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.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has announced she is forming an exploratory committee as she considers whether to seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.
In a video emailed to supporters, Warren recounted her own working class background and her work strengthening consumer financial protections.
“Most of us want the same thing, to be able to work hard, play by the same set of rules and take care of the people we love,” said Warren.
More leftists demonstrate their lack of understanding of the game President Trump is playing. He’s playing chess. Not only is he considering each move, but several moves ahead for each move he considers.
The opposition? They’re not even playing checkers.
Folks, not familiar with the art of making a deal, criticize an expert deal maker. Their experience stems from commenting from their computers.
In this first quote, from the thread starter, President Trump is criticized for not taking action to end the shutdown:
The Democratic House will NOT give him his wall, but will pass a CR. In fact, they’ll do that right away and send it to the Senate, which will almost certainly pass it as well. No wall. Just funding for government operations. That’s what the CR bill should be in any case. Trump’s in a snit. He may veto such a bill and continue the shutdown, all over his stupid Wall.
He is going to absolutely OWN this shutdown. It is, and will be, on his head. How long will he maintain that shutdown? Who can say? Perhaps until he is impeached and removed by the new Congress. Now, that’s something I would enjoy seeing.
A Republican Senate working with a Democrat House against President Trump? Apparently, MineralMan doesn’t pay attention to news that matters. Word from the Senate shows consistency with the President.
And, just how is a Democrat House going to remove President Trump?
Without realizing it, one of those that responded touched on President Trump’s success with regards to defining the argument:
they seem to think that its the dems job to give in or they are also guilty of the government shutdown.
Whether it’s the responsibility of the Democrats, or that of President Trump, the later wins. The Democrats are willing to spend more than 5 billion dollars on other programs, but seem to want to fight over the issue of allocating 5 billion dollars for the wall.
Well, they laughed at President Trump’s comments about getting Mexico to pay for the wall. Not happening, right? Well, our next contestant is insisting that is precisely what he should do:
Why hold US taxpayers hostage? The republicans promised Mexico would pay for it. Now he wants $5 billion of our tax money to pay for it? Bullshit. He needs to shut up, let America be America, and stick to his stupid promise to make Mexico pay for his stupid wall.
Chances are that this individual wants the government to spend money on one or more of the Democrat’s favorite social programs… And not on something that’s make it easier for Border Patrol to control movement into the United States.
Would this guy tell the families, of those killed by illegal immigrants, that a border wall is stupid?
This next guy has us “figured out”. We “didn’t” independently come to our conservative conclusions based on a collection of facts, information trends, etc. We “needed” a hot blonde woman to tell us what to think:
The only difference is that Fox News can survive very nicely with the deplorables, racists, and the ignorant who like to watch a blond sex bunny tell them what to think (sadly).But that is not a big enough demographic to guarantee an election win. Sure, they also cheat, and use enemies of the US against their competition, but Trump needs more than that this time.
As with any other leftist, LiberaLovinLug argued a bunch of talking points. If conservatives were allowed to advance a conservative argument on Democratic Underground, this poster wouldn’t be able to defend that position. Other posters on that site wouldn’t be able to effectively defend their positions either.
In the midst of the drama over the government shutdown, California’s Stanislaus County Sheriff department along with multiple other agencies were engaged in a major manhunt for an illegal who shot Corporal Ronil Singh to death during a routine traffic stop on Wednesday. This wouldn’t have happened if California hadn’t decided it was politically correct to become a sanctuary state.
Corporal Singh was an immigrant himself. One who came to the United States LEGALLY.
“He came to America with one purpose, and that was to serve this country,” said Newman Police Chief Randy Richardson, calling Singh an “American Patriot.”
Again, there’s a significant difference between Singh and the shooter. Singh came here legally. The shooter … didn’t.
Arriaga crossed the border into Arizona illegally several years ago and has worked as a farm laborer in the Stanislaus County area, Christianson said. He has two prior driving-under-the-influence arrests and ties to the Sureño Street Gang.
So the shooter was here illegally, had been arrested TWO other times and was a known gang member. Why was he still here? Because of the stupid asinine and incredibly dangerous Sanctuary City stance the state of California has taken.
California has been diving headfirst down this dangerous path for years. Heck, they couldn’t even pass the Kate Steinle law and a jury let her killer go free. The incidences of violence involving illegals is climbing and yet our politicians have decided pandering to the illegals is the way to go.
San Fran Nan is on vacay in Hawaii and Maxine Waters went to the Bahamas instead of dealing with the government shut down. Designating funds for better border security and the border wall is not on their radar. Do they care about Corporal Singh? Nope. Not one bit.
California law enforcement is hurting today. They lost one of their own and it shouldn’t have happened. Ronil Singh’s family is understandably devastated.
Brother of #RonilSingh breaks down as he thanks all law enforcement agencies that helped catch Arriaga.
Reggie Singh managed to hold himself together just enough to thank all those who worked tirelessly to find his brother’s killer. A powerful moment of both anguish and grace.
I applaud Sheriff Christianson for casting the blame squarely where it belongs. On the shooter and the sanctuary city mess.
“While we absolutely need to stay focused on Officer Ribuk Singh’s service and sacrifice, we can’t ignore the fact that this could’ve been preventable,” Christianson said, noting how Arriaga had several run-ins with police — which couldn’t be reported to ICE on account of California’s sanctuary law.
“Under SB54 in California, based on two arrests for DUI and some other active warrants that this criminal has out there, law enforcement would’ve been prevented — prohibited — from sharing any information with ICE about this criminal gang member,” the sheriff explained.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is not how you protect a community.” [Emphasis Added]
We have laws in place for a reason! The sanctuary city mess protects only those who are here illegally. It leaves American citizens and those who are in this country legally twisting in the wind.
“When you tie our hands and don’t allow us to work with our federal partners and communicate with our federal partners about people who commit crimes and who are in this country illegally, we’re going to have incidents like this, not just on police officers, but on the public that we serve and protect,” he said.
What does Governor Jerry ‘Moonbeam’ Brown have to say about all of this? Not a damned thing. Instead he gives 15 illegal immigrants clemency.
What about Gavin Newsom? Did he have anything to say? Crickets.
A good officer is dead because of this entire sanctuary city crap. He would be alive today if, after the FIRST DUI arrest, the shooter had been deported.
Adopting the Sanctuary cities stance puts us ALL at risk. It needs to stop NOW. Otherwise more US citizens like Kate Steinle and Officer Ronil Singh will die.
Seven people across the state have been arrested for helping the suspect in the murder of Cpl. Ronil Singh avoid police.
Gustavo Perez Arriaga, 32, was arrested Friday without incident after authorities learned he was inside a Kern County residence, CBS Sacramento reports.
Others at the residence were taken into custody for aiding and abetting. The suspects were identified as Bernabe Madrigal Castaneda, 59; Erasmo Villegas, 36; and Maria Luisa Moreno, 57.
His brothers Adrian and Conrado Virgen, girlfriend Ana Leyde Cervantes and coworker Erik Quiroz were also arrested for helping him dodge police.
Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson blamed California’s sanctuary law for preventing local authorities from reporting Perez Arriaga to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency for his previous arrests. Christianson said if he had been deported, Singh would still be alive.
I heard a story about how Sailors did swim call, in the middle of the ocean, with man eating sharks not that far away. The claim? They would locate a shark and then shoot it. It bled. Eventually, the blood attracted other sharks.
The other sharks came in and ate that bleeding shark. In the feeding frenzy that followed, sharks ripped each other up and created more bleeding. Result? More sharks joined the frenzy. The turbulence, occurring in the water, ended up masking the turbulence created by sailors swimming near the ship.
I never saw this play out while I was in the Navy. Safety was paramount. Whether this is urban legend, or has actually been tried before, it’s underlying concept relates to President Trump’s apparent strategy.
Throughout his campaign, and then into his presidency, President Trump utilized his understanding of the media, and its audiences, to “shoot sharks”. The media goes into a frenzy every time he does this.
During this frenzy, President Trump continues forward with his objectives.
He knows that he has not done anything wrong. However, he also knows that his detractors will stop at nothing to follow a fool’s errand. Their “El Dorado” and their “Fountain of Youth” happens to be President Trump’s removal.
The left is blinded in their drive to portray President Trump in unrealistic terms. These efforts, driven by emotion, ties up energy that otherwise could be used to derail President Trump’s plans.
From CNN:
While Democrats publicly talk up their interest in focusing on legislative priorities like health care and voting rights — not to mention ending the ongoing partial government shutdown — they are quietly preparing for what will likely be the largest congressional investigation of a sitting president in recent memory.Party leaders and committee chairs have spent months ironing out potential targets, from President Donald Trump’s taxes and business dealings to the conduct of current and former Cabinet members.
Just like the Mueller investigation, a soon to be Democrat-controlled house is going to spend a lot of time investigating. However, they will turn up shorthanded. By then, President Trump will have paid out enough rope for the Democrats to hang themselves with in the 2020 presidential elections.
Take this fiasco with regards to his tax returns. This could be something that he could’ve released without worry. However, he has a background in entertaining audiences. A part of that equation involves knowing viewer psychology.
His refusal to release his tax returns could be a ploy… A trap. Refuse to release, and watch your adversaries stumble over themselves trying to force that release.
If the House succeeds in getting his tax returns, what the Democrats discover may prove embarrassing to them and beneficial to President Trump.
More from CNN:
Neal — a business-minded Democrat who has earned a reputation as a willing negotiator — had hoped Trump would be willing to negotiate and turn over his tax returns without a fight. But in recent weeks, comments from Trump’s allies have made it clear that asking nicely would be a waste of time. A source close to the process told CNN that Neal was prepared to make a formal request to the Treasury Department in the new Congress.When that would take place was still undecided.
The mainstream media, and the Democrats, continue to refuse to learn from their mistakes. With all other things being equal, they’re looking for a repeat of the disappointment they felt when the last presidential election was called for then candidate Donald Trump.
Earlier this week, we saw a statement about how President Trump became the first president, since 2002, to not visit troops at Christmastime. NBC ran an article about how President Trump broke with tradition and didn’t visit troops, in the combat theater, during the Christmas period.
It wasn’t enough that he talked with troops, and with others, on Christmas day.
Then, we get the news that President Trump visited troops in Iraq. On top of that, deployed troops presented “MAGA hats” to President Trump for his autograph.
So much for the earlier statement.
Instead of admitting that they were wrong, or changing their narrative, they doubled down. They questioned whether or not the troops were violating policies, regarding political activism, when they requested President Trump’s autograph on their MAGA hats.
From Fox News:
CNN’s criticism of Trump visiting the troops wasn’t limited to Watkins report and the network took a negative tone throughout their evening coverage.
CNN anchor Jim Sciutto blasted Trump for his “routine lying,” while CNN military analyst Mark Hertling criticized Trump for getting “political” during his visit. Former Obama State Department spokesman John Kirby even dinged the president for not visiting with Iraqi security forces, who are also part of the fight against ISIS.
Ex-Obama senior advisor David Axelrod told Sciutto that it’s “good” that Trump went to see the troops and that “we should give him credit where credit is due,” but slammed the president’s political rhetoric.
“It does give you the sense that this was sort of a box-checking exercise in many ways for the president. It was a serendipitous timing because it clearly was planned before everything that’s happened. And you know, yesterday was kind of an orgy of self-pity and rage on Twitter from the White House,” the CNN political commentator said. “So it changed the subject, it put him in a much better position coming with all the turmoil in the Defense Department. It’s a valuable thing but peculiar in many other ways.
Well, considering that they’ve turned the media information domain extremely hostile to President Trump, what did they expect him to do? Shut up and let them erroneously define him? President Trump will “fight back” and get his side of the story out effectively. He’ll do so when the opportunity presents itself to get his argument out.
If they want to see political activism, they need to review the free political campaigning that they do for the Democratic Party.
You could read the article, along with tweets criticizing CNN, here.
You could read NBC’s piece, with regards to President Trump’s not visiting troops at Christmastime, right here.
I’m only posting this now, because Vlad Putin is Russian Orthodox and the Orthodox Church doesn’t celebrate Christmas until January. And that’s getting close. Vlad is pawing the ground and snorting. He can now claim a successful launch of a hypersonic missile (a/k/a a glide vehicle, per the story) as his ultimate answer to the US’s aggressive warmongering. Full story is at the link: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/12/26/putin-oversees-hypersonic-weapon-test-says-its-invulnerable/
These days, I can’t figure out if he’s whistling Dixie in Russian or just yankin’ us because it’s fun for him to do so.
From the article: Speaking to Russia’s top military brass after watching the live feed of the launch of the Avangard vehicle from the Defense Ministry’s control room, Putin said the successful test was a “great success” and an “excellent New Year’s gift to the nation.”
The test comes amid bitter tensions in Russia-U.S. relations, which have sunk to their lowest level since the Cold War times over the conflict in Ukraine, the war in Syria and the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Oh, puh-lease! Yes, Vlad, I do know about Tsar Bomba, what it was like and its range. But that was the 1960s and this is a lot later. I lived through that. So did a lot of other people I know.
We are not the ones who want nuclear war. We have always seen nukes, et al., as deterrents, not weapons. We won’t start it, but by God, we will end it. We were glad the Cold War ended. You should have learned something from that.
Be careful what you wish for, Vlad. You might not like it.
Anyway, Schastlivogo Rozhdestva.
(My Cyrillic script didn’t work here, so it’s phonetic.)
President Donald Trump stated: “It’s a disgrace what’s happening in our country. But other than that, I wish everybody a very Merry Christmas.” | Zach Gibson/Getty Images
By DAVID COHEN
President Donald Trump used a Christmas morning gathering in the Oval Office to reiterate the reasons he insists funding is needed for a border wall, even if it means the federal government will continue to be partially shut down.
“I can’t tell you when the government is going to reopen,“ Trump said, according to pool reports.
Not until, he explained, “we have a wall, a fence, whatever they’d like to call it. I’ll call it whatever they want. But it’s all the same thing. It’s a barrier from people pouring into our country.”
~~~~
The president said he thought that even those federal workers who were losing their paychecks would be supportive of his efforts.
“I think they understand what’s happening,“ he said. “They want border security. The people of this country want border security. It’s not a question of me. I’d rather not be doing shutdowns.”
I can assure President Trump DON civilians, myself included, would rather not be doing shutdowns, either. Non-essential employees will be furloughed and go home without pay; the lucky exempt folks, including myself, will go in tomorrow and work without pay. Since this isn’t a sequester, there’s a reasonable belief that lost pay will be reinstated. Pretty good deal for the furloughed, who get an unexpected paid vacation, even if the pay is belated. What really chaffs my ass is this is for only $5B USD, which is essentially a rounding error in the US budget. Money isn’t the issue of course, or even The Wall. It’s brinkmanship between Trump and Schumer with us caught in the middle. Again.
Lars, before you jump in with both feet loudly declaring how Trump sucks, take a calming breath and try for that rational sweet spot you hit yesterday, and recognize that both sides pretty much suck here. Thanks.
The rest of the article may be viewed at: The Politico
President Donald Trump stated: “It’s a disgrace what’s happening in our country. But other than that, I wish everybody a very Merry Christmas.” | Zach Gibson/Getty Images