Another Republican bites the dust

[JoS]

Republican Randy Cunnignham admits to taking millions im bribes from defence contractors.

An eight-term Republican congressman and former Vietnam fighting ace has tearfully confessed that he took $2.4 million US in bribes while pleading guilty to multiple graft charges in a San Diego court.

While under months of investigation, California congressman Randy (Duke) Cunningham, 63, had insisted he'd done nothing wrong.

However, on Monday he admitting he used his influential position as a member of the U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee to secure defence contracts worth tens of millions of dollars for those who bribed him.

"In my life, I have had great joy and great sorrow. And now I know great shame," a tearful Cunningham said. "I can't undo what I have done but I can atone."

"The truth is I broke the law," he said.

Cunningham will be sentenced on Feb. 27 on federal charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and fraud, and tax evasion. The bribes included cheques totaling more than $1 million US, cash, antiques, rugs, furniture, yacht club fees and vacations, said prosecutors.

Authorities began investigating the much-decorated war vet after noting he had sold his Del Mar, Calif., house to defence contractor Mitchell Wade for $1.67 million US in November 2003. A month later, Wade put the house back on the market for the same price. He sold it nine months later for $975,000, taking a loss of $700,000.

In the plea, Cunningham, acknowledged working with four co-conspirators. Prosecutors have said they would pursue charges against the four as well.

Cunningham could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. He has agreed to forfeit his mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, some of his antiques and about $1.8 million in cash.

[MoralLibertarian]

omg republican culture of corruption!!!1

[JoS]

Does this make 2 Republicans who are in the courts now for bribes or other matters involving accepting money they shouldnt have?

[Lucky-Mabey]

Those silly Republicans. (Funniest thing about it was they jumped on Clinton for getting his cock sucked like a pack of wild dogs.)

[MoralLibertarian]

At 11/29/05 07:26 PM, BrotherJoS wrote: Does this make 2 Republicans who are in the courts now for bribes or other matters involving accepting money they shouldnt have?

It makes one Republican who has actually committed a crime. Or at least one Republican who has been found guilty under court of law.

Shame on him, by the way.

[lostloner]

haha stupid policians

[RedScorpion]

The question is, who was bribing him?

[Memorize]

What gain does he have by admitting it? Maybe someone bribed him.

[Demosthenez]

At 11/29/05 07:26 PM, BrotherJoS wrote: Does this make 2 Republicans who are in the courts now for bribes or other matters involving accepting money they shouldnt have?

I highly doubt this is just a Repub problem.

I am willing to bet this is a systemic problem in Congress. But will we ever find out about 99% of them? Hell no. Never.

[f0d]

At 11/29/05 08:55 PM, TimeFrame wrote: What gain does he have by admitting it?

There was probably overwhelming evidence against him. Not pleading guilty would get him in some even deeper shit.

I'm interested to see who'll get elected to replace him. I dunno, CA is usually not a very Republican friendly place. Maybe San Diego is different from where I live. But in any case, I doubt the seat will be filled by another Republican after a scandal like this.

P.S. aww mayun Maverick got arrested :(

[psychedelicjesus]

o well. the mayor of newark new jersey takes in more than that

[f0d]

At 11/29/05 09:44 PM, psychedelicjesus wrote: o well. the mayor of newark new jersey takes in more than that

More than 2.4 million?

Hmm.

That isn't relevant to the discussion anyway

[punisher19848]

So what? One politicain accepted bibes (well, technically all politicians do), so the entire party is not to be trusted? What kind of logic is that?

[Gunter45]

At 11/29/05 07:30 PM, Lucky_Mabey wrote: Those silly Republicans. (Funniest thing about it was they jumped on Clinton for getting his cock sucked like a pack of wild dogs.)

Yeah, and the time they jumped on Clinton for receiving shady campaign contributions from the Chinese... oh wait...

Come on, people, this happens on both sides of that great party line. They're all politicians in my book, and politicians do dirty, underhanded thing.

[WolvenBear]

At 11/29/05 07:30 PM, Lucky_Mabey wrote: Those silly Republicans. (Funniest thing about it was they jumped on Clinton for getting his cock sucked like a pack of wild dogs.)

Yea, he wasn't being sued or anything, and lie under oath. It was all about his dick...not perjury or obstruction of justice or anything.

I'd like to point out that while every single Democrat rushed to defend Clinton's perjury against those "heartless Republicans" that so far I've only heard the equally corrupt Tom "Clownfucker" Delay come out in this guys defense.

People who make this partisan need to shut up. It's not about Republican or Democrat, it's about a corrupt politician, and we have plenty of them on both sides of the aisle. If you're not willing to look at corruption as corruption, but only as Republican or Democrat, you have nothing of value to contribute to the national discourse.

[MoralLibertarian]

At 11/30/05 04:15 PM, WolvenBear wrote: People who make this partisan need to shut up. It's not about Republican or Democrat, it's about a corrupt politician, and we have plenty of them on both sides of the aisle. If you're not willing to look at corruption as corruption, but only as Republican or Democrat, you have nothing of value to contribute to the national discourse.

The whole DNC mantra right now is to take some questionable activities from Republican lawmakers and say, "They are all corrupt, see? It's a culture of corruption in Washington right now. Only Democrats are honest. We only lie under oath when it's about blowjobs, not when it's important."

Check out the DNC website. It's as clear as day: they are trying their best to make corruption partisan.

If you don't think those practices are responsible (clearly you don't) my advice to you is stop voting for Democrats.

[RedSkunk]

At 11/30/05 04:15 PM, WolvenBear wrote: rails against partisan bullshit

At 11/30/05 04:27 PM, MoralLibertarian wrote: partisan bullshit.

Oh boy.

[Elfer]

At 11/30/05 03:59 PM, punisher19848 wrote: So what? One politicain accepted bibes (well, technically all politicians do), so the entire party is not to be trusted? What kind of logic is that?

Yes, essentially, if members of a party take bribes, you can't trust that party.

On the other hand, you can't trust politicians in general, so that's basically where we're at anyway.

[ScaryDeadGirl]

At 11/30/05 04:53 PM, Elfer wrote: Yes, essentially, if members of a party take bribes, you can't trust that party.

On the other hand, you can't trust politicians in general, so that's basically where we're at anyway.

Lets all force a vote of no confidence against the entire government and all it's elected parties.

[ComradeRavenhawk]

How about we magically reform the system so its no longer controlled by two parties? I mean, its not like that will never happen because the two parties don't want to lose their control or something.

We could all take a vow never to vote for Republicans OR Democrats. That would fix it.
(Except not really)

[smith916]

At 11/30/05 04:15 PM, WolvenBear wrote:

At 11/29/05 07:30 PM, Lucky_Mabey wrote: Those silly Republicans. (Funniest thing about it was they jumped on Clinton for getting his cock sucked like a pack of wild dogs.)

Yea, he wasn't being sued or anything, and lie under oath. It was all about his dick...not perjury or obstruction of justice or anything.

I'd like to point out that while every single Democrat rushed to defend Clinton's perjury against those "heartless Republicans" that so far I've only heard the equally corrupt Tom "Clownfucker" Delay come out in this guys defense.

People who make this partisan need to shut up. It's not about Republican or Democrat, it's about a corrupt politician, and we have plenty of them on both sides of the aisle. If you're not willing to look at corruption as corruption, but only as Republican or Democrat, you have nothing of value to contribute to the national discourse.

Yes, but it really helps the causes of some "democratic" news papers, if you get what i mean, to constantly talk about inditements by republican congressmen because it all points at one thing, the elephant.

[screamscare]

I think that theres a connection between the war and oil profits involved. Not too mention oil companies have reported all time highs in there sales.

[JoS]

I think there is a difference between campaign contributions that are shady (ala Tom Delay) and outright bribes. I mean a defense contractor bough his house then sold it for $700 000 less than they paid for it.

No party or country is free from corruption. Look at Canada, we just dissolved parilament over corrupt scandals that happened several years ago, under a different Prime Minister (but same party).

I have a problem when its swept under the carpet, or downplayed. I mean this isnt just stuff like giving contracts to your friends (which is still bad), but taking cash and gifts in exchange for giving a contract is a whole new ball game. If the Republicans had an investigation into this and other corruptions allegations in the gov't (both finacial and non-finacial) I wouldnt have a problem.

And BTW I would be equally hard on the Dems if the roels were reversed.

[smith916]

At 11/30/05 05:12 PM, screamscare wrote: I think that theres a connection between the war and oil profits involved. Not too mention oil companies have reported all time highs in there sales.

That has to do with the high demand for oil now. Why were oil prices increasing, because the ratio of supply to demand was low, or if you want to reverse it, the ratio of demand to supply was high. This forces oil companies to rise the prices of their oil, which creates high profits.

If bush wanted oil he could have just voted to lift UN sanctions

Ontop of those 2 things, the us has never touched iraqi oil.

Ontop of those 3 things, oil prices would be going down if bush was taking oil from iraq and putting it into the economy, oil prices have decreased but that's because shut down oil rigs and refineries are being opened again after the hurricane season.

[thebigo1081]

I'm all for ending bipartisanism. Let's all vote Libertarian!!!And if you don't like it, vote Green Peace!!! Then we can get quadpartisanism going! Keep the English language evolving!!!

[smith916]

What really facinates me is if the news channels didn't mention this man was a republican then it would be turned into a:

"Polititions are such liars" issue

If you mention that he's a republican then it becomes a:

"The GOP is corrupt" issue

[TehChahlesh]

Oh that awful awful republican! He confessed to his crime! Responding to an above post about clinton and repulicans attacking him for hving his cock sucked, I'm pretty sure he did something like, oh I don't know...... LIE UNDER OATH ABOUT IT

[Demosthenez]

At 11/30/05 05:30 PM, BrotherJoS wrote: And BTW I would be equally hard on the Dems if the roels were reversed.

Just to put this out there, I highly doubt it.

You might rail against it but I doubt you are going to go outta your way to make a thread about it. But, hey. Thats just my opinoin.

[Z17]

The entire Democratic Party bit the dust about 6 years ago.

[f0d]

It's hard to follow all these scandals. There's so fuckin many.

How about that Indian Tribe bribery scandal? Is that already old news?

Both Republicans AND Democrats may have participated in that scandal. Although the ratio of Republicans involved to Democrats involved is something like 4:1. That's beside the point. It's all contributing to a general air of corruption in Washington. *sigh*