Society's Child

'How about paying your taxes?': Amazon and Walmart engage in war of words over worker pay

Lauren Thomas
CNBC
Thu, 11 Apr 2019 16:39 UTC

Amazon and Walmart are in war over worker pay - and now corporate taxes.

After Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Thursday issued a challenge to other retailers, not naming which ones specifically, to match Amazon's pay and benefits, Walmart has responded, albeit quietly.

"Today I challenge our top retail competitors (you know who you are!) to match our employee benefits and our $15 minimum wage. Do it! Better yet, go to $16 and throw the gauntlet back at us. It's a kind of competition that will benefit everyone," Bezos wrote in his annual letter to shareholders.

Walmart's executive vice president of corporate affairs, Dan Bartlett, then shared an article Thursday morning on Twitter about Amazon paying $0 in federal taxes on more than $11 billion in profits last year. He wrote: "Hey retail competitors out there (you know who you are) how about paying your taxes?"

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At Least 20 killed In Pakistan market bombing, Taliban affiliate group claims responsibility

REF/RL
Fri, 12 Apr 2019 05:22 UTC

© Banaras Khan / AFP
Pakistani security officials inspect the site of a deadly bomb blast at a fruit market in Quetta on April 12.

At least 18 people were killed and 48 injured in a bombing claimed by an affiliate of the Pakistani Taliban in Quetta, southwest Pakistan on April 12, police said.

Police chief Abdur Razzaq Cheema told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal that explosives were packed in a car parked at a busy vegetable market.

Two children were among the dead and seven were rushed to hospital with injuries, he said.

The bombing appeared to target members of the Shi'ite ethnic Hazara community, Cheema added.

Provincial police chief Mohsin Butt said eight Hazara were among the victims.

Alone among the media, Tucker Carlson lays out the true facts about Assange and Wikileaks

Seraphim Hanisch
The Duran
Fri, 12 Apr 2019 16:19 UTC

Tucker Carlson puts Assange's deeds and arrest in perspective, standing almost alone in telling the truth about Julian Assange, both what he did - and did not do.

Fox News' Tucker Carlson offered his own analysis regarding the arrest of Julian Assange. Mr. Assange was arrested yesterday, April 11, 2019, after the Ecuadoran Embassy agreed to evict him from their building in London where he lived over the last seven years, a refugee from the American and Western European governments.

This was extensively reported by the mainstream press, but it was done so dishonestly. Tucker Carlson puts the facts back into the equation with his presentation:

Lawsuit filed after Chicago police drag, punch and tase high school girl without provocation

Matthew Hendrickson
Chicago Sun Times
Thu, 11 Apr 2019 16:04 UTC

© Matthew Hendrickson/Sun-Times
Dnigma Howard (center) leaves the Cook County Juvenile Center on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019 with her father Laurentio Howard (left) and attorney Andrew M. Stroth after a hearing where charges were dismissed against her in an incident last month at Marshall High School.

A new surveillance video shows Chicago police officers push and drag a student down a set of stairs at Marshall High School on the West Side before punching her and shocking her with a stun gun multiple times.

The video, obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, appears to contradict the officers' statements on how the incident unfolded, including that the student initiated the violent encounter - again raising questions of the oversight, training and stationing of police officers in Chicago Public Schools.

The two officers involved in the incident also held the student down while stepping on her chest, but they didn't seek help from her father or other school personnel who were nearby, according to an amended lawsuit filed Thursday by the girl's attorney, Andrew M. Stroth.

"The Board of Education and CPD continue to fail our children. An unarmed 16-year-old girl was beaten, kicked, punched and tasered by officers," Stroth said in a statement.

Russian MPs mull complete ban on plastic bags

RT
Fri, 12 Apr 2019 10:39 UTC

Russia may completely ban the use of plastic bags by 2025, according to an eco-friendly initiative proposed by a senior MP in the national parliament's Lower House.

In his letter to the deputy prime minister of Russia, MP Vasily Vlasov stressed that due to their slow rate of decomposition, plastic bags are a "key issue" in regards to the pollution problem in the country and that it becomes "more acute every year."

According to Greenpeace, some 26 billion plastic bags are used in Russia each year.
And Vlasov considers "a complete ban on plastic bags an appropriate measure" to tackle the problem. "I'm convinced that this transitional period would be enough to prepare the economy for it," he stressed in a letter.

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A message? The book Julian Assange was reading during his arrest

RT
Fri, 12 Apr 2019 13:51 UTC

As WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was dragged from the Ecuadorian embassy by British police, he emerged clutching a single book: Gore Vidal's The History of the National Security State.

Later, as he sat in the dock at Westminster Magistrates Court, Assange silently read through the book, before he was found guilty of skipping bail in 2012 and remanded in custody.

Was Assange trying to send a message? Through a collection of interviews with Vidal, the book covers themes dear to Assange and WikiLeaks, tracing the historical events that gave rise to the military-industrial-security complex, as well as the expansion of executive powers that led to what the author calls "the imperial presidency."

Censorship on vaccine information is failing...what to expect next

Jeffery Jaxen
jeffereyjaxen.com
Wed, 03 Apr 2019 12:48 UTC

Representatives from government and the corporate media will have you believe that due to an unsensational number of measles cases in the U.S., the fabric of American society must take historically dangerous and authoritarian measures. According to both media and government talking points, in order to combat an ambiguous specter of 'misinformation,' America must rapidly sink into a communist-slanting, medical corporatocracy. In the age of information, is censorship really that effective? In 2003 Barbra Streisand attempted to suppress photographs of her residence in Malibu, California. Her efforts had the exact opposite effect by inadvertently drawing further public attention to it. The phenomenon is now coined the Streisand effect whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the internet.

UK public outraged that 160 MPs make millions selling homes taxpayers paid for

Nick Sommerlad
The Mirror
Fri, 12 Apr 2019 09:45 UTC

Campaigners last night demanded MPs who pocketed vast sums after flogging their taxpayer-subsidised homes pay back the cash.

On the 10th anniversary of the Westminster expenses scandal that shocked Britain, the Mirror can reveal 160 politicians raked in more than £42million in profits selling properties public money helped fund.

Among them are Environment Secretary Michael Gove, who made £870,000 on two homes, ex-Cabinet minister Maria Miller, who collected more than £1.2million, Tory Graham Brady and Labour 's Hugh Bayley.

Greatest moments from Julian Assange's 'The World Tomorrow' show on RT

RT
Fri, 12 Apr 2019 09:47 UTC

WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange's show 'The World Tomorrow' covered a number of controversial topics over 12 episodes that aired on RT in 2012. As he faces persecution in the US, RT brings you some of the show's greatest moments.

From the first episode - in which he interviewed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah - to the last, where his guest was Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, Assange raised questions for which WikiLeaks became both famous and notorious in the West.

Khashoggi family denies receiving 'settlement' from Saudi regime that murdered journalist

RT
Fri, 12 Apr 2019 09:45 UTC

© Reuters / Osman Orsal
A demonstrator holds a picture of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi outside the Saudi Aconsulate in Istanbul

The family of Jamal Khashoggi has said they have not discussed a settlement with the Saudi regime over the columnist's murder, refuting claims made in the mainstream press that a major payout had been granted by Riyadh.

Speaking on behalf of the family, Khashoggi's son Salah denied that any "settlement discussion" had taken place or is currently being discussed, in an English language statement published to Twitter on Wednesday. He added that those charged with committing the brutal murder were currently on trial and that they would "all be brought to justice and face punishment."

Earlier in April the deceased journalist's former employers at the Washington Post alleged that Khashoggi's children, including Salah, had received homes worth millions of dollars in the months following their father's murder, and were also in receipt of monthly stipends from Saudi authorities worth thousands of dollars.

Great interview with Professor Petrovsky, a very brave soul ! He is clear and concise from a Vaccine researcher /producer point of view and calls...

Gator

There's no mileage in anything the Smith's have to say, their well versed in interfering with things. So we can all sleep safely in our bed...

Winternights3

Seriously, lets break down these words, and I am fully equipped for this task that I give to myself NOW. gives OSHA the authority to act quickly...

Buffalo_Ken

Forensic pathologists performed a postmortem and concluded that the man had probably died mid-flight Let me see ... he walked onto the plane,...

HashAttack2

This ain't no fucking real emergency. It is an effing emergency in the mind of a few....who thought they were gonna put the rest of us into...

Buffalo_Ken

Society's Child

'How about paying your taxes?': Amazon and Walmart engage in war of words over worker pay

At Least 20 killed In Pakistan market bombing, Taliban affiliate group claims responsibility

Alone among the media, Tucker Carlson lays out the true facts about Assange and Wikileaks

Lawsuit filed after Chicago police drag, punch and tase high school girl without provocation

Russian MPs mull complete ban on plastic bags

A message? The book Julian Assange was reading during his arrest

Censorship on vaccine information is failing...what to expect next

UK public outraged that 160 MPs make millions selling homes taxpayers paid for

Greatest moments from Julian Assange's 'The World Tomorrow' show on RT

Khashoggi family denies receiving 'settlement' from Saudi regime that murdered journalist

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