A small group of well-connected constituents

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

NPR reports:

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee warned a small group of well-connected constituents three weeks ago to prepare for dire economic and societal effects of the coronavirus, according to a secret recording obtained by NPR.

Note what’s missing here: the word “everyone.” He didn’t warn everyone, he warned a small group of well-connected constituents.

The remarks from U.S. Sen. Richard Burr were more stark than any he had delivered in more public forums.

On Feb. 27, when the United States had 15 confirmed cases of COVID-19, President Trump was tamping down fears and suggesting that the virus could be seasonal.

“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle. It will disappear,” the president said then, before adding, “it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens.”

Trump wasn’t “tamping down fears,” he was lying to us about an imminent danger which we could have been preparing for.

On that same day, Burr attended a luncheon held at a social club called the Capitol Hill Club. And he delivered a much more alarming message.

“There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history,” he said, according to a secret recording of the remarks obtained by NPR. “It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”

But he didn’t see fit to tell us that. Peasants can always be replaced, I guess.

The message Burr delivered to the group was dire.

Thirteen days before the State Department began to warn against travel to Europe, and 15 days before the Trump administration banned European travelers, Burr warned those in the room to reconsider.

“Every company should be cognizant of the fact that you may have to alter your travel. You may have to look at your employees and judge whether the trip they’re making to Europe is essential or whether it can be done on video conference. Why risk it?” Burr said.

He predicted school closures. He said the military would be involved.

“We’re going to send a military hospital there; it’s going to be in tents and going to be set up on the ground somewhere,” Burr said at the luncheon. “It’s going to be a decision the president and DOD make. And we’re going to have medical professionals supplemented by local staff to treat the people that need treatment.”

But he never told us.

But despite his longtime interest in biohazard threats, his expertise on the subject, and his role as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Burr did not warn the public of the government actions he thought might become necessary, as he did at the luncheon on Feb. 27.

NPR sent him some questions but he hasn’t responded.

But wait, there’s more.

Whether it’s insider trading or not…it’s scummy af.

Comments

8 responses to “A small group of well-connected constituents”

  1. mikeb Avatar
    mikeb

    This is it, friends. We are entering into the deadliest moment in US history–and total collapse.

    We knew it would happen, but there was nothing we could do.

  2. Naif Avatar
    Naif

    It is astonishing that Trump’s base still believes he is handling this.

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETfvNanXsAA1O06?format=jpg&name=small

    Those are mortality curves for the first group of nations to reach 10 deaths. Due to the Washington outbreak being fairly early, the US has one of slowest escalations of this crisis. An early warning was a gift, a chance to execute what South Korea did. It has been completely squandered. The US now has the same trajectory as Italy, and there is lots of evidence that it is going to get worse, the curve will get even steeper.

  3. What a Maroon Avatar
    What a Maroon

    Martha Stewart went to prison for far less.

  4. Rob Avatar
    Rob

    And another one…

    https://twitter.com/JonahDispatch/status/1240804499893243907?s=20

  5. Your Name's not Bruce? Avatar
    Your Name’s not Bruce?

    What a Maroon: Yes I thought of Martha Stewart right away. Al Franken was forced to resign because of a stupid, sexist photo. Whatever happens to Burr, will Trump just pardon him? I bet in China, there will be a number of low level, local Party officials who will have the blame pinned on them. I wouldn’t want to bein their shoes. Burr is much like them, but lucky for him, he’ll get off much more lightly.

  6. KBPlayer Avatar
    KBPlayer

    O/T but remember that awful case of a gang rape in Delhi? The rapists have been executed.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-51969961

  7. What a Maroon Avatar
    What a Maroon

    As always, Heather Cox Richardson has an interesting historical take on this:

    This matters, though, because it sure looks bad, and it brings to mind what happened in the U.S. after the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Depression. During the heady days of the 1920s, people hadn’t paid a lot of attention to how leaders were making money. When they started to pay attention after the Crash, they discovered that the leaders who were preaching to them about austerity had been cheating. When the Senate held hearings about how to resolve the crisis, the former president of the Stock Exchange, a man named Richard Whitney, told senators the only way to fix the problem was to cut government salaries and veterans’ benefits. (When senators asked him why he couldn’t take a pay cut himself, he told them he made “very little,” only $60,000 a year, which was six times what a senator made.) Six years later, Americans learned that Whitney had been stealing assets and investing the money in failing companies. He went to prison for embezzlement.

    Whitney’s story, and others like it, destroyed the reputation of the American businessman, the figure who had come to symbolize the genius behind what had seemed to be the prosperity of the 1920s. From being lionized as the nation’s leaders, they became symbols of what had gone wrong with America. In October 1936, after four years of New Deal programs, Franklin Delano Roosevelt illustrated this change. He noted: “They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”

    (By the way, she has a book coming out soon, titled “How the South Won the Civil War”. Should be a good read.)

  8. Screechy Monkey Avatar
    Screechy Monkey

    The odd twist here is that, as awful as Burr is, he actually has pushed back on Trump’s shenanigans somewhat in his capacity as chairman. So Trump doesn’t like him either, which is why Fox News isn’t bothering to protect Burr.

    Don’t get me wrong — we shouldn’t look that gift horse in the mouth. It sure looks like Burr deserves to be removed from the Senate and possibly prosecuted, and nobody should spare him that fate just on “enemy of my enemy” thinking.

    One other thought. The only reason we know about these senators’ stock-dumping is because they’re required to disclose it. We have no information about what Trump and his family have been doing. But I’m sure that’s all aboveboard, right?

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