Category: Opinion

According to a Small Business Administration analysis, around $3.7 billion in government help went to fraudsters prohibited from obtaining government funds.

The SBA provided low-interest, fixed-rate, long-term financing to assist businesses in surviving COVID-19 and the recession caused by the lockdown. Thousands of individuals, however, exploited the system as a result of bureaucratic inefficiency. While thousands of honest Americans lost their chance to receive the low-interest financing to save their businesses causing a drought of small businesses to close their doors forever in the last couple of years.

The New York Times reported:

The finding adds to a mountain of evidence chronicling what the Small Business Administration’s inspector general, Hannibal Ware, called an “unprecedented amount of fraud” in the agency’s pandemic relief efforts. In October, Mr. Ware’s office chastised the agency for improperly doling out billions in relief money to self-employed people who made “flawed or illogical” claims of having additional workers on their payroll.

Its Economic Injury Disaster Loan program distributed more than $210 billion last year in loans and grants. The program was organized in a hurry by the Trump administration as millions of businesses temporarily shut down because of the coronavirus and was designed to quickly send out money to help companies keep up on their bills.

Ware’s office released a report explaining that the agency neglected to cross-reference applications against the Treasury Department’s “Do Not Pay” system:

The Do Not Pay system was set up in 2011 to reduce improper payments to people who are dead, convicted of tax fraud or barred from receiving federal contracts, among other red flags. Mr. Ware found 117,135 applicants who got grants and 75,180 recipients who got loans despite matches in the system indicating a “high likelihood” that the payments were improper.

Other reports indicate that the federal government’s enhanced unemployment aid program wasted billions of dollars on fraudulent requests.

Just this last June, Axios found that up to half of all unemployment benefits awarded under COVID-19 — about $400 billion — may have been lost to scams and fraud, the majority of which occurred outside the United States.

“Unemployment fraud during the pandemic could easily reach $400 billion, according to some estimates, and the bulk of the money likely ended in the hands of foreign crime syndicates — making this not just theft, but a matter of national security,” Axios explained. Up to 70% of the stolen funds “likely left the country,” flowing to groups based in China, Nigeria, Russia, and other hostile nations. The remainder was likely “stolen by street gangs domestically, who have made up a greater share of the fraudsters in recent months.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki laid blame on unvaccinated Americans for the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During his campaign for the presidency, President Joe Biden promised to “shut down the virus,” furthermore calling former President Donald Trump’s travel restrictions against China “xenophobic.”

“What ever happened to President [Joe] Biden’s promise to shut down the virus?” Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Wednesday.

“We’re working on it, Peter,” Psaki said.

“There’s another variant here, is the idea that you want people to wrap their heads around that the president, instead of shutting down the virus, is gonna try to help people amidst the virus?” Doocy pressed.

Psaki shifted the blame onto Americans when she answered by saying that life cannot go back to normal until at least 20 percent of the American population has been fully vaccinated against the COVID virus and also received a booster dose.

“What we can do, as the federal government, is make those vaccines free, make the boosters free, make them available. The president will talk more about what we’re going to do tomorrow,” Psaki said. “But we need the American people to do more, who are not vaccinated to help us continue to fight the virus.”

According to a CDC report, 59% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, and 21% have received a booster shot.

The recent emergence of the Omicron variant recently discovered in South Africa prompted the Biden administration to implement travel restrictions on South Africa and Botswana. Monday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first positive case in the U.S. only days after Dr. Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, warned that the variant had already reached the U.S.

During an address Monday, Biden urged the public to get the vaccine and booster shots, insisting that it is the most effective way for people to ensure protection against the virus. Biden promised to fight against the newly identified variant while urging people not to panic, on the other hand this is not the first promise the president has made concerning the virus.

Dorsey co-founded Twitter with Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass back in 2006 and served as CEO until 2008, then later returned to the CEO position in 2015 after former CEO Dick Costolo stepped down. Dorsey has a net worth of approximately $11.8 billion, according to real-time tracking by Forbes.

“There’s a lot of talk about the importance of a company being ‘founder led’,” Dorsey said in an email to employees shared on Twitter Monday. “Ultimately, I believe that’s severely limiting and a single point of failure. I’ve worked hard to ensure this company can break away from its founding and founders.”

Twitter chief technology officer Parag Agrawal has been named Dorsey’s successor. Agrawal was unanimously appointed by the social media board.

“He’s been my choice for some time given how deeply he understands the company and its needs,” Dorsey explained. “Parag has been behind every critical decision that has turned this company around.”

He also conveyed confidence in incoming independent board chairman Bret Taylor.

“He understands entrepreneurship, taking risks, companies at massive scale, technology, product and he’s an engineer,” Dorsey said. “All of the things the board and the company deserve right now.”

Dorsey went on to praise the drive and potential of the entire Twitter team.

When the news first broke Twitter shares were brought to a halt during Monday’s trading session after surging in pre-market trading.

“I want you all to know that this was my decision and I own it. It was a tough one for me, of course. I love this service and company…and all of you so much. I’m really sad…yet really happy.” Dorsey concluded. There aren’t many companies that get to this level. And there aren’t many founders that choose their company over their ego. I know we’ll prove this was the right move.”

Dorsey will stay on as a member of Twitter’s board until his term expires at the 2022 meeting of stockholders. Twitter will hold an all-hands meeting on Tuesday morning to discuss and answer employees’ questions about the transition. The company reiterated that there will be no changes to the company’s previously shared financial outlook for the fourth quarter or full year 2021 or its 2023 goals.

According to a new book, Joe Biden and his family used their position of authority to push commercial transactions with corporations seeking his favor even before Hunter Biden explored joining Burisma, a Ukrainian oil company.

Throughout her recent novel, Laptop from Hell: Hunter Biden, Big Tech, and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide, New York Post writer Miranda Devine claims that Joe Biden benefitted immensely from his political clout in a series of serendipitous real estate landfalls, even as practically every individual of the Biden family acknowledged their very own cut of the pie.

“While Joe Biden waged war on white privilege from the White House, his own family was the living embodiment of the worst of it,” writes Devine. “Joe has always made sure the Bidens lived a life of unearned privilege and entitlement under his beneficent patronage,” she continues in the book, which hits store shelves on Tuesday. “Like members of a hereditary aristocracy, the Bidens would have access to the best America can give, the most prestigious educational institutions, internships, clerkships, scholarships, directorships, and government sinecures.”

Hunter Biden was chosen as just the family’s cash cow decades back, according to Devine. “Hunter, who would have preferred to be an artist or a writer, was assigned the role of paying the bills for the rest of the family through lucrative grace-and-favor jobs and sweetheart deals facilitated by Joe’s network of connections in Delaware and, later, throughout the world,” she writes.

Hunter controlled 10% of a Chinese business contract for “the big man,” according to documents from his lost laptop, and Devine references an email Hunter sent to his oldest daughter, Naomi, in 2019: “I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years. It’s really hard. But don’t worry, unlike Pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary.”

Hunter’s Aunt, who raised him after his mother’s untimely death, alleged that Hunter complained to her that although Joe co-signed loans for Hunter and Beau Hunter was expected to pay him for both. “Dad never paid one dime,” Hunter wrote in an email, the book says.

In many emails, Devine claims she discovered proof that Joe Biden profited from Hunter’s arrangements, including one about “JRB bills.” Hunter is shut out of one of his Wells Fargo accounts, according to another email obtained by Devine, dated April 12, 2018, because “[m]y dad has been utilizing most lines on this account which I’ve paid for the previous 11 years with the kind contributions of Eric [Schwerin, a close family adviser].” When Schwerin talks about the amount of money in “my” account, he uses scare quotes to suggest that the account’s contents solely belong to him in name.

Devine traces the origins of the problem back to Delaware decades ago and claims that the “grift” managed by Joe Biden benefited the whole Biden family, including the future president himself.

Thirsty patrons who stopped into Britain’s highest pub for a drink ended up staying a bit past closing time when the pub was cut off by a blizzard.

Dozens of customers who stopped into the iconic establishment, Tan Hill Inn, which is Britain’s highest altitude pub, got a longer stay than they’d intended when the building was cut off by a snowstorm.

After three nights there were still 61 people waking up Monday at Tan Hill in the Yorkshire Dales which is located 270 miles north of London. The patrons have been trapped since Friday when a late autumn storm with snow and heavy winds felled power cables and blocked roads.
The pub is located 1,732 feet above sea level and is often cut off by bad weather.

Manager Nicola Townsend said staff had organized movies, a quiz night, and karaoke for the guests. An Oasis cover band, Noasis, has also been stuck at the pub since their gig on Friday night and have goodheartedly been entertaining their fellow guest. Townsend said the guests were “in really good spirits.”

“They’ve formed quite a friendship … like a big family is the best way I can describe it,” she said. “One lady actually said ‘I don’t want to leave.’”
Townsend said she expected people would be able to head home later Monday once roads were cleared.

Parents from Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania are in an uproar because their children are facing mandatory quarantines without virtual learning options. Many parents are weary after nearly two years of COVID-19 precautions in schools.

Brighton Area Schools, a district in suburban Detroit, is requiring students under the age of 12 to quarantine for 14 days if they have been exposed to a COVID-positive student. Jennifer Smith, a mother with three children in the district, said that there are no virtual learning options for children placed in mandatory quarantine.

On Nov. 1, Brighton Area Schools announced that they had waived mandatory quarantines for most middle and high school students, but not for students in grades six and below. The district’s plan on whether to waive quarantines for younger students will be contingent on “the availability of vaccines for the 5-11-year-old population.”

Brighton Area Schools leave it to parents to decide whether their child wears a face mask or not, according to district policy, however, mandatory quarantines for healthy children who have been exposed are still in place.

Smith said that her nine-year-old child began a 28-day “healthy child quarantine” on Oct. 19. She received an email on Nov. 9 from Hornung Elementary School informing parents that all classes would go virtual on Nov. 10 due to “an unexplained rise in COVID-19 cases among students” following Halloween. The decision was based on advice from the Livingston County Health Department.

According to a Livingston County Health Department official, school districts ultimately make their own rules regarding quarantine, testing, and masking policies.

The Michigan mother said that her son was under mandatory quarantine from Oct. 19 to Nov. 10 with no virtual school option, and was only offered virtual classes when the entire elementary school shut down. Smith said that she is “extremely upset” as she had “no choice” but to take off work and “go without pay.”

Parents nationwide are concerned about learning losses, and also about the effects learning loss will have on students of lower socioeconomic status.

Data from 2020 indicates that schools are not driving infections and school closures or learning losses are affecting minority students. A study of 4.4 million students found that test scores of black, Hispanic, and poor children took the biggest hit when students were not in school. A study from Oct. 2020 found that schools are not driving the infection rate.

Other places have also put mandatory quarantines in place for exposed students, according to another mother in the Chandler Unified School District (CUSD) in Arizona.

According to CUSD’s COVID policy, student quarantining is “required by the Maricopa County Department of Public Health” when a student comes in “close contact” with a student who is COVID-positive. The district’s website states that quarantined students receive “Google classroom assignments and/or activities,” though Eidson noted that children do not receive any teacher instruction during quarantine.

There are several student organizations at Arizona State University pressing their administration to “withdraw” Kyle Rittenhouse from the university.

The Arizona State University Students for Socialism, Students for Justice in Palestine, Multicultural Solidarity Coalition, and MECHA de ASU are lobbying for the Arizona State University administration to withdraw Rittenhouse from the university and release a statement against him.

Rittenhouse had faced charges after fatally shooting two people and injuring a third during the riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Aug. 25, 2020, and on Nov. 19 the jury returned a not guilty verdict on all charges

The groups are also demanding for the university administration to “reaffirm support for the multicultural center on campus as a safe space from White Supremacy.”

The groups are also demanding the administration redirect funding from the Arizona State University Police Department to the multicultural center and “the establishment of a care center on campus.”

Furthermore, they will be hosting a “Rally and protest to get murderer Kyle Rittenhouse off our campus” on Dec. 1 at Arizona State University.

Join us and rally against racist murderer Kyle Rittenhouse being permitted on our campus – Wednesday at 3:30 outside the Nelson Fine Arts Center on campus pic.twitter.com/4Hs3JxRqtY

— Students for Socialism ASU 🚩 (@SFSASU) November 26, 2021

“Even with a not-guilty verdict from a flawed ‘justice’ system – Kyle Rittenhouse is still guilty to his victims and the families of those victims,” the demand letter states. “Join us to demand from ASU that those demands be met to protect students from a violent blood-thirsty murderer.”

A Students for Socialism at Arizona State University spokesperson said the goal of the demands is to make the university administration understand that they do not feel safe knowing that a “mass shooter” is enrolled in the school.

“The goal of these demands is to let the ASU administration know that we as the ASU community do not feel safe knowing that a mass shooter, who has expressed violent intentions about ‘protecting property’ over people, is so carelessly allowed to be admitted to the school at all,” the spokesperson said. “Our campus is already unsafe as is, and we would like to abate this danger as much as possible.”

The Students for Socialism chapter spokesperson argued that the Rittenhouse trial “effectively gives right-winged individuals the license to kill other individuals who protest for human rights.”

“Rittenhouse took the lives of innocent people with the intent to do so—by strapping an assault rifle to himself in a crowd of unarmed citizens. That is the textbook definition of intention. The decision made by the court is one of thousands of cases that have been influenced by biased judges, predominantly white juries, and mistakes inherent in a judicial system founded off of injustice, to begin with,” the spokesperson said.

President Joe Biden was seen shopping over the weekend without wearing a mask even though he has slammed Americans who choose not to time and again. The Murray’s Toggery Shop on the island of Nantucket has a sign prominently posted outside asking shoppers to wear a mask, however, on Saturday President Joe Biden was seen shopping in the store with his mask around his neck and not covering his mouth and nose.

According to the White House press pool, Biden had walked out of the shop at 4:45 p.m. with his mask down while drinking a milkshake.

The president ignored a question on what more needs to be done to stop the new omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus as he continued his shopping.

Biden is spending his Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket where an indoor mask mandate was re-instituted earlier this month.

Biden has been criticized several times for not following local mask mandates while he hypocritically urged Americans to do so.

Biden was spotted at an upscale Washington, D.C. restaurant in October where he was seen walking through the eatery without a mask.

In November, Biden has also seen mingling with members of the public without a mask before putting it on for a photo-op.

Kyle Rittenhouse said in an interview Monday that his former attorneys purposefully kept him in jail for 87 days for their own political and financial benefits.

Rittenhouse said his attorneys Lin Wood and John Pierce told him that he was “safer” in jail than he would be if he was released on bail. He said Wood “raised money on his behalf” and told him to accept media interviews “against his wishes.”

“Lin Wood was raising money on my behalf and he held me in jail for 87 days, disrespected my wishes, put me on media interviews which I should never have gotten into,” he said. “But he said ‘hey, you’re going to go talk to the Washington Post’ which was not a good idea. Along with John Pierce, they said I was safer in jail instead of at home with my family.”

The 18-year-old said Wood and Pierce took advantage of him for political and financial benefits, instead of helping him to get released.

“Eighty-seven days of not being with my family for defending myself and being taken advantage to, being used for a cause by John Pierce and Lin Wood trying to raise money so they can take it for their own benefit. Not trying to set me free.”

The attorneys had reportedly raised over a million dollars by Sept. 5, just days after he was arrested on August 25, 2020, for the shootings of Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz, however, was not released from jail until Nov. 20 due to Wood and Pierce’s recommendations, Rittenhouse said.

“They could’ve had me sign the waiver for extradition and had me back in Wisconsin and I could’ve been bailed out by mid-September,” Rittenhouse said. “They wanted to keep me in jail until November 20.”

Lin Wood is a bad person. https://t.co/ordKM3uRxk

— Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 (@alexbruesewitz) November 23, 2021

A reporter has called out President Joe Biden for disregarding questions from the press during his remarks on the economy Tuesday.

In a tweet following Biden’s remarks, a Wall Street Journal White House reporter, Alex Leary, pointed out that the president did not respond to a question from CBS News White House correspondent, Steven Portnoy.

Biden ended his remarks by saying that he was going to a food kitchen to serve meals before the Thanksgiving holiday then he walked away from the podium and he turned his back on the press.

As Biden walked away, reporters shouted questions before Portnoy could be heard asking, “When will you answer our questions, sir?”

“When will you answer our questions, sir?” ⁦@stevenportnoy⁩ asks as the president ignores reporters at end of economic remarks. pic.twitter.com/gdwKSGvl9N

— Alex Leary (@learyreports) November 23, 2021

This incident of Biden dodging questions from the press comes after a similar incident on Monday when he announced he would nominate Jerome Powell for a second term as Chair of the Federal Reserve. Video of the incident has been shared on Twitter.

Biden just blasted elevator music to drown out questions from the press.

pic.twitter.com/JZuGtpFCy7

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 22, 2021

Biden recently visited a New Jersey elementary school where he joked about “figuring out” how to “avoid answering press questions sometimes.”