Conservatives use Schumer’s tipline to report government ‘abuses of power’ against him

 Conservatives were all too eager to use Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s newly minted tipline for “whistleblowers” to report Trump administration abuses after the Brooklyn Democrat rolled it out Monday.

However, the 74-year-old Schumer found himself one of the top targets of early reports.

Schumer (D-NY) had shared a portal for whistleblowers to come forward with concerns about corruption and other wrongdoing in government, which was not-so-subtly aimed at President Trump as he endeavors to revamp the government and crack down on waste.

Chuck Schumer faced widespread mockery from Conservatives after launching the tipline.AP

“Today, I’m calling on our brave public servants: I’m launching a new portal for anyone who wants to expose corruption, abuses of power, and threats to public safety with the legal protections of being a whistleblower,” Schumer wrote on X.

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In the portal, Senate Democrats gave prospective whistleblowers the option to report retaliation, wasteful spending, fraud, criminal activity and other concerns. 

Democrats have been incensed by Trump’s partnership with Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) boss Elon Musk to effectively audit the federal government and take executive action to reform agencies and freeze certain spending. 

The portal was seemingly an attempt at countering DOGE, but netizens quickly lampooned Schumer over it. 

“Look into this Schumer guy, he’s definitely done crime!” Musk jabbed on X.

“Thank you. I just filed mine,” Federalist editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway zinged with an image of her reporting Schumer for threatening Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.

Conservative pundit Steve Guest also reiterated concerns about Schumer’s past remarks aimed at the two justices in which he rallied for abortion rights and declared, “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

“You should be reported for threatening Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch & Brett Kavanaugh,” Guest swiped.

“Great! I wanna report: Joe Biden. Kamala Harris. Chuck Schumer,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote on X. “And the entire corrupt Democrat party that weaponized & abused the federal government for the past four years.”

User Wall Street Mav highlighted a photo of Schumer posing with a grill featuring a slice of cheese placed on an undercooked patty.”I would like to report an abuse of power and a threat to public safety,” Wall Street Mav quipped on X.

Others argue that DOGE makes the portal unnecessary because it addresses government waste, fraud and abuse.”We already have that… it’s called DOGE,” comedian Tim Young said on X.

“I’m reporting you! After I went to Congress, trying to [warn] you about the laptop, you turned around and demanded the FBI warn Congress of foreign interference,” wrote John Paul Mac Isaac, the computer shop owner who discovered Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop.

“Lying or providing false information to the FBI is a crime.”

https://nypost.com/2025/02/11/us-news/chuck-schumer-mocked-over-tipline-to-report-government-abuses-of-power/

Chinese spy balloon that traversed US airspace was packed with American tech: report

 The Chinese balloon that sparked panic when it flew over the US two years ago was, as long suspected, set up to spy on Americans — but surprisingly with US-made technology, according to a new report.

The 200-foot-tall balloon was loaded with a satellite communication module, sensors and other technology from at least five American firms, two sources with direct knowledge of a classified US military report told Newsweek.

The craft — which floated from Alaska over Canada and into the US Midwest before it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, 2023 — could have collected detailed data on oblivious Americans, the sources said, citing what was discovered in parts of the recovered balloon.

That included tech to survey, take photographs and collect other intelligence data — and even launchable gliders that could have flown on other recon missions, the sources said, citing the classified military report.

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The Chinese spy balloon that traveled across the US in 2023 was fitted with American technology.REUTERS

“A Chinese company would not have given them a full satcom [satellite communications] coverage of the US,” said one of the sources, a former federal intelligence employee.

The technology matched a patent awarded in 2022 to scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Aerospace Information Innovation Research Institute in Beijing, which has links to China’s military, according to Newsweek, which said it was briefed on the report but did not see it directly.

Included in the patent, titled “A high-altitude balloon safety control and positioning recovery device and method,” was a short-burst messaging module called Iridium 9602, Newsweek reported.

Module maker Iridium is a global satellite communications provider whose command post is in McLean, Va. — mere miles from CIA headquarters, the report noted.

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The US-made technology may have been used to spy on Americans.Department of Defense

The balloon also had a communications system by Iridum, along with tech from four other US companies: Texas Instruments, Omega Engineering, Amphenol All Sensors Corporation and onsemi, the report said, noting other equipment from at least one Swiss company.

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The balloon included technology from at least five American firms.AP

Iridium told Newsweek it was impossible to always know how its tech — some of which costs just $150 online — would be bought and then used.

“We certainly don’t condone our radios or our modules ending up and being used in ways they shouldn’t be,” said Jordan Hassim, Iridium’s executive director for communications.

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The balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina in February 2023.AP

“There’s no way for us to know what the use is of a specific module. … For us it could be a whale wearing a tag tracking it, it could be a polar bear, an explorer hiking a mountain.”

The since-obliterated spy aircraft was roughly 200 feet tall and weighed thousands of pounds.

It also may have carried explosives meant for self-destruction, US North American Aerospace Defense Command previously revealed.

Despite the report, Chinese officials stuck to their story that the balloon was an innocent weather research airship that had blown off course.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, held steady in that narrative this week.

“The straying of the Chinese civilian unmanned airship into the US airspace was an accident caused by force majeure,” a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, told Newsweek.

“The airship, used for meteorological research, unintentionally drifted into US because of the westerlies and its limited self-steering capability.”

https://nypost.com/2025/02/11/us-news/chinese-spy-balloon-over-us-was-packed-with-american-tech-report/

Leaked Conference Article Shows Pfizer’s Positive Phase I Prostate Cancer Data

 

A paper inadvertently published on the website of an ASCO conference revealed good results for mevrometostat in treating castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Pfizer’s experimental drug mevrometostat cutting disease progression rates in half in combination with standard hormone therapy, according to an article describing data from a Phase I trial of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer that appeared on Monday morning on the website for the ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

The only issue is that the team from Pfizer wasn’t going to speak about the data until Thursday. Later in the day Monday, the conference published a full study abstract.

In addition to reducing disease progression rates, mevrometostat cut the risk of death by 49% in trial participants, all of whom had already received hormone treatment and one round of chemotherapy, according to reporting from Endpoints News.

Adverse effects were diarrhea (78% of patients), decreased appetite (58.5%) and dysgeusia (58.5%).

Pfizer is currently recruiting for two Phase III trials, MEVPRO-1 and MEVPRO-2, testing mevrometostat, an inhibitor of the oncoprotein EZH2, in prostate cancer as well.

Castration-resistant prostate cancer is a common form of prostate cancer, often treated with androgen deprivation therapy and chemotherapy.

The results, although announced prematurely, should be welcome news for Pfizer. Analysts were already buoyant on the company, with Guggenheim analysts writing in an investor note early Monday morning, before the leak, that Pfizer beat their fourth quarter 2024 expectations as well as consensus estimates.

Pfizer has a number of critical updates from its oncology pipeline coming down the pike this year. Phase III data for vepdegestrant in treating breast cancer and danuglipron for obesity are expected later this quarter, as well as Padcev in combination with pembrolizumab for bladder cancer sometime this year. On Monday, Pfizer announced data showing that Padcev in combination with Merck’s Keytruda reduced the risk of death by 49% in urothelial cancer compared to chemotherapy.

https://www.biospace.com/drug-development/leaked-conference-article-shows-pfizers-positive-phase-i-prostate-cancer-data