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welcome to reality trivia
reality is the state of things as they actually exist
august 17, 2018
real news today
august 17, 2018
*Colorado’s oil and gas industry goes after reporters and signature gatherers in new fracking fight(Oil)
*California jail settles lawsuit after keeping LGBTQ inmates in isolation 23 hours a day(Rights)
*Vatican Likely Won't Punish Those Who Covered Up Child Sexual Abuse by the rude pundit
(Christianity)
*Scarlett Johansson tops list of highest-paid female film stars
(Real People)
*HERE’S HOW THE RUSSIAN MOB USED CASH FROM A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR GAS SCAM TO GET THEIR HOOKS INTO TRUMP(Trump)
(for previous day's articles see "what's inside" below)
tweet of the day
Dan Rather✔
@DanRather
When we look back in disgust at those who've undermined the fabric of our democracy and common humanity, we don't only reserve harsh judgement for those at the top. There is plenty of rightful derision for all who condoned, collaborated, conspired, or even just remained silent.
1:02 PM - Aug 16, 2018
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DOJ Sues Ivanka’s Ex-Business Partner for Massive Fraud
Moshe Lax and members of his family allegedly conspired to deprive the U.S. of $60 million.
By BEN SCHRECKINGER - politico
August 17, 2018
The Justice Department is suing a friend and former business partner of Ivanka Trump for his alleged role in schemes to defraud the federal government out of millions of dollars in tax liabilities on his father’s estate.
Filed last month and reported here for the first time, the suit follows an August 2017 POLITICO investigation of alleged financial wrongdoing by New York businessman Moshe Lax and glaring irregularities in the Internal Revenue Service’s handling of a $27 million lien on his father’s estate.
The suit, which seeks more than $60 million in unpaid tax liabilities, was brought in the Southern District of New York by lawyers in the Justice Department’s tax division. It alleges that Lax, his sister Zlaty Schwartz, and his late father, Chaim Lax, engaged in a series of complex “sham transactions” designed to fraudulently evade tax liability.The government alleges the family members undertook 10 separate schemes “designed to hide the Lax family assets from the IRS and other creditors and make it appear as though the Estate was insolvent.”
At a time when Democrats are working to make corruption a midterm campaign issue and a jury deliberates over whether to convict President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager for tax fraud, the suit threatens to further the perception that the Trump family and their closest associates operate in a corrupt milieu.
Though the complaint does not mention Trump or accuse her of wrongdoing, Madison Avenue Diamonds, the business that Trump helped run for years under the name Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, figures prominently in the government’s case.
One of the 10 schemes outlined in the complaint is Lax’s alleged transfer of a roughly $21 million interest in Madison Avenue Diamonds from his father’s estate to a holding company for nothing in return.
A lawyer for Schwartz, Megan Brackney of Kostelanetz & Fink, declined to comment. Lax did not respond to requests for comment and court records do not list an attorney for him. The White House referred requests for comment to a firm that handles PR for Trump’s brand. “The issues in this case have nothing to do with Ivanka or the Ivanka Trump brand,” said a spokesperson for Trump’s brand, who asked not to be identified by name. “These licensing arrangements were terminated by the Ivanka Trump brand in 2016 prior to Ivanka entering government service.”
But the government alleges that Lax fraudulently transferred a portion of equity in Madison Avenue Diamonds at some point between 2008 and 2012. During that period, Trump remained involved with the business. At one point, Trump also had an ownership stake in Madison Avenue Diamonds, according to a deposition shegave in an unrelated case that was obtained by POLITICO last year.
Madison Avenue Diamonds is not named as a party in the complaint, but the holding company to which Lax allegedly transferred part of the company is.
In the complaint, the government names private creditors of Madison Avenue Diamonds as parties because they may have competing claims on the assets the government wants to seize.
Although no Trump entities are named as parties, Trump Organization General Counsel Alan Garten told POLITICO last summer that the Trump family business was “still owed a significant amount of money” by Lax from the jewelry venture.
It is not clear whether Lax has paid out on the debt since then. Neither Garten nor Trump Organization spokeswoman Amanda Miller responded to questions about whether Lax still owes money to Trump or any Trump family entities. The spokesperson for Trump’s brand said the brand would not be going after Lax or Madison Avenue Diamonds for any outstanding debts but did not address a question about whether any debt had been repaid.
The suit alleges that Lax’s father began the schemes in the years before his 2008 death so that his heirs could inherit his fortune without paying his unmet tax obligations. Lax and his sister are accused of continuing the schemes with a series of elaborate transactions meant to keep the assets from their father’s estate hidden from the government and other creditors.
Lax, Trump’s partner in her first independent business venture, was once close to the Trump family. He first introduced Trump to her to her future husband, Jared Kushner, at a gathering of real estate heirs he convened in New York a decade ago. Trump writes at length of meeting Lax and creating Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry with him in her 2010 memoir, “The Trump Card.”
“My new associate was an entrepreneur through and through,” she wrote of Lax in her memoir. “I admired that about him.”
Lax has also told at least one associate that he has discussed financial strategy with Trump’s father, President Trump.[...]
Filed last month and reported here for the first time, the suit follows an August 2017 POLITICO investigation of alleged financial wrongdoing by New York businessman Moshe Lax and glaring irregularities in the Internal Revenue Service’s handling of a $27 million lien on his father’s estate.
The suit, which seeks more than $60 million in unpaid tax liabilities, was brought in the Southern District of New York by lawyers in the Justice Department’s tax division. It alleges that Lax, his sister Zlaty Schwartz, and his late father, Chaim Lax, engaged in a series of complex “sham transactions” designed to fraudulently evade tax liability.The government alleges the family members undertook 10 separate schemes “designed to hide the Lax family assets from the IRS and other creditors and make it appear as though the Estate was insolvent.”
At a time when Democrats are working to make corruption a midterm campaign issue and a jury deliberates over whether to convict President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager for tax fraud, the suit threatens to further the perception that the Trump family and their closest associates operate in a corrupt milieu.
Though the complaint does not mention Trump or accuse her of wrongdoing, Madison Avenue Diamonds, the business that Trump helped run for years under the name Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, figures prominently in the government’s case.
One of the 10 schemes outlined in the complaint is Lax’s alleged transfer of a roughly $21 million interest in Madison Avenue Diamonds from his father’s estate to a holding company for nothing in return.
A lawyer for Schwartz, Megan Brackney of Kostelanetz & Fink, declined to comment. Lax did not respond to requests for comment and court records do not list an attorney for him. The White House referred requests for comment to a firm that handles PR for Trump’s brand. “The issues in this case have nothing to do with Ivanka or the Ivanka Trump brand,” said a spokesperson for Trump’s brand, who asked not to be identified by name. “These licensing arrangements were terminated by the Ivanka Trump brand in 2016 prior to Ivanka entering government service.”
But the government alleges that Lax fraudulently transferred a portion of equity in Madison Avenue Diamonds at some point between 2008 and 2012. During that period, Trump remained involved with the business. At one point, Trump also had an ownership stake in Madison Avenue Diamonds, according to a deposition shegave in an unrelated case that was obtained by POLITICO last year.
Madison Avenue Diamonds is not named as a party in the complaint, but the holding company to which Lax allegedly transferred part of the company is.
In the complaint, the government names private creditors of Madison Avenue Diamonds as parties because they may have competing claims on the assets the government wants to seize.
Although no Trump entities are named as parties, Trump Organization General Counsel Alan Garten told POLITICO last summer that the Trump family business was “still owed a significant amount of money” by Lax from the jewelry venture.
It is not clear whether Lax has paid out on the debt since then. Neither Garten nor Trump Organization spokeswoman Amanda Miller responded to questions about whether Lax still owes money to Trump or any Trump family entities. The spokesperson for Trump’s brand said the brand would not be going after Lax or Madison Avenue Diamonds for any outstanding debts but did not address a question about whether any debt had been repaid.
The suit alleges that Lax’s father began the schemes in the years before his 2008 death so that his heirs could inherit his fortune without paying his unmet tax obligations. Lax and his sister are accused of continuing the schemes with a series of elaborate transactions meant to keep the assets from their father’s estate hidden from the government and other creditors.
Lax, Trump’s partner in her first independent business venture, was once close to the Trump family. He first introduced Trump to her to her future husband, Jared Kushner, at a gathering of real estate heirs he convened in New York a decade ago. Trump writes at length of meeting Lax and creating Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry with him in her 2010 memoir, “The Trump Card.”
“My new associate was an entrepreneur through and through,” she wrote of Lax in her memoir. “I admired that about him.”
Lax has also told at least one associate that he has discussed financial strategy with Trump’s father, President Trump.[...]
trust a greedy corporation, great idea, idiot!!!
President Trump asks SEC to study abolishing quarterly earnings reports
by Chris Isidore @CNNMoney
August 17, 2018: 9:07 AM ET
In speaking to business leaders, one told him a twice-a-year reporting system would allow companies the flexibility and cost savings companies need to "Make business (jobs) even better in the U.S." Trump tweeted Friday morning. Trump said he directed the SEC to look into a change in its requirements.
Public companies must report their sales, profits and the state of the company's balance sheet every quarter. That has been required since the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which was put in place to give more confidence and transparency to investors in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash. That act also created the SEC, which sets the regulations which govern those quarterly reports.
Businesses have long complained that the reports require company executives to focus too much on the short term. Juicing numbers impresses investors, but it can force companies to miss out on long term trends. One of the reasons Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk wants to take his company private, he told his employees last week, was the way quarterly reports distort decisions at the company.
President Barack Obama has also criticized quarterly reports.
Speaking to the New York Review of Books in 2015, Obama said that he had talked to a large number of businesses executives who told him, "Because they've got quarterly reports to shareholders and if they've made a long-term investment that may pay off way down the line, or if they're paying their employees more now because they think it's going to help them retain high-quality employees, a lot of times they feel like they're going to get punished in the stock market. And so they don't do it, because the definition of being a successful business is narrowed to what your quarterly earnings reports are."
Shareholders, however, use the quarterly earnings reports as a guide to the quality and health of their investments. Without quarterly financial reports, investors could be blind to important risk factors that could damage their portfolios.
The president has run privately-held companies that didn't have to report results at all during most of his time in business,
The European Commission, among others, only requires semi-annual financial reports of companies there, although major European companies whose stock is traded in both the United States and Europe will report on a quarterly basis in order to comply with SEC regulations.
Public companies must report their sales, profits and the state of the company's balance sheet every quarter. That has been required since the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which was put in place to give more confidence and transparency to investors in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash. That act also created the SEC, which sets the regulations which govern those quarterly reports.
Businesses have long complained that the reports require company executives to focus too much on the short term. Juicing numbers impresses investors, but it can force companies to miss out on long term trends. One of the reasons Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk wants to take his company private, he told his employees last week, was the way quarterly reports distort decisions at the company.
President Barack Obama has also criticized quarterly reports.
Speaking to the New York Review of Books in 2015, Obama said that he had talked to a large number of businesses executives who told him, "Because they've got quarterly reports to shareholders and if they've made a long-term investment that may pay off way down the line, or if they're paying their employees more now because they think it's going to help them retain high-quality employees, a lot of times they feel like they're going to get punished in the stock market. And so they don't do it, because the definition of being a successful business is narrowed to what your quarterly earnings reports are."
Shareholders, however, use the quarterly earnings reports as a guide to the quality and health of their investments. Without quarterly financial reports, investors could be blind to important risk factors that could damage their portfolios.
The president has run privately-held companies that didn't have to report results at all during most of his time in business,
The European Commission, among others, only requires semi-annual financial reports of companies there, although major European companies whose stock is traded in both the United States and Europe will report on a quarterly basis in order to comply with SEC regulations.
helping putin!!!
AP Sources: US ends Syria stabilization funding
By MATTHEW LEE
8/17/18
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is ending funding for Syria stabilization projects as it moves to extricate itself from the conflict.
U.S. officials said the administration was notifying Congress Friday it would not spend some $200 million that had been planned for Syria programs and would instead shift that money elsewhere.
They said the cut will be more than offset by an additional $300 million pledged by coalition partners, including $100 million from Saudi Arabia. Still, the move is a sign the administration is heeding President Donald Trump’s demand to end U.S. involvement in Syria and reducing its commitment there.
The officials demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the changes publicly before an announcement.
The administration is appointing a veteran diplomat, James Jeffrey, as special envoy for Syria.
U.S. officials said the administration was notifying Congress Friday it would not spend some $200 million that had been planned for Syria programs and would instead shift that money elsewhere.
They said the cut will be more than offset by an additional $300 million pledged by coalition partners, including $100 million from Saudi Arabia. Still, the move is a sign the administration is heeding President Donald Trump’s demand to end U.S. involvement in Syria and reducing its commitment there.
The officials demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the changes publicly before an announcement.
The administration is appointing a veteran diplomat, James Jeffrey, as special envoy for Syria.
the "best people"
while you are listening to omarosa!!!
US interior secretary's school friend crippling climate research, scientists say
Trump administration forces some scientific funding to be reviewed by adviser who was high-school football teammate of Ryan Zinke
Mallory Pickett
the guardian
Fri 17 Aug 2018 06.00 EDT
Prominent US climate scientists have told the Guardian that the Trump administration is holding up research funding as their projects undergo an unprecedented political review by the high-school football teammate of the US interior secretary.
The US interior department administers over $5.5bn in funding to external organizations, mostly for research, conservation and land acquisition. At the beginning of 2018, interior secretary Ryan Zinke instated a new requirement that scientific funding above $50,000 must undergo an additional review to ensure expenditures “better align with the administration’s priorities”.
Zinke has signaled that climate change is not one of those priorities: this week, he told Breitbart News that “environmental terrorist groups” were responsible for the ongoing wildfires in northern California and, ignoring scientific research on the issue, dismissed the role of climate change.
Steve Howke, one of Zinke’s high-school football teammates, oversees this review. Howke’s highest degree is a bachelor’s in business administration. Until Zinke appointed him as an interior department senior adviser to the acting assistant secretary of policy, management and budget, Howke had spent his entire career working in credit unions.
The department, which manages a significant portion of the US landmass, has attributed the slower pace of funding approval to efforts to reduce “waste, fraud and abuse”. Yet the policy, which has been in place for six months, is already crippling some research. One of the largest programs affected is the Climate Adaptation Science Centers, a network of eight regionally focused research centers located at “host” universities across the country.
“I think there is a real suspicion about what science is being done, and if you were going to design a way to bog things down so not much could happen, you might do it like this,” said a scientist affiliated with one of the centers who asked to remain anonymous owing to the perceived risks of speaking out. “We have voiced the challenges we have hiring staff, hiring students, with the science we can do, but I think that we’re not a priority audience.”
Initially authorized by Congress during the Bush administration, the centers have been widely viewed as a success and received strong bipartisan support.
“We really are just trying to do the best science that we can,” said Renee McPherson, a University of Oklahoma environmental researcher who is head of the center focusing on the southern-central US. It is McPherson’s job to understand how changes in climate extremes in the region can lead to such disasters as record wildfires in New Mexico in 2011 and 2012 or 2017’s Hurricane Harvey in Texas.
But due to the funding delays, McPherson said that this year she did not encourage scientists at her center to recruit new students and postdocs, and she didn’t bring on any new students for her own group.
“It does pose problems when you’re wanting to continue your research,” she said. “[Our stakeholders] want answers sooner rather than later, especially if they’re undergoing severe drought conditions right now or they just had extensive flooding.”
Every administration brings new priorities to the cabinet departments, but in agencies that fund science, this is usually reflected in the subject areas of calls for proposals. The awarding procedures – rigorous reviews of proposals conducted by agency staff with relevant scientific expertise – stay the same. “We are not used to an additional political review on top of that,” McPherson said.
“Funneling every grant over $50,000 to a single political appointee from departments that range from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the [US Geological Survey] to the Bureau of Reclamation suggests a political micromanagement approach,” said David Hayes, an interior deputy secretary in the Obama and Clinton administrations who now directs the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law. He described it as “political interference” that is “both unprecedented and pernicious”.
Scientists with the US Geological Survey – the interior department agency to which the centers belong – now require approval from Washington DC before speaking to the media in any context, and have faced restrictions on attending conferences.
And earlier this year, it was revealed that political appointees at the National Park Service attempted to censor a scientific report by removing every mention of the human causes of climate change.
“It’s hard to have any conclusion other than the administration is looking to steer the science in a political direction,” Hayes said. Many scientists affiliated with the climate adaptation centers concurred.
“It feels like an effort to create obstacles to success,” said one. “My concern is, are they creating an environment that will prevent us from being successful as an excuse then to not fund us in the future?”
Dennis Ojima, a professor of ecosystem science and sustainability at Colorado State University who heads the North Central Climate Adaptation Center, complained of months-long delays.
“The uncertainty that we have is compounding with every week,” Ojima said. “For teams that are trying to initiate new research it’s difficult to get the graduate students and postdocs lined up.”
Neither Howke nor the interior department responded to a request for comment.
Senators Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii authored a letter to Zinke in June, signed by 10 other senators, after hearing complaints from organizations that hadn’t received expected interior department funding and were forced to cancel programs as a result. The Chicago Botanic Garden, for instance, lost funding for its National Seed Strategy program, meant to guide restoration and resilience programs for landscapes affected by extreme climate events.
Scott Cameron, the deputy assistant secretary who supervises Howke, responded by citing several examples of funds that had previously been awarded inappropriately or mismanaged by awardees as justification for the policy. The letter also said the department is suffering from understaffing, the review process is “still evolving,” and that “when the focus is on getting money out quickly, waste, fraud and abuse has a higher probability of occurring”.
Duckworth responded in a statement that the interior department “has yet to explain why it hired a high school football teammate of Secretary Zinke’s, who seems to have no relevant experience, to oversee the grant review process instead of improving financial management controls through department experts and career officials”.
The US interior department administers over $5.5bn in funding to external organizations, mostly for research, conservation and land acquisition. At the beginning of 2018, interior secretary Ryan Zinke instated a new requirement that scientific funding above $50,000 must undergo an additional review to ensure expenditures “better align with the administration’s priorities”.
Zinke has signaled that climate change is not one of those priorities: this week, he told Breitbart News that “environmental terrorist groups” were responsible for the ongoing wildfires in northern California and, ignoring scientific research on the issue, dismissed the role of climate change.
Steve Howke, one of Zinke’s high-school football teammates, oversees this review. Howke’s highest degree is a bachelor’s in business administration. Until Zinke appointed him as an interior department senior adviser to the acting assistant secretary of policy, management and budget, Howke had spent his entire career working in credit unions.
The department, which manages a significant portion of the US landmass, has attributed the slower pace of funding approval to efforts to reduce “waste, fraud and abuse”. Yet the policy, which has been in place for six months, is already crippling some research. One of the largest programs affected is the Climate Adaptation Science Centers, a network of eight regionally focused research centers located at “host” universities across the country.
“I think there is a real suspicion about what science is being done, and if you were going to design a way to bog things down so not much could happen, you might do it like this,” said a scientist affiliated with one of the centers who asked to remain anonymous owing to the perceived risks of speaking out. “We have voiced the challenges we have hiring staff, hiring students, with the science we can do, but I think that we’re not a priority audience.”
Initially authorized by Congress during the Bush administration, the centers have been widely viewed as a success and received strong bipartisan support.
“We really are just trying to do the best science that we can,” said Renee McPherson, a University of Oklahoma environmental researcher who is head of the center focusing on the southern-central US. It is McPherson’s job to understand how changes in climate extremes in the region can lead to such disasters as record wildfires in New Mexico in 2011 and 2012 or 2017’s Hurricane Harvey in Texas.
But due to the funding delays, McPherson said that this year she did not encourage scientists at her center to recruit new students and postdocs, and she didn’t bring on any new students for her own group.
“It does pose problems when you’re wanting to continue your research,” she said. “[Our stakeholders] want answers sooner rather than later, especially if they’re undergoing severe drought conditions right now or they just had extensive flooding.”
Every administration brings new priorities to the cabinet departments, but in agencies that fund science, this is usually reflected in the subject areas of calls for proposals. The awarding procedures – rigorous reviews of proposals conducted by agency staff with relevant scientific expertise – stay the same. “We are not used to an additional political review on top of that,” McPherson said.
“Funneling every grant over $50,000 to a single political appointee from departments that range from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the [US Geological Survey] to the Bureau of Reclamation suggests a political micromanagement approach,” said David Hayes, an interior deputy secretary in the Obama and Clinton administrations who now directs the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law. He described it as “political interference” that is “both unprecedented and pernicious”.
Scientists with the US Geological Survey – the interior department agency to which the centers belong – now require approval from Washington DC before speaking to the media in any context, and have faced restrictions on attending conferences.
And earlier this year, it was revealed that political appointees at the National Park Service attempted to censor a scientific report by removing every mention of the human causes of climate change.
“It’s hard to have any conclusion other than the administration is looking to steer the science in a political direction,” Hayes said. Many scientists affiliated with the climate adaptation centers concurred.
“It feels like an effort to create obstacles to success,” said one. “My concern is, are they creating an environment that will prevent us from being successful as an excuse then to not fund us in the future?”
Dennis Ojima, a professor of ecosystem science and sustainability at Colorado State University who heads the North Central Climate Adaptation Center, complained of months-long delays.
“The uncertainty that we have is compounding with every week,” Ojima said. “For teams that are trying to initiate new research it’s difficult to get the graduate students and postdocs lined up.”
Neither Howke nor the interior department responded to a request for comment.
Senators Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii authored a letter to Zinke in June, signed by 10 other senators, after hearing complaints from organizations that hadn’t received expected interior department funding and were forced to cancel programs as a result. The Chicago Botanic Garden, for instance, lost funding for its National Seed Strategy program, meant to guide restoration and resilience programs for landscapes affected by extreme climate events.
Scott Cameron, the deputy assistant secretary who supervises Howke, responded by citing several examples of funds that had previously been awarded inappropriately or mismanaged by awardees as justification for the policy. The letter also said the department is suffering from understaffing, the review process is “still evolving,” and that “when the focus is on getting money out quickly, waste, fraud and abuse has a higher probability of occurring”.
Duckworth responded in a statement that the interior department “has yet to explain why it hired a high school football teammate of Secretary Zinke’s, who seems to have no relevant experience, to oversee the grant review process instead of improving financial management controls through department experts and career officials”.
Trump administration reportedly poised to approve restrictive changes to Medicaid
The administration is ready to approve work requirements in three states and to allow questions about drug use in one.
ADDY BAIRD - thinkprogress
AUG 17, 2018, 9:59 AM
The Trump administration is preparing to approve a number of changes to Medicaid — the government health care program that provides coverage to low-income people — that could leave tens of thousands of people without coverage.
As Politico first reported Friday, the administration is set to approve waivers from some states that would impose work restrictions and allow questions about illegal drug use to be included on applications for Medicaid.
The report comes two days after numbers out of Arkansas showed more than 5,000 people could be in jeopardy of losing their Medicaid coverage after failing to meet the state’s work requirements.
According to Politico, the Trump administration is expected to sign off on work requirements in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Maine, and will reportedly allow Wisconsin to ask applicants about drug use, though the state would not be able to use the answers to make coverage decisions. One official told Politico that decision was a “political give” to Gov. Scott Walker (R), who has pushed for the ability to drug-test applicants.
Drug-testing applicants has never been done in any state, and Medicaid advocates say it would be illegal.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is also reportedly prepared to reject an attempt out of Arizona that would impose work requirements even on members of Native American tribes, a move that would challenge tribal sovereignty.
“The Trump administration seems intent on moving as quickly as possible to approve these harmful waivers which will clearly result in many more thousands of vulnerable people losing their Medicaid coverage,” Joan Alker, the head of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, told Politico.
CMS declined to comment on Politico’s Friday report, but one Health and Human Services (HHS) official did tell the outlet that he believed there was “actually a clinical rationale for having community engagement.”
“I think it could be additive to health care,” the official, HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan, said.
That rhetoric — that work requirements are not requirements at all, but rather opportunities — is favored by the Trump administration and its conservative allies, but not grounded in reality.
As Splinter noted Wednesday, a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis updated earlier this year tells a different story: Nearly eight in 10 people on Medicaid have at least one family member who works, and a majority of enrollees work themselves. Additionally, a majority of those who don’t work reported that they have “major impediments” to work, including a disability or caretaking responsibilities for family members.
Notably, Friday’s report that the administration is poised to allow conservative-led states to implement restrictive changes to Medicare comes less than three weeks after a study from the Koch-funded Mercatus Center found that implementing a single-payer Medicare for All health care system in the United States would reduce the amount the country spends on health care by more than $2 trillion over 10 years, as well as insure millions of people in need of coverage.(BULLSHIT!!)
As Politico first reported Friday, the administration is set to approve waivers from some states that would impose work restrictions and allow questions about illegal drug use to be included on applications for Medicaid.
The report comes two days after numbers out of Arkansas showed more than 5,000 people could be in jeopardy of losing their Medicaid coverage after failing to meet the state’s work requirements.
According to Politico, the Trump administration is expected to sign off on work requirements in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Maine, and will reportedly allow Wisconsin to ask applicants about drug use, though the state would not be able to use the answers to make coverage decisions. One official told Politico that decision was a “political give” to Gov. Scott Walker (R), who has pushed for the ability to drug-test applicants.
Drug-testing applicants has never been done in any state, and Medicaid advocates say it would be illegal.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is also reportedly prepared to reject an attempt out of Arizona that would impose work requirements even on members of Native American tribes, a move that would challenge tribal sovereignty.
“The Trump administration seems intent on moving as quickly as possible to approve these harmful waivers which will clearly result in many more thousands of vulnerable people losing their Medicaid coverage,” Joan Alker, the head of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, told Politico.
CMS declined to comment on Politico’s Friday report, but one Health and Human Services (HHS) official did tell the outlet that he believed there was “actually a clinical rationale for having community engagement.”
“I think it could be additive to health care,” the official, HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan, said.
That rhetoric — that work requirements are not requirements at all, but rather opportunities — is favored by the Trump administration and its conservative allies, but not grounded in reality.
As Splinter noted Wednesday, a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis updated earlier this year tells a different story: Nearly eight in 10 people on Medicaid have at least one family member who works, and a majority of enrollees work themselves. Additionally, a majority of those who don’t work reported that they have “major impediments” to work, including a disability or caretaking responsibilities for family members.
Notably, Friday’s report that the administration is poised to allow conservative-led states to implement restrictive changes to Medicare comes less than three weeks after a study from the Koch-funded Mercatus Center found that implementing a single-payer Medicare for All health care system in the United States would reduce the amount the country spends on health care by more than $2 trillion over 10 years, as well as insure millions of people in need of coverage.(BULLSHIT!!)
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Kushner Real Estate Magnets Made Life 'Unbearable' for Rent-Controlled Tenants to Drive Them Out: Lawsuit
A group of 20 current and former tenants have now filed a lawsuit against Kushner Companies for allegedly trying to drive out residents in order to remake the building into a luxury condo complex.
By Brad Reed / Raw Story - alternet
August 17, 2018, 4:22 AM GMT
An apartment building run by Kushner Companies saw an unusually large exodus of tenants who lived in rent-controlled units -- and now they are claiming that their landlords made their lives "unbearable" in a deliberate effort to drive them out.
The New York Times reports that the apartment building, located at 184 Kent Street in Brooklyn, had 316 rent-controlled units when Kushner Companies purchased it in 2015. Just three years later, that number has dwindled down to just 71 -- a massive decrease given that people who live in rent-controlled units are usually loathe to give them up.
A group of 20 current and former tenants have now filed a lawsuit against Kushner Companies for allegedly trying to drive out residents in order to remake the building into a luxury condo complex.
"Their apartments were made nearly uninhabitable during two years of renovations, when an army of workers trooped through the seven-story building on the Brooklyn waterfront," the lawsuit alleges, according to the New York Times. "The tenants say the sound of drilling reverberated through the hallways. A fine layer of dust covered their furniture and clothing at the end of each day."
Erin Simmons, an attorney who bought an apartment at 184 Kent Street last year, tells the Times that she's sympathetic to the tenants' lawsuit, even though she isn't part of the group that's suing the Kushners.
"The noise and dust during demolition were unbearable," she explains. "I was forced to buy industrial air filtration units and began to rely on daily doses of Visine and allergy medications to address my aggravated dust allergy."
Plaintiff Jens Mebes, meanwhile, tells the Times that the renovations in the building resulted in "cabinets were literally shaking on the walls" -- and she said that "there was just no care for the tenants who still lived in the building."
The Kushners denied that they were trying to drive out tenants and said they took every precaution to protect tenants' quality of life during the renovations.
The New York Times reports that the apartment building, located at 184 Kent Street in Brooklyn, had 316 rent-controlled units when Kushner Companies purchased it in 2015. Just three years later, that number has dwindled down to just 71 -- a massive decrease given that people who live in rent-controlled units are usually loathe to give them up.
A group of 20 current and former tenants have now filed a lawsuit against Kushner Companies for allegedly trying to drive out residents in order to remake the building into a luxury condo complex.
"Their apartments were made nearly uninhabitable during two years of renovations, when an army of workers trooped through the seven-story building on the Brooklyn waterfront," the lawsuit alleges, according to the New York Times. "The tenants say the sound of drilling reverberated through the hallways. A fine layer of dust covered their furniture and clothing at the end of each day."
Erin Simmons, an attorney who bought an apartment at 184 Kent Street last year, tells the Times that she's sympathetic to the tenants' lawsuit, even though she isn't part of the group that's suing the Kushners.
"The noise and dust during demolition were unbearable," she explains. "I was forced to buy industrial air filtration units and began to rely on daily doses of Visine and allergy medications to address my aggravated dust allergy."
Plaintiff Jens Mebes, meanwhile, tells the Times that the renovations in the building resulted in "cabinets were literally shaking on the walls" -- and she said that "there was just no care for the tenants who still lived in the building."
The Kushners denied that they were trying to drive out tenants and said they took every precaution to protect tenants' quality of life during the renovations.
Black-Owned Breweries Celebrate Each Other By Hosting Beer Fest of Their Own
By Tanasia Kenney - atlanta black star
August 17, 2018
Fresh Fest co-founders Day Bracey (left) and Mike Potter (right) visit with Chris Harris, owner of Black Frog Brewery in Holland, Ohio, near Toledo. (Photo byJeff Zoet/Courtesy Day Bracey)
Nearly a dozen breweries are set to meet in Pittsburgh this weekend for the nation’s first-ever beer festival for breweries owned and operated by Black Americans.
The daylong “Fresh Fest” festival is aimed at celebrating Black brewing talent in a space long dominated by white people, NPR reported. Brewers said it’s high time the industry starts looking at becoming more diverse.
“There is an overrepresentation of white folks on both the production and the consumption side,” said J. Nikol Jackson-Beckham, a Randolph College professor and expert on diversity in the world of craft beer.
Not only is beer mostly made by affluent white brewers, but its guzzled down by affluent white consumers, leaving little space for Black, Latino, Native and Asian beer drinkers. A recent survey found that Black Americans account for roughly 12 percent of beer drinkers, according to the news site.
This disparity is even more pronounced among craft beer makers. Mike Potter, found of the Black Brew Culture, guesstimates that out of the more than 6,300 U.S. breweries, only 50 (1 percent) are Black-owned. What’s worse, there aren’t any the Pittsburgh area.
“That’s not a good number, especially when you consider again the consumption side of it, how many people of color actually purchase these beers,” Potter told NPR.
Potter is now hoping to change both sides of the equation. After dabbling in home brewery and eventually launching a microbrewery of his own, the Pittsburgh-native said he still felt he lacked the funding and the know-how to get his business off the ground. That’s when he said he began searching for other brewers of color who were doing the same thing.
In 2015, Potter founded Black Brew Culture, bringing together the likes of Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver and several other Black-owned breweries. Now other brewers, including Chris Harris of Ohio’s Black Frog Brewery and Day Bracey of the popular podcast Drinking Partners, are set to make their debut at this weekend’s festival.
“For there to be an all-black brewers’ festival, it is just a huge milestone,” says Black Frog’s Harris, who will be offering a taste of his brews at the festival. ” …It would show a lot more people, you know, that there are people of color that [are] interested in craft beer.”
The daylong “Fresh Fest” festival is aimed at celebrating Black brewing talent in a space long dominated by white people, NPR reported. Brewers said it’s high time the industry starts looking at becoming more diverse.
“There is an overrepresentation of white folks on both the production and the consumption side,” said J. Nikol Jackson-Beckham, a Randolph College professor and expert on diversity in the world of craft beer.
Not only is beer mostly made by affluent white brewers, but its guzzled down by affluent white consumers, leaving little space for Black, Latino, Native and Asian beer drinkers. A recent survey found that Black Americans account for roughly 12 percent of beer drinkers, according to the news site.
This disparity is even more pronounced among craft beer makers. Mike Potter, found of the Black Brew Culture, guesstimates that out of the more than 6,300 U.S. breweries, only 50 (1 percent) are Black-owned. What’s worse, there aren’t any the Pittsburgh area.
“That’s not a good number, especially when you consider again the consumption side of it, how many people of color actually purchase these beers,” Potter told NPR.
Potter is now hoping to change both sides of the equation. After dabbling in home brewery and eventually launching a microbrewery of his own, the Pittsburgh-native said he still felt he lacked the funding and the know-how to get his business off the ground. That’s when he said he began searching for other brewers of color who were doing the same thing.
In 2015, Potter founded Black Brew Culture, bringing together the likes of Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver and several other Black-owned breweries. Now other brewers, including Chris Harris of Ohio’s Black Frog Brewery and Day Bracey of the popular podcast Drinking Partners, are set to make their debut at this weekend’s festival.
“For there to be an all-black brewers’ festival, it is just a huge milestone,” says Black Frog’s Harris, who will be offering a taste of his brews at the festival. ” …It would show a lot more people, you know, that there are people of color that [are] interested in craft beer.”
*bites from real news - 8/17/2018*
*Here’s what you need to know about Florida’s red, toxic nightmare
"Red tide" continues to plague the Sunshine State.
*India monsoon floods 'kill 164' in Kerala
At least 164 people have died in devastating monsoon floods in India's southern state of Kerala, the worst in almost a century. Rescuers battled torrential rains to save residents, with nearly 223,000 left homeless. The state government said many o ... (BBC)
*Trump cancels military parade, plans to attend parade in Paris
Pr*sident Trump said Friday that he is cancelling his plans for a military parade on Veterans' Day, adding that he will instead attend a planned Armistice Day parade in Paris. The president tweeted that "ridiculously high" costs quoted by ... (The Hill)
*Test your knowledge of these wild, weird and outright wacky American religious beliefs
*Black Americans are still victims of hate crimes more than any other group
*BILL OF RIGHTS
#NottheEnemy: Ben Franklin warned that attack on Free Press Turns Liberty to Tyranny - JUAN COLE
“Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government: When this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.”
*GOP Candidates Are Paying Firms Affiliated With Infowars Contributor
*putin's bitch following orders: U.S. Feud With Turkey Helps Russia and Iran in Syria
U.S. sanctions on Turkey have effectively split U.S. policy in the region.
*A DEMOCRATIC CONTENDER FOR FLORIDA GOVERNOR APPEARS TO OWN MILLIONS IN PUERTO RICAN DEBTDAVID DAYEN — 3:09 A.M.
A FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE FORM FOR JEFF GREENE, A BILLIONAIRE REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER, REVEALS THAT GREENE MAY OWN $27 MILLION OF PUERTO RICO'S DEBT.(the intercept)
*The Chicago Police Files Part 4: Chicago Police Are 14 Times More Likely to Use Force Against Young Black Men Than Against Whites
Andrew Fan — 6:02 a.m. Internal Chicago police files document thousands of police uses of force over more than a decade. Nearly 90 percent were against people of color.
*The Chicago Police Files Part 3: 130 Chicago Officers Account for 29 Percent of Police Shootings
. While more than 95 percent of all Chicago police officers never fired their gun from 2004 to 2016, 130 officers have done it more than once.
*Charlottesville belies racism’s deep roots in the North
A southern city has now become synonymous with the ongoing scourge of racism in the United States. A year ago, white supremacists rallied to “Unite the Right” in Charlottesville, protesting the removal of a Confederate statute.
*Federal judge orders environmental review of Keystone XL pipeline
A federal court in Montana has ruled that TransCanada must conduct an additional environmental review before it moves forward with the alternative route that has been approved for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. The decisio ... (Omaha World Herald)
Portland police chief brags to right-wing radio host that cops ‘kicked the butts’ of anti-racist protesters
Noor Al-Sibai - rAw story
16 AUG 2018 AT 18:50 ET
During an interview with a conservative talk radio show, Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw bragged about kicking the “butts” of leftist counter-protestersat a far-right rally.
Willamette Week reported that Outlaw used a schoolyard fight analogy to describe the department’s treatment of counter-protesters at the Patriot Prayer rally in an interview with right-wing host Lars Larson.
“I tell you, ‘Meet me after school at 3:00. Right? We’re gonna fight’,” the police chief said. “And I come with the intention to fight. And then you get mad because I kicked your butt. And then you go back and you wail off and whine and complain.”
Multiple people were seriously injured during the Patriot Prayer counter-protest after Portland police launched flash-bang grenades, pepper spray and rubber bullets at the anti-fascist demonstrators. A video taken by photojournalist Daniel V shows PPD storming the crowd upon realizing that they left two squad cars behind.
Willamette Week reported that Outlaw used a schoolyard fight analogy to describe the department’s treatment of counter-protesters at the Patriot Prayer rally in an interview with right-wing host Lars Larson.
“I tell you, ‘Meet me after school at 3:00. Right? We’re gonna fight’,” the police chief said. “And I come with the intention to fight. And then you get mad because I kicked your butt. And then you go back and you wail off and whine and complain.”
Multiple people were seriously injured during the Patriot Prayer counter-protest after Portland police launched flash-bang grenades, pepper spray and rubber bullets at the anti-fascist demonstrators. A video taken by photojournalist Daniel V shows PPD storming the crowd upon realizing that they left two squad cars behind.
no surprise!!!
Pennsylvania press uncovers sexual misconduct allegation against House candidate
Marty Nothstein (R-PA) is running for an open seat on a "drain the swap" platform."
JOSH ISRAEL - thinkprogress
AUG 17, 2018, 9:45 AM
On his campaign website, Pennsylvania Republican House nominee Marty Nothstein boasts that after his career as an Olympic cyclist, he “took charge of the Valley Preferred Cycling Center, a non-profit organization that runs the world-class Trexlertown velodrome. In short order, he improved the track’s finances and expanded training programs for the next generation of young champions. He created outreach programs in underserved communities where too many children are forgotten.” Left out of this biography is the fact that he was put on unpaid leave by his own board over a sexual misconduct allegation.
According to a Friday report from The Morning Call, Northstein, who is in a competitive race for the Lehigh Valley-based House seat left open by the retirement of Rep. Charlie Dent (R), was suspended by the board following a sexual misconduct claim relating to an alleged incident from around the year 2000.
According to emails reviewed by the paper, the board made the decision after learning Nothstein was “was under investigation for alleged misconduct by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an independent wing of the congressionally sanctioned U.S. Olympic Committee.” He had led the non-profit for a decade, receiving a six-figure annual salary — about a sixth of the organization’s total annual revenue. The decision to put Nothstein on leave was, reportedly, unanimous.
Nothstein told the paper that the allegations are “100 percent false” and a “political hit job.” “There is no victim here,” he added.
In May, a former velodrome employee claimed in a lawsuit that he was fired after he raised concerns about the “noxious work environment” created by Nothstein. In it, the former staffer alleged that Nothstein told him “you Trinidadians are lazy and con men,” and that to make Trinidadians good employees, “you have to beat it out of them.” A campaign spokesman called the lawsuit “without merit.”
Nothstein’s campaign platform includes a Donald Trump-style vow to “drain the swamp in Washington.” His campaign ads claim he is “running for congress to bring common sense conservatism to government and fight for our values.”
Across the country and in Pennsylvania, several candidates and elected officials have faced issues stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct and predation. Calls to hold them meaningfully accountable have intensified following the #MeToo movement and several members of Congress from both parties have resigned or declined to seek re-election following such allegations.
According to a Friday report from The Morning Call, Northstein, who is in a competitive race for the Lehigh Valley-based House seat left open by the retirement of Rep. Charlie Dent (R), was suspended by the board following a sexual misconduct claim relating to an alleged incident from around the year 2000.
According to emails reviewed by the paper, the board made the decision after learning Nothstein was “was under investigation for alleged misconduct by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an independent wing of the congressionally sanctioned U.S. Olympic Committee.” He had led the non-profit for a decade, receiving a six-figure annual salary — about a sixth of the organization’s total annual revenue. The decision to put Nothstein on leave was, reportedly, unanimous.
Nothstein told the paper that the allegations are “100 percent false” and a “political hit job.” “There is no victim here,” he added.
In May, a former velodrome employee claimed in a lawsuit that he was fired after he raised concerns about the “noxious work environment” created by Nothstein. In it, the former staffer alleged that Nothstein told him “you Trinidadians are lazy and con men,” and that to make Trinidadians good employees, “you have to beat it out of them.” A campaign spokesman called the lawsuit “without merit.”
Nothstein’s campaign platform includes a Donald Trump-style vow to “drain the swamp in Washington.” His campaign ads claim he is “running for congress to bring common sense conservatism to government and fight for our values.”
Across the country and in Pennsylvania, several candidates and elected officials have faced issues stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct and predation. Calls to hold them meaningfully accountable have intensified following the #MeToo movement and several members of Congress from both parties have resigned or declined to seek re-election following such allegations.
And This Is Maybe Reason #5,432 Of Why I Hate Republicans
By Juanita Jean - crooks & liars
8/15/18 5:22pm
So Republican Bekah Halat is running for the Alaska State Senate.
Bekah is a damn mess.
Halat and her husband, Jarek Halat, were charged last week with one count of felony theft for allegedly collecting more than $10,000 in food stamps that they shouldn’t have qualified for. They also face one misdemeanor charge for misleading a public servant.
Yeah, they were both working, living in a $280,000 house and paying a $2,000 a month mortgage, but they really needed that extra $662. a month for food. So, they lied about their income.
I expect Republicans to steal. Hell, that’s almost something they list with pride on their campaign materials for the primary.
But the Republican behavior is what I find amusing. Halat blamed her opponent for her theft. She claimed the criminal charges (which say she admitted to being dishonest and asked to repay the food stamps) were “false allegations from those trying to steal the election.”
“People have learned a lot about me, but there’s a lot more they have to learn if they think I’m going to just curl up in a ball and let someone else represent me and my district through attacking my family.”
Shuddup. Just shuddup
Bekah is a damn mess.
Halat and her husband, Jarek Halat, were charged last week with one count of felony theft for allegedly collecting more than $10,000 in food stamps that they shouldn’t have qualified for. They also face one misdemeanor charge for misleading a public servant.
Yeah, they were both working, living in a $280,000 house and paying a $2,000 a month mortgage, but they really needed that extra $662. a month for food. So, they lied about their income.
I expect Republicans to steal. Hell, that’s almost something they list with pride on their campaign materials for the primary.
But the Republican behavior is what I find amusing. Halat blamed her opponent for her theft. She claimed the criminal charges (which say she admitted to being dishonest and asked to repay the food stamps) were “false allegations from those trying to steal the election.”
“People have learned a lot about me, but there’s a lot more they have to learn if they think I’m going to just curl up in a ball and let someone else represent me and my district through attacking my family.”
Shuddup. Just shuddup
A FEDERAL JUDGE REINSTATES THE CLEAN WATER RULE FOR 26 STATES
EMILY MOON - pacific standard
8/16/18
A federal judge issued a nationwide injunction Thursday on the Trump administration's order delaying the Clean Water Rule, making the Obama-era regulation applicable in the 26 states that have not blocked it, E&E News reports.
The United States District Court in South Carolina found that the Environmental Protection Agency had violated rule-making procedures in delaying the regulation, also known as the Waters of the U.S. rule, which protects wetlands and tributaries under the Clean Water Act. Previously, a federal judge ruled in favor of states seeking to get out of these regulations.
Environmental groups have criticized the delay as an attempt to strip U.S. waterways of protections. "This is a victory for families and communities across America who depend on clean water, and a rebuke to the polluting industries trying to gut this nation's bedrock health and environmental safeguards," Geoff Gisler, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing the coalition of conservation groups, said in a statement on the court's latest decision.
The United States District Court in South Carolina found that the Environmental Protection Agency had violated rule-making procedures in delaying the regulation, also known as the Waters of the U.S. rule, which protects wetlands and tributaries under the Clean Water Act. Previously, a federal judge ruled in favor of states seeking to get out of these regulations.
Environmental groups have criticized the delay as an attempt to strip U.S. waterways of protections. "This is a victory for families and communities across America who depend on clean water, and a rebuke to the polluting industries trying to gut this nation's bedrock health and environmental safeguards," Geoff Gisler, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing the coalition of conservation groups, said in a statement on the court's latest decision.
Arizona school called cops on black student for wearing a bandana
Tom Boggioni - raw story
16 AUG 2018 AT 15:15 ET
School officials at Apache Junction High School in Arizona are facing complaints and student protests after the school had police officers arrest a black studentwho is new to the school for wearing a bandana on campus.
According to AzCentral, the 17-year-old student identified only as Valentino was on his way to lunch when a teacher told him to take the bandana off, saying it was against the school’s dress code.
When the teen refused, police were summoned as a crowd gathered wondering what the fuss was about and the teen was grabbed by the police and removed from the campus in handcuffs.
According to Valentino, he saw students “who are usually white’ wearing bandanas in a similar fashion for months, but that he was singled out by a teacher on Aug 10th.
“I told the teacher that I would remove the bandana if others did the same,” Valentino said in an interview with Yahoo. “She said, ‘If you don’t remove it, I will call the police.’ I said, ‘If you need to call them, you should,’ and walked back to my lunch table.”
“When I asked the officer what was wrong with my bandana, he said, ‘It’s blue and other people have ruined that color,’” he continued. “I pointed to a student wearing a bandana with an American flag pattern, and he said, ‘That’s for America.’”
“The refusal to respond to a reasonable request escalated to a point where some students were confusing the wearing of the bandanna with defiance and disorderly behavior,” a school official said in a statement. “This particular situation became escalated when students posted videos on social media sites.”
According to the report there is no mention of bandanas in the dress code, which does read the school prohibits, “the use of hand signals, graffiti, or the presence of any apparel, jewelry, accessory, or manner of dress or grooming that, by virtue of its color, arrangement, trademark, symbol, or any other attribute indicates or implies membership or affiliation with such a group.”
The student is reportedly now serving a nine-day suspension.
According to AzCentral, the 17-year-old student identified only as Valentino was on his way to lunch when a teacher told him to take the bandana off, saying it was against the school’s dress code.
When the teen refused, police were summoned as a crowd gathered wondering what the fuss was about and the teen was grabbed by the police and removed from the campus in handcuffs.
According to Valentino, he saw students “who are usually white’ wearing bandanas in a similar fashion for months, but that he was singled out by a teacher on Aug 10th.
“I told the teacher that I would remove the bandana if others did the same,” Valentino said in an interview with Yahoo. “She said, ‘If you don’t remove it, I will call the police.’ I said, ‘If you need to call them, you should,’ and walked back to my lunch table.”
“When I asked the officer what was wrong with my bandana, he said, ‘It’s blue and other people have ruined that color,’” he continued. “I pointed to a student wearing a bandana with an American flag pattern, and he said, ‘That’s for America.’”
“The refusal to respond to a reasonable request escalated to a point where some students were confusing the wearing of the bandanna with defiance and disorderly behavior,” a school official said in a statement. “This particular situation became escalated when students posted videos on social media sites.”
According to the report there is no mention of bandanas in the dress code, which does read the school prohibits, “the use of hand signals, graffiti, or the presence of any apparel, jewelry, accessory, or manner of dress or grooming that, by virtue of its color, arrangement, trademark, symbol, or any other attribute indicates or implies membership or affiliation with such a group.”
The student is reportedly now serving a nine-day suspension.
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Woman fired for saying she ‘hates Mexicans’ loses unemployment bid where she claimed Trump normalized such workplace talk
Noor Al-Sibai - raw story
16 AUG 2018 AT 15:35 ET
An Iowa woman fired for saying she “hates f*cking Mexicans” claimed such talk has been normalized in her workplace since Donald Trump was elected — but won’t be able to get unemployment benefits because of it.
According to Des Moines Register, the Iowa Employment Appeals Board reversed an earlier decision granting Angela Diers unemployment because the comments met the state’s definition of misconduct.
Previously, Administrative Law Judge Beth Scheetz said that Dexter Laundry, Diers’ former employer, could not “single out” the woman for misconduct because “since President Trump’s election, it was common for workers” at that workplace to disparage black and Latino people.
Scheetz’s earlier decision came after Diers argued that many of her coworkers made derogatory comments about “blacks and foreigners.” She was fired for making the comments after getting angry about a coworker “dancing and singing Mexican” the day before Cinco de Mayo at work.
“It was 7 o’clock in the morning, or 6:30 in the morning, and here’s Lindsey, dancing and singing Mexican … It’s, like, ‘What are you doing?’ And then she said something about Cinco de Mayo,” Diers testified. “And that’s when I said I hated Mexicans.”
She went on to clarify that she only disliked “illegal Mexicans.”
“We talk about everything out on the floor — whether it’s the president or the vice president,” the woman testified before the administrative law judge. “There has been talk on the floor: Some people don’t like blacks, certain people don’t like Mexicans, certain people don’t like foreigners. We talk, and then we just move on.”
In her now-overturned ruling, Scheetz wrote that “if management wishes all workers to be treated with respect, it must enforce respectful treatment amongst co-workers and supervisors, and apply those expectations consistently throughout the chain of command.”
In its reversal, the employment appeals board said Diers’ “comments fell squarely within the type of behavior the employer’s work rules specifically prohibit.”
“Her clarification that she only meant ‘illegal’ Mexicans does not absolve her of culpability,” the board members wrote.
According to Des Moines Register, the Iowa Employment Appeals Board reversed an earlier decision granting Angela Diers unemployment because the comments met the state’s definition of misconduct.
Previously, Administrative Law Judge Beth Scheetz said that Dexter Laundry, Diers’ former employer, could not “single out” the woman for misconduct because “since President Trump’s election, it was common for workers” at that workplace to disparage black and Latino people.
Scheetz’s earlier decision came after Diers argued that many of her coworkers made derogatory comments about “blacks and foreigners.” She was fired for making the comments after getting angry about a coworker “dancing and singing Mexican” the day before Cinco de Mayo at work.
“It was 7 o’clock in the morning, or 6:30 in the morning, and here’s Lindsey, dancing and singing Mexican … It’s, like, ‘What are you doing?’ And then she said something about Cinco de Mayo,” Diers testified. “And that’s when I said I hated Mexicans.”
She went on to clarify that she only disliked “illegal Mexicans.”
“We talk about everything out on the floor — whether it’s the president or the vice president,” the woman testified before the administrative law judge. “There has been talk on the floor: Some people don’t like blacks, certain people don’t like Mexicans, certain people don’t like foreigners. We talk, and then we just move on.”
In her now-overturned ruling, Scheetz wrote that “if management wishes all workers to be treated with respect, it must enforce respectful treatment amongst co-workers and supervisors, and apply those expectations consistently throughout the chain of command.”
In its reversal, the employment appeals board said Diers’ “comments fell squarely within the type of behavior the employer’s work rules specifically prohibit.”
“Her clarification that she only meant ‘illegal’ Mexicans does not absolve her of culpability,” the board members wrote.
*What's Inside*
august 14 - august 16
~‘HE’S GONNA KILL US’: NEBRASKA FARMERS FREAK OUT AS TRUMP’S TRADE WAR THREATENS THEIR BUSINESSES(PAYBACK)
*SCIENTISTS HAVE KNOWN BURNING COAL WARMS THE CLIMATE FOR A LONG TIME. THIS 1912 HEADLINE PROVES IT(EARTH)
*DEMOCRATS LEARN TO LOVE BIG OIL … MONEY
(DEMO SELLOUTS)
*NO, TRUMP VOTERS, YOUR WAGES AREN’T GOING UP
(REALITY)
*BEHIND THE LATEST CATHOLIC SEX ABUSE SCANDAL: THE CHURCH’S PROBLEM IS MALE DOMINANCE(COMMENTARY)
*TRUMP’S ATTACK ON REGULATIONS IS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS – WHERE THE GAINS GO TO THE TOP(TALKERS)
*FRANKLIN GRAHAM SAYS CHELSEA CLINTON’S VIEWS ON ABORTION ARE LIKE HITLER’S VIEWS ON ‘KILLING THE JEWS’(AMERIKKKANS)
*FACT CHECK: TRUMP OVERSTATED HIS ROLE IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN JOB GAINS
(REALITY)
*WEEDKILLER FOUND IN WIDE RANGE OF BREAKFAST FOODS AIMED AT CHILDREN
(ENVIRONMENT)
*ELIZABETH WARREN UNVEILS BOLD NEW PLAN TO RESHAPE AMERICAN CAPITALISM
(PROGRESSIVES)
*US BOSSES NOW EARN 312 TIMES THE AVERAGE WORKER'S WAGE, FIGURES SHOW
(CAPITALISM)
*HOW THE HUMBLE CABBAGE CAN STOP CANCERS
(CURRENTS)
*WHISTLEBLOWER ACCUSES IRS OF TIPPING OFF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO CORPORATE TAKEOVERS SO THEY COULD SCORE PROFITS(CORRUPTION)
*TRUMP STAFFER TRIED TO RECRUIT LOBBYISTS FOR RUSSIAN OLIGARCH ROMAN ABRAMOVICH
(TRUMP)
*WE CAN’T CONFRONT FASCISM WITHOUT ADDRESSING WHITE SETTLER COLONIALISM
(WHITE SUPREMACY)
~KELT-9B: THIS PLANET’S ATMOSPHERE IS SO HOT IT CAN VAPORIZE HEAVY METALS
(SPACE NEWS)
*THERA VOLCANO: SCIENTISTS HAVE DATED THIS CATASTROPHIC ANCIENT VOLCANIC ERUPTION USING TREE RINGS(ANCIENT TIMES)
*WHY THE THRILLIST STRIKE IS SO IMPORTANT FOR DIGITAL MEDIA UNIONS
(SLAVERY 21ST CENTURY)
*NEO-CONFEDERATE WHITE SUPREMACISTS LAUNCH THEIR RUSSIAN OPERATION
(AMERICA)
*NBA LEGEND KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR COMPARES NATIONAL ANTHEM TO SLAVE SONGS TO SHAME TRUMP(REAL PEOPLE)
*HIDDEN STUDIES FROM DECADES AGO COULD HAVE CURBED PFAS CHEMICAL PROBLEM
(ENVIRONMENT)
*ILLINOIS MANUFACTURER MOVING TO MEXICO OVER TRUMP TARIFFS
(PAYBACK)
*THIS CITY IN INDIA HAS TERRIFYING AIR POLLUTION
(EARTH)
*BLOCK BY BLOC, WISCONSIN BLACK WOMEN PROVE THE SIMPLE TRUTH ABOUT HOW DEMOCRATS HAVE FAILED(DEMO POLITICS)
*‘FOX & FRIENDS’ DEHUMANIZES TRANS CANDIDATE, TREATS HER VICTORY AS A JOKE
(WORTHLESS MEDIA)
*OVER 5,000 LOW-INCOME ARKANSANS ARE POISED TO LOSE HEALTH CARE DUE TO MEDICAID WORK REQUIREMENTS(REALITY)
*AUSTRALIAN POLITICIANS CONDEMN CALL FOR A ‘FINAL SOLUTION’ TO BAN MUSLIM MIGRATION
(WORLD)
*PUERTO RICO SCHOOLS ARE INFESTED WITH RATS AND MISSING CHAIRS AND BOOKS AFTER HURRICANE — BUT SEC. OF EDUCATION SAYS CHAOS IS FINE(COLONIES)
*'A RACIST THROUGH AND THROUGH': FORMER TRUMP ASSOCIATE RECOUNTS THE PRESIDENT SAYING 'LAZINESS IS A TRAIT IN BLACKS'(TRUMP)
*IF IRELAND CAN GET OUT OF FOSSIL FUELS, YOUR TOWN CAN TOO
(WORLD)
*'WE MADE HISTORY': VERMONT DEMOCRATS NOMINATE US'S FIRST TRANSGENDER CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR(ELECTIONS)
*TRUMP SAYS WHITE HOUSE IS NO PLACE FOR LYING LOWLIFE FROM REALITY SHOW
(FUNNIES)
*MORE THAN 300 ACCUSED PRIESTS LISTED IN PENNSYLVANIA REPORT ON CATHOLIC CHURCH SEX ABUSE(CHRISTIANITY)
~ICE AGENTS SET ‘TRAP’ FOR IMMIGRANTS SEEKING LEGAL RESIDENCY
(GESTAPO USA)
*THIS OKLAHOMA SCHOOL IS CLOSED BECAUSE PARENTS THREATENED ONE OF ITS TRANSGENDER STUDENTS(AMERIKKKANS)
*POLICE UNIONS’ OPPOSITION TO PRISON REFORM IS ABOUT MORE THAN JOBS — IT’S ABOUT RACISM(COMMENTARY)
*A RIGHT TO READ? STUDENTS ARE SUING MICHIGAN SCHOOLS TO ESTABLISH CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO BASIC EDUCATION(EDUCATION)
*GUIDANCE COUNSELOR MAY LOSE JOB AFTER CATHOLIC SCHOOL LEARNS SHE HAS A WIFE
(RIGHTS)
*DRUNKEN NYC COP UNLEASHES RACIST TERROR ON BLACK FAMILY AFTER MISTAKENLY BARGING INTO THEIR HOME(GESTAPO USA)
*TRUMP’S TRADE WAR JUST FORCED US SOY FARMERS TO TAKE A MASSIVE FINANCIAL HIT
(PAYBACK)
*PAUL KRUGMAN REVEALS WHY REPUBLICANS ARE TRYING SO HARD TO DEMONIZE NANCY PELOSI
(TALKERS)
*AN 11-YEAR-OLD AT A HACKING CONVENTION DEMONSTRATES ABILITY TO HACK AND CHANGE FLORIDA VOTE IN 10 MINUTES(ELECTIONS)
*WHY NATIVE AMERICANS ARE STRUGGLING TO PROTECT THEIR SACRED PLACES
(FIRST AMERICANS)
*BOMBSHELL COMPLAINT SAYS TOP TRUMP APPOINTEE MAY HAVE COMMITTED SERIOUS CRIMES WHILE TRYING TO ENRICH HIMSELF IN OFFICE(CORRUPTION)
*OMAROSA CONFIRMS THE OBVIOUS (BUT TRUMP CAN'T SHUT UP) BY THE RUDE PUNDIT
(COMMENTARY)
*EX-TENNESSEE STAR GETS NFL CHANCE AFTER RAPE ACQUITTAL
(REAL PEOPLE)
*HOW TO TURN OFF GOOGLE'S LOCATION TRACKING
(CURRENTS)
*TOXIC 'RED TIDE' ALGAE BLOOM IS KILLING FLORIDA WILDLIFE AND MENACING TOURISM
(ENVIRONMENT)
*YOU WANT NANCY PELOSI OUT? FIND SOMEBODY BETTER.
(DEMO POLITICS)
Jim Carrey's latest artwork.
*late news of interest*
‘Not what 9-1-1 was designed for’: Devin Nunes slammed for ‘calling the police’ on protesting constituents
Bob Brigham - raw story
14 AUG 2018 AT 16:25 ET
Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA) was publicly called out for misusing 9-1-1 by beckoning police to shield him from constituents in his central valley congressional district.
“Clovis police were called and the building housing Congressman Devin Nunes’ office was locked during a rally for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on Tuesday,” the Fresno Bee reported.
Constituents were also protesting Rep. Nunes using his position as chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) to protect President Donald Trump from congressional scrutiny.
“Nunes is a puppet for Trump,” argued Gene Roza of the California Alliance for Retired Americans. “We pay for [his office], we should have access to it.”
Police suggested it was actually a grey area, even though taxpayer funds rent the official office space from a private company.
“This isn’t a public building, even though he’s a public servant,” said Clovis Police Cpl. Max Garces.
He also told the Fresno Bee that office staff have called 9-1-1 on protesters before.
Andrew Janz, the Democratic Primary nominee challenging Nunes in the 22nd congressional district, applauded the Clovis Police Department for, “keeping the peace and allowing demonstrators to exercise their 1st Amendment rights.”
“Nunes’ people keep calling the police wasting law enforcement resources. This is not what 911 was designed for,” Janz explained. “Nunes’ office is public property paid for by us.”
“Clovis police were called and the building housing Congressman Devin Nunes’ office was locked during a rally for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on Tuesday,” the Fresno Bee reported.
Constituents were also protesting Rep. Nunes using his position as chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) to protect President Donald Trump from congressional scrutiny.
“Nunes is a puppet for Trump,” argued Gene Roza of the California Alliance for Retired Americans. “We pay for [his office], we should have access to it.”
Police suggested it was actually a grey area, even though taxpayer funds rent the official office space from a private company.
“This isn’t a public building, even though he’s a public servant,” said Clovis Police Cpl. Max Garces.
He also told the Fresno Bee that office staff have called 9-1-1 on protesters before.
Andrew Janz, the Democratic Primary nominee challenging Nunes in the 22nd congressional district, applauded the Clovis Police Department for, “keeping the peace and allowing demonstrators to exercise their 1st Amendment rights.”
“Nunes’ people keep calling the police wasting law enforcement resources. This is not what 911 was designed for,” Janz explained. “Nunes’ office is public property paid for by us.”
Man went to bizarre lengths to harass neighbor he suspected of having a black friend
Martin Cizmar - raw story
14 AUG 2018 AT 14:33 ET
A South Carolina man will spend 30 months in federal prison for stalking and harassing a former neighbor who he suspected of having a black friend, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Nathaniel Earl Dunlap, 30, had gone to bizarre lengths to torment former neighbor Linda Walter, who he lived by in the Pittsburgh suburb of Shaler.
Dunlap, who had a history of racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-Semitic comments, had targeted the woman “apparently because he believed she had a black friend.”
Among Dunlap’s antics were ordering food and taxis to her home, and twice calling police and reporting a hostage situation there. He also called her house 700 times, tying up her phone line and causing problems for her son’s landscaping business.
At one point, Dunlap pretended that he was a missing college student named Dakota James, sending police to her home to look for him. The parents of James, who drowned in the Ohio River, thought their missing son was alive, only to have their hopes dashed.
Dunlap also harassed a Jewish doctor.
When police finally caught up to him and searched his home, they “found all manner of racist literature, jokes and other materials, as well as swastika pins and confederate pins, a loaded pistol, and a notebook which detailed his harassment plans against Ms. Walter and Dr. Berg and his wife.”
They also found evidence that he had desecrated a mausoleum.
Dunlap’s lawyer asked the judge to go easy on him because he is autistic and suffers from other mental health issues.
Dunlap had faced up to 17 years in prison on the charges.
Nathaniel Earl Dunlap, 30, had gone to bizarre lengths to torment former neighbor Linda Walter, who he lived by in the Pittsburgh suburb of Shaler.
Dunlap, who had a history of racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-Semitic comments, had targeted the woman “apparently because he believed she had a black friend.”
Among Dunlap’s antics were ordering food and taxis to her home, and twice calling police and reporting a hostage situation there. He also called her house 700 times, tying up her phone line and causing problems for her son’s landscaping business.
At one point, Dunlap pretended that he was a missing college student named Dakota James, sending police to her home to look for him. The parents of James, who drowned in the Ohio River, thought their missing son was alive, only to have their hopes dashed.
Dunlap also harassed a Jewish doctor.
When police finally caught up to him and searched his home, they “found all manner of racist literature, jokes and other materials, as well as swastika pins and confederate pins, a loaded pistol, and a notebook which detailed his harassment plans against Ms. Walter and Dr. Berg and his wife.”
They also found evidence that he had desecrated a mausoleum.
Dunlap’s lawyer asked the judge to go easy on him because he is autistic and suffers from other mental health issues.
Dunlap had faced up to 17 years in prison on the charges.
denial conservative style!!
From Crooks & Liars: I've never gone wrong betting on the racism and arrogant ignorance of the Right: I've only erred occasionally on the point spread. And predicting Conservative behavior is dead-easy because traditionally they only have four basic settings:
Pleading Ignorance.
Of course Conservatives are ignorant -- deeply and malignantly ignorant. This comes from letting lying demagogues like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity take a dump in their skulls for the last 20 years. But since the GOP OnStar only emits turns in one direction, traditionally the only way Conservatives have been permitted to be "wrong" about anything was that they were "not Conservative enough!". From Crain's, October, 2015:
- Arrogant triumphalism: The aforementioned "We won! You lost! Bush is a genius! Suck it Libtards!"
- All-out denialism: The aforementioned "Everything I see on non-Fox teevee is fake! Terrible lies by the terrible Murrica-hating Libtard media conspiracy!"
- Bargaining: It doesn't matter whether or not I'm a brain-washed moron...because Both Sides!"
- Running Away: As I pointed out back during the first Great Skedaddle back in 2009, because Conservatives are by nature abject moral cowards, their last "out" is doing like German soldiers did after the fall of Berlin: stop running away from the catastrophe they created only long enough to burn their uniforms. See, "I'm an independent."
Pleading Ignorance.
Of course Conservatives are ignorant -- deeply and malignantly ignorant. This comes from letting lying demagogues like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity take a dump in their skulls for the last 20 years. But since the GOP OnStar only emits turns in one direction, traditionally the only way Conservatives have been permitted to be "wrong" about anything was that they were "not Conservative enough!". From Crain's, October, 2015: