Incompetent Elected Officials

Texas Gov. Rick Perry: Ethics Hero REVOKED, Integrity Missing

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Wow, that was fast.

Rick Perry has Jenny McCarthy's vote back...and that's worth a little more cervical cancer, right Governor?

It didn’t take long for newly-minted GOP presidential contender Rick Perry, now leading in the polls, to tell us what we needed to know about his values and integrity.

He doesn’t have them.

Back in 2007, I awarded Perry an Ethics Hero designation for leading Texas to become the first state in the nation to mandate vaccination of young girls for the human papilloma virus, or HPV, which is sexually transmitted and can cause cervical cancer. “Requiring young girls to get vaccinated before they come into contact with HPV is responsible health and fiscal policy that has the potential to significantly reduce cases of cervical cancer and mitigate future medical costs,” Perry said then in a news release explaining his executive order. Now, however, Perry is declaring what I thought was a courageous decision four years ago “a mistake.”

I hereby revoke his Ethics Hero award. Continue reading →

The Disgrace of the Health Care Reform Debacle, Brought Into Focus

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Nice image. Unfortunately, the open book is "Catch 22"

“Some prominent academics have argued that the individual mandate is a clearly constitutional exercise of the federal government’s taxing power. Some of these same academics have argued that opponents of the individual mandate’s constitutionality are well outside the legal mainstream. Yet as of today, there has not been a single federal court — indeed, perhaps not even a single federal judge — who has accepted the taxing power argument. Not a one. And yet a half-dozen federal judges have found the mandate to be unconstitutional. So which arguments are outside of the mainstream again?”

Thus did Jonathan Adler, Case Western law professor and Director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation, chide the arrogant supporters of the health care reform act who dismissed as wackos and radicals critics who were alarmed at its intrusions onto personal freedom. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ rejection of the individual mandate, the provision requiring all adult citizens to buy private health insurance, is the most striking proof yet of the arrogant, unethical, dishonest, corrupt and incompetent manner in which the Democratic majority passed its version of health care reform. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day #3 on “Ethics Dunces: The Senate and House Leadership”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Come back, Ross! We need your charts!

The third Comment of the Day on this “Comment of the Day Friday” is an epic from Michael, expanding on the theme of my original post.

“I hate the fact that no one is talking facts, only ideology. In such an atmosphere, these selections make sense. The S&P statement said our downgrade was because we failed to tacked long-term indebtedness especially the main drivers of long-term debt: Medicare and SS, but no one really wants to deal with that. To talk facts, you really need some tables, figures, and analysis. I’m not just talking about politicians, here. Isn’t this the reason we tolerate the media? Aren’t they supposed to keep us informed of about things like this so we can then get outraged by such a stupid selection of people to ‘fix’ our problem.

“Why can’t we find a news outlet that will break things down like this?” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: The Senate and House Leadership

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The names are in.

As part of the pathetic, cynical and inadequate budget deal to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, Republicans and Democrats were called upon to assemble a bi-partisan “super committee” of twelve House members and Senators, chosen by the respective leaders from both parties, to come up with a way to close the deficit. Now that the S&P ratings downgrade has embarrassed the nation, destabilized foreign markets and sent an unambiguous message that the United States has to get serious about balancing the books and fast, have our political leaders responded to the challenge by choosing elected representatives of states and districts who have track records of collaboration, political courage, truthtelling and placing the best interests of the nation over narrow electoral fundraising and ideological objectives?

Naaa.

What, are you surprised? The leaders of the House and Senate have met our lowest expectations, and have chosen a hyper-partisan group to make up the super committee, guaranteeing that it will be super-contentious and super-ineffective. The degree to which this represents an abdication of their duties of leadership and responsible government is impossible to exaggerate. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

A symptom and a cause

“You name it, they’re there to diminish it, destroy it.”

—-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.), quoted in the Washington Post today, describing the Republican Party.

If you listen to talk radio, as I, unfortunately, must, you hear statements like Pelosi’s all the time. Conservative talk show host Mark Levin, for example, will say, every day, usually more than once, loudly, that liberals/Democrats/ Obama “want to destroy America.” (Then he plugs his book. Or says, “Just like identity thieves want to destroy your credit!” and does an ad for “Lifelock.”)  It is irresponsible, hateful and ignorant for Levine (and Rush, and Monica Crowley, and lots of others) to make this and similar statements, though in Levine’s case, at least, not insincere, for he clearly believes every bit of it.

These are just talk show hosts, however. They are at least 50% entertainers, and 100% partisans, though they still have ethical duties of honesty, fairness, civility and responsibility which they regularly toss to the winds in the interest of ratings. They don’t meet their profession’s ethical standards, even though those standards are  low.

Pelosi’s are much, much higher, for she is an elected official of the United States of America. Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Tennessee State Rep.Joe Armstrong

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

SEDITION!

In a “who most deserves to have to resign?” contest between Tennessee State Rep. Joe Armstrong and sexting New Jersey County Commissioner Louis Magazzu,  Armstrong wins by a lap. The University of Tennessee bookstore has pulled a brand of novelty breath mints from its shelves, in compliance with a request from Armstrong, a loyal and incompetent Democrat. The mints  lampooned President Obama. They were packaged in tin cans with an  image of Obama and the motto, “This is change? Disappoint-mints.” The horror.

Armstrong said that the mints were offensive. Oh weally? Izzums wittle feewings wounded because evewyone doesn’y wuv your bewuvved weader? Continue reading →

No Winners, Only Losers in the Debt Ceiling Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I object to “a pox on all their houses” assessments on principle, because it encourages the lack of accountability. If everyone is at fault, nobody is at fault, or at least nobody will be willing to accept responsibility as long as he or she or they can point fingers at someone else. Reading all of the clichéd “Winners and Losers” columns in the media this morning as the debt ceiling crisis winds down, however, convinces me that there were no winners, only losers, in this sorry spectacle. In the latter group I include the writers of the “Winners and Losers” pieces, which are all just spin, obvious and biased attempts to extract a writer’s favorites from the train wreck using the rhetorical Jaws of Life.

They are all losers, all of them, together with the United States of America. The perfect storm of cowardly, irresponsible, reckless, stupid and arrogant leadership weakened the recovery, weakened the economy, weakened foreign faith in American investments, weakened American prestige, split the Republican Party, revealed the Democratic Party as hell-bent on chasing the European-style nanny state even as their model is crumbling abroad, exposed the Tea Party as a unmannerly mess of deluded doctrinaire ideologues with no grasp of political or economic realities, and most disastrously of all, showed the American President to be hopelessly, pathetically, frighteningly weak, devoid of leadership skills and leaderly instincts. Continue reading →

Fick* of the Month: Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

 

Rep. Walsh says that President Obama has no shame. He should know: having no shame is something of a specialty of Walsh's.

Freshman U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill) is a vocal Tea Party champion dedicated to fiscal responsibility, meeting obligations, protecting the future for our children, and living within our means. How does he reconcile these values with the fact that he owes $117,437 in child support to his ex-wife and three children?

He can’t. It’s impossible. Walsh is the epitome of a political hypocrite, and because he is shameless about his despicable failure to meet his family obligations, he is also a fick. In fact, he is the Ethics Alarms Fick of the Month.

To be fair, Walsh disputes the amount that his wife claims he owes her in the suit she recently filed. You know what? It doesn’t matter how much he owes. Ethically, he is just as much of a fraud and a fick whether he owes $100,000, $25,000, or $500. For this is the self-righteous freshman Congressman who says,  in a video speech lecturing President Obama on fiscal responsibility, “I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!” ”Have you no shame, sir?” he asks. Continue reading →

In Marion’s Footsteps: the Jaw-Dropping Shamelessness of Harry Thomas Jr.

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

A true role model: Washington D.C. politicians ask, "What would Marion Barry do?"

The most notable scoundrel in recent Washington D.C. government history is former mayor and current City Council member Marion Barry, he of  “The bitch set me up!” fame. What marked Barry was and is his remarkable shamelessness. Whether he was caught smoking crack, or giving government salaries to girlfriends, or not paying his taxes, or engaging in any number of other public and personal outrages, his attitude has always been to shrug his shoulders and presume that everyone will just let him go on being an elected political leader, as if his complete disrespect for law, honesty and responsibility is irrelevant to his qualifications to serve. And you know what? In the District of Columbia, he is correct.

He is also not alone in this attitude, in part because Barry has helped mightily to warp the ethical culture in his city over the past three decades. His most recent disciple is D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), who has just agreed to repay the District $300,000 of the taxpayer dollars he misappropriated  for his personal and political use. D.C. Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan announced last week that his office was withdrawing a one million dollar lawsuit against Thomas in exchange for that settlement, saving the District the cost of litigation. The lawsuit had been backed up with strong evidence that Thomas used public funds to fund golf trips to Pebble Beach, buy himself an Audi SUV, and in a nice touch of class, pay for a $143.71 visit to Hooters. Funds budgeted by the council for youth baseball was diverted by Thomas to Team Thomas, a nonprofit founded and controlled by the Council member. Naturally, Thomas also was shown to have engaged in plenty of old-fashioned graft,  soliciting gifts and contributions from private businesses contracting with the city.

Is Thomas ashamed? Contrite? Apologetic? Nah! And he isn’t planning on leaving his job, either. Instead, he issued this nauseating statement, saying in part: Continue reading →

Rep. Wu and the Scourge of Government by Ventriloquist Dummies

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I have a 90% completed post tentatively entitled “Why We Are Doomed” sitting in my drafts file, and I can’t bring myself to finish or post it. I don’t want to believe we are doomed, so the Golden Rule keeps telling me that I shouldn’t be trying to convince others we are doomed. I believe in hope. I believe that cultures, especially this culture, can do the right thing and still be successful, provided that they can find leaders and role models who represent and encourage ethical values.

On the other hand, I really do believe we, that is to say, the United States of America, are probably doomed.

A story unfolding now, a sad saga that has really been unfolding for a long time, illustrates one of the factors I lament over in my languishing draft. Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) has been accused of an “unwanted sexual encounter” with the teenage daughter of a longtime friend. We have to be careful here, but there seems to be little doubt that the “encounter” occurred.  The Oregonian has reported that sources aware of the incident say that Congressman Wu, who is 56, “acknowledged a sexual encounter to his senior aides but insisted it was consensual.”

Wu has been a train wreck waiting to happen for a long, long time. Continue reading →