Category: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Good

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

Robert P. McCulloch - Hands Up Don't Indict

Get this guy any way you can:

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – After facing criticism for his handling of the Ferguson grand jury investigation, St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch may have his law license threatened.

A group headed by Dr. Christi Griffin with the Ethics Project will meet tonight to determine whether it will file an ethics complaint against McCulloch with the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, an agency of the Missouri Supreme Court.

Griffin says initial reports from the Ferguson police chief that Darren Wilson did not know that Michael Brown was suspected in an earlier convenience store robbery were changed in testimony before the grand jury, and she believes that represents perjury.
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Christianity is the religion of peace

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

The suspect was allegedly threatening people in the Muslim community on Facebook. He is also reported to have aimed a gun at some local Muslims and threatened to kill them:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A teenager who was is in surgery at Children’s Mercy Hospital after being hit by a man driving an SUV near Admiral Boulevard and The Paseo on Thursday night has died. The 15-year-old boy lost a lot of blood when his legs were severed in what police believe was an intentional attack outside the Somali Center of Kansas City.

“It became pretty clear that this was not an accidental crash, there is a considerable amount of evidence that leads us to believe it was intentional,” Sergeant Bill Mahoney with KCPD said.

The teenage boy was getting into a car outside of the Somali Center when he was hit. A male suspect in his 30’s is in custody.

“Suspect apparently hit him and another individual as they were getting into a car that was parked along the north side of Admiral Boulevard,” Sgt. Mahoney said. “Vehicle then was damaged, he tried to leave the scene but couldn’t get anywhere in the vehicle. He bailed out of it, started running eastbound and was apprehended by officers.”

H/t Jason Kalafat, a DC Federal Criminal Lawyer.

This is not a picture of Mike Brown

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

mikebrowngun

You may have seen it on your friends’ Facebook feeds, with comments ranging from “thug” to “piece of shit.”

It is not Mike Brown.

Via Snopes.com:

Although the picture displayed above continued to circulate on sites like Facebook and Twitter after August
2014, it had been exposed as inaccurate almost immediately after it began spreading. The circulation of the photo was traced back to Kansas City, Missouri, officer Marc Catron, who posted the photograph to Facebook in August 2014 and stated, “I’m sure young Michael Brown is innocent and just misunderstood. I’m sure he is a pillar of the Ferguson community.”

The photograph was not one of Michael Brown, but of Joda Cain, a young man who was arrested and charged in Oregon with a murder unrelated to any of the events in Ferguson. It’s not clear whether Catron mistook Cain for Brown or whether the misidentification was deliberate.

Immediately after Catron posted the image of Joda Cain to Facebook with the claim that the photo was of Mike Brown, a local CBS affiliate reported Catron’s actions were under “internal review.” It’s unknown whether Catron faced any disciplinary action as a result, but the officer removed his Facebook page at the time of the initial controversy back in August 2014.

If you see it anywhere, please comment with this information. Don’t let this lie go unanswered.

Oh look

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

npmunson_CMCSA_Comcast_logo_si-2779639734-O.jpg

After seven Colorado counties voted in favor of municipal broadband in the recent election, Comcast suddenly announced it was going to double their speeds:

Comcast is doubling Internet speeds at no extra cost for most of its customers in Colorado.

The Philadelphia-based cable TV and broadband provider has a history of upping speeds every few months for hundreds of thousands of its customers in Colorado. Starting some time next month, they should see noticeably faster downloads.

Customers subscribing to Comcast’s “Performance” package of 25 megabits-per-second downloads will get 50 Mbps downloads after the change, while “Blast” package customers’ download speeds will jump from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps.

This makes me really, really angry

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

Grundy, VA

The Department of Health is claiming there was no way for this to happen safely, but how did they manage to work around it in so many other states? This is just unconscionable:

(Reuters) – New York state health officials have stopped a nonprofit group from providing free medical care to thousands of patients lacking health insurance during a four-day dental conference that starts Friday.

The nonprofit, Remote Area Medical, had raised $3 million and enlisted hundreds of volunteer doctors and other medical workers to offer a range of health services, including dental care, new eyeglasses and other services. The group had planned to treat about 7,000 patients at the New York Sate event.

In September, the New York State Department of Health told the volunteer group, founded in 1985, that it could not treat patients at the conference unless it partnered with an established, state-licensed medical organization.

Despite last-minute efforts, the partnership could not be arranged in time, and the nonprofit group said it found out this week that the state would not waive the requirement.

“This was incredibly disappointing and will mean that thousands of patients won’t get the care they desperately need,” said Stan Brock, the founder of Remote Area Medical.
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If you’re rotten to your employees, the internet will find you

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Rosebud on Rush Street

So sick of these businesses who can’t even extend human kindness to the people who help them make their money:

Last week, a delivery driver for a restaurant in Napierville, Illinois made what he thought was a reasonable request–he needed time off to have cancer surgery. He says that his manager responded in about the worst way possible–by firing him.

Jonathan Larson worked as a delivery driver at Rosebud Italian Specialties and Pizzeria in Napierville. It’s part of Rosebud Restaurants, a popular family-owned chain of Italian restaurants in the Chicago area. He is also suffering from brain and spine cancer. When Natalie Martinez of WMAQ-TV in Chicago interviewed Larson, he was in obvious pain made even worse from several rounds of chemotherapy. At one point, the pain got so severe that Martinez had to help him go to a bench and sit down.

Larson recently found out that he needed surgery to remove some of the cancer from his back and would need to be off work for six weeks. However, he says that when asked the manager for six weeks off, the manager crassly asked him, “So you’re just gonna leave me high and dry like that, huh?” When Larson promised to come back, he claims the manager told him that by that time, he’d already have a replacement. To add insult to injury, the manager reportedly added, “Just leave. I have to make some phone calls.” Larson was gobsmacked. He couldn’t believe anyone would react this way, considering this “wasn’t something I could really help.” In a colossal understatement, he said that he felt “really disrespected and demeaned.” A spokeswoman for Rosebud said that while company policy forbade commenting on specific personnel matters, Rosebud was “thoroughly investigating the matter” to determine if its procedures were followed.

Larson says that the least Rosebud can do is apologize. It looks like he may get that, and probably more. After getting slammed up and down in the hours after the story ran on Saturday night, Rosebud announced on its Facebook page that after “acting swiftly” to get a better read on the situation, it has reached out to Larson and hopes to “discuss his employment following his medical treatment” very soon. One can hope that when all is said and done, the manager who was so callous to Larson gets his walking papers.

That manager might not be the only one who needs to be out of a job for this. On Saturday night, a man named Ron Gibori posted an account of how Rosebud fell all over itself to comfort his mother after she was diagnosed with cancer. However, a quick Google check revealed that Gibori worked for Rosebud’s public relations firm. Rosebud admitted that Gibori failed to disclose his relationship with Rosebud, and deleted his Facebook post.

IKEA is a tax shelter

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

IKEA

No, really. They’re not even Swedish! They’re a “charity” that’s based in the Netherlands, allegedly to promote design and architecture. But they don’t spend much of their money – they seem to be a big old tax shelter:

Ikea’s association with Swedishness and Swedish values is so ironic that one would be hard pressed to know where to begin. One obvious place to start would be to note that the Swedish government is using taxpayer money to give free advertising to a corporation that left Sweden to avoid paying taxes. Ikea contributes next to nothing to Sweden in the form of corporate tax, all while making billions off of its Swedish image. In fact, the company has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid giving anything back to the national budgets of their host nations.

Ikea’s corporate structure is complicated, but the key point is that Ikea is a Netherlands-based “charity.” For many years, the vast majority of its outlets have been controlled by the Dutch company Ingka Holding, which in turn is owned by the not-for-profit Stichting Ingka Foundation, which was created in 1982 by the founder of Ikea, Ingvar Kamprad, for the purpose of ”furthering the advancement of architecture and interior design.” The Stichting Ingka Foundation is often listed as the wealthiest charitable foundation in the world, with assets in excess of $35 billion. As a result, Ikea pays a minuscule 3.5 percent nonprofit tax rate, far lower than its for-profit counterparts. In addition, recent revelations from LuxLeaks, an investigative project by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, show the company has made deals with the government of Luxembourg in order to pay as little tax as possible to anyone, anywhere.

Via Forbes:

This nonprofit is dedicated to “innovation in the field of architectural and interior design.” Indeed, the Foundation donated a few million to some Swedish universities, but the money is the singular, conventional nonprofit donation.

The Foundation’s cash is transferred to Stichting IKEA Foundation, another Dutch-registered charity, which can use the money for “for investing long-term in order to build a reserve for securing the IKEA group, in case of any future capital requirements.” Nice charity, if you can get it.

This is not the end of IKEA’s legal structure, however. Inter IKEA Systems, another private Dutch company but not part of the Ingka Holding group, holds the intellectual property rights to its “trademark” and “concept.” The owner of this Dutch entity is Inter IKEA Holding, registered in Luxembourg. A separate company in the Netherlands Antilles owns it, which in turn is run by a trust registered in Curaçao.

IKEA ends up paying roughly 3% in corporate taxes!

H/T Christian Christensen.

Will he resign?

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

One can only hope, since he has no credibility and it would help defuse the tense situation in Ferguson:

Ferguson, Missouri (CNN) — Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed teenager Michael Brown on August 9, is in the final stages of negotiations with city officials to resign, according to people close to the talks.
Wilson maintains he hasn’t done anything wrong, and the resignation talks have hinged on whether a grand jury returns an indictment against him in the death of Brown, people close to the talks said.

Wilson has told associates he would resign as a way to help ease pressure and protect his fellow officers. Wilson has expressed concern about resigning while the grand jury was hearing evidence for fear it would appear he was admitting fault.

Wilson could announce as soon as Friday his plans to resign, the same day a St. Louis County grand jury meets to deliberate and possibly decide on an indictment.

Wall Street wants your pension plan

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Bull Wall Street

Via the Intercept, a story we should all be watching:

Coverage of the midterm elections has, understandably, focused on the shift in political power from Democrats toward Republicans. But behind the scenes, another major story has been playing out. Wall Street spent upwards of $300M to influence the election results. And a key part of its agenda has been a plan to move more and more of the $3 trillion dollars in unguarded government pension funds into privately managed, high-fee investments — a shift that may well constitute the biggest financial story of our generation that you’ve never heard of.

Illinois, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island all recently elected governors who were previously executives and directors at firms which managed investments on behalf of state pension funds. These firms are now, consequently, in position to obtain even more of these public funds. This alone represents a huge payoff on that $300M investment made by the financial industry, and is likely to result in more pension money going into investments which offer great benefits for Wall Street but do little for the broader economy.

But Wall Street’s agenda goes beyond any one election cycle. It has been fighting to turn public pensions into private profits for quite some time, steering retirement nest eggs into investments that are complex, charge hefty fees, and that generate big profits for management firms. And it has been succeeding. Of the $3 trillion in public assets currently in pension funds throughout the country, almost a quarter of that has already found its way into so-called “alternative investments” like hedge funds, private equity and real estate. That translates to roughly $660 billion of public money now under private management, invested in assets that are often arcane and opaque but that offer high management and placement fees to Wall Street financiers.

A rape on campus

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

I’m glad I didn’t have girls, and I’m glad neither of my sons would have dreamed of joining a frat. Because this shit has always gone on, and people have always punished the women who report it. Rolling Stone:

Sipping from a plastic cup, Jackie grimaced, then discreetly spilled her spiked punch onto the sludgy fraternity-house floor. The University of Virginia freshman wasn’t a drinker, but she didn’t want to seem like a goody-goody at her very first frat party – and she especially wanted to impress her date, the handsome Phi Kappa Psi brother who’d brought her here. Jackie was sober but giddy with discovery as she looked around the room crammed with rowdy strangers guzzling beer and dancing to loud music. She smiled at her date, whom we’ll call Drew, a good-looking junior – or in UVA parlance, a third-year – and he smiled enticingly back.

“Want to go upstairs, where it’s quieter?” Drew shouted into her ear, and Jackie’s heart quickened. She took his hand as he threaded them out of the crowded room and up a staircase.

Four weeks into UVA’s 2012 school year, 18-year-old Jackie was crushing it at college. A chatty, straight-A achiever from a rural Virginia town, she’d initially been intimidated by UVA’s aura of preppy success, where throngs of toned, tanned and overwhelmingly blond students fanned across a landscape of neoclassical brick buildings, hurrying to classes, clubs, sports, internships, part-time jobs, volunteer work and parties; Jackie’s orientation leader had warned her that UVA students’ schedules were so packed that “no one has time to date – people just hook up.” But despite her reservations, Jackie had flung herself into campus life, attending events, joining clubs, making friends and, now, being asked on an actual date. She and Drew had met while working lifeguard shifts together at the university pool, and Jackie had been floored by Drew’s invitation to dinner, followed by a “date function” at his fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi. The “upper tier” frat had a reputation of tremendous wealth, and its imposingly large house overlooked a vast manicured field, giving “Phi Psi” the undisputed best real estate along UVA’s fraternity row known as Rugby Road.

Jackie had taken three hours getting ready, straightening her long, dark, wavy hair. She’d congratulated herself on her choice of a tasteful red dress with a high neckline. Now, climbing the frat-house stairs with Drew, Jackie felt excited. Drew ushered Jackie into a bedroom, shutting the door behind them. The room was pitch-black inside. Jackie blindly turned toward Drew, uttering his name. At that same moment, she says, she detected movement in the room – and felt someone bump into her. Jackie began to scream.
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