Yesterday, we wrote about the sickness of scamsters and con artists that ply their disgusting profession for and in the government. Especially the FedGov, but even at the State, local, and tribal level.

The exemplar of these fedgov fraudsters is, of course, the Congress itself. (It is no wonder that the greatest POTUS con artists in recent history have been trained and practiced in Congress: Uncle Joe, Obummer, Bush I, Ford, Tricky Dick, and LBJ, to name a few.

As Jim Rickard points out, the open scandal of insider trading and the incredible wealth stolen from the American people and business is well known. And tolerated through tradition, corruption, and the way the laws are written and enforced.

He writes:

Insider trading by Capitol Hill politicos has been an ongoing scandal for years.

The U.S. economy is heavily regulated in almost every industry imaginable including energy, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, technology, defense, transportation and many more. Those regulations are imposed by countless bureaucrats operating in cabinet departments, independent agencies and through the courts.

Authority for those regulations comes from statutes enacted by Congress written not by members of Congress themselves but by armies of staffers who concentrate on areas of expertise. Before statutes are passed, Congress holds hearings where outside experts and executives are called to testify about the exact impact of any proposed statute or regulation on each industry. This entire process creates a mountain of inside information that only the staffers and bureaucrats (and the members who employ them) have access to. Will a law pass or not? Will any loopholes be created to favor certain companies? With special taxes or tax benefits be imposed on certain industries? When will the changes take effect?

These are the kinds of decisions that are made behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, which the public learns about after the fact. That time gap between when the decisions are made and when the public learns about them creates an ideal opportunity for insider trading.

One would think that stock trading by Washington insiders at such times would be prohibited as it is for corporate board members, accountants, lawyers and others in the private sector who receive inside information all the time. Not only is this insider trading by political insiders not prohibited, it is actually protected by certain Congressional privileges.

It’s well-known that former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi have been major practitioners of this particular form of theft from the general public. Exposure of this practice has not daunted them. In the latest example, Mr. Paul sold $500,000 of VISA stock just weeks before that company became the target of a Department of Justice anti-trust lawsuit that could be extremely damaging to VISA’s profitability.

There’s no question that Nancy Pelosi’s position as a senior power broker in Congress could have given her access to information about the Justice Department’s plan to sue VISA. Such access is potentially worth a fortune, which may go a long way toward explaining how the Pelosi’s have acquired a net worth of over $100 million on a Congressional salary.

It’s not a victimless crime because the insiders’ profits come from the pockets of everyday investors who are left holding the bag when the regulatory news is finally revealed. Certain research services mentioned in the article track the trading of members of Congress. It might be wise to consult them to see what your member of Congress has been up to.

To put it simply, Congress is corrupt. Even the most idealistic “Mr. Smith” who goes to Washington is nearly always corrupted in their first few years in the cesspool. The Pelosi crime couple (and the rest of their clan) are just the most visible right now. Look at Uncle Joe’s family and finances. Look at the Obamas. Look at the big crime political families across the States: the Kennedys, the Tafts, the Frelinghuysens, the Udalls, the Lees (of Utah), Rockefellers, and many others: political influence and power leads to wealth and at least a quasi-noble status. While the Congress is not the only venue for this underhanded dealing and wholesale robbery, it is a major one.

We are constantly told that scammers are devious and crooked. What can better describe what Mark Twain called Congress: “There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”

And as asked in the last commentary, how can this be? Because Congress has too much power – and government is at its core a parasite and evil: what we call tyranny and totalitarianism is just slightly more extreme versions of evil government.