Ohio Dems Cross Lines on Corruption Motion
News outlets are claiming a Republican victory as the motion to recommit HR 2317 (The Lobbying Transparency Act) for the purpose of expanding the restrictions to a greater Range of PACs passed with the help of 33 renegade Dems.
More than half of the Ohio Dems were among those 33, with Kaptur, Kucinich, Space, and Sutton voting to expand the scope of the bill. Rep. Tubbs Jones did note vote.
My lack of writing time has helped me to self-enforce my if-you-can't-say-something-nice version of partisanship regarding the crafting of the ethics reform legislation Dems promised. I'm happy to say, I can say nice things about Ohio Dems.
1 comment:
Bonobo:
If you have access to UCTV from Berkeley, I recommend a program called "Conversations with History" for a fascinating dialog with some of the greatest minds of our time.
Elizabeth Warren, a professor of law at Harvard, was recently interviewed on the topic of the growing number of middle class bankruptcies in America. She told a story during the interview of an interaction with then First Lady Hillary Clinton, and her later flip-flop as a Senator.
The point is not to bash the Senator, but rather to say that big money interests, whether business or labor, really control our government these days, on both sides of the aisle, and I believe it is the greatest threat to America.
We can't reform government by letting the politicians define the rules. They have become far too good at communicating sound bites while hiding the details. Professor Warren describes the most recent bankruptcy act as '1100 pages of inpenetrable text', and this is a Harvard law professor speaking!
I don't pretend to understand how to drive this kind of behavior out of our government. The people of this country won't act until the pain in widespread -- on the order of the Great Depression. For what it's worth, I think the danger of this is great -- that the stock market is grossly overpriced and a severe correction is still before us.
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