“The choice facing the nation this November is much older and deeper than Trump. A determined minority has been trying to shape the foundations of American governance for their own benefit since the inception of the republic. ... In 2024, the country is once again immersed in a pivotal battle over whom the political system should serve and represent.”
So, super fancy, exclusive restaurant catering to wealthy diners rips off its customers, harasses and steals from its employees, then washes its hands by gifting real estate to a proselytizing Christian organization that provides housing and meals to people who have been pushed down, abused, and displaced by the kinds of people who endure a waitlist of up to year, jet to a dining destination, and pay $500 for dinner. Can’t help but think this illustrates the capitalism circle of life.
The Willows Inn, a super fancy, fine-dining, farm-to-table, restaurant on a remote island near Bellingham, WA, that the New York Times in 2011 labeled "one of 10 Restaurants Worth a Plane Ride,” had a precipitous fall from grace in 2022. Now, the property is selling, and the proceeds will benefit Lighthouse Mission Ministries, a shelter for the unhoused.
In its heyday, as it topped the culinary world's best restaurant lists, fraud and abuse festered behind the scenes.
Employees alleged a nightmare environment of sexual harassment, bullying, misogyny, and racism.
The Willows Inn paid $1.37 million to settle a class-action lawsuit for wage theft.
Turns out, the restaurant's "farm-to-table" claims also fell short. Some of the supposed locally sourced and foraged food actually came from random grocery stores and even Costco. At $500 a plate, that’s not what you bargained for.
To make amends, the former owners, Tim and Marcia McEvoy, donated the property to Bellingham’s Lighthouse Mission, a Christian organization that provides shelter and services to the unhoused (and only hires Christians). The property, reportedly worth about $2.4 million, has accepted an offer and is expected to change hands soon.
@Breedlov
This POS must be disbarred. So tired of lawyers policing themselves. We have seen just how obscenely criminal they are. It's really disturbing.
Trump keeps promising he would enact the largest domestic deportation operation in American history, exceeding 'Operation Wetback' in the 50s, which deported hundreds of thousands of Mexicans.
"It felt almost as if someone senior in the US wanted to stop the case ever coming to trial but didn’t want the embarrassment of withdrawing the extradition request"
What's the chance* that GOP MAGAts will come around to banning vasectomies now that the young'uns are choosing to sterilize themselves rather than face the Big Government overreach of abortion bans?
I mean, how can you enslave child-bearing folks under the boot of capitalism if they refuse to create a steady labor supply?
*The chance is very likely slim to none since the patriarchy by definition values men's rights. But still, capitalism also requires an underclass, and forced birth plunges many into that category without regard to gender.
@shansterable@Lazarou They won't do that because it affects the menfolk—you know, the white male patriarchs of the family structure they want. (Gay men, in their eschatology, don't bother with vasectomies.) It's all about controlling women, 100%.
(They might mandate vasectomies, though, for "undesirables"—males who are non-neurotypical, queer, or non-white.)
I think whenever I see a headline or a person making some claim about #section230 the first reaction needs to be, “Okay, section 230 of what? What do you think that refers to?”
So many people have no idea what section 230 actually says, or does, but at least this response would help weed out the most uninformed of the people spouting out about it.
@LouisIngenthron this question of regulation of internet activity is an administrative question!
And if a person doesn’t know how the administration works, then they’re in no position to judge or modify the administration.
That’s the point: asking what it’s a section of is a great way of putting a point on whether the person has the most basic familiarity with the thing they wish to attack and change.
#USPolitics June 2, 1924: Congress enacts the Indian Citizenship Act. Only 100 years ago. Just a reminder that the constitutional definition of 'people' to include all humans is a very recent event, less than 160 years. It's not that long ago. My grandmother (RIP) was born in 1898. The current conservative backsliding on who gets to be 'people' under the constitution needs to be stopped. Don't vote conservative. Reform the Supreme Court. #democracy https://www.history.com/news/native-american-voting-rights-citizenship
This is at least partially because of the FBI’s campaign of sabotage against 20th-century Black leaders, which was so ruthlessly effective that it remains near-impossible to separate the truth from deliberate distortions, or sort these threads into any kind of moral coherence.
“What is the point of having power," she says, "if you will not use it to stop crimes against humanity?”
Jewish Presidential appointee Lily Greenberg Call resigned in protest at its refusal to stop arming Israel. It's an astonishing letter.
Update: a few minutes after tweeting this, her X account was suspended 🤨