Congress exempted itself from culpability in criminal activity regarding insider trading. Shown above, from right, Senators Schumer, Feinstein, Leahy, and Grassley.

Under pressure from the public in 2011, Congress voted to make itself criminally culpable in the same illegal activities with which ordinary citizens are charged with regard to insider trading. Insider trading on Wall St. had become a hot button issue after the collapse of 2007, and Congress had a point to make with the voting public, particularly in the run up to an election year.

In the vote that was taken in Congress that year, senators and representatives voted to place themselves under the same laws that forbid insider trading on Wall St. They could not use any information they had run across while in office to personally benefit in any way, not even after they left office.

But quietly, under the radar screen, all of that changed. After making a public spectacle of righteous indignation and humbling themselves to submit to the same laws the peons of the populace must follow, Congress secretly reinstated the exemptions they had enjoyed prior to the time when the public shamed them into submitting to the same laws they pass for ordinary citizens.

Thus, it is now perfectly legal for senators and congressmen to personally benefit from insider information in a number of arenas, including secretive information passed along to them indicating that a stock is getting ready to either crash or skyrocket.

The corruption inherent within such a scenario is at once shocking and disgusting. How did Americans allow their elected officials to get to this point? Is everyone in Washington above the law except for non-governmental citizens?

When Richard Nixon was on the brink of impeachment in 1974, leading to his resignation from office, the mantra the media and Congress constantly pounded into the heads of the public was that "no one is above the law, not even a president."

Much has changed in the past 40 years. Now it appears that everyone is above the law, even the president, provided you serve in public office.

An example of the corruption was reported in the news Saturday. The firm partially owned by the husband of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has been awarded a multibillion government contract to build high speed rail in California.

This is not the first time Feinstein's husband has benefited handsomely from government contracts sent his way by his wife who just happens to sit on some powerful committees in the Senate that have the inside scoop on such information.

Had an ordinary citizen who is not in government engaged in such activity, they would be sitting in jail. And everyone in America, if they have a brain, knows it.

REST OF THIS FARCE TRAVESTY