OT: Did Congress Really Do That?

As one of their very first actions, the Republicans of the House voted to gut their independent Office of Congressional Ethics. Trump used the Executive Tweet power and got them to reverse themselves.

Maybe Trump won't be all bad...

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Rick C
Reply to
rickman
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Trump won't do anything blatantly obviously crooked, which still leaves him a lot of room for profitable manoeuvre.

He's a serial liar, but he is skilled enough to produce the lie that works with the audience of the moment. He's nowhere near skillful enough to have a self-consistent set of lies.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

CEO Trump may find out that the Republican Congress, the CIA, and the NSA have very different ideas about who is actually running America, Inc. now.

Reply to
bitrex

Which one of them is most likely to think that he's Putin's glove-puppet?

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

The Republican Congress backed down on this one, so I guess for now it will still be the President-Elect. But I think this shows why Trump was not supported by the party. He isn't in the "club" and won't be kissing the same asses everyone else does.

who knows... maybe he will be able to do a little swamp draining.

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Rick C
Reply to
rickman

All of them.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

On 05/01/17 04:24, snipped-for-privacy@ieee.org wrote: > He's [Trump] nowhere near skillful enough to > have a self-consistent set of lies.

Does he need to? He's managed well enough without that skill so far.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Supplementary question: which one is more likely to care?

The NSA and CIA, I presume.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

One of his attributes has been that he makes it sound like he is saying something when if you actually look at the words spoken, he has said nothing. Often he doesn't even form complete sentences. So it is hard to hold him to what he "said".

We will see if people hold him to what he implies. So far he has said some pretty damming things after he was elected. Essentially he has said on more than one occasion that much of what he said while campaigning was just said to campaign and he doesn't even need to give it further thought.

We'll see if he continues to stage publicity stunts like the Carrier event that make it look like he is keeping his promises. More important will be if his supporters are able to look past his rhetoric and see what he actually does or doesn't do.

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Rick C
Reply to
rickman

The democrats put Trump in office.

Reply to
jurb6006

Politicians as a group do seem to need to master that particular skill.

Trump is a rather poor politician, but the Republican party couldn't find anything better, and Hillary Clinton is a woman, which frightened off just enough voters to lose her the electoral college.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

I don't know. He ran as a Republican, which the Republicans ought to have been able to prevent, by finding a less repulsive candidate.

James Arthur did find Ted Cruz less repulsive than Trump, which pretty much defines the level of right-wing bigotry the Republican Party expected from their voters.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

They did no such thing, the story has been misrepresented by the "fake news " main stream media. The original legislation requires that the authority o f the office be renewed by each new Congress, so they didn't do anything sp ecial by voting on it. The office does not and never did have the authority to enforce ethics rules, all it did was independently investigate and repo rt on allegations of ethics violations and then forward the results to the House Ethics Committee which has the enforcement authority. All the GOP did was make some minor rule changes regarding publicizing information pertain ing to ongoing investigations, they did not "gut" anything. The Office of C ongressional Ethics is a Pelosi creation so you know that means it's a bunc h of worthless garbage. Their record has been investigations mainly directe d at Democrats and not Republicans, and they're just a bunch of hot air, th ey will never catch anything big. The real bad actors in Congress and on th eir staffs sabotage the office by inundating them with anonymous fabricatio ns of corruption to keep them too busy to go after anything real.

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

ctions, the Republicans of the House voted

their independent Office of Congressional Ethics. Tru mp used the

reverse themselves.

ad...

thing, the story has been misrepresented by the "fake news" main stream media. The original legislation req uires that the authority of the office be renewed by e ach new Congress, so they didn't do anything special b y voting on it. The office does not and never did have the authority to enforce ethics rules, all it did was independently investigate and report on allegations o f ethics violations and then forward the results to th e House Ethics Committee which has the enforcement aut hority. All the GOP did was make some minor rule chang es regarding publicizing information pertaining to ong oing investigations, they did not "gut" anything. The Office of Congressional Ethics is a Pelosi creation so you know that means it's a bunch of worthless garbage . Their record has been investigations mainly directed at Democrats and not Republicans, and they're just a bunch of hot air, they will never catch anything big. The real bad actors in Congress and on their staffs sa botage the office by inundating them with anonymous fa brications of corruption to keep them too busy to go a fter anything real.

Sounds like the Republican spin on the story. I didn't get this from biased, fake new reports. This was carried on *every* mainstream m edia and even the non-mainstream media. The fact is under the rule changes the OCE would have come unde r the purview of the Ethics Committee which is 100% congressmen. The Office of Congressional Ethics would not be able to refer a case to prosecutors without approval by the Ethics Committee. So in effect the foxes would be in charge of the hen house.

You can try to paint the Office of Congressional Ethics as a p artisan office, but they have investigated Democrats as well as Republicans.

Clearly you are no support er of Congressional ethics.

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Rick C
Reply to
rickman

he

news" main stream media. The original legislation requires that the authori ty of the office be renewed by each new Congress, so they didn't do anythin g special by voting on it. The office does not and never did have the autho rity to enforce ethics rules, all it did was independently investigate and report on allegations of ethics violations and then forward the results to the House Ethics Committee which has the enforcement authority. All the GOP did was make some minor rule changes regarding publicizing information per taining to ongoing investigations, they did not "gut" anything. The Office of Congressional Ethics is a Pelosi creation so you know that means it's a bunch of worthless garbage. Their record has been investigations mainly dir ected at Democrats and not Republicans, and they're just a bunch of hot air , they will never catch anything big. The real bad actors in Congress and o n their staffs sabotage the office by inundating them with anonymous fabric ations of corruption to keep them too busy to go after anything real.

That's the way it works now, the OCE does not refer cases to prosecutors, t hey report to the House Ethics Committee and they do the referring. A lot o f their stuff doesn't get referred anywhere, it's trivial little slap on th e wrist stuff. You also have a funny idea of the law, reporting discovery o f criminal activity is not a discretionary authority, it is a duty under th e law. How thick are you that you haven't realized the mainstream media are a lethal combination of corruption and ignorance. All the big players need to be put out of business, they are a faux media.

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

If you add enough alligators, the water will be displaced and there will only be mud which means there will be no alligator food and then the alligators will emigrate to the lakes and rivers and make more alligators and then it will be alligators everywhere with a lot of mud and very hungry alligators.

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Grizzly H.
Reply to
mixed nuts

Why not. Ethics has no place in politics, anyway.

Reply to
doh

No, the enviro-weenies will claim that the DC swamp 'gator is an endangered species and stop the swamp draining. The Army Corps will never give him a permit.

Reply to
krw

Congressional Ethics: oxymoron?

Reply to
Ingvald44

On the contrary, "an honest politician is one who stays bought".

Human relations depend on people exhibiting predictable behaviour. Ethical people exhibit one form of behaviour, unethical people another, and you have to be able to tell one from the other as early as possible.

Ethical considerations may not play a big part in some politicians behaviour, but you do have to know something about ethics to know what's going on.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

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