There's That Familiar Smell, the Odor of Rank Opportunism

 

Apparently there's a discharge petition being pushed by Republican loose cannon Anna Paulina Luna of Florida to get a bill banning stock trading by members of Congress to the floor of the House for a vote, and it would surely pass. Freshman hustler Tim Moore is on a stock-manipulating spree (see details below for how his wealth has suddenly ballooned to almost $7 million). Moore's stock greediness is trailed not far behind by Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (also see below), whose own stock trades were formerly said to outpace your average Congressperson. But Moore has far exceeded her. (Moore, who an eye blink ago was the self-serving Speaker of the NC House, carved out for himself a congressional District 14 added by the last Census, a safe seat to launch him on DeeCee where he could become even richer, ever shadier.)

Editorial Board, in the Raleigh News & Observer:

It should be obvious why members of Congress shouldn’t be allowed to trade stocks, but if more evidence is needed, consider the investing gusto of U.S. Rep. Tim Moore, a Republican representing North Carolina’s 14th District.

Moore, the former North Carolina House speaker from 2015 to 2025, is a U.S. House freshman, but he’s already surpassed all other members of the state’s congressional delegation in buying and selling stocks. 

A recent report by The News & Observer’s Washington correspondent Danielle Battaglia detailed Moore’s frequent trades. Between his taking office in January and mid-September, Moore made more than 150 trades. That was five times the trading activity of the next closest member in the delegation, Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Banner Elk, who made just over 30 trades in the same period. 

Good-government advocates have long called for a ban on members of Congress from owning or trading stocks. The members have security clearances, receive confidential briefings and have contacts in financial circles that create a situation ripe for insider trading. 

There was nothing about Moore’s trades that showed he acted on information unavailable to the public. However, his trades included investments in companies that could be affected by government actions on health care and tariffs. Even if a member’s trades are above board, the ownership of stock itself can affect how or whether the member votes.

Fortune magazine reported in June that Moore made hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal stock purchases shortly before and after President Donald Trump’s announcement of worldwide tariffs rattled the stock market in April. Moore failed to disclose the trades by a deadline required under the federal Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, but he did submit a report within a 30-day grace period....

It stinks, doesn't it? That odor of opportunism running amok under the guise of public service.

'Principled' Crankiness About Universal Health Care

 

Republican Senate Majority Leader
John Thune

Alexander H. Jones, at New Branchhead gives us a good read on the state of North Carolina politics one day after the opening of candidate-filing. Among other things, he predicts that the sitting Republican US Senate will not extend the expiring Obamacare subsidies, which will be an act of auto-asphyxiation for Republican prospects next year. Why would they set themselves up like that? Because "Republicans deeply, fervently, and genuinely despise the Affordable Care Act and the concept of universal healthcare."

Republicans have a principled, bedrock opposition to universal healthcare. They viscerally resent the idea of providing care to people who can’t access it because they think that would mean rewarding slothful and gluttonous people who refuse to take care of themselves. If you have, say, severe OCD and did nothing to deserve it…sorry. They believe that healthcare is a consumer commodity that must be earned by remunerative work and good lifestyle decisions. It just viscerally rankles them to provide coverage to the uninsured.

And it goes beyond their angry and cranky fixation on personal responsibility. (“If you want something, work for it!”) Most American conservatives take deep pride in the fact that the United States does not have a universal healthcare system like the programs that people in every other advanced industrialized country, especially Western Europe, take for granted. They see it as American Exceptionalism, a tribute to the country’s pioneer legacy of individual freedom. “Barack Obama wants to make us more like the rest of the world,” complained Marco Rubio. Cutting your medications and giving blood to make the money you need for a doctor’s appointment are the American way.

That seems fair. How Jones characterizes the GOP matches what I consistently hear from trolling conservatives on WataugaWatch -- the ones who express a cold-blooded meanness about class and race. That's become standard rhetoric under the pall of Trump. It's possibly quite lethal for their future prospects. If Jones's conclusion is right, then there really may be such a thing as a suicide impulse, powerful and irresistible. Failing to extend Obamacare subsidies will have immeasurable impact on the prospects of Republican rule going forward:

...I do not think Republicans are likely to, after 15 years of bitter and often histrionic opposition, give a man -- some of their constituents accused of being the Anti-Christ -- the satisfaction of seeing the core of his greatest accomplishment survive another Republican majority.

If he's right, well then, they're cooked.

Virginia Foxx Always Draws a Primary

 

Don't know what it is about Congresswoman Virginia Foxx that so displeases other Republicans, but there are always obscure members of her own party looking to oust her. None of them ever come close. This year (so far) it's a guy named Steve Girard, who lives in Jefferson in Ashe County. He has a website placeholder, https://stevegirardforcongress.com/, but there's no information on it (also uses a photo of an anonymous city which I don't think is anywhere in the 5th Congressional District). He has a bit more, including photos of himself, on a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61579207871401. Foxx has actually not filed for reelection yet, but she will.

Democrats in Watauga County will have a primary for County Commission in District 2 between Ray Russell and newcomer David Luther. No Republican has filed yet in that district.