lawmakers

These Tea Party congressmen. They are nothing but common people, just like you and me. Right?

One-fifth of the 50 richest members of Congress are freshman House Republicans sent to Washington last year with strong Tea Party support, according to The Hill’s 50 Wealthiest for 2011.

Ohio’s Rep. Jim Renacci, the wealthiest of the 87 freshman Republicans elected in 2010, has an estimated net worth of $35.9 million and is the 11th richest lawmaker in Congress, according to The Hill’s list.

Like Reps. Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.), and Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), who are also numbered among the most wealthy 50 lawmakers in Congress, Renacci had a successful business career before entering Congress.

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Two other new members of the rich list, Reps. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and Scott Rigell (R-Va.), made their fortunes with car dealerships. Kelly’s estimated wealth is $11.9 million, while Rigell’s is $10.7 million.

Ah yes, I feel like such a common man, much like these tea party people. Now excuse me while I bath myself in my millions!

One of the long known goals of Osama bin Laden was to financially break the United States:

A key facet of bin Laden's anti-American warfare has always been economic. It's a lesson he drew from the Afghan-Soviet war, in which he first served as a financier of mujahidin efforts and then as a fighter. He watched the Soviet Union withdraw from Afghanistan in defeat and then dissolve altogether in 1991. Bin Laden asserted on multiple occasions that the mujahidin were responsible for destroying the Soviet empire. Whether or not he's right, he clearly believed that the high costs imposed by the Afghan-Soviet war prevented the Soviet Union from adapting to other challenges, such as grain shortages and a collapse in world oil prices.

When you consider the hundreds of billions we spend every year in defense, including a large chunk of money just for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and couple that with our dwindling economy, we can see this is one goal he might achieve, though he didn't live to see it.

Thinking of that makes stories like this all the more infuriating:

Hard-charging Republicans who rallied voters last year with cries of "Stop the spending, ban the earmarks" are quietly offering a more familiar Washington refrain now they're in Congress – not in my backyard.

Yesterday, while speaking at a college in Virginia, President Obama laid the blame of high oil prices at the feet of speculators:

Obama said that global oil supply is adequate and that speculators are driving up prices significantly.

"It is true that a lot of what's driving oil prices up right now is not the lack of supply. There's enough supply. There's enough oil out there for world demand," Obama said.

"The problem is ... speculators and people make various bets, and they say, you know what, we think that maybe there's a 20 percent chance that something might happen in the Middle East that might disrupt oil supply, so we're going to bet that oil is going to go up real high. And that spikes up prices significantly."

Obama's comments echoed those of members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which insists that markets are well supplied and that speculation drove oil to $127 a barrel for Brent crude and $113 a barrel for U.S. crude earlier this month.

Saudi Arabia said earlier this week that markets were actually oversupplied, forcing it to cut production by 800,000 barrels per day in March to counter slowing demand -- a strong signal the cartel would not act to quell soaring prices.

There has been a lot of talk that President Obama might be open to some sort of deal to cut Social Security benefits. Well that is a very bad idea:

President Barack Obama's apparent willingness to consider cuts in Social Security benefits may be winning him points with Washington elites, but it's killing him with voters, who see the program as inviolate and may start to wonder what the Democratic Party stands for, if not for Social Security.

That's the conclusion of three top progressive pollsters who spoke to reporters Wednesday at a briefing sponsored by the Economic Policy Institute, the Century Foundation and Demos.

Even more interesting is that the poll is finding the public not trusting the Democrats on Social Security as much as they did before, while the trust in Republicans is on the rise. During that time frame we saw Republicans going out to the angry town halls and saying that they would not touch Social Security. Of course those of us who really follow politics know that is far from the truth. This was just another example of “snake oil salesman” tactics by the GOP.

So hopefully we won’t hear the President talk about Social Security at the SOTU next week. If he does then he should lay out a plan to restore all the borrowed money to the system and legislation that will prevent lawmakers from using the money for anything they want. That is our money and it should be kept as such.

Welcome to my newest acronym – Angry Men With Guns. I came up with it while reading this article from Politico talking about the rise in threats against lawmakers. The key passage:

Though each threat case is different, the FBI documents reveal some common characteristics. The suspects are mostly men who own guns, and several had been treated for mental illness. Most of the suspects had just undergone some kind of major life stress, such as illness or the loss of a job.

So they not only have guns, but also mental illness? Now that’s some 2nd amendment yumminess right there. Kind of like this guy:

I voted for you,” the caller said in a voice mail to Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler’s district office. “If you vote for that stimulus package, I’m gonna kill you. Simple as that.”

The FBI says the caller was a 70-year-old resident of Shuler’s North Carolina district with a history of mental illness and a cache of guns. In the weeks before calling Shuler’s office, the FBI says, the caller beat and choked his wife. She told the FBI that she’d tried to clear her home of guns — and that she went to bed at night with a can of mace tucked under her pillow.

But we sure don’t need more gun control! The founding fathers intentions were that crazy people can get mad and threaten to blow away our democratically elected leaders, wasn’t it?

And you can be sure that if Congress took up more background checks for people buying guns and possibly denying people with mental issues, the Republicans would start screaming. That alone shows exemplifies the mental illness of the GOP.

Yes it is:

Unions and liberal groups have dismissed Sen. Harry Reid’s $15 billion jobs bill as "puny" while calling for larger stimulus measures.

More than two dozen organizations, including the AFL-CIO, National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP) and National Council of La Raza, warned Democratic leaders in Congress to avoid tackling the troubled economy through incremental action.

They urged the Senate to pass the $15 billion jobs measure, which features a hiring tax cut for small businesses, but called for much more legislation to bring down an unemployment rate the White House projects to average 10 percent this year, more than 9 percent next year and over 8 percent in 2012.

"If this $15 billion was the only thing [that passed], that would be like having an amputated arm and sticking a Band-Aid on the end of it," said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, on a conference call Friday.

This bill is 1/71 the size of the TARP bill. It’s another example of how the people of this country just don’t matter to the lawmakers in Washington.

This is some good news, but I’m sure the wingnuts will explode over it:

Responding to the devastation from the Haiti earthquake, Obama administration officials on Wednesday temporarily suspended deportations of illegal immigrants from that country.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Haitian deportations would be halted “for the time being,” without specifying a time period. Immigration officials said it was clear they could be putting Haitians’ safety at risk by sending them back to a country staggering from the vast destruction of the quake. About 30,000 Haitians in the United States are facing deportation orders, immigration officials said.

Lawmakers and immigrant advocacy groups renewed calls for the administration to grant Haiti a special status that would shield Haitian immigrants in this country from deportation for an extended period and allow them to work legally. The Haitian government and advocates here have been asking Washington to grant the status, known as temporary protected status, since late 2008.

President Obama back in 2008:

“It's a choice between having a debate with the other party about who has the most experience in Washington or about who can change Washington,  because that's a debate that we can win."

When you read that and then see stories like this you really feel like you have been punched in the stomach:

Main Street has had a tough year, losing jobs and seeing little evidence of the economic revival that experts say has already begun.

But K Street is raking it in.

Washington’s influence industry is on track to shatter last year’s record $3.3 billion spent to lobby Congress and the rest of the federal government — and that’s with a down economy and about 1,500 fewer registered lobbyists in town, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Many lobbying firms have escaped the worst of the corporate belt-tightening, thanks, in large part, to the ambitious agenda set out by President Barack Obama — who, ironically, came to Washington with a pledge to break what he considered the undue influence of special-interest lobbyists.

Now couple that with this story:

More than $600 million has been spent so far this year trying to influence U.S. lawmakers working to overhaul the health-care system, reports show.