By Elaine Magliaro

 

 

ON THE RELIGIOUS FRONT

Judge: Hobby Lobby Decision Means Polygamous Sect Member Can Refuse To Testify In Child Labor Case (ThinkProgress)

Excerpt:
Citing Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court’s decision last June holding that the religious objections of a business’ owners could trump federal rules requiring that business to include birth control coverage in its health plan, a federal judge in Utah held last week that a member of a polygamist religious sect could refuse to testify in a federal investigation into alleged violations of child labor laws because he objects to testifying on religious grounds…

The federal child labor investigation arose from a CNN report investigating claims that Jeffs “ordered all schools closed for a week so children could go to work picking pecans off trees at a private ranch” in Utah. The report included video of “hundreds of children, many of them very small” working on the ranch. When the reporters arrived, CNN also caught video of the FLDS children fleeing the cameras.

Yet, according to an order signed by Judge David Sam, a Reagan appointee to a trial court in Utah, the federal officials investigating this alleged violation of child labor laws will not be able to require an FLDS member named Vernon Steed to provide information that could aid the investigation because Steed objects to giving certain testimony on religious grounds. Steed claims that he’s made “religious vows ‘not to discuss matters related to the internal affairs or organization of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.’” According to Judge Sam’s opinion, that’s enough to exempt him from providing the testimony he does not want to give.

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Religious right’s warped icon: Why Mike Huckabee is wingnuts’ best white hope for ’16
Imagine the smug smile of the Gipper plus the nasty politics of Ted Cruz. Why it’s a mistake to count Huckabee out (Salon)

The Satanic Temple’s hilarious response to a pro-religion court ruling: There are plans to distribute “The Satanic Children’s Big Book of Activities” (Salon)

Excerpt:
Last month a judge ruled that religious pamphlets could be distributed in a school district in Orange County, Florida, according to Raw Story. In the wake of this ruling, the Satanic Temple is handing out its own religious literature to Orange County schools: “The Satanic Children’s Big Book of Activities.”

The judge ruled that if Christian materials — Bibles and other literature — were allowed to be disseminated, atheist literature should be allowed as well.

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EDUCATION NEWS

Creationism is just the start: How right-wing Christians are warping America’s schools
Miseducation isn’t only a red-state problem. Right-wing Christians are effectively writing our country’s textbooks (Salon)

Excerpt:
One of the biggest obstacles for the conservative movement when it comes to recruiting new members is, to be frank, reality itself. History, science, economics are all fields constantly churning out information that makes right-wing ideology look silly, nonsensical and even delusional. In response, the conservative movement has launched a massive media campaign against reality that spreads out on Fox News, talk radio and the web, but despite all this, conservatives are not satisfied. The kids are who conservatives really want. That’s why the right is relentless about its attempts to get into public schools, throw out actual information and replace it with false and misleading ideology. Whether or not they’ll actually be successful in tricking kids into becoming conservatives is up for debate, but in the meantime, they are doing a lot of damage to childrens’ ability to get a decent education.

The latest battle in the ongoing war to turn public schools into propaganda machines for the right is being fought in the state of Texas. The state is often at the center of conservative-fomented education controversies, as right-wingers there keep trying to sneak creationism into the science classroom. Texas also continues to maintain its abysmally high teen pregnancy rate by pushing sex “education” that usually doesn’t bother to mention contraception. While the right has been losing some ground on those two issues, a new report from the Texas Freedom Network suggests that conservatives have been able to inject a shocking number of lies and disinformation into public school history classrooms.

And while it may be tempting to think kids getting a subpar education is a red state-only problem, in reality what happens to Texas affects the rest of the country, including blue states. Because of Texas’ size, what they want in textbooks often becomes the only thing publishers are willing to offer. Your kid may be going to school in some other state, but what she reads in class may be decided by what some right-wingers in Texas want to indoctrinate kids into believing.

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Gov. Jerry Brown Appeals California Teacher Tenure Ruling (CBS/AP)

Excerpt:
LOS ANGELES (CBS / AP) —  Gov. Jerry Brown appealed a court ruling that struck down tenure and other job protections for California’s teachers, setting himself apart from leaders in some other states who have fought to end such protections or at least raise the standards for obtaining them.

Attorney General Kamala Harris filed the appeal late Friday in a Los Angeles County court on behalf of the governor and the state.

The move came a day after Superior Court Judge Rulf Treu finalized his June ruling that found five laws violated the California Constitution by depriving some of the state’s 6.2 million students of a quality education. He’d earlier said the system “shocks the conscience.”

The governor’s one-page notice of appeal said that under the state’s constitution “the important issues presented in this case — if they are to have statewide legal impact — must be reviewed by a higher court, either the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court of California.”

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Texas limiting new AP history course’s influence (AP)

Excerpt:
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Amid uproar in conservative circles about perceived anti-American bias in the new Advanced Placement U.S. History course and exam, Texas on Wednesday moved to require its high school students to learn only state-mandated curriculum — not be taught to the national test.

The Board of Education approved a measure declaring that the history curriculum its members set trumps that covered by the AP history course created for classrooms nationwide. That class concludes with an exam that can earn college credit for students who score high enough.

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Rocketship Charter School Nightmare in TN (Tennessee Parents)

Excerpt:
Apparently ANY family that went to an info session about the new Rocketship Charter Schools had their records pulled without permission. So students and parents showed up the first day of school only to find out that they were not registered at their zoned school. Their children were registered at Rocketship without their permission.

So they went to Rocketship to get their children switched back to their zoned school, and it was like walking into a high-pressure timeshare sales job. Rocketship pressured them to stick around and try it. It was a nightmare to get Rocketship to release their child’s records to re-enroll in their zoned school.  This happened to over 100 families.  A bait-and-switch nightmare with their children’s school placement.

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ON THE SCIENCE FRONT

Naomi Klein on climate failure: “It’s not that we’ve done nothing. We’ve done the wrong things.”–We can’t fight global warming without taking on the system, the journalist tells Salon (SALON)

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The Brainy Braininess Of Bobby Jindal (Charles Pierce/Esquire)

Excerpt:
“Bobby” Jindal, the battered bit of old presidential timber presently warping out behind the bait shoppe, put on his National Political Figure drag again and went to Washington to talk about energy policy. Most of the energy in the plan is to get people talking about what a serious person Jindal is, and not to notice that his state is falling apart, his education plan there is a whopping side dish of theocratic corruption, and that his constituents would be bitterly divided should Jindal be eaten by alligators. So he goes to Washington to be a smart person again and what a hot mess he continues to be.

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Biology Major Bobby Jindal Pleads Ignorance On Evolution And Climate Science (ThinkProgress)

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Congressman: Don’t Trust Climate Scientists, They’re In It For The Money (ThinkProgress)

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Polluter Dark Money Is Silencing Science & Stopping Climate Action (Common Cause)

Excerpt:
As hundreds of thousands of people join the People’s Climate March (which we’re co-sponsoring) in New York City this weekend, fossil fuel money pumped in our political system remains the most significant threat to not only action on climate change, but even getting members of Congress talk about the issue.

Common Cause’s new report, Silencing Silence, explores how political spending by fossil fuel corporations and related dark money groups have silenced our elected officials on the issue of climate change, almost as if the issue doesn’t exist. The money spent by polluters and climate change deniers has skyrocketed in recent years, ushered in by Supreme Court decisions repealing long-standing campaign finance laws, such as Citizens United.

So, even while an overwhelming majority of scientists and American citizens know that climate change exists and want to see Congree address the issue, our elected officials remain beholden to their big oil funders.

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BUSINESS/CORPORATE NEWS

CFPB Accuses Corinthian Colleges Of Cheating Students (Huffington Post)

Excerpt:
For-profit education company Corinthian Colleges Inc. misled students into taking out unaffordable loans by falsely advertising job prospects, then used illegal debt collection tactics to force distressed students to pay up, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Corinthian owns Everest Institute, Everest College, WyoTech and Heald colleges, which collectively have more than 70,000 students and annually receive $1.4 billion in federal financial aid. The company is winding down all its operations in an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education.

The CFPB alleges that Corinthian inflated its job placement rates by creating fake companies, defining a “career” as a job that lasted one day with the promise of a second, and by paying employers to temporarily hire its graduates.

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How Walmart Is Getting Away With Making Employees Buy New Work Outfits (ThinkProgress)

Excerpt:
Last month, Walmart employees were informed that the company is instituting a new dress code, requiring them to ditch their plain blue shirts for collared ones at their own expense. The company will provide new vests.

At first glance, making Walmart workers pay for their work outfits seems illegal. Under federal labor law, employers can’t make their workers buy uniforms with their own money if doing so would drop their wages below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Given that reports put sales workers’ pay at about $8.80 an hour, paying for new clothes out of that figure would likely bring their wages too low. (The company claims full-time workers make $12.78 an hour.)

But, under the language used by the company, the new clothes aren’t “uniforms.” Instead, they’re part of a new “dress code.”

As Reuel Schiller, a law professor at UC Hastings, told NPR’s Marketplace, “There’s a legal difference between a uniform and a dress code.” Walmart skirts the regulation about uniforms and is able to pass the cost on to workers by calling it a dress code rather than a uniform. It also gets around it by making employees buy clothes that they could conceivably wear elsewhere, not ones branded with a logo, for which it would otherwise be legally required to pay.

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Peanut Mogul Found Guilty Of Selling Salmonella-Tainted Food (Huffington Post/AP)

Excerpt:
ALBANY, Ga. (AP) — Food safety advocates say a guilty verdict in a rare federal food-poisoning trial should send a stern warning to anyone who may be tempted to place profits over people’s welfare.

More than five years after hundreds of Americans got sick from eating salmonella-tainted peanut butter, the top executive in the company that owned the Georgia plant where it was made was convicted Friday of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, wire fraud and other crimes related the nationwide outbreak in 2008 and 2009.

Former Peanut Corporation of America owner Stewart Parnell, 60, could face more than three decades in prison for the outbreak that was linked to nine deaths and prompted one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history. His brother, Michael Parnell, and another co-defendant could face 20 years in prison or more.

Experts said it was the first time American food processors have gone to trial on federal charges in a food-poisoning case. Food safety advocates applauded the jury verdict reached after a seven-week trial, though they also noted the case was unusually egregious.

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Alibaba’s Massive I.P.O. Reveals Wall Street’s Rigged Game (ThinkProgress)

Excerpt:
Alibaba, the massive Chinese e-commerce company that is the functional equivalent of Amazon, EBay, Uber, PayPal and a bunch of other companies combined, made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange this morning. It was the largest initial public offering in U.S. history, raising over $21.8 billion.

It was also a powerful example of how Wall Street, oftentimes, is a rigged game.

Before the bell rang, Alibaba sold its shares at $68 to a variety of hedge funds, mutual funds and other well-connected investors. By the time ordinary investors had a chance to buy the stock, it was trading at $92.70. The privileged few were able to turn an immediate profit of 36 percent, if they so chose.

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ACROSS THE NATION

Feds Give Weapons To Police Forces Censured For Civil Rights Violations (Talking Points Memo)

Excerpt:
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Pentagon program that distributes military surplus gear to local law enforcement allows even departments that the Justice Department has censured for civil rights violations to apply for and get lethal weaponry.

That lack of communication between two Cabinet agencies adds to questions about a program under review in the aftermath of the militarized police response to protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.

The Pentagon, which provides the free surplus military equipment, says its consultation with the Justice Department will be looked at as the government reviews how to prevent high-powered weaponry from flowing to the untrustworthy.

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Law Enforcement Official In Utah Changes Story In Police Killing Of Black Man (Talking Points Memo)

Excerpt:
A law enforcement official in Utah appears to have changed his story about the fatal police shooting of a black man on Wednesday in Saratoga Springs, Utah.

Darrien Hunt, 22, was killed by police last week in a confrontation that authorities said involved a sword outside a Panda Express restaurant. A lawyer for the man’s family later said an autopsy showed Hunt had been shot from behind and was running away when he was killed.

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Democrat Votes To Kill Gun Reform, NRA Rewards Him By Spending $1.3 Million To Elect His Opponent (ThinkProgress)

Excerpt:
Last year, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) voted against a popular proposal to require people who purchase firearms online or at gun shows first complete a background check. On Tuesday, however, the National Rifle Association announced a $1.3 million ad buy in Pryor’s home state of Arkansas supporting Pryor’s Republican opponent Rep. Tom Cotton.

Last year, the Senate voted 54-46 in support of a proposal to expand background checks for gun purchases — which, in the anti-democratic institution that is the United States Senate, actually counts as a loss for supporters of gun reform. Pryor was one of four Democrats who opposed this proposal.

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Miss America Faces Heat From Conservatives For Planned Parenthood Internship (Huffington Post)

Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — Kira Kazantsev has been Miss America for only two days, but she’s already taking a stand on issues that don’t usually make their way into the pageant. Kazantsev, who is from New York, made domestic violence the focus of her platform, speaking out about how she was in an abusive relationship in college.

“I want people to stop asking, ‘Why doesn’t she just leave?'” Kazantsev said in an interview with NPR. “Every woman is an expert in her own case, and there are so many extenuating circumstances that lead to a woman staying with her abuser.” She said she felt incredibly “alone” in the relationship and wanted people to start talking about domestic violence more openly.

Now, Kazantsev is getting attention for something else. Many conservatives are criticizing her for the fact that she once interned at Planned Parenthood.

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Arizona GOPer: Women On Welfare Should Be Sterilized (Talking Points Memo)

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Texas Court Strikes Down Law Banning ‘Creepshot’ Photos (ThinkProgress)

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Ohio Supreme Court: It’s OK To Strip Mine State Wildlife Areas (ThinkProgress)

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KOCH COUNTRY

Koch Central Bank Freedom Partners Distributed Millions In Dark Money In 2013 (Huffington Post)

Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the central hub of the political empire of the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, reported raising $57.5 million in 2013 and disbursing $41.7 million to organizations in the Koch network.

Freedom Partners, founded under the radar in 2011, emerged in 2012 as the main bank for Koch-related political operations. The group, organized under IRS rules as a 501(c)(6) trade association, distributed more than $250 million in the 2012 elections to an array of groups. Overall, the entire Koch network spent $400 million in 2012, according an investigation by The Washington Post and Center for Responsive Politics. With the $25 million cash on hand it brought into 2014, Freedom Partners has already played an even bigger role this year.

The annual tax filings for nonprofits involved in the complicated Koch network provide a glimpse into the brothers’ murky political world. As the Koch central node, Freedom Partners’ 2013 filing, posted to the group’s website on Wednesday, casts light on the organization’s dark money.

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PBS Loves Its ‘Roosevelts’—and Its Kochs, Too (The Nation)

Excerpt:
Ken Burns’s fourteen-hour series The Roosevelts is giving a big ratings boost to PBS. And even with George Will rather gently criticizing FDR, the show makes a persuasive argument for more government involvement in the lives of the nation’s citizens.

But PBS is not so sympathetic to New Deal policies that it would ever welcome the hatred of malefactors of great wealth. In fact, it has often caved to the wishes of rich conservatives, most notoriously when it pulled Citizen Koch, a public television documentary that took on the Koch brothers. David Koch sits on the board and helps fund PBS flagship station WGBH in Boston; last year, he noisily resigned from another flagship, WNET in New York, after a different Koch documentary squeaked through and aired.

In her fascinating piece, “PBS Self-Destructs: And what it means for viewers like you” in this month’s Harper’s (subscription required), Eugenia Williamson finds that PBS has been kowtowing to the right and the powers that be long before Nixon or Newt tried to defund it, or David Koch silenced it by funding it:

In the end, though, it doesn’t matter that the Republicans couldn’t defund PBS—they didn’t really need to. Twenty years on, the liberal bias they bemoaned has evaporated, if it ever existed to begin with. Today, the only special-interest group the network clearly favors is the aging upper class: their tastes, their pet agendas, their centrist politics. This should surprise nobody who has taken a long, hard look at PBS’s institutional history. Yes, it’s tempting to view the last couple of decades as a discrete epoch of decline, with the network increasingly menaced by a cartoonish G.O.P. hit squad, helmed by Newt Gingrich as Snidely Whiplash. But the present state of PBS was almost an inevitability, the result of structural deficiencies and ideological conflicts built in from the very start.

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NFL NEWS

Together We Make Football: On the NFL’s dark, intractable history of domestic violence (Grantland)

There’s no rationalization for corporal punishment: Why Adrian Peterson’s apologists are wrong–What the Vikings star did to his son wasn’t “discipline” — it was abuse. So why are so many giving him a pass? (Salon)