Democracy Has Prevailed.

February 13, 2006

Corruption - It's the Right thing to do.

From an editorial in today's Post-Gazette:
While the Bush administration has earned a well-deserved reputation for acting in secrecy, similar cloak-and-dagger tactics are popping up on Capitol Hill, where the Republican majority has demonstrated that it can make legislation appear or vanish without even a vote.

A case in point came before Congress' Christmas recess, when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist inserted an immunity provision for flu vaccine manufacturers in a defense bill after other lawmakers had agreed that it would be left out.
Some details follow:
Now the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports that GOP officials slipped a $22 billion gift to the health-insurance industry into legislation that was supposed to cut the federal budget. The action was taken during a meeting from which Democratic lawmakers and their staff members were excluded.
Not something they sang about on Schoolhouse Rock, is it? Maybe they need a elementary primer on democracy over there in the red-tinged halls of Congress.

Here's the final paragraph from the editorial staff of the P-G:
Such tactics are more than high-handed. They are a fundamental short-circuiting of the legislative process, just one more layer in the culture of corruption that is slowly strangling Washington and making a mockery of our democratic form of government.
Can one or more Constitutional originalists in the audience (and I know you're out there) explain to me where this is spelled out in the Constitution? It's my understanding that Article 1 Section 7 outlines the process in which a bill becomes law. Where is it written that one party can highjack a bill and insert text that (in the words of the P-G) "other lawmakers had agreed that it would be left out"?

The P-G is right, it's just more corruption from the republicans. Nothing new here, citizens.

New republican motto: "Corruption - It's the Right thing to do."

And if you don't get the pun, you're part of the problem.

IMPEACH

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

anything coming from the liberal post gazette is garbage, if they said pee smelled like apple juice you libs would believe it.

Shawn said...

They're selling urine in bags now? Wow. I gotta get out more often!

Shawn said...

I mean, that is the gist of the first comment, right?