This Labor Ruling Could Give a Big Boost to the Fight For 15. The government just showed corporate America that they’re the boss, when they’d actually prefer not to be. In a landmark 3-2 decision issued last Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board expanded the definition of “joint employer” to include not just the boss that directly employs the worker but also the company that controls that workers’ labor conditions indirectly by contracting with the boss. The new definition could boost the nationwide low-wage workers’ movement known as the Fight for 15, by expanding the power of “outsourced” workers, who work for one company while formally employed through a third-party contractor, to organize and hold corporations accountable.
The case focused on the question of whether a recycling company, California-based Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI), should be considered a joint employer of 240 workers hired by a subcontractor, Leadpoint. For now, Washington bureaucrats are adding fuel to one of the largest mobilizations ever of low-wage workers. Virginia Gunman Was Ordered by TV Station Bosses to Seek Medical Help. The man who shot dead two former colleagues as they carried out a live broadcast had a long history of behavioral issues at work, it was revealed on Thursday.
Vester Flanagan, who killed reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward on Wednesday morning and later shot himself, had been ordered by bosses at WDBJ7 television station in Virginia to seek medical help after a series of arguments with colleagues, according to internal memos obtained by the Guardian. Flanagan had made colleagues feel threatened and acted unprofessionally during various arguments with photographers over how segments should be filmed, reported the newspaper, leading to official warnings and ultimately to his dismissal in February 2013. Related: Suspected Shooter in Virginia Killing of Reporter and Cameraman Is Confirmed Dead In a memo dated July 30, 2012, the then news director of WDBJ17 Dan Dennison told Flanagan he must contact health professionals or lose his job.
Related: 62 Murders and Counting: St. Kansas Secretary of State tries to block release of voting tapes after statistical anomalies noted. WSU statistician sues seeking Kansas voting machine paper tapes. A Wichita State University mathematician sued the top Kansas election official Wednesday, seeking paper tapes from electronic voting machines in an effort to explain statistical anomalies favoring Republicans in counts coming from large precincts across the country. Beth Clarkson, chief statistician for the university’s National Institute for Aviation Research, filed the open records lawsuit in Sedgwick County District Court as part of her personal quest to find the answer to an unexplained pattern that transcends elections and states. The lawsuit was amended Wednesday to name Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Sedgwick County Elections Commissioner Tabitha Lehman.
Clarkson, a certified quality engineer with a Ph.D. in statistics, said she has analyzed election returns in Kansas and elsewhere over several elections that indicate “a statistically significant” pattern where the percentage of Republican votes increase the larger the size of the precinct. Under John Kasich, Ohio's Charter Schools Became a "National Joke" John Kasich: David Becker/ZUMA; Imagine Columbus Primary Academy: Google Maps; Charter school students: Maryland GovPics/Flickr When Leon Sinoff was asked to sign off on a building lease for Imagine Columbus Primary Academy in Columbus, Ohio, in the summer of 2013, he had little reason to be skeptical. Before Imagine Schools, one of the nation's largest for-profit charter management companies, asked him to join the new charter school's board, Sinoff, a public defender, had no education background or experience.
"I relied on their expertise and thought to myself, 'Well, who am I to say no to this proposal? '" Sinoff says. But by the start of the second school year, he was having doubts. "It clicked for me. Before Imagine Columbus Primary Academy opened, a different Imagine school operated in the building for eight years. "Imagine is perfectly happy cranking out low-quality schools and profiting off of them. " But Kasich can't distance himself from the problems so easily. Here's Why it Makes Perfect Sense That Josh Duggar Cheated | Jenny Block. Now can we stop? Please? Can we please stop acting as if Conservative, right-wing "Christians" make any sense or are even "good" people? Any extreme is bad. Any.
Of course Josh Duggar was on Ashley Madison. I could not feel any sorrier for Josh Duggar. Let me be clear here. But the Ashley Madison account? Of course he behaved that way. In fact, I believe it was that very upbringing that lead him to the criminal behavior with his sisters. How many more examples do we need? I truly believe that if Josh Duggar was taught the scientific truth about human sexuality (and about evolution, while we're on the subject), if he had been allowed to date, if he had been taught about the health and joy of masturbation, if he had been respected and supported as a human male, none of this would have happened.
The Duggars are creating monsters. Extremism creates monsters. The Ashley Madison hack may have been the Godsend we have been needing for so long, the pulling back of the proverbial curtain. Close. The U.S. Government's Department of Health Finally Admits That Marijuana Kills Cancer. Throughout history the main reasons human beings willfully kill other human beings are religion and greed.
Although it is surprising that people steeped in a religion that worships a “loving god” revels in killing other humans, it is part of the “convert or kill” mindset that one the major Abrahamic religions, Christianity thrives and prospers on. It is not as surprising that human beings kill others out of greed, but for an industry that claims it exists to “save lives and heal infirmity,” it is astonishing that the pursuit of profit drives their pursuit of death and sickness.
For the medical industrial complex, there is nothing as terrifying as a cure, or remedy, for a highly profitable and fatal disease like cancer. Some of the other NIH studies have shown that cannabinoids reduce the risk of colon cancer, and are effective in its treatment. The Email Trail That Proves Scott Walker’s Collusion. The emails show Milwaukee County employees worked on Walker’s campaign during office hours. You’ve hit your limit of 5 free articles this month.Try our subscription options: Weekly home delivery with free shipping, access to Newsweek’s web site, and the complete online archive Access to Newsweek’s web site, and the complete online archive. CNN Busts Darrell Issa For Lying About Classified Hillary Clinton Emails. Wolf Blitzer busted Darrell Issa for lying about Hillary Clinton’s emails during an interview on CNN. Video: Transcript via CNN: REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CALIFORNIA: Well, Wolf, the one thing we now know is that, as they said, about 300 separate e-mails, maybe more, contain classified information.
It’s not an accident to have 300 e-mails become retroactively, if you will, determined to be classified. Huma, her assistant, her second daughter, if you will, is brilliant. BLITZER: Well, my understanding is those 300 e-mails they’re looking at now, that they haven’t definitively ruled that it was classified information. ISSA: Well, it is. Well, the CIA and NSA and other clandestine agencies appear to be appalled that very sensitive information was sent out on her nongovernment server in an unclassified format. With one fact based question, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was able to derail the Republican myth of the 300 classified emails.
Here’s how Black Lives Matter plans to beat the police state: Activists release comprehensive agenda. A group called “We the People,” lead by prominent Black Lives Matter activists Deray McKesson and Johnetta “Netta” Elzie, just released its most comprehensive set of demands and policy prescriptions meant to address police brutality. Campaign Zero launched today on a glossy website that read, “we can live in a world where the police don’t kill people by limiting police interventions, improving community interactions, and ensuring accountability”: Writing that “it will take deliberate action from policy-makers at all levels of government to implement these policy solutions,” the coalition of protestors outlined proposals in 10 different areas and called for new laws at the federal and state level. “We must end police violence so we can live and feel safe in this country,” their website reads. McKesson told the Guardian that the Campaign Zero platform was formulated “based on what we have learned over the past year and on direct feedback from protesters around the country.”
Noam Chomsky: Why America Is the Gravest Threat to World Peace. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here. Throughout the world there is great relief and optimism about the nuclear deal reached in Vienna between Iran and the P5+1 nations, the five veto-holding members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany. Most of the world apparently shares the assessment of the U.S. Arms Control Association that “the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action establishes a strong and effective formula for blocking all of the pathways by which Iran could acquire material for nuclear weapons for more than a generation and a verification system to promptly detect and deter possible efforts by Iran to covertly pursue nuclear weapons that will last indefinitely.” There are, however, striking exceptions to the general enthusiasm: the United States and its closest regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
“The Greatest Threat” Opponents of the nuclear deal charge that it does not go far enough. How Much Of California's Drought Was Caused By Climate Change? Scientists Now Have The Answer. Over the last few years, as California’s historic, four-year drought has intensified, scientists have found clues linking the extreme weather event to human-caused climate change. Now, a new study is the first to estimate just how much climate change contributed to the drought. The study, published Thursday in Geophysical Research Letters, found that climate change can be blamed for between 8 to 27 percent of the drought conditions between 2012 and 2014 and between 5 to 18 percent in 2014. Though these relative contributions of climate change differ between the two periods of time, due to differences in severity of the drought from year to year, the study said climate change’s absolute contribution was “virtually identical” between the two periods — meaning climate change has contributed a fairly steady amount to California’s drought over the last three years.
The researchers used that data to calculate how much water evaporated from the soil each month. CREDIT: US Drought Monitor. Two Brothers Allegedly Beat Up A Latino Man, Say They Were Inspired By Donald Trump. A pair of siblings in Boston, Massachusetts targeted and ambushed a 58-year-old homeless Latino man because one brother was “inspired in part” by 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, the Boston Globe reported. Police arrived on the scene early Wednesday to a homeless man covered in urine, whose nose was broken and chest and arms were battered.
The victim told police that “he was awakened by two men urinating on his face.” He said they ripped away his blankets and sleeping bag, hit him in the face and the head, and punched him several times. According to the Boston Globe, several witnesses saw the homeless man being attacked. The victim is in fair condition, though he has a broken nose and multiple bruises on his head and torso. Scott Leader, one of the two brothers, told police that the victim started the confrontation.
Boston officials, including Mayor Martin J. Trump’s assumptions about immigrants being criminals are simply unfounded. The perils of “Growth Mindset” education: Why we’re trying to fix our kids when we should be fixing the system. One of the most popular ideas in education these days can be summarized in a single sentence (a fact that may help to account for its popularity).
Here’s the sentence: Kids tend to fare better when they regard intelligence and other abilities not as fixed traits that they either have or lack, but as attributes that can be improved through effort. In a series of monographs over many years and in a book published in 2000, psychologist Carol Dweck used the label “incremental theory” to describe the self-fulfilling belief that one can become smarter. Rebranding it more catchily as the “growth mindset” allowed her to recycle the idea a few years later in a best-selling book for general readers. By now, the growth mindset has approached the status of a cultural meme. The premise is repeated with uncritical enthusiasm by educators and a growing number of parents, managers, and journalists — to the point that one half expects supporters to start referring to their smartphones as “effortphones.” Man Accidentally Shoots Self While Guarding 'Muslim-Free' Oktaha. OKTAHA, Oklahoma - The Muskogee County sheriff said a member of the group guarding an Oktaha gun shop accidentally shot himself Tuesday.
Sheriff Charles Pearson said the man dropped his gun and a bullet hit him in the arm. The sheriff did not identify the man or offer any other details about what happened. The group of armed citizens and veterans is standing guard outside the Save Yourself Survival and Tactical Gear store after the owners said they received death threats from all over the world for putting up a sign saying Muslims weren't welcome. 8/17/2015: Related Story: Armed Citizens Protect Oktaha Family After Threats Over Controversial Sign "I saw several of those gentlemen out there yesterday," Pearson said. "The way they were holding their weapons, with the fingers on the triggers, you can tell a couple of these gentlemen have no idea about weapons safety. Read the muskogeenow.com story here.
The sheriff told News On 6 on Monday that his office is monitoring the situation. Israel shocked by image of soldiers forcing violinist to play at roadblock. Of all the revelations that have rocked the Israeli army over the past week, perhaps none disturbed the public so much as the video footage of soldiers forcing a Palestinian man to play his violin. The incident was not as shocking as the recording of an Israeli officer pumping the body of a 13-year-old girl full of bullets and then saying he would have shot her even if she had been three years old. Nor was it as nauseating as the pictures in an Israeli newspaper of ultra-orthodox soldiers mocking Palestinian corpses by impaling a man's head on a pole and sticking a cigarette in his mouth. But the matter of the violin touched on something deeper about the way Israelis see themselves, and their conflict with the Palestinians.
The violinist, Wissam Tayem, was on his way to a music lesson near Nablus when he said an Israeli officer ordered him to "play something sad" while soldiers made fun of him. After several minutes, he was told he could pass. Madeleine Albright To Jeb: Stop Blaming Obama For Your Brother’s Iraq Debacle. ‘Budrus’ Becomes Part of a Palestinian Debate. A Tale of Two Beaches: Tel Aviv and Gaza. Search the 935 Iraq War false statements. 935 Lies (and Counting): Study Documents Bush Admin’s False Statements Preceding Iraq War. The Bully’s Pulpit - The Baffler. Weed, Whitewashed - The Baffler. Integrity: The Child Scott Walker Left Behind | Wisconsin Citizens Media Cooperative. Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason. ‘Marry before your house is swept away’: Climate change is giving child marriages a boost | The Indian Express. Why conservative billionaires have started talking like Bernie Sanders: “We are creating a caste system from which it’s almost impossible to escape”
15 Youth Movements to Dismantle White Supremacy Rising This Summer. Zinn Coeditor: That All "Voices" Make History Is a "Dangerous Idea to Those in Power" The Head of the IMF Says Inequality Threatens Democracy. Here Are 7 Charts Proving She's Right. Joseph E. Stiglitz: The People Who Break the Rules Have Raked in Huge Profits and Wealth and It's Sickening Our Politics | Perspectives. What the 1% Don't Want Us to Know. Wing-nut conspiracy theorists have done it again: The truth about the Planned Parenthood hoax revealed. Right-wing push to deny federal funds to Planned Parenthood is a gigantic hoax - Blogs - The Leavenworth Times - Leavenworth, KS. Ancient Man Had Neanderthal Great-Great Grandfather. Scott Walker's office obstructed probe of veterans money, investigators say.
Britain’s secret ties to governments, firms behind ISIS oil sales — INSURGE intelligence.