Replies to post #263224 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Something fishy in river city was the first thought on hearing of the reversal on Sydney tv this morning

"Moving to pass the ethics rules now was a page torn right out of the Trump playbook: The theory is that you can get away with doing things that are egregious violations of norms, and even ones that might be politically toxic if handled through the typical political process, if they are instead dealt with brusquely, casually, and secretively. By the time the gutting of OCE was known, it was already passed and incorporated into the rules package, and the opponent best positioned to stop it, Paul Ryan, had already been steamrolled. But they play turned out not to work as well for the House as it has for the president-elect. It will be much harder to pass later, after having been pulled for public outcry. The abrupt demise of the amendment suggests two lessons for Republicans in Congress: Guessing Trump’s mind is impossible, and the tactics that work for him are liable to blow up in anyone else’s face."
.. repeat your main link .. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/trumps-weak-pushback-on-gutting-the-congressional-ethics-office/512039/

something on those lines .. what shenanigans have gone on between the players beforehand?

All the links in yours are well worth reading .. particularly Norm Ornstein's who reminded of

Newt Gingrich in the years leading up to 1994, using the ethics process for partisan leverage, criminalizing policy differences.

moving in history to

Under Speaker Dennis Hastert and his henchman Tom DeLay, it got worse. The nadir came in 2004 when an honest ethics panel, chaired by conservative Republican Joel Hefley of Colorado did its duty and recommended sanctions against DeLay for unethical conduct. Hastert responded by firing Hefley and removing two standup Republican members, Kenny Hulshof of Missouri and the late Steve LaTourette of Ohio.

When Democrats recaptured the House in 2006, the new speaker, Nancy Pelosi, began a process to clean the House

and the kudos to Boehner

The OCE members spanned the political spectrum, and had a thankless task, but responded just the way we had hoped—every decision they made was balanced, careful, and importantly, unanimous. The body took plenty of potshots, from aggrieved members of both parties, which have continued since its creation. Reformers have feared at the beginning of each Congress since then that the leadership would try to remove it or weaken it. But Pelosi stood firm and Boehner, to his great credit, did so as well. Now this.
.. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/the-gops-ethics-disaster/512021/ ..

was good to see.

.. a man who has exhibited a life-long disdain for ethical conduct .. a man whose biggest cloud overhead is arguably his own ethical behavior in business,
and from the beginning throughout his campaign process .. this man out-of-the-blue finds himself in a position where he can publicly tweet 'hey, i don't
like this house move to undermine the ethics watchdog apparatus we have!' .. what's that smell? .. why does this have the smell of a fish-market?

Actually .. lol .. i like the smell, just not where it shouldn't be.