Santorum Has Yet Another Ethics Problem

The Associated Press is reporting that our favorite example of "clean ethics" (ya right) Rick Sanatorum (R-PA) has once again gotten himself in the middle of another ethics controversy. This time it involves his recent sponsorship of legislation restricting the National Weather Service by allowing them to only offer particular types of services if the private sector does not offer them. This would of course stop them from offering free weather forecasts on the internet including much needed hurricane forecasts. According to AP: Two days before Sen. Rick Santorum introduced a bill that critics say would restrict the National Weather Service, his political action committee received a $2,000 donation from the chief executive of AccuWeather Inc., a leading provider of weather data. The disclosure has renewed criticism of the measure, which Santorum, R-Pa., maintains would allow the weather service to better focus on its core mission of getting threatening weather info out in a "timely and speedy basis." Opponents say the bill would endanger the public by preventing the dissemination of certain weather data, and force taxpayers to pay for the data twice. The bill would prevent the weather service from competing for certain services offered by the private sector. Thankfully, this has also come to the attention of (CREW) which stated "I think the timing of it is what makes it so suspect," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government, a Democratic-leaning watchdog group. "It's like here's the money and you're going to do what I want." Now I suppose we are expected to believe that it is only coincidence that he received a donation from AccuWeather just before he introduced this legislation.