On Monday, local news channel Denver7 reported that a woman in Castle Rock, Colorado was charged with a misdemeanor after protesting outside Republican Congressman Ken Buck’s office, an act of dissent which included writing on the sidewalk in chalk.
The woman in question, Shauna Johnson, was there to speak out against the Trump administration’s monstrous policy of separating children and parents seeking asylum at the United States border. On the sidewalk in front of the congressman’s office, Johnson wrote, “Stop putting kids in cages Ken Buck, love Jesus and a cross.”
Denver 7 reported that it was the building’s management, and not Buck’s office, that called the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department following the incident, resulting in the misdemeanor charge related to scribbling in chalk on private property.
Category: Economic Equality
APNewsBreak: US launches bid to find citizenship cheaters
The U.S. government agency that oversees immigration applications is launching an office that will focus on identifying Americans who are suspected of cheating to get their citizenship and seek to strip them of it.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director L. Francis Cissna told The Associated Press in an interview that his agency is hiring several dozen lawyers and immigration officers to review cases of immigrants who were ordered deported and are suspected of using fake identities to later get green cards and citizenship through naturalization.
Cissna said the cases would be referred to the Department of Justice, whose attorneys could then seek to remove the immigrants’ citizenship in civil court proceedings. In some cases, government attorneys could bring criminal charges related to fraud.
via APNewsBreak: US launches bid to find citizenship cheaters
Jeff Sessions Gives Speech in PA Defending “Zero-Tolerance”
During his speech, Sessions recited from a well-rehearsed script, repeating talking points central to the administration’s worldview and subsequent policies. Sessions warned of the “tens of thousands” of undocumented workers crossing American borders, conflating immigrants with criminals. He spoke of the “shootings, stabbings, and beatings,” as well as the rapes and murders committed by MS-13, the Trump administration’s preferred monster. Sessions warned in his speech that the gang was “recruiting illegal aliens as young as 15.” Danger, it seems, lurked in every corner. He warned, too, that the “porous” Southwest border was impacting the rest of the United States, telling law enforcement in the audience that the lack of security at the border “makes your job that much harder.”
via Jeff Sessions Gives Speech in PA Defending “Zero-Tolerance”
The countries where women have more bank accounts than men – BBC News
There are just six countries in the world where more women than men have bank accounts – Argentina, Georgia, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, and the Philippines.
This according to the World Bank’s latest Global Findex report on how adults in more than 140 countries access accounts, make payments, save, borrow and manage risk. More than 500 million adults – or 69% of the adults, up from 51% in 2011 – have a “bank account” at a brick-and-mortar bank or a mobile money provider today.
But women, according to the report, continue to lag behind men: 65% of them have an account compared to 72% of men, a gap of seven percentage points that has remained unchanged since 2011.
via The countries where women have more bank accounts than men – BBC News
Jeff Sessions’s Racist Whims and the Danger Ahead for Victims of Domestic Violence
After arriving in the U.S., A.B. was permitted to seek asylum, but her case has been tied up in the courts for more than four years. In 2016, the Immigration Board of Appeals ruled in her favor, allowing A.B. the right to asylum in the United States as a victim of domestic violence. On Monday, Sessions overturned the decision, writing that most claims “pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors will not qualify for asylum.”
“The mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes—such as domestic violence or gang violence—or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim,” he wrote.
via Jeff Sessions’s Racist Whims and the Danger Ahead for Victims of Domestic Violence
To Be an Immigrant in Trump’s America: A Theory of Animals
Immediately, both conservatives and liberals jumped to his defense on the basis of context, because he had previously been talking about the MS-13 gang. These justifications are hollow. Criminals are human; I grew up Catholic, then evangelical, so I can tell you I learned that one from Jesus. It’s also fruitless to analyze the words of a man who speaks in non-sequiturs, whose brain apparently functions at the level of images that remind him of other images. Coming from the person who has said repeatedly that immigrants are rapists and criminals, the “people coming into the country” are the same person. They deserve the same treatment. Animals, all.
I’ve spent the past couple of years writing a book about undocumented immigrants around the United States. I tell the stories of undocumented second-responders after 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, day laborers on street corners and worker centers, South American housekeepers who came to feminism in middle age. I write about immigration because I think almost everyone who writes about immigrants gets it wrong. I’d know. My family is undocumented. I came to the United States when I was five years old and was undocumented until recently, when I became a permanent resident.
via To Be an Immigrant in Trump’s America: A Theory of Animals
What the Courts Make of ‘Reverse Discrimination’ Complaints
Twenty-year-old University of Melbourne student Isabella Mason must have known that her new dance performance would trigger white people, but the backlash she experienced this week maybe proved a bigger point.
Dubbed “Where We Stand,” the show freely admits audience members of color into the theater, but stops white attendees in the foyer, where they must listen to four dancers talk about white privilege and then sign a large poster titled, “I acknowledge where I stand,” before being allowed into the theater. On top of that, the dance performance simply stops when the number of white people surpasses the number of people of color in the theater — a clever way to push back on an obvious demographic disparity in society.
via What the Courts Make of ‘Reverse Discrimination’ Complaints
Haim Fired Their Agent Because They Were Paid 10 Times Less Than a Dude
“We had been told that our fee was very low because you played at the festival in the hope that you’d get played on the radio,” explains Danielle. “We didn’t think twice about it, but we later found out that someone was getting paid 10 times more than us. And because of that we fired our agent.”
Alana, suddenly searingly serious adds, “That’s why I love my sisters so much. I trust them with my fucking life. We’re all in this together. But it’s scary out there and it’s fucked up. It’s fucked up not even to be paid half the same amount. But to be paid a tenth of that amount of money? It was insane.”
via Haim Fired Their Agent Because They Were Paid 10 Times Less Than a Dude
Top 10 worst excuses for not appointing women executives – BBC News
The top 10 excuses for not appointing women were:
“I don’t think women fit comfortably into the board environment”
“There aren’t that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board – the issues covered are extremely complex”
“Most women don’t want the hassle or pressure of sitting on a board”
“Shareholders just aren’t interested in the make-up of the board, so why should we be?”
“My other board colleagues wouldn’t want to appoint a woman on our board”
“All the ‘good’ women have already been snapped up”
“We have one woman already on the board, so we are done – it is someone else’s turn”
“There aren’t any vacancies at the moment – if there were I would think about appointing a woman”
“We need to build the pipeline from the bottom – there just aren’t enough senior women in this sector”
“I can’t just appoint a woman because I want to”
via Top 10 worst excuses for not appointing women executives – BBC News
Aberdeen sanitary product pilot to start across Scotland – BBC News
A project to provide free sanitary products to women from low income households in Aberdeen is to be rolled out across the country.
The Scottish government scheme – designed to tackle “period poverty” – was launched in July last year.
The six-month pilot was continued in March, and has distributed free products to more than 1,000 women.
Equalities Secretary Angela Constance has announced the project will be extended across Scotland.
via Aberdeen sanitary product pilot to start across Scotland – BBC News