Another Arizona Congressional Seat Ready For A Red To Blue Seat-- The Last Of Crooked Wing-Nut David Schweikert?

Of Congress' 3 most corrupt Republicans, only Schweikert (right) is still in office and not yet headed for prison

In 2016, Trump won David Schweikert's Phoenix area congressional district (AZ-06)-- but he did far worse than either McCain or Romney had. This is one of those rare districts where Hillary outpolled Obama. Entirely within Maricopa County, it includes the northern suburbs of Phoenix, from Paradise Valley and Scottsdale all the way to Fountain Hills in the east and Carefree in the north. The PVI is R+9, but Schweikert isn't as safe as someone in a district that red-- on paper at least-- should be. And his congressional race is the hottest in the state this cycle.

The top two Democrats vying to challenge him are Anita Malik, who ran against Schweikert in 2018 and did poorly, and Hiral Tipirneni, who ran in the much redder (R+13) 8th district in Phoenix's conservative West Valley. As of July 15, Tipirneni is the top fundraiser for the seat, $2,466,261 as opposed to Schweikert's $1,321,631 and Malik's $242,848. Tipirneni, a garden variety establishment Dem backed by the DCCC and EMILY's List, will probably win Tuesday's primary. She doesn't have much to offer woke voters except that she's not Trump or Schweikert and in a heavily college-educated district... being a garden variety Democrat might be enough this cycle. Besides, Schweikert's a mess, a member of the far right House Freedom Caucus, hated by some Republicans who remember the vicious whispering campaign he orchestrated against Dan Quayle's son, Ben in 2012, and many of his constituents have had enough of him.

Yesterday, Ron Hansen summed up one part of Schweikert's woes in a piece for the Arizona Republic, In deal, Rep. David Schweikert admits 11 ethics violations, to pay $50,000 fine. Basically, Schweikert's crooked and there has been a constant drip, drip, drip about his behavior for several cycles. By admitting his crimes, he's also admitting he's been lying to his constituents about it since 2017, although he's still trying to slither out from under the charges, insinuating for example that though he's ultimately responsible, it was people who worked for him who were the criminals not him (a lie).

The committee found "substantial evidence" of violations by the five-term Arizona Republican stretching from 2010 into 2018 and faulted him for evasive, stalling tactics that helped him skirt more serious violations.

As it was, the violations the committee did find include undisclosed loans and campaign contributions; misuse of campaign funds for personal purposes; improper spending by his office; and an environment where office staffers were pressured to do political work.

...[T]he committee found that Schweikert was less than forthcoming and cooperative. His stonewalling tactics could be sanctioned by themselves, but the delays may have helped avert more serious problems for Schweikert, the committee wrote.

"Throughout the course of this investigation, Representative Schweikert made vague or misleading statements to the (investigative subcommittee) and (the Office of Congressional Ethics) that allowed him to evade the statute of limitations for the most egregious violations of campaign finance laws, his document productions were slow or non-responsive to several of the ISC’s requests for information regarding (Federal Election Commission) errors, and he gave self-serving testimony that lacked candor," the report said.

"Efforts like the ones Representative Schweikert undertook to delay and impede the ISC’s investigation were not only highly detrimental to the Committee’s work and reputation of the House, they were themselves sanctionable misconduct."

The committee’s report said Schweikert’s violations were a troubling example to avoid for other members of the House of Representatives.

"While all of the violations detailed above were concerning, the Committee was disturbed by the events described in counts three and four... in particular. Those counts detailed how Representative Schweikert’s campaign committee falsely reported that he had loaned the campaign $100,000, when no such loan had been made, and then falsely reported making $100,000 in disbursements, which served to adjust the campaign’s reported cash on hand that was propped up by the fictitious loan," the report said.

"These errors were not only flagrant and egregious violations of campaign finance law, the falsely reported loan improperly inflated his campaign’s finances, thus making Representative Schweikert’s campaign appear to meet its financial goals while depriving the public of accurate and transparent accounting of the true state of his campaign."

For nearly two years, Schweikert publicly maintained the matter under investigation was little more than a bookkeeping dispute.

After the separate Office of Congressional Ethics, which helps screen potential cases for the Ethics Committee, revealed its investigative findings against Schweikert's longtime former chief of staff, Oliver Schwab, in June 2019, Schweikert political adviser Chris Baker shifted tone. He acknowledged serious problems had existed and said Schweikert’s trust in Schwab "was grossly misplaced."

...The report deals another blow to Schweikert, whose Scottsdale-based congressional district is historically safe ground for the GOP. But the Republican-leaning district is the kind of suburban, relatively well-educated location that has drifted toward Democrats, especially in the Trump era.

Schweikert has struggled to raise money throughout the current campaign cycle and his best-funded Democrat, Hiral Tipirneni, had a $1 million cash advantage over him through mid-July.

For Schweikert, a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, the allegations of misspending hit directly at the heart of his political persona as a budget and finance expert.

Arizona, where there is no mask mandate, is having one of the worst pandemics of any state in the country. Today, another 3,212 new cases were confirmed, bringing the total to 174,010, which comes to a horrifying-- and increasing-- 23,907 cases per million Arizonans. The only state with a worse number is Louisiana. Many independent voters rightly blame the disaster on Trump and his enablers. Gov. Doug Ducey isn't on the ballot but Trump is and extremely unpopular Republican Senator Martha McSally is and both are are expected to be albatrosses around the necks of vulnerable Republican officeholders necks, none more so than David Schweikert.

New Jeff Merkley Bill Would Prevent Members Of Congress From Owning Stock In Companies Whose Value They Affect

When I met Jeff Merkley in 2007, he was Oegon's state House speaker and a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Gordon Smith. He was a working class guy seeking to join a millionaires club. As minority leader of the state legislature, he directed the successful Democratic drive to win the majority and was unanimously elected speaker in 2006. He ran as an unabashed progressive from day one and Blue America endorsed him. He's never disappointed us and has maintained an "A" rating from ProgressivePunch. This cycle, he and Elizabeth Warren are the only two members with perfect 100% crucial vote scores. In 2016, he was the only senator to endorse Bernie for president. This cycle, like several Bernie supporters, he is competing for early support towards winning the Democratic presidential nomination. I don't know if he'll stay in the race if Bernie decides to run. I feel like he would be tied with Elizabeth Warren as my second choice if Bernie doesn't run. You'll never find him on the list of the Worst Democrats Who Want To Be President.

On Thursday, Merkley penned an essay about a bill he and Sherrod Brown have introduced, the Ban Conflicted Trading Act, that would prohibit members of Congress from abusing their public positions for personal financial gain. Following congressional insider trading scandals in the last couple of years, involving Chris Collins (R-NY) and Tom Price (R-GA), Merkley's bill would ban legislators and top staffers from trading stocks while participating in decisions affecting their value. The next step would be to ban legislators from accepting contributions from companies or executives whose business comes before any committees they serve on, but that isn't a step Merkley and Brown have taken, at least not yet. Merkley:

The Ban Conflicted Trading Act follows two major congressional trading scandals in recent years.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Representative Chris Collins (R-NY) bought nearly $1 million in discounted shares from the Australian pharmaceutical company Innate Immunotherapeutics. Chris Collins sat on the company’s board, while he and his family members owned about 20%--  with a personal investment worth $720,000--  of the company. He sat on the Health Subcommittee of the Committee on Energy and Commerce during that time. On August 8, 2018 Collins was arrested by the FBI, along with his son and son’s father-in-law, for wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, securities fraud, and lying to the FBI in connection with his activities related to Innate Immuno. Representatives Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Billy Long (R-MO), Mike Conaway (R-TX) and John Culberson (R-TX) also bought shares in Innate Immuno.

Meanwhile, in January 2017, it became apparent that then-Health and Human Service (HHS) Secretary nominee Tom Price (R-GA), who sat on the Ways and Means Committee and Health Subcommittee during his time in Congress, had made dozens of stock trades in the health industry over a multi-year period while also acting as a top health care policymaker. While legislating, he advocated for the interests of a company he was invested in, Amgen, without disclosing the conflict of interest. And less than a week after purchasing shares in Zimmer Biomet, a medical devices company, Price introduced legislation to delay a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid regulation until 2018--  a move that would protect the company’s finances. After introducing the act, Price’s reelection campaign received a donation from Zimmer Biomet’s PAC. In total, Price held stock in more than 40 companies that created conflicts of interest for his position as Secretary of HHS.

The Ban Conflicted Trading Act would prohibit members of Congress and senior congressional staff from buying or selling individual stocks and other investments while in office.

New members would be allowed to sell individual holdings within six months of being elected, and sitting members of Congress would be allowed to sell individual holdings within six months after enactment of the bill. Alternatively, members of Congress can choose to hold existing investments while in office-- with no option for trading until they leave office--  or transfer them to a blind trust. Members of Congress would still be allowed to hold widely-held investments, such as diversified mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

In addition, the legislation would prohibit members of Congress from serving on any corporate boards while in office.

The U.S. Is A Corrupt Country-- Now More Than Ever... Is That The Swamp?

The House Ethics Committee still hasn't taken up the very serious charges against ex-Congressman Tom Price (R-GA) and current Congressman Chris Collins (R-NY), who have both engaged in flagrant insider trading while serving on committees that were able to influence the value of sticks they were trading. It's been over a year. A 29-page report from the Office of Congressional Ethics strongly suggests that there was insider trading by both Collins and Price and on July 14, 2017 recommended that the House Ethics Committee pursue a formal investigation. It hasn't.

The report reads that there's "a substantial reason to believe that … Collins shared material nonpublic information in the purchase of Innate stock, in violation of House rules, standards of conduct and federal law.” Collins is on the board of directors of Innate Immunotherapeutics Limited as well as in Congress. Price also traded extensively in Innate stock while serving in Congress, reportedly on Collins' suggestion that he could make a killing.

This is another reason why people hate Congress so much. Nor do Americans trust government. And most of the time, we shouldn't. This week MarketWatch reported that Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio is seeing a growing chance iff a recession as the U.S. enters a "pre-bubble stage." What's Congress doing to protect us? Nothing to protect anyone but themselves-- as Collins and Price have done-- but everything to accerbate the underlying problems. Which brings us to the much-shared essay by Juan Cole Thursday at Truthdig! Top 10 Signs the U.S. Is the Most Corrupt Nation in the World. I spent years in Asia and corruption is woven into the fabric of life. It's as bad here-- just not as visible. I was shocked when I was forced to negotiate at a post office in New Delhi for the price of sending a postcard to America.

Those ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as hopelessly “corrupt” always imply that the United States is not corrupt. This year’s report from Transparency International puts the US on a par with Austria, which is ridiculous. All kinds of people from politicians to businessmen would go to jail in Austria today if they engaged in practices that are quite common in the US.

While it is true that you don’t typically have to bribe your postman to deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America’s political and financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the usual global South suspects. After all, the US economy is worth over $18 trillion a year, so in our corruption a lot more money changes hands.

1. A sure sign of corruption is an electoral outcome like 2016. An addled nonentity like Donald Trump got filthy rich via tax loopholes a predatory behavior in his casinos and other businesses, and then was permitted to buy the presidency with his own money. He was given billions of dollars in free campaign time every evening on CNN, MSNBC, Fox and other channels that should have been more even-handed, because they were in search of advertising dollars and Trump was a good draw. Then, too, the way the Supreme Court got rid of campaign finance reform and allowed open, unlimited secret buying of elections is the height of corruption. The permitting of massive black money in our elections was taken advantage of by the Russian Federation, which, having hopelessly corrupted its own presidential elections, managed to further corrupt the American ones, as well. Once ensconced in power, Trump Inc. has taken advantage of the power of White House to engage in a wide range of corrupt practices, including an attempt to sell visas to wealthy Chinese and the promotion of the Trump brand as part of diplomacy.

2. The rich are well placed to bribe our politicians to reduce taxes on the rich. The Koch brothers and other mega-rich troglodytes explicitly told Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan in 2017 that if the Republican Party, controlling all three branches of government, could not lower taxes on its main sponsors, there would be no billionaire backing of the party in the 2018 midterms. This threat of an electoral firing squad made the hundreds of bribe-takers in Congress sit up and take notice, and they duly gave away to the billionaire class $1.5 trillion in government services (that’s what Federal taxes are, folks, services–roads, schools, health inspections, implementation of anti-pollution laws–things that everyone benefits from and which won’t be there any more. To the extent that the government will try to continue to provide those slashed services despite assessing no taxes on the people with the money to pay for them, it will run up an enormous budget deficit and weaken the dollar, which is a form of inflation in the imported goods sector. Inflation hits the poor the worst. As it stands, 3 American billionaires are worth, as much as the bottom 150 million Americans. That kind of wealth inequality hasn’t been seen in the US since the age of the robber barons in the nineteenth century. Both eras are marked by extreme corruption.

One sign of American corruption is the rapidity with which American society has become more unequal since the 1980s Reagan destruction of the progressive income tax. The wealthier the top 1 percent is, the more politicians it can buy to gather up even more of the country’s wealth. In my lifetime the top one percent has gone from holding 25% of the privately held wealth under Eisenhower to 38% today.

3. Instead of having short, publicly-funded political campaigns with limited and/or free advertising (as a number of Western European countries do), the US has long political campaigns in which candidates are dunned big bucks for advertising. They are therefore forced to spend much of their time fundraising, which is to say, seeking bribes. All American politicians are basically on the take, though many are honorable people. They are forced into it by the system. The campaign season should be shortened to 3 months (did we really need 2 years to get an outcome in which a fool like Trump is president?), and Congress should pass a law that winners of primaries don’t have to pay for political ads on tv and radio.

When French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated in 2012, soon thereafter French police actually went into his private residence searching for an alleged $50,000 in illicit campaign contributions from the L’Oreale heiress. I thought to myself, seriously? $50,000 in a presidential campaign? Our presidential campaigns cost a billion dollars each! $50,000 is a rounding error, not a basis for police action. Why, George W. Bush took millions from arms manufacturers and then ginned up a war for them, and the police haven’t been anywhere near his house.

American politicians don’t represent “the people.” With a few honorable exceptions, they represent the the 1%. American democracy is being corrupted out of existence.

4. Money and corruption have seeped so far into our media system that people can with a straight face assert that scientists aren’t sure human carbon emissions are causing global warming. Fox Cable News is among the more corrupt institutions in American society, purveying outright lies for the benefit of the fossil fuels billionaire class. The US is so corrupt that it is resisting the obvious urgency to slash carbon production. Virtually the entire Republican Party resists the firm consensus of all respected scientists in the world and the firm consensus of everybody else in the world save for a few denialists in English-speaking countries. This resistance to an urgent and dangerous reality comes about because they are bribed to take this stance. Even Qatar, its economy based on natural gas, freely admits the challenge of human-induced climate change. American politicians like Jim Inhofe are openly ridiculed when they travel to Europe for their know-nothingism on climate.

5. That politicians can be bribed to reduce regulation of industries like banking (what is called “regulatory capture”) means that they will be so bribed. Scott Pruitt, a Manchurian candidate from Big Oil, has single-handedly demolished the Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of polluting industry. This assault on the health of American citizens on behalf of vampirical corporations is the height of corruption.

6. The US military budget is bloated and enormous, bigger than the military budgets of the next twelve major states. What isn’t usually realized is that perhaps half of it is spent on outsourced services, not on the military. It is corporate welfare on a cosmic scale. I’ve seen with my own eyes how officers in the military get out and then form companies to sell things to their former colleagues still on the inside. Precisely because it is a cesspool of large-scale corruption, Trump’s budget will throw over $100 billion extra taxpayer dollars at it.

7. The US has a vast gulag of 2.2 million prisoners in jail and penitentiary. There is an increasing tendency for prisons to be privatized, and this tendency is corrupting the system. It is wrong for people to profit from putting and keeping human beings behind bars. This troubling trend is made all the more troubling by the move to give extra-long sentences for minor crimes, to deny parole and to imprison people for life for e,g, three small thefts.

8. The National Security Agency’s domestic spying was a form of corruption in itself, and lends itself to corruption. With some 4 million government employees and private contractors engaged in this surveillance, it is highly unlikely that various forms of insider trading and other corrupt practices are not being committed. If you knew who Warren Buffett and George Soros were calling every day, that alone could make you a killing. The American political class wouldn’t have defended this indefensible invasion of citizens’ privacy so vigorously if someone somewhere weren’t making money on it.

9. As for insider trading, it turns out Congress undid much of the law it hastily passed forbidding members, rather belatedly, to engage in insider trading (buying and selling stock based on their privileged knowledge of future government policy). That this practice only became an issue recently is another sign of how corrupt the system is.

10. Asset forfeiture in the ‘drug war’ is corrupting police departments and the judiciary. Although some state legislatures are dialing this corrupt practice back, it is widespread and a danger to the constitution.

So don’t tell the global South how corrupt they are for taking a few petty bribes. Americans are not seen as corrupt because we only deal in the big denominations. Steal $2 trillion and you aren’t corrupt, you’re respectable.

Republican Determination To Get Rid Of Ethics Rules, Knows No Bounds

The very first thing the House Republicans did in the new session was to try to pass an amendment by Virginia alleged sexual predator Bob Goodlatte neutering the Office of Congressional Ethics. A public uproar forced them to postpone the vote. In the last few days, many Americans have been aghast to read that the scandal-ridden South Dakota state legislature, completely controlled by a depraved Republican Party, has prevented prosecution of its own members who have been raping interns and pages and is declaring a state of emergency to override a voter initiative on ethics! This is what happens in a tyrannical, perverted one-party state like South Dakota:

Stung by scandal and rebelling against a state government known for its resistance to public scrutiny, South Dakota voters narrowly approved a ballot measure in November to impose ethics oversight and campaign finance restrictions aimed at cleaning up the capitol in Pierre.

But the state’s overwhelmingly Republican legislature is racing this week to set aside that new law by using its emergency powers, prompting cries of protest from voters and critics, who are calling the hasty efforts an antidemocratic power grab.

In effect, they say, the state’s voters are being told that their votes don’t matter.

“We’re seeing an unprecedented effort here by Republicans at the federal level, in Congress, and in South Dakota to swim in the swamp instead of draining the swamp,” said Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, which has encouraged its South Dakota members to contact lawmakers there.

Yesterday we outlined several cases where corrupt conservatives have done their best to evade accountability for their repulsive ethics-free misdeeds but have been forced by public opinion to resign from office. And this week Anne Weismann, former chief counsel of CREW and Patrice McDermott, executive director of OpenTheGovernment.org wrote an OpEd for the Washington Post on how members of Congress have surreptitiously succeeded in passing a new rule to shield their own criminal behavior. They wrote that "While all eyes were focused on failed House efforts to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics-- the only independent watchdog with jurisdiction over House members-- Republican congressmen led by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) quietly succeeded on another dubious ethical front: They adopted a rule designating records created, generated or received by a member’s congressional office 'exclusively the personal property' of that member and granting members 'control over such records.' Making congressional records the personal property of members seems tailor-made for the next lawmaker who, like former congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL), hopes to evade criminal responsibility by barring access to material allegedly showing how he misspent public funds." Schock was forced to resign from Congress and was convicted on 24 criminal counts in November and is still spending millions of dollars from wealthy GOP donors, fighting to stay out of prison.

Before the indictment, the Justice Department engaged in a protracted legal battle with Schock’s lawyers over who controlled thousands of pages of congressional office records from his tenure. Both Schock and the House general counsel argued that Schock personally owned the records and could not be compelled to produce them. In arguing for the right to access documents showing how Schock spent public funds, the government called Schock’s ownership claim “repugnant to the fundamental principle that no man is above the law.” In other court papers, Justice lawyers pointed out that Schock’s congressional office “does not exist and has never existed solely to represent and serve the interests and goals of Schock or any other Congressman.” Ultimately Schock backed down in the face of a second subpoena, and his indictment quickly followed.

Now, with the latest rule change, members will be shielded from Justice Department subpoenas for records like those at issue in Schock’s case, including Members’ Representational Allowances offering a window into whether members have used taxpayer funds to advance their own interests. With this change, the House essentially has claimed that members’ personal interests in protecting themselves from compelled disclosure trump the interests of constituents and the public. Such a change tilts the scale in favor of the member in any future investigation of the theft of taxpayer funds from Congress.

This rule change also represents yet another example of Congress exempting itself from the same record and accountability system that governs the executive branch. Congress is not subject to either the Freedom of Information Act or Federal Records Act. Although the Center for Legislative Archives houses records of historic value of the House and Senate, the records remain the legal property of the House and Senate.

Now, by making the records of congressional offices the personal property of members, the House has ensured that none of these records will be available for posterity. How ironic that Republican-controlled congressional committees have relied on statutes such as FOIA and the Federal Records Act to fault the practices of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, yet members have cloaked themselves in an impenetrable secrecy that allows them to escape public accountability.

This is yet another example where President Trump’s “drain the swamp” rhetoric is contradicted by the actions of his own party.

It's tempting to blame this on Republicans and it's true that the nature of conservatism in inexorably tied to corruption. They can't be separated. BUT, the Beltway governance systems are fully based on corrupttion and what's left of America's democracy-- and, yes, the DC Democrats are just as responsible as the Republicans-- is rotten to the core. The system is tailor made for the most ruthlessly corrupt among officials to rise to the top-- the Debbie Wasserman Schultzes, Chuck Schumers, Cory Bookers, Steny Hoyers, Joe Crowleys, as well as that Kevin McCarthys, Mitch McConnells, Paul Ryans, Denny Hasterts, Tom Delays and John Boehners. How fitting for someone likeDonald J. Trump to be presiding over all of this in what very well may be it's final, dying days! His regime's transition and first week are known for two things: lies (lots and lots and lots of lies-- so many lies that even the staid old NY Times now calls it lies-- "This is not a presentation of 'alternative facts,' whatever that may mean, as Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s mistress of misdirection, posited over the weekend; these are lies; good old-fashioned lies, baldfaced and flat-out lies"-- and operational denial of any and all acknowledgement that there are ethics considerations in governance. David Sirota: "A review of agreements between Trump’s top appointees and federal ethics regulators shows that none of the compacts mentions the 2009 executive order that requires incoming officials to sign a pledge to avoid participating in policies that 'directly and substantially relate to [their] former employer or former clients' for the first two years of government service. Obama-era ethics agreements included standard language obligating political appointees to follow the rule." Teapot Dome, here we come!

In The Trump Era, Who Needs Ethics Rules?

Ro Khanna is holding PhRMA's feet to the fire in the House

Former Congressman Chaka Fattah started his 10 year prison sentence yesterday, after being convicted last June for fraud and bribery charges. Wednesday was a busy day for corrupt lawmakers. Nebraska's most heinous Republican state legislator, Senator Bill Kintner finally announced he is resigning... just as his colleagues were about to kick him out of the Senate. He called a press conference and told the media "To paraphrase Richard Nixon, you won't have Bill Kintner to kick around anymore." He had been fined for having cybersex on state-owned computers with various women. His response to that was to get on twitter and carry on about how the 2 million-plus women who participated in the anti-Trump marches last weekend are two ugly to be sexually assaulted.

Although his resignation doesn't go into effect until Monday, Jim Scheer, the Speaker of the legislature, asked him to stay off the floor and refrain from participating in any debates or votes.

Kintner is a longtime woman hater, having attracted attention in 2013 by responding to a non-political question in a newspaper about what the biggest mystery in the world is: "Women. No one understands them. They don't even understand themselves." But, of course-- as is often the case with right-wing bigots-- women aren't the only group he's disdainful of. Two years ago the Nebraska Latino American Commission condemned him for routinely using racist slurs against Hispanics during debates in the legislature.

In his resignation announcement he portrayed himself as a fighter for the far right crackpots who sent him to the legislature. "[A]s much as my heart says to fight," he said, "my head says it is time to step away from the Legislature... I hesitate to do so as I know my resignation will be hailed as a victory to the progressive and aggressive liberal movement. However, one of the most gifted leaders of all time was King Solomon in ancient Israel-- a man of many gifts and many challenges. In the Bible, King Solomon’s writing in the book of Ecclesiastes, sets forth that: 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to come together.'"



Our old friend Jane Kleeb is now the chairman of Nebraska's Democratic Party. Her statement must have driven Kintner out of his narrow mind: "The Women's March just took down their first politician. The Nebraska Democratic Party welcomes the resignation of Bill Kintner and looks forward to electing a candidate who stands up for women and working class families."

Unfortunately, the governor will appoint another Republican nitwit to the seat and there won't be an election to fill it until 2018.

Now let's skip over to Florida and check on what's up with another typical corrupt conservative 4th Judicial Circuit Mark Hulsey III, who just resigned rather than face an impeachment trial the following day. Like Kintner, Hulsey felt entitled to voice his ugly racist and misogynistic sentiments whenever they popped into his crazy right-wing head. The Jacksonville judge is best known for telling African Americans who came before his bench to get on a boat and go back to Africa.

A sample of the complaints from the Judicial Qualifications Commission reveals a minefield of issues.

“Among other comments: a. You referred to the prior lead Staff Attorney as a “bitch” and a “cunt." b. You have demeaned female Staff Attorneys by referring to them as like cheerleaders who talk during the national anthem. c. You berated a Staff Attorney who failed to remain in the courtroom while a jury was deliberating. During this capital trial, you required the Staff Attorney to provide you with basic information about capital trial procedures, and then, at the end of the two-week trial, you unfairly berated, and blamed the Staff Attorney for mistakes you made during the course of the trial,” the JQC alleged.

Grace-Marie Turner is a far right ideologue working furiously against healthcare. Tuesday, Diane Black (R-TN), one of Congress' most extremist Republicans and chair of the House Budget Committee, had her testify as the president of a crackpot anti-healthcare think tank, the so-called Galen Institute she stated 20 years ago to help the GOP undermine Medicare. Her "Institute" is almost entirely funded by Big PhRMA and she is the go-to lunatic for the Republicans when they want a witness to babble nonsense about preventing Congress from passing legislation that would give American consumers fair drug prices.

Tuesday's Budget Committee hearing was about repealing the Affordable Care Act. There are 22 Republicans on the committee and just 12 Democrats. It hasn't been seen as a likely place for much resistance. But last week, Pelosi appointed two freshman firecrackers to the committee, Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) and suddenly all bets are off. Watch Khanna go after Turner in the video up top. It's well known in DC that Turner is a highly paid lackey of the pharmaceutical industry and that she carries their water but she doesn't admit it publicly and the public isn't aware of it. Khanna wanted to make sure that her deceitful, misleading testimony is seen through those lenses. He asked her to disclose her Big PhRMA donors and admit how much she's taken from them in return for repeating their self-serving messages. She refused. "If you're giving testimony to the United States Congress," he reminded her, "the public should have a right to know what financial interests your organization has."

I asked Khanna about the hearing yesterday. He told me that "[b]y pursuing an aggressive line of questioning, I was hoping to inspire Democrats to be bold and fearless in speaking truth to power. We won't win by being polite or philosophical. We will win by taking on special interests and exposing the ulterior and financial motive of the dark forces in American politics. Let's learn from Sanders. Our party needs more young Turks willing to challenge the status quo and stand on conviction."

Former South Dakota Teenage Republican Of The Year-- Is Now The State Legislator Molesting Interns

Heading into the elections in November, the Democrats held 8 of the 35 seats in the South Dakota state Senate. On November 8, they held 6 seats (and none of the 6 had been contested by the GOP). And of the 70 members of the state House, only 10 are Democrats. Every statewide elected official is a Republican and the 3 members of South Dakota's congressional delegation are also Republicans. Trump beat Hillary 227,721 (61.5%) to 117,458 (31.7%). In 2012 Romney won the state, but Obama did far better than Clinton, having taken 144,988 votes (40%). Of the state's 66 counties, Obama won 10; Hillary won 5. The Republicans own South Dakota; the Democrats barely exist there.

Last week the legislature killed a proposal that would have banned the predatory sexual behavior between legislators and their young pages and interns. Conservatives, who believe in the law of the jungle feel they have the right to rape youngsters as a manifestation of their power. When state Senator Stace Nelson, a Republican from Fulton proposed a ban on the behavior, he was rebuffed. Conservatives-- particularly, though not exclusively, Republicans-- are generally extremely hostile to ethics regulations.

A legislative panel voted down a proposed rule change Wednesday that would have explicitly prevented them from engaging in sexual contact with legislative interns and pages.

...Nelson said state lawmakers have previously engaged in instances of sexual harassment and sexual contact involving interns and high school pages, with at least one facing charges in 2007 for allegedly groping a legislative page.

"The facts are, this body went through a very public and ugly trial about a decade ago. There's been events in history that indicate these rules should have been put in stone and they haven't," Nelson said. "This is a rule we brought forth to address this so that there is no gray area."

The proposal was defeated in committee 9-4. Ironically, South Dakota voters approved-- 180,580 (51.6%) to 169,220 (48.4%)-- a package of ethics reforms in November and Republican elected officials are working furiously-- and so far successfully-- to block the implementation.

Yesterday, Sioux Falls' Argus Leader, the biggest newspaper in the state, ran a report on right-wing Republican from Madison, Rep. Mathew Wollman, who has been molesting interns. Although he denied the allegations when first confronted with them, he has since admitted his culpability to another right-wing crackpot, House Majority Leader Lee Qualm.

I remember when Mark Foley was caught molesting young interns and let off the hook by a conspiracy between Republican and Democratic leaders in return for him resigning. (Later Foley told me he would take pages to states where the age of consent was lower so he could have sex with them without technically breaking statutory rape laws.) Wollmann is claiming that the interns he molested were "of age" and "consenting." He has admitted he fucked one intern in 2015 and another one last year. He seems bitter that "my reputation was lowered, or perceived to be seen as lowered." Conservatives can't help but play the victim; it's part of the nature of conservatism.

He said he believed both were older than 21, and that he didn't feel he took advantage of his position of power because neither worked for him and both were of consenting age, which is why he thought it was permissible.

He said he hasn't hired a lawyer to represent him and would consider testifying before the committee if called.

"I can’t express how much I’m embarrassed, I understand these actions are unacceptable and I’ll accept all punitive measures that are decided," Wollmann told reporters. "I’ve tarnished the system and our title, this body as well as my name."

The state's legislative rule book says lawmakers are to avoid all sexual harassment in the workplace, but nothing explicitly prohibits sexual contact with interns or legislative pages.

Wollmann's confession comes a week after a Joint Committee on Legislative Procedure voted down a proposed rule change that would have prohibited sexual contact between lawmakers and interns or pages. House members said during the meeting that they considered sexual contact with high school pages and college interns to be misconduct.

The South Dakota Legislature last dealt with a case of a lawmaker engaging in sexual contact with a page in 2007. At that time, the Select Committee on Discipline and Expulsion chose to censure Democratic state Senator Dan Sutton.

Qualm said he wouldn't comment on whether he viewed Wollmann's actions as a violation of House rules as he didn't want to skew the results of the investigating committee's probe.

“There are some implications in there, but that’s why we’re going by the rules, because we want the committee to make the determination,” Qualm said.

Yes... "some implications." Elizabeth Warren didn't have South Dakota or it's ethics-free Republican legislature in mind when she wrote her OpEd on the Republican approach to ethics for the Washington Post yesterday. She had Trumpanzee and his crooked cabinet in mind. Trumpanzee "is selecting nominees to run his government," she wrote. "It's no secret that I have deep reservations about the policy views of many of these nominees. I will vote against some of them."

But before we can debate and vote on whether these nominees' policy positions make them suitable to run important parts of our government, it is critical that each nominee follows basic ethics rules to ensure that they will act for the benefit of all the American people and not simply to boost their bank accounts.

The Republican-led Congress wants to brush off these ethics requirements as a mere inconvenience. Failing that, they are willing to intimidate the public servants charged with implementing the rules. If they succeed, the Republican-led Congress will erode public confidence in our democracy and set the new administration up for scandal and failure.

It is illegal for any Cabinet member to participate in a government matter that will "affect his own financial interest" or those of his or her family members, or any organization with whom he or she is affiliated. The reason this law exists is obvious: Without it, federal officials might be tempted to pursue their own interests rather than those of the American people, throwing into question the motives behind every move they make.

That is why Republicans and Democrats have embraced these restrictions. The procedures and precedents to enforce them have been followed by generations of American presidents and their Cabinets. Background checks ensure that nominees are free of criminal problems or debilitating foreign connections. Tax returns and financial disclosures reveal potentially damaging information that may undermine fitness to serve. Ethics agreements provide each Cabinet member a detailed, binding and personalized plan for disentangling from any personal and financial conflicts that could create even the appearance of self-dealing while in office.

But Republicans have ignored these safeguards. Betsy DeVos, the billionaire nominated to run the Department of Education despite having virtually no education experience, has not completed her financial disclosures or her ethics agreement. Despite Democrats' numerous attempts to postpone proceedings until these essential documents are provided, Republicans went ahead with DeVos's hearing Tuesday. Without the necessary information, we were unable to fully question the nominee about her many potential conflicts of interest. We were unable to say with confidence that DeVos will put the American people first. And after depriving the American public of even the most basic information on the nominee, Republicans further undercut a thoughtful examination by cutting the hearing short despite several senators pressing to ask additional questions.

When President Obama's nominees were presented to Congress, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) demanded that nominees meet these safeguards-- and they did, no matter who they were or what they had done in the past.

These requirements are even more important today, when Trump's nominees have complex financial histories, deep business ties and billions of dollars invested in the industries they will soon oversee. Complete compliance with the law might require weeks of hard work to identify and root out the many financial conflicts of a Cabinet whose members are collectively worth more than a third of all Americans combined. Difficult, yes-- but that is no excuse to ignore them.

The problem starts at the top. The president-elect has thrown out decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax returns or disentangle himself from his business connections. Now his Republican allies in Congress seem content to permit Cabinet nominees to do the same.

Republicans have threatened to jam through confirmation hearings despite incomplete FBI background checks, missing financial disclosures, refusals to produce tax returns and incomplete ethics agreements. When the head of the nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics said his office was under "pressure to cut corners and ignore conflicts of interest" to meet these rushed timelines and criticized the adequacy of the president-elect's plans for his own businesses, House Republicans finally decided to launch an inquiry into-- wait for it-- the Office of Government Ethics. Evidently Republicans don't like an "aggressive stance" on ethics issues.

Intimidating and bullying ethics officials into ignoring their legal responsibilities corrodes our democracy. It also leads to shoddy ethics agreements, which could leave Cabinet members with unresolved conflicts of interest that might affect their official actions.

Casting aside the nominees' ethical obligations puts everyone at risk-- even the nominees. Ethics agreements provide a clear line for executive branch employees between what is illegal and what is not. Conflicts can arise for even the most innocent of government officials. Respecting the process protects nominees from investigation and prosecution.

This problem is not theoretical. Lester Crawford, Food and Drug Administration administrator under President George W. Bush, resigned after only two months on the job and pleaded guilty to conflict of interest charges after failing to report ownership of stock in food and drug companies regulated by the agency. President Reagan's attorney general, Edwin Meese, was plagued by conflicts of interest, resigning in 1988 after years of investigations into one scandal after another that distracted the nation's top law enforcement officer. Over the years, many government officials have been caught up in such scandals. These rules exist to prevent such incidents.

Congress must take these ethical requirements seriously. No Cabinet member should receive a hearing before his or her background checks, financial disclosures and ethics agreements are finished and senators have had time to review them. Nominees should be forthcoming and transparent. If those hearings have occurred, nominees who have not completed their ethics reviews should return for another round of questions after that information is made available. Senators should be thorough in their assessment and questioning of nominees. And financial conflicts with official duties must be eliminated.

I recently introduced legislation that would protect the president and vice president from financial conflicts and constitutional violations by requiring them to fully disclose and divest themselves of all personal financial interests. No such law is necessary for Cabinet officials because the laws on the books are perfectly clear.

If Congress ignores these basic ethics requirements today, the American people and the nominees themselves likely will pay the price tomorrow.

Shouldn't Senators Who Took Big Contributions From Trump Nominees Recuse Themselves From Confirmation Hearings?

Oh, look who led us astray... again

California Senator Kamala Harris could set a good example for Republican senators-- maybe even shame them-- by recusing herself from voting on Trump's Treasury Secretary nominee, Steven Mnuchin. Mnuchin, who 2016 saw giving $10,000 pops to a very specific group of state Republican parties-- Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina and Arkansas-- as well as over $300,000 to the RNC, only donated directly to one U.S, Senate candidate, corporate Democrat Kamala Harris ($2,000 on February 10, 2016). Many people feel certain Mnuchin contributed to the sleaze-tainted Harris to avoid prosecution in relation to shady foreclosures. Unless she recuses herself, Harris will have to vote for or against Mnuchin's nomination.

Similarly, Rex Tillerson singled out just one Republican Senate candidate this year for a big contribution-- Missouri Republican Roy Blunt, who took a $5,400 check from Tillerson on August 31. Chuck Grassely ought to recuse himself from consideration of the Betsy DeVos nomination for Education Secretary since she gave him $2,700 directly on June 6.

Wilbur Ross, whose confirmation hearings have been delayed by the Senate Commerce committee over ethical considerations, didn't give any direct money to any of the Senate candidates this cycle but whoever got Mnuchin to contribute to the state Replublic parties in Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina and Arkansas seems to have persuaded Ross to make the exact same contributions-- none more, no less. That's no coincidence. Was that Mitch McConnell's office? Paul Ryan's? I wonder what that money was earmarked for.

In his Senate confirmation hearing today, Tillerson lied when he claimed Exxon didn't lobby against Russian post-Crimea sanctions. This report from Open Secrets shows that it absolutely did. This morning there was a report that FEC documents show that the Exxon-Mobil PAC controlled by Tillerson contributed $5,000 each to Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and John Barrasso (R-WY), who are both members of the Foreign Relations Committee. A member of Congress who asked to not be identified told me a few hours ago that both of these guys should immediately recuse themselves or face an ethics investigation.

Does Trump have to worry about ethical considerations at all. A new poll released by Quinnipiac seems to indicate his administration better start paying heed. The "honeymoon" ended even before the leaks about Trump and the golden shower prostitutes started leaking out. Americans seem to have had enough of Trump already! Most Americans now have an unfavorable view of him. His numbers are going in thew wrong direction. After the election 41% of Americans thought he'd be a better leader than Obama, but they number has now shrunk back down to 34%, basically the dumbbells who voted for him. In Quinnipiac's previous poll 40% of the respondents had persuaded themselves Trump's policies worked actually help make their personal; financial situation better. That didn't last long; it's now 27%. And when it comes to issues involved directly with his ethics... not good. 42% saw him as "honest" after the election. After his shenanigans of the last month,that number has sunk down to 39%. And overall, 28% said that watching Trump in action since the election have made them feel more uneasy how his coming presidency while only 23% said his actions have made them feel better.

Fewer people now think he's "level-headed," "strong, "intelligent," "empathetic" and has good leadership skills. As for the two parties, people have unfavorable views of both, more so of the Republicans. Overall, 33% of respondents have a favorable view of Republicans (55% unfavorable) and 37% have a favorable view of Democrats (52% unfavorable).

It now turns out two other Trump crooks nominated for cabinet positions, Betsy DeVos and Andrew Puzder, have had their confirmation hearings delayed for the same ethics questions as Ross. After Trump's press conference today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Executive Director Noah Bookbinder released a statement on behalf of his organization:

The only way for Donald Trump to avoid massive conflicts of interest is to sell his business outside the family and place the assets in a true blind trust, where he will not have any way of knowing or influencing how the assets are allocated. By refusing to divest, Trump is breaking decades of precedent, just as he did with his refusal to release his tax returns. He has failed to live up to the ethical standard of past presidents including Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and all others of the past 40 years.

He will continue to own his business, which will continue to have foreign interests. It is absurd to believe he will have no knowledge of his business, when he will continue to own it, and it will be run by his children. He claims that he will only know what he reads in newspapers, but newspapers report which foreign dignitaries are staying at his hotel. His businesses all have his name on them in giant gold letters. He will know what they are and what legislation, regulations, or actions will benefit or hurt them.

He’s not worried about conflicts of interest because the statutes don’t apply to the president. If that sounds familiar, it was the position Nixon took when he told David Frost ‘when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.’ Just because it’s not illegal, does not mean it is right or moral. Every decision he will make as president will be followed by the specter of doubt, and will be questioned as to whether his decision is in the best interest of the American people or the best interest of his bottom line. He will also face questions about whether he is violating the constitution by taking payments from foreign governments on a daily basis. Today was his first test as president. He failed.

After he was done speaking, Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) didn't seem impressed. "It is clear from President-Elect Trump’s statement and answers today that he will not fully separate himself from his business transactions and potential conflicts of interest. He also has no intention of disclosing his financial interests, as past presidents have done. His response to these legitimate questions was simply 'trust me.' Our democracy and the American people deserve better... The legislation I have cosponsored would apply the ethical standards, norms, and precedents that have been developed over decades to our incoming administration, which refuses to follow them.  I urge Speaker Ryan to put these measures to a vote and pass them with the urgency these critical issues demand."



H.R. 371, the Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act, would require the President, Vice President, their spouses, and minor or dependent children to release their tax returns, divest from all assets that may generate conflicts of interest, and disclose all of their financial interests. It would also force the President-Elect to create a blind trust to manage, oversee, and process the sale and proceeds of his holdings. Currently, the President is exempt from conflicts of interest laws. H.R. 356, To establish the National Commission on Foreign Interference in the 2016 Election, would create a bipartisan commission to investigate and the Russian interference in the U.S. elections. It would aim to provide a full accounting of what happened, why, and how. And H.J.Res. 26 denies congressional consent for Trump to accept any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state throughout the tenure of his Presidency. The idea of this resolution would is to grant Congress the power to deny transactions that violate the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.

The Office of Congressional Ethics Caught Duncan Hunter Stealing— So He Voted To Shut Them Down

Spoiled dirtbag Duncan Hunter getting high at a committee meeting

After the Republicans were exposed sneaking around in the dead of night to back an amendment by accused Virginia pedophile Robert Goodlatte that would have shuttered the Office of Congressional Ethics so that all ethics charges would go to the wheelin’ and dealin’ House Ethics Committee— where pedophiles like Goodlatte routinely get a little pach-in-tukas and told to be more discreet— you could barely find anyone who would admit being one of the 172 Republicans who voted for it. But Duncan Hunter (R-CA) couldn’t deny his venomous antipathy for the office. A severe alcoholic with no respect for the rules, Hunter originally snuck into office disguised as his long-serving/suddenly retired father, also named Duncan Hunter. Duncan the Younger, though, is a no-account bum with zero accomplishments since first getting into Congress in 2009. He’s a vicious xenophobe and homophobe and an early Trumpist who advocates nuking Iran. He’s also a crook.

Hunter’s blood red backward district went for Romney and McCain with about 60% of the vote. His is a district the DCCC doesn’t ever contest. Hunter was just reelected with 63.9% of the vote, despite being embroiled in a congressional ethics mess which shows him stealing campaign funds for personal use, which he called— when caught red-handed, “an oversight.” So far, he’s paid back about $62,000 in illegally expropriated funds. The biggest single sources of campaign cash comes from legalistic bribes from companies with business before his committees in the sea transport and defense industries and this cycle he raised $1,188,103 compared to his Democratic opponent’s $27,016.

Widely considered one of Congress’ worst slime-buckets, Hunter is infamous for selling legislation to companies willing to write his campaign checks. And he uses his campaign cash for personal expenses. The GOP-controlled House Ethics Committee always looks the other way as he pockets the cash but the Office of Congressional Ethics called him out for it, and his cases have been widely reported in his district, embarrassing the crooked congressman and his crooked family and fueling a vendetta against the Ethics office.

The ethics office last year conducted a review of Hunter’s campaign expenses. Release of the report, and any follow-up action by the House Ethics Committee, was recently postponed pending swearing-in of the new Congress.

Hunter, R-Alpine, has reimbursed his campaign about $62,000 in campaign expenses that were personal in nature or lacked proper documentation, including oral surgery, a garage door, video games, resort stays and a jewelry purchase in Italy.

The expenses came to light after inquiries by the Federal Election Commission and the San Diego Union-Tribune, and Hunter then hired a law firm to conduct a review that has not been made public.

  Use of campaign funds for personal benefit is prohibited by federal law, as it might give undue influence to contributors. Most of Hunter’s campaign funds come from defense and transportation companies whose business is affected by committees upon which he serves.

Other things Duncan Hunter has been caught using his bribes for:

• flying his pet rabbit around the country
• gas for the family car
• groceries
• a nail salon
• surf boards

He also pays his unqualified wife $3,000/month to run his home campaign office. Another Southern California congressmember who asked to not be identified told me that Hunter “is the biggest dirtbag from California since his daddy’s business partner, Duke Cunningham got shipped off to prison… [for] doing the same kind of bullshit Hunter Sr, did and Hunter Jr. still does.” In October, the Union Tribune reported that Hunter was pressuring the U.S. Coast Guard to buy or lease a polar ice-breaking ship owned by one of his top campaign contributors, although the Coast Guard has repeatedly said the vessel doesn’t meet its needs.” Louisiana-based shipbuilder Edison Chouest Offshore has written checks to Hunter for at least $18,000 to get the floating junk pile taken off its hands. Hunter didn’t care that the Coast Guard said spending the money would be a waste of taxpayer money since the ship was incapable of doing what the Coast Guards needs. In fact, it suffered mechanical failure and lost control of an oil rig it was towing, which then ran aground off Kodiak Island in Alaska. “The Chouest funds were all received May 8, 2015 — six days before the Coast Guard was to have an acquisitions hearing before a Congressional subcommittee chaired by Hunter.”

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) turned over evidence to the Office of Congressional Ethics that Hunter was stealing thousands of dollars from the flow of bribes into his campaign coffers to use on a fancy vacation to Italy with his wife/campaign manager. Before repaying the money under pressure Hunter called CREW a mercenary leftist group who hates him because he supports Trump. He tried claiming the money he spent at an Italian jewelry store was for dinners, although the jewelry store sells jewelry, not food or beverages. So were all 172 Republicans who voted for pedophile Robert Goodlatte’s anti-ethics amendment crooks like Hunter. Probably not every single one of them but is you lined 20 random ones up against a wall, handed them a blindfold, a cigarette and shot them, chances are excellent no innocent person would have been hurt.

The Public CAN Defeat Republican Overreach— And Slapped Them Down With A Mighty Hand Today

Republican radicals, puffed up with a perception of absolute power, decided to stick a thumb in the eye of the public and pass an amendment by right-wing extremist Bob Goodlatte (R-VA, strongly rumored to be a worried pedophile) gutting the Office of Congressional Ethics. In a Republican caucus meeting Goodlatte’s outrageous amendment passed 119-74, despite warnings from Paul Ryan that it would backfire in their faces and make them look… well, like exactly how they are, the most most corrupt gang of crooks on the planet. DWT was one of dozens of blogs and news sources that rang the alarm bell Monday night.

Goodlatte had hoped to sneak the rules change through when no one was looking. The GOP passed it internally in the dead of night. But the public backlash was enormous. Even Trump, who was initially enthusiastic about destroying the ethics office, according to his spokesman, felt compelled to tweet this afternoon that the timing was bad. With 74 Republicans opposed, Goodlatte would have needed the Blue Dogs and New Dems to vote with the GOP majority. Pelosi went to work denying them Democratic support and the GOP, realizing they just didn’t have to votes from the the Republican wing of the Democratic Party— let alone the public support— pulled the amendment. His own internal GOP support started crumbling as Zephyr Teachout’s public whip count showed tremendous reluctance from Republicans who had voted for the amendment in their secret caucus to admit publicly they backed it. Most Republicans said their either opposed their own amendment they had supported the night before or said they were unsure or refused too answer. The only congress members still on board when McCarthy finally had the amendment killed were hard core extremists Pete Olson (R-TX), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Chris Collins (R-NY), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Bill Flores (R-TX), Vicky Hartzler (R-MO), Martha Roby (R-AL), Harold Rogers (R-KY), Mia Love (R-UT) and, of course, Goodlatte himself. They were joined by a few with extreme vulnerabilities when it comes to corruption, like Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R-FL) and Peter Roskam (R-IL) but not even the most corrupt Democrats who wanted to see the amendment passed were willing to commit to voting for it, not even serial bribe takers like New Dems honchos, Jim Himes (CT) and Joe Crowley (NY).

Republicans say they were undone by the media exposing their plans to the public. Congressional switchboards were flooded with calls which were running 99-1 in opposition. One crooked extremist, Dave Brat (R-VA), a crony of Goodlatte’s, admitted why he changed his vote. "Part of it is the headlines were we were backing off on ethics. So that’s not a good headline when it comes to messaging.”

Lisa Gilbert, director, Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, issued a statement celebrating that “Public outrage over House Republican’s appalling, secretive midnight actions to embolden corruption and congressional profiteering in the coming congress has forced the House GOP to reverse course. The OCE has proven invaluable to congress and the public by opening up the ethics process. Not only should it stay as is, it should be given more statutory authority and subpoena power. The Office of Congressional Ethics was created to bring accountability to a broken House ethics system. Before the creation of the office, the House Ethics Committee was a black box of inaction. The office has brought transparency and action to a moribund process and received nothing but praise from those watching the congressional ethics system. It’s great that public pressure forced this reversal, but the readiness of the House Caucus to pursue this action is a profoundly troubling signal of what we should expect in the years to come.”

Ted Lieu (D-CA), who has been fighting for stronger ethics rules and more transparency issued a statement after public pressure forced the Republicans to back down.

While House Republicans have backed down from their disgraceful plan to gut the independent House Ethics Committee, all Americans should steel themselves for this kind of failed leadership from Speaker Ryan and company in 2017.

Swift and righteous public outcry may have forced House Republicans to back down on their mission to govern with almost no ethics oversight, but Speaker Ryan is still hell bent on repealing the ACA (thereby throwing 20 million plus Americans into health care crisis), gutting Wall Street regulations and shredding the Social Security / Medicare guarantee for our nation’s seniors.

Today, Democrats and the American people joined together to thwart the House GOP’s first disgraceful scheme in the first few hours of 2017.  Going forward, my fellow Democrats and I will fight House Republican special-interest-inspired attempts to move America backward.  My fellow Democrats and I will match failing Republican leadership with innovative ideas to grow our economy, expand health security and strengthen Social Security and Medicare for every American family.

And Jerry Nadler, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee— Goodlatte’s counterpart, slammed the GOP on the House floor:

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H. Res. 5, the Republican rules package. As Republicans prepare to control all levers of government, their first course of action was to shield Members of Congress from independent ethics oversight, and to block free speech on the House floor. This is an assault on democracy, and a dangerous way to begin a new Congress.

Fortunately, after a groundswell of opposition, they have withdrawn their outrageous proposal to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics, which would have removed its independence and severely limited its power.  Our democracy rests on the consent of the governed. It can only truly function if the American people make their voices heard and hold their elected representatives responsible when they act in a manner that is contrary to their beliefs. It is a testament to the grassroots in this country that the Republicans were forced to reverse course. I hope the American people will continue to demand open and honest government as we face the many challenges ahead.

Unfortunately, this resolution still includes an equally troubling provision – a gag rule that imposes steep fines on any Member who records proceedings on the House floor, and prohibits certain conduct deemed to be “disorderly and disruptive.” This is obviously in response to last year's Democratic sit-in protesting the Republican refusal to allow debate on legislation to protect Americans from the epidemic of gun violence. After the Republican Leadership shut off C-SPAN cameras, resourceful Democratic Members used social media to broadcast the protest so that the public could hear its elected representatives demand that the House, at long last, consider reasonable gun safety legislation.

The lesson Republicans drew from this protest, however, was not that Americans should be protected from the scourge of gun violence.  It was that Members who stand up and say "Enough is enough" should be punished for taking extraordinary measures to make sure their voices are heard. That is an outrage!

This is the People’s House. It is supposed to foster free speech and free expression, as protected by the First Amendment and the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution. This provision would have a chilling effect on speech, and would punish Members who ensure that the public has access to floor proceedings.

The initial draft of this resolution would have done all this without any due process whatsoever. Although it has now been amended to include some limited right of appeal to the Ethics Committee, this provision is still constitutionally dubious, at best.

I find it ironic that, in the same week that we read the Constitution on the House floor, we are taking up a resolution that is so at odds with some of the Constitution’s most cherished principles. As we prepare to inaugurate a President who will be violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause from the day he is sworn in, I would hope that this House would be more faithful to our founding values.

I urge a no vote on this resolution.

The public and the media are going to have to remain vigilant and united during the age of Trump, especially while the Republicans maintain control of both Houses of Congress— something we should work diligently to correct in 2018. Looking at Republican statements now, it appears almost no one voted for Goodlatte's amendment instead of 119 of them. What cowardly, deceitful sneaks they are!