Republicans' Future Not So Bright
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
I - and apparently millions of other Americans - have come to a not-so-startling conclusion:
Congress is functionally corrupt.
In a recent poll, when asked if they thought Congress was corrupt, 50 percent of respondents said yes.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents said Congress was more focused on special interests than their constituents.
Seventy-five percent said Congress was out of touch with the average American.
These results are not startling because of the way the Republicans have completely squandered any moral or ethical authority they may have had as a majority party in both houses of Congress.
Consider the following:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay resigned and was indicted on a charge of criminally conspiring with two political associates to inject illegal corporate contributions into 2002 state elections. The contributions are alleged to have helped Republicans reorder the congressional map in Texas and cement its control of the House in Washington.
Rep. Randy Cunningham, a California Republican, pressured House staff members to steer $70 million in business to favored defense contractors, an investigation found.
He's serving a sentence of eight years after pleading guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes.
Florida Rep. Mark Foley resigned over the attempted seduction of pages. Then he says he's gay and an alcoholic.
Then the House Ethics Committee launches an investigation into whether House Speaker Dennis Hastert knew about Foley's foibles and covered it up. (A wide majority of people polled believe there was a coverup, by the way.)
On Monday, the FBI raided Rep. Curt Weldon's daughter's home. They were looking for evidence that the Pennsylvania Congressman funneled $1 million worth of lobbying business to her.
Weldon, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, denies the charge - of course.
Before that, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, pleaded guilty to multiple charges as part of the widening Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
Ney admitted taking all manner of cool stuff in return for urging action on behalf of Abramoff's clients.
Stuff like campaign contributions, vacations, concert and sporting event tickets, food and drink.
Ney says he'll eventually get around to resigning from Congress.
Nice.
Have I forgotten anyone? Oh, yeah, the Democrats.
There was Demo Rep. William Jefferson who had the $90,000 in his freezer. He's the target of a bribery investigation.
And then there's Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who is always haughtily chiding Republicans for being less than ethical.
Turns out he needs to amend a few years of his own ethics reports.
He feels he needs to do a little better in explaining a $1.1 million Nevada land deal.
Oh, and there was that $3,300 in campaign money he used to tip the staff at the Washington hotel. He's paying that back.
Is it any wonder people are fed up with Congress?
But regardless of how voters feel about Congress in general, I must say things are looking pretty bleak for Republicans.
How bleak?
Republican strategists report three incumbents in Indiana are trailing Democrats in private polling.
In Indiana.
If the GOP can't hold congressional seats in Indiana, they may as well hang it up.
And you know what? I consider myself conservative and I don't care.
Sure, I may trend a little left on things like the environment and civil rights. But generally, I believe in things like limited government and lower taxes. I'm against abortion and gun control. I like the Supreme Court appointments W made. I find myself voting Republican more times than not.
All that aside, I really don't think the current crop of Republicans deserves to remain in control of both houses of Congress.
They've abused the public trust and they deserve to be flogged at the ballot box.
How can anyone in the GOP rationalize a poll that shows 79 percent of Americans believe Republican House leaders were more concerned about their political standing than about the safety of teenage pages?
It's not just the scandals.
A story by Margaret Talev, of McClatchy Newspapers, notes Congressional scholars have labeled the 109th a "do-nothing Congress" of historic proportions.
She writes:
"Two of Washington's most respected scholars of Congress - Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank, and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right research center , co-authored a new book on the legislature, 'The Broken Branch.' They argue that Congress is at a self-inflicted nadir.
"... Mann and Ornstein say Congress' Republican leadership has taken traditional abuses of power farther than ever: They bypass committees, cut off floor debate, disallow amendments, force hasty votes on major bills that few have read and sometimes keep 15-minute vote counts open for hours while they browbeat junior members into supporting their position."
The result was an increase in pork-barrel projects, a shift of power to a same-party executive branch, an expanded breach of individual privacy and new rules that let the government hold suspected terrorists indefinitely without charges, to use harsh interrogation measures on them, and to convict them using evidence that would be inadmissible in any other court, she notes.
"On balance, scholars say Republican congressional leaders ignored their duty to question decision-making and investigate corruption within the Bush administration. 'They've done almost no oversight on the war or almost anything that matters,' Ornstein said."
"... In the 1990s Republicans in Congress investigated whether President Clinton had used the White House Christmas card mailing list to scout for donors.
"There were (more than) 100 hours of oversight hearings on alleged misuse of the Clinton Christmas card list, and 12 hours of hearings on Abu Ghraib. This tells you all you need to know,' Ornstein said."
And all the while, problems like global warming, Social Security, Medicare and infrastructure were virtually ignored.
The article, which runs about 1,400 words, can be found here:
www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15641718.htm
As a concise, objective analysis of this Congress' achievements or lack thereof, it's definitely worth reading.
If Republicans lose control of either or both houses of Congress in the November election, they have no one but themselves to blame.
Problem is, given the same set of circumstances, I don't think the Democrats would have done any better. [[In-content Ad]]
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I - and apparently millions of other Americans - have come to a not-so-startling conclusion:
Congress is functionally corrupt.
In a recent poll, when asked if they thought Congress was corrupt, 50 percent of respondents said yes.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents said Congress was more focused on special interests than their constituents.
Seventy-five percent said Congress was out of touch with the average American.
These results are not startling because of the way the Republicans have completely squandered any moral or ethical authority they may have had as a majority party in both houses of Congress.
Consider the following:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay resigned and was indicted on a charge of criminally conspiring with two political associates to inject illegal corporate contributions into 2002 state elections. The contributions are alleged to have helped Republicans reorder the congressional map in Texas and cement its control of the House in Washington.
Rep. Randy Cunningham, a California Republican, pressured House staff members to steer $70 million in business to favored defense contractors, an investigation found.
He's serving a sentence of eight years after pleading guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes.
Florida Rep. Mark Foley resigned over the attempted seduction of pages. Then he says he's gay and an alcoholic.
Then the House Ethics Committee launches an investigation into whether House Speaker Dennis Hastert knew about Foley's foibles and covered it up. (A wide majority of people polled believe there was a coverup, by the way.)
On Monday, the FBI raided Rep. Curt Weldon's daughter's home. They were looking for evidence that the Pennsylvania Congressman funneled $1 million worth of lobbying business to her.
Weldon, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, denies the charge - of course.
Before that, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, pleaded guilty to multiple charges as part of the widening Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
Ney admitted taking all manner of cool stuff in return for urging action on behalf of Abramoff's clients.
Stuff like campaign contributions, vacations, concert and sporting event tickets, food and drink.
Ney says he'll eventually get around to resigning from Congress.
Nice.
Have I forgotten anyone? Oh, yeah, the Democrats.
There was Demo Rep. William Jefferson who had the $90,000 in his freezer. He's the target of a bribery investigation.
And then there's Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who is always haughtily chiding Republicans for being less than ethical.
Turns out he needs to amend a few years of his own ethics reports.
He feels he needs to do a little better in explaining a $1.1 million Nevada land deal.
Oh, and there was that $3,300 in campaign money he used to tip the staff at the Washington hotel. He's paying that back.
Is it any wonder people are fed up with Congress?
But regardless of how voters feel about Congress in general, I must say things are looking pretty bleak for Republicans.
How bleak?
Republican strategists report three incumbents in Indiana are trailing Democrats in private polling.
In Indiana.
If the GOP can't hold congressional seats in Indiana, they may as well hang it up.
And you know what? I consider myself conservative and I don't care.
Sure, I may trend a little left on things like the environment and civil rights. But generally, I believe in things like limited government and lower taxes. I'm against abortion and gun control. I like the Supreme Court appointments W made. I find myself voting Republican more times than not.
All that aside, I really don't think the current crop of Republicans deserves to remain in control of both houses of Congress.
They've abused the public trust and they deserve to be flogged at the ballot box.
How can anyone in the GOP rationalize a poll that shows 79 percent of Americans believe Republican House leaders were more concerned about their political standing than about the safety of teenage pages?
It's not just the scandals.
A story by Margaret Talev, of McClatchy Newspapers, notes Congressional scholars have labeled the 109th a "do-nothing Congress" of historic proportions.
She writes:
"Two of Washington's most respected scholars of Congress - Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank, and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right research center , co-authored a new book on the legislature, 'The Broken Branch.' They argue that Congress is at a self-inflicted nadir.
"... Mann and Ornstein say Congress' Republican leadership has taken traditional abuses of power farther than ever: They bypass committees, cut off floor debate, disallow amendments, force hasty votes on major bills that few have read and sometimes keep 15-minute vote counts open for hours while they browbeat junior members into supporting their position."
The result was an increase in pork-barrel projects, a shift of power to a same-party executive branch, an expanded breach of individual privacy and new rules that let the government hold suspected terrorists indefinitely without charges, to use harsh interrogation measures on them, and to convict them using evidence that would be inadmissible in any other court, she notes.
"On balance, scholars say Republican congressional leaders ignored their duty to question decision-making and investigate corruption within the Bush administration. 'They've done almost no oversight on the war or almost anything that matters,' Ornstein said."
"... In the 1990s Republicans in Congress investigated whether President Clinton had used the White House Christmas card mailing list to scout for donors.
"There were (more than) 100 hours of oversight hearings on alleged misuse of the Clinton Christmas card list, and 12 hours of hearings on Abu Ghraib. This tells you all you need to know,' Ornstein said."
And all the while, problems like global warming, Social Security, Medicare and infrastructure were virtually ignored.
The article, which runs about 1,400 words, can be found here:
www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15641718.htm
As a concise, objective analysis of this Congress' achievements or lack thereof, it's definitely worth reading.
If Republicans lose control of either or both houses of Congress in the November election, they have no one but themselves to blame.
Problem is, given the same set of circumstances, I don't think the Democrats would have done any better. [[In-content Ad]]