What Came First, The DeMint Or The Madoff?

These days the worst crooks come from the top layer of society

Lately we've been seeing that corruption is very much a bipartisan affair. Politicians are corrupt. We entrust them with so much and when they violate that trust they should be dealt with very firmly-- and I mean very. Elected officials convicted of corruption shouldn't be eligible for pardons. It drives me crazy that political hacks set their own rules of behavior, including the loopholes that allow them to weasel out of them. Lately the shenanigans of Illinois Governor Blagojevich, New Mexico Governor Richardson and New York Congressman Rangel, all Democrats, have reminded us that it isn't only Republicans who are steeped in self-serving criminality. But today the most extreme right-wing member of the Senate, arch-obstructionist Jim DeMint (R-SC) reconfirms for us that the GOP has been a breeding ground for political corruption for a very long time-- and that they've been doing it very well.

DeMint was fined a paltry $25,000 for taking bribes in the form of campaign donations that exceeded the legal limit. DeMint has sucked up $13,559,622 since he started running for federal office, much of it from corporations whose interests he represents far more than those of working families in South Carolina. Among his biggest donors are plenty of sleazy law firms and lobbyists but also big corporations with business before the Senate, whose business DeMint always backs. Examples are AT&T Inc ($41,250), Fluor ($33,741), Lockheed Martin ($25,750), UPS ($23,250), Morgan Stanley ($22,675), Citigroup ($21,750). He's notorious for massive contributions (a nice way of saying "bribes") from real estate interests ($636,860), Securities & Investment firms ($435,996), his pals in the most corrupt of all American businesses, Insurance ($411,695), Big Oil ($133,588), etc.

After three years of footdragging and evading responsibility, DeMint is busy making excuses for his criminal behavior now, calling it all a great big misunderstanding. The main problem is that one of DeMint's many bribers gave him a "donation" for a bit over the $2,000 legal limit-- actually $68,106 over the limit. Oops.

Behavior like DeMint's has created a permissive atmosphere at the top of society, where the worst criminals, by far, are the wealthiest and most privileged people. The most recent manifestation, of course, is the case of Bernie Madoff, who bilked investors-- many greedy and crooked themselves, looking for ways to avoid capital gains taxes and other legal niceties, like the law against Insider Trading. Yesterday Congress began a "probe," although a farce would be a better description, of the Madoff $50 billion international ponzi scheme.

Ironically, Republicans on the committee, led by far right lunatic fringe ideologues Scott Garrett (R-NJ) and Spencer Baucus (R-AL), are hysterically resisting more regulation aimed at preventing this kind of crooked dealing in the future. Barney Frank (D-MA), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee has come to the conclusion that SEC field personnel shouldn't be blamed for not uncovering Madoff's scheme, even though a whistleblower raised concerns almost 10 years ago, concerns that were not pursued by the agency's enforcement division. The Democrats want to put more regulation and more law enforcement into place while Republicans, of course, are resisting and trying to place the blame on "bad apples." And so it goes.

Let's hope that the House rules changes implemented today by Nancy Pelosi-- which, despite GOP whining and squawking still allows them to offer amendments, just doesn't let them kill bills on a whim-- will help move bills along that might reinstitute sane regulatory guidelines trashed by Bush and the Republicans, to such disastrous consequences, over the past decade.