The Democrats are masters of corruption. They talk about hating evil corporations and helping the poor, but it’s all for show: the Democrats use government to enrich themselves. The reason they’ve gotten away with this for so long is the media covers up for them. So why did 60 Minutes just “out” Pelosi?
Here’s the story. In 2008, Nancy Pelosi “somehow” got the chance to buy into (subscribe to) the Visa initial public offering (IPO). For those who don’t know, this is something only insiders get to do. IPOs are almost always limited to company employees, their families, and large companies connected to making the public offering happen, i.e. the investment bank, a few institutional clients, company creditors and lawyers. Pelosi was none of these, yet she got in.
Indeed, Pelosi bought between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock. She paid $44 per share to buy in. Two days later, the IPO was issued to the public and the stock price soared to $65 per share. Two month later, it was $85 per share. She had almost doubled her money in two months.
So how did Pelosi get into this IPO? Well, it turns out that companies looking to build good will in Congress will sometimes let selected members of Congress in on their IPOs. And why would Visa care about Nancy Pelosi? Because two weeks after Pelosi bought into this IPO, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act was introduced in the House. This bill would have prevented credit card companies like Visa from charging certain fees. How much in fees? The credit card companies took in $48 billion in these fees in 2008 alone.
This bill passed the Judiciary Committee and apparently had broad public support as high as 77% in one poll. Yet, for some strange reason, Pelosi never let this bill get to the House floor for a vote. Imagine that.
And Pelosi wasn’t done there. Another bill, called the Credit Card Interchange Fee Act of 2008, which would have required credit card companies to disclose rates, met the same fate: Pelosi killed it. Instead, she brought to the floor a vote on a similarly named bill which only provided for further study. That's not a bad return on investment for Visa since it cost Visa nothing to let Pelosi ride along on their IPO.
Other IPOs in which Pelosi made money include Gupta (88% profit in two days), Netscape and UUNet (100% profit in one day), Remedy Corp., Opal, Legato Systems, Act Networks, etc. In 2007, Pelosi put $100,000 in an IPO with natural gas company Clean Energy Fuels and $500,000 in an IPO for natural gas company Quest Energy Partners. Then she started pushing natural gas bills in Congress. Tom Brokaw actually asked her if she had made significant personal investments in natural gas companies and if this represented a conflict of interest and she dodged the question.
But this is nothing new for Democrats. In just the last couple years:● Pelosi got special treatment for donor Kaiser Permanente under ObamaCare.
Of course, the MSM has long ignored all of this. So why report the Pelosi story now? Could the MSM be about to become honest about exposing Democratic corruption? Or did Pelosi just cross some secret line?
● Democrat Max Baucus, who made his girlfriend the US Attorney for Montana, apparently made the same kinds of insider trades Pelosi did.
● Democrats Jim Moran, Peter Visclosky, and John Murtha directed $137 million in defense contracts to clients of a lobbyist who funneled more than $380,000 in illegal campaign contributions to them.
● Democrat Chris Dodd, who wrote banking regulation legislation, got sweetheart loans from the banks that would have been effected.
● Pelosi budget supercommittee appointee Xavier Becerra, sent out a fundraising letter to the companies whose programs he could now cut.
● The Congress Black Caucus has been particular good at illegally giving federal money to their friends and family, see e.g. Democrats Sanford Bishop and Eddie Bernice Johnson (scholarships to relatives), Charlie Rangel (tax breaks to donors) and Maxine Waters (money to relatives’ banks).
● As a Senator, Democrat Joe Biden, who was basically owned by MBNA worked to make credit card debt harder to discharge in bankruptcy.
● Democrat Obama gave the Treasury to Goldman Sachs and GM to his union friends. His donors at GE had record profits yet paid no taxes. GE also gets waivers from Obama for laws they’ve lobbied for. Of course, Obama also gave thousands of Obamacare waivers to donors.
● It’s getting increasingly obvious Obama steered $535 million in taxpayer dollars to big-time Obama donor ($100k) and “green-jobs” showpiece Solyndra as it was failing.
● Democrat Jon Corzine managed to “lose” $700 million in client money when his new company, MF Global went belly up. . . after donating $500,000 to Obama’s reelection.
How about this: this information was first uncovered by the Heritage Foundation. They were, in fact, writing a book about it. I suspect 60 Minutes realized this information would reach the public, no matter how hard the MSM tried to ignore it because Pelosi has such a high profile. Rather than let this blow up during the election and hurt all Democrats, 60 Minutes chose to cover this now, during the silly season where little is happening in Washington and the public is preparing for the coming holidays, i.e. 60 Minutes wants to defuse this now.
If I’m wrong, then 60 Minutes will follow up on this and attempt to get Pelosi to disgorge the profits and/or resign from Congress. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
What do you think is going on?
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
60 Minutes Outs Pelosi
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48 comments:
It does piss me off, for sure. She is the 1%. I remember a situation where she did something (probably with porkulus funds) for Starkist Tuna where her husband has a vested interest.
Apparently, a lot of this broke through our old friend lobbyist, and influence peddler, Jack Abramhoff. Of course the initial examples served up by the media were three out of four Republicans in an attempt to make it seem like a "Republican" scandal. I think I read that the actual percent is about 70% in favor of the Democrats.
As Jed points out, they also tried to cover the Dems' tracks by implying it was mostly Republicans involved. That helps protect San Fran Nan.
Compare this with the CNN reporter yesterday who asked Obama, in regard to some of our candidates at the debate denying that waterboarding is torture, "Mr. President, are they misinformed or just not paying attention?" I guess the media's just not even bothering to look impartial anymore.
Excellent article Andrew! This is corruption at its worst.
Jed, If we detailed her career, you would be stunned how much of her career has been based on making money for herself. She is perhaps the most corrupt Speaker since the Gilded Age... yet the media has conveniently always ignored it.
And you're right that the media casts about looking for Republicans. Even in this case, they are equating John Boehner with Pelosi even though the allegations against him are just "buying healthcare stocks before the public option was voted down."
First, there is no evidence of inside influence there, his purchases were on the market -- they weren't sweetheart deals. Secondly, he was in the minority and thus powerless to affect change. Third, his purchases are consistent with his rhetoric and beliefs.
What Pelosi has done is accept a bribe. And 60 Minutes and the rest are actually trying to soften that by claiming "everybody does it."
I'm with Jed, this pisses me off. How can she get away with making millions of dollars trading favors for cash and yet she's still allowed in the Congress? They go after Congressmen for small, stupid things like accepting gold clubs but ignore this?
I don't disagree with anything said, but I want to add that the Legacy Media seems to have learned that throwing an occasional bone to conservatives is worth a few ratings points. "See, we're not biased!" And the less-savvy lap it up.
And that is why they only pick up on stories that the New Media has dug up rather than trying to scoop the internet.
Yeah, let a nobody like Martha Stewart try this and see what happens! Oh wait...
(eyeroll)
Actually, I am holding my breath now that it's out. And I would find it so super-sweet-with-a-cherry-and-hot-fudge-on-top if it ended up being 60 Minutes that brought Pelosi down. Mmmmmmmmmmm...
Hey, a girl can dream, right?
sorry -- "golf clubs" not "gold"
T-Rav, I heard that. It's insane how biased the media is. Seriously, if I was going to write a book about a corrupt regime and fill it with a sycophant press... and I simply wrote our press as they currently are (even using real life example), people would claim that I was "way over the top" in writing my fake media because "no one is really like that."
On the Republican thing, of course they're trying to claim Republicans do it because it’s best to have people upset at "Congress" rather than Democrats. In fact, most of the scandals in my life have always been "Congressional" scandals when it's all Democrats because they've always found a way to rope in a single Republican somewhere at the edges – even if they have to make false allegations to make that happen. Of course, if the majority are Republicans then it becomes a “Republican” scandal without mention of any Democrats, even if the numbers are 5-4.
DUQ, It's a bribe pure and simple and it's been going on with Pelosi her whole career. And it goes on with others too. It's no coincidence that everyone in Congress is rich.
I have said before and I repeat it now, the parallels between now and the first Gilded Age are incredible. We are literally reliving that era right now.
Ed, Because she's very good at following the letter of the law. She knows exactly how to avoid getting roped into the ethics rules.
For example, she took absolutely no money here. So that makes it very hard to trace a true bribe. Instead, she was simply allowed to participate in a "risky venture," even though 90% of all IPOs go up immediately because they're underpriced to attract interest.
They can still go after her for the favor, but it's hard to do when there isn't a direct connection, when this isn't a prohibited type of favor, and when she can credibly argue no promises of gain were made.
Oh, and by the way, has anyone EVER managed to figure out what vineyards the Pineapple Princess sells her grapes to? I still shudder to think that my evening glass of wine may be helping her. Ugh.
tryanmax, I think that's absolutely true. Look at what this achieves:
1. They get to run this story at a time of their own choosing -- safely far away from any election or leadership votes.
2. They create just enough of an appearance that they will go after anyone so the public at large is placated to thinking that they are indeed unbiased.
3. They might even have a political purpose here. Maybe they know Pelosi is toxic and they don't like what she does to the party. So here is their chance to take her down and replace her with a Democrat more to their liking, and in the process they get to appear non-partisan when they are really fighting an intra-party civil war.
4. They get to defuse OWS by appearing to be watchdogs against the corrupt practices of big business, even as they are doing the job of those same businesses -- the owners of the media.
5. The real target may be Boehner or some other key Republican they think they have and they are just building up Republican anger before unleashing those allegations -- knowing the Dems will never take down their own, but the Repubs will.
6. This could be an attempt to stop the new (seemingly permanent majority), i.e. the Republicans, from doing the same thing. It's incredible how these scandals always get revealed once the only people who can benefit from the continuing conduct are Republicans.
tryanmax, That's another angle too -- that they are only picking up on the stories they absolutely have to, and those are the ones that have legs in the new media. In fact, I'm amazed how often they will credit one of the big papers or networks with "breaking a story" which has been all over the blogs and conservative journals for weeks.
Andrew, It still seems like this is exactly the sort of thing they should be investigating!
Crispy, You can dream, but that's all it is. I doubt this will do anything to Pelosi. She may eventually be censured, but that ultimate means nothing. It's like putting a black mark in your school record which no one will ever open again.
Still, it is a great thought that Pelosi might be forced out in humiliating fashion. (Of course, jail would be even better, but that's not happening.)
Then we can hope the Supremes overturn Obamacare as a parting gift for her, and her legacy will be destroyed.
Ed, I got you. Nobody uses gold golf clubs... even Goldfinger!
Crispy, No and I find that frustrating. It's like they know what this will do to their sales, so no one will mention that they get their grapes from her.... it's like admitting you're buying from a slave labor factory.
Ed, I agree. This is absolutely the sort of thing they should be investigating. And I hope they will. But asking Congress to investigate itself is a joke. Self-regulation of these types of bodies simply doesn't work.
Andrew: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Pelosi has been doing this kind of thing her entire career. Closer to my new home, we have poverty-advocate black race-baiter Maxine Waters feathering her husband's bank nest. And the MSM assists by picking and choosing not only what to report, but when it is most advantageous to their Democrat buddies to report it. Obama will possibly raise $1 billion for his campaign, but what about the $2 billion he doesn't have to raise because the MSM will give him that much free publicity and cover? Somehow, I don't think these advocates for the underdog take their vows of poverty very seriously.
Lawhawk, Isn't that the truth. We would need a "corruptopedia" if we were going to detail all of the corruption and profiteering the Democrats do, and yet the MSM ignores all of it.
And you're right about all the free publicity people like Obama/Pelosi/Reid get. If the media was fair, then it wouldn't be a problem. But they aren't fair. They are advocates and that turns this from media coverage into campaign commercials.
Oh, hey Andrew, on ObamaCare, do you think Kagan should recuse herself?
I have this horrible fear that Thomas will be all gentlemanly and honorable and recuse himself, but of course she won't. Argh!
Princess Nancy is indeed a corrupt, evil, manipulating witch, whose only concern is, what’s in it for me? I know it’s redundant, but if this were in the private sector, you’d have the SEC so far up your rump, you wouldn’t know if you were spitting, or whistling Dixie (I used a Southern colloquialism as not to become profane). I firmly believe along with firing as many of these corrupt bastards that we can in 2012, there also needs to be criminal prosecutions in some cases, too drive the point home.
“According to 28 USC 455, a Supreme Court justice must recuse from “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The law also says a justice must recuse anytime he has “expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy” while he “served in governmental employment.”
Question: This would seem to preclude Elaina Kagan from hearing Barrycare at the Supreme Court?
Great minds, Stan! LOL!
Well Andrew??
By the way, Pelosi is now calling this story "right-wing propaganda" even though 60 Minutes claims they independently verified the whole thing.
Also, Newsweek now has an article on this in which they are describing how Visa "courted" Pelosi. They used 14 lobbying firms, they hired some of her people away, the "just happened to bump into her on the street," they hired her bank to do the sale, and they called her husband with the offer. This is the classic picture of a bribe! I recommend reading this: here's a yahoo link to the story: LINK.
If the MSM is turning on her with full throat, she may be finished. Interesting times!
Crispy, I know the fear of which you speak, but I doubt Thomas will recuse himself. The rules of judicial ethics simply don't require you to recuse yourself if a family member works for an industry that will be affected.
But Kagan should.
She was involved in this decision at the White House and that is the CLASSIC reason to recuse herself. If she doesn't, then she is deserves no respect as a jurist. In fact, Congress should vote to impeach or censure her at that point.
Stan, Your colloquialism made me laugh! Bravo!
I concur. If this was anyone except an important democratic politician, this person would have been arrested for bribery or graft. But since it's Princess Nancy, it's been ignored until now. Hopefully, that's about to change. Hopefully, the Congress will take this up and toss her out and hopefully some prosecutor somewhere outside her district will take a look at this being graft.
On Kagan, you're 100% right -- she needs to recuse herself or she should be investigated and possibly impeached. (See my answer to Crispy above).
Crispy, See my answer above. :)
On you and Stan having the same question, obviously this is an interesting issue at the moment -- especially with ObamaCare to be decided right before the election (decision likely in July).
Talk about a critical turning point moment for our country!
Andrew, After hearing all week how Herman Cain was finished, Bloomberg has an Iowa poll showing a four-way tie (Romney, Paul, Cain and Gingrich), with Cain in the lead!
DUQ, The new meme all over the place today is "it's time for conservatives to give up and fall in line with Romney because all the other alternatives have burned out"....
... despite the fact Cain's "collapse" has him equal with Romney.
... despite the fact we don't know how far Gingrich's rise will take him and it's already brought him equal to Romney.
Does something strike you wrong about that?
What are the chances she could be impeached if she didn't recuse herself?
Good question Ed. Truthfully, I'd say they are low unless she is the deciding vote and there's clear evidence which even the public will see of her wanting to push this law whether or not it will stand up to legal scrutiny, and the public then delivers a body blow to the Democrats in November. I would say if any of those parts is missing, then it won't happen.
I didn't realize that Sup Ct justices could even be impeached. Interesting. I do, however, have doubts that anyone would actually do it. *sigh*
And PS - I'm still firmly in the GO CAIN GO!! camp! :) He's my man and I'm hanging in there for him.
Crispy, That's the only way to get rid of a Supreme unless they step down themselves (or die). And when it comes to that, it's the same rules as with Presidents -- they can be impeached for high crimes.... there are no real guidelines.
I personally doubt the Republicans would do it, and I'm not even sure it would make sense, unless the public really rose up in a backlash and something truly damning came out about her role -- like she wrote a memo saying "this isn't legal, but once it's in place it will be too hard to undo." But barring that, I doubt anyone would (or should) try it.
On Cain, I think they've stopped his momentum and cost him a couple percentage points, but the scandal appears entirely dead. With no actual substantive allegations ever being made, nothing new coming out, and even the accusers afraid to do their joint press conference, I think it's finished. If that's the case, then Cain has plenty of time to recover. He just needs to stop giving the neocons ammunition to use against him in the foreign policy area.
Now would be a good time for him to release more reform plans in areas like education and repeal of regulations.
Pelosi deserves jail time.
Short and to the point. I like that Doc!
"He just needs to stop giving the neocons ammunition to use against him in the foreign policy area. Now would be a good time for him to release more reform plans in areas like education and repeal of regulations."
Also well said, Andrew!
This just in....
NYPD has cleared out Zuccotti Park of the OWS clowns.
Bloomberg is taking credit, saying the OWS camp had become a criminal camp and a health concern.
Here's a link: LINK
Thanks Crispy! I think that's true. When he's on message he's doing fine. But he keeps getting tangled up in his own verbal gaffes and that's feeding his opponents.
It's about time they drove of the OWS Animal Farmers. While I enjoyed the show, you really had to feel bad for people who lived and worked in that area.
Ed, I agree. I love having them as an example of how disastrous the left really is, but it was rather nasty to let them abuse the locals.
Crispy, Kagan of course will not recuse herself, but I have a feeling Thomas won't either. He knows full well what's at stake here.
Andrew, good point about Pelosi being the Gilded Age redux. Too bad it'll remain buried.
T-Rav, It's not just Pelosi. It starts around Clinton and has continued unabated -- all of them (left and right) are re-enacting the entire Gilded Age right down to the stock market manipulation and the (re)birth of a socialist movement. Heck, there's even a second railroad boom!
It would make for a fascinating article except it would probably take weeks to really research it.
Andrew
If I am not mistaken isn't Pelosi's husband an investor in Solyndra.
I guess she is just keeping it $$Green$$. Huh!
Indi, I missed that, but it wouldn't surprise me... not one bit.
Keeping it gr$$n indeed!
Excellent summary and point about the timing. Sadly, doesn't matter when they cover it, as any support for exposing the truth will ultimately get spun into charges of racism.
Middle-age cynicism. I love getting older ...
Eric, That's the problem with the MSM being in the tank for leftists -- even making the allegations is often attacked as somehow being racist or sexist or whatever.
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