A Texas woman faces up to 20 years in prison and a possible $250,000 maximum fine for allegedly “smuggling rare Vietnamese chickens” into the United States. According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, authorities took Jennifer Mayo into federal custody for “smuggling merchandise into the United States and illegal transfer of merchandise.” “According to the indictment, returned May 22, it is illegal to import poultry into the United States from regions where pathogenic avian influenza or Newcastle disease exist in commercial poultry populations unless specific conditions are met,” the press release read. “Mayo allegedly imported and brought into the United States Dong Tao Chicken eggs,” it added. “Authorities said they seized and euthanized the chickens due to their health,” KIII 3 News said in July. Jennifer Mayo of Aransas Pass turned herself in to authorities on June 27. Authorities said they seized and euthanized the chickens due to their health. https://t.co/hvSTsrMGii — KIII 3 News (@kiii3news) July 1, 2024 From the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Texas: She is also charged with illegal importation and transfer of merchandise. Mayo allegedly facilitated the transportation and concealment of merchandise imported contrary to law – Dong Tao chicken eggs and hatchlings. The indictment also includes a notice of forfeiture for the chickens and eggs. As part of the investigation, authorities seized the chickens mentioned in the indictment. Due to their health, they had to be euthanized and are being held pending further investigation and evaluation. If convicted, Mayo faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 maximum fine. RedState writer Jeff Charles shared further details about Mayo’s story. “Meet Jennifer Mayo, a chicken farmer in South Texas who had her life turned upside down after armed federal agents raided her home over chicken eggs. Jennifer started with a handful of chickens and grew her business into a thriving operation featuring rare breeds like the Dong Tao. But after bringing eggs back from Vietnam—openly and with no objections at customs—her farm was raided by 40 armed agents. They killed her prized birds and shut down her farm,” Charles wrote. “Now, she’s facing federal charges that could result in a 20-year prison sentence. Jennifer says she’s innocent. ‘I believed I was following the rules. Customs let me through, and I assumed everything was fine.’ Her court-appointed attorney pressured her to take a plea deal without even giving her the discovery materials. He sprung the deal on her the day before she was required to sign it,” he added. Meet Jennifer Mayo, a chicken farmer in South Texas who had her life turned upside down after armed federal agents raided her home over chicken eggs. Jennifer started with a handful of chickens and grew her business into a thriving operation featuring rare breeds like the Dong… pic.twitter.com/0hmav2Ledl — Jeff Charles, Doni's St. Bernard (@jeffcharlesjr) November 23, 2024 Per RedState: Mayo’s ordeal began in 2023 when she traveled to Vietnam to visit her brother. During her trip, she purchased Dong Tao eggs from a government-operated farm. Confident that she had followed all of the rules, she brought the eggs back to the United States. She passed multiple customs inspections without an issue. “I told the lady [in Vietnam], ‘I’m taking these eggs to America if they let me,’ and she was like, ‘Oh, that’s great,’” Mayo recalled. Mayo went through customs in the Philippines on her way back to Texas. The eggs were inspected before she boarded the plane. “They searched through my bags. The guy said, ‘What kind of egg is this?’ And I said, ‘It’s chicken. Chicken eggs.’ He said, ‘Okay,’ and sent me on my way.” Mayo proceeded to LAX, where she planned to declare her possession of the eggs. “I get to LAX, still nothing… It was completely my intent to declare them,” she said, adding that she didn’t see a single customs agent as the airport was under construction. “What I had read on the website for customs was that it was at the discretion of the customs agent. So I was like, ‘If they let me through, they let me through. If they don’t, I had a wonderful experience on this trip,” she said. Excited about her purchase, Mayo told her friends on Facebook about the process. But the excitement would soon turn to horror. A team of heavily armed federal agents raided Mayo’s farm in July 2023. The officers also detained her tenants, placing them in handcuffs. “I refuse to stand by while the federal government tramples Jennifer Mayo’s rights. This small farmer turned her passion into a thriving business, only to have armed agents raid her home, destroy her livelihood, and kill her prized Dong Tao chickens—all over eggs she brought back openly through customs. Now, they want to throw her in prison for 20 years. With your support, we can help her fight back,” X user ‘DoniTheMisfit’ wrote. “We were successful at helping Jennifer withdraw her coerced guilty plea which exposed the incompetence of her court-appointed attorney. But the government isn’t backing down—they’re trying to force a pretrial on December 3rd and a jury trial on December 9th, rushing to convict her without giving her the fair chance every American deserves. She still doesn’t have her discovery and her court appointed attorney, again refused to give it to her,” she continued. “The government had no authority to raid her property, kill her animals, or destroy her business. What they’ve done is theft—plain and simple. Whether they’re using a badge or a courtroom, their actions violate the 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments. This isn’t just about Jennifer; this is about the rights of every individual to own, use, and protect their property without fear of government overreach,” she added. I refuse to stand by while the federal government tramples Jennifer Mayo’s rights. This small farmer turned her passion into a thriving business, only to have armed agents raid her home, destroy her livelihood, and kill her prized Dong Tao chickens—all over eggs she brought… pic.twitter.com/QpMGO6r8EF — Doni (@DoniTheMisfit) November 23, 2024 “Mayo is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 23, 2025,” the Department of Homeland Security wrote. “Safeguarding American agriculture from biological threats is vital to our national security,” said HSI Houston acting Special Agent in Charge Robert Kurtz. “HSI is committed to working alongside our partners to prevent wildlife smuggling and the illegal importation of plants or animals that might be carrying invasive pests or diseases that could threaten our food supply,” Kurtz added. From Homeland Security Investigations: Vietnam and Cambodia are currently listed by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the U.S. agency responsible for protecting U.S. agriculture from invasive pests and diseases, as regions affected with highly pathogenic avian influenza. APHIS has also not cleared Vietnam or Cambodia as being free from Virulent Newcastle disease, a highly contagious and fatal viral disease of birds and poultry that attacks their respiratory, nervous and digestive systems and is hard to detect. In the United States, it is illegal to import poultry from regions affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza or regions where Virulent Newcastle disease exist in commercial poultry populations, unless specific conditions are met. The investigation uncovered that Mayo illegally smuggled 60 Dong Tao chicken eggs into the United States from Vietnam and Cambodia in August 2023 and attempted to hatch them at her home in Ingleside. Mayo initially reported to law enforcement that all the animals that hatched had died. However, authorities conducted subsequent checks which revealed there were multiple live Dong Tao chickens on her property. Dong Tao chickens are a rare, expensive breed of chicken typical to southeast Asia. Originally from the village of Dong Tao in Vietnam, these chickens have very large legs as their identifying feature. Jeff Charles interviewed Jennifer Mayo on “A Fresh Perspective”:

Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University physician and economist, has reportedly emerged as the leading candidate to be the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Bhattacharya is known for criticizing the government’s COVID-19 response, specifically the decisions of former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci. “This signals a potential shift toward ‘focused protection’ policies over sweeping mandates. With an annual $48B budget, new NIH leadership could redefine U.S. health policy,” Mario Nawfal noted. TRUMP LEANS TOWARDS JAY BHATTACHARYA FOR N.I.H. Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya, known for his criticism of COVID lockdowns and co-authoring the Great Barrington Declaration, is reportedly Trump’s top choice for N.I.H. (National Institute of Health) director. This… pic.twitter.com/PcNuELVMti — Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) November 24, 2024 Per Reuters: The Stanford-trained physician and economist met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Trump’s pick to lead HHS this week and impressed him with his ideas to overhaul NIH, the report said. Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Bhattacharya has called for shifting the agency’s focus toward funding more innovative research and reducing the influence of some of its longest-serving career officials, the report added. Trump picked Kennedy earlier this month to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the United States’ top health agency which oversees NIH and other health agencies. This would be amazing. Jay Bhattacharya would be a phenomenal Director of NIH.@RobertKennedyJr pic.twitter.com/NtQNS9PG86 — John Durant (@johndurant) November 17, 2024 DEVELOPING: @DrJBhattacharya Emerges as Top Contender for NIH Chief—The Stanford professor of Health Policy was a leading critic of government-imposed lockdowns and restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.https://t.co/dn19lZZMc7 pic.twitter.com/lLDMTwlpk5 — Jan Jekielek (@JanJekielek) November 18, 2024 “The public did not know that there were prominent scientists that disagreed with the lockdown policies. They wanted to create an illusion of consensus,” Bhattacharya said. WATCH: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya: “The public did not know that there were prominent scientists that disagreed with the lockdown policies. They wanted to create an illusion of consensus!” pic.twitter.com/S8LjeMYu4N — Jan ? Jensen (@_Jan_Jensen) November 19, 2024 “Francis Collins, when I wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued against lockdowns and in favor of focused protection for vulnerable older people in October 2020. You know we’re out with Martin Kulldorff and Sunetra Gupta at Harvard and Oxford, the head of the NIH, Francis Collins, wrote an email to Tony Fauci four days after we wrote the declaration calling for a devastating takedown of the premise of the declaration,” he explained. WATCH: During the Covid era, the government used the excuse of suppressing "misinformation" to suppress criticism of its misinformation. Dr Jay Bhattacharya @DrJBhattacharya, was demonized, suppressed, and shadow-banned [as revealed by the #twitterfiles].@gbdeclaration pic.twitter.com/wchJ07zNxj — Asher Press (@AsherPress) November 18, 2024 From the Washington Examiner: Bhattacharya has been a strong critic of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, directing specific attention at Dr. Anthony Fauci, a former NIH official and head of the pandemic response before retiring at the end of 2022. Fauci has faced intense questioning from Republicans over the years, including most recently in the House this past summer. Bhattacharya also co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, a document that called for scaling down lockdown policies in favor of herd immunity for those less vulnerable to COVID-19, while still protecting those who are. According to his Stanford University page, he is a professor of both health policy and economics at Stanford, while also serving as a senior fellow for the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and director of the Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) released a statement announcing that three suspects have been arrested in connection to the death of Rabbi Zvi Kogan who had been missing for several days. 

Incoming First Lady Melania Trump has announced her longtime aide Hayley Harrison will be her chief of staff.

On Friday, a German government official said that Germany would inform the future U.S. administration of the damage that a “spiral of tariff hikes” would cause. This comes ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s participation in the Group of 20 leaders’ summit. “We will enter into very intensive discussions with our American partners to formulate ourselves […] The post Germany Is Very Afraid of US Tariffs appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

CNN Republican commentator Scott Jennings argued this weekend that President-elect Donald Trump is building an “ideologically diverse” Cabinet that reflects his 2024 election victory. During a panel on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Jennings noted how Trump picked Russ Vought to return as director of the Office of Management and Budget and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) to be the next labor secretary, among many others. “I think Trump is not getting enough credit here for building an ideologically diverse Cabinet,” Jennings said. “When you’ve got everybody from Russ Vought, who’s very conservative, all the way over to the pick for labor secretary — is a supporter of the PRO Act, and somehow Randi Weingarten is happy about it.” .@ScottJenningsKY: "I think Trump is not getting enough credit here for building an ideologically diverse Cabinet… and that's kind of how he won. His coalition was kind of ideologically diverse — that elected him." pic.twitter.com/lgxe57gy8x — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) November 24, 2024 Jennings was referring to the “Protecting the Right to Organize Act,” a bill written to amend labor laws that passed the House, but did not get through the Senate, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). “I mean, what he has done is — which makes me squeamish, to be candid,” Jennings said of Trump. “And so what he has done, though, is put together an ideologically diverse group of people to sit in a room and help run the government. And that’s kind of how he won. His coalition was kind of ideologically diverse that elected him.” CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE In the 2024 election victory that included winning all the swing states over Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump made gains among working-class voters, minority groups, and young people. And Republicans maintained control of the House and retook the Senate for the coming term. Over the past several weeks, Trump has picked a number of former Democrats who became disaffected with their old party to serve in top roles in his second administration. They include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been tapped to serve as Health and Human Services administrator, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) to serve as Director of National Intelligence. He’s also picked Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for Secretary of State, now-former Fox News host and Army National Guard veteran Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, and former Florida Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi for Attorney General after Matt Gaetz dropped out, among others.

Social media star Montana Tucker told Ben Shapiro how she went from singing, dancing, and acting to being one of the fiercest pro-Israel voices following Hamas’ October 7 attack. “That was a really big risk for my platforms because people were not following me to see me cry and to see me talk about something so serious,” Tucker told Shapiro on the Sunday Special. “They were following me to see me dance on the streets and sing.” Tucker, who has more than 14 million followers across all platforms, said she lost hundreds of thousands of followers and received death threats after she became outspoken. “But I also gained a whole new following of people who truly share my morals, values, and mission,” she said. She noted that many of her original followers, who might not have been exposed to her perspective on the war in Israel, stayed with her. “I now have a diverse audience — people of all races, religions, and walks of life — who are not only being educated about this, but are also beginning to truly understand what’s happening.” Tucker expressed disappointment in how TikTok — her largest platform — became increasingly hateful after October 7, a stark contrast to the welcoming space she once knew. “It used to be a place that I felt was so loving and accepting of everyone. Like it didn’t matter what you looked like, where you’re from, anyone had the opportunity to go viral,” Tucker said. “I feel like now, it’s turned into like such a hateful place.” Tucker, 31, said her career shift was deeply personal and followed in the path of her two of her Holocaust survivor grandparents who spoke about Jewish suffering around the world. “I just knew that I had to now take over their legacy and their goal and their mission,” Tucker said. “When October 7th happened specifically, something came over me that it was like, okay, this is now my time.” CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE Tucker made headlines in February when she wore a dress to the Grammy’s with a large yellow ribbon and the words “Bring Them Home,” referring to the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Tucker, who is from Boca Raton, Florida, said her last time being in Israel before October 7 was for a birthright trip 11 years ago. But after Hamas’ attack, she said she’s been back several times to create different projects. One of her most notable projects was a viral video featuring survivors of the Nova massacre and Lilach Friedman’s Dance Ensemble, filmed at the site of the Nova festival. The tribute, titled “We CAN Dance Again,” honored the 364 festival goers who were killed. Tucker also released her “How To: Never Forget” docuseries in January where she traveled to Poland to learn more about the history of the Holocaust. In December, Tucker will release her latest documentary about the child survivors of Hamas’ attack, titled “The Children of October 7th.” Tucker told Shapiro about one of the chilling interviews she had with a child while filming. “I interviewed a kid who Hamas kill both of his parents right in front of him, and then he had to hide under his mother’s dead body for a few hours so that Hamas would think that he was dead as well,” she said. “Can you imagine living under your mother’s dead body just to survive?” “The lifetime of trauma that these kids are going to have to deal with, they’re never going to be the same ever,” she added. You can watch the full interview on DailyWire+. 

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) slammed Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s (D-IL) attack on former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) over the weekend, calling her smear “outright dangerous.” Mullin made the remark during a Sunday interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” while responding to Duckworth’s attacks on Gabbard — whom President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to be his Director of National Intelligence — just moments prior on the same show. Duckworth claimed that Gabbard, who is now a Republican, was “compromised” and potentially someone who “will not have America’s best interests at heart.” When asked to respond to Duckworth’s attacks, Mullin said he thought they were “ridiculous and outright dangerous words.” “You have got to keep in mind that Tulsi Gabbard is still a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army,” he said. “She commands a Reserve unit here in Oklahoma and Missouri. If she was compromised, if she wasn’t able to pass a background check, if she wasn’t able to do her job, she still wouldn’t be in the Army.” “And so Tammy is absolutely dead wrong on this, and she should retract those words,” he continued. “That’s the most dangerous thing she could say, is that a United States lieutenant colonel in the United States Army is compromised and is an asset of Russia.” He said Duckworth’s attack could be motivated by her being upset that Gabbard left the party. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE ?NEW: Splitscreen of Sen. Tammy Duckworth slandering Tulsi Gabbard as “compromised” — and Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s immediate response BLASTING Duckworth: “Tammy is absolutely dead wrong on this, and she should retract those words. She’s upset that Tulsi Gabbard left the Democrat… pic.twitter.com/ceDUcabQbD — Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) November 24, 2024