There are people saying that the DOE, which is the Department of Energy, is releasing radioactive contaminated material just because it falls under the allowable limit that was set for human exposure. They go on to say that this is how they are getting rid of much of the contamination at some sites and this material is going back into manufactured items and when we unsuspectingly buy these things we are getting a small dose of radiation. In the year 2000 the Secretary of Energy banned recycling of radioactive metal, but this didn't apply to different components such as pipes and metal equipment that had come into contact with radioactive waste. It is said that some of these radioactive materials are going into ordinary land fills.

I can't help but mention again all that toxic waste that is killing workers at Area 51. When the dying workers sued the government only to find out what chemicals were being used so that they could get treatment for their sicknesses, a court refused to allow this relief. Can you imagine this, they would rather protect their military secrets than save the lives of their own workers. The least they could have done was treat the workers themselves, thus still guarding their precious secrets, but no, they thought that the best thing to do was let the workers die, because this would solve their problem. This was a decision made under President Clinton.

The bail out bill was great, but not great for us. Did you see where one company received over 9 billion in bailout money and immediately gave their executives 11 billion in bonuses? Wow now I can tell everyone that I helped these sleazy corporate executives get even richer. Is this what is known as trickle down economics, because I never seem to get any of that trickle? Maybe if I was in the luxury yacht business or luxury car business I might get a portion of those bonuses trickling down to me, but they just don't seem to reach me or anyone that I know, how about you? Do you remember the promise that we were made that none of this money would go for bonuses? I remember it and as usual it was just a bunch of baloney. What good is a bailout when it only bails out rich corporate executives and never even reaches the company's coffers? The particular company I am talking about not only used up the entire amount of bailout money for bonuses, but this supposedly cash strapped company then added 2 billion of their own money to the amount. Did they even need this money in the first place? Of course not.

There are so many ethics violations in the US Senate, House of Representatives and Governors Office that it would make one sick. These people are doing things that they have to know are wrong, but are thinking that they will get away with it. Let's look at some of these things:

Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska was found guilty of failure to disclose gifts. The gifts if declared, would have meant that he would have had to pay considerably more taxes. I guess he felt that this was a good reason not to declare them.
Governor Bob Taft from Ohio was convicted of a crime. He also failed to report 52 golf outings, dinners and other entertainment gifts. At the time he said he was sorry, but get this, he also said that he would not resign. I guess he wasn't THAT sorry.
Rep. Mark Foley got involved in a page sexual abuse scandal. He was accused of sending sexually explicit emails to teenage boys in the Congressional page program. Here is the hypocrisy part of the whole mess, he was the Chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.
Senator Larry Craig. His big mistake was trying to solicit sex from an undercover cop in an airport bathroom. He is the one that after being caught doing this, decided that he would try and get it thrown out of court.
President Bill Clinton – I guess everyone knows by now about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich – this would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. Mr. Gingrich who was one of the biggest opponents of Clinton and went after him for what he did, all while he was doing the same thing with a congressional aide. He also bounced 22 checks.
Rep. James Traficant was the second congressman to be thrown out of the House of Representatives. He was found guilty of ethics violations because of convictions for bribery, tax evasion and fraud.
Governor James McGreevey of New Jersey had to resign his post amid a building scandal from a homosexual relationship in which the other party was filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against him.

I could go on listing people in our government that are ethics violators or just plain criminals, but the whole point of this exercise is to get people to realize that these types of people, people who try and get away with things, are really not who we want governing us. Even worse than them are the hypocrites that are doing the same or worse while condemning others. There is a certain caliber of person that is needed in government to represent us and this type of person seems to be harder and harder to find. It seems as though just being in government and being exposed to all the related temptations that come with the post are just too much for a lot of people. One of the problems is that many of us have a natural tendency not to rat on others. That is one of the reasons that these abuses in government go on so long. Another reason is that if you are taking money or getting favors, why would you report someone else for doing that?

Just look at all the favors that have been done for companies in the last 8 years. It pales the rest of the history of favoritism. It was done right in front of us with companies getting billions of dollars for servicing troops in Iraq, inflated military projects and such. Some of the companies had direct ties to the White House and anyone that has kept up with these things could recognize the company names as places that were connected with the leaders of our government, before they became elected. These are the same companies that overcharged us billions and had to give some of the money back and yet received more contracts. Talk about morally wrong.

Believe it or not, there are departments in different state governments where it is illegal to accept gifts and others where the limit on a gift is very low, such as $25. I guess this is to allow small Christmas presents and such and these departments survive without lobbyists spreading billions of dollars on the table, so why can't Congress? Right now, candidates look upon being elected to Congress as going to the promised land. I call it the “get to Congress and grab as much as you can” mentality. They run on tickets with the promise of kicking back to those politicians that help them get elected. When it comes to appointed jobs, many of them still require a DONATION of a specific amount to be given to some political leader. It is time that we straightened things out and got rid of all of this corruption. Corruption attracts bad leaders and we just have too many of them already.