Monthly Archives: January 2021

In a 34-page ruling, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California blocked two key parts of President Donald Trumps Executive Order 13950 - Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping. The order, among other things, bars contractors from holding workplace training that inculcates in its employees any form of race or sex stereotyping or race and sex scapegoating. This prohibition has caused many federal contractors and grantees to stop their diversity training programs.

The courts Dec. 22, 2020, ruling is the most recent development in the controversy surrounding the order, which has been marred by legal challenges nearly since its inception. A month after the Trump administration issued the order, the NAACP filed a federal class action suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the orders constitutionality. Just three days later, a group of nonprofit community organizations and consultants serving the LGBTQ+ community filed a similar federal complaint in the Northern District of California. It is the latter challenge that led to the nationwide injunction.

As the court states in its order, the plaintiffs in the California suit provide advocacy and training to health care providers, local government agencies, local businesses, and their own employees about systemic bias, racism, anti-LGBT bias, white privilege, implicit bias, and intersectionality. They allege the order constitutes unlawful censorship under the First Amendment, because it requires them to either significantly curtail their diversity trainings or forfeit their federal funding. The plaintiffs also argue the order violates the Fifth Amendments due process clause. They claim the order is so vague, it fails to offer sufficient notice of the types of speech it prohibits. Judge Beth Labson Freeman found that the plaintiffs made a preliminary showing of unconstitutionality and granted the motion to stop the order.

The injunction prevents the enforcement of the orders Sections 4 and 5 pursuant to both the free speech clause of the First Amendment and the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. No other sections were affected by the ruling.

Section 4 requires that all government contracts entered into on or after Nov. 21, 2020, include a clause affirming that the [t]he contractor shall not use any workplace training that inculcates in its employees any form of race or sex stereotyping or any form of race or sex scapegoating. The order cautions that a failure to comply with this provision could lead to contracts being canceled, terminated, or suspended in whole or in part and warns that any contractor violating its mandate may be declared ineligible for further Government contracts. Section 5 requires agency heads to review grant programs to determine which grants may be conditioned on the recipients certification that federal funds will not be used to promote concepts that the order characterizes as divisive.

The future of the order remains unclear. The courts preliminary injunction is temporary, not permanent. But its anticipated that President-elect Joe Bidens administration will repeal the order upon his taking office, preventing enforcement of the order before Sections 4 and 5 become effective. As noted in a prior eLABORate, however, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs takes the position that it may immediately investigate claims of sex and race stereotyping pursuant to its existing authority under Executive Order 11246.

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Federal Court Blocks Executive Order That Banned Certain Diversity Training Topics - Lexology

What we have seen on January 6, 2021 is the logical conclusion of the last four years of this man encouraging hatred and attacking our institutionsand the last two months of him feeding his followers with outrageous, unfounded lies in an attempt to overturn the results of a free and fair election.

Trump brought this crowd to Washington. Trump encouraged them to be wild. Trump ordered them to march on the Capitol. His encouragement of violence and anarchy cant be ignored.

Especially because he has another 14 days in office.

There are two methods of removing a president from power, one temporary, one permanent. Either will solve our present problem.

The permanent solutionand the preferable oneis impeachment. It is preferable because its unquestionably appropriate and opens the door to disqualifying Trump from running for president again. (Barring someone from future office requires a majority vote in the Senate, but that vote can only happen after the Senate has voted by a two-thirds majority to convict and remove the impeached president.)

Podcast January 08 2021

On today's Bulwark Podcast, Tim Miller joins Charlie Sykes to discuss insurrection week, a potential second impeachment,...

But impeachment has problems. First, you need a majority in the House and a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove Trump. There would be no problem getting a majority vote in the House. And given the current state of affairs, its possible that even Trumps supporters in the Senate now realize that the president is too irrational, too out-of-control, and too dangerous to leave in office until January 20.

But even if impeachment were politically possible, there are logistical problems. First, Congress is in the middle of counting electoral votes. Congress isnt legally allowed to take up any other business until this task is completed. Moreover, neither the House nor the Senate is able to meet in the Capitol at the moment and though there are reports that they hope to meet again in the Capitol tonight, its not clear that the protests are over. And if anything would spark a new attack, it would be the start of formal impeachment proceedings. This isnt to say that Congress should yield to the mob. Its merely a recognition that pursuing impeachment immediately might be difficult.

The Twenty-fifth Amendment, however, requires no complicated or lengthy procedures. It allows the temporary removal of the president when the vice president and a majority of the cabinet determine that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.

This is much simpler to accomplish, but more constitutionally fraught. This language obviously covers physical incapacitythe president cant discharge his duties while he is in a comabut it is broad enough to cover other incapacities as well. There is certainly a case to be madeespecially after Trumps bizarre speech supposedly de-escalating the situationthat the presidents fixed delusion regarding the election and his belief that he is the legitimate president-elect constitute a mental incapacity that renders him incapable of discharging the duties of his office.

For one obvious example, it has already rendered him incapable of properly protecting Washington D.C. and the Capitol building.

Under the Twenty-fifth Amendment, the president can contest his removal but Congress has up to 21 days to decide whether the presidents powers should be reinstated. We only need to get through the next 14 days. So a declaration by Pence and a majority of the cabinet would be enough to get us through the current crisis.

Under normal conditions, removing the president under the Twenty-fifth Amendment would be a grave step. But these are not normal conditions.

And while it is a grave step, its also a necessary one. Trump has demonstrated himself to be irrational, unfit, and dangerous to the republic. There is now no question that he is a political nihilist who does not care about the Republican party, the government he heads, or the nation he has sworn to protect.

If he is allowed to wield the power of the presidency for the next two weeks, there is no guarantee that he will not inflict even more damage on the country.

Even Vice President Pence and the members of Trumps cabinet must see that now.

Something must be done.

The rest is here:
The President Is a Danger to the Nation. Remove Him from Office. - The Bulwark

Pat Fallon was sworn in Sunday as a freshman member of Congress. On Wednesday, the Republican found himself ripping a tall wooden pole topped with a white hand sanitizer dispenser from the House floor and transforming the modern totem of pandemic precaution into a weapon. A frenzied mob of Donald Trump supporters had breached the Capitol and were approaching one of the most sacred spaces of American democracy. Fallon, who represents a northeast Texas district, estimated that some two hundred members of Congresswell more than were supposed to be gathered in close proximity at any one time under COVID restrictionswere on the House floor or nearby when the rioters tried to break in.

We hear the mob and we dont know if its 20 people or 250,000, Fallon recounted hours later. We just hear it at the center doors of the chamber where the president would walk in when you have a State of the Union. They were just being pounded on, pounded on.

Fallon is big and athletic. He played wide receiver for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on their 1988 national championship team. In 2015, he completed the World Marathon Challengeseven marathons in seven days on seven continents. As many representatives were led in small groups to secure locations, he and three other Texas Republican freshmenTony Gonzales, who serves a district stretching from San Antonio to El Paso; Ronny Jackson, who represents a portion of the Panhandle; and former sheriff Troy Nehls, who hails from Fort Bend Countyagreed they would stay put on the floor to help the outmanned police. All had military backgrounds. Fallon had served in the Air Force. Gonzales is a Navy veteran, whom Trump endorsed in a closely fought GOP primary ultimately decided by fewer than fifty votes. Jackson is a retired rear admiral who was President Trumps personal physician. Nehls retired as a major in the Army reserve. They were joined by Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican in his fifth term. I just met him then, Fallon said. He said, Im going to be the last one to leave.

Amid thedin of the mounting siege, Fallon recalled what Notre Dame center Tim Grunhard would say to pump up his teammates before every home game: This is our house! And were going to protect it! Fallons adrenaline coursing, he screamed it.

The congressmen moved furniture to barricade the door. Fallon said Jackson just missed getting hit by a projectile that pierced the glass in the door as police cried out, Rounds fired! Shots fired! It was just surreal. We are going to get into a brawl on the House floor with a mob, Fallon said.

From left, representatives Troy Nehls, Tony Gonzales, Ronny Jackson, and Pat Fallon (in light blue) are joined by other freshman Republican members of the Texas delegation on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, on January 4, 2021.

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP

Just hours before, Fallon had expected to be on the floor voting against certifying the electoral college votes for Biden, along with many Republicans in Congress who had signaled they would make a last-ditch effort to reverse the presidents November defeat. But they didnt have the votes. At his late-morning Save America rally held near the White House Wednesday morning, Trump lamented that Vice President Pence could not be counted on to save the day and incited what would become the siege and lockdown of the Capitol. Fallon, Nehls, Jackson, and Mullin, but not Gonzales, would be among the great majority of House Republicans who late Wednesday night and in the wee hours of Thursday morning, after the insurrection had been subdued, would vote to object to certifying either the Arizona or Pennsylvania Biden electors. They would vote the way the mob wanted, but, predictably, without success.

Austin Democrat Lloyd Doggett watched the afternoons mayhem outside the Capitol from his office on the third floor of the Rayburn House Office Building directly across the street, with the splendid view of a member entering his ninth term. It was just truly shocking, Doggett said late Wednesday afternoon, still under lockdown in his office. The nearest to Washington like this was when I was here for9/11, Doggett said. Its just such far-reaching damage to our country and to our position in the world.

After order was restored, Sylvia Garcia, a Democratic congresswoman from Houston who was among the managers of the House impeachment of Trump, which failed in the Senate, tweeted that Pence and the Cabinet ought to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment and immediately remove Trump from office and protect our country.

Returning to business, the Senate and House worked through the night to confirm Bidens victory,though most House Republicans139 in allvoted in favor of the challenges to either the Arizona or Pennsylvania electors, or both.

Fallon does not blame the president for the days indelibly terrible turn of events, instead pinning the breach on just a few, very few, bad apples. He believes the rioters should have trusted their elected representatives. Thats what were hired to do, Fallon said. This is a representative Republic. Were hired to fight for the people from our district.

And in his first three days as a member of Congress, Fallon, who lives in the well-named boomtown of Prosper, straddling Denton and Collin counties, said his office was flooded with hundreds of calls, all with the same message. Literally every call we got was they wanted us to object, Fallon said. And thats what their new representative did.

Chip Roy, who just won a second term representing a Central Texas district, seemed to rebuke his Texas colleagues. He won a standing ovation from Democrats when he spoke on the floor Wednesday night to explain why he was voting against rejecting any of the duly chosen Biden electors.

Today, the peoples House was attacked, which is an attack on the Republic itself. There is no excuse for it. A woman died. And people need to go to jail, said Roy, a former chief of staff for Senator Ted Cruz, who led the failed effort to block approval of the Biden electors. And the president should never have spun up certain Americans to believe something that simply cannot be.

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These Texas Congressmen Fought off the Mob. Then They Voted With Trump. - Texas Monthly

A federal judge issued a nationwide injunction on Dec. 22 to block enforcement of an executive order that would have effectively prohibited workplace trainings on implicit bias by federal contractors, federal agencies and the military.

President Trump said in Executive Order 13950 that it was issued to combat so-called offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating. The EO cited alleged concerns of a pervasive and malign ideology rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country.

Specifically, the EO forbids promoting a list of divisive concepts in workplace diversity trainings conducted by the U.S. Uniformed Services, federal agencies and federal contractors.

In a court challenge, a coalition of nonprofits and consultants argued that the EO would frustrate their efforts to train employees about systemic bias, racism, anti-LGBTQ bias, white privilege, implicit bias and intersectionality.

The suit alleges that the EO would require the plaintiffs to either censor or cease the trainings that are fundamental to their mission of breaking down barriers that underserved communities face or risk losing federal funding in the form of contracts and grants. The suit also alleged that the EO is so vague that it fails to provide notice of what speech is actually subject to penalty.

In a 34-page order, U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the Northern District of California issued aninjunction that blocks the key provisions targeted by the plaintiffs.

The EO consists of 10 sections. Section 4 would require that all government contracts include certain express provisions providing that during the performance of the contract, [t]he contractor shall not use any workplace training that inculcates in its employees any form of race or sex stereotyping or any form of race or sex scapegoating. A violation of Section 4 could result in the cancelation, termination, suspension, in whole or in part, of federal contracts.

Section 5 directed the heads of all federal agencies to review their respective grant programs and identify programs for which the agency may, as a condition of receiving such a grant, require the recipient to certify that it will not use federal funds to promote certain divisive concepts.

Initially, the plaintiffs asked for a nationwide injunction against the EO in its entirety, but they later narrowed their request to an injunction limited to Section 4 and Section 5.

Judge Freemans nationwide preliminary injunction prohibits the federal government from implementing or enforcing Sections 4 and 5 of the EO against any federal grant recipient or federal contractor. The court found that requiring federal grantees to certify that they will not use grant funds to promote concepts the Government considers divisive, even where the grant program is wholly unrelated to such concepts, violates the grantees free speech rights.

The judge also found that the EO was so vague that it was impossible for plaintiffs to determine what conduct is prohibited. She noted that the ambiguity regarding the conduct prohibited by Sections 4 and 5 was only exacerbated by the FAQsissued by the Department of Labors Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which failed to narrow prohibited action. Such ambiguity further violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, Judge Freeman found.

The Department of Justice has yet to announce whether it will appeal the injunction, and a new administration will take office at noon on January 20, 2021. While the incoming administration is widely expected to rescind the EO, this ruling was highly anticipated and celebrated by diversity and inclusion professionals, social justice organizations and employers in many different industries. This is particularly noteworthy given the number of employers that have publicly committed to enhance their diversity and inclusion efforts in light of the racial unrest that has unfolded nationally throughout 2020.

It remains important for employers, particularly federal contractors and federal grant recipients, to stay informed of developments in this area as they augment and modify their diversity and inclusion efforts in 2021 and beyond. We will continue to monitor this case and provide any updates on any future developments regarding this Executive Order.

[View source.]

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Court Enjoins Trump Executive Order On Divisive Concepts In Workplace Trainings - JD Supra

Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors;Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.(e) On November 2, 2020, the Board of Directors (the "Board") of CommunityHealthcare Trust Incorporated (the "Company"), at the recommendation of thecompensation committee of the Board (the "Committee"), authorized and approvedthe Fifth Amendment (the "Wallace Fifth Amendment") to the Employment Agreementby and between the Company and Timothy G. Wallace (the "Wallace EmploymentAgreement"), the Second Amendment (the "Dupuy Second Amendment") to theEmployment Agreement by and between the Company and David H. Dupuy (the "DupuyEmployment Agreement"), and the Second Amendment (the "Stach Second Amendment")to the Amended and Restated Employment Agreement by and between the Company andLeigh Ann Stach (the "Stach Employment Agreement"). These amendments to eachrespective employment agreements were executed on January 4, 2021 and wereeffective as of January 1, 2021.Wallace Employment AgreementThe principal change in the Wallace Employment Agreement resulting from theWallace Fifth Amendment is to increase the base salary paid by the Company toTimothy G. Wallace for his employment as President and Chief Executive Officer("Wallace Base Salary"). In 2020, the Wallace Base Salary was $645,000.00. TheWallace Fifth Amendment increases the Wallace Base Salary to $750,000.00 for2021, which is an $105,000.00 increase from 2020.The foregoing descriptions of the Wallace Fifth Amendment to the WallaceEmployment Agreement are qualified in their entirety by reference to theoriginal Wallace Employment Agreement, which is included as Exhibit 10.6 to theRegistration Statement on Form S-11 of the Company filed with the Securities andExchange Commission (the "SEC") on April 2, 2015, the first amendment to theWallace Employment Agreement, which is included as Exhibit 10.1 to the CurrentReport on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on January 18, 2017, the second amendmentto the Wallace Employment Agreement, which is included as Exhibit 10.1 to theCurrent Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on January 2, 2018, the thirdamendment to the Wallace Employment Agreement, which is included as Exhibit 10.1to the Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on January 3, 2019, thefourth amendment to the Wallace Employment Agreement, which is included asExhibit 10.1 to the Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on January 3,2020, and the Wallace Fifth Amendment, which is included as Exhibit 10.1 to thisCurrent Report on Form 8-K, and are incorporated by reference into this Item.The foregoing description of the Wallace Fifth Amendment does not purport to becomplete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to such exhibits.Dupuy Employment AgreementThe principal change in the Dupuy Employment Agreement resulting from the DupuySecond Amendment is to increase the base salary paid by the Company to David H.Dupuy for his employment as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer("Dupuy Base Salary"). In 2020, the Dupuy Base Salary was $392,000.00. The DupuySecond Amendment increases the Dupuy Base Salary to $460,000.00 for 2021, whichis a $68,000.00 increase from 2020.The foregoing descriptions of the Dupuy Second Amendment to the Dupuy EmploymentAgreement are qualified in their entirety by reference to the Dupuy EmploymentAgreement, which is included as Exhibit 10.1 to the Current Report on Form 8-Kfiled with the SEC on March 11, 2019, the first amendment to the DupuyEmployment Agreement, which is included as Exhibit 10.2 to the Current Report onForm 8-K filed with the SEC on January 3, 2020, and the Dupuy Second Amendment,which is included as Exhibit 10.2 to this Current Report on Form 8-K, and areincorporated by reference into this Item. The foregoing description of the DupuySecond Amendment does not purport to be complete and is qualified in itsentirety by reference to such exhibits.Stach Employment AgreementThe principal change in the Stach Employment Agreement resulting from the StachSecond Amendment is to increase the base salary paid by the Company to Leigh AnnStach for her employment as Executive Vice President and Chief AccountingOfficer ("Stach Base Salary"). In 2020, the Stach Base Salary was $326,800.00.The Stach Second Amendment increases the Stach Base Salary to $387,600.00 for2021, which is a $60,800.00 increase from 2020.The foregoing descriptions of the Stach Second Amendment to the Stach EmploymentAgreement are qualified in their entirety by reference to the amended andrestated Stach Employment Agreement, which is included as Exhibit 10.1 to theCurrent Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on May 2, 2019, the firstamendment to the Stach Employment Agreement, which is included as Exhibit 10.4to the Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on January 3, 2020, and theStach Second Amendment, which is included as Exhibit 10.3 to this Current Reporton Form 8-K, and are incorporated by reference 2--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

into this Item. The foregoing description of the Stach Second Amendment does notpurport to be complete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to suchexhibits.

Item 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits

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Edgar Online, source Glimpses

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COMMUNITY HEALTHCARE TRUST INC : Change in Directors or Principal Officers, Financial Statements and Exhibits (form 8-K) - marketscreener.com