October, 2014 Part 5 Political Class Insanity: Free Phones Galore, Overpaid Politicians, Bike Mechanics, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time to check in with the American political class to see what insanity they have wrought over the past month or so. It is always amazing to follow the exploits, quotes, and actions of our politicians and the government entities they operate to see how often idiocy, incompetence, and heartbreak are almost always the output from their actions.

We started dong these updates several years ago, usually taking one or two days every month to get all of their insanity covered. Unfortunately, over time, the insanity has seemed to accelerate almost exponentially, causing us to now have to take six or seven posts each month to get it all in. This month will be no different. As our foreign policy implodes, the economy stagnates, and the midtem elections approach, the insanity levels are intensifying daily.

To check out past instances of political class insanity in this post, simply go to the first week of each month and check out the posts that begin, “Political class Insanity.” This is the fourth entry in this series for this month, with the first four posts appearing over the past few days. The first post in this update can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/10/october-2014-political-class-insanity.html

For the latest insanity, read on:

1) It is not often that I agree with Ralph Nader but an interesting and telling analysis of his really shows how little value we get from our current set of Washington politicians. When reading his calculations, remember that this set of politicians has presided over the weakest economic recovery in the past century or so, they have doubled the national debt in just the past ten years or so, they have left tens of millions of Americans in poverty and without a job, tens of millions of Americans needing Federal food assistance every month, they have neglected our veterans, and have not resolved a single major issue facing Americans since at least the 1960s.

For this pitiful performance, Mr. Nader correctly estimates that:

• Our current set of Congressional members will earn about $608 per hour in their positions in the latter part of this year.
• How is that possible? Congress will be in session for only eight days during a 102-day span between August 1 and November 12. 
• Based on their $174,000 annual salary and assuming a ten hour work day (Mr. Nader was being very generous), lawmakers will earn $608 an hour during those days in the nation's capital.
• Mr. Nader sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner regarding this pathetic performance: "While millions of Americans are working more and more for less and less, you and your House of Representatives seem to have no problem working less and less for more and more.“
• To refresh your memories, Congress took a five-week vacation from Washington on August 1 and returned on September 8.
• After working only two four-day workweeks, Congress adjourned again on September 18 and are not due to return until November 12 for a lame-duck session following the midterm elections.
• This $608 hourly wage for the eight days they are supposedly working is several times the hourly compensation of anesthesiologists, one of the country's highest-paid professions at an average of $113 an hour, according to writing by The Hill.
• And anesthesiologists actually perform a positive duty for society as compared to Congress.
• While defenders of these lean work hours claim that these politicians need to spend time home mingling with their constituents, at least in my neck of the woods, that is a fallacy. They only time you hear about them mingling is when they need my vote for their reelection.
• Nader is not buying this lame excuse either: "You are paid by the taxpayer to work in Congress at least a 40-hour week. If you want to do anything back home after that, that's discretionary time. They don't pay you to campaign for your re-election."

Politics should not be a cushy career, it should be a public calling and duty. That is why nothing short of term limits, “one and done,” is going to fix this atrocity. To help in this effort please visit:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

2) A recent article by Luke Rosiak, writing for the Washington Free Beacon, reported that from 2009 to 2012, the number of Maryland citizens signed up for free Lifeline telephone service (i.e. Obamaphones) grew to twice as many as Maryland's eligible residents. Six-hundred-and-forty-five thousand Maryland residents had so-called Obamaphones in 2012 — one hundred times as many people on the programs as there were in 2009, and, amazingly, double the number in that state who are supposed to be eligible for the program based on their income.

Talk about an out of control program that is grossly wasting the money that the Federal government collects as a tax on everyone else’s telephones. Obama has told us in his recent “60 Minutes” interview that the economy is doing great. Thus, how does anyone in the government, up to and including Obama, justify increasing a welfare program 100 fold since the END of the recession? Insanity.

These numbers came to light during a Congressional investigation and hearings: "By the third quarter of 2012, the number of Lifeline subscribers in Maryland had risen almost 100 fold to 645,000" compared to three years prior, industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg told Congress. "Moreover, the current number of Lifeline subscribers in Maryland is almost double the number of low income households in the state" who are eligible.

Must be a coincidence that one of the primary providers of Obamaphone service is TracFone, which is owned by major Obama fundraiser, Carlos Slim. No way crony capitalism is involved, is it?

Congressman Steve Scalise summed the disgust best during the Congressional hearing: "A family of four making $35,000 a year is paying for this. They can't get the free phone... They might not go out to eat one night because that is an important priority that they have set, and it angers them when now they are paying somebody else's free cell phone bill." A voice of sanity, fairness, and reason in a sea of insanity.

3) We have covered the insanity and idiocy coming out of the National Science Foundation (NSF) many times in this blog. The first and most detailed review of the insanity can be accessed at the following link:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/05/wasteful-government-spending-week_25.html

In the past, the NSF has used taxpayer wealth to determine when dogs became man’s best friend, built a robotic squirrel, determined if online dating sites were racists, and also developed a game that simulated prom week. I would have hoped that the NSF would be looking at ways to curb obesity in our kids, prevent people from getting addicted to destructive drugs, cleaned up our environment, etc. I do not want them to do what they have been doing, which is worthless to just about every American taxpayer.

Unfortunately, just when you thought that NSF spending could not get any more inane, you come across another pathetic waste of money. According to a Washington Free Beacon article written by Elizabeth Harrington, published on September 28, 2014, the National Science Foundation has funded a $300,000 study on how “humans interact with bicycles.” Veterans cannot get the medical care they were promised but taxpayer money is being spent on a bike interaction program.

The objective of the NSF grant was to better understand dynamics, which apparently are “poorly understood,” and help researchers come up with new designs to encourage more Americans to bike to lower their carbon footprint. Shouldn’t that be the objective and responsibility of bike manufacturers and their shareholder owners, not the American taxpayer?

Texas GOP Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, correct pointed out that the study was unnecessary when considering the bicycle industry is nearing $65 billion a year in size and puts huge financial resources into research: “The NSF has gone off the road, and taxpayers are paying for it. Scarce public funds were awarded for an ill-conceived study to improve bicycle designs. Peddling their proposal, the researchers asserted that bicycle riding dynamics are ‘poorly understood.’ Yet bicycling invests … hundreds of millions in research and development. … What’s really poorly understood is why the NSF wasted $300,000 of taxpayer money on this project.”

And veterans cannot get in to see a doctor. Drug addiction continues to run rampant. Millions of Americans are homeless, foodless, and jobless but at least they might be able to buy a really cool bike….once they get a home, a job, and some food.

4) One last piece of insanity for today. Fortunately, Attorney General Eric Holder recently resigned and will step down from the position as the top law enforcement officer in the country. I am very happy about his resignation, because in my opinion, he was one of the most lawless attorney generals this country has ever had to endure.

He obeyed laws only when it suited his political views and the needs of his political peers. 

He initiated, covered up, and lied about the disastrous Fast and Furious operation that directly resulted in the death of a U.S. agent and hundreds of Mexican civilians. 

He encouraged attorney generals around the country not to enforce laws that he disagreed with even though they had been passed by Congress and previous Presidents and signed into laws. 

He promoted racial divisiveness when it came to high profile shootings, ignoring the fact that thousands of others face the same fate every year without Justice Department interest because of the color of their skin.

Just my opinion but he morphed the Justice Department from one of law enforcement into one of political agenda operations. 

But I may not alone in that view. J. Christian Adams is a former Justice Department official who served during both the Bush and Obama administrations said that “the law was a suggestion” under Attorney General Eric Holder and “there is a culture of lawlessness in the Justice Department” in a recent television news interview.

“During the Bush years, when we enforced civil rights laws, we looked at the law, that was the starting point…under the Obama administration, after the inauguration, the law became a suggestion. It was sort of a ‘eh, this law says this, but we’re really after this’…this is an administration that selectively enforces the law, doesn’t apply the law properly, and uses the law as a political weapon” he stated. And “there is a culture of lawlessness in this Justice Department. Right now, there are people, who, according to the Inspector General, committed perjury, still working in the voting section. There are employees who stole laptops, used government credit cards to visit their mistress in Miami, who got a buyout at the Justice Department. There is a culture of lawlessness and tolerance for wrongdoing.”

I do not know Mr. Adams, maybe he has a biased axe to grind against Holder. But his words resonate with me and probably millions of others relative to the lawlessness of this administration. And if the top law enforcement official in the country disobeys the laws of the land, why should ordinary citizens not do the same? 

Another day, another batch of insanity. Hopefully, we can wrap it all up by tomorrow…but don’t bet on it. Political class insanity, be it studies of bicycle interactions, free phones, overpaid politicians, or lawless law enforcement, happens every hour of every day with our political class.

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:

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

December, 2012, Political Class Insanity, Part 4: Making The Poor Rich, Mad As Hell, Rich People In Congress, Part Time Politicians

I had thought we would be done with the latest monthly political class sanity yesterday after the past three days of reviewing the latest antics, shenanigans, and idiocy from our politicians. However, in the short timeframe of three days, enough craziness has come out of Washington that we actually will set the record this month for the most blog posts related to political class insanity: four.

Hopefully, the following insanity will be the end of this month’s craziness and we can postpone the next wave of idiocy until after the Christmas holidays:

1) The fiscal cliff. 23 million Americans unemployed or under employed. National debt above $16.3 TRILLION. A never ending, no win war in Afghanistan. Personal freedom being stripped away by the Patriot Act, NDAA, surveillance drones overhead, FISA, etc. A never ending, no win “war on drugs.”

Boy, times are tough. The nation is facing some very dire and traumatic issues that effect every American. Thank goodness our politicians are working hard to resolve these issues.

Or maybe not. John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives recently announced that the House will be in session in 2013 on only 13 Fridays. This is actually a 30% reduction in the number of Fridays our House politicians worked in 2011 which was only 21 days. In 2013, Representatives will work only one Friday for nine months out of the year, and two Fridays for the other three months.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) released this not-so-strenuous work schedule last Friday and said part of his goal was to “insure that we never lose touch with the constituents we each represent while completing our work in Washington.”

Now, how many of you actually think our Congressmen and women will actually be spending every one of the other 37 Fridays in 2013 “ensuring they never lose touch with their constituents?” Or “completing their work in Washington? I contend they have not competed any decent work in a few decades.

Please, Mr. Cantor, do not insult our intelligence. You people did not resolve any major issues in 2011 when you worked for 21 Fridays, what makes us think you will do better in 2013 when you work only 15 Fridays?

2) News reports from last month reported on a letter that was obtained by Reuters news service, a letter that was sent from the alternative energy battery company A123 to two U.S. Senators, John Thune and Chuck Grassley. The November 4, 2012 letter from A123 informed the Senators that the company had recently received a check from the Energy Department for $946,830 of taxpayer wealth on October 16, 2012.

This payment was part of another failed Obama administration alternative energy fiasco that resulted in this company, and dozens of others, receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer funding for products and services that were never viable in the marketplace.

Why is the October 16, 2012 date important? Well, it is the exact same day that A123 declared bankruptcy. So on the day that this company decided that it was no longer a viable company and needed to go into court to seek protection from creditors because its business plan never came close to fulfilling its business promises, the Federal government cut it a check for almost a million dollars. Unbelievable incompetence.

3) Roll Call recently competed its annual analysis of who are the richest members of Congress and about how much they are worth. The top two richest members are Texas Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, who tops the list with a whopping $300 plus million net worth and Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry, who comes in second with $198 plus million.

Let’s do some simple math. If memory serves me right, a U.S. Senator makes about $170,000 a year. If we did divide this number by $300 million and $198 million, we see that their annual Senate salaries is about .06% of McCaul’s wealth and about .09% of Kerry’s wealth.

Given the dire financial situation the country is in now, why are these two elected officials, and dozens of other millionaires in Congress, drawing any salary at all? Wouldn’t it be a nice leadership idea and compassionate notion to have these very rich politicians not draw a salary or donate their salaries to reducing our national debt?

But nobility, leadership, and compassion have never been in overabundance in Washington. That is why very rich people in Congress need to have their salaries curtailed, as proposed in Step 41 of “Love my Country, Loathe My Government’ and why term limits cannot happen soon enough, as purposed in Step 39.

4) In all tests of education attainment levels of U.S. kids vs. kids from other countries, we almost always fall behind the education attainment levels of dozens of other countries. In other words, for the most part, the U.S. public education is badly broken.

And it has been badly broken for decades as the Federal government and Washington politicians have wasted trillions of dollars on educating our kids for severely mediocre results. And it does not appear that it will get much better soon, if Michigan is any indication.

A new teacher evaluation system in the state miraculously found that 97% of the state‘s 96,000 teachers were rated effective or highly effective in the 2011-2012 school year. In other words, only 3% of the Michigan teachers were rated “minimally effective” or “ineffective,” the lowest two categories.

Wow, Michigan must have the best educated kids in the world if 97% of the teachers are that good. Not really. If you do a search on the education attainment of Michigan students, one measurement process indicated that Michigan ranks 23rd out of fifty states when it comes to high school graduation rates, 36th out of fifty states when it comes to undergraduate degrees, and 34th out of fifty states when it comes to graduate degrees.

Makes you wonder how a state’s schools can have such mediocre education attainment levels when its teachers are supposedly so great. Obviously, they did not read Step 27 from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government.” Step 27 is a rational, coherent problem solving approach to fix what is broken in our public education arena, a process does not involve bogus teacher evaluation processes.

5) A November 19, 2012 Wall Street Journal article reported on a new electric car that Chrysler will be selling in the near future. This new model will be its very first battery-powered vehicle, the Fiat 500e.

However, much more interesting than the fact that it’s their first electric battery-powered car is the fact that Chrysler expects to lose between $8,000 and $9,000 for each one it sell. Why would they produce a car that’s sure to lose money? Four words: the California state government.

California is one of the largest car markets in the country, accounting for about one in every cars sold in the country California also has a strict zero-emission requirement law which means that unless Chrysler offers at least one model that meets these increasingly stringent emissions standards, California could bar them from selling cars in the state. Given the size of the market, that is something no car maker would want to do.

The problem is that the vast majority of consumers do not want to buy all electric cars for any number of logical reasons:

• They tend to be smaller and thus, do not fit the needs of larger families.
• They tend to be underpowered relative to a gas powered car and no one wants to be pulling out into heavy traffic in an underpowered car.
• They tend to be much more expensive than a comparable gas powered car and usually do not appear to economically justify the higher cost over the life of the car.

Reminds one of an old saying, supposedly attributable to Abe Lincoln: If you called a tail a leg, how many legs would a dog have? Answer: Four, just because you call it a leg does not make it a leg. Just because you force auto makers to make electric cars does not mean people will buy electric cars.

Thus, manufacturers are forced to divert research, design, testing and manufacturing resources into a near useless set of products that no one wants. This sub-optimizes the capabilities and resources of the economy for no good reason, just to satisfy government politicians and bureaucrats that have nothing better to do and whom have no sense of reality and business.

The really scary part is that California politicians are not alone in their ignorance of how the world works. Ten other states, including New York, New Jersey, and Maryland, have followed California’s lead and have enacted similar zero-emission requirements.

Consider the insights of a car industry expert, Kevin Kinnaw, Toyota‘s U.S. manager of regulatory affairs: “California can make us sell a minimum amount of cars, but unfortunately, they can’t make people buy them, or even get our own dealers to order them from us.” Well said, just because you call it a leg does not mean it is a leg.

6) The fiscal cliff. 23 million Americans unemployed or under employed. National debt above $16.3 TRILLION. A never ending, no win war in Afghanistan. Personal freedom being stripped away by the Patriot Act, NDAA, surveillance drones overhead, FISA, etc. A never ending, no win “war on drugs.” Given how poorly we have been served by the recent collection of politicians, you would have thought that we would have voted these inept people out of office the first chance we got.

Well, that thought would be wrong. According to Jeff Jacoby, writing in the Boston Globe and summarized in the November 30, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, over our recent history, more than 90% of the incumbents in Washington have been reelected. It is so sad that people can perform so poorly in their jobs and still retain them as Washington politicians are able to do.

This 90% number is indictment of our political processes and how much they have been perverted to maintain inept people in office rather than producing the best and brightest people to go to Washington to resolve issues. Numerous steps in “Love my Country, Loathe my Government” address the need to retake control of our political processes with the most important one being Step 39 which would impose term limits on all Federal politicians, “one and done.” If we cannot vote them out of office, we should amend the Constitution to force them out.

7) I wanted to touch on one final piece of political class insanity this month but will follow this point with a more detailed discussion in the near future. Congressman Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s VP running mate, Americans classified as “poor,” it comes out to an equivalent of $20,000 per person.

In other words, if you could cut out all of the criminal fraud, waste, and inefficiencies in our governments’ anti-poverty programs, a typical, four person “poor family” would receive a check for $80,000 a year. This $80,000 a year is 60% more than what a typical U.S. household earns a year.

This gives you some indication of how inept and corrupt our political class has become in the management of the anti-poverty effort in this country. We spend so much money every year, now in excess of $1 TRILLION, enough to make a poor family relatively well off and yet more and more Americans enter the “poor” definition every year.

We would never put up with this kind of corruption, waste, and inefficiency from a real estate agent if we were buying a house. Or from a car dealer if we were buying a new car. Or from a supermarket where we shopped for groceries. It baffles me why we put up such insanity, idiocy, and wealth waste from our political class.

There, that should do it for this week. It was painful in so many ways but it is necessary to find our what insanity is now pervading our political processes, our personal wealth, and our personal freedoms. I hope that at some point in time, we will finally stand up and not take it any more, taking the cue from the newscaster portrayed in the following clip, and finally get “mad as hell.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINDtlPXmmE

Might as well get mad today because if you do not, I will be back next month with more insanity but no problems resolution from the American political class.

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

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. 

Special Saturday Post: Disgust Over The Debt Ceiling Travesty, The Four Necessary Steps To Get Over The Crisis

I usually do not post on the weekends, I need those two days to detox my attitude and feelings about the American political class. However, the travesty that is the debt ceiling negotiations in Washington and the disgust they generate for me personally are too much to ignore this weekend.

As most informed Americans know, we are now only a week away from a potential financial disaster. Theoretically, if the government does not raise the country's debt ceiling by August 2, the country could end up defaulting on its financial obligations. This has never happened before so the ramifications are unknown. However, nobody thinks they will be any good.

The most serious, likely outcome is that the government will run short of money which could impact all or some of its functions but is highly likely to result in the credit agencies' downgrading of the nation's credit worthiness and increase borrowing costs. Since the political class and the government it runs borrow $.40 for every $1.00 it brings in, those increased borrowing costs could be very, very large.

Given the dire consequences, one would think that every possible thing was being done to avoid this calamity. Far from it. The five main culprits in this game of politics, Obama, McConnell, Reid, Pelosi, and Boehner, met this morning for less than hour. Less than an hour, unbelievable! The political class is  proving again that they exist only for their own personal political careers and personal political agendas, the good of the of country be damned. They continue to prove they cannot solve any problem, no matter how small or large. Let me repeat, financial disaster ahead and they met for less than an hour.

Given their inabilities and immaturity, let me lay out four steps that need to be implemented immediately in order to have any chance for the country to survive these fools:

- Step 1 - Whenever a company and its union reach and impasse and the clock is ticking towards trouble, what do they usually do? Easy question, they lock themselves in a room, do not leak out any information, and FOCUS on solving the problems they jointly face. Food and beverages are slipped under the locked door and no one comes out until a deal is struck. They do not meet for less than an hour and then leave. Lock the door, throw away the key if necessary, and do not let them out until a deal is reached, regardless if they have to stay cooped up with each other for days with no press conferences, no leaks, no cell phones. That is how real people solve these types of problems in the real world.

Thus, I would consider two lock down scenarios. The first one would lock down the five people listed above in a room until a deal is done, written down, and agreed to. If that cannot happen, then Obama and the 535 members of Congress should be put in a room and they all get locked down until a deal is done. Same criteria: no leaks, no press conferences, no cell phones, nothing until a deal is done and the vote is taken. Anything less than these types of lockdowns is a betrayal of the country.

- Step 2 - in parallel, contingency plans need to be put into place in case a deal is not reached in time. Any such plan should contain a set of prioritized expenditures that would allocate funds to these priorities. Remember, the government is not necessarily going broke on August 3 if a debt ceiling deal is not reached. On a unit basis, while it may not be able to spend $1.40, it will still be receiving a $1.00 going forward. Thus, about 30% of the government's spending would be curtailed rather quickly. The other 70% would then have to be spent on only the essentials that I would list out as follows:

• Pay off Treasury debt as it comes due in order to protect the high credit rating of the country.
• Pay out Social Security checks.
• Pay out Medicare and Medicaid bills.
• Pay out the military's pay checks and expenses as needed.

These four expenses are essential to support the very basic, essential needs of the country. Any left over money would then be used to pay other government expenses. However, in order to start getting under that $1.00 revenue stream, the following steps would need to be taken immediately in order to protect the above four essential expense streams:

• The vast majority of Federal employees would be immediately put on non-paid furloughs. The only Federal employees that would stay on live payroll would be those that service the above four expense streams. Two winters ago, Washington D.C. was snowed in for a week and the government was shut down. We survived that government shutout in fine shape, another short one now would not be a problem for the country either.
• All national parks and national museums would be closed unless they could be staffed with nonpaid volunteers.
• All other government discretionary expenses would be halted immediately.
• All members of Congress and the President would have their pay checks suspended until the crisis was solved. California has a similar process where if the state government politicians cannot deliver a budget on time, the lawmakers lose their salary until the budget is in place. Same thing should apply to Congress and Obama. Screw up your job responsibilities as badly as you have on this issue and you should not be paid until you fix the issue.

The country will not go bankrupt if a deal is not reached, it will just have to go on a severe diet. The above priorities and expense reduction ideas are what is needed to make sure the diet does not turn into a fast. Unfortunately, do we really think these people are capable of thinking about contingency plans, never mind implementing them?

Step 3 - Nancy Peolis needs to just shut up. Her biting, sarcastic, and useless comments and insults, as always, in today's paper that Boehner needs to "have an adult moment" will do absolutely nothing to solve this crisis. I would counter her childish remarks by saying if the President had acted when he should have, years or months ago, and had one of his few adult moments, we would not be in this crisis mode today. Insults at this stage of the game do no good at all but this type of destructive behavior is to be expected by a pure politician like Pelosi.

Step 4 - All of these people need to just go away. They have long been a disgrace to the country and now they are a mortal danger to the country. They are not problem solvers, they are not leaders, they are not good for the nation, they are just useless political animals. In November, 2012, they all need to go away and be replaced by people that are civil, dedicated, smart Americans that can anticipate a crisis before it becomes a crisis, unlike what we are stuck with today.

Sorry for the rant today but come on, this whole issue and the juvenile behavior of everyone in Washington is a disgrace, pure and simple. Lock them all in a room until this deal is done, plan for contingencies, muzzle Pelosi, and start working for their political defeat in 2012. How much simpler could it be.





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 respect freedom 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/