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Congress, a failure to communicate

The Republican candidates running for Oklahoma Congressional District 2 –  the  seat being vacated by Dan Boren – have grand plans for what they are going to do if elected. While I admire them for the time they have put into forming their plans, I don’t think they really understand the situation we face as a nation.

America isn’t facing political problems first and foremost. Our nation is facing moral and ethical problems of monumental proportions. Our candidates have this and that planned, but how will they get anything implemented? I have watched Washington D. C. long enough to know what happens when freshmen legislators get there. Trent Lott said it very succinctly after the 2010 mid-term elections. When asked about the TEA Party candidates elected his response was, “we will co-opt them as soon as they get here”.

How do new members get co-opted? All of their grand plans have to be given the green light by the Speaker of the House before anything happens with them. And how does a plan get the green light from the Speaker? Ah, the strings begin to come out with “well, you help me with this project and I will help you with yours”. The next thing you know our newly elected Congressman is looking for office space close to the powers-that-be, sub-committee and committee seats, that “grand plan” being moved to the front of the line for consideration, etc. The only way to get plum assignments that mean more money, power, and prestige, and to get any action on the grand promises they have made to get elected, is to do as the Speaker wants done. Co-opt accomplished!!! They give-in, give-in, give-in, with the hopes that their turn will come up. It is like the gambler who thinks the next card will be their big strike, but it never happens.

Congress is full of grand plans to solve every issue known to man. The problem is the wheeling and dealing from the bottom of the deck, in smoke filled back rooms and behind locked doors, out of the public eye. What is done to address the grand plans is nothing short of bribery, hence moral and ethical issues. Do you remember the movie “Cool Hand Luke”, when the guard says,

“What we have here is a failure to communicate”?

What we have in Washington is a “failure to communicate integrity”. Too many members of Congress are willing to make deal after deal to make a splash back home, to “bring home the bacon” so to speak, or to get some pet project a big money supporter wants done. The problem is that it won’t happen without compromises that go against every moral fiber that should exist in a member of Congress.

Washington doesn’t have a lack of plans; it has a lack of integrity, honor, and honesty. What we need is someone who will go there, not to pass some grand plan that sounds like an answer to prayer, but to bring prayer, honesty, and integrity to a cesspool, or “dismal swamp” as Nancy Pelosi called it. I just heard a speech on the floor of the Senate by Tom Coburn. He talked about the amount of spending, the debt limit raises, and the failure of any kind of reform reaching the floor to be voted on. He chided Senators for talking about problems but never doing anything to stop the runaway spending and duplicate programs. One area he mentioned had 88 programs dealing with one problem.

Washington is full of men and women trying to find a political answer to a moral and ethical issue. Until we send men and women of strong moral character, with the knowledge of how to garner support for honesty and integrity we are going to continue along the lines we have travelled for many years.

We are trying to find political solutions to moral and ethical problems. We need a congressman with the ability to tackle these areas, not get some grand plan for austerity proposed because it won’t go anywhere. I have seen it time and again.

Washington D. C. was a very Godly town when our founding fathers resided there. George Washington took the Bible he swore his oath on to a 2 hour church service immediately after the ceremony, asking God for His blessing over the task at hand. Church services were regularly held in the Capitol rotunda in those days, a time before “the separation of church and state”. If there is any hope of restoring America this is the way it must be done.

If we had 535 men and women like our founders in Washington D. C., America would not be in the spot it is in today. We don’t need a Congress full of “grand plans”. We need members of Congress who have the character, courage, and most importantly, the experience to find moral and ethical solutions to moral and ethical problems. Until this is accomplished we have no hope of solving the political problems.

I submit this in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, in faith, with the responsibility give to me by Almighty God to honor His work and not let it die from neglect.

Bob Russell
Claremore, Oklahoma
January 30, 2012

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Rich Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and

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2 Comments

  1. We have the opportunity every two years to drain this swamp by turning out all of the Congressmen and replacing them with those who have a moral underpinning. But, alas, we never do. This makes the fault for the problem ours not our representatives.

  2. Bob, great article. I agree with your point of view.
    I, unlike Jon, do not take responsibility for the idiots that are elected, then go bad, and are sucked up in the DC Cronyism Capitalism vortex,
    The only way to get the truth out of the beastards is to polygraph and drug test them. I have been saying this EVER SINCE I woke up. A truly honest person would not object to being tested…The police are tested before are hired, why not the lawbreakers, OOPS! I mean lawmakers being tested?

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