Several U.S. states on Monday said they would jointly sue the Trump administration for allowing the public to download blueprints for 3-D printable guns in a last-ditch effort to block the designs from becoming available Wednesday.

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said at a news conference in Seattle that the states will ask a federal judge to issue a restraining order and an injunction to block the publication of the designs, which they say would allow criminals easy access to weapons.

Along with Washington state, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Oregon, Maryland and the District of Columbia are working on finalizing the lawsuit and plan on filing it Monday, Ferguson said.

At issue is a June settlement between the U.S. government and Texas-based Defense Distributed company that will allow it to legally publish gun blueprints online. Defense Distributed, which had challenged an earlier government ban as a violation of its First and Second Amendment rights, says on its website that it plans to release the plans by Aug. 1.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump failed to explain why it settled the case and allowed the publication of the blueprints, Ferguson said.

The U.S. State Department had previously banned the blueprints as a national security risk and a violation of arms trafficking regulations. As recently as April, the government in court filings argued downloadable guns would allow extremist groups and criminals abroad unfettered access to arms.

The State Department and Justice Department, which represented the government in the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the announcement of the lawsuit.

“Our Congress has carefully crafted laws to protect us and, in one moment, without any consultation with experts, the administration undoes it,” Washington state’s Ferguson said.

The government failed to study the impact of its decision and did not consult with other agencies before settling, making its actions “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of federal law, Ferguson said. He said the settlement violated states’ rights to regulate firearms.

Gun control groups on Friday failed to convince a federal judge to intervene before the designs were expected to go online. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin, Texas, found that the groups, including the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, lacked legal standing.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for gun manufacturers, says concerns over 3-D printable guns are overblown because criminals are unlikely to use the expensive technology to manufacture guns.
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The trial of President Donald Trump’s onetime campaign chairman will open this week with tales of lavish spending, secret shell companies and millions of dollars of Ukrainian money flowing through offshore bank accounts and into the political consultant’s pocket.

What’s likely to be missing: answers about whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential election, or really any mention of Russia at all.

Paul Manafort’s financial crimes trial, the first arising from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, will center on his Ukrainian consulting work and only briefly touch on his involvement with the president’s campaign.

But the broader implications are unmistakable.

The trial, scheduled to begin Tuesday with jury selection in Alexandria, Virginia, will give the public its most detailed glimpse of evidence Mueller’s team has spent the year accumulating. It will feature testimony about the business dealings and foreign ties of a defendant Trump entrusted to run his campaign during a critical stretch in 2016, including during the Republican convention. And it will unfold at a delicate time for the president as Mueller’s team presses for an interview and as Trump escalates his attacks on an investigation he calls a “witch hunt.”

Adding to the intrigue is the expected spectacle of Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates, testifying against him after cutting a plea deal with prosecutors, and the speculation that Manafort, who faces charges in two different courts and decades in prison if convicted, may be holding out for a pardon from Trump.

“Perhaps he believes that he’s done nothing wrong, and because he’s done nothing wrong, he’s unwilling to plead guilty to any crime whatsoever — even if it’s a lesser crime,” said Jimmy Gurule, a Notre Dame law professor and former federal prosecutor. “Obviously, that’s very risky for him.”

Manafort was indicted along with Gates in Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation, but he is the only American charged to opt for a trial instead of cooperating with the government. The remaining 31 individuals charged have either reached plea agreements, including ex-White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, or are Russians seen as unlikely to enter an American courtroom. Three Russian companies have also been charged.

Prosecutors in Manafort’s case have said they may call 35 witnesses, including five who have immunity agreements, as they try to prove that he laundered more than $30 million in Ukrainian political consulting proceeds and concealed the funds from the IRS.

Jurors are expected to see photographs of his Mercedes-Benz and of his Hampton property putting green and swimming pool. There’s likely to be testimony, too, about tailored Beverly Hills clothing, high-end antiques, rugs and art and New York Yankees seasons tickets.

The luxurious lifestyle was funded by Manafort’s political consulting for the pro-Russian Ukrainian political party of Viktor Yanukovych, who was deposed as Ukraine’s president in 2014.

Lawyers have tangled over how much jurors will hear of his overseas political work, particularly about his ties to Russia and other wealthy political figures.

At a recent hearing, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who will preside over the trial, warned prosecutors to restrain themselves, noting the current “antipathy” toward Russia and how “most people in this country don’t distinguish between Ukrainians and Russians.” He said he would not tolerate any pictures of Manafort and others “at a cocktail party with scantily clad women,” if they exist.

Prosecutor Greg Andres reassured the judge that “there will be no pictures of scantily clad women, period,” nor photographs of Russian flags.

“I don’t anticipate that a government witness will utter the word `Russia,”‘ Andres said.

While jurors will be hearing painstaking detail about Manafort’s finances, they won’t be told about Manafort’s other criminal case, in the nation’s capital, where he faces charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent and lying to the government.

Nor will they hear about the reason he’s been jailed since last month after a judge revoked his house arrest over allegations that he and a longtime associate attempted to tamper with witnesses in the case. And they won’t learn that Manafort’s co-defendant in the Washington case is a business associate named Konstantin Kilimnik, who lives in Russia and who U.S. authorities assert has connections to Russian intelligence.

Trump and his lawyers have repeatedly sought to play down Manafort’s connection to the president, yet the trial won’t be entirely without references to the campaign.

Mueller’s team says Manafort’s position in the Trump campaign is relevant to some of the bank fraud charges. Prosecutors plan to present evidence that a chairman of one of the banks allowed Manafort to file inaccurate loan information in exchange for a job on the campaign and the promise of a job in the Trump administration. The administration job never materialized.

The trial will afford the public its first glimpse of a defense that so far has focused less on the substance of the allegations than on Mueller’s authority to bring the case in the first place. At one point, his defense lawyers sued Mueller and the Justice Department, saying they had overstepped their bounds by bringing a prosecution untethered to the core questions of Mueller’s investigation — whether Russia worked with the Trump campaign to tip the election.

Ellis rejected that argument despite having initially questioned the special counsel’s motives for bringing the case. He noted that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, had explicitly authorized Mueller to investigate Manafort’s business dealings. Mueller’s original mandate was to investigate not only potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but also any other crimes arising from the probe.

“When a prosecutor looks into those dealings and uncovers evidence of criminal culpability,” said Stanford law professor David Alan Sklansky, “it doesn’t make sense to ask him to avert his eyes.”
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America’s dream of space exploration took its first official step 60 years ago Sunday when President Dwight Eisenhower signed a law authorizing the formation of NASA – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Although humanity had been staring at the stars and wondering since they were living in caves, it took the Cold War to fire man into space.

The world was stunned when the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, launched Sputnik — the first man-made object to orbit the Earth.

The United States was humiliated at being caught short — not just technologically, but militarily.

Eisenhower ordered government scientists to not only match the Soviets in space, but beat them.

NASA and its various projects — Mercury, Gemini and Apollo — became part of the language.

Just 11 years after Eisenhower authorized NASA, American astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Six year later, an Apollo spacecraft linked with a Soviet Soyuz in orbit, turning rivalry into friendship and cooperation.

NASA followed that triumph with the space shuttle, Mars landers and contributions to the International Space Station. A manned mission to Mars is part of NASA’s future plans.

Last month, President Donald Trump called for the formation of a “space force” to be the sixth U.S. military branch.

NASA officially celebrates its 60th anniversary on October 1 – the day the agency formally opened for business.

 
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White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday he believes the 4.1 percent growth the U.S. recorded in the last three months is sustainable in the coming months despite skepticism expressed by independent economists.

“There’s just a lot of good things going on,” Kudlow told CNN.  He said President Donald Trump “deserves a victory lap,” with “low tax rates, rolling back regulations, opening up energy, for example. Trade reform I think is already paying off. The fundamentals of the economy look really good.”

He said “business investment spending is really booming. That’s a productivity creator. That’s a job creator. That’s a wage creator for ordinary mainstream folks, terribly important.”

Kudlow said the five calendar quarters occurring fully during Trump’s 18-month presidency have now been recorded with average economic growth of 2.9 percent for the world’s largest economy.

“I don’t see why we can’t run this for several quarters,” Kudlow said.

As the 4.1 percent growth rate for the April-to-June period was announced Friday, Trump boasted that the U.S. was on track to hit its highest annual growth rate in its gross domestic product in 13 years and predicted that as the country reaches new trade deals with other countries, the U.S. would exceed its second quarter advance.

“These numbers are very, very sustainable,” he said. “This isn’t a one-time shot.”

On Sunday, Trump said on Twitter, “The biggest and best results coming out of the good GDP report was that the quarterly Trade Deficit has been reduced by $52 Billion and, of course, the historically low unemployment numbers, especially for African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Women.”

Skeptics less upbeat

Some independent economists, however, voiced skepticism that the $18.6 trillion annual U.S. economy would continue to advance at the same pace as the last three months.

Some forecasters said the gains in recent months were mostly, although not totally, the result of temporary factors, such as the initial boost from tax cuts Trump supported that took effect earlier this year. Most analysts say that for all of 2018 the U.S. could reach 3 percent growth, which would be the best since a 3.5 percent gain in 2005, but not again hit the annual 4.1 percent growth rate recorded last quarter.

“We believe quarter two will represent a growth peak as the boost from tax cuts fades, global growth moderates, inflation rises, the Fed tightens monetary policy and trade protectionism looms over the economy,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said, “The second quarter was a strong quarter, but it was juiced up by the tax cuts and higher government spending.”

In the U.S., consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, with Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist of Pantheon Macroeconomics, saying that such spending accounted for the robust second quarter.

“Consumers were really on a tear,” he said. “So to grow at 4 [percent] probably tells you people were spending the tax cuts that they enjoyed back in January, but that’s extremely unlikely to happen again.”

 
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