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The Trump/Sessions Department of Justice Just Did “Justice”
The DOJ has communicated to Congress that it is ending the Obama-era corporate shakedown regime, where it forced corporations who paid huge settlements to resolve conflicts relating to the financial crisis, to pay (liberal) third-party organizations as part of those settlements. Billions of dollars were siphoned off to various Obama special-interest groups, in violation of the Constitution.
Well, those days are over. Congress is working on legislation to outlaw that sort of executive-branch misbehavior. Jeff Sessions, in one of his very best actions to date, has ended the Obama slush-funds.
Sessions said the money should, instead, go to the Treasury Department or victims.
“When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people—not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power,” Sessions said in a statement.
In my opinion, those third-party groups should have to refund every penny to the US Treasury. Yeah, I know it’s a pipe dream, but it should be considered anyway.
Published in Economics
It’s a start. Justice would be if people in the shakedown actually ended up in jail.
Yes, it’s too bad we can’t get refunds. Those billions taken by extortion will have done permanent damage.
Now if we can just fix things so the next Socialist administration can’t countermand the countermand.
Okay, it’s policy. Now if Congress will make it statute we can give a golf clap for doing right by Americans on something.
This goes for PBS and NPR, too.
The Gibson Guitar fingerboard “case” was extortion. Some government lawyer needs to be disbarred and incarcerated.
A win.
Even if they never pay up, it is important for them to know that such refunds would be the right thing.
Thanks for the good news, btw. I would not have known otherwise.
Yeah! I want retribution for the “baked maple” fingerboard on my Firebird Studio.
The Trump administration in for the win
Nope, it was government, maybe politics. Extortion is when similar tactics are employed by non government entities. The government is jealous of its protection rackets and does not tolerate others muscling in on its scams.
This is one of those instances where even a blind man can see the morally correct course of action. How a court of law could approve these types of settlements is beyond me.
Expected headline: “New Trump rules target civil rights and community groups”
Or perhaps “Sessions announces plan to defund voter registration, community service orgs”
Sheesh, James. At least make them write their own headlines!
I may be wrong, but I don’t remember any court of law ever seeing any of these settlements. While Obama was in office, no court would have heard any case (since Obama packed the appeals courts with his crony liberals), and they remain packed today. I haven’t heard of any big bank or other big business challenging any settlement, and it’s probably too late now.
Sorry, it’s my business. Can’t help myself.
But you know some will spin it that way. The redistribution justifies the extraction and confiscation. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone sued to stop the policy change because it will have a disparate impact.
Halle – frikin’ – lujah. Let’s just hope they can put something in place that’s bulletproof to make sure this never happens again.
Seems to me this is merely a tie like catching the pickpocket one time. What about all the other times they got away with it, and how many other scams have the Obamanites seeded throughout the government. If there’s no punishment what’s to stop them from reintroducing it the next time the leftists take over. And how is it we haven’t heard about this before? How is it not one Republican congress critter got up on his hind legs and screamed bloody murder about this? Not to mention the ‘watchdog’ press.
It simply amazes me how the left turns everything to their advantage, they have a thousand irons in the fire and we have to fight tooth and nail over each one.
Awesome start. Now we need Congress to make this permanent. Call your reps
Shakedowns end! Women and Minorities hurt most!
I stand by “extortion.” The Lacey Act was meant to prevent the illegal importation of rare woods that were being illegally harvested (according to the country from which the wood originated.) The countries in question (India, I think) send 95% percent of legally harvested rosewood to China. Rosewood furniture is popular in China and the law was a protectionist measure to prevent the Chinese from using raw rosewood to make the furniture. The Indians wanted to protect furniture makers in their own country, so no raw wood. The Indians apparently do not make guitar fingerboards. This was a technical violation of the Indian law, but there was no prosecution being conducted to protect jobs that the Indians don’t do. However, the government could make Gibson’s existence questionable by drawing the prosecution out. Gibson forked over a “fine” to make the government go away, and apparently a little more cash to some environmental outfit.
Oh, and the government can use tactics not available to your garden variety extortionist. Part of the process of dropping this mess was that Gibson is forbidden to discuss the judgement or the facts of the case.
Shame if anything happened to that little guitar business of yours…
Thank you for letting us know about this @rushbabe49 !
It makes me sick that our own people weren’t shouting from the rooftops. The press, of course, prefers to report on fights between politicians rather than actually doing investigative reporting and keeping us informed about real issues.