ETHICS
Breach of Contract
In 1994, the right wing gained control over the House of Representatives on the strength of a series of reforms embodied in the so-called "Contract with America." The contract ostensibly "aimed to restore the faith and trust of the American people in their government" and end the “cycle of scandal and disgrace” in government. A year later, then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) was already plotting to breach that contract by undertaking a project to develop cozier relations with Washington,D.C. lobbyists. High-minded policy goals would take a backseat in DeLay’s pay-to-play system where the success of lobbyists would be dictated not by how compelling a case they could make, but rather by how willing they would be to line the pockets of DeLay and his colleagues. Conceptualized as a tool for the right-wing preservation of power, the “K Street Strategy,” as it became known, created the culture in which Jack Abramoff’s criminal activity was encouraged and rewarded.

The contract was a deal that said that as soon as the Republicans took charge in the House, they would bring to a vote (not even vote on, certainly not necessarily pass, and heaven forbid, not fund) each of a list of items, within a certain limited amount of time. Bringing something to a vote, especially if your party is in charge of the house, is trivially easy. (This could not have been done in the Senate.)
The only item from the Contract on America that turned into law as far as I can remember (and I may be a little wrong on this, but not much) was the one item that happened to be on President Bill Clinton's To Do list as well: A Welfare to Work bill.

Campaign of influence-buying

They had good reason, to be sure. The banking, insurance and brokerage industry lobbyists have combined their forces over the last five years to mount the best-financed campaign of influence-buying ever seen in Washington. In 1997 and 1998 alone, the three industries spent over $300 million on the effort: $58 million in campaign contributions to Democratic and Republican candidates, $87 million in "soft money" contributions to the Democratic and Republican parties, and $163 million on lobbying of elected officials.
The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Texas Republican Phil Gramm, himself collected more than $1.5 million in cash from the three industries during the last five years: $496,610 from the insurance industry, $760,404 from the securities industry and $407,956 from banks.
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The separation of banking and the stock exchange was ordered in response to revelations of the gross corruption and manipulation of the market by giant banking houses, above all the House of Morgan, which organized huge corporate mergers for its own profit and awarded preferential access to share issues to favored politicians and businessmen. Such insider trading played a major role in the speculative boom which preceded the 1929 crash.
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The Wall Street Journal celebrated the agreement to end such restrictions with an editorial declaring that the banks had been unfairly scapegoated for the Great Depression. The headline of one Journal article detailing the impact of the proposed law declared, "Finally, 1929 Begins to Fade."
This comment underscores the greatest irony in the banking deregulation bill. Legislation first adopted to save American capitalism from the consequences of the 1929 Wall Street Crash is being abolished just at the point where the conditions are emerging for an even greater speculative financial collapse. The enormous volatility in the stock exchange in recent months has been accompanied by repeated warnings that stocks are grossly overvalued, with some computer and Internet stocks selling at prices 100 times earnings or even greater.
And there is a much more recent experience than 1929 to serve as a cautionary tale. A financial deregulation bill was passed in the early 1980s under the Reagan administration, lifting many restrictions on the activities of savings and loan associations, which had previously been limited primarily to the home-loan market. The result was an orgy of speculation, profiteering and outright plundering of assets, culminating in collapse and the biggest financial bailout in US history, costing the federal government more than $500 billion. The repetition of such events in the much larger banking and securities markets would be beyond the scope of any federal bailout.

The sticking point was the effort by Gramm to gut the Community Reinvestment Act, a 1977 anti-redlining law which requires that banks make a certain proportion of their loans in minority and poor neighborhoods. Gramm blocked passage of a similar deregulation bill last year over demands to cripple the CRA, and bank lobbyists were in a panic, during the week before the deal was made, that the dispute would once again prevent any bill from being adopted.
Gramm and other extreme-right Republicans saw the opportunity to damage their political opponents among minority businessmen and community groups, who generally support the Democratic Party. Gramm succeeded in inserting two provisions to weaken the CRA, one reducing the frequency of examinations for CRA compliance to once every five years for smaller banks, the other compelling public disclosure of loans made under the program.
The latter provision was particularly offensive to black and other minority business and community groups, who have used the CRA provisions as a lever by threatening to challenge mergers and other bank operations which require government approval. In most such cases, the banks have offered loans to businessmen or outright grants to community groups in return for dropping their legal actions. These petty-bourgeois elements have been able to posture as defenders of the black or Hispanic community, while pocketing what are essentially payoffs from finance capital and concealing from the public the details of this relationship.

But you consistently blame everything on the liberals and Clinton in particular.

Newt and the repubs promised lots of thing, but what they delivered is power to K street, and set up a system were the lobbyist wrote their bills for them.

Yeh i totally agree with you , the entire music industry is bent....

Originally posted by crimvelvet
reply to post by tombangelta

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Yeh i totally agree with you , the entire music industry is bent....

The Music Industry isn't even American any more.

A WHOPPING 97% of the sound recording industry has foreign owned controlling interest. That is more than 50% of the company is foreign owned. LINK

I wonder who the heck now owns the recording industry especially since they have an impact on our teenagers.

Originally posted by crimvelvet
As I recall the whole oath taking was FLUBBED and re done in PRIVATE.

My Grand Father was Muslim. If you change your faith YOU CHANGE YOUR NAME. Think Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. becoming Muhammad Ali. On top of that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was also a "Converted" Muslim. Obama converted to Christianity because he was TOLD to. It was standing in his way as an effective "Community Organizer"

After the flub heard around the world, President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office. Again.

The bible is no where to be seen it the picture in the article by the way.