Rampant Corruption, Glaring Conflicts of Interest: Why U.S. Public Health Suffers

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evolving Door Riders

2018

• Former Trump communications aide, Josh Raffel, takes job with Juul

2019

• Former as counselor to the President Trump, Johnny DeStefano, takes job with Juul

Among Juul lobbyists

• Former Obama administration Department of Health and Human Services assistant secretary,

Jim Esquea

• Former top policy aide to former House Speaker Paul Ryan, Ted McCann

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eholden Insiders

A Member of the U.S. Congress (2009 - ) with no prior public office experience and a nondescript baccalaureate degree puffs e-cigarette during Congressional meeting

• 2016: Rep. Duncan Hunter puffs “from a nicotine vaporizer during a congressional committee meeting”
• 2017: Rep. Duncan Hunter smokes an e-cigarette during a bill markup that he opposes, a “ban e-cigarettes on airplanes.”

• August 21, 2018: Duncan Duane Hunter and his wife are indicted by federal grand jury of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California “on 60 counts of wire fraud, falsifying records, campaign finance violations, and conspiracy.”

• “The San Diego U.S. Attorney’s Office accused the couple of conspiring to misuse $250,000 in campaign funds for personal expenses … including vacations in Italy and Hawaii, theater tickets, and purchases in the gaming platform Steam; (and) … filing false campaign finance reports.”

According to a report by the Office of Congressional Ethics

“‘Rep. Hunter may have converted tens of thousands of dollars of campaign funds from his congressional campaign committee to personal use to pay for family travel, flights, utilities, health care, school uniforms, and tuition, jewelry, groceries, and other goods, services, and expenses.’”

Polyester and plastics manufacturer while on the “Finance Council of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay” opposes “Wisconsin bill that would have eliminated the time limit for future child sex abuse victims to bring lawsuits while allowing an additional three years for past victims to sue” is later elected and reelected to the U.S. Senate without prior public office qualifications.

• 2016:  Senator Ron John “sent two letters to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert M. Califf asking him to justify the agency’s plans to begin regulating the $3 billion vapor market beginning later this summer.”

In a follow-up letter, the senator gave the commissioner “a deadline for responding to his questions (and) … threatened to ‘resort to other means to compel the production of this information’ if Califf failed to respond.”

• 2017: During his tenure as U.S. Senator, Ronald “Ron” Harold Johnson (net worth $10.4 million), opponent vaping regulation, gives the keynote speech at the Vaping Industry conference held at Donald John Trump’s “International Hotel in Washington, D.C.” in which he “pushes the Food and Drug Administration to change the “2016 rule requiring e-cigarette makers get federal approval.”

Johnson reportedly advised the Vapor industry lobbyists to argue their case by placing emphasis on that industry’s purported “job creation” and regulation’s alleged effect on “hundreds of small vaping businesses.”

Less than two weeks after the conference the Food and Drug Administration announces “that manufacturers of e-cigarettes and cigars already on the market would get a reprieve of four years — since changed to three years — before (being) required to get agency approval.”

• June 2018 Vaping Industry Keynote speaker at Trump Hotel: then-U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello urging if companies “hoped to fight off regulation,” they must ….

“Lead with ‘improved public health outcomes from those switching’ (to e-cigarettes), and then the economic impact: ‘How many jobs will this legislation cost? How many small businesses will close?’”

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ot on Top                                      

U.S. President Donald Trump serving as president with no prior public office

• 2016 and 2017: During his tenure as U.S. President and owner of Trump properties including Trump “International Hotel in Washington, DC hosts and is paid by the Vaping Industry. IN these years, “the Vapor Technology Association meets at Trump’s hotel to strategize how to lobby the (Trump) administration.”

President’s conflict of interest

• A former legal adviser to several Republican presidential campaigns tells the press that “Whether it is foreign governments or e-cigarette companies, there is a perception that staying at a Trump hotel benefits the patron in some way”

“This cuts to the heart of why there are concerns about the president’s having active business interests,” said Matthew Sanderson.

IT

 

It must be hard to stop it when you are it—corrupt, the embodiment of corruption, that is. It must be a lot like nicotine addiction. Once you start, it’s hard to stop. Once it’s in your veins and in the veins of all in your orbit, you no longer recognize addiction as addiction — corruption as corruption.

Thus Americans find themselves being led by a Cabal that is unspeakably Corrupt to the Core.

Sources

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Journal Sentinel No Quarter “Ron Johnson pursues radio talker’s vaping cause” Daniel Bice June 30, 2016  

http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/ron-johnson-pursues-radio-talkers-vaping-cause-b99753569z1-384956641.html/

The Intelligencer “Vaping group plotted lobbying efforts at Trump’s DC hotel” by Bernard Condon, Associated Press (updated) September 11, 2019 https://www.theintelligencer.com/news/medical/article/Vaping-group-plotted-lobbying-efforts-at-Trump-s-14432918.php

New York Times “Juul Illegally Marketed E-Cigarettes, F.D.A. Says: The agency sent a warning letter to the company, saying it violated regulations by touting its vaping products as safer than traditional tobacco cigarettes” by Sheila Kaplan and Matt Richtel September 9, 2019 updated September 11, 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/health/vaping-juul-e-cigarettes-fda.html

The Hill “Congressman vapes during committee meeting to prove point … The vaping congressman is back at it again” by Melanie Zanona June 27, 2017 https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/339725-congressman-vapes-again-during-committee-meeting

News Observer “Vaping group plotted lobbying efforts at Trump’s DC hotel” by Bernard Condon Associated Press September 11, 2019 updated September 12, 2019

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/article234995802.html

Wikipedia

Duncan Hunter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_D._Hunter

Ron Johnson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Johnson_(Wisconsin_politician)

John DeStefano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_DeStefano

Week 58 of Trump presidency: Tuesday February 27, 2018: Josh Raffel, a senior communications aide, announced his resignation from the administration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_DeStefano

Pro Publica

In Q2, JUUL LABS, INC. formerly JIM R ESQUEA had in-house lobbyists. The report was filed on July 20, 2018. Original Filing: 300974547.xml

Lobbying Issues: Regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping products designed to improve the lives of adult smokers; Agencies Lobbied: U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives

Type of Issue: JUUL LABS, INC. formerly JIM R ESQUEA filed a lobbying registration on July 19, 2018 for in-house lobbying efforts, effective April 23, 2018. Original Filing: 300969429.xml

Issue(s) they said they’d lobby about: Regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping products designed to improve the lives of adult smokers.

https://projects.propublica.org/represent/lobbying/301018346

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Loss of Control (FEAR, INSECURITY) turns Violent

“Hate Crime” USA

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ate Crimes in the United States of America by Population Group (2008- 2012)

Population Group	Estimated Population	Total Hate Crimes Against (2008-2012)	Rate (per 100,000 people)	Violent Hate Crimes Against	Rate (per 100,000 people)
Jewish	5,248,674	4,457	84.9	411	7.8
LGBT	9,000,000	7,231	66.9	3,849	35.6
Muslim	1,852,473	761	41.1	258	13.9
Black	38,929,319	13,411	34.4	4,356	11.2
Aboriginal	2,932,248	364	12.4	161	5.5
Hispanic	50,477,594	3,064	6.1	1,482	2.9
Asian & Pacific Islander	15,214,265	798	5.2	276	1.8
White	223,553,265	3,459	1.5	1,614	0.7
Catholic	67,924,018	338	0.5	32	0.0
Atheist & Agnostic	17,598,496	47	0.3	5	0.0
Protestant	148,197,858	229	0.2	17	0.0

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n this area, the first (sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, the disabled, and military personnel and their family members) all-inclusive piece of legislation ever passed in the United States was the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act” signed into law in 2009. 

 

The Shepard Byrd Act

• …makes it a federal crime to willfully cause bodily injury, or attempt to do so using a dangerous weapon, because of the victim’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin.

• …extends federal hate crime prohibitions to crimes committed because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person, only where the crime affected interstate or foreign commerce or occurred within federal special maritime and territorial jurisdiction.

• …makes it a crime to use, or threaten to use force to interfere with housing rights because of the victim’s race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin.

•  …prohibits the intentional defacement, damage, or destruction of religious real property because of the religious nature of the property, where the crime affects interstate or foreign commerce, or because of the race, color, or ethnic characteristics of the people associated with the property.

• …criminalizes the intentional obstruction by force, or threat of force of any person in the enjoyment of that person’s free exercise of religious beliefs.

• …makes it a crime to use, or threaten to use force to willfully interfere with any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin and because the person is participating  in a federally protected activity, such as public education, employment, jury service, travel, or the enjoyment of public accommodations, or helping another person to do so.

• …makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory, or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him or her by the Constitution or the laws of the U.S.

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ggression Grows

• 2006 (source: FBI Hate Crime Statistics report for 2006): “Nationwide hate crimes increased nearly 8 percent: 7,722 incidents and 9,080 offences reported by participating law enforcement agencies.
• Of 5,449 crimes against persons: 46 percent classified as intimidation; 32 percent as simple assaults.
• Of the 3,593 crimes against property: 81 percent were acts of vandalism or destruction

2015 (source Hate Crimes Statistics report):

• 5,818 single-bias incidents involving
• 6,837 offenses,
• 7,121 victims, and
• 5,475 known offenders

2016 (source FBI hate crime statistics November 2016 report):

Number of hate crimes increased from

• 5,850 in 2015, to 6,121 
• hate crime incidents in 2016: 4.6 percent increase

2017 (source FBI data): 17 percent rise in hate crimes 2016 - 2017

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atest “Hate” News from California: A Sikh man stabbed to death

The man had come from India’s Punjab region Amritsar District near Baba Bakala, historically “associated with the 9th Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Tegh Bahadur.”

In India he had been a “Sarpanch”, a “decision-maker, elected by the village-level constitutional body of local self-government” to act as the “focal point of contact between government officers and the village community.”

The man had reportedly immigrated to the United States three years ago to live with his daughter in Tracy (San Joaquin County), California, part of the regional San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area).

One Sunday evening in August while taking his walk, he suffered fatal stab wounds by an unknown assailant.

Hindustan Times reported detectives saying “a passerby spotted (the man) bleeding on the ground and called emergency services, but he couldn’t be saved.”

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ftershock

• Victims who survive “hate crimes” can “develop depression and psychological trauma”

• Individual victims experience “psychological and affective disturbances; repercussions on identity and self-esteem, both reinforced by the degree of violence perpetrated, “which is usually stronger than that of a common crime.”

• Targeted group to which the victim belongs experiences “generalized terror,” causing “feelings of vulnerability (wondering) who could be the next hate crime victim.

• Other vulnerable groups, minority groups or on groups that identify themselves with the targeted group feel themselves under threat, “especially when the referred hate is based on an ideology or a doctrine that preaches simultaneously against several groups”

• Divisions and factionalism rise in response to hate crimes affecting the whole community, “particularly damaging to multicultural societies.”

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ate Crime brief History and Law: USA

The first hate crime laws were passed after the American Civil War, beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1871, to combat the growing number of racially motivated crimes being committed by the Reconstruction era Ku Klux Klan.

In the United States over the past two centuries hate crimes have included

• Lynching of Negroes, Mexicans and Chinese;

• Cross burnings to intimidate black activists or to drive black families from predominantly white neighborhoods both during and after Reconstruction;

• Assaults on white people traveling in predominantly black neighborhoods;

• Assaults on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people;

• Painting of swastikas on Jewish synagogues; and

• Xenophobic responses to various minority ethnic groups

The modern era of hate-crime legislation began in 1968 with the passage of federal statute, 18 U.S. 245, part of the Civil Rights Act which made it illegal to

‘by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone who is engaged in six specified protected activities, by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin.’

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evertheless —

Notwithstanding all the pain and grief and no matter the ease or difficulty of coining and codifying “hate” and “hate crime”, as a human being among human beings, I can’t get away from the feeling, a nagging thought, that something else is beneath it all — 

• fear
• uncertainty
• insecurity
• a sense of being out of control
• no longer in “control” of one’s surroundings or, even more
• unable to see a healthy, secure and/or assured future
• Very real human feelings and human concerns.

Unfortunately, powerful individuals, entities, sectors within the United States (but not only in the United States) — in politics, in media, in all kinds of institutions from social to sectarian — the powerful, the self-interested, the expedient panderers 

• fail to confront underlying human issues and concerns, 
• fail to address and mediate concerns, 
• fail to join with others in constructively resolving conflict for the well-being of the broad public, society at large.

Instead of making peace and averting violence these powerful influencers, some call them the “establishment elite,” make a living i.e., enrich themselves, making matters worse. That to me is “ungodly” (can I use that word?), anti- (best) American, cruel and inhuman.

Sources

U.S. Department of Justice: Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, 18 U.S.C. § 249  U.S. Department of Justice Hate Crime Laws, Updated March 7, 2019 https://www.justice.gov/crt/hate-crime-laws

Wikipedia

“Hate Crime” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime

Tracy, California, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy,_California

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Joaquin_County,_California

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarpanch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nangal_Naraingarh

Hindustan Times “Sikh man stabbed to death in California” HT Correspondent and Agencies August 29, 2019 https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/sikh-man-stabbed-to-death-in-california/story-spnMLBj8gxN8iUziTwgjuN.html

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