The Daily Muck

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

The Obama administration signaled Monday that it would release Aymen Saeed Batarfi, a Yemeni prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay, as part of President Obama’s promise to empty the controversial detention facility within a year. Batarfi’s lawyers say he was arrested while on a humanitarian mission, but Justice Department prosecutors allege that he participated in a major al Qaeda battle as more than a humanitarian worker. (Associated Press)

A good offense is the best defense? Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said Monday that he will sue Mike Stefani, a Detroit police attorney for working with communications company SkyTel to release more than 6,000 text messages, some highly intimate, that proved Kilpatrick had an affair with his chief of staff Christine Beatty. The text messages ultimately led to the former Mayor’s resignation and gulty plea on perjury charges for lying about the affair. The lawsuit says that Kilpatrick will claim damage on the loss of earnings, mental suffering, and emotional distress, among other harms. (Detroit Free Press)

U.S. Army sergeant Joseph P. Mayo pleaded guilty Monday to killing four Iraqi prisoners execution style in early 2007, becoming the forth soldier convicted in the killings. The soldiers arrested the Iraqis for possession of guns and ammunition, but lacking the evidence to keep them detained, they decided to execute them. “I really believed I was protecting my soldiers,” Mayo told the court. “I take full responsibility for my actions.” (Washington Post)

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a supposed beacon of fair labor practices, violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to give workers overtime pay, an arbitrator said. Rather than offering overtime, the EEOC said that workers could request compensatory time off for extra hours worked, which caused “forced volunteering” according to the ruling. EEOC employees have filed disputes since 2003 and this report is the result of a 2006 grievance filed by the workers’ union. In the decision, Arbitrator Steven Wolf said the overtime problem “went beyond mere negligence.” (Washington Post)

A California corrections facility paid $1.3 million in unemployment benefits to former employees who were fired for misconduct, a watchdog report released Monday found. The report said that the funds, which made up almost 25 percent of the corrections facility’s unemployment benefits, went to an employee who was fired after he was arrested in a drunk-driving hit-and-run incident, and another who was arrested in a drug trafficking incident, among others fired for bad behavior. Inspector General David Shaw said that the payments occurred because the facility did not report the firings quickly enough to the Employment Development Department, which is responsible for processing unemployment claims. (LA Times)

During the past two years, California lobbyists spent a record $553 million on California government. The Sacramento Bee shows California lobbying to be a “growth industry,” starting from $193 million spent by lobbyists in 1989-1990 and increasing every two-year legislative cycle since. Former assemblywoman Sally Lieber said the lobbying makes the climate difficult for honest lawmakers. She said, “You have an idea, and they have enormous amounts of money. Who’s going to win?” (Sacramento Bee)

Latest Muckraker
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: