Corruption in US Meat Industry

It's the lobbying happening, uh, in, in DC from...

I mean, the b- you gotta think the Big Four

are entrenched in policy

making.

I mean-

I mean, they're paying politicians off. They gotta be.

I mean, the Batistas were just at the White House, right?

Uh, and I mean, it's, I mean, it's a coincidence, uh-

For anybody that doesn't know who they are, who are, who are those bros?

Uh, they're, they're JBS.

They, yeah.

Um, yeah.

They're the, they're the owners of JBS.

They're, they're the ones that, uh, um, right before we

put them on the New York Stock Exchange, that they were sitting in Bras-

prison in Brazil for bribing somewhere between 1,800

to 2,100, uh, politicians and inspectors.

Yeah.

And we were the only country in the world that didn't cut off their

imports, and we took 97 days, which I'm not making any

allegations, but that coincidentally probably coincided

with the

amount of pounds that they had sitting, uh, that they couldn't sell anywhere else

in the world. And after those 97 days, their corrective actions were done,

and they

went back to work selling to wherever.

Um, it, it's corruption at the highest levels.

It's, it's-

And we let them buy Cargill's live pork business.

Yeah.

And we let them buy, uh, what, what packer did they buy?

Was that XL? Mo- or was it Monfort? Who, who did they

buy to get into the US beef?

Sw- Swift.

Swift, yes.

Yeah, Swift.

They bought Swift. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah.

We allowed that, uh-

Yeah. Um, uh, people should read, a good friend of mine, uh, wrote the book,

uh,

Barons, and, uh, they were one of the, um, seven, uh,

barons that he talks about. But, uh, you know, and he, he says so

eloquently, and I don't really disagree with him,

I don't know that anybody could

really disagree with him. Uh, they're as close as we have to a criminal

organization operating in the United States.

Yeah.

And, uh, we didn't do anything about it.

We actually listed them on the New York Stock Exchange.

Like, and, and we let them into the White House,

and we give them

preferential treatment. And I'd argue that we should enforce the

Meat and Poultry Act. Uh, Meat and Poultry Act gives the secretary,

uh, the authority, uh, to pull grants of inspection if you're

caught with multiple misdemeanors or a single felony.

Uh, you know damn good and well that if I was bribing politicians and

inspectors, uh, I'd never have a grant of inspection to

operate a USDA

plant again in this country.

Yeah.

Uh, and Brazil, they, they reward them.

Uh, they get preferential treatment on

government procurement.

A Midwestern, uh, investigator, um, wrote a whole story

about it, how they get the prices that they do and the purchase

agreements that they do with the federal government.

There's something fishy going on there. It's really, really weird.

And, you know, it's corruption at the highest levels,

and we

don't do anything about it. You know, it's...

We should do something about it