The hypocrisy of Republican politicians is practically endemic at this point, but somehow they manage to take it so far it becomes bizarrely comical. Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee was caught having “not properly disclosed millions of dollars in income from real estate, hedge funds and other investments until last Friday” according to The Wall Street Journal. As expected, Corker has since corrected his ‘oversight’. Given that the Republican Party behaves as a for-profit enterprise in collusion with the wealthy oligarchs of America, it will come as no surprise that this man is the third-ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Banking, which oversees the real-estate and financial-services sector.

According to the report, Corker:
“did not properly disclose at least $2 million in income from investments in three separate hedge funds in Tennessee, as well as millions of dollars in income from commercial real estate investments…millions of dollars in various other assets and income from transactions.”

This is not a one-time oversight. Corker, who took office in 2007, has consistently failed to report income from his investments. This sum total of money is not petty cash. In fact, in addition to the $2 million in income from hedge fund omissions, “the fully amended filings show at least $3.8 million in additional income between 2007 and 2014 from commercial real-estate holdings.”...

Corker is the third-ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Banking, which oversees the real-estate and financial-services sectors. “Members of Congress have free reign in their personal investments as long as they disclose them so that the public can determine whether or not there’s a conflict of interest.”