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Automatic voter registration leads to significant increase in voter turnout among youth and communities of color.

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Since implementation of automatic voter registration, Oregon has seen tremendous growth in youth voter turnout – 20 percentage points higher in 2016 than 2012. Simultaneously, the state has also seen dramatic increases in registration rates in communities of color – rising by 26 percentage points between December 2015 to January 2017. Oregon led the nation in registration and turnout growth for both demographic groups in 2016 (among the over 40 states with data publicly available as of April 2017).

Automatic voter registration leads to significant increase in voter turnout among youth and communities of color.

Uber’s latest “PR problem”

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https://www.buzzfeed.com/priya/uber-ceo-fights-driver

Uber CEO Says He’s Seeking “Leadership Help” After Video Shows Him Yelling At Driver – BuzzFeed News

Delicious! 

I’ll be surprised if this will cause much damage to Uber other than a few people deleting the app temporarily. Kalanick will come out of this unscathed as well – the feigned contrition lives up to the standards of Hollywood realism. 

What he said, the bit about “people don’t take responsibility,” is an opinion widely shared by the privileged. The “job creators” are never at fault for doing whatever in pursuit of profits, and screwing the common folk over is just par for the course. After all, the chumps chose to work under the dictated rules constructed only to protect the makers of the rules. Now, if they find themselves shafted then they should take responsibility for their limited choices and quit whining.

This incident, like the others before it, is reported and handled as a mere PR problem, and just about everyone will go along with that assessment because to look deeper would lead to questioning the system, which only a heretic who doesn’t believe in cheap convenience would do. 

Kalanick has a good PR adviser, to whom he listens. Next, he might announce that he has brought on board another high-profile person – Obama seems available – to be his “leadership helper.” Now we can all feel assured that this time the abuser really means it when he says he will change, and that he will make amends. 

Uber’s latest “PR problem”

OMG, OMG, OMG! Amazon disrupts again!

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Amazon opens its first Bay State bookstore in Dedham – The Boston Globe

In this disruption Amazon continues to demonstrate its astute grasp of history, imperialist colonial history: Go into unconquered territories; undermine indigenous economies; get the locals dependent/hooked on your products by decimating the little, backward businesses; then occupy their lands by planting first your flag, then imposing edifices with your flag. 

Well, it’s not really that impressive. This historically derivative paradigm was already derived by Walmart, but hey, the Amazon store is shinier so there’s that. I wonder if I can buy items at the store and have them delivered by drone while I am still there shopping for more. 

OMG, OMG, OMG! Amazon disrupts again!

In Their Own Words: CIA Cables Document Agency’s Torture of Abu Zubaydah – ProPublica

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Through recently released cables obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and Zubayadah’s own account to his lawyers, which has also been recently declassified, a chilling picture has emerged of just what transpired on those days and who oversaw it. According to John Kirakou, a former CIA counterterrorism official, the “chief of base” personally managing the operation was Gina Haspel. President Donald Trump recently named Haspel to the number two spot at the CIA.

In Their Own Words: CIA Cables Document Agency’s Torture of Abu Zubaydah – ProPublica

Lack of evidence in latest ballyhooed intel report

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Delicious bonus:

In June 2016, at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, American journalist Fareed Zakaria, moderating a panel, asked Putin, “The American Republican presumptive nominee, Donald Trump—you called him ‘brilliant,’ ‘outstanding,’ ‘talented.’ These comments were reported around the world. I was wondering what in him led you to that judgment, and do you still hold that judgment?” Of the epithets listed by Zakaria, Putin had used only the word “talented,” and he had not specified what sort of talent he had seen in Trump. Putin reprimanded Zakaria for exaggerating. “Look at what I said,” he said. “I made an off-hand remark about Trump being a colorful person. Are you saying he is not colorful? He is colorful. I did not characterize him in any other way. But what I did note, and what I certainly welcome, and I see nothing wrong with this—Mr. Trump has stated that he is ready for the renewal of a full-fledged relationship between Russia and the United States. What is wrong with that? We all welcome it. Don’t you?” Zakaria looked mortified: he had been caught asking an ill-informed question.

Lack of evidence in latest ballyhooed intel report

There is a way to help Syrians – our intervention must begin at home | Middle East Eye

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… apathy is not the natural state of any society, nor is any individual ever completely impartial to any passing event. Apathy is a product of certain political mentalities, designed to dramatise some issues over others.

For this reason, we must engage in activities that help us re-examine the inhibiting social order we find ourselves wrapped within.

There is a way to help Syrians – our intervention must begin at home | Middle East Eye

‘We Are Nothing But Machines to Them’ | Immigration & Labor | The Investigative Fund

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In one of the sweatshops that make clothes for brands like Gap and Walmart…

On the morning of Oct. 13, Taslima Aktar arrived at the gates of a Bangladeshi factory called Windy Apparels, in the industrial suburb of Ashulia, where she had been employed as a sewing operator for a year. For two weeks, the 23-year-old had complained of a fever and a hacking cough; her supervisor had refused her repeated requests for time off. Ten years in the garment industry had taught Taslima the costs of missing a day’s work without permission — especially before a big order had to be shipped out. As a young woman from the countryside, this job, at a large garment factory, was her only ticket out of rural poverty. Getting fired was simply not an option.

When she walked onto the factory floor that day, she already felt faint, but when she approached her line manager about going home early, he refused her again. Shortly afterward, she passed out and was rushed to the factory clinic, only to be sent back to her sewing machine. As the floor emptied out for lunch, she collapsed again. This time, she couldn’t be revived. Taslima was taken to the nearest hospital, where she was pronounced dead 10 minutes after being admitted. Her death certificate notes that she died of cardiac failure following “severe respiratory distress.”

Later that evening, her co-workers found her body stowed near the factory gates. They were told management was waiting for her husband to finish work at a nearby factory and pick up her corpse, one explained to me. “This is how little they value our lives,” said a colleague, who, along with a local labor advocate, Taslima’s mother, and other co-workers, reconstructed the events of the day. “We know the same thing can happen any day, to any of us.”

‘We Are Nothing But Machines to Them’ | Immigration & Labor | The Investigative Fund