Hissyspit
Hissyspit's JournalLawsuit: Former Bain Execs Fired Employees for Not Being Mormon
Source: Courthouse News Service / Raw Story
Lawsuit: Former Bain execs fired employees for not being Mormon
By David Edwards
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 14:51 EDT
Former executives from Bain Capital, a company founded by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, have been accused of firing six out of seven members of a management team for not belonging to the Mormon church.
David McCurdy and four other co-plaintiffs are suing Sorenson Capital Partners (SCP), Care Holding Co., Care Senior Living, and SCP Care Acquisition because they say the private equity firm fired them from their jobs at Care Senior Living because they were not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), according to Courthouse News Service.
“Despite the promise of 5-years employment, in mid-November 2011, after only 7 months Plaintiffs were told that their employment would be terminated effective February 2012,” the lawsuit (PDF), which was filed in federal court in Oregon, states.
“During their tenure with Defendants, Plaintiffs learned that SCP strongly favored hiring, employing, and doing business with other members of the LDS Church,” the suit continues. “SCP partners, in particular Curtis Toone and Mike Scott, made comments about religion and questioned the beliefs of Plaintiffs and other employees.”
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/18/lawsuit-former-bain-execs-fired-employees-for-not-being-mormon/
House Panel Okays $33 Billion in Food Stamp Cuts
Source: Reuters
House panel okays $33 billion in food stamp cuts
By Emily Stephenson
Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:39pm EDT
(Reuters) - A congressional panel approved about $33 billion in cuts over 10 years from food assistance programs in a partisan vote that signaled Republican members' preference to trim social programs instead of farm programs or defense spending this year.
The cuts advanced by the House of Representatives Agriculture Committee on Wednesday are expected to die in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
But the vote done by voice, in which several Democrats uttered irritable 'nays', showed that Republicans will push domestic spending cuts over defense cuts or tax hikes as they try to replace automatic cuts that take effect in January.
- snip -
"I would contend this entire process is a waste of time," Representative Collin Peterson, the committee's top Democrat, said in opening remarks. "Taking a meat ax to nutrition programs that feed millions of hard-working families in an effort to avoid defense cuts is not a serious way to achieve deficit reduction," he said.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE83H16320120418?irpc=932
Glenn Greenwald: Attacks on RT and Assange Reveal Much About the Critics
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/18/attacks_on_rt_and_assange_reveal_much_about_the_critics/singleton/?mobile.htmlWEDNESDAY, APR 18, 2012 8:46 AM EDT
Attacks on RT and Assange reveal much about the critics
The NY Times' review of Assange's new show illustrates the failures and hypocrisies of our "watchdog" media
BY GLENN GREENWALD
A new news show hosted by Julian Assange debuted yesterday on RT, the global media outlet funded by the Russian government and carried by several of America’s largest cable providers. His first show was devoted to an interview with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (video below), who has not given a television interview since 2006. The combination of Assange and a Russian-owned TV network has triggered a predictable wave of snide, smug attacks from American media figures, attacks that found their purest expression in this New York Times review yesterday of Assange’s new program by Alessandra Stanley.
Much is revealed by these media attacks on Assange and RT — not about Assange or RT but about their media critics. We yet again find, for instance, the revealing paradox that nothing prompts media scorn more than bringing about unauthorized transparency for the U.S. government. As a result, it’s worth examining a few passages from Stanley’s analysis. It begins this way:
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That contrast — between one of America’s Most Serious Journalists and Assange — speaks volumes already about who is interested in actual journalism and who is not. Then we have this, a trite little point, impressed by its own cleverness, found at the center of almost all of these sneering pieces on Assange’s new program:
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Let’s examine the unstated premises at work here. There is apparently a rule that says it’s perfectly OK for a journalist to work for a media outlet owned and controlled by a weapons manufacturer (GE/NBC/MSNBC), or by the U.S. and British governments (BBC/Stars & Stripes/Voice of America), or by Rupert Murdoch and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal (Wall St. Journal/Fox News), or by a banking corporation with long-standing ties to right-wing governments (Politico), or by for-profit corporations whose profits depend upon staying in the good graces of the U.S. government (Kaplan/The Washington Post), or by loyalists to one of the two major political parties (National Review/TPM/countless others), but it’s an intrinsic violation of journalistic integrity to work for a media outlet owned by the Russian government. Where did that rule come from?
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German Police Rescue DJ from "Sex Mad" Woman's Home
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE83G0OU20120417?irpc=932German police rescue DJ from "sex mad" woman's home
Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:25am EDT
By Alice Baghdjian
BERLIN (Reuters) - A Munich disc jockey held for five hours as a sex slave by a 47-year-old German woman said on Monday he would press charges of sexual coercion and deprivation of freedom against a woman he had met just a few hours earlier in a local pub.
The 43-year-old disc jockey named Dieter S. told Munich's T.Z. newspaper that he had to call police to rescue him from the woman's flat in Munich after she locked him inside, hid the key and forced him to have repeated sex with her.
- snip -
"I was having a beer at the pub after work and met this woman -- and we hit it off right away," Dieter said, referring to their meeting at a pub in Munich's Ludwigsvorstadt district. "She was quite attractive," he added.
But after the first consensual rounds, Dieter said he wanted to leave. He discovered she had locked the doors from the inside and hidden the key so he could not leave. He thought about trying to flee over the balcony but it was too high, he said.
"I realized I was trapped and had to keep going until she fell asleep," Dieter said. "So we had sex five more times."
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500 Days of the WikiLeaks Banking Blockade
http://wikileaks.org/Press-Release-500-Days-of-the.html?nocachePress Release - 500 Days of the WikiLeaks Banking Blockade
Tuesday 17th February 2012 13:30 BST
500 days ago today, WikiLeaks was abruptly cut off from 95% of its funds. 500 days have passed since a cartel of the world’s largest financial players Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union instituted a consolidated, extra-judicial financial blockade against WikiLeaks. The financial blockade was imposed at a point at which the public wished to express its support unequivocally through millions of dollars in small donations. The blockade cuts WikiLeaks off from its small donors, the vast majority of our donor base. The financial cartel has so far acted with impunity in an attempt to censor WikiLeaks and curtail our supporters economic rights. The 500th day of the banking blockade coincides with the premiere broadcast of The World Tomorrow with Julian Assange, a groundbreaking new interview programme.
The financial blockade against WikiLeaks is one of a number of strategies to take WikiLeaks down. Recently, individuals who are in no way connected to WikiLeaks other than through their intention to support our project have, on their own initiative, commenced litigation in order to fight for their right to use their money as they choose.
In Sweden, Law Professor Dennis Töllborg filed a complaint at the Swedish competition authority and a separate complaint against Sweden at the European Commission.
In Colombia another Law Professor, Gabriel Gomez Albarello, is fighting for his right to donate to WikiLeaks via the Colombian bank Banco Caja Social, using the financial authorities’ complaints mechanisms and now through the courts.
In Australia, Green Party Senator Scott Ludlam has been demanding redress to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as a customer of MasterCard. He recently called upon the Australian government to act: “It’s time our Government pushed back on companies including Visa, Mastercard and Paypal, and demanded to know why they are continuing the crippling financial blockade of WikiLeaks. If it turns out the blockade is legal under Australian trade practices law, then that’s a problem the Australian Parliament should fix. In the meantime, it’s up to each of us to beat the blockade in our own way.”
Three months ago, DataCell, WikiLeaks’ partner in Iceland, filed a lawsuit in Reykjavik District Court against VALITOR (formerly VISA Iceland) demanding that the company reopen the processing of credit card payments to DataCell, including donations intended for WikiLeaks. They state that the closure was a clear breach of Icelandic merchant laws. The Court notified the parties and the case is underway. A similar procedure will be pursued in Denmark.
Rights organisations have alse reacted strongly in support of WikiLeaks: the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has openly criticized the financial blockade against WikiLeaks, as have the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression. Meanwhile, a growing number of alternative ways to beat the blockade have emerged through financial intermediaries who stand by donors’ rights to support the organisation of their choice. The anti-trust division of the European Commission (DG-IV) has yet to announce whether it will commence a formal investigation against VISA Europe, MasterCard, and Diner’s Club based on the complaint WikiLeaks lodged on the 9th of July 2011 together with DataCell. The European Commission has been deliberating for over nine months now, an unusually long period given that pre-investigations routinely take between three and four months. WikiLeaks has done nothing illegal. The US Treasury has publicly ackowledged that the US has no grounds to blacklist WikiLeaks. As it stands today, VISA, MasterCard, and any other banks and financial giants can agree to arbitrarily strangle NGOs or publishers by cutting off their financial lifeline. The precedent effectively puts the present and future of freedom of speech, journalism and activism in peril. These institutions are acting outside of any accountable judicial or administrative process. For the EU, this case is a matter of sovereignty. These companies hold a virtual monopoly of the European credit card market, and they are enacting the stated will of extreme figures within the Washington establishment.
Very Cool Space Shuttle...
Piggyback space shuttle flies past the Capitol today.
http://instagr.am/p/JhjkbYiUjA
“Second only to the launch, this is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. #WelcomeDiscovery”
Researchers Develop Stem Cells That Attack and Destroy HIV
Source: Raw Story / PLos Pathogens
Researchers develop stem cells that attack and destroy HIV
By Andrew Jones
Monday, April 16, 2012 10:55 EDT Scientists from the University of California Los Angeles have found that genetically engineered human stem cells can suppress HIV in living mice, raising the hope for a breakthrough cure for HIV patients.
In a recent study from the journal PLoS Pathogens, researchers wanted to go further than previous studies that used vaccines to slow HIV progression. They cloned a molecule that controls “killer” T cells, white blood cells that recognize and kill HIV-infected cells. The molecule was then injected with human blood stem cells inside of mice to control those cells for observation.
Over a month after injecting the cells into the mice, researchers found an increase in the amount of T-cells needed to fight HIV cells. The study revealed for the first time that engineered cells were capable of developing and migrating to the organs to fight infection there. Lead researcher Scott G. Kitchen, an assistant professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, was pleased with the results.
“We believe that this study lays the groundwork for the potential use of this type of an approach in combating HIV infection in infected individuals, in hopes of eradicating the virus from the body,” Kitchen said. “We believe that this is the first step in developing a more aggressive approach in correcting the defects in the human T cell responses that allow HIV to persist in infected people.”
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/16/researchers-develop-stem-cells-that-attack-and-destroy-hiv
TOM TOMORROW: Sparkman and 'The Heavy-Handed Ray of Ironic Justice!'
Daily Kos Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/16/1082813/-Sparkman-and-the-Blinkster?detail=hide
NY Times: Having An Abortion When "No One Called Me A Slut"
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/having-an-abortion-when-no-one-called-me-a-slut.html?_r=1&src=tpOPINION
No One Called Me a Slut
By SUSAN HEATH
Published: April 14, 2012
TWO weeks ago, a bomb went off outside a Wisconsin abortion center. In recent years, several states have passed or tried to pass laws requiring women seeking legal, constitutionally protected procedures to first undergo medical examinations. A young woman has been called a slut after testifying in favor of insurance coverage for contraceptive care. These are but a few of the stories about attacks on a woman’s right to choose.
It wasn’t always like this.
This is a story of how it used to be:
It’s 1978, five years after Roe v. Wade. I’m 38, I have four sons — the oldest is 17, the youngest is turning 12. I’m at school, getting a B.A., and I’m loving it.
I’m about two and a half months pregnant.
I don’t want this child.
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SUNDAY'S DOONESBURY: "So Where You Calling From?"
http://doonesbury.slate.com
Timing by Trudeau...
Series of Blasts, Rocket Fire Rock Kabul as Taliban Targets Diplomatic Area
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101498174
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