The Chumph’s Voter Suppression Commission chair is now under investigation in his home state…For Fraud.
Why is it that Sack of Shit In Charge can’t do anything legitimate?
Tag Archives: lawsuits
In Just 100 Days, The Chumph Has Been Sued More than the 3 Previous Real Presidents In their Entire Terms…Combined!
Feel the Love!
The Chumph’s unconstitutional and illegal executive orders as well as his corruption and fraud have spawned a record number of lawsuits against him…
Keep ’em coming!
Take this POS down by any legal means possible.
TRUMP HAS BEEN SUED 134 TIMES SINCE BECOMING POTUS, 3X MORE THAN LAST 3 PRESIDENTS COMBINED
From The Boston Globe:
Trump has been sued 134 times in federal court since he was sworn into office, according to a Globe tally based on federal court databases, nearly three times the number of his three predecessors in their early months combined.
The lawsuits include green card holders trying to get into the United States after his travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries; cities like San Francisco, Richmond, and Seattle suing over a plan to withhold funds from ”sanctuary’’ cities; and even a woman from Quincy, Mass., who went to court contending that the president’s actions have caused “loss of enjoyment of life.”
At this point in his presidency, Barack Obama faced 26 lawsuits, Bill Clinton was hit with 15 suits, and George W. Bush only faced seven. The dramatic increase in legal action taken against the administration is yet another indicator that the Donald Trump presidency is going to be unlike any other in recent memory (or possibly in the history of the nation).
As The Globe report notes, the massive demonstrations against Trumpist policies are good optics for the so-called “Resistance,” but in terms of getting actual results these suits may actually be a more effective way to combat the administration and the GOP-led Congress.
For example, the selective immigration order, effectively a de facto Muslim ban, was met with massive protests at airports and an influx of volunteer attorneys seeking to help detained travelers. Yet, it was the legal battles fought by states like California, that brought the order and it’s revised sister order to a screeching halt.
Despite controlling both chambers of Congress and a conservative-majority Supreme Court of the United States, the optics-obsessed Trump administration has approached governance with a large focus on executive orders. Constitutional questions about these orders make the most of the cases, though some are unique to Trump.
For example, a wine bar near the Old Post Office hotel managed by the Trump organization claims that the Trump administration “is exercising an unfair competitive advantage because diplomats and lobbyists are booking functions at his hotel to curry favor with him.” Another suit seeks to test in court the assertion that Trump’s ties to businesses violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
Faux News Racism Suit Gets a Lot Bigger and Adds to Federal Grand Jury Probe
To the white-right types who believe that racial discrimination and sexual harassment don’t have have any real teeth due to years of white-right judges watering down penalties and making the wall of proof required for plaintiffs to make a case much higher…
Guess what?
If the company is publicly traded you could be hit from two directions. The first is a shareholder lawsuit, based on loss of value and irresponsible handling of corporate finances. The second is a Federal charge based on loss of potential revenue, and as such shareholder return due to paying off lawsuits and continuing racist and misogynist behavior.
The fact that the network’s ratings are beginning to crumble reduces the “worth” of the company, and if I were a shareholder right now…I would be looking for some heads to start rolling. The beginning of which would be among the first and second tier senior management. You not only fire the asshole who caused the pain…You fire the assholes who enabled that behavior. Then you take a real close look at the Middle-Management hired by those Senior Managers, because they were likely selected for their sharing the same views.
Few companies are willing to do this sort of top-down housecleaning. Which is why a lot of these companies wind up as side notes of failed corporations in the history books.
The issue here is, you know and I know that AG Jeff Sessions isn’t going to pursue any sort of racial discrimination lawsuit – and likely will try and block the Federal Investigation to protect his KKK friends. He is the bigot’s biggest protector. So, it will likely wind up that the SEC does the heavy lifting here.
Fox News anchor joins lawsuit alleging racial discrimination, harassment at network
The suit is now headlined by Kelly Wright, a black reporter and anchor who has been with Fox News since 2003. Wright claims that he “has been effectively sidelined and asked to perform the role of a ‘Jim Crow’ — the racist caricature of a Black entertainer.”
Wright’s allegations involve, among others, recently fired Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and current network co-president Bill Shine.
The suit claims that Wright was shunned from O’Reilly’s now-canceled program, “The O’Reilly Factor,” and that Shine “has demonstrated an obsession with race when it comes to discussions with Mr. Wright, including regularly asking him, ‘how do Black people react to you’ and ‘how do you think White viewers look at you?'”
In one alleged example, Wright claims that he was rebuffed in his efforts to show a series of positive stories about the African-American community on the “Factor” because, according to the complaint, “it showed Blacks in ‘too positive’ a light.”
Wright is one of 13 plaintiffs, all people of color who are either current or former Fox News employees, to sue the network in the last month charging racial discrimination.
The litigation began last month, when two black women filed a lawsuit saying they faced “top-down racial harassment” from Judith Slater, Fox’s now-former comptroller.
The two plaintiffs, Tichaona Brown and Tabrese Wright, accused Slater of making a number of racially insensitive remarks. CNNMoney has been unable to reach Slater for comment.
Fox said that it fired Slater on February 28, upon learning of the allegations. Attorneys for the 13 plaintiffs say Fox’s assertion that it acted swiftly is “completely false.”
A separate complaint filed Tuesday on behalf of Adasa Blanco, a former senior disbursement coordinator in Fox News’ accounts payable department, alleges that “Slater was terminated because Fox knew this would become a public matter and wanted to salvage its reputation.”
Blanco, who claims her repeated complaints about Slater’s behavior were ignored, is seeking redress for “substantial monetary damages and severe mental anguish and emotional distress.” The suit targets Fox News’ top lawyer, Dianne Brandi.
Fox News pushed back hard on the allegations levied in each complaint on Tuesday.
“FOX News and Dianne Brandi vehemently deny the race discrimination claims in both lawsuits,” a Fox News spokesperson said. “They are copycat complaints of the original one filed last month. We will vigorously defend these cases.”
The complaints filed Tuesday also included allegations from Musfiq Rahman, described in the court document as “a dark-skinned Bangladeshi” who previously worked in Fox’s payroll department.
Rahman, the complaint asserts, “suffered unconscionable and unrelenting race discrimination,” including an awkward encounter in 2014 with former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes.
According to the complaint, Rahman mistakenly entered Ailes’s office on the second floor.
“The fallout for Mr. Rahman’s ‘mistake’ was swift and severe,” the complaint says. “Ailes was furious and his paranoia about being attacked came to the forefront. That same day, Ailes ordered that a wall be constructed immediately in his personal office to act as a barrier to entry.”
It goes on to say that, the following day, Rahman and “a number of Black employees in the Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable Departments, had their security passes to the second floor revoked.”
Tuesday’s filings represent a continuation of what has been a nightmarish month for Fox News and its parent company, 21st Century Fox. O’Reilly, long the top-rated host in cable news, was ousted last week following a New York Times report detailing settlements paid to five women who had accused him of sexual harassment or verbal abuse. O’Reilly has denied the merits of all the claims against him.
The revelations of O’Reilly’s settlements came nine months after Ailes was forced out of Fox amid sexual harassment allegations against him. Ailes has vigorously denied the allegations.
Douglas Wigdor and Jeanne Christensen, the attorneys representing all 13 plaintiffs, said in a statement Tuesday that 21st Century Fox “has been operating as if it should be called 18th Century Fox.”
“We sincerely hope the filing of this race class action wakes 21st Century Fox from its slumbers and inspires the Company to take a conciliatory and appropriate approach to remedy its wrongs,” the attorneys said.
ANOTHER Fox News Lawsuit Grows – Racial Harassment of Black Employees
What has been obvious to a lot of observers for a long time, with the Faux News Network constant stream of on-air racism and vitriol is that it had serious problems, Not just with its on-air personalities, buy down in the very structure of the company.
Bigots hire bigots…and sexual molester stick together.
Bill O’Reilly Is Gone, But Fox News’s Legal Nightmare Continues
The Murdochs hoped firing Bill O’Reilly would signal a changing culture at Fox News. “We want to underscore our consistent commitment to fostering a work environment built on the values of trust and respect,” Rupert and his sons, James and Lachlan, wrote in a memo to Fox News employees on Wednesday. But the dismissal of Fox News’s highest rated host isn’t going to end the crisis at the network. The toxic culture, fostered for 20 years by former CEO Roger Ailes, is proving far more difficult to remedy.
Next week, according to sources, seven black Fox News employees plan to join a racial discrimination suit filed last month by two colleagues. The original lawsuit alleged that Fox News’s longtime comptroller, Judy Slater, subjected members of Fox’s payroll staff to racial insults for years. (Fox News fired Slater in February after those employees began litigation against the network.)
Lawyers representing the payroll employees are demanding that Fox’s accounting director, Tammy Efinger, also be removed from supervising an employee because she allegedly participated in Slater’s racist behavior. In a letter to the network’s lawyers obtained by New York, the attorneys state: “Not once did Ms. Efinger step in or attempt to interfere with Ms. Slater’s outrageous conduct.” The letter adds, instead, “Ms. Efinger chose to laugh or giggle following Ms. Slater’s vitriol.”
The letter also includes new allegations of racism in Fox News’s accounting department. According to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Slater demanded that black employees hold “arm wrestling matches’” with white female employees in her office, just down the hall from Ailes’s office on the 2nd floor of Fox headquarters. “Forcing a black woman employee to ‘fight’ for the amusement and pleasure of her white superiors is horrifying. This highly offensive and humiliating act is reminiscent of Jim Crow era battle royals,” the letter says, referring to the practice of paying black men to fight blindfolded at carnivals for white spectators’ entertainment. The lawyers argue that Efinger bragged about wanting to “fight” a black employee.
The new claims, if true, reveal not just the failures of the legal and HR departments to deal with problematic managers but also just how deep the culture of discrimination and harassment may have run during Ailes’s reign.
Reached for comment, an attorney representing the employees, Jeanne Christensen, said, “There will be more complaints forthcoming in the next few days.”
A Fox News spokesperson said: “We can’t comment on a lawsuit that we haven’t seen yet.”
Why BLM Succeeds – Follow the Lawsuit Cost to Cities
The reason Police Accountability is beginning to get real in some municipalities is the cost. Police beatings, shooting, mistreatment of citizens is costing big bucks as a result of lawsuits. Chicago’s tab was over $100 million last year. That’s $100 million taxpayer dollars which didn’t go to improving schools, fixing roads, or improving Government services.
With so many of these cases appearing on video, providing irrefutable evidence of misbehavior by that minority of bad Cops – its no longer possible to deflect the issue by blaming the Lawyers…Or the victims.
Now unless you are a dumb as shit, racist Trumpazoid – you should be able to realize three things –
- Either your taxes are going up, or you will get less for the tax money you do pay. If you want to reduce taxes, the best way is to cut unnecessary spending. A lot of Cops do their jobs – and do them well, without beating up handcuffed suspects, shooting the unarmed, and harassing the citizenry.
- It’s not only Black Folks and Minorities. White folks get killed too, even though Minorities stand a chance of being on the receiving end of bad policing at several times that of white citizens. The beat-down you save may be your own.
- It is making it a hell of a lot harder for good cops to do their jobs. After hitting historical lows in the numbers of Cops killed or injured on the job, being unaccountable may well reverse that trend as citizens see no alternative to violence.
And for the “All Lives Matter/Blue Lives Matter” Bozos…It’s the MONEY, STUPID!
Racists and Rapists…Oh… Really? O’Reilly and Faux News
Shouldn’t be a surprise that Faux New’s pack of howling racists is also a bun of sexual harassing rapists. A pack of liars and sexual molesters.
BOMBSHELL REPORT REVEALS NEW BILL O’REILLY HARASSMENT ACCUSATIONS
Fox News and O’Reilly have reportedly doled out $13 million to O’Reilly accusers.
A blockbuster new report by The New York Times reveals further details in Fox News’s decades-long internal battle with harassment allegations. The network’s longstanding C.E.O. Roger Ailes resigned in July amid a storm of sexual harassment accusations and lawsuits. Executives at Fox News and its parent company, 21st Century Fox, offered assurances that such behavior would no longer be tolerated. (Ailes has vociferously denied all accusations of impropriety.)
But now, a New York Times investigation reveals that Fox News and anchor Bill O’Reilly have spent about $13 million in settlements to female employees who have accused O’Reilly of lewd or otherwise abusive behavior toward them.
According to the Times, three more accusers have been identified since the publication reported on the accusations of two other women in January. Of these women, two of these cases involve claims of sexual harassment on O’Reilly’s part. The third is an accusation of verbal abuse during an outburst in which O’Reilly “berated a young producer in front of newsroom colleagues.”
From the Times:
The women who made allegations against Mr. O’Reilly either worked for him or appeared on his show. They have complained about a wide range of behavior, including verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances and phone calls in which it sounded like Mr. O’Reilly was masturbating, according to documents and interviews.
The reporting suggests a pattern: As an influential figure in the newsroom, Mr. O’Reilly would create a bond with some women by offering advice and promising to help them professionally. He then would pursue sexual relationships with them, causing some to fear that if they rebuffed him, their careers would stall.
21st Century Fox, Fox News’ parent company, released a statement defending the payouts and noting that none of these women had used the company hotline to accuse a senior employee of the company. The statement confirms that the company has spoken with O’Reilly about the cases.
“21st Century Fox takes matters of workplace behavior very seriously,” the statement said. “Notwithstanding the fact that no current or former Fox News employee ever took advantage of the 21st Century Fox hotline to raise a concern about Bill O’Reilly, even anonymously, we have looked into these matters over the last few months and discussed them with Mr. O’Reilly. While he denies the merits of these claims, Mr. O’Reilly has resolved those he regarded as his personal responsibility. Mr. O’Reilly is fully committed to supporting our efforts to improve the environment for all our employees at Fox News.”
With the departure of Megyn Kelly, who decamped to NBC after joining the chorus of Ailes accusers, O’Reilly is Fox News’s biggest star. The Times cited an advertising research firm’s estimated earnings for The O’Reilly Factor: $446 million between 2014 and 2016. He is paid, according to the Times, approximately $18 million a year.
In a statement, O’Reilly suggested accusations of this nature are the price he pays for being a high-profile firebrand.
“Just like other prominent and controversial people, I’m vulnerable to lawsuits from individuals who want me to pay them to avoid negative publicity,” O’Reilly said. “In my more than 20 years at Fox News Channel, no one has ever filed a complaint about me with the Human Resources Department, even on the anonymous hotline. But most importantly, I’m a father who cares deeply for my children and who would do anything to avoid hurting them in any way. And so I have put to rest any controversies to spare my children.”
Read Sarah Ellison’s Hive Investigation: Inside the Final Days of Roger Ailes’s Reign at Fox News
This is an especially sensitive time for the network, as Fox News is still dealing with the fallout coming after Ailes’ departure. The company is currently under investigation by the office of the United States attorney in the Southern District of New York. (The investigation is heading toward a grand jury without Preet Bharara, who led the office until a dramatic firing in early March.)
Greta Van Susteren, who was a longtime Fox News colleague of O’Reilly before joining MSNBC, tweeted Saturday morning that a situation like this arises from a company wanting to hide that they’d “looked the other way.”
Wendy Walsh, one of the accusers and a frequent guest of O’Reilly’s show, said that the acerbic host withdrew a verbal offer to get her a high position at the network in 2013 after she turned down an invitation to his hotel suite. She told the Times she did not lodge a complaint with Fox News because she wanted to avoid damaging her future career prospects. According to Walsh, he’d invited her to dinner, promised her a contributor position, and then invited her up to his hotel room. When she declined and suggested they go to the hotel bar instead, he became hostile, told her to forget about his offer, and also called her purse ugly.
“I feel bad that some of these old guys are using mating strategies that were acceptable in the 1950s and are not acceptable now,” Walsh said. “I hope young men can learn from this.”
Fox News declined further comment when reached by the Hive, instead pointing to existing statements by O’Reilly and 21st Century Fox.
Depiddy Lawn Jockey Going Down
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a Faux News favorite and Trump Lawn Jockey is facing some serious charges back home. A common misconception about Clarke is that he is a real Sheriff, with Law enforcement duties and Police Officers patrolling the streets. He isn’t. He runs the County jail, and has no Law Enforcement duties.
Along with being another Trump stooge who has kissed Putin’s ring.
Depiddy Lawn Jockey living the Bling life on Faux News payroll.
America’s No. 1 Rabble-Rousing Pro-Trump Sheriff Is Under a Growing Cloud
Jail deaths and controversial moves on immigration in David Clarke’s Milwaukee County.
David Clarke, the controversial sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, rose to national prominence last year as a vocal supporter of Donald Trump and a frequent guest on Fox News. Clarke traversed the country speaking to pro-gun and religious rights groups, and he endorsed Trump in a fiery pro-police (and anti-Black Lives Matter) speech at the Republican National Convention. After the election, Clarke met with the president-elect at Trump Tower, reportedly under consideration to head the Department of Homeland Security.
But things haven’t gone so smoothly for Clarke back home in Milwaukee County. Four people died last year in the county jail overseen by Clarke, and he has been sued three times since December over treatment of inmates. Clarke has faced calls for his resignation over the jail deaths and his absenteeism. And since January, he has clashed with other county leaders over immigration enforcement policy. Here’s the latest on what’s been happening on Clarke’s turf:
Deaths in Clarke’s jail
Clarke has faced two federal lawsuits since December, in the wake of four deaths that occurred last year in the Milwaukee County Jail. In mid-March, the family of a man who died of dehydration in April 2016 sued Clarke and the county, alleging that jail staff subjected the man to “torture” by denying him water as he pleaded for it over 10 days. County prosecutors are considering bringing felony charges against jail staff for neglect. Another lawsuit, filed last December, seeks damages for the death of a newborn in the jail last July, after jail staff ignored the infant’s mother as she went into labor and for more than six hours thereafter, according to the suit.
A lawsuit filed earlier this month also alleges mistreatment of pregnant inmates. In that suit, a woman alleges that, during a seven-month stint at the jail in 2013, she was forcibly shackled with a “belly-chain” that tied her wrists and legs to her stomach during her hospitalization for pre-natal care, while she was in labor, and while she received treatment for post-partum depression after she gave birth. The restraints made giving birth more painful for the woman, left marks on her body, and made it more difficult for doctors—who insisted she be freed—to give her an epidural, the lawsuit says. The jail has a policy that inmates be shackled while receiving medical care that makes no exceptions for pregnancy, according to the lawsuit, which also states that more than 40 women were subjected to the same treatment.
County officials and relatives of the four people who died have called for independent investigations into the deaths, but Clarke has relinquished control of the investigation into only one of the cases. In December, the Department of Justice said it would “consider” launching a civil rights investigation into Clarke’s office for the deaths, in response to a letter sent by Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore. But it’s unclear what action the department might take under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has said his department will “pull back” on investigating police abuse. Moore plans to reach out to the DOJ about an investigation into the jail, a spokesperson for her office told Mother Jones.
Calls for Clarke to resign
Clarke has been celebrated by the likes of NRA CEO Wayne La Pierre and Fox News host Sean Hannity, but he’s less highly regarded in his overwhelmingly Democratic home county, despite running for sheriff as a Democrat in the last three election cycles. Multiple county and state officials have called in recent months for Clarke to resign his post. In December, three Democratic state lawmakers wrote a lettercalling for Clarke’s resignation, citing “gross mismanagement” of the county jail. At least one county supervisor and the county executive have also called for Clarke to resign over the jail deaths.
Clarke is also facing mounting scrutiny for his repeated absences from the job last year. Clarke visited 20 states in 2016, according to financial disclosure documents he filed with the county, often to give paid speeches in which he praised Donald Trump. He spent about 60 days out of state last year, the documents show. (Before he campaigned for Trump, Clarke took a trip to Moscowin December 2015 with a delegation from the NRA, during which they met with Russian officials.) …Read More Here About Clarke’s Immigration Moves…
The Blonde Bimbo’s Revenge – Fox News Begins Payout for Sexual Harassment
The empire is crumbling over at Faux News. Multiple lawsuits from current and former announcers against the network, which while under the leadership of Roger Ailes openly practiced sexual harassment and abuse.
At least one of the victimized women claims the harassment and violations came from more than just Ailes, naming Faux Announcer Bill O’Reilly, and a toxic environment.
Fox News is willing to pay big bucks to protect their media “hosts”…
In a system where “good in bed” equated to airtime.
Gretchen Carlson settles sexual harassment case against Fox News for $20 million
It looks as though Fox News really, really didn’t want to see former host Gretchen Carlson’s sexual harassment lawsuit make it to court.
Vanity Fair reports that Fox and Carlson have agreed to a massive $20 million settlement of her sexual harassment claims — and she’s even received an official apology from the network over the treatment she received from former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes.
“During her tenure at Fox News, Gretchen exhibited the highest standards of journalism and professionalism,” Fox News parent company 21st Century Fox said in an official statement announcing the settlement. “She developed a loyal audience and was a daily source of information for many Americans. We are proud that she was part of the Fox News team. We sincerely regret and apologize for the fact that Gretchen was not treated with the respect that she and all our colleagues deserve.”
Carlson filed a lawsuit back in early July alleging that she was fired from her job for refusing to have sex with Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Less than a month later, Ailes stepped down from his role as CEO after sexual harassment allegations from several other women against him came to light.
The CH-trump Has Stiffed Thousands of Workers on Moneys Owed
The sleazebag Chumph has stiffed literally thousands of small businesses and blue collar workers out of their well earned pay.
Indeed in one case, the Chumph was ordered to pay $32,000 to a painter at his Doral Gold Resort, or have it foreclosed and sold to pay debts! No wonder the PGA moved their tournament from there to Mexico!
What Trump is doing, is legal blackmail. And it is legal under the corrupt US Legal System. It works like this – big, wealthy company refuses to pay subcontractor (or any other excuse) $200,000. Big company sues – or waits fro small company to sue to get it’s money. Small company cannot afford to pay lawyers to defend itself, a legal cost which can easily go north of $100,000 for a simple suit. Small company goes bankrupt, or is forced to settle at a loss. Big company (Chumph) can afford to keep full time layers on staff, and only spends $50,000 basically stealing $150,000 in profit, knowing full well little guy can’t afford a reasonable defense in court.
That is what the 3,500 Chump lawsuits are all about. It is using an effed-up legal system, set up to massively favor the rich, to screw the middle class small businessman and poor.
The Trump Dump in Florida – Just last month, Trump Miami Resort Management LLC settled with 48 servers at his Miami golf resort over failing to pay overtime for a special event. The settlements averaged about $800 for each worker and as high as $3,000 for one, according to court records. Some workers put in 20-hour days over the 10-day Passover event at Trump National Doral Miami, the lawsuit contends. Trump’s team initially argued a contractor hired the workers, and he wasn’t responsible, and counter-sued the contractor demanding payment.
USA TODAY exclusive: Hundreds allege Donald Trump doesn’t pay his bills
Donald Trump casts himself as a protector of workers and jobs, but a USA TODAY NETWORK investigation found hundreds of people – carpenters, dishwashers, painters, even his own lawyers – who say he didn’t pay them for their work.
During the Atlantic City casino boom in the 1980s, Philadelphia cabinet-builder Edward Friel Jr. landed a $400,000 contract to build the bases for slot machines, registration desks, bars and other cabinets at Harrah’s at Trump Plaza.
The family cabinetry business, founded in the 1940s by Edward’s father, finished its work in 1984 and submitted its final bill to the general contractor for the Trump Organization, the resort’s builder.
Edward’s son, Paul, who was the firm’s accountant, still remembers the amount of that bill more than 30 years later: $83,600. The reason: the money never came. “That began the demise of the Edward J. Friel Company… which has been around since my grandfather,” he said.
Donald Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the working class who will “protect your job.” But a USA TODAY NETWORK analysis found he has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels, who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them.
At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings reviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK, document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work. Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast. Real estate brokers who sold his properties. And, ironically, several law firms that once represented him in these suits and others.
Trump’s companies have also been cited for 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage, according toU.S. Department of Labor data. That includes 21 citations against the defunct Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and three against the also out-of-business Trump Mortgage LLC in New York. Both cases were resolved by the companies agreeing to pay back wages.
In addition to the lawsuits, the review found more than 200 mechanic’s liens — filed by contractors and employees against Trump, his companies or his properties claiming they were owed money for their work — since the 1980s. The liens range from a $75,000 claim by a Plainview, N.Y., air conditioning and heating company to a $1 million claim from the president of a New York City real estate banking firm. On just one project, Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, records released by theNew Jersey Casino Control Commission in 1990 show that at least 253 subcontractors weren’t paid in full or on time, including workers who installed walls, chandeliers and plumbing….More on This Story Here…
Another $4.9 Million Tax Bill For Chicago’s Bad Cops
Been saying this for a while …At some point the expense of bad policing become unsustainable by the tax base. $250 million buys a lot of road repairs and upgrades to schools. $250 million is the payout Chicago is now on the hook for in lawsuits due to police brutality and misbehavior. And it is rising every day.
Chicago To Pay $4.9 Million To Family Of Man Dragged In Handcuffs
Philip Coleman died at a hospital in 2012, according to court records.
The city of Chicago has agreed to pay the family of a black man who died after being dragged by handcuffs from a cell in a police lockup and down a hallway more than three years ago, an attorney for the family said on Monday.
Philip Coleman, 38, was arrested for domestic battery against his mother on Dec. 12, 2012.
After he refused to go to court the next morning, several police officers struggled with Coleman inside a cell, and he was Tasered, court records showed. In an incident caught on video, an officer dragged a motionless Coleman by his handcuffs.
Coleman later died at a hospital, according to court records. The Chicago Tribune reported that an autopsy showed he died of a reaction to an antipsychotic drug and also had bruises and abrasions on his body. Reuters was not able to confirm the cause of death.
Ed Fox, a lawyer for the family, told Reuters by phone that Coleman’s family and the city of Chicago had reached a settlement over the family’s civil rights lawsuit, but declined to confirm media reports that it was for $4.9 million.
The city’s law department declined to comment.
Bad Cops Cost Chicago $662 Million in Taxpayer Money Since 2004
$662 Million since 2004!
How bad is that?
It is more money than the entire budgets of the following cities, including Atlanta, Miami, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Memphis, and St Petersburg –
Anchorage[4] AK $471M
Arlington[5] TX $490M
Atlanta[6] GA $533M
Aurora[7] CO $591M
Bakersfield[9] CA $418M
Birmingham[12] AL $390M
Boise[13] ID $487M
Buffalo[15] NY $482M
Chula Vista[20] CA $269M
Cincinnati[21] OH $358M
Colorado Springs[23] CO $249M
Durham[29] NC $390M
Fort Wayne[31] IN $182M
Fremont[33] CA $238M
Gilbert[36] AZ $554M
Glendale[37] AZ $576M
Greensboro[38] NC $472M
Henderson[39] NV $482M
Hialeah[40] FL $257M
Irvine[44] CA $144M
Irving[45] TX $300M
Jersey City[47] NJ $500M
Laredo[49] TX $556M
Lexington[51] KY $540M
Lincoln[52] NE $159M
Madison[57] WI $275M
Memphis[58] TN $618M
Miami[60] FL $523M
Milwaukee[61] WI $590M
New Orleans[64] LA $505M
North Las Vegas[68] NV $492M
Pittsburgh[75] PA $488M
Plano[76] TX $492M
Reno[79] NV $359M
San Bernardino[83] CA $258M
Santa Ana[87] CA $430M
St. Paul[91] MN $516M
St. Petersburg[92] FL $483M
Stockton[93] CA $632M
Tulsa[97] OK $597M
Wichita[100] KS $577M
Winston-Salem[101] NC $379M
You could run a small city, and better than 60% of the Counties in the US…Just on Chicago’s Thug Cop bill. Unaccountable, and bad cops cost their cities money. Money that could better be used for anything from schools to roads repairs.
How Chicago racked up a $662 million police misconduct bill
In this city’s troubled history of police misconduct, Eric Caine’s case may be unrivaled: It took more than 25 years and $10 million to resolve.
For decades, he maintained he didn’t brutally kill an elderly couple. The police, he said, beat him into a false confession. Locked up at age 20, he was freed at 46, bewildered by a world he no longer recognized. Caine ultimately was declared innocent, sued the city and settled for $10 million. But victory brought little peace to his troubled mind.
“They wouldn’t give anybody that large amount of money if they didn’t believe that person was wronged,” he says. “But I also look at it as a way for them to just want me to go away. … Nobody cares if I live or die. I’m a shell of a human being.”
Caine is one of the more dramatic examples of huge police settlements that have tarnished the city in recent years. Among them: A one-time death row inmate brutally beaten by police: $6.1 million. An unarmed man fatally shot by an officer as he lay on the ground: $4.1 million.
And last year, the family of Laquan McDonald, the black teenager shot 16 times by a white officer, received $5 million. His death, captured in a shocking video, led to a murder charge against the officer, the police chief’s firing and thunderous street protests with calls for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s resignation.
In all, Chicago has paid a staggering sum — about $662 million — on police misconduct since 2004, including judgments, settlements and outside legal fees, according to city records. The payouts, for everything from petty harassment to police torture, have brought more financial misery to a city already drowning in billions of dollars of pension debt.
The U.S. Justice Department’s recent decision to investigate the Chicago police — fallout from the McDonald case — has helped focus new attention on this agonizing record of misconduct and the surprising lack of consequences. Few officers accused of wrongdoing have been disciplined in recent years…Read How They Got There Here…
No Police Accountability in Philadelphia Either
One o the things conservatives constantly squeal about is taxes. They prefer to shut down public schools to find the money from which to do so – even though there is a more sensible solution. Out of control Policing is costing major cities huge amounts of money. Chicago alone has paid over half a billion dollars in settlements because of police misbehavior over the last 10 years, with settlements in 2013 topping $85 million. Los Angeles, which has a similar-sized police force, paid out $20 million in brutality-related legal claims last year, less than a quarter of Chicago’s outlay. Baltimore has spent $5 million a year since 2011. And then there is Philadelphia…
Logically it would seem conservatives would be in alignment with BLM and other organizations seeking better, less-corrupt, and accountable police. It is not only good for the community, it is good for the bottom line. But then, common sense never got in the way of racism.
How Philadelphia prosecutors protect police misconduct: Cops get caught lying — and then get off the hook
In Philadelphia, widespread allegations of corruption and perjury against members of the nation’s fourth largest police department have in recent years shaken the criminal justice system.
Currently, the Defender Association of Philadelphia is seeking to have more than 500 convictions involving Officer Christopher Hulmes reopened and tossed out. In 2011, Hulmes admitted to lying in open court in a drug-and-gun case against two black men who claim they were framed. He did so in front of a judge and prosecutor. But he was not charged with perjury until this April, in the wake of reporting by this reporter when he was employed at the now-defunct Philadelphia City Paper.
Worse yet, police and prosecutors had failed to address prior evidence that Hulmes was a liar.
In 2008, an Assistant District Attorney reported that Hulmes had admitted that he had lied about where police had discovered a gun, allegedly to benefit a defendant who had provided him useful information. The prosecutor reported the lying. But the police internal affairs unit failed to sustain the charges. The District Attorney’s Office likewise apparently did nothing. And so, despite one serious allegation of lying and a separate admission of perjury, officials in the D.A.’s Office did nothing to stop him: Hulmes continued to make narcotics arrests on the street, and prosecutors kept putting him on the stand to testify. And now, many of his cases, meritorious or otherwise, will very likely be thrown out.
In recent weeks, Salon has been reporting on police lying in Chicago, where false statements underpin a culture that protects everything from physical abuse to illegal searches. But reviewing cases from around the country show that Chicago is far from alone.
Brad Bridge, an expert in police misconduct at the Philadelphia public defender, says that it may take a while to reopen Hulmes’ old cases: First, they have to deal with 1,300-odd petitions seeking to reopen convictions related to six allegedly rogue narcotics officers who, earlier this year, beat federal charges that they rampantly abused and robbed drug dealers.
“Police perjury has a corrosive effect upon the entire judicial system,” emails Bridge. “This has happened in Philadelphia where over 600 convictions had to have been vacated over the past two years where significant doubts have arisen about the truthfulness of the police officers involved.”
There is little evidence that D.A. Seth Williams Office, the Police Department and the city do much to root out police perjury.
The city discusses civil rights cases with the Police Department, says Chief Deputy City Solicitor Craig Straw, who handles civil rights cases against officers. But neither the Police Department nor the city’s understaffed Police Advisory Commission could point to any proactive measures that are taken to tackle perjury. D.A. Williams’ Office has long hostile to reform despite hopes that he would usher in progressive change, and is currently enmeshed in salacious political controversies. His office did not respond to a request to explain its program to tackle police lying.
In the recent past, even overwhelming video evidence that police were lying wasn’t enough to convince Philadelphia prosecutors. In 2010, the extraordinarily brutal police beating of Askia Sabur on a West Philadelphia sidewalk went viral on YouTube. Prosecutors nonetheless charged Sabur, who remained jailed awaiting trial, with assaulting the officer. Police claimed that Sabur had beaten an officer with his baton and reached for his gun—an allegation that was not supported by video evidence. A jury finally acquitted Sabur, but there were never any charges filed against the officer, Jimmy Leocal, who had beaten him most viciously.
“Unfortunately, in some situations even when prosecutors have very good reason to disbelieve the police officer,” they still put him up to testify, says University of Pennsylvania law professor and leading civil rights attorney David Rudovsky. “But the larger problem, I think, is just the uncritical acceptance of what the police say…In a culture in which most people think police tell the truth…the natural reaction of many people is to believe the officer.”
Williams’ prosecutors long took a similarly hands-off approach to lying in the Philadelphia Prison System. Last year, City Paper reported that guard Tyrone Glover was accused of assaulting two inmates. In both cases, however, the inmates were charged in connection with assaulting Glover. In one case, however, City Paper obtained video evidence showing Glover assaulting the inmate….Read More Here…
DOJ Outs Donald Trump’s Housing Discrimination
Shouldn’t be a big surprise…And Trump continued racist housing discrimination for years.
DOJ: Trump’s Early Businesses Blocked Blacks
A 1973 suit against Trump and the Trump Organization claimed that superintendents at Trump properties would mark African-American applications with a ‘C’ for ‘Colored’ and other racial codes.
When an African-American showed up to rent an apartment owned by a young real-estate scion named Donald Trump and his family, the building superintendent did what he claimed he’d been told to do. He allegedly attached a separate sheet of paper to the application, marked with the letter “C.”
“C” for “Colored.”
According to the Department of Justice, that was the crude code that ensured the rental would be denied.
Details of this secret system, as well as other practices that the Trump organization allegedly used to exclude black residents from its buildings in Brooklyn, Queens, and Norfolk, Virginia in the 1970s, were recorded in a lawsuit brought by the DOJ against Trump and his father, Fred, in 1973 for alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act.
The Trumps responded to the Department of Justice with characteristic combativeness. They counter-sued the federal government for $100 million, while the family’s infamous lawyer—the Joe McCarthy aide turned mafia counsel Roy Cohn—attacked a prosecutor for being a “hot-tempered white female” while slamming the investigation as “Gestapo-like.” Extensive court documents, unearthed by The Daily Beast, provide a window not only into alleged discriminatory practices at the heart of Trump’s early real estate empire, but also into the family’s attack mode, which echoes Trump’s current slash-and-burn campaign for the White House.
A Secret Racist Code
The lawsuit—which Trump Management settled in 1975 with a consent decree, and which they noted at the time did not constitute an admission of wrongdoing—detailed numerous instances of a racial code that Trump-owned buildings allegedly used to indicate if an applicant was black or otherwise “undesirable.”
A super who worked for the Trumps, Thomas Miranda, allegedly told the DOJ that Trump Management staffers had instructed him to “attach a separate sheet of paper to every application submitted by a prospective ‘colored’ renter.”
“Miranda was to write a ‘C’ in order to indicate to management that the prospective renter was ‘colored,’” the DOJ noted in court documents.
Elyse Goldweber, an attorney on the case, claimed Miranda had been reluctant to talk to her and have his name disclosed because “he was afraid that the Trumps would have him ‘knocked off.’” Miranda was also allegedly afraid to reveal to the Trumps that he was Puerto Rican and instead told them he was South American because he thought they “did not want Puerto Ricans living or working in the building,” according to Goldweber’s documentation.
In another instance, Goldweber said, Miranda told another tenant that Trump’s central office did not want him to rent to an Indian man—and that they only agreed to rent to the individual after they found out he had United Nations connections and that a rejection “might cause an unnecessary confrontation.”
He was personally ordered to rent only to “Jews and executives” and to discourage blacks from renting.
Miranda later denied in sworn testimony that he’d said such things to the DOJ. He testified that he went to talk to the Trumps after prosecutors paid him a visit and told “Mr. Trump,” who was a “busy man,” that he wanted no part in the case.
But according to other court documents from the suit, Thomas Miranda was not the only staffer who claimed to know of a secret racial code.
According to the DOJ, a former super at Trump’s Highlander complex claimed that he would also attach a coded piece of paper to let the “central office” know that an applicant was black. He added that a number of supers in Queens used a “phony lease” to enable them to refuse apartments to people of color. The super’s assistant backed up his story about the code and said she was told, “Trump Management tries not to rent to black persons.”…More on Trump’s Discrimination Here…
Fear of a Black President…Obama and Statistics Collection Exposing Racism
Did you know the US Government is building a “Secret Race Database”?
And that President Obama plans to use it to tear down the foundations of white privilege, and ravage the very roots of Dixie?
Enjoy!
Obama collecting personal data for a secret race database
A key part of President Obama’s legacy will be the fed’s unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race. The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of “racial and economic justice.”
Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites.
This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make “disparate impact” cases against: banks that don’t make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don’t offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds.
Big Brother Barack wants the databases operational before he leaves office, and much of the data in them will be posted online.
So civil-rights attorneys and urban activist groups will be able to exploit them to show patterns of “racial disparities” and “segregation,” even if no other evidence of discrimination exists.
Housing database
The granddaddy of them all is the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing database, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development rolled out earlier this month to racially balance the nation, ZIP code by ZIP code. It will map every US neighborhood by four racial groups — white, Asian, black or African-American, and Hispanic/Latino — and publish “geospatial data” pinpointing racial imbalances.
The agency proposes using nonwhite populations of 50% or higher as the threshold for classifying segregated areas.
Federally funded cities deemed overly segregated will be pressured to change their zoning laws to allow construction of more subsidized housing in affluent areas in the suburbs, and relocate inner-city minorities to those predominantly white areas. HUD’s maps, which use dots to show the racial distribution or density in residential areas, will be used to select affordable-housing sites.
HUD plans to drill down to an even more granular level, detailing the proximity of black residents to transportation sites, good schools, parks and even supermarkets. If the agency’s social engineers rule the distance between blacks and these suburban “amenities” is too far, municipalities must find ways to close the gap or forfeit federal grant money and face possible lawsuits for housing discrimination.
Civil-rights groups will have access to the agency’s sophisticated mapping software, and will participate in city plans to re-engineer neighborhoods under new community outreach requirements.
“By opening this data to everybody, everyone in a community can weigh in,” Obama said. “If you want affordable housing nearby, now you’ll have the data you need to make your case.”
Mortgage database
Meanwhile, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, headed by former Congressional Black Caucus leader Mel Watt, is building its own database for racially balancing home loans. The so-called National Mortgage Database Project will compile 16 years of lending data, broken down by race, and hold everything from individual credit scores and employment records.
Mortgage contracts won’t be the only financial records vacuumed up by the database. According to federal documents, the repository will include “all credit lines,” from credit cards to student loans to car loans — anything reported to credit bureaus. This is even more information than the IRS collects.
The FHFA will also pry into your personal assets and debts and whether you have any bankruptcies. The agency even wants to know the square footage and lot size of your home, as well as your interest rate.
FHFA will share the info with Obama’s brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which acts more like a civil-rights agency, aggressively investigating lenders for racial bias.
The FHFA has offered no clear explanation as to why the government wants to sweep up so much sensitive information on Americans, other than stating it’s for “research” and “policymaking.”
However, CFPB Director Richard Cordray was more forthcoming, explaining in a recent talk to the radical California-based Greenlining Institute: “We will be better able to identify possible discriminatory lending patterns.”
Credit database
CFPB is separately amassing a database to monitor ordinary citizens’ credit-card transactions. It hopes to vacuum up some 900 million credit-card accounts — all sorted by race — representing roughly 85% of the US credit-card market. Why? To sniff out “disparities” in interest rates, charge-offs and collections.
Employment database
CFPB also just finalized a rule requiring all regulated banks to report data on minority hiring to an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. It will collect reams of employment data, broken down by race, to police diversity on Wall Street as part of yet another fishing expedition.
School database
Through its mandatory Civil Rights Data Collection project, the Education Department is gathering information on student suspensions and expulsions, by race, from every public school district in the country. Districts that show disparities in discipline will be targeted for reform.
Those that don’t comply will be punished. Several already have been forced to revise their discipline policies, which has led to violent disruptions in classrooms.
Obama’s educrats want to know how many blacks versus whites are enrolled in gifted-and-talented and advanced placement classes.
Schools that show blacks and Latinos under-enrolled in such curricula, to an undefined “statistically significant degree,” could open themselves up to investigation and lawsuits by the department’s Civil Rights Office.
Count on a flood of private lawsuits to piggyback federal discrimination claims, as civil-rights lawyers use the new federal discipline data in their legal strategies against the supposedly racist US school system.
Even if no one has complained about discrimination, even if there is no other evidence of racism, the numbers themselves will “prove” that things are unfair.
Such databases have never before existed. Obama is presiding over the largest consolidation of personal data in US history. He is creating a diversity police state where government race cops and civil-rights lawyers will micromanage demographic outcomes in virtually every aspect of society.
The first black president, quite brilliantly, has built a quasi-reparations infrastructure perpetually fed by racial data that will outlast his administration.
Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “The Great American Bank Robbery,” which exposes the racial politics behind the mortgage bust.
All of the above charts were from reports done by various research institutes, including Brookings, Pew, and Manhattan, as well as educationals studies by Universities such as Stanford. Hate to be the first one to tell this conservative racist clown…
But the data is already there.
The New Jim Crow – Workplace Discrimination Claims Rise in Congress
This is costing taxpayers millions… Says something about our elected officials who can’t, or won’t obey the law of the land.
Taxpayers foot bill for Hill harassment claims
The number of discrimination and harassment claims on Capitol Hill has doubled in the past five years — and taxpayers have shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle those disputes.
A new report out Thursday says 168 claims were made in fiscal 2010 alleging discrimination and harassment — compared to 87 claims reported in fiscal 2006. Fifty-seven of the claims made last year were based on race, while 41 claims involved age, 34 involved gender and 28 involved disabilities, according to the report from the congressional Office of Compliance.
The harassment and discrimination claims stem from 105 cases filed with the Office of Compliance last year, meaning one person could make more than one claim. The vast majority of cases involve the large workforce under the Architect of the Capitol and Capitol Police, with about a fifth of the cases coming from House and Senate offices.
While the total number of complaints has risen, the payouts in settlements fluctuate year to year.
In fiscal 2010, taxpayers paid $246,271 to settle nine matters brought to the OOC over the years. That’s a big drop from the previous year, when $831,360 was spent to settle 13 claims. The cash awards settled matters of discrimination and harassment, as well as retaliation claims and disputes over contracts and pay. Since fiscal 1997, taxpayers have footed the bill for more than $13.2 million in cases resolved by the OOC.
Claims of retaliation and intimidation have also grown in the congressional workplace — from 46 claims in fiscal 2006 to 69 in fiscal 2010.
The OOC, which is charged with protecting congressional workers and facilities, is urging lawmakers to take extra measures to ensure Hill staffers are well aware of their rights. The OOC called for all offices to post a list of workers’ rights and require training for managers and staffers on how to prevent inappropriate conduct at the workplace….(more)
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