tenderfoot
tenderfoot's JournalGowdy, Benghazi panel settled wrongful firing suit with $150,000 in public funds
As chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) used $150,000 in taxpayer dollars to settle with a former aide who alleged he was fired in part because he was not willing to focus his investigative work on Hillary Clinton.
The Post confirmed the confidential settlement reached between Gowdy and the Benghazi panel and Bradley Podliska after it appeared in a list of settlements released Friday by the congressional Office of Compliance. Gowdy is now the chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
In a list provided to the House Committee on Administration, the OOC disclosed it oversaw one $150,000 settlement involving a claim of veteran status discrimination and retaliation in the last five years. Podliska, in addition to claiming he was fired for his refusal to focus on Clinton, alleged retaliation by his supervisors because he took leave to fulfill his obligations as an Air Force reservist. His December 2016 settlement was reported by The Washington Post, though the settlement amount was not disclosed at the time.
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“I can confirm that my client is one person who brought a veterans status discrimination and retaliation suit against Congress and that the case settled on terms that were satisfactory to my client,” said Romer-Friedman, a civil rights attorney at Outten & Golden.
Requests for comment from Gowdy’s personal office and the House Oversight Committee were not immediately returned.
more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/gowdy-benghazi-panel-settled-wrongful-firing-suit-with-150000-in-public-funds/2017/12/01/d7c49dac-d6db-11e7-a986-d0a9770d9a3e_story.html
GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold lawmaker behind $84K sexual harassment settlement
Rep. Blake Farenthold used taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment claim brought by his former spokesman — the only known sitting member of Congress to have used a little-known congressional account to pay an accuser, sources told POLITICO.
Lauren Greene, the Texas Republican’s former communications director, sued her boss in December 2014 over allegations of gender discrimination, sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment.
Greene claimed in the lawsuit that another Farenthold aide told her the lawmaker had “sexual fantasies” and “wet dreams” about Greene. She also claimed that Farenthold “regularly drank to excess” and told her in February 2014 that he was “estranged from his wife and had not had sex with her in years.”
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Greene had worked for Farenthold for 18 months. According to Greene's complaint in court, Farenthold and his top aide, Bob Haueter, sexually harassed her, allegations that both men vehemently denied.
“Farenthold regularly drank to excess, and because of his tendency to flirt, the staffers who accompanied him to Capitol Hill functions would joke that they had to be on ‘red head patrol to keep him out of trouble,’” Greene’s complaint alleged. “On one occasion, prior to February 2014, during a staff meeting at which [Greene] was in attendance, Farenthold disclosed that a female lobbyist had propositioned him for a ‘threesome.’”
The complaint added: “On June 10, 2014, in response to Haueter’s complaint about [Greene’s] shirt … which Haueter claimed was transparent and showed [Greene’s] nipples, Farenthold told [another woman staffer] that [Greene] could show her nipples whenever she wanted to,” Greene’s complaint asserted.
Greene said Farenthold avoided meeting one-on-one with her, and she also felt awkward about meeting with Farenthold.
When Greene complained to Farenthold directly in June 2014 about her problems with Haueter, she was “marginalized and undermined” by the Texas Republican, and then fired several weeks later, Greene asserted.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/01/blake-farenthold-taxpayer-funds-sexual-harassment-274458
Tonight's National Tree Lighting Ceremony has the largest audience in US History
https://twitter.com/SteveRudinABC7/status/936369495853228032Conservative Megadonor Robert Mercer Funded Project Veritas
The connection between the Mercer family and the controversial activist group recently busted for an undercover sting has not previously been revealed.
The Mercers, secretive billionaires who are among President Trump's most powerful donors, also helped to fund Project Veritas, the controversial activist organization, tax filings obtained by BuzzFeed News show.
Gravitas Maximus LLC — a Mercer investment vehicle through which he also funded the conservative outlet Breitbart — gave $25,000 to Project Veritas, according to a nonpublic portion of a 2012 tax form. The family's involvement has not previously been made public.
The Mercer family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The filings draw yet another connection in the web of conservative enterprises funded by Robert Mercer, who recently stepped down from his role as co-CEO of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies after a BuzzFeed News exposé revealed the connections among the Mercers, Breitbart, and white nationalists and neo-Nazis.
The tax filing listing several donations to Project Veritas was first surfaced by Nation Institute fellow Eli Clifton.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/conservative-megadonor-robert-mercer-funded-project-veritas
GOP Rep. Jim Jordan plays with M&Ms during Concealed Carry Reciprocity bill hearing
That's how seriously our lawmakers take gun violence.
OBERLIN – Democratic candidate for U.S. House in Ohio’s 4th congressional district, Janet Garrett, posted on Facebook Wednesday evening that she is “so sick of the disrespect – Jim Jordan has so much nerve.”
Garrett was specifically talking about an incident with Rep. Jordan that occurred on Wednesday during a committee hearing, where he allegedly threw an M&M into another representative’s mouth while meeting about gun violence, with gun violence survivors in their presence.
“Today in committee, my Congressman playfully threw M&Ms across the committee room into the mouth of another Congressman as gun violence victims sit by in protest watching their ‘Public Servants’ ignore their pleas for action,” Garrett said.
https://go.tiffinohio.net/2017/11/dem-u-s-house-candidate-sick-rep-jim-jordans-disrespect/
Question Ive been wondering about: Are todays American Nazis disappointed that America won WWII?
Minister who sang for Roy Moore lied for son accused of molesting Honduran orphans
One of the ministers who serves a Theodore church where Roy Moore spoke Wednesday night was federally convicted of trying to block an investigation involving claims his son molested children in Honduras.
Rev. Bill Atkinson led the music portion of the Moore event at the Magnolia Springs Baptist Church, where the U.S. Senate candidate spoke for over 20 minutes and was interrupted twice by people in the audience.
In 2012, Atkinson was found guilty of obstruction and conspiracy for ordering two of his children to destroy a hard drive of a digital video recorder, which held evidence that incriminated his son for child molestation. At the time, William James "Will" Atkinson IV was in a Honduras jail awaiting trial on charges that he molested children at an orphanage the Atkinson family owned. Those allegations came to light when his younger brother, Jonathan Atkinson, set up a secret surveillance system in Will's office after some of the children said they had been touched inappropriately.
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It is not clear how the charges against his son in Honduras were adjudicated. Efforts to reach the Rev. Atkinson were not immediately successful Thursday.
Atkinson did not make a political statement Wednesday night at the Moore event, but encouraged the audience to sing. "The sign out front says Baptists, and Baptists have to sing," he said.
http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2017/11/minister_convicted_of_obstruct.html
The Federalist: it's okay to molest 14 yr olds if they're not your kids.
I'm not posting a link the article to the Federalist
https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/936216363919650816
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/936246934490308608
https://twitter.com/grantstern/status/936238183976722434
Nazi sympathizer profiled by the New York Times says he lost his job and soon his home
Tony Hovater, the white nationalist and Nazi sympathizer featured in a controversial New York Times article this weekend, said he lost his job and would soon lose his home following a swift backlash over the article.
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Hovater said that he, his wife and his brother-in-law were fired Monday. All three worked at 571 Grill & Draft House, a small restaurant in New Carlisle.
The restaurant’s owners said in a statement Wednesday that they did not know of Hovater’s white nationalist views until the Times article was published. They said the article illustrated “some very disturbing images and thoughts” that they do not share.
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After Hovater was fired, his supporters launched a crowdfunding campaign through a website called Goyfundme.com to raise money for him and his wife.
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Goyfundme.com, which relies on bitcoin and credit and debit card payments, is an alternative crowdfunding site created earlier this year after mainstream fundraising sites like GoFundMe and PayPal removed campaigns and accounts associated with far-right ideologies. Parrott condemned “active censorship” and what he sees as the lack of net neutrality among the sites.
Hovater and Parrott are both co-founders of the Traditionalist Worker Party, one of the extreme right-wing groups that rallied in August in Charlottesville, where a car allegedly driven by a Nazi sympathizer plowed into a group of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/11/29/nazi-sympathizer-profiled-by-the-new-york-times-says-he-lost-his-job-and-soon-his-home/
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