Changing South Dakota One Slaughterhouse at a Time

This is just a quick update on the post I wrote, here a week ago about Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods’ role in creating a massive Chinese virus hot spot in South Dakota.

Apparently the company is blaming the workers’ community culture and the workers point a finger at the company’s management of the plant. Thanks to reader John for bringing my attention to the story.

Buzzfeed News:

Smithfield Foods Is Blaming “Living Circumstances In Certain Cultures” For One Of America’s Largest COVID-19 Clusters

Was there any way to prevent the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in South Dakota from becoming one of the country’s largest known coronavirus clusters, with more than 700 workers infected? It’s hard to know “what could have been done differently,” a Smithfield spokesperson said, given what she referred to as the plant’s “large immigrant population.”

“Living circumstances in certain cultures are different than they are with your traditional American family,” she explained.

The spokesperson and a second corporate representative pointed to an April 13 Fox News interview in which the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, said that “99%” of the spread of infections “wasn’t happening inside the facility” but inside workers’ homes, “because a lot of these folks who work at this plant live in the same community, the same buildings, sometimes in the same apartments.”

But internal company communications and interviews with nearly a dozen workers and their relatives point to a series of management missteps and half measures that contributed significantly to the spread of the virus. A BuzzFeed News investigation has uncovered new information showing the company did little to inform or protect employees during the critical two weeks after the first case at the plant surfaced. Then, with confirmed cases rising quickly, Smithfield introduced new safety protocols but applied them unevenly across the plant’s departments, leaving hundreds of workers exposed.

In late March, as word of the first confirmed case leaked, workers began seeing flyers on notice boards and doors. “If you are at work and feeling sick,” the flyers stated, “tell your Supervisor and go directly home.” But the directive was posted only in English, three employees said, even though many of the plant’s 3,700 workers have limited comprehension of English. Safety notices at the plant are usually translated into as many as five languages.

It is a long story, if you are interested in the gory details, continue here.

Someone could write a very useful book, a new version of The Jungle, by focusing on one plant like Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, SD.

Giant global corporations are changing the American heartland with the continued pressure on government to import (for them!) cheap foreign labor.

An author could hit all the key elements of greed, politicians and fake ‘religious’ charities as enablers, the suffering of American workers, the changing culture of middle America and the federal government’s complicity in the whole mess.

The opening chapter would detail the spread of the Chinese virus through the plant and the impact it is having on Sioux Falls.

Eagle Forum Files Brief in Tennessee States Rights Case

Although stymied by the courts at other levels, the important Tenth Amendment case involving the Constitutional challenge against the federal government’s ever increasing cost-shifting to the states for the care of refugees is still alive.

There was a time when I thought that the political process was the place to change refugee policy in America, but truthfully I am seeing little hope of any real change as Trump enters his fourth year in the White House.

Cutting the number of admissions is fine, but no real structural changes have been sought for the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program by the administration. (The governor approval process seriously backfired, and Congress is useless as members cower in fear of being called racists.)

Maybe there is still some hope that the courts will see how unfair and unconstitutional it is for states to carry a financial burden placed on them by the feds.

From the Thomas More Law Center:

Eagle Forum Files Brief Supporting Thomas More Law Center’s ‘Federalism Challenge’ to Tennessee Refugee Resettlement Program

ANN ARBOR, MI – The Eagle Forum and its Tennessee chapter added their influential voices urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant the Thomas More Law Center’s request to review (“petition for certiorari”) a Sixth Circuit Court decision which held that the Tennessee General Assembly lacked institutional standing to challenge the Federal Refugee Resettlement program. Their amicus brief (“friend of the court brief”), authored by Nashville attorney Joanne Bregman, was filed late last week.

Bregman observed, “The ongoing conversations between the President and state governors concerning recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is bringing a renewed interest in federalism – the same constitutional principle of dual sovereignty which is the basis of the General Assembly’s lawsuit against federal commandeering of state dollars to fund the federal refugee resettlement program.”

The Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”), a national nonprofit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and John Bursch, a nationally prominent appellate lawyer are representing the General Assembly without charge. Bursch authored the General Assembly’s petition for certiorari, which asks the Supreme Court to overturn the Sixth Circuit’s ruling.

The petition for certiorari, filed on March 16, 2020, objects to forcing Tennessee taxpayers to pay the costs of the resettlement: “If a state legislature cannot vindicate its rights in court when the federal government picks the state’s pocket and threatens the state if it dare stop providing funds, then federalism is a dead letter.”

Richard Thompson

The Eagle Forum, a national conservative organization with 80,000 members founded by the late legendary Phyllis Schlafly in 1972, has significantly impacted public policy at both state and national levels. The Tennessee chapter headed by Mrs. Bobbie Patray was the first state chapter to question the power of the federal government to coerce state legislators to use state revenues to fund the federal refugee resettlement program.

Richard Thompson, TMLC’s President and Chief Counsel, commented:

“Justice Scalia considered the principles of federalism, the same principles that undergird our challenge to the federal refugee resettlement program, more important to the American democracy than the Bill of Rights.

Considering the continued controversy between the Nation’s governors and the President over the best way to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, a grant of certiorari would present the Supreme Court with an opportunity to calm the waters over their conflicting claims of power by expounding on Federalism 101.”

Continued Thompson, “Because of the significance of this issue, I’m grateful that the Eagle Forum and its Tennessee chapter were able to assist our efforts to obtain Supreme Court review.”

According to the amicus brief: “Forcing state legislators to expend state resources outside of the normal appropriations process directly interferes with their duties to the state and to their constituents. If the federal government cannot compel a state to fund federal programs, then a state should not be forced to divert funding from essential and traditional state government services in order to operationalize a federal program from which the state has withdrawn.”

Tennessee initially agreed to participate in the federal refugee resettlement program. But when the federal government refused to cover the state costs as it originally promised and as the 1980 Refugee Act intended, Tennessee withdrew from the program in 2008. Nevertheless, the federal government merely designated Catholic Charities of Tennessee, a non-governmental private organization, to continue the program while still forcing the state to pay for it.

Bregman notes the threat to state sovereignty powers by federally coerced spending, especially at a time when the needs of Tennessee’s citizens are dire, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic and a series of deadly tornadoes which ripped through 100 miles of Tennessee counties.

The amicus brief concludes, “There is no room in the Constitution’s framework to permit the federal government or its agencies to take state funds without the express consent of the state’s appropriating body.”

Read the Eagle Forums’ entire amicus brief here.

Read TMLC’s Petition for Certiorari here.

Two additional briefs were filed, see here and here.

 

Lutheran Refugee Agency Blasts Trump (again) Over Proposed Immigration Ban

In their usual knee-jerk response, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service came right out of the box on Monday (before anything is even on paper) to blast the President over a reportedly non-existent ban on immigration to America during the Chinese virus crisis.

Never mind that the President’s draft plan is pablum (see my comments at Frauds and Crooks earlier).  You would think by now the President should know that walking down the middle on an issue of great importance—in my view the most important issue for the future of America—he would understand that the middle of the road means you are road kill (targeted for death from both sides).

He is getting it from the Right and from the Left on the immigration ban issue.

Here are the Lutherans, from Relevant:

[By the way, if you think this group is financially suffering during the Trump years, you are wrong. The ‘religious’ charity which is 85-90% federally funded is doing just fine.  See here. It is insane that you pay their salaries as they denigrate the President and us!]

Lutheran Group Has Condemned Trump’s Plan to Suspend Immigration During the Pandemic

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah is a former staffer of Michelle Obama

One group pushing back is the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which called on the White House to continue to welcome asylum seekers and refugees during the pandemic. “America has always been able to respond to crises while upholding its obligations to the most vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers,” wrote LIRS President Krish O’Mara Vignarajah. “How can we shut our borders at the same time as our leaders openly encourage protests and the reopening of businesses like gyms and bowling alleys? To imply that immigrants are a threat to the vibrance and prosperity of America’s workforce is a xenophobic talking point — proven false time and time again.”

Ho hum, what else would you expect. Free speech, right!

She can blast the Prez all she wants on her private dime. The maddening thing is that you, the taxpayers of America, pay her salary. Three years ago Trump should have figured out how to shut down their funding.

By the way, I expect some of you are reading this now and saying—well who the heck are you going to vote for other than Trump?

Of course there is no question I still support the President, but Trump and all politicians need to know that in order to have an energized base they need to take strong positions—no one is going to go out and knock themselves out campaigning for middle-of-the-roaders.

 

Meat Giant JBS Closes Greeley, CO Plant Due to Chinese Virus Outbreak

That was last week’s news in the Denver Post.  The Brazilian-owned plant was forced to close as 277 employees tested positive for the Chinese virus.

According to the Post, the closure was necessary earlier this month to avoid overwhelming local health care services.

State and local health officials in a Friday letter warned JBS CEO Andre Nogueira of the virus’ rapid spread among employees, particularly those who work the first shift at the plant, and said continued exponential spread would “quickly overwhelm” medical resources in Greeley and the surrounding communities.

The JBS slaughter house at Greeley, Colorado has played a large role over the years on the pages of RRW.

JBS US headquarters are in Greeley. This is a photo I took when I traveled through the Midwest and West in 2016 mostly to have a look at a few meatpacking towns.

In fact, it is through the controversy surrounding refugee (mostly Somali) workers there in 2008 that I became interested in the concept of foreign-owned meatpackers (I call BIG MEAT) encouraging the admission of cheap legal immigrant labor—refugees—which then changes the character of American towns.

Not to mention the fact that US taxpayers subsidize those low wage workers.

I had devoted an entire category I labeled Greeley, Swift, Somali controversy.  See it here.  Posts go back to 2008!

But problems for the beef giant are bigger than a few facility closings…..

We can thank the COVID-19 situation for helping to expose the globalist fat cats that own these plants—like the Brazilian brothers featured in the New York Post on Saturday.  Hat tip: Judy.

And, don’t miss my post about Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods and how the leftwing media (and refugee contractors!) have for years supported the movement of migrants to the US to work these kinds of jobs.

Corrupt billionaire brothers’ meat plants are riddled with coronavirus

The world’s largest meat-processing giant was forced to shut down some of its US plants as more than 100 of its workers tested positive for COVID-19 last week, but the pandemic may be the least of its problems.

The Brazilian billionaire brothers — one of whom owned a Manhattan penthouse — controlling the massive meat producer JBS, which slaughters 13 million animals a day and has revenues of $50 billion a year, have been linked to high-level government corruption that has rocked the South American country.

Joesley (left) and Wesley Batista are the controlling shareholders of two prominent U.S. companies, JBS USA and Pilgrim’s Pride. https://foxwilmington.com/politics/tainted-beef-how-the-meat-you-buy-could-be-supporting-venezuelas-socialist-regime/

The Batistas’ company is also being probed in America now for bribery, and has been accused of price-gouging during the COVID-19 crisis. The New York attorney general, meanwhile, has been asked to look at the company as “an imminent threat” before it goes public on Wall Street.

[….]

After admitting to bribing nearly 2,000 elected officials in Brazil in order to secure government funding to fuel their company’s US expansion a few years ago, Joesley and Wesley Batista were slapped with more than $3.2 billion in fines in 2017, the highest in the country’s history.

Now JBS’ parent company, J&F Investimentos, is reportedly the subject of US Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations for alleged bribery here. Last year, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) urged the federal government to investigate the beef conglomerate and its alleged dealings with the Venezuelan government after the company developed business ties with the administration of President Nicolas Maduro. The US has levied sanctions against the Venezuelan leader.

Last week, US legislators, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), renewed calls for the federal government to investigate alleged price-fixing by JBS and other big beef producers during the pandemic. According to Grassley, big meat processors are using the pandemic to “gouge” US cattle producers.

[….]

Last week, JBS, which sells beef and chicken under its Pilgrim’s Pride and Swift labels, said it was closing a packing plant in Greeley, Colorado, where four workers died from the coronavirus, including longtime plant employee Saul Sanchez, 78. Sanchez, a father of six, had worked for more than 30 years at the plant. A daughter, Beatriz Rangel, said Sanchez was willing to work at the plant even during the outbreak because he trusted his employer.

There is much more here.

We will be watching to see if the President follows through on his tweet last night, here.

LOL! Is he listening to my man Jeff?