Do you – or anyone – really need a book of rules and a three-hour briefing on ethics in order to do your job ethically?
If you’re a congress critter, apparently so, for that’s what newly-elected members of the new Congress that’ll convene in January have just received. Nearly all of the newcomers rode to victory on a tsunami of inherently-corrupting corporate cash, but now they’re being instructed in a crash course on Capitol Hill ethics – not learning how to be ethical, but how to avoid ending up being investigated, indicted, or... in jail.
You see, in the rarefied air of Washington, one can be blatantly unethical, as long as your behavior has not technically been declared illegal. It’s a fine line, so this latest class of special-interest lawmakers were eager learners.
But, in practice, actually crossing that line is no barrier to congressional service. GOP Rep. Michael Grimm of Staten Island, for example, is back in Congress even though he was caught on tape threatening to throw a reporter off a balcony. The appropriately-named Grimm is also under indictment for 20 counts of accounting fraud. Errant Democrats can continue in office, too. Take Charlie Rangel of New York, who has been formally censured by Congress for a mess of ethics violations – but rather than going to The Big House, Rangel is back in the House of Representatives, reelected on November 4 with no Republican opposition.
There’s now a bipartisan move in the House to require annual ethics training for every lawmaker, claiming that this will enhance the public reputation of each member and of Congress itself. Dream on – who do they think they’re kidding? As Lyndon Johnson put it, “chicken manure can’t turn to chicken salad.” These so-called adults didn’t absorb basic ethics from thier kindergarten teachers, they sure won’t learn anything to improve their morality in a congressional classroom.
“Lawmakers-to-be get ethics training,” Austin American Statesman, November 23, 2014.
“Michael Grimm Overcomes Democrats’ Campaign to Capture His Congressional Seat,” www.nytimes.com, November 4, 2014.
“8 Candidates We Can’t Believe Might Actually Win,” www.motherjones.com, November 3, 2014.

Chris Christie’s pig problem

As the weather turns colder in this month of Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza, and the Winter Solstice, our hearts grow warmer and our thoughts turn to kindness and good will toward all. Unless, of course, you’re Chris Christie.
The governor of New Jersey is a mighty big man, both politically and physically. But the portly 250-pounder who hopes to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, recently used his gubernatorial power in a way that shows just how small of a man he really is.
Just before Thanksgiving, Christie vetoed a bill that would have banned the use of “gestation crates” by industrial pork producers in New Jersey. These things are metal cages used to imprison pregnant pigs, and they’re so small that the mothers can’t even turn around. Amounting to animal torture, the cages are among the cruelest devices of the generally cruel factory farm system – so cruel that McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Costco, Kroger, Sysco, Hormel and scores of other food giants have pledged to stop buying from pork producers that use them.
The Jersey senate voted 32-1 to ban the cages, and its assembly voted 53-13 for the ban – plus, an astonishing 93 percent of Jerseyans want them banned. Christie, however, contemptuously rejected the people’s will with a dash of his infamous snarkiness, calling the ban “a solution in search of a problem.”
Actually, he’s the one on a search. Only a year from now, voting for the GOP presidential nomination begins in Iowa – a state with more pigs than people, and a state where the corporatized hog industry commonly uses gestation crates. So, momma pigs must be sacrificed in order for Christie to win the Iowa pork vote.
Maybe if we loaded this cynical “Big Man” into one of those pig cages, for say, five minutes, he’d begin to understand the “problem.”
“Christie’s Pig-Crate Politics,” www.nytimes.com, November 2, 2014.
“Gov. Christie Bows to Iowa Pork Industry; Proves He’s an Outlier on Animal Welfare,” www.humanesociety.org, November 28, 2014.

The Benghazi investigation – a zombie that won’t die

Like a dog chewing a bone down to nothing, congressional right-wingers have been gnawing on the so-called “scandal” of Benghazi for more than two years, growling that there’s a dark conspiracy inside it involving Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But all of their gnawing and growling has come down to this: Nothing.
The September 2012 terrorist attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya certainly was a night of horror. The American consulate was reduced to rubble and four Americans were killed, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. But where others saw the longstanding need to fund better security at these diplomatic hot spots, GOP hotheads sniffed political red meat and jumped on it. They’ve been holding a non-stop, three-ring circus of hearings and media events ever since, alleging a massive cover up of Obama-Clinton perfidy.
But now comes a report documenting that none of that is true. There was no intelligence failure in the Benghazi attack, no order from on high for a CIA rescue team to “stand down,” no nixing of a military rescue, and no intentional effort by the White House to mislead the public. The significance of this report is that it is not some white wash put out by Democrats, but the product of the GOP-controlled House Intelligence Committee! Chairman Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, says that his committee’s exhaustive, two-year investigation found no wrongdoing by officials in the White House, State Department, CIA, or Benghazi itself. Instead of the loss of life being a product of diabolical political intrigue by US leaders, as the right-wing alleges, it was in fact a horrible result of terrorism.
So that’s that, right? Ha! While the bone of the Benghazi “scandal” is gone, the right-wingers now have their own party’s investigative report to gnaw on. Thus, the zombie of Benghazi lives on.
“Counting our blessings on Benghazi investigation,” Austin American Statesman,” November 29, 2014.
“Panel” No wrongdoing in Benghazi response,” Austin American Statesman, November 22, 2014.