Author: Linn Washington

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, the top prosecutor with a tarnished reputation for turning a blind-eye to following ethics rules, has clearly seen the proverbial handwriting on the wall.

Williams, a few days ago, announced that he would not seek reelection to a third term. That surprise announcement evidenced belated recognition by Williams that his quest for reelection would be an uphill struggle if not an impossible mission thanks to fallout from his many ethical failings and questionable practices, as well as ongoing criminal investigations into his finances by the FBI and IRS.

That DA career-ending announcement by Williams came weeks after Philadelphia’s Ethics Board slapped this once promising and popular politician with a $62,000 fine for his failure to file mandatory financial disclosure forms for five years. His fine – the largest ever levied by Philadelphia’s Ethics Board – faulted Williams for not reporting over $160,000 in gifts that included fancy vacations and expensive jewelry, including from attorneys with clients prosecuted by Williams’ office.

Williams claimed, improbably, that he merely forgot to file the mandatory disclosure forms from 2010 to 2015.

But that claim fails the laugh test because Williams once served as Philadelphia’s Inspector General, the post tasked with ethics rule enforcement. During his announcement about withdrawing from reelection, Williams apologized for the embarrassment and shame he brought on the District Attorneys Office.

Williams’ re-election prospects were already in doubt due to erosions of support among his core constituency in the black community and his calculated ultimately unsuccessful effort to cultivate support from Philadelphia’s police union. That labor organization, the Fraternal Order of Police, has a history of reflexively backing police brutality and misconduct that primarily impacts blacks in the so-called City of Brotherly Love.

In recent weeks the FOP launched attacks on Williams arising in part from his decisions not to prosecute civilians who had questionable confrontations with police officers. Those FOP attacks included an anti-Williams billboard on the major interstate highway that runs through the center of Philadelphia.
 

DA Williams with Philly FOP prez in better times.
 

Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s NAACP branch recently blasted Williams for failing to prosecute three white men involved in a fatal building collapse while gaining the convictions of two poor black men connected with that incident. A civil trial jury in that building collapse recently found that the men Williams refused to prosecute were most responsible for that fatal incident. That jury verdict produced a settlement providing nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in damages to victims of that collapse.

When she opened the letter and saw it was a $1,471 bill for her recent visit to a hospital emergency room – a visit that lasted around four hours from admission to discharge –- she got sick.

That bill itself made her physically sick: triggering an intense headache, upsetting her stomach and leaving her with an overall queasy feeling.

It arrived in the mail weeks after she had received a copy of the whopping $14,000+ bill submitted by the hospital to her medical insurance company by the hospital in New Jersey where that ER visit had occurred.

Her medical insurance covered that initial $14,000 bill in full. But now she was supposed to cough up the $1,471 herself.

Now that additional $1,471 bill was making her emotionally sick: a sickening anger that compounded her being sick-and-tired of being sick-and-tired about outrageous medical care costs that surgically dig deeper into her pocketbook seeking to excise more money beyond what she pays monthly for the medical insurance coverage through her spouse’s employer.

It didn’t help that the four-hour stay she was still being billed for had not resulted in the hospital’s ER staff making a determination of the cause of her medical issue or offering a course of care.

These bills –- for $14,000+ and $1,471 — are vivid examples of the acute toxicity coursing through the veins of America’s bloated profit-based health care system.

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful.”
— George Orwell, author of “1984.”
 

The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, upending projections of pollsters and pundits that predicted his defeat, has triggered comparisons with Brexit, the vote earlier this summer where British citizens voted to leave the European Union, also catching the pollsters and pundits by surprise.

And yes, the campaigns for Brexit and the Trump presidency each employed similarities. Each campaign utilized ‘make our country great again’ slogans.

Further, each campaign also targeted immigrants as the source of deep-seated societal problems, particularly in the employment arena. Trump targeted Mexican immigrants while Brexit targeted Eastern European immigrants in Britain, primarily those coming from Poland as well as Muslims and blacks.

Brexit support sign in former home of author George Orwell. LinnWashingtonPhoto
 

Despite accurately citing some similarities, too many of the news media comparisons of Brexit and Trump on both sides of ‘The Pond’ have been simplistic, infused with failures to sufficiently contextualize the array of forces entangled in those stunning votes.

Comparisons on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, for example, have downplayed the upsurge in racist attacks, primarily targeting blacks and Muslims during the immediate aftermaths of both the Brexit and Trump victories.

For a quick glimpse of life within a “Trump Nation” look no further than New Jersey, the east coast state led by Trump booster Gov. Chris Christie, the man who heads the transition team assembling top personnel for the administration of a possible President Donald Trump.

A snapshot of Christie’s ruinous reign as governor since taking the helm of the Garden State in 2010 is found in the headline of an editorial published in mid-September by New Jersey’s largest daily newspaper, the Newark Star Ledger:

“Chris Christie’s state is an economic cripple.”

Christie has practiced the economic policies that Trump has promised to pursue: massive tax cuts for corporations plus tax breaks for wealthy individuals.

“What tax cuts have surely given us is a big revenue hole – with no real economic boost to show for it,” that Star Ledger editorial noted.

Trump will improve their lot? Not! LBW Photo
 

Christie push $2-billion in business tax reductions through the Democrat-dominated legislature and opposed modest tax increases on the wealthy.

“In short, the magical thinking that Gov. Chris Christie has relied on to steer the economy is simply not working. Like many Republicans, he clings to the notion that lower taxes are the key to economic growth, despite all the hard evidence to the contrary,” that editorial declared.

Like Trump’s current campaign trail promises for America, gubernatorial candidate Christie pledged to get New Jersey’s fiscal house in order – a pledge he failed to deliver.

A vivid example of value from decriminalization of possessing small amounts of marijuana occurred at the Philadelphia airport recently, a few days after the release of a report from two prominent organizations that called for the national decriminalization of personal use/possession of marijuana and other illicit drugs.

This example, interestingly, occurred on the day of the second anniversary of Philadelphia’s implementation of decriminalization, the enforcement practice that replaces arrests for marijuana possession with issuance of traffic-ticket like citations. That enforcement change has saved the City of Philadelphia at least $9-million in costs related to arrests and adjudication for marijuana possession, according to calculations by local analysts.

The airport discovery of a small amount of marijuana in the luggage of three-time Philadelphia GOP mayoral candidate Sam Katz resulted in embarrassment for Katz but not his arrest and court proceedings. Authorities issued a $25 citation to Katz that allowed the nationally respected municipal-finance-expert-turned-award-winning-documentary-filmmaker to continue to Florida for a planned fishing trip.

Philly pot activist N.A. Poe (center) at decriminalization anniversary. LBW Photo
 

Before Philadelphia became the largest city in America to implement decriminalization of simple possession of marijuana on October 20, 2014, thousands endured arrest annually — arrests that produced the stain of a life-altering criminal record. During the years 2012-2013 before decriminalization in Philadelphia police arrested 8,580 adults and juveniles. Philadelphia possession arrest figures for 2015 and part of 2016, after implementation of decriminalization, list around 1,500 Philadelphians arrested for marijuana possession – a marked decrease from pre-decriminalization days.

“Decriminalization has been a resounding success for the municipal government and for cannabis consumers in Philadelphia,” PhillyNORML official Chris Goldstein said. Goldstein, an expert on cannabis policy, writes a weekly column on cannabis issue for philly.com, the news website for Philadelphia’s two daily newspapers.

 
Actions and inactions by Philadelphia’s District Attorneys Office that have blocked Sharif Anderson from his day-in-court for an arrest that took place over 1,200-days ago have elevated this Philadelphia police abuse victim into a prime example of what the phrase “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied” means.

During recent months Philadelphia prosecutors have repeatedy presented specious requests in court that have delayed trial dates for Anderson, who endured a brutal May 27, 2013 arrest when Philadelphia police confronted him as he videoed an incident of police brutality with his cell phone.

Those requests by prosecutors for delays in the Anderson case raise issues regarding adherence of prosecutors to a provision in the Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers in Pennsylvania that states it is “not proper for a lawyer to routinely fail to expedite litigation.”

The Philadelphia District Attorneys Office declined requests for comments on issues raised in the case of Sharif Anderson. “Unfortunately, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office cannot comment…because the case is still active,” stated a self-serving email reply from the DAs Office.

Protestors at march against deadly May 1985 bombing by Philadelphia police. LBW Photo
 

Disturbingly, it is not unusual for prosecutors in Philadelphia and elsewhere around America to reflexively pursue obstructionist tactics that shield police in cases that contain documented evidence of improper and/or biased actions by police.

The failures of prosecutors to prosecute police misconduct was an underlying element in reports critical of abusive policing issued by the U.S. Department of Justice after high profile examinations of law enforcers in Baltimore, Maryland; Cleveland, Ohio and Ferguson, Missouri — three cities that erupted in protests following incidents of abusive policing.

The other Big Story from the recent press conference Donald Trump held at his new luxury hotel in Washington DC was not related to what Trump said about the bigoted “Birther” issue that Trump exploited for years to burnish his brand as a political player.

That other Big Story, missed by the news media, was what Trump did not say about his professed outreach to African-Americans — those tagged by Trump as “The Blacks.”

During that press conference where Trump blithely backed away, sort of, from the ‘Birther’ claim that President Obama was not born in America, Trump did not use that occasion to brag about the benefits black construction companies and black workers obtained from his $200-million luxury hotel project.

A Trump announcement that detailed how black businesses and workers benefited from his luxury hotel project could have boosted Trump’s recent campaign claims that he cares about “The Blacks.”

Protestor outside of Trump Tower in New York City with item to handle dung spread by The Donald. LBW Photo
 

However, self-described billionaire businessman Trump’s historic record of failing to do business with black businesses undermined even this serial false-claim-maker from falsely proclaiming blacks received benefits from the renovation project that produced Trump’s latest luxury hotel.

The fact that the Washington, DC area is home to large numbers of qualified black construction companies and black construction workers did not prompt news media inquiries about the paucity of blacks involved with Trump’s multi-million dollar hotel project typified news media failings on issues involving race/racism.

Trump’s alleged outreach to African-Americans is yet another example of the charade that parades as Trump’s presidential campaign. This charade gains traction by shallow and unquestioning coverage in mainstream news media. The same news media that have dutifully extended coverage to Trump’s belated claims that he dislikes high unemployment rates among minorities did not question the literal Black-Out on Trump’s hotel project.

 
A Pennsylvania State historic marker dedicated to heroes of 9/11 stands near a bend in a road that cuts through rural farm fields sixty miles west of Philadelphia, the city famous for Independence Hall and other fabled sites associated with the birth of the United States.

This marker does not honor the persons killed in the crash of Flight 93 on September 11, 2001 near Shanksville, Pa, a small community about 180-miles west of the small community where this marker stands.

However, this marker does recognize heroes who battled terrorism, albeit the persistently denied yet deadly domestic terrorism that predates America’s “War on Terror” launched in the wake of the September 2001 attacks.

This marker commemorates the Christiana Riot – a deadly clash at a farmhouse where a Maryland slave owner died during an armed skirmish with African-Americans who lived in the small Lancaster County village of Christiana.
Christiana Riot historic marker. LBW Photo
 
The slave owner came to Christiana to reclaim his ‘property’ – three of the four black men who escaped from that slave owner two years before the clash. African-Americans blocked this attempted re-enslavement effort.

 
A month before the police union in San Francisco sent a blistering letter to NFL officials recently demanding that the professional football league apologize for the “ill-advised” criticisms of police by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick that union was the target of scathing criticism for supporting police misconduct.

That criticism of the San Francisco Police Officers’ Association came in a report from a panel that conducted a yearlong investigation into policemen in that city caught sending racist, sexist and homophobic text messages. One member of that blue ribbon panel, a retired judge, blasted the police union for having established an “ugly” tone that infected the entire police department.

The same San Francisco police union that has lambasted civilians for not cooperating with police to solve crimes had directed its members to stiff-arm that panel through refusal to cooperate in the text message investigation. That racist texting scandal has produced the dismissal of over a dozen criminal cases and a reinvestigation of thousands of other cases for possible bias by those texting cops.
San Francisco police officials found no fault in 33 fatal police shootings over 14-years. LBW Photo
 
Salient facts about the sordid history of abusive policing in San Francisco are generally missing from most of the fevered reactions in the news media over Kaepernick’s actions around America’s national anthem.

A 1998 report on police brutality in America conducted by Human Rights Watch stated police officials in San Francisco had failed to hold abusive officers “accountable.” Abusive policing in San Francisco, historically, has ravaged blacks and Latinos disproportionately according to repeated reports.

Even in politics, where alarming perversions too often parade as acceptable standards, it is pretty astounding for a politician to assert that inadvertent error is the reason for his failure to report receipt of gifts and other free items valued at $160,050 over a five-year period.

Yet, that is the stance Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is taking after he recently filed belated annual financial disclosure forms listing nearly ninety items he received, including luxury vacations, cash, gift cards, tickets to professional sporting events and a Rolex watch that Williams valued at $6,500.

This oops-I-forgot-to-file-the-required-forms claim comes from a man who once served as Philadelphia’s Inspector General, a post tasked with pursuing unethical conduct and corruption. Williams clearly knew he was required to complete those disclosure forms listing all gifts he received on an annual basis.

DA Seth Williams (r) with Philly police union president
 

The FBI and other federal enforcement authorities are now examining Williams’ receipt of those gifts plus allegations about misuse of his campaign funds and irregularities at a non-profit organization created by Williams, a Democrat. Federal probes of Williams’ activities began months before his belated ethics disclosure filings.

Williams, elected as Philadelphia’s first African-American District Attorney in November 2009, entered office enjoying high public support. Most Philadelphians expected he would fulfill his campaign promises to end the unjust practices of his predecessor Lynn Abraham, who was an ardent death penalty advocate who virtually ignored abuses by police ranging from perjury to brutality.