This weekend in ‘Shameless Vultures’: crooks, cons, and the Wall Street Journal

(Image from chuckypita.com)

Happy weekend, everyone. It may only be Saturday, but a kettle of vultures is already circling above the heads of Americans. Here are a few highlights of shameless crooks, cons, and the Wall Street Journal.

While the economy was collapsing, the government was busy throwing billions of dollars at their buddies responsible for the chaos, and you contemplated if you would have to kill the family dog and eat it to live, members of the House Financial Services Committee were cashing in on the action.

Anticipating bargains or profits or just trying to unload before the bottom fell out, these members of the House Financial Services Committee or brokers on their behalf were buying and selling stocks including Bank of America and Citigroup — some of the very corporations their committee would later rap for greed, a Plain Dealer examination of congressional stock market transactions shows.

You’re welcome, taxpayers. The list of representatives (originally posted on Cleveland.com’s Metro) include:

– Charlie Wilson (D-OH): Managed to stop crying for Americans long enough to make his stock trades on the same day the banks were getting a government bailout. Wilson sold between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of Huntington Bancshares stock on the same day Huntington got $1.4 billion in TARP bailout.

– Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL): Bought Citigroup stock valued between $1,001 and $15,000 the day before the House passed the financial rescue bill and President Bush signed it into law, records show. She opposed the bill. Eleven days later, she bought $1,001 to $15,000 worth of Bank of America stock on the same day that Paulson told leading banks that they would have to accept billions in bailout money to prevent a financial meltdown. Brown-Waite now works for the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

– Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY): took a novel approach and blamed everything on her account managers. McCarthy purchased a $2,275 bailout recipient J.P. Morgan Chase while Congress was still writing its rescue bill.

–  Jackie Speier (D-CA):  bought up to $15,000 in Citigroup stock 10 days after the bank got a $25 billion bailout.  Her office says the report was filed in error, the transaction should have been listed as her husband’s (Speier apparently doesn’t share money with her husband,) and she wants us all to know that she wishes he had not made it.

– Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV): Capito’s stockbroker husband sold more than $100,000 in Citigroup stock in several transactions late last year. His brokerage firm was owned by Citigroup and his compensation included Citigroup stock. A Capito spokesman said the House Ethics Committee gave her verbal approval to join the committee despite her husband’s job.

– Judith Biggert (R-IL): Also from the magnanimous House Ethics Committee, and another lady whose husband landed her in hot water when he sold Wells Fargo stock while Congress was helping to shape the rescue bill. Biggert said she does not discuss stock transactions with her spouse, and asked the press if it was still 1956. (I made that last part up.)

Meanwhile, Huffington Post’s Sam Stein  reports that from 2000 through 2008 the top 20 most active health care companies sponsored 192 trips worth more than $380,000 for dozens of politicians and staff. The list of health care companies includes Pfizer, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, and Merck & Co.

Politicians were privy to trips to a variety of exotic locations, including San Juan, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. Croix, the Virgin Islands, Belgium, Brazil, Rome, Las Vegas, Miami, Park City, San Diego, and — why not? — Utah.

 Stein goes on to list specific offenders:

– Orrin Hatch (R-UT): GlaxoSmithKline flew Hatch (R-Utah) to Houston, Texas, so that he could attend and speak at a company retreat. The flight for that one-day trip cost a total of $1,048. Although the records don’t specify, the tab seems to suggest that Hatch traveled via company jet, perhaps with company executives in tow.

– Eric Cantor (R-VA): Sent a staffer, Colleen Maloney, on a two-day trip to San Francisco for what was listed as a “facilities tour.” The sponsor of that trip, PhRMA, spent $2,673 on her flight. Later that year, Maloney, who has since left the office, took a three-day trip to San Diego sponsored by the Healthcare Leadership Council, in which she racked up a $1,690 bill for meal expenses.

– Ben Nelson (D-NE): Ben Nelson, the man who publicly said the public option is a “deal-breaker” because it would hurt private insurers, sent his staffers on a three-day trip to Puerto Rico that was sponsored by the Federation of American Hospitals, a coalition of investor-owned or managed community hospitals that has pledged to reduce costs associated with care but also expressed concerns with Obama’s proposals. The $535 transportation bill for that trip was dwarfed by the cost incurred for lodging expenses — $1,145.

– Max Baucus (D-MT):  Took a three-day trip in 2001 to Las Vegas, Nevada, that was sponsored by the pharmaceutical company Merck-Medco. The cost of that “facility visit” was $3,148, including $1,827 for transportation expenses. His aides took 35 trips sponsored by health care-related organizations — the majority nonprofit groups — at a cost of more than $30,000 from 2000 through 2008. None, it should be noted, came before Baucus took over the role of Finance Committee chairman. One of his aides on healthcare issues, Elizabeth Fowler, took seven of those trips at a cost of more than $8,600. Some were sponsored by non-profits, others not. In 2008, Fowler returned to the office to serve as senior counsel to the Finance Committee after it became clear that Congress would be considering health care and Baucus would be assuming a leading role. In between she held a job with Wellpoint, the nation’s second-largest health insurance and HMO Company.

– Mike Enzi (R-WY): Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee — was treated to 14 trips, at a total cost of more than $13,000. Some seemed clearly educational, such as an expedition to India sponsored by the Global Health Council to discuss care in those countries. Others, however, were paid for by companies who stand to benefit from legislation, like the Cook Group, the Medical Device Manufacturers Association and the Healthcare Leadership Council.

Not to be outdone, the Wall Street Journal editorial board dabbed glycerine in their eyes and wept some fake tears for the people of Iran. Of course, this sudden show of solidarity is really a badly disguised imperialist agenda, and the WSJ goes on to ponder how America can exploit the instability in Iran for leverage over the autonomous government.

The WSJ article opens with a brief recap of the Polish trade union shipyard strike in the 1980s. President Carter, the WSJ explains, adopted a “cautious approach toward Solidarity.” As opposed to what? Rushing across the border to claim Poland as Americaland II at the first hint of instability? The whole idea of solidarity is to express unification without undermining the desires of the repressed. Solidarity isn’t a vehicle for an imperialist agenda.

Of course, the WSJ never says what the desired “end game” is, but let’s just assume they mean invasion. Neo-Conservatives seem to be capable of only working on one of two speeds: bomb stuff or fuck the poor. And with CIA spies already on the ground in Iran, the US government may be well on their way toward fulfilling the WSJ editors’ every wish and desire. 

And that’s your Saturday in Shameless Vultures.