Category Archives: Media corruption

First Covid-19 Vaccine code-named mRNA-1273 Shot Given

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At a news conference, President Donald Trump praised how quickly the research had progressed. Fauci noted that 65 days have passed since Chinese scientists shared the virus’ genetic sequence. He said he believed that was a record for developing a vaccine to test.

Seattle: This vaccine candidate, code-named mRNA-1273, was developed by the NIH and Massachusetts-based biotechnology company Moderna Inc. There’s no chance participants could get infected because the shots do not contain the coronavirus itself.

It’s not the only potential vaccine in the pipeline. Dozens of research groups around the world are racing to create a vaccine against COVID-19. Another candidate, made by Inovio Pharmaceuticals, is expected to begin its own safety study next month in the U.S., China and South Korea.

The Seattle experiment got underway days after the World Health Organization declared the new virus outbreak a pandemic because of its rapid global spread, which has infected more than 169,000 people and killed more than 6,500. AP reporter(s) witnessed the first human trial on Monday.

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Other medical procedures are underway in hundreds of forms to combat the Covid-19 outbreak.

A very old drug developed by a scientist in 1934 for Bayer discovered chloroquine for malaria. It was widely used during World War ll and has been extensively used for SARS with excellent results. Its history goes back to Peru (South America), where the indigenous people extracted the bark of the Cinchona trees and used the extract (Chinchona officinalis) to fight chills and fever in the seventeenth century. In 1633 this herbal medicine was introduced in Europe, where it was given the same use and also began to be used against malaria.

We report on chloroquine, a 4-amino-quinoline, as an effective inhibitor of the replication of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in vitro. Chloroquine is a clinically approved drug effective against malaria.

It was reported a few weeks ago that officials in China were not cooperating with other nations at the outset of Covid-19. That is only partially true. The U.S. has collaborated with scientists and medical experts in China since SARS and continues to do so with very positive results.

Data from the drug’s studies showed ‘certain curative effect’ with ‘fairly good efficacy’.

According to Sun, patients treated with chloroquine demonstrated a better drop in fever, improvement of lung CT images, and required a shorter time to recover compared to parallel groups.

The percentage of patients with negative viral nucleic acid tests was also higher with the anti-malarial drug.

Chloroquine has so far showed no obvious serious adverse reactions in the more than 100 participants in the trials.

The China National Center for Biotechnology Development head Zhang Xinmin said that chloroquine is one of the three drugs that have a promising profile against the new coronavirus, reported China Daily.

The remaining two drugs are anti-flu medicine favipiravir and Gilead’s investigational anti-viral candidate remdesivir.

Favipiravir is currently in a 70-patient trial in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, while remdesivir is under evaluation at more than ten medical institutions in Wuhan.

In trials conducted in China, chloroquine appears to be useful for coronavirus disease 2019. Another form is Hydroxychloroquine.

Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate (Watson Laboratories, Inc ...

Hydroxychloroquine is also presecribed for HIV, arthritis as well as advanced malaria and strains of coronavirus. It is a disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD).It regulates the activity of the immune system, which may be overactive in some conditions.

A small 40 cents, that is $.40 a dose to make and is generally sold for $5.00 per dose.

 

Biden’s Americore Under FBI Investigation

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Biden, Inc., or James Biden in deep legal trouble.

Joe Biden’s Brother Accused of Defrauding Rural Healthcare ...

FBI got a search warrant and raided the office….

The Federal Bureau of Investigation raided a health care business linked to Joe Biden’s brother in late January, seizing boxes of documents.

The raid of an Americore Health hospital represented a deepening of the legal morass surrounding James Biden’s recent venture into health care investing at a time when questions about the business dealings of Joe Biden’s relatives, and their alleged connection to the former vice president’s public service, continue to dog his presidential campaign.

In the weeks since the raid, two small medical firms that did business with James Biden have claimed in civil court proceedings to have obtained evidence that he may have fraudulently transferred funds from Americore “outside of the ordinary course of business,” and a former Americore executive has told POLITICO that James Biden had more than half a million dollars transferred to him from the firm as a personal loan that has not yet been repaid.

The purpose of the Jan. 30 raid of an Ellwood City, Pa., hospitalremains unclear, and there is no indication it was related to the actions of Biden’s younger brother, who has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. Its owner, Americore, has faced legal problems and allegations of mismanagement that are unrelated to James Biden.

But recent filings in ongoing legal proceedings, along with new accounts provided to POLITICO by former executives of Americore and others, point to potential pitfalls for the former vice president, painting the fullest picture to date of James Biden’s health care dealings and the ways in which they allegedly related to his older brother. In 2017 and 2018, James Biden was embarking on a foray into health care investing, telling potential partners, including at Americore, that his last name could open doors and that Joe Biden was excited about the public policy implications of their business models, according to court filings and interviews with James’ former business contacts.

Tom Pritchard, a former Americore executive familiar with the business’ finances, told POLITICO that James Biden’s arrival exacerbated Americore’s financial problems. Holding out the promise of a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections, James Biden introduced Americore’s founder to his older brother and helped land a bridge loan to Americore from a hedge fund, Pritchard said. But then, Pritchard said, James Biden received a six-figure personal loan out of Americore’s coffers while encouraging the firm to take on greater financial liabilities. The cash infusion from the Middle East never arrived, and, Pritchard says, James Biden has not paid back the loan, the terms of which are unknown.

“It was all smoke and mirrors,” Pritchard said.

Meanwhile, Americore found itself increasingly hamstrung by high-interest loans and unable to pay employees and vendors, a situation that disrupted the operations of the rural hospitals it owns.

Now, the business is in bankruptcy court, and federal authorities are circling.

David Randolph Smith, an attorney for James Biden, declined to comment.

A Biden campaign official said that Joe Biden never discussed Americore with his brother or expressed support for the business. The official said that Americore’s founder, Grant White, purchased a ticket to a September 2017 fundraiser for the Beau Biden Foundation, an event attended by Joe Biden. “If the two interacted in any way, it would have been a handshake and nothing more,” the official said.

The messy politics surrounding the business dealings of Biden’s relatives, and President Donald Trump’s efforts to exploit them, have loomed over the presidential contest for several months, damaging both camps. Trump’s failed attempts to pressure Ukraine’s government to announce an investigation of Biden and his son, Hunter, led to Trump’s impeachment. Though Trump was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate, polls showed that a plurality of Americans consistently supported the impeachment, which highlighted evidence that Trump abused his power for partisan political ends. At the same time, a recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found that 57 percent of voters believe Hunter Biden’s well-compensated position on the board of a Ukrainian energy firm amounted to a scandal, compared to 19 percent who do not.

Over the course of Biden’s run, reports have trickled out about James, a sometimes business partner of Hunter’s, who has received financial support from people with an interest in influencing Joe and been repeatedly accused of trading on Joe’s clout to advance his business ventures.

Biden has defended his son Hunter and said that his relatives’ business dealings have had no connection to his official duties. But the recent developments related to James Biden’s health care ventures demonstrate that as long as Biden remains in the campaign, the issue of his relatives’ financial dealings is likely to remain as well.

Even before the development surrounding Americore, James Biden’s venture into health care investing has been surrounded by legal allegations and claims that he invoked his brother’s clout.

Last year, two medical services firms jointly sued James Biden and his business partners in federal court in Tennessee, alleging James and his partners promised to provide a large investment from the Middle East, then pushed the firms to make expensive acquisitions, as part of a scheme to drive them out of business and steal their business models. As previously reported, those firms alleged that James Biden cited his family’s political connections and promised his older brother would promote their health care model as part of his 2020 presidential campaign.

Another health care firm sued Platinum Global Partners — a Florida corporation that lists James and his wife Sara as managers — in Palm Beach County in June. The firm, which makes an oral rinse with applications for cancer patients, alleged that Platinum reneged on an agreement to invest in it and requested that Platinum turn over documents related to the Biden Cancer Initiative, a nonprofit founded by Joe Biden to fund medical research. An executive involved in litigation against James Biden previously told POLITICO that, on a call, James said he could get the Biden Cancer Initiative to promote the oral rinse.

The Tennessee case is ongoing. The Palm Beach County case was dismissed without prejudice in November.

James Biden and his partners have denied the central allegations in both cases.

But, in interviews, former executives of Americore offered additional, similar accounts of James Biden invoking his brother’s influence and the promise of investment funds from the Middle East that never materialized in order to push their firm to grow quickly, taking on new financial liabilities.

Unlike those other firms, Americore is now in the sights of the Justice Department.

The precise nature of James Biden’s relationship to the firm — founded by White, a Canadian investment banker, in 2017— is contested.

The plaintiffs in the Tennessee case described him as a principal of Americore and entered a business card identifying him as such into evidence. James Biden has disputed that he is a principal of the firm in court proceedings, though he has not detailed the precise nature of his ties to Americore,which owns hospitals in Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Missouri.

Pritchard and the other former Americore executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, each said James Biden was actively involved in the company during their tenures there. “Jim was operating as a principal or Jim was portraying that,” Pritchard said. “Whether on paper he had any ownership, I’m not 100 percent sure.”

Pritchard said James Biden first became involved with Americore in 2017, offering to use his political contacts to help the firm land business and investments. “He could get us in front of the unions. He could get us in front of certain people in government. He could get us in front of the right people,” recalled Pritchard, who said he was skeptical of plans to involve James Biden in the firm.

A former employee at Pineville Community Hospital in southeastern Kentucky, which was acquired by Americore in 2017, said she got the impression that James Biden was in a top leadership role at Americore when he visited the facility and introduced himself in early 2018.

The other former Americore executive — who left the firm after less than a year over concerns about its business practices that were unrelated to James Biden — recalled that James spoke regularly of the ways in which Joe Biden’s presidential aspirations could benefit the firm, and vice versa. “His brother was very interested in rural health care and very interested in veterans’ health care, and it was something he really wanted to get behind,” the former executive recalled James Biden saying. “This would help his brother get elected if it were to take off and go.”

Both former executives recalled James Biden said he would help facilitate a multimillion-dollar investment from the Middle East.

Pritchard said the exact source of the funds was never made clear to him. “That linkage was supposed to come via Jim Biden via whatever influence he had through his brother in the Middle East,” said the other former executive, who worked for Americore in 2018.

The plaintiffs in the Tennessee case allege James Biden and his partners aimed to solicit investments from the state-owned Qatar Investment Authority and met in West Palm Beach with representatives of the Turkish conglomerate Dogan Holding. James Biden and his co-defendants denied the allegation about the Qatar Investment Authority and acknowledged meeting with Dogan.

The former executives also said that James Biden began to set up an office on the second floor of Americore’s headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “It was like a little shrine to him and his brother and [former President Barack] Obama,” recalled Pritchard, who said he clashed with James Biden over James’ requests to be reimbursed for pricey furniture for the office.

The other former executive said that when he saw the office, several framed photos of the Biden brothers and foreign dignitaries sat on the floor, ready to be hung on the walls.

The former executives also described James Biden’s role in soliciting financing for Americore.

Pritchard said James Biden arranged a bridge loan to Americore via his business partner Michael Lewitt’s hedge fund, the Third Friday Total Return Fund.

But Pritchard said he learned that after Americore received the bridge loan, it made a six-figure loan to James Biden for his personal use.

Lewitt declined to comment, but referred to a letter he sent the Ellwood City Ledger blaming White’s alleged use of high-interest loans for Americore’s problems and vowing to restore the firm’s finances and operations.

Several Americore entities are currently in the midst of federal bankruptcy proceedings, providing a glimpse into their finances.In February, one of those entities, Americore Health LLC, filed a schedule of assets that included $650,000 due to accounts receivable. Pritchard said that figure referred to the loan repayment owed by James Biden.

Pritchard said that after James Biden received his loan payment from Americore, James reduced his involvement with the firm as its financial difficulties mounted.

“Jim needed to lay low because his brother was possibly running for president, and he didn’t need any bad press,” Pritchard recalled, saying that after James stepped back, Lewitt asked to review Americore corporate documents to ensure they did not bear James’ name.

The other former executive said that not long after he first saw the office being set up for James Biden in mid-2018, the office was emptied out.

Meanwhile, Americore’s problems have increasingly spilled into public view.

 

FBI Arrests Hacker Linked to Katie Hill Campaign

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Federal agents have arrested Arthur Dam in connection with a hacking spree that disrupted the 2018 Democratic California primary that ultimately nominated Katie Hill, according to a new criminal complaint. Criminal complaint found here.

Image result for congresswoman katie hill

‘Throuple’ congresswoman Katie Hill says she made the right choice to resign

Dam, in the criminal complaint, is linked directly to the Hill campaign. Hill won the general election in California’s 25th district, and then later resigned from Congress amid controversy.
“Dam was found to be connected to the cyber attacks through subscriber information, IP addresses, geolocation history, and open sources, including through his employer and his wife, K.O., who worked for one of the Victim’s opponents,” the complaint reads.

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Dam’s wife is Kelsey O’Hara, Hill’s fundraiser during the campaign and her district director after she won office. O’Hara was also the subject of a sexual joke made by Hill and caught on tape by Vice News in 2018. In Hill’s FEC records, she lists a $500 in-kind contribution from Dam on March 25, 2018, for “Graphic design and website security consultation.”
During the campaign, the websites of Hill’s opponents, Democrats Bryan Caforio and Jess Phoenix, were both attacked, though Hill’s never was, raising suspicions at the time that Hill’s campaign was behind them. One major attack on Caforio’s campaign website came at a crucial moment, just an hour before the biggest debate of the primary, the complaint notes. Hill eventually won the California primary by fewer than 3,000 votes.

The FBI traced the hacking to an Amazon Web Services account tied to the email address [email protected], though the credit card used to pay for the service was listed under Dam. The Hotmail account had been created in 2002 using the subscriber name “Arthur Slam.” Dam also used the Hotmail account as the recovery email for his own Gmail account.
The FBI launched a probe that zeroed in on the Hill campaign in 2019, according to FBI correspondence reviewed by The Intercept. Hill did not immediately respond for comment.

Hill’s campaign was the subject of unusual national attention during her campaign, including a Vice News documentary and a Rolling Stone article. On March 3, the 25th Congressional district will hold a special election to replace Hill, who resigned in October 2019.

Dem Senators Meet in Secret with Zarif/Iran Last Week

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Did you hear about Senator(s) Whitehouse and Murphy and their secret meeting and delegation?

*** “Murphy is a frequent speaker at the National Iranian American Council, a lobbying group with alleged links to the Islamic Republic of Iran.” He also criticized the killing of Soleimani, the world’s most notorious terrorist, who also killed more than 600 US soldiers in Iraq.

ImageImage source

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and other Democratic senators had a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference last week, according to a source briefed by the French delegation to the conference. Murphy’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment by press time.

Such a meeting would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump’s administration. In February 2017, Murphy demanded investigations of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn because he had a phone call with his counterpart-to-be in Russia.

“Any effort to undermine our nation’s foreign policy – even during a transition period – may be illegal and must be taken seriously,” Murphy said in 2017 after anonymous leaks of Flynn’s phone call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kisylak were published. He also strongly criticized the open letter some Republican senators sent Iranian leaders during the Obama administration’s campaign for a nuclear agreement.

However, Murphy has previously defended rogue meetings if they’re done by Democrats such as former Secretary of State John Kerry.

“Unless it was authorized by the president or secretary of state, conducting independent foreign policy sends mixed signals to our adversaries,” said Christian Whiton, former State Department senior advisor in the Trump and George W. Bush administrations. “It seems very unpalatable. If we want to talk to Iranians, they know how to reach us and they don’t need to go through an intermediary.”

A State Department official who spoke on background said that the State Department was not aware of any side meetings with Iranian officials that Murphy was engaged in.

The Munich Security Conference, an annual forum on international security policy, welcomes hundreds of world leaders each February. This year’s conference featured robust debate on the United States’ maximum pressure policy against Iran, China’s handling of the coronavirus and technology concerns, and the European alliance with the United States. Other Democrat senators at the conference included Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Former Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts also attended.

Both Murphy and Zarif spoke publicly during a two-hour session on Middle East policy, with Murphy and Zarif both fiercely criticizing U.S. policy.

President Donald Trump has reoriented American policy in the Middle East away from President Barack Obama’s friendly posture toward Iran. He departed from Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a nuclear arrangement with the Republic of Iran that was not ratified by the United States Senate.

Trump has exerted instead a “maximum pressure” campaign against the regime, with 12 demands on Iran before a new deal is reached. Those demands include a full account of its nuclear program, ending its proliferation of ballistic missiles, releasing all U.S. citizens held on spurious charges, ending support to terrorist groups, withdrawal of forces in Syria, and cessation of its threatening behavior against its neighbors.

The “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions has devastated the Iranian economy, which is in recession and faces rising inflation. It has made it difficult for Iran to pay foreign fighters engaged in supported terror operations. Iranians have taken to the streets in protest.

Iran recently killed an American contractor in Iraq and the United States killed Iranian general Qassim Suleimani, a top Iranian leader who was responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of U.S. soldiers. Iran’s retaliatory strike for that killing resulted in no U.S. deaths, but the country did shoot down a Ukrainian passenger plane then lied about it for days.

At the conference, Zarif said official retaliation for the killing of Suleimani had ended, although he suggested independent attacks from others in the country might follow.

Murphy is a frequent speaker at the National Iranian American Council, a lobbying group with alleged links to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Republican Sens. Mike Braun of Indiana, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, and Ted Cruz of Texas recently asked the Department of Justice for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

They wrote that the influential lobbying group “purports to improve understanding between American and Iranian people but in reality seems to spread propaganda and lobby on behalf of the Iranian government.” Evidence indicates that evidence Zarif himself was involved in founding the group. Hat tip/Federalist

Meet the Group Behind Letter Demanding AG Barr Resign

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Sanctimony at its peak…

AG Barr to testify - Iola Register AG Barr
Let us go back several years shall we? Anyone remember Sandy Berger? He was the cat that went to the National Archives and stole classified documents. At the time he was a national security advisor to President Clinton. He was found guilty and the recommended sentence was no jail time, a $10,000 fine and he would lose his security clearance for three years. His actual sentence was $50,000 fine, 100 hours of community service and two years probation and no loss of his bar license.

We also have so many others like James Comey, James Clapper, illegal criminal immigrants, Bradley Manning, Bowe Bergdahl among so many others including those given clemency like Marc Rich.

*** The letter signed by so many former Department of Justice officials demanding AG Barr resign reads as follows: (the list of signatures are found at the end of the link)

We for sure now have confirmed activist media –> Eight legal analysts for CNN and MSNBC are among the signatories of the letter. This letter/action is coming from the left that does not want people sentenced for misdemeanors nor a whole host of felonies. Which is it people?

DOJ Alumni Statement

We, the undersigned, are alumni of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) who have collectively served both Republican and Democratic administrations. Each of us strongly condemns President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s interference in the fair administration of justice.

As former DOJ officials, we each proudly took an oath to support and defend our Constitution and faithfully execute the duties of our offices. The very first of these duties is to apply the law equally to all Americans. This obligation flows directly from the Constitution, and it is embedded in countless rules and laws governing the conduct of DOJ lawyers. The Justice Manual — the DOJ’s rulebook for its lawyers — states that “the rule of law depends on the evenhanded administration of justice”; that the Department’s legal decisions “must be impartial and insulated from political influence”; and that the Department’s prosecutorial powers, in particular, must be “exercised free from partisan consideration.”

All DOJ lawyers are well-versed in these rules, regulations, and constitutional commands. They stand for the proposition that political interference in the conduct of a criminal prosecution is anathema to the Department’s core mission and to its sacred obligation to ensure equal justice under the law.

And yet, President Trump and Attorney General Barr have openly and repeatedly flouted this fundamental principle, most recently in connection with the sentencing of President Trump’s close associate, Roger Stone, who was convicted of serious crimes. The Department has a long-standing practice in which political appointees set broad policies that line prosecutors apply to individual cases. That practice exists to animate the constitutional principles regarding the even-handed application of the law. Although there are times when political leadership appropriately weighs in on individual prosecutions, it is unheard of for the Department’s top leaders to overrule line prosecutors, who are following established policies, in order to give preferential treatment to a close associate of the President, as Attorney General Barr did in the Stone case. It is even more outrageous for the Attorney General to intervene as he did here — after the President publicly condemned the sentencing recommendation that line prosecutors had already filed in court.

Such behavior is a grave threat to the fair administration of justice. In this nation, we are all equal before the law. A person should not be given special treatment in a criminal prosecution because they are a close political ally of the President. Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies.

We welcome Attorney General Barr’s belated acknowledgment that the DOJ’s law enforcement decisions must be independent of politics; that it is wrong for the President to interfere in specific enforcement matters, either to punish his opponents or to help his friends; and that the President’s public comments on DOJ matters have gravely damaged the Department’s credibility. But Mr. Barr’s actions in doing the President’s personal bidding unfortunately speak louder than his words. Those actions, and the damage they have done to the Department of Justice’s reputation for integrity and the rule of law, require Mr. Barr to resign. But because we have little expectation he will do so, it falls to the Department’s career officials to take appropriate action to uphold their oaths of office and defend nonpartisan, apolitical justice.

For these reasons, we support and commend the four career prosecutors who upheld their oaths and stood up for the Department’s independence by withdrawing from the Stone case and/or resigning from the Department. Our simple message to them is that we — and millions of other Americans — stand with them. And we call on every DOJ employee to follow their heroic example and be prepared to report future abuses to the Inspector General, the Office of Professional Responsibility, and Congress; to refuse to carry out directives that are inconsistent with their oaths of office; to withdraw from cases that involve such directives or other misconduct; and, if necessary, to resign and report publicly — in a manner consistent with professional ethics — to the American people the reasons for their resignation. We likewise call on the other branches of government to protect from retaliation those employees who uphold their oaths in the face of unlawful directives. The rule of law and the survival of our Republic demand nothing less.

If you are a former DOJ employee and would like to add your name below, click here. Protect Democracy will update this list daily with new signatories.