SunSeeker
SunSeeker's JournalKellyanne Conway's husband on short list for top US lawyer job
Source: CNN
George Conway declined to comment, but one of the sources said he would accept the position should Trump tap him to be the government's top litigator. The other source said he has been interviewed by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump's attorney general-designate.
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George Conway is a partner at the corporate law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where he has worked for 28 years. He is currently a partner in the firm's litigation department, where he has honed his talents in securities, contract and antitrust litigation, according to his firm's website.
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Throughout his career, he has represented high-profile clients, including the National Football League and cigarette giant Philip Morris, whom he represented in a successful defamation lawsuit against ABC News.
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He was part of the team of lawyers in the 1990s who represented Paula Jones in her sexual harassment lawsuit against then-President Bill Clinton. He helped write the Supreme Court brief in the case that would establish a legal precedent for a sitting president to be sued in civil court.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/30/politics/kellyanne-conways-husband-on-short-list-for-top-us-lawyer-job/index.html
Figures. He's part of that Mercer/Bannon cabal that have spent decades trying to destroy the Clintons. But oh the irony that Kelleyanne's hubby established the precedent that sitting presidents can be sued, since Trump will be getting sued...a lot.
Obama's Overtime Law Was Overturned, But Still Helped Thousands
Although a federal judge in late November blocked an update to the Fair Labor Standards Act that would have greatly increased the number of workers eligible for overtime pay beginning at the start of this month, there are indications that the rule still has benefitted some of the workers it was intended to help — and could continue to do so even if Donald Trump squashes it after taking office.
The new legislation would have significantly raised the salary cap under which employees workers were eligible to earn overtime pay. In response, some large companies, such as Walmart, gave raises to workers whose pay fell just under the new threshold, making them ineligible for overtime pay. Other companies reclassified salaried overtime-exempt workers as hourly employees, which would make them eligible to earn overtime for workweeks longer than 40 hours.
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"There's a whole set of companies that had already communicated to their employees that they were going to change their employment status or give them raises," said Brian Kropp, HR practice leader at CEB. Because the rule was halted only about a week before it was set to take effect, many companies had already made the switch.
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Those raises could have more staying power than the legislation itself. Ross Eisenbrey, vice president at the Economic Policy Institute, said it isn't clear yet whether or not the rule and the higher overtime threshold will survive after the inauguration. Donald Trump's stated opposition to corporate regulations makes him unlikely to support defending it in court, although Eisenbray said at least one organized labor group is positioning itself to continue defending it even if a Jeff Sessions-led Department of Justice declines to do so.
This ambiguity around the legislation's fate could prompt companies to take a better-safe-than-sorry approach, Eisenbray said, since it would be hugely expensive to have to pay months of overtime retroactively.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/obama-s-overtime-law-failed-still-helped-thousands-n700121
Trump Will Be Violating the Emoluments Clause of Our Constitution on Day One.
As explained in a ProPublica piece:
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The Emoluments Clause appears in Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution. It bars any “person holding any office of profit or trust under” the United States from accepting any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state” “without the consent of the Congress.” The word “emolument” comes from the Latin emolumentum, meaning profit or gain. The language of the clause was lifted in its entirety from the Articles of Confederation which established the structure of the government of the United States from 1781 until the ratification of the Constitution in 1788-89. The clause was derived from a Dutch rule dating to 1751.
The clause was added to the draft Constitution at the Constitutional Convention on Aug. 23, 1787 on a motion by Charles Pinckney of South Carolina. As Gov. Edmund Randolph of Virginia explained to his state’s ratification convention in 1788, Pinckney’s motion was occasioned by Benjamin Franklin, who had been given a snuffbox, adorned with the royal portrait and encrusted with small diamonds, by Louis XVI while serving as the Continental Congress’s ambassador to France. As Randolph said,
“An accident which actually happened, operated in producing the restriction. A box was presented to our ambassador by the king of our allies. It was thought proper, in order to exclude corruption and foreign influence, to prohibit any one in office from receiving emoluments from foreign states.”
The Continental Congress in 1786 had consented, after a debate, to Franklin keeping the snuffbox, as it had earlier with a similar gift to envoy Arthur Lee. At the same time, consent also was given to diplomat John Jay receiving a horse from the King of Spain.
The clause was part of the basis for Alexander Hamilton’s defense of the Constitution, in Federalist 22, as addressing “one of the weak sides of republics”: “that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-would-be-violating-constitution-if-he-continues-to-own-his-businesses
Two Malibu property owners fined $5.1 million for blocking access to public beach
A beachgoer walks along Carbon Beach in Malibu, also known as "Billionaires' Beach." The Malibu Beach Inn is seen in the left background. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
A gate on the Lent property blocks public access to the beach in Malibu. (californiacoastline.org)
Commissioners described the Lent case as “very egregious” and a “flagrant violation” of state law because the couple had long refused a commission request to remove an unauthorized gate, fence, stairway and deck that blocked an easement required by a coastal development permit issued to a previous owner. The fine was far more than the $950,000 recommended by the agency’s staff.In one of those decisions, the commission had battled for nine years with Dr. Warren M. Lent and his wife, Henny, before unanimously approving Thursday’s cease-and-desist order for the couple and fining them about $4.2 million for diverting a public easement to private use at an expensive oceanfront rental they own at Las Flores Beach.
Commissioners described the Lent case as “very egregious” and a “flagrant violation” of state law because the couple had long refused a commission request to remove an unauthorized gate, fence, stairway and deck that blocked an easement required by a coastal development permit issued to a previous owner. The fine was far more than the $950,000 recommended by the agency’s staff.
Commission officials said the couple made money at the public’s expense by, in effect, converting the easement to private use. For years, the couple rented the house out to vacationers for about $1,000 a night and advertised on real estate websites that the “romantic, gorgeous” property has access to a private beach.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-headlines-coastal-fines-20161208-story.html
Man Motivated by Pizzagate Conspiracy Theory Arrested in D.C. Gunfire
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man fired a rifle on Sunday inside a Washington pizza restaurant that has been subjected to harassment based on false stories tying it to child abuse, the police said. No one was hurt, and the man was arrested.
The man, Edgar M. Welch, 28, of Salisbury, N.C., told the police that he had come to the restaurant, Comet Ping Pong, in northwest Washington, to “self-investigate” what is being called Pizzagate, an online conspiracy theory asserting, with no evidence, that the restaurant is somehow tied to a child abuse ring. He entered the restaurant shortly before 3 p.m. with a rifle and fired it at least once inside, the police said.
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The misinformation campaign about Comet began when the email account of John D. Podesta, an aide to Hillary Clinton, was hacked and his emails were published by WikiLeaks during the presidential campaign. Days before the election, users on the online message board 4chan noticed that one of Mr. Podesta’s leaked emails contained communications with James Alefantis, Comet’s owner, discussing a fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton.
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Sabrina Ousmaal, owner of a French restaurant called Terasol, which is across the street from Comet, said that other businesses in the area had also been targeted by threats and that the response from the authorities so far had been insufficient.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/us/pizzagate-comet-ping-pong-edgar-maddison-welch.html
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