(Reuters) – The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed on Thursday a bill to curb insider trading by lawmakers and other government officials, despite objections from both Democrats and Republicans that it was weaker than a version passed by the Senate last week.

The House voted 417-2 to pass the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, even though it did not include a provision to impose new regulations on Washington insiders who collect “political intelligence” from lawmakers and sell it to Wall Street. The Senate version included this proposal.

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The GOP Establishment we keep hearing about is real, and it is also doomed.

That will not change whether the Establishment’s candidate Mitt Romney wins in November or not.  After the election, the battle really starts; what is happening now are just skirmishes in a fight for control of the Republican Party.  Not the soul of the party – if it had one, it auctioned it off long ago – but the mechanism of the party.  The Grand Old Party matters only as a vehicle to carry our banner forward.

To do that, we need to seize control, and we do that by destroying the Establishment starting next November 7th.

Superficially, it might seem that we – the outsiders, the Tea Party, the conservatives, whatever the label – are outgunned by opponents with their hands on the reins of power, money in amounts we can’t hope to match, and pals in the media backing them.  But if we understand our strengths, and our opponents’ weaknesses, we can not only compete but eventually prevail.

First, let’s understand our opponent.

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On Thursday, the Senate voted 96-3 to ensure that the same insider trading laws that apply to citizens also extend  to members of Congress.

But as the Associated Press points out, elected officials enjoy at least seven legal exemptions that the rest of us do not:

The Senate’s 96-3 vote to ban members of Congress from using nonpublic information to inform their private investments brought with it important additional amendments that stand to shape the debate next week as the House takes up the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act.

In addition to outlawing members of Congress and their staffs from engaging in insider trading and requiring a 30 day public disclosure rule for all investments, an amendment by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) successfully expanded the STOCK Act to also include the executive branch’s 28,000 workers.  Sen. Shelby said the reason for his amendment , which passed on a 58-41 vote, is simple:

It only seems fair that executive branch officials who are already required to file annual financial reports, also be directed to meet the same additional reporting requirements being imposed on the legislative branch.

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Aware that most Americans would like to dump them all, members of Congress hope to regain some sense of trust by subjecting themselves to tougher penalties for insider trading and requiring they disclose stock transactions within 30 days.

A procedural vote Monday would allow the Senate later this week to pass a bill prohibiting members of Congress from using nonpublic information for their own personal benefit or “tipping” others to inside information that they could trade on.

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On the heels of Newt Gingrich’s trouncing of Mitt Romney in the South Carolina primary, Republican Party brass are privately expressing deep concerns that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s high unfavorable rating in national polls could prove catastrophic to the so-called “down ballot”–the House and Senate races under the presidential race–and may even threaten the Republican Party’s control of the House of Representatives.

GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, who previously served as Sen. John McCain’s senior campaign strategist, told MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow that if Mr. Gingrich wins next week’s Florida GOP primary, there will be “a panic and a meltdown of the Republican establishment that is beyond my ability to articulate in the English language. People will go crazy.”

Mr. Schmidt said he believes Mr. Gingrich’s near universal name recognition indicates that perceptions of Mr. Gingrich have calcified over time and are therefore unlikely to change.  With a national unfavorable rating that he puts at 60 percent, Mr. Schmidt says he believes a Gingrich candidacy could spell disaster for Republican hopes of holding the House and regaining the Senate.

Newt Gingrich has a 100% name ID, has a 60% national unfavorable number and it’s a number so high that with the 100% name ID it’s impossible to come back from. You’re not electable in a general election, in a 2012 presidential election if your unfavorable numbers are that high. Particularly against a president, that while vulnerable, is still a net positive in that number. So people look at Newt Gingrich and don’t see him as a plausible candidate in the general election, so the Republican establishment who thinks that the president is vulnerable and beatable is going to begin to melt down if Gingrich’s momentum continues.

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Congress owes America better start for 2012, and not to repeat the way it ended 2011.

Even if the Senate is hopelessly dysfunctional, the House could do better.  The final House session of 2011 was a prime example of how to lose public confidence.  The body was gaveled into session on short notice Friday morning, December 23^rd, and a mere ten members approved legislation for the entire 435-member House.  The others had left for the holidays, so instead of a roll call vote on a controversial two-month lowering of the “payroll tax,” the bill passed by “unanimous consent” of the handful who were there.

House leaders had given Members insufficient time to return to Washington.  Representatives who had scattered for the holidays were informed at 5 pm that Thursday of a key vote at 10 am Friday.  This unusual procedure for a major vote was possible only because the House a few days before had voted for a “martial law” procedure that removed the normal requirement for greater advance notice.

That is why only ten House Members were present for the vote according to the Washington Times—four Republicans and six Democrats.

The rush was purely political.  Had Members been told to return for a vote after Christmas, no deadline would have been missed and the public would have the accountability of a regular roll call vote.  Many Republicans had publicly opposed the two-month extension, but we will never know how they would have voted.

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – A Republican-dominated Indiana Senate committee endorsed the right-to-work bill that has prompted a three-day standstill in the Indiana House.

The Senate labor committee voted 6-4 to send the bill to the full Senate, where the GOP holds a 37-13 majority and the party’s leader has made its passage a top priority. The bill would prohibit contracts between companies and unions that require workers to pay representation fees.

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The most successful Obama campaign meme–repeated ad infinitum by the mainstream media–is the idea that the country is saddled with a “do-nothing Congress.”

The implication–brilliantly conveyed, though completely untrue–is that we have a “do-nothing Republican Congress,” though in fact the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has been extremely active.

It would be more accurate to say that we have a “do-nothing Senate“–by design, since it’s clear that the Demcorats’ leaders in the Senate believe that legislative gridlock works to their political advantage. It’s been nearly 1000 days since the Demcorat-controlled Senate even passed a budget–a violation of the Congressional Budget Act.

With tomorrow’s official unemployment number looming, and with today’s ADP employment report for December 2011 suggesting some improvement could be on the way, it’s worth asking what happened to Obama’s “Jobs Bill”–without which, he warned, “there will be fewer jobs.” Voters wanted Washington “to do something big and something bold,” Obama said–even if it was a stimulus packed with boondoggles and bailouts, much like the “Porkulus” that launched the Tea Party.

Lo and behold–there is a little bit of life in the job market; manufacturing is improving moderately; and consumer confidence, while still shaky, is up significantly from where it was when Obama was demanding his jobs bill.

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Indiana’s Republican House leader on Tuesday promised swift movement on a push to make his state the first in more than a decade to ban labor contracts that require employees to pay union fees.

Speaker Brian Bosma of Indianapolis told the Associated Press he is confident he can push the “right-to-work” bill through his chamber during the 2012 session that begins Wednesday and is spending a lot “personal capital” to do so.

“We assume nothing,” Bosma said. “I don’t assume we have all the Republicans votes, in fact I know I don’t and I don’t presume we don’t have some Democrat votes either.”

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From PJMedia:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) caused a bit of a stir when he announced he was not seeking re-election. Frank, a high-visibility member of Congress for more than 30 years, is in one of the safest Democratic districts in the nation. Yet he is not alone: there are several other Barney Franks fleeing the 112th Congress. Eight other veteran House Democrats who reside in safe congressional seats are throwing in the towel.

The problem isn’t merely in the House. Just this week, U.S. Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska announced he won’t seek re-election this coming November. Nelson is one of seven Senate Democrats who have decided to “voluntarily” retire ahead of the 2012 elections. This is a repeat of the 2010 elections when a flood of Democrats decided to retire rather than face certain defeat.

The retirement of rank-and-file Democrats is an especially bad sign for the Democrats if they have any hope of retaking the U.S. House. The nine House retirements are even more notable because each ranks high in seniority for key House committees — if the House returned to Democratic rule, they would be in line to assume chairmanships.

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Capping a full retreat by House GOP leaders, Congress will convene Friday in hopes of approving a stopgap measure renewing payroll tax cuts for every worker and unemployment benefits for millions—despite serious opposition among some tea party Republicans.

Friday’s unusual session, if all goes according to plan, will send a bill to President Barack Obama to become law for two months and put off until January a fight over how to pay for the 2 percentage point tax cut, extend jobless benefits averaging around $300 a week and prevent doctors from absorbing a big cut in Medicare payments through 2012.

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From ABC News:

Officials from the policy-neutral National Payroll Reporting Consortium, Inc. have expressed concern to members of Congress that the two-month payroll tax holiday passed by the Senate and supported by President Obama cannot be implemented properly.

Pete Isberg, president of the NPRC today wrote to the key leaders of the relevant committees of the House and Senate, telling them that “insufficient lead time” to implement the complicated change mandated by the legislation means the two-month payroll tax holiday “could create substantial problems, confusion and costs affecting a significant percentage of U.S. employers and employees.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) – House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday that he opposes a Senate-approved bill that extends a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for just two months and said congressional bargainers need to write a new version that would last an entire year.

As if to suggest other changes he would like in the legislation, the Ohio Republican mentioned a provision that would block Obama administration anti-pollution rules and “reasonable reductions in spending” that were in a House-passed version of the payroll tax bill that the Senate ignored.

Boehner’s comments came a day after House Republicans used a conference call to complain bitterly about the Senate bill, putting House passage in serious jeopardy.

House Republicans dislike the Senate bill for many reasons, including its lack of what they consider real spending cuts and its removal of restrictions on Obama administration rules. Others are unhappy about extending unemployment benefits or oppose cutting the payroll tax, which is used to finance the Social Security system.

“It’s pretty clear I and our members oppose the Senate bill,” Boehner said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. He added, “I believe two months is just kicking the can down the road.”

House leaders have scheduled a vote on the bill for Monday.

The bill would force President Barack Obama to make a decision in the next two months on whether to build the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The president had initially said he would postpone a decision on the 1,700-mile-long pipeline until after next year’s elections and threatened to kill the payroll tax bill if it included the pipeline provision. But he backed off this week as the Senate payroll compromise took shape.

Republicans strongly support the pipeline, which is supposed to pump oil from Alberta, Canada, to Texas, for the thousands of jobs it is expected to create. Unions favor the plan but environmentalists oppose it, forcing Obama to choose between two Democratic constituencies.

The Senate bill says Obama can reject the pipeline only if he decides building it would not be in the national interest.

Read more here.

From the Associated Press:

A deal on the $1 trillion-plus spending bill was reached after Republicans agreed to drop language that would have blocked President Barack Obama’s liberalized rules on people who visit and send money to relatives in Cuba. But a GOP provision will stay in the bill thwarting an Obama administration rule on energy efficiency standards that critics argued would make it hard for people to purchase inexpensive incandescent light bulbs.

A senior White House official said the administration supported the two-month plan.

Bargainers were considering the two-month extension of this year’s payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits bill because so far, they haven’t agreed how a yearlong extension would be paid for, said a Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks.

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Today’s congressional insider trading hearings led by Rep. Spencer Bachus showcased a carefully selected list of expert witnesses designed to protect the status quo and thwart real reform.

Among Rep. Bachus’s list of experts were Indiana University Professor Donna Nagy, Jack Maskell of the Congressional Research Service and Robert Walker, who formerly served as a lawyer on the House Ethics Committee. All three argued that current laws are fine as written. However, when Enforcement Division Director of the Securities and Exchange Commission Robert Khuzami was asked whether the SEC had ever brought action against any member of Congress or congressional staffers for insider trading, Mr. Khuzami confessed that if they had he wasn’t aware of it.

Rep. Bachus’s shell game is hardly a surprise. In the wake of the 60 Minutes investigation and my book’s revelations about Rep. Bachus’s 40 stock options trades during the 2008 financial crisis, he is desperately trying to reposition himself as a reformer, going so far as to now announce a plan to have members of Congress establish blind trusts. That is great as window dressing, but why not give the American people a clear picture of what is actually going on in Washington?

For starters, instead of stacking the deck, Rep. Bachus should have had a panel of experts who hold diverse views. Why not call a witness like UCLA Law Professor Steve Bainbridge who, in addition to being an expert on insider trading laws, has sounded the alarm bells for years on the insufficiency of our current laws?

Moreover, why not have an honest discussion about the fact that the SEC has never pursued congressional insider trading cases? We know the answer. Congress approves the SEC budget every year. And remember what happened when the FBI investigated Rep. William Jefferson for taking bribes? Congress threatened to slash the FBI budget!

The American public has lost faith in our political leaders precisely because of the sort of ridiculous show that Rep. Bachus put on today.

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Our nation will spend more than $40 trillion over the next ten years with at least $15 trillion in deficit spending, while Congress is arguing about how to reduce that deficit by all of 8% – really?  With this nonsense debate going on, Mr. Obama has abdicated his presidency and is now campaigning for reelection on a full-time basis.  The rest of the world, meanwhile, is simply falling apart.

The Muslim Brotherhood is coming to power in Egypt, Iran is moving deliberately toward nuclear armament and Europe is proving that socialist democracies will fall at their own hand.  In the midst of this turmoil, the media has our people focusing on why the top 1% paying 50% of all federal taxes falls short of “their fair share” and why entitlements and government needs to keep growing.  We are missing the point – eliminate the noise and the real debate is simply whether our children live free or for the benefit of the state?

Let’s forget all the facts and figures about our growing debt and the increasing involvement of government in our lives and focus on the fundamental definition of liberty: liberty is the freedom from arbitrary control; it is freedom to exercise the unalienable rights endowed upon us by our Creator; it is freedom from oppressive power exerted by government; and it is freedom from all forms of tyranny.  While people demand that their neighbors who may be better off economically should be ordered – by law – to share their success with them, what they are really promoting is the ascendancy of the state over the people.  What they are missing is that they are demanding the suppression of liberty for their neighbors, themselves and their own children.

The systematic destruction of our economic strength through increased regulation, increased taxation on the job creators, a 50% increase in the national debt in just the last three years and an equal increase in the dependency on foreign governments to fund our debt has turned our nation upside down.  We have gone from the world’s last hope to a sideshow and find our great country powerless to help prevent ally nations from economic decline and powerless to stop the rise of tyrannical regimes.

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Since the publishing of Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s book, Throw Them All Out, support for the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act to ban members of Congress from using private information for personal profit has jumped from four cosponsors to 131. Yet in the wake of yesterday’s Senate hearings on the subject, several Capitol Hill observers are asking: does the bill, in the present forms being considered, go far enough?

Hardly, say insider trading experts and Washington watchers.

UCLA Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge calls some versions of the bill under consideration “bizarre and toothless.” Equally unimpressed with the bill’s language is Atlantic Monthly senior editor Megan McArdle. “Will someone please guard the damn guardians?” writes McArdle.

One member of Congress who is pleased with the STOCK Act is Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Yesterday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who has come under fire for having acquired Visa IPO shares that resulted in a 203% profit while thwarting critical credit card reform bills, appeared to shrug off the urgency of passing the bill. “I would hope that it’s not as necessary as the whoop-de-doo over it makes it seem. But I do think that we all disclose what we do.” And Speaker of the House John Boehner’s comments yesterday seemed to leave open the question of whether such legislation is even needed. “The hearings are a step in the right direction to determine whether there’s a need for such a bill to move. We’ll let those hearings proceed,” said Boehner.

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Yesterday, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky compared the Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee who voted to subpoena White House documents relating to the Solyndra bankruptcy scandal to “birthers.”

She apparently did not appreciate her collegues’ reasonable demands to see relevant documents pertaining to the White House’s involvement in the scandal.

As could be expected, the congresswoman who never shies away from ad hominem name-calling or metaphorically disparaging anyone who thinks differently than she does, went on the attack again.

The Hill reports:

“I doubt that anything the White House would have agreed to yesterday would have been sufficient. This is a majority that won’t take yes for an answer,” Schakowsky said Thursday ahead of the committee vote.

“And while you are at it why don’t you ask for more documents relating to the place of his birth, or as some members want, his school grades, and why not from kindergarten through law school,”

So Jan believes that elected officials who seek answers relating to a $535-million bad loan, with a trail that goes all the way up to White House, is just as silly as demanding to see the president’s birth certificate?

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From CNN:

House Republicans investigating the loan controversy had requested all internal White House documents about the issue. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee chair Rep. Cliff Stearns said that includes emails on the President’s Blackberry.

On Friday the White House Counsel sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee explaining they won’t comply with the request because it “implicates longstanding and significant institutional Executive Branch confidentiality interests.”

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