we would not have to be making vaccines if Trump hadn't fired or dumped all the people,
protocols, and materials that President Obama had in place that would have stopped the pandemic.

The Office of Special Counsel's order places Pack in the unusual position of initiating an investigation into allegations of actions that stem from his own directives. Additionally, the order gives him 60 days - past the inauguration date of President-elect Joe Biden, who has already signaled his intention to replace Pack. Nonetheless it requires a sweeping review of Pack's actions.

Both the IBM researchers and the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the attacks appear intended to steal the network credentials of corporate executives and officials at global organizations involved in the refrigeration process necessary to protect vaccine doses, or what the industry calls the cold chain. [snip]

The cyberattackers “were working to get access to how the vaccine is shipped, stored, kept cold and delivered,” said Nick Rossmann, who heads IBM’s global threat intelligence team. “We think whoever is behind this wanted to be able to understand the entire cold chain process.” [snip]

Researchers for IBM Security X-Force, the company’s cybersecurity arm, said they believed that the attacks were sophisticated enough that they pointed to a government-sponsored initiative, not a rogue criminal operation aimed purely at monetary gain. But they could not identify which country might be behind them. [snip]

If they are correct, the lead suspects would be hackers in Russia and North Korea, both of which have also been accused by the United States of conducting attacks to steal information about the process of manufacturing and distributing vaccines. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between official hacking operations for the Russian or North Korean governments and those run for private gain. [snip]

But some cybersecurity experts say they suspect something more nefarious: efforts to interfere with the distribution, or ransomware, in which the vaccines would be essentially held hostage by hackers who have gotten into the system that runs the distribution network and locked it up — and who demand a large payment to unlock it.

Loeffler’s husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, which owns a variety of financial exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange, and other financial businesses. The company is valued at close to $60 billion. Loeffler, who was appointed to to fill a vacant Senate seat in late 2019 and who now is in a run-off contest against Democrat Raphael Warnock, worked at Intercontinental Exchange for 16 years and left the firm at the end of 2018. She was a crucial part of its corporate team, according to a company press release that announced her departure: [snip]

While her husband was taking advantage of the pandemic’s effect on the housing market to advance ICE’s grand plan to gain control of the digital mortgage service sector, Loeffler has done little to address the housing and economic crises triggered by the coronavirus. In the spring, she unveiled a proposal “to restart our economy safely.” It was a hodgepodge of mostly conservative ideas, such as eliminating payroll taxes for the rest of 2020 and cutting regulations for new businesses, and reform measures related to the first wave of pandemic relief already passed. One section did note, “Families are having difficulty affording their mortgage or rent.” But Loeffler’s plan included no provisions regarding mortgage or rent relief or eviction moratoria. [snip]

In July, Loeffler noted her opposition to extending assistance to Americans hit hard by the coronavirus recession: “I am not seeing a big need to extend the federal unemployment insurance.”

More recently, Loeffler, like her fellow Senate Republicans, has not said much (or anything) about the looming eviction and foreclosure crises. In September, the Centers for Disease Control imposed a moratorium on residential evictions for people making less than $99,000 a year (or $198,000 for a couple). It ends on December 31. Other economic assistance benefits from the CARES Act that was passed in March also expire at the end of the month, including certain unemployment benefits that could affect millions of people and their ability to pay rent or mortgage bills. Also, mortgage forbearance provisions in the CARES Act are scheduled to end in March 2021. All this and more—including the accelerating spread of COVID-19—are likely to lead to a spike in mortgage foreclosures and evictions. But the new “wave of foreclosures,” Millionacres, a Motley Fool service, pointed out, will likely lead to a real estate buying spree. That could be good news for Sprecher and ICE, given the company’s acquisition of Ellie Mae. And ICE will continue to benefit, if the pandemic real estate market remains as strong as it has been.

Loeffler and Sprecher’s financial actions have generated controversy on another front. In January, after she attended a private Senate briefing on the coronavirus threat, she and her husband made a series of stock sales. This included buying stock in firms that develop teleworking software. They subsequently sold off $18.7 million shares in ICE and also dumped shares in retail outlets. Once news of these trades emerged, Loeffler denied exploiting confidential information she had obtained as a senator. The Senate Ethics Committee stated it found “no evidence” she had violated the law or Senate rules. By the way, Loeffler sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates ICE. (Sen. David Perdue, a Republican campaigning alongside Loeffler in Georgia’s other run-off election on January 5, was also snared in a stock-selling scandal. At least one case of his personal wheeling-and-dealing was investigated by the feds, but no charges were filed.)

Many of my fellow Republicans are men and women of integrity. They demonstrate it each and every day: fighting for their constituents, fighting for liberty, and fighting for fair and reliable elections.

In times like these, we need leaders of integrity to guide us through.

Moe Murph· @MamurphyMaureen
Aug 23
Replying to @emptywheel
In her sworn testimony, Dr. Fiona Hill curtly dismissed both The Hill and Politico (John Solomon base) for being willing disseminators of, e.g., Giuliani Russia conspiracy theory.

Weissmann concluded, “In short, being president should mean you are more accountable, not less, to the rule of law.”

Despite the fact that the Mueller Investigation ultimately found no evidence of Russian collusion

WASHINGTON — Five days before the presidential election, the Trump administration dispatched attorney Trent Benishek of the White House general counsel’s office to the General Services Administration. [snip]

GSA put out a press release, which said that as the new general counsel of the GSA, as well as its top ethics official, Benishek would “advise in the formulation and promulgation of GSA policies and regulations, oversee the agency’s litigation, and provide overall direction.” [snip]

But one top official who was involved in the Obama transition in 2008 speculated that the young attorney was put there “to keep tabs on Murphy.” The former transition member, who would discuss the matter only on the condition of anonymity, went further, speculating that Benishek “was installed there so the [White House] could fire the administrator and chief of staff, then have [Benishek] take over the agency to stop the ascertainment,” a reference to the process the GSA undertakes during a presidential transition.

Though Murphy is a Republican, she is not a White House insider, meaning that she may not be fully trusted to do the president’s bidding.