February 23, 2017

Black Revolutionary War Reenactors Want to Set the Record Straight

I joined up with the black Revolutionary War heroes who are taking back our history, one reenactment at a time.

By Messiah Rhodes

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/black-revolutionary-war-reenactors-want-to-set-the-record-straight

February 23, 2017

Lost: 1 US Senator

https://twitter.com/KiraCA76/status/834429597756317696/photo/1

(Marco Rubio, my very own)

February 23, 2017

Facebook Donates Some $100,000 To CPAC, Reminding Users Again That Its Not Liberal

Facebook and the Conservative Political Action Conference are in a relationship.

It’s complicated.

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to HuffPost Wednesday that it is helping to underwrite the prominent conservative gathering next week in Washington.

This isn’t the social network’s first year at CPAC. But the 2017 event follows an election year in which Facebook drew fire from the right and the left over the role its vast platform plays in politics.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-sponsor-cpac-2017_us_58adca13e4b0d0a6ef4705d9?eaqtic4u34v8zd7vi&

February 22, 2017

Donald Trump is dangerous when hes losing

A few weeks back, I wrote a piece about Donald Trump titled "How to stop an autocracy."The essay began with the premise that Trump has a will to power and a contempt for the basic norms and institutions of American democracy, and then explored how to limit the damage. The answer, basically, was that Congress needs to do its damn job.

But after I wrote it, smart people argued the piece was built atop a mistake. Trump might have the will to power, but he doesn't have the discipline for it. Grim scenarios suggesting his presidency would grow too strong missed the likelier scenario that it would be extremely weak.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/22/donald-trump-is-dangerous-when-hes-losing-commentary.html

February 21, 2017

Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick Diverts Earnings From Chick-fil-A Commercial to LGBTQ Cause

Leave it to Grace Slick to make an activist statement by saying "yes" to use of Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" in an ad for fast food chain Chick-fil-A.

The co-founder of Starship's predecessor, 1960s psychedelic group Jefferson Airplane, Slick has penned an op-ed explaining her decision to authorize a license of the 1987 hit to a company known for supporting organizations that are anti-gay marriage. The commercial first aired during the Grammy Awards on Feb. 12.

"That was my voice you heard," writes Slick in Forbes. "I am donating every dime that I make from that ad to Lambda Legal, the largest national legal organization working to advance the civil rights of LGBTQ people, and everyone living with HIV... Instead of them replacing my song with someone else's and losing this opportunity to strike back at anti-LGBTQ forces, I decided to spend the cash in direct opposition to Chick-fil-A’s causes – and to make a public example of them, too. We’re going to take some of their money, and pay it back."

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7694143/jefferson-airplane-grace-slick-chick-fil-a-commercial-lgbtq

February 21, 2017

New NC Dem Governor Reverses Course In Major North Carolina Voting Rights Case

North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who narrowly unseated Republican Pat McCrory in November, announced Tuesday that he is reversing course in a major voting rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The state will no longer defend a series of voting restrictions passed in 2013 by the GOP-controlled legislature and signed by McCrory that a federal appeals court has ruled constitute unconstitutional "race-based vote suppression."

Since 2013, the state has fought to implement a law that eliminated same-day voter registration, cut a full week of early voting, barred voters from casting a ballot outside their home precincts, scrapped straight-ticket voting, and got rid of a program to pre-register high school students who would turn 18 by Election Day. That law also included one of the nation’s strictest voter ID requirements.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/north-carolina-cooper-voter-suppression

February 21, 2017

Independent Movie Theaters Launch War On Trump

Independent movie theaters across America have decided to screen the film adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 to protest President Donald Trump’s quick descent into authoritarianism. The theaters say that, “[This] endeavor encourages theaters to take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings, and the simple truth that there are no such things as ‘alternative facts.'”

On April 4, at least 90 theaters will show the film because April 4 is the day that Winston Smith, the main character, begins a diary.

Winston works for the Records Department in the Ministry of Truth, a government body tasked with altering the historical record to suit the Party’s current agenda. There is no sense of truth or falsity; the ‘facts’ shift daily. The Party uses its total control of society’s narrative to manipulate the citizens it rules over.

http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/02/20/independent-movie-theaters-just-launched-war-trump-brilliant-move/

February 21, 2017

Law Firm Posts Legal Guide for Companies On How to Handle Trumps Social Media Attacks

https://www.clearygottlieb.com/~/media/cgsh/files/alert-memos/alert-memo-201723.pdf

V. Conclusion
The potential impacts of SMAs may diminish as time
goes by. In the meantime, the uncertainties and risks
are significant enough for management and boards at
many companies to consider the issues carefully, as a
matter of prudent preparation.

February 20, 2017

Loria mulls selling Marlins to Ivanka Trumps brother-in-law

Miami Marlins fans and baseball followers in general have been waiting for decades to get rid of Jeffrey Loria, the evil mastermind who got Miami taxpayers to give him half a billion dollars for a new stadium so he could afford to buy better players and then said, Crap that, I’d rather keep the new stadium and still get the cheapest players I can so I can collect revenue-sharing checks from MLB. So any deal that removes this guy from the owner’s chair would be good, right? How about if it means Loria walking away with up to $1.6 billion and the team being run by Ivanka Trump’s brother-in-law?

The Kushners — led by Joshua Kushner, a venture capitalist, and Joseph Meyer, his brother-in-law and key lieutenant for the family’s investments — have pursued the Marlins for several months, devising a complicated financial arrangement that would include bringing in partners later, these people said. Mr. Kushner is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law.

Neither Jared Kushner, who married Ivanka Trump in 2009 and is a top White House adviser, nor Charles Kushner, the family patriarch who spent over a year in prison for illegal campaign donations, tax evasion and witness tampering, is participating in the effort, these people said.


http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2017/02/10/12119/loria-mulls-selling-marlins-to-ivanka-trumps-brother-in-law-our-dystopian-future-is-now/

February 20, 2017

email received today

Sign the Petition Immediately to Demand Good Jobs for Working People at AT&T

The petition to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson says the following:
I support good jobs and a fair union contract for working people at AT&T Mobility and across your company. The working people at AT&T Mobility helped AT&T earn record profits last year, yet they have seen their commissions cut and health care costs rise.

You met with President Trump recently and discussed how AT&T can help “stimulate job creation in America,” yet you chose to close more than 20 call centers and eliminate more than 8,000 call center jobs in recent years. Some of that work you sent overseas.

You have also outsourced the majority of your retail stores to low-wage third-party dealers, undermining the standards of your own retail employees. If you care about creating good jobs in America, start with your own company.

This month, 21,000 working people at AT&T’s wireless division voted to authorize a strike. It wasn’t an easy choice.
No one wants to go on strike, but they needed to send a message to AT&T because the company is demanding workers do more work for less. Despite making $13 billion in profits last year—and record profits in its wireless division—AT&T has cut more than 8,000 call center jobs and outsourced many of those jobs to low-wage countries.

The company is refusing to stop outsourcing jobs and demanding cuts to benefits. We cannot allow this blatant corporate greed to go unchecked.

Sign the petition immediately to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson demanding good jobs for working people at AT&T and an end to outsourcing.

AT&T’s greed is bad news not only for workers at the company, but for our communities. If AT&T executives are able to get away with this, it will embolden other corporate CEOs to do the same.

AT&T was able to turn a massive profit last year because of the hard work and quality service of retail store workers, call centers representatives and technicians. Instead of sharing in the profits, AT&T seems determined to continue to keep the big compensation packages flowing to its executives, while forcing working people to sacrifice more and more.
Not only do company executives want free rein to outsource more jobs, but they want to force employees to pay more for medical benefits, cut retirement benefits and even reduce employee sick time. Not on our watch.
Add your name immediately to the petition to demand good jobs for working people at AT&T.
In Solidarity,
Tefere
-----------------
Tefere Gebre
Executive Vice President, AFL-CIO