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By Kali Holloway, AlterNet

Over the last few years, Urban Outfitters has become known for three things (outside of carrying overpriced clothes that fall apart the first time you wash them): 1) Offending every possible marginalized group under the sun with apparel that features really tasteless messages; 2) allegedly stealing designs from up-and-coming artists and selling them as their own; and 3) having a president and CEO, Richard Hayne, who has given money to anti-gay marriage crusader Rick Santorum and other Republican politicians. Now the company is making news for its boldest action yet: asking employees to work for free!

Gawker got hold of an email sent to salaried employees of URBN, which is the company that owns Urban Outfitters, on Tuesday. Note how it suggests that taking part will help build camaraderie:

From: URBNcommunity

Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 12:01 PM

Subject: A Call For URBN Volunteers!

A Call for URBN Volunteers!

URBN is seeking weekend volunteers to help out at our fulfillment center in Gap, PA. October will be the busiest month yet for the center, and we need additional helping hands to ensure the timely shipment of orders. As a volunteer, you will work side by side with your GFC colleagues to help pick, pack and ship orders for our wholesale and direct customers.

In addition to servicing the needs of our customers, it’s a great way to experience our fulfillment operations first hand. Get your co-workers together for a team building activity!

The Details:

Who: Home Office URBN salaried employees

Where: URBN’s Fulfilment Center – 766 Brackbill Road, Gap, Pennsylvania 17527

What You’ll Be Doing: Pick, pack and prepare packages for shipment(please wear sneakers and comfortable clothing)

When: October 17, 18, 24, 25, and 31 Lunch will be provided

Two shifts each day: 9:00 AM – 3:00PM or 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM

(you can volunteer for one or multiple days)

Transportation: If needed, URBN will provide transportation to and from GFC (details provided after sign up)

How: Sign up using this link and we will be in touch with more details. Please do not show up without signing up.

That’s …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By John Vibes, The Free Thought Project

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…read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Kali Holloway, AlterNet

Rupert Murdoch, the 84-year-old white Australian billionaire who owns pretty much every awful major right-wing media outlet you can think of, is on Twitter. And he has a lot to say! Yesterday, for example, he sent a tweet in which he suggested that President Obama isn’t a “real black president” – not like Ben Carson would be, anyway. See for yourself below:

As you might expect, Twitter was fast and furious in its negative response, suggesting that maybe a 84-year-old white Australian billionaire should not be deciding who is and isn’t “really black.” Murdoch’s response? To push the blame onto a New York Magazine article in which African-Americans leaders discussed Obama’s effectiveness for the black community.

When that failed, Murdoch again took to Twitter today and apologized with a tweet pretending he had no idea his message might upset some people. For the record, CNN tried to clarify Murdoch’s statement but was told by a spokesperson for 21^st Century Fox: “We don't comment on his tweets.” 

Related Stories

• Fox News Head Says Obama Not a “Real Black President”
• 78% of Americans Want Citizens United Overturned—So Why Does the Media Never Cover It?
• Watch: Bill Clinton and Stephen Colbert Attempt to Explain Trump's Popularity

…read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Zaid Jilani, AlterNet

A group of Republicans continue to threaten to use the U.S. Debt limit – the ability for the federal government to basically pay for debt that has already been created and allowing for the Treasury to make its already made financial obligations – as a bargaining chip for various policy asks. They did so before to force a significant cut to social spending.

Dr. Ben Carson, who is running a strong second for the Republican nomination for the presidency, was on the Marketplace radio show and was asked four times what he thinks about the debt limit. All four times, Carson appeared to not even know what it was, confusing it with balancing the budget, which actually has nothing to do with whether the federal government can borrow to meet obligations it has already made:

Ryssdal:All right, so let's talk about debt then and the budget. As you know, Treasury Secretary Lew has come out in the last couple of days and said, “We're gonna run out of money, we're gonna run out of borrowing authority, on the fifth of November.” Should the Congress then and the president not raise the debt limit? Should we default on our debt?

Carson:Let me put it this way: if I were the president, I would not sign an increased budget. Absolutely would not do it. They would have to find a place to cut.

Ryssdal:To be clear, it's increasing the debt limit, not the budget, but I want to make sure I understand you. You'd let the United States default rather than raise the debt limit.

Carson:No, I would provide the kind of leadership that says, “Get on the stick guys, and stop messing around, and cut where you need to cut, because we're not raising any spending limits, period.”

Ryssdal:I'm gonna try one more time, sir. This is debt that's already obligated. Would you not favor increasing the debt limit to pay the debts already incurred?

Carson:What I'm saying is what we have to do is restructure the way that we create debt. I …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Brittney Cooper, Salon

Cosmopolitan magazine has declared the Kardashians America’s new first family. Certainly, this symbolic dethroning of the Obamas is shot through with every kind of upsetting racial implication, a point Black Twitter has been swift to point out. Apparently now that the official first family is African-American, achievement of a nuclear family is no longer a mainstream cultural aspiration. While Black families continue to labor under the burden of being exceptionally normal like the Obamas or escaping the supposedly normal “pathology” of the non-nuclear Black family, Cosmopolitan is now giving white Americans an opportunity to visually revel in and experiment with embracing a white female-centered family structure. The cover image for Cosmopolitan’s November issue features America’s new chosen “first family” consisting of six white women, including Kris Jenner and her five daughters, three by her first husband, and two by her former husband Bruce Jenner, who has now transitioned into Caitlyn Jenner.

American families are changing, and we should celebrate the fact that the two-parent, nuclear family ideal has gone the way of the floppy disk. But the terms upon which we come to celebrate this family structure are deeply problematic. Why is it appropriate to celebrate Kris Jenner’s new status as the matriarch of a family of daughters, when we have pathologized Black mother-led families unrelentingly since 1965? Just last month, the Atlantic ran a photograph featuring a downtrodden-looking Black woman surrounded by several young men, women and babies, with no father-figure, to accompany Ta-Nehisi Coates’ cover story, “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” Fifty years ago, after Daniel Moynihan’s infamous report on “The Negro Family,” the absence of a father figure in Black households became a mark of cultural pathology. Black mothers bore the cultural refuse of this structural shaming of Black families.

The Moynihan Report induced a deep kind of cultural anxiety and shame about the failure of Black mothers and fathers to get married and stay married. The only balm that seemed to soothe this wound was the fictional Cosby family in …read more

Source: ALTERNET