Category Archives: Profiteering

Chris Christie Loosens NJ Gun Restrictions To Show What A Great Republican He Is: Gothamist – The Blood from the Next Gun Murder Will Be on Governor Christie’s Hands

Permitting was found to have been “unevenly” applied across New Jersey’s townships, so regulations will be broadened to apply to more people who desire firearms for protection. The qualifications for “justifiable need” have also been expanded, and applications from victims of domestic violence will be expedited.In some cases, out-of-state residents passing through New Jersey with firearms legally owned in their home states will not be prosecuted. For instance, gun owners are required to go from point-to-point unless a stop is deemed “reasonably necessary,” the criteria for which does not currently exist.Lastly, the Attorney General will crack down on towns that fail to speedily process gun permit applications, and processing times will be collected and published in an effort to create greater transparency.”New Jersey citizens should be permitted to defend themselves and not encounter unlawful delays and impediments,” Christie said a statement released to media, adding that the commission provided “a set of recommendations that I am proud to wholeheartedly embrace. We will work through the Attorney General to put these changes into effect as quickly as possible.”

Source: Chris Christie Loosens NJ Gun Restrictions To Show What A Great Republican He Is: Gothamist

Australia approves huge coal terminal, off Great Barrier Reef | News | DW.COM | 22.12.2015 – {When the Oops Comes, the Reefs Will Die and…}

Australia’s federal government has formally approved a plan to construct the world’s largest coal terminal at Abbot Point in northern Queensland, just 19 kilometers (12 miles) from the Great Barrier Reef.Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the project could go ahead, but only under conditions aimed at protecting the reef marine park from the 1.1 million cubic meters of sludge that would have to be dredged to create the port.All sludge dug up during dredging would have to be disposed of on land rather than at sea, as was originally planned.Initial plans called for three million cubic meters of material to be dredged and dumped into waters around the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. However, this was later abandoned after protests.The Great Barrier Reef is just 19 kilometers out to sea, and coal transport ships will have to navigate a passage through.

Source: Australia approves huge coal terminal, off Great Barrier Reef | News | DW.COM | 22.12.2015

Minority Sheet Metal Workers in New York Get Back Pay After Decades of Bias – The New York Times

The union’s white members have received more work and larger pensions, data show. In contrast, minority members, who have lagged for decades, often struggle to find steady jobs and to earn enough credit to retire on time with full pensions.Continue reading the main storyRelated Coverage Settlement in Bias Suit That Stalled for 37 YearsJAN. 16, 2008Last month, the union began paying the first installments of $12.7 million in back pay to hundreds of black and Hispanic members in a partial settlement of a bias lawsuit decades old — the oldest such case in the hands of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Source: Minority Sheet Metal Workers in New York Get Back Pay After Decades of Bias – The New York Times

Yahoo Shareholders Propose Plan To Cut 9,000 Jobs: SFist Greenmail deja vu with little care for people who would be fired to give them more money and power – trash men

Now another activist investor, New York hedge fund SpringOwl, has sent a lengthy 99-slide presentation — or list of demands, really — to Yahoo’s board. In order to save $2 billion a year, they argue, the company should lay off 9,000 employees, reducing staff to 3,000 full-time employees and contractors.

Source: Yahoo Shareholders Propose Plan To Cut 9,000 Jobs: SFist

Shrimp Peeled By Slave Labor Found At Whole Foods, Other Major Retailers: Gothamist

A harrowing investigation into imported shrimp found at major retailers in the United States and Europe has exposed the brutal working conditions behind shrimp sold around the world. Victims of human trafficking in Thailand are subjected to inhumane conditions in so-called “peeling sheds,” forced to work in dangerous and often unsanitary conditions to pay off “debts” they accrued by brokers who sold them to shrimp manufacturing companies, reveals an investigation by the Associated Press. The cleaned, peeled and de-veined shrimp then found their way into grocery stores, restaurants and pet food brands in the United States and beyond.The victims of this abuse—often illegal immigrants promised a better life from their native countries of Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia—are often forced to work from 3 a.m. to 7 p.m, peeling hundreds of pounds of shrimp each for $4 a day. Breaks are practically non-existent, as is any form of medical attention or protection from abusive managers; the victims also include children. There are reportedly hundreds of peeling sheds in Samut Sakhon outside of Bangkok, the largest area of shrimp production, many of which are little more than a crude garage without proper running water.

Source: Shrimp Peeled By Slave Labor Found At Whole Foods, Other Major Retailers: Gothamist

Why Fascism is Rising Again (And What You Can Learn From It) — Bad Words — Medium

My story is nuanced. I have tried to distinguish between proximate cause, and ultimate cause. The ultimate cause of fascism is the right — but the proximate cause is the left. More simply, the origins of fascism are in the right’s extremism — but it is the left’s self-imposed irrelevance that allowed it to rise, and perhaps propelled it. You may disagree with my story, and you are welcome. It is just one synthesis among many. And yet, I caution you against the oppositional extremism that so defines our age. To fully account for fascism’s rise, because it is the most poisonous alloy of both, we must speak openly and honestly about the failures of both the left and right.For in the story of the rise of New Fascism, we see precisely the same elements at work as in Eternal Fascism. The pie shrinks. Leaders and institutions squabble — while the pie keeps shrinking. And then, the critical moment. The center breaks. The demagogue is free to sing his song of darkness. Night falls. And the golden age of the volk, the long march to the promised land, through the valleys of blood and despair, begins.I have written too much. I am tired now, as are you. So let us stop here to pause and reflect. Fascism, the poisonous admixture of the worst of both left and right, is a cancer that may infect the body politic at anytime that body is dulled and slowed, rendered infirm and frail, by stagnation. And the obligation of all reasonable people is to fight it. Not just because it destroys, and calls destruction glorious destiny, nor because it kills, and calls murder noble justice. But because in its glorification of destruction is the end of all that civilization can be said to stand for. Not just the fabric of our societies, but the possibility of our humanity.

Source: Why Fascism is Rising Again (And What You Can Learn From It) — Bad Words — Medium

Doris Matsui, Congresswoman Born in Internment Camp, Responds to Trump – The New York Times

The circumstances are different — Roosevelt rounded up citizens; Mr. Trump wants to bar Muslim visitors — but the motivation is the same, she said: “It is fear of the unknown that would drive people to fear-mongering and then outright bigotry.”Ms. Matsui’s husband, Robert T. Matsui, who spent 26 years in Congress and was succeeded by his wife after he died in 2005, was a sponsor of the 1988 redress legislation. He was 6 months old when his family was uprooted from Sacramento, limited to one suitcase a person, and shipped north to the Tule Lake segregation center on the border with Oregon, one of the 10 internment camps.As the House was about to give final approval to the apology and reparations in August 1988, Mr. Matsui said in a speech from the House floor that the acknowledgment of wrongdoing “demonstrates the true character of America in a way that the whole world can recognize.”The votes in the House and the Senate were bipartisan, though more than half of Republicans in the House and nearly half in the Senate opposed the measure, despite Reagan’s endorsement. Opponents objected to the cost and the precedent of paying reparations, and to second-guessing decades-old actions taken during wartime.The opponents included some Republicans still in Congress or prominent in national politics, among them Mitch McConnell, now the Senate majority leader; Senator John McCain of Arizona; and Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio, who was a member of the House and is now running for president.

Source: Doris Matsui, Congresswoman Born in Internment Camp, Responds to Trump – The New York Times

For God and country: more U.S. pastors seek political office in 2016 | Reuters {American Taliban on the march under cover of Christianity – next – revive and create new inquisition – when will they come for you?}

Since 2012, about 900 preachers from evangelical fundamentalist churches across the United States have made recordings of politically infused sermons and sent them to the IRS. The federal tax agency, which declined to comment, has yet to take any action.Lane and his network of pastors say they are well within their rights to bring politics into the church. “The founding fathers never meant for the church not to participate in government,” said Lane. “They meant for the government not to interfere with the church.

Source: For God and country: more U.S. pastors seek political office in 2016 | Reuters

ArtLeaks | It is time to break the silence!

Daniel T’Seleie, from the Dene First Nation, Canada, said:“In the Arctic, we are seeing severe impacts from global climate change, simultaneously we are defending our traditional homelands and culture  from aggressive assaults on sacred and important subsistence use areas, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. How are we to survive if the fossil fuel industry, companies such as ENI and Total continue to impede our rights? They are committing climate genocide on us, there is no way that we can allow corporations continue to generate a social license to operate by sponsoring our cultural institutions such as the Louvre.” . The Italian oil giant, Eni, has been widely criticised by environmentalists over its plans to drill in the Arctic [4] and Total was challenged just last year over its decision to purchase a shipment of Arctic oil, shortly after it had publicly declared it had no interest in Arctic oil extraction [5]. Total also has projects in the Canadian tar sands, one of the most carbon-intensive fossil fuels [6].Ragnhild Freng Dale from Stopp Oljesponsing Av Norsk Kulturliv (Norway) said:“We know that the COP is not on route to give us the deal we need to stay within a safe limit of global warming. Oil companies like Total and Eni have business plans to keep drilling for more fossil fuels in ever riskier places, when the climate science is clear it needs to stay in the ground to protect current and future generations from runaway climate change. We need to separate our cultural institutions and the climate negotiations from oil companies’ influence.”

Source: ArtLeaks | It is time to break the silence!

Donald Trump: Calls to ban US presidential hopeful from the UK over ‘hate speech’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A petition to bar Mr Trump from Britain reached more than 300,000 signatures amid an outcry over the comments and will be considered for a debate in parliament, as are all petitions with more than 100,000 signatures.”The UK has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech. The same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the UK,” the petition said.London mayor Boris Johnson called Mr Trump’s comments “complete and utter nonsense”.”I think he’s betraying a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of president of the United States,” he added.”Crime has been falling steadily both in London and in New York – the only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.”

Source: Donald Trump: Calls to ban US presidential hopeful from the UK over ‘hate speech’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)