WP: Warning: Ethics-Free Zone

[paineinthearse]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32541-2005Mar13.html

Warning: Ethics-Free Zone
Monday, March 14, 2005; Page A18

THIS MAY NOT sound like news, but the House of Representatives is now an ethics-free zone. To be precise, it has no mechanism for investigating or disciplining members who violate ethics rules. The proximate cause of this breakdown is the revolt by the five Democrats on the evenly divided ethics committee. Led by the ranking Democrat, Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.), committee Democrats understandably balked last week at acceding to new rules for how the panel should conduct its business -- rules dictated by the GOP leadership and slanted toward making the ethics process, already tilted in favor of gridlock, even more feckless.

Last week's tumultuous events cap a year in which the committee took the extraordinary step of issuing three admonitions to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), infuriating the majority leader and his supporters. In the aftermath, the ethics panel's chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), and two other committee Republicans were removed and replaced with those more loyal to the Republican team. In addition, the GOP leadership did its best to neuter the committee by rewriting the rules for the new Congress. When their own members were too embarrassed to go along, the leadership was forced to backtrack on some of the most egregious changes. It left in place three others, leading to the current standoff.

The ethics committee Democrats have two sets of legitimate gripes -- one procedural, the other substantive. The procedural concern is the failure to adhere to the historical, bipartisan method of rewriting ethics rules. Instead, committee Republicans were bypassed, their ordinary role was usurped and the new, rigged rules were written in secret by the leadership. The new rules also pose substantive concerns, the most critical of which provides for the automatic dismissal of a complaint if it's not acted on within as little as 45 days and no longer than 90 days. It's true that members shouldn't needlessly spend months under an ethics cloud, but the proposed cure is worse than the supposed disease: It's a hands-off, no-paper-trail way for members to let ethics complaints simply disappear. Another rule, to let a single lawyer represent multiple parties in an investigation, is a road map to obstruction, letting those involved in an inquiry get their stories straight in advance.

Republicans are now trying, laughably, to portray the impasse as the result of Democrats' refusal to "put the ethics process above partisan politics," as a spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) put it. Democrats have no lack of partisanship on this issue, but the GOP spin is hard to take from the people who rigged the rules and changed the players when they didn't like the result. Mr. Mollohan now has a single Republican, Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), co-sponsoring his resolution. We would hope that -- especially in light of new ethical questions involving Mr. DeLay -- additional members of the majority will sign on, putting the long-term good of the institution ahead of the short-term interests of those with the greatest stake in an ineffectual ethics process.

[undergroundpanther]

1. Fuck them all

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was Conceived and implemented to allow the people to have the ability to overthrow a oppressive,tyrannical government.
The founders knew firsthand what smart soulless sociopaths like the ones our government do ..they circumvent law and ethics,decency and love unrestrained by conscience until they make themselves a king. To a sociopath this means they"win".And they can abuse and amuse themselves without any social restraint.Why did Americans have Guantanamo and Abu Gharib and the long list of war crimes? It has because the conscience in America's defense departments id dead and around 1/4 th at least of humanity's populace is sociopaths,for them conscience is suspended and not made to be obedient to ethics,human decency, or compassion.

[Protagoras]

3. Not to derail the main topic (which is very important)

but what do you base your claim about the second ammendment on? I'm not debating the current second ammendment btw, just trying to understand where this historical understanding of it is coming from? Is there a specific passage of the federalist papers that you're referring to?

[undergroundpanther]

5. Here are my sources

http://www.actionamerica.org/constitution/declaration.html
From the Declaration of Independance...


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.


And some quotes too....


The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

-Thomas Jefferson

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?

-Thomas Jefferson (1801)

All that is required for evil to triumph, is that good men do nothing.
(attributed to both Thomas Jefferson and Edmund Burke)

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." — James Madison


"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny." — Thomas Jefferson

It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.

-Charles A. Beard

[Protagoras]

6. Thanks

nt

[Mnemosyne]

2. Hypocrites R US!

Thanks paine.

Will wonders never cease?!

:hi: :shrug:

[paineinthearse]

4. An excerpt from this editorial is feaured on Rep. Hoyer's daily WHIP email

One paragraph from this editorial was at the bottom of the email sent from Rep. Hoyer (Dem Whip) to each Dem member of Congress, so expect a lot of airtime/press from Dems!

Please email this thread to friends....get it out!

[paineinthearse]

7. Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer Statement on House Ethics

Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer Statement on House Ethics Process in Shambles

3/14/2005 10:17:00 AM

----------------------------------------------------------------------

To: National Desk

Contact: Amanda Lewis of Democracy 21, 202-429-2008 or [e-mail]

WASHINGTON, March 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer issued the following statement today:

The ethics process in the House of Representatives is in total shambles. This complete breakdown is the direct result of steps taken by House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other House Republican leaders in this Congress to undermine the House ethics enforcement process.

This includes actions taken by the House Republican leadership to cripple the House ethics enforcement process and to purge Republican Members and staff from the Ethics Committee in retribution for holding House Majority Leader Tom DeLay accountable last year for his multiple ethics improprieties.

House Speaker Hastert has created an ethics crisis in the House. It is Speaker Hastert's responsibility to move quickly to fix the untenable and unprecedented situation that now exists.

As a first step, Speaker Hastert should take steps to repeal the House rules adopted at the beginning of this Congress that have led to a complete shut down of ethics enforcement in the House.

http://www.usnewswire.com/