GEORGIA SATELLITES - Keep Your Hands To Yourself
Senators Demand Investigation into Planned Parenthood PPP Loans
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, said that “it is rich” that Planned Parenthood received emergency loans despite affiliates remaining open for business during the pandemic.
Catholic News Agency
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Planned Parenthood affiliates reportedly received $80 million in emergency coronavirus loans, despite congressional regulations that were intended to disqualify them.
Fox News reported on Tuesday that 37 of the organization’s affiliates applied for and received $80 million in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), designed to help small businesses and non-profits stay open and maintain payroll during the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The emergency loan program set up under the CARES Act required that small businesses or non-profits applying for loans have 500 or fewer employees.
For smaller entities that are affiliated with a large national organization, existing Small Business Administration (SBA) affiliation rules would be applied, tabulating the employee count of all the affiliates together with the national organization.
Planned Parenthood—the nation’s largest abortion provider with around 330,000 abortions performed annually and nearly $2 billion in net assets—was supposed to be ineligible for PPP loans.
https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/senators-demand-investigation-into-planned-parenthood-ppp-loans
Iraqi intelligence captures successor to ex-Daesh leader
The Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) has announced the arrest of an alleged successor to former Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who is claimed to have been killed by the US military.
In a statement on its official Twitter account on Wednesday, the INIS said that “the terrorist named Abdul Nasser Qardash, a former candidate to succeed [ex-Daesh chief] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been arrested.”
The statement gave no further details about the location of the arrest or whether there were others captured with him.
A security source told the Iraqi News Agency that Qardash led Daesh’s last major terror operation in Baghouz, a village in Syria’s eastern Dayr al-Zawr province, which began in February 2019.
He had reportedly served the Takfiri al-Qaeda terror group before joining Daesh and welcomed Baghdadi in Mosul, when the Iraqi city fell to the group in 2014.
Qardash reportedly is an alias for one of the terror group’s founding members, Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi, who was appointed as Baghdadi’s successor hours after the US claimed he had been killed.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/05/21/625810/Iraq-Daesh-Baghdadi-Qardash
How Fear, Groupthink Drove Unnecessary Global Lockdowns
How Fear, Groupthink Drove Unnecessary Global Lockdowns
.By Yinon WeissMay 21, 2020
How Fear, Groupthink Drove Unnecessary Global LockdownsAP Photo/Alex Brandon
Reliance on Faulty Models
In the face of a novel virus threat, China clamped down on its citizens. Academics used faulty information to build faulty models. Leaders relied on these faulty models. Dissenting views were suppressed. The media flamed fears and the world panicked.
That is the story of what may eventually be known as one of the biggest medical and economic blunders of all time. The collective failure of every Western nation, except one, to question groupthink will surely be studied by economists, doctors, and psychologists for decades to come.
To put things in perspective, the virus is now known to have an infection fatality rate for most people under 65 that is no more dangerous than driving 13 to 101 miles per day. Even by conservative estimates, the odds of COVID-19 death are roughly in line with existing baseline odds of dying in any given year.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/21/how_fear_groupthink_drove_unnecessary_global_lockdowns_143253.html
Progressive group used phone data to track protesters at anti-lockdown rallies
A progressive health care advocacy group used cellphone data to track the movements of demonstrators at lockdown protests in five states, according to a report.
The Committee to Protect Medicare collected the anonymized location data from opt-in cellphone apps and data scientists at the firm VoteMap used it to determine the movements of the devices at protests in April and May in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado and Florida, the Guardian reported Monday.
They created visualizations that tracked the movements up to 48 hours after the protests ended, and Jeremy Fair, executive vice president of VoteMap, told the newspaper that many of the cellphones reached the state borders and some even crossed them.
https://nypost.com/2020/05/20/group-used-cell-phone-data-to-track-anti-lockdown-rallies/
CDC Now Says CCP Virus ‘Does Not Spread Easily’ From Contaminated Surfaces
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now says the CCP virus doesn’t “spread easily” from contaminated surfaces, in quietly updated guidance.
For months people were told that it was possible they could get COVID-19, a disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, “by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes.”
“This is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads, but we are still learning more about this virus,” the CDC website stated until the latest update.
The webpage in question was called “How Coronavirus Spreads” before being changed to “How COVID-19 Spreads.” Health officials created a new subhed that states: “The virus spreads easily between people” and said current information suggests it’s spreading more efficiently than the flu but “not as efficiently as measles.”
They then say the virus “does not spread easily in other ways.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/cdc-now-says-ccp-virus-does-not-spread-easily-from-contaminated-surfaces_3358565.html
TSA tries again to impose an ID requirement to fly
Air travel in the US has been reduced by more than 90%, measured by the numbers of people passing through checkpoints at airports operated by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and its contractors.
And the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has postponed its threat to start unlawfully refusing passage to travelers without ID credentials compliant with the REAL-ID Act of 2005 for another year, from October 1, 2020, to October 1, 2021.
So relatively little attention is being paidright now to air travel or TSA requirements — making it the ideal time for the TSA to try to sneak a new ID requirement for air travel (to take effect in 2021) into place without arousing public protest.
Today, in collaboration with nine other organizations concerned with freedom of travel, identification, privacy, human rights, and civil liberties, we filed comments with the TSA in opposition to what is ostensibly a “Notice of intent to request approval from the Office of Mangement and Budget” for a new form, TSA Form 415.
Our comments were joined by the Identity Project, Freedom To Travel USA, Fiat Fiendum, Inc., National Center For Transgender Equality (NCTE), Restore The Fourth, Inc., Patient Privacy Rights, Defending Rights And Dissent, The Constitutional Alliance, Privacy Times, and Just Futures Law.
https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/05/19/tsa-tries-again-to-impose-an-id-requirement-to-fly/
Fight for the Future launches new campaign to oppose growing employer surveillance during COVID-19
Prominent digital rights group has launched a new campaign opposing efforts by employers to spy on their employees whether they’re working from home or in warehouses
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasing number of companies across America are subjecting their remote workers to surveillance technology like always-on webcams, keystroke logging, and software that alerts employers when their employees print out their resumes from their home computers. Companies like Amazon have also increased surveillance of workers in their warehouses. These companies might try to justify spying on their workers as a way to ensure productivity or accountability, but the reality is that workplace surveillance is yet one more way for employers to exert an unreasonable amount of control over their employees. Such actions are certain to lead to even greater exploitation and discrimination of workers.
To prevent the spread of these invasive, digital spying tools, human rights organization Fight for the Future has launched a new campaign and website, www.stopspyingonworkers.org.
https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2020-05-13-fight-for-the-future-launches-new-campaign-to/
Trump to withdraw US from Open Skies Treaty, will inform Russia on Friday – report
Donald Trump is set to withdraw the United States from one of the few remaining arms control mechanisms – the Open Skies Treaty – this week, senior administration officials have said, according to the New York Times.
The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed on Thursday that Moscow had not yet received any official notification from Washington.
The Open Skies Treaty, which has been in force since 2002, allows for unarmed aerial surveillance flights to be conducted over the territories of its participants. American personnel are on board the Russian flights over the US, while Russian personnel are on board during flights over Russia.
While no official communication has come from the White House yet, Moscow has been expecting the move for some time. In April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the decision “has already been taken in Washington.”
https://www.rt.com/usa/489370-trump-withdrawing-open-skies-treaty
Trump lifts 9-year ban on UK-Saudi arms subsidiary under the shadow of cover-up
May 21, 2020 at 3:57 pm
A nine-year-old policy that barred the US from doing business with a Saudi Arabian subsidiary of a British defence firm, which pled guilty to fraud in a multibillion-dollar arms deal in 2010, thought to have been the most corrupt arms deal in history, has been rescinded by the Trump administration.
According to a notice published in the Federal Register, the policy was rescinded at the request of BAE Systems Saudi Arabia. “Notice is hereby given that the Department of State has rescinded the policy of denial concerning BAES SAL, a subsidiary of BAE Systems plc,” a US Department of State notice said yesterday.
The notice affirmed that “on March 2, 2010, a judgment was filed against BAE Systems plc (BAES) for conspiring to commit offenses against the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371, including conspiring to violate the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).”
The administration of Barack Obama imposed the ban in 2011 after BAE Systems pleaded guilty to fraud in the 1985 Al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
Announcing the lifting of the ban, the notice said that it was carried out “in response to a request from BAES for rescission of this policy of denial” after which the State Department had conducted a thorough review of the circumstances surrounding the conviction and the imposition of the policy of denial. The department said it “has determined that it is in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States to rescind the policy of denial concerning BAE SAL, including its divisions and business units, and successor entities.”
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200521-trump-lifts-9-year-ban-on-uk-saudi-arms-subsidiary-under-the-shadow-of-cover-up/
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger says online encyclopedia scrapped neutrality, favors lefty politics
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger penned a blog post last week declaring that the site is “badly biased,” “no longer has an effective neutrality policy” and clearly favors lefty politics.
Sanger – who is no longer with involved with Wikipedia – wrote that it has long forgotten its original policy of aiming to present information from a neutral point of view, and nowadays the crowd-sourced online encyclopedia “can be counted on” to cover politics with a liberal point of view.
“There is a rewritten policy, but it endorses the utterly bankrupt canard of journalistic ‘false balance,’ which is directly contradictory to the original neutrality policy. As a result, even as journalists turn to opinion and activism, Wikipedia now touts controversial points of view on politics, religion, and science,” Sanger wrote. “Examples have become embarrassingly easy to find.”
https://www.foxnews.com/media/wikipedia-co-founder-larry-sanger-says-online-dictionary-scrapped-neutrality-favors-lefty-politics
‘Ask President Trump’: Cuomo Blames Trump For Nursing Home COVID Deaths
Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blamed President Donald Trump for mass deaths in nursing homes after forcing long-term care facilities to take in coronavirus-positive patients.
The governor of New York told reporters to “ask President Trump” about the nursing home deaths Wednesday, the New York Post reported, arguing that his state was merely following the federal government’s lead in sending coronavirus-positive patients to nursing homes.
“Anyone who wants to ask, ‘Why did the state do that with COVID patients in nursing homes?’ It’s because the state followed President Trump’s CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance,” Cuomo told reporters when asked whether he regretted the directive that appears to have resulted in the deaths of thousands of nursing home residents.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/21/andrew-cuomo-donald-trump-nursing-homes-coronavirus-new-york/
Grateful Dead Truckin' Live 1972
Actress Lori Loughlin to plead guilty in US college admissions bribery scandal, documents show
Loughlin is accused of conspiring with a consultant to pass off her two daughters as promising rowing recruits to gain admission to USC
Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, paid the consultant US$500,000, prosecutors allege
Actress Lori Loughlin, who maintained her innocence for 16 months, will plead guilty to fraud in the college admissions scandal, according to a plea agreement filed in federal court.
Loughlin was arrested in March 2019 and charged with conspiring with William “Rick” Singer, a Newport Beach consultant at the heart of the admissions scandal, to pass off her two daughters, Olivia Jade Giannulli and Isabella Rose Giannulli, as promising rowing recruits, all but guaranteeing their admission to USC.
Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, paid Singer US$500,000 in all, prosecutors charged. Giannulli has agreed to plead guilty as well, court documents show.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3085520/actress-lori-loughlin-plead-guilty-college