Hmmmmm….
Congress: Trading stock on inside information?
(CBS News) Washington, D.C. is a town that runs on inside information – but should our elected officials be able to use that information to pad their own pockets? As Steve Kroft reports, members of Congress and their aides have regular access to powerful political intelligence, and many have made well-timed stock market trades in the very industries they regulate. For now, the practice is perfectly legal, but some say it’s time for the law to change.
—snip—
Who knew?
Whaddayou, kiddin’ me or what!!!???
This is news?
Now they’re going after Nancy Pelosi, among others.
‘Bout time!
Read on.
Pelosi defends record after “60 Minutes” report
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi defended her record on credit card reform after a “60 Minutes” report raised questions about lawmakers potentially executing financial transactions based on insider information.
There is no law prohibiting members of Congress from using non-public information to form their own investment strategies, but the “60 Minutes” questioned several lawmakers about transactions that may have had at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.
One of them was Rep. Pelosi, who participated in a 2008 IPO from Visa, just as legislation that would have hurt the credit card companies began moving through the House. Pelosi bought 5,000 shares of Visa at $44 and the stock price rose to $64 just two days later. The credit card legislation never made it to the House floor.
Pelosi denied there was any conflict of interest when asked about the investment by “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft at a recent press conference. (See the exchange at left.)
Congresswoman Pelosi pointed out that the tough credit card legislation eventually passed, but it was two years later and was initiated in the Senate.
Following the report, Pelosi’s office released a statement saying that “Congress has never done more for consumers nor has the Congress passed more critical reforms of the credit card industry than under the Speakership of Nancy Pelosi.”
Spokesman Drew Hammill added in the statement that “it is very troubling that 60 Minutes would base their reporting off of an already-discredited conservative author who has made a career of out attacking Democrats.”
The “60 Minutes” report used as its starting point Peter Schweizer’s book on soft corruption .Schweizer is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University. But “60 Minutes” independently verified the information and also highlighted transactions of Republicans – Speaker of the House John Boehner and Rep. Spencer Bachus – both of whom deny using non-public information improperly.
Who knew?
Anybody with a lick of sense left in their media-occupied brains “knew” what was up. This is not news, it is business as usual. DemRats and RatPubs alike. People have been accusing Sarah Palin of running a financial windfall scam in the guise of a presidential campaign…a self-evident piece of news if you take a good look at her act. But equally self-evident should be the plain fact of the matter regarding almost all big-tme pols.
They are almost all in it for the money. If being a national pol paid substantially less than being say an equally big-time lawyer or corporate cog, do you really think that you would see rancid hustlers like John Boehner or Nancy Pelosi in the game?
Please.
Who knew?
I knew about Nancy Pelosi just for starters, over 4 years ago. (The 3rd comment.)
So why does the Speaker of the House and one of the leaders of the Democratic Party, Nancy Pelosi, oppose impeachment under all circumstances?
Are you serious?
You answer your own question, BC.
“…one of the leaders of the Democratic Party…”
She is a POLITICIAN first and foremost, BC. That’s how she got to be Speaker.
The Democratic Party is a business
A BIG business.
Strategy: Take over the government.
Why?
There is money and power in it. BIG money. And big power, too.
Tactic: Let ’em twist in the wind until the 2008 election, when the American public will be so damned tired of seeing these Ratpublican fools rotting at the end of their own self-inflicted nooses that they will cut them down and bury them.
Totally.
Counter tactic: Impeach.
Verdict; Impeachment is too risky. Why roil up the waters and risk the possibility that the American public will get so turned off to politicians in general that perhaps a NEW company…say, Bloomberg Inc…will take over. When all’s ya gotta do is tread water and wait for a year or so.
Price: Some thousands of lives. Some HUNDREDS of thousands of further ruined lives.
Pragmatic politcal/business consideration: Worth every death throe.
That sho’ is an expensive suit and set of earrings ol’ Nancy is wearing, ain’t it?
Saaaayyyyy…isn’t she from a family that ruled Baltimore during the glory days of white supremacy?
Yup.
She is.
Not one, but TWO mayors.
Like father like daughter.
I mean…those are mostly BROWN lives down the toilet.
Right?
Plus some white Americans, ‘a course. But not from “OUR” level of society. Eh, Nance?
Verdict: Disgusting.
And she is but one of many.
This is what the “Occupy” and “Tea Party” movements are all about.
Bet on it.
The rule of the 1%.
Frankly, I am rooting for a Louis XVI/Marie Antoinette moment for the lot of them. Mass public executions on the National Mall. Ain’t gonna happen, I know, but if justice worked in a straight line instead of MLK Jr.’s “arc of the moral universe” that’s what we would see, and soon.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice-Martin Luther King Jr.
So we have to wait.
Some more.
As the arc of justice is bent ever further by the (heavily technologically enhanced in recent years) power of evil.
It never breaks, though, that justice thing.
It just keeps on a’comin’.
Bet on it.
I am.
Later…
AG
