The House 'Plantation'
TOM MAERTENS
Hillary Clinton seems to have gotten a lot of press over her comments about the House of Representatives being like a "plantation" -- comments similar to those made by Newt Gingrich back in 1994.
Anyone who has researched lawmaking in the House under Hastert and DeLay will recognize that it has become fundamentally undemocratic.
Legislation is written behind closed doors by Republicans and their favored lobbyists without the participation of the minority.
Democrats are barred from House-Senate conferences.
Democrats were threatened by the Republican leadership with house arrest by the Sergeant-at-Arms.
Earmarks are inserted at random by a corrupt leadership trading taxpayers' money for colleagues' votes to stay in power.
The leadership unilaterally changes bills already approved in committee without notification to members, and removes Democrats' amendments from bills.
Quorum calls are held at odd hours and meetings are held under emergency procedures so that Democrats and the press can't participate.
Votes are arbitrarily held open for the convenience of the Republican leadership while it twists arms.
The administration substitutes bills in the dead of night for legislation already debated in committee (like the Patriot Act) which the lapdog Republican leadership rubberstamps.
On White House orders, Congressional staffers have unilaterally removed language from bills already passed by both houses of Congress, as they did in November 2004 with provisions modifying travel controls to Cuba that Bush didn't like.
There are no oversight committee hearings in the House. The same House that conducted 16 investigations of the Clinton Administration, that took 130 hours of sworn testimony on whether the Clintons misused the White House Christmas Card list, that investigated the firing of White House travel office employees, has turned a blind eye to every transgression of the Bush administration. Where is the Truman Committee investigation of war profiteering by Halliburton and others? Where is the investigation of how the Bush administration 'fixed' the intelligence on Iraq?
The only true oversight hearing in the Senate was conducted by John McCain and Byron Dorgan and led to the exposure of the Jack Abramoff, Mike Scanlon lobbying scandal.
It's clear why the Bush administration doesn't want any Congressional investigations. If Congress starts turning over rocks, some sleazy, slithering creatures will be exposed to daylight.
Hillary Clinton seems to have gotten a lot of press over her comments about the House of Representatives being like a "plantation" -- comments similar to those made by Newt Gingrich back in 1994.
Anyone who has researched lawmaking in the House under Hastert and DeLay will recognize that it has become fundamentally undemocratic.
Legislation is written behind closed doors by Republicans and their favored lobbyists without the participation of the minority.
Democrats are barred from House-Senate conferences.
Democrats were threatened by the Republican leadership with house arrest by the Sergeant-at-Arms.
Earmarks are inserted at random by a corrupt leadership trading taxpayers' money for colleagues' votes to stay in power.
The leadership unilaterally changes bills already approved in committee without notification to members, and removes Democrats' amendments from bills.
Quorum calls are held at odd hours and meetings are held under emergency procedures so that Democrats and the press can't participate.
Votes are arbitrarily held open for the convenience of the Republican leadership while it twists arms.
The administration substitutes bills in the dead of night for legislation already debated in committee (like the Patriot Act) which the lapdog Republican leadership rubberstamps.
On White House orders, Congressional staffers have unilaterally removed language from bills already passed by both houses of Congress, as they did in November 2004 with provisions modifying travel controls to Cuba that Bush didn't like.
There are no oversight committee hearings in the House. The same House that conducted 16 investigations of the Clinton Administration, that took 130 hours of sworn testimony on whether the Clintons misused the White House Christmas Card list, that investigated the firing of White House travel office employees, has turned a blind eye to every transgression of the Bush administration. Where is the Truman Committee investigation of war profiteering by Halliburton and others? Where is the investigation of how the Bush administration 'fixed' the intelligence on Iraq?
The only true oversight hearing in the Senate was conducted by John McCain and Byron Dorgan and led to the exposure of the Jack Abramoff, Mike Scanlon lobbying scandal.
It's clear why the Bush administration doesn't want any Congressional investigations. If Congress starts turning over rocks, some sleazy, slithering creatures will be exposed to daylight.
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