The Case of Tom Delay

I don't know how Tom Delay can live with himself. He smugly states that he broke no laws, but he is merely hiding behind the very lobbyist friendly laws that the Congress has slowly created to allow the members to party hardy with any and all special interest groups and PACs and then say there is no influence peddling. He takes lavish trips with shady characters from a world few of us can comprehend and dares to call it meeting with constituents. Maybe no laws were technically broken, but would a parent teach their children or would a teacher teach his/her students to follow this example?

He has been investigated over and over again by his peers only to be protected by a newly appointed ethics committee that abruptly changed the rules to protect him. What are we coming to and when will these politicians wake up?

It is true that most Americans don't care or even want to know about this, but so many of our problems are rooted in this area. This is the birthplace and the shady world of how legislation is created and the veiled corruption that follows. Lobbyists and big time donors pay the bills in spite of their denials to the contrary and then the members of Congress show their gratitude with an implicit quid pro quo.

It has to stop. The few politicians that try to bring about change, John McCain and others, are tolerated, but stifled in their attempts to reform the ethics rules.

The money has to be taken out of politics.