Indecent Disclosure…

June 29, 2010
by Ben Crystal

At least Hank Johnson, the man who undoubtedly makes Georgia’s Fourth Congressional district proud, managed to keep pronouncements on the impending nautical doom faced by the residents of Guam out of his speech on the House floor last Thursday afternoon.

Johnson, speaking in defense of the DISCLOSE Act now headed for the Senate after passing the House, did manage to remind everyone Outside the Asylum why the average American holds Congress in only slightly lower esteem than dog fighting entrepreneurs. When Hank exalted the greatness of the abominable—and superbly monikered—Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On who’s Spending in Elections, not only did he speak out against the 1st Amendment, he did so by noting BP (which bestowed greater financial largesse on Barack Obama than anyone else in the last two decades) and Goldman Sachs (which has shoveled twice the ducats to dems, and practically has a branch office in the OEOB, if not the White House.)

To be fair to our pal Hank, he is nowhere near as desperate for a Thorazine prescription as his predecessor, Cynthia McKinney. But when a Democrat Congressman rises in support of a bill which abrogates part of the Bill of Rights, and cites his OWN PARTY’S heavyweight swag-haulers as his inspiration, I’m allowed to roll my eyes a bit.

Had his staffers been on—or even near—the ball, they might have stopped him from serving up two of the DNC’s sugar daddies. They also might have noticed who’s exempt from the tenets of the bill, and what it really means.

Proponents of the DISCLOSE ACT claim that it introduces a new measure of decency to electoral politics. What it actually does, by way of lowering the reporting requirements for certain individual donors, is toe the liberal line to a “T.â€