PLUS: Trump, Trump, Trump, and More Trump
By Doug Porter
The office of City Attorney Jan Goldsmith has proved beyond a doubt that San Diego has the best legal system money can buy… provided the victims have the money to pay for justice.
Fridoon Nehad was shot and killed in April 2015 by veteran San Diego Police Officer Neal Browder. The officer said–after being shown a video of the incident– he believed Nehad was carrying a knife, but it turned out to be a shiny blue pen. The dead man was a 42-year-old refugee from Afghanistan diagnosed as mentally ill following incarceration in a Taliban prison camp.
In the wake of an investigation clearing the officer of any misconduct, the family is suing, saying the city has a pattern of inadequate investigations into police shootings. A federal judge has ordered the city to turn over records of other shootings by officers as part of the case. The City Attorney’s office is demanding that the family pay $12,000 up front to search for and assemble the documents.
From the Union-Tribune:
Louis “Skip” Miller, one of the lawyers for the family, said the demand for the family to pay was “absurd.”
In a response filed with the court in June, Miller said the estimated $12,000 cost for complying with a federal court order amounted to 0.0004 percent of the city’s $3.2 billion annual budget.
“They’re just trying to punish the family for bringing this suit,” he said in an interview. “That’s what’s going on here. It’s unbelievable.”
The costs of producing documents during discovery in a lawsuit are generally borne by the party ordered to do so, although those costs may be recovered by the winning party after the case concludes. Prepayment is not usually part of the process.
This whole thing stinks to high heaven. Lest we forget:
- The family was treated –and this is being generous–shabbily by the police and the DA’s office.
- The officer “forgot” to turn on his department-issued body cam.
- A private surveillance video of the incident was kept under wraps until such time as the District Attorney’s office could craft a narrative claiming that what was captured on screen wasn’t the whole story.
This latest incident fits into a pattern of “what were they thinking?” incidents on the part of the City Attorney’s office. Three quick examples:
- The refusal to intervene on behalf of the Barrio Logan Community Plan as approved by the City Council amounting to a subversion of the democratic process by corporate interests.
- Do I even need to mention #ChalkGate, a prosecution so bizarre it would have fit nicely into an Arlo Guthrie narrative song?
- Then there’s the story of Jane Doe, the sexual assault victim targeted by Jan Goldsmith in a media campaign trying to paint her as a gold digger after she dared to insist on a court-empowered monitor of SDPD practices. And who could forget the private detective hired with taxpayer dollars to follow Ms Doe around for a month?
I am sooo glad this poor excuse for a human being is termed out of office.
Trump…($$$$)
The Donald breezed through town on Wednesday looking to pick up a little quick cash.
From CBS8:
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump appeared Wednesday evening at the Del Mar Country Club where he made a push to make his private event his largest fundraiser during his campaign.
Organizers hoped to raise as much as $300,000 from some couples who attended, but overall the goal was to raise $4 million.
The event was hosted in part by diet guru Jenny Craig and Madeleine Pickens, ex-wife of Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens. The two are listed as California co-chairs of Trump Victory.
Developer Doug Manchester, energy investor Doug Kimmelman and computer tycoon Darwin Deason are also listed as event chairs and/or leaders of Trump Victory.
Trump…(Baja Belly Flop)
Speaking of well-heeled parties, KPBS has found a couple willing to go on the record about getting burned on Trump’s failed Baja development project… the one he claimed he’d just licensed his name and image to after it failed… the one across from the sewage plant wafting unpleasant odors day & night… the project that sold most of their would-be condos “at lavish parties held at hotels like L’Auberge in Del Mar and the Manchester Grand Hyatt in downtown San Diego…” Yeah, that one.
250 buyers put up $32.5 million in deposits and all they got was this lousy hole.
Rodriguez said the presidential candidate’s proposal now to build a 2,000-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexico border confounds him after the way Trump extolled the Mexico resort in 2007.
“My opinion about the wall is they need something to keep him out of Mexico. Because of what he did. They need for him to build some kind of wall around him,” Rodriguez said.
Most of the buyers tried to put the incident behind them. Some said they felt embarrassed and duped. Others feared Trump would sue them if they talked to journalists. But then Trump began his rise in the GOP presidential primary polls. The Rodriguez couple decided to share their story with KPBS.
Trump (Cleveland Convention Program)
It is totally not true that the program for 2016 GOP Convention was crafted by moonlighting Saturday Night Live writers. But it could be.
Imagine…
The Republican convention is gonna have a night devoted to Monica Lewinski??!? pic.twitter.com/JXAVlW6PZL
— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) July 14, 2016
From Talking Points Memo: (emphasis mine)
Those scheduled to address the audience in Cleveland include all four of Trump’s adult children and his wife Melania, professional golfer Natalie Gulbis, and former Calvin Klein underwear model Antonio Sabato Jr., according to a list released by the Republican Party on Thursday. Conservative former football star Tim Tebow, Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White, and Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose lawsuits pushed Gawker Media to bankruptcy, will all be in attendance.
Though many Republican rank-and-file members have bowed out of this year’s convention, a selection who have allied themselves with or defended Trump will be present. Those who will speak include six senators, seven House representatives, and a handful of Republican governors including Oklahoma’s Mary Fallin, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, and Florida’s Rick Scott. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) are all scheduled to address the convention.
The Trump campaign has for months promised to offer voters a convention befitting a former reality TV star, with Trump’s daughter Ivanka promising that the Cleveland summit will be “unlike any we’ve ever seen.”
…And more Trump (2016 Presidential Apprentice Tryouts)
The wheel of fortune is spinning Donald Trump’s head, and he’s promised to tell the world about his choice for a Vice Presidential candidate on Friday.
Will it be NJ Gov. Chris Christie? Indiana Gov. Mike Pence? Former Congressman Newt Gingrich?
Personally I’m rooting for Gingrich, just for the optics. With six marriages between the two of them, they’ll lock up the serial adulterer vote. And who can’t want to see the not-affiliated-with-Hilary SuperPAC commercial featuring a re-enactment of the Newtster dumping his wife at the hospital during chemotherapy?
From Raw Story: Clockwise, from left: Ivana Trump, Marla Maples, Melania Trump, Callista Gingrich, Marianne Gingrich, Jackie Gingrich
Or could it be someone else? This IS Donald Trump we’re talking about here.
From CNN
Marking the unpredictability of the state of affairs, Trump was still making calls to people in recent days.
Trump even reached out again to Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state under former President George W. Bush, after a donor encouraged him to make the call over the weekend. Rice, though, doesn’t want the job, according to a separate source familiar with the process.
Late Minute Update: My twitter feed is full of quotes from Washington insiders saying Pence will be the GOP VP candidate. CNN has a live stream of nothing happening outside the Indiana Governor’s mansion…
On This Day: 1911 – Harry N. Atwood landed an airplane on the lawn of the White House to accept an award from U.S. President William Taft. 1921 – Italian immigrants and anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were convicted in Massachusetts of murder and payroll robbery—unfairly, most historians agree—after a 2-month trial, and eventually executed. Fifty years after their deaths the state’s governor issued a proclamation saying they had been treated unfairly and that “any disgrace should be forever removed from their names.” 1951 – The George Washington Carver National Monument in Joplin, MO, became the first national park to honor an African American.
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Doug Porter
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Lots of laughs here. I hope the Dems can loosen up and play
off of Donald Duke, Donald Duck Dynasty, Donald Rump and
Coke, or just use the hairdress and put him in a gown… gotta
reduce the imagery to its naked perversion. Humor can do that.
IF Mike Pence is indeed the VP Choice, then we’ll have the “TP” ticket. Truth in advertising.