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Snarkoleptic

Snarkoleptic's Journal
Snarkoleptic's Journal
May 19, 2016

Cannabis decriminalization coming soon to Illinois!

https://www.mpp.org/states/illinois/

Following its victory in the Senate last month, SB 2228 passed the House of Representatives on another strong vote of 64-50 and is now on its way to the governor’s desk. This bill would remove criminal penalties for the possession of a small amount of marijuana and replace them with a fine. Sen. Heather Steans’ bill, sponsored by Rep. Kelly Cassidy in the House, would remove the possibility of arrest, jail, and a harmful criminal record for people in possession of a small amount of marijuana. While not ideal, these changes would vastly improve current law by replacing criminal penalties with a fine of between $100 and $200 for possession of up to 10 grams. The bill also makes improvements to current DUI laws, which today can lead to unimpaired drivers being considered under the influence weeks after consuming cannabis. SB 2228 mirrors another bill presented earlier this year by Rep. Kelly Cassidy.

The bill reflects changes made by Gov. Bruce Rauner to a similar bill last year, so we expect he will sign this year’s legislation.
May 17, 2016

Woman donates hair to cancer patients is mistaken for trans, harassed in restroom

Stay classy, conservatives...
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/woman-who-donated-hair-to-cancer-patients-mistaken-for-transgender-man-and-harassed-in-restroom/

Danbury News Times reports that Toms was accosted by another woman while she was washing her hands in a Walmart bathroom in Danbury, Connecticut. Toms was wearing a baseball hat and she had very short hair because she recently donated her hair to a charity that makes wigs for children with cancer.

She said that she was approached by a complete stranger in the bathroom and was told that “You’re disgusting!” and “You don’t belong here!” The 22-year-old Toms posted a video on Facebook talking about how the experience opened her eyes to the abuse that transgender people face every day.

“After experiencing the discrimination they face firsthand, I cannot fathom the discrimination transgender people must face in a lifetime,” she said. “Can you imagine going out every day and having people tell you you should not be who you are or that people will not accept you as who you are?”


May 14, 2016

How A Giant Restaurant Conglomerate Teamed Up With Banks To Stiff Its Workers

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/05/12/3777607/darden-restaurants-payroll-cards/

The restaurant conglomerate has roughly 148,000 employees in the U.S. Half of those workers get payroll cards in lieu of standard paper checks. Each card shaves about $2.75 per pay period off of the company’s overhead, saving Darden as much as $5 million per year.

Darden’s bottom-line bliss means pain and chaos for those 70,000-plus workers. The cards come with a litany of fees: 99 cents for using it to pay utility bills, 50 cents if the card is declined at a cash register, $1.75 to withdraw money from an out-of-network ATM and 75 cents just to check the card’s balance. If a worker loses her card, she’ll pay $10 to have it replaced.

As Darden cuts its administrative costs, the banks that provide the cards rack up significant income on the back end. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia researchers put median bank earnings at $1.75 per card per month back in 2012. That suggests Darden’s financial partners are pulling down about $1.5 million a year


And from the linked article-
http://rocunited.org/

KEY FINDINGS
Problems with Darden’s use of payroll cards include:
• 23% OF EMPLOYEES reported not being given instructions on how to use the Darden Card.
• 76% OF EMPLOYEES reported having to pay fees to access their wages at the ATM.
• 24% OF EMPLOYEES reported fees at point-of-purchase.
• 63% REPORTED that they were not told about all of the fees associated with the card before it was issued to them.
• 42% REPORTED experiencing problems accessing their wages through the payroll card.
• 49% REPORTED that they do not have access to ATMs that do not charge them a fee to access their wages.
• 54% OF EMPLOYEES who used the card to fill up their gas tanks have experienced large authorization holds on their card as a result.
• 26% REPORTED not being allowed to choose an alternative method of payment to the Darden payroll card.
Workers across Darden’s restaurant concepts reported paying fees of $1.75 to
withdraw wages from an ATM; $10 for a replacement card; and a $5 monthly
maintenance fee after 6 months of inactivity.
May 13, 2016

Nestlé Just Gained Control Over This Town’s Water for the Next 45 Years

http://usuncut.com/news/nestle-water-deal-fryeburg-maine/

Tea Party Republican Governor Paul LePage of Maine helped Nestlé secure a contract that gives Poland Springs, a Nestlé subsidiary, permission to take the small town of Fryeburg’s groundwater for the next 25 years for their own profit. The deal could stretch to 45 years due to built-in extensions.

Today that deal was upheld by Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court, essentially cutting off activists’ last attempts to scuttle the deal.

There has never been a contract that ties up local water resources for such a long period of time in American history. Water activists worry that this could set a precedent for future corporate attempts to take water from rural towns for extended periods of time.
April 30, 2016

Please consider adding your name to this petition in support of the "Close the Revolving Door Act"

https://actionsprout.io/90AA4D

Senator Al Franken has introduced a bill to ban the insane practice of former members of Congress cashing in as big money lobbyists.

The bill is called the Close the Revolving Door Act and would help get corporate money out of our political system. This is an extremely important piece of legislation!

Sign the petition: Tell Congress to pass Franken's bill and ban politicians from ever becoming lobbyists.

April 29, 2016

Oops! No One Told Ted Cruz That Delegates Pick the VP at a Contested Convention

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/oops-no-one-told-ted-cruz-delegates-pick-vp-contested-convention?src=newsletter1055528

However, the Cruz campaign didn’t seem to read the fine print, which makes the Republican candidate’s announcement even more of a fail.

“At a normal [GOP] convention, the presidential candidates get a roll call vote, and then the VP gets a simple voice vote. But if there’s a contested convention, things are more formal, and more than 2,300 delegates are bound to a presidential candidate for at least one round of voting, for the most part,” explained Gretchen Carlson, host of Fox News’ “The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson.”

But wait, what about the VP?

“That’s never the case for the VP.” Carlson confirmed. She continued, “All 2,472 delegates are unbound when it comes to nominating a VP—meaning they can vote for whomever they want—and it’s not tied to the presidential pick, so even if Cruz and Fiorina want to run together, one of them could end up on the ticket, leaving the other one behind.”


Sorry for the Faux Newz video, but the tasty, tasty clusterf*@k is too good not to post.

April 27, 2016

A woman has been kicked out of a restroom...because she doesn’t “look like” a girl.



http://winningdemocrats.com/bigot-cops-refuse-to-let-lesbian-use-womens-restroom-because-she-looks-like-a-boy-video/
A video was recently uploaded to YouTube that shows a lesbian being physically pushed out of a restroom by police because they mistook her for a boy. In the video, the woman asserts over and over that she is a female, but police didn’t believe her. A male officer demanded that she produce identification and prove that she was actually a girl. When she explained that she did not have an ID on her, the cop says,”OUT!” and forces her out of the bathroom.

Unfortunately, the video does not give any specifics about where or when it took place, but it certainly looks legitimate.


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