Source: The Washington Post / Getty Trump Fires All Undocumented Workers From Golf Club According to the Washington Post , Trump reportedly fired a large group Latin American workers at Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, N.Y. because they are undocumented immigrants. On Jan. 18 employees were allegedly “brought in one-by-one to speak with a human resources representative and were fired from their jobs.” These people were described as being “longtime members of the golf club’s staff, having won employee of the month awards and having a set of keys to Eric Trump’s vacation home.” Trump reportedly kept that same energy in regards to his feelings on immigrant works, and go rid of employees that working for him for 10+ years. Gabriel Sedano, one of the employees who was fired, had been working at the club since 2005. “I told them they needed to consider us. I had worked almost 15 years for them in this club, and I’d given the best of myself to this job,” he continued. “I’d never done anything wrong, only work and work. They said they didn’t have any comments to make.” During the series of terminations, employees were informed that the company had audited their immigration paperwork, documentation they had provided years earlier. After it was discovered that their paperwork was falsified, the representative said, “Unfortunately, this means the club must end its employment relationship with you today.”
Source: Courtesy of Isiah (IG: @_callme_zay) Conversation surrounding criminal justice reform is gaining traction as world leaders like President Barack Obama and business moguls like Jay-Z call out widespread racial disparities in the prison system. Obama took a ton of important steps toward change, including being the first president to (very publicly) visit a prison and spend time with convicts, banning juvenile solitary confinement, and commuting a total of 1,175 sentences (330 in a single day). Jay-Z brought to light the devastating story of Kalief Browder , a young man from the Bronx who spent three terrible years in jail even though he was never convicted of a crime. After all he’d been through, Browder tragically committed suicide. And of course we can’t forget about Meek Mill getting politically active, as he calls out the injustices he, himself, has faced at the hands of the justice system. Meek’s stories give those who can’t relate to being locked up an insider’s look at how young black men are targeted and kept behind bars for extended periods of time. The movement is beginning to mobilize and more and more people are beginning to do their part to create the change we’d all like to see. Cue a young man from Harlem who’s sharing an incredible story of resistance this week. His name is Isiah , he’d been locked up on Rikers Island in 2016 when the warden broke a promise she’d made regarding game 7 in the NBA Finals and all hell broke loose. How he handled the escalating dispute and what he has to say about it today will give you chills. Isiah told Humans Of NY , “Every month in prison they had something called Inmate Council, where you get to meet with the prison administration and make suggestions. I volunteered to be the representative for my housing unit. And toward the end of the meeting, the warden asked if anyone had questions or concerns.” At the time, the Cleveland Cavaliers were going against the Golden State Warriors and the fellas just wanted to be able to tune in. “The NBA finals were going on at the time. So I raised my hand and asked: ‘If the Cavs force a game seven, can we keep the TV on past lock up time?’ And she agreed. She agreed in front of everyone,” Isiah explained. But things didn’t go as planned. “So when game seven came around, all of us were excited. We gathered around the TV in the dayroom to watch the game. But right as the second quarter was starting, the television clicked off. The CO came down and tried to kick everybody out. I told her the warden gave us permission, but she said it didn’t matter. And that’s when things began to go downhill. We refused to leave. The CO went behind a protected gate and pulled the silent alarm. We grabbed all the tables and chairs and stacked them up against the door. We covered the floor in shampoo and water. The security team came back with riot gear and huge cans of pepper spray, but we kept the door closed for over two hours. When they finally got inside, they were slipping all over the place. We just laid down on the floor and put our hands behind our back. I was given thirty days in solitary confinement. But I had to do the right thing,” he told Humans Of NY. Reflecting on his decision at the time, he added “Women are allowed to vote because some woman wanted to vote. The Civil Rights Movement started because Rosa Parks didn’t want to get out of her seat. And next time there’s a game seven of the NBA Finals, I bet they’re going to leave the TV on in Building Six at Rikers Island.” When Global Grind reached out for more details about that scary day, Isiah said since he was removed from the housing area he isn’t sure what the warden had to say for herself after the fact. However, he told us that at his Disciplinary Action meeting it’d been pretty obvious the guards turned off all the cameras at the time of the inmates’ sit-in. “When I asked them to show the cameras, they said they were ‘off’ and not working because they are new. But I know they weren’t telling the truth because they’d recently installed a camera they could control remotely. One night the camera was facing the front, the next morning the camera was facing the back of the housing area—and Rikers cameras are recording constantly to precent inmate on inmate violence.” Isiah mentioned, “This is what they do when they want to get away with assaulting you.” Today, the Game Design major has one semester left at Hostos Community College before he graduates. He tells Global Grind, “All I want to do is show my peers that it’s never too late to turn your life around and get on the right path.” [ione_media_gallery src=”https://globalgrind.cassiuslife.com” id=”3882098″ overlay=”true”]
Source: Roberto Machado Noa / Getty The anti-baggy pants crew strikes again! Some might remember Mississippi lawmaker Tom Weathersby proposing a bill that would ban saggy pants a year ago . Low riding offenders could face punishment ranging from a warning to a $100 fine, depending on the number of offenses. Now, South Carolina is on the same wave length. Republican and Democrat lawmakers alike co-sponsored a bill that would make it illegal for anyone to wear their pants “three inches below” the top of their hips, according to WLTX . Violation of the law could result in a $25 fine for the first offense or at the most extreme, a $75 fine plus six hours of community service for a third or more violation. “We have to lead by example,” Charleston County Representative Wendell Gilliard said . “The pants now are being worn below the knees.” Folks were not here for another lecture on pants-sagging. Considering the current fight for gun control in many states, a little underwear glimpse was the least of people’s problems. Swipe through to peep the backlash (and sarcasm) from folks on social media.
Columbine school shooting and Colorado state Representative Patrick Neville introduced a bill on Monday that would allow for concealed carry in public schools.
King Bey stans can breathe a little easier. Beyonce Shuts Down Album Delay Rumors We’re glad Beyonce cleared the air. We thought the Beyhive was going to stage a protest or go batisht crazy. You know how some of her fans get down. According to The Huffington Post A representative for Beyonce categorically denied a new report in The Hollywood Reporter about supposed delays to the singer’s fifth studio album on Wednesday, telling The Huffington Post that an official release date had never been set. Beyonce is recording music in the studio while completing her Mrs. Carter World Tour, the representative said in a phone call to HuffPost. A press rollout will accompany any official release date (and, if need be, any official delays). The 31-year-old singer has been working on the forthcoming album for some time now, her first since she released “4″ in 2011. While she has performed new music in the form of ad campaigns with H&M and Pepsi, she has yet to debut an official single off of the record. That album better be straight fire.
The cat is definitely out of the punching bag now. Floyd “Money” Mayweather has his first fight since going into the joint this Saturday and he’s been doing lots of press preparing for it — maybe too much, because in his Showtime documentary “30 Days Of May” he went a little too hard in denying beating up his ex Josie Harris — so she felt she had no choice other than to open up and give her side. Peep some excerpts below via Yahoo! Sports : “Did he beat me to a pulp?” said Josie Harris, sitting in her living room in a development in Valencia. “No, but I had bruises on my body and contusions and [a] concussion because the hits were to the back of my head. I believe it was planned to do that … because the bruises don’t show …” Her voice trails off as she produces a doctor’s report describing the injuries following her visit to Southern Hills Hospital in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Throughout the documentary, Mayweather called the charges “over-exaggerated” and “trumped up,” while his team of handlers insisted there was no violence and no physical harm inflicted. “This judicial system is really messed up,” said Mayweather’s current partner, Shantel “Miss” Jackson, in the documentary. “How can someone who really didn’t do anything have to suffer a consequence for something of this magnitude? It really does anger me, because how can a lie get so far?” The doctor’s report tells a different story, of bruising and contusions. So does Harris’ next document, a handwritten statement then 11-year-old Koraun Mayweather gave to police. It was Koraun who, according to his written statement to police, ran for help when he “saw my Dad hit[t]ing” and “kicking my Mom.” Yahoo! Sports reviewed copies of the doctor’s report and Koraun’s written statements to police. Harris declined to make the copies public. According to her representative, she did not want to distract Mayweather so close to a fight. We’re torn here. Clearly Josie Harris was hurt, both physically and emotionally — but how can she possibly be serious about not wanting to distract Mayweather when she’s already granted a pretty distracting interview? Hit the flip to peep the police report
There’s nothing like an old, insecure white man! According to Breitbart: Virginia Representative Jim Moran has taken PC, pop psychology to its logical extremes by claiming that “older white guys” are the “most insecure” part of American society. Moran, one of the nation’s most left-wing Congressmen, appeared on Al Sharpton’s MSNBC show on January 16 and went into an aspect of the next election cycle that seemed to trouble him. It was during this discussion that he found what is wrong with our nation. Clearly, we had a very successful election in November. I worry a bit about 2014, when we don’t have the President at the top of the ticket. We have a disproportionately number of older white guys, and frankly, being one of those types, we’re the most insecure component of our society as far as I’m concerned; we’re much the problem with these kinds of things Helpfully, left-wing commentator and Salon editor and columnist Joan Walsh wanted to reassure Rep. Moran that there were a few old white guys that were OK in her book, at least. “I just want to say to Congressman Moran there are a lot of terrific older white guys out there,” Walsh gushed. “You’re one of them; the Vice-President is another one. You know, we’ll be there for you.” Do you agree with Jim??
Killing Them Softly is set in Boston, maybe. Someone mentions living in Somerville, a scattering of the characters have the accent, and they talk about going down to Florida. But the film was shot in New Orleans, often in the industrial edges still ragged from Hurricane Katrina, and the only people who seem to inhabit its universe are gangsters — high level ones with pretentions of civility and hardscrabble losers struggling to get a few dollars together by way of hazardous schemes. What ties this abstract, violent place to the real world is the 2008 presidential election, which provides a backdrop for its tale of an ill-advised robbery and the guy brought in to clean up after it. There’s George W. Bush talking about the bailout on a TV in the corner as two guys knock over a card game; there’s Barack Obama promising change on a billboard over a neighborhood filled with empty lots and abandoned houses. It’s a neat idea, matching the brisk kill-or-be-killed business of unforgiving criminal life to an America staggering from the economic crisis. But as in his last feature, the gorgeous and stiltedly self-conscious The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford , Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik shows a tendency to lean too hard on his symbolism rather than letting it exist as part of the whole. In Jesse James it was the tying in of the last days of the outlaw to a meditation on celebrity. Here, it’s the capitalism-as-a-disease parallels on a national and narrative scale that start to feel on the nose long before a character barks “America’s not a country, it’s a business — now fucking pay me!” and Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want)” plays over the closing credits. But when Dominik , working off his own screenplay adaptation of a novel by George V. Higgins, is less focused on trying to make an important movie, he turns out an indisputably fun one, a stylish and flamboyantly macho affair that cribs pleasantly from Mamet, Blue Velvet , Tarantino and Scorsese . The film starts with Frankie (Scoot McNairy), a ferrety guy recently out of prison and eager to convince his Australian pal Russell ( Ben Mendelsohn , memorably scary in Animal Kingdom ) to get in with him on a job. Russell’s working his own scheme involving kidnapping purebred dogs and using the money to buy an ounce of heroin and become a dealer, but Frankie’s pal Johnny (Vincent Curatola) has what he claims is a foolproof gig. They’ll rob a poker game run by a guy named Markie ( Ray Liotta ), who arranged to hold up his own game once in the past and got away with it. The games are protected, but if his gets robbed again everyone will assume he’s the one behind it. Killing Them Softly starts off with its main heist, if it can be called that, and then turns to the fallout, letting things rattle along for a considerable amount of time before introducing Jackie ( Brad Pitt ), a guy who can’t really be described as a hero or antihero. Jackie’s a fixer and a hitman who’s filling in for the last go-to guy, Dillon (Sam Shepard, glimpsed only in flashbacks), and he’s a competent, no nonsense figure in a world full of fuck-ups. Dominik’s film is interesting in that the crimes themselves, whether stick-ups or killings, are rarely difficult — it’s the aftermath that gets people in trouble, when they can’t keep their mouths shut about what they just pulled off or don’t know when to cut their losses and get out of town. Dominik shows an open appreciation for his actors and for the way tough guys, aspiring and genuine, talk to each other — and Killing Them Softly is as much centered around talking as it is action. Pitt, playing a practical know-it-all who falls somewhere between Rusty Ryan and Tyler Durden, is terribly entertaining shooting the shit with Driver (Richard Jenkins), the representative of the unspecified group who hired him, the two complaining about the new “total corporate mentality” like disgruntled office workers on a smoke break. Later, he brings in Mickey (James Gandolfini) from New York to help out, and watches him with worried calculation as he turns out to be in rough shape. If gangsterism is just capitalism in a more raw form, then Jackie is the creature best suited for this world. He knows the rules and enforces them without prejudice, because it’s just business and this is just a job. Killing Them Softly doesn’t give that idea its intended sting. The film wants to be angry and scathing, but, to its credit, enjoys its characters and its mechanics too much to have a sharp edge. Whether it’s showing someone’s death in a luxurious slow motion spray of bullets and glass or lingering as someone drunkenly reminisces about a girl he sometimes sleeps with but has no hold on, the film is too fond of its rich details to allow them to become damning symbols of the system in which they can be found. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
There are some sore azz losers over in Congress and John Boehner’s trying to get his party to agree to work with one another in order to become a united front; but will it be against POTUS?? According to The New York Times : On a conference call with House Republicans a day after the party’s electoral battering last week, Speaker John A. Boehner dished out some bitter medicine, and for the first time in the 112th Congress, most members took their dose. Their party lost, badly, Mr. Boehner said, and while Republicans would still control the House and would continue to staunchly oppose tax rate increases as Congress grapples with the impending fiscal battle, they had to avoid the nasty showdowns that marked so much of the last two years. Members on the call, subdued and dark, murmured words of support — even a few who had been a thorn in the speaker’s side for much of this Congress It was a striking contrast to a similar call last year, when Mr. Boehner tried to persuade members to compromise with Democrats on a deal to extend a temporary cut in payroll taxes, only to have them loudly revolt. With President Obama re-elected and Democrats cementing control of the Senate, Mr. Boehner will need to capitalize on the chastened faction of the House G.O.P. that wants to cut a deal to avert sudden tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts in January that could send the economy back into recession. After spending two years marooned between the will of his loud and fractious members and the Democratic Senate majority, the speaker is trying to assert control, and many members seem to be offering support. “To have a voice at the bargaining table, John Boehner has to be strong,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, one of the speaker’s lieutenants. “Most members were just taught a lesson that you’re not going to get everything that you want. It was that kind of election.” “I just believe John will have more leeway than in the past Congress,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York. “The election will matter.” The divide between Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner appears wide. In their Saturday addresses, the president demanded immediate House passage of a bill approved by the Senate that would extend the expiring Bush-era tax cuts for households earning under $250,000, while the speaker said raising tax rates on anyone would be unacceptable. But beneath the posturing, both men were keeping open avenues of negotiation. Mr. Obama was careful to call for more revenue, not higher tax rates, a demand that could be fulfilled by ending or limiting tax deductions and credits, a path Mr. Boehner has accepted. The question over what to do about the expiring tax cuts would be swept aside if the parties could reach an agreement before then to overhaul the tax code completely — and render obsolete the current structure of six income tax rates, all of which would rise on Jan. 1. Even so, some Republicans have issued a stern warning to Mr. Boehner that he cannot expect their votes if he makes a deal with Democrats before seeking their consent. “What we’ve seen in the past is the speaker goes, negotiates with the president, and just before we vote, he tells us what the deal is and attempts to persuade us to vote for it,” said Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana. “We’re just not very happy with deals being baked, then we’re asked to stay with the team and support the speaker.” Given those conflicting demands, Mr. Boehner must decide whether he wants to seal his role as an essential player in a grand plan to restructure the nation’s fiscal condition, or continue the status quo of the very gridlock voters appear to detest. “I don’t want to box myself in, and I don’t want to box anyone else in,” Mr. Boehner told reporters on Friday. Republican lawmakers and Congressional aides say the situation is not as dire as the conflicts of the past two years, which nearly led to a government default on its debt and included a series of impasses that plunged Congress’s approval rating to its lowest recorded level. Any deal with the president would probably lose 60 to 80 Republican votes, but the president would bring along enough Democrats to get it passed. “When the president and I have been able to come to an agreement, there has been no problem getting it passed here in the House,” Mr. Boehner assured reporters, alluding to the deal struck with Mr. Obama to extend payroll tax cuts, which took Democratic support. That’s right John. As long as The President of The United States agrees with you , we can get things passed. SMH…they don’t have any dayum respect for Barack do they?? Images via WENN
