January 1, Senators Accused of Cashing-in on COVID:19

This Day in History | 1965

President Lyndon B. Johnson notifies Alabama’s Governor George Wallace that he will use federal authority to call up the Alabama National Guard in order to supervise a planned civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

Good morning Middle Americans, 

Tucker Carlson, one of the most respected people on television, says there is ‘no great moral crime’ than cashing-in on your constituents. And that’s what GOP Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC), Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), James Inhoffe (R-OK), and Ron Johnson (R-WI) are accused of doing. Carlson has already called on Sen. Burr to resign. He, after all is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee and has access to classified information, like how bad exactly, this coronavirus situation is going to be. 

Meanwhile, California’s Governor is telling all of his constituents to stay home, in some cities like Los Angeles are being ordered to shelter in place. 

The State Department has issued one of it’s strongest travel advisories – ever. They are now telling all Americans to return home immediately and everyone else show avoid traveling overseas. 

Read all about it. 

-Fraser Dixon

Senator Dumped Up to $1.7 Million of Stock After Reassuring Public About Coronavirus Preparedness

(Propublica) – Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions.

As the head of the intelligence committee, Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security. His committee was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around this time, according to a Reuters story.

A week after Burr’s sales, the stock market began a sharp decline and has lost about 30% since.

On Thursday, Burr came under fire after NPR obtained a secret recording from Feb. 27, in which the lawmaker gave a VIP group at an exclusive social club a much more dire preview of the economic impact of the coronavirus than what he had told the public.

Learn more here

And he’s not the only one. 

Sen. Kelly Loeffler Dumped Millions in Stock After Coronavirus Briefing

The Senate’s newest member sold off seven figures’ worth of stock holdings in the days and weeks after a private, all-senators meeting on the novel coronavirus that subsequently hammered U.S. equities.

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported the first sale of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24, the very day that her committee, the Senate Health Committee, hosted a private, all-senators briefing from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on the coronavirus. 

Find out more here

And here

California Governor Issues Statewide Order to ‘Stay at Home’

(CNBC) – California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday issued a statewide order for all residents to ‘stay at home’ amid a coronavirus outbreak.

“We need to bend the curve in the state of California,” Newsom said, as he announced a statewide order for Californians to stay home.

“There’s a social contract here, people I think recognize the need to do more … They will begin to adjust and adapt as they have been quite significantly. We will have social pressure and that will encourage people to do the right thing,” he said, in addressing how this order will be enforced.

Newsom added: “Home isolation is not my preferred choice … but it is a necessary one …This is not a permanent state, this is a moment in time.”

The stay home order is in place till further notice.

Learn more here

U.S. State Department: Return Now, Avoid All International Travel

 (AP) — The U.S. warned Americans to avoid all international travel and told citizens abroad to return now or face an “indefinite” absence, and California’s governor asked all 40 million residents to stay home, to try to slow a pandemic toll that on Friday surpassed 10,000 people worldwide.

Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began, offered a ray of hope with no new infections reported for a second day in a row and only 39 cases reported nationwide — all of them brought from the outside, the government said.

In a measure of how the fortunes of East and West have shifted, a Chinese Red Cross official heading an aid delegation to Milan castigated Italians for failing to take their national lockdown seriously. Sun Shuopeng said he was shocked to see so many people walking around, using public transportation and eating out in hotels.

Get the latest here