Category: Money, Class, and Poverty,

EPA violated law with soundproof booth, Zinke could have avoided charter flight, GOP chair probes Pruitt’s four email addresses

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Any spending above $5,000 on furnishing or decorating an agency official’s office must be preceded by a notification to the Appropriations Committees in the House and the Senate, a step the EPA didn’t take.

…”Scott Pruitt likes to talk about returning the EPA to the rule of law, but it turns out he’s better at breaking it than following it,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, said in a statement Monday.

…The Interior’s Office of the Inspector General released a report Monday that found that Interior ethics officials who signed off on Zinke’s $12,375 charter flight after a meeting with the Las Vegas Golden Knights were not fully aware of the purpose of the meeting. The report found in its investigation that at least one ethics official who signed off on the charter plane last June for a flight between Las Vegas and Whitefish, Mont., believed the event was to speak with kids, not professional athletes. Additionally, ethics officials were not aware that the team was owned by a former campaign donor to Zinke’s congressional run in Montana.

“If ethics officials had known Zinke’s speech would have no nexus to the DOI, they likely would not have approved this as an official event, thus eliminating the need for a chartered flight. Moreover, had ethics officials been made aware that the Golden Knights’ owner had been a donor to Zinke’s congressional campaign, it might have prompted further review and discussion,” the IG office found.

…Barrasso was a leading voice in criticizing then-EPA head Lisa Jackson in 2013, when the agency admitted that she had an email account under the alias “Richard Windsor” that she used extensively for official business.

He and other Republicans accused Jackson of trying to hide her emails from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, while the EPA at the time said the Richard Windsor account was fully incorporated into FOIA searches.

Overnight Energy: Watchdogs unveil findings on EPA, Interior controversies | GAO says EPA violated law with soundproof booth | IG says Zinke could have avoided charter flight | GOP chair probes Pruitt’s four email addresses | TheHill

hmmmm

Hundreds allege Trump doesn’t pay his bills

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The number of companies and others alleging he hasn’t paid suggests that either his companies have a poor track record hiring workers and assessing contractors, or that Trump businesses renege on contracts, refuse to pay, or consistently attempt to change payment terms after work is complete as is alleged in dozens of court cases.

USA TODAY exclusive: Hundreds allege Donald Trump doesn’t pay his bills

hmmm

How the hell is Eric Greitens still the governor of Missouri?

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Domestic Affairs,, Local Interest,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Five days ago, a Missouri state House committee released a troubling report detailing allegations made by a woman that the state’s Republican governor, Eric Greitens, had subjected her to non-consensual sex and violence.

…On Tuesday afternoon, Greitens’ outlook darkened even more with the announcement by Hawley that the governor could be charged with a felony for illegally obtaining a fundraising list from a non-profit group he started.

How the hell is Eric Greitens still the governor of Missouri? – CNNPolitics

Solid fucking question but do we really not know the answer? Really?

Donors to Pruitt’s Oklahoma Groups Now Lobby EPA, and Reap Benefits

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

As an Oklahoma politician, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt received $181,000 in political contributions from donors who lobbied the EPA last year, according to a MapLight review.

The donors include lobbyist J. Steven Hart and his wife, who have attracted attention for renting a townhouse to Pruitt, even as Hart’s firm, Williams & Jensen, has lobbied to relax the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gas regulations. Hart and his wife donated $4,366 to Pruitt’s campaigns for Oklahoma attorney general and his federal leadership political action committee.

A handful of companies lobbying Pruitt’s EPA have also been major donors to the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which Pruitt chaired for two years as Oklahoma attorney general. At least one organization that lobbied the EPA last year donated to RAGA’s nonprofit policy arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, while Pruitt served on its board of directors.

…As Oklahoma’s chief law enforcement officer from 2011 to 2017, Pruitt earned a reputation for working hand-in-hand with energy industry donors to challenge Obama-era EPA rules. Now, previous donors are benefiting from Pruitt’s new position.

…A total of 49 organizations that contributed to Pruitt’s campaigns or PACs from 2010 to 2016 reported lobbying the EPA last year, according to campaign finance and lobbying records.

…Koch Industries, the global conglomerate run by billionaire libertarian brothers Charles and David Koch, donated $10,000 to Pruitt’s attorney general campaigns, and gave $525,000 to RAGA from 2014 to 2016. Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a secretive “dark-money” organization that receives funds from the Koch brothers, contributed $175,000 to RAGA’s nonprofit arm in 2014.

An affiliate of Koch Industries, Koch Companies Public Sector, lobbied the Pruitt-led EPA and Congress on the Clean Power Plan, and the family’s billionaire donor network recently praised the EPA’s plan to repeal the plan, according to a document obtained by the Intercept.

Donors to Pruitt’s Oklahoma Groups Now Lobby EPA, and Reap Benefits | Oklahoma Watch

Aghhhhhhhhhh

“The Clock Is Ticking”: Inside the Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

It has been reported that a major merchant ship goes down somewhere in the world every two or three days; most are ships sailing under flags of convenience, with underpaid crews and poor safety records.

…Captain Lawrence? Captain Davidson. Thursday morning, 0700. We have a navigational incident. I’ll keep it short. A scuttle popped open on two-deck and we were having some free communication of water go down the three-hold. Have a pretty good list. I want to just touch—contact you verbally here. Everybody’s safe, but I want to talk to you.

…“I have a marine emergency and I would like to speak to a Q.I.[Qualified Individual] We had a hull breach—a scuttle blew open during a storm. We have water down in three-hold with a heavy list. We’ve lost the main propulsion unit. The engineers cannot get it going. Can I speak to a Q.I., please?”

…[Ship’s Captain Davidson] did not know the wind speeds because the ship’s anemometer was in disrepair and had been for weeks; it is now believed that the winds were sustained at 115 m.p.h., with higher gusts. As for the waves, Davidson appears to have underreported them, perhaps as a matter of professional style. El Faro was in fact struggling to endure steep breaking waves 30 to 40 feet high, and was occasionally encountering waves still higher. These monsters were smashing over the ship, knocking containers overboard, and boiling across a lower second deck that by design was watertight below but open to the sea. That second deck was the location of the scuttle that had been opened. Three-hold was a cavernous two-deck space below it, just aft of midship.

Lawrence asked for a measure of the list. Davidson said, “Betcha it’s all of 15—15 degrees.” Fifteen degrees is steep.

…The ship was found resting upright on a sandy plain 15,400 feet beneath the surface, and the recorder—a circuit board barely 2.5 inches long—was eventually retrieved. It contained the final 26 hours of conversations among nine doomed people on the bridge. The audio quality was poor, but a technical team was able to extract most of the spoken words and produce a 496-page transcript, by far the longest in the N.T.S.B.’s history. The transcript is a remarkable document—an unadorned record of nothing more than the sounds on the bridge. The people involved are identified in the transcript only by their shipboard ranks, but the names of the officers are part of the public record, and in the time since the tragedy other names have been revealed. It is now possible to know with reasonable certainty what occurred.

…[Captain Davidson] was a by-the-book mariner with a reputation for being unusually competent and organized. By training and temperament he was a safety-first man.

…At the time, TOTE was busy blaming Davidson by insisting that all routing and weather decisions were his alone to make, but here Davidson appeared to be asking permission for the Old Bahama Channel run. To make matters worse, it was answered by one of the cc’d managers, the director of ship management, Jim Fisker-Andersen, who was in San Francisco at the time. Fisker-Andersen wrote, “Captain Mike, diversion request heads up through Old Bahama Channel understood and authorized. Thank you for the heads up. Kind regards.”

…As is usually the case, the catastrophe was unfolding because of a combination of factors that had aligned, which included: Davidson’s caution with the home office; his decision to take a straight-line course; the subtle pressures to stick to the schedule; the systematic failure of the forecasts; the persuasiveness of the B.V.S. graphics; the lack of a functioning anemometer; the failure by some to challenge Davidson’s thinking more vigorously; the initial attribution of the ship’s list entirely to the winds; and finally a certain mental inertia that had overcome all of them. This is the stuff of tragedy that can never be completely explained.

“The Clock Is Ticking”: Inside the Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades | Vanity Fair

Jeezus…

The Russia Investigations: On The Hunt For Duffel Bags Full Of Cash

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

On Friday, the Treasury Department targeted some of those same oligarchs for a new round of sanctions, along with a number of other Russian government officials and entities — including the state weapons exporter. And here was the description Treasury gave of the conduct of one targeted Russian, gold baron Suleiman Kerimov:

“He is alleged to have brought hundreds of millions of euros into France — transporting as much as 20 million euros at a time in suitcases, in addition to conducting more conventional funds transfers — without reporting the money to French tax authorities.”

…Either way, their story suggests that one way Russia might have injected money into the American political system for the 2016 election and beyond was not via traceable and accountable electronic transfers, but through the old-fashioned delivery of cold hard cash.

Flying around stacks of cash is a time-honored way to get money into circulation in a distant place with no one in between learning about it — most of the time.

The Russia Investigations: On The Hunt For Duffel Bags Full Of Cash : NPR

What tha fa……? It’s like an astonishingly bad spy film, the kind where the bad guys are two-dimensional and will obviously be stopped int their own tracks because their gig is just to stupid to succeed.

A Whistle-Blower Alleges Corruption in Rick Perry’s Department of Energy

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

At one point, the coal magnate handed Perry a document containing his “Action Plan for reliable and low cost electricity in America and to assist in the survival of our Country’s coal industry.” Edelman snapped a closeup. Afterward, he said, he heard Perry tell Murray, “I think we can help you with this.”

…Perry proposed that all coal plants in certain areas, including many that do business with Murray Energy, be required to keep a ninety-day supply of coal onsite to provide “fuel-secure” power. Edelman was alarmed: the language in Perry’s letter clearly echoed Murray’s “action plan.” Moreover, only a month earlier, a report by Perry’s own staff had concluded that “reliability is adequate today,” raising the question of why the rule was necessary.

A Whistle-Blower Alleges Corruption in Rick Perry’s Department of Energy | The New Yorker

oy!

Purchase of Mount Ida is an insult to UMass Boston

On By peanutgallerynhIn Boston,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,, Schools,Leave a comment

[UMass Boston] …students — who make up the most diverse campus in New England — are getting another painful lesson about where they stand in the university pecking order. As low as it goes.

…The 72-acre Mount Ida campus will give UMass Amherst students a pastoral base of operations for internships and academic collaborations in Boston. Meanwhile, UMass Boston students have endured months of administrative turmoil and cold-hearted cost-cutting on a campus infamous for its crumbling infrastructure.

…And now Meehan, with customary rubber-stamped approval from the UMass board, is taking on debt at Mount Ida that is estimated to run from $55 million to $70 million.

……The memo states that the university will cut the funding for the centers and institutes that require the biggest subsidies. They include the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture, the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, the Institute for New England Native American Studies, the Labor Resource Center, and the Center for Social Policy.

…Mills is closing the deficit by slicing away at programs that make up the heart and soul of UMass Boston. The cuts are not coming from the top. They are coming from the most vulnerable — children, women, veterans, and minorities.

…The cuts will reportedly save up to $1.5 million out of a $430 million operating budget. Meanwhile, there’s enough money in the overall system to take on debt-ridden Mount Ida and send its students to UMass Dartmouth at a reduced rate.

Purchase of Mount Ida is an insult to UMass Boston – The Boston Globe

Jeezus…

Wipeout: Human role in climate change removed from National Parks science report

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

National Park Service officials have deleted every mention of humans’ role in causing climate change in drafts of a long-awaited report on sea level rise and storm surge, contradicting Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s vow to Congress that his department is not censoring science.

The research for the first time projects the risks from rising seas and flooding at 118 coastal national park sites, including the National Mall, the original Jamestown settlement and the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

…In changes dated Feb. 6, a park service official crossed out the word “anthropogenic,” the term for people’s impact on nature, in five places. Three references to “human activities” causing climate change also were removed.

The 87-page report, which was written by a University of Colorado Boulder scientist, has been held up for at least 10 months, according to documents obtained by Reveal. The delay has prevented park managers from having access to the best data in situations such as reacting to hurricane forecasts, safeguarding artifacts from floodwaters or deciding where to locate new buildings.

…Columbia University’s Silencing Science Tracker documents more than 100 instances of government trying to restrict research or public information about climate change. Among them are reports on climate change that have been stripped from government websites. Climate change was removed from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s strategic plan. Environmental Protection Agency employees were issued talking points that promote an inaccurate message about gaps in climate science and downplay the role of human activities in global warming.

The edited national parks report “is probably the biggest scientific integrity violation at the Department of Interior, by far … because this is an actual scientific report.”

…The introduction also was substantially altered in February. These two sentences were deleted: “While sea levels have been gradually rising since the last glacial maximum approximately 21,000 years ago, anthropogenic climate change has significantly increased the rate of global sea level rise. Human activities continue to release carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, causing the Earth’s atmosphere to warm.”

…The National Park Service’s scientific integrity policy prohibits managers from engaging in “dishonesty, fraud, misrepresentation, coercive manipulation, censorship, or other misconduct that alters the content, veracity, or meaning or that may affect the planning, conduct, reporting, or application of scientific and scholarly activities.” It also requires employees to differentiate between their opinions or assumptions and solid science.

Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, said “the edits are glaringly in violation” of the science cited in the report and “such alterations violate” the policy.

“The individual who edited the document is making a personal opinion/assumption that runs counter to the scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions responsible for sea level rise are of anthropogenic origin and that the threat to the National Park Service assets arises primarily from human activities,” said McNutt, who led the U.S. Geological Survey, the Interior Department’s main scientific agency, from 2009 to 2013.

Wipeout: Human role in climate change removed from science report | Reveal

sigh….

Trump Tower catches fire

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Fire sprinklers were not required in New York City high-rises when Trump Tower was completed in 1983. Subsequent updates to the building code required commercial skyscrapers to install the sprinklers retroactively, but owners of older residential high-rises are not required to install sprinklers unless the building undergoes major renovations.

Some fire-safety advocates pushed for a requirement that older apartment buildings be retrofitted with sprinklers when New York City passed a law requiring them in new residential high-rises in 1999, but officials in the administration of then-mayor Rudy Giuliani said that would be too expensive.

…rump was among the developers who spoke out against the retrofitting as expensive and unnecessary. No member of the Trump family was in the 664-foot tower on Saturday.

Mr. Trump’s family has an apartment on the top floors of the 58-story building, but he has spent little time in New York since taking office. The headquarters of the Trump Organization is on the 26th floor.

Todd Brassner, Trump Tower fire victim, was art collector who spent time with Andy Warhol – CBS News

hmmmm

Québec program sends unsold grocery store food to food banks

On By peanutgallerynhIn Money, Class, and Poverty,, The Americas,Leave a comment

The Supermarket Recovery Program is intended as a large scale society project that will benefit the 400,000 people, including 150,000 children who, each month, have no choice but to turn to a food program for help.

…In 2016, the pilot project resulted in the recovery of almost 2.5 million kg of food from 177 supermarkets, representing a market value of almost $20 million. Our project also allowed a reduction of more than 2,000 tons of eqCO2 of greenhouse gases. When fully functional, the program will recover approximately 8.5 million kg of food annually in 645 supermarkets, thereby avoiding more than 7,500 tons of eqCO2 of greenhouse gases each year – the equivalent of taking 1,600 cars off the road!

Supermarket Recovery Program – Les Banques alimentaires du Québec

Scott Pruitt Getting Pressure To Resign From EPA

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Pruitt has come under scrutiny over his accommodations in Washington after ABC News reported last week that he rented a room in a luxury townhouse co-owned by the wife of a top gas industry lobbyist. That same day, Bloomberg News reported that Pruitt paid $50-a-night for the room, well below market value for a place in that neighborhood. The EPA’s Office of General Counsel issued a hasty memo on Thursday arguing that the administrator paid a fair rate.

… Pruitt’s use of taxpayer-funded security details on trips home to Tulsa, Oklahoma, a family vacation to Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and an outing to the Rose Bowl college football game in Pasadena, California.

…Federal regulations require government employees to be “prudent” when “making official travel arrangements” and book “the least expensive class of travel that meets their needs.”

Yet Pruitt spent between $2,000 and $2,600 on first-class flights to Oklahoma, and regularly books $1,400 to $4,000 flights to Boston, New York and Corpus Christi, Texas, according to The Washington Post. He often stays at luxury hotels.

Pruitt’s international travel costs are especially high. His trip to Italy for an environmental summit last June cost more than $120,000. Pruitt’s trip to Morocco in December to promote liquefied natural gas ― a bizarre decision for an EPA administrator ― cost nearly $40,000, according to E&E News.

… Pruitt made his name on the national stage suing the EPA more than a dozen times to block rules such as the Clean Power Plan, President Barack Obama’s landmark greenhouse gas regulation, which Pruitt is in the process of repealing. He championed Exxon Mobil Corp. in investigations into whether the oil giant committed fraud by covering up evidence that emissions from burning fossil fuels warm the planet.

Scott Pruitt Buffeted By Growing Pressure To Resign From EPA | HuffPost

hmmm

More advertisers drop Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show despite apology to David Hogg

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Hogg did not accept Ingraham’s apology. He told the New York Daily News on Friday that Ingraham will have to admit she slandered his classmates in her coverage of their gun protests.

…Liberty Mutual Insurance and Office Depot are the latest Fox News sponsors that have said publicly they will not run commercials in the conservative commentator’s nightly prime-time program “The Ingraham Angle.”

…Other defectors include Nestle, Johnson and Johnson, TripAdvisor, Nutrish, Expedia, Jos. A. Bank and Hulu, the streaming video service that is one-third owned by Fox News parent 21st Century Fox.

…The thinned herd of advertisers was apparent during Thursday’s edition of “The Ingraham Angle.” While major national brands such as Pfizer, Progressive.com, Gillette and WeatherTech remained in the program, there were several promos for other Fox-owned cable networks and spots from direct response advertisers — usually a sign of ad cancellations.

More advertisers drop Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show despite apology to David Hogg

hmmm

Pruitt’s EPA security broke down door to lobbyist condo

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s protective detail broke down the door at the Capitol Hill condo where he was living, believing he was unconscious and unresponsive and needed rescue, in a bizarre incident last year.

…A Capitol Police officer called 911 at the behest of Pruitt’s security detail, which had tried unsuccessfully to reach him by phone, and by banging on the building’s front door, according to police recordings obtained by ABC News.

“They say he’s unconscious at this time,” the 911 operator is told, according to the recordings.

…The protective detail then broke down the building’s glass-paneled front door and ascended two flights …where two sources tell ABC News he was found groggy, rising from a nap. It is unclear what led to the panic that caused the response. Pruitt declined medical attention, and a police report was never filed.

…The EPA has since reimbursed Pruitt’s former landlord, Vicki Hart, for the cost of the door.

…The EPA allowed Bloomberg News to review copies of canceled checks that Pruitt paid to the condo owner. The news outlet reported that the checks show varying amounts paid on sporadic dates — not a traditional monthly “rent payment” of the same amount each month, according to Bloomberg. In all, Pruitt paid $6,100 over six months to the limited liability corporation for the Capitol Hill condo.

…“It’s not just if he is paying market rent,” Morgan said. “A short-term lease is expensive. Is he given the ability to end it any day? Is this an arrangement any other person could get on the open market? My assumption would be this situation does not involve the hallmarks of a specific fair market transaction.”

…“Since Administrator Pruitt is already involved in allegations of accepting gifts of travel, the question arises whether a sense of entitlement may have led him to violate the gift rules on this rental arrangement as well,” Holman wrote.

The head of the nonprofit watchdog group the Environmental Integrity Project and former EPA Director of Civil Enforcement Eric Shaffer called on the EPA’s inspector general and Congress to look into the issue.

“Does this explain why Pruitt flew to Morocco to pitch natural gas exports, which isn’t really an EPA concern?” Schaeffer wrote in a statement.

EXCLUSIVE: Pruitt’s EPA security broke down door to lobbyist condo – ABC News

hmmmmm

EPA chief lived in condo tied to lobbyist ‘power couple’

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

For much of his first year in Washington, President Trump’s EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt occupied prime real estate in a townhouse near the U.S. Capitol that is co-owned by the wife of a top energy lobbyist [J. Steven Hart,] property records from 2017 show.

…Hart confirmed to ABC News in a brief interview that Pruitt had lived in the flat, which is owned by a limited liability company that links to an address listed to Hart and his wife Vicki Hart, a lobbyist with expertise in the healthcare arena. Steven Hart said Vicki Hart co-owns the condo. He said his wife was not the majority owner, but would not identify her partners.

…[Vicki Hart’s] website says she previously worked as a senior health policy advisor for two Senate Majority Leaders before establishing her firm in 2002.

Steven Hart served in the Reagan Justice Department and became, according to his website, is one of the nation’s top fundraisers, donating more than $110,000 to Republican political candidates and committees last election cycle, records show.

…Mr. Hart is the chairman and CEO of Williams and Jensen, a firm that reported more than $16 million in federal lobbying income in 2017, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Among his many clients are the NRA, for whom he serves as outside legal counsel.

…Another lobbying client of Hart’s, the railroad Norfolk Southern, spent $160,000 last year on lobbying Congress on “issues affecting coal usage, oil production, and transportation, including EPA regulation.”

…The revelations about Pruitt’s living situation come as more questions are being raised by members of Congress about his travel habits.

EXCLUSIVE: More Cabinet trouble for Trump? EPA chief lived in condo tied to lobbyist ‘power couple’ – ABC

hmmm

California sues over Census citizenship question – CNNPolitics

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,Leave a comment

Progressives, states and civil rights advocates are preparing a flurry of legal challenges to the Trump administration’s decision to add a question about citizenship to the next census, saying the move will penalize immigrants and threaten civil rights.

The late Monday move from the Commerce Department, which it said came in response a request by the Justice Department, would restore a question about citizenship that has not appeared on the census since the 1950s.

…The state of California immediately challenged the plan in federal court.

…”The citizenship question is the latest attempt by President Trump to stoke the fires of anti-immigrant hostility,” Padilla said in a statement. “Now, in one fell swoop, the US Commerce Department has ignored its own protocols and years of preparation in a concerted effort to suppress a fair and accurate census count from our diverse communities. The administration’s claim that it is simply seeking to protect voting rights is not only laughable, but contemptible.”

New York announced it would also lead a separate multi-state lawsuit to challenge the move on Tuesday.

California sues over Census citizenship question – CNNPolitics

sigh…

Judge rejects Trump request to toss lawsuit accusing him of violating Constitution

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, UncategorizedLeave a comment

A federal judge denied on Wednesday a motion to dismiss a lawsuit accusing President Donald Trump of receiving improper payments from states and foreign governments — or emoluments — through his Washington hotel in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

According to court documents, U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte ruled that the plaintiffs, the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia, had legal standing to challenge Trump’s involvement with his eponymous company, but narrowed the scope of the suit to the Trump Organization’s business in the District of Columbia.

…The Constitution bars public officeholders from accepting payments or titles from foreign governments without approval from Congress, a clause designed to prevent officials from being corrupted.

If it withstands likely appeals, the suit could allow prosecutors — two Democratic attorneys general, Maryland’s Brian Frosh and D.C.’s Karl Racine — to seek documents from the Trump Organization on how much money is sent there by states and foreign governments, something that is not publicly known.

…If this suit progresses, it is sure to bring some history into the courtroom, since the plaintiffs are pointing to 230-year-old decision as part of their legal argument. According to the opinion released Wednesday, Maryland argued that the anti-corruption Emoluments Clauses in the Constitution were key “to its decision to enter the Union and that it retains the power to enforce those provisions today.”

Judge rejects Trump request to toss lawsuit accusing him of violating Constitution

hmmm

Jared Kushner’s Younger Brother Had Vowed To #MarchForOurLives. And He Did. | HuffPost

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Josh Kushner, the younger brother of …Jared Kushner, joined the “March For Our Lives” protest march in Washington on Saturday.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BgrtJxUHiNl/?utm_source=ig_embed

Josh Kushner made headlines earlier this month for donating $50,000 to March For Our Lives. 

…Kushner has described himself as a “lifelong Democrat.” In 2016, he said through a spokesman that he would not be voting for Trump.

At the Women’s March in Washington the day after Trump was inaugurated last year, Kushner was photographed in a crowd of demonstrators.

Jared Kushner’s Younger Brother Had Vowed To #MarchForOurLives. And He Did. | HuffPost

hmmmm