Oliver Willis

18 Responses to “By The Way”

1. 1 grubi
   Jul 8th, 2005 at 9:07 am

   Ha! Party of Values, indeed.

2. 2 Courteous Miner » Blog Archive » DeLay was bribed.
   Jul 8th, 2005 at 9:07 am

   [...] uly 2005

   Posted: 0954.42
   Author: Chris Gruber
   Categories: GOP

   As per Oliver: A Kansas energy company said it donated $25,000 so that it could attend a golf outin [...]

3. 3 TomY
   Jul 8th, 2005 at 10:07 am

   Either you think this is okay or you do not. Either it violates the law or it does not. All the rest of your post, Jay, is just pointless posturing.

4. 4 Jay C
   Jul 8th, 2005 at 10:07 am

   Wow! Gee whiz! Somebody donates cash to a politician in order to gain attendance with them in hopes of persuading them to get some legislation passed (or defeated).

   I’m stunned. STUNNED.

   How could this happen in Washington DC? It’s unheard of. Or is it?

   I remember reading something oh about 7 or 8 years ago wherein if I had donated $25,000 to $35,000 to the DNC, I could enjoy a sit-down with the President of the United States!

   Cripes almighty. Give me a huge horking break. Either you’re a big time rube Oliver, or you’re still so ignorant of the inner workings of Washington that you could somehow pretend that this is out of the ordinary for ANY politician.

   Do I like it? No. Is it wrong? Yes. Who’s to blame? The voters, who every two to six years that keep electing these people.

   Of course, there are people naive enough to think that if we’d only pass ‘real’ campaign finance reform we’d have change. Or if we’d only turn over power to the wonderful Democrats, that this would go away. Just remember, that the last time the Democrats were in power, they watched as Dan Rostenkowski was indicted on 17 counts of violations of various federal laws. So be careful what you wish for.

5. 5 The Supreme Irony of Life...
   Jul 8th, 2005 at 10:07 am

   More DeLay Ethics Questions

   Westar Energy admits to paying for access to Tom DeLay

6. 6 BinkyBoy
   Jul 8th, 2005 at 10:07 am

   Hey Jay,

   at least you were able to watch Rostenkowski get indicted.

   Delay is still waiting, so is Duke Cunningham and many others.

   All for violations of various federal laws.

   Great apologizing. I’m sure it pleases your masters.

7. 7 Dugger
   Jul 8th, 2005 at 10:07 am

   TomY,

   It is (as now stated) competely legal. And, beyond legality, why do we care about the donations to a congressman. This is a democracy. I care about how my congreeman votes. If he gets scads of money from hate groups like, say, moveon.org, and still votes R. Great! I’ll vote for him. If he got no money from moveon or whoever and voted like a D, I’d vote against him. You guys miss the bigger point. You want to guess motive and focus on that, rather than outcome - the vote.

   Dugger, The world would be a better place if uninformed people didn’t vote

8. 8 Zappa
   Jul 8th, 2005 at 11:07 am

   Dang - uninformed…edit button please?

9. 9 Zappa
   Jul 8th, 2005 at 11:07 am

   Can we call Tom a ’scratch’ player now? Would you call that golf trip a ‘bogey’?

   Jay C - since you obviously agree that this is wrong why would you not just say it is wrong and leave it be…why would you attack OW for pointing out another ethically challenged decision from Delay? Do you think it best we just sit on our hands and ignore these transgressions?

   I agree that uniformed folks should not vote Dugger - will you help by staying out of the next elections?

10. 10 Dugger
    Jul 8th, 2005 at 12:07 pm

    Very clever Z. “I know I am but what are you?”

    Being the world’s worst typist, I will not speculate that your hand actually carried out your ‘mind’s’ subconscious thoughts re “uniformed”. (Hmm, altogether a little cheap on my part). BTW, why wouldn’t we we be better off if the uninformed decided not to vote (not “would be prohibited from voting”, but if they just were lazy or whatever and opted out).

    Dugger, Asking Questions That Others Are Unable to Even Think About

11. 11 Zappa
    Jul 8th, 2005 at 12:07 pm

    How many folks are eligible to vote and how many actually vote?

    Uninformed does not equal a different opinion…

    uniformed - yes a ’slip’ heh -
    But it is extremely important that the voters are knowledgable - now the real problem is how do we agree on what is the best source of that knowledge…
    FOX is out - MSM is out - Universities are out - K-12 is out - politicians are way out (they ALL lie) - so where can we all agree that the best places are?

    (I don’t get any credit for that ’scratch’ zinger…come on that was good…I will admit you are funny if you admit I am funny…)

12. 12 Jay C
    Jul 8th, 2005 at 1:07 pm

    Jay C - since you obviously agree that this is wrong why would you not just say it is wrong and leave it be& why would you attack OW for pointing out another ethically challenged decision from Delay?

    Because Oliver is either dishonest (which I don’t think he is) or under the delusion that this is:

    A. Limited only to Republicans
    B. Going to end if Democrats control Congress

    I’ve long since given up the idea of saying, “Aha!!!” when a Democratic Congressman is caught with his or her hand in the cookie jar because the GOP is no better.

    Why do people want to cherry-pick their corruption?

13. 13 TomY
    Jul 8th, 2005 at 1:07 pm

    Jay C, I think it would diminish corruption greatly if different parties held different branches of government, yes. We know we won’t get good oversight as long as it’s Republicans watch-dogging Republicans. The question is not why people cherry pick corruption, it’s why people like you are apathetic about it.

14. 14 Dugger
    Jul 8th, 2005 at 2:07 pm

    Z,

    No, no. None are out. All are in. There’s no substitute for the voter/citizen actually thinking and sorting it out for himself. The problem is not what’s on the intellectual menu, its the crummy eating habits of the consumers. And all I’m saying is that there might be sort of a Darwinian good thing here. The apathetic who do not vote are probably not smart enough or energetic enough to figure “stuff” out and cast intelligent votes. So they merely vote the way somebody (who makes them feel warm and fuzzy) tells them to. That may be true of some of my constituencies and some of yours. An intelligent liberal appealing to intelligent voters might say: we will have to raise taxes for my programs, but it will be a good thing and our taxes won’t be all that high anyway. An intelligent conservative might say: look, under my administration, we are still going to have social programs to help those who are poor/underachieve (whatever). They aren’t going to go away. It is a good and noble thing for our successful citizens to help (via the gov.) our unsuccessful citizens - within the reasonable bounds and considering that the help actually comes from the sweat of private citizens and not the good intentions of government.

    Now demagogues of either side could and would easily turn those statements into big political negatives and pretty much eliminate either candudate. But intelligent voters might think about those statements and say, yes, thats true and then sort it out.

    As to “scratch”: a belated cyber chuckle is hereby dispatched your way.

    Dugger

15. 15 Zappa
    Jul 8th, 2005 at 2:07 pm

    Thanks Dugger - I agree with you on that…
    I also agree that there should be a lot more us in the “We the People”…
    If there were a lot more of us saying AHA - voting the ethically challenged D’s and R’s out we would have a lot less aha’ing to do.

    I for one vote for dropping the I am a liberal and I will only point out errors from liberals and vice versa…
    We can battle on all kinds of policy - but we should unite when it is apporpriate…and if it is a Democrat that is abusing power I will not vote for them and I will join in to point out there errors…

    We can do better and we should demand better both from our elected officials and from the Press.

16. 16 Macswain
    Jul 8th, 2005 at 2:07 pm

    Jay C says: I ve long since given up the idea of saying,  Aha!!! when a Democratic Congressman is caught with his or her hand in the cookie jar because the GOP is no better.

    Wouldn’t be better to say “Aha” when anyone is caught committing unethical acts. It is even better to have each side point out the others misdeeds than to completely gut the ethics committee - as has been done - so that misdeeds simply come to be an accepted norm, as Jay C would have it.

17. 17 Zappa
    Jul 8th, 2005 at 3:07 pm

    Jay C.
    Doesn’t it make you want to just throw them both away and start anew? Not just the people, but the whole dang party - both of em - dump em…

18. 18 Jay C
    Jul 8th, 2005 at 3:07 pm

    The question is not why people cherry pick corruption, it s why people like you are apathetic about it.

    I’m apathetic because I’ve spent 10 years of my life trying to get people to see that the only way to get change in DC is for voters to make that change.

    People say the problem is the two party system. I don’t think that’s true. The problem is, we allow the inner power of the party to select most of the candidates. You know as well as I do that there have often been times when a more conservative (or more liberal) candidate would represent you better than the person the party is presenting. But that’s where the party money goes. It’s up to the people however to make the difference, and 10 years has shown me that people are basically too lazy to care.

    And I’ll tell you what. You won’t see any change as long as people like Oliver are going to make it partisan thing. If you turn a blind eye to what those in your party are doing, but express outrage about the other party, what does anybody gain?

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