About that Judge Bruce E. Reinhart

Posted on August 10, 2022August 11, 2022 by Denise Simon

Primer:

The Magistrate Court in Florida has pulled (deleted) the information related to Judge Reinhart….hee hee …you don’t say.
Oh and the Judge recused himself in a RICO case Trump has against Hillary Clinton et.al

Meanwhile…..

His resume includes that he studied at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania and went on to work at the U.S. Treasury Department and in the Department of Justice‘s public integrity section.

As nutty as it may be, Reinhart was actually appointed by President Trump…then there is this? (making a correction here thanks to a patriot) The process is as follows:

A U.S. magistrate judge is a judicial officer of the district court and is appointed by majority vote of the active district judges of the court to exercise jurisdiction over matters assigned by statute as well as those delegated by the district judges. The number of magistrate judge positions is determined by the Judicial Conference of the United States, based on recommendations of the respective district courts, the judicial councils of the circuits, and the Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. A full-time magistrate judge serves a term of eight years. Duties assigned to magistrate judges by district court judges may vary considerably from court to court.

That lawsuit that Trump has in short is as follows:

defendants who consented to the delay included the Democratic National Committee; HFACC, Inc.; DNC Services Corporation; Perkins Coie, LLC; Michael Sussmann; Marc Elias; Debbie Wasserman Schultz; Jake Sullivan; John Podesta; Robert Mook; Fusion GPS; Peter Fritsch; Glenn Simpson; Nellie Ohr; Igor Danchenko; Neustar, Inc.; and Rodney Joffe. The Trump lawsuit alleged civil violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, injurious falsehood, theft of trade secrets, violations of the Stored Communications Act, and other actions — 16 in total. Clinton and a significant percentage (if not all) of the named defendants have moved to dismiss the case, mostly because the statute of limitations for the claims pressed by Trump have already passed. More details here.

Source:

The federal magistrate judge who signed the warrant authorizing the FBI raid on former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence is a former criminal defense attorney who represented a former Democratic congressman investigated by the bureau for putting his mistress on his congressional payroll.

Government records indicate that Judge Bruce E. Reinhart, one of three federal magistrates in West Palm Beach, signed the unprecedented warrant targeting Trump, who denounced the “unannounced raid” on his property as “an assault [that] could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.”

As a criminal defense attorney, Reinhart represented Democratic congressman Tim Mahoney, a Florida lawmaker who ran on a platform of “faith, family, and personal responsibility” while carrying on a series of extramarital affairs. Mahoney subsequently came under FBI investigation for hiring one of his mistresses to work in his congressional office before putting her on his campaign payroll.

Prior to becoming a judge in 2018, Reinhart spent 12 years as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, the office tasked with investigating the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking in 2005.

The federal case against Epstein ultimately went nowhere thanks to a controversial non-prosecution agreement Epstein’s lawyers negotiated with the U.S. Attorney’s office. While the terms of that deal were being finalized in late 2007, Reinhart opened a limited liability company in Florida listed at the same address used by Epstein’s lead attorney, Jack Goldberger. Reinhart resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s office on Jan. 1, 2008. Epstein hired him the very next day. Reinhart would go on to represent Epstein’s pilot, scheduler, and alleged “sex slave,” all of whom received immunity from federal prosecution.

Reinhart went on to serve 10 years in private practice, where he specialized in “white collar criminal defense and complex litigation.” He was sworn in as a federal magistrate in March 2018 after being appointed by a majority vote of U.S. District Court judges in Southern Florida. Candidates for the position must be “a member of good standing of a state or territory’s highest court bar” and are “vetted by a merit selection panel that consists of lawyers and non-lawyers from the community.”

A Crime Victims’ Rights lawsuit filed in 2011 argued that Reinhart violated Justice Department policy by switching sides and accused the attorney of exploiting his access to confidential information about the sex trafficking case to secure a job with Epstein. Reinhart denied having access to “confidential, non-public information about the Epstein matter,” but the U.S. Attorney’s office claimed otherwise, according to the Miami Herald.

Little is known about the FBI’s raid on Trump’s home. Reporting suggests the search was related to Trump’s removal of classified material upon leaving the White House in 2021. “They even searched my safe!” Trump said in a statement. The Justice Department, which is investigating Trump for his efforts to remain in office following the 2020 election, has declined to comment publicly.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) denounced the federal government’s actions, arguing that the Justice Department “has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.” He went on to warn Attorney General Merrick Garland that GOP lawmakers would thoroughly investigate the matter “when Republicans take back the House” in 2023.

White House aides claimed they were not informed of the FBI’s intentions prior to the raid and learned about it on Twitter.

*** Newsweek in part has:

Those employees reportedly included pilots, a scheduler named Sarah Kellen, and a woman whom some of Epstein’s victims said was his sex slave, according to a 2018 report in The Miami Herald.

The newspaper also reported in 2011 that Reinhart was named in a lawsuit and accused of violating Justice Department policy by representing the Epstein employees. He denied any wrongdoing and said he didn’t participate in the criminal case against Epstein or learn any confidential information while working as a federal prosecutor.

It’s Real –> Financial Transactions over $600 to the IRS

Posted on August 9, 2022August 9, 2022 by Denise Simon

There are countless payment platforms known as digital wallets (apps) now. PayPal, QuickBooks, Wise, Venmo, Zelle, Stripe, ApplePay, GooglePay, Xoom are just a few. Included should also be online sales apps like Marketplace by Facebook and OfferUp. Digital money is moved there also. All digital transactions get reported…..leading up to $600.00, in fact $600.00 has nothing to do with the whole matter..

Perhaps it is a good time to quit using them and going to the old fashion cash method which would put cashiers in a panic….

Why go to cash? Well, after the Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and it was revealed that the IRS would be more than double it’s size…perhaps they need all those people to investigate all transactions leading up to that pesky $600.00.

The following website has a great summary

by Jon Miltimore

A proposal from the Biden Administration that would require banks to monitor personal accounts and report all financial transactions over $600 to the IRS is under fire.

On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen defended the proposal on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” calling the collection of financial information “routine” after some in the banking community criticized it as an unprecedented invasion of privacy.

“It’s just a few pieces of information about individual bank accounts,” the secretary said.

‘A Massive Search Without a Search Warrant’

Others disagree with Yellen’s description of the Treasury Department’s proposal, however.

Last month, economist Peter Jacobsen noted the change would give the IRS an “unprecedented look into the finances of many Americans.”

“Even the powerful political will behind the 2002 ‘Patriot Act’ only led to requirements that banks report suspicious transactions of $5,000 or more,” Jacobsen observed.

More recently, a former Kansas City Fed president argued the policy was a dangerous trap that was being laid for the middle class.

“It’s a massive search without a search warrant,” said Thomas Hoenig, who served as president of the Kansas City Fed from 1991 to 2011. “It will be the middle class and the upper middle class who will be caught in this.”

Hoenig also pointed out that, in contrast to wealthier Americans, most in the middle class do not have lawyers and accountants they can rely on to help them navigate matters with the IRS.

“In the collection of the data, there will be false positives,” Hoenig said. “That means individuals will be approached by the government about what they’re doing and they will have to spend additional funds to defend themselves. It’s a really bad idea.”

Hoenig also said the regulation would “cost billions,” since banks will have to collect the data and present it in a usable format for the IRS.

‘We Are Owed’

The Treasury Department regulation is being proposed as the Biden Administration seeks to whip up enough votes to push through a $3.5 trillion reconciliation spending bill. The legislation, Americans are told, will be financed through taxes on “the rich.”

The great economist Ludwig von Mises, however, once warned that individuals should be wary of collectivist policies in sheep’s clothing.

“The masses favor socialism because they trust the socialist propaganda of the intellectuals,” Mises observed. “The intellectuals, not the populace, are molding public opinion.”

One of the great lies that has been perpetuated for decades is that the welfare state can be financed if only the rich would pay “their fair share.” This message, unsurprisingly, polls quite well; but a brief look at history shows that there are limits to what the rich can shoulder in taxes—the welfare states of Europe are financed heavily by middle-class taxes—and the rich in the US already pay an astonishing percentage of the federal tax burden.

Yellen understands this, which is why the Treasury Department’s policy is designed to raise revenue by enforcing greater tax compliance—from everyone.

“There’s an enormous tax gap in the US estimated at $7 trillion over the next 10 years in terms of a shortfall of tax collections to what we believe we are owed,” says Yellen.

Yellen’s last words—what “we are owed”—are telling. They show that when it comes to bureaucrats getting property they see as theirs, something as abstract as “privacy” will not stand in their way.

Defenders of the Treasury Department policy say the IRS would be monitoring annual cash flows, not individual transactions, so that makes the policy okay.

“A simple way for the IRS to get a sense of where that might be is just a few pieces of information about individuals’ bank accounts,” Yellen said. “Nothing at the transaction level that would violate privacy; simply aggregate inflows into the account over the year and aggregate outflows. And that would really help the IRS target their auditing resources, which we have proposed to greatly expand.”

As Mises’ quote implies, government officials are often guilty of saying one thing and doing another. But in this case, Yellen is being refreshingly candid in what the Treasury Department is after.

The government wants to monitor the inflows and outflows of (private) individual bank accounts so the IRS can do more audits with “greatly expanded” resources to allow the federal government to collect trillions of dollars they are “owed.”

Take Yellen at her word—but don’t believe for a minute these audits will only fall on “the rich.”

How Many Biden Officials Were Involved in RussiaGate?

Posted on July 25, 2022July 25, 2022 by Denise Simon

Hat tip to Paul Sperry….well done.

Several individuals connected to a 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign plot to cast Donald Trump as a covert Kremlin collaborator are working in high-level jobs within the Biden administration – including at least two senior Biden appointees cited by Special Counsel John Durham in his “active (and) ongoing” criminal investigation of the scheme, according to recently filed court documents.

Jake Sullivan, who now serves as Biden’s national security adviser, and Caroline Krass, a top lawyer at the Pentagon, were involved in efforts in 2016 and 2017 to advance the Clinton campaign’s false claims about Trump through the media and the federal government, documents show. Other evidence shows that two other Biden officials – senior State Department official Dafna Rand and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler – also are entangled in the so-called Russiagate scandal.

It’s not known whether these Biden appointees have been interviewed by Durham’s investigators. But as the probe widens, some government ethics watchdogs anticipate that Biden’s presidency could be pulled into the scandal, which saw the FBI abuse its surveillance powers to spy on a Trump campaign adviser based on Clinton opposition research.

Just as the Democrats have used their control of Congress to cast President Trump and the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol as threats to American democracy, Republicans are vowing if they regain power after November’s congressional elections to investigate the years-long effort to question Trump’s 2016 victory and undermine his presidency.

The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Turner, recently pledged to hold hearings and issue subpoenas “to get to the bottom of [Russiagate] so this never happens again, so we never have Americans having to distrust their own government because of the politicization of the FBI [and] of our intelligence community.”

RealClearInvestigations has learned that Congress has referred to the Special Counsel’s Office at least a dozen cases of potential perjury involving former Clinton campaign officials and Obama administration officials who have testified behind closed doors about their involvement in Russiagate. Hill lawyers and investigators have met with Durham’s staff about the criminal referrals stemming from the sworn depositions.

Republican sources say that the roles played in Russiagate by Krass, Sullivan, Rand, and Gensler may be among the first to draw attention in hearings. Although the full range of their efforts has not been made public, here’s what is known so far.

Caroline Krass:
Clinton Donor and Top CIA Lawyer

Krass, 54 – whom Biden appointed as general counsel of the Defense Department early last year – is the former top CIA lawyer cited by Durham as “General Counsel of Agency-2” in his indictment of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Durham alleged Sussmann first tried to plant a fabricated report with the FBI’s general counsel about a secret cyber-link between Trump and Russia-based Alfa Bank in order to set in motion an investigation of Trump before the 2016 election. Then, after the election, Sussmann filed a similar report with Krass’ legal shop at the CIA, the prosecutor said.

Although a Washington, D.C. jury in May acquitted Sussmann of lying about who was paying him to approach the FBI, the trial revealed that FBI field agents specializing in cyber crimes debunked his report within days of receiving it, and even suspected some of the evidence was cooked up. “We think it’s a set-up,” one agent warned in an internal FBI email. FBI brass working under then-Director James Comey, however, prolonged the investigation for several months.

Nevertheless, after Trump won the election, Sussmann brought the same Trump-Alfa Bank ruse to Krass – a Clinton donor and Obama appointee, then working under CIA Director John Brennan. Durham has found evidence that Krass welcomed the tip.

“We’re interested,” he said Krass told him in their December 2016 phone call. “We’re doing this review and I’ll speak to someone here, and someone will get back to you to arrange a meeting.”

Krass allegedly told Sussmann she would consider the information for inclusion in the intelligence review of alleged Russian interference in the election that Obama had ordered at the time. A declassified version of the review, known as the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), was released to the public the next month and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of meddling in the election to help Trump win. A classified version included an annex with several unfounded and since-debunked allegations against Trump developed by the Clinton campaign as part of the so-called Steele dossier. It’s not known if the two-page annex, which claimed the allegations were “consistent with the judgments in this assessment,” included the Alfa Bank canard, since several sections remained blacked out when it was made public in 2020.

John Brennan, Obama CIA Director: His agency seemed eager to move on any allegation against Trump.

AP

The ICA became a foundational document for subsequent Trump-Russia probes and has been used by Democrats and the media to suggest the 2016 election was stolen from Clinton.

“The greatest concern with the role of Krass is her ‘interest’ [in Sussmann’s tip] despite the lack of foundational support [for it],” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told RCI. “As with the FBI, the Clinton campaign found eager [Obama] officials to move on any such allegation [against Trump].”

On Feb. 9, 2017, Sussmann secured a sit-down meeting at CIA headquarters with “a representative from the Office of General Counsel,” according to documents reviewed by RCI, where he turned over more dubious material allegedly linking Trump to Russia. The CIA lawyer he met with worked under Krass, who did not leave the agency until several months later, despite the change in administrations.

The attorney, identified at trial only as “Steve M.,” said he would pass the tips on to CIA technical experts, as well as an FBI liaison officer, but they too dismissed the data as “self-generated,” meaning they appeared to be designed to arrive at a predetermined conclusion of a nefarious cyber-link. Complete datasets were withheld from the CIA.

Apparently, the CIA did not even ask for the source of Sussmann’s walk-in tip, including where he got the data files he gave the agency. The FBI exhibited a similar lack of curiosity when Sussmann reported the false Trump-Alfa Bank connection.

However, like FBI brass, Krass and her boss at the time, CIA chief Brennan, were aware of Clinton campaign efforts to portray Trump as a Kremlin agent, and it was no secret that Sussmann’s Perkins Coie law firm represented her campaign.

“As Brennan’s top lawyer, she would know everything about that,” said Kash Patel, the former House Intelligence Committee investigator who interviewed Sussmann in a closed-door deposition in December 2017, and was the first to discover the Alfa Bank smear operation he ran at the FBI and CIA on behalf of Clinton campaign operatives.

Peter Strzok: FBI man opened an investigation, not of Clinton, but the Trump campaign.

AP

Evidence shows that Krass had other reasons to be skeptical of Sussmann’s claims. As legal adviser to Brennan, she was involved in the referral her boss made to the FBI in 2016 to open a counterespionage case to find out how Russian intelligence intercepted information about Hillary Clinton’s plan to tie up Trump in a Kremlin scandal. The intercept revealed the Russians were on to a plot by Clinton and her then-foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan to “stir up” a scandal on Trump about Russia during the Democratic convention in late July 2016.

Brennan appears to have been less concerned about the Clinton campaign’s disinformation campaign than the fact Moscow knew about it. This so alarmed Brennan that he briefed Obama about it, according to a summary of his handwritten notes, declassified in 2020.

The referral, known as a counterintelligence operational lead (CIOL), was sent to Comey, who in turn forwarded it to then-FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok to investigate.

Strzok – who was fired by the FBI after his anti-Trump views became public – opened an investigation, not of Clinton but the Trump campaign. Krass’ chief of staff at the time, Brian Greer, confirmed that the purpose of the CIOL was not to investigate the Clinton campaign’s dirty tricks, but to run a counter-spying probe to see if the Russians had penetrated the Clinton camp. The concern, he said, was that Clinton “may have been spied on by a hostile intelligence service.”

Hillary Clinton: CIA lawyer Krass donated at least $3,575 to Clinton’s 2016 and 2008 campaigns for president.

AP

Seemingly reflecting the attitude of his former boss at the spy agency, Greer opined that “there’s nothing illegal about” what Clinton did to Trump. “Even if it’s unsavory,” he shrugged, “that’s just politics.”

Federal campaign records reveal that Krass donated at least $3,575 to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 and 2008 campaigns for president. Before Obama appointed her to the CIA in 2014, she served as his special counsel for national security affairs in the White House.

Brennan’s handwritten notes were turned up by Durham and opened a new track in his investigation, which early on had appeared to clear the CIA of wrongdoing. But now Durham is actively investigating this CIA front, according to one of his pre-trial filings. His grand jury has interviewed at least eight current and former CIA employees, and he is seeking out other agency employees who may have attended the meeting with Sussmann.

“The government has been undertaking additional steps to determine if additional personnel were, in fact, present at this [Feb. 9] meeting with [CIA] employees,” Durham noted. “In addition, the Special Counsel’s Office maintains an active, ongoing criminal investigation of these and other matters that is not limited to the offense charged in the [Sussmann] indictment.”

Kash Patel, ex-House congressional prober: Russiagate conspirators in the Biden administration “must be held accountable or they’ll only abuse their power again.”

FNC

It could not be determined if Krass is among former CIA employees interviewed by Durham’s team. Durham’s office remains tight-lipped, and neither the CIA nor Pentagon responded to requests for comment. Attempts to reach Krass were also unsuccessful.

During his 2017 House Intelligence Committee interview, Sussmann and his lawyer promised to provide the committee copies of all the documents he gave to the CIA, but Patel said they failed to turn them over. The former staff counsel said he is confident Durham has obtained them.

Meanwhile, Judicial Watch is suing the CIA for all its records of contacts with Sussmann under the Freedom of Information Act. The Washington-based watchdog group recently filed the lawsuit after the CIA failed last year to reply to a request for the records, including notes, related to agency phone conversations and meetings with the Clinton campaign attorney.

“The CIA is in cover-up mode about its communications with the [Clinton] lawyer implicated in a shady spy operation against President Trump,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “What is the CIA hiding about its role in this plot against Trump?”

Fitton maintains that what happened at the CIA could be an even bigger scandal than what happened at the FBI.

As one of the Intelligence Community’s top attorneys, Krass also was involved in Obama’s sudden decision after Trump won to make it easier for the CIA and FBI to root through raw personal communications intercepted globally by the National Security Agency, according to sources familiar with high-level legal consultations regarding the revision to spying rules at the time.

The departing president’s executive order relaxing rules for mining the NSA’s highly classified databases went into effect less than three weeks before Trump took office. At the same time, the White House rushed to preserve all intelligence related to Trump and Russia and disseminate it across U.S. agencies.

The order, known as “12 Triple 3,” allowed the FBI for the first time to sift through large troves of incidental communications – including phone calls and emails – involving U.S. citizens, without NSA filtering or even wiretap warrants. In effect, agents could put advisers and appointees of Trump, along with their family members and friends, under warrantless surveillance.

The easing of longstanding restrictions on intelligence-sharing set off a massive fishing expedition.

The FBI didn’t have much time to exploit the raw intercepts before Trump put his own people in place. So in a last-minute scramble, it asked both the CIA and NSA to search their holdings and collect as much information as possible on Russian oligarchs and other figures for any links to Trump and his advisers – namely, Gen. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Carter Page.

Read the full summary here.

Hillary Sold our Uranium, Is Biden Selling our Lithium?

Posted on July 25, 2022July 25, 2022 by Denise Simon

As a reminder about the U.S. uranium, click here to refresh your memory about Uranium One and Hillary Clinton. Disgustingly, it appears Hillary finessed this scandal too.

Now we have yet another very similar scandal and it involves the Biden administration and lithium which is used for batteries…for those electronic vehicles. Lithium is not only used for batteries but also for amour plating, special glasses, air conditioning and often in drugs for manic depression. Chile and Brazil are large producers of lithium, yet the United States does have deposits and is way behind China in ownership and uses.

That condition is getting worse it seems due to the constant deference of the Biden administration to China.

The BBC reported earlier this month that the FBI Director Christopher Wary met with the head of MI5 to mutually discuss the epic threats of China. Wray stated in part:

Wray warned the audience – which included chief executives of businesses and senior figures from universities – that the Chinese government was “set on stealing your technology” using a range of tools.

He said it posed “an even more serious threat to western businesses than even many sophisticated businesspeople realised”. He cited cases in which people linked to Chinese companies out in rural America had been digging up genetically modified seeds which would have cost them billions of dollars and nearly a decade to develop themselves.

He also said China deployed cyber espionage to “cheat and steal on a massive scale”, with a hacking programme larger than that of every other major country combined.

One has to wonder if Wray did this in public fashion because the Bureau’s cases and intelligence are being ignored in the Presidential Daily Briefings at the White House.

Anyway, back to the lithium.

Steve Miller authored a piece at Real Clear Investigation that reads in part:

A Chinese-dominated mining company has procured millions of dollars in American subsidies to extract lithium in the United States – but, given a dearth of U.S. processing capacity, the mineral is likely to be sent to China with no guarantee that the end product would return as batteries to power President Biden’s envisioned green economy.

Critics say the scenario would increase U.S. energy dependence on a hostile power – one accused of using forced labor in the manufacture of both lithium batteries and solar panels – and undercuts the Biden administration’s emphasis on domestic sourcing of green energy.

Lithium has taken the spotlight in Biden’s energy plan, since it is a key element needed to produce batteries for electric vehicles and solar panel storage. The administration acknowledges the lithium processing challenge – tacitly – in a June 2021 report produced by the U.S. Department of Energy. “The nation would benefit greatly from development and growth of cost-competitive domestic materials processing for lithium-battery materials,” the report reads.

The White House in March issued an order invoking the Defense Production Act, a 1950’s-era law meant to prioritize production of materials in the name of national security. The action allows the federal government to direct taxpayer funds to private companies to extract more lithium in the U.S. – including foreign-based interests.

Prominent in the initiative is Canadian-based Lithium Americas, a publicly traded group whose largest shareholder is Chinese-owned lithium mining giant Ganfeng Lithium, which is currently under investigation in China for alleged insider trading.

Lithium Americas is seeking to mine lithium from Thacker Pass, an 18,000-acre wilderness area on the Nevada-Oregon border. If the mining is approved, Thacker Pass would join a mine at Silver Peak outside of Tonopah, Nevada, as one of the only active lithium mines in the U.S. The company projects it will yield 80,000 tons of lithium a year, which would make it one of the largest lithium mines in the world, producing a quarter of the world’s demand.

Lithium Americas’ local company, Lithium Nevada, has been approved to receive Nevada tax abatements worth $8.5 million. And the parent company has applied for a loan through the Department of Energy. Read the full summary here.

photo from Nevada Division of Environmental Protection website

Seems the Federal government is approving all kinds of sell off deals for China including oil from our emergency reserves, much less real estate. Exactly who is ultimately approving all this as members of the Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States and why is the president not using his pen to veto/forbid the transactions? (rhetorical)

More Legal Cases Still to Come Over the SCOTUS Roe Ruling

Posted on June 27, 2022June 27, 2022 by Denise Simon

There is no denial that the Federal government has overt abortion activists including beyond the White House, it goes to the Department of Justice and sadly even to the Department of Defense.

Wasting no time, Merrick Garland, the U.S. Attorney General took to Twitter to expose his advocacy for abortion.

His full published statement is found here.

Garland, like the few Justices on the Supreme Court…just need to read aloud the text of the U.S. Constitution where it refers to a Constitutional right…we’re waiting.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/companies-offering-abortion-travel-benefits-us-workers-2022-06-24/

Meanwhile…there is General Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense….yeesh…but read on…

Axios reported –>

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday that the Pentagon is working to ensure that members of the military, their families and its civilian employees will still have access to “reproductive health care” after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Why it matters: The Defense Department currently does not have a policy to accommodate service members or employees who are seeking an abortion but are stationed in a state that has outlawed abortion, Politico reports.

Federal law currently allows military medical facilities to provide abortions only in cases of rape, incest or if a woman’s life is in danger, while the military’s health program is allowed to cover abortions at private facilities for those same reasons only.

What they’re saying: “Nothing is more important to me or to this Department than the health and well-being of our Service members, the civilian workforce and DOD families,” Austin said in a statement on Friday.

“I am committed to taking care of our people and ensuring the readiness and resilience of our Force. The Department is examining this decision closely and evaluating our policies to ensure we continue to provide seamless access to reproductive health care as permitted by federal law,” he added.

The big picture: The court’s decision may further strain the military’s recruitment efforts — already hampered by low employment and other factors — as potential recruits may fear being stationed in states that have banned abortions, according to Bloomberg.

Women make up around 20% of the military’s 1.3 million-member active-duty force, and 95% of them are of reproductive age, according to Stars and Stripes citing department statistics.

Then..one of the first messages I received was a headline article from Associated Press predicting the stockpiling of abortion pills…imagine the looming black market on those. Then VOX weighed in –> Medication abortion, or taking a combination of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, is an increasingly common method for ending pregnancies in the United States. Reasons vary and overlap: Some women lack access to in-person abortion clinics; others prefer to end pregnancies in the comfort of their own home. Others seek out the pills because they cost far less than surgical abortion. (…)

small but growing number of reproductive experts have been encouraging discussion of an idea called “advance provision” — or, more colloquially, stocking up on abortion pills in case one needs them later.

It’s an idea that has merit: Mifepristone has a shelf life of about five years, misoprostol about two, and both drugs work better the earlier in a pregnancy you take them. In states that are ramping up abortion restrictions, there’s often a race against the clock to access care. In Texas, for example, if you don’t realize until eight weeks in that you’re pregnant — which could be only a couple of weeks after a missed period — you would have already passed the state’s new legal deadline for obtaining abortion pills. But if you had already stored them in your home, or your friend or neighbor had, then you’d be able to take them.

Now…let’s take a look at corporations that have made pledges to pay for abortion expenses…then consider when the lawsuits begin for corporations paying in kind for wanted pregnancies and full term, real birth for planned and wanted babies…will that be considered? Ah…but read on. It is still going to be ugly going forward.

Company

Benefit(s) Offered

JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N)

The company told employees it would pay for their travel to states that allow legal abortions, according to a memo seen by Reuters. read more

Citigroup Inc (C.N)

The bank has started covering travel expenses for employees who go out of state for abortions because of newly enacted restrictions in Texas and other states, becoming the first major U.S. bank to make that commitment. read more

Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N)

Goldman Sachs Group Inc will cover travel expenses for its U.S.-based employees who need to go out of state to receive abortion or gender-affirming medical care starting July 1. read more

Meta Platforms Inc. (META.O)

Meta said in statement it intends to offer travel expense reimbursements, to the extent permitted by law, for employees who will need access to out-of-state healthcare and reproductive services.

Yelp Inc (YELP.N)

The crowd-sourced review platform will extend its abortion coverage to cover expenses for its employees and their dependents who need to travel to another state for abortion services. read more

Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O)

The second-largest U.S. private employer told employees it will pay up to $4,000 in travel expenses yearly for non-life threatening medical treatments, among them elective abortions. read more

Levi Strauss & CO

The apparel company will reimburse travel expenses for its full- and part-time employees who need to travel to another state for healthcare services, including abortions. read more

United Talent Agency

The private Hollywood talent agency said it would reimburse travel expenses related to women’s reproductive health services that are not accessible in an employee’s state of residence. read more

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O)

Tesla’s Safety Net program and health insurance includes travel and lodging support for its employees who may need to seek healthcare services that are unavailable in their home state, according to the company’s 2021 impact report. (https://bit.ly/3beSOOQ)

Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O)

Microsoft said it would extend its abortion and gender affirming care services for employees in the United States to include travel expense assistance. read more

Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O)

Starbucks said it will reimburse U.S. employees and their dependents if they must travel more than 100 miles from their homes to obtain an abortion. read more

Netflix Inc (NFLX.O)

Netflix said it will offer travel reimbursement for U.S. employees and dependents who travel for cancer treatment, transplants, abortion and gender-affirming care through its U.S. health plans.

Mastercard Inc (MA.N)

Mastercard said it will fund travel and lodging for employees seeking abortions outside their home states from June, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. read more

Kroger Co

Kroger said it will provide travel benefits up to $4,000 to facilitate access to several categories of medical treatments and a full range of reproductive health care services, including abortion.

Uber Technologies Inc

Uber said its insurance plans in the United States cover a range of reproductive health benefits, including pregnancy termination and travel expenses to access healthcare.

DoorDash Inc

DoorDash said it will cover certain travel-related expenses for employees who face new barriers to access and need to travel out of state for abortion-related care.

Lyft Inc (LYFT.O)

Lyft said its U.S. medical benefits plan includes coverage for elective abortion and reimbursement for travel costs if an employee must travel more than 100 miles for an in-network provider.

Bank of America Corp

The bank said it will reimburse employees and their dependents for the cost of traveling to receive reproductive healthcare, including abortions.

Deutsche Bank AG

The bank said it is updating its U.S. healthcare policy to cover travel costs for any medical procedure, including abortion, that is not offered within 100 miles of an employees’ home, according to a source familiar.

American Express Co

American Express said it will cover travel and other related expenses for employees and their dependents if they need abortion or gender-affirming treatment that is not available where they live.

Block (SQ.N)

The payments company said it will cover expenses for U.S. employees who must travel more than 100 miles for abortions starting July 1, a source familiar with the matter said.

Macy’s Inc

Macy’s said it made the decision to expand its benefits program to provide travel reimbursement for colleagues to receive the medical care needed and will abide by existing laws and legal standards.

Walt Disney Co

Disney said the company’s benefits will cover the cost of employees who need to travel to another location to access care, including to obtain an abortion, it said. read more

Gucci

Gucci said in May it will cover travel expenses of U.S. employees who need access to health care not available in their home state. The company also has said it will match employee donations to Planned Parenthood.

Bank of Nova Scotia

Scotiabank, Canada’s third-largest bank, said it will pay for travel costs for U.S. employees in states that restrict access for abortions. Its U.S. employees have access to abortion coverage under its medical plan.

And they called Vietnam veterans baby killers….

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