On Thursday the worlds largest meat packer JBS announced that it was paying $52.5 million to settle a price fixing lawsuit…and that’s all that was reported.
Beef Price Fixing:
News
Watts Inside?
Watts Inside ?
Across the country, a big backlash to new renewables is mounting based on the national security, financial, health, safety and environmental costs of wind and sun energy.
Utility scale solar and wind takes up a lot of land, requiring anywhere from 5 to 10 acres per megawatt. And there can be big drainage and sediment pollution problems if developers are careless. Wind turbines are huge and visible for miles.
They do kill thousands of birds and bats a year. They can catch fire or leak lubricating fluid that contain forever chemicals like PFAS (Poly Fluoro Alkyl Substances). Like other sources of power, they have their own set of problems.
From White House to Church House
From White House to Church House :
By the grace of God, I recently completed a long walk across the USA, and definitely not by the shortest or easiest route (thelongwalkusa.com). My daughter and I got our feet wet in the Atlantic off North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras in March of 2021; and just three months ago, we dipped our feet in the Pacific off the California coast.
Ensuring the Safety of Women – Bathroom
Ensuring the Safety of Women – Bathroom :
Recently, I read Representative Brad Barker’s version of a rule change I offered at our Joint Rules Committee meeting in Helena. Joint, meaning House and Senate members together to set rules that will affect both chambers in the upcoming session beginning January 6th.
Corporate Transparency Act
Corporate Transparency Act :
On Dec. 3, 2024, a federal district court in Texas issued a nationwide preliminary injunction preventing the federal government from requiring certain businesses to report their “beneficial owners” to the U.S. Department of the Treasury by January 1, 2025
Border War – Sheep Industry Belly-up
Border War – Sheep Industry Belly-up :
A major contributor to the ongoing contraction of America’s independent, family-scale cattle and sheep farms and ranches can be traced back to the early 90s. It was in 1994 that America deliberately kowtowed to the global elites and struck out blindly on a journey to see how long it would take before the most efficient and productive food production system the world has ever known is rendered unrecognizable. That production system, of course, was America’s widely dispersed family farm and ranch system of agriculture.
Public Reports Suggest Bank of N. Dakota Corruptly Protecting State’s Political Class with Hundreds of Millions in Sketchy Loans, Concealed Losses
Oct. 22, 2024 10:00 am
Read PDF Here
North Dakota has the nation’s only state-run bank, the Bank of North Dakota (BND). The bank has over $10 billion in assets, and does not have to follow federal regulations, rules and laws. The bank is able to loan out billions with little to no oversight.
The oversight of the bank is limited to the state’s Governor, the Attorney General, and the State Agriculture Commissioner.
Every state-level public entity is required to keep their deposits with the bank, creating a class of ‘captive customers’ from whose deposits loans can then be made.
Reading between the lines of a $395,000 state taxpayer-funded report released midway through last month, according to the bank’s hired consultant, the bank is taking the state’s public entity deposits and delivering substandard returns, writing down approximately $475 million in bad loans every year and providing sweetheart loans and investments to others in the state.
Multiple anonymous sources have confirmed that the bank buys bad loans from private financial institutions. Critics wonder whether the bank’s ability to buy off bad private debt incentivize bad behavior by the state bank, or worse, force state taxpayers to foot the bill for bad loans to the politically-connected?
A businessman in North Dakota who asked to remain anonymous, said that the state’s other banks are highly pressured to align with the state’s financial institution. He has observed political pressure being applied to a bank, and said such pressure can be applied in a variety of ways. He suspects the pressure can be used to further political motives and potentially subsidize loans from the bank to the politically-connected and those who follow orders.
“What appears to going on here is that the bank is quietly supporting a large portfolio of bad investments. One banking executive said BND is buying bad loans off their books to keep them solvent. This raises a question as to the quality of the loans at BND, which politicians keep opaque. Whereas state entities with deposits should be getting a normal return in this market, they are likely getting negative returns through write-downs even though the bank is claiming it is turning a profit. Potentially, the bank loses several hundred million a year if it maintained its depositors’ funds like any other financial institution. This situation continues because people are too afraid to speak up.”
Current North Dakota U.S. Senator John Hoeven is a former President of the Bank. Hoeven was President of the Bank of North Dakota from 1993-2000, when he used that position to then become the state’s Governor from 2000-2010, and then has been one of the state’s Senators in Washington ever since. Hoeven owns shares in First Western Bank and Trust, headquartered in Minot, North Dakota, and serves as a member of that bank’s board. He has been accused by some watchdog groups of failing to avoid conflicts of interest relating federal legislation beneficial to his own bank.
Currently, Bank of North Dakota is exempt from public disclosure requirements that other governmental bodies operate under. In 2023, the bank’s auditor issued an adverse opinion, stating the bank fails to adhere to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). This lack of public oversight may add risks to adequate transparency and accountability, North Dakota State Senator Kent Weston suggests.
Another source suggests this practice protects the North Dakota political class and allows for questionable loans free from any public, legislator, media, or regulator, oversight. The Bank of North Dakota also handles financial reporting for many of the state’s smaller financial institutions, including FDIC insurance and compliance, as well as providing the back-end work for wire transfers and other IT services. Some private financial institutions in the state are using BND’s SWIFT code and are executing wire transfers through BND, as an example.
The Bank’s 2023 annual report makes some startling disclosures as to the quality of its multi-billion dollar loan portfolio. Almost $2.5 billion in loans are rated at best as “exhibiting the earliest signs of potential problems” with “unproven” or “somewhat erratic” cash flow, all the way to a deteriorated rating where “collection or liquidation” is “highly questionable and improbable”.
Critics wonder why the bank fails to ‘risk rate’ an additional $1.5 billion in loans on its books. $41 million out of $399 million bank stock loans are “unproven” or “somewhat erratic” in cash flow. The bank recorded nearly a quarter billion loss on unrealized securities in 2022, and an “off-balance sheet” risk of over $850 million in letters of credit and guarantees in 2023.
One source says BND has been in troubled financial straights before, and was bailed out with nearly a billion in ARPA money in 2021.
BND’s annual report – some of the best insight available publicly – utilizes reporting methods which may conceal potentially enormous risk, losses, and irregularities. All of this begs the question as to whether BND is benefiting North Dakota taxpayers, and whether BND’s willingness to accept billions in riskier lending bets may give the Governor and Attorney General, specifically, major influence over those on the receiving end of such contracts.
At a time when North Dakota is embroiled in new scandals, critics both within and outside of the government wonder whether the Governor and Attorney General are the right people to be controlling over $10 billion in unregulated banking assets and influencing billions of dollars in private sector loans and private bank subsidies.
Those recent scandals include the deletion of all emails from the office of the late Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem following his sudden death where no autopsy was performed, the recent sudden death of Stenehjem’s former Deputy Attorney General Troy Seibel who was at the center of the deleted emails scandal and a key witness as to what evidence was destroyed. Seibel died aged 48 last month, and his cause and location of death are still being withheld.
There was also the recent state scandal involving a federal guilty plea of former State Senator Ray Holmberg (R) for traveling to Prague to have sex with young boys. The plea was in exchange for prosecutors dropping child pornography charges against Holmberg. Holmberg was charged after Governor Burgum announced his bid for President, and Burgum’s current Attorney General Drew Wrigley then conveniently located some of Stenehjem’s deleted emails and the accusation last year in North Dakota newspapers was that state officials participated in an activity that may jeopardize national security and flight safety. Federal prosecutors working for the Biden administration let former educator Holmberg back out with no bail and no bond, just a promise that he’d be good.
Trending: 31,000 Mail-In Ballots Requested At Ineligible Addresses – In One Swing State!
Reports that Holmberg has violated the terms of his release, and is regularly online, have gone ignored by the Biden Department of Justice. Holmberg had received awards for delivering major projects through the legislature for government jurisdictions in the state, transactions that were very likely facilitated by the Bank of North Dakota.
This consolidation of the Bank of North Dakota’s power is concerning to North Dakota legislators who worry about the potential for its abuse and additional scandals.
According to Senator Weston, speaking exclusively to the Gateway Pundit, “The idea that our state entities would save $9.5 billion over 20 years – if they moved their deposits out of Bank of North Dakota – raises some questions. If the recent report is accurate, those potential savings amount to roughly one annual state budget in savings, or put another way, we could potentially cut 5% from our annual budget. If the bank is writing down deposits below market or perhaps delivering negative returns to our State entities because of bona fide development projects, then let’s talk about that, and about how it amounts to $475 million annually, and maybe I’ll support that with appropriate disclosures.”
Sen. Weston continued, “Otherwise, there are some serious discussions that need to take place at the legislature as to whether those underperforming deposits are wasting close to 5% of our State’s annual budget owing to ineptitude or something worse at BND. This would pay for one-third of our state’s property tax revenues, which are up for vote this November on Measure 4 to be eliminated.”
Senator Weston has observed instances of state officials with lending authority seeking to leverage a private investor, then retaliating against that investor. While this occurred outside of the bank, the Senator notes that the bank also failed to step in when it most likely ordinarily would have if the undertones were removed from that transaction. “We need to see the proper controls and separations so that all our citizens experience the ‘North Dakota nice’ that I grew up experiencing and believing in.”
The Bank of North Dakota was asked to comment on this story, and refused to respond. Our inquiry was referred to the bank’s governing authority, the Industrial Commission controlled by the state’s Governor, Attorney General, and Agricultural Commissioner.
Criminal Referral Accuses DOJ’s Kristen Clarke of ‘Perjury,’ ‘False Statements’
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Justice Department’s Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights, will be hit with three ethics complaints and a criminal referral Monday, The Daily Signal has learned.
Article III Project is filing both the ethics complaints and criminal referral, which calls upon Attorney General Merrick Garland to open a criminal probe into Clarke on the grounds that she “knowingly and willfully” made “materially false statements” and that she committed “perjury.”
“There is ample evidence to support this referral for false statements and perjury,” Mike Davis, founder and president of Article III Project, said in the criminal referral. Davis’ organization is focused on defending constitutionalist judges, opposing radical judicial nominees, and pushing back on “radical assaults on judicial independence” such as court-packing.
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The filings follow an April 30 report from The Daily Signal revealing for the first time that Clarke hid her arrest for a domestic violence incident and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was awaiting Senate confirmation to her high-ranking Justice Department post.
Her ex-husband, Reginald Avery, has told The Daily Signal that Clarke attacked him with a knife, slicing his finger to the bone, while they were married in 2006. That record was later expunged, The Daily Signal confirmed.
Asked by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., during her confirmation, “Since becoming a legal adult, have you ever been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime against any person?” she responded, “No,” according to a 66-page document she submitted under oath to “Questions for the Record” from senators.
Clarke has not responded to requests for comment from The Daily Signal, though the DOJ previously acknowledged receipt of these requests. Following The Daily Signal’s initial report, Clarke told CNN she hid the arrest during her Senate confirmation but then alleged she was the victim of domestic violence at the hands of her ex-husband.
Avery told The Daily Signal he did not abuse his ex-wife.
“Avery has accused Kristen Clarke of a violent crime,” the Article III Project criminal referral states. “He also has alleged that local Maryland police arrested her. Police and court records corroborate the occurrence of the arrest.”
“Most crucially, Kristen Clarke acknowledged it in her statement to reporter Hannah Rabinowitz of CNN,” the criminal referral continues. “Kristen Clarke answered Senator Cotton’s question under oath in a manner contrary to her admission three years later.”
That criminal referral calls Clarke’s conduct “egregious,” arguing that Cotton asked her a straightforward question that she “willfully” and “knowingly” gave a false answer to.
“Kristen Clarke claims that she had an ‘option’ not to disclose this incident,” Davis continues in the referral. “This assertion shows an utter disregard for the role of the United States Senate in evaluating the worthiness of a nominee for confirmation. Neither Kristen Clarke nor the State of Maryland is entitled to decide what information the Senate deserves to know. That prerogative lies with the Senate. Senator Cotton asked a routine question, and Kristen Clarke failed to answer it honestly.”
That referral also points out that Garland has repeatedly stated that “nobody is above the law,” including former President Donald Trump.
“But,” Davis said, “with Garland’s refusal to take any action more than seven weeks after uncontroverted evidence and public reporting of Kristen Clarke’s perjury to the Senate, it is very clear Kristen Clarke is above the law.”
Article III Project also filed ethics complaints with the New York and Washington, D.C., offices of disciplinary counsel, as well as with the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
The DOJ and Washington ethics complaints note that Clarke, like every other nominee who requires confirmation by the Senate, had to answer a series of questions under oath in both in writing and verbally.
“Kristen Clarke’s knowingly and willfully false answer to one of these questions constitutes the basis for this complaint,” the complaint to the DOJ states.
The New York ethics complaint accuses Clarke of violating the state’s code of professional conduct that prohibits lawyers from “engaging in illegal conduct that adversely reflects on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer.”
It also argues that Clarke’s “unambiguous answer to Senator Cotton’s question was dishonest because she denied an accusation and an arrest that had occurred”—a “misrepresentation” that was “material because such an accusation bears on the character and fitness of a nominee for a powerful government position, especially one that involves enforcement of our laws.”
“Kristen Clarke’s misrepresentation is aggravated by her continuing refusal to acknowledge it three years later,” the New York ethics complaint states. “Instead, she maintains that the Senate was not entitled to know the truth about the July 4, 2006, incident.”
The Daily Signal’s reporting on Clarke prompted calls for her to resign from Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican, the New York Post Editorial Board, and others. In early May, a group of conservative leaders called on Clarke to resign from her leadership position in a letter they sent to the high-ranking DOJ official.
“The American people have lost trust in your ability to lead the Civil Rights Division,” reads the letter to Clarke signed by Advancing American Freedom Executive Director Paul Teller, American Accountability Foundation’s Tom Jones, Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins, and Catholic Vote President Brian Burch. “We request that you resign immediately.”
That letter repeatedly references The Daily Signal’s reporting and includes a copy of the original story. It also points to Clarke’s enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, also known as the FACE Act, against pro-life activists.
“The American people deserve a Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice led with honesty and integrity,” the letter says. “Since taking over the Civil Rights Division, you have weaponized the Department of Justice by wielding the FACE Act against pro-life Americans in an unprecedented manner—even while standing idly by as churches and pro-life pregnancy centers are vandalized and Jewish students are unable to attend class on college campuses.”