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April 2020
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Senator Loeffler, Already Accused Of Pandemic Insider Trading, Will Convert All Individual Stock Holdings To Managed Funds

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Over the last few weeks there's been tremendous attention paid to the prophetic timing of stock sales by two Senators: Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler. Both of whom were insisting publicly that there was little risk associated with the coronavirus and COVID-19, while receiving important briefings in the Senate and quietly selling stocks in retail and travel companies before the market collapsed and -- in Loeffler's case -- buying up stocks in remote work and hospital protective equipment suppliers. It all looks pretty pretty bad. Loeffler, from day one, has defended the stock sales, saying they were done by a third party and she wasn't aware of them. However, the timing and the choices in stocks are still pretty head-scratching.Loeffler, who is already one of, if not the, richest Senators, has now said that she and her husband (who runs the NY Stock Exchange) will convert all of their individual equity holdings to managed mutual funds. While some are reporting that she's "selling" all her stock, it's not quite that, because she'll just be putting the proceeds into managed funds:

Loeffler, who is the richest member of the Senate, said in a Wall Street Journal opinion page article announcing her decision that her stock holdings would be converted to mutual funds and exchange-traded funds by third-party advisors who handle her investments.
The thing is, of course, that this gets back to the concept we've discussed before of soft corruption. Even if it turns out that it was "legal," the fact that this kind of thing is okay is exactly what makes everyone else assume the game is rigged and corrupt. It makes people trust our institutions less, and that's a huge problem. While it was only a few years back that Congress finally agreed that laws against insider trading should finally apply to elected officials, it seems troubling enough that elected officials own any individual stocks at all. The mere appearance of conflict is damning for a public official. There have been proposals that elected officials ought to be required to move any equity holdings into a blind trust that invests in mutual funds, without the official knowing what's in their investment bucket -- and stories like Loeffler's only gives one more reason why that should be required.

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posted at: 12:00am on 10-Apr-2020
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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Knight First Amendment Institute Sues The CDC For Failing To Provide Details Of Its Media Gag Order

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We've talked quite a bit about the importance of clear and transparent government during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how China's (ongoing) refusal to allow for people to speak out almost certainly contributed to the pandemic becoming even worse. And now the same situation has been showing up across the US as well. We've talked about hospitals firing doctors and nurses for speaking out about supply shortages, and now there's news that the US Navy fired the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Brett Crozier, after he sent his bosses a letter pleading for help as COVID-19 was spreading throughout his crew. Rather than recognize that he was pleading for help, they fired him... because his letter got out to the media and it made them look bad.

The Navy fired the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt on Thursday, four days after he pleaded for help as the coronavirus ravaged his crew, the Navy announced.Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly announced that Navy Capt. Brett Crozier was relieved for loss of confidence."I just know that he exercised extremely poor judgment," Modly said.
But, perhaps the worst of all appears to be the gag order on actual infectious disease experts within the US government. Back in late February, when VP Mike Pence was first put officially in charge of responding to the COVID-19 threat, it was quickly reported that the White House had put in place a media gag order on all government officials, saying that all communication had to go through Pence's office. Indeed, various media appearances were cancelled by top CDC officials.In response to this, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia had sent a detailed FOIA request asking for any records regarding policies and procedures governing public communications by CDC employees and contractors, as well as a variety of related items, including instructions sent by the CDC's Public Affairs office. Having not received a response, the Knight Institute has now sued the CDC demanding it turn over the information as soon as possible. Given the situation, you can see why this might be pretty damn urgent.
We are in the midst of a global pandemic. The novel coronavirusand thedisease that it causes, COVID-19has spread to all fifty states. According to the Johns HopkinsCoronavirus Resource Center, as of April 2, more than 215,000 people in the United States havebeen diagnosed with COVID-19, and more than 5,000 people have died from it. At a WhiteHouse press conference on March 31, a member of the Coronavirus Task Force stated that theyexpected 100,000 to 240,000 deaths from COVID-19, even with mitigation efforts.In the face of this public health emergency, the White House has restricted theflow of information from the CDCthe nation's public health agencyto the public. Accordingto recent news stories, scientists and health officials at the CDC must now coordinate with theOffice of Vice President Mike Pence before speaking with members of the press or public aboutthe pandemic. These stories have raised concerns that public health experts who know mostabout the risks to the public are not being permitted to speak candidly and that the informationthe government is now conveying may be incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading.The CDC itself imposes unusually stringent restrictions on the ability of CDCemployees to speak to the press and public. In 2017, Axios published text from a CDC policyannouncing that any and all correspondence with any member of the news media, regardless ofthe nature of the inquiry, must be cleared through CDC's Atlanta Communications Office.
As the lawsuit notes, the CDC denied "expedited" status to the Institute's FOIA request claiming -- somewhat ridiculously -- that the Institute failed to show that there is an imminent threat to the life or physical safety of an individual. Yeah, not an individual, but to fucking everyone. Just... look around, dammit. The fact that we can't get straight answers from people at the CDC is contributing to this mess we're in today where thousands of people are dying and many tens of thousands more are expected to. It seems pretty damn petty for the CDC to quibble over this. But they are doing so, and hence, they're getting sued.

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posted at: 12:00am on 10-Apr-2020
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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