Supreme Court Decision (5-4): Wal-Mart Wins Major Civil Lawsuit!

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a massive sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart on behalf of female employees in a decision that makes it harder to mount large-scale bias claims against the nation's biggest companies.

The justices all agreed that the lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. cannot proceed as a class action in its current form, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. But they split 5-4 along ideological lines over whether the plaintiffs should in essence get another chance to make their case.
The lawsuit could have involved up to 1.6 million women, with Wal-Mart facing potentially billions of dollars in damages.

Now, the handful of women who brought the case may pursue their claims on their own, with much less money at stake and less pressure on Wal-Mart to settle. Two of the named plaintiffs, Christine Kwapnoski and Betty Dukes, attended the argument. Kwapnoski is an assistant manager at a Sam's Club in Concord, Calif. Dukes is a greeter at the Wal-Mart in Pittsburg, Calif.

The ruling could make it much harder to mount similar class-action discrimination lawsuits against large employers.

The majority agreed with Wal-Mart's argument that being forced to defend the treatment of female employees regardless of the jobs they hold or where they work is unfair.

Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion for the court's conservative majority said there needs to be common elements tying together "literally millions of employment decisions at once."

But Scalia said that in the lawsuit against the nation's largest private employer, "That is entirely absent here."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the court's four liberal justices, said there was more than enough uniting the claims. "Wal-Mart's delegation of discretion over pay and promotions is a policy uniform throughout all stores," Ginsburg said.

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Business interests lined up with Wal-Mart while civil rights, women's and consumer groups have sided with the women plaintiffs.

Both sides have painted the case as extremely consequential. The business community has said that a ruling for the women would lead to a flood of class-action lawsuits based on vague evidence. Supporters of the women feared that a decision in favor of Wal-Mart could remove a valuable weapon for fighting all sorts of discrimination.

"The court has told employers that they can rest easy, knowing that the bigger and more powerful they are, the less likely their employees will be able to join together to secure their rights." said Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center. "The women of Wal-Mart, together with women everywhere, will now face a far steeper road to challenge and correct pay and other forms of discrimination in the workplace."

The lawsuit, citing what are now dated figures from 2001, said that women are grossly underrepresented among managers, holding just 14 percent of store manager positions compared with more than 80 percent of lower-ranking supervisory jobs that are paid by the hour. Wal-Mart responded that women in its retail stores made up two-thirds of all employees and two-thirds of all managers in 2001.

The company also has said its policies prohibit discrimination and that it has taken steps since the suit was filed to address problems, including posting job openings electronically.

SP-California to Host Bobby Seale

Socialist WebZine: SP-California to Host Bobby Seale

The Socialist Party of California announced today that it will host an evening with founder, chairman, and national organizer of the Black Panther Party, Bobby Seale, on Saturday, June 25th at 6pm, at the Los Angeles Workers Center, 1251 South Saint Andrews Place in Los Angeles, California. This special event is open to the public. Seating will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis. There is no cover charge. Donations are welcome.

Mr. Seale’s program for the evening will focus on “community controls of economic frameworks that retail and produce services and goods and political institutions that affect our lives.” His speech will be followed by a Q&A session and a brief meet-and-greet. Mr. Seale will also autograph copies of Black Panther and Bobby Seale books and DVDs, which will be available for sale at the event.

This event came to fruition after a recent Socialist Party meeting, where Local leaders from Los Angeles County, Orange County and Riverside County discussed hosting a revolutionary leader to address the needs of the community, motivate the working class to take power back into their hands, and provide continued inspiration to those who are currently working on behalf of the people. Bobby Seale, one of the nation’s most dynamic defenders of civil rights and champions of social power, was an obvious choice.

Satoshi Kanazawa Causes Firestorm After Claiming Black Women Are Less Attractive

Psychology Today blogger Satoshi Kanazawa sparked a firestorm with his latest posting entitled, "A Look at the Hard Truths About Human Nature."

In it, the evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics argues that black women are less physically attractive than other women. The article was quickly removed from the site, but not before screenshots made their way onto BuzzFeed. Some excerpts:

What accounts for the markedly lower average level of physical attractiveness among black women? Black women are on average much heavier than nonblack women. The mean body-mass index (BMI) at Wave III is 28.5 among black women and 26.1 among nonblack women. (Black and nonblack men do not differ in BMI: 27.0 vs. 26.9) However, this is not the reason black women are less physically attractive than nonblack women. Black women have lower average level of physical attractiveness net of BMI. Nor can the race difference in intelligence (and the positive association between intelligence and physical attractiveness) account for the race difference in physical attractiveness among women. Black women are still less physically attractive than nonblack women net of BMI and intelligence. Net of intelligence, black men are significantly more physically attractive than nonblack men. [...]

The only thing I can think of that might potentially explain the lower average level of physical attractiveness among black women is testosterone. Africans on average have higher levels of testosterone than other races, and testosterone, being an androgen (male hormone), affects the physical attractiveness of men and women differently. Men with higher levels of testosterone have more masculine features and are therefore more physically attractive. In contrast, women with higher levels of testosterone also have more masculine features and are therefore less physically attractive. The race difference in the level of testosterone can therefore potentially explain why black women are less physically attractive than women of other races, while (net of intelligence) black men are more physically attractive than men of other races.

Kanazawa, whose prior, controversial works can be viewed in part here, was met with widespread backlash. Jenée Desmond-Harris at The Root wrote, "The blog's presentation of the allegedly scientific findings had a decidedly informal tone, especially given the highly contentious conclusions. It struck us as so outrageous that we almost thought it was a hoax of some sort, and we double-checked the URL to make sure it didn't include 'The Onion.'"

Latoya Peterson at Racialicious opined: "Justifying racism using 'science' isn't new, by any means. Every few years, it appears that someone needs to provide a rationale for bigotry, so they publish some sort of madness and hope most of the readers suffer from scientific illiteracy. The problem is that even with a thorough debunking, people latch on to articles like this to confirm their own biases."

Kaja Perina, Psychology Today's editor-in-chief, didn't explain why Kanazawa's piece was removed, however she told NPR, "Our bloggers are credential[ed] social scientists and for this reason they are invited to post to the site on topics of their choosing. We in turn reserve the right to remove posts for any number of reasons. Because the post was not commissioned or solicited by PT (in contrast to a magazine article), there was no editorial intent to address questions of race and physical attractiveness."

 

Kanazawa hasn't made any public statement, although, as NPR notes, his personal website does disclaim,

"Prepare to be offended."

Story continues from The Guardian.

On Monday, Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, published an article on his Psychology Today blog that sent shockwaves across Twitter and the blogosphere and reminded many of us of just how dangerous this kind of "science" can be.

In his incendiary piece, which has since been taken down, Kanazawa discussed the scientific basis for "why black women are less attractive than any other women". Note that Kanazawa did not claim to have discovered why black women are perceived to be less attractive, or why he believed that black women are less attractive.

After bombarding the reader with colourful bar graphs and a set of numbers, he asserts that he has found the answer as to why black women are "objectively" less attractive than women of any other race, and it has something to do with testosterone and genetic mutations.

Following the backlash that ensued, the headline, "Why are black women less physically attractive than other women?", was first edited, before the article was taken down in its entirety. This is interesting, because it implies that the editors didn't initially accept that there was anything wrong with the article itself – only a headline that needed tweaking. However, even the poorest-performing psychology undergrad at a university at the bottom of any league table will tell you that the article oozes bad science.

From the article, the entire study appears to be based on the perspectives and opinions of adult respondents, Kanazawa reports his findings as "objective facts": that "black women are significantly less attractive than women of other races". He fails to provide information on the sample size for his research, or the social or economic factors (including race) that would have impacted on his findings so that readers can deduce for themselves as to what extent these findings can be generalised across time and space. As some tweeters have noted, it's a classic trick in which pseudoscientists blind you with multicoloured graphs and three decimal place figures to convince lay readers that their research was thorough and is conclusive. I mean, who can argue with three decimal places?

Pseudoscience and racism have a long history together. Many people who read Kanazawa's article were instantly reminded of Nazi claims to Aryan superiority. In his tome The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, Houston Stewart Chamberlain claimed to have discovered biological evidence for Aryan superiority based on his deeply flawed concepts of human speciation. This text and others of its ilk were the basis for the attempted extermination of Jewish people under the Nazi regime but were unfortunately not without precedent. Before Chamberlain there was the likes of Georges Cuvier and his contemporaries, whose treatment of Saartjie Baartman – also known as the Hottentot Venus – early in the 19th century was premised on the apparent biological inferiority of people of African descent, once again "proven" by bad science. Could colonialism or slavery ever have been justified without these and other pseudoscientific claims?



In 2011, we have peer review and editors. So it is of great concern that Psychology Today let Kanazawa's awfully premised, poorly presented and racist article even slip through the cracks. Of course, many social scientists were quick to spot the fallacies in his argument, but these standards don't exist to protect those who work in the ivory tower. They exist to protect the general public that may have nothing more than a passing interest in learning more about the world in which they live.

Kanazawa's article insulted and denigrated women of African descent all over the world, insinuating that some inevitable genetic development forces them to the lowest rung of his imaginary rigid scale of "attractiveness". As if a world in which the images of the most beautiful have oscillated between Michelangelo's Creation of Eve and Iman's statuesque frame could ever have a rigid, scientific standard for "attractiveness".

For his folly, Kanazawa has been duly chastised. But what about Psychology Today? Will they escape censure for letting this offensive tripe go out in the first place? Recalling that this is the same Kanazawa who asserted that he had also "discovered what's wrong with Muslims" in the same rag that published this "attractiveness" study, isn't it about time that someone got hauled over the coals for letting this nonsense go out? Psychology Today has said the article was not specifically commissioned and hasallowed some of its other writers to come out and criticise Kanazawa but has stopped short of issuing an apology for its carelessness.

“Here’s a little thought experiment. Imagine that, on September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers came down, the President of the United States was not George W. Bush, but Ann Coulter. What would have happened then? On September 12, President Coulter would have ordered the US military forces to drop 35 nuclear bombs throughout the Middle East, killing all of our actual and potential enemy combatants, and their wives and children. On September 13, the war would have been over and won, without a single American life lost.

Yes, we need a woman in the White House, but not the one who’s running.”

Suprising that such filth would come out of a person with probable JAPANESE ancestry -considering what Americans did to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I digress… 

 

And will the LSE, still under the spotlight for the Gaddafi fiasco, send a clear signal that it will not tolerate its brand being associated with the kind of eugenic discussion that Kanazawa seems intent on engendering? After all, he has been here before. In November 2006, Kanazawa published a paper in the British Journal of Health Psychology alleging that African states were poor and suffered chronic ill-health because their populations were less intelligent than people in richer countries.
Or are we back to allowing science to be used to justify prejudice?

Israeli forces violently arrest demonstrators (including American, Dutch, German and Canadian nationals) in al-Walaja

Israeli forces violently arrest demonstrators (including American, Dutch, German and Canadian nationals) in al-Walaja | Occupied Palestine | فلسطين

At 11 AM on al-Nakba remembrance day, 500 residents from the West Bank village of al-Wallajeh and international supporters marched towards the Israeli Apartheid Wall. The Wall was built to separate the villagers from their original land from which they were expelled in 1948. The demonstration was violently attacked by the Israeli military with rubber coated steal bullets, tear gas and protesters were beaten
with batons and rifles. One youth was hospitalized after being injured by a rubber coated steal bullet .

Eight Palestinians including twins aged 11 and 6 internationals (American, Dutch, German and Canadian nationals) were arrested. The army proceeded to raid the village and invade each house, searching for people who had participated in the demonstrations. The raids as well as confrontations between the army and the village youth are ongoing.

The Arrested Palestinans are:
Mazen Qumsiyah
Basel Al Araj
Ahmed Al Araj
Mohammad Al Araj
Allah And Mohammed Abu Tin 11 year old twins
Tarek Abu Tin
Adel Abu Tin

Detroit's Controversial Library Renovation

Detroit Library Rehab Included Costly Trash Cans: MyFoxDETROIT.com

Controversy Over White House Invite Has Hip Hop Artist Common Feuding With Fox News Host Sean Hannity!

Rapper Common has gotten an invite to the White House. Sean Hannity and conservatives are whining about it.

A "Vile" rapper by the name of Common is attending the White House at the discretion of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. You know the two radicals who are destroying our nation with their "socialist" policies, their lack of judgment, their lavish parties while everyone else is living paycheck to paycheck!

Common who's radical ties to Trinity United Church, you know the church with racist Jeremiah Wright saying "God Damn America" and "America's Chicken's Coming Home To Roost!"

The conservatives will flutter down the comments page defending their actions to go after First Lady Michelle Obama, President Barack Obama and rapper Common.

Sean Hannity in particular, is not backing down from the controversy. The talker devoted a segment of his radio show and television program to complain about the decision to allow Common to perform at the White House.

He once again goes on and on about the same old narratives that helped Barack Obama win the election.

Conservatives are trying their best to avoid mentioning the recovering economy, the decline in fuel and oil prices, the steady growth in jobs and the killing of Osama bin Laden. They have a pretty weak field of candidates for the Republican nomination. And what's left....

Classic race-baiting.

Osama bin Laden Dead.

To see America's most wanted terrorist killed in a neighborhood outside of Islamabad, Pakistan, is a thrill to many who lost families on September 11, 2001.

President Barack Obama announced that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed. Republicans who were pushing this bigoted campaign to paint the president as "soft on terrorism" are in spin control.

They Did It!

They Did It!



Oklahoma GOPer: It's A Fact That 'Blacks' Don't Work As Hard

Jillian Rayfield

Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R) says that she's seen "a lot of people of color who didn't study hard because they said the government would take care of them."

The remarks came during a debate on an amendment to the state's constitution that would eliminate Affirmative Action in the state government. It was proposed by State Rep. Leslie Osborn (R), who said: "This proposed constitutional amendment makes clear that all men are created equal and should be treated as such by their government. If voters approve this constitutional amendment, state government will not be allowed to discriminate against Oklahoma citizens based on race or gender - period."

Kern voted for the amendment, arguing that minorities earn less because they don't work as hard. "We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that's tragic," Kern said, "but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don't want to study as hard in school?

"I've taught school," she added, "and I saw a lot of people of color who didn't study hard because they said the government would take care of them."

Kern also noted, as the Tulsa World reports, that women don't earn as much money as men because "they tend to spend more time at home with their families."

The proposed amendment passed by a vote of 59-14 Wednesday, after having passed the state Senate. It will get on the ballot in November of 2012.

Kern has a long history of bringing controversy to the Oklahoma House. She has introduced a bill to ban Sharia law in the state, and another that would allow teachers to question evolution. Kern also claimed that "gays are infiltrating city councils" and gay people are "the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat."

Kern did not immediately return TPM's request for comment.

Missouri GOP Leader Jokes About Flooding Poor Black Town!

Huffington Post article: Republican leader jokes about flooding poor Black majority town. From the hometown of conservative radio king Rush Limbaugh. Cape Girardeau, Missouri State Representative and Speaker of The Missouri House makes a insensitive joke about nearby town Cairo, Illinois being overwhelmed by a potential flooding crisis.


Due to high rains, waters at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers are running dangerously high, and the mayor of Cairo, Illinois, located at the confluence, has asked residents to evacuate the town.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering a plan to destroy a levee, which would lower the floodwaters by a few feet and help protect Cairo. But the state of Missouri has vigorously objected to the plan, because it would badly damage around 130,000 acres of farmland, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Missouri's Republican House Speaker Steve Tilley was asked by reporters about the dilemma. "Would you rather have Missouri farmland flooded or Cairo underwater?" Tilley is asked.

Without hesitation, he replies, "Cairo. I’ve been there. Trust me. Cairo.”

As another reporter prepares to ask another question, Tilley goes on. “Have you been to Cairo? OK, then you know what I’m saying then.”

Cairo, Illinois (pronounced KAY-roh) was at the turn of the 20th century a bustling trade center. The 2,800-person town is now largely abandoned, two-thirds African-American, and deeply impoverished: nearly 50 percent of children under the age of 18 in Cairo live below the poverty level.

Many criticized the Speaker for what they described as insensitivity in the remarks. The Capitol Fax, which posted the video of Tilley's remarks, also has a press release from Illinois State Senator Gary Forby:

During a time when people are being asked to evacuate their homes and leave behind their belongings, it absolutely blows my mind that that type of dialogue is being thrown around by the Missouri Speaker. Not only is it in poor taste, but it absolutely disgusting that Speaker Tilley would joke about putting the lives of Cairo residents at risk by choosing farmland over a community.

The St. Louis Beacon notes that the Speaker has since issued an apology:

"I was asked a question about blowing up a dam in Missouri and the negative consequences that happened to Missouri," Tilley said. "As the speaker of the House, (I believe) my first responsibility is to Missourians. And in my effort to defend them, I went on to say some pretty insensitive and inappropriate remarks about Cairo."

Watch the remarks by Speaker Tilley:



Illinois State Senator Gary Forby (D) is speaking out after a YouTube video was released of Missouri Speaker of the House Steven Tilley (R) saying he would rather see Cairo underwater than Mississippi County, Missouri.

In the video taken by Freelance Reporter Jason Rosenbaum, Tilley, from Perryville, was asked about the plan to intentionally break a levee in Mississippi County.

"I've heard of that," Tilley said Wednesday.  "I haven't had an opportunity to visit with the local people and figure out what their, clearly I mean when you start blowing up a levee and you're going to flood thousands of acres of farmland, that's a pretty significant decision and you know, I'd like to take a look at what the alternatives are before I say whether I agree with it or disagree with it."

"Would you rather have Missouri farmland flooded or Cairo underwater?" someone asked Tilley off camera.
"Cairo," Tilley replied. "I've been there, trust me, Cairo."

"Have you been to Cairo?" Tilley asked.  "Ok, you know what I'm saying then."

"This is no laughing matter," Senator Forby (D-Benton) said in a released statement. "During a time when people are being asked to evacuate their homes and leave behind their belongings, it absolutely blows my mind that this type of talk is being thrown around by the Missouri Speaker. He should be ashamed of himself."
Tilley apologized for Thursday in another YouTube interview posted by Freelance Reporter Jason Rosenbaum.

"I was asked a question about blowing up a dam in Missouri and the negative consequences that happened to Missouri," Tilley said.  "As the Speaker of the House my first responsibility is Missourians and in my effort to defend them I went on to say I think some pretty insensitive and inappropriate remarks about Cairo.  I want to apologize for them and I think politicians that say something stupid or say something incorrect should admit that they say something dumb.  And so first, if anyone that I offended in Cairo I apologize.  I certainly wish no ill will to Cairo.  I will continue to fight for the citizens of southeast Missouri and the farmers and the residents there, but it shouldn't have led to any kind of inappropriate comments about Cairo.  For that I regret it."

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 1982 death sentence is again declared unconstitutional | Happily Natural Day

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 1982 death sentence is again declared unconstitutional | Happily Natural Day

Mumia Abu-Jamal, one of the world’s best known political prisoners, is feared by the powers that be for his revolutionary journalism – he was minister of information for the Philadelphia Black Panther Party at the age of 15 and in more recent years his commentaries have been broadcast by NPR (National Public Radio) and the Pacifica radio network and published widely, including by the Bay View – and for his millions of supporters around the world.

April 26 – The United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit has unanimously declared that Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence is unconstitutional. In today’s decision, the Court of Appeals reaffirmed its 2008 finding that Mr. Abu-Jamal’s sentencing jury was misled about the process for considering evidence supporting a life sentence.

The court found that, in violation of the United States Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in Mills v. Maryland, the jury was improperly led to believe that that it could only consider unanimously agreed upon evidence favoring a life verdict. This mistake rendered Mr. Abu-Jamal’s death sentence fundamentally unfair. The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), and Professor Judy Ritter of Widener Law School represent Mr. Abu-Jamal in this appeal of his 1982 conviction and death sentence for the murder of a police officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.