UncleBuck
Well-Known Member
will he get fewer votes again?
Trump's 'one last score'.
- Thread starter hanimmal
- Start date
Jimdamick
Well-Known Member
If Trump immoliated himself in the Rose Garden, crying that he was was wrong to say that COVID-19 would simply disapear, that would be some semblance of justice.
I still would not forgive him
But, what I want to see is the total aninialation/fucking destruction of the Trump "Empire"
I want to see his entire fucking family destroyed & die destituted for his actions, just like his actions have caused millions of Americans to suffer that fate due his fucking arrogance/stupdity.
I want retribution.
I still would not forgive him
But, what I want to see is the total aninialation/fucking destruction of the Trump "Empire"
I want to see his entire fucking family destroyed & die destituted for his actions, just like his actions have caused millions of Americans to suffer that fate due his fucking arrogance/stupdity.
I want retribution.
CunningCanuk
Well-Known Member
Amen to that, Father Jack!
kelly4
Well-Known Member
I would guess an odd # in the upper 40’s.
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
https://apnews.com/82489275685c971ccef66d9864ec916a
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats on Wednesday proposed a sweeping bill to curb presidential abuses, a pitch to voters weeks ahead of Election Day as they try to defeat President Donald Trump, capture the Senate from Republicans and keep their House majority.
The legislation, a wide-ranging package of new and revised bills, would limit the president’s pardon power, strengthen laws to ban presidents from receiving gifts or payments from foreign governments, better protect independent agency watchdogs and whistleblowers from firing or retribution and require better reporting by campaigns of foreign election interference.
Each of the bill’s provisions is a response to actions by Trump or his administration that Democrats see as abuses of presidential power. It builds on an elections and ethics reform package the House passed soon after Democrats reclaimed the majority in 2019.
The sweeping reform package is “designed to address the president’s staggering litany of abuses and ensure they can never happen again by anyone,″ said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who announced the legislation Wednesday along with the heads of seven House committees.
Pelosi called the measure “future focused” and said it would “restore checks and balances not only during this term but for any future president.″
“America has a choice,″ Pelosi added, referring to the legislation but also the upcoming election: ”to repair and strengthen our democracy or to look the other way and enable (Trump’s) actions.″
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who led Trump’s impeachment last year, said the reform package was needed “to constrain a lawless president” who has “shaken and broken guardrails″ in place since the beginning of the republic and strengthened after the Watergate scandal of the 1970s.
“We owe it to the American people to put in place meaningful constraints on power, fix what is broken and ensure there is never again a Richard Nixon or Donald Trump for either party,″ Schiff said.
Since taking office, Trump has placed his own personal and political interests above the national interest “by protecting and enriching himself, targeting his political opponents, seeking foreign interference in our elections, eroding transparency, seeking to end accountability, and otherwise abusing the power of his office,” Schiff and other committee chairs said in a joint statement.
The legislation comes as House Democrats have been repeatedly frustrated – including during impeachment – by efforts to gain information from the Trump administration and as officials have faced little consequence for defying subpoenas and ignoring requests and investigations. The bill would also strengthen congressional tools to enforce subpoenas by expediting the judicial process and allowing courts to fine officials who won’t comply.
“Congressional subpoenas are not requests that recipients can easily brush aside,″ said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Instead, subpoenas are ”indispensable tools” needed to hold the executive branch accountable for its actions, Neal and other Democrats said.
“The rule of law applies to every single person” in the country, “including the president,″ said Neal, who has tried unsuccessfully to obtain Trump’s tax records.
Congress has yet to send to the president any legislation to try to curb foreign election interference after Russia meddled on several fronts in the 2016 presidential contest. Legislation passed by the House on election reform and other issues has been left unconsidered by the Republican-controlled Senate, and Democrats acknowledged there is little chance the new bill will be approved this year.
Schiff called the Senate under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “a willing accomplice to many of the president’s actions,″ but said the situation may change if Democrat Joe Biden is elected president. Republicans who once imposed constraints on presidential power may support Democratic efforts next year, Schiff said.
“The degradation of our democracy over the past 3 1/2 years is not the work of the president alone,″ Schiff said. ”Donald Trump could not have accomplished what he has in terms of undermining our democracy without the willing help of GOP partners in the Senate.″
In addition to strengthening reporting requirements for campaigns, the bill would clarify and enhance criminal penalties for campaigns that accept foreign information sought or obtained for political advantage.
The election provisions are a response to the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russians during the 2016 campaign, including conversations between the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and intermediaries about information that could incriminate Democrat Hillary Clinton. A report by former special counsel Robert Mueller found multiple contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, but determined there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy between the two.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats on Wednesday proposed a sweeping bill to curb presidential abuses, a pitch to voters weeks ahead of Election Day as they try to defeat President Donald Trump, capture the Senate from Republicans and keep their House majority.
The legislation, a wide-ranging package of new and revised bills, would limit the president’s pardon power, strengthen laws to ban presidents from receiving gifts or payments from foreign governments, better protect independent agency watchdogs and whistleblowers from firing or retribution and require better reporting by campaigns of foreign election interference.
Each of the bill’s provisions is a response to actions by Trump or his administration that Democrats see as abuses of presidential power. It builds on an elections and ethics reform package the House passed soon after Democrats reclaimed the majority in 2019.
The sweeping reform package is “designed to address the president’s staggering litany of abuses and ensure they can never happen again by anyone,″ said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who announced the legislation Wednesday along with the heads of seven House committees.
Pelosi called the measure “future focused” and said it would “restore checks and balances not only during this term but for any future president.″
“America has a choice,″ Pelosi added, referring to the legislation but also the upcoming election: ”to repair and strengthen our democracy or to look the other way and enable (Trump’s) actions.″
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who led Trump’s impeachment last year, said the reform package was needed “to constrain a lawless president” who has “shaken and broken guardrails″ in place since the beginning of the republic and strengthened after the Watergate scandal of the 1970s.
“We owe it to the American people to put in place meaningful constraints on power, fix what is broken and ensure there is never again a Richard Nixon or Donald Trump for either party,″ Schiff said.
Since taking office, Trump has placed his own personal and political interests above the national interest “by protecting and enriching himself, targeting his political opponents, seeking foreign interference in our elections, eroding transparency, seeking to end accountability, and otherwise abusing the power of his office,” Schiff and other committee chairs said in a joint statement.
The legislation comes as House Democrats have been repeatedly frustrated – including during impeachment – by efforts to gain information from the Trump administration and as officials have faced little consequence for defying subpoenas and ignoring requests and investigations. The bill would also strengthen congressional tools to enforce subpoenas by expediting the judicial process and allowing courts to fine officials who won’t comply.
“Congressional subpoenas are not requests that recipients can easily brush aside,″ said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Instead, subpoenas are ”indispensable tools” needed to hold the executive branch accountable for its actions, Neal and other Democrats said.
“The rule of law applies to every single person” in the country, “including the president,″ said Neal, who has tried unsuccessfully to obtain Trump’s tax records.
Congress has yet to send to the president any legislation to try to curb foreign election interference after Russia meddled on several fronts in the 2016 presidential contest. Legislation passed by the House on election reform and other issues has been left unconsidered by the Republican-controlled Senate, and Democrats acknowledged there is little chance the new bill will be approved this year.
Schiff called the Senate under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “a willing accomplice to many of the president’s actions,″ but said the situation may change if Democrat Joe Biden is elected president. Republicans who once imposed constraints on presidential power may support Democratic efforts next year, Schiff said.
“The degradation of our democracy over the past 3 1/2 years is not the work of the president alone,″ Schiff said. ”Donald Trump could not have accomplished what he has in terms of undermining our democracy without the willing help of GOP partners in the Senate.″
In addition to strengthening reporting requirements for campaigns, the bill would clarify and enhance criminal penalties for campaigns that accept foreign information sought or obtained for political advantage.
The election provisions are a response to the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russians during the 2016 campaign, including conversations between the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and intermediaries about information that could incriminate Democrat Hillary Clinton. A report by former special counsel Robert Mueller found multiple contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, but determined there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy between the two.
smoke report? it must be something good.
The Election That Could Break America
If the vote is close, Donald Trump could easily throw the election into chaos and subvert the result. Who will stop him?
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-spending-trump-kids/2020/10/12/ffc1c330-ff31-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html
Eric Trump took his Secret Service agents to Trump golf courses in Scotland, as he led transatlantic tours for paying customers. Donald Trump Jr. took his protectors to the Trump hotel in Vancouver, stopping over on hunting trips to Canada.
And Ivanka Trump took her Secret Service detail to the Trump golf club in Bedminster, N.J., again and again — even after she asked other Americans to “please, please” stay home during the coronavirus pandemic.
On trips like these, Secret Service agents were there to protect Trump’s children. But, for the Trump family business, their visits also brought a hidden side benefit.
Money.
That’s because when Trump’s adult children visited Trump properties, Trump’s company charged the Secret Service for agents to come along. The president’s company billed the U.S. government hundreds, or thousands, of dollars for rooms agents used on each trip, as the agency sometimes booked multiple rooms or a multiroom rental cottage on the property
Many of Trump’s marquee properties, such as his Doral resort in Florida and his hotel in Washington, have struggled in recent years, weighed down by Trump’s divisive politics. Last week, the New York Times reported that Trump’s tax returns show that his businesses lost millions of dollars in recent years— even before the pandemic, which slammed the travel business and caused widespread closures and layoffs at Trump properties.
The Secret Service and the White House declined to comment for this article, as did Ivanka Trump — the president’s eldest daughter, who left the Trump Organization to work in government. The president’s other adult children — Eric, Donald Jr. and Tiffany — did not respond to requests for comment.
Eric and Donald Jr. are said to run the Trump Organization day to day, although their father still owns it.
In the past, Eric Trump has defended the company’s decision to charge the Secret Service for rooms at Trump properties, saying the law does not allow them to give rooms free. He has not said what law he is referring to. He has said, however, that the company charges the government very low rates — “We charge them cost, effectively housekeeping cost,” he said in a Fox News podcast earlier this year.
“I joke all the time that I would like nothing more than to never have another person from the government stay at one of our properties because it displaces a true paying guest,” Eric Trump said on the podcast.
Neither the White House nor the Trump Organization will say how much the government has paid to Trump’s business in total since he took office.
Instead, The Post has compiled its own accounting, one receipt at a time, using public-records requests and a lawsuit. After the release of records last month, that total now stands at $1.2 million — most of which is related to Trump’s own travel, which includes more than 270 visits to his properties, according to the Post tally.
Previously, records obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington showed that agents had accompanied members of the Trump family on thousands of trips since the president took office.
But until now, it was not clear how much taxpayer revenue Trump’s children’s travel had brought back to their father’s company this way. The latest batch of Secret Service records obtained by The Post provides a clearer picture, by identifying Trump’s children as the drivers behind dozens of such transactions.
In most cases, the Secret Service redacted the room rates it had been charged by the Trump Organization, making it difficult to check Eric Trump’s assertion that the company charged only enough to recoup housekeeping costs.
Among the bills that did list a room rate, the cheapest rate was $175 per night, for a room at the Trump hotel in Washington. But the rates at times climbed much higher.
These payments stand in contrast to a philosophy that Eric Trump laid out in the early days of his father’s presidency, that the family would not use Trump’s power for financial gain.
“There are lines that we would never cross, and that’s mixing business with anything government,” Eric Trump told The Post in 2017.
Among Trump’s four adult children, the youngest — Tiffany Trump — appears just once in the Secret Service records obtained by The Post. She accompanied her older brothers to the grand opening of the Trump hotel in Vancouver in 2017. Their combined Secret Service details required 56 rooms, and the Trump hotel charged the government $14,900.
The records also show about $29,000 in federal payments to Trump properties that related to travel by Donald Trump Jr. He stayed repeatedly at the Trump hotel in Washington — just blocks from his father’s residence at the White House. His trips included two to testify to Senate committees investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
He also made several return trips to the Trump hotel in Vancouver. A former manager at that hotel said Trump Jr. sometimes visited on his way to or from fishing or hunting trips in Canada.
“We would at least seal off 15 rooms” for Trump and his Secret Service agents, the former manager said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preserve relationships in the hotel business.
Trump does not own the Vancouver hotel, but his company is paid to manage the property and license Trump’s name. The Vancouver Trump hotel is now shuttered: The owner of its building declared bankruptcy in August, blaming a drop in business caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
In the records obtained by The Post, travel by Ivanka Trump and her family accounted for more than $42,000 in federal payments to Trump properties.
Much of that total came this spring, after Ivanka Trump had urged other Americans not to travel.
“For those lucky enough to be in a position to stay at home, please, please, do so,” she said in a video posted to Instagram on March 29. “Each and every one of us plays a role in slowing the spread.”
Between mid-March and mid-June, the Secret Service records show 13 trips to Bedminster by Ivanka Trump or her husband, Jared Kushner, plus three others by Trump family members whose names were redacted. For most of that time, D.C. and New Jersey were asking residents to stay home if possible to avoid spreading the novel coronavirus. A spokesman for Kushner did not respond to a request for comment.
During this period, the Trump golf club charged the Secret Service even more than usual for rooms at Bedminster. The typical rate, during past visits by Trump family members, was $567 per night for agents to stay at a four-room cottage at the club.
at least it's not cowboy catheter.
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-newest-executive-order-could-prove-one-of-his-most-insidious/2020/10/23/c8223cac-1561-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S newest executive order, signed without fanfare this week, could prove one of his most insidious.
The directive from the White House, issued late Wednesday, sounds technical: creating a new “Schedule F” within the “excepted service” of the federal government for employees in policymaking roles, and directing agencies to determine who qualifies. Its implications, however, are profound and alarming. It gives those in power the authority to fire more or less at will as many as tens of thousands of workers currently in the competitive civil service, from managers to lawyers to economists to, yes, scientists. This week’s order is a major salvo in the president’s onslaught against the cadre of dedicated civil servants whom he calls the “deep state” — and who are really the greatest strength of the U.S. government.
The administration grounds its action in the need to rid itself of “poor performers.” Certainly, there’s room for reform to the cumbersome process required to remove those who fall short of standards. But this president’s criteria for determining satisfactory performance begin and end with personal loyalty. The White House admitted last winter to seeking to purge from payrolls those deemed insufficiently reliable — the “bad people,” in Mr. Trump’s words. The protections for career civil servants currently in place at least put some roadblocks on that path, hence this legally dubious plan to erase those protections with a touch of organizational sleight of hand. Not only will politically motivated firing become easier, but it will also be easier to hire those who meet Mr. Trump’s standards: obsequiousness and, more often than not, a lack of qualifications. With no competitive process in place, leaders can appoint whom they please — or rather, who pleases them.
The order is so vaguely written it is unclear exactly who would fall into the category it conjures up. It is clear, though, that the targets are the cream of the civil service crop — precisely those who have frustrated the administration in its attempts to impose its agenda over ethics, evidence and good sense. Think of the Federal Aviation Administration employee evaluating whether an airliner is safe to fly, or the federal prosecutor deciding in a sensitive case whether to seek an indictment. Think of the Food and Drug Administration employee evaluating the efficacy of a vaccine.
This scheme, if it stands up in court, would transform a substantial portion of the professional federal workforce into a political federal workforce. Evidence-based decision-making would fall to cronyism; expertise would go out the window and patronage would fly in. The repository of knowledge that distinguishes our nation’s government, ready to be furnished no matter who sits in the Oval Office, would drain away. This is, of course, what today’s occupant of the Oval Office has wanted all along. The deadline for agencies to complete their review is Jan. 19, the day before the inauguration — which means Mr. Trump will try to realize his sad vision in his second term, unless voters are wise enough to stop him.
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S newest executive order, signed without fanfare this week, could prove one of his most insidious.
The directive from the White House, issued late Wednesday, sounds technical: creating a new “Schedule F” within the “excepted service” of the federal government for employees in policymaking roles, and directing agencies to determine who qualifies. Its implications, however, are profound and alarming. It gives those in power the authority to fire more or less at will as many as tens of thousands of workers currently in the competitive civil service, from managers to lawyers to economists to, yes, scientists. This week’s order is a major salvo in the president’s onslaught against the cadre of dedicated civil servants whom he calls the “deep state” — and who are really the greatest strength of the U.S. government.
The administration grounds its action in the need to rid itself of “poor performers.” Certainly, there’s room for reform to the cumbersome process required to remove those who fall short of standards. But this president’s criteria for determining satisfactory performance begin and end with personal loyalty. The White House admitted last winter to seeking to purge from payrolls those deemed insufficiently reliable — the “bad people,” in Mr. Trump’s words. The protections for career civil servants currently in place at least put some roadblocks on that path, hence this legally dubious plan to erase those protections with a touch of organizational sleight of hand. Not only will politically motivated firing become easier, but it will also be easier to hire those who meet Mr. Trump’s standards: obsequiousness and, more often than not, a lack of qualifications. With no competitive process in place, leaders can appoint whom they please — or rather, who pleases them.
The order is so vaguely written it is unclear exactly who would fall into the category it conjures up. It is clear, though, that the targets are the cream of the civil service crop — precisely those who have frustrated the administration in its attempts to impose its agenda over ethics, evidence and good sense. Think of the Federal Aviation Administration employee evaluating whether an airliner is safe to fly, or the federal prosecutor deciding in a sensitive case whether to seek an indictment. Think of the Food and Drug Administration employee evaluating the efficacy of a vaccine.
This scheme, if it stands up in court, would transform a substantial portion of the professional federal workforce into a political federal workforce. Evidence-based decision-making would fall to cronyism; expertise would go out the window and patronage would fly in. The repository of knowledge that distinguishes our nation’s government, ready to be furnished no matter who sits in the Oval Office, would drain away. This is, of course, what today’s occupant of the Oval Office has wanted all along. The deadline for agencies to complete their review is Jan. 19, the day before the inauguration — which means Mr. Trump will try to realize his sad vision in his second term, unless voters are wise enough to stop him.
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
(Well worth visiting Washington post to read this article)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/trump-secret-service-spending/?tid=pm_graphics_pop_b
What President Trump’s company charges the Secret Service
By David A. Fahrenthold Updated Oct. 12, 2020
President Trump’s company charges the Secret Service for the rooms agents use while protecting Trump at his properties. The charges have been as high as $650 per night for a room at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., or $17,000 a month for a cottage at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey.
Who pays these bills? U.S. taxpayers. That means Trump has a business arrangement with his own government, which has brought the Trump Organization at least $1.2 million in revenue. But the details of that relationship remain largely hidden.
The Secret Service has released hundreds of documents showing payments to Trump properties, in response to public-records requests and a lawsuit filed by The Washington Post. But these documents are often cryptic, with key details redacted. And other federal agencies, including the State and Defense departments, have released far fewer records.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/trump-secret-service-spending/?tid=pm_graphics_pop_b
What President Trump’s company charges the Secret Service
By David A. Fahrenthold Updated Oct. 12, 2020
President Trump’s company charges the Secret Service for the rooms agents use while protecting Trump at his properties. The charges have been as high as $650 per night for a room at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., or $17,000 a month for a cottage at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey.
Who pays these bills? U.S. taxpayers. That means Trump has a business arrangement with his own government, which has brought the Trump Organization at least $1.2 million in revenue. But the details of that relationship remain largely hidden.
The Secret Service has released hundreds of documents showing payments to Trump properties, in response to public-records requests and a lawsuit filed by The Washington Post. But these documents are often cryptic, with key details redacted. And other federal agencies, including the State and Defense departments, have released far fewer records.
This is how The Post sought to unravel the mysteries in these documents, and to report the true extent of what Trump’s company has charged taxpayers.
topcat
Well-Known Member
Trump Organization renewed the TrumpTowerMoscow.com domain name — this year
"It would be comical if it weren't really happening," former Trump attorney Michael Cohen tells Salon
Collusion.
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-civil-servants-resign/2020/10/26/69d05a22-17a4-11eb-82db-60b15c874105_story.html
The Trump administration-appointed head of a key advisory council on the civil service has resigned over an executive order to strip away protections against political interference in hiring and firing for a large portion of the career federal workforce.
The order, which could affect tens of thousands or more career positions involved in making or carrying out policy, “is nothing more than a smoke screen for what is clearly an attempt to require the political loyalty of those who advise the President, or failing that, to enable their removal with little if any due process,” Ronald Sanders wrote in his letter of resignation Sunday from the Federal Salary Council.
“I simply cannot be part of an Administration that seeks . . . to replace apolitical expertise with political obeisance. Career Federal employees are legally and duty-bound to be nonpartisan; they take an oath to preserve and protect our Constitution and the rule of law . . . not to be loyal to a particular President or Administration,” he wrote.
Sanders has served in federal personnel positions across four decades, starting as a local labor relations officer for management and then holding senior positions at the Defense Department, the Internal Revenue Service, the Office of Personnel Management and the in intelligence community, among other roles.
Now the director of the School of Public Affairs at the University of South Florida, Sanders was appointed in 2018 to head the salary council, which oversees an annual comparison of federal vs. private-sector salaries and the locality-based pay system for a large majority of the 2.1 million executive branch employees.
His resignation comes just days after the latest annual meeting of the council, where Sanders argued for what he called the management point of view on several issues, including granting higher pay to federal employees working in certain areas. He also again questioned the methods the council uses in determining the “pay gap” with the private sector, which showed federal employees behind by 23 percent on average.
However, later that day, President Trump issued an executive order to redesignate career employees in “confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, and policy-advocating positions” as falling under rules that primarily apply to political appointees. Such “excepted service” positions do not require competition in hiring, or even public notice that a position is available, do not allow for union representation and do not allow for appeals of disciplinary actions, including firing.
Under the order, agencies are to conduct an initial review within three months, and a full review within seven months, of such positions. The OPM then would change their status, affecting both current and future employees. It is uncertain whether any could or would be changed before the first deadline, which falls just before Inauguration Day in January.
The White House released a statement Monday that did not directly address Sanders’s letter. “It should surprise no one that President Trump is increasing accountability in Washington,” the statement said. “This much-needed reform will improve the effectiveness of the federal government in essential policy-making positions.”
In resigning, Sanders said that although he is a lifelong Republican, he “cannot in good conscience continue” to serve the administration. Trump’s order “seeks to make loyalty to him the litmus test for many thousands of career civil servants, and that is something I cannot be part of.”
In a phone interview, Sanders said the order was “flagrantly different” from other administration initiatives he opposed, such as moving civil service policy directly under the White House—a plan that Congress last year blocked pending a study.
“I don’t want to sound too corny here, but it was just a matter of conscience,” Sanders said.
“When I saw that [order] and I did some soul-searching, I just don’t want to be a part of it, that’s all.”
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) called Sanders’s resignation “unfortunate but honorable.”
“Everyone should be outraged by Trump’s radical attack on the federal workforce, which seeks to take America’s civil service back 137 years to a time when political loyalty was deemed more important than merit or skill,” he said in a statement.
Top officials of two of the largest employee unions also supported Sanders’s decision to resign.
“Americans should be extremely concerned about a president who wants to replace professionalism and merit with political loyalty, who wants decisions based on ideology rather than facts, and who undermines trust in our government agencies to further a political agenda,” Tony Reardon, president of National Treasury Employees Union, said in a statement.
Jacqueline Simon, a member of the salary council who often clashed with Sanders over policy matters, said: “It’s extremely late in the day to do the right thing, but he’s doing the right thing.”
“This executive order was somehow either a last straw or a bridge too far,” Simon, public policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a phone interview. “I think it’s the worst thing Trump has done on the civil service.”
The Trump administration-appointed head of a key advisory council on the civil service has resigned over an executive order to strip away protections against political interference in hiring and firing for a large portion of the career federal workforce.
The order, which could affect tens of thousands or more career positions involved in making or carrying out policy, “is nothing more than a smoke screen for what is clearly an attempt to require the political loyalty of those who advise the President, or failing that, to enable their removal with little if any due process,” Ronald Sanders wrote in his letter of resignation Sunday from the Federal Salary Council.
“I simply cannot be part of an Administration that seeks . . . to replace apolitical expertise with political obeisance. Career Federal employees are legally and duty-bound to be nonpartisan; they take an oath to preserve and protect our Constitution and the rule of law . . . not to be loyal to a particular President or Administration,” he wrote.
Sanders has served in federal personnel positions across four decades, starting as a local labor relations officer for management and then holding senior positions at the Defense Department, the Internal Revenue Service, the Office of Personnel Management and the in intelligence community, among other roles.
Now the director of the School of Public Affairs at the University of South Florida, Sanders was appointed in 2018 to head the salary council, which oversees an annual comparison of federal vs. private-sector salaries and the locality-based pay system for a large majority of the 2.1 million executive branch employees.
His resignation comes just days after the latest annual meeting of the council, where Sanders argued for what he called the management point of view on several issues, including granting higher pay to federal employees working in certain areas. He also again questioned the methods the council uses in determining the “pay gap” with the private sector, which showed federal employees behind by 23 percent on average.
However, later that day, President Trump issued an executive order to redesignate career employees in “confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, and policy-advocating positions” as falling under rules that primarily apply to political appointees. Such “excepted service” positions do not require competition in hiring, or even public notice that a position is available, do not allow for union representation and do not allow for appeals of disciplinary actions, including firing.
Under the order, agencies are to conduct an initial review within three months, and a full review within seven months, of such positions. The OPM then would change their status, affecting both current and future employees. It is uncertain whether any could or would be changed before the first deadline, which falls just before Inauguration Day in January.
The White House released a statement Monday that did not directly address Sanders’s letter. “It should surprise no one that President Trump is increasing accountability in Washington,” the statement said. “This much-needed reform will improve the effectiveness of the federal government in essential policy-making positions.”
In resigning, Sanders said that although he is a lifelong Republican, he “cannot in good conscience continue” to serve the administration. Trump’s order “seeks to make loyalty to him the litmus test for many thousands of career civil servants, and that is something I cannot be part of.”
In a phone interview, Sanders said the order was “flagrantly different” from other administration initiatives he opposed, such as moving civil service policy directly under the White House—a plan that Congress last year blocked pending a study.
“I don’t want to sound too corny here, but it was just a matter of conscience,” Sanders said.
“When I saw that [order] and I did some soul-searching, I just don’t want to be a part of it, that’s all.”
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) called Sanders’s resignation “unfortunate but honorable.”
“Everyone should be outraged by Trump’s radical attack on the federal workforce, which seeks to take America’s civil service back 137 years to a time when political loyalty was deemed more important than merit or skill,” he said in a statement.
Top officials of two of the largest employee unions also supported Sanders’s decision to resign.
“Americans should be extremely concerned about a president who wants to replace professionalism and merit with political loyalty, who wants decisions based on ideology rather than facts, and who undermines trust in our government agencies to further a political agenda,” Tony Reardon, president of National Treasury Employees Union, said in a statement.
Jacqueline Simon, a member of the salary council who often clashed with Sanders over policy matters, said: “It’s extremely late in the day to do the right thing, but he’s doing the right thing.”
“This executive order was somehow either a last straw or a bridge too far,” Simon, public policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a phone interview. “I think it’s the worst thing Trump has done on the civil service.”
Freedom Club
Active Member
you guys 
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/30/state-department-wouldnt-reveal-its-payments-mar-a-lago-heres-how-we-found-them/
In April 2018, President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club charged taxpayers $3 so that Trump could drink water.
That charge was one of many bills that Mar-a-Lago sent to the State Department after Trump used his own club to host a summit with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. We reported it on Tuesday, in an article that revealed Trump’s company has received at least $2.5 million in government payments since the president took office.
I wrote that article, after months of reporting on the subject with a team of colleagues. How did we figure it out?
We started by asking the State Department.
The first time was eight months ago.
“I request copies of any documents from the State Department’s Regional Financial Management System - Disbursing Voucher Information Details forms where the vendor name is any of the following,” we wrote on Feb. 21 in a Freedom of Information Act request. What followed was a long list of Trump properties, including Mar-a-Lago.
That didn't work.
By law, the State Department was supposed to make a determination within 20 business days. But for years, it often hasn't met that deadline. The average response time for “complex” requests like ours is 307 days, according to State Department statistics.
In our case, 20 days passed. We got nothing.
So, six months ago, we tried asking the State Department’s press office. They had released some records of payments to Trump properties but few after October 2017. We wanted the rest, including records from Abe’s visit in 2018.
“Can you provide details of State Department payments to Mar-a-Lago or any Trump-branded property” since October 2017? I wrote in an email on April 22.
That also did not work.
“Would you be willing to accept responses off the record?” a State Department spokesperson wrote back.
We said no. Information provided “off the record” typically means that it can’t be included in the article in any form. That’s not much help to readers. The State Department declined to say anymore.
So, four months ago, we sued the State Department.
“The Post requests a declaratory judgment that the State Department has violated FOIA and that the Post is entitled to immediately receive the documents referenced above,” said our lawsuit, filed in June in federal court in Washington.
That seemed to work.
At first.
“State has collected approximately 450 pages of potentially responsive documents,” the government said in a court filing in August. In that filing, the department said it would “aspire to process potentially responsive records at a rate of 300 pages” and release the first batch on Oct. 15.
We had hoped the State Department would follow the example of the Secret Service, which we had also sued. The Secret Service released hundreds of pages of records showing payments to Trump properties.
But the State Department did not do that. When Oct. 15 came, it released just two pages.
Instead of revealing the full history of the State Department’s taxpayer-funded payments to the sitting president’s businesses, the records showed a single $8,300 payment to Trump’s golf club in Ireland. The president’s daughter-in-law had visited the club in 2019.
The club had charged the Secret Service for agents to follow her — following a common pattern, in which travel by Trump’s children and their families forced the government to spend money at Trump properties.
The rest of the pages likely wouldn’t be released until mid-November at the earliest, the State Department said. That meant we wouldn’t see them until after the 2020 election.
They said that was because so many different government agencies had been involved in the payments. Now, the State Department needed them to sign off on releasing the records.
The very fact that made these payments interesting — that they showed that multiple parts of Trump’s government had all spent money at Trump’s properties — was now a reason to delay their release.
“All of the responsive records in this case require external consultation with Executive Branch components, and some require multiple such consultations,” the government said in a legal filing last week.
Journalists often speak of trying “the front door,” which means asking for information through established channels: the press office and the public-records process. At other agencies, that had worked: The Defense Department responded to our public-records request without a lawsuit, providing records of more than 3,000 transactions at Trump properties.
But, at the State Department, we had tried all the front doors. We’d gotten all of two pages.
The question we started with — how much had the State Department spent at Trump’s properties? — was as much a mystery as it was in February.
So, two weeks ago, we tried something new. We didn't ask the State Department.
We asked everybody else.
Within a few days, we had obtained documents that showed payments the State Department had never previously disclosed. We reviewed those documents, compared them with documents we had already obtained from other sources and concluded they were authentic. They showed catering bills from Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s summits with Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Included in those bills was a $6,000 charge to taxpayers for floral arrangements during Abe’s 2018 visit.
And the $3 bill for Trump's water.
That was a powerful illustration that Trump has set up a hidden business relationship with his own government, which lets him effectively buy services from himself.
In this case, Trump's club sold the water. Trump drank the water. Then Trump’s club billed the taxpayers.
But, although that purchase happened 2½ years ago, taxpayers didn’t know until Tuesday.
The Washington Post asked the State Department for comment on this article on Thursday.
It has not responded.
In April 2018, President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club charged taxpayers $3 so that Trump could drink water.
That charge was one of many bills that Mar-a-Lago sent to the State Department after Trump used his own club to host a summit with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. We reported it on Tuesday, in an article that revealed Trump’s company has received at least $2.5 million in government payments since the president took office.
I wrote that article, after months of reporting on the subject with a team of colleagues. How did we figure it out?
We started by asking the State Department.
The first time was eight months ago.
“I request copies of any documents from the State Department’s Regional Financial Management System - Disbursing Voucher Information Details forms where the vendor name is any of the following,” we wrote on Feb. 21 in a Freedom of Information Act request. What followed was a long list of Trump properties, including Mar-a-Lago.
That didn't work.
By law, the State Department was supposed to make a determination within 20 business days. But for years, it often hasn't met that deadline. The average response time for “complex” requests like ours is 307 days, according to State Department statistics.
In our case, 20 days passed. We got nothing.
So, six months ago, we tried asking the State Department’s press office. They had released some records of payments to Trump properties but few after October 2017. We wanted the rest, including records from Abe’s visit in 2018.
“Can you provide details of State Department payments to Mar-a-Lago or any Trump-branded property” since October 2017? I wrote in an email on April 22.
That also did not work.
“Would you be willing to accept responses off the record?” a State Department spokesperson wrote back.
We said no. Information provided “off the record” typically means that it can’t be included in the article in any form. That’s not much help to readers. The State Department declined to say anymore.
So, four months ago, we sued the State Department.
“The Post requests a declaratory judgment that the State Department has violated FOIA and that the Post is entitled to immediately receive the documents referenced above,” said our lawsuit, filed in June in federal court in Washington.
That seemed to work.
At first.
“State has collected approximately 450 pages of potentially responsive documents,” the government said in a court filing in August. In that filing, the department said it would “aspire to process potentially responsive records at a rate of 300 pages” and release the first batch on Oct. 15.
We had hoped the State Department would follow the example of the Secret Service, which we had also sued. The Secret Service released hundreds of pages of records showing payments to Trump properties.
But the State Department did not do that. When Oct. 15 came, it released just two pages.
Instead of revealing the full history of the State Department’s taxpayer-funded payments to the sitting president’s businesses, the records showed a single $8,300 payment to Trump’s golf club in Ireland. The president’s daughter-in-law had visited the club in 2019.
The club had charged the Secret Service for agents to follow her — following a common pattern, in which travel by Trump’s children and their families forced the government to spend money at Trump properties.
The rest of the pages likely wouldn’t be released until mid-November at the earliest, the State Department said. That meant we wouldn’t see them until after the 2020 election.
They said that was because so many different government agencies had been involved in the payments. Now, the State Department needed them to sign off on releasing the records.
The very fact that made these payments interesting — that they showed that multiple parts of Trump’s government had all spent money at Trump’s properties — was now a reason to delay their release.
“All of the responsive records in this case require external consultation with Executive Branch components, and some require multiple such consultations,” the government said in a legal filing last week.
Journalists often speak of trying “the front door,” which means asking for information through established channels: the press office and the public-records process. At other agencies, that had worked: The Defense Department responded to our public-records request without a lawsuit, providing records of more than 3,000 transactions at Trump properties.
But, at the State Department, we had tried all the front doors. We’d gotten all of two pages.
The question we started with — how much had the State Department spent at Trump’s properties? — was as much a mystery as it was in February.
So, two weeks ago, we tried something new. We didn't ask the State Department.
We asked everybody else.
That worked.
Within a few days, we had obtained documents that showed payments the State Department had never previously disclosed. We reviewed those documents, compared them with documents we had already obtained from other sources and concluded they were authentic. They showed catering bills from Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s summits with Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Included in those bills was a $6,000 charge to taxpayers for floral arrangements during Abe’s 2018 visit.
And the $3 bill for Trump's water.
That was a powerful illustration that Trump has set up a hidden business relationship with his own government, which lets him effectively buy services from himself.
In this case, Trump's club sold the water. Trump drank the water. Then Trump’s club billed the taxpayers.
But, although that purchase happened 2½ years ago, taxpayers didn’t know until Tuesday.
The Washington Post asked the State Department for comment on this article on Thursday.
It has not responded.
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-election-ethics/2020/10/31/46fb0948-1b19-11eb-82db-60b15c874105_story.html
In the final days of the 2020 election season, President Trump has featured his White House press secretary as a star at his campaign rallies, where she has triumphantly joined him onstage.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka, a senior White House adviser, has stumped for him and on Saturday posted a stylized photo with uniformed law enforcement officers in Wisconsin, a key battleground.
His top aides, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser Robert O’Brien, have found pressing official business in a number of swing states, traveling there on taxpayer money.
And Trump is considering shifting his election night viewing party from the Trump International Hotel to the White House — a move that could help him skirt the local D.C. government’s coronavirus restrictions while also overriding long-standing norms from both political parties to refrain from overt campaigning at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
For months, Trump has obliterated the lines between campaigning and governing, and he and his aides have accelerated their drive to leverage the power of the presidency to shore up his election chances with days left before Tuesday’s vote. Trailing in the polls to Democratic nominee Joe Biden, Trump has employed an all-hands-on-deck approach to maintaining the office, dispatching aides to act as surrogates and using the government’s machinery to bolster his campaign.
The activities have drawn rebukes from government ethics watchdogs and Democrats who have charged that Trump’s team is trampling over the Hatch Act, which prohibits most senior officials, outside of the president and vice president, from engaging in electioneering activities while on the job.
A report released Thursday by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination, said that 14 Trump administration officials had been found to have violated the law a total of 54 times. At least an additional 22 officials are under investigation for nearly 100 more violations, the report said.
All presidents running for reelection have been bolstered by the trappings of office — traveling with a large media contingent, a government plane and a megaphone amplified by the ability to turn White House events into de facto campaign advertisements.
Like Trump, Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush used Air Force One as a dramatic background at campaign rallies held on airport tarmacs. But as he has barnstormed through swing states during the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has upped the ante — staging the vast majority of his rallies at airports with the majestic presidential jet as a set piece. He also has used Marine One to make theatrical low flyovers at some rallies, thrilling supporters.
Past White Houses have carefully sought to wall off their West Wing staff from the campaigns. But on Thursday, Trump called McEnany onstage at a rally in Tampa, then played a video clip of her acting as a campaign surrogate in a television interview earlier in the day.
In the clip, she attacks Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey over the social media company’s decision to limit the spread of unverified information circulated by Trump allies in an effort to tar Biden. She also defends Trump’s management of the pandemic, which has killed more than 229,000 Americans, with infection rates spiking again through the country.
“Who’s going to say it better than Kayleigh?” Trump said, as the crowd cheered. Her husband, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Sean Gilmartin, had joined them, holding their infant daughter.
Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One, a nonprofit group that advocates for political reform, said that laws such as the Hatch Act are intended to preserve a functioning democracy.
“The norms are what differentiate a functional democratic republic from all the other banana republics around the world,” McGehee said. “The danger of throwing out the norms is that the machinery of government begins to seize up and the American people don’t have faith” in the system.
Trump has used the pandemic as cover to make decisions that, in the past, would be unthinkable for a sitting president. For instance, after the Republican National Convention was canceled in Charlotte in August, Trump delivered his renomination acceptance speech before 1,500 guests on the South Lawn of the White House.
Earlier this year, the Treasury Department ordered that Trump’s name be signed on federal stimulus checks sent in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Agriculture Department included letters signed by Trump in the emergency food boxes it sent to food banks across the nation.
Meanwhile, Cabinet members have stumped for Trump while appearing in their official capacity. In October, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue was cited by the Office of Special Counsel, a federal watchdog agency, for violating the Hatch Act by advocating for the president during an official trip to North Carolina. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is being investigated by the same office for taking aim at Biden during a Fox News interview.
O’Brien recently traveled to battleground areas of Minnesota and Wisconsin to talk up the Trump administration’s support for local mining and defense contractors. Pompeo spoke to a Texas megachurch, addressed the Wisconsin legislature and made virtual remarks to a Florida conservative antiabortion group.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler spent 40 days this year on trips to swing states on government business, compared with just 10 days visiting non-swing states, according to a report from E & E News.
Acting Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli have traveled to swing states on official visits to reinforce Trump’s immigration policies. The watchdog group American Oversight filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel requesting an investigation into whether their events were aimed at affecting the outcome of the election.
Wolf had already received a warning for taking part in a naturalization ceremony at the White House in August that was televised during the GOP convention.
“What we’re seeing now would have been inconceivable to the previous administration,” said a former Obama White House aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person’s new job did not authorize on-the-record comments. “It’s not simply the Hatch Act violations. Those are the symptoms. The broader disease at play here is the intermingling of political interests and the national interest.”
Federal agencies have also been producing content using taxpayer money that borders on campaign materials. This past week, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt released a campaign-style video on the Interior Department’s official Twitter account in which Trump praised his work preserving “the awesome majesty of God’s creations.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement also launched a billboard campaign last month in Pennsylvania featuring “criminal aliens” wanted for federal crimes. The signs dovetailed with Trump’s campaign message, saying, “Sanctuary Policies are a REAL DANGER.”
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
WASHINGTON (AP) — When the Trump administration gave a well-connected Republican donor seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology, it noted the company’s “manufacturing facilities” in Charleston, South Carolina.
Plasma Technologies LLC is indeed based in the stately waterfront city. But there are no manufacturing facilities. Instead, the company exists within the luxury condo of its majority owner, Eugene Zurlo.
Zurlo’s company may be in line for as much as $65 million in taxpayer dollars; enough to start building an actual production plant, according to internal government records and other documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The story of how a tiny business that exists only on paper has managed to snare attention from the highest reaches of the U.S. military and government is emblematic of the Trump administration’s frenetic response to the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s also another in a series of contracts awarded to people with close political ties to key officials despite concerns voiced by government scientists. Among the others: an ill-conceived $21 million study of Pepcid as a COVID therapy and more than a half billion dollars to ApiJect Systems America, a startup with an unapproved medicine injection technology and no factory to manufacture the devices.
In addition, a government whistleblower claimed that a $1.6 billion vaccine contract to Novavax Inc. was made over objections of scientific staff.
At the center of these deals is Dr. Robert Kadlec, a senior Trump appointee at the Department of the Health and Human Services who backed the Pepcid, Novavax and ApiJect projects. Records obtained by the AP also describe Kadlec as a key supporter of Zurlo’s company.
In one government email obtained by the AP, an official said Kadlec, whose job as assistant secretary for preparedness and response is to help guide the nation through public health emergencies, was “all in” on Plasma Technologies.
This was the case despite misgivings from the scientists he oversees. One of them said the company would be just another “mouth to feed” that would distract from other important work on the pandemic. An HHS spokesperson said Kadlec “does not have a role in technical review of proposals nor in negotiating contracts.”
Kadlec has come under pressure from the White House to act with more urgency and not be bound by lower-level officials whom Trump has castigated as the “deep state” and accused of politically motivated delays in fielding COVID-19 vaccines and remedies. This pressure has led to investments in numerous untested companies.
The AP reached out to more than a dozen blood plasma industry leaders and medical experts. Few had heard of Zurlo’s company or its technology, and would not comment.
Zurlo, the company’s founder and a former pharmaceutical industry executive, told the AP in an email that the renewed interest in his company is being driven by COVID and other diseases.
“It is increasingly clear that the collection of adequate supplies of plasma is not possible; the answer being the adoption of new process technology that fully utilizes the scarce plasma currently available,” he said.
But whether Zurlo’s technology, which claims to increase the amount of disease-fighting plasma harvested from human blood, will be an improvement over other methods is still anyone’s guess.
___
A FORMER SENATOR ON BOARD
Top government officials began to take notice of Plasma Technologies after Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania and two-time presidential candidate, became part-owner, according to the records and AP interviews.
After Congress supplied hundreds of billions of dollars to combat the pandemic, Santorum stepped up his sales pitch for the company’s method of turning human plasma into a therapeutic product — a process the company has described as a game changer. In mid-August, the federal government awarded Plasma Technologies a $750,000 grant to demonstrate that it could deliver on its promises.
Santorum, who’s held no elective office since 2007, remains influential among social conservatives, a key part of President Donald Trump’s political base. Santorum has extolled the president’s handling of the pandemic on national television in his job as a CNN commentator, arguing that the nation’s response would have been worse under a Democratic administration.
Trump “didn’t botch it,” Santorum said recently in response to charges that the president had done a poor job leading the country through COVID-19. “I mean you guys keep blaming Trump. This is a local decision.”
HHS would not comment when asked whether Santorum’s public backing of the president led to a company he has a financial stake in getting a government contract.
Zurlo has deep ties to the Republican Party. He has contributed thousands of dollars to Santorum’s campaigns and to other GOP campaigns and political action committees. He entertained Santorum and his family at the mansion Zurlo used to own on Kiawah Island, an exclusive golf resort in South Carolina. They would play golf during the day and enjoy evenings overlooking the Atlantic, according to Michel “Mitch” LaPlante, a former business associate of Zurlo’s who attended several dinners with Santorum and Zurlo.
The business relationship between Zurlo and LaPlante turned ugly after those days of hobnobbing on Kiawah. A real estate deal they had invested in together fell into foreclosure, leading to a suit seeking more than $700 million by their mortgage lender. Each man sued the other for fraud and severed their business ties acrimoniously.
Zurlo founded Plasma Technologies in 2003, according to articles of organization and other records filed with South Carolina’s secretary of state. The company’s most recently listed address is Zurlo’s condominium in Charleston’s French Quarter.
The company has no other presence in South Carolina — or any other state — even though a U.S. government spokeswoman told the AP that Plasma Technologies has “manufacturing facilities” in Charleston.
“Fairy tale,” LaPlante said when asked if Plasma Technologies operates any commercial space in South Carolina’s most populous city.
___
OUTSIDE, LOOKING IN
A spokesman for Abeona Therapeutics declined to comment on the licensing agreement with Plasma Technologies.
Santorum blamed the deal’s demise on onerous regulatory hurdles imposed by the Food and Drug Administration to ensure patient safety.
“They basically killed the product,” he said.
Santorum rejected any suggestion that Zurlo’s innovation is unproven, even though his company has never made an FDA-approved product. Plasma Technologies, he declared, is on the verge of transforming the industry, and for a fraction of the cost to develop a coronavirus vaccine.
“I’m just telling you, it’s gonna happen,” Santorum said.
___
“The connection is not viable from a contractual standpoint,” the officer wrote in a July 16 email.
Still, a week later, Plasma Technologies had a champion at the Pentagon.
Santorum said he was contacted by Steven Morani, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for materiel readiness. Defense Department officials were drawn to the idea of a U.S.-owned and operated fractionation facility, according to Santorum.
It’s not clear what changed, but messages from late July show Morani and other defense officials had conferred and would support the Plasma Technologies project. An initial $750,000 in emergency coronavirus spending would be used to prove the concept, a move backed by HHS, with as much as $65 million in government money to come later to build a commercial facility and to purchase plasma and other materials, according to the emails. That’s more even than Plasma Technologies requested.
The messages don’t say where that money would come from or why the additional $13.4 million is required.
Morani referred AP’s emailed questions about the company and the contract to a Defense Department spokeswoman, Jessica Maxwell, who declined to discuss future funding for Plasma Technologies.
“The $750,000 is currently the total amount of government funding planned for the effort,” Maxwell said.
Santorum, who criticized a reporter for writing what he termed a “political hit piece,” said Zurlo intends to donate any profits Plasma Technologies generates to charities that support the mission of the Catholic Church.
But Santorum had different plans for any returns on his investment.
“I have made no such claims as a father of seven who has three weddings this year,” he said. “If any money were to come, I would welcome that money to help pay my bills.”
Bagginski
Well-Known Member
Trump *IS* a landlord!