news.yahoo.com — The Senate on Friday voted 87-0 to strip away the pensions of members of Congress convicted of white-collar crimes such as bribery, perjury and fraud. "With this vote, we are preventing members of Congress who steal or cheat from receiving a lifelong pension that is paid for by the taxpayers," said Sen. Kerry, the measure's sponsor.
Jan 14, 2007 View in Crawl 4
agententropyJan 14, 2007
It's stories like this that make me hold out some bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, things will get better in this country.
tubatechnoJan 14, 2007
"when he vetoes it."Nice political commentary. He never said he would veto it....but thanks for trying to mislead people. I hate asshats like you.
armyvetJan 15, 2007
yeah, that's what we should do! Investigate every single stinking former or current Congressman and Senator still living just to see if they ever did anything wrong - regardless as to any evidence that may or may not point that way. I mean, I'm sure we can just tax the American people a little bit more. They won't mind it. After all they're all just lemmings.Bread and Circuses people, Bread and Circuses
whiledoJan 15, 2007
@WaterDragonSee my reply to your previous comment for specific citings of why Congress could not constitutionally apply this retroactively.
whiledoJan 15, 2007
A "Member of Congress" includes the Senate, as well as the Vice President (since he/she is President of the Senate). It cannot include the President as that would be the Legislative branch trying to restrict the Executive branch, which is not allowed under the Constitution.Sec. 2106. Member of Congress For the purpose of this title, ''Member of Congress'' means theVice President, a member of the Senate or the House ofRepresentatives, a Delegate to the House of Representatives, andthe Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico.<a class="user" href="http://www.washingtonwatchdog.org/documents/usc/ttl5/ptIII/subptA/ch21/sec2106.html">http://www.washingtonwatchdog.org/documents/usc/ttl5/ptIII/subptA/ch21/sec2106.html</a><a class="user" href="http://tinyurl.com/ylskrj">http://tinyurl.com/ylskrj</a> (google cache since the above source is down right now)
whiledoJan 15, 2007
Your comment makes no sense. The rule applies only to future crimes, due to constitutional limitations. Therefore, it will not apply to any of the high profile Republicans who have recently been convicted or are under investigation.How would you have possibly changed it, considering the constitutional limitation on ex post facto laws?
saigumiJan 15, 2007
Exactly, this should be applied to all branches of gov't including the Pres.Too bad this wasn't enacted when Clinton was in charge. That whole perjury in the Tripp case would have really made his post-career worse.
bigkittyJan 18, 2007
@GhengisKhan,Agreed...BTW...I know this is a little bit off the subject, but I just wanted to let you know that the Consumer Reports article on infant car seats was wrong after all. Your comment said you have twins on the way, so I thought you should know. Sorry about that...<a class="user" href="http://digg.com/world_news/RETRACTION_Consumer_Reports_pulls_negative_infant_car_seat_report">http://digg.com/world_news/RETRACTION_Consumer_Reports_pulls_negative_infant_car_seat_report</a>(blush)