The US Rep for my district is Josh Riley (D). He "defeated" a RINO rep 2 years ago on "I'll lower your electric bill." It never happened, the electric bills are still outrageously high ($371 now while I'm not even using heat) and that fkhead is campaigning with the same slogan now in his re-election campaign!

"I'll never stop fighting the electric companies until your bills are back to normal!"

I found out that he owns stock in the local power company's parent company, which is probably just a coincidence, but in reality: helping us lower our electric bills is actually bad for Josh Riley's personal investments.

This year's elections will indicate how smart people in my district are.

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Aaron Thomas wrote to All <=-

The US Rep for my district is Josh Riley (D). He "defeated" a RINO rep
2 years ago on "I'll lower your electric bill." It never happened, the electric bills are still outrageously high ($371 now while I'm not even using heat)

The Leftie policies ALWAYS have the opposite impact of what they claim.

and that fkhead is campaigning with the same slogan now in
his re-election campaign!

"I'll never stop fighting the electric companies until your bills are
back to normal!"

Hey, it worked for him before. And the Elitists think voters are stupid. So why pay for a new slogan?

I found out that he owns stock in the local power company's parent company, which is probably just a coincidence, but in reality:

I smell Conflict of Interest here. He should not own stock in a company he regulates.

This year's elections will indicate how smart people in my district
are.

Or how strong the voter fraud machines are.


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Hey, it worked for him before. And the Elitists think voters are
stupid. So why pay for a new slogan?

But when it's a leftist spending other peoples' money, no price is too high.

I found out that he owns stock in the local power company's parent company, which is probably just a coincidence, but in reality:

I smell Conflict of Interest here. He should not own stock in a company he regulates.

Wasn't there a proposed law to make it illegal for congress members to trade stocks at all?

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Aaron Thomas wrote to Dr. What <=-

But when it's a leftist spending other peoples' money, no price is too high.

To paraphrase the old saying: Nothing is too expensive for the person who doesn't have to pay for it himself.

Wasn't there a proposed law to make it illegal for congress members to trade stocks at all?

I heard about that, but I don't think it went anywhere.

It would be hard to enforce. They could simply turn their stocks over to a third party, for example, to "hold" for them while in Congress, then give them signals of when to buy and sell based on their insider knowledge. Then when they leave, they get the stocks and money back.

That would follow the letter of the law, but bypass the intent.


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Aaron Thomas wrote to Dr. What <=-

In that case it's probably better to screen candidates for stock
ownership before voting for them. Not because investing is bad, but
becaue it almost guarantees to have an impact on the elected official's behavior.

There's an old saying "Anyone who would spend that much time and money to get elected should never be allowed to be in office."

The simple act of screening like you describe would weed out good people and simply make the bad people hide stuff better.

I remember applying at Chrysler a long time ago. To park in their main parking lots, they required you to drive a Chrysler product. If you drove something else, they had another lot for you, but it was much further away. I understand their idea, but would you sell your current good car, to buy a car you don't need (with another car payment), just to work there? Too many people said "nope".

I think good independent audits and harsh punishments will work best.

I'm still waiting to see an audit of how certain members of Congress became millionaires while never working.


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I think good independent audits and harsh punishments will work best.

That seems to be the right way, but they all need to be audited.

I'm still waiting to see an audit of how certain members of Congress became millionaires while never working.

This is why I'd say that all of them should be screened. They have no job (most of them) to begin with, they become members of congress, and suddenly they have gold bars from Egypt in the closet.

If a member of congress takes a second job as a bus driver while serving, that's fine, or if they want to buy lottery tickets that's fine too, but it's not fine to trade stocks. They become "insiders" as soon as they attend their first closed session.

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Aaron Thomas wrote to Dr. What <=-

This is why I'd say that all of them should be screened. They have no
job (most of them) to begin with, they become members of congress, and suddenly they have gold bars from Egypt in the closet.

Exactly. The math doesn't math and needs to be investigated.

My wife and I were talking last night on this topic.

Let's assume that as we are walking we find a sack of old bills (so serial numbers not record) that was dropped from an armored car and that there was $1mil in cash there. What could you do with it?

Well, if you were to put it directly into the bank, alarms would go off and they would start asking questions.

My wife asked about my car that I just bought (for cash). I told her that there was a paper trail. The check came from my bank. My bank had records of me putting the money away for years, etc. There would certainly be a check, but everything would have a trail.

Now compare that to a member of Congress. I'm sure there were alarms, but why was there no investigation like there would be for a regular person? Back to our Two-Tiered System of Justice.

If a member of congress takes a second job as a bus driver while
serving, that's fine, or if they want to buy lottery tickets that's
fine too,

Right. But for all those, there's a paper trail. You can see the money going from legitimate place to legitimate place. No money just appearing mysteriously.

but it's not fine to trade stocks. They become "insiders" as
soon as they attend their first closed session.

IHMO: I think the stock trades is only a small part. To make big money on stocks you need 2 things: Money to invest and knowledge (in this case insider knowledge). Where did they get the money to invest in the first place?

And the insider knowledge is harder to block. But can still be proven.


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that there was a paper trail. The check came from my bank. My bank had records of me putting the money away for years, etc. There would certainly be a check, but everything would have a trail.

Now compare that to a member of Congress. I'm sure there were alarms,
but why was there no investigation like there would be for a regular person? Back to our Two-Tiered System of Justice.

You're right that the stock trading is a small piece of the puzzle, and it could possibly be a dead end for investigation. Congress members aren't bribed with shares, so the focus needs to be on other things. We need the DOJ to do detective work to figure out who would want to bribe them, and we need them to monitor their communications. Bob Menendez is proof that congress
members can't be trusted without surveillance. (Oaths are for suckers.)

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Aaron Thomas wrote to Dr. What <=-

You're right that the stock trading is a small piece of the puzzle, and
it could possibly be a dead end for investigation. Congress members
aren't bribed with shares, so the focus needs to be on other things. We need the DOJ to do detective work to figure out who would want to bribe them, and we need them to monitor their communications. Bob Menendez is proof that congress members can't be trusted without surveillance.
(Oaths are for suckers.)

On one hand, we should monitor their communications all the time. And, according to the law, we do. But as we found with
Hillary and her "personal" servers and phones, there are easy ways around those rules.

IHMO: A financial audit of every congress-critter while in office and at random years AFTER office would find a good amount of fraud. And if we make the penalty high enough, people won't do it. Fining someone who got $1,000,000 fraudlently only $10,000 is just taxes. Fining that person $4,000,000 will hurt enough to make sure that they never do it again.

Remember, the Golden Age of Piracy (Think Long John Silver) ended because the odds of getting caught went way up, and the penalties were severe.


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On one hand, we should monitor their communications all the time. And, according to the law, we do. But as we found with
Hillary and her "personal" servers and phones, there are easy ways
around those rules.

It's easy to get around now, but that's why we need more regulation.

We especially needed it when Biden was president. What does an 80 year old from Delaware want tens of millions of undocumented migrants for? Something. If he
were monitored more closely we wouldn't have to hypothesize about it.

Regular people are monitored at work all the time. Casino cashiers are under constant surveillance, drivers have speed detection systems. Teachers, nurses,
and cops can't hit the like button on a Trump post on social media. But there's no such thing for elected officials, and that's not fair.

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