Tuesday, November 07, 2017

When is a bipartisan claim not really bipartisan.

November 6, 2017
Bu Laura Greggel

The year isn't over yet, (click here) but 2017 is already expected to be the second- or third-hottest year on record, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced today (Nov. 6) at the United Nations climate change conference in Bonn, Germany.  
From January to September 2017, the average global temperature was 1.98 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels, according to the WMO, which is an agency within the United Nations....

Currently, the US House has a record number of refusals to debate amendments. Speaker Ryan has simply blocked amendment after amendment across the spectrum of legislation proposed under this Congress. 1300 amendments have been blocked this year.

Currently on the US House floor is bill HR 3043 regarding hydroelectric power plant licensing.

H.R. 3043--A bill to modernize hydropower policy, (click here) and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

Amended law:
42 USC 15852: Federal purchase requirement (click here)
Text contains those laws in effect on November 6, 2017

From Title 42-THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE
CHAPTER 149-NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY AND PROGRAMS
SUBCHAPTER II-RENEWABLE ENERGY
Part A-General Provisions

Also at issue is another House bill, that is not a bipartisan bill naming post offices:

Summary: H.R.3441 — 115th Congress (2017-2018)

There is one summary for H.R.3441. Bill summaries are authored by CRS
Shown Here:

Introduced in House (07/27/2017)

Save Local Business Act (click here)

This bill amends the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide that a person may be considered a joint employer in relation to an employee only if such person directly, actually, and immediately, and not in a limited and routine manner, exercises significant control over the essential terms and conditions of employment (including hiring employees, discharging employees, determining individual employee rates of pay and benefits, day-to-day supervision of employees, assigning individual work schedules, positions, and tasks, and administering employee discipline).

Rep. Byrne of Alabama states the bill is bi-partisan. Rep. Jim McGovern states this session of Congress is the most closed session in history. Speaker Ryan is not allowing any open rules. The USA Congress House Rules Committee is dismantling democracy in the US House.

Sometimes the Independent and Democratic members of the USA House of Representatives FORGETS such draconian committees with their Chairpersons can commit ethical issues. A USA House Rules Committee Rep. Pete Sessions (click here) needs to have an ethical investigation filed against him as well as the USA House' Rules Committee members involved with dismantling democracy. This is at least an ethical issue, but, dismantling democratic processes within the federal government is also a seditious conspiracy.

Oppressive rules are not passed by one vote by the Chairperson.

Let's not forget the USA Constitution defines treason and conspiracy to commit subversion of the US Constitution:

18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, (click here) or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

The words "or" in this code is not "and/or." The plan to overthrow the Government of the United States through a Rules Committee is singluarly defined as sedition.

Any laws passed under such oppression by a Rules Committee is obviously open to litigation. Any law that seeks to oppress or destroy democracy is litigable and a clear act of sedition.

Remember who the people of the USA is dealing with; the Plutocrats. Currently, bills passed in the USA House are seditious by changing the name of what constitutes professionals and seeks to end the third arm of the USA Consitution, the courts, in enforcing the USA Constitution. Every American is supposed to be able to access the courts without oppression to bring draconian and oppressive laws to review and end any Plutocratic directive that removes rights from Americans.

The USA Constitution was built on "checks and balances" of power. The courts are the Third Arm of government where laws can be reviewed for Constitutional worthiness. Any effort by the US House or US Senate or the US Executive Branch to oppress the free practice of law through the courts is just as guilty of sedition as those that authored it.

Questions?

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (click here)
July 27, 2017

Mr. Byrne (R)  (for himself, Ms. Foxx (R),Mr. Walberg (R), Mr. Wilson of South Carolina (R), Mr. Hunter (R), Mr. Roe of Tennessee (R), Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania (R), Mr.Guthrie (R), Mr. Rokita (R), Mr. Barletta (R), Mr. Messer (R), Mr. Grothman (R), Ms. Stefanik (R), Mr. Allen (R), Mr. Lewis of Minnesota (R), Mr. Francis Rooney of Florida (R), Mr. Mitchell (R), Mr. Garrett (R), Mr. Smucker (R) (Born Amish, 25 years served as president of the Smucker Company, a family-owned commercial construction firm in Smoketown, Plutocrat), Mr. Ferguson (R), Mrs. Handel (R), Mr. Chabo(R), Mrs. Mimi Walters of California (R), Mr. Collins of Georgia (R), and Mr. Correa  (D) )introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Education and the Workforce

There are all but one person that is Caucasian. There are all men, except, for
three. There are all Republicans, except, for two Democrats, one of which is the
sole standing minority in the bill's support.

This IS NOT a bipartisan bill. There is no minority group brought forward by
Minority Leader Pelosi participating in this bill. The passage was opposed by the
strong majority of Democrats.

Mr. Byrne uses the Trump standard ("This is my African American") to deceive
the public in stating this is a bipartisan bill. It is not!
November 6, 2017
By Mythili Sampathkumar

A business associated with Jared Kushner (click here) was used by Russian state entities to invest in Twitter and Facebook.

The information was revealed in the Paradise Papers, a set of millions of leaked documents reviewed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and media outlets.

White House adviser and son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, Mr Kushner was also the co-founder of a startup called Cadre, according to the full report by The Guardian.

The investments were made by Russian technology mogul Yuri Milner, who also owns a stake of cadre.

Mr Kushner failed to disclose his association with Cadre when he joined the White House in January, one of several of Mr Kushner’s failures to disclose pertinent private sector ties ahead of his government service....               

The culprit THIS TIME is a company by the name of "Appleby."

Who is going to jail, Bernie? The discovery of the super rich, with wealth inequality rewarded, needs to have a clear definition of the ones that are jailable and then send them with significant sentences to make an impression on the industry that governments are not playing around anymore.

Appleby (click here) is an offshore law firm with around 470 people, including 60 partners, operating from 10 offices around the globe. We advise global public and private companies, financial institutions, and high net worth individuals, working with them and their advisers to achieve practical solutions, whether in a single location or across multiple jurisdictions.

Appleby represents combined ingenuity and talent taken from all of the most significant international offshore financial centres, and is focused on the development of new products and the provision of effective service to its many international clients.

Appleby today is one of the world’s leading offshore law firms. The Group has offices in the key offshore jurisdictions of Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Mauritius, and the Seychelles, as well as a presence in the international financial centres of Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Appleby has been ranked as one of the world’s largest providers of offshore legal services by number of lawyers in The Lawyer’s 2016 Offshore Survey. With over 470 people, including lawyers and professional specialists, across the Group, Appleby delivers sophisticated, specialised services, primarily in the areas of Corporate, Dispute Resolution,

Private Client and Trusts, Regulatory and Property. The Group advises public and private companies, financial institutions, and high net worth individuals, working with these clients and their advisers to achieve practical solutions, whether in a single location or across multiple jurisdictions.

I want to know the banks involved and the harboring of such wealth management strategies that rob the treasuries of even allied countries. The surprise with the Panama Papers was Putin's treasure trove. This time it is Trump and his administration. Interesting that Putin and Trump seem to share the same past time, hiding money.


November 6, 2017

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has been named in the 'Paradise Papers'

...The files were leaked to Suddeutsche Zeitung, (click here) the same German newspaper that took hold of the Panama Papers in April, 2016.

About 100 different media outlets worldwide are poring over the details.

"There's a new global industry that caters to money that moves around the world," Drew Sullivan, a journalist with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), told Al Jazeera. "This money moves through tax havens and it's moved to evade taxes to hide assets, to steal money.

"It's used by organised crime; it's used by large businesses."...

I am not joking about Trump and Putin's favorite past time. It is real. 


The picture (click here) to the right is Wilbur's official USA photo as US Commerce Secretary and Official Blackmailer.

November 5, 2017
By Mike McIntire, Sasha Chavkin and Martha M. Hamilton

After becoming commerce secretary, (click here) Wilbur L. Ross Jr. retained investments in a shipping firm he once controlled that has significant business ties to a Russian oligarch subject to American sanctions and President Vladimir V. Putin’s son-in-law, according to newly disclosed documents.

The shipper, Navigator Holdings, earns millions of dollars a year transporting gas for one of its top clients, a giant Russian energy company called Sibur, whose owners include the oligarch and Mr. Putin’s family member. Despite selling off numerous other holdings to join the Trump administration and spearhead its “America first” trade policy, Mr. Ross kept an investment in Navigator, which increased its business dealings with Sibur even as the West sought to punish Russia’s energy sector over Mr. Putin’s incursions into Ukraine....

November 5, 2017
By Andrew Desidero

...Ross has been linked (click here) to Russian interests before; in 2014, he poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Bank of Cyprus, an institution regarded by financial watchdogs as a haven for Russian money laundering. Ross' fellow investors included a pair of Russian oligarchs, including Dmitry Rybolovlev, the man who bought a Trump property in Palm Beach for $95 million, even though it was valued at less than $60 million. Ross became a vice chair of the bank, along with a reported former KGB officer. Former Deutsche Bank executive Josef Ackermann was installed as chairman. Deutsche Bank—one of Trump’s biggest creditors—subsequently paid hundreds of millions to settle disputes that it shipped $10 billion or more to Russia in suspect loans.

Top White House adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is also implicated. The documents reveal that Russian tech leader Yuri Milner invested $850,000 in a startup called Cadre that Kushner co-founded in 2014.

Milner has long had a reputation in Silicon Valley as a big-league investor; his firm at one point owned major chunks of both Facebook and Twitter. But Milner was never considered particularly Kremlin-connected. These new documents call that reputation into question. The investing arm of Gazprom, the state-backed energy company, financed a share of Facebook worth up to $1 billion; a Kremlin-owned bank invested $191 million into a Milner firm, and some of that money was then injected into Twitter.

Despite Milner’s investment in his startup, Kushner said in July that he told the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed-door meeting that he never “relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector.”

Representatives for Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Mark Warner (D-VA), the chairman and vice chairman of the committee, did not immediately return requests for comment. Kushner, who still has a stake in Cadre, did not previously disclose the firm’s other business ties....

Countries, including the USA, have lost elements of sovereignty with a global oligarchy.

November 7, 2017
Bernie Sanders (click here) has warned that the world is rapidly becoming an “international oligarchy” controlled by a tiny number of billionaires, highlighted by the revelations in the Paradise Papers.


In a statement to the Guardian in the wake of the massive leak of documents exposing the secrets of offshore investors, Sanders said that the enrichment of wealthy individuals and companies in tax havens was “the major issue of our time”.
He said the Paradise Papers opened the door on a “major problem not just for the US but for governments throughout the world”.
“The major issue of our time is the rapid movement toward international oligarchy in which a handful of billionaires own and control a significant part of the global economy. The Paradise Papers shows how these billionaires and multinational corporations get richer by hiding their wealth and profits and avoid paying their fair share of taxes,” the US senator from Vermont said.

Sanders, who came in a close second to Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, pointed the finger of blame for the flourishing of offshore holdings on both Congress and the Trump administration. He told the Guardian that Republicans in Congress were responsible for providing “even more tax breaks to profitable corporations like Apple and Nike”....

The Paradise Papers (click here) is a special investigation by the Guardian and 95 media partners worldwide into a leak of 13.4m files from two offshore service providers and 19 tax havens' company registries. The files reveal the offshore financial affairs of some of the world’s biggest multinational companies and richest individuals, and set out the myriad ways in which tax can be avoided using artificial structures.
Ireland was an offshoring tax haven? OMG.

November 7, 2017

Tech giant Apple chose the Channel Islands (click here) as a new haven to continue avoiding billions in taxes in the Paradise Papers show.

The company picked Jersey as an alternative after a 2013 crackdown on its controversial tax practices in the Republic of Ireland, they reveal.

Apple moved the firm holding most of its huge untaxed offshore cash reserve to the Channel Island, allowing it to avoid billions of tax around the world – but has insisted the secretive new structure had not cut its taxes....

Brexit was about ending corruption that caused the global economic collapse of 2008, not reinstating it, but, only worse.

There is real doubt as to Donald Trump ever visiting the UK ever again. The current government is turning up the heat on sexual harassment, assault and rape which includes through investigations to any past incidents. 

November 7, 2017
By Josie Cox

One of Donald Trump’s most senior advisers (click here) has told Britain it must scrap EU food standards on genetically modified crops and chlorine-washed chicken if it wants a successful post-Brexit deal with the US.

Speaking at a conference hosted by the Confederation of British Industry on Monday,  US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said that other areas that could pose problems to negotiations between the US and the UK after Brexit, included "passportingof  financial services, and future trade tariffs.

But he did say that he hoped the US could become the UK’s number one trading partner after the split, especially considering existing substantial trade flows between the two countries....

They call it an abuse of power. Imagine that. When, not if, Trump's name surfaces, the UK should take every claim seriously and investigate.

November 7, 2017
By Tom Peck

Leaders of the main political parties (click here) have agreed to new cross-party proposals to address sexual harassment, which will include an independent grievance process, improved human resources support, and the establishment of a working group to implement the changes.

Speaking after the meeting, the Prime Minister hailed an “important step forward” as she revealed the plans, which include upgrading an existing helpline in order to provide face-to-face support for staff by the end of this month. Theresa May said: “Sadly over recent days we’ve seen a number of allegations about figures from across the political parties.

“It’s important that those are investigated impartially and some have rightly been referred to the police. I think if this hasn’t happened to you it’s difficult to appreciate the impact this sort of behaviour can have....

...The Tories and Labour are both now running multiple investigations into MPs and frontbenchers following claims of sexually inappropriate behaviour that have already seen a cabinet minister forced out. Meanwhile Labour activist Bex Bailey has already claimed she was raped at a party event in 2011....

I haven't seen the video and don't need to.

November 6, 2017
By Patrick Cockburn

...It is worth forcing oneself (click here) to look at this disgusting video again as Isis is driven by Iraqi security forces out of its last strongholds in the deserts of western Iraq. The movement, now defeated and almost eliminated, revelled in its cruelty and boasted of its mass killings in order to terrorise its opponents. The Camp Speicher massacre was its worst single atrocity in Iraq or Syria....

This picture says all that needs to be said. It is an Iraqi soldier praying at the feet of a massacred soldier in a mass grave by Daesh.

Let this be the next charismatic image to go out on the internet about Daesh. Let those so inclined to believe in a caliphate know how evil it's leaders sincerely are when asking for devotion around the world. Daesh leaders are their enemy, not those that seek to end the slaughter of the innocent.


Did the Mother-in-law contact law enforcement regarding the threats? This is what happens when domestic violence is not reported.

There could be more fatalities if ten people in critical condition don't recover. How did this raging idiot every get his hands on a gun? That is as much the issue as anything. And it wasn't even a handgun, but, an assault weapon. How did this happen!

The laws in place to end gun violence don't work. If the laws don't work, then control the guns available to people in the country. That is the only thing that does work and it is proven to work. Killing the murderer after the fact is not good law enforcement.

November 6, 2017
By Jon Herskovitz

The Texas gunman, (click here) identified as Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, fired on the church attended by his mother-in-law after he sent "threatening" text messages to her, officials have said.

Kelley - who slaughtered 26 parishioners at a church in rural Texas sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law as a “domestic situation” roiled his extended family, Freeman Martin, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

“There was a domestic situation going on within the family and the in-laws,” Mr Martin said. “The mother-in-law attended the church. We know he sent threatening ... that she had received threatening text messages from him.”...

...“I heard that (the in-laws) attended church from time to time,” Sheriff Tackitt said. “Not on a regular basis.”...            

Nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

It is amazing the account was only down for 11 minutes. It proves how ridiculous this account is to the real world of problems that need to be solved in the world.

The Twitter employee is believed eligible for Knighthood as well. He or she is considered a hero by many and still others believe should be rehired and promoted. 

A former Twitter customer support worker (click here) deactivated the US president’s choice of mouthpiece on his last day of work for 11 whole minutes - that's years in internet years.