Islander

Retired Baltimore cop after serving 30 years. Enjoying life with my beautiful wife, five grown kids, five grandkids, & an energetic Border Collie. Psalm 23:4

[Islander @islander628]

@nicksortor I feel sorry for the people who had to be downwind of that.

[Islander @islander628]

@1Nicdar

[Chris Papst @chrispapst]

BREAKING:

A Maryland teachers’ union is urging its Democratic members to "Flip" their voter registration to Republican to impact the upcoming primary election.

Some say this tactic violates the spirit of the teachers' union's nonprofit mission?

Link: https://t.co/JyUmRSWzGn

[Islander @islander628]

@RogerJStoneJr You lost all credibility when you used the c word. I once felt sympathy for what you went through, but not anymore.

[Chris Papst @chrispapst]

BREAKING:

Baltimore City Schools is named America’s SECOND WORST school district by Daily Rank Dept.

The ranking compares academics, safety, teacher retention and more.

In related news, the new CEO of Baltimore Schools is coming from America’s 10th WORST school system.

[Emma Uber @EmmaUber7]

NOW: D.C. police interim chief Jeffery Carroll says 13 police officials have been served termination papers, all related to an internal investigation into crime data manipulation.

@CityCast_DC

[Islander @islander628]

@gotrice2024 @CreasonJana

[Fox News @FoxNews]

BREAKING: Former FedEx driver Tanner Horner, who pleaded guilty to capital murder and aggravated kidnapping in the death of 7-year-old Athena Strand, has been sentenced to death.

[Patricia Heaton @PatriciaHeaton]

I wasn’t happy when Clinton, Obama or Biden won, but I didn’t call them fascist/dangerous/threat to democracy. I didn’t hope someone would assassinate them. I went on with my life with gratitude. Friends on the left, please try this. Your life and our country will be better.

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I have two stacks on my desk. The left stack is financial disclosure forms from members of Congress. The right stack is waivers for members who filed their financial disclosures late.

The right stack is always taller.

On Wednesday morning, I watched a soldier get arrested on CNN.

I am a Disclosure Analyst for the House Ethics Committee. I have held this position for eleven years. My job is to receive the forms, verify their completeness, and file them. I do not investigate. I do not flag. I do not refer. I file. I have a lanyard. The lanyard says ETHICS.

The soldier's name is Gannon Ken Van Dyke. He is thirty-eight years old. He was stationed at Fort Bragg. He was Special Forces. In December, he created an account on a prediction market called Polymarket. On January 2nd, he bet $32,500 that the president of Venezuela would be removed from power. On January 3rd, he helped remove the president of Venezuela from power. He collected $409,881.

He has been charged with five federal crimes. Commodities fraud. Wire fraud. Unlawful use of confidential government information. Theft of nonpublic government information. Unlawful monetary transaction. The Department of Justice called it "the first-ever insider trading prosecution on event contracts."

I watched this on the television in our break room. Then I walked back to my desk and processed a late financial disclosure from a member of the House Financial Services Committee who purchased $250,000 in bank stocks eleven days before his subcommittee held a closed-door hearing on proposed capital reserve changes.

The filing was forty-seven days late. The STOCK Act requires disclosure within forty-five days. The penalty for late filing is $200.

I waived it.

I waive most of them. In 2021, fifty-four members of Congress and senior staff violated the reporting rules. The fines were minimal. Most were waived. I have a form for the waiver. The form has a box that says "Reason." I write "administrative delay." In ethics, "administrative delay" means the member's office forgot and then remembered when a reporter called. My approval rate is one hundred percent. In any other field, that number would trigger an audit. In mine, it is called thoroughness.

Let me show you what I processed this year.

January. A senator on the Armed Services Committee sold defense contractor shares worth $1.2 million. Three days later, his committee received a classified briefing that the Iran campaign had exceeded its projected cost by 340%. The stock dropped 8%. He filed the disclosure sixty-one days late. I calculated the fine. $200. His chief of staff asked if it could be waived. He did not ask what the senator traded on. Nobody asks that. The form does not have a field for it. I waived the fine. The senator's portfolio returned 23.4% in 2025. The S&P 500 returned 16.8%.

February. A representative on the Energy and Commerce Committee bought pharmaceutical stocks worth $400,000. Two weeks later, her committee advanced a bill that would extend patent exclusivity for the exact drug class she purchased. The stocks rose 14%. She filed on time. There was no fine. There was no investigation. There was nothing to investigate because buying stocks in companies regulated by your own committee is not illegal. It is legal. The STOCK Act made it legal by making it disclosed. In Congress, disclosed means legal. In my office, legal means filed.

March. A member whose spouse manages a portfolio worth $9.2 million reported forty-three separate transactions in a single quarter. Twelve of them were in sectors directly affected by legislation the member co-sponsored. The timing on eight of those twelve was within a two-week window of committee action. I logged all forty-three. None were flagged. We do not flag. We file.

I asked my supervisor once what would happen if I flagged a filing. She said we do not have a form for that. I never asked again.

In 2020, I processed 847 disclosures. In 2023, 1,211. In 2025, 1,614. The number of enforcement actions in each of those years was zero. The numerator changes. The denominator does not.

I want to tell you about the soldier again.

He made $409,881. He tried to delete his Polymarket account by calling customer service and saying he lost access to his email. He moved his profits into a foreign cryptocurrency vault and then into a new brokerage account. He used his real identity. He placed thirteen bets. Every single one was connected to an operation he personally participated in.

In my eleven years, I have processed disclosures from members of Congress who traded on:

Pending FDA approvals they learned about in committee.
Defense appropriations they voted on.
Trade policy they negotiated.
Pandemic response measures they drafted.
Interest rate decisions they were briefed on before the public.

None of them have been charged. None of them have been investigated by the Department of Justice. None of them have been referred to the SEC. The STOCK Act has produced zero prosecutions since it was signed on April 4th, 2012.

Fourteen years. Five hundred and thirty-five members. $635 million in trades last year alone. Zero cases.

My daughter asked me once what happens when someone breaks the rules. I told her we write it down. She asked what happens after that. I said it depends. She was nine. She is twenty now. It does not depend. Nothing happens after that.

The soldier made $409,881 and faces decades in prison. Nancy Pelosi entered Congress in 1987 with a portfolio worth approximately $785,000. It is now worth $133.7 million. That is a return of 16,930%. The Dow Jones returned 2,300% over the same period. Professional fund managers who beat the market for three consecutive years are considered exceptional. She has beaten it for thirty-seven. If a hedge fund produced those returns, the SEC would subpoena the records on a Thursday. She produced them from a building with a chapel and a gift shop.

She announced her retirement last year. No investigation was opened. No disclosure was flagged. Her filings were on time. In my office, on time means compliant. Compliant means closed.

I want to tell you about the fine.

$200. That is the maximum penalty for violating the STOCK Act's disclosure requirements. $200 for a member of Congress whose portfolio gained $4.7 million in a single quarter. I calculated what $200 represents as a percentage of $4.7 million. It is 0.004%. I could not find a comparison that made it meaningful. It is less than the price of the parking pass in the Rayburn garage. It is less than lunch at the members' dining room if you order the crab cakes, which I am told are excellent though I eat at my desk.

Since 2012, thirty-one bills have been introduced to restrict congressional trading. I keep a list. The list is longer than the STOCK Act itself.

On March 5th, 2026, a representative from Michigan introduced the thirty-second. He called it the "No Getting Rich in Congress Act." The bill would prohibit the President, Vice President, members of Congress, and their spouses from trading individual stocks, cryptocurrency, futures, and commodities while in office.

The bill was referred to committee. The committee has not scheduled a hearing. The committee is chaired by a member whose spouse executed $2.1 million in trades last year.

The bill will be reviewed. In my office, reviewed means read. Read means acknowledged. Acknowledged means a status has been assigned. A status is the absence of an action that has been given a name so it looks like one.

The soldier used classified information to make $409,881 on a prediction market. He has been charged with five federal crimes. The Department of Justice announced the case on the same day I processed three disclosures from members who traded on committee knowledge worth a combined $3.8 million.

The difference between the soldier and the members is not what they did. It is the building they did it in. He did it from Fort Bragg. They did it from the Capitol. He used a prediction market. They used the New York Stock Exchange. He bet on a military operation. They bet on the legislation they write.

He did not write the law. They did. They wrote the STOCK Act. Then they funded its enforcement at zero dollars. Then they set its maximum penalty at $200. Then they gave my office the authority to waive it. Then they traded $635 million.

The soldier flew to Caracas. He breached a compound. He put his body between a mission and a bullet. The people who ordered the operation were in a building with a credenza and sparkling water. They did not go to Caracas. They went to their brokerage accounts. The soldier made $409,881 and is now in federal custody. The people who knew what he was going to do before he did it made more and filed less. His prosecution is not a failure of the system. It is the system. One conviction per decade, at the lowest level, so the briefing slides can say enforcement exists. The $409,881 is not the crime. It is the cost of making $635 million look supervised.

In my field, we call this self-regulation.

The soldier's Polymarket account has been frozen. His military career is over. He will spend years in federal prison. My office will process every congressional disclosure filed this year. Every trade logged. Every $200 fine calculated and waived. The system is immaculate.

Fourteen years. Zero prosecutions. $635 million a year. A 16,930% return.

I have not leaked a document. I have not filed a complaint. I have not deviated from the process one single time. The process was written by the people whose forms I process.

As long as the disclosures go up and the cases don't, my performance review says I am meeting expectations.

My lanyard still says ETHICS. In eleven years, nobody has asked me to define the word.

[Rep. Anna Paulina Luna @RepLuna]

Maybe not a popular take but I am calling for this guy to be pardoned. Unless the DOJ plans on going after all the crooks in congress currently insider trading, this is simply skewed justice. There is no “justice” when guys like this get the book thrown at him yet members are illegally profiting every day.

I don’t agree with what he did and he should be required to disgorge all the profits however, unless the DOJ plans on doing Congress next, this is not justice.

[Islander @islander628]

@XavierBecerra They actually have a chair reserved for the President, they always have. Do some research before you post.

[Islander @islander628]

@60Minutes The same person behind the disastrous Afghan withdrawal is now advising 60 minutes on military strategy in Iran? Do better 60 minutes.

[Islander @islander628]

@SpeakerPelosi So, Pelosi is okay with the Iranian regime killing 35,000 of its own people, being the world's leader of terrorism for 47 years, and allowing them to obtain a nuclear weapon. The same regime that wakes up each day saying death to America.

What could go wrong?

[Islander @islander628]

@LeighWolf @KatiePavlich This tactic by Iran isn't even new. Iran did the same thing during the 80's when Reagan was POTUS. I'm sure the Pentagon expected this and is prepared to handle it.

[Islander @islander628]

@GovWesMoore How did you manage to screw up everyone's electric bill? YOU and your actions, not Trumps, have left me with $700 plus electric bills for each of the last three months.

Reopen the power plants you closed. This is ridiculous, you're crushing people.

[MDBayNews @MDBayNews]

Dan Cox files MPIA requests demanding transparency from Gov. Moore’s office over soaring electric bills.

Ratepayers deserve to know what communications took place with utilities and PJM while families struggle to keep the lights on. https://t.co/wwHfRUfAvk

[John @MagaGrunt1]

🇺🇸Every American should watch this short clip and witness the reaction from the Democratic Party. Same message different man. The hate is that deep.🇺�

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 HOLY CRAP! Maryland Sheriff Michael Lewis of Wicomico County ERUPTS on state Democrats trying to ban police from working with ICE

He's SURROUNDED by his fellow Maryland sheriffs: "We as elected sheriffs are FED UP with it! You don't see this many sheriffs in one location in the state at any given time!"

"This is nothing more than POLITICS over PUBLIC SAFETY!"

"But we have to come together in unison to stop the ridiculousness that's going on up here in Annapolis, Maryland. And lawmakers need to wake up and realize Marylanders and the American people want public safety over politics, and they're not getting it." @RapidResponse47

Nailed it 🔥🔥🇺🇸

[FOX Baltimore @FOXBaltimore]

The office of Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott violated policies governing the use of city procurement cards, known as p-cards, which mayoral staff members used to purchase food at sporting events and for internal events, such employee celebrations, according to the latest report released today by the city’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) Isabel Cumming.
DETAILS: https://t.co/djsquIvUF2