Posted on 12/21/2009 4:53:46 PM PST by Hillary'sMoralVoid
Ben Nelson witlessly violated every priciple of a free society by accepting a payoff to the people of Nebraska.
In doing so, he corrupted a proposed senate bill because that bill does not provide equal protection and treatment under the law, as it provides certain citizens, namely Nebraskans, with exemptions from the law that no other United States citizens have.
This provides Nebraskans with an unequal and lesser financial burden under the law and forces the rest of the states to shoulder that burden.
Further, it is discrimatory against the citizens of other states who must pay Nebraska's share of the healthcare burden. If we are going to do this, we may as well award the Nebraska Cornhuskers 20 free points over Arizona at the Holiday Bowl on the 29th of this month, that would be equally "fair".
That any lawmaker would accept or even preopose such an egregious example of unfair and discriminatory legislation is truly an indictment of the Democrat party. Is there no level too low for them to stoop? We must show them the door!
So what else is new? Corrupt Democrat politicians writing unconstitutional laws....next we’ll have bears getting wee-wee’d up in the woods.
What free society? America -- a great idea, didn't last.
I do not see how Nelson and Landreau’s special deals do not violate the equal protections clause of the Constitution. On that issue alone there is reason to challenge this all the way to SCOTUS.
Ben Nelson is a male whore, who knew?
“In doing so, he corrupted a proposed senate bill because that bill does not provide equal protection and treatment under the law, as it provides certain citizens, namely Nebraskans, with exemptions from the law that no other United States citizens have.”
Exactly! This Bill should cause all the democRATS who voted for this trash to be placed in jail. This is a criminal act. Oh well, there is no constitution, there is no law.
Throw DA-Bum OUT!
Every other state should enjoin in a suit seeking equal protection under the law-this is Orwellian- “all animals are equal, some are more equal” mentality.
These people (congress critters) think we do not notice. They must be proven wrong and most of them shown the door!
Limited government must be restored!
What's not to understand?
“Those who love the law, or sausage, should not see either one being made”
Bismarck
Same sleazy crap that goes on every day, on nearly every bill; higher stakes and subject to more scrutiny, but same 3 card monte with our tax dollars and rapidly vanishing liberties.
So it starts with Nebraska, what state will be next to throw its’ tax burden onto the rest of remaining states?
“Those who love the law, or sausage, should not see either one being made”
Bismarck
Same sleazy crap that goes on every day, on nearly every bill; higher stakes and subject to more scrutiny, but same 3 card monte with our tax dollars and rapidly vanishing liberties.
Rush was perfectly right today. - we no longer have democracy here in the USA.
The will of the people doesn’t matter. We are being ruled by an elite class who hold different rules for themselves.
So long USA.
A very scary phrase in our lexicon used by a Democrat is “a good first step”.
This is simple, the democrats are more equal than the rest of us. Animal Farm.
Now, it's Ben Whore
Please allow me to express my jaded, cynical self here.
The special deal that Ben “The Male Slut” Nelson agreed to in return for selling his vote in the Senate, if allowed to stand, will exempt Nebraskans from paying their fair share of Medicaid IN PERPETUITY.
I predict, that, if it IS allowed to stand, the voters of Nebraska will demonstrate THEIR sluttiness by rewarding Ben Nelson and making him a SENATOR in PERPETUITY. That is OBVIOUSLY what he was banking on when he SOLD his vote in return for that deal.
What was it some sage told us many years ago? “The United States of America will only stand until the voters discover that they can VOTE themselves largesse from the public treasury,” or something close to that? We are seeing it in spades right now, and not just in Nebraska.
Congress’ ability to tax and spend is restricted by the general welfare clause of the constitution. A law that pays money for a program in only one state could not be interpreted as being for the “general welfare”. The uniformity clause pertains only to taxes, but a strong argument could be made that the founders never envisioned taxes collected from 50 states paying the costs of a federal program only for one state, while the others had to pay from their own budgets.
We would still have 13 separate colonies if the founders had proposed building a $100,000,000 hospital in Connecticut from taxes collected in all the states.
The idea that the benefits of uniform national taxation would only accrue to swing states with senators who happen to be Democrats is foreign to all the principles on which the country was founded. Not a single Democrat senator deserves re-election in 2010.
He is a Dem isn’t he.
ROFLOL
Extremely well stated, please build a post around this!
Does Ben Nelson now qualify for one of the most corrupt politicans of 2009? There are so many...
By the time this gets to the SCOTUS, years down the road, Obama will have packed that court with enough communist/socialist Constitution hating judges so that there will be NO chance of hanging a law violation on any of them. Stock up guns, ammo and supplies for after November of 2010 if the ballot won’t change it CWII will.
Is there any word of anyone taking this to court or does obummer have to sign it first?
The offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of something of value for the purpose of influencing the action of an official in the discharge of his or her public or legal duties.
The expectation of a particular voluntary action in return is what makes the difference between a bribe and a private demonstration of goodwill. To offer or provide payment in order to persuade someone with a responsibility to betray that responsibility is known as seeking Undue Influence over that person's actions. When someone with power seeks payment in exchange for certain actions, that person is said to be peddling influence. Regardless of who initiates the deal, either party to an act of bribery can be found guilty of the crime independently of the other.
A bribe can consist of immediate cash or of personal favors, a promise of later payment, or anything else the recipient views as valuable. When the U.S. military threatened to cancel a Texas relocation company's contracts to move families to and from military bases, the company allegedly gave four representatives in Congress an all-expenses-paid weekend in Las Vegas in January 1989, and $2,500 in speaking fees. The former president of the company was indicted by a federal Grand Jury in 1994 on bribery charges for both gifts.
No written agreement is necessary to prove the crime of bribery, but usually a prosecutor must show corrupt intent. Bribery charges may involve public officials or private individuals. In the world of professional sports, for example, one boxer might offer another a payoff to "throw" (deliberately lose) an important fight. In the corporate arena, a company could bribe employees of a rival company for recruitment services or other actions at odds with their employer's interests. Even when public officials are involved, a bribe does not need to be harmful to the public interest in order to be illegal.
When a public official accepts a bribe, he or she creates a conflict of interest. That is, the official cannot accommodate the interests of another party without compromising the responsibilities of her or his position. There is not always consensus over what counts as a bribe. For instance, in many states and at the federal level, certain gifts and campaign contributions are not considered bribes and do not draw prosecution unless they can be linked to evidence of undue influence. In this regard, negative public perception of private contributions to elected officials as payola has caused most states to establish legislative ethics committees to review the public-private relationships of house and senate members. Furthermore, both houses of the U.S. Congress passed legislation in 1994 restricting gifts to no more than $20 in value.
The Supreme Court further clarified the law by setting standards for federal bribery statutes in United States v. Sun Diamond Growers, 526 U.S. 398, 119 S.Ct. 1402, 143 L.Ed.2d 576 (1999). This case grew out of the prosecution of Mike Espy, secretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration, for allegedly accepting bribes. After Espy was acquitted of all charges, the Independent Counsel charged Sun Diamond Growers, a trade association for a large agricultural cooperative, with violating a federal gratuities law that prohibits giving gifts to public officials in exchange for favorable government actions. After Sun Diamond was convicted of the charges it took its case to the Supreme Court. The Court concluded that a person did not violate the law merely by giving a gift to a public official. Prosecutors must show that there was a connection between a specific official act in the past or future and the gift. Justice Antonin Scalia noted that if the government did not have to prove this linkage then a token gift such as the presentation of a sports jersey by a championship team to the president could be regarded as a criminal act.
The Court also noted differences in various federal bribery statutes, which included broad prohibitions. In the present case, the language of the gratuities statute did not reveal a similar intent by Congress; instead, the Court viewed this law as one strand of a complicated web of laws and regulations addressing official behavior.
It is common for both the recipient and the provider of a bribe to be accused, although bribery is not a joint offense—that is, one person's guilt does not affect the other's. Such was the case when a popular Massachusetts state senator allegedly accepted monthly payments from an investment Broker in exchange for trying to persuade state officials to send state Pension business to the broker. The legislator and the broker were both indicted on misdemeanor charges in early 1995.
U.S. companies that engage in international bribery can become targets of investigation at home. In January 1995, a former sales director of Lockheed Corporation pleaded guilty to violating the federal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 78dd-1 et seq., Allen R. Love told a U.S. district court that he had paid and helped to cover up a bribe to an Egyptian politician for arranging Egypt's 1989 purchase of three Lockheed transport planes. Congress adopted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 1977 to outlaw payments that are intended to win contracts from foreign officials. Ironically, the law's passage was triggered by testimony from a former vice president of the same Lockheed Corporation at a U.S. congressional hearing in 1976. In that case, the company's vice president admitted to bribing the prime minister of Japan with more than $1.9 million in the early 1970s, so that Japan would buy Lockheed's TriStar wide-body jets.
The severity of bribery can reach the felony level, punishable by a fine or imprisonment, or both. However, charges are sometimes reduced in exchange for helping to convict accomplices. For instance, in June 1994, Love pleaded innocent to felony charges of bribery and conspiracy. Later, he pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of "indirectly" conspiring, as part of a plea agreement in which he agreed to testify against the corporation itself, which was also a defendant.
The international sports community was rocked by a bribery scandal involving the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. Two officials of the Utah committee that secured the games were indicted in 2000 on charges of wire and Mail Fraud, conspiracy, and interstate travel in aid of Racketeering. They were charged with paying an official of the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) to help influence the selection of Salt Lake City by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The USOC official who received the bribes later pleaded guilty to several criminal charges including the accepting of a bribe. Federal prosecutors contended that the two officials had paid $1 million to influence votes of several IOC members. In addition, they had allegedly diverted some $130,000 of the bid committee's income, and had altered books and created false contracts to conceal their actions. The two officials denied that they had done anything wrong, contending that the payments were intended as grants and scholarships for poor athletes. Following the indictments, ten members of the IOC either resigned or were expelled from the organization, and many reforms were undertaken to prevent bribery. The USOC also authorized an independent review of its practices. However, the two Utah officials successfully challenged the bribery charges. In July 2001, a federal judge dismissed the bribery charges, finding that a Utah bribery statute could not be applied to the defendants' actions. In December 2001, the judge dismissed the remaining criminal counts.
I can't vote against either Landrieu or Nelson, but if I ever saw one of them on the street, I would joyfully curse them!
Nelson originally said that the governor of NB asked for the exemption. The governor of NB denied asking for anything. Nelson today said that the governor of NB voiced his concern to him about the increased cost of Medicaid to his state. Sounds like two different statements to me.
However, now Nelson says that if the governor of NB doesn’t want the help, he can always rescind it. Does that mean Nelson would rescind his yes vote from last night?
I totally agree - this open, blatant corruption, if left to stand will destroy any semblance of a “Republic”, and any politician who doesn’t say so is part of the problem, and IS NOT living up to his/her oath to UPHOLD and DEFEND the Constitution.
Thanks for pointing out this very, very important point.
Yes, there is nothing to sue over until the legislation is actually signed into law. Until then, and the way things are going not even then, will we know what is in this atrocity.
It’s always better to stop it beforehand, but in this case we are probably going to see something ram-rodded through the Conference Committee, and approved along party lines. It’s hard to believe that things have come to this, but here we are...
All people on Medicare and living in the other 49 states, should go to Nebraska for medical treatment.
Naw, Benedict is still a small fry. He got his 15 minutes of fame, that’s all. He can’t hold a candle to Harry, Barney, Chris, etc. I think he’s actually too stupid to realize what he just did. Just one man’s opinion, but I’m sure his arrogance is only exceeded by his ignorance.
The remaining 59 have gotta be thinking, “gee if I had just `stood on my principles’ I coulda got a lot of swag too!”
TOTUS: The honorable senator from Nebraska will be reminded (as needed) from now on, as follows:
“Sir, we’ve established what you are;
Now we’re just haggling over price.”
Heck, even the senator (note no caps) indicated the he would reneg if the Gov (yep, place the mantle on someone else's shoulders-how democrat) wanted him to....
I predicate this is not over yet. I mean the Nebraska Kickback/Louisiana Purchase deal as well as the whole health scare bill....
Maybe every state will have some version- “Missouri compromise, Texas panhandle“ has a ring to it, no?
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