Politics as Usual
Will things ever change?
We have Iran ignoring the fact that its citizens believe there was vote tampering in the most recent election. Well, they’re not ignoring it as much as denying it and incorporating violence into citizen protests.
Then there’s North Korea threatening to wipe the US off the face of the earth (charming).
But even here at home there’s chaos. Nationally, we have the governor of South Caroloina disappearing for a number of days without notifying anybody of his whereabouts. The reason for this trip? An affair with a woman in Argentina. Now I could give a shit about the fact that he’s having an affair. That has nothing to do with his ability (inability?) to govern. Whether republican or democrat (Bill Clinton comes to mind), cheating on a spouse is not grounds for losing a job, whether president of a country, CEO of a company, or order-taker at McDonalds.
However, leaving the country without notifying staff about the details of your trip is irresponsible in the highest degree. If there was an emergency of any sort (riot, explosion, death of lieutenant governor, etc…) he needs to be reachable. For that, he should be fired.
And even locally, despite having ALL forms of Massachusetts government controlled by democrats, there are still control issues with how things are done. Most recently, legislative leaders “compromised” on an ethics bill that the governor has been pushing for. I repeat…compromised. Being ethical is being ethical…there’s no compromise about it.
Now, I don’t hate or love Deval Patrick. I’m not a flag waving fan, nor am I a vocal opponent. But the poor guy can’t get a break with the legislature. Everything he’s proposing (most of which I agree with) is being fought by the rest of the government: tax reform (I’m against sales tax increases, though I am for gas tax increases), I’m for complete ethics reform, I’m for complete pension reform), I’m for complete transportation reform. But every step of the way the legislature is watering down his proposals.
I mean, come on, Patrick’s ethics bill would have banned gifts to lawmakers, but legislators changed it to only “most” gifts are banned), and they also changed wording so lobbyists can still make or solicit campaign donations. They also altered the “open meeting” laws so that they aren’t included. How convenient.
Ethics? I give up.
2 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Well, Karl, a big part of the problem in Massachusetts IS that everyone’s a Democrat, and the legislators are pros to Patrick’s amateur…one-party rule leads to rampant cronyism and corruption. I’m no fan of the latter-day Republicans in Mass…Romney’s a complete creep, Swift was a joke, and then all the old–school Malone gang were just cretinous thugs (most of whom resurfaced in power under Romney, go figure…), but the thing Weld and even, to some extent, Cellucci, were good for was keeping some balance and the legislature on notice that the popular will wasn’t always in favor of their old-school tax-and-graft methodology…remember being called “Taxachusetts” when we were kids?! Haven’t heard it in a long time, have you? Well, you will again, and soon… RI is like Massachusetts of old – if there had never been a Weld – ridiculous socially-conservative Democrat corrupt legislature, high taxes, stagnation and idiocy everywhere, and, yeah, we have a Republican (in name) Governor, but he’s just the fancy-suburban version of the rest of ’em (and a vocal opponent of gay rights,etc…lovely…thank heavens for term limits…he’s gone in the next round…)….Just depressing.
As to the guy in SC, in reference to Randy’s comment yesterday, yeah, the affair shouldn’t matter on his governing, but good point on how his secrecy and disappearance IS a big competence/fire-his-ass issue… I must say, it’s utterly delightful to see all this sex scandal (pity it was a woman in Argentina, not a hot polo player, lol) fall on a social-conservative Republican – let’s hope for more!
Sigh…business as usuall…
I believe Woody Allen said it best – the heart wants what it wants….. or the peñe does at least.