No strike for Belvidere Assembly Plant?

Fiat Chrysler Reaches Tentative Labor Deal With United Auto Workers

By Nick Carey

DETROIT (Reuters) - Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV <FCHA.MI> and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union on Saturday announced a tentative agreement for a four-year labor contract, a boost for the automaker as it works to merge with France's Groupe PSA <PEUP.PA>.

Italian-American Fiat Chrysler and PSA, the maker of Peugeot and Citroen, last month announced a planned $50 billion merger to create the world's fourth-largest automaker.

The tentative agreement with Fiat Chrysler, which is subject to ratification by the union members, follows contracts that the UAW already concluded with Ford Motor Co <F.N> and General Motors Co <GM.N>.

The deal with GM followed a 40-day strike in the United States that virtually shuttered GM's North American operations and cost the automaker $3 billion.

The UAW on Saturday said the contract with Fiat Chrysler included a commitment from FCA to invest $9 billion, creating 7,900 new jobs over the course of the four-year contract. Of the $9 billion, $4.5 billion was announced earlier this year, to be invested in five plants and creating 6,500 jobs.

Detailed terms of the tentative agreement were not released, but they are expected to echo those under the new contracts with GM and Ford, as the UAW typically uses the first deal as a pattern for the others.

"FCA has been a great American success story thanks to the hard work of our members," UAW acting President Rory Gamble said in a statement. "We have achieved substantial gains and job security provisions for the fastest growing auto company in the United States."

Ratification is not a sure thing. Rank-and-file UAW members at FCA in 2015 rejected the first version of a contract. In addition, a lawsuit related to a federal corruption probe could also raise doubts among union members about the terms agreed.

The federal corruption led GM to file a racketeering lawsuit against FCA, alleging that its rival bribed union officials over many years to corrupt the bargaining process and gain advantages, costing GM billions of dollars. FCA has brushed off the lawsuit as groundless.

Under the UAW's deal with GM, the automaker agreed to invest $9 billion in the United States, including $7.7 billion directly in its plants, and to create or retain 9,000 UAW jobs.

Ford's contract included commitments to invest more than $6 billion in its U.S. plants and to create or retain more than 8,500 UAW jobs.

The deals with GM and Ford also created a pathway to full-time employment for temporary workers and left healthcare insurance coverage unchanged.

Both automakers also agreed to signing bonuses, with $9,000 for full-time Ford workers and $11,000 for workers at GM.

(Reporting by Nick Carey; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Above is from:  https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2019-11-30/fiat-chrysler-reaches-tentative-labor-deal-with-united-auto-workers

Trump donated his salary but he made a lot more playing golf?

Trump Has Spent $115 Million On Golf Trips ― Or 287 Years Of Presidential Salary

S.V. Date,HuffPost 4 hours ago

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With his Thanksgiving vacation, President Donald Trump’s golf hobby has now cost Americans an estimated $115 million in travel and security expenses ― the equivalent of 287 years of the presidential salary he frequently boasts about not taking.

Of that amount, many hundreds of thousands ― perhaps millions ― of dollars have gone into his own cash registers, as Secret Service agents, White House staff and other administration officials stay and eat at his hotels and golf courses.

The exact amount cannot be determined because the White House refuses to reveal how many Trump aides have been staying at his properties when he visits them and will not turn over receipts for the charges incurred.

In response to a HuffPost query on Wednesday asking if she knew how many administration officials other than herself are staying at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, during his Thanksgiving stay, and how much it is all costing, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham responded with a one-word answer: “No.”

But lawsuits filed by news organizations and watchdog groups against other executive branch agencies ― the White House is exempt from Freedom of Information Act queries ― have revealed payments totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, arguably in violation of the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause, which prohibits Trump from accepting benefits beyond his salary from the federal or any state government.

ProPublica, for example, found that Mar-a-Lago charged taxpayers $546 a night for rooms ― three times the per-diem rate and the maximum allowed by federal rules ― for 24 Trump administration officials who stayed there during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2017. Taxpayers also picked up a $1,006.60 bar tab for 54 top shelf drinks ordered by White House staff.

The group Property of the People recently revealed payments totaling $254,021 from the Secret Service to various Trump properties in just the first five months of his presidential tenure. Over that period, Trump had golfed 25 times. As of Wednesday, he has spent 223 days at a golf course he owns. If the first five months are an accurate indicator, that means the Secret Service has likely spent nearly $2.3 million in taxpayer money at Trump’s businesses, of which he is the sole owner.

“It’s becoming abundantly clear that Donald Trump uses his presidency as a way to put money into his pocket,” said Jordan Libowitz of the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “The issue isn’t that he likes golf. The issue is that he has spent a huge amount of his presidency making promotional appearances at his struggling golf courses, and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.”

Trump, like many Republicans, repeatedly criticized then-President Barack Obama for playing golf so frequently during his years in office. “I play golf to relax. My company is in great shape. @BarackObama plays golf to escape work while America goes down the drain,” Trump tweeted in December 2011.

During his campaign for the Oval Office, Trump claimed that as president, he would be too busy working to have time for any vacations at all. “I love golf, but if I were in the White House, I don’t think I’d ever see Turnberry again. I don’t think I’d ever see Doral again,” he told a rally audience in February 2016, referring to two Trump-owned courses. “I don’t ever think I’d see anything. I just want to stay in the White House and work my ass off.”

Despite those remarks, Trump is on schedule to spend far more time on the golf course than Obama did. At this point in Obama’s first term, he had spent 88 days on a golf course. But Trump’s visit to his course in West Palm Beach on Wednesday was his 223rd day at one of his own courses ― two and a half times as many golfing days as Obama.

Further, Obama played the majority of his rounds at courses on military bases within a short drive of the White House, while Trump has insisted on taking numerous trips to visit his courses in New Jersey and Florida, both of which require seven-figure travel and security costs.

A Government Accountability Office report earlier this year found that each Mar-a-Lago trip costs taxpayers about $3.4 million. Much of that is to fly Air Force One and the various cargo planes needed to ferry the president’s armored limousine and other vehicles in his motorcade. Based on the report’s analysis and methodology, HuffPost estimated costs for Trump’s other non-Washington-area golf trips as of May and found that the total had passed $100 million. And that was even before Trump scheduled a June stopover in Ireland ― involving costly and elaborate preparations by the State Department ― primarily to visit and promote his resort in Doonbeg.

Trump’s visit to his resort in Turnberry, Scotland, in 2018 cost taxpayers an extra $3 million beyond what it would have cost had he remained in London prior to leaving for Finland. Of that, $1.2 million was just the expense of renting all the additional vehicles needed by the massive entourage that a foreign trip entails.

Trump’s current trip to Palm Beach is the 25th of his presidency. Wednesday was his 58th day golfing at his course in West Palm Beach. He has golfed 77 days at his Bedminster, New Jersey, course; 77 days at his Northern Virginia course; four times at his Jupiter, Florida, course; three times in Doonbeg; twice in Turnberry; and once each at his courses in Los Angeles and Doral, Florida. Since taking office, he has golfed only twice on a course he does not own, both times in Japan at the invitation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during official visits.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

Above is from:  https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-golf-trips-millions-thanksgiving-221349040.html

GM sues Fiat Chrysler

GM sues Fiat Chrysler, alleging union bribes cost it billions

By Nick Carey

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co <GM.N> on Wednesday filed a racketeering lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV <FCHA.MI> <FCAU.N>, alleging that its rival bribed United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials over many years to corrupt the bargaining process and gain advantages, costing GM billions of dollars.

GM also alleged that Fiat Chrysler's former chief executive, the late Sergio Marchionne, was central in the scheme.

The No. 1 U.S. automaker said it will seek "substantial damages" from FCA that it said would be reinvested in the United States to create jobs, but did not specify an exact amount.

The lawsuit comes at a delicate time for FCA, which is working on a planned merger with French automaker PSA <PEUP.PA> and is negotiating a four-year labour contract with the UAW.

"We are astonished by this filing, both its content and its timing," FCA said in a statement. "We can only assume this was intended to disrupt our proposed merger with PSA as well as our negotiations with the UAW."

FCA and PSA last month announced the planned 50-50 share merger to create the world's fourth-largest automaker, seeking scale to cope with costly new technologies and slowing global demand.

GM's general counsel, Craig Glidden, told reporters at GM's headquarters that the lawsuit has nothing to do with the planned merger of PSA and FCA and the automaker does not intend to file suit against the UAW.

PSA declined to comment.

The UAW has targeted FCA last out of Detroit's three automakers for contract talks. UAW workers at Ford Motor Co <F.N> ratified a new contract last week, while GM workers approved a deal in late October that ended a 40-day U.S. strike.

"It (the lawsuit) can't help but complicate the already difficult task of getting a UAW-FCA agreement in place," said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labour and economics at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Michigan.

The UAW said in a statement, "We are confident that the terms of those contracts were not affected" by the actions of FCA or UAW officials. It said it was "regrettable" that these issues can cause doubts about the contracts.

The lawsuit also names as defendants three former FCA executives who have pleaded guilty in an ongoing federal probe into the UAW and FCA. GM said that probe, coupled with its own investigation, resulted in the lawsuit.

RACKETEERING

GM's Glidden said a "pattern of racketeering" by FCA from 2009 to 2015 left GM paying higher wages than Fiat Chrysler, and allowed the latter to use more temporary workers and lower-paid second-tier workers than GM.

"As part of this bribery scheme, and to lock in the competitive efficacy of the purchased benefits, concessions and advantages for FCA, GM was denied similar union commitments and support," the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit claims that among the "benefits, concessions and advantages illegally purchased by FCA" was UAW support for "World Class Manufacturing," a version of Toyota Motor Corp's <7203.T> lean production strategy but adapted to the culture of Italian automaker Fiat.

That system has been credited in part for helping to turn around struggling operations like FCA's plant in Toledo, Ohio, that makes the popular and profitable Jeep Wrangler.

The suit also claims that after a failed bid to take over GM in 2015, FCA corrupted the collective bargaining process by structuring terms through bribed UAW officials that "forced unanticipated costs on GM."

The lawsuit says that under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), FCA would be liable to pay GM three times the actual damages caused, plus interest, punitive damages and attorneys' fees.

GM alleges that FCA, under the leadership of former CEO Marchionne, used bribes to UAW officials to corrupt the collective bargaining process from 2009 through 2015. Marchionne died in 2018.

Fiat took control of Chrysler after it emerged from a U.S. government-funded bankruptcy in 2009.

"Marchionne was a central figure in the conceiving, executing and sponsoring of the fraudulent activity," Glidden said.

When GM rejected a merger bid from FCA, the lawsuit alleges Marchionne conspired to negotiate a new four-year contract "designed, through the power of pattern bargaining, to cost GM billions."

The UAW has been the focus of a spreading federal corruption probe.

Gary Jones, the UAW president who recently had taken a leave of absence, on Wednesday resigned effective immediately just hours after the union said it would seek to remove Jones from office, a union source told Reuters.

Jones' lawyer Bruce Maffeo told the Detroit News the decision was based "on his belief that his continuing to serve will only distract the union." A UAW spokesman could not confirm the resignation.

Last week, the UAW's acting president unveiled a series of reforms designed to prevent further scandals.

Glidden said the automaker supports those reform efforts.

(Reporting by Nick Carey in Detroit; Additional reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit, Gilles Guillaume in Paris and David Shepardson in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewisand Leslie Adler)

Above is from:  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gm-sues-fca-alleging-bribery-172805199.html

ILLINOIS CELLPHONE TAXES ARE HIGHEST IN NATION, AVERAGE $374 A YEAR

Brad Weisenstein

Editor

/ BUDGET + TAX

NOVEMBER 18, 2019

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Illinois cellphone taxes are highest in nation, average $374 a year

Taxes alone hike the average Illinois cellphone bill by 31%.

It might be best they can’t hear you now, because you might be saying some unkind words.

Illinois in 2019 again topped the nation for how much residents are taxed on their cellphone service, according to a new survey by the Tax Foundation. The Illinois average was $374 a year for the typical family paying $100 a month for four cellphones. The national average was $260.

Thanks to competition and more users, average cellphone bills nationwide have dropped to about $38 per line from $50 per line in 2008. But taxes have offset those gains for consumers. The Tax Foundation found the average tax burden during that time jumped to nearly 22% nationally from about 15%.

In Illinois, that burden is now 31%, which comes from five different layers of taxes:

• 7% state telecom excise tax
• 6.5% simplified municipal tax (the Tax Foundation uses the average of a state’s capital city and largest city rather than gathering tax rates from every municipality. In the case of Illinois, Springfield’s rate of 6% and Chicago’s rate of 7% are used)
• 8.59% for combined state and local wireless 911 tax
• 0.05% fee for telecommunications for persons with disabilities
• 9.05% federal universal services fund surcharge

Illinois’ average cellphone tax increased by almost $44 over the prioir year, compared with a $31 increase nationally. Illinoisans also saw a $36 bump between 2017 and 2018. Illinois’ taxes were the nation’s highest this and last year, but ranked No. 4 in 2017.

And it’s worse if you live in Chicago.

“Excessive taxes and fees, especially the very high per-line charges like those imposed in Chicago and Baltimore, impose a disproportionate burden on low-income consumers. In Chicago, taxes on a family with four lines of taxable wireless service paying $100 per month are more than $500 per year – about 43% of the bill,” the Tax Foundation wrote.

The unfair burden on low-income and young people is aggravated because they are more reliant on cellphones. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 57% of all adults live in wireless-only households, but for those living in poverty the rate is 67% and for adults younger than 35 the rate is 76%.

During former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration, Chicago twice drove up phone service taxes to deal with budget deficits driven by city worker pensions. In 2014 the city hiked its 911 tax on every phone line by $1.40 to $3.90 to increase contributions to the city’s laborers pension fund. In 2018 the city hiked the 911 fee by $1.10 to $5 per line.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is facing an $838 million shortfall in the city’s $11.65 billion budget, again driven by public pension costs. She sought state lawmakers’ help but failed to gain it during the November veto session to increase a progressive “exit tax” for those selling real estate and to get a bigger cut of any Chicago casino taxes.

Lightfoot inherited four city pensions that are $29 billion in debt and only 25% funded. Chicago residents are responsible for eight local public pension systems that total $46 billion in pension debt, with payments expected to rise by $1 billion during the next four years.

Add to that the nation’s worst statewide pension debt – pegged at $137 billion by the state’s estimates, but at $241 billion by a less-generous analysis – and the reason Illinois ranks as the “least tax-friendly” state in the nation becomes clear.

Still, Gov. J.B. Pritzker is pushing a ballot initiative to drive Illinois taxes $3.4 billion higher to pay down pension debt. Voters on Nov. 3, 2020, will be asked to scrap the Illinois Constitution’s flat state income tax protection. The change would grant state lawmakers greater power to change tax rates by income brackets, which nearly half of voters polled recently saw as a “blank check” for politicians to spend more.

In the past 30 years only Connecticut chose to implement a progressive income tax, sold as a way to relieve the middle class’s tax burden and cut property taxes. It did the opposite: middle class income taxes increased 13%, property taxes increased 35%, it cost the state jobs, increased poverty and did nothing to fix the state’s finances.

Pritzker is using the same sales pitch to sell Illinois voters on his tax hike proposal.

Illinois already tops the nation for the money it spends on pensions and set a record last year of $10 billion, which is 25% of the state’s general revenue funds. That is expected to climb to $11 billion and 27% of the budget during the current budget year.

The real solution to pensions was never increasing taxes, whether on cellphones or on income, but rather to control future growth. That requires a constitutional amendment to protect already-earned pension benefits while allowing the state to bring the growth rate of future benefit accruals in line with inflation.

Above is from:  https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-cellphone-taxes-are-highest-in-nation-average-374-a-year/

End of Asylum Immigration?

POLITICS

NOVEMBER 18, 2019 / 5:35 PM / UPDATED 3 HOURS AGO

U.S. to change migration rules in a bid to send asylum seekers elsewhere

Ted Hesson

3 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is set to harden the rules this week on those allowed to seek asylum in the United States, as it attempts to stem a wave of migration on its southern border with Mexico.

In a fast-track regulation set to publish in the Federal Register on Tuesday, the administration has created a framework that will allow asylum seekers to be sent to other nations that have negotiated bilateral agreements to accept them.

Previously, officials in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump have argued that migrants with a valid need for asylum should seek protection in the first ‘safe’ country where they have the chance to apply, since many migrants travel through multiple countries on their way to the U.S. border.

However, the new regulation states that asylum seekers may be sent to any other countries with which the United States has asylum agreements that permit such an action - even if they did not first transit through those nations.

The regulation is the latest action by Trump to restrict asylum access in the United States. Trump has made immigration - and curbing the number of mostly Central American migrants arriving at the border - a major theme in his reelection campaign.

The United States already maintains a bilateral asylum deal with Canada. Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have also signed such deals in recent months, but the pacts have not been finalized.

The regulation released on Monday will amend U.S. guidelines to permit similar deals with other nations.

Other Trump measures have sought to restrict asylum eligibility or force migrants to wait in Mexico pending the resolution of their claims, but not force asylum seekers to pursue their claims in another country.

Migrants who may be sent to a third country under the new regulation will have an opportunity to prove that they’re “more likely than not” to be persecuted or tortured in that country, but advocates argue that will be a high hurdle.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the pro-migrant American Immigration Council, said the regulation could reshape the U.S. asylum system.

“If this rule fully goes into effect, virtually no one who arrived at the southern border would ever be allowed to ask for asylum in the United States,” he said.

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said on Saturday that implementation of the asylum agreement with Guatemala would occur soon, but did not provide a specific timeline. The department did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Reporting by Ted Hesson, additional reporting by Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien

Above is from:  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-border-asylum/u-s-to-change-migration-rules-in-a-bid-to-send-asylum-seekers-elsewhere-idUSKBN1XS2NT

Half trillion dollars if IRS increases auditors?

This former top Obama official says one silver bullet would raise $500 billion in personal-income tax

Published: Nov 18, 2019 3:37 p.m. ET

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121

‘Today, the IRS has fewer auditors than it had at any point since World War II’

By

ANDREWKESHNER

REPORTER

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers recommends more investment in the IRS.

It wouldn’t take much to rake in a lot of tax money, according to research published Monday by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, a high-profile economist who served in two Democratic presidential administrations.

The federal government could have $535 billion more in its coffers in the coming decade if the Internal Revenue Serviceaudited returns as often as it did back in 2011 — when audit rates were higher than they are now — and focused those audits on millionaires and billionaires, Summers said.

Under-reporting is more than five times as high for individuals who earn $10 million or more annual than it is for those who make under $200,000 a year.

High-net-worth returns may take more time to review, but they are well worth the time investment, according to the research. “Under-reporting is more than five times as high for individuals who earn $10 million or more annual than it is for those who make under $200,000 a year,” Summers wrote.

Under-reporting is when taxpayers intentionally report less income than they actually have. It’s one of the problems that leads to uncollected taxes, which is projected to cost the government about $630 billion in 2020, according to research by Summers.

In 2011, the IRS peaked with an audit rate of 1.1% for all individual returns and has since fallen to 0.5% in 2018, according to Summers, the onetime Treasury Department secretary in the Clinton administration and director of the White House National Economic Council in the Obama administration.

Returning to 2011 audit rates would mean approximately 131,000 more audits on individual tax returns, said Summers, now a professor at Harvard University, where he was once president.

Summers wrote the study with University of Pennsylvania law professor Natasha Sarin.

Others argue IRS audit policies need a hard look because they already disproportionately go after low-income taxpayers.

The IRS referred a request for comment to the Treasury Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At a time when Democratic presidential candidates like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders are calling for new taxes on the super-rich, the paper focuses on the money that the government leaves on the table right now.

All together, the feds could take in over $1.1 trillion in tax revenue using the paper’s proposals, which include more audits on the highest end of the income ladder and other measures.

There’s a difference though between ideas on papers and politics in action — especially on Capitol Hill. After all, President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry is roiling an already-divided Congress. Meanwhile, a 2017 tax code overhaul passed without a single Democratic vote.

But Summers told MarketWatch his call for more audits and other reforms could be achieved.

“It’s the easiest lift to raise a trillion dollars there is, because all it requires is a change in budget score-keeping rules, which are made by political leaders,” he said. On both sides of the aisle, “almost everyone’s vision for America requires new tax revenue, whether it’s to finance tax cuts or public investments or deficits reductions.”

As for the possibility of more taxes on the wealthy, Summers said, “This may not be where the tax discussion should end, but it’s where it should begin.”

The IRS will collect an estimated $630 billion less than is due in 2020. Between 2020 and 2029, it will collect $7.5 trillion less than it’s owed, the study estimated.

The IRS will collect an estimated $630 billion less than is due in 2020. Between 2020 and 2029, it will collect $7.5 trillion less than it’s owed, the study estimated.

The paper also scrutinized the consequences of a shrinking IRS staff. The organization had 73,519 full-time equivalent positions in 2018, down 15.5% from 2013, statistics show.

“Today, the IRS has fewer auditors than it had at any point since World War II,” the researchers wrote.

More audits for the wealthy are the biggest way to address tax underpayments going forward, Summers and Sarin said. Combined with audits for filers like businesses and estates at 2011 rates, enhanced enforcements could yield $715 billion between 2020 and 2029, according to their paper.

The IRS could claw another $450 billion in that time by increasing its investment in computer analysis of tax returns and increasing certain reporting requirements, they said.

Above is from:  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-former-top-obama-official-says-one-silver-bullet-would-raise-500-billion-in-personal-income-tax-2019-11-18?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo

Barr attempts to rewrite impeachment proceedings

William Barr is racing to deliver a report that blows up the impeachment inquiry—and everything else

Mark Sumner

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday November 06, 2019 · 1:21 PM CST

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Attorney General William Barr is racing to complete a new “report” before Thanksgiving. And if Barr’s very poor summary of the Mueller report threw Trump a lifeline by distorting the real findings of the special counsel investigation, this new report looks to be more like an atom bomb, designed to incinerate Washington by putting the whole Justice Department behind a conspiracy theory that rewrites history and declares open warfare on political opponents. And Republicans are already meeting with Barr to plan a “roll out” for this supposedly classified report in order to maximize its impact.

Barr appears to have taken the results of an inspector general report that was expected to end weeks ago, rolled it together with the investigation-into-the-investigation that he launched under the nominal control of prosecutor John Durham, and capped it all with the “findings” of a world tour that included attempts to get the Australian government, the Italian government, and the U.K. government to participate in attacks on U.S. intelligence agencies. What’s going to come out the other end could be a dud, but it could launch an effort to derail the impeachment process—and more.

Barr’s effort to create a comprehensive, all-conspiracy-theories-combined report seems to have delayed delivery of the long-expected findings from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Republicans were generally thrilled by Horowitz’s earlier report in which he was critical of former FBI director James Comey for his handling of some classified materials. That report had right-wing news outlets clamoring over potential charges against Comey. But despite claims that the findings justified Republican attacks on the entire Russia investigation, the actual complaints were minor and led to nothing.

That seems unlikely to be the case this time. As The Washington Post reports, Barr has subsumed Horowitz’s work because “the inspector general does not have the authority to declassify information” and Barr apparently intends to release information that dips into classified documents at both the FBI and CIA to tell his story of how the Russia investigation was unjustified from the start.

Barr is having advance meetings (including one on Wednesday with Senate Judiciary chair Lindsey Graham) so that talking points and presentations can be ready in advance of an official release.

Interestingly enough, Michael Horowitz does not appear to be attending the meetings on how to release information supposedly based on the material he assembled. But then, the investigation Barr is conducting has moved far beyond the sort of internal chastisement that might be delivered by Horowitz. The investigation he and Durham are conducting is now a criminal investigation, and is “pursuing potential crimes.”

But not crimes in the sense of the hundreds of connections between the Trump White House and Russia. Or crimes in the sense of Trump’s obstruction of the Russia investigation. Certainly not crimes in the sense of Trump directly lying to investigators in the written answers he provided to the special counsel’s office.

Instead, Barr is directly attempting to put some proof behind the claims that Donald Trump was trying to extort out of Ukraine: That there was never any real contact between Russia and the Trump campaign, that the DNC servers were not in fact hacked by Russia, that Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud was a CIA plant put in place to lure George Papadopoulos, that Australian official Andrew Downer was an instrument of U.S. intelligence, and that Ukrainian hackers conspired with Hillary Clinton to make it seem as if Russia stole data from the DNC and presented it to WikiLeaks, when all the while it was a scheme to justify launching an investigation into the Trump campaign.

Barr and his associates have been racing to complete this report so that it can be dropped on the impeachment inquiry before the holidays. Major parts of the report apparently remain unwritten, but the fact that the publicity campaign is getting underway in advance of the report’s completion is not exactly a sign that this is going to be a contrite “nothing major found” report. And Barr has been at the center of forwarding Trump’s conspiracy theories and supporting attacks on the intelligence community. He’s already said, “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. I think spying did occur, but the question is whether it was adequately predicated and I’m not suggesting it wasn’t adequately predicated, but I need to explore that.”

The report coming back could declare no evidence to support Trump’s conspiracy theories and say that Barr found that “spying” to be “adequately predicated.” Don’t count on it. And don’t count on there not being indictments.

Barr did not shift to a criminal investigation because he doesn’t intend to arrest someone. There are going to be claims of serious wrongdoing. They are going to be aimed at not just creating a distraction to derail the impeachment hearings, but to provide “evidence” that Trump’s requests for investigations by Ukraine were justified. The question is going to be whether they are merely awful and damaging to the nation, or absolutely incinerate the rule of law.

Next week, open hearings are set to begin in the House impeachment inquiry, and it seems very likely that actual articles of impeachment will be getting a vote before the end of the year. So far, the best defense that Republicans have dreamed up is claiming ignorance—not attending meetings, not reading transcripts, and openly declaring that they’re not about to start.

But when Barr speaks, they’re all going to be listening.

Above is from:  https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/11/6/1897632/-William-Barr-is-racing-to-deliver-a-report-that-blows-up-the-impeachment-inquiry-and-everything-else

Trump immigration actions increased migrant problems?

Report: WH ignored warnings from State Department officials about ending immigrant protections

Caitlin Dickson

Reporter

,

Yahoo News•November 7, 2019

386 Comments

Sen. Robert Menendez. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

In late October of 2017, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson received a memo from Trump appointees on his staff regarding the administration’s intention to terminate Temporary Protected Status to immigrants from Honduras, El Savador and Haiti, among other countries.

The memo acknowledged that career State Department diplomats, including then-Under Secretary for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon Jr., had issued explicit warnings that ending TPS for those three countries would pose serious risks to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. It also noted concerns that ending designation could also endanger the safety of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who would be forced to return to those countries, not to mention their U.S. citizen children.

Despite those concerns, the political appointees in the State Department urged Tillerson to accelerate the termination of protections afforded immigrants with TPS status. Although senior officials at State had already concluded that TPS status should not be ended quickly, those officials handpicked by Trump believed that the suggested 36-month timeline was too slow because it “would put the wind-down of the program directly in the middle of the 2020 election cycle.”

That memo is among dozens of internal State Department documents included in a new report published Thursday by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The report is the product of an investigation commissioned by Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., the ranking Democrat on the committee, into the State Department’s role in the Trump administration’s decision to end TPS for Honduras, El Savador and Haiti. It concludes that the White House not only disregarded repeated and explicit warnings against ending TPS from career diplomats, but suggests that the decision to do so may have been influenced by what the report calls “electoral calculations.”

“Today’s report documents something we’ve become all too familiar with: the administration seeking to use foreign policy not to further U.S. interests but the president’s political aims,” Menendez said at a Thursday press briefing. “Political appointees literally advocated for the accelerated termination of TPS … so it wouldn't be an electoral liability,”

Immigration advocates and allies gathered in New York City last month to launch an 18-day march to Washington. (Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

In November 2017, President Trump first announced plans to end Temporary Protected Status — a designation allowing citizens of certain countries destabilized by armed conflict or natural disasters to live and work in the U.S. — for a number of countries, including El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti. The move, which is the subject of multiple legal challenges and has so far been blocked by courts from taking effect, would have an impact on approximately 400,000 TPS recipients living in the United States as well as their estimated 273,000 American-born children who would either have to return with their parents or remain in the U.S. alone. 

Among the dozens of State Department documents obtained through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s investigation are diplomatic cables sent by U.S. embassies in those three countries to senior officials at the National Security Council, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security during the summer of 2017. The cables urge that the TPS designations should be renewed, and warn that a failure to do so could destabilize the region and result in a new wave of illegal migration to the U.S. 

One cable, for example, sent by the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador on July 7, 2017, warned that “the lack of legitimate employment opportunities” in El Salvador would make repatriated TPS recipients, or their children, subject to recruitment by gangs like MS-13, which would likely be emboldened as a result.

“Make no mistake, the administration knew exactly what it was doing, consequences be damned,” said Menendez.

News reports about the cables — and the Trump administration’s decision to disregard them — first came to light last year. But the newly released documents show how then-Under Secretary Shannon, the State Department’s highest-ranking career diplomat, made a private appeal to Tillerson, in which he emphasized that the governments of Honduras, El Salvador and Haiti could not handle the quick return of the hundreds of thousands of nationals currently covered by TPS.

“It is our purpose to provide the best possible foreign policy and diplomatic advice,” Shannon wrote. “From my point of view that advice is obvious: extend TPS for the countries indicated.”

Shannon’s guidance echoed that of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, as well as the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and the secretary’s own Office of Policy Planning, all of which recommended that TPS should be terminated only for those countries after a period of 36 months.

The copy of the memo included in the report from political appointees at the State Department shows that Tillerson crossed out a reference to the department’s recommended 36 month extension for those three countries, and wrote by hand that the TPS designations should end in 18 months — which is what he ultimately wrote in his final recommendation to the Department of Homeland Security secretary. 

This memo offers “strong evidence that the decision was influenced by personal and political considerations of the Trump campaign,” said Tom Jawetz, Vice President for Immigration Policy at Center for American Progress. Jawetz was among those on a panel of experts who spoke about the implications of the report at Thursday’s press conference. He emphasized that the law requires that once a country has been designated for TPS, it must be extended until DHS has made a fact-based determination that the country no longer meets the conditions necessary to warrant that designation. 

He argued that the apparent political factors behind Tillerson’s final recommendation should be particularly relevant to the ongoing litigation over the legality of the administration’s decision to end TPS currently being considered by federal courts.

Menendez said he planned to share the report with his Republican colleagues on the committee, who have the power to convene hearings, as well as with the State Department inspector general.

“We do not comment on internal deliberations. We are aware that a report was released, but have nothing to add at this time,” a State Department spokesperson told Yahoo News via email.

Above is from:  https://www.yahoo.com/news/report-trump-administration-ignored-warnings-from-state-department-officials-about-ending-immigrant-protections-003021237.html

Bush’s Iraq War

The Wisdom Segment

• I  Wikileaks released close to 400,000 files of information about the Iraq War.
• II  The Center of Public Integrity discloses that the Bush Administration made up to 935 false claims about alleged threats from Iraq in the 2 year period following 9/11.
• III  Regrets have been expressed by a number of news organizations who helped provide validation for the Bush administration's false statements before the Iraq War. They accepted criticisms that their pre-war reportings were too biased and unprofessional.
• IV  An investigation made by the BBC revealed how large amounts of financial profit were made by private contractors off the war. They stated that it was probably the most profitable war in history. However, a U.S. gag order has been put in place to prevent any discussion of the accusations.
• V  The Iraq War led to about 2.3 million people being driven out of their homes. As of 2008, 2 million Iraqis left the country. The neighboring countries had to deal with a massive wave of immigration and refugee camps.
• VI  Many Iraqi women had to recur to prostitution to fend for themselves and their family, due to the widespread poverty caused by the Iraqi war. Prostitution was not frowned upon by religion at this point, because it was a means of survival.
• Above is from:  https://www.heraldweekly.com/judge-judy-the-truth-behind-the-hot-bench/?utm_medium=yahoo&utm_source=368&utm_campaign=381767329&utm_term=FINANCE_US-c