“The Republicans act apoplectic and scared. For the first time since Reagan, they have a real leader to lead them and have control of the House and Senate. What do they have on them?”
By way of full disclosure, I’ve been in or very close to the Intelligence Community for a long time. I can’t find exception with a single thing you posted, but two things sprang to mind when I read the above excerpt.
I had a very good friend - a retired Army officer - who ran for, and won, a seat in the House. He only served two terms, but I visited him several times while he was in the House and we had a number of very frank, personal discussions. He informed me that, in order to get funding for his campaign, he had to agree to vote a certain way on a few select issues; others were subject to his personal principles and convictions. When he ran for reelection two years later, the list had changed. Likewise, I’ve had a few friends who were approached to run for Congress and every single one relayed a similar story; “In order to get campaign funding, I would’ve had to agree to vote a certain way on select issues, some of which I wasn’t willing to do.” While it may seem relatively harmless, contributors were, in fact, buying - or attempting to buy - votes prior to the election and buying the members themselves in the process; hardly a recipe for honest, responsible government.
The second thing that came to mind relates to my previous post in this thread. For over two years, I worked a very high-level case with the Bureau and several other agencies that related to drug trafficking, money laundering, gambling and corruption within the Mexican and US governments. On one of my first visits to the FBI office in San Diego, I was given the opportunity to view 11 federal corruption files that related to a very powerful and very wealthy Mexican family, the Hanks. Although we were not permitted to use any of the information from those files, nor discuss the details; I was told that the office wanted me to have an appreciation for how important this case (over 120, actually, among all affected agencies) really was. After I reviewed those files, I told the SAC, ASAC and Group Supervisor, “[Expletive deleted]...those files are full of names I see every day in the news. These guys own as many politicians in the US as they do in Mexico!” In other words, they were not garden-variety members of Congress and not a single one has ever been charged or prosecuted.
To illustrate, here are a couple of excerpts from an article in “el Andar” (links below), a Mexican publication that’s not exactly popular among Mexican politicians and criminals:
“A Texas bank controlled by Mexican businessman Carlos Hank Rhon donated funds to the Republican National Committee, in violation of federal election laws.”
“Documents from a Federal Election Commission (FEC) case file recently made public show that the commission found reason to believe that Gary Jacobs, the bank’s president and CEO, “knowingly and willfully” violated US laws when he donated $15,000 to a Republican fundraiser on April 3, 1995, then ordered Laredo National Bank (LNB) to issue a reimbursement check the day after.”
“The finding also raises the question as to whether the Hank family may have attempted to influence US politicians and elections. Since the Hanks became owners of LNB, Jacobs and his wife have donated over $40,000 to Democratic committees and candidates, and over $60,000 to Texas Governor George W. Bush.”
“In March, Attorney General Janet Reno wrote a letter to former Republican Senator Warren Rudman, attorney for Carlos Hank Rhon, stating that the report was a draft only.”
Link: http://www.elandar.com/hank/
There is a lot of information in the public domain about the relationships between foreign criminals and US politicians and I invite anyone reading this to do his own research, starting with the Hank family and the administration of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who was very close to the late Carlos Hank Gonzalez and his sons Carlos and Jorge Hank Rhon. A third son, Moctezuma, was killed in a boating accident in the Gulf of California. You’ll find many more mentions of relationships between the Hanks and the Bush family, but here’s a good place to start:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mexico/family/bergman.html
So the successful conservative person who is at a stage in his life that he's thinking about running for Congress to 'make a difference' and get more conservative voices in Congress runs into the snags you mentioned.
How many good people think of running, thinking of doing the Mr. Smith thing, get manipulated right of the bat with the 'bought and paid for' meme you mention? If bet there are a lot. You mentioned "buying - or attempting to buy - votes prior to the election and buying the members themselves in the process; hardly a recipe for honest, responsible government." Sad.
Hell, I've even had the fantasy of thinking if I could skip all the pre-election brouhaha and just run, low budget, a few ads, shine in the debate, convey conservative principles and vote 100% straight conservative . . sounds good in my head but I know it's not an option, especially with what you outlined. There's no way I would agree with the donors about how to vote beforehand. . Bought and paid for. . The more I learn about the beltway dynamics, the more I realize we are in a national crisis.
Thank you for your feedback. It's good to get some insider knowledge about the way things really are. I know there are excellent people in the FBI. A high school classmate of mine, somewhat of a golden boy, played football at Notre Dame, was in the FBI for twelve years. I attempted to ask him at the reunion why he got out and he didn't want to talk about it. He's a real straight arrow so I still wonder what happened.
Also, thanks for the links. Will research.