Thoughts Medley 10 Apr 24

by Tony Medley

Members of Congress should be banned from trading stocks. Josh Gottheimer is a little-known Democrat, a lawyer who has represented a New Jersey district since 2017. Last year he made 525 trades (that’s over two trades per trading day) with an estimated volume of $106,808,000. One of his recent trades was to sell Microsoft Call Options with a strike price of $225 expiring 6/20/25 with a value of between $500,000 and $1,000,000. Gottheimer is a Democrat who often supported President Trump. Daniel Goldman is another Democrat attorney representing a New York district. Last year he made 684 trades with an estimated value of $20,788,000. Tommy Tuberville is a Republican Senator for Alabama (former football coach) since 2021. Last year he made 346 trades with an estimated value of $11,076,000. Good thing these guys have such a soft day job where they don’t have to do anything that takes away from their investing decisions.

There are satellites all over the sky almost all the time, but you have to know where to look. Here’s a link that tells you how to find them:

🛰️ See A Satellite Tonight (darpinian.com)

It’s proxy signing time of year for people who own stocks. Here’s a piece of advice. If you own stock in your own name you received a proxy to vote for directors and other things that will come up at the annual meeting. At the bottom of most proxies, and hidden in the fine print of others, is this statement, “such other business as may properly come before the meeting or any adjournment thereof.” This gives them carte blanche to do anything they want and you are giving them your permission to vote your shares for these unknown endeavors. I always cross it out and initial it. When it’s hidden in the small print, you have to look through and cross out that part of the small print and initial it. I also generally vote against the directors and their compensation packages unless the corporation has been enormously successful. They all make too much money and are out to screw the stockholders and get as much of the corporation’s money as they can. Just look at how much Bob Iger pays himself at Disney ($31.6 million in 2023) and what a pro-China, arrogant, selfish, woke billionaire he is. When Disney had layoffs last year in a “cost-cutting” effort, Iger fired 7,000 employees, but didn’t cut his compensation one penny.

Anybody who doubts that the MainStream Media hasn’t been on an eight year crusade against Donald Trump should listen to Uri Berliner NPR Senior Business Editor on the podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss. In his 25 years with NPR, Berliner’s work has been recognized with a Peabody Award, a Gerald Loeb Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and a Society of Professional Journalists New America Award, among others. Berliner said:

…like every newsroom, every legacy meeting is we were shocked, disturbed, distraught, really troubled (by Trump’s election). After a while, we started covering Trump in a way like a lot of legacy news organizations that we were trying to damage his presidency even to find anything we could to harm him.

“Stupid” is a word that is thrown around lightly. But the Members of Congress take the word to another level. Here’s what Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee said to a group of schoolchildren:

Sometimes you need to take the opportunity just to come out and see a full moon that’s a complete rounded circle which is made-up mostly of gases. And that's why the question is why? How could we as humans live on the moon? The gas is such that we could do that. The sun is a mighty powerful heat. And it's almost impossible to go near the sun. The moon is more manageable. I don't know about you. I want to be first in line to know how to live and to be able to survive on the moon. That's another planet, which you're gonna see shortly.

I don’t need to explain how idiotic this statement is, but I will make a few points.

1. “Almost impossible to go near the sun?” Almost? That means that it might be possible? How, Shirley?
2. The moon is not “made up of gasses.”
3. The moon is not a “planet.”

She later defended herself and said she misspoke meaning the sun not the moon. But that’s a clear lie. Look at what she said, “come out and see a full moon…which is made up of gasses…The Gas is such that we could do that (live on the moon).” She was very clear that she knew the difference between the sun and the moon and that she was speaking specifically about the moon. She is not just insanely stupid, she is dishonest.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) in a hearing in 2007, said the following to Adm. Robert Willard, the head of the U.S. Pacific fleet who was testifying before his Committee about a reported buildup of the military on Guam, "My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.” Willard responded, “We don’t anticipate that.”

Like Lee, after the cascade of criticism, Johnson tried to lie his way out of it, saying he was being facetious. But it didn’t sound that way at the hearing.

Johnson is still serving in Congress, and Lee will continue to be reelected by her clueless constituents (assuming the elections are honest, which I doubt). Yet these are the people who are making our laws, a guy who worries about an island “tipping over,” and a woman who believes the moon is “made up of gasses.” Unfortunately, they are just the tip of the iceberg.