February, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 1: Coffee Enemas, Penis Pumps, Bowling For Kids, and Other Politcal Class Nonsense

Well, it is another month which means its time for the latest chapter on political class insanity. We do this feature every month because every month the American political class finds new ways to insult us in ways ranging from incompetent government operations to inept legislation that never resolve any problems to wasteful government spending and other embarrassments.

When we started this feature several years ago, we could usually contain the monthly insanity to one post. However, over time, the insanity level seems to have increased exponentially, reflecting the growing ineptness of politicians everywhere. Thus, as has been the recent trend, we will probably need six or seven days to get through everything again this month.

1) On January 12, 2014, the Washington Examiner reported on how the Washington political class has rigged the Federal government’s farm subsidy giveaways so that many very affluent Washington power brokers, politicians, lobbyists, etc. now enhance their high annual incomes with taxpayer funded subsidies for farms they do not farm. 

Details of this legal scam, according to the Examiner analysis and reporting, include the following:

• Thousands of residents in and around Washington D.C. receive millions of dollars every year in Federal farm subsidies even though there are very few farms within the Washington metro area.
• In nearby Chevy Chase, Md., one of the nation's wealthiest communities, lawyers, lobbyists and at least one psychologist collected nearly $342,000 in taxpayer farm subsidies between 2008 and 2011, according to the watchdog group, Open the Books.
• Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack continues to receive government subsides even though he has overseen the agency that pays them since 2009, even though he is in Washington in government service and not back working the farm, a clear conflict of interest.
• Billions of dollars once spent to keep small family farms from going under now go mostly to large agriculture corporations like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland, and to wealthy landowners who have never farmed.
• Over just the past four years, taxpayers have sent over $30 million to residents New York City, and Chicago, hardly farming meccas by any stretch of the imagination, to compensate them for converting farmland to conservation areas and for growing soybeans, cotton, corn, rice and other crops.
• Apparently the scam is for these rich big city residents to buy farm land, hire a farm manager and collect a check from the Federal government.
• Van Boyette, a lobbyist living in Washington's wealthy Palisades neighborhood, received $186,761 in Federal farm subsidies between 2004 and 2012 for growing corn, soybeans and other crops, and for land conservation on farmland he owns in six different Iowa counties.
• Gerald Cassidy, one of Washington's top and richest lobbyists, got $41,000 in farming subsidies since 1995 for a farm he owns in Dorchester County, Maryland.
• U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa has proposed capping Federal payments to $250,000 per couple per year, likely because he also receives money from the subsidy trough.
• His obscenely high cap is about five times the median income of an average U.S. household.

Rich people and rich companies, including those in government, getting wealthier via a government program that is obviously a misdirected government program,  funded with taxpayer wealth. Pathetic.

2) The Associated Press reported on January 21, 2014 that former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife had been indicted in late January on Federal corruption charges. They are accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in loans, shopping sprees, money for their daughter's wedding, and even a joyride in a Ferrara.

Although innocent until proven guilty, maybe the former governor should have bought a farm in order to legalize his corruption via the farm subsidy program that we led off this post with. Bad planning on his part to go the illegal corruption route when he could have gone the legal corruption route like so many of his political peers are using.

3) Let’s stay with our corruption theme, looking at some data from the New York Times and U.S. government that was reproduced by the Against Crony Capitalism website on January 24, 2014. The data and their chart depicted the number of criminal convictions for corruption by state or other legal U.S. entity (e.g. Guam. Virgin Islands, D.C. and Puerto Rico) per capita.

46 out of the 54 entities included in the analysis had a per capital corruption conviction rate less than seven convictions per million residents. The entity with the highest per capital corruption conviction rate was, no surprise, Washington D.C. Their per capita calculation came out to over 66 corruption convictions per million people, nine times higher than the conviction rate of 46 other states and other legal entities. Nine times higher, that is a lot of corruption.

4) A Business Insider article from January 24, 2014 had some interesting statistics from International Centre For Prison studies. It seems that the United States has more of its citizens in prison than any other country in the world. About 2.3 million people are now residing in U.S. prisons. China, which has been framed as a much more totalitarian government, has about 1.6 million people locked away in its prisons even thought its population is about four times larger than ours.

The main reason for this dubious worldwide honor? According to the article and the Centre, the U.S.’s war on drugs has resulted in prison populations growing exponentially with low level dealers or recreational users of illegal drugs, a problem that much of the rest of the world does not seem to have. Despite this problem, and the extraordinary expenses that come with it, the American political class seems to be in no hurry to fix what has been a losing and expensive war on drugs for the past four decades.

5) The wasteful and idiotic spending by the Federal government is not restricted to just a handful of government entities. Consider some recent news reports on how the Health and Human Services (HHS) department has been wasting taxpayer wealth over the past few years:

• According to an article from the Washington Free Beacon on January 13, 2014, from 2006-2011, HHS spent almost $175 million on penis pumps, according to a recent HHS Inspector General report.
• Adding insult to injury, HHS paid more than double the retail price for the pumps, with the Inspector General saying that the prices HHS paid “remain grossly excessive compared with the amounts that non-Medicare payers pay,” 
• According to an article from the Fiscal Times from January 15, 2014, in 2013 alone HHS wasted almost $56 billion on improper payments that never should have been made in seven of HHS’s programs that were examined. This rate of wasteful spending is enough to have given every U.S. household an almost $500 tax rebate.

Pitiful disregard and disrespect for taxpayer wealth.

5) But the Federal government is not the only government entity that wastes taxpayer money while remaining incompetent. Consider a report from January 15, 2014 that was put out by the EAG Foundation:

• In Camden, New Jersey, the student to teacher ratio is an excellent and low 14 to 1 in its public schools.
• In addition, Camden on average spends over $26,000 a year per student, much higher than the state and national average.
• Despite that stellar ratio and large budget, Camden’s public school graduation rate is less than 50%.
• Only three Camden high school seniors who took the SAT test would be considered college ready.
• About 75% of Camden’s third grade students have already fallen behind the levels they should be at for reading and math proficiency.
• Despite these horrible academic results, the Camden school budget recently included an expense of $24,000 that was used to take students on out of school trips to bowling alleys and skating rinks.

Wasteful spending and low performance and quality, sounds about right for any U.S. government entity.

6) The wonderful website, Bankrupting America, had some great examples of past Federal government spending idiocy in its January 15, 2014 posting analyzing the latest trillion dollar omnibus spending agreement:

• Based on the results of a $374,000 taxpayer-funded grant, we now know that inhaling lemon and lavender scents doesn’t do a thing to increase our ability to heal a wound. 
• $666,000 in taxpayer wealth was used by scientists to determine whether distant prayer could heal AIDS. They found out after spending the $660,000 that it could not heal anything. 
• The Federal National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine paid scientists $406,000 to study whether squirting brewed coffee into someone’s intestines was beneficial in treating pancreatic cancer. But alas, pancreatic cancer is imperious to coffee enemas.
• The center also paid out a whopping $1.25 million to determine whether or not massage sessions makes people with advanced cancer feel better. They found out that the massage did, something I could have told them for far less than $1.25 million.

This is how we got to a national debt hole of over $17 TRILLION, wasteful spending on coffee enemas, remote prayer healing, inhaling lemon scents, bowling trips for undereducated kids, overpaying for penis pumps, and politician corruption. But we are just getting starting, the well of political class insanity is endless and we will dive into that well again tomorrow.

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:

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http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The Slime, The Sleaze, The Immorality, and The Corruption Of The American Political Class - Part 1

I have gotten to a point in this election cycle that I will physically get up from a chair, walk across the room, pick up the TV remote and change the station if a political advertisement comes on. None of these sleazeball ads have anything to do with fixing what ails the country or addressing the major issues of our times. The vast majority are nothing but baseless and degrading school yard taunts and name calling, politics for the sake of politics not for the sake of addressing our troubles.

But when I stop and think about why I am so repulsed by these ads, I catch myself and think about who is putting them forward. When you sit back and chronicle who is actually in the American political class today, you are overwhelmed by the lack of integrity, unwillingness to work hard at the issues, lack of respect for each other and the citizens of this nation, and the general inability of most politicians to solve a problem.

Whether it is fixing our losing war on drugs, finding a way to not under educate our kids, fix our leaky borders, or even prevent a government organization like the GSA from throwing itself lavish Las Vegas parties, the track record of success and of being upright, integrity based individuals is lacking. Don't believe me? See what you think about these people after reviewing our five part series on the slime, the sleaze, the immorality, and corruption of the American political class.

Today's Part 1 slime review is based on a article from the Independent Journal Review. The article can be found at the following Internet site:

http://www.ijreview.com/2012/08/12246-the-top-25-democrat-scandals-the-media-wont-discuss/25/

The article lists out 25 instances of sleazy behavior from our politicians. All of the examples are sourced back to the original news sources so this post is not based on the opinion of myself or the Independent Journal Review, it is based on other, universally recognized news sources.

However, I have not included all 25 instances since a few of the news sources are either not well known or come from what my liberal friends would vehemently disagree with as being unbiased. This does not mean these omitted sources and stories are wrong or inaccurate, just that they would offend certain liberal contingencies of my circle of family and friends. But that does not matter since there is more than enough immoral behavior and corruption to go around.

1. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was recently implicated in a new scandal, pushing for Federal government funding of the Chinese green energy company ENN Mojave Energy LLC, which is represented by his son. Earlier, Reid was involved in a land swindle that saw him make a reported $700,000. Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal, August 3, 2012. Note: this is not the last time that Mr Reid's name will appear in this series of corruption posts.

2. Solyndra, the now-bankrupt solar energy company, was able to procure and destroy $535 million in government loan guarantees. This was after the Obama campaign received over a $100,000 in donations from the “green energy” company, partly bundled for the Obama campaign by major investor and oilman George Kaiser. Source: Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2011.


3. Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner confessed that he tweeted a bulging-underpants photo of himself to a young woman and admitted to “inappropriate” exchanges with six women, before and after getting married, at a press conference in New York shortly before resigning. Source: Huffington Post, June 6, 2011

4. Former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer resigned after it was discovered he had engaged in financial transactions with prostitute Ashley Dupre.  Spitzer later landed a short running, unsuccessful show on CNN. Source: New York Daily News, June 23, 2010

5. In 2008, John Edwards admitted he had cheated on his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, with former campaign staffer Rielle Hunter during his second presidential campaign, with whom he had a child out of wedlock. He was later indicted June 2011 on Federal campaign finance charges, criminal charges that he was eventually found not guilty of even though he was guilty of any number of moral failures, especially relative to his wife. Source: Huffington Post, June 1, 2012

6. Former Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Chris Dodd, the Congressional committee that was just one of the Washington entities that failed to foresee the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression, received favorable loans from Countrywide Financial, one of the biggest culprits in the housing industry meltdown, a loan that would have saved him up to $70,000. Source: NY Post, March 30, 2009

7. The General Services Administration or GSA held a lavish party during a five-day conference in Las Vegas, blowing over $820,000 in taxpayer dollars on shrimp and champagne, commemorative coins, and a mind reader/motivational speaker. Source: ABC News, April 16, 2012

8. Resigned Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and current Congressman Charlie Rangel failed to report rental income from vacation property in the Dominican Republic as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income and assets on his financial disclosure statements. Source: Huffington Post, July 29, 2010

9. Congresswoman Maxine Waters was brought up on House ethics charges after personally lobbying for a bailout of OneUnited bank, where her husband had previously sat on the board and owned about $350,000 in the bank’s stock. Source: Bloomberg, August 11, 2010

10. Convicted criminal and Obama bundler Tony Rezko made a sweetheart real estate deal with Barack Obama, saving the future President hundreds of thousands of dollars. Obama later said it was a “boneheaded mistake.” Source: Townhall, July 16, 2012

11. Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Donna Shalala, Kent Conrad, and Richard Holbrooke, all prominent Democrats, received cut-rate mortgages from Countrywide Financial, as did the following members of the political class:

• Mary Jane Collipriest, who was communications director for former Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, then a member of the Banking Committee. The report said Dodd referred Collipriest to Countrywide's VIP unit. Dodd, when commenting on his own loans, has said he was unaware of the discount program, which we know is probably false, given the finding noted below.
• Congressman Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
• Congressman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., former chairman of the Oversight Committee. Towns issued the first subpoena to Bank of America for Countrywide documents, and current Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., subpoenaed more documents. The committee said that in responding to the Towns subpoena, Bank of America left out documents related to Towns' loan.
• Congressman Elton Gallegly, R-Calif.
• Top staff members of the House Financial Services Committee.
• A staff member of Congressman Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas, a member of the Financial Services Committee.
• Former Congressman Tom Campbell, R-Calif.
• Former Housing and Urban Development Secretaries Alphonso Jackson and Henry Cisneros. The Countrywide VIP unit processed Cisneros' loan after he joined Fannie's board of directors. Source: July 5, 2012 Associated Press

12. Franklin Raines, former Fannie Mae CEO, received million dollar bonuses on top of $91 million salary at Fannie although the mortgage giant was at center of housing meltdown storm in 2008. Both Raines and former Fannie CEO Jim Johnson ($21 million salary) worked with the Obama campaign. Obama was the #3 receiver of campaign dollars from Fannie Mae, a so-called “private-public” partnership, a partnership that has already cost the American taxpayer close to $200 billion of bailout money between both Fannie and Freddie Mac. Source: Politico, October 31, 2011

13. Billionaire bundler for Obama and former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, former CEO of the imploded financial services firm MF Global, apparently perjured himself in Congressional hearings, because he ordered $200 million in funds to be moved from MF Global’s customer accounts to illegally cover brokerage accounts at JP Morgan Chase. Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon is a close associate of Barack Obama. Sources: Politico, May 14, 2012 and Bloomberg March 23, 2012

14. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner failed to pay Social Security taxes, even though he was advised by his employer to do so. He only admitted to the tax evasion after he was caught by an IRS audit. Source: Washington Post, January 19, 2009. Note: Is there a connection between this disdain for paying taxes by the Treasury Secretary and our $16 TRILLION national debt?

15. The Office of Congressional Ethics found “substantial reason to believe” that Jesse Jackson Jr. attempted to buy Obama’s Senate seat from convicted former Governor Rod Blagojevich by offering campaign contributions. Source: Politico, December 2, 2011

16. Oregon Congressman David Wu resigned after the teenage daughter of a friend accused Wu of “aggressive and unwanted sexual behavior.” Source: CBS News, July 26, 2011

17. Former NY Governor David Paterson allegedly: “personally directed two female staffers to reach out to a domestic violence victim who was pointing the finger at his right-hand man,” his aide David Johnson. Source: NY Daily News, March 2, 2010

18. Former NY Representative Eric Massa resigned after sexual harassment allegations were made by a male staffer. Massa later confessed to the charges. Source: CBS News, March 5, 2010

19. Former Obama billionaire bundler Phil Falcone was a major investor in Lightsquared, a wireless technology firm that was given FCC exemptions to build out a 4G wireless network. Thousands of emails acquired under FOIA request suggest that the Obama administration pressured Air Force General William Shelton to stifle criticism of a potential Lightsquared military contract that the company’s operations could interfere with the military’s GPS positioning system. President Obama was an investor in the wireless firm when it was named Skyterra. Source: The Center for Public Integrity, September 14, 2011

20. Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt by the U.S. House for refusing to turn over Department of Justice documents related to the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal, which led to hundreds of Mexican civilians being killed and U.S. border patrol agent Brian Terry’s death. The House Republicans intend to sue the Attorney General in civil court during the August recess. Sources: NBC News, August 3, 2011 and Independent Journal Review, June 29, 2012

Twenty instances of slime, sleaze, immorality and corruption is a good place to stop today. I am reminded of a wise saying by David Brin:

"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."

Very wise. The trick, if we are to ever get this country back on the right track, is to change our political processes so that we start attracting the sane to run for public office and not the corruptible.

I am quite sure that after this series of posts you will see the wisdom of Mr. Brin and agree with our solutions to the corruptible state of Washington and those that infest it.


Please visit our Presidential 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 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.
Pse visit the following sites for freedomhttp://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

Beyond Insanity - The Atrocities Of The American Political Class, Philadelphia Style

Yesterday we reviewed the latest atrocities of governing from the American political class. These examples of bad politicians acting atrociously badly included sending U.S. taxpayer wealth to our main economic competitor, China, overpaying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives for continued under performance in the housing and mortgage markets, and politicians enriching themselves and their political financial supporters.

We thought we had all the recent atrocities covered but within a day of publishing yesterday's atrocities, another one came to our attention that needs to be exposed. Remember, in these difficult economic times, unemployment is high, tax revenue is low, and state and local governments are struggling to stay financially solvent and still provide basic government services.

Thus, city government's like Philadelphia should be trying everything possible to protect its taxpayers and its declining revenue stream. However, in Philadelphia that is not the case, at least with regards to one city councilwoman.

But first some background, as I understand it. Philadelphia implemented a city pension program option a little while ago called DROP, Deferred Retirement Option Plan. In 1999, the city government was worried that the city's baby boomer employees would retire in one large movement, leaving the city short of trained employees, firefighters, and police officers. The DROP program was designed to keep current employees on the job, for up to four years, while they trained their replacements.

Those that sign up for DROP keep getting their regular salary, but also get a pension payment while they continue to work. The city puts the pension payment in an account that earns 4.5 percent interest. When the employee finally retires for real, he or she gets their pension money in one big lump. Most of that is money the employee would have gotten from a normal retirement anyway, but there is that extra from the interest as well. And remember that the employee has been getting a regular salary all that time too.

The theory of the program is that seasoned, expensive city employees would hang around, with the above financial incentive, to train lower priced inexpensive replacement employees. The net financial impact should have been expense neutral, pay expensive employees a little bit more now to train less expensive new employees for the long term.

However, that is not how the program worked out. According to recent news reports, the program has paid out more than EXTRA quarter billion dollars since its inception and costs the city $22 million more a year than if the program did not exist. This is just another burden on a city having dire financial problems, a city which had to raise taxes last year to cope with the budget woes. 

But I digress. The real atrocity is related to a Ms. Marion B. Tasco. The DROP program became so attractive that the Philly political class made it possible for the council members to participate in DROP even though the program was originally targeted only towards regular, ordinary city employees and not elected officials.

The politicians are not hired by the city, they have no need to stay on the job longer to train their replacements since they are elected by the citizens. However, this did not stop the council members from voting themselves into the benefits of the DROP program, a program that was never intended for politicians.

And the bad part of the program is that these politicians can serve in their elected positions, retire for one day and one day only under the DROP program, collect an enhanced lump sum pension payout, and then go right back to being in office, assuming they were reelected in the previous election. Understand the sequence: get elected, serve in elected office, sign up for DROP, get reelected, retire for one day, collect a really large lump sum pension payment, and the next day start serving in office again.

Which is exactly what Ms. Tasco did. On the last day of serving her sixth term as a Philly councilwoman she retired, collected a lump sum pension payment of $478,057, and then went right back to work the next day to serve her seventh term, with half a million dollars in her bank account. And she is not the only politician to avail themselves of the program. Numerous other council members also have managed the same maneuver, each receiving payouts of over $100,000. However, the majority of them did exactly what the program was intended for, they actually retired and are no longer drawing city pay checks.

But Ms. Tasco seems to be unique in a number of ways. First, it appears from Philly news reports that she received one of the highest payouts, just under half a million dollars. Second, while some of her peers actually did permanently retire after getting their DROP-related lump sums, she went right back to work to serve her seventh term and did not retire. Third, she sponsored a bill that would continue the program that was vetoed by the mayor but whose veto was overturned by the same people that benefit most from the program, the city council members.

Atrocities at every level of government now seems to be the norm. At least in Philly, the mayor is trying to do away with an expensive, unneeded government expense that has been tailored to give politicians an unwanted and out of proportion enrichment. The same cannot be said for most other political "leaders," whether it is the politicians in Illinois that allowed their lobbyist friends to get into the teachers' pension system after teaching for exactly one day or the political class in Washington that refuse to police themselves, allowing political cronies like the ones in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to continue to receive over sized bonuses or the exemptions they grant themselves from insider trading laws, whistle blower laws, etc.

We truly have devolved into a society where an elitist, pampered set of politicians have managed to hijack our political processes and place themselves above the law, below integrity, and in the midst of corruption. Only by forcing a change in those hijacked political processes can we finally move out of atrocious and into integrity in the city halls, state capitals, and streets of Washington D.C.










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/

Beyond Insanity - The Atrocities Of The American Political Class

Every month we review the latest political class insanity that we have come across since the last insanity report. These instances of political class insanity are often silly, stupid, and baffling. They usually involve ridiculous wastes of taxpayer wealth in areas that affect very few Americans. They often would be humorous if they were not so idiotic and wasteful.

However, we just as often come across political class behavior that exceeds the ridiculous, inane level of insanity and enters the truly atrocious realm. This realm involves blatant disrespect for the letter and spirit of our nation's laws and regulations and the unfettered selfishness of those that we have entrusted our government responsibilities. The latest atrocities include the following:

- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the two government organizations that had more to do with the Great Recession and collapse of the U.S. mortgage and housing market than any two entities in the world. As a result of their incompetence and corruption, they were central players in the financial collapse that has led to unheard of levels and lengths of high unemployment, the decimation of the U.S. housing industry, and the near collapse of the U.S. banking industry.

Worst of all, these two government organizations have already required the U.S. taxpayer to fork well over $100 billion worth of bailout money to keep both entities solvent. These two companies received more TARP bailout money than any other bailed out bank or financial institution.

It is highly likely another $100 billion worth of taxpayer wealth will eventually be expended to keep them out of bankruptcy. This  bailout could eventually come out to about $1,800 for every American household.

When U.S. banks received bailout money from the taxpayers via TARP, they were required to impose salary limits on their top executives. That was viewed as a penalty for screwing up their companies so badly that the government and U.S. taxpayer had to bail them out.

We review all this in order to appreciate the atrocity outlined in a CNN/Money online article from November 15, 2011.  According to the article, the top five executives at Fannie Mae received $33.3 million in 2009 and 2010 and the top five at Freddie Mac received $28.1 million. These numbers do not include potentially more in deferred compensation. Each company has set pay targets of as much as $17 million for its top managers for 2011.
 
Makes you wonder why the Occupy Wall Street people are not protesting at Fannie and Freddie's headquarters. While the TARP requirements stipulated that financial organizations that were still receiving taxpayer bailout money limit their executives' pay levels, this apparently does not apply to government organizations. While many banks have already returned their TARP money, with interest, Fannie and Freddie continue to suck bailout money out of the American taxpayer. While the housing industry continues to limp along, Fannie and Freddie executives have had no success, or possibly no desire, to fix what ails the mortgage and housing industry.
 
And the worst atrocity of all, the Obama administration and Congress have shown no desire, ability, or interest in fixing Fannie and Freddie, allowing billions of taxpayer dollars to disappear every month.
 
- Although the amount of taxpayer money being wasted is relatively small in this second atrocity, the reason for the waste certainly crosses the line into an atrocity. It is no secret that China is a strong and rising economic and political power. It holds upwards of a TRILLION dollars of our national debt, putting it in a position to leverage that debt over us to its advantage. 
 
China has grown its manufacturing base at the expense of our domestic manufacturing base, contributing to our high level of sustained unemployment. China has been growing its economy by incredible levels year over year for quite a while while U.S. economic growth has been anemic for the past three years, growth that is unlikely to get much better in the foreseeable future.
 
Given the current situation between us and China, why in the world is the U.S. government giving China four million dollars a year in one of its foreign aid programs?  Makes no sense, given the power and growth of the Chinese economy. Since the Chinese have enough money to continually buy our Federal bonds and debt, why are we sending them millions of dollars? Makes no sense, since our political class adds a at least a TRILLION dollars worth of debt to our national debt every year.
 
A government bureaucrat, Nisha Biswal, the assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, tried to justify the $4 million program by stating in the article that the aid supports U.S. values and interests. What might be a better use of the money, vs. what Nisha Biswal wants to do with it, is to go out and hire 40 or 50 teachers for use inside this country. What might be better use might be to help some U.S. homeowners who are having mortgage issues to keep their homes. What might be a better use would be to feed some of our own homeless that go hungry everyday.
 
The money, $4 million, is not a lot relative to the big government spending picture. However, $4 million could do a lot more for a small sample of U.S. citizens than what very little use it has by giving it to one of our biggest and richest economic competitors for the wishy-washy objective of "support U.S. values and interests." China could not care less about those values and interests. Continuing to execute this program is truly an atrocity.





However, one area has avoided most of this malice, namely the Federal government work force. According to a recent MSNBC report, drawing on Bureau of Labor statistics:

• The number of people working for the Federal government has grown 12% since the Great Recession in 2007. In other words, despite the worst economic downturn since the Depression, the Federal government grew by a double digit increase.
• At the same time, employment in the rest of the country and economy has dropped 5%.
• But it gets worse. While the rest of America suffers with high unemployment and higher underemployment, the number of higher salaried Federal employees has increased even faster, 14.8% since 2007.
• These statistics have lead to unemployment rates that are more than 30% lower in the greater Washington D.C. area vs. the rest of the country.

Thus, the Americans that actually fund government employees' salaries and benefits are suffering far more than the employees that actually work for the Federal government. Something is atrociously wrong with this equation.

- The next atrocity was uncovered in an October 22, 2011 article in the Chicago Tribune. Recall that the state government of Illinois, home state of the Tribune, is facing a large, ongoing financial crisis caused by its revenue tax stream not being close to covering its expense and cost obligations. Earlier in 2011, the state legislation significantly raised both business and personal income taxes in a failed attempt to close that budget gap.

Well, one reason they may be having financial problems is because of situations like the one described in the Tribune article:

• Two Illinois teacher union lobbyists, both of whom had no prior teaching experience, were allowed to count their years as Illinois teacher union employees toward a state teacher pension once they served a single day of substitute teaching in 2007.
• Steven Preckwinkle, the political director for the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and fellow union lobbyist David Piccioli were the only people who took advantage of a small, temporary window opened by the Illinois legislature and governor a few months prior to their day of substitute teaching.
• The legislation enabled union lobbyists to get into the state teachers pension fund and count their previous years as union lobbyists, not teachers.
• Preckwinkle's single day in the classroom allowed him to pick up 16 years of previous union lobbyists work, not classroom teaching, to count towards a teachers pension. He's 59, and at age 60 he'll be eligible for a state pension based on the four-highest consecutive years of his last 10 years of work. Based on his lobbyists salary history so far, he could earn a pension of about $108,000 a year, more than double what the average teacher receives, despite being in the classroom for only one day. This does not include the $93 he made for his one day of substitute teaching.
• Over the course of their lifetimes, both men stand to receive more than a million dollars each from a state pension fund that has less than half of the assets it needs to cover promises made to tens of thousands of public school teachers.

These are the highlights but the details in the article are extensive and equally atrocious. They include a summary of how the teachers' union lobby made significant political contributions to the Democrats that control Illinois state government. How this loophole was temporary and most people were not aware of it, except for those few that took advantage of it. The conclusion being that the loopholes were a quid pro quo for the campaign contributions.

Atrocious political class behavior and a total disrespect for the heavily taxed citizens and businesses of Illinois. A state government rapidly heading towards insolvency and the politicians in Illinois still take time to cater to their own selfish interests and those of their financial supporters.

The details of the atrocity can be found at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-pensions-teacher-perk-20111023,0,6972290,full.story

- And finally we come across another Federal government program that is rife with waste, fraud, and criminal activity. The Washington Examiner, in a November 30, 2011, examined the food stamp programs in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. using official government statistics and findings. Not unexpectedly, much like the vast amount of fraud, waste, and criminal activity found in the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs, the Federal food stamp program apparently also wastes billions of taxpayer dollars every year.

The article found that when the Maryland authorities looked at a sample of food stamp recipients, they found evidence of fraud in 25% of the cases in 2011. Virgina found evidence of fraud in 16% of their sample cases, and D.C. found a whopping 38% evidence of fraud in the sample they examined. 

The article points out that these three government entities appear to be some of the worst in the country from a waste perspective. However, even if the rest of the country is only half as bad, it is not a stretch to estimate that 10-15% of all taxpayer dollars spent on food stamps in this country is lost to criminal activity and waste.

Despite this atrocity of fraud and waste, prosecution of the offenders appear to be almost nonexistent. According to the article, Maryland had over 645,000 people receiving food stamp support in 2011. However, despite finding evidence of fraud in 25% of those cases in sampled, only seven people were prosecuted in court in 2011 and only 113 other cases were settled out of court. These 120 cases account for only .07% of the estimated total number of fraud cases in the Maryland food stamp program (25% of 645,000 divided into 120). Atrocious.

The details of the fraud and waste can be found at http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/2011/11/maryland-virginia-top-nation-food-stamp-fraud/1962111

It is this kind of atrocious incompetence by the political class and the government programs it operates that infuriates the American taxpayer. Wasteful spending, out of integrity behavior to help out political friends and lobbyists, sending taxpayer money overseas to our economic competitors while Americans suffer at home, taking care of their own government bureaucracy friends at government operations like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and allowing the government bureaucracy to needlessly grow on the backs of struggling taxpayers.

As stated in our opening paragraph, political class insanity is one thing. Political class atrocity is a whole new animal, one that we should not have to tolerate. Step 39 from "Love my Country, Loathe My Government" would be a good first step to eliminating government atrocities in our lives.

Step 39 would impose strict term limits on all Federally elected positions. Our current political class establishment tolerates its own atrocities, time to get a new establishment put in place with the mandate to stop both the insanity and atrocities that came before it.



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/

No Politics Today, Just Some Worthy Thoughts And Deeds For 2012

This week starts, what is hopefully, a better year than what most Americans struggled through in 2011. Many of the things that affected us and our families in 2011 were out of our control.

Unfortunately, those people in the country that had some control and power to positively affect our lives, failed miserably again to do so in 2011. From botched economic policies and programs to sky high national debt to an inconsistent and ineffective foreign policy to selfish and corruptible politicians, our political class continued to under perform but over enrich themselves in 2011.

But there are some positive things that each of us can do in our own, local lives, in 2012 independent of the corruption and incompetency in Washington and the state capitals around the country. These actions would likely make 2012 a better year and improve the lives of people around us. I realized this was possible when I read an article from the December 9, 2011 issue of The Week magazine.

The article highlighted excerpts from a book by Joseph Galliano, "Dear Me - A Letter To My 16 Year Old Self." The author asked famous people to write a letter that would be addressed to themselves at the age of 16. Interesting concept and very interesting reading. The article contained the letters written by Stephen King, Suze Orman, Alice Cooper, and others.

However, the best advice was in a letter actor James Woods wrote to his 16 year old self. I present it here and ask you to imagine how much better 2012 can be if we all took his advice:

Treat everyone with respect and demand it of them as well. If someone abuses you more than once, you deserve it.

Call someone in your family every day of your life. You may think it is tedious to do so, but a time will come when you would give your life to make that call one more time.

Hug your mother often and tell her how much you love her.

Do good work and do it because it is a gift to the world. No matter how inconsequential others may feel about the value of your contribution, it is the giving that matters. The surprise here will be that the beneficiary who gains the most when you give is you.

Be proud but humble. Be strong but caring. Listen more than you may be inclined to do. Talk less.

It is okay to fall, but not okay to stay on the ground.

Cherish the dead you once loved so carelessly. They still live in your heart.

Make the world a better place for those around you in 2012. Be tolerant of those around you that have a different opinion, they have a right to their opinion regardless of what our politicians tell you. If we all you do these few simple things, listen, be tolerant, shut up, be caring, hug our moms, work hard, fight through adversity, we all win in 2012 in spite of the politicians.

Government Favors And Politicians For Sale! Election Year Specials! Act Now! - Basic Corruption

Many times we have covered the corruption and greed that, unfortunately, has become the trademark of our political class. A very small sample includes the following:

• A major fund raiser for President Obama was illegally moved ahead of the American taxpayer in the Solyndra bankruptcy proceedings, resulting in taxpayers receiving nothing for their doomed $529 million loan guarantee to Solyndra.
• Obama's Department of Energy approved a Federal government loan guarantee to a company that employs Nancy Pelosi's husband in an influential executive position.
• Nancy Pelosi received upwards of nine corporate IPO opportunities, including one for the VISA IPO. VISA was somehow able get revenue restriction legislation delayed in the House Of Representatives when Pelosi was the Speaker of the House until after the IPO happened, resulting in a $100,000 profit for Ms. Pelosi in just a few days.
• Congressman Spencer Bachus successfully shorted the financial sector of the stock market shortly after getting warnings of a financial meltdown from the Secretary Of Treasury and head of the Federal Reserve Board, days before the information became public.
• Congressman Barney Frank received substantial re-election campaign funding support from various banking institutions, the very institutions the Congressman was supposed to be overseeing as a past chairman and current member of the House banking committee.
• Congresswoman Ginny Waite-Brown invested in various banks based on non-public, secret information she received as a result of her membership on a House banking committee, the very committee that approved taxpayer bailout money for the very same banks the Congresswoman invested in.
• Congressional members hand out $16-$20 billion worth of earmarks each year, earmarks and funding favors which are no more than thinly disguised campaign financing efforts.
• The Fisker and Telsa auto companies received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Federal government loan guarantees despite the fact that multiple people in each company are major fund raisers for Obama and the Democratic party.
• Senator Harry Reid sold his oil company investments shortly before the oil industry took a major hit on price decreases and bought health care company stocks just before the health care reform legislation debate began in the Senate, making a tidy profit in the process. 
• Ex-Senator Obama, ex-Senator Dodd, and Congressman Frank successfully derailed the auditing and reformation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This derailing that has already cost the American taxpayers over one hundred billion dollars in bailout funds, possibly because Obama, Dodd, and Frank were the top recipients of political campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie.

The historic list goes on and on. And current day government/politician favors and corruption continue. In the November 18, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, a synopsis of a Washington Post article reported that the top Wall Street financial institutions earned $77 billion during the eight years of the Bush administration. 

However, in less than three years of the Obama administration, years that included the worse economic downturn and banking crisis since the Great Depression, these same financial and banking  institutions earned $83 billion in profits. A coincidence or political class favors/corruption? Based on the historical data, I doubt it was a coincidence.

Need more proof that the government favors and political class members are for sale in this upcoming election year? Consider a set of examples that have already and recently taken place with our politicians, as reported in a recent Business Week magazine article within their Spring, 2011 Government Insider Special report:

• New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez recently "championed" a plan to provide a temporary tax cut for small companies, a tax cut that would allow them to offset investments these companies might make in research on therapies to prevent and treat chronic diseases. Oh, by the way, the pharmaceutical industry in New Jersey just happened to contribute $434,043 to his 2010 reelection campaign and PAC.
• Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow sponsored a bill to give a tax rebate for consumers who purchase a gas/electric car or truck. The recently available Chevy Volt from General Motors certainly falls within this category. Oh, by the way, General Motors employees contributed $84,635 to Stabenow's reelection campaigns between 1995 and 2010.
• New York Senator Charles Schumer has been accused by other Congressional members of making a proposed tax on carried interest of private equity managers so difficult that the measure never was passed into law. Oh, by the way, Schumer has received $8.8 million from the security and investment industry since 1989, an industry that certainly includes private equity managers.
• Montana Senator Max Baucus obtained a provision in a recent farm bill "for tax exempt forestry conservation bonds to help purchase a 500 square mile patchwork of land owned by Plum Creek Timber." Oh, by the way, Plum Creek Timber has spent $3.7 million in lobbyists fees from 2006 to 2010 and its employees have contributed $19,100 to various Bachus reelection campaigns.
• Iowa Senator Charles Grassley has backed tax credits for domestic production of corn based ethanol and tariffs on imports of ethanol. It just so happens that his home state has 40 ethanol plants that generate 3.5 billion gallons of ethanol each year. Oh, by the way, Grassley received $290,250 in reelection campaign donations from agriculturally based PACs in his 2010 election run.
• Arizona Senator John Kyl is a major proponent of cutting taxes on inherited wealth, having been instrumental in the one year hiatus of the inheritance tax in 2010 and cutting a deal with Obama to keep the reinstatement of the tax at 35%. Oh, by the way, eliminating the estate tax is a major priority of the Club For Growth, which just has happened to donate $155,753 to the Senator's election campaigns since 1989.
• Texas Senator John Cornyn has opposed Obama's attempts to repeal oil and gas industry tax breaks besides opposing the President's ban on Gulf oil drilling. Oh, by the way, oil and gas industry components have given the Senator $1.7 million since 2001.

Corruption or coincidence? You decide, but here seems to be a lot of confidences going on if it is not corruption. Just these seven Senators with just these seven instances of political favors for campaign funding donations comes out to over $11 million.

Think about how much money is involved when you include the other 43 U.S. Senators and all 435 members of the House of Representatives. If these other 478 politicians trade at the same rate as the seven Senatorial examples listed above, we are looking at almost $800 million that our politicians have traded government favors for their campaign funding needs.

This volume of trading has to be sub-optimal for the rest of the country's citizens that do not partake in this corruption. Rather than doing what is best for the whole nation's interests, this type of basic corruption does what is best for the politicians' careers and the special interests that fund their careers.

Since most of these political favors occur between incumbent politicians and special interests, Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would go a long way to eliminating this type of corruption. Step 39 would impose term limits on all Federal politicians, "one and done." You get one term in office, either as a Senator, Congressman, or President, and then your Federal political career is over.

Maybe in such an environment, where a politician knows that they do not need to fund their perpetual reelection campaign since they only get one term, they would then make decisions that are right for the country, not what are optimal for their special interest campaign funding sources. Heaven knows that they are not doing that now, making the right choices for the country,  so how much worse could it get if they were "one and done?"

A political process that relies on special interests, cronyism, and trading government favors for campaign funding and other perks is not a democracy. It is a central American banana republic, it is Iraq under Hussein or Libya under Ghaddafi, or it is the mob under Don Corrleone. In any of those examples, freedom and liberty are subservient to corruption.

Ashleigh Brilliant once said: "I either want less corruption or more of a chance to participate in it." Under our current political set-up, neither situation is likely to occur for the vast majority of hard working, honest Americans who play by the rules and have some sense of integrity. Thus, let's try term limits and try to lessen the corruption and increase the chances of freedom and liberty.

Please note: we will not stop just with these basic types of political corruption listed above. Tomorrow we will cover institutional corruption, the rules that the political class exempt themselves from to make their lives easier, and on Friday we will look at the somewhat curious and incestuous relationship between the Federal government and Goldman Sachs.




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/

Fannie and Freddie Execs - Losing Billions For The Taxpayer, Earning Millions For Themselves

If the Federal government had a public relations chief, this would have been a very, very bad week for him or her:

- On Sunday, a story on the "60 Minutes" television show revealed that Congressional members, and only Congressional members, are exempt from stock market insider trading laws and regulations. This allows them to do something that enriches themselves but which is not available to any other U.S. citizen: use insider information and Congressional actions for their personal financial benefit without repercussions.

We reviewed the many instances of such corrupt and immoral behavior earlier this week when we reviewed the "60 Minutes" revelations, and other acts of government insider trading from previous posts, to illustrate how corrupt these Congressional politicians have become. Not a dream assignment for a public relations chief, trying to prove that sitting politicians are not treated better and differently than the rest of America in the face of such overwhelming immoral evidence.

- Yesterday, we reviewed how many, many government agencies and regulators were again delinquent, ignorant, or incompetent when it came to not foreseeing the collapse of MF Global, a financial industry company, headed by ex-politician Jon Corzine.

Despite all of the economic pain caused by dozens of government agencies missing the coming onslaught of the Great Recession and all of the hot air the political class huffed and puffed when they implemented the Dodd-Frank financial industries reform legislation, none of these past events were enough to foresee the collapse of MF Global and the potential loss of $600 million of investor assets that executives of the company may have illegally used and lost.

Not a dream assignment for a public relations chief. Such a person would be stuck trying to prove that all the kings' horses, i.e. the many, many agencies of the Federal government, are no better off regulating and minimizing economic danger today then they were three years ago when the markets crashed in 2008, with MF Global being the latest unforeseen economic disaster.

And, as an aside, according to news reports today, the collapse of MF Global is the 8th largest financial institution to collapse in the history of the United  States. Thus, this was not a little mom and pop operation that went sour somewhere out in the boondocks. This was a major financial services institution and it collapsed, possibly taking $600 million worth of client assets with it, before anyone in the Federal government was aware of what was happening. Imagine trying to spin this situation from a public relations perspective.

- Which brings us to the latest theoretical disaster and headache a Federal government public relations chief would have to deal with. Congressional hearings were held this week that involved Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives testifying before enraged members of both House of Representatives and Senate committees.

Because of lax accounting procedures, rampant political patronage, risky and unsafe investment practices, and pure incompetence in manging their business, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac operations have already cost the American taxpayer about $170 billion. These billions are never going to be recovered and are likely to grow steadily if nothing else changes as these two entities need regular infusion of more taxpayer money to stay solvent.

However, despite losing billions and billions of dollars every month n the past few years, the management of both government entities recently rewarded their top ten executives with $13 million in bonus money. Please note this was not their salary, it was their BONUS rewards beyond their salary. Only in government work can you waste away billions dollars of taxpayer money and get rewarded with millions of dollars of more taxpayer money.

According to an Associated Press report from November 18, 2011, these top executives in both Fannie and Freddie received over $35 million over the past two years in both bonus and regular salary payments. They received this despite the fact that the Federal government expects the $170 billion loss to grow to $220 billion within three years and the fact that in October, Fannie asked for another $7.8 billion in more bailout money while Freddie asked for an additional $6 billion.

What would have made a chief public relations really crazy, beyond this disgraceful waste of taxpayer money, was a quote from one of those testifying, Edward DeMarco, the acting director of the FHFA, which regulates Fannie and Freddie. He testified that the Federal taxpayer support does not mean the Fannie and Freddie are government entities: "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac employees are not government employees and these are not government agencies. They remain private corporations."

Excuse me, but if you have already cost the American taxpayer $170 billion (about $1,500 per U.S. household), if you require billions of dollars of additional taxpayer support every month, and if without this past and ongoing support you would have collapsed long ago, you are not a private company, you are a public albatross and burden on the American taxpayer.

The theoretical public relations chief could not even hide behind the bailout of private sector financial companies on this one. The $170 billion dwarfs the bailout sum any other private company or bank received, most of which were paid back. Fannie and Freddie are never paying us back. A public relations nightmare.

But those testifying before Congress are not the only ones to hold at fault. The political class knew long ago that Fannie and Freddie were a corrupt shell game where taxpayer assets were used to fulfill selfish political class needs and ambitions. That is why they were never serious candidates for reformation, the political campaign money that flowed from them to the politicians running for re-election was too lucrative.

It is only when they collapsed and starting becoming a public relations nightmare did the political class work up some outrage. While this outrage is a good thing, I predict two bad things will eventually occur. First, the outrage will subside and these ten executives will walk away with and be allowed to keep the millions of dollars bonus paid for their nickel-dime results.

Second, once the outrage subsides, the political class will never get around to doing the real hard, but necessary, work that needs to be done: find a way to efficiently terminate both Fannie and Freddie and also terminate the Federal government's interference in the U.S. housing market.

The historical political class interference in the housing market has cost us at least $170 billion and the Great Recession, it is now time to go in a completely different direction. It could not get any worse than the expensive jams our politicians have gotten us into today, just ask any public relations chief.


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/

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/

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