Tag: corruption

Babies put at risk, even killed, in ‘reputable’ studies over the years

Public health officials and other medical professionals have helped untold millions over the years. But the hard truth is that some have hurt many.

This was a difficult lesson I learned many times when I was assigned to investigate FDA, CDC, NIH and pharmaceutical industry scandals at CBS News.

One of the most heartbreaking early stories I investigated in 2000 was the death of a baby who was given an experimental heartburn drug called Propulsid as part of a study. His death had been ruled a mysterious SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) death.

Little Gage Stevens’ parents didn’t know that the drug he took, Propulsid, had been linked to dozens of deaths, including at least one other baby, before Gage even got his first dose. Shortly after Gage died, Propulsid was pulled from the market — linked to more than 300 deaths.

Read the death certificate on Gage.

My investigation revealed that the study consent form falsely stated Propulsid, made by Johnson and Johnson, was “approved by the FDA” for children. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration had repeatedly rejected it for pediatric use.

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Bankman-Fried Asks Judge To Hide Identities Of Bail Guarantors

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has asked a judge to conceal the identities of two people who will help secure his bail in addition to his parents’ house in Palo Alto, California, Bloomberg reports.

“If the two remaining sureties are publicly identified, they will likely be subjected to probing media scrutiny, and potentially targeted for harassment, despite having no substantive connection to the case,” wrote SBF’s lawyers in a letter filed on Tuesday seeking redactions of the names of the two individuals who intend to sign as sureties to his bail.

“Consequently, the privacy and safety of the sureties are “countervailing factors” that significantly outweigh the presumption of public access to the very limited information at issue,” the letter continues.

Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bail package – granted in his first appearance on US soil since his arrest in the Bahamas, was secured by his parents’ Palo Alto home, which is worth nowhere near that amount. The judge in the case also required that two people of “considerable means,” at least one of whom cannot be a relative, also sign the bond.

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US Virgin Islands AG is FIRED just days after she sued JPMorgan Chase – accusing the bank of ‘pulling the levers’ in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes and ‘turning a blind eye’ as he abused minors at his villa

The attorney general of the US Virgin Islands has been fired by the territory’s governor just days after filing a lawsuit accusing JPMorgan Chase of ‘turning a blind eye’ to Jeffrey Epstein‘s prolific sex crimes. 

USVI Governor Albert Bryan Jr confirmed in a statement on Sunday that he had ‘relieved Denise George of her duties as attorney general this weekend’ without offering further details. 

George, who had served as the territory’s attorney general for four years, on Tuesday filed a massive lawsuit against JPMorgan, accusing the bank of ‘knowingly providing and pulling the levers through which [Epstein’s] recruiters and victims were paid.’

She did not warn Bryan of her intent to file the lawsuit, and the incident was the final straw in the governor’s increasingly frustrated relationship with her, the Virgin Islands Consortium reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.

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Twitter Files Reveal Politicians, Officials Evading the Constitution’s Restrictions

In recent years, social media firms, financial institutions, and hosting platforms have denied services to disfavored customers, sometimes for political reasons. The response from many quarters (myself included) has been that people have free association rights and can generally do business as they please.

But what if these outfits are private-ish, enacting policy on behalf of politicians to spare them pushback or allow for end-runs around constitutional protections? They do so out of ideological agreement, fear of government retaliation, or a mix of both. That messy scenario is what the Twitter Files reveal of the relationship between the social media giant and federal officials. It’s a glimpse of a bigger problem.

“The United States government pressured Twitter to elevate certain content and suppress other content about COVID-19 and the pandemic,” wrote David Zweig of The Free Press, who joined Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Free Press founder Bari Weiss in revealing Twitter’s collaboration with the state at the request of new owner Elon Musk. “Internal emails that I viewed at Twitter showed that both the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s content according to their wishes.”

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security also leaned on the platform to suppress what officials considered election-related “misinformation.” The files revealed internal disputes over what crossed the line, with decisions based on judgment calls. The employment of former feds and what The Dispatch‘s David French terms “an ideological monoculture” ensured that such decisions generally deferred to authority, especially after the Biden administration took office.

But Twitter isn’t a special case. In 2021, President Joe Biden accused Facebook of “killing people” by allowing discussion of government-disfavored ideas about COVID-19 response. “White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki singled out a dozen specific anti-vaccine Facebook accounts and called on the platform to ban them,” Reason‘s Robby Soave noted at the time.

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Nancy’s golden goodbye: Outgoing House speaker Pelosi raises maximum wage for staff in lower house of Congress by $38,000 to $212,000

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decreed that Congress will once again raise its stiff salary cap for staffers – this time, to an eyewatering $212,100.

Pelosi – whose second stint as House Speaker began in 2019 – announced the change Friday, in what very well could be her last acts before being replaced in the now-Republican-dominated chamber.

It also serves as the third time the 82-year-old San Francisco official raised the maximum salary for House staff – to $199,300 last year and again in May to $203,700 to maintain parity with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

That said, the raise – which pertains to staffers in the lower chamber – now puts the new top-possible salary for aides at $38,000 more than what Senate staffers make themselves. 

In a statement, Pelosi, who is unlikely to continue her term as speaker come Sunday now that Republicans have regained control over the House, revealed the change for the New Year, and detailed her reasoning behind the substantial hike.

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Top 10 Conspiracy Theories That Will Be Validated In 2023

There has been a lot of talk lately about the “word of the year.”

Some say it is “gaslighting,” which happens to be a personal favorite of mine.

Others say “goblin mode,” a bizarre term linked to Kanye West and Elon Musk that the Left’s semantic gatekeepers have rushed to redefine from a meme that was funny precisely because it had no obvious definition.

In the spirit of New Year’s predictions, I will boldly assert that the same may be true of 2023’s future word of the year, “conspiracy theory.”

Like “gaslighting” and “goblin mode,” it is a term that has taken on a new meaning in light of current events—and one that the Left–Establishment hegemony has desperately sought to appropriate and weaponize for its own purposes.

But in the next 12 months, we will see conservatives successfully reclaim it. In fact, the early adopters are already lighting the way on social media.

Increasingly, we are seeing the corruption of the Biden administration start to come out in the wash, with growing backlash. Questions that the media tried to deny and deride in service to their agenda have since had the curtain lifted. More and more, even averred leftist idealogues, like ex-Planned Parenthood leader Leana Wen, are admitting that they lied about various aspects of the COVID pandemic.

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FED Chairman Jerome Powell Met with FTX’s SBF in February 2022 When the FED Was Examining a Federal Digital Currency

The FED’s Jerome Powell met with then CEO and founder of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) in February 2022.  This was the same time that the FED was examining the implementation of a federal digital currency. 

FTX’s founder SBF is sleeping in his parents’ basement after being rated one of the youngest billionaires in the world.  The former crypto king is now facing nine counts by the DOJ in the Southern District of New York related to defrauding its customers.

During his incredible rise, SBF was meeting some of the world’s top financial operatives.  In February of 2022, SBF met with FED Chairman Jerome Powell.

It’s unknown what was shared at this meeting but a short time later in June 2022, the FED announced its plans to develop a central bank digital currency.

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SBF Was Meeting With Senior White House Officials Shortly Before FTX Collapse

FTX founder and accused crypto-crook Sam Bankman-Fried met with senior White House officials on at least four occasions in the months leading up to his firm’s massive implosion, Bloomberg reports.

On Sept. 8, SBF met with senior Biden adviser Steve Ricchetti in a previously unreported encounter, White House officials familiar with the matter said. The meeting was “the latest in a handful of sessions,” according to the report.

What’s more, Bankman-Fried’s brother, Gabriel, held a March meeting of his own and was also at the May 13 meeting – bringing the total number up to five meetings that involved one or bother brothers. 

According to one source, “politics” were not discussed despite SBF being a Democrat megadonor credited as a major factor in President Biden’s 2020 win. Instead, the brothers allegedly talked about general matters related to the ‘crypto industry and exchanges,’ as well as “pandemic prevention related to the foundation, Guarding Against Pandemics, run by Gabe Bankman-Fried,” according to an official.

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Paul Pelosi exercises up to $5 million in Google call options ahead of stock ban bill unveiling

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, exercised call options on $1 million to $5 million worth of stock for Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, as legislation was being drafted to ban Capitol Hill lawmakers and immediate family members from purchasing individual stocks, according to House document dated Oct. 14.

The transaction date of the House’s Periodic Transaction Report is Sept. 16. At that time, several different stock ban bills had been proposed in the House. The House Democratic leadership’s version was rolled out about one week after Pelosi, a wealth investor, exercised his call options.

A call option is a financial contract that gives the buyer the option, but not the obligation, to buy a stock, bond, commodity or other asset.

Speaker Pelosi ultimately did not put the stock ban legislation up for a vote before the House recess began. 

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NFL Pro Game gets full power as Tennessee residents suffer freezing temps and rolling blackouts

Residents in Tennessee were furious at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on Sunday as the state suffered in a deep freeze and people were left cold on Christmas Day replete with rolling blackouts while the NFL’s Titans game against Houston was granted full power usage.

The temperature in Nashville on Sunday ranged from 16 to 30 degrees. The cold air put a significant strain on the TVA’s power grid and in response, the power authority implemented rolling blackouts in Memphis and Nashville. The Nashville Electric System (NES) also mandated reductions in power consumption just when it was needed most to keep residents warm. Over a million residents were told to limit the power they used to stay warm in freezing temps while millionaires cavorted on a football field for a billion-dollar enterprise.

As if the rolling blackouts and mandated limits weren’t bad enough, there were periods where there was no power at all during the below-freezing winter day.

The NFL allegedly got preferential treatment on power usage and was allowed to fully tap into mega-wattage for the game at Nissan Stadium. While a million residents shivered in their homes, 66,634 attendees luxuriated in buying tickets to a football game.

“I’ve been informed that TVA’s unilateral rolling blackouts will continue,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper said after requesting that the game be postponed. “All non-essential businesses should reduce power usage. I’ve asked the Titans to postpone their noon game in solidarity with our neighbors. TVA needs to invest in infrastructure to withstand extreme temps.”

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