POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: PEOPLE’S PLEDGE saga continues — ROLLINS grilled on BC suicide case — CHILD CARE aid falls short

PEOPLE’S PLEDGE saga continues — ROLLINS grilled on BC suicide case — CHILD CARE aid falls short

BY STEPHANIE MURRAY GOOD MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. I hope you had a great holiday! KENNEDY, LISS-RIORDAN TO SIGN PEOPLE'S PLEDGE — Senate candidates Rep. Joe Kennedy III and attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan plan to sign a so-called People's Pledge this afternoon to limit outside spending in the race for Sen. Ed Markey's seat. But there will be one person missing at the ceremony today: the incumbent. Kennedy and Liss-Riordan say they are moving forward with the pledge after waiting for Markey to come on board. The two challengers had planned a pledge-signing ceremony in November but canceled it to accommodate Markey, who said he needed to be in Washington, D.C. for votes on the day it was scheduled. "After multiple attempts to include the Markey campaign in a signing ceremony, including a last minute cancellation of an event early last month, the two campaigns decided to move forward and put the onus on the Markey campaign to sign the pledge in the coming days," the joint release from Liss-Riordan and Kennedy said. But Markey's got another idea. The Malden Democrat plans to propose a pledge of his own this morning, his campaign told me. Markey could not attend the signing ceremony today because he needs to be in Washington, his campaign said. Markey's new "People's Pledge 2020" proposal would "say no" to all outside negative advertising in the primary, but would permit "positive voices" like climate and reproductive health advocates to spend money in the race. The nonprofit Environment Massachusetts has said it plans to put together a $5 million campaign to support Markey's reelection. "We do not want to stifle or silence the positive voices that have a right to discuss the issues that matter most to residents of Massachusetts - the reproductive health community, labor unions, environmental and climate advocates, the LGBTQI+ community, among many others," Markey's proposed pledge says. "And these positive voices must disclose their donors so that they are transparent. We need these positive, engaged, and active voices in our political debate in 2020." The People's Pledge dust-up is one of several challenges the Senate candidates have posed to one another — typically these challenges are designed to highlight one's own strengths or point out a rival's flaws. Markey invited his opponents to a climate debate, which Liss-Riordan accepted and Kennedy skipped. Kennedy called on his competitors to agree to a People's Pledge, and Liss-Riordan is calling for a $6 million spending cap for candidates in the race. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: AUCHINCLOSS' NEW PLAN — Congressional candidate Jake Auchincloss is releasing a two-part transportation plan today that calls for passing the Green New Deal and putting more federal, state and local resources into trains and buses to ease traffic congestion and pollution. "Climate change is our planet's biggest problem. Transportation is the biggest problem for Massachusetts, and the 4th District in particular. And because the transportation sector is the state's largest emitter of carbon pollution—driving roughly 40% of total emissions—the two are inextricably linked," the plan says. Auchincloss is running to replace Rep. Joe Kennedy III. Six Democratic candidates have jumped in the 4th District House race since Kennedy launched a campaign against Sen. Ed Markey, and a seventh Democrat is considering a bid. The plan proposes building a zero-emissions, statewide rail service that is available 24 hours a day. Auchincloss also suggests putting resources behind the South Coast rail project to connect Taunton, Fall River and New Bedford to Boston by train. His plan calls for chartering a federal infrastructure bank and designing a high-frequency regional bus network, among other ideas. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: DONATO GETS A CHALLENGER — State Rep. Paul Donato will face a challenger from his own party next year. Nichole Mossalam, a progressive from Malden, will announce today that she's running against Donato, who is a member of House Speaker Robert DeLeo's leadership team. "Our state legislature has failed to adequately address the challenges that so many people in our communities are facing," Mossalam said in a statement. "On a wide array of issues, we have seen too many legislators follow the Speaker's agenda. We need independent leaders who will put the concerns of our families first." Mossalam's campaign is part of a larger trend in Massachusetts. A number of progressive Democrats have waged primary challenges against incumbents at the local, state and federal level, in recent years, and several are doing so now. Mossalam is chair of Malden's Disability Commission and is former co-chair of Our Revolution Massachusetts, the Bay State offshoot of Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. Have a tip, story, suggestion, birthday, anniversary, new job, or any other nugget for the Playbook? Get in touch: smurray@politico.com. TODAY — Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Governor Karyn Polito, Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Robert DeLeo hold a leadership meeting. Baker, Lynn Mayor Thomas McGee, state Sen. Brendan Crighton and state Rep. Lori Ehrlich make a MassWorks announcement in Lynn. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as part of a sister-city agreement between Boston and Belfast. Rep. Bill Keating speaks at a New England Council breakfast. Lauren Kennedy moderates a talk on childcare at the Kennedy Institute featuring Samantha Aigner-Treworgy, JD Chesloff, Amy O'Leary, and Tania del Rio. DATELINE BEACON HILL - "RMV employees complained of quality, public safety, but 'War on Wait Times' took precedent," by Steph Solis, MassLive.com: "Multiple employees told auditors that the state government's so-called "War on Wait Times" improved customer service but hampered the quality of record-keeping at the Registry of Motor Vehicles and ultimately risked public safety, despite their complaints. Employees at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, interviewed in the wake of the New Hampshire crash that killed seven motorcyclists, told the auditing firm, Grant Thornton, that their concerns about computer glitches piling up, lack of training on regulations, out-of-state records processing and dwindling resources went unaddressed, according to a 294-page transcript released this week." - "MA lawmakers want rules for electric scooters," by Christian M. Wade, Eagle-Tribune: "Electric scooters are gliding around cities and towns as a cheap, environmentally friendly means of transportation, but the devices are technically illegal under state law. Massachusetts requires that all motorized scooters — whether they be sitting or standing, electric or gas powered — be equipped with brake lights and turning signals like mopeds. Some communities, like Salem, have allowed high-tech companies such as Zagster, Lime and Bird to rent out scooters as part of pilot projects, but there are no statewide rules or guidelines. Lawmakers are considering several proposals to legalize e-scooters by setting rules for how and where they can be used in cities and towns that want them." - "Gov. Baker Signs Bill To Overhaul Campaign Finance Rules," The Associated Press: "Republican Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has signed into law a bill aimed at overhauling the state's campaign finance rules. The new law requires state lawmakers and some mayoral candidates to adhere to a system that already covers statewide and county officials. Under the new law signed Tuesday by Baker, state lawmakers must report campaign contributions and expenditures in monthly statements filed by their banks." - "Driving is surging in Massachusetts. Gas tax revenue? Not so much," by Adam Vaccaro, Boston Globe: "For public officials around the nation looking to fix beat-up roads and bridges or buy new buses and subway cars, it's one of the most reliable turns in the playbook: Raise the gas tax and watch the money flow in. But as the Massachusetts Legislature prepares to debate a massive fix to the state's beleaguered transportation system — one that could include a stiff increase in the gas tax — they might take note that it may not be such a reliable source of revenue for much longer. Gas tax collections by the state have barely increased over the past five years — just 2.5 percent since fiscal year 2015, the first full year after lawmakers last increased the tax, by 3 cents, to 24 cents a gallon, according to Massachusetts tax collection data." FROM THE HUB - "Draconian state child care assistance leaves too many working poor with debt, advocates say," by Kay Lazar, Boston Globe: "Chanice was so buried in bills in 2017, she took on part-time work at a taxi company in addition to her full-time job answering phones at a Boston community health center in hopes of digging herself out. Still, she staggered under the weight of the copayments she was expected to contribute for state-subsidized child care. With more than $2,100 in overdue child care bills, the young Roxbury mother lost her day care spot for her son. Then she lost her job." - "Q&A: Business coalition backs pro-immigrant legislation," by Sarah Betancourt, CommonWealth Magazine: "THREE YEARS into the presidency of Donald Trump, the main ways immigrants can remain in the country legally - through a protected status or with one of over 160 types of visas - have changed significantly. From new or higher fees, to adjustments in what paperwork must be submitted, to the complete rescinding of some immigration statuses (like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which impacts young adult immigrants brought to the country illegally as children), the legal landscape of who can stay and who must go has changed. These changes have had a strong impact on the businesses that employ immigrants. The changes have affected who can retain work authorization to stay on their job, altered what employers must do to keep immigrant employees, and created uncertainty about employees being deported because of a sudden change in federal policy." - "The state's largest employer is changing its name," by Bruce Mohl, CommonWealth Magazine: "PARTNERS HEALTHCARE, the state's dominant health care provider and the largest employer in Massachusetts, is changing its name to Mass General Brigham. The new name shifts the focus of the health care system away from an all-encompassing, corporate title that was created 25 years ago and zeroes in on the company's two world-renowned hospitals - Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's. In a letter to the company's 75,000 employees, Anne Klibanski, the president and CEO, unveiled a new patient-centered strategy for the health care system." MOULTON MATTERS - "Why supervised drug injection sites make sense," by Rep. Seth Moulton, CommonWealth Magazine: "SINCE 2000, 17,496 citizens of Massachusetts have died from an opioid overdose. Half of those deaths came in the last five years. That's like one of at least 245 communities in the Commonwealth disappearing in 19 years. Enough people in Massachusetts have died from an opioid overdose to fill all but 69 of the seats at the TD Garden for a Bruins game. Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control estimates 700,000 Americans died from an opioid overdose death in the years spanning 1993-2017. That's more people than live in the entire city of Boston." DAY IN COURT - "Suffolk district attorney defends prosecution in BC suicide in TV interview," by Jeremy C. Fox, Boston Globe: "Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins defended her prosecution of a Boston College student accused of manipulting her boyfriend into suicide and addressed high-profile disagreements with other officials that have marked her first year in office as she spoke in a televised interview Sunday. WCVB's Ed Harding introduced Rollins, who was the first African-American woman elected to be a Massachusetts district attorney, as "Boston's trailblazing prosecutor," on Sunday's "On the Record." But Harding and co-host Janet Wu didn't pull any punches as they questioned Rollins about the Inyoung You case and her public friction with federal, state, and local authorities." - "SJC faces tricky constitutional challenge in indigent defense case," by Michael Jonas, CommonWealth Magazine: "THE STATE'S HIGHEST COURT is wrestling with a case centered on how to guarantee a fundamental constitutional right of the judicial system — the right of criminal defendants, even those too poor to hire a lawyer, to be represented by an attorney. But both sides in the case, as well as the SJC justices who must rule on it, seem to agree that the ultimate solution to the problem doesn't actually rest with the court but instead with the budget-writing powers of the Legislature. That's raising a second constitutional issue — the separation of powers limiting the reach of different branches of government — and presenting a challenge for the court to craft a ruling that upholds one fundamental constitutional principle without overstepping another." WARREN REPORT - "How a fight over health care entangled Elizabeth Warren — and reshaped the Democratic presidential race," by Annie Linskey, Jeff Stein and Dan Balz, Washington Post: "In mid-November, a few dozen of the country's most influential advocates of Medicare-for-all were reviewing details of Sen. Elizabeth Warren's plan to finance the proposed government-run program when they learned that she had unexpectedly changed her position. Warren (D-Mass.), who had excited liberals when she initially embraced a Medicare-for-all idea first proposed by rival presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was suggesting a more centrist idea: to delay enactment of the single-payer system and, in the interim, give consumers the choice to opt in. The change might have seemed insignificant to most Americans, but to many in the suburban Washington conference room, Warren's new stance marked an abrupt retreat, according to several people in attendance. That moment highlighted the political turbulence that Warren has experienced in recent weeks as she has attempted to extricate herself from a policy dilemma that has blunted her steady rise to the top ranks of the Democratic nominating contest." - "Elizabeth Warren responds to new Pete Buttigieg ad airing in Iowa that criticizes free college tuition for all," by Kim Norvell, Des Moines Register: "In response to a new television ad airing in Iowa, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she wants to provide tuition-free college to every American as "an investment in an entire generation of young people." The senator from Massachusetts was responding to a reporter's question about an ad by South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg that says he will not provide free college tuition to the children of millionaires." IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN - "John Kerry: We are way behind on climate change," by Matthew Choi, POLITICO: "Former Secretary of State John Kerry said no country is taking the necessary steps to combat climate change and that the issue should be treated "like a war." "There are great efforts out there, many environmental groups, young people, particularly, but no country is getting the job done," Kerry told NBC's Chuck Todd on Sunday. Kerry's comments on "Meet the Press" came just after the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee launched a bipartisan coalition with lawmakers, world leaders and celebrities to raise awareness of climate issues." - "John Kerry Launches Star-Studded Climate Coalition," by Lisa Friedman, The New York Times: "John Kerry, the former senator and secretary of state, has formed a new bipartisan coalition of world leaders, military brass and Hollywood celebrities to push for public action to combat climate change. The name, World War Zero, is supposed to evoke both the national security threat posed by the earth's warming and the type of wartime mobilization that Mr. Kerry argued would be needed to stop the rise in carbon emissions before 2050. The star-studded group is supposed to win over those skeptical of the policies that would be needed to accomplish that." - "'Forever chemicals' are found in MWRA fertilizer, drawing alarm," by David Abel, Boston Globe: "The sludge arrives by the ton, pumped through miles of underwater pipes from Deer Island to a waste-water treatment plant on the banks of the Weymouth Fore River, where it's spun through centrifuges into a kind of wet cake, dried by large furnaces, and made into fertilizer pellets. Converting much of the region's sewage into a valuable byproduct was a major achievement of the Boston Harbor cleanup. Over the past three decades, the fertilizer has been sold or given away in massive amounts: tens of thousands of tons a year sent to farms and golf courses, parks and gardens across the region." ABOVE THE FOLD — Herald: "SKY FALL," "SLUSH HOUR," — Globe : "Poor workers struggling with child-care debt trap," "Trump's lawyers reject role in hearing." THE LOCAL ANGLE - "Care worker digs: A nursing home owner on the Cape offers housing to his employees," by Robert Weisman, Boston Globe: "Struggling to find workers for his nursing home and assisted living center in this seaside tourist town, Bill Bogdanovich tried a new strategy: Buying properties on the southeastern elbow of Cape Cod to rent to employees. He offered below-market rents to workers, many recruited from off the Cape and as far away as Puerto Rico, who were having trouble finding places to live. He also allowed them to spread the cost of higher winter heating bills over 12 months. A year later, his gambit appears to have paid off: Bogdanovich has been able to hire and retain more workers — the better for his senior housing residents, and for business." - "Where did the money go? Buyers of lucrative state tax credits remain secret," by Paul Leighton, The Salem News: "When Windover Development was converting a former box factory into veterans housing, the state and federal government awarded the company more than $2 million in tax credits through a program designed to encourage historic rehabilitation. More than six years after the Pleasant Street Apartments opened, those tax credits are still generating controversy, including a recent resolution by a Beverly city councilor alleging "manipulation" of the program. For all of the attention the tax credits have received, however, there's still one question that hasn't been answered: Who ultimately cashed in on them?" - "On 50th National Day Of Mourning, Indigenous People In Plymouth Say They're Still Fighting," by Quincy Walters, WBUR: "Hundreds of people gathered in the rain and wind in Plymouth on Thursday to observe the 50th National Day of Mourning. The annual tradition began in order to give Native Americans an opportunity to speak on a holiday they say often negates their experiences. This year, the message was one of continuation: Native Americans are still being lied to, they say, and their lands are still being violated. People from tribes in New York, Louisiana, Canada and Mexico spoke out against pipelines, dams and hydropower stations." TRANSITIONS - Matt Corridoni joins Pete Buttigieg's campaign as deputy rapid response communications director. Corridoni previously worked on Rep. Seth Moulton's campaign and his Serve America PAC. HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY - to Larry Summers and James Sonne , who both celebrated on Saturday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY - to Morgan Hughes. DID THE HOME TEAM WIN? No! The Texans beat the Patriots 28-22. Want to make an impact? POLITICO Massachusetts has a variety of solutions available for partners looking to reach and activate the most influential people in the Bay State. Have a petition you want signed? A cause you're promoting? Seeking to increase brand awareness among this key audience? Share your message with our influential readers to foster engagement and drive action. Contact Jesse Shapiro to find out how: jshapiro@politico.com.   Follow us on Twitter Stephanie Murray @StephMurr_Jour   Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook  |  Playbook PM  |  California Playbook  |  Florida Playbook  |  Illinois Playbook  |  Massachusetts Playbook  |  New Jersey Playbook  |  New York Playbook  |  Brussels Playbook  |  London Playbook View all our politics and policy newsletters FOLLOW US

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Bernie Vs. the Machine

01 December 19

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
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Bernie Vs. the Machine

Alexander Burns, The New York Times
Burns writes: "'No longer will they call my victory a fluke,' Mr. Sanders, then 41, wrote in a letter after the election, to a city-planning expert at Cornell University."
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Supporters of impeachment rally at the Capitol in Washington on Thursday, two days after a formal impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump was begun. (photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

The Takeaway From the Impeachment Hearings: Our Constitution Has Failed
Chris Edelson, In These Times
Edelson writes: "When the House Intelligence Committee began holding hearings as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, some media coverage suggested the proceedings lacked enough 'pizzazz ... to capture public attention.'"
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Metal worker Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma, standing with his son, survived the collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans. (photo: Tania Bueso/WP)

ICE Deports 'Crucial Witness' in Hard Rock Hotel Collapse

Derek Hawkins and Kim Bellware, The Washington Post

Excerpt: "A metal worker considered a 'crucial witness' in the collapse at the Hard Rock Hotel construction site in New Orleans last month was deported Friday to his native Honduras."

Lawyers for Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma said the 38-year-old may have been targeted for deportation because he voiced concerns about the project — a claim immigration officials have denied.

Palma escaped the 18-story structure by jumping between floors as the steel and concrete from the upper floors came crashing down around him. The Oct. 12 catastrophe left three workers dead and dozens injured.

Two days later, as he was recovering, federal immigration agents arrested Palma while he was fishing at a national wildlife refuge.

Palma was not authorized to work in the United States and had been fighting a removal order since 2016. He was scheduled to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in mid-November.

Palma, who worked construction in New Orleans for 17 years, had repeatedly reported safety issues at the Hard Rock site to supervisors and was always told to go back to work, according to his lawyers, who helped him file a complaint with the Labor Department.

The day before the collapse, his lawyers said, he told some of his co-workers that he noticed the floor underneath him was moving, as if being shaken in an earthquake. When they discussed what happened later, they were within earshot of several supervisors, according to his lawyers.

Shortly after the incident, Palma spoke in a video interview with a Spanish-language news outlet about the collapse and his escape, and joined a lawsuit with other injured workers against the contractors and developers.

After spending weeks at an ICE staging facility in Alexandria, La., Palma was put on a Friday morning deportation flight to Honduras, ICE spokesman Bryan D. Cox confirmed to The Washington Post on Saturday.

Cox called claims that Palma was targeted for speaking out about the conditions at the construction site “false” and “wildly irresponsible.”

“Mr. Ramirez-Palma’s latest application for a stay of removal had already been denied by ICE on Oct. 3, more than a week before the incident cited by his supporters,” Cox said in an emailed statement.

The New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, which is assisting Palma with his labor case with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said Friday that Palma’s deportation “leaves every one of us less safe.”

“The next time a building collapses, we will wonder if it could have been prevented if our federal agencies had prioritized answers and accountability for the survivors of the Hard Rock, we will wonder if the same bad actors are to blame, and we will wonder if potential whistleblowers kept silent because they saw what happened to Joel,” the center’s spokesman, Julien Burns, said in a statement to The Post.

Days before Palma’s deportation, the secretary of the Louisiana Workforce Commission asked the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, to release Palma and stop his deportation proceedings.

In a letter to William P. Joyce, director of ICE’s New Orleans field office, Secretary Ava Dejoie said Palma was a “crucial witness” in the ongoing investigation.

“His detention and pending deportation hamper the ongoing investigations,” Dejoie wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Post. “If he is deported, the public may never know what key information is being deported with him. The investigations will undoubtedly suffer.”

Agents from the Fish and Wildlife Service questioned Palma as he was fishing at Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge. When he was unable to show them a valid driver’s license, they called Border Patrol agents, who arrested him.

Palma’s deportation is a striking illustration of the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on undocumented immigrants. In New Orleans, where the Latino population has more than doubled in the past two decades, activists and lawyers said they believe it has had a chilling effect on immigrant laborers, potentially discouraging them from cooperating with investigators, as The Post has reported.

Palma’s arrest also raised questions about the status of a long-standing agreement between the Department of Homeland Security and the Labor Department. Under the agreement, which was crafted during the Obama administration, ICE is not supposed to arrest workers who are involved in disputes that are being investigated by the Labor Department.

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Amazon warehouse. (photo: VICE)

Indiana GOP Leadership Helped Amazon Sweep a Worker's Death Under the Rug While Gunning for HQ2

Alex Lubben, VICE

Lubben writes: "Indiana officials coached Amazon on how to downplay an investigation into a worker's death at one of the company's warehouses, according to a whistleblower who spoke to Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting. And Indiana ultimately buried the investigation entirely as it tried to woo Amazon into opening its second headquarters in the state."

Other cities and states offered Amazon lots of incentives, including helipads, cash, and exclusive airport lounges for company executives in an effort to win the bidding for Amazon’s second headquarters — HQ2, as it became known. Indiana, however, had something else to offer: amnesty in the case of a worker’s death, according to the whistleblower.

The investigation was allegedly tamped down through a chain of command that reached all the way to the governor’s office, and the state coaching the company on how to reduce fines related to the worker’s death. But now, the workplace safety inspector who investigated the worker's death is sounding the alarm on the company’s poor track record on safety in its warehouses. And he says he’s got tapes to prove it.

“We are doing what Amazon has asked us to do: coordinating efforts with all interested regions of the state to put our best bid forward,” Gov. Eric Holcomb said in the statement about seeking the bid.

When Phillip Lee Terry grabbed his wrench and slid under a forklift to try to fix a piece of equipment in September 2017, the 1,200-pound piece of equipment dropped down and crushed the 59-year-old grandfather. Two hours went by before one of his coworkers saw the blood seeping out from underneath the lift.

The next day, an inspector, John Stallone, from Indiana’s occupational safety agency showed up at the warehouse to investigate the death. He quickly figured out that a pole should’ve been used to prop up the equipment and asked Amazon for documentation that Terry had been trained on how to use the equipment.

But Terry had only been informally trained on the job by a coworker. And Terry’s coworkers said in signed statements that the culture of safety at the warehouse was lax. The emphasis, instead, was on getting the product moved as quickly as possible.

“There’s no training, there’s no safety. It’s ‘Get ’er done,’” one of the coworkers said in a statement, according to Reveal.

Stallone issued four workplace safety citations to the company, which carried a total fine of $28,000. Then the pushback from his bosses started.

The head of Indiana’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Julie Alexander, suggested on a call with Amazon high-ups that they could group the citations together to lower the fines — and pitched a partnership between her agency and Amazon to promote workplace best-practices in the logistics industry, according to Reveal.

Concerned about what he was hearing, Stallone secretly recorded the conversation.

He later met with Indiana Labor Commissioner Rick Ruble and Indiana Gov. Holcomb, who allegedly told Stallone how much it would mean to the state to win the HQ2 bid. Both officials deny the meeting ever happened.

Stallone resigned on Dec. 6, 2017 and soon sent an email to a worker at the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that suggested that the reason his investigation had been dropped was because Indiana wanted to win the HQ2 bid.

That same day, Amazon donated $1,000 to Holcomb’s reelection campaign — the company hadn’t donated to him before and hasn’t since.

A few months later, after Amazon appealed the citations, the state deleted all of them.

“There’s a dramatic level of under-recording of safety incidents across the industry — we recognized this in 2016 and began to take an aggressive stance on recording injuries no matter how big or small,” the company said in a statement about the investigation.

But this isn’t the first time the company has come under fire for its safety practices. Last year, 24 Amazon workers were hospitalized after a robotic arm punctured a can of bear spray. In September, another worker died on the job after suffering a heart attack in the warehouse. He laid on the floor for 20 minutes before receiving any medical attention.

And just this week, Gizmodo got its hands on leaked internal Amazon documents that show workplace injuries at the company’s Staten Island warehouse occur at three times the logistics industry average.

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Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke talks to the media at the Louisiana Secretary of State's office after registering his candidacy for the November 8 ballot as a Republican in Baton Rouge, La., on, July 22, 2016. (photo: Max Becherer/AP)

David Duke and His Twitter Nazis Got Mad at Me. Twitter Took Their Side.

Jon Schwarz, The Intercept

Schwarz writes: "My troubles began last March when I made a joke on Twitter about Fox News host Tucker Carlson. I have some advice for you: Do not ever do this."

The short version of the story is that I made fun of Tucker Carlson; Carlson’s fans notified David Duke, the former KKK Grand Wizard and current Twitter personality; Duke dug up an earlier joke I’d made in 2015; Duke’s minions reported the 2015 joke to Twitter; and Twitter told me my 2015 joke violated its Terms of Service and my account would be frozen unless I voluntarily deleted it. Now, eight months later, I’ve finally given in and bowed to Twitter’s degrading demands.

The long version of the story is below. The details are as fascinating as any 1,000-tweet Twitter thread. In other words, if you end up reading it all, you will feel queasy and have no one to blame but yourself.

The whole saga has been an education for me in corporate America’s cravenness, as well as the insoluble problems of the internet. But more than anything, I’ve learned this: David Duke is unbelievably stupid.

Interestingly, his stupidity can be quantified. Male cane toads are notoriously dumb, so dumb that they’ll try to have sex with anything that will stay still long enough to hump, including live female cane toads, dead female cane toads, live snakes, dead rabbits, rotting mangos, and fellow male cane toads that are attempting to have sex with a rotting mango. Yet scientists tell us that if you extracted the stupidity from one million male cane toads, this would still only be half as stupid as David Duke! 

Jon Schwarz

✔@schwarz

Tucker, just say Jewish, this is taking forever

10:26 AM - Mar 12, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Back in March, the media monitoring organization Media Matters dug up some old radio appearances in which Carlson said, among other things, that the people of Iraq are “semi-literate primitive monkeys.” Ha ha! You have to admit that is funny, especially given that the U.S. has killed at least a million Iraqis.

When criticized, Carlson responded that he was being attacked by “the people who write our movies and our sitcoms.” This language is coded about as deeply as it is when you make your password “passw0rd.” No one will be able to crack that.

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Hank Skinner and his wife, Carol, are no strangers to pain, having collectively experienced multiple illnesses and surgeries. Hank relies on a fentanyl patch but is now being forced to lower his dosage. (photo: Salwan Georges/WP)

Our Dangerous Fear of Pain

James D. Hudson, The Washington Post

Hudson writes: "One of the first things I learned about pain was its value."

EXCERPT:
Fixing our health-care system isn’t as easy. Financial incentives are set up to increase health-care delivery, not the overall health of the population, and Medicare-for-all wouldn’t address this problem. But one fix is for insurers to scrub the rules that make it cheaper for patients to continue failed pain treatments, surgeries, injections and medications. Instead, they should push for conservative care, such as physical therapy, pain neuroscience education and multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation programs, which are low-risk, high-reward enterprises that focus on improving a patient’s function. These interventions require an intensive period of treatment, but they’ve been shown to be cost-effective, giving patients a shot at becoming the people they used to be.

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A plastic bottle. (photo: PBS)

Most Americans Would Pay More to Avoid Using Plastic
Laura Santhanam, PBS News Hour
Santhanam writes: "Two-thirds of Americans are willing to pay more for everyday items made out of environmentally sustainable materials instead of single-use plastic, according to a survey from PBS NewsHour and Marist Poll."
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