NEWS: Democrats: Only Slightly Less Slimy Than Republicans

POLITICS: Democrats: Only Slightly Less Slimy Than Republicans

In 2005, Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham plead guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion. He admitted to taking $2.4 million in bribe from defense contractors. The Duke is now serving an eight-year sentence.

The Duke was living a pretty sweet life because he was a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which allowed him to take bribes and then funnel contracts. He had a mansion near San Diego that he bought for $700,000 below market value and when in DC he lived aboard a yacht that was owned by defense contractors. Occasionally, the Duke would have prostitutes swing by the yacht so he could put his old, nasty penis inside of them. It was a really good time.

But then he got caught. The scandal took down a few Washington insiders, including the number 3 man at the CIA, Dusty Foggo, defense contractor Brent Wilkes, former Navy officer Mitchell Wade and New York financier Thomas Kontogiannis. The prosecutor, US Attorney Carol Lam, was later fired by Republicans to punish her for doing her job and to stop the investigation from spreading to other party members.

The House Intelligence Committee ordered an internal investigation into the scandal to determine what went wrong and how The Duke got away with his illegal activities as a member of the committee. The investigation was finished last year, but Republicans controlled the committee and they would not release the report.

Democrats were outraged! The ranking Democrat on the committee, Jane Harman, fought to have the full report released.

For months! My, God, nobody would listen to the woman! Harman then wrote up a five-page summary and released it herself, without consent from the Republicans. Republicans were then outraged! The next day one of Harman’s staffers was suspended over some trumped up intelligence leak bullshit that was totally unrelated to the report. Eventually the controversy just went away.

But now the Democrats control Congress, so they can release the full report, right? Wrong. It turns out Democrats are just a different version of corrupt fucks. According to yesterday’s LA Times:

Why would they do such a thing? Aren’t the Democrats bringing ethics and integrity back to Washington? Nope. Two weeks ago, several Democrats on the committee voted to block the report’s release to other members of Congress. Forget about the report being released to the public, the dirty committee doesn’t even want the rest of Congress to see it. The Democrats are now hiding their shady part in the Duke Cunningham scandal.

The report details how many senior aides knew what The Duke was up to, but failed to take action. They were “deeply troubled” but went along with his crimes “out of fear.”

So, committee staffers were afraid of a man who was blatantly breaking the law. No wonder they don’t want the report to come out, it just solidifies the belief that Democrats are raging pussies. According to the report, aides didn’t want Cunningham to “nuclear or ballistic." That is a great point; the Democrats should take that to the FBI and see if the agency can implement it into their crime fighting tactics. "Don't stop criminals because they might yell at you." The committee staff did have time to point out the complete waste of money and fraud that was going on in emails.

Nicely done. Thanks for doing the work of the people with a snarky email. It is obvious why the Democrats don’t want this report to come out: They will look like assholes. They been saying the Republican rubber stamp Congress was the problem, when in fact it is the entire system. If this report were to be made public it would just shine a light on their dirty little secrets.

Representative Silvestre Reyes is now the Democratic chairman of the committee. He breaks down why the public shouldn't see the report.

Oh, perfect. How does this help the Democrats calls for the White House to answer subpoenas into the US Attorney scandal? The Department of Justice can just have their own little internal investigation and “incorporate changes.”

Aren’t you the same Silvestre Reyes who said this?

Ooo, pubic debates. That sounds fun! Maybe now that the House Intelligence Committee has been caught up in the worst fraud case in the history of Congress, it could take your advice and attempt to restore some
trust.

But that "fessing up" advice was only for the CIA. It’s totally different for the House Intelligence Committee. Didn’t take long for the Democrats to take over where the Republicans left off.

New nationwide precedent! Its not illegal if you don't admit to it. Come on now we can all follow int he footsteps of our leaders.

Republicans, democrats; they're all politicians.

"Dem's even MORE slimy than Repub's"

would seem more appropriate

sounds like some Dems god some shit in their closets too. face it... we're talking about the most corruptible people in our country, and everyone has a price.

Yes, because what's slimier than being convicted of taking bribes, or firing the attorney who prosecuted the bribery case as an act of partisan political revenge?

Deciding not to release a report.

I really don't see any difference, each party has about the same number of honest people and scoundrels.

I feel kind of bad. I was going off about something the other day and my 12 year old sister asked me what was wrong.

I told her that government is corrupt. From the local sheriff to the president, each one of them are a bunch of corrupt bastards.

I don't think that is the proper way to ease a growing mind into the world of politics.

To all the SG members who say FTR is only out to smear Republicans: I would like to submit to evidence article #159. Take that bitches!

Didn't think that was too hard to understand. Guess I was wrong. Ah, the message boards...

What, exactly, am I not understanding?

Ah, the thing, up above there. About the parties. One is better than the other one, because that one is bad.

I love the old "both parties are equally bad" line. Sure both parties have had their share of scandals and skeletons coming out of closets, but even a passing glance shows a serious difference in the quality and quantity of them.

A shoplifter and a serial rapist are not "equally bad".

Well, I am a partisan asshole, what with my considering one political party to be "better" than another simply because they have the audacity to better represent my political views and not fuck things up quite as much while doing so.

I'm wondering why, exactly, you're assuming that aides and staff for the House Intelligence Committee were Democrats, especially when Congress was under GOP control and Cunningham was not in prison. But hey, I'm sure plenty of Republicans hire nothing but Democrats as aides and staff.

Also, kudos for leaving out that it was ranking Republican member of the committee, Peter Hoekstra, who initially opposed releasing the full report this time around, and that close to half of the Democrats on the committee voted to release it anyway.

I guess painting it as something the Democrats did on their own to cover up their supposed role in the Cunningham bribery scandal (even though "the document fails to address whether other committee members were aware of Cunningham's abuses or were culpable", and Harman's report makes pains to note that no staff members were either aware of or took part in the bribe-taking) makes it a lot sexier. Plus it lets you call Democrats in Congress "pussies", which I'm sure is quite cathartic.

Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.

Move along.

The only thing that truly is upsetting to me is the five million dollars wasted of tax payers money that was mentioned. Of course that is probably a routine thing now with our government, who is up to their neck in debt, mostly I want to read that report. I want to see what is making those cockroaches in congress so frightened. You know what they say, you got to love a good scandal, great article reaper and keep us posted.

I'm so confused. That last post was by FTR right? Not armst? Are you like posting from her computer or something? Is she your girlfriend? Wife? No wait, your wife is a psychologist. Maybe armst is a psychologist although she looks kinda young for that. Are you a double agent? Maybe you don't even have a wife. I'm so confused.

[edit] Oh great, now the post is gone and I look like a raving lunatic...

First of all, I thought you were joking, hence my carefully horribly written response. But, I see you've got your panties carefully shoved up your crotch, so here:

First, what crawled into your baby asshole and died? It is obvious from said article that aides from both parties knew of the infractions. To think otherwise would make one a moron.

Point being that Democrats took the high road at the time. Republicans took the shady road. Now Democrats can shed some light and they are acting just as the Republicans did. Get it? Not hard. It's called hypocrisy. Sorry your precious Democrats are turning out to be unethical cunts, like their foes.

I'm wondering why you think aides for a committee are only from one party. Do you think the Democrats on the committee had Republican aides? Are you able to think through your Democratic blinders?

Would you suppose that MAYBE if Democrats are with-holding a document that it might contain some information that might be damning? Or do you only hold that sort of reasoning for Republicans? Or do you think the LA times wrote an article for the fuck of it?

I called the Democrats "pussies" for not standing up and having the courage to release a report to the American people that might cast them in a bad light. Get it? Again, not hard to figure out.

From me. My hard drive died last week, so I'm using an SG computer while Apple replaces it. For some reason the site keeps switching me over to this poor armst girl when I try to post. I don't even know her. Hopefully I don't make anyone hate her.

Gotcha... thanks for clarifying.

Nicely done..no rants today

Good posting. These are scary times in America. I go to demonstrations and write letters to my representatives regularly and still no difference is being made. I fucking moving to London or Paris or fucking Fiji, man.

I hate to mention the two-headed snake analogy, but, well...there it is.

Sigh.

Here we go again.

For those of you who couldn't be bothered reading the source article, or have FTR's comprehension skills:

Five out of twelve Democrats voted not to release the document. One Republican clearly did, since he put the vote out. Those five initially voted to release the document, and changed their votes because of the strenuous objection of the Ranking Member.

In short, the article is not about "slimy democrats". Most Democrats on the committee voted to release the report. Those that changed their votes to withhold it, did so to assuage the second most powerful member of the committee, largely to assure the smooth running of what is supposed to be a non partisan committee.

Oh, and all the named staffers in the article were in fact Majority Staff, that is, Republican, at the time.

More sound and fury brought to you by our learned screedmonger.

....screedmonger.