On Friday, Breitbart reported that a “Not Above the Law” event is planned for Boston on Friday. Actually, I think the rally should be named “Only some people are not above the law.” As I am sure everyone is aware, Bill Clinton paid more than $800,000 to Paula Jones. President Trump allegedly paid $180,000 to Stormy Daniels. If nothing else, that illustrates who had better negotiators.
The article reports:
On Wednesday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about some of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s stock trades. It seems that Nancy and Paul Pelosi sold up to $3 million in Google stocks just before Congress began an antitrust probe of the company.
The article reports:
Paul Pelosi sold 30,000 shares of Google from Dec. 20 to Dec. 28, according to a financial disclosure filing the former House speaker submitted to the House Ethics Committee. The Pelosis made an undisclosed profit from the investments, according to the filing.
The trade proved timely. On Monday, the Justice Department and attorneys general from eight states—including California—sued Google over its monopoly on the digital ad market. The lawsuit could force Google to break up its online ad business, which generated nearly $55 billion in revenue for the company in the most recent quarter. Google’s stock has dropped around 6 percent since the Justice Department announced the lawsuit.
The trades are the latest in a string of questionable transactions for Paul and Nancy.
They saved roughly $600,000 in June by selling shares of microchip maker Nvidia weeks before the U.S. government placed restrictions on the company’s business in China and Russia. The Pelosis have seen their fortune grow $140 million since 2008, thanks largely to Paul Pelosi’s stock trades, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.
The article notes:
Pelosi’s stock market charades have sparked calls for tougher regulations on members of Congress cashing in on their positions of power.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) on Tuesday introduced the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments Act—the PELOSI Act—to prohibit members of Congress and their spouses from owning or trading individual stocks.
I don’t have a problem with members of Congress owning stocks, I just have a problem with them trading stocks related to forthcoming legislation of investigations. Even blind trusts are not as blind as they should be.
Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported the following:
Concerned about U.S. Coast Guard forces losing a paycheck in the partial government shutdown, President Trump personally urged his team to find a solution that would allow the administration to make this week’s $75 million payroll, according to officials.
Trump stepped in on Wednesday, calling on top lawyers and staffers to determine if the Coast Guard could make payroll despite being included in the shutdown that has impacted about 25 percent of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, which houses the Coast Guard.
Military personnel under the Department of Defense are not included in the shutdown, because their appropriations were approved earlier in Congress.
Officials said that Trump was keen to find a “way we can fix this” as news media stories about the Coast Guardsmen’s plight started to pile up.
At his urging, the Office of Management and Budget, DHS and the Coast Guard determined that the rules governing pay to Coast Guard forces requires it be made through the end of the year. To make it, the lawyers said that unused funding could be tapped for pay. The service had a bit more than the needed $75 million left over from its past continuing resolution appropriation, enough to make this month’s last payroll check.
“The president is trying to make the shutdown as painless as possible for workers, and this case proved it,” said an official.
Remember that only 1/4 of the government is shut down because President Trump had the forethought to get the rest of the budget passed previously. The Democrats (who in the past voted for a fence (a.k.a. wall) have changed their minds and shut down the government because President Trump wants a wall. At least President Trump is attempting to make the shutdown as painless as possible while Representative Nancy Pelosi (who should be in Washington negotiating) vacations in Hawaii.
Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about some of Representative Nancy Pelosi’s plans should she become Speaker of the House. Say what you will about the lady, she wants to protect the Democrat party from themselves.
The article reports:
Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in the midst of fending off a coup to derail her return to the House speakership, is proposing a series of rules changes that could kneecap liberals from pursuing a bold agenda in the new Congress.
Among the many proposed rules changes the incoming majority plans to make in a draft document obtained by the Washington Post, is one backed by Pelosi and Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, that would “[r]equire a three-fifths supermajority to raise individual income taxes on the lowest-earning 80% of taxpayers.”
The proposed changes also hint at restoring some sort of “reasonable rule” aimed at making sure legislation is paid for, though there isn’t much elaboration.
Below is a chart from Pew Research Center illustrating who pays taxes. The chart is from 2016:
Raising taxes on the lowest 80 percent of taxpayers would theoretically even the tax burden, but it would be another blow against the Middle Class. Keep in mind that one of the signs of a country with a healthy economy is a thriving Middle Class. I would like to see all Americans pay some income tax–everyone needs ‘skin in the game’, but simply raising taxes on the lower 80 percent of Americans makes no sense–it will only slow down the economy and not raise revenue.
The article concludes:
Now, I suppose Democrats technically would have some wiggle room if the new rule were adopted. Because the proposed rule specifies “income taxes” it leaves an opening to raise money in other ways — payroll taxes, VAT taxes, and so on. But politically, that’s really a nonstarter. If Democrats make the 80 percent pledge and end up raising taxes on the middle class, Republicans will be able to effectively campaign against it as a broken promise, and any Democratic candidate trying to claim, “Well, we said income tax, but not payroll tax,” will be scorched.
I mean, I didn’t expect Pelosi to suddenly go full speed ahead with the Sanders agenda, but I also wouldn’t have predicted that she would have cut liberals down right out of the gate.
Representative Pelosi is attempting to protect her party’s chances in the 2020 presidential election. As much as I don’t wish her success, her fellow party members would do well to pay attention to what she is doing–she is trying to protect the future of the party. Older Americans are the majority of the voting population, and generally speaking, they do not support socialism–they have seen too much.
I’m just going to leave this YouTube video here for your consideration:
Charlie Rangel has served continuously in the House of Representatives since 1971. He has had a few challenges along the way. There was the question of using Congressional letterhead to raise money for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York, the question of receiving unusually low rents on his four Harlem apartments, failure to pay taxes on income from his Dominican home, along with unreported assets and other challenges.
In March of 2010, Charlie Rangel temporarily stepped down from his chairmanship of the ethics committee because of the charges against him (rightwinggranny.com). There was no talk of him leaving Congress, it was simply an embarrassment to the Democrats to have him as chairman of the ethics committee.
Now, fast forward four years. Roll Call is reporting today that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi became the first member of leadership on either side of the aisle to call for Rep. Michael G. Grimm’s ouster from Congress. Michael Grimm has been charged with felony tax evasion. I guess Representative Grimm is simply not as good at making up excuses as Representative Rangel was.
I am not endorsing tax fraud, but even a quick glance at Representative Rangel’s tax history causes one to wonder why he is still on Congress. Representative Rangel only had to step down from his chairmanship of the ethics committee while he was under investigation. It seems to me that Representative Rangel and Representative Grimm should either both be asked to resign from Congress or they both should be allowed to stay. I really don’t think anything else makes any sense.
The Washington Times reported yesterday that after Tuesday’s election, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have both expressed a desire to stay on as the Democrat party leaders in Congress.
The article reports:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asked her fellow Democrats to keep her on as their leader in the new Congress next year, saying she still has unfinished goals she wants to accomplish.
She said the chief message she took from Tuesday’s election, which saw Democrats eviscerated at all levels, is that voter suppression was a problem.
I would be more than willing to guarantee that voter fraud on the part of Democrats was more of a problem than voter suppression.
The article also states:
The Californian is likely to get her colleagues’ support to remain as their leader, and Senate Democrats’ leader, Sen. Harry Reid, has indicated he will stay on as they shift to the minority, meaning that despite devastating losses in both chambers, Democrats will keep their leadership team intact.
Admittedly, President Obama is the major part of the reason the Democrats took a beating on Tuesday, but Representative Pelosi and Senator Reid were also part of the problem. When a football team continually loses games, you change the coaching team. If the Democrats want to regain control of the House and the Senate, they need to retool their leadership team–it is not an attractive team.