Four Senators dumped stocks after confidential COVID-19 briefing and before the crash
It is now being reported that four Senators–three Republicans and one Democrat–divested themselves of millions of dollars in stocks after receiving confidential briefings on COVID-19. You will recognize most of the names, here is more:
Four senators dumped millions of dollars worth of stock while Capitol Hill was being briefed on the threat of coronavirus but before the markets tanked as infections soared, disclosure records have revealed.
Republicans Richard Burr, Kelly Loeffler and James Inhofe and Democrat Dianne Feinstein collectively offloaded up to $11 million in stock between late January and early February, according to records seen by The Daily Beast, New York Times and ProPublica.
Burr, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee that was directly briefed on coronavirus, sold up to $1.7million in stock including in hotels, according to reporting from ProPublica.
Feinstein, a member of the same committee, sold up to $6 million in stock including in a biotech firm.
Loeffler dumped up to $3.1 million in investments starting on the day the Senate Health Committee, which she sits on, was briefed by the CDC. Meanwhile James Inhofe sold up to $400,000 in stock including real estate.
Kelly Loeffler and Dianne Feinstein defended themselves by claiming they did not have personal control over their portfolios–as if they could not call the people who did have control and give them the information–while Richard Burr claimed he made his move before he had the information. James Inhofe could not be reached for comment.
And on top of all this it is being alleged that Richard Burr warned others about the potential problem.
If these accusations are true and the first reaction these four people had was to protect themselves instead of thinking about the American people they are supposed to represent they need to resign immediately and face criminal charges.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
FBI shuts down FOIA operation due to COVID-19
Believe it or not the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch is still trying to get to the bottom of the Spygate scandal but the FBI has been less than helpful, and now it looks as if it is going to get even harder to get answers.
According to this story the FBI has announced that it is shutting down its FOIA operation until at least the end of March because of COVID-19, and judging by what we have seen so far I think it is safe to assume it will not be operating for quite awhile after March either.
Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton is not too happy and here is what he had to say in a tweet earlier:
Tom Fitton’s tweet says all that needs to be said, I have nothing to add to it.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Joe Biden demands Donald Trump invoke the National Production Act…after he already did
Earlier today Joe Biden, in an attempt to make it seem as if the President is not doing anything in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, demanded that Donald Trump invoke the National Production Act. Here is more on what the tough guy had to say to the President:
The campaign of Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden on Wednesday called out the Trump administration’s “inaction” on responding to the new COVID-19 coronavirus, outlining a number of steps President Donald Trump should be taking–including the invocation of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to meet the increasing demand for life-saving hospital equipment.
Biden said the Trump administration must: “Prioritize and immediately increase domestic production of any critical medical equipment required to respond to this crisis – such as the production of ventilators and associated training to operate – by invoking the Defense Production Act, delegating authority to HHS and FEMA.”
“This action must be built on forecasted demand, using the best modeling currently available for negative scenarios,” Biden said in a lengthy statement that also partially blamed the Trump’s “misguided trade war with China” for the nation’s lack of necessary devices.
The problem for good ole Uncle Joe is that Donald Trump had already announced he was going to invoke the Defense Production Act so the Presidential hopeful’s demand seemed a little silly and made him look foolish and slow to the draw.
It was a tough couple of days for Joe Biden because before this embarrassing gaffe he was called out for lying during the debate about the President refusing an offer to buy COVID-19 test kits from the World Health Organization which were never offered to the United States because other, poorer countries were in greater need of them.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
There has been a meme circulating on Facebook among the liberals which claims that WHO offered the United States COVID-19 test kits but that Donald Trump refused them, which led to a shortage of test kits in the United States.
Apparently one of Joe Biden’s handlers was on Facebook and saw the meme and thought it would be a good idea for the Presidential hopeful to use this against Donald Trump during the debate.
And that is what good ole Uncle Joe did, here is what he said:
“No, look, the World Health Organization offered — offered the testing kits that they have available and to give it to us now. We refused them. We did not want to buy them,” Biden said. “We did not want to get them from them. We wanted to make sure we had our own. I think he said something like we have the best scientists in America, or something to that effect.”
The problem is that that statement is simply not true and in fact WHO did not offer the test kits to the United States because the organization focused its attention on countries who could not develop their own test kits. Here is more on that:
The countries WHO helped are ones that lack the virology lab horsepower that exists across the United States. The outreach work by the Pan American Health Organization is a case in point.
The group is WHO’s arm in the Americas. It conducted trainings and sent materials to conduct tests to 29 nations. The list included Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and many others.
The group said it focused most of its efforts on “countries with the weakest health systems.”
“No discussions occurred between WHO and CDC about WHO providing COVID-19 tests to the United States,” said WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris. “This is consistent with experience since the United States does not ordinarily rely on WHO for reagents or diagnostic tests because of sufficient domestic capacity.”
Joe Biden told an outright lie and I do not give him the benefit of the doubt on this because he was Vice-President for eight years and he had to have known this is how the system works. Although from what we have seen from him during this election it is quite possible he has forgotten…
Joe Biden almost touched on the truth when he mentioned the United States having the best scientists in the world, however he claimed this was Donald Trump’s excuse for not accepting the test kits when in fact WHO did not offer the test kits for that very reason.
Donald Trump made plenty of missteps when this outbreak was first happening in my opinion and he gave the left and the mainstream media plenty to work with and let them get ahead of his response and control the narrative when he had a chance to step up and be a leader, but spreading lies such as this during a debate in front of the nation is irresponsible.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Oh those pesky Democrats, you just cannot make them happy. For three years they have been warning the American people that Donald Trump is a dictator-in-waiting who is going to cancel the 2020 election, abolish the Congress, and install himself as a dictator. But now with the coronavirus outbreak some of these same Democrats are claiming the President should nationalize some critical industries.
Remember never let a good crisis go to waste? Can you imagine what the Democrats would be saying if Donald Trump actually tried to do this?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, March 15th open thread: ‘Minnie the Moocher’
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
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Here is Cab Calloway at the tender young age of 81 performing “Minnie the Moocher” live in 1988, did I just see the moonwalk in there?!
Four years ago we saw the rise of the #NeverTrump movement, a group of lifelong Republicans that claimed they would vote for either a third party candidate, Hillary Clinton, or would just stay home that November.
This had the real potential to split the Republican party during the election and hand the victory to Hillary Clinton, which would have been just fine with lifelong establishment Republicans who did not want an outsider stepping in and tearing down everything they had built for themselves in Washington. The #NeverTrump movement continues to dog the President to an extent even today.
But the #NeverTrump movement never achieved its ultimate goal because the Democratic party nominated a candidate just as polarizing and as despised, if not more so, than Donald Trump.
But there was another factor which partly accounted for Donald Trump’s victory and that is the fact that many Bernie Sanders supporters who felt slighted and cheated by the way the Democratic party took the nomination away from him that they stayed home in November and this canceled out the #NeverTrumpers, at least to a large enough extent to hand the victory to the billionaire businessman.
And so now we flash forward to this election cycle and we find that not much has changed in the Democratic party in regards to setting up who its nominee will be and once again Bernie Sanders supporters, who for some reason thought it would be different this time around, are seeing the party begin to maneuver and manipulate the primaries to ensure that the party nomination goes to Joe Biden instead of the Vermont socialist.
Liberals who remember how the 2016 election played out are now beginning to panic because they see the same thing happening again this year, with the only exception being that the Republicans are more unified than they were in 2016 and that could spell trouble for the Democratic party.
These Democrats are already calling for party unity and begging all Democratic voters to rally around the eventual candidate no matter who it is, but the old adage of fool me once must be fresh in Sanders supporters minds and if the Democratic party thinks these people are just going to roll over and vote for whomever the Democratic part tells them to vote for after what happened in 2016 they might be in for a long election night. A #NeverBiden movement is starting to form and it could spell doom for the Democratic nominee’s chances.
Here is more:
On Tuesday night, Joe Biden’s campaign was celebrating his latest primary night triumph.
By Wednesday morning, #NeverBiden, #WriteinBernie and #DemExit2020 hashtags began trending on Twitter.
There’s no question it’s been a banner two weeks for Biden. But lurking in the background of his sudden ascension to all-but-presumptive nominee is evidence that at least some Bernie Sanders supporters might not migrate to him in November, weakening him in the general election.
There is certainly anecdotal evidence that for many progressives, Biden represents everything they dislike about mainstream Democratic politics. On “The Young Turks,” which draws millions of viewers, Krystal Ball, the former MSNBC host, said she couldn’t vote for Trump.
“The rationale for us is that our votes need to be earned and that we’ve been taken for granted, and the party never moves to us,” said Alyson Metzger, a 54-year-old writer and progressive activist in New York City who supports Sanders. “If they install Joe Biden, I will not vote for Biden. … This is not democratic what’s happening in the Democratic primary.”
For Metzger, not voting for Biden is a matter of conscience. For others, it is also strategy. On “Never Biden” Facebook pages and in Twitter threads, some activists argue that if Trump is reelected, Democrats will fare better in the next midterms and that the party will be more likely to nominate a progressive in 2024. If Biden is elected, they see eight years of centrist governance.
That is just a small sample of some of the anecdotes in the article, there is more, but as the article says it is unclear how widespread this movement is at this time and there is still time for Sanders supporters to mend their wounds and fall in line.
However if this #NeverBiden movement is real it could be enough to derail the Democrats’ hopes of taking out Donald Trump. Back in 2016 the #NeverTrumpers could not overcome the negative feelings many people had toward Hillary Clinton and this time around Donald Trump is filling the role of hated villain.
Donald Trump is more hated now by the left than he was in 2016 and when faced with the prospect of four more years of Donald Trump or biting the bullet and voting for Joe Biden I have to believe most of the #NeverBideners will be good little Democrats and will fall in line just as expected.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
A couple of weeks ago the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision which blocked Donald Trump’s policy of sending asylum seekers back to Mexico to await their hearing, claiming it was unsafe for the people who were sent back. Here is more on that decision:
the appeals court backed a lower court’s preliminary injunction against the administration’s Migrant Protection Protocol requiring asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases are adjudicated.
Judge William A. Fletcher argued in an opinion that the policy imperils immigrants in violation of legal protections by exposing them to “targeted discrimination, physical violence, sexual assault, overwhelmed and corrupt law enforcement, lack of food and shelter, and practical obstacles to participation in court proceedings in the United States.”
“Uncontested evidence in the record establishes that non-Mexicans returned to Mexico under the MPP risk substantial harm, even death, while they await adjudication of their applications for asylum,” Fletcher wrote.
That was not the end of the case as it is still winding its way through the court system and today the Supreme Court informed the Trump administration it could continue the policy while the lawsuit is pending. Here is more:
The Supreme Court has told the administration that it can keep sending migrants back to Mexico, pending the final decision in a lawsuit against the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
“The application for stay presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is granted, and the district court’s April 8, 2019 order granting a preliminary injunction is stayed pending the timely filing and disposition,” said the court’s order.
This is a small victory for the President, however I wonder if it is any indication of how the Supreme Court will rule on this issue when the lawsuit makes it there.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Joe Biden’s brother accused of fraud for using his family name to advance his healthcare company
Those wacky Biden’s, the more you learn about them the more corrupt they seem. Of course we all know about his son Hunter’s various assorted sordid affairs which have been well covered in the blogosphere and we needn’t go back into them here, and we recently learned the Presidential hopeful used his position in the White House to launch his son-in-law’s healthcare company. But that was not all because it was also reported that Joe Biden’s brother Frank secured a land deal in Costa Rica at taxpayer expense while good ole Uncle Joe was visiting that country as part of an Obama initiative to rebuild relations with Costa Rica.
If you are keeping a scorecard that means Joe Biden has used his position to help his son, his daughter, and his brother but it looks like the score is about to change because Joe Biden has another brother. Meet James Biden:
A new report reveals legal problems and allegations of possible fraud involving former Vice President Joe Biden’s brother James, in the latest instance of the Democratic primary front-runner’s family members’ dealings drawing scrutiny amid his presidential bid.
According to Politico, James Biden’s business with medical companies – including Americore Health – has led to allegations that he potentially engaged in fraud and traded on his brother’s name, by claiming Joe was interested in the venture and the family name could provide opportunities.
“It was all smoke and mirrors,” former Americore Health executive Tom Pritchard told Politico. James Biden reportedly convinced Americore that he could use his political clout to deliver a significant influx of cash in the form of an investment from the Middle East, and even convinced the company to take on financial burdens including a six-figure loan to James that he has yet to repay.
James Biden, Americore and Americore founder Grant White are among those now facing a lawsuit from medical companies in Tennessee federal court accusing them of fraud over alleged promises made. Biden and the other defendants have denied any wrongdoing, but the plaintiffs last month reportedly said in a court filing that they were willing to drop their claims against White, who had provided exculpatory evidence as well as information that further implicated Biden and others.
According to the report, James Biden introduced White to his brother. The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment but had confirmed to Politico that White had bought a ticket to a Beau Biden Foundation event in 2017. Any meeting between White and the former vice president “would have been a handshake and nothing more,” they said. The campaign also claimed that Joe Biden never showed support for Americore or even discussed it with his brother.
James Biden did introduce his partner to his famous politically connected brother but nothing ever came from the meeting. Riiight…
And did you notice the charges might be dropped on his partner after he provided exculpatory evidence that implicated James Biden?
There is now a total of two family members in the healthcare industry that Joe Biden apparently helped while he was Vice President and what was Barack Obama’s signature legislation? Could it be possible that these two profited from Obamacare? If so we now know why Joe Biden thought passing the healthcare law was such a big bleeping deal!
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
With the nation in the midst of a media created coronavirus outbreak fear reminiscent of the bird and swine flu scares one Democrat is calling for the President to cancel all of his campaign rallies in order to ensure his most ardent supporters do not become infected.
Here is some of what Jackie Speier:
“The fact that he is not willing to cancel his various rallies suggests that he is willing to place even his most ardent supporters at risk because we’re supposed to stay six feet away from other persons in order to mitigate the exchange of those viruses. I think that he is showing, unfortunately, why he is so ill-prepared to guide our country during this time of the crisis.”
Where do I even begin with this?
How about beginning with the fact that by showing he is not afraid of the virus personally this would be a great way to guide the country during this time of crisis? You know, that whole nothing to fear but fear itself mentality Democrats used to have. But of course the media makes its living by spreading fear…
Or maybe I could begin with the fact that Jackie Speier and the Democrats do not care about the health and well-being of Trump supporters. Just the other day a woman said if she caught coronavirus she would attend every MAGA rally she could in order to infect as many Trump supporters as she could, and this tweet was shared by Democratic lawmakers.
Or maybe I could begin by asking why she is only concerned about the health and well-being of Trump supporters and is not calling for the cancellation of any and all upcoming campaign events by any of the remaining Democratic Presidential candidates? Or for any other candidate running for the Congress? And, as a member of the House of Representatives she is running for reelection, is she going to take her own advice? Wouldn’t that be the proper thing to do if she was indeed afraid of the virus spreading at campaign rallies?
Most of the panic over this virus the Democrats and the media are spreading has to do with trying to hurt Donald Trump’s chances of being reelected, and this is an obvious attempt to put the President at a disadvantage when the campaign is really starting to heat up. These comments are so disingenuous and politically motivated that it is actually silly.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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