Lindsey Graham Says He Will Not Call Barack Obama to Testify in #Obamagate

On May 1, 2019 Lindsey Graham, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, promised investigations on how the Mueller probe started.

He made the the comments during testimony by US Attorney General Bill Barr in front of the US Senate.

Lindsey Graham has scheduled NO COMMITTEE HEARINGS on Deep State, FBI, CIA, Spygate, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Mueller, Stefan Halper, George Papadopoulos, Tom Fitton, Sidney Powell, Joe diGenova, John Brennan, James Comey, Chris Wray, etc.

Here is the list of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings since Lindsey Graham made that lie back on May 1, 2019.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/lindsey-graham-says-will-not-call-barack-obama-testify-obamagate/

Nancy Pelosi Unveils $3 Trillion, 1,815-Page Leftist Coronavirus Bill

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) unveiled her $3 trillion phase four coronavirus bill on Tuesday that serves as a “policy wishlist” for Democrats and progressives.

Pelosi unveiled the Heroes Act, which is a 1,815-page bill that the House will likely vote on Tuesday.

The legislation was not negotiated with congressional Republicans or the Donald Trump administration, and even if it passes through the House, it will likely languish in the Senate.

Politico reported in May that the legislation serves as more of a wishlist for the House Democrat conference’s most progressive lawmakers.

Politico wrote:

Privately, several House Democrats concede their latest bill feels like little more than an effort to appease the most liberal members of the caucus, many of whom were chafed that their most important priorities were minimized or ignored entirely in previous coronavirus negotiations.

The Heroes Act reportedly contains many leftist provisions in the bill, including:

$755 million for the government for Washington, DC. The bill would also allow the D.C. government to participate in the Federal Reserve’s Municipal Liquidity (MLF) to support additional lending to the city.

$1 million for the National Science Foundation to study the spread of coronavirus-related “disinformation.”

$10 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as well as $10 million fo the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Eliminates limitations on the federal deduction for the state and local taxes (SALT). Republicans limited this deduction through the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The SALT deduction primarily benefits wealthy, largely Democrat states.

Grants additional aid for State and local government bailouts. The bill contains $500 billion in funding for state government relief and $375 billion in aid to local governments. Senate Republicans such as Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) have contended this will particularly aid fiscally irresponsible blue states such as California, New York, and Illinois to the detriment of more fiscally responsible states such as Texas and Florida.

$25 million for migrant and seasonal farmworkers, including emergency support services through the Department of Labor.

$1.7 billion for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions, $20 million for Howard University, $11 million for Gallaudet University, $11 million for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf.

$15 million to maintain operations, rental assistance supportive services, and other actions to mitigate the impact on low-income people with HIV/AIDS through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Create a two month special enrollment period for Obamacare. The bill also extends full premium subsidies to allow workers to maintain their health insurance coverage through COBRA.

Allows Attorney General William Barr to make grants to states to create state-run hate crime reporting hotlines.

Relief for up to $10,000 of up-front debt relief for all Department of Education loan borrowers.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/12/nancy-pelosi-unveils-3-trillion-1815-page-leftist-coronavirus-bill/

In Unprecedented Move, Two Fund Giants Liquidate CLO Warehouses

Yesterday we laid out how the magic of modern monetary alchemy (not to be confused with the blunt brain trauma that is the magic money tree of helicopter money) works, by showing how a CLO takes 96% junk rates loans and by repackaging this portfolio, or "warehousing" it into a CLO, the product were tranched bonds of which 87% were rated investment grade.

And while in theory this works by "diversifying" away individual credit risk, in practice the whole exercise is nothing but smoke and mirrors which crumbles the moment an adverse systemic event - such as a global viral pandemic - reveals that the investment grade emperor is really wearing junk-rated clothes.

Of course, it is the very process of warehousing that made all this possible and resulted in record demand for leveraged loans for the past few years, with CLOs becoming the biggest source of demand for the $1 trillion leveraged loan market, because as we concluded in our article, this CLO sleight of hand "worked splendidly as long as nobody questioned the "alchemy" behind the biggest magic trick Wall Street pulled in the past decade. Alas, alchemy does not exist, and just like all those buying "gold" from carnival charlatans eventually realized they were holding on to lead, so all those who naively believed they had purchased investment grade securities are about to learn the hard way that what they really owned was, aptly-named, junk."

Fast forward to today, when investors finally appear to be asking what good are CLOs, and what is the point of tranching cash flows, if virtually all underlying junk loans will soon end up - true to their name - in default, with no cash flows left to tranche.

Bloomberg reports that two funds that aimed to bundle leveraged loans into bonds decided instead to liquidate the loans they had bought, a rare step reflecting just how the pandemic has cooled the market for securities known as collateralized loan obligations.

At a time of massive downgrades of both underlying loans and resulting CLO bonds, Steele Creek Investment Management and AXA Investment Managers both sold off loans they had planned to package into CLOs, according to Bloomberg citing people familiar with the matter. The funds had paid for the loans using temporary lines of credit known as warehouses.

With leveraged loan prices plunged to their lowest level in more than a decade in March, CLOs have been left scrambling to find buyers for their securities, and as a result Steele Creek and AXA Investment Managers decided to instead liquidate their warehouses, a move that some investors fear may become increasingly common, and could push loan prices even lower.

Steele Creek, a Moelis Asset Management company, put a $177 million warehouse loan portfolio up for sale on May 4, the people said. A spokesperson for Steele Creek declined to comment. AXA’s asset management arm sold a warehouse for a CLO it was arranging with Citigroup, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/unprecedented-move-two-fund-giants-liquidate-clo-warehouses

Hillary Clinton Warns Americans Could ‘Lose Their Right to Vote’ Unless We Have Vote by Mail

Failed Trump challenger Hillary Clinton (D) warned on Tuesday that Americans could “lose their right to vote” in the age of the Chinese coronavirus unless leaders act and institute vote by mail.

“States and the federal government need to act with urgency now to make sure people don’t effectively lose their right to vote this fall because of COVID-19,” Clinton warned.

“Every citizen must be able to cast a ballot safely by mail,” she added, providing a link to a New York Times article titled, “Will Americans Lose Their Right to Vote in the Pandemic?”:

The Times’ piece paints a dire picture and largely relies on Wisconsin’s April 7 primary, concluding that it shows that “the coronavirus can block access to the ballot just as it has closed stores and schools and so much other civic activity”:

The United States prides itself on its democracy in theory — but this year, not necessarily in practice. What if Philadelphia runs out of absentee ballots? What if a swing state can’t count its avalanche of mail-in ballots on election night, and the media races to call a winner, and then the final tabulation changes it — and then there’s a dispute over signature-matching? The 2020 results may well be too early to call for days. A candidate who warns now about fraud and chaos, as Trump is ceaselessly doing, is sowing the seeds for his supporters to distrust the results if he loses.

Several Democrats have used the Wisconsin primary as a means to pitch vote by mail for November, even though recent data has not provided a compelling public health justification for the Democrats’ go-to alternative: Vote by mail.

Only 52 people who were either poll workers or voters were reported to have contracted the virus following Election Day, which drew over 400,000 participants.

None of the cases were fatal, equaling an infection rate below two-hundredths of one percent. Additionally, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services indicated that several of those individuals who tested positive “also reported other ways they may have been exposed to the virus.”

Nevertheless, Democrats are increasing their calls for vote by mail, which GOP critics warn drastically increases the chances of voter fraud.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) earned praise from Clinton following last week’s decision to authorize vote by mail for the November election.

“I hope other governors around the country follow @GavinNewsom’s lead,” Clinton said. “No voter should be forced to choose between their safety and exercising their civic duty this fall.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/12/hillary-clinton-warns-americans-could-lose-their-right-to-vote-unless-we-have-vote-by-mail/

US Senators Introduce Sanctions Bill to Hold China Accountable for COVID-19 Outbreak

Legislation has been introduced in Congress authorizing President Donald Trump to impose sanctions on China if Beijing fails to cooperate and provide a full accounting of the events leading up to the COVID-19 outbreak, nine Senators said in a statement.

"Without certification, the president would be authorized to impose a range of sanctions such as asset freezes, travel bans, visa revocations, restricting United States financial institutions from making loans or underwriting to Chinese businesses and prohibiting Chinese firms from being listed on American stock exchanges", Senators Lindsey Graham, Thom Tillis, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Mike Braun, Rick Scott, Steve Daines, Todd Young, Jim Inhofe, and Roger Wicker said on Tuesday.

The senators added that the measure requires the US president to provide a certification to Congress within 60 days that China has shared a full and complete accounting to any COVID-19-related investigation led by the United States, its allies, or UN agencies, including the World Health Organization.

The White House should also notify US lawmakers if China "closed operating wet markets that may expose risk to humans and released all Hong Kong pro-democracy advocates that were arrested in the post-COVID-19 crackdowns", the statement said.

Senator Graham called for pushing back against China’s narrative regarding COVID-19 and holding it accountable.

"We must determine how the virus came about and take steps, like closing the wet markets, to ensure it never happens again", Graham added.

Some members of the Trump administration, including the president himself, and several US media outlets have consistently put the blame on China amid the coronavirus pandemic, slamming the country for what they consider to be its poor performance during the crisis, while also accusing the country of data concealment and even creating the virus. China has repeatedly denounced the accusations, urging US politicians not to politicize the deadly pandemic.

As of Tuesday, the World Health Organization has registered near 4.1 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 283,000 coronavirus-related deaths all over the world since the start of the outbreak.

https://sputniknews.com/world/202005131079286858-us-senators-introduce-sanctions-bill-to-hold-china-accountable-for-covid-19-outbreak/

Pelosi’s Latest $3 Trillion “Liberal Wish List” Hands Out Amnesty Like Candy – Opens Borders to Endless Migration – Bails Out Bankrupt Liberal States

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy spoke out against this outrageous liberal wish list on Tuesday.

FOX News reported:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy slammed the Democrats’ new coronavirus relief as a “liberal wish list” that has “no chance of becoming law.”

“Tens of thousands of Americans have lost their lives due to COVID-19, and more than a million have gotten sick. A record number of Americans are out of work,” McCarthy said in a statement on Tuesday. “Yet while Americans are searching for answers, House Democrats are releasing a liberal wish list that has no chance of becoming law.”

McCarthy said the demands of the bill “were drafted behind closed doors, predate the crisis, and are not targeted to coronavirus.” The bill seeks to change election laws, bail out “mismanaged” pensions and temporarily suspend the cap on SALT tax deductions for the very wealthy, according to McCarthy.

The House Democrats’ $3 trillion new coronavirus bill, released Tuesday, includes $1 trillion in funding for state and local governments, which Republicans have long rejected…

Still, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., alerted House members who have been away on recess to return to Washington Friday. The House is scheduled to vote on the massive coronavirus legislation and a proposal to allow lawmakers to work remotely.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/pelosis-latest-3-trillion-liberal-wish-list-hands-amnesty-like-candy-opens-borders-endless-migration-bails-bankrupt-liberal-states/

Hillary Clinton Resists Court Order to Produce Smoking Gun Memo on Search and Review Process That Lead to Deletion of Her Emails

Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch on Tuesday said Hillary Clinton is resisting a court order to produce a smoking gun memo on the search and review process that lead to the deletion of her emails.

The watchdog group announced it filed a motion in federal court to compel Hillary Clinton to produce the December 2014 after action memorandum created by her personal attorney Heather Samuelson that memorializes the search for and processing of Clinton’s emails in 2014.

Recall, Heather Samuelson reviewed Hillary Clinton’s State Department emails and 33,000 of them were ‘deleted’ with BleachBit.

Judicial Watch refuted Hillary Clinton’s argument that the memo is protected by the “attorney work product doctrine.”

Hillary Clinton also filed an emergency appeal to avoid a court order she testify under oath to Judicial Watch about her emails.

Via Judicial Watch:

Judicial Watch announced today that it filed amotion in federal court to compel former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to produce the December 2014 after action memorandum created by her personal attorney Heather Samuelson that memorializes the search for and processing of Clinton emails in 2014. Samuelson reviewed Clinton’s State Department emails and about half of them were deleted (Hillary Clinton is also resisting, through an emergency appeal, the court’s order that she testify to Judicial Watch about her emails.)

Clinton is resisting producing even a portion of the “after-action” memo, despite an August 22, 2019, ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth that Judicial Watch may ask for the memorandum in its discovery. Clinton refused to produce any part of the memo, alleging that it is fully exempt from disclosure under the “attorney work product doctrine.” In an earlier ruling on a similar issue in this litigation, the Court held that “any contemporaneous documents shedding light on the three narrow discovery topics – even documents evincing attorney impressions, conclusions, opinions, and theories – constitute fact work-product” and should be produced.

Judicial Watch explains to the court: “After repeated attempts to resolve this dispute have proven unsuccessful, [Judicial Watch] respectfully requests an order from the Court to compel Secretary Clinton to produce the document … within short order.”

To this day, Hillary Clinton claims the ‘deleted’ emails were all ‘personal’ and related to her daughter Chelsea’s wedding and yoga.

We know this is a lie because Judicial Watch continues to receive ‘deleted’ emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server showing she was transmitting classified information over private email, including outing the name of a clandestine CIA agent.

“Hillary Clinton doesn’t want the Court and the American people to know the full truth about her destruction of 33,000 emails,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The evidence show Hillary Clinton knew exactly what she was doing when she hid her emails, took them from the State Department and deleted them. So it is no surprise she is desperate to avoid testifying and turning over what must be a smoking-gun memo on her email deletions.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/hillary-clinton-resists-court-order-produce-smoking-gun-memo-search-review-process-lead-deletion-emails/

European Parliament refuses to include Hungarian Justice Minister in debate over emergency law

The European Parliament has rejected a proposal from Hungary for its Minister of Justice to participate in a debate scheduled for tomorrow over the country’s controversial emergency legislation in response to the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Hungary’s Parliament approved its Coronavirus Protection Law in March, which allows the government to bypass the Parliament when making decisions during the emergency period. This was justified as allowing the government to react quickly to changing circumstances as the crisis unfolds. Hungary was widely condemned for the move, with many claiming that the law gave Prime Minister Viktor Orbán dictatorial powers.

The truth, however, is very different, as previously reported by Voice of Europe. Parliament — where Orbán’s party currently holds a supermajority — has not been suspended, contrary to many media reports, and the Parliament retains the power to end the emergency legislation at any time they wish. And several other European countries have passed emergency legislation similar to Hungary’s in response to the pandemic without triggering similar controversy.

The European Parliament continues to debate the legality of the Hungarian law, however. Tomorrow, it is set to hold a debate on it which will involve the MEPs, the European Commission (EC), and representatives of the member states.

Judit Varga, Hungary’s Minister of Justice, wrote to David Sassoli, the President of the European Parliament, on Monday, requesting that she be allowed to participate in the debate. In response, Sassoli’s office wrote today that participation by a member state can only involve heads of states or governments, according to a report by Politico. This means that only Viktor Orbán himself could participate in the session as a representative of Hungary.

Sassoli’s office also said that it would not be possible for representatives to participate in the session remotely, in spite of ongoing social distancing measures.

Varga blasted Sassoli for his decision, accusing him of strictly adhering to procedures rather than by “the most fundamental element of the principle of fair treatment.” She pointed out that representatives at levels lower than national and government leaders often participate in European Parliamentary debates.

Varga likewise questioned why Parliament would go to the trouble of holding a debate on this issue in a period of crisis, when the European Union’s attention should be focused on the pandemic.

Sassoli also wrote to Prime Minister Orbán today to ask if he would be willing to participate himself by coming to Brussels. His decision is not yet known as of this writing.

The debate is proceeding despite the fact that the EC’s Vice President for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, officially acknowledged that the EC had determined that Hungary’s measure is entirely lawful and in accordance with European Union standards, as previously reported by Voice of Europe.

https://voiceofeurope.com/2020/05/european-parliament-refuses-to-include-hungarian-justice-minister-in-debate-over-emergency-law/

ADL Calls Accurate Reporting of Muslim Responses to Coronavirus ‘Anti-Muslim Bigotry’

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has strayed a long distance from its stated mission “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” It expressed outrage last week that some people, notably my fellow PJ Media columnist Raymond Ibrahim and me, have been covering some of the more bizarre and disquieting reactions to the coronavirus in the Islamic world. “Islamophobes React to Coronavirus Pandemic with Anti-Muslim Bigotry,” the ADL claimed, which was full to the brim with the self-righteous virtue-signaling and unsubstantiated name-calling that we have come to expect from the Left. There was just one catch: the reports that so enraged the ADL were accurate.

It’s a common tactic of Leftists: represent facts that are patently true as if they were self-evidently false, and egregiously hateful and bigoted, without any actual attempt to refute them. The pathetic sheep who still think that the ADL is a civil rights organization will be taken in. Those who are more thoughtful will notice that in the terrible things I am represented as saying below, there are no links. And there is a very good reason for that. If the ADL had provided links, it would be clear that I was in all cases simply passing on information from news outlets, not making up wild claims out of whole cloth, as the ADL would have you believe.

Demonstrating its commitment to fairness, honest analysis, and consequent rejection of smears and name-calling, the ADL took aim at “Islamophobe Raymond Ibrahim,” who, it claimed, wrote an “alarmist piece for FrontPage Mag, a right wing conspiratorial and Islamophobic online magazine founded by anti-Muslim activist David Horowitz. Ibrahim, who is also a fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an ultra-conservative organization that claims to combat the efforts of the ‘radical left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values,’ wrote in an April 1 post that Muslims are ‘encouraging other Muslims to come into contact with each other’ and are ‘protesting the idea of temporarily closing mosques,’ adding that Muslims believe ‘nothing associated with Islam and especially Islamic worship can get them sick.’”

The ADL never mentions, not surprisingly, that in the article in question, Ibrahim carefully notes the sources of all his statements. Every quote to which the ADL objects originates not with Ibrahim, but with Muslims in Iran, Egypt and elsewhere. So Raymond Ibrahim is evil for reporting on these statements? Apparently the ADL thinks so.

The ADL targets me also, saying: “In a March 16 post on his conspiratorial, Islamophobic website called Jihad Watch, leading Islamophobe and right-wing conspiracy theorist Robert Spencer claimed that Muslims in India refused a coronavirus test because ‘Islam does not permit such tests.’”

The March 16 Jihad Watch post links to, quotes and credits this March 15 article from OpIndia, which says: “The Muslim youths objected to carrying out any medical tests citing that Islam does not permit such tests.”

The ADL doesn’t mention that, of course. It does the same thing again farther along in its article: “In a March 28 article on the right-wing news site PJ Media, Robert Spencer echoes this by claiming that Muslims believe ‘coronavirus is for infidels’ because ‘a hadith attributed to Muhammad accords martyr status to those who die in a plague.’”

https://pjmedia.com/culture/robert-spencer/2020/05/12/adl-calls-accurate-reporting-of-muslim-responses-to-coronavirus-anti-muslim-bigotry-n390206

Journalism Org Cuts Ties With Huawei

National Association of Black Journalists abruptly cancels event sponsored by Chinese tech giant

A major journalist association canceled its partnership with a Chinese telecommunications firm following public outcry.

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) teamed up with Huawei, a company with ties to the Chinese government, to host a webinar about "the rise of misinformation" on Wednesday. CNN host Van Jones, musician will.i.am, and other African American personalities were set to discuss coronavirus misinformation at the event sponsored by the Chinese company despite warnings from national security officials that Huawei is a conduit for espionage.

Following widespread concerns about NABJ's partnership with Huawei, NABJ canceled the event on Tuesday, saying that "it has become a distraction from other priorities."

"NABJ has canceled a webinar scheduled for tomorrow … because it has become a distraction from other priorities," NABJ said in a statement. "It had come under attack because controversial technology giant Huawei was planning to sponsor the webinar though it had no editorial control. NABJ always retains editorial control over all such content along with final say over moderators and panelists."

Federal officials have scrutinized Huawei's dealings for years, serving the company its first indictment in 2019. The Chinese tech giant responded with a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign to alleviate concerns that the company's 5G network might serve as a Trojan horse for Chinese spying in the United States. The company has spent more than $2 million on PR firms to promote its message among not only public officials but editors of media outlets. That Huawei was able to temporarily secure a partnership with one of the country's leading journalist organizations speaks to the reach of the company.

The terms of the partnership between Huawei and NABJ remain unclear. NABJ said in its statement that there was "no signed contract" between the two organizations and denied receiving any money from Huawei. NABJ said in a now-deleted tweet, however, that the company would give away a Huawei-brand computer and headphones to a lucky audience member. Neither Huawei nor NABJ responded to requests for comment.

Human rights advocates criticized NABJ for working with Huawei. Regime critic Ky Olbert called the event an "endorsement of a company which is quite literally enabling #HumanRights atrocities" on Twitter. Huawei has worked with the Chinese government and other authoritarian countries across the world to build up surveillance networks in Xinjiang, Uganda, and Ecuador. These networks have been used to monitor dissidents and spy on political opponents.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) said that participating in the panel is the "equivalent of speaking at a KGB Signals Directorate event during the Cold War."

"This event on ‘misinformation' is clear political interference by the Chinese Communist Party—the same people who claim the U.S. Army started the coronavirus pandemic," the senator tweeted.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/journalism-org-cuts-ties-with-huawei/

D.C. Prep School Beloved by Dem Leaders Refuses to Return Gov’t Loan

School that taught Obama, Clinton daughters received one of the biggest PPP loans yet

A $50 million endowment, a massive capital campaign in the works, and a wealthy, well-connected board—none stopped a D.C. prep school from taking one of the largest coronavirus loans issued.

Sidwell Friends School, a Quaker-affiliated independent school known for enrolling top lawmakers' children—including the daughters of former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—accepted a $5.2 million loan under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Congress's bailout fund for small businesses affected by the coronavirus crisis.

The school, which brings in over $40 million in tuition annually, declined to give back the loan after Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin called on "private schools with significant endowments" to "return" PPP funds. In a letter to the community, the board of trustees cited its "fiduciary responsibilities" as well as "our Quaker values" in its decision to keep the money—with the latter claim particularly raising eyebrows among critics.

In so doing, Sidwell Friends joins the ranks of other large, well-funded entities that have benefited from a program designed to protect America's collapsing small businesses. Some, like Shake Shack or news site Axios, have returned their loans following public outcry. The school, which enjoys connections to D.C.'s Democratic establishment, has faced some scrutiny for its decision to keep the money—but appears unlikely to back down.

The loan, which the school has said will be used to pay its 257 faculty and staff, is one of the largest in the second tranche of PPP funds. Data from the Small Business Administration indicate that of the 2.2 million loans it has issued since April 27, fewer than 1,500, or 0.07 percent, have been in excess of $5 million.

The Treasury Department has stipulated that companies must consider their "current business activity" and their "ability to access other sources of liquidity" before certifying that they actually need PPP funding. Sidwell Friends' chief communications officer did not respond to a request for comment as to whether or not the school had made such considerations or sought other sources of funding.

The school likely has substantial benefactors, as indicated by the wealth of its board. Members include Marla Beck, who sold cosmetics chain Bluemercury to Macy's for $210 million; Patrick Gross, cofounder of American Management Systems Inc., which was valued at $1 billion; and Mark Jacobsen, CEO of Promontory Interfinancial Network, which provides financial services for half of all banks nationwide and previously sold for $2.5 billion.

Requests for comments directed to Beck's, Gross's, and Jacobsen's firms as to whether or not the board members were approached for assistance by the school went unanswered.

The school also enjoys connections to prominent D.C. Democrats. It counts among its alumnae presidential daughters Chelsea Clinton '97, Malia Obama '16, and Sasha Obama '19.

https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/d-c-prep-school-beloved-by-dem-leaders-refuses-to-return-govt-loan/

Former Veterans Affairs Doctor Indicted on Multiple Civil Rights Charges

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-veterans-affairs-doctor-indicted-multiple-civil-rights-charges

US anti-ISIS chief says his goal in Syria is to create a ‘quagmire’ for Russia, not battle terrorism

James Jeffrey, the US special envoy for Syria and defeating the Islamic State, has made quite a frank confession of how he sees his job and that of US troops there: to create a new Vietnam or Afghanistan for Moscow.

"Our military presence, while small, is important for overall calculations. So we urge the Congress, the American people, the president to keep these forces on, but again this isn’t Afghanistan, this isn’t Vietnam, this isn’t a quagmire," Jeffrey said on Tuesday, during a video event hosted by the Hudson Institute.

My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians.

The arrival of the Russian expeditionary force in late 2015, following an invitation from Damascus, turned the tide of war in Syria. With their assistance, government forces rolled back both Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists and other militants, including Al-Qaeda affiliates, on multiple fronts – and scuttled US plans for regime change in Damascus.

Jeffrey grudgingly admitted the Russian military has been successful in Syria, but argued “they don't have a political way out of their problems” with Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the US aims to offer “a way forward” through the UN – presumably referring to Resolution 2254 that Washington has long interpreted as “Assad must go.”

https://www.rt.com/news/488491-us-syria-russia-quagmire/

DS in SYRIA

Android apps with more than 4.2 BILLION downloads leaked user data through Google’s Firebase – study

Some 24,000 Android applications have been leaking sensitive data – including mobile phone numbers and passwords – through improperly configured storage on Google’s Firebase development platform, a new study has found.

The critical lack of security was uncovered by a research team at Comparitech.com, an expert group focusing on information security and privacy. The Firebase platform is the most popular storage solution for Android apps, used by almost a third of all the applications available on the Google Play Store.

The researchers sampled a whopping 515,735 of the apps – around 18 percent of all the programs available on the Store – and found that more than 4,200 of them turned out to have faulty security configurations on the Firebase and were leaking sensitive information.

The apps’ databases turned out to be entirely insecure and could have been accessed by anyone, without a password or any other authentication. The vulnerable applications have been installed 4.22 billion times by Android users, according to Comparitech. The majority of the affected apps fell into the ‘games’ category.

https://www.rt.com/news/488475-android-apps-database-leak/

Facebook paying $52 million settlement to moderators who claim they developed PTSD through work

Current and former moderators for Facebook will each be receiving $1,000 or more, as part of a settlement in a lawsuit that claimed having to deal with censoring content made them develop post traumatic stress disorder.

The social media giant will be paying out extra to individuals for additional mental health issues stemming from their jobs, such as depression. The settlement, first reported by The Verge, covers 11,250 moderators, while current employees will receive more counseling as part of the agreement.

“The harm that can be suffered from this work is real and severe,” a lawyer for the plaintiffs said in a statement.

While Facebook would prefer the first payment to current and former moderators to be spent on treatment, they will have full discretion how to use the funding. However, if they are diagnosed with a mental health issue stemming from their jobs, they will be entitled to anywhere from $1,500 to $6,000 in additional payments, depending on the specific diagnosis.

They can also submit a qualifying diagnosis and evidence of other injuries brought on by their jobs and be entitled to tens of thousands of additional dollars in damages.

Former employee Selena Scola first sued the company in 2018, claiming she had developed mental health issues due to being forced to look at images of things like rape and suicide. The job of a moderator at Facebook — which can pay under $30,000 a year — is to sift through and suppress content that is deemed inappropriate.

The social media giant hired a wave of new moderators following the 2016 presidential election as part of their promised effort to remove "misleading or harmful" posts and content from their platform.

https://www.rt.com/usa/488483-facebook-settlement-moderators-ptsd/

>>9149198

They are going to get bigger when we become the only platform that allows truth

Keep going! Good Work!

US reports record $738 BILLION budget deficit in April due to Covid-19

The US Treasury Department has announced a budget deficit of $737.9 billion in April thanks to spending measures put in place to battle the economic effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Emergency relief spending by the US government has reached around $3 trillion, with $2.3 trillion approved in late March by Congress for a relief package for US citizens.

The latest deficit figure is another bad sign for the US economy as April is typically a month which sees a surplus, thanks to US citizens filing their taxes on April 15. However, that filing deadline was extended into the summer because of the pandemic.

Over the past 66 years, the Treasury Department has only posted a deficit in April 15 times. By comparison, it announced a surplus of $160.3 billion for the same period last year.

The US economy lost over 20 million jobs in April, and while the current unemployment rate across the country stands at nearly 15 percent, some experts predict that figure will rise above 20 percent over the summer.

The record deficit signifies the US is headed into uneasy economic territory. With more than 33 million people collecting unemployment benefits and most businesses remaining closed due to lockdown orders, the federal government is not only spending more than usual, but working from a place where almost no revenue is being raised through taxes.

https://www.rt.com/usa/488478-us-record-deficit-reported-coronavirus/

PRAY FOR EACH OTHER

GOD WINS