Китай и Казахстан - 2

В продолжение предыдущего постинга (https://bbb.livejournal.com/3777667.html).

По выходным китайский МИД пресс-конференций не проводит, поэтому посмотрим, что произошло, начиная с понедельника.
( Read more... )

our system of government

The Secretary of Labor, acting through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, recently enacted a vaccine mandate for much of the Nation's work force. The mandate, which employers must enforce, applies to roughly 84 million workers, covering virtually all employers with at least 100 employees. It requires that covered workers receive a COVID-19 vaccine, and it pre-empts contrary state laws. The only exception is for workers who obtain a medical test each week at their own expense and on their own time, and also wear a mask each workday. OSHA has never before imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here.

Many States, businesses, and nonprofit organizations challenged OSHA's rule in Courts of Appeals across the country. The Fifth Circuit initially entered a stay. But when the cases were consolidated before the Sixth Circuit, that court lifted the stay and allowed OSHA's rule to take effect. Applicants now seek emergency relief from this Court, arguing that OSHA's mandate exceeds its statutory authority and is otherwise unlawful. Agreeing that applicants are likely to prevail, we grant their applications and stay the rule.

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We are told by the States and the employers that OSHA's mandate will force them to incur billions of dollars in unrecoverable compliance costs and will cause hundreds of thousands of employees to leave their jobs. <...> For its part, the Federal Government says that the mandate will save over 6,500 lives and prevent hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations. <...>

It is not our role to weigh such tradeoffs. In our system of government, that is the responsibility of those chosen by the people through democratic processes. Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly. Requiring the vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category.

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The central question we face today is: Who decides? <...> This Court is not a public health authority. But it is charged with resolving disputes about which authorities possess the power to make the laws that govern us under the Constitution and the laws of the land.

<...> There is no question that state and local authorities possess considerable power to regulate public health. They enjoy the "general power of governing," including all sovereign powers envisioned by the Constitution and not specifically vested in the federal government. <...>

The federal government's powers, however, are not general but limited and divided. <...> Not only must the federal government properly invoke a constitutionally enumerated source of authority to regulate in this area or any other. It must also act consistently with the Constitution's separation of powers. And when it comes to that obligation, this Court has established at least one firm rule: "We expect Congress to speak clearly" if it wishes to assign to an executive agency decisions "of vast economic and political significance." <...>

OSHA's mandate fails that doctrine's test. The agency claims the power to force 84 million Americans to receive a vaccine or undergo regular testing. By any measure, that is a claim of power to resolve a question of vast national significance. Yet Congress has nowhere clearly assigned so much power to OSHA. Approximately two years have passed since this pandemic began; vaccines have been available for more than a year. Over that span, Congress has adopted several major pieces of legislation aimed at combating COVID-19. <...> But Congress has chosen not to afford OSHA - or any federal agency - the authority to issue a vaccine mandate. Indeed, a majority of the Senate even voted to disapprove OSHA's regulation. <...> It seems, too, that the agency pursued its regulatory initiative only as a legislative ""work-around."" Far less consequential agency rules have run afoul of the major questions doctrine. <...> It is hard to see how this one does not.

<...> Historically, such matters have been regulated at the state level by authorities who enjoy broader and more general governmental powers. Meanwhile, at the federal level, OSHA arguably is not even the agency most associated with public health regulation. And in the rare instances when Congress has sought to mandate vaccinations, it has done so expressly. <...> We have nothing like that here.

Why does the major questions doctrine matter? It ensures that the national government's power to make the laws that govern us remains where Article I of the Constitution says it belongs - with the people's elected representatives. If administrative agencies seek to regulate the daily lives and liberties of millions of Americans, the doctrine says, they must at least be able to trace that power to a clear grant of authority from Congress.

In this respect, the major questions doctrine is closely related to what is sometimes called the nondelegation doctrine. Indeed, for decades courts have cited the nondelegation doctrine as a reason to apply the major questions doctrine. <...> Both are designed to protect the separation of powers and ensure that any new laws governing the lives of Americans are subject to the robust democratic processes the Constitution demands.

The nondelegation doctrine ensures democratic accountability by preventing Congress from intentionally delegating its legislative powers to unelected officials. Sometimes lawmakers may be tempted to delegate power to agencies to "reduc[e] the degree to which they will be held accountable for unpopular actions." <...> But the Constitution imposes some boundaries here. <...> If Congress could hand off all its legislative powers to unelected agency officials, it "would dash the whole scheme" of our Constitution and enable intrusions into the private lives and freedoms of Americans by bare edict rather than only with the consent of their elected representatives. <...>

The major questions doctrine serves a similar function by guarding against unintentional, oblique, or otherwise unlikely delegations of the legislative power. Sometimes, Congress passes broadly worded statutes seeking to resolve important policy questions in a field while leaving an agency to work out the details of implementation. <...> Later, the agency may seek to exploit some gap, ambiguity, or doubtful expression in Congress's statutes to assume responsibilities far beyond its initial assignment. The major questions doctrine guards against this possibility by recognizing that Congress does not usually "hide elephants in mouseholes."

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a244_hgci.pdf

Картина Репина "Приплыли"

These measures were accompanied by large withdrawals from the private pension funds. Congress allowed in July and December 2020 two rounds of withdrawals and a third round was approved in April 2021. By early-April 2021, about 10.5 million people have used the first withdrawal and 8 million the second one, corresponding to a total of about US$ 37 billion (or about 15 percent of 2020 GDP, or 19 percent of June 2020 pension assets). The withdrawals overcompensated the loss of income due to the pandemic for people in all income quintiles, but are expected to lower pension replacement rates while raising public pension costs (staff estimated the net present value cost from the first two withdrawals at about of 3½ percent of 2020 GDP). The withdrawals also often contributed more to an increase in savings than in spending, and the first one was regressive (as it was tax-exempt for all). Notably, after the first two withdrawals, about 3 million people (or ¼ of pension system participants) have exhausted their pension funds.

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For the third round - which notably also allows access for pensioners with lifetime annuities - US$ 18 billion in withdrawals are expected, which would exhaust the accounts of a further 2 million people (bringing the total to about 5 million).

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2021/04/22/Chile-2021-Article-IV-Consultation-Press-Release-Staff-Report-and-Statement-by-the-Executive-50178
https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Publications/CR/2021/English/1CHLEA2021001.ashx

Такие дела, или Коронавирус кому война, а кому мать родна

Из статьи википедии по состоянию на сейчас (завтра будет иначе):

Marilyn Mosby (née James; born January 22, 1980) is an American politician and lawyer who has been the State's Attorney for Baltimore since 2015.
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In 2015, Mosby charged six police officers, who had arrested Freddie Gray prior to his death, with a variety of crimes including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.
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In a May 4, 2015, interview on Fox News, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz said that he believes Mosby overcharged the officers in an attempt to satisfy protesters and prevent further disturbances. Former Baltimore Prosecutor Page Croyder wrote an op-ed in The Baltimore Sun in which she described Mosby's charges as reflecting "either incompetence or an unethical recklessness". Croyder said that Mosby circumvented normal procedures "to step into the national limelight", and that she "pandered to the public", creating an expectation of a conviction.
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On May 21, a grand jury indicted the officers on most of the original charges filed by Mosby, with the exception of the charges of illegal imprisonment and false arrest, and added charges of reckless endangerment to all the officers involved.
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William Porter was the first officer tried; this resulted in a hung jury, and the judge declared a mistrial in December 2015.
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The second trial of officers ended on May 11, 2016, when Officer Edward Nero was acquitted on all charges.
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The third trial ended on June 23, 2016, and Officer Goodson was acquitted on all counts.
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Five of the six police officers charged by Mosby are suing her for malicious prosecution, defamation, and invasion of privacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Mosby

Будет иначе - потому что вдруг из маминой из спальни...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, January 13, 2022

Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby Facing Perjury and False Mortgage Application Charges Related to Her Purchase of Two Vacation Properties

Allegedly Claimed to Have Experienced Financial Hardship Resulting from Coronavirus to Obtain Distributions from the City of Baltimore’s Deferred Compensation Plan, Which She Used Toward Down Payments for Vacation Homes in Florida

Baltimore, Maryland – A federal grand jury today returned an indictment charging Marilyn J. Mosby, age 41, of Baltimore, Maryland, on federal charges of perjury and making false mortgage applications, relating to the purchases of two vacation homes in Florida.

According to the four-count indictment, on May 26, 2020 and December 29, 2020, Mosby submitted “457(b) Coronavirus-Related Distribution Requests” for one-time withdrawals of $40,000 and $50,000, respectively, from City of Baltimore’s Deferred Compensation Plans.
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Further, the indictment alleges that on July 28, 2020 and September 2, 2020, as well as on January 14, 2021 and February 19, 2021, Mosby made false statements in applications for a $490,500 mortgage to purchase a home in Kissimmee, Florida and for a $428,400 mortgage to purchase a condominium in Long Boat Key, Florida. As part of both applications, Mosby was required to disclose her liabilities. Mosby did not disclose on either application that she had unpaid federal taxes from a number of previous years and that on March 3, 2020, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had placed a lien against all property and rights to property belonging to Mosby and her husband in the amount of $45,022, the amount of unpaid taxes Mosby and her husband owed the IRS as of that date.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/baltimore-city-state-s-attorney-marilyn-mosby-facing-perjury-and-false-mortgage
https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/press-release/file/1462856/download

Самое замечательное, что долг по федеральным налогам на общую сумму шестьдесят с лишком тыщ долларов возник у нее не абы когда, а буквально в тот момент, когда она решила избраться, и успешно избралась, прокурором города. Возник - и висел с тех пор. Причем IRS год за годом напоминала ей об этом долге и даже удерживала небольшие суммы из ежегодных налоговых переплат. Но до 2020 года никаких действий не предпринимала, да и те, что предприняла в 2020 году, тоже оказались не сильно обременительными. То есть если бы тетенька не решила еще немножко подзаработать, то так бы, наверно, тянулось и дальше.