About Those Members Of Congress Trading On Insider Information...

Eggs seem mighty expensive lately, don't they? Profiteering under cover of a national emergency is a crime, isn't it? I believe prices are only allowed to go up 10% in a situation like the one we find ourselves in today. I don't think anyone is enforcing that. As for Congress... well, it's filled with scoundrels and thieves. And the White House... what can I say that hasn't already be said a million times over? We truly have let our democracy turn into a kakistocracy. WE did that.. And, no, I'm not just talking about ex-congressional crooks Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Chris Collins (R-NY), both of whom have already been found guilty. I'm talking about the corona-crooks still in Congress-- and it goes beyond just Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), the most blatant of the criminals. The Charlotte Observer called on Burr to resign last week. There are a lot of other editorial boards around the country that should get busy as well.

In the Burr case, the editorial board wrote that "More than a week has passed since news reports revealed how U.S. Sen Richard Burr profited off the coronavirus while failing to warn his constituents at the early, critical stages of the crisis. Things are hardly getting rosier for North Carolina’s senior senator. Burr has been abandoned by fellow Republicans, some of whom have called for his resignation. He’s been sued by a shareholder of Wyndham Hotels & Suites for selling off $150,000 of that company’s stock. The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a statement that, while not using Burr’s name, warned members of Congress about doing what the senator is accused of doing-- trading off privileged information and briefings. And, on Monday, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department is investigating those stock trades. He is toxic to his party. He is embarrassing to North Carolina. Clearly, his problems are not going to go away. So why isn’t he?"

On Sunday, CNN reported that the Trumpist Justice Department "has started to probe a series of stock transactions made by lawmakers ahead of the sharp market downturn stemming from the spread of coronavirus, according to two people familiar with the matter. The inquiry, which is still in its early stages and being done in coordination with the Securities and Exchange Commission, has so far included outreach from the FBI to at least one lawmaker, Sen. Richard Burr, seeking information about the trades, according to one of the sources... Under insider trading laws, prosecutors would need to prove the lawmakers traded based on material non-public information they received in violation of a duty to keep it confidential."

Burr in the chair of the Senate Intel Committee, which was briefed on COVID-19 several times before it was seen as a pandemic and Burr ran out and sold about $1.6 million in hotel and airline stock-- and also warned wealthy North Carolina donors, though not the general public. Another one who smells at least as bad as Burr is billionaire Kelly Loeffler, a notorious slime bucket who bought her seat from Georgia's crooked governor last December. She and her scumbag husband, president of the New York Stock Exchange, sold a couple dozen stocks worth around $3 million dollars just before they crashed. Other senators being looked into are Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK).

Why do members of Congress keep committing crimes? That's an easy one. They invariably escape serious retribution which makes them willing to take risks. A couple of life sentences and it's unlikely that crooks like Burr and Inhofe would be going for a quick buck like that.

In an unrelated case, Open Secrets' Karl Evers-Hillstrom reported last week that the the Campaign Legal Center is asking ethics officials to investigate campaign spending by Steven Palazzo (R-MS) after the watchdog group found that he channeled six figures of donors’ money to family-owned businesses, not unlike what Duncan Hunter was nailed for. "Palazzo," wrote Evers-Hillstrom, "used campaign funds to pay over $60,000 in rent to his own farm between 2018 and 2019, according to Federal Election Commission filings. His campaign also spent nearly $128,000 with his now ex-wife’s accounting firm since 2011. Federal election law prohibits candidates from using campaign funds for personal use. But candidates can justify funneling donors’ money to themselves or family members if they make the case that the spending is campaign-related."

The Campaign Legal Center argues that Palazzo had an existing accounting firm and his campaign didn’t need the services of Palazzo & Co., which is run by his ex-wife. The two reportedly divorced in 2016, but much of that spending came when they were still married. The group also says Palazzo’s farm wasn’t critical to his campaign, as he reportedly sold it prior to his 2020 primary election, and that the payments would be “unusually high” for a campaign office.

“The lack of any publicly available information about the campaign using the farm as an office, the sale of the property prior to the primary campaign, and its remote location all suggest that the farm was completely for personal use and that it did not have any campaign purpose justifying $60,000 in rent,” lawyers for the Campaign Legal Center wrote in a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics.

Here's A Bizarre Mix Of Hyper-Partisan Gun Nonsense From Alabama, Mississippi And The Part-Time Governor Of New Jersey

Outside of Mississippi, not many people know who GOP backbencher Steven Palazzo is. He beat the odious Blue Dog Gene Taylor in southeast Mississippi's deep red district (R+21) and then faded away, except for one ugly incident. His district-- which includes Biloxi, Pascagoula and Gulfport, his hometown-- was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Over 200 people died and dozens are still listed as missing. Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties looked like war zones and the economic consequences are still barely calculable, tens of billions of dollars just in Palazzo's district. And the federal government stepped up with billions in recovery aid. That's the way it should be. People in New York and California and Illinois pitched in through the federal government to help our brothers and sisters in Mississippi. A year after Palazzo took office Hurricane Sandy hit. It caused over $70 billion in damage and over 70 deaths. New York and New Jersey were hit particularly hard. Palazzo was one of the small handful of radical right hateful confederates to tell the northerns to go screw off. He voted against aid for Sandy victims.

Yesterday Palazzo was back in the news-- this time offering a resolution to censure president Obama for his executive order on guns. Palazzo, who has taken $12,051 from gun groups in his short time in Congress and boasts an "A" from the NRA. "His actions this week to take away the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens is just the latest, if not most egregious, violation of the separation of powers found in the United States Constitution." Perhaps Palazzo never read the Second Amendment but there's nothing President Obama ordered that has anything to do with the Second Amendment. Although Congress attempted to censure Nixon and Clinton, I'm pretty sure the only president ever censured was Andrew Jackson.

Above is a piece of an interview Chris Hayes did with a somewhat more extremist colleague of Palazzo's, Alabama's Mo Brooks who works very hard trying to sound like a moron but is no dummy. A crackpot? Yes, but he graduated from Duke in 3 years with a double major and later earned a law degree from the University of Alabama. Sure, Mo's a hate-filled racist throw-back and a Know Nothing xenophobe and he's always saying nutty things-- like Obama is waging a war on whites-- but he's always been an articulate defender of the Second Amendment. The NRA graded him a 93% and the more extremist Gun Owners of America gave him a 100% rating. Conversely, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence named him an NRA lap dog and gave him a ZERO rating. He speaks with some authority about Second Amendment issues. And, while Palazzo worked as a bookkeeper or accountant, Brooks is an actual attorney... with a degree from an accredited law school.

Assuming Hayes didn't get him high in the MSNBC green room before the interview, he made some news Wednesday night when he responded to Hayes' simple question about whether or not he'd favor allowing guns in his work place (which happens to be the U.S. House of Represenatives). Now, recall, that when former Congressman and Gambino crime family thug Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm-- now serving prison time-- proposed the congressmembers be allowed to pack heat on the House floor, John Boehner instructed his staff to make sure he was never left alone with Grimm again under any circumstances. Early in 2011, Grimm told a district newspaper that if congressmen "feel comfortable with that responsibility, then I support them. It could put you in a situation where you can protect yourself... If somebody pulls out a knife to attack you and you draw a gun, they’re likely going to drop it. But you have to be prepared to kill; it’s not for everyone."

It was definitely for him though. He loved playing Mr. Macho man and waving his gun around in crowded places screaming and threatening people. What a guy! What a Republicano! Mo Brooks, who has a concealed carry permit, has a different attitude though. Hayes asked him "Should citizens and Members of Congress be allowed to carry [guns] inside the U.S. Capitol?" Mo, said no. "I do not want citizens coming onto Capitol grounds inside the United States Capitol, into the gallery of the United States Capitol with guns, given the risks that are associated with that..." Watch for yourself up top.

Now Brooks isn't-- and likely never will-- run for president, at least not of this country. But, Chris Christie is. With a campaign weeks away from disintegrating-- the latest CBS poll of Iowa Republicans shows him tied for 9th place with 1% and that same CBS poll has him behind Trumpf (32%), Cruz (14%) and Rubio (13%) for 4th place in New Hampshire, the basket all his eggs are in. If he loses there in a month, it's back to New Jersey, where his approval rating is an astounding 31%. One of the reasons New Jersey independents and even some confused Democrats liked him is because he seemed independent enough to buck the GOP and back an assault weapons ban in 1995, going so far as to point out that the Republicans opposing the ban were "dangerous," "crazy" and "radical." He campaigned against a concealed carry law in 2009. Now that he's trying to win votes in a GOP national primary, he wants to be included in that list of the dangerous, crazy and radical. Christie was on Fox with Sean Hannity Wednesday to say he's changed his mind, claiming he was just a child-- a 460 pound, 32 year old child.

Obama didn't propose anything remotely confiscatory. The right-wing Chicago Tribune noted this week that Obama was unable to get Congress to pass background checks-- despite 91% approval from the public.

If you can't get Congress to change the laws, you can do nothing-- or you can look for how to apply those laws in ways that are more sensible but within the letter and spirit of their text. Obama has elected to do the latter.

...Federal law requires a dealer's license for anyone "who devotes time, attention and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms." The idea behind that language was to exempt individuals who make only occasional sales, as many ordinary gun owners do.

But some people use the exclusion to evade the clear intent of the law. A study by Mayors Against Illegal Guns found that "high-volume sellers posted 29 percent of the gun ads listed by private sellers." On one popular online site, it found, 1 out of every 30 potential purchasers had criminal records.

...The change would fall short of the universal requirement Obama urged Congress to enact, but it would expand the number of sales triggering background checks, creating a new hurdle for felons seeking guns. It would also curb a clear abuse of the law by unscrupulous or careless sellers.

Republican presidential candidates accuse the president of overstepping his legal authority. "This is going to be another illegal executive action, which I'm sure will be rejected by the courts," said Chris Christie. Jeb Bush said Obama would be using "executive powers that he doesn't have."

But the charge doesn't stick. This step appears to be a reasonable adjustment of regulations in order to fulfill the purpose of an existing statute. In November, a group of 23 law professors signed a letter saying, "Executive action to ensure robust enforcement of the law-- including issuing clarifying guidance and directing comprehensive enforcement of federal gun laws-- is entirely compatible with the will of Congress and the president's constitutional authority."

It's not a cure-all-- just a rational attempt to make it harder for people who are barred from owning guns to buy guns. And it's long overdue.

But that isn't how hyper-partisan sociopaths like Steve Palazzo see it. He and his confederates just want to tear the nation apart and could care less how many families are devastated in the process. The NRA was too scared to go on prime time TV with the president for a discussion about his actions. Instead they're busy raising money by lying to the fools who take them seriously that Obama is grabbing their guns. Sick people, with a lot of blood on their hands-- and in Paul Ryan's case, a lot of blood money in his bank account. Ryan has taken more money from the NRA and other gun groups than anyone else currently in the House of Representatives.

You probably already read President Obama's OpEd in last night's NY Times. There was a paragraph that especially piqued my interest:

Even as I continue to take every action possible as president, I will also take every action I can as a citizen. I will not campaign for, vote for or support any candidate, even in my own party, who does not support common-sense gun reform. And if the 90 percent of Americans who do support common-sense gun reforms join me, we will elect the leadership we deserve.

President Obama has raised an awful lot of money for the DCCC, which continues spending it to recruit and elect NRA-loving candidates. Last cycle, for example, Minnesota Blue Dog Collin Peterson would have been a goner for sure had not his buddy Steve Israel wasted $4,000,000 in DCCC money to reelect someone who votes with the GOP on nearly everything-- this week Peterson was the only Democrat to vote to repeal Obamacare and to defund Planned Parenthood-- and is a 100% NRA fanatic and opposes exactly what President Obama is arguing for. Now that Israel is heading towards the trash heap of history, will the DCCC finally stop wasting money on Peterson and others like him, incumbents who play footsie with the NRA like Henry Cuellar, and recruits who still back the NRA or who have suddenly "converted" after years of NRA fealty, like Darren Soto in Florida, John Oceguera in Nevada and Ted "NRA A+" Strickland, who wants to retire as a U.S. Senator from Ohio. Strickland's opponent is Cincinnati City Councilman PG Sittenfeld, who has been hammering both Strickland and the incumbent Republican, Rob Portman, another NRA shill, about the same themes Obama is talking about. If President Obama wants to send a message he's serious about this stuff, he can drop a couple of grand into P.G.'s Blue America account. I'll let you know if he does.

Another Blue Dog Made The Natural Transition To The GOP-- Will Gene Taylor Beat Steven Palazzo In Tomorrow's Republican Primary?

Sunday morning we asked what it's like to be a Blue Dog in America today. And the picture that emerged was far from pretty. When looking at the natural progression from Blue Dog-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- to plain old Republican, we focused on the freak from Kansas who led the anti-gay and anti-Choice forces of hatred and bigotry in her badly afflicted state, Janice Pauls, finally finding her natural home in the GOP. But tomorrow-- primary day in Mississippi-- another failed Blue Dog, defeated congressman Gene Taylor is looking for a comeback… as-- what else?-- a Republican.

He's ignoring FEC rules that require him to report the source of the quarter million dollars he's spending on the race. Is he getting covert support from the Blue Dog caucus in the GOP primary. No one will know before tomorrow, that's for sure. The biggest newspaper in the southeast Mississippi district, MS-04-- PVI is R+21 and Obama won 31% of the vote in 2008 and 2012-- endorsed Taylor. It's a crowded primary and the Tea Party has a couple of crackpots in the race even more extreme that Steven Palazzo or Taylor (which ain't easy). Although the open primary allows Democrats to vote in the GOP contest, Taylor is unlikely to beat Palazzo and even forcing a June 24th run-off is a stretch.

When asked to explain his transformation from a Blue Dog to a Republican, Taylor has no trouble at all. It's perfectly natural and may Mississippi Republicans are former Blue Dogs themselves. “I’ll make it very simple. When I first went to Congress, almost all of the southern Democrats were pro-life, almost all of them were for 2nd Amendment rights, almost all of them believed in a strong national defense, and almost all of them believed in a balanced budget. Over the years that changed."

It's been a quiet race compared to the bitter primary between Establishment Republican Thad Cochran and far right extremist, neo-fascist Chris McDaniel for Senate. (There's also a defeated Blue Dog in that race, Travis Childers, who's hoping McDaniel wins and that he get slip into office as a result of the GOP civil war, something like Indiana Blue Dog Joe Donnelly did when a neo-fascist took out Dick Lugar in the Republican primary.)

Taylor, who served 11 terms as a "Blue Dog" Democrat starting in 1989, switched parties to take on Rep. Steven Palazzo in the Republican primary.

But Palazzo, who topped Taylor in 2010, is in the catbird's seat now, according to Stephen L. Rozman, professor of political science at Tougaloo College in Jackson.

"It's difficult because Palazzo is entrenched," Rozman said. "Palazzo is still going to recall Taylor's past, looking at him as opportunistic, trying to get in as a Republican. It's an uphill battle."

In addition to 44-year-old Palazzo of Biloxi and 60-year-old Taylor of Bay St. Louis, three other GOP candidates seek the seat-- 48-year-old Tom Carter of Carriere, 24-year-old Tavish Kelly of Picayune and 73-year-old Ron Vincent of Hattiesburg.

…"So, what does Taylor do? As a Democrat, he lost the last time, and momentum is going against a Democrat winning. So, he's doing what he has to do. He's doing it in the primary."

..."People aren't being fooled," Palazzo told the Associated Press. "You can't be a lifelong Democrat and wake up the day of the qualifying deadline and say, 'I'm a Republican.'"

Taylor, though, says people thank him for running.

"I think people have realized they want a congressman that's accessible to them, that they can talk to face-to-face," Taylor told the AP.

When Palazzo unseated Taylor, his margin of victory came from support in three inland counties, Pearl River, Lamar and Jones. Taylor says he's focusing more attention away from the coast this time around.

Taylor has hammered Palazzo repeatedly for his 2012 vote to approve the Biggert-Waters flood insurance law, under which the Federal Emergency Management Agency proposed expensive rate increases.

"He voted to raise peoples' flood insurance rates by unlimited amounts," Taylor told the AP.

Palazzo said "no one" foresaw how FEMA would administer the proposed changes. "Congress' intent was for them to do an affordability study," he said.

Palazzo voted in March with most other members to defang that law, which he says is his top achievement.

Taylor also says Palazzo isn't doing enough to protect the district's military bases and criticized him for balking at supporting money to pay flood insurance claims following 2012's Superstorm Sandy.

Taylor says the Sandy vote will hurt Palazzo's ability to seek hurricane aid for the Mississippi coast in the future. Palazzo disputes that, though, saying even as one of the House's more conservative members, "I can still get things done."

Here's Taylor demonizing Nancy Pelosi-- and claiming Palazzo supports her-- in a crude TV spot:

Funny Business In Mississippi-- At Least For Democrats

As of June 30, Mississippi senior Senator Thad Cochran had only raised $773,953, not much for a U.S. Senator. It gave rise to some talk that he might be thinking of retirement. He was born in 1937 and by the end of his next term he'd be 82. Elected in 1978, he's the second most senior Republican in the Senate. And, for a mainstream conservative like Cochran, a Cruz-ified Republican caucus can't be much fun. But when you realize that the last time he was up for reelection he only spent $518,625, you have to reconsider his lackadaisical fundraising as proof he might be retiring. Cochran hasn't announced he's running yet, only that he would make his intentions known before the March filing deadline.

Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann has said he would probably run if Cochran retired. But he made it clear that he thinks Cochran "has been phenomenal-- I’ll support him if he runs again." Cochran, who beat his last opponent, Democrat Erik Fleming, 766,111 (61.4%) to 480,915 (38.56%), may need that support-- although not because of anyone the Democrats are putting up against him. (So far, the Dems have no one.) Yesterday, right after Cochran voted with most Senate Republicans to back away from defaulting on the nation's debts, several extreme right-wing SuperPacs-- Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund, the Madison Project, FreedomWorks band Club for Growth-- announced that the are backing an extreme right-wing teabagger, state Senator Chris McDaniel, in a primary race against Cochran. McDaniel was running against Rep. Steve Palazzo (a Club for Growth target) but switched to the Senate race yesterday. More on Palazzo below.

As you can see from the video above, McDaniel, a former Hate Talk Radio host, is the smarmiest kind of greasy candidate you'll find anywhere-- and is sure to go over well among Mississippi teabaggers. At his repulsively emotional announcement ceremony, he told his followers that "the lights of liberty are going out across this country and millions of people feel like strangers in the land," although he hasn't accused Cochran of marching across Georgia with Sherman (yet).

Last month we mentioned a libertarian gun loon, Tavish Kelly, was going to run against Steve Palazzo (MS-04-- Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Biloxi, Laurel), who beat far right Blue Dog Gene Taylor in the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010. Well, even with McDaniel out of the race, Kelly isn't getting much traction and… Taylor says he may jump into the Republican primary. Despite what some misguided centrists say about how swell Blue Dogs and New Dems are, Taylor was always a Republican in all but name and his reemergence as one shouldn't surprise anyone. He certainly wouldn't have to readjust his voting habits.

Gene Taylor is considering a run for the 4th District congressional seat he held for two decades, but if he runs it probably will be as a Republican.

…"By 2010, about two-thirds of the people in the district identified themselves as Republican," he said. "I don't know how much that has changed, if at all. I did notice that a lot of the people I served with at the state level have switched parties.

"Let's face it. You can't accomplish anything if you don't get elected."

The downside to being a Republican, he said, is the party is much tougher on those who don't toe the party line. But he said he wouldn't let that influence his voting.

"I was never a very good Democrat," he said. "So I could be just as bad a Republican."

He said he couldn't run as an independent because even if he were elected, he wouldn't get a good committee assignment -- the two parties make those assignments.

Yesterday a Daily Kos blogger who often cheers on Blue Dogs and New Dems, pointed out that when Republicans tried recruiting Taylor in 1994, he was dismissive of their overtures. "I personally would feel like a prostitute. I still believe the average working person's best interest is best served by the Democratic Party. If I switched, it certainly wouldn't be out of any moral conviction or professional conviction. It would just be to further my political situation, and that is the wrong reason to do it." As the Kos blogger pointed out, like most prostitutes, its just a matter of finding the right price.

Do you wonder if Cochran can be defeated on a platform of not being conservative enough for a bunch of Confederate Know Nothings? Have you watched this iconic Mississippi video lately?

How Right Wing Is Right Wing Enough-- In Mississippi? Teabagger Steven Palazzo Gets A Primary

Steven Palazzo has represented southeast Mississippi (MS-04-- Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Biloxi, Laurel) since the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010 when he beat longtime incumbent Gene Taylor. Unless you live in some blood-red hellhole, you probably never met a public official as right-wing and extreme as Palazzo. Even though he represents a hurricane prone Gulf Coast area-- which was devastated by Katrina-- he was one of the few Republicans from coastal areas to vote against aid for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. The 4th has a PVI of R+21 and Romney beat Obama there, 199,354 (68%) to 92,127 (31%), Obama's worst performance of any of Mississippi's 4 districts.

One of the reddest counties in the reddest district is Pearl River, a hot bed of neo-fascist/Confederate level right-wing extremism and home to a powerful Tea Party movement which ousted the conservative Republicans in 2012 and took over the official party apparatus, putting a libertarian extremist college student, Tavish Kelly, in charge of the county executive committee. They grabbed control of 11 of the 15 seats on the executive committee board. Obama only won 19% of the vote there last year, as did Matthew Moore, the Democrat who ran against Palazzo. District-wide, Palazzo beat him 173,576 (64%) to 77,041 (29%).

But it isn't a Democrat that Palazzo has to worry about in his reelection plans. A member of Michele Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus, the Club for Growth has been recruiting someone to run against him. They claim he isn't right-wing enough. And it looks like they found their man... Tavish Kelly. From his Tavish Kelly For Congress website:

The right to keep and bear arms is among the most important freedoms of any American, and the Second Amendment should be interpreted to prevent any and all Congressional legislation infringing upon that right.

Like many Mississippians, Tavish Kelly has used firearms for both sport and self-defense his entire life, and today he helps spread his passion through Kelly Firearms, a retailer and manufacturer of guns and ammunition in Picayune.

While in Congress, Tavish will actively work to repeal unconstitutional laws such as the National Firearms Act, Gun Control Act, and Brady Act, as well as prevent further incursions on the right to self-defense.

Teabagger Steven Palazzo Is Counting On No More Natural Disasters In His Mississippi District

Steven Palazzo (R-MS): putting his constituents at risk

I was happy enough to see arch-reactionary Blue Dog Gene Taylor defeated in 2010. Taylor, a shill for the Military Industrial Complex, represented Missisiisppi's Gulf Coast for twenty years. Disappointed Democratic voters didn't show up for the midterms in 2010, a Taylor was swept away as part of the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse. Very right-wing state Rep. Steven Palazzo beat him 105,613 (52%) to 95,243 (47%)-- quite the turnaround from Taylor's reelection two years before when he beat the Republican candidate 216,542 (75%) to 73,977 (25%). In 2008, when Obama lost every county in the district except Jasper, to McCain, Taylor won all 15 counties. No exceptions. 2 years later he lost 9 of those counties to Palazzo and this year the Democrats ran Matthew Moore, who racked up only 29% of the vote. Palazzo is one of Congress' most radical right members and also Mississippi's only member of Michele Bachmann's crazy Tea Party Caucus. His lifetime ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is 1.00, further right than Darrell Issa, Patrick McHenry, Eric Cantor and Marsha Blackburn. Only 4 Members of Congress have worse scores than Palazzo.

Last week, Palazzo was one of only 67 Members-- all Republicans, many unreconstructed Confederates like himself-- to vote against aid for the victims of SuperStorm Sandy. He joined crackpots like John Bircher Paul Broun (GA), date rape doctor Scott DesJarlais (TN), Virginia Foxx (NC), Louie Gohmert (TX), Tom Price (GA), Joe Wilson (SC), Jeff Duncan (SC), Trey Gowdy (SC) and the rest of the bottom of the barrel crap still fighting the Civil War to preserve "The Southern Way of Life" (slavery and feudalism), in voting against the aid. 161 Republicans and 193 Democrats voted yes. New Hampshire Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, addressing this pack of degenerates explained that she and the rest of the pro-American congressmembers from both parties "voted for this funding because we are the U.S.A. and we always unite to help citizens who are hit by disaster.”

Palazzo stands out as the most hypocritical swine of the 67 because when he was a Biloxi official. in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated Gulf Coast, he squealed the loudest for federal aid for his district.

Palazzo’s future congressional district, including his hometown of Biloxi, Miss., was ravaged by the 2005 storm. Roughly a month after Katrina made landfall, Palazzo-- then Deputy Director and CFO of the Biloxi Housing Authority-- did not mince words when he addressed what was necessary in order to repair the damages.

“We will rebuild and we’ll provide homes for those displaced; but we cannot do that until it is funded,” Palazzo said in a pamphlet published by the Biloxi Housing Authority and still available online. “We’re ready to do the work-- but we simply do not have the financial resources on our own to handle a catastrophe like Katrina.”

“Tell our national leaders-- don’t send more inspectors-- we know what’s damaged and how to fix it,” Palazzo continued. “Send us money so we can put families back together and do our part to rebuild our community.”

The handout includes a breakdown of the “Total Funds Needed Right Away,” ultimately requesting more than $38.5 million in federal largess.

In April of 2006, the Sun-Herald of Biloxi, Miss. credited Palazzo with helping the Housing Authority “win a $7.2 million grant to replace housing for displaced residents.”

Southern Mississippi voters (see video below) need to pray that they never have a natural disaster there again that calls for congressional aid. I suspect a lot of northern congressmembers will be just looking for a little payback.