Do Congressmen Really Get Away With Taking Bribes? You Bet'cha!

"The real scandal in Washington isn't what's illegal; it's what's legal." It's why I'm always writing about "legalistic bribes" and it's how 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft began his report Sunday on how congressmembers skirt the law to profit from their offices. Watch it above and keep in mind that corruption is very bipartisan in Washington and that "everyone" in DC is aware of it, but no one back in the states know their Member is a crook.

The Hoover Institution's Peter Schweitzer: "I think campaign fundraising is increasingly not just about winning elections; it's a lifestyle subsidy… Like all things in Washington, the devil is in the details and loopholes are usually put in place for a reason." That's why Leadership PACs are not technically campaign funds and exempt from the prohibition that prevents Members of Congress from using campaign funds for personal expenses. They are political slush funds, "essentially personal political expense accounts financed largely by lobbyists and special interest groups."

Members will keep the leadership PAC and they will use it in retirement for everything that is vaguely a political expense. If they become a lobbyist, which is what half of the Members who leave Congress do nowadays, that becomes their lobbying slush-fund. It keeps going-- at least until death. Evene beyond death, someone else is spending that money.

As we said earlier, it's against the law to use campaign funds for personal use. But [CREW's Melanie] Sloan says it's perfectly acceptable to use campaign funds to hire your wife, husband, children, grandchildren and in-laws… Sloan says there are at least 75 Members of Congress who have hired members of their family to work on their campaign and paid them with political contributions.

Ostensibly, Ron Paul was the worst-- with 6 members of his family living off his campaign donations. He used some of that cash-- over $300,000 worth-- that was flowing in from the true believers to feather the nests of relatives. But Buck McKeon's wife, who's an incompetent dingbat, is one of the most highly paid campaign treasurers in Washington-- and the one whose reports are most frequently revised because of moronic errors. McKeon even ran his wife for the state legislature-- she lost miserably-- so that she could take in bribes from his big defense contractor supporters, bribes that went directly into the family income. He also employs some of his unemployable children doing make-work-- for lots of money.

The fish, though, rots from the head. This is the human garbage Congress elected Speaker: