Link Roundup October 2021

[wepon]

Portland may exempt police force from citywide vaccine mandate

The rule change would come after fierce backlash against the mandate from the city’s police union, which warned such a requirement would lead to mass resignations within an already short-staffed force. Willamette Week reported that the police union’s lead attorney had argued to the city that officers were opposed “so deeply” that they would leave the force before getting a vaccine. According to PPB spokesperson Teri Wallo-Strauss, the bureau has had 145 sworn bureau members leave since July of 2020.

Students stage defiant walkout after lesbian teacher ‘marched off campus’

Tensions grew as the school administration began “randomly” questioning students who attended the Gay Straight Alliance club. Sophomore Alyssa Harbin described a “long, drawn out interrogation” that lasted 45 minutes – and although she was assured she hadn’t done anything wrong, the students who were questioned appeared to have one thing in common. “All of these randomly selected people have been to at least one Gay Straight Alliance meeting making it feel extremely targeted,” she said at a meeting with school board members, as reported by DFW News.

Students place messages of support on banned teachers’ doors

On Tuesday, Oct. 5, the school’s Gay/Straight Alliance met at its usual time. The guest speaker was the school’s principal who is responsible for removing the two popular teachers. She wasn’t well received. More on that when we receive the audio of the meeting.

Eco-fascism: What It Is, Why It’s Wrong, and How to Fight It

Fascism can be defined in many different ways, but typically, the oppressive ideology has characteristics rooted in white identity and violence against marginalized people, such as Black and Brown people, immigrants, and those in the LGBTQ+ community. Vice describes eco-fascism as an ideology “which blames the demise of the environment on overpopulation, immigration, and over-industrialization, problems that followers think could be partly remedied through the mass murder of refugees in Western countries."

Doctors say the Texas abortion ban is complicating other types of medical decisions

Continuing a pregnancy after a diagnosis like anencephaly comes with additional health risks and, for some patients, additional emotional trauma, Palmer said.

Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge.

Rutherford County doesn’t just jail its own kids. It also contracts with other counties to detain their children, charging $175 a day. “If we have empty beds, we will fill them with a paying customer,” Duke said at one public meeting. Duke reports monthly to the county commission’s Public Safety Committee. At these meetings — we watched more than 100, going back 12 years — commissioners have asked regularly about the number of beds filled. “Just like a hotel,” one commissioner said of the jail. “With breakfast provided, and it’s not a continental,” added a second. At another meeting a commissioner said it would be “cool” if, instead of being a cost center, the jail could be a “profit center.” When, at one meeting, Duke said “we get a lot of business” from a particular county, a commissioner chuckled at Duke’s word choice. “Business,” he said. This brought awkward laughter from other commissioners, leading the committee chair to say: “Hey, it’s a business. Generating revenue.”

A Professor Was Accused of Sexual Harassment and Resigned. At His Next University, It Happened Again

In some states, schools are legally obligated to not disclose information in personnel files without the employee’s consent, including what factors were considered in the employee’s hiring and any Title IX finding. The University of New Hampshire, for example, denied a Freedom of Information Act Request filed by VICE for Professor Howard’s personnel file on these grounds.

Covid vaccine holdouts are caving to mandates — then scrambling to 'undo' their shots

The newfound virality of “vaccine detoxes” is also a strategy by anti-vaccine influencers and groups to steel themselves for a reality in which 70 percent of Americans have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus — even though their dire warnings of mass death and infertility never came to fruition.

LGBTQ Employees Are Quitting the BBC Because They Say It’s Transphobic

This week the BBC confirmed it will not be renewing its membership of a workplace inclusion programme run by the UK LGBTQ charity Stonewall, as first reported by VICE World News last month.

‘People Work 100 Days Straight’: Kellogg’s Workers Shut Down Cereal Factories

Members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union say Kellogg's proposed pay and benefits cuts coincide with severe understaffing and management forcing them to work overtime during the pandemic—in some cases 16-hour days, seven days a week—without a day off for months.

Kellogg’s files lawsuit against its striking cereal workers

The company has said that it has restarted production at all of the plants with salaried employees and outside workers, and it is now hiring new employees at the plants. CEO Steven Cahillane also told investors earlier this month when the company reported a $307 million quarterly profit that Kellogg’s stockpiled cereal beforehand to help weather the strike.

UAW member hit, killed by car near John Deere picket line

A vehicle struck and killed a United Auto Workers member Wednesday as he was walking to a picket line to join striking workers outside a John Deere distribution plant in northwest Illinois, the union and police said.

New York City Loaded Taxi Drivers With Debt. Now They’re on Hunger Strike to Force Real Relief.

On Wednesday, taxi drivers, local elected officials, and their allies gathered outside New York City Hall to announce the beginning of a hunger strike. They are protesting a plan announced last month by the de Blasio administration to help taxi drivers reduce their debt burdens—a plan that the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, the 21,000-member group leading the hunger strike, considers insultingly inadequate.

Democrats have no plan to fight housing inflation

The major constraint on building housing in the places where people are demanding it the most is zoning laws. These laws restrict what kinds of homes can be built and where, and regulate the size of homes to the point that smaller or “starter” homes are becoming incredibly scarce. For instance, a law mandating that lots of land be no less than 4,000 square feet means that starter homes (smaller than 1,400 square feet) are illegal. The history behind these laws is complicated, but essentially they are a way for some homeowners to block change in their communities, and in their original form were a tool of segregationists.