Just Politics

[jbsliverer]

Your comparing a part to the whole. Like trying to compare one gushy rotten apple to the the whole bushel of rotten to the core apples. Just because Trump and his party used one tool at his disposal among many for a part, that things he and his party did with all the other tools as a whole are not negated, only strengthened.

Trump with his GOP used his position of power on a constant basis with any and every tool that they could get their hands on to "undermine Covid-19 response". The meat packing incidence was only a small part of that. Using a executive order is no different than using all the other tools in his position of power and persuasion with social media to "liberate Minnesota" or his donors to spend a million on organizing and creating a mask or vaccine protest or using Putin's help in their disinformation campaigns. Or the hundred other things and tools they used against the people and for their benefit. The dead and maimed are just as dead and destroyed, doesn't matter if it's a automatic weapon, biological weapon, or the stroke of a pen.

Everything has to be taken as a whole. The whole is what was a "total disregard for human life". The Covid and Mitigation Wars killed and is continuing to kill and destroy unarguably 100's of thousand of lives more than Covid would have had without the help of Trump and his GOP.

As far as bringing criminal charges, won't happen, the companies had the backing and support of the Federal Government. The meat companies were only co-conspirators, not even the main ones. Yes, the companies put out statements about a meat shortage, but the Presidency and "leader of the free world" definitely has information on and power over the record meat exports to China at the same time.

Do you really think that the meat packing companies would have attempted to lobby or even consider anything like this under a Biden administration?

Out of an article I posted on this a couple of days before you noted it.

https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=168837371

Trump officials “collaborated” with the meatpacking industry to downplay the threat of Covid to plant workers and block public health measures which could have saved lives, a damning new investigation has found.

Internal documents reviewed by the congressional Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis reveal how industry representatives lobbied government officials to stifle “pesky” health departments from imposing evidence-based safety measures to curtail the virus spreading – and tried to obscure worker deaths from these authorities.

According to internal communications, the companies were warned about workers and their families falling sick within weeks of the virus hitting the US. Despite this, company representatives enlisted industry-friendly Trump appointees at the USDA to fight their battles against Covid regulations and oversight.

In addition, company executives intentionally stoked fears about meat shortages in order to justify continuing to operate the plants under dangerous conditions.

The fears were baseless – there were no meat shortages in the US, while exports to China hit record highs.

Yet in April 2020, Trump issued an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to keep meat plants open following a flurry of communication between the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, the vice president’s office, USDA allies and company executives.

The order, which was proposed by JBS and Tyson (whose legal department also wrote the draft), was an overt attempt to override health departments and force meat plant workers – who are mostly immigrants, refugees and people of color – to keep working without adequate protections while shielding the industry from lawsuits.

Trump’s political appointees at USDA collaborated with large meatpacking companies to lead an administration-wide effort to force workers to remain on the job during the coronavirus crisis despite dangerous conditions, and even to prevent the imposition of commonsense mitigation measures. This coordinated campaign prioritized industry production over the health of workers and communities, and contributed to tens of thousands of workers becoming ill, hundreds of workers dying, and the virus spreading throughout surrounding areas.”

The report, Now to get rid of those pesky healthy departments!, reveals how USDA Trump appointees did the industry’s bidding in order to carry on with business as usual. The report is based on more than 151,000 pages of documents collected from meatpacking companies and interest groups, as well as interviews with meatpacking workers, former USDA and CDC officials, and state and local health authorities among others.


As reports of Covid clusters at meatpacking plants increased, industry officials and the USDA jointly lobbied the White House to dissuade frightened workers from staying home or quitting.

It worked. At a press briefing soon after, Mike Pence told meatpacking workers that “we need you to continue … to show up and do your job”, admonishing recent “incidents of worker absenteeism”.