not be, but is is at present.
The fact that some lobbyists are dishonest does not seem especially noteworthy, in itself. It's being noted here by those with axes to grind. You can call them the Neo-Prohibitionists.
It's common knowledge that the casino indistry has ties to organized crime, but nobody has yet suggested that casinos be banned from lobbying.
There is no constitutional way of getting money out of politics. As fast as one loophole is closed another will open up.
Really, this is a non-story, or should be. If somebody is found to be in violation of a law, prosecute him. End of story.
Mark
Ah, the Big Dig. Very non-partisan of you to link to that example of Democratic machine corruption.
mark:
Considering the fact that the Democrats have been known time and again to do the same thing I think it might be a good idea to not to be such a self righteous dick right now.
Reid got $66,000 from Abramoff. Is this ok?
BTW I heard Hillary got fined $35,000 for not reporting $720,000 from a Hollywood fundraiser or something like that.... Like I said glass houses.
Dan Rostenkowski [how the hell do you spell that guys name?]... the Post Office scandal, Whitewater, Jim Wright, not to mention the state Democratic parties in NJ or LA. and on and on.
And then of course there is the time honored association of the Teamsters management and the mob and the Democratic party. Do not want to look too closely at some of these relationships.
The point is this kind of bad behavior works both ways. And it is bad for the country.
flenser:
When I farmed I was part of a group {WIFE} that joined with other farm organizations and we went to DC and met with members of Congress, and of course we raised money for campaigns...so I guess you could say we were small lobbyists ourselves.
McCain Feingold is not the only problem.
In fact I think McCain will benefit from this scandal.
markg8
Stick to the point. Your personal feelings about Abramoff are of no interest to anyone.
If you think lobbying should be illegal, then say why and suggest possible ways of getting rid of it.
flenser:
My guess is mark's problems with lobbyists are strictly partisan.
Now if Soros wants to buy the Democratic Party and turn it into an extension of his own bizarre socialist/robber baron persona...what the hell..his money is green.
I think this became a story because of Abramoff's dealings with his clients...now as to whether his contributions changed votes or bought votes or whatever there seems to be little if any real evidence.
terrye
If you mean that McCain will propose more "reform" (which he himself will not obey) and that the media will heap praise on him, then you may be correct.
But the more he aims to please the media the more he sinks himself within the GOP.
Abramoff is a creation of McBain/Feingold:
No Transparency
NO LIMITS FOR INDIAN TRIBES
(McCain's state has the highest number of Indians)
...and he is STILL Against transparency in the new "improved" reforms.
What a traitorous Ass.
...as Byron York says, stuff Abramoff did is already illegal anyhoo.
Here's a rather challenging opinion Poll for Buddy and Peter.
Your Opinion wanted Should They?
My vote changed the outcome by more than 10%!
"I think it might be a good idea to not to be such a self righteous dick right now."
Terrye,
You can plead w/him not to be so self-righteous, but it's really quite absurd to expect he could stop being a Dick.
...even if he wants to.
McCain is an oppurtunist.
Will more laws help? I doubt it, but it will make people feel like these guys are paying attention.
Conservatives tend to be less tolerant of this kind of thing than liberals anyway I think...they tend to distgrust government porgrams anyway.
terrye
You are not really saying that useless laws should be passed just to make some hypothetical folks feel better, are you?
markg9
Come back when you sober up.
flenser:
No I am not saying that.
I am saying however, that if Republicans want to retain control of the Congress they will have to appear they give a damn about such things.
terrye
If people are confused about things, then I'd prefer if the Republicans spent a little effort trying to teach them, rather than encouraging them to believe that every problem, and every perception of a problem, is curable by some new law.
Taking political action every time the MSM whips up a new scandal is the wrong way to go, IMO.
There are plenty of concrete problems that should be addressed instead. Its the difference between playing offence and playing defense.
I think the problem is deeper than that. Lobbying is a time-honored and legal profession. It is one of the ways that private interests gain access to the government to put forward their requests of the government.
Unfortunately, there is another trait called greed which is inherent in the human race. The problem comes in when the two team up.
I'm not sure where you take care of the problem. I think that the money coming from lobbyists needs to be much more transparent; much more public. There also needs to be stricter laws concerning how the money is given, the amounts, and who it is given to.
With Abramoff - the guy appears to be a sleaze. It really sounds like he played the tribes against each other to put a fortune in his own pocket. That's the greed.
Senator Byron Dorgan took $79,300 from Abramoff and hosted a fundraiser in an Abramoff sky-box. He can't claim that the money came directly from the tribes - and in an amount that rivals most of the donations to the other side of the aisle. I guess the key is to stop people like Abramoff no matter what side he/she favors.
To go off-topic for a minute...if you haven't seen it visit read the Smash vs. Filner post at the Military Outpost. It is another story of a Iraq veteran going to a demoncratic "pat ourselves on the back" town hall meeting and taking on the local congressman. It is pretty funny - Filner can't seem to string two coherent words together.
No laws, no limits, just complete transparency so the voters know what's up, and where it came from.
Anything else is further infringement on the 1st ammendment.
As much as i think deLay got a raw deal, i have to be happy that the GOP has evidently decided not to make any excuses for whomever is tainted. Dump 'em all. The commenters here are right, there's no way to legislate morality; in fact the system as is in congress seems inexorable, an unhappy fact of life--until you realize that it all depends on a little thing like individual character. Available to any and all, and only a leap of faith away.
Can you say "term limits"? Damaging in so many ways, but, crucially, avoiding the swamp of relentless temptation.
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington--and Then Comes Home.
markg8
If you want to vomit your emotions all over the page, go to DU.
If you can manage to say something other that a variant of "I hate Rethuglicans!", then go ahead. But as things stand you are like an obnoxious drunk in a room full of sober people, spraying spittle and insults everywhere.
Buddy,
Term limits are definitely the way to go. I was discussing this with my son over the Christmas break and was thinking of writing a post on it.
The ball has been dropped on this and we need to pick it back up.
I think so, MHA. The Abramoffs would have a vastly more complicated target set, for one thing.
And, Mark, Clinton's bl*wjobs DID affect you. They were part of the America that 911 was planned against.
Term limits would be perfect. That way you wouldn't have guys with 12 terms behind them. They also wouldn't have to worry so much about enriching themselves, and how every decision will reflect on the next election. It would allow them to make decisions based on what is best for the country - and not necessarily include things like the bridge to nowhere....
I'm not so sure about term limits. I mean, if I don't have to face another election then what the hell, let me do whatever I want.
I think it would be better to go back to not directly electing senators. If the responsibility for that rests with state legislators, then maybe people will pay more attention to everone they elect locally. Politics would go back to being bottom up instead of top down.
And when that happens, everyone elected, no matter whethr local, state, federal, will be held more closely to account.
Balkanized economic interests with huge investments in a person--rather than a platform--is inherently unstable, it seems to me.
specter
Ther is a good case to be made that term limts would have the opposite effect to what you hope.
Iy you only have a short stay in office, then why not make the most of it and get as much as you can in the time you are there?
And term limits would make the career civil service employees even more powerful, relative to Congress.
I don't think there are any simple fixes. We the citizens need to exercize some oversight of the whole process, which requires as much transparency as possible. Thats what the Founders expected us to do.
We should be careful not to overreact also. We hear all the time of corruption in other Western countries far worse than anything that happens here. Lets not turn the whole system upside down for no good reason.
That's the so-called Seventeenth Amendment Movement, right, Syl? As in, recall/revoke it?
Well flenser, can't argue with that logic - nor would I want to. It is just that we need to figure out how to handle this type of greed. Syl's idea might be worth exploring further. And if all donations/purblic/private interest money to government officials were made completely public, that would probably at least dampen the greed.
Don't miss this one, Terrye
Cow escapes meat plant, dodges SUV, train
Term limits are a non-starter.
...unless the next terrorist disaster takes out all of Congress.
Even then, they might turn out like the GOP was when they feel the water.
...unless we outlaw "lawyers."
(Law school grads w/no real world experience.
...like Slow Joe Biden
"And, Mark, Clinton's bl*wjobs DID affect you. They were part of the America that 911 was planned against. "
Also DID affect a whole generation of schoolkids.
...just what we/they needed.
"And term limits would make the career civil service employees even more powerful, relative to Congress."
---
They are the most destructive influence in DC imo.
Way too many for way too long, and way too much collusion with the Beltway Media.
That no matter what he or others in his administration did, ever bothered his party in the least (by and large), just threw gasoline on the fires on the right--and the result was America-the-laughingstock, on the world stage.
Naturally, in the way things work under the sun, our friends were shrunk, and our enemies bloated, everywhere on the planet, from Versailles Palace to caves in Afghanistan.
Nah, Mark, you weren't affected.
Howard Dean was asked about this scandal today on CNN, his answer leaves
Wolf Blitzer (along with the rest of us) speechless:
Dean: "There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff,
not one, not one single Democrat. "
Wolf's final sigh at the end is one I deeply sympathize with...
charles henry
I belive that in a narrow technical sense, Howie is correct. Of the money Abramoff gave out of his own pocket, it seems he gave it to Republicans. It was the casino money he disbursed for his clients which he gave to members of both parties.
So it all depends on what exactly you mean by "from Jack Abramoff". More Clintonion word games.
Howie for Eternal, Perpetual Chairman.
Leading the Dems into oblivion.
A quick quiz.
Who is the most annoying troll you have encountered, on any blog.
a) markg8
b) doublestandard
c) monkeyboy
d) monkei
e) write in a name of your choice.
It's a subjective question, but I'm leaning towards monkeyboy myself.
Tough to answer--is the worst the most annoying, or the best the most annoying?
I guess that's a form vs function question, sort of like which came first the horse or the cart?
Buddy, re Dems and Clinton:
---
Thomas More on incremental relativism:
"When the king remarried even after failing to secure a lawful annulment,
More was asked not to be such a stickler for law.
But, he answered,
if we allow one law to be felled like a single tree in the forest, why
not the next, and the next, until soon the whole forest is flattened,
and there remains nothing to protect us from the north wind?"
Hey!
You left out C-4.
(most genuinely scary)
Where's Monkeyboy hang out, at Simons, as I recall?
"monkei"
That's one monkey I have yet to meet.
Where's his habitat?
DoubleStandard was ...entertaining.
...but he sure trashed BC for a while.
Haven't seen the 'hawk since.
(forgot his name)
Yep, but it was spelt 'monkyboy'--someone we know, a very bright Briton, outed her ID after she posted a list of recent KIA in Iraq, by name and hometown, as a way of making her point of their "futile" deaths. She sort of drifted off after that. Or is back under a new name.
C-4 isn't scary, he just has a website somewhere that aggregates all those positions for him, and he re-types 'em as if off the top of his head. You can see the tropes evolve. If he fought fair, off the top of his head, and actually addressed the counterpoints in real time--as his oppo does--he'd fall apart like a two-dollar pistol.
DS chased off a lot of folks--Dave Charginghawk is who you're recalling. Not to mention Verce and Labrat. Chased 'em off not with ideas (not THOSE guys), but with boringly tawdry childishness.
monkeyboy and monkei both live at CQ these days. I was playing with them earlier, which is why trolls are on my mind.
c4 was obnoxious, but I considered him a step above troll status. He could make a good argument once in a while, when he was not freaking out about the Joos. The real trolls never listen to anything anyone says, and dont even pretend to do so.
Peter was hilarious, always dressing C4 up in an SS uniform, word pictures like kodak prints, strutting around slapping his boots with his quirt.
except for C4 (you're right, flenser), they all have one big point, everything else is corollary, and that point is, 'you bastards, if you're not anti-war, you're a vicious blood-lusting killer.'
That's what makes them maddening--you're always having to defend war.
Hope you're right about Lab_Rat.
...I've been concerned about his son.
Said he was dealing with something last time he posted.
THE WAR OVER THE WAR
- Steyn
"While Holmes may have liked markets -- philosophically -- this shouldn't be misunderstood to mean Pragmatists were anything like Hayekians. Dewey particularly had contempt for the notion of accumulated, collective, wisdom which might be unknowable to the individual.
The whole "Pragmatic razor" was designed to dismantle institutions and dogmas without concern for all of the hidden social attachments and meanings they might have. I think it's very unlikely that any Pragmatist (again, everybody note the capital P) would be opposed to gay marriage.
Hayekians are obviously in favor of change and experimentation, but they are also respectful of the limits of an individual person to see all the angles. Now, Pragmatists might say to this "we are too" respectful of all that stuff. Maybe some are in faculty lounges and editorial boards. But when it came to the political project of the Pragmatists in the 20th century such respect was left in the locker room while the contempt for tradition, hidden law, custom and dogma was brought out on the field. "
Goldberg
Will our schools ever be rescued?
Hope everything is okay. son is probably deployed about now--and in no safe specialty, either.
schools are the high ground, the redoubt, of the culture war. roe/wade is the king, or queen, who must either be killed or be saved.
...unless we outlaw "lawyers."
If you outlaw lawyers, only the outlaws will have lawyers.
:-)
doug:
I wonder why they would want to slaughter a heifer anyway.
I hated sending cows off. I would stand in the barn lot and cry like a baby when I had to send one away.
But watching a bog old cow die slow was worse.
As for raising animals to sell like this, one usually ships the steers, not heifers. Heifers grow into cows and cows are producers.
Cows are benign. They do only good.
And as you can see by the article, they can be very brave.
What mark fails to realize is that if Bill Clinton had dealt with terrorism with same singleminded absorption he gave to those blow jobs maybe AlQaida would have died in the 90's. And then of course there was the fact that most of the failed intel came from his administration. But Bill was otherwise occupied.
Way to go Billy Boy..you womanizing son of a gun.
As for term limits, I can not make up my mind. I think the biggest problem for both parties is the money it takes to run for office.
As for trolls, I give the award to mark.... who haunts our little blog like an unhappy spirit who can not see the light.
True about mark. But without him we would have no counterpoint - as exaggerated and self-important as he is - to hone ideas against. Gotta have at least one troll under the bridge.
My worst troll has been a guy named GuitarMan (more local blog) - I call him G-string. He rants and raves with lots of big words, but never ever posts any facts. Just vitriolic hate against anything Republican. You folks would have a tremendous amount of fun with him. Should I invite him here?
Unfortunately the House has been so gerrymandered by both parties that 95% of the seats are safe.
This is a popular fiction. The fact is that the incumbancy relection rate in the Senate is similar to that in the House. The Senate seats are not gerrymandered.
It's led to the extremist wing among the Repubs running the show. I give you the Schiavo mess as an example.
This makes no sense. But then, you are markg8.
If gerrymandering leads to "extremists" getting elected, what explains the Senate? And if the argument is valid, then surely it means that the "extremists" have taken power in the Democratic party also.
Members of both parties voted for the Schavio bill. Among the Democrats voting for it was Tom Harkin, not generally noted as being a right wing extremist.
Terrye,
be sure to see the "Crayon Sun" piece down by the bottom of that Popsicle Toes LINK I put up elsewhere.
I know it disqualifies me as a movement conservative, but animal suffering, esp animals that relate to people and vice versa tears me up.
Speaking of cows, the most wonderful people were our next door neighbors when we had a farm.
They had a "herd" of 8 of the most beautiful Jerseys you can imagine.
I'd better not get started.
Right, Mark thinks HE's a 'beautiful jersey'.
But right on that 72 hrs bit, but mark, you're being dishonest implying that that's some new deLay maneuver.
A fundamental improvement would be to simply release the document onto the internet some reasonable length of time--two weeks--before a vote. Let the country into an informal debate--and expose the bad apples.
And the other side of the story on DeLay's bull tactics is, those tactics are a response to something. What would that 'something' be, Mark?
'Taking over', do you mean 'elected to'?
Lobbying started under Bush? I didn't know that, thanks.
the 'something' is Democratic obstructioinism aimed at ruining the Bush presidency, Mark--which is either a good or a bad thing depending on whether or not the policy being sandbagged was or wasn't decided upon via the previous 'election' (the thing where "the people voted").
Krauthammer is pushing the 'internet' idea. And he's a good 'un, with trustworthy judgement.
Maybe the American people just decided on a lesser evil, after the Clintons? If they MUST have a bunch of high-rollin' hard-ballers running DC, they wanted some that would stop the deal-wheeling at the water's edge?
Getting white-glove inspected by married-to-the-mob church-ladies-of-convenience is actually pretty farcical, Mark.
you don't want to become an object of ridicule, do you? Your party, i mean--nothing personal.
Mark, you and i both know the story of those alerts, and you and i both know the story of the killerbees. You're presenting half-truths, leaving gaps of crucial info out (this is known as 'deceit'), and tacking on assertions as tho they are fact. This is your propaganda method, and it's fundamentally dishonest.
Granted, sometimes killerbees have to rounded up. It's a byproduct of your own method, writ large, and causing distortions in the oppo, which at times has no choice but to fight fire with fire.
The NYC alert story is all over Goo--as if you didn't know. Go read it. But, you know, from 'truthful'--as in the 'truth'--sources. Not from your libelrary of fellow foaming nutjobs who are so ignorant of human nature that they can imagine someone like Tom Ridge getting into such a shenanigan, and his staff of thousands keeping it quiet. It's baloney, and it's dirty of you to make such low-down accusations of fine, decent, dedicated public servants. And you know it.
But, Mark, except for being a low-down, dirty, dishonest liar, you're a fine fellow, and a credit to your party!
\:-D
"...using the WOT for political gain."
Please tell me how on EARTH this can be disproved, other than taking a dive on the war, and losing it just to shut you up on this utter sophistry?
What war-winning administration of ANY country ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, doesn't harvest popularity from NOT LOSING A WAR that was DECLARED against them and driven home with a monstrous surprise ATTACK???
Now here comes the Dems, trying to harvest popularity by casting that human nature world-historical truth as some sort of dirty scam!
How anti-human, how nihilistically demoralizingly suicidally sick can you GET?
Wot a laugh, a lecture on class from the Auto-Slanderizer his very self.
As usual, you've either deliberately or thru sloppiness failed to read your own links.
The KillerDees were holding the state of Texas hostage because they lost an election, and all the Ridge article does is state the obvious, that the alerts are always dicey calls, accompanied by much disagreement--as uyou'd expect among responsible officials.
Not a hint of your crooked implication, and not a hint that the KillerDees were holding up the functioning of a duly-elected government, in an illegal act of anarchy.
The 'class' remark, sorry, I must've stung you somewhere, please accept my apology.
Craddock is a smooth old boy, from the get-go intended to keep both sides happy, first by returning the portfolios to the statehouse, and then by saying "W'aal, mebbe i shouldn'ta". Job done, case closed, Texas judge-style. You blue-bellies never have understood, your nuance is all surface chop.
As far as how-2-handle reality, you Dems have certainly set a fine example, over the last five years.
Something you never, ever admit, Mark, is that the great preponderance of 'bad-cases-make-bad-law' type actions that you love to twist and trumpet, are kicked off by unprecedented acts on the part of you shark-jumpers, who continually put normal trying-to-do-the-job-elected-to people into new and bad positions--just as bad teenagers deliberately do to unsettle inexperienced parents.
AZnd the absolute DUMBest thing, is--what if the terrorists DID hit the Dem convention? The same terrorist chatter that you NOW use to accuse him of of schoolboy pranks, would've become "Bush Intentionally Allows AQ To Bomb Democratic Convention!" (or just "Bush Murders Democrats!")
Talk about "...using the GWoT for political gain".
That's ALL you people know how to do.
"Didn't Even Raise Alert Level, In Time Of WAR, At Known Target!" would've been the story, with the subset
"Presidential Coup Against Political Rivals?"
You'd have loved it, wouldn't you have, Mark? Be honest, now.
Oh, sure, Peter, as if you don't know that Churchill's 33rd cousin on his father's side's best friend from kindergarten's uncle's wife's brother-in-law's business partner's barber's tailor's butcher's candlemaker's daughter's best friend's brother didn't have a tea cart near the underground entrance three streets over from Trafalgar Square who made several farthings extra off tea sales on every single one of those false alarms.
You know as well as I do that that totaled upwards of two pounds six pence over the course of the WWII, and that that money could quite possibly have been deposited into a bank with shares out and that some of those shares might well have been owned by one or more CHURCHILL SUPPORTERS!
And I've seen NO PROOF that Churchill and Hitler weren't in that whole rotten tea-cart scam TOGETHER!
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