Category: Money, Class, and Poverty,

How Banning Abortion Will Transform America into Something akin to Soviet states.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

A century of evidence from around the worldshows that coercive reproduction policies correlate weakly with actual fertility rates. The fact is that women’s decisions about family size are based on material realities. When basic food supplies are scarce (as in Romania in the 1980s), women will risk their lives having back-alley abortions, for fear of lacking the means to care for a child. Where paid parental leave and childcare are absent or prohibitively expensive, as they are in the US, women will make similar economic choices, regardless of the laws on the books.

After communism, Romania’s people recognized that democratic societies have a responsibility to guarantee women’s bodily autonomy, and to respect the right of all citizens to make their own decisions about whether and when to start or add to a family. It is odd that in the “land of the free,” one of the major parties would emulate a communist dictator.

How Banning Abortion Will Transform America by Maria Bucur & Kristen R. Ghodsee – Project Syndicate

hmmmmm

Deutsche Bank employees reported suspicious activity from Trump and Kushner, New York Times reports

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

Deutsche Bank’s anti-money laundering specialists once recommended that transactions involving entities controlled by President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a US agency that investigates financial crimes, according to a new report in the New York Times.

…The Times, which spoke with five current and former Deutsche Bank employees, also said the nature of the transactions “was not clear,” though the newspaper added that at least some of them involved “money flowing back and forth with overseas entities or individuals, which bank employees considered suspicious.”

Deutsche Bank employees reported suspicious activity from Trump and Kushner, New York Times reports – CNN

hmmm

Jury returns $2 billion verdict against Monsanto for couple with cancer

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

He said the jury was shown a “mountain of evidence showing Monsanto’s manipulation of science, the media and regulatory agencies to forward their own agenda.”

Wisner said Monday that this evidence included emails and text messages between Monsanto and EPA officials.
Jury returns $2 billion verdict against Monsanto for couple with cancer – CNN

hmmmm

Amazon Tribe Wins Lawsuit Against Big Oil, Saving Millions Of Acres Of Rainforest

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, The Americas,Leave a comment

After a long legal battle with a number of organizations, the Waorani people successfully protected half a million acres of their ancestral territory in the Amazon rainforest from being mined for oil drilling by huge oil corporations. The auctioning off of Waorani lands to the oil companies was suspended indefinitely by a three-judge panel of the Pastaza Provincial Court. The panel simply trashed the consultation process the Ecuadorian government had undertaken with the tribe in 2012, which rendered the attempt at land purchase null and void.

This win for the indigenous tribe has now set an invaluable legal precedent for other indigenous nations across the Ecuadorian Amazon. After accepting a Waorani bid for court protection to stop an oil bidding process, the court also halted the potential auctioning off of 16 oil blocks that cover over 7 million acres of indigenous territory.

Amazon Tribe Wins Lawsuit Against Big Oil, Saving Millions Of Acres Of Rainforest | Disclose.tv

nice

CO2 levels in atmosphere higher than any point since evolution of humans

On By peanutgallerynhIn Money, Class, and Poverty,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

According to data from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is over 415 parts per million (ppm), far higher than any point in the last 800,000 years. 

That’s the highest level since homo sapiens came onto the planet, meteorologist Eric Holthaus tweeted, and represents an increase of 15 ppm over just the past three years. 

CO2 levels in atmosphere higher than any point since evolution of humans | abc7chicago.com

agggghhhhhhhhhhhh

 

How Fox News dominates Facebook in the Trump era

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

Over the past three years, CrowdTangle estimates that Fox News’ main Facebook page, with 17 million followers, has racked up 80 percent more reactions, comments, and shares than CNN, which has 31 million followers. The Fox page’s engagement rate — the average number of engagements per post per follower — was higher than any major news organization over the same period, and some five times that of The New York Times.

As Facebook continues to grapple with the spread of misinformation and divisive content, causing critics to worry that it could pose threats to democracy, the lead that Fox News has built over less partisan news organizations on the platform strikes some as painfully ironic.

“The way Fox News dominates on Facebook is a good example of the way engagement can distort social media,” said Tara McGowan, CEO of the nonprofit digital organization Acronym and former digital director of Priorities USA, a Democratic political action committee. “The fact they can drive the exact same storyline each and every day across channels — from television to social media — is so much more effective at influencing hearts and minds than political advertising.”

…The influence of Fox on Facebook comes as Trump, Republican lawmakers, and Fox News personalities have repeatedly accused Silicon Valley of bias against conservatives. Rupert Murdoch, the Trump ally who owns Fox parent company Fox Corp., has similarly condemned the tech giant publicly and privately for wreaking havoc on the news industry.

…At a time when many news organizations started tuning out reader comments, if not blocking them altogether, Fox News mined comments for ideas. A former Fox News producer said its social team scoured responses to Facebook posts to see which topics popped and why, using their numbers or intensity to inform future posts.

What they found was a lot of rage, not just toward President Barack Obama but also toward mainstream Republicans.

…What’s more, the person said, the engagement trends suggested a fear of a changing America — fear of immigration, fear of globalization, and changing expressions of national pride — bubbled beneath the criticism. The social team doubled down.

…“We would intentionally post content that would be divisive and elicit a lot of comments,” the former social producer said, adding that high-engagement posts would inform programming decisions on TV. “Fox was all about a numbers game.”

…What’s clear is that Fox News’ rise on Facebook has meant that the GOP has a large and growing advantage as more political content comes users’ way. 2020 campaigns have collectively spent nearly $10 million on Facebook ads so far this year, according to the digital firm Bully Pulpit Interactive, and its analysis of the platform’s publicly available targeting data shows that Team Trump has overwhelmingly honed in on seniors in recent weeks. Fox News’ organic reach on Facebook, coupled with its alignment with Trump’s messaging, is likely to amplify that strategy.

How Fox News dominates Facebook in the Trump era – VICE News

hmmm

Police shooting near Yale exposes complex racial divide

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Local Interest,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,, Schools,Leave a comment

The images from the police bodycam video of two officers firing at an unarmed black couple in their car have reverberated throughout New Haven.

…In January, New Haven officials approved the creation of a Civilian Review Board to monitor and independently investigate alleged police misconduct — an effort more than 20 years in the making.

…The redlining of neighborhoods — in which federal agencies in the 1930s allowed for discriminatory lending practices that disenfranchised black home buyers — created the segregation and racially divisive attitudes prevalent in New Haven and its majority white suburbs.

…New Haven, where about one in four residents live in poverty, and the portion of Hamden that borders the city represent a microcosm of the housing policies and income inequality that persist today throughout the United States.

…”Yale and these other Ivy League schools are in a land grab race, competing for endowment funds and land. They want to buy up properties to build expensive apartments, luxury living with the gyms and coffee houses and yoga studios. They’re arguing that they’re scaling up neighborhoods and gentrifying, but the reality is it’s only for those who can afford it.”

…The shooting near Yale’s campus has also brought up questions about how the university’s police force operates and why an officer fired a weapon in an off-campus encounter.

…The Black Students for Disarmament at Yale said it favors the school’s officers being unarmed and restricted in where they can patrol off campus. 

…A white student called campus police on a black Yale graduate student who had been napping in a common room.

…Upon releasing Eaton’s bodycam footage …State Police Commissioner James Rovella could not detail why the officers opened fire after commanding the driver to open the car door. Witherspoon could be seen on Eaton’s bodycam getting out of his car at that moment.

Eaton only turned on the bodycam after the shooting, and Pollock failed to turn his on at all.

Witherspoon, who was [not armed, was] not charged [with any crimes.]

Police shooting near Yale exposes complex racial divide

sigh….