Attorney General Barr books Trump’s hotel for $30,000 holiday party -
Barr signed a contract, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, for a “Family Holiday Party” in the hotel’s Presidential Ballroom Dec. 8. The party will feature a buffet and four-hour open bar for about 200 people.
Barr is paying for the event himself and chose the venue only after other hotels, including the Willard and the Mayflower were booked, according to a Department of Justice official. The official said the purpose of Barr’s party wasn’t to curry favor with the president.
Barr holds the bash annually and it combines holiday festivities and a “ceilidh,” a party featuring Irish or Scottish music.
“Career ethics officials were consulted and they determined that ethics rules did not prohibit him from hosting his annual party at the Trump hotel,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the party is not a Justice Department event.
Barr’s decision to book his boss’s hotel marks the latest collision between Trump’s administration and his business, which the president no longer operates but from which he still benefits financially.
See guys it’s cool and totally not breaking the law because the attorney general is paying the president’s business for a family party, not a business party.
(via justsomeantifas)
Unpaid Kentucky coal miners have been blocking a train track for 3 weeks | CBC Radio -
The two friends are coal miners who have been been out of work since Blackjewel, the company that owned the Black Mountain mine near Cumberland, Ky., shut its doors suddenly in July and filed for bankruptcy.
More than 1,100 miners in Kentucky, Wyoming, West Virginia and Virginia lost their jobs with no warning. They didn’t get paid for their last week of work, and their paycheques from the previous two weeks bounced.
So when the miners got word that Blackjewel was quietly shipping a trainload of coal, worth at least $1 million US, out of Black Mountain — coal the miners took out of the ground — they decided to take matters into their own hands.
(via justsomeantifas)
On this day, 30 July 1913, 20,000 textile workers in Barcelona, mostly women and children, went on strike against low wages and long hours. Female strikers cut the hair of scabs, marking them as traitors. The strike continued until 15 September, when the governor introduced a maximum 60 (!) hour week. More info in this great history of women’s struggles in Barcelona around that time: https://libcom.org/history/female-consciousness-collective-action-barcelona-temma-kaplan
(Content note: the linked article contains mention of sexual violence) https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1177618395756642/?type=3
SOS From Brazil's Amazon Fire Protesters: 'We Need The World's Help Right Now' -
The Innermost Coffin of Tutankhamun
This is the third and innermost of three mummiform coffins of Tutankhamun. The mummy itself now rests in the outermost mummiform coffin in the tomb at Thebes.
This coffin of solid gold is covered with incised decorations and inscriptions inside and outside, with the names and epitaph of the deceased king and protective texts. It is inlaid with semiprecious stones and colored glass.
The coffin’s shape is that of Osiris holding the sacred insignia, the heka scepter and the flail. The vulture and the uraeus, or cobra, protect his forehead. The divine beard is made of gold inlaid with blue glass.
Deities of Upper and Lower Egypt protect the body of the coffin with their wings. The coffin weighs 110.4 kilograms or 243.4 pounds.
From the Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62), Valley of the Kings, West Thebes. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 60671
(via egypt-museum-deactivated2021071)
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(via ginnyfields)
