U.S. Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel sued the United States government on Monday in a last-ditch attempt to revive their attempted merger after President Biden blocked it last week on the basis that the transaction posed a threat to national security.
The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington, accused Mr. Biden and other senior administration officials of corrupting the review process for political gain and of harming steel workers and the American steel industry by blocking the deal under false national security pretenses.
Mr. Biden moved to block the merger after a government panel charged with reviewing foreign investments failed to reach a decision about whether the deal should proceed. In a statement on Friday, Mr. Biden said that he was acting to ensure that the U.S. maintains a strong domestically owned and operated steel industry. The president had previously vowed to ensure that U.S. Steel remained American-owned.
The companies are asking for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to conduct a new review of the deal.
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The companies also filed a separate lawsuit against Cleveland-Cliffs, an American steel company that previously tried to buy U.S. Steel but was rebuffed, along with Lourenco Goncalves, chief executive of Cleveland-Cliffs, and David McCall, international president of the powerful union United Steelworkers. The lawsuit alleged that Cleveland-Cliffs and the head of the union illegally colluded to undermine the proposed deal between U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel.
The legal actions represented a long-shot maneuver by the companies to preserve a deal that was ensnared in election year politics. Presidents have broad authority to determine what constitutes a national security threat, and no transaction blocked under those powers has ever been overturned by the courts.
However, Mr. Biden’s move to terminate Nippon’s $14 billion bid for U.S. Steel raised questions about whether those powers were being abused, given that Japan is a close ally of the United States. In the rare cases where deals have been blocked, they usually involved companies with ties to U.S. adversaries such as China.
“Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel are disappointed to see such a clear and improper exploitation of the country’s national security apparatus in an effort to help win an election and repay political favors,” the companies said in a statement on Monday. “Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel are entitled to a fair process and have been left with no choice but to challenge the decision and the process leading to it in court.”
David Burritt, the chief executive of U.S. Steel, assailed Mr. Biden on Monday, suggesting that the president blocked the deal because he “owed the union boss a favor in exchange for an endorsement.”

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“The government failed us,” Mr. Burritt said in an interview on the Fox Business Network on Monday. “They failed because they didn’t follow the process, and we are going to right that wrong.”
The White House defended Mr. Biden’s decision on Monday, pointing to the threats to the U.S. steel industry that the committee highlighted.
“A committee of national security and trade experts determined this acquisition would create risk for American national security,” said Robyn Patterson, a White House spokeswoman. “President Biden will never hesitate to protect the security of this nation, its infrastructure, and the resilience of its supply chains.”
The lawsuit against the Biden administration was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The suit also names Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who chairs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, and Merrick Garland, the attorney general.
The companies argue that because Mr. Biden publicly said last March that he did not want the deal to happen, the national security review conducted by the panel, known as CFIUS, was tainted by politics and “designed to reach a predetermined result.” They also claimed that the panel had failed to engage with the companies when they proposed measures to mitigate any national security concerns.

Deplorable:

With a blizzard of executive orders, President Donald Trump has jump-started an extraordinary plan to transform the federal government into a leaner operation packed with his loyalists.
The fine print of those directives reveals how shrewdly the new administration is exploiting — and sometimes outright ignoring — the arcane laws, rules and regulations that have long protected the civil service of 2.3 million from a political takeover.


Trump has skirted Biden-era rules by essentially declaring them unlawful, used probationary periods to place masses of civil servants in limbo and issued a memo lifting restrictions on hiring temporary political appointees to replace thousands of career employees. The White House has even declared that Trump can overrule a post-Watergate law to summarily fire senior executives and career prosecutors, citing a sweeping claim of executive authority.



Late Friday, when Trump ousted 17 federal watchdogs, he disregarded a statute requiring him to first provide 30 days’ notice and a performance-related justification to Congress.
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White House directives also have instructed federal agencies to seek ways to bring employees back to the office even if union contracts guarantee work-from-home protections and announced plans to reinstate assessments for hiring that were thrown out by the Carter administration after lawsuits claimed they were discriminatory. And acting personnel officials have widely expanded the use of paid leave to push workers out — despite a bipartisan law seeking to curtail its use.
The executive actions, absent any legislation from the GOP-controlled Congress, already have had far-reaching effects, even if they face potential legal challenges. Thousands of staff in diversity and inclusion programs are facing layoffs as soon as this week, thousands of other job offers have been rescinded in a government-wide hiring freeze and gaping senior-level holes remain at numerous agencies because of purges and an exodus of experienced staff.
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The sweeping changes reflect Trump’s campaign pledge to “dismantle the deep state” by firing bureaucrats he blamed for thwarting his first-term agenda. His executive orders could transform an experienced, merit-based federal bureaucracy into one governed by employees with political allegiance to the Trump administration.
“These actions are opening much more of the civil service to be chosen by the Trump administration than would be usually seen during a change in administration,” said Kevin Owen, a Washington-area employment lawyer who represents federal employees.
In Trump’s first term, inexperience and chaos slowed much of his plan to weaken the civil service. But the barrage of eight executive orders and as many personnel memorandums in the opening days of his second term bears out how carefully his new administration prepared for this moment. Since Trump’s victory in November, his domestic policy team has raced to determine which interpretations of the law would be novel but legal, which might get the administration sued and which legal challenges they could accept, according to people familiar with their thinking.


“The administration is clearly better prepared this time than they were in 2016,” said Donald Moynihan, a civil service expert who teaches public policy at the University of Michigan. “They’ve been waiting for this moment, and their preparation is being turned into policy.”
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, said on Tuesday that the president’s broad executive power allows him to fire anyone in the executive branch. “We will win in court” on any legal challenges, she added.
A senior Trump official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about White House policies, said the shake-up is designed to hold the civil service accountable, whether for performance, corruption — or a failure to carry out the president’s agenda. The official cited the government’s “many good federal employees” and denied critics’ long-held contention that the administration will use loyalty to Trump as a litmus test.


“You work hard, and who you give money to doesn’t matter,” the person said, describing two main goals for Trump’s government: “Accountability and efficiency,” which will lead to shedding jobs. “There’s a lot of fat in government to be trimmed,” the person said.
The White House said voters sent Trump back into office in part to reshape the federal workforce through bold actions.
“President Trump was given a resounding mandate from the American people to deliver on the promises he made on the campaign trail, including restoring a society based on merit, implementing commonsense policies, and reigning in unelected government bureaucrats,” deputy press secretary Kush Desai said in a statement. “He will use his executive power to deliver.”

But critics say that in his rush to reshape the government, Trump is trampling on the law — and quickly eroding more than a century of work by Congress to create a nonpartisan, skilled professional workforce that’s not beholden to any president. The administration is probably counting on many civil servants to leave rather than follow through with protracted legal fights around the methods the White House is using to force them out, experts said.

Not gonna lie, I've done this in the game.

Also, GTA 6 is going to be set in "Vice City" which is a fascimile of Miami, so this is a good start!

Hope to finish season 4 this weekend. Billy Bob Thornton is a badass and I might have to change my name to Billy McBride.

Just watching Purdue/Tenn... Smith looks a little beefier but fairly similar sizes (unless I'm wrong, lol) ...

Iowa City police are investigating a suspicious death that happened Monday at a residence in the 300 block of Camden Road, according to the department.



Police responded to the home at 9:19 a.m. Monday for medical incident, which is now being investigated as a suspicious death.


The department has not released any other information about the death or the investigation. The identity of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of family, according to a news release.

Ross and I breakdown the impact of the Hawkeyes landing South Dakota State transfer quarterback Mark Gronowski in the transfer portal.

PODCAST:

But he’s still got one more day!
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I can't imagine there are many people persuaded by a cult that only has ad hominem tirades in their too kit.
Watch the video and give your feedback.

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Stephen Crowder and Ben Shapiro are fighting over Crowder's new 50 million dollar contract. Yes, being a soulless right wing propagandist pays very well.


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F.U.C.K every liberal scab in this country!!

Player of the Week
Braden Smith, Purdue
G – Jr. – 6-0 – Westfield, Ind. – Westfield

• Averaged 25.3 points, 9.7 assists, 5.3 rebounds, and 2.0 steals while shooting 27-of-55 from the field and 14-of-32 from three-point range with a 4.14 assist / turnover ratio as No. 20 Purdue went 3-0
• Recorded a pair of points-assists double-doubles (34-12 vs. Toledo; 20-10 vs. Minnesota) and narrowly missed a third with 22 points, seven assists against Northwestern.
• Claims first Player of the Week honor
• Last Purdue Player of the Week: Zach Edey (March 11, 2024)

Co-Freshman of the Week
Kasparas Jakucionis, Illinois
G – 6-6 – Vilnius, Lithuania – Barcelona FC

• Averaged a team-best 16.0 points and 5.3 assists and along with 5.0 rebounds and 1.0 steals across three wins for No. 13 Illinois
• Recorded 16 second-half points with game-high six assists along with six rebounds in a 109-77 victory at then-No. 9 Oregon, as the Illini recorded the largest road win over a top-10 team in college basketball history.
• Earns his second Freshman of the Week award
• Last Illinois Freshman of the Week: Kasparas Jakucionis (Dec. 16, 2024)

Ace Bailey, Rutgers
G – 6-10 – Chattanooga, Tenn. – McEachern

• Averaged 31.5 points on 57.4 percent shooting from the field, 8.0 rebounds, and 2.0 blocked shots, as Rutgers split a pair of games
• Tied the program freshman scoring record with 39 points with eight rebounds, four blocks and one steal on 16-of-29 shooting in an 84-74 loss to Indiana
• Collects his first Freshman of the Week award
• Last Rutgers Freshman of the Week: Dylan Harper (Dec. 16, 2024)

Ottumwa mention.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/invest...FHjb6Z2YM5jucOguwM_aem_L9BwSf4JbXP6hd2ZWKCdDg