well let me see if I can figure this out.....although doesn't take a rocket scientist……..pile of *******? and another with it's mouth open.....are you saying you don't like what's on your menu?
Wake Up, America! Wake Up! PLEASE!!
- Thread starter Drillher4me
- Start date
- Status
corruption corruption ..corruption....with the aid of gov people supposedly working for us...but helping to keep a dictator in power....and letting corruption run rampant
How Giuliani and Barr set out to defend Trump
Amid President Donald Trump’s years-long quest to undermine the Russia investigation and claim “total exoneration,” a tale of two lawyers has emerged.
The first — a former New York City mayor-turned fixer for various foreign potentates and, ultimately, for the president of the United States — took the outside lane, attempting to exonerate his client with a backchannel pressure campaign on Ukraine that would ostensibly clear Trump, and Moscow, of wrongdoing in 2016.
The second, a veteran corporate attorney who’s now served two Republican presidents as attorney general, has taken an inside track, defending Trump in the courts, congressional testimony, press conferences and speeches—and at times within his own department.
The work of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer and a key outside adviser dating back to the 2016 campaign, all but imploded when a whistleblower complaint about the president’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian leaders set off an impeachment investigation.
Attorney General Bill Barr’s efforts have arguably been more successful—at least, that is, in pleasing his boss
Barr’s presentation of the special counsel’s investigation as essentially clearing Trump of wrongdoing generated favorable headlines for the president and obscured key findings from Robert Mueller’s 448-page report. The review he ordered of the intelligence community’s conduct in the Russia probe may not yield the bombshells imagined by the president and his defenders, but it has fed a steady drip of stories in the conservative press touting damning revelations to come.
Even the long-awaited Justice Department Inspector General report due out Monday that is expected to debunk several conspiracy theories about the FBI’s Russia probe has served Barr’s interests in a way — generating cable chyrons announcing a criminal inquiry, albeit into the conduct of a low-level FBI lawyer.
And there is likely to be plenty of grist in the IG report to feed ongoing accusations that, as Barr himself has mused, the Russia investigation was tarnished by corrupt origins.
“Rudy has gone into legal grey areas and potentially beyond in his quest to help Trump,” said Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, which is investigating Giuliani’s work for foreign clients. “Whereas Barr hasn’t committed any crimes. He is a historically terrible attorney general, but he’s not a criminal.”
It’s not yet clear how Barr will characterize Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, which is due out Monday amid reports that the attorney general disagrees with some of its findings. The risk, for Barr, is that Horowitz and the broader review led by U.S. Attorney John Durham won’t produce the kind of narrative-shifting revelations Trump wants — assuming Durham ever produces any findings at all.
Barr still seems confident in his relationship with Trump, however, which has likely been bolstered by the attorney general’s public denunciations of the so-called “resistance.” In a recent speech to the conservative Federalist Society, Barr described the term used by some opposed to Trump as “a very dangerous and indeed incendiary notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic.”
The attorney general also laid some ground rules with the president early on in his tenure, he told New York Magazine for a recent profile.
“Right from the very beginning, the president made clear to me, and we discussed, that he will not get into the business of talking about, or asking me, either to pursue, or not to pursue, cases,” Barr said. “He leaves that up to my judgment.”
To that end, perhaps, Barr has been careful to distance himself from the Ukraine scandal — and from Giuliani.
On the morning the White House published the transcript of Trump’s call with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, the Justice Department denied that Barr had ever talked to the president about his efforts to pressure Zelensky into investigating Democrats.
"The president has not spoken with the attorney general about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his *******. The president has not asked the attorney general to contact Ukraine — on this or any other matter," spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement released at the same time as the Zelensky call record, which showed Trump offering to have Barr call the Ukrainian president.
"The attorney general has not communicated with Ukraine — on this or any other subject. Nor has the attorney general discussed this matter, or anything relating to Ukraine, with Rudy Giuliani,” Kupec said.
The Justice Department again distanced Barr from the Ukraine caper after Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, claimed that military aid to the Ukrainian government had been withheld in part to verify “whether or not they were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our Department of Justice.”
“If the White House was withholding aid in regards to the cooperation of any investigation at the Department of Justice, that is news to us,” a DOJ spokesperson said at the time.
It’s unclear if Barr himself has directly crossed paths with Giuliani, but at least one senior Trump appointee at the Justice Department earlier this summer met with the former New York mayor to hear his pitch for leniency in the case of one of his foreign clients, Alejandro Betancourt Lopez, according to the Washington Post. Lopez is a Venezuelan energy executive under scrutiny for possible money laundering and bribery.
The revelation of that encounter led to still more DOJ distancing — a department spokesman said that top officials wouldn’t have taken the meeting with Giuliani had they known at the time of an active investigation from the Southern District of New York into two Giuliani associates who have since been indicted on campaign finance charges. The men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, acted as intermediaries for Giuliani in Ukraine and at one point reportedly tried to recruit a top Ukrainian energy official to wage a takeover of the country’s state-owned oil and gas company, Naftogaz.
While Barr was airing his doubts about the Russia probe in media interviews, Giuliani was working outside official channels with foreign nationals to find evidence that would “be very, very helpful to my client,” as he told the New York Times in May, referring to Trump.
He primarily sought the State Department’s help, coordinating regularly with the U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and the former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker in an effort to pressure Zelensky into investigating the Bidens and 2016 election interference.
But Giuliani apparently spurned the advice of State Department officials, who suggested that any wrongdoing by Americans be pursued through official Justice Department channels. “What is proper and what happens frequently is the United States goes to Ukraine and asks for their help to pursue an investigation of violations of American law," the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, told impeachment investigators. “That’s what we have a mutual legal assistance treaty, an MLAT, for. But this is different.”
Giuliani has now been sidelined from formally working to defend Trump from impeachment, but his Ukraine sleuthing goes on. He traveled to Budapest and Kyiv last week with a far-right news outlet, where he met with several of the figures at the center of the impeachment proceedings including Lutsenko and former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin—all while under a federal criminal investigation by Barr’s Justice Department.
“I hear he’s found plenty,” Trump told reporters Saturday when asked about Giuliani’s trip. The president added that his personal attorney, a former top Reagan-era Justice Department official, was “one of the great crime fighters of the last 50 years” with plans to roll out his findings to Congress, Barr and the DOJ.
Trump allies who have embraced Barr, meanwhile, would more than welcome Giuliani exiting stage left. The challenge is that Trump perceives Giuliani — “my Rudy,” as he calls him — as a peer dating back to their days gracing the New York tabloids together.
“I think there’s a level of celebrity involved,” said a person who has worked for the president who isn’t pleased with how Giuliani’s efforts have upended the Trump agenda. “And it’s probably not helpful.”
Even Sondland, Giuliani’s collaborator on the Ukraine caper, privately groused to other State Department officials: “Every time Rudy gets involved he goes and f---s everything up.”
Jon Sale, a former personal attorney and longtime friend to Giuliani, bemoaned the criticism of the former New York mayor. “Everyone wants to blame Rudy for all the world’s woes,” he said.
Compared with Giuliani, Barr has arguably had far more success in shielding Trump — a campaign that began even before he took the attorney general job, when he wrote an unsolicited 20-page legal brief attacking the Mueller probe as a “fatally misconceived” assault on presidential power.
Months later, the newly minted DOJ leader outmaneuvered Mueller, his friend and former underling during the Bush years, when he took advantage of the special counsel’s narrow interpretation of his mandate to clear the president of wrongdoing before the special counsel’s report was made public.
Then, after the document’s release, Barr’s Justice Department worked to stymie House investigators in their efforts to obtain documents and testimony from Mueller’s witnesses. Democrats ended up stuck in protracted court battles that could be moot by the time they’re over — either because Trump is no longer in office, or because the Senate will have already voted against conviction.
Barr’s DOJ has taken other steps widely seen as benefiting Trump. The department’s Office of Legal Counsel determined that the whistleblower complaint that helped trigger the impeachment inquiry did not have to be shared with the congressional intelligence committees, despite the Intelligence Community inspector general’s conclusion that it rose to the level of an “urgent concern” requiring notification to lawmakers
And the Justice Department in September also declined to pursue a criminal investigation into potential campaign finance violations by Trump and his associates related to their demands for dirt on Biden.
Some legal experts say that decision reeked of politics.
“You’d normally think, yes, that professional prosecutors would feel an obligation to look into these situations,” said Philip Allen Lacovara, a former Watergate counsel. “But the leadership, including the attorney general, deputy attorney general, and the head of the criminal division all seem to be quite comfortable with ring-fencing the president on any of these activities.”
Still, Honig noted, Barr has decidedly less influence over the Ukraine investigation. Whereas Barr was able to release his own summary of Mueller’s findings before the full report was made public, preemptively shaping the narrative around the probe’s conclusions, he doesn’t have any authority over Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
“But he’s certainly done all that he can do to help the president in this case,” Honig said, “including by causing a diversion with the IG report in an attempt to give Trump and his supporters a counterpunch.”
The IG report is likely to present a mixed picture at best. Horowitz has reportedly concluded that the FBI had a proper legal and factual basis for opening an investigation into certain Trump campaign staffers’ Russia ties, and did not act out of bias when they opened the investigations. The findings will apparently fault some agents for acting sloppily, but will debunk a central conspiracy theory pushed by Trump and his allies that the FBI tried to entrap his campaign and derail his candidacy.
Ahead of the report’s release, however, Barr’s dissatisfaction with that finding leaked to the Washington Post, preemptively casting doubt on Horowitz’s conclusions and spurring the president and his allies to look elsewhere for a friendly narrative.
“If the Obama-appointed Horowitz doesn't conclude on the basic issues which we all know to be established fact, premeditated fraud on the FISA court repeatedly, then at the end of the day the AG is signaling that the Durham report is where all the action will be on everything,” Fox News host Sean Hannity, a close Trump ally, said last Monday, referring to prosecutor John Durham
That’s a theme Trump himself picked up on over the weekend. He told reporters outside the White House on Saturday he was “looking forward” to the IG report but then quickly pivoted to Durham, the U.S. attorney from the district of Connecticut whom Barr appointed earlier this year to examine the intelligence community’s actions in 2016. Barr has also traveled with Durham internationally to personally conduct interviews and collect information from foreign allies related to the intelligence about Trump’s Russia ties that flowed to the FBI in 2016
a lot more but really doubt if most will read anyway
How Giuliani and Barr set out to defend Trump
Amid President Donald Trump’s years-long quest to undermine the Russia investigation and claim “total exoneration,” a tale of two lawyers has emerged.
The first — a former New York City mayor-turned fixer for various foreign potentates and, ultimately, for the president of the United States — took the outside lane, attempting to exonerate his client with a backchannel pressure campaign on Ukraine that would ostensibly clear Trump, and Moscow, of wrongdoing in 2016.
The second, a veteran corporate attorney who’s now served two Republican presidents as attorney general, has taken an inside track, defending Trump in the courts, congressional testimony, press conferences and speeches—and at times within his own department.
The work of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer and a key outside adviser dating back to the 2016 campaign, all but imploded when a whistleblower complaint about the president’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian leaders set off an impeachment investigation.
Attorney General Bill Barr’s efforts have arguably been more successful—at least, that is, in pleasing his boss
Barr’s presentation of the special counsel’s investigation as essentially clearing Trump of wrongdoing generated favorable headlines for the president and obscured key findings from Robert Mueller’s 448-page report. The review he ordered of the intelligence community’s conduct in the Russia probe may not yield the bombshells imagined by the president and his defenders, but it has fed a steady drip of stories in the conservative press touting damning revelations to come.
Even the long-awaited Justice Department Inspector General report due out Monday that is expected to debunk several conspiracy theories about the FBI’s Russia probe has served Barr’s interests in a way — generating cable chyrons announcing a criminal inquiry, albeit into the conduct of a low-level FBI lawyer.
And there is likely to be plenty of grist in the IG report to feed ongoing accusations that, as Barr himself has mused, the Russia investigation was tarnished by corrupt origins.
“Rudy has gone into legal grey areas and potentially beyond in his quest to help Trump,” said Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, which is investigating Giuliani’s work for foreign clients. “Whereas Barr hasn’t committed any crimes. He is a historically terrible attorney general, but he’s not a criminal.”
It’s not yet clear how Barr will characterize Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, which is due out Monday amid reports that the attorney general disagrees with some of its findings. The risk, for Barr, is that Horowitz and the broader review led by U.S. Attorney John Durham won’t produce the kind of narrative-shifting revelations Trump wants — assuming Durham ever produces any findings at all.
Barr still seems confident in his relationship with Trump, however, which has likely been bolstered by the attorney general’s public denunciations of the so-called “resistance.” In a recent speech to the conservative Federalist Society, Barr described the term used by some opposed to Trump as “a very dangerous and indeed incendiary notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic.”
The attorney general also laid some ground rules with the president early on in his tenure, he told New York Magazine for a recent profile.
“Right from the very beginning, the president made clear to me, and we discussed, that he will not get into the business of talking about, or asking me, either to pursue, or not to pursue, cases,” Barr said. “He leaves that up to my judgment.”
To that end, perhaps, Barr has been careful to distance himself from the Ukraine scandal — and from Giuliani.
On the morning the White House published the transcript of Trump’s call with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, the Justice Department denied that Barr had ever talked to the president about his efforts to pressure Zelensky into investigating Democrats.
"The president has not spoken with the attorney general about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his *******. The president has not asked the attorney general to contact Ukraine — on this or any other matter," spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement released at the same time as the Zelensky call record, which showed Trump offering to have Barr call the Ukrainian president.
"The attorney general has not communicated with Ukraine — on this or any other subject. Nor has the attorney general discussed this matter, or anything relating to Ukraine, with Rudy Giuliani,” Kupec said.
The Justice Department again distanced Barr from the Ukraine caper after Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, claimed that military aid to the Ukrainian government had been withheld in part to verify “whether or not they were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our Department of Justice.”
“If the White House was withholding aid in regards to the cooperation of any investigation at the Department of Justice, that is news to us,” a DOJ spokesperson said at the time.
It’s unclear if Barr himself has directly crossed paths with Giuliani, but at least one senior Trump appointee at the Justice Department earlier this summer met with the former New York mayor to hear his pitch for leniency in the case of one of his foreign clients, Alejandro Betancourt Lopez, according to the Washington Post. Lopez is a Venezuelan energy executive under scrutiny for possible money laundering and bribery.
The revelation of that encounter led to still more DOJ distancing — a department spokesman said that top officials wouldn’t have taken the meeting with Giuliani had they known at the time of an active investigation from the Southern District of New York into two Giuliani associates who have since been indicted on campaign finance charges. The men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, acted as intermediaries for Giuliani in Ukraine and at one point reportedly tried to recruit a top Ukrainian energy official to wage a takeover of the country’s state-owned oil and gas company, Naftogaz.
While Barr was airing his doubts about the Russia probe in media interviews, Giuliani was working outside official channels with foreign nationals to find evidence that would “be very, very helpful to my client,” as he told the New York Times in May, referring to Trump.
He primarily sought the State Department’s help, coordinating regularly with the U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and the former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker in an effort to pressure Zelensky into investigating the Bidens and 2016 election interference.
But Giuliani apparently spurned the advice of State Department officials, who suggested that any wrongdoing by Americans be pursued through official Justice Department channels. “What is proper and what happens frequently is the United States goes to Ukraine and asks for their help to pursue an investigation of violations of American law," the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, told impeachment investigators. “That’s what we have a mutual legal assistance treaty, an MLAT, for. But this is different.”
Giuliani has now been sidelined from formally working to defend Trump from impeachment, but his Ukraine sleuthing goes on. He traveled to Budapest and Kyiv last week with a far-right news outlet, where he met with several of the figures at the center of the impeachment proceedings including Lutsenko and former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin—all while under a federal criminal investigation by Barr’s Justice Department.
“I hear he’s found plenty,” Trump told reporters Saturday when asked about Giuliani’s trip. The president added that his personal attorney, a former top Reagan-era Justice Department official, was “one of the great crime fighters of the last 50 years” with plans to roll out his findings to Congress, Barr and the DOJ.
Trump allies who have embraced Barr, meanwhile, would more than welcome Giuliani exiting stage left. The challenge is that Trump perceives Giuliani — “my Rudy,” as he calls him — as a peer dating back to their days gracing the New York tabloids together.
“I think there’s a level of celebrity involved,” said a person who has worked for the president who isn’t pleased with how Giuliani’s efforts have upended the Trump agenda. “And it’s probably not helpful.”
Even Sondland, Giuliani’s collaborator on the Ukraine caper, privately groused to other State Department officials: “Every time Rudy gets involved he goes and f---s everything up.”
Jon Sale, a former personal attorney and longtime friend to Giuliani, bemoaned the criticism of the former New York mayor. “Everyone wants to blame Rudy for all the world’s woes,” he said.
Compared with Giuliani, Barr has arguably had far more success in shielding Trump — a campaign that began even before he took the attorney general job, when he wrote an unsolicited 20-page legal brief attacking the Mueller probe as a “fatally misconceived” assault on presidential power.
Months later, the newly minted DOJ leader outmaneuvered Mueller, his friend and former underling during the Bush years, when he took advantage of the special counsel’s narrow interpretation of his mandate to clear the president of wrongdoing before the special counsel’s report was made public.
Then, after the document’s release, Barr’s Justice Department worked to stymie House investigators in their efforts to obtain documents and testimony from Mueller’s witnesses. Democrats ended up stuck in protracted court battles that could be moot by the time they’re over — either because Trump is no longer in office, or because the Senate will have already voted against conviction.
Barr’s DOJ has taken other steps widely seen as benefiting Trump. The department’s Office of Legal Counsel determined that the whistleblower complaint that helped trigger the impeachment inquiry did not have to be shared with the congressional intelligence committees, despite the Intelligence Community inspector general’s conclusion that it rose to the level of an “urgent concern” requiring notification to lawmakers
And the Justice Department in September also declined to pursue a criminal investigation into potential campaign finance violations by Trump and his associates related to their demands for dirt on Biden.
Some legal experts say that decision reeked of politics.
“You’d normally think, yes, that professional prosecutors would feel an obligation to look into these situations,” said Philip Allen Lacovara, a former Watergate counsel. “But the leadership, including the attorney general, deputy attorney general, and the head of the criminal division all seem to be quite comfortable with ring-fencing the president on any of these activities.”
Still, Honig noted, Barr has decidedly less influence over the Ukraine investigation. Whereas Barr was able to release his own summary of Mueller’s findings before the full report was made public, preemptively shaping the narrative around the probe’s conclusions, he doesn’t have any authority over Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
“But he’s certainly done all that he can do to help the president in this case,” Honig said, “including by causing a diversion with the IG report in an attempt to give Trump and his supporters a counterpunch.”
The IG report is likely to present a mixed picture at best. Horowitz has reportedly concluded that the FBI had a proper legal and factual basis for opening an investigation into certain Trump campaign staffers’ Russia ties, and did not act out of bias when they opened the investigations. The findings will apparently fault some agents for acting sloppily, but will debunk a central conspiracy theory pushed by Trump and his allies that the FBI tried to entrap his campaign and derail his candidacy.
Ahead of the report’s release, however, Barr’s dissatisfaction with that finding leaked to the Washington Post, preemptively casting doubt on Horowitz’s conclusions and spurring the president and his allies to look elsewhere for a friendly narrative.
“If the Obama-appointed Horowitz doesn't conclude on the basic issues which we all know to be established fact, premeditated fraud on the FISA court repeatedly, then at the end of the day the AG is signaling that the Durham report is where all the action will be on everything,” Fox News host Sean Hannity, a close Trump ally, said last Monday, referring to prosecutor John Durham
That’s a theme Trump himself picked up on over the weekend. He told reporters outside the White House on Saturday he was “looking forward” to the IG report but then quickly pivoted to Durham, the U.S. attorney from the district of Connecticut whom Barr appointed earlier this year to examine the intelligence community’s actions in 2016. Barr has also traveled with Durham internationally to personally conduct interviews and collect information from foreign allies related to the intelligence about Trump’s Russia ties that flowed to the FBI in 2016
a lot more but really doubt if most will read anyway
One of our key allies...one who we are supposed to be supporting against communism…...and others are holding a meeting for peace talks France Germany and others.....and we are not there.....what kind of message does that send p.utin…….of course he and the world already see how we treat our allies
Ukraine: Paris talks with Russia aim to end eastern ...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50672006
Nov 21, 2019 · The leaders of Russia and Ukraine will hold their first face-to-face talks in an attempt to tackle five and a half years of conflict in east Ukraine. More than 13,000 people have died in fighting...
Ukraine: Paris talks with Russia aim to end eastern ...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50672006
Nov 21, 2019 · The leaders of Russia and Ukraine will hold their first face-to-face talks in an attempt to tackle five and a half years of conflict in east Ukraine. More than 13,000 people have died in fighting...
Trump is the best from America by far 2020
For not from
Why don't you tell us WHY you think Trump is so good for the US ... maybe take a stab at post # 4,793 that blkdlaur refused to comment. You guys keep bragging about what Trump has accomplished ... what ARE those things you refer to??????
Surely you and blkdlaur are capable of posting something other than "Go Trump 2020" ... if you asked subhub or me why we think Trump is NOT good for the US we could fill this page in 2 minutes flat.
I watched companies that had been in business for a 100 yrs fold all around me under Obama now things are booming buildings going up everywhere New stores and restaurants . open your eyes
I'm sure you did....brought on by the Bush recession.....and on top of that Obama tried to give small biz aid/money...….but your party of no...the obstructionist's…..would not approve of it
Obama’s Plans to Help(?) Small Business
www.profutures.com/article.php/706
President Obama argues that small businesses are having trouble getting credit, and he has some solid statistics to back him up. In late July, the National Small Business Association reported that 41% of small businesses can’t get adequate financing, although other sources suggest this figure is overstated. This same report noted that among owners unable to secure capital, 44% said they have been unable to expand their business…
guess who rejected it as part of their blocking anything Obama wanted
Obama urges more loans for small businesses - Business ...
www.nbcnews.com/id/35260087/ns/business-small_business
Feb 05, 2010 · President asks Congress to expand two lending programs. Video: Pres. Obama on Jobs & Economy The White House said Obama's plan would temporarily increase the cap on Small Business Administration Express loans from the current maximum of $350,000 to $1 million. Obama's plan would also expand the SBA's program to support refinancing for owner …
FACT SHEET: President Obama Has Signed Eight Small ...
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press...
Sep 10, 2010 · I. President Obama Has Already Signed Into Law Eight Separate Small Business Tax Cuts: In the Recovery Act and subsequent legislation in 2009 and 2010, the President signed the following eight small business tax cuts into law: A New Small Business Health Care Tax Credit; A New Tax Credit for Hiring Unemployed Workers
44 - Obama Proposes Small Business Rescue Plan
voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/10/obama...
Oct 10, 2008 · CHILLICOTHE, Ohio -- Barack Obama today proposed a plan of tax cuts and loans for small businesses hurt by the current credit crisis, a temporary program he said is needed to help Main Street and complement what has already been done for Wall Street. He said the $5 billion Small Business Rescue Plan ...
it's not that he didn't try.....the right determined to see him fail would back him on NOTHING....no matter who it helped or hurt
Senate GOP Pledge to Block Dems' Legislation - CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-gop-pledge-to-block-dems-legislation
Dec 01, 2010 · Senate GOP Pledge to Block Dems' Legislation. Senate Republicans intend to block action on virtually all Democratic-backed legislation unrelated to tax cuts and government spending in the current postelection session of Congress, according to a letter recently delivered to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pledging to carry out that strategy, which was signed by all 42 Republican Senators.
8 yrs bush recessions Obama sucked
he got a lot done for doing it without the support from the right at all......I'm sure you remember McConnell saying they wanted to do everything they could to make him a one term president
Yup remember that well - wish he was - got REAL tired of seeing him apologize for the good ole USA and kiss ass all over the world !!!
respected around the world.....unlike your false god
Yeah - cause he was an apologist / asskisser extraordinaire
Hush up, "quacker" ...
you NEVER have anything of substance to say. Maybe you'll get some coloring books to keep you busy in 2020. If I knew where you are, I'd send you a box of Crayolas.and with the way trump is going he will have to be quick to get them at the local thrift store....although he would be wise to stock up on Crayola's now....trump still has time to really fuck things up before we get a Dem in to make America great again
Obama drove our economy to the ground. By far worst I have seen. Business is flourishing under Trump. Another 4 years will be great.
again your bias speaking and your bias does not support the facts or how the majority of the country felt and feels.....still the most liked president in years.....second is Clinton...…...wonder where the right fits in?.....Mmmm they don't have one
could say more...but want to keep it short and save room for blkdlaurs comment "people getting tired of it"....think he has it on every thread and about every page
I will never forgive nafta neither should America
Blame your right wing hero Reagan for it.....followed by Bush.....it just got finalized under Clinton and it was a bi-partisian agreement
History of NAFTA and Its Purpose
NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Agreement. It was envisioned at least 30 years ago to reduce trading costs, increase business investment, and help North America be more competitive in the global marketplace. It is between Canada, the United States. and Mexico. For more details, see NAFTA Fast Facts.
What Is Its History?
The impetus for NAFTA actually began with President Ronald Reagan, who campaigned on a North American common market.
In 1984, Congress passed the Trade and Tariff Act. That gave the President "fast-track" authority to negotiate free trade agreements more freely. That's because it restricts Congressional input to the ability to approve or disapprove. Congress lost the ability to change negotiating points.
Canadian Prime Minister Mulroney agreed with Reagan to begin negotiations for the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. It was signed in 1988, went into effect in 1989. It was suspended when NAFTA was signed since it's no longer needed. (Source: "NAFTA Timeline," NaFina.)
Meanwhile, Mexican President Salinas and President Bush began negotiations for a liberalized trade agreement between the two countries. Prior to NAFTA, Mexican tariffs on U.S. imports were 250 percent higher than U.S. tariffs on Mexican imports. In 1991, Canada requested a trilateral agreement, which then led to NAFTA. In 1993, concerns about the liberalization of labor and environmental regulations led to the adoption of two addendums.
NAFTA was signed by President George H.W. Bush, Mexican President Salinas, and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1992. It was ratified by the legislatures of the three countries in 1993. The U.S. House of Representatives approved it by 234 to 200 on November 17, 1993. The U.S. Senate approved it by 60 to 38 on November 20, three days later.
It was finally signed into law by President Bill Clinton on December 8, 1993. It entered ******* January 1, 1994. Although it was signed by President Bush, it was a priority of President Clinton's, and its passage is considered one of his first successes. (Source: "NAFTA Signed into Law," History.com, December 8, 1993.)
What Is Its Purpose?
Article 102 of the NAFTA agreement outlines its purpose:
- Grant the signatories Most Favored Nation status.
- Eliminate barriers to trade and facilitate the cross-border movement of goods and services.
- Promote conditions of fair competition.
- Increase investment opportunities.
- Provide protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights.
- Create procedures for the resolution of trade disputes.
- Establish a framework for further trilateral, regional, and multilateral cooperation to expand the trade agreement's benefits. (Source: "FAQ," NAFTA Secretariat.)
NAFTA eliminated trade barriers, increased investment opportunities, and established procedures for resolution of trade disputes.
Most important, it increased the competitiveness of the three countries in the global marketplace. That's made it the world’s largest free trade area (in terms of GDP).
This has become especially important with the launch of the European Union and the economic growth of China and other emerging market countries. In 2007, the EU replaced the U.S. as the world's largest economy. In 2015, China replaced both and took the top spot.
The 2016 Presidential Campaign
Donald Trump promised to renegotiate NAFTA to get a better deal for U.S. workers. He wants Mexico to eliminate the VAT tax on U.S. exports to Mexico. He also wants Mexico to end its Maquiladora program. If Mexico and Canada don't agree, he would be withdraw. He also threatened to impose a 35 percent tariff on Mexican imports. Here's What Happens If Trump Dumps NAFTA.
The 2008 Presidential Campaign
NAFTA was attacked from all sides during the 2008 Presidential campaign. Barack Obama blamed it for growing unemployment. He said it helped businesses at the expense of workers in the U.S. It also did not provide enough protection against exploitation of workers and the environment along the border in Mexico.
Hillary Clinton included the trade agreement in her pledge to strictly enforce all existing trade agreements, as well as halt any new ones. Both candidates promised to either amend or back out of the agreement altogether. Obama didn't do anything about these campaigns promises when he was President.
In 2008, Republican candidate Ron Paul said he would abolish the trade agreement. He said it was responsible for a Superhighway and compared it to the European Union. However, unlike the EU, NAFTA does not enforce a single currency among its signatories. Paul maintained this position in his 2012 campaign.
Republican nominee John McCain supported NAFTA, as he did all free trade agreements. In fact, he wanted to enforce an existing section within it that promised to open up the U.S. to the Mexican trucking industry.
Ross Perot
Despite NAFTA's benefits, it has remained highly controversial. Its disadvantages are usually pointed out during Presidential campaigns. In 1992, before the trade agreement was even ratified, Independent Presidential candidate Ross Perot famously warned that "You're going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country." Ross predicted that the United States. would lose 5 million jobs -- a whopping 4 percent of total U.S. employment -- to lower-cost Mexican workers.
In fact, this never happened as Mexico entered a recession and the U.S. entered a period of prosperity. True, American workers were displaced by low-cost Mexican imports. But research showed it was more like 2,000 per month. (Source: "Jobs and NAFTA," Brad DeLong.) Find out more about NAFTA Pros and Cons.
The History of NAFTA and Its Purpose
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was used to reduce trading costs, increase business investment, and help North America compete in the global marketplace.
A Look at President Clinton's Accomplishments
During the First Two Years
which is why he is so popular a pres...…..trump will never be
- Under President Clinton's leadership, almost 6 million new jobs were created in the first two years of his Administration -- an average of 250,000 new jobs every month.
- In 1994, the economy had the lowest combination of unemployment and inflation in 25 years.
- As part of the 1993 Economic Plan, President Clinton cut taxes on 15 million low-income families and made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses, while raising taxes on just 1.2 percent of the wealthiest taxpayers.
- President Clinton signed into law the largest deficit reduction plan in history, resulting in over $600 billion in deficit reduction. The deficit is going down for 3 years in a row for the first time since Harry Truman was president.
- The President signed into law the Brady Bill, which imposes a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases so that background checks can be done to help keep handguns away from criminals.
- The President's Crime Bill will put 100,000 new police officers on the street. More than 1,200 communities have already received grants to hire 27,000 additional officers.
- The Crime Bill also punishes criminals by expanding the number of offenses eligible for the death penalty and implementing the "three-strikes-and-you're-out" provision.
- And, the Bill banned the manufacture of 19 specific types of deadly assault weapons, while simultaneously protecting hunters' rights by exempting over 650 hunting rifles.
- President Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act. The law, which covers over 42 million Americans, offers workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-guaranteed leave for baby birth, adoption, or personal or family illness.
- President Clinton expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit to cut the taxes of 15 million working families with incomes of $27,000 or less.
- President Clinton granted waivers to 25 states -- half the nation -- providing for comprehensive welfare reform demonstrations.
- President Clinton ordered the U.S. Justice Department to conduct the first-ever crackdown on deadbeat parents who refuse to accept financial responsibility for their own children.
- Signed an Executive Order cracking down on federal employees who owe baby support.
- President Clinton has already cut the federal bureaucracy by more than 100,000 positions. Under the recommendations of the National Performance Review, the federal bureaucracy will be reduced by 272,000 -- its lowest level since the Kennedy Administration.
- And, he reduced the White House staff by 25 percent.
- Under the President's Direct Student Loan program, students can borrow money directly from the government at a lower interest rate and with many flexible repayment options, including the option to repay with a percentage of their after-graduation salary. Taxpayers will save at least $4.3 billion over five years.
- In 1994, over 20,000 AmeriCorps members tutored students, immunized children, reclaimed urban parks, and patrolled neighborhoods. In return, they earned $4,725 per year of service towards college tuition or job training.
- President Clinton signed into law Goals 2000, a national standard of excellence for our public schools. Already, 41 states and territories have received federal grants to raise academic standards and improve schools.
- President Clinton's Safe and ******* Free Schools and Community Act and the Safe Schools Act provide funding to schools to fight violence and ******* abuse. Schools can use up to 25 percent of their funds to purchase metal detectors, develop safe zones, and hire school security personnel.
- The President's School-to-Work program provides venture capital to spark a nationwide system for moving America's young people from high school to a job with a future. In 1994, all states received planning funds for their school-to-work program.
- Charter School legislation signed by President Clinton encourages states and localities to set up public school choice.
President Clinton led the fight to pass GATT, which lowers tariffs worldwide by $744 billion over ten years -- the largest international tax cut in history. GATT cuts tariffs on manufactured goods by more than one-third overall and eliminates tariffs in major markets in a number of sectors in which the U.S. is particularly competitive.
- Under President Clinton, the EPA launched its "Common Sense Initiative" to make health protection cheaper and smarter by focusing on results rather than one-size-fits-all regulations.
- The President's Northwest Forest Plan is putting communities in the Northwest back to work, while conserving ancient forests.
- After decades of conflict, the Clinton Administration negotiated a consensus plan to protect California's most valuable natural resource -- its water. The San Francisco and Delta estuary supplies drinking water to two-thirds of the state's people, provides irrigation for 45 percent of the nation's fruits and vegetables, and sustains 300 aquatic species.
- President Clinton hosted the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles in September, 1993, and the signing of the Israeli-Jordan Washington Principles in July, 1994 -- historic agreements between the leaders of Israel and her Arab neighbors to settle differences by peaceful means.
- To enhance European security and stability, the Clinton Administration proposed the Partnership for Peace program, offering former Soviet republics and Central/East European states closer ties with NATO. Already, 22 nations have signed on, since NATO's adoption of the program in January, 1994.
- As of May, 1994, nuclear missiles in Russia and the United States are no longer targeted against any country. And, as a result of other Clinton Administration efforts, the Ukraine is ahead of schedule in reaching the goal of transferring 1,500 nuclear warheads to Russia for dismantlement.
- President Clinton peacefully restored democracy to Haiti, curbing the violence that threatened tens of thousands of Haitians, securing our borders, and upholding our commitments and the commitments made to us in the process.
The Clinton Presidency: A Historic Era of Progress and Prosperity
- Longest economic expansion in American history
The President's strategy of fiscal discipline, open foreign markets and investments in the American people helped create the conditions for a record 115 months of economic expansion. Our economy has grown at an average of 4 percent per year since 1993.
- More than 22 million new jobs
More than 22 million jobs were created in less than eight years -- the most ever under a single administration, and more than were created in the previous twelve years.
- Highest homeownership in American history
A strong economy and fiscal discipline kept interest rates low, making it possible for more families to buy homes. The homeownership rate increased from 64.2 percent in 1992 to 67. 7 percent, the highest rate ever.
- Lowest unemployment in 30 years
Unemployment dropped from more than 7 percent in 1993 to just 4.0 percent in November 2000. Unemployment for African Americans and Hispanics fell to the lowest rates on record, and the rate for women is the lowest in more than 40 years.
- Raised education standards, increased school choice, and doubled education and training investment
Since 1992, reading and math scores have increased for 4th, 8th, and 12th graders, math SAT scores are at a 30-year high, the number of charter schools has grown from 1 to more than 2,000, forty-nine states have put in place standards in core subjects and federal investment in education and training has doubled.
- Largest expansion of college opportunity since the GI Bill
President Clinton and Vice President Gore have nearly doubled financial aid for students by increasing Pell Grants to the largest award ever, expanding Federal Work-Study to allow 1 million students to work their way through college, and by creating new tax credits and scholarships such as Lifetime Learning tax credits and the HOPE scholarship. At the same time, taxpayers have saved $18 billion due to the decline in student loan defaults, increased collections and savings from the direct student loan program.
- Connected 95 percent of schools to the Internet
President Clinton and Vice President Gore's new commitment to education technology, including the E-Rate and a 3,000 percent increase in educational technology funding, increased the percentage of schools connected to the Internet from 35 percent in 1994 to 95 percent in 1999.
- Lowest crime rate in 26 years
Because of President Clinton's comprehensive anti-crime strategy of tough penalties, more police, and smart prevention, as well as common sense gun safety laws, the overall crime rate declined for 8 consecutive years, the longest continuous drop on record, and is at the lowest level since 1973.
- 100,000 more police for our streets
As part of the 1994 Crime Bill, President Clinton enacted a new initiative to fund 100,000 community police officers. To date more than 11,000 law enforcement agencies have received COPS funding.
- Enacted most sweeping gun safety legislation in a generation
Since the President signed the Brady bill in 1993, more than 600,000 felons, fugitives, and other prohibited persons have been stopped from buying guns. Gun crime has declined 40 percent since 1992.
- Family and Medical Leave Act for 20 million Americans
To help parents succeed at work and at home, President Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993. Over 20 million Americans have taken unpaid leave to care for a newborn baby or sick family member.
- Smallest welfare rolls in 32 years
The President pledged to end welfare as we know it and signed landmark bipartisan welfare reform legislation in 1996. Since then, caseloads have been cut in half, to the lowest level since 1968, and millions of parents have joined the workforce. People on welfare today are five times more likely to be working than in 1992.
- Higher incomes at all levels
After falling by nearly $2,000 between 1988 and 1992, the median family's income rose by $6,338, after adjusting for inflation, since 1993. African American family income increased even more, rising by nearly $7,000 since 1993. After years of stagnant income growth among average and lower income families, all income brackets experienced double-digit growth since 1993. The bottom 20 percent saw the largest income growth at 16.3 percent.
- Lowest poverty rate in 20 years
Since Congress passed President Clinton's Economic Plan in 1993, the poverty rate declined from 15.1 percent to 11.8 percent last year — the largest six-year drop in poverty in nearly 30 years. There are now 7 million fewer people in poverty than in 1993. The baby poverty rate declined more than 25 percent, the poverty rates for single mothers, African Americans and the elderly have dropped to their lowest levels on record, and Hispanic poverty dropped to its lowest level since 1979.
- Lowest teen birth rate in 60 years
In his 1995 State of the Union Address, President Clinton challenged Americans to join together in a national campaign against teen pregnancy. The birth rate for teens aged 15-19 declined every year of the Clinton Presidency, from 60.7 per 1,000 teens in 1992 to a record low of 49.6 in 1999.
- Lowest ******* mortality rate in American history
The Clinton Administration expanded efforts to provide mothers and newborn children with health care. Today, a record high 82 percent of all mothers receive prenatal care. The ******* mortality rate has dropped from 8.5 deaths per 1,000 in 1992 to 7.2 deaths per 1,000 in 1998, the lowest rate ever recorded.
- Deactivated more than 1,700 nuclear warheads from the former Soviet Union
Efforts of the Clinton-Gore Administration led to the dismantling of more than 1,700 nuclear warheads, 300 launchers and 425 land and submarine based missiles from the former Soviet Union.
- Protected millions of acres of American land
President Clinton has protected more land in the lower 48 states than any other president. He has protected 5 new national parks, designated 11 new national monuments and expanded two others and proposed protections for 60 million acres of roadless areas in America's national forests.
- Paid off $360 billion of the national debt
Between 1998-2000, the national debt was reduced by $363 billion — the largest three-year debt pay-down in American history. We are now on track to pay off the entire debt by 2009.
- Converted the largest budget deficit in American history to the largest surplus
Thanks in large part to the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act, the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, and President Clinton's call to save the surplus for debt reduction, Social Security, and Medicare solvency, America has put its fiscal house in order. The deficit was $290 billion in 1993 and expected to grow to $455 billion by this year. Instead, we have a projected surplus of $237 billion.
- Lowest government spending in three decades
Under President Clinton federal government spending as a share of the economy has decreased from 22.2 percent in 1992 to a projected 18.5 percent in 2000, the lowest since 1966.
- Lowest federal income tax burden in 35 years
President Clinton enacted targeted tax cuts such as the Earned Income Tax Credit expansion, $500 baby tax credit, and the HOPE Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Tax Credits. Federal income taxes as a percentage of income for the typical American family have dropped to their lowest level in 35 years.
- More families own stock than ever before
The number of families owning stock in the United States increased by 40 percent since 1992.
- Most diverse cabinet in American history
The President has appointed more African Americans, women and Hispanics to the Cabinet than any other President in history. He appointed the first female Attorney General, the first female Secretary of State and the first Asian American cabinet secretary ever.
I blame the mom fucker who chose to sign it. Who's name is on it.
- Status
