One… Two… Three… let’s all shout BULLSHIT!
Congress only can punish current members, officers and employees. Foley resigned on Sept. 29, but is under investigation by federal and Florida authorities. ( full story )
This is a six term congressman and I wonder, if the Ethics committee and then full Congress issues a censor or whatever, can he still collect his pension? I mean it would seem to me that if someone resigns rather than face the music, there ought to be some penalty involved.
Okay so the guy isn’t going to run again, but what about all the perks he is still entitled to receive?
Seems to me there is a damn site the Congress can do and if not, well they are the one’s who make the laws, aren’t they? So hell if they can deny Gays the right to marraige, would seem not much of a problem to deny a Pedophile the right to his pension, to free medical treatment at Walter Reed Hospital and other perks congressmen enjoy after they are retired, voluntarily or not.
Of course part of that would mean that if they did, it could come back and bite them if they got caught dipping into the illegal pork trough of being a Congressman. Still it seems to me that this is just an old boy’s group protecting its own, total hypocrisy.
“The House ethics committee process is a secret process so we don’t know what’s going to go on,” Wertheimer said. ( full story )
I don’t know, but we had our own ethics contest up here under the previous government. A special committee was set up, and held meetings and questions in public, as it should have been. I might not agree with the ethics of the committee chair or how it was conducted, but then I was at least able to see it unfold.
What all this is going to do is once more prove that politics is a dirty business and isn’t about ethics at all, but about holding onto one’s power. Surely that isn’t acceptable but then, I suppose it is, as one looks at how it is all playing out.
Like would you simply let it go once you told your supervisor about such behaviour at the workplace?
If you still saw that person going on with his actions, would you not have pursued it with the supervisor or the police? And in the private sector (that outside of being a politician that is) are you not obligated to report such cases? Teachers are, doctors are, so why not Congressmen?
Considering most simply did nothing, just what Traditional Family Values are those?
After all, that is the Republican mantra, one of those catch all sayings they use to deny Gays equal civil rights, so is that really the type of values, ethics, that people truly want reprsenting them in Government?
Foley pursued a minor, now I don’t know about in Congress but tell me which state exists where chasing an underage minor is not subject to penalty? Tell me what states considers that simply to be improper judgement and not Pedophilia?
Let’s call it like it is. If any person in the private sector had done what Foley did, to some minor intern or such, and resigned, would he still be off scott free or would he be in some jail right now? Not a fancy rehab clinic, but a cold dreary 9×10 cell? How come Foley isn’t?
Worse too is this is being done in-house. I have to wonder, how are these people going to deal with this matter fairly and above board if no one but them is privy to the discussions and evidence?
This is just BULLSHIT!
I truly have to wonder if this is really about Foley or is it something far worse. I mean if you listen to all the political commentary experts, they are all talking about how this issue has taken the heat off of the White House and Republicans for Iraq and replaced the issues raised by the recent book by Woodward. Given how the word is that many in Congress knew for years about Foley, why now?
Why now when the issues about Iraq and 9/11 were under the public eye that are now pushed aside in favor of the lurid sex scandal of one congressman?
Odd to see, because with Foley, at least you can make some defence of your actions by claiming, you simply didn’t know, but the other, well that goes to the heart of policy and not to not knowing details. One is far worse than the other, though both are extremely frightening. But which would you rather have to defend as an incumbent? Another’s sex scandel or the war on Terror and Invasion of Iraq?
Which would be easier to defend and have deniability over? A congressman’s pedophile actions, or the inability of the President to prevent the bombings of the World Trade Towers?
