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Banned
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Originally Posted by MrSelfDestruct
I do not believe in government handouts. I feel that the current welfare system hurts the economically impoverished more than it helps, in many cases. I do not think that these people should be abandoned, therefore I propose the following welfare reform:................
Every Friday, welfare recipients would be tested for ilegal substances. Those who tests came back clean would recieve their welfare payments on the folowing Monday. Anyone found having used illegal substances for two consecutive weeks would be given vouchers for treatment at a rehab facility. After completing the rehab program, any further use of illegal substances would result in detention in a state-run rehab facility (a nice way of saying prison hospital) until they were certified to be clean of whatever they were in rehab for.
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It is certainly your right to focus your attention on screening and possibly detaining welfare recipients who fail your proposed screening.
I am distracted by the spectacle of the U.S. House of Representatives majority leader, who is repeatedly investigated for ethics violations that have resulted in repeated findings by the house ethics committee, that he has engaged in questionable conduct, including seriously abusing the authority of his office.
Quote:
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=DeLay+Draws+Third+Rebuke+%28washingtonpost.com%29&btnG=Search">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12933-2004Oct6.html</a>
DeLay Draws Third Rebuke
Ethics Panel Cites Two Situations
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 7, 2004; Page A01
The House ethics committee last night admonished Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for asking federal aviation officials to track an airplane involved in a Texas political spat, and for conduct that suggested political donations might influence legislative action.
The two-pronged rebuke marked the second time in six days -- and the third time overall -- that the ethics panel has admonished the House's second-ranking Republican. The back-to-back chastisements are highly unusual for any lawmaker, let alone one who aspires to be speaker, and some watchdog groups called on him to resign his leadership post.
The ethics committee, five Republicans and five Democrats who voted unanimously on the findings, concluded its seven-page letter to DeLay by saying: "In view of the number of instances to date in which the committee has found it necessary to comment on conduct in which you have engaged, it is clearly necessary for you to temper your future actions to assure that you are in full compliance at all times with the applicable House rules and standards of conduct."
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As "freepers" enthusiastically reported,Tom Delay struck back at the Democrat who initiated etihics complaints against him:
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<a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1283687/posts">http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1283687/posts</a>
ETHICS REPORT TURNS TABLE ON DELAY ACCUSER
The Houston Chronicle ^ | 19 November 2004 | LARRY MARGASAK
Posted on 11/19/2004 4:14:08 AM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
WASHINGTON -- The House ethics committee Thursday night turned the tables on Majority Leader Tom DeLay's accuser, scolding Rep. Chris Bell for exaggerating misconduct allegations against the GOP leader. While the complaint by Bell, D-Houston, led to an ethics report that admonished DeLay, Bell nonetheless violated a rule barring "innuendo, speculative assertions or conclusory statements," a committee letter said. The committee's Republican chairman and senior Democrat used the letter to Bell to warn lawmakers that making exaggerated allegations of wrongdoing could result in disciplinary action against the accuser.
Bell was not disciplined. He lost in a primary earlier this year because of a DeLay-engineered redistricting plan. In the future, exaggerations and misstatements also could lead to dismissal of a complaint, said the letter from Chairman Joel Hefley, R-Colo., and senior Democrat Alan Mollohan of West Virginia. The panel they lead is formally called the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Bell's complaint was not dismissed, the letter said, because it contained allegations against DeLay, R-Sugar Land, that warranted consideration.
The committee concluded in October that DeLay appeared to link political donations to a legislative favor and improperly persuaded U.S. aviation authorities to intervene in a Texas political dispute. The ethics panel is expected to outline new guidelines on fund raising and proper uses of political power in the wake of the DeLay admonishment. Bell said he was pleased that the ethics committee admonished DeLay in October and added, "I gladly accept the chairman and ranking member's letter of clarification of the committee's rules on the proper procedure for filing an ethics complaint." However, Bell also expressed "grave concerns" that the committee's letter to him would "intimidate other members from coming forward.
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Tom Delay holds the second most powerful office in the 435 member house.
He has been the subject of a still to be concluded crminal investigation by a
Texas prosecutor in his home congressional district for a number of months.
Apparently anticipating that he would be indicted and criminally prosecuted, Delay attempted unsuccessfully to persuade a majority of House members to vote for a rules change that would have reversed a house rule that would require him to relinquish his leadership post if he is indicted in Texas.
Now, the NY Times reports that two corporations with close ties to Tom Delay, one been indicted by the Texas prosecutor and the other also under scrutiny in the same investigation that is examining Delay's activities, have "donated" large amounts to Delay's legal defense fund:
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13delay.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13delay.html</a>
As DeLay's Woes Mount, So Does Money
By PHILIP SHENON and ROBERT PEAR
Published: March 13, 2005
ASHINGTON, March 12 - A legal defense fund established by Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, has dramatically expanded its fund-raising effort in recent months, taking in more than $250,000 since the indictment last fall of two his closest political operatives in Texas, according to Mr. DeLay's latest financial disclosure statements.
The list of recent donors includes dozens of Mr. DeLay's House Republican colleagues, including two lawmakers who were placed on the House ethics committee this year, and several of the nation's largest corporations and their executives.
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Among the corporate donors to the defense fund is Bacardi U.S.A., the Florida-based rum maker, which has also been indicted in the Texas investigation, and Reliant Energy, another major contributor to a Texas political action committee formed by Mr. DeLay that is the focus of the criminal inquiry. Groups seeking an overhaul of Congressional ethics rules have long complained that companies might seek the favor of powerful lawmakers by contributing to their legal defense funds.</B>
While the disclosure forms show that the defense fund has raised nearly $1 million since its establishment in 2000 and that Mr. DeLay is continuing to pick up generous donations from House Republicans and corporate executives, the documents also suggest that the majority leader's fund-raising efforts could soon be outpaced by ballooning legal bills.
The disclosure statements show that Mr. DeLay, whose title as majority leader makes him the second most powerful Republican in the House and whose fund-raising tactics led the House ethics committee to admonish him last year, paid $370,000 in legal fees last year - $260,000 of it in the final three months of the year.
The fees were divided among lawyers in Washington and Mr. DeLay's home state of Texas, where he is facing scrutiny by a grand jury in Austin over his role in the creation and management of Texans for a Republican Majority, the political action committee that he helped establish in 2001. The committee has been accused of funneling illegal corporate donations to state Republican candidates in the 2002 elections.
The local prosecutor in Austin has refused to rule out criminal charges against Mr. DeLay, who under House rules would be forced to step down from his leadership position if indicted. A grand jury in the case issued indictments last September against James W. Ellis, the director of Mr. DeLay's national political action committee; a major Washington-based fundraiser for Mr. DeLay, Warren M. RoBold; and eight companies that donated to the committee.
Mr. Delay could face new legal bills over a swirl of allegations made against him and other House members, Republicans and Democrats, that they accepted foreign trips from lobbyists and registered foreign agents, in violation of House rules. This week, a coalition of government-watchdog groups, including Common Cause, Judicial Watch and Public Citizen, called for an ethics committee investigation into the travel, which included elaborate trips to Britain and South Korea.
Brent C. Perry, a Houston lawyer who runs the defense fund, known formally as the Tom DeLay Legal Expense Trust, said in an interview that donations continued to flow in this year, despite recent unflattering publicity for Mr. DeLay as a result of the criminal investigation in Texas and continuing attacks on his fundraising activities from Congressional Democrats and campaign-finance watchdog groups. Mr. Perry said he was convinced the fund would have no trouble raising the money needed to pay Mr. DeLay's legal bills.
"There's tremendous support for helping Mr. DeLay pay these bills," he said. "So far we haven't encountered any reluctance."
He suggested that the publicity over Mr. DeLay's legal troubles might actually help in raising money. "Certainly, knowing the need exists doesn't hurt," he said.
Mr. Perry said that while he had no calculations of Mr. DeLay's legal expenses so far this year, the lawyers' bills for the first three months of the year would be less than for the last quarter of 2004, largely because the House ethics committee ended a major investigation of Mr. DeLay last year. As a result of that inquiry, the committee admonished Mr. DeLay for appearing to link political donations to support for legislation involving the energy industry.......
<b>The list of corporate donors to the fund includes several large national companies, among them AMR, the parent company of American Airlines; Bell South; Coors Brewing; Exxon Mobil, and Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.</b>
Some of the corporate donors have also become entangled in the grand jury investigation in Texas that is focused on Texans for a Republican Majority and the role of Mr. DeLay and several of his political operatives in its management.
The disclosure statements show that Bacardi U.S.A., which has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges in Texas, has contributed a total of $3,000 to help pay Mr. DeLay's legal bills. Reliant Energy of Houston, another major contribution, and its subsidiaries have donated a total of $20,000 to the defense fund.
Pat Hammond, a Reliant spokeswoman, said the company had recently changed its senior management "and because of that, we can't comment on what might have motivated the previous management to make a contribution." She said, "This team is committed to conducting its business with integrity and putting some of the matters from the past behind us." A spokeswoman for Bacardi did not return phone calls for comment.
Documents introduced into evidence in a civil trial in Texas last month showed that Mr. DeLay had a larger role in raising corporate donations for the political action committee than previously known.
The documents, subpoenaed from the files of an indicted former fund-raiser for Mr. Delay as a result of a civil lawsuit against the political action committee, suggested that Mr. DeLay or someone in his Washington office had accepted a $25,000 check from Reliant in 2002 that was forwarded to Texans for a Republican Majority, and that he had a direct role in soliciting contributions from other corporations on the committee's behalf.
In his most detailed comments to date about the grand jury investigation, Mr. DeLay said at a news conference in Washington this week that he was among the people responsible for the creation of the committee - "it was my idea, or it was our idea" - and that all of the group's fund-raising activities had been carefully reviewed by lawyers.
"When you have lawyers advising you every step of the way in writing, it is very hard to make a case stick," he said, describing the earlier indictments in the Texas investigation as "frivolous."
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Tom Delay's misconduct and alleged criminal activities, and the complicity and
the corporate financial support he is receiving from already indicted Bacardi and by the unindicted list of major corporations, IMO, is a much greater cause for concern than whether there is welfare cheating going undetected.
Delay and his corporate supporters flaunt the law, and by their disappointing and appalling example, because they should know better, make it more difficult to send a message to the public that they should, of their own volition, respect and obey the law because it is good citizenship to do so. |