In a Win for the Gig Economy, California Judge Exempts Truckers From Problematic Assembly Bill 5

A judge has ruled that truck drivers in California are not subject to Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), a new gig economy law that seeks to reclassify many contractors as employees. 

The regulations, which went into effect January 1 of this year, were drafted in response to Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles. Filed by Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer, the landmark court case established a three-pronged “ABC test” to determine if an individual is properly labeled as an employee versus a contractor: a contractor must control their workload, not perform work within the business’s primary scope of operations, and be “customarily engaged” in the occupation. Companies are trying their level best to circumvent that standard, which would unravel large portions of the gig economy. 

Enter Judge William Highberger of the Los Angeles Superior Court. Highberger did not find that truckers specifically pass the ABC test, but that the test itself “clearly run[s] afoul” of federal law. He cites the 1994 Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, which stipulates that the “use of non-employee independent contractors (commonly known in the trucking industry as ‘owner-operators’) should apply in all 50 states to increase competition and reduce the cost of trucking services.”

Feuer plans to appeal the decision, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Businesses in other industries, though, must still deal with blowback from the law, which has caused issues across the state. Uber and Lyft have a pending lawsuit against the legislation, arguing that their contractors pass the ABC test. Freelance workers—from journalists to translators and digital content creators to transcribers—find themselves especially hamstrung by the new regulations, which prohibit any person from submitting more than 35 assignments in a year to the same company or publication if the outfit does not hire them on as an employee. 

Although the law is in its early stages, companies have already decided not to hire freelancers but to instead end their contracts. Vox Media, for example, which hosts the site SB Nation, laid off 200 California freelancers at the start of the year, telling them that the working relationship would become financially untenable. The company will replace those contractors with 20 part-time and full-time positions. Several other companies, such as Rev and Scripted, have also severed ties with their California freelancers and will instead opt to work with contractors who live outside the state.

“These were never good jobs,” Assemblywoman and AB 5 author Lorena Gonzalez (D–San Diego) said earlier this month. “No one has ever suggested that, even freelancers.”

Freelance workers seem to disagree, however. Alisha Grauso, an entertainment journalist who identifies as a progressive, told Reason that the bill hurts the vulnerable groups it wants to help. 

“The reality is it still falls primarily on women to be the caretakers and caregivers of their families, and freelancing allows women to be stay-at-home mothers or to care for an aging parent,” Grauso notes. “Being made employees kills their flexibility and ability to be home when needed. I cannot stress enough how anti-women this bill is.”

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‘It’s a Lie, but It’s Fun’: An Officer’s Falsified Report Leads to a Man’s Suicide

The Seattle Office of Police Accountability (OPA) concluded late last year that a Seattle police officer’s decision to lie about the victims of a car crash led the offending driver to commit suicide. The Seattle Times reported this week that the Seattle Police Department (SPD) responded to the finding by suspending the officer in question for only six days without pay.

The SPD’s East Precinct officers were investigating a hit-and-run collision in May 2018. No injuries were sustained in the crash and the vehicles involved were still drivable. The East Precinct tasked two officers from the Southwest Precinct to locate the offending driver as records indicated that the driver might live in the area. The report says the Southwest Precinct officers were “aware that they were investigating a hit and run collision with no injuries.”

Prior to approaching the residence, one of the officers said he would use a ruse in the questioning, saying, “it’s a lie, but it’s fun.” A woman answered the door and informed the officers that while she knew the driver, he did not live at the house. He was a friend and she allowed him to register his car at her address since he didn’t have a fixed residence.

The unnamed officer told the woman that her friend “was involved in a hit and run earlier that left a woman in critical condition and he left her.” The officer added that the woman “might not survive.”

The OPA, which issued a report in November 2019 about the unnamed officer’s actions, reviewed body camera footage from the interaction. It noted that the woman was “clearly emotionally affected by the information provided to her.”

The woman contacted her friend and repeated the story provided by the officer. She advised that he get an attorney and speak with his mother. At first, the driver was unconcerned as he did not recall being in an injury-causing collision. He said he had, at most, a “minor fender-bender.” When they spoke again the next day, the driver became more concerned that he hit someone without realizing it.

OPA also noted that the driver was a heroin addict and had previous trouble with the law. The driver denied to a friend that he was high at the time of the collision as he had a new job and was saving money. Both he and the woman attempted to find more information about the crash, but grew concerned when they couldn’t find anything. They thought the lack of information meant it was being held for a criminal investigation. The driver “seemed increasingly despondent regarding the collision and the possibility that he had killed someone,” according to the OPA. 

The woman called another friend, who reached out to the driver about the collision. The second friend recalled the driver crying on the last day they saw each other. The driver left a bag of his personal belongings and addressed a note to the second friend, saying, “If you don’t see me, keep this stuff.”

Believing that he caused a severe injury that he couldn’t recall, the driver committed suicide. His body was found on June 3, 2018. His family and friends continued to believe the version of events shared by the officer until they did their own investigation. After realizing the officer embellished his story, the woman who was initially interviewed by police contacted OPA on March 12, 2019.

During the investigation, the officer told OPA that he was aware that ruses, while allowable, were not supposed to “shock fundamental fairness.” He also maintained that the woman was “kind of impeding the investigation,” even though OPA found that the woman went through her phone when asked about a way to contact the driver. The officer responded to this by saying he didn’t have time to wait for the information.

OPA determined that even if the driver hadn’t committed suicide, the officer “engaged in unprofessional behavior” by using the ruse. OPA also concluded that the ruse “ultimately contributed” to the driver’s suicide.

Chief Carmen Best agreed with the findings and suspended the officer for six days without pay, Detective Patrick Michaud of SPD Public Affairs confirmed to Reason.

“The officer’s actions did not meet SPD’s standards of acceptable use of discretion and were not consistent with the standards of professionalism or training,” he said. “In 2019, the Seattle Police Department provided in-service training to all sergeants, officers, and detectives on the appropriate use of ruses during criminal investigations.”

The Times, which initially broke the story, reached out to the department to uncover Best’s rationale for the sentence. The Times reports that the department declined to provide a disciplinary action report. The department also declined to disclose the names of the officer and the driver.

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Boeing Ex-CEO Muilenburg To Get No Bonus Or Severance

Boeing Ex-CEO Muilenburg To Get No Bonus Or Severance

There are now two definitions of “lead parachute” – one, of course, is a Boeing 737 MAX, the other is the farewell payment former Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenberg will receive for his 35 year contribution to the company. Or rather won’t.

Late on Friday, Boeing issued a terse, brief and to-the-point statement in which it announced that as a result of the recent catastrophic collapse in Boeing’s reputation following the countless scandals that have emerged in the aftermath of the 737 MAX grounding in which it emerged that the company was eager to repeatedly cut any and all corners and gamble with people’s lives just to get a quick, cheap version of the 737 workhorse plane in the air former CEO Dennis Muilenburg would get not severance or annual bonus:

Boeing Statement on Compensation for Dennis Muilenburg

We thank Dennis for his nearly 35 years of service to The Boeing Company. Upon his departure, Dennis received the benefits to which he was contractually entitled and he did not receive any severance pay or a 2019 annual bonus.s

At the same time, the company also issued an 8K laying out the compensation arrangement of “certain officers”, in which it got this close to disclosing whether Muilenburg was fired or quit on his own…. and then whiffed, courtesy of the passive voice, to wit: “as previously disclosed, Dennis A. Muilenburg ceased to serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company.” One thing is certain: he wanted to spend more time with his family, if only to tell them never to fly on a 737 MAX.

Boeing also provided a full breakdown of what Muilenburg would receive (as per his contractual obligations):

In addition, as previously disclosed, Dennis A. Muilenburg ceased to serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, and resigned as a member of the Board, on December 22, 2019. Mr. Muilenburg is not entitled to-and did not receive-any severance or separation payments in connection with his retirement after more than 30 years with the Company. In addition, the Board has confirmed that Mr. Muilenburg will receive no payment under the Company’s annual incentive plan for 2019. Mr. Muilenburg also forfeited 11,266 RSUs, 10,398 performance-based restricted stock units (“PBRSUs”), and 72,746 performance awards in connection with his retirement. Mr. Muilenburg is entitled to contractual, pre-existing retirement benefits. As a result, he vested in pro-rated portions of previously granted long-term incentive awards based on the number of months he was employed during the applicable vesting or performance period. These consist of:

  • 25,034 RSUs;
  • 23,384 PBRSUs, which will be paid only to the extent earned based on the Company’s total shareholder return relative to peer companies; and
  • 130,780 performance awards, which will be paid only to the extent earned based on Company operating performance.

Based on the closing stock price on January 9, 2020, and assuming performance at target for the PBRSUs and performance awards, the forfeited awards would have been valued at approximately $14.6 million, while the vested long-term incentive awards would be valued at approximately $29.4 million. Additional terms of the long-term incentive awards are disclosed in the 2019 Proxy Statement. Mr. Muilenburg also vested in certain stock unit awards earned prior to his service as President and Chief Executive Officer that, based on the closing stock price on January 9, 2020, are valued at approximately $4.3 million. In addition, Mr. Muilenburg will receive distributions of pension and nonqualified deferred compensation benefits earned during his tenure with the Company that, including contributions made by Mr. Muilenburg, were valued at approximately $28.5 million as of December 31, 2019. As disclosed in the 2019 Proxy Statement, Mr. Muilenburg also holds options to purchase 72,969 shares of Company common stock. These options have an exercise price of $75.97 and vested in full in 2013, prior to his service as President and Chief Executive Officer.

Finally, Boeing also disclosed that as part of the company’s new CEO compensation, David Calhoun would be eligible to receive “additional long-term incentive award valued at approximately $7 million which will be earned only upon continued employment and the achievement of several key business milestones, including full safe return to service of the 737 MAX.”

And before you say “so never”, remember that all it will take is for another generation of Boeing monkeys to cut corners, and get the clowns to send the death-machine back into the air.


Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/10/2020 – 17:27

Tags
Business Finance

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2tS3Qnl Tyler Durden

Absurdity Alert: Vermont Considers Cell Phone Ban For Under-21s, Punishable By Prison

Absurdity Alert: Vermont Considers Cell Phone Ban For Under-21s, Punishable By Prison

Via SovereignMan.com,

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity.

Town charges woman $60,000 as a fee to renovate her own home

For 40 years Linda and Gary Cameron always dreamed of renovating their small home to accomodate more family and friends.

Sadly, this dream could only be realized when Gary passed away, and Linda received money from his life insurance.

But when the town of Richland in Washington state found out the renovation cost would exceed $50,000 they dropped the hammer.

According to local ordinance in Richland, any home renovation that costs over $50,000 requires that the homeowner also renovate some town property.

I was shocked when I found this out and couldn’t believe it. Sure enough, it’s true. Chapter 12 of the City of Richland’s municipal code spells out “impact fees”, which are fees that the local government assesses on any building project that might have an impact on city infrastructure.

The municipal code goes on to explain that the city can essentially charge whatever they want. And they do.

In order to add a second bedroom and bathroom to her home, Linda was told she had to pay a  $60,000 impact fee.

Pretty crazy. Now she has to sue the town government just to be able to make some minor renovations to her own property.

Click here to read the full story.

*  *  *

Microsoft says if even ONE person is offended, that’s “one too many”

We want to wish the best of luck to the second largest company on Earth as they embark on their mission to ensure they don’t offend a single person.

In mid-December, Microsoft developers added a tiny icon of a Santa hat in the bottom left corner of one of their programs (Visual Studio Code, also known as vscode).

1 person… as in ONE… complained on the Microsoft’s Github page, posting, and I quote:

Microsoft’s “The Santa Hat on vscode insiders and pushing of religion is very offensive to me, additionally xmas has cost millions of Jews their lives over the centuries. . .”

This ONE complaint led the company to respond, “we’re sorry we hurt your and other’s feelings. We’ll remove the Santa Hat.”

Microsoft then switched the Santa hat icon with a more ‘culturally-neutral’ icon of a snowflake… perhaps to appease generation snowflake and its hypersensitivity.

The company then announced that “. . . the Santa hat was divisive and offensive to some of our users (even a single person being offended is one too many), meaning it represented the opposite of what we wanted to convey to our users.”

But was that the end of the controversy? Oh no.

Other users were offended that Microsoft would nix the Santa hat icon because a single person was offended.

“Well, that was unexpected,” Microsoft’s update on the incident begins.

And there-in lies the catch-22 encircling all modern “woke” companies. Being offended is America’s favorite pastime.

Click here to read the full story.

*  *  *

Pokemon breach Canadian military base

Canada had to assign soldiers to play Pokemon Go in order to keep a military base secure.

Pokemon Go is a smartphone game that uses augmented reality to place virtual Pokemon in the real world. The Pokemon show up on users’ camera screens when they aim their smartphone at the right spot.

Newly released documents detail how shortly after the game was released, a number of civilians were arrested after wandering into secure areas of a military base in search of virtual Pokemon.

The soldiers found that not only were Pokemon spawning on base, but that the base had also been infiltrated by a PokeGym.

It all kind of seems like a joke how clueless people can be.

But the game was actually designed by a mapping company owned by Google called Niantic. They collect detailed information on users’ location and behavior, and use it for marketing purposes.

If the point was to drive traffic to certain locations, it was clearly a success. They even breached a military base.

Click here to read the full story.

*  *  *

Vermont considers year in prison for anyone under 21 in possession of CELL PHONE

A Vermont state senator introduced a bill this week to ban the use of cell phones among anyone under 21.

You read that right. And no, not just the use of cell phones while driving.

The proposal is to make it illegal, punishable by up to one year in prison, for people 20 and under to have or use a cell phone.

The bill has some great justification written right into it.

For instance:

“The Internet and social media, accessed primarily through cell phones, are used to radicalize and recruit terrorists, fascists, and other extremists… Cell phones have often been used by mass shooters of younger ages for research on previous shootings.”

The bill concludes that since the Vermont government has seen fit to ban under 21 use of cigarettes, alcohol, and firearms, this is the logical next step.

Click here to read the full text of the bill.


Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/10/2020 – 17:05

Tags
Technology Internet

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2tM1OW4 Tyler Durden

‘It’s a Lie, but It’s Fun’: An Officer’s Falsified Report Leads to a Man’s Suicide

The Seattle Office of Police Accountability (OPA) concluded late last year that a Seattle police officer’s decision to lie about the victims of a car crash led the offending driver to commit suicide. The Seattle Times reported this week that the Seattle Police Department (SPD) responded to the finding by suspending the officer in question for only six days without pay.

The SPD’s East Precinct officers were investigating a hit-and-run collision in May 2018. No injuries were sustained in the crash and the vehicles involved were still drivable. The East Precinct tasked two officers from the Southwest Precinct to locate the offending driver as records indicated that the driver might live in the area. The report says the Southwest Precinct officers were “aware that they were investigating a hit and run collision with no injuries.”

Prior to approaching the residence, one of the officers said he would use a ruse in the questioning, saying, “it’s a lie, but it’s fun.” A woman answered the door and informed the officers that while she knew the driver, he did not live at the house. He was a friend and she allowed him to register his car at her address since he didn’t have a fixed residence.

The unnamed officer told the woman that her friend “was involved in a hit and run earlier that left a woman in critical condition and he left her.” The officer added that the woman “might not survive.”

The OPA, which issued a report in November 2019 about the unnamed officer’s actions, reviewed body camera footage from the interaction. It noted that the woman was “clearly emotionally affected by the information provided to her.”

The woman contacted her friend and repeated the story provided by the officer. She advised that he get an attorney and speak with his mother. At first, the driver was unconcerned as he did not recall being in an injury-causing collision. He said he had, at most, a “minor fender-bender.” When they spoke again the next day, the driver became more concerned that he hit someone without realizing it.

OPA also noted that the driver was a heroin addict and had previous trouble with the law. The driver denied to a friend that he was high at the time of the collision as he had a new job and was saving money. Both he and the woman attempted to find more information about the crash, but grew concerned when they couldn’t find anything. They thought the lack of information meant it was being held for a criminal investigation. The driver “seemed increasingly despondent regarding the collision and the possibility that he had killed someone,” according to the OPA. 

The woman called another friend, who reached out to the driver about the collision. The second friend recalled the driver crying on the last day they saw each other. The driver left a bag of his personal belongings and addressed a note to the second friend, saying, “If you don’t see me, keep this stuff.”

Believing that he caused a severe injury that he couldn’t recall, the driver committed suicide. His body was found on June 3, 2018. His family and friends continued to believe the version of events shared by the officer until they did their own investigation. After realizing the officer embellished his story, the woman who was initially interviewed by police contacted OPA on March 12, 2019.

During the investigation, the officer told OPA that he was aware that ruses, while allowable, were not supposed to “shock fundamental fairness.” He also maintained that the woman was “kind of impeding the investigation,” even though OPA found that the woman went through her phone when asked about a way to contact the driver. The officer responded to this by saying he didn’t have time to wait for the information.

OPA determined that even if the driver hadn’t committed suicide, the officer “engaged in unprofessional behavior” by using the ruse. OPA also concluded that the ruse “ultimately contributed” to the driver’s suicide.

Chief Carmen Best agreed with the findings and suspended the officer for six days without pay, Detective Patrick Michaud of SPD Public Affairs confirmed to Reason.

“The officer’s actions did not meet SPD’s standards of acceptable use of discretion and were not consistent with the standards of professionalism or training,” he said. “In 2019, the Seattle Police Department provided in-service training to all sergeants, officers, and detectives on the appropriate use of ruses during criminal investigations.”

The Times, which initially broke the story, reached out to the department to uncover Best’s rationale for the sentence. The Times reports that the department declined to provide a disciplinary action report. The department also declined to disclose the names of the officer and the driver.

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California Governor Proposes Millions in Public Defender Funding To Settle Sixth Amendment Lawsuit

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is proposing to provide $14 million dollars in additional funding to public defender offices to settle a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in which the group argued that the state was derelict in its constitutional duty to provide adequate legal defense to defendants who can’t afford a lawyer. 

California is one of only four states that does not provide state-level oversight or funding of public defenders for routine trial services, but Newsom’s proposed 2020-21 budget, released today, would allocate $4 million to expand the scope of the Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD), which currently only handles death penalty appeals, and provide $10 million in grants for the state’s 58 county public defender offices.

The ACLU of Northern California, along with the law firms Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP and Paul Hastings LLP, filed a civil rights lawsuit against California and Fresno County in 2015. The suit argued that the lack of state-level funding and oversight created gross disparities in access to legal counsel between rich areas like San Francisco County and poorer ones like Fresno County.

The Supreme Court ruled in the landmark 1963 case Gideon v. Wainwright that the Sixth Amendment guarantees defendants’ right to effective legal counsel. However, as I wrote in a 2017 column for Reason on the “disappearing Sixth Amendment,” states “have undercut the Gideon guarantee by chronically underfunding public defender services.”

“The Supreme Court’s decision in Gideon requires states to provide lawyers to people who face criminal charges but cannot afford to hire a private lawyer,” says Emma Anderson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s criminal law reform project. “For decades, California has delegated this responsibility to individual counties and made no effort to ensure that these county-run systems are in fact upholding the Sixth Amendment rights of accused people. As a result, the wealth disparities that exist between different counties in California are too often reflected in the public defense services that people receive.”

The 2008 financial crisis exacerbated the problem as local governments looking to trim their budgets targeted public defender offices. As a result of staffing cuts, the lawsuit said, “felony attorneys in the Fresno County Public Defender’s Office therefore carry more open cases at any given time than the State Bar of California recommends a felony attorney handle in an entire year.”

In September 2013, the Fresno Public Defender’s Office union warned that excessive caseloads were “jeopardizing our client[s’] constitutional rights on a daily basis.” One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Peter Yepez, did not see a public defender until he had spent almost a month in the Fresno County jail.

California is not alone. A 2014 study by the American Bar Association (ABA) found that in 97 percent of cases, Missouri public defenders failed to meet the ABA’s recommended minimum hours to effectively represent their clients.

In 2018, a report by the Sixth Amendment Center found that Oregon’s public defender system was plagued by bureaucracy and structural flaws that likely violated the Constitution.

And in 2016 in Louisiana, where about 85 percent of criminal defendants qualify for a court-appointed attorney, 33 of the state’s 42 public defender offices started turning away cases they no longer had the resources to handle, arguing that whatever legal assistance they could provide would be so ineffective as to violate defendants’ constitutional rights anyway.

The California government denied that its public defender system violates the Sixth Amendment, and, as part of the settlement agreement, it did not admit to any of the ACLU’s claims. The new funding is contingent on the state legislature passing Newsom’s budget.

As part of Fresno County’s settlement agreement, the county must maintain funding levels for its public defender office and conduct regular reviews of defender caseloads to make sure they are within the recommended guidelines.

“The Constitution does not permit the right to a meaningful defense and the presumption of innocence to depend on how much money you have or what county you live in,” Anderson says. “It’s past time for California to do better.”

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Iranian National, Armed With Knives, Detained Near Mar-A-Lago

Iranian National, Armed With Knives, Detained Near Mar-A-Lago

An Iranian national armed with knives has been detained by police in Palm Beach, Florida, close to President Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate.

As the local NBC affiliate WPTV reports, Palm Beach police are investigating a man found with several knives on the Flagler Memorial Bridge.

Police said the man had no known address and was detained by officers.

In addition to the knives, police said the man had an undisclosed amount of U.S. currency on him.

This comes just days after Iranian officials offered an $80 million bounty for the murder of President Trump.


Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/10/2020 – 16:50

Tags
Human Interest

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30aGXb1 Tyler Durden

‘Useless Appendage’ Huber Winds Down Clinton Foundation, Uranium One Investigation With No Charges

‘Useless Appendage’ Huber Winds Down Clinton Foundation, Uranium One Investigation With No Charges

While US Attorney John Durham continues his ongoing investigation into the origins of ‘Russiagate,’ another investigator hand-picked by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November, 2017 (in lieu of a special counsel) to investigate possible corruption at the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One deal is wrapping up his probe with no charges, after failing to interview key witnesses, according to the Washington Post and the witness’s attorney.

US Attorney John Huber was tasked with determining whether corruption allegations warranted an official review, and has “largely finished and found nothing worth pursuing,” according to the report.

Sessions did not appoint a second special counsel, but weeks later sent a letter to Huber telling him to “review” a wide array of issues related to Clinton. They included the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One matters, along with the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and alleged leaks by former FBI director James B. Comey. –Washington Post

Sadly, it appears that Huber wasn’t interested in a key witness in the Uranium One case, whistleblower William Douglas Campbell – who was deeply embedded in the Russian nuclear industry while Robert Mueller was the Director of the FBI (which paid him a $51,000 “thank you” award for his service).

While undercover, Campbell was forced by the Russians (with the FBI’s blessing) to launder large sums of money – which allowed the FBI to uncover a massive Russian “nuclear money laundering apparatus.” Campbell claimed to have collected over 5,000 documents along with video evidence of money being stuffed into suitcases, Russians bragging about bribing the West, and millions of dollars routed to the Clinton foundation.

Campbell also says that Russian nuclear officials revealed a scheme to route millions of dollars to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) through lobbying firm ARPCO, which was expected to funnel a portion of its annual $3 million lobbying fee to the charity.

And according to Campbell’s attorney, former US Attorney Joe diGenova, Huber never even spoke with Campbell (via the Gateway Pundit):

Huber was supposed to be investigating leaks and a bunch of other things.  He stopped his investigation because of Horowitz so he’s a useless appendage who’s done nothing.  In fact, he’s supposed to be investigating Uranium One and yet he never contacted our law firm and we represent the key informant in the case, Doug Campbell.  So go figure!

And finally Durham, he’s the real McCoy.  He’s doing what Barr asked him to do which is get to the bottom of everything, empanel a grand jury, if necessary, turn indictments, if necessary.

…

I mean he basically went dead to help the institution of the FBI and senior people at the DOJ.  If he does that again, in the FISA thing, if I were the Attorney General, I’d fire him!


Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/10/2020 – 16:45

Tags
Law Crime
Politics

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2QI28Op Tyler Durden

California Governor Proposes Millions in Public Defender Funding To Settle Sixth Amendment Lawsuit

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is proposing to provide $14 million dollars in additional funding to public defender offices to settle a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in which the group argued that the state was derelict in its constitutional duty to provide adequate legal defense to defendants who can’t afford a lawyer. 

California is one of only four states that does not provide state-level oversight or funding of public defenders for routine trial services, but Newsom’s proposed 2020-21 budget, released today, would allocate $4 million to expand the scope of the Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD), which currently only handles death penalty appeals, and provide $10 million in grants for the state’s 58 county public defender offices.

The ACLU of Northern California, along with the law firms Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP and Paul Hastings LLP, filed a civil rights lawsuit against California and Fresno County in 2015. The suit argued that the lack of state-level funding and oversight created gross disparities in access to legal counsel between rich areas like San Francisco County and poorer ones like Fresno County.

The Supreme Court ruled in the landmark 1963 case Gideon v. Wainwright that the Sixth Amendment guarantees defendants’ right to effective legal counsel. However, as I wrote in a 2017 column for Reason on the “disappearing Sixth Amendment,” states “have undercut the Gideon guarantee by chronically underfunding public defender services.”

“The Supreme Court’s decision in Gideon requires states to provide lawyers to people who face criminal charges but cannot afford to hire a private lawyer,” says Emma Anderson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s criminal law reform project. “For decades, California has delegated this responsibility to individual counties and made no effort to ensure that these county-run systems are in fact upholding the Sixth Amendment rights of accused people. As a result, the wealth disparities that exist between different counties in California are too often reflected in the public defense services that people receive.”

The 2008 financial crisis exacerbated the problem as local governments looking to trim their budgets targeted public defender offices. As a result of staffing cuts, the lawsuit said, “felony attorneys in the Fresno County Public Defender’s Office therefore carry more open cases at any given time than the State Bar of California recommends a felony attorney handle in an entire year.”

In September 2013, the Fresno Public Defender’s Office union warned that excessive caseloads were “jeopardizing our client[s’] constitutional rights on a daily basis.” One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Peter Yepez, did not see a public defender until he had spent almost a month in the Fresno County jail.

California is not alone. A 2014 study by the American Bar Association (ABA) found that in 97 percent of cases, Missouri public defenders failed to meet the ABA’s recommended minimum hours to effectively represent their clients.

In 2018, a report by the Sixth Amendment Center found that Oregon’s public defender system was plagued by bureaucracy and structural flaws that likely violated the Constitution.

And in 2016 in Louisiana, where about 85 percent of criminal defendants qualify for a court-appointed attorney, 33 of the state’s 42 public defender offices started turning away cases they no longer had the resources to handle, arguing that whatever legal assistance they could provide would be so ineffective as to violate defendants’ constitutional rights anyway.

The California government denied that its public defender system violates the Sixth Amendment, and, as part of the settlement agreement, it did not admit to any of the ACLU’s claims. The new funding is contingent on the state legislature passing Newsom’s budget.

As part of Fresno County’s settlement agreement, the county must maintain funding levels for its public defender office and conduct regular reviews of defender caseloads to make sure they are within the recommended guidelines.

“The Constitution does not permit the right to a meaningful defense and the presumption of innocence to depend on how much money you have or what county you live in,” Anderson says. “It’s past time for California to do better.”

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Beware The Ghosts Of Artificial Liquidity-Fueled Melt-Ups Past

Beware The Ghosts Of Artificial Liquidity-Fueled Melt-Ups Past

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

Finally. A glimmer of cognition. An admission. A sense that the Fed knows, but is largely unwilling to admit it.

But Dallas Fed president Kaplan let it slip, the truth everybody already knows: It’s the Fed’s pumping of its balance sheet that has brought about this party like it’s 1999.

Via Reuters:

“I do think the growth in the balance sheet is having some impact on the financial markets and on the valuation of risk assets…I want to be cognizant of not adding more fuel that could help create further excesses and imbalances.”

“Some”. Cute. How about all as the correlation has been well established and the Fed is recognized as the only game in town. But at least it’s an admission and a recognition that excesses and imbalances are being created and are already in place.

Last night’s discussion on CNBC Fast Money by all participants shows how pervasive this recognition is, that the Fed is driving everything, it’s not just yours truly that keeps highlighting this point:

And so the artificial liquidity keeps driving equity prices above fundamentals and complacency takes on ever more extremes in its own right.

Here is the weekly put/call ratio at it slowest in 8 years:

In party like it’s 1999 I made the point that the action by the Fed is similar to what it did in the run up to Y2K. Once that was over Greenspan withdrew liquidity and markets crashed.

Already the Fed is backpedaling on reducing liquidity knowing full well it would cause trouble in equity markets:

And don’t think it’s not all about keeping markets calm and assured. They are literally giving out guarantees:

And it’s perhaps the most crucial decision the Fed faces this year. It’s not rates stupid, it’s the balance sheet stupid.

The Fed has set equities on fire:

How much more are they willing to let the fire run out of control?

And how they can extract themselves out of the bubble they have created as the ghosts of 2000 are all around us:

Price to sales valuations of the market higher than even 2000:

EV/EBIDTA as high as the year 2000:

EV/Sales at 200 record highs:

Market cap to GDP higher even since the year 2000:

And consumers? As comfortable as the put/call ratio is about risk (via Sentimentrader:):

What else did we see in 1999/2000?

Nobody caring about risk, value or valuations, just get me into stocks, even into stocks that have a lot to prove, awarding valuations not reflective of fundamentals, but chasing vertical charts without discipline or fear:

In a bubble environment, especially one that’s driven by artificial liquidity and hype,valuations don’t matter until they do.

The Fed knows that its balance sheet operations are creating excess and imbalances. Now their job is to let the air out the bubble gently or face a 2000 repeat, a reversion to the mean that would bring about the very recession it tried to avoid in the first place. The ghosts of 2000 are all around us. Yet investors don’t seem to have any appetite for protection. In Fed we trust.

*  *  *

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Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/10/2020 – 16:25

Tags
Business Finance

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2R4wdXp Tyler Durden