 Well, it looks like the stock trading ban for members of Congress has failed and it will be postponed until after the midterm elections so what happened they had a Really good bipartisan piece of legislation co-authored by Pramila Jayapal and Republican Matt Rosendale and The Senate even had a companion piece to that House legislation co-authored by Elizabeth Warren and Republican Steve Danes so it seemed like even if this wasn't necessarily everything that progressives wanted it to be it was Sufficient to ban members of Congress from trading stocks now. There were some loopholes It was imperfect legislation, but it was a step in the right direction But it failed and Pramila Jayapal is blaming Democratic Party leadership now is she speaking out against them in a very tattered manner Yes, but is she placing a blame on them nonetheless? Absolutely, and this is important the Hill writes Jayapal said there's been a lot of disappointment that the proposal crafted by the House Administration committee at the request of Speaker Nancy Pelosi was written behind closed doors and Derived just days before the House was to leave Washington last week for the long midterm recess Some supporters of the ban have suggested the process was designed to ensure that no vote could happen in September What we weren't really brought into the process We didn't really know what was happening with the bill and at the end of the day There were things that perhaps we could have headed off at the pass or fixed Jayapal said on a press call the way in which it was released and the timing of it and the fact that it never even Got to come to a vote and the fact that some members even of leadership were not supportive of it was very difficult for us She added so what she's trying to say without saying what she thinks explicitly is that? leadership sabotaged this bill and Centrists and Republicans have also condemned leadership in fact to her credit Abigail Spanberger who I'm no fan of Actually more harshly criticized leadership because of their role in sabotaging this legislation So for Pramila Jayapal to speak up as the co-author of this legislation I think that that is important But let me remind you what other Democrats and Republicans said this was published on September 30th in the intercept And they detail how members of Congress think leadership actually deliberately sabotage this legislation Austin Almond explains after house leaders introduced a bill to curtail stock trading by federal officials on Tuesday Democrats and Republicans pointed out the Disrepancies between the leadership approved version and the carefully negotiated bipartisan bills that predated it those Disrepenties led to several members saying they could not vote on the measure without reviewing the text and determining Whether the bill could draw enough votes in both chambers to become law when backlash to the leadership version of the bill emerged Leaders pulled it from the schedule. It wasn't a real process when Democratic staffer told the intercept There were all these things thrown in there that on the surface look good But make it so expansive that you know, it's not going to make it to the president's desk Now that's not the only Democratic staffer to go on record and say that this wasn't a real process The huge sign here that this wasn't a real process is that the Rosendale Jayapal bill wasn't even considered in the process So behind closed doors leadership crafted this bill and it wasn't what they had already Negotiated in Congress the bipartisan piece of legislation that both the House and the Senate seemingly agreed to and according to Rosendale His office believed that that bill could have actually had the votes to pass So what did leadership do well? They changed elements of the bill They improved it in some respects and then they weakened it in other respects So what would be the point of doing this while they're trying to undercut that bipartisan harmony that we see because think about this if Progressives support the improvements, but reject the weaker elements while Republicans reject the improvements But embrace the weaker elements while this is going to break up the bipartisan harmony They already agreed on the specifics So why would you introduce all of these new elements if you're trying to quickly pass something before the midterms? Well, you don't want to pass it. Hence why you introduced these elements Now some of them have already told us where they stand Steny Hoyer, for example, came out against the ban on stock trading surprise surprise and Pelosi She opposed it until she was forced to publicly support it But using her power as a leader She was able to publicly look as if she supports it while covertly sabotaging this by not producing a piece of legislation Using the framework Republicans and Democrats had already agreed to so the question is why would leadership sabotage this? I mean, we shouldn't have to ask this question. It's rhetorical, but it's pretty obvious, right? We have to say it It's because they are corrupt. They don't want to stop Trading stocks because they're getting very wealthy because of this Nancy Pelosi has a net worth of more than a hundred Million dollars and it is very obvious that she is engaging in insider trading Using her husband with the insider knowledge that she has as the speaker of the house as a member of Congress who gets access to information that everyone else isn't privy to She then relays that information to her husband and then he purchases stocks That make them rich and they're not the only ones who do this who engage in insider trading But they currently control the levers of power. So they are able to sabotage it. So That's what happened something that could have actually passed Was sabotaged by democratic party leadership because they knew That if they went with the original bipartisan framework, it would fail and what's bizarre to me is that Usually when we see Massive bipartisan support for any piece of legislation. It's usually negative. It usually You know deleteriously impacts the american people, but in this instance, this was actually good There were some loopholes again. It wasn't perfect, but it could have passed But leadership just didn't want to put it up for a vote because they know it would pass So what do they do? They present this shell of legislation that was already agreed upon Knowing it will fail and since Nancy Pelosi won't put bills up to a vote unless they have the votes to pass They just pulled it They know what they did. This is corruption and this is completely unacceptable But it's predictable for members of the democratic party leadership who are completely invested in enriching themselves This is what Nancy Pelosi does. This is what steny hoyer does and it's absolutely shameful and disgraceful When you have democrats and republicans agreeing on something like this that would curtail corruption To have democratic party leadership sabotage it is just beyond the pale So needless to say there needs to be new leadership in the democratic party or real fundamental changes will never actually happen