Year: 2010

ABC: 16-Year-Old Starbucks Barista Sues Over ‘Sex Demands’ at Work

Posted on by TL

From ABC:

An "alarmingly high" number of high school students are reporting sexual advances from their adult bosses and other supervisors at some of the country’s best known fast food operations, according to an official of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

"It’s an incredibly serious problem," said Bill Cash of the EEOC in an interview to be broadcast tonight on the ABC News program "20/20."

"Employers that choose to use high school kids to work have a responsibility to protect these young people," Cash said. "We don’t want them to be fondled, we don’t want them to be raped."

According to ABC, Kati Moore of Orange County, CA claims a 24-year old supervisor at Starbucks made almost daily demands on her for sex, months after she began working as a 16-year old barista.

She said she would be summoned for sex via text messages, hundreds of them, including one that said, "I’d liked to f— tomorrow."

The young woman’s mother alerted prosecutors after she learned of the relationship. According to the ABC report, supervisors and managers at Starbuck’s knew what was happening and did nothing.

Time for a corporate statement.

Mystery Visitor to Poe’s Grave Is a No-Show

Posted on by TL

From ABC:

It is what Edgar Allan Poe might have called "a mystery all insoluble": Every year for the past six decades, a shadowy visitor would leave roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac on Poe’s grave on the anniversary of the writer’s birth. This year, no one showed.

Did the mysterious "Poe toaster" meet his own mortal end? Did some kind of ghastly misfortune befall him? Will he be heard from nevermore?

"I’m confused, befuddled," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum. "I don’t know what’s going on."

The visitor’s absence this year only deepened the mystery over his identity. One name mentioned as a possibility was that of a Baltimore poet and known prankster who died in his 60s last week. But there is little or no evidence to suggest he was the man.

Happy Belated Birthday, Mr. Poe.

Obama Proposes Tough Limits On Largest Banks

Posted on by TL

From the Washington Post:

President Obama expanded his new offensive on Wall Street on Thursday, proposing rules that would impede the growth of the largest banks and bar them from making what he called "reckless" investments.

The proposal comes as the administration is shifting from its year-long effort to save financial firms toward a new willingness to confront them with explicit prohibitions on activities that fueled the economic crisis. In essence, Obama is now aiming to force the firms to choose between the federal benefits that come with being a bank and the unbridled pursuit of profits.

After opposing proposals such as hard limits on executive bonuses, the administration is embracing a tougher line — more evidence that Obama has the industry in his sights as he seeks to show Middle America that he feels its economic pain.

Obama’s plan would bar banks from making investments that are not intended to benefit customers, including the creation of proprietary investment funds solely to benefit employees and shareholders. New limits also would make it difficult for the largest banks to become any bigger, effectively stopping domestic expansion at well-known companies such as Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase.

While the proposed restrictions are narrower than the now-defunct law that segregated Wall Street trading from commercial banking for much of the 20th century, they share a similar goal: to subsidize banking — which the administration considers vital to the economy — without having taxpayers subsidize highly speculative activity.

According to the Washington Post, the bankers are not happy. This, coupled with Obama’s proposed a fee on big banks to recoup losses from the government’s $700 billion program to bail out financial firms, some bankers say they wish they could take their votes — and monetary contributions — back from Obama.

Did they think they were buying the presidency?

I heard comments disguised as reporting on Chicago’s WBBM today claiming that the drop in the stock market today is directly because of this announcement by the president.

So, did the value of the stocks of the various banks take a dip today? Then they were worth too much to begin with. A bank that is too big to fail is too big to fail. We’ve heard that so many times over the past year or so, and it’s true.

Bring it, Barry. And then bring some more.

Let Harold Washington Rest In Peace, Dan (Video)

Posted on by TL

I laughed so hard when I heard this today on WBBM. Harold Washington campaigns from beyond the grave for Dan Hynes.

Give me a break.

From the Sun-Times:

One of Chicago’s most iconic politicians, Mayor Harold Washington, surfaced from the grave Thursday to call his 1986 hiring of Gov. Quinn as city revenue director “perhaps my greatest mistake in government.”

Washington’s comments appear in a new ad by Comptroller Dan Hynes that debuted on Chicago television stations Thursday and could prove to be a defining moment in their bitter gubernatorial primary.

“I must have been blind or staggering,” Washington said in the ad, which uses archival video from a November 1987 WGN-TV interview of Washington. “I would never appoint Pat Quinn to do anything. Pat Quinn is a totally and completely undisciplined individual who thinks this government is nothing but a large easel by which he can do his PR work.”

Quinn, at that point an up-and-coming government reformer, was brought on by Washington in 1986 to clean up the city’s scandal-plagued Revenue Department. But Washington canned Quinn in June 1987, alleging that Quinn engaged in grandstanding and repeatedly ignored orders.

“He went in there like a bull in a closet, wouldn’t do what he was told, which was to put the systems in there which I had discussed thoroughly with him,” Washington said, showing flashes of anger as he spoke. “No, he thought that department was a PR plantation, and he didn’t do his work. He was dismissed. He should have been dismissed. My only regret is that we hired him and kept him too long.”

The ad’s emergence caused Quinn’s gubernatorial campaign to go into major damage control, quickly issuing a lengthy statement that disputed Washington’s assertion Quinn was dismissed and asserted the late mayor is “spinning in his grave today.”

Quinn’s camp also ridiculed Hynes’ use of Washington’s image when the comptroller’s father, Tom Hynes, left the Democratic Party to mount an unsuccessful, third-party bid to unseat Washington in 1987.

“It is outrageous that Dan Hynes is now invoking the name of Mayor Harold Washington in a blatant maneuver to mislead voters. That Dan Hynes would use a 24-year-old news clip of a beloved figure to attack Gov. Quinn shows there is no limit to his negative campaigning. There also is no limit to his hypocrisy,” Quinn spokeswoman Elizabeth Austin said in a statement.

This is insane.

Dan, Pat, I could give a care how bad you think the other guy is. Tell us what you bring to the job, not what the other guy lacks.

For the record, Harold Washington and Pat Quinn reconciled, and Quinn supported Washington after the events referenced in the commercial. It’s politics. That’s all.

That having been said, I’m voting for Quinn. I like both of them, but I like Pat Quinn for governor more.

Preckwinkle Tops in New Tribune Poll; Todd Stroger Comes In Fourth

Posted on by TL
Toni Preckwinkle

From NBC 5 Chicago:

Chicago Ald. Toni Preckwinkle has surged to a significant lead in the Democratic primary for Cook County Board president as she has become better known and liked among suburban voters, a Tribune/WGN-TV poll shows.

Board President Todd Stroger fell to last place among the four candidates, his support dropping to 11 percent from 14 percent six weeks ago.

The Chicago Tribune adds more:

Board President Todd Stroger fell to last place among the four candidates, his support dropping to 11 percent from 14 percent six weeks ago.

During that time, Preckwinkle supplanted Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown as the front-runner with the support of 36 percent of likely Democratic voters, up from 20 percent, the poll found. Brown, who held a lead last month built upon her name recognition, fell from 29 percent to 24 percent.

Metropolitan Water Reclamation District President Terrence O’Brien rose to 16 percent from 11 percent in the December poll.

The survey of 503 likely Democratic primary voters, conducted Jan. 16-20, found only 12 percent undecided in the contest, putting the onus on Preckwinkle’s opponents to use the final days of the campaign to try to take support away from her. The survey’s error margin was 4.4 percentage points.

I like what I hear of Preckwinkle, although I have to admit her attack ads on Dorothy Brown for holding jeans days to raise money for charity is stupid, stupid, stupid. Many schools, companies and governmental bodies hold jeans days and give the money to charity. It’s a healthy practice and good for morale. Preckwinkle needs to stop these ads already. They’re nothing but silly.

That having been said, understanding that so during elections just becomes infantile, I’m still leaning toward voting for Preckwinkle.

NYTimes: The Supreme Court’s Blow to Democracy

Posted on by TL

From the New York Times:

With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.

Congress must act immediately to limit the damage of this radical decision, which strikes at the heart of democracy.

As a result of Thursday’s ruling, corporations have been unleashed from the longstanding ban against their spending directly on political campaigns and will be free to spend as much money as they want to elect and defeat candidates. If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.

The ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission radically reverses well-established law and erodes a wall that has stood for a century between corporations and electoral politics. (The ruling also frees up labor unions to spend, though they have far less money at their disposal.)

The founders of this nation warned about the dangers of corporate influence. The Constitution they wrote mentions many things and assigns them rights and protections — the people, militias, the press, religions. But it does not mention corporations.

The Times is right. If Congress does not act, your vote will be meaningless. You are a person. A corporation is not. Corporations will now be able to give as much money as they want to any and all politicians.

This is incredibly insane.

Olbermann: U.S. Government Completely For Sale

Posted on by TL

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

With no limits on campaign financing, corporations will take over the government.

I was flabbergasted by the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which overruled two precedents: Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a 1990 decision that upheld restrictions on corporate spending to support or oppose political candidates, and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, a 2003 decision that upheld the part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that restricted campaign spending by corporations and unions, the New York Times said today.

The ramifications of this are incredible. Everything Keith Olbermann says in the video above is true. Sometimes Keith overreacts. Not this time.

I didn’t get a chance to listen to Thom Hartmann today, but I’m sure he was beside himself. Hartmann has been arguing for a long, long time that corporations are not people. He’s right. A corporation is a legal entity which exists on paper only. The First Amendment should not apply at all, but it was the First Amendment which persuaded five of nine justices otherwise.

This is incredibly unnerving. The New York Times editorial board is correct: "Congress must act immediately to limit the damage of this radical decision, which strikes at the heart of democracy."

Would You Kill For Drew Peterson?

Posted on by TL

Drew Peterson’s stepbrother, Thomas Morphey (left), took the stand Thursday in a hearing to decide whether prosecutors can use ‘hearsay’ evidence.

I shudder just to write that headline. Hearing a question like that from someone I’m close to would really give me pause.

Drew Peterson allegedly said something like that to his stepbrother.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

A day before Stacy Peterson vanished, Drew Peterson confided that his fourth wife was seeking a divorce — then asked a startling question, Thomas Morphey testified Thursday.

“How much do you love me?” Peterson asked, according to Morphey, his stepbrother. “Enough to kill for me?”

Their Oct. 27, 2007, conversation left Morphey shaken — and convinced that Peterson was planning to kill his 23-year-old wife, Morphey said.

Those fears grew a day later when Drew Peterson asked for help in moving a 3 1/2-foot-tall blue barrel out of his Bolingbrook home, particularly when Morphey picked up one end of the 140-pound container.

“It felt warm,” said Morphey, whose courtroom statements closely followed information he provided in an exclusive 2008 interview that ran in the Chicago Sun-Times. He said in that interview he believes Stacy Peterson’s body was in the plastic container he helped Peterson carry out of the house on Oct. 28, 2007.

The Sun-Times reports that Morphey acknowledged he was so upset by his actions that he took an overdose of prescription drugs the next day in a suicide attempt. He said he was contacted by police investigators after being released from the hospital and provided them information about Peterson’s alleged actions.

Innocent until proven guilty, and I hope the court does everything possible to ensure this is a fair trial.

Because it’s going to be incredibly ugly.

More here at the Sun-Times.

Nepal Charter To Grant Gay Rights

Posted on by TL

From HindustanTimes.com:

Like most people in love Tripti Shah and Darshana Thapa (names changed) want to get married and start a family. But unlike most they will have to wait some more time to get legal recognition for their union.

In less than five months Nepal will have a new constitution that will be the first in Asia to guarantee equal rights to sexual minorities. And once that happens, Tripti and Darshana, a lesbian couple, can formally wed.

The couple in their 20s was thrown out of Nepal Army nearly three years ago due to their sexual orientation—albeit ‘disciplinary ground’ was cited as the reason for their removal.

The majority of Nepal’s population is Hindu.  The Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama was born there.

In Response To The Anti-Gay Cartoon In Notre Dame’s Observer

Posted on by TL

First, a word from the president … of the University of Notre Dame:

The Jan. 13 issue of the University of Notre Dame’s student newspaper The Observer included a cartoon that was inappropriate and offensive.

“The University denounces the implication that violence or expressions of hate toward any person or group of people is acceptable or a matter that should be taken lightly,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president.

In accordance with Notre Dame’s Spirit of Inclusion, a formal statement adopted by the officers of the University in 1997, at Notre Dame “we prize the uniqueness of all persons as God’s creatures” and welcome " all people, regardless of color, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social or economic class, and nationality."

Further, “we value gay and lesbian members of this community as we value all members of this community. We condemn harassment of any kind” and “we consciously create an environment of mutual respect, hospitality and warmth in which none are strangers and all may flourish.”

The University respects The Observer’s status as an independent, student-run newspaper and appreciates that the editorial staff has issued an apology in its January 15th issue and that the cartoon’s authors also have expressed their regret. Notre Dame administrators will work with the Observer staff, as they say in their editorial, to “move forward, and….to promote…a culture of acceptance and support for all.”

In the wake of the publication of this cartoon, which has been widely covered in the media, all I could think was "here we go again." Certainly Fr. Jenkins’ words are welcome, especially when he says, “we value gay and lesbian members of this community as we value all members of this community. We condemn harassment of any kind” and “we consciously create an environment of mutual respect, hospitality and warmth in which none are strangers and all may flourish.” But as a Catholic institution, Notre Dame can only go so far.

Face it.

Please understand, this is not a slam at Catholicism. I do not believe Catholicism is limited to the Vatican, which many in the media seem to believe. All religions is local, to paraphrase former Speaker of the House Thomas "Tip" O’Neil. Church is what happens when I go to my parish and worship with my community. Our Catholic parish is open to all.

But Notre Dame is a bit more "on the map" than my parish is in the south suburbs of Chicago. As a Domer, I appreciate Fr. Jenkins words, but he needs to go much further. What does that mean? For that, I defer to Tom O’Brien ‘86, Michael August ‘96, Steven Saftig ’03, and Liam Dacey ‘04, officers of the Gay and Lesbian Alumni/ae of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College (GALA-ND/SMC):

As officers of the Gay and Lesbian Alumni/ae of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College (GALA-ND/SMC) for the past two years, we have encountered people on campus who disagree with us on many issues. What we have not encountered from the student body, faculty, or administration is the lack of respect evidenced by the publication of this hateful cartoon from other members of the Notre Dame community.

This is not a question of free speech. If the editors weren’t concerned with community standards, they wouldn’t have rejected the first version of the cartoon. No, the decision to publish it demonstrates a serious lack of judgment and lack of commitment to the Catholic belief in human dignity and stance against violence.
We know that the cartoon does not reflect the feelings of a majority of the people on the ND campus; and we have been heartened by many of the responses appearing in the Observer. But this will hurt the university unless it is clear that Notre Dame does not tolerate violence against any members of its community.

The author and editors seem to have missed the point of a Catholic education if they cannot see that LGBT students, faculty, staff and alumni are indeed members of the Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s family and should be treated as such.

We make every attempt to share with people outside of campus the positive steps being made to improve the lives of the LGBT community at ND and SMC. Sometimes this takes convincing, even with our own membership. The publication of the cartoon is a prime example of why Notre Dame ranks first in The Princeton Review’s list of the most unwelcoming campuses for gay and lesbian students. The noise being generated by this will drown out any good news about the work being done by the students, faculty and Core Council. That’s not good news if you care about our university’s reputation.

The administration needs to take the lead in responding by holding panel discussions with the Observer, the faculty and the student body. GALA’s more-than-900 members are ready to join with the rest of the Notre Dame community in stating that the free flow of ideas can only occur if we respect each other.

Tom O’Brien ‘86, Michael August ‘96, Steven Saftig ’03, and Liam Dacey ‘04
GALA ND/SMC Officers

It’s time for Notre Dame to bring that respect to life. Fr. Jenkins and the University of Notre Dame Trustees need to step up.