SONNY PERDUE - NEW POWER BROKER IN TRUMP'S EXEC CABINET (AGRICULTURE SEC)

SONNY PERDUE - NEW POWER BROKER IN TRUMP'S EXEC CABINET (SEC OF AGRICULTURE):

PERDUE IS NO DUMB SOUTHERN FARMER.

PERDUE IS WEALTHY, UNDERSTANDS BUSINESS & NEGOTIATES TOUGH.


Sources: CBS News, Fox News, The Federalist, USDA, YouTube


***** Senate confirms Sonny Perdue as agriculture secretary


The Senate on Monday confirmed former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to be agriculture secretary in President Donald Trump's administration as the farming industry looks to Washington for help amid a downturn in the market.
Perdue won confirmation on a strong bipartisan vote of 87-11, as several Democrats backed a Trump nominee after razor-thin outcomes for his choices earlier this year.

Perdue's cousin, Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., voted "present" but presided over the vote and announced the final tally.

The son of a farmer from Bonaire, Ga., Sonny Perdue will be the first Southerner in the post in more than two decades.

He has owned several agricultural businesses, but isn't related to or affiliated with the food company Perdue or the poultry producer Perdue Farms.

At his confirmation hearing in March, Perdue assured nervous farm-state senators that he will advocate for rural America, even as Trump has proposed deep cuts to some farm programs.

He also promised to reach out to Democrats.

Still, Perdue, 70, is getting a late start on the job. Trump nominated him just two days before his inauguration, and then the nomination was delayed for weeks as the administration prepared his ethics paperwork.

Perdue eventually said he would step down from several companies bearing his name to avoid conflicts of interest.

As agriculture secretary, he'll be in charge of around 100,000 employees and the nation's food and farm programs, including agricultural subsidies, conservation efforts, rural development programs, food safety and nutrition programs such as food stamps and federally-subsidized school meal, Perdue will take office as farm prices have been down for several years in a row and some parts of the industry, including cotton and dairy farmers, say they need the department and Congress to rewrite agricultural policy to help revive their business.

Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said Perdue will help facilitate recovery in small American towns.

"I know he will put the needs of farmers, ranchers and others in rural America first," Roberts said.

Perdue's main task over the coming year will be working with Congress and coordinating his department's input on the next five-year farm bill. Current farm policy expires next year, and lawmakers on the House and Senate agriculture committees will have to find a way to push it through Congress amid heightened partisan tensions and concerns over spending.

At his hearing, he pledged to help senators sustain popular crop insurance programs and fix problems with government dairy programs.

Perdue may also find himself in the uncomfortable position of defending agriculture in an administration that has so far given the issue limited attention, despite Trump's strong support in rural areas. Trump has proposed a 21 percent cut in USDA programs and has harshly criticized some international trade deals, saying they have killed American jobs. But farmers who produce more than they can sell in the United States have heavily profited from some of those deals, and are hoping his anti-trade policies will include some exceptions for agriculture.

At the hearing, Perdue said, "Food is a noble thing to trade."
Perdue will also be part of the administration's response to a dispute with Canada's dairy industry, which has a new lower-priced classification of milk product that Trump says is harming

U.S. producers in dairy states like Wisconsin and New York. Canada changed its policy on pricing domestic milk to cover more dairy ingredients, leading to lower prices for Canadian products that compete with U.S. milk.

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, voted for Perdue and encouraged him to come to Wisconsin to talk to affected farmers.

"I stand as a willing partner to work with Secretary Perdue and President Trump to address this urgent issue," Baldwin said.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York also talked to Trump about the dairy issue last week in a rare phone call between the two men.

Trump has reached out to farmers on regulation, saying the government has too many rules that negatively affect farm country. That issue is expected to come up on Perdue's first day in office Tuesday, when the president holds hold a round table discussion with farmers and sign an executive order "to provide relief for rural America," according to the White House.

The White House hasn't said when Perdue will be sworn in, but he is scheduled to speak to USDA staff Tuesday morning.

After Perdue, remaining nominees for Trump's administration to be confirmed are Robert Lighthizer for U.S. trade representative and Alexander Acosta for labor secretary.

"Restore America Plan" Extremist Group Demands 30 Governors Quit

Extremist Group Demands 30 U.S. Governors Resign, FBI Says


A domestic extremist group has sent letters to more than 30 U.S. governors demanding they resign, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI said in an intelligence note.

The note, dated Monday, said the letters told the governors to vacate their posts within three days.

The FBI and DHS said there do not appear to be credible or immediate threats of violence attached to the letters.

The group behind the letters has a "Restore America Plan" that calls for the removal of any governor who fails to comply, the intelligence note said.

While DHS has no information that the removal refers to a specific plan for violence, "law enforcement should be aware that this could be interpreted as a justification for violence or other criminal actions," the note said.

Other steps in the group's plan include "establishing bogus courts, calling of 'de jure' grand juries, and issuing so-called 'legal orders' to gain control of the state," the note said.

States that have acknowledged receiving the letters include Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Utah, Arkansas, Maine, Colorado, Rhode Island, Michigan, Georgia, Virginia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio and Nevada.

Officials in Pennsylvania and Illinois did not say whether they had received a letter. Officials in Maryland and Idaho said the governors' offices there did not receive such a letter.

Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons received one letter Monday and three more Wednesday, including one by fax, said his chief of staff, Robin Reedy. The group behind the letters does not believe there should be a federal government, Reedy said.

The letters were not handwritten but did have some handwritten signatures, Reedy said Thursday.

The office had been warned in advance to be on the lookout for the letter, she said.

Gibbons' office stepped up security at the Nevada Capitol in Carson City after receiving the letters.

Everyone had to enter through one entrance, and an X-ray machine and metal detector were brought in.

Boulders were placed in front of the Capitol so vehicles could not drive close to the building.

The governor hadn't seen the letters because he had been in Las Vegas for a few days, Reedy said.


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Sources: CNN, Guardians Of The Free Republics, McClatchy Newspapers, Google Maps

Georgia Expands Its Deadbeat Dad Jobs Program...Excellent Idea!

Georgia's child custody employment program expands


Already a father of two in 2006, Martez Fitzpatrick figured supporting a third child wouldn't much strain his budget.

Then the little girl's mother, a woman with whom he had a previous relationship, died days after giving birth.

He moved the girl into his Atlanta home, where he soon found full-time fatherhood at odds with his job as an on-the-road trucker. He took a local job and with it, a pay cut that put him behind in the $1,100 a month he owed the mother of his other kids.

"My head was just in turmoil," said Fitzpatrick, 44, who eventually got help from a Georgia program which offers parents lagging on child support help finding a job instead of a trip to jail.

Nationwide, data shows that while fewer parents are falling behind in child support payments, those who do are increasingly likely to seek help from programs like Georgia's as they find it harder to find work.

In New York, social service officials plan to extend a pilot program offering employment services and a refundable tax credit for low-income noncustodial parents who remain current in paying child support as new enrollments creep upward.

In Georgia, Department of Human Services leaders are adding 21 new case agents as they plan to serve 6,000 noncustodial parents this fiscal year — twice the annual average.

Overall, states are collecting more child support: Officials collected 62 percent of the $31 billion total amount of current support due for fiscal 2008, an increase of 3.3 percentage points over the percentage of current support collected and distributed in fiscal 2007, according to data collected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Georgia had 319,992 cases with arrearages due in fiscal 2008, down significantly from 342,181 a year earlier.

Yet here and elsewhere across the nation, fatherhood program agents to family court judges say people are needing more help making payments to the 15.8 million kids who depend on them.

In Kanawha County Family Court, West Virginia's busiest court system, modification requests are up nearly 60 percent from parents who lost jobs or overtime hours, according to officials there.

And in Michigan, home to the nation's highest unemployment, 60 percent of requests are from noncustodial parents asking for payment reductions, said Allegan County Friend of the Court Michael Day.

In New York, where the state's unemployment rate stands at its highest since 1983, parents are pouring into a pilot program offering help finding jobs. New enrollment jumped from 592 between January and August 2008 to 799 for that time frame this year.

"We have seen an increase in participation — frankly, we have since we first launched the program — but I would suspect the economy is definitely having an effect," said Anthony Farmer, a spokesman for the New York Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which hopes to continue the program.

The Georgia Department of Human Service's Fatherhood Program, the oldest and largest of its kind in the nation, pairs parents with agents who help with everything from resume-building to dressing for a job interview, while simultaneously using department resources to match parents with employment.

The goal is getting cash into the hands of custodial parents, and it works: During fiscal year 2008, participants paid more than $14 million in child support.

The program pulls back parents at risk for going into arrears on payments, potentially saving the state money that might have been spent pursuing the delinquent parent.

Child support officials typically refer parents to the program, created in 1997.

In the past, officials said it largely helped parents who had trouble getting jobs due to arrest records or minimal education.

But lately, "We have experienced men who have worked in factories for years ... made child support payments and had no problem," said Keith Horton, director of Georgia's Office of Child Support Services. "Then bam, they were unemployed."

Georgia officials will sprinkle agents across 17 counties — from Fulton and Gwinnett counties in metropolitan Atlanta to rural Tift county — just as data shows parents receiving state unemployment benefits has quadrupled since 2008.

In Cordele, program agent Neal Edalgo sees 300 cases a month, three times what he saw last year. He faces challenges placing many of them — 15 candidates may be trying for a job at a time, for example — but finds most parents are committed to getting back on track.

"Many of them do have a history of working and supporting their children, but got caught up in industry layoffs, plant closures, company downsizings and that kind of thing," he said.

Participants are tracked by agents after joining the program. Subjects who use the program to get a job must make payments or face legal consequences.

The department lists three men as the state's most wanted child support evaders, owing more than $187,000 for a total of 10 children.



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Sources: MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

Gov. Sonny Perdue Of Ga. Finally Approves Use Of Stimulus Money

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue Approves Stimulus Spending After Warning That It "May Not Be Worth It."

In February, Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue cautioned against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, saying that "getting this money may not be worth it." On Tuesday, however, Purdue approved the use of federal stimulus funds to pay for two infrastructure projects in his state. In a press release announcing the projects, Purdue said "investment in our state's water and sewer infrastructure stimulates the economy."

From the Associated Press:

Gov. Sonny Perdue has announced the approval of five environmental infrastructure project loans for Georgia communities totaling about $6.7 million.

The Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority board of directors approved the loans, which will help finance water and sewer infrastructure projects in five communities. GEFA helps communities prepare for economic growth and development by offering low-interest loans.

Two of the projects were fully financed by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.




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Sources: Media Matters, Recovery.gov, AJC.com, Reason Weekly, Google Maps