NYC Bums and Loiterers Win $15 Million Settlement

HuffPo - New York City will dish out $15 million to the 22,000 people--many of whom were panhandlers-- arrested for loitering by the NYPD who used laws that were deemed unconstitutional decades ago. The class action settlement, according to The New York Times, came after a federal judge in 2010 found the city in contempt for "obstinance and uncooperativeness" for enforcing laws that "banned loitering to panhandle or to search for a sex partner, or while in a bus or train station." In order for people to collect on the settlement, in payouts ranging from $1,000 to $10,000, must file official claims--a task that may be beyond many of those homeless beggars arrested on the city's streets years ago. 

Are you freaking kidding me?  Free handouts, just for loitering? What the fuck. Here I am acting like an idiot, loitering in my own private home, or in my cube, or for years in a classroom so God forbid I'm not a child that gets left behind, and all this time, if I'd just been loitering around a 7-11 or Ray's Pizza in New York I'd be looking at a handsome cash settlement? Jesus H, I think I've been screwed. 

I loiter with the absolute best of them. Do you know what I did yesterday? My alarm went off at 8:00 AM, I reset the alarm for 9:00 and loitered, watching tv in bed, in a slightly vegetative state, from there I got up, got ready, then loitered some more on the internet for an hour or so before going to work. At work, more loitering, so much loitering and general nothingness that I had to take a walk around the building twice before lunch, just to get my blood flowing. Post lunch? More loitering, I read the rest of the non-sports related internet (for obvious, Patriots related reasons), my boss walked by once and I put a few piece of paper in front of me and furrowed my brow...hardest work I did all day. Got home, more loitering, put some sweats on, grabbed my "old man robe" (fiancee's words, not mine) and threw my feet up on the couch and watched my "stories" from 8-11:00 PM. Then I went to bed.  A whole, vegetative day of loitering with no promises of cash payouts, no TV lawyers like Dane Shulman, "getting me what's rightfully mine, and that's that." Kind of feels like a gigantic waste on my part.

And I know some of you are probably arguing, but CW, $1,000-10,000 isn't really that much.  Well yea, to you and me it isn't, because we have bills and rent. But full time loiterers? That's like hitting the lotto. These guys have ZERO overhead. No rent, no grocery shopping, as far as I know they don't pay income taxes or FICA, that 10k is all profit. As far as the street goes, that's retirement money. Probably enough to go catch a bus at Grand Central straight to Tampa Bay or some other southern city for a lifetime of easy street living. Meanwhile I'm still here grinding it out on my somewhat lazy, yet educated and employed ass, like an absolute sucker.