Pelosi's Honor

Why are House Democrats being asked not to file ethics complaints by the their own leaders?

While Democrats sit on the sidelines, the House of Representative sinks deeper into a fetid swamp of hubris, scandal and lawlessness.
The simple act of filing an ethics complaint could dramatically change the political landscape.
A filed complaint automatically triggers an investigation.

If you call Nancy Pelosi's office as I have several times in recent weeks, they will emphatically deny that Rep. Pelosi has entered into an ethics truce with the GOP.
If you question them on the self evident existance of a truce, they will clam up.

Bernie Ramo, their legal advisor won't return your phone calls either.

Of course there's a truce. The absence of ethics complaints and House members reports
that they have been asked not to file complaints makes it rather obvious.

Why is Pelosi being so coy?

To be fair, Pelosi didn't invent the truce. She merely vigorously maintain's it. The truce began sometime in the late 90's.

The lack of wisdom in allowing weak minded men and women to be tempted by all that filthy lucre with no consequences is self evident.

Neither Pelosi or her predessors have not put forth any ideas about how they intended to maintain and enforce the standards set out in the House Ethics Manuel.

"A Member, officer, or employee of the House of Representatives shall conduct himself at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives. "

"A Member, officer, or employee of the House of Representatives shall adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Rules of the House of Representatives and to the rules of duly constituted committees thereof. "

"A Member, officer, or employee of the House of Representatives shall receive no compensation nor shall he permit any compensation to accrue to his beneficial interest from any source, the receipt of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from his position in the Congress. " *

The truce has been broken once by Rep. Chris Bell (D-TX) who lost his seat because of DeLay's gerrymandering. He filed a complaint in spite of Pelosi being adamently against it.

The House Ethics Committee voted unanimously to admonish DeLay.

Now DeLay is threatening to break it again by filing a complaint against Cynthia McKinny for allegedly bopped a well armed capitol cop with her cell phone.
We can only hope that Pelosi doesn't line up the House Democrats in support of DeLay.

Pelosi is said to fear retaliation by the Republicans.

Does she mean retaliate the way the Democrats do when they hang their own out to dry or something worse like a whispering campaign or "Swift Boating"?

For heaven sakes, of course the GOP will retaliate.
These guys retaliate when they suspect someone might disagree.
They are the very embodiment of paranoia and infantile fears.

What did Pelosi think her position as Congressional leader would entail?
Photo ops and tea cakes?

It the responsibility of a leader to deal effectively with issues like retaliation.
It is the responsibility of a leader to strategize and out manuever the other side.
Her response to neo-con thuggery should not be limited to beating retreat for herself and the troops.

Is she a House Minority Leader or a mouse?

The House has a constitutional obligation to police itself.
Their failure to police the conduct of their own members has placed an additional burden on the Justice Department.
They have been forced to do much of the work formerly handled by House Ethics Committee.

An informal poll on the Daily Kos shows that 67% of readers (14,000 plus) are unhappy with Pelosi's leadership.

The Democrats seem obsessed with avoiding the slightest stain on their saintly robes when what they really should be doing is manning the front lines of our tattered democracy and protecting our nation from even more pillaging and degradation.

We want them to win legislative battles and elections not consecration.

It is discouraging to think that we are sending people to Washington to represent us in the dirtiest game around that couldn't hold their own on a kindergarten play ground.

The uncomfortable thought that Pelosi and other clueless Congressional lurkers have a very narrow set of interests that may not include voters is unavoidable .
The record indicates that the majority are more interested in their own futures than the future of the country.

Pelosi's dainty political correctness extends to sucking up to AIPAC with all the usual genocide condoning banalities. Israel is a bristling porcupine of the latest WMD's and is no danger of "ceasing to exist". Palestine, however, may well cease to exist in the very near future.

This group holds a disproportionate influence over our political system because self seeking politicians have allowed them to.
Contrary to popular belief, this "special relationship" has not always been friendly or beneficial to US interests.

When Rep. Louise Slaughter posted her groundbreaking report "The Cost of Corruption"
on her website, Pelosi caved in to GOP whining and asked her to remove it.

Here was a God given opportunity to hit the GOP hard where they are the weakest
and Pelosi sided with the perps.
In return for her delicate handling of this issue, the GOPS hit Slaughter in the face by hinting that the reason the report was removed was because it wasn't legitimate.

Fortunately Slaughter is better at politics than Pelosi.
She is asking other House members to post it on their web sites. If these folks are at all interested in winning re-election, they really must ignore Pelosi on this one.

More recently Pelosi's rebuked Senator Feingold for daring to confront our drunken criminal and chief with the mildest of rebukes, censure.
Granted Reid's leadership in the Senate can be characterized as rare to absent, but Pelosi's attempt to horn in is embarrassing.

Where are those Articles of Impeacheachment that Bush has been asking us for since he took office?
Where are those impeachment hearings the House is duty bound to provide when elected officials abuse the powers of office as often and egregiously as this President?

If Pelosi had done her job in the House, Feingold wouldn't have had to try and do it for her by asking the Senate to censure Bush.

The most depressing thing about this whole situation is that Nancy Pelosi is one of the "good guys".
You can't expect the "Dukegate" "Coingate" "Plamegate" "Iraqgate" "Abramoffgate" "Dieboldgate" "Spygate" Phonejammers to bite the bullet on this one.
It just isn't realistic to hope the "new reality" folks are going to start throwing each other out of Congress.

We desperately need a new Congress with effective leadership.
The legislative gene pool has become dangerously concentrated with the poorest examples of our kind.

Big money politics and privately owned, non transparent election machinery make this an even bigger challenge than previously.

Big money goes to blank eyed conformists not to those who shake things up.

Nevertheless, it must be done.

Our collective future depends upon it.

Carol DW