I think we might create a new Juice feature called “Congressional Outrage of the Week.” Let me suggest starting with a newsletter report just received from CA Congressman John Campbell based on a story in the New York Post.
A sitting member of Congress promoting a building named after himself. In this first example of self aggrandizement I issue the award to N.Y. Congressman Charles Rangel who wants to build a monument in his honor to be called “the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College.”
In his Newsletter Congressman Campbell mentions that Rangel “pushed a $2 million earmark thorough the House as seed money” for this project.
To read the entire Post story go to this link.
What caught my attention is that we dealt with this very issue in the city of Mission Viejo where sitting city council members named facilities after themselves. How sweet. Is that why you engage in public service?
We remedied that issue in Mission Viejo by removing the names of two members from a active sports park and the community room at our library. Those individuals no longer serve on our city council. We took care of that. As such there is no need to “name names” at this time.
Juice readers:
How do you feel about this form of pork barrel spending?
What’s your thoughts about sitting members of any government body having projects, buildings, freeways, bridges or parks named after them while still in office?
As this project has received huge sums from the private sector do you view this as a possible conflict of interest?
Larry, is this your best Rip Van Winkle immitation? Personally, I save my outrage for the important stuff:
“I have seen the Vice President repeatedly drive our nation into increasingly dire situations, in Iraq, in Iran, and within our own country as he tramples over the Constitution like it is a doormat… the Vice President holds himself above the law. And, it is time for the Congress to enforce the law. I believe the evidence is overwhelming and articles of impeachment against the Vice President should be drawn up.”
Congressman Jim McDermott
June 28th, 2007
You mean like the Thomas F. Riley terminal building at John Wayne airport (Riley a former 5th District Supervisor, Wayne a former movie star), or the Clark Regional Park in Buena Park (after former Supervisor Ralph Clark) or the Harriett Wieder Regional Park along the bluffs at Bolsa Chica? That kind of thing? Guess Orange County has no room to throw too many stones at Rangel and others accross the country. As to possible future names, Larry, if you can find the right facility something like “Larry’s Lament” has a nice ring to it —-
REAL outrage example for Larry:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/24/yoo/index.html
The Wall St. Journal Editorial Page wanted someone to defend George Bush’s serial assertions of “Executive Privilege” to block investigations into his wrongdoing, and it turned, of course, to ex-Bush-DOJ-lawyer John Yoo, who is not only the most authoritarian but also the most partisan and intellectually dishonest lawyer in the country.
In defending the President, Yoo’s Op-Ed yesterday touts the grave importance of Executive Privilege and makes all the claims one would expect. He stresses the “president’s right to keep internal executive discussions confidential”; proclaims that “without secrecy, the government can’t function”; compares Bush’s assertions to George Washington’s; and concludes that by asserting Executive Privilege (nowhere mentioned in the Constitution), Bush “has the Constitution on his side.”
(…)
But this isn’t the first Op-Ed Yoo has written on the topic of Executive Privilege for the Wall St. Journal. Back in 1998, when Bill Clinton was asserting the same privilege to resist Congressional demands that his closest aides testify about the President’s deliberations in responding to the various Lewinsky investigations, Yoo became one of the leading spokespeople denouncing the assertion of this privilege.
On March 2, 1998, Yoo wrote an Op-Ed (sub. req’d) for the WSJ Editorial Page (which back then also opposed the privilege only now to depict it as the anchor of a Free Government). In denouncing Clinton’s executive privilege assertions, Yoo began his op-ed this way:
James Madison wrote that a “popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both.”
and then:
UPDATE: Several months after he boldly spoke out against Executive Privilege during the Lewinsky investigation, John Yoo returned to the Wall St. Journal Op-Ed page, on July 20, 1998, to argue that impeachment of Bill Clinton for defying a Subpoena issued by Ken Starr — something which had just been advocated by Orrin Hatch — “would stand on firm constitutional footing.”
Yoo specifically (and solemnly) warned that if Clinton decided to defy Starr’s Subpoena, Clinton “would be going beyond even Richard Nixon in abusing the presidency.” Yoo then praised Nixon because, unlike Clinton, Nixon “chose not to press claims of presidential power to such extremes.” Because if there is one thing which the principled, constitutional “scholar” John Yoo cannot abide, it is pressing claims of presidential power to the extreme.
hey, larry:
our mission viejo city council members found a better way to get around the public’s disdane of our electeds naming monuments after themselves. they now have portable billboards around the city announcing their achievements.
soon they will a flashy electronic sign across from city hall doing the same thing except it will be in vibrant living color.
and it gets even better: they signed a mou with ccn-usa for a closed network television system which will be broadcasted on 30-40 plasmas screens in city facilities where advertisers (special interests) can market their wares to us and where the council members can promote themselves. i received no answer when i asked if the tv will have an off switch. i presume not.
cathy schlicht
Red Herring argument. Here are the elephants in the living room. Its getting crowded.
The government
o Kidnaps people and holds them indefinitely in secret gulags; no right of habeous corpus as a civilian, no Geneva convention rights as a POW.
o Tortures prisoners and sends people to other totalitarian states, such as Syria, to be tortured.
o Occupies a foreign country on pretext of a lie about the threat that government posed, installs its own government and pressures the puppet government to sign over control of the occupied nation’s natural resources.
o Allows one of the world’s most important museums, housing artifacts from the first human civilizations, to be looted while its troops stand by and watch.
o Orders the military to buy certain goods and services only from a company where a high ranking member has a financial interest.
o After a natural disaster, there is no aid for the affected area. Many of the dead remain unburied for months. The devastation remains uncleared for years.
o Prosecutors are fired for pursuing cases against friends of the administration.
o The government conveys on itself the power to re-arrest people on charges that they have already been found not guilty.
o The government spies on its own citizens, contrary to the published law of the land.
o People in the military are held there indefinitely, till they are killed or are no longer fit for combat. Benefits and healthcare for the wounded are cut, in part to help finance gifts to the wealthy. The military is increasingly populated by ex-felons as the honor of national service dries up.
o Key appointed government posts are populated with the idiot friends of an idiot administration. This includes the department of emergency management, responsible for handling other disasters.
o Faced with a glowing global environmental catastrophe, the government pretends it does not exist.
o The governmental mechanism to protect bio-diversity, the protected species list, is nullified. Species are regularly removed from the protected list at the request of business interests friendly to the administration.
o Important medical research is halted because of the leader’s religious beliefs about human life. The same leader has no problem executing children, the mentally impaired,, people to poor to afford a lawyer that will stay awake during their trial.
o The department of homeland security regularly declares national emergencies. These emergencies tend to coincide low points in the governments popularity but disappear during the run up to elections.
o The leader threatens to invade another country, with troops he doesn’t have, for taking steps to prepare against his last set of invasion threats.
o The country is regarded with contempt and a threat to world peace by the rest of the world.
This is not the country I was born in.
Respectfully Congressman McDermott, should that be your real name.
When we see a request to fund the Dick Cheney School for “military exit strategies” than we can talk. What does your post add to the “pork barrel” funding by NY Congressman Rangel?
Anonymous 2:31 PM
Please enlighten me.
One thing rings consistently in your argument. The word. “FORMER.”
My post clearly pointed out a “currently serving” member of a government agency. Further he requested taxpayer funds in the form of pork for his pet project.
There is surely a distinction here.
Anonymous. REAL outrage example for Larry.
What does this reply have to do with commenting on the request from NY Congressman Charles Rangel? Respectfully, I am not looking for a diversion from the issue pointed out in the post.
Future posts will cover “outrages” that involve the spending of taxpayer funds by those elected officials inside the beltway.
Newsho.
Again. I would like to point out the Rangel story to get your comments on his actions. By your shifting gears and silence shall I assume that you have no problem with his self indulgence?
Anonymous 2:49 PM
Same answer as given to Newsho and anonymous above. Stay on point if you wish to engage me in an honest exchange.
For decades county government’s public works projects, like major road work, storm drains, etc. would have a sign announcing the name of the project and the dollar amount, estimated completion date, etc. Once Todd Spitzer got on the board he insisted the name of the Supervisor in whose District the probject was occurring be prominently displayed on such signage. With that demand, policy changed and OC became a little more like LA County. A monument to the electeds, albeit temporary-lasting only as long as the construction period. Thanks, Todd.
#11 Anonymous 7:27 PM
Thank you. You remind me of projects in Mission Viejo such as the widening of Crown Valley Parkway, or landscapping on Marguerite Parkway where we have huge signs that mention the project including the names of every “currently serving” council member. As much as I had multiple issues with several former council members they at least did not have their names splattered on signage all over town.
# 4
Follow the money
CCN USA gave $$$ to Santa Ana city council folks such as Carlos Bustamante and he was the biggest cheerleader for CCN to get our tax dollars.