Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) locked Republicans out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee room to keep them from meeting when Democrats aren’t present.This could probably be nothing more than harmless bickering between both parties. I personally do not care if Congress is not doing their “job” because when they are not doing it, we are all safe from tyranny.
Towns’ action came after repeated public ridicule from the leading Republican on the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), over Towns’s failure to launch an investigation into Countrywide Mortgage’s reported sweetheart deals to VIPs.
For months Towns has refused Republican requests to subpoena records in the case. Last Thursday Committee Republicans, led by Issa, were poised to force an open vote on the subpoenas at a Committee mark-up meeting. The mark-up was abruptly canceled. Only Republicans showed up while Democrats chairs remained empty.
Republicans charged that Towns cancelled the meeting to avoid the subpoena vote. Democrats first claimed the mark-up was canceled due to a conflict with the Financial Services Committee. Later they said it was abandoned after a disagreement among Democratic members on whether to subpoena records on the mortgage industry’s political contributions to Republicans.
However, given what has happened in the recent years and most certainly the revelations in the recent months, how can one not assume that Representative Towns is not somehow corrupt in all this. And so the business of Congress continues to be more and more that of corruption and tyranny.
You know what is the most frustrating part about all this though? It is the fact that all of this is staring us in the face and they continue to claim some farcical moral high ground. They do so with all the effort of moral busybodies and they seek to rule over us if necessary to achieve their goals.
Statists in Congress seek to dominate our lives and in the process become as wealthy and powerful as possible. If that means cutting deals with come financial companies and looking the other way, so be it. I do not blame Countrywide so much in all this. While they clearly lack integrity by more than likely bribing these men, I doubt they initiated the bribe.
Ayn Rand wrote about this, only she discussed the Vanderbilt railroad industry and how he had to bride local legislatures in order to expand his business. She said that it would not have been necessary had those in power simply allowed him to do so. Instead they put up roadblocks and demanded that he pay the devil his due.
I think many Americans live in a naive world. While we view our system of government as superior to the third world or even European countries, in the end it just as bad as theirs. I remember a friend of mine telling the story of traveling in the Philippines and how he was pulled over by a police officer. His native wife quickly handed him some money and told him to just give it to the officer so they could go on their way.
Here in America, that is called a Speeding ticket, the only difference is that it is legal and it goes into your criminal record. Congress is exceptional at their corruption and their ability to distract people from it.
Now we get Edolphus Towns we can add to the list of Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama, William Jefferson, Harry Reid, and probably Nancy Pelosi. Believe me, if nothing has come out about her yet, it will in due time. Congress is dirtier than a toilet after Thanksgiving Day. And it is high time we called Roto-Rooter on them.