I have often said that, contrary to what the Democrats would have you believe, the culture of corruption runs across both aisles in Congress and involves members of both parties. Nancy Pelosi did not want you to know that when she was running around the country talking about the Republican culture of corruption but the fact is, her party has its own demons. Murtha has a 30 year record of skirting ethics to get what he wants and recently William Jefferson was caught with cold cash, right out of his freezer. Of course, many of the followers of the Democratic Party ignore these things because they blindly believe that their leaders are elitists and need to do these things for the greater good of mankind.
Bella Pelosi vowed that there would be ethics reform. She vowed that there would be no special favors and that lobbyists would not spend money on members of Congress because it was improper. Then the ethical Ms. Pelosi exempted a company in her district from the minimum wage increase she pushed through. On top of that, the Democrats left a lot of loopholes in the ethics reform so that they could be exploited. Members of both parties are exploiting these loopholes but the responsibility for them falls directly on the Democrats because they did not include Republicans in any of their so called 100 hour agenda. What we have was given to us by the Democrats. If you moonbats out there can remove your tin foil hats long enough, keep this in mind when you are discussing corruption.
The ethical Democrats (an oxymoron) passed the new rules regarding ethical behavior of the members of Congress. These rules prohibited lobbyists from paying for meals, trips and other items for lawmakers. This has not stopped those lawmakers from receiving thousands of dollars for things like hunting and fishing trips, wine tasting tours, golf tournaments, rock concerts, ski trips, and other parties. How do they get away with this? Well, the ethics rules (the new ones) say that the lobbyists are not allowed to pay for these items directly. However, lobbyists may donate to a PAC set up by the member of Congress and that PAC may then pick up the tab.
Instead of a direct payment from the lobbyist, a middle man is now used. In effect, the Congress has set up its own money laundering scheme whereby dirty money from a lobbyist (remember, all Abramoff money was dirty) is given to a PAC where it is cleaned up and then spent on what the lobbyist wanted to spend it on in the first place. The ethical Democrats have done absolutely nothing to stop the buying of influence from members of Congress and members from both sides have taken advantage of this money laundering scheme to make it look like they are ethical when they are all as dirty as hell.
There will be a lot of moonbats who will ignore this or say that it is OK because it is the Democratic Party that brought it into being. Moonbats are at least consistent in how they view crime or corruption. Anything that a Republican does is a crime. Any time a Democrat does the exact same thing it is not a crime and is for the good of the people or, more importantly, for the children.
The Democratic Party talked a real good game during the time leading up to the last election. Unfortunately, they proved to be as corrupt as that culture they railed against and now they have another loophole to exploit on their way to payoffs and bribes.