Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
I think everyone can agree that government should not pick winners and losers. The very act of investing requires picking winners and losers. Anyone who doesn’t support banning legislators from making investments while in office should be sent home at the earliest opportunity. Congressional pensions are more than sufficient to offset any legitimate lost savings.
I’d allow them mutual funds…and ONLY mutual funds.
I find it infuriating that conduct that would get anyone in the acquisition community fired (if not imprisoned) is considered perfectly legal for Congress.
Hell, Mike, I’d go further and allow them only indexed mutual funds.
Their pensions vest after 5 years. The average payout is $35,000. I’m not about to weep for them. A Congressman who doesn’t plan on getting reelected twice can simply set the money aside for when they get out. I’m willing to grant them an exemption from the contribution limits after they leave office.
Priceless…Nancy’s new face lift looked like it was about to implode. Best
Pour a bucket of water on her and watch the Witch melt like her sister in the Wizard of OZ.
Dorothy: [in the Wizard's Throne Room with the three others, having returned from the Witch's castle] Please, sir. We’ve done what you told us. We brought you the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West. We melted her!
Wizard of Oz: Oh, you liquidated her, eh? Very resourceful!
I hope the voters in San Francisco ” liquidate” her in the next election.
Have you been to SF? Pelosi’s practically a right-wing extremist over there. They’ll vote out the Overstretched Ogre of the Occident about 15 minutes after the city falls into the ocean.
On top of the great pay and the super benefits (if any of them deny this then ask: why don’t they leave?) they also get to play the market with inside information AND without downside liability? How nice. And they also live in the richest part of the country…because they live there
This all needs to be repeated over and over until the election to get the attention of the public so that ‘change we can believe in’ takes place. Throw the bums out and change the system so that it’s not business as usual just with new faces…and the ‘throw them out’ should include the huge staffs and individuals on those staffs who never go away and who are part and parcel of the corruption in D.C. Please: from my lips to God’s ear. Or at least to the ears of the people who can vote them out.
Another factor to watch for are Congressional families. Senator A can keep his own hands squeaky-clean…and pass insider information to his wife and kids.
But the real point is that the MSM mostly has Pelosi’s back covered. I doubt that most folks will ever hear of this.
The 60 Minutes piece was mostly partisan; however, it was nice to find one Democrat who had done something less than upright–in Kroft’s view.
I think it was Sam Clemons that made the comment that Congress is our only established criminal class. That was before La Cosa Nostra made it over here.
LBJ went from school teacher to multi-millionaire while sucking at the public trough. The man had to be corrupt to his core to accomplish that.
Note that book (Throw Them All Out) exposing this showed documented it as a bipartison problem but with a 70/30 split between D and R parties.
Interesting to note this 60 Minutes report reversed that and had 1 D and 4 R’s under the gun.
Interesting but not surprising.