The Washington D.C. Political Class

Why do Jay Carney and Claire Shipman decorate their house with Soviet propaganda posters?

[...] Now, to be fair, both sides of the power couple studied Russian during their Ivy League educations (he: Yale, she: Columbia) and became Moscow correspondents for major news agencies (he: TIME Magazine back when it still mattered, she: CNN), where they met prior to the fall of the USSR. But the fact that they seem to be nostalgic for the communist era tells us a lot.

While life among the Moscow elite may have been fairly comfortable, it was not so for scores of millions of victims of the regime, less well-connected or ideologically heterodox. In fact, as The Black Book of Communism informs us, communism killed more people than even Nazism. With their fancy Ivy League educations, the Power Couple ought to know this.

How many foreign correspondents in Berlin in the 1930s (people like William L. Shirer) brought home Nazi propaganda posters and raised their children among them?

The sad fact is that progressives in much of the developed world have a soft spot in their hearts for communism. Yeah, it murdered a hundred million people or more, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. And those who were murdered were not very fashionable, for the most part.

The Washingtonian photo is a tell. There is a sickness, a willful blindness toward the crimes of communism because it is so close to the progressive ideology that animates the American Ruling Class. Shipman and Carney are the perfect exemplars of that class. Smart, fit, busy, anxious to make their own lives perfect, and convinced that the price other people pay for their progressive dreams is not worth mentioning or even noticing.

Read the whole thing for embedded links and photos. One of my favorites is the severed finger on the bookcase.

The original article is meant to be a glossy puff-piece, and the photos are supposed to be light-hearted and jokey, which is why they are so fake, I guess. Yet it illustrates something I've said before, that the political class lives in another world from most Americans, totally out of touch with the realities most Americans are facing, and are looking out for themselves, not us.
   

The "Permanent Political Class" Problem

I came across this book a while back:

Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison

One of the biggest scandals in American politics is waiting to explode: the full story of the inside game in Washington shows how the permanent political class enriches itself at the expense of the rest of us. Insider trading is illegal on Wall Street, yet it is routine among members of Congress. Normal individuals cannot get in on IPOs at the asking price, but politicians do so routinely. The Obama administration has been able to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to its supporters, ensuring yet more campaign donations. An entire class of investors now makes all of its profits based on influence and access in Washington. Peter Schweizer has doggedly researched through mountains of financial records, tracking complicated deals and stock trades back to the timing of briefings, votes on bills, and every other point of leverage for politicians in Washington. The result is a manifesto for revolution: the Permanent Political Class must go.

Pretty serious accusations. Could it really be that bad? Apparently. The TV Program 60 Minutes eventually did a show about it. It generated so much outrage, that Congress had to pass a law forbidding themselves from participating in insider trading. But guess what? It didn't last long:

Congress Quickly And Quietly Rolls Back Insider Trading Rules For Itself

In November of 2011, the TV show 60 Minutes did a big expose on insider trading within Congress. While everyone else is subject to basic insider trading rules, it turned out that members of Congress were exempt from the rules. And, as you would imagine, many in Congress have access to market-moving, non-public information. And they made use of it. To make lots and lots of money. Of course, after that report came out and got lots of attention, Congress had to act, and within months they had passed the STOCK Act with overwhelming support in Congress to make insider trading laws that apply to everyone else finally apply to Congress and Congressional staffers as well. As that link notes:

The lopsided votes showed lawmakers desperate to regain public trust in an election year, when the public approval rating of Congress has sunk below 15 percent.

Of course, here we are in 2013 and, lo and behold, it is no longer an election year. And apparently some of the details of the ban on insider trading were beginning to chafe Congressional staffers, who found it hard to pad their income with some friendly trades on insider knowledge.

So... with very little fanfare, Congress quietly rolled back a big part of the law late last week. Specifically the part that required staffers to post disclosures about their financial transactions, so that the public could make sure there was no insider trading going on. Congress tried to cover up this fairly significant change because they, themselves, claimed that it would pose a "national risk" to have this information public. A national risk to their bank accounts.

It was such a national risk that Congress did the whole thing quietly, with no debate. The bill was introduced in the Senate on Thursday and quickly voted on late that night when no one was paying attention. Friday afternoon (the best time to sneak through news), the House picked it up by unanimous consent. The House ignored its own promise to give Congress three days to read a bill before holding a vote, because this kind of thing is too important to let anyone read the bill before Congress had to pass it.

And, of course, yesterday, President Obama signed it into law. Because the best way to rebuild trust in Congress, apparently, is to roll back the fact that people there need to obey the same laws as everyone else. That won't lead the public to think that Congress is corrupt. No, not at all.

That was last year; so it just continues, "Business as usual." Disgusting. Visit the original article for all the embedded links.

There is a Question and Answer segment on the webpage for Peter Schweizer's book:

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: A Q&A with Author Peter Schweizer

Q:When did you realize that so many insider trading and sweetheart land deals were going on?

A: When I first discovered that members of Congress are exempt from insider trading laws, I didn’t believe it. Then, when I started to look at their stock trades and compare them with what they were doing in office, I was stunned.

Q: What do you mean by the "Permanent Political Class"?

A: I think politics in Washington has become a business opportunity. Republicans and Democrats are not so different as you think. They work together to enrich themselves. They have designed the system to work so that they can make lots of money doing things that would get the rest of us sent to jail.

Q: What do you mean by "honest graft"?

A: When people think of politicians making money in Washington, they think of bribery and other illegal activities. That’s small potatoes. The real money is made by doing stuff that’s legal, including insider trading on the stock market and land deals.

Q: Politicians are exempt from insider trading laws? You’re kidding, right?

A: No. They write the rules, and guess what: the rules that apply to us don’t apply to them. By the way, they are also exempt from whistleblower laws. If you see your boss committing a financial crime, you can report them and you will be protected. You can’t be fired. But if your boss is a congressman? You’re toast. You are not protected.

Q: What’s wrong with politicians who trade stock? Don’t we want them involved in the economy?

A: Yes, but they are doing exactly what corporate insiders get sent to jail for doing. It’s a double standard and it’s unfair. If Martha Stewart had been in the U.S. Senate, she would have been protected.

Congress should be forbidden to pass any laws that do not also apply to themselves. If they had to get their own health care under the same laws that we do, the Affordable Care Act would not exist in it's present form; it would have been something better. The Healthcare.gov site might have actually worked, if they and their families had to use it themselves.

If congress had to actually live under the laws they pass for the rest of us, they would take greater care. But they don't, and they don't. That needs to change.

Congress is supposed to exist to serve us, not rule over us.


Also see:

Jon Stewart Tears Up Congress For Quietly Scaling Back Insider Trading Law: The ‘F*cker Act’

   

Is it a Good Thing that the Republicans didn't also take control of the Senate?

Strangely enough, the answer to that question is probably "yes". See why:

DIVIDED GOVERNMENT

So ... We now have a House solidly under the control of the Republicans. As things stand now the Democrats will have a three seat advantage in the Senate. I'm not upset with this scenario. I've been wondering aloud for weeks what the effect might be on 2012 if the Republicans had both the House and the Senate ... with Obama standing alone as the champion of the Left at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It would be a classic "me vs. them" and would be so easy to spin in to an "Obama as besieged underdog" scenario. If the Republicans had taken the Senate it doesn't mean they would have been able to accomplish anything more than they can right now. Remember, it takes 60 votes in the Senate to pass important legislation, and there was no way the GOP was going to have those seats. I think the Republicans are better off following their agenda and sending bills to the Senate ... if the Democrats and Obama want to block that legislation - a repeal of ObamaCare, for instance, or an extension of the Bush tax cuts - then the voters will clearly see where the roadblocks are being erected.

[...]

But for the time being, we will now have (as of January) a divided government. This is a government where at least one chamber of Congress is controlled by the other party of the president. For all of the kicking and screaming we are prepared to endure from the Democrats, for the rest of us concerned about our future, divided government can actually be a good thing. The Cato Institute has some insight for us ...

Our federal government may work better (less badly) when at least one chamber of Congress is controlled by a party other than the party of the president. The general reason for this is that each party has the opportunity to block the most divisive measures proposed by the other party. Other conditions, of course, also affect political outcomes, but the following types of evidence for this hypothesis are too important to ignore:

• The rate of growth of real (inflation-adjusted) federal spending is usually lower with divided government.


• The only two long periods of fiscal restraint were the Eisenhower administration and the Clinton administration, during both of which the opposition party controlled Congress.


• The probability that a major reform will last is usually higher with a divided government because the necessity of bipartisan support is more likely to protect the reform against a subsequent change in the majority party.

The fact is, folks, is that we are headed into a crucial time in this country. We are at a crossroads. Yesterday, all we were doing was picking the people who would lead us down these roads. Now the journey begins. OK .. enough of the sappy metaphors. But do you understand what these next two years represent? We need fundamental change in this country - to our tax code, to Social Security, to Medicare and Medicaid, to deficit reduction - but I am not talking about the "fundamental" change that Barack Obama desires. Barack Obama, with the Democrats he has left, would prefer for our country to head down a path which punishes wealth, redistributes wealth, expands entitlements and expands government. The fundamental change that we now seek is not just stopping the Obama agenda from "moving forward" but reforming our nation in such a way that Americans can once again prosper.

So it's all for the good. The Democrats have been left with control of the Senate. If they block changes from Congress, they will have to accept full responsibility for it. They have been given enough rope to hang themselves. Of course, they don't HAVE to hang themselves. They could try working with Republicans. But I don't have a lot of faith that would happen. Not if they follow the president's lead:

After November, Obama will NOT be like Clinton

I could be wrong about that; time will tell. It's just that, Obama so far has shown a deplorable unwillingness to work in a bipartisan manner. He seems too ideologically rigid, too inflexible. Can he change? I doubt it, but the ball is in his court now. It's up to him, and his party, to make the most of it. Or not.

Greece and national character. Are we there yet?

We may not be there yet, but we are well on our way if we keep on going the way we are:

Revolt of the Accountants

[...] The coming rebellion in the voting booth is not only about the economic impact of spending, debt and deficits on America's future. It's also to some degree about the feared impact of all those things on the character of the American people. There is a real fear that government, with all its layers, its growth, its size, its imperviousness, is changing, or has changed, who we are. And that if we lose who we are, as Americans, we lose everything.

This is part of what's driving the sense of political urgency this year, especially within precincts of the tea party.

The most vivid illustration of the fear comes, actually, from another country, Greece, and is brilliantly limned by Michael Lewis in October's Vanity Fair. In "Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds," he outlines Greece's economic catastrophe. It is a bankrupt nation, its debt, or rather the amount of debt that has so far been unearthed and revealed, coming to "more than a quarter-million dollars for every working Greek." Over decades the Greeks turned their government "into a piñata stuffed with fantastic sums" and gave "as many citizens as possible a whack at it." The average government job pays almost three times as much as the average private-sector job. The retirement age for "arduous" jobs, including hairdressers, radio announcers and musicians, is 55 for men and 50 for women. After that, a generous pension. The tax system has disintegrated. It is a welfare state with a cash economy.

Much of this is well known, though it is beautifully stated. But all of it, Mr. Lewis asserts, has badly damaged the Greek character. "It is simply assumed . . . that anyone who is working for the government is meant to be bribed. . . . Government officials are assumed to steal." Tax fraud is rampant. Everyone cheats. "It's become a cultural trait," a tax collector tells him.

Mr. Lewis: "The Greek state was not just corrupt but also corrupting. Once you saw how it worked you could understand a phenomenon which otherwise made no sense at all: the difficulty Greek people have saying a kind word about one another. . . . Everyone is pretty sure everyone is cheating on his taxes, or bribing politicians, or taking bribes, or lying about the value of his real estate. And this total absence of faith in one another is self-reinforcing. The epidemic of lying and cheating and stealing makes any sort of civic life impossible."

Thus can great nations, great cultures, disintegrate, break into little pieces that no longer cohere into a whole. [...]

Not only is this corruption changing the character of our nation; the people who are doing the corruption are insulating themselves from the damage they are causing:

[...] Those in power institute the regulations and rules, and then hire people to protect them from the burdens and demands of their legislation. There is no congressman passing tax law who doesn't have staffers in his office taking care of his own financial life and who will not, when he moves down the street into the lobbying firm, have an army of accountants to protect him there.

Washington is now to some degree the focus of the same sort of profound resentment that Hollywood liberals inspired when they really mattered, or seemed really powerful. For decades they made films that were not helpful to our culture or society, that were full of violence and sick imagery. But they often brought their own children up more or less protected from the effects of the culture they created. Private schools, nannies, therapists, tutors. They bought their way out of the cultural mayhem to which they'd contributed. Their children were fine. Yours were on their own.

This is part of why people dislike "the elites" and why "the elites," especially in Washington, must in turn be responsive, come awake, start to notice. People don't like it when they fear you are subtly, day by day, year by year, changing the personality and character of their nation. They think, "You are ruining our country and insulating yourselves from the ruin. We hate you." And this is understandable, yes? [...]

YES indeed!
     

"Restoring Honor" attracts big crowd

I was wondering if they would manage to fill up the mall.  They did. 300,000:

‘Restoring Honor’ at the Lincoln Memorial; Update: Live Stream Included

‘Restoring Honor’: The Day After Wrap-Up & Whitewash

Alveda King speaks on whether her uncle Martin Luther King Jr. would stand with Glenn Beck or NAACP on Aug. 28
     

Why is D.C. broken? Could it be, because of the ambitions of America's "Ruling" class?

From Neal Boortz:

THE RULING CLASS

Barack Obama's chief dogwasher Valerie Jarrett said that Barack Obama would be ready to "rule" by day one. At the time, one would hope that this was a slip-of-the-tongue. Turns out that it wasn't. This should have been a huge red flag, a warning sign that we were about to anoint a ruling class in Washington, rather than elected representative officials. We should have known then that Jarrett was serving a ruler, not a leader. These people would have little concept of what it is like to function in the private sector and an inherent disdain for free enterprise. Their love of government and ultimately their role within that government would be the driving force behind every decision and every policy. It is purely based on survival - these rulers know that their success is based on their ability to manipulate the government educated into believing that they need them in order to survive. Angelo Codevilla of the American Spectator can pick up where I've left off ...

Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the "in" language -- serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.

You could argue - I think accurately -- that the Tea Party movement is a visceral reaction to this elitism, this ruling class. These politicians currently in Washington are synonymous with "big government" because they lived, eaten and breathed nothing but government since they were begat. They believe that we exist for the purpose of serving out government. Actually ... I think that I found the perfect way to describe these people, and their ruler, several years ago: They believe that America's greatness is centered on Washington DC and flows from government, not from the dynamic of a free people working and cooperating together in a system based on freedom, economic liberty and the rule of law.

Also see:

The clash between the ruling class and the "country class"

     

"We can’t allow the law of the jungle to become the new Washington norm"

Health Care Debate: What’s Important?

[...] It troubles me that the Democrat strategies, first of the “nuclear option” and now the “Slaughter Rule”, which seemed so outrageous at first blush, quickly settle down and become part of the normal political landscape. I guess that’s the way it is with outrages: After a while, you just take them in stride.

That’s a problem for us. The anti-democratic tactics of the Democrats are the stuff of Third World strongmen, or maybe Chicago politics. But we can’t allow the law of the jungle to become the new Washington norm.

[...]

By the rules of traditional American lawmaking and politicking, Washington would have listened to the people. Obama’s plans for health care reform would have halted. The work-in-progress would have been considerably amended, or even restarted, to bring the political center on board.

But Obama wasn’t having any of it. Rather than working with the people, he chose instead to throw out the lawmaking rulebook. This was done for the explicit purpose of thwarting the election results. Thus we moved into the previously-illicit territory of “nuclear options” and “Slaughter Rules”. This is without precedent in modern American democracy.

Maybe that’s the way major laws get passed in various undemocratic hellholes. We cluck our tongues at the corrupt systems of such places, and we bask in our smug superiority. But not here, no. It can’t be happening here. [...]

Maynard goes on to say that if this law is passed, in this way, it will change the relationship between Washington and the People, forever. And of course, it will open the door for... what next?

Of course it isn't just Obama who is the problem here. It's the entire Democrat leadership, who believe "The ends justify the means". They want not only to seize absolute power, but also ensure they keep it. By any means possible. If in the process they destroy our current political system, so much the better. They can then replace it with a system that won't limit their powers.

Absolute power, corrupting absolutely. If we let them.


Also see: The Big Lie

     

House GOP responds to Obama's Heath Care Summit Invite: The sad truth about it all

From NRO's The Corner:

Monday, February 08, 2010

House GOP Responds to Summit Invite [Robert Costa]

House GOP Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) and Whip Eric Cantor (R., Va.) just sent White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel a letter regarding the upcoming health-care summit:

Mr. Emanuel:

We welcome President Obama’s announcement of forthcoming bipartisan health care talks. In fact, you may remember that last May, Republicans asked President Obama to hold bipartisan discussions on health care in an attempt to find common ground on health care, but he declined and instead chose to work with only Democrats. Since then, the President has given dozens of speeches on health care reform, operating under the premise that the more the American people learn about his plan, the more they will come to like it. Just the opposite has occurred: a majority of Americans oppose the House and Senate health care bills and want them scrapped so we can start over with a step-by-step approach focused on lowering costs for families and small businesses.

Just as important, scrapping the House and Senate health care bills would help end the uncertainty they are creating for workers and businesses and thus strengthen our shared commitment to focusing on creating jobs. Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward on health care in a bipartisan way, does that mean he will agree to start over so that we can develop a bill that is truly worthy of the support and confidence of the American people? Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today that the President is “absolutely not” resetting the legislative process for health care.

If the starting point for this meeting is the job-killing bills the American people have already soundly rejected, Republicans would rightly be reluctant to participate. Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward in a bipartisan way, does that mean he has taken off the table the idea of relying solely on Democratic votes and jamming through health care reform by way of reconciliation? As the President has noted recently, Democrats continue to hold large majorities in the House and Senate, which means they can attempt to pass a health care bill at any time through the reconciliation process.

Eliminating the possibility of reconciliation would represent an important show of good faith to Republicans and the American people.If the President intends to present any kind of legislative proposal at this discussion, will he make it available to members of Congress and the American people at least 72 hours beforehand? Our ability to move forward in a bipartisan way through this discussion rests on openness and transparency. Will the President include in this discussion congressional Democrats who have opposed the House and Senate health care bills? This bipartisan discussion should reflect the bipartisan opposition to both the House bill and the kickbacks and sweetheart deals in the Senate bill. Will the President be inviting officials and lawmakers from the states to participate in this discussion?

As you may know, legislation has been introduced in at least 36 state legislatures, similar to the proposal just passed by the Democratic-controlled Virginia State Senate, providing that no individual may be compelled to purchase health insurance. Additionally, governors of both parties have raised concerns about the additional costs that will be passed along to states under both the House and Senate bills. The President has also mentioned his commitment to have “experts” participate in health care discussions.

Will the Feb. 25 discussion involve such "experts?" Will those experts include the actuaries at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), who have determined that the both the House and Senate health care bill raise costs – just the opposite of their intended effect – and jeopardize seniors’ access to high-quality care by imposing massive Medicare cuts? Will those experts include the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which has stated that the GOP alternative would reduce premiums by up to 10 percent? Also, will Republicans be permitted to invite health care experts to participate? Finally, as you know, this is the first televised White House health care meeting involving the President since last March.

Many health care meetings of the closed-door variety have been held at the White House since then, including one where a sweetheart deal was worked out with union leaders. Will the special interest groups that the Obama Administration has cut deals with be included in this televised discussion?Of course, Americans have been dismayed by the fact that the President has broken his own pledge to hold televised health care talks. We can only hope this televised discussion is the beginning, not the end, of attempting to correct that mistake. Will the President require that any and all future health care discussions, including those held on Capitol Hill, meet this common-sense standard of transparency and openness?

Your answers to these critical questions will help determine whether this will be a truly open, bipartisan discussion or merely an intramural exercise before Democrats attempt to jam through a job-killing health care bill that the American people can’t afford and don’t support. ‘Bipartisanship’ is not writing proposals of your own behind closed doors, then unveiling them and demanding Republican support. Bipartisan ends require bipartisan means.These questions are also designed to try and make sense of the widening gap between the President’s rhetoric on bipartisanship and the reality. We cannot help but notice that each of the President’s recent bipartisan overtures has been coupled with harsh, misleading partisan attacks. For instance, the President decries Republican ‘obstruction’ when it was Republicans who first proposed bipartisan health care talks last May.

The President says Republicans are ‘sitting on the sidelines’ just days after holding up our health care alternative and reading from it word for word. The President has every right to use his bully pulpit as he sees fit, but this is the kind of credibility gap that has the American people so fed up with business as usual in Washington.We look forward to receiving your answers and continuing to discuss ways we can move forward in a bipartisan manner to address the challenges facing the American people.

Sincerely,

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH)

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA)

I'm tired of the repeated lies that Republicans have no alternatives to the Democrats plans, and most of the Media going along with it. I sincerely hope that game is now over. Enough is enough:

Obama’s Kabuki summit invitation: Just say no

Please.

The White House spends a full year trashing Republicans for having no ideas on health care reform.

The White House spend a full year promising transparency while subverting it.

And now, after a year’s worth of closed backroom meetings and midnight holiday weekend legislative sessions in which Republicans had severely curtailed ability to offer amendments, President Obama wants to invite them to a televised health care summit to talk about the GOP alternatives he said didn’t exist?

[...]

Unlike the question-time session with Republicans, the White House political machine will be in full control of the staging.

Republicans should feel zero obligation to participate in yet another White House health care dog-and-pony show:

Just say no.

If Obama really wants to learn about GOP health care reform plans, he can look them up online, where they have been for months.

Here is Sen. Jim Demint’s Health Care Freedom Plan.

And here is the here is the Patients’ Choice Act of Sens. Coburn and Burr and Reps. Ryan and Nunes.

And here is House GOP leader Boehner’s health care reform page.

Obama has enough human stage props to feed his ego and advance his agenda.

Republicans should not be a party to it.

***

Here’s an idea: Republicans can tell Obama they’ll participate in his health care summit after he provides transcripts of his s backroom meetings with Big Labor/SEIU. [...]

The MSM clearly doesn't want to talk about Republican ideas, but I think most Americans would welcome a genuinely bi-partisan approach, and a completely transparent process.

Are the Democrats going to try to ram their bills through anyway? I think they might. It's hard to believe that things have gotten this bad already.