JULY 2, 2021
FRIDAY
PROGRESSIVE OPINION AND NEWS
LOOK AT THIS MAN’S PICTURE. HE IS SO PROUD OF HIMSELF! CONGRESS
MEMBERS WERE “UNAWARE” OF WHO HE WAS, THEY SAY, THOUGH HE INTERACTED WITH THEM
CLOSELY DURING THEIR TRIP TO THE MEXICO BORDER. MAYBE THEY HAVE EARLY ONSET
ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE. THAT WOULD EXPLAIN SOME OF THEIR BEHAVIOR.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/02/politics/kfile-anthony-aguero-accompanied-members-of-congress-to-border/index.html
Capitol rioter accompanied members of Congress on trip to
US-Mexico border
CNN Digital Expansion 2018, Andrew Kaczynski545438 CNN NY Talent
Expansion, New York, 9/11/19, Em Steck
By Andrew Kaczynski, Em Steck and Drew Myers, CNN
Updated 12:48 PM ET, Fri July 2, 2021
VIDEO -- Photo shows Capitol marcher at US border with GOP
members of Congress, 02:49 MIN., CNN
(CNN) A conservative YouTuber who participated in the January 6
riot accompanied Republican members of Congress on a trip to the border Tuesday
night, serving as a translator at times.
Anthony Aguero, a close ally of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene can
be seen in videos and photos with Republican members of Congress who traveled
to a route along the border frequented by migrants on Tuesday night. CNN's
KFile previously reported that Aguero went into the Capitol during the January
6 riot and cheered and justified the break-in.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/02/politics/kfile-anthony-aguero-accompanied-members-of-congress-to-border/index.html
Capitol rioter accompanied members of Congress on trip to
US-Mexico border
During his livestream of the Tuesday visit, Aguero interviewed and chatted with Reps. Tom. Tiffany of Wisconsin, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Chris Jacobs of New York, Michael Cloud of Texas, John Rose of Tennessee, Ronny Jackson of Texas, and Mary Miller of Illinois.
"Hi guys, Congressman Hawthorn is behind me," Aguero tells viewers during his livestream, mispronouncing Cawthorn's last name. "That is freaking awesome. That is freaking awesome. I'll tell you that."
Aguero told his viewers that the Border Patrol was "herding" immigrants crossing the border into a particular location, saying, "We're about to catch them all as they basically come out of the woodworks."
In a statement, Aguero told CNN, "I appreciate the Congressmen and Congresswomen that went out of their way to come to the Border to see the crisis for themselves." He did not answer questions regarding how he was at the border with members of Congress.
Aguero has not been charged for unlawful entry at the US Capitol on January 6. After chanting "heave-ho" as rioters attempted to break in, he entered the Capitol Rotunda and later chanted "our house" on the Capitol steps. In a livestream one day after the Capitol riot, he attacked those who condemned the ransacking of the Capitol. The FBI previously declined to comment on whether it was investigating Aguero in an email to CNN.
The trip to the border in La Joya, Texas, was organized by the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservative members of the House of Representatives, and covered by reporters from CNN, Politico, The Hill, and members of conservative media.
The members were visiting ahead of former President Donald Trump's visit to the border on Wednesday. Aguero sat in the audience directly behind the former President on Wednesday night during Trump's appearance on Hannity.
It's not clear how Aguero joined the group Tuesday night, as he was not at the press briefing prior to the trip that was attended by reporters, according to a photo and a CNN reporter present. He was already in the area as the members of Congress arrived.
Buckley Carlson, the RSC's deputy communications director, said Aguero's presence at the border was "purely incidental."
"Chairman (Jim) Banks never spoke to the individual in question, the Republican Study Committee was unaware of his identity and whereabouts on January 6, and he did not travel with our group to the border," Carlson said in a statement to CNN.
Aguero, who told members of Congress he was there as an "independent journalist" with Border Network News, posted a lengthy livestream on his YouTube channel in which he is seen interviewing and sometimes translating conversations with migrants for Reps. Boebert, Tiffany, August Pfluger of Texas, and Randy Weber of Texas.
In one instance, Aguero drove Weber in his truck after the congressman missed his van.
"Come right in the front, Congressman," said Aguero, chuckling. "You can ride in the front with me." Aguero also posed for a photo with Boebert at the end of his broadcast.
Aguero previously ran in the Republican primary for Congress in 2020 for Texas' 16th Congressional District, which encompasses most of El Paso and the surrounding suburbs, but lost.
The videographer, who sometimes goes by the moniker "Conservative Anthony" online, frequently documents migrants along the US-Mexico border and the activities of right-wing activists and militias, including the Guardian Patriots, the border militia group formerly known as the United Constitutional Patriots, and the Proud Boys.
In one disturbing clip filmed by Aguero in April 2019 that appears in the PBS documentary "Targeting El Paso," Aguero can be heard screaming at migrants crossing the border and seen shining a light on migrants' faces. In the clip, Aguero tells a group of migrants they "come out like roaches, out of everywhere." According to PBS, the clip was viewed 160,000 times before Aguero deleted it from Facebook.
He also has a history of criminal violence, according to online court records. In 2010, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor family violence assault causing serious bodily injury. In 2015, he was convicted of felony vehicular assault while intoxicated and sentenced to two years in Texas state prison.
2020 Election misinformation continuing to spread, 06:24 MIN.
11M AGO [JULY 2, 2021]
ROSALIND-S-HELDERMAN, Washington Post Reporter
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/rosalind-s-helderman/
Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington, D.C.
Reporter focusing on political enterprise stories and investigations
Education: Harvard University, BA in history
Rosalind Helderman is a political enterprise and investigations reporter for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2001.
Honors & Awards:
George Polk Award in 2014 for political reporting for investigation of relationship between Virginia governor and wealthy supporter
MORE GOVERNMMENT WHISTLEBLOWERS ARE IN TROUBLE FOR TATTLING ON THE PRACTICE OF DELETING NEGATIVE INFORMATION FROM THEIR SCIENTIFIC REPORTS. THE REASONS FOR IT ARE LESS CLEAR. THIS IS VERY INTERESTING. WRITER SHARON LERNER'S ARTICLE IN THE INTERCEPT IS BELOW, ALONG WITH A LIVE INTERVIEW FROM CBS.
https://www.cbsnews.com/live/video/20210702233605-whistleblower-says-epa-chemical-safety-reports-altered/
VIDEO – CBS INTERVIEW WITH SHARON LERNER FOR THE INTERCEPT, 06:54 MIN.
PRINT ARTICLE
https://theintercept.com/2021/07/02/epa-chemical-safety-corruption-whistleblowers/
WHISTLEBLOWERS EXPOSE CORRUPTION IN EPA CHEMICAL SAFETY OFFICE
EPA managers removed information about the risks posed by dozens of chemicals, according to whistleblowers.
Sharon Lerner
July 2 2021, 7:00 a.m.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION : Soohee Cho/The Intercept, Getty Images
MANAGERS AND CAREER STAFF in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention tampered with the assessments of dozens of chemicals to make them appear safer, according to four scientists who work at the agency. The whistleblowers, whose jobs involve identifying the potential harms posed by new chemicals, provided The Intercept with detailed evidence of pressure within the agency to minimize or remove evidence of potential adverse effects of the chemicals, including neurological effects, birth defects, and cancer.
On several occasions, information about hazards was deleted from agency assessments without informing or seeking the consent of the scientists who authored them. Some of these cases led the EPA to withhold critical information from the public about potentially dangerous chemical exposures. In other cases, the removal of the hazard information or the altering of the scientists’ conclusions in reports paved the way for the use of chemicals, which otherwise would not have been allowed on the market.
This is the first of a series of articles based on the four whistleblowers’ highly detailed allegations, which were supported by dozens of internal emails with supervisors, meeting summaries, and other documents. Together, the evidence they provided shows a pattern in which the EPA failed to follow the law that oversees chemical regulation, particularly the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, and depicts a workplace in which EPA staffers regularly faced retribution for following the science.
“The Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention is broken,” the scientists wrote in a statement they provided to The Intercept and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. “The entire New Chemicals program operates under an atmosphere of fear — scientists are afraid of retaliation for trying to implement TSCA the way Congress intended, and they fear that their actions (or inactions) at the direction of management are resulting in harm to human health and the environment.”
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The four EPA staff members, who hold doctorates in toxicology, chemistry, biochemistry, and medicinal chemistry, said that they told colleagues and supervisors within the agency about the interference with their work. Each of the scientists also filed complaints with either the EPA’s inspector general or the Office of Science Integrity, which has pledged to investigate corruption within the agency. But because most of their concerns remained unaddressed months after they disclosed them — and because, in each case, the altering of the record presented a potential risk to human health — the scientists said they felt compelled to make their complaints public.
Maybe the Hazards Will Go Away
Elyse Osterweil, one of the four scientists, said she was at first reluctant to speak up about the intense pressure she faced from her supervisors to remove references to potential toxicity from the assessments of new chemicals. The assessments, which use animal studies to gauge a chemical’s potential risk to humans, can lead the agency to place limits on its use — or to ban it entirely. In the case of one substance that Osterweil was reviewing in February of this year, the animal studies suggested serious potential for harm. Rats exposed to a single dose of the chemical had become lethargic, lost weight, and had trouble moving. Some became comatose, and others died.
“Usually with this type of acute study, there are no effects,” said Osterweil. “So this was a red flag to me that we needed further information.” But when Osterweil said in a meeting that she needed more data to complete her hazard assessment report, one of her supervisors responded with a series of questions. “She kept asking me, ‘Look at the data, look at the data, look at it again, tell me what you see,’” Osterweil said of her supervisor. “I knew she wanted me to make the hazards go away, and she even said that: ‘Why don’t you take a look at the actual study data again, and maybe the hazards will go away?’”
Although she knew she didn’t have enough information to say that the chemical didn’t pose a risk, Osterweil seriously considered giving in to the pressure to deem it safe. “There was a time when I thought, ‘Well, maybe I should let this one go and just pick my battles,’” she said. “But I just couldn’t.”
A chemist named Martin Phillips faced similar pushback when he was assessing a mixture of compounds in January of 2020. One component of the product, which was to be used in cleaning solutions, is a chemical that caused birth defects and miscarriage in experiments on rats. Phillips and another risk assessor noted the developmental effects in the chemical’s hazard assessment, which must by law then be added to the chemical’s safety data sheet, a document the Occupational Safety and Health Administration uses to communicate risk to workers. But the company that had submitted the product for approval balked at the requirement. And the day after the assessment Phillips wrote was finalized, a representative of the company who had recently worked in the same division of the EPA met with several of Phillips’s colleagues and his supervisor, whom she had known from her time at the agency. Phillips wasn’t invited to attend the meeting. The following day, another assessment of the chemical was uploaded into the EPA’s computer system without Phillips’s consent or knowledge. The new version omitted the information about the birth defects and miscarriages.
When he learned of the new assessment, Phillips asked that the original one be restored. The meeting that followed was hostile, with a senior science adviser in the office calling Phillips “passive aggressive” for being so concerned about the assessment. While some information about the chemical was restored in the assessment after Phillips complained about its removal, the warning about its potential to cause developmental toxicity, which would alert pregnant people to these harms, never made it into the safety data sheet.
Phillips had his work revised without his knowledge on other occasions too. In one case in 2019, he was asked to assess a chemical even though the manufacturer had not submitted studies. Phillips followed the EPA’s written guidance for such situations and used toxicity numbers for the class to which the chemical belongs. When he plugged in the proper values, Phillips calculated that the likely exposures to the chemical would exceed the agency’s safety limit by more than 15,000 times. Three months after he submitted the document with this conclusion, he noticed that a new assessment of the chemical had been uploaded to the EPA’s computer system. In this new assessment, which deviated from guidelines, the assessor found that the chemical posed only a slight risk and that workers who used the material could mitigate the danger by wearing protective gear.
The second assessment, which found the chemical not likely to pose harm, was finalized in August of 2020. “So it went from being over 15,000 times over the safe dose to you just need to wear a dust mask and you’ll be fine,” said Phillips.
Siding with the Company
All four scientists said the pressure to downplay the risk of chemicals increased during their time in the division. “We started getting increasing pressure to use the wrong exposure metrics,” said Sarah Gallagher, who joined the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, which is within Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, in May 2019. (The Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention is also home to the Office of Pesticide Programs.)
Gallagher protested changes in multiple risk assessments between March and June of 2020. Her supervisors asked her to represent the developmental effects of one chemical, which included the reduction of fetal weight in animal studies, as effects on the pregnant people. Such a mischaracterization would mean that the risk the chemical poses to a developing human fetus would not be reflected by its safety data sheet. Gallagher refused to make the change.
RELATED ARTICLE -- How Pesticide Companies Corrupted the EPA and Poisoned America
One month later, she was reassigned to another office.
Even after her transfer, documents she had written while in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention continued to be altered, including an assessment of a PFAS compound. Because there was limited information available about the chemical, she had looked to studies of similarly structured compounds, as is EPA policy. In this case, one of the closest analogues was PFOA, an industrial chemical that poses both cancer and developmental risks, as Gallagher noted in her assessment. But one of her former supervisors had instructed another scientist to remove her reference to PFOA from the assessment and replace it with another, less toxic chemical to gauge its safety. The change resulted in a 33-fold underestimation of the compound’s risk, according to Gallagher.
William Irwin, another of the four whistleblowers, who has worked at the EPA for over 11 years as a toxicologist, was also moved out of the office after repeatedly resisting pressure to change his assessments to favor industry. Irwin said that while it had seemed obvious that the pressure stemmed from chemical companies, the science adviser in the office made the point irrefutably clear during an argument over one particular chemical assessment.
“At one point, he was shouting at me to change it,” Irwin said of the science adviser, who was urging him to eliminate hazards noted in the assessment. “He basically was siding with the company, shouting at me that ‘the company went apeshit when they saw this document.’” Irwin replied, “Well, that’s the assessment.”
INSERT -- “He basically was siding with the company.”
Irwin didn’t make the changes. “I actually added extra hazards to it,” he said. “It was also a carcinogen.” Several months after that encounter, the antagonism stopped when Irwin was transferred out of the office. The scientist saw the move as a last resort for his managers. “I have three board certifications in toxicology, so it was hard for them to say, ‘William, you’re stupid,’ and so instead they just kicked me out of the program.”
Phillips was also transferred in September 2020. Meanwhile, Osterweil continues to work in the office, where she said disputes over chemical assessments and retaliation against her have continued unabated.
The ongoing issues are evidence that the pressures on chemical assessors within the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention have persisted even under the Biden administration, according to Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, an organization that provides support to whistleblowers and helped the scientists draft their disclosure document. “The problems in OCSPP are not due solely to the Trump administration and its appointees,” said Bennett. “The issues faced by our clients occurred before Trump took office, during the Trump years, and continue now.”
On Monday, PEER submitted its complaint to the EPA inspector general; Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention; and Khanna, asking that they conduct an audit to identify risk assessments that were altered without the knowledge or consent of the risk assessor; investigate apparent violations of the EPA’s records management policy, in which documents were altered; and evaluate the process that allowed these changes to be made and remain uncorrected.
Khanna provided a statement to The Intercept applauding the whistleblowers. “Clean, cancer-free air and water still isn’t a given in our country,” Khanna wrote. “I will continue to monitor this situation and ensure that these scientists’ concerns are addressed to ensure that toxic or harmful chemicals are not going out to the market without the appropriate health and safety warnings. I am so proud of the work of our Environmental Subcommittee is doing to create a healthier world.”
Asked about the complaint, the EPA wrote in an email that “This Administration is committed to investigating alleged violations of scientific integrity. It is critical that all EPA decisions are informed by rigorous scientific information and standards. As one of his first acts as Administrator, Administrator Regan issued a memorandum outlining concrete steps to reinforce the agency’s commitment to science.
“EPA takes seriously all allegations of violations of scientific integrity. EPA’s scientific integrity official and scientific integrity team members will thoroughly investigate any allegation of violation of EPA’s scientific integrity policy that they receive and work to safeguard EPA science. Additionally, EPA is currently reviewing agency policies, processes, and practices to ensure that the best available science and data inform Agency decisions. EPA is committed to fostering a culture of evaluation and continuous learning that promotes an open exchange of differing scientific and policy positions. Additionally, retaliation against EPA employees for reporting violations alleged to have occurred will not be tolerated in this administration. EPA leadership are reviewing these complaints, and any appropriate action will be taken.”
While such complaints are usually kept confidential, by Tuesday many mangers [sic] in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention had somehow obtained a copy of the whistleblowers’ allegations. “The fact that EPA released our clients’ names is inappropriate and troubling,” said Bennett. “They’ve been put in an incredibly uncomfortable situation. This gives the managers the chance to circle the wagons trying to go after them.”
For the whistleblowers, the release of their names is just the latest battle in a war they’ve been waging for years. For Gallagher, a scientist with expertise in chemistry and toxicology, the combative turn of her career has been a surprise. “Like a lot of us who are in this, we came to work at the EPA because I wanted to preserve the environment for our children’s children,” said Gallagher. “It’s infuriating that I have to push back against managers to do that.”
CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
Sharon Lerner
sharon.lerner@theintercept.com
@fastlerner
AN EXPERT ON THE US CONSTITUTION DISCUSSES WITH MAJOR GARRETT SOME IMPORTANT EFFECTS OF THE JANUARY 6, 2021 INSURRECTION ATTEMPT ON THE BODY OF OUR GOVERNMENT ITSELF, RATHER THAN MERELY BEING A FAILED ATTEMPT TO PUT THE EX-PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP BACK INTO THE SEAT OF POWER.
Constitutional scholar says January 6 "represents the framers' nightmare" - "The Takeout"
BY GRACE SEGERS
JULY 2, 2021 / 5:59 AM / CBS NEWS
Jeffrey Rosen, the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, is sure that the country's founders would be horrified by the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
"January 6 represents the framers' nightmare," Rosen told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett on "The Takeout" podcast this week. "This is a nonpartisan statement. It's a statement of fact to say that what they most feared was armed mobs interrupting the peaceable engines of government."
Highlights from this week's episode:
*Jeffrey Rosen on January 6: "January 6 represents the framers' nightmare. This is a nonpartisan statement. It's a statement of fact to say that what they most feared was armed mobs interrupting the peaceable engines of government."
*Rising extremism in the House: "In an age when representatives are deferring to their most energized and conspiratorial constituents, rather than the other way around, we have a problem."
*Modern challenges to democracy: "Resurrecting faith in institutions and in truth rather than falsehood is an important democratic challenge."
*Rosen on the role of the Supreme Court: "As Congress has become more polarized and paralyzed and has wanted to pass the buck or has just been unable to act, the courts either by choice or necessity have been asked to step in, and they've been resolving stuff that the framers didn't think they would, and few people have been happy with the results."
Rosen explained that the framers wrote the Constitution in part as a response to Shays' Rebellion of 1786, during which a mob unsuccessfully tried to overthrow the government. The rebellion served as a catalyst for the Constitutional Convention to create a new government to replace the one established by the Articles of Confederation.
The mob that overran the Capitol sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But unlike the members of the Shays' Rebellion, many of whom were Revolutionary War veterans responding to economic injustices, the rioters attacked the Capitol because they believed false claims that the election had been stolen. Those falsehoods continue to be promoted by former President Trump and some Republican members of Congress.
Rosen noted that the framers of the Constitution intended representatives in the House "to play a cooling role" to their constituents, instead of bowing to their passions — a contrast with the present, which has seen some House members espouse conspiracy theories.
"In an age when representatives are deferring to their most energized and conspiratorial constituents, rather than the other way around, we have a problem," Rosen said.
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He also talked about how the inability to agree on the truth, in part due to divisions sowed by social media, is damaging democracy.
"An age where people can't agree on the truth is one where we have a serious problem. And generally, the truth depends on some deference to expert bodies," Rosen said. "Resurrecting faith in institutions and in truth rather than falsehood is an important democratic challenge."
Rosen discussed the increasingly large role the Supreme Court plays in setting the country's policy because Congress hasn't been able to legislate.
"As Congress has become more polarized and paralyzed and has wanted to pass the buck or has just been unable to act, the courts either by choice or necessity have been asked to step in, and they've been resolving stuff that the framers didn't think they would, and few people have been happy with the results," Rosen said.
For more of Major's conversation with Rosen, download "The Takeout" podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, or Spotify. New episodes are available every Friday morning. Also, you can watch "The Takeout" on CBSN Friday at 5pm, 9pm, and 12am ET and Saturday at 1pm, 9pm, and 12am ET. For a full archive of "The Takeout" episodes, visit www.takeoutpodcast.com. And you can listen to "The Takeout" on select CBS News Radio affiliates (check your local listings).
Producers: Arden Farhi, Katiana Krawchenko, Jamie Benson and Sara Cook
CBSN Production: Alex Zuckerman and Eric Soussanin
Show email: TakeoutPodcast@cbsnews.com
Twitter: @TakeoutPodcast
Instagram: @TakeoutPodcast
Facebook: Facebook.com/TakeoutPodcast
First published on July 2, 2021 / 5:59 AM
© 2021 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Grace Segers
Grace Segers is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital based in Washington, D.C.
WEISSELBERG AND TRUMP DANCING IN THE DARK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8tj4uyVBik
#MSNBC #Trump #TaxScheme
Watch Rachel Maddow Highlights: July 1st | MSNBC
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Watch highlights of Thursday's The Rachel Maddow Show where she highlights reporting by the New York Times that the indictments of the Trump Organization and Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg do not mark the end of prosecutors' interests in Donald Trump. Rachel also compares the tax scheme described in the Allen Weisselberg indictment to reporting in the New York Times about payments made by Trump Org to Ivanka Trump. Watch the top news stories and highlights from The Rachel Maddow Show, airing weeknights at 9 p.m. on MSNBC.
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END OF JULY 2 FRIDAY
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