Jack Abramoff is out and singing like a canary bird. Jack’s song is not to be confused with a stool pidgeon ratting-out his pals. Jack did the crime and he did the time while the crooks in Congress he bribed skated. Jack owes them nothing. I can think of no other scandal that demonstrated the need to repeal the XVI Amendment more than the Abramoff Affair. No country can keep the crooks out of government, but you can limit their access to vast sums of money in this country simply by repealing the tax on income. NOTE: The XVII Amendment came about because the US Senate was so corrupt. The country still has crooked senators. Unfortunately, the crooks were joined by the foulest of all personality types; priests who would save mankind with tax dollars. Let me amend that slightly: The foulest of all personality types is a crook on a moral crusade. Take away the XVI Amendment and the crooks in government will have to go back to making money the old-fashioned way —— accept bribes while running the risk of going to jail. As it stands now accepting a bribe is legal, while paying a bribe is illegal as Abramoff’s recent stay in the Graystone Hotel proved. Perception is the problem with repealing the XVI Amendment. Americans have been conned into believing that a tax on income does more good than harm. That fallacy is only true for parasites. Abramoff gives one example of how parasites benefit: “ . . . the number one weapon used to influence a member of Congress was the promise of a future, high-paying job to a member's top staffers.” Another example of how the parasite class operates comes from members of Congress sending tax dollars to their family businesses. I can’t say if a lobbyist handled Pelosi’s ethical problem, but pending legislation was involved: ‘60 Minutes’ Ambushes… Nancy Pelosi? [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzKtmPFVGic&feature=player_embedded"]pelosipresser - YouTube[/ame] Adding insult to injury one of the parasite class’ champions, Bill Clinton, blames the Tea Party for the financial mess. Bubba even calls for more parasite jobs: Inside Bill Clinton's new book http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67605.html For a guy who is supposed to be as smart as Bill Clinton, I find it strange that he refuses to see that more and more people are not buying the crap he sells. In addition, primary taxpayers are getting fed up with losing their freedoms because of the tax on income. Also, I’d like to remind any Clinton admirer who might read this thread that the parasite class is not a primary taxpayer. They pay their income tax with tax dollars; so no matter the price of food, clothing, housing, etc., their incomes will always be raised to cover higher retail prices. Executive parasites In the good old days elected officials took a little something under the table, but they didn’t impose parasites on private businesses. Parasites infiltrating businesses at the executive level only became possible with the XVI Amendment. Former members of Congress are also paid off with top jobs. I recall a former senator, George Mitchell, got a top job at Disney for a while. Exactly what he did for the Mouse House was never made clear. Assuming you are not a parasite but still believe the tax on income is a good thing, forget the jobs, the larceny, the deepening corruption, and focus on how the XVI Amendment is the root cause of lost liberty not to mention treason. As I’ve been saying for years, if Americans hope to survive as a free people two things must happen; 1) repeal the XVI Amendment; 2) withdraw from the United Nations. Remember that the UN is funded with income tax dollars. For all practical purposes Americans are paying for their own execution with the tax on income; nevertheless, withdrawing is important even if the XVI Amendment is repealed. So long as the UN is there traitors in government will find a way to make Americans pay for it. Finally, everyone has heard about the entitlement mentality; yet few Americans realize that the people at the highest levels of government truly believe they are entitled to everything they can get. In order to “get” they must grow the government to “get more” while destroying everything else. November 3, 2011 7:56 AM Lobbyists can skirt ethics reform, says Abramoff By CBSNews Congress passed new ethics reform laws soon after the stink began to rise from the biggest political corruption scandal in decades. But the man at the center of that scandal, ex-lobbyist and now ex-convict Jack Abramoff, says new rules don't work, because lobbyists can always find ways around them. "We're smarter than they are and we'll overcome it," he tells Lesley Stahl in his first television interview that could be described as a buyer's guide to purchasing influence in Washington. The interview will be broadcast on "60 Minutes" Sunday, Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Though he says he now regrets using cash and gifts to buy influence in Congress - among the crimes that landed him in prison for over three years - could he still do the same thing today despite new ethics laws? "Yeah... the system hasn't been cleaned up at all," he tells Stahl. "There's an arrogance on the part of lobbyists...that no matter what they come up with...we'll just find another way through." The reforms are little more than window dressing says Abramoff, whose crimes resulted in charges brought against 20 congressional staffers, a congressman and several Bush administration officials. "You can't take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or steak...but you can take him to a fundraising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fundraiser...same access...same interaction with that congressman," says Abramoff. "So the people who make the reforms are the people in the system." Whether it's an expensive gift, a job, event tickets, vacations or straight cash, Abramoff calls it all bribery and says nearly all politicians are guilty of it. "I am talking about giving a gift to somebody who makes a decision on behalf of the public and at the end of the day that's really what bribery is," he says. "But it's done every day and it's still being done...There were very few members [of Congress] ...who didn't at some level, participate in that." Abramoff tells Stahl the number one weapon used to influence a member of Congress was the promise of a future, high-paying job to a member's top staffers. "Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to them, that was it. We owned them," he says. "And what does that mean? Every request...of our clients, everything that we want, they're going to do. Not only that, they're going to think of things we can't think of to do," Abramoff says. Such tactics resulted in Abramoff's lobbying firm holding sway in the offices of about 100 congressional representatives, he says -- nothing to be proud of by this prince of payola's reckoning. "I would view that as a failure, because that leaves 335 offices that we didn't have strong influence in," he tells Stahl. Click on the link for a brief video: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57317459/lobbyists-can-skirt-ethics-reform-says-abramoff/ These three links give more details: 'I felt dirtier than I had ever felt in politics' Abramoff recounts early encounter with congressional business-as-usual http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=364401 XXXXX Jack Abramoff book turning D.C. upside down Lobbyists, 'press flacks all over the city scrambling' amid new revelations http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=363633 XXXXX The book that's rocking the Washington establishment Jack's back – and this time Abramoff's not pleading the 5th http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=362853
One member of Congress from California is defending Jack Abramoff. One might conclude there is only one set of testicles in the House and none in the Senate. I cant resist comparing the way the MSM is treating Jacks book to the coverage Hillary Clintons piece of crap received. For months, It Takes A Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us was hailed as the book that contained more wisdom than the Bible, yet Jacks book is largely ignored by puff journalists in the MSM even though it actually informs the American people about the inner workings of their government. In the interest of full disclosure let me say that I love the Clintons. There is no one better for comparison purposes if you want to show the bottom of the barrel on any given topic. What? A congressman defends Abramoff! Rohrabacher finds value in convicted lobbyists insights Posted: November 10, 2011 1:00 am Eastern WASHINGTON While most members of Congress are running for the tall grass in light of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff's tell-all book on Washington corruption, at least one long-time member of the House of Representatives is praising him for his work at exposing the deeper, systemic and unaddressed problems that led to his personal downfall. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., suggests Abramoff is largely a victim of his own success as one of Washingtons most effective lobbyists. "Jack has been portrayed as the quintessential bad guy for excelling in doing what was standard operating procedure for Washington influence peddlers," says Rohrabacher. "He admits now he stepped over the line, but the system remains and Jack's insights are invaluable for anyone trying to understand why things in our country are as screwed up as they are." That represents high praise for "Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist," a book that has soared up the bestsellers list at Amazon in its first week in release and been the focus on immense media attention. Rohrabacher's outspokenness in defense of his old friend stands in stark contrast to the denunciations of Abramoff by other members of Congress, some of whom stand accused in his book of taking money from his clients and lobbyist perks from his firm. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=365885
Here’s more on Pelosi’s problems with insider trader. Note that Pelosi avoids explaining her insider trading by shifting to credit card legislation. I don’t know what the one has to do with the other except that her insider trading score involved VISA. A Jack Abramoff video follows the article: Pelosi's investments questioned in CBS report Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau Saturday, November 12, 2011 Washington House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is the subject of a report on the stock investments of members of Congress that is to air Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes." The San Francisco Democrat and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, were questioned separately at their weekly news conferences Nov. 3 by reporter Steve Kroft. Neither had granted Kroft's previous requests for interviews. Kroft asked both leaders about stock transactions they made while Congress was considering legislation that could affect the financial and insurance industries. Pelosi and Boehner vigorously denied any connection. Laws against insider trading - making stock bets based on information the public doesn't have - do not apply to Congress. Studies have shown that stock portfolios on Capitol Hill outperform the market. Legislation that would ban insider trading by members and staffers has languished. Kroft asked Pelosi why she and her investor husband, Paul Pelosi, bought an initial public offering of stock in Visa, the San Francisco-based credit card company, in March of 2008. The same month, former House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., introduced the Credit Card Fair Fee Act, which would have given merchants the power to negotiate lower fees with credit card companies. The bill, hostile to the credit card industry, was passed by the committee but never brought to the floor. Pelosi was speaker at the time, and controlled which legislation came to a vote. The Pelosis bought the Visa stock in three transactions totaling $1 million to $5 million, according to financial disclosure reports. The first was the IPO, followed by two other purchases of the stock at higher prices, Pelosi said. Pelosi said the Conyers bill had no chance of being signed by then-President George W. Bush. She said she brought even tougher legislation, the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., to passage after President Obama took office. Pelosi said the credit card industry spent $3 million in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Maloney in 2010. "First of all, what you are contending is not true," Pelosi said at her news briefing last week. "But second of all, we are very proud of our record of what happened." Kroft asked what was untrue given that the Pelosis had bought the Visa stock two years earlier. "Well, I have many investments ... I will hold my record in fighting the credit card companies, as a speaker of the House or as a member of Congress, up against anyone." Pelosi said. " We had passed the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights. I don't know what your point is." Kroft then asked whether there was an appearance of a conflict of interest. "No, it only has the appearance if you decide that you are going to elaborate on a false premise," Pelosi said. "But it is not true, and that is that." When Kroft said, "I don't understand what part is not true," Pelosi replied, "That I would act upon an investment." Boehner has adviser Boehner was asked at his news conference why he traded in insurance industry stock shortly before announcing that a plan for national health insurance was dead. Boehner said a financial adviser makes decisions on day-to-day trading in his investments. The "60 Minutes" segment follows a flurry of stories about wrongdoing in Washington, including a segment on the program last week by disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who served 3 1/2 years in prison for his 2006 conviction in a lobbying corruption scandal that helped bring down former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Abramoff said he lavished gifts on members of Congress, offered lucrative jobs to their staff and got them to insert opaque legislative language into bills that benefited specific clients. Pelosi promised to "drain the swamp" in Washington when she took control. Abramoff asserted that reforms have been ineffective. Pelosi's office said "60 Minutes" told her staff that the report was based on a book by conservative writer Peter Schweizer, a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, who earlier had accused the Pelosis of hypocrisy for hiring non-union labor at their Napa vineyard. Labor at the vineyard A report at the time by ABC's San Francisco affiliate, KGO-TV, found that the Pelosis paid their workers more than union wages and that it would have been illegal for them to encourage unionization. Several studies have shown that members of Congress and their staffs do better in the stock market than the public. A 2011 study by four university researchers found that a portfolio that mirrored stock purchases by House members from 1985 to 2001 beat the market by 6 percent a year. The same authors found that senators beat the market by 12.3 percent from 1993 to 1998. The Wall Street Journal reported a year ago that in 2008 and 2009 at least 72 congressional aides traded shares of companies that their bosses helped oversee. The staff interviewed included a Pelosi aide who said her husband made the trades based on newspaper reports and that she knew nothing about them. A bill by Reps. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., and Tim Walz, D-Minn. called the STOCK Act, or Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, would ban members of Congress and staff from insider trading. The legislation, which Pelosi supports, was first introduced in 2006 and has gone nowhere. E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@sfchronicle.com. This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/11/MNPA1LTOJK.DTL Now, watch Jack Abramoff’s comments on insider trading. His final few sentences are classic: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000056844
