Kinja reply list

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thuggyBearBrendan O'Connor
2/16/16 6:16am
Does anyone have any record at all of Obama’s justice department ever meaningfully punishing anyone who isn’t a whistleblower or journalist? Or is it that he just lets the rich ones go?
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  BiscuitthuggyBear
  2/16/16 6:59am
  I’m an Obama supporter - but you’re asking the right questions.
  
  His administration’s treatment of whistleblowers is fucking baffling and disappointing - as is the easy ‘buy your way outta trouble’ tactic they take with wealthy (non-violent) criminal people and corporate heads.
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  benjaminalloverthuggyBear
  2/16/16 8:20am
  He really pulled a 180 on that;
  
  [Obama’s 2008] campaign specifically vowed to protect whistleblowers, hailing them as “the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government” and saying that “such acts of courage and patriotism. . . should be encouraged rather than stifled.”
  
  http://www.alternet.org/glenn-greenwal…
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Fresh Courage TakeBrendan O'Connor
2/15/16 11:43pm
In the deal, struck with the office of the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, the developer agreed to renovate three residential complexes identified in the suit to better conform to the Act (“without admitting liability,” of course).

This is called buying your way out of a criminal indictment. Silver and the Skelos boys didn’t have the money to have their cases “transferred” to the civil division of (loudmouth) Preet’s federal prosecutor’s office. (Glenwood Management did.)

But wait, Quim Charger, I thought federal prosecutor’s offices were mainly around to prosecute federal crime??? They are, but not if you’re stinking loaded.
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  kate_smashFresh Courage Take
  2/16/16 8:54am
  Nah, the guy didn’t violate criminal law relating to the housing discrimination. He’s a dick of epic proportions and probably violated criminal law in other ways, but in this case specifically, he violated civil law. And trying to criminally prosecute him for housing discrimination would be shoehorning the hell out of the violation to make it fit into a criminal framework, and would just make an already fragile fair housing enforcement system extremely vulnerable to people who like to bitch about overreach. The criminal indictments that Silver and the others are under were for different, criminal violations, not civil fair housing ones. And the settlement of this civil case, whether he admits fault or not, does not preclude future criminal prosecution for other, non-fair housing violations related to the case.
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  BCDFGFresh Courage Take
  2/16/16 12:12pm
  It wasn’t just Glenwood Management who appears to have bought their way out of a prosecution.
  
  The Cuomo administration, just by coincidence really, made an announcement over the weekend that it would be creating a new unit to investigate housing discrimination.
  
  Mind you, while Glenwood Management got associated with Skelos and Silver, its big project is the restoration of part of the WTC site. That is totally in the domain of the Port Authority —where Cuomo has most of the control of the pursestrings on this side of the Hudson.
  
  I think there’s a clear case of Cuomo trying to either work himself out of this very uncomfortable situation by appearing to be concerned about the public good, or being told by either the AG or Bharara to clean up his own act lest the investigation go further.
  
  Meanwhile, even as Bharara takes Glenwood down a notch on handicapped accomodations, Cuomo is cuddling up with Über —who are resisting any effort to have their cars count as taxis so they don’t have to be ADA compliant.
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GeorgeGeoffersonLivesBrendan O'Connor
2/16/16 12:02am
“discriminatory housing practices,”

Since this is literally what it was (and since the developer agreed to the deal), there was no use for scare quotes aside from the legalese. The people agree to this can then also disagree with the characterization of this all day long they’d like; we are under no such obligation - legal or moral - to agree with them. And in fact, I’d say we’re actually morally obligated to call this bullshit for what it was: discriminatory housing practices.
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  TheSometimesWhyGeorgeGeoffersonLives
  2/16/16 12:05am
  Boom!
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  GeorgeGeoffersonLivesGeorgeGeoffersonLives
  2/16/16 1:08pm
  Ugh. Just because it’s actually quoting the judge doesn’t mean it isn’t also a scare quote. Come on, people. It was a completely unnecessary quotation. Literally anything else could have been quoted and it would have been all right.
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4thdeskonrightBrendan O'Connor
2/15/16 11:40pm
The most important thing to remember is that “admits no fault” is code for “this is the limit of our patience to prosecute a person who has more money and political pull than us.”.
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TR4-250Brendan O'Connor
2/16/16 7:36am
Just part of the cost of doing business. Sometimes you get caught and you pay, but that doesn’t mean you won’t do it again with maybe a bit more sophistication.
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notaDCwonkBrendan O'Connor
2/16/16 12:01am
In a statement, Glenwood said that the settlement had nothing to do with Bharara’s campaign to root out corruption in Albany: “The agreement underscores Glenwood’s commitment to designing and building housing in which all New Yorkers can feel at home.”

Why didn’t you do it when they were first built then?
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KumfinemeeBrendan O'Connor
2/16/16 12:04am
Hey Preet, how’d about working on the Remarley Graham case now?
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Obfuscatio: philosopher at largeBrendan O'Connor
2/15/16 11:41pm
“The agreement underscores Glenwood’s commitment to designing and building housing in which all New Yorkers can feel at home.”

Well... once they’ve been sufficiently threatened, that is.
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