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" Russia, Russia , Russia "
In a sign of the difficulties, Customs and Border Protection allocated $60.7 million to Accenture Federal Services, a management consulting firm, as part of a $297-million contract to recruit, vet and hire 7,500 border officers over five years, but the company has produced only 33 new hires so far.
According to Politico, new House Oversight Committee members include the aforementioned Ocasio-Cortez, in addition to fellow freshman progressives Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley. Ro Khanna, a representative from California who joined the House in 2017, was also appointed to the committee, per reports. They join chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, who approved the list of new members on Tuesday.This is exciting for a number of reasons, and not just because this gang takes charge of a group whose majority members once consisted of sad, useless wheat lumps like Darrell Issa, Jim Jordan, and Mark Sanford. The House Oversight Committee currently holds the power to subpoena and investigate members of the Trump administration, which means there’s a good chance we’ll get to see progressives go after the White House for everything from border separation to pharmaceutical industry pricing to the Russia investigation.
The nonpartisan C.B.O. said that the shutdown, which started in late December and ended last Friday, delayed $18 billion in spending by federal workers. That is expected to reduce 2018 fourth quarter gross domestic product by $3 billion and cut first quarter growth this year by $8 billion, or 0.2 percent.The C.B.O. said that growth in subsequent quarters will be higher as that delayed spending takes place and filters through the economy. However, it estimates that $3 billion will never be recovered.
Some Democrats said they were wary about relaxing sanctions on Deripaska’s companies, in part because of his ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to defraud the United States and obstruct justice in the investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Deripaska helped fund consulting work Manafort did for a Ukrainian political party, invested in a Manafort investment fund and lent Manafort millions of dollars, according to court records.
Shutdown Cost U.S. Economy $11 Billion, C.B.O. SaysQuoteThe nonpartisan C.B.O. said that the shutdown, which started in late December and ended last Friday, delayed $18 billion in spending by federal workers. That is expected to reduce 2018 fourth quarter gross domestic product by $3 billion and cut first quarter growth this year by $8 billion, or 0.2 percent.The C.B.O. said that growth in subsequent quarters will be higher as that delayed spending takes place and filters through the economy. However, it estimates that $3 billion will never be recovered.Well done, Donnie.#Resist
“We’re going to win. We’re going to win so much. We’re going to win at trade, we’re going to win at the border. We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore.’ You’ve heard this one. You’ll say ‘Please, Mr. President, we beg you sir, we don’t want to win anymore. It’s too much. It’s not fair to everybody else.’ And I’m going to say ‘I’m sorry, but we’re going to keep winning, winning, winning, We’re going to make America great again.”
“We’re going to win. We’re going to win so much. We’re going to win at trade, we’re going to win at the border. We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore.’ You’ve heard this one. You’ll say ‘Please, Mr. President, we beg you sir, we don’t want to win anymore. It’s too much. It’s not fair to everybody else.’ And I’m going to say ‘I’m sorry, but we’re going to keep winning, winning, winning, We’re going to make America great again.” — Donald
Almost 63 million people believed that shit.
The Trump Organization has regularly hired undocumented aliens and provided them with forged documents such as social security cards and birth certificates. This is a very serious crime, a felony.So what does the Trump Family know and when did they know it?
Dismissal of such charges as process crimes plays down their importance. It suggests the misconduct was not really serious or substantive but just some kind of rules violation. Such cases are frequently attacked as unfair or unjustified. Critics claim that prosecutors set “perjury traps” so they can trick otherwise innocent defendants into making a mistake and then charge them. Or they claim prosecutors were on a witch hunt and charged process crimes because they couldn’t prove anything else.This tactic is not new. For example, during the George W. Bush administration, another special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, investigated the leak of the identity of a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame. I’ll never forget seeing a Republican United States senator saying she hoped that if there were indictments they would be for real crimes and not for a “technicality" such as perjury. (That investigation, by the way, resulted in the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for lying to the FBI and the grand jury about the White House’s role in the leak. President Trump recently granted Libby a controversial pardon, saying Libby had been “treated unfairly.”)Others seek to minimize the importance of such charges by claiming they would not even exist if it weren’t for the special counsel’s investigation itself. For example, Harvard law professor and frequent Mueller critic Alan Dershowitz recently argued that the process crimes with which Stone is charged are part of a pattern of Mueller charging crimes that arose out of his own inquiry, and that this should raise “serious concerns."When it comes to the charges against Stone as well as those against Cohen, Dershowitz’s claim is simply not true. They were charged with lying to Congress, which was conducting its own investigation of possible Russian interference in the election. Those crimes took place independent of the Mueller investigation, and it was Mueller’s investigation that unearthed them.But whether they involved obstructing a congressional probe or Mueller’s own investigation, crimes such as false statements, perjury and obstruction of justice — sometimes referred to as coverup crimes — are not mere technicalities. In fact, they attack the justice system itself. Our legal system depends on the ability of finders of fact to receive truthful and accurate information. If witnesses lie in the grand jury, lie to the FBI, tamper with witnesses, destroy evidence or otherwise impede the due administration of justice, there must be consequences. If such crimes could take place with impunity, it would be impossible to investigate or prosecute anything. For the justice system to function, people must tell the truth — and must know they will pay a price if they don’t.Similarly, Congress cannot function effectively if people can freely obstruct its proceedings. Stone allegedly lied to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence while it was investigating a matter of grave importance: an unprecedented attack on our democracy by a hostile foreign government. Lies in such an investigation prevent Congress from getting to the bottom of what happened, informing the public and taking appropriate action.
Coverup crimes are prosecuted to deter conduct that undermines the justice system itself and to enforce our commitment to the rule of law. That’s why prosecutors, FBI agents, judges and others who make their living within the justice system take these crimes so seriously. So please, stop dismissing such charges as mere "process crimes.” The vital institutions that these prosecutions protect are ones on which we all depend.
Quote from: Athos_131 on January 11, 2018, 02:27:17 AMQuote from: Athos_131 on August 18, 2017, 03:29:47 AMWisconsin Assembly approves up to $3 billion offer to lure FoxconnCongratulations Badger State, I'm sure Foxconn needs every penny.Foxconn got a really good deal from Wisconsin. And it's getting betterFoxconn package cost Wisconsin eight times as much per job as similar 2017 state jobs dealsQuoteAt more than $200,000 in state taxpayer money per job, the incentive package for the Taiwanese company is easily the state's most expensive deal of 2017, totaling more than three times as much per job as the next most costly deal.
Quote from: Athos_131 on August 18, 2017, 03:29:47 AMWisconsin Assembly approves up to $3 billion offer to lure FoxconnCongratulations Badger State, I'm sure Foxconn needs every penny.Foxconn got a really good deal from Wisconsin. And it's getting better
Wisconsin Assembly approves up to $3 billion offer to lure FoxconnCongratulations Badger State, I'm sure Foxconn needs every penny.
At more than $200,000 in state taxpayer money per job, the incentive package for the Taiwanese company is easily the state's most expensive deal of 2017, totaling more than three times as much per job as the next most costly deal.
A major jobs deal President Trump has touted with former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker now looks uncertain: Foxconn, a prominent supplier for Apple and other electronics makers, says it’s scrapping plans to build a giant new factory in Wisconsin, opting to hire American engineers and researchers instead of a promised fleet of blue-collar workers."As we have previously noted, the global market environment that existed when the project was first announced has changed,” Foxconn said in a statement Wednesday. “As our plans are driven by those of our customers, this has necessitated the adjustment of plans for all projects, including Wisconsin.”The Taiwanese technology juggernaut initially pledged in 2017 to construct a $10 billion display panel plant and create up to 13,000 jobs in the state’s southeastern corner over the next 15 years. The positions would pay an average annual wage of $53,000, the firm said — a solid salary in the manufacturing realm.In exchange, Wisconsin agreed to give Foxconn at least $3 billion in state tax credits and breaks, according to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, a public-private agency that helped negotiate the package. The deal drew criticism after it emerged that Wisconsin would not make money for 25 years.Foxconn said Wednesday it still aimed to create 13,000 jobs in the state but did not respond to questions about the nature of the positions, when they would arrive and what precisely inspired the shift.“In Wisconsin we’re not building a factory,” Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn chief executive Terry Gou, told Reuters. “You can’t use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment.”
Trump celebrated the deal in the East Room of the White House in 2017 and attended a groundbreaking ceremony last summer in Racine County.“I would see Terry, and I would say, ‘Terry, you have to give us one of these massive places you do great work with,’ ” he said two years ago in front of news cameras, adding that he told the company head, “The American worker will not let you down.”