Tag: Georgia

The Messed Up Truth About The Louisiana Purchase

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
American Progress, 1872.

The Louisiana Purchase is usually presented as an incredible, inspiring moment in American history in which President Thomas Jefferson, wise, benevolent eyes twinkling under his powdery white wig, made an incredibly shrewd real estate deal with notorious, disgraced French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and, with one stroke of his giant quill pen, doubled the size of the United States of America for the bargain price of $15 million, or just three cents an acre. What we don’t usually learn about is the negative domino effect this treaty had in terms of inspiring the concept of manifest destiny or the belief that white colonists had a God-given duty to expand across North America and redeem and remake the land in their own image.

The Messed Up Truth About The Louisiana Purchase

Tucker Carlson Steps Up, Defends Black Nationalists After DOJ Indictment: “Saying things the government doesn’t like is not a crime”

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Fox News host Tucker Carlson shamed the liberal media and stood up for some Black Nationalists who have been charged by the Department of Justice for what Tucker says is exercising their right to free speech.

Tucker Carlson Steps Up, Defends Black Nationalists After DOJ Indictment: “Saying things the government doesn’t like is not a crime”

Dems, Unions Spar Over Gun Laws While Deciding Location For 2024 Democratic Convention

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Dems, Unions Spar Over Gun Laws While Deciding Location For 2024 Democratic Convention

Lawmakers in Chicago, Illinois, and Atlanta, Georgia, are deep in debate over the 2024 national convention, with Illinois lawmakers concerned that Georgia gun laws will fail to protect attendees, and Georgia Democrats saying that gun laws have “no particular impact” on the decision, according to the NYT. Alongside Georgia and Illinois, union leaders are arguing that the convention should be held in Chicago, as the city aligns with President Joe Biden’s stance on unions, saying he is the “most pro-union president in history.”

…

“Joe Biden is the most pro-union president in history, and having it in a pro-union town reinforces that record and sends a message,” political and legislative Director of the International Association of Iron Workers Ross Templeton told the NYT.

Pro-union?!

Sean Penn’s Disaster-Relief Charity Ended Up a Money Mess

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Sean Penn’s Disaster-Relief Charity Ended Up a Money Mess

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CORE Labor violations and complaints

CORE staff complained that they were forced to work 18-hour days, six days a week, without the opportunity to take breaks. Responding to the staff concerns, Penn excoriated the employees, writing in an email that “in every cell of my body is a vitriol for the way your actions reflect so harmfully upon your brothers and sisters in arms”. Penn suggested that employees leave their work instead of complaining about conditions.[16] In October 2021, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint that Penn and CORE violated federal labor law. According to the charge, Penn “impliedly threatened” his employees with reprisals.[17] A 2021 California lawsuit sought civil damages, claiming that CORE failed o pay overtime and minimum wges, provide rest periods, reimburse for business expenses, provide detailed wage statements, and timely pay employees. [18]

In 2022, a former CORE worker who provided support during COVID relief efforts in Georgia sued CORE for unpaid wages. According to the complaint, CORE deliberately misclassified staff as contractors to avoid paying overtime. CORE’s contracts require binding arbitration, which prevents a collective action by multiple employees and keeps the proceedings private.

Sean Penn’s Haiti relief charity paid $126,000 on travel in a single year including the actor’s first-class flights because of his ‘celebrity status’, tax records reveal

U.S. Press Starts To Figure Out College TikTok Bans Are A Dumb Performance

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

U.S. Press Starts To Figure Out College TikTok Bans Are A Dumb Performance

One, the bans are generally designed to agitate a xenophobic base and give the impression the GOP is “doing something about China.” But the party that couldn’t care less about rampant corruption or privacy violations isn’t doing much of anything meaningful to thwart China. In fact, letting adtech, telecom, and app companies run rampant with little oversight runs contrary to any such goal.

Two, the bans distract the public and press from our ongoing failure on consumer privacy and security issues. Banning TikTok, but doing nothing about the accountability optional free for all that is the adtech and data-hoovering space, doesn’t actually fix anything. China can just obtain the same data from a universe of other international companies facing little real oversight on data collection.

Three, the ban is really just about money. Trump gave the game away with his proposal that TikTok be chopped up and sold to Oracle and Walmart. That cronyistic deal fell through, but it’s pretty clear that this moral panic is designed to either help TikTok’s competitors (Facebook lobbyists are very active on this front), or force the sale of the most popular app in modern history to GOP-allies. At which point they’ll engage in all the surveillance and influence efforts they pretend to be mad about.

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Tax Flight Is a Myth

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Tax Flight Is a Myth

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Dispelling the Myth of Tax-Induced Capital Flight

A study by the American Sociological Association in 2016 found that while massive top rate tax hikes might cause some millionaires to move from their high-tax state to a low-tax state, the amount of them doing so for this reason was negligible. Millionaires moved for tax purposes around 2.2% of the time. Indeed, in any event the rate of inter-state migration generally was lower for millionaires, at 2.4%, than it was for the general population, at 2.9%.

Debunking the Myth of the Fleeing Millionaire

State TikTok Bans Are A Dumb Performance And Don’t Fix The Actual Underlying Problem

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

For decades, U.S. politicians leaders utterly refused to support most meaningful privacy protections for consumers. They opposed any nationwide privacy law, however straightforward. They opposed privacy rules for broadband ISPs. They also fought tooth and nail to ensure the nation’s top privacy enforcement agency, the FTC, lacked the authority, staff, funds, or resources to actually do its job.

State TikTok Bans Are A Dumb Performance And Don’t Fix The Actual Underlying Problem