UPDATE: LOL. Two Senators have signed onto patron the “The Stock Act” and like we’re supposed to be impressed! Ha. I’m thoroughly unimpressed because ALL 100 SENATORS AND ALL 435 REPRESENTATIVES MUST SIGN ONTO THE ACT W/O TWEAKING IT AND PASS IT POST HASTE!

by Helen Tansey ©

Like millions of others, I watched Steve Kroft’s report last night on 60 Minutes about congressional “insider trading”, and  although this dirty little secret has been known by many who follow such detail, it was still shocking. The most alarming was the juvenile avoidance by Bachus, Pelosi and Boehner when Kroft’s team attempted to secure a quick interview. According to Kroft’s report, Bachus was to busy, you know, doing the people’s work, Boehner, who Kroft finally caught up w/at his weekly news conference, when asked about the details of his insider trading related to healthcare didn’t even have the decency to look Kroft in the eye, and Pelosi, geesh, what a Prima donna,  looked like the proverbial deer caught in headlights.

Mind you, these are only three members out of the private club of 535 that Kroft covered. Imagine the unearthing Schweizer and his team of eight student investigators unearthed in his newly released blockbuster book “Throw Them All Out“? Don’t think for a minute these shysters are the only three.

In case you missed it here’s Kroft’s 60 Minutes report –

Refreshing! This is what investigative journalism used to look like on television. Let’s hope 60 Minutes is leading the way by returning to the very roots that once made the show a “must see”.

Now, about Schweizer’s book, David Weigel over at Slate dot com, received an advance copy and gives us a peak into more stunning “insider” detail. Here’s a morsel Weigel found illuminating –

On the evening of September 18, at 7 p.m., Bachus received [a] private briefing for congressional leaders by Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke about the current state of the economy. They sat around a long table in the office of Nancy Pelosi, then the Speaker of the House. These briefings were secretive. Often, cell phones and Blackberrys had to be surrendered outside the room to avoid leaks.

What Bachus and his colleagues heard behind closed doors was stunning. As Paulson recounts, “Ben [Bernanke] emphasized how the financial crisis could spill into the real economy. As stocks dropped perhaps a further 20 percent, General Motors would go bankrupt, and unemployment would rise . . . if we did nothing.” The members of Congress around the table were, in Paulson’s words, “ashen-faced.”

Bernanke continued, “It is a matter of days before there is a meltdown in the global financial system.” Bachus was among those who spoke. According to Paulson, he suggested recapitalizing the banks by buying shares.

The meeting broke up. The next day, September 19, Congressman Bachus bought contract options on Proshares Ultra-Short QQQ, an index fund that seeks results that are 200% of the inverse of the Nasdaq 100 index. In other words, he was shorting the market. It was an inexpensive way to bet that the market would fall. He bought options for $7,846 on a day when the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened at 8,604. A few days later, on September 23, after the market had indeed fallen, he sold the options for over $13,000 and nearly doubled his money.

Yep. Perfectly legal. Not for you and me, of course, but for those 535 members of the club aka congress it is. Why? Because they made it so!

And let me remind you, just last week Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes interviewed ex-con, fall from grace, super-duper lobbyist Jack Abramoff who told us how easy it was for him to buy entire congressional office with only a promise of a job! Last count was at 100.

We highlighted Abramoff’s story last week while also exposing how leaders in congress themselves keep a tight hold on members of their own caucuses so as to deliver votes to their highest bidder titled What Does an Accountant, Radio Announcer, Janitor and the Lavender Mafia All Have in Common?

By the time you watch and read all of this you’ll think twice about casting your vote for an incumbent. ANY INCUMBENT!!! It’s high time the people rid our federal government of all the stink and demand an entirely new congress be seated with a set of the people’s demands fully outlined and agreed too, in blood, before ever casting the first vote. Let’s begin the people’s set of demands with the full restoration of the Constitution including the original 13th Amendment, passage of HR 1148 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, and rescending the Act of 1871!

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