Looking at all these corruption hearings in DC and Rangel ranting about how important he is really makes me think we don’t treat our Congress people horribly enough. They all seem like crooks and how crooked they are just seems a function of how long they’ve been there. So it’s time we treated them like crooks.
Right now, being in Congress is a pretty sweet job. You get a nice salary and lots of power all for just voting yes and no on stuff — a job you could basically teach a dog to do competently. It’s a job anyone would want if offered, so maybe we need to add some more trade offs to make people more hesitant about it and perhaps stop getting the wrong people in Congress.
First off, every Congressman should be treated like a known member of the Mafia — we know the person is a criminal and we just don’t have the evidence yet though we’ll be working on it. Every Congressmen should have FBI agents assigned to tail him and report on everything he is doing. Everything a Congressman does and says should be recorded and made publicly available as well. As a trade-off to being some idiot spending trillions of our dollars, you have absolutely no expectation of privacy while in office. If you can’t deal, don’t be in Congress. And because these people create the laws, it should apply even more so to them. If they are ever convicted of anything, they automatically should get their sentence doubled.
Right now Congress gets this idea they are better than us when really they’re just idiots who meddle in things while other people actually do all the useful work in this country. It’s time we treated them like lesser people with less rights and more suspicion. Then maybe they’ll know their place.
Like I said in the other, other thread: RICO, baby. Don’t wait for conviction. Suspicion is enough, and members of Congress are a pretty suspicious lot.
I think we should put radio anklets on them…with cameras…around their necks. The anlets will have bright flashing lights, and we are allowed (encouraged) to verbally abuse them, spit on them, and make them change our tires and rake our leaves.
I hate congessional meeses to pieces.
SCORE!!!
I always thought J. Edgar Hoover was a scumbag. I Want Him Back!
None of what you mentioned is nearly painful enough!
* Their daily menu for their time of service: Gruel and grapefruit for breakfast! Field corn, beef jerky, and grapefruit for lunch! Moldy potatoes, lutefisk, and even more grapefruit for supper! If they wish, they may have grapefruit as a snack! They will be provided with lime juice to prevent scurvy.
* Their alarm clock: A snarling German Shepherd!
* Their bathtub will be full of ticks!
* An angry Gunnery Sergeant will follow them, stare at them, and shake his head “No” when they look upon his face at all times! He will only let them out of his sight when they are naked. An honorable member of our military deserves some dignity, afterall.
* No beds! Straw! Straw will be changed every ten days!
* No air conditioning! No heating! Bring warm clothes!
If they prove their worth or if they are determined to be undeserving of such hardship beforehand, they will not be subjected to it. But someone will be subjected to such hardship as a warning to others!
Sometimes you’re too right to be funny.
Rangel is a perfect example of why our congress critters should be presumed guilty.
He’s been in “public service” most of his life and he’s some multiple of millionaire.
How?
I always think of that Eddie Murphy movie, The Distinguished Gentleman” (first hour or so, then it gets all preachy), where he’s a con man who figures out how to get into Congress and is stunned by the stuff he can “legally” get away with.
Any public official convicted of corruption should be barred from holding any public office ever again.
Arguably, malfeasance in office is treason. I think it should be a capital offense.
And all public officials should be pre-emptively convicted of corruption.
Besides 24/7 surveillance and a pop quiz on the reading of each bill they pass in order to cash their considerable paychecks,
for every piece of legislation they pass they should have to answer two essay questions:
Just how in the Hades are you an expert on the issue at hand AND Where exactly in the Constitution is the authority to do what the legislation does.
And maybe leg irons…….
Leg irons! Good call!
Well we could take a political lesson or two from “Old Hickory”
and I don’t mean to whip them (though that is a novel idea)
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) — also known as “Old Hickory”;
U.S. Attorney for Tennessee, 1790-97;
U.S. Representative from Tennessee at-large,
1796-97; U.S. Senator from Tennessee, 1797-98,
1823-25; justice of Tennessee state supreme court,
1798; general in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812;
Governor of Florida Territory, 1821;
*President of the United States, 1829-37.
Killed Charles Dickinson in a pistol duel, May 30, 1806;
also duelled with Thomas Hart Benton and Waightstill Avery.
While attending a funeral he was shot at with two guns — which both misfired —
… end Bio
That is how Politics should be dealt with today! Dueling in Congress. Actually dueling was quite common back in the good old days. I believe there were close to 50 dueling deaths that Politicains were involved in. Maybe more. Every new Congressman should be issued a Pistol, a Dagger, a Sword and be required to wear them while Congress is in session.
If you want my vote you’d better be packin’
Charlie Rangel’s Ad Campaign Motto: ‘Stickin’ it to the Man since 1971′
or, to continue Veeshir’s thought line: ‘Charlie Rangel, The Name You Know’
The pistol they are issued, are we talkingan oldschool single shot or something like a 1911?
see Pistols at
http://military.discovery.com/history/revolutionary-war/weapons/weapons.html
and here is a picture of Congressmen getting down to buisness
http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll81/PosterityProject/lyon01.jpg
this is what Clinton’s Impeachment should have looked like
http://www.archives.gov/research/american-revolution/pictures/images/revolutionary-war-036.jpg
Mark Twain (1835 – 1910): “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctively native American criminal class except Congress.”
It’s not a new phenomenon, it’s an old tradition. Maybe when Jefferson was quoted about “refreshing the Tree of Liberty”, what he meant was take the whole lot out and shoot them.
I’ve thought for a long time that politicians in general (Even as low as the proverbial dog catcher) should be not just second but third or maybe even fourth class citizens. Politicians should be required to sign away a large amount of their rights when they take office. Kind of the military but much more severe. It’d also kind of be nice if we had a Congressional lottery where every month or so two congressmen were chosen at random to duel to the pain and have their duel televised on national TV. Well maybe the lottery dueling is just my disgust showing but yeah they definitely should have to give up a lot of rights.
Oh. Also it should be considered rude not to yell in the face of, insult, and/or spit on congressmen when ever they’re seen in public. A select few people would respect enough to be rude for.
Not sure sending Bawney Fwank to Federal POUND-ME-IN-THE-ASS Prison is such a good idea. Maybe Womynz Prizzon for him.
Personally Live Free Or Die, I think the type of prison Bawney is sent to should depend on whether he prefers being the f**ker…or the f**kie.
Let’s post Sheriff Joe Arpaio as Sargeant at Arms and Quartermaster of Congress.
Tent city, baloney sandwiches, no MSNBC/CNN, and chain gangs.
Congress would spend much less time in D.C.
The less time Congress is in session, the better.
All Republicans shall be armed with guns…Democrats will obviously not be since they are wusses. That will shift the balance of power as the duals begin!
Treat Congress more like crooks? But I thought they were crooks.
But you can’t really treat them like crooks because of Congressional immunity.
Liberal Congressmen have a legal Immunity from prosecution.
Charles Rangle is immune from prosecution because of the Law, because he is a Liberal, and because he is a Minority. He has a triple immunity. So it does not matter what he did because no one can really do anything about it.
Conservatives do not have Congressional immunity. They are ineligible to receive it. They can be convicted of failing to tie their shoelaces properly or even from walking down a hall.
When did it become us vs. them? they worked for us they answered to us, now the tables have turned. Congress behaves like royalty above the law above the rules and held accountable to no one. It is high time for a solid, massive uprising. We seem to be losing sight of Jeffersons comment ” the tree of liberty is best fertilized with the blood of tyrants”, we have two chambers in Washington full of tyrants. I cant wait for november, the problem with that is the American people are generally law abiding we will exact change in the election but those in washington bet on our short memories and general acceptance of the corruption. For the first time in my adult life I fear for the future of my kids.
People talk about term limits for Congress like it would solve the corruption…However, I think Congress should be changed into a “jury duty” format…”Congress Duty”: A random lottery that picks an assigned number of seats for each party, per state and select random U.S. citizens regardless of education or gender…Have each member be assigned a 1yr term, where they would have the annual pay of a regular Congress member and rent in D.C. for that year…Meanwhile, if they have a job, it will be waiting for them when they get back (similar to jury duty or maternity leave). I think we couldn’t do any worse than what we have now…
I dunno, do you really want it public that we just sent three teams from D/3/10 into Pakistan under the command of MAJ Tom. They do not, repeat, do not have an X-5 SATCOM, but an airdrop is scheduled for 2350 Zulu time at the following coordinates…
To put it another way: Like it or not, Congresspeople are privy to a lot of information that really really really can’t be shared with the public. Transparency is a nice concept, but it can’t work. As Obama has found much to his chagrin, a lot of stuff does have to be kept secret, and as a lot of the people who believed Obama have found out, it’s the people keeping the secrets who get to decide which secrets to reveal. You going to ask the FBI agents to leave the room so they don’t hear information above their pay grade?
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Not all congress critters are criminals, some are just nuts!
Add a team of large, humorless attendants in white coats and a cloak room filled with strait-jackets for the ‘difficult’ cases, and you’ll have all the bases covered.
Skin in the Game
We need to start burning off the toxicity we have in our national mindset and destiny, rather than wait for the big conflagration. The goal is to pare back to the US Constitution, so we have burn away all the dead laws, regulations, and fatwood agencies. We need to rebalance the split forces of government, State and Federal and its three branches. Maybe we need to split the power up even more, so that the creative destruction can work better in government, and not too much power or fuel is collected by one branch. If we let the fire get too big, it might destroy the Constitution itself.
I also suggest the need for a 4th branch, that only defends the Constitution from Traitors, Villians, and Socialists (but I repeat myself). The military takes an oath to defend the Constitution. It would take an amendment, create a military tribunal (something like a civilian grand jury, a random draw of state or federal Military Officers and 1 Military JAG) that when SCOTUS (or Nullification) declares a regulation, rule, or law (or portion) unconstitutional, then all of those who voted for it, or ruled it, or signed it would be called before the tribunal, and are eligible for various punishments, including (up-to) a removal from office, banning from federal service, or stripping of citizenship. This sounds harsh, but it forces ‘skin in the game’ for the Elected/Appointed Servants (Politicians/Judges/Bureaucrats) in every single vote/action, and de-facto requires a reading and understanding of their actions. This would enforce accountability to both the Voter and the Constitution.
You could create two categories, when the entire law/rule is overturned, then everyone is in the scope of the Tribunal, but if only a portion of a law is overruled then just the writer, co-sponsors, and signer is called before the tribunal.
I would want this accompanied by increasing Nullification powers, the overturn of the 17th, and create a Federal recall process, to be a fire prevention measure that offers a state or voter initiated controlled burn of Congress itself.