1. They're attempting to stave off anything that could upset their end goal of near 100% warehouse automation. They accept the higher costs now because they are fairly confident that in a few years many of these workers will likely be automated away. 2. They believe that higher wages and possible good will PR is worth more profit than lower wages and possible bad good will PR. 3. Going into the holiday season they're hoping to make it more difficult for competitors to hirer temp workers and consequently are looking at it as a way to gain an even larger online market share.
The evacuation and continued site closure just means that the FBI doesn't trust that the staff aren't responsible for the suspicious item. That's not to be confused with the FBI suspecting members of the staff are responsible for it. This is just a move to protect the site from tampering by the actors that placed the suspicious item and possibly to try to get the perpetrator anxious enough to flinch in a way that outs themselves.
We have more electoral votes than Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia put together.
California has 55 electoral votes. Texas has 38 electoral votes. Oklahoma has 7 electoral votes. Arkansas has 11 electoral votes. Indiana has 11 electoral votes. Kentucky has 8 electoral votes. West Virginia has 5 electoral votes. That's 55 electoral votes to 133. California has less than half of the electoral votes of the states you listed.
Dred Scott, Korematsu, and Wickard v. Filburn are all court decisions that haven't been overturned. No one in their right mind would try citing Dred Scott or Korematsu to support their argument but Wickard v. Filburn, despite the nonsense of the argument made in the case, is still cited with regularity to support federal government regulation and continual erosion of the 10th Amendment.
Often enough, people choose to believe falsehoods because they're comforting, easy, pleasant, or exciting.
You can get people to believe a lie that they know is a lie for a few seconds just by speaking the lie without delay and with a sense of certainty. Your speaking with certainty causes them to doubt themselves. What would you expect from a non-skeptic that doesn't have the benefit of knowing your lie is a lie?
The United States is in too many conflicts. Increasing the manpower in the military just makes it easier to deploy US units overseas on "peacekeeping" missions.
in my state a utility bill is enough. If Voter Id laws already existed we wouldn't be talking about passing them. Voter Id laws mean a state issued Id. It's been shown repeatably that State Issued Ids are intentionally difficult to get and maintain for poor people. Again, spend some time on google and you can confirm this. You don't have to take my word for it.
Perhaps you should take your own advice and research from the link I provided you.
IC 3-5-2-40.5 requires a photo ID issued by state or federal government. This law was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2008.
IC 3-5-2-40.5 "Proof of identification"
Sec. 40.5. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), "proof of identification" refers to a document that satisfies all the following: (1) The document shows the name of the individual to whom the document was issued, and the name conforms to the name in the individual's voter registration record. (2) The document shows a photograph of the individual to whom the document was issued. (3) The document includes an expiration date, and the document: (A) is not expired; or (B) expired after the date of the most recent general election. (4) The document was issued by the United States or the state of Indiana.
(b) Notwithstanding subsection (a)(3), a document issued by the United States Department of Defense, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (or its predecessor, the Veterans Administration), a branch of the uniformed services, the Merchant Marine, or the Indiana National Guard that: (1) otherwise complies with the requirements of subsection (a); and (2) has no expiration date or states that the document has an indefinite expiration date; is sufficient proof of identification for purposes of this title.
Wisconsin also requires state or federal issued photo ID with the sole potential exception of a college issued photo ID but that also has to be combined with proof of enrollment in said college.
Virginia also requires photo ID along the same lines as Wisconsin where the only exception to it being government issued is for college IDs.
I don't really feel like digging into any of the other 34 states that require identification and how many of those require government issued IDs. Three, and one of which went to and survived the Supreme Court, is more than sufficient to disprove your assertion that voter ID laws always get rejected in court.
Those leaked emails have been what's caused voter Id to be thrown out where ever it's been tried.
I'm not sure if you genuinely believe that statement, are intentionally lying, or are misrepresenting the truth. A majority of states have laws that require either photo or non-photo ID to vote. The main difference between those states is where the voter will have to take any steps after casting their provisional ballot after presenting ID. Ten states require the voter to present a valid ID after casting the ballot for it to be counted. The remainder will do additional cross checks or have other means to avoid requiring the ID.
The Electors have full autonomy and can place votes however they wish. Doing so in a way that doesn't match the State's laws and the outcome of the State's election is perfectly valid as far as the federal election is concerned.
If Candidate A won State X, and its Electors all voted for Candidate B, State X might try to imprison those Electors. But their votes for Candidate B stay.
As evidence, see the record number of defector electors in the 2016 election.
One Hawaii elector, pledged Hillary Clinton, voted for Bernie Sanders. One Texas elector, pledged Donald Trump, voted for Ron Paul. One Texas elector, pledged Donald Trump, voted for John Kasich. Three Washington electors, pledged Hillary Clinton, voted for Colin Powell. One Washington elector, pledged Hillary Clinton, voted for Faith Spotted Eagle.
Three additional electors from Colorado, Maine, and Minnesota all initially declined voting for Hillary Clinton. Two of those were replaced while the third voted for Hillary Clinton.
There still is zero indication that they had any impact on the rates of nearby residents.
You're not thinking like a household and thinking literally about rates. It doesn't matter if there rate for power is still $0.01/kWh or whatever it might be. If a surcharge for $5 has been added to the bill then to the end consumer household their power rates have gone up $5/mo and that is precisely the situation that occurred.
Regardless, the outcome is that all residents in the state are paying this additional surcharge to secure less than two dozen jobs.
Based on the article, it appears that what happened was....
1. Amazon builds datacenter and needs power. 2. Power company was going to run overhead wires across a Civil War battlefield to supply power. 3. Citizen protest overhead wires successfully forcing the power company to bury the wire. 4. Power company goes to state legislature to get permission to place a fee to subscribers to pay for buying the line. 5. Citizens see their power bill increase due to fee/surcharge.
That is the US model. The only functional differences are how many brackets, the start/stop of each bracket, and the tax rate at a given bracket. The bracket is not your tax rate for all of your income, only for the income that meets or exceeds the bracket.
I read this and I thought that $200 has to be a misunderstanding. I read the article and it repeats $200. I still think there's an error in reporting here and that Apple is valuing the property and building at $200M. That at least seems within the realm of sensibility because there's no way accountants or assessors at Apple would value the campus at $200.
2.2 billion cash and over 3 billion in accounts payable.
$27,9 billion in assets. $22,6 billion in liabilities. Was there any reason why you handpicked only one part of the assets and liabilities lists?
I'm not sure why you list the total assets and liabilities. You're engaging in the same sort of cherry picking as the person you're responding to except that you're avoiding looking at cash flow by dumping out total assets and liabilities which has minimal relevance to cash flow. I could have a company that has a building and land worth $1m and end up failing because the only liability is property taxes (we'll say $30,000) which I can't pay forcing me to liquidate the property to pay the taxes, essentially dissolving the company, but hey it's still a $1m company with only $30,000 worth of liability. All total assets and liability really gives you is the balance sheet value of a company today (assets - liabilities) if you were to buy or sell it.
They list 6.57bn as their total current assets of which 2.26bn is wrapped up in inventory. The remainder is mostly 3.5sbn in cash and 515.38m in accounts receivable. It also lists 7.67bn as their total current liabilities. 978.76m is debt payments, 2.39bn is accounts payable, 185.81m is income taxes, 378.28m is payroll, and 3.74bn is other miscellaneous current liabilities. Unfortunately, AP isn't broken down to the point that you can tell whether those are due to capital investments or operational expenses, or I just can't read the statement well enough to determine if capital expenses are broken out elsewhere.
Their current financials are negative and when you have that situation you are riding your cash reserves hoping to turn a profit or you're seeking outside money via issuing stock or bonds, or getting investors or loans to continue operations and taking on liabilities to fund operations is typically not a good idea.
I hope Tesla succeeds but I do think they need to improve their cash flow situation.
To be fair, $350 million had already been allocated to the states for securing elections back in March 2018 and the Republicans have rejected this proposal saying that they should wait to see how the states allocate money before allocating more money to the states.
To be fair, this is the second rejected proposal since March to send additional funds to secure elections.
Yes, that superseding indictment doesn't really add much and you're correct that Gates cooperation is the likely cause for it.
The conspiracy in question, though, isn't any new crime. It's still related to the previous crimes for which Manafort was indicted. It was the conspiracy to defraud the US by hiding the financial transactions and holdings that occurred between 2006 and 2016. Gates provided the testimonial evidence to prove that Manafort and others conspired to perform the actions rather than just the actions being committed independently.
From in or about and between 2006 and 2017, both dates being approximate and inclusive, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, the defendant PAUL J. MANAFORT, JR., together with others, knowingly and intentionally conspired to defraud the United States by impeding, impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of a government agency, namely the Department of Justice and the Treasury, and to commit offenses against the United States, to wit: the violations of law charged in Counts Three, Four, and Five, and to unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly fail to file with the Treasury an FBAR disclosing a financial interest in, and signature and other authority over, a bank, securities, and other financial account in a foreign country, which had an aggregate value of more than $10,000 in a 12-month period, in violation of 31 U.S.C. 5314 and 5322(a). 39. In furtherance of the conspiracy and to effect its illegal
While you are technically correct that "Conspiracy Against the United States" has been seen in an indictment from the Mueller investigation, it's a fact that isn't relevant to the AC to which you were pointing it out. That AC was referencing the Russia collusion narrative. You pointed out that it would show up as Conspiracy Against the United States and that such an indictment occurred. The conspiracy which Mueller indicted for has no relevance to the Russia collusion narrative. The nature of the conspiracy which is indicted is important as it is an umbrella crime that can cover a myriad of different offenses and failing to include the context of what the conspiracy was for is misleading at best to try to score cheap political points in favor of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
So far there have been two indictments of American citizens for "Conspiracy against the United States": Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. Gates struck a deal in which he pled guilty, and he's now a cooperating witness.
Conspiracy Against the United States is a specific crime under 18 U.S.C. 371. None of these indictments were under that code. The were indicted for Bank Fraud Conspiracy which falls under 18 U.S.C. 1349 and 3551.
Renegotiating ongoing contracts for retroactive pricing is not isolated to automotive and vendors are usually open to the idea of it.
It primarily happens because the purchasing company finds out it has a higher demand for a widget that previously expected. The reporting on it could also be distorted for various reasons to make something sound like what it isn't.
Let's say you use a widget in your production. That widget costs $50 if you buy 500 or fewer, $45 if you buy 501-1000, and $40 if you buy 1001 or more. The orders for your product which uses the widget only suggests you need 750 widgets. That will cost you $33,750 and it doesn't make sense to buy 251 more just to get a better volume discount pricing. While the contract is being satisfied (widgets still undelivered) you get more orders from your customers which increases your need of widgets to 1100 total (+350). You could setup a new widget contract but you would be pay $50 apiece ($17,500 + $33,750 = $51,250). If you renegotiate the ongoing contract for the widget you can often get those additional 350 at the 1000 volume price ($14,000). Your total cost would be $33,750 plus $14,000 for $47,750 ($3,750 more than if you bought all 1,100 in the initial contract). On the accounting side the contract pricing for those 1100 widgets would actually show up as an individual price of $43.41 rather than 750 @ $45 and 350 @ $40. In a sense, you would get a retroactive discount to the product you already purchased.
They may also try to leverage for a retroactive discount but that whether that is a discount or credit would depend on whether or not the purchaser has already paid any invoices for the contract.
Because of risk. Salvagers were looking for the ship because it was reported to be carrying a large sum of gold. It may have been. it may have been carrying a lesser sum of gold. It may not have been carrying any gold. The salvagers have only found the wreck of the warship, and by maritime law, couldn't act on it without Russia's permission. Additionally, because of the reported gold on board it's highly probable that the individuals who located the wreck did not give Russia the location of the wreck but just provided evidence that they had found it.
The only improvement to Russia's situation with regard to the ship is that they would know the wreck is intact. They still wouldn't know how much gold is on it or where the ship is located. Russia would need to fund expeditions to locate the wreck and the fund the salvage operation. This would all be done under the assumption of a payout worth $130bn. Russia did the right move. They get half the recovered salvage to a tune $65bn without having to pay anything and if the gold doesn't materialize or the take is considerably less than 130bn then Russia still comes out ahead.
My apologies. I erred when crafting that sentence. I made the assumption that the sentence would be interpreted in the context of the Russian collusion narrative, which is that Trump owes his Presidency to the Russians.
Papadopolous's indictment features a number of false statements regarding attempting to reach out to Russian contacts. The indictment contains no evidence of Papadopolous's statements being much more than an indication that he attempted to arrange a meeting between Trump and the Russian government as well as obtain the alleged hacked Clinton emails. If anything, the indictment goes to prove just how little Papadopolous managed to accomplish. In the end he never got the emails and there was no meeting arranged between the Russians and Trump or his campaign.
Flynn, which I had accidently posted Manafort's indictment also spoke with Russians. Flynn did contact with Russians but contact was also tangential to the collusion narrative. The indictments don't contain specifics but Flynn may have done no more than communicated the preferences of the Trump Presidential Transition Team to the Russians or other nations and encourage them to keep in mind the incoming administration when voting on a UN resolution. Flynn's perjury charges almost certain arose out of a desire to avoid any potential Logan Act prosecution, something that would be a very interesting case to watch come through the pipes with regard to the authority that will be assumed and has been preemptived bestowed on the President-elect via an election.
While your statement is factually correct the narrative to which the submitter is reference is the "Trump-Russia Collusion" narrative. People want it to be true to get rid of Trump. These are all publicly available in indictments.
Only Pinedo, has anything to do with Russian involvement and that has to do with him selling some of the fraud services to the Russians. Pinedo wasn't involved with Trump's campaign. Each of the indictments of individuals associated with the Trump campaign have nothing to do with the operations of the Trump campaign or even involve the Russians.
I'm not exactly sure which four targets you're referencing but I'm going to go on the assumption you're alluding to the three targets listed in the indictment (DNC, Clinton campaign, State Election board) along with Trump. Looking at only the targets listed in the indictment and tossing in Trump is your own bias showing. Russia did attempt to hack RNC assets, that much was admitted by Comey in Jan 2017. They were successful against state and local RNC groups as well as older RNC domains but did not succeed against RNC's main systems.
The most likely motivation behind Russia's activities was to sow discord by increasing uncertain and friction among the populace and not to specifically help a single candidate. By targeting faction neutral assets (election boards), both major political party campaigns, and Hillary Clinton the most likely answer to your set of four questions is actually point 1 or 2 rather than 3 or 4. The fact that Trump hasn't bragged about not being hacked or the Trump Campaign is silent about not being hacked is fairly in line with their method of operation. There's no evidence to support that assertion or can be misrepresented to support that assertion. I would actually lean strongly towards your second option being the real outcome. A bunch of nothing in emails would play along very well with the general discord objective. How better to rile up people against one particular person than by not releasing the pointless crap that you obtained about their opponent?
Conspiracy theories too often lack any affirmative evidence to swat it away. It doesn't matter if Mueller comes up with no indictments of individuals soliciting Russian aid. If the investigation ends like that then people will just insist that it was kept well hidden or that people are lying.
Slashdot Mirror
Amazon is raising wages for one of three reasons.
1. They're attempting to stave off anything that could upset their end goal of near 100% warehouse automation. They accept the higher costs now because they are fairly confident that in a few years many of these workers will likely be automated away.
2. They believe that higher wages and possible good will PR is worth more profit than lower wages and possible bad good will PR.
3. Going into the holiday season they're hoping to make it more difficult for competitors to hirer temp workers and consequently are looking at it as a way to gain an even larger online market share.
The evacuation and continued site closure just means that the FBI doesn't trust that the staff aren't responsible for the suspicious item. That's not to be confused with the FBI suspecting members of the staff are responsible for it. This is just a move to protect the site from tampering by the actors that placed the suspicious item and possibly to try to get the perpetrator anxious enough to flinch in a way that outs themselves.
I feel like that if the passenger or driver were killed that would preempt any ability to leave a 1 star rating.
We have more electoral votes than Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia put together.
California has 55 electoral votes. Texas has 38 electoral votes. Oklahoma has 7 electoral votes. Arkansas has 11 electoral votes. Indiana has 11 electoral votes. Kentucky has 8 electoral votes. West Virginia has 5 electoral votes. That's 55 electoral votes to 133. California has less than half of the electoral votes of the states you listed.
Dred Scott, Korematsu, and Wickard v. Filburn are all court decisions that haven't been overturned. No one in their right mind would try citing Dred Scott or Korematsu to support their argument but Wickard v. Filburn, despite the nonsense of the argument made in the case, is still cited with regularity to support federal government regulation and continual erosion of the 10th Amendment.
Often enough, people choose to believe falsehoods because they're comforting, easy, pleasant, or exciting.
You can get people to believe a lie that they know is a lie for a few seconds just by speaking the lie without delay and with a sense of certainty. Your speaking with certainty causes them to doubt themselves. What would you expect from a non-skeptic that doesn't have the benefit of knowing your lie is a lie?
The United States is in too many conflicts. Increasing the manpower in the military just makes it easier to deploy US units overseas on "peacekeeping" missions.
in my state a utility bill is enough. If Voter Id laws already existed we wouldn't be talking about passing them. Voter Id laws mean a state issued Id. It's been shown repeatably that State Issued Ids are intentionally difficult to get and maintain for poor people. Again, spend some time on google and you can confirm this. You don't have to take my word for it.
Perhaps you should take your own advice and research from the link I provided you.
IC 3-5-2-40.5 requires a photo ID issued by state or federal government. This law was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2008.
IC 3-5-2-40.5 "Proof of identification"
Sec. 40.5. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), "proof of identification" refers to a document that satisfies all the following:
(1) The document shows the name of the individual to whom the document was issued, and the name conforms to the name in the individual's voter registration record.
(2) The document shows a photograph of the individual to whom the document was issued.
(3) The document includes an expiration date, and the document:
(A) is not expired; or
(B) expired after the date of the most recent general election.
(4) The document was issued by the United States or the state of Indiana.
(b) Notwithstanding subsection (a)(3), a document issued by the United States Department of Defense, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (or its predecessor, the Veterans Administration), a branch of the uniformed services, the Merchant Marine, or the Indiana National Guard that:
(1) otherwise complies with the requirements of subsection (a); and
(2) has no expiration date or states that the document has an indefinite expiration date;
is sufficient proof of identification for purposes of this title.
Wisconsin also requires state or federal issued photo ID with the sole potential exception of a college issued photo ID but that also has to be combined with proof of enrollment in said college.
Virginia also requires photo ID along the same lines as Wisconsin where the only exception to it being government issued is for college IDs.
I don't really feel like digging into any of the other 34 states that require identification and how many of those require government issued IDs. Three, and one of which went to and survived the Supreme Court, is more than sufficient to disprove your assertion that voter ID laws always get rejected in court.
Those leaked emails have been what's caused voter Id to be thrown out where ever it's been tried.
I'm not sure if you genuinely believe that statement, are intentionally lying, or are misrepresenting the truth. A majority of states have laws that require either photo or non-photo ID to vote. The main difference between those states is where the voter will have to take any steps after casting their provisional ballot after presenting ID. Ten states require the voter to present a valid ID after casting the ballot for it to be counted. The remainder will do additional cross checks or have other means to avoid requiring the ID.
Voter ID Laws
The Electors have full autonomy and can place votes however they wish. Doing so in a way that doesn't match the State's laws and the outcome of the State's election is perfectly valid as far as the federal election is concerned.
If Candidate A won State X, and its Electors all voted for Candidate B, State X might try to imprison those Electors. But their votes for Candidate B stay.
As evidence, see the record number of defector electors in the 2016 election.
One Hawaii elector, pledged Hillary Clinton, voted for Bernie Sanders.
One Texas elector, pledged Donald Trump, voted for Ron Paul.
One Texas elector, pledged Donald Trump, voted for John Kasich.
Three Washington electors, pledged Hillary Clinton, voted for Colin Powell.
One Washington elector, pledged Hillary Clinton, voted for Faith Spotted Eagle.
Three additional electors from Colorado, Maine, and Minnesota all initially declined voting for Hillary Clinton. Two of those were replaced while the third voted for Hillary Clinton.
There still is zero indication that they had any impact on the rates of nearby residents.
You're not thinking like a household and thinking literally about rates. It doesn't matter if there rate for power is still $0.01/kWh or whatever it might be. If a surcharge for $5 has been added to the bill then to the end consumer household their power rates have gone up $5/mo and that is precisely the situation that occurred.
Regardless, the outcome is that all residents in the state are paying this additional surcharge to secure less than two dozen jobs.
Based on the article, it appears that what happened was....
1. Amazon builds datacenter and needs power.
2. Power company was going to run overhead wires across a Civil War battlefield to supply power.
3. Citizen protest overhead wires successfully forcing the power company to bury the wire.
4. Power company goes to state legislature to get permission to place a fee to subscribers to pay for buying the line.
5. Citizens see their power bill increase due to fee/surcharge.
That is the US model. The only functional differences are how many brackets, the start/stop of each bracket, and the tax rate at a given bracket. The bracket is not your tax rate for all of your income, only for the income that meets or exceeds the bracket.
$0 - $9,524.99 - 10% [$952.50]
$9,525 - $38,699.99 - 12% [$3,501]
$38,700 - $82,499.99 - 22% [$9,636]
$82,500 - $157,499.99 - 24% [$18,000]
$157,500 - $199,999.99 - 32% [$13,600]
$200,000 - $499,999.99 - 35% [$105,000]
$500,000+ - 37%
I read this and I thought that $200 has to be a misunderstanding. I read the article and it repeats $200. I still think there's an error in reporting here and that Apple is valuing the property and building at $200M. That at least seems within the realm of sensibility because there's no way accountants or assessors at Apple would value the campus at $200.
$27,9 billion in assets. $22,6 billion in liabilities. Was there any reason why you handpicked only one part of the assets and liabilities lists?
I'm not sure why you list the total assets and liabilities. You're engaging in the same sort of cherry picking as the person you're responding to except that you're avoiding looking at cash flow by dumping out total assets and liabilities which has minimal relevance to cash flow. I could have a company that has a building and land worth $1m and end up failing because the only liability is property taxes (we'll say $30,000) which I can't pay forcing me to liquidate the property to pay the taxes, essentially dissolving the company, but hey it's still a $1m company with only $30,000 worth of liability. All total assets and liability really gives you is the balance sheet value of a company today (assets - liabilities) if you were to buy or sell it.
I'm using this to look at https://www.marketwatch.com/in...
They list 6.57bn as their total current assets of which 2.26bn is wrapped up in inventory. The remainder is mostly 3.5sbn in cash and 515.38m in accounts receivable. It also lists 7.67bn as their total current liabilities. 978.76m is debt payments, 2.39bn is accounts payable, 185.81m is income taxes, 378.28m is payroll, and 3.74bn is other miscellaneous current liabilities. Unfortunately, AP isn't broken down to the point that you can tell whether those are due to capital investments or operational expenses, or I just can't read the statement well enough to determine if capital expenses are broken out elsewhere.
Their current financials are negative and when you have that situation you are riding your cash reserves hoping to turn a profit or you're seeking outside money via issuing stock or bonds, or getting investors or loans to continue operations and taking on liabilities to fund operations is typically not a good idea.
I hope Tesla succeeds but I do think they need to improve their cash flow situation.
To be fair, $350 million had already been allocated to the states for securing elections back in March 2018 and the Republicans have rejected this proposal saying that they should wait to see how the states allocate money before allocating more money to the states.
To be fair, this is the second rejected proposal since March to send additional funds to secure elections.
Yes, that superseding indictment doesn't really add much and you're correct that Gates cooperation is the likely cause for it.
The conspiracy in question, though, isn't any new crime. It's still related to the previous crimes for which Manafort was indicted. It was the conspiracy to defraud the US by hiding the financial transactions and holdings that occurred between 2006 and 2016. Gates provided the testimonial evidence to prove that Manafort and others conspired to perform the actions rather than just the actions being committed independently.
From in or about and between 2006 and 2017, both dates being approximate and inclusive, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, the defendant PAUL J. MANAFORT, JR., together with others, knowingly and intentionally conspired to defraud the United States by impeding, impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of a government agency, namely the Department of Justice and the Treasury, and to commit offenses against the United States, to wit: the violations of law charged in Counts Three, Four, and Five, and to unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly fail to file with the Treasury an FBAR disclosing a financial interest in, and signature and other authority over, a bank, securities, and other financial account in a foreign country, which had an aggregate value of more than $10,000 in a 12-month period, in violation of 31 U.S.C. 5314 and 5322(a). 39. In furtherance of the conspiracy and to effect its illegal
While you are technically correct that "Conspiracy Against the United States" has been seen in an indictment from the Mueller investigation, it's a fact that isn't relevant to the AC to which you were pointing it out. That AC was referencing the Russia collusion narrative. You pointed out that it would show up as Conspiracy Against the United States and that such an indictment occurred. The conspiracy which Mueller indicted for has no relevance to the Russia collusion narrative. The nature of the conspiracy which is indicted is important as it is an umbrella crime that can cover a myriad of different offenses and failing to include the context of what the conspiracy was for is misleading at best to try to score cheap political points in favor of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
So far there have been two indictments of American citizens for "Conspiracy against the United States": Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. Gates struck a deal in which he pled guilty, and he's now a cooperating witness.
You're talking about this indictment for Paul Manafort and Richard Gates?
Conspiracy Against the United States is a specific crime under 18 U.S.C. 371. None of these indictments were under that code. The were indicted for Bank Fraud Conspiracy which falls under 18 U.S.C. 1349 and 3551.
Renegotiating ongoing contracts for retroactive pricing is not isolated to automotive and vendors are usually open to the idea of it.
It primarily happens because the purchasing company finds out it has a higher demand for a widget that previously expected. The reporting on it could also be distorted for various reasons to make something sound like what it isn't.
Let's say you use a widget in your production. That widget costs $50 if you buy 500 or fewer, $45 if you buy 501-1000, and $40 if you buy 1001 or more. The orders for your product which uses the widget only suggests you need 750 widgets. That will cost you $33,750 and it doesn't make sense to buy 251 more just to get a better volume discount pricing. While the contract is being satisfied (widgets still undelivered) you get more orders from your customers which increases your need of widgets to 1100 total (+350). You could setup a new widget contract but you would be pay $50 apiece ($17,500 + $33,750 = $51,250). If you renegotiate the ongoing contract for the widget you can often get those additional 350 at the 1000 volume price ($14,000). Your total cost would be $33,750 plus $14,000 for $47,750 ($3,750 more than if you bought all 1,100 in the initial contract). On the accounting side the contract pricing for those 1100 widgets would actually show up as an individual price of $43.41 rather than 750 @ $45 and 350 @ $40. In a sense, you would get a retroactive discount to the product you already purchased.
They may also try to leverage for a retroactive discount but that whether that is a discount or credit would depend on whether or not the purchaser has already paid any invoices for the contract.
Because of risk. Salvagers were looking for the ship because it was reported to be carrying a large sum of gold. It may have been. it may have been carrying a lesser sum of gold. It may not have been carrying any gold. The salvagers have only found the wreck of the warship, and by maritime law, couldn't act on it without Russia's permission. Additionally, because of the reported gold on board it's highly probable that the individuals who located the wreck did not give Russia the location of the wreck but just provided evidence that they had found it.
The only improvement to Russia's situation with regard to the ship is that they would know the wreck is intact. They still wouldn't know how much gold is on it or where the ship is located. Russia would need to fund expeditions to locate the wreck and the fund the salvage operation. This would all be done under the assumption of a payout worth $130bn. Russia did the right move. They get half the recovered salvage to a tune $65bn without having to pay anything and if the gold doesn't materialize or the take is considerably less than 130bn then Russia still comes out ahead.
My apologies. I erred when crafting that sentence. I made the assumption that the sentence would be interpreted in the context of the Russian collusion narrative, which is that Trump owes his Presidency to the Russians.
Papadopolous's indictment features a number of false statements regarding attempting to reach out to Russian contacts. The indictment contains no evidence of Papadopolous's statements being much more than an indication that he attempted to arrange a meeting between Trump and the Russian government as well as obtain the alleged hacked Clinton emails. If anything, the indictment goes to prove just how little Papadopolous managed to accomplish. In the end he never got the emails and there was no meeting arranged between the Russians and Trump or his campaign.
Flynn, which I had accidently posted Manafort's indictment also spoke with Russians. Flynn did contact with Russians but contact was also tangential to the collusion narrative. The indictments don't contain specifics but Flynn may have done no more than communicated the preferences of the Trump Presidential Transition Team to the Russians or other nations and encourage them to keep in mind the incoming administration when voting on a UN resolution. Flynn's perjury charges almost certain arose out of a desire to avoid any potential Logan Act prosecution, something that would be a very interesting case to watch come through the pipes with regard to the authority that will be assumed and has been preemptived bestowed on the President-elect via an election.
While your statement is factually correct the narrative to which the submitter is reference is the "Trump-Russia Collusion" narrative. People want it to be true to get rid of Trump. These are all publicly available in indictments.
Papadopoulos - Perjury
Flynn - Perjury
Manafort & Gates - Falsified income tax filings and bank fraud.
Pinedo - Identity Fraud
van der Zwaan - Perjury
Only Pinedo, has anything to do with Russian involvement and that has to do with him selling some of the fraud services to the Russians. Pinedo wasn't involved with Trump's campaign. Each of the indictments of individuals associated with the Trump campaign have nothing to do with the operations of the Trump campaign or even involve the Russians.
I'm not exactly sure which four targets you're referencing but I'm going to go on the assumption you're alluding to the three targets listed in the indictment (DNC, Clinton campaign, State Election board) along with Trump. Looking at only the targets listed in the indictment and tossing in Trump is your own bias showing. Russia did attempt to hack RNC assets, that much was admitted by Comey in Jan 2017. They were successful against state and local RNC groups as well as older RNC domains but did not succeed against RNC's main systems.
The most likely motivation behind Russia's activities was to sow discord by increasing uncertain and friction among the populace and not to specifically help a single candidate. By targeting faction neutral assets (election boards), both major political party campaigns, and Hillary Clinton the most likely answer to your set of four questions is actually point 1 or 2 rather than 3 or 4. The fact that Trump hasn't bragged about not being hacked or the Trump Campaign is silent about not being hacked is fairly in line with their method of operation. There's no evidence to support that assertion or can be misrepresented to support that assertion. I would actually lean strongly towards your second option being the real outcome. A bunch of nothing in emails would play along very well with the general discord objective. How better to rile up people against one particular person than by not releasing the pointless crap that you obtained about their opponent?
Get out of here with your facts. They are inconvenient to the rage machine.
Conspiracy theories too often lack any affirmative evidence to swat it away. It doesn't matter if Mueller comes up with no indictments of individuals soliciting Russian aid. If the investigation ends like that then people will just insist that it was kept well hidden or that people are lying.