Just when it seems like the corruption that exists within the Washington establishment cannot possibly shock you anymore, you get blindsided by a nugget like this http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/11/13/peter-schweizer-s-new-book-blasts-congressional-corruption.html .
At first glance it seems amazingly illegal for politicians to profit from insider trading but as Zachary Karabell explains for The Daily Beast:
Yet insider-trading laws do not apply to what many members of Congress have done. Because their privileged information does not come from company insiders and because congressional representatives are not employees of any public company, their trades do not fall under the definition of illegal insider trading. In short, because they trade on material nonpublic information about spending that they acquire as elected representatives, rather than on material nonpublic information provided by companies, they have not broken the law.
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While this trading may not be illegal, it is incredibly immoral and citizens should expect better from their politicians. I really hope this budding controversy has legs and naively believe that some sort of limiting legislation should come out of this.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/15/ethically-challenged-congress-needs-law-or-code-banning-insider-trading.html
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