Ellen Miller
February 24, 2005

The business of Capitol Hill has become a feeding frenzy for corporate
campaign contributors, to the tune of $600 million in the last election
cycle. Case in point: Rep. Jim McCrery, Bush's right-hand man for Social
Security, who has accepted hundreds of thousands from Wall Street
securities firms. But corruption only thrives when Congress is allowed
to operate beyond the reach of the public eye. Ellen Miller—with the
Project For An Accountable Congress—explains why constituents must be
the checks and balances on corruption.

Ellen Miller is deputy director of the Campaign For America's Future
and co-director of Project For An Accountable Congress .

Americans know all too well the corrupting influence of money on the
political process. But combine rigidly ideological politicians with a
party that has an iron lock on power in Washington and you’ve got the
most corrupt Congress in recent memory.

The right wing has control of the White House and both houses of
Congress, eliminating the checks and balances on power that America’s
founders intended. Campaign contributions—even after reforms—have
soared. The business of Capitol Hill has become a feeding frenzy for
corporate campaign contributors.

The top 50 industry contributions added up to more than $600 million in
the last election cycle alone.

Watch how swiftly the Senate will reward their credit card company
contributors by passing the bankruptcy bill. Barely a month after the
swearing in of the 109th Congress, lawmakers paid off corporations with
the passage of the class action bill—which shields them from liability
for negligence and curbs a citizen’s right to sue.

Now do we have your attention? Next on the agenda, Republicans in
Congress will be pushing a budget that cuts funding for schools even as
it slashes taxes for millionaires, and an energy plan that pays off big
oil interests, while making us more dependent on foreign oil. That's
just a flavor of what the right-wing agenda has in store for this Congress.

Corruption in Congress only survives when politicians are free to
operate outside of the public's watch. By shining a bright light into
Congress' shadowy halls and back rooms, we can make sure that what
happens in the dark is exposed in lawmaker's hometowns—where, after all,
it counts the most. If the corruption of Congress is just seen as an
institutional problem no one gets the blame. That's why the Campaign for
America’s Future is looking at individual lawmakers whose positions and
votes on issues—juxtaposed with their campaign money and questionable
ethics—make them stand out as the emblems of the rampant corruption that
has overtaken the institution.

One of the leaders of this corrupt and unethical Congress is House
Majority leader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay. Not only has DeLay been rebuked
multiple times by the usually moribund bipartisan House Ethics
Committee, he also faces indictment in a fundraising scandal in Texas
where a number of his aides have already been brought to justice.
Instead of removing DeLay from his leadership post, though, the
Republican majority shot the judge. Earlier this month, they booted the
Ethics Committee chair, removed the two Republicans from the committee
who threatened to act independently and replaced them with DeLay loyalists.

With DeLay setting the tone, there is no question that the corporate
feeding frenzy will ensue.

Likely the biggest payoff will be to securities and commercial banking
companies that are among the biggest contributors to Congress—to the
tune of more than $100 million in the last election cycle—when President
Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security starts to move through Congress.

Enter Rep. Jim McCrery , a Republican from Louisiana. He’s the new
chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee, and the lynchpin in
President Bush’s plan to ram his plan through Congress.

Rep. McCrery has pocketed more than $200,000 since 2000 from the banking
and securities companies that will benefit from privatization of the
Social Security system. In the last cycle alone, his contributions from
this sector increased by 42 percent. Imagine what the contributions will
look like in this election cycle!

These companies have reason to give McCrery big bucks. Dr. Austan
Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist, has estimated that the
president’s Social Security privatization plan could result in nearly $1
trillion for financial services firms.

McCrery—after initially resisting the president’s privatization
plan—recently embraced it. But this is about more than just a flip-flop.
Thousands of people in his district and tens of millions nationwide will
see their guaranteed benefits cut because of decisions McCrery will
make. He can’t make those decisions fairly with Wall Street’s money in
his pocket.

His judgment on Social Security cannot be trusted. His campaign
contribution record and his ties to lobbyists (two former staffers now
work for the trade association pushing the legislation to privatize
Social Security) should make anyone—particularly his own constituents in
Louisiana—question whether he will be exercising his responsibilities on
their behalf or helping out his Wall Street backers. How can Rep.
McCrery possibly make decisions about Social Security in the interest of
his constituents when his biggest campaign contributors have him in
their pocket?

Some might say that the situation with McCrery is business as usual in
Congress. But according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, 80 percent
of Americans believe that politicians often do special favors for people
and groups who give them campaign contributions. We say that Congressman
better keep his eyes open.

Even the conservative-leaning Supreme Court has recognized the link
between money and lawmakers' judgement. In ruling on the McCain-Feingold
legislation, the Court said, “To claim that [campaign contributions] do
not change legislative outcomes surely misunderstands the legislative
process.”

We’d love to get into a debate with Rep. McCrery about whether campaign
cash corrupts the political process. Or better yet, it's a debate he
should have with his constituents.

On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:47:47 GMT, "Jim," cut and pasted
more stuff which was replaced with:

Army donates ambulances to Iraqi hospital

MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ COMBINED PRESS INFORMATION CENTER

FORWARD OPERATING BASE DAGGER, Tikrit, Iraq - To help remedy one of the many
problems the Iraqis face in rebuilding their nation, Coalition Forces donated
five ambulances to the Tikrit hospital, Feb. 23.

This donation will bring the Iraqis another step forward in their effort to
build a stable system of social services, said Capt. Chad Marley, brigade
surgeon for 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division. One of the main
problems health care and emergency care workers were facing was the lack of
transportation for the sick and wounded. This donation will give the Salah Ad
Din province a better ambulance-to-person ratio.

“The people here needed ambulances to replace the older ones,” Marley said. “We
want to get them to a point where they have one ambulance for every 20,000
people.”

The province had ambulances before, but they were not up to standard for the
amount of work that was required of them, said Thamer Najim Abdulla, an
ambulance driver.

“Before we had ambulances from the old regime,” he said. “The ambulances we had
were not very fast, making it difficult for us to respond quickly during an
emergency. The new ambulances are great. I hope we can get more of them in the
future.”

Adnan Zidan Khalaf, chief of the Manager Directorate Office in Tikrit said
health care service workers and health ministry officials are very happy to have
the new vehicles, as it is the first time they have received any new kind of
transportation for emergencies since Saddam Hussein was in power.

Now emergency services will be more effective due to the acquisition of the
ambulances and a Joint Coordination Center for the dispatch of the services,
Khalaf said.

“We receive all the calls at one location,” Khalaf said. “It is much easier this
way, because we can react faster to provide first aid. It was much more
difficult to do that with the equipment we had before. If there is an emergency,
anyone can call for help at the provincial Joint Coordination Center.”
To return to the U.S. Central Command home page, click here.


John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
John H wrote:
On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:47:47 GMT, "Jim," cut and
pasted
more stuff which was replaced with:

Army donates ambulances to Iraqi hospital


The wind blew, the bullship flew, and in walked Simple Simon Herring,
bearing idiotic "good news."

Damn Harry, you must have a miserable life.

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Calif Bill wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...

John H wrote:

On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:47:47 GMT, "Jim," cut and

pasted

more stuff which was replaced with:

Army donates ambulances to Iraqi hospital


The wind blew, the bullship flew, and in walked Simple Simon Herring,
bearing idiotic "good news."


Damn Harry, you must have a miserable life.




We shouldn't be in Iraq, and "donated" stuff doesn't make up for the
100,000 Iraqis we've killed and all their infrastructure we've blown up.

According to you, we should have nuked the Middle East, and then removed the
oil, from the glassy fields.

Aren't you the person who wanted to bomb Iraq into the stone age?


"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Calif Bill wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...

John H wrote:

On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:47:47 GMT, "Jim," cut and

pasted

more stuff which was replaced with:

Army donates ambulances to Iraqi hospital


The wind blew, the bullship flew, and in walked Simple Simon Herring,
bearing idiotic "good news."


Damn Harry, you must have a miserable life.




We shouldn't be in Iraq, and "donated" stuff doesn't make up for the
100,000 Iraqis we've killed and all their infrastructure we've blown up.

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Calif Bill wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...

Calif Bill wrote:

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...


John H wrote:


On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:47:47 GMT, "Jim," cut
and

pasted


more stuff which was replaced with:

Army donates ambulances to Iraqi hospital


The wind blew, the bullship flew, and in walked Simple Simon Herring,
bearing idiotic "good news."


Damn Harry, you must have a miserable life.




We shouldn't be in Iraq, and "donated" stuff doesn't make up for the
100,000 Iraqis we've killed and all their infrastructure we've blown up.


According to you, we should have nuked the Middle East, and then removed
the
oil, from the glassy fields.



Yeah, well, it took me a couple of days to realize that approach was
wrong, and then I dropped that idea and said so. That puts me
"several-up" on the POTUS, who told us there were WMDs and more in Iraq,
got all sorts of reports there were not, then invaded anyway, and
found no WMDs.

Rigid personality is not what you want in a national leader.

Oh, you would of nuked and then in those famous words from "Independence
Day" . . . Oops.

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Calif Bill wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...

Calif Bill wrote:

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...


Calif Bill wrote:


"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...



John H wrote:



On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:47:47 GMT, "Jim," cut

and

pasted



more stuff which was replaced with:

Army donates ambulances to Iraqi hospital


The wind blew, the bullship flew, and in walked Simple Simon
Herring,
bearing idiotic "good news."


Damn Harry, you must have a miserable life.




We shouldn't be in Iraq, and "donated" stuff doesn't make up for the
100,000 Iraqis we've killed and all their infrastructure we've blown
up.


According to you, we should have nuked the Middle East, and then
removed

the

oil, from the glassy fields.



Yeah, well, it took me a couple of days to realize that approach was
wrong, and then I dropped that idea and said so. That puts me
"several-up" on the POTUS, who told us there were WMDs and more in Iraq,
got all sorts of reports there were not, then invaded anyway, and
found no WMDs.

Rigid personality is not what you want in a national leader.


Oh, you would of nuked and then in those famous words from "Independence
Day" . . . Oops.



You don't seem to read too well, doofus.

At which point whould you have said 'Oops'?