Time to get the lobby money out of D.C.

[shuamort]

Two words: Link please

FBI Investigates Halliburton's No-Bid Contracts

 

[JustMyPOV]

I need to ammend my prior post. The industry contributions I cited were made to the Republican party, not the RNC.

 

[FinnMacCool]

There you go, folks. Bill Clinton lied under oath to a federal grand jury while serving as president of the United States and aps can "live with" that because, after all, he is a better speaker than the current president.

Makes me proud to be a conservative.

At least he did his job, Clinton's sex life aside. If Bush cheated on his wife, he would still be an asshole president.

 

[aps]

At least he did his job, Clinton's sex life aside. If Bush cheated on his wife, he would still be an asshole president.

LOL! Good one, Finn!

And KC, I am so glad I could help you feel better about being a conservative, particularly when they are demonstrating such ethical behavior. :lamo

 

[KCConservative]

At least he did his job, Clinton's sex life aside. If Bush cheated on his wife, he would still be an asshole president.

Liberals still pretend it was about the sex. They ignore the part about lying under oath. In response, they call the current president names. I think Barak Obama was right when he said the democratic party as lost it's way.

 

[KCConservative]

And KC, I am so glad I could help you feel better about being a conservative, particularly when they are demonstrating such ethical behavior. :lamo

We're discussing Clinton's admitted lies in front of a federal grand jury and you want to counter with "ethical behavior?" Interesting.

 

[Deegan]

It is certainly about time we did something about the lobby in government, it's gone on long enough, and each party is suspect. I don't have any answers off the top of my head, but I believe it's a corruption that has reached very dangerous levels, and has gone unchallenged for far too long!

 

[hipsterdufus]

Wow, that certainly is a long list of city councilmen and county commissioners. You seemed to miss that I was referring to the President of the United States (Bill Clinton) and not your long list from armchairsubversive.com. Let's see what else that website says, shall we:

Liberal Blog Advertising NetworkBy bringing together more than seventy of the most highly trafficked, regularly updated and politically focused liberal and progressive blogs, the Liberal Blog Advertising Network now makes it possible for advertisers to reach virtually the entire liberal and progressive political blogosphere at once. Simply put, no other advertising opportunity can offer an audience so dedicated to liberal and progressive causes. Advertise here, and reach the people who manufacture the liberal and progressive zeitgeist.

Nope, nothing partisan about that. :roll: How's your pipe tasting?

My pipe tastes great; an extremely enticing aroma, derived from the skillful blending of hypocrisy.

You can verify these cretinous actions anywhere. They are just compiled here.

 

[FinnMacCool]

Liberals still pretend it was about the sex. They ignore the part about lying under oath. In response, they call the current president names. I think Barak Obama was right when he said the democratic party as lost it's way.

Tell me why should we kick out a good president simply because he lied, under oath or not, about his sex life? What the hell difference does it make if it was under oath or not. Is it the principle of the whole thing that makes you upset? Oaths are nothing more then bullshit things that people hide behind so they can continue lying.

The only reason you give a flying **** is because you don't like Clinton, and rightly so for you since your a conservative. But the fact is that no asshole is going to kick out someone because of their sex life ( and yes I know he lied under oath blah blah blah blah blah).

We're discussing Clinton's admitted lies in front of a federal grand jury and you want to counter with "ethical behavior?" Interesting.

Oh yes. Because politicians never lie! Whose heard of a politician lying before???!!!

 

[Cremaster77]

We're discussing Clinton's admitted lies in front of a federal grand jury and you want to counter with "ethical behavior?" Interesting.

Conservatives think lying under oath about a sexual harassment suit is the worst possible thing you can do. But if your government sells arms to a terrorist nation to fund counterrevolutionary rebels, it's no big deal. If your the president, the Commander-in-Chief, can't remember anything about these deals meaning he's either a) lying or b) incompetent, it's no big deal.

Conservatives think the "demonization" of Christmas in schools is the worst thing to happen to society. Yet outing an undercover CIA agent as political payback is no big deal. That agent wasn't really that important anyway.

Conservatives think that having an affair with an intern is the most disrepectful thing you can do in government. But when the Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has an affair, it's a "youthful indiscretion". When his replacement Bob Livingstone has an affair, well it's just a fluke. When Republican Party It Boy Rudy Guiliani ends his marriage with his wife ON THE RADIO, then moves his mistress into the New York governor's mansion, that's just his personal life. I'll add Senator Dan Burton to that list and you can tell me all you want that these folks are just councilmen.

Conservatives can't imagine how a drug addict who lit up a joint in his college dormroom got elected. But when their own president's past conviction for getting drunk and THEN DRIVING, his personal life is off limits.

I assure you, I'm no liberal, but there's one party that sets itself up as the party of values and morals, yet consistently takes these "moral indiscretions" to a whole new level. I see your "Clinton's admitted lies" about sex with an intern, and raise you Republican sponsored torture. Maybe then you can see why people are turning away from the Republicans and this administration.

 

[aquapub]

Cunningham is a mirror image of James Traficant, the Democrat from Ohio who went down for nearly identical acts of corruption. This is not, as Nancy "the ankle-biting fanatic" Pelosi tried to claim, a sign of typical Republican corruption. It is what happens when politicians get too powerful and too comfortable. Democrats had several such cases of their own when they ran all of Congress in the 1980s.

There aren't many Democrats in office anymore. Of course everything you read about is going to be about Republicans.

And when she tries to establish a "pattern of corruption" by connecting this to the highly suspect, incredibly partisan, trumped up charges against Tom Delay, or the unprovable partisan conspiracy theories about President Bush and Iraq, or the perfectly legal "outing" of a NON-COVERT CIA operative, she demonstrates how little Democrats can work with facts and reality.



And the Clinton thing was not about sex. The Monica Lewinsky thing arose when prosecutors were trying to establish whether Clinton had sexually harassed Gennifer Flowers. Their questions were entirely sensible and necessary.

 

[Cremaster77]

And when she tries to establish a "pattern of corruption" by connecting this to the highly suspect, incredibly partisan, trumped up charges against Tom Delay, or the unprovable partisan conspiracy theories about President Bush and Iraq, or the perfectly legal "outing" of a NON-COVERT CIA operative, she demonstrates how little Democrats can work with facts and reality.

And the Clinton thing was not about sex. The Monica Lewinsky thing arose when prosecutors were trying to establish whether Clinton had sexually harassed Gennifer Flowers. Their questions were entirely sensible and necessary.

First of all, the suit was for harrassing Paula Jones, not Gennifer Flowers.

Secondly, you serve as a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Rather than taking a hard look at the Republicans to see if there is in fact money laundering of funds to buy political influence, it's written off as "trumped up charges". Rather than look at the morals of an administration that names CIA operatives as political payback, you try to justify it and call it "perfectly legal", even though there appears to have been a cover-up. Rather strange for something that was "perfectly legal".

Instead, the worse thing you can imagine is lying under oath about a sexual harrassment suit. Torture is nothing compared to that. Completely mismanaging the economy is nothing compared to that. Mishandling a war with bad intelligence and the stupidity to think that the we would be greeted as heroes is nothing compared to that. Drastically expanding government is nothing compared to those lies about a sexual harrassment suit.

Where are your priorities?

 

[KCConservative]

Conservatives think that having an affair with an intern is the most disrepectful thing you can do in government. But when the Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has an affair, it's a "youthful indiscretion". When his replacement Bob Livingstone has an affair, well it's just a fluke. When Republican Party It Boy Rudy Guiliani ends his marriage with his wife ON THE RADIO, then moves his mistress into the New York governor's mansion, that's just his personal life. I'll add Senator Dan Burton to that list and you can tell me all you want that these folks are just councilmen.

You're confusing the lie with what the lie was about. It was never about the sexual indiscretion. It was about the lie. Did Newt or Livingstone or Guilliani lie about it to a grand jury?

 

[mesue]

I have been reading a lot about some of our so called representatives and many of them were not exactly upstanding citizens to begin with, and many have criminal records. http://chblue.com/aug1999/081699/criminalclass1-081699.htm

The truth is what we have chosen to represent us show a total lack of knowledge about them, the truth is our media we go to for the truth is not doing a very good job of giving us facts about any of them, thats both democrats and republicans.

There are 6 corporation who own most of the media we see from the news papers to the tv channels giving us our news, many of these corporations owns companies making a lot of money off of the war, so can we really expect unbiased reporting? I think not. Can we really expect the truth about the politicians running for office? I think not.

 

[Cremaster77]

You're confusing the lie with what the lie was about. It was never about the sexual indiscretion. It was about the lie. Did Newt or Livingstone or Guilliani lie about it to a grand jury?

This a complete distortion of the platform Republicans ran on in 2000. Yes, Clinton was indicted for lying, I've never stated otherwise. But the Republicans ran on a platform of "restoring honor and integrity to the White House". The perjury was the convenient way of going after the president, just a perjury is the convenient way of going after Libby because in both cases, prosecutors couldn't get any other charges to stick. So although you may want to believe that that "honor and integrity" was about lying and nothing else, rational people know that the Republicans were referring to adultery in the White House, regardless of how you want to spin it.

 

[Stinger]

Huh? Another republican taking bribes? Say it isn't so! What happened to their "Contract with America"? I thought that they were going to be so much more honest than the democrats in Congress had been prior to 1994.

Guess not. Bwhahahhahahhhaa

:rofl does one Republican define the entire party? Does this also apply to Democrats? And what does it have to do with the Contract with America anyway?

 

[Stinger]

I agree. My beef is that the republicans said this in their "Contract with America."

REPUBLICAN CONTRACT WITH AMERICA

As Republican Members of the House of Representatives and as citizens seeking to join that body we propose not just to change its policies, but even more important, to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives.

That is why, in this era of official evasion and posturing, we offer instead a detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print.

This year's election offers the chance, after four decades of one-party control, to bring to the House a new majority that will transform the way Congress works. That historic change would be the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money. It can be the beginning of a Congress that respects the values and shares the faith of the American family.

http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html


It is presumed that politicians will be honest (yeah right), but the republicans went out of their way to make promises that they would be better than the democrats. And guess what? They are NOT.

Also, they have made government bigger and spent more $$$$.

And it seems to me this Republican administration is going after Republicans who break that trust and there is no cover. Can we say that about the previous Democrat administration? NO. Can we say that about the current congressional Democrats? NO.

 

[Stinger]

First of all, the suit was for harrassing Paula Jones, not Gennifer Flowers.

Secondly, you serve as a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Rather than taking a hard look at the Republicans to see if there is in fact money laundering of funds to buy political influence, it's written off as "trumped up charges".

Excuse me but the guy may end up in jail, but at the least it wasn't covered up, it was prosecuted and he is facing serious penalities.

Rather than look at the morals of an administration that names CIA operatives as political payback,

So you don't believe an administration has a right to defend itself against false claims? How about looking at the morals of the people. the Wilson's, who tried to defraud the public with their phoney story? The administration did what it should have done, expose the lie it had nothing to do with a payback, that's the kind of stuff Democrats engage in notRepublicans.

you try to justify it and call it "perfectly legal", even though there appears to have been a cover-up. Rather strange for something that was "perfectly legal".

What was there to cover up? It was perfectly legal.

Instead, the worse thing you can imagine is lying under oath about a sexual harrassment suit.

So employers should be able to lie under oath when employees sue them for sexual harassment? Presidents should be allowed to engage in conspiricies to defraud the courts and prevent a citizen to their fair day in court? Why do you trivialize what Clinton did, it was a very serious matter.

Torture.................

Which has nothing to do with anything in this discussion but I note you are now trying to pile on anything and everything you can possibly imagine in an effort to make some kind of case here. What is it next a reference to Watergate?

Completely mismanaging the economy is nothing compared to that.

:rofl you need to read the NYT today, even they are having to admit how strong the economy is.

Mishandling a war with bad intelligence and the stupidity to think that the we would be greeted as heroes

Where do you get the idea that we weren't, but again I note that you are piling on to try and prove a totally seperate point.

is nothing compared to that. Drastically expanding government is nothing compared to those lies about a sexual harrassment suit.

Where did anyone compare the two against each other?

 

[Cremaster77]

Excuse me but the guy may end up in jail, but at the least it wasn't covered up, it was prosecuted and he is facing serious penalities.

I didn't say DeLay tried to cover up anything. I was responding to the previous post that dismisses charges against him of laundering money used for political influence as "trumped up", even though it appears what he did was against Texas state law.

So you don't believe an administration has a right to defend itself against false claims? How about looking at the morals of the people. the Wilson's, who tried to defraud the public with their phoney story? The administration did what it should have done, expose the lie it had nothing to do with a payback, that's the kind of stuff Democrats engage in notRepublicans.

Where did I say the administration couldn't defend itself? What I said was that the party of "morals and values, honor and integrity" is in a position where at least one indictment has been handed out to a high-ranking official for involvement in the cover-up of what appears to be political payback with more indictments likely to follow, and the Repubicans dismiss it as nothing. If you truly have morals and values, it's wrong regardless of which party does it. So don't try to sell yourself as being above it if you only consider it wrong when people outside of your party commit these crimes.

What was there to cover up? It was perfectly legal.

When you commit perjury and are indicted during the investigation, that's a coverup. The same way Clinton was trying to coverup his acts when he was indicted. How can you possibly say that Clinton was a disgrace for being indicted for lying under oath, but then say there was no coverup and "it was perfectly legal" when Libby get indicted for perjury?

So employers should be able to lie under oath when employees sue them for sexual harassment? Presidents should be allowed to engage in conspiricies to defraud the courts and prevent a citizen to their fair day in court? Why do you trivialize what Clinton did, it was a very serious matter.

I'm not saying it's not a serious matter or that Clinton shouldn't have been prosecuted. Where did I ever say that? What I said was that you cry about what Clinton did and then trivialize all the misdeeds of the Republican party. And believe it or not, there is a difference in scale. Perjury during a sexual harrassment suit is much less serious than selling weapons illegally to Iran. You're trying to equate all things illegal. By your logic a person who shoplifts is the same as the person commits a murder. I mean, they're both illegal right?

Which has nothing to do with anything in this discussion but I note you are now trying to pile on anything and everything you can possibly imagine in an effort to make some kind of case here. What is it next a reference to Watergate?

The discussion is about how the Republican party sets itself up as morally superior party with integrity and values. To me the political influence lobby money has over the Republican party is much worse than perjury. When your energy policy is determined by oil executives, that's worse than trying to save your skin when you hit on a woman by dropping your pants, she refuses, and you apologize and leave. Paula Jones never was reprimanded, never lost her job, never had any reprecussion from Clinton for his actions. Do you not understand that it's a question of scale? I use torture as an example as to the scale of Republican misdeeds that are dismissed as unimportant while they perseverate about Clinton's perjury.

:rofl you need to read the NYT today, even they are having to admit how strong the economy is.

A topic for a different thread, but this is sadly how conservatives now view the economy. If this month's economy is good, then everything's great. It about what I get now and the future be damned. Nevermind record trade deficits, spending, debt, budget deficits, all of which we pay for in the future. The economy is more than this month's indicators. This administration has expanded government and its spending more than any in the history of this country. To you that's a sound economy? I cringe that you laugh at how this economy has been handled.

Where do you get the idea that we weren't, but again I note that you are piling on to try and prove a totally seperate point.

Clearly you missed the point entirely. Let me boil it down for you.
1) Republicans set themselves up as morally superior, more honorable, with a higher level integrity.
2) Both parties are full of liars and crooks, but the scale of what the Republicans do is much larger. Not all wrongs are equal.
3) I want to support government conservatism, but the Republican party has demonstrated itself to be extremely hypocritical and is conservative in name only. I am forced to support the Democrats at this point as the lesser of two evils.

 

[KCConservative]

1) Republicans set themselves up as morally superior, more honorable, with a higher level integrity.
2) Both parties are full of liars and crooks, but the scale of what the Republicans do is much larger. Not all wrongs are equal.
3) I want to support government conservatism, but the Republican party has demonstrated itself to be extremely hypocritical and is conservative in name only. I am forced to support the Democrats at this point as the lesser of two evils.

Interesting opinions. What do you base these on? Did someone say republicans are "morally superior" and "more honorable"? Whose scale did you use to determine republican liars and crooks are "much larger?" What demonstrations led you to see hypocracy in the republican party?

 

[mesue]

The republicans have tried to present themselves as owning the rights to morals and good values. Yeah right! From what I can see of this crook Cunningham's possessions that he got for accepting bribes is that he has good taste but not good values or morals.

Ever since Clinton lied and it was blowed (no pun intended lol) so far out of proportion they the republicans leaped on that indiscretion for all it was worth and said they were bringing honor and integrity back to the office, man what a joke. They preached on family values, whose family values are they talking about?

Clinton lied, nobody died; here is the main difference Clinton lied about a sexual act. Yes it wrong for him to lie, but bottom line is no one died because of the lie.

Bush lied about reasons for going to war and then led us into that war based on a pack of lies, the downing street memo reveals that. Several members of his own staff have come forward and said Bush wanted to invade Iraq from the first day of his presidency.

Over 2000 American lives have been lost, along with a large number of our allies, along with thousands of Iraqi civilians. If this man lied a large number of people are dead becuse of the lie. Yes a lie is a lie but the consequences are totally different.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html
But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

 

[The Real McCoy]

Bush lied about reasons for going to war and then led us into that war based on a pack of lies, the downing street memo reveals that.

Please... What is it with you liberals still in the clouds who relentlessly cling to your precious Downing Street Memo as "proof" that Bush lied?

Several members of his own staff have come forward and said Bush wanted to invade Iraq from the first day of his presidency.

And this proves what? There were mountains of evidence warranting an invasion of Iraq before Bush even stepped into office.

9-11 (regardless or Iraq's non-involvment) was the spark, opening our eyes to the truth that we are not invincible and not immune to devastating attacks, a threat Iraq most certainly posed before 2003.

 

[mesue]

Please... What is it with you liberals still in the clouds who relentlessly cling to your precious Downing Street Memo as "proof" that Bush lied?




And this proves what? There were mountains of evidence warranting an invasion of Iraq before Bush even stepped into office.

9-11 (regardless or Iraq's non-involvment) was the spark, opening our eyes to the truth that we are not invincible and not immune to devastating attacks, a threat Iraq most certainly posed before 2003.

Yeah right that mountain of evidence and where are those WMD's?

 

[The Real McCoy]

Yeah right that mountain of evidence and where are those WMD's?

That's easy enough to say in retrospect, hindsight being 20/20 but try putting yourself back before we invaded Iraq. Here's some of the most prominent democrats' statements, that should give you some help



"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
~Al Gore
September 23, 2002

"Oh, I think we clearly have to keep the pressure on terrorism globally. This doesn't end with Afghanistan by any imagination. Terrorism is a global menace. It's a scourge. And it is absolutely vital that we continue, for instance, Saddam Hussein."
~John Kerry (D - MA)on Larry King Live
December 14, 2001

"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed."
~Ted Kennedy (D - MA)
September 27, 2002

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
~Nancy Pelosi (D - CA)
December 16, 1998

~"The debate over Iraq is not about politics. It is about national security. It should be clear that our national security requires Congress to send a clear message to Iraq and the world: America is united in its determination to eliminate forever the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."
~John Edwards (D - NC)
October 10, 2002

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs."
~Bob Graham (D - FL)
December 5, 2001

"We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons"
~Robert Byrd (D - WV)

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members . It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
~Hillary Clinton (D - NY)
October 10, 2002

I won't even touch on Bill Clinton's statements, even the ones that he continues to this day to make, defending the president's decision to invade Iraq.

 

[The Real McCoy]

Bush lied about reasons for going to war and then led us into that war based on a pack of lies

Again, what "lies" did Bush tell?