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cbabe's JournalTEDxPortland may have broken federal rules for NRA A-rated candidate: report
Anger over the National Rifle Association blocking gun safety legislation following yet another fatal mass shooting boiled over at TEDxPortland event.
Organizers of the lecture and music event TEDxPortland angered some audience members by giving independent candidate for governor Betsy Johnson, who in the past earned an A rating from the National Rifle Association, an unannounced spot in its event lineup Saturday," The Oregonian reported. "The group also appeared to have run afoul of IRS rules that prohibit tax-exempt non-profits from giving any political candidate preferential treatment."
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"Johnson, who voted against gun safety bills as a Democrat in the Oregon Senate and mentioned being a gun owner during her TEDxPortland talk at the Moda Center Saturday afternoon, drew jeers, boos and shouted demands for gun control during her time on stage," the newspaper noted.
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David Rae, the nonprofit's president, was interviewed by The Oregonian. The newspaper reported, "By inviting the career politician with nearly $9 million in backing from Oregon powerbrokers including Nike co-founder Phil Knight and a host of timber millionaires, he said, 'We are just trying to offer an intimate conversation in front of 7,000 people with a courageous woman, right?' In the days since a shooter used an assault weapon to brutally kill 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school, much of the national conversation has revolved around gun safety legislation, which made the timing of Johnson's appearance at the non-political event particularly fraught."
Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/betsy-johnson-tedxportland/
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Sure does take the shiny off the Ted talk talks.
Methow Valley land returned to Colville
https://kuow.org/stories/methow-valley-w'It's bringing healing:' Methow Valley land returned to Colville Tribes
MAY 27, 2022 at 9:46 AM
By John Ryan
More than a century after the United States government took most of their land, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation are getting small chunks of it back.
The nonprofit Methow Conservancy handed over the deed to 328 acres of forest, sagebrush, and salmon spawning grounds along the Chewuch River in the Methow Valley to the Colville Tribes on May 19.
The deal follows the return of 9,200 acres of ranch land just east of the Methow Valley to the Colville Tribes in October.
“It touches our heart," said Andy Joseph Jr., Colville Business Council Chairman, "that some of our people will be able to spend some time in their homeland on probably the very same place their elders’ footsteps once were.”
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TEDxPortland may have broken federal rules for NRA A-rated candidate: report
Source: Rawstory
Anger over the National Rifle Association blocking gun safety legislation following yet another fatal mass shooting boiled over at TEDxPortland event.
Organizers of the lecture and music event TEDxPortland angered some audience members by giving independent candidate for governor Betsy Johnson, who in the past earned an A rating from the National Rifle Association, an unannounced spot in its event lineup Saturday," The Oregonian reported. "The group also appeared to have run afoul of IRS rules that prohibit tax-exempt non-profits from giving any political candidate preferential treatment."
...
"Johnson, who voted against gun safety bills as a Democrat in the Oregon Senate and mentioned being a gun owner during her TEDxPortland talk at the Moda Center Saturday afternoon, drew jeers, boos and shouted demands for gun control during her time on stage," the newspaper noted.
...
David Rae, the nonprofit's president, was interviewed by The Oregonian. The newspaper reported, "By inviting the career politician with nearly $9 million in backing from Oregon powerbrokers including Nike co-founder Phil Knight and a host of timber millionaires, he said, 'We are just trying to offer an intimate conversation in front of 7,000 people with a courageous woman, right?' In the days since a shooter used an assault weapon to brutally kill 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school, much of the national conversation has revolved around gun safety legislation, which made the timing of Johnson's appearance at the non-political event particularly fraught."
Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/betsy-johnson-tedxportland/
Edit: sure does take the shiny off the Ted talk talks.
Senators bought and paid for: nra/russia
https://www.newsweek.com/republican-senators-nra-funding-texas-school-shooting-uvalde-1710332Public Citizen
@Public_Citizen
Senators bankrolled by the NRA:
Mitt Romney: $13,648,000
Richard Burr: $6,987,000
Roy Blunt: $4,556,000
Thom Tillis: $4,421,000
Marco Rubio: $3,303,000
Joni Ernst: $3,125,000
Josh Hawley: $1,392,000
Mitch McConnell: $1,267,000
Ted Cruz: $176,000
An absolute disgrace.
Incarcerated teens seek justice as adults: documentary on racism, gun violence, capitalism
Documentary of racism, capitalism, justice
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/26/since-i-been-down-documentary-prison-justice-redemption
‘Always a possibility of change’: incarcerated teens seek justice as adults
Harsh sentencing in the US has led to many economically deprived young men receiving hard-to-contest life sentences but in new documentary Since I Been Down, hope awaits.
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Just over 18, he was tried as an adult, convicted of aggravated first-degree murder and sentenced to 777 years, 77 months and 77 days’ imprisonment. Since Washington state has no parole system, it effectively locked him up and threw away the key.
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Filmed over 12 years, Since I Been Down paints a stark portrait of a predominantly white state, Washington, whose prison population is overwhelmingly Black. It shows Tacoma, near Seattle, as scarred by drugs and lack of investment in housing, education and employment. With opportunities scarce, gangs offer a seductive sense of identity. One former gang member recalls: “I got addicted to being feared.”
Sheppard, who teaches at a liberal arts college in Tacoma, says: “It’s like Everytown USA. It has been a victim of gentrification, a legacy of people not being able to have bank loans, or any kind of loans, to rehabilitate their homes. As a result, these neighbourhoods become infested with public health issues. Disinvestment in communities and education and employment comes with gentrification.”
In 1993 Washington became the first state in the US to pass a “three strikes” policy, which mandates life in prison without parole for people thrice convicted of certain offences, from robbery to assault to murder. The consequences were devastating for a generation. By the end of 2020, Black people, representing 4% of the state’s population, accounted for 38% of those sentenced under the law.
Speaking via Zoom from her home in Seattle, Sheppard reflects: “It’s not just the three strikes and you’re out but a culture of punishment that you see in many different urban communities, particularly Black, brown and poor communities. Tacoma, Washington, is a visual metaphor for the legacy of those things.”
This was the era of moral panic and so-called “tough on crime” policies across America that targeted Black “super-predators”, including three-strikes laws that sent young people to prison for life. President Bill Clinton signed a national crime bill now widely blamed for giving the US the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Mary Flowers, an anti-racism organiser, says in the film: “This country is based on fear. When you have a country that is based on or has grown out of colonisation and slavery, people don’t rest easy. That’s why everyone needs to be armed in this country to protect what they have, because what they have was stolen.”
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Since I Been Down is now available on Sundance Now or to rent digitally in the US with a UK date to be announced
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Two statements strike me as best explanation I’ve ever heard about gun violence in this country
One former gang member recalls: “I got addicted to being feared.”
“This country is based on fear. When you have a country that is based on or has grown out of colonisation and slavery, people don’t rest easy. That’s why everyone needs to be armed in this country to protect what they have, because what they have was stolen.”
Native votes gerrymandered
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/23/native-americans-arizona-redistricting-congressional-mapRedrawn Arizona congressional map drains Native American voting power
Tribal areas have been swept into a new majority Republican district where GOP candidates ignore Native issues
For Native Americans in Arizona, the recently redistricted US House map will mean a loss of political power once protected by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, leaving the state’s solidly Democratic tribal areas with the prospect of a fringe-Republican congressional representative.
Democrats supported by Indigenous voters won every election for the past ten years in a district drawn expressly to empower Native American voters by a redistricting commission that relied on input from the area’s various tribes in 2011.
More….
Caste discrimination in America
https://southseattleemerald.com/2022/05/20/hidden-discrimination-casteism-persists-in-south-asian-spaces/…
The caste system has existed in various iterations on the Indian subcontinent for over 2,000 years. Informed by religious and customary traditions, it divides people based on their family’s ancestry, assigning social status, occupations, obligations and sanctioning privileges, and repression to different castes depending on their place within the social hierarchy. According to Ambedkar, the essence of the caste system is endogamy — the refusal to intermarry with other castes.
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Because caste-privileged people in South Asia had benefited from centuries of preferable treatment before, during, and after colonial rule, they owned a disproportionately large share of the wealth of the country, and thus were able to more easily qualify under U.S. immigration rules.
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As a result of gains made during the civil rights movement, South Asian immigrants don’t face as much racism, with many coming to Seattle to work in the technology sector. However, casteism remains a factor, even in the diaspora. A local tech worker and community organizer, who wished to remain anonymous, said casteism shows up a lot in tech worker communities, influencing who is let in or out of people’s social circles.
“You almost never see people who are from Dalit backgrounds or Bahujan backgrounds or Adivasi backgrounds make it to the U.S.,” they said. “But even if they do make it, I’ve since learned that there’s a lot of casteism in how South Asians interact with each other.”
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In its 2018 report Caste in the United States, Equality Labs said that 1 in 3 Dalit students reported being discriminated against in the education system, while two-thirds of Dalit workers in the United States said they were treated unfairly at their workplace.
In 2020, the state of California sued the communications technology company Cisco, alleging that the company allowed managers to harass a Dalit worker and then retaliate against him when he complained to HR. Since the lawsuit was filed, other workers across Silicon Valley have come out with similar complaints of caste discrimination.
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“It’s telling that the universities and the tech companies haven’t recognized caste as a protected category in the anti-discrimination policies until recently,” they said.
Some within the South Asian community, such as the Hindu nationalist-aligned lobby group Hindu American Foundation (HAF), are opposing the new anti-caste discrimination efforts. According to Deutsche Welle, the HAF said that the recent CSU anti-discrimination measures “will cause more discrimination by unconstitutionally singling out and targeting Hindu faculty of Indian and South Asian descent.”
Amazon, which is headquartered in Seattle, posted a webpage detailing its “human rights principles” in 2020, which included equal protection for people based on a number of criteria, including caste.
Amazon and Microsoft, a tech company based in Redmond, have not answered requests for comment.
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Report: Nearly 80% of 911 calls made to Seattle police in 2017-19 were for noncriminal events
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/seattlenews/article/911-calls-to-Seattle-police-17185684.php…
Of the 1.2 million calls made to Seattle police during that time, only 6% involved felony activity, the agency said in its analysis. Just over 14% of calls involved misdemeanor activity.
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Activists argue that most work can be done by someone other than an armed officer, who they say can escalate a situation. In turn, they say trained professionals should respond to calls alone or with an officer, as long as the officer keeps their distance.
The agency’s report appears to validate the activists’ argument, at least in Seattle.
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The agency recommends that Seattle police assign each call type to one of these four tiers and respond to 911 calls accordingly. However, whether Seattle’s current mayor, Bruce Harrell, will implement these recommendations is unclear. On the campaign trail, Harrell said he understood the need for alternatives to policing but also pledged to augment the department’s presence within the city.
Pro-Israel lobbying group Aipac secretly pouring millions into defeating progressive Democrats
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/17/pro-israel-lobby-defeat-democrats-palestinians-2022The US’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby group is pouring millions of dollars into influencing Democratic congressional primary races to counter growing support for the Palestinian cause within the party, including elections today in
(More long read)
Thanks Citizens United.
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