LaXicanista

So, this just happened backstage.

Hi Guys!

Today, I’m headed down to the White House to participate in the live Q&A the President will be doing with Tumblr about the importance of making college more affordable for current students, graduates and their families and the new executive actions he announced on Monday to ease the burden of college debt for millions of Americans.

David Karp will be interviewing the the President, using questions from the Tumblr community. The event will stream live today at 4pm ET on the White House Tumblr.

Above are some of the charts from a newly released White House report which show … pretty much what I’m sure you all already know. The current system is, shall we say, imperfect. There is a lot of work to be done. Hopefully, today is illuminating and gives us reason to be optimistic. 

I’ll post any other charts I come across here, document the trip on my personal Tumblr (so as not to spam those who are uninterested with non-charty content here) and will be live-Tweeting the event and attendant mischief at /ilovecharts. I’ll see you there!

Obama will reportedly endorse Elizabeth Warren’s student loan bill on Monday

"I think I’m beyond stressed and have moved into something more disturbing."

Piper Chapman speaks this line in the season two premiere of Orange Is the New Black, and with one simple sentence reveals the essence of her character’s journey. Piper has transitioned from her season one self — a woman who considers herself above the fray of her prison surroundings — to be someone who in season two is broken, compromised and even monstrous. It’s a change that finally solidifies Piper Chapman as an antihero, and perhaps the very first of her kind.

On television and in television criticism, the term “antihero” is thrown around so routinely (and has been since Tony Soprano) that as Laura Bennett at the New Republic points out, it has practically lost all meaning. The obligatory dictionary definition classifies an antihero as, “a central character in a novel, play, etc, who lacks the traditional heroic virtues.” Even if overly simplistic, that pretty much sums up Piper — she is the series’ anchor, and in many ways she is also entirely unlikable. In television of recent years the “antihero” has come to take on many definitions, most often referring to the Don Drapers and Walter Whites of the world — the characters Brett Martin refers to in his book on the subject as “unhappy, morally compromised, complicated [and] deeply human.” The question that comes up again and again: is where are the women?

Comcast forced Netflix to pay them a hefty fee in order to be able to stream content to their customers at a decent speed.

Women make up 7 percent of the 2.4 million people in prison in the United States. But despite this relatively small percentage, the rate of incarceration for women is growing faster than any other demographic. Recent scrutiny in an ACLU report released last month, “Worse Than Second Class: Solitary Confinement of Women in the United States,” posits that women are affected by solitary confinement—what typically amount to 22 to 23 hours alone in a cell the size of a large bathroom for weeks, months or years at a time—in distinct and often uniquely harmful ways.

“Women are put in the hole for small things,” said Craig, who now works as a supervisor at a domestic violence safe house in Washington, D.C. “Sometimes there’s a fight or something, but it can be for something stupid, like stealing a tomato from the kitchen, or having two blankets instead of one.”

According to the ACLU, the number of children with a mother in prison doubled. “My son was about 2 the first time I was put in solitary,” Craig said. “As a mother it effected my relationship with him in a bad way—you’re not able to call, you can write but it will take at least a week to get there, if they get it. I didn’t want my children to see me in handcuffs and shackles. Your children forget you, that’s a hurtin’ feeling.”

The vast majority of women in prison, like Craig, are nonviolent offenders who pose a very low security risk. Poverty is the dominant reason women commit crime, whether it’s sex work, welfare fraud, or drug offenses. For many women, these are crimes of survival. In 2004, more than 90 percent of imprisoned women reported annual incomes of less then $10,000 before their imprisonment, and most hadn’t completed high school. When women do commit violent crimes, it’s typically to defend themselves against an abuser. In addition, as many as 90 percent of female prisoners are rape, domestic violence and/or survivors of other trauma; many are mentally ill and even more are the primary caretakers of young children that depend on them.

“When a prisoner is in solitary, visits are more likely to take place through video conferencing, where the mother and child are in separate buildings,” said Gail Smith from CLAIM, an organization in Chicago that provides legal aid to prisoners on family law issues. “This is a terrible thing to do to a child, to have them travel three or four hours to see their mom and not even be able to hug her.”

If your child is in foster care, the situation can be ever more dire. “Up to 20 percent of women in prison have children in foster homes,” Smith said. “These women are required to demonstrate ‘reasonable progress’ in order to prevent that child from being permanently taken away from them. This includes drug treatment, anger-management, parenting classes and survivor groups, all of which they are barred from while in solitary. Everything is at stake…they may never be able to see their children again.” 

Incarcerated women are twice as likely to be rape survivors than women in general, and abuse often continues in prison. “There’s a causal development for many women prisoners between being separated from their children—past trauma, depression and suicide,” said Terry Kupers, a California psychiatrist who focuses on the effects of prolonged isolation on prisoners. “There’s a general rule in psychology that men get angry and women get depressed; this principle is taken to its extremity in solitary.”

When a woman reports being raped by a guard or another inmate, she is immediately placed in solitary confinement. This is ostensibly for her protection, but critics say it is in fact retaliation, designed to discourage women from reporting abuse in the first place. While in solitary, women are regularly supervised by male guards. They are watched while showering, changing their clothes and even using the toilet, a loss of privacy and bodily autonomy that can often be re-traumatizing. Cut off from lawyers and family, and isolated from the general prison population, women in solitary are often at even greater risk of being sexual assaulted by staff with total impunity.

According to the ACLU, 75 percent of incarcerated women have mental illness, an even higher percentage than their male counterparts. Sensory deprivation, the absence of human interaction, and extreme idleness can lead to severe psychological debilitation, even in healthy, well-functioning adults—while people with mental illness more rapidly deteriorate. “People with a history of trauma and mental illness tend to be emotionally labile,” Kupers added. “They have more ups and down emotionally. Eighty percent of incarcerated women have been sexually or physically abused, so the emotions that everyone has in solitary—anger, depression, anxiety, fear and paranoia—are going to be much, much stronger for them. In isolation, these emotions will magnify and just keep reverberating with no one to talk to.”

Placing women with mental illness in solitary confinement can amount to punishment for behavior beyond their control. “Women with mental illness have a much harder time conforming their behavior to staff expectations,” Smith said. “I know of a women thrown into solitary for ‘reckless eyeballing,’ which means she gave an officer a exasperated look. Another woman was pregnant and struggling with mental illness. She had just gotten back from the hospital the night before and was completely exhausted. When the officer insisted she get up early for breakfast, the woman refused. The officer shook her, insisting she get up. When the women pushed back she ended up in solitary, where she had zero access to even basic prenatal care.”

Widespread criticism of solitary confinement has led to congressional hearings in recent years and forced the Bureau of Prisons to embark on its first-ever internal review of the practice. In addition, new legislation was recently passed in New York and Colorado, limiting the use of isolation among some of the most vulnerable prison populations—juveniles and the mentally ill.

Willie J. Parker, an obstetrician based in Washington, D.C., didn’t always perform abortions. He’s a Christian from Birmingham, Ala., who initially refused to even consider the procedure.

But about halfway into his 20-year career, he changed his mind. Now, he’s one of those rare doctors who is willing to push the limits and provide abortions at 24 weeks of pregnancy. 

100 arrested near McDonald’s headquarters in protest over low pay May 22, 2014

McDonald’s closed part of its corporate headquarters on Wednesday in response to a mass protest by workers and activists that campaigners say ended in over 100 arrests.

Over 2,000 people calling for a hike in the minimum wage and the right to form a union without retaliation descended on the fast food giant’s suburban Chicago headquarters in what is believed to be the largest demonstration McDonald’s has ever faced.

Chanting, “Hey McDonald’s You Can’t Hide, We Can See Your Greedy Side,” and “No Big Macs, No Fries, Make our Wage Supersize,” protesters blocked the entrance to McDonald’s campus in Oakbrook, some 20 miles outside Chicago.

A short walk from Hamburger University, McDonald’s training center, the protesters were confronted by a phalanx of police officers in riot gear. After they sat down the police issued two orders to disperse and arrests began.

McDonald’s workers, church leaders and Service Employees International Union president Mary Kay Henry were among those arrested.

Some 500 fast-food workers from three dozen cities as well as local church groups, union activists and community groups were present at the demonstration. It came a day before the fast food company’s annual meeting when dissident shareholders intend to vote against CEO Donald Thompson’s $9.5m pay package. Protesters also plan to picket that meeting, from which media have been excluded.

Activists said the company feared a “public relations minefield” and had sent workers home in order to derail the protest. Protesters moved their demonstration to another nearby McDonald’s corporate facility.

A McDonald’s spokeswoman said the company had taken the decision to close the a building on its campus that holds 2,000 staff after consultation with police. The building was close to a busy intersection and the company was concerned about the disruption the protesters could cause to traffic. She said staff continued to work from home.

Restaurant and retail workers are calling for a minimum wage of $15 per hour. The latest protest is one of a series aimed at fueling a national debate on income inequality and comes after a report from the Demos thinktank showed that fast-food companies had the largest gap between the pay of CEOs and workers of any industry. The report found that the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio for the fast-food industry was more than 1,000-to-one in 2013.

Amanda Wenninghoff, 28, has been working for McDonald’s in Kansas City for 10 years and travelled to Chicago to call for a wage rise. She earns $8 an hour and said she hadn’t had a wage raise since 2003.

“I have lived in my car with my kids because I haven’t had the wages to support a place for us to live,” she told the Guardian. “I have friends who need life-saving surgery they can’t afford.”

She said McDonald’s offered health insurance, but it would cost $400 a month for her alone –about half her monthly salary. “It would be impossible for me to get by without government assistance,” she said. “The least they can do is pay us enough money so we can afford to live instead of putting it on the taxpayers.”

McDonald’s worker Ashona Osborne, 24, travelled from Pittsburgh to protest. She makes $7.25 an hour and said her wages had been cut since she had started to protest.

“I need better support for me and my family,” she said. “It’s not just McDonald’s, I have been working on minimum wage since I was 16 and it’s very, very difficult. I have decide which priority to take care of, which bill can I pay.”

She said Thompson $9.5m pay package worked out at about $6,600 an hour. “He makes more money than me on the way to work,” she said. “That’s ridiculous. They can afford to give me more money. If it weren’t for us workers there would be no McDonald’s, no Burger King, no Wendy’s.”

On Thursday, shareholder activist Change to Win Investment Group (Ctw) is organising a vote against Thompson, who took over as CEO in 2012. It follows similar protests against CEO pay at other restaurant groups including Domino’s and Chipotle.

Earlier this month, 77% of Chipotle shareholders voted against the compensation packages of co-CEOs Steve Ells and Monty Moran, worth $25.1m and $24.4m respectively in 2013. The vote, which is non-binding and was also organised by CtW, has prompted a review of compensation at the company.

The pressure for change comes as President Obama has pushed Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour from the current $7.25. The move is being challenged by Republicans and by lobbyists for the restaurant industry who claim it will cost jobs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates that there are 3.5m fast-food and counter workers in the US, and they earn a median hourly wage of $8.83 – almost $18,400 per year based on a 40-hour work week without vacation.

Earlier this year the Congressional Budget Office said a hike in the minimum wage to $10.10 would cost 500,000 jobs by 2016 but boost earnings for about 16.5 million low-wage workers. The National Restaurant Association said the report was proof that a wage hike was detrimental for the economy.

“The restaurant industry provides real pathways to the middle class and beyond, and dramatic increases in the minimum wage will only hinder our ability to provide stepping stones for those who need it most,” the association said in a statement.