How the corrupt in Congress pad their nests

*PAPER: Senator's husband cashes in on crisis;Feinstein sought $25B for agency...
*TARP INSPECTOR GENERAL WARNS OF 'CATASTROPHIC FRAUD' POTENTIAL...

The nation has heard about Diane Feinstein and her husband, Pelosi and her husband and Harry Reid and his entire family, but they are only the ugly tip of the iceberg. The iceberg gets uglier and much bigger under the surface.

There are stories on Jenkins Hill, it can't be Capitol Hill until cleansed, of members of Congress, administration officials and bureaucrats that have side businesses selling their power to alter, add, delete and influence legislation, appointments and existing law.

They are the unseen and unknown lobbyists with the ultimate inside track as they seek the help of unaware fellow members in quid pro quo legislative support.

Here is a quick sampling:

Congress: The Harman bombshell
A quid pro quo on card check bill?
Computer Spies Infiltrate the Pentagon
Is the House Swamp Drained Yet?

A young man in Akron, Ohio was a numbers runner in the 1920's and was often beaten because the unions didn't like competition. He turned against the unions because, as he said, "at least I'm honest about my crime" and got a job as a security man in Youngstown at a steel plant. In the 1930's he was savagely beaten again by strikers during the "Little Steel" strike. The doctor trying to sew him up made a comment about stupid "Micks" and the man spoke up, "Son, shut up and do your work." The doctor was the first in his family to attend college and the man gave everything he had to make that possible. They were my father and grandfather.

Why is this relevant? They both believed that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don't know that either read Lord Acton, but they knew the truth whatever their attained level of education.

Just as unions, at their beginning, were necessary in business, government can be a good in its necessity. At its height of power unions had become corrupt. In government it is an ongoing battle, especially as the size of government grows beyond all rational thinking and engorges itself with ever more power.

In 1792 Alexander Hamilton couldn't stop government officials from profiting from insider information concerning the purchase of government debt and Hamilton was speaking of political and bureaucratic corruption when he stated, "Corruption is the enemy of good government." Hamilton's nemesis, Thomas Jefferson, is attributed with saying, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Our vigilance is what allows us to see through the smoke of lies into the dark corners and closed doors of power.

As then, now politicians seek to divert attention away from their corruption. Unlike then, the media, knowing full well the tales of corruption, now look the other way. The sense of decency and honor in the halls of Congress and the bureaucracy has turned to cynicism.

The ultimate cynicism is a Pelosi playing the part of the centuries old Br'er Rabbit stating, as she feeds the swamp, that she will drain, or clean, the GOP swamp, knowing she and her compatriots are right at home in their well self-feathered nest right smack dab in the middle of our governmental swamp of profligate spending.

Pull the plug.