OT: Now the Reagan years...or corruption at its best..

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This is for those who forgot about the Reagan years.
Link

The Reagan Years: How Soon We Forget Real Corruption

Gleeful charges by Republicans that Whitewater is comparable to Watergate and that the Clinton Administration is more corrupt than any recent administration are ludicrous when compared to the actual record of corruption in the Reagan-Bush administration and when it is noted that the charges against Clinton result from goings-on in Arkansas long before he became President. With Reagan, scandals occured while he was President. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Haynes Johnson's book, "Sleep-Walking Through History: America in the Reagan Years" (1991, Doubleday), chronicles the U.S.'s fall from dominant world power to struggling debtor nation during the Reagan years.

Johnson says "two types of problems typified the ethical misconduct cases of the Reagan years, and both had heavy consequences to citizens everywhere. One stemmed from ideology and deregulatory impulses run amok; the other, from classic corruption on a grand scale."

"By the end of his term, 138 administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever." (P. 184).

"Reagan's customary response to instances of wrongdoing by aides was to criticize those who brought the charges or to blame the media that reported them."

"Three great scandals stained the Reagan record, and they all involved the age-old form of corruption formed by the connection between money and politics. What distinguished them in the Reagan years was the number of buyers and sellers involved, and the amount of money there was to be made. The sheer volume of both had multiplied beyond any previous measure. Nothing better illustrated the problem than a case that connected some of Reagan's closest associates, a score of top government officials in several departments and agencies, and the kind of political corruption that extended byack to the Washington of Grant and Harding: influence peddling, government contracts, cash, bribes, kickbacks, fraud and conspiracy. Before it was ended, it had dragged Atty Gen. Meese, advisor Lyn Nofziger, and many others into the net; led to indictments, trials, and convictions; and besmirched the reputation of the Reagan administration. It became known, popularly, as the Wedtech case."

* Lyn Nofziger--convicted on charges of illegal lobbying of White House in Wedtech scandal.

* Michael Deaver received three years' probation and was fined one hundred thousand dollars after being convicted for lying to a congressional subcomittee and a federal grand jury about his lobbying activities after leaving the White House.

* E. Bob Wallach, close friend and law classmate of Atty General Edwin Meese, was sentenced to six years in prison and fined $250,000 in connection with the Wedtech influence-peddling scandal.

Then there was:

-- the Pentagon procurement scandal, which resulted from the Republicans' enormous infusion of money too quickly into the Defense Department after the lean Carter years.

-- Massive fraud and mismanagement in the Department of Housing and Urban Development throughout Reagan's eight years. These were finally documented in congressional hearings in spring 1989, after Reagan left office. Cost the taxpayers billions of dollars in losses. What made this scandal most shameful was that Reagans' friends and fixers profited at the expense of the poor, the very people HUD and the federal government were pledged to assist through low-income housing.

-- the Iran-Contra scandal. In June, 1984, at a National Security Council meeting, CIA Director Casey urged President Reagan to seek third-party aid for the Nicaraguan contras. Secretary of State Schultz warned that it would be an "impeachable offense" if the U.S. government acted as conduit for such secret funding. But that didn't stop them. That same day, Oliver North was seeking third-party aid for the contras. But Reagan, the "teflon President" avoided serious charges of impeachment.

* Oliver North--convicted of falsifying and destroying documents, accepting an illegal gratuity, and aiding and abeting the obstruction of Congress.

* John Poindexter, Reagan's national security advisor, --guilty of five criminal counts involving conspiracy to mislead Congress, obstructing congressional inquiries, lying to lawmakers, used "high national security" to mask deceit and wrong-doing.

* Richard Secord pleaded guilty to a felony charge of lying to Congress over Iran-Contra.

-- Environmental Protection Agency's favoritism toward polluters. Assistant administrator unduly influenced by chemical industry lobbyists. Another administrator resigned after pressuring employees to tone down a critical report on a chemical company accused of illegal pollution in Michigan. The deputy chief of federal activities was accused of compiling an interagency "hit" or "enemies" list, like those kept in the Nixon Watergate period, singling out career employees to be hired, fired or promoted according to political beliefs.

Anne Gorscuh Burford resigned amid accusations she politically manipulated the Superfund money. Rita Lavelle was fired after accusing a senior EPA official of "systematically alienating the business community." She was later indicted, tried and convicted of lying to Congress and served three months of a six-month prison sentence.

After an extensive investigation, in August 1984, a House of Representatives subcommittee concluded that top-level EPA appointees by Reagan for three years "violated their public trust by disregarding the public health and the environment, manipulating the Superfund program for political purposes, engaging in unethical conduct and participating in other abuses."

-- Neglected nuclear safety. A critical situation involving nuclear safety had been allowed to develop during the Reagan era. Immense sums, estimated at 200 billion or more, would be required in the 1990s to replace and make safe America's neglected, aging, deteriorating, and dangerous nuclear facilities.

-- Savings & Loan Bail-out. Hundreds of billions of dollars were needed to bail out savings and loan institutions that either had failed during the deregulation frenzy of the eighties or were in danger of bankruptcy.

-- Reckless airline deregulation. Deregulation of airline industry took too broad a sweep, endangering public safety.

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), September 25, 1999

Answers

Dave,

You are a true patriot. I will try to stay out of this thread. But, I must note:

The republicans promise so much, but deliver so little.

Sincerely,

-- Uhmm.. (jfcp81a@prodigy.com), September 25, 1999.


These kinds of threads serve to create division, and narrow our focus, just as the 2 parties have done.

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), September 25, 1999.

I do belive it a violation of copyright law to be printing excerpts of Johnson's book here.

-- (@ .com), September 25, 1999.

The Reagan administration may have had corruption, so what? As we go into the year 2000 it is a dead issue. Why not discuss something revelant in this decade?

Reagan, unlike Clinton, was a good leader. Clinton is a two termer (that still amazes me) that was a draft dodging, pot smoking, coke peddling, whore mongerer, with a trail of dead bodies from Arkansas to Washington D.C., and you have the gall to compare B.J. Billy to Reagan?

y2k dave, you are sooooo intellectual that you have become stupid!

-- smith (smith@smith.smith), September 25, 1999.


But he never became a traitor. And he never sold nuclear secrets to the Chinese.

Soon it won't matter. The guy's definitely a traitor and most likely a rapist and you're defending his behavior by saying look, see what they did mom. It wasn't just my president, their president was bad too! Naney Naney Naney! There's a difference between avarice and treason. There's a difference between philandering and raping.

Try pinning that on Reagan.

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), September 25, 1999.



y2kdave is a HYPOCRITE!

On this post he starts crying OT OT and continues to vomit socialist bullshit! I suppose BIG GOVERNMENT will save use all from ourselves.Don't cut taxes the government can do such a better job spending our money,right dave?

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001L8b

-- The Count of Meijer Crisco (40@cansof.course), September 25, 1999.


Howdy--

y2kdave--thanks for the post. While I am no fan of the current administration, it's nice to see a reminder that almost all of the administrations of the last couple of years have been rather venal.

OT?--Sure. But I'm glad you posted it.

Best regards to all,

-- William in Dallas (bcheek@onramp.net), September 25, 1999.


The clue is the corruption, not which party it's from. We are in a cycle of decay. Thanks, y2k dave.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), September 25, 1999.

And don't forget that it was Reagan that lowered restrictions on business.Allowing the "kids-chokobot-transforma-action-figure- hour"(Brought to you by the kids-chokobot-transforma-action-figure- corporation)

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), September 25, 1999.

And the party on the left is now the party on the right, and their beards have not grown longer overnight.The Who - "We Don't Get Fooled Again"

Love those old nostalgic tunes.

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), September 25, 1999.



Smith,

Those who do not learn from the past are bound to repeat it or something like that. Rest assured that I am playing on the ground set by a few people that post here that have nothing to do with y2y discussion. How does it feel to have the show on the other foot. It's just amazing what crawls out of the woodwork when I start using right wing tactics. Remember Willie Norton.

Count,

I am being very hypocritical now that this forum has lost some its focus but please tell us how any modern REPUBLICAN president EVER REDUCED the SIZE of GOVERNMENT. You are so stupid to even attempt to apply that only Democrats want BIG GOVERNMENT. LOL no ROTFLMAO. Next the count will tell us there is a suplus in the budget and that we need a republican tax cut. BAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAA

gordon, What a horses ass. The Chinese thingy started under the REAGAN ERA. So does that make REAGAN the traitor? HELL NO and you better go back to school and learn how to read.

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), September 25, 1999.


Yes Dave, your corrupt administration is better than everyone's corrupt administration.

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), September 25, 1999.

Socialist pig!

-- The Count of Meijer Crisco (40@cansof.course), September 25, 1999.

Fascist Bastards and Socialist Pig UNITE!!! LOL at you count crisco.

-- y2k dave` (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), September 25, 1999.

They did dave it's called the democratic party.

-- The Count of Meijer Crisco (40@cansof.course), September 25, 1999.


The Reagan administration, by most measures, was the most corrupt in our history. But the corruption was quite different in flavor from the Nixon years. Reagan reduced taxes, and the economy boomed as a result. In turn, this lowering of tax *rates* resulted in a huge increase in tax *revenues*, and Reagan was, uh, kind of senile. His minions saw the opportunity to become personally rich, and they wasted no time and effort taking advantage of it. A case of an overflowing cookie jar, and the parents were either fast asleep or first in line. At least many got caught in the act.

Nixon's corruption was different in very important ways. Nixon was frustrated by his inability to get a bureaucracy dominated by democrats to adopt his policies, because Nixon was very policy- oriented. So he tried to replicate the bureaucracy within the White House (which expanded from a few hundred to many thousands) with his handpicked henchmen. Nixon was much more subversive. His administration wasn't just personally greedy, he tried to subvert the whole government. And we're lucky he got caught too.

By contrast, Clinton is just suffering from bad manners and no coherent plans. Clinton is an idle, caretaker President enjoying a booming economy he's had sense not to meddle with. Clinton won't be remembered for corruption at all. He'll be remembered for what he didn't do, not for what he did.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 25, 1999.


There is corruption and lying in every administration, and that is why we shouldn't trust the government very much. However it is difficult for me to see how corruption in the Reagan adminsitration is relavent to y2k

-- Dave (dannco@hotmail.com), September 25, 1999.

Way to go, dave! & donna!

Flint -- well put as ever. When you take the balanced view, you take the heat. But if you have spoken it well, you can be content with your work, even if you can never prove yourself "correct" to others' satisfaction.

-- jor-el (jor-el@krypton.uni), September 25, 1999.


Of course this is on-topic. Reagan had a good chance to avert the whole Y2K crisis by forcing the standardization of date formats. If this had been done in the early 80's, we wouldn't be having the problem we have now.

-- kermit (colourmegreen@hotmail.com), September 25, 1999.

I think that Reagan's heart was in the right place, but that he was suffering from mental decline where he could only focus on a couple really key issues: the rest were just impossibly boring details to him for which he had no mental acuity. Unfortunately, this inattentiveness gave various slimeballs around him a chance to pull- off Iran Contra from under his nose (and signatures). Really, I don't think he was (IS?) a bad man, just one hell of a good speech-giver who made us feel better about (and not ashamed of) being Americans. He was good at telling us what we wanted to hear in the down-home, unpretentious way we wanted to hear it.

-- coprolith (coprolith@rocketship.com), September 25, 1999.

Reagan was one of the ten best Presidents in our history, no question.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), September 25, 1999.

Flint, Disagree with you big time here. Clinton will be remembered by many as the most immoral and corrupt man to ever hold the office of president. Clinton actually conducted a poll to determine if he should tell the truth in the Lewinski mess- the poll said no, so he didn't. The first lady will be remembered for being even more corrupt than Bill.

Revisionists notwithstanding, Ronald Regean was one of the most honorable and popular presidents to hold the office, period.

Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), September 25, 1999.


Big Dog,

I'll admit that I scanned this thread quickly, and I hope your tongue was firmly implanted in your snout when you made that last post. Where you here in California when Ronnie began ro turn loose all the mental patients from the state hospitals?

-- flora (***@__._), September 25, 1999.


Okay, enough! I want to know who I should vote for, cat sh*t or dog sh*t?

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), September 26, 1999.

For Donna, my friend. :-)

The Who- Won't Get Fooled Again

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), September 26, 1999.


Flint:

Are you really as dumb as you sound? Since when is lying under oath while giving testimony in a sexual harrassment trial 'bad manners'? Or are you a sexual pervert who thinks that politicians should be able to sexually harrass subordinates?

And please don't give me any crap about Paula or Monica. They're not the issue. Lying under oath is.

-- killer bunny (KillerBunny@henhouse.com), September 26, 1999.


Flora:

He can't answer you. He's too busy finding a place to hide from those Puerto Rican terrorists that clinton released. Don't forget, the FALN bombing of a tavern in 1975 killed four people. So pardon us if we think the world is a little less safe. Perhaps a pardon of Manson will be next.

-- Killer Bunny (KillerBunny@henhouse.com), September 26, 1999.


Flint:

Please overlook my choice of words "sexual harrassment trial". Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a civil action, wasn't it? I'm no lawyer, so I'm sure others can discuss the merits of the case better than I.

Regards

-- killer bunny (KillerBunny@henhouse.com), September 26, 1999.


Why can no one defend the raygun years in terms of the original post? Why must it always be a matter of:

1) Klinton's sesual affair and subsequent lie is much worse than all of the significant scandals, national billion dollar rip-offs benefitting the wealthy, subversion of our foreign policy, subversion of our domestic policy, and lies and convictions of a long string of cabinet level and other executive level workers for which the raygun administration is famous.

2) Everything the government has done wrong over the last decade is Klinton's direct responsibility. Everything the government has failed to do that it should have done is Klinton's direct responsibility. Even things that have never been proven or might possibly be wrong are his fault.

3) Every lie and unproven smear ever told about Klinton, must be repeated ad-naseum and used as yet another reason that Klinton is a terrible president.

4) Even if everything that is said about previous administrations is true, Klinton is still worse than any of the others for the reasons listed above.

I beleive it is because President Klinton is basically conservative at heart, but open minded enough to consider that a) gays are not cursed of the lord, b) abortion may not be banned, and 3) guns and automobiles need the same sort of controls.

These three issues alone infuriate some small but very loud and annoying portion of the poulation. These three issues scare at least one major industry with big bucks into financing lobbying campaigns that will stop at nothing to denegrate the Klintons. All else is secondary and may be sacrificed to carry the single-issue cause. These single issues either blind some few to the truth or scare others into screaming their their own lies.

Wake up wakkos, there is less than a quarter to prepare. Oh, and by the way, should any of you come to my door looking for assistance at any time, I hope I have the courage to help where I am able based upon your heart - not upon your political party, your religion, or your cultural 'wing'.

If you nutters maintain these hateful rants for the rest of the year, I may actually begin to see the value of some of Flint's arguments.

Sincerely,

-- Uhmm.. (jfcp81a@prodigy.com), September 26, 1999.


Uhm:

Thanks but no cigar. Why don't you explain why gun-related convictions have drastically dropped during the Klinton administration? Then why don't you also explain why Reno didn't have enough control over the FBI to ensure that they arrested Koresh while he made one of his many trips to Waco? Why, Uhm? Why wait until he's at the compound surrounded by women and children? Then why don't you explain why the Davidian compound was quickly bulldozed shortly after the incineration? Anyone with half a brain can see that the compound represented valuable evidence.

Tell me why, Uhm?

-- Killer Bunny (KillerBunny@henhouse.com), September 26, 1999.


Jeeminee,

Gun related convictions lower? That is because all crime is lower since Klinton forced those gun loving congressmen to add 100,000 police to the streets. Now here is an old one: If pro-gress means forward looking change, what do you think con-gress means?

-- Uhmm.. (jfcp81a@prodigy.com), September 26, 1999.


KB,

Have you made, say, 5 positive contibutions to this NG since you were born? Have you made single one? You seem to love 20 questions, but lack the ability to focus on the CDC or even the thread at hand. Time is slipping, slipping, slipping away. Prepare or die.

-- Uhmm.. (jfcp81a@prodigy.com), September 26, 1999.


HArd to answer this one (as the lies continue from the federal governmetn) without an entire book.

First, the "scandals" and "corruption" you mentioned are assumptions and conclusions: for example, you mention the military spending, and there were errors in buying weapons, but they were neither systemic nor deliberate. In fact, once found, they wer eliminated and (parts) of the money refunded. In fact, the whole funding and procurement methods were fixed through the Reagan administration.

Clinton, on the other hand, deliberately and treasonously, sold nuclear technology, launch technology, and telecommunication technology to Communist China for campaign money from China, from Indosnesia, and from the defense contactors themselves. Then lied about it. Then prevented the Congress from investigating it, and attacked personally the people investigating it. Then prevented (through Reno) the FBI from investigating it. Then prevented (through the democrats in Congress) a second and a third committee from investigating it. Then (through Reno again) prevented a special council from being appointed to investigate it. When pressed, the White HOuse, DNC, and Justice Dept aided those witnesses called, and (to date) over 125 have pleaded the fifth or "could not recall" or have left the country.

That, sir, is treason. And each of of the 85 scandals this administration has called on itself through corruption, abuse, and lies, is similair. The IRS is now a pawn of the White House, and has systematically threatened and attacked Clinton's conservative opponents - while not once even "auditting" a liberally funded group.

And every department in their administration is the same.

---

We could continue your list: none of your examples has merit, except in the eyes of a person who wishes to be blind.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 27, 1999.


As an unknown author so eloquently pointed out a few years back, "the Reagan era will be remembered as the time the US borrowed a trillion dollars from the Japanese and threw a big party"

-- a (a@a.a), September 27, 1999.

Dave,

If the Clinton administration is guilty of any corruption (still yet to be proven), it is certainly nothing that hasn't been done dozens of times before by our self-righteous hypocritical Republican "leaders", and they know it. When you get right down to it the reason these right-wingers like Kenneth Starr and Rush Limbaugh get so insanely worked up over Clinton is because he's getting laid and they aren't.

-- @ (@@@.@), September 27, 1999.


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