Tag Archives: family

Shonda Rhimes, Norman Lear, and Common Take Aim at Inequality in This New Documentary Series

by BurtonCracknell Posted on September 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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In “America Divided,” a new five-part documentary series premiering tonight on Epix, the nation’s growing inequality—in matters economic, racial, and otherwise—takes center stage.

Headed by executive producers Shonda Rhimes, Norman Lear, and Common, the project looks into the ways inequality underlies so many modern crises, profoundly affecting our schools, our housing landscape, and our political discourse. The correspondents are all household names: Actress Rosario Dawson, for instance, takes us to Flint, Michigan, to meet families affected by lead poisoning. Actor Jesse Williams returns to the classroom to understand the school-to-prison pipeline. Comedian Amy Poehler grills well-to-do families about their relationships with struggling domestic workers.

The actors are invested, and in some cases confrontational. And while it’s a little strange to see them so out of context (especially comedians such as Poehler and Zach Galifianakis) there’s something refreshing about their earnestness. Take Dawson, who displays her humanity when she reaches out to hold the hand of a tearful woman who has been describing the toll Flint’s contaminated water has had on her family. The issues the series explores won’t be anything new to Mother Jones readers, but they are as timely as ever. So if A-list celebs and high production quality will convince you to think more about America’s more entrenched problems, and maybe even to step up and do something, then this series is for you.

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Shonda Rhimes, Norman Lear, and Common Take Aim at Inequality in This New Documentary Series

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Obama forces national security agencies to consider climate change.

by HVDAllison Posted on September 21, 2016

This weekend, Máxima Acuña, winner of the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize, was assaulted on her property in Peru. Since 2011, Acuña has resisted the development of the Conga gold mine by U.S.-based Newmont Mining by refusing to vacate her home — and, for that, has faced both legal prosecution and physical intimidation.

As a result of the attack, allegedly perpetrated by agents of Minera Yanacocha (Newmont’s Peruvian subsidiary), Acuña is now in the hospital and her family’s crops are destroyed, according to Amnesty International.

Nor, tragically, is this attack an isolated instance of violence against indigenous women protecting their land. Earlier this year, Berta Cáceres — winner of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize for her efforts in blocking hydroelectric developments on Lenca land in Honduras — was murdered at home, allegedly by employees of DESA, the developer behind the proposed dams.

When we spoke to Acuña in April, she told us, with eerie foresight: “Because these businesses are very powerful, I don’t know what awaits me when I get back [home]. But this isn’t a cause of fear for me – it’s not a motive for us to stop fighting, to stop defending.”

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Obama forces national security agencies to consider climate change.

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The federal government is investigating ExxonMobil’s accounting related to climate change.

by AltonMast09011 Posted on September 21, 2016

This weekend, Máxima Acuña, winner of the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize, was assaulted on her property in Peru. Since 2011, Acuña has resisted the development of the Conga gold mine by U.S.-based Newmont Mining by refusing to vacate her home — and, for that, has faced both legal prosecution and physical intimidation.

As a result of the attack, allegedly perpetrated by agents of Minera Yanacocha (Newmont’s Peruvian subsidiary), Acuña is now in the hospital and her family’s crops are destroyed, according to Amnesty International.

Nor, tragically, is this attack an isolated instance of violence against indigenous women protecting their land. Earlier this year, Berta Cáceres — winner of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize for her efforts in blocking hydroelectric developments on Lenca land in Honduras — was murdered at home, allegedly by employees of DESA, the developer behind the proposed dams.

When we spoke to Acuña in April, she told us, with eerie foresight: “Because these businesses are very powerful, I don’t know what awaits me when I get back [home]. But this isn’t a cause of fear for me – it’s not a motive for us to stop fighting, to stop defending.”

Link – 

The federal government is investigating ExxonMobil’s accounting related to climate change.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot

by Myrna Posted on September 5, 2016

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca Skloot

Genre: History

Price: $9.99

Publish Date: February 2, 2010

Publisher: Crown/Archetype

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor&#xa0;black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more.&#xa0;Henrietta's cells&#xa0;have been bought and sold by the billions, yet&#xa0;she remains virtually unknown, and her family can't afford health insurance. This phenomenal New York Times bestseller tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot

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Paul Manafort Is the Latest Casualty on Team Trump

by YolandaCollings Posted on August 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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Paul Manafort has resigned as chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Is this because of his shady Ukraine dealings? Because Trump brought on Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway to run the campaign? Because he didn’t want to be associated with an epic loss in November? Because he wanted to spend more time with his family?

There’s no telling. But here’s the good news: He’s now free to sign up with CNN as an election analyst! I can’t wait.

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Paul Manafort Is the Latest Casualty on Team Trump

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Finally, the climate teardown of Trump you’ve been waiting for

by wilbertbarber4 Posted on July 28, 2016

What can Brown do for you?

Finally, the climate teardown of Trump you’ve been waiting for

By on Jul 28, 2016Share

PHILADELPHIA — Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention was dedicated to ripping apart the GOP nominee while extending an olive branch to blue-collar voters and moderate Republicans. With so much material to choose from, perhaps it’s no surprise that Joe Biden, Tim Kaine, Michael Bloomberg, and President Obama stuck largely to their opponent’s character and business record.

So it was left to California Gov. Jerry Brown, as chief executive of one of the most progressive states in the union on climate and energy — and one suffering from a multi-year drought that Donald Trump doesn’t think is real — to make the contrast between Trump and the Dems on sustainability. Brown devoted his entire speech to tearing down the real estate developer’s public statements on climate science, with one-liners earning cheers from the audience.

“Trump says global warming is a hoax. I say Trump is a fraud,” Brown declared. “Trump says there’s no drought in California. I say Trump lies.”

When Obama closed out the night, he provided a broad argument that America is in fact making progress, and that Americans can’t give up on “perfecting our union.” He touched lightly on climate and energy in a conciliatory note to voters who might not always fit the Democratic mold, saying: “If you want to fight climate change, we’ve got to engage not only young people on college campuses, but reach out to the coal miner who’s worried about taking care of his family, the single mom worried about gas prices.”

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Finally, the climate teardown of Trump you’ve been waiting for

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First Officer Killed in Dallas Police Ambush Identified as Brent Thompson

by DamianSpivakovs Posted on July 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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Dallas police have identified the first of the five police officers who were killed Thursday night, after gunmen opened fire near an anti-violence protest in Dallas, an event that marks the deadliest attack on American law enforcement since September 11th.

According to James Spiller, chief of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit, 43-year-old Brent Thompson was identified as one of the five police officers killed in the ambush. Thompson had gotten married to a fellow officer in the last two weeks, and was the first officer from the transit police ever killed in the line of duty.

“Brent was a great officer,” Spiller said. “We will definitely miss him. But we are also making sure that his family is taken care of.”

Six other officers were wounded in the attack. Read DART’s statement on Thompson’s death here.

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First Officer Killed in Dallas Police Ambush Identified as Brent Thompson

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Tennessee Lawmaker Insists On Giving Away a Rifle Similar to the One Used in the Orlando Massacre

by Jed24A25995 Posted on June 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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The day after a rifle similar to an AR-15 was used to massacre 49 people at an LGBT club in Orlando, Tennessee state Rep. Andy Holt is standing by his decision to give away an AR-15 as a door prize at an upcoming campaign fundraiser and turkey shoot.

In fact, he’s now giving away two. Holt, a Republican, told a reporter who asked if the prize was insensitive in light of the recent shooting, “absolutely not.” Holt told The Tennessean that the only problem with the assault rifle is that “it’s black and it looks real scary.”

“If I beat somebody to death with a hammer that’s just a hammer,” Holt continued. “But if I was to take and wrap it up in electrical tape and make it black, I guess that would make it an assault hammer.”

Holt was a cosponsor on the state’s recent anti-transgender bathroom bill, which ultimately failed, and he introduced a successful bill that permits full-time employees of Tennessee colleges and universities to carry a handgun on campus.

In a Facebook post Monday morning, Holt issued a call to arms to his constituents. “I want you to arm yourselves and learn to shoot with deadly accuracy should the need arise,” he wrote. “Protect your family. Protect yourselves. Protect your friends. Our government has made it quite clear that it is incapable of doing so. At the end of the day, it’s your responsibility anyways.”

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Tennessee Lawmaker Insists On Giving Away a Rifle Similar to the One Used in the Orlando Massacre

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George W. Bush Praises Group That Has Pushed for Anti-Gay Crackdowns Abroad

by BlaineHightower Posted on May 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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Earlier this week, former President George W. Bush accepted an award from the World Congress of Families, a social conservative group that has played a leading role in fostering anti-gay movements and legislation abroad, including a widely condemned measure in Russia that criminalized the public expression of same-sex relationships.

The World Congress of Families, which awarded Bush its “Family and Democracy Pro-Life Award” at its conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, is the main project of the Illinois-based Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society. In 2014, Mother Jones reported on the group’s involvement in helping to bolster the nascent anti-gay movement in Russia, where WCF representatives met with legislators and other high-ranking individuals who helped pass the so-called “gay propaganda” law. The law, which inspired anti-gay attacks in Russia, garnered international outrage in advance of the Winter Olympics held in Sochi. The WCF has also supported anti-gay rallies, legislation, and more throughout Eastern Europe, in countries like Serbia, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Czech Republic. The organization has been designated an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which called it “one of the key driving forces behind the U.S. Religious Right’s global export of homophobia and sexism.”

Bush did not attend the WCF conference this week, but he sent a letter thanking the group for the pro-life award and praising its work: “I commend your efforts to recognize the importance of families in building nations. Your work improves many lives and makes the world better.”

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George W. Bush Praises Group That Has Pushed for Anti-Gay Crackdowns Abroad

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Obamacare Notches Another Win. Are You Tired of Winning Yet?

by Maurici0519 Posted on April 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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I’ve mentioned before that one of the reasons Obamacare signup rates are below projections is because employer coverage is above projections. Back in 2010, analysts assumed that employers would steadily drop health coverage and simply pay their employees to buy insurance on the exchanges. But that hasn’t happened—and that’s a good thing.

Now the New York Times has joined the party, so maybe everyone else will start to get this too:

The surprise turnaround adds to an emerging consensus about the contentious health law: It has not upturned the core of the country’s health insurance system, even while insuring millions of low-income people.

….About 155 million Americans have employer-based health insurance coverage in 2016, according to an analysis released by the Congressional Budget Office last month. The number will fall to 152 million people in 2019, the C.B.O. estimates, but will remain stable through 2026. Slightly more than half of people under 65 will be enrolled in employment-based coverage.

Employers seem to be staying the course even more strongly than they did before the law. The percentage of adults under 65 with employer-based insurance held firm for the last five years after steadily declining since 1999, according to an analysis of federal data released last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which closely tracks the health insurance market.

The CDC has been tracking health coverage for years, and their numbers show that private coverage (not including exchanges) has gone up since Obamacare went live. These numbers include both employer coverage and private coverage purchased off-exchange, but employer coverage is by far the biggest component and there’s no special reason to think that off-exchange individual coverage has increased much. This provides a very strong indication that the employer market has stayed healthy, and the CBO report confirms this.

If you want to know how Obamacare is doing, don’t look at Obamacare enrollments compared to early projections. Instead, look at the total uninsured rate compared to early projections. That’s the only number that provides a comprehensive look at all forms of health insurance and how they’ve done compared to predictions. When you do that, you’ll find that Obamacare is actually doing a little better than anyone thought it would.

To paraphrase a prominent politician, I wonder if Obamacare’s critics are tired of losing all the time? If so, come on over to the side of light and goodness. You’ll win so much you’ll get tired of winning.

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Obamacare Notches Another Win. Are You Tired of Winning Yet?

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