That’s hilarious … so he’s arrested and put on trial and all the senate and congress are doing the exact same and free? lol
Frieren 58 minutes ago [-]
Only aristocrats can play that game. The soldier is being punished for doing something not allowed for his class status.
This is how a caste system works. People is not judged based on their actions but their relationship to power.
spwa4 3 minutes ago [-]
> This is how a caste system works.
Not at all. In a caste system a lower caste person will get attacked if he (or especially she) has any success at all. Whether or not what they did was legal or not does not factor into the equation.
wraptile 2 hours ago [-]
At this point insider trading issue has run away so hard I don't see how it can be tamed without revolutionary frameworks. If we look at crypto then I'm not sure we want to live in a world where insider trading is normalized either so we ought to start working on these new frameworks as soon as possible but nobody seems to care.
nandomrumber 2 hours ago [-]
> without revolutionary frameworks
I’d argue that the level of corruption we’re seeing, not just in the USA but all over the Western world, hasn’t risen to a level that warrants revolutionary action.
> nobody seems to care
And it would seem that the masses tend to agree.
We are much much better off tolerating this level of corruption than we would be attempting a revolution.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how fat the fat cats are so long as the general population’s standard of living doesn't go backwards too far too fast.
ashtonshears 1 hours ago [-]
Sad that you have given up
vasco 1 hours ago [-]
I remember being 14 too!
goreeStef 46 minutes ago [-]
Ok, Abe. Sure. Take your onion belt and go back to your room. It's well after lights out.
eptcyka 32 minutes ago [-]
So a slow decline is OK?
Nah, life would be better if a cleptocrat couldn’t find his way into power.
lazide 13 minutes ago [-]
Slow?
fzeroracer 42 minutes ago [-]
> Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how fat the fat cats are so long as the general population’s standard of living doesn't go backwards too far too fast.
Well, given that people are behaving more and more violently towards said fat cats I think it's clear we're starting to reach a breaking point and people are caring. It wasn't too long ago that I saw people cheering on LinkedIn when that healthcare CEO got got, so if people are willing to put their professional profiles at risk you have to imagine it's far worse behind closed doors.
Personally I really dislike living in interesting times and greatly prefer advocating against corruption rather than letting things slide until they get a lot worse.
chaostheory 1 hours ago [-]
That’s until food and energy price increases become unbearable for the masses. While the first test is already here with gas prices, we’ll have the second test soon in the form of 50% price increases on food in developed Western countries.
nandomrumber 40 minutes ago [-]
Where is the evidence that petrol prices are unbearable, by the metric you’re proposing.
lava_pidgeon 52 minutes ago [-]
How is inside training outside of US s thing? Please give dpurces
ImHereToVote 2 hours ago [-]
Speculation has historically been solved by a workers vanguard party.
triage8004 2 hours ago [-]
It's not legal for him, but it is for them.
nandomrumber 2 hours ago [-]
That’s not it.
It’s that there isn’t an Attorney General who would dare attempt raise a case against the hand that feeds them.
pjio 6 minutes ago [-]
In theory the separation of powers should prevent this.
pbkompasz 16 minutes ago [-]
I like how when people talk about corruption they think about Nancy Pelosi or some other congressman/senator making couple million $ on the stock market over their entire careers due to insider trading. Just last week Trump made a bet of around $1B on the price of oil going down before doing a fake announcement.
lazide 11 minutes ago [-]
Nancy pelosi’s net worth is around a quarter billion dollars, most of it attributable to insider trading.
vagab0nd 1 hours ago [-]
Think about it. He's stealing from the US military. The politicians are stealing from you. Who's laughing now?
The suspect hasn't been charged with insider trading. (OP said those "in DC seem to be able to do everything listed.")
AlecSchueler 38 minutes ago [-]
> The suspect hasn't been charged with insider trading.
I think that was the point GP was making.
varjag 30 minutes ago [-]
Pretty sure Count 1 through 5 above cover insider trading by administration officials too.
1 hours ago [-]
itake 1 hours ago [-]
I don't know who, but there are a lot of news articles about high volume oil trading activities shortly before publicly military action.
foo12bar 20 minutes ago [-]
There's plenty of evidence of it happening, if you consider the odds of surges of pre-market trading of oil futures 20 minutes before Trump tweets on Iran happening coincidentally. The actual finding of who's who has to be done by the U.S. law enforcement, who aren't really interested.
victorbjorklund 1 hours ago [-]
You don’t think the Trump admin leaked any secrets at all? No chats on signal? Nothing like that?
benmw333 2 hours ago [-]
Hey hey now - the occasional $200? $250? fine is devastating enough on our selfless, dedicated, public servants!
JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago [-]
Why would this be civilian versus the business of a JAG?
jcgrillo 7 hours ago [-]
It's interesting they don't think they can get him for leaking classified information. To me that seems like the biggest issue--I mean sure, it's bad he made money on it, but it would have been really bad if he'd gotten someone killed by blabbing to the internet.
notepad0x90 4 hours ago [-]
did he leak the information, or just speculate on it? is it leaking classified info when pentagon officials order lots of pizza and thus inform the world that a military operation is being planned?
selcuka 4 hours ago [-]
"A military operation is being planned" is very different from "Maduro will be kidnapped in the next x hours".
"Pentagon planning a military operation" is not exactly classified information as it is safe to assume that Pentagon is always planning a military operation.
jcgrillo 3 hours ago [-]
Yes, it seems in this case an adversary who was paying attention could have learned something very, very valuable.
selcuka 2 hours ago [-]
Yes. Especially if the casino (or "prediction market") has access to the identities of players via id verification, fingerprinting, or other means.
rapidaneurism 1 hours ago [-]
You mean any non crypto payment system? :)
JumpCrisscross 1 hours ago [-]
Going to guess that anyone in the U.S. military has their crypto wallet aggresively profiled by various spy agencies.
jcgrillo 25 minutes ago [-]
And literally every other thing they do on the internet.. remember that Strava shit? You have relatively technically unsophisticated people with high level access and not a lot of adult supervision. That seems like a juicy target. I assume there are a lot of well funded and staffed outifts around the world who have noticed the same thing.
YetAnotherNick 15 minutes ago [-]
The site that he bought the crypto from to make a bet could trace it back to him, and many, if not all, crypto trading sites have shady ties with some governemnts around the world.
morsch 3 hours ago [-]
Well, a lot of people got killed this way, too.
jcgrillo 3 hours ago [-]
But from the perspective of the US DoJ the right people got killed (assuming of course they've determined the operation was legal according to their own rules, e.g. US law). The issue here is this guy telegraphed operational plans to the entire world which could have gotten (from the DoJ's perspective) the wrong people killed.
enoint 6 hours ago [-]
If that happened, could they retroactively classify it?
jcgrillo 5 hours ago [-]
Maybe I'm making an incorrect assumption, but I assumed the information was already classified. He was betting on an outcome of a planned military operation based on his knowledge of those plans. My assumption is that information is super closely guarded, and likely classified at a high level. Telegraphing your invasion plans is generally not something you do unless you want disaster, right?
enoint 5 hours ago [-]
Yeah the DoJ proclaims,
“Our Office will continue to hold accountable those who misuse confidential or classified information in a way that undermines and exploits our national security.”
But isn’t wire fraud harder to prove than leaking classified facts?
bostik 2 hours ago [-]
Unless the prosecution can prove that the trades meaningfully moved the market prices, it's probably going to be really hard to use the term "leaking".
I can't shake the feeling that there may be political reasons to not even attempt that angle. What legal precedent would it set if a judge actually ruled on that and the prosecution won? Which entities within the government would be financially inconvenienced?
burningChrome 2 hours ago [-]
So in prediction markets I've heard a lot of times people will collaborate in order to make certain predictions pay off higher sums by having more people put money on a certain bet.
Is it true with these markets the more people bet on a specific day and time, the value will increase more, increasing the overall payout? If that is true, I wonder if they're looking at anybody else helping place the bets or a group of people trying to wager a higher amount of money to increase the return?
bostik 36 minutes ago [-]
It's a bit more nuanced than that, because we're not talking about outright market manipulation. Absent any other information, the market makers always assume that they might be trading against a better informed counterparty - so absent any other signal, the prices at which executions happen are themselves a signal.
Think about it: you have N market makers offering both sides of the trade with a spread between them. When there is no other meaningful activity, the best prices are more or less stable. Now someone comes in and buys one side of the trade. Each marker maker will, individually, make the same two decisions:
1. "If you bought at that price, I should raise my price and charge you more"
2. "Since you bought at that price, I must assume you have more information and I should get out the way to avoid an expensive mistake"
The magnitude of the decisions made depends on various factors, but as a short-hand the size of the made trades in respect to the overall liquidity available near the midpoint directs how strongly the market makers react. A tiny trickle of insignificant trades does not move the price in any meaningful way (unless the sizes are so small that the execution commission starts to make a difference). A sustained directional flood of trades will cause the midpoint (and volume) to move to the direction where the market makers can sell at higher prices and avoid accumulating any further losses.
floam 1 hours ago [-]
Well yes. Someone has the other side of the bet, and it’s not 1:1 long:short. That’s how folks could hypothetically hire somebody to kill me, by putting $5M on “floam will survive the month” - if I’m not killed conspirators get their money back, with interest. But if I am verifiably dead, whoever knew in advance a hit man will kill me, that man gets paid.
jcgrillo 4 hours ago [-]
It seems strange, but that must be why I'm not a lawyer :p
testing22321 5 hours ago [-]
You’re just seeing, clearly, the priorities of the US.
Is it helping sick citizens? No. Is it feeding the hungry? No. Free education, housing the un housed or protecting the environment? No, no , no.
To be perfectly clear, it’s not giving vets the benefits they deserve or keeping soldiers safe either.
Money. The priority is money.
Getting it. And making sure those that don’t have it don’t get it.
jaredwiener 4 hours ago [-]
The government is very big. They can have multiple priorities. The Dept of Justice does not provide medical care, education, or anything else you listed -- they prosecute crimes. And using classified military plans for personal gain while potentially putting fellow soldiers at risk seems like a crime that is worth prosecuting.
jcgrillo 38 minutes ago [-]
God money's not looking for the cure
God money's not concerned about the sick among the pure
God money, let's go dancing on the backs of the bruised
God money's not one to choose
No, you can't take it
No, you can't take it
No, you can't take that away from me
int32_64 7 hours ago [-]
It seems like it would be highly demoralizing to US soldiers that they are prosecuted for betting on the outcomes of the battles they are risking their lives for but those insider trading commanding them aren't.
herewulf 7 hours ago [-]
Imagine doing an easy tour in your air conditioned Kuwaiti logistics office and then getting blown to bits by a ballistic missile because no one bothered to tell you about the war that was being initiated which would cause such missiles in retaliation. Yeah, that's demoralizing too.
int32_64 6 hours ago [-]
There will be derivative contracts of prediction markets to predict if an insider is indicted for betting on a specific prediction.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if an insider in the prosecutor's office bet on that contract.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if a special prosecutor will prosecute the other prosecutor.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if an insider in the special prosecutor's office bet on the other contract.
(additional derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god).
pyrale 33 minutes ago [-]
> additional derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god
We already know that Jesus will come back in an election year
rcbdev 3 hours ago [-]
> derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god
I would offer a small correction to your point: Instead of "ballistic missile", I would substitute "Shahed-type drones". It is much easier to detect (and shoot down) a ballistic missile than a Shahed-type drone.
ywvcbk 46 minutes ago [-]
I don't think this is true at all? A ballistic missile is way harder and more expensive to shutdown (they are flying at Mach 5-10 while you can outrun that type of drone with a mid tier car on the freeway)
Shahed is very primitive in general and not hard to shot down but because its extremely cheap it can be used to overwhelm any type of air defenses. Wasting $4 million to destroy a $50k drone doesn't scale at all.
bijowo1676 2 hours ago [-]
start charging congresspeople with insider trading first, before you charge any regular soldier
if rules dont apply universally, then screw these rules altogether
breppp 2 hours ago [-]
If you are in Kuwait you will find yourself under rockets whether you knew in advance or not
I think the worse aspect is if the news of an attack being leaked to the defender and you are being blown to bits as their ballistic missiles are not decimated in their preemptive strike.
watwut 36 minutes ago [-]
They referred to soldiers that were killed by the start of the war. They thought the situation is normal, war was started without them knowing, got killed.
Not knowing in advance was an important factor
bawolff 3 hours ago [-]
I mean, surely everyone in the middle east knew a war was on the horizon. Obviously not the exact plan or day, but it wasn't a secret that usa was gearing up for a war.
watwut 34 minutes ago [-]
The war was surprised and host of people said so - goverments, expats living ij region, locals. And were pisssed
SparkyMcUnicorn 7 hours ago [-]
They should have kept an eye on the prediction markets.
JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago [-]
> would be highly demoralizing
Those people should quit. Sour grapes isn’t an excuse for putting others’ lives at risk.
blitzar 1 hours ago [-]
I just couldn't, in good conscience, keep bombing childrens schools under such demoralising conditions.
On the flip side: who if not me and my precision guided munitions, will protect America (and freedom) from the clear and present danger of 8 year old iranian girls.
enoint 6 hours ago [-]
Or, your brigade’s master sergeant needs the invasion to hit on the 28th rather than Mar 1st.
vkou 1 hours ago [-]
> It seems like it would be highly demoralizing to US soldiers that they are prosecuted for betting on the outcomes of the battles they are risking their lives for but those insider trading commanding them aren't.
Why? The enlisted military has never had any issue with similar double standards in the past. George 'AWOL' Bush handily swept the military vote, as did Donald 'Bone Spurs' Trump.
Likewise, veterans routinely and overwhelmingly vote for people who cut veteran support and benefits, over people who don't.
If they think those people are fit to lead them, who are we to tell them they aren't?
pavlov 43 minutes ago [-]
What’s the point of prediction markets?
They are just ordinary gambling unless you allow insider trading and manipulation, because that’s the only way the market can acquire and represent novel useful information.
But if you allow those things, you run into a host of well-documented problems which are the reason why those things are forbidden in other markets.
As it stands, prediction markets seem like a tech-aligned rebranding of age-old rigged gambling products.
haritha-j 8 minutes ago [-]
In theory no, because it provides financial incentive to perform a comprehensive analysis of available data or conduct thorough investigations. In practice, yep.
chaboud 1 hours ago [-]
I was under the impression that insider influence was the point of these systems? Want something to happen? Bet a lot of money that it won't, pulling the market forces towards the action you want.
It goes from "taking out a hit" to "betting that someone will live to next Thursday". It's such an obvious outcome of these systems that I was operating on the assumption that it was the actual point.
So maybe the thing this guy did wrong was to be so face-palmingly pants-on-head obvious about it that they had to shut it down?
mrtksn 8 hours ago [-]
Are prediction markets regulated? Is this about breaking the laws regarding prediction markets or is this about leaking classified information? I skimmed but not sure still.
Someone more cynical can say that this is about protecting Thiel’s investment(if people think it’s rigged may stop playing) or making sure that only big G makes money with classified information.
garciasn 8 hours ago [-]
From the article:
unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.
mrtksn 7 hours ago [-]
So what law is broken exactly? Will an engineer with classified information on F-35 use that for fixing his car be also prosecuted? I guess no, so is this about leaking the Maduro operation?
Insider trading and outcome manipulation seems to be the norm on unregulated markets anyway. Whats the crime?
mlazos 7 hours ago [-]
By the letter of the law the guy fixing his car should be prosecuted, but like nobody is going to know and it’s not going to happen. In this case it’s pretty obvious the law was broken.
Kalshi is regulated and trading in this way on Kalshi is explicitly illegal. PolyMarket does not operate under US laws and I don't know if the same insider trading rules are a separate violation on top of just participating.
d--b 10 minutes ago [-]
Why would Polymarket not operate under US laws? It's based in New York, and has already been fined by the CFTC. It's all in the wikipedia page.
All fungible markets are prediction markets. The idea that only some are is a mirage.
lazide 2 minutes ago [-]
Sure, but in some you’re explicitly predicting the time someone gets black bagged, or an invasion happens - or you’re predicting next months oil price, which may be a defacto proxy, but has less moral hazard if you’re a random special ops guy.
smileson2 16 minutes ago [-]
My respects to a real one, hope it turns out ok
k310 8 hours ago [-]
Nabbing the little guy for show, very much like Henry Hill taking one for Paulie and the gang. The same gang that robbed the Lufthansa vault at JFK Airport, stealing six million dollars in cash and jewelry.
When the history of this administration is written, provided that history itself has not been completely rewritten a la "1984," Goodfellas will be required reading/watching.
And the highly profitable daily mood-induced oil price bets will just be forgotten.
Wilhoit's Law:
Wilhoit's law.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
Politics aside, he isn't a "little guy". He apparently holds the rank of master sergeant. That's a senior battalion-level role and somewhat political.
This isn't some random E-4 getting dragged.
herewulf 7 hours ago [-]
This might burst some bubbles but this is absolutely a little guy because anything below a field grade officer (or the CSM sidekick below brigade) is a little guy and a battalion is actually quite low on the food chain.
Yes, there are some hard working NCOs and junior Os out there that make shit happen, but they are not the decision makers and make for great fall guys when shit hits the fan.
xhevahir 3 hours ago [-]
He may be a little guy but that doesn't mean that he's a fall guy. The Special Forces at Fort Bragg are a law unto themselves. I've just finished reading The Fort Bragg Cartel and the things some of those guys have been up to, and the leniency of both their commanding officers and the local civilian police toward them, are shocking. Drug smuggling, murder, theft of arms, coming back from deployment with tens of thousands of dollars taped to their persons...not to mention the war crimes.
9x39 7 hours ago [-]
Compared to a member of US Congress, or the senior executive branch, or the CEO class, they’re still nobody and the “little guy”.
Not that it’s defensible behavior.
usefulcat 3 hours ago [-]
Is he important enough to get a presidential pardon? That's how you know whether he's a "little guy".
To be fair, that bar is quite a bit lower these days, but still..
denom 3 hours ago [-]
What's the going rate for pardons these days?
dmschulman 7 hours ago [-]
I read this as "why are they going after a soldier who made $30k when they could be going after guys who made seven figures off of expertly timed trades on going to war with Iran"
Aurornis 7 hours ago [-]
He profited $400K.
Pursuing this case doesn’t mean they’re excluding other cases. If you read the article this case was very clear because he made amateur moves and didn’t conceal his identity at all.
This was an easy nab. All leaks should be pursued regardless of who did it.
jghn 7 hours ago [-]
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Trump's insiders own't be investigated
NicoJuicy 4 hours ago [-]
He's actually too proud about it to hide it.
A 400 million plane "donation"
Forgeties79 7 hours ago [-]
There is zero chance this escalates further off this guy.
nickff 5 hours ago [-]
Zero chance? What odds are you offering, because this bet looks very appealing?
I am guessing that you would not actually go all-in against a penny, and I’m curious to know what implied probability you actually offer. I will see your bet amount as an expression of your confidence level. If you say that you don’t bet, I’ll take that as an indication that you have no confidence, and believe the probability to be something above 50%
spydum 6 hours ago [-]
You could place a prediction bet probably.
defrost 7 hours ago [-]
Careful, you'll have Ka$hPatel wondering who to throw under a bus just for the giggles, the p0wn, and the extra $100 for his stripper lounge charity.
notatoad 5 hours ago [-]
> he isn’t a little guy
His salary this year was probably about $118k on standard pay scales. I’m not sure what your definition of little guy is, but to me that qualifies
(Not trying to be condescending to anybody here, that’s not far off my salary and I’d definitely call myself the little guy)
appplication 6 hours ago [-]
Master sergeant is a respectable rank (first of senior NCO) but it’s not exactly a high ranking position. Speaking from AF experience, you’ll have a couple of them or higher in a 50 person squadron, and levels like group/wing command they’re oftentimes among the lowest ranking person in the room.
This is absolutely a low level soldier getting dragged.
DASD 6 hours ago [-]
If he was "behind the fence", at most he would be a team sergeant or maybe even assistant team sergeant. Talking 4-6 members max.
tencentshill 5 hours ago [-]
They fired 4-star generals on a whim. The military is expected to be as loyal as the rest.
Forgeties79 7 hours ago [-]
A master sergeant is not remotely significant in the world of politics.
bmitc 6 hours ago [-]
According to Google Gemini, there are over 16,000 master sergeants. Might as well be some random, especially when it's literally the president himself, cabinet members, congress, and other cronies directly doing the same and even worse things.
janalsncm 7 hours ago [-]
One soldier being arrested does not prevent others from being arrested. If anything, it sets a precedent.
Yesterday, people could justifiably say that betting on polymarket had essentially no consequences.
Today, we learned there can be consequences.
If in a year’s time this is the only person to ever be charged, that’s a different story.
Aurornis 7 hours ago [-]
As other comments said, this wasn’t exactly a “little guy” in rank.
He also made it all very obvious and traceable for them through the email addresses he used. From the report it doesn’t appear that he made any effort to conceal his identity or hide his tracks until afterward, by which time it was too late.
ElProlactin 7 hours ago [-]
Well, if people in Congress, the Supreme Court, the administration, etc. don't have to conceal their "activities", why should this guy?
He wasn't a "little guy" but apparently his only mistake was not being high enough.
Aurornis 7 hours ago [-]
I don’t know why people are trying to defend this guy. We should be upset when anyone tries to use confidential information for personal gain. It’s also a security risk if anyone is incentivized to place bets based on confidential info.
I know you’re trying to make a separate point about Congress, but it’s silly to try to turn this into a class warfare thing. Congress didn’t even have this information at the time.
jrumbut 6 hours ago [-]
I haven't seen anyone defend his conduct, but it is natural to discuss his political clout because of this line on TFA:
> Today’s announcement makes clear no one is above the law
What others are saying, IIUC, is that no reasonable person believes an enlisted soldier (even a senior one) is above the law and that in fact there is a history of them being used as fall guys or scapegoats for people who do enjoy protection on the basis of their social class or government position.
Without this specific statement from the FBI director, then it would be "soldier gets caught doing bad thing" and the other part would be off topic. But the article itself introduces the idea of class and impunity.
ElProlactin 6 hours ago [-]
Nobody is defending this person.
> ...but it’s silly to try to turn this into a class warfare thing.
You can ignore the class warfare but the class warfare isn't ignoring you/your country.
JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago [-]
> don’t know why people are trying to defend this guy
It’s a hot take. It’s also a one off. You don’t have to strategize building the case law to then enable further investigations and prosecutions, a process which takes year and is beyond the internet’s attention span. (Silver lining: these takes are also mostly meaningless. Gears will grind on.)
janalsncm 7 hours ago [-]
Because the path to Rule of Law is not deleting/refusing to enforce all laws.
Rule of Law means no one is above the law. In practice this is an aspiration (in the U.S. and everywhere else) but giving up on that isn’t going to make the world better.
gabagool 8 hours ago [-]
Per Goodfellas, "Paulie and the gang" ended up in jail while Henry Hill received witness protection. So, it wasn't just for show
nickburns 8 hours ago [-]
They don't call 'em cannon fodder for nothin'!
akudha 7 hours ago [-]
When the history of this administration is written
I often think about how much we can trust history 20-30 years from now. It is hard to trust history from hundreds of years ago, either because it was written by victors or because there just isn't enough material in the first place. I suppose we have the opposite problem now (and in the future) - too much noise and junk, whole bunch of it generated by AI slop - where does one even start?
7 hours ago [-]
JohnTHaller 7 hours ago [-]
For everyone saying this isn't some little guy... compared to the administration which is engaging in the same thing, it's a little guy designed to be a distraction.
bluegatty 7 hours ago [-]
Everything about this statement is completely wrong.
False, conspiratorial, dogmatic, juvenile.
The arrest and indictment of someone for betting on Polymarket - which has not yet been tested in court - is going to give huge attention and precedence to the likely illegal activities of some of Polymarket shenanigans coming out of the white house.
Edit: if this was political, it would be pushed in the other direction. This is the NY DOJ doing their jobs.
NikolaNovak 7 hours ago [-]
...
I don't think this is going to be Hacker News fascinating discourse, but the current USA administration is so openly, brazenly, continuously, gleefully corrupt; continuously fire people with ethics and competence and bring in the in-group of equally corrupt ; and have continuously been rewarded for that behaviour; that I feel the OP is merely observationally factual.
bluegatty 7 hours ago [-]
The current Executive is 'brazenly criminal', yes, but there is nothing much 'factual; about the OP's comment.
None of this remotely has to do with 'Conservatism', it's certainly not ideological, and it's likely not political either.
This indictment is going to cause a massive headache for White House as they have likely been involved in 'insider trading'.
This is actually regular Justice, finally seeing some movement, to cynically characterize it as otherwise, totally against common sense (aka it's bad for the WH) is just unsound. I think it demonstrates the kind of bubble a lot of people live in, which is maybe understandable in the current climate, where horrible behaviours have gone unpunished. But still. This is the story of a state doj doing their job.
6 hours ago [-]
behringer 7 hours ago [-]
What? Military trials are not necessarily public.
bluegatty 7 hours ago [-]
It's by the Southern District of NY and the case will get national attention.
This is a hugely negative thing for the Administration, as District Attorneys, SEC staff, etc. are going to be actively seeking how this could parlay into investigations and indictments of the people in the White House making Polymarket and other speculative bets just before government actions.
There are 100's lawyers reading that right now getting inspired on how they can take action to turn their investigative powers onto whoever those actors are aka family members or associates of those in the White House / Cabinet.
An investigation could be done at the State Level, away from the control of the DoJ, and, if it yields evidence, it wouldn't have to even make it's way through the courts in order to be political destructive.
The suggestion by the OP this has anything to do with ideology or the ruling power throwing one under the bus is ridiculous. Note that the ruling regime isn't above such a thing, but that's not what is happening here because it definitely does not serve their interests - it's the total opposite.
This could turn into a political nightmare that crashes the party.
Edit: if we want to be 'hopefully cynical' - recognize that this could absolutely be the vector that takes the man down, or even many of them. Imagine how many WH, Cabinet Members, family members could get investigated for this and under purvue of state investigators where the investigation can't get shut down.
bonsai_spool 7 hours ago [-]
This was charged by DOJ not under a military tribunal
RhysU 8 hours ago [-]
Wilholt's essay is a nice one. But it amounts to defining the opposition in a way that's easy to tear apart followed by tearing it apart. It's a cute trick but isn't much of a basis for serious discussion.
Watch: Wilholt's essay consists of exactly and only one indefensible, rhetorical sleight of hand. Consequently, no one can honestly defend it. Attempts to do so are undeserving of serious scrutiny.
After tearing down a strawman, he claims high ground:
> The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
But you'll get a fair bit of support for Wilholt's so-called anti-conservative principle from a fair number of prominent conservative thinkers.
zaptheimpaler 8 hours ago [-]
The modern US conservative party really does seem to believe only in that one principle and nothing else. They will pardon actual sex traffickers like Andrew Tate and worse as long as they're on their side. They will defend any action at all by Trump, no matter how vile or illegal or stupid or wrong. It's not a sleight of hand if its true.
RhysU 8 hours ago [-]
Go read a few months worth of the National Review.
Many prominent conservative thinkers are not particularly big fans of Trump. They like portions of his initiatives and policies but not him as a standard bearer, because he does dumb, ill-principled stuff at odds with conservatism.
Peggy Noonan of the WSJ can't write two sentences without letting you know how much she disdains Trump, e.g.
ashtonshears 53 minutes ago [-]
A few annecdotal voices dont change reality; american conservatism is poisoned, and must be rejected by all sane/moral humans for multiple generations.
zaptheimpaler 8 hours ago [-]
I guess I should clarify it to the modern US conservative party. I know there are a few dissenters even there, but 95% of them vote the way he wants and of course we could have impeached Trump and many cabinet officials long ago if they voted that way. They unquestionably enable this administration. I think its fair to say they represent the conservatives broadly, certainly they are the people the nations conservative citizens elected and continue to support.
7 hours ago [-]
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paulpauper 8 hours ago [-]
I made a similar argument and was downvoted. Yeah, the well-connected pay a fine when caught. This guy's mistake was not knowing he did not belong to that club. He amounted to no more than a fall guy.
jongjong 7 hours ago [-]
There seems to be a pattern that if someone who was not pre-selected by some elites ends up making their own money (I.e. real 'self-made') they are swiftly attacked by the system. On the other hand, look at Nancy Pelosi; she didn't get into any trouble.
Are people allowed to be self-made anymore?
For me personally, after years of planning and hard work, I once managed to secure myself about $40k of passive income from a blockchain in crypto; this lasted a few years but eventually the founders suspiciously abandoned the entire tech stack (for no reason) and switched to Ethereum; this destroyed the opportunity for me; literally lost that stream entirely. Now, recently, I was able to re-establish a passive income stream of about $10k per year from a non-crypto source; this is from an opportunity I took over 10 years ago... I'm worried about that being taken away somehow.
busterarm 8 hours ago [-]
Authority-wise, a MSG in the army isn't exactly a little guy either. That's quite a senior role. In their battalion they likely head either operations, intelligence or supply.
This isn't joe schlub making side bets here. This is a senior late-career enlisted in an extremely sensitive position violating all of their trust and authority to cash out big.
herewulf 7 hours ago [-]
That MSG works for a Captain or a Lieutenant. If said MSG is good, there might be a future of advising a commanding officer on uniforms and length of grass at increasingly higher echelons. The rank is not newsworthy.
george916a 6 hours ago [-]
Oh, and let’s not forget the politicians like Pelosi, the Clintons and many other top Democratic Party politicians, repeatedly engaged in insider trading of stocks, often times using classified information, for multi million dollars profits. Almost never investigated. Practically never convicted.
ourmandave 6 hours ago [-]
Yes, please, by all means with full transparency and public trials.
Then clear the docket because you're going to need a lot of investigators to even begin on the Trump administration.
Here's a recent article from the American Bar Association on the rampant and on-going f*ckery.
We all know there were suspicious large bets on the stock and oil markets during the war.
If small potatoes are getting sued while the sharks swim freely. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the moral.
throw03172019 2 hours ago [-]
Insiders bet a solider would be caught for betting on Maduro. They won.
haritha-j 11 minutes ago [-]
Bet your life, not your money on this mission please. Thankz.
jh00ker 8 hours ago [-]
How many people in congress made the exact same bet on the exact same information, and for them it's "legal?"
wmf 7 hours ago [-]
None, because Congress wasn't informed of the Maduro raid until afterwards?
kshacker 4 hours ago [-]
Usually there is this gang of 6 or gang of 8 who is still kept informed.
JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago [-]
Weren’t they famously kept in the dark for this and Iran?
janalsncm 7 hours ago [-]
We have finally figured out the purpose of the War Powers Act.
kjkjadksj 4 hours ago [-]
We aren’t talking about in official capacity
Aunche 3 hours ago [-]
People act like the pervasiveness of insider trading in Congress is an indisputable fact, when there have been only a few trades with suspicious timing, which is similar to what you would expect statistically from 535 wealthier people trading with no insider information. The only case where I feel like insider trading is likely was Richard Burr's sales before COVID.
It is legal and until we vote for people who will outlaw it we only have ourselves to blame.
GolfPopper 7 hours ago [-]
Easy to say, hard to do, when your two "choices" at the ballot box represent slightly different groups of wealthy donors.
cosmicgadget 6 hours ago [-]
Vote in primaries. Also wealthy donors probably care less about whether a candidate can self-enrich with insider trading.
XorNot 7 hours ago [-]
Ah enlightened centrism rears its head again. Remember folks: at all points both sides are exactly the same /s.
singingtoday 6 hours ago [-]
If you guilt me into voting, I'll probably vote for somebody you don't like.
Isn't it better that I don't vote?
JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago [-]
> Isn't it better that I don't vote?
Maybe. I'm not actually that invested in people voting. But that doesn't negate the hypocrisy of complaining when you're, through inaction, endorsing the status quo.
_carbyau_ 6 hours ago [-]
No.
It is better that you vote. For at the end of the day you can:
1. know you tried to express your wishes
2. know that the outcome is because people expressed their wishes
3. realise the balance between 1. and 2. whether the outcome is as you hoped, and especially if it is not as you hoped.
This is important because hanging back and saying "Well I didn't vote for them!" is by default not supporting democracy as your country views it.
14 4 hours ago [-]
There have been multiple times where the final vote count was the difference of a handful of votes.
No one is guilting anyone to vote and some will say that neither party represents what they want and that sucks. But ultimately there has to be one side that even if you don't overall like them you would still rather they get elected.
So vote for who you think might be best. And if they have policies you don't agree then contact your representative and say "I voted for you but do not want xyz policy". The more who speak up the better.
altmanaltman 3 hours ago [-]
"better" for whom?
XorNot 4 hours ago [-]
I'm not American. And surprise: regardless of your reasons you get judged by the government you put in power, since foreign policy is how the rest of us experience your choices.
And your choices are evidently you're completely okay with the current situation as well.
yieldcrv 4 hours ago [-]
Everyone knows how the parties are different
Its valid to be more annoyed by the ways that they’re the same
your cause is not my cause, its better for the viability of your preferred party if you remember that
XorNot 2 hours ago [-]
Its valid to say a lot of things. But it doesn't escape you from having to own those choices.
You are what you'll accept, and you looked at the choices given and said "I'm okay with either one".
Because the consequences of whatever mutual dissatisfaction you had still means one of them gained power and implemented their agenda anyway. And you were okay with that.
You don't get to not make a decision and then pretend you aren't culpable for your inaction.
yieldcrv 2 hours ago [-]
the other person was talking about not making a decision, so you've transposed an idea not mentioned at all onto my comment
good luck out there
what to remember: the goal of the parties are to win friends and influence people, it's a weird meme that you aren't doing that and neither is the other party. time to re-evaluate the communication style yeah? proselytizing isn't working
SpicyLemonZest 1 hours ago [-]
The idea that nobody in American politics is trying to win friends nor influence people is indeed a very weird meme! As you say, that implies there's a big lane of persuasion that isn't being filled for some reason, even though everyone who's heard of Dale Carnegie knows it ought to be.
Have you considered the possibility that the meme might be false? That would explain neatly why it's so weird.
yieldcrv 23 minutes ago [-]
amusing.
parties are losing members and partisan’s methods are not effective
there is a big lane of persuasion that isn’t being filled
hibberl6 4 hours ago [-]
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hibberl6 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
snypher 8 hours ago [-]
“Any clearance holders thinking of cashing in their access and knowledge for personal gain will be held accountable”
Yeah right.
mcmcmc 3 hours ago [-]
I think you misspelled “the White House”
doom2 5 hours ago [-]
I thought prodiction markets benefit from insider knowledge. Isn't the whole point that insiders make bets, thereby surfacing knowledge and allowing for more accurate forecasts? So wouldn't we want more military service members making bets? In this case, any potential military target of the US would really want this insider info.
bawolff 3 hours ago [-]
> So wouldn't we want more military service members making bets
Who is the "we" in this sentence?
Yes, insider knowledge makes the prediction market more accurate (albeit at the cost of being less "fair"). However US government doesn't want prediction markets to accurately predict the timing of their secret military operations. Hence the arrest.
analog31 3 hours ago [-]
I think the problem is similar to insider sports betting, which is that once someone has made a bet, they will try to influence policy decisions in order to profit from that bet.
It's not so much insider knowledge that's a problem, but insider influence. You're paying people to make bad decisions.
Although, it would be amusing to create a sports league where the athletes are expressly permitted to wager on the outcome of their games.
analog31 3 hours ago [-]
I think the problem is similar to insider sports betting, which is that once someone has made a bet, they will try to influence policy decisions in order to profit from that bet.
It's not so much insider knowledge that's a problem, but insider influence. You're paying people to make bad decisions.
mcmcmc 3 hours ago [-]
Maybe we just don’t want prediction markets.
danny_codes 3 hours ago [-]
You spelled gambling platform wrong. This attempt to rename gambling websites is infuriating. I hope these people get meaningful prison time
It’s arguable that opening the doors for greedy soldiers to do a little insider trading and inadvertently expose the illegal covert violent raid that they’re party to might be one of the few positive outcomes in a society gamified by Polymarket
7 hours ago [-]
blobbers 1 hours ago [-]
Does polymarket have trial markets? Maybe 12% chance of being a mistrial - oh wait just shot up to 99%; new user called the_judge88 just bet $100K on that?
zeafoamrun 3 hours ago [-]
Prediction markets working as intended.
StrangeClone 6 hours ago [-]
Congress is protected but soliders arent from profiting. Why are laws so biased?
mcmcmc 3 hours ago [-]
This isn’t actually the case. Congress members and their employees have been banned from insider trading since the 2012 STOCK Act. That’s why they do it through family members now
yoyohello13 4 hours ago [-]
The first group makes laws, the second group doesn't.
chatmasta 8 hours ago [-]
I thought the names in the opening were the people being charged. Then I realized they were the prosecutors.
AngryData 8 hours ago [-]
Perfectly fine for the rich and powerful, but don't you average citizen dare do anything like it! The US law and justice system is a complete joke.
loeg 5 hours ago [-]
This is also illegal for any rich or powerful service members.
paulddraper 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
Hnrobert42 7 hours ago [-]
How do you know which accounts are theirs?
sirshmooey 7 hours ago [-]
Predictable, wind-up doll response from the siloed information consumption crowd.
jawilson2 7 hours ago [-]
Then they should be in jail. Just like Trump and everyone enabling fascism.
Have any other whatabout-its?
hettygreen 6 hours ago [-]
Cha-Ching! I bet $2000 that this guy was going to get charged.
breppp 2 hours ago [-]
The entire corruption-as-service aspect of this is interesting.
I wonder when someone figures out vote-buying-as-service
seany 2 hours ago [-]
Seems like he needed more Op/InfoSec training...
mil22 7 hours ago [-]
So crypto fraud gets deprioritized, with cases like the one against Nader Al-Naji dropped entirely, while Trump and his family profit massively from crypto and corruption themselves.
Yet prediction market fraud is made an enforcement priority, except to say that nobody close to Trump's own cabinet will be prosecuted - the little guys will be made an example of to make it seem like those at the top are taking the moral high-ground. "Every accusation is a confession."
I think we all can guess at the truth here.
kush3434 2 hours ago [-]
what is that country
yieldcrv 7 hours ago [-]
He screwed himself by taking steps to show how much of an amateur he was, by trying to delete his polymarket account and change the email address on his crypto exchange account
He should have just cashed out and donated 20% of it to Mar-a-Lago saying exactly what he did and a thank you. It's a little too low for a club membership but since the President's family is a shareholder of Polymarket I think it would have been seen as attracting liquidity
AG would have been instructed to stamp out the investigation, no charges would have been filed
TZubiri 9 hours ago [-]
Nice. I'm against polymarket allowing bets on war precisely because of this. But I think we can all agree that perpetrators hold more liability than the platforms, they are the true cuplrits of warcrimes/treason.
dexwiz 10 hours ago [-]
Rules for thee but not for me.
next_xibalba 8 hours ago [-]
Who is the "thee" and "me" in this scenario?
lovich 8 hours ago [-]
The guy who got arrested is “thee” the members of the White House admin and Congress making bets are the “me”
Silly prole, insider trading is a white collar crime reserved for your betters. Time to learn your place.
shevy-java 1 hours ago [-]
The more surprising thing is that the common invasion soldier also benefits financially. So far we only knew that the oligarch system that is currently controlling the USA, also benefits massively - the stock market changes with regards to Iran showed this already, but also see the more recent comments made in regards not just to the orange king himself, but his family dynasty and their involvement; in particular orange king jr. is involved a LOT here, also with regards to that mentioned soldier (see the companies that were involved, crypto-stuff and so forth). This reminds me a bit of Epstein, in a way - so far the US justice system claims that only two people (the dead Epstain and his wife) organised all those naughty parties. Well, that is logistically simply impossible, aside from the question how they had all that money. How deep do these networks used by the superrich go? You have more and more victims who claimed not only to have been underage, but also service-sold to other rich people. Why are these latter people not in court? How corrupt is that system? Evidently we now know that these invasion soldiers also bet on their own invasions - I guess when they claim "we are doing work for Good" here they mean this with regards to their own pockets.
Just as Smedley D. Butler once stated, many many years ago: "War is a racket"
9 hours ago [-]
warlog 8 hours ago [-]
They should run for Congress
HoldOnAMinute 7 hours ago [-]
Everyone's a grifter these days.
anonymous344 3 hours ago [-]
so they catched this guy,
yet pelosi and 300 others ate making millions every month, and nothing..
really
people who has woken up, there is no words for this,
yet the 80% are still asleep
danny_codes 3 hours ago [-]
Since citizens united it’s legal to pay unlimited amounts for political propaganda (lying to the public).
Obama called this out explicitly after the ruling and his analysis has been more or less accurate.
sandworm101 8 hours ago [-]
What was his rank? What was his job? What was his clearance? How did he have access?
The canadians have the info. He was special forces. He was enlisted (not an officer). He was involved, or at least privy to, the planning of the Venezuela thing.
Feds waited no time to drop the indictment and make arrest. 3 months is lightning fast for a white collar crime. Wall St. ppl who commit insider trading pay a fine and admit no wrongdoing, discouraging the profits, and only after many years and trades have passed. Goes to show how elites play by a different set of rules. His mistake was not knowing he was not in that club. Have no idea why this was downvoted. I see so many other people who make this argument about privileged elites and always get upvoted.
kobalsky 5 hours ago [-]
This doesn't seem like a simple white collar crime. If the military are betting on the operations they will carry it's virtually espionage.
mcmcmc 3 hours ago [-]
Wouldn’t that make insider trading virtually corporate espionage?
JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago [-]
What was the last corporate-espionage conviction in America?
livinglist 6 hours ago [-]
Rules for thee not for me
joe_mamba 9 hours ago [-]
> Goes to show how elites play by a different set of rules.
Epstein said the same, and yet nobody went out to protest.
rvz 7 hours ago [-]
In desperate times in the age of AI, one needs to grift in order to survive. This soldier was just doing that to maybe...enrich themselves like the politicians also breaking insider trading laws?
This is why no-one at the top institutions, politicians (Pelosi), presidents (Trump) and everyone else in proximity gets arrested or charged for insider trading in all forms. It doesn't apply to them.
This is a reminder that the rule makers are allowed to grift and break their own rules, but will arrest you for copying them or doing the same thing because this soldier was not part of their club.
He wasn't invited to their private insider group chat. So this solider was arrested and charged instead.
curious1008 3 hours ago [-]
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notTheLastMan 7 hours ago [-]
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penguin_booze 6 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
paulpauper 9 hours ago [-]
lol no SEC lawsuit or civil complaint: strait to the indictment and arrest. Goes to show how elites are truly a privileged class. They get to admit "no guilt" and forfeit profits, avoiding prosecution. Have no idea why this was downvoted. I see so many other people who make this argument about privileged elites and always get upvoted. I never have the right opinion on anything.
JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago [-]
> no SEC lawsuit or civil complaint
The suspect didn't trade securities. SEC doesn't have jurisdiction. The curiosity–to me as a layman–is that this is being prosecuted by the DoJ versus under the UCMJ.
paulpauper 8 hours ago [-]
Then what laws were broken if it is not insider trading?
JumpCrisscross 7 hours ago [-]
> what laws were broken
"Van Dyke was indicted on charges that included unlawful use of confidential information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, and wire fraud."
genxy 5 hours ago [-]
How does this not apply to Trump and the rest of congress? Billions in market manipulation.
JumpCrisscross 4 hours ago [-]
It’s a good question. I don’t know. Unfortunately, my circle is mostly in securities, and thus that is not.
4 hours ago [-]
next_xibalba 8 hours ago [-]
Probably something related to leaking or unauthorized use of classified information.
_DeadFred_ 8 hours ago [-]
Isn't this the purpose of Polymarket? To give a more accurate picture of what is going on/going to happen by giving insiders a financial incentive?
meric_ 7 hours ago [-]
Polymarket isn't doing anything about it. It's the US government because obviously while I suppose this info made a more accurate "prediction" it also yk, leaked confidential state military secrets which is something the government can prosecute. They're not being prosecuted for insider trading on Polymarket
stubish 6 hours ago [-]
Insider bets distort the probabilities, creating a conflict of interest and causing market manipulation. We don't let athletes bet on their own games, because some will deliberately lose. They will do this when the odds are good and they will make more money. So you don't get accurate predictions, because the more probable something is, the better the odds and the more money to be made by someone manipulating the odds.
End result is you place bets against things you want to happen. eg. USA invading Iran. If you win the bet, you make money. If you lose the bet, you still win because the USA invaded Iran. And maybe that happened because people in power took your bet and influenced the odds in their favor. A fully deniable market for bribes. Same reason you can't bet on unnatural death, because it crowdsources assassination.
s1artibartfast 6 hours ago [-]
Sure, but the purpose of the FBI is to go after people leaking classified military Intel.
Different people and organizations in this world have different goals. More news 10.
fuzzfactor 7 hours ago [-]
I thought so too. Giving people with insider info a chance to make a buck in ways they didn't have before.
Not my downvote btw, corrective upvote now applied.
polski-g 8 hours ago [-]
How is this illegal? Polymarket isn't a US-regulated market.
junar 8 hours ago [-]
From the indictment, he's being charged with the following:
* Unlawful Use of Confidential Government Information for Personal Gain
* Theft of Nonpublic Government Information
* Commodities Fraud
* Wire Fraud
* Engaging in a Monetary Transaction in Property Derived
from Specified Unlawful Activity
So had this not involved presumed military secrets, it would have been legal? So it was the classified info that made it a crime, and then the insider trading aspect was later tacked on? It's crazy how the government adds so many charges. This guy is screwed.
gdulli 8 hours ago [-]
That's part of the Chesterton's Fence nature of why these markets are bad. We know insider trading is a bad thing for the stock market, so it's policed. These markets, being a post-regulation internet free for all, aren't.
gpm 8 hours ago [-]
It's rather obviously illegal to leak classified intel by taking public actions based off of it... that's practically the meaning of the word "classified".
georgemcbay 8 hours ago [-]
It is illegal to leak classified intel if you're just an average person.
If you're the Trump hand-picked Secretary of the War Department then it is not illegal and will never be punished.
Always remember which tier of justice you are on prior to committing a crime!
Rekindle8090 8 hours ago [-]
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mcmcmc 3 hours ago [-]
Not true, they lobbied very hard to be regulated under the CFTC because of its more relaxed rules
ivewonyoung 8 hours ago [-]
Polymarket isn't being accused or charged with wrongdoing.
kevin_thibedeau 7 hours ago [-]
They directed the right size bri...consulting fee to Jr.
Rendered at 07:37:16 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
This is how a caste system works. People is not judged based on their actions but their relationship to power.
Not at all. In a caste system a lower caste person will get attacked if he (or especially she) has any success at all. Whether or not what they did was legal or not does not factor into the equation.
I’d argue that the level of corruption we’re seeing, not just in the USA but all over the Western world, hasn’t risen to a level that warrants revolutionary action.
> nobody seems to care
And it would seem that the masses tend to agree.
We are much much better off tolerating this level of corruption than we would be attempting a revolution.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how fat the fat cats are so long as the general population’s standard of living doesn't go backwards too far too fast.
Nah, life would be better if a cleptocrat couldn’t find his way into power.
Well, given that people are behaving more and more violently towards said fat cats I think it's clear we're starting to reach a breaking point and people are caring. It wasn't too long ago that I saw people cheering on LinkedIn when that healthcare CEO got got, so if people are willing to put their professional profiles at risk you have to imagine it's far worse behind closed doors.
Personally I really dislike living in interesting times and greatly prefer advocating against corruption rather than letting things slide until they get a lot worse.
It’s that there isn’t an Attorney General who would dare attempt raise a case against the hand that feeds them.
Count 1 - Unlawful Use of Confidential Government Information for Personal Gain
Count 2 - Theft of Nonpublic Government Information
Count 3 - Commodities Fraud
Count 4 - Wire Fraud
Count 5 - Engaging in a Monetary Transaction in Property Derived from Specified Unlawful Activity
For a moment there I read this as the unlawful activity was Maduro's arrest, and someone made money on that fact.
Who? Because if you have evidence of military secrets being leaked through prediction markets, we actually need that journalistic record maintained.
The suspect hasn't been charged with insider trading. (OP said those "in DC seem to be able to do everything listed.")
I think that was the point GP was making.
"Pentagon planning a military operation" is not exactly classified information as it is safe to assume that Pentagon is always planning a military operation.
“Our Office will continue to hold accountable those who misuse confidential or classified information in a way that undermines and exploits our national security.”
But isn’t wire fraud harder to prove than leaking classified facts?
I can't shake the feeling that there may be political reasons to not even attempt that angle. What legal precedent would it set if a judge actually ruled on that and the prosecution won? Which entities within the government would be financially inconvenienced?
Is it true with these markets the more people bet on a specific day and time, the value will increase more, increasing the overall payout? If that is true, I wonder if they're looking at anybody else helping place the bets or a group of people trying to wager a higher amount of money to increase the return?
Think about it: you have N market makers offering both sides of the trade with a spread between them. When there is no other meaningful activity, the best prices are more or less stable. Now someone comes in and buys one side of the trade. Each marker maker will, individually, make the same two decisions:
The magnitude of the decisions made depends on various factors, but as a short-hand the size of the made trades in respect to the overall liquidity available near the midpoint directs how strongly the market makers react. A tiny trickle of insignificant trades does not move the price in any meaningful way (unless the sizes are so small that the execution commission starts to make a difference). A sustained directional flood of trades will cause the midpoint (and volume) to move to the direction where the market makers can sell at higher prices and avoid accumulating any further losses.Is it helping sick citizens? No. Is it feeding the hungry? No. Free education, housing the un housed or protecting the environment? No, no , no.
To be perfectly clear, it’s not giving vets the benefits they deserve or keeping soldiers safe either.
Money. The priority is money.
Getting it. And making sure those that don’t have it don’t get it.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if an insider in the prosecutor's office bet on that contract.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if a special prosecutor will prosecute the other prosecutor.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if an insider in the special prosecutor's office bet on the other contract.
(additional derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god).
We already know that Jesus will come back in an election year
We already bet on the weather.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/23/hairdryer-or-l...
Shahed is very primitive in general and not hard to shot down but because its extremely cheap it can be used to overwhelm any type of air defenses. Wasting $4 million to destroy a $50k drone doesn't scale at all.
if rules dont apply universally, then screw these rules altogether
I think the worse aspect is if the news of an attack being leaked to the defender and you are being blown to bits as their ballistic missiles are not decimated in their preemptive strike.
Not knowing in advance was an important factor
Those people should quit. Sour grapes isn’t an excuse for putting others’ lives at risk.
On the flip side: who if not me and my precision guided munitions, will protect America (and freedom) from the clear and present danger of 8 year old iranian girls.
Why? The enlisted military has never had any issue with similar double standards in the past. George 'AWOL' Bush handily swept the military vote, as did Donald 'Bone Spurs' Trump.
Likewise, veterans routinely and overwhelmingly vote for people who cut veteran support and benefits, over people who don't.
If they think those people are fit to lead them, who are we to tell them they aren't?
They are just ordinary gambling unless you allow insider trading and manipulation, because that’s the only way the market can acquire and represent novel useful information.
But if you allow those things, you run into a host of well-documented problems which are the reason why those things are forbidden in other markets.
As it stands, prediction markets seem like a tech-aligned rebranding of age-old rigged gambling products.
It goes from "taking out a hit" to "betting that someone will live to next Thursday". It's such an obvious outcome of these systems that I was operating on the assumption that it was the actual point.
So maybe the thing this guy did wrong was to be so face-palmingly pants-on-head obvious about it that they had to shut it down?
Someone more cynical can say that this is about protecting Thiel’s investment(if people think it’s rigged may stop playing) or making sure that only big G makes money with classified information.
unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.
Insider trading and outcome manipulation seems to be the norm on unregulated markets anyway. Whats the crime?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A654vzQTGbQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN4njIQcSR4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymarket
When the history of this administration is written, provided that history itself has not been completely rewritten a la "1984," Goodfellas will be required reading/watching.
And the highly profitable daily mood-induced oil price bets will just be forgotten.
Wilhoit's Law:
Wilhoit's law.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
https://pylimitics.net/wilhoits-law/
Politics aside, he isn't a "little guy". He apparently holds the rank of master sergeant. That's a senior battalion-level role and somewhat political.
This isn't some random E-4 getting dragged.
Yes, there are some hard working NCOs and junior Os out there that make shit happen, but they are not the decision makers and make for great fall guys when shit hits the fan.
Not that it’s defensible behavior.
To be fair, that bar is quite a bit lower these days, but still..
Pursuing this case doesn’t mean they’re excluding other cases. If you read the article this case was very clear because he made amateur moves and didn’t conceal his identity at all.
This was an easy nab. All leaks should be pursued regardless of who did it.
A 400 million plane "donation"
I am guessing that you would not actually go all-in against a penny, and I’m curious to know what implied probability you actually offer. I will see your bet amount as an expression of your confidence level. If you say that you don’t bet, I’ll take that as an indication that you have no confidence, and believe the probability to be something above 50%
His salary this year was probably about $118k on standard pay scales. I’m not sure what your definition of little guy is, but to me that qualifies
(Not trying to be condescending to anybody here, that’s not far off my salary and I’d definitely call myself the little guy)
This is absolutely a low level soldier getting dragged.
Yesterday, people could justifiably say that betting on polymarket had essentially no consequences.
Today, we learned there can be consequences.
If in a year’s time this is the only person to ever be charged, that’s a different story.
He also made it all very obvious and traceable for them through the email addresses he used. From the report it doesn’t appear that he made any effort to conceal his identity or hide his tracks until afterward, by which time it was too late.
He wasn't a "little guy" but apparently his only mistake was not being high enough.
I know you’re trying to make a separate point about Congress, but it’s silly to try to turn this into a class warfare thing. Congress didn’t even have this information at the time.
> Today’s announcement makes clear no one is above the law
What others are saying, IIUC, is that no reasonable person believes an enlisted soldier (even a senior one) is above the law and that in fact there is a history of them being used as fall guys or scapegoats for people who do enjoy protection on the basis of their social class or government position.
Without this specific statement from the FBI director, then it would be "soldier gets caught doing bad thing" and the other part would be off topic. But the article itself introduces the idea of class and impunity.
> ...but it’s silly to try to turn this into a class warfare thing.
You can ignore the class warfare but the class warfare isn't ignoring you/your country.
It’s a hot take. It’s also a one off. You don’t have to strategize building the case law to then enable further investigations and prosecutions, a process which takes year and is beyond the internet’s attention span. (Silver lining: these takes are also mostly meaningless. Gears will grind on.)
Rule of Law means no one is above the law. In practice this is an aspiration (in the U.S. and everywhere else) but giving up on that isn’t going to make the world better.
I often think about how much we can trust history 20-30 years from now. It is hard to trust history from hundreds of years ago, either because it was written by victors or because there just isn't enough material in the first place. I suppose we have the opposite problem now (and in the future) - too much noise and junk, whole bunch of it generated by AI slop - where does one even start?
False, conspiratorial, dogmatic, juvenile.
The arrest and indictment of someone for betting on Polymarket - which has not yet been tested in court - is going to give huge attention and precedence to the likely illegal activities of some of Polymarket shenanigans coming out of the white house.
Edit: if this was political, it would be pushed in the other direction. This is the NY DOJ doing their jobs.
I don't think this is going to be Hacker News fascinating discourse, but the current USA administration is so openly, brazenly, continuously, gleefully corrupt; continuously fire people with ethics and competence and bring in the in-group of equally corrupt ; and have continuously been rewarded for that behaviour; that I feel the OP is merely observationally factual.
None of this remotely has to do with 'Conservatism', it's certainly not ideological, and it's likely not political either.
This indictment is going to cause a massive headache for White House as they have likely been involved in 'insider trading'.
This is actually regular Justice, finally seeing some movement, to cynically characterize it as otherwise, totally against common sense (aka it's bad for the WH) is just unsound. I think it demonstrates the kind of bubble a lot of people live in, which is maybe understandable in the current climate, where horrible behaviours have gone unpunished. But still. This is the story of a state doj doing their job.
This is a hugely negative thing for the Administration, as District Attorneys, SEC staff, etc. are going to be actively seeking how this could parlay into investigations and indictments of the people in the White House making Polymarket and other speculative bets just before government actions.
There are 100's lawyers reading that right now getting inspired on how they can take action to turn their investigative powers onto whoever those actors are aka family members or associates of those in the White House / Cabinet.
An investigation could be done at the State Level, away from the control of the DoJ, and, if it yields evidence, it wouldn't have to even make it's way through the courts in order to be political destructive.
The suggestion by the OP this has anything to do with ideology or the ruling power throwing one under the bus is ridiculous. Note that the ruling regime isn't above such a thing, but that's not what is happening here because it definitely does not serve their interests - it's the total opposite.
This could turn into a political nightmare that crashes the party.
Edit: if we want to be 'hopefully cynical' - recognize that this could absolutely be the vector that takes the man down, or even many of them. Imagine how many WH, Cabinet Members, family members could get investigated for this and under purvue of state investigators where the investigation can't get shut down.
Watch: Wilholt's essay consists of exactly and only one indefensible, rhetorical sleight of hand. Consequently, no one can honestly defend it. Attempts to do so are undeserving of serious scrutiny.
After tearing down a strawman, he claims high ground:
> The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
But you'll get a fair bit of support for Wilholt's so-called anti-conservative principle from a fair number of prominent conservative thinkers.
Many prominent conservative thinkers are not particularly big fans of Trump. They like portions of his initiatives and policies but not him as a standard bearer, because he does dumb, ill-principled stuff at odds with conservatism.
Peggy Noonan of the WSJ can't write two sentences without letting you know how much she disdains Trump, e.g.
Are people allowed to be self-made anymore?
For me personally, after years of planning and hard work, I once managed to secure myself about $40k of passive income from a blockchain in crypto; this lasted a few years but eventually the founders suspiciously abandoned the entire tech stack (for no reason) and switched to Ethereum; this destroyed the opportunity for me; literally lost that stream entirely. Now, recently, I was able to re-establish a passive income stream of about $10k per year from a non-crypto source; this is from an opportunity I took over 10 years ago... I'm worried about that being taken away somehow.
This isn't joe schlub making side bets here. This is a senior late-career enlisted in an extremely sensitive position violating all of their trust and authority to cash out big.
Then clear the docket because you're going to need a lot of investigators to even begin on the Trump administration.
Here's a recent article from the American Bar Association on the rampant and on-going f*ckery.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/resources/human-righ...
If small potatoes are getting sued while the sharks swim freely. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the moral.
Pelosi has made many suspicious trades: https://insider-trading.org/the-nancy-pelosi-insider-trading...
Suspicious trades before Trump's Iran announcements: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge0grppe3po
Isn't it better that I don't vote?
Maybe. I'm not actually that invested in people voting. But that doesn't negate the hypocrisy of complaining when you're, through inaction, endorsing the status quo.
1. know you tried to express your wishes
2. know that the outcome is because people expressed their wishes
3. realise the balance between 1. and 2. whether the outcome is as you hoped, and especially if it is not as you hoped.
This is important because hanging back and saying "Well I didn't vote for them!" is by default not supporting democracy as your country views it.
And your choices are evidently you're completely okay with the current situation as well.
Its valid to be more annoyed by the ways that they’re the same
your cause is not my cause, its better for the viability of your preferred party if you remember that
You are what you'll accept, and you looked at the choices given and said "I'm okay with either one".
Because the consequences of whatever mutual dissatisfaction you had still means one of them gained power and implemented their agenda anyway. And you were okay with that.
You don't get to not make a decision and then pretend you aren't culpable for your inaction.
good luck out there
what to remember: the goal of the parties are to win friends and influence people, it's a weird meme that you aren't doing that and neither is the other party. time to re-evaluate the communication style yeah? proselytizing isn't working
Have you considered the possibility that the meme might be false? That would explain neatly why it's so weird.
parties are losing members and partisan’s methods are not effective
there is a big lane of persuasion that isn’t being filled
Yeah right.
Who is the "we" in this sentence?
Yes, insider knowledge makes the prediction market more accurate (albeit at the cost of being less "fair"). However US government doesn't want prediction markets to accurately predict the timing of their secret military operations. Hence the arrest.
It's not so much insider knowledge that's a problem, but insider influence. You're paying people to make bad decisions.
Although, it would be amusing to create a sports league where the athletes are expressly permitted to wager on the outcome of their games.
It's not so much insider knowledge that's a problem, but insider influence. You're paying people to make bad decisions.
Have any other whatabout-its?
I wonder when someone figures out vote-buying-as-service
Yet prediction market fraud is made an enforcement priority, except to say that nobody close to Trump's own cabinet will be prosecuted - the little guys will be made an example of to make it seem like those at the top are taking the moral high-ground. "Every accusation is a confession."
I think we all can guess at the truth here.
He should have just cashed out and donated 20% of it to Mar-a-Lago saying exactly what he did and a thank you. It's a little too low for a club membership but since the President's family is a shareholder of Polymarket I think it would have been seen as attracting liquidity
AG would have been instructed to stamp out the investigation, no charges would have been filed
Just as Smedley D. Butler once stated, many many years ago: "War is a racket"
Obama called this out explicitly after the ruling and his analysis has been more or less accurate.
The canadians have the info. He was special forces. He was enlisted (not an officer). He was involved, or at least privy to, the planning of the Venezuela thing.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11814801/maduro-capture-polymarke...
Epstein said the same, and yet nobody went out to protest.
This is why no-one at the top institutions, politicians (Pelosi), presidents (Trump) and everyone else in proximity gets arrested or charged for insider trading in all forms. It doesn't apply to them.
This is a reminder that the rule makers are allowed to grift and break their own rules, but will arrest you for copying them or doing the same thing because this soldier was not part of their club.
He wasn't invited to their private insider group chat. So this solider was arrested and charged instead.
The suspect didn't trade securities. SEC doesn't have jurisdiction. The curiosity–to me as a layman–is that this is being prosecuted by the DoJ versus under the UCMJ.
"Van Dyke was indicted on charges that included unlawful use of confidential information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, and wire fraud."
End result is you place bets against things you want to happen. eg. USA invading Iran. If you win the bet, you make money. If you lose the bet, you still win because the USA invaded Iran. And maybe that happened because people in power took your bet and influenced the odds in their favor. A fully deniable market for bribes. Same reason you can't bet on unnatural death, because it crowdsources assassination.
Different people and organizations in this world have different goals. More news 10.
Not my downvote btw, corrective upvote now applied.
* Unlawful Use of Confidential Government Information for Personal Gain
* Theft of Nonpublic Government Information
* Commodities Fraud
* Wire Fraud
* Engaging in a Monetary Transaction in Property Derived from Specified Unlawful Activity
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/media/1437781/dl
If you're the Trump hand-picked Secretary of the War Department then it is not illegal and will never be punished.
Always remember which tier of justice you are on prior to committing a crime!