Tag: corruption

He told on ‘badge bending’ and was fired. Now, former Vallejo cop will get nearly $1 million

A former police captain who alleges in a lawsuit that he was fired for whistleblowing on his colleagues and exposing corruption within the Vallejo Police Department will receive nearly $1 million in a settlement with the city.

John Whitney and his attorney, Jayme Walker, agreed to the settlement last week, in which the city will be required to pay Whitney $900,000 as well as all costs, liens and attorney fees.

“I feel vindicated by the settlement agreement because of the amount,” Whitney told The Times in an interview Monday. “You don’t settle for nearly $1 million if you did everything correct.”

Whitney alleges in a lawsuit filed against the city and his former employers in 2020 that he was fired after he told Vallejo City Manager Greg Nyhoff, Mayor Bob Sampayan and then-City Atty. Claudia Quintana that members of the Police Department were bending the corners of their badges to commemorate every time an officer killed a civilian.

Keep reading

Like other ‘antiracist’ activists, Ibram X. Kendi proves he’s only in it for himself

The real measure of an individual’s character isn’t what he portrays to the public but how he treats people in private.

Truly righteous people treat others with respect and dignity when there is no one else around and no social credit to be earned for doing the right thing.

This distinction matters — especially for people who’ve made a career lecturing others on the appropriate way to treat people, especially those perceived as having less power in society.

But when no one was looking and nothing was to be gained, it seems Ibram X. Kendi used his power and privilege as the director of a think tank to exploit and mistreat the people who worked under him as if they were people who are beneath him.

Amid confirmation of layoffs being made at Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, former and current faculty have spoken out about Kendi’s mismanagement, “exploitation” and enrichment.

“There are a number of ways it got to this point, it started very early on when the university decided to create a center that rested in the hands of one human being, an individual given millions of dollars and so much authority,” stated Spencer Piston, a BU political science professor. 

Keep reading

Hunter Biden Sues His Dad’s Government For ‘Embarrassing’ And ‘Targeting’ Him

Attorneys for Hunter Biden on Monday filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging the Internal Revenue Service “targeted and sought to embarrass” their client by mishandling its investigation into his tax returns and, ironically, cited testimony by whistleblowers they once threatened with legal action.

Biden’s lawsuit, according to Fox News, accused the IRS of “willfully, knowingly, and/or by gross negligence, unlawfully disclosing Mr. Biden’s confidential tax information.” The suit cites testimony by IRS career bureaucrats Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, two whistleblowers who have claimed the agency’s handling of the investigation was ripe with political interference culminating in a sweetheart deal that would have resulted in no prison time for the son of President Joe Biden.

In addition, Biden is seeking $1,000 in compensation for “each and every unauthorized disclosure of his tax returns” which occurred as the case gained notoriety and was further investigated by House Republicans who demanded documentation from the IRS as they sought to tie President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland to the case.

Keep reading

Hyping Ukraine Counteroffensive, US Press Chose Propaganda Over Journalism

It has been clear for some time that US corporate news media have explicitly taken a side on the Ukraine War. This role includes suppressing relevant history of the lead-up to the war (FAIR.org, 3/4/22), attacking people who bring up that history as “conspiracy theorists” (FAIR.org, 5/18/22), accepting official government pronouncements at face value (FAIR.org, 12/2/22) and promoting an overly rosy picture of the conflict in order to boost morale.

For most of the war, most of the US coverage has been as pro-Ukrainian as Ukraine’s own media, now consolidated under the Zelenskyy government (FAIR.org, 5/9/23). Dire predictions sporadically appeared, but were drowned out by drumbeat coverage portraying a Ukrainian army on the cusp of victory, and the Russian army as incompetent and on the verge of collapse.

Triumphalist rhetoric soared in early 2023, as optimistic talk of a game-changing “spring offensive” dominated Ukraine coverage. Apparently delayed, the Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in June. While even US officials did not believe that it would amount to much, US media papered over these doubts in the runup to the campaign.

Over the last three months, it has become clear that the Ukrainian military operation will not be the game-changer it was sold as; namely, it will not significantly roll back the Russian occupation and obviate the need for a negotiated settlement. Only after this became undeniable did media report on the true costs of war to the Ukrainian people.

Keep reading

Operation Underground Railroad spent years downplaying criminal investigation

FOX 13 News was the first to report in 2020 the Davis County Attorney’s Office opened a criminal investigation into Tim Ballard and the non-profit organization he founded, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR).

Now that at least a portion of that investigation has concluded, there’s still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the focus of that case.

An article from VICE News published Friday morning gives a small snapshot, citing information about Ballard receiving “psychic readings” and communicating with the prophet Nephi.

Records show President M. Russell Ballard, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was at least peripherally involved in the criminal investigation.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints released a statement to FOX 13 News on Friday, citing betrayal and “morally unacceptable” behavior from Tim Ballard.

Tim Ballard is not related to President M. Russell Ballard.

As FOX 13 News first reported in 2020, the investigation began with questions about money. Sources close to the investigation say it centered around potential charges of communications fraud and witness tampering.

Keep reading

Just The Tip: AP Gave Dem Porn-Wife Heads-Up Before WaPo Scoop, Allowing Her To Delete Videos

Democratic Virginia political candidate Susanna Gibson, who was outed by the Washington Post for performing sex acts online for cash – and instead of owning up to it cried ‘sex crime!‘, was actually tipped off a week earlier by the Associated Press, which didn’t run the story – allowing her to delete videos before the WaPo piece hit, according to the Daily Wire‘s Luke Rosiak.

Gibson, a 40-year-old nurse practitioner and mother of two, streamed various sex acts on ‘Chaturbate,’ where more than a dozen videos of she and her husband were archived on a publicly available site, Recurbate, in September 2022 after she entered the race. The most recent were two videos archived Sept. 30, 2022, however it’s unclear when the live stream occurred.

Rosiak also reports that Gibson’s online sex acts could have exposed her to prostitution charges, lawyers say.

Virginia law states that “any person who, for money or its equivalent … engages in sexual intercourse” or other sexual acts with another person “is guilty of prostitution, which is punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.”

Shawn M. Cline, a former prosecutor and defense attorney in Virginia Beach who represents people charged with sex crimes, said in his view it’s a “chargeable offense.”

“The statute is very clear, you cannot for money or its equivalent perform sex acts,” Cline told The Daily Wire. “It doesn’t matter who’s paying for the act, if it’s an observer or the recipient. You can’t receive money.”

“It would definitely be a chargeable offense,” Cline said. -Daily Wire

What’s more, she could be busted for deliberately causing hotel workers to see her performing sex acts.

Keep reading

Dr. Robert Redfield Comes Clean On Government Censorship

“My position was just tell the American public the truth. There are side effects to vaccines. Tell them the truth and don’t try to package it.”

That was Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control during the administration of Donald Trump.

Dr. Redfield recently went on record that the government health bureaucracy tried to quash discussion about the ineffectiveness of Covid vaccines.

“There was such an attempt to not let anybody get any hint that maybe vaccines weren’t foolproof, which, of course, we now know they have significant limitations,” said Redfield, who co-founded the University of Maryland’s Institute of Human Virology and served as the Chief of Infectious Diseases and Vice Chair of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

“I think we should have really confidence and not be afraid to debate the issues that we think are in the public’s interest and just tell the public the truth,” said the former CDC director. This wasn’t the first time Dr. Redfield had been at odds with the government health establishment.

“I’m of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathology in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped,” Redfield told CNN in 2021.

“Other people don’t believe that. That’s fine. Science will eventually figure it out.”

After these statements, as Vanity Fair reported, “death threats flooded his inbox,” some from prominent scientists.

“I was threatened and ostracized because I proposed another hypothesis,” Redfield explained.

“I expected it from politicians. I didn’t expect it from science.”

The people might expect the FBI to investigate death threats against a public official, but reports of any such investigation are hard to find.

Keep reading

‘Betrayal’: How Biden Adviser Anita Dunn and SKDK Played Both Sides in Sexual Harassment Case

One of President Joe Biden’s most trusted advisers is under fire amid revelations that she helped guide former Illinois House speaker Michael Madigan (D.) through a sexual harassment scandal while her firm was working with a #MeToo advocacy group representing one of Madigan’s accusers.

Anita Dunn, who has been described as Biden’s “brawler-in-chief,” in 2018 and 2019 helped Madigan to respond to allegations that he retaliated against campaign staffer Alaina Hampton, who accused a top Madigan aide of sexual harassment. Hampton claimed she was blacklisted from working on other political campaigns after filing the complaint. Madigan’s campaign paid $200,000 to Dunn’s firm, SKDK, to respond to allegations from the lawsuit, according to NPR. At the same time, Madigan’s accuser was working with SKDK and a legal defense fund bankrolled by Time’s Up, an advocacy group for victims of sexual harassment.

It’s the latest example of Dunn, considered a feminist icon in Washington, quietly working for politically connected clients accused of sexual misconduct. In 2017, Dunn was revealed to have advised disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein after several actresses accused him of rape.

In addition to Dunn’s work for the Biden administration, her husband, Bob Bauer, is a personal attorney for the president. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

“Betrayal” is how Hampton in an interview with NPR described Dunn’s actions.

“I don’t know Anita Dunn, and I hope I never will,” Hampton said. “But I would question her on her values and integrity, and I would ask her how she can credibly claim her commitment to women’s rights and issues.”

While it is unclear exactly what services Dunn provided Madigan, emails obtained by NPR indicate she provided advice for an op-ed that Madigan wrote in September 2018 for the Chicago Tribune. The then-speaker wrote that he should have “acted sooner” to address sexual harassment allegations at his office.

Keep reading

The E In EPA Certainly Isn’t For ‘Ethics’

If President Biden is serious about finding a renewable energy source, he should look down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA’s door revolves fast enough to power the nation for decades, with the rate of spin exceeded only by the attempts to provide cover over possible ethics missteps.

Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) has developed an extensive file of probable ethics violations by senior EPA officials. Many of these violations appear to occur because the EPA has ignored or sidestepped rules governing “the revolving door” between government and the private sector, though they certainly don’t stop there. As our Ethics Waiver Report demonstrated, the Biden Administration has perfected the practice of recruiting appointees from the universe of aligned environmental activist groups, state agencies, and universities. The inevitable conflicts of interest are buried under a blizzard of ethics waivers and then, after putting in enough time to learn the federal ropes, some go back to more lucrative and senior positions outside.

For example, Casey Katims joined EPA from Washington State where he worked for Governor Jay Inslee, who helped create the U.S. Climate Alliance (USCA). As EPA’s deputy associate administrator for intergovernmental relations, Katims kept extremely close relations with USCA and eventually left EPA to join it as executive director.

Melissa Hoffer departed the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office to become acting General Counsel at EPA, where she was given a waiver to participate in 37 pending matters involving Massachusetts. When she left the EPA, she ignored her obligation to timely advise the ethics office of negotiations to rejoin Massachusetts government as its first-ever “Climate Czar.” That failure is likely a violation of the Stock Act (a criminal statute) – inexcusable for a senior lawyer with Hoffer’s experience and responsibilities. It was made worse by the career agency ethics official, Justina Fugh, designated to enforce the rules. Sadly, this is far from the only incident in which Ms. Fugh appears to have played a central role in moving the goalposts to thwart violations from landing on senior officials.

Keep reading

White House urges news orgs to “ramp up scrutiny” of Biden impeachment efforts

The White House on Wednesday emailed the leaders of several major news organizations, including Axios, arguing the media needs to “ramp up its scrutiny” of House Republicans’ efforts to impeach President Biden.

Why it matters: The White House argues that the media’s reporting about incremental updates on the impeachment inquiry process over the substance of the inquiry “is woefully inadequate when it comes to something as historically grave as impeachment.”

Catch up quick: The letter follows an announcement from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday in which he declared he would direct House committees to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

  • The move is a reversal of McCarthy’s previous remarks that a probe could only be launched with a House vote.

Keep reading