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AFSCME Relocating Conference Out Of 'Disgust' Of Religious Liberty Law

Daniel Strauss Talking Points Memo
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees President Lee Saunders announced AFSCME was relocating its 2015 National Women's Conference from Indiana out of disgust at its passage of a Religious Liberty Law. He called it an un-American law.

In a Win for Opponents of Mountaintop Removal, W.Va. Govt Decides to Study Health Impacts

Laura Michele Diener Yes! Magazine
On March 13, Randy Huffman, the secretary of the DEP, acknowledged for the first time that reviewing the existing research is necessary. Four days later, the administration of Governor Earl Ray Tomblin announced that the state would conduct an official review of those studies, under the leadership of the state Bureau for Public Health’s commissioner, Dr. Rahul Gupta.

Thirteen Angry Men

Valeria Costa-Kostritsky KRB Blog
A 2009 study found that in Paris, individuals perceived as ‘black’ or ‘Arab’ were, respectively, six and eight times more likely to be stopped and searched than individuals perceived as ‘white’. Sihame Assbague, a spokesperson for Stop le Contrôle au Faciès, finds this baffling: ‘We have a left-wing government caving to a really right-wing police union.’

Stand Up Now! Stand Up Now!! A Diggers Song

Peter Linebaugh CounterPunch
"The club is all their law, stand up now, stand up now, The club is all their law, stand up now. The club is all their law to keep men in awe, But they no vision saw to maintain such a law. Stand up now, Diggers all."

Syracuse to Drop Fossil Fuel Stocks From Endowment

John Schwartz The New York Times
At $1.2 billion, Syracuse’s is the largest endowment to divest entirely of fossil fuel stocks.Katie McChesney, a campus divestment campaign organizer with the climate action group 350.org, said the successful student action showed that “if you want results, turn up the heat.”

Saudi Arabia's Airstrikes in Yemen Are Fuelling the Gulf's Fire

Patrick Cockburn The Independent
By leading a Sunni coalition Saudi Arabia will internationalise the Yemen conflict and emphasise its sectarian Sunni-Shia dimension. US policy across the Middle East looks contradictory. It is supporting Sunni powers and opposing Iranian allies in Yemen but doing the reverse in Iraq. Whatever happens in Iraq and Yemen, the political temperature of the region is getting hotter by the day.

Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty Will Help Neither Workers nor Consumers

Katrina vanden Heuvel The Washington Post
One product of the corporate-defined trade rules is that the United States has run unprecedented trade deficits, totaling more than $8 trillion since 2000 alone. Trade deficits cost jobs. Worse, companies have used the threat to move jobs abroad to drive down wages here at home. These corporate trade policies contribute significantly to the reality that, as Joseph Stiglitz writes, “the real median income of a full time male worker is lower now than it was 40 years ago."

Vermont About to Become a Hellish Place for People to Work in?

Michael Arria Alternet
Steve Howard, executive director of the VSEA, told NPR recently, “Before you take money out of the paychecks of snowplow drivers, nursing assistants, custodians and administrative assistants … we believe you have a moral obligation to ask for a greater contribution from a broad-based revenue source paid mostly by the wealthiest Vermonters who have had all the economic gains of the last decade.”