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Comment by exabrial | Hacker News Reader

California chooses who they elect for reasons other than they are effective politicians. The government’s main expertise is incinerating taxpayer money while simultaneously convincing their constituents that their enormous tax burden is a useful thing.

The fact they have re-elected Pelosi multiple times while never investigating her for inside trading is a positive indication of priorities.

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cannot be said enough: insider trading is legal for Congress. It should not be. Until it is illegal, congress critters will do it and there’s no point “investigating” them for it because nothing will happen, because, again, __it is legal__ and nothing will actually happen to them as a result of an investigation, because there’s nothing to do about it.

We should instead be pushing congress to make it illegal to trade stocks outside of index funds controlled by outside entities. Once that’s done you could actually go after congresspeople for insider trading if they did it in the future.

Investigating Pelosi for something that is explicitly legal for politicians is the definition of incinerating tax money.

Also, considering nearly every house politician engages in insider trading (again, because it’s explicitly legal for them), there nothing unique about California re-electing Pelosi, that voters from every other state are also not doing.

Edit: This is not an endorsement of insider trading by politicians. This is a reminder of the ridiculous situation where insider trading is legal for politicians. Investigating Pelosi for something that is currently legal makes no sense (also, why only Pelosi…nearly every House and Senate member engages in insider trading).

I see you're in Kansas. Why not sit this one out and let Californians worry about their state?

Pelosi is in a federal position. What state rules is she subject to that she could be investigated for?

If she were in a state or local position, there's some things (Form 700 and things), but those don't apply to federal positions.

The state officials not incinerating tax dollars on a federal matter is good sense, especially since, afaik, there's no indicitation that the trading referenced is prohibited.

Pelosi is an incredibly effective politician. Just look at the clusterfuck that is the house republican caucus to see how successful she has been with a caucus of her own that is just as divided. Sucks that everyone in congress is on the insider trading game, but that’s not a good reason to get rid of one of the most successful politicians of this century.

Really? Which one is it? She’s an effective politician or California has HSR?

And that’s throwing out delivered on time, on budget, and there was no conflict of interest with her husband’s business partners?

Pelosi isn't in charge of HSR. That's the California High Speed Rail Authority, created under Governor Pete Wilson in 1996. You managed to get both the level of government and the branch of government wrong in choosing whom to blame.

Really dedicated to bringing that Reddit-quality argumentation to us, eh? You’ve been corrected on your misinformation, and jus double down on it. Thanks for nothing.

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