(A)Political Newsletter - Volume 35

(A)Political Newsletter - Volume 35

Author

Alexander Korfiatis
March 15, 2024

Good morning everyone,

Welcome back to Volume 35 of the (A) Political Newsletter! This week has been eventful, with both President Biden and Former President Trump having both become their presumptive nominee. Rep. Ken Buck (R.-Colo.), has announced his preemptive resignation, scrambling the race for Lauren Boebert, who is trying to replace him. Finally, the House has voted on a TikTok divestiture or banning, and TikTok is trying to stop that from happening.

  • Quiver Quantitative’s Stock Watcher

  • Biden, Trump become Presidential Nominees

  • Ken Buck Resigns, Complicating Boebert’s Path

  • TikTok on Track to be Sold or Banned

CONGRESSIONAL STOCK WATCHER

  • Palo Alto Networks $PANW has been increasing its lobbying efforts in DC over the past 3 years - Per @QuiverQuant

    • Pelosi bought ~$1.25M of $PANW call options just last month She is down ~16%, but noting this for later.

    • 2024 elections are on track for new records in dark money spending, per OpenSecrets:

  • $TCMD has now risen 63% since Senator Smith's purchase. We estimate that she has made $150K off of this single trade.

    • It's been just a few months.

  • BREAKING: Representative Mark Green just disclosed a sale of NGL Energy stock, $NGL.

    • He bought $250K of the stock a year ago.

    • It has risen 134% since.

    • This is the same guy who made profits of over 800% by buying and selling Dogecoin.

  • Another politician just disclosed a sale of Boeing stock.

    • U.S. Representative William Keating just disclosed a February 28th sale of the stock.

    • Keating sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

  • BREAKING: Representative Michael Guest just disclosed a February 20th purchase of Nvidia stock.

    • Three days after his trade, Nvidia released blockbuster quarterly earnings.

    • The stock has risen 32% in less than a month. Guest is the Chairman of the House Ethics Committee.

Biden, Trump Become Presidential Nominees

(Photo Credits - Associated Press)

March 6, 2024 - Former U.S. President Trump and President Biden have both become their respective presidential nominees, heading to a presidential rematch for 2024. Both have problems with the electorate, from Biden’s age to Trump’s capability to win moderate and swing voters. Both candidates are very unpopular with both the other party’s voters and their own. President Biden’s main campaign strategy will be somewhat of a repeat in 2020, focusing on the threat Donald Trump posed to the electoral process and more importantly to moderates, abortion rights. Abortion rights were a winning strategy in the 2022 midterms, which Democrats up and down ballot will try to replicate. Former President Trump will likely attack Biden on his age, the economy, and immigration. Immigration is now one of the most important issues for voters, and Republicans are trying to capitalize on it. While some outlets say the economy has done better since Biden has come to office, voters do not see it that way. Many of the have mentioned supporting Trump, who they claim ran a better economy. This election will potentially see heights never seen before in polarization and how much voters can take of the candidates.

TikTok on Track to Be Sold or Banned by U.S. Gov

(Photo - Wall Street Journal)

March 13, 2024 - The House has just passed a bill that would force the parent of TikTok, ByteDance, to sell the app within 6 months, or it would be banned from app stores and prevented from using American servers. The House of Representatives passed the bill overwhelmingly in favor, sending it to the Senate for review. However, Senate watchers are keen to note that the Senate moves much slower than the House, where the bill would face much more legal scrutiny over its constitutionality. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew mobilized every resource possible for the vote, including, controversially, asking TikTok users to call their representatives, angering them. Zi Chew then testified to Congress that TikTok was not dangerous and that it had made steps to distance itself from the Chinese Government. However, these attempts seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

The bill has made odd political bedfellows. Former President Trump, who had first attempted to ban the app after TikTok users bought fake tickets to a rally in the 2020 election, sided against the bill. The attempt is to gain support of younger voters in the lead up to the 2024 Presidential election. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, ideological opposites, voted in support of TikTok and against the bill. The White House supports the bill, which could potentially hurt President Biden’s standing with younger voters.

Critics mainly make the case of whether the forced sell-off is constitutional. Possibly closing the app down would force the 170 million users out of way to express themselves, limiting their freedom of speech. The U.S. Government has prevented investment into companies by other state-aligned businesses before, but not to a company with this massive of a user-base and reach.

Rep. Ken Buck Resigns, Complicating Lauren Boebert’s Path

(Photo - Anna Moneymaker/Getty images)

March 7, 2024 - Rep. Ken Buck (R.-Colo.) has announced he will resign from congress, scrambling a race for his seat that was already heated. Earlier, he had announced that he will retire at the end of his term, but since he is now resigning from Congress, a special election has been called for June 25th. This creates a problem because a primary election will be held at the same date. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R.-Colo.) will be the main loser with this arrangement. She has already announced that she will not run for the special election because she will have to resign her current seat to run for it. What she will have to do is convince the same electorate to vote for her in one ballot, and then vote for someone else in the other ballot.

She was already fighting an uphill battle. Boebert was effectively chased out of her district because of her numerous private mishaps, including allegedly groping her boyfriend during a Betelgeuse play, and having arguments with her ex-husband where the police were called. In 2022, she very nearly lost her seat to Democrat Adam Frisch, who has already announced he will run for the seat again. Republicans in Buck’s district are much larger in percentage, but they might be reticent to support a candidate like Boebert, who has this much baggage. Former President Trump has endorsed her for the Republican primaries, but it might not be enough to win her the primary.

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