Friday - December 02, 2011

3rd Ring Added To DC Circus

Show trial much? This is more bogus than the “investigation” that the climate scientists did that cleared Hansen and those ass clowns in the UK of all wrongdoing. It’s a total crock, and you know what the outcome will be before they’ve even wasted the first million dollars of taxpayer money on it.

As a result of the stock transactions revealed in my new book “Throw Them All Out” and featured on “60 Minutes,” both the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the House Financial Services Committee have been pushed to hold hearings on the subject of congressional insider trading.

Some of the individuals I have cited in the book as having engaged in stock deals serve on the very committees that will be conducting the hearings. That’s a little like asking a defendant to also be a juror at their own trial — an absurdity that could only happen in Washington.

There’s no shortage of those who have tried to game the system on Wall Street.

Still, these hearings will give citizens and journalists a rare opportunity to see just how serious members of Congress truly are about cleaning up the cronyism and corruption rampant in Washington. It’s a pivotal moment that will hold electoral consequences.

Early indications are that both Congressional committees have stacked the decks with witnesses who will diminish the need to make members of Congress follow the same insider trading laws that citizens are bound by.

Observers therefore should pay close attention to the witnesses called.

In “Throw Them All Out,” I pointed out that during the 2008 TARP debate, eight members of the House Financial Services Committee were actively and aggressively trading financial and banks stocks before the bailout vote.

As the Wall Street Journal has also reported, senior staff members who work for members of this committee have also made very lucrative stock trades on banks, showing some remarkable timing. Will the hearings investigate these trades? And if not, why not?

Given Congress’s all-time low approval ratings, many citizens may not be terribly sanguine about the prospects for either of these hearings to produce serious results. However, members of Congress have a unique opportunity to respond directly to the will of the people by making it clear that the insider trading laws that apply to us also extend to members of Congress.

The eyes of the nation will be watching. And the voters stand ready to render their final verdict come next November.

I think we are getting to the point where serving in the government will have to be akin to going to jail. Maybe we should just save time and have them all serve FROM jail to begin with. Elected officials and the top 3 layers beneath them, including all appointees, will have all their assets put in a lockbox for their time at the job. They’ll be paid minimum wage, and housed in dormitories. No exceptions. Provide them with 10 changes of clothing to wear and give them a car and driver. All meals are to be taken in the workhouse cafeteria. Severe term limits, and a special law that makes it a major felony to work as a lobbyist or for a lobbyist or for a lobbyist’s law or accounting firm for 10 years after their time in government. And another “one shot” law that says that once they’ve played in the Bigs, they can’t work for any other government in any job at all, ever again. And while on the job, they don’t get benes any better than the average American. Sure, on the way out they get the rest of the salary, and, assuming they haven’t been convicted of a felony during their tenure, the government pads their assets by 15% per every 3 years served. And then they have to pay lump sum distribution taxes on both of those.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/02/2011 at 10:10 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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