I was just listening to the radio on my lunch break, and the guest was former Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-CA) who was one of the original sponsor/founders of Earth Day back in 1970. Hearing him speak out against the Bush Administration's environmental record was incredibly inspiring, more inspiring than anything I've heard regarding the environment in a LONG time.

If you can, listen to the interview on this website after 5pm EDT today when the website is updated with todays show. If you are environmentally active at all, I promise you'll enjoy this greatly.

http://www.theworld.org/

Anyway, McCloskey mentioned that he was involved with a group called "The Revolt of the Elders" with several other Republican former Congressmen and other politicians who are working against many of the people and policies of the Bush Administration, but especially the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives and Tom DeLay.

I was hoping that they would have a website dedicated to their movement, but they're a bunch of old foagies and they dont. But I did find this letter sent by McCloskey and the Elders to Dennis Hastert regarding the attempts by the leadership to change the House rules to fit their short-term political advantage.

I hope everyone enjoys this as much as I did.

****************************************************

The Honorable J. Dennis Hastert
Speaker of the House
U. S. House of Representatives
H-232
Washington, D.C. 20515

Re: Recent Ethics Rule Changes

Dear Mr. Speaker:

We write as former House Republican Members to express the hope that you might urge the House to rescind the recently-adopted Rule requiring a majority vote of the House Committee on Ethical Standards in order to initiate an investigation of an ethics complaint.

This rule change was called to our attention by a recent CNN panel discussion among representatives of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government, Public Citizen and others.

The previous rule required an investigation if the evenly-divided Committee of five Republicans and 5 Democrats failed to act after 45 days. Even out here in the hinterlands it looks to the public at large that the Republican House leadership is trying to protect House Majority Leader Tom DeLay who has three times been admonished by the Committee.

The undersigned were privileged to serve under the leadership of Gerry Ford, Bob Michel and John Rhodes, men of impeccable honesty and principle. During 40 years of Democrat control of the House from 1954 to 1994, these men caused the Republicans to stand out as the party of public accountability.

In 1994 our Conference passed a rule that if a Member were indicted he or she would lose his or her leadership position. This rule was passed in the wake of the indictment of Democrat Dan Rostenkowski who then declined to step down as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

Ten years later, however, in 2004, with Majority Leader DeLay facing indictment in Texas, the Republican Conference repealed this rule, reinstating it only after public outcry and constituent anger of a high degree.

The new rule requiring a majority vote to even investigate an ethics complaint obviously emasculates the Committee on Standards of Ethics since either party can now block an investigation of one of its own members.

As elderly former Members, now long retired, we think it in the best interests of the party and the nation that you rescind this new rule lest Republicans be deemed by the public to have adopted the arrogance towards ethical violations so long demonstrated by the Adam Clayton Powells, Jim Wrights, Jack Murphys, Dan Rostenkowskis and other Democrat leaders of the past half century.

You may recall when Republican Members of the House Judiciary Committee, Caldwell Butler, Bill Cohen, Hamilton Fish and Tom Railsback, helped restore confidence in our constitutional system in 1974 when they voted Articles of Impeachment against their own President.

You have it within your power to do the same today.

We therefore urge that you lead the Republican Party back to the position the Republican leadership claimed in 1994: a party requiring ethical standards and tough enough to enforce them.

Respectfully,


Pete McCloskey (R. California, 1967-1983)


Jim Johnson (R. Colorado, 1973-1981)


Paul Findley (R. Illinois, 1967-1983)

PNMcC/mm

cc: The Honorable Gerald Ford
The Honorable Bob Michel
Ms. Melanie Stone
Citizens for Responsibility and
and Ethics in Government
Ms. Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen
Former Republican Members of Congress

***************************************************

The Ideal Candidate
(To be Supported by the Revolt of the Elders in Cases
Where an Incumbent Congressman is old, hidebound
and/or Tainted by Scandal)


The potential candidate:
1. Has built up an impeccable record in an elective office in the congressional district, ideally in a state senatorial or assembly, district or county or city office which includes a fair portion of the congressional district;
2. Is pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-separation of church and state, pro-fiscal responsibility (balanced budget goals), pro-international cooperation and suspicious of excessive governmental power;
3. Speaks well and can inspire his or her supporters in public discourse;
4. Has been honored for leadership in public service, business, profession or the military.
5. Cares for and connects with people individually and in groups of varying sizes;
6. Is honest, good and true, without any bad marks such as DUIs, drug arrests, messy divorces, etc;
7. Reflects the values of the district;
8. Has a wide circle of dedicated relatives, friends and associates;
9. Is either a millionaire or at least able to campaign hard (12 hours a day, 7 days a week) for six months without earning an income during that period;
10. Above all else, has the competitive heart and desire, once committed, to win the election.*
___________________________________________________________
*Characteristics 9 and 10 are crucial. We recognize there may be only a relatively-few individuals in America who have all ten characteristics, and in some districts none.

**************************************************

THE REVOLT OF THE ELDERS

What is a Revolt of the Elders, who are they and what can some self-appointed retirees do that might make a difference politically?

Our Revolt stems from the recent attempt by the House Republican leadership to gut its rules of ethical responsibility, but this is only a symptom of a far more serious situation in the House.

The Revolt is a bi-partisan effort, between now and November, 2006, to help throw out of the U.S. House of Representatives a select group of Republicans who represent everything that is bad about the Republican party’s drift into radicalism and its rejection of decades of bi-partisan progress in America. The Elders are primarily Republicans or former Republicans disgusted with the direction their party is taking and Democrats disappointed with the inability of their party to as yet provide a positive alternative. The Elders propose to bring to public attention over the next two years to the goals and conduct of Majority Leader Tom DeLay and his top disciples in the House. We intend to find and support first class Republican and Democrat candidates to run against and defeat those that can be defeated.

The members of this group share a common perspective on the positive direction of American policy in the post World War II era. We see key Republicans now rejecting the values of that era, an era in which we came out of military service to become active in public affairs. We are proud of the advances in civil rights, women’s rights, protection of the environment, progressive taxation, fiscal responsibility, and much more that are the great achievements of that era. We think both Democrats and Republicans can take credit for those achievements. A southern Democrat, Lyndon Johnson, pushed through the Civil Rights Act; a Republican President, Richard Nixon, created the Environmental Protection Administration and opened the door to Red China; a bi-partisan coalition in Congress impeached Nixon for his political crimes; a Democrat President, Bill Clinton, helped make the Republicans’ goal of fiscal responsibility a reality and created the first large budget surpluses. Presidents in both parties have proposed national health insurance, expansion of Social Security and the strengthening of the welfare system. Both parties, while differing on the level of taxes, have shared the value that the wealthiest taxpayers should pay at the highest rates. Through all the heated debate on domestic policy, until the last ten years or so there has been a level of civility and respect that, though often sorely tested, made bi-partisanship possible.

With the ascendancy of Newt Gingrich to Speaker of the House in 1994, the Republican leadership began a junkyard dog attack on the advances of previous decades. While Gingrich and some of his appointed successors left office under a cloud of ethical concerns, their spiritual and ethical heir Tom Delay has planted allies in key committee positions, like Richard Pombo, Chair of the Resources Committee and John Doolittle on the Republican Steering Committee. All of this has happened in concert with a Bush White House that shares their goals – the dismantling of environmental protection, tax breaks for the rich, weakening of civil rights protections and, contrary to prior Republican dogma, a fiscally irresponsible spend-but-don’t-tax policy and an attack on states’ rights on issues such as medical care. To support their policies they have cleverly inserted into the debate new terms like “death taxes”, “partial birth abortion”, “clean skies”, “faith-based organizations”, “healthy forests” and the like. And with Democrat incumbents as willing participants, they have gerrymandered districts to make unseating them as difficult as possible. This is politics at its worst. It is inherently undemocratic in spirit and practice and makes hypocritical American efforts to encourage the spread of democracy in the world.

Our goal is to help stop this reversal of hard-won progress.

The Republican party has already started national soliciting funds from all Republicans to re-elect Republican House Members to whom they refer to as “Bush-led Republicans.”

To counter this, we propose to identify first-rate Republicans and Democrats willing to challenge these leaders in the 2006 primaries and general election. We intend to make sure they have the funds needed for an effective campaign and the research on the incumbent’s record that will expose his weaknesses and ethical shortcomings. In an ideal situation, where a bad incumbent is defeated in the primary, it will lead to a good Republican running against a good Democrat. If the Republican falls short in the primary, his supporters will be encouraged to back the Democrat, whom we will support, and vice versa. The short-term goal will be to give House Democrats, supported by like-minded Republicans, the power to thwart the current DeLay and Bush Administration efforts. The long-term goal will be to see the leadership of both parties return to their core values and compete fairly for the support of the American people.

One doesn’t need to be on Social Security to join our revolt. We appreciate the need for new young blood to make this effort succeed.

We hope you will join us.

THE STEERING COMMITTEE OF
“THE REVOLT OF THE ELDERS”

Paul N. McCloskey, Jr.,
Member of Congress, 1967-82 (R. Calif.)

Lewis H. Butler,
Former Assistant Secretary of HEW, 1969-71

Charles U. Daly,
White House Assistant to President John F. Kennedy

John A. Hooper,
Defense Advisor to Ambassador to NATO, 1958-67

Malcolm McLane,
New Hampshire Executive Council, 1977-82

Mayor, City of Concord, 1970-76
Dr. Susan Farmer,
Secretary of State, State of Rhode Island, 1983-1987

Nan McEvoy,
Former Publisher, San Francisco Chronicle,

(Plus Any Other Notorious Americans Willing to Participate)

It's stuff like this that makes me think that maybe, just maybe, everything is going to be okay.

you're young yet. Give it time.

Sounds good to me.

LOL I'm not so naive as to believe that everything will turn out perfect. But at least there are signs of balance...the type of balance that would stop our country from totally spiraling out of control.

Yeah, I'd join that party.

Heh, sorry, I was just joking around. I'm still hopeful about the world, I just have a tendency to think things get worse before they get better again.

Yes, but that can't be a perpetual state, otherwise things would always be getting worse, and never get better again. We have to hit rock bottom eventually.

I'll let you know when the news story which signifies that we have reached rock bottom is posted.

Yeah I know you were joking around. I agree that things get worse before they just better...I guess this article offered hope that things may not get that much worse before they start getting better. Because in my opinion, things are pretty damn bad right about now. And sometimes it just seems there is little or no hope.

I have no argument with that at all, I'm a strong believer in the pendulum effect, what this article shows (imo) is the beginning of the end of the swing to the right.
Along with the Republican who I heard about yesterday who after hearing so much bad information about Bolton said he was no longer comfortable with his nomination to the UN position. I can't remember the guy's name, but I know he shocked everyone there, Republicans and Democrats alike.