Dozens of federal lawmakers and at least 182 top congressional staffers are violating a federal conflict-of-interest law known as the STOCK Act. Others are failing to avoid clashes between their personal finances and public duties.
✅ Green means members’ financial compliance is solid.
⚠️ Yellow means caution — their actions are borderline and deserve greater scrutiny.
🚩 Red means danger — that a member has multiple issues that could expose them to ethical problems.
These lawmakers have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act by failing to properly disclose financial trades, many to a significant degree.
Craig Holman, a government-affairs lobbyist at @Public_Citizen who helped shape the STOCK Act and wants to make it stronger, called Insider's findings "stunning" and said all documents detailing people's trades should be made public.
Insider reached out to 48 staffers, 34 of whom didn't respond, weren't forthcoming about why their disclosures were late, or refused to share how they attempted to comply with the law.
Walter Shaub (@waltshaub), who leads the Government Ethics Initiative at the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, said he was shocked by the majority of staffers who weren't forthcoming.
Most of the congressional staffers' late disclosures aren't nefarious, said a former, nonpartisan staffer for the Senate ethics panel. But the person also partly blamed the lack of serious consequences for filing disclosures late.
Explore our interactive database to see which members of Congress and senior-level congressional staffers have violated the STOCK Act: businessinsider.com/financial-conf…
The conventional wisdom blames social media for the widening divide as the timing lines up. But scientifically, it's been surprisingly hard to make the charges stick, Adam Rogers (@jetjocko) writes. ⬇️
Maybe the problem isn't that social media has driven us all into like-minded bubbles. Maybe it's that social media has obliterated the bubbles we've all lived in for centuries, Rogers says.
According to a model developed by Petter Törnberg, a computer scientist at @UvA_Amsterdam, social media twists our psyches and clumps us into warring tribes for two simple reasons.
We sort ourselves into two camps with sharply drawn lines, Roger writes.
Rebecca Hessel Cohen's tunnel vision — a world of parties and parasols, confetti and Champagne — is what turned LoveShackFancy into the success it is today.
But as it grew to a bona fide fashion empire, its founder’s blind spots turned glaring. 👇
LoveShackFancy has never needed to be anything other than exactly what it is: pretty, pink clothes for skinny, rich girls who want to have fun, no matter what's happening in the world around them. Which is, of course, a statement in itself.
"I was struck by the imagination and creativity of that," said the 60-year-old, who asked to be referred to as "Your Excellency" or "President Baugh," during a phone interview with @thisisinsider.
🗝 One of the most powerful legislators in modern US history acknowledged to @leonardkl that President Ronald Reagan, while conducting a meeting at the White House, once seemingly forgot who he was. 🧠
What's the hardest college in America to get into?
You're probably thinking it's @Harvard, which admitted just 3% of applicants this year, but you're wrong. It’s @Tulane, whose official acceptance rate is 0.7%.
The only way Tulane can afford to reject 99% of its applicants in the regular round is if it's confident it has already locked down most of its class through early decision.