Think the media will report this as much as Richard Burr? Me neither
[NY Post] Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office said Thursday that she was contacted by the FBI about stock sales she made early in the coronavirus pandemic.
The California Democrat's office confirmed that she was questioned after news broke that the FBI served a warrant Wednesday on Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) and seized his cellphone.
Feinstein, Burr and two other senators face scrutiny for large stock sales early in the pandemic, when senators received non-public warnings about potential economic havoc.
Feinstein spokesman Tom Mentzer said he believes that two other Senate offices ‐ those of Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) ‐ also were contacted by the FBI.
Spokespeople for Loeffler and Inhofe did not immediately respond to The Post's requests for comment.
"Senator Feinstein was asked some basic questions by law enforcement about her husband's stock transactions, as I think all offices in the initial story were," Mentzer said.
"She was happy to voluntarily answer those questions to set the record straight and provided additional documents to show she had no involvement in her husband's transactions. There have been no follow up actions on this issue," Mentzer said.
Feinstein sold $500,001 to $1 million worth of stock in a company called Allogene Therapeutics on Jan. 31, less than a month before panic about the virus caused markets to plunge, Senate records show. Her husband sold $1,000,001 to $5 million worth of Allogene shares on Feb. 18, according to financial disclosures.
Burr, who was privy to early intelligence reports on the pandemic, sold as much as $1.72 million in stocks weeks before the market crashed. He lost his chairmanship of the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday amid the FBI investigation.
Loeffler and her husband sold millions after she attended a Jan. 24 private briefing for senators on COVID-19. She said the sales were made by outside advisers.
Feinstein and Inhofe said their stock sales were unrelated to non-public information and their reps said they did not attend the private briefing for senators.
Whistleblower Dr Bright has Debra Katz representing him, the same lawyer Blasey Ford had
I Smell A Rat!
[WashingtonExaminer] White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany argued that the former top vaccine official who filed a whistleblower complaint against the Trump administration "hasn't been paying much attention" to the White House's coronavirus response.
Dr. Rick Bright, who was dismissed as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority last month, testified Thursday during a House hearing on the coronavirus response that the United States could face the “darkest winter in modern history” without a coordinated national effort to combat the pandemic.
"He predicted unprecedented ‘illnesses and fatalities,’” Fox News’s Ed Henry said during a segment featuring McEnany. “He had a chance to lay out his concerns. Let's get you to react to anything there but specifically when he says, 'The pandemic playbook was ignored.' Your response?"
McEnany pushed back on his comments, claiming multiple times that Bright “hasn’t been paying much attention at all.”
“It sounds like he hasn't been paying attention when he talked about building up a stockpile and equipment. Perhaps he's unaware of the 90 million N95 respirators the president's delivered — three times what the healthcare industry consumes in an average year. The billion gloves that we've delivered, the many more pieces of PPE," she said. "It sounds like this is someone who is reacting and making suggestions that have long been put into play."
Bright was ousted from his position in April and was transferred to a lower-ranking job at the National Institutes of Health. He filed a whistleblower complaint to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel after his removal. His lawyers claim that he was demoted after pushing back on the president's touting of hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for the coronavirus.
“On the notion we are not letting scientists speak, maybe he's not aware that on every Sunday morning, you hear oftentimes from Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx. They're consistently out on the airways. Maybe he's missed those appearances,” McEnany said.
President Trump also took aim at Bright, tweeting before the hearing, “I don’t know the so-called Whistleblower Rick Bright."
"Never met him or even heard of him, but to me, he is a disgruntled employee, not liked or respected by people I spoke to and who, with his attitude, should no longer be working for our government!" he added.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/15/2020 9:40 Comments ||
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#2
Bright's complaint at Scribd: He checked the first two boxes: (1) Prohibited personnel practice such as retaliation, discrimination, illegal hiring decisions and (2) Disclosure about gross mismanagement or waste, a violation of law, rule or regulation, abuse of authority, a danger(s) to public health or safety, or censorship related to scientific research.
I've had plenty of complaints about govmint mismanagement. Do you have to work for the govmint to complain and get heard?
ScienceFare used to go after Trump...again? This DS $hit is getting tiresome.
#3
Deep State mole stayed undercover all this time until his masters activated him.
This was the lead story on CBS Evening News last night. Nora Roberts was breathless about how this weasel's testimony was so "explosive" in Congress. But it's really just another bombshell that fizzled.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/15/2020 12:14 Comments ||
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#4
I should say Nora O'Donnell. Forgive me if I don't think enough about her to get her name right. I watched her last night for just long enough to see her talk about this new whistleblower and then I took my beverage out to the patio.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/15/2020 12:16 Comments ||
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Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) said he believes whistleblowers should be respected and heard, but he perceived Thursday's hearing as an attempt to undermine the Trump administration. When Oklahoma congressman Markwayne Mullin got the mic, he turned the hearing into a discussion about Bright's paycheck. Dr. Bright, who recently got a job at the National Institutes of Health, is currently on sick leave for hypertension. He explained that it's been a "stressful" transition having been removed from his role without explanation.
Yet, as Rep. Mullin pointed out, Bright is still getting paid by the NIH. Rep. Mulllin wondered why he was here testifying before Congress if he was dealing with the ailment?
"I guess I'm kind of confused because you say you have hypertension but yet you were able to do these interviews, you're able to make the report, and you're able to prepare for this hearing," Mullin noted. "Yet you're too sick to go into work but you're well enough to come here while you're still getting paid from the U.S. government."
[AlAhram] Businesses are going belly up, tens of millions have been laid off and, by some measures, the U.S. seems headed for another Great Depression. But Republicans surveying the wreckage aren't ready for another round of coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... aid, instead urging a ``pause.''
It's a position based on a confluence of factors. Polls show GOP voters think the government is already doing enough. Republicans on Capitol Hill are divided over the best approach. Billions approved by Congress have yet to be spent. And it's also unclear what President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... wants to do next, if anything, to juice the economy _ his payroll tax cut idea hasn't gained any traction on Capitol Hill.
For these and other reasons, GOP leaders see an unfolding crisis that does not yet cry out for further action.
``There's just a pragmatic piece to this, which is, if we're going to do another bill, let's get into June and July so we know how people are re-emerging,'' said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., who gave up his leadership post last year to take the top GOP job on the Financial Services Committee.
The political balancing act comes as the long-dormant deficit-hawk wing of the GOP lumbers back to life, recoiling from the House Democratic proposal to spend another $3 trillion in taxpayer money. Yet many Republicans concede there is risk to standing pat at a time of massive unemployment, financial struggles for local governments and growing COVID-19 caseloads, particularly with the November election fast approaching.
Despite their distaste for further negotiations with Democrats, many Republicans privately see passage of another coronavirus measure as inevitable.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a proponent of the ``pause,'' said Tuesday that Republicans are ``taking a look at what we've already done. And we've added about $3 trillion to the national debt, and assessing the effectiveness of that before deciding to go forward.''
Yet McConnell also cracked open the door, cautiously, to more legislation, provided that it is ``narrowly targeted.''
``I'm in discussion, we all are, with the administration. If we reach a decision along with the administration to move to another phase, that'll be the time to interact with the Democrats,'' he said.
Still, recent polls show GOP voters are far more likely to be satisfied with the government's virus response than Democrats. They are less fearful of a second wave of cases as states loosen stay-at-home orders, and they are not clamoring for more aid.
``We're starting to hear grumbling against spending that I haven't heard for a while,'' said Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks, a conservative group that has helped promote demonstrations around the country demanding a relaxation of state lockdown orders.
On Capitol Hill, the question of what to do next is sowing GOP division.
Conservative senators from solidly red states argue that Washington has done enough, and they have been squaring off in meetings with GOP moderates and pragmatists siding with Democrats. The moderates are supportive of fiscal relief for states and local governments, help for the Postal Service, additional jobless aid, and further provisions on testing and tracing for the virus, which has already claimed more than 80,000 lives in the U.S.
The conservative senators have influence with Trump, but he doesn't share their fiscal instincts.
The president and deputies like Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have signaled a willingness to deliver aid to state and local governments _ funding that is a core demand of House Speaker Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of professional politicians. On-again-off-again Speaker of the House. It's not her fault when they lose, but it's her accomplishment when they win. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace and occasional senior... uhhh... moments... , D-Calif. And Trump at one point even floated a massive debt-financed effort on infrastructure, leaving many conservatives aghast.
Trump himself has cautioned Republicans against drawing a red line against state and local aid. The president is talking to governors, noted a top House GOP leadership aide who requested anonymity to describe private conversations. The aide emphasized that the president remains extremely popular in most Republican congressional districts and still gives members a lot of cover by going along with him.
``As states begin to reopen we need to wait and see where and what the need is, but the policy process is ongoing at the White House,'' said a White House aide, requesting anonymity to describe internal dynamics. ``The president has said more help is coming.''
Many think the next coronavirus bill, when it passes, will be the last one for a while, with Congress likely to maintain an intermittent schedule as the election nears.
``I don't see us coming back before the election so I'd rather us get this smart and right rather than shoveling more coal into the fire, and people saying we'll come back and do more,'' McHenry said.
But it's clear that Republicans are dreading another round of negotiations with Democrats.
While each of the four prior COVID-19 response measures passed by almost unanimous votes, the outcome required GOP leaders to accept significant legislative victories for Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ...Senator-for-life from New York, renowned for his love of standing in front of cameras and microphones. Schumer has been a professional politician since 1975, when disco was in flower, which is 44.44146 years. Senate minority leader as of 2017... , D-N.Y. They fear another episode in which Mnuchin, a former Democrat, gives them even more.
For now, negotiations are in neutral. The Senate is poised to push off the legislative debate until after the Memorial Day break, when Republicans hope the virus will finally begin to ease.
``We will be working in a bipartisan way and with the White House to make sure ... we're addressing the very serious needs of the American people when it becomes both to the health emergency and the economic emergency that they're experiencing right now,'' said No. 2 Senate Republican John Thune of South Dakota.
#1
It's all new debt. If all the distressed businesses went Chapter 7 it would all be discharged debt. Instead it's debt sold to China that your kids, grandkids and great grandkids will never be able to pay. Enjoy...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/15/2020 10:16 Comments ||
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#2
Get china to take the debt then cancel the debt as part of the reparations. Don't know if that's possible but it would be satisfying.
#3
I don't recall anywhere in the Constitution the authority of the government to put its citizens into involuntary servitude other than for committing a crime. Now I understand some Rantburgers may contend voting for them was a crime. However, with the unions and one party having corrupted the process, I view it as nothing less than an invalidation of that theory and any obligations.
Watch: Clapper just conceded on CNN that "No, I did not" find evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. Then, after being asked about leaking to the press, his video connection went dead... pic.twitter.com/Ab13DVFVQa
[Breitbart] On Thursday President Trump called on Barack Obama to be questioned under oath before Congress for his role in "the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR!"
There he goes, moving the Overton Window again. Until now it was unthinkable that St. Barack might ever be called to account for his actions. Now we can ponder the possibilities while ever more evidence surfaces.
President Trump also called on Senator Lindsey Graham to quit talking and do his job as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And there you have it...Trump broadsides another RINO.
If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama. He knew EVERYTHING. Do it @LindseyGrahamSC, just do it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!
#2
We're caught between a rock and a hard spot. You don't want to establish a precedent of prosecuting the previous executive. You have that in Illinois, but the Feds act as an outside player. When the Feds are the inside player, it starts to make regime change something that no one wants to be a loser cause they're next, so they rig it so they don't. Game over.
However, at this point, the whole system is so compromised that if the Socialists get power again, they're never going to let it slip from their hands ever. See - Caracas. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
#3
Disagree. This is not Illinois. This is a blatant violation of so many foundational principles - of the Constitution, of the electoral process, of rule of law itself - that it simply cannot be allowed to stand.
A conspiracy to use every organ of federal law enforcement and the intelligence apparatus to engage in widespread, systematic, years-long spying on political opponents is beyond the pale.
We have never seen anything like this in modern American history. No precedent. It is FAR worse than Watergate.
Given the existence of ready tools for mass surveillance plus the evident desire of at least one party to engage in mass electoral fraud - and also to trash the rights of the people to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances - we have no choice but to expose this atrocity and prosecute every one of those responsible for it.
Indict Obama, Biden, Comey, Clapper and Brennan. Strzok, McCabe, Page: All of 'em. This must not stand.
#4
^^^ Try them, then execute them. Every. Single. One. Senators, Representatives, Bureaucrats, Judges, Media Execs/Talking Heads. Anyone that was involved in any way.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
05/15/2020 14:13 Comments ||
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#11
Someone needs to muzzle Graham and get him off of this train before he helps Obama slip away. The FISA 702 queries were done by NSC staffers inside the White House.
Obama, lazy bum that he is, would not have directed anything but he certainly had knowledge of what Brennan-Clapper's minions were up to.
"Unmasking" is a sideshow. It goes far, far beyond Flynn. This went on for years, it was massive in scope, and the trail goes to the top.
#13
If I was running the investigation I would say the same thing but in more wishy-washy way, and then bring Obama in as the very last person you have testify in the investigation and ask him any open questions.
[BLOOMBERG] Republican Senator Richard Burr is temporarily stepping down as chairman of the Intelligence Committee amid a federal investigation into whether he sold stocks as a result of secret briefings on the threat of the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic.
"Senator Burr contacted me this morning to inform me of his decision to step aside as chairman of the Intelligence Committee during the pendency of the investigation," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement. "We agreed that this decision would be in the best interests of the committee and will be effective at the end of the day tomorrow."
Burr, a North Carolina Republican, was among senators who sold holdings earlier this year around the time intelligence officials were delivering closed-door briefings about the emerging threat of the coronavirus. Burr has denied any wrongdoing.
The Los Angeles Times, quoting an unnamed source, reported Wednesday night that FBI agents, acting on a search warrant, took Burr’s phone at his home. The senator’s office declined to comment on the Times report late Wednesday night.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/15/2020 8:08 Comments ||
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#5
/\ Well yes, I do seem to remember something about a shadowy UK contracting outfit with intelligence community connections..... or was that from last week ?
Rogers has a contract to speak on national-security topics on CNN.[citation needed] He is also an executive producer for the CNN program Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies.
Operation "Stepping On Our D*ck"™. Hit the link
[CTH] It’s always worthwhile to revisit past assertions and denials when presented with new evidence. Consider this...
During an interview on April 26, 2019, former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, Ben Rhodes, told a journalist the Obama White House didn’t even know there was an FBI investigation into President-elect Trump or Michael Flynn.
If the White House didn’t know about an FBI investigation into Michael Flynn (per Ben Rhodes), then how does President Obama tell the FBI to conduct their investigation "by the book" according to Ben Rhodes boss, National Security Advisor Susan Rice. See the problem?
[BIZPACREVIEW] Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers was dealt a blow as the state’s Supreme Court struck down his coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic lockdown order and allowed businesses to reopen.
The unprecedented ruling handed down Wednesday found that the there was an overreach of authority when the Democratic governor’s stay-at-home order was extended without consulting with the state Legislature. President Donald Trump ...the Nailer of NAFTA... ’s son appropriately declared in a tweet that the court had "nuked" Evers’ lockdown extension order.
In the wake of the 4-3 decision, the first ruling in the country where several states are facing similar pushback from residents angry at local governments overstepping their authority, prompted a wave of celebration as people immediately headed to bars and restaurants that were now allowed to open.
"I don’t think the risk presents any higher than me going to a grocery store or me being out in the community in any other sort of way," Kathy Goedde, owner of Limanski’s Pub in West Allis told WTMJ-TV.
"I was watching the news, and I saw the order was overturned, so I was pretty happy about that, and then I just waited for the Tavern League to send out information and as soon as we got that, I mean, it was awesome," customer Katie Koutski, a mother and full-time nurse, said.
[NY Post] New York City’s health commissioner blew off an urgent NYPD request for 500,000 surgical masks as the coronavirus crisis mounted — telling a high-ranking police official that "I don’t give two rats’ asses about your cops," The Post has learned.
Dr. Oxiris Barbot made the heartless remark during a brief phone conversation in late March with NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
Monahan asked Barbot for 500,000 masks but she said she could only provide 50,000, the sources said.
"I don’t give two rats’ asses about your cops," Barbot said, according to sources.
"I need them for others."
Police versus frontline hospital staff at the time when New York City didn’t have nearly enough for the hospital staff because China had cancelled their order? Dr. Barbot was blunt, to be sure, but it was the right call. She should have told Chief Monahan to call for volunteers to sew reusable masks — no doubt they would have been inundated with the things, and fewer police would have got sick and died. A lesson all around.
The conversation took place as increasing numbers of cops were calling out sick with symptoms of COVID-19 but before the department suffered its first casualties from the deadly respiratory disease, sources said.
Although surgical masks don't necessarily prevent wearers from being infected with the coronavirus, they can prevent people from spreading it to others.
The NYPD has recorded 5,490 cases of coronavirus among its 55,000 cops and civilian workers, with 41 deaths, according to figures released Wednesday evening.
An infection rate of 10%, of which 0.75% of those who tested positive died, if I did the calculations right. Donut stereotypes to the contrary, it looks like NY City police can be proud of being a healthy bunch. One shudders to think how much worse it might have been, were they not.
In the wake of Barbot’s crass rebuff of Monahan, NYPD officials learned that the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had a large stash of masks, ventilators and other equipment stored in a New Jersey warehouse, sources said.
The department appealed to City Hall, which arranged for the NYPD to get 250,000 surgical masks, sources said.
Squeaky wheels...
The federal Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency also learned about the situation, leading FEMA to supply the NYPD with Tyvek suits and disinfectant, sources said.
[NYPOST] Mayor Comrade Bill de Blasio ...cryptocommie mayor of New York and for some reason a Dem candidate for president in 2020. Corrupt and incompetent, his qualifications for office seem to consist of being married to a black woman, with whom he honeymooned in Cuba. He has a preppy-looking son named Dante, whose Divine Comedy involved getting his back hair up when a police car drove past him slowly. New Yorkers voted for him, so they deserve him... said Thursday that he’s "concerned" about the revelations that the city’s health commissioner ignored an NYPD request for 500,000 surgical masks amid the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... crisis, telling a police official that she didn’t give "two rats’ asses about your cops" — and added it would be "inappropriate" to say.
"I need to understand what happened here. I am concerned about it," de Blasio said during his daily press briefing when he was asked about the callous comments made by Dr. Oxiris Barbot.
"It obviously raises real concerns for me," the mayor said.
The Post exclusively reported Wednesday that Barbot made the remark during a brief, mid-March phone conversation with NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan.
During that conversation, Monahan asked Barbot for 500,000 surgical masks as the COVID-19 crisis was mounting, but she said she could only provide 50,000, the sources said.
"I don’t give two rats’ asses about your cops," Barbot said, according to sources, during a heated exchange. "I need them for others."
Barbot was noticeably absent from de Blasio’s daily press briefing Thursday.
"If what is being reported is accurate, the commissioner [Barbot] needs to apologize to the men and women of the NYPD, unquestionably," de Blasio said.
Hizzoner added, "No public servant should never in any way say anything disrespectful about the men and women of the NYPD. They protect us and we need to protect them.”
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
[NY Post] New York City’s health commissioner blew off an urgent NYPD request for 500,000 surgical masks as the coronavirus crisis mounted — telling a high-ranking police official that "I don’t give two rats’ asses about your cops," The Post has learned.
...cryptocommie mayor of New York and for some reason a Dem candidate for president in 2020. Corrupt and incompetent, his qualifications for office seem to consist of being married to a black woman, with whom he honeymooned in Cuba. He has a preppy-looking son named Dante, whose Divine Comedy involved getting his back hair up when a police car drove past him slowly. New Yorkers voted for him, so they deserve him...
