I’ve always wondered how the members of congress get so rich after a few years in office. I guess a few of them write best-selling books (or, at least, get amazing advances on books that end up in the remainder pile), but others have a sure-fire method that works every time: corruption. The pandemic is smoking out some of the profiteers.
Senator Richard Burr got all kinds of insider briefings on the coronavirus. In public, he reassured everyone that everything is under control and that the US was well prepared.
In a Feb. 7 op-ed that he co-authored with another senator, he assured the public that “the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus.” He wrote, “No matter the outbreak or threat, Congress and the federal government have been vigilant in identifying gaps in its readiness efforts and improving its response capabilities.”
In private, at a club for business people who paid $10,000 for the privilege of listening, he said something different.
According to the NPR report, Burr told attendees of the luncheon held at the Capitol Hill Club: “There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history … It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
He warned that companies might have to curtail their employees’ travel, that schools could close and that the military might be mobilized to compensate for overwhelmed hospitals.
Then he went on a selling spree, dumping all of his stock.
Then there’s Senator Kelly Loeffler, who assured the public that this was all a Democratic plot and that Trumpie was doing a great job.
Democrats have dangerously and intentionally misled the American people on #Coronavirus readiness.
Here’s the truth: @realDonaldTrump & his administration are doing a great job working to keep Americans healthy & safe. https://t.co/DaDX5wpeUj
— Kelly Loeffler (@KLoeffler) February 28, 2020
Meanwhile, she sits in an intelligence briefing about the virus, and immediately begins dumping stocks. Millions of dollars worth of stocks.
Both of these people need to be fired immediately. I won’t go so far as to suggest that they be hanged from a lamppost with a “PROFITEER” placard hung around their necks, but you know plenty of other politicians are playing this game and need to be discouraged. If hanging is out of the question, maybe we should require that the investments and businesses of all politicians be put in trust when they’re elected. That’ll clean up all the millionaires and billionaires in office.
This is undoubtedly insider trading, but proving it is going to be a bitch. Usually, congress critters have portfolios managed by “independent brokers,” so they can claim that they couldn’t have profited off of this if they’d wanted to.
In practice, all it takes is a word whispered in the ear of the broker, and he’ll bail on the market, taking profits and emerging looking like a genius trader. Unfortunately, the whispered word usually comes from someone only distantly related to the congress critter, so it’s hard to prove. However, it’s amazing how many financial geniuses we have in Congress–their portfolios always outperform the market.
I always find it hilarious when people whine about “corrupt politicians” and how we need “outsiders” and “businesspeople” running things. Here we have “political outsider” Kelly Loeffler, who is so much an outsider she hasn’t run in (let alone won) a single election, and she couldn’t wait a couple of months before misusing her position to get her greedy fingers on some more cash, which she doesn’t even really need seeing how she is filthy fucking rich in the first place.
They’d just move everything into the name of their spouse, or cat, or favourite Swiss bank account. Although if it went to their spouse that might at least stop some of them from playing away from home.
As of now, we’re up to 4 Republican Senators who’ve been found out as having done this. Burr, Loeffler, Inhofe, and Johnson.
And a Democrat: Feinstein. Off with her head, as well. And let’s not give politicians too much credit for “writing” books. I am, among other things, a ghostwriter. Enough said.
We’d love to get rid of Burr here in North Carolina, but we don’t have recall in this state and he wouldn’t be up for re-election until 2022. He’s already said he’s not running again, so we won’t even have the satisfaction of voting him out when his term ends. What I’m hoping for is a new Democratic administration and Senate in January that will expel these profiteers and prosecute them for violating the STOCK Act (which Burr was one of the few Senators to vote against, by the way.) A few years in prison for these vile, corrupt excuses for public servants would be a fine thing.
FYI, all of Feinstein’s assets are in a blind trust and she has no control over them. In the case of Burr, it’s clear he was trading on advance information that he was otherwise keeping mum about in public.
Feinstein’s stock also sold at a loss, but that part isn’t being reported on in Fox News’ attempt to spin this into a “both sides are bad, therefore the Democrats are worse and we should ignore the Republicans doing this” propaganda piece.
I’d opt for a guillotine over hemp. More humane and quicker too
@7 stwriley.
What he did, it can’t possibly be legal. If you can’t recall the bastard send him to prison. There’s no reason he can’t be prosecuted in a criminal trial before the election. Can’t really be a senator if he’s in prison.
laurian, #10
Would you be willing to settle for angry tweets and memes?
Doing the typical American thing of letting the rich get off with, at most, a tiny slap on the wrist will make it very, very clear this time that slaughtering the U.S. economy for profit is something politicians can freely do every time they want a bit more money. How do you suppose that will work out for us?
#10: “I’d opt for a guillotine over hemp. More humane and quicker too”
Have you checked the prices for guillotines on etsy?1?? CRAZY!
I vote for wood-chippers, widely available (and dual use!) at very reasonable prices, at your local center for lawn ordure.
@kome
Inhofe and Johnson both voted against the corona package. So, they voted against it, while knowing how bad it was. It wasn’t stupidity or lack of information. It wasn’t even greed, because they could have made their money and still voted for it, but they didn’t.
So, in case anyone has scruples about the hanging and guillotine comments: Remember that we’re talking about people who are actively trying to kill you. Not because they’d get rich from it, but just because.
Insider trading is clearly illegal. I for one am glad that the DoJ or FTC will get right on this issue and prosecute the miscreants.
Yes, that was the joke. Go ahead and laugh now.
I can hear Kapo Shapiro and his followers right now:
“As usual, you lazy, infantilized, SJW-cuck, taker Millennials, who refuse to attend the School of Hard Knocks and pull yourself up by your rugged individualism, just don’t get it! They NEEDED to do this to protect their hard-earned wealth they created in the free market from the stock market crash engineered by the Democrat party, the liberal fake news media, and the Deep State to ruin THE GREATEST ECONOMY OF ALL TIME and embarrass THE GREATEST PRESIDENT OF ALL TIME as a means to deny Trump his rightful second-term and usher in a dark age of socialism and tyranny!!!”
“Besides, so-called “insider trading” shouldn’t be illegal in the first place. It’s just good, smart business. Besides, the only reason all this “white collar crime” exists is because all of the onerous laws and regulations Big Government places on entrepreneurs. Trust me, get rid of all these damn anti-corruption laws, and corruption will vanish over night! “
Addendum to 17
Kapo Shapiro: “Oh! Except Feinstein, that commie, Democrat crook is obviously a hardened criminal!”
The trick here is whether they can credibly make the claim that it wasn’t them who made the trades, but rather their financial manager. You would then have to show that someone leaked info to the financial manager, and since that someone could have been only distantly connected to the Senators involved, that’s a harder case to prove.
No, the Congress is just chock full of financial geniuses. How else can you explain the fact that their stock portfolios beat the S&P year after year after year?
As I understand it, the key is that the four Republican Senators attended a briefing on the pandemic and then sold their stock. Feinstein claims that she was unable to attend the briefing and the sell isn’t for her selling stock, which is in a blind trust, but her husband’s, Richard Blum. I don’t know if any of that matters, and I’m not making a case for DIFI, but there you go.
There are other questions: What about the House? Did some of them get a briefing? Did some of them sell stock?
And what about Trump? Were Don Jr. and Eric been dumping Trump assets back in January/February when daddy was telling us that the virus was all under control?
Possibly, but there are other forms of corruption too. In the recent Bring out your dead! thread, I mentioned two instances of scandalous behavior (comments #2 & #15).
— Trying to bribe a German company into getting US-exclusive rights for work on a vaccine. Even leaving the money trail aside (which is still sort of a mystery at this point), that is simply criminal. At any rate, the CEO (a US citizen) was meeting with Trump in early March, while (like he always does) Trump pretended publicly as if everything was perfect and he’s the best. It’s not clear how much money would’ve been funneled into that company, but this kind of dealing shouldn’t be done in the interest of a few wealthy Trump-friendly people, rather than people in this country or around the world.
— The other involves Jared Kushner’s brother, Josh, who was one of the founders of a corporation called Oscar, purportedly a “tech-driven health insurance company.” (Whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean … “tech-driven” insurance?) It is no coincidence that it “launched the first testing center locator for COVID-19 in the U.S.” on March 13.
consciousness razor @ #21 — I’m aware that there are many forms of corruption, and that the Trump administration has done a lot of shedding things. What’s particularly of note in this is that some Senators were informed of the scope of COVID-19, and while they were telling the public everything is OK, they were selling off assets. I’m suspicious that the Trump’s were doing the same thing. I don’t know if that qualifies as “insider trading” in a technical, legal sense, but it’s certainly trading on privileged information to their financial benefit.
this is beginning to sound more like the 1880’s every day
uncle frogy
But as you seemed to agree, they don’t need to be doing the very same thing for it to be a problem. This article from Vanity Fair sums up why his numerous conflicts of interest simply cannot be ignored: Is Trump Downplaying the Coronavirus to Protect His Properties From an Economic Hit?
Also, from Mother Jones: Will Donald Trump Bail Out His Coronavirus-Battered Company?: “He’s reportedly considering a $150 billion rescue for the hospitality industry.”
And that $150 billion figure doesn’t quite cover it, even when we’re very narrowly focused on bailouts (not other sorts of sweetheart deals for corporations like Oscar). CNBC:
Just curious, there are all these reports of Trump meeting with various CEO’s and representatives of different business sectors, when did he meet with union leaders and representatives of workers?
Here’s a Guardian report on these stock sales which cites the ProPublica piece. I thought this paragraph particularly maddening:
I see in the ProPublica article that Barr was one of 3 Senators who opposed that bill. “Lying Bastards!” as my dad would say.
@3
If you only knew all the dealing
That goes on in back of the store
If you only knew how that one that’s
Got a lot can’t wait to get more.
– Mose Allison
Can’t say better.
coldhardrealist @1: “Insider trading is a felony.”
Oh, I’m sure William Barr will get right on it prosecuting them.
I prefer to hang them from a lamp post.
Putting their assets in trust doesn’t work they simply hide them and often direct government business and subsidies to them.
Just a reminder that insider trading has only been illegal for a few years, if you’re a senator.
That’s right, the insider trading laws explicitly exempted members of congress as a special class above the law until recently. Burr voted against the bill making it illegal.
They don’t need to be fired. They should be arrested. Feinstein did the same. Arrest her too.
@#15, LykeX:
I regard every politician who opposes single-payer and a serious attempt to stop climate change as “actively trying to kill” me (and everybody else). That includes, naturally, all the Republicans, but also nearly every Democrat at this point — certainly everybody who voted for anyone who has dropped out and endorsed Biden.
To see a presidential guy in action look at bernie.com.
jack16
Opponents of death penalty often say, that it does not stop people from commiting the crime – white collar crimes are definitely the one kind of crimes that would be stopped if death penalty was on the table for it.
And seriously – people who started opioid epidemics for some cash are responsible for much more deaths than any serial killer i history, so why shouldn’t they face maximum consequences?
So those who mislead public and endanger public health (tobacco companies, oil companies, creative accountants, pharma companies, insider traders, tax avoiders) – all should be treated as worst kind of criminals, worst than terrorist, serial killers and mass rapists.
Probably the only punishment that is fitting for such kind of people is stripping them of the human rights and sing them as involuntarily organ donors/medical experiment material.
@17: For a second there, as I was reading your post, I thought I had wondered onto a Fox News site.
When Martha Stewart was sent to prison I said it was because she teed off the big white boys. What a bunch of crap. All should go to jail and yes Feinstein has a blind trust but the liar and thief does not acknowledge that as he berates a news reporter asking him about it. I am so tired of his fat ugly butt. I hate this country.
unclefrogy
20 March 2020 at 2:08 pm
this is beginning to sound more like the 1880’s every day
uncle frogy
I love your comments and wish there was a like button.