Tag Archives: democrats

Articles: Democrats Responsible for Black Culture of Anger

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/m-democrats_responsible_for_black_culture_of_anger.html

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Aren’t High Gas Prices What Democrats Want?

http://townhall.com/columnists/davidharsanyi/2012/02/22/arent_high_gas_prices_what_democrats_want/page/full/

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Allen West commemorates Black History Month by telling the truth about Republicans and Black history » The Right Scoop –

Allen West commemorates Black History Month by telling the truth about Republicans and Black history » The Right Scoop –.

This is just one of the reasons I love Allen West so much. He is fearless. And in this floor speech commemorating Black History Month, West seeks to correct the lies and propaganda from those on the left by telling the real historical account of how Republicans have always stood up for the rights of African Americans, from the past all the way to the present.

Allen West says that Republicans have always been the party of free men, and starting with Josiah T Walls, he tells of how Republicans have always been on the side of freeing the slaves, giving them equal protection under the law and giving them the right to vote. Here are just a few things he notes:

Regarding the fourteenth amendment, he says a little known fact is that every vote in favor of granting citizenship to blacks were by Republicans and every vote against were from Democrats.

And when it came to the 15th amendment that guaranteed blacks the right to vote, he concedes that a few Republicans didn’t vote for the proposal, abstaining because they felt it didn’t go far enough. But once again, he says Democrats voted against it and when it passed anyway, it was the Democrats who used poll taxes and literacy tests to intimidate blacks from voting.

And there’s a whole lot more. This is a MUST WATCH:

Revolt! Now Democrats want Obama off ballot

Revolt! Now Democrats want Obama off ballot.

By Bob Unruh
© 2011 WND

Editor’s note: This is another in a series of “WND/WENZEL POLLS” conducted exclusively for WND by the public-opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies.

 


President Obama

 

The newest poll about the 2012 presidential election says one-third of Democrats and independents who lean to the left side of the field are unhappy with Barack Obama as the party’s standard-bearer and are looking for some new faces to enter the race.

The startling results are from the newest WND/Wenzel Poll conducted by Wenzel Strategies. The telephone survey was conducted Oct. 22-25 and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

Responding to a question about how satisfied they are with Obama as the nominee, only 55 percent said they were very satisfied. Another 24 percent said they were somewhat satisfied, but that group apparently started falling away quickly, because fully one-third (35 percent) said that would “prefer that someone else enter the race” for the nomination.

Just what’s going on in Washington? See it in”Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies”

It revealed some key demographics where Obama is failing to convince voters of his value.

“Among Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents, just 79 percent said they are satisfied with Barack Obama as their standard bearer in the presidential race, which is a startling finding,” said Fritz Wenzel, chief of Wenzel Strategies.

“This means the incumbent president is unable to get one of every five voters that should be solidly in his political corner. Just a little more than half – 55 percent – said they were ‘very satisfied’ with Obama,” he said.

Read more: Revolt! Now Democrats want Obama off ballot http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=361353#ixzz1d2NaJIYe

Blacks file Class Action Racial Discrimination Suit Against Obama & Democrats | “We the People”

Blacks file Class Action Racial Discrimination Suit Against Obama & Democrats | “We the People”.

Blacks file Class Action Racial Discrimination Suit Against Obama & Democrats

Family Security Matters

Comment by Jim Campbell
This will be a very interesting suit to follow.  The plaintiffs, Rev Perryman and  The National Black Republican Association are very well equipped to make this happen. It seems they might have had an equally compelling case demonstrating how democrat policy and  the Black Caucus and Obama have used the same progressive policies which are actually regressive in nature; hurting blacks and the poor disproportionately.  Obama’s promise to not raise taxes not one dime on those making under $250,000 was the tip of that he was a liar as taxes were immediately raised by those who could less afford it. Oddly they have picked grievances going back to the days of slavery and Jim Crow Laws.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, I’m J.C. and i approve this message.

 

Seattle. On September 11, 2011, blacks from the West Coast and the East Coast joined together and signed one of the most comprehensive legal briefs ever prepared on racial discrimination, then filed their brief yesterday, September 12th, at 9:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time in US District Court in Seattle (Case No. C11 – 1503). The plaintiffs, who refer to the defendants as “Father of Racism,” allege that as an organization, the Democratic Party has consistently refused to apologize for the role they played in slavery and Jim Crow laws and for other subsequent racist practices from 1792 to 2011.

 

Rev. Wayne Perryman, a former Democrat himself and the lead plaintiff in this class action lawsuit, said he was inspired to file this action after seeing the recent movie The Help. The movie takes place in the region that was exclusively controlled by Democrats for more than 150 years (the South). Mrs. Frances P. Rice, the Chair of the National Black Republican Association is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Mrs. Rice is a resident of Sarasota, Florida and has lived in the the South most of her life.

The case cites the collective work of over 350 legal scholars and includes Congressional records, case-law, research from our nation’s top history professors, racist statements from Democratic elected officials, citations from the Democrat’s National Platforms regarding their support of slavery, excerpts of speeches from Senator Obama, individual testimonies from blacks who lived in the Jim Crow South and opinions from the NAACP.

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White House Insider: Obama “Panicked” Over Re-Election Prospects | Socyberty

White House Insider: Obama “Panicked” Over Re-Election Prospects | Socyberty.

As President Obama faces an increasingly uncertain political future, our White House Insider indicates widespread re-election panic within the president’s inner-circle, hints at a “pushback” scandal against Republicans, and the intent to make the president “very uncomfortable” heading into 2012…

 

Author’s Note:  What follows are the unedited responses to a series of questions recently posed to a long-time Washington D.C.political insider and former member of the Obama 2008 campaign and transition team.

 

 

Question:  Please give your views on the Congressional Project Gunrunner hearings.  Were you satisfied with Issa’s performance?

 

Insider:  The hearings went as well as we could have hoped.  Congressman Issa, to his great credit, and to my own personal surprise, did an outstanding job.  We are as confident as ever that this scandal can prove to be the catalyst for further investigations into Barack Obama and others closely associated with his administration.  I still don’t entirely trust Congressman Issa, but for now he’s earning my respect and gratitude.  We cannot count on this Gunrunner thing by itself though.  The political defeat of Barack Obama in 2012 remains top priority.  Not so long ago I thought the possibility of defeating Obama in 2012 to be remote at best. I no longer feel that way.

 

I have been sharing with you the internal polling data for some time.  These internals have started to leak out to others.  Pat spoke to this publicly a couple weeks back.  They show the president as increasingly vulnerable across the board. By that I mean to say, the president is losing support from the very groups that made his election in 2008 possible.  These internal polls are done regularly.  If the results reflect positively for an administration, the results are given to certain media outlets and used to promote a president’s standing.  For over a year the results of these internals have been shut down for the simple fact that time after time they have shown Barack Obama to be far less popular with American voters than the media has been attempting to spin.  Obama’s actual approval numbers are now hovering between 38 and 40 percent, and even lower in some of the most critical swing states. He has lost ground most significantly in recent months with seniors and union members.  Without those two groups, Obama cannot win re-election, and the White House is downright panicked about it.

Read more: http://socyberty.com/history/white-house-insider-obama-panicked-over-re-election-prospects/#ixzz1Q9uiQnY9

Democrats defect: Conservative Democrats switch to GOP across the South – latimes.com

Will Austin conservatives follow this trend?

Democrats defect: Conservative Democrats switch to GOP across the South – latimes.com

via Democrats defect: Conservative Democrats switch to GOP across the South – latimes.com.

For Democrats, Ashley Bell was the kind of comer that a party builds a future on: A young African American lawyer, he served as president of the College Democrats of America, advised presidential candidate John Edwards and spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.

But after his party’s midterm beat-down in November, Bell, a commissioner in northern Georgia’s Hall County, jumped ship. He joined the Republicans.

Bell, 30, said he had serious issues with the healthcare law and believed that conservative “blue dog” Democrats in Congress who shared his values had been bullied into voting for it.

Bell’s defection is one of dozens by state and local Democratic officials in the Deep South in recent months that underscore Republicans’ continued consolidation of power in the region — a process that started with presidential politics but increasingly affects government down to the level of dogcatcher.

“I think the midterms showed you really can’t be a conservative and be a member of the Democratic Party,” Bell said.

Since the midterm election, 24 state senators and representatives have made the switch in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Texas.

In some cases, the ramifications have been profound: In Louisiana, defecting Democrats gave Republicans a majority in the state House for the first time since Reconstruction; in Alabama, they delivered the GOP a House supermajority. Republicans have 65 votes to the Democrats’ 39, enough to pass constitutional amendments over Democratic opposition.

The trend continued through late January — when nine officials in Lamar County in northeastern Texas left the Democratic Party — and into last week, when Louisiana Atty. Gen. James D. “Buddy” Caldwell switched parties, leaving the GOP in control of every major state office in Baton Rouge.

Democrats may remain competitive in some parts of the South in 2012. The Democratic Party’s announcement last week that it will hold its national convention in Charlotte, N.C., may help President Obama’s chances in what has become a Southern swing state — and one that he narrowly won in 2008.

But peering farther South, he will face a sea of red that is increasingly deep: Republicans hold every Southern governor’s mansion except in North Carolina and Arkansas, and control most of the state legislative chambers.

Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, said the party-switching — in addition to big Republican legislative gains in the South in the November election — reflect an ongoing “top-down realignment” of the region’s white voters from old-school conservative Democrat to Republican.

Decades ago in the South, he said, “the issues that hurt the Democrats were issues first introduced in national politics.” In other words, “the increased liberalization of the Democratic Party.”

Republican presidential candidates made inroads in the South beginning in 1964 with Barry Goldwater, who won a number of Southern states because he opposed the Civil Rights Act. Many local offices, however, remained in Democratic hands, even if the officeholders were conservative and white.

Over time, traditional Democratic support has eroded at the local level, a decline aided by the Internet and 24-hour cable news, which have allowed Republicans to “more easily connect local politics with what’s happening nationally,” said David Avella, president of GOPAC, a Republican group that supports state and local politicians.

Many of the defectors have echoed Bell’s assertion that Democrats have become too liberal.

“The truth is that this change of party is in line with thousands of everyday people who simply feel more comfortable with most of what the Republican Party represents locally and nationally,” Caldwell said in a statement.

Caldwell is up for reelection as Louisiana’s attorney general this year. But switching sides isn’t always a winning move: Former U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama moved to the GOP in 2009, and then lost in a Republican primary.

The party-switchers also leave behind hurt feelings among stalwart Democrats. Jim Taflinger, head of the Hall County Democratic Party in Georgia, said it was sad that a promising figure like Bell would walk away from an “incredible resume” as a Democrat.

“You know, there’s been a lot of party-switching going on,” Taflinger said. “I think it’s not so much policy driven … so much as environment driven. The business environment is such that you have to be careful up here calling yourself a Democrat — there’s a stigma to it.”

In his part of the world, Taflinger said, a big part of his job is to “let people know it’s OK to be Democrats again.”

richard.fausset@latimes.com

President’s ineptness quite clear after a year – KansasCity.com

President’s ineptness quite clear after a year – KansasCity.com.

The American Spectator : The Man Who Despises America

The American Spectator : The Man Who Despises America.

The very next paragraph is going to make the nut jobs on the far left excitable beyond belief. I am not referring to all Democrats or even a majority of liberals. I am singling out the “they’ve-lost-all-touch-with-reality” crowd. This includes Media Matters for America led by the admitted hit-and-run, drunk-driving serial liar. The group includes the unshaven, bathrobe-clad unemployed who live in their mother’s basement and are devout followers of MoveOn.Org. It is also the bitter, aging spinster working at the New York Times, the morbidly obese documentary film maker, and cable TV news’ resident drama queen who hosts MSNBC’s Countdown. They are about to simultaneously suffer from brain aneurisms. So without further delay, I’ll say it.

Barack Obama despises America.

When people who voted for Obama in 2008 — including registered Democrats — start speaking in normal conversational voices at dinner parties, neighborhood gatherings and PTA meetings that the over-inflated ego from Chicago has it “in for America,” then it’s clear most reasonable people have reached the same conclusion.

The central conviction of Obama’s ideology is that America is guilty of limitless moral failures and is the chief architect of the world’s ills. Obama has boundless enmity for America, its key institutions, and its longtime allies. Consider these facts.

The 30-years of Obama’s post-adolescent life are radical by any measure. First, he grew up listening to the ramblings of committed Communist Frank Marshall Davis. It had such a profound effect on him that he wrote fondly of Davis in his first book. In fact, that book is replete with statement after statement about how the U.S. is deeply flawed. Most Americans believe in American exceptionalism. Not so with Obama.

Patriotic Americans would not have listened to the bigoted, anti-Semitic, hate-America rants of a fringe religious leader for 20 seconds let alone for 20 years. Yet, Obama who admitted he attended services at Trinity United Church at least twice a month for two decades called Jeremiah Wright his mentor and his moral sounding board.

Nor would most Americans cultivate a close friendship with an admitted domestic terrorist and his wife whose most notable life’s accomplishments were to set off bombs that killed and maimed innocent people.

Joining Al Sharpton and Jeremiah Wright in organizing attendance at Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s 1995 march on Washington is beyond imaginable. Especially after Farrakhan demonstrated public support for Colonel Muammar Qaddafi during the Libyan Leader’s most bellicose years against the U.S., which included Libyan complicity in numerous terrorist attacks.

Obama’s view of America in national security and foreign affairs is profoundly disappointing to say the least.

Americans overwhelmingly view the men and women who saved Europe and the Far East during World War II as comprising the Greatest Generation. By his comments and actions, President Obama obviously thinks otherwise.

Obama did not honor American greatness on the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift while on his first European trip. Instead, he accused “America [of having] shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive” toward its European allies.

He also denigrated the accomplishments of the American G.I. during World War II in the Pacific theater when he offered a thinly veiled apology for the U.S. having dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those acts brought the war to a swift conclusion, perhaps saving hundreds of thousands of lives when it appeared Japan was prepared to wage an island-by-island battle to the last man.

Obama ordered the release of the so-called CIA “torture memos,” seriously damaging delicate intelligence relations with allied nations and placing at grave risk the safety of U.S. intelligence officers working overseas. The impact of his action handcuffs the ability of U.S. intelligence officials to protect the U.S. and American interests from acts of terrorism.

In a matter of weeks last spring, Obama gave deference to a variety of belligerent leaders while stiff-arming longtime American allies. First, he called for closer relations with Cuba while ignoring that nation’s long list of continuing human rights abuses. Then he warmly welcomed Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at an Organization of American States summit.

Next, he failed to respond and set the record straight after Nicaragua’s Communist leader Daniel Ortega listed alleged U.S. crimes and atrocities during a nearly one-hour rant at the OAS meeting. It is unsettling that in his own remarks Obama incorrectly claimed the OAS has 36 members rather than the actual 34. Ortega and the hemisphere’s other Socialist leaders claim the OAS would include 36 members if Cuba and an independent Puerto Rico were allowed to join. Mere coincidence or Freudian slip?

Immediately following the OAS embarrassments, Obama ignored a request from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet. Obama would repeat this snub six months later before agreeing at the last moment to meet Netanyahu after the Israeli leader was en route the U.S.

In his speech before the Muslim world, Obama made the patently absurd claim of equivalency between the status of displaced Palestinians and the slaughter of millions of Jews during the Holocaust. His claim that 7 million Muslims live in the U.S. is a figure inflated by as much as 700%.

In an earlier speech, Obama claimed that the U.S. is not a Christian nation, which is at odds with the fact that 79% of Americans self-identify as Christians and the nation’s founders were devout Christians.

In less than six months in office, Obama apologized for Guantanamo Bay; for alleged mistakes committed by the CIA; for U.S. policy in the Americas; for America’s history of slavery; for “sacrificing [American] values;” for “hasty decisions” in the war on terror; for “America’s standing in the world;” for American errors in foreign policy; and for U.S. relations with the Muslim world.

He pronounced Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technology acceptable and he warned Netanyahu against targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities. Obama’s approach to Iran is eerily similar to that of Jimmy Carter, whose actions contributed to the fall of that nation into the control of Islamic radicals.

This summer, the door to greater individual freedoms in Iran was firmly closed shut when Obama announced the U.S would not meddle in Iran’s election and he offered no encouragement to democracy activists who protested the obviously stolen elections. His silence was deafening when regime security agents savagely attacked and killed countless Iranians who took to the streets.

In contrast to his deference to anti-American leaders such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, and Daniel Ortega, Obama strong-armed Netanyahu on key Israeli matters. In addition to snubbing the Israeli Prime Minister’s requests to meet, Obama demanded an end to Israeli settlements and insisted on the creation of a two-state Palestine solution.

Obama abandoned NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic by canceling the central Europe missile defense plan just as rogue nations North Korea and Iran make advances in nuclear and ballistic missile production. The cancellation was demanded by Moscow authorities who have adopted a more confrontational posture toward the west.

Solidarity with freedom-loving East Germans has been a staple of the American presidency for nearly 50 years. John Kennedy pronounced himself a Berliner. Ronald Reagan demanded Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “Tear down this wall!” Yet, this bricks and mortar icon of first, Soviet totalitarianism, and then, second, the end of Soviet domination did not make the cut as Obama chose not to attend the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. In the summer of 2008, Obama altogether skipped mentioning the role of the U.S. — or even the West, for that matter — in bringing down the wall, instead crediting “a world that stands as one.”

Obama’s disagreement with American values and institutions is evident in domestic issues. He has stocked his administration with wild-eyed radicals who believe foreign law trumps the U.S. Constitution (Harold Koh); include an avowed Marxist and “truther” who believes George Bush was complicit in the 9/11 attack and is also an ardent supporter of cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal (Van Jones); and include a devoted admirer of Mao Tse-tung who slaughtered as many as 75 million people (Anita Dunn). (In contrast, George W. Bush’s Attorney-General nominee John Ashcroft was savaged by the news media for being an Evangelical Christian.)

Three weeks after America’s first black president was sworn in, the nation’s first black Attorney-General who was hand-picked by Obama, called America “a nation of cowards” for some perceived race relations shortfall. The understood meaning of Eric Holder’s comments is that white people are still racists. However, the reality is the people most preoccupied with fomenting the racial divide are those who populate the ranks of the Obama Administration.

Obama’s Homeland Secretary designated military veterans as terrorists-in-waiting to be equally as dangerous as other domestic terrorists including pro-lifers and citizens opposed to the flood of illegal aliens.

One of Obama’s very few suggestions to cut into his $1.4 trillion budget deficit was to have servicemen and women pay for their own war injuries. He’s all for providing free health care to illegal aliens but believes wounded warriors should foot their own hospital bills. In fact, the Defense Department is about the only sector of government in which Obama has proposed slashing spending.

Hours after a belligerent “African-American Studies” Harvard professor engaged in behavior unbefitting anyone let alone a professional man, Obama accused the exceedingly tolerant Cambridge police officers as having “acted stupidly” and then digressed into how people of color have been unfairly treated by white America.

Bush was prolific in quietly and privately visiting the military wounded and family of the fallen. In contrast, Obama attempted to make political capital of his one visit to Dover Air Force Base. Obama’s motives were so transparent that families of 17 of the 18 fallen denied permission for Obama to engage in a photo-op alongside the returning caskets.

In May, Obama immediately issued a statement that he was “shocked and outraged by the murder” of a Kansas doctor specializing in partial-birth abortions. He called it a “heinous act of violence.” Attorney-General Holder mobilized U.S. Marshals nationwide to provide protection to abortion clinics.

But Obama remained silent the very next day when two U.S. soldiers were gunned down by a Muslim extremist outside a Little Rock recruiting station. After repeated prodding for a presidential comment, the White House faxed an after-hours statement to select media outlets two days later offering a tepid remark that Obama was “saddened” without even mentioning the soldiers were murdered.

Five months later, another Muslim fanatic gunned down nearly four dozen Americans, killing 13, at the Ft. Hood army base. It was an act that demanded the most serious demeanor of the military’s Commander-in-Chief. Yet, Obama referenced the massacre in the most insincere fashion just seconds after a jocular shout-out to an audience member during a public speaking engagement. It was the equivalent of attending a funeral in swimwear while en route to the beach.

The odd inadvertent comment or occasional verbal faux pas can be explained away as just that. However, Obama has a lifetime of comments and actions including 10 months as president that belie his real attitude toward the U.S. The difference between Obama and his immediate predecessors such as Ronald Reagan, the George Bushes and Bill Clinton who actually revere and honor the greatness of America and its citizens and institutions cannot be overstated.

Document sheds light on ethics probe in Congress – washingtonpost.com

Document sheds light on ethics probe in Congress – washingtonpost.com.

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 2, 2009

 

 After years of criticism that congressional lawmakers were reluctant to investigate their colleagues, the disclosure in recent days of a sensitive document from the House ethics committee offers the contradictory portrait of a panel actively pursuing a range of probes even as Democrats under scrutiny remain in positions of power.

This Story

The 22-page document revealed that the ethics committee, as of late July, was looking into the activities of at least 19 lawmakers, including reviews of home mortgages and interviews about corporate-backed trips for members of Congress to Caribbean resorts. Combined with the inquiries being conducted by a new ethics office, the document showed a far more robust set of investigations than previously revealed.

But the document also brings potential political peril for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whose party claimed the majority in November 2006 after she promised to “drain the swamp” of corruption on Capitol Hill. Two and a half years into Pelosi’s reign, more than 25 Democrats have been targeted for ethics reviews by the two ethics bodies, while just seven Republicans appeared to be under scrutiny, according to the document.

Republicans have criticized Pelosi for declining to take away power from close allies such as Reps. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). Both are powerful chairmen who were previously known to be under investigation, but the new document offered greater detail about those probes.

Rangel said in an interview he was interviewed by the ethics committee about a trip he took to a Caribbean resort that may have been underwritten by corporate interests. Such privately financed trips were forbidden under rules Pelosi pushed shortly after taking over in 2007. Rangel said the interview did not cover other allegations about his personal finances.

Release of the document, which was provided to The Washington Post by a source with no connection to the ethics committee or Congress, provided an unexpected window into the inner workings of the committee, which has operated in secrecy for decades.

The scope of its activities provided a counterpoint to critics who have questioned whether the panel — made up of six Democrats, six Republicans and a staff of fewer than 10 lawyers — has taken its work seriously. Ethics watchdogs, who have spent more than a decade pummeling the House and Senate ethics committees, offered rare praise for the House panel and the new Office of Congressional Ethics.

“Both groups are seriously pursuing their ethics responsibilities at this stage,” six groups said in a joint statement.

But the revelations have also triggered new sensitivities for the ethics committee, which is formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Some lawyers have privately wondered whether the disclosures could damage cases the committee was pursuing. And lawmakers questioned the panel’s professionalism for allowing a now-dismissed junior staffer to take the document home and accidentally load it onto a computer that was using peer-to-peer technology, opening all her files to everyone logged into that network.

The leaders of the ethics committee,  Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and  Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) alerted colleagues Thursday evening and cautioned that some newly revealed cases could just be cursory reviews by staff members. However, the nearly three dozen cases in the confidential report come under the heading “Investigative Issues of Significance.”

Watchdog work

The document covered every activity undertaken by the ethics committee staff for the week of July 27, revealing a hefty workload ranging from complex legal work to mundane requests from congressional staff. One lawyer, for example, fielded 21 phone calls from aides seeking guidance on House rules, reviewed 43 travel requests for staff members or lawmakers hoping to be in sync with chamber rules and reviewed seven financial disclosure forms.

A senior aide to House  Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) asked whether a lawmaker and aide, while visiting a private ranch on a fact-finding trip, could accept horseback rides from the owner so they could traverse the massive ranch. That was ap proved by a committee lawyer.

 

The chief of staff for  Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) asked if it was permissible to use official congressional e-mail to alert citizens outside his eastern Iowa district to lobby other members of Congress on a particular issue. Staff rejected this request, saying it would break the “prohibition on members conducting and assisting outside lobbying of Congress.”

This Story

Committee inquiries rarely become public, only at the most serious stages. Some reprimands are private. Only in recent years has the committee published biannual reports documenting the number of ongoing investigations.

The system is meant to protect innocent lawmakers from the political fallout of being identified as under investigation in cases that are not substantial, according to Robert Walker, a former counsel for the House and Senate ethics committees. He rejected criticism that the panel did not conduct enough inquiries.

“The House ethics committee has historically engaged in a number of ongoing investigations on a regular basis. Many groups may not be willing to acknowledge that, but they did occur,” he said.

A new ethics enforcer

Most watchdog groups credited a spike in committee activity to the Office of Congressional Ethics, a semi-independent body that conducts investigations and makes recommendations to the full ethics committee. Only the committee retains the power to punish a lawmaker.

The OCE’s creation came after a more than yearlong negotiation between Pelosi and many Democrats and Republicans who objected to a new ethics body.

Now in its first year of existence, the OCE operates with a mandate of speedy probes and public dissemination of information. It is run by a former federal prosecutor who helped send Enron executives to prison and a former Air Force prosecutor who tried terrorists.

The newly released document hints at the uneasy coexistence of the ethics committee and OCE. That relationship hit a bump last week after the committee dismissed a potential case referred from the ethics office.

OCE investigators had found that a Republican lawmaker probably broke rules by inviting his wife’s business partner to testify at a hearing, but the ethics committee unanimously dismissed the case and rebuked the OCE for misunderstanding House rules.

The most persistent critics of the ethics committee said the decision was more evidence of lawmakers declining to police their colleagues. But they also expressed mixed emotions after release of the document.

“We were pleasantly surprised to learn the ethics committee is investigating so many members of Congress, but starting an investigation isn’t enough. The real question is whether any of the members under investigation will ever be held accountable for their conduct,” said Melanie Sloan, founder of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.