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Frazzled wrote: Yes indeedy. I just rented the Zoot Suit for the Valentine's Dance. I'm a hep cat!
Zoot suits? I thought that was strictly west coast?
Western coat. It doesn't get more western coast than a zoot suit, ten gallon hat and spurs.
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
Frazzled wrote: Yes indeedy. I just rented the Zoot Suit for the Valentine's Dance. I'm a hep cat!
Zoot suits? I thought that was strictly west coast?
LA Basin to be specific.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Why didn't any of the Black presidents do anything about slavery huh ?!
First, it's LaPage. He's almost as bad as Trump when it comes to speaking without thinking.
Second, the Republican party of Lincoln, Grant, etc., is not the Republican party of today, so perhaps LePage should be the one checking his history.
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
Why didn't any of the Black presidents do anything about slavery huh ?!
First, it's LaPage. He's almost as bad as Trump when it comes to speaking without thinking.
Second, the Republican party of Lincoln, Grant, etc., is not the Republican party of today, so perhaps LePage should be the one checking his history.
I honestly thought Trump couldn't be topped on this front to be honest.
I mean the guy last got arrested while a sitting member of the House in 2013 during a sit-in protesting the lack of meaningful immigration reform coming from Congress (during a government shut down, cause apparently the government having no money is no excuse to not arrest people for the crime sitting somewhere Congress finds their presence inconvenient). He was a Freedom Rider, and a member of the Big Six who was beaten half to death by the KKK and Donald Trump wants to lecture him on making a difference because he wrote a comic book about his experiences?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/17 18:44:13
Why didn't any of the Black presidents do anything about slavery huh ?!
First, it's LaPage. He's almost as bad as Trump when it comes to speaking without thinking.
Second, the Republican party of Lincoln, Grant, etc., is not the Republican party of today, so perhaps LePage should be the one checking his history.
The Republican Party of Today is not even the Republican Party of last year.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
If "stop bitching, we passed our last great civil rights bill 50 years ago, what more do you want" is the best defense the GOP has to offer, I would say that speaks pretty loudly against them.
d-usa wrote: If "stop bitching, we passed our last great civil rights bill 50 years ago, what more do you want" is the best defense the GOP has to offer, I would say that speaks pretty loudly against them.
"If he knew about it, it could very well be a violation of the law," Schumer told CNN. "Now they say there's a broker, it's kind of strange that this broker would pick this stock totally independently of him introducing legislation that's so narrow and specific to this company."
Schumer also called for an investigation of Price after CNN reported that Price bought up to $15,000 worth of stock in Zimmer Biomet -- a medical device maker -- and then introduced a measure that would have directly benefited the company. One week after Price bought the stock, he put in a measure that would have delayed a new regulation that would have harmed the company.
First on CNN: Trump's Cabinet pick invested in company, then introduced a bill to help it
"This is a very narrow, specific company that dealt with implants—hip and knee—and the legislation specifically affects implants. He puts it in a week after he buys the stock? That cries out for an investigation," Schumer told CNN.
"If he knew about it, it could very well be a violation of the law," Schumer told CNN. "Now they say there's a broker, it's kind of strange that this broker would pick this stock totally independently of him introducing legislation that's so narrow and specific to this company."
Schumer also called for an investigation of Price after CNN reported that Price bought up to $15,000 worth of stock in Zimmer Biomet -- a medical device maker -- and then introduced a measure that would have directly benefited the company. One week after Price bought the stock, he put in a measure that would have delayed a new regulation that would have harmed the company.
First on CNN: Trump's Cabinet pick invested in company, then introduced a bill to help it
"This is a very narrow, specific company that dealt with implants—hip and knee—and the legislation specifically affects implants. He puts it in a week after he buys the stock? That cries out for an investigation," Schumer told CNN.
Seems awfully coincidential...
Chuckie would have the opportunity to ask Price about that tomorrow.
"If he knew about it, it could very well be a violation of the law," Schumer told CNN. "Now they say there's a broker, it's kind of strange that this broker would pick this stock totally independently of him introducing legislation that's so narrow and specific to this company."
Schumer also called for an investigation of Price after CNN reported that Price bought up to $15,000 worth of stock in Zimmer Biomet -- a medical device maker -- and then introduced a measure that would have directly benefited the company. One week after Price bought the stock, he put in a measure that would have delayed a new regulation that would have harmed the company.
First on CNN: Trump's Cabinet pick invested in company, then introduced a bill to help it
"This is a very narrow, specific company that dealt with implants—hip and knee—and the legislation specifically affects implants. He puts it in a week after he buys the stock? That cries out for an investigation," Schumer told CNN.
I propose a broad inquisitorial mandate that will drag on for years and years, followed by unjustifiable innate assumptions of guilt regardless of the outcome of the investigation, followed by further investigations, followed by more innate assumptions of guilt.
Firstly insider trading is totally legal within congress. How do you think Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and many many more make their millions after being elected?
JSF wrote:... this is really quite an audacious move by GW, throwing out any pretext that this is a game and that its customers exist to do anything other than buy their overpriced products for the sake of it. The naked arrogance, greed and contempt for their audience is shocking.
SickSix wrote: Firstly insider trading is totally legal within congress. How do you think Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and many many more make their millions after being elected?
Wait... wut?
...I think I vaguely remember this, but do you have a legal source for this?
SickSix wrote: Firstly insider trading is totally legal within congress. How do you think Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and many many more make their millions after being elected?
The same Nancy Pelosi who voted for the STOCK Act? The very act which made what Tom Price is accused of illegal?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/17 19:29:21
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
SickSix wrote: Firstly insider trading is totally legal within congress. How do you think Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and many many more make their millions after being elected?
You want strict ethics rules? Start at the top -- with the shining example of the noble knights of the House of Representatives, which bans all gifts from lobbyists and imposes a $50 limit on gifts from anyone else. And no, you can't give an infinite number of $49 gifts to Larry Lawmaker. Sayeth the holy rulebook.
The general provision goes on to state that a member, officer or employee may accept from any other source virtually any gift valued below $50, with a limitation of less than $100 in gifts from any single source in a calendar year. Gifts having a value of less than $10 do not count toward the annual limit.
Okay, so maybe you can give an infinite number of $9.99 gifts, and meals are specifically designated as such. Feel free to make your case to Rep. Portentous over a daily lunch at Arby's. But still: pretty tight rules, eh?
Except that one thing you can do as a member is study pending legislation and regulatory changes, call up your broker and instruct him to trade on that nonpublic information. Do this as often as you want; you will suffer no penalty. There is no limit to how much money you can earn on insider trading in the House or Senate. Lawmakers and their staffers are specifically exempted.
As you might expect, those who work in the hallowed halls are not shy about availing themselves of the opportunity. A Wall Street Journal analysis published more than six months ago that has thus far provoked no particular sense of shame on Capitol Hill found that at least 72 Congressional aides in both parties had recently traded shares of companies that their bosses helped regulate. In 2009, while Senate Banking Committee member Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, was involved in discussing “stress tests” on banks such as Bank of America, his aide Karen Brown traded the company's stock on several occasions in the weeks before May 7, 2009 -- when BofA surged thanks to a press release on its stress-test result, assuring Ms. Brown a nifty profit.
Asked by the Wall Street Journal to explain, Sen. Crapo's office said the trades weren't really made by Karen Brown but by her husband, who had no knowledge of what was going on in the banking committee. Would you go to your compliance officer, much less the SEC, with that line? True, these folks do need a good laugh now and again, and the SEC has to be in a jolly mood after the jury in the Galleon case all but repeated the verdict from The Producers: “We find the defendants incredibly guilty.”
Last week a study of some 16,000 stock transactions carried out by House members was published in the journal Business and Politics. This detailed analysis showed that the investment portfolios of House members beat the market by about six points a year. (Democrats did especially well, outperforming by some nine points a year, while Republicans topped the average investor by only two percent annually.) Senators apparently do even better: “their portfolios show some of the highest excess returns ever recorded over a long period of time, significantly outperforming even hedge fund managers,” noted the journal, citing a previously published study.
In a surprising twist, the study found that there tended to be an inverse relationship between the lawmaker's seniority and the insider-trading profits pocketed by him and his minions. The authors speculated that “Whereas Representatives with the longest seniority (in this case more than 16 years), have no trouble raising funds for campaigns, junkets and whatever other causes they may deem desirable owed to the power they wield, the financial condition of a freshman Congressman is far more precarious. His or her position is by no means secure, financially or otherwise. House Members with the least seniority may have fewer opportunities to trade on privileged information, but they may be the most highly motivated to do so when the opportunities arise.”
Doesn't that give you a cozy feeling, knowing that nonpublic securities info is helping make your friendly local politician more secure as he daydreams new ways to prevent, limit, or appropriate for his own reelection purposes - sorry, the needs of the Republic!-- your financial success?
It's not an accident that Congressionalites are expressly exempt from insider-trading laws. The reasoning is that, were the situation otherwise, “it might tend to “insulate a legislator from the personal and economic interests that his/her constituency, or society in general, has in governmental decisions and policy,” says the House ethics manual.
This is entirely beside the point: no one would object if lawmakers placed their assets in ETFs, in which case they'd still have an interest in the overall performance of the market. Or why not be simple and allow Congressional trading on everything except nonpublic information?
In what must be treated as more of a practical joke than a serious effort at legislation, every so often a group of lawmakers typically numbering in the high single digits proposes that Congress be subjected to the same insider-trading laws as you or me. Said proposal is always swiftly ignored -- it has yet to reach the House floor and hasn't even been bandied in the Senate. Then everyone goes out to their Spartan lunches of baloney and Cheez Curls, comfortable in the knowledge that they have improved on the Golden Rule: He who makes the rules pockets the gold.
Here in the UK, when it's the Queen's birthday, you're legally allowed to start blasting cannons in celebrations.
Anything similar in the USA?
The Wife is making me take jitterbug lessons that Friday. We have matching dance shoes.
Matching dance shoes! Oh my God, that's so fething...adorable. I remember taking dance lessons with my wife for our wedding. I love her, but she's Elaine Benes when it comes to dancing.
JSF wrote:... this is really quite an audacious move by GW, throwing out any pretext that this is a game and that its customers exist to do anything other than buy their overpriced products for the sake of it. The naked arrogance, greed and contempt for their audience is shocking.
You want strict ethics rules? Start at the top -- with the shining example of the noble knights of the House of Representatives, which bans all gifts from lobbyists and imposes a $50 limit on gifts from anyone else. And no, you can't give an infinite number of $49 gifts to Larry Lawmaker. Sayeth the holy rulebook.
The general provision goes on to state that a member, officer or employee may accept from any other source virtually any gift valued below $50, with a limitation of less than $100 in gifts from any single source in a calendar year. Gifts having a value of less than $10 do not count toward the annual limit.
Okay, so maybe you can give an infinite number of $9.99 gifts, and meals are specifically designated as such. Feel free to make your case to Rep. Portentous over a daily lunch at Arby's. But still: pretty tight rules, eh?
Except that one thing you can do as a member is study pending legislation and regulatory changes, call up your broker and instruct him to trade on that nonpublic information. Do this as often as you want; you will suffer no penalty. There is no limit to how much money you can earn on insider trading in the House or Senate. Lawmakers and their staffers are specifically exempted.
As you might expect, those who work in the hallowed halls are not shy about availing themselves of the opportunity. A Wall Street Journal analysis published more than six months ago that has thus far provoked no particular sense of shame on Capitol Hill found that at least 72 Congressional aides in both parties had recently traded shares of companies that their bosses helped regulate. In 2009, while Senate Banking Committee member Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, was involved in discussing “stress tests” on banks such as Bank of America, his aide Karen Brown traded the company's stock on several occasions in the weeks before May 7, 2009 -- when BofA surged thanks to a press release on its stress-test result, assuring Ms. Brown a nifty profit.
Asked by the Wall Street Journal to explain, Sen. Crapo's office said the trades weren't really made by Karen Brown but by her husband, who had no knowledge of what was going on in the banking committee. Would you go to your compliance officer, much less the SEC, with that line? True, these folks do need a good laugh now and again, and the SEC has to be in a jolly mood after the jury in the Galleon case all but repeated the verdict from The Producers: “We find the defendants incredibly guilty.”
Last week a study of some 16,000 stock transactions carried out by House members was published in the journal Business and Politics. This detailed analysis showed that the investment portfolios of House members beat the market by about six points a year. (Democrats did especially well, outperforming by some nine points a year, while Republicans topped the average investor by only two percent annually.) Senators apparently do even better: “their portfolios show some of the highest excess returns ever recorded over a long period of time, significantly outperforming even hedge fund managers,” noted the journal, citing a previously published study.
In a surprising twist, the study found that there tended to be an inverse relationship between the lawmaker's seniority and the insider-trading profits pocketed by him and his minions. The authors speculated that “Whereas Representatives with the longest seniority (in this case more than 16 years), have no trouble raising funds for campaigns, junkets and whatever other causes they may deem desirable owed to the power they wield, the financial condition of a freshman Congressman is far more precarious. His or her position is by no means secure, financially or otherwise. House Members with the least seniority may have fewer opportunities to trade on privileged information, but they may be the most highly motivated to do so when the opportunities arise.”
Doesn't that give you a cozy feeling, knowing that nonpublic securities info is helping make your friendly local politician more secure as he daydreams new ways to prevent, limit, or appropriate for his own reelection purposes - sorry, the needs of the Republic!-- your financial success?
It's not an accident that Congressionalites are expressly exempt from insider-trading laws. The reasoning is that, were the situation otherwise, “it might tend to “insulate a legislator from the personal and economic interests that his/her constituency, or society in general, has in governmental decisions and policy,” says the House ethics manual.
This is entirely beside the point: no one would object if lawmakers placed their assets in ETFs, in which case they'd still have an interest in the overall performance of the market. Or why not be simple and allow Congressional trading on everything except nonpublic information?
In what must be treated as more of a practical joke than a serious effort at legislation, every so often a group of lawmakers typically numbering in the high single digits proposes that Congress be subjected to the same insider-trading laws as you or me. Said proposal is always swiftly ignored -- it has yet to reach the House floor and hasn't even been bandied in the Senate. Then everyone goes out to their Spartan lunches of baloney and Cheez Curls, comfortable in the knowledge that they have improved on the Golden Rule: He who makes the rules pockets the gold.
SickSix wrote: Firstly insider trading is totally legal within congress. How do you think Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and many many more make their millions after being elected?
The same Nancy Pelosi who voted for the STOCK Act?
Hey man, she's in Congress and she's rich and clearly cheating is the only way anyone can be in Congress and rich. Remember that time Harry Reid was serving on the Nevada Gaming Commission and was offered a bribe of $12,000 and instead of taking the money he called the FBI? I mean honestly. Where did he go to Rich Guy School? Nah. He had to go to Congress cause that's where he learned the best way to profit from his position was to back laws for greater financial transparency.
You want strict ethics rules? Start at the top -- with the shining example of the noble knights of the House of Representatives, which bans all gifts from lobbyists and imposes a $50 limit on gifts from anyone else. And no, you can't give an infinite number of $49 gifts to Larry Lawmaker. Sayeth the holy rulebook.
The general provision goes on to state that a member, officer or employee may accept from any other source virtually any gift valued below $50, with a limitation of less than $100 in gifts from any single source in a calendar year. Gifts having a value of less than $10 do not count toward the annual limit.
Okay, so maybe you can give an infinite number of $9.99 gifts, and meals are specifically designated as such. Feel free to make your case to Rep. Portentous over a daily lunch at Arby's. But still: pretty tight rules, eh?
Except that one thing you can do as a member is study pending legislation and regulatory changes, call up your broker and instruct him to trade on that nonpublic information. Do this as often as you want; you will suffer no penalty. There is no limit to how much money you can earn on insider trading in the House or Senate. Lawmakers and their staffers are specifically exempted.
As you might expect, those who work in the hallowed halls are not shy about availing themselves of the opportunity. A Wall Street Journal analysis published more than six months ago that has thus far provoked no particular sense of shame on Capitol Hill found that at least 72 Congressional aides in both parties had recently traded shares of companies that their bosses helped regulate. In 2009, while Senate Banking Committee member Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, was involved in discussing “stress tests” on banks such as Bank of America, his aide Karen Brown traded the company's stock on several occasions in the weeks before May 7, 2009 -- when BofA surged thanks to a press release on its stress-test result, assuring Ms. Brown a nifty profit.
Asked by the Wall Street Journal to explain, Sen. Crapo's office said the trades weren't really made by Karen Brown but by her husband, who had no knowledge of what was going on in the banking committee. Would you go to your compliance officer, much less the SEC, with that line? True, these folks do need a good laugh now and again, and the SEC has to be in a jolly mood after the jury in the Galleon case all but repeated the verdict from The Producers: “We find the defendants incredibly guilty.”
Last week a study of some 16,000 stock transactions carried out by House members was published in the journal Business and Politics. This detailed analysis showed that the investment portfolios of House members beat the market by about six points a year. (Democrats did especially well, outperforming by some nine points a year, while Republicans topped the average investor by only two percent annually.) Senators apparently do even better: “their portfolios show some of the highest excess returns ever recorded over a long period of time, significantly outperforming even hedge fund managers,” noted the journal, citing a previously published study.
In a surprising twist, the study found that there tended to be an inverse relationship between the lawmaker's seniority and the insider-trading profits pocketed by him and his minions. The authors speculated that “Whereas Representatives with the longest seniority (in this case more than 16 years), have no trouble raising funds for campaigns, junkets and whatever other causes they may deem desirable owed to the power they wield, the financial condition of a freshman Congressman is far more precarious. His or her position is by no means secure, financially or otherwise. House Members with the least seniority may have fewer opportunities to trade on privileged information, but they may be the most highly motivated to do so when the opportunities arise.”
Doesn't that give you a cozy feeling, knowing that nonpublic securities info is helping make your friendly local politician more secure as he daydreams new ways to prevent, limit, or appropriate for his own reelection purposes - sorry, the needs of the Republic!-- your financial success?
It's not an accident that Congressionalites are expressly exempt from insider-trading laws. The reasoning is that, were the situation otherwise, “it might tend to “insulate a legislator from the personal and economic interests that his/her constituency, or society in general, has in governmental decisions and policy,” says the House ethics manual.
This is entirely beside the point: no one would object if lawmakers placed their assets in ETFs, in which case they'd still have an interest in the overall performance of the market. Or why not be simple and allow Congressional trading on everything except nonpublic information?
In what must be treated as more of a practical joke than a serious effort at legislation, every so often a group of lawmakers typically numbering in the high single digits proposes that Congress be subjected to the same insider-trading laws as you or me. Said proposal is always swiftly ignored -- it has yet to reach the House floor and hasn't even been bandied in the Senate. Then everyone goes out to their Spartan lunches of baloney and Cheez Curls, comfortable in the knowledge that they have improved on the Golden Rule: He who makes the rules pockets the gold.
You want strict ethics rules? Start at the top -- with the shining example of the noble knights of the House of Representatives, which bans all gifts from lobbyists and imposes a $50 limit on gifts from anyone else. And no, you can't give an infinite number of $49 gifts to Larry Lawmaker. Sayeth the holy rulebook.
The general provision goes on to state that a member, officer or employee may accept from any other source virtually any gift valued below $50, with a limitation of less than $100 in gifts from any single source in a calendar year. Gifts having a value of less than $10 do not count toward the annual limit.
Okay, so maybe you can give an infinite number of $9.99 gifts, and meals are specifically designated as such. Feel free to make your case to Rep. Portentous over a daily lunch at Arby's. But still: pretty tight rules, eh?
Except that one thing you can do as a member is study pending legislation and regulatory changes, call up your broker and instruct him to trade on that nonpublic information. Do this as often as you want; you will suffer no penalty. There is no limit to how much money you can earn on insider trading in the House or Senate. Lawmakers and their staffers are specifically exempted.
As you might expect, those who work in the hallowed halls are not shy about availing themselves of the opportunity. A Wall Street Journal analysis published more than six months ago that has thus far provoked no particular sense of shame on Capitol Hill found that at least 72 Congressional aides in both parties had recently traded shares of companies that their bosses helped regulate. In 2009, while Senate Banking Committee member Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, was involved in discussing “stress tests” on banks such as Bank of America, his aide Karen Brown traded the company's stock on several occasions in the weeks before May 7, 2009 -- when BofA surged thanks to a press release on its stress-test result, assuring Ms. Brown a nifty profit.
Asked by the Wall Street Journal to explain, Sen. Crapo's office said the trades weren't really made by Karen Brown but by her husband, who had no knowledge of what was going on in the banking committee. Would you go to your compliance officer, much less the SEC, with that line? True, these folks do need a good laugh now and again, and the SEC has to be in a jolly mood after the jury in the Galleon case all but repeated the verdict from The Producers: “We find the defendants incredibly guilty.”
Last week a study of some 16,000 stock transactions carried out by House members was published in the journal Business and Politics. This detailed analysis showed that the investment portfolios of House members beat the market by about six points a year. (Democrats did especially well, outperforming by some nine points a year, while Republicans topped the average investor by only two percent annually.) Senators apparently do even better: “their portfolios show some of the highest excess returns ever recorded over a long period of time, significantly outperforming even hedge fund managers,” noted the journal, citing a previously published study.
In a surprising twist, the study found that there tended to be an inverse relationship between the lawmaker's seniority and the insider-trading profits pocketed by him and his minions. The authors speculated that “Whereas Representatives with the longest seniority (in this case more than 16 years), have no trouble raising funds for campaigns, junkets and whatever other causes they may deem desirable owed to the power they wield, the financial condition of a freshman Congressman is far more precarious. His or her position is by no means secure, financially or otherwise. House Members with the least seniority may have fewer opportunities to trade on privileged information, but they may be the most highly motivated to do so when the opportunities arise.”
Doesn't that give you a cozy feeling, knowing that nonpublic securities info is helping make your friendly local politician more secure as he daydreams new ways to prevent, limit, or appropriate for his own reelection purposes - sorry, the needs of the Republic!-- your financial success?
It's not an accident that Congressionalites are expressly exempt from insider-trading laws. The reasoning is that, were the situation otherwise, “it might tend to “insulate a legislator from the personal and economic interests that his/her constituency, or society in general, has in governmental decisions and policy,” says the House ethics manual.
This is entirely beside the point: no one would object if lawmakers placed their assets in ETFs, in which case they'd still have an interest in the overall performance of the market. Or why not be simple and allow Congressional trading on everything except nonpublic information?
In what must be treated as more of a practical joke than a serious effort at legislation, every so often a group of lawmakers typically numbering in the high single digits proposes that Congress be subjected to the same insider-trading laws as you or me. Said proposal is always swiftly ignored -- it has yet to reach the House floor and hasn't even been bandied in the Senate. Then everyone goes out to their Spartan lunches of baloney and Cheez Curls, comfortable in the knowledge that they have improved on the Golden Rule: He who makes the rules pockets the gold.
Voter suppression isnt just thugs outside of polling places.
Since nobody is giving you any attention with your conspiracy theory BS, I will give it a go.
First: the rolling stone? Really? The same rag that published that fake university rape story and then doubled down on it when it came to light it was false before trying to backtrack and save face? Real reputable source there...
Second: my state, Indiana, had organizations registering Illinois voters in our state, thus giving people opportunity to vote in two states. So the basis for the crosschecking law at least has a precedent.
Third: I don't remember a spot on my ballot to list my race, so I really question this absurdity.
Yup, just like Russian hacking the DNC...until it wasn't. Millions of votes were eliminated? Why? Because of this program. What system is there to make sure those votes were eliminated correctly? None.
I know the shpeel... It's a conspiracy theory. No proof. Sit down. Shut up. It's the standard argument made by those threatened by people actually talking. The system discussed was designed to fix the nearly nonexistent problem of inperson voter fraud. What we got was a thinly veiled attempt to radically effect the election. And when ts brought up what do we get? The instant its a conspiracy cry. Sad, considering we are talking about disenfranchising millions of people.
When the crux of your crackpot conspiracy is "throw out all the black and brown votes" I do call it a crackpot conspiracy theory. If you can show proof that they somehow isolated black and brown voters to discard their votes, I'll be on board. Until then: crackpot conspiracy theory.
So, just coincidence that it is primarily minorities that get knocked out by that scheme? Sure. Just like it's coincidence that voter ID laws primarily effect minorities. Sure, all just a coincidence. No discriminatory intent there...
"Burning the aquila into the retinas of heretics is the new black." - Savnock
"The ignore button is for pansees who can't deal with their own problems. " - H.B.M.C.
Voter ID laws primarily affect people voting illegally, and theoretically poor people. There are far more poor "whites" then other groups.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
You want strict ethics rules? Start at the top -- with the shining example of the noble knights of the House of Representatives, which bans all gifts from lobbyists and imposes a $50 limit on gifts from anyone else. And no, you can't give an infinite number of $49 gifts to Larry Lawmaker. Sayeth the holy rulebook.
The general provision goes on to state that a member, officer or employee may accept from any other source virtually any gift valued below $50, with a limitation of less than $100 in gifts from any single source in a calendar year. Gifts having a value of less than $10 do not count toward the annual limit.
Okay, so maybe you can give an infinite number of $9.99 gifts, and meals are specifically designated as such. Feel free to make your case to Rep. Portentous over a daily lunch at Arby's. But still: pretty tight rules, eh?
Except that one thing you can do as a member is study pending legislation and regulatory changes, call up your broker and instruct him to trade on that nonpublic information. Do this as often as you want; you will suffer no penalty. There is no limit to how much money you can earn on insider trading in the House or Senate. Lawmakers and their staffers are specifically exempted.
As you might expect, those who work in the hallowed halls are not shy about availing themselves of the opportunity. A Wall Street Journal analysis published more than six months ago that has thus far provoked no particular sense of shame on Capitol Hill found that at least 72 Congressional aides in both parties had recently traded shares of companies that their bosses helped regulate. In 2009, while Senate Banking Committee member Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, was involved in discussing “stress tests” on banks such as Bank of America, his aide Karen Brown traded the company's stock on several occasions in the weeks before May 7, 2009 -- when BofA surged thanks to a press release on its stress-test result, assuring Ms. Brown a nifty profit.
Asked by the Wall Street Journal to explain, Sen. Crapo's office said the trades weren't really made by Karen Brown but by her husband, who had no knowledge of what was going on in the banking committee. Would you go to your compliance officer, much less the SEC, with that line? True, these folks do need a good laugh now and again, and the SEC has to be in a jolly mood after the jury in the Galleon case all but repeated the verdict from The Producers: “We find the defendants incredibly guilty.”
Last week a study of some 16,000 stock transactions carried out by House members was published in the journal Business and Politics. This detailed analysis showed that the investment portfolios of House members beat the market by about six points a year. (Democrats did especially well, outperforming by some nine points a year, while Republicans topped the average investor by only two percent annually.) Senators apparently do even better: “their portfolios show some of the highest excess returns ever recorded over a long period of time, significantly outperforming even hedge fund managers,” noted the journal, citing a previously published study.
In a surprising twist, the study found that there tended to be an inverse relationship between the lawmaker's seniority and the insider-trading profits pocketed by him and his minions. The authors speculated that “Whereas Representatives with the longest seniority (in this case more than 16 years), have no trouble raising funds for campaigns, junkets and whatever other causes they may deem desirable owed to the power they wield, the financial condition of a freshman Congressman is far more precarious. His or her position is by no means secure, financially or otherwise. House Members with the least seniority may have fewer opportunities to trade on privileged information, but they may be the most highly motivated to do so when the opportunities arise.”
Doesn't that give you a cozy feeling, knowing that nonpublic securities info is helping make your friendly local politician more secure as he daydreams new ways to prevent, limit, or appropriate for his own reelection purposes - sorry, the needs of the Republic!-- your financial success?
It's not an accident that Congressionalites are expressly exempt from insider-trading laws. The reasoning is that, were the situation otherwise, “it might tend to “insulate a legislator from the personal and economic interests that his/her constituency, or society in general, has in governmental decisions and policy,” says the House ethics manual.
This is entirely beside the point: no one would object if lawmakers placed their assets in ETFs, in which case they'd still have an interest in the overall performance of the market. Or why not be simple and allow Congressional trading on everything except nonpublic information?
In what must be treated as more of a practical joke than a serious effort at legislation, every so often a group of lawmakers typically numbering in the high single digits proposes that Congress be subjected to the same insider-trading laws as you or me. Said proposal is always swiftly ignored -- it has yet to reach the House floor and hasn't even been bandied in the Senate. Then everyone goes out to their Spartan lunches of baloney and Cheez Curls, comfortable in the knowledge that they have improved on the Golden Rule: He who makes the rules pockets the gold.
How about you post the actual bill that made it impossible to verify. I have clicked on your link, and the link in that, and the link in that. I am currently 4 links deep, and I have yet to find an actual primary source that says what you (and these links) claim it says.
President Obama quietly signed legislation Monday that rolled back a provision of the STOCK Act that required high-ranking federal employees to disclose their financial information online.
The White House announced Monday that the president had signed S. 716, which repealed a requirement of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act requiring the disclosure, which had previously been delayed several times by Congress.
That provision, added to the bipartisan bill aimed at halting insider trading by members of Congress, would have required roughly 28,000 senior government officials to post their financial information online, and had come under harsh criticism from federal government employee unions.
...
Under the new law, the beefed-up reporting requirements will still apply to the president, vice president, members of Congress and candidates for Congress. Some presidentially nominated and Senate-confirmed government employees would also still adhere to the new disclosure requirement. The new law also delays the creation of that database until the beginning of 2014.
Edit:
Of note, it didn't make insider trading illegal, just hard to verify that it did or didn't happen. Even for those federal employees, if you can proof it happened it's still something you can prosecute.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/01/17 20:21:52
