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Gravy Train

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Posts posted by Gravy Train

  1. 9 hours ago, Laxtonto said:

    With the continued rumblings by a variety of current and former FCC officials, including Bredndan Carr in a recent interview that was published this week, that the US should ban TikTok it would seems to a very advantageous opportunity for Twitter right now.

    Right on.

    https://www.axios.com/2022/11/01/interview-fcc-commissioner-says-government-should-ban-tiktok

    Quote

    The Council on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) should take action to ban TikTok, Brendan Carr, one of five commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, told Axios in an interview.

    Why it matters: It's the strongest language Carr has used to date to urge action on TikTok. With more than 200 million downloads in the U.S. alone, the popular app is becoming a form of critical information infrastructure — making the app's ownership by a Chinese parent company a target of growing national security concern.

    The FCC has no authority to regulate TikTok directly, but Congress previously acted after Carr voiced concerns about Chinese telecom companies, including Huawei.
    State of play: TikTok is currently in negotiations with CFIUS, an interagency committee that conducts national security reviews of foreign companies' deals, to determine whether it can be divested by Chinese parent company ByteDance to an American company and remain operational in the United States.

    The New York Times reported in September that a deal was taking shape but not yet in its final form and that Department of Justice official Lisa Monaco was concerned the deal did not provide sufficient insulation from Beijing.
    A Republican-controlled Congress could try to scrap any deal viewed as too easy on China.
    What he's saying: "I don’t believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban," Carr said, citing recent revelations about how TikTok and ByteDance handle U.S. user data.

    Carr highlighted concerns about U.S. data flowing back to China and the risk of a state actor using TikTok to covertly influence political processes in the United States.
    There simply isn't "a world in which you could come up with sufficient protection on the data that you could have sufficient confidence that it’s not finding its way back into the hands of the [Chinese Communist Party]," Carr said.
    Carr sent letters to Apple and Google in June asking the companies to remove the apps from their stores due to concerns about data flowing back to China.
    What TikTok is saying: "Commissioner Carr has no role in the confidential discussions with the U.S. government related to TikTok and appears to be expressing views independent of his role as an FCC commissioner," a TikTok spokesperson told Axios in a statement.

    "We are confident that we are on a path to reaching an agreement with the U.S. Government that will satisfy all reasonable national security concerns."
    TikTok supports the passage of national data privacy legislation that applies to all companies, the spokesperson added.
    What's happening: A series of recent reports have challenged TikTok's claims that U.S. user data is secure because it is stored outside of China and that the company does not comply with Chinese government content moderation requirements.

    China-based engineers working at TikTok accessed nonpublic U.S. user information, including phone numbers and birthdays, BuzzFeed reported in June.
    ByteDance, which is based in China, instructed employees to push pro-Beijing messaging to U.S. users of a news app, BuzzFeed reported in July. Bytedance said it did not do this.
    ByteDance planned to use TikTok to collect information about certain U.S. users, according to a Forbes report published last month.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/10/20/tiktok-bytedance-surveillance-american-user-data/?sh=416023e16c2d

    Quote

    A China-based team at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, planned to use the TikTok app to monitor the personal location of some specific American citizens, according to materials reviewed by Forbes.

    The team behind the monitoring project — ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department — is led by Beijing-based executive Song Ye, who reports to ByteDance cofounder and CEO Rubo Liang.

    The team primarily conducts investigations into potential misconduct by current and former ByteDance employees. But in at least two cases, the Internal Audit team also planned to collect TikTok data about the location of a U.S. citizen who had never had an employment relationship with the company, the materials show. It is unclear from the materials whether data about these Americans was actually collected; however, the plan was for a Beijing-based ByteDance team to obtain location data from U.S. users’ devices.

    TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan said that TikTok collects approximate location information based on users’ IP addresses to “among other things, help show relevant content and ads to users, comply with applicable laws, and detect and prevent fraud and inauthentic behavior."

    But the material reviewed by Forbes indicates that ByteDance's Internal Audit team was planning to use this location information to surveil individual American citizens, not to target ads or any of these other purposes. Forbes is not disclosing the nature and purpose of the planned surveillance referenced in the materials in order to protect sources. TikTok and ByteDance did not answer questions about whether Internal Audit has specifically targeted any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or journalists.

    TikTok is reportedly close to signing a contract with the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which evaluates the national security risks posed by companies of foreign ownership, and has been investigating whether the company’s Chinese ownership could enable the Chinese government to access personal information about U.S. TikTok users. (Disclosure: In a past life, I held policy positions at Facebook and Spotify.)

    In September, President Biden signed an executive order enumerating specific risks that CFIUS should consider when assessing companies of foreign ownership. The order, which states that it intends to “emphasize . . . the risks presented by foreign adversaries’ access to data of United States persons,” focuses specifically on foreign companies’ potential use of data “for the surveillance, tracing, tracking, and targeting of individuals or groups of individuals, with potential adverse impacts on national security.”

     

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  2. For a peek at where we're going with this, in the potential to return our social media platforms to open protocols, and content creation restored to personal ownership, I see Jack Dorsey crossed this bridge well before Elon's takeover.  It also provides credence to the dogshit-investment-grade-asset Elon acquired, the concepts behind Web3 are valid and supported:

    https://news.yahoo.com/bluesky-potential-twitter-alternative-being-111738532.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw&tsrc=twtr'

    Quote

    Mr Dorsey believes that this approach could solve Big Tech's free speech problem. By bringing so much of the internet under their control, social media giants have made themselves responsible for policing the speech of the entire world. Yet nobody can write a single set of rules that will please millions or billions of people across the world, let alone enforce such rules consistently.

    "Twitter started as a protocol. It should never have been a company. That was the original sin," said Mr Dorsey in a private text message to Mr Musk this March.

    He added that such a protocol would need to be funded but not owned by some kind of foundation. Any "centralised entity" that decides how the protocol will work or what speech should be banned would simply be a weak point for advertisers and governments to lean on.

    According to veteran tech writer Mike Masnick, who has been cited by Mr Dorsey as a key inspiration, this would not only create a new ecosystem of third-party filtering and recommendation systems but also reduce the pressure to be global speech cops.

    So Dorsey and team have been working on a new social media platform, using open protocols, called "BlueSky."  It kicked off in 2019, and builds a new, decentralized social media protocol.  That protocol is essential for core function, but also allows a user to 'port' content from one platform to another, as if your one post could be presented in textual transcription in one app, linked to a voice recording in another, linked to a video on a different platform... because those alternate platforms have also adopted the new standard.

    This is what Web3 should be, but we're a long ways off from "neutralizing" content ownership out of the host-ecosystem, and into an open-air medium that all platforms agree to adopt.  It will also be the absolute ruin of Facebook products as we currently know them.

    https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/19/23412482/bluesky-at-protocol-decentralized-twitter-social-networks-app

    Quote

    Bluesky, the project started within Twitter to create a decentralized social network, announced it’s getting closer to actually shipping an app. “Closer” is the operative word here, though. Bluesky only announced that it is building an app, that it’ll be called Bluesky, and that it will “be a portal to the world of possibility on top of the AT Protocol.” We still don’t have a release date, a feature list, or much of anything else.

    The AT Protocol is the real news for Bluesky. The whole idea behind the project was to separate social apps and social networks — to let people use the same back end and data but build and use their own apps on top of it. “It will allow [Twitter] to access and contribute to a much larger corpus of public conversation, focus our efforts on building open recommendation algorithms which promote healthy conversation, and will force us to be far more innovative than in the past,” Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey said in 2019 when Bluesky was first announced. The AT Protocol, it appears, will be the underlying technology that powers all these apps in the future.

    The AT Protocol website is still fairly sparse, but it offers three reasons the decentralized future of social might be the right one: “federated social,” which allows users to use many apps on top of one service; “algorithmic choice,” which lets them decide how that information is presented; and “portable accounts,” meaning you could move your stuff from one app to another without losing your content or social graph. Bluesky’s blog post also mentioned performance as a possible future upside, saying, “We’ve made it a priority to build for fast loading at large scales.”

    There is one problem with this, in that Congress already knows about it.  Your weight of tinfoil hat may vary, but let's assume they WILL have controlling interest of the same underlying protocol.  Thumb to page 40 of the transcription from the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, dated March 25, 2021:  https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/111407/documents/HHRG-117-IF16-Transcript-20210325.pdf

    Quote

    If instead we woke up tomorrow and decided to ask the government to tell us what content to take down or leave up, we may end up with a service that couldn't be used to question the government. This is a reality in many countries today, and is against the right of an individual. This would also have the effect of putting enormous resource requirements on businesses and services, which would further entrench only those who are able to afford it. Smaller businesses would not be able to compete, and all activity would be centralized into very few businesses. So how do we resolve these two viewpoints? One way is to create shared protocols. Social media has proven itself important enough to be worthy of an internet protocol, one that a company like Twitter can contribute to and compete on creating experiences people love to use. We started work on such a protocol, which we call Blue Sky. It intends to act as a decentralized, open source social media protocol, not owned by any single company or organization. Any developer around the world can help develop it, just as any company can access its services. But does an open protocol address the concerns raised here? Greater transparency is the strongest benefit.

    Wikipedia background on the 'BlueSky' protocol initiative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky_(protocol)

  3. 1 hour ago, aggie08 said:

    Me thinks MonkeyDoughnut may be one of the ~30% of Americans who, among the right crowd with a few drinks in them, will tell you all about their neighbor who knows a guy whose cousin deleted security footage from his polling station.

    Seriously though: I just want an answer for what interesting, sincere voices were being silenced on Twitter. You have to actively try to get banned from what I can tell. Candace Owens and Dan fucking Bongingo managed to keep their accounts going strong. It's clearly a very, very low bar.

    Or is this really about one specific dude getting banned, hurting feelings nation-wide, leading to this however-many-month-long tantrum?

    The cynic in me can take a guess at the answer, but I'm legitimately curious.

    I got neg-bombed for this in the Nancy Pelosi thread (from the typical CR intellectually-void types), but the Twitter accounts @NancyTracker and @TrialTracker were suspended in early December.  The 'NancyTracker' account was established by those in finance and capital management industries, tracking sources of equities trading and insider trading accusations of congress members.  Nancy's trades were already followed by Jr. Wall Street Analysts building memes on their Instagram pages, pissed that SEC regulations prevented them from trading activity, but others were well doxxed.  The 'TrialTracker' account was providing updates from the Ghislane Maxwell trial.

    Since Elon's takeover, 'Nancy Tracker' has been restored and established under a new account:

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  4. Sooo.. the smooth-brained GQP theories on Paul's attack were rooted from two pieces of fake news:

    1. Report he called the DePape a ‘friend’ (though he may have actually used that as code-word) on the 9-1-1 call

    2. Oakland Fox affiliate station falsely reported the assailant was in his underwear

    It started with a KTVU report that they later retracted in very small print

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/fox-news-affiliate-forced-retract-report-pelosi-depape-found-underwear-another-pelosi-wrap-smear/

    Quote

    No credible media outlet has reported that Pelosi was in his underwear, and authorities have not confirmed either. Even removing the subjective judgment of what is credible from the equation, no website or news site that is repeating the claim has offered any evidence or named sourcing to back it up.

    The claim appears to have ignited when a single news organization, KTVU-TV, reported that DePape was wearing only his underwear when police arrived. Although that news organization is generally regarded as a credible television station, it later posted a correction and removed the information on the underwear from the article.

    KTVU-TV is a Fox affiliated television station located in Oakland, California. The article was written by investigative journalist Evan Sernoffsky. He has a long career in investigative reporting in the Bay area, having worked as a San Francisco Chronicle criminal justice reporter before coming to KTVU in 2020.

    He also retracted the underwear claim on Twitter, writing, “I’m now told by other sources that DePape was NOT dressed only in his underwear. Working to clarify.”

    Ironically, KTVU was the Oakland news station that reported those amazing Asiana Flight 214 pilot names which crashed on the approach to SFO. 🥴

     

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  5. Billy Cole (Billy Blanks):  "Ain't life a bitch?"

    [shoots himself in the head]

    https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/betting/bettor-needs-prop-on-mnf-to-turn-7-77-parlay-into-124k-2667601/

    Quote

    A bettor is one leg away from turning $7.77 into $124,333.46.

    FanDuel gambler Tanner Daniel (@DnlTanner) hit the first 16 legs of a 17-leg same game NFL parlay Sunday, capped by an improbable under 46½ in Buffalo’s 27-17 win over Green Bay on “Sunday Night Football.”

     

    Now it all comes down to the final leg on “Monday Night Football.” Daniel needs Cincinnati Bengals running back Joe Mixon to go over 63½ rushing yards against the Cleveland Browns to cash the ticket, which is a 16,000-1 long shot.

    The six-figure jackpot could pay for a nice honeymoon. On Sunday, Daniel posted on his Instagram account (Tanner_dnl): “Fam, just got married today, now sitting here with possibly two life changing events in one day. Put my $7.77 on it for the my Guy upstairs!!!! No cash out available. LET IT RIDE. Send Ts and Ps.”

    Quote

    Here are the other 15 legs of the parlay that hit Sunday:

    — CeeDee Lamb over 70½ receiving yards (77).

    — CeeDee Lamb any time touchdown scorer (21-yard TD catch, first quarter).

    — Dallas Cowboys money line (beat Bears 49-29).

    — Jalen Hurts over 233½ passing yards (285).

    — A.J. Brown any time touchdown scorer (three TDs, first half).

    — Tua Tagovailoa over 279½ passing yards (382).

    — Jaylen Waddle any time touchdown scorer (two TDs, first half).

    — DeAndre Hopkins any time touchdown scorer (6-yard TD catch, second quarter).

    — DeAndre Hopkins over 76½ receiving yards (159).

    — Cardinals-Vikings over 48½ (Vikings won 34-26).

    — Justin Jefferson over 90½ receiving yards (98).

    — Brandin Cooks over 61½ receiving yards (73).

    — Derrick Henry any time touchdown scorer (two TDs).

    — D.J. Moore over 58½ receiving yards (152).

    — Saquon Barkley any time touchdown scorer (1-yard TD run, second quarter).

     

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  6. Just now, sidis said:

    For someone trying so very, very hard as you are…it is surprising that you can’t see post 2813 on this very page.

    if you’re truly this dense and not just trolling, it is your timing that is the augury of your actual intentions. 

    I genuinely considered that exact post/comment in my reply above, but the content creator is so lost in life that I don't even acknowledge it.  There's occasionally entire congregations of such babblefucks spewing incomprehensible shit like that.  I'm not even there to attempt to process it.

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  7. 3 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

    Another lie. You're bringing it up to deflect and vilify the victim. Negged again, fuckwad.

    Where's the lie?  Negged for creepy .GIF and intellectually void response, but keep deepthroating your own narrative.  

    What is there to deflect?  The discussion on ethics and professional demeanor is completely independent from personal safety and assault.

    We all condemned this attack, and it's even more alarming that the motive was intended for Nancy.  I remember when the Republican lawmakers practicing softball were gunned down and it was condemned by all. The same was true when Gabby Giffords was shot.  Thankfully, our nation hasn't sunk so low that we've lost such compassion.  I haven't found a single comment celebrating this and any deplorable endorsing such isn't fit for society.

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  8. On 10/30/2022 at 11:42 AM, jimmyjazz said:

    Claudia Sahm seems like she needs to post on surly.

    I'm objectively trying to give her tweets consideration, but she failed to mention M2 and the role of Central Banks in the rapid bounce-back from COVID-19 (which directly contributed to inflationary pressures).  She also floated out some confidence in rents falling at such a rate to not significantly impact CPI until the middle of next year... a metric that's mostly demand-side driven.

    Guess I'll keep reading?  LOL I should ask her which portions of the Inflation Reduction Act address austerity measures.

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  9. I don't "cHoOsE a SiDe," because it implies you're rooting for a game rather than objectively seeking the best outcome for most, while actively engaging those who might be captive voters/supporters.  Sure, let's alienate those spreading catshit misinformation or resorting to violence, which is so bizarre to me, I'm not even going to struggle with understanding how one could adopt.  But those few aren't the focus, when the 2020 election cycle identified nearly 33% of the electorate middle as moderates.

    For Pelosi, the midterms might not be her decision, and not by a majority change, but that other House Democrats are already shuffling behind the scenes, proposing new leadership. Then again, Hoyer and Clyburn are right behind her.

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  10. 3 hours ago, Thatguy said:

      Its Quarterback Play

    That's how you pitch a shutout to oSu?


    Fuck it, I need to see creativity, adaptive playcalling (halftime would be nice, 3-4 posessions even better), and, something demonstrably missing in Sark but smugly emerged from Lane Kiffin, is "killer confidence" in his guys with a shit-eating grin.  Sarkdroid looks lifeless.

  11. The whole "politics as sport" position is quite the helpful self-identifier.  I WANT MY TEAM TO WIN is not how a properly-functioning democracy works, and we are a society of merit.  The Speaker is a House-nominated position, albeit parliamentary leader of.  If you have a personal agenda to see through some legislation, that's fine, but we're rapidly approaching a generational shift among voters who shouldn't be alienated with the opinion that Congress won't evolve at the same pace as their constituents.  They have 223 other members to select, this shouldn't be difficult.

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  12. 51 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

    If you want to discuss politicians' using their positions to profit, why don't you start a thread about it?  It shouldn't be on here, a thread about Nancy Pelosi, who hasn't been specifically accused of self dealing, other than by the alternative facts folks, and they did so three days after her husband had his skull bashed in during an assassination attempt on her, in an attempt to deflect from the fact that the GQP has become a fascist organization.

    I'm sure there's plenty of self dealing, and it's unethical, and we should do something about it.  But maybe not randomly discussing it on the Nancy Pelosi thread.

    I brought it up, mostly because the proof is already out there, her accusations arose from the finance community, the self-dealing is something her husband very much benefited from, and her tenure is disgusting to me-- but not nearly as much as the replies from those wilfully dismissing anyone's grift.  It's not a partisan problem, but holistic that a number of us in this thread acknowledge.

    The topic should be on here, because it's an open-season thread specifically about Nancy, and I'm tired of her.   Failure to step down or groom a successor into position is selfish act OR a failure of the system, but NOT a failure of the voters.

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  13. 59 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

    You can discuss whatever you like.

    And the age of the this thread has shit all to do with anything and this attack happened two fucking days ago.

    But in the future when you and everyone else laments about Democratic messaging and letting Republicans control the message, remember to acknowledge that it’s not Democrats fault that Democratic voters can’t be bothered to focus on a violent attack for more than 48 hours without being distracted by a bullshit deflection that benefits the assholes responsible.

    The condescension is noted.

    No condescension, it was a ripe opportunity to voice the opinion that perhaps it's time Pelosi steps down, though criminal acts threatening personal safety shouldn't be the motive, unless pitchforks truly are amok.  There's enough media fueling this theme, did you need any more evidence after the Capitol Insurrection?

    "Both sides," because I'm disgruntled with partisan politics and performance of Congress, among supporters who rarely lift the cover and examine inward.

    "Bullshit deflection that benefits the assholes responsible?"  Go ahead and say GOP, then realize their own messaging opportunities were completely lost in this attack:

    The weirdest part is for years we've heard that San Francisco is falling apart to "the crazies, radicals, antifa, and curb-shitters."

    When the evidence finally proves that even the rich can't insulate themselves from the mental health crisis, the right utterly fails to miss the point. They're so hung up on gay shit they miss obviously by-line that this could be painted as a "failure of liberal policies" because they're so interested in old-man-gay-stuff.

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  14. 19 minutes ago, A-Tex Devil said:

    @Gravy Train I won’t quote your long cat distraction.  Yes, members of Congress have been guilty of insider trading.  But as to Pelosi all you are posting are presumptions.  So if you are disappointed that she didn’t do enough to curtail things, fine.  But you are presuming Paul Pelosi amassed his wealth from his wife’s connections while in Congress which is simply wrong and GOP fan fiction.  But you do you.  
     

    Hopefully Mr. Pelosi recovers fully. 

    1.) Presumptions are all they ever will be until legislation is enacted and/or prosecution is levied.  The Burr example above proves stalemate.

    2.) Yes, I'm disappointed, circle-jerk back to my original opinion that Nancy's time in office is done and my support has waned.

    3.) We already established that's not how Paul amassed his wealth, just that the couple seems to have enjoyed a nice windfall along the way. It feels like abuse of privilege to me.

    4,) What the hell does the GOP have anything to do with it when their own members are documented with wider-reaching and worse allegations of the same activity?

    5.) Agreed, hope Paul recovers swiftly, and we discover more of the attacker's true motives as his assault seems to have been intended for Nancy.

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  15. Re:  Senator Burr's activity as intelligence agencies were discovering the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html

    Quote

    The warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies increased in volume toward the end of January and into early February, said officials familiar with the reports. By then, a majority of the intelligence reporting included in daily briefing papers and digests from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA was about covid-19, said officials who have read the reports.

    The surge in warnings coincided with a move by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) to sell dozens of stocks worth between $628,033 and $1.72 million. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Burr was privy to virtually all of the highly classified reporting on the coronavirus. Burr issued a statement Friday defending his sell-off, saying he sold based entirely on publicly available information, and he called for the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate.

  16. The trading activity certainly isn't a vehicle that amassed their wealth, but was a nice windfall along the way.  The trouble is, such trading activity is still above-board for Washington officials, and a bulk of their trades are not registered electronically, so the same-day audit trail is missing.  That's by design.  

    It's disengenous to permit such activity when the SEC restricts trading activity from mere analysts within accounting firms, based on their audit clients.

    https://news.bloomberglaw.com/white-collar-and-criminal-law/why-members-of-congress-should-not-trade-stocks

    Quote

    First, the conflict of interest with official duties is untenable. It is a crime, potentially a felony, for a federal officer who is not an elected official to participate in any government matter that has a direct and predictable effect of a financial interest of the official or a spouse of the official.

    But Congress, when it passed this law, exempted itself, the president, and vice president. Hypocrisy to say the least.

    Second, members of Congress have enormous amounts of inside nonpublic information that can be used to buy or sell stocks. Insider trading is a felony, but it is also difficult to prove. In 2012 Congress passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK Act) which confirmed that insider trading laws apply to members of Congress and their spouses; using nonpublic information learned in Congress to trade securities is illegal. But in the nearly 10 years since the STOCK Act’s passage, nobody in Congress has been prosecuted for insider trading based on congressional information.

    One problem is the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution which specifically provides that ““for any Speech or Debate in either House, they [members] shall not be questioned in any other Place.” The reach of this prohibition is not entirely clear, but it is an impediment to federal investigators asking members about what they said to each other about pending legislation, investigations, and other matters before Congress.

    Third, even if members of Congress did not allow stock holdings to influence their votes on legislation and did not use nonpublic information to trade stocks, the appearance of corruption undermines public confidence in government. They should invest in broadly diversified mutual funds, not individual stocks.

    The fact that they don’t leads the public to believe they are utilizing an inside advantage. This also makes it very hard for Congress to stand up to conflicts of interest in the executive branch.

     

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  17. You might as well take a look at the SQ8 as well, if you're patient enough to order or wait for the right allocation spec to pop up.  It's kind of a 'sweet spot' SUV-ish with the same driveline as the RS6/RS7/RS Q8, just a weaker tune.  S-Sport package adds the same torque-vectoring differential and electromechanical rear sway bar that the RS vehicles get, activated by its 48V mild hybrid system.  You'll still be missing the 'RS mode' electronics, flared fenders, wider contact patch and brakes, but for a daily, it's a lot of hardware that also saves you roughly $30K from the RS Q8. 

  18. 34 minutes ago, A-Tex Devil said:

    Show your notes.  Not your presumptions. 

    This topic can't be newsworthy to you.  Just acknowledge it as a problem for Federal officials that should have been actioned upon long ago.  

    https://housestockwatcher.com/summary_by_rep/Hon. Nancy Pelosi
    https://www.businessinsider.com/nancy-pelosi-husband-paul-pelosi-congressional-stock-ban-2022-10

    Quote

    Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, exercised seven-figures worth of Alphabet stock call options days before House leadership unveiled a bill that would ban members of Congress and their spouses from trading individual stocks.

    The value of the stock purchase was between $1 million and $5 million, according to a certified congressional disclosure made by Nancy Pelosi on October 14. Members of Congress are only required to report the values of such trades in broad ranges.

    Paul Pelosi exercised the Alphabet call options, which he purchased in December 2021, on September 16 — the day they were set to expire. (Alphabet is the parent company of Google.)

    That date fell just a week before House leadership introduced a Nancy Pelosi-backed bill that would ban members of Congress and their spouses from trading individual stocks. 

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-street-traders-or-washington-officials-sometimes-its-hard-to-tell-11666103385

    Quote

    It’s the kind of rapid-fire trading you see on Wall Street: hundreds of stock-market wagers, sometimes peppered with options and other aggressive trades.

    But this wasn’t done on behalf of professional traders. The transactions came from about seven dozen senior federal-government officials who disclosed that they or their families each made more than 500 trades from 2016 through 2021. That totals more than 80,000 transactions while these officials worked in government.

    These officials accounted for roughly a quarter of all transactions while representing less than 1% of filers in a Wall Street Journal review of financial disclosures by federal officials.

    An Internal Revenue Service official reported 1,525 trades on the disclosure forms. A Justice Department attorney listed 2,763 trades, including hundreds involving options, according to the Journal’s review.

    And a Commodity Futures Trading Commission economist, Lihong McPhail, reported more than 9,500 trades in 2020 alone by her husband, also a federal employee, according to the CFTC and her disclosure forms, which report values of holdings in broad dollar ranges. That’s an average of 38 trades per trading day.

    The CFTC, which regulates the U.S. derivatives markets, including futures, options and swaps, gave Ms. McPhail approval for her husband to do short selling despite a CFTC ban on such trading. An ethics official believed the rule was unenforceable and feared the agency could be sued if it didn’t allow the trading, according to a CFTC spokesman.

     

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  19. 6 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

    So… you chose the occasion of a hammer attack on a the spouse of the house speaker to debate term limits? This ain’t it, my dude.

    The entire fucking thread is about Pelosi, there's no better topic to cite the example of a Congressperson occupying a seat longer than some of us have been alive.  At the same time, I'm literally reading those shilling for the uber rich because they were able to do so under the shield of office and/or fit someone's political narritive.  That's absolutely disgusting and disengenous to our democracy.

    We're all condeming this attack here.  At the same time, we're all seeing a theme build up from radicalized individuals motivated by misinformation.  It should be concerning, as the more partisan we become, the more this becomes a thing.  This happened to Sotomayor over two years ago and it go so little attention that you wouldn't even know about it.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/02/19/report-supreme-court-justice-sotomayor-targeted-by-gunman-who-killed-federal-judges-son/amp/

  20. Negged for ignoring my more than good faith request. Supporting a statement must be beyond your skill set.
     
    Are you justifying an attack on Pelosi? Fuck that. Fuck you. Fuck your posts. Ignored.

    I addressed your request, but your position is woefully ignorant of the response as you clearly don't follow finance news and SEC regulations.

    Read it again, nobody is justifying the attack. It's shameful and misguided. It's horrific and fucked. I just want Nancy out of office as her time is long overdue to GTFO.

    FUCK anyone and everyone fighting Congressional term limits, wilfully supporting grift of elected officials because they represent your favorite crayon color.
    • Hook 'Em 1
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