05 December 19
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05 December 19
William Barr Says 'Communities' That Protest Cops Could Lose 'the Police Protection They Need'
Tim Elfrink, The Washington Post
Elfrink writes: "Speaking to a roomful of police officers and prosecutors on Tuesday, Attorney General William P. Barr drew a parallel between protests against soldiers during the Vietnam War and demonstrations against law enforcement today."
Tim Elfrink, The Washington Post
Elfrink writes: "Speaking to a roomful of police officers and prosecutors on Tuesday, Attorney General William P. Barr drew a parallel between protests against soldiers during the Vietnam War and demonstrations against law enforcement today."
Although Barr didn’t specify what “communities” he was referencing, activists decried his speech as a clear attack on minorities who have protested police brutality and other racially skewed law enforcement abuses.
“Barr’s words are as revealing as they are disturbing ― flagrantly dismissive of the rights of Americans of color, disrespectful to countless law enforcement officers who work hard to serve their communities, and full of a continuing disregard for the rule of law,” Jeb Fain, a spokesperson for liberal super PAC American Bridge, told HuffPost, which first reported on the comments.
As attorney general, Barr has attacked liberal district attorneys who have pushed for police accountability in cities like Philadelphia and St. Louis and suggested that there should be “zero tolerance for resisting police.”
Before handing out honors to police officers at Tuesday’s ceremony for the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in Policing, Barr described seeing deployed troops celebrated at airports and lamented that police aren’t more openly feted.
“When police officers roll out of their precincts every morning, there are no crowds along the highway cheering them on, and when you go home at the end of the day, there’s no ticker-tape parade,” he said, echoing virtually word-for-word comments he made in August to the Fraternal Order of Police.
The attorney general then compared police to Vietnam-era soldiers returning home to face those opposed to the conflict.
“In the Vietnam era, our country learned a lesson. I remember that our brave troops who served in that conflict weren’t treated very well in many cases when they came home, and sometimes they bore the brunt of people who were opposed to the war,” he said. “The respect and gratitude owed to them was not given. And it took decades for the American people finally to realize that.”
Similarly, he suggested, Americans should stop protesting police officers “fighting an unrelenting, never-ending fight against criminal predators in our society.”
Critics questioned Barr’s suggestion in the speech that police could stop protecting those who protest them.
“US Attorney General fails to understand police are not a protection racket,” tweeted Andrew Stroehlein, the European media director for Human Rights Watch. “(And no points for guessing which ‘communities’ he means).”
Ah, so the attorney general of the united states believes police are not sworn officers of the law, civil servants bound by an oath, but a gang running a protection racket. twitter.com/ryanjreilly/st…
3,734 people are talking about this
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a message about Barr’s comments.
George Zimmerman. (photo: Joe Burbank/Getty)
George Zimmerman Files $100 Million Lawsuit Against the Parents of Trayvon Martin
Jay Connor, The Root
Connor writes: "Unsatisfied with getting away with murder, the bane of the universe, George Zimmerman, has filed a million lawsuit against attorney Ben Crump and the family of Trayvon Martin."
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Jay Connor, The Root
Connor writes: "Unsatisfied with getting away with murder, the bane of the universe, George Zimmerman, has filed a million lawsuit against attorney Ben Crump and the family of Trayvon Martin."
READ MORE
Sen. Bernie Sanders in Waterloo, Iowa. (photo: Brandon Pollock/The Courier)
The Bernie Campaign's Strategy to Win the Iowa Caucus
Nick Coltrain, Des Moines Register
Coltrain writes: "When U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders narrowly lost the Iowa caucuses in 2016, Patrick Bourgeacq Pinzón wondered if he could have done more to help."
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Nick Coltrain, Des Moines Register
Coltrain writes: "When U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders narrowly lost the Iowa caucuses in 2016, Patrick Bourgeacq Pinzón wondered if he could have done more to help."
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Three of the four fired Google organizers. (photo: Google Walkout for Real Change)
Google Fired Us for Speaking Up. We're Fighting Back.
Laurence Berland, Paul Duke, Rebecca Rivers and Sophie Waldman, Medium
Excerpt: "We come from different offices. We have different roles, managers, and life stories. What brought us all together is that we've stepped up to help organize our colleagues, to work together for a better, safer, fairer, and more ethical workplace."
Laurence Berland, Paul Duke, Rebecca Rivers and Sophie Waldman, Medium
Excerpt: "We come from different offices. We have different roles, managers, and life stories. What brought us all together is that we've stepped up to help organize our colleagues, to work together for a better, safer, fairer, and more ethical workplace."
EXCERPT:
Google explicitly encourages us to pursue exactly these goals. The company’s code of conduct states unequivocally: “don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right — speak up!” And we did.
We spoke up when we saw Google making unethical business decisions that create a workplace that is harmful to us and our colleagues. We participated in legally protected labor organizing, fighting to improve workplace conditions for all Google workers. We joined together to hold Google accountable for the impact on our workplace of its business decisions, policies, and practices on a range of topics. Some of these topics, such as demanding Google improve its treatment of our temp, vendor, and contractor colleagues (“TVCs”), supporting our TVC colleagues in Pittsburgh through the process of successfully forming a union earlier this year, challenging the protection of executives who sexually assault employees, opposing its retaliation against employees who have complained about, or protested against, mistreatment and discrimination, and supporting our colleagues in Zurich who held a labor law educational meeting despite the company’s attempts to cancel it, are entirely internal to our workplace. Other topics, like Google’s work with Customs and Border Protection, the decision to place an anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant think tank leader on the company’s AI Ethics council, developing drone technology for the U.S. Department of Defense, the unequal and unethical treatment of harassment and discrimination on YouTube, a secret project to work with the Chinese government to launch a censored search engine in China, and the hiring of one of the architects of the Trump administration’s family separation policy, extend far beyond, impacting not just our workplace, but also Google’s users and customers, and indeed the entire world.
So we spoke up, and how did they respond? Google didn’t respond by honoring its values, or abiding by the law. It responded like a large corporation more interested in revenue growth than in ensuring worker rights and ethical conduct. Last week, Google fired us for engaging in protected labor organizing.
Woman carries groceries. (photo: CBC News)
Nearly 700,000 Will Lose Food Stamps With USDA Work Requirement Change
Phil McCausland, NBC News
McCausland writes: "The Trump administration Wednesday formalized work requirements for recipients of food stamps, a move that will cause hundreds of thousands of people to lose access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP."
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Phil McCausland, NBC News
McCausland writes: "The Trump administration Wednesday formalized work requirements for recipients of food stamps, a move that will cause hundreds of thousands of people to lose access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP."
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An Evo Morales supporter confronts Bolivian police in La Paz. (photo: Natacha Pisarenko/AP)
The OAS Has to Answer for Its Role in the Bolivian Coup
Ha-Joon Chang, James K Galbraith, Thea Lee, Mark Weisbrot, Oscar Ugarteche, Jayati Ghosh and Stephanie Kelton, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "We call upon the Organization of American States to retract its misleading statements about the election, which have contributed to the political conflict."
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Ha-Joon Chang, James K Galbraith, Thea Lee, Mark Weisbrot, Oscar Ugarteche, Jayati Ghosh and Stephanie Kelton, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "We call upon the Organization of American States to retract its misleading statements about the election, which have contributed to the political conflict."
READ MORE
Tom Clark stands in a flooded construction site holding a hula hoop that is 36 inches in diameter - the width the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is slated to be in North Carolina. (photo: Lyndsey Gilpin/Grist)
The 600-Mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline Could Soon Slice Across Appalachia. I Met the People in Its Way.
Lyndsey Gilpin, Grist
Gilpin writes: "The project is part of a pipeline boom in the United States prompted by the fossil fuel industry's shift from a fuel source on the decline, coal, to one on the rise, natural gas. Dominion Energy owns the majority share of the project, which was first proposed in 2014."
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Lyndsey Gilpin, Grist
Gilpin writes: "The project is part of a pipeline boom in the United States prompted by the fossil fuel industry's shift from a fuel source on the decline, coal, to one on the rise, natural gas. Dominion Energy owns the majority share of the project, which was first proposed in 2014."
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