Exhibit 1. https://www.capitoltrades.com/issuers/431610?page=2
They are certainly not all the same. If you don't distinguish them, you cut down the people actually fighting on the front lines. It's friendly fire. They are shot in the back.
Markeayne Mullin’s net worth was ~$50 million a few years ago. $50k is 1/1000th of that networth also…
That’s not to say congress shouldn’t be banned from trading stocks like every other profession that might potentially have insider info. They absolutely should.
That fact that it was a drop in the bucket for them makes it that much more outrageous, not less. It would have cost virtually nothing for them to avoid the appearance of impropriety, and yet they didn't. And why should they? There was no consequence. They are taunting us.
If you or I trade off anything close to insider information, we'd be in jail and lose most of our (ostensibly much more limited) assets.
Mullin's net worth is 20-75 million. So up to 0.25% of his net worth if we use the low estimate is a Meta acquisition? Who cares?
You do realize these people have friends and family.
> Who cares?
Insider trading deprives _all other_ legitimate participants of the market. That the trade is small relative to this individual net worth is meaningless. That is value that should have been captured by someone else taking a genuine risk. It's a thumb on the scale of the market and it is morally repugnant.
You may believe no member of congress should own equity in any company, but that's a separate issue
- Markwayne Mullin (R Oklahoma) purchased $15-$50k Meta stock on 01/02/2024 [0]
A nice list: https://www.capitoltrades.com/issuers/431610
[0] https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/3-politician...
https://www.tiktok.com/@iancarrollshow/video/734642717587849...
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4jA_k8Pn12 (in case of censorship)
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/mike-gallagh...
Looks like Steven Mnuchin, David Friedman and Yossi Cohen were also involved. Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said that "we really have a TikTok problem", since it's acting to alchemize the left-right political divide into a young-old one.
The video says that pro-Palestine content is some of the most censored content there is, but despite that, a large number of TikTok users are supporting Palestine and questioning Israel's authority to continue hostilities. It suggests that silencing these objections to the Israel-Palestine conflict by preventing their discussion and spread is one of the primary motives for banning TikTok.
I'm deeply disappointed in members of the Democratic Party who voted for the TikTok ban, whose actions call into question the integrity of their party and its priorities. I'm not as surprised by the actions of the Republican Party, which historically has sided with the establishment (Meta and other social networks under US jurisdiction), but openly voting for censorship in the face of calls to protect free speech from Donald Trump and Elon Musk is suspect.
And I'm profoundly troubled by antisemitism and how whataboutism is clouding journalistic integrity. With derogatory comments about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and wokeism becoming more prevalent, we should be mindful of the slippery slope from oppressed to oppressor. This is why we must always call out injustice in all forms, even when it's inconvenient to do so, or risk sacrificing our principles and eventually our freedoms.
I'm reminded of the Paradox of Intolerance, that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance:
