Corrupt Republicans Use Insider Knowledge, Dump Stocks Before Market Crash

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Editor’s note: Although the big offenders were Republican — likely acting on insider information — it was revealed after the below stories broke that Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein did the same. Restoring Liberty has long maintained that corruption is endemic to both parties.

Third GOP Senator Caught Selling Equity Before the Market Crash — This Time up to $25 Million Worth

By Raw Story. On Monday, March 2nd, the Dow Jones Industrial Average set its biggest-ever point gain.

But Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was massively selling.

Johnson, who has a net worth estimated at over $36 million, made a major transaction.

The exact amount is unknown, as ethics forms only require disclosure in broad ranges, but Johnson reported selling over $5 million that day — and potentially up to $25 million. . .

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported dumping stock before market crash. (Read more from “Third GOP Senator Caught Selling Equity Before the Market Crash — This Time up to $25 Million Worth” HERE)

_______________________________________________

AOC Calls on Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr to Resign for Stock Sell-Off Ahead of Pandemic

By NBC News. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is calling on Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., to resign after reports Thursday that the powerful Intelligence Committee chairman had privately warned well-connected donors of the dire impacts of the coronavirus pandemic last month while selling off up to $1.6 million of his own stocks.

Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter that as chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Burr “got private briefings about Coronavirus weeks ago. Burr knew how bad it would be. He told the truth to his wealthy donors, while assuring the public that we were fine. THEN he sold off $1.6 million in stock before the fall. He needs to resign.”

Ocasio-Cortez was referring to two separate reports about Burr’s activities in February.

ProPublica reported that Burr — who co-wrote an op-ed for Fox News in early February saying “the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus” — sold off the stock around mid-February, about a week before the market started to drop because of coronavirus concerns.

That included selling off up to $150,000 worth of shares of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, which has lost two-thirds of its value, ProPublica reported. He also sold off up to $100,000 of shares of another hotel chain, Extended Stay America. (Read more from “AOC Calls on Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr to Resign for Stock Sell-Off Ahead of Pandemic” HERE)

_______________________________________________

Tucker Carlson Calls on Sen. Richard Burr to Resign Over Stock Dumping Reports

By Newsweek. Intelligence Committee Chairman Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina sold over $1 million in stocks, including stocks in two lodging and hospitality chains, in February before the coronavirus pandemic sent the markets into a tailspin according to Thursday reports.

Whether Burr’s decision to sell the stocks was influenced by information about the coronavirus has yet to be confirmed, but Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Thursday that Burr, co-author of a February op-ed piece which claimed that the U.S. was “better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus,” should resign from office and be placed on trial for insider trading.

“[Burr] had inside information about what could happen to our country, which is now happening,” Carlson said. “But he didn’t warn the public. He didn’t give a primetime address. Didn’t go on television to sound the alarm. He didn’t even disavow an op-ed he had written just ten days before claiming that America was, quote, ‘better prepared than ever for coronavirus.'”

“Instead, what did he do? He dumped his shares in hotel stocks so he wouldn’t lose money,” Carlson continued. “And then he stayed silent. Now, maybe there’s an honest explanation for what he did. If there is, he should share it with the rest of us immediately. Otherwise, he must resign from the Senate and face prosecution for insider trading.” (Read more from “Tucker Carlson Calls on Sen. Richard Burr to Resign Over Stock Dumping Reports” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

China Lied and People Died: Chinese Scientists Destroyed Coronavirus Evidence in December; GOP Senator Says China ‘to Blame’ for Spread Because of Culture; Woman Who Flew From U.S. to China Faces Criminal Charges After Lying About Symptoms; Trump Doubles Down on ‘China Virus’

/0 Comments/in , , /by

By Townhall. The Chinese are to blame for this Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Their containment methods were laughable, their officials refused to inform the public, and people died. They allowed Wuhan to celebrate Chinese New Year, exposing potentially tens of thousands to the disease. Some five million left the city before they enacted a quarantine. And now we’re hearing that they knew about human transmissions. The Wall Street Journal’s piece on how this whole international fiasco began all but places the blame where it should rightfully be directed: China . . .

And now, there are reports that Chinese scientists destroyed evidence about the virus back in December (via The Times UK):

Chinese laboratories identified a mystery virus as a highly infectious new pathogen by late December last year, but they were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples and suppress the news, a Chinese media outlet has revealed.

A regional health official in Wuhan, centre of the outbreak, demanded the destruction of the lab samples that established the cause of unexplained viral pneumonia on January 1. China did not acknowledge there was human-to-human transmission until more than three weeks later.

The detailed revelations by Caixin Global, a respected independent publication, provide the clearest evidence yet of the scale of the cover-up in the crucial early weeks when the opportunity was lost to control the outbreak. Censors have been rapidly deleting the report from the Chinese internet.

(Read more from “China Lied and People Died: Chinese Scientists Destroyed Coronavirus Evidence in December” HERE)

______________________________________________________

GOP Senator Says China ‘to Blame’ for Coronavirus Spread Because of ‘Culture Where People Eat Bats and Snakes and Dogs’

By USA Today. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, drew a backlash on social media and from Asian American advocates on Wednesday for claiming China was “to blame” for the spread of the coronavirus because of a “culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that.”

‘These viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people and that’s why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, the Swine flu, and now the coronavirus, so I think they have a fundamental problem, the Texas Republican said to reporters, saying he did not object to a geographic name for the virus.

Asked about Asian Americans’ concerns about racism, Cornyn said, “I disagree. We’re not talking about Asians. We’re talking about China, where these viruses emanate from and created this pandemic.” . . .

The CDC says the coronavirus has its origins in bats and might have jumped to humans through a “wet market,” or a live animal market in Wuhan, China.

Swine flu was first detected in the United States in 2009, and MERS was first identified in Jordan in 2012, according to the CDC. The CDC says the first cases of SARS were reported in China’s Guangdong province in 2002. (Read more from “GOP Senator Says China ‘to Blame’ for Coronavirus Spread Because of ‘Culture Where People Eat Bats and Snakes and Dogs'” HERE)

______________________________________________________

Woman Who Flew From U.S. to China for Coronavirus Test Faces Criminal Charges

By Los Angeles Times. A woman who flew last week from Massachusetts to Los Angeles — then to Beijing, where she tested positive for coronavirus — is under investigation on allegations of concealing her symptoms and putting fellow travelers at risk of infection.

The woman took fever-reducing medication before boarding a plane and lied to flight attendants, according to Beijing’s disease control center and an Air China representative, who held a news conference on Monday.

The woman, who was hospitalized and is receiving treatment, is under investigation for the crime of “impeding prevention of infectious diseases.” According to Chinese law, she could face up to three years of imprisonment or detention with possible forced labor, or up to seven years of prison if there are “serious consequences.”

As the pandemic worsens around the world but slows in China, authorities in Beijing are tightening controls. All passengers arriving in Beijing from abroad, including Chinese nationals, are required to quarantine in government centers for 14 days. (Read more from “Woman Who Flew From U.S. to China for Coronavirus Test Faces Criminal Charges” HERE)

______________________________________________________

Trump Doubles Down on ‘China Virus,’ Demands to Know Who in White House Used Phrase ‘Kung Flu’

By Fox News. President Trump on Wednesday continued to call COVID-19, the “China virus,” and said he doesn’t think labeling the novel coronavirus is racist or puts Asian-Americans at risk.

“No, not at all,” Trump said during the noon press conference. “I think they probably would agree with it, 100 percent. It comes from China.”

Trump has been under pressure from China as well as some Democrats to stop using the term “China virus” or “Wuhan virus.” They believe the term stigmatizes China and borders on being racist. But instead if stopping, Trump has upped his use. . .

In the bizarre exchange, Trump asked Alcindor to repeat the phrase “Kung-Flu” and asked her directly which White House official had used the term. She said she did not get a name.

Earlier in the day, White House advisor Kellyanne Conway took a more combative tone with reporters and though she said using the phrase “Kung-Flu” was wrong, she refused to engage in a “hypothetical” and demanded to know who in the White House had the exchange with Jiang. (Read more from “Trump Doubles Down on ‘China Virus,’ Demands to Know Who in White House Used Phrase ‘Kung Flu'” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Think It’s Bad Now? Wait 4 Weeks; Virus Lives on Cardboard; US Hospitals Totally Unprepared for Demand Seen in Italy; Iran Warns Virus May Kill ‘Millions’ There

/0 Comments/in , , /by

COVID-19 ‘Worry About 4 Weeks From Now,’ Researchers Warn

By Neuroscience News. As the U.S. takes early “social distancing” steps, a Harvard epidemiologist is urging the nation to walk away faster, saying there’s danger in ambling down a path similar to Italy, where three coronavirus cases four weeks ago blossomed into 10,000, leading to more than 600 deaths, an overstressed health care system, and a land shuttered.

Epidemiology Professor Marc Lipsitch, head of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, called the pace of coronavirus testing in the U.S. “utterly inadequate” and “a debacle” that robs public health officials of information crucial to devising an effective response and protecting health care workers. Testing has been so slow that no one knows the extent of the U.S. epidemic, though scientists guess at somewhere between “tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands” of cases.

With COVID-19 cases thought to double every five to seven days, their spread can occur rapidly, and it is critical that steps taken so far — canceling business meetings, working from home when possible, moving college classes online, postponing conferences — become more widespread, before circumstances become critical.

“The situation we should be worrying about is the situation four weeks from now, not the situation now,” Lipsitch said. “That’s hard for people to get their heads around, but it’s really important.”

While questions exist about the virus’ transmissibility outdoors versus indoors, the crowds at gatherings such as St. Patrick’s Day parades, the Boston Marathon, and the Indy 500 auto race call into question whether even those signature events should be held. Officials already have canceled Boston’s St. Patrick’s parade. (Read more from “US Hospitals Totally Unprepared:‘Worry About 4 Weeks From Now,’ Researchers Warn” HERE)
____________________________________________

People May Get Virus From Touching Cardboard

By David Aaro. The study in the New England Journal of Medicine . . . found the virus is stable for several hours to days in aerosols and on surfaces.

“The scientists found that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detectable in aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel,” according to the NIH.

The study mimicked the virus being transmitted from an infected person onto everyday surfaces in a household or hospital setting by coughing or touching objects, the agency said. Scientists then investigated how long the virus remained infectious on these surfaces

“The results provide key information about the stability of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 disease, and suggests that people may acquire the virus through the air and after touching contaminated objects, according to the NIH. (Read more about Hospitals Totally Unprepared HERE)
____________________________________________

[H]ealth officials say that the American healthcare system may not be prepared for what comes next if residents don’t heed warnings to limit their interactions.

“The bottom line is things will get much worse,” Dr. James Phillips, an assistant professor at George Washington University Hospital, told CNN Tuesday night. “We need to focus on keeping people on the front lines in the fight so we can continue to provide care to the patients. In the long run, this is about patients and keeping people from getting sick and dying [but we’re] at a significant risk of overwhelming the number of beds we have.”

. . .With the measures, leaders hope to slow the spread of the virus and prevent the country’s healthcare system from becoming overwhelmed. As it is, there aren’t enough hospital beds, medical staff or equipment to handle the spike in cases that could come, healthcare professionals say. . .

“We have a choice to make — do we want to really lean into social distancing and mitigation strategies and flatten the curve or do we just want to keep going on with business as usual and end up being Italy?” [Trump’s Surgeon General Dr. Jerome] Adams said. (Read more about Hospitals Totally Unprepared for What May be Coming HERE)

____________________________________________

Iran: Millions Could Die

By AP News. Iran issued its most dire warning yet Tuesday about the new coronavirus ravaging the country, suggesting “millions” could die in the Islamic Republic if people keep traveling and ignore health guidance.

A state TV journalist who also is a medical doctor gave the warning only hours after hard-line Shiite faithful on Monday night pushed their way into the courtyards of two major shrines that were finally closed due to the virus. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a religious ruling prohibiting “unnecessary” travel.

Roughly 9 out of 10 of the over 18,000 confirmed cases of the virus in the Middle East come from Iran, where authorities denied for days the risk the outbreak posed. Officials have implemented new checks for people trying to leave major cities ahead of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on Friday, but have hesitated to quarantine the areas. (Read more from “Iranian Hospitals Totally Unprepared: Islamic Republic Warns Virus Could Kill ‘Millions’ in Islamic Republic” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

It Took Coronavirus and the Ohio Governor to Finally Push Back Against a Judge

/0 Comments/in , , /by

The Constitution is not a suicide pact, much less a single judge’s convoluted reading of it. This is something every elected official needs to understand, but it took a public health crisis and a moderate Republican governor in Ohio to finally demonstrate this point.

Yesterday, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, R, made a commonsense call to delay the state’s primary election scheduled for today. Obviously, if we are at the point where all gatherings of more than 50 people are banned, and schools and restaurants as well as many workplaces are closed, it makes no sense to have statewide elections.

However, shortly before 7 p.m., Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Richard A. Frye ruled that the election should continue as scheduled pursuant to state law. Much to the shock of political observers, roughly two hours later, Gov. DeWine announced that election would be pushed off anyway.

“During this time when we face an unprecedented public health crisis, to conduct an election tomorrow would force poll workers and voters to place themselves at a unacceptable health risk of contracting coronavirus,” read a statement from the governor posted at 10:12 pm. “As such, Health Director Dr. Amy Acton will order the polls closed as a health emergency.”

Many commentators and politicians in Ohio were aghast at the governor’s move and called it a “constitutional crisis.”

The outrage on social media was rooted in the premise that judges alone get to decide with finality political questions affecting the whole of the people – either of the country or the state. The reality is that we have three branches of government at the state and federal levels, and there will be times when they disagree and can use their respective powers to push back against each other. The three branches are not a food chain with the judiciary on top; they are a circle of co-equal powers.

The legislature was fully empowered to meet in an emergency session and push back against the governor if the members chose to do so. They declined to push back. Ultimately, a few hours later, the state’s supreme court sided with the governor anyway.

There is a broader lesson here of utmost importance. We are all seeing throughout the country the display of extraordinary powers of even local officials, and certainly the president, during a time of a public health crisis. Ultimately, the courts are one avenue for individuals to redress grievances concerning their individual liberties, but courts do not govern for the whole of the people and most certainly do not have the final say on broad public policy. We must hold all branches of state and federal government accountable, and they must hold each other accountable.

It’s self-evident in Ohio that given the state of affairs in the country now, holding elections would make the state’s election law into a suicide pact. It’s time we learn to apply this on the national level, for immigration policy where absolutely no constitutional rights are implicated.

We allowed the illegal ruling of a single California judge in July 2018 to spawn a massive influx of at least 1 million (known) illegal aliens with cascading effects of drugs, crime, public charge, and yes, a public health crisis at our border. Yet our government refused to turn them back to Mexico until a full year into the crisis. But when it comes to restricting the freedoms of Americans, notice how we are not letting a judge or anyone else stop what elected officials deem necessary for the public interest.

As I’ve noted before, Justice Robert Jackson, who was a champion of individual rights and due process (he authored the dissent in the Japanese internment case), understood that “accepting the doctrine that civil liberty means the removal of all restraints to maintain order” would harm freedom “in the long run.” He famously warned in a case dealing with someone who was inciting riots that “there is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.”

Obviously, there are limits to striking the right balance between liberty, order, and public safety. We really need to watch vigilantly to ensure that prudent “social distancing” doesn’t turn into downright home confinement, as we are witnessing in countries like Spain. But certainly, delaying a primary election was the right call given the circumstances, despite the law on the books governing the election date.

And how much more is it the right call when a single judge actually violates the law and Supreme Court precedent to attempt to strip the president of his power to keep aliens out of the country in the national interest!

If nothing else, as all layers of government are severely restricting movement and real rights of Americans, we should appreciate the power of the president to keep out foreign nationals when there is absolutely no right to enter our country. This is especially salient given the fact that this crisis, which is now engendering draconian restrictions on citizen rights, was born out of an unwillingness to shut off travel and visas when we could easily have flattened the curve early on. (For more from the author of “It Took Coronavirus and the Ohio Governor to Finally Push Back Against a Judge” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

At Debate, Biden Promises He’ll Have a Female Vice President; Earlier, Biden Campaign Apologizes After He Wanders off Camera in Middle of Livestream Town Hall

/0 Comments/in , , /by

By Joey Garrison. Joe Biden committed to picking a woman as his running mate during Sunday’s televised Democratic presidential debate while Sen. Bernie Sanders said “in all likelihood” he would also choose a female vice presidential candidate if he’s the nominee.

“My administration will look like the country and I commit that I will in fact pick a woman to be vice president,” the former vice president said. “There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow. I will pick a woman as my vice president”. . .

Adding diversity to the Democratic ticket is widely seen as a priority for a party that now has two white men, both in their late 70s, as its top two candidates.

The only women vice presidential candidates to be on a ticket are Rep. Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in 2008. Ferraro ran with Walter Mondale for the Democrats and Palin ran with John McCain for the Republicans. No woman has ever been elected vice president or president. (Read more about the Biden campaign commitment to a female running mate HERE)
____________________________________________

By Pluralist. Joe Biden’s Democratic presidential campaign apologized after he wandered off camera on Friday during a glitch-plagued livestream event.

The campaign emailed viewers after the Facebook livestream was derailed by multiple production failures and apparent on-screen gaffes by Biden, according to Breitbart News.

“Tonight, you tuned in to our first ever virtual town hall. And unfortunately, we had some technical difficulties. That’s our bad,” the campaign said in the email. . .

The Verge described the Zoom-hosted livestream as a “technical nightmare,” and CNN called it a “technical calamity.” In its headline about the event, Fox News described it like a terminally ill patient.

Jordan Uhl, a liberal activist and political consultant, mocked the “bizarre, meandering livestream.” He noted that Biden at one point turned away from the camera and walked off screen while answering a question about endangered species.

(Read more from “Biden Campaign Apologizes After He Wanders off Camera in Middle of Livestream Town Hall” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Have They Found a Cure for the Coronavirus? Australian Researchers Claim Two Existing Drugs Could ‘Cure’ COVID-19; First Person Injected With Trial Coronavirus Vaccine in Seattle

/6,450 Comments/in , , /by

By Daily Mail. Drugs used to treat HIV and malaria could be used to tackle the coronavirus, according to scientists in Australia.

A team of infectious disease experts at the University of Queensland in Brisbane say they have seen two existing medications manage to wipe out COVID-19 infections.

Chloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, and HIV-suppressing combination lopinavir/ritonavir have both reportedly shown promising results in human tests and made the virus ‘disappear’ in infected patients.

The drugs are being tested as researchers and doctors around the world scramble to try and find a vaccine, cure or treatment for the deadly virus. . .

Professor Paterson said it wouldn’t be wrong to consider the drugs a possible ‘treatment or cure’ for the deadly respiratory infection. (Read more from “Have They Found a Cure for the Coronavirus? Australian Researchers Claim Two Existing Drugs Could ‘Cure’ COVID-19” HERE)

____________________________________________________________

First Person Injected With Trial Coronavirus Vaccine in Seattle

By Forbes. A new phase 1 clinical trial of a potential vaccine for the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus began on Monday in Seattle, as the first person to enroll in the trial received the vaccine.

The vaccine, mRNA-1273, was developed by biotechnology company Moderna in combination with researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The trial is being conducted at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle.

The phase 1 study aims to test three different doses of the mRNA-1273 vaccine ad hopes to recruit 45 healthy adults for the initial trial. Participants will receive two shots of the vaccine, 28 days apart and will be monitored to evaluate both the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine. The latter involves seeing how well the vaccine stimulates an immune response to a protein on the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus surface.

The first person to get the vaccine was 43-year old Jennifer Haller from Seattle who said; “I hope that we get to a working vaccine quickly and that we can save lives and people can go back to life as soon as possible,” in an interview with TIME.

“This study is the first step in the clinical development of an mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, and we expect it to provide important information about safety and immunogenicity,” said Tal Zaks, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer at Moderna in a press release. He added that Moderna is already working with the FDA and other organizations to prepare for a phase 2 trial, which would involve larger numbers of patients. (Read more from “First Person Injected With Trial Coronavirus Vaccine in Seattle” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Robert Mueller’s Biggest ‘Bombshell’ Indictment Just Got Dismissed With Prejudice

/0 Comments/in , , /by

. . .The Mueller investigation produced several indictments, most of which centered on supposedly lying to the FBI. Figures like Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos took center stage, having not been proven to have done anything wrong in regards to Russia, but being relentlessly targeted because there had to be some scalps taken.

But there was one case that was said to have proven the Mueller investigation to not be a waste of time. It involved the indictment of a Russian company called “Concord.” Mueller claimed that said company was a front to conduct a full-scale information war against the United States during the 2016 election. This was supposed to prove the nefarious “election interference” we’d all heard so much about. When Mueller dropped the indictment, the media gasped and claimed vindication. Breathless editorials were written at record pace.

Well, it looks like the only real shot Mueller took just missed its target.

(Read more from “Robert Mueller’s Biggest ‘Bombshell’ Indictment Just Got Dismissed With Prejudice” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Rep. Tlaib Retweets: ‘F**K a National Day of Prayer’

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) at the weekend retweeted a post on Twitter which said in part “F**k a National day of prayer,” in relation to President Trump’s call for Americans of all faiths to pray for all those affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

Late Saturday, anti-gun activist David Hogg posted a tweet, saying, “Don’t let this administration address COVID-19 like our national gun violence epidemic. F**k a National day of prayer, we need immediate comprehensive action.”

Tlaib, a Palestinian-American and one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to the U.S. Congress, retweeted it, without comment.

Hogg’s tweet linked to a video clip from Saturday’s briefing of the White House coronavirus taskforce. (Read more from “Rep. Tlaib Retweets: ‘F**K a National Day of Prayer’” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

As Ordinary Citizen Life Grinds to Halt, Government Still Flying in Refugees From Around the World

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Just how much of a religion is open-borders immigration? Evidently refugee resettlement from around the world, at least as of last week, was continuing.

The great American shutdown has grown so severe that in my community, all funerals have been canceled. Graveside funerals are the only way to burry our dead. New Jersey has already instituted a curfew with business closures at 8:00 p.m. One would think that shutting off international travel and immigration – the very first line of defense that directly addresses the source of importing diseases – would have long been shut down before we begin infringing upon domestic liberties. Not so. If this country shuts down completely, mass migration will continue, at least on some level.

It’s now self-evident that had we shut off international travel earlier and had we suspended all immigration, visas, and travel from China and Iran in December, this problem would be much more manageable. Yet, in Orwellian fashion, it looks like elements of immigration might be the last activity standing in this county. Ann Corcoran of the Refugee Resettlement Blog observes today that, at least as of last week, the State Department was bringing in refugees at the same clip as before and the Office of Refugee Resettlement was still settling them in our communities.

According to Corcoran, 1,768 refugees arrived in the U.S. between February 15 and yesterday. She noted that 488 have arrived even over the last seven days; 109 were brought in on Thursday. Those numbers might not sound like a lot, but remember Trump had already curtailed the numbers in general. One has to wonder if we’d continue the normal pace had Trump not reduced the numbers for other reasons. The existing pace has not slowed down at all.

A search of the State Department database shows the following countries as the largest sources of refugees over the past 30 days: Congo (728) followed by Ukraine (278), Burma(136), Iraq, (130) and Pakistan (50).

Shockingly, Washington state is the second most common destination of resettlement over the past month. That is the hardest-hit state by coronavirus, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the national fatalities from the virus.

Even if the government is more carefully screening refugees for health concerns, why would we strain our services and create a logistical problem to bring in more immigrants at a time when we are shutting down many aspects of ordinary life for Americans?

“Consider that right now we are bringing in the largest numbers of refugees being processed through Ukraine and through Malaysia, which has seen a recent spike in coronavirus cases,” said Corcoran in an interview with CR. “Those refugees, including the large numbers coming in through Africa, are traveling through airports on three continents. American volunteers working for resettlement agencies are then contractually required to meet the arriving refugees in airports across the country and take them to their new apartment, thus exposing even more Americans to possible contact with the COVID-19 virus. Seems insane to me as the government is telling us to put our lives on hold and stay home.”

As Corcoran pointed out in her blog post, Malaysia is one of the largest processing countries for the refugees we admit from Burma and other countries. Just this Sunday, there were nearly 200 more coronavirus cases reported after 16,000 people congregated in a mosque near Kuala Lumpur.

It’s also shocking how one of the biggest sources of refugee resettlement over the past year is Congo, a country that only this week finally shut down the deadly Ebola outbreak.

Meanwhile, as of last week, we were still processing asylum claims at our border, including for Chinese nationals, rather than turning them around. One has to wonder if, absent the Supreme Court stay on the Ninth Circuit’s order to bring in caravans, the DHS would blithely have brought them in.

Orwell could not have written a script like this.

It appears that the religion of open borders is contagious throughout the world. Evidently, according to the Jerusalem Post, Germany didn’t suspend flights even from hard-hit Iran until today, after the public voiced outrage! Ezra Levant, the head of Rebel News in Canada, has been tracking flights in real time still arriving in Vancouver from China itself! Finally, in this eleventh hour, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has shut off travel – several months too late.

It is self-evident that with any “coronavirus response” from Congress, we need legislation requiring the president to immediately shut off all travel and visas from other countries as soon as our government is aware of a contagious and deadly outbreak. We should also suspend all elective immigration, such as refugee and asylum, from any country until the epidemic has subsided.

In early January, I called for a suspension of all travel from countries with coronavirus cases. I often saw responses on Twitter suggesting that such action would be too disruptive. Well, now we are going to learn the hard way what real disruption looks like. Meanwhile, refugee and asylum immigration might never be disrupted. (For more from the author of “As Ordinary Citizen Life Grinds to Halt, Government Still Flying in Refugees From Around the World” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Hillary Makes ‘Desperate’ Appeal to Avoid Testifying About Emails — Says She’s Too Important

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Hillary Clinton asked an appeals court on Friday to overturn a judge’s order that she appear for a sworn deposition about her handling of classified emails and the 2012 Benghazi attack as secretary of state.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth on March 2 ruled Clinton must answer questions under oath from Judicial Watch as part of a 2014 Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch.

Clinton, a former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, and some of her aides have previously answered questions in writing. But this would be the first time she provides sworn in-person testimony.

The Clinton legal team responded to Lamberth’s ruling by filing an 83-page petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. They asked the court to undo the order, which they suggested was out of line.

According to Clinton’s team, a reversal of the lower court’s ruling “is warranted because Judicial Watch’s impending depositions of Secretary Clinton and Ms. Mills are inappropriate, unnecessary, and a clear abuse of discretion.” (Read more from “Hillary Makes ‘Desperate’ Appeal to Avoid Testifying About Emails — Says She’s Too Important” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE