#Criminal Tax Defense Attorney | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

simply-ivanka · 4 months ago

Text

Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees Release Report on Impeachment Inquiry Finding Joe Biden Has Committed Impeachable Conduct

Below are key findings from the impeachment inquiry report. The 291 page report can be found below.

From 2014 to the present, as part of a conspiracy to monetize Joe Biden’s office of public trust to enrich the Biden family, Biden family members and their associates received over $27 million from foreign individuals or entities. In order to obscure the source of these funds, the Biden family and their associates set up shell companies to conceal these payments from scrutiny. The Biden family used proceeds from these business activities to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to Joe Biden—including thousands of dollars that are directly traceable to China. While Jim Biden claimed he gave this money to Joe Biden to repay personal loans, Jim Biden did not provide any evidence to support this claim. The Biden family’s receipt of millions of dollars required Joe Biden’s knowing participation in this conspiracy, including while he served as Vice President.

Joe Biden used his status as Vice President to garner favorable outcomes for his son’s and his business partners’ foreign business dealings. Witnesses acknowledged that Hunter Biden involved Vice President Biden in many of his business dealings with Russian, Romanian, Chinese, Kazakhstani, and Ukrainian individuals and companies. Then-Vice President Biden met or spoke with nearly every one of the Biden family’s foreign business associates, including those from Ukraine, China, Russia, and Kazakhstan. As a result, the Biden family has received millions of dollars from these foreign entities.

The Biden family leveraged Joe Biden’s positions of public trust to obtain over $8 million in loans from Democratic benefactors. Millions of dollars in loans have not been repaid and the paperwork supporting many of the loans does not exist and has not been produced to the Committees. This raises serious questions about whether these funds were provided as gifts disguised as loans.

Under the Biden Administration, the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) afforded special treatment to President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.Several witnesses acknowledged the delicate approach used during the Hunter Biden case, describing the investigation as “sensitive” or “significant.” Evidence shows that Department officials slow-walked the investigation, informed defense counsel of future investigative actions, prevented line investigators from taking otherwise ordinary investigative steps, and allowed the statute of limitations to expire on the most serious felony charges. These unusual—and oftentimes in the view of witnesses, unprecedented—tactics conflicted with standard operating procedures and ultimately had the effect of benefiting Hunter Biden.

The Biden Justice Department misled Congress about the independence of law enforcement entities in the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden. Biden Administration political appointees exercised significant oversight and control over the investigation of the President’s son. Witnesses described how U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware and now-Special Counsel David Weiss, who oversaw the investigation and prosecution of Hunter Biden, had to seek (1) agreement from other U.S. Attorneys to bring cases in a district geographically distinct from his own and (2) approval from the Biden Justice Department’s Tax Division to bring specific charges or take investigative actions against Hunter Biden. Despite the clear conflict of interest, Weiss was only afforded special counsel status after the investigation came under congressional scrutiny.

The White House has obstructed the Committees’ impeachment inquiry by withholding key documents and witnesses. The White House has impeded the Committees’ investigation of President Biden’s unlawful retention of classified documents, by refusing to make relevant witnesses available for interviews and by erroneously asserting executive privilege over audio recordings from Special Counsel Hur’s interviews with President Biden. In addition, the White House is preventing the National Archives from turning over documents that are material to the Committees’ inquiry.

See report at the below link

70 notes · View notes

ratlesshonret · 6 months ago

Text

Was thinking about Ace Attorney x Project Moon and wondering how that'd even work. The City seems like a very "fend for yourself," "might makes right" type of place. There are definitely laws, and jail-type locations are shown (mainly in Limbus Canto 6.5-1,) but we never see any kind of "due process." It usually just seems like people are arrested as soon as they're suspected of something, and thrown in jail forever unless they're rich.

We do come across some kinds of "lawyers," such as the Fixers you encounter in the Reception of Mirae Life Insurance, but those are insurance lawyers/collectors. Really, the only types of law ever covered are insurance law, contract law, and patent law. We never see anything about civil disputes or criminal law.

They take care to stress that laws don't apply during the Night in the Backstreets, when the Sweepers come out, which means that there are laws and punishments surrounding violent offenses, at least within the Nests, and possibly in the Backstreets outside of nighttime. Property damage is highlighted as an especially heinous offense, and if my memory serves right, the only offense that you can still be punished for during the Night in the Backstreets.

Overall, we get info on insurance, contract, and patent laws, but very little on criminal and civil law. Those last two seem to only be viewed in the lens of "you'll get punished by someone if you violate them" but it seems heavily dependent on which District you're in. A lot of Districts seem to just be "shoot the violators" while some, like T Corp, do seem to have an imprisonment system, at least for Time Tax Evaders. But we never see any due process.

I do think it'd be cool, though. Ace Attorney style trials in the high-tech City environment, allowing both interesting new tricks in the crimes, and cool new ways to investigate them. Maybe a Fixer Office specializing in defense law, who is hired to defend people accused of crimes in court, using expensive technology to investigate crimes in more detail when the actual police force of The City just doesn't feel like doing their job.

#project moon #library of ruina #limbus company #ace attorney #lobotomy corporation

72 notes · View notes

kvetchlandia · 3 days ago

Text

I Haven't...

really wanted to engage in a rant about Luigi Mangione because the subject is just so depressing. Beyond the general issues with the Mangione case, things become even more complex because the reign of His Imperial Highness, Generalissimo, President for Life and Defender of the Faith in His Cult, Pussy Grabber I, is about to begin in just a few days and anything said against him, his cult or his knuckle-walking, mouth-breathing, hairy-palmed followers just might be cause for disappearance into the nacht und nebel, and sooner rather than later. But I figured, what the fuck, if I'm gonna be targeted, it'll be because of more years than I care to count of activism in progressive causes, in my union and in defense of science and learning against religious superstition and ignorance rather than because of a post on Dumblr. So, here I go.

I believe that the murder of corporate executives, while completely understandable, is the politics of despair. It doesn't and can't lead to change. It's just lashing out. The reasons for such lashing out are as obvious as the day is long. The man killed by Mangione, Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, was without question, a murderer himself. He was the chair of the largest private, for profit health insurance company in the United States. As has been noted countless numbers of times, American private health insurance is not a healthcare system, it's a healthcare denial system. United Healthcare had the largest percentage of denied claims of any major health insurance company in the United States, roughly 33%. There is no question that some of those 1/3 of all claims made that were denied resulted in the deaths of the claimants. That makes Thompson and his leadership team at UHC murderers, even if their murders are conducted under the color of law. Beyond that, on account of the their typically high premium rates and their low rate of payout on fully justified claims, United Health Group's revenue was $371.6 billion in 2023, an increase of 14.6% from 2022. They claimed a profit of $22 billion in 2023, a number that I believe is actually much below their real profit level but which is what was claimed after all of the legal ways their battery of highly paid attorneys and accountants legally cheat on their taxes and reduce their published profits to avoid taxation on them are factored in. Thompson himself claimed an income of $10.2 million in 2023, largely based upon his success in denying the claims of customers who'd paid for insurance services they were ultimately denied, thus increasing company profits and shareholder dividends.

Given this ugly reality, it's no wonder that the population of the United States largely applauds Mangione. Everyone understands his frustration and his anger, and many of us share those feelings. We get that his objective anger was made worse by his own subjective experience of suffering from a condition that left him in constant pain and which, from published reports, he had difficulty getting treated even though he was from a wealthy, privileged background. Hell, even a lot of MAGA scumbags speak out in defense of Mangione. I guess the only ungodly rich jerkoffs they like are their cult leader, Trump, and his evil prima donna prime minister, Elon Musk.

Murdering these corporate criminals changes nothing. It might remove an individual or two from the scenes of the crimes they routinely commit, but it doesn't change the system that allows and flourishes because of this legal criminality any more than the murders of Carmine Galante, Albert Anastasia and Joey Gallo ended the mafia. The only way to really end this criminality is to end capitalism, the system that thrives on it. There are smaller steps than complete social revolution that might ameliorate the problem without changing the system, but they're really only half steps. For example, the United States could join the rest of the industrialized world in providing fully national healthcare to the residents of this country, paid for through graduated taxation of both individuals and corporations. We could do that, but anyone who believes that a country whose government is going to be dominated by the Trump cult for at least the next 2 years, a cult noted for its greed, mendacity, racism, misogyny and xenophobia, is going to increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations in order to accomplish that probably also believes in the tooth fairy and that the earth is flat. This country is going to do exactly the opposite, most likely making the very limited gains of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") fewer and harder to receive.

So, where does that leave us? At the moment, exactly where we started out, but with much more ugliness, exploitation, oppression and misery looming just over the horizon.

Aren't I the cheery sort?

25 notes · View notes

misfitwashere · 24 days ago

Text

December 2, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

DEC 3

Last night, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker reported that Trump’s choice for secretary of defense, Fox News Channel weekend host Pete Hegseth, had been forced to leave previous leadership positions at the advocacy groups Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America because of serious allegations of “financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.”

Under his direction, Veterans for Freedom ran up huge debt for what appears to have been inappropriate expenses; the group’s donors squeezed Hegseth out of his job and then shuttered the organization. He moved to Concerned Veterans for America.

A whistleblower for Concerned Veterans for America reported that Hegseth was repeatedly so drunk at events that he had to be carried out, and that he once tried to join dancers on stage at a strip club to which he brought his work team. Their report said that Hegseth and other members of his team divided the female staffers in the organization into “party girls” and “not party girls” and sexually pursued them, leading to allegations of sexual assault. Another complaint said that at a bar in the early hours of May 29, 2015, Hegseth began to chant drunkenly: “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!”

An email from one of the whistleblowers to Hegseth’s successor at Concerned Veterans for America said that “[a]mong the staff, the disgust for Pete was pretty high.” The letter detailed Hegseth’s “history of alcohol abuse” and said he had “treated the organization funds like they were a personal expense account—for partying, drinking, and using CVA events as little more than opportunities to ‘hook up’ with women on the road.”

By 2016, Hegseth was out at Concerned Veterans for America but had joined the Fox News Channel as a contributor. It was during this period that he appeared in October 2017 as a speaker at the California Federation of Republican Women’s convention, where he allegedly sexually assaulted a woman.

Also last night, President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden after repeatedly saying that he would not.

Trump-appointed Special Counsel David Weiss charged Hunter Biden on firearms and tax charges, but as former U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance made clear in her Civil Discourse, Hunter Biden would not have been charged if he had been anyone other than the president’s son. He was charged with possession of a firearm by someone who is addicted to illegal drugs, a charge that prosecutors do not usually bring. Biden owned a gun for eleven days and apparently lied on the paperwork for it by saying he was not a drug addict when he was, in fact, in the throes of addiction.

The other charges stem from Hunter Biden’s failure, while dealing with addiction, to pay about $1.4 million in federal income taxes, which he has since paid in full plus interest and penalties. Vance explains that the government usually handles cases like his with administrative or civil penalties rather than criminal prosecution, as it did in the case of Trump henchman Roger Stone, with whom the government reached a settlement in 2022 for more than $2 million in unpaid income taxes, interest, and penalties without criminal charges.

But President Biden’s pardon covers not just those charges, but also “those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.” The pardon’s sweeping scope offers an explanation for why Biden issued it after saying he would not.

Ron Filipkowski of MeidasTouch notes that Biden’s pardon came after Trump’s announcement that he wants to place conspiracy theorist Kash Patel at the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Filipkowski studies right-wing media and points out that Patel’s many appearances there suggest he is obsessed with Hunter Biden, especially the story of his laptop, which Patel insists shows that Hunter and Joe Biden engaged in crimes with Ukraine and China.

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) spent two years investigating these allegations and turned up nothing—although Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia used the opportunity to display pictures of Hunter Biden naked on national media—yet Patel insists that the Department of Justice should focus on Hunter Biden as soon as a Trump loyalist is back in charge.

Notably, Trump’s people, including former lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his ally Lev Parnas, spent more than a year trying to promote false testimony against Hunter Biden by their Ukrainian allies. Earlier this year, in the documentary From Russia with Lev, produced by Rachel Maddow, Parnas publicly apologized to Hunter Biden for his role in the scheme.

As legal commentator Asha Rangappa noted: “People criticizing the Hunter Biden pardon need to recognize: For the 1st time, the FBI and Justice Department could literally fabricate evidence, or collaborate with a foreign government to ‘find’ evidence of a ‘crime,’ with zero accountability. That’s why the pardon goes back to 2014.”

And yet, much of American media today has been consumed not with the story that Trump has appointed a deeply problematic candidate to run what could be considered the nation’s most important department, overseeing about 3 million personnel and managing a budget of more than $800 billion, or with the reality that Biden’s distrust of our legal system under Trump is a profound warning for all of us.

Instead, they have focused on President Biden’s pardon of his son, many of them condemning what they say is Biden’s rejection of the rule of law.

Some have suggested that Biden’s pardoning his son will now give Trump license to pardon anyone he wants, apparently forgetting that in his first term, Trump pardoned his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law, Charles Kushner, who pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion, campaign finance offenses, and witness tampering and whom Trump has now tapped to become the U.S. ambassador to France.

Trump also pardoned for various crimes men who were associated with the ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian operatives working to elect Trump. Those included his former national security advisor Michael Flynn, former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and former allies Roger Stone and Steve Bannon. Those pardons, which suggested Trump was rewarding henchmen, received a fraction of the attention lavished on Biden’s pardon of his son.

In today’s news coverage, the exercise of the presidential pardon—which traditionally gets very little attention—has entirely outweighed the dangerous nominations of an incoming president, which will have profound influence on the American people. This imbalance reflects a longstanding and classic power dynamic in which Republicans set the terms of public debate, excusing their own objectionable behavior while constantly attacking Democrats in a fiery display that attracts media attention but distorts reality.

The degree to which the media endorsed that abusive power dynamic today does not bode well for its accurate reporting during Trump’s upcoming term. It also leaves the public badly informed about matters that are important for understanding modern politics.

Among other stories that received less attention than Biden’s pardon of his son was that today right-wing activist Dinesh D’Souza publicly apologized to a man depicted in D’Souza’s film 2000 Mules. That film claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and Trump used it to push the Big Lie that he was the true winner of that election, a lie that by 2023 close to 70% of Republicans believed.

While he continued to stand by the lie, D’Souza admitted that the film’s claim that the “mules” shown delivering ballots to dropboxes had been located through geolocation of their cell data was false. Earlier this year, after a man depicted in the film sued, the publisher of the film and the book on which it was based withdrew the book and the film from its platforms and issued a sweeping apology.

On X, D’Souza’s own comment about Biden’s pardon pointedly illustrated the partisan double standard: “No one is above the law—except my son Hunter!” he wrote above a picture of Biden and his son. This prompted progressive journalist Brian Tyler Cohen to reply: “You were literally pardoned by Trump.” Cohen was right: Trump pardoned D’Souza in 2018 after his conviction for committing campaign finance violations.

Another important story today was that the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) announced that on January 20, 2025, it will stop posting content on X. EFJ’s president, Maja Sever, explained that the organization could not “continue to participate in the social network feed of a man who proclaims the death of the media and therefore of journalists.” General secretary Ricardo Gutiérrez noted the “threat to democracy and freedom of expression posed by the cooperation between the president of the most powerful country in the world, Donald J. Trump, and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, who is also the owner of social network X.”

Sever added: “The social media site X has become the preferred vector for conspiracy theories, racism, far-right ideas and misogynistic rhetoric. X is a platform that no longer serves the public interest at all, but the special ideological and financial interests of its owner and his political allies.”

Indeed, the extraordinary growth of the Bluesky social media site as the right wing has taken over X is turning X into another right-wing echo chamber. It was there that Representative Comer turned to post his reaction to Biden’s pardon, using it to resurrect the claims he could not substantiate in two years of searching from the head of the Oversight Committee.

“Joe Biden lies for a living,” he wrote. “He lied about not talking to his son about his shady business dealings. He lied when he said his family didn’t take in [money] from China & Russia. He lied when he said he wouldn’t pardon Hunter.” And then, after stating claims his own hearings had proved false, Comer got to the heart of the matter: “Joining [Sean Hannity] at [the Fox News Channel] TONIGHT 9pm. Tune in!”

—

#heather cox richardson #letters from an american

4 notes · View notes

aita-blorbos · 1 year ago

Note

(reworked some of the wording, i hope this is better!)

aita for doing what i had to for my country?

to be clear, i am certain i am in the right. however, i assume this "tumblr aita" portal that has opened before me is a new methods of appealing for parole, so i will explain my situation. apologies for the long post; 732 hours 6 minutes and 2 seconds in a jail cell grinds on any human psyche.

a decade ago, i (43m at the time, 53m now) learned that an aristocrat had been murdered. he was known for mistreating his servants and furthering regressive tax policies, so i felt no sorrow; as part of the investigation into his death, however, i realized the culprit was my colleague K (33m at the time). i confronted him with my evidence and he confessed, but pleaded with me to not reveal his secret to his brother and wife. no one else had deduced K's crimes yet - he was a prosecutor of high renown, and therefore above suspicion - so i agreed.

witnessing the happiness of the people freed from the late aristocrat's rule, however, i realized K was in a uniquely powerful position to rid our city of evil. i convinced him to continue eliminating such untouchable members of the upper class, including the chief justice at the time, who was too weak to truly punish criminals. K agreed.

everything was going well until another person involved in the investigation, G (34m at the time), independently deduced that K was the culprit. they decided to have a duel to the death over this, for… some reason. K died in the duel, but left behind a will implicating me as the mastermind and blackmailer behind his killings - despite me not having harmed a single soul!

despite this betrayal, i felt it would harm the city's morale if they realized K (an aristocrat himself as well as a famous prosecutor) was the "serial killer," so i struck a deal with G to implicate G as the killer instead, since he was an exchange student from overseas and therefore much less well-known. his fellow exchange student (S, 33m at the time) and i would help fake his execution afterwards so he could escape to relative safety.

G agreed. again, i did not harm anyone in doing this.

unfortunately, on the night we were to dig G out of the grave, some grave robber came along and witnessed G coming out. naturally the public's trust in the judicial system would disintegrate if they learned a serial killer was not properly executed, so our hand was forced: i convinced the fellow exchange student S to shoot G.

now 10 years later, crime is on the rise again. i am - was, i suppose; will be again, hopefully - the chief justice now, but even in this position i cannot do enough to stop the flood of pickpockets and swindlers alike. thus i assembled a loyal group of people to help me eliminate those upper-class criminals escaping guilty verdicts through bribery and blackmail, and also to help me attain the position of attorney general so i may continue to implement policies to stifle crime.

unfortunately, a truly irritating detective and a defense attorney revealed my actions to her majesty the queen. apparently it is wrong to convince people to stop criminals? and despite all i have done to lessen crime - despite the fact that i have not laid a finger on anyone myself - the queen ordered me to face a public courtroom, and thus i was thrown into jail.

everything i've done for this country. everything i've done for the queen. and yet.

aita?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

28 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 11 months ago

Text

This day in history

#20yrsago Itunes blocks you from sharing music with YOURSELF, on your own computer https://web.archive.org/web/20041009202513/http://www.raelity.org/computers/operating_systems/apple/mac_os_x/apps/itunes_single_instance.html

#20yrsago How fanfic makes kids into better writers (and copyright victims) https://www.technologyreview.com/2004/02/06/40304/why-heather-can-write/

#15yrsago Flashmob of ATM crooks scores $9 million in 49 cities https://web.archive.org/web/20090205214559/http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/090202_FBI_Investigates_9_Million_ATM_Scam

#15yrsago Internet not full of pedos, the statistical edition https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2009/02/06/doing_the_math.html

#10yrsago Turks bid farewell to the Internet in the face of brutal censorship/surveillance law https://medium.com/@ahmetasabanci/saying-goodbye-to-internet-in-turkey-33d805b98f6c

#10yrsago Middle class brands collapse, 1% brands thrive https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/business/the-middle-class-is-steadily-eroding-just-ask-the-business-world.html

#10yrsago How UK spies committed illegal DoS attacks against Anonymous https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/war-anonymous-british-spies-attacked-hackers-snowden-docs-show-n21361

#10yrsago Toronto’s reference library gets a makerspace https://web.archive.org/web/20140209061223/http://torontoist.com/2014/02/reference-library-unveils-3d-printers-is-cooler-than-indigo/

#10yrsago Toxic Avenger’s brilliant rant about the importance of Net Neutrality https://www.techdirt.com/2014/02/05/innovation-our-better-future-depend-preserving-net-neutrality/

#5yrsago One of pharma’s most notorious gougers is going bankrupt, but 2019 is a banner year for shkreli-grade pharmaceutical price-hikes https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/infamous-pharma-company-declares-bankruptcy-after-3900-price-hike/

#5yrsago Chasing down that list of potential Predpol customers reveals dozens of cities that have secretly experimented with “predictive policing” https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3m7jq/dozens-of-cities-have-secretly-experimented-with-predictive-policing-software

#5yrsago Amazon is using purchase data to sell targeted ads, which is creepy, but not because they’ve invented a mind-control ray https://memex.craphound.com/2019/02/06/amazon-is-using-purchase-data-to-sell-targeted-ads-which-is-creepy-but-not-because-theyve-invented-a-mind-control-ray/

#5yrsago The next Firefox will block all autoplayed audio, video https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/02/firefox-66-to-block-automatically-playing-audible-video-and-audio/

#5yrsago RIP, author Carol Emshwiller https://locusmag.com/2019/02/carol-emshwiller-1921-2019/

#5yrsago Washington State sheriff used courtroom camera to zoom in on defense attorney and juror’s private notes https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/san-juan-sheriffs-use-of-courtroom-camera-to-view-jurors-notebook-lawyers-notes-sparks-outrage-and-dismissal-of-criminal-case/

#5yrsago Lawsuit says that America’s “break even” court records website shouldn’t be making 98%+ profits https://www.techdirt.com/2019/02/06/multiple-parties-including-author-law-governing-pacer-ask-court-to-stop-pacers-screwing-taxpayers/

#5yrsago Fox News blames schools teaching “fairness” for support for a tax on the super-rich https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/annfs6/fox_news_blames_public_support_of_wealth_tax/

#1yrago Bruce Schneier's "A Hacker's Mind" https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/06/trickster-makes-the-world/#power-play

#pluralistic

15 notes · View notes

yourreddancer · 23 days ago

Text

Heather Cox Richardson 12.2.24

Also last night, President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden after repeatedly saying that he would not.

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) spent two years investigating these allegations and turned up nothing—although Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia used the opportunity to display pictures of Hunter Biden naked on national media—(WHY WASN'T SHE CHARGED WITH REVENGE PORN???) yet Patel insists that the Department of Justice should focus on Hunter Biden as soon as a Trump loyalist is back in charge.

Instead, they have focused on President Biden’s pardon of his son, many of them condemning what they say is Biden’s rejection of the rule of law.

2 notes · View notes

beardedmrbean · 9 months ago

Text

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon's Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek on Monday signed into law a bill that recriminalizes the possession of small amounts of drugs, ending a first-in-the-nation experiment with decriminalization that was hobbled by implementation issues.

The new law rolls back a 2020 voter-approved measure by making so-called personal use possession a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. It also establishes ways for treatment to be offered as an alternative to criminal penalties by encouraging law enforcement agencies to create deflection programs that would divert people to addiction and mental health services instead of the criminal justice system.

In a signing letter, Kotek said the law's success will depend on “deep coordination” between courts, police, prosecutors, defense attorneys and local mental health providers, describing them as “necessary partners to achieve the vision for this legislation.”

Measure 110, approved by voters with 58% support in 2020, made the personal use possession of illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine only punishable by a ticket and a maximum fine of $100. Supporters said treatment is more effective than jail in helping people overcome addiction and that the decadeslong approach of arresting people for possessing and using drugs hasn’t worked.

The law directed hundreds of millions of dollars of the state’s cannabis tax revenue toward addiction services. But the money was slow to get out the door and health authorities, already grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, struggled to stand up the new treatment system, state auditors found. At the same time, the fentanyl crisis began to spark an increase in deadly overdoses.

Those pressures prompted Oregon Democrats to shift their stance on decriminalization policy in recent months.

Some who historically supported the measure voted for the new law during this year's short legislative session. While other Democratic lawmakers opposed the measure, concerned it would result in more arrests and exacerbate social inequities, it ultimately passed the Democrat-controlled Legislature last month.

GOP leaders had long sought to overhaul Measure 110. After Kotek's signing, House Minority Leader Jeff Helfrich said the law illustrated how Republicans "stood united and forced Democrats” to restore criminal penalties.

The changes take effect Sept. 1.

#nunyas news #i'm shocked i tell you

6 notes · View notes

longwindedbore · 5 months ago

Text

Perhaps we can understand the people lured down the Trump rabbit-hole:

[1] The money Trump obtained from his father transmogrified by endless self-aggrandizement into Donald’s ‘Own Personal Success’. Which in turn

[2] creates an illusionary argument that Donald’s disconnect from Reality might actually a deeper insight into Reality? Rather than a mental breakdown it seems to be. Then

[3] The Victim(s) - attorneys, investors, donors, voters, VP candidates - begin to believe that Trump’s rambling Narcissistic insanity is actually ‘Genius’?

Because how else can you explain these handlers, donors , defense attorneys, and hangers-on believing that they can positively influence a raging Narcissist with the vocabulary of a second grader and - somehow - rebrand him with positive messaging?

In the meantime he’s alienating his big donors {from the posted article)

.’At an Aug. 2 dinner in the Hamptons, "rattled donors" hoped Trump "would signal that he was recalibrating after a series of damaging mistakes." Instead, he invoked the "stop the steal" claims about 2020 that his advisers have urged him to drop. And Trump said of a race-baiting comment to the National Association of Black Journalists, where he questioned Harris' identity: "I think I was right."

‘Trump stunned one of his wealthiest patrons, Miriam Adelson, widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, on July 25 "by having an aide, Natalie Harp, fire off a series of angry text messages to Mrs. Adelson in Mr. Trump's name," complaining about people running Mrs. Adelson's super PAC, Preserve America, into which she's pouring millions to support Trump.’

Genius or Mental Breakdown?

Parenthetically, the money from his father has been wasted and Trump has kept afloat with loans (bankers also bought into the fantasy).

Unfortunately due to his overinflated valuation of assets for bank loans his assets are worth LESS than the billion plus dollars in coming-due-soon-loans that he borrowed.

PLUS he owes the IRS $100 million for taxes on Trump Chicago, NY State $490M, various political rally venues $800M, $100M in legal settlements, $40M in back taxes following the criminal conviction of the Trump Payroll Corp. He’s been spending $50M per year in legal fees.

His llusion of wealth is evaporating before his eyes.

2 notes · View notes

follow-up-news · 9 months ago

Text

Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, was sentenced Wednesday to five monthsin jail after pleading guilty to two counts of perjury last month in his testimony during former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial. The sentencing matched Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's recommendation. After Weisselberg's sentence was agreed upon by prosecutors and the defense, Judge Laurie Peterson asked him whether there was anything he would like to say. Weisselberg replied, "No, your honor," and the judge handed down the sentence. The hearing lasted only about two minutes. Weisselberg was accused of committing perjury in a deposition and during testimony in Trump’s trial, including allegedly lying when he said in July 2020 that he learned Trump’s triplex apartment had been overvalued from a Forbes report, but really knew about it well beforehand, Bragg’s office said. Weisselberg received a separate five-month sentence in a criminal case last year, serving only 100 days, after pleading guilty in 2022 to tax fraud charges in a 15-year scheme involving the Trump Organization’s business dealings. He agreed to pay nearly $2 million in taxes, interest and penalties for allegedly dodging tax payments on $1.7 million of his income with “off the books” benefits, including tuition for his grandkids, a luxury apartment and two Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Weisselberg was a witness and a co-defendant in the civil trial, in which Judge Arthur Engoron ruled in February that Trump, his company and current and former top executives including Weisselberghad to pay more than $350 million in damages and forbade the former president from running businesses in the state for three years — which ultimately became $464 million when pre-judgement interest was included.

#donald trump #new york

3 notes · View notes

grits-galraisedinthesouth · 2 years ago

Text

The Smoking Gun: Get Jim Jordan on the phone

youtube

Subpoena Matt Colangelo

Jim Jordan

Washington DC Office

2056 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: (202) 225-2676

Fax: (202) 226-0577

Lima District Office

3121 West Elm Plaza

Lima, OH 45805

Phone: (419) 999-6455

Fax: (419) 999-4238

Mansfield District Office

28 Park Avenue West

Suite 100A

Mansfield, OH 44902

Phone: (419) 982-8045

Fax: (419) 668-3015

Environmental Crimes

youtube

And assisting with the District Attorney’s focus on financial crimes will promote confidence in the legal system by making clear that the same rules apply to everyone — no matter how powerful.”

This is the first time the Manhattan D.A.’s Office will have an executive position focusing on these priority areas. The Office recently announced the creation of its first-ever Housing & Tenant Protection Unit, which investigates and prosecutes landlords and developers for systemic harassment of tenants and abuse of government programs. Colangelo will provide support to the Unit and deepen the Office’s relationships with stakeholders, drawing on his three years spent as the Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Labor, his work as Deputy Director of the Obama-Biden Administration’s National Economic Council, three years at the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, and seven years litigating fair housing and fair employment cases at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund.

Colangelo brings a breadth of relevant experience, most recently his two years at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served in a senior leadership position and helped to oversee the Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment and Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions, including review of significant hate crime matters. In his time at the New York State Office of the Attorney General, he was Chief Counsel for Federal Initiatives, leading more than eighty lawsuits challenging federal agency action on constitutional and statutory grounds. This work included representing three dozen states and local governments in a successful challenge to the inclusion of a citizenship question on the decennial census, challenging the federal policy of conducting immigration arrests at state courthouses, supervising civil and criminal labor prosecutions, and investigating the Trump Foundation.

#call jim jordan today #Matt Colangelo

5 notes · View notes

thepinnaclelaw · 2 years ago

Text

youtube

Business Name: The Pinnacle Law P.A.

Street Address: 2500 Hollywood Blvd Suite 401

City: Hollywood

State: Florida (FL)

Zip Code: 33020

Country: United States

Business Phone: (305) 760-9555

Business Email: [email protected]

Website: https://thepinnaclelaw.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThePinnacleLaw

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinnacle_law/

Business Description: The Pinnacle Law is a law firm serving legal services to south Florida, mainly the following cities:

Broward County: Hallandale Beach Hollywood West Park Miramar Pembroke Pines Silver Lakes Southwest Ranches Cooper City Weston Davie Fort Lauderdale Oakland Park

Miami Dade:

miami gardens aventura golden beach sunny isles beach north miami bal harbour bay harbor islands indian creek surfside el portal miami lakes hialeah hialeah gardens doral

Google My Business CID URL: https://www.google.com/maps?cid=5661405077588995728

Business Hours: Sunday Closed Monday 9:00am-6:00pm Tuesday 9:00am-6:00pm Wednesday 9:00am-6:00pm Thursday 9:00am-6:00pm Friday 9:00am-6:00pm Saturday 9:00am-6:00pm

Services: Personal Injury Lawyer, Criminal Justice Lawyer, Insurance Claim Lawyer

Keywords: Pinnacle law Firm, Law Firm South Florida, Personal Injury Lawyer Broward County, Personal Injury Lawyer Miami Dade, Physical Injury Lawyer Hallandale Beach, Criminal Justice Lawyer Hollywood, Insurance Claim Lawyer West Park, Miramar, Personal Injury Lawyer Pembroke Pines, Criminal Justice Lawyer Silver Lakes, Insurance Claim Lawyer Southwest Ranches, Cooper City, Insurance Claim Lawyer Weston, Criminal Lawyer Davie, Accident lawyer Fort Lauderdale, Physical Injury Lawyer Oakland Park, Insurance law Miami Gardens, business lawyer Aventura, Family lawyers Golden Beach, tax lawyer Sunny Isles Beach, Contract Law North Miami, Car accident lawyer Bal Harbour, Lawyers Bay Harbor Islands, Trial Attorney Indian Creek, Physical Injury Lawyer Surfside, Personal Injury Lawyer El Portal, Criminal Justice Lawyer Miami Lakes, Insurance Claim Lawyer Hialeah, criminal defense lawyer Hialeah Gardens, Law Firm in Hollywood, Doral Law Firm

Location:

Service Areas:

#Youtube

2 notes · View notes