COULD SOMEONE PLEASE ASK ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ HER THOUGHTS ON THIS? “This week, I am sitting down to write a letter to the Chief Diversity Officer at my university, UNC-Wilmington…to ask him to sponsor a first-ever ‘Che Pride Week,’ which would be dedicated to the life and legacy of communist revolutionary Che Guevara.”
Read the whole thing.
THE HOLLOWING-OUT OF THE CALIFORNIA DREAM: For minorities in the Golden State, opportunity and upward mobility are hard to come by, Joel Kotkin writes at City Journal:
Minorities and immigrants have brought much entrepreneurial energy and a powerful work ethic to California. Yet, to a remarkable extent, their efforts have reaped only meager returns during California’s recent boom. California, suggests gubernatorial candidate and environmental activist Michael Shellenberger, is not “the most progressive state” but “the most racist” one. Chapman University reports that 28 percent of California’s blacks are impoverished, compared with 22 percent nationally. Fully one-third of California Latinos—now the state’s largest ethnic group—live in poverty, compared with 21 percent outside the state. Half of Latino households earn under $50,000 annually, which, in a high-cost state, means that they barely make enough to make ends meet. Over two-thirds of non-citizen Latinos, the group most loudly defended by the state’s progressive leadership, live at or below the poverty line, according to a recent United Way study.
This stagnation reflects the reality of the most recent California “miracle.” Historically, economic growth extended throughout the state, and produced many high-paying blue-collar jobs. In contrast, the post-2010 boom has been inordinately dependent on the high valuations of a handful of tech firms and coastal real estate speculation. Relatively few blacks or Latinos participate at the upper reaches of the tech economy—and a recent study suggests that their percentages in that sector are declining—and generally lack the family resources to compete in the real estate market. Instead, many are stuck with rents they can’t afford.
Even as incomes soared in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco after 2010, wages for African-Americans and Latinos in the Bay Area declined. The shift of employment from industrial to software industries, as well as the extraordinary presence—as much as 40 percent—of noncitizens in the tech industry, has meant fewer opportunities for assemblers and other blue-collar workers. Many nonwhite Americans labor in the service sector as security guards or janitors, making about $25,000 annually, working for contractors who offer no job security and only limited benefits. In high-priced Silicon Valley, these are essentially poverty wages. Some workers live in their cars, converted garages, or even on the streets, largely ignored by California’s famously enlightened oligarchs.
CityLab has described the Bay Area as “a region of segregated innovation.” The Giving Code, which reports on charitable trends among the ultra-rich, found that between 2006 and 2013, 93 percent of all private foundation-giving in Silicon Valley went to causes outside of Silicon Valley. Better to be a whale, or a distressed child in Africa or Central America, than a worker living in his car outside Google headquarters.
Why are Democrat monopoly states such cesspits of racism and homelessness?
THE LEFT IS NOT ENJOYING LIVING UNDER THE RULES THEY CREATED: James Gunn, Rian Johnson, and the Perils of a Weaponized Twitter — the lesson is: never tweet.
Less than a week after encouraging my friend to purge his tweets, he took my advice. Less than a week after that, James Gunn, director of both of Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy films—which have, to date, earned Disney over $700 million—was fired over his own 10-year-old tweets, thanks to a campaign led online by Twitter pundit and far-right activist Mike Cernovich and sites like the Daily Caller. We know the story by now. Disney—which chose not to formally boot John Lasseter, who was accused of sexual misconduct but will nonetheless stay with the Disney/Pixar through the end of 2018—said that Gunn’s tweets were “indefensible and inconsistent with [the] studio’s values.” Gunn and Lasseter’s punishments are eerily similar, in that both result in terminated relationships to the studio—despite one man being formally accused and another being subject to Trial by Screenshot. What, exactly, are those studio values?
Hopefully they’re not reflected in the crude pedophilic-themed “jokes” that Gunn tweeted during his salad days.
(Classical reference in headline.)
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MCDONALD’S SALAD PARASITE OUTBREAK.
But here’s all you really need to know:
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Trust Me, You Had a Better Week Than Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook Did.
And a better Friday than Jack Dorsey of Twitter: First Facebook, now Twitter as stock crashes 20%.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Judge allows release of printed 3D gun blueprints. “District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin denied the emergency motion by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords, a group founded by former Rep Gabby Giffords. The judge said they failed to prove that they were actually a legitimate party to the case.”
Josh Blackman and Matt Goldstein argued and it was Josh Blackman’s first argument anywhere.. Good job!
More here.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Knife Owner Protection Act introduced in U.S. Senate; includes FSA repeal.
I LIKE IT WHEN PROBLEMS GET SOLVED: After Just an Hour With a Lactation Consultant, I Became a Milk Machine — but It Wasn’t Easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is, ma’am.
OH, GOODY: New Ebola virus found in Sierra Leone.
NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Trump’s Immigration Policy Is ‘On The Spectrum’ Of Ethnic Cleansing.
Audio here.
#METOO: RONAN FARROW’S PIECE ON LES MOONVES — AND CBS’S ALLEGED COMPLICITY — IS HERE:
Six women are accusing Moonves of misconduct, not all under their own names — but the most harrowing account comes from someone who is, actress Illeana Douglas. If what she says is true, Moonves would deserve to be fired for this incident alone. And there’s reason to believe what she says is true: She’s told the story to multiple friends and colleagues in the 21 years since it allegedly happened, among them Martin Scorsese. What do you do when the most powerful man in television decides he wants to dry-hump you?
* * * * * * * *
CBS News is named by Farrow as being an especially bad actor (a “frat house”), with “60 Minutes” executive producer Jeff Fager singled out as a noxious enabler. It wasn’t just that Fager himself harassed people, Farrow’s sources claim, it was that he protected other men down the chain of command who did so as well. (“Fager seemed to encourage that climate. It wasn’t even that he turned a blind eye toward it.”)
Read the whole thing. Why are Democrat-dominated industries such cesspits of sexual abuse and exploitation?
IN THE MAIL: OUTLAW MAKES IT HOME: The Awakening Of A Spiritual Revolutionary.
Plus, Today’s Gold Box and Lightning Deals.
WHEN ANTI-MALE STEREOTYPING COMBINES WITH DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION: This autistic student asked for a ‘fist bump’ and a selfie. He got two Title IX investigations.
A “fist bump” and a selfie may have ended Marcus Knight’s educational career right as it started.
The student, who has autism, cerebral palsy and a shunt to relieve fluid pressure on his brain, was not allowed to defend himself against allegations in two Title IX investigations this past fall, his mother told The College Fix.
Aurora Knight has raised more than half of the money to cover legal fees through a GoFundMe campaign as she challenges the sexual-misconduct findings on her son’s record.
Though Saddleback College lifted Marcus’s suspension a day before a hearing last month, it has thus far refused to remove the findings from his record, Aurora wrote in an update to the campaign Wednesday.
Her son (below) has limited expressive language capabilities and cannot negotiate social situations as easily as others, she told The College Fix.
Though he receives academic accommodations for his disabilities, he was not offered accommodations in the Title IX process, Aurora wrote in an email.
I think the Department Of Education should investigate.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Course disputes idea that heterosexual sex is ‘natural.’
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