Funny story: I caught a Republican Senate majority leader suspiciously dumping all his stock in the country's biggest hospital chain 15 years ago (which his family ran), but he was let go with no accountability other than not getting to run for president https://t.co/IBAOycYsNN
— Jonathan Myerson Katz (@KatzOnEarth) March 20, 2020
It's almost as if letting people get away with crimes in office teaches them and their co-partisans that crimes are ok, and they should do more of them, even if a bunch of people end up dying as a result! Ah well I'm sure we've learned our lesson now.
— Jonathan Myerson Katz (@KatzOnEarth) March 20, 2020
no one could have predicted that the party of Nazis, compromised Russian assets, pedophile wrestling coaches, mall creepers, sex-trafficking plutocrats, blackout-drunk rapist judges, and bone saw murder apologists would also be the party of insider-trading pandemic profiteers
— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) March 20, 2020
“Burr was one of just three senators who in 2012 opposed the bill that explicitly barred lawmakers and their staff from using nonpublic information for trades and required regular disclosure of those trades” https://t.co/URZ1A48BDe
— Ankit Panda (@nktpnd) March 19, 2020
If ABC report holds up, it means an impeached president who has been accused of tax fraud in NYT investigation calls for resignation of GOP Senator accused of insider trading who didn’t run intelligence committee in more partisan manner that the president desired https://t.co/CLhkXXAo75
— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) March 20, 2020
Richard Burr is so crooked that, as used to be said of Nixon, he has to screw his pants on in the morning… but he’s loyal to the Permanent Republican Party, not to Donald Trump, which is why Trump wants his head on a pike right now. Pay close attention to the other Repubs implicated in this scandal, particularly the wife of the chairman of the NY Stock Exchange:
Buried lede! https://t.co/PpGF8AuTxL pic.twitter.com/oRH405gxqR
— Pavel Velkovsky (@Pvelkovsky) March 20, 2020
Just to be clear, you think it's NOT an opportunity for political posturing, but you thought it WAS an opportunity for economic profit? https://t.co/fYKdXA5lAE
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) March 20, 2020
Loeffler and her NYSE Chair husband are big Trump donors. So, yeah, sure. (I agree she must go. But will she? Only if we all force the issue.)
— Resolve.Action.Love (@Snowman55403) March 20, 2020
Richard Burr selling all his stock right before a crash while Larry Kudlow and Eric Trump are telling the American people they should buy the dip is the perfect vignette from a career scam artist’s administration.
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) March 19, 2020
Patricia Kayden
hells littlest angel
In this time of health crisis, we just don’t have the time to prosecute Senators for their crimes. We must focus on the important matters, such as making sure the Pentagon has enough money to buy all the F-35s it wants.
eric
@hells littlest angel: making sure the House of Saud does…
lamh36
NotMax
“I said ‘Buy’ but it was a bad connection.”
dlwchico
https://youtu.be/3B1IQYD4Uew
artem1s
BS. Resigning means no investigation into who else was trying to profiteer off the inside news that the US was about to get hit by a pandemic. Remember the WHO test that wasn’t good enough for the US? Who profited off the development of the CDC approved test? Who quietly started to short airline stocks? Who made a discrete call to the Sauds that maybe this might be a good time to knock off their only big competitor in the crude oil market – quid pro quo for who knows what journalist they might want knocked off later. So much opportunity going to waste. We wouldn’t want the Untermenschen to find out, would we?
trollhattan
Headline for the times.
Can I get off the bus please? I keep pulling the cable but it never stops.
Uncle Omar
At least the “investor class” has noticed who is acting as though he is in charge of the Trumpvirus* response and is reacting rationally that information.
*Courtesy of Paul Campos at LGM
WereBear
It’s going to take a set of encyclopedias to cover all the crimes of this administration.
karen marie
Inhofe and Feinstein have also been caught. Feinstein claims that her stocks are in a blind trust (although the “She has no involvement in her husband’s financial decisions” that immediately followed the “blind trust” assertion, you have to wonder). Given the stock sold was in a biotech company, I assume the sale was not a result of learning nonpublic information.
Patricia Kayden
joel hanes
@karen marie:
Feinstein’s stocks _are_ in a blind trust, and have been for many years.
Feinstein sucks, and has long sucked, but this is a canard.
Pied.
Martin
@Patricia Kayden: That’s presented as cause/effect, but fucking better not be. I expected Italy to roll up at least into the 1000 deaths/day range, maybe a bit more, but hopefully start to drop after that. 600 can’t be a shocking number. I’m willing to bet that the US goes over 2000 per day.
If Italy is rolling out the army to enforce quarantine, that should mean they don’t like where the numbers potentially look 3 weeks from now. And if that’s the case they may go WAY above 1000/day.
Mary G
I started following the Governator just for Whiskey and Lulu.
satby
Good ad
Calouste
@hells littlest angel: I don’t mind if we skip the prosecution step and just go straight on to punishing every Senator who didn’t vote to impeach the shitgibbon. Saves time, and the outcome is the same.
Martin
@Patricia Kayden: Yeah, you can pay $10 for peanut butter and $10 for jelly, or $0 for peanut butter and $20 for jelly, your choice.
Elizabelle
@Mary G: Eventually, we will have WhiskeyCake and LuluCake.
They are darlings. And Ahnold is doing a world of good with his messaging.
White & Gold Purgatorian
Why the hell are we not using the WHO test kits? Who is getting rich off this testing CF? This tweet from the mayor of Tuscaloosa, AL says at least half of the tests conducted in the last 4 days won’t provide any result. They’ve finally ramped up testing in this godforsaken state and the process is so difficult or complicated half the samples are worthless?? Wouldn’t blame the health care workers doing that testing if they throw up their hands and quit. Waste of their effort. Not to mention test supplies like swabs, which are apparently in short supply.
piratedan
on an additional happy note, I’m not I’m buying that China has this contained yet. Sure that’s the numbers that they’re giving everyone, but its not as if the folks in charge aren’t in charge of the message and the message may only have a passing resemblance of the truth… just saying. Easy to hide that they’re not in as great as shape as hoped while the west is now focused on their own dumpster fires…
closer to home…
They’re starting to see a “surge” down here in the Tacoma hospitals… hoping still for a “high tide” and not a “tsunami”, as the hospitals have set up floors for COVID-19 patients, closed off visiting family and shut down elective surgeries. Testing is still somewhat problematic as human error and stress make mistakes more common place, still seeing multiple day turnarounds for results. On a positive note, our facility now has the go ahead to bring the test in house, so that will help, but as always, issues with enough testing kits and media for which to run the tests make it more problematic. I am finally being rotated off of on-call for a bit… so I will try and check in with observations as time allows
piratedan
@White & Gold Purgatorian: the problem with spoiled samples is problematic of not having the right kind of supplies to maintain sample integrity. Say for example, you have a swab, but no swab container, so you package it as best you can, but it has to be refrigerated, but if your courier doesn’t have the right transport container, so they put their plastic bag on ice and hot foot it over to the local testing location, where they open the bag and find out that the ice has leaked into the sample, making it worthless….
sigh…
Anonymous At Work
Biden needs to adopt and promote Warren’s anti-corruption plans ASAP. Her plans deal with this crap dead-on and in ways that leave no loopholes. That’s her super-power.
Rand Careaga
They’re trying to bothsider this with Feinstein, but just consider the logic: I don’t wish to come off as a fan of Feinstein, but consider that the stock in question has actually increased in value since the sale. Try, further, to imagine the following logic: “Pandemic on the way? I’d better unload my travel and hospitality holdings” (Burr). Makes sense, right? Now swap in “biotech” for “travel and hospitality” (Feinstein). Not so much, I’d say.
Mary G
@Elizabelle: Yes. He has a post on reddit today with a program for working out at home without equipment:
I don’t use reddit, but he has a bunch of awards from users, which might cost money? He says
I looked up their website, and apparently Kobe Bryant used to be involved as well.
Martin
@piratedan: I disagree. Pretty sure China has it contained – but not eradicated. Once you start to see your new cases start to drop, you need to figure out that path to normalcy, and how to protect from the next outbreak. And those are not easy problems to solve.
China is going to keep Wuhan locked down tight until every test comes back negative. And they’re going to have to be extremely vigilant with how to let people travel. I think it’s safe to say that China does not fuck around with this.
I’m not sure how they keep it from flaring up again, but they can deploy some measures we can’t. The have the unique ability to do field, unmanned temperature checks using thermal cameras, flag the ID of the person that is hot, and then lock them out of damn near everything. It’s very 1984, but it’s also very effective.
I have no idea how the US does that with this bunch of idiots running the show. They’re going to be under so much pressure from industry to open up that they’ll be unable to resist.
Feathers
Clicked through on one of the tweets from the haters screaming about how the bill banning insider trading was “watered down.” Turns out that the original bill called for detailed financial data on the tens of thousands of federal employees and their children put online in a publicly searchable database. Someone quickly realized what a clusterfuck of identity theft that was going to be and updated the bill. Now there is a summary of the major players online. To find out about Congressional staffers and political appointees, you have to go to an office on Capitol Hill, show ID and do the search there. Seems like a reasonable enough trade off to me.
It’s amazing what you find when you actually click on the link. NPR – How Congress Quietly Overhauled Its Insider Trading Law
Chris T.
Reading the replies to that tweet, one person said that they’d actually done that test, which did not use a nasopharyngeal swab at all: just cough and spit.
Not sure I trust all the replies but if so that could explain why the samples are ~50% worthless.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@piratedan: Thanks for the explanation. So frustrating, especially for the health care folks there and the patients, who were apparently told they would be contacted in case of a positive result, but not otherwise.
piratedan
@Martin: I disagree, I think there’s an ulterior motive/ reason for kicking all of the western journalists out of the country… but its not as if there aren’t enough local chickens coming home to roost.
MomSense
Fashion houses are now asking their staff to make fabric masks for health workers . They are only 60% effective, but 60>0. Now the sewists are joining in. This is simultaneously an inspiring example of people pulling together and and why the GOP should be hanged. All of them.
piratedan
@White & Gold Purgatorian: just one possible scenario, any process is subject to failure, just add people :-)
germy
Repub Venality?
zhena gogolia
I am in total despair.
Every time I talk to somebody who’s in an okay mood and they try to cheer me up, I think, “You don’t read BJ so you don’t know the truth.” And I’m afraid I’m right.
glory b
@Rand Careaga: Also, the insider information they are alleged to have been trading on was from a confidential briefing that the Dems were shut out from.
Kent
@germy: KY now has a Dem governor who can veto that bullshit. I clicked through the link and KY already has a voter ID law but it can be waived if the pollworker knows the voter. This new law would eliminate that exception.
Hopefully the GOP doesn’t have a veto-proof majority to override the veto that I would expect is coming.
Elizabelle
@germy: They have a Democratic governor. I hope he is able to do something about that.
Saw a map of projected COVID cases in Kentucky. It was ugly.
patrick II
Tom Cotton is on the Intelligence Committee – – I hope there is no chance he can move up.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: And if you knitters want to make the rope to hang the Republicans, I am all for that. Strong as possible.
germy
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I think we have to take our good cheer when and where we can, even while knowing there’s a tough road ahead.
It is an eerie place to be mentally, though. Alternating thoughts about spring coming, and looking at all the green coming out of the dirt, soon to be tulips and daffodils, then thinking about what’s ahead, then thinking of the peppers I’ll plant in the garden, then the garden center writes to say they are closing, so then I call my best friend who grows his stuff from seed and I ask him to save me some plants, then I wonder whether we will even care about our gardens in the midst of what is ahead.
It’s a very odd set of feelings, but I think we still have to focus on the good stuff some of the time, at least until/unless that’s not possible later on.
Martin
@piratedan: I think there are enough 3rd parties to refute that. Apple reopened their stores and they wouldn’t do that without their own data source. A number of other domestic companies have resumed operation across China that have been rather proactive with their US responses.
I know China works very, very, very hard to control information coming out of China, but they basically fail at keeping social media from getting out. None of the people I know in China right now are indicating that there’s any problems there. Yes, they are slow to reopen, but they are reopening.
Mary G
Very funny!
HumboldtBlue
Seku Kanneh-Mason gets his 400-year-old Amati serviced. Look at his smile at the end.
mrmoshpotato
@WereBear:
Kremlinshitbagsopedia?
lamh36
ICYMI: Designer Christian Siriano And His Team Are Making Face Masks For New York Coronavirus Relief https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/coronavirus-christian-siriano-face-masks-andrew-cuomo via @tanyachen
piratedan
@Martin: In this instance, I would really prefer to be wrong and i do hope that you are right, I’ll remain skeptical about it tho until I see and read more from the places I frequent. What I am seeing about re-infection rates and the mechanisms for virus shedding are problematic until more people have a greater consensus of understanding about how the virus behaves, its longevity, what is effective against it and its mutability.
eric
@Martin: how do the italian numbers fit on your trendlines?
patrick II
Gov Cuomo did an extended interview with Hannity (on radio) today. I was surprised to hear him, but glad someone reach out reasonably to Hannity’s audience. There were limits though to what Hannity will let his audience hear though. When Cuomo said the feds should help by assisting New York with Federal troops, Hannity said “they are.” Cuomo let it go.
lamh36
I guess karma never takes a day off.
FYI, I don’t wish anything on anyone, I mean as long as this thing is in pandemic mode, I mean working at hospital/lab with so many folks in panic mode, as you can imagine, is frustrating.
But still…this is has to be just a wee bit of be careful what you call a hoax…
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
????
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: We’re going to make it through this.
Far too many people are going to be hurt because of the incompetence in too many important places, but we’ll get through this.
Stay strong, help where you can. Take care of yourself. You’re needed.
Cheers,
Scott.
lamh36
Maybe stop with the fuq’n “softball” questions and do some real damn journalism. And all these reporters now outraged over poor ole Pete Alexander….where was all this heat for Yarmiche from PBS Newshour earlier this week.
But then again, this is also the WHPC that barely said smack when Don Imus said Gwen Ifill was “the help”…
Martin
@zhena gogolia: I’m feeling pretty good about things, if that helps. Yeah, we’re going to have a few weeks of bad numbers, but these are bad numbers based on people who already have this, right this minute. That’s almost certainly not you, or me, or the people commenting here right now. And if we hunker down and binge watch and eat our canned soup stockpile, it’ll stay that way, and the people that are sick now will have to go through this process – and most will be okay, and some won’t, but the group of people that go through behind them will be smaller, and the ones behind them smaller still.
We’ll have a period of reckoning for the healthcare workers who will suffer from this worse than anyone else.
But the reason I’m optimistic is that action is taking place, and on the scale needed. It maybe somewhat too much or even too little, but it’s going to make a big difference. It sucks, but stay home, take your temperature every day, and wait it out. Everything we see in terms of sicknesses was determined 1-3 weeks ago. Everything we see in terms of sickness 1-3 weeks from now is happening today, and today looks a lot better than 1-3 week ago.
joel hanes
@lamh36:
I don’t wish anything on anyone
I have a great many thoughts and wishes that I have been keeping to myself for the duration, in service, I hope, of the common good.
mrmoshpotato
@Rand Careaga: Exactly! “Feinstein sold stock and lost money, so BOTH SIDES!” Fuck that noise!
joel hanes
@Martin:
But the reason I’m optimistic is that action is taking place
I can’t count the number of official statements I saw one or two weeks ago that said “following official CDC guidance”.
There was a too-long period during which people and companies and polities waited around for the federal government to snap out of the evil enchantment and provide some leadership.
It’s now become apparent to all but the dullest that federal leadership is never coming, so now many of those potential agents of help are making the best decisions they can, and people are starting to self-organize to support each other. And that’s going to make a big difference.
“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.” — Jerry Garcia
dexwood
@joel hanes: I understand you both. At the same time, though not one who prays, I’m nearly ready to pray for The Miracle of the Holy Choking Big Mac in this time of trial and tribulation,
lamh36
James E Powell
@HumboldtBlue:
Reminds me of one of my favorite films from the 1990s.
joel hanes
@dexwood:
I’m not going to condemn you nor lamh for your feelings, or for your statements.
I’m simply going to try to restrain myself, perhaps as a way to learn greater self-discipline.
But I’m saving links to evidence, and honing sharp-edged paragraphs to be employed next year, after we’ve overturned another part of this kakistocracy and have started setting things back to rights.
Ruckus
Went to work today to pick up my check – last one for a while it looks like. Got a call while there from the VA, my appointment for Monday has been canceled, as well as all the others for the same clinic. Which is OK by me.
One other thing, one of the guys was sick for a week about a month ago. We didn’t talk about it, I was staying as far away from everyone as I could, but we talked today for a couple of minutes. He told me what happened and what he felt like and it sounds very much like covid-19, from the descriptions I’ve seen on twitter from others that were confirmed cases. He said it’s the sickest he’s ever felt. He’s about 35. So I’m staying as far away from everyone as I can. And we’ll just have to see…..
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia: Slap them from six feet away (then go wash your hands) and tell them both states with the 2nd and 3rd largest cities in the country have Shelter in Place orders in effect. (We can still go shopping for food, etc, but no strolling outside for fun.)
joel hanes
@Martin:
today looks a lot better than 1-3 week ago
It really does. If you’d told me that the governors of California, New York, and Illinois were going to have the courage and foresight to shut everything down, I’d have … doubted.
I’m pretty worried, though, about our Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate, who, with their staffs, persisted in uncontrolled contact for far too long. And I worry about Biden, and about whoever he chooses for VP — they need to somehow campaign while maintaining very very effective isolation.
dexwood
@joel hanes: These days, we’re all learning greater self-discipline, I hope. Could make all the difference. Be safe, joel, and everyone else.
Nicole
@lamh36:
So it’s Mother, then.
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle: @MomSense: Go talk to Bluegal.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia:
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@lamh36:
Of course it does.
moscow mitch is the reason I was going on about term limits. Look at the senator, burr is it, that sold 1.5 million worth of stock. He was a small time nobody when he was first elected, so how did he come up with that kind of money? These assholes are supposed to work for us, instead they are working us.
daverave
@trollhattan:
Don’t you think it’s more likely in the thousands than the hundreds?????
mrmoshpotato
@lamh36: Turtle soup sounds delicious about now.
Fair Economist
Hubby’s company was declared essential by Cali so he’ll continue to work. Plan is 2 days per week at the office with reduced staff, 3 days work at home. I’m less worried than I might be because I just calculated cases per million population and Cali is – 20th. That’s right, the Nocal outbreak and less poor testing notwithstanding, 19 states have proportionately more cases than Cali. This is going to go nationwide in a hurry. Wash your hands, stay home, keep your nose clean (literally).
Martin
@joel hanes: Oh, I more than doubted. I was in the ‘hell no that won’t happen’ category. Pleased to be wrong on that.
Martin
@Fair Economist: If you had to pick a place for an outbreak where employees needed work from home on a moment’s notice, you couldn’t do better than silicon valley.
Jay
@piratedan:
it’s called tit for tat. Dolt45 “kicked out” Chinese Journalists,
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/media/2020/mar/18/us-media-accuse-china-of-cold-war-mentality-after-move-to-expel-journalists
China then “kicked out” US Journalists.
”Y’all don’t start ‘nuthin, won’t be ‘nuthin.”
The US has no experience since the fall of the Soviet Union of playing their games of “hardball” with a country that thinks they are the US’s equal.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: We’re allowed to walk our dogs and hike.
catclub
@joel hanes: even without a blind trust Loeffler is also a nothingburger.
If your fortune is $500M and all your trading is done by advisors, selling 0.5% of your stocks because the market will soon crash is…
not really very effective insider trading.
phdesmond
@satby: it is a good ad. thanks. i didn’t notice who produced it.
sdhays
@piratedan: For what it’s worth (anecdata), a friend in Shanghai who is Chinese herself (so not an expat) says that she believes it’s broadly true that China has it contained for now because her physician friends who tend to be very skeptical of the government are reporting that it tracks with their experience on the ground.
NotMax
Hmm. Put the rooms into big Baggies.
re: hotels. AFAIK there aren’t many ICUs which have carpeted rooms, for good reason.
Geminid
Last year Burr announced his retirement after his term ends in 2022, so North Carolina voters can’t punish him. They can take it out on Thom Tillis this fall if Cal Cunningham can craft a good “throw the corrupt crowd out” message. Kelly Loeffler, though, can kiss her re-election as US Senator from Georgia goodby.
joel hanes
@catclub:
even without a blind trust Loeffler is also a nothingburger
I understand your argument, but the fact remains that it’s a clear violation of the 2012 STOCK Act, exactly what that Act was passed to prevent.
And protecting $6 million is not going to look like a nothingburger to all those who have seen a third of their five or six figure retirement nest egg disappear in two weeks flat.
joel hanes
@Geminid:
North Carolina voters can’t punish [Burr]
But if Biden wins in November, the AG and SEC that we’ll have in March 2021 certainly can. And the Senate can investigate. This is the kind of thing for which Kamala Harris was made.
Jay
@joel hanes:
if you go to “Truth and Reconciliation” and High Crimes and Treason Tribunals.
if you go for “Look Forward, not Back”, well,……….
Another Scott
@NotMax: That sounds like nonsense to me. Has he been in a hotel recently?? :-/
This approach might work, but would be expensive and it’s hard to see how it would scale:
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Mary G: Gotta admit, that’s pretty damn cute.
Geminid
@catclub: Yeah, Loefler gained little with her insider trades. And the money Martha Stewart made on her insider trading was just peanuts for her. But some people get a psychic reward from gaming the system disproportionate to the material reward. Psychology aside, though, Georgia voters will be pretty mad in November, and they will take it out on her. And her Republican rival, Doug Collins, is an idiot. Democrat Raphael Warnock’s prospects in the November jungle primary keep looking better.
Calouste
@Ruckus: Burr has been in Congress and the Senate about as long as Bernie “three houses” Sanders. $1.5 million is not out of range for what you end up with if you’ve been making 6 figures for 25 years and live within your means.
NotMax
@Another Scott
Also on hotels, I don’t know what the power draw of monitoring equipment in so many rooms is but could see it taxing or overwhelming extant wiring, too.
SiubhanDuinne
@HumboldtBlue: That was wonderful! Sheku is the gifted young man who performed at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding.
Suzanne
@NotMax: Yeah, hotels represent a challenge w/r/t power and plumbing. They also have no medgases. But every conversion project is different, and some are more feasible than others.
dww44
@Ruckus: Compliance in a branch office of a national financial services firm, i.e. a stockbrokerage business, is what I did for the last 15 of my working years and while it may be difficult to find Burr guilty of insider trading there is no question that he acted in his own personal interests and violated his oath of office and the public trust. He needs to resign and then be tried in a court and held accountable for his actions. He has earned all the infamy. And, he should forfeit the profits he made from those trades.
In the Loeffler matter, her argument that her investments are handled by 3rd parties over whom she and her husband have no control in no way absolves her in this matter. Someone said something to those 3rd party advisors after that Intelligence briefing and logically, it’s she. She bought her Senate seat (by contributions to Governor Kemp) and she would have no compunction not to save her personal assets ahead of the market crash.
The sheer sense of personal entitlement on the part of wealthy politicians is something to behold and we need to figure out how to protect our democracy from them. Severely constraining the influx of money into elections would help.
dww44
@Geminid: I hope you’re right about Loeffler, but am afeared that is not necessarily the case. I no longer believe that Republican voters are governed by what’s right versus what’s wrong, it only matters that they are Republicans and therefore eminently preferable to any Democrat. The fact that she’s quite wealthy, thanks to her marriage to a very wealthy sugar daddy is no hindrance.
Geminid
@dww44: Jungle primary. All of Georgia’s electorate will vote on her and Collins and Warnock. If other Democrats drop out or run nominal campaigns, Warnock may even get a majority, meaning no runoff.