Corruption is Everywhere > EPA Corruption; Georgia's Saakashvili Arrested; Russia's Gorgeous Bank VP Heads for the Hills; NSW Premier Steps Down

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EPA officials outed scientists who blew whistle on alleged corruption

& altered chemical hazard assessments at agency – reports

1 Oct, 2021 17:36

© Getty Images / Adam Gault

US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials reportedly exposed whistleblowers who raised corruption allegations after apparently uncovering proof that senior agency staffers had tampered with risk assessments for chemicals.

In June, four EPA scientists reportedly brought allegations of corruption against the agency’s New Chemicals Division and shared detailed evidence that high-level figures had deleted hazard alerts and altered conclusions in several chemical assessments to make them appear safer.

Minutes after receiving one such complaint on June 28, Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), shared the file with six senior colleagues – at least one of whom was named in the complaint, according to records obtained by The Intercept through Freedom of Information requests.

The four whistleblowers are represented by environmental group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which also submitted the complaint to the EPA inspector general’s office and sought an audit to identify the altered risk assessments. A copy was also sent to Representative Ro Khanna (D-California), who chairs the House Oversight Committee’s environment subcommittee.

The scientists also called for a review of cases in which they alleged comments in documents had been erased – and urged the agency to conduct an evaluation of the process “that allowed these improper changes to be made and remain uncorrected.” Among the six people Freedhoff forwarded the document to was OPPT deputy director for programs Tala Henry, who is reportedly described in the complaint as being involved in approving several chemicals that were not properly assessed.

According to The Intercept, the records – which include more than 1,000 pages of internal emails – show that within a day EPA officials had shared the complaint with other employees who had been named in it. Two days later, the named staffers apparently held a Zoom meeting to discuss how to respond – something legal experts told the outlet could compromise the investigation.

“That’s just not the way it’s done. How do we know they weren’t using that meeting to get their stories straight?” Kyla Bennett, PEER’s director of science policy, told The Intercept.

An analogy would be if there’s a murder investigation. You don’t go to all of the people who you think might have done it and give them all the evidence you’ve collected and say, ‘This is what we’re thinking.’

Although PEER and the whistleblowers decided against publicly naming the EPA staff members because “we are not judge and jury,” Bennett had earlier told the outlet that the agency had “released” the whistleblowers’ names – putting them in an “incredibly uncomfortable situation” and giving superiors the “chance to circle the wagons trying to go after them.”

In addition to potential threats of legal action against them by the companies whose chemicals were being assessed, the whistleblowers were reportedly subjected to various forms of harassment – including incidents involving shouting, name-calling, and disparagement of their work in front of colleagues. All four scientists were also reportedly reprimanded for not reviewing new chemicals quickly enough.

In a statement response to The Intercept, which has carried out a months-long investigation into the allegations, the EPA expressed its commitment to “protecting employee rights, including the important right of all employees to be free from retaliation for whistleblowing.”

What you say doesn't seem to be what you do!

The agency is apparently conducting a “workplace climate assessment” within the NCD, which has reportedly approved dozens of new chemicals for market release since the first whistleblower complaint was filed. 

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Georgia detains controversial ex-President Saakashvili, who fled

homeland in 2013 & was sentenced in absentia on criminal charges

1 Oct, 2021 17:25

FILE PHOTO. Mikhail Saakashvili at a court hearing in Kiev, Ukraine on December 11, 2017.

© Reuters / Valentyn Ogirenko

Former Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili has been detained upon his return home, the country’s prime minister has said. The controversial figure now faces a total of nine years behind bars, having been sentenced in absentia.

Saakashvili was arrested by law enforcement and incarcerated, Irakly Garibalishvili told the media, on Friday evening. “I want to inform our society that the third president of Georgia, the wanted Mikhail Saakashvili, has been detained,” the prime minister explained.

Based in Ukraine in recent years, Saakashvili unexpectedly announced plans to fly to the capital Tblisi earlier this week, publishing his flight manifesto online. He promised his supporters he’d lead a fight to “save” Georgia. It was not the first time Saakashvili pledged to return, but this time, he kept his word.

“I have bought a ticket for the evening of October 2 to be in Tbilisi with you and defend your will and take part in saving Georgia,” he stated. On Friday morning, he posted a video claiming to be in the coastal city of Batumi, some 300 kilometers to the West of the capital.

His return coincides with local elections, in which his UNM party is challenging the ruling Georgian Dream. Saakashvili stepped down as the UNM’s chairman, from exile, two years ago. He was replaced by his own chosen candidate, Grigol Vashadze.

Saakashvili fled his homeland back in 2013, shortly after his political rival Giorgi Margvelashvili trounced his favored successor Davit Bakradze in a presidential election. The colourful politician has been targeted by multiple criminal cases since then, which he claims are politically motivated.

In January 2018, he was handed a three-year sentence for abusing power in pardoning former Interior Ministry officials convicted in a 2006 murder case. Later that year, Saakashvili received a separate six-year jail term for abusing his authority by trying to cover up evidence related to the 2005 beating of an opposition politician.

The ex-president has consistently maintained his innocence, however his rule was authoritarian in nature and the likes of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights publicly condemned him after images emerged showing prisoners being sodomized and beaten in a Tblisi prison, under his watch.

Earlier on Friday, Saakashvili released two video addresses, the first claiming he was in Batumi. The claim was dismissed by Georgia’s interior ministry, which said the ex-president had not crossed the country’s borders. So far, no official information on where exactly Saakashvili was apprehended has been released.

After his departure from Tblisi, in 2013, Saakashvili first moved to New York. After spending around two years in the US, hiding from Georgia’s prosecutors, he relocated to Ukraine to become the governor of Odessa region on the invitation of then-president Petro Poroshenko. The latter granted the fugitive politician Ukrainian citizenship, which led to Saakashvili losing his Georgian nationality.

The Saakashvili-Poroshenko honeymoon ended some two years later, with the Ukrainian leader taking away the politician’s Ukrainian passport. Saakashvili, now rendered effectively stateless, spent some time in the Netherlands, before returning to Ukraine after the election of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Friday’s events mark the latest drama of a controversial career. Earlier in the day, the Kremlin commented that everything around the Georgian-turned-Ukrainian was a “circus.” In 2008, Saakashvili led his country into a short, disastrous war with Russia. The European Union’s investigation blamed his Tbilisi government for starting the conflict.

Seriously, they didn't blame Russia?

Vice president of Russia’s leading bank placed on federal wanted list

after she absconds following major financial fraud charge

1 Oct, 2021 10:45

FILE PHOTO. Marina Rakova, the Vice President of Sberbank. 

Marina Rakova, the vice president of Sberbank, has been placed on the federal wanted list by Russian law enforcement after being charged in absentia with embezzlement. She is suspected to have gone abroad, fearing prosecution.

According to a source cited by news agency TASS, the investigation also plans to put Rakova on the international wanted list.

Prior to her work at Sberbank, Rakova was deputy education minister. She allegedly took taxpayers’ money, initially intended for state contracts for a federal education program, and sent it to the Fund for New Forms of Education Development, where she was the CEO.

Rakova is suspected of embezzling more than 50 million rubles ($685,000) and faces up to 10 years in prison. According to REN TV, the Fund for New Forms of Education Development was allocated as much as 2.837 billion rubles ($39 million) during her time in the ministry, meaning the current charges may just be the tip of the iceberg.

On Wednesday, her office and home were searched by law enforcement. One day later, she failed to turn up for questioning and turned off her mobile phone, it was reported.

On Thursday, a Moscow court also detained three of Rakova’s former colleagues, Maxim Inkin, Evgeny Zak, and Kristina Kryuchkova, who are also suspected of taking part in the fraud.

Sberbank is a Russian state-owned financial institution and is the country’s most popular bank. Earlier this year, Forbes declared it to be the “most reliable” of all banks operating in the country.

It will certainly drop down that list next year.

Australian NSW premier Berejiklian resigns amid corruption probe,

says only regret is not seeing end to her own draconian lockdown

1 Oct, 2021 05:20

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian announces her resignation at a news conference in Sydney, Australia, October 1, 2021 ©  AAP Image / Bianca De Marchi via Reuters

The head of the Australian state of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, has abruptly resigned just before a corruption watchdog launched a probe into potential misconduct, stating that she had “no option” but to quit.

“My only regret will be not to be able to finish the job to ensure the people of New South Wales transition to living freely with Covid,” Berejiklian – among the country’s most vocal advocates of draconian lockdown measures – said on Friday, as she announced her resignation, soon after the state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) declared an upcoming probe.

My resignation as premier could not happen at a worse time, but the timing is completely outside of my control as the ICAC has chosen to take this action during the most challenging weeks of the most challenging times in the history of NSW.

Despite her resignation, Berejiklian stated “categorically” that she had “always acted with the highest level of integrity” while in office, lamenting that the move came during the “darkest days” in NSW’s history – presumably referring to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which has kept NSW in a near-perpetual state of lockdown for months on end.

The ICAC said it will investigate potential conflicts of interest linked to public grants awarded to certain organizations between 2012 and 2018, some of which occurred prior to Berejiklian’s premiership, when she served in a lower office in the state government. The corruption watchdog will hold public hearings later this month to probe the matter further. 

The investigation initially centered on former NSW legislator Daryl Maguire, alleging that, while Berejiklian had been in a “secret” personal relationship with him, she may have “engaged in conduct that constituted ... a breach of public trust” by helping to funnel government grant dollars into organizations in Maguire’s district. 

Maguire, who previously served alongside Berejiklian in the state’s Liberal Party, resigned in 2018 over a separate series of corruption allegations linked to property deals with an overseas developer.

Monsanto Leaks Suggest It Tried to ‘Kill’ Cancer Research about Notorious Weed Killer

© Yves Herman / Reuters

Controversial agricultural giant Monsanto attempted to ‘kill’ research on Roundup weed killer, which is suspected of causing cancer, leaked documents show. The company also reportedly influenced EPA officials to conceal information about the cancer risks.

A trove of documents was released by LA-based plaintiff firm Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman earlier in August. The company is representing people who claimed that they or their relatives got cancer due to Monsanto products. 

In particular, the case concerns the notorious Roundup, a non-selective herbicide which kills weeds that compete with agricultural crops. Its active ingredient is called glyphosate.

The documents, mostly emails between Monsanto executives and researchers working for or connected with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), are dated between 1999 and 2016.

For example, in one email Donna Farmer, a Monsanto scientist, insists to an expert that “glyphosate and Roundup cannot be used interchangeably.”

“For example you cannot say that Roundup is not a carcinogen ... we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement,” she wrote.

In another set of emails Monsanto Executive William Heydens edits a manuscript on the effects of Roundup from an expert consultant.

The majority of the edits concern theories and speculation of possible links between glyphosate and cancer.

“This is a look behind the curtain,” attorney Brent Wisner said. “This show[s] that Monsanto has deliberately been stopping studies that look bad for them, ghostwriting literature and engaging in a whole host of corporate malfeasance.

“They [Monsanto] have been telling everybody that these products are safe because regulators have said they are safe, but it turns out that Monsanto has been in bed with US regulators while misleading European regulators,” he added.

Monsanto said that the plaintiffs’ legal team committed a “flagrant violation” of confidentiality by releasing the trove, and has asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit as a result. The corporation also says that the documents misrepresent its modus operandi.

The EPA’s Report of the Cancer Assessment Review Committee on glyphosate from 2015 addressed the cancer risks of the substance in a neutral way. The committee concluded that the substance has no connection with many types of tumors, and cautiously said that “there is conflicting evidence” that glyphosate causes non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL), a type of blood cancer. 

NHL is a primary concern for glyphosate as Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman plaintiffs claim that they got this exact type of cancer after exposure to the substance.

According to the group, more than 900 people across the US who have been diagnosed with NHL are suing Monsanto.

The description of glyphosate on the EPA website still appears to be positive, saying that it has “low toxicity for humans.”

The biotech corporation, which on its website claims to help farmers “grow food more sustainably,” has been at the center of scandals in recent years. There have been scores of anti-Monsanto petitions and stories of people who claimed to have been affected by the company’s products.

The corporate giant has been also at the center of reports claiming it has influence with the US government and, thus, avoids lawsuits.

The anger with the corporation went global with the start of the March Against Monsanto movement in 2013. The initiative launched rallies against ‘Monsanto poison’ across the globe, with thousands of people joining. “Keep GMOs out of your genes,” says the slogan of the movement, whose Facebook page has gathered 1.4 million likes so far. 

Europe appears to be “a force of resistance” against the corporation. In June, more than 1 million people signed a petition calling to ban glyphosate, according to the European Citizens Initiative, which launched the campaign.  The document was submitted to 28 national European authorities.

"European citizens aren’t fooled by the pesticide industry’s lobbying efforts or the faulty science it’s peddling,” David Schwartz, ECI coordinator at WeMove.EU, said. 

The rising criticism of Monsanto also resulted in a 2014 documentary, claiming that the company has contributed to over 290,000 suicides by Indian farmers over the last 20 years. Farmers were allegedly forced to grow GM cotton instead of traditional crops, agricultural scientist Dr. G. V. Ramanjaneyulu, of the Center For Sustainable Agriculture, told a team from RT’s documentary channel, RTD, which traveled to India to learn about the issue. The seeds were so expensive and demanded so much more maintenance that farmers often went bankrupt and killed themselves.

The idea here is that Monsanto is trying to get control of the 'seed market' for the entire world whereupon they can charge anything they like for the seeds.They sell their GM products as being the salvation of the world and attempt to convince governments to force all farmers to use their products. GM wheat was an obvious disaster for India and India should sue Monsanto although the authorities would have to have clean hands which is a little unlikely.

One of the recent scandals around Monsanto involves its alleged hiring, through third parties, of an army of internet trolls to counter negative comments. These trolls were reportedly tasked with citing positive “ghost-written” pseudo-scientific reports which downplay the potential risks of Monsanto products, including Roundup.

Monsanto even reportedly targeted all online materials and even social media comments that indicate potential dangers of its products, according to several plaintiffs’ lawsuits. 

One of Monsanto’s most well-known attempts to seemingly hush-up “wrong” science concerns was in March 2015, when the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) released a report which classified glyphosate as a possible carcinogen.

Monsanto promptly said that it “strongly disagrees with IARC’s classification of glyphosate” and demanded it be retracted with its “erroneous classification”.  

No scientific report has definitively concluded that Roundup, which has been on the market since 1974, causes cancer. This fact is especially noted in every Monsanto press release on the issue. The statements are usually supported by a pile of scientific articles claiming the harmless effects of glyphosate. One of the positive facts around the herbicide is that it helps to tackle climate change, the company claims.

By reducing the surplus population?

How MSM and the Climate Change Lobby Distort the Debate

Carbon dioxide not ‘primary contributor’ to global warming, EPA chief says

© Peter Andrews / Reuters

Scott Pruitt, President Trump's new administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, does not think carbon dioxide is the primary contributor to global warming, a belief his own agency contradicts.

On Thursday, CNBC “Squawk Box” host Joe Kernen asked Pruitt if he believes that carbon dioxide has been proven to be the “primary control knob” for climate change.

“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it's a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” Pruitt said.

"But we don't know that yet. ... We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis," he said.

Pruitt’s statements run contrary to the EPA website, which definitively states: “Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change.”

This is where MSM loses credibility. Here they compare apples to oranges and criticize Pruitt for not believing they are the same thing. The question he asked was - is CO2 the primary cause of global warming. Then the RT reporter (and a bunch of liberals on Twitter) go a little nuts and claim he is contradicting his own web site. But what does the web site actually say? 

“Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is

contributing to recent climate change.”

It does not say that it is the primary cause of climate change, but only that it is primary among greenhouse gasses. I agree with that statement and I suspect Pruitt would too.

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) also disagree with Pruitt.

“The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere,” NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies reported in January, based on NASA and NOAA data.

Just once, I would like top hear one of these guys say that they have eliminated sun-spot activity as the main driver in climate change and why.

The two agencies also said that global temperatures in 2016 were the warmest ever recorded.

It was also the strongest or 2nd strongest El Nino ever recorded, so that's what you would expect.

In response Thursday, Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), co-chair of the Senate Climate Action Task Force, called Pruitt’s views “extreme” and “irresponsible.”

"Anyone who denies over a century's worth of established science and basic facts is unqualified to be the administrator of the EPA. Now more than ever, the Senate needs to stand up to Scott Pruitt and his dangerous views," he said in a statement.

There is a century worth of science proving greenhouse gasses are responsible for climate change? Wow! How did I miss that? It's only been in the last few decades that science has even considered that greenhouse gasses may be contributing to climate change. In fact, it's been less than 50 years since most climate scientists decided that the planet was warming rather than cooling.

It doesn't help your cause to make such inflammatory and unscientific statements. It 'outs' you as being as 'scientifically illiterate' as the one you criticize.

Schatz says that that lawmakers will hold Pruitt accountable through the appropriations process, through oversight of the EPA, and by making sure that the agency follows the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

“He is still obligated to follow the law,” Schatz said.

Several other Democrats and climate scientists took to Twitter in protest of Pruitt’s comments.

In the interview, Pruitt said that the EPA should focus on reducing regulatory uncertainty, which he said has put a “paralysis on development.”

“Regulatory certainty is something we need to focus on at the EPA and that’s what we’re trying to re-instill in the agency presently,” Pruitt said. “This idea that if you're pro-environment you're anti-energy is just something we've got to change, so that attitude is something we're working on very much.”

Pruitt also called the Paris Agreement, an international accord to mitigate the impacts of climate change, “a bad deal” and said that he would soon be making an announcement on changes to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which set the average fuel economy for new cars and light trucks.

Lest you think I am partial here, (don't laugh), I find the above two paragraphs a little concerning. CAFE standards drive innovation and there is always room for improving air quality when it comes to vehicle emissions. (I don't automatically relate air quality to climate change but to healthy people and environments). Makes you wonder who Pruitt is working for, the people, or the oil industry?