And it's mostly all legal. There is no restriction on insider trading in the congress.

Plus they also intentionally write bills that will adversely affect a certain industry in order to extort campaign contributions from them. Upon payment they remove the bill for consideration.

That is how private equity got into funding campaigns - somebody wrote a bill that would take away their biggest tool. Being able to write off the loan they force the company they are buying to take out. Now they give congress millions of dollars to keep their deduction.

But Jack, *only* 130 of the 535 members of Congress were found to have made these insider trades. (Appalling.) That doesn't mean they're "mostly" crooks, just about one-quarter crooks.

Why don't they just put their investments into a blind trust? What do our Oregon and Portland officials' statements of economic interest filed with the Ethics Commission have to say about their investments?

What do our Oregon and Portland officials' statements of economic interest filed with the Ethics Commission have to say about their investments?

How would we know if they've even made such filings, or if they had, whether or not the information contained were valid and not false?

The people at the bottom must be really stupid.

Are they crooks if they break no law? There's not always a clear cut answer to that question, but when they are in charge of making the laws, and those laws just happen to favor them wildly, then yes, they are crooks.

I'm looking for the study that showed how much better US congressional portfolios do than the average. It was several times better if I remember.