After bombshell report some Wexit leaders denounce neo-Nazism in their ranks – others don’t

posted by Duncan Kinney | 32RTs
October 14, 2020

Last week the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) published an incredible scoop: that a group of Hitler-quoting, Stormfront-posting, Nazi Germany enthusiasts operating under the banner of the Alberta Separatist Youth League (ASYL), had embedded themselves into positions of power in the ‘Wexit’ Alberta independence movement.

Unfortunately Canada’s mainstream media seems much more interested in covering a Wexit Facebook page getting a lot of likes than to question the Wexit leaders who are looking to turn western separatism into a respectable political movement. 

So we did. 

Rick Northey, president of the Wildrose Independence Party of Alberta (formed by a merger of the Freedom Conservative Party and Wexit Alberta), knew Sam Bell, one of the of the leaders of the Alberta Separatist Youth League, from when he was nominated to the interim joint board of governors for the Wildrose Independence Party of Alberta by Peter Downing.

But despite his involvement in the formation of Northey’s party, Northey distanced himself from Bell, pointing out that Bell did not purchase a party membership after the merger. 

“I don’t have to kick him out because he never actually had a membership,” said Northey. “As a libertarian party we support free speech and freedom of expression but you have to draw the line at hate.” 

Jay Hill was a conservative MP of various persuasions for 17 years and House leader under former prime minister Stephen Harper. He is now the leader of the Maverick Party, formerly the Wexit Canada Party. Hill was not familiar with the group or any of the young men identified in the story. 

“As much as possible we screen people who join. Last I heard it’s a free country. People can join any political party they like,” said Hill. “It’s up to parties to disavow and expel. Certainly I would in this case.” 

Hill said they vet all board members and candidates. “All parties have issues with candidates who slip through the cracks and embarrass the parties.” 

Peter Downing, self-described co-founder of the Wexit movement, was dismissive of the CAHN report when we interviewed him. Downing knows Sam Bell and Eli Weisberg (another ASYL organizer mentioned in the CAHN report) but denied any knowledge of the ASYL’s association with fascism. “If Sam [Bell] or Eli [Weisberg] were quoting Hitler, ask them, I have no idea.” 

Downing was dismissive of the CAHN report, claiming (several times) in our interview that the Canadian Anti-Hate Network had mocked him online for having an Asian wife. Downing showed us a screenshot of this harassment. It was from an anonymous Twitter account calling itself Red Deer Antifa that is not associated with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. We pointed this out to Downing, who replied that “they’re the same commie shit show to me.” 

We asked Downing if he condemned Nazism in the Wexit movement, but he declined. “As soon as you guys get rid of your bad apples, your communists and your perverts,” said Downing, “then I will be more than happy to denounce neo-Nazis – if they exist in the Wexit movement.” 

When Downing’s quotes were read to him Hill said, “now you know why even before I joined Wexit Canada I made sure Peter Downing had left.”

Sam Bell, Eli Weisberg and Teron Garbutt are all members of the Alberta Separatist Youth League as detailed in the Canadian Anti-Hate Network report.

Jewish and Muslim groups were also concerned about the report on the Alberta Separatist Youth League. 

“We are deeply concerned by the growing manifestation of racism and intolerance within the Wexit movement in Alberta, and in particular that a group of young men who allegedly adhere to neo-Nazi ideology seem to have found a home within their ranks. These types of beliefs have no place in our society, and there is no reason to associate them with the Alberta independence movement,” said Debby Shoctor CEO and Steve Shafir, president, of the Jewish Federation of Edmonton.

“While further investigation is required, Alberta has no place for neo-Nazism or white supremacist groups. Every Albertan – including our leaders – must do their part to root out this scourge in our midst,” said Mustafa Farooq, the CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims. 

"We unequivocally condemn any kind of behavior that promotes neo-Nazism by any individual or group. We work hard every day to combat the spread of this vile propaganda. Ideologies of hatred have no place in Canadian society, and we take any promulgation of them very seriously,” said B’nai Brith’s manager of public affairs in Alberta, Abe Silverman.

We did attempt to reach out to the Alberta Separatist Youth League and its members for comment but did not receive a meaningful response. The only reply we received was from the Facebook account purporting to represent the ASYL, who sent us an image of the coat of arms of Ukraine and one short message: “eat shit, Bolshevik."

theprogressreport.ca

 

Hate crimes unit investigating vandalism of Nazi collaborator war criminal statue in Edmonton

posted by Duncan Kinney | 32RTs
July 23, 2020

In Deceber of 2019, the statue of Roman Shukhevych outside of the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex was vandalized with red tape and spray-painted with the words “Nazi Scum.” According to both the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex and B’nai Brith this act is being investigated by the Edmonton Police Service’s hate crimes unit. The Edmonton Police Service has refused to reply to inquiries from the Progress Report on this matter.

Shukhevych was trained by Nazi intelligence and was a commanding officer under the Nazis of military units that massacred around 100,000 people. Among the dead were thousands of Jews and tens of thousands of Poles according to independent scholarship on the issue.  

The issue of Nazi collaborator monuments has been in the news recently with the revelation that the vandalism of a monument in Oakville, Ontario dedicated to the 14th Waffen SS division with the words “Nazi war monument” was being investigated by the local police as a hate crime. The local police chief eventually decided that it would no longer be investigated as a hate crime after public backlash. 

Michael Mostyn, the CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, a prominent Jewish organization that calls itself a leader in combating antisemitism, also recently released a statement calling for the “removal of any monuments glorifying military units, political organizations or individuals that collaborated with the Nazis in World War II.”

“There is no place for such monuments in Canada,” said Mostyn.

Abe Silverman is the Alberta manager of public affairs for B’nai Brith. “If you deface a statue like that you can be charged with mischief and even a hate crime, but how can you be convicted if the statue is in honour of a war criminal responsible for the deaths of thousands of people?” said Silverman.  

According to Silverman, the hate crimes unit is investigating the vandalism as mischief that may eventually lead to people being charged under hate crimes laws.

In a statement to Progress Alberta on July 2, representatives of the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex denied that there was any reliable evidence Shukhevych had committed war crimes, and that any evidence that does exist of war crimes committed by Shukhevych was manufactured by the KGB. 

“The statue of Roman Shukhevych is on private property,” reads the statement signed by Taras Podislky, president of the Edmonton branch of the League of Ukrainian Canadians and Irene Kolomijchuk, president of the Ukrainian Youth Unity Council. “These accusations and recent hateful vandalism on our property are now part of a police hate crimes unit investigation.” 

The Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex received a $75,000 grant from the Alberta government when it opened in 1973. The Ukrainian Youth Unity Council also received more than $279,000 in a grant from Western Economic Diversification Canada in 2015 in order to repair the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex.  

Edmonton is home to another monument dedicated to glorifying a military unit that collaborated with the Nazis in World War II. In St. Michael’s Cemetery in north Edmonton is a monument that is dedicated to several Ukrainian military units, one of them being the 14th Waffen SS Division – a unit that later became the 1st Ukrainian Division in the Ukrainian National Army.

The 14th Waffen SS Division swore an oath to Hitler, were personally addressed by Heinrich Himmler, and took part in the Huta Pieniacka Massacre according to both the Polish Institute of National Remembrance and the Institute of History at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. According to historians in both the Polish and Ukrainian investigations, 172 farmsteads were burned down.

The Polish Institute of National Remembrance’s investigation into the massacre concluded that:

“The crime was committed by the 4th battalion of the 14th division on February 28. On that day, early in the morning, soldiers of this division, dressed in white, masking outfits, surrounded the village. The village was cross-fired by artillery. SS-men of the 14th Division of the SS “Galizien” entered the village, shooting the civilians rounded up at a church. The civilians, mostly women and children, were divided and locked in barns that were set on fire. Those who tried to run away were killed. Witnesses interrogated by the prosecutors of the Head Commission described the morbid details of the act. The crime was committed against women, children, and newborn babies.”

The Edmonton Police Service refused multiple inquiries from the Progress Report, deeming us not to be a legitimate media organization and to submit our media bonafides to their lawyer

theprogressreport.ca

Americans live in '3 distinct realities' — causing 'enormously dangerous' fractures: op-ed


Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery | May 28, 2018 

(Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

Alex Henderson December 21, 2020

Countless political pundits have described the United States as a deeply divided country with two separate realities: a rural Red America that voted to reelect President Donald Trump and consumes Fox News and AM talk radio voraciously, and an urban and suburban Blue America that rejected Trump, made Joe Biden president-elect and is more likely to be consuming the New York Times, MSNBC and CNN. But liberal/progressive pundit Cenk Uygur, in an op-ed published by The Hill on December 21, argues that there are "three tribes" in the United States: (1) "the establishment, (2) "Trumpworld, MAGA Land," and (3) progressives.

Uygur, who hosts "The Young Turks" with fellow liberal/progressive Ana Kasparian, describes "the establishment" as Americans whose "worldview is cemented by the best propaganda the world has ever seen."

"They've convinced the world that the country that does the most invasions seeks peace, the country that ethnically cleansed a continent seeks equality and the country that enslaved a people stands for freedom," Uygur explains. "And everyone believed it. These days, driven by greed, they are busy convincing people that we can afford war but not health care — and that, somehow, the carnage of war keeps us safer than high-quality medicine. That if the rich have all of the money, the poor will be better off because some small amount will one day trickle onto them."

In other words, Uygur describes "the establishment" as traditional non-Trumpian conservatives. And he draws a distinction between the right-wing "establishment" and "Trumpworld, MAGA Land, where no facts need apply."

"Their worldview is cemented by a neurotic insecurity buttressed by the most brazen propaganda," Uygur observes. "Their alternative facts are wielded as blunt instruments — and that, too, works. So, now we have the largest cult the world has ever seen: 74 million people in an alternate universe where facts are the enemies of the people. This is enormously dangerous."

Comparing the "three alternate realities" in the U.S., Uygur asks, "So, how do we communicate, when we're not even speaking the same language anymore? We progressives think we're speaking the language of logic, and we think the right-wing tribe doesn't understand one word of that language — in fact, it doesn't even think our language should exist. To them, logic is for suckers and losers; winners go for raw power, no matter what the facts are."

Uygur concludes his op-ed on a pessimistic note, lamenting that he doesn't see how Americans can overcome their deep divisions.

"When if you hate the messenger, and even if the messenger is wrong about the particulars, the one thing we can all agree on is that we can't agree on a damned thing," Uygur warns. "Welcome to the parallel-universe portion of our program! There are now three Americas with three distinct realities. We don't just disagree on the issues, we disagree about what planet we live on. So, how does this end? Not well."

The December solstice happens at the same instant for everyone, everywhere on Earth – and this year the winter solstice occurs on Monday December 21, at 10:02 GMT in the Northern Hemisphere.

The winter solstice happens every year when the Sun reaches its most southerly declination of -23.4 degrees. In other words, it is when the North Pole is tilted farthest away from the Sun, delivering the fewest hours of sunlight of the year.

The Sun is directly overhead of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere during the December solstice and is closer to the horizon than at any other time in the year, meaning shorter days and longer nights.

The shortest day of the year lasts for 7 hours 49 minutes and 42 seconds in London, which is over 9 hours shorter than the June Solstice. As such, Monday December 21 will be the longest night of the year.

The day after the winter solstice marks the beginning of lengthening days, leading up to the summer solstice in June.

In the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite is true. Dawn comes early, and dusk comes late. The sun is high and the shortest noontime shadow of the year happens there. In the Southern Hemisphere, people will experience their longest day and shortest night.

Sunset at Stonehenge, just after the winter solstice CREDIT: MOMENT RF/GAIL JOHNSON

Does the winter solstice always fall on December 22nd?

While it more often than not falls on December 21 or 22, the exact time of the solstice varies each year. In the Northern hemisphere the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, because it is tilted away from the sun, and receives the least amount of sunlight on that day.

However, the earliest sunset does not occur on the solstice, because of the slight discrepancy between 'solar time' and the clocks we use.

The shortest day of the year often falls on December 21, but the modern calendar of 365 days a year - with an extra day every four years - does not correspond exactly to the solar year of 365.2422 days.

The solstice can happen on December 20, 21, 22 or 23, though December 20 or 23 solstices are rare.

The last December 23 solstice was in 1903 and will not happen again until 2303.

Read more: What a Covid Christmas will look like in 2020

What does 'solstice' mean?

The term 'solstice' derives from the Latin word 'solstitium', meaning 'Sun standing still'. On this day the Sun seems to stand still at the Tropic of Capricorn and then reverses its direction as it reaches its southernmost position as seen from the Earth.

Some prefer the more teutonic term 'sunturn' to describe the event.


Is the solstice the first day of winter?

The answer might vary depending on who you ask. There are two types of winter: astronomical and meteorological.

This year, astronomical winter begins on December 21, with the winter solstice, and ends on March 20 2021. Meteorological winter always begins on December 1 and ends on February 28 (February 29 during leap years).

While astronomical winters are determined by the Earth's orbit around the sun, meteorological winters are the three calendar months with the lowest average temperatures.

The Met Office tend to use the meteorological definition of the seasons.

Stonehenge and the solstice

Scores arrive at the prehistoric monument in Wiltshire to mark the occasion. Why is the site so important?

Stonehenge, the prehistoric monument located in Wiltshire, is carefully aligned on a sight-line that points to the winter solstice sunset (opposed to New Grange, which points to the winter solstice sunrise, and the Goseck circle, which is aligned to both the sunset and sunrise).

Archaeologists believe it was constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC and it is thought that the winter solstice was actually more important to the people who constructed Stonehenge than the summer solstice.

Druids and other worshippers celebrate the winter solstice at Stonehenge every year

 CREDIT: HANNAH MCKAY/REUTERS

The winter solstice was a time when cattle were slaughtered (so the animals would not have to be fed during the winter) and the majority of wine and beer was finally fermented.

The only other megalithic monuments in the British Isles which clearly align with the sun are Newgrange in County Meath, Ireland and Maeshowe situated on Mainland, Orkney, Scotland.

You can also see the solstice sunrise around the world; this website shows the streets in cities around the world where you can get a clear view of the sun rising on the morning of the solstice.
How is the solstice being celebrated at Stonehenge this year?

In the pagan and druid communities, they celebrate the first sunrise after the astronomical event - and English Heritage time their official event in line with this.

This year, celebrations at Stonehenge fall on Monday December 21, with the sun rising at 6:52am if it still goes ahead. A spokesperson for Stonehenge said: "This year we haven’t been able to host the usual gatherings for summer solstice and the equinoxes at Stonehenge because of the Coronavirus pandemic. As we approach the winter solstice we are keeping the situation under review and will make a decision informed by the latest advice from Government and local partners nearer the time."

In 2009, a crowd wearing traditional costume, met at Stonehenge on December 21 morning to mark the rising of the sun on the shortest day of the year. But unfortunately their calculations were slightly out meaning they had in fact arrived 24 hours prematurely.

The '09 solstice fell at exactly 5:47pm that day, and because the sun had already set, the official celebrations were due to take place at sunrise the next day.

English Heritage, who manage the ancient site in Wiltshire, decided to open the gates anyway and welcome those who had made a miscalculation.

A spokesman for English Heritage said at the time: "About 300 people turned up a day early. We took pity on them and opened the stone circle so they could celebrate anyway. They were a day early but no doubt had a wonderful time as well.

Arthur Pendragon poses as Druids, pagans and revellers gather in the centre of Stonehenge, hoping to see the sun rise, as they take part in a winter solstice ceremony 

CREDIT: CREDIT: MATT CARDY/GETTY IMAGES

"People always assume that because the summer solstice is the June 21, the winter solstice will be December 21. They should always check because it does change."

Pagan leader Arthur Pendragon said: "It is the most important day of the year for us because it welcomes in the new sun.

"There were hundreds of people there. If we'd celebrated on the 21st it would have been the right day but the wrong sun – when the whole point of the occasion is about welcoming in the new sun."
Why isn’t the earliest sunset on the year’s shortest day?

Solar noon - the time midway between sunrise and sunset - is when the sun reaches its highest point for the day, but the exact time of solar noon, as measured by Earth’s spin, shifts.

A clock ticks off exactly 24 hours from one noon to the next but actual days – as measured by the spin of the Earth – are rarely exactly 24 hours long.

If the Earth’s spin is measured from one solar noon to the next, then one finds that around the time of the December solstice, the time period between consecutive solar noons is actually 30 seconds longer than 24 hours.

Therefore two weeks before the solstice, for example – the sun reaches its 'noontime' position at 11:52am local standard time.

Two weeks later - on the winter solstice – the sun reached that noontime position at 11:59am - seven minutes later.

The later clock time for solar noon also means a later clock time for sunrise and sunset. The result? Earlier sunsets before the winter solstice and increasingly later sunrises for a few weeks after the winter solstice.

The exact date of earliest sunset varies with latitude but the sequence is always the same.

For the Northern Hemisphere the earliest sunset occurs in early December and the latest sunrise happens in early January. This year the earliest sunset is on December 12 and the latest sunrise for next year on January 4 2021. 

Solstice celebrations around the world

The December solstice marks the 'turning of the Sun' as the days slowly get longer. Celebrations of the lighter days to come have been common throughout history with feasts, festivals and holidays around the December solstice celebrated by cultures across the globe.

Saturnalia

The winter solstice festival Saturnalia began on December 17 and lasted for seven days in Ancient Rome.

These Saturnalian banquets were held from as far back as around 217 BC to honour Saturn, the father of the gods.

The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, in the Roman Forum, and a public banquet, followed by private gift-giving, continual partying, and a carnival atmosphere that overturned Roman social norms.

The festival was characterised as a free-for-all when all discipline and orderly behaviour was ignored.

Wars were interrupted or postponed, gambling was permitted, slaves were served by their masters and all grudges and quarrels were forgotten.

Saturnalia by Antoine-Francois Callet (1741-1823) Musée du Louvre


It was traditional to offer gifts of imitation fruit (a symbol of fertility), dolls (symbolic of the custom of human sacrifice), and candles (reminiscent of the bonfires traditionally associated with pagan solstice celebrations).

The Saturnalia would degenerate into a week-long orgy of debauchery and crime – giving rise to the modern use of the term 'saturnalia', meaning a period of unrestrained license and revelry. A mock 'king' was even chosen from a group of slaves or convicts and was allowed to behave as he pleased for seven days (until his eventual ritual execution).

The poet Catullus considered it to be "the best of days."

Yalda

Yalda or Shab-e Chelleh ('night of forty') is an Iranian festival celebrated on the "longest and darkest night of the year," i.e. the night of the Northern Hemisphere's winter solstice.

Every year, on the date of the Winter solstice, Iranians celebrate the arrival of winter, the renewal of the sun and the victory of light over darkness on Yalda Night.

Ancient Iranians believed that the dawning of each year is marked with the re-emergence or rebirth of the sun, an event which falls on the first day of the month of Dey in the Iranian calendar (December 21).

On this day, the sun was salvaged from the claws of the devil, which is represented by darkness, and gradually spread its rays all over the world to symbolise the triumph of good over evil. Family members get together (most often in the house of the eldest member) and stay awake all night long in Yalda.

Pomegranate, watermelon and dried nuts are served as a tradition and classic poetry and old mythologies are read in the gathering.

It is believed that eating watermelons on the night of Chelleh will ensure the health and well-being of the individual during the months of summer by protecting him from falling victim to excessive heat or disease.

In Khorasan, there is a belief that whoever eats carrots, pears, pomegranates, and green olives will be protected against the harmful bite of insects, especially scorpions. Eating garlic on this night protects one against pains in the joints.

Getting a ‘Hafez reading’ from the book of great Persian poet Shamsu d-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi is also practiced.

Another custom performed in certain parts of Iran on the night of Chelleh involves young engaged couples. The men send an edible arrangement containing seven kinds of fruits and a variety of gifts to their fiancees on this night.

In some areas, the girl and her family return the favour by sending gifts back for the young man.

'Pandemic piggy bank': Trump-related vendors got millions in COVID aid — while still getting paid by his campaign

President Donald J. Trump walks out as he is introduced Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020, at the 121st Army-Navy football game at Michie Stadium at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Igor Derysh and Salon December 16, 2020

More than a half-dozen Trump campaign vendors received in excess of $7 million in coronavirus small business aid — despite collecting more than $60 million from the campaign.

The Small Business Administration released previously undisclosed Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) data earlier this month, in response to lawsuits from multiple news outlets and government watchdogs. Though the PPP was designed to help small firms, more than half of the funds went to larger businesses, including some linked to President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The data also shows that at least seven Trump campaign vendors, more than previously reported, were awarded $7.5 million despite being paid more than $68 million by Trump committees.


ONLY TWO ASSES HAVE NO MASKS ON

Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020, at the 121st Army-Navy

 football game at Michie Stadium at the U.S. Military

 Academy at West Point, N.Y.

"This program was intended to be a lifeline for mom-and-pop small businesses struggling to keep the lights on and meet payroll," Kyle Herrig, president of progressive government watchdog Accountable.US, said in a statement to Salon. "These companies took millions in tax dollars while lining their pockets with millions more from the Trump campaign. They used PPP as their pandemic piggy bank while those in real need lost out."

Harder LLP, the law firm of Charles Harder — who represented Trump in lawsuits brought by Stormy Daniels, the former adult film star who alleged an affair with Trump, and Alva Johnson, a former campaign aide who accused Trump of forcibly kissing her — received $214,000 under the PPP on April 9. A week later, Harder's firm received a payment of $226,972 from the Trump campaign, FEC records show. The firm has received nearly $3.7 million from Trump's campaign since 2018.

"Harder LLP is a small business that was heavily impacted during the early stages of the pandemic," Harder said in a statement to Salon. "Our revenue dropped and we were forced to cut costs — but because of the PPP loan, we were able to keep everyone at our firm employed. That was the purpose of the PPP loan program. We have since recovered. We will repay the loan, with interest to the American taxpayer, as required by the loan terms."00:00

Harder alleged that many larger law firms who "likely performed work for Democratic Party candidates and campaigns" have received bigger PPP loans while laying off employees.

Cali-Fame, a company that manufactures "Make America Great Again" hats, received $786,000 under the PPP on April 28, according to SBA data. The aid was granted one day before the Trump Make America Great Committee paid the company $30,000 in two payments, according to Federal Election Commission records. The company has received $13,669,340 in payments from the Make America Great Committee and Trump's campaign since 2015, according to FEC records.

Jamestown Associates, a Philadelphia-based consulting and media firm, received roughly $353,000 under the PPP on April 8, the same day Trump's campaign paid it $29,000. FEC data shows that the company has received $11,978,379 from Trump's campaign and the Make America Great Again Committee for video production and media services.

Another communications consulting firm, Virginia-based Proactive Communications, received just under $20,000 under the PPP. The aid came about two weeks after the Trump campaign paid it over $73,000 for consulting services. The firm has collected about $2.69 million from the campaign since 2017, according to FEC records.

Some of the loans have been previously reported. Phunware, a Texas-based digital technology company that collects smartphone location data, received an unusually large $2.85 million loan under the PPP, which CBS News noted was "nearly 14 times" larger than the average loan of $206,000. The firm received the loan two days after submitting its application, raising questions about why it was processed so quickly. The loan was granted after the company received nearly $3 million from the Trump campaign last year. It previously earned most of its $31 million in revenue in 2018 from Fox Networks.

FLS Connect, a conservative communications firm based in Minnesota, received a $1.67 PPP loan in April despite collecting more than $5.5 million from the Trump campaign and the Make America Great Again Committee since June, according to FEC data.

The Communications Corporation of America, a Virginia-based direct mail company, received a $1.59 million PPP loan on April 10, about a week before it received two payments from the Make America Great Again Committee totaling more than $800,000. The company has raked in $28,495,181 from the committee and Trump's campaign since July 2016, according to FEC records.

Though the PPP has drawn bipartisan support, data released by the SBA has prompted calls to reform the program if Congress approves another round of funding. A Washington Post analysis of the data showed that more than half the funding for the program went to just 5% of recipients, mostly to big companies and national chains. Meanwhile, smaller firms quickly ran out of money as their loans expired and were forced to lay off workers. Businesses that received PPP loans cut an estimated 900,000 jobs as the funding dried up, according to an analysis by the payroll company Gusto.

An NBC News analysis of the SBA data showed that more than 25 PPP loans worth over $3.65 million went to companies linked to Trump and Kushner, including 15 that reported the loans saved one job or no jobs — or did not report a number at all.

"Many months and broken promises later, the court-ordered release of this crucial data while the Trump administration is one foot out the door is a shameful dereliction of duty and flagrant mismanagement of a program that millions of workers and small businesses needed to get through this pandemic," Herrig told NBC News.

The SBA defended its handling of the program.

"SBA's historically successful Covid relief loan programs have helped millions of small businesses and tens of millions of American workers when they needed it most," an agency spokesperson said in a statement.

But watchdog groups argued that the Trump administration opted to prioritize helping wealthy corporations over 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," Liz Hempowicz, director of public policy at the nonpartisan watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, told the Post. "Businesses in that top 5% likely have access to other capital. These are not the ones you would traditionally think of as a small business. It really raises questions about what the priorities of this SBA are. … Is it to help small business, or is it to return money to the top segment of the economy?"

The program has been widely criticized by small business owners since its inception. A group of small business owners filed a lawsuit in the spring accusing banks distributing the loans of prioritizing bigger existing corporate clients over the program's intended recipients.

"This new data verifies what we have heard directly from our small-business members — that the PPP program advantaged big businesses over small and exacerbated long-standing disparities in access to credit and capital for underbanked communities," Amanda Ballantyne, executive director of the small business advocacy group Main Street Alliance, told the Post.

Ashley Harrington of the Center for Responsible Lending added that the program's fees for banks "incentivized loans to larger businesses because banks could bring in larger fees from those firms. … Funneling the loans through existing SBA-approved lenders, banks and credit unions disadvantaged businesses of color, which have historically lacked access to credit."

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., have called for the program to be reformed in the next round of coronavirus relief to cap the loans at $2 million instead of $10 million and limit the loans to businesses with up to 300 employees, down from 500, according to the Post. The next round of funding is also likely to require businesses to show they have lost income in order to qualify.


Congress is "certainly in agreement that you want to limit the amount that can be given to these large organizations," Cardin told the Post. "We learned from the first round that [the program] was very effective at getting money out quickly, but those with established banking relationships got to the front of the line, in some cases at the expense of underserved businesses."

Herrig urged the lawmakers to ensure the next round avoids the "mismanagement" and "malpractice" of the first round.

"Only now — after its hand has been forced, hundreds of thousands of small businesses have gone under, and millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted — has this administration pulled back the curtains to reveal the malpractice going on behind the scenes," he told NBC News. "Americans deserved an open, transparent small business aid program when this pandemic started, and any new small business relief program must take a lesson from the abject failures of this one."

THE OTHER OVERLOOKED HACK

Powerful iPhone hack targets dozens of journalists, report says

State-backed attackers reportedly used spyware from NSO Group to hack iPhones belonging to Al Jazeera journalists.

Carrie Mihalcik, Laura Hautala
Dec. 21, 2020 10:03 a.m. PT

The journalists were hacked by four operators using spyware from NSO Group, according to Citizen Lab, which concluded with "medium confidence" that two attackers were working on behalf of the Saudi Arabian and UAE governments. NSO Group is an Israel-based firm that makes hacking tools for government clients, and is part of a larger industry that creates helps government entities access its targets' phones, computers and other devices. The hacking tools are supposed to help law enforcement and counter-terrorism efforts, but critics say the industry as a whole is prone to helping authoritarian governments hack the devices of dissidents and journalists.

NSO Group has been implicated by previous reports and lawsuits in other hacks, including a reported hack of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. A Saudi dissident sued the company in 2018 for its alleged role in hacking a device belonging to journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had been murdered inside the Saudi embassy in Turkey that year. Journalists and activists from Mexico and Qatar have also sued the company for providing tools that hacked their devices. A Citizen Lab report from January said a New York Times journalist writing about a Saudi dissident received a link containing a NSO Group hacking tool on his phone in 2018.

NSO Group pushed back on the most recent Citizen Lab report in a statement on Monday, saying the group made assumptions to support its own agenda.

"This memo is based, once again, on speculation and lacks any evidence supporting a connection to NSO," said an NSO spokesperson in an emailed statement. "NSO provides products that enable governmental law enforcement agencies to tackle serious organized crime and counterterrorism only, and as stated in the past we do not operate them."

The attack reportedly doesn't work against iOS 14, which was released in September and includes new security protections. Apple said it hasn't been able to independently verify Citizen Lab's research, but noted that attacks developed by NSO Group generally aren't targeted at average iPhone customers.

"At Apple, our teams work tirelessly to strengthen the security of our users' data and devices. iOS 14 is a major leap forward in security and delivered new protections against these kinds of attacks," said an Apple spokesperson in an emailed statement. "The attack described in the research was highly targeted by nation-states against specific individuals."

First published on Dec. 21, 2020 at 8:29 a.m. PT.

THE ONLY SMART PHONE THAT IS NOT HACKABLE IS A BLACKBERRY!

CANADIAN 

CEOs raked in hefty dividends as their companies accepted CEWS, Financial Post analysis finds

SOCIALISM FOR THE 1% 

Victor Ferreira , Kevin Carmichael POSTMEDIA

The chief executive officers of 68 Canadian companies that paid out dividends while receiving the pandemic wage subsidy earned an estimated $30 million in dividends themselves during the quarters in which their firms accepted the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), according to an analysis of share ownership stakes by the Financial Post.

© Provided by Financial Post There is nothing illegal about companies claiming emergency benefits while continuing to pay dividends. But the findings raise all kinds of questions that are worth debating.

Earlier this month, a Post investigation revealed that at least 68 companies that received more than $1 billion in CEWS — a subsidy designed to help companies that have seen their revenue drop significantly cover payroll costs and keep employees in their jobs — paid out more than $5 billion in dividends over the past two quarters.

The results of the investigation found their way to the House of Commons, where Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland reminded companies that “the wage subsidy must be used to pay workers.”

The CEWS program does not prevent companies from paying dividends and the Post has no evidence that companies violated its rules.

FP Investigation: As CEWS flowed in, dividends flowed out

Kevin Carmichael: On the question of CEWS and dividends, investors will ultimately decide

Why investors should be wary of what’s baked into their cakes

For the CEO analysis, the Post used a combination of share ownership data available on Bloomberg and in the proxy circulars of the 68 companies to determine the number of common shares held by each CEO and multiplied that by the dividends declared in the quarters in which their firms received CEWS. The Post did not include the hundreds of thousands of deferred shares, performance shares and restricted shares that many of these CEOs own or the shares they might own through control groups.

On Monday, the Canada Revenue Agency for the first time released a complete list of all companies that had received CEWS. That list included additional public companies that were not part of the Post’s original analysis, among them Rogers Communications Inc., which has continued to pay a dividend and did not disclose receiving CEWS by name in its public filings.

Those additional companies were also not included in the current analysis, which found that 61 of the original 68 CEOs received dividend payouts during the quarters in which their companies collected CEWS, with five of them earning more than $2 million.

© John Mahoney / Postmedia 

Quebecor Inc. CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau.

Quebecor’s Pierre Karl Péladeau earned nearly half of the group’s total in one quarter, taking in an estimated $14 million in dividends.

One individual, K. Rai Sahi, was chief executive of four companies on the list — Morguard Corp., Morguard Real Estate Investment Trust, Morguard North American Real Estate Investment Trust and TWC Enterprises Ltd. — and earned $3.1 million in dividends as his companies received more than $22 million in CEWS.

In a written response, Quebecor said its telecom business, which is responsible for 96 per cent of its EBITDA, did not qualify for CEWS, but its media subsidiaries did. The company also said Péladeau cut his base salary in the early stages of the pandemic.

Morguard would not comment on dividends received by Sahi.

© Morguard Morguard’s Rai Sahi

Christopher Chen, the managing director of Compensation Governance Partners, said that companies have required executives to own shares for almost 20 years now — it’s the gold standard of good governance. But the dividend earnings of these executives is now making him rethink what was once set in stone.

“The orthodoxy is that executives owning shares is absolutely the proper corporate governance because it aligns the philosophy, the risk and the performance period with payouts,” Chen said.

“What’s interesting is that when you bring dividends into play and the ability of an organization to determine dividend payouts based on a government subsidy, it does raise questions about that linkage and the optics of that linkage.”

To date, the government has paid out more than $51 billion to 359,880 unique applicants through the CEWS program, which was recently extended to June 2021.

© National Post file photo Alain Bedard, President and CEO of TFI International.

Other CEOs at the top of the Post’s list of dividend recipients included Savaria Corp.’s Marcel Bourassa, who earned an estimated $3.4 million in dividends while his company received $4.5 million in CEWS and TFI International Inc.’s Alain Bedard, who was paid an estimated $2.3 million in dividends in the quarters his company received $24.9 million in CEWS. Evertz Technologies Ltd. chief executive Romolo Magarelli rounded out the top five, taking in an estimated $2.1 million in dividends in one quarter.

An additional 21 CEOs received more than an estimated $100,000 in dividends.

Richard Leblanc, a York University professor and governance consultant, said the matter of executives owning shares isn’t black and white and has always involved a “small-c” conflict of interest in that the executives and board members who decide what gets paid out in dividends may be among the largest beneficiaries of those payouts themselves.

“You may be less willing to suspend dividends because you have an interest in receiving the dividends,” Leblanc said. “To say (CEWS) is different money or the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing I don’t think addresses that conflict that certain CEOs have seven digits in dividends at the same time they’re accepting the government subsidy.”

Finding a solution is difficult, Leblanc said. Many of these companies have already argued that their dividends are crucial. They’ve built their reputations around consistently paying dividends, for decades, through good times and bad and aren’t willing to sacrifice that. Investors of all types, whether it be Canada’s largest pension funds or the retirees that live off those dividends, become shareholders because of that consistency. Suspending dividends, the companies argue, would break that cycle and could lead to a downturn for the stock price.

If a company decides that a suspension is not possible, then suspending dividend payments to executives and directors isn’t going to happen either, Leblanc said, because a company cannot treat individual shareholders differently.

And so Leblanc offered another solution.

“What you could do is voluntarily take a haircut so your net total compensation remains the same … and say we’re not going to benefit financially during receipt of taxpayer money,” Leblanc said.

Some CEOs on the Post’s list have done just that. Péladeau, for example, cut his salary by 50 per cent in the early stages of the pandemic. But according to Quebecor’s circular, his base salary for 2019 was $1.33 million and so a 50 per cent cut wouldn’t have offset the $14 million in dividends he earned.

Telus Corp. CEO Darren Entwistle donated his salary for April, May and June — the equivalent of $400,000 — to Canadian healthcare workers, and his family’s charitable foundation, the Entwistle Family Foundation, matched it. Entwistle would’ve earned an estimated $109,324 from dividends in the two quarters Telus received CEWS.

Mullen Group CEO Murray Mullen does not receive a salary for his work, a spokesperson said, or any other form of compensation aside from his dividends and profit sharing in the years it’s paid out. When Mullen Group suspended its dividend for one quarter during the pandemic, Mullen wasn’t paid. When that dividend was reinstated at a lower level, he earned less as a result — an estimated $145,168 while the company received $10.8 million in CEWS.

Stingray Group Inc. CEO Eric Boyko received an estimated $603,406 in dividends in the top quarters that his company received $18 million in CEWS, but a company spokesperson said he only received 25 per cent of his base salary between March and October, agreeing to defer the rest along with a bonus. A spokesperson also said Boyko spent $7 million of his own funds buying shares in the company throughout the summer.

© Graham Hughes for National Post files

 Stingray Digital CEO Eric Boyko at the company’s offices in 2015.

The Post had to estimate the dividend payouts of the executives because unlike share ownership and base salaries, these figures are not directly disclosed.

There’s never been a requirement to do so, Chen said, because dividends are not considered compensation. “By the time you actually own a physical share, it’s considered an after-tax investment the same way it would be if you bought mutual funds,” he said.

The decision to own those shares, however, is not always made by choice. Some companies, through share-ownership guidelines, require their executives to own a multiple of their base salary, as high as five times, in shares. This is particularly common in the largest Canadian corporations, Chen said. Certain types of shares are also awarded to executives based on performance. Chen calls them “phantom shares.”

Aside from the common shares they own, multiple executives on the Post’s list own performance share units, deferred stock units and restricted stock units that convert to actual shares only at a certain time or when a performance metric has been met.

Some CEOs own very few common shares and the bulk of their ownership is in these other units. Chen said some companies do pay dividends on these shares and so the Post’s $30 million estimate in dividend payouts is conservative.

There would be no downside to disclosing dividend payouts for executives and directors going forward, Chen said.

Frank Li, a finance professor at Western University’s Ivey Business School who specializes in corporate governance, said an executive’s compensation should be linked to his or her firm’s performance. When taxpayer funds such as CEWS are introduced into a company and injected into revenue and net income figures, they can exaggerate performance metrics and lead to higher compensation while facilitating payouts such as dividends.

Li said this results in executives continuing to collect their dividend income, not because they led their companies to great quarters, but because of “luck or taxpayer money.

“If you perform badly, then you are fired, but in this case, they performed badly, they received (CEWS) and executives still enjoy high pay and high compensation,” Li said. “That’s not an efficient corporate governance mechanism.”

uS

Government Study Shows Taxpayers Are Subsidizing “Starvation Wages” At McDonald’s, Walmart

An employee of McDonald's wearing a protective mask as a precaution during the Covid-19 pandemic. (Getty Images)

Millions of Americans employed at some of the country's largest companies have had to rely on food stamps and Medicaid, with giants like Walmart and McDonald's employing the most workers whose income is subsidized by taxpayers, according to a new study.

The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, released a study commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., last month based on data provided by 11 states.

The report found that, in every state studied, Walmart was one of the top four employers whose workers rely on food stamps and Medicaid. McDonald's is among the most subsidized employers in at least nine states.

Walmart employs about 14,500 workers in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee and Washington who rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, the study showed, while McDonald's employs about 8,780 SNAP recipients in those states.

More than 2% of the Walmart workforce in states like Georgia and Oklahoma have had to rely on Medicaid benefits, a number that rises to more than 3% in Arkansas, where the company is based.

Other corporate giants who have a large number of workers relying on federal benefits included Amazon, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Subway, Uber, FedEx, Target, Dunkin' Donuts, CVS, Home Depot, and Lowe's.

The report cited data taken before the coronavirus pandemic hit, noting that the issues have likely grown worse.

"The economic effects of the covid-19 pandemic have further exacerbated conditions for these workers, increasing the importance of federal and state safety net programs to help them meet their basic needs," the report said.
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Sanders said the report showed that America's largest companies are relying on "corporate welfare from the federal government by paying their workers starvation wages."

"That is morally obscene," he said in a statement. "U.S. taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America."
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Sanders noted that the companies have reaped "billions in profits and giving their CEOs tens of millions of dollars a year" while failing to pay workers a "living wage."

Walmart reported more than $5 billion in net income in the last quarter while McDonald's reported more than $1.7 billion during that time frame.

Walmart spokeswoman Anne Hatfield said the company helps many workers get off government assistance.

"If not for the employment access Walmart and other companies provide, many more people would be dependent on government assistance," she told The Washington Post, which first reported the study. "A small percentage of our workforce comes to us on public assistance, and we remove employment barriers and create opportunities for individuals that too many overlook. Walmart has invested more than $5 billion in increased pay, expanded health benefits, and a debt-free college program over the past five years and our starting rate is more than 50% higher than the federal minimum wage, which Washington hasn't changed in more than a decade."

McDonald's spokeswoman Morgan O'Marra argued that the data was misleading.

"The average starting wage at U.S. corporate-owned restaurants is over $10 per hour and exceeds the federal minimum wage," she said in a statement. "McDonald's believes elected leaders have a responsibility to set, debate and change mandated minimum wages and does not lobby against or participate in any activities opposing raising the minimum wage."
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The company had long opposed increases to the minimum wage but said last year that it would stop lobbying against such measures.

The GAO report shows that 70% of the 21 million SNAP or Medicaid recipients work full time.

The data dovetails with previous research.

A 2013 study from researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that 73% of people receiving government benefits were from "working families" but had "jobs that pay wages so low that their paychecks do not generate enough income to provide for life's basic necessities."
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The study found that the average frontline fast-food worker earns just $8.69 per hour and that about 87% of them did not receive health benefits, leaving them to "rely on taxpayer-funded safety net programs to make ends meet."

The researchers released another report in 2015 showing that more than half of all fast-food workers were in families where at least one member relies on public benefits, costing taxpayers more than $150 billion each year.

Part of the problem is that wages have not kept up with growth in productivity and corporate profits for decades, researchers say. Another key issue is that the federal minimum wage, which is far below the rate it was for decades when adjusted for inflation, has stayed the same for over a decade and has been increased just once in the last two decades.

"Wages at the bottom and middle of the income spectrum have been essentially flat since the late 1970s," Ken Jacobs, the chairman of U.C. Berkeley's Labor Center and a co-author of the earlier reports, told the Post. "As productivity has increased, pay has stayed very low, and again, our federal minimum wage is well below where it would have been if it kept up with inflation and very far where it would have been if it kept up with productivity growth. So many families earn too little to get by on what they earn from their jobs

There has been growing support to raise the minimum wage to $15. President-elect Joe Biden has called for a $15 federal minimum wage. The House of Representatives voted last year to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 but the proposal was shot down by Senate Republicans. Florida voters overwhelmingly voted to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 over the next six years. Companies like Amazon and Target raised their minimum pay to $15 earlier this year.

Seattle lawmakers voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2017 five years ago. Despite concerns that businesses would leave the city and workers would see their hours cut, the results have largely been positive. There has been no great business exodus from the Emerald City and while there was a rise in workers who had their hours cut, their salaries largely stayed the same while the vast majority of workers "enjoyed significantly more rapid hourly wage growth," according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2018.

Another study from Berkeley looked at minimum wage increases in Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Chicago, and Washington D.C., which ranged from $10 to $13 in 2016, found that the increases did not result in widespread job losses.

"We find that they are working just as the policymakers and voters who enacted these policies intended," Sylvia Allegretto, the co-author of the study and co-chair of Berkeley's Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, told the Seattle Times. "So far they are raising the earnings of low-wage workers without causing significant employment losses."

An analysis of 138 state-level minimum wage increases between 1979 and 2016 published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics last year found that the loss of jobs that paid below minimum wage was offset by new higher-paying jobs.

Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the University of Michigan who served on President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, argued that the best way to approach a minimum wage hike amid the coronavirus pandemic was to couple it with targeted aid for struggling small businesses.

"The federal minimum wage is currently set way too low," she told the Post. "We really don't want workers to be bearing the increases of those costs. As a society we should be sharing that."

IGOR DERYSH
Igor Derysh is a staff writer at Salon. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald and Baltimore Sun.