In one of their first moves of the new Congress, House Republicans have voted to gut their own independent ethics watchdog — a huge blow to cheerleaders of congressional oversight and one that dismantles major reforms adopted after the Jack Abramoff scandal.
Monday's effort was led, in part, by lawmakers who have come under investigation in recent years.
Despite a warning from Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Republicans adopted a proposal by Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to put the Office of Congressional Ethics under the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee.
The office currently has free rein, enabling investigators to pursue allegations and then recommend further action to the House Ethics Committee as they see fit.
Now, the office would be under the thumb of lawmakers themselves. The proposal also appears to limit the scope of the office's work by barring them from considering anonymous tips against lawmakers. And it would stop the office from disclosing the findings of some of their investigations, as they currently do after the recommendations go to House Ethics.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/house-republicans-gut-their-own-oversight-233111
The Office of Congressional Ethics was established in 2008 under House Democrats, in response to the era of lobbying scandals made notable by Jack Abramoff, the former lobbyist who went to prison on corruption charges.
It is the first independent body to have an oversight role in House ethics. There is no Senate counterpart. The OCE independently reviews allegations of misconduct against House members and staff, and if deemed appropriate refers them to the House Ethics Committee for review. The OCE cannot independently punish lawmakers for any ethics violations.
Update: House Republicans pull plan to gut independent ethics panel after Trump tweets
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:23PM
The reality is quite simple: If you are elected to Congress, your financial future is secure. While there are a few exceptions the vast majority of Congresscritters do very well for themselves [ballotpedia.org]. Influence peddling pays.
Can't have a measely "ethics office" interfering with the payola.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by tisI on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:09PM
Ah yes!
Corruption at it's finest.
Now with the foxes in total control of the hen house
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:35PM
s/foxes/rats/
s/hen house/swamp/
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SpockLogic on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:24PM
Disgusting. Free swimming passes for those draining the swamp?
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:03PM
You must first create a swamp before you can drain it or swim in it.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:46AM
There already is a swamp. Donald wants to get everyone that is currently in it, out of the swamp. Unfortunately, it is so he will be the only one remaining...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:27PM
It was always abundantly clear that the people using the phrase "drain the swamp" were adamantly pro-corruption(or actually corrupt) in everything but words. Actual anti-corruption reform takes, you know, a plan, and a methodology.
The minority of Americans that voted for the republicans who control all 3 branches are a mixture of nazis and gullible morons. And half of them will claim to have voted as a moron for being called a moron(because they're not very good at predicate logic).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:05PM
Oh, I see some bitter morons have mod points.
Here, mod me flamebait again, suckers. Thanks again for destroying your country to protect your fragile egos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:07PM
I agree with everything you wrote.
But being a whiner just undermines your message.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:13PM
Nah, my first post was rude as fuck. My second post was probably no less mature.
But the thing is, these stupid fuckers really are stupid, and I'm desperately searching for a way to rub their noses in the mess they created, get them to recognize what they did was top-shelf brainless, and they'll never vote stupidly to prove how smart they are again. And if they just downvote things that draw attention to their mistakes and move on, we're getting more of the same filter-bubble feedback that caused this in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:17PM
You'll never convince someone to change their mind by calling them stupid.
The only reason to do that is to make yourself feel better.
I've given up on changing their minds, now I just use them as punching bags because that's the best you can expect from most of them.
Along those lines: Are You Sorry Yet? [areyousorryyet.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by fritsd on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:07PM
Have you considered that for some people, it feels painful to change their mind, and they don't like to do it? They're not stupid on average, ours than differently works processing logic their but. Capiche?
Go download and read "the Authoritarians" [umanitoba.ca] if you haven't done so yet. Go on, I dare you :-)
(if it's too thick, consider that over half of the book is scientific footnotes, which you can skip)
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:29PM
I have absolutely read The Authoritarians. I even followed some of Bob Altemeyer's actual peer reviewed poli-sci papers(too bad about him retiring from the field in 2012, I'd love to read his analysis of the whole Trump thing). So no need to worry about me being bothered by the footnotes. I've actually read like a quarter of them.
And one thing to understand about authoritarianism is that it's a personality dimension. A range. Not all of them are the same. And unlike big-five traits I've not read any material suggesting it's deeply ingrained by adulthood and can't be broken. I kinda want to learn how to break people out of that trap.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 03 2017, @07:33PM
You can't. They only learn when they suffer from it, and it has to have a personal face on it; it can't just be something like a stock crash that wipes out their 401K, it needs to be something they can connect (truthfully or not) to a person or entity they place their loyalty in. For example, someone who said he was going to "lock her up" and doesn't :) Or, someone who will take away their healthcare.
Personally I have no sympathy for hard authoritarians. Live by the boot stomping on a human face forever, die by the boot etc etc, end up in Hell with a footprint on your face. Fuck 'em.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @07:58PM
Or, someone who will take away their healthcare.
I read about a lady yesterday. She was mad at Obamacare [nytimes.com] because her son turned 26 and had to be dropped from her health insurance plan. She had no idea that it was Obamacare that let him stay on her plan after her turned 21. Nor was she aware that Obamacare's medicaid expansion is what got him full-court cancer treatment for less than $1 a month.
Personally I have no sympathy for hard authoritarians. Live by the boot stomping on a human face forever, die by the boot etc etc, end up in Hell with a footprint on your face.
If only they would all go off and live in their own hell instead of mucking it up for the rest of us. That's the price of living in a society, you have to work with people who wish you ill.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @10:04PM
I try keeping my head above water but it is all too easy to be swayed by the negativity and forget that probably over 50% of your fellow citizens legitimately have your back.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday January 03 2017, @10:39PM
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @10:52PM
This is a lesson for all those people who think marketing is evil.
Branding matters. Sometimes it REALLY FUCKING matters.
He should have gone whole hog and made Obamacare the official name. Yeah republicans would have accused him of megalomania. But it was the GOP that wanted to tar the plan with his name in the first place. They really wouldn't have anything to complain about.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Tuesday January 03 2017, @07:52PM
Well, then I apologize for egging you on.
And if you find any interesting news on breaking people out of that trap, please share it with us soylentils.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:05PM
At least for the president, I don't recall having an alternate choice that wasn't obviously criminal. One should choose the lesser evil, not the greater evil! I mean geeze, just off the top of my head...
giving a Philippine citizen access to the presidential daily brief (OMG WTF)
taking "donations" from Saudi Arabia
taking "donations" from something so bad that it had to be routed through a Canadian foundation that needn't disclose where the money comes from (what could be worse than Saudi Arabia???)
possible involvement in the death of a person who was going to testify against her
possible involvement in the death of a person who may have given DNC emails to wikileaks
collusion with the DNC to sabotage Bernie Sanders
getting debate questions in advance
introducing an unauthorized computer into a SCIF/SAPF secure room, and then removing that computer instead of turning it over to be destroyed
claiming to not know "(C)" markings indicate "CONFIDENTIAL" paragraphs (lying to investigators... unless she really is that incompetent)
being part of the savings and loan scandal, followed by getting paid to "help" sort it out
destroying evidence while under investigation
approving drone strikes from an insecure and unauthorized device
transferring classified data (an email server) to a lawyer who wasn't cleared to handle that kind of material
failure to immediately report any suspected security violations (besides being the law and ethical, she signed an agreement to do this)
There's so many things over so many years. It's so bad that just remembering the big ones becomes difficult. A vote for her was a vote for crime. Putting an obviously corrupt person at the top of the power structure would deeply affect society. People see the example being set, determine it to be normal and acceptable, and feel that they should get their own ill-gotten gains. If everybody is corrupt, why not?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:32PM
With this change now in place, I fully expect that the Office of Congressional Ethics and the House Ethics Committee won't find anything wrong with Congressional ethics, at least on the Republican side of the aisle. This marked reduction in ethics issues will of course be hailed as a great improvement to the integrity of the legislative process. Of course, the system will still be there for any Congresscritters who happen to step out of line and, say, question the wrong Three-Letter Agency or something.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:11PM
Of course, the system will still be there for any Congresscritters who happen to step out of line and, say, question the wrong Three-Letter Agency or something.
They are literally renaming it to the "Office of Congressional Compliance Review."
Yeah, I know that's not what "compliance" means in this context. Still its way too on the the nose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:46PM
Sorry guys. Got it wrong, its "Office of Congressional Complaint Review."
Not so funny any more.
But unlike that intellectually dishonest asshole, VLM, [soylentnews.org] I prefer truth over truthiness so I have to correct my error.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:10PM
For now at least, the committee is non-partisan. But while that means we won't see one party singled out over the other, it doesn't mean ethics violations will be caught. The independent ethics board was originally created because both parties were engaged in ethics violations and neither one wanted to point any fingers. Throwing stones in glass houses and all that.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:13PM
The Abrahamof scandal that prompted the creation of the office was pretty much all on the republican side.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday January 03 2017, @07:35PM
And the left didn't want to point fingers because...well we may never know exactly why.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:47PM
Because getting the office of ethics implemented was better for the country than just partisan sniping?
Both parties can go low. But its the GOP that's been incapable of going high for over a decade now.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:42PM
What else is new...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:47PM
"Score:2, Informative"
This website is shite.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:50PM
I don't moderate ACs up at all, sometimes I'll mod them down.
Trump's Grave will be the world's most popular open air toilet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:23PM
Your policy is as stupid as most of your comments. What does posting as an "AC" matter? Surely, what matters is the quality of the content; I mean, heck: You are not an "AC", and yet your own content is almost exclusively crap.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:08AM
And I regularly moderate ACs up if they post something deserving of it.
Moderation is to make good posts visible, not for political BS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:52PM
Even more to the point, why did snotnose feel the need to share all that in the first place?
The post he was responding to had literally nothing to do with his response.
Looks like a case of pure virtue signaling. Except there really isn't any virtue involved. Its more like baboon-ass signaling.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by BK on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:45PM
Is this Politico?
I do enjoy the political stories...
And we do use the submissions that we get...
But still, this is partisan bureaucratic shuffling. Not only is there no sci/tech angle here, this is pure insider politics. There's lots of things that have political implications that have that sci/tech focus. I'm all for turning this into a pure political site if that's what we want, but I thought it wasn't.
That said, cheerleaders can be fun... We need more stories about cheerleaders.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:07PM
Is this front page news, or news for politics.soylentnews.org subsite, just like slashdot had?
Personally, I would like to see the default soylentnews homepage only contain tech stories without a product marketing angle, verified new science or technology, and anything that doesn't meet that burden of proof gets put on secondary pages ala slashdot where you can find them if you are interested, but they aren't cluttering up the homepage for real and relevant stories for the common values of the viewerbase.
Personally I am a bit tired of US politics and until the R's have a supermajority, nothing is really going to change until 2020 or beyond. (Although if they DO then we can have another discussion on American values and the upcoming second Civil War.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:13PM
Are we gonna have yet another bitchfest because a non-tech story gets posted on a slow news day?
A story that indirectly affects not just the US but much of the world? Congress makes foreign policy after all.
Come on.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:37PM
You can filter out stories in your account settings. People complain when we don't run a lot of articles in a given day, they complain we ignore political issues, etc.
Speaking as head of staff, we can't satisfy everyone. At best, we can provide options to let people exclude some topics. Perhaps we need a more clear "political" topic, but as things stand, unless we get an overwhelming majority who want us to exclude all political articles (which gets sticky because one mans political is one man's technological), I question what we can actually do about it.
Still always moving
(Score: 3, Interesting) by BK on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:31AM
Agreed that you'll never make everyone happy.
One constant thread in questions about stories that seem... out of place... here is the question of what, exactly we are.
We are NOT 'news for nerds'. Most of us migrated from that place and may have fond memories of it but we're something else.
We are not JUST a science/tech blog. We do cover some news and some news and newsy politics. But most of our stories have at least a peripheral sci/tech angle or a clear economic rights/free speech nexus. Is that what we are?
We've covered some pure election events. We covered the Brexit vote. Both of these events are and were big news - If you're writing a history of 2016 ten years from now, both will merit at least a bullet point and maybe a lot more.
Today's story is not just politics, it's meta politics. Admittedly, it was the big news story of the morning and eventually it was worthy of a DJT 'tweet'... but that doesn't say much. It differs from election news in that is is unlikely to be important. No matter how it all falls out, it will not be among the 20, or 50, or even the 100 most important USA political stories of the ext 30 days. If nothing else, it will pale in comparison to cabinet nominations. So it seemed out of place and hence my question. What are we? What do we cover?
Somehow we missed the Russian plane crash into the Black Sea. We missed the Istanbul club bombing. We don't cover news. We don't cover important news that is merely important.
It's not a slow news day. There were 17 items in the queue when this was posted. While we are powered by user submissions, we had options today and chose this. What are we? What do we cover?
We should be able to answer this question.
One last thing - While I haven't engaged in this one, I am one who enjoys the USA politics stories. I'm OK if we want to be become a political blog... but we should be sure that that's what we want. We should be able to answer the questions: What are we? What are we not?
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:17PM
> it's not a slow news day. There were 17 items in the queue when this was posted.
There were far less when the story was put into the posting queue.
In fact most of the entries in the submission queue at that point were bottom of the barrel stories that were basically days old rejects just waiting for someone to officially axe them.
> Somehow we missed the Russian plane crash into the Black Sea. We missed the Istanbul club bombing.
None of those events were submitted, nor do they have any significant implications beyond the effects on the people directly impacted. Similar events have all happened before and been discussed ad nauseam. This "meta" politics story isn't just about political inside baseball, its indicative of how the current single-party dominated US government will be governing going forward. That not only holds implications for americans, but the world at large because the US is the 800lb gorilla on the world stage.
(Score: 2) by BK on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:56PM
If you're on the editorial staff, this would be a fair place to log on. Else I call BS. Reason being that this story went live at around 9AM Eastern USA time. Congress is too lazy to start much before that. My reply was close to the post.
Agreed. Maybe that means that we don't cover news. Or that we only cover news that someone submits. Or that we only sometimes cover news that someone submits. Hence this meta discussion.
Agreed on the Russian plane crash. Mechanical failure sucks but has little effect outside Russia (unless you rely on the Russian military to maintain your flaps). The Istanbul attack may well have implications beyond the club attacked... In my experience, I 've found that sometimes things that happen outside the USA are important.
Is that a sportsball reference? I had to rewrite my original post to avoid that term as it's meaningless outside the USA, and these days even within the USA. I submitted a sportsball story into the queue here and got it rejected so shame on you for invading my safe space.
I guess what it's indicative of is what we can discuss if we want to. As I indicated in prior posts, I chose not to engage with that story here since I raised this meta- thread, and I'll not change that now.
The thing is that ANY vote or parliamentary maneuver can be indicative of [foo] if you want it to be. John Kerry is famous for raising a defense of being for something before he was against it [youtube.com]. Which was indicative? Both! Neither? The one that wins me the argument?
On that basis, every committee appointment, every legislative vote, every procedural vote, every committee vote, every amendment, etc., is worthy of discussion - and I think that's a fair position - if what we are is a place to discuss USA politics. And this story fits right in. But as I said when I started, I thought that we weren't primarily a place to discuss the nuance of USA politics.
I thought we were something else. I'm willing and even excited to be corrected if I misunderstood, but we should be clear about it.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:59PM
This is not a science and technology site. Lacking that angle is not a problem.
The problem is that when ANYONE moves to remove ethical oversight, it affects all of us. This allows people in positions of power to unduly influence us (or your science and technology if you insist) negatively while creating some positive outcome for themselves or their interests.
This news is just about everywhere I have looked. The responses are mostly the same: horror or appreciation.
It appears to be that as long as its one's own team being unethical, it is OK -- and it was OK to bound the democrats with such ethics, but it gets in the way of "real work" that the republicans need to accomplish.
Let's hope they don't set up death panels that pay out directly for immigrants served.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:52PM
There is no such thing as an "independent" body.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:05PM
No, but there is such a thing as "Not directly at the beck and call of highly partisan forces, with accountability to more than one highly self-interested organization"
I mean, we've all experienced enough American politics to know that "Bipartisan measure" often means "Partisan along more complex lines than just party affiliation" and "Independent" often means "Still collectively answerable to the people they're supposed to police in one form or another"
But what we miss for our cynicism is that those are still better than this potentially republic-ending level of direct control.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:16PM
Seriously? That's too over the top even for hyperbole. We survived Nixon. We survived Obama. We'll survive this too.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:49PM
Ah, good old "both sides are bad" from a hyperpartisan who's quietly hiding that he's in favor of every shitty thing about to happen. Fuck your "centrist" false persona mighty buzzard. You need to own the shit salad you foisted on us.
Sure, one side is actively circumventing measures in place to prevent the selling out of our republic to powerful interests and is putting multiple actual neonazis on a presidential cabinet, but but but Obama didn't successfully shut down Guantanamo over an obstructionist congress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:12PM
I'd rather you had respect for each individual, rather than respect for this thing you call "our republic".
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:19PM
Oh, good. I'm glad you're here to protect the mighty buzzard from mean words and keep us from worrying about the actual real-world consequences of a (admittedly still kinda hypothetical) collapse of liberal democracy in the United States.
Got your priorities in order there.
No really, it's okay to think that politeness is important, but fuck I've seen so many vile opinions hidden behind a scant facade of polite discussion. This is generally what I think of such arguments [ngfiles.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:25PM
> neonazis
> neonazis
> waah
> waah
Blow it out your anus, nigger, before I find something else for you to blow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:34PM
You sound triggered.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:35PM
Help the world, make a Nazi bleed.
Fascism is a loser ideology. You're a fascist because you're a loser and you're a loser because you're a fascist. If you'd made half an attempt to understand the world around you, you'd be neither.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:34PM
You obviously cannot grok that libertarians are not centrists. We are radicals. We just do not fit into your two-party, one-axis thinking.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:45PM
Oh, no, see, I'm not concerned with your political affiliation. I'm concerned with the stated opinions you've had all over this website that establish a pretty clear pattern of Trump support and general right-wing delusions.
That you don't take the label isn't particular important in my thinking you're a shithead. You could share my party affiliation, hell, have voted for several of the same people as me, and you'd still be a shitty, unthinking, hard-right ass.
Also I got a nice lol at the idea of libertarians being radical. Regurgitating the freedom rhetoric we all get beat into our heads in school but without any critical analysis doesn't make you a revolutionary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:32PM
Regurgitating the freedom rhetoric we all get beat into our heads in school
Huh? Where? Schools don't promote freedom that much, and are in fact quite controlling and authoritarian. In fact, a lot of details are missing from so many history classes, to the point where it can make authoritarians look like decent people and horrendous policies look justifiable. The message I got from schools was that you should be obedient and trust your government.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:48PM
Oh yeah, please tell me the lesson plans that included trusting the government.
No really. Tell me about the days you went into class and had a teacher tell you that your government was looking out for your best interest. It was never once for me. I guess they taught kids to call 911 for emergencies? Does that count?
Because I can tell you, up and down my school career.
Every day: "Liberty and justice for all"
Sports events: "Land of the free"
Early elementary school: You should be glad to live in the USA, we've got freedom. The pilgrims arrived seeking religious freedom at Plymouth rock.
Middle school: The American Revolution was about freedom from tyranny.
High school: Settlers went west seeking more freedom. Texas seceded from Mexico for freedom.
It's not until college that serious lesson plans about how freedom isn't the best and nicest thing ever start appearing. They absolutely beat that word into your head. They don't teach you jack shit about what it actually, seriously means.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:20AM
Every. Single. Morning.
And if your history/social studies teachers didn't drum pro-government propaganda into your head, why are you such an authoritarian asshole?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:35AM
And if your history/social studies teachers didn't drum pro-government propaganda into your head, why are you such an authoritarian asshole?
I dunno, why are you?
What, you don't think you aren't one of the most authoritarian people on soylent? You believe in liberty and constitutionally protected freedom! Its all those libtard SJWs who are the real fascists!
If fascism comes, it will not be identified with any shirt movement, nor with an insignia, but it will probably be wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution. —James Waterman Wise, Jr. (1936)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 04 2017, @11:03AM
Which is a bloody stupid quote because of the absolute truth that liberty and authoritarianism cannot exist together as they are each other's antithesis. Show me once where I have argued for the curtailing of liberty in the name of liberty or the constitution. Once will do fine. I'll wait.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:42PM
What you argue for on a regular basis is perpetuating an inegaliatarian status quo for no other reason than it is the status quo.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:58PM
No, what I argue for is equality of treatment rather than equality of results. The former is actual equality while the latter is just bigotry rebranded.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:58PM
Get back to us when you are ready to support a 100% inheritance tax and the raising of children in creches where they all receive equal treatment.
Until then you are just another bullshitter picking and choosing which people deserve 'equal' treatment and which deserve special privileges.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 04 2017, @08:00PM
That's equality of outcome. See above re: bigotry poorly masquerading as equality.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:03AM
Naturally the reason I'm an "Authoritarian" is because you've immersed yourself so deep into libertarian ideology you've separated yourself from common and/or accurate defintions of words and redefined them to simply be anyone not as batshit as you.
The reason I'm an asshole is because, holy fuck, American is voting in goddamn white nationalists, seizing partisan control of watchdog organization, and deluded conspiracy theorists are babbling about how "both" sides are the same, because they've become separated from reality into tiny little ideological bubbles where words don't even mean anything anymore.
Go fuck yourself, you goddamn child.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:34AM
> why are you such an authoritarian asshole?
You blew every last fucking fuse in the ol' Irony-o-meter with that one, Uzzard. Do you have any idea how expensive those are?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 05 2017, @03:41AM
Awww, a troll mod for that? Man, you RWAs get triggered really easily. My previous offer of Midol should you need one still stands :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:17AM
Okay, you've clearly missed the multiple times I've disparaged Trump then. You've also obviously missed every post I've made in support of individual liberty and equality. If those make me hard-right in your eyes, you really need to rethink your scale.
That I despise Democrats and progressives more than I do Republicans and conservatives is your real problem. And it's one with an easy solution. Stop being corrupt, fascist hatemongers and I'll stop calling you corrupt, fascist hatemongers. Yes, you absolutely are the more hate-filled and anti-liberty of the parties. And yes, you absolutely have sold your souls more thoroughly than any Republican. You feed minorities hate and promises of free shit in exchange for votes when you should be working to make every American's lives better regardless of identity politics. That's what equality means. It means you under no circumstances treat any group special because of unearned traits.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:28PM
but but but Obama didn't successfully shut down Guantanamo over an obstructionist congress.
He didn't even try that hard, but at least he made some gains. Even worse than that, he actively advocated for conducting mass surveillance on the populace in numerous public speeches, so you can't blame an obstructionist congress for everything. Obama was an authoritarian piece of shit, and that remains true even if Republicans are worse. Both sides are absolutely terrible and that is irrefutable.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 03 2017, @07:35PM
You stupid bastard. Trump makes Nixon look classy, above-ground, and honest. Obama sucks, but he's nothing like this maniac. You're approaching J-Mo levels of willful stupid; I may need to reevaluate my assessment of you as "an asshole but not actually insane."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:30PM
Too late. You've already went there. Nowhere left to go with your unthinking venom now, eh? Pity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:48PM
Venom? Sure. "Unthinking?" Absolutely not. Sorry Uzzard, but you not liking it when I tell the truth about you, and expose you for all to see as the utter sociopath you are, does not make me "unthinking" and nothing, NOTHING, that you do, damns you any more thoroughly than your own words on this very site do.
I'm merely pointing the spotlight onto you, honey; you're the one vomiting into a hot mic. Off to your safe space now...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:42PM
It appears to be fake news about a fake office.
It appears from wikipedia the office served no purpose in its creation beyond hand wavy "we must symbolically do something" so they did something, that changed as little as possible while appearing as active as possible. The wikipedia article explains the founding leader actually did a surprisingly good job of providing better customer service, but he only lasted two years and its been pretty useless since. Possibly the founding leader is the only guy editing the wikipedia article, who knows.
The website of the office claims to be non-partisan but the wikipedia page lists the current board of directors of which exactly 1 is a republican. I'm sure you're completely shocked that the only party the office ever went after were republicans and the only supporters of the office after it got spanked was democrats. So its about as non-partisan and open minded as the McCarthy hearings were. In a display of comedy the web page of the office itself claims it behaves in a perfectly non-partisan manner and also almost every single member just randomly happens to be one party and they just randomly happen to only go after another party and I have a nice bridge for sale at a nice price and would you be interested in purchasing it from me?
The journalist coverage seems to imply the police are now on strike. However reading the FAQ on the office website itself the group never had any authority or power or advisory ability beyond being what boils down to first level customer support to open and process tickets that are exclusively handed by the "real" House Ethics Committee... You know, the one they're now officially reporting under as opposed to previously unofficially reporting under, or before the "symbolic fake action" of creating the separate but unequal dept to begin with in '08. Its like making customer support accountable to engineering officially rather than just tossing over tickets, say. Its not really going to attack or change anything because its as powerless of a figurehead as it was always, just under slightly more direct adult control now.
Curiously the actual ethics committee which held all the power and made all the choices, informally in the past, and formally now, gets no press coverage. All action of lack of action depends on the actual ethics committee, not this figurehead committee.
Maybe the purpose of the fake department all along was to be a fake fall guy for the next scandal. It does make a certain amount of sense. But now the R party is flushing it early instead of waiting, when its purpose for existing was to be the fall guys for the next D party scandal. Essentially the R are sabotaging the D backup plan for responding to getting caught.
Looking thru the reports it appears to have never really accomplished anything. If it were destroyed we'd lose a valuable source of i-dotting and t-crossing over extremely minor topics. The office never went after anything big. Admittedly there is some strategy to the whole "Send Al Capone to prison for income tax irregularities not his actual criminal acts". For example the most interesting thing they did in years, was one congressman fired a staffer and provided severance by withholding the firing paperwork from HR for a couple months instead of filling out form #WTF with HR to provide official firing pay severance, it don't really matter in the real world. Very "inside baseball". They never went after "real crime" corruption and only if the paperwork malfunction was caused by a republican, so IF it were destroyed (which the fake news article implies, but it isn't) then we're not going to be missing much.
I'd describe it as fake news because its very one sided pushing an agenda with evidence solely from one political extreme about a politically extremely polarized organization making various factually incorrect insinuations and the only discussion resulting is the traditional "I'm a R and Ds suck" vs "I'm a D and Rs suck" and no one talking about the actual issues of what the office ever did or will do. Also relevant factual evidence is being withheld in the reporting, such as who has had all the authority all along, what they did (approx nothing), why a fake office was created originally, and whats really changing, which is nothing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:50PM
> the office website itself the group never had any authority or power
The office had the ability to do investigations and make the results public without having to kowtow to the people they were investigating.
Your entire screed is based on the fact they were part of the process instead of the entire process. That's not just an unreasonable expectation in a democracy, coming from you its just partisan apologia.
(Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:16PM
make the results public
The fundamental disagreement is if the ethics committee 1st level customer support people are essentially running a trial complete with judicial oversight and the public discovery of evidence as you state, or if they are not running a trial with all the judicial oversight and procedure and evidence procedures required. Clearly they are not running a trial, in fact going all public kangaroo court like a bad episode of Judge Judy is likely to make actual legal prosecution more complicated or difficult later on. In that way I'm not certain they accomplish anything useful.
We could try chronological view:
Once upon a time there was this organized crime kingpin named Abramoff who nominally was a republican in private life but in his private life was solely out for himself. In the 00s he did all kinds of "Tony Soprano" type stuff involving wire fraud and mobsters killing each other over real estate fraud and ripping off indian tribe who hired him to support them but he double crossed them to try and double down for more money, and he did some bribes and stuff.
You know the jokes about garbage disposal being all mobster controlled and corrupt, well, Abramoff figured out financial control fraud was even easier in lobbying than in garbage trucking. So thats why he did what he did.
He got busted like a decade ago and the D party will always kick a R when he's down so endless insinuation that all R are in organized crime and such BS. Anyway they outsourced first level customer support from the existing ethics committee in order to appear to be "doing something" while actually doing mostly nothing. Also they stocked it with all democrats to enable an anti-R witch hunt. In usual political fashion the problem was never really congress or the ethics committee or the first level customer support team, so they reorg'd that of course. Never fix the actual problem if you can profit politically off it.
After a decade of lording over the R party that they've got a special outsourced team watching their every move because they're all Hitler Mobster Killers every last one of them, and finding nothing but some minor paperwork malfunctions and boring office drama that don't really matter on the national stage, which isn't much, its time to flush it. Abramoff was water under the bridge and never really mattered all that much on the national stage anyway and it was a decade ago. The propaganda photo op of the whole saga of the office has been over for years, time to flush it, go back to normal operation. They were never set up to make things public, they were never set up to reduce corruption, it was all a big anti-R party photo op from the mid 00s. It don't mean nothing no more, not in 2017. Flush it.
Needless to say as a propaganda coup the D party and therefore the legacy media is really annoyed that its getting flushed for political propaganda reasons that very few people remember from 2004 anyway; but its all on wikipedia if you're bored and want to read the historical truth.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @10:07PM
The office had the ability to do investigations and make the results public without having to kowtow to the people they were investigating.
Here's an interview with Leo Wise [vox.com] the first director of the OCE:
...
Interviewer: I imagine this didn’t make you the most popular man on the Hill. How much resistance was there to your work?
Leo Wise:
There was enormous resistance. We were being screamed at in a tirade of curses, thrown out of a member’s office, and threatened. There was huge resistance to even the idea of having to talk to us — to the notion that questions would be raised. So it was very challenging right from the start.
There were members who behaved responsibly and professionally. But it ran the gamut of opposition, with all sorts of threats about getting the office shut down or the funding for our office cut.
One incident where we got screamed at and thrown out of the office — it was just an initial meeting with a member. It wasn’t some confrontational interview. At the start of this process, which is very sensitive to members and their political concerns, we’d set up a meeting to come and directly talk to the member about the allegation the board had authorized us to look into.
It wasn’t a big public hearing. [The members] could decide what, if any, staff they wanted to have involved or if they wanted to retain legal counsel.
Once we handed the member a sealed envelope — it had just one or two sentences about the subject matter we were authorized to look into — and the member erupted at that. It was just the fact that we had the temerity, even just as staff, to raise a question that provoked this fury from a senior member who had been there for a long time.
...
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:41PM
> I'm sure you're completely shocked that the only party the office ever went after were republicans
That's false.
Are you now writing fake news?
Here's a list of investigations [house.gov] conducted by the OCE.
An incomplete tally of the democrats on that list:
Tim Bishop [wikipedia.org]
John Tierney [wikipedia.org]
Luis Gutierrez [house.gov]
Bobby Rush [wikipedia.org]
Ruben Hinojosa [wikipedia.org]
Mike Honda [wikipedia.org]
Yvette Clarke [wikipedia.org]
Sheila Jackson Lee [wikipedia.org]
——————————
Given how spectacularly wrong you got that claim what else are you lying about?
> lists the current board of directors of which exactly 1 is a republican.
Juddy Biggert [house.gov] - republican [soylentnews.org]
Allison Hayward [house.gov] - former chief of staff to republican federal elections chairman Bradley Smith [wikipedia.org]
Jay Eagan [house.gov] - former chief of staff to republican Rep William F Goodling [wikipedia.org]
3 democrats, 3 republicans and 1 independent.
Why does anyone trust a single damn word you write anymore?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @07:15PM
Thanks for the research. It's too bad that several posters had to waste their time debunking what turns out to be BS.
I have to admit that I find it profoundly disturbing that VLM's post remained at "+5 Insightful" for so long. (It even dipped down briefly, but was modded back up. As I write, it is now down to +3 apparently due to Troll mods.)
For full factual disclosure here, I'd just like to note yesterday VLM said [soylentnews.org]:
Actually "The Washington Post" is what they mean by fake news.
He later said [soylentnews.org]:
Historically they'd get the basic facts right, at least mostly, and merely slant the story via extreme language and strange insinuations, and now they're not even bothering with fact checking, its pure creative writing class. [...] If I wanted the opinion of a stoned nutcase mumbling in the park, I'd go to the park, not legacy "fake news" media.
I'd ask VLM to come forward and offer corrections/retractions to his post, now that it has been heavily debunked. I'm NOT going to engage in rhetoric accusing him of a being "a stoned nutcase mumbling in the park," but since he holds journalists to such high standards, I think we deserve to hear him publicly state that he made some errors and revisit what he said. In the time that I've been reading stuff here, I've seen VLM offer some insightful comments (which I commend him for) and also a lot of nonsense or trolling. I've mostly just ignored the latter. But I have to agree with AC here -- VLM, if you want people to believe ANYTHING you will ever say again, it's time to admit you too, like the WaPo, have presented false information as fact (and then built an entire rant around that false information).
Many people on both sides were critical of the WaPo yesterday for their shoddy journalism. I'll call out BS where I see it. You want to climb up to even the low standards of the WaPo "stoned nutcases"? Time to correct what you wrote. Otherwise, you're going to prove yourself not only a troll, but a hypocrite.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:50PM
I'm NOT going to engage in rhetoric accusing him of a being "a stoned nutcase mumbling in the park," but since he holds journalists to such high standards, I think we deserve to hear him publicly state that he made some errors and revisit what he said.
I WILL! Mostly because I doubt VLM will do any such thing. It's the second law of jmorrises. And I will go even further, and suggest a "final solution" the the VLM question, just like he did for the immigration issue, because that is not Nazi at all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:55PM
But "citizen journalists" *aren't* held to the same standards as "established" media. Often, they are *proud* of being "free" of the "rules".
"Truth", "fact", even "reality" can all be redefined, and then "consequences" can be ignored (or blamed on someone else).
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:26PM
FWIW here's an example of an ethics scandal that should have got a lot more coverage than it did:
10 members of Congress took trip secretly funded by foreign government [washingtonpost.com]
The state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan secretly funded an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference in Baku, on the Caspian Sea, in 2013 for 10 members of Congress and 32 staff members, according to a confidential ethics report obtained by The Washington Post. Three former top aides to President Obama appeared as speakers at the event.
Lawmakers and their staff members received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000, according to the ethics report. Airfare for the lawmakers and some of their spouses cost $112,899, travel invoices show.
The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, known as SOCAR, allegedly funneled $750,000 through nonprofit corporations based in the United States to conceal the source of the funding for the conference in the former Soviet republic, according to the 70-page report by the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent investigative arm of the House.
The report reflects the most extensive investigation undertaken by the ethics office, which was created seven years ago in response to a number of scandals on Capitol Hill, including lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s illegal funding of lawmakers’ trips.
...
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:18PM
The website of the office claims to be non-partisan but the wikipedia page lists the current board of directors of which exactly 1 is a republican. I'm sure you're completely shocked that the only party the office ever went after were republicans and the only supporters of the office after it got spanked was democrats. So its about as non-partisan and open minded as the McCarthy hearings were.
Wow, the title of your post is intended as irony, I assume? Let's just set aside that McCarthy quip -- I'm not sure you really want to compare the actions here to the insane rantings of the leader of the communist purges, do you?
Anyhow, let's dig into those board members [house.gov], shall we? There are 7 listed.
(1) Acting Chair - Judy Biggert [wikipedia.org] - former Republican House rep from Illinois. In her bio it notes: "Ms. Biggert was voted by her House colleagues in 2010 as one of the 'Top ten most bipartisan members of the U.S. House.'"
(2) Co-Chair - David Skaggs [wikipedia.org] - former Democratic House rep from Colorado. In his bio it notes: "He was the founding co-chairman with Congressman Ray LaHood (R-Illinois) of the House Bipartisan Retreat, the first such meeting in history, held in March, 1997, at Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was also co-founder with Representative Jim Leach (R-Iowa) of the Constitutional Forum, a series of seminars with distinguished guest lecturers who led Member discussions of constitutional issues."
(3) Belinda Pinckney - retired Brigadier General and CEO of BHP consulting. I can't find any source for Wikipedia's contention that she's a Democrat, but given her association with diversity efforts [bhpconsultingllc.org], it seems reasonable to say she slants that way.
(4) Jay Eagen - former Chief Administrative Officer of the House. Wikipedia claims independent, and (according to OCE bio) "A bipartisan House search committee unanimously selected Mr. Eagen." On the other hand, his bio also states that he had previously served as Chief of Staff to both Bill Goodling of PA and Steve Gunderson of WI, both House Republicans, so I think we should probably give him a "slant R."
(5) Karan English [wikipedia.org] - a former Democratic House rep from Arizona. But, notably, she was endorsed for her seat AGAINST the Republican candidate by no other than BARRY GOLDWATER. Huh. Hardly a bio of a typical far left liberal.
(6) Allison Hayward - again, Wikipedia SAYS she's a Democrat, but I can't find any evidence of that. Instead, we find out she was VP of Policy at the Center for Competitive Politics [wikipedia.org], which is basically an organization dedicated to removing barriers to spending in elections. While politicians on both sides can benefit from such deregulation, I think we can all agree that the folks more strongly arguing in favor of stuff like Citizens United are Republicans. Hayward was also Chief of Staff to Bradley Smith [wikipedia.org], former Commissioner of the FEC, who came to the attention of Republicans for his pro-business and "free money" stance on contributions to political campaigns (and was recommended to Bill Clinton as the Republican choice for his FEC appointment by Trent Lott and Mitch McConnell). So, maybe she's a registered Dem... I don't know. But one whose interests seem to also be tied up with more typical Republican issues.
(7) Michael Barnes [wikipedia.org] - former Democratic congressman from Maryland.
So what do we really have here? On the Dem side: three former Democratic house reps, one of which is notable for founding bi-partisan groups in Congress and another of which was endorsed by Barry Goldwater. One former Rep house rep, who is chair (and also notable for bipartisan action). And three other people without clear partisan affiliation, one of which is claimed to be "independent" but served as chief of staff to two different Republican reps, and another of which was previously entrenched in lobbying to overturn campaign finance regulations. Only one of those three "unknowns" seems to have clear Democratic leanings (based on her corporate bio).
Is this a good mix? Heck if I know. But I'd say there's pretty good evidence that at least three of the board members lean Republican in terms of their background, and another was a Democrat endorsed by Goldwater. So I'd hardly say it's the "one lone Republican rep on the board" that you claim.
In a display of comedy the web page of the office itself claims it behaves in a perfectly non-partisan manner and also almost every single member just randomly happens to be one party and they just randomly happen to only go after another party and I have a nice bridge for sale at a nice price and would you be interested in purchasing it from me?
Wow -- are you seriously going to say that here when anybody can check it in the published LIST of every Congress rep the OCE has recommended to the ethics committee [house.gov]?
I just spent about 10 minutes going through and checking all the ethics reports for the past four years (2013-2016), which includes concerns about 14 Republican Congress reps, 13 Democratic Congress reps, and 4 investigations into other people (1 Republican staffer and 3 Democratic staffers).
Granted, I didn't dig through all the reports going back to 2009, because I have better things to do with my time, but you're welcome to do so if you wish. But the kind of bias you claim is VERIFIABLY FALSE.
However reading the FAQ on the office website itself the group never had any authority or power or advisory ability beyond being what boils down to first level customer support to open and process tickets that are exclusively handed by the "real" House Ethics Committee... You know, the one they're now officially reporting under as opposed to previously unofficially reporting under, or before the "symbolic fake action" of creating the separate but unequal dept to begin with in '08. Its like making customer support accountable to engineering officially rather than just tossing over tickets, say. Its not really going to attack or change anything because its as powerless of a figurehead as it was always, just under slightly more direct adult control now.
Maybe it's a useless organization as you say. I don't really know how to gauge effectiveness. BUT one might argue that even a group with no formal power can still draw attention to ethics violations. The House still officially would have to RESPOND to any allegations the OCE sent them. Arguing that the OCE is useless is like arguing that a petition circulated by voters to look into an issue is useless. It may have no power to expel a member from Congress or whatever, but I think most reasonable people would argue that having SOME outside party's opinions heard and FORCING Congress to at least respond to ethics allegations might have SOME value.
I'm not going to even bother responding to the rest of your post. Once you have some actual evidence to back up any of your claims, maybe try again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:53PM
why are all of these older users suddenly coming out as cranks in this election cycle? Many of these people (not all of them) were pretty normal sounding prior to the election.
Spouting pure BS under the assumption that people here would not fact check anything?
It's like Ethanol Fueled is possessing half the conservatives that post here...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:59PM
You just didn't realize their idiocy because they weren't talking about politically topical issues. Ethan talks about politics, mostly white supermacy, more than anything else so everybody knows he's an idiot.
People can be pretty smart about one topic, especially one they have professional involvement in, and utter idiots in other areas of life.
I would argue that the more time someone has spent specializing, the less likely they are to have a clue about anything outside of their specialty.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:31AM
The people you're referring to were NEVER normal, and I've been pointing this out from the very beginning...usually to be ignored or attacked back for it. From this end, their crazy stands out like a gigantic neon sign in the darkness. It's nice to be vindicated, though it's something I wish I were wrong about :(
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:48PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:23PM
I have a fun fact for you: the house and senate, as a pair, have the power to do all sorts of evil shit and frequently do.
That's what being elected as a representative means in a republic. The fundamental and unbreakable* constitutionally mandated checks and balances have nothing to do with ethics. So all the ethics restrictions on elected representatives are laws they passed on themselves to appeal to us, the people. We, the people, are idiots. We voted for electors who pretty clearly didn't give two shits about actual ethics. We got what we deserve, and I could pretend we'll learn a lesson and get an actual left wing, push for serious modernizing electoral reform, but we won't.
*There's a discussion to be had here about the difference between de facto and de jure political power, but I really don't want to get into it, because we'll end up rewriting the federalist papers and a huge swath of political philosophy to get to the point
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:38PM
We, the people, are idiots. We voted for electors who pretty clearly didn't give two shits about actual ethics. We got what we deserve, and I could pretend we'll learn a lesson and get an actual left wing, push for serious modernizing electoral reform, but we won't.
Now, hold on a minute. We live in an oligarchy that suppresses third parties and encourages people to vote for the 'lesser evil'; it is no surprise that we ended up in this situation. When people feel as if they only have two choices, you're going to end up with a country filled with corruption. We don't live in an actual democracy, so I personally feel that pinning the blame entirely on voters is unjustified. Our system is simply defective to the very core.
(Score: 3, Touché) by theluggage on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:22PM
Apparently [bbc.co.uk] even Trump thinks (or rather "tweets" - not necessarily the same thing) that this was a bad idea.
NB: I assume that once the swamp is drained, someone plans to make a killing building hotels and golf courses on top of it (while denying the science that suggests it could result in serious flooding downstream).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:55PM
> Apparently even Trump thinks (or rather "tweets" - not necessarily the same thing) that this was a bad idea.
As always, Trump is playing both sides. Here's the tweet:
With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it 1/2 [twitter.com]
may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS 2/2 [twitter.com]
So its a bad idea to do it now, but its still a good idea to do it because having an ethics watchdog is unfair.
What a straight-talker! Telling it likes it is!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @07:31AM
Trump: "Give me my wall first, THEN you can have your own swamp!"
(Score: 4, Informative) by jdccdevel on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:42PM
From this BBC News Article [bbc.com]:
From the sounds of it, they misjudged public apathy towards their ethical bankruptcy. Nothing says "Hey, I want to be free to be as corrupt as I want!" like voting to gut an independent watchdog.
My cynical side just says that they just tried to push their agenda too fast. I'd be shocked if this doesn't happen some time in the next four years anyway.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:56PM
My cynical side says this was all show and just a PR setup for Trump to come in and show he's "changing the way Washington works." First he "personally" saves Carrier jobs. Now he gets this "not on my watch" moment. The guy who pushed it, Bob Goodlatte, has been a very early Trump supporter in the primaries. He then goes and pushes this change against his party leadership's wishes, and withdraws it after Trump very publicly opposes it.
I bet a few more of these things happen before the 20th.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:46PM
YAY TRUMP SAVES THE DAY.
THIS IS WHAT U DO WHEN DONALD TWEETS U.
(Score: 5, Informative) by mendax on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:43PM
The NY Times just reported [nytimes.com] that the House has backed away from what they did last night. Good for them. Now all we need is a good ethics investigation of the House in general. Half of the Congress would be caught up in it! Talk about emptying the swamp.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 03 2017, @07:37PM
s/ethics investigation of/large delivery of napalm for/
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:08PM
Oh, I like that idea, but doesn't that make you a terrorist?
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:50PM
If I were to actually do it, yes. On the other hand, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, as they say...
So, for now I'll just stick to imagining what it would be like if these parasites got a burning shower. Something even worse, by their standards, may actually happen: they may be kicked out in disgrace. I really think most of them would rather die horribly than live like us peons.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:48PM
I would prefer they receive a golden shower--from the three million voter majority who voted for Hillary Clinton--than a burning shower, even though it's the latter they deserve.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:10PM
A *lot* more than half: Right now, both the Democrats and Republicans demand that their members of Congress spend approximately 60% of their waking time sitting in tiny cubicles making fundraising calls to potential big donors. Which means that they almost definitely engage in some shady deals to get said big donations. So basically, everybody but Angus King, Bernie Sanders, and Gregorio Sablan are guaranteed to have ethics violations.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:52PM
Its literally not an ethics violation to make legislative promises in exchange for campaign donations.
That's because campaign donations do not go into the politician's pockets. There are lots of laws to stop that on the back-end too (like no draining the accounts of any remaining cash after the election either).
You can argue whether or not political favors in exchange for campaign donations ought to be an ethics violation. But under the current rules they are not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:54PM
Hey, you got called out above. Are you going to admit you posted BS about the make up of the committee? Or not??
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:28AM
Of course fucking not. He's in the same (a)moral boat as the rest of the "conservatives." Deny, deny, deny.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @07:57AM
If there is one thing that Trump has made clear, its that the label "conservative" has lost all meaning. The watering down of conservatism began with the passage of the civil rights act and the exodus of the dixiecrats from the democratic party. Reagan diluted it further with his "big tent" that became a safespace for religious fundamentalists, segregationists and homophobes. Trump was the figure-head who completed the redefinition of the conservative to simple tribalistic nihilism and the unprincipled pursuit of power. Neoreactionary seems to be the most accurate description for the group of people who now define themselves as nothing more thoughtful than being enemies of liberals, progressives, SJWs, scientists, socialists, athiests and even the wrong kind of thiests. They are the group who believe that government is not the solution, its the problem and in order to prove it they will be sure to make government dysfunctional.