Wednesday, March 04, 2009

The number one reason I've come to think term limits should be passed

Dodd, whose father also represented Connecticut in Congress, came to Washington in 1974 as part of the reform-minded, post-Watergate class.
This clown has been in DC for 34 years. He thinks that office belongs to him. And plays games like this:
Just 18 months ago, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd slowed efforts to hike taxes on a portion of Wall Street bonuses, saying he was “concerned about the potential adverse effects” on investment and employment.

Now, as unemployment rises and credit markets freeze, Dodd is hunting for Wall Street blood
.
Etc.

This from Countrywide Dodd, who thinks getting a different mortgage now makes up for the sweetheart deals he got from a company he had a hand in regulating. Who's still trying to make that just go away. And there's other things, like his Irish 'cottage':
As Rennie outlines, Dodd became part owner of the 10-acre Galway property in 1994 along with Missouri businessman William Kessinger, whom Dodd knew through investor Edward R. Downe Jnr, who had pleaded guilty the previous year to insider trading charges. The mortgage was listed as "between $100,001 and $250,000". Downe was a witness to Kessinger's purchase.

In 2001, Dodd circumvented the US Justice Department to help get his pal Downe a full pardon on President Bill Clinton's last day in office. The following year, Dodd bought off Kessinger's two-thirds share of the "cottage" for, Dodd said, $127,000.

Ever since then, Dodd has continued to list the value of the property as "between $100,001 and $250,000".
Wow, such a deal, huh? But no increase in value?
The nearby village of Roundstone is a celebrity hangout. When he's there, the Sunday Times reported in 2007, he's likely to "rub shoulders with [RTE's] Pat Kenny, Bill Whelan of Riverdance, Lochlann Quinn, the former AIB chairman, and the singer Brian Kennedy".

Given the Irish property boom, a conservative estimate would be that the house would be worth approaching $1 million, and very possibly much more than that.

So why hasn't Dodd declared a more realistic true value of the property? No doubt he didn't want to highlight the fact that he had a third splendid pile, to go along with his residences in DC and Connecticut, as he sought the presidency (remember how all those homes harmed John McCain?). Maybe he knew it would mean further scrutiny of his connection with the pardoned crook Downe
.

Even those who go there clean, and stay year after year, too many become corrupted; far too many are already corrupted by the time they get there. Two Senate, three House terms max. Period. Get them the hell out before they get too tied into "I'll vote the way you want if you put me on that committee" and "Help me deal with this problem and get reelected and I'll help you with that".

And actually turn the Justice Department loose on Dodd. Stop screwing with chemotherapy patients smoking grass, stop screwing with FFL holders for bullcrap like abbreviating a state or city name on a form, and go after the corrupt politicians and their crooked associates. Would make a world of difference.

1 comment:

Dan said...

Term limits should have been imposed on Congress at the same time they were imposed on the President. The only path to repair, if there even is one, lies in term limits. Problem is that with a fixed number of terms to get their greed on, they will simply get it on faster and bigger. Other problem is they make the rules they live by and they are also the enforcers of said rules. Those darn they people.

Word verification: gedowl: an owl school dropout turned educated... ;)