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demmiblue

demmiblue's Journal
demmiblue's Journal
June 1, 2019

Customs and Border Protection is buying 2.2 million baby diapers for its new migrant tent city



US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is looking to purchase 20,000 baby bottles, 3,000 boxes of baby wipes, and 2,224,000 baby diapers for a newly-erected tent city holding families and unaccompanied children seeking asylum in America.

That’s according to a new solicitation issued May 30 by the agency, which says it also needs 144,000 pairs of shower shoes, of which 36,000 will be size extra-small.



The complex, located in Donna, Texas, is one of two new “temporary (8 months) soft-sided facilities” housing up to 500 people each. The $37 million initiative is meant to give CBP “additional capacity to accommodate family units and UAC [unaccompanied children] arriving in surging numbers to the southwest border.” The existence of the site, along with a second located in El Paso, Texas, was first revealed by Quartz.

https://qz.com/1632690/cbp-buying-2-2-million-pairs-of-diapers-for-tent-city/
June 1, 2019

The Mueller Report Will Be Read Live This Weekend

Americans who wish to read the findings of the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III already have a wealth of options. This week, two different published versions of the report appear in the top ten on Amazon’s best-seller list; Google around and you’ll find an untold number of outlets (including The New York Times) offering digital versions. There are even audiobooks.

But an upcoming version might be most dramatic of them all.

Beginning Saturday night and running through Sunday, the theater companies New Neighborhood and Slightly Altered States, along with the arts and media company DMNDR, will host a 24-hour public reading of the Mueller report in Queens. “Filibustered and Unfiltered: America Reads the Mueller Report” will take place at the Arc, a Long Island City venue.

The director Jackson Gay conceived the project, which started as her half-serious Facebook post but has grown into an event with over 100 volunteer readers. Participants are scheduled to include the theater directors Anne Kauffman, Leigh Silverman and Annie Dorsen; Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater; the actor Michael Urie; and the playwrights and performers Taylor Mac and Eisa Davis. Mac’s own marathon show, “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” became a 24-hour-long must-see in 2016.

Ms. Gay said musicians will play during some portions of the report that have been redacted. Yet despite the music, and the heavy participation of theater-world figures, the intention isn’t to dramatize, she added.

“It’s not meant to be a performance,” she explained. “It’s meant to be a bunch of people coming together and finding their voice. We shouldn’t just sit back on our couches and let other people tell us what to think.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/theater/mueller-report-reading-taylor-mac.html


Cool.
June 1, 2019

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez returns to bartending to promote fair wages

Source: Reuters



NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took lunch orders, served pizza and rocked the cocktail shaker on Friday to promote increased wages for restaurant servers and other tipped workers.

The New York Democrat and media sensation, who famously worked as a bartender before getting elected to Congress last year, brought first-hand experience to the debate over the proposed “Raise the Wage Act,” which would raise the U.S. minimum wage to $15 an hour and guarantee that minimum for tipped employees.

U.S. law exempts restaurants, nail salons and car washes from paying their tipped staff the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, instead creating a “tip credit” of up to $5.12 per hour that allows them to pay as little as $2.13 per hour on the books.

“Any job that pays $2.13 per hour is not a job, it is indentured servitude,” Ocasio-Cortez told restaurant workers, customers and reporters at the Queensboro Restaurant in her New York City district, in a reference to the lowest possible wage before tips.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-ocasio-cortez-idUSKCN1T12R4?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5cf1c7392866ef00011cff1a&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter



https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1134574158577377280

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