Category: Domestic Affairs,

Texas deputy arrested on allegation of child sexual assault

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Local Interest,, Race,Leave a comment

A sheriff’s deputy in South Texas is accused of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl and threatening the child’s mother with deportation if she reported him, authorities said.

…The sheriff said the assaults may have been going on for months, possibly years, and that there could be other victims.

…Authorities were notified of the alleged abuse when the child “made an outcry” and her mother, from Guatemala, took the girl to a fire station to make a report. The sheriff said authorities believe Nunez is related to the child victim.

Salazar said the criminal charge carries a minimum 25-year sentence. He reported on Sunday that the agency is filling out paperwork to give the mother protective status pending the case’s outcome, but declined to comment on the residence status of the child.

Texas deputy arrested on allegation of child sexual assault – Story | KTVU

Jeezus Christ,,,,

El Paso County Sheriff Prohibits Staff From Moonlighting at Tornillo Tent City for Children

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El Paso’s sheriff has barred his deputies from working off-duty at a new temporary migrant children’s shelter, one of the most forceful steps yet from a growing chorus of law enforcement critical of the Trump administration’s practice of separating children and parents apprehended at the border. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this month opened temporary tent shelters in Tornillo, about thirty miles east of downtown El Paso, where the sheriff’s prohibition has taken effect. “The Sheriff’s Office will not be working at these facilities, as we don’t support the current administration’s position of separating children simply to discourage illegal immigration,” Sheriff Richard Wiles said. Law enforcement officers frequently work off-duty jobs to supplement their income, but such work requires approval from superiors.

Wiles said he was approached by federal officials to provide off-duty deputies for security work at the Tornillo facility but declined. “I just thought that if the citizens saw that we were working there in an off-duty capacity, it may be [seen] as if we were approving of the administration’s policy, and it would hurt our relationship with the community that we serve.”

El Paso County Sheriff Prohibits Staff From Moonlighting at Tornillo Tent City for Children – Texas Monthly

good

Pam Bondi heckled at Mister Rogers movie over healthcare, immigration

On By peanutgallerynhIn Gulf Coast Region,, Local Interest,, Media and Culture,, Modern Parenting,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Florida’s Republican attorney general, Pam Bondi, was escorted out of a movie theater by police on Friday night after being confronted by labor activists over her positions on healthcare and immigration policy.

…One activist can be heard asking, “Would Mr. Rogers take children away from their parents?” Unlike Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Bondi has not publicly come out against the family separations.

…”What would Mister Rogers think about your legacy in Florida? Taking away health insurance from people with existing conditions? Shame on you! Shame on you!” one protester can be heard shouting at Bondi as uniformed officers walked her to her car.

…Approximately 1.7 million people in Florida get their health insurance through the market created by the ACA, and over 90% receive subsidies from the federal government to lower their premiums, according to the Orlando Sun Sentinel.

Pam Bondi heckled at Mister Rogers movie over healthcare, immigration – Business Insider

hmmmm

Pentagon: Two US military bases to house migrants

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Speaking in Alaska, Secretary Mattis named the Texas bases but did not say whether they would house migrant children or families held together.

The Pentagon said last week it planned to house 20,000 detained children on military bases.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump repeated calls for deportations without judicial process.

…In his remarks, the defence secretary [defended the dramatic move as] a “legitimate governmental function.”

…The shelters will be run by HHS and not the Pentagon, according to the Associated Press, and facilities may be available as early as July.

US immigration officials say 2,342 children were separated from 2,206 parents from 5 May to 9 June.

While the adults are held in custody pending court appearances, the children are being sent to holding cells, converted warehouses and desert tents under the “zero tolerance” policy introduced in April.

Officials have gone to court to try to lengthen the time children can be held as parents are prosecuted.

…[Trump] has not made a distinction between economic migrants and those seeking asylum in his Twitter posts.

Pentagon: Two US military bases to house migrants – BBC News

Agggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

New video shows police officer stepping on Sterling Brown’s ankle and fellow officers discussing potential backlash of the wrongful arrest

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In one of the videos, Brown is on the ground and handcuffed when an officer puts one of his boots on Brown’s ankle, holding it there and at one point pressing down.

..Other videos obtained by WISN-TV show an officer talking with two others who are seated in a squad car as they explained they were trying to protect themselves during the arrest. They also talk about how they could be perceived as racist for arresting a black Bucks player, with one saying if anything goes wrong, it “is going to be, ‘Ooh, the Milwaukee Police Department is all racist, blah, blah, blah.”

Another video shows an officer in his squad car, calling to let a supervisor know he’ll need to be on overtime before singing, “Money, money, money, money, money …”

…It’s unclear why the new videos were not released along with the first body camera footage.

New video shows police officer stepping on Sterling Brown’s ankle and others discussing potential backlash of arrest – Chicago Tribune

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Trump tweet proposes immediate deportations without due process

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Trump on Twitter Sunday proposed that immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally be immediately deported without due process.

[When it suits him though, Trump] is very fond of due process. In February, he plaintively asked on Twitter whether there is “no such thing any longer as Due Process,” apparently objecting to public critique of men accused of domestic abuse. 

Trump tweet proposes immediate deportations without due process

sigh…

What Sarah Sanders’s Red Hen controversy says about civility

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Europe,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

There’s evidence that inflicting personal punishments on political leaders does cause them to grapple with their actions and even change their behavior.

One study, for example, looked at a fine imposed on legislators in the French National Assembly when they skipped important committee meetings. The study looked at two things: the effect of the fine itself and the impact of it being widely publicized that a legislator skipped a meeting and thus was fined. The scholars found legislators “strongly increase their committee attendance both after the private experience of sanctions and after their public exposure.” So there’s reason to think that public officials do mind being sanctioned, both privately and in the public eye.

What Sarah Sanders’s Red Hen controversy says about civility – Vox

hmmmm

The big business of housing immigrant children

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According to recent tax filings, [Southwest Key Programs Inc CEO Juan] Sanchez received nearly $1.5 million in total compensation in 2016 as CEO of the non-profit he founded more than 30 years ago. His salary nearly doubled from the year before, when he was paid $786,822.

…”The salary is extraordinarily high for a charity, even a large charity,” said Marcus Owens, the former head of the Internal Revenue Service division that oversees nonprofits.

…Over the past 10 years, the organization has received about $1.5 billion for operating 83 programs across the country that include shelters for migrant children and youth justice initiatives.

 
This year, it is slated to take in about a half billion dollars in federal contracts.


…Sanchez defended his salary in the KLRU interview. “When we started, we started with nothing, very low salaries, no health insurance… Over time our board had got to the point where they said we are now at a position where we can pay you a decent salary and give you some good retirement packages,” he said.

The big business of housing immigrant children – CNN

$1.5 million in in salary? Non-profit, my ass.

Private prison company moves annual conference to Trump-owned golf resort

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An investigation into the company’s activities found the GEO Group secured the Trump administration’s first contract for a detention centre reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars a year. 

This comes after the company’s spending on lobbying and donations rose sharply during the 2016 election cycle, with nearly half a million dollars donated to Mr Trump’s inaugural committee and to a pro-Trump super PAC.

..Early in his presidency, The Hill reported Mr Trump rolled back plans under the Obama administration to phase out the federal government’s use of private prisons. 

Private prison company moves annual conference to Trump-owned golf resort | The Independent

Agggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh!!!!!!!!!!!

Princeton economists find that unions had historical role in helping address income inequality

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,Leave a comment

The rise in income inequality between skilled and unskilled workers since the 1970s might be due, at least in part, to a decline in union membership, Princeton University researchers have found.

…The researchers examined a new source of union membership data dating to the 1930s: monthly Gallup opinion polls that collected a variety of information about Americans, including their race, gender, income and political opinions. The pollsters also asked interviewees whether a member of their household belonged to a union.

Among the study’s findings were that unions consistently have provided workers with a 10- to 20-percent wage boost over their non-union counterparts over the past eight decades. The researchers also discovered that when unions have expanded, whether at the national or state level, they tended to draw in more unskilled workers and raise their relative wages, with significant impacts on inequality.

…Herbst oversaw the team of research assistants that combed through Gallup archives from 1936 to 1986. The data was indexed primarily in documents handwritten by pollsters who called people’s homes for interviews, which made it a challenge to collect and standardize the information for study. Reporting categories changed over the years, as did the methods of collecting information. In all, the team assessed 980,000 data points across 500 surveys. 

They then filled in union membership numbers from 1986 to the present using the Current Population Survey from the Census Bureau. Doing so gave the researchers a big-picture view of how unions grew to their height in the 1950s and 1960s, then began to recede. Through access to data over a longer time frame, the researchers were able to see certain patterns emerge.

…Disadvantaged groups — those that are non-white, less educated or both — not only were enrolled in unions in higher numbers in the 1950s, but generally, their wage premium was even larger relative to their non-union counterparts than that of white and/or more-educated union workers.

Some economists see changes in technology and a demand for more-skilled workers as leading to lower union numbers and driving inequality in the late 20th century. But the new data suggests there might be more to the story, Herbst said.

“Those theories often predict that as more-skilled workers leave unions, the average union member should be less skilled and less advantaged, and what we’re finding is the opposite,” Herbst said. 

In fact, union members are more skilled than ever, even if smaller in their numbers.

Princeton economists find that unions had historical role in helping address income inequality

hmmm

House GOP plan would gut Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid

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House Republicans released a budget proposal Tuesday that would balance in nine years – but only by making large cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Social Security, that President Donald Trump has vowed not to touch.

…Lawmakers of both parties agree that so-called mandatory spending that is not subject to Congress’s annual appropriations process is becoming unsustainable. But Trump has largely taken it off the table by refusing to touch Medicare or Social Security, and Democrats have little interest in addressing it except as part of a larger deal including tax hikes – the sort of “Grand Bargain” that eluded former President Barack Obama.

…The budget also proposes …adding more work requirements for food stamp and welfare recipients and requiring federal employees – including members of Congress – to contribute more to their retirement plans. It relies on rosy economic growth projections and proposes using a budgetary mechanism to require other congressional committees to come up with a combined $302 billion in unspecified deficit reduction.

House GOP plan would cut Medicare, Social Security to balance budget – The Denver Post

hmmmm

Yes, your ancestors probably did come here legally — because ‘illegal’ immigration is less than a century old

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Race,Leave a comment

For the first century of the country’s existence, anyone could land here and walk right off the boat with no papers of any kind, just as Gumpertz did. Coming here “illegally” did not even exist as a concept.

…Troubled by the influx of Chinese workers — who helped build the transcontinental railroads, among other things — Congress enacted a wholesale ban on their further immigration that year. To enforce the ban, a bureaucracy had to be created, leading in 1891 to the establishment of the federal Bureau of Immigration, the first body charged with enforcing federal immigration law.

…The first federal general immigration law was enacted [earlier] in 1882. It prohibited from entering the U.S. “any convict, lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge.” In other words, unless you were physically or mentally incapable of taking care of yourself, you were in — unless you were Chinese.

…You didn’t have to speak a word of English or be literate in any language at all. In fact, it was not until 1917 that Congress required that immigrants pass a literacy test, and even then they could pass in any language, not just English.

…In 1924, President Coolidge signed into law the National Origins Act, the primary aim of which was to severely restrict the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. The new law required for the first time that immigrants to the U.S. have visas, introducing the concept of “having papers” to American immigration policy.

…[Author] Kevin Jennings is president of the Tenement Museum.

Yes, your ancestors probably did come here legally — because ‘illegal’ immigration is less than a century old – Los Angeles Times

hmmm

#PermitPatty Episode Blows Up on California Cannabis Company

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Drugs & Drink,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,Leave a comment

Calling the Cops While White

Indeed, the incident comes amid heightened focus on calling the police over seemingly innocuous behavior by people of color.

On April 12, two black men were arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks after the barista called the police because the men, who were waiting for a colleague to join them for a business meeting, hadn’t purchased anything yet. In early May, a white Yale student called campus police on a black Yale graduate student for napping during an all-night study session in a dorm common room. That same week, a white woman on a tour of Colorado State University called the police on two Native American students who were on the same tour, because she said they made her “nervous.” Around the same time, a white neighbor in Rialto, California, called the police when she saw three black women exiting a nearby house that the women had rented as an Airbnb. The neighbor said she called the cops because the women didn’t wave at her.

Just across the bay in Oakland, the video of a white woman calling the police on a black man for enjoying a barbecue in a park near Oakland’s Lake Merritt went viral last month and sparked further outrage.

…In the cannabis world, the act of a white entrepreneur calling the police on a black entrepreneur for selling a product without a permit strikes a particularly sensitive nerve.

Today, as the legal adult-use cannabis industry takes hold in California, the industry remains predominantly white-owned and white-run, even though people of color suffered far greater harm during prohibition and the war on drugs. People of color who want to get into the business face greater hurdles in terms of access to capital, and are more likely to be held back by past cannabis arrests due to well-documented racial disparities in arrest rates.

So the optics of a successful white cannabis entrepreneur, operating her company with a state permit, calling the cops on a black person for operating without a permit, are not good. The fact that the black person happens to be a child, selling water at what is essentially a lemonade stand, turned Ettel’s “complete mistake” into an act whose symbolism has deep and troubling roots in both American history and the recent history of cannabis in California.

#PermitPatty Episode Blows Up on California Cannabis Company | Leafly

Yup.