Consider this a perverse form of the circle of life. It goes like this: politicians tax citizens – > politicians use taxes to bailout businesses -> businesses donate money to politicians.
CommentsSeveral companies that escaped financial failure two years ago through massive taxpayer-funded bailouts are spending millions of dollars to make donations to political causes and even some candidates’ campaigns.
General Motors, Chrysler and Citigroup are just three of the biggest bailout recipients who have continued to remain politically active, through their political action committees, federal lobbying or direct donations to the pet projects of lawmakers.
The potential public relations disaster for firms spending big dollars on political causes and federal lobbying after being extended a taxpayer lifeline has led some, such as AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to suspend their political activities until they pay the government back in full.
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It’s no surprise, in today’s race obsessed political environment, to find yet another instance in which race is being used to deflect from troubling behavior or bad news. This time, the entire idea of ethics is being challenged as racist. You see, there are just too many black members of Congress being investigated for corruption.
Politico reports complaining, and cries of racism, coming from the Congressional Black Caucus regarding the number of their members currently in the spotlight for ethics violations.
The politically charged decisions by veteran Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel of New York and Maxine Waters of California to force public trials by the House ethics committee are raising questions about race and whether black lawmakers face more scrutiny over allegations of ethical or criminal wrongdoing than their white colleagues
…The question of whether black lawmakers are now being singled out for scrutiny has been simmering throughout the 111th Congress, with the Office of Congressional Ethics a focal point of the concerns. At one point earlier this year, all eight lawmakers under formal investigation by the House ethics committee, including Rangel and Waters, were black Democrats. All those investigations originated with the OCE, which can make recommendations — but take no final actions — on such cases.
There’s a “dual standard, one for most members and one for African-Americans,” said one member of the Congressional Black Caucus, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The article continues on without the authors ever once considering the most obvious explanation. Maybe CBC members are being “disproportionally” investigated because they are disproportionally unethical.
This explanation is not to say that blacks are more likely to be unethical than whites. Rather, I think there are other forces at work.
Politicians, as 
a general rule, are scum. It doesn’t matter what race they belong to. They would almost all commit the worst of crimes if they thought they could get away with them (and many do think this quite often, usually to be proven right). The question is, in so far as they do hold back from unethical behavior, what is the cause and why might it impact some politicians more than others?
The answer to the first question is easy. Politicians are interested in getting elected. If they think something will harm their electoral chances, they will usually refrain.
The next question, then, is whether there is any reason to believe that black politicians are less likely to be punished by their voters for ethical violations than white politicians.
Black politicians tend to be elected in overwhelmingly black districts, often gerrymandered for the purpose of ensuring “minority” representation. Their voters, having been inundated with destructive identity politics propaganda for generations, have come to believe that they can only be fairly represented by someone who looks like them. Race becomes the dominant qualifying criteria in these districts, much more so than other electorates. White politicians are hardly ever voted for simply for being white (it wouldn’t make sense to do so even if some voters were so inclined, as they are usually running against white opponents). The same is not true of black politicians. A corrupt black politician is still preferable to a white representative under this racial representation paradigm.
Black politicians are thus taught by their electorates that they are entitled to their positions. Nothing they do can justify removing them from office, for the simple reason that they can never lose their color, the defining characteristic in the world of identity politics.
While career politicians who routinely commit ethics violations are ultimately to blame for their actions, the voters who avert their eyes from such behavior have to take their share of the responsibility for creating politicians, like Charlie Rangel, who think that they are above the law. If the Congressional Black Caucus really wants to know why so many of their members are running afoul of what little ethics enforcement politicians can muster to bring upon themselves, maybe they should start by asking their voters to care more about the character of their representatives, instead of their color.
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Here’s what your Congress Critters are up to these days.
Sen. Jon Kyl calls the federal lawsuit against Arizona “baloney:”
Rep. Joe Pitts says on the House floor that uncertainty caused by big government is slowing job growth:
Rep. Charlie Rangel posts a video response to the ethics committee finding that he violated House ethics rules in his financial dealings:
Hailing from California, itself fiscally destroyed by excessive union power and influence, Rep. Linda Sánchez defends the protectionist and economically destructive Jones Act, which prevented foreign help from being accepted to fight the Gulf oil spill:
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Democrat State Senator caught stuffing bribe money in bra pleads guilty:
CommentsA Massachusetts state senator caught on video stuffing what prosecutors said was bribe money into her sweater and bra has pleaded guilty to corruption charges.
Dianne Wilkerson, a Boston Democrat, entered the pleas to eight counts of attempted extortion at a hearing in U.S. District Court on Thursday. She will remain free on bail until her sentencing on Sept. 20.
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What do tax and spend liberals do when the destruction wrought by their policies is exposed? Attack the messenger, of course. Or one of them, anyway. In this case that messenger is Goldline, which sells gold to weary investors who understand that liberal policies are destroying the dollar. According to the aptly named, New York Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner, that just can’t be allowed.
What’s worse, Goldline is an advertiser for the dastardly Glenn Beck, which automatically makes them criminal and open to leftwing attacks. And what’s the crime? Why, they charge too much!
The congressman’s report based its findings on a study of 18 gold coins offered for sale on Goldline’s website. When it compared the sale price with the value of the gold if it were melted, it found an average markup of 90 percent.
Whoopy-freaking-doo. Since when is Congress in the business of deciding what the appropriate price for a good ought to be? Oh yea, whenever we let big government liberals who like to abuse their power take over, that’s when.
I could have told you Goldline was overpriced just from their commercial. That isn’t a crime. What Rep. Weiner is doing is abusing his position to attack an advertiser of a critical conservative personality. If anyone should be brought on charges, it should be him. And if he is really concerned about why people go for safety “investments” like gold, maybe he should look at the legitimate concerns his party’s reckless policies are creating.
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ACORN’s favorite unpaid spokesman, Brad Friedman, goes to bat for the organization once again. This time he’s latched onto a statement by Ed Morrissey which he thinks whitewashes everything, much how he thinks the question of what O’Keefe wore clears them of any wrongdoing in the pimp scandal.
Ed mistakenly said the indictments were against ACORN as an organization, instead of against ACORN employees. Brad is right to point out the important difference here. But that’s where the merit of his defense ends.
At what point does an organization – which has the registering of voters as one of its primary functions – have to be responsible for the continued failure of its employees to carry out this task honestly and in compliance with the law? Brad’s line of argument, as much as it can be determined when reading between the lines of his hysterical references to “the shameless Republican assault on verifiable truth and American democracy,” would have us believe that, because no smoking gun has emerged to show that ACORN ordered such criminal behavior, they are not responsible for any of the repeated and consistent wrong-doing of their employees.
I wonder. Would Brad extend that same defense to a private company whose employees had a pattern of consistent criminality? If cashiers in Wal-Mart stores all across the country were routinely overcharging customers, would he distinguish between the company and its employees? Or would he reach the reasonable conclusion that Wal-Mart has a responsibility to ensure the quality of its hires and protect its customers from fraud on its watch?
That responsibility is even greater for ACORN, which receives gobs of taxpayer funds to engage in its registration activities. Whether or not they are an organization that explicitly encourages criminal behavior, or are merely so reckless in their employment practices as to be littered with criminals and enablers of criminal behavior in locations all across the country, is a distinction with an ever diminishing difference.
As a matter of public policy, both possibilities raise the same question. Why should we give taxpayer money to such an incompetent organization, whose employees frequently engage in illegal, unethical or immoral behavior?
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One of the biggest applause lines at CPAC not involving a chalk board was when Rep. Mike Pence called for an end to all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. It’s not just that the organization performs abortions, as other pro-life lines didn’t get the same level of enthusiastic response. It’s that the organization is as morally and legally corrupt as ACORN.
Video via Blogger of the Year Ed Morrissey at HotAir:
The film was produced by Lila Rose and Live Action Films, who have now exposed criminal behavior at multiple Planned Parenthood locations.
This is the kind of raw journalism we need, like what James O’Keefe did with ACORN. The traditional press won’t do it. They refuse to expose the organization that make up the base of the Democratic Party. We have to do it ourselves. Kudos to these people for exposing such corruption of our taxpayer dollars.
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My latest post on Big Government reports on a recent study on stimulus spending, and ties its findings to the methods of Democratic hero FDR:
Comments…Barack Obama has broken many campaign promises since taking office, but when it comes to the comparisons to Franklin Delano Roosevelt saddled on him by his adorning followers in the media, he has worked hard to live up to the hype. We already knew that both dishonestly campaigned against the excessive spending of their predecessors before breaking the bank on their own watch. Now we also know that President Obama, like FDR, has abused a crisis atmosphere to direct economic relief funds for partisan purposes…
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Anyone who has studied cult-based strong-man governments, of the type we have now in America for the first time (or perhaps the second counting FDR), knows that constant propaganda is necessary to maintain the appropriate level of control over the populace. The latest comes from the Department of Health and Human Services:
Senate Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is raising concerns that a Department of Health and Human Services Web site that urges visitors to send an e-mail to President Barack Obama praising his health care reform plan may violate rules against government-funded propaganda.
…In a letter sent to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Tuesday, Grassley warned that “any possible misuse of appropriated funds by the executive branch to engage in publicity or propaganda in support of an Administration priority is a matter that must be investigated and taken seriously,” noting that in 2005 Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) argued that “the use of official funds for similar activities were ‘underhanded tactics’ and that these tactics ‘are not worthy of our great democracy.’”
The form letter on the “state your support” page includes language hailing Obama’s efforts. “We strongly support your commitment to comprehensive health reform. This is not a luxury. The continuing, sharp escalation of health care costs for families, businesses, and government is unsustainable. Reform is imperative. We believe that health reform must be enacted this year,” the letter says.
“We strongly support regurgitating your vapid talking points…”
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Is it any coincidence that such a blatant “culture” of corruption just happens to occur in an exclusively Democratic city? Perhaps, perhaps not.
A long-secret cost of Detroit elections — paying for endorsements — is generating controversy in the City Council election, even though most candidates defend the expense.
To many, it’s a simple investment, part of what candidate Jai-Lee Dearing calls Detroit’s “culture.” To others, it smacks of pay to play. Either way, candidates who want three or four endorsements from prominent groups in the Nov. 3 election may have to shell out about $5,000.
…”There is a certain way things get done in Detroit,” said Dearing, a businessman making his third run for the council. “And this is part of that political process. It is part of our culture.”
Exit question: Is the problem merely a lack of partisan competition, which at least somewhat keeps each side in check? Put another way, would an equally heavy Republican city see similar practices?
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science and work in public policy, but please don't hold that against me.
