That will do far more good than all the laws on the books limiting what gifts can be given.

That and work to minimize the far reach of the Federal government into every aspect of out lives and the incentive to bribe your congressman will drop accordingly.

These lists don’t include the ones everybody knew about who, due to the aforementioned “Mexican standoff” blackmail, never got investigated, indicted, convicted, censured, or even defeated for re-election for grossly unethical and criminal conduct.

I found myself representing a Congressional aide in a kickback scandal, in which the whole staff, some of whom had worked for a Congressman of the other party first, kicked back half their gross pay and kept quiet about it with no question because the Administrative Aide told them that was how all the Congressional offices funded their district offices.

When we asked one of the influential lawyers for a financial industry grooup why they were financing the campaign of a liberal Democrat for Congress, he told a friend and me “He’s our man. We bouught him, we paid for him, and he’s ours.”

He was also one of of the successful politicians, from both parties, who represented me, from City Hall to Congress, who told me they were “straight” when I lived on one side of the street and “gay” after I moved across the street to an area the “gay” activists controlled. My long-time Congressman, who has been first a Democrat and then a Republican, would never tell me why he would not join the Child Abuse Caucus, but I figured that out after Foley was exposed. Of course both parties’ people in his home state and in D.C. had to have known about that for years. Attorney-client and other privileged and confidential relationships prevent me from telling you why some of their immediate and extended family members and I won’t vote for them.

Two elected officials, one from each party, at the state level, sat together at a meeting of a civic group and told some of us exactly how the “campaign contribution” bribery process worked in the state legislature, including names and mechanical details. In law school, we infiltrated a meeting of the youth auxiliary of the other party, after ours ran out of beer, and got treated, by someone later an aide to a Senator, etc., to a dfetailed, later verified, account of the mechanics of raising unreported illegal corporate cash for campaign purposes. I have been persistently hustled for contributions by one judge while I was not only a lawyer but a litigant with a case pending in his court, and received letters from a Supreme Court of Texas justice [elected here] referring to my status as consel of record in a case pending there , and by trial alevel judges referring to their having appointed me in cases, in the context of hitting me up hard for money. The campaign financie manager of another judge, who I was supporting because he was good and his opponent, running in my party, of which he had never been a member until after the day he filed, was a liar, told me pointedly that a contribution in a specific, substantial amount would be a financially profitable investment.

When I started out, a half century ago, a $25.00 contribution and some volunteer leg work got you access to your Representative, Senator, etc. Now my Congressman’s district office doesn’t even answer the phone (6 tries) or a form acknowledgment of a letter, because all they want is money and lots of it. McCain is right. Money is not speech.

Of course, the major campaign contributors and sources of soft and 527 money, etc. are supporting current or predicted incumbency, not ideology or character. A quick sarch reveals people making contributions to opposing candidates in teh same race. That’s payola, plian nad simple, to wit, bribes and payoffs, and that doens’t even include the off the record cash.

instaspoof.com is coming …

The common thread running through almost all of these corrupt practices is cash for campaigns.

Unfortunately, any attempt to limit this corruption — for that’s what it is, just like in any banana republic — is instantly met with cries of “unconstitutional!” “money is free speech!” etc. from those with a vested interest in perpetuating the corruption. McCain-Feingold is a case in point.

We’ve devolved from “one man, one vote” to “one dollar, one vote.” Which means the U.S. is no longer a democratic republic — it’s an oligarchy. And until we muster the political will to implement Congressional term limits, and eliminate soft money, and forever lock the “revolving door” between Capitol Hill and K Street, it’s just going to get worse.