It’s no secret that Congress is polarized. Rarely does an issue receive strong bipartisan support. That’s why it’s so striking that four out of five voters agree that we must do more to safeguard our democracy from presidential corruption.
No president, regardless of party, should be able to exploit weaknesses in our political system for their personal gain. That’s where the Protecting Our Democracy Act comes in. If passed, it would prevent future abuse of presidential power and corruption, increase transparency, and ensure presidents of either party can be held accountable.
If the average person used their office for personal gain, they’d go to jail. If the average person could pardon themselves, there would be no rule of law. Therefore, no president should be above the law. It’s just common sense.
I’m urging Congress to pass the Protecting Our Democracy Act. It’s time we put safeguards in place to prevent a corrupt president of any party from abusing the power of their office.
Mehdi Soleimankhani
Los Osos
This article appears in Apr 21 – May 1, 2022.
Americans support not just curbing corruption by the president, but by politicians generally. Many in Congress have engaged in insider trading and have immense conflicts of interest. Using taxpayer money to fund spending bills which benefit limited but vocal segments of the voters which the politician seeks to attract, instead of the country as a whole, is inherently corrupt. Public funds shouldn’t be used to advance a politicians personal political fortunes. And include the vice president. VP Biden ‘s acknowledged intervention on behalf of the Ukrainian company which was paying his son over $50,000 per month stinks of corruption.
The only way to end corruption in politics is to limit government to it’s proper role of protecting individual rights.
If there are no favors to bestow, there will be no individuals or companies seeking favors from the government.
Our Constitution says “. . . establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . .” Those words grant no powers.
The federal government’s powers are listed in Section 8of Article 1. Those powers are limited to 18 specific tasks and no more. Congress has not only given itself – and therefore it’s members – powers not listed in the Constitution, it has allowed Agencies to assume powers that correctly belong to Congress.
It is those unconstitutional powers that lead to corruption as multiple individuals, companies, corporations and organizations lobby for favors and outright handouts from the federal government through Congress.
You, as a voter, have the power to know how an elected official does their job and the power to recall at the next election those who do not transparently do the job and nothing more. Look at every candidate’s record and be prepared to vote wisely.
John Donegan
” Biden ‘s acknowledged intervention on behalf of the Ukrainian company’
WHAT NONSENSE
So, Mr. Biden threw himself into what seemed like standard-issue vice-presidential stuff: prodding Ukraine’s leaders to tackle the rampant corruption that made their country a risky bet for international lenders — and pushing reform of Ukraine’s cronyism-ridden energy industry.
… Good-government activists were protesting his actions in the streets, as were eurozone power players like Christine Lagarde, then the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, along with Ms. Nuland and Senate Republicans.
“The position regarding getting rid of Shokin was not Vice President Biden’s position; it was the position of the U.S. government, as well as the European Union and international financial institutions,” said Amos J. Hochstein, former coordinator for international energy affairs at the State Department and one of the few administration officials who directly confronted Mr. Biden at the time about his son.
What Joe Biden Actually Did in Ukraine
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/us/poli…
How Did Jared Kushner Get $2 Billion From the Saudis?
Jared Kushner’s new private equity firm got $2 billion from Saudi Arabia because maybe that’s how you can cash in when your investing experience is slender but your father-in-law may wind up back in the White House. It’s also possible that you can get billions for a firm with no track record because the White House did favors for the Saudis when your father-in-law still occupied the Oval Office.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ho…
Gail Katherine Lightfoot
Libertarian nonsense, we tried that “small Govt” thing with the Articles of Confederation, which is why they gave US a strong central Gov’t
Hint the Federalists won out!
@jonk: “Nonsense”? Go to Google, and you can see a video of Biden bragging that he forced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor by threatening to withhold US loan guarantees. This prosecutor was pursuing the company then paying Hunter Biden over $50,000 per month for work he had no experience in. In fact, he was otherwise unemployable, having been thrown out of the Navy for his crack habit. The undisputed facts speak for themselves. The Bidens are corrupt.
John Donegan
Stop being willfully ignorant
Fact check: Biden leveraged $1B in aid to Ukraine to oust corrupt prosecutor, not to help his son
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factch…
Explainer: Biden, allies pushed out Ukrainian prosecutor because he didn’t pursue corruption cases
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politi…
Trump Twists Facts on Biden and Ukraine
BUT the U.S. was not alone in pressuring Ukraine to fire Shokin.
…In February 2016, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde threatened to withhold $40 billion unless Ukraine undertook a substantial new effort to fight corruption after the countrys economic minister and his team resigned to protest government corruption. That same month, a reform-minded deputy prosecutor resigned, complaining that his efforts to address government corruption had been consistently stymied by his own prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, according to a Jan. 3, 2017, Congressional Research Services report.
Shokin served as prosecutor general under Viktor Yanukovych, the former president of Ukraine who fled to Russia after he was removed from power in 2014 and was later found guilty of treason. Shokin remained in power after Yanukovychs ouster, but he failed to indict any major figures from the Yanukovych administration for corruption, according to testimony John E. Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine under President George W. Bush, gave in March 2016 to a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/09/trump-tw…
A quick guide to Trumps false claims about Ukraine and the Bidens
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/20…
The U.S. may have pushed for the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor, but not for the reasons implied in a video clip.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/c-span-v…
Debunking 4 Viral Rumors About the Bidens and Ukraine
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/busines…
You’re being obtuse to serve a political agenda. It is inescapable that the Ukrainian company was paying Hunter $50,000 per month to buy his influence with VP Joe Biden. He offered them no other value. The prosecutor was investigating this company, and which benefited when Joe’s efforts succeeded in getting him fired. The company got their money’s worth out of paying Hunter. If Joe had an ethical bone in his body, he wouldn’t have had any involvement with this case due to the conflict of interest. Instead, he merely offers the feeble excuse that the conflict was just a “coincidence”,and he supposedly would have pressured Ukraine anyway. Sure.
JOHN, STOP LYING
False: Biden pushed out a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating his son
Trump has falsely claimed that Biden in 2015 pressured the Ukrainian government to fire Viktor Shokin, the top Ukrainian prosecutor, because he was investigating Ukraine’s largest private gas company, Burisma, which had added Biden’s son, Hunter, to its board in 2014.
There are two big problems with this claim: One, Shokin was not investigating Burisma or Hunter Biden, and two, Shokin’s ouster was considered a diplomatic victory.
Biden was among the many Western officials who pressed for the removal of Shokin because he actually was not investigating the corruption endemic to the country. Indeed, he was not investigating Burisma at the time. In September 2015, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt publicly criticized Shokin’s office for thwarting a British money-laundering probe into Burisma’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/20…