The House Passed "The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act" That Does Away with Qualified Immunity - Next Up Democrat House Legislative Priorities: The Al Capone Tax Reform Act, the Bernie Madoff Honest Security Act & the Dylann Roof Gun Safety Act

Defunding the police is bad enough but the Bill that passed the Democrat controlled House completely doing away with “qualified immunity” is worse.  Why would any rational person become or remain a police officer if Congress makes them personally liable for a frivolous lawsuit by any criminal for any perceived slight and risk losing their house and savings? With some of the crazy juries in these Liberal Democrat run big cities where politicians have made a career out of vilifying dedicated police officers, Cops would be playing Russian Roulette leaving their financial futures in the hands of some of these Liberal runaway juries.  For an update on where all this stands I have included below an 8 Oct 2021, Washington Post article: Dozens of states have tried to end qualified immunity. Police officers and unions helped beat nearly every bill

With unprecedented soaring homicide rates and the threat of losing “qualified immunity,” is it any wonder why police retirements are up 40% and resignations up 19% nationwide. Instead of “the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act,” maybe the bill should have been named the “Police Elimination Act.” Remember, if a Cop does something illegal, they can still be criminally prosecuted so it isn’t like a civil court is the only venue for holding rogue Cops accountable. Also, to recover damages for any actual Police mistreatment or misconduct, a plaintiff can still sue the municipality or police office to recover damages.

Now George Floyd did not deserve to die and a rogue Cop was justly convicted and punished for his murder but why do Democrat politicians insist on honoring him by even going so far as to name the House bill “The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.” Is this an effort to beautify Mr. Floyd or conceal his long and distinguished criminal rap sheet?

Some role model. Here is how even the WaPo described Floyd’s hideous crime that got him 5 years in prison: “Floyd’s longest period of incarceration followed a violent robbery in August 2007. Aracely Henriquez was at her Houston home with her children when a man knocked on her door ... When she opened it, several men pushed her inside the home at gunpoint and pinned her on the floor ...they ransacked her kitchen cabinets, children’s closets and drawers. The men pistol-whipped Henriquez before realizing they had the wrong house and running out ...”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/george-floyd-america/policing/

I’m confident President Biden will at some point invite Mr Floyd’s pistol whipped victim, Ms. Henriquez and her children, to visit him at the White House, just like he did the Floyd family. President Biden celebrating with the Floyd family was reminiscent of President Obama celebrating with the Bergdahl family in the White House Rose Garden the release of their traitor son who was later convicted of Desertion in the Face of the Enemy in Combat and Dishonorably Discharged from the Service.

In the meantime, next Dem legislative priorities: The Al Capone Tax Reform Act, the Bernie Madoff Honest Security Act and the Dylann Roof Gun Safety Act?  On second thought, maybe the House should have named that Bill: “The Aracely Henriquez Justice in Policing Act.”

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Politics

Dozens of states have tried to end qualified immunity. Police officers and unions helped beat nearly every bill.

By Kimberly Kindy, 8 October 2021

In the months after George Floyd’s murder, state legislators across the country tried to undo a legal doctrine that makes it virtually impossible to sue police officers for violating a person’s civil rights.

Fueled by outrage over the actions of former Minnesota officer Derek Chauvin, the efforts to eliminate “qualified immunity” seemed poised to usher in a new era empowering citizens who felt wronged by police.

But then, in state after state, the bills withered, were withdrawn, or were altered beyond recognition. At least 35 state qualified-immunity bills have died in the past 18 months, according to an analysis by The Washington Post of legislative records and data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The efforts failed amid multifaceted lobbying campaigns by police officers and their unions targeting legislators, many of whom feared public backlash if the dire predictions by police came true. Officers said they would go bankrupt and lose their homes. They said their colleagues would leave the profession in droves.

While advocates of overturning the doctrine argued that qualified immunity allows rogue officers to brutalize citizens without paying a personal price, law enforcement officials countered that it protects police from being financially destroyed for the rapid life-or-death decisions they must make on the job.

So far, police are winning the argument nearly everywhere.

Among at least four bills that are still alive, three initially called for a complete ban on qualified immunity. One of these, in Michigan, has since been amended to allow use of the legal defense in many instances. And among the seven qualified-immunity bills that have become law since last year, only Colorado has completely barred the legal defense for officers. Iowa actually strengthened qualified-immunity rights of its officers, and Arkansas did so for its college and university police officers.

In New Mexico, changes were made so quietly that many advocates didn’t know that the ability to sue individual officers had been taken out as they testified for the bill.

Stephanie Maez, a former state legislator, tearfully told lawmakers earlier this year in an online hearing how a court granted qualified immunity to an Albuquerque homicide detective she accuses of framing her 18-year-old son for murder.

“He was released and vindicated, and the real murderers were caught and are serving time,” the 41-year-old said of her son, “[but] there has been no accountability.”

But Maez didn’t know at the time that the bill she was supporting, the New Mexico Civil Rights Act, had been fundamentally altered days before to drop a provision allowing people to sue officers in state court. And new language was inserted that explicitly prohibited an accuser from naming an officer in a state civil rights lawsuit.

Now, she has little doubt why the Democratic-controlled legislature — facing heavy pressure from police unions — assented to changing the bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) in April.

“If a lawmaker is concerned about police coming out and endorsing their opponent in the next election cycle, they will think twice before they do the right thing,” Maez said. “With crime being such a huge issue here, lawmakers don’t want to look soft on crime.”

Such statehouse battles have become even more important as qualified-immunity changes have stalled out in Congress. The House has passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would restrict the use of the legal doctrine nationwide. But bipartisan Senate talks broke down last month.

Police officials say they have a right to assert themselves to retool or defeat bills that they believe might weaken their ability to maintain a strong force.

“If we are going to improve the criminal justice system, it is not going to be by scaring away the best and brightest,” said Patrick Yoes, president of the National Fraternal Order of Police. “All of these attacks on law enforcement are not helping. Quality candidates can take a job anywhere.”

But these police victories are happening despite strong public sentiment in favor of changing the doctrine. A July study by the Pew Research Center found two-thirds of Americans are opposed to use of qualified immunity by police.

Experts say that new bills are likely to be introduced as most statehouses resume in January. However, because of police lobbying, any successful efforts are more likely to resemble the New Mexico law than the one enacted in Colorado.

“It would be better if officers had a little skin in the game, but that’s the nature of legislation,” said Barry Friedman, founding director of New York University School of Law’s Policing Project. “It’s too bad, but it’s not always truth and justice. It is often just what’s possible.”

Stephanie Maez’s son, Donovan, spent months in custody after being charged with murder. She later sought to sue a police detective she accused of framing him, but he was protected by qualified immunity. (Adria Malcolm for The Washington Post)

Floyd's death reignites debate

In 2017, police in Texas responded to a suicidal man who had doused himself with gasoline. One officer later said in a written report that he warned his colleagues, “If we Tase him, he’s going to light on fire.” Two officers used a Taser on him anyway, and then the man burst into flames and died, according to court records.

Yet this summer, a federal court ruled that the man’s family couldn’t sue the officers. They had qualified immunity.

Activists who seek to end the doctrine can point to a litany of similarly shocking cases. There’s the 2019 federal court ruling granting immunity to a Georgia deputy who shot a 10-year-old boy lying face down on the ground while aiming at a nonthreatening family dog. Or the ruling that same year protecting California police who had been accused of stealing $101,380 in cash and $125,000 in rare coins in 2013 as they searched a local business and the owners’ homes. While the police may have been “morally wrong,” they were still protected from lawsuits by qualified immunity, the court found.

“People are holding up picket signs that say, ‘End qualified immunity’ because officers are doing things that we as a society agree are outrageous,” said Joanna Schwartz, a qualified immunity expert and researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles. “They are getting by with it on a legal technicality and that really has people upset.”

The debate over whether Americans can sue individual police officers began more than a century ago. An 1871 statue first provided a legal path to collect damages from officers and other government employees who violate constitutional rights. The law was commonly referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act because it was designed, in part, to protect freed enslaved people from racist government workers.

However, a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a Freedom Riders bus desegregation case in Mississippi created qualified immunity, and the legal doctrine was strengthened in subsequent federal decisions, making it nearly impossible to challenge in court.

After Floyd’s death, an eclectic mix of organizations — from the American Civil Liberties Union and Sierra Club to several libertarian groups including the Cato Institute — came together to fight for a ban on qualified immunity.

Dozens of state legislatures took up the issue last year. Although states do not have the power to abolish the federal doctrine, they can ban its application in state civil lawsuits against officers, creating a new legal path for victims seeking monetary damages.

Police responded swiftly with public and private lobbying campaigns. Police unions bought ads in local newspapers warning that officers would hesitate to go after criminals for fear of lawsuits. In opinion pieces they claimed crime would run rampant. Individual officers flooded inboxes of state legislators, saying officers would go bankrupt. They repeated these arguments as they testified before panels and committees.

In New Mexico, a sheriff last fall testified to a civil rights commission that ending qualified immunity would mean officers could “lose everything they have, including potentially losing their homes and displacing their families.” A retired deputy sheriff wrote an opinion piece for an Albuquerque newspaper that said the bill would make “policing the most undesirable job in America.”

After George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis by then-Officer Derek Chauvin, protesters nationwide called for an end to qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that largely protects officers from civil lawsuits. (Stephen Zenner/Sipa USA/AP)

In a full-page ad last summer in the Boston Globe, a police union appealed to readers to call Massachusetts legislators in opposition to the bill. The Connecticut Police Chiefs Association wrote a letter to legislators last summer, threatening to withdraw support for a 65-page bill if a ban on qualified immunity wasn’t removed, saying it “will destroy our ability to recruit, hire, and retain qualified police officers.”

The lobbying efforts worked. The Massachusetts bill was soon altered to allow qualified immunity in most circumstances. The Connecticut bill was rewritten to say qualified immunity would be allowed as long as officers had an “objectively good faith belief that [their] conduct did not violate the law.”

“It’s one of the many loopholes that were inserted,” said Nick Sibilla, a legislative analyst with the Institute for Justice. “You basically have to get inside the mind of the officer to make your case.”

Similar amendments were made to a bill in California, which passed the Democratic-dominated legislature and was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). Although qualified immunity isn’t used in the state, court rulings interpreting a 1987 state civil rights law there have created a legal threshold for plaintiffs that is similarly onerous.

In July, a California Peace Officers’ Association official boasted about how the group’s year-long effort was “able to chip away” at efforts to make it easier to sue.

In the online post, Deputy Director Shaun Rundle said that “until recently, the bill lowered the threshold for peace officer ‘misconduct’ to such a level that would open the floodgates of litigation. . . .” That all changed, he wrote, thanks to “law enforcement’s pushback.”

In New Mexico, proponents of that state’s bill said it became clear it would fail if law enforcement officers and other government employees were not indemnified from lawsuits. Instead, a compromise bill created a path for victims to recover monetary damages from cities and counties, rather than individual officers.

“It was the hardest legislative effort I have been engaged in since I’ve been a speaker,” said New Mexico House Speaker Brian Egolf (D), a lead advocate for the bill. “I certainly understand why some members or advocates wanted individual officers to be defendants, but my objective was to get the best bill possible. We have made the road to justice much shorter.”

In public comments, Grisham, New Mexico’s governor, said she supported the bill because it would provide a path for victims to seek damages and make “our state agencies accountable for their actions . . . and create a fairer state for everyone.”

To observers, the compromise was a perfect illustration of how police shifted the narrative. While most bills began as efforts to directly punish and weed out “bad apples” in the force, pushback by police officers changed the debate.

“The rhetoric was all about individual responsibility, but that somehow got lost. It baffled me,” said Grace Philips, an attorney for the New Mexico Association of Counties who lobbied against the bill in her state, arguing that the law could bankrupt counties. “This is taxpayer accountability, not law enforcement or officer accountability.”

Colorado serves as test case

There’s one state where the qualified-immunity push has played out differently: Colorado.

The state is now serving as a litmus test for the alarming predictions by police nationwide that eliminating qualified immunity would severely hamper their profession.

So far, few negative effects on policing have been evident — and few lawsuits have actually been filed.

Colorado’s legislation started last year, when state Rep. Leslie Herod (D) introduced a bill in response to the police killing of Elijah McClain. The 23-year-old died in 2019 after Aurora police detained him without cause, put him in a chokehold and injected him with a powerful sedative. The bill went nowhere.

But then Floyd was murdered in May 2020. Protesters filled the steps of the Colorado Capitol, invoking the names of Floyd and McClain and holding signs that said, “End Qualified Immunity.”

Herod’s bill was pulled from the shelf and given new life. A provision was added that banned qualified immunity as a defense for officers named in state civil lawsuits.

With only 20 days left in the legislative session, the protests created a synergy inside the Capitol that helped Herod’s efforts, according to six people involved in the negotiations.

The death of Elijah McClain spurs protests in Colorado, where legislators passed a bill ending qualified immunity for officers and capping their liability in court at $25,000. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

The bill’s final version called for officers to pay 5 percent of damages awarded by a court, but no more than $25,000. Their employers would pay the remainder.

Fifteen months after the Colorado bill was signed into law, there is so far little evidence to support any widespread negative effects on police retention or recruitment.

Data from Colorado Peace Officer Standards and Training actually shows a slight decline in the number of officers who have retired, resigned or were fired from their jobs in the past two years. However, there is no way to know how many left the profession in response to the new law because the group does not collect information regarding why an officer retires or resigns.

The number of police cadets in Colorado the year the bill passed also did not significantly change, the records show, and data for this year is not yet available.

Nick Rogers, president of the Denver Police Protective Association, said his department has seen a slight uptick in retirements and a downturn in applications, but it is impossible to isolate the cause to a single factor. He said morale, in general, is down after political efforts to overhaul policing left officers feeling under attack.

“There is no way you can corollate what is going on based on one state law that passed,” said Rogers, a 30-year veteran of the city’s police department who is opposed to the qualified-immunity law. “That was just another form of degradation of this profession. It’s not just one thing.”

Rogers said most officers — at least for now — have little fear of the financial implications of the new law because Colorado law requires that state and local governments indemnify their employees in lawsuits.

Predictions by police of a deluge of lawsuits have not come true so far. But some victims of police violence are using the new law. After Brittney Gilliam was wrongly accused of driving a stolen vehicle in August 2020, Aurora officers held her 6-year-old daughter, 12-year-old sister and two teenage nieces at gunpoint as they lay face down on the hot pavement of a parking lot, records and video show.

Gilliam has sued the involved officers in state court in what’s believed to be the first case brought under the new law.

The city of Aurora declined to comment on the pending litigation. However, city spokesman Ryan Luby said police have received new training for high-risk traffic stops and noted that city officials have condemned the incident.

Gilliam, 30, said she wants the police to be held to account.

“I still remember the officers’ faces,” Gilliam said. “My little girl — all of us are still traumatized.”

Widespread changes unlikely

Although most police organizations are steadfast in fighting attempts to end qualified immunity, some national law enforcement organizations are campaigning in favor of the idea.

The Law Enforcement Action Partnership, a nonprofit group of police, prosecutors and correctional officers, asked Congress in a March 23 letter to pass a law that will ban the doctrine from being used as a legal defense, saying it had eroded faith in police.

Ronald L. Davis, an official with the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, also called for an end to qualified immunity when he testified before a congressional committee last year. Davis said the doctrine “prevents police from being held legally accountable when they break the law.”

And the Major Cities Chiefs Association in May modified its long-standing position in favor of qualified immunity to say there are circumstances in which it should not apply.

Still, widespread changes on qualified immunity are unlikely to happen anytime soon.

In Congress, even a proposal to take qualified immunity off the table wasn’t enough to bring Democrats and Republicans together last month on a package to overhaul policing.

The political climate also has changed since 2020. Violent crime rates have risen, causing many lawmakers to step back from legislative efforts that might allow them to be cast as soft on crime. The momentum that followed Floyd’s death also has waned. Proponents of the measures worry it might take another tragedy — as it did in Colorado — to give qualified-immunity bills a second political life.

“Legislation usually gets passed when things are salient,” said Friedman, the qualified-immunity expert. “Especially now with high homicide rates, there is a lot of worry that this moment will pass.”

George Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, testifies to Congress in 2020. Disputes between Democrats and Republicans over qualified immunity helped sink bipartisan negotiations on a bill to overhaul policing. (Michael Reynolds/Pool/Reuters)

Wisconsin state Rep. Jonathan Brostoff, a Democrat who has a qualified-immunity bill pending, said most civil rights laws have required multiyear efforts and he believes this will be no different. “I cannot promise it will happen this legislative session,” he said. “But I will see this through.”

But in other states, supporters of the movement are discouraged. Like many advocates, Maez began fighting to end qualified immunity after the doctrine touched her own life.

Her son, Donovan, was arrested on a murder charge months after a teenager was killed in a 2015 drive-by shooting at a house party. Donovan had threatened to shoot up the same home when he was kicked out of a party there weeks earlier, witnesses claimed.

But he was released 10 months later after three other men were charged instead. Several witnesses who had pointed to Maez’s son later recanted their statements and said they lied “out of fear and intimidation,” Maez’s family later said in a lawsuit. The lawsuit also alleged that video showed a detective “coercing witnesses” during interrogations.

The Albuquerque city attorney’s office, which represented the detective, declined to comment. It pointed toward portions of a ruling that said the court did not find sufficient evidence to show the detective coerced witnesses. The ruling also granted the detective qualified immunity.

Although Maez can’t use New Mexico’s new law to file a second lawsuit in state courts — because the incident predates the law’s passage — she believed when she testified that the bill would help future victims by eliminating qualified immunity.

Now, she said she has little doubt that lawmakers caved to police opposition.

“It’s really disappointing and frustrating. For me it was less about the money and more about a means to hold individual officers accountable,” she said. “If there are no consequences for them, how can we expect change?”

Murderer of DEA Agent Michael Garbo Slain in Amtrack Arizona Shooting Identified as Darrion Taylor

Officials on Thursday identified the armed passenger who died in a gunfight after fatally shooting a federal agent inside an Amtrak train in Arizona as Darrion Taylor. The Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office in Tucson said in a news release that Taylor, 26, was shot in the torso and limbs, and that the wounds were not self-inflicted.

There are Lies of omission involve the intentional exclusion of important information and lies of commission involve the intentional generation of false information.  WaPo DNC Propagandists masquerading as "reporters" are masters at both.  This WaPo is the quintessential example of a lie of omission.

Cops murder George Floyd, months and months of non-stop WaPo and other Liberal news outlets coverage.  Cop murdered by Darrian Taylor and the WaPo doesn't even identify the Murderer let alone run his picture.  Here is his Pix in case you're curious.  Most reputable new sources are running it but not the WaPo.  That's because: Democracy Dies in Darkness and the WaPo Is Turning Out the Lights.

DEA agent slain in Amtrak shooting remembered as key leader

DEA agent slain in Amtrak shooting remembered as key leader - The Washington Post

After departing from Bring’s Broadway Chapel, a hearse and law enforcement procession for Drug Enforcement Administration Supervisory Special Agent Michael G. Garbo travels down E. Broadway Blvd. in Tucson, Ariz. on Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. Garbo, a federal agent shot and killed while questioning a passenger on an Amtrak train in Arizona, was remembered Friday as a venerated leader and mentor with an unparalleled work ethic. (Rebecca Sasnett/Arizona Daily Star via AP)

By Associated Press

8 October 2021

TUCSON, Ariz. — A federal agent shot and killed while questioning a passenger on an Amtrak train in Arizona was remembered Friday as a venerated leader and mentor with an unparalleled work ethic.

Dozens of family, friends and colleagues filled Calvary Chapel in Tucson to honor Michael Garbo, a longtime Drug Enforcement Administration group supervisor.

He was part of a regional task force of DEA agents and local police inspecting baggage Monday at the train station in downtown Tucson when the shooting erupted. Officers were searching for illegal drugs, weapons or money in the car of a train from Los Angeles bound for New Orleans.

Authorities say a passenger opened fire on Garbo and another agent when they re-entered the car to question him, having been alerted to large packages of marijuana found inside a bag.

Garbo was pronounced dead at the scene. The other agent and a Tucson police officer suffered several gunshot wounds and continue to recover in the hospital.

DEA administrator Anne Milgram credited Garbo’s leadership for their survival.

“It is why other members of the public — passengers and crew on that Amtrak train — were not harmed. I am so deeply grateful for Mike Garbo’s service,” Milgram said.

The former Nashville police officer joined the DEA in 2005. His career as a special agent pursuing drug traffickers took him to Arizona, Afghanistan and then back to Arizona by 2011.

People from all levels of law enforcement echoed the same sentiments over and over, that everyone wanted “to be like Mike.” Current and former colleagues spoke of how Garbo always was the first one in and the last one out on an operation. Yet, as a member of a task force, he never tried to hog the spotlight.

“He had an undying passion for arresting the bad guys,” said Apolonio “Polo” Ruiz, Jr., assistant special agent in charge of the DEA’s Phoenix Field Office. “He never ever took sole credit for his successes. He would always tell me, ‘No, it was my team that did it.’”

Garbo was also eulogized as a devoted family man who lit up when talking about his wife and his teenage daughter.

“I hope you will know that we know he did not serve alone. His sacrifice is your sacrifice,” U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in remarks directed to Garbo’s family. “Today we honor a hero who gave his life in service of his country and his community. We will not forget him.”

The passenger who fatally shot Garbo was killed in a gunfight with other officers. Another man seated with him was arrested for knowingly possessing and intending to distribute drugs.

John Kerry Says President Biden: "He literally had not been aware of what had transpired" About the U.S., U.K. and Australia Submarine Deal

 

From The Hill:

“President Biden “had not been fully aware” of the negative impact a U.S. submarine deal between the United Kingdom and Australia had on France after it was announced, according to John Kerry the special presidential envoy for climate.

“He literally had not been aware of what had transpired,” Kerry said in an interview with French broadcaster BFMTV that aired Monday.”

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/575391-kerry-biden-had-not-been-fully-aware-of-submarine-deals-impact-on-france

More proof “Dementia Joe” Biden has lost it. Instead of aides, "Dementia Joe” has “handlers” for governing and “orderlies” to care for his personal needs like changing his “Depends.” Americans deserve to know who is the “head handler” shadow President really making decisions. Biden is simply the useful fool they roll out to stumble through reading off a teleprompter. Let’s all just hope the "Head Handler" pulling the strings isn’t that kid masquerading as Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan. The only thing worse would be if “Kackling Kamala” Harris were to be calling the shots.

The Unedited Hill Article:

Kerry: Biden 'had not been fully aware' of submarine deal's impact on France

BY ELLEN MITCHELL - 10/05/21 02:06 PM EDT

Kerry: Biden 'had not been fully aware' of submarine deal's impact on France

President Biden “had not been fully aware” of the negative impact a U.S. submarine deal between the United Kingdom and Australia had on France after it was announced, according to John Kerry the special presidential envoy for climate.

“He literally had not been aware of what had transpired,” Kerry said in an interview with French broadcaster BFMTV that aired Monday.

France became outraged last month after the Biden administration revealed a submarine deal between the U.S., U.K. and Australian governments, which sidelined a separate $40 billion submarine deal that France formed with Australia in 2016. 

In response, France angrily canceled a planned gala in Washington, D.C., and temporarily recalled its ambassadors to the United States and Australia.

Kerry said Biden became aware of the situation after he asked the former Secretary of State what had transpired.

“I don’t want to go into the details of it, but suffice to say…the president is very committed to strengthening the relationship and making sure that this is a small event of the past and moving on to the much more important future,” Kerry said.

“We have a relationship with France that is so much bigger than this moment.”

Kerry, who spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, said the two countries understand they “have so much to work on.”

“I’m absolutely confident that the bigger issues we have to work on about nuclear weapons, about cyber warfare, about climate…. We have a lot of work to do and we can’t get lost in a momentary event that I think we will get past very quickly.”

Kerry gave the interview prior to a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Macron on Tuesday, when the two sides discussed ways to move forward from the snub, including possible U.S.-French cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and other regions.

John Kerry: Biden 'literally, literally' had no clue about nuclear deal

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/john-kerry-biden-literally-literally-had-no-clue-about-nuclear-deal

Becket Adams  19 hrs ago

© Provided by Washington Examiner

Diplomacy is back, baby.

President Joe Biden "literally" had no idea Washington’s secretive nuclear technology pact with the U.K. and Australia went over poorly in France, according to U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry.

In fact, Kerry alleged this week in an interview with the French news channel BFM TV, he personally had to bring the president up to speed on a diplomatic fiasco that saw the French government recalling its ambassadors to the U.S. for the first time in history.

His remarks, which were flagged Tuesday by National Review’s Jim Geraghty, came amid a larger conversation about America’s long-standing relationship with France.

Kerry was asked by his interviewer to address those who consider France’s exclusion from the nuclear technology pact a betrayal of its friendship with the U.S. Kerry was also asked what he says to reassure the French people of the strength of the relationship between France and the U.S.

The finalized version of the nuclear pact was not a betrayal, Kerry responded. Rather, he added, it was merely a lack of proper communication, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken already made clear.

“President Biden asked me about it, and I told him, and expressed—” Kerry said, when the interviewer, surprised, interrupted him.

“You told Joe Biden that it was not right?”

“He asked me,” Kerry said. “He said, ‘What’s the situation?’ and I explained exactly, uh—he was, he had not been aware of that, he literally, literally had not been aware of what had transpired.”

If he’s telling the truth, it means the president of the United States had no idea France, one of America’s oldest allies, was incensed when it learned it didn’t make the cut for the U.S.'s nuke deal with the U.K. and Australia. And not just a little angry. France was so angry, in fact, it recalled its ambassadors to the U.S., an unprecedented and not-at-all-subtle act meant to express outrage and extreme disappointment.

And Biden apparently didn’t know about any of this? It took a briefing from his climate envoy to make him aware of the situation on the other side of the Atlantic?

“I don’t want to go into the details of it,” Kerry continued, “but suffice it to say, that that the president — my president is very committed to, um, strengthening the relationship and making sure that this is a small event of the past and moving on to the much more important future.”

So, who is actually in charge over there in the Oval Office? Because a growing number of anecdotes suggest that Biden is either out of the loop or being keyed into important events long after the fact.

Terry "Four Pinocchio" McAuliffe Caught in Another Whopper by the Washington Post Fact Checker

Fact Checker

Analysis

McAuliffe ad falsely claims Youngkin ‘took over’ predatory dental clinics

 

By Glenn Kessler, The Fact Checker, 5 October 2021

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/05/mcauliffe-ad-falsely-claims-youngkin-took-over-predatory-dental-clinics/

  “Small Smiles, a string of dental clinics preying on unsuspecting poor families. As a Wall Street executive, Glenn Youngkin took over this chain of dental clinics, increasing corporate profits through serious abuse and the performing of unnecessary procedures on children.”

 — Voice-over of a Terry McAuliffe (D) campaign ad, released Sept. 24

We dealt briefly with this advertisement as part of a roundup of debate claims made by former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, who is vying to get his old job back, and the Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin.uring the debate, McAuliffe had claimed, “When [Youngkin] was the chief operating officer, he was running a company called Small Smiles, which actually was cited a huge fine from the inspector general because what they were doing was unnecessary medical procedures on children.”

This is part of a general attack by McAuliffe on Youngkin’s business career. The GOP candidate rose to be co-chief executive of the private equity firm Carlyle Group and, as Mitt Romney discovered in the 2012 presidential campaign, bad deals can become campaign fodder.

Based on information we had received from both campaigns, we were under the impression that a Carlyle fund had acquired the holding company of dental clinics that catered to poor families. After all, an old webpage of the Carlyle Group listed the holding company Forba as part of the “portfolio” of Carlyle Mezzanine Partners, acquired in September 2006. So in the debate fact check, we focused our reporting on whether there was an overlap of problems at the clinics during the period Youngkin was chief operating officer from March 2011 to June 2014. (The answer: about six months.)

In a previous life, The Fact Checker was editor of a newsletter called Corporate Financing Week, and the name of the Carlyle fund should have been a tip-off that something wasn’t right. Mezzanine financing generally involves issuing subordinated debt with an option to obtain equity — a share of ownership — if a company runs into financial trouble. It does not mean acquiring a company.

The McAuliffe ad briefly flashes an image of a 2013 Senate investigative report. We have now dug deep into that report and found a memo outlining the proposed deal. Our colleague Alice Crites located relevant documents in bankruptcy court. (We did not trust the contemporary reporting on the bankruptcy, which was often wrong.) The bottom line: When the problems highlighted in the ad emerged, Carlyle was not involved in the management of this company and did not own it.

The Facts

Small Smiles first opened in 1928 as a small dental clinic in Pueblo, Colo., according to an archived Web history of the company. In 1967, it became the first dental office to cater to children covered under Medicaid, the health-care program for the poor. By the end of 2006, it had opened dozens of clinics in 16 states — and that’s when it attracted the attention of private equity bankers.

But the buyer was not Carlyle; it was a Bahrain-based investment firm called Arcapita. This added a level of complexity because the financing needed to comply with sharia practices.

According to the deal memo prepared for Arcapita, the business was attractive because Medicaid is a quick and stable payer and nearly 75 percent of American children eligible for free dental care did not receive it. State regulations prevented Forba, the holding company, from owning the dental centers or employing the dentists. But it in effect owned and managed the clinics by providing management services — billing, leases, employment — that absorbed all of the Medicaid payments.

After completion of the deal, Arcapita would own 93.9 percent of the company in exchange for a cash investment of $211 million, the memo said. Senior management would own 1.1 percent, and another 5 percent would be owned by incentive plan for other employees. That adds up to 100 percent.

As the Senate report states, “Arcapita was the private equity firm that owned FORBA, LLC.”

Indeed, when the deal was announced, Arcapita was described as the owner. “Bahrain-based international investment firm Arcapita Bank yesterday said it has acquired Sanus Holdings, which operates as Forba, one of the leading dental practice management company that focuses on providing oral care to the underprivileged children in the United States,” reported the Gulf News.

“King & Spalding Represented Arcapita Inc. in its acquisition of FORBA, LLC, a dental practice management company, for $435 million,” said Dental Economics in a 2009 article on the growth of dental practice management companies.

Arcapita also reports the Small Smiles deal as a 2006 acquisition on its website.

So where was Carlyle? The Carlyle Mezzanine Partners fund was one of the firms supplying the loans underwriting the deal — second-tier debt worth $85.5 million and what are known as payment-in-kind notes worth $21 million. (The top-tier loan was supplied by another banker, CIT Group.) PIK notes are another type of mezzanine financing, in which interest on the debt is not paid at first but instead is added to the debt.

At the time, Youngkin was global head of the firm’s industrial-sector investment team, which focused on a different fund — Carlyle Partners IV. So he played no role in this transaction.

Carlyle Mezzanine Partners fund shared this financing assignment with another company called American Capital Strategies (ACAS), according to the deal memo and bankruptcy court documents. As far as we can tell, Carlyle never announced its participation. But ACAS issued a statement saying the “investment takes the form of senior subordinated debt, holding company PIK notes and common equity and supports the acquisition of Sanus by affiliates of Arcapita Inc. and the Company’s senior management.”

(This statement mentions an equity investment and there is a page in the deal memo displaying a financing structure that suggests Carlyle and ACAS might share in an 8.8 percent share of another company that would own the holding company. We were not able to reconcile the discrepancy with Arcapita’s ownership stake, but in any case, 4.4 percent would be a relatively small stake. Carlyle described its Mezzanine Partners fund as primarily investing in “senior subordinated notes with warrants, preferred stock, and minority common equity securities.”)

ACAS and Carlyle charged high interest rates on this debt, according to bankruptcy documents. The subordinated debt bore interest at 14.50 percent, which included cash interest of 12.25 percent and payment-in-kind interest of 2.25 percent. No principal payments were required. The PIK notes had an interest rate of 16.5 percent but did not require any payments of interest or principal.

The 2013 Senate report specifically faulted the impact of private equity investors, which resulted in a business model “to increase patient volume as much as possible” and the use of bonuses “to incentivize their employees, both dentists and non-dentists, to maximize volume and profit.”

The Arcapita deal document noted that 33 percent of Medicaid patients break their appointments. The company’s management claimed it had figured out a way to get around the problem by overbooking appointments. “Since FORBA employs a minimum of three to four dentists per clinic, FORBA can leverage its critical mass of dentists and over-schedule appointments by 25%,” the memo said.

Even so, the company began missing interest payments in 2008 after its business tanked following a 2007 investigation of poor dental practices by WJLA, a local ABC News affiliate in Washington, D.C. (Scenes from this report are shown in the McAuliffe ad.) A federal investigation soon followed, resulting in a $24 million settlement, and numerous class-action suits were filed.

In 2010, the company renegotiated its loans with Carlyle and ACAS, exchanging the subordinated debt, the PIK notes and accumulated interest for new loans and preferred shares that gave the two firms ownership interest worth 27.41 percent, bankruptcy documents say. As part of the new deal, ACAS was permitted to name two directors to the company’s nine-member board and Carlyle one director — suggesting their equity ownership was not equal. Representatives of Carlyle, ACAS and Arcapita were also added to a four-member committee “tasked to independently review the medical and regulatory compliance” of the company.

When the company filed for bankruptcy two years later, Arcapita still held the “vast majority” of the equity, according to John Tishler, the attorney who handled the bankruptcy for the holding company.

The McAuliffe campaign defended the ad by pointing to news reports that inaccurately or incompletely described the ownership of Small Smiles.

“Glenn Youngkin said he will own everything that happened at Carlyle and, according to public reporting, Carlyle owned a pediatric dental company with a history of horrific and inhumane practices,” said campaign spokesman Renzo Olivari. “They mistreated children to drive up their profits. Now that he is running for governor, Glenn is putting politics over kids’ health by advocating against covid vaccine requirements for teachers that would keep them safe. It’s clear that Glenn Youngkin’s agenda would be disastrous for Virginia’s kids.”

The Pinocchio Test

On just about every level, this campaign ad is flat-out false. It claims that Youngkin “took over” the dental clinics. Not only was he not part of the original transaction, but Carlyle did not own or manage the clinics; it merely helped fund the deal with loans.

After the problems were exposed and the company failed to make good on its loans, in 2010 (before Youngkin became chief operating officer), the loans were renegotiated to give Carlyle a relatively small equity stake. Only at that point did Carlyle even have the right to name a board director. But the company still was mostly owned by Arcapita, the Bahrain investment firm. One might fault the terms of the Arcapita purchase for increasing pressure on company executives to maximize profits — but again, Youngkin had no role in the original deal.

Given that the ad displays an image of the Senate report — which says that Arcapita owned the holding company of Small Smiles — there is no excuse for such flimflammery.

McAuliffe earns Four Pinocchios.

Four Pinocchio

The ONLY Person to Die on 6 January at the Capitol Was Ashli Babbitt

 

This is how the Old Colonel commented to this dishonest and misleading 2 October Washington Post article:

Former Special Forces soldier and onetime congressional candidate arrested in Capitol riot case

The article (pasted in below) included this dishonest passage:

“Five people died as a result of the riot, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer, and many more were wounded. Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran, was shot and killed by an officer as she tried to force her way through doors inside the building.”

And here is how the Old Colonel commented to debunk the WaPo misinformation and set the record straight.

30yr-Army-COL

I think the events of 6 January were horrendous and condemn everyone that participated but for Mr. Hawkins to claim “Five people died as a result of the riot” is disingenuous, misleading and untrue.

Dr. Francisco Diaz, the district's chief medical examiner, announced the causes of deaths as:

Capitol Police officer Brian D. Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes a day after he confronted rioters at the Jan. 6 insurrection, the District’s chief medical examiner has ruled…. the autopsy found no evidence the 42-year-old officer suffered an allergic reaction to chemical irritants…”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/brian-sicknick-death-strokes/2021/04/19/36d2d310-617e-11eb-afbe-9a11a127d146_story.html

Ashli Babbitt, 35, died by homicide from a gunshot to the left shoulder. She was shot by a Capitol police officer while trying to climb through a door near the House chamber.

Kevin Greeson, 55, died of natural causes from cardiovascular disease. From Greeson, of Athens, Alabama.

Benjamin Phillips, 50, died of natural causes from cardiovascular disease. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Phillips of Ringtown, Pennsylvania, was a computer programmer who founded a social media website for Trump supporters.

Roseanne Boyland, 34, died by accident from acute amphetamine intoxication. Boyland, of Georgia, wanted to be a sobriety counselor.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/07/capitol-riot-deaths-cause-death-released-4-5-not-sicknick/7128040002/

The Only person that died on 6 Jan or as a result of the events of that day was Ashli Babbitt.  Two people with heart disease died of a heart attack, one drug abuser OD’ed, and the Capitol Police Officer died of natural causes but none of the deaths were attributed by the DC Medical Examiner to the 6 January Capitol riot.

“Democracy Dies in Darkness and the WaPo is Turning Out the Lights.”

Added: In 2025 under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the estate of Ashli Babbitt (the woman who was shot and killed on 6 Jan 2021 during the U.S. Capitol incident) filed a tort lawsuit and reached a nearly $5 million settlement with the government.

30yr-Army-COL

Two people with heart disease have heart attacks, one drug user OD’s and one person has two strokes unconnected to the Insurrection. The DC Medical Examiner attributed three to “natural causes” and one to an “accident.”

The most disingenuous thing in this article is Derick linking to this early incorrect WaPo article about Officer Sicknick’s cause of death latter corrected:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/two-arrested-in-assault-on-police-officer-brian-d-sicknick-who-died-after-jan-6-capitol-riot/2021/03/15/80261550-84ff-11eb-bfdf-4d36dab83a6d_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_12&itid=lk_inline_manual_10

Derick should have linked to this later WaPo article correcting the misinformation in his referenced article and written after the Medical Examiner accurately determined Officer Sicknick’s cause of death was “natural”:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/brian-sicknick-death-strokes/2021/04/19/36d2d310-617e-11eb-afbe-9a11a127d146_story.html

That is a blatant effort to mislead readers. Typical Fake News from a dishonest WaPo writer (can’t call him a “reporter” or even a “journalist”). More confirmation: Democracy Dies in Darkness and the WaPo is Turning Out the Lights.

 =================================================================

National

Former Special Forces soldier and onetime congressional candidate arrested in Capitol riot case

By Derek Hawkins  October 2, 2021 at 2:55 p.m. EDT

Supporters of former president Donald Trump climb the west wall of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. (Jose Luis Magana/AP)

Congress was days away from certifying the 2020 election results when Jeremy Brown, a retired Special Forces soldier and onetime Congressional candidate, offered others a ride to the U.S. Capitol in an RV he dubbed “GROUND FORCE ONE.”

“Plenty of Gun Ports left to fill,” he wrote on encrypted chat app Signal, according to federal court documents. “We can pick you up.”

Brown, who showed up to the Capitol on Jan. 6 decked out in military gear, was arrested this week in Tampa, in connection with the riot that sought to stop lawmakers from formally tallying President Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors charged Brown with knowingly entering restricted grounds and engaging in “disorderly or disruptive conduct.”

Brown couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Saturday. It was not clear if he had hired an attorney.

Roughly 600 people have been charged in the attack, some of them highly trained former military or law enforcement officers. Brown, who is in his 40s, had deployed twice each to Iraq and Afghanistan, Army officials told The Washington Post in January. In 2020, he filed paperwork to run as a Republican in the Florida congressional district that encompasses Tampa but dropped out before the general election.

Was the attack on the U.S. Capitol an attempted coup?

Many have argued that President Donald Trump's efforts amounted to an attempted coup on Jan. 6. Was it? And why does that matter?

Five people died as a result of the riot, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer, and many more were wounded. Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran, was shot and killed by an officer as she tried to force her way through doors inside the building.

According to a statement of facts from the FBI, law enforcement agents spoke with Brown by phone on Jan. 6 and 7. He told them he was in Washington to provide security “for VIPs at the 'Stop the Steal’ rally.” He made similar statements to The Post in January.

Later in the month, a witness who claimed to have known Brown for “multiple years” gave investigators photos of him in military garb outside the Capitol, according to court documents. Investigators compared the photos with other images and body-camera footage from the riot, saying they showed Brown wearing the same distinctive attire outside the building’s east doors.

At the time, Brown was equipped with a helmet, radio and a tactical vest. He also carried zip ties and had “large surgical trauma shears” tucked into a vest pack, documents state.

Though he was not identified inside the building, images show that Brown was standing more than 100 feet within the restricted grounds law enforcement set up to protect the certification ceremony, investigators said. They said phone location records obtained through a search warrant also showed him in the restricted area.

D.C. police had to push Brown back with their batons as they tried to secure the scene, according to the statement of facts.

“During this encounter, BROWN repeatedly claimed that the officers were, in his opinion, violating the laws and the Constitution of the United States,” the court papers state.

Investigators said they got further details about Brown’s alleged activities from another Capitol riot defendant who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

According to court documents, the defendant said he used a ride-share to go to Brown’s house on Jan. 4 to prepare for the trip to Washington — an assertion investigators said was backed up by records from the ride-share company. He said Brown and others had discussed travel plans and “rendezvous points” over Signal in the weeks leading up to the riot.

In a Jan. 1 group chat, Brown laid out an itinerary titled “GROUND FORCE ONE Departure Plan,” according to court documents. He allegedly talked about conducting “Pre Combat Inspections” before leaving and mentioned picking people up along the way as they headed toward Washington through North Carolina. The goal, he said, was to arrive in the nation’s capital two days before Congress convened.

“This will give us the 4th/5th to set up, conduct route recons, CTR (Close Target Reconnaissance) and any link ups needed with DC elements,” he said in the chat, according to court documents.

He signed off with a rallying cry: “READY? GO!!!”

The arrest comes as a growing number of Capitol riot cases make their way through the courts. Many have been charged with nonviolent misdemeanors and avoided jail time, though there have been exceptions.

Earlier in the week, two friends, Derek Jancart and Erik Rau, were sentenced to 45 days in jail after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct, after prosecutors noted several aggravating factors, including having spent 40 minutes inside the U.S. Capitol.

Washington Post Calls Out Terry McAuliffe for Telling the Same Lie Three (3) Times -- He Can't Help Himself

On 28 September Glenn Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe clashed in the final debate of Virginia governor's race and Youngkin missed an excellent opportunity to call out McAuliffe on this FOUR (4) Pinocchios lie he told at least seven (7) times during the debate. McAuliffe kept saying he inherited a deficit when he became Governor but the WaPo has given McAuliffe FOUR (4) Pinocchios for this lie three times. This was the latest time the WaPo gave him FOUR Pinocchios.

WaPo Fact Checker Headline, 14 June 2021

McAuliffe doubles down on false budget claim that has been fact-checked three times

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/14/fact-checked-three-times-before-mcauliffe-doubles-down-false-budget-claim/

The Pinocchio Test

McAuliffe did not inherit a budget deficit from his Republican predecessor. Moreover, the budget gap was not the largest in Virginia history.

McAuliffe could have touted how he handled a budget gap he faced early in his tenure without pinning the blame on Republicans or making grandiose claims about its size. Instead, he chose to double down on claims already fact-checked as false. McAuliffe even repeats a false claim that a previous McAuliffe spokesman had acknowledged was wrong but explained that McAuliffe simply misspoke. So McAuliffe has little excuse to repeat it over and over again.

McAuliffe earns Four Pinocchios.

The Pinocchio Test

McAuliffe did not inherit a budget deficit from his Republican predecessor. Moreover, the budget gap was not the largest in Virginia history.

McAuliffe could have touted how he handled a budget gap he faced early in his tenure without pinning the blame on Republicans or making grandiose claims about its size. Instead, he chose to double down on claims already fact-checked as false. McAuliffe even repeats a false claim that a previous McAuliffe spokesman had acknowledged was wrong but explained that McAuliffe simply misspoke. So McAuliffe has little excuse to repeat it over and over again.

McAuliffe earns Four Pinocchios.