Shakesville

Everything About This Is Terrible

[Content Note: Guns; violence.]

A man shot who he thought was an intruder, but was actually his 16-year-old daughter coming home after sneaking out (she survived):

Investigators said the confusion happened in the 400 block of Lily's Way around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday when the girl's father was getting ready for work.

According to the Frederick County Sheriff's Office in Virginia, the father has been identified as Deputy Easton McDonald, with the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office. They stated he did not fire his on-duty weapon.

"The homeowner, he has an alarm system inside what I call is 'audible,' in that it tells you what door is being opened," said Lang.

McDonald's alarm system, another safety precaution, told him the garage had just been opened.

"When he went to go investigate what had set off the alarm, he heard some banging and rustling around in the garage," said Lang. "At that particular point, he obtained a firearm that he had there in the kitchen area."

The rustling wasn't an intruder, but his teenage daughter.

"Later on, it was determined that the daughter had snuck out hours earlier that morning, and was attempting to sneak back into the home," said Lang.

Lack of visibility in the garage, and the feeling that someone was "coming at him" led McDonald to fire the gun, hitting his daughter in her torso.

Within moments, he realized his mistake, and rushed her to Winchester Medical Center. However, in the hurry and chaos, McDonald accidentally wrecked his car at Cork Street and East Lane in Winchester while attempting to transport his daughter to the hospital.

Winchester Fire and Rescue were able to safely transport the girl the rest of the way there, where she remains in stable condition.

What a clusterfuck.

I hope she is able to make a speedy and complete physical recovery, and I hope she'll have access to whatever resources she needs to process what happened.

I don't know what could more effectively underline the problems with laws that empower people to justifiably shoot someone just because they feel unsafe than the fact that even a cop shot his own daughter in their home, because he had a "feeling that someone was coming at him."

The most pointed problem with "Stand Your Ground" and/or castle doctrine laws is that people who feel unsafe, irrespective of whether they have a legitimate reason to feel unsafe, implicitly have their fears justified. The laws intrinsically convey people are trying to hurt you and there's something scary out there and you should feel afraid, always afraid. So, ironically, these laws do not in any way encourage feelings of safety and security in fearful people. They entrench fear.

And that makes the world a very dangerous place for the people they're afraid of.

[Related Reading: On Sitting with Fear.]

Ferguson

[Content Note: Militarism; police brutality; racism.]

This is a scene from Ferguson, Missouri, last night, where residents were protesting, for the fourth night, the police killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown:

image of a protestor crouching down in the middle of a street, as clouds of tear gas engulf hir

A protester takes shelter from the tear gas exploding around him on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014.
Photo By David Carson for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Original here.
I spent all night tweeting updates about the protests and police actions in Ferguson; you can read my timeline here.

But here is a summary: Many residents of Ferguson showed up to peacefully assemble last night, as the police continue to withhold the name of the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown. They are asking for accountability and justice, and they want police killings of black people to stop. These are hardly unreasonable things for which to ask. And yet the police continue to avoid even taking the most basic first step toward accountability by naming Brown's killer.

So people showed up to demonstrate. And the police showed up with armored vehicles and assault weapons, decked out in camo and body armor. Last night, I heard an Iraq veteran say that he was wearing less protective gear when he went to war. The police do not look like police; they look like soldiers. They look like the military.

Tensions were high throughout the early evening, as police pushed people back and ordered them around, while blaring over a loud speaker that their Constitutional right to peaceably assemble was not being violated.

Police ordered people out of a McDonald's, including two reporters: Wesley Lowery, a reporter for The Washington Post, who is a black man, and Ryan Reilly of The Huffington Post, who is a white man. When Lowery and Reilly didn't move quickly enough, according to police, they were assaulted and arrested. Lowery was slammed into a soda fountain and told he was resisting, even as he cooperated and told the officers he was not resisting. Reilly had his head slammed into a glass window by an officer who then sarcastically apologized. Both of the men were wearing their press credentials. Their arrests were illegal.

When Matt Pearce, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, called the Ferguson police chief about Lowery's and Reilly's arrests, the chief responded, "Oh, god." He also told Pearce that the arresting officers were "probably somebody who didn't know better."

Consider that for a moment: Officers who don't know the law, armed with deadly weaponry, rubber bullets, tear gas, and armored vehicles, policing the streets during a protest. If they don't know the law, what are they even fucking doing? You can't enforce the law if you're just making it up as you go along.

Lowery and Reilly were later released without charges or paperwork. They were not allowed to talk to a senior officer, nor were they given the names or badge numbers of the officers who arrested and assaulted them.

Elected St. Louis 21st Ward Alderman Antonio French, who is a black man, was also arrested, and only released this morning.

Meanwhile, as soon as the sun went down on the protestors, who were singing and chanting peaceably, the police asserted that someone threw a petrol bomb at them, though that was not evident from the live feed, and police began to launch tear gas, smoke bombs, and stun grenades at the protesters, ordering them off the streets. There were some reports that rubber (or wooden) bullets were fired again last night.

image of seven black women and men, one white woman, and one white man linking arms in anticipation of police pressure

image of seven black women and men, one white woman, and one white man linking arms in anticipation of police pressure

"Protesters linking arms, anticipating an advance of police line westward along W Florissant."
—Jon Swaine.
This is not a "war zone." It does not "look like a third-world country." It is not some new turning point in America; the only thing that is new about it is the terrifying level of militarization of police forces, but as I noted in comments the other day, the state has long used black communities to test the limits of militarism and surveillance.

@BobbyRobertsPDX tweeted:

"Can you imagine what would have happened without the internet watching?" "Sure. It's called the last 240 years of American History."

Which is exactly right. This isn't happening for the first time. It's just that a lot of not-black people are seeing it for the first time. Part of the reason the police are harassing and arresting reporters.

The police acting in Ferguson are totally out of control, and they are being extremely provocative. If the town wanted to set a curfew, they could set a curfew, but instead they're telling people it's okay to protest, then corralling and chasing them (while referring to them as "animals") with assault rifles pointed at them, and looking for any excuse to start launching tear gas and firing rubber bullets.

Meanwhile, the Missouri governor, the senators, the President are all totally AWOL. That sort of sustained, comprehensive absence, and lack of urgency, isn't by accident; it's by design. No one can seriously defend this on the basis of maintaining public safety. This is a colossal affront to public safety.

The people of Ferguson asked for justice, after a cop killed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown. And instead they have gotten an overwhelming show of militarized force from the police, who have no hesitation about causing further harm.

This is not a war zone in another country. This is a town with a majority black population in the heartland of the United States.

Open Thread

image of the four members of the band Queen

Hosted by Queen.

Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker bekitty: "Have your tastes changed as you've gotten older? If so, how?"

Man Assaulted for Defending Women from Street Harassment

[Content Note: Violence; harassment; misogyny; objectification. Please note video may begin playing automatically at link.]

Fucking hell:

A man who police say tried to defend a group of women from catcallers landed in the hospital after he was brutally assaulted in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square early Saturday morning.

Police say the 39-year-old man who was visiting from Texas was walking along 18th and Walnut Streets around 2:45 a.m. when he observed several men inside a Black Nissan pull up next to a group of women.

The men inside the Nissan began taunting and catcalling the women, according to investigators, prompting the victim to get involved.

"The male victim took offense to something that the guys were saying to the girls and said 'hey, watch what you're saying,'" said Philadelphia Police Captain George Fuchs.

Police say one of the men inside the Nissan then got out of the car and punched the victim once in the head. The man was knocked unconscious after he fell and struck his head on the concrete

The suspect then ran back into the Nissan which fled west on Walnut. The victim was taken to Hahnemann Hospital where he is currently in stable condition.

"This is a tragic, tragic story," Captain Fuchs said. "Here's a guy trying to stick up for these girls and he gets victimized."

I hope the man who was assaulted has access to the care he needs to recover, physically and emotionally. And I hope that the men who harmed him will be identified.

This story exposes as rank garbage a few of the most pervasive narratives around street harassment and gendered violence against women:

1. Telling women that we should just ignore street harassment, that it's no big deal, is bullshit. Street harassment is a very big deal, because it's underwritten by an entitlement so aggressive that some men will physically harm another man who tries to stop them, in even the most benign way.

2. Telling women that we should push back against street harassers is bullshit. This is what we're risking. Of course not every street harasser will react this way, but we don't know until it's too late.

3. Anti-rape initiatives that disproportionately or exclusively focus on intervention (vs. prevention) put people at risk. Not everyone can safely intervene. Not every intervention will be successful. Sure, it's valuable to have public conversations about not averting one's gaze at the sight of someone being harmed, because there are people who can and do safely and successfully intervene. But that cannot be considered a primary solution, for various reasons, including the threat of retaliation against the people who intervene. We have to focus on preventing harassment and gendered violence in the first place.

[H/T to Shaker MMC.]

An Observation

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

Here is a headline at Reuters today: "More middle-aged U.S. women having babies outside marriage."

I really don't give a fuck if a kid's parents are married (except insomuch as I care when their parents aren't allowed to be married), so big wev to this article.

Except for this: I don't believe I've ever seen an equivalent headline about the number of men becoming parents "outside marriage."

I'm sure they exist. But I've sure as shit never seen one.

I have, however, seen approximately a biebillion headlines about the number of [young/old/black/white/rich/poor/etc.] women becoming parents "outside marriage."

And none of these articles, including the one linked above, even include the most cursory acknowledgment of the men who become parents "outside marriage."

Huh.

Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Police militarization.]

"When did 'protect and serve' turn into 'us versus them'? ...'Bring it. You fucking animals, bring it,' one police officer was caught on video telling protesters. In Ferguson and beyond, it seems that some police officers have shed the blue uniform and have put on the uniform and gear of the military, bringing the attitude along with it. ...If there's one thing I learned in Afghanistan, it's this: You can't win a person's heart and mind when you are pointing a rifle at his or her chest."—Paul Szoldra, in a must-read piece: "This Is the Terrifying Result of the Militarization of Police."

[H/T to Deeks.]

Daily Dose of Cute

image of Olivia the White Farm Cat asleep on the edge of the loveseat beneath a lamp

Olivia Twist and her pink toesies.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

Good Grief

[Content Note: Gender essentialism; heterocentrism; cissexism; misogyny; infertility.]

The latest in awesome Lady Explaining, care of evo psych:

A brave scientist has sought to answer a question that has baffled for centuries: why do women get premenstrual syndrome (PMS)?

Professor of Molecular Evolution, Michael Gillings, believes that in our evolutionary past there was a hidden selective advantage to PMS, because it increased the chance that infertile pair bonds would dissolve, thus improving the reproductive outcomes of women in such partnerships.

"In the past, women had many fewer menstrual cycles than women in modern societies, because they did not have control over reproduction and were either pregnant or breastfeeding most of the time," said Gillings.

"Imagine that a woman was pair bonded with a sterile or infertile male. Then, even in the past, they would have had regular cycles. If women in these relationships exhibited PMS and this increased the likelihood of the pair bond dissolving, this would be a huge reproductive advantage."

..."Under this view, the prevalence of PMS might result from genes and behaviours that are adaptive in some societies, but are potentially less appropriate in modern cultures," said Michael.

...PMS affects up to 80 per cent of women, and has been observed in all countries where PMS has been investigated, dating back to the time of Hippocrates.

The levels of disruption ranges, and can lead to personal, social, and economic costs. Symptoms include anxiety/tension, mood swings, aches and cramps, cravings and disinterest in usual activities.

Literally every single thing about this is making me laugh endlessly, starting with "brave scientist" and ending with the "economic costs" of PMS, because you know issues that predominantly affect women don't matter unless and until we can demonstrate they might be costing a man somewhere some money.

There are really good reasons to study PMS, and I don't want to diminish at all the severity of PMS for lots and lots of people who get periods. That's not amusing.

What is amusing is positing that the reason PMS exists is so that women partnered with infertile men get super bitchy on a regular basis until those dudes hit the bricks and free up their lady-property to make whoopee with someone who can put a baby in them and thus TAME THE PMS BEAST!

Science!

[H/T to Iain, who sent this to me with the note: "You're gonna love this." LOL!]

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Hoagy Carmichael & Lauren Bacall: "Am I Blue?"

From To Have and Have Not.

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Police brutality; shooting] In Ferguson, Missouri, police officers shot and critically injured another man who police say "had turned and pointed a handgun at the officer. Police said they were responding to a report of four masked men with shotguns, and of shots fired." Well, I await what witnesses say happened, because I have no faith that the police account of this shooting is reliable, either.

Relatedly: There is a petition at Change.org asking New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to require that police officers carry an on-body camera that records their interactions. I think that's a very good idea. And not just in NYC.

[CN: Self-harm; harassment] Zelda Williams, Robin Williams' daughter, has closed her Twitter account after two Twitter users tweeted disturbing Photoshopped images of her father at her and said, using misogynist slurs, that she had caused his death. Fucking nightmares of humanity. Truly.

The jury is still out on climate change: "More than two months worth of rain fell in two hours in New York's Long Island suburbs on Wednesday, causing flash flooding and swamping cars on major roads that were turned into rivers during the morning rush hour." Meanwhile, in Detroit: "Some progress is being reported, but several Detroit-area freeways remain closed two days after heavy rain swamped much of the area and stranded motorists on water-clogged streets and highways."

[CN: Misogynoir] Today, "the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination begins a two-day review of the United States government’s efforts, or lack thereof, to address pervasive racial discrimination in law and practice. When the United States ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1994, it consented to a periodic review by human rights experts of its progress toward meeting the goals in the treaty. ...A new shadow report, Reproductive Injustice: Racial and Gender Discrimination in U.S. Health Care, by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, shares some alarming data on maternal health outcomes as well as disturbing firsthand accounts of the racial discrimination experienced by Black women."

Congratulations to Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, a professor at Stanford University in California, who is "the first woman to be awarded the Fields Medal, mathematics' equivalent to the Nobel Prize. ...'This is a great honour. I will be happy if it encourages young female scientists and mathematicians,' Mirzakhani was quoted as saying on Stanford's website." Awesome.

Speaking of awesome: Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry is not-campaigning for president in Iowa this week. "Perry seemed pumped up after his enthusiastic, heckle-free reception at the Register's Soapbox. When the Register's moderator thanked him as he came off the stage, Perry said: 'You're welcome. I'm awesome!'" Okay.

And finally: Robin Williams and his rescue pug Leonard Bean are "Mr. and Mr. August 2014 for Tony LaRussa's Animal Rescue Foundation." Blub.

Brother of a Right-Winger

by Shaker Anonymous

[Please note: I'm a longtime Shaker who has requested anonymity for this post because it discusses family and I'd like to preserve the privacy of all involved.]

[Content Note: Discussion of dehumanization; stalking.]

My older brother is a Tea Party "conservative"—that is, a right-wing radical, Glenn Beck admiring, self-proclaimed "patriot." His wife is too, and so are his kids. I have hidden the posts of some of these family members in order to keep my Facebook feed tolerable.

Recently, one (unblocked) nephew posted to his Facebook feed a link to an article apparently being approvingly shared among young conservatives. The original article appeared in the Village Voice, which once might have been surprising. (The Independent Journal Review, linked here, touts itself in neutral language as an outside-the-beltway, independent news platform and publisher, but a look at the site makes its right-wing slant obvious.)

You can follow the link but I'll recap here: Some hard rock musician I've never heard of has an advice column each Wednesday in the Voice, called Ask Andrew W.K. Recently, he received a letter from "Son of a Right-Winger" that reads in part:

I'm writing because I just can't deal with my father anymore. He's a 65-year-old super right-wing conservative who has basically turned into a total asshole intent on ruining our relationship and our planet with his politics. I'm more or less a liberal democrat with very progressive values and I know that people like my dad are going to destroy us all. I don't have any good times with him anymore.

And the link-sharing, head-nodding, right-wing approval in the Independent Journal Review comes courtesy of Andrew W.K.'s response, which I quote in part:

Go back and read the opening sentences of your letter. Read them again. Then read the rest of your letter. Then read it again. Try to find a single instance where you referred to your dad as a human being, a person, or a man. There isn't one. You've reduced your father — the person who created you — to a set of beliefs and political views and how it relates to you. And you don't consider your dad a person of his own standing — he's just "your dad."

You've also reduced yourself to a set of opposing views, and reduced your relationship with him to a fight between the two. The humanity has been reduced to nothingness and all that's left in its place is an argument that can never really be won. And even if one side did win, it probably wouldn't satisfy the deeper desire to be in a state of inflamed passionate conflict.

The world isn't being destroyed by democrats or republicans, red or blue, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist — the world is being destroyed by one side believing the other side is destroying the world. The world is being hurt and damaged by one group of people believing they're truly better people than the others who think differently. The world officially ends when we let our beliefs conquer love. We must not let this happen.

Here follow five paragraphs of increasingly nebulous "advice," which essentially boils down to, "Both sides do it." There is no right or wrong, only Love, or something like that. "Live with a truly open mind—the kind of open mind that even questions the idea of an open mind," whatever that means.

Now, taken in bits and pieces, some of this "advice," which seems to be striking young right-wingers as wisdom, seems indisputable. But it's all banalities and bromides.

As has been said in posts here at Shakesville fully eleventy biebillion times, this shit doesn't happen in a vacuum. Politics leads to policy, and many of the policies pushed by the reactionary right-wing hurt people. The politics used to push the policies dehumanize people. Most progressives aren't arguing that, say, the Koch brothers aren't human beings. But they're terrible human beings whose shitty priorities are literally damaging to other human beings.

Any progressive who has far-right relatives, who has hidden those relatives' Facebook posts or blocked them entirely, who has avoided said relatives at family gatherings, can probably identify with "Son of a Right-Winger." Surely a better response than, "He's your dad, so love him," could have been offered—especially as "Son" had professed his continued love for his father. Perhaps keeping oneself safe from any harmful outbursts and staying true to one's own values in the face of them would be the way to go.

A word about Andrew W.K.: He's apparently best known for songs about partying, one of which was featured in a Girls Gone Wild CD. (He also released a track a few years ago that he wrote and recorded at 17 about stalking a girl on which he had a crush because he "was advised by my personal manager and life coach to finally let people hear it, to resolve the nightmare [of having had a juvenile restraining order put on me, which lasted until I was 21].") He's a self-styled self-help guru and motivational speaker. As is the case with all too many "advice" columns, he's pushing easy solutions and can't be bothered to examine the actual, serious issues brought up by his correspondents. He supports the status quo, which is more often than not hostile to many of the humans he claims to care about. As a consequence his "advice" is useless.

RIP Lauren Bacall

image of actress Lauren Bacall at age 82, with flowing white hair and a glint in her eye

Lauren Bacall at the Toronto International Film Festival, 2007. [Malcolm Taylor | Getty Images. Via.]
Actress Lauren Bacall has died at age 89. Her New York Times obituary is here.

Here are some things about Lauren Bacall: She was a great actor. She was fierce and feisty and opinionated and political. She was suspended 12 times by Warner Bros. studio for rejecting scripts while under contract. She had a low voice. She was Jewish. She was a Democrat. She was from the Bronx. She was happily married twice. She had three children.

She wanted to be remembered as herself, as an independent person, in her obituaries.

RIP Ms. Bacall.

And Again

[Content Note: Police brutality; death; racism; disablism.]

In Los Angeles early yesterday, police shot and killed 25-year-old Ezell Ford, an unarmed black man, while he was reportedly "lying on the ground and complying with the officers' commands." He was shot three times, and was then "transported to a hospital where he underwent surgery" where he "later succumbed to his injuries."

Patrol officers had "conducted an investigative stop" in the 200 block of 65th Street, and "during the stop a struggle ensued" and police opened fire, an LAPD news release issued midmorning Tuesday stated.

...Officers sustained minor scrapes during the altercation and did not require hospitalization, [Lt. Ellis Imaizumi of the Los Angeles Police Department] had said very early Tuesday. The news release stated no officers were injured.

Police were being tight-lipped with details about the incident because of a "gathering" at the scene of the shooting, Imaizumi said.

It was unknown if the "suspect" had any gang affiliations, police said in the news release.

A woman who said she was the deceased man's mother identified him in a phone call to KTLA as Ezell Ford.

"My heart is so heavy," Tritobia Ford said in an interview Tuesday evening. "My son was a good kid. He didn’t deserve to die the way he did."

Her son was lying on the ground and complying with the officers' commands when he was shot three times, Tritobia Ford said.

...A man who did not give his name and identified himself only as a cousin of the victim described what he witnessed, saying he had been around the corner when the altercation first occurred.

"They laid him out and for whatever reason, they shot him in the back, knowing mentally, he has complications. Every officer in this area, from the Newton Division, knows that — that this child has mental problems," the man said.

"The excessive force … there was no purpose for it. The multiple shootings in the back while he's laying down? No. Then when the mom comes, they don't try to console her … they pull the billy clubs out."

An investigation is underway. By the same people who described the man who was shot and killed as a "suspect" and issued a press release referring to his "unknown gang affiliations."

I suspect that Ford's psychological disabilities, whatever they were, will be used to justify this shooting, instead of being used to underline why police should have taken even more care with him. In any case, I cannot begin to imagine how will be explained the alleged necessity of shooting someone while he was lying on the ground, unarmed.

Related and Recommended Reading by Mychal Denzel Smith: "The Death of Michael Brown and the Search for Justice in Black America."

Open Thread

image of a stone carving of the Mexican deity Quetzalcoatl, a winged serpent

Hosted by Quetzalcoatl.

Question of the Day

When was the last time you laughed out loud? If you laugh out loud a lot, please feel free to interpret as the last time you had a great, heaving, tear-inducing belly laugh.

Recommended Reading

[Content Note: Harassment; abuse; racism; misogyny; disablism; threats of violence.]

Imani Gandy: "#TwitterFail: Twitter's Refusal to Handle Online Stalkers, Abusers, and Haters." I'm not even going to excerpt it. Just go read the whole thing.

(Full Disclosure: I am one of the people that Assholster has targeted on Twitter via the multiple accounts he creates every day. This is a pretty typical example of the stuff I get. He goes after Imani for her race; comes after me for being fat. I, too, have reported him to Twitter, only to receive a generic "we're working on it" response, nearly a week after I filed the abuse report.)

Whoooooopstext

Okay, here's something a little fun, for anyone who needs it this afternoon...

screen cap of a tweet authored by me reading: 'I just texted Iain to ask if he could pick up some apples, and my phone corrected 'apples' to 'assholes.' I blame @DeekyMD.'

("Apples to Assholes" is my favorite board game, btw.)

Technically, my phone didn't autocorrect "apples" to "assholes," but interpreted my Swype as "assholes," based on the fact that I text about assholes more than apples, I guess.

Anyway!

I know there have been a million of these threads on the internetz, but what's one more? Share in comments your favorite funny textastrophes.

Whut

[Content Note: Class warfare; worker exploitation.]

During a recent speech at Netroots Nation, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said: "Fast food workers deserve a liveable wage—and that means when they take to the picket line, we are proud to fight alongside them."

And former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin had a pretty terrific response to that:

"We believe"?! Wait, I thought fast food joints—hurnh. [motions with her thumb over her shoulder] Don't you guys think that they're, like, of the Devil or somethin'? I's like— Liberals, you wanna send those evil employees who would dare work at a fast food joint that ya just don't believe in [waves hand dismissively]— Thought you wanted to, I dunno, send 'em to Purgatory or somethin' so they all go vegan —and, uh, wages and picket lines, I dunno, they're not often discussed in Purgatory, are they? I dunno. Why are you even worried about fast food wages? Because meh. [throws up hands]

Well, we believe [in] an America where minimum wage jobs, they're not lifetime gigs; they're stepping stone...

Yiiiiiiiikes.

Listen, I'm not posting this to make fun of Sarah Palin. I'm posting this because this is a pretty typical response to liberal support for unionization and workers' rights. That is: Dismissive mockery without any actual substantive argument. Because there is no substantive argument against allowing workers to unionize, if they want to unionize.

At least no substantive argument that makes sense for workers.

Honest conservatives will say, straight up, that they don't support unionization because it's bad for business. And at least I can respect that. (The honesty, not the position.) But when conservatives try to bury policy that exclusively supports business inside the veneer of population, and pretend that that policy somehow makes sense for workers, and all they've got is "HAR HAR LIBERALS, AMIRITE?" that is just contemptible.

I know there are plenty of workers who buy it, for reasons. But fuck if workers don't deserve better than this shit. Even those inclined to vote against their own best interests.

[Via Joseph.]

Jimmy John's Is the Latest Fast-Food Employer to Be Accused of Systematic Wage Theft by Employees

[Content Note: Class warfare; worker exploitation.]

Alan Pyke has the whole story, including the background of the case being brought by two Jimmy John's workers, "who were employed at separate Jimmy John's locations in Illinois."

This is the long and the short of the employment scam that Jimmy John's, McDonald's, and other fast-food restaurants are running:

The status quo of very low prices for consumers, very high profits extracted by corporate parents from franchisees, and a pay disparity between CEOs and front-line workers of 1,200-to-1 seems to depend upon extensive wage theft. Nine out of 10 fast food workers reported wage theft in one survey this spring.

We could pay a little more, executives and shareholders could make a little less, and the workers who make this whole thing run could earn a liveable wage. This isn't about market pressure; it's about choices that are made in pursuit of shitty priorities.