Marjorie Taylor Greene has a whole new scandal
“I’m not vaccinated and they’re going to have a hell of a time if they want to hold me down and give me a vaccine.” That quote is from anti-vaxxer, chief trouble-maker Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is completely against vaccines; however, she is not against making money from them according to Business Insider (“BI”). What a surprise. Greene is just another Republican hypocrite.
Greene was busted by her political opponent, Jennifer Strahan, who is running for Georgia’s 14th District. She held a Twitter poll, asking her followers to guess whether Greene held stock in “AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, or ‘all of the above.’” Strahan followed up her question with: “For those of you wondering, the correct answer is D! Our current representative rails against the vaccine, but owns stock in 3 of the 4 major vaccine manufacturers.” Appearing recently on Steve Bannon’s show, Greene claimed that “vaccine Nazis [are] ruining our country.” Yet, she is enabling them by owning their stock.
Sounding a lot like Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue when they were busted for their stock dealings, Greene claimed that she has “an independent investment advisor that has full discretionary authority on my accounts.” Everyone who owns stock has an investment advisor, but you best believe they do not change your investments without talking to you first. Vaccine stocks are relatively new; they are not long-term investments that Greene’s advisor put her in and left to grow. Nice try, Greene.
BI published this news as part of its “Conflicted Congress” project. This report gave ratings to every member of Congress based on financial conflicts and transparency. “Solid” means that those members of Congress are compliant with laws. Democrats slightly outweigh Republicans in this category 212 to 192. In the “borderline” category, Republicans outnumber Democrats 63 to 52, and the “danger” category lists 5 Democrats and 8 Republicans. According to BI, those placed on the danger list have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 because they or senior members of their staff have not properly disclosed financial trades. Tommy Tuberville — who is brand new to Congress — is already taking advantage of his position. Senator Diane Feinstein — who should know better — is also on the danger list. The difference between the two, however, is that Feinstein’s ranking stems from 3 staff violations while Tuberville’s 132 are all his own. Either way, these people know better and need to take steps to ensure they and their staff are acting above board at all times. Then, there is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who never acts above board in any way.
Look, there is nothing inherently wrong with members of Congress trading in the stock market. What is wrong is when they lie about it or use their power to stop people from doing the right thing. Greene is guilty of both. She continues to be a distraction and a stain on Congress. If one of her opponents is successful in taking her out of Congress, it will be blissfully quiet in the Capitol for a while.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years