Hey so remember how grocery prices suddenly jackknifed during lockdown and never went back down?
Well turns out the companies would have done that shit either way and had been steadily price-fixing for the last decade!
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson just announced more than $40 million in court-ordained Fuck You money from massive swaths of food production companies are to be paid out to households earning at or below 175% of the federal poverty level ($25.5k for 1 person, $34.5k for 2 people households) before Dec 31st of this year. Happy Holidays.
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"The bottom line here is that my legal team took on two large corporate price-fixing conspiracies that increased the cost for groceries for Washington families. We've prevailed, and as a result, we are sending checks to over 400,000 Washington households."
Cannot stress enough the extent of the conspiracies he's talking about here. 15 out of the total 19 chicken producers got nailed in this lawsuit. Not the total number of conspirators, mind, just the ones who left enough evidence for the AG to kick their ass in so expedient a manner. Make no mistake, all 19 were in on it. The court case against the rest of them has been delayed until October of next year, though. None of them are making it out unscathed.
Tuna didn't escape antitrust horseshit either, because the CEOs of Starkist, Chicken of the Sea, and Bumblebee Tuna had a fucking group chat where they complained that the price of tuna was "too low" and they agreed to artificially inflate the price.
“What’s so maddening about the conduct of these companies is the reason that they engaged in this price-fixing conspiracy was greed. They wanted to make money."
So anyway the AG who nailed their asses to the wall and continues to do so is running for governor. If you live in Washington, could be worth your vote when primary season rolls around.
Brazil is going through one of the worst climatic crisis ever seen.
i live in the southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul. we have been suffering from extreme, nonstop rainstorms for a week now. the rivers are flooding, reaching 4-6 meters above their natural level. people are being rescued by helicopters, neighborhoods are being evacuated. entire cities are slowly but surely becoming submerged in water. 60 people missing and counting. 32 deaths and counting.
and this is not new. last november also had a flood like this one. 50 dead, many material losses. it happened again this january, with thousands being left without power or water for days.
three catastrophical disasters within less than a year. three disasters only a few months apart.
this is not natural.
unsustainable agricultural practices and politics led to this. a complete disregard for nature led to this. greed led to this. always greed.
when it comes to the climate crisis, i cannot stress this enough: we need to act now if we still want to live. disasters like this are going to happen more often and they're going to be much, much worse. this flood is being considered the worst climatic catastrophe in the history of my state. i don't know how long it will take for another bigger one to happen and take its place. i just know it will be sooner than it should.
links to donate (if you can't donate, sharing already helps a lot):
link for non-brazilians (paybox)
link for brazilians
pix assufrgs
will update more links later. in the meantime, pray for us.
btw if you haven't commented on it yet, the fda is taking comments on their proposed rule banning shock devices for autistic people at the judge rotenburg center. they are taking comments until may 28th.
asan wrote a good plain language guide on how to submit a comment if you are not sure what to do!
even just a few sentences saying this is a good rule will be enormously helpful. thank you!
Do you know anything i can donate to for palestine that's not the gofundmes because the idea of having to choose who needs my money more is just. scary to me they all need it 3: maybe there's a thing that splits/distributes money evenly???? idk but help would be appreciated
Gazafunds actually deals with this anxiety and makes a decision for you if you want. Their home page has a spotlighted fundraiser and the code consider things like how close the gfm is to finishing, when the most recent donation is, etc. So it's randomized to help as many people as possible.
There's also @helpgazachildren which if you donate, you can help multiple people at once since it's a whole mutual aid fund, or at least close to it. Hussam distributes money to people who need it when he's asked.
Ive said this before but swear the biggest skill to learn as an adult is how to resist high-pressure sales tactics. You do NOT have to answer questions with anything other than "Sorry I'm not interested." No matter how nice they are or no matter how many follow up questions they ask or even how agitated they get when you stand your ground. Just keep saying I'm not interested. Don't answer their questions. Don't give them an opening to try to push back on your reasons. Be a fucking brick wall of I'm not interested.