Thread: Pelosi & a "question of ethics"

Pelosi's Choice: Rangel or the Swamp
David Paul Kuhn – Sat Feb 27, 1:00 am ET

Draining swamps is not so popular today. It's bad ecology.

We could understand Nancy Pelosi's defense of Charlie Rangel this way. It's an issue of conservation. I've heard those San Francisco liberals love the environment. Forget promises to "drain the swamp" during the 2006 campaign. She wants to conserve her ally's job.

Don't get Pelosi wrong. Surely, if a powerful House member "has proven himself to be ethically unfit" we know "the burden" indeed "falls upon" his party to oust him. In such a case, party leaders would obviously ask: "Do they want to remove the ethical cloud that hangs over the Capitol?"

So Pelosi explained in October 2004. The subject was Tom DeLay. The House ethics committee had admonished the Republican majority leader. DeLay used the Federal Aviation Administration to track Democratic state rivals. He hosted a fundraiser with energy lobbyists while energy legislation was under consideration.

Pelosi argued: "We must stop the influence of special interests so that the people know that we are here for the people's interests."

After all, this is why we have institutions like the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service. Except, that is, for the namesake and the center. An oil drilling company (special interest) made a $1 million donation to Rangel's center. The quid pro quo, allegedly, included legislative favors. The matter, like so much of Rangel's world, is under investigation.

Rangel has one of the powerful jobs in government. The New York Democrat is chairman of the House Ways and Means committee. The committee has jurisdiction over all taxation. And that's the rub. Rangel has a problem paying all his taxes.

The chairman failed to report more than a half million dollars in income. He later amended his financial disclosure forms. Perhaps it was a senior moment. The public servant simply forgot about his New Jersey real estate and a quarter million dollar account.

But perhaps he's just corrupt. There are other investigations. Possibly still more absent taxes, this time regarding rental income and a Dominican villa. There's the four rent-stabilized Harlem apartments used by Rangel, reportedly, well below market value. House lawmakers cannot accept gifts worth more than $50.

Rangel's cloud grew still larger on Thursday. The House ethics committee ruled that Rangel violated Congressional rules by accepting Caribbean junkets.

Thank goodness for Pelosi's past stands. Back in October 2004, the ethics committee had not yet acted on DeLay's links to a more serious money laundering investigation. But Pelosi saw that as no excuse. The cloud was big enough. Action had to be taken on behalf of the "people's interests."

Certainly, Pelosi is not foolish enough to apply a Democratic double standard. Well, you know how this goes. In Washington, the cynics are rarely proven wrong.

Some Democratic lawmakers are calling for Rangel to step down. But not the House leader. She says slow down. Don't jump to those conclusions. She told reporters Friday, "There's obviously more to come and we'll see what happens with that."

This year already looks like an awful political storm for Democrats. Pelosi is hoping one more cloud won't matter. This is what many party leaders do when they are in the eye of the storm. They forget how ugly it looks from the outside.

Rangel has served in Congress for nearly four decades. The grey pol does not want to leave the stage on this note. We get it. But Rangel is harming his party by holding that gavel as well as his cause. It's prime red meat for Republicans. This year, Democrats are dogged by great anxiety over potentially higher taxes. And their top man on the tax committee is not paying all his taxes.

Pelosi knows how these stories end. Her party lost control of Congress in 1994, in part, because of Democrats' ethical issues. Newt Gingrich pledged to clean the town up. Pelosi's Democrats regained power making the same pledge.

DeLay spanned this period. He was the onetime exterminator who infested the House. His most recent claim to fame is inelegantly dancing on television. DeLay is a cautionary tale. A joke. But he is also serious lesson in what happens to those partisans who confuse loyalty for cause and power for principle.

We know Washington was built on a swamp. But Pelosi need not let Rangel be one more reminder of it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpol...xvc2kzOXNjaG8-

QUOTE: Pelosi & a "question of ethics"

She doesn't have any. lol

Rangel denies he's giving up tax writing chair
Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 44 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Rep. Charles Rangel denied Tuesday that he's stepping down as chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee in the wake of an ethics report that admonished him for taking two corporate-paid trips.

A Democratic source had said Rangel was likely to "temporarily" relinquish his chair amid rising concern among some Democrats that Rangel's troubles posed a political risk. The source spoke anonymously to discuss a sensitive internal party matter.

Asked if he was still chairman Tuesday evening, Rangel said: "You bet your life." Pressed if he was planning to step down temporarily, he said, "No."

Rangel issued his denials after meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to discuss his fate. Pelosi, emerging from her office after Rangel, said she had no comment.

Rangel was scheduled to chair a Ways and Means Committee meeting Wednesday morning.

The House ethics committee last week said Rangel violated congressional gift rules by taking trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008 that had corporate sponsors. The New York Democrat told ethics investigators that he did not know the trips were paid by corporations.

Rangel still faces multiple ethics complaints. Several of his House supporters said any action against him should await the conclusion of the ethics committee investigation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100303/...5nZWxkZW5pZXM-

Originally Posted by Chip

You gotta love this guy: tax laws don't apply to him; ethics don't apply to him...you can't make this stuff up. While the average citizen might end up in serious trouble with the IRS, fired for ethics violations, this guy just plods along - all at the working person's expense. If Pelosi were a leader she would demand he step down, no demand he resign. Fat chance of that ever happening. These life long politicians are disgusting.

Originally Posted by Victoria

Every time he gets busted for illegal activities, he plays it "blissfully ignorant".

Well I'll tell you what -- if he's so stupid that he never knows that he's constantly breaking the law, he shouldn't even be in office in the first place!

Wasn't this sort of stuff among the things that were gonna "Change" as a result of the last election? Fortunately, the 'say anything to get elected' strategy has a short half-life in the current environment. The first Tuesday in November is en route.

Facing ethics probes, Rangel drops tax leadership
Larry Margasak And Tom Raum, Associated Press Writers – 9 mins ago[/i]

WASHINGTON – Buffeted by ethics inquiries, 20-term Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York stepped down Wednesday as chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, delivering a heavy new political jolt to a Democratic Party already facing angry voters.

The action also muddied the congressional picture on taxes, coming as the House moves toward difficult debate over large automatic increases that lie just over the horizon. The outcome will affect tens of millions of American taxpayers.

Rangel's relinquishing of the gavel spared colleagues from having to vote on a Republican-sponsored resolution to strip him of his post. But it also focused attention on ethical lapses by a top leader of a party that had promised to end a "culture of corruption" when it regained control of Congress in 2006 from Republicans.

That could spread far beyond Rangel. Ethical problems can be politically toxic for the party in power, particularly this election year with so much anti-Washington sentiment in the air.

Rangel stepped aside just days after being admonished for breaking House rules by accepting corporate-financed travel.

He called his exile temporary. But he still faces inquiries by the House ethics committee over late payment of income taxes on a rental villa he owns in the Dominican Republic, his use of House stationery to solicit corporate donations to an educational institution that bears his name, and belated disclosure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in previously unlisted wealth.

Some of these cases could result in rebukes more serious than last week's admonishment, and that could make it difficult for Rangel to reclaim his chairmanship.

Rangel, 79, has been a key player in the health care overhaul debate, and whatever legislation finally emerges from Congress will bear his and the committee's stamp. Even more importantly, for the next few months Ways and Means will play a central role in shaping tax policy.

Billions of dollars of tax cuts put in place by former President George W. Bush are due to expire at the end of this year. The tax committee's chairman will have great influence over which of these tax cuts are permitted to expire and which are extended.

Veteran Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark of California will serve as acting chairman, according to Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., who was presiding over the House when Republican lawmakers posed the question on Wednesday.

Stark, the next most senior Democrat on the panel, is a health policy expert and one of the most liberal members of the House. He has a reputation for being temperamental and sharp-tongued, not a consensus builder.

Rangel, who has represented his Harlem district since 1971 and is the first black member to be Ways and Means chairman, stepped aside in the face of increasing pressure from fellow Democrats after the House ethics committee admonished him last week for accepting trips to the Caribbean that were sponsored by several large corporations, a violation of congressional gift rules. Rangel blamed the lapse on his staff.

"In order to avoid my colleagues having to defend me during their elections, I have this morning sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi asking her to grant me a leave of absence until such time as the Ethics Committee completes its work" on remaining accusations against him, Rangel said at a hastily called session with reporters.

He said later that his stepping aside "should take care of the political problem" that other Democrats might have as a result of his ethics problems.

For all the ethical issues that have dogged the gregarious and sometimes irascible New Yorker over the years, Rangel has played a major role in tax policy, health care overhaul and in shaping other major issues that have come before his committee.

If Stark's leadership doesn't work out, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might maneuver to award the post to another senior Democrat on the committee, such as Sander Levin of Michigan, Jim McDermott of Washington, John Lewis of Georgia or Richard Neal of Massachusetts

Pelosi issued a statement acknowledging Rangel's request for a leave. "I commend Chairman Rangel for his decades of leadership on jobs, health care and the most significant economic issues of the day," she said.

Republicans had been calling for Rangel to step aside since last year, and those demands increased after the ethics panel released its report last Friday admonishing him.

Since the report, support for him among Democrats has been evaporating, with Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., on Tuesday becoming the first member of the congressional Black Caucus — which Rangel helped found — to call for him to step down from his chairmanship.

So long as Rangel remained chairman, an ethical cloud hung over Democrats who will be on November's ballots, a cloud that would darken with any additional rebukes by the ethics committee.

Republicans were pressing for a vote this week, one expected to draw more than just token Democratic support. Rangel's announcement let his Democratic colleagues off the hook.

But it also presented new headaches for Pelosi as the committee prepares to decide the fate of the Bush tax cuts.

Due to expire are lower overall income tax rates that have been in effect for nearly a decade, the so-called marriage penalty relief. The $1,000 child credit will drop to $500, and maximum tax rates on dividend income and capital gains will rise sharply if Congress does nothing.

President Barack Obama and his congressional allies want to keep many of these lower tax rates in place for all but those whose household income is above $250,000.

"These are very contentious issues. You want somebody running the committee who's going to have a firm hand on the gavel," said Ross Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist who studies Congress. "This is a real crisis for Pelosi on top of the health care stuff. It's a distraction I'm sure she did not welcome."

Rangel has raised considerable money for fellow Democrats. His leadership political action committee raised $2.2 million in the 2008 election cycle and spent $2 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He also raises money through a Rangel Victory Fund.

Republican campaign officials have started criticizing individual Democrats for holding on to chunks of campaign contributions that resulted from Rangel's fundraising.

As an example of his eroding support, several Democratic House members said they were giving campaign donations linked to Rangel away to charity.

Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona is giving up $14,000, Debbie Halvorson of Illinois $16,000 and Jim Himes of Connecticut $16,000.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100303/...NpbmdldGhpY3M-

Levin is acting chair of Ways and Means panel
Stephen Ohlemacher And Larry Margasak, Associated Press Writers
Thu Mar 4, 12:26 pm ET[/i]

WASHINGTON – Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan was chosen Thursday as acting chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, a post that plays a major role in health care and billions of dollars in expiring tax cuts.

Levin replaces Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who stepped aside Wednesday as chairman while the House ethics committee investigates his fundraising and finances.

Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark, D-Calif., held the acting chairmanship for a day under House rules, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a meeting of all House Democrats Thursday that Levin was the choice to run the committee.

In choosing Levin, Democrats went with a consensus builder rather than a firebrand going into the November congressional elections. Levin is a congenial leader whom Democrats hope will help move them past Rangel's ethics problems while providing a steady hand as Congress deals with billions of dollars in tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year.

"They're behind us," Pelosi said of her party's ethics problems, sounding hopeful, if unrealistic. "We have a new chair."

Levin, 78, represents an auto industry district outside Detroit and is the Democrats' foremost expert on trade, an issue that has been on the back burner since President Barack Obama took office. Levin currently is chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee on trade, a post he will have to give up as he takes over the full committee.

After meeting with other Democratic members of the committee, Levin gave no indication trade would become a more prominent issue. He said he hopes to move ahead on job creation, economic development and health care.

Levin will serve until Rangel's ethics case is resolved or a new Congress convenes next year. Stark will remain chairman of the Ways and Means health subcommittee.

Levin told reporters: "I think you know my close relationship with Charlie. At this point, I'm acting chairman."

The ethics committee admonished Rangel last week for breaking House rules by accepting corporate-financed travel. He has called his exile temporary, but he still faces inquiries over late payment of income taxes on a rental villa he owns in the Dominican Republic, his use of House stationery to solicit corporate donations to an educational institution that bears his name, and belated disclosure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in previously unlisted wealth.

Rangel, who has said he didn't want his ethics case to damage fellow Democrats, said of Levin, "It's the best thing for the country, the Congress and the committee under the circumstances. I love him. He's good. He's thorough. He's got a reputation, and he'll do us well."

Levin was first elected in 1982 and is in his 14th term. He is the older brother of Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100304/...ittee_chairman

Democrats mired in swamp they vowed to drain
Laurie Kellman And Larry Margasak, Associated Press Writers
Thu Mar 4, 7:35 pm ET

WASHINGTON – A rash of ethics lapses has given Democrats an election-year headache: how to convince skeptical voters that they're any cleaner than Republicans they accused of fostering a "culture of corruption" in 2006.

From the conduct of governors in Illinois and New York to back-room deals over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, Democrats are drawing their own criticism when it comes to the ethics of public officials.

The party that pledged to "drain the swamp" if given control of Congress finds itself sinking in the muck nine months from Election Day, when every member of the House and 36 Senate seats will be chosen.

The sword of sanctimony cuts both ways, warns a Republican felled by his own scandal in the weeks before the 2006 elections, as then-Rep. Nancy Pelosi led the campaign cry to end "the culture of corruption that has thrived under this Republican Congress."

"If you claim that you are going to hold a group accountable, as she professed, then it requires you to really be serious about that and not make excuses when members of their own party don't meet those same standards," former Rep. Mark Foley, who resigned weeks before the 2006 election because of allegations he pursued former House pages, told The Associated Press. "Otherwise," he added, "the public becomes cynical and suspicious."

Even embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel, the 20-term veteran who stepped down from the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee this week, acknowledged that hanging on only would have prolonged distractions and political pain for Pelosi and other Democrats. "It's not fair to her and it's not fair to the many freshmen and those who have close districts, that instead of getting their message out, (reporters and constituents) are asking about me," Rangel said.

Between now and November can be several lifetimes in political terms. But there are plenty of scandalous developments that could pop in the interim. The closer to the balloting, the tougher it is to stem the damage.

Democrats say they should get credit — or at least not be punished at the polls — for trying to clean up Capitol Hill with an independent ethics office that didn't exist under Republican rule. "I think we've come a long way since I became speaker with the outside ethics groups and now we have a functioning ethics committee, bipartisan and independent of the speaker," Pelosi told reporters Thursday.

But because Democrats gained control of the White House and Congress in part by vowing to cleanse the institutions of government, breaches by party members high and low raise questions of hypocrisy.

The list is long.

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is awash in corruption charges related to his efforts to fill President Barack Obama's former Senate seat.

New York Gov. David Paterson is hemorrhaging staff as he faces two misconduct investigations and increasing calls for him to quit. Paterson's disgraced predecessor, Elliot Spitzer, pops up more and more in interviews these days.

New York is home to other political headaches for Democrats.

Rangel gave up his committee chairmanship this week after the ethics committee admonished him for breaking House rules by accepting corporate-financed travel. Rangel still faces an inquiry over the way he used his position to solicit corporate donations to an educational institution that bears his name, as well as the belated disclosure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in previously unlisted wealth.

Then there's the perception of payoffs to states represented by senators who hesitated on supporting the Senate's health care bill, part of the overhaul that Obama had named his top legislative priority.

Dubbed the "Cornhusker kickback" and the "Louisiana purchase," the deals with Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana drew derision for the perception of sneakiness they created.

Dark-of-night dealmaking and misbehaving members are traditions as old as government itself, the price of putting ambitious human beings in positions of power and showering them with privileges unknown to most people they govern. "There must be some sort of greed virus that attacks those in power," U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III said in November when sentencing former Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana to 13 years in prison for taking bribes. The judge called public corruption "a cancer on the body politic."

And winning seats, not cleansing candidates or the legislature, is the top priority of party leaders.

To be sure, poor behavior thrived under Republican congressional control.

Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas absorbed several adverse ethics rulings before his indictment in 2005 in Texas on campaign finance conspiracy charges. He grinned widely for his mug shot and pleaded innocent, but the scandal forced him from Congress.

As the 2006 election year began, Republicans stung by the influence-peddling scandal propelled by lobbyist Jack Abramoff tried to seize the initiative for ethics reform by proposing a package of changes: a virtual ban on gifts, for example. But the gesture didn't insulate the GOP. Former Rep. Randy "Duke Cunningham was sentenced in 2006 to more than eight years in prison in a major corruption case after he collected more than $2 million in homes, yachts and other bribes.

Then there was Foley, a Florida Republican. His scandal exploded across the political landscape six weeks before the election. It singed House GOP leaders who, it turned out, had been aware for months of Foley's e-mails to former pages. The details all came long after Republicans losses seemed inevitable, but too close to Election Day for the party to fight back effectively.

More ethics news is in store for Democrats. Rangel, for example, still faces decisions over his conduct.

Democratic discomfort over that matter was clear in the immediate aftermath of his decision to step aside as chairman. Pelosi and other leaders stayed silent on the automatic promotion of the Democrat next in line: Rep. Pete Stark, the volatile Californian, whose conduct also was the subject of an ethics probe in which he was eventually cleared of wrongdoing. Early Thursday, he stepped aside to allow the congenial Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan to take the gavel.

Pelosi, at her news conference Thursday, announced the new acting chairman. "The issues that transpired in the last few days, they are behind us," she said, hopefully but perhaps not realistically. "They are behind us."



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100305/...1vY3JhdHNtaXI-

comments :

Originally Posted by BILL

This system is broke. Is this the best that we can do. We were once a proud nation, now we are a nation led by crooks.

And don't look for the republicans to do any better. The crooks abound on both sides of the chamber. I wish I could see an answer to these problems, but I think we are all beginning to look into the abyss.

Originally Posted by Max1J

This article provides great insight into why we need to do two things in this nation.

First - vote out every single incumbant and put fresh blood and ideas into DC
Second - put in term limits on every elected office so that politicians remember that it is the folks back home that they represent and not themselves, corporations, unions or the establishment.

We need a real change in this country and it begins at the voting booth.

Originally Posted by fenchel

How can you expect Nancy Pelosi to drain the swamp when she is in the middle of it?

Originally Posted by jack

Madam Pelosi you have two large problems #1 empty head #2 mouth always open. you remind me of the Scarecrow on the Wizard Of Oz. in brains, and the Wicked Witch Of The East. I bet you would be able to control that bicycle but that`s as far as your knowledge goes. "that may be stretching it"

Originally Posted by pud

Is this an article or an op-ed piece? Your political bias is showing AP...

Originally Posted by Bob

I thought the Dems said they were going to clean up DC if we voted for them in 2008. What the F?

DC has more corruption than ever now that the Dems are in control, and they keep looking the other way over bribery and tax fraud.

Originally Posted by bob

Madame has alot of "splaining" to do...wasn't she perched on her high horse in 2005-2006 claiming how corrupt and immoral republicans were? well, well, well, Madame Hitler, the shoe is now on the other foot....let's see how you weazle your way out of this one...

Massa denies he sexually groped male staffer
Andrew Miga, Associated Press Writer – 8 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Former Rep. Eric Massa, who resigned from Congress amid sexual harassment allegations, offered contradictory explanations for his behavior Tuesday, acknowledging he groped a male staffer in a non-sexual way but later denying any groping.

In a pair of TV interviews, the New York Democrat discussed wrestling with male staffers at his 50th birthday party and tickling one of them.

"It doesn't make any difference what my intentions were, it's how it's perceived by the individual who receives that action," Massa said on conservative commentator Glenn Beck's Fox News Channel show. "I'm telling you I was wrong. I was wrong. ... My behavior was wrong. I should have never allowed myself to be as familiar with my staff as I was."

The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, reported Tuesday that the House ethics panel has been investigating allegations Massa groped multiple male staffers in his office. Massa previously has claimed his misconduct was limited to using inappropriate language with staffers.

Asked directly by Beck whether he sexually groped anyone, Massa replied: "No, no, no."

Massa, however, recalled tickling a staffer at his birthday party.

"Now they're saying I groped a male staffer," Massa said. "Yeah, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn't breathe and four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday and it was kill the old guy."

Massa said his actions may have been misinterpreted. "If somebody on my staff was offended, uncomfortable, thought I was inappropriate, I own that," Massa said. "It's why I resigned."

Hours later, in an interview with CNN's Larry King, Massa was asked about the allegations reported by the Post. "No, it is not true, period," Massa said.

Massa was asked by King about his admission earlier in the day to Beck that he groped a staffer. "I never admitted groping," Massa said.

King pressed him later in the interview, citing Massa's admission he had groped a staffer. King also noted that most people see groping in a sexual context. "Well, it wasn't sexual, period," Massa told King.

Massa has given different reasons over the past week for quitting his seat before completing his first term, including health worries, a House ethics probe and charges that fellow Democrats pushed him out because he opposed their health care bill. Democrats deny the charge. He took a slightly different tack Tuesday. "I wasn't forced out," he said on Fox. "I forced myself out."

Massa added he did not live up to his own personal code of conduct.

Massa, 50, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1996, defeated Republican Rep. Randy Kuhl in 2008 in a district long dominated by Republicans. He said his cancer returned in December.

Massa, who is married, is a 24-year retired Navy commander who served during the 1991 U.S.-Iraq war and later was special assistant to Gen. Wesley Clark during the conflict in Bosnia. His cancer diagnosis forced him and his family back to the U.S. for treatment.

He spent his last year in the Navy as a cancer outreach advocate and later took a professional staff job with the House Armed Services Committee.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100310/...NzYWRlbmllc2g-

It is hard to believe that a politician is having problems keeping his reasons for quitting his job straight.

I am groping for words to describe the absurdity of this, but it is not sexual.

Do you think any black people voted for this guy or do you think they'd have a psychological aversion to voting for Massa.

Just askin'

how do you grope someone in not-sexual manner?

Where's the National Enquirer when you need them. Smoke 'em out already...

What a crock of manure! It's incredible the blatant excuses people will come up with to cover their shame. First of all why would a professional man who is elected senator be groping anyone, male or female. That is considered harassment whether it's sexual or not. Secondly why would he further embarrass himself by stated he groped the person but "it was not sexual". Will these Politicians stop at nothing to embarrass themselves?

Of course, there are tons of men who do the "locker room" grab your neighbor's junk, but I highly doubt that's what this is....

You know it. I know it. And everyone disgusted with the culture of corruption in Washington needs to make their voices heard on it. The watchdogs are crippled. CYA is the order of the day. The Beltway has changed nothing since the GOP scandals and is still acting blind, deaf, and dumb toward the Democrat scandals.

USA Today weighs in on the pathetic, corruption-enabling cesspool known as the House Ethics Committee: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/...-the-muck.html

What does it take for a member of Congress to get in real trouble with the House ethics committee?

Quite a lot.

In fact, only one lawmaker — Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. — has merited even a wrist slap since Democrats were swept into the majority in 2007 on a wave of voter revulsion to scandals engulfing Republicans in Congress. Back then, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through more stringent rules, vowed stricter enforcement and famously promised to “drain the swamp.”

Well, she’s going to need a bigger pump.

So far, the supposedly invigorated bipartisan House ethics committee has:

– Handed down its limpest discipline, an “admonishment,” after finding that Rangel had taken two free trips to Caribbean conferences even though he should have known that big corporations indirectly financed them in violation of House rules.

The committee has yet to finish reviewing Rangel’s more serious ethical problems, such as glaring omissions on his congressional financial disclosure statements. (Pending the outcome, Rangel has taken a “leave of absence” from his powerful post as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.)

– Exonerated five others who took the same trips as Rangel. The committee bought their stories that they didn’t know about corporate sponsorship. Funny, conference photos show lawmakers standing in front of a bunch of corporate logos. Maybe they were blinded by the Caribbean sun.

– Essentially gave lawmakers a go-ahead to solicit campaign donations from business executives and lobbyists who apparently believe they’re paying for federal contracts. Last month, the committee cleared seven members despite the findings by an independent investigative panel that two of them — Reps. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., and Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan. — might have tacitly tied requests for campaign donations to legislative earmarks profiting specific companies.

As MM pointed out last week, the ethics committee steamrolled the OCE in the Pete Stark case. http://michellemalkin.com/2010/03/04...under-the-bus/

USAT adds: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/...-the-muck.html

The Democrats like to point out that they created an independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to investigate allegations, recommend action to the ethics committee and issue public reports. But they promptly emasculated their new creation by failing to give it subpoena power and ignoring its findings in several cases, despite evidence that members violated House rules.

No teeth, no reform. No reform, no change. The swamp overfloweth.
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/03/10...ling-cesspool/

As the Distingished Gentleman from Louisiana once said : "They would have to catch me in bed with a live boy or a dead woman" ... and nowadays it'd have to be on film to boot.

This one you really must read for yourself... From Naked Shower FIghts to Back Wax http://michellemalkin.com/2010/03/09...s-to-back-wax/

Yesterday, Glenn Beck asked MM how the Massa Mess affects Americans personally. http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/1...assa-disaster/ Answer: Massa-gate isn’t just about Massa. It’s about Nancy Pelosi (full transcript http://www.glennbeck.com/content/art...cle/198/37716/ ):

GLENN: Do you think how I ended the show last night is how I started the show. I said, you have to ask yourself these questions and then you have to say, does it affect me. And I’m not interested in theoretical news. I’m only interested in the news that I can apply to make myself better or our country better.

MALKIN: Yes.

GLENN: And I don’t think this affects anyone at this point. Now it’s just theoretical because I don’t think they are really going to clean anything up. It’s like Charlie Rangel. They are not going to clean it up. If it affects them, if it helps them, they will clean it up. If it doesn’t, they don’t care.

MALKIN: Yeah. Well, I’ll say that it affects folks to this extent. This isn’t just about Eric Massa, and we know that. This is about a House ethics committee that is essentially a corruption enabling cesspool and has been under both Republican and Democrat administrations. And to the extent that your audience and activists and people who care about integrity and government and returning this government to the limits and the constitutional accountability that it should have, I think that pointing to the House ethics committee and this shadow office of congressional ethics that was set up in the wake of the Abramoff scandals is something that you can do. I mean, here you have a woman who got up, wields her gavel and then invokes her gender as some sort of sense of moral superiority that now that a woman is in charge, we really will drain the swamp? Somebody needs to hold her accountable for those promises. And that’s people who are going to be able to go to the polls in 2010 and 2012 and people who are going to be able to run office and show these creepocrats and corruptocrats how to run a clean government.

Today, the GOP stepped up to the plate with a privileged resolution directing the Ethics Committee to fully investigate what House Democratic leaders and members of their respective staffs knew prior to March 3, 2010 regarding the allegations against former Rep. Eric Massa, and what actions each leader and staffer took after learning of the allegations. The resolution directs the committee to report its findings and recommendations no later than June 30, 2010.

Here’s the full text:

H. Resolution ______

RESOLUTION

Raising a question of the privileges of the House.

Whereas, on March 8, 2010, Representative Eric Massa resigned from the House;

Whereas, numerous newspapers and other media organizations reported in the days before and after Mr. Massa’s resignation that the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct was investigating allegations that Mr. Massa sexually harassed Members of his congressional staff;

Whereas, on March 3, 2010, Majority Leader Hoyer’s office issued a statement saying, “The week of February 8th, a member of Rep. Massa’s staff brought to the attention of Mr. Hoyer’s staff allegations of misconduct that had been made against Mr. Massa. Mr. Hoyer’s staff immediately informed him of what they had been told”;

Whereas, on Thursday, March 4, Roll Call newspaper reported, “Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she only learned Wednesday of misconduct allegations against freshman Rep. Eric Massa, though her staff had learned of it earlier and decided against briefing her. ‘There had been a rumor, but just that,’ Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference. ‘A one-, two-, three-person rumor that had been reported to Mr. Hoyer’s office and reported to my staff which they did not report to me because you know what? This is rumor city. There are rumors.’”;

Whereas, on March 11, 2010, The Washington Post reported, “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was notified in October by then-Rep. Eric Massa’s top aide [Joe Racalto] of concerns about the New York Democrat’s behavior”;

Whereas, on March 11, 2010, Politico newspaper reported, “Democratic insiders say Pelosi’s office took no action after Racalto expressed his concerns about his then-boss in October”;

Whereas, on March 9, 2010, The Corning Leader newspaper reported, “Hoyer said last week he told Massa to inform the House Ethics Committee of the charges within 48 hours. ‘Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me, never, not once, not a word,’ Massa said Sunday. ‘This is a lie. It is a blatant false statement.’”;

Whereas, numerous confusing and conflicting media reports that House Democratic leaders knew about, and may have failed to handle appropriately, allegations that Rep. Massa was sexually harassing his own employees have raised serious and legitimate questions about what Speaker Pelosi as well as other Democratic leaders and their respective staffs were told, and what those individuals did with the information in their possession;

Whereas, the aforementioned media accounts have held the House up to public ridicule;

Whereas, the possibility that House Democratic leaders may have failed to immediately confront Rep. Massa about allegations of sexual harassment may have exposed employees and interns of Rep. Massa to continued harassment;

Whereas, clause one of Rule XXXIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives, titled “Code of Conduct,” states “A Member, Delegate, Resident Commission, officer, or employee of the House shall conduct himself at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House”;

Whereas, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is charged under House Rules with enforcing the Code of Conduct;

Therefore, be it RESOLVED,

(1) The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is directed to investigate fully, pursuant to clause 3(a)(2) of House Rule XI, which House Democratic leaders and members of their respective staffs had knowledge prior to March 3, 2010 of the aforementioned allegations concerning Mr. Massa, and what actions each leader and staffer having any such knowledge took after learning of the allegations;

(2) Within ten days following adoption of this resolution, and pursuant to Committee on Standards of Official Conduct rule 19, the committee shall establish an Investigative Subcommittee in the aforementioned matter, or report to the House no later than the final day of that period the reasons for its failure to do so;

(3) All Members and staff are instructed to cooperate fully in the committee’s investigation and to preserve all records, electronic or otherwise, that may bear on the subject of this investigation;

(4) The Chief Administrative Officer shall immediately take all steps necessary to secure and prevent the alteration or deletion of any e-mails, text messages, voicemails and other electronic records resident on House equipment that have been sent or received by the Members and staff who are the subjects of the investigation authorized under this resolution until advised by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct that it has no need of any portion of said records; and,

(5) The Committee shall issue a final report of its findings and recommendations in this matter no later than June 30, 2010.

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/03/11...i-accountable/