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Judge fast-tracked Martin Shkreli's grilling in a case that could get him banned for life from drug industry - and why timing matters

Martin Shkreli
© Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesFinger-pointer Martin Shkreli
Fending off a possible lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry, Martin Shkreli must prepare for a two-day deposition inside a federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, where he is serving a seven-year sentence for securities fraud.

The Federal Trade Commission and seven state attorneys general will take turns grilling Shkreli about whether he conspired behind bars to jack up the price of the live-saving drug Daraprim, whose 40-fold price hike earned him the nickname "Pharma Bro" roughly half a decade ago. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote slated his questioning for Jan. 27 and 28, the dates requested by regulators.

Shkreli had wanted the deposition to occur on Feb. 23 and 24, which would have given regulators little time to pursue investigative leads before the close of discovery on Feb. 26. The commission's assistant director Markus Meier told the judge the fast-track would be necessary to keep Shkreli from running out the clock.

"Your Honor allotted each side 140 hours of deposition time, and Plaintiffs have a substantial interest in deposing key witnesses, such as Mr. Shkreli, earlier in the process, so as not to risk running short on time," he wrote on Dec. 18.

During his deposition next month, Shkreli will be a little more than halfway through a sentence expected to expire in September 14, 2023. He has been serving that time after a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted him of what prosecutors called a "Ponzi-like" scheme to defraud investors in his company, Retrophin. Years before that prosecution, Shkreli earned public notoriety for raising the price of Daraprim from $17.50 to $750 per pill. The 4,000-percent hike made for sky-high treatment for toxoplasmosis, a disease common with pregnant women and people with AIDS.

Family

People power! Muscogee County GOP issues local challenge over residency of over 4,000 voters in advance of January senate runoff

muscogee county challenge residency election fraud
© WTVM
The Muscogee County Republican Party is challenging the residency of over 4,000 voters.

Wednesday, the Muscogee County Board of Elections held an emergency meeting on the matter by phone.

The meeting came after a challenge was submitted by Alton Russell on behalf of the Muscogee County GOP, questioning the residency of voters registered in the county for the upcoming January 5 runoff election.

Eye 1

'Health dictatorship': French citizens who refuse Covid-19 jab may be BANNED from public transport under 'Green Passport' plan

France Covid
© Reuters / Charles PlatiauFILE PHOTO: Pedestrians walk amid the spread of Covid-19 in Paris, France.
French citizens who decline to take the coronavirus vaccine will be barred from public transportation, among other places, under a controversial "Green Passport" plan set out in a draft law that's now on its way to parliament.

Gaining the support of Prime Minister Jean Castex's cabinet earlier this week, the bill proposes to deny "access to transport or to some locations, as well as certain activities" to those unable to prove that they received a "preventative treatment" for Covid-19, including a vaccine, or produce a negative virus screening.


Comment: With the faulty PCR tests showing false positives more often than not, that means the average person will be coerced into having the experimental vaccines in order to go about their 'new normal' lives.


The draft bill has been harshly denounced by members of the opposition, with the spokesman of the right-wing National Rally party (RN), Sebastien Chenu, accusing the government of planning a "health dictatorship." RN head Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, blasted the proposed measure as "essentially totalitarian."

Comment: In recent weeks the French government tried to push through a different but similarly totalitarian bill, but, following large protests and an overwhelming public distrust towards it, it was dropped. However a clear pattern has emerged. The Pathocrats are now sufficiently emboldened - and likely leaned upon by higher authorities - so that, even if this bill is defeated, another one will be crafted that enables them to snatch ever more power, and, if history is anything to go by, they won't stop until they get it all: And check out SOTT radio's:


Pumpkin

Dominion Voting Systems' Eric Coomer sues Trump campaign, allies over 'unproven conspiracy theories' of vote-flipping

Eric coomer dominion voting machine ceo
Eric Coomer’s profile as director at Dominion Voting Systems was scrubbed from their website in November 2020
An employee of Dominion Voting Systems has sued President Trump's reelection campaign and several of its surrogates, claiming their promotion of conspiracy theories about him forced him into hiding.

Eric Coomer, Dominion's director of product strategy and security, accuses the defendants of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Coomer's complaint says he was targeted with death threats and harassment and "untold damage to his reputation as a national expert on voting systems," according to Colorado Public Radio (CPR).

Comment: Soooo, Coomer is upset about being associated with "numerous unproven conspiracy theories that it was used to flip votes from Trump to President-elect Joe Biden@ ?

Really.

Matt Braynard, Bobby Piton and Ron (@codemonkeyz), all accomplished mathematicians and statisticians, beg to differ on the point of 'unproven conspiracy theories'. Samples of each of their findings:


Syringe

The pharmaceutical mafia - All the risk and bills on you, all the profits for us

Vaccine CheckPoints
© Eric Peters Auto
You can't walk into a store without wearing the Holy Rag - because someone might get sick. But if you actually get sick as a result of being forced to take the Holy Jab, you can't sue the company that made the god-knows-what's-in-it vaccine.

Which is pretty sick when you think about it.

The pharmaceutical mafia can force you - via its enforcer, the government - to take its products; vaccines are already required for kids in many states and if you don't submit to it the state can take your kids . . . and then walk away from any harm caused because the government protects the pharmaceutical mafia from you.

Thus one-upping the health insurance mafia . . . which only forces you to buy its product.

The vaccine-pushers are uniquely endowed with government-granted immunity from lawsuits. They can wreck your life - and you get the bill.

This is almost beyond belief - especially in view of the fact that they are for-profit enterprises, meaning they can literally get rich off of the suffering they impose on people who can't say no to the Jab.

Jabs, actually - as it's not just one - and not just this one. There will be at least two Holy Jabs and then - having established the precedent that they can make you take those jabs, why not other jabs?

All the risk - which you won't be allowed to say no to - on you.

All the profits for them.

Arrow Down

Waiting for the other economic shoe to drop...

falling down
Do you feel like another major crisis could erupt at any moment? If so, you are certainly not alone. Here in 2020, it has just been one thing after another, and we have come to expect the unexpected. Right now, so many people that I am hearing from are anticipating that more big trouble is just around the corner, but as we wait for "the other shoe to drop", economic conditions all over the United States continue to rapidly deteriorate. For example, on Thursday we learned that the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits last week was the highest in four months...
The US job market continues to suffer, and Thursday brought more bad news. Another 885,000 people filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week — an increase from the week prior and higher than the 800,000 claims that economists were expecting.

The latest figures, which are adjusted for seasonal factors and reported by the Labor Department, are particularly grim since last week's numbers were revised up to 862,000. And even before the revision, that week had been the highest level since mid-September.

Comment: See also:


Bad Guys

Ireland & France impose travel ban on Brits, hundreds stranded at airports, police dispatched to stop residents fleeing lockdown in London

Travelers social distance
© Reuters / Hannah McKay21st December 2020: Travelers attempt to socially distance as they wait in line at King's Cross station, London.
Dublin and Paris have imposed restrictions on travel from Britain for at least 48 hours. It comes as a slew of European countries mull travel bans over the new coronavirus strain the UK government has warned Brits about.

The Irish government says the measures, banning private travel between the UK and Ireland, will take effect on Sunday night and initially stay in place for at least two days. Cargo planes and freight vessels, as well as some essential supply-chain workers, will still be allowed to cross the border.

"General travel between here and Britain is going to be restricted, and we will review it on Tuesday morning," Transport Minister Eamon Ryan told Virgin Media News.

Network

Cybersecurity agency where Trump fired boss was flagged repeatedly for poor performance

Chris Krebs

Internal reports show CISA rated low on information security, slammed for physical election security and intel sharing.


In the weeks just before President Trump fired its leader, the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was repeatedly flagged by the Homeland Security Department's watchdog for poor performance, including inadequate physical security planning for election sites, poor intelligence sharing with its private and public partners and weak information security for its own systems, internal reports show.

The repeated Inspector General's warnings in September and October about CISA -- under then-Director Chris Krebs' leadership -- provide a stark contrast to Democrats' and the news media's portrayal of Krebs as a skilled leader whose firing jeopardized national security.

Comment: See also:


Dollar

You can't stimulate an economy that's still manually shut down

US stimulus check cheque $600
Congress just passed a nearly $1 trillion pandemic relief package that includes direct payments in the form of "stimulus" checks, but I'm curious. How do you stimulate an economy that is still manually shut down?

Both liberals and conservatives whined on social media that the $600 checks aren't enough. Who knows? Maybe they're even right. But what difference would any amount of money make when governors and mayors are still keeping closed down all the places it might be used at, including bars, restaurants, and entertainment venues?

The mass closure of restaurants, many of which will be permanent, isn't a minor inconvenience. That's a chain of millions of jobs. Per Forbes, "It's the delivery people and the transportation companies that dispense to the restaurants; the farmers, brewers and distillers that create, grow and cultivate the goods sold to the restaurants; and the technology platforms that provide social media, sales systems and reservation methods for the restaurants."

Comment: See also:


X

'Memory holing history': Vox slammed after deleting March tweet advising readers to 'pass' on facemasks

Vox tweet
© Twitter / @voxdotcom
US news outlet Vox has been criticized after it deleted a tweet from March advising - ironically, in retrospect - against the use of face masks to combat the spread of Covid-19.

Vox announced on Monday that it had "deleted two tweets from March about mask-wearing" in an effort to "ensure current public health guidance is clear."


One of the posts from March told Americans to "pass" on face masks because they were supposedly useless unless you already had the virus or worked in a hospital setting - a piece of advice which mirrored the official health guidance at the time.

"You do not need a mask to avoid coronavirus," the outlet authoritatively declared. "Masks are only useful if you already have a respiratory infection and want to avoid spreading it to others."

Comment: Seems like Vox is confused again. See also: