A Manhattan judge ruled Wednesday that there’s nothing “outrageous” about throwing the president’s supporters out of bars — because the law doesn’t protect against political discrimination.
Philadelphia accountant Greg Piatek, 31, was bounced from a West Village watering hole in January 2017, just after Trump took the oath of office, for wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap, according to his lawsuit over the incident.
“Anyone who supports Trump — or believes in what you believe — is not welcome here! And you need to leave right now because we won’t serve you!” Piatek claims the staff of The Happiest Hour on West 10th Street told him after he and his pals complained about the rude service they were getting from a bartender.
So he sued in Manhattan Supreme Court, claiming the incident “offended his sense of being American.”
But on Wednesday, when the bar’s lawyer, Elizabeth Conway, pointed out that only religious, and not political, beliefs are protected under state and city discrimination laws, saying, “supporting Trump is not a religion” — Piatek pivoted.
“The purpose of the hat is that he wore it because he was visiting the 9/11 Memorial,” his attorney Paul Liggieri told Justice David Cohen in court Wednesday.
“He was paying spiritual tribute to the victims of 9/11. The Make American Great Again hat was part of his spiritual belief,” Liggieri claimed. Piatek and his pals had, in fact, visited the memorial before the bar.
“Rather than remove his hat, instead he held true to his spiritual belief and was forced from the bar,” Liggieri said.
When the judge asked how the bar employees were supposed to be aware of Piatek’s unusual religious beliefs, Liggieri answered, “They were aware he was wearing the hat.”
The judge pressed Liggieri on the idea of his client’s professed creed.
Piatek doing his best Trump impressionAngel Chevrestt
“How many members are in this spiritual program that your client is engaged in?” the judge asked.
“Your honor, we don’t allege the amount of individuals,” Liggieri said.
“So, it’s a creed of one?” the judge asked.
“Yes, your honor,” Liggieri replied.
After nearly an hour of argument the judge took a short break and then returned to the bench with his ruling.
“Plaintiff does not state any faith-based principle to which the hat relates,” Cohen said in tossing the case.
Piatek had sued for unspecified emotional damages, but the judge said the incident amounted to nothing more than a “petty” slight.
“Here the claim that plaintiff was not served and eventually escorted out of the bar because of his perceived support for President Trump is not outrageous conduct,” the judge ruled.
Liggieri said he plans to review the decision to determine whether or not to appeal.
I threw people out of my bars/restaurants for all kinds of reasons. Mostly for becoming a disturbance to the rest of my patrons or being disrespectful to my staff.
Spiritual Trumpism is dubious at best and attempting to defend it in court is a waste of resources.
One day the concept of Mutual Respect may come back into fashion. A citizens duty to defend people with whom they disagree is requisite in a free society.
Female veterans are almost twice as likely to kill themselves as civilian women.
Pfc. Nichole Bowen-Crawford said she was walking to lunch on her Army base near Nasiriyah, Iraq, in 2003 when she received her daily proposition from a passing fellow soldier.
“Hey, Bowen,” the officer tossed out, “let’s go f— in the bunker.”
Bowen-Crawford told VOA that while this was the most shocking example of the day-to-day regimen of verbal sexual harassment she experienced while in the Army between 2001-2004, it was not her worst experience — she had been assaulted by a higher-ranking sergeant earlier that year.
When she reported the incident to a male supervisor, she was advised to stay quiet for the sake of her career.
Ummm… No Pfc. Nichole Bowen-Crawford I do not believe you. An “officer” that said such a thing to anyone let alone a Private would find his and or her ass in deep shit. The probability that an Officer cares less about their “career” than a Private does is nonsense.
“Certainly a mental health diagnosis like PTSD is a risk factor for suicide,” said Megan McCarthy, VA deputy director of suicide prevention. “Certainly, there’s some evidence that experiencing MST (Military Sexual Trauma) is associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors, so those that have experienced MST are more likely to think about suicide and possibly more likely to attempt suicide.”
McCarthy told VOA that the relationship between suicide and trauma is complex. The VA’s own research has shown that veterans who experience MST tend to be at higher risk for suicide. A 2016 VA survey of 60,000 veterans found that more than 41 percent of female veterans had experienced sexual harassment.
Quoting, “The VA’s own research…” does not add any credibility to the matter. We have seen so many of these Posturing for Profit studies its hard to believe anything they report.
Women are not experiencing increased Sexual Harassment in the military. That is simply not true. Does it happen? Sadly, yes it does. What women in the military are experiencing is a lowering of the bar for what defines sexual harassment.
How about one of those fancy studies to determine how many times during a woman’s career they use their sexuality for their own benefit. Find me in a drunken stooper and I can give you a dozen examples off the top of my head.
How about another one of those fancy studies to determine how many times some woman makes false claims.
How about “they” do a study to see what the effects of making every veteran in the country a victim of something are and what that is doing to us as a Nation.
You can read the rest of this Posturing for Profit nonsense at the link below.
The news came the same day that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced that the military has already begun delivering countermeasures to the southern border.
The caravan, which has included as many as 7,200 people and is currently approximately 1,000 miles from the closest border crossing with the U.S., has become a major issue with less than two weeks before the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
Note that number: up to 7,200 people, not the 17,000s that were indicated elsewhere. This need to exaggerate is one of the worst characteristics of the lefterd media’s bad reporting.
The trekkers are doing about 30 miles a day now, and Hurricane Willa was threatening to exploit their difficulties by making landfall, but dwindled to a moisture source for the next USA Nor’easter.
Check Accuweather or the National Weather Service for updates on Pacific storms off the southwestern shores.
Per the article: The Mexican government says more than 1,700 people in the caravan have applied for asylum and that other people have gone home, Reuters reported on Saturday. Honduras, according to the report, says that 4,500 Honduran citizens trying to leave have recently come back to the Central American country. In addition, Reuters reports that the government of Mexico has offered jobs to some of these people but that has been turned down. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-caravan/central-american-caravan-moves-on-in-spite-of-mexico-jobs-offer-idUSKCN1N10Q8
Well, so much for the “good neighbor” thing. They get offers of jobs and say ‘No’, or they give up and go home, and they will meet with barriers set up by the U.S. military when they get to the US/Mexico border.
To summarize it: the various reports of numbers, from 8,000 to 17,000, were incorrect from the get-go. It was about 4,000 at the start, then grew to 10,000 and then drew down to the current 7,200 count. Jobs were offered to them in Mexico and were refused. Some 4,500 Hondurans have given up and gone home to Honduras. And you’ll find in the article that when someone asked the marchers to wait their turn for the sandwiches and water being handed out, those ungrateful twerps chased him and beat him up.
Nice people. My neighbors don’t act like that. They are civilized.
Raye Montague, a trailblazing black woman from Arkansas who revolutionized the way the U.S. Navy designed ships, has died. She was 83.
Montague, who had a 33-year career in the Navy, developed a computer program that created rough drafts of ship specifications. She told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2012 that the program allowed the Navy to cut the time it took to build a ship’s draft design from two years to 18 hours and 26 minutes.
The newspaper reports she died Wednesday at a hospital in Little Rock. Her son, David Montague, says his mother died of congestive heart failure.
Raye Montague, a civilian engineer, fought discrimination during her career. When a co-worker wouldn’t show her how to operate a computer, she taught herself.
A remarkable story of success against the odds. I hope you get the time to follow the link.
Charles Clymer, a transgender man now known as Charlotte, has filed a formal discrimination complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights after a Washington restaurant asked him to show his ID before entering a woman’s bathroom. According to the attendant, the women’s bathrooms were reserved for– you got it, women.
Clymer said he was then asked to leave the restaurant after insisting on his right to use the female restroom. The police were eventually called and reportedly said the law was on Clymer’s side.
After the incident, Clymer took to Twitter stating, “Last night, I was told by the manager of @CubaLibreDC that I couldn’t use the women’s restroom, and after challenging his discrimination with D.C. law and responding to his threat of calling the police w/ ‘please do so’, I was forcibly removed from the restaurant.”
Last night, I was told by the manager of @CubaLibreDC that I couldn’t use the women’s restroom, and after challenging his discrimination with D.C. law and responding to his threat of calling the police w/ “please do so”, I was forcibly removed from the restaurant. (thread)
In response to Clymer’s Tweet, Washington D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser said, “I’m so sorry this happened to you. While I’m glad to hear that @DCPoliceDept were there to represent our true #DCValues, we won’t accept this type of discrimination in Washington, DC. It’s not just illegal, it’s against all we stand for.”
The following day the restaurant offered a formal apology to Clymer saying, “We are extremely sorry for the incident that occurred…” The statement went on to say, “As a rule, we support safe bathrooms and welcome guests of all gender identifications. Clearly our staff did not do so last night and treated you in an unacceptable manner. We are immediately retraining our entire staff to ensure this does not happen again.”
But that apology didn’t stop Clymer from filing a formal discrimination complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights. In a follow up Tweet, Clymer said, “I spoke with several lawyers about what justice would look like in this situation. I greatly appreciate everyone’s support, and I’ll continue to keep you updated on the resolution.”
UPDATE: Today, I filed a formal discrimination complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights and spoke with several lawyers about what justice would look like in this situation. I greatly appreciate everyone’s support, and I’ll continue to keep you updated on the resolution.
A few years ago a petition was established on Change.org to have Clymer removed as a contributor on Huffington Post. According to the creator of the petition, “Clymer has been known to ban women from the Facebook page he created and administers, Equality for Women, for seemingly just disagreeing with his point of view…”
The husband of a woman banned from Charles’ Equality for Women Facebook page wrote:
My wife, a life long feminist commented on this page months ago. Charles did not like her post. He berated her publicly and privately. He deleted her comments and banned her from posting… She started another page which served as a place where other people who had been unjustly silenced by him could come together and exercise their right to be heard. This page continued to grow, by request of more and more victims of his treatment… Today she was notified by FB that she can not post for 24 hours, and it appears that her page has been shut down. FB did not give her any warning which is the usual procedure… [Charles’] page is not about equality for women. It is about equality for women who don’t piss him off. It is highly censored.
In 2013 HuffPost ran a piece titled, Should a Man Teach Women About Feminism?. In the piece, blogger Darlena Cunha wrote, “When a man becomes a feminism advocate, and then a feminist leader, the lines become blurry…”
Cunha went on to say, “Unfortunately, many comments on Equality for Women that have been deleted are by women, and many of the people who have been banned are women. And this angered the women, as you can imagine, because now you have a man running a feminist page essentially silencing women he doesn’t agree with. And the disenchantment begins.”
So, what’s the solution?
Nah…my “disenchantment” began a long time ago. People prancing around for special attention are little more than attention whores. I could care less why they are doing it.
Wes Phills, of Brooklyn, N.Y., center, walks offstage after winning the overall award and middleweight class in the International Association of Trans Bodybuilders competition in Atlanta on Saturday. At left are fellow competitors Peter Moore, and Sandy Baird, both of Oakland, Calif., and Kennedy Conners, right, of Conyers, Ga., who took home the heavyweight trophy. (David Goldman/AP)
Competitors were judged in the categories of lightweight, middleweight, heavyweight and masters, for age 60 and over, according to five disciplines: mass, definition, proportion, symmetry and stage presence.
I thought the Navy was all about the water.
It’s been 20 years since Charles Bennett took the stage to compete in bodybuilding. But at the age of 63, he’s now done something he’s never done before — compete as a man for the first time in what’s billed as the world’s only transgender bodybuilding competition.
The competition has attracted bodybuilders from across the country and even Russia since it began in 2014, according to executive director and head judge Bucky Motter.
Competitors were judged in the categories of lightweight, middleweight, heavyweight and masters, for age 60 and over, according to five disciplines: mass, definition, proportion, symmetry and stage presence.
Bennett had the most experience of those on stage, and saw his role as more coach than competitor, helping others practice their poses backstage. He also offered diet tips, shared his preshow rituals and helped Peter Moore of Oakland, California, apply fake tan, his hand running over the scars where Moore had his breasts removed when he transitioned to male two years ago.
Color me skeptical but I do not believe that 1 in 25 male Sailors have been sexually assaulted. The issue here is what criteria are they using to define sexual assault. To some, anyone who questions the results of these kinds of studies is supporting a rape culture.
A sailor from Navy Expeditionary Combat Command carries a pair of shoes, painted teal to symbolize victims of sexual assault, as she participates in the Aug. 25 “Walk a Mile in Their Shoes” command event at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Lisa Reese/Navy)
Across the services, the safest places to work were at the Pentagon or other national capital region headquarters buildings, according to the report.
The Pentagon released the data on Friday as part of a much-anticipated report, that for the first time looks at the likelihood of sexual assault on a military installation or ship and ranks them by service.
The rankings were commissioned by the Defense Department and aim to help military officials to better identify the risk factors for sexual assault and how to most effectively deploy prevention and response efforts.
It is based on 2014 data that was gathered through more than 170,000 surveys of active-duty service members collected by the RAND Corporation. Because of the five-year time lag, defense officials said the rankings do not reflect what the most dangerous bases are today. The study faced other limitations too, such as that assaults reported that were linked to a base could have occurred off-base or off-ship, such as while on liberty or leave. But the information is still jarring:
NAVY
The risk for sexual assault was highest for men and women aboard the Navy’s ships. For men, “all but one of Navy men’s highest-risk installations are ships or clusters of ships, including five aircraft carriers.” For women, of the 15 installations with highest risk for women, “13 are ships or clusters of ships, including eight of the ten aircraft carriers.”
In one stunning example, RAND found that “on one of these ships, we estimate that close to one in every 25 men was sexually assaulted in FY 2014.”
But RAND won’t name the ship, saying it was trying to respect the anonymity of the respondents. In the survey, RAND eliminated ships and bases with fewer than 50 survey responses, or with ship or base populations of less than 100 personnel.
For Navy women, ships were particularly dangerous, according to the report.
“Our model estimates that more than 10 percent of all women experienced a sexual assault at each of these high-risk installations over a one-year period, and more than 15 percent of all women were assaulted at two of them,” the report found.
For both men and women, Navy ships assigned to the FPO code 96671 — which based on Navy data includes cruisers Champlain and Lake Erie, submarines Louisiana and Louisville, and destroyer William P. Lawrence — “are associated with risk more than 100 percent greater than the average installation-specific risk in the Navy,” RAND found.
Navy officials did not receive an advanced copy of the RAND report but told Military Times that they look forward to working with the think tank on future surveys.
“We are aware of the 2016 RAND Military Workplace Study Survey, and we value the approaches that RAND takes to cutting edge research,” the officials said in a written statement emailed to Military Times.
“The Navy has further engaged with RAND to help us take a closer look at the conclusions of this report by conducting follow-on projects to provide more actionable information about where sexual assault risk is highest and lowest in the Navy.
“This information will be vital to us in determining where and how to target training, prevention and response resources. We take sexual assault seriously and specifically want to understand the ‘why’ presented by the data. Identifying protective and risk factors is essential to mitigating the risk of sexual assault for our sailors.”
ARMY
Fort Drum in upstate New York was one of the most dangerous places for both Army men and women in terms of risk of sexual assault.
For Army women, the top five locations in terms of risk of sexual assault included Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Osan Air Base, Korea; Fort Drum; Okinawa, Japan; and Fort Riley, Kansas.
For men, the top five locations with the highest risk were located in Italy; at Fort Myer, Virginia; Fort Benning, Georgia; Fort Drum; and Rose Barracks, Germany.
“While the lowest-risk installations for men are dominated by small, command or support installations, the highest-risk list includes many installations with a more prominent combat unit presence,” the study found.
For the Army, a cross section of the top 15 most dangerous bases for men and women showed that “almost half of these highest-risk installations are identical,” the study found, suggesting that location or culture at those locations could be a contributing factor that could be addressed in further study, said Nate Galbreath, director of DoD’s Sexual Assault and Prevention Office.
“The Army remains fully committed to reducing sexual assault and sexual harassment in its ranks,” the Army said in a statement to Military Times. “RAND’s risk estimates, which are based on survey data from over four years ago, may help focus ongoing efforts to combat these harmful behaviors. While prevalence rates of sexual assault among the force have declined, the Army continues to integrate and update prevention programs.”
AIR FORCE
Undergraduate pilot training bases were among the most dangerous places for both Air Force men and women for the risk for sexual assault, the report found.
For women, the top five installations in terms of risk were Vance Air Force Base, Okla.; Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas; Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma; Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi; and Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas.
For men, the top five installations in terms of risk of sexual assault were Altus Air Force Base; Laughlin Air Force Base; Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington D.C.’ Luke Air Force Base, Arizona; and Columbus Air Force Base.
MARINE CORPS
Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, in California, was one of the top five most dangerous places for male and female Marines for risk of sexual assault, the report found.
Responses for male Marines showed that the other most risky locations to be assigned included Japan, Korea, and Afghanistan.
For female Marines, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, MCAS Beaufort, MCAS New River and USMC Mobile, 3rd Marine Logistics Group were reported to have the highest risk of sexual assault.
In a statement, the Marines said more research is needed to understand whether increased risk is really tied to an installation.
“The RAND study documented differences in sexual assault risk across installations; the reasons for the variations in the levels of risk is not highlighted in this report,” said Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Craig Thomas. “There are many possible causes for differences, such as command climate, alcohol availability and price, crime rates in the surrounding civilian communities, or the transitory presence of one or more sexual offenders. Although the current study cannot identify the relationship between risk factors and risk estimates, additional research may help answer these questions.”
Working to reduce risk
Galbreath said that now that DoD has the data, it will be able to look for installations where additional steps can be taken to reduce the risk of sexual assault. For example, around 2015, at Great Lakes Naval Base near Chicago, DoD noticed a spike in sexual assault reports and decided to take a closer look.
“What the Navy found out is that, locally there, on the weekends, all of the recruits were going off base and having hotel parties. And a lot of these hotel parties involved alcohol. And a lot of those situations ended up with sailors getting sexually assaulted,” Galbreath said.
The Navy got together with area hotel owners, Galbreath said, and told them, “If you have a bunch of sailors having a party, give us a call, we’ll be there, we’ll break it up we’ll haul everybody back to base.”
With that, and training initiatives, Galbreath said, the numbers started to improve.
“Sexual assault began to fall,” Galbreath said. “So that’s the kind of local work [that can reduce risk of attack]. But there’s 270 places that we have to do that at.”
The next survey is currently getting sent to respondents now, Galbreath said, and the results should be available in April.
I do not have the time this weekend to read and research this study. I may not be a smart man but I know what bullshit smells like. Somebody or bodies are making a fortune publishing this kind of nonsense. 1 actual sexual assault is 1 too many, diluting what sexual assault is and having no means testing to verify numbers brings skepticism to the issue.
We don’t make this stuff up, there are people who do it for us. From military.com
The Close Combat Lethality Task Force is trying to identify “best-of-breed science and programs” to find young Marines and soldiers who have the right mix of physical and mental endurance to excel in close combat, according to Sgt. Maj. Jason Wilson, the senior Army enlisted representative for the task force.
WTF is a Close Combat Lethality Task Force? Do they get a Patch, Tab, Pin or some kind of Tiera? The thought of this CCLTF makes me tingle in naughty places.
“We want to be able to get those soldiers identified early, to find out, ‘Do you have the leadership potential to be in the infantry, do you have the mental stability to be able to be in the infantry’ and do they have the resilience and the mental capacity to be able to handle some of the things that they may see in the infantry — to be able to overcome that adversity and bounce back,” Wilson told a group of defense reporters Wednesday at the Pentagon.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis launched the task force in March to find ways of helping the services as well as Army Special Operations Command become more lethal at their craft.
“Close combat is an environment characterized by extreme violence within line of sight of the enemy, where historically the vast majority of military combat casualties occur,” Wilson said. “It is a tough job for anybody, to be able to … close with and destroy the enemy. … That is our purpose.”
There we have it, we need to fix this combat environment so it’s not so scary. Who wants to be so up close and personal with the enemy anyway? And, all those casualties…that is just uncalled for.
But the infantry has often been characterized as a career field that does not require high intelligence.
“We are looking to get the infantry to where it is not a place where we send soldiers that don’t have the mental capacity to do other jobs,” said Wilson, who has been an infantryman for 23 years. “I’m not saying that everybody in the infantry is bad, but we want to get away from close combat forces, you know, being a place for soldiers that don’t meet the requisite criteria to be an intel analyst.”
I have been a Platoon Sergeant in Combat Arms, you can not imagine the wasted intellectual might that hides in reserve. I had some real Einsteins in the crowd. I figured there were a couple of Ph.D.’s hidden in those Platoons. When they were not licking the urinal cakes I had them practicing the manner in which they were going to charge an enemy machine gun nest. We used to sit in the field at night, nestled in the swamp with the fog of mosquitoes swarming about and regurgitated Nietzsche quotes. I used to thank an imaginary God every night that those Grunts had not figured out how to lick their own balls or nothing on the Lt’s fictional training schedule who have been accomplished. The horror, the horror…
Yep, bursting with covert Intel Analysts…that’s the plan. Who is going to burn the shitters in this new age of intellectual giants? Every Grunt is really just a bag of brains. FMTT
(@cmclymer) 
