Congressional Insider Trading Finally Might Become Illegal

Looks like your U.S. senators may soon be voting on a measure that would make it illegal for them to use their voting powers to influence the financial fortunes of companies for which they are stockholders. Hmmmm… Interesting.

In other news,  your U.S. senators are currently totally allowed to use their voting powers to influence the financial fortunes of companies for which they are stockholders…

Senator Brown tells [the Washington Post's Greg Sargent] he is introducing a measure in the Senate today that would require all Senators to divest themselves of any stocks in companies that are impacted by their actions as a Senator…

"Members of the House and Senate should not be voting on issues that affect their financial investments," Brown told [Sargent]. "We have the privilege of holding these jobs. There should be no perception that we're benefitting. We need to show the public we mean business."

This seems like a no-brainer, right? I mean, what kind of shameless self-serving tool of corporate America would even lift their pinky and risk looking like they're trying to obstruct such an undeniably reasonable and necessary law?

Late last year, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) effectively halted Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus's (R-Ala.) plans to move the measure through his panel… And even though Bachus wanted to move forward with a markup, a majority of Republicans on his panel have not formally backed the measure.

Oh, right.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Eric Cantor, Money, Senate, Sherrod Brown, STOCK Act

From the Pork Barrel: Delicious Santorum!

* Rick Santorum promises a more homogenous white-ish society for all (except most)!

* Santorum got a salad named in his honor at an Iowa restaurant. The Awful Human Being Chicken & Mayo Salad promises to be a big hit with hungry voters.

* Ron Paul has a super-secret hush-hush clandestine plan to win the GOP primaries. BuzzFeed has all the details!

* Eric Cantor comes face to face with the horrifying truth about Ronald Reagan, blinks.

* Fuckin' presidents! How do they work?!

Tags: BuzzFeed, Eric Cantor, Food, Primaries, Racism, Republicans, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Ronald Reagan

Our Comedy Central #OccupyWallStreet Moments So Far

So many adorable little moments we've had poking fun at our capitalist overlords, and the middle-class white kids who are no doubt hours away from fundamentally altering American politics and economics for the better.

Here, the kids of South Park get a first-hand lesson in the tyranny of the dreaded 1%.

Get more on Twitter: @SouthPark

Watch related clips from The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Workaholics, and more after the jump.

South Park airs Wednesdays at 10:00/9:00c.

Read More »

Tags: Colbert Super PAC, Comedians, Dick Armey, Eric Cantor, Halloween, Jon Stewart, Occupy Wall Street, Protesters, South Park, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Video, Workaholics

Large Businesses Already Dressing Up for Halloween as Small Government Contractors

This is pretty nitty gritty, so stay with me: A three-percent withholding tax on U.S. government contracts became law back in 2006. It was supposed to come into effect in 2011, but 2009 stimulus bill delayed it to 2012. The withholding tax was created to "encourage businesses hired by governments to comply with tax law." And here I thought laws were supposed to encourage businesses to comply with laws.

It just so happens the only part of the Obama jobs plan Eric Cantor supports is repealing the three percent withholding tax…

The House will vote this month on repeal of a 3 percent withholding tax on U.S. government contracts as Republicans seek "areas of commonality" with President Obama on ways to jump-start the economy, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said…

Cantor said "you will see as the bill comes forward" how the repeal would make up the lost revenue.

The three percent withholding tax is very controversial and it would cost billions of dollars to implement. One of the major arguments for repealing the tax is small businesses would have to "pay relatively more to comply with the withholding requirement."

And who isn't a fan of small businesses? Mom and Pop contractors are my favorite kind of contractors, with their home-spun wisdom and platefuls upon platefuls of Werther's originals! Without a doubt though, my favorite thing about Mom and Pop contractors is how they are sometimes just fronts for large corporations…

Small government contractors often violate regulations by passing on most of the work and profits to large businesses, a practice that crowds out legitimate small businesses from the federal market, according to a House oversight panel Thursday.

This doesn't mean the three percent tax shouldn't be repealed. The ideal fate of the three percent tax is a very complicated matter. This just serves a reminder that we are living in a world built on confusing lies. Like in The Matrix! FUN!

Photo by Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images

Tags: Barack Obama, Eric Cantor, House of Representatives, Unemployment

Government Shutdown Looms Over Emergency Aid Funding Dispute

With DC Fashion Week wrapping up yesterday, and Congress back in session, one thing is clear: federal government shutdowns are the new black. This time, the dysfunction is caused by disagreement over how to replenish the coffers of FEMA, whose resources have been stretched thin by God's anger/an active hurricane season…

The Senate is scheduled to vote Monday on a Democratic-sponsored measure to provide $3.65 billion to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which administers the disaster fund. But the bill is expected to fail because it does not include spending cuts demanded by Republicans.

Lawmakers expressed hope Sunday that they could reach a bipartisan agreement rather than face a repeat of the rancorous summer battle over raising the nation's debt ceiling. But negotiations are likely to continue until the 11th hour.

Since "Government Shuts-down Due to [Whatever]" is going to be an exciting fill-in-the-headline game for months to come, here's a handy guide to the latest edition of Why We Can't Have Nice Things:

How did the latest crisis begin? As Michele Bachmann jocularly explained, God sent a hurricane barreling along the Eastern seaboard as punishment for profligate government spending. Democrats responded by trying to authorize even more spending, so that FEMA could provide emergency relief to affected families while also supporting fire-ravaged Texas and tornado-tossed Missouri. To which House Majority Leader Eric Cantor responded, why would we want to further anger the Lord when we could offset emergency spending with cuts to Democratic priorities? And so Congress did its usual awesome job of doing nothing.

But Members of Congress are going to resolve this like adults, yes? You are hilarious! Senators Mark Warner and Lamar Alexander, help us set that special tone of hand-wringing about civility followed by childish recriminations…

Two veteran senators agreed Sunday morning that the latest budget standoff in Congress is not what the country needs, but the Democrat and Republican each made sure to point out that the potential government shutdown was the other party's fault…

To blame, in Warner's view: "A small group within the House, the Tea Party crowd."

Not quite, according to Alexander. "I'll give the Senate Democratic leader most of the credit," Alexander said. "He manufactured a crisis all week about disaster when there's no crisis."

So federal employees are going to be furloughed over what amounts to a rounding error in the budget? Maybe. A more likely possibility involves the Obama Administration using creative accounting to keep FEMA functioning through the end of this week, forestalling the crisis. Alternatively, enough Democrats or Republicans could cross party-lines to adopt a continuing resolution that would keep the government funded. For a month and a half.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Democrats, Eric Cantor, FEMA, House of Representatives, Lamar Alexander, Mark Warner, Natural Disasters, Republicans, Senate