As was previously reported, President Obama and Congress gutted the insider trading regulations on Congress. Like a thief in the night Congress and the White House did nothing to call attention to themselves as they stealthily removed key provisions of the STOCK Act covering executive and congressional staffers disclosing their finances.

Other than FDL, a few other independent media outlets, and watchdog groups no one seemed to think the story was a big deal or even a story at all.

As was reported yesterday, President Obama signed a law gutting insider trading regulations on Congress. An incredible act when one considers the 2008 campaign platform of Barack Obama to roll back the influence of lobbyists and “change Washington” by bringing transparency to the federal government. By signing this law Obama has done incredible damage to transparency and open government – allowing, in effect even promoting, the continuing corrupt practices that have made most Americans lose trust in their government. Signing this law does not inspire hope and it certainly is not change.

Yesterday President Obama signed a law that gutted the reporting requirements originally included in the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. Before these changes were made the STOCK Act required congressional staffers to disclose their finances to the public to help ensure they were not engaging in corrupt practices.

Remember that Congressional insider trading scandal? The one where Congress members were caught trading stocks and bonds on insider information, an apparent crime for everyone else but Congress? Well, after a lot of public posturing leading to the passage of a reform law (with resulting positive press coverage) – Congress is back to their old tricks.

A loophole in the STOCK Act would render it fairly meaningless. If you remember, the STOCK Act was the bill that rocketed to passage after allegations of insider trading among members of Congress, using at times non-public information to profit off of companies over which they held oversight responsibilities. The bill, which languished for years, was quickly taken up and passed with overwhelming majorities.

But it turns out that there’s a potentially gaping hole in the legislation.

The passage of the STOCK Act was supposed, in the eyes of Congress, to end all the intense anger over Congressional insider trading. The system worked, in their eyes. A problem was identified and Congress worked to address it. Everyone goes home happy. Except that’s not what happened. In a continuing series, the Washington Post delivered the goods on a host of abuses by members of Congress, both within the confines of insider trading and also well beyond them.

It’s unusual when the Senate passes one bill in a single day, but today they’ve passed two. And both are an indication of the seriousness of legislating in the modern age.

The Senate leadership has given up on trying to pass their version of the STOCK Act, instead planning a vote on the House bill. The two big Senate amendments that lose out here are the Leahy-Cornyn amendment responding to a Supreme Court ruling that weakened prosecutorial use of the “honest services fraud” statute against public officials and businessmen, and one from Chuck Grassley, on “political intelligence.”

The House passed a watered-down version of the STOCK Act, the bill that would ban insider trading among members of Congress as the Office of Congressional Ethics investigates Rep. Spence Bachus for insider trading.

When the Senate passed the STOCK Act, the bill that bans insider trading on non-public information picked up in Congress (yes, that’s not against the law right now) along with some other ethics reforms, I thought that could be a vehicle that would move expeditiously through the House. However, even though Majority Leader Eric Cantor made promises that the STOCK Act would get a vote this week, instead what has happened is a free-for-all, with lobbyists gutting the bill at Cantor’s behest.