BeckyDem
BeckyDem's JournalHow to read Pope Francis' message of love for LGBTQ people
Opinion by Allison Hope
Updated 5:24 PM ET, Wed October 21, 2020
Pope Francis endorses same-sex civil unions
(CNN)The highest Catholic in all the world has pushed the door towards LGBTQ inclusion open further by pronouncing that same-sex couples, historically excluded from traditional religious and civil institutions like marriage, ought to have legal protections that recognize their unions.
According to the Catholic News Agency, Pope Francis, in an interview for a documentary released in Rome on Wednesday, said that civil unions should be the law of the land for same-sex couples.
"What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered," he said, elaborating that LGBTQ people are children of God.
"I stood up for that," he added.
In the past, Pope Francis has said he is not against civil unions, but this is the first time since becoming Pope that he has directly stated he favors them. (He advocated for same-sex civil unions when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires.)
His recent comments stand in stark contrast with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church Pope Francis leads, which has long taken the posture that same-sex acts are "intrinsically disordered."
The Pope's comments, while shared in the context of a documentary and not necessarily as a formal, written decree or a consensus among the Catholic leadership in Rome or elsewhere, will have a huge global ripple effect on communities, jurisdictions, families and individuals. The Pope's compassion is a welcome sign from a religion that has long alienated LGBTQ people. Whether part of an active ploy to lure back disaffected congregants or a genuine statement of inclusion, his words are a helpful evolution for the many LGBTQ people who have been ostracized simply because of who they are and who they love.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/21/opinions/pope-francis-civil-unions-lgbtq-families-hope/index.html
HOW TRUMP GUTTED OSHA AND WORKPLACE SAFETY RULES
Trump’s attack on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has left workers vulnerable to Covid-19.
Sharon Lerner
October 20 2020, 8:55 a.m.
THE CORONAVIRUS HAD already begun tearing through the JBS Foods beef processing plant in Greeley, Colorado, when Kim Cordova wrote to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late March. Cordova, the president of UFCW Local 7, asked the federal agency to send inspectors to that plant, where 3,000 members of the union work, as well as to five other businesses where members of the local work. Many of the JBS workers, who cut, process, and package the meat from the newly slaughtered animals, had begun to fall sick with Covid-19. Yet JBS hadn’t provided the workers with masks and in some cases had advised specifically against wearing them, according to Cordova. The workers didn’t have enough room to distance themselves from their co-workers in the cafeteria, the locker rooms, or elsewhere around the plant. Although Cordova had been in direct communication with the management at JBS about the health hazards at the plant, the largest of its kind in the country, talks had recently hit a wall.
A few days later, Cordova received a call from OSHA letting her know that help was not on the way. “He said they didn’t have the staff and they weren’t doing any on-site visits. They just didn’t have any direction,” she recalled. “And I told them, people are going to die in this facility.”
Cordova’s prediction proved true on April 7, when Saul Sanchez, a 78-year-old production worker became the first worker at JBS Greeley to die of Covid-19. Eventually five of his co-workers — Eduardo Conchas De La Cruz, Way Ler, Daniel Avila Loma, Tibursio Rivera Lopez, and Tin Aye — also died of the disease, as well as a seventh employee, whom JBS identified as “one of our corporate colleagues.” So far, at least 292 workers at the plant have been infected with the virus, and 51 workers have been hospitalized with Covid-19. Cordova said she knows of at least three family members of JBS Greeley workers who also died as a result of the outbreak.
On May 14, OSHA finally sent an inspector to the beef plant. But according to Cordova, the visit was brief. “They did a quick walk-through, more like a run-through,” she said. Although the union suggested that OSHA interview workers who had been sick with Covid-19, the inspectors declined to do so. “I understand that you can’t talk to the workers who are dead,” Cordova said. “But what about the ones who almost died?” And while the local offered interpreters so the inspectors could communicate with the workers, who speak dozens of languages, Cordova said the OSHA representatives declined.
https://theintercept.com/2020/10/20/trump-osha-workplace-safety-covid/
The priorities of Republicans: The Fed continues to offer contradictory rationale....
https://twitter.com/BharatRamamurti/status/1318930861459410944Disgusting.
Rep. Barbara Lee @RepBarbaraLee: In order to dismantle systemic racism,
https://twitter.com/RepBarbaraLee/status/1318674100534059008Would love to see Lee get a cabinet position.
Nomi Prins @nomiprins: Featured in this corruption scandal...
https://twitter.com/nomiprins/status/1318666433958727686Funny how you never see the cops take these guys in.
Watchdog group accuses Amy Coney Barrett of "unconscionable cruelty" in teen rape case
Barrett decided to overturn a $6.7M jury award to a teen allegedly raped in a jail run by ex-Sheriff David Clarke
IGOR DERYSH
OCTOBER 16, 2020 10:23PM (UTC)
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has been accused of "unconscionable cruelty" by a watchdog group over her role in an appellate court decision overturning a district court which found a Wisconsin county liable for millions in damages to a woman who alleged she had been repeatedly raped by a jail guard.
"After a 19-year old pregnant prison inmate was repeatedly raped by a prison guard, Amy Coney Barrett ruled that the county responsible for the prison could not be held liable because the sexual assaults fell outside of the guard's official duties. Her judgment demonstrates a level of unconscionable cruelty that has no place on the high court," Kyle Herrig, president of the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. "The only thing more concerning than the rush to confirm by Senate Republicans is what we are learning about Amy Coney Barrett's extremist record. It is hardly surprising that she has dodged question after question during her testimony."
Barrett was one of the three judges on a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel which reversed a $6.7 million verdict against Milwaukee County in 2018 after a corrections officer was charged with repeatedly raping a pregnant 19-year-old inmate.
Former corrections officer Xavier Thicken was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault in 2013 after the woman alleged that he had raped her during and after her pregnancy at a jail run by the controversial former Sheriff David Clarke. Those charges were dropped when he agreed to plead guilty to felony misconduct in public office in 2014.
The woman later filed a lawsuit against Milwaukee County. In her testimony, she alleged that Thicklen had raped her in different parts of the jail when she was eight months pregnant and demanded that she perform oral sex on him after giving birth.
https://www.salon.com/2020/10/16/watchdog-group-accuses-amy-coney-barrett-of-unconscionable-cruelty-in-teen-rape-case/
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: #KnowYourRights on how to protect you and your family from eviction.
https://twitter.com/RepAOC/status/1317557745663574016No one in America should have to carry these fears and during a pandemic, it is simply barbaric.
Attorney Ben Crump: Rest in power #BernardCohen, who fought to legalize interracial marriage
https://twitter.com/AttorneyCrump/status/1317251225889497089
Sen. Collins acknowledges her PAC donated to pro-QAnon Maine candidates
by WGMEFriday, October 16th 2020
PORTLAND (WGME) -- Senator Susan Collins is acknowledging that her political action committee, "Dirigo PAC" has donated money to a pair of northern Maine candidates for the state legislature who believe in QAnon.
Trump criticizes Sen. Collins for saying she'll vote against Judge Amy Coney Barrett
QAnon is a conspiracy theory that says that President Donald Trump is waging a secret war against Satan-worshipping pedophiles across the government, businesses and the media.
Kevin Bushey and Brian Redmond each received $400 from the Dirigo PAC.
Both have posted on social media at length about the conspiracy theory.
https://wgme.com/news/local/sen-collins-acknowledges-her-pac-donated-to-pro-qanon-maine-candidates
America and the world for that matter need to see Republicans marginalized to the extreme.
Video Shows Cop Handcuffing, Taunting 7-Year-Old With Autism After He Spat At School
Yep, there are only a few bad apples. Cops have to be trained to be human, I guess.
by Michael Gordon, The Charlotte Observer/TNS | October 15, 2020
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The video from former Statesville Police Officer Michael Fattaleh’s body camera shows him rushing across a classroom toward two women who are sitting with a small boy.
“OK, I’ve got him. He’s mine now,” Fattaleh says. He takes the 7-year-old, child with autism from the women, handcuffs the boy’s arms behind his back and presses him to the floor.
According to the video of the Sept. 11, 2018, incident, the student remains in that position for the next 38 minutes. Sometimes he sits quietly. Other times he sobs in apparent pain or pleads for Fattaleh to let him go.
“I’ve got all day, dude,” the officer says early in the encounter. ” … If you are not acquainted with the juvenile justice system, you will be shortly.”
The boy’s crime? According to a new lawsuit filed by the child’s mother, identified as A.G., Fattaleh says he saw the student with special needs spitting in a “quiet room” at the Pressly Alternative School in Statesville.
https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2020/10/15/video-cop-handcuffing-taunting-7-year-old-autism/29036/
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