making America Suck again

An organization of international political scientists that research the workings of governments around the globe have determined that North Carolina can no longer be classified as a democratic government. Stunning...until you look a little deeper at the history of racism in N.C. politics.                                             Democracy Now   Dec. 28, 2016

Pakistani researchers studying how U.S. democracy works (& doesn't) were appalled that elected officials were allowed to design (redesign) boundaries for voting districts -- in the United States -- a system known as gerrymandering.                  google: gerrymandering

Last night, under the cover of darkness, the republican house caucus, behind closed doors, voted to make their first act of the 115th Congress of the United States a change to the rules of the House of Representatives. The rule to be changes was passed in 2008 following corruption trial and conviction of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. J.A. was a typical Washington lobbyist of the time who spread corporate money over congress the way a 5 year old spreads nutella on toast. Buying influence so your congressmen would pass bills favorable to the paying people and companies. The first order of business was to keep the house ethics committee from doing anything about the bribery...a very lucrative committee seat. So, the house committee on ethics ignored all the dirty dealings. Eventually the Justice Department stepped in and brought bribery charges (among others) against Jack, convicted him, and sent him to prison (hopefully he is still there but I doubt it). 
        Following the trial, and a whole lot of public condemnation, congress was shamed (not really - they know little of that, apparently) they passed a rule creating an outside ethics oversight committee to police unethical congressional behavior (more due to fear of election loss following all the bad pr). That's the rule they voted to neuter last night. They awoke to a wave of outrage this morning from the public and press...even Trump scolded them (sort of). Like slapped step children they sulkily shelved the idea (for the time being), indicating that from here forward, public outcry may be the only "check and balance" left.
       From that fiasco they moved on (for the 61st time) to a go at dismantling the Affordable Care Act. This time, without checks and balances, they will undoubtedly succeed.Never mind the fact that they really don't seem to have any sort of alternative plan. But, never fear, thanks to unlimited campaign donations, I'm betting that they'll get plenty of help with a very "workable" plan from the insurance companies with big pharma playing an indispensable advisory role. 

The best government money can buy......             Democracy Now     Jan. 3rd, 2017
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