Last week congress gutted key provisions of the congressional insider trading law known as the STOCK Act. The law, inspired by Breitbart News Network’s Peter Schweizer’s book “Throw Them All Out,” was considered by many to be a good first step toward reform of the crony capitalism allowing elected officials to profit from inside information obtained through their office.
Breitbart News reported on the congressional action last week. Wynton Hall wrote:
The bill passed last week strikes down the STOCK Act’s requirement that financial records of some 28,000 federal officials–which are already publicly available in paper form–be made available online via searchable databases. Government watchdog groups say this provision would have increased transparency and helped root out potential financial conflicts of interest and cronyism in government deals, grants, and contracts.
Mainstream Media virtually ignored the story, but Tuesday night Jon Stewart seized upon it and covered it in a more comprehensive way than cable or network news have. At one point Stewart said he thought the STOCK Act, which stands for the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, should really have been called the Fiscal Use of Congressional Knowledge Is Expressly Restricted Act, or F**KER.
Watch the entire segment here: