quote:

There is no such thing as a genuine surprise in Washington—usually. This was a genuine surprise. I had been talking to people this week who would or should have known that talks between Manchin and Schumer, thought to be moribund, were taking place. The closest I got to foreknowledge was one source saying that they just didn’t believe it. An army of reporters, lobbyists, and hangers-on didn’t know this was happening.

what a prestige posted:

The reveal was made a few hours after the Senate cleared the CHIPS and Science Act, a bill that offers semiconductor manufacturers subsidies for reshoring and boosts science programs. Mitch McConnell had threatened that bill, something highly cherished by Schumer, if Democrats persisted with a party-line bill that raised taxes and boosted clean energy. When Manchin walked away from negotiations with Schumer just two weeks ago over those two items, McConnell let his guard down and allowed a vote on CHIPS, which was popular with many of his Republican colleagues. Schumer and Manchin waited until that cleared the Senate before announcing a reconciliation deal with taxes and climate back in.

If you told me a cosmic ray hit Washington and flipped everyone’s brains, giving Schumer the Machiavellian cunning of a Republican and giving McConnell the guileless approach of a Democrat, that might be a more plausible explanation for this display than the truth. It’s a near-legendary turn of events that infuriated McConnell so much he took hostage a bill to give dying veterans exposed to toxic burn pits medical care, something Republicans passed overwhelmingly just a few weeks ago (it needed a technical fix). The combination of the revival of the Biden agenda and red-faced Republicans making terrible choices on highly popular legislation is one for the ages

quote:

Now, all that said: What’s in the bill, and was it worth the agita? The health care piece has already been covered: extending the subsidies that make insurance affordable in the Affordable Care Act (for three years, beyond the end of this presidency, which is important), combined with an exceedingly modest drug price reform that still yields $288 billion in Medicare savings and more for individual seniors, is fine. The Democrats should find a way to get insulin back into the mix, rather than leaving it out so a bipartisan bill can fail.

quote:

The tax measures are simple. There’s a corporate alternative minimum tax for companies with more than $1 billion in annual profit. It’s based loosely on Elizabeth Warren’s book profits tax from the 2020 campaign, which derived profit from financial statements to investors, not deduction-heavy tax filings; however, it seems like some credits will be able to count against profits, meaning more savings for corporations. There’s also an $80 billion investment in the IRS that CBO believes will raise $124 billion in revenue on net (the Biden administration thinks it will be much higher), and a tweak, not a closure, of the carried interest loophole.

As Victor Fleischer explains, that tweak really just extends the “holding period” where income is treated as capital gains (with a lower tax rate) from three to five years. So if a private equity fund owns an asset for more than five years before selling, they get the lower tax rate. Often portfolio companies are held for longer than that. Regulations could strengthen this, but the tweak only adds $14 billion over ten years, and you could easily see it having been put in so it can be taken out later.

There’s also a nice $15 million pilot program to study a direct e-file tax return system, administered by the government instead of private tax preparers like Intuit. The administration has a keen interest in that one

quote:

As for the climate and energy measures, you will hear a lot that this is the largest climate action taken by the U.S. government in history. Those statements often tell you nothing, because it’s a “compared to what” scenario. On its own terms, this narrows energy investment from $550 billion in the initial Build Back Better Act to $369 billion, though a “climate bank” and “climate accelerator” could allow for another $290 billion in investment from the private sector. This is mostly achieved through scaling back the credits; included in that number is an “all of the above” energy strategy with incentives for fossil fuel production (with carbon capture), offshore oil and gas (with a larger royalty payment), biofuel production, and more. This was of course the only way to get Manchin’s buy-in, a trade of sustaining carbon emissions (hopefully slightly cleaner ones) for the green transition.

Yay posted:

Other things climate hawks have pointed out include $60 billion in environmental justice provisions (neighborhood block grants, along with port pollution reduction), manufacturing tax credits for renewables, energy efficiency subsidies, a methane leakage fee, and $5 billion in grants to utilities to decarbonize, as well as a direct-pay credit for public power facilities.

The $500 million for the Defense Production Act for heat pumps and minerals needed in the green transition seems quite low, but there’s enough investment here to accelerate the country’s energy mix.

Boo posted:

I don’t have a full breakdown of how much of that $369 billion is for cleantech, but there are hundreds of billions enumerated in the topline summary, and that doesn’t include the electric-vehicle benefit, which is $4,500 for used vehicles and $7,500 for new ones, up to fixed income limits, and available at point of sale.

There’s a weird assist to Canada and Mexico, weakening Buy American standards by creating a “North American” vehicle assembly credit.

The skeptical net posted:

Overall, the claim is that the bill will reduce emissions by 40 percent by 2030. This is roughly four-fifths of what the original BBB did, though the money available is much lower than that. So seeing some independent modeling would be useful.

The shoe to drop posted:

Manchin also secured a promise from leadership for unspecified “permitting reform” by the end of September. (This is apparently mainly so the natural gas Mountain Valley Pipeline that runs through West Virginia can get approved.)

Racing Stripe posted:

you really need to be skeptical of anyone saying that this must be big because the FBI’s ethical code and standards wouldn’t permit them to do such a thing frivolously. They are not above a fishing expedition, just like any other law enforcement agency.

quote:

Federal magistrate judges tend to require relatively thorough, specific, and well-documented applications, as opposed to state judges, who will generally sign a warrant that looks like something Gary Busey blew out of his nose after Fourth of July weekend.

Gumball Gumption posted:

Retrial started today for the two ring leaders after the previous case deadlocked because of poor FBI work.

Here's Romeo Langhorne if you need more examples of poor FBI work and fishing exhibitions. https://www.techdirt.com/2022/07/19/supposed-terrorist-gets-20-years-in-prison-for-uploading-a-bomb-making-video-an-fbi-agent-made-for-him/

There's lots of examples is the point.

quote:

From the start of the reporting on Trump’s theft of classified documents, commentators have suggested that Trump was only under investigation for violations of the Presidential Records Act or 18 USC 2071.

Reports that in June, one of the four people who met with Trump’s lawyers on this issue was Jay Bratt, head of Counterintelligence & Export Control Section at DOJ, which investigates Espionage, makes it highly unlikely that those are the only things under investigation.

quote:

In early June, a handful of investigators made a rare visit to the property seeking more information about potentially classified material from Trump’s time in the White House that had been taken to Florida. The four investigators, including Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence and export control section at the Justice Department, sat down with two of Trump’s attorneys, Bobb and Evan Corcoran, according to a source present for the meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting, Trump stopped by and greeted the investigators near a dining room. After he left, without answering any questions, the investigators asked the attorneys if they could see where Trump was storing the documents. The attorneys took the investigators to the basement room where the boxes of materials were being stored, and the investigators looked around the room before eventually leaving, according to the source.

Even 18 USC 1924, which prohibits unlawfully taking classified information, would involve complications if the person who stole the materials were the former President. Admittedly, the fact that DOJ had an in-person meeting with Trump before conducting a search might mitigate those complications; Trump may be refusing to return documents rather than just not turning them over.

quote:

Still, it’s possible — likely even — that there are exacerbating factors that led DOJ to search Mar-a-Lago rather than just (as they did with Peter Navarro) suing to get the documents back.

Remember, this process started when the Archives came looking for things they knew must exist. Since then, they’ve had cause to look for known or expected Trump records in (at least) the January 6 investigation, the Tom Barrack prosecution, and the Peter Strzok lawsuit. The investigation into Rudy Giuliani’s influence peddling is another that might obviously lead to a search of Trump’s presidential records, not least because the Archives would know to look for things pertaining to Trump’s impeachments.

quote:

With that as background, Trump would be apt to take classified documents pertaining to the following topics:

• The transcript of the “perfect phone call” with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other documents pertaining to his first impeachment
  
• Notes on his meetings with other foreign leaders, especially Vladimir Putin and Saudi royals, including Trump’s July 16, 2018 meeting with Putin in Helsinki
  
• Information surrounding the Jamal Khashoggi execution (and other materials that make Jared Kushner’s current ties to Mohammed bin Salman suspect)
  
• Policy discussions surrounding Qatar, which tie to other influence peddling investigations (for which Barrack asked specifically)
  
• Intelligence reports on Russian influence operations
  
• Details pertaining to security efforts in the lead-up to and during January 6
  
• Intelligence reports adjacent to Trump’s false claims of election fraud (for example, pertaining to Venezuelan spying)
  
• Highly sensitive NSA documents pertaining to a specific foreign country that Mike Ellis was trying to hoard as boxes were being packed in January 2021
  

quote:

For many if not most of these documents, if Trump were refusing to turn them over, it might amount to obstruction of known investigations or prosecutions — Barrack’s, Rudy’s, or Trump’s own, among others. Thus, refusing to turn them over, by itself, might constitute an additional crime, particularly if the stolen documents were particularly damning.

quote:

One more point about timing: An early CNN report on these stolen documents describes that a Deputy White House Counsel who had represented Trump in his first impeachment was liaising with the Archives on this point.

quote:

Longtime Archives lawyer Gary Stern first reached out to a person from the White House counsel’s office who had been designated as the President Records Act point of contact about the record-keeping issue, hoping to locate the missing items and initiate their swift transfer back to NARA, said multiple sources familiar with the matter. The person had served as one of Trump’s impeachment defense attorneys months earlier and, as deputy counsel, was among the White House officials typically involved in ensuring records were properly preserved during the transfer of power and Trump’s departure from office.

By description, this is likely either John Eisenberg (who hid the full transcript of the perfect phone call but who was not obviously involved in Trump’s first impeachment defense) or Pat Philbin (who was the titular Deputy White House Counsel and was overtly involved in that defense). If it’s the latter, then Philbin recently got a DOJ subpoena, albeit reportedly in conjunction with January 6. If so, DOJ might have recent testimony about documents that Trump was knowingly withholding from the Archives.

evilweasel posted:

my impression of Wheeler was that (as you said) she made a lot of strong statements on russia stuff that did not really appear to pan out

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

They specifically came in to install the keypad safe in the locked storage room because of the "sensitive nature" of the documents. So, the DOJ knew about it for - at minimum - 3 or 4 months. They either let him hold on to it during that period out of impotence/fear about doing anything other than having him voluntarily hand them over or someone there wanted to let Trump slide.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Other than complete impotence or extreme loyalty to Trump and wanting to prevent him from getting in trouble, I can't see why the DOJ just kept asking him to give them back and let them sit there for so long.

quote:

according to people familiar with the investigation.

quote:

State and federal officials declined to name the man or describe a potential motive. However, a law enforcement official identified him as Ricky Shiffer.
According to another law enforcement official, agents are investigating Shiffer’s possible ties to extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, whose leaders are accused of helping launch the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

quote:

The people who described some of the material that agents were seeking spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. They did not offer additional details about what type of information the agents were seeking, including whether it involved weapons belonging to the United States or some other nation. Nor did they say if such documents were recovered as part of the search.

ryde posted:

One thing I don't see being discussed by law-knowy-people is whether or not Trump is likely to be indicted. Isn't it possible that they could have used a warrant to get the docs and then decline to prosecute? It'd be a spineless move but I'm sorta used to that after the past 6 years.

Herstory Begins Now posted:

this is also unprecedented in terms of confidential material investigations, too, afaik. Like extremely without precedent.

When was the last time someone was taking home entire boxes of classified materials? When was the last time that that included the very highest types of classified material?

smug n stuff posted:

https://twitter.com/tonyromm/status/1558203663914508294?s=21&t=tvOjG82DC1SeSiT-sN3ROg

House is about to pass IRA.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

the 'but her emails' thing is the closest, insofar as it was a running gag in both the Bush and Obama SecState offices that you had a private email server for handling all the poo poo you didn't want ever subject to FOIA or any of the classification red tape, and while strictly speaking doing so ran afoul of most of the same laws as long as you don't piss off the FBI they'll let you skate for it. see Colin Powell's explanation for his actions being "yes, I did it, what the gently caress are you going to do about it, I thought so" for reference.

so the closest thing to a precedent holds that you let them off with a "c'mon, you're not supposed to do that" while being fully aware you shouldn't. interesting place to be in. would not put my money on expecting the tradition of presidential impunity being broken, but in his inimitable fashion Trump sure is jumping up and down on the cost/benefit analysis curve for the people deciding that.

quote:

A multiyear State Department probe of emails that were sent to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s private computer server concluded there was no systemic or deliberate mishandling of classified information by department employees

quote:

Overall, investigators said, “there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.” The report cited “instances of classified information being inappropriately” transmitted, but noted that the vast majority of those scrutinized “were aware of security policies and did their best to implement them.”

FizFashizzle posted:

Don’t forget Petraeus was using classified intel to impress his side piece.

quote:

A police detective in Louisville, Ky., is expected to plead guilty to conspiring to mislead a judge in order to obtain a search warrant for Breonna Taylor’s home, a plea that would mark the first conviction of a police officer over the fatal raid more than two years ago.

Federal prosecutors had brought charges against the detective, Kelly Goodlett, and three other officers this month over the nighttime raid in which police officers fatally shot Ms. Taylor, 26, a Black emergency room technician whose death was among several police killings that led to months of protests in 2020.

On Friday, a U.S. magistrate judge set a hearing for Ms. Goodlett to enter a plea on Aug. 22. Ms. Goodlett’s lawyer, Brandon Marshall, told the judge that she would enter a guilty plea at that time, news outlets reported.

Prosecutors said Ms. Goodlett had reviewed a draft of the affidavit and, despite knowing that the claim about the postal inspector was false, did not alter it. They also said she added a misleading line to the affidavit in which she said the former boyfriend had recently been using Ms. Taylor’s address as his own. Then, prosecutors said, as fallout from the raid worsened, Ms. Goodlett lied to investigators about whether Mr. Jaynes had verified the information about the packages.

Mr. Jaynes, Mr. Meany and Mr. Hankison have all pleaded not guilty. A guilty plea from Ms. Goodlett could signal that she is cooperating with investigators in their case against the other three.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

letter of the law, you probably could lock Powell up alongside Clinton for this poo poo, on grounds of insecure storage of classified information relating to national security. there's a reason the conclusion you quote has to lean real hard on ''systemic, deliberate mishandling," because the 'mishandling' itself is not a debatable question, the installation of private email servers to get state department business done outside state department systems was not accomplished by accident, and the law doesn't say you're allowed to gently caress around with classified information as long as you say it was an oopsie in retrospect.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

strictly speaking doing so ran afoul of most of the same laws

cr0y posted:

Very normal democracy

https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1558228460530810883?t=YiGRgnNnQO8Q8UjuADXKrg&s=19

Legality aside, how in the hell would that even work.

Epicurius posted:

Plus, it's been done before. As was mentioned, Debs ran for President from prison. So did Lyndon LaRouche.

quote:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

quote:

A federal jury on Tuesday convicted two men of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) in 2020, a case that raised alarms about the possibility of politically motivated violence amid the coronavirus pandemic and ahead of a bitterly contested presidential race.

Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. were also found guilty of conspiring to obtain a weapon of mass destruction to pass her security detail and prevent police from catching them so they could kidnap the governor at her vacation home, the Justice Department announced.

quote:

But on cross-examination, agent Corey Baumgardner agreed with a prosecutor who said Impola’s remark two months after the arrests was actually a reference to how Croft and Fox would spin the kidnapping allegations

Paracaidas posted:

"The FBI routinely wields its power abusively and often misuses informants and undercover agents when attacking political dissidents. We don't know enough to know how abusive they were in Michigan but far more common is abusing these resources against leftwing and muslim organizations. Any laws meant to curb right wing domestic terror must also eliminate these fed practices."

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Beastie posted:

Someone said it best, if they can do 10k they can do it all.

quote:

“If a court, employing traditional tools of statutory construction, ascertains that Congress had an intention on the precise question at issue, that intention is the law and must be given effect.”

quote:

We consider that the rulings, interpretations, and opinions of the Administrator under this Act, while not controlling upon the courts by reason of their authority, do constitute a body of experience and informed judgment to which courts and litigants may properly resort for guidance. The weight of such a judgment in a particular case will depend upon the thoroughness evident in its consideration, the validity of its reasoning, its consistency with earlier and later pronouncements, and all those factors which give it power to persuade, if lacking power to control

lobster shirt posted:

can the special master thing be reviewed or appealed at all? Or is that basically it?

quote:

This is wise of Congress and the LOC. I vividly recall, 40+ years ago working in a congressional office in which the legislative assistant commissioned a long paper from the (then) LRS, which he then submitted as his masters thesis at either GW or AU, then spun into fancier government jobs. I was appalled but too young to speak up. Perhaps abuses like that will now end.

quote:

"This is stolen property that was removed illegally from people who had some intent — criminal intent — and it’ll be subject to investigation,” Villanueva said. When pressed whether he was investigating the journalist specifically, the sheriff said, “All parties to the act are subjects of the investigation.”

“What she receives illegally and the L.A. Times uses it, I’m pretty sure that’s a huge complex area of law and freedom of the press and all that,” Sheriff Villanueva said. “However, when it’s stolen material, at some point you actually become part of the story.”

quote:

“He’s only targeting political enemies,” Gascón told The Times about Villanueva. “It was obvious that was not the kind of work I wanted to engage in, so we declined.”

quote:

A primary cause of railroads’ fragility came from decades of laying off labor. From the passage of the 1980 Staggers Act to 2019, total employment in the railroad industry fell from about 500,000 to roughly 135,000. Some of that decline came from concentrating operations on more profitable lines. But a lot came from regulators advocating for Class I railroads to sell off rail lines or move freight to smaller companies with fewer worker protections and less union presence.

Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department, a labor organization, explains that when the supply chain crisis hit, “the drastic cuts to the rail labor force during PSR have ensured that there is no flexibility in the workforce.” Railroads used to maintain “extra boards,” or backup train crews on call just in case. In recent years, railroads viewed those as costs to be cut, which, Regan says, “backfired when those employees were needed.” Training and certification requirements then prevented employees from being hired back quickly.

A deteriorating safety culture has also prompted laid-off railroad workers to rethink coming back to railroads that seem to view their safety as another cost to minimize in the name of efficiency and PSR. Workers overwhelmingly complain of being pushed to work faster and sacrifice safety for speed. Regan says that railroad managers rush workers into neglecting safety inspections and argues that thousands of workers have left the railroad industry out of concern for the railroads’ poor workplace safety. The Federal Railroad Administration, the primary safety regulator for the railroad industry, reports that, since 2012, Class I railroads had higher rates of train accidents or incidents, higher rates of yard switching accidents, higher rates of equipment defects, and more total fatalities, all while total Class I train miles were down roughly 40 percent. A Vice investigation in March covered a streak of train derailments that it described as “the all-too-predictable result of … adopting [PSR].” One labor leader warned, “It’s going to end up … like Boeing.”

quote:

Under the federal Railway Labor Act, workers in key transportation sectors like freight railroads cannot strike over so-called “minor” issues, under the theory that it would cause too much damage to the economy.

The ruling led to an outcry about blocking the right to strike and forcing workers back to their jobs. But less attention was paid to the “minor” issue: a new BNSF attendance policy that employee unions claim penalizes their members for taking time off work, will lead to many having to leave their jobs, and will increase the risk of serious accidents on the freight rail system.

Now the unions have escalated their concerns. Earlier this month, the Transportation Trades Department (TTD) sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, asking their departments to investigate and potentially take action to terminate the policy.

quote:

Under Hi-Viz, which was implemented February 1, BNSF gives every employee a bank of points, and if for any reason that employee cannot take a shift—whether for family and medical leave, conflicts in their schedules, personal illness, or even COVID-19—the employee is docked points. The docked points go up if the scheduled days in question are “high-impact,” like on a national holiday. [...] The Hi-Viz policy enables BNSF, the largest freight rail company in America, to double up schedules and grind its workforce down to the nub, Regan explained. “When I see railroads complaining about labor shortages, I put my head through a wall,” he said. “Rather than hire up a responsible number of employees, they’re trying to squeeze out every possible hour from existing employees who are already overworked.” [...] TTD has disputed that the system is adequate, and in its letter to federal agencies intimated that the new policy “will reduce the safety of the rail network.” Because employees will need to hoard points to account for future needs, they will be incentivized to come to work while sick or fatigued, the union claims, which raises serious safety concerns. Like any logistics profession, the materials railmen haul are routinely explosive, flammable, or poisonous.

Regan explained that fatigue is already an industry-wide problem. A 2013 Federal Railroad Administration report revealed that railroad workers across different jobs reported getting less than seven hours of sleep on workdays, and that this potential for fatigue increases the odds of accidents[...]

Regan wants BNSF to go back to the old policy, which gave workers some indication of when they would be called to duty and did not incentivize coming in sick or fatigued.

quote:

If you thought that the worst of the supply chain woes might be behind us, think again. In the next few days, we could see either a strike or a lockout of the entire U.S. rail industry, more than two years after negotiations began on a new agreement

President Biden has a narrow window to intervene and create a “presidential emergency board” to mediate the dispute, between today and Sunday. If he doesn’t, a walkout is likely. The Brotherhood of Local Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), which is leading the coalition of a dozen unions in talks, announced on Tuesday that they passed a strike authorization vote with 99.5 percent support. It’s the first nationwide strike vote in 11 years.

The backdrop to this looming labor unrest, and the larger supply chain crisis, is the rail industry’s big bet on throttling its own capacity. Class I railroads have reduced their workforce by 29 percent over the past six years, according to the unions. In the middle of the supply snarl last summer, Union Pacific closed service for a week between Los Angeles and Chicago, two key hubs, due to a lack of equipment or manpower.
[...]
More recently, the firings of nearly one-third of the workforce has changed the nature of the job for conductors and trainmen. A new attendance policy at BNSF Railway, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, requires workers to stay on call for up to two weeks, able to be brought in to work at a moment’s notice. The policy, which is in place at other railroads, also penalizes workers for taking time off, up to and including termination.
[...]
“These ridiculous policies forced thousands of employees out of the industry,” said Dennis Pierce, president of BLET, in a statement.

quote:

It’s Hugh Sawyer’s 65th birthday, and he is pissed off. A 35-year veteran of Norfolk Southern, he had spent the day before working 12 hours, driving a train from Chattanooga to Atlanta. When Sawyer started his career in the mid-1980s, the average train trip between Chattanooga and Atlanta took five to six hours. Due to understaffing and negligence of rail infrastructure, today it often takes 12 hours to make the same journey.

When Sawyer got home around 7:30 Monday morning, he was able to sleep for only five hours. Now, he is spending his 65th birthday evening constantly refreshing his computer, to see if he is being called into work. It’s 8 p.m., and if Sawyer makes it to midnight without getting called in, he will get a day off.

“It’s just impossible to do anything, even on your birthday, when you have no idea when you are going to work,” Sawyer tells me.

Sawyer’s frustration is at the core of why 57,000 railroad workers are threatening to strike this Friday, unless a deal is reached to address quality-of-life issues.
[...]
This time, the main issues aren’t wages, but time off from work. Scheduling deficiencies have been a point of contention since earlier this year, when BNSF, the Warren Buffett–owned rail company, instituted a new scheduling policy that workers said punishes them for taking time off.

quote:

The agreement provides workers with the ability to take days off for sick leave and medical emergencies — the unions’ central demand in negotiations — although it granted them only one day of paid sick leave, according to two people briefed on the plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it had not yet been publicly announced.

quote:

If the contract is ratified, the agreement by the two largest railroad unions and railway carriers guarantees voluntary assigned days off and a single additional paid day off. Workers also can take time off for routine doctor’s appointments without being penalized, and would not lose attendance points for hospitalizations and surgical procedures, according to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.

The deal also includes the biggest wage increases for railroad workers in more than four decades. They will receive a 24 percent pay increase by 2024, including an immediate 14 percent raise; $1,000 annual bonuses over five years; and no increases to healthcare copays and deductibles.

In the past 20 hours of negotiations, railroad carriers also agreed to freeze monthly health care contributions during the end of a contract and bargaining period, which unions said would discourage carriers from dragging out negotiations. The agreement also protects two-person crews on trains — as safety concerns have mounted about workers operating trains solo

Kalit posted:

As far as delay tactics, I imagine the railroad companies won't want to partake in that much/at all since:

That quote is from the article/quote Paracaidas had provided a few posts ago.

Paracaidas posted:

The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department may have the worst ongoing misconduct of any department in the nation (Google LASD gangs). Democrat Alex Villanueva took over in 2018 on a pledge to reform the department's blatant corruption, abuse, and disregard of any potentially inconvenient laws.

quote:

A Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials to stop searching certain computers seized as part of the sprawling raids tied to an investigation into the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s contracts with a domestic violence nonprofit.

The order from Judge William Ryan applies solely to computers sheriff’s investigators took from Metro’s Office of Inspector General, whose attorney filed papers Thursday asking the judge to toss the search warrant.

quote:

The judge set a hearing for next week, demanding answers to a list of questions about how and why the warrant was secured, and why key details were omitted from the judge, Craig Richman, who signed it.

quote:

Ryan also asked why sheriff’s investigators omitted from Richman that [ ]the other judge, Eleanor Hunter, had decided just two weeks ago to appoint a special master to oversee the search of the inspector general’s computers[/b]. Hunter said at the Sept. 1 hearing that she was appointing a special master to make sure materials that could be privileged under the attorney-client privilege are sealed.

“Why, after Judge Hunter was going to require a Special Master, did the Sheriff immediately seek a warrant from a different judge, and who made that decision?” Ryan asked.

quote:

Richman and Lillienfeld have a decades-long relationship.

They have known each other since at least 1996, when Richman was a prosecutor handling an attempted murder case Lillienfeld investigated. The detective would later visit the judge’s home to get warrants signed. Lillienfeld’s wife worked in Richman’s courtroom, transcribing hearings as an official court reporter.

quote:

Their relationship came under scrutiny several years ago when there was an internal Sheriff’s Department inquiry into whether Lillienfeld tried to help Richman out of legal trouble.

RBA Starblade posted:

So are "special masters" common things and if so why is this only the second time I've heard it come up ever

quote:

Moran v. Moran, 2017 WL 5339638, (Ariz. App. 1st Div. Nov. 14, 2017) (affirming the family court’s adoption of the Special Master’s recommendation to alter parenting time).

Viad Corp v. U.S. Steel Corp., 2017 WL 4913744 (Ga. Ct. App. Oct. 31, 2017) (in a property contamination case, reversing summary judgment and remanding for determination of apportionment of liability between defendants, and directing the Special Master to resolve discovery disputes).

City of Marietta v. Summerour, 2017 WL 4870931 (Ga. Oct. 30, 2017) (in an eminent domain action, affirming the trial court's adoption of the Special Master’s assessment of property value, but reversing the order of condemnation because the city had failed to fulfill a statutory prerequisite).

Heck v. Valentin, 2017 WL 4786225 (Pa. Super. Ct. Oct. 24, 2017) (in a divorce case, affirming the trial court’s adoption of the Special Master’s equitable distribution, including valuation of two of the husband’s classic cars).

Harrington v. Harrington, 92 Mass. App. Ct. 1109 (Mass. Ct. App. Oct. 16, 2017) (in a divorce case, affirming the trial court’s order appointing a Special Master for the purpose of selling the martial home).

Lewis v. Sivertree Mohave Homeowners’ Association, Inc., 2017 WL 5495816 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 16, 2017) (in a fair-housing and anti-discrimination class action, granting the motion for class settlement and appointing a Special Master to handle any further litigation regarding the fee award).

Cachet Fin. Services v. C&J Associates, Inc., 2017 WL 5479652, (N.D. Cal. Nov. 15, 2017) (in a statutory interpleader action, denying plaintiff’s request for fees and costs and staying litigation of counterclaims pending completion of the Special Master’s report on distribution of the interpleaded funds).

Fisher v. Tucson Unified School Dist., 2017 WL 5167238 (D. Ariz. Nov. 8, 2017) (adopting the Special Master’s recommendations for a School District’s required teacher ratios and school budgets).

In re Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liab. Litig., 2017 WL 5133177 (E.D. La. Nov. 6, 2017) (in a product’s liability class action, affirming the Special Master’s decision denying settlement benefits to claimants).

The Coal. for Equity and Excellence in Maryland Higher Educ. v. Maryland Higher Educ. Comm’n, 2017 WL 5171111 (D. Md. Nov. 8, 2017) (in a case involving Maryland’s historically black institutions, appointing a Special Master to oversee remedial integration plans).

Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Horton, 2017 WL 5157841 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 7, 2017) (appointing a Special Master to oversee a property foreclosure sale).

Bank of New York Mellon Tr. Co., v. Sock, 2017 WL 5127320 (S.D. Ga. Nov. 3, 2017) (in a property foreclosure case, appointing a Special Master to establish the plaintiff's standing, defendants' liability, and plaintiff's damages).

Paracaidas posted:

Everyone say it together: "There is always more..."
https://mobile.twitter.com/AleneTchek/status/1570838019669893120

FlamingLiberal posted:

Aramis Ayala won the Dem AG primary in FL, just FYI

Uhlfelder was in that race but he lost

quote:

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Administers the Oath of Allegiance and Delivers Congratulatory Remarks at Ellis Island Ceremony in Celebration of Constitution Week and Citizenship Day
New York, NY ~ Saturday, September 17, 2022
Remarks as Delivered

It is my great honor to welcome you as the newest citizens of the United States of America. Congratulations! Please be seated.

Just now, each of you took an oath of allegiance to the United States. In so doing, you took your place alongside generations who came before you, many through this very building, seeking protection, freedom, and opportunity.

This country – your country – wholeheartedly welcomes you.

I know that you have made sacrifices in order to be here today. You should be proud of all you have accomplished. I am proud of you.

You have made the decision to become Americans not only at an important time in our country’s history, but on an important day.

It was 235 years ago on this day, September 17, 1787, that 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention representing 12 states signed their names to the Constitution of the United States.

Like you, those who signed the Constitution were relatively new Americans. In fact, America had only existed for 11 years at that point.

Like you, those Americans had great hopes for their own future – and for the future of their new country.

In the preamble of the Constitution, those Americans enumerated those hopes: to form a more perfect union; establish justice; ensure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense; promote the general welfare …

And importantly – in their words – “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Like them, each of you has now made a commitment not only to this nation and your fellow Americans, but to the generations of Americans who will come after you.

In that commitment, you have given your posterity – and the posterity of all of us – a precious gift.

I know how valuable that gift is because it is the same one my grandparents gave my family and me.

I come from a family of immigrants who fled religious persecution early in the 20th Century and sought refuge here in the United States. Some of my family entered right here, at Ellis Island.

My grandmother was one of five children born in what is now Belarus. Three made it to the United States, including my grandmother who came through the Port of Baltimore.

Two did not make it. Those two were killed in the Holocaust.

If not for America, there is little doubt that the same would have happened to my grandmother.

But this country took her in. And under the protection of our laws, she was able to live without fear of persecution.

I am also married to the daughter of an immigrant who came through the Port of New York in 1938.

Shortly after Hitler’s army entered Austria that year, my wife’s mother escaped to the United States. Under the protection of our laws, she too, was able to live without fear of persecution.

That protection is what distinguishes America from so many other countries. The protection of law – the Rule of Law – is the foundation of our system of government.

The Rule of Law means that the same laws apply to all of us, regardless of whether we are this country’s newest citizens or whether our [families] have been here for generations.

The Rule of Law means that the law treats each of us alike: there is not one rule for friends, another for foes; one rule for the powerful, another for the powerless; a rule for the rich, another for the poor; or different rules, depending upon one’s race or ethnicity or country of origin.

The Rule of Law means that we are all protected in the exercise of our civil rights; in our freedom to worship and think as we please; and in the peaceful expression of our opinions, our beliefs, and our ideas.

Of course, we still have work to do to make a more perfect union. Although the Rule of Law has always been our guiding light, we have not always been faithful to it.

The Rule of Law is not assured. It is fragile. It demands constant effort and vigilance.

The responsibility to ensure the Rule of Law is and has been the duty of every generation in our country’s history. It is now your duty as well. And it is one that is especially urgent today at a time of intense polarization in America.

The United States is no stranger to what our Founders called the risk of faction. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote about it in the Federalist Papers. George Washington warned against it in his Farewell Address.

Overcoming the current polarization in our public life is, and will continue to be, a difficult task.

But we cannot overcome it by ignoring it. We must address the fractures in our society with honesty, with humility, and with respect for the Rule of Law.

This demands that we tolerate peaceful disagreement with one another on issues of politics and policy. It demands that we listen to each other, even when we disagree. And it demands that we reject violence and threats of violence that endanger each other and endanger our democracy.

We must not allow the fractures between us to fracture our democracy.

We are all in this together. We are all Americans.

On this historic day and in this historic place, let us make a promise that each of us will protect each other and our democracy.

That we will honor and defend our Constitution.

That we will recognize and respect the dignity of our fellow Americans.

That we will uphold the Rule of Law and seek to make real the promise of equal justice under law.

That we will do what is right, even if that means doing what is difficult.

And that we will do these things not only for ourselves, but for the generations of Americans who will come after us.

I have often thought about what members of my family felt as they came through buildings like this. And I have often thought about what their decisions meant for my own life.

My family story is what motivated me to choose a career in public service. I wanted to repay my country for taking my family in when they had nowhere else to go. I wanted to repay the debt my family owes this country for our very lives.

My family members who immigrated here have now long since passed. I regret that I cannot express to them how grateful I am for the gift they gave me in choosing to come to this country.

So let me thank each of you.

Thank you for choosing America as your home. Thank you for the courage, dedication and work that has brought you here.

Thank you for all you will do to help our country live up to its highest ideals.

Thank you on behalf of a nation that is fortunate to call you as its citizens.

And thank you upon on behalf of the generations of Americans who will come after you. Thank you.

Speaker:
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland

ryde posted:

The special master doesn't appear to be having any of it. Unlike Cannon, he's basically said that he considers the classification markings as prima facie evidence of classification and they have to actually claim which documents are unclassified.

Phenotype posted:

So in the Trump documents case, he's got the special master now, and the special master asked them to tell us if he declassified any of the documents, and they say "nuh uh we don't want to say if we declassified anything because that will damage his criminal defense."

Why are they trying to keep the waters murky regarding declassification? If he's gonna say it's fine that he had them because they were all declassified, then how does it hurt him to say that now? I've heard people online saying "well, if he says these 10 documents were declassified, then he's admitting the others weren't" but why can't he just say "yeah they're all declassified"?