Conservative Ideology 2024: NOTHING BUT LIES AND FEARMONGERING

[Typical Lax Dad]

Moved from the covid thread :

This guy Andrew Sullivan, gay writer living in Provincetown MA, makes more sense in one day than the entire liberal establishment can in twelve lifetimes. His words will especially infuriate the know-it-all’s…know any?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... COVID.html

He’s absolutely correct on every angle. The government is not here to hold your hand you crybabies. And if you think the government will hold your hand when you need it most, grow the eff up.

“Government isn't there to hold your hand': Columnist Andrew Sullivan tells CNN that US is wrong to pursue 'illusory victory' over COVID and says kids are 18 times more likely to DROWN than die from virus”.

“He also argued: 'The most potent incentive for vaccination is to be brutally frank, a sharp rise in mortality rates. The more people know someone who has suffered and died, the more they are likely to take measures...In other words, call their bluff...Let it rip.'”

He’s correct.

Video: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/202 ... tv-vpx.cnn

Andrew Sullivan, with Brian Williams, 08-09-20, explains Trumpism & echoes Carville on the dangers of woke-ism.

https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/trans ... 1-n1276404


ANDREW SULLIVAN : I think Trump ism is here to stay because the issues that propelled it is still here. The issue of immigration, which obviously we`ve seen reaching a new crisis. The issue of trade, America`s role in the world and of the divide between us, between the red and the blue, between the coast and the heartland, those are all there and they`re ripe for exploitation. And that lasts longer than COVID.

On the other hand, COVID is not going to disappear entirely very soon, and we learn to live with them. We live with viruses on the same planet. And we have to live with them. I mean, I`ve lived with the HIV virus now for 28 years, and I have stopped wanting to get rid of it. I`ve learned how to just deal with it. The point is not to defeat it, is to get on with your life, which is the whole point of everything. So I think -- I think there`s a place for a sane conservatism to revive, maybe in revulsion to Trump but also maybe understanding that he said things that maybe more elite conservatives should have been thinking about and saying before, that can happen. And equally, we can get to a point where COVID is also swiftly put into our past because we just don`t want to think about it. And because even it`s still mutating and even if it`s still cutting a swath through the unvaccinated, it is going to die. It`s going to run out of people to infect eventually, and it will go away. So both can stay for a while, but both can end to.

WILLIAMS: I know you have seen the comments from James Carville speaking of infections on things like woke-ism, especially in the Democratic Party, and especially on the left, it makes it so hard to feel like you`re living a proper life. It makes it so hard to feel like you`re saying the right thing, especially given feelings and sensitivities and terminologies that seem to change on a weekly basis, is this a clear and present danger, in your view, to the Democratic Party if they would like to continue winning elections?

SULLIVAN: I think it is. I think it`s to the credit of the Democrats and to the credit of that party. And to the credit of the left in general, that they`re not saying that we should ignore history, we should, we should face up to the worst things that America did. We should look it right in the eyes, and we shouldn't euthanize it. At the same time, America has been a story of getting past some of the worst things we have done and the real dynamic of America is progressing from them and we have made progress. Americans will look to the future. And Americans don't want to be told that their country is somehow intrinsically evil at its root, and can never be better. If the Democrats have that attitude, like scolding people, lecturing them, telling them the words they can say and cannot say, treating people they disagree with as if they`re somehow morally wrong, they`re not going to win votes that way.

And what I fear is that by doing that, by alienating especially lots of people in the middle suburbanized people who know the country`s flawed, but still believe in it, and still believe in the future, if they do that, they`re going to throw away a golden opportunity, and they are going to feed the fuel of the far right. Immigration, for example, unless the Democrats get serious about saying we`re going to really control it, they will give them a major issue to win on and it`s something that people really feel and they don`t want their kids either to be in schools and come home and say, mom, am I oppressing my friend, because I`m white and he's black. No one wants to hear their kids say that when they come home from high school.

So we can teach accurate history. But we shouldn't teach people to hate themselves. And we shouldn't teach people to hate their country. And the politician always looks forward, looks to the future is the one that wins in America. America wants to move forward. It doesn't like dwelling on its past that's Europe. And there`s some elements in the left now and in the right in America, but a more like European right and left that American right and left. And that worries me.

WILLIAMS: Even your most ardent fans who have read much of what`s in the book contemporaneously, when it comes out, reading it again now in the light of 2021 your prescience is rather unbelievable. I'm deep in the book, page 419, I come across this. A President Clinton will be checked and balanced. A President Trump will be pushing through wide open doors, who can temper or stop him then? You wrote that at or about Election Day, in 2016? How did you know what the rest of us didn't and remember, winning the presidency, surprised Donald Trump, first and foremost?

SULLIVAN: He was tapping into feelings that were very powerful, feelings about identity, feelings about who you really are as Americans, and also tapping into major fears that people have about their lives, he was able to tell people in the middle of the country, that I'm a member of the elites that hasn't completely ignored you, and actually hears the troubles that you are experiencing and is prepared to at least take you seriously. And that's a very potent thing. And also, it's very potent, very potent, to run on hatred of the other, fear of the other, and fear of the unknown. These are things that most democratic politicians do know and small D, Republican and Democrat, they don`t pull those levers, because they know they`re dangerous levers to pull. They know they tear a country apart. Trump had no compunction, and still has no compunction, no sense of responsibility.

And so you could - but you could see the strength of it, you can see the appeal of it, you could see people who felt that country was slipping away from them, and he was someone who could bring it back. And I think I've always felt that was happening. And I also saw his political genius. It's so easy to dismiss this man who is a monster in so many ways. But not to realize he's also politically very gifted. He's a talented demagogue. They don't come along like him very often, and that I could see it coming. I could also see, the best way to foil him would be Biden. And Biden's ability to neutralize that, not to polarize people, is a huge strength. And when you look at the Democratic Party, who else can fill that role right now? He really is the essential man. And he`s an old man, and he`s doing great, but that's a very fragile position for the Democratic Party to be in. {They should be} organizing themselves so they appeal to the economic concerns, appeal to people`s ability to make a living, as opposed to lecturing them about what words they can use and whether they should constantly be assessing other people's race as the most important thing about them, when it really isn't.

You folks need to get on board or will be left behind. We ain’t turning back progress. This is a competitive society. Open it up to free and fair competition. Let the chips fall.

[Peter Brown]

Moved from the covid thread :

This guy Andrew Sullivan, gay writer living in Provincetown MA, makes more sense in one day than the entire liberal establishment can in twelve lifetimes. His words will especially infuriate the know-it-all’s…know any?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... COVID.html

He’s absolutely correct on every angle. The government is not here to hold your hand you crybabies. And if you think the government will hold your hand when you need it most, grow the eff up.

“Government isn't there to hold your hand': Columnist Andrew Sullivan tells CNN that US is wrong to pursue 'illusory victory' over COVID and says kids are 18 times more likely to DROWN than die from virus”.

“He also argued: 'The most potent incentive for vaccination is to be brutally frank, a sharp rise in mortality rates. The more people know someone who has suffered and died, the more they are likely to take measures...In other words, call their bluff...Let it rip.'”

He’s correct.

Video: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/202 ... tv-vpx.cnn

Andrew Sullivan, with Brian Williams, 08-09-20, explains Trumpism & echoes Carville on the dangers of woke-ism.

https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/trans ... 1-n1276404


ANDREW SULLIVAN : I think Trump ism is here to stay because the issues that propelled it is still here. The issue of immigration, which obviously we`ve seen reaching a new crisis. The issue of trade, America`s role in the world and of the divide between us, between the red and the blue, between the coast and the heartland, those are all there and they`re ripe for exploitation. And that lasts longer than COVID.

On the other hand, COVID is not going to disappear entirely very soon, and we learn to live with them. We live with viruses on the same planet. And we have to live with them. I mean, I`ve lived with the HIV virus now for 28 years, and I have stopped wanting to get rid of it. I`ve learned how to just deal with it. The point is not to defeat it, is to get on with your life, which is the whole point of everything. So I think -- I think there`s a place for a sane conservatism to revive, maybe in revulsion to Trump but also maybe understanding that he said things that maybe more elite conservatives should have been thinking about and saying before, that can happen. And equally, we can get to a point where COVID is also swiftly put into our past because we just don`t want to think about it. And because even it`s still mutating and even if it`s still cutting a swath through the unvaccinated, it is going to die. It`s going to run out of people to infect eventually, and it will go away. So both can stay for a while, but both can end to.

WILLIAMS: I know you have seen the comments from James Carville speaking of infections on things like woke-ism, especially in the Democratic Party, and especially on the left, it makes it so hard to feel like you`re living a proper life. It makes it so hard to feel like you`re saying the right thing, especially given feelings and sensitivities and terminologies that seem to change on a weekly basis, is this a clear and present danger, in your view, to the Democratic Party if they would like to continue winning elections?

SULLIVAN: I think it is. I think it`s to the credit of the Democrats and to the credit of that party. And to the credit of the left in general, that they`re not saying that we should ignore history, we should, we should face up to the worst things that America did. We should look it right in the eyes, and we shouldn't euthanize it. At the same time, America has been a story of getting past some of the worst things we have done and the real dynamic of America is progressing from them and we have made progress. Americans will look to the future. And Americans don't want to be told that their country is somehow intrinsically evil at its root, and can never be better. If the Democrats have that attitude, like scolding people, lecturing them, telling them the words they can say and cannot say, treating people they disagree with as if they`re somehow morally wrong, they`re not going to win votes that way.

And what I fear is that by doing that, by alienating especially lots of people in the middle suburbanized people who know the country`s flawed, but still believe in it, and still believe in the future, if they do that, they`re going to throw away a golden opportunity, and they are going to feed the fuel of the far right. Immigration, for example, unless the Democrats get serious about saying we`re going to really control it, they will give them a major issue to win on and it`s something that people really feel and they don`t want their kids either to be in schools and come home and say, mom, am I oppressing my friend, because I`m white and he's black. No one wants to hear their kids say that when they come home from high school.

So we can teach accurate history. But we shouldn't teach people to hate themselves. And we shouldn't teach people to hate their country. And the politician always looks forward, looks to the future is the one that wins in America. America wants to move forward. It doesn't like dwelling on its past that's Europe. And there`s some elements in the left now and in the right in America, but a more like European right and left that American right and left. And that worries me.

WILLIAMS: Even your most ardent fans who have read much of what`s in the book contemporaneously, when it comes out, reading it again now in the light of 2021 your prescience is rather unbelievable. I'm deep in the book, page 419, I come across this. A President Clinton will be checked and balanced. A President Trump will be pushing through wide open doors, who can temper or stop him then? You wrote that at or about Election Day, in 2016? How did you know what the rest of us didn't and remember, winning the presidency, surprised Donald Trump, first and foremost?

SULLIVAN: He was tapping into feelings that were very powerful, feelings about identity, feelings about who you really are as Americans, and also tapping into major fears that people have about their lives, he was able to tell people in the middle of the country, that I'm a member of the elites that hasn't completely ignored you, and actually hears the troubles that you are experiencing and is prepared to at least take you seriously. And that's a very potent thing. And also, it's very potent, very potent, to run on hatred of the other, fear of the other, and fear of the unknown. These are things that most democratic politicians do know and small D, Republican and Democrat, they don`t pull those levers, because they know they`re dangerous levers to pull. They know they tear a country apart. Trump had no compunction, and still has no compunction, no sense of responsibility.

And so you could - but you could see the strength of it, you can see the appeal of it, you could see people who felt that country was slipping away from them, and he was someone who could bring it back. And I think I've always felt that was happening. And I also saw his political genius. It's so easy to dismiss this man who is a monster in so many ways. But not to realize he's also politically very gifted. He's a talented demagogue. They don't come along like him very often, and that I could see it coming. I could also see, the best way to foil him would be Biden. And Biden's ability to neutralize that, not to polarize people, is a huge strength. And when you look at the Democratic Party, who else can fill that role right now? He really is the essential man. And he`s an old man, and he`s doing great, but that's a very fragile position for the Democratic Party to be in. {They should be} organizing themselves so they appeal to the economic concerns, appeal to people`s ability to make a living, as opposed to lecturing them about what words they can use and whether they should constantly be assessing other people's race as the most important thing about them, when it really isn't.

You folks need to get on board or will be left behind. We ain’t turning back progress. This is a competitive society. Open it up to free and fair competition. Let the chips fall.

By installing Marxism?!

[Typical Lax Dad]

That's according to ABC affiliate KOTA, which reported that the vendors and bikers say they're exercising their First Amendment rights. Several vendors at the rally are selling items with swastikas, SS symbols, and the Confederate Flag, but vendor Jenny Alonso said that doesn't mean they believe in the ideology.

Good people…

[Typical Lax Dad]

Trump’s people.



This sh*t is actually funny…..not that long ago. What kind of people are these… My guess is some here were in middle and high school! The world has been turned in its head for many folks…..I remember when a guy would come into to leverage finance pipeline meetings and guys would get their shoes shined while talking about deals. No issue at all with confidentiality…..it was just the shoe shine man.

We need to appease this people. Trump understood it. Good for him.

[old salt]

Trump’s people.



This sh*t is actually funny…..not that long ago. My guess is some here were middle and high school! The world has been turned in its head to many folks…..I remember when a guy would come into to leverage finance pipeline meetings and guys would get their shoes shined while talking about deals. No issue at all with confidentiality…..it was just the shoe shine man.

Right. Nothing's changed since the '60's. No progress for black citizens in the USA. Still no opportunities.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Trump’s people.



This sh*t is actually funny…..not that long ago. My guess is some here were middle and high school! The world has been turned in its head to many folks…..I remember when a guy would come into to leverage finance pipeline meetings and guys would get their shoes shined while talking about deals. No issue at all with confidentiality…..it was just the shoe shine man.

Right. Nothing's changed since the '60's. No progress for black citizens in the USA. Still no opportunities.

there were “no opportunities” then? Those folks hadn’t made any progress either?

[MDlaxfan76]

Trump’s people.



This sh*t is actually funny…..not that long ago. My guess is some here were middle and high school! The world has been turned in its head to many folks…..I remember when a guy would come into to leverage finance pipeline meetings and guys would get their shoes shined while talking about deals. No issue at all with confidentiality…..it was just the shoe shine man.

Right. Nothing's changed since the '60's. No progress for black citizens in the USA. Still no opportunities.

there were “no opportunities” then? Those folks hadn’t made any progress either?

I'm afraid this is lost on Salty.

[old salt]

Trump’s people.



This sh*t is actually funny…..not that long ago. My guess is some here were middle and high school! The world has been turned in its head to many folks…..I remember when a guy would come into to leverage finance pipeline meetings and guys would get their shoes shined while talking about deals. No issue at all with confidentiality…..it was just the shoe shine man.

Right. Nothing's changed since the '60's. No progress for black citizens in the USA. Still no opportunities.

there were “no opportunities” then? Those folks hadn’t made any progress either?

I'm afraid this is lost on Salty.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Trump’s people.



This sh*t is actually funny…..not that long ago. My guess is some here were middle and high school! The world has been turned in its head to many folks…..I remember when a guy would come into to leverage finance pipeline meetings and guys would get their shoes shined while talking about deals. No issue at all with confidentiality…..it was just the shoe shine man.

Right. Nothing's changed since the '60's. No progress for black citizens in the USA. Still no opportunities.

there were “no opportunities” then? Those folks hadn’t made any progress either?

I'm afraid this is lost on Salty.

Where is Bret Weinstein to run point? Some smart dudes. I have seen them quite a few times. It’s a big tent. Always has been.

Thomas Sowell’s opening statement is shameful….. It’s purposely worded. He’s smarter than that or dumber than I realized. Many people would give the USA a mulligan if “slavery” was the only issue.

[Peter Brown]

Trump’s people.



This sh*t is actually funny…..not that long ago. My guess is some here were middle and high school! The world has been turned in its head to many folks…..I remember when a guy would come into to leverage finance pipeline meetings and guys would get their shoes shined while talking about deals. No issue at all with confidentiality…..it was just the shoe shine man.

Right. Nothing's changed since the '60's. No progress for black citizens in the USA. Still no opportunities.

there were “no opportunities” then? Those folks hadn’t made any progress either?

I'm afraid this is lost on Salty.

Where is Bret Weinstein to run point? Some smart dudes. I have seen them quite a few times. It’s a big tent. Always has been.

Thomas Sowell’s opening statement is shameful….. It’s purposely worded. He’s smarter than that or dumber than I realized. Many people would give the USA a mulligan if “slavery” was the only issue.

“Slavery has been an institution around the world for thousands of years” is….’shameful’?

Do you think Mr. Sowell is incorrect?

[Typical Lax Dad]

“Beginning in the 1650s, in response to demographic and economic change, and the threat from Bacon’s Rebellion, the Virginia legislature passed race-based laws limiting the rights of black people regardless of free or unfree status. The legislature codified two of the key elements of American slavery: a black servant was enslaved for life, and any child born of an enslaved woman was automatically enslaved. These laws took hold across the colonies and developed in tandem with market capitalism, creating “chattel” slavery—the treatment of human beings as commodities; products to be bought, sold, given, inherited.”

Nowhere else on the planet had this existed. Sowell knows (or should know) better. I even give this country a Mulligan for slavery.

[Typical Lax Dad]

What you weren’t taught in school:

https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust ... -and-white

“[S]lavery deprived the enslaved person of any legal rights or autonomy and granted the slave owner complete power over the black men, women, and children legally recognized as property . . .

American slavery was often brutal, barbaric, and violent. In addition to the hardship of forced labor, enslaved people were maimed or killed by slave owners as punishment for working too slowly, visiting a spouse living on another plantation, or even learning to read. Enslaved people were also sexually exploited.”

Prior to this, slavery didn’t mean what it means in your modern mind.

[cradleandshoot]

“Beginning in the 1650s, in response to demographic and economic change, and the threat from Bacon’s Rebellion, the Virginia legislature passed race-based laws limiting the rights of black people regardless of free or unfree status. The legislature codified two of the key elements of American slavery: a black servant was enslaved for life, and any child born of an enslaved woman was automatically enslaved. These laws took hold across the colonies and developed in tandem with market capitalism, creating “chattel” slavery—the treatment of human beings as commodities; products to be bought, sold, given, inherited.”

Nowhere else on the planet had this existed. Sowell knows (or should know) better. I even give this country a Mulligan for slavery.q

So it took the Brits around 1600 to really give slavery a bad name? I bet those many thousands of slaves that died building the pyramids would disagree with with you. The Romans also had a reputation for being very kind to the people they enslaved. Damn those Brits for giving slavery a bad name.

[seacoaster]

More on Republicans' stock buying in advance of the rest of us learning about the coronavirus; fun:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ead-stock/

"Sen. Rand Paul revealed Wednesday that his wife bought stock in Gilead Sciences — which makes an antiviral drug used to treat covid-19 — on Feb. 26, 2020, before the threat from the coronavirus was fully understood by the public and before it was classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization.

The disclosure, in a filing with the Senate, came 16 months after the 45-day reporting deadline set forth in the Stock Act, which is designed to combat insider trading.

Experts in corporate and securities law said the investment, and especially the delayed reporting of it, undermined trust in government and raised questions about whether the Kentucky Republican’s family had sought to profit from nonpublic information about the looming health emergency and plans by the U.S. government to combat it. Several senators sold large amounts of stocks in January or February of last year, prompting a handful of insider-trading probes. Most of those investigations concluded in the spring of 2020, according to notifications from the Justice Department to lawmakers under scrutiny.

“The senator ought to have an explanation for the trade and, more importantly, why it took him almost a year and a half to discover it from his wife,” said James D. Cox, a professor of law at Duke University.

Kelsey Cooper, a spokeswoman for Paul, said the senator completed a reporting form for his wife’s investment last year but learned only recently, while preparing an annual disclosure, that the form had not been transmitted. He sought guidance from the Senate Ethics Committee, she said, and filed the supplemental report along with an annual disclosure Wednesday.

She also said Paul’s wife, Kelley, an author and former communications consultant, lost money on the investment, which she made with her own earnings. The purchase was of between $1,000 and $15,000 of stock in Gilead, which makes the antiviral drug known as remdesivir.

The drug was initially invented as a hepatitis C drug a decade ago and tested for possible use against other infectious diseases, such as Ebola. Remdesivir gained emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in May of last year and was administered to then-President Donald Trump when he was sick with covid-19 in October, before it gained full approval. Results of a WHO-sponsored study released later that month raised doubts about the drug’s effectiveness, prompting the international agency to recommend against its use as a treatment for covid-19.

That marked a reversal from its original position, laid out on Feb. 24, 2020 — two days before Kelley Paul’s purchase — by a WHO assistant director general, who described remdesivir as the only known drug that “may have real efficacy” in treating the novel virus. The National Institutes of Health began a clinical trial the next day. The drug brought in $2.8 billion for Gilead last year.

The existence of public information causing Gilead’s stock to rise, said Joshua Mitts, an expert in securities law at Columbia University, doesn’t rule out the possibility that the senator gained additional knowledge in private. Paul is a member of the Senate health committee, which in January hosted Trump administration officials for a briefing on the coronavirus.

“Not everything about the product was necessarily clear from existing announcements,” Mitts said. “There could have been information about interest that certain individuals within administration may have had in the product, or that hospitals here in the U.S. were already loading up.”

Cooper said the senator attended no briefings on covid-19. Eight days after his wife invested in the company behind the antiviral drug thought to be effective against covid-19, Paul cast the lone vote in the Senate against $8.3 billion in emergency spending to combat the emerging outbreak.

Jordan Libowitz, communications director for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the flurry of media reports about possible insider trading by members of Congress during the reporting window for his wife’s purchase should have made the senator all the more attentive to disclosure rules.

“One would think he would make sure all of his reporting was on the up and up,” Libowitz said.

Paul, an ophthalmologist who in March 2020 became the first U.S. senator to test positive for the virus, has since clashed with federal health authorities over masks and other tools to mitigate spread of the virus."

[CU88]

In Franklin, Tennessee, yesterday, antimask mobs threatened doctors and nurses asking the local school board to reinstate a mask mandate in the schools.

“We will find you,” they shouted at a man leaving the meeting. “We know who you are.”

[Typical Lax Dad]

More on Republicans' stock buying in advance of the rest of us learning about the coronavirus; fun:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ead-stock/

"Sen. Rand Paul revealed Wednesday that his wife bought stock in Gilead Sciences — which makes an antiviral drug used to treat covid-19 — on Feb. 26, 2020, before the threat from the coronavirus was fully understood by the public and before it was classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization.

The disclosure, in a filing with the Senate, came 16 months after the 45-day reporting deadline set forth in the Stock Act, which is designed to combat insider trading.

Experts in corporate and securities law said the investment, and especially the delayed reporting of it, undermined trust in government and raised questions about whether the Kentucky Republican’s family had sought to profit from nonpublic information about the looming health emergency and plans by the U.S. government to combat it. Several senators sold large amounts of stocks in January or February of last year, prompting a handful of insider-trading probes. Most of those investigations concluded in the spring of 2020, according to notifications from the Justice Department to lawmakers under scrutiny.

“The senator ought to have an explanation for the trade and, more importantly, why it took him almost a year and a half to discover it from his wife,” said James D. Cox, a professor of law at Duke University.

Kelsey Cooper, a spokeswoman for Paul, said the senator completed a reporting form for his wife’s investment last year but learned only recently, while preparing an annual disclosure, that the form had not been transmitted. He sought guidance from the Senate Ethics Committee, she said, and filed the supplemental report along with an annual disclosure Wednesday.

She also said Paul’s wife, Kelley, an author and former communications consultant, lost money on the investment, which she made with her own earnings. The purchase was of between $1,000 and $15,000 of stock in Gilead, which makes the antiviral drug known as remdesivir.

The drug was initially invented as a hepatitis C drug a decade ago and tested for possible use against other infectious diseases, such as Ebola. Remdesivir gained emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in May of last year and was administered to then-President Donald Trump when he was sick with covid-19 in October, before it gained full approval. Results of a WHO-sponsored study released later that month raised doubts about the drug’s effectiveness, prompting the international agency to recommend against its use as a treatment for covid-19.

That marked a reversal from its original position, laid out on Feb. 24, 2020 — two days before Kelley Paul’s purchase — by a WHO assistant director general, who described remdesivir as the only known drug that “may have real efficacy” in treating the novel virus. The National Institutes of Health began a clinical trial the next day. The drug brought in $2.8 billion for Gilead last year.

The existence of public information causing Gilead’s stock to rise, said Joshua Mitts, an expert in securities law at Columbia University, doesn’t rule out the possibility that the senator gained additional knowledge in private. Paul is a member of the Senate health committee, which in January hosted Trump administration officials for a briefing on the coronavirus.

“Not everything about the product was necessarily clear from existing announcements,” Mitts said. “There could have been information about interest that certain individuals within administration may have had in the product, or that hospitals here in the U.S. were already loading up.”

Cooper said the senator attended no briefings on covid-19. Eight days after his wife invested in the company behind the antiviral drug thought to be effective against covid-19, Paul cast the lone vote in the Senate against $8.3 billion in emergency spending to combat the emerging outbreak.

Jordan Libowitz, communications director for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the flurry of media reports about possible insider trading by members of Congress during the reporting window for his wife’s purchase should have made the senator all the more attentive to disclosure rules.

“One would think he would make sure all of his reporting was on the up and up,” Libowitz said.

Paul, an ophthalmologist who in March 2020 became the first U.S. senator to test positive for the virus, has since clashed with federal health authorities over masks and other tools to mitigate spread of the virus."

What’s her Fanlax handle?

[Peter Brown]

More on Republicans' stock buying in advance of the rest of us learning about the coronavirus; fun:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ead-stock/

"Sen. Rand Paul revealed Wednesday that his wife bought stock in Gilead Sciences — which makes an antiviral drug used to treat covid-19 — on Feb. 26, 2020, before the threat from the coronavirus was fully understood by the public and before it was classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization.

The disclosure, in a filing with the Senate, came 16 months after the 45-day reporting deadline set forth in the Stock Act, which is designed to combat insider trading.

Experts in corporate and securities law said the investment, and especially the delayed reporting of it, undermined trust in government and raised questions about whether the Kentucky Republican’s family had sought to profit from nonpublic information about the looming health emergency and plans by the U.S. government to combat it. Several senators sold large amounts of stocks in January or February of last year, prompting a handful of insider-trading probes. Most of those investigations concluded in the spring of 2020, according to notifications from the Justice Department to lawmakers under scrutiny.

“The senator ought to have an explanation for the trade and, more importantly, why it took him almost a year and a half to discover it from his wife,” said James D. Cox, a professor of law at Duke University.

Kelsey Cooper, a spokeswoman for Paul, said the senator completed a reporting form for his wife’s investment last year but learned only recently, while preparing an annual disclosure, that the form had not been transmitted. He sought guidance from the Senate Ethics Committee, she said, and filed the supplemental report along with an annual disclosure Wednesday.

She also said Paul’s wife, Kelley, an author and former communications consultant, lost money on the investment, which she made with her own earnings. The purchase was of between $1,000 and $15,000 of stock in Gilead, which makes the antiviral drug known as remdesivir.

The drug was initially invented as a hepatitis C drug a decade ago and tested for possible use against other infectious diseases, such as Ebola. Remdesivir gained emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in May of last year and was administered to then-President Donald Trump when he was sick with covid-19 in October, before it gained full approval. Results of a WHO-sponsored study released later that month raised doubts about the drug’s effectiveness, prompting the international agency to recommend against its use as a treatment for covid-19.

That marked a reversal from its original position, laid out on Feb. 24, 2020 — two days before Kelley Paul’s purchase — by a WHO assistant director general, who described remdesivir as the only known drug that “may have real efficacy” in treating the novel virus. The National Institutes of Health began a clinical trial the next day. The drug brought in $2.8 billion for Gilead last year.

The existence of public information causing Gilead’s stock to rise, said Joshua Mitts, an expert in securities law at Columbia University, doesn’t rule out the possibility that the senator gained additional knowledge in private. Paul is a member of the Senate health committee, which in January hosted Trump administration officials for a briefing on the coronavirus.

“Not everything about the product was necessarily clear from existing announcements,” Mitts said. “There could have been information about interest that certain individuals within administration may have had in the product, or that hospitals here in the U.S. were already loading up.”

Cooper said the senator attended no briefings on covid-19. Eight days after his wife invested in the company behind the antiviral drug thought to be effective against covid-19, Paul cast the lone vote in the Senate against $8.3 billion in emergency spending to combat the emerging outbreak.

Jordan Libowitz, communications director for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the flurry of media reports about possible insider trading by members of Congress during the reporting window for his wife’s purchase should have made the senator all the more attentive to disclosure rules.

“One would think he would make sure all of his reporting was on the up and up,” Libowitz said.

Paul, an ophthalmologist who in March 2020 became the first U.S. senator to test positive for the virus, has since clashed with federal health authorities over masks and other tools to mitigate spread of the virus."

What’s her Fanlax handle?

What’s fascinating is the ‘journalists’ have the same obsessive stalkerishness about Rand that ggait has about me; they should have (but natch, didn’t) mention that Kelly actually LOST MONEY on the trade.

Even more fascinating than that is how a typical Democratic reader has absolutely zero curiosity about the obvious motivation of the ‘journalist’, given that the overarching message of this article is (beyond “Republican Bad’) ‘Rand Paul used his wife to make out like a bandit but you joe Democrat never will because Republicans only care about themselves’.

Meanwhile, she lost money.

[seacoaster]

Rif; reading is fundamental:

"She also said Paul’s wife, Kelley, an author and former communications consultant, lost money on the investment, which she made with her own earnings. The purchase was of between $1,000 and $15,000 of stock in Gilead, which makes the antiviral drug known as remdesivir."

Boycott Stupid.

[Brooklyn]

another fine example of conservative ideology:



https://2qibqm39xjt6q46gf1rwo2g1-wpengi ... 24x758.jpg

[MDlaxfan76]

Petey pumped this stock pretty hard, if I recall.

Feb 26 the stock was about 70, went to 83 on pandemic first wave, then dropped.

Sounds like she, too, like Petey, didn't sell on the high and instead rode it down.