1.) Cage-Free Hens
In the U.S. market, Steve Easterbrook launched McDonald's successful All Day Breakfast, removed high fructose corn syrup from the company's buns, ended the use of antibiotics in the company's chickens and embarked on a 10-year plan to liberate the birds from the cages in which they long have been confined. Chickens and eggs account for 50 percent of the items on the menu. "The terms that are important now are 'antibiotic and hormone-free,' 'natural and organic.' " "Right now only 13 million of the company's 2 billion U.S. eggs are cage-free." [1]
"Cage-free birds suffered twice the fatality rate of caged and enriched birds, according to [a] study." "Free birds also required more feed." "The egg-per-uncaged-hen average lagged because of the elevated mortality and the birds' tendency to lay eggs on the floor. Hens from enriched cages provided the most [eggs]."
"The transition to fully cage-free production will be lengthy. Henhouses have an average life span of 30 years." Constructing a cage-free henhouse tends to be three times as much as a caged version, according to estimates by United Egg Producers.
2.) Ballot Box and Bathroom Discrimination
The GOP majority in the North Carolina legislature commissioned a study into African American voting patterns and then crafted House Bill 589, which dramatically cut back ballot access in North Carolina, reducing the number of early voting days, requiring photo ID, and eliminating same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting (aimed at college students), and a preregistration program for 16-and 17- year-olds. "Black voters are three times more likely to have transportation issues than whites. They make up a disproportionate share of those lacking ID, and many of them vote on early-voting Sundays. [2]
Art Pope, the GOP's chief fundraiser, did indeed, REDMAP the state, redistricting legislative and congressional districts. Despite the GOP's lock on the Statehouse, North Carolina is still more Democratic than Republican.
Two days after the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down -- by a 3-0 vote -- HB 589, the same court would rule that 28 of the North Carolina's 170 state legislative districts were unconstitutional "racial gerrymanders." "Race was the predominant factor motivating the drawing of all challenged districts," the court found, creating "one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history."
Although Republicans like to claim that they believe that the government closest to the people governs best, they often do not honor that claimed belief. The HB2 legislation mandating bathroom use based on the gender on the birth certificate, was in response to an anti-discrimination statute that Charlotte had passed protecting trans peoples' right to use the bathroom of their choice. Critics of the General Assembly say over-and-over that hard-won victories at the local level are squashed at the state level.
ADDENDUMS:
*On November 10, 1898, a coup d' etat took place on United States soil. It was perpetrated by a gang of white-supremacist Democrats in Wilmington, North Carolina." "By the end of the day, they had killed somewhere between fourteen and sixty black men and banished twenty more, meanwhile forcing the mayor, the police chief, and the members of the board of aldermen to resign." [3]
*"Most porn is viewed on easily accessible 'tube sites,' such as YouPorn, Red Tube, X Videos, and Pornhub." "According to a recent CNBC report, seventy per cent of American online-porn access occurs during the nine-to five workday." In 2014, Pornhub alone had seventy-eight billion page views and X Videos is the fifty-sixth most popular Web site in the world." [4]
"Most performers are independent contractors who get paid per sex act." "The average career is between four and six months."
*"Since 1989, eyewitness misidentification has contributed to a seventy-one per cent rate of wrongful convictions, proved by DNA testing." The British unit (London Met's police unit of "super-recognizers") uses its record of guilty pleas as evidence of the efficacy of super-recognizers, but guilty pleas are highly unreliable indicators of actual guilt, as innocent people often plead guilty, particularly when facing charges of low-level crimes." [5]
Footnotes
[1] Beth Kowitt, "Free Bird," Fortune, September 1, 2016.
[2] Mac McClelland, "The Bathroom and the Ballot Box," Mother Jones, November/December 2016.
[3] Lauren Collins, "American Coup," The New Yorker, September 19, 2016.
[4] Katrina Forrester, "Lights. Camera. Action." The New Yorker, September 26, 2016.
[5] Letter to the editor by Karen Newirth, The New Yorker, September 26, 2016.
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