Bishop45 wrote:Wild that this isn't something of more national news
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/399196-florida-cop-admits-to-framing-two-black-men-at-direction-ofA former Florida police officer said he framed two innocent black men for unsolved crimes at the direction of his boss.
Guillermo Ravelo appeared in a Miami federal court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, The Miami Herald reported.
Former Biscayne Park Police Chief Raimundo Atesiano has been accused of encouraging his staff to pin unsolved crimes on random, nearby black people so his 12-person department would have a better arrest record.
Prosecutors allege that Atesiano told Ravelo in 2014 to arrest 31-year-old Erasmus Banmah for five unsolved vehicle burglaries despite a lack of evidence.
Ravelo filled out the required paperwork on Banmah just days later, where he “falsely claimed in an arrest affidavit that [Banmah] had taken him to the site of the respective burglary and confessed to the items that [he] had stolen,” according to court records the Miami Herald obtained.
It was allegedly the second time Ravelo made a false arrest under Atesiano’s guidance.
Prosecutors claim that Ravelo arrested 35-year-old Clarens Desrouleaux in January 2013 for two unsolved home break-ins at Atesiano's direction.
Ravelo falsely wrote in the arrest affidavits that Desrouleaux “had confessed to committing the burglary,” according to the prosecution.
The charges against both Banmah and Desrouleaux were eventually dropped.
Ravelo, who was kicked off the force earlier this year, also pleaded guilty on Thursday to an excessive force charge against him following a 2013 traffic stop where he punched a handcuffed suspect in the face, the newspaper noted.
The charges were part of an alleged department history of targeting random people to achieve a spotless crime-solving record before an internal investigation in 2014, the Herald reported earlier this month.
“If they have burglaries that are open cases that are not solved yet, if you see anybody black walking through our streets and they have somewhat of a record, arrest them so we can pin them for all the burglaries,” Officer Anthony De La Torre said in a 2014 probe uncovered by the Herald this month. “They were basically doing this to have a 100 percent clearance rate for the city.”
Atesiano's department cleared 29 out of 30 burglary cases in 2013 and 2014, but at least 11 of those cases were based on false arrests, investigators say.
Atestiano and two officers, Raul Fernandez and Charlie Dayoub, have also been charged with falsely accusing in 2013 a black Haitian-American teenager — identified as T.D. — of four burglaries in order to achieve a perfect clearance rate on property crimes that year.
All have pleaded not guilty to the accusations, but Fernandez and Dayoub plan to change their pleas to guilty next month, according to the Herald reporting on court records.
All three men are reportedly cooperating in the charges against Atesiano. Prosecutors may add an additional charge to Atesiano’s indictment based on Ravelo's testimony, according to the Herald.
Something we'd be able to pay attention to without the constant distractions but those distractions are likely there for a reason
http://thehill.com/regulation/labor/399323-osha-reduces-obama-era-injury-report-requirements-for-large-companiesThe Trump administration has proposed rolling back an Obama-era Labor Department rule requiring companies with 250 or more workers to submit detailed forms to the agency on workplace injuries, a move labor advocates say will allow companies to cover up the extent of injuries.
The department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a notice on Friday stating that it is seeking to roll back the rule passed under the Obama administration that greatly increased the amount of detail supervisors are supposed to provide to the federal government on workplace injuries.
Some of that information was then posted publicly by the Labor Department under the rule, and included summaries of incidents that occurred in larger-scale companies.
A spokesperson for the Labor Department told NBC News that the rule change would not alter the agency's ability to collect information from companies on workplace injuries and safety violations.
"This proposal maintains safety and health protections for workers while protecting sensitive worker information from public disclosure," communications director Megan Sweeney told NBC. "The data OSHA continues to collect is robust and enables the agency to most effectively protect workers on the job."
The Labor Department argued that the original rule violated workers' privacy by exposing incidents that they were involved in to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Public safety advocates argued that the rule's rollback would only hurt workers.
"The existing rule is in place to protect workers," said Sean Sherman, an attorney at the Public Citizen Litigation Group which is involved in a lawsuit over the rule. "The idea that you can protect workers by rolling back a strong worker protection is absurd."
Nice to see something become of the deficit spending and budget increases that Reps refused the Obama administration. Something they should hopefully keep bragging about to the working class as their wages continue to drop
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/399150-trump-gdp-commentstook a victory lap at the White House on Friday, touting his tax and regulatory policies as drivers of the best economic growth in nearly four years.
The U.S. economy expanded at a 4.1 percent rate in the April-to-June quarter, the highest level since growth hit 5.2 percent in the third quarter of 2014, the Commerce Department reported.
In a speech at the White House, Trump said the country is growing "at the amazing rate" and that "we're on track to hit the highest annual average growth rate in over 13 years."
Trade deals will further help the economy and "we're going to go a lot higher than these numbers and these are great numbers," said Trump, surrounded by top administration officials on the South Lawn.
Republicans are hoping that a string of good economic news will bolster their hopes in the November midterm elections. The booming economy is the foundation of the GOP’s pitch to voters as the party tries to defend its vulnerable House majority.
Trump and his top economic aides seized the chance to bolster that message Friday with a hastily planned speech held an hour after the growth report was released.
The president attributed the boom to GOP efforts to slash taxes, repeal finance and energy regulations and strike fairer trade deals, and he called the U.S. “the economic envy of the entire world.”
“Everywhere we look, we’re seeing the effects of the economic miracle all across America,” Trump said.
Trump also touted a $50 billion drop in the U.S. trade deficit and a recent agreement with the European Union to negotiate a free-trade deal.
“We were abused by countries themselves, even allies,” Trump said. "We were abused like no country had ever been abused on trade before. They stole our jobs and plundered our wealth. But that ended.”
Trump and his top aides touted the trade deficit decrease as proof that his tariffs on imported steel, aluminum and Chinese goods are yielding fairer trade terms for the U.S. But economists attribute it to buyers stocking up on U.S. crops before retaliatory tariffs imposed by several nations drive up prices.
Economists have also doubted the sustainability of the second quarter growth rate. Analysts have attributed the massive spike in growth to one-time increases in consumer spending driven by tax cuts, and the global rush to buy U.S. soybeans before tariffs kick in.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that those factors accounted for 1.4 percentage points of growth, and that the second-quarter growth rate would be 2.7 percent without them.
Trump's top economic advisers disputed those concerns Friday, saying the U.S. could expect similar growth levels for the foreseeable future.
“If we look at the data today, we can see the proof in the pudding that the president’s policies are working. And it’s not just in the top line, it’s in the details," said Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett.
“If you stand up for American workers and let our allies know the deal that aren’t reciprocal aren’t acceptable, we can make a lot of progress.”
National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said “this is a boom that will be sustainable as far as the eye can see. It is no one shot-effort.”
Semi long read, in spoilers but interesting story
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/bret-stephens-abolish-ice-ocasio-cortez-no-evidence-radical-left-is-helping-trump.htmlSpoiler:
Maybe the longest lasting legacy outside of any scandal that's still being recorded. Watchable segment
That Florida cop story is insane. I wonder if the cop making the accusation is not credible. This is a story that should be blowing up
