[Following up yesterday's diary.]

Jodi Rudoren (née Wilgoren) weighs in with a piece in the Times today.

She identifies five nonprofits which have benefited from Mollohan earmarks to the total sum of $250m:

The first and largest is the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation, which is absorbing the troubled Institute for Scientific Research. Another, the Canaan Valley Institute, works on stream restoration and wastewater treatment. The Vandalia Heritage Foundation redevelops dilapidated buildings, and the MountainMade Foundation helps artisans market wares.

There's more...

Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), ranking member of the Ethics Committee, made a lot of money in real estate over the past few years.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that federal prosecutors have opened an investigation of Mollohan's personal financial disclosures. The article also raised questions about earmarks -- or special provisions included in federal spending bills -- that he has steered to nonprofits in West Virginia in the past five years. Mollohan, a member of both the ethics and appropriations committees, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. He acknowledged in an interview making real estate investments with the head of a nonprofit company that received federal money from earmarks Mollohan backed. But, he contended, he is fully "at risk" in the investments and received no special favors in either financing or locating the investments.

Republican House leaders, determined to deflect Democratic charges that the GOP has fostered a "culture of corruption," immediately called for action against Mollohan.

"I believe it would be prudent at this point for Mr. Mollohan to resign from the ethics committee until this investigation is completed," said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) called on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to press Mollohan to step down.

"Speaker Hastert and his Republican cohorts are responsible for the most corrupt Congress in history, and the American people are paying the price at the gas pump, at the pharmacy and with record-high deficits," Pelosi countered. "The speaker should join me in directing the ethics committee to get to work, and not cast aspersions on the independent and distinguished ranking member."

This is a joke.  If Republicans were serious about corruption and ethics, one of their members would file an ethics complaint.  I mean since Republicans are in the majority they could actually have a functional ethics committee.  This is chickenshit cowardly politics.

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If you want to appreciate just how delusional Pelosi (and/or her staff) are, take a squint at her latest Kos post, under the snappy hed The Gloves Are Off.

As some commenter a few dozen down pointed out, that implies that the gloves have been on all this time. And, moreover, that we, the Great Unwashed, have known it all along.

Ain't it the truth?

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That's right--the first House member to break the ethics "truce"will be Tom DeLay: Soon-to-retire Rep. Tom DeLay (R.-Tex.) said today he would file an ethics complaint against Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D.-Ga.) for striking a Capitol Police officer should no other House member do so first.

DeLay's comments came during a wide-ranging interview at his Capitol Hill office with reporters, including HUMAN EVENTS Editor Terry Jeffrey.

"If nobody in this House files an ethics charge, I am," DeLay said in response to a question about McKinney. "Her behavior is outrageous. And it's not the only time." Democrats have really dropped the ball on this one, and not just Democrats in the House leadership. Any House member can file an ethics complaint, but they choose not to. Now, of all people, corrupt and cowardly Tom DeLay is somehow going to seize headlines and file an ethics complaint.

Democrats do not just need to win the House. As my friend BooMan was telling me last night, they need new blood that will challenge ossified interests and power structures that will remake our own party as well. The class of 1974 was like that. As BooMan writes: The Class of 1974 was unique. It did not change the leadership of Congress, but rather, it increased the Democratic majorities and infused the Democratic Party with liberals with a zeal for reform. They threw out some of their own Committee Chairmen, enacted campaign finance reform, did thorough investigations of our intelligence agencies, reopened the investigation of the JFK assassination (and deemed it a conspiracy), and passed the FISA act (the law being flouted by Bush today).

At times it seems like the Bush/Cheney administration has made it their mission to undo all the reforms of the Class of 1974. But, for all the people that are frustrated with or have given up on the Democrats in Washington, the lesson of 1974 is that big electoral gains in 2006 will bring change. Not just a change in the leadership of the Congress, but change in the very nature and makeup and agenda of the Democreatic Party. And that is what we need. There are a fairly decent number of Representatives who need ethics complaints filed against them. The vast majority of them are Republicans, but a handful of them are Democrats. We need reformed Democrats who are willing to file ethics challenges against all members who deserve it, regardless of party, regardless of media spin, regardless of retribution that would take place within the caucus. And we are not the only ones who need it--the country needs it too. We need candidates that could make 2006 like 1974.

I'm taking a look at the Senate proceedings yesterday on the [not too much] ethics [thank you] bill S 2349.

And, while scanning the Congressional Record (page S1877), I find reprinted an article from the WSJ of September 30 1993.

Apparently, then Rep, now Sen, Inhofe (for it was he!) had introduced an amendment to some other ethics bill designed to end the then current practice of secrecy for those signing discharge petitions:

Rep. Inhofe took a big step toward ending such hypocrisy Tuesday, when Congress voted 384 to 40 for his proposal to end the secrecy of discharge petitions. Constituents will now know who's signed up for the procedures necessary to discharge a bill from committee and force a vote; Members will no longer be able to posture one way and act another on bills popular with the public but unpopular with fellow legislators. Rep. Inhofe's overwhelming majority, after the difficulty he had signing up 218 Members to discharge his own proposal, is itself testimony to the difference between smoke-filled rooms and the light of day.

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