Diane Dimond
Quick, name some national politicians you trust. What’s that you say? You’re struggling to think of any trustworthy politicians in Washington? You are not alone.
Pew Research reports 80% of us say we do not trust the federal government to do what’s right “always or most of the time.” And 81% of us think members of Congress act unethically “all or some of the time.”
I came to realize one way Congress could polish up their tarnished reputations after reading an editorial in The New Republic. Simply put, members of the U.S. Congress should stop playing the stock market. That’s right; either get out of the market altogether or set up tamper-proof blind trusts.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., followed the law and recently disclosed that her investor husband bought up to $1 million in Tesla stock just weeks before President Joe Biden announced he intends to replace the entire government fleet with electric cars. The eyebrow-raising transaction gives Pelosi an obvious financial interest in Tesla at a time when she will play a lead role in passing green initiatives that surely will help the electric car maker. Pelosi s husband also bought options on Apple stock worth up to $500,000 at a time when Congress was talking about tough restrictions on Big Tech. But Pelosi reported all of this, so everything is hunky-dory.
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Think of a presidential pardon as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. The game of Monopoly has only one such card, but presidents have an unlimited supply.
Rarely has a president left office without making at least one pardon that was highly questionable, and highly criticized. Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon in 1974, George H.W. Bush’s pardons of half a dozen Iran-Contra felons in 1992, Bill Clinton’s pardon on his last day in office of Marc Rich, the fugitive financier, and Barack Obama’s pardon of Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning are among those that come to mind.