Anonymous ID: 2b6ff4 April 7, 2020, 2:08 a.m. No.8712124   🗄️.is đź”—kun

Carnival Shares Climb Monday After Saudis Buy 8.2% Stake in Cruise Line

 

Carnival Corp. (CCL) shares jumped after the Saudi sovereign investment fund disclosed a stake of 8.2%, or 43.5 million shares, in the cruise line .

 

The Saudi Public Investment Fund is now the third largest stakeholder in the company, which has a market cap of about $7 billion.

 

The investment fund's stake in the company is valued at nearly $370 million.

 

While the timing of the fund's investment is unclear, the fund did not own any Carnival stock as of its fourth-quarter SEC filing, Barron's reported.

 

According to the latest filing, the fund's investment in Carnival topped 5% on March 26.

 

At last check Carnival shares were 21% higher at $10.29.

 

The cruise line industry broadly has suffered in the wake of outbreaks of the coronavirus on cruise ships and the cancellation of vacation plans worldwide.

 

In late March, four passengers aboard Carnival's Holland America's Zaandam cruise ship died and two people on board tested positive for coronavirus.

 

Recently, the company increased its dollar-bond sale to $4 billion from $3 billion and lowered its interest rate for the bonds to about 12% from 12.5%.

 

Knowledgeable sources told Bloomberg that the increased amount stemmed from the company’s decision to drop a euro-denominated tranche.

 

The company originally tried to sell notes in both currencies to investors in the U.S. and Europe, Bloomberg reported.

 

The company late last month suspended its dividend.

 

Cruise lines were not part of the government's recent $2 trillion fiscal stimulus package in response to the coronavirus.

 

https://www.thestreet.com/investing/saudi-arabia-takes-8-percent-stake-in-carnival-cruise

Anonymous ID: 2b6ff4 April 7, 2020, 2:12 a.m. No.8712141   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>2146 >>2153

Supreme Court Rebuffs Democrat National Committee Efforts to Extend Voting in Wisconsin

 

Part 1

 

The Supreme Court of the United States blocked a lower court ruling on Monday night that extended absentee voting in Wisconsin because of the coronavirus pandemic, granting a request from state lawmakers and the Republican National Committee to require that absentee ballots be postmarked by Tuesday in order to be counted.

 

The decision was five to four. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg led the liberal bloc in dissent, while the conservative majority issued an unsigned opinion emphasizing the unusual nature of the case and the narrow sweep of their decision.

 

The case is the first COVID-19 related dispute to reach the High Court. The sharp disagreement suggests the justices could struggle to maintain consensus as they navigate pointed pandemic issues on an accelerated basis. Other cases, such as challenges to virus-related restrictions on abortion, will likely reach the Court in short order.

 

Monday’s decision ends days of legal battles in two separate cases where Democrats sought to postpone or extend voting, while Republicans resisted. The frenzy culminated Monday afternoon when Wisconsin governor Tony Evers (D.) issued an unprecedented order postponing the election until June. Within hours, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Evers's order unlawful. The Supreme Court of the United States followed on Monday evening in a different case, which only concerned absentee ballot rules.

 

Though many states have postponed elections given the continued threat to public health, the Wisconsin legislature refused to reschedule Tuesday’s balloting. The Democratic National Committee and its affiliates in the state asked a federal judge in Madison for various exemptions to state election rules. Among other accommodations, the judge ordered election commissioners to accept absentee ballots as late as Tuesday April 13, despite a provision of Wisconsin law requiring submission by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

 

The U.S. Supreme Court said the judge was wrong to change election rules so close to the balloting.

 

"This Court has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election," the majority’s unsigned opinion reads.

 

Republicans warned that the grace period could encourage bad faith voting behavior, by which Wisconsinites wait to learn preliminary Election Day results and cast ballots strategically. That concern prompted the Madison judge to belatedly amend his order and require state officials to withhold election results until April 13.

 

The majority nodded to the GOP’s concerns, saying the extended absentee voter period "fundamentally alters the nature" of the race and compromises the integrity of process. It is doubtful, the majority added, that state officials could conceal election results without leaks.

Anonymous ID: 2b6ff4 April 7, 2020, 2:14 a.m. No.8712146   🗄️.is đź”—kun

>>8712141

Supreme Court Rebuffs Democrat National Committee Efforts to Extend Voting in Wisconsin

 

Part 2

 

The opinion elsewhere underscored that it only addressed the question whether ballots must be postmarked by Tuesday to count.

 

"The Court’s decision on the narrow question before the Court should not be viewed as expressing an opinion on the broader question of whether to hold the election, or whether other reforms or modifications in election procedures in light of COVID-19 are appropriate," the opinion reads. "That point cannot be stressed enough."

 

Election officials have struggled to manage a surge in requests for absentee ballots and cannot guarantee delivery by Tuesday due to diminished postal service. The state issued a stay-at-home order on March 25, though there is an exception for participating in Tuesday’s election.

 

In legal filings before the High Court, Democrats argued that thousands of voters might be disenfranchised without a grace period for absentee ballots. They also predicted that polling places could become major vectors of transmission, especially since many polling places have closed consistent with public health orders. Ginsburg sounded a similar note in dissent.

 

"While I do not doubt the good faith of my colleagues, the court’s order, I fear, will result in massive disenfranchisement," she wrote elsewhere. "A voter cannot deliver for postmarking a ballot she has not received."

 

"They will have to brave the polls, endangering their own and others’ safety," Ginsburg added. "Or they will lose their right to vote, through no fault of their own."

 

Voters Tuesday will cast ballots in the presidential primary and elect municipal officers like mayors and school board members. A hotly contested race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court is also at stake. Evers has mobilized the Wisconsin Army National Guard to assist with election administration.

 

The case is No. 19A1016 Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee.

 

Case here: https://www.scribd.com/document/455306980/RNC-v-DNC-Order-Granting-Emergency-Stay#from_embed

 

https://freebeacon.com/courts/supreme-court-blocks-extended-absentee-voting-wisconsin/

Anonymous ID: 2b6ff4 April 7, 2020, 2:20 a.m. No.8712164   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>2174 >>2236

Ilhan Omar: The Congresswoman from Iran

 

Ilhan Omar's long record of siding with Iran and against America.

 

Part 1

 

Ilhan Omar, the freshman Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, recently called for the Trump administration to lift, as an act of mercy and goodwill, its economic sanctions against Iran, a nation that has been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Retweeting a thread that blamed the American sanctions for the current shortage of medical supplies in Iran, Omar wrote: “We need to suspend these sanctions before more lives are lost.”

 

Omar's opposition to U.S. sanctions against Iran long predates the coronavirus era. When President Trump first announced their enactment in May 2018, Omar was still a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A few months later, following her election to Congress, she denounced the sanctions as a form of “economic warfare” that had “already caused medical shortages and countless deaths in Iran.”

 

From listening to Omar, one would never know that the U.S. government has long abided by a policy – which continues to this day – permitting the sale of “agricultural commodities, food, medicine, and medical devices to Iran” as a means of aiding the general population while punishing the theocratic regime in Tehran.

 

Omar was opposed not only to President Trump's imposition of sanctions against Iran, but also to his 2018 decision to withdraw the United States from the Iran Nuclear Deal that the Obama administration had negotiated three years earlier. To refresh your memory, the following were among the more noteworthy provisions of that disastrous agreement:

 

Iran was permitted to keep some 5,060 centrifuges, one-third of which would continue to spin in perpetuity.

Iran received $150 billion in sanctions relief – “some portion” of which, according to Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice, “we should expect … would go to the Iranian military and could potentially be used for the kinds of bad behavior that we have seen in the region up until now.”

Russia and China were permitted to continue to supply Iran with weapons.

Iran was given discretion to block international inspectors from military installations and was assured that it would be given 14 days’ notice for any request to visit any site.

No American inspectors were given access to Iranian nuclear sites.

Iran's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program remained intact and unaffected.

Iran was not required to disclose information about its past nuclear research and development.

Anonymous ID: 2b6ff4 April 7, 2020, 2:25 a.m. No.8712174   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>2236

>>8712164

 

Ilhan Omar: The Congresswoman from Iran

 

Ilhan Omar's long record of siding with Iran and against America.

 

Part 2

 

The U.S. agreed to provide technical assistance to help Iran develop its nuclear program, supposedly for peaceful domestic purposes.

Sanctions were lifted on critical parts of Iran’s military, including a previously existing travel ban against Qasem Suleimani, leader of the terrorist Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran was not required to release American prisoners in its custody.

The U.S. and its five negotiating partner nations agreed to provide Iranian nuclear leaders with training courses and workshops designed to strengthen their ability to prevent and respond to threats to their nuclear facilities and systems.

Iran was not required to renounce terrorism against the United States.

Iran was not required to affirm its “clear and unambiguous … recognition of Israel's right to exist.”

Whatever restrictions were placed on Iran's nuclear program would all begin to expire – due to so-called “sunset clauses” – at various times over the ensuing 5 to 26 years.

 

Remarkably, all of this was perfectly fine with Ilhan Omar. The only thing that bothered her was the imposition of sanctions against an aspiring nuclear power whose leaders had repeatedly sworn their commitment to wiping the U.S. and Israel off the globe.

 

If you try to find an example of a single instance where Ilhan Omar has taken America's side in its dealings with Iran, you won't find one. Consider her reaction after President Trump ordered and carried out the targeted killing of Iranian terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3. “I feel ill a little bit because of everything that is taking place,” Omar said during a press conference. “And I think every time I hear of conversations around [possible] war [with Iran], I find myself being stricken with PTSD” – presumably a reference to her family’s flight from the Somali Civil War in 1991. Remarkably, Soleimani's tireless efforts at masterminding the murder of hundreds of American soldiers – and the maiming of thousands more – caused Omar no such psychological distress.

 

One of Omar's legislative assistants today is Mahyar Sorour, who last year mounted an unsuccessful campaign for a board seat with NIAC Action, the sister group of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). Last July, NIAC, echoing Ilhan Omar, avidly supported a Democratic House Resolution calling for the United States to return to compliance with the Iran Nuclear Deal. Moreover, NIAC's founders and top officials have close ties to the Iranian regime. But none of this is enough to cause Omar to rethink her connections to NIAC.

 

Ilhan Omar is a member of the United States Congress, but she does not in any way protect and defend the interests of this country.

 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/congresswoman-iran-discover-networks/