Monday, August 02, 2010

Pelosi's Unethical House: It Isn't Race, It Is Impropriety

High profile ethics trails are coming up, one for Charles Rangel and one for Maxine Waters, both, according to the charges leveled, have committed ethics violations.

The names join a slew of others mentioned in a 3 page The Politico piece and in the very first paragraph the article states these investigations "are raising questions about race and whether black lawmakers face more scrutiny over allegations of ethical or criminal wrongdoing than their white colleagues."

"Drain the Swamp" Pelosi created the Office of Congressional Ethics, in 2008, to reduce corruption in Congress and now members of the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) are accusing the OCE of focusing on black members of congress in their investigations.

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.



These lawmakers were black, yes, but they have something else in common... they are being investigated, and in some cases charged, with unethical behavior, should this be ignored because of the color of their skin?

Sloan noted that several white lawmakers, including Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), are currently under investigation by federal and congressional investigators. Ensign is being investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee and the Justice Department over the fallout from an extramarital affair he had with the wife of a top aide, while Visclosky and his former chief of staff are being probed over their ties to a now-defunct lobbying firm raided by the feds last year.

Two other white lawmakers, Reps. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) and Mark Souder (R-Ind.), resigned this year under ethical clouds. Massa left Congress after POLITICO reported he was under investigation by the ethics committee for sexually harassing male staffers, while Sounder quickly departed after admitting a long-running extramartial affair with a part-time aide. The findings from the Massa investigation have yet to be released by the ethics panel, although Massa is no longer within their jurisdiction.


In May, 20 members of the CBC introduced a resolution to "rein in" the OCE.

Why? From the article we see that ethical allegations are being investigated and a couple white lawmakers actually resigned with others being investigated, yet black lawmakers accuse the OCE of acting in bad faith and act like the victims of racism when they are investigated?

In 2006 Nancy Pelosi said, and I quote "The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history".

What these investigations have shown, time and time again since the OCE started in 2008, is that Democrats have run the most unethical congress in history and now they want the investigations to stop.

As they have been doing whenever they cannot explain, justify or excuse their behavior, they start screaming racism at the top of their voices, hoping to distract from that very point.

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