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Why the GOP IS the root of all evil...
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real-human



Joined: 02 Jul 2011
Posts: 14834
Location: on earth

PostPosted: Fri Jul 23, 2021 1:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mac wrote:
Which Republicans took the bribes?

Quote:
p.m.
CINCINNATI —

The settlement does not preclude prosecutors from pursuing individuals and applies only to FirstEnergy, Patel said.



This is more complete. all right wingers, and no jail

https://www.ntd.com/firstenergy-to-pay-230-million-in-settlement-in-ohio-bribery-case_647362.html


Quote:


CINCINNATI—The energy giant at the center of a $60 million bribery scheme in Ohio admitted to riveting new details of its role in the conspiracy Thursday as part of a settlement agreement with federal prosecutors, including how it used secret dark money groups to fund the effort and paid a soon-to-be top utility regulator to write the legislation it got in exchange.

Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. is charged with conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud through bribery or kickbacks under the deal, Acting U.S. Attorney Vipal J. Patel said at a press conference Thursday.

He called the settlement, which requires the company to pay $230 million penalty and continue to fully cooperate with investigators, the largest secured by his office that anyone can recall.

“If FirstEnergy complies with everything on its end, the charges will be dismissed,” Patel said, adding that if they don’t, the criminal case will resume.


Under the agreement, the firm must also make public any new payments it’s aware of that were intended to influence a public official and continue an internal makeover of its ethics practices. The company will have three years to comply with the settlement.

In a statement, Donald Misheff, FirstEnergy’s nonexecutive board chairman, said the agreement builds on steps the company already has under way, including to “significantly modify our approach to political engagement as we work to regain the trust of our stakeholders.”


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The criminal monetary fine of $230 million will be divided up, with half of it going to the federal government and the other half going to a program that benefits Ohio’s regulated utility customers, Patel said. FirstEnergy also has to forfeit certain funds, totaling $6 million, seized from the accounts of a dark money group, Partners for Progress.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman said the charges resulted from a historic public corruption investigation that “deserves historic remedies.”


“I hope that today’s announcement serves as a stern warning to other corporations and corporate executives who would sell their integrity to a public official, a group of public officials,” he said.

The settlement does not preclude prosecutors from pursuing individuals and applies only to FirstEnergy, Patel said.

The deal, signed by FirstEnergy President and CEO Steven Strah, comes in a scandal that has affected business and politics across Ohio since the arrests a year ago Wednesday of then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four associates. The government says Householder orchestrated a plan to accept corporate money for personal and political use in exchange for passing nuclear bailout legislation and scuttling an effort to repeal the bill.

In a statement Thursday, Strah said, “Moving forward, we are intently focused on fostering a strong culture of compliance and ethics, starting at the top, and ensuring we have robust processes in place to prevent the type of misconduct that occurred in the past.”


Thursday’s deal requires FirstEnergy to issue a public statement acknowledging the role of dark money groups, known as 501(c)(4) corporations, in the scheme. The statement says the company used them “as a mechanism to conceal payments for the benefit of public officials and in return for official action.”

New details revealed as part of the filing show Partners for Progress appeared to be independent while actually being controlled by FirstEnergy. The company admits to hand-picking the organization’s three leaders, who included Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s now-top lobbyist Dan McCarthy, and funneling $15 million in FirstEnergy cash through the nonprofit to Generation Now.

FirstEnergy in the last year has fired six high-ranking executives, including CEO Chuck Jones.

A statement of facts filed Thursday said the company paid a public official $4.3 million through his consulting company to further the company’s interests while he worked as Ohio’s top utility regulator, “relating to the passage of nuclear legislation,” and the firms other legislative priorities. That official is known to be former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chair Sam Randazzo.


Randazzo resigned from the PUCO last November after FBI agents searched his Columbus townhome and FirstEnergy revealed the payment to end a consulting agreement with his company.

Messages seeking comment were left Thursday with Randazzo and the office of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who appointed Randazzo to the utilities commission. Neither Randazzo nor Jones have been charged criminally.

By Mark Gillispie, Julie Carr Smyth, and Farnoush Amiri

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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 10:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The part of Mordor and sedition.

Yesterday James Hormel passed away. He was the first openly gay person nominated for a position that required Senate confirmation—ambassador to Luxembourg—in 1997. Conservatives spent two years fighting his confirmation. Cabinet members who were lobbyists and had conflicts of interest have sailed through under Turtle Man. But a philanthropist who is gay? Heaven forbid!

Lest we forget how hypocritical this is, remember Dennis Hastert and other closeted Reeps. https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11520156/dennis-hastert-child-molestation-explained
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wsurfer



Joined: 17 Aug 2000
Posts: 1634

PostPosted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 9:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

'Cause they're lunatics!

Can't make it up!


https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-health-coronavirus-pandemic-fcd36bc56f03fcd46d9ad5839a7b5702
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real-human



Joined: 02 Jul 2011
Posts: 14834
Location: on earth

PostPosted: Wed Sep 01, 2021 7:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

typical right winger, attacking a black reporter. and the right winger is on parole.

https://news.yahoo.com/arrest-warrant-issued-man-accused-223123073.html
Arrest warrant issued for man accused of confronting NBC's Shaquille Brewster on live TV

Quote:
NBC News
Arrest warrant issued for man accused of confronting NBC's Shaquille Brewster on live TV
David K. Li and Donna Nelson
Wed, September 1, 2021, 8:25 AM·2 min read
Mississippi police issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for an Ohio man who they say confronted NBC News' Shaquille Brewster on live television.

The man, Benjamin Eugene Dagley, of Wooster, Ohio, will be charged with two counts of simple assault, one count of disturbing the peace and one count of violating an emergency curfew, Gulfport police said in a statement.

He could also be in violation of his probation in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, if he traveled without authorization, police said.

Dagley had not been arrested by late Tuesday afternoon, and he could not be immediately reached at publicly listed telephone numbers.

His ex-wife in Ohio declined to comment.

Court documents in Ohio showed the 54-year-old pleaded guilty to vandalism, inducing panic and attempted assault, stemming from a 2017 commercial break-in. He was sentenced to five years probation and 30 days in jail to go along with a $5,000 fine and $10,000 restitution to Cleveland Plating.

The business is an electroplating company that Dagley once owned, according to a report by Cleveland.com. Dagley was arrested on suspicion of drilling holes into tanks of dangerous chemicals.

Representatives for Cleveland police and Cuyahoga County prosecutors could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.

The lawyer who represented Dagley in that case could not be immediately reached for comment on Wednesday morning.

It wasn't immediately clear why Dagley was in Gulfport, Mississippi, nearly 1,000 miles south of Wooster, Ohio, and in the middle of a major storm.

Brewster was doing a live MSNBC shot from Gulfport, reporting on Tropical Storm Ida in coastal Mississippi, when a man pulled up in a white pickup truck and sprinted toward him.

The man got in Brewster's face before Brewster calmly ended the report. The man could be heard shouting at Brewster to "report accurately."

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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Thu Sep 02, 2021 3:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From the people that brought you carcinogens and disinformation.

Quote:
rump administration appointees interfered with development of a toxicity assessment for a "forever chemical" and made changes that were "not scientifically sound," documents obtained by E&E News through the Freedom of Information Act show. Claudine Hellmuth/E&E News (illustration); EPA (document); unclelkt/Pixabay (hand)

Trump-era EPA appointees engaged in "considerable political level interference" on an assessment for a controversial "forever chemical," documents obtained by E&E News indicate.

But the Biden administration wasted no time in yanking that document, moving to scrub the assessment of alterations made by political appointees and restore language advocated by EPA career scientists shortly after the president’s inauguration.

At issue is a toxicity assessment for PFBS, part of the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances family. PFBS is a replacement chemical for PFOS — one of the two most well-studied and controversial PFAS, due to health risks like cancer. The replacement compound, a surfactant, is used in manufacturing processes and to make stain-resistant coatings for various consumer items like clothes, among other purposes.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shed light on the agency back-and-forth over the toxicity assessment for PFBS, released in the last days of the Trump administration, only to be clawed back as soon as Biden took office. Staff conversations show the process of withdrawing and replacing the document came after a contentious publication process that saw significant input from political appointees, in a breach with agency processes.

In an email sent Jan. 21, shortly after Biden’s inauguration, then-head of EPA’s Office of Research and Development Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta conveyed wishes that the PFBS assessment be removed.

"During the rush of the last administration to complete various tasks, there was a PFAS assessment on PFBS along with an internal deliberative memo from [the EPA chemicals office] that apparently were posted Tuesday," she wrote to Jane Nishida, then-acting EPA administrator, in an email marked with a "high" importance level.

In January, anonymous EPA staffers raised concerns that the assessment had been politically compromised (Greenwire, Jan. 14).

As Biden took office, leadership in the research office and the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention immediately requested that the assessment and related documents be taken down at once, Orme-Zavaleta said. "The materials posted are not supported by ORD or OCSPP career scientists and violate the Agency’s scientific integrity policy. We will work to correct the document, brief new leadership then follow up with [the Office of Public Affairs] on the correct release."

At the heart of the controversy was a significant shift from a draft assessment, which offered a reference dose — or an indicator of how much individuals can be exposed to a chemical before experiencing adverse health impacts.

A key component of deriving that reference dose are uncertainty factors, which are applied to reflect data limitations. For the PFBS assessment, uncertainty factors were crucial, given a lack of information around areas like immunotoxicity and mammary gland development. But the new document refuted any database deficiency and shifted the reference dose to a range.

While the assessment was a science, rather than regulatory, document, critics worried the change would allow for industry and government to cherry pick numbers when setting threshold levels. An EPA spokesperson confirmed to E&E News that the Biden administration "immediately began working with EPA’s career scientists and staff" to withdraw and replace the document.

Orme-Zavaleta, who recently retired, meanwhile said the document published under Trump reflected "considerable political level interference" and became "a poster child for why it’s critical to have scientific integrity policies in federal government."

Pushback on a Trump EPA priority
The PFBS assessment was a priority for the Trump administration, and former Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science Policy David Dunlap highlighted the issue as a major focus.

EPA originally planned to publish the assessment in late October 2020. But the schedule was delayed amid last-minute comments and concerns about the uncertainty factors from the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.

A December document reviewed by E&E News showed that Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Deputy Assistant Administrator David Fischer — a former official with the American Chemistry Council, which represents PFAS manufacturers and has lobbied extensively against a crackdown on the chemicals — asked senior toxicologists to review the Office of Research and Development’s PFBS work. Fischer’s office countered ORD’s findings regarding uncertainty factors for chronic and subchronic reference doses.

Fischer did not respond to a request for comment. But EPA confirmed to E&E News that the process became bogged down by his office’s previous political leadership, in a deviation from regular practices.

In early January, leading up to posting the assessment, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics Deputy Director Tala Henry shared a draft with officials, noting it included proposed in-line edits supporting a range of uncertainty factors. She commented that former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler had requested the inclusion of those edits. Conversations indicate officials sought to publish the assessment in advance of a Wheeler PFAS-centric interview.

Orme-Zavaleta confirmed to E&E News that political leadership decided to modify ORD’s peer-reviewed assessment in keeping with Wheeler’s preferences and that she did not learn of the changes until January. She called the back-and-forth "one of the more infuriating experiences I have ever encountered."


David Dunlap is a former Koch guy, who violated ethics standards. Maybe buggy whip can quote him.

Quote:
The Trump administration official leading the Environmental Protection Agency’s research office took part in conversations about a health assessment of formaldehyde even while planning to recuse himself from the issue because of his previous work for one of the country's biggest producers of the toxic substance.

David Dunlap, a former chemicals expert for Koch Industries, participated in email discussions related to the assessment at least twice after he had informed agency ethics officials that he intended to steer clear of the issue, according to documents POLITICO obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. He finally signed his recusal in December, on the same day EPA officially killed the assessment after blocking its release for more than a year.
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wsurfer



Joined: 17 Aug 2000
Posts: 1634

PostPosted: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Grand Poobah has spoken!

“And you go to these elections coming up in ’22 and ’24 — we’re not going to have a country left,” Trump said. “The election was rigged, and we’re not going to have a country left in three years, I’ll tell you that.”

https://news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-predicts-america-end-002940784.html
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The mass hysteria might be ending:

Quote:
Organizers of a Kentucky rally in support of former President Donald Trump featuring several prominent allies and conspiracy theorists expected some 10,000 people to show up this weekend. Instead, less than 300 were in attendance when local journalists attempted to cover the proceedings.

The "We the People Reunion" was held at the Muhlenberg County Agriculture & Convention Center Fairgrounds in Powderly, Kentucky, on Friday and Saturday. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, retired General Michael Flynn, attorney Lin Wood and others were among the featured speakers, according to the event and ticket page online.


Of course, this is written one day before the next stop on the Trump Gestapo (AKA the Proud Boys) tour. Let's see what happens in DC.
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real-human



Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2021 1:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

big lies and twisted lies define right wingers, and it is intentional.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

They're at it again!

Quote:
f Congress fails to increase the debt limit, the Treasury Department would be unable to pay debts as they come due. (Samuel Corum/AFP/Getty Images)
By
Jeff Stein
Yesterday at 2:00 p.m. EDT



The United States could plunge into an immediate recession if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling and the country defaults on its payment obligations this fall, according to one analysis released Tuesday.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, found that a prolonged impasse over the debt ceiling would cost the U.S. economy up to 6 million jobs, wipe out as much as $15 trillion in household wealth, and send the unemployment rate surging to roughly 9 percent from around 5 percent.

Lawmakers in both parties agree that the debt ceiling must be raised to avoid economic calamity, but their standoff over how to do so has intensified. Despite the national debt increasing by close to $8 trillion under President Donald Trump, Republicans have been adamant that they will refuse to help Democrats increase the debt ceiling, in opposition to President Biden’s spending plans.
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real-human



Joined: 02 Jul 2011
Posts: 14834
Location: on earth

PostPosted: Sun Jan 09, 2022 1:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

here are some things republicans are against... well some examples.


A day in the Life of Sue Republican
Sue gets up at 6 a.m. and fills her coffeepot with water to prepare her morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With her first swallow of coffee, she takes her daily medication. Her medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of her medications are paid for by her employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Sue gets it too.

She prepares her morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Sue's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the shower, Sue reaches for her shampoo. Her bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for her right to know what she was putting on her body and how much it contained.

Sue dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air she breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

She walks to the subway station for her government-subsidized ride to work. It saves her considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Sue begins her work day. She has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Sue's employer pays these standards because Sue's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.

If Sue is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, she'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think she should lose her home because of her temporary misfortune.
Its noon and Sue needs to make a bank deposit so she can pay some bills. Sue's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Sue's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Sue has to pay her Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and her below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Sue and the government would be better off if she was educated and earned more money over her lifetime.

Sue is home from work. She plans to visit her father this evening at his farm home in the country. She gets in her car for the drive. Her car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

She arrives at her childhood home. Her generation was the third to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

She is happy to see her father, who is now retired. Her father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Sue wouldn't have to.
Sue gets back in her car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Sue enjoys throughout her day. Sue agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm self-made and believe everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have".
~ Kathy Joe North

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