Hilarious: Pelosi Pushing Independent Ethics Panel
She swore she'd "drain the swamp" of the corruption. And she wants an independent ethics panel convened to police the House of Representatives, or so says The Examiner:
House leaders are creating a bipartisan task force to recommend whether to establish an independent ethics panel to police the House, Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.
Pelosi, D-Calif., said Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio has agreed to the idea. The task force has not been set up yet, but it will be expected to report back in March, she said.
Pelosi offered no details on what the outside ethics group might look like, saying that would be up to the task force.
"There is no question that the ethics process in the last couple of years has lost the confidence of the American people," Pelosi told a news conference. "I'm hopeful that it's possible that we can have an outside entity that will restore that confidence."
Congress has been hit by a series of scandals recently, including the page scandal, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, and the bribery scandal that sent former Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham to prison.
The House Ethics Committee has been largely inactive throughout. It concluded last week that Republican lawmakers and aides failed for a decade to protect male pages from sexual come-ons by former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., but that no rules were broken and no one should be punished.
It's awful nice of the dead tree industry to admit that the GOP didn't do anything wrong in regard to Foley (it's be nicer if they admitted that his contact, while disgusting, wasn't illegal, and nor were any of his actions once the pages reached the age of eighteen), but I find it disingenuous when they focus on people like Duke Cunningham, and don't balance it. What do I mean by that? I guess the MSM didn't do such a hot job of reporting on Jim McDermott being found guilty of ethics violations back on 12 December. He's a Democrat, and I suppose that's why the MSM didn't want to report on that. Nancy Pelosi has taken more lumps since the election than she expected.
But when you support a man for the majority leader's position, who was involved with ABSCAM; when you endorse a former federal judge who was impeached on bribery charges; when you run interference for the Senate Minority Leader over questionably dirty land deals; when you refuse to demand the resignation of a House member under an FBI investigation for bribery--especially when he's on tape accepting the bribe; what else would you expect. (BTW, for the record if people didn't pick up on who I was referring to, in order of citation--John Murtha, Alcee Hastings, Harry Reid, and William Jefferson.)
I'd trust her with this idea, but I can't. She's already proven to the nation that she's willing to overlook past and present corruption within her own party. And no, I'm not jumping up on a soapbox and claiming the GOP doesn't have dirty dealers in its ranks. I'm sure they do. BOTH sides have them, but it goes beyond party lines with this issue. If both sides aren't willing to accept that their own members could be dirty, then there's no way in Hell you're going to get any sort of reform or accountability. This isn't a matter that can be addressed by those currently there. These schmucks need to go. That's the only way we're going to get a handle on the corruption, and be able to rid Capitol Hill of it.
Publius II
She swore she'd "drain the swamp" of the corruption. And she wants an independent ethics panel convened to police the House of Representatives, or so says The Examiner:
House leaders are creating a bipartisan task force to recommend whether to establish an independent ethics panel to police the House, Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.
Pelosi, D-Calif., said Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio has agreed to the idea. The task force has not been set up yet, but it will be expected to report back in March, she said.
Pelosi offered no details on what the outside ethics group might look like, saying that would be up to the task force.
"There is no question that the ethics process in the last couple of years has lost the confidence of the American people," Pelosi told a news conference. "I'm hopeful that it's possible that we can have an outside entity that will restore that confidence."
Congress has been hit by a series of scandals recently, including the page scandal, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, and the bribery scandal that sent former Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham to prison.
The House Ethics Committee has been largely inactive throughout. It concluded last week that Republican lawmakers and aides failed for a decade to protect male pages from sexual come-ons by former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., but that no rules were broken and no one should be punished.
It's awful nice of the dead tree industry to admit that the GOP didn't do anything wrong in regard to Foley (it's be nicer if they admitted that his contact, while disgusting, wasn't illegal, and nor were any of his actions once the pages reached the age of eighteen), but I find it disingenuous when they focus on people like Duke Cunningham, and don't balance it. What do I mean by that? I guess the MSM didn't do such a hot job of reporting on Jim McDermott being found guilty of ethics violations back on 12 December. He's a Democrat, and I suppose that's why the MSM didn't want to report on that. Nancy Pelosi has taken more lumps since the election than she expected.
But when you support a man for the majority leader's position, who was involved with ABSCAM; when you endorse a former federal judge who was impeached on bribery charges; when you run interference for the Senate Minority Leader over questionably dirty land deals; when you refuse to demand the resignation of a House member under an FBI investigation for bribery--especially when he's on tape accepting the bribe; what else would you expect. (BTW, for the record if people didn't pick up on who I was referring to, in order of citation--John Murtha, Alcee Hastings, Harry Reid, and William Jefferson.)
I'd trust her with this idea, but I can't. She's already proven to the nation that she's willing to overlook past and present corruption within her own party. And no, I'm not jumping up on a soapbox and claiming the GOP doesn't have dirty dealers in its ranks. I'm sure they do. BOTH sides have them, but it goes beyond party lines with this issue. If both sides aren't willing to accept that their own members could be dirty, then there's no way in Hell you're going to get any sort of reform or accountability. This isn't a matter that can be addressed by those currently there. These schmucks need to go. That's the only way we're going to get a handle on the corruption, and be able to rid Capitol Hill of it.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 12:26 PM
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