Politics in review 1/25-1/31

Hey all, welcome back to another week of Politics in Review! This week has somehow been super weird and super boring at the same time. 

What’s going on with Gamestop? (Power to the players indeed)

Apparently there’s one thing that can make Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas agree, and it’s the general insanity happening with Gamestop’s stock trading.

For background, a couple of major hedge funds decided to ‘short’ stocks from Gamestop, essentially making a bet that the company stock prices would go down. Seeing that the hedge funds were doing this, the community r/wallstreetbets gathered in force to buy up stock in the company, driving the stock prices through the roof. As it would with any bettor in this case, it looks like the hedge funds might be in trouble.

For a better explanation, here’s a post from Dave Jorgenson, who runs the TikTok account for the Washington Post.

On Thursday investing services like TD Ameritrade and Robinhood substantially limited people’s ability to buy more shares. There’s already a class-action lawsuit against Robinhood for their restrictions, and multiple legislators have vowed to get to the bottom of it, including the two I mentioned earlier.

It’s Friday afternoon as this column is being written, so I’ll be sure to keep updates going as more develops.

Impeachment update of the week!

Right now, the senate is still on track to begin former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment on Feb. 6. On Monday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, objected to the trial, calling the trial of a private citizen unconstitutional. The vote failed to get enough support to stop the trial, losing by a vote of 45-55.

Still, given how most GOP senators voted not to hold a trial, it’s likely that Trump will once again be acquitted by the senate, considering the senate requires a 2/3 majority to convict. 

As far as the constitutionality question goes, there is precedent for holding a trial after the president has left office.

In other news…

• Last week I said that President Biden hit the ground running, signing a bevy of executive orders. That trend has continued this week, with the total now reaching 42 orders.
• Freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is in hot water this week after social media posts came out wherein she espoused wild conspiracy theories. Democratic lawmakers are calling for her to be expelled or to resign, but there doesn’t seem to any indication that that will happen.

Well, that’s all I have for the week! Join us next time, where maybe something interesting will happen!