You Were Wrong Senator Ensign, This Is Your Problem!

This was originally published in The Huffington Post on April 22, 2011. 

It was New Year's Eve 2009 and Republican Senator John Ensign seemed destined for political glory, maybe even a shot at the presidency. And why not? All the stars were aligning for the brash, handsome Republican superstar from Nevada. All except for one. My producer Gary Daughters and I had information that Ensign may have helped his best friend get a lobbying gig to shut him up. It didn't take long to find out why.

Ensign had slept with his best friend's wife. I asked him about it. In fact, I peppered him with questions. His lack of a response and his combativeness for my even asking spoke volumes.

Doug Hampton, Ensign's best friend and chief of staff, was hurting. Hurting a lot. Wouldn't you be too if you caught your boss and best friend having an affair with your wife?

When we reached out to Ensign's office, the last thing I expected was that he would grant me an interview. He had to know what I knew, right? After all, it wasn't like we picked up the story from the National Enquirer. It had already been picked up by the New York Times and the Washington Post. But nobody had asked Ensign about it fully and directly.

It was a holiday. Usually, those are slow news days. Maybe that's why Ensign agreed to do the interview. Or maybe he thought I wouldn't bring up such an embarrassing topic, even though he was the senator who did everything he could to impeach Bill Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky affair. Yes, that left him wide open. But that's not why I chose to confront him about his peccadillo fully and directly.

"Aggressively" is how the interview was described in countless stories. I confronted him because I knew that he was the subject of both an ethical and legal investigation. The interview went viral overnight.

As I told Ensign, "there is a law that says that someone who is an aide for a senator like yourself has to wait one year before they start lobbying." It's a law that Ensign should have been certainly aware of.

I gave him the opportunity to clear the air and set the record straight. His response? "That's his problem [Hampton's], that's not my problem... All that stuff will take care of itself over time... "

That "stuff" included Ensign allegedly arranging meetings for Hampton to get lobbying jobs. That "stuff" is what the law was meant to prevent.

When Ensign said, "that's not my problem," he clearly wasn't thinking -- just like he wasn't thinking when he slept with Hampton's wife and attempted to appease him by getting him lobbying jobs.

So who's problem is it senator? You want to try that answer again, because yesterday you resigned, and the Senate Ethics Committee, which includes many Republicans, chose to continue its investigation. They aren't doing that because you had a moral indiscretion. We all make mistakes. They are continuing to investigate you because of exactly what I asked you about: "public malfeasance." The problem is whether the public can trust that you and other elected officials won't use your lofty positions to cover your sins.

When you disconnected from reality during our interview and said that this was "his" problem, Senator Ensign, at that moment, you became America's problem.

Luckily, your resignation solves that. And it shows you finally realized what you should have known two years ago: This isn't someone else's problem. This is clearly your problem.

Rick Sanchez's Official Website: http://ricksancheztv.com/
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Politicians and Porn Don't Mix

The Forward has just run a story on a well-known pornographer named Ben Suky. 

Suky is a pornographer who even deals in pirated porn. The Forward documents his support of several philanthropic organizations. Charities are faced with so many hurdles in raising money, and the need for donations is so great, that they don't check the source. 

As it turns out, neither do politicians.

Giving the term "money shot" a whole new meaning, Suky has spread the wealth and donated money to both Democrats and Republicans alike. He has also donated money to the Republican National Committee.

Researching public records, I found that Representatives Eric Cantor and Anthony Weiner have both accepted campaign contributions from Suky. Weiner accepted the campaign contribution in connection with his campaign for Mayor of New York.

Cantor accepted over $48,000 from Suky.

Both Cantor and Weiner are good public servants. For that reason, they should return Suky's money. Period, end of story. The sources of political donations matter, and who our politicians are willing to associate with for the sake of campaign contributions is a serious issue and one on which we must focus more attention.

Campaign finance reform needs to be put on the front burner once again.

You can find details of Suky's donation to Cantor here.

Details of Suky's donation to Representative Weiner are here.

And Suky's RNC donation is documented here.

This piece originally appeared in The Huffington Post.

Rick Sanchez's Official Website http://ricksancheztv.com/

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickSanchezTV

Burning the Quran Is No Childish Game

Yesterday afternoon, as I played basketball in the driveway with my son and daughter, an argument arose over who hit the ball out of bounds. My feisty 10-year-old daughter tried to settle the argument by launching the ball at the back of her 12-year-old brother's head. That made him so angry, he took the ball and kicked it into the woods. Game over.

Children have to be taught to settle disputes and express their opinions respectfully. Unfortunately, it's a lesson some adults never seem to have learned.

Take, for example, Terry Jones, the pistol-packing Florida pastor who threatened to burn a Quran on 9/11 last year. Well, a little over a week ago, he... you guessed it. He burned a Quran.

If you recall, Jones didn't go through with it last year because there was such an outcry from nearly everyone -- President Obama, Secretary of Defense Gates, politicians from both sides of the aisle, celebrities, religious leaders, regular folk and pretty much anyone with a lick of common sense -- that burning a Quran, and offending one and a half billion people, wasn't a good or sane idea.

But it may have been General David Petraeus whose argument was the most convincing -- at least for me. When I spoke with him last year, he boiled it down to a simple matter of life and death. General Petraeus said that there was nothing brave about burning the Quran over here while our soldiers pay the consequences over there -- in Afghanistan, Iraq and now, Libya.

When I interviewed Jones last year, I did my level best to hear him out. But all I could think of was how I would feel, as a Christian, if somebody desecrated my most sacred book, the Bible. His only defense was to say that the Quran wasn't sacred to him.

The leader of the Dove World Outreach Center -- the irony in the name shouldn't be lost on anyone -- began this year's campaign of hate with a new angle. Instead of a simple book burning, Jones decided to first put the holy book of Islam on "trial." He dubbed it, "International Judge the Quran Day." The thinking must have been that if the book were "guilty," then it deserved to get burned.

About 30 people attended, 12 of whom formed the "jury." For good measure, the mock trial featured a prosecuting attorney and defense lawyer. However, in case you have any doubts, it was Jones who was not only the "judge" in this kangaroo court but also the jury and executioner. I think you can guess the verdict.

With the outcome certain, it's a wonder Jones had it go on for more than six hours. After soaking a Quran in kerosene for an hour, Jones oversaw the torching of the book.

Fresh off last year's circus as well as last week's circus trial, Jones wants another 15 minutes of fame. So he's now decided to fly to Dearborn, Michigan, on April 22 where he'll protest outside the Islamic Center of America, the country's largest mosque. Jones says he's not protesting against Muslims, but that he's protesting against Islamic law. He says he wants Muslims to "honor, obey and submit to the Constitution of the United States."

Last I checked, I haven't seen any lobbying efforts by Muslim Americans to have the U.S. Constitution overturned.

Ignoring Jones and hoping he disappears into obscurity doesn't seem to work. If anything, he seems to have the survivability of a cockroach. Jones has to be confronted head-on, and that is exactly what an interfaith group of 35 pastors and imams from the Detroit-metro area is doing.

On Monday, the group spoke out against Jones' visit and announced they were planning a prayer vigil in response. Reverend Charles Williams II of the King Solomon Baptist Church said, "As a Christian minister, silence for me would be consent."

As much as I dislike giving Jones any more attention and a 16th minute of fame, silence and inaction in the face of bigotry don't work. Worse, they can unfortunately -- and incorrectly -- signal approval or at the very least acceptance. Jones needs to realize that his words and actions make him the very thing he despises: He is no better than the fringe of Muslims who hate.

Hate masquerading as political protest is still hate, which is why Jones must be repudiated so he realizes that his actions are not only offensive, but also dangerous -- especially to our troops.

We teach our children that they can disagree without being disagreeable. That lesson evolves as we grow older. As adults, we learn that we can protest peacefully and that we can oppose something without being offensive.

Like Terry Jones, my daughter tried to explain to me why she was right to throw the ball at her brother. I explained to her why she was wrong and sent her to her room, much to my son's delight. But that was short-lived because he too was sent packing to his room with what we in the South call a "talking to."

Terry Jones needs to be taught the same lesson, but his is not a game. His actions can have dire consequences for all of us. The lesson he needs to learn is that he has every right to express his opinion about Islam or to disagree with Muslims, but he doesn't have to spit in their faces to do it. He didn't need to desecrate a book that one and a half billion people hold sacred in order to make a point. He shouldn't needlessly put the lives of our armed forces at greater risk.

Terry Jones lives in the South, so he'll understand this idiom as well as anybody: Terry Jones needs a "talking to." Here's how you can talk to Jones.


This piece was originally published in The Huffington Post

Rick Sanchez's Official Website: http://RickSanchezTV.com
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickSanchezTV