| Author | Message | ||
     Sayitaintso |
Here is how we go about starting to clean up DC, party or political leaning is irrlevent. Campaign contributions for votes or expectation of a quid pro quo is bribery/criminal, I dont care if it's "business as usual" or not. http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/12/01/is-wash ington-politics-a-criminal-enterprise/ From Time website. Is Washington Politics A Criminal Enterprise? Posted by Michael Scherer Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 12:32 pm 42 Comments • Related Topics: congress corruption , tom delay A Texas jury effectively answered that question in the affirmative last week, when it convicted former majority whip Tom DeLay for money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. DeLay's defense, aside from his personal attacks against the Democratic-leaning prosecutor who brought charges against him, has always been: What's the big deal? Everybody does this stuff. But as John Feehery, a former DeLay aide and a registered lobbyist, explained on his blog Monday, business as usual looks like a criminal conspiracy to folk in the hinterlands. DeLay was right to say that this prosecution was a blatant example of the criminalization of politics. But he shouldn't be shocked by it. Politics is increasingly becoming a blood sport where the end game often means somebody goes to jail. Of course, any time you take a case like this to a jury outside in the real world, you run some risks. I bet you that if somebody were indicted for giving campaign contributions to a political candidate with the expectation that that candidate would vote a certain way, another very common practice here in the Beltway, that a jury would convict that campaign contributor for bribery. Common practice here in DC looks an awful lot like plain old corruption everywhere else in the country. As Jeffrey Smith explains in today's Washington Post, the DeLay trial focused heavily on the transactional nature of political campaign contributions, not just the specific charge of improperly moving money from one account to another. DeLay's own attorneys think this larger context led to the conviction. "The jury was just sending a message saying it did not like money in politics," Houston lawyer Dick DeGuerin said in an interview. "We tried a logical, intellectual case to show that there was no crime," he said, but the jurors rebelled against what they regarded as a sea of corporate dollars enveloping DeLay and his bid to elect enough Republicans to take over the state legislature. So what does that mean for the rest of Washington: Watch out. Despite the promises of Nancy Pelosi and the claims of John Boehner, the swamp has never been drained. And the sort of unethical behavior that sent Charlie Rangel down the road of self-immolation by extended monologue differs from normal congressional behavior only in the fine print. My favorite examples of the behavior that is probably technically legal though plainly noxious are the fat checks that cable giant Comcast has been writing to the Elijah Cummings Youth Program In Israel, even as Congressman Elijah Cummings supports Comcast's policy positions on Capitol Hill. In Washington, it is widely assumed that the difference between bribery and proper business practices is not being stupid: Don't write down any evidence of a quid pro quo. Always maintain plausible deniability. Always maintain that financial backscratching is a result of deep respect, mutual admiration and altruism, not transactional value. Every day, this city's most powerful people tell themselves lies. As DeLay's Texas jury shows, the American people know this, they are mad, and if given a chance, they will do something about it.} | ||
| Hootowl |
Only problem I have with that article is that it keeps referring to a "Texas jury", when in fact what he had was an "Austin jury". Austin is VERY liberal, and liberals HATE Tom DeLay. The conviction is no surprise. | ||
| Sayitaintso |
Hoot; I hope it wasn't a kick the guy while he's down b/c he's of the other party kinda thing. I want to see this become business as usual. | ||
| Buellbozo |
Me too. But our ultra-conservative Supremes just opened the vault doors. So, Delay was found guilty because he was tried in Austin, not because he was guilty as charged, huh? Maybe he can get a new trial in one of those congressional districts the money was used to gerrymand. Then he'd be innocent, right? | ||
| Sifo |
There's a couple of points of Delay's conviction that really bother me. It's been a few years since I've seen the details of the laws involved so it's a bit fuzzy, but by my recollection the specific law that Delay supposedly broke was instated after the transfers of monies that Delay made. I know the charges were dropped at one point, then new charges apparently filed, so perhaps they found a way around that issue. The whole issue of "money laundering" hinges on having dirty money in the first place. The funds in question didn't come from an illegal source so money laundering doesn't apply at all. As I currently understand it, it seems to hinge on some technicality of whether funds donated from corporations can be transferred. Do I have that part correct? Seems like a very severe response to the handling of political donations, especially on the day that Charlie Rangel is simply getting censured for similar mishandling of political donations. |
