When Insider Trading Is Bad, But Ousting Leaders Is Just 'Foreign Policy'
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), recipient of $105,963 from AIPAC between 2022-2024 (OpenSecrets.org), is introducing legislation to ban government officials from profiting on prediction markets with privileged information. This comes after huge profits trading on Nicolas Maduro's ouster, before his Saturday 'extradition.' The outrage isn't that the US orchestrated regime change, but that someone used
insider info to get rich—a moral failing, apparently worse than destabilizing a sovereign nation. It’s a classic move: focus on the small-time grift while ignoring the state-sponsored larceny. The US has a long, storied history of intervention in Latin America, from coups in Chile to funding contras in Nicaragua, not to mention multiple previous attempts at regime change in Venezuela. The
'extradition' of a democratically elected leader, long targeted by the US, is treated as a natural event. The public is meant to tut-tut about prediction market ethics, not question how, exactly, US officials might have 'privileged information' about a foreign leader’s capture. One might wonder if the real crime is simply making the quiet parts loud through a market loophole.