Inside Information

I can't keep up with all of this coronavirus news.  I want to write about everything else going on the world, but there's nothing else going on in the world.

I'm a little late in commenting on this, and I can't add much to it, but here it is: As you already know, U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, privately warned attended of a luncheon in North Carolina about a month ago that the coronavirus outbreak was going to hit America and hit it hard, calling it "probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic," and then proceeded to sell stocks before the market tanked.  Where did he get this information and why didn't he tell anyone else?

Because Burr (above) shared information in private rather than keep it to himself, he doesn't believe that he violated any insider-trading laws, but just to make sure he didn't, he's asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate him.  Wow, what integrity.  No one is buying this.  Consider this reaction from a leading pundit: "He [Burr] must resign from the Senate and face prosecution for insider trading . . ..  He had inside information about what could happen to our country, which is now happening, but he didn't warn the public . . ..  Instead, what did he do? He dumped his shares in hotel stocks so he wouldn’t lose money."  The pundit's name? Tucker Carlson.

You know you screw up badly when you are a Republican and you tick off Tucker Carlson.

Equally appalling is the situation of appointed Republican U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, who also sold stocks before COVID-19 eighty-sixed the Dow and who is - MAXIMUM BIG SURPRISE! - married to Jeffrey Srpecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange! Burr sold only (only?) $628,000 to $1.72 million in stocks, but  Loeffler sold between $1,275,000 and $3,100,000 in stock.  Forbes magazine's Jack Brewster (who, by the way, wrote a very good opinion piece about Joe Biden's stutter for Newsweek) reported that both Burr and Loeffler were downplaying the coronavirus crisis even as they were unloading their portfolios. 

While Burr and Loeffler sold their stocks directly, two other senators had their stock sold by third parties before the market tanked, one Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California and one Republican, James Inhofe of Oklahoma.  I'm willing to give both of them the benefit of the doubt because of their different situation - even the insufferable Inhofe, who was one of the eight senators who voted against an earlier coronavirus relief bill.  But Burr ought to take Tucker Carlson's advice, and Loeffler, running in a special election to complete the remainder of former Senator Johnny Isakson's term, should not be given the opportunity to do so.