Tag Archives: george

Major investment groups told food companies that meat is too risky.

by CamillaMarx549 Posted on September 28, 2016

Myron Ebell, a director at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, would head Trump’s EPA transition team, E&E Daily reports. Ebell also chairs the Cooler Heads Coalition, a pro-business group focused on pushing climate denial.

While Ebell generally maintains that climate change is a hoax, he’s also argued that if it does exist, it’s actually a good thing. “Life in many places would become more pleasant,” he wrote in 2006. “Instead of 20 below zero in January in Saskatoon, it might be only 10 below. And I don’t think too many people would complain if winters in Minneapolis became more like winters in Kansas City.” He has less to say about the summers in Minneapolis, which, if current emissions trends continue, will feel like summers in Mesquite, Texas, by 2100.

Ebell’s waffling is in-line with the candidate’s, who seems to have spontaneously changed his mind about climate change during the first presidential debate. When accused by Hillary Clinton of calling climate change a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, Trump flat-out denied it, despite a notorious tweet saying just that.

Ebell joins energy lobbyist Mike McKenna, George W. Bush’s former Interior Department solicitor David Bernhardt, and oil tycoon Harold Hamm on Trump’s team.

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Major investment groups told food companies that meat is too risky.

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Elon Musk has a big idea to save civilization: Move it to Mars.

by DamionBenefield Posted on September 28, 2016

Myron Ebell, a director at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, would head Trump’s EPA transition team, E&E Daily reports. Ebell also chairs the Cooler Heads Coalition, a pro-business group focused on pushing climate denial.

While Ebell generally maintains that climate change is a hoax, he’s also argued that if it does exist, it’s actually a good thing. “Life in many places would become more pleasant,” he wrote in 2006. “Instead of 20 below zero in January in Saskatoon, it might be only 10 below. And I don’t think too many people would complain if winters in Minneapolis became more like winters in Kansas City.” He has less to say about the summers in Minneapolis, which, if current emissions trends continue, will feel like summers in Mesquite, Texas, by 2100.

Ebell’s waffling is in-line with the candidate’s, who seems to have spontaneously changed his mind about climate change during the first presidential debate. When accused by Hillary Clinton of calling climate change a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, Trump flat-out denied it, despite a notorious tweet saying just that.

Ebell joins energy lobbyist Mike McKenna, George W. Bush’s former Interior Department solicitor David Bernhardt, and oil tycoon Harold Hamm on Trump’s team.

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Elon Musk has a big idea to save civilization: Move it to Mars.

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2016 will go down in history as the first year of the rest of our lives — not in a good way.

by DustyHorniman Posted on September 27, 2016

Myron Ebell, a director at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, would head Trump’s EPA transition team, E&E Daily reports. Ebell also chairs the Cooler Heads Coalition, a pro-business group focused on pushing climate denial.

While Ebell generally maintains that climate change is a hoax, he’s also argued that if it does exist, it’s actually a good thing. “Life in many places would become more pleasant,” he wrote in 2006. “Instead of 20 below zero in January in Saskatoon, it might be only 10 below. And I don’t think too many people would complain if winters in Minneapolis became more like winters in Kansas City.” He has less to say about the summers in Minneapolis, which, if current emissions trends continue, will feel like summers in Mesquite, Texas, by 2100.

Ebell’s waffling is in-line with the candidate’s, who seems to have spontaneously changed his mind about climate change during the first presidential debate. When accused by Hillary Clinton of calling climate change a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, Trump flat-out denied it, despite a notorious tweet saying just that.

Ebell joins energy lobbyist Mike McKenna, George W. Bush’s former Interior Department solicitor David Bernhardt, and oil tycoon Harold Hamm on Trump’s team.

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2016 will go down in history as the first year of the rest of our lives — not in a good way.

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The Map That Changed the World – Simon Winchester

by Myrna Posted on September 13, 2016

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Map That Changed the World

William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology

Simon Winchester

Genre: History

Price: $13.99

Publish Date: October 27, 2009

Publisher: HarperCollins e-books

Seller: HarperCollins


In 1793, a canal digger named William Smith made a startling discovery. He found that by tracing the placement of fossils, which he uncovered in his excavations, one could follow layers of rocks as they dipped and rose and fell—clear across England and, indeed, clear across the world—making it possible, for the first time ever, to draw a chart of the hidden underside of the earth. Smith spent twenty-two years piecing together the fragments of this unseen universe to create an epochal and remarkably beautiful hand-painted map. But instead of receiving accolades and honors, he ended up in debtors' prison, the victim of plagiarism, and virtually homeless for ten years more. The Map That Changed the World is a very human tale of endurance and achievement, of one man's dedication in the face of ruin. With a keen eye and thoughtful detail, Simon Winchester unfolds the poignant sacrifice behind this world-changing discovery.

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The Map That Changed the World – Simon Winchester

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Survival Tips For Green Parents Dealing With Information Overload

by RalfFitzgerald Posted on September 4, 2016

BPA in bottles!

GMOS in baby food!

Toxic chemicals in toys!

Disposable diapers are the devil!

Raising a healthy kid in today’s polluted world is anything but easy.

Every parent wants the best for their child, and if you happen to be an eco-conscious parent, the stakes are even higher. You have both your children and the planet that they’ll someday inherit to worry about.

The struggle to protect our children while also being a good child of Mother Nature is front and center in a new book aimed at helping green-minded navigate the often shifting landscape of healthy parenting.

Called Spit That Out! The OverlyInformedParents Guide to Raising Healthy Kids In The Age OfEnvironmentalGuilt, the bookis part parenting handbook, part autobiography, and overflowing with humorous stories that all parents will relate to.

With chapters like “The Precarious World Of Poo Maintenance” and “Can I Afford To Be This Conscious?” author Paige Wolf seeks to cut through the avalanche of conflicting information, providing parents with humorous anecdotes full of useful tips for staying sane and healthy in an increasingly toxic world.

Chock full of staggering statistics (more than 50 of the one million annual child deaths from acute respiratory infections are attributable to indoor air pollution); hilarious realizations (“Goldfish feel to me like a gateway drug to toddler junk food”); and advice from green living experts (never buy plastic toys with the numbers 3, 6 and 7 on them, they’re likely to leak dangerous chemicals and can’t be recycled), Spit That Out!is aninformative read whether you’re a parent yet or not.

Care2 recently caught up withWolf, an eco-chic green living expert, blogger and advocate, to learn more about what she hopes parents will gain from reading her book.

Care2: What inspired you to write this book?

Wolf: “When I was pregnant with my first child I was overwhelmed by all the conflicting information and constant barrage of things to worry about! What was in the food, the cleaning products, the shampoo, the toys? Could we pull off cloth diapers and breastfeeding? Talking with other new parents I realized I was not the only one up Googling these things every night. Many of us feel paralyzed by all of the eco-anxiety and green guilt and I wanted to find straight answers and real ways to make green and healthy living more manageable, practical and affordable. The book is part commiseration/part solution!”

Care2:What’s the biggest life change (eco-wise) you made when you become a parent?

Wolf:I was making small changes for years leading up to becoming a parent. It started with just basic recycling and then composting, eating a more natural and organic diet and swapping out personal care products. I dont know that there was a specific switch that happened in correlation with becoming a parent it has been more like making more small changes and upgrades everyday.

“For instance, I remember thinking I had gotten rid of all the nonstick pans years ago and it suddenly occurred to me that my George Foreman grill was coated in Teflon. Opening a cabinet and saying, Why are we still buying conventional raisins? Its a constant learning experience and balancing act trying to create a more sustainable and health-conscious home while also making peace with the fact that my kids are going to find a way to eat Munchkin Donut holes at least three times a week.”

Care2:What’s one thing “green” parents stress about that you wish they wouldn’t?

Wolf: “There isnt really one thing its just the greater idea of doing everything perfectly. We all have our parenting differences. Some of us feel guilty for not breastfeeding long enough or at all, others for not cloth diapering and many for not feeding our kids organic all the time. Its important that we dont ignore the significance of these things and at least TRY to make an effort, but we also have to realize that we cant live in a bubble. We have to do the best we can with the opportunities available to us. Fortunately, though, many of these opportunities are becoming more accessible and affordable.”

Care2:What’s THE most important piece of advice you’d give to environmentally-minded parents in today’s world?

Wolf: “Perfect is unattainable but better is always possible.”

Connect with Spit That Out! author Paige Wolf on Facebook, Twitteror Instagram.

Spit That Out! The OverlyInformedParents Guide to Raising Healthy Kids In The Age OfEnvironmentalGuilt is available wherever books are sold.

Image Credit: Thinkstock

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Survival Tips For Green Parents Dealing With Information Overload

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In a Major Reversal, Labor Board Says Graduate Student Workers at Private Colleges Can Unionize

by AustinTLSM Posted on August 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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Reversing a landmark ruling from the George W. Bush era, the National Labor Relations Board ruled today that graduate students who work as teaching and research assistants at private universities have the right to form labor unions.

“This is a historic moment,” said Julie Kushner, director of the northeast chapter of the United Auto Workers, which challenged the Bush-era NLRB ruling on behalf of graduate-student workers at Columbia University. “There are tens of thousands of workers at private universities across the United States that will reap the benefits of unionization.”

In 2004, the NLRB barred grad students at Brown University from engaging collective bargaining, contending that their status as students constrained their right to unionize. Yet in a 3-1 vote along partisan lines today, the Democratic-controlled NLRB reversed the prior board’s decision, arguing that graduate workers can be both students and workers at the same time. The students’ right to organize “is not foreclosed by the existence of some other, additional relationship,” the decision says.

Columbia grad students cheered the decision. “When I am working on my own research I clearly am a student,” said Paul Katz, a fourth-year PhD. student in Latin American history, “but when I am at the front of the room teaching 15 students about, say, the history of ancient Greece, there is no doubt in my mind that I am a worker, doing work that makes Columbia University great.”

Columbia University released a statement objecting with the ruling. “Columbia—along with many of our peer institutions—disagrees with this outcome because we believe the academic relationship students have with faculty members and departments as part of their studies is not the same as between employer and employee,” the statement said. “First and foremost, students serving as research or teaching assistants come to Columbia to gain knowledge and expertise, and we believe there are legitimate concerns about the impact of involving a non-academic third-party in this scholarly training.”

Columbia and other Ivy League universities have long argued that granting collective bargaining rights to graduate students could impinge on academic freedom by, for example, allowing unions to negotiate over whether tests should consist of multiple choice questions or essays. But the American Association of University Professors disagreed, telling the NLRB that giving unionization rights to grad workers would actually improve academic freedom by making it legally protected in labor contracts.

Today’s decision applies only to private universities. Grad students at public universities are already considered employees by many states. The United Auto Workers, for example, represents student workers at the University of Massachusetts, the University of Washington, the University of California, and California State University. It also represents grad workers New York University, which is private, but in 2002 voluntarily recognized a UAW union.

Columbia graduate students point to NYU as evidence that collective bargaining makes a difference. The NYU contract eliminated healthcare premiums and increased graduate student stipends from $12,500 to $22,000 a year—still a pittance, given the cost of living in New York and the amount of time many grad students spend teaching classes and grading papers.

The Columbia students also aim to push for a grievance procedure for sexual harassment and more certainty about pay and benefits. Similar unionization efforts are underway at Harvard and New York’s New School.

“I don’t think anybody expects unions to figure out what grade a student gets in a class,” says Eric Foner, a Columbia history professor who supports the union efforts, “but when it comes to stipends or healthcare or housing, it is clear that those are labor issues.”

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In a Major Reversal, Labor Board Says Graduate Student Workers at Private Colleges Can Unionize

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Dick Cheney’s Daughter Is Likely Headed to Congress

by Eleanor40A Posted on August 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Cheneys are making a comeback.

Liz Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, easily won the Republican primary for Wyoming’s lone congressional district on Tuesday, all but assuring her a seat in the House of Representatives in January. In a crowded field, Cheney scored 40 percent of the vote, besting her closest rival, state Sen. Leland Christensen, by 17 points.

Cheney, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of state during the George W. Bush administration, launched a brief and calamitous challenge to Sen. Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, two years ago. That race earned her rebukes from veteran conservatives in the deep-red state, who accused her of parachuting in from her home in the Virginia suburbs to take on an incumbent no one really had a problem with. It also resulted in a series of high-profile feuds. Most notable was a public spat between Liz and her sister, Mary, after the candidate promised to oppose same-sex marriage if elected. Mary Cheney, who is a lesbian, announced that she would not be visiting the family at Christmas that year. Liz Cheney’s candidacy also drew criticism from former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, a longtime friend of Dick Cheney who continued to back Enzi and published a lengthy and remarkable statement in the Cody Enterprise chewing out Liz’s mom, Lynne Cheney, for pressuring him to change his support.

Liz Cheney was the lone candidate with real name recognition in the race to replace retiring GOP Rep. Cynthia Lummis, making the run-up to Tuesday’s primary comparatively tame. The Cheney name is still strong in her home state, and she has received contributions from a bevy of big-time Republican donors and Bush-era heavyweights, including Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove.

But while some prominent ex-Bushies have repudiated Trump—including former first lady Barbara Bush—Liz Cheney, like her father, is fully on board, telling Rush Limbaugh that Hillary Clinton is a “felon” who can’t be allowed back in the White House. “In Wyoming, there’s no question for us that Hillary Clinton would be devastating—and far, far worse than Donald Trump,” she said. “We’ve gotta unify behind him and make sure Hillary Clinton’s not elected.”

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Dick Cheney’s Daughter Is Likely Headed to Congress

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In 2006 Interview, Trump Demanded US Troops Leave Iraq—Even if Chaos and ISIS-Like Violence Occurred

by Rad7edzw Posted on August 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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Last week, Donald Trump repeatedly asserted that President Barack Obama was the “founder” of ISIS and blasted Hillary Clinton as a “co-founder” of the terror group that has taken over large swaths of Iraq and Syria. But Obama was not in the White House and Clinton was not secretary of state when ISIS originated.

When a conservative radio host on Thursday asked if Trump meant that the Obama administration had “created the vacuum” in the region that allowed ISIS to grow, the GOP nominee stuck to his nonsensical statement: “No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS.” Next, Trump claimed he was being sarcastic. Then at a campaign rally, he added, “But not that sarcastic.” It was a very Trumpian couple of days. And on Monday, with a speech on national security that Trump read off a teleprompter, he had a chance to declare what he really thought about Obama, Clinton, and ISIS. After repeating the lie that he had opposed the Iraq War before the invasion, Trump did not restate his “founder” claim, but he said that because of Obama and Clinton, “Iraq is in chaos, and ISIS is on the loose.” He added, “the Obama-Clinton foreign policy has unleashed ISIS.” He insisted that Obama’s withdrawal of US troops from Iraq (which actually was compelled by an agreement reached with the Iraqi government by President George W. Bush) “led directly to the rise of ISIS.”

Here’s the problem for Trump—if being wildly inconsistent and attacking an opponent for supposedly holding a position that Trump himself once advocated is a problem: 10 years ago, Trump called for a complete US withdrawal of troops from Iraq and indicated that he didn’t give a damn if this led to civil war and greater violence there. He even predicted that such a move would cause the rise of “vicious” forces in Iraq. But Trump believed this would not be the United States’ problem. That is, Trump was ardently in favor of the very actions that he now decries and for which he wrongfully blames Obama and Clinton.

In a 2006 CNBC interview, Trump was asked to critique Bush’s performance in the White House. Trump immediately brought up the Iraq War:

I would like to see our president get us out of the war in Iraq because the war is a total catastrophe. I would like to see President Bush get us out of Iraq, which is a total mess, a total catastrophe, and it’s not going to get any better. It’s only going to get worse. It’s a mess.

Trump was passionate and insistent. Bush had to get the hell out of Iraq right away:

What you have to do is get out of Iraq. You can do it nicely. You can do it slowly. You can do it radically.

Trump fancied the do-it-fast approach. And he noted that a US withdrawal should proceed, even though it would precipitate more violence in the region and the worst and most violent forces would benefit. It’s almost as if Trump foresaw the rise of ISIS—but didn’t believe that this mattered for the United States:

I would announce that we have been victorious in Iraq and all the troops are coming home and let those people have their civil war. And, by the way, no matter if we stay or if we leave, the most vicious person that you’ve ever seen in your—. Saddam Hussein is going to be like a nice guy compared to the one who’s taking over Iraq. Somebody will take over Iraq, whether we’re there or not, but probably when we leave, will take over Iraq. He will make Saddam Hussein…He will make Saddam Hussein look like a baby.

In his characteristic manner, Trump did not mince his words and he reiterated his solution:

I just said, announce victory, get them home…Let’s say, “Victory, Tremendous.” Have a big thing in the streets. Then get out real fast before you get shot. Let’s get home…Hey, hate us over there. Now how, how, do you—. The people that like us hate us. Those are the good ones. Then you have the double hate where they wanna just shoot us. But how do you solve that problem? You got to get out of Iraq.

Trump was clear at the time: The United States had to remove its troops, even if that would cause a civil war and a dramatic expansion of violence and terror in Iraq and the region. Now he denounces Obama and Clinton, who were not in charge of US foreign policy at that time, for supposedly implementing the policy he demanded. By Trump’s own standards—sarcastic or not—he is at least an honorary founder of ISIS.

Watch Trump take the exact position he now slams as “naive” and an example of “bad judgment”:

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In 2006 Interview, Trump Demanded US Troops Leave Iraq—Even if Chaos and ISIS-Like Violence Occurred

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Meet the People Trying to Prevent Minority Voters From Bailing on Trump

by FlorPilgrim353 Posted on August 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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With less than 100 days to go until the election, the Donald Trump campaign will officially launch its outreach effort to black voters on Sunday at a church in Charlotte, North Carolina. For some of the prominent Trump backers taking part in the event, it’s the culmination of a monthslong fight to keep minority support for the Republican candidate from crumbling altogether amid a seemingly endless series of scandals that have prompted charges of racism.

The National Diversity Coalition for Trump, a group originally conceived after a contentious meeting between Trump and black ministers last year, began operations in April. The coalition, a volunteer effort that is not formally connected to the Trump campaign, is the brainchild of a handful of vocal Trump supporters. Bruce LeVell, a black businessman and Georgia delegate to the Republican National Convention, serves as the organization’s executive director. Michael Cohen, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, and Darrell Scott, a black Cleveland-area pastor, are also leaders of the group. Omarosa Manigault, a former Apprentice contestant who serves as Trump’s director of black outreach and will deliver a sermon at Sunday’s event, was vice chair of the coalition prior to joining the campaign. The group’s advisory board includes leaders of groups such as American Muslims for Trump, African-American Pastors for Trump, and Korean Americans for Trump.

Despite abysmal poll numbers, members of the coalition contest the perception that Trump is struggling among nonwhite voters. “There are a lot of minorities who are for Trump, but the media doesn’t report that,” Dahlys Hamilton, a coalition adviser and the founder of the conservative group Hispanic Patriots, says in an email. Hamilton is currently helping the group plan its Hispanic outreach strategy.

Coalition members have become some of Trump’s most reliable media surrogates, frequently making appearances on television and radio in an effort to cast the candidate in a better light. It’s not surprising that media bookers turn to them, given the dearth of prominent Trump supporters of color.

The coalition is attempting to reverse a precipitous slide in minority support for the Republican Party. After Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012, party insiders wrote an “autopsy” of the election that called for bringing more nonwhite voters into the party, and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus announced a $10 million minority outreach initiative the next year to aid in the effort. This year, polls in some states show minority support for Trump far below Romney’s numbers. (An online poll conducted by Florida International University and Adsmovil and released Wednesday found Trump with one-third the support among Latinos in Florida that Romney had.) Earlier this week, Sally Bradshaw, a longtime adviser to Jeb Bush and one of the co-authors of the autopsy, said she would leave the Republican Party rather than support Trump. “Ultimately, I could not abide the hateful rhetoric of Donald Trump and his complete lack of principles and conservative philosophy,” she told CNN.

Even within a party that has struggled to attract voters of color, Trump has seemed to go out of his way to turn off one minority group after another. First, of course, there was his wall to prevent Mexican “rapists” and drug dealers from entering the country. Then came his ban on Muslim travel, his frequent retweeting of white supremacists, skirmishes between black protesters and Trump supporters at rallies, his suggestion that a federal judge was biased because of his Mexican heritage, and, most recently, a feud with the parents of a Muslim American Army captain killed in combat in Iraq.

“There is a deliberate effort by the Clinton campaign to label him as a racist,” says Paris Dennard, a member of the coalition’s advisory board and a black outreach staffer at the White House during George W. Bush’s second term. “Hillary Clinton can only win this election by voter suppression, by stopping Republicans, independents and moderates from voting for Trump.”

Members of the coalition say Trump hasn’t been given a chance to explain how his policies will help minority communities and argue that the candidate’s racially charged rhetoric on the campaign trail does not match his behavior in private meetings. They believe his business experience, his stance on criminal justice reform, his positions against free trade and outsourcing, his call for limiting immigration, and his support of school choice will appeal to conservative nonwhite voters frustrated by the Obama presidency. (Trump’s campaign website does not list a specific justice reform platform, but the candidate has said he wants a return to “law and order,” using misleading interpretations of crime data to argue that “this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement” has caused an increase in crime.)

Changing the narrative around the Trump campaign hasn’t been an easy task. At times, the coalition has been hindered by its lack of official status in the campaign. According to NBC, when the group held its launch meeting at Trump Tower in April, members spent more time going through security than interacting with Trump. Last month, BuzzFeed reported that Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager until June, complicated the diversity coalition’s attempts to guide Trump’s minority outreach strategy when he “made the decision that the campaign would not launch outreach initiatives in favor of a broader message aimed at the entire country.” NBC notes that when the coalition met with Trump in April, Lewandowski was not in attendance.

In July, with Lewandowski gone, several members of the group spoke onstage at the Republican National Convention, and the Trump campaign has reportedly hired several staffers to work on minority outreach efforts. At a press conference last week, Trump told reporters that his campaign would hold a news conference discussing its Hispanic outreach effort sometime “over the next three weeks.” On Sunday, Manigault told NPR that the campaign has created a “76-page strategy” targeting black voters. Manigault did not respond to a request for comment.

But the outreach efforts have come against the backdrop of an exodus of minority staffers from the GOP leadership. The Republican National Committee’s director of Hispanic media relations left the organization in June amid reports that she was “uncomfortable” working with the Trump campaign. In March, the RNC’s director of African American outreach became the fourth black staffer to leave the committee in the past year, although people who know her said she didn’t leave because of Trump.

The Trump campaign has turned down numerous invitations to speak before prominent minority organizations like the NAACP, the National Association of Black and Hispanic Journalists, and the National Urban League. In June, the National Council of La Raza, one of the largest Hispanic civil rights organizations in the country, announced that it would not invite Trump to speak at its annual conference, citing his “indiscriminate vilification of an entire community.” A meeting with Hispanic community leaders in Florida has been rescheduled multiple times in the past month, and an event with Hispanic business leaders in Texas was scrapped entirely.

If recent polls are any indication, the coalition faces an uphill climb as it tries to win over minority voters. A June Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 89 percent of Hispanic voters surveyed viewed Trump negatively, suggesting that despite an ongoing debate over the accuracy of polls measuring Trump’s level of support among Latinos, it is unlikely that he will win more Latinos than the roughly 40 percent George W. Bush managed in 2004 or the 27 percent won by Romney in 2012. Among black voters, things are even worse: Last month, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll showed zero percent support for Trump among African Americans living in Ohio and Pennsylvania, key battleground states this year.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday showed Trump garnering 17 percent support among nonwhite respondents nationwide. Among black voters, Trump had just 1 percent support.

The National Diversity Coalition is unfazed by those numbers. “You can pick a poll and find what you want,” says Dennard. “There are a lot of black people that will not come out and say that they will support Donald Trump, but will pull the lever for him in November.”

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Meet the People Trying to Prevent Minority Voters From Bailing on Trump

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Four Reasons Why the Freddie Gray Case Isn’t Going Away Any Time Soon

by SalvatoreForrest Posted on August 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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In late July, Baltimore state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby dropped all remaining charges against two officers awaiting trial in the Freddie Gray case and decided not to retry a third, after a judge acquitted three other officers on all counts related to Gray’s death. The decision closed a chapter on a case that was a focal point for the Black Lives Matter movement. But although the criminal case is over, both the state’s attorney’s office and Baltimore police officers are still grappling with the consequences of the failed prosecution. Here’s how:

The six officers charged in Gray’s death will now face an internal affairs review. Led by the Montgomery County Police Department, the reviews—which can move forward now that the criminal cases have been concluded—will determine whether the officers’ actions violated department policy, and whether the officers can return to patrol duty. Such reviews can take several months to complete, however, and an analysis of cases by the Baltimore Sun found that nine of ten misconduct allegations investigated by Montgomery County Police Department do not result in officers being reprimanded. The officers will remain on paid administrative duty until the reviews are complete.

Several officers have sued Mosby for defamation and false arrest. At least five of six officers charged in Gray’s death have filed civil lawsuits against Mosby and Major Sam Cogen, the Baltimore sheriff’s commander who signed the charging documents in the case. Collectively the lawsuits seek more than $3.5 million in damages for charges including defamation, false arrest, false imprisonment, and federal civil rights violations—among their allegations is that Mosby charged the officers in order to appease Black Lives Matter protesters. They also allege that Mosby did not investigate the case as thoroughly as she had initially claimed, and that she deliberately made false statements about officers’ culpability at the press conference where she announced the charges. (Legal observers have said the chances of the suits succeeding are slim because prosecutors generally enjoy immunity from being sued, and the bar the officers’ attorneys would have to meet—showing that Mosby acted with malice—is high.)

Some people want Mosby banned from practicing law in the state of Maryland. At least two complaints have been filed against Mosby with the Maryland Attorney Grievance Commission in an effort to have her disbarred. Ralph Jaffe, who ran for a Maryland democratic US senate seat earlier this year, wrote in a recent Baltimore Sun Op-Ed that he filed a complaint last May because Mosby’s decision to “placate the liberal agitators” reflected “recklessness and a lack of judicial responsibility” and had strained the relationship between the Baltimore police department and the state’s attorney’s office. (A George Washington University law professor who filed a separate complaint against Mosby in June was previously involved in a successful effort to have a North Carolina district attorney disbarred after the failed prosecution of three Duke University athletes in a 2006 rape case.)

The Baltimore police union nearly doubled its membership dues this year to cover legal expenses for the officers charged in Gray’s death. The local Fraternal Order of Police spent around $800,000 last year on legal fees—the vast majority on the Gray case—and was “quickly becoming insolvent” as a result, FOP president Gene Ryan said. Although charges have been dropped and related expenses are expected to fall sharply, according to Ryan the union will continue collecting the increased dues as a precaution against future “malicious prosecution” of other officers by Mosby’s office.

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Four Reasons Why the Freddie Gray Case Isn’t Going Away Any Time Soon

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