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Veterans Affairs whistleblower 'protection' office being investigated for retaliation against whistleblowers

Eric Katz
Government Executive
Fri, 19 Apr 2019 16:20 UTC
Department of Veterans Affairs
© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
The Veterans Affairs Department's watchdog is investigating a new office created by President Trump early in his administration that was designed to protect whistleblowers from reprisal but is now facing allegations of aiding retaliation against them.

VA's Office of Inspector General is leading the investigation from its new Office of Special Reviews, which the IG created to conduct "prompt reviews of significant events" and examine allegations of senior VA employee misconduct, an IG spokesman said. The new IG office is looking into activities at the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection as part of an ongoing review of the implementation of the 2017 law that created OAWP.

Trump created OAWP by executive order in 2017 and later codified it when he signed the 2017 VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act into law. The office was mostly celebrated, with advocates hopeful that the focus on the rights and protections for whistleblowers would reverse a culture infamous for intimidation and reprisal. That optimism has largely soured, however, leading to hotline tips to the inspector general and bipartisan scrutiny from Congress.

Comment:

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No Entry

NYC proposes ban on glyphosate as public awareness of its toxicity grows

Carey Gillam
Environmental Health News
Fri, 19 Apr 2019 16:07 UTC
Central Park
© Hector Argüello Canals/flickr
Two New York City council members introduced legislation today that would ban city agencies from spraying glyphosate-based herbicides and other toxic pesticides in parks and other public spaces.

The move is the latest in a groundswell of concern over pesticide use, particularly exposures to weed killing products developed by Monsanto, which is now a unit of Bayer AG. Cities, school districts and suppliers across the U.S. are increasingly halting use of the pesticides.

It is also a further sign that a growing number of people - consumers, educators, business leaders and others - are rejecting assurances from Monsanto and Bayer that glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup are safe for widespread use.

Bayer has recently taken out large advertisements in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times and has been running television and Internet ad campaigns to defend the safety of its weed killing products. But concerns continue to mount.
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Pistol

Man gets six gunshots after breaking into family's home and undressing

Lexie Ratterman
WDRB
Mon, 15 Apr 2019 16:00 UTC
Donald Oliver

Donald Oliver during a court appearance in Louisville, Ky. on April 15, 2019.
The mother of a 12-year-old girl says her daughter did everything right when a man broke into their home and began undressing in the girl's bedroom over the weekend.

Donald Oliver, 38, was in court Monday morning, a day after he was shot while allegedly breaking into the home in the 1200 block of Homeview Avenue, near Taylor Blvd.

According to court documents, it happened around 7 a.m. on April 14. That's when Tina Burton she says her next door neighbor broke into her house, entered her 12-year-old daughter's room and started undressing.

"He got undressed in my daughter's room," Burton said. "Like, what was your intentions? ... You are sick."

Despite the danger, Burton says her daughter didn't panic.
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Bad Guys

Fourteen passengers murdered when unidentified attackers ambush bus in southwestern Pakistan


RFE/RL
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 06:04 UTC
Gunmen ambush bus southwestern Baluchistan

Gunmen wearing Pakistani police and paramilitary uniforms ambushed a bus before dawn Thursday and killed 14 people after going through their ID cards and forcing them out on a remote part of a coastal highway in restive southwestern Baluchistan province.
Fourteen passengers have been killed after unidentified attackers halted their bus on a remote coastal highway in the restive southwestern Balochistan Province, officials said.

Hours after the ambush on April 18, a new separatist group claimed responsibility for the killings. The attack sparked national outrage, with Prime Minister Imran Khan calling it "an act of terror."

Officials and local media said the gunmen forced passengers off the bus, which was traveling from Karachi to Gwadar.

Survivors told police the gunmen selectively killed the passengers after going through their identities. The motive behind the killings is not known.

Comment: Some background on the troubled Balochistan province:

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Attention

Widening the divide: Leading member of South Africa's ruling party tells blacks not to vote for white candidates


RT
Fri, 19 Apr 2019 07:30 UTC
ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule
© Reuters/Rogan Ward
ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule speaks during a rally in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, January 28, 2018.
A leading member of South Africa's ruling party has stirred controversy as he called on the country's black population not to vote for white candidates. RT has asked a local politician and activist to weigh in.

With even members of his own party condemning the decision to "campaign along race lines," the pressure is mounting against African National Congress secretary-general Ace Magashule. He has already found himself at the wrong end of a number of corruption scandals and has now been slammed for his "racist" remark.

A few weeks shy of the 25th anniversary of the end of apartheid, racial tensions remain an undeniable part of life in modern South Africa. And some in South Africa support Magashule's sentiment.
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Black Cat 2

Man attacked by bobcat on Connecticut golf course


ABC News
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 03:12 UTC
Bobcat
A bobcat that attacked a golfer in Connecticut was beaten off by golf clubs before environmental police tracked it down and killed it, authorities said.

The bobcat attacked the golfer at about 8:30 a.m. Thursday on the Mohegan Sun Golf Course in the Baltic section of Sprague, according to a statement from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

General manager Philip Krick Jr. a foursome was near a fairway bunker on the seventh hole when the cat jumped on one mans back. Krick and police said the man in his 60s and another golfer in his group used their clubs to beat the cat away.

Comment: See also: 'I wasn't dying today:' Grandmother kills rabid bobcat with her bare hands

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Cardboard Box

Roundup-Cancer lawsuit exposes cozy relationship between the EPA and Monsanto

Derrick Broze
The Mind Unleashed
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 13:37 UTC
Monsanto
A third lawsuit related to claims that Monsanto's Roundup causes cancer has revealed new details about the cozy relationship between the biotech giant and U.S. regulators.

On Monday, Monsanto Co. corporate spokesman William Reeves admitted the corporation has regularly communicated with U.S. regulatory agencies regarding reviews of the controversial Roundup herbicide. Reeves denied that Monsanto had given the agencies orders to follow. Reeves' testimony came about during the latest lawsuit against biotech giant Monsanto, as Alva and Alberta Pilliod fight to prove that Roundup caused their cancer.

The Pilliods are both living with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after spraying the herbicide Roundup on their properties for nearly 30 years. The septuagenarian couple were diagnosed with the most common form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, in 2011 and 2015. Now the couple is seeking damages related to their use of Roundup after recent studies have linked the world's most popular herbicide to cancer.

Comment: The EPA & Monsanto - A love story
It would be easy to believe the Environmental Protection Agency's mission "to protect human health and the environment" - after all, environment is right, smack in the government agency's very name - but that would be quite the mistake. In fact, judging the EPA's magical manipulation of testing and data concerning glyphosate - the chief ingredient in Monsanto's weedkiller, Roundup - it's arguable the government 'watchdog' functions primarily as a de facto propaganda division for the agrichemical behemoth.
That said, newly unsealed court documents released earlier today seemingly reveal a startling effort on the part of both Monsanto and the EPA to work in concert to kill and/or discredit independent, albeit inconvenient, cancer research conducted by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)


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Briefcase

Cop convicted of murder after video showed him needlessly taser boy riding ATV - from his patrol car - killing him

Matt Agorist
Free Thought Project
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
tasing murder of Damon Grimes
After horrifying video showed a cop kill a boy on an ATV by firing his taser from his patrol car window, the cop has been convicted.

It took nearly nine months and several petitions by the Detroit Free Press until Michigan State Police (MSP) and Detroit Police allowed the body camera and dash camera footage to be released showing the minutes leading up to and the hours following the tasing murder of Damon Grimes by MSP Trooper Mark Bessner. The 16 hours of recordings show the horror, outrage, and insensitive comments made by many officers on the scene. One video even recorded the moment of his death. Now, Bessner has finally been convicted for his actions.

Last year, Bessner was charged with second-degree murder for tasering the teen on the ATV. On Wednesday, a jury convicted him of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, despite the horrific nature of the incident.

"There can be no question that Mark Bessner knew that (he) was going to cause some serious harm to Damon Grimes," assistant prosecutor Matthew Penney told jurors.

After his conviction, Bessner was taken into custody and is awaiting his sentencing on May 2.
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Stock Down

We have seen incredibly high corporate and bank debt previously - right before the last 3 recessions

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Sun, 14 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
chasing money
Since the last financial crisis, we have witnessed the greatest corporate debt binge in U.S. history. Corporate debt has more than doubled since then, and it is now sitting at a grand total of more than 9 trillion dollars. Of course there have been other colossal corporate debt binges throughout our history, and they all ended badly. In fact, the ratio of corporate debt to U.S. GDP rose above 40 percent prior to each of the last three recessions, but this time around we have found a way to top that. According to Forbes, the ratio of nonfinancial corporate debt to U.S. GDP is now nearly 50 percent...
Since the last recession, nonfinancial corporate debt has ballooned to more than $9 trillion as of November 2018, which is nearly half of U.S. GDP. As you can see below, each recession going back to the mid-1980s coincided with elevated debt-to-GDP levels-most notably the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the 2000 dot-com bubble and the early '90s slowdown.
You can see the chart they are talking about right here, and it clearly shows that each of the last three recessions coincided with the bursting of an enormous corporate debt bubble.

This time around the corporate debt bubble is larger than it has ever been before, and risky corporate debt has been growing faster than any other category...
Through 2023, as much as $4.88 trillion of this debt is scheduled to mature. And because of higher rates, many companies are increasingly having difficulty making interest payments on their debt, which is growing faster than the U.S. economy, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF).

On top of that, the very fastest-growing type of debt is riskier BBB-rated bonds-just one step up from "junk." This is literally the junkiest corporate bond environment we've ever seen.
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Black Cat

Merck Pharmaceuticals' Julie Gerberding selected industry 'Woman of the Year' award for putting profits ahead of human health

Richard Enos
Collective Evolution
Wed, 17 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Julie Gerberding

Julie Gerberding
If you are not already clear about how the Corporatocracy that we live in is able to consistently serve their own power and wealth interests at the expense of our heath, well-being and prosperity, then the case of Julie Gerberding should provide some excellent insight. Her career path makes her the poster child for people who want to succeed in the world by embracing the corrupt, deceitful system that is currently in place.

Here is the blueprint: first, become an expert in a very specific area through a good old fashioned Western education. Use the talent and intelligence you have been blessed with to move up the ranks in your chosen industry to gain a position of power within the highest government agency in your field. Work in close collaboration with the corporations you are supposed to be the watchdogs for, and display a particular talent to get away with murder, not only deflecting obvious conflicts of interest and preventing them from materializing into lawsuits, but also demonstrating a highly developed ability - and willingness - to garner public trust around the safety and effectiveness of the products being pushed by the corporations you are colluding with.
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