THE EARMARK

If it’s Wednesday July 22nd, 2009, that can only mean one thing: The American Meat Institute is taking over Capitol Hill!

For hungry Capitol Hill staffers who frequent Congressional receptions in search of free food, Wednesday is their Super Bowl: The American Meat Institute hosts its annual Hot Dog Lunch in the courtyard of the Rayburn House Office Building.  Organizers were expected to serve up more than 4,000 free hot dogs, brats, kielbasas and other sausages to Members, staffers, lobbyists and others starting at about 11 a.m. in the courtyard…

To put it into perspective, if the hot dogs served were laid end-to-end, there would be enough to circle the Capitol Rotunda four times, equal the length of 50 D.C. buses and stretch the entire length of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, according to the institute.

There’s a certain poetry in watching our legislators break from reforming our nation’s health care system to spend an hour gorging themselves with meat.  And though we hate to throw a bucket of trichinosis on the party, can we mention the irony that the House spent the earlier part of the day drafting legislation about contracting Type 2 Diabetes?

Of course the day really belongs to the American Meat Institute and its generous hot dog donation. Still, we imagine several key legislators considered this to be a BYOP (Bring Your Own Pork) affair.

How else to explain the fact that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) showed up to the Hot Dog Lunch with a $50 million hurricane research earmark as a bib?  Or that Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) arrived via an F-22 jet?  Or that Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) offered Chambliss an entire airport at which to land that jet?

Maybe next year the American Meat Institute should just bring buns and ketchup and leave the actual pork to the professionals.

We’ve said it before, and now we’ll say it again.  Swindlers in the financial services industry: Stop preying on the most naive, foolish, vulnerable segment of our society — members of Congress!

Around this time last year, we called out the sub-prime mortgage thieves who caused foolhardy Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA) to default on the loan for her third home.  The congresswoman was so distraught that she wound up abandoning her BMW at a Long Beach auto garage, and no amount of Greenpeace-funded smoothies could comfort her.

Now comes the news that the financial vultures have found another Congressional victim.  And that would be freshman Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), who apparently wanted to show solidarity with Americans who were bilked by Ponzi schemes by falling for one himself…

Freshman Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) lost $3 million in a stock swindle between 2000 and 2005, a Florida television station reported this week.

According to Orlando’s Local 6, Grayson was an investor in a Ponzi scheme run by the company Derivium Capital. The scheme allowed Grayson and other investors to turn over stock to Derivium in exchange for cash loans and redeem the value later if the stock prices increased.

This news alone ought to be embarrassing enough for Grayson, his family, and the United States of America.  But what makes it even more pathetic is the fact that Grayson isn’t just a congressman — he’s on the House Financial Services Committee!  He’s supposed to be safeguarding the nation against fraud and instead he’s intertwining himself with bogus offers for instant cash loans.  And he’s been hiding it for four years!

Clearly humbled, Rep. Grayson has now decided that cash-loan-for-stock scams simply aren’t the best way to fritter away money in today’s economy.  So from now on, look for the congressman to get his dough the old fashioned way… in $50 million earmarks attached to cap-and-trade legislation.