Sheldon Whitehouse Quotes

Rove had bridged the traditional gap between the right wing Religious fundamentalists and large business, industrial, heavy donors to the party. These groups usually diverged on economic policy and cultural values however Rove had convinced both that they should tolerate the other for the sake of maintaining power for President George W. Bush who delivered enough to each to hold them in coalition. Rove’s style tended to moralize everything for the religious right including their cooperation with major exploiters of economic self-interest. Rove’s religious tactics which were so successful was a subject of great interest and analysis, especially since Rove himself was an agnostic.

Between the politicians and the financial industry lobbyists the laws are written so that there is sufficient room for enough self dealing so that members of Congress can get rich using methods that are questionable but have been legislated as legal and the Congressional rules have been written so that they are “not unethical”. Many members of Congress leave the institution much wealthier than when they entered but have received salaries that are insufficient to build that kind of wealth. Many then accept lobbying or other jobs at very high pay representing the people and corporations who have been the subjects of their legislative efforts. Other members do not avail themselves of the “legal” self dealing as the practice is not universal.

In the beginning of the 21st century some lobbyists were so powerful that they were actually in Congressional committee markups and other closed meetings and writing or helping to write actual legislation. In prior years lobbyists would send notes or make suggestions as to wording, but were not part of the group of Congressmen actually doing the drafting. The Republican majority took this practice so far that they had lobbyists in the committee rooms drafting legislation and refused to allow the minority party members in the meeting. So lobbyists got to draft legislation favorable to the organizations that paid them while elected congressmen were not allowed to participate or even observe who was in the room and what they were doing. Lobbying scandals in 2005 and 2006 began to curtail some of these most egregious practices. Democrats, when they were in the majority sometimes surreptitiously would accept written “language” suggested for laws and then would use the “suggestions” in their draft of the legislation. So the effect and the lack of ethics was often the same but the method more subtle. These unethical practices go back even to Daniel Webster who was regularly paid a monthly bribe to care for the interests of the railroads and he introduced legislation sought by the industry and company that was paying him. At least that overt a practice has been outlawed, but so many others remain.

The representative was opposing currency and monetary reform that would have given Wall Street too much power. His son, the famous aviator, was a Fascist who was a great admirer and supporter of Hitler and Mussolini. The father however was generally liberal as this quotation and {609656} illustrate.

The State Department has always been reluctant to have the US Government make an official condemnation of the Turkish. Prior to the end of WWI. Turkey’s Ottoman Empire controlled most of the Middle East which was discovered to be full of oil. Armenia had no oil. The State Department since then (and until the 1970s) it has made it a top priority to advocate for Standard Oil and other American oil companies with the Turks and then the Arabs regardless of the morality of the situation. Despite the fact that virtually every American leader wanted to advocate for the Armenians, the State Department held fast to not
upset Turkey about the Armenian Genocide. Cardashian was the first American who openly stated what the real motivation was. See {638251}, {620602}, {620603}, {620604}, {620605}, and {620606}