Link Roundup August 2018

Alabama Sheriffs Filled Their Wallets by Starving Prisoners

Alabama law lets sheriffs keep whatever doesn’t get spent on food from their jail food funds. Now 49 of those sheriffs are refusing to disclose how much of that money made it to detainees’ plates, and how much landed in their own pockets.

Louisiana teacher handcuffed, arrested after bringing up brass salary at school board meeting

"His job is to make sure that we have orderly board meetings. He knows what our policy is and he knows how to handle it," he said. Fontana said it would have been the marshal's duty to escort her out of the meeting but not arrest her unless she had committed a crime. While he did not witness everything that led to Hargrave's attest, he "absolutely" stood by the marshal, he said.

Police say they were 'authorized by McDonald's' to arrest protesters, suit claims

Officers followed organizers home after meetings, ordered workers not to sign petitions and blacklisted organizers from city hall, according to the suit. They claimed to have been authorized by McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast food chain, and in one incident a McDonald’s franchisee joined police in tailing protesters.

A Marxist threat to cola sales? Pepsi demands a US coup. Goodbye Allende. Hello Pinochet

The Kennedys cajoled US multinationals into pouring $2 billion into Chile, a nation of only 8 million people. This was not benign investment, but what Korry calls 'a mutually corrupting' web of business deals, many questionable, for which the US government would arrange guarantees and insurance. In return, the American-based firms kicked back millions of dollars to pay for well over half of Frei's successful election campaign. By the end of this process, Americans had gobbled up more than 85 per cent of Chile's hard-currency earning industries.

Chiquita Brands International Pleads Guilty to Making Payments to a Designated Terrorist Organization And Agrees to Pay $25 Million Fine

Notwithstanding the persistent advice of its outside counsel, the Department of Justice's statement that the payments were illegal and could not continue, and Board involvement in the matter, Chiquita continued to pay the AUC throughout 2003 and early 2004. From April 24, 2003 (the date of Chiquita's initial disclosure to the Justice Department) through February 4, 2004, Chiquita made 20 payments to the AUC totaling over $300,000. Chiquita sold Banadex to a Colombian buyer in June 2004.

Killing Net Neutrality Has Brought On a New Call for Public Broadband

It’s no surprise that the telecommunications industry has responded bitterly toward the success of Chattanooga and similar public broadband systems. A number of states — with legislators backed by telecom giants like AT&T — moved to ban cities from establishing their own broadband networks with statewide preemption laws.

Reports of Voter Suppression Tactics Pour In From Alabama Election

“Some of these voters are told that they cannot vote,” Coty Montag, the deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, wrote in a roundup on Tuesday afternoon.* “Others are being given provisional ballots. The correct [procedure] is that voters who appear on the inactive list must be allowed an opportunity to re-identify and vote a regular ballot.”

For a Huge Chunk of Millennials, Net Worth Has Tanked in the Last 3 Years

The decline in net worth is particularly acute for young adults who have a college degree and debt. As you can see from the following chart, that group now has a median net worth of negative $1,900—down about $8,700 from three years ago and more than $90,000 from 1989, according to the report.

10-Year-Old Girl Is Detained By Border Patrol After Emergency Surgery

Federal immigration officers intercepted the child as she and an adult cousin, who is a U.S. citizen, were in an ambulance being transferred between two hospitals so that she could receive emergency gallbladder surgery.

Bank Downgrades Chipotle, Complaining It Pays Workers Too Much. Chipotle Says That’s Bunk.

The Bank of America analysis cut the 2017 earnings estimate from $7.60 to $7.40, and the 2018 estimate $10.50 to $9.50, according to the report. Meanwhile, Chipotle CEO Steve Ells raked in $15.7 million in 2016. Nonexecutives are not getting rich stuffing tortillas at Chipotle; the typical worker makes a little more than $9/hr.

Trump Organization Uses Forced Arbitration Agreements To Keep Workers From The Courts

The Trump Organization agreement bars employees from going to the courts for resolution of issues related to “unpaid compensation, missed meal or rest breaks, wrongful termination, unfair competition, discrimination, harassment, retaliation,” according to CBS.

FBI warned of white supremacists in law enforcement 10 years ago. Has anything changed?

Policing in America has historically had racial implications. The earliest forms of organized law enforcement in the U.S. can be traced to slave patrols that tracked down escaped slaves, and overseers assigned to guard settler communities from Native Americans. In the centuries since, many law enforcement agencies directly participated in antagonizing communities of color, or provided a shield for others who did. But in the 10 years since the FBI’s initial warning, little has changed, Jones said. Neither the FBI nor state and local law enforcement agencies have established systems for vetting personnel for potential supremacist links, he said. That task is left primarily to everyday citizens and nonprofit organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of few that tracks the growing number of hate groups in America.

Tesla fired union supporters, UAW charges

The employees were fired or harassed over the past six months, according to the complaint. The union says hundreds of employees have been dismissed in that time, though it didn't say how many it contends were fired for supporting a union. About 33,000 people work at Tesla.

Hurricane Maria: More than 900 people in Puerto Rico have died after the tropical storm

Over 900 people have been cremated in Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria made landfall a month ago, but the official death toll is still listed as 51. The government allowed 911 bodies to be cremated without being physically examined by a government medical officer to determine if they should be included in the official death toll from the storm, BuzzFeed News reports. Each cause of death was listed as being of "natural causes."

Gothamist, DNAinfo, LAist, And Other Local News Sites Have Suddenly Shut Down

Heins said that Ricketts had threatened in letters to shut down the company several times after staff announced their intention to unionize just weeks after Ricketts purchased the company in April.

Secret papers show extent of senior royals' veto over bills

In one instance the Queen completely vetoed the Military Actions Against Iraq Bill in 1999, a private member's bill that sought to transfer the power to authorise military strikes against Iraq from the monarch to parliament.

Prince Charles's 'black spider memos' show lobbying at highest political level

But this is likely to be the only glimpse the British public gets of Charles’ correspondence with ministers. Since the original Guardian request to see the letters the government has tightened up the Freedom of Information Act to provide an “absolute exemption” on all requests relating to the Queen and the heir to the throne.

Drought In Central Europe Reveals Cautionary 'Hunger Stones' In Czech River

"It expressed that drought had brought a bad harvest, lack of food, high prices and hunger for poor people. Before 1900, the following droughts are commemorated on the stone: 1417, 1616, 1707, 1746, 1790, 1800, 1811, 1830, 1842, 1868, 1892, and 1893."

America’s prisoners are going on strike in at least 17 states"

“Prisoners do like having the opportunity to earn, because they do have to support themselves financially in a lot of ways,” Sawari said. “Prisoners have to provide for their health care, their dental care. They have to buy food if they want to eat outside the three times a day most prisons serve. … They have to buy clothes like jackets and boots, hygiene products, cosmetics, books, study materials, paper, tape, scissors. Any little thing they need, they have to buy that. So they want to be able to.”

How whimsical/horrifying! Here’s a book of clown faces painted onto eggs.

The Clown Egg Register was first developed in 1946 by Stan Bult, and then revived in 1984 (it now uses ceramic eggs, since many of the blown eggs from the first iteration of the register have been damaged).

“Truth isn’t truth”: Rudy Giuliani offers a new explanation of why Trump shouldn’t talk to Mueller

“Is it possible he makes a conclusion based on who’s been more truthful over the years?” Todd asked. Giuliani paused and then said Mueller’s conclusion could be based on whose statement is “more logical.” But, he said, you can’t “bring into question prior conduct.”

How the Trump Administration Is Remaking the Courts

When Trump Took office, he inherited not just an open Supreme Court seat but 107 additional judicial vacancies. Ronald Reagan, by contrast, had 35 unfilled judgeships; Obama had 54. “There’s a million qualified conservative lawyers out there,” says J.Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist close to Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader. “The hard part was securing the vacancies and actually having a place to put them all. That was the spade work done by Mitch McConnell in the Obama years.”