Morris Davis: Caesar’s Wife, Meet Ginni Thomas

MoonHowler

Guest Post

Colonel Morris Davis
Executive Director and Counsel, Crimes of War Project
Posted: February 10, 2011 04:27 PM
Huffington Post

Disclaimer: All guest posts are the opinion of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views of moonhowlings.net administration. M-H

Pompeia, the wife of Julius Caesar, had to be above suspicion. Ginni, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has to be at the center of it.

“The government has no right to tell me who I can do business with” was something I heard when I was an Air Force JAG doing government ethics briefings for civilian spouses of officers serving in command positions. I’d respond, “You’ve got the right to do business with anyone you choose, but your husband doesn’t have a right to be a commander.”

The standards of ethical conduct that apply to federal government employees and members of the armed forces prohibit those serving in leadership roles and decision-making positions from maintaining relationships that create the appearance of a conflict of interest between their official duties and their personal interests, including the personal interests of their spouses and dependent children. The rule is intended to promote public confidence that official decisions are made without partiality or favor due to a financial or other personal stake in the outcome. The civilian wife of a military commander is free to recruit the spouses of her husband’s subordinates to sell Mary Kay or Amway, but her husband will likely lose his job; command is a privilege, not a right.

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Morton Kondracke: “She’s A Joke Within Her Own Party’

Elena

 

From Politico’s On Media blog:

At the Roll Call/CQ election analysis session at the Ronald Reagan Building this morning, Roll Call Executive Editor and Fox News contributor Mort Kondracke blamed Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint for Republican failure to capture the Senate.

“The people who got slapped the hardest in this election — besides Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama — are Jim DeMInt and Sarah Palin,” he said. “Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin are responsible for the fact that the Senate did not go Republican. They’re the ones who are responsible for Christine O’Donnell. They’re the ones who are responsible for Joe Miller in Alaska. They’re the ones who are responsible for Ken Buck in Colorado. They’re the ones who are responsible for Sharron Angle in Nevada.”

Then Kondrake discussed whether Palin could be the 2012 nominee: “She’s a joke even within her own party,” Kondrake said. “The idea that she would be the presidential nominee is unthinkable.”

Respond. How far off base is this non-partisan discussion?

House Republicans are finding out it isn’t so easy

MoonHowler

After 2 years of hounding Nancy Peloski and President Obama, the NY Times reports trouble in River City, at least as far as the House Republican majority goes:

Under pressure to make deeper spending cuts and blindsided by embarrassing floor defeats, House Republican leaders are quickly discovering the limits of control over their ideologically driven and independent-minded new majority.

For the second consecutive day, House Republicans on Wednesday lost a floor vote due to a mini-revolt, this time over a plan to demand a repayment from the United Nations. Earlier in the day, members of the party’s conservative bloc used a closed-door party meeting to push the leadership to go well beyond its plans to trim about $40 billion from domestic spending and foreign aid this year, demanding $100 billion or more

On Tuesday  the new Republican leadership was forced to pull a trade assistance bill off the floor and the Patriot Act failed to be extended.   When asked about all the bumps in the road, House Majority Leader John Boehner responded:

Speaker John A. Boehner conceded that the fledgling majority was encountering turbulence. “We have been in the majority four weeks,” Mr. Boehner said. “We are not going to be perfect every day.”

After all the criticism of the other guys, the Republican Majority needs to get it right.  What will the next ‘swing and a miss’ be?  These folks are finding out that the easy part of the job is to sit on the sidelines and criticize, ridicule, and bring down others.   Those who were called RINOs hopefully are sitting back laughing now, especially those who lost their seats because it looked soooo easy.

These guys get the same break from me that they offered the other guys.  I don’t recall President Obama getting 4 weeks before the criticism began.  I think that started on day 2. 

 Welcome to Washington.  Now get with the program!