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White Nationalists Celebrate Trump’s Victory and Early Appointments

by ElveraDelee369 Posted on November 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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White nationalists gathered in downtown Washington, DC, on Saturday to celebrate the election of Donald Trump as a victory for their movement. As protesters outside carried signs decrying racism, the mood among the approximately 250 white nationalists inside the Ronald Reagan Building was jubilant.

“The alt-right is here, the alt-right is not going anywhere, and the alt-right is going to change the world,” Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who popularized the term “alt-right” to describe the ascendant right-wing movement centered on xenophobia and often racism and white supremacy, told reporters at a press conference during an all-day conference hosted by his group, the National Policy Institute. “And you all need to pay attention to this.”

White nationalists and white supremacists have cheered Trump’s election and rejoiced in the appointments he has made so far in his administration, including former Breitbart News chairman Steve Bannon as chief strategist and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama as attorney general. Spencer called Bannon’s appointment a “wonderful thing.” In July, Bannon, who was still running Breitbart, bragged to Mother Jones that his website had become the “platform for the alt-right.” Spencer said he largely agreed with that statement. “It’s clearly moved away from the conservative movement, it was pro-Trump, and it was also a site that tons of people on the alt-right liked, they get their news from, they share.”

Spencer also spoke approvingly of Sessions, who made a name for himself as the top foe of immigration in Congress. Sessions is also known for allegations that he made racist comments when he was an attorney in Alabama—charges that derailed his 1986 nomination for a federal judgeship and will come up again in his confirmation hearings to become attorney general. When Mother Jones asked at the press conference whether Spencer agreed with the neo-Nazi writer Andrew Anglin, who on Friday said that the appointments of Sessions and Bannon meant that he was getting everything he wanted from Trump, the crowd at the conference began to cheer at the mention of Sessions. “It’s getting what is realistically possible,” said Spencer. “Jeff Sessions, again, is someone who is not alt-right but who seems to see eye to eye with us on the immigration question. I think Jeff Sessions might very well resonate with something like a long-term dramatic slowdown of immigration.”

Spencer said Sessions would roll back the Obama administration’s enforcement of civil rights laws as the head of the Justice Department. “The fact that he is going to be at such a high level, I think, is a wonderful thing,” he said. “What he is not going to do in terms of federally prosecuting diversity and fair housing and so on I think is just as powerful as what he might do. So it’s about Jeff Sessions setting a new tone in Washington. I think that’s a good thing.”

Spencer’s top priority for the Trump administration is to change the country’s immigration laws to stop not just undocumented immigration but also legal immigration, with the goal of making sure the United States remains a majority-white country. “I think a goal would be net-neutral immigration with a primary emphasis on Europeans who want to immigrate to the country,” he said. Peter Brimelow of the anti-immigrant website VDARE.com later explained that the policy would mean removing immigrants currently in the country and allowing Europeans to take their place. Spencer said he believed passing such a policy through Congress would be easier than the press might think.

When a reporter asked what the movement’s top priority for Trump was, the room began to chant “build the wall.” Spencer agreed that immigration should be Trump’s “primary objective.”

“This is why he was elected,” Spencer said, “because he was the identity president.”

Controversial media personality Tila Tequila, who has identified with Nazis, tweeted from inside the conference.

An estimated 200 to 300 protesters gathered outside the conference, organized by a group called the DC Anti-Fascist Coalition. At around 1 p.m., a conference attendee who exited the conference got into a violent confrontation with protesters.

On Friday night in DC, protesters followed Spencer, and one sprayed him with a foul-smelling liquid as he dined with supporters at a restaurant.

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White Nationalists Celebrate Trump’s Victory and Early Appointments

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DIY: Turn a Produce Net into a Dish Scrubber

by MerissaPresler7 Posted on November 14, 2016

Few things delight me more than a good upcycle. Why? Upcycled crafts not only feed my creative soul, but they also help us care for the planet by preventing waste. This simple kitchen upcyle is a two-for-one way to be green. You’ll save a produce net from a landfill and also reduce your consumption of abrasive dish scrubber pads in the kitchen!

It’s always nice when doing something you love also benefits our environment. Ready to craft?

Upcycled Produce Net Dish Scrubber

Supplies needed:

2 produce nets (think sweet potatoes, citrus fruits, etc.)
String or twine
Scissors

Directions:
1. Begin by laying the produce nets as flat as possible, one on top of the other.

2. Roll them up nice and tight, like you are rolling up a tortilla. (Now I’m hungry. Is it Taco Tuesday yet?)

3. Fold the roll over in half, bending it directly in the center.

4. Tie the twine or string at the center of the rolled and folded produce bags. Tie a knot tightly. Double knot.

5. Take your scissors and snip apart the ends of the produce bags. This will fan the bags open and create the “fluff” you want.

6. Continue to trim to even out the dish scrubber and get rid of any loose ends. Shape the scrubber with your scissors and pull apart the layers to fill it all out.

7. Tie an additional piece of string around the scrubber to create a hang tag. This way it can easily hang on your faucet to dry when not in use.

Now smile because you just did the earth a service and brightened up your kitchen in one go! While you’re at it, check out these other eco-friendly tools for washing dishes.

More Kitchen Stories:
10 Kitchen Hacks to Make Your Life Easier
How to Cook Up a Zero-Waste Kitchen
The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Greener Kitchen

About
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Jennifer Gervens

As an Alabama native and resident, Jennifer Gervens enjoys sharing Southern food and culture with her Jersey-born husband as well as her readers.

Sweet T Makes Three

is all about homemaking and hospitality in the Heart of Dixie.

Latest posts by Jennifer Gervens (see all)

DIY: Turn a Produce Net into a Dish Scrubber – November 14, 2016

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DIY: Turn a Produce Net into a Dish Scrubber

Posted in A Greener Kitchen, eco-friendly, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on DIY: Turn a Produce Net into a Dish Scrubber

Alabama’s Chief Justice Still Opposes Same-Sex Marriages. Now He’s Standing Trial.

by MadgeNew40940934 Posted on September 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore went to court Wednesday morning in Montgomery. But this time he was a defendant, charged with possible ethical violations for defying higher-court rulings with his anti-gay-marriage stance.

In January 2015, after a district court judge ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in Alabama, Moore sent a letter to Gov. Robert Bentley adamantly expressing his belief that the ruling was destructive, and urging the governor to defy the district court ruling and support judges who did not wish to comply.

“The Supreme Court of Alabama has likewise described marriage as ‘a divine institution,’ imposing upon parties ‘higher moral and religious obligations than those imposed by any mere human institution or government,'” he wrote. “The laws of this state have always recognized the Biblical admonition stated by our Lord.”

Moore went further and used his position as chief justice to instruct Alabama probate judges to refuse to issue licenses to same-sex couples via email. “No probate judge shall issue or recognize a marriage license that is inconsistent with Article 1, Section 36.03, of the Alabama Constitution or…30-1-19, Ala. Code 1975,” he wrote.

Moore’s actions led to a complaint filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which alerted the state-run Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission, which in turn launched an investigation. The commission suspended Moore in May. He is now facing six counts of judicial ethics violations.

Moore’s attorney for the proceedings is Mat Staver from the Liberty Counsel, which has been partly funded by one of the conservative billionaire Wilks brothers. He also represented Kim Davis, the Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Liberty Counsel takes on so-called “religious liberty” cases, and the law firm offered its services in the North Carolina fight over restricting the access of transgender people to public restrooms. Staver also represents David Daleiden, who produced heavily edited videos that purport to show Planned Parenthood officials involved in the sale of fetal tissue for profit. (There has been no evidence that Planned Parenthood is guilty of any wrongdoing.)

At the trial, Staver argued that Moore’s email to the probate judges wasn’t an order, but rather a “status update” on the conflict between the federal court ruling and state court rulings.

The Guardian recently speculated that Moore’s efforts are intended to improve his bid for the governorship in 2018. Moore attempted to run in 2006 but ultimately lost the bid for the Republican nomination to incumbent Bob Riley. He also tried to run in 2010 but lost the bid to current Gov. Robert Bentley.

This is not the first time Moore has dug his heels in over an issue he perceived to be in direct conflict with his faith. In 2003, he was suspended from the bench for installing a monument of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court building without informing the eight associate justices and then, when faced with an order from a federal judge, refused to remove the monument. Moore’s fellow justices ultimately had the 2.6-ton monument removed in August 2003.

A decision in the trial is expected within 10 days. If Moore is found guilty, he could face censure or suspension without pay. The most severe outcome would be removal from the bench, which would require a unanimous vote from the nine members of the Court of Judiciary.

Continued – 

Alabama’s Chief Justice Still Opposes Same-Sex Marriages. Now He’s Standing Trial.

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Ultima, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Alabama’s Chief Justice Still Opposes Same-Sex Marriages. Now He’s Standing Trial.

But If You Don’t Learn Cursive, How Will You Read the Declaration of Independence in the Original?

by KatherineMagana Posted on September 24, 2016

Mother Jones

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If pen retailers and state legislators are to be believed, cursive handwriting is facing an existential threat. Since the advent of the Common Core standards—which emphasize keyboard skills over nicely shaped P’s and Q’s—it’s been common knowledge for years that teachers are abandoning cursive in droves, spending classroom time instead on new technology and typing.

But lately, fancy handwriting is having somewhat of a comeback. Louisiana’s governor signed a law in June requiring cursive instruction all the way through grade 12. Mississippi’s education department recently added script to its standards. And starting this school year, third graders in Alabama are required to write legibly in cursive under the newly passed Lexi’s Law. State Rep. Dickie Drake named the Alabama bill after his granddaughter, who told him when she was in first grade that she wanted to learn “real writing.”

The jury is still out on whether learning script, not just print, improves children’s cognition. (There’s little proof to date that it does.) Meanwhile, scientists are inching closer to handwriting’s true existential threat: a mind-reading machine that turns thoughts into written language via a “brain to text” interface. Here’s a primer on how the technology and culture of handwriting has evolved over time.

3200 B.C.

With stylus and clay tablets, ancient Mesopotamians create abstract symbols to represent syllables of their spoken language.

600s

Quill pens and parchment paper take hold in Europe. Drippy ink discourages pen lifting, hence cursive.

1440s

Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press forces scribes to pivot to teaching penmanship.

c. 1712

A popular copybook by George Bickham teaches farmers and merchants to write in a “round” hand. Gentlemen of the era employ an italic script, while accomplished women practice “ladies’ roman.” (In general, only fairly well-off white males are taught to write.)

1740

South Carolina’s Negro Act makes it a crime to teach slaves to write: “Suffering them to be employed in writing may be attended with great inconveniences.” Other colonies (and later, states) follow suit.

1776

John Hancock’s “John Hancock” appears prominently on the Declaration of Independence.

1848

Educator Platt Rogers Spencer urges pupils to contemplate nature’s curves while learning his ornate script, soon to be the hand of choice for merchants (including Ford and Coca-Cola) and schools in most states.

1865

Denmark’s Rasmus Malling-Hansen introduces the first commercial typewriter, the Hansen Writing Ball.

Malling-Hansen Society

1880

Alonzo Cross’ patented “stylographic pen” holds its own ink.

1888

Irish immigrant John Robert Gregg invents a shorthand method that will eventually be taught in countless US high schools.

1894

With handwriting under threat by typewriters, Austin Palmer introduces a smaller, faster writing style, taught via militaristic “drills.” His 1912 textbook on the Palmer Method sells more than 1 million copies. (Spen­cerian script is history.)

1904

French psychologist Alfred Binet popularizes handwriting analysis as a window into the writer’s traits. He goes on to invent the IQ test.

1913

Congress greenlights the use of handwriting as forensic evidence in court.

1935

STF/AFP/Getty

The man convicted (and later executed) based on ransom notes for kidnapping the Lindbergh baby laments, “Dat handwriting is the worstest thing against me.”

1944

László József Bíró markets the first ballpoint pen.

1958

The Bic ballpoint hits US stores, turning pens—once luxury goods—into a cheap commodity.

1961

The signature of US Treasurer Elizabeth Rudel Smith on paper currency invites public scorn: Her “t”s are “crossed belatedly, like a feminine afterthought,” snarks a Chicago Tribune writer. The New York Times seizes on the occasion to bemoan the “lost art of handwriting.”

c.1964

From a Louisiana poll test: “Write every other word in this first line and print every third word in same line (original type smaller and first line ended at comma) but capitalize the fifth word that you write.”

1977

A pen makers’ trade group launches National Handwriting Day even as PC makers including Apple and Commodore begin selling the computer keyboards that presage handwriting’s slow, inevitable decline.

1984

The National Council of Teachers of English condemns the practice of making naughty kids write lines, because it “causes students to dislike an activity necessary to their intellectual development and career success.”

Fox

1996

Researchers claim they’ve debunked the “conventional wisdom” that doctors have worse handwriting than other health professionals do.

2000

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles urges “handwriting-challenged” MDs to take a penmanship class, even as a key medical journal blasts handwritten case notes as “a dinosaur long overdue for extinction.”

2001

First-class mail usage hits its peak—only to plummet 40 percent by 2015.

2010

Common Core standards, soon to be adopted by most states, emphasize early typing skills but make no mention of cursive. Parents and educators flip out. “They’re not teaching cursive writing,” conservative TV host Glenn Beck thunders, “because the easiest way to make somebody a slave is dumb them down.”

2012

Scientists find that the brains of preliterate kids respond like a reader’s brain when they write their ABCs, but not when they type or trace the letters; another research team reports that college students who transcribed lectures on their laptops recalled more information than those who took notes by hand.

2014

Bic launches a “Fight For Your Write” campaign—”because writing makes us all awesome!”

2016
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama mandate instruction of handwriting in public schools. Without it, supporters argue, kids wouldn’t be able to sign their names or read the Constitution. Over at Motherboard, Kaleigh Rogers counters that cursive needs to “join its former companion—the quill and inkwell—in the annals of history where it belongs.”

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But If You Don’t Learn Cursive, How Will You Read the Declaration of Independence in the Original?

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Behind-the-Scenes Photos From Trump’s Bizarre GOP Convention

by WillKulaciowg Posted on July 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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Photographer Scott Brauer has turned his camera and blinding flash toward the 2016 Republican and Democratic national conventions.

Brauer photographed the Republican National Convention in Cleveland for the Mother Jones Instagram account (@motherjonesmag). Below is a gallery of some of our favorite images. Follow along to see what Brauer captures at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia next week.

Bauer’s project, “This Is the Worst Party I’ve Ever Been To” gives a wry, insider’s look at campaigning for president. The Boston-based photographer offers viewers revealing glimpses of staff, supporters, media, and other machinations of the campaign process we don’t often see. He takes a step back to include the periphery of what’s going on as other photographers shoot pictures of politicians and protesters, offering fascinating insight into the banality of what’s really going.

Crews set up the day before the start of the 2016 Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.

Balloons hang from the ceiling a day before the start of the 2016 Republican National Convention.

Anti-Muslim demonstrators address a crowd of media in downtown Cleveland.

Sirius XM radio reporter Jared Rizzi works from the delegate floor on the first day of the Republican National Convention in the Quicken Loans Arena.

Republican-themed jeweled wooden handbags made by Timmy Woods of Los Angeles are seen for sale in the Freedom Market in the secure area outside the arena on the first day of the convention.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley appears in a video by the Republican Governors Association shown to the delegates on the first day of the event.

Former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole wore an “I STILL Like Ike” pin while sitting in a VIP section at the RNC.

Actor Scott Baio after speaking at the RNC

A worker kneels outside the Society Lounge on East 4th Street near the entrance to the RNC.

Stevedore Crawford of Columbus, Ohio, one of the demonstrators in Cleveland’s Public Square, is surrounded by some family members, friends, and a lot of media. He said that in 1984, he was shot by a police officer and he shot the police officer back. He says he spent 12 years in prison. He spoke about racism, Tamir Rice, and police conduct.

A member of the Indiana State Police stands guard in front of anti-Muslim protesters in Cleveland’s Public Square.

Sen. Orrin Hatch shakes hands at the convention.

Members of the Alabama delegation react as Sen. Jeff Sessions speaks at the RNC.

Martin Parr (left) and Christopher Morris (down low) photograph a member of the Florida delegation holding a Trump figurine. Morris was in the news earlier this year after he was “choke-slammed” by a Secret Service agent while covering a Trump rally.

During the formal nomination, roving camera crews moved between different states’ delegations to show the votes. It was the main video feed used by television networks. Here, on the back of a piece of cardboard, you can see the list of states and territories that this team will cover: California, Alabama, Maine, Virginia, Montana, Wyoming, and Guam. Ohio is crossed out.

Each night the Republican convention begins with the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem, and a prayer, at minimum. Here, people toward the back of the delegate floor stand during the national anthem.

People danced and sang along during country singer Chris Janson’s performance at the convention.

A man talks on his phone on Wednesday night near the nosebleed section of Quicken Loans Arena during the RNC.

Food is hard to come by inside the Quicken Loans Arena. Here, photographer Nate Gowdy eats a pretzel during some downtime Wednesday night.

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Behind-the-Scenes Photos From Trump’s Bizarre GOP Convention

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If you want fact-free speeches, Cleveland is the perfect place to go

by donettec86 Posted on July 18, 2016

If you want fact-free speeches, Cleveland is the perfect place to go

By on Jul 18, 2016Share

Finally! The week we’ve all been waiting for all year has arrived. No, not the world premiere of Basketball Wives: the Republican National Convention, of course, which promises to have just as much drama and back-stabbing as any reality TV show.

Along with public intellectuals like soap star Antonio Sabato, Jr. and the guy from Duck Dynasty, the convention will feature a bevy of climate change deniers and other fun conspiracy theorists. Here’s who we’ll be watching:

Facebook/Scott Baio

Scott Baio, Actor 

Best known as Chachi from the 1970s sitcom Happy Days, Baio not only believes President Obama is a Muslim who wants to “eliminate” the U.S., he also thinks the existence of snow disproves climate change.

We look forward to his thoughts on international trade, domestic security, and the Fonz.

Michael Vadon

Rick Perry, Former governor of Texas 

Referred to by Texas political insiders as “Bush, only without the brains, Perry is a flat-earther of the first degree who once called the EPA “a cemetery for jobs” and described climate science as a “contrived, phony mess.” Clearly, the smartest thing about him is those glasses.

REUTERS/Marvin Gentry

Jeff Sessions, Alabama Senator

A hardliner on immigration with a soft spot for institutional racism, Sessions is one of the most conservative members of a conservative Congress. While Sessions, naturally, doesn’t accept climate change science, he does advocate for the rights of magic. Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll saw Donald Trump in half.

Gage Skidmore

Joni Ernst, Iowa Senator

The Washington Post once called Ernst a “biscuit-baking, gun-shooting, twangy, twinkly farm girl.” What she is not, however, is a scientist. “I do believe our climate is changing,” Ernst said in 2014. “But again, I’m not sure what the impact of man is upon that climate change.” We would be more than happy to enlighten you, Senator.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)Reuters / Joshua Roberts

Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader

Human-tortoise Mitch McConnell is such a believer in democracy that he let the Senate vote on whether or not climate change is real. We look forward to his RNC address: Gravity: Let The People Decide.

REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Laura Ingraham, Radio host

Ingraham primarily uses her nationally syndicated radio show to rant about abortion, human cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, “radical Islam,” pornography, and her dog Lucy. Last December, however, Ingraham warned the American people about the dangers of acting on climate change, which, she said, “has everything to do with bringing America’s economy down, hurting the fossil fuel industry, etc., etc.” Maybe she’ll elaborate this week at the RNC.

Stay tuned, and you can check out Grist’s election coverage here.

ShareElection Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this electionGet Grist in your inbox

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If you want fact-free speeches, Cleveland is the perfect place to go

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Activists wanted to clean up a coal ash dump. Dump sued activists for complaining.

by Fanpepsi Posted on June 3, 2016

talkin’ trash

Activists wanted to clean up a coal ash dump. Dump sued activists for complaining.

By on Jun 2, 2016Share

Four residents of a tiny Alabama town are fighting back against a giant landfill operator after the Georgia-based company, Green Group, filed a $30 million defamation suit against them. The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal court to dismiss the suit on Thursday.

Green Group operates a toxic coal ash dump in Uniontown, Ala., a small, mostly black community where half the residents live below the poverty line. The Arrowhead landfill draws coal ash — the sludge left by burning coal — from across the country. Opposition to the landfill gained strength after waste from the largest coal ash spill in U.S. history was dumped in Uniontown. In total, Arrowhead takes up to 15,000 tons of toxic waste from 33 other states every day.

Three years ago, members of a group called Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice and other residents filed a civil rights complaint with the EPA against the Alabama Department of Environmental Protection (ADEM), the state agency that oversees the landfill. The complaint against ADEM says that dust from the dump gets into homes and on cars and causes serious health problems. Three years later, the agency is still investigating.

Black Belt Citizens operates a Facebook group where residents talk about the town’s toxic sites — the landfill, as well as the sewage overflow and massive cheese processing plant. The landfill sits on a former slave plantation, and borders a historic black cemetery.

After residents filed the civil-rights complaint, Green Group approached four members of Black Belt with a settlement offer. To avoid a lawsuit, Mary Schaeffer, Ellis Long, Benjamin Eaton, and Esther Calhoun needed to remove their names from the EPA complaint, retract all their statements about the landfill, then pin that retraction to the group’s Facebook page for two years. The agreement would have given Green Group the right to look through their phones and laptops for text messages and emails.

The four refused, and were slapped with a defamation suit for what they said online. They’re now represented by the ACLU.

“State officials would never have allowed the landfill to be here if we were a rich, white neighborhood,” said Esther Calhoun, president of Black Belt Citizens, in a statement from the ACLU. “They put it here because we’re a poor, Black community and they thought we wouldn’t fight back. But we are fighting back and we’re not afraid to make our voices heard.”

The legacy of racism and enslavement compound the environmental injustice that Uniontown faces today. Once a plantation, now a toxic landfill, where silence is expected and modest objection —  even simple Facebook posts — leads to ludicrous lawsuits.

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Activists wanted to clean up a coal ash dump. Dump sued activists for complaining.

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Oxfam: Poultry Industry Routinely Denies Workers Bathroom Breaks

by TawannaEAOK Posted on May 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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The United States isn’t exactly a hotbed of trade unionism and worker power. But presumably, most people can take for granted access to the bathroom while on the job. Not so for people who staff the nation’s chicken slaughterhouses, according to a scathing new report from Oxfam America.

After a three-year project interviewing dozens of current and former workers across the country, Oxfam came to this stark conclusion:

Routinely, poultry workers say, they are denied breaks to use the bathroom. Supervisors mock their needs and ignore their requests; they threaten punishment or firing. Workers wait inordinately long times (an hour or more), then race to accomplish the task within a certain timeframe (e.g., ten minutes) or risk discipline.

How do they deal with this brutal state of affairs? “They urinate and defecate while standing on the line; they wear diapers to work; they restrict intake of liquids and fluids to dangerous degrees; they endure pain and discomfort while they worry about their health and job security,” the report adds.

Given that the industry produces what’s by far America’s favorite meat and employs more than 375,000 people, this might sound like a startling state of affairs that will inspire swift federal action. As the Oxfam report notes, “Denial of regular access to the bathroom is a clear violation of US workplace safety law.”

But Big Poultry’s bathroom trouble has been known for a while. For a 2013 report, the Southern Poverty Law Center surveyed Alabama poultry workers on the conditions they face. Findings included heightened levels of repetitive-motion injuries, routine cuts and gashes—and the lack of bathroom breaks. “Of the 266 workers answering questions about bathroom breaks, nearly eight in 10 (79 percent) said they are not allowed to take breaks when needed,” SPLC found. The group noted many of the same conditions flagged by Oxfam, including workers “stripping off their gear while running to the restroom,” on floors that are often “slippery with fat, blood, water, and other liquids.”

Also in 2013, SPLC attorney Tom Fritzsche delivered those findings in testimony before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (part of the Organization of American States), noting (video here).

The Oxfam report, too, puts the speed of the modern industrial kill line—the maximum under US law IS 140 birds per minute—at the heart of the problem. “Supervisors deny requests to use the bathroom because they are under pressure to maintain the speed of the processing line, and to keep up production,” the report states. “Once a poultry plant roars to a start at the beginning of the day, it doesn’t stop until all the chickens are processed.”

To keep the line rolling and give workers breaks when they need them is possible, Oxfam found, but that requires resources: maintaining a “set of replacement workers (line assistants or floaters) who step in as needed.” Yet “in the course of hundreds of interviews, only a handful of workers reported that their bathroom needs are respected,” the report found. Interestingly, “These exceptions are primarily in plants that have unions, which offer important protections, inform workers of their rights, and ensure they have a voice on the job.”

For its part, the chicken industry says the claims made by Oxfam are exaggerated. “The health, safety and respect of our employees is very important, and we value their contributions in helping to produce our food,” the National Chicken Council claimed in an online statement. “We’re troubled by these claims but also question this group’s efforts to paint the whole industry with a broad brush based on a handful of anonymous claims. We believe such instances are extremely rare and that U.S. poultry companies work hard to prevent them.”

A number of companies are named in the report, including Perdue, the nation’s fourth-largest poultry company and the subject of my recent feature on the industry’s move away from reliance on antibiotics. “The anecdotes reported are not consistent with Perdue’s policies and practices,” the company states in a response to the Oxfam report. The company went on to describe its policy:

Regarding bathroom breaks, our associates receive two 30-minutes breaks during each eight-hour shift. They typically work 2 to 2½ hours, have a 30-minute break, work another 2 to 2½ hours and have another 30-minute break, then work the remainder of the shift. If an associate is unable to wait for the scheduled break and needs to use the restroom, they are to be given permission to leave the line as soon as someone can cover for them. If a department is short-staffed that day, there may be times it is difficult to provide immediate coverage.

Thus are the challenges of operating a kill line that requires workers to break down as many as 140 birds per minute. For years, the industry promoted a US Department of Agriculture proposal that would have allowed line speeds to go as high as 175 birds per minute. After a firestorm of criticism from worker-rights and food-safety groups, the USDA shelved that plan in 2014. But, Oxfam America’s Oliver Gottfried tells me, the USDA left the door open to allow it in the future—and Congressional Republicans have been itching ever since to make it so.

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Oxfam: Poultry Industry Routinely Denies Workers Bathroom Breaks

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Cory Booker Takes a Veiled Jab at Bernie Sanders on Prisons

by LeslieWaterfield Posted on February 26, 2016

Mother Jones

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Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, the only black Democrat in the Senate, took a subtle jab at Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Thursday for ignoring issues affecting African Americans in his own state of Vermont.

Campaigning for Hillary Clinton at a black church in Florence, South Carolina, on Thursday, Booker fired up the crowd with invocations of past violence against African Americas—from “gas and billy clubs” on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to the martyred teenager Emmett Till—while framing Clinton as the only candidate in the race voters could trust to fix the criminal justice system. “If you don’t mind all this talk in this campaign about race, I want to get real with y’all for a minute,” Booker said. His support for Clinton, he explained to the church audience, was because “she was here when it wasn’t election time. I’m here because she was supporting criminal justice reform before it was popular to talk about it on the campaign trail.”

In case the contrast he was trying to draw wasn’t clear, Booker got more specific. “This is not just a South Carolina issue,” he said. “I don’t care what state you come from. Heck, Vermont! People told me, ‘Cory, they don’t have black people in Vermont.’ I’m sorry to tell you this, there are 50 states; we got black people in every state! That’s true!”

He continued, “And the problems of racial disparity did not begin in this campaign. They go deep in every state. Vermont has 1 percent African Americans. But their prison population is 11 percent black! You want to speak about injustice—I see campaigns and candidates running all over this country. Don’t you come to my communities, talk about how much you care, talk your passion for criminal justice, and then I don’t hear from you after an election. And I didn’t hear from you before the election!”

Clinton has focused on winning black voters in counties where she lost big to Barack Obama (including Florence County, where Obama beat her by 42 points), emphasizing Sanders’ votes against gun control measures and her friendship with a group of African American women who lost their children to gun violence or in police custody. But her aggressive push on criminal justice is in part defensive; she’s been criticized on the left for supporting, among other things, welfare reform and the 1994 crime bill. At a fundraiser in Charleston on Wednesday night, she was confronted by a young black woman about comments she’d made as First Lady in support of the crime bill, alleging that “super-predators” were threatening urban communities. Clinton said on Thursday, “I shouldn’t have used those words.”

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Cory Booker Takes a Veiled Jab at Bernie Sanders on Prisons

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How America’s Gun Manufacturers Are Quietly Getting Richer Off Taxpayers

by SelmaMccombs Posted on January 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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In January 2013, a month after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the state of New York passed gun control legislation that included a ban on the retail sale of assault weapons. Soon after, Remington Outdoor Company, the maker of the Bushmaster assault rifle used in the massacre, announced it would lay off workers at its 200-year-old factory in Ilion and move production to Huntsville, Alabama. Then CEO George Kollitides explained in a letter to New York officials that the move was brought on by “state policies affecting use of our products.”

The gun lobby crowed about political payback: “We hope that sends a very strong message,” remarked then National Rifle Association’s president, Jim Porter, on an NRA radio show. What Porter didn’t mention was what Alabama had done to sweeten the deal: By relocating to Huntsville, Remington, a $1 billion firearms conglomerate owned by the Manhattan private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, would receive state and local grants, tax breaks, and other incentives worth approximately $69 million—the equivalent of getting about $14 from every resident of Alabama.

Since 2003, state and local governments from Alabama to Tennessee have given more than $120 million worth of taxpayer funds to at least seven major firearms companies, according to research by Mother Jones. Most of those subsidies—nearly $100 million—have been pledged just over the past three years by states seeking to lure gun producers from the Northeast, where new firearm regulations have angered industry leaders.

“I’ve had CEOs in New England tell me that the offers from states’ economic development teams are so extraordinary that they could essentially move their factories for free,” Larry Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Federation, told Guns & Ammo. “In some cases they’ve received these offers almost daily over extended periods of time.”

After Maryland passed stringent new gun regulations in 2013, Beretta announced it would shutter its factory there and relocate to a state that has shown “consistent, strong support for Second Amendment rights,” as its attorney, Jeff Reh, put it at the time. But politics wasn’t the only factor in Beretta’s move. The city of Gallatin, Tennessee, eventually won the new factory after it offered Beretta $14.4 million in state and local subsidies. “The level of community support was better,” a Beretta spokesman acknowledged in the Charlotte Business Journal, explaining why that city had lost its bid for the plant.

Southern states have long relied on financial and regulatory incentives to attract manufacturers from more industrialized parts of the country. “I think Remington is doing what Mercedes did for us in the automobile business—it opens the door to opportunity,” Porter told the Birmingham Business Journal. Yet Porter suggested gun companies would enjoy an exceptional welcome: “You will have the support of the administration, you will have the support of the population—everybody in the state is going to be lining up to work for Remington.”

Major politicians have gone the extra mile to attract gun companies. In wooing the Beretta factory, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam flew to Italy and met with the Beretta family in a posh wine country villa. Haslam later invited Franco Gussalli Beretta, the head of the company’s American subsidiary, to the governor’s mansion for dinner. Nobody in Tennessee seemed to object to the deal’s $14.4 million price tag. “We believe that our brand as the state of Tennessee has taken on new luster because Beretta has chosen to locate here,” Haslan said at the groundbreaking ceremony, “and we are forever grateful.”

Another incentive for gun companies to relocate south has been lax labor laws. In an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader, a Sturm Ruger spokesman admitted the company built a new plant in North Carolina instead of expanding an existing one in Newport, New Hampshire, because it wanted to set up shop in a right-to-work state. Similarly, Remington’s move from New York to Alabama, another right-to-work state, decimated the New York plant’s trade union.

Some Northeastern states have also funneled tax dollars to the firearms industry. Between 2009 and 2014, New York-based Kimber Manufacturing received nearly $1 million in tax abatements and state and local grants—money meant to ensure the company would keep cranking out upwards of 150,000 handguns a year with its factory in Yonkers. Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts have also offered incentives to attract or retain gun manufacturers. But most such enticements are now in the South.

Here are the seven gun companies that have received state and local subsidies in recent years:

Remington Arms, Madison, North Carolina
Move: Owned by a New York private equity fund, Remington in 2014 laid off more than 100 workers at its 200-year-old unionized factory in Ilion, New York (the site of its original headquarters) and opened a new nonunion factory in Huntsville, Alabama.
Subsidy: $68.9 million in cash, worker training, tax abatements, real estate, and construction work from state and local governments. The company also received nearly $12 million in grants, tax credits, and other benefits from New York, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Oklahoma in exchange for training workers and expanding or retaining factories.

Sturm Ruger, Southport, Connecticut
Move: In 2014, the nation’s largest gun company opened a new factory in Mayodan, North Carolina, instead of expanding an existing factory in New Hampshire.
Subsidy: $15.5 million in state tax breaks, employee training, infrastructure construction, and other incentives. The company has also received $150,288 in training subsidies from New Hampshire.

Berretta USA, Accokeek, Maryland
Move: The Italian gun maker last year closed its Maryland plant and moved all US production to a massive factory in Gallatin, Tennessee.
Subsidy: The company will receive $10.41 million in state-funded building improvements and job training grants. The town of Gallatin also kicked in land and tax abatements worth nearly $4 million.

Smith & Wesson, Springfield, Massachusetts.
Move: Publicly traded Smith & Wesson announced in 2010 that it would move its hunting rifle division from New Hampshire to Springfield, Massachusetts.
Subsidy: $6.6 million in state and local tax breaks. The company has also received $158,791 in worker-training subsidies from Massachusetts.

Colt’s Manufacturing, Hartford, Connecticut
Move: In 2011 Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced a deal in which the 180-year-old gun company would open a factory in Kissimmee, saying it showed the state was “a defender of our right to bear arms.” But then Colt walked away from the project for unknown reasons. The company declared bankruptcy last year.
Subsidy: $1.66 million in state and local incentives. Government officials are now trying to claw back the money.

O.F. Mossberg & Sons, North Haven, Connecticut.
Move: The world’s largest manufacturer of pump-action shotguns has gradually shifted manufacturing from Connecticut to a factory in Eagle Pass, Texas. In 2014, it added 116,000 square feet to the factory, which now accounts for 90 percent of its production.
Subsidy: A $300,000 grant in 2014 from the taxpayer-funded Texas Enterprise Fund.

Kimber Manufacturing, Elmsford, New York
Move: America’s largest manufacturer of 1911 pistols hasn’t moved out of New York—at least not yet. In 2012 the company warned that the state’s NY SAFE gun control law might “cause it to reconsider its current expansion.”
Subsidy: In 2009, Kimber received a $700,000 state grant to expand its manufacturing capacity in Yonkers. In 2012 and 2013, it received nearly $300,000 in local tax credits.

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How America’s Gun Manufacturers Are Quietly Getting Richer Off Taxpayers

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