June 23, 2018

"Martial Law"- that's where we are!

Defense Department is sending 21 active and reserve Military Jag Officers to be FEDERAL PROSECUTERS in border cases-

Use of the military to conduct civilian law enforcement is the very definition of Martial Law!

From https://www.stripes.com/senators-urge-pentagon-to-rethink-sending-military-lawyers-to-be-immigration-prosecutors-1.534307



Senators urge Pentagon to rethink sending military lawyers to be immigration prosecutors

WASHINGTON — Calling it an “inappropriate application of military personnel,” three leading senators urged the secretary of defense to reconsider sending military attorneys to southern border states to help prosecute immigration cases.

“We are … deeply troubled,” wrote Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Joni Ernst, R-Ind., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in a letter Thursday to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.

The letter came just hours after the Pentagon confirmed that it had approved sending 21 active-duty and reserve judge advocates to help the Justice Department with its growing backlog of cases created after the government adopted a policy to prosecute adults who cross the border illegally. The attorneys will stay in place for less than six months each, the Pentagon said.

June 19, 2018

Commerce Secretary Accused of Shorting Financial Disclosure Mandates

By Charles S.Clark, GovExec.com

Unresolved ethics issues involving the finances of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross spilled into the open on Monday when Forbes magazine posted an expose that also questions the treatment of Ross’s financial disclosure forms by the Office of Government Ethics.

Reporter Dan Alexander, in a piece titled “Lies, China And Putin: Solving The Mystery Of Wilbur Ross' Missing Fortune,” followed up on issues raised last year by senators about whether Ross—a wealthy Wall Street investor—had understated his income and mandatory divestments on his 2017 financial disclosure forms.

Alexander’s investigation appears to contradict Ross’s declaration to the ethics office in November 2017 that he had placed his multi-million-dollar holdings in trust. And Alexander uncovered a December 2017 Ross disclosure form that the OGE had not posted publicly.

Among Forbes’ findings:

Ross retained holdings in companies co-owned by the Chinese government, a shipping firm tied to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, a Cypriot bank reportedly caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and a “huge player in an industry Ross is now investigating;”
Ross put some of these interests in a trust for his family members while continuing, as Commerce secretary, to deal with China and Russia on economic matters;
Last fall, five days before reports of his holdings in a Putin-linked shipping firm called Navigator Holdings, Ross sold his stock.


More: https://m.govexec.com/management/2018/06/commerce-secretary-accused-shorting-financial-disclosure-mandates/149085/


The stink of ethics violations just keep on permeating this group.

June 18, 2018

HUD Moves to Evict Union from Federal Office Space

Source: Government Exec Magazine

Officials at the Housing and Urban Development Department told federal employee unions last week that they must vacate government-provided office space by mid-July, a move that union officials say is an attempt to undermine collective bargaining negotiations.

On June 14, the department issued a notice to the American Federation of Government Employees Council 222, which represents HUD employees, that it wishes to remove from AFGE’s existing collective bargaining agreement union employees’ right to HUD office space, phones, computers and other agency property by July 15. The proposal is intended to bring the department into compliance with President Trump’s recent executive order curbing official time, and it gives the union 15 days to demand to bargain, otherwise the eviction will move forward, the notice said.

But union officials said the effort runs afoul of both the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act and the executive order HUD officials cited as justification for the eviction. The executive order states that it does not “abrogate any collective bargaining agreement [already] in effect,” and Holly Salamido, president of the AFGE HUD council, said unions are not required to renegotiate existing CBA provisions outside of full term negotiations.

“We can only be required to engage in mid-term bargaining on matters not currently covered by the CBA,” Salamido said. “The law says that when you have a CBA in place, to reopen anything already covered in the agreement is called permissive bargaining, and we can decline to engage,” she said. “[There’s] federal law laid out in Federal Labor Relations Authority decisions saying that if a matter is already covered, you can only make changes if both parties agree.”

Read more: https://www.govexec.com/management/2018/06/hud-moves-evict-union-federal-office-space/149077/

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Well, there you have it.

Trump's Department of Housing and Urban Development, under Ben Carson, has a new mission.

Break 40 years of established Federal Employee Labor Law, in order to begin EVICTIONS of Union members office space in HUD Headquarters.

Talk about irony...