CDC Sued for Withholding Post-Licensure V-safe Data on COVID-19 Vaccines

Katabella Roberts December 31, 2021

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been sued by the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), which claims the agency is improperly withholding COVID-19 v-safe data from the American public.  In a statement on Dec. 29, the non-profit group said it had filed a lawsuit (pdf) against the public health agency and the United States Department of Health and Human Services to force it to produce de-identified post-licensure safety data for the COVID-19 vaccines in the CDC’s v-safe system, to the public.   As per the CDC, v-safe is an “active surveillance program to monitor the safety of COVID-19 vaccines during the period when the vaccines are authorized for use under Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and possibly early after vaccine licensure.”...........

“The FDA and CDC have now made crystal clear that their promise of transparency with regard to COVID-19 vaccines was hogwash,” ICAN said in Wednesday’s statement. .........To Read More....

Biden Admin Doubles Down On Anti-Free Press Stance, New Restrictions Are Just Insane

Magnus McCoy - March 17, 2021

When Trump was in office we all knew what was going on most of the time. Trump tweeted about what they were doing and ran a very transparent campaign. He engaged with The Press all the time, even the reporters that didn't get along with him. The MSM of course hated it when he called them out for being fake news, but they repeatedly were found to be spinning the news and running unsubstantiated reports that turned out false. 

Biden's presidency is still young but he has been dodging The Press and now he won't even let them go down to the border to see how bad this crisis is. advertisement "In her first press briefing, President Joe Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki promised to bring “truth and transparency” back to the White House. But it’s now 55 days into the new administration and the Biden team has been anything but transparent............To Read More.......

The Volcker Winter Storm — Bad Rule, Worse Implementation

by John Berlau on December 11, 2013

This appeared here and I wish to thank John for allowing me to publish his work.  RK

On a snowy day in Washington, several federal agencies packed some mean regulatory snowballs that will most likely overshoot their supposed destination of Wall Street and crash-land with a thud on the businesses and investors of Main Street. Rather than postpone the planned vote on Tuesday, when the federal government was officially closed, agencies sheltered themselves from public view and pushed through the rules.

According to USA Today, “CFTC spokesman Steven Adamske said his agency will not hold a public meeting, but commissioners will approve the rules in writing.” This lack of transparency on voting on the rule was symptomatic of a series of last-minute changes from the rule the agencies had initially proposed two years ago. The agencies never submitted these changes for public comment, and thus according to a Reuters analysis, may be vulnerable to lawsuits for violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

Beyond that, nothing good ever comes when the government utilizes an opaque process to force “transparency” on the private sector. For all the supposed “toughness” of the new rule, there is nothing specific that would prevent something like J.P. Morgan’s much-despised “London whale” trade.

In the meantime, the new rules could sharply reduce the stream of initial public offerings that have been propelling the stock-market upsurge. And just as regulatory impediments to smaller IPOs were relaxed modestly with the bipartisan Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act signed by President Obama last year, the Volcker rule will likely erect new barriers to market making by Main Street banks underwriting the offerings of these smaller firms.

Even as written in the Dodd-Frank financial “reform” statute, the Volcker rule was a solution in search of a problem, or in search of a factor that was not even a minor cause of the financial crisis. The provision, often referred to a “Glass-Steagall lite” – after the 1930s law that was repealed by President Clinton in 1999 – maintains Glass-Steagall’s false dichotomy of inherently “risky” trading and inherently “safe” lending.

And it doesn’t ban or restrict trading based on level of risk, but on whether the trading is ”proprietary.” Most discouragingly, in the statute and in today’s edict, the Volcker Rule contains explicit exemptions for trading in risky government-backed securities, such as municipal bonds and foreign sovereign debt.

There is no evidence that proprietary trading — a bank trading for its own portfolio — is more dangerous than executing trades for customers. In the leadup to the financial crisis, banks traded mortgage-backed securities for themselves and for their customers, but at bottom the instruments were dangerous due to the underlying mortgage loans — loans encouraged by governmental entities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and by mandates such as the Community Reinvestment Act.

Moreover, even the rule’s architect, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, concedes that banks must do some incidental trading for their own portfolios to carry out other functions. This type of trading includes buying shares to “make markets” for companies they take public and to hedge the risk of ordinary loans such as mortgages.

But in practice, it’s very difficult to tell which type of trading is “proprietary.” As former Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., who (wrongly) advocates bringing back Glass-Steagall, wrote in Forbes Tuesday after the rules were released:

Who’s to know what’s a hedge, what’s market making (trading on behalf of clients), and what’s trading for the bank’s own account? The paper trails can be inconclusive. Like angels on pins, there is never going to be an answer.

And IPOs, particularly for smaller companies, are likely to take a hit. In order to underwrite a stock market offering, banks have to engage in “market making.” They “make” a liquid market for the stock by buying shares in the company to generate demand. But the new rule, according to various interpretations (that will be further revised as the new language is examined), puts many new burdens on this traditional practice.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “the rule … will require banks to provide ‘demonstrable analysis of historical customer demand’ for financial assets they buy and sell on behalf of clients.” But how does a bank show “historical customer demand” for a company that has never gone public before?!

This could have the biggest impact on smaller IPOs, in which banks can’t easily measure “historical demand” and would have to likely buy more shares to create more demand than they would for a larger firm. Some banks may look at the compliance costs, and simply not underwrite smaller IPOs, harming innovation by entrepreneurs and wealth-building by ordinary investors.

This could also slow the growth of IPOs underwritten by non-Wall Street banks. In recent years, and since the modest regulatory relief from some Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley provisions from the JOBS Act, regional banks such as Atlanta-based SunTrust and Cleveland-based Key Bank, have increased their sponsorship of new companies going public.

And in further showing that the Volcker Rule and its implementation is not focused on preventing risk, the new rules contain explicit and blanket trading exemptions for municipal bonds and foreign-based sovereign debt. And exemptions for banks to buy and sell securities in Fannie and Freddie, the two proximate causes of the crisis, were already in the Dodd-Frank statute.

The Volcker Rule may create the “perfect storm” of lessened innovation in the private sector and more-of-the-same gambling by government.

Driving the Market out of the Marketplace of Ideas

by Nicholas Geiser on December 10, 2013

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s recent letter to financial services companies demanding they disclose their contribution to public policy groups continues a troubling new development in the campaign against business participation in the public square. Along with Senator Dick Durbin’s letter this summer to more than 300 companies affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) demanding they explain their views on ALEC’s “Stand Your Ground” model legislation, anti-business groups increasingly seek to drive business out of the marketplace of ideas through shame and intimidation campaigns. Through legislation, public campaigns, and shareholder activism, groups hostile to business’s political activity now seek to isolate business and hinder its ability to defend itself against the regulatory state.

 

Disclosure proponents bring an apparently powerful one-two punch in favor of disclosure. Groups like the Center for Political Accountability argue that secret political spending by corporations exposes investors to legal, political, and reputational risks, which justifies mandatory disclosure rules. And on the other side of the relationship, critics like Public Citizen and the Center for Media and Democracy argue that business funding of public policy groups constitutes a conflict of interest for them…..To Read More.....

Is the Worm Turning? One Can Only Hope!

By Rich Kozlovich

One of the things that was so attractive about the green movement was their seemingly altruistic motives and goals. Self sacrifice for the common good plays big with Americans. In the beginning I do believe that was largely true for many of the original organizers of organizations such as Greenpeace. However, there was always a small group with different motives and goals. As the years went by they became a larger and larger segment of the green population, which is why Greenpeace member and c0-founder Patrick Moore left around 1985.

“In 2005, Moore criticized what he saw as scare tactics and disinformation employed by some within the environmental movement, saying that the environmental movement "abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism." Moore contends that for the environmental movement "most of the really serious problems have been dealt with", seeking now to "invent doom and gloom scenarios". He suggests they romanticise peasant life as part of an anti-industrial campaign to prevent development in less-developed countries, which he describes as "anti-human".

Greenpeace even lost it’s tax free status from what was a very green Canadian government in 1999. This is clearly a step that should be taken by everyone against all of the green organizations, which is now big business. This may be changing now, but for years the green movement worldwide took in more money that 60 of the world’s nations, and no trade organization in the world could stand against them financially. That can only continue as long as they can convince everyone that everything mankind is doing is so destructive to the planet that it will become damaged beyond repair.

Now the new conservative government in Canada is insisting that they all obey the rules regarding tax exempt status; and they hate it saying;

“The Conservatives are continuing their dishonourable attack meant to intimidate environmental groups, in a budget item that stands out for adding a needless new cost. Non-profit groups will be required to “provide more information on their political activities, including the extent to which these are funded by foreign sources,” budget documents say. And somehow the government has found $8-million, at a time of restraint, for the Canada Revenue Agency to spend on “education and compliance,” $3-million of which is for extra audits to ensure the existing 10-per-cent rule is maintained (no more than 10 per cent of funds can be spent on advocacy). Witch-hunts don’t come cheap.”

As one commenter stated:

“Canada revoked the tax-free status of Greenpeace, the greenies should be glad it didn’t happen to the rest of them. Or maybe it will, if they become as ‘transparent’ as they want everyone else to be.”

One can only hope!