And then they went around claiming it was a democratic hoax after selling stock.
The Republican organization is pure evil up and down. Dems aren't much better but they ARE better. We need serious reform in this country if these two Senators are not put in prison. How serious? Serious as a heart attack serious.
Loeffler's husband is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
I fundamentally disagree that establishment Democrats are Republican light. Almost literally every part of Clinton’s platform was anathema to Republicans.
Keeping ACA - Anathema
Acknowledging and dealing with Climate Change - Anathema
Raising Taxes - Anathema
Improving social safety net - Anathema
Letting Dreamers stay - Anathema
Paying for some or all of university - Anathema
Pathway to citizenship - Anathema
I could go on. I won’t. These are moderate stances by the Democrat party. They are all non starters for Republicans.
Quite a few of those stances are held by Republicans. The ACA is a copy of a Republican plan.
Mitch McConnell is not the entirety of the Republican party, nor is Donald Trump. Even less are they the Republican electorate (which, for instance, consistently supports raising taxes on the rich).
Feeding into the culture war nonsense actively hinders progressive attempts to get things accomplished in the US.
Very, very few.
Which one on that list do you think would realistically get through a GOP held house and senate? They had that in 2016, and none of it happened. The government was shutdown to help avoid allowing Dreamers to stay. The ACA was kept on life support because John McCain had a last second change of heart.
There are perhaps... 3 senators that would vote for *any* of those things. As compared to every single sitting democratic senator. So I dont think quite a few of those stances are held broadly by republicans.
The ACA being a copy of Romneycare demonstrates this. Even though it was a copy the plan from Romney in MA, it is and continues to be under assault by most republican lawmakers.
Unless you can top how Republicans found out about the seriousness of a deadly pandemic and then :
- immediately started selling stocks to make millions & not get a financial hit while regular people lose their life savings
- lying about the coming crisis in coordination with right wing media (it's just the flu! etc) and politicizing the virus (Dem hoax!). Republican misinformation is directly resulting in deaths
- utterly failing their basic job of governing by failing to prepare the country for the deadly virus that they have been aware of for months a problem of failure that is going on to to this day
Unless you can top how Republicans found out about the seriousness of a deadly pandemic and then :
- immediately started selling stocks to make millions & not get a financial hit while regular people lose their life savings
- lying about the coming crisis in coordination with right wing media (it's just the flu! etc) and politicizing the virus (Dem hoax!). Republican misinformation is directly resulting in deaths
- utterly failing their basic job of governing by failing to prepare the country for the deadly virus that they have been aware of for months a problem of failure that is going on to to this day
Then you are wrong. They are not the same.
People are trying to tie Dianne Feinstein into it, but it's kind-of hollow. Her husband is trader, and they sold exactly ONE stock around that time, which is a Biotech company. Not exactly what you unload in a pandemic. Burr and Loeffler were selling off major parts of their portfolio, stuff you can clearly discern would be TANKING if what they had just learned came to fruition. Loeffler's even goes a step further, in that she BUYS stock in a telcom company, right before everyone is confined to their homes for two months. The context clearly matters. Ron Johnson and Jim Inhoffe are also on the list of people who made trades during that time. But these are easily available records. The reason Burr and Loeffler are being singled out is because of WHAT they sold in relation to the current crisis. We've also now learned that Feinstein's stocks are all in a blind trust. You know, the one Trump promised he would put his assets into but never did.
Unless you can top how Republicans found out about the seriousness of a deadly pandemic and then :
- immediately started selling stocks to make millions & not get a financial hit while regular people lose their life savings
- lying about the coming crisis in coordination with right wing media (it's just the flu! etc) and politicizing the virus (Dem hoax!). Republican misinformation is directly resulting in deaths
- utterly failing their basic job of governing by failing to prepare the country for the deadly virus that they have been aware of for months a problem of failure that is going on to to this day
Then you are wrong. They are not the same.
There is no right and wrong when people are obsessed by politics. It's like a mentally ill patient. They are told to take their meds because they have an imbalance but they think in their mind that everyone else is wrong and out to get them. Nancy Pelosi is a career criminal and fraudster as are all politicians, just saying enough to get your vote. They don't care about you.
Unless you can top how Republicans found out about the seriousness of a deadly pandemic and then :
- immediately started selling stocks to make millions & not get a financial hit while regular people lose their life savings
- lying about the coming crisis in coordination with right wing media (it's just the flu! etc) and politicizing the virus (Dem hoax!). Republican misinformation is directly resulting in deaths
- utterly failing their basic job of governing by failing to prepare the country for the deadly virus that they have been aware of for months a problem of failure that is going on to to this day
Then you are wrong. They are not the same.
People are trying to tie Dianne Feinstein into it, but it's kind-of hollow. Her husband is trader, and they sold exactly ONE stock around that time, which is a Biotech company. Not exactly what you unload in a pandemic. Burr and Loeffler were selling off major parts of their portfolio, stuff you can clearly discern would be TANKING if what they had just learned came to fruition. Loeffler's even goes a step further, in that she BUYS stock in a telcom company, right before everyone is confined to their homes for two months. The context clearly matters. Ron Johnson and Jim Inhoffe are also on the list of people who made trades during that time. But these are easily available records. The reason Burr and Loeffler are being singled out is because of WHAT they sold in relation to the current crisis. We've also now learned that Feinstein's stocks are all in a blind trust. You know, the one Trump promised he would put his assets into but never did. In fact, it turns out this particular stock has actually RISEN since it was sold.
There are many ways to trade and it does not have to be in your name. Many ways to get around it as long as you know the right people. They are all crooks and they ALL know about it before the public does.
Unless you can top how Republicans found out about the seriousness of a deadly pandemic and then :
- immediately started selling stocks to make millions & not get a financial hit while regular people lose their life savings
- lying about the coming crisis in coordination with right wing media (it's just the flu! etc) and politicizing the virus (Dem hoax!). Republican misinformation is directly resulting in deaths
- utterly failing their basic job of governing by failing to prepare the country for the deadly virus that they have been aware of for months a problem of failure that is going on to to this day
Then you are wrong. They are not the same.
People are trying to tie Dianne Feinstein into it, but it's kind-of hollow. Her husband is trader, and they sold exactly ONE stock around that time, which is a Biotech company. Not exactly what you unload in a pandemic. Burr and Loeffler were selling off major parts of their portfolio, stuff you can clearly discern would be TANKING if what they had just learned came to fruition. Loeffler's even goes a step further, in that she BUYS stock in a telcom company, right before everyone is confined to their homes for two months. The context clearly matters. Ron Johnson and Jim Inhoffe are also on the list of people who made trades during that time. But these are easily available records. The reason Burr and Loeffler are being singled out is because of WHAT they sold in relation to the current crisis. We've also now learned that Feinstein's stocks are all in a blind trust. You know, the one Trump promised he would put his assets into but never did. In fact, it turns out this particular stock has actually RISEN since it was sold.
There are many ways to trade and it does not have to be in your name. Many ways to get around it as long as you know the right people. They are all crooks and they ALL know about it before the public does.
That's all well and good, but it still doesn't really explain why learning about a possible pandemic would drive one to rush as quickly as possible sell off stock in a company that is developing cancer drugs.
Meanwhile, Loeffler sells stock in something called Resideo Technologies, which provides camera and security products for businesses. Something no business can possibly afford as a luxury at this point. It's stock price has basically been cut in half since. Meanwhile she BUYS stock in Citrix. Which is (this is almost too obvious to even be real) a business that's main focus is facilitating meetings by telephone. Such as what everyone would be forced to do in a nationwide lockdown.
Unless you can top how Republicans found out about the seriousness of a deadly pandemic and then :
- immediately started selling stocks to make millions & not get a financial hit while regular people lose their life savings
- lying about the coming crisis in coordination with right wing media (it's just the flu! etc) and politicizing the virus (Dem hoax!). Republican misinformation is directly resulting in deaths
- utterly failing their basic job of governing by failing to prepare the country for the deadly virus that they have been aware of for months a problem of failure that is going on to to this day
Then you are wrong. They are not the same.
People are trying to tie Dianne Feinstein into it, but it's kind-of hollow. Her husband is trader, and they sold exactly ONE stock around that time, which is a Biotech company. Not exactly what you unload in a pandemic. Burr and Loeffler were selling off major parts of their portfolio, stuff you can clearly discern would be TANKING if what they had just learned came to fruition. Loeffler's even goes a step further, in that she BUYS stock in a telcom company, right before everyone is confined to their homes for two months. The context clearly matters. Ron Johnson and Jim Inhoffe are also on the list of people who made trades during that time. But these are easily available records. The reason Burr and Loeffler are being singled out is because of WHAT they sold in relation to the current crisis. We've also now learned that Feinstein's stocks are all in a blind trust. You know, the one Trump promised he would put his assets into but never did. In fact, it turns out this particular stock has actually RISEN since it was sold.
There are many ways to trade and it does not have to be in your name. Many ways to get around it as long as you know the right people. They are all crooks and they ALL know about it before the public does.
These are russian style talking points you're using. "They're all bad, so it's okay if MY team is bad".
Sorry, there IS right and wrong. These are the arguments Republicans use too. They say "oh there's millions of illegal votes!" when there is ZERO evidence of this. Believe me if it were true people would be prosecuted. But what happens is Republicans keep getting caught committing voter fraud. Why? because they knew "oh there's got to be something there so I better do it first!"
Unless you can top how Republicans found out about the seriousness of a deadly pandemic and then :
- immediately started selling stocks to make millions & not get a financial hit while regular people lose their life savings
- lying about the coming crisis in coordination with right wing media (it's just the flu! etc) and politicizing the virus (Dem hoax!). Republican misinformation is directly resulting in deaths
- utterly failing their basic job of governing by failing to prepare the country for the deadly virus that they have been aware of for months a problem of failure that is going on to to this day
Then you are wrong. They are not the same.
People are trying to tie Dianne Feinstein into it, but it's kind-of hollow. Her husband is trader, and they sold exactly ONE stock around that time, which is a Biotech company. Not exactly what you unload in a pandemic. Burr and Loeffler were selling off major parts of their portfolio, stuff you can clearly discern would be TANKING if what they had just learned came to fruition. Loeffler's even goes a step further, in that she BUYS stock in a telcom company, right before everyone is confined to their homes for two months. The context clearly matters. Ron Johnson and Jim Inhoffe are also on the list of people who made trades during that time. But these are easily available records. The reason Burr and Loeffler are being singled out is because of WHAT they sold in relation to the current crisis. We've also now learned that Feinstein's stocks are all in a blind trust. You know, the one Trump promised he would put his assets into but never did. In fact, it turns out this particular stock has actually RISEN since it was sold.
There are many ways to trade and it does not have to be in your name. Many ways to get around it as long as you know the right people. They are all crooks and they ALL know about it before the public does.
These are russian style talking points you're using. "They're all bad, so it's okay if MY team is bad".
Sorry, there IS right and wrong. These are the arguments Republicans use too. They say "oh there's millions of illegal votes!" when there is ZERO evidence of this. Believe me if it were true people would be prosecuted. But what happens is Republicans keep getting caught committing voter fraud. Why? because they knew "oh there's got to be something there so I better do it first!"
The only thing wrong is your obsession with politics. To the point that you would pull out things like 'russian style talking points'. WTF is 'russian style talking points? Is there a dis-ease I should know about you? It would help me understand your incessant berating of people who have a difference of opinion than yours.
Unless you can top how Republicans found out about the seriousness of a deadly pandemic and then :
- immediately started selling stocks to make millions & not get a financial hit while regular people lose their life savings
- lying about the coming crisis in coordination with right wing media (it's just the flu! etc) and politicizing the virus (Dem hoax!). Republican misinformation is directly resulting in deaths
- utterly failing their basic job of governing by failing to prepare the country for the deadly virus that they have been aware of for months a problem of failure that is going on to to this day
Then you are wrong. They are not the same.
People are trying to tie Dianne Feinstein into it, but it's kind-of hollow. Her husband is trader, and they sold exactly ONE stock around that time, which is a Biotech company. Not exactly what you unload in a pandemic. Burr and Loeffler were selling off major parts of their portfolio, stuff you can clearly discern would be TANKING if what they had just learned came to fruition. Loeffler's even goes a step further, in that she BUYS stock in a telcom company, right before everyone is confined to their homes for two months. The context clearly matters. Ron Johnson and Jim Inhoffe are also on the list of people who made trades during that time. But these are easily available records. The reason Burr and Loeffler are being singled out is because of WHAT they sold in relation to the current crisis. We've also now learned that Feinstein's stocks are all in a blind trust. You know, the one Trump promised he would put his assets into but never did. In fact, it turns out this particular stock has actually RISEN since it was sold.
There are many ways to trade and it does not have to be in your name. Many ways to get around it as long as you know the right people. They are all crooks and they ALL know about it before the public does.
These are russian style talking points you're using. "They're all bad, so it's okay if MY team is bad".
Sorry, there IS right and wrong. These are the arguments Republicans use too. They say "oh there's millions of illegal votes!" when there is ZERO evidence of this. Believe me if it were true people would be prosecuted. But what happens is Republicans keep getting caught committing voter fraud. Why? because they knew "oh there's got to be something there so I better do it first!"
The only thing wrong is your obsession with politics. To the point that you would pull out things like 'russian style talking points'. WTF is 'russian style talking points? Is there a dis-ease I should know about you? It would help me understand your incessant berating of people who have a difference of opinion than yours.
Can't handle the message so you attack the messenger.
Unless you can top how Republicans found out about the seriousness of a deadly pandemic and then :
- immediately started selling stocks to make millions & not get a financial hit while regular people lose their life savings
- lying about the coming crisis in coordination with right wing media (it's just the flu! etc) and politicizing the virus (Dem hoax!). Republican misinformation is directly resulting in deaths
- utterly failing their basic job of governing by failing to prepare the country for the deadly virus that they have been aware of for months a problem of failure that is going on to to this day
Then you are wrong. They are not the same.
People are trying to tie Dianne Feinstein into it, but it's kind-of hollow. Her husband is trader, and they sold exactly ONE stock around that time, which is a Biotech company. Not exactly what you unload in a pandemic. Burr and Loeffler were selling off major parts of their portfolio, stuff you can clearly discern would be TANKING if what they had just learned came to fruition. Loeffler's even goes a step further, in that she BUYS stock in a telcom company, right before everyone is confined to their homes for two months. The context clearly matters. Ron Johnson and Jim Inhoffe are also on the list of people who made trades during that time. But these are easily available records. The reason Burr and Loeffler are being singled out is because of WHAT they sold in relation to the current crisis. We've also now learned that Feinstein's stocks are all in a blind trust. You know, the one Trump promised he would put his assets into but never did. In fact, it turns out this particular stock has actually RISEN since it was sold.
There are many ways to trade and it does not have to be in your name. Many ways to get around it as long as you know the right people. They are all crooks and they ALL know about it before the public does.
These are russian style talking points you're using. "They're all bad, so it's okay if MY team is bad".
Sorry, there IS right and wrong. These are the arguments Republicans use too. They say "oh there's millions of illegal votes!" when there is ZERO evidence of this. Believe me if it were true people would be prosecuted. But what happens is Republicans keep getting caught committing voter fraud. Why? because they knew "oh there's got to be something there so I better do it first!"
The only thing wrong is your obsession with politics. To the point that you would pull out things like 'russian style talking points'. WTF is 'russian style talking points? Is there a dis-ease I should know about you? It would help me understand your incessant berating of people who have a difference of opinion than yours.
Can't handle the message so you attack the messenger.
"WTF is 'russian style talking points? "
Look them up they're well documented.
I would suggest that if you do have an issue then can you please let me know via pm. Until then I wish you a good day. I don't do drama in public.
Unless you can top how Republicans found out about the seriousness of a deadly pandemic and then :
- immediately started selling stocks to make millions & not get a financial hit while regular people lose their life savings
- lying about the coming crisis in coordination with right wing media (it's just the flu! etc) and politicizing the virus (Dem hoax!). Republican misinformation is directly resulting in deaths
- utterly failing their basic job of governing by failing to prepare the country for the deadly virus that they have been aware of for months a problem of failure that is going on to to this day
Then you are wrong. They are not the same.
People are trying to tie Dianne Feinstein into it, but it's kind-of hollow. Her husband is trader, and they sold exactly ONE stock around that time, which is a Biotech company. Not exactly what you unload in a pandemic. Burr and Loeffler were selling off major parts of their portfolio, stuff you can clearly discern would be TANKING if what they had just learned came to fruition. Loeffler's even goes a step further, in that she BUYS stock in a telcom company, right before everyone is confined to their homes for two months. The context clearly matters. Ron Johnson and Jim Inhoffe are also on the list of people who made trades during that time. But these are easily available records. The reason Burr and Loeffler are being singled out is because of WHAT they sold in relation to the current crisis. We've also now learned that Feinstein's stocks are all in a blind trust. You know, the one Trump promised he would put his assets into but never did. In fact, it turns out this particular stock has actually RISEN since it was sold.
There are many ways to trade and it does not have to be in your name. Many ways to get around it as long as you know the right people. They are all crooks and they ALL know about it before the public does.
These are russian style talking points you're using. "They're all bad, so it's okay if MY team is bad".
Sorry, there IS right and wrong. These are the arguments Republicans use too. They say "oh there's millions of illegal votes!" when there is ZERO evidence of this. Believe me if it were true people would be prosecuted. But what happens is Republicans keep getting caught committing voter fraud. Why? because they knew "oh there's got to be something there so I better do it first!"
The only thing wrong is your obsession with politics. To the point that you would pull out things like 'russian style talking points'. WTF is 'russian style talking points? Is there a dis-ease I should know about you? It would help me understand your incessant berating of people who have a difference of opinion than yours.
Can't handle the message so you attack the messenger.
"WTF is 'russian style talking points? "
Look them up they're well documented.
Can you please let me know if you are suffering with anything to let me know via pm so I know what I'm working with. I don't do drama in public. Until then have a good day.
When it rains, it pours. The Trump Administration is asking states not to report their unemployment numbers, because apparently we don't even deserve to know how many people are now out of work. From the NYT:
The Trump administration is asking state labor officials to delay releasing the precise number of unemployment claims they are fielding, an indication of how uneasy policymakers are about further roiling a stock market already plunging in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
In an email sent Wednesday, the Labor Department instructed state officials to only “provide information using generalities to describe claims levels (very high, large increase)” until the department releases the total number of national claims next Thursday.
The email, which was shared with The New York Times, noted that the reports were monitored closely by financial markets and should therefore remain embargoed. “States should not provide numeric values to the public,” wrote Gay Gilbert, the administrator of the department’s Office of Employment Insurance.
I'm so sick of hearing about how the "market" will react that I'm about ready to puke. I don't give a shit. Neither does the majority of the country. If Wall Street was burned to the ground tomorrow, we'd all be better off. I can't think of a single thing it contributes to actual society. It's a high stakes casino that is playing with make-believe money. We've pumped 2 trillion dollars into banks the last week to prop it up, and it's done jack shit. With that 2 trillion dollars we could have given every man, woman and child in this country $6000 dollars.
@smeagolheart Can you please let me know if there is an issue that you are suffering from via pm so I know what I'm working with. I don't do forum drama. Until then have a good and healthy day.
@smeagolheart Can you please let me know if there is an issue that you are suffering from via pm so I know what I'm working with. I don't do forum drama. Until then have a good and healthy day.
I'm here to talk politics in the politicial forum. I don't play personal attacks like you are doing.
@smeagolheart Can you please let me know if there is an issue that you are suffering from via pm so I know what I'm working with. I don't do forum drama. Until then have a good and healthy day.
I'm here to talk politics in the politicial forum. I don't play personal attacks like you are doing.
Telling someone that their opinion is wrong and they use a certain political speek 'russian talking points' is a personal attack. Because my views don't align with yours Oh hun you play the game well. Now go hide behind the mods, run along now.
And look, ANOTHER one who dumped stock after a classified briefing. Meanwhile the average citizen was left twisting in the wind as to vital information about what was coming. Jesus Christ:
They KNEW what was coming for over a month, and not only didn't they tell us, but they actively painted a rosy picture. This is, no hyperbole, get the pitchforks-level shit. These people should never see the light of day again. Neither should any Democrat who did the same thing (if that is revealed). For that matter, we now need to know every stock trade made by members of the Trump family and Administration officials in the same time period. This is nothing short of treason in my opinion.
I'm not going to defend Trump on this, but I would be less harsh on other Republicans. Consider the situation:
- a ton of information about the likely seriousness of the epidemic was publicly available.
- stock markets generally (not just in the US) had been slow to accept that seriousness.
- just like any other situation where you think the market is making a wrong judgment, there is an opportunity to make money by doing what others are not doing.
It therefore seems not unreasonable to me for anyone to decide to sell stocks in that situation. What is in principle unreasonable is selling stocks, because you believe the situation is so serious, while publicly saying things are going to be fine. I'm happy to criticize that behavior, but even there I have sympathy with anyone caught in that situation. I'm sure you realize that a senior Republican breaking ranks with Trump's line by explaining that everything was not about to get better would have come under absolutely enormous pressure from hard-liners in the party - and still probably made little difference to public perception.
I know it's banging the same drum, but Covid-19 just illustrates the problems you can get when the leader of your country has such a poor understanding of what is real and what is not. For quite some time now, sufficient information has been known about the disease to be absolutely certain it would result in epidemics in the absence of any action. It's not that the disease is incredibly contagious, but it can be spread before symptoms are present, people remain infectious for significantly longer than with flu and it has an airborne transmission route for quick spread. The only means currently known to break transmission are:
- the draconian isolation measures used in Wuhan.
- major efforts to track and contain every instance of the disease. This article describes that approach in Singapore, which is uniquely well-placed to do that - but even there it's pretty clear this could only work in the longer term in conjunction with severe travel restrictions.
Neither of those approaches has been used in the US to any significant degree (though isolation measures are now starting to ramp up on a state by state basis). Therefore there was never any realistic doubt that the disease would spread within the country - and the information that it was spreading exactly as predicted by the models has been available for quite some time now.
Someone sent my wife yesterday a really excellently done montage of Trump's statements about coronavirus - showing a calendar and successively pulling out video clips from that of what he's said day by day. The punchline being of course when he said on 17th March “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” No-one with a proper sense of reality should have waited so long to make that change of tack. For far too long he's been operating on a forlorn hope that somehow things would get better on their own - I don't think that is a desirable trait in a leader.
It's possible I suppose that Trump will be at least partially successful in his current attempts to change people's perception about what he's been actually saying about the disease for many weeks. That seems to be something he's good at. What he will never be successful at though, is changing natural laws in line with his view of how the world should operate ...
Someone sent my wife yesterday a really excellently done montage of Trump's statements about coronavirus - showing a calendar and successively pulling out video clips from that of what he's said day by day. The punchline being of course when he said on 17th March “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” No-one with a proper sense of reality should have waited so long to make that change of tack. For far too long he's been operating on a forlorn hope that somehow things would get better on their own - I don't think that is a desirable trait in a leader.
I would love to see that montage. A little brevity/chuckles would go a long way.
Someone sent my wife yesterday a really excellently done montage of Trump's statements about coronavirus - showing a calendar and successively pulling out video clips from that of what he's said day by day. The punchline being of course when he said on 17th March “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” No-one with a proper sense of reality should have waited so long to make that change of tack. For far too long he's been operating on a forlorn hope that somehow things would get better on their own - I don't think that is a desirable trait in a leader.
I would love to see that montage. A little brevity/chuckles would go a long way.
It's still rather early in the morning here, but I'll try and track it down later.
Someone sent my wife yesterday a really excellently done montage of Trump's statements about coronavirus - showing a calendar and successively pulling out video clips from that of what he's said day by day. The punchline being of course when he said on 17th March “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” No-one with a proper sense of reality should have waited so long to make that change of tack. For far too long he's been operating on a forlorn hope that somehow things would get better on their own - I don't think that is a desirable trait in a leader.
I would love to see that montage. A little brevity/chuckles would go a long way.
It's still rather early in the morning here, but I'll try and track it down later.
It's worth mentioning for what seems like the 100th time that things haven't even BEGUN to get as bad as they are going to in the US. We will more than likely hit 30,000 cases by Sunday or Monday. New York is, by any measure at this point, set to become like Wuhan or Lombardy. I fully expect Florida will see a rampant spike in cases within the next week, and California is flat-out saying that the worst case scenario is half the population of the state catching it within the next 8 weeks. We're already sufficiently freaked out, and we should be. But things are rapidly falling to pieces from a hospital perspective LONG before they are going to be at their peak. And without the federal government acting as a "shipping clerk", the major metro areas of this country are doomed to a level of death and tragedy that I'm not even sure we can fully comprehend yet.
And look, ANOTHER one who dumped stock after a classified briefing. Meanwhile the average citizen was left twisting in the wind as to vital information about what was coming. Jesus Christ:
They KNEW what was coming for over a month, and not only didn't they tell us, but they actively painted a rosy picture. This is, no hyperbole, get the pitchforks-level shit. These people should never see the light of day again. Neither should any Democrat who did the same thing (if that is revealed). For that matter, we now need to know every stock trade made by members of the Trump family and Administration officials in the same time period. This is nothing short of treason in my opinion.
I'm not going to defend Trump on this, but I would be less harsh on other Republicans. Consider the situation:
- a ton of information about the likely seriousness of the epidemic was publicly available.
- stock markets generally (not just in the US) had been slow to accept that seriousness.
- just like any other situation where you think the market is making a wrong judgment, there is an opportunity to make money by doing what others are not doing.
...
In January a lot if this information was not publicly available. These Republican criminals got classified intelligence and went out and told wealthy donors and sold stock. This is really indefensible.
This is absolutely insane, and a criminal act under the STOCK Act
A private audio recording NPR obtained shows he did this based on information he was getting from the highest levels of the government (which he had access to from daily briefings he was receiving as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee) and sharing 2 weeks later exclusively with high dollar donors, whom he told were likely to see a crisis "more akin to the 1918 Pandemic". https://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/818192535/burr-recording-sparks-questions-about-private-comments-on-covid-19
Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $582,029 and $1.56 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 29 separate transactions.
Burr is not a particularly wealthy member of the Senate: Roll Call estimated his net worth at $1.7 million in 2018, indicating that the February sales significantly shaped his financial fortunes and spared him from some of the pain that many Americans are now facing.
Richard Burr is 64 years old. If he had anything remotely resembling an appropriate risk allocation (https://smartasset.com/investing/asset-allocation-by-age) for his age (about 35% in the stock market), those transactions likely represent every penny he had invested in the stock market.
The STOCK Act, which forbids Congress from trading on information received in the context of their job, was passed in 2012 with only three NAY votes
The measures taken by our world leader have been gnawing at me this week. I agree with social distancing and being responsible during this epidemic but not to the point of losing our freedoms. Starting at 6:15 till 6:47 in this video is what I'm talking about.
And look, ANOTHER one who dumped stock after a classified briefing. Meanwhile the average citizen was left twisting in the wind as to vital information about what was coming. Jesus Christ:
They KNEW what was coming for over a month, and not only didn't they tell us, but they actively painted a rosy picture. This is, no hyperbole, get the pitchforks-level shit. These people should never see the light of day again. Neither should any Democrat who did the same thing (if that is revealed). For that matter, we now need to know every stock trade made by members of the Trump family and Administration officials in the same time period. This is nothing short of treason in my opinion.
I'm not going to defend Trump on this, but I would be less harsh on other Republicans. Consider the situation:
- a ton of information about the likely seriousness of the epidemic was publicly available.
- stock markets generally (not just in the US) had been slow to accept that seriousness.
- just like any other situation where you think the market is making a wrong judgment, there is an opportunity to make money by doing what others are not doing.
...
In January a lot if this information was not publicly available. These Republican criminals got classified intelligence and went out and told wealthy donors and sold stock. This is really indefensible.
This is absolutely insane, and a criminal act under the STOCK Act
A private audio recording NPR obtained shows he did this based on information he was getting from the highest levels of the government (which he had access to from daily briefings he was receiving as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee) and sharing 2 weeks later exclusively with high dollar donors, whom he told were likely to see a crisis "more akin to the 1918 Pandemic". https://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/818192535/burr-recording-sparks-questions-about-private-comments-on-covid-19
Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $582,029 and $1.56 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 29 separate transactions.
Burr is not a particularly wealthy member of the Senate: Roll Call estimated his net worth at $1.7 million in 2018, indicating that the February sales significantly shaped his financial fortunes and spared him from some of the pain that many Americans are now facing.
Richard Burr is 64 years old. If he had anything remotely resembling an appropriate risk allocation (https://smartasset.com/investing/asset-allocation-by-age) for his age (about 35% in the stock market), those transactions likely represent every penny he had invested in the stock market.
The STOCK Act, which forbids Congress from trading on information received in the context of their job, was passed in 2012 with only three NAY votes
There was loads of publicly available information about the disease even at the start of February (that's not the same thing as saying there was a high degree of public awareness, but information was available). For instance the first of the WHO daily special briefings was on 21st January and there had been numerous reports prior to that. The chance of a Senate briefing having anything additional to that about the nature of the disease would be pretty much zero.
There are 2 other areas where there could have been confidential information shared. The first would be the spread of the disease through the US, though I think it's still fairly unlikely that would have been the case. Far more likely I suspect would be information about how the US was responding and planned to respond. For instance I'm not aware of any accurate information being made publicly available about the number of tests that could be carried out - though there was certainly highly misleading information being provided on that by the government. If the Senate briefing included accurate information on test availability, that would have helped project the likely progress of the disease - and be potential grounds for a charge related to insider trading.
If there were charges brought though, my guess is that he would probably get off by claiming that a member of the public could have come to the same conclusions as him, i.e. he did not in fact rely on any confidential information in making his decisions about selling stocks. While not directly relevant, I think he would attempt to explain the difference between his public and private stance as falling in line with a government decision to try and avoid panic. That doesn't mean I think he's done nothing wrong, but that the problem is more to do with the system than the individual. When I started as an accountant over 30 years ago, there were severe restrictions on investments I could have to prevent any possible appearance of insider trading or judgment bias. Personally, I think it's ridiculous that a Senator has the ability to trade directly in shares at all - if he wants to hold such investments, they should be in a blind trust to avoid any wrongful use of information (or the appearance of such wrongful use). The chance of that type of change happening though while Trump continues to pursue business interests with such total disregard for conflicts of interest is ... small .
Someone sent my wife yesterday a really excellently done montage of Trump's statements about coronavirus - showing a calendar and successively pulling out video clips from that of what he's said day by day. The punchline being of course when he said on 17th March “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” No-one with a proper sense of reality should have waited so long to make that change of tack. For far too long he's been operating on a forlorn hope that somehow things would get better on their own - I don't think that is a desirable trait in a leader.
I would love to see that montage. A little brevity/chuckles would go a long way.
It's still rather early in the morning here, but I'll try and track it down later.
Someone sent my wife yesterday a really excellently done montage of Trump's statements about coronavirus - showing a calendar and successively pulling out video clips from that of what he's said day by day. The punchline being of course when he said on 17th March “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” No-one with a proper sense of reality should have waited so long to make that change of tack. For far too long he's been operating on a forlorn hope that somehow things would get better on their own - I don't think that is a desirable trait in a leader.
I would love to see that montage. A little brevity/chuckles would go a long way.
It's still rather early in the morning here, but I'll try and track it down later.
Comments
Loeffler's husband is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
Very, very few.
Which one on that list do you think would realistically get through a GOP held house and senate? They had that in 2016, and none of it happened. The government was shutdown to help avoid allowing Dreamers to stay. The ACA was kept on life support because John McCain had a last second change of heart.
There are perhaps... 3 senators that would vote for *any* of those things. As compared to every single sitting democratic senator. So I dont think quite a few of those stances are held broadly by republicans.
The ACA being a copy of Romneycare demonstrates this. Even though it was a copy the plan from Romney in MA, it is and continues to be under assault by most republican lawmakers.
Unless you can top how Republicans found out about the seriousness of a deadly pandemic and then :
- immediately started selling stocks to make millions & not get a financial hit while regular people lose their life savings
- lying about the coming crisis in coordination with right wing media (it's just the flu! etc) and politicizing the virus (Dem hoax!). Republican misinformation is directly resulting in deaths
- utterly failing their basic job of governing by failing to prepare the country for the deadly virus that they have been aware of for months a problem of failure that is going on to to this day
Then you are wrong. They are not the same.
People are trying to tie Dianne Feinstein into it, but it's kind-of hollow. Her husband is trader, and they sold exactly ONE stock around that time, which is a Biotech company. Not exactly what you unload in a pandemic. Burr and Loeffler were selling off major parts of their portfolio, stuff you can clearly discern would be TANKING if what they had just learned came to fruition. Loeffler's even goes a step further, in that she BUYS stock in a telcom company, right before everyone is confined to their homes for two months. The context clearly matters. Ron Johnson and Jim Inhoffe are also on the list of people who made trades during that time. But these are easily available records. The reason Burr and Loeffler are being singled out is because of WHAT they sold in relation to the current crisis. We've also now learned that Feinstein's stocks are all in a blind trust. You know, the one Trump promised he would put his assets into but never did.
There is no right and wrong when people are obsessed by politics. It's like a mentally ill patient. They are told to take their meds because they have an imbalance but they think in their mind that everyone else is wrong and out to get them. Nancy Pelosi is a career criminal and fraudster as are all politicians, just saying enough to get your vote. They don't care about you.
There are many ways to trade and it does not have to be in your name. Many ways to get around it as long as you know the right people. They are all crooks and they ALL know about it before the public does.
That's all well and good, but it still doesn't really explain why learning about a possible pandemic would drive one to rush as quickly as possible sell off stock in a company that is developing cancer drugs.
Meanwhile, Loeffler sells stock in something called Resideo Technologies, which provides camera and security products for businesses. Something no business can possibly afford as a luxury at this point. It's stock price has basically been cut in half since. Meanwhile she BUYS stock in Citrix. Which is (this is almost too obvious to even be real) a business that's main focus is facilitating meetings by telephone. Such as what everyone would be forced to do in a nationwide lockdown.
These are russian style talking points you're using. "They're all bad, so it's okay if MY team is bad".
Sorry, there IS right and wrong. These are the arguments Republicans use too. They say "oh there's millions of illegal votes!" when there is ZERO evidence of this. Believe me if it were true people would be prosecuted. But what happens is Republicans keep getting caught committing voter fraud. Why? because they knew "oh there's got to be something there so I better do it first!"
They do not all do it. Their are laws that allow transparency to happen. Hence why these two got caught so quickly.
Now if they get away with what they did, then you can say we're all suckers.
The only thing wrong is your obsession with politics. To the point that you would pull out things like 'russian style talking points'. WTF is 'russian style talking points? Is there a dis-ease I should know about you? It would help me understand your incessant berating of people who have a difference of opinion than yours.
I hope you are right.
Can't handle the message so you attack the messenger.
"WTF is 'russian style talking points? "
Look them up they're well documented.
I would suggest that if you do have an issue then can you please let me know via pm. Until then I wish you a good day. I don't do drama in public.
Can you please let me know if you are suffering with anything to let me know via pm so I know what I'm working with. I don't do drama in public. Until then have a good day.
The Trump administration is asking state labor officials to delay releasing the precise number of unemployment claims they are fielding, an indication of how uneasy policymakers are about further roiling a stock market already plunging in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
In an email sent Wednesday, the Labor Department instructed state officials to only “provide information using generalities to describe claims levels (very high, large increase)” until the department releases the total number of national claims next Thursday.
The email, which was shared with The New York Times, noted that the reports were monitored closely by financial markets and should therefore remain embargoed. “States should not provide numeric values to the public,” wrote Gay Gilbert, the administrator of the department’s Office of Employment Insurance.
I'm so sick of hearing about how the "market" will react that I'm about ready to puke. I don't give a shit. Neither does the majority of the country. If Wall Street was burned to the ground tomorrow, we'd all be better off. I can't think of a single thing it contributes to actual society. It's a high stakes casino that is playing with make-believe money. We've pumped 2 trillion dollars into banks the last week to prop it up, and it's done jack shit. With that 2 trillion dollars we could have given every man, woman and child in this country $6000 dollars.
I'm here to talk politics in the politicial forum. I don't play personal attacks like you are doing.
Telling someone that their opinion is wrong and they use a certain political speek 'russian talking points' is a personal attack. Because my views don't align with yours
I'm not going to defend Trump on this, but I would be less harsh on other Republicans. Consider the situation:
- a ton of information about the likely seriousness of the epidemic was publicly available.
- stock markets generally (not just in the US) had been slow to accept that seriousness.
- just like any other situation where you think the market is making a wrong judgment, there is an opportunity to make money by doing what others are not doing.
It therefore seems not unreasonable to me for anyone to decide to sell stocks in that situation. What is in principle unreasonable is selling stocks, because you believe the situation is so serious, while publicly saying things are going to be fine. I'm happy to criticize that behavior, but even there I have sympathy with anyone caught in that situation. I'm sure you realize that a senior Republican breaking ranks with Trump's line by explaining that everything was not about to get better would have come under absolutely enormous pressure from hard-liners in the party - and still probably made little difference to public perception.
I know it's banging the same drum, but Covid-19 just illustrates the problems you can get when the leader of your country has such a poor understanding of what is real and what is not. For quite some time now, sufficient information has been known about the disease to be absolutely certain it would result in epidemics in the absence of any action. It's not that the disease is incredibly contagious, but it can be spread before symptoms are present, people remain infectious for significantly longer than with flu and it has an airborne transmission route for quick spread. The only means currently known to break transmission are:
- the draconian isolation measures used in Wuhan.
- major efforts to track and contain every instance of the disease. This article describes that approach in Singapore, which is uniquely well-placed to do that - but even there it's pretty clear this could only work in the longer term in conjunction with severe travel restrictions.
Neither of those approaches has been used in the US to any significant degree (though isolation measures are now starting to ramp up on a state by state basis). Therefore there was never any realistic doubt that the disease would spread within the country - and the information that it was spreading exactly as predicted by the models has been available for quite some time now.
Someone sent my wife yesterday a really excellently done montage of Trump's statements about coronavirus - showing a calendar and successively pulling out video clips from that of what he's said day by day. The punchline being of course when he said on 17th March “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” No-one with a proper sense of reality should have waited so long to make that change of tack. For far too long he's been operating on a forlorn hope that somehow things would get better on their own - I don't think that is a desirable trait in a leader.
It's possible I suppose that Trump will be at least partially successful in his current attempts to change people's perception about what he's been actually saying about the disease for many weeks. That seems to be something he's good at. What he will never be successful at though, is changing natural laws in line with his view of how the world should operate ...
It's still rather early in the morning here, but I'll try and track it down later.
I would appreciate that thank you.
In January a lot if this information was not publicly available. These Republican criminals got classified intelligence and went out and told wealthy donors and sold stock. This is really indefensible.
This is absolutely insane, and a criminal act under the STOCK Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act
A private audio recording NPR obtained shows he did this based on information he was getting from the highest levels of the government (which he had access to from daily briefings he was receiving as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee) and sharing 2 weeks later exclusively with high dollar donors, whom he told were likely to see a crisis "more akin to the 1918 Pandemic".
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/818192535/burr-recording-sparks-questions-about-private-comments-on-covid-19
Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $582,029 and $1.56 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 29 separate transactions.
Burr is not a particularly wealthy member of the Senate: Roll Call estimated his net worth at $1.7 million in 2018, indicating that the February sales significantly shaped his financial fortunes and spared him from some of the pain that many Americans are now facing.
Richard Burr is 64 years old. If he had anything remotely resembling an appropriate risk allocation (https://smartasset.com/investing/asset-allocation-by-age) for his age (about 35% in the stock market), those transactions likely represent every penny he had invested in the stock market.
The STOCK Act, which forbids Congress from trading on information received in the context of their job, was passed in 2012 with only three NAY votes
I would never be for losing our liberties or being spied on to make sure we are "safe".
There was loads of publicly available information about the disease even at the start of February (that's not the same thing as saying there was a high degree of public awareness, but information was available). For instance the first of the WHO daily special briefings was on 21st January and there had been numerous reports prior to that. The chance of a Senate briefing having anything additional to that about the nature of the disease would be pretty much zero.
There are 2 other areas where there could have been confidential information shared. The first would be the spread of the disease through the US, though I think it's still fairly unlikely that would have been the case. Far more likely I suspect would be information about how the US was responding and planned to respond. For instance I'm not aware of any accurate information being made publicly available about the number of tests that could be carried out - though there was certainly highly misleading information being provided on that by the government. If the Senate briefing included accurate information on test availability, that would have helped project the likely progress of the disease - and be potential grounds for a charge related to insider trading.
If there were charges brought though, my guess is that he would probably get off by claiming that a member of the public could have come to the same conclusions as him, i.e. he did not in fact rely on any confidential information in making his decisions about selling stocks. While not directly relevant, I think he would attempt to explain the difference between his public and private stance as falling in line with a government decision to try and avoid panic. That doesn't mean I think he's done nothing wrong, but that the problem is more to do with the system than the individual. When I started as an accountant over 30 years ago, there were severe restrictions on investments I could have to prevent any possible appearance of insider trading or judgment bias. Personally, I think it's ridiculous that a Senator has the ability to trade directly in shares at all - if he wants to hold such investments, they should be in a blind trust to avoid any wrongful use of information (or the appearance of such wrongful use). The chance of that type of change happening though while Trump continues to pursue business interests with such total disregard for conflicts of interest is ... small
I think it came from here.
Thanks again @Grond0 . This is good stuff lol.