Ethics? Now We Gotta Have Ethics?

Ah well, the United States Senate is the current late-comer to the ethics debate, as though ethics anywhere could be created on a spreadsheet.

Ethics is a condition of character; how could it possibly be codified?

CNBC offers an article titled ‘Senators strike bipartisan deal for a ban on stock trading by members of Congress,” quite likely because stock trading fraud is the latest public heat applied to a strikingly fraud-infected branch of government. The Senate and, indeed, the entire Congress is up to its elbows in fraud and graft, more in need of water-wings than legislation.

Legislation is what brought us to this state of affairs, that and affirmation by our disgracefully disgraced United States Supreme Court

It was not helpful that the Supremes (as I prefer to call them, more Mo-Town than Moral-Arbiters) chose to find that corporations enjoyed the same privileges as private citizens in 2010. American politics had been corrupted long before that, but the decision was icing on the cake. It was said at the time by Robert Reich, that he would believe corporations were people as soon as the State of Texas executed one.

Aside from that bon-mot, the decision opened the gates for corporations to contribute directly to campaign contributions. Prior to that, the Tillman Act of 1907 prohibited corporations from making direct monetary contributions to federal candidates. Mmm, fancy that.

Worse yet, the Supremes held that the Freedom of Speech Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, nonprofit organizations, labor unions, and other associations.

Thus, our celebrated freedoms of speech now depend upon the size of our megaphone

You and I may honorably write or announce from our particular podium, and send a few bucks off to Joe or Joan in the Senate, but Big Oil and the Military Induustrial Complex can deliver Big Bucks by the million. Exaggeration? 82 oil and gas PACs delivered $7,260,175 to national politicians in 2023-24. How did the Military Industrial guys come to capture 42% of our national budget?  Sneaky bastardy is the answer and moral collapse is the means.

One of my Senators, for example, banked $2,559,467 in a recent year. Not bad for a job that pays $174,000. You can find your congressperson and what they collect by dialing up opensecets.org and checking them out.

When I’m not near the grifter I love, I love the grifter I’m near

A ban on stock-trades is so small-potatoes and very nearly impossible to enforce. How about jobs on numerous company boards of directors upon either defeat or retirement from the Senate? Or a ‘consulting salary on a name your own number basis.’

The co-conspirators who got us here are both Republican and Democrat, so be careful pointing fingers.

As for the Supremes, their contribution to the debacle has their approval rating down to 36.7% and dropping like a stone.

Certainly doesn’t add to the moral argument to watch the United States Senate pick its own nose on the ethics of making stock trades with insider knowledge.