Thursday, December 22, 2022

Maine Lawmakers Move To Block Stricter Rules Protecting Endangered Whales

In a draft provision obtained by HuffPost, Sen. Susan Collins (R) and others seek to void a judge’s order for stronger safeguards for North Atlantic right whales.

Chris D'Angelo
Dec 19, 2022

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), shown here at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 8, has drafted a provision that would curtail efforts to bolster protections for the North Atlantic right whale.
ANNA MONEYMAKER VIA GETTY IMAGES

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and other members of the state’s congressional delegation are pushing for a provision in the massive government funding bill that could further endanger the already precarious North Atlantic right whale.

In July, a federal judge ruled that a 2021 regulation from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which established new requirements for lobster traps in an effort to reduce the risk of those traps entangling and harming or killing whales, didn’t go far enough. Among other things, the rules limited the number of vertical fishing lines that could be deployed in Maine waters and set new seasonal zone restrictions, but the ruling said the regulations fell short of legal requirements under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The judge has since given federal regulators until 2024 to come up with what are expected to be even stricter rules to safeguard the imperiled whale.

The provision, which has not yet been introduced, seeks to block those regulations and cement the 2021 rule for a minimum of 10 years. HuffPost obtained a copy of the draft language late Friday.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) supports the omnibus provision, as do Gov. Janet Mills (D) and the rest of Maine’s congressional delegation, King’s office told HuffPost. In an email statement, Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) said Maine’s lobster industry has been “unfairly targeted by activist organizations” and that he and the rest of the delegation are working to “provide relief” in the omnibus bill.

The population of North Atlantic right whales has been steadily falling since 2010, and fewer than 350 are estimated to be still living. The species faces myriad threats, including entanglements in fishing gear, vessel strikes and climate change.

This photograph provided by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources shows an endangered North Atlantic right whale entangled in fishing rope as it swims with a newborn calf on Dec. 2, 2021, off Cumberland Island, Georgia.
GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES/NOAA VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Environmental groups, including the three that have waged a multiyear legal battle against the federal government to secure more stringent protections for right whales, were quick to condemn Collins’ effort.

In a letter Friday to Democratic leadership, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and other organizations argued the provision “would set a damaging precedent for the political override of science-based decisionmaking under the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Act; undermine active federal litigation and reverse judicial orders; and further threaten the survival of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.”

“We urge you to do everything possible to keep this extraordinarily harmful provision, which would set an equally harmful precedent, out of the Omnibus,” says the letter, which was addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Appropriations chair Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and House Appropriations Committee chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).

Collins’ office called the proposed provision “a simple compromise” and slammed critics in the conservation community.

“It would allow for the continued sustainable management of the fishery while advancing innovative gear technology, which these groups have called for,” Collins’ spokesperson Christopher Knight said in an email.

Knight pointed out that there is no documented case of a right whale dying from becoming entangled in Maine lobster gear. In their Friday letter, however, environmentalists noted that “most entanglements are never detected or identified to a fishery because of the difficulties in spotting entangled whales and confirming the source of entangling gear.”

“Maine lobstermen have a 150-year history of sustainability, and Maine’s lobstering community has consistently demonstrated their commitment to protecting right whales,” Knight said. “If these groups are unwilling to agree to something so straightforward, it shows an utter disdain for the men and women who make their living from one of the best managed and sustainable fisheries on earth.”

A worker weighs a lobster to sort at The Lobster Co. in Arundel, Maine, on Jan. 24, 2022.
XINHUA NEWS AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

Whether the lobster fishery is sustainable has become a topic of heated debate. In September, Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, which ranks seafood sustainability, added the American and Canadian lobster catches to its “red list” of species to avoid due to the risk harvesting the crustaceans poses to right whales. And last month the London-based Marine Stewardship Council suspended its sustainability certificate for the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery, citing the July federal court ruling. In response to the assessments, several retailers, including Whole Foods, pulled the crustaceans from their shelves and menus.

“Entanglement in fishing gear is the leading cause of serious injury and death to North Atlantic right whales,” Seafood Watch wrote in its decision, adding that “current management measures do not go far enough to mitigate entanglement risks and promote recovery of the species.”

It remains to be seen if the 11th-hour provision ends up in the final omnibus package to fund the federal government in 2023, which is expected to total over $1.5 trillion. Jay Tilton, a spokesman for Leahy, said it is Appropriations Committee policy not to comment on omnibus negotiations until the bill text is public.

Connor Fagan, federal policy manager at ocean advocacy group Oceana, told HuffPost that if Congress signs off on Collins’ provision, it will “undermine our own government’s legacy of safeguarding vulnerable species and endorse putting politics ahead of science.”

“Halting development of necessary additional safeguards by our government agency established to protect our oceans and wildlife is the wrong move and denies established science,” he said via email. “Progress doesn’t happen at a standstill. By freezing federal regulations in place for the next decade, this dangerous proposal is short-sighted and will have catastrophic impacts to science-based management of the iconic, critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.”

Golden accused environmental groups, including the Conservation Law Foundation, of abusing the court system to force “misguided regulations.”

“These organizations and their allies ought to be concerned that absent a strategic pause, as proposed by this amendment, their strategy of regulation through lawsuit may well come back to bite them, as Maine lobstermen are rightly prepared to fight this unfair campaign all the way up to the Supreme Court, where the outcome for these activist groups could be a dramatic but justified reversal to more reasonable efforts to protect the right whale,” he said.

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

SBF’s Ex-Girlfriend and FTX Co-Founder Both Cooperating After Guilty Pleas

THEY ALL FALL DOWN

Both Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, a co-founder of FTX, are cooperating with prosecutors as they build a case against the fallen crypto kingpin.

AJ McDougall
Breaking News Reporter
Updated Dec. 21, 2022

Mario Duncanson/AFP via Getty Images

Two former lieutenants in fallen kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire pleaded guilty to criminal charges and are cooperating with federal prosecutors probing the fiery collapse of FTX, officials said late Wednesday.

Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research and Bankman-Fried’s sometime lover, and Gary Wang, a co-founder of the $32-billion crypto exchange, were charged “in connection with their roles in the frauds that contributed to FTX’s collapse,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a brief video address.

Ellison, 28, pleaded guilty to seven counts, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud, according to a plea agreement obtained by The Wall Street Journal. The seven counts carry a maximum sentence of 110 years in prison

Wang, 29, pleaded guilty to four counts: wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. He faces up to five decades behind bars.

An attorney for Ellison declined to comment on the matter to the newspaper. In a statement, Wang’s lawyer, Ilan Graff, said, “Gary has accepted responsibility for his actions and takes seriously his obligations as a cooperating witness.”

Williams emphasized in his video statement that the pair were unlikely to be the last people targeted in the ongoing investigation.

“Let me reiterate a call that I made last week: If you participated in misconduct at FTX or Alameda, now is the time to get ahead of it,” he said. “We are moving quickly, and our patience is not eternal.”

Ellison and Wang were also charged in a civil suit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission “for their roles in a multiyear scheme” to defraud FTX’s investors, the agency said in a separate Wednesday statement.

Calling the pair “active participants” in the plot to deceive FTX’s investors, the SEC laid out the alleged plot: Wang would illegally divert FTX customer assets to Alameda, which Ellison would use to fuel the firm’s trading activity. “And Bankman-Fried used those customer funds to make undisclosed venture investments, lavish real estate purchases, and large political donations,” the agency said in its amended complaint.

Wang and Bankman-Fried, “with Ellison’s knowledge and consent,” also afforded Alameda “significant special treatment on the FTX platform,” essentially giving the firm “a virtually unlimited ‘line of credit’ funded by the platform’s customers,” the complaint explained.

Ellison was also responsible for artificially inflating the value of FTT, the self-issued tokens that FTX handed out for free to Alameda, by snatching them up on various platforms, according to the SEC. This, in turn, would make the FTT used as collateral against Alameda’s loans more valuable, allowing her to borrow billions more, investigators wrote in the complaint.

“When FTX and the rest of the house of cards collapsed, Mr. Bankman-Fried, Ms. Ellison, and Mr. Wang left investors holding the bag,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said.

Despite Bankman-Fried’s insistence that he was “shocked” by the collapse of what he’d seen as “a thriving business,” and that he’d been unaware of the extent of the illegal activity going on at Alameda, federal officials have alleged that he and his inner circle knew exactly what they were doing.

In a complaint made public earlier this month, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Bankman-Fried and his top executives across both Alameda and FTX had had “widespread access to each other’s systems and accounts.” In addition to allegedly co-mingling funds, the nominally separate teams also shared “key personnel, technology and hardware, intellectual property, and other resources,” the CFTC said.

A major step forward in the case against Bankman-Fried, Ellison and Wang’s guilty pleas come amid news that the disgraced mogul had been transferred to U.S. custody after being extradited from the Bahamas, where he was arrested earlier this month.

After being flown to New York—in the company of federal agents—the 30-year-old is expected make an initial court appearance in Manhattan as soon as Thursday.

We Haven’t Seen Trump’s Taxes Yet, But It’s Clear the IRS Failed America

DO BETTER

The IRS is required to conduct audits of the President and Vice President while they are in office—but Trump apparently got a pass.

Shan Wu
Updated Dec. 22, 2022
OPINION

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The quest for Donald Trump’s taxes is finally over and whatever secrets Trump fought for years to conceal will soon be revealed for all to see. But one fact is already clear: The IRS botched its job.

The IRS is required to conduct audits of the president and vice president while they are in office. This requirement arose in 1997, likely in response to concerns over President Nixon’s tax troubles. But the policy–enshrined in the IRS manual, section 4.8.4.2.4–was not followed during Trump’s term in office. During his four-year term, the agency opened only one audit–of this 2016 return–which only commenced in 2019 after Chairman Richard Neal of the House Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to the IRS seeking Trump’s returns and tax information. That audit is still not finished.

As the Committee characterized it, the IRS presidential audit program was “dormant” during Trump’s term.

Perhaps this should not have been surprising given that Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was the first Treasury Secretary to refuse to turn over tax information in response to a congressional request and when Congress sued to obtain compliance a Trump-appointed judge–Trevor McFadden–delayed ruling on the case until after Trump had left office.

But it surely must be stunning to most Americans that among the reasons cited by IRS officials for their failure to follow policy was that they were apparently intimidated by the complexities of Trump’s taxes. In an internal memo, the agency seemed to whine about the return having “about 400 flow-through returns… and since some of these are tiered… a total of 500 flow-through returns”—which meant that to “do a thorough review of these returns we would need a team much larger than the current team.”

Trump Can’t Hide From Jan. 6 Committee’s Criminal Referral
‘ONE-TWO PUNCH’
Shan Wu

A “flow-through” entity is one in which the income that comes into the business passes onto the owner and is commonly used to reduce taxation.

In sum, the I.R.S. rewarded Trump’s complex business structures by throwing their hands up at the prospect of having to dig into all those hundreds of records. Excuse me, but I thought that was what IRS agents liked to do?

Note that the agency had no concerns about following its policies when it came to auditing for President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden.

The recent disclosure that, during the Trump administration, the president regularly asked for audits of those he considered his political enemies—and invasive audits of former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe did occur—should raise deep concerns and trigger increased scrutiny. Such scrutiny could be undertaken by the agency’s Office of Inspector General or the the Justice Department’s Tax Division—not to mention Congress—although further work by the House of Representatives on the issue is highly unlikely given that the Republicans are about to take control of the House.

Chairman Neal and the present Ways and Means Committee have fought the good fight and put a lie to repeated claims that their investigation lacked legitimate purpose. All along, Neal stated that their purpose was to perform oversight on the effectiveness of the Presidential audit program and “on behalf of the American people… determine if that policy is being followed.”

We the people have our answer now, and it isn’t pretty.

REVEALED: The Donors to Tucker Carlson’s News Org—and Their Ethical Conflicts

CALL AND RESPONSE

Some of those bankrolling the Daily Caller got positive coverage or even wrote op-eds.

Roger Sollenberger
Political Reporter
Updated Dec. 20, 2022

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

This reporting is one of several scoops featured in this week’s edition of Confider, the newsletter pulling back the curtain on the media.

The non-profit that feeds the conservative Daily Caller website co-founded by Fox News host Tucker Carlson has accepted tens of thousands of dollars from entities and individuals who have received favorable coverage, including some who authored opinion pieces, a new filing shows.

The document—the Daily Caller News Foundation’s fiscal year 2021 tax statement—includes for the first time a list of donors to the 501(c)(3) organization, a group that is not required by law to disclose donor information. The filing also reveals that Carlson, who in 2020 announced he was leaving the Daily Caller and selling his stake in the website, is still the foundation chairman, and has not cut back on his hours.

When Carlson announced his split with the Daily Caller in 2020, he cited work constraints. “I’m just too absorbed in what I’m doing,” the host told The Wall Street Journal at the time, explaining, “I wasn’t helping in any way, because I’ve got an hour to do every night” on his Fox News program. The tax filing, which covers the following year, shows he continued to hold the chairman position and put in the same hours as in all previous foundation filings—five hours a week.

Many of the foundation’s donors are tied to industries and issues that the Caller covers frequently. Most notable is the Ariel Corporation, which manufactures natural gas compressors and gave $135,000 to support the news organization—which has for years been criticized for its pro-carbon energy reporting and financial ties to the Koch brothers, the right-wing industrialists.

Other donors have an even closer relationship with the site, including some who have published pieces in their own names, without a disclosure of their financial ties. That, according to top journalism ethics expert Kelly McBride raises ethics questions.

“With any news organization that solicits donations, you really have to have an editorial policy that articulates how you separate out your loyalty to your audience and to your journalistic mission from your ties to your donors,” McBride, who is senior vice president and chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at the Poynter Institute, told The Daily Beast.

Tucker Carlson Laps Up Grad’s Claim of Unlearning ‘Woke-ism’
‘CULT SPECIALIST’
William Vaillancourt

Such a policy, she said, would ideally include an advisement to donors that they can’t influence editorial work, and a promise of transparency whenever there’s a conflict of interest.

“You’re looking for, first of all, separation between fundraising and the editorial product, and you’re also looking for clarity around what donors can expect in exchange for their donation, as well as transparency so the audience understands,” McBride said, adding that “a tagline on an op-ed would be an obvious transparency mechanism.”

The Daily Beast reached out to the Daily Caller and Carlson for comment, but did not immediately receive a reply.

The journalistic and ethical standards published on the Daily Caller website don’t mention the foundation or any policy regarding donor influence over editorial content. But some donors have contributed content themselves.

For instance, RightForge, an internet infrastructure provider that caters to conservatives, in 2021 gave the foundation $7,500. In May of that year, the Daily Caller ran an op-ed from RightForge CEO Martin Avila, criticizing what Avila called the social media “witch trial” of former President Donald Trump. Months later, RightForge announced it would host Trump’s new social media network, Truth Social.

Real estate investor Adam Milstein gave the foundation $25,000 in 2021 and published an opinion piece that same year. The piece—titled, “Strategic Active Philanthropy Can Strengthen Our American Values”—includes a brief bio for Milstein, which describes him only as “an active philanthropist, an investor, and community leader.”

While the Daily Caller has been blasted for its affinity for the fossil fuel industry, the tax filing shows the Daily Caller News Foundation received financial backing from conservative green-energy group ClearPath Action, which gave $10,000 in 2021.

ClearPath has received favorable coverage from the Daily Caller, which earlier this year cited CEO Rich Powell in an article about his group, without a disclaimer. When Powell landed a Daily Caller op-ed earlier this month, the outlet added a note to the piece and his contributor page that read, “The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.” But those notes did not mention the financial relationship.

Then there’s Daniel Oliver, a Daily Caller regular contributor who also serves as trustee of the George E. Coleman Jr. Foundation, which gave the foundation $7,500 in 2021. The Daily Caller highlights some of Oliver’s rich experience in his bio—chair of the Education and Research Institute, director of Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, and former chairmanships of the Federal Trade Commission under President Ronald Reagan and the National Review”—but doesn’t mention his role with the Coleman Foundation, or the donor relationship. (Buzzfeed News reported in 2019 that the foundation was a FDRLST Media investor, citing Oliver’s role.)

Daily Caller Sued Over ‘Xenophobic’ House IT ‘Scandal’
‘LIVES CAN BE RUINED’
Will Sommer,
Olivia Messer

An even more influential GOP figure also appears in the filing, in the form of a $10,000 gift from CRC Advisors, a group headed up by arch-conservative megadonor and judicial activist Leonard Leo. The Daily Caller published a piece on Friday based on the results of a CRC poll, without disclosing the relationship. The two groups also show overlap in their employees, including current CRC vice president Kevin Daley, whose LinkedIn page says he left the Daily Caller in 2020 after four years as a reporter.

Power the Future, a nonprofit that advocates for the fossil fuel industry, donated $10,000 in 2021 and appears frequently enough in the Daily Caller that articles about the group have their own tag on the site. Since the donation, Power the Future Executive Director Daniel Turner has been cited in multiple Daily Caller pieces as an expert voice, without no mention of his status as a foundation donor.

Justin Olson , an elected Arizona utility regulator and former Arizona GOP Senate candidate, gave the foundation $10,000 in 2021, listing his role at the time as an officer with right-wing youth activist group Turning Point USA.

The Daily Caller has given TPUSA favorable coverage, including after the donation. It also published an exclusive report in November 2021, the month after Olson announced his bid, revealing that a Scottsdale school board official had access to a so-called Google Drive “dossier” of personal information of vocal conservatives. (Police cleared the official of wrongdoing.) Olson tweeted the article when it came out, and expressed repeated outrage at the story on the platform, while a Twitter search shows he had not tweeted about schools previously.

The filing reveals the names of 2021 donors, but does not indicate whether they had donated before. Some of the contributors who present apparent conflicts of interest have had contributor roles in the publication previously, such as Leo and Adam Milstein, who published op-eds in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, when Power the Future announced its debut, the Daily Caller had the exclusive story.

There are, of course, numerous examples of media companies drawing funding from non-profit backers. But the Daily Caller and the DCNF have a unique relationship.

The foundation was created in 2011, a few years after Carlson founded the Daily Caller with then-partner Neil Patel, who still helms the operation. Thanks to the organization’s non-profit status, the foundation can subsidize not only publication costs, but the production of the actual content—with a built-in tax break.

Part of the foundation’s stated mission is to train young reporters, but its staff also generates content, which the Daily Caller then gets to post to its site for free. And while this content is nominally available to any publication, The Washington Post reported that it’s rarely used by anyone beyond the Daily Caller. A 2017 Center for Media and Democracy report found that the Daily Caller published “virtually everything” the nonprofit churned out.

However, other groups have taken advantage of the arrangement. The fact-checking site Snopes reported in 2019 that conservative political activists appropriated foundation content to populate a number of small-time websites styling themselves as local news outlets to smuggle political content to unsuspecting audiences.

The Daily Caller has also been called out for its financial and political ties to Trump’s campaign, which shelled out about $150,000 for access to the Daily Caller email list in the 2016 election, the Center for Media and Democracy reported.

One of the most familiar examples of a donor-funded news organization would be National Public Radio. While NPR gets some government grants, most of its money comes from private contributors—including from industries it reports on. But McBride noted that NPR puts disclaimers on stories that may present an apparent conflict.

“When you listen to public media, you hear that certain people give money for certain lines of reporting, like for climate change, et cetera. So you can fund a line of reporting, but you get no influence over how that news is presented, and public media also lets the audience know when that funding may intersects with the reporting,” McBride said.

It’s unclear whether any Daily Caller News Foundation donors tabbed their contributions for specific issues or series. But some well-known issues-driven names populate the list, including top GOP megadonor and election-denial enthusiast Dick Uihlein ($25,000), anti-climate change groups the Bradley Foundation ($50,000) and Sarah Scaife Foundation ($350,000), and conservative free-market underwriters Searle Freedom Trust ($230,000).

The source of the biggest donation, however, is still unknown. That would be the $400,000 the group received through DonorsTrust, a nonprofit known as a conservative dark money “ATM,” which allows funders to channel money anonymously to various recipients. The foundation also got a $300,000 injection from someone identified as “anonymous.”

The Daily Caller operation—which has been exposed for ties to white nationalists—has been widely criticized on the left for its financial ties to energy interests, most specifically Charles Koch, who has provided millions in funding over the years, and at one point reportedly accounted for more than 83 percent of the foundation’s annual revenue.

That bankroll swelled between 2020 and 2021. The foundation’s fiscal year 2020 filing shows $1.57 million in contributions, a number that nearly doubled to $2.8 million the next year, according to the 2021 document. The foundation spent $1.4 million—$254,000 of it on fundraising—which, combined with previous assets, left it with a year-end balance of about $2.1 million.

U$A
A 3.5-million-pound problem: More than a million chickens near Pasco have bird flu

3 SLIDES
Agriculture officials are quarantining flocks at Oakdell Farms in snowy north Franklin County, Washington, because the flock has come down with highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1.
CREDIT: NORTHWEST NEWS NETWORK

BY
Anna King
DEC 16, 2022

Northwest News Network

More than a million chickens at a farm in Franklin County, Washington, are set to be destroyed because of bird flu. Officials are deliberating how to transport, bury, compost, or incinerate the birds.

Hoar frost collects like armored spikes on the trunks of rural poplars.

The stout trees define the snowy edges of vast crop fields in Franklin County, in southeast Washington, from the white blur of flat land everywhere else.

This bleak scene is made more grim when approaching Oakdell Farms off of East Sagemoor Road, where highly pathogenic avian influenza is in a commercial flock of 1,015,500 — more than a million — chickens. State and federal officials aren’t naming the farm, but there are few egg operations in Franklin County with that many fowl.

At the edge of the farm, a man in Carhartt-colored winter coveralls sits warming from the 20-degree temps in a small white pickup with a utility light flashing.

When cars approach from the farm side toward the highway, he scrambles from the truck to stop them. He sprays a pink disinfectant from a large sprayer bottle with a hand wand over the tires. Signs out front — some hand made on cardboard — read “Biosecurity Control Area, Authorized Personnel Only,” and “Do not enter, call …”

Oakdell Egg Farms, Inc.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture said 1,015,500 birds are affected, although they won’t name the facility. But, Cliff Lillywhite, president of Oakdell Egg Farms, Inc., confirms that it’s their flock.

It’s been stressful: The leaders and about 45 full-time staff are helping government officials dispatch the more than a million egg layers.

“You know we have an obligation to take care of our birds,” Lillywhite said. “We don’t like to see our birds suffer. And this is a very horrible disease that affects the birds. We don’t like to see that. There is certainly a financial aspect of it too — dead birds don’t lay eggs.”

Each chicken lays about an egg a day, so Lillywhite said it’s also stressful to not be able to market those many eggs. Oakdell Farms claims to be the largest egg-laying operation in the Intermountain West.

The egg-laying business north of Pasco has massive facilities. Several large desert-brown chicken warehouse-like buildings are lined up in a neat row off the highway behind a corn field.

Lillywhite said their operation is a three-generation family business.

“I think the egg business is extremely important because the nutritional value of an egg is unsurpassed by virtually any other food item,” Lillywhite said. “It’s kind of the standard whereby any other protein items are compared. I, personally, and many in our company feel a deep obligation to help consumers to make wise choices in their diet and use eggs appropriately to help them achieve a normal, healthy diet. We believe deeply in the nutritional value of an egg.”

Lillywhite said after his flock is put down – and the facilities are disinfected – U.S. Department of Agriculture officials will swab and test the buildings. And then, the whole facility has to sit vacant for a couple weeks. It will take nearly six months to raise reliable egg layers from baby chicks.

The problem

The state received the USDA’s confirmed test results on Wednesday — that the chickens here do have highly pathogenic avian influenza, known as H5N1, said Amber Betts, a spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

More than a million birds live in several large long rectangular warehouse-like buildings. The buildings are painted desert tan, aside from one slate blue one, and built in neat rows with massive air handling units at their ends.

It’s going to be a massive job to clean up this property, and sanitize everything, Betts said.

“No matter the size of the farm, whether it’s a backyard or a commercial, whether it’s five birds or a million, it’s incredibly taxing on everybody that’s involved,” she said. “In addition to the birds themselves that are suffering this terrible virus, which is just brutal. It’s not a good way to go out.”

‘Not a good way to go out’

Birds that get sick with avian influenza often see discharge from the eyes or nasal openings, a tilting head and sudden death. This is the first commercial flock ever to be infected in Washington state, although more than 30 backyard flocks have come down with the virus. In Oregon, there have been no commercial flocks infected so far, but more than 20 affected backyard flocks. And it all comes as 694 flocks — 300 of them commercial — are infected across the U.S. so far this year.

Bird flu has killed waterfowl and backyard flocks with a vengeance this year, Betts said.

The plan

A million birds is a lot to process, literally. Even when a backyard flock gets infected, state government officials treat biosecurity very seriously. But with a million birds — that’s around 3.5-million pounds of chicken to dispose of if they’re all full grown. State officials said they, federal and county officials are weighing the options on how to safely transport, bury, compost or incinerate all the birds. No decision has been made yet.

Benton-Franklin Health District officials stressed that the current risk of avian influenza infecting the general public is extremely low. The type of bird flu that is spreading in wild birds and domestic poultry in the U.S. has only been identified in one person who had close contact with infected birds.

“There have been no cases of avian influenza identified in humans in Washington state,” said Hannah Schnitzler, communicable disease epidemiologist with Washington State Department of Health.

That said, health officials advise people not to touch or move dead or sick wild birds and ask people to report such instances to Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s online reporting tool.

Tough deal

Having to destroy animals they’ve taken care of for years and sometimes decades can be very distressing to those who work in these facilities, Betts said.

“It’s just devastating,” she said. “When your chickens are part of your family, it’s super difficult to watch them go through this. Or have to euthanize. And then, [at] an operation like this, it’s just taxing on everybody. It’s a lot of work. There’s a lot of emotions from the producers as well as our veterinarians. It’s just a very difficult thing to have to go through.”

Oakdell is an egg operation that spans the West. According to its website, the company has operations in Lewiston, Utah; Franklin, Idaho; and outside of Pasco, Washington.

“You can find our eggs in eleven states including Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nevada, Colorado, California, Alaska, and Hawaii,” the website reads. “They’re sold under the Oakdell Egg Farms brand as well as many of your favorite store brands.”

Sitting in a warming pickup outside a commercial hay outfit nearby, a farmer rubs his face as he said it’s been tough on all who work at Oakdell. He didn’t want to be identified, but he said the egg farm operators are friends of his. And it’s been a really tough deal. [Copyright 2022 Northwest News Network]

Editor's Note: Changes have been made to the original post to correct the combined weight of the infected chickens.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Indian American lab owner convicted in $ 447 million genetic testing scam

A federal court in Florida has convicted Patel of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud

Representational image

File image

Lalit K Jha | Washington | Published 17.12.22, 09:42 AM

An Indian American laboratory owner from Atlanta has been convicted of involvement in a USD 447.54 million genetic testing scam to defraud Medicare.

Minal Patel, 44, who owns LabSolutions LLC conspired with patient brokers, telemedicine companies and call centres to target Medicare beneficiaries with telemarketing calls falsely stating that their package covered expensive cancer genetic tests, federal prosecutors alleged.

After the Medicare beneficiaries agreed to take tests, Patel paid kickbacks and bribes to patient brokers to obtain signed doctors' orders authorising the tests from telemedicine companies, the Department of Justice said.

To conceal the kickbacks, Patel required the patient brokers to sign contracts that falsely stated that they were performing legitimate advertising services for LabSolutions.

A federal court in Florida has convicted Patel of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, three counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and to pay and receive illegal health care kickbacks, four counts of paying illegal health care kickbacks, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Patel is scheduled to be sentenced on March 7, 2023, and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the first conspiracy count, 10 years on each health care fraud count, five years on the second conspiracy count, 10 years on each kickback count, and 20 years on the third conspiracy count, a media release said.

PTI

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

EXCLUSIVE
How a Gun Exec Allegedly Conned Cops Into Funding His Swanky Lifestyle

BILK THE BLUE

A 36-page affidavit claims Amaro Goncalves used the illicit funds to pay for, among other things, one child’s tuition at Babson College and various relatives’ credit card bills.

Justin Rohrlich
Reporter
Jose Pagliery
Political Investigations Reporter
Updated Dec. 17, 2022

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty/LinkedIn

When Indonesian security forces needed new weaponry, a high-level executive at America’s largest firearms exporter saw an opportunity to personally enrich himself using an international network of relatives and associates to launder millions in ill-gotten gains.

That’s according to a search warrant affidavit obtained by The Daily Beast, which reveals Amaro Goncalves, a vice president of global defense sales at Sig Sauer’s U.S. headquarters in Seabrook, New Hampshire, came under investigation for surreptitiously overbilling the Indonesian police, military, and intelligence services by up to 600 percent over several years.

The 36-page affidavit, which was filed in 2020 but quietly unsealed on Thursday, claims Goncalves used the illicit funds to pay for, among other things, one child’s tuition at Babson College, various relatives’ credit card bills, and his niece’s six-figure wedding at a swanky seaside resort in New Hampshire.

It does not specify how much money Goncalves, 61, is thought to have amassed and subsequently laundered, but cites U.S. government export data showing Sig Sauer reported 41 shipments from the U.S. to Indonesia between Jan. 1, 2016 and Dec. 31, 2017, for a total of $27 million. The affidavit unsealed Thursday includes the address—which The Daily Beast has redacted—of Goncalves’ $2 million home in Rye, New Hampshire.

It’s unclear whether Goncalves has been arrested and no related charges have been filed against him, according to a search of federal court records. Other court records reveal the investigation was ongoing as of June this year, and federal prosecutors in New Hampshire told a judge the brothers were still “unaware that they are considered suspects,” and didn’t want to tip them off for fear that they would “flee, destroy evidence, or change their patterns of behavior.”

Goncalves, who joined the company in 2012, did not respond to voicemails and text messages from The Daily Beast seeking comment. Sig Sauer representatives did not reply on Friday to The Daily Beast’s request for comment, which included an inquiry about Goncalves’ employment status at the company. However, in an FEC filing dated Oct. 13, 2022, Goncalves lists Sig Sauer as his employer, and his position as EVP, Global Defense Sales. (The filing shows an automatic deduction of $192.31 from each of Goncalves’ bi-weekly paychecks, going to the Sig Sauer Inc. Political Action Committee.)

Sig Sauer has been the subject of scrutiny in recent years, given how the company’s flagship P320 pistol in 2017 replaced the Army’s previous go-to sidearm, the Beretta M9—only for the public to discover an undisclosed fatal flaw. Dozens of pistols have fired on their own across the country, sparking lawsuits by injured police officers and the family of a woman killed in Colorado—yet the company refused to issue a recall.

For more than a year, the feds say Goncalves took advantage of the intense international interest in the 9mm semi-automatic P320 to dupe his Indonesian buyers into vastly overpaying for the pistol. Each one was worth about $350, but Goncalves jacked up the price to $1,650 per handgun, according to the affidavit.

“Former employees of Sig Sauer with direct knowledge of sales practices there told me that [Goncalves] maintained control over all pricing decisions in transactions involving sales to Indonesia,” Sara Albert, a special agent at the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) attests in the affidavit, which sought permission to search a Gmail account belonging to Goncalves’ brother, Antonio.

Goncalves justified the markup by lying to his Indonesian government customers, telling them the guns they were buying were “specially manufactured and tested to meet higher standards than civilian weapons manufactured by Sig Sauer,” the affidavit states. This gave Goncalves and his cronies “a basis to charge a higher price to the end user than what is ordinarily charged in commercial markets,” explains the affidavit.

However, the investigative arm of the Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Inspector General says these pistols were no different from the ones readily available on the shelves at retail gun shops across America.

“My investigation has not uncovered any indication that Sig Sauer used any special steels, different mechanical processes, or any further testing in producing the firearms in question,” Albert states in the filing. “In fact, the build date is so close to the ship date that it is unreasonable to think any special manufacturing and testing actually occurred.”

Dem Senator Targets Gun Group Over Its Secret Gun Registry
YOU’RE ON THE LIST
Jose Pagliery

DCIS investigators also couldn’t find “any reference to such unique qualities” anywhere on Sig Sauer’s website, the affidavit states.

Goncalves was thought to be funneling the dirty money through a series of shell companies stretching from Asia to the Americas, with a corporate bank account controlled by Antonio Goncalves, a frozen food distributor in Caracas, Venezuela, serving as the primary node, according to the affidavit.

Antonio maintained a commercial bank account in Miami, into which the affidavit says Goncalves deposited the money he skimmed from the Indonesians. Antonio would then transfer the funds into a personal account he controlled, which Goncalves used as his piggy bank, siphoning out nearly $1 million between 2017 and 2020 from that one account alone, the feds allege. (During the 2019 search of Goncalves’ home, DCIS agents found a checkbook in Antonio’s name, according to the affidavit, which says all the checks were blank, but had been signed by Antonio.)

Antonio’s bank records also raised red flags to investigators, who reviewed his company’s invoices and found them “indicative of fraudulent documents,” the affidavit states.

About half the $1.3 million in one of Antonio’s accounts came from “the Indonesian network” in 12 wire transfers, “10 of which were in round numbers ending in either an even thousand or five hundred dollars,” according to the affidavit. “All were for exact dollar amounts.”

Bank records showed suspiciously large outflows of cash from Antonio’s accounts to Goncalves, showing him to have given away half his supposed $80,000 per month income to his brother for two straight years, the affidavit says.

It is unclear if the investigation into Goncalves is ongoing but the long-running probe has delved deep. In 2018, federal agents at Los Angeles International Airport seized a phone from an unidentified Indonesian national and alleged co-conspirator who had been communicating with Goncalves on WhatsApp. The following year, the feds subpoenaed Goncalves’ phone records from Comcast containing WhatsApp messages between him and an alleged co-conspirator. A military investigator managed to get Antonio’s personal Gmail records in 2020.

Goncalves was also arrested in an FBI sting operation over accusations that he and 21 others bribed government officials in the Central African nation of Gabon in pursuit of a $15 million contract to outfit the country’s presidential guard with machine guns and body armor. (The cases against Goncalves and a handful of co-defendants were ultimately dismissed after two separate juries deadlocked on charges facing a related group of defendants.)

The newly unsealed warrant affidavit means Goncalves, a member of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s “Athletic Hall of Fame,” has now been accused of criminal wrongdoing at two of his previous three employers.

Prior to starting at Sig Sauer, Goncalves worked for gunmaker Smith & Wesson as the Springfield, Massachusetts company’s vice president of international and U.S. government law enforcement sales.

His “leadership, experience, and first-hand knowledge of international laws and customs will help us continue to deliver excellent service to our existing customers and capitalize on new opportunities as we expand our presence globally with military and law enforcement professionals,” the company said in a 2007 press release.

The press release also included a statement from Goncalves, who said he was “excited” about continuing to support Smith & Wesson’s “global reputation for delivering only top quality product and services.”

Prior to Smith & Wesson, he was the executive director of international sales and marketing during a 12-year stint at the Hartford, Connecticut-based Colt Manufacturing Company, creator of the Colt .45 handgun. Aside from being named in a 2003 lawsuit against Colt by a Middle East sales rep who said he hadn’t been paid, no criminal investigations involving Goncalves during his years at Colt have been made public.

Goncalves took great pains to keep his alleged scheme quiet, according to federal investigators.

U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire

The federal investigation into Goncalves provides a glimpse into the murky world of international arms sales, which are heavily regulated but largely kept hidden from the public.

The U.S. is one of the world’s largest producers of small arms, such as handguns and rifles. Sales are federally regulated to prevent American gun companies from fueling conflicts abroad, and laws specifically forbid firearm manufacturers from shipping them to unsavory types—especially if certain police agencies or militias have a history of human rights violations. The State Department and Defense Department rely on strict paperwork requirements to track those shipments down.

Allegations of fraudulent sales at Sig Sauer have been floating around since at least 2017, also involving Indonesia. Former employee Patricia Hall-Cloutier filed a lawsuit that year in New Hampshire state court describing how the foreign sales department—Goncalves’ team—was misidentifying the end-user, concealing the true destination of certain international shipments. In her lawsuit, she described catching a sales employee faking an end-user’s identity, only to have the person claim “that the new name of the end-user was the ‘Indonesian way of spelling Ministry of Defense.’”

Hall-Cloutier claims that she immediately reported it to Sig Sauer’s top lawyer, executive vice president Steven Shawver. Less than a week later, she was fired and security managers escorted her from the building, according to the lawsuit. Hall-Cloutier and the company moved the legal fight to private arbitration in 2018, and the case went silent. Her lawyer did not return a call seeking comment on Friday.

The warrant affidavit in Goncalves’ case accuses him and his brother of money laundering and wire fraud “by creating false invoices to justify kickback payments and by depriving… Sig Sauer of [Goncalves’] honest services.” The U.S Attorney’s Office in New Hampshire, which is overseeing the case, declined to comment.

Femicide and the Disappearance of Women’s Rights

Femicide has become a terrorism in Turkey.

December 17, 2022 by Beyza Avci

Women are dying every day in Turkey. Women are killed with guns, knives, burning, etc. At home, at work, at school, on the street… There is a massacre of women in Turkey. Women are cut off from their lives and dreams with a momentary anger of men, mostly from their close circle. Femicide and male violence have now become a form of terrorism in Turkey.

Almost every day, we come across a murder of a woman in the news. Women are killed by men, mostly from their close circles (father, spouse, son, relative, etc.). Most of the time, murderers are released, and murderers, rapists, and aggressors walk among us on the street: they eat at our next table, they sit next to us on the bus, and thus the massacre of women is justified.

As if not applying the current rules of law was not enough, the Istanbul Convention* was terminated on 20 March 2021 for Turkey. In this geography, where unlawfulness is increasing and unenforced laws encourage the murderers, the massacre of women is starting to be legally legitimized, and the laws protecting women are being repealed.

The problems brought by the economic crisis and the post-pandemic are also extra destructive for women. Women whose economic freedom is restricted and who are exposed to domestic labor exploitation also have to struggle with violence. At home, on the street, at work, etc. women are left defenseless in a circle of violence, their legal rights are taken away and left to the justice of the male-dominated state.

anitsayac.com, a digital monument that keeps track of the women murdered in Turkey since 2008, reveals the increase in the number of murdered women in Turkey every year. According to the anitsayac.com data, every year in Turkey, regardless of language, religion or race, hundreds of women are murdered by men. In 2022, only recorded, there are 358 murders of women

There is a massacre of women in Turkey.

*Istanbul Convention: The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, is a human rights treaty of the Council of Europe against violence against women and domestic violence which was opened for signature on 11 May 2011, in Istanbul, Turkey. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_Convention)

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

UN
Rights body ‘a weaponised tool of powerful Western nations’

UN Rights chief Volker Turk. Picture: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP

Published Dec 16, 2022
By Dr Mustafa Mheta

The new United Nations Human Rights chief Volker Turk has vowed to continue pursuing the Chinese government on its alleged human rights abuses of the Uighurs, which were raised by his predecessor Michelle Bachelet, before her retirement. We are not against any investigation by the UN Human Rights body per se, but against the level the UN body has allowed itself to be used as a willing tool by Western superpowers in the Security Council.

China has not refused to be investigated by the UN body but until it’s proved guilty, it cannot be declared guilty. At the same time, we recall the numerous similar or even worse human rights violations that have been committed by the same powers that seek to condemn China. The lives of non-white minorities in the US are worse than we are told.

This is not only confined to China, it’s true with regard to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Iran, Zimbabwe, Mali, Venezuela and any other country that does not tow the official Western imperialist line.

The black community in the US is subjected to systemic racism and faces blatant open violence perpetrated by the white police force. Blacks are hunted and killed like game on a daily basis by this country’s security apparatus, and it ends up ignored and is not even reported in the mainstream media. Space here will not allow us to document all similar human rights violations in the US and (which) is much worse in their declared war zones like Iraq, Syria, and many others.

It is clear the US and its Nato allies in the EU, are using the human rights accusations on China as a tool against China given the rivalry between them. The UN Human Rights Commission must be mindful of being used as a pawn and should focus on the many other hot spots dotted across the world where many violations occur on a daily basis. It goes without saying that in the USA itself, other political ideologies other than the official two parties, the Republicans and Democrats, no other political formations are allowed.

Socialism, and Marxist and Communist parties remain banned in the USA. Any attempt to politically organise on any of the above-mentioned platforms is met with some ridicule, demonisation, and even jail terms. Is that democracy? Shouldn’t democracy be actually allowing other voices to be heard as well?

Why not focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where the Rwandan supported M23 movement is massacring people, and causing untold sufferings on the people of this great country? Recently, there has been discovery of mass graves and it is believed that over 300 people have been massacred in that part of the world. No one in the West will talk let alone intervene in the DRC simply because most of them are involved in raping and looting the country.

It is this inaction by organizations such as the United Nations Human Rights Commission’s failure to investigate and prescribe punishment on these would be offenders that led to the victims of the war in Goma to picket against it last week. People are tired of the display of double standards even by institutions that are supposed to be protecting them.

That there are serious allegations of human rights abuses in Xijiang is not in dispute. It obviously relates to the cries by the Uighurs for an end to oppression, but to expect the US and its allies to wield the proverbial ‘big stick’ of the type that’s resulted in death and destruction across the Muslim world, is ironic.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Indian American lab owner convicted in $ 447 million genetic testing scam

About Me