March, 2019, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: A Mean,Nasty Senator, A Failed Railroad, and More

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) For decades the Federal government never figured out how operate an efficient and effective railroad system (AMTRAK) in a profitable manner. Then California politicians decided they were going to build and operate a high speed train line from northern California to southern California. Then the California politicians decided that after years of effort, many, many studies and the wasting of billions of dollars, it could not be done. Then daft Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decided that the U.S. airline industry needed to be destroyed at the altar of climate change.

Which brings us to the latest failure and ongoing saga of failure when it comes to politicians trying to build and operate a railroad system:

• An AMTRAK train going from Seattle to California has been stuck for days in Oregon after it reportedly hit a tree.
• Only a Federal government run railroad could break down because it somehow hit a tree.
• The 180 or so customers on the train were not allowed to leave the train since there was four feet of snow in every direction and the local area was out of power.
• As a result, the customers ran out of food, ran out of diapers forcing the riders to cut up clothes to make their own diapers, ran out of feminine products, and ran out of medicine. 

Obviously, this did not happen on the Orient Express in the middle of nowhere in Siberia. It happened in Oregon and yet the Federal government operation could not get 180 Americans stranded, in Oregon, out of harm’s way for three days. So sad.

Oh, and by the way, an Amtrak train crashed into a freight train in South Carolina early this past February. The crash resulted in two AMTRAK riders being killed and at least 70 other riders being injured. 

Oh, and by the way, in December, 2017, an Amtrak train derailed in Washington state, smashing through an overpass onto Interstate 5, killing three people and injuring dozens. 

Oh, and by the way, in early 2018, an Amtrak train carrying Republican members of Congress to a retreat in West Virginia hit a garbage truck in Virginia, killing one of the three occupants in the vehicle.

So, in a little over a year, we have at least four major AMTRAK incidents with death, injuries, and abandonment and not to mention the abandonment of a major high speed rail project after wasting billions of dollars. And politicians like Ocasio-Cortez think we need to stop flying and somehow use a nationwide, unbuilt rail system that does not exist that would be operated by the same idiots that operate the embarrassment known as AMTRAK. The height of insanity.

2) Washington politicians always act like they care about us but often their actions, and wasteful spending, show us that they only care about themselves and their own self gratification:

• Warner Todd Huston, writing for the Godfather Politics website on February 25, 2019, discussed one of those times when Washington politicians were so self serving again.
• Five Democrats in the House of Representatives are under pressure because of a trip they took, at no cost to themselves, to South Africa just to see a Beyonce concert.
• The trip for the five of them cost $60,000, none of which they paid for.
• According to the article, as reported by Fox: “ They attended the “Global Citizen Mandela 100” concert from Dec. 1-3 to celebrate the centenary birth of the late Nelson Mandela and raise awareness of global poverty. In addition to Beyoncé, other musical acts included her husband Jay Z, Ed Sheeran, Pharrell Williams and Chris Martin.”
• The trip was paid for my a so-called charity organization, the Global Citizen, a group that supposedly helps out the poor in Third World countries around the world.
• Which raises the question: how many poor people could have been clothed, housed, and fed if Global Citizen had used that $60,000 boondoggle money on the poor and not five U.S. politicians?
• The National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group, called the trip a mockery: “These members of Congress that were given an all-expense paid vacation to party with Oprah, Jay Z, and Beyoncé in South Africa are claiming with a straight face this was needed to help poor children around the world live better lives. This was in fact, a mockery of House ethics rules on gifts and travel, the truly poor, and all Americans that expect members of Congress to live not only by the letter of the law but by the spirit and intentions of the rules of the House of Representatives.”

Well said. I almost guarantee you that the world’s poor are no better off because five U.S. Congress people went to a concert in South Africa. So ego satisfying and so useless, as always.

3) Let’s move from House of Representative members acting childish by allowing themselves to get treated to a concert at the expense of the world’s poor over to a childish politician in the Senate, one who actually wants to be President of the United States:

• According to a story by Shawn, writing for the Fix This Nation website on February 24, 2019, Senator Amy Klobuchar of the Senate is possibly not one of the nicer people you will meet in Washington.
• According to many of Klobuchar’s staff members, she is quite the tyrant when it comes to treating other human beings.
• For example, on a trip to South Carolina several years ago, Klobuchar got crazy and blew up at an aide when the aide lost the Senator’s dining utensils in the middle of the flight.
• It then got really bizarre when the Senator used her comb to eat her meal and then ordered the aide to clean the comb of food that had gotten on it when she used it as dining utensil.
• She has been known to throw binders, phones, and other things at aides who did not measure up to her needs and expectations.
• She also had aides do demeaning errands including washing her dishes or doing other cleaning for her, tasks that are quite possibly a violation of Senate ethics rules.
• She was known to point out perceived staff screw ups that were delivered at all hours of the night and day.
• Her nasty quotes included, “In 20 years in politics I have never seen worse prep”, “This is the hands down worse thing you have ever given me” and “This is the worst press staff I ever had.” 

Such a pleasant person. And she wants to be President of the U.S. Really cannot see such a petty, disrespectful human being becoming someone who could unite and lead the country,. Pettiness in personal dealings with people that may not be at such a high level of status would result in pettiness in dealing with anyone who has a different opinion from hers. And that is not the type of divisive behavior that this country needs today.

That is a good start for this month’s political class insanity: a childish, condescending Senator, five Congress people who needed to have scarce money spent on them rather than the Earth’s poor, and the disaster that is the Federal government’s operation of a railroad system. More insanity to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Retro 3 - Wasteful Government Spending Week: Pimp My Congressional Ride - Part 2

Given family engagements in town this week, we will be rerunning some of our most popular posts, posts that have garnered the most attention and which showed that we are currently enduring the worst set of politicians America has ever had.

MONDAY, MAY 21, 2012

Wasteful Government Spending Week: Pimp My Congressional Ride - Part 2

Many Americans probably do not realize that a lot of their tax dollars are used to provide free car leases and free gasoline for those car leases for use by their Congressmen and Congresswomen. We had covered this spending atrocity previously in this blog, back in August, 2009, 

(http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2009/08/pimp-my-ride-taxpayers.html)

 but thought it was worthwhile to cover again, Pimp My Congressional Ride - Part 2, since nothing has been done to terminate this obvious example of wasteful government spending by the political class in the House Of Representatives. 

While the amount of money wasted is relatively small compared to the bloated overall bloated Federal budget, as former Senator Everett Dirksen once said: "A billion dollars here, a billions dollars there, and pretty soon you are talking about some real money." 

In order to save trillions of dollars of unnecessary spending by the political class, you first have to start saving thousands which eventually becomes saving millions which eventually becomes saving some real money, billions, which eventually becomes saving trillions. 

This is especially true when you consider how useless these Congressional expenses are in light of the following numbers and facts, brought to you by a recent investigation done by Inside Edition 

(http://www.insideedition.com/news/8119/inside-edition-investigates-congressional-cars.aspx):

• The typical Congressman in the House Of Representatives earns about $170,000 a year in salary, placing every one of them well within the upper 5% of wage earners in the country. Bottom line: they can afford to lease their own vehicles with their own money.
• The Senate does not have a similar program of taxpayers subsidizing autos for their members, Senators use their own funds and own vehicles. Bottom line: if Senators do not get free transportation from the taxpayer and seem to do okay without such a program, even though they have to cover the geography of a whole state, not the much smaller geography of a Congressional district, members in the House certainly do not need a free car program.
• Consider Gregory Meeks a Democratic Congressman from New York. He drives a luxury Lexus 450 Hybrid, a taxpayer funded lease that goes for $1,289.40 a month. This results in the taxpayer shelling out $15,374 a year. Bottom line: according torecent  United States Census data, (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0690.pdf), the taxpayer funded lease for this one car is greater than the household income of 13% of American households, about 15 million households. Talk about bad priorities, one unnecessary luxury car lease with more value than a year's earnings of so many American households.
• The really sad thing about this program is that Meeks is not the only Congressional driver whose annual lease cost is greater than the annual income of so many Americans. Bottom line: even if the program was essential, which it is not, for Congressional people to get around their districts, good sense should dictate that driving around in Lexus, Lincoln, and other high cost autos is totally unnecessary from a basic transportation perspective and blatantly egotistical on behalf of these supposed public servants.
• If you add up the monthly lease costs of 82 examples of taxpayer leased cars identified by the Inside Edition report, you find that the American taxpayer is on the hook for almost $700,000 a year for this unnecessary program. If you throw in the down payments of some of the leases and the taxpayer-funded gasoline that goes into these autos every year, it is probably a very safe bet that more than $832,000 a year is incurred each year by this program. Bottom line: when the GSA wastes $832,000 ONCE on a Las Vegas party, Congress goes into a rage even though it wastes at least $832,000 every YEAR on auto leases.

It never ends. Bad priorities, wasteful spending, over inflated egos of self importance, and never, ever the solution of any major problem facing most Americans. Since Congress cannot clean up its act, it falls back on us to do it ourselves. This involves the short term fix of dumping out all incumbents in the November elections since it is obvious that the current sitting Congressional people have not learned their lessons of leadership and thrift.

The longer term solution is the implementation of Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." This step would install term limits on all Federal politicians, "one and done." Current Washington politicians continue to prove that they are out of touch with reality, budget constraints, and struggling Americans. If you car lease is greater than the household income of 13% of America, you are out of touch. You are also expendable.

The following data comes from the Inside Edition website (http://www.insideedition.com/news/8119/inside-edition-investigates-congressional-cars.aspx) which recently did an investigative journalism piece on this wasteful government program.

Members of the House Of Representatives who lease tax payer-funded vehicles.


Source: Statement of Disbursements – House of Representatives – 4th Quarter 2011

44 Democrats and 38 Republicans.

Representative      State     Monthly Payment      Additional information

1. Dan Burton – Rep. (two leases) Indiana $600 + $684.78 Leases two vehicles
2. Mary Bono Mack – Rep. California $682.94
3. Rodney Alexander – Rep. Louisiana $167.99 Includes a $20,000 down payment
4. Xavier Becerra – Dem. California $271.80
5. Adam Schiff – Dem. California $489.24
6. Adrian Smith – Rep. Nebraska $692.52 Includes a $7,554.24 down payment
7. Al Green – Dem. Texas $436.89
8. André Carson – Dem. Indiana ***payment amount varies from $657.99 to $748.65 per month
9. Anna Eshoo – Dem. California $389.60
10. Barbara Lee – Dem. California $898.55
11. Bill Flores – Rep. Texas $455.55
12. Bill Johnson – Rep. Ohio $370.13
13. Bill Shuster – Rep. Pennsylvania $392.00
14. Bobby Rush – Dem. Illinois $1,027.53
15. Brad Miller – Dem. North Carolina $431.87
16. Chip Cravaack – Rep. Minnesota $1,008.22
17. Cliff Stearns – Rep. Florida $789.25
18. Collin Peterson – Dem. Minnesota $362 + $290.00 Leases two vehicles
19. Cory Gardner – Rep. Colorado $910.80
20. Dana Rohrabacher – Rep. California $918.63
21. David Dreier – Rep. California $598.92
22. David Scott – Dem. Georgia $519.40
23. Dennis Rehberg – Rep. Montana $499 + $799.00 Leases two vehicles
24. Don Young – Rep. Alaska $748.73
25. Donald Manzullo – Rep. Illinois $619.19
26. Ed Pastor – Dem. Arizona $294.33
27. Edolphus Towns – Dem. New York $1,285.06
28. Edward Royce – Rep. California $509.98
29. Eleanor Holmes Norton – Dem. D.C. $807.55
30. Emanuel Cleaver – Dem. Missouri $1,900.00 Lease is for mobile office used in district
31. George Miller – Dem. California $520.10
32. Gregory Meeks – Dem. New York $1,289.40
33. Gus Bilirakis – Rep. Florida $449.60
34. Heath Shuler – Dem. North Carolina $485.31
35. Hank Johnson Jr. – Dem. Georgia $725.79
36. Henry Cuellar – Dem. Texas $594.28
37. Howard Berman – Dem. California $382.78
38. Howard “Buck” McKeon – Rep. California $662.83
39. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen – Rep. California $479.86
40. James Clyburn – Dem. South Carolina $1,139.26
41. Jim McDermott – Dem. Washington $346.46
42. Joe Baca – Dem. California $732.86
43. Joe Barton – Rep. Texas $998.89
44. Joe Donnelly – Dem. Indiana $450.00
45. John Abney Culberson – Rep. Texas $880.00
46. John Conyers Jr. – Dem. Michigan $1,251.66
47. John Garamendi – Dem. California $910.82
48. John Lewis – Dem. Georgia $578.21
49. John Carter – Rep. Texas $880.96
50. John Sullivan – Rep. Oklahoma $258.30
51. José Serrano – Dem. New York $485.31
52. Kenny Marchant – Rep. Texas $899.67
53. Kevin McCarthy – Rep. California $716.25
54. Laura Richardson – Dem. California $852.96
55. Linda Sanchez – Dem. California $861.87
56. Louie Gohmert – Rep. Texas $466.40
57. Lynn Woolsey – Dem. California $647.97
58. Mario Diaz-Balart – Rep. Florida $722.02
59. Melvin Watt – Dem. North Carolina $431.81
60. Michael Simpson – Rep. Idaho $698.13
61. Michael Michaud – Dem. Maine $795.00
62. Mike Coffman – Rep. Colorado $671.51
63. Mike McIntyre – Dem. North Carolina $430.82
64. Mike Pence – Rep. Indiana $282.68
65. Mike Pompeo – Rep. Kansas $486.00
66. Mike Ross – Dem. Arkansas $851.28
67. Nick Rahall – Dem. West Virginia $671.41
68. Pedro Pierluisi – Dem. Puerto Rico $1,400.00
69. Peter Welch – Dem. Vermont $425.68
70. Phil Gingrey – Rep. Georgia $470.88
71. Randy Neugebauer – Rep. Texas $333.33
72. Raul Grijalva – Dem. Arizona $709.28
73. Sam Johnson – Rep. Texas $758.65
74. Sean Duffy – Rep. Wisconsin $1,350.00 Lease is for mobile office used in district
75. Sheila Jackson Lee – Dem. Texas $751.99
76. Silvestre Reyes – Dem. Texas $655.46
77. Steve Womack – Rep. Arkansas $565.61
78. Steven LaTourette – Rep. Ohio $502.24
79. Theodore “Ted” Deutch – Dem. Florida $301.17
80. Wally Herger – Rep. California $650.00
81. William “Lacy” Clay Jr. – Dem. Missouri $779.08
82. William Keating – Dem. Massachusetts $968.85

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

April, 2015, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Our Golfing Addicted President, Sex Partying DEA Agents, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time to review the latest political class insanity that has cropped up over the past 30 days or so. As regular readers of this blog know, political class insanity comes in many different forms including, but not limited to, the following craziness:

• Spending taxpayer wealth on idiotic programs and projects.
• Wasting taxpayer wealth on their own selfish financial and political needs.
• Implementing legislation to resolve problems that make the original problems worse or which created unintended bad consequences as a result of their legislation.
• Implementing legislation that supports their political donors and financial backers rather than the typical American citizen.
• Issuing idiotic and stupid comments.
• Overseeing government organizations that are incompetent, inefficient, ineffective, and wasteful of taxpayer wealth.

As always, it is highly likely we will identify new forms of insanity over the next few days as we review the past ineptness coming out of Washington and other bastions of American politicians.

1) The current state of the world is not good:

• Yemen has become a lawless country infested with at least three different terrorist groups.
• Egypt and Saudi Arabia are bombing Yemen.
• ISIS is still running wild and growing in northern Iraq and Syria.
• The Obama administration is about to sign off on an agreement that will make Iran able to develop nuclear weapons capability in a relatively short time frame.
• Our relations at the highest levels of government between our traditional ally and only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and the U.S.Federal government is at an all time low.
• The economic growth situation in the this country and the related employment situation is still stagnant.
• Our borders still leak, our public schools still continue to under educate, we are still losing our war on drugs, and we still do not have a long term energy strategy for the country.

Given this context, according to a recent Washington Examiner report and other news reports:

• President Obama recently jetted down to Florida for a round of golf on the taxpayer tab at an exclusive Florida country club.
• This was the 222nd round of golf he has played since becoming President, by far the most rounds of Presidential golf played since the Eisenhower Presidency six decades ago.
• According to Air Force documents obtained by the Judicial Watch, it costs $210,877 an hour to fly Air Force One, putting the round trip price tag at $843,508 for this one round of Presidential golf.
• According to press reports from members of the media flying with the President, the beer started flowing shortly after takeoff at 9:30 am, leading to the following press pool report: "You can tell this is a non work trip because someone forward of the press cabin ordered 3 beers at 9:26 a.m."
• In order to not photograph or report on the President during his round of golf, all members of the media were shuttered into a shack on the golf course until the round was done.

Certainly another “bad optics” experience for this Presidency, another bad set of priorities, another piece of insanity, given the multitude of crises facing the country that have erupted during his time in office.

2) We are less than three weeks away from filing our Federal income taxes, an act that if not done properly and on time could result in fines and jail time for most Americans. I say for most Americans, since again in 2014, the IRS has found that for many Federal employees, paying only some of none of their Federal income taxes appears to be acceptable:

• More than 100,00 Federal employees did not pay or part of their Federal income taxes employees.
• It represents almost 4% of the Federal workforce who are in violation of IRS rules and laws.
• They are depriving the Federal government and the American taxpayer $1.14 billion in unpaid Federal income taxes.
• Among categories of Americans who receive direct compensation from the Federal government, only retired military veterans have a higher tax evasion rate, 4.04%, likely because many of them are homeless or unemployed as compared to Federal government employees that are employed and making really good money and salaries.
• 500 House of Representative staffers owe a combined $6.7 million to the IRS for unpaid Federal income taxes.last year.
• This 100,000 level establishes a new record high for tax evasion by Federal employees.

Another example of total dysfunction on the part of the Federal government and the politicians who are supposed to be overseeing their operations. The IRS obviously knows who these tax evaders are, they know how much they are evading, so why is it so hard to confiscate their government wages until their tax debt is wiped out? 

Sounds simple but as we have often shown with our insanity posts, even simple is often beyond the reach and capability of today’s politicians. But you can be sure that if you or I did not pay all of our taxes, our fate would be far worse than those who are tax evading Federal employees.

3) Another example of dysfunction of the Federal government and those that oversee its operations cropped up in a Special Security Administration (SSA) Inspector General report and audit. That audit found that the SSA had live, valid Social Security numbers on record for 6.5 million Americans that are over 112 years old.

This is interesting since:

• According to Census records, there are only about 6.0 million living Americans who are over the age of 85, making it impossible to have 6.5 million over the age of 112.
• According to Wikipedia, there are about 16 Americans living in the country today who are over the age of 110.

Which obviously raises some simple questions relative to 6.5 million lived SSA accounts:

• How many of those 6.5 million accounts are being used by relatives of deceased Americans who have kept the account alive and are illegally receiving Social Security benefit payments?
• How many of those 6.5 million accounts are being used by organized crime to skim and scam taxpayer wealth out of the SSA?
• How many of those 6.5 million accounts are being used by illegal immigrants to illegally stay in this country, find work in this country, and get illegal benefits in this country from the SSA?

There is a really simple solution to this problem. Identify the 16 Americans who are actually still alive, put their SSA numbers aside, and then cancel the remaining 6.5 million SSA numbers and see what happens. 

Odds are the criminals will move onto to other endeavors once they realize the jig is up and using deceased Americans’ Social Security numbers, saving billions in taxpayer wealth. Anyone who shows up and complains about losing a valid number is likely a criminal and should be arrested for SSA fraud.

Simple, right? But again, much too hard for the political class to comprehend and to force the Federal government to do. Another pathetic example of wasting taxpayer wealth as a result of government incompetence.

4) More government operations incompetence. According to recent news reports:

• Federal Drug Enforcement (DEA) agents operating in Columbia over the years apparently were treated to sex parties, courtesy of the local drug cartels, the same people and organizations that the agents were supposed to be shutting down.
• Many of the sex parties and prostitutes were hosted at rented DEA facilities and offices where sensitive electronic equipment such as computers and smartphones were available to be compromised.
• The cartels provided security for DEA agents’ weapons during the sex parties.

News reports on the sex parties can be viewed at:

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/nbc-continues-ignore-report-dea-sex-parties-funded-drug-cartels

These sex parties occurred over a number of years but recently came to light. One has to wonder if there are others that have not yet been uncovered. Another example of a dysfunctional government operation and poor or no oversight by the politicians that are supposed to keep these operations efficient, focused, and effective. Touch to be any of those things when the sex is free.

A President that would rather golf and fund raise than lead, 100,000 Federal government employees who seem to think that filing and paying incomes taxes is optional, a Social Security Administration which seems to think the fountain of youth exists at least within their records, and a DEA set of agents who party at drug cartel expense.

That’s enough for today, which turned out to be a focus on the overall incompetence of the Federal government and the political oversight that has failed to make these operations and entities a worthwhile investment for the taxpayer. More and varied insanity to follow in the upcoming days.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Part 5, Freedom and Liberty Guest Speaker Week, Charlie Reese: 545 People

This is our fifth post this week that uses the wise words of other Americans to identify the insanity that the political class inflicts on Americans every day and the havoc and stress it places on our democracy and liberties. Today’s piece is a rather famous essay from a Mr. Charlie Reese.

It is my understanding that Mr. Reese had a long term career as a journalist with the Orlando Sentinel and he now writes online articles. As I mentioned previously when I first published his insightful thoughts, I have tried to contact Mr. Reese but have not been successful, I hope he does not mind that I repeat his thoughts again today.

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

545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a Federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the Speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army and Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive Social Security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

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

Kudos Mr. Reese, he understands that all politicians are the same regardless of what political party they belong to. They need the status quo to continue for their benefit, not for the good of the country. Please consider Mr. Reese's advice: regardless of party, vote all incumbents out of office whenever possible.

How much worse could it be with new people sitting in Washington? The current crop of politicians have not solved any problems for forty years and will probably go another forty years with nothing being accomplished if we do not vote the incumbents out now.

In fact, “how much worse could it get,” is the theme of a new grass roots effort we are just getting underway, an effort that would impose term limits on all Federal politicians so that they would be “one and done” when it came to political terms in office at the Federal level. We will be discussing this new effort in detail tomorrow but you can get a head start on it by visiting the associated website, signing our petition to get the effort underway, and volunteer whatever time, skills, and effort you can lend us to make it a reality:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Because, as Mr. Reese points out, who else is going to clean up the mess that is America today unless it is us? It is now obvious that the long term politicians sitting in Washington are incapable of cleaning up the mess they created.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w 
 

Washington's Hunger Games, Part 3: Getting Rich In Congress Despite The Great Recession

For the past two posts we have been reviewing the remarkable parallels between present day Washington and the plot line from the “Hunger Games” book and movie. In the “Hunger Games” there is a very, very small, elitist set of people in the seat of power, far away from the common folks, both in geography and life style and options.

The elitists have manipulated their government so that vast amounts of taxpayer wealth flows to this seat of power to the detriment of the rest of the country. Those in the seat of power enjoy self enrichment, status, pomposity, and gluttony, in its many forms, all on the backs and hard efforts of the rest of the citizens out in the country and hinterlands.

Over the past two days we have seen how politicians selfishly spend a lot of money on themselves using taxpayer wealth while our national debt gets larger and larger, how businesses and politicians have come together in an unholy union of using taxpayer money to trade political favors for political donations, and other concentrations of wealth and power within the D.C. beltway to the detriment of citizens.

Today we discuss this “Hunger Games” analogy using the details from an October 6, 2012 Washington Post article, “Capitol Assets: Congress’s wealthiest mostly shielded from effects of deep recession.” While just about every American and American household took a financial and wealth hit as a result of the Great Recession, apparently that was not the case with Washington politician.

The Post investigation shows that even in down economic times, the political class has rigged the system that they do not suffer like the rest of the country, just like in the “Hunger Games.” In the “Hunger Games,” people living in the capital city enjoy the fruits of others’ labors, seemingly impervious to the sufferings and tribulations of regular citizens.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than what happened, or did not happen, to politicians as a result of the Great Recession:

• According to the article and investigation, the wealthiest one-third of the 535 lawmakers, 180 or so, in Congress were largely untouched by the Great Recession. Think about that fact. The worst economic downturn since 1929 and the richest Congressional members did not even feel a financial bump.
• Their personal investment results took lesser financial hits and their investments recovered quicker and rose to new heights than most Americans.
• About 141 members of Congress did experience substantial financial hits like most Americans but this is less than 180 or so who did much better as a result of the Great Recession.
• While the average American household saw its median net worth DROP 39% during the recession, the median estimated wealth of Congressional members actually went UP 5% in the same time frame.
• The wealthiest one third of Congress saw their median wealth go up 14% in the midst of the greatest economic downturn since the Depression compared to the decrease of 39% drop regular Americans experienced.
• Between 2004 and 2010, 72 Congressional members probably doubled their estimated wealth, a time period that included the Great Recession.
• At least 150 members of Congress reported that they get more income from outside jobs and investments than from their Congressional salaries of $174,000, making one wonder if they are doing any work at all relative to their Congressional responsibilities and charter.
• Thus, we should not be surprised that House of Representatives members in 2010 had a median estimated wealth of $746,000 and Senators had $2.6 million estimated wealth, with apparently most of that wealth not coming from their Congressional salary, even when they were in office.
• The Post article reported that 73 Congressional members sponsored or co-sponsored legislation that could have directly benefited businesses or industries in that they or their families had a vested financial or other interest in. They did not just vote on these obvious conflicts of interest, they SPONSORED these conflicts of interest.
• Of the 72 Congressional members whose estimated wealth doubled between 2004 and 2010, a time period that included the Great Recession, the Post’s calculations show that 11 increased their financial wealth by at least $10 million, based on the midpoint of their reported ranges.

Now, granted, some members of Congress did lose a lot of money over the past ten years or so. One had to file for bankruptcy and some others saw their wealth drop considerably, some because of bad business investments or bad economic luck. But several lost a lot of wealth as a result of defending themselves against ethics violations.

However, a great many in Congress and the Washington political class did quite well or are doing quite well for themselves for themselves while in office. Unlike most other Americans who saw their household wealth get shellacked during the Great Recession, many in Washington just went along, in “Hunger Game” fashion, oblivious to the suffering and stress of regular Americans.

They were to busy getting richer, too busy running their outside business interests rather than the nation’s business, and too busy to care about the state of the nation and the issues facing Americans today, issues that they probably do not even know exist outside of their Utopian lives in the “Hunger Games” capital of America.

That term limits idea is getting better everyday.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

September, 2012 Edition, Political Class Insanity - Part 1: The Simpsons, Our Do Nothing Congress, Obama's Fake Twitter Followers and More

As most of our readers know, at the beginning of every month we review the latest insanity, idiocy, and head scratching actions that emanate from our politicians at every level of government. If their wasting of our wealth via high taxes and destruction of our democracy and its freedoms were not so horrendous, their actions could actually be classified as comical. However, they do waste both our tax money and our liberties so "funny" rarely is the final summation each month.

As we have gone through time, we have found it necessary to go to more than one post to capture all of the monthly craziness. This month is no exception, our political class has been busy at work on the trivial and unresolved issues of our times, as illustrated below:

- According to an August 21, 2012 article by Bloomberg, the Post Office Inspector General issued a report critical of the Post Office relative to the special edition Simpsons television show stamps the Post Office issued back in 2009 and 2010. Rather than making them "Forever" stamps that could be sold and used indefinitely into the future, the Post Office decided to value them at the current cost of a first class stamp.

The Postal Service paid $1.2 million and ended up printing one billion of the commemorative Simpsons stamps. Unfortunately, according to the Post Office Inspector General analysis, only 318 million of the stamps were sold between 2009 and 2010. Since the remaining 700 million stamps were never sold and became relatively obsolete once the cost of postage was raised, the Post Office ended up destroying 70% of the one billion stamps they had produced. Simple math would compute that since about 70% of the stamps were destroyed and the total run was for $1.2 million, this one Post Office misadventure wasted over $800,000.

The Inspector General report estimated that this type of Post Office waste occurs every year to the tune of about $2 million. These numbers raise the obvious questions:

1. Why are these types of stamps not produced and sold as Forever stamps that can eventually be sold forever and the taxpayer investment never wasted?
2. Why was production of one billion stamps done before the demand for those Simpsons stamps was known? No rational company in the private sector would do their entire production of any product all at once. They would phase it in over time as they gauged demand. Apparently, modern inventory and production processes have not yet penetrated the Post Office.
3. If the Post office wastes $2 million EVERY year with these types of shenanigans, has not anyone learned from this type of mistake at any historical point in time? Have they learned nothing about their business or do they really not care since at some point in time the American taxpayer will always make up for their waste? Insanity.

- Many times and in many ways we have used some very simple math to show how inefficient, ineffective, and how stupid the Obama administration's economic stimulus plan was. The simplest math was to use the administration's own numbers to show that the cost per job of the stimulus was ridiculous:

• The Congressional Budget Office final cost estimate of the stimulus cost was about $830 billion.
• The administration boasts that the stimulus "created" or "saved" 2.7 million jobs.
• If we divide the jobs created estimate into the cost of the stimulus we see that the cost of each job, on average, was over $300,000 each!
• Since the average household income of an average American household is about $50,000, it cost the Federal government six times more to create a job than what an average job would pay in a year, hardly an efficient program.
• And as we have shown many, many times, the estimate of 2.7 million is likely way too high, making the average cost of each job created much more than the already obnoxious average of $300,000 per job.

But the fun with bogus political class math just got updated in the past week or so. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was bragging about how effective his Department spent taxpayer money within the overall economic stimulus program:

"Yeah, we spent $48 billion and we put 65,000 people to work in 15,000 projects in two years with no problems. I’m very proud of that. I know that the governors can spend this money because over two years we gave them $48 billion, they created 65,000 jobs in 15,000 projects. This is doable. We’re going to get the money out and get people to work.”

Note: The actual interview and actual words of the Secretary can be viewed at:

http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/20/lahood-im-very-proud-of-dot-stimulus-spending-at-738000-per-job-video/

Let's do the math: $48 billion to put 65,000 people to work comes out to about $738,000 per job, more than twice as expensive than what the unacceptable overall average was for the stimulus program. And he is proud of the fact that it cost three quarters of a million for each job created. How this is not a problem is lost on me.

Now, one could make the claim that at least we ended up with some infrastructure put in place or repaired for the $48 billion. That is probably a true statement to some degree as opposed to much of the rest of the stimulus program where no value added was created.

But we know and have reported on an Associated Press investigative report that of the more than two thousand bridges in this country that were repaired using stimulus money, over one thousand of them were not in need of repair, that is how bad the waste was.

Thus, if we assume that the stimulus program was handled and managed so poorly that half of the money spent was wasted on worthless projects like the bridge repair program, the cost of $738,000 was really double since half of the expense was wasted, bringing the average cost per job to almost $1.5 million for each job created. Pathetic. Note: the details of the Associated Press bridge article can be read at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2010/01/2009-year-end-review-good-bad-and-ugly_02.html

- Many times we have called for the termination/elimination of the Federal Department of Energy because of its inability to provide any tangible benefit for the tens of billions of dollars it receives every year for the past few decades. An Associated Press article from August 18, 2012 did not make their case any stronger for not being shut down for incompetence.

According to the article, the Y-12 National Security Complex is the responsibility of the Department of Energy and is known as the Fort Knox for highly enriched uranium:

• It is the source for nuclear weapons production for the United States. 
• The complex produces the uranium parts for every nuclear warhead in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, takes apart old nuclear weapons and is our primary warehouse for military uranium.
• It is designed to withstand earthquakes, tornado-force winds and the crash impact of an airplane.
• It supposedly could also withstand a ground attack.

Obviously, this is one Federal facility that merits the very best security possible.

Unfortunately, several weeks ago, an anti-nuclear crusading 82-year-old nun and two fellow protesters were somehow able to walk onto the facility grounds and walk around for a while before they were found and apprehended. The three intruders claimed that they did not try to hide what they were doing and actually got a full  half mile into the supposedly secure facility. According to the article, this area contained signs that threatened to shoot intruders.

According to court documents, they used bolt cutters to get through three fences which set off security alarms in the process. During the two hours they wandered about, they were able to spray-paint and throw blood on the walls of the facility.

Obviously, this is a very serious piece of political class insanity. Supposedly secure radioactive materials and weapons and an 82 year nun gets deep into the complex. Unbelievable. Thank goodness painting and blood throwing was the extent of their aggression. How much money to we think the American taxpayer pays every year for this level of shoddy service?

- The website, Bankrupting America, had an interesting analysis earlier in August. They looked at the last week of Congressional activity in August before it was adjourned for a five week recess. They started by estimating how much the last week of the recent Congressional session cost the American taxpayer:

1. During that week they estimated taxpayers spent roughly $100 million on Congress.
2. Speaker of the House: $223,500/52 = $4,299
3. House and Senate Majority and Minority Leaders: ($193,400/52) x 4 = $14,877
4. Other Representatives and Senators: ($174,000/52) x 530 = $1,773,462
5. Average weekly budget for all House offices: ($1,446,009/52) x 435 = $2,096,421
6. Average weekly budget for all Senate offices: ($3,409,093/52) x 100 = $6,555,958
7. Non-salary money allocated for Congress: $4.656 billion/52 = $89,538,462

The website goes onto list out what Congress accomplished, or failed to accomplish that week, a week that is usually pretty productive as our politicians usually try to get things done before rewarding themselves with a lengthy, five week vacation:

•House Of Representatives - Agricultural Disaster Assistance Act of 2012. SAVINGS: $256 million over 10 years compared to current baseline, about $26 million a year.
•House of Representatives - Provide for expedited consideration of a bill providing for comprehensive tax reform. COST: $0
•House of Representatives - Amend title 5, United States Code, to make clear that accounts in the Thrift Savings Fund are subject to certain Federal tax levies. SAVINGS: Recovery of $24 million in unpaid taxes.
•House of Representatives - Federal Employee Tax Accountability Act of 2012. COST: $1 million in 2012
•House Of Representatives - Passed a bill that would extend all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for one year for every American.
•Senate - Reduce the number of executive positions subject to Senate confirmation. COST: $0
•Senate - Passed a bill that would extend some of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for some Americans.

Let's sum it up: the American taxpayer paid out $100 million for this pitiful performance, a performance that will not change during the five weeks that Congress and its current set of politicians are out of town. Pathetic value for our money as taxpayers.

- A New York Times article from August 22, 2012, which was cited in an August 244, 2012 USA Today article, reviewed how easy it is to actually purchases fake Twitter followers for your account. Obviously, buying Twitter followers is an easier way to make you look more popular than you actually are. For a penny or so a follower, you can get thousands of new fake/non-existent followers for a minimal charge without doing any hard work to actually earn them.

Let's see, easy to get, fake, no hard work involved, fake build up in prestige, sounds like an American politician's playbook. And it is, since according to the two articles, about 70% of President Obama's 18 million or so Twitter followers are fake, they do not exist, they were bought and paid for. Apparently, there are services out in the market that can scan the followers' list of any Twitter account and weed out those that are legit and those that are fake. And over 12 million of Obama's followers are fake.

And politicians want us to believe them when they promise to do something during their campaigns? I do not think so, especially when they lie about their Twitter accounts. Since Obama lied when he said he would cut the deficit in half, he lied when he said he would shut down Gitmo, he lied when he said middle class people would not see any tax increases, etc., he lied when he said he would provide positive hope and change, he lied when he said he would be bipartisan, etc., it should come as no surprise he lied about Twitter.

Let's review. Politicians lie, they waste our money, they cannot protect our security, they cannot manage a simple stamp inventory project, and they produce nothing of legislative importance. Yep, sounds like a typical month of political class insanity. More idiocy and craziness tomorrow.

We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

Final Proof Of Undeniable Corruption, Immorality, and Greed of The American Political Class

Most of us have long suspected that the American political class had devolved to a state where personal political careers and wealth have now taken precedence over the good of the country, relative to most of our politicians. Rather than truly addressing and resolving issues in the right way for the right reasons, seems many of our politicians would prefer to take the cowardly approach and do nothing or do the wrong thing for the country rather than endanger their re-election and personal enrichment efforts.

We have reported on these situations many times in the past in this blog:

- In our September 1, 2011 post we reported on a analysis by two university professors of the historic stock market returns of Washington politicians' personal portfolios. Seems that both Democrats and Republicans serving in Congress, but especially Democrats, have historically outperformed the stock market's overall returns with their own stock portfolios. The study analyzed results over decades across hundreds of different politicians so the sample size is more than ample to draw conclusions from.

Given that these same politicians have not outperformed in any other facet of their jobs, it becomes suspicious that they would do so well in this area of personal enrichment vs. the rest of America's investors, i.e. you and me and professional investors. At that time, we raised the distinct possibility of insider trading of Congressional politicians because of their outstanding stock market performances. Coincidence or corruption?

- In our October 4, 2011 post, we reviewed a few of Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid's documented investment strategies over the past few years. According to John Ransom, writing for Townhall.com on September 30, 2011, in 2008, one month before oil prices took a historical plunge, the good Senator sold between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of energy stock holdings he held in the Dow Jones Energy index.

Shortly thereafter, he purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of health care holdings in the Dow Jones Health Care Index, at a time when he was considering rewriting the nation's health care laws. Coincidence or corruption?

- Also from our October 4, 2011 post, consider the shenanigans of Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite. According to an article that was written by John Frank for the June 30, 2009 St. Petersburg Times.ne day before the House of Representatives approved a massive bank bailout plan in October, 2008, the Congresswoman bought stock in Citigroup, one of the major banks that received a significant portion of the bank bailout funding.


About two weeks later, on the day Treasurer Henry Paulson announced he would invest $250 billion of taxpayer money in nine major banks, the Congresswoman bought stock in Bank of America, one of those nine banks. Coincidence or corruption?


- On November 11, 2011, Money News reported on accusations that at about dozen lawmakers and their senior aides bragged about how much money they had earned in the stock market based on insider trading-like information that they knew ahead of the general public because of their government positions.


The article included the following details:

• The insider trading dollar amounts ranged from a few thousand dollars to six figures.
• Much of the insider trading involved companies that were likely to be brought before Congress for investigations, an act that usually resulted in a negative impact on a company's stock price. By shorting a stock ahead of that information being public, Congressional figures could and did make out sized profits.
• The huge profits were being made by people that had no serious background or past history of success in picking winners and losers in the stock market.

Coincidence or corruption? I think most honest Americans would conclude that all of these incidents are examples of political class corruption, immorality, and greed.


Now, some in the political class would claim that this last piece of corruption information cannot be trusted because it was made by Jack Abramoff, a former lobbyists who was convicted of corruption himself and who has served time in jail.


I would usually agree with such a stand but not this time. First, if anyone should know about corruption, it should be Abramoff since he was the king of corrupt special interests years ago. Second, a recent story that appeared on the CBS show "60 Minutes" not only verifies that this type of behavior exists but went so much further in explaining how and who was deeply involved in the corruption. (You can see the entire,unabridged  "60 Minutes" story at
http://lonelyconservative.com/2011/11/nancy-pelosis-insider-trading/)


According to the "60 Minutes" report, almost everyone in the country is subject to insider trading laws and compliance. This includes ordinary Americans, anyone serving in the executive branch of the Federal government (e.g. the President, the Vice President, etc.), and Federal judges. The only people excluded from having to comply are...members of Congress, the same people who wrote and passed the laws on insider trading that exclude themselves from being prosecuted for such actions.

Just when you think you have heard every conceivable sin, shortcoming, and outright immorality from our politicians, you come across this travesty. They have cleared the decks for themselves to make grand sums of money in the stock market by using insider government trading information.

Examples from "60 Minutes" included the following:

• John Boehner, currently the Speaker of the House, made a serious investment in health care insurance stocks shortly before he led the legislative effort to defeat a key component in Obama's original health care reform bill, a component that would have depressed health care stock prices if not defeated. With the component's defeat, health care insurance stocks rose and made money for Mr. Boehner. Coincidence or corruption?
• Several years ago, then Speaker of the House Dennis Hasert, made some land acquisitions in Ohio. He then worked to adjust Federal highway projects so that a new Federally-financed highway would run close to his newly purchased land, significantly increasing the land's value when he sold it.
• Congressman Spencer Bachus also seemed to do pretty well with insider information. The "60 Minutes" story was apparently inspired by a recently published book, "Throw Them All Out," written by Hoover Institute fellow Peter Schweizer. According to Schweizer, Bachus and Nancy Pelosi got secret briefings from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who basically told the legislators that it was "a matter of days before there is a meltdown in the global financial system.”  Bachus went out shortly thereafter and invested about $7,000 to short the stock market. When the stock market did start to collapse, he was able to cash in the investment for almost twice what he originally put out just a few days before. He also shorted General Electric four times after Paulsen told him GE bond sales were having problems. Coincidence or corruption?

Terrible, terrible, immoral behavior. Which brings us to our favorite member of the political class, Nancy Pelosi. According to the story, Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House, and her husband had access to at least eight IPO offerings over the past few years. As most of you know, we ordinary Americans rarely get in on a ground floor, the most lucrative financial time, in any IPO offerings.

The most troubling and potentially corrupt IPO was for the Visa IPO back in 2008. Ms. Pelosi purchased 5,000 IPO shares on the first day of the Visa offering at $44 a share. She sold it within days when the price had reached $64 a share, a profit of about $100,000.

What makes this so very troubling is prior to the Visa IPO offering there was a legislative effort within the House of Representatives to impose credit card fee limits on companies such as Visa. Obviously, if such legislation passed, it would certainly put a damper on Visa's stock price, and would depress the earnings and gains of anyone who invested in the Visa IPO.

That legislation was mysteriously never able to see the light of day prior to the IPO date. The legislation eventually did become law but the driver and leader in the legislation was the Senate, not the House, and passage happened well after people like then- Speaker of the House Pelosi had made their substantial gains off of the IPO offering. Coincidence or corruption?

I really do not know what to say. No more proof is necessary to finally declare that we have allowed a privileged, spoiled, selfish, and, because of the insider trading disaster, an immoral set of people to take control of the country for their own benefit and personal enrichment. Immoral, I cannot come up with any better word to describe this insider trading insult to the American taxpayer and citizen.

And the sad thing is that they do not see anything wrong with this immoral behavior. When the "60 Minutes" reporter, Steve Croft, asked Ms. Pelosi about her IPO behavior at one of her press conferences, her answer was both incoherent and bordering on indignant that someone could even imply she ever had a conflict of interest.

In press releases from her office later that day, she attacked the writer of the book, "Throw Them All Out," as being a discredited conservative.  In other words, she attacked the person and not his information or his process. The "60 Minutes" report showed how the writer and eight of his aides had meticulously gone through official financial records to ensure the book's accusations were accurate. She also accused CBS and "60 Minutes" of a "right wing smear," failing to mention in her press releases that the story also illustrated the same type of immoral behavior of several Republicans.

Ms. Pelosi did not refute that she had participated in the Visa IPO or had made a ton of money in the process. She did not refute that she had participated in many other IPOs while in a powerful position in government, Speaker of the House. She did not refute the fact that she had received highly sensitive and highly valuable advance information from Bernanke and Paulsen. She did not refute the fact that Congress had exempted her and her comrades from the very laws that every other American had to abide by. She tried to turn it into a political issue and attack the person, the messenger.

Obviously, three actions have to take place to fix this immorality:

1. Short term, we need to force Congressional members to make themselves subject to the same insider trading laws as the rest of us.
2. We need to tighten up information sources within government so that pending government actions are kept as secret as possible, as compared to the situation today (as referenced at the end of the "60 Minutes story) so that no one, either inside the Beltway or outside, gets sensitve and valuable insider information.
3. And the most important action is to implement Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" which calls for the Constitutional establishment of term limits for all Federal politicians, "one and done." There is no other way to deal with this immorality, the current set of politicians in Washington do not deserve to serve any longer, given the rampant corruption we constantly see.

When Pelosi became Speaker of the House in 2007, she boldly declared that she and the Democrats were going to "drain the swamp" of corruption in Congress, Instead, it looks like she and her peers in Congress built a dam and the corruption is as deep as ever. "One and done," it cannot happen soon enough.

One additional note: According to a recent blurb in Roll Call, and published the November 18, 2011 issue of The Week Magazine, the 500 or so members of Congress had a collective net worth of more than $2 billion, a whopping 25% increase over their collective wealth in 2008. The 50 richest lawmakers account for 80% of the wealth and the median net worth is about $513,000.

How many ordinary Americans do you know who made a 25% return in their personal portfolios in the past two years? Why wouldn't the 50 richest lawmakers serve their country for no salary and no benefits since they obviously can afford to serve, without suffering financial distress, if they did not collect salary or benefits. Wouldn't that be the moral, courageous thing to do.



Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available, at http://www.loathemygovernment.com .It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respectfreedom for both yourselves and others everyday.


Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/

1.