US Sugar Company Fined For Using Chinese Prison Labor

An American company that imports food sweeteners such as stevia was fined nearly $600,000 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for using forced labour from Chinese prisons.

According to the South China Morning Post: The United States has hailed a milestone in its drive to ban the imports of products made by forced labour, after fining a company it judged to have used Chinese prisoners to make food sweetener. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Thursday it had collected US$575,000 from Pure Circle USA following a civil action, the first such penalty issued since the passage of the 2015 Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act. The law bans the import of goods made entirely or in part by forced labour, ranging from prison work to bonded child labour. The agency seized a shipment of stevia – a plant extract used as a sweetener in sodas – in May 2016 after receiving information that it was made by prison labour. The CBP did not specify where in China the product was produced.

The agency said subsequent investigations led it to obtain evidence that at least 20 shipments of stevia powder and derivatives had been processed in China with prison labour. “As part of its trade enforcement responsibilities, CBP will hold companies accountable for importing goods produced with forced labour,” Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner of CBP’s Office of Trade, said in a statement. Pure Circle was not immediately available to comment, but the company in 2016 disputed the CBP’s findings and then said it had a policy prohibiting the use of prison or forced labour. The Chinese embassy in Washington was not immediately available to comment. The CBP has during the last year ramped up action over imports suspected to have been made with forced labour, having issued 11 detention orders since September 2019.

The agency in June blocked an $800,000 shipment of hair extensions and accessories from a firm based in Xinjiang, China. The company, Lop County Meixin Hair Product Co, could not be reached for comment but a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the United States then said “the accusation of forced labour in Xinjiang is both false and malicious”. And the CBP last month detained imports from Malaysia from two subsidiaries of medical glove maker Top Glove Corporation. The firm has petitioned against the import ban, and vowed to repay recruitment fees to workers and improve their housing. A company hit with a detention order can decide to divert the shipment and try to sell their products elsewhere or persuade the CBP to change its decision by providing documents to demonstrate due diligence and argue the goods are slave-free.

More than $400 billion worth of goods likely to be made by forced labour enter the US market each year, according to estimates by the Human Trafficking Institute, a non-profit. The fine demonstrates the Trump administration’s continued resolve to crack down on the abuses of the Chinese Communist Party and represents yet another downside to American corporates outsourcing to China.

https://thenationalpulse.com/news/chinese-forced-labor-sugar/

Democrats Confirm They Want Mail-In Voting To Tip The Election

They're not trying to hide it anymore.

The Democrats are virtually admitting, that’s how far they think their press protection will go, that they need mail-in voting to win in November. Without that, and the disappearance of GOP ballots they expect from Democrat postal union members, they know they stand much less chance of victory. Said Nancy Pelosi on Sunday, “In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central.” Not a polling place, but the post office where they control the workers. Like former Democrat ally Joseph Stalin said, “it only matters who counts the votes.” Pelosi continued, “Alarmingly, across the nation, we see the devastating effects of the President’s campaign to sabotage the election by manipulating the Postal Service to disenfranchise voters.” Psychiatrists call that “projection.”

Not to be outdone, Joe Biden’s campaign said casting ballots by mail is the “most secure form of voting” amid the coronavirus. Pelosi and Biden are on the same sheet music. It leads to getting every ballot into a union-run post office. If that doesn’t happen, expect the Democrats to go postal. Pelosi wants the Democrat House to confirm her plans for election cheating: “That is why I am calling upon the House to return to session later this week to vote on Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Maloney’s ‘Delivering for America Act,’ which prohibits the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on January 1, 2020.” She wants all postal workers to go Bolshevik and “participate in a Day of Action on Tuesday by appearing at a Post Office in their districts for a press event.” Of course, Nancy is too dim to realize that if postal workers appear at a Democrat sponsored political event like that it’ll confirm charges of their complicity in a Democrat scheme to rig the election. When their master calls…

In complete contravention of the Democrat message, last week, the USPS warned 46 states and the District of Columbia that it cannot assure that all ballots cast by mail will arrive in time to be counted in the November election. They understand they can be used as a patsy by both sides and USPS management is wisely trying to dodge the issue and discourage mail-in voting. But the Democrat-controlled postal union rank and file likely wants in on the action. “It’s their fault,” President Trump said of the Democrats on “Mornings with Maria” on Thursday. “They want $3.5 billion for something that’s fraudulent…for the mail-in votes, universal mail-in ballots. They want $25 billion for the post office. They need that money so it can work and they can take these millions and millions of ballots.”

Even Dr. Anthony Fauci, much recently lauded by Democrats, says there is no reason to close down polling places. “I think if carefully done, according to the guidelines, there’s no reason that I can see why that (physical voting at polling places) cannot be the case,” Dr. Fauci told ABC News. “If you go and wear a mask, if you observe the physical distancing, and don’t have a crowded situation, there’s no reason why [people] shouldn’t be able to do that…there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to vote in person,” he added.

https://thepoliticalinsider.com/democrats-confirm-they-want-mail-in-voting-to-tip-the-election/