US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1142

PORT-AU-PRINCE
The five heavily armed Americans arrested in Haiti earlier this week are back on their home soil and won’t be facing any criminal charges in the United States — a decision already causing outrage among some Haitian leaders.

Federal sources told the Miami Herald that the men will not be charged criminally, but are being debriefed. They told U.S. authorities they were on the island providing private security for a “businessman” doing work with the Haitian government.

The five American citizens, who returned on a commercial flight to Miami on Wednesday night and were met by U.S. law enforcement, did not have any scheduled appearances in Miami federal court.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office referred calls to the State Department, which said only: “The return of the individuals to the U.S. was coordinated with the Haitian authorities.”

What promises the U.S. government made to secure the release of the men remain murky.

According to a letter obtained by the Miami Herald, Haitian Minister of Justice Jean Roody Aly wrote to Haiti’s Central Bureau of the Judicial Police saying he authorized the transfer of the five Americans and two U.S. permanent residents to the United States to stand trial there.

“I want to inform you that I’ve authorized a procedure of transfer to the United States of America of American citizens and United States permanent residents, a total of seven to respond to the charges of transporting illegal arms from the United States through the Haitian territory,” the letter reads.

Aly is aligned with beleaguered Haitian President Jovenel Moise, whose advisers tried to get the men removed from the custody of the country’s police. Moise has been under fire for his handling of the poverty-stricken nation’s economy; violent protests calling for his ouster have rocked Haiti in recent weeks.

Pierre Esperance, executive director of the National Human Rights Defense Network in Haiti, blasted the decision by U.S. authorities to not charge the men.

“What the Haitian government did is grave. It shows that they had something they were looking for. The fact that the U.S. took these people and did not charge them, it shows there was a conspiracy. They didn’t want them to go before Haitian justice,” he told the Miami Herald.

The release of the men from the Haitian justice system is causing a political uproar in Haiti, a country already in upheaval.

On Thursday, the Haitian Senate summoned the government’s security council, headed by Haitian Prime Minister Jean Henry Céant, to answer questions about who authorized the release of the five Americans and two Serbians. The prime minister said he wasn’t available and the meeting has been postponed for 11 a.m. Monday, said Sen. Youri Latortue, head of the Senate’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.

“I saw the justice minister and he said there was no way they could be freed. The attorney general said there was no way they could be freed. So we thought they weren’t going to free them,” Latortue said. “The prime minister said he doesn’t know anything. The president said he doesn’t know anything. “

Ceant said they men planned to break into the central bank and then to assassinate Ceant, Latortue added.

The men were in two vehicles without license plates, and police found a cache of automatic rifles and pistols. The eight were arrested on weapons charges. Police sources originally cited a list as part of the evidence that included documents, satellite phones and drones, but later told the Herald that the list — which cited the names of two police officials — did not belong to the suspects and were documents that got co-mingled with the evidence inside they found inside the unmarked vehicles.

The Americans are former Navy Seal officers Christopher Michael Osman and Christopher Mark McKinley, and Marine veteran Kent Leland Kroeker, as well as Talon Ray Burton and Dustin Porte. Burton is a private investigator once employed by Blackwater and the State Department’s diplomatic security service. His wife said she had no idea he was in Haiti until she received a phone call from him saying he was imprisoned in Port-au-Prince.

McKinley’s Twitter profile went silent after Valentine’s Day. The group was arrested Feb. 17.

The others were two Serbians, at least one of whom is a U.S. permanent resident, and a Haitian national who was deported from the United States. The Serbians were scheduled to arrive back in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

According to the Haitian police, the men claimed they were on a “government mission” when they were pulled over about a block away from the nation’s central bank. The U.S. government intervened after Céant, speaking on CNN, called the group “mercenaries” and “terrorists.”

On February 23 2019 00:22 KwarK wrote:
Plansix, they already took cash out of the hands of shareholders by slashing their dividend. It’s in the article.

On February 23 2019 01:14 JimmiC wrote:
This is not a cataclysmic fall though, not yet anyway. Not to mention those brands have too much value. If this company fails another will scoop them up.

You are making a lot of assumptions, none of which have happened or are likely.

Most voters say top Justice Department and FBI officials are likely to have acted criminally when they secretly discussed removing President Trump from office and think a special prosecutor is needed to investigate.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of Likely U.S. Voters believe senior federal law enforcement officials are likely to have broken the law in their discussions in May 2017 to oust Trump, with 37% who say it is Very Likely. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 36% consider that unlikely, with 19% who say it’s Not At All Likely that they broke the law. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Fifty-one percent (51%) think a special prosecutor should be named to investigate the discussions among senior Justice Department and FBI officials in May 2017 to remove the president from office. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree, but 11% are undecided.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters said in April of last year that a special prosecutor should be named to investigate whether senior FBI officials handled the investigations of Trump and Hillary Clinton in a legal and unbiased fashion.

Only 36% say no disciplinary action should be taken against the senior law enforcement officials who discussed removing the president from office. Twenty-one percent (21%) say they should be fired, while even more (25%) think they should be jailed. Twelve percent (12%) are calling for a formal reprimand of these officials.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 17-18, 2019 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

By a 50% to 40% margin, voters think it’s likely senior federal law enforcement officials broke the law in an effort to prevent Trump from winning the presidency. As in virtually all surveys related to Trump, however, there is a wide difference of opinion between Democrats and Republicans.

For example, while 77% of Republicans - and 52% of voters not affiliated with either major party - think senior law enforcement officials are likely to have broken the law in their secret discussions to remove Trump from office, just 40% of Democrats agree.

GOP voters feel much more strongly than the others that the officials in question should be fired or reprimanded.

Seventy-nine percent (79%) of voters who Strongly Approve of the job Trump is doing say it’s Very Likely senior law enforcement officials broke the law in their discussions to remove the president from office. Among voters who Strongly Disapprove of Trump’s job performance, just 12% agree.

Sixty percent (60%) of voters who think it’s Very Likely senior law enforcement officials broke the law say they should go to jail.

The high-level discussions by Justice Department and FBI officials about removing Trump from office followed the president’s firing of FBI Director James Comey. But voters don’t rate Comey’s FBI performance too highly. Nearly two-out-of-three Republicans (65%) and a plurality (46%) of unaffiliated voters said Comey should be prosecuted for leaking to anti-Trump media while serving as FBI director. Just 29% of Democrats agreed.

Fifty percent (50%) of voters still say it is likely that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 election, a matter that is the subject of investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI director. But 51% think it’s unlikely that Mueller’s investigation will result in criminal charges against the president.

Democrats are hopeful that they can impeach Trump if election collusion with the Russians is proven, but just 27% of Democrats - and 16% of all voters - think the new Congress should focus first on impeachment.

On February 23 2019 01:25 Plansix wrote:

My point was that there is an entire agency to regulate and punish companies for deceiving share holders and investors. The government values those people so much that they created an entire agency with real powers to go after CEOs and management that deceive investors in companies. Because straight up, the SEC is no joke. They will come for anyone that breaks the laws they are designed to enforce.

No such agency or laws exist to protect labor to the same degree as share holders. Because our government designed systems that protect “the job creators” but not the people who work those jobs. Labor is supposed to use “personal responsibility” to save up money and obtain health insurance and find new employment if their job doesn’t exist tomorrow. Companies can hire someone the day before they lay off an entire workforce and it is up to the worker to bring a claim against them in court, paying for their own representation.

But you are right that I am assuming that it this will cost jobs and hurt labor more than the share holders and management. I could be wrong and this could be the exception to what I have seen over the last decade or so. But I don’t believe I am going to be wrong.

On February 23 2019 01:51 xDaunt wrote:
Here's a Rasmussen poll on public perception of the Trump/Russia investigation:



These are some pretty interesting figures. I'm surprised that so many people think that the FBI/DOJ broke the law in their investigation of Trump. It's a fairly complicated story factually to understand. It's also a story that has received minimal, to the extent that it has received any, coverage from mainstream media outlets. It takes a lot of effort and individual initiative to understand what the relevant law enforcement officials did wrong and how the investigation went awry. In fact, the lack of understanding of the story and the correlating lack of media coverage is reflected in the fact that a majority of the same people who responded to the poll also believe that the Trump campaign likely colluded with the Russians. It may be that McCabe's book tour in which he talks about the discussions with Rosenstein about the 25th Amendment is so easily digestible and patently repugnant that it is singlehandedly turning people against the investigation (note that this poll was taken right after McCabe started his tour).

On February 23 2019 01:05 Plansix wrote:
There are, just not in the US. Labor protections exist in other countries that insulate labor from cataclysmic fall caused by management. They might not get to keep their jobs, but they won’t walk in to work one day and be told they are out of a job and have a week left in health insurance. They get a heads up.

Only 36% say no disciplinary action should be taken against the senior law enforcement officials who discussed removing the president from office. Twenty-one percent (21%) say they should be fired, while even more (25%) think they should be jailed. Twelve percent (12%) are calling for a formal reprimand of these officials.

On February 23 2019 02:55 warding wrote:

In Europe there's unemployment benefits but also firing costs for companies - if you get fired while on a "permanent" contract in PT you get compensation of 18 days' salary per year worked in the company. This sounds great, but in fact the more dynamic economies and labor markets in Europe tend to have fewer labor protections than countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy or France. Every extra euro I have to pay an employee in case of termination represents more risk when considering hiring, so it hinders hiring and causes unemployment.