Tag: corporations

Tyson Foods hoping to hire over 40K immigrants for labor-manufacturing jobs: report

Tyson Foods says it’s eager to hire over 40,000 asylum-seekers and migrants arriving in the United States, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The multinational food conglomerate is allegedly hoping to hire personnel from the massive influx of migrants coming into the country from South and Central America.

“They’re very, very loyal,” Tyson human resources leader Garrett Dolan said in a statement to the outlet.

“They’ve been uprooted and what they want is stability — what they want is a sense of belonging.”

“We would like to employ another 42,000 if we could find them,” Dolan said.

The company is disputing the report, releasing a statement on their website accusing the article of “misinformation.”

“In recent days, there has been a lot of misinformation in the media about our company, and we feel compelled to set the record straight,” Tyson said in the statement.

“Tyson Foods is strongly opposed to illegal immigration, and we led the way in participating in the two major government programs to help employers combat unlawful employment, E-Verify and the Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE) program.”

“Tyson Foods employs 120,000 team members in the U.S., all of whom are required to be legally authorized to work in this country,” the statement adds.

“We have a history of strong hiring practices, and anybody who is legally able is welcome to apply to open job listings.” 

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How the National Institutes of Health became a den of cronyism

For too long, the bureaucrats at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been lining their pockets through clandestine agreements with big corporations, getting cozy with the very entities they are tasked with overseeing.  

In an era where trust in our public institutions is alarmingly low, this isn’t just a minor oversight; it’s an outright epidemic of corruption. Shockingly, over 55,000 royalty payments have been overlooked in the past decade alone. Each undisclosed royalty payment is a potential conflict of interest, undermining the credibility of our institutions and eroding the trust of the American people.  

The explosive revelations by Open the Books in 2022 shed light on this den of cronyism. It was uncovered that more than 2,400 NIH scientists pocketed a whopping $325 million in royalty payments in the last decade, with an average of $135,000 per person. Yet, the details of these sweetheart deals remain hidden in the shadows with vital information redacted from public view.  

Despite attempts to bring these details to light, the NIH refuses to disclose essential information, including the amounts of individual payments and the identities of the payers. 

In June 2022, my Republican colleagues on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and I sent a letter to NIH, demanding information about these royalty payments. But NIH is stonewalling, claiming they are above disclosing such details. It’s this kind of arrogance that fuels distrust and raises legitimate concerns about whose interests our government agencies are truly serving. 

When I directly challenged Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on royalties paid by vaccine manufacturers to members of the vaccine approval committees, Fauci argued the law protected scientists from revealing their royalties. The implications of these undisclosed payments extend far beyond simple bureaucratic secrecy. They cast a long shadow over the impartiality of our regulatory processes.  

Moderna’s royalty payments to the NIH, Dartmouth and Scripps Universities in the amount of $400 million will make it challenging for NIH scientists to treat Moderna objectively.  

The NIH’s potential profit from future royalties on Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is the icing on this conflict-of-interest cake, raising grave concerns about the integrity of our regulatory processes. This is not merely about financial transparency; it is about ensuring public health decisions are made in the American people’s best interest, untainted by the prospect of financial gain. 

The lack of transparency surrounding these payments is downright alarming. Americans deserve to know who is paying whom, how much and for what. The current ordeal of accessing public inspection reports — jumping through bureaucratic hoops, facing delays and obfuscation — is an insult to the American people and a hotbed for corruption. 

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Emotion-Tracking – AI on the job: Workers Fear Being Watched – and Misunderstood.

We have heard the warnings from Yuval Noah Harari, that if we don’t figure out how to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) human brains will be hacked soon,” a statement that arguably speaks to humanity’s worst fears about AI. This may be especially so, when hearing from Schwab’s advisor Harari that to “hack a human being is to get to know that person better than they know themselves,” which can enable those who own the technology to increasingly manipulate us.

We may believe this extreme threat to our privacy will occur some time in the future, but, the hacking Harari is describing is more proverbial than literal, and has already been occuring in environments like Facebook and YouTube where we are led to view content that the algorithms have deemed to be of interest to us. It now would appear that many have gradually become desensitised to it the “hacking” and manipulation allowing it to increase without too much protest.

But how would you feel if your workplace was tracking how you feel? asks Nazanin Andalibi who is Assistant Professor of Information at the University of Michigan. and in the article below dissuses emotion AI which is already being used in the workplace.

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THE FEDS ARE COMING FOR “EXTREMIST” GAMERS

GAMING COMPANIES ARE coordinating with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to root out so-called domestic violent extremist content, according to a new government report. Noting that mechanisms have been established with social media companies to police extremism, the report recommends that the national security agencies establish new and similar processes with the vast gaming industry.

The exact nature of the cooperation between federal agencies and video game companies, which has not been previously reported, is detailed in a new Government Accountability Office report. The report draws on interviews conducted with five gaming and social media companies including Roblox, an online gaming platform; Discord, a social media app commonly used by gamers; Reddit; as well as a game publisher and social media company that asked the GAO to remain anonymous.

The Intercept reached out to the companies identified in the GAO report for comment, but none responded on the record at time of publication.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have mechanisms to share and receive domestic violent extremism threat-related information with social media and gaming companies,” the GAO says. The report reveals that the DHS intelligence office meets with gaming companies and that the companies can use these meetings to “share information with I&A [DHS’s intelligence office] about online activities promoting domestic violent extremism,” or even simply “activities that violate the companies’ terms of service.” Through its 56 field offices and hundreds of resident agencies subordinate field offices, the FBI receives tips from gaming companies of potential law-breaking and extremist views for further investigation. The FBI also conducts briefings to gaming companies on purported threats.

The GAO warns that FBI and DHS lack an overarching strategy to bring its work with gaming companies in line with broader agency missions. “Without a strategy or goals, the agencies may not be fully aware of how effective their communications are with companies, or how effective their information-sharing mechanisms serve the agencies’ overall missions,” the GAO says. The report ends with a recommendation that both agencies develop such a strategy — a recommendation that DHS concurred with, providing an estimated completion date of June 28 this year. 

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The North Face offers 20% discount for completion of racial inclusion and allyship course

Outdoor clothing and gear giant The North Face is offering customers a 20% discount if they complete a digital course on racial inclusion and allyship.

Titled “Allyship in the Outdoors,” the course seeks to help customers all over the world understand the challenge people of color face when it comes to “accessing the outdoors” and offer them training on how to become a “better ally and to make the outdoors a safer and more welcoming place for everyone.”

“At The North Face, we believe in the power of exploration. As individuals, professionals and companies who share a love for the outdoors and exploration, we also have a responsibility to support spaces where everyone feels like they belong,” a course description reads.

“The course focuses on perspective of race and racism in Europe, and we acknowledge that the experiences of people of colour around the globe differs. It will also provide training and resources, through 4 interactive modules, to help you be a better ally and to make the outdoors a safer and more welcoming place for everyone.”

Intended for people who work and operate in the outdoor industry, the training lasts an hour.

During the training, one learns about the limitations people of color face when it comes to enjoying the outdoors, the impact of events such as the death of George Floyd, and the aim of creating an “equitable outdoors for everyone.”

After completing modules, participants must answer questions such as, “Why should we aim to achieve equity in the outdoors?”

When it comes to allyship, participants listen to testimonials and are taught that “white privilege” means “your race and skin colour can give you access to the outdoors when others can be excluded because of historic, enduring racism and biases.”

They are also encouraged to reflect on times they have felt excluded and how it made them feel.

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Amazon’s Ring is the largest civilian surveillance network the US has ever seen

In a 2020 letter to management, Max Eliaser, an Amazon software engineer, said Ring is “simply not compatible with a free society”. We should take his claim seriously.

Ring video doorbells, Amazon’s signature home security product, pose a serious threat to a free and democratic society. Not only is Ring’s surveillance network spreading rapidly, it is extending the reach of law enforcement into private property and expanding the surveillance of everyday life. What’s more, once Ring users agree to release video content to law enforcement, there is no way to revoke access and few limitations on how that content can be used, stored, and with whom it can be shared.

Ring is effectively building the largest corporate-owned, civilian-installed surveillance network that the US has ever seen. An estimated 400,000 Ring devices were sold in December 2019 alone, and that was before the across-the-board boom in online retail sales during the pandemic. Amazon is cagey about how many Ring cameras are active at any one point in time, but estimates drawn from Amazon’s sales data place yearly sales in the hundreds of millions. The always-on video surveillance network extends even further when you consider the millions of users on Ring’s affiliated crime reporting app, Neighbors, which allows people to upload content from Ring and non-Ring devices.

Then there’s this: since Amazon bought Ring in 2018, it has brokered more than 1,800 partnerships with local law enforcement agencies, who can request recorded video content from Ring users without a warrant. That is, in as little as three years, Ring connected around one in 10 police departments across the US with the ability to access recorded content from millions of privately owned home security cameras. These partnerships are growing at an alarming rate.

Data I’ve collected from Ring’s quarterly reported numbers shows that in the past year through the end of April 2021, law enforcement have placed more than 22,000 individual requests to access content captured and recorded on Ring cameras. Ring’s cloud-based infrastructure (supported by Amazon Web Services) makes it convenient for law enforcement agencies to place mass requests for access to recordings without a warrant. Because Ring cameras are owned by civilians, law enforcement are given a backdoor entry into private video recordings of people in residential and public space that would otherwise be protected under the fourth amendment. By partnering with Amazon, law enforcement circumvents these constitutional and statutory protections, as noted by the attorney Yesenia Flores. In doing so, Ring blurs the line between police work and civilian surveillance and turns your neighbor’s home security system into an informant. Except, unlike an informant, it’s always watching.

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Media Claims “Right Wing Activists” Got Doritos’ Trans Brand Ambassador Fired

Oily GMO tortilla chip brand Doritos has fired a non-binary transgender ‘brand ambassador’ who previously posted horrible tweets, some of which seemed to express a desire to carry out sexual abuse on children, prompting some legacy media outlets to claim that “right wing activists” were behind the backlash.

As we highlighted last week, the ‘transgender artist’ Samantha Hudson, formally known as Iván González Ranedo, was given the role for Doritos in Spain and featured in sponsored programming.

It quickly emerged that Hudson holds some vile views in general, including apparent hatred for female victims of sexual abuse, and also previously posted crazy statements to social media wishing to anally rape a 12-year-old girl.

Following obvious backlash, Doritos terminated the agreement with the person, noting in a statement to NBC News “We [Doritos Spain] recently created a content series with Samantha Hudson, a local influencer. After the campaign started, we were made aware of Samantha’s deleted Tweets from around 2015.”

“We have ended the relationship and stopped all related campaign activity due to the comments,” the statement continues.

While the pedophilic tweets were not specifically mentioned, the statement also said “We strongly condemn words or actions that promote violence or sexism of any kind.”

Hudson claimed Wednesday that the tweets were all jokes and that they were taken out of context.

The posts had previously surfaced in 2021, and Hudson claimed “I didn’t even remember having written such atrocities. At that time At that time I dedicated myself to saying stupid things, the heavier the better, because I believed that ‘dark humor’ was fun. Logically, I don’t think that way anymore.”

‘Joke’ or not, this person saying they wish to sexually abuse children is certainly not a good look for Doritos or its parent company PepsiCo.

Reporting on the development, however, some news outlets including NBC News and the BBC have claimed that the backlash against Hudson and Doritos was “led by right wing activists.”

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Doritos FIRES trans activist TWO DAYS after bringing her in as a brand ambassador after being alerted to sick tweets about doing ‘depraved things’ to a 12-year-old

Doritos has fired a trans artist that appeared in one of its promotional videos after being alerted to her old tweets, including one where she wrote about doing ‘depraved things’ to a 12-year-old.

Singer and activist Samantha Hudson, 24, appeared in a new partnership with Doritos Spain through a 50-second video called ‘Crunch Talks that has now been deleted from the brand’s Instagram.

Doritos told Rolling Stone on Tuesday it would no longer work with Hudson, saying they were unaware of her previous inappropriate posts.

The decision follows massive backlash on social media, as users posted grabs of Hudson’s old writings.

Born Iván González Ranedo, Hudson has identified herself as ‘anti-capitalist’ and ‘Marxist’ in interviews, and claimed in one video to be for ‘the abolition of [and to] destroy and annihilate the traditional monogamous nuclear family.’ As a teen, she has also tweeted about wanting to do ‘depraved things’ to a minor.

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Doritos Spain Hires “Trans” Pedo to Peddle Chips, Boycott Begins

It appears that Doritos Spain has made the same mistake as Bud Light. It has hired a “transgender girl” to peddle its products, and this one might be a worse pick than the beer brand’s Dylan Mulvaney.

Samantha Hudson hates the traditional family and has mocked rape victims. And, his X feed shows, he fantasizes about sex with little girls. That makes him a pedophile.

And already the boycott has begun.

The End Wokeness X feed summarized the case against Hudson:

“Doritos just picked Samantha Hudson as their brand ambassador in Spain,” the post says:

Samantha Hudson:

-Admitted to being a pedophiIe

-Identifies as a non-binary trans girl

-Openly mocked victims of child r*pe

-An advocate for “annihiIating, completely destroying, and abolishing the traditional family”

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50 Years of Fraud: Big Oil, Plastics Industry Lied About Recycling, Documents Reveal

Plastic makers and petrochemical industry players have engaged in a decades-long fraud aimed at deceiving the public about plastic recycling, according to a new report that spotlights freshly uncovered industry communications and internal documents.

The report comes as the global plastic waste crisis deepens, and as environmental advocacy organizations are increasingly calling for major fossil fuel and petrochemical companies to be held responsible for plastic pollution that poses a threat to human and planetary health.

“Despite their long-standing knowledge that recycling plastic is neither technically nor economically viable, petrochemical companies — independently and through their industry trade associations and front groups — have engaged in fraudulent marketing and public education campaigns designed to mislead the public about the viability of plastic recycling,” asserts the new report, released by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) on Feb.15.

In detailing the plastics industry’s campaign of deception that dates back more than 50 years, the report reveals how the industry deployed a familiar strategic playbook to push back on threats of regulation by promoting a misleading narrative and false claims about plastics and recycling, despite knowing all along that plastics’ recyclability was more of a public relations message than an effective solution to the waste management problem.

“This evidence shows that many of the same fossil fuel companies that knew and lied for decades about how their products cause climate change have also known and lied to the public about plastic recycling,” CCI President Richard Wiles said in a statement.

“When corporations and trade groups know that their products pose grave risks to society, and then lie to the public and policymakers about it, they must be held accountable.”

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