This Is Why The Current Political Structure Must Be Destroyed

This Is Why The Current Political Structure Must Be Destroyed

I don't know how reliable a source this Valleywag is, but I don't find it particularly unbelievable. I recall reading that after Dennis Hastert became Speaker of the House a few years back (when Republicans controlled Congress), his son closed his flower shop, and moved to DC to become a lobbyist:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi loves to talk up her folksy grandmotherhood. But what's her record at raising kids? This much we know: Son Paul Pelosi Jr. is dating a lingerie model.

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• His LinkedIn profile is a bit incomplete. It discusses his investment-banking work for Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. And it mentions his job at Countrywide, for example, where he worked as a loan officer — at one of the mortgage companies most scrutinized for its role in the housing bubble and ensuing collapse of Wall Street.
• But it pointedly omits his $180,000 a year job as a senior vice president at InfoUSA, a marketer of consumer databases, which he started less than one month after his mother became House Speaker, while simultaneously holding his job at Countrywide. InfoUSA CEO Vinod Gupta also paid Bill Clinton millions of dollars as a consultant, so many suspected Pelosi's job was an attempt to win influence with Nancy Pelosi. Paul Pelosi's explanation: He got to know Gupta as a client for whom he refinanced a house, and his experience as an investment banker was useful in evaluating acquisitions.
• InfoUSA is best known for peddling lists of seniors with gambling addictions and serious diseases like Alzheimer's or cancer to opportunistic telemarketers. Gupta resigned as InfoUSA's CEO in July 2008. Pelosi is not listed on the company's investor-relations website as an officer of the company.
• Which raises the question: What was a former investment banker doing working as a mortgage loan officer, anyway?
• Pelosi is currently working as an advisor to NASA on environmental issues, and he's joined the board of Blue Earth Solutions, a recycling outfit. So basically, he dabbles in a lot of green work, but isn't holding down anything resembling a full-time job at the moment, as far as we can tell.

Uh, how many high paying jobs can you hold down simultaneously? And does anyone think that all of these jobs and important posts he has are just coincidental with his mother being the single most powerful member of Congress?

A number of people have pointed out how a lot of people get elected to Congress, generally pretty well off--and within a few years, they become extremely well off. Congressional pay is pretty decent (until you figure in the costs of having a home in DC and one in your district, and travel), but it isn't enough to get rich.

Many have pointed to the quite astonishing raise and promotion that Michelle Obama received shortly after her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate--where he was in a position to help her employer.

Here's a harsh fact: it is illegal to bribe elected officials, but it isn't illegal to give cushy jobs to their relatives. And by the wildest and most astonishing of coincidences, the employers who give those cushy jobs to relatives often seem to be beneficiaries of government programs. Hence the importance of earmarks--to make sure that the money goes where it is supposed to go.

The existing political class of America needs to be replaced. And it needs to be replaced so often that the new guys and gals don't stay there long enough to learn the corruption game--or at least, they don't get good at in the time that they are there.