Free Republic

What’s the best way to get rich in America? Start a business? Get a four-year degree? Take a job on Wall Street? Wrong. The answer is get elected to Congress. Imagine buying shares in companies you regulate, or investing in defense contractors right before a war breaks out, or selling your stocks because you found out before everyone else there’s going to be a global pandemic. James Poulos and the Blaze Originals team traveled to Washington, D.C. to expose how members of Congress get filthy rich. Featuring: Unusual Whales, @RepMattGaetz, Chip Roy, and George Santos.

Democrat Rep. Daniel Goldman (NY) has made nearly 500 stock trades since entering office in January, despite previously pledging to form a “blind trust” to shield himself from financial conflicts of interest, Raw Story reported. Goldman described himself as a “strong advocate for anti-corruption” and pledged to put his stock portfolio in a blind trust while campaigning to represent New York’s 10th congressional district, an area that encompasses the New York Stock Exchange. Goldman said during an August debate: The fact of the matter is I have spent my entire career in public service, taking down gun traffickers, fighting against...

Two more senators made hefty stock sales before the coronavirus pandemic tanked global markets, records revealed as two other lawmakers who dumped millions in shares faced mounting calls to resign. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Jim Inhofe sold as much as $6.4 million worth of stock in the weeks before panic about the coronavirus sparked a worldwide selloff, according to disclosure filings first reported by the New York Times. The additional revelations came amid widespread outrage toward GOP Sens. Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler, who reportedly sold shares after getting briefings on the coronavirus threat.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) spoke to the FBI and handed over documents last month related to recent stock transactions by her husband that have come under public scrutiny. "Senator Feinstein was asked some basic questions by law enforcement about her husband’s stock transactions. ...She was happy to voluntarily answer those questions to set the record straight and provided additional documents to show she had no involvement in her husband’s transactions," a spokesman said. Feinstein's conversation with the FBI took place in April and the spokesman said that "there have been no follow up actions on this issue." Feinstein's husband sold...

As Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee over the past three years, North Carolina RINO Senator Richard Burr coordinated efforts with the ranking minority member, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, to run interference for the coup cabal’s efforts within the DOJ and FBI to take down the duly-elected President, Donald Trump. Today, he might be regretting his seditious actions. Last night, Burr was repaid for his troubles by the FBI with a raid on his home in a search for evidence related to allegations that he traded a huge amount of stocks in February based on insider information about the extent...

“Time? They ain’t making any more of it, so you gotta get in and get out, or you’ll get your f*****g face ripped off,” screamed an old Chicago Merc floor trader at my grad school class during a field trip. I nodded, like the rest of the class, figuring he knew what he was talking about and also not wanting to provoke this human ball of fury. But he was wrong. The kind folks who make their living providing services to financial types have been manufacturing time for decades now. And they’ve hit a new milestone. Low-latency comms biz McKay...

State Controller Steve Westly made a $286,000 profit at the height of the dot-com boom through a pattern of stock trades that experts say is consistent with participation in a banned stock-market manipulation scheme. His tax returns show that on 33 occasions between April and October 1999, Westly -- then an executive at the online auction house eBay and today a Democratic candidate for governor -- bought blocks of hot new dot-com stocks at the initial public offering price,... --snip-- Then, after the market opened and public trading began, Westly bought more of the same stocks -- almost always an...

You can make more in a single stock trade than in a lifetime of public service. Congress has excluded investment income, such as stocks, from ethics limitations on income. The result is that members routinely make killings in the market in areas where they legislate. One study by the University of Memphis found that 75% of randomly selected members had "stock transactions that directly coincided with (their) legislative activity." Members have the unique ability to predict or even manipulate stock prices. Another recent study by Alan J. Ziobrowski of Georgia State University and three colleagues showed that U.S. senators beat...