COVID Corruption News Articles

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The Central Intelligence Agency offered to pay off analysts in order to bury their findings that COVID-19 most likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, new whistleblower testimony to Congress alleges. A senior-level CIA officer told House committee leaders that his agency tried to pay off six analysts who found SARS-CoV-2 likely originated in a Wuhan lab if they changed their position and said the virus jumped from animals to humans, according to a letter sent Tuesday to CIA Director William Burns. Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) requested all documents, communications and pay info from the CIA's COVID Discovery Team by Sept. 26. "According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the Team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China," the House panel chairmen wrote. "The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the lone officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis." "The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position," they said, noting that the analysts were "experienced officers with significant scientific expertise."

Note: Explore more revealing articles we've summarized about the COVID origin story. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

House Republicans on the subcommittee probing the origin of the Covid-19 virus appear to have inadvertently released a trove of new documents related to their investigation that shed light on deliberations among the scientists who drafted a key paper in February and March of 2020. The paper, published in Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020, was titled "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2" and played a leading role in creating a public impression of a scientific consensus that the virus had emerged naturally in a Chinese "wet market." The paper was the subject of a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, which coincided with the release of a report by the subcommittee devoted to the "Proximal Origin" paper. The scientists believed one thing in private – that lab escape was likely – while working to produce a paper saying the opposite in public. Much of Tuesday's hearing focused on a critical few days in early February 2020, beginning with a conference call February 1 that included the eventual authors of the paper and Drs. Anthony Fauci, then head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Francis Collins, then head of its parent agency, the National Institutes of Health. Later minutes showed that the consensus among the experts leaned toward a lab escape. Yet within days, they were circulating a draft – including to Fauci and Collins – that came to the opposite conclusion, the first draft of which had been finished the same day of the conference call.

Note: Read more about the leaked documents that reveal high level covid science manipulation. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee released a report on how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) "colluded with Big Tech and 'disinformation' partners to censor Americans." The 36-page report raises three familiar issues: first, government actors worked with third parties to overturn the First Amendment; second, censors prioritized political narratives over truthfulness; and third, an unaccountable bureaucracy hijacked American society. The House Report reveals that CISA, a branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, worked with social media platforms to censor posts it considered dis-, mis- or malinformation. Brian Scully, the head of CISA's censorship team, conceded that this process, known as "switchboarding," would "trigger content moderation." Additionally, CISA funded the nonprofit EI-ISAC in 2020 to bolster its censorship operations. In launching the nonprofit, the government boasted that it "leverage[d] DHS CISA's relationship with social media organizations to ensure priority treatment of misinformation reports." The switchboard programs directly contradict sworn testimony from CISA Director Jen Easterly. The report outlines how CISA censored "malinformation – truthful information that, according to the government, may carry the potential to mislead." Dr. Kate Starbird, a member of CISA's "Misinformation & Disinformation" subcommittee, lamented that many Americans seem to "accept malinformation as 'speech' and within democratic norms."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.

One of the first Wuhan researchers reportedly sickened with Covid in fall 2019, Ben Hu, was getting U.S. financial support for risky gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The funding came in three grants totaling $41 million, doled out by USAID and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, the agency then headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci. The news that U.S. intelligence had learned that three Wuhan Institute of Virology lab workers had been hospitalized with Covid symptoms in November 2019, significantly before the outbreak at the city's seafood market, was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in May 2021. But the revelation had curiously little impact on the broader debate over the origin of the pandemic, even as it would invalidate, if confirmed, the claim that the pandemic originated at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. New reporting by Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi, sourced to three government sources familiar with a State Department investigation, has identified the three lab workers as Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. The Times of London, meanwhile, also recently reported new details about activity in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That report includes allegations about the Wuhan labs' collaboration with Chinese military scientists, buttressing what had once been dismissed as a fringe conspiracy theory: that the virus was connected to bioweapons research.

Note: Although it's clear that the US funded the research for the creation of the virus, the origin site from which the virus was created is still in question. To explore alternative views, Dr. David Martin has worked for various government agencies, where he uncovered significant biological and chemical weapons treaty violations. He makes an intriguing case for the virus being created in the US, exploring the history of bioweapons attacks tested on US soil and the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was invented as a weapon.

Thousands of Covid-19 vaccine injury allegations have been submitted to the federal government and are unlikely to be reviewed any time soon without intervention by the Biden administration and Congress, according to attorneys whose potential clients feel they have nowhere to turn. Appendicitis, cognitive difficulty, abdominal pain, and abnormal heart rhythm are just some of the Covid vaccine-related injuries cited by the 8,208 individuals who have filed requests for benefits with the Health and Human Services Department's Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program. The CICP has reached only 749 decisions on claims related to Covid treatments, with four cases resulting in compensation. Now, with the public health emergency officially over, attorneys say it's time for the administration and Congress to move Covid vaccine injury claims to a program they say is better suited for addressing them. But doing so would require lawmakers to tackle some much-needed reforms. "It doesn't have the infrastructure yet," Renee Gentry, director of the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic at the George Washington University, said of the ... Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Even half of the Covid caseload "would double the size of the vaccine program. It would come to a crashing halt." "A lot of these people have devastating injuries, and they need at least a fair shot at compensation," Gentry said.

Note: Although significant evidence reveals how COVID vaccines harmed more people than what was announced by US government agencies, the FDA recently refused to improve COVID vaccine safety labeling despite calls from current and former FDA officials. For more along these lines, watch a powerful documentary that follows the lives of people significantly harmed by the vaccine, yet were discredited and abandoned by the medical and media establishment.

The origin of SARS-CoV-2, the agent that causes the disease COVID-19, remains a mystery. But there are purportedly a few high up in government and scientific communities well aware of its genesis. In "The Truth About Wuhan: How I Uncovered the Biggest Lie in History," Andrew G. Huff, former EcoHealth Alliance vice president and senior scientist, details his coming forward "as a material witness and whistleblower related to SARS-CoV-2." "The Truth About Wuhan" [contains] an insider's view of working for EcoHealth Alliance; a damning critique of models and techniques used to hunt coronaviruses; a reasoned aversion to "gain of function" research; the real COVID-19 timeline; China and U.S. culpability in the virus mayhem; and the multifarious, direct attacks used by the federal government to harass and discredit Mr. Huff. According to the author, "SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the [Wuhan Institute of Virology] laboratory as early as August 2019. The probable cases detected in Italy in 2019 make sense as Italy is one of the most popular tourist destinations of the Chinese. By mid-October 2019 the disease was likely already on every continent except Antarctica. The DoD, along with militaries globally, detected the disease in their countries' service members that attended the Military World Games in Wuhan. Trying to avoid global panic, governments began to implement response plans, which included the U.S. government's mobilization of the mRNA SARS-CoV-2 gene therapy."

Note: Before buying this book, you might read this review and the reviews on Amazon. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

According to Oxfam's annual inequality report, released to coincide with the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos, the richest 1% of people have captured nearly twice as much new wealth as the rest of the world combined since the pandemic. Their fortune soared by $26tn, increasing their share of new wealth from 50% to two-thirds. The breakdown of these figures exposes how on a global basis, extreme wealth is accumulated not by innovating or increasing production, but by taking advantage of rising prices and exploiting labour. This has been happening for a while, but the pandemic accelerated the trend. Rich people benefited from everything – every positive intervention from the state and negative impact of the crisis somehow still ended up increasing their wealth. They benefited from rising costs by using them as an alibi to charge higher-than-inflation prices, then distributing the rewards as dividends instead of higher wages. Food and energy corporations made a killing, making $306bn in windfall profits in 2022, then distributing 84% to shareholders. Wealthy people have used their wealth to purchase democracy, to warp democracy in their own interests. They've done that through a global template that involves lowering taxes, privatising formerly public attempts to deal with common problems, liquidating the spending that went into things like social services, and then putting that money into their own pockets. The system ... is rigged.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and income inequality from reliable major media sources.

New scientific breakthroughs make it increasingly easy to identify dangerous viruses in nature, manipulate them in the lab and synthetically create them from genetic sequences. But some scientists have taken it further, adding "gain of function" mutations that make potential pandemic viruses more transmissible. The National Institutes of Health funded two research groups to increase the transmissibility of an earlier strain of avian influenza that had killed hundreds of people but could not efficiently spread from person to person. Both groups created viral mutants that could transmit in ferrets. The Obama administration was so alarmed that it halted gain-of-function work on potential pandemic influenza viruses in 2014, but the N.I.H. allowed it to restart by 2019. In my view, there is no justification for intentionally making potential pandemic viruses more transmissible. The consequences of an accident could be too horrific, and such engineered viruses are not needed for vaccines anyway. Natural viruses that haven't yet infected humans can also pose a risk if researchers try to find the most dangerous ones and bring them back to the lab for experiments. Suspicions about a lab-accident origin of SARS-CoV-2 have been fueled by the fact that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was involved in Chinese and international efforts to find and experiment with new high-risk coronaviruses. A final category of pandemic risk involves viruses that used to transmit in humans but became extinct long ago – like the 1918 influenza virus.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on science corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

In July 2021 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly disclosed findings of a potential increase in four types of serious adverse events in elderly people who had had Pfizer's covid-19 vaccine: acute myocardial infarction, disseminated intravascular coagulation, immune thrombocytopenia, and pulmonary embolism. Little detail was provided, such as the magnitude of the increased potential risk, and no press release or other alert was sent to doctors or the public. Eighteen days later, the FDA published a study planning document (or protocol) outlining a follow-up epidemiological study intended to investigate the matter more thoroughly. This recondite technical document disclosed the unadjusted relative risk ratio estimates originally found for the four serious adverse events, which ranged from 42% to 91% increased risk. More than a year later, however, the status and results of the follow-up study are unknown. The agency has not published a press release, or notified doctors, or published the findings ... or updated the vaccine's product label. Cody Meissner, a paediatrician and member of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, said ... "One of the great problems was the suppression of opposing voices to various recommendations and that’s going to cause extraordinary harm ... everyone is aware that there are going to be side effects from any vaccine and as time goes by, we’re going to find out more and more about those side effects."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.

Dr. Anthony Fauci and his wife's net worth grew by $5 million during the COVID-19 pandemic as thousands of US residents struggled financially, according to a government spending watchdog group. The combined wealth of the 81-year-old retiring director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and his bioethicist wife, Christine Grady, soared from $7.5 million in 2019 to $12.6 million at the end of 2021, according to a report from the non-profit OpenTheBooks. "Despite becoming a figure of controversy, the system has rewarded Dr. Fauci handsomely," the group's CEO, Adam Andrzejewski, [said]. "Fauci's soaring net worth was based on career-end salary spiking, lucrative cash prizes awarded by non-profit organizations around the world and an ever-larger investment portfolio. He is the top-paid federal employee, his first-year golden parachute retirement pension is the largest in federal history, and he's accepting $1 million prizes from foreign non-profits." Last year, Fauci raked in lucrative awards from nonprofits, including $1 million from the Dan David Foundation for "speaking truth to power" and "defending science" during the Trump Administration. He kept $910,400 of that award, while roughly 10% went to scholarship winners. His total compensation was $456,028 last year, up from the $434,312 he earned in 2020. Overall, the couple's investments also increased by more than $900,000 in 2021 while their portfolios – which included trust, retirement and college education accounts – jumped $800,000 in 2020.

Note: Why is Anthony Fauci paid more than the U.S. president? Could it be a reward for gifting big Pharma with many billions in profits? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

New York City teachers want a third federal judge off their pandemic vaccine case over potential stock ownership conflicts, this time for what they say are stakes in Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. The teachers asked Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in the Southern District of New York to recuse herself from their challenge to the city's Covid-19 vaccine mandate for education workers after she was assigned to the case. Two other judges at the Manhattan court were off the case after the teachers requested they recuse themselves for similar holdings. The moves come as judicial stock holdings are under increased scrutiny. A Wall Street Journal report that found at least 131 judges heard cases in which they or a family member had a stock conflict prompted a new federal law requiring judicial financial disclosures be publicly accessible online. Judge Valerie E. Caproni, the initial judge on the case, recused after the teachers asked her to disqualify herself because of investments in Pfizer. According to her financial disclosure, the teachers said Caproni held between $50,000 and $100,000 in Pfizer stock at the end of 2020. The case was reassigned to Judge Edgardo Ramos, who the teachers also asked to recuse for his holdings in Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and other companies. The case was then reassigned to Buchwald after one day. Buchwald held Pfizer stock and Johnson & Johnson stock at the end of 2020, the teachers said, citing her financial disclosure.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.

Lockdowns during the first COVID-19 wave in the spring of 2020 only reduced COVID-19 mortality by .2% in the U.S. and Europe, according to a Johns Hopkins University meta-analysis of several studies. "While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted," the researchers wrote. "In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument." The researchers – Johns Hopkins University economics professor Steve Hanke, Lund University economics professor Lars Jonung, and special advisor at Copenhagen's Center for Political Studies Jonas Herby – analyzed the effects of lockdown measures such as school shutdowns, business closures, and mask mandates on COVID-19 deaths. "We find little to no evidence that mandated lockdowns in Europe and the United States had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality rates," the researchers wrote. The researchers also examined shelter-in-place orders, finding that they reduced COVID-19 mortality by 2.9%. Studies that looked at only shelter-in-place orders found they reduced COVID-19 mortality by 5.1%, but studies that looked at shelter-in-place orders along with other lockdown measures found that shelter-in-place orders actually increased COVID-19 mortality by 2.8%. The researchers concluded that limiting gatherings may have actually increased COVID-19 mortality. 

Note: Why did other major media platforms overlook this vitally important news? You can find this critical study on the Johns Hopkins University website at this link. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

Over the weekend, protests against Covid-19 lockdowns rocked the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain, just as several European governments began the new year by stepping up restrictions on movement amid concerns over more contagious variants of the coronavirus. On Saturday, Netherlands began its first nighttime curfew of the pandemic, said to be the country's first since World War II. Saturday evening, protesters set afire a Covid-19 testing centre. Protests rocked capital Madrid on Saturday as 1,300 gathered at the city center, leading police to fine 216 people with penalties of up to 700 euros. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace experts Thomas Carothers and Benjamin Press have categorized the anti-lockdown protests seen in several parts of the world in recent months into three types. The first are libertarian "pro-citizen" movements ... where participants have taken issue with governments restricting their personal freedoms. These attract large crowds– an example being the August 29 protest in Germany, when 38,000 protested in front of the national parliament in Berlin. The second type is seen taking place in developing economies with large informal sectors, where agitators target the impact of lockdowns on their livelihoods. Such protests were seen in Mexico, South Africa and Belgium. The third kind of protests are those objecting to how the lockdown restrictions are being enforced, accusing authorities of acting arbitrarily or of using excessive force.

Note: Why are virtually no major media in the US reporting on these large demonstrations against the lockdowns? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

More than half of the money from the Treasury Department's coronavirus emergency fund for small businesses went to just 5 percent of the recipients, according to data on more than 5 million loans that was released by the government Tuesday evening in response to a Freedom of Information Act request and lawsuit. According to data on the government's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), about 600 mostly larger companies, including dozens of national chains, received the maximum amount allowed under the program of $10 million. The new data shows more than half of the $522 billion ... went to bigger businesses, and only 28 percent of the money was distributed in amounts less than $150,000. Liz Hempowicz, director of public policy for the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, said the new data shows how the Trump administration chose to focus its coronavirus relief efforts on helping wealthy organizations at the expense of truly small firms. "The data shows that this program primarily benefited the well-banked and well-lawyered at the expense of the small businesses it was supposed to benefit," Hempowicz said. The newly released data comes after a federal lawsuit filed by The Washington Post and 10 other news organizations under the Freedom of Information Act challenging the SBA's refusal to release records on borrowers and loan amounts. A federal judge ordered the release of the data by Tuesday and the agency did not appeal.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

Sending children back to schools and day care centres in Denmark, the first country in Europe to do so, did not lead to an increase in coronavirus infections, according to official data, confirming similar findings from Finland on Thursday. As countries across Europe make plans to exit months of lockdown aimed at curbing the virus outbreak, some parents worry that opening schools first might put the health of their children in danger. Following a one-month lockdown, Denmark allowed children between two to 12 years back in day cares and schools on April 15. Based on five weeks' worth of data, health authorities are now for the first time saying the move did not make the virus proliferate. "You cannot see any negative effects from the reopening of schools," Peter Andersen, doctor of infectious disease epidemiology and prevention ... said on Thursday. In Finland, a top official announced similar findings on Wednesday, saying nothing so far suggested the coronavirus had spread faster since schools reopened in mid-May. The number of infected children aged between one and up to 19 has declined steadily since late April, Andersen said, following a slight uptick immediately after the reopening of schools. But this was too early to have anything to do with the reopening, he said. "Based on preliminary experiences, it does not look like there has been a negative effect on the spread among school children or in the society in general," Andersen said and called Denmark's reopening strategy "prudent". A steady drop in daily infections, hospital admissions and deaths since early April has led Denmark to continue its reopening, with shopping malls, bars, restaurants allowed to reopen in May.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

Sweden’s coronavirus choices are unique. The Scandinavian country is the only Western one not to impose a lockdown and will suffer less economic damage as a result. Sweden’s minority government relies on centre-left, centre-right and green parties to pass laws so there’s more political consensus around its pandemic policy than might be the case elsewhere. Public trust in the authorities meant guidelines on social distancing were largely followed without a lockdown. Sweden’s Covid-19 death rate, of around 322 deaths for every million people, is substantially below the UK, Italy and Spain, which imposed full lockdowns. Still, Sweden’s death toll is higher than its Nordic peers or Germany as a result of the trade-off to limit the economic damage. At least the bet paid off. Swedish GDP shrank 0.3% in the first quarter from the previous three months, less than a tenth of the pace at which the euro zone economy contracted. The generous welfare system makes it easy for Swedish workers to self-isolate without suffering financial hardship. Their country spends roughly a quarter of its GDP on social spending ... and compensates workers for the majority of wages if they are furloughed. This applies even to the self-employed. And given public debt amounted to only 35% of GDP in 2019, fiscal policy had plenty of room to help the economy. The government last month announced a 39 billion Swedish crown ($4 billion) scheme to reimburse up to three-quarters of businesses’ fixed costs, based on lost turnover.

Note: Read a balanced, informative New York Times article written by a Swede about her experience there. This graph shows that Sweden is doing well compared to other countries considering that they have not instituted a lockdown. For more, see concise summaries of revealing news articles on the coronavirus from major media sources.

It wasn’t looking good for South Korea in mid-February. The nation had the world’s second highest number of coronavirus cases after China. But thanks to early preparations, and a robust public health response based around extensive testing and tech-powered contact tracing, the nation’s tally of infections has been kept to just 10,765. More impressive still, no major lockdown or restrictions on movement have been imposed, save a few scattered curfews. On Apr. 15, some 29 million people turned up to vote in parliamentary elections - yet no known infections arose, thanks to strict social distancing at the polls. On Wednesday, South Korea had zero local infections for the first time since the outbreak was first recorded 72 days previously. South Korea’s health and welfare minister Park Neung-hoo explained to TIME exactly how his nation engineered such a remarkable turnaround. "Instead of physical lockdown, we fought the virus through an epidemiological approach such as wide diagnostic testing and isolation of contacts, while encouraging people’s voluntary cooperation for social distancing," [he said]. "We believed this was more effective than forcible measures and indeed it paid off. The key is whether we are able to keep COVID-19 cases within our medical system’s capacity to treat patients. In Korea, we set strict standards and regularly evaluate how patient numbers match our medical capacity, allowing us balance the two pressing needs [of public health and economy]."

Note: Read more on South Korea's success in this NBC article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and the coronavirus pandemic from reliable major media sources.

Twice in the last week, Pennsylvania’s official COVID-19 death count spiked. Then, on Thursday, the number plummeted. The state Department of Health provided several justifications for the fluctuations, citing technical issues, lengthy investigations, and the addition of “probable” deaths. Facing mounting questions about the accuracy of the count, officials on Thursday removed more than 200 probable deaths from the tally. Health Secretary Rachel Levine said the change was made in an effort to be transparent. The state’s coroners – tasked with investigating suspicious deaths – have grown increasingly frustrated by the Health Department’s reluctance to seek their help. “There’s a discrepancy in the numbers,” Charles E. Kiessling Jr., president of the Pennsylvania Coroners Association ... said Thursday. The confusion began Sunday, when Pennsylvania raised its coronavirus death toll to 1,112 – an increase of 276 overnight. On Tuesday, the department reported another spike, from 1,204 to 1,564 deaths.The jump that day, first blamed on a computer glitch, was explained as a “reconciliation” of multiple reporting systems.” Levine also said the “significant increase” included “probable positive” COVID-19 deaths. “We will now be reporting probable deaths related to COVID-19 in addition to confirmed deaths,” she said. Jeffrey Conner, the coroner in Franklin County, said he was blindsided by the department’s news on Tuesday that 10 people had died of COVID-19 in the county. As of Wednesday afternoon, he said, he was aware of only one death. On Thursday, the state’s revised data reported just one death for the county.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

Amid a humanitarian crisis compounded by mass layoffs and collapsing economic activity, the last course our legislators should be following is the one they appear to be on right now: bailing out shareholders and executives who, while enriching themselves, spent the past decade pushing business corporations to the edge of insolvency. The $500bn dollars of public money that Congress’s relief bill provides will be used for a corporate bailout, with the only oversight in the hands of an independent council similar to the one used in the 2008 financial crisis. While that body was able to report misuses of taxpayer money, it could do nothing to stop them. As currently structured, there is nothing to keep this bailout from, like its predecessor, putting cash directly into the hands of those at the top rather than into the hands of workers. Without strong regulation and accountability, asking corporations to preserve jobs with these funds will be nothing more than a simple suggestion, leaving millions of everyday Americans in financial peril. If not properly managed, this economic disaster has the potential to be the worst in American history. Our country cannot allow a small number of executives and shareholders to profit from taxpayer funds that we have injected into these corporations for reasons of pure emergency. We need to stop this rot at the core of our economic system and realign the priorities of government with those of workers and consumers.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus pandemic from reliable major media sources.

There's often outcry when a public figure eschews covid-19 related rules – but even more so when those breaking the rules are the same ones who set them. In 2020, guideline-flouting officials faced backlash across the world – from New Zealand to Ireland to Canada to the United States. There was California Gov. Gavin Newsom's attendance at a lavish $350 per person dinner party. Or the British prime minister's then-top aide Dominic Cummings, who defied a lockdown for a 260-mile road trip while he and his wife were infected with covid-19. And the senator in the Philippines who broke quarantine to visit the hospital where his wife was in labor – all waiting for his coronavirus test result, which ended up positive. As the pandemic persists, the cycle of rule-flouting, public outcry, followed by an official apology and sometimes, a resignation, continues. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is embroiled in another scandal – this one with a Christmas theme. In early December, controversy arose over a 2020 Christmas party (or series of parties) at 10 Downing Street, the British prime minister's office, in the midst of a strict coronavirus lockdown. Johnson issued an apology at the House of Commons. After the prime minister's apology, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, said that the "millions" who followed public health protocols last Christmas "now think the prime minister was taking them for fools, that they were lied to."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

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