Arkansas Blog

...Mr. Reid said his only concern was that the news media were willing "to take these instances and try to make a big deal out of them."

Several ethics experts said Mr. Reid should have paid for the boxing tickets to avoid violating Senate rules.

Well, where to begin...You know it's stinky when, once again, the big bad media are the designated culprits. And, Mr. Reid should have paid for the tickets 'cause it's the right thing to do...not because he could drive a truck through the loopholes in the Senate's ethics rules. My god, if our illustrious Congress people worked as hard serving our needs as they do writing ethics rules simply to obfuscate their lack of ethics maybe every American would have healthcare...or the Iraq fiasco wouldn't continue on as if every thing's just hunky dory.

It's very simple: Outside of loving family members there are no free trips. If some one buys you something, they're usually expecting something in return. But aside from gift-givers ulterior motives, it's a healthy practice to always earn your own way through the world.

I wish we could figure out a way to make our elected officials live by the median standards of the citizens they represent. As it stands, there is little difference between most Congress people and the Soprano thugs...well, except the 'thugs' are more honest about their 'thuggery.'

If you ever saw the movie, 'Casino', and you remember the scene where Robert Diniro appears before the Nevada Gaming Commission and is denied a license. Diniro confronts him. The chairman of that Gaming Commission denies that he has ever received any 'freebies' from Diniro when Diniro accuses him of hypocrisy. The truth is, of course, that he has been on the take. In real life, the chairman of that Gaming Commission was Harry Reid.

Uh, okay, he took the tickets, then voted for further regulation of boxing, which was exactly NOT what the boxing commission wanted him to do. Yeah, he shouldn't have taken the tickets without paying for them, but I could see myself taking them just so I could vote the other way and let them know they wasted their money. Reid has done this before, by the way.

Dirty Harry needs to go...High Tax Harry needs to go...Liberal Harry needs to go...Wayne Newton needs to be in Congress and should run Dirty Harry out of Vegas and back to one of the pitiful blue states.

Pull back on the rhetoric - the tickets were from the Nevada Athletic Commission, the state agency that regulates boxing. Kinda puts this whole thing in a different light.

Here's a link: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/democratic-senator-from-nevada.html

The Senate ethics rules clearly permit Reid to accept gifts from governmental agencies--which the Nevada Athletic Commission is--so he did nothing wrong. The Ark Times blog post might do well to mention that rather important fact.

John Solomon, the AP hack who wrote that story, has some sort of animus against Reid, and this is not the first time Solomon has skewed a story to cast Reid in a false negative light. See TPM Muckraker for details:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000772.php

Clearly I'm out there on this...and that's okay; but the simple truth is this lining up freebies according to a whole list of qualifiers in order to determine whether they're 'good' gifts or 'bad' gifts is just wrong.

So what if it's a state agency...does that mean every official Nevada entity is obliged to 'give' its resources away to Reid or any other holder of office? If we have to buy tickets; they should buy tickets. If it was necessary for Reid, as a Senator, to attend these fights he should have done it without getting extras...or does he only go/investigate when he's given free inducements? So what if there's no direct line between a Reid vote and an entity's interests...that's a low bar to set for ethical standards. 'Hey, if ya can't find a direct quid pro quo then all my shit really smells good.'

Politicians get salaries to fund their lives; and our DC guys/gals get more tax-funded perks than any other group I know of...and they're deluxe goodies! In other words our taxes pay them well and there's no good reason to be looking for outside Booty unless you're considering cheating on the taxpayers who already own all your votes.

If they aren't crooks to start with, why would they have any interest in being in Congress? The ancient idea of civic duty and responsibility was long ago buried beneath piles of free-flowing cash. Want fewer crooks in Congress? Reduce their pay to more reasonable amounts and prohibit gifts of any kind. But wait, I forgot that we...that's those of us not in Congress...can't do that, can we?

Zelda is spot on. The whole motivation about term limits (not really the best idea) would be civic duty should overcome extraneous rewards. If you are Hucklbee the burden of proof for malfeasance would lie with the constituent to prove that that canoe made him waste months until he actually believed studies had shown soda pops make kids fat or that secondhand smoke was less dangerous in bars and small hotels in Hot Springs.