Wednesday, September 14: Conflict of Interest?
How is it still legal for these people in power to trade stocks?
The New York Times released an article today detailing how members of congress and the senate (intentionally lowercase to indicate disrespect) are using their positions to enrich themselves through shady stock trades. It’s a long and interactive story well worth your time and attention, but the authors summarized the meat of the story in two sentences.
From 2019 to 2021, 183 current senators or representatives reported a trade of a stock or another financial asset by themselves or an immediate family member.
More than half of them sat on congressional committees that potentially gave them insight into the companies whose shares they reported buying or selling.
Analysis by the authors found that 97 members of congress reported trades of stock or other financial assets that intersected with their work. Of course, some have chosen to abuse their power more than others, and some of the scams are bolder and more obvious than others. Those that are newer to Washington, like Alabama republican senator/former college football coach Tommy Tuberville (a grown man named after a tank engine), who reported buying and selling contracts tied to cattle prices regularly last year, even as he served on a panel that discussed cattle markets.
Meanwhile, seasoned swamp veterans like house speaker/scam queen Nancy Pelosi have found more intricate ways of distancing themselves from what the industry would recognize as insider trading. Her husband & occasionally tipsy chauffeur Paul Pelosi, is a real estate and tech investor who reported buying and selling between $25 million and $81 million worth of stocks, options and other financial assets between 2019 and 2021.
When the time comes to eat the rich, y’all be sure to remember ol’ Nancy and Paul, eating well and growing rich by slithering through loopholes all the while pretending to look out for the rest of us.
Side Items
Former football star/retired sleazeball Brett Favre has been implicated in a growing scandal involving the former governor of Mississippi, a volleyball stadium project, and defrauding the government for millions of dollars. This is part of a growing criminal scandal suggesting prominent public officials misspent or stole millions in welfare funds intended for the nation’s poorest residents. I wonder what else that money could have been used for in Mississippi…
In today’s edition of ACAB: In June, a 22-year old man in Colorado got stuck in his car on a rural road and called police for help. The responding officers killed Christian Glass while he sat in his car, after he spent over an hour trying to communicate to them that he was harmless and helpless. He posed no threat to police and committed no crime, but they killed him all the same
That train strike we were talking about? It’s coming sooner than we think, and it’s gonna be worse than we know. The heads of the two train unions and negotiators for the railroads’ bargaining team are headed to Washington today to try and avoid catastrophe. My money’s on catastrophe