CNBC Senior Editor John Carney asks: “Why is the government treating insider traders like mobsters?”

As Mr. Carney explains, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Securities and Exchange Commission now use wiretapping to conduct insider trading probes, a move Mr. Carney believes is “out of proportion” to the crime.   Furthermore, Mr. Carney points out that “Congress has signaled out a few categories of criminal activity that can be pursued by wiretaps—and insider trading isn’t one of them.”

Mr. Carney’s observations came in response to a Bloomberg News report by Patricia Hurtado that the FBI engaged in a five-year “historic, sprawling, nationwide insider-trading initiative” that “is the biggest insider trading investigation since the days of Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken, and the largest ever in the world of hedge funds.”

The bigger point, of course, is the hypocrisy and double-standard inherent in the system.

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There were three winners in the CNBC debate: Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich. Gov. Rick Perry was the obvious loser because of his memory lapse.

The guy with the toughest job on Wednesday night was Herman Cain, who has been hammered by sexual-harassment charges. He needed a strong performance to put him back on message with his 9-9-9 tax plan and pro-business, free-enterprise views. I give him first prize, simply because he performed so well. He had the most to gain and the most to lose. He gained.

How these sex-harassment charges play out remains to be seen. And how much damage they will do to the Cain campaign is an unknown. But it’s noteworthy that a new Rasmussen poll for the Florida Republican primary shows Cain at 30 percent, Romney at 24 percent, and Gingrich at 19 percent. At the moment, Cain is still at or near the top of the pack. So far, it’s hard to find any Republican-voter migration away from Cain.

But the more interesting story might be Newt Gingrich, who has surged into third place. When I interviewed him on Tuesday, the night before the debate, I asked him about 1 percent versus 99 percent, the class-warfare argument being propagated by President Obama and the Wall Street protesters. Gingrich replied, “I am for 100 percent. I think this idea of 99 percent and 1 percent is grotesque European-socialist class-warfare bologna.” (Italics mine.) No one puts it that well.

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This email from TeamPerry hit our inbox this morning:

We’ve all had human moments. President Obama is still trying to find all 57 states. Ronald Reagan got lost somewhere on the Pacific Highway in an answer to a debate question. Gerald Ford ate a tamale without removing the husk. And tonight Rick Perry forgot the third agency he wants to eliminate. Just goes to show there are too damn many federal agencies.

The governor said it best afterwards: “I’m glad I had my boots on, because I sure stepped in it tonight.”

While the media froths over this all too human moment, we thought we would take this opportunity to ask your help in doing something much more constructive: write us to let us know what federal agency you would most like to forget.

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Mitt Romney continues to display competence and confidence, but his rhetoric doesn’t soar and the base is inherently skeptical of his record, so he hasn’t quite put this thing away.

Last time I wrote about these debates, I said the vaudeville cane should have dragged Perry away, and his cerebral flatulence tonight proved me right. His inability to remember the three federal departments he would cut was easily the most awkward moment of the primary season thus far. The “SNL” staff writers are eternally grateful, I’m sure.

Herman Cain has planted his—to quote Perry—big ole flag with 9-9-9, and he’s going to sink or swim with it. In what seemed to be a heavily coached performance, Cain pivoted nearly every answer to the merits of his proposed tax plan. Cain has been arguably the most articulate candidate on the stage when it comes to having an inspirational vision for America’s future in the context of its past, and it’s beyond me why he would rather singularly focus on a specific policy (which may not pass, let alone work) than on that vision. Thankfully, it looks as though this debate will mark the moment where America began to move on from the sexual harassment claims leveled against Cain. That is, of course, unless more details emerge or another accuser steps forward…

But the winner of the debate was Newt. I mentioned last time that he’s my sleeper pick to challenge Romney, and he did a lot to improve his chances tonight.

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Joe Kernen, co-anchor of CNBC’s  Squawk Box and his daughter, fifth grader, Blake Kernen, have teamed up for YOUR TEACHER SAID WHAT?!: Defending Our Kids from the Liberal Assault on Capitalism, a primer to push back against what Kernen perceives to be an anti-capitalist bias within our public education system – a bias some believe begins in the earliest grades.

Is that even a point for debate at this point?

In YOUR TEACHER SAID WHAT?!: Defending Our Kids from the Liberal Assault on Capitalism (Sentinel, May 2011), Kernen recounts the challenges of teaching the value of free market capitalism to someone who still gets an allowance. He looks at the world through a fifth grader’s eyes and discovers the countless ways our education system and pop culture attack capitalism. As Joe tackles Blake’s tough questions, they cover tricky topics such as:

· The plusses (small) and minuses (huge) of unions — including the unionized teachers who disparage the same free enterprise system that pays their salaries.

· The truth about so-called “Fair Trade”: Rather than help poor farmers, it keeps them poor.

· The differences between Europe and America, and why free health care isn’t really free.

With statism on the rise and Free Market Capitalism, a cornerstone of liberty and democracy under assault from the highest levels of politics, to the earliest grades in our schools, one less reading of Goldilocks replaced with a straight-forward, easy to understand primer in Free Market capitalism, doesn’t sound like such a bad idea from a conservative perspective. Homeschoolers may find it especially interesting and useful.

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Liberals will tell you they support freedom of choice, but they won’t tell you that freedom they are willing to extend you begins and ends with abortion. Try to exercise it in any other aspect of your life and they’re there, ready to pounce with some regulation or law forbidding you from moving forward with your liberty workout. It doesn’t matter to them what the impact is, they want what they want and they’re willing to step all over you to impose it.

The latest whipping boy in the crosshairs of these statists is the post-secondary for-profit education system. Odds are this battle won’t impact your life directly, but their attacks rarely do. They never attack the heart of that which they seek to control or destroy, they chip away at the edges until it no longer resembles that which it was. It still exists, but in such a way so as to no longer function effectively and eventually dies. Look at what they’ve done to off-shore drilling without so much as passing a law.

For-profit education is the choice for millions of Americans who, for any number of reasons, can’t or choose not to matriculate to traditional colleges and universities. The reasons vary – poor grades in high school, young children at home, etc. These schools serve mostly poor, underprivileged students who have very limited options. You’d think liberals would be for anything that helps the very people they claim to champion. But their rhetoric rarely matches their actions.

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From the New York Times:

It was billed as “Investing in America,” a live televised conversation on the state of the economy between President Obama and American workers, students, business people and retirees, a kind of Wall Street to Main Street reality check.

But it sounded like a therapy session for disillusioned Obama supporters.

In question after question during a one-hour session, which took place on Monday at the Newseum here and was televised on CNBC, Mr. Obama was confronted by people who sounded frustrated and anxious — even as some said they supported his agenda and proclaimed themselves honored to be in his presence.

People from Main Street wanted to know if the American dream still lived for them. People on Wall Street complained that he was treating them like a piñata, “whacking us with a stick,” in the words of Anthony Scaramucci, a former law school classmate of Mr. Obama’s who now runs a hedge fund and was one of the president’s questioners.

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So what exactly is the real message of the tea parties? And how large an impact will they have on the upcoming elections? These are just a couple of the questions I posed to my old friends Rick Santelli and Lou Dobbs on last night’s Kudlow Report.

Rick Santelli’s rant on CNBC a little over a year ago helped launch the whole tea party movement. We also welcomed David Webb. David is a big tea party player and is the co-founder of TeaParty365. I guess you could call it a tea party trifecta.

Click to watch last night’s fireworks:

Speaking to CNBC in Las Vegas recently, Steve Wynn, the billionaire developer and operator of entertainment properties, said: “Washington is unpredictable these days. No one has any idea what’s next . . . the uncertainty of the business climate in America is frightening, frightening to everybody, and it’s delaying recovery.” Wynn complains of “wild, uncontrolled spending” and “unbelievable, unsustainable debt.”

Wynn also has operations in China, and he remarks that he “has no qualms about dealing with the Chinese government. Macau has been steady. The shocking, unexpected government is the one in Washington.” Not very long ago, such a statement would itself have been shocking.

The gambling and real estate magnate expresses concerns about inflation, Federal Housing Administration’s making the same mistakes Fannie and Freddie have made, and the business costs arising from the new health-care law. “We’re on our way to Greece,” he declares, “in the hands of a confused, foolish government.” Exasperated, he mutters, “It’s got to stop. It’s got to stop.”

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One can only imagine the “Dean Scream” that came out of Burlington, Vermont the night the government takeover of health care passed the House of Representatives.

The always daffy Howard Dean appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Sunday to discuss the health care reform bill.  He explained that the broader principle of the legislation has less to do with fixing the health system and more to do with a Marxist principle of redistributing wealth.

“When [wealth distribution] gets out of whack as it did in the ’20s and it has now, you need to do some redistribution.  This is a form of redistribution.”

Ever the politician, Dean cautions that there could be “too much” redistribution, which could result in the “incentive” being taken out of the system.  I’m sorry – when have extreme liberals ever worried about people having incentive to do anything on their own?

In the interview, Dean wonders what the “right balance” of income distribution might be for America.  Again, as I wondered a few days ago, how are politicians qualified to determine what that “right balance” should be? If the way they handle our money in Washington, D.C. is any indication, the politicians would do us a service by steering completely clear of financial matters.

Welcome to the transforming America.

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The prospect of CNBC analyst Larry Kudlow seeking the Republican and Conservative Party nominations to oppose Sen. Chuck Schumer has become a cause among Tea Party folks, Conservatives, Republicans and many on Wall Street. Not since James L. Buckley won a US Senate seat in 1970 have New York Conservatives been so excited about a statewide political race.

Pick Up the Mantle

I don’t know Kudlow well. We met several times during the Reagan years but it was at Buffalo Congressman Jack Kemp’s 2009 memorial service that I got reacquainted with the pro-growth enthusiast. Kudlow has been on on my STONEzone TEN BESTED DRESSED LISTtm since 2008. I admire him as an unabashed apostle of hope and optimism and opportunity on television and radio. His are the politics of Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, who Kudlow calls his mentor.

It goes without saying that Chuck Schumer needs a vigorous challenger; he is perhaps the most odious, pushy, abrasive and self-absorbed jerk in Congress today. His pork-fests are legendary, and he narrowly escaped indictment for corruption as an Assemblyman before becoming the master of the “pay to play” game in Washington.

But Kudlow’s potential candidacy is about something even more important than sending Schumer packing.

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At the Washington Cathedral memorial service for conservative icon Jack Kemp last May, many of his loyalists asked the same question: with Kemp’s passing, would his infectious pro-growth optimism also depart our political stage? That profoundly sad day, it certainly seemed possible.

Just eight months later, there is a remarkable potential candidate in the Kemp mold who may oppose – and defeat – uber liberal Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). New York Republican, Conservative and Tea Party leaders are talking up the potential candidacy of CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow, a former advisor to Kemp and Ronald Reagan.

For decades, Chuck Schumer has bullied his way to victory at the polls. He’s a prodigious fundraiser, a tough campaigner, and has long been thought unbeatable. But as former New York Assembly Republican leader John Faso noted recently in the New York Post, Schumer’s “image of invincibility has been fed by the failure of Republicans in New York and Washington to aggressively attack his vulnerabilities.”

Many New Yorkers agree: it is difficult to find a federal legislator as odious as Schumer. He is personally responsible for much of the bad policy that led to the economic melt down of the United States. He stands firmly in favor of health care reform that is bad for New Yorkers and he supports a tax on banks that is poison for the Empire State.

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It all started in Chicago. Rick Santelli’s call to arms was broadcast from Chicago. The first Tea Party was last year on a cold day in February.  I heard you.  We need a new generation of leaders that will serve the people, not the political class.  My campaign for Governor started because I heard you and I still hear you.

The Tea Party movement is now a year old and what better place to celebrate the movement than in Chicago. We will be at the Dierksen Federal Building plaza at 2:30pm having a rally in honor of the movement and to celebrate all that we’ve accomplished.

I’m also bringing in someone who knows a little something about freedom and just a few decades ago he was fighting in Eastern Europe and Ronald Reagan stood at his side. Lech Walesa will be addressing the gathering to tell us about his struggles.

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The Thesis: The Nobel Peace Prize means nothing. It is now just another paragon of political correctness manifested on the world stage. It’s the international equivalent to “Student of the Week” or any other unearned, self-esteem-based prize.