Louisiana Voice

Nancy Pelosi has been beaten up fairly regularly about the fantastic growth of her net worth while serving in the U.S. Congress and to tell the truth, that growth does appear, on the surface at least, to be more a case of opportunism than service to one’s country—until you look a little deeper.

While she did rack up more than 200 trades in the stock market and while her net worth was listed as something in the neighborhood of $400 million (that’s a pretty nice neighborhood) as recently as July, not all of her income was from stock trades.

Her husband is a venture capitalist and she and her husband own a Napa Valley winery, a political data and consulting firm and a stake in a Bay-area Italian restaurant but a New York Post story said in June 2025, “A large chunk of the couple’s fortune has come from a sizable stock portfolio and timely trades, all done in Paul Pelosi’s name.” Exclusive | Pelosi added millions to net worth last year: report

To be completely fair, she lost an estimated $6.8 MILLION in the stock market in December 2025, according to Quiver TradeTracker.

So, to answer the critics, yes, members of Congress do appear to take full advantage of insider knowledge to make timely trades that enhance their bottom lines. Like former Gov. Bobby Jindal, whose net worth during his three short years in the House blossomed from $500,000 in 2005, the year he was sworn in as a U.S. Representative, to a cool $1 million when he entered the governor’s office in 2008 to today’s estimated net worth of $5 million, thanks to his appointment to a couple of corporate boards and public speaking engagements.

So, it should come as no surprise to learn that U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, currently running for the U/S. Senate to succeed Bill Cassidy, has also increased her net worth dramatically in her five years in office.

In fact, it was pretty much the issue in the Republican primaries where she bumped off first Cassidy and then State Treasurer John Fleming to qualify to face Democrat Jamie Davis in the November general election.

In her five years in the House, Letlow has seen her net worth mushroom from about $300,000 to today’s estimate of as much as $2.5 million, thanks in part to more than 240 timely trades that have raised some eyebrows. Julia Letlow Net Worth & Financial Disclosure 2024: Assets & Portfolio | Congress Stock Tracker

It’s nowhere near the wealth accrued by Pelosi, of course, but hey, she’s only been in office for five years as opposed to Pelosi’s 40. Give her time. It’s like fellow House member Clay Higgins once told his ex-wife about campaigning and politics: “There’s gonna be a lot of money floating around.”

But, after all, if it’s good enough for the WTF (whole Trump family) to capitalize on graft, grift and greed, then what’s wrong with an obscure member of Congress from Louisiana dipping her toe in the warm waters of wantedness?

After all, it appears from here that she’s merely aspiring to emulate who Republicans claim is the most free-wheeling trader in all of Congress, the aforementioned Nancy Pelosi.

Would you want to be the one to thwart a little ambition? Sure, you can’t even afford groceries and it’s a real strain to fill up your car these days and Letlow did twice vote against the War Powers Act that might’ve helped rein in Trump’s inflationary war.

But are you really that selfish? Are you willing to honestly begrudge your $174,000-per-year (plus other perks) member of Congress feathering her nest? Aren’t you willing to make that sacrifice so she can maintain her comfortable lifestyle?

After all, it’s just the good ol’ system of capitalism we’re talking about here.

I know all the lies, exaggerations, embellishments and misrepresentations by the Lard of Mar-a-Largo all tend to run together, often making it difficult to keep them all straight in your head, but there’s one that really stands out after first hearing him utter it 10 years ago:

“I hire only the best people.”

Wow. Perhaps the biggest whopper of them all and there have been soooo many!

Like when he said he would unveil his healthcare plan to replace Obamacare “in a couple of weeks.”

Or when he promised to release (a) his tax returns and (b) the Epstein files, neither of which has yet occurred.

And of course, he is currently desperately trying to buy time by promising an end to a war he said would only take a “couple of weeks” in the first place. He’s now promising it’ll end “after the elections” in November. That’s a desperate lie in an equally desperate attempt to hold onto his base for another six weeks or so.

But let’s go back to his hiring the “best people,” because that lie is so current even as I write this.

Item: Police investigate deaths of two Ole Miss students – Mississippi Today. Two students the University of Mississippi were found dead in separate incidents on Monday, both of which are believed to be the result of Kratom overdoses.

Item: The Livingston Parish council considering a parish wide ban of Kratom ack in April but decided to wait to see what the legislature did with a similar bill to ban the drug statewide.

Item: The House Committee on Administration of Criminal Justice UNANIMOUSLY PUNTED on HB 778 by Rep. Beryl Amedee (R-Houma) which would have done just that.

For those unfamiliar with the plant, indigenous to Southeast Asia, it is a stimulant that has an opioid-like effect and which has been cardiac arrest, liver toxicity and other serious side effects. FDA Cracks Down on Kratom, Issues Warning Over Opioid-Like Substance

Item: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin holds up to a $1 million stake in a kratom company. DHS Secretary Mullin Holds Up to $1M Stake in Kratom Company Botanic Tonics — Kratom News Today.

That’s correct, boys and girls. The U.S. President who has ordered the bombing of fishing boats off the South American coast, killing more than 60 Venezuelan citizens in the name of drug control, has appointed a man who profits off what is perhaps a dangerous drug responsible for the deaths of two students at Ole Miss–a drug which is termed “unsafe and ineffective” by the Mayo Clinic.

Oh, but campers, that’s not all.

We, of course, know about the Epstein files and Trump’s steadfast refusal to discuss them—even to the point of starting a war as a distraction.

Item: But did you know Trump’s chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), one Brendan Carr, was for a decade affiliated with an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) group known as the Midtown group, an organization based in the Washington, DC, area, a cult that a former member called the “EPSTEIN OF AA” for the manner in which the lives of underage girls who went there for treatment of alcohol problems were controlled and abused sexually.

Care is Trump’s hatchet man who has gone after Jimmy Kimmel and who has threatened the broadcast licenses of various TV networks who offend Trump with their news reporting.

But it is his 10-year association with the Midtown group that has some more observant critics buzzing. With all the loud noise over the Epstein files, the Washington AA group has basically flown under the radar and because of that, Carr has received scant attention.

Until now. Admittedly, it took a while. Newsweek, after all, called attention to the group way back in 2007, before Trump as President ever entered the conversation. Critics Say Washington AA Chapter Is Cultlike – Newsweek.

So, does Trump even vet his appointees? It certainly doesn’t appear so. The stories were out there for everyone to see. Trump’s FCC chair spent nearly a decade in group accused of exploiting teen girls.

And did Louisiana’s two senators who consistently have voted to confirm each of Trump’s nominees, no matter how distasteful (see Kash Patel, Robert Kennedy Jr., Kristi Noem, etc.), all of which begs the question of why the hell John N. Kennedy and Bill Cassidy weren’t a little more diligent in doing their homework and standing up as men of principle rather than kissing Trump’s ass?

I’ve seen my share of weak-kneed, milquetoast-willed men serving in elective office but for sheer consistency, I’ve never in my 83 years beheld two cowards of the magnitude of these two men. Neither one has ever—not once—voted no on or objected to any of Trump’s abominable appointments, no matter how crazy (RFK Jr.), corrupt (Noem), dense (Tulsi Gabbard) greedy (Elon Musk), uncaring (ICE Director Tom Homan), just plain stupid (Pete Hegseth), sleazy (Matt Gaetz) or cruel (Stephen Miller).

As far as any realistic evaluation of John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy, one can only surmise that theirs is an endorsement of autocracy by collusion. By their unfailing support of his appointments, we can only conclude that they concur in Trump’s assessments of these bottom-feeders as the “best people.” And if Cassidy and John Kennedy are that easily misled, then the only logical conclusion is that by extension, so are those who elected them.

I mean, appoining–and confirming–a man with a $1 million stake in kratom as DHS secretary and an FCC chair who hung out with an Epstein-like manipulator and abuser of underage girls for a full decade? Seriously?

Is this what we’ve come to as a nation?