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[LordOfLore]

Link.

The day after the executive chairman of Google’s parent company praised President Donald Trump’s embattled son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the White House announced that a Labor Department division investigating discrimination claims against government contractors was being shut down.

According to Sarah Lacey – who connected the dots at Pando — Google will benefit from the closure since it was facing government scrutiny for underpaying women employed by the tech monolith.

As noted, Google was fighting with the government over discrimination claims, arguing that compiling and maintaining the salary records was too financially burdensome for the company with $28 billion in annual income.

After complaining that Google would have to spend approximately $100,000 to do the paperwork required by the Labor Department, DoL attorney Ian Eliasoph took a shot at the response on Friday, stating: “Google would be able to absorb the cost as easy as a dry kitchen sponge could absorb a single drop of water.”

That was then.

In a piece that appeared on Sunday, May 28 in the New York Times, Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, was one the few cited in the mostly critical examination of Kushner’s White House tenure to say something nice about the young real estate developer-turned Trumps right-hand man.

Asked about Kushner’s reported work on business innovation for the White House, Schmidt stated: “His passion on this is very real.”

As Lacy noted — while admitting that it might be a coincidence – the day after Schmidt’s comment was widely reported, the White House on Monday announced the shuttering of the very department looking at Google.

“The Trump administration is planning to disband the Labor Department division that has policed discrimination among federal contractors for four decades, according to the White House’s newly proposed budget, part of wider efforts to rein in government programs that promote civil rights,” the Washington Post reported.

As Lacey writes, “As luck would have it, three days after the DoL reminded Google that compliance with its anti-discrimination investigation was the price of being a government contractor, and just hours after Eric Schmidt issues his bizarre public defense of Jared Kushner, news broke that the Trump administration was planning to disband the organization doing the investigation.”

Lock if old.

 

[Wet Bloodfart]

Oh my god

 

[BY2K]

Kiss my ass, I'll kiss yours.

 

[BrokenFiction]

Getting. Really. Fucking. Tired. Of. This.

 

[TheCochese]

Not even pay to play.

Praise to play.

 

[Kas]

So what happens now? Is this illegal or just highly, highly immoral and unethical?

 

[Usobuko]

Money talks.

How else are these folks going to feed their spouses and kids?

 

[theWB27]

That's impressive only because of how brazen it is.

 

[Morts]

Ugh. Not a good look.

 

[thecouncil]

coincidence

 

[xptoxyz]

Larry Page is the CEO btw, but you copied the title. How does this happen the author of the article got the title of Schmidt right but they went ahead and used CEO in the title.

 

[johnsmith]

Expecting to hear about a new investigation of Tesla soon

 

[Trojita]

Do Evil

 

[Vicetrailia]

Is this what equality looks like in the eyes of Republicans?

 

[crooked spin]

Is Raw Story a reliable source? They have a "hard left" rating on this site: https://www.allsides.com/news-source/raw-story

(most reputable mainstream outlets have a soft left rating)

 

[Link]

I think we're burying the lede here.

“The Trump administration is planning to disband the Labor Department division that has policed discrimination among federal contractors for four decades, according to the White House’s newly proposed budget, part of wider efforts to rein in government programs that promote civil rights,” the Washington Post reported.

Fuck this administration.

 

[Yoda]

I think this is a bit of editorializing. The quote: "His passion on this is very real.” is a compliment you give when you can't think of anything nice to say. It'd be a stretch to kill an investigation due to such a weak endorsement. Then again it's the Trump administration, so who knows.

 

[Akuun]

Ummmm fucking wow.

 

[L Thammy]

 

[Cyan]

It sounds like they didn't "shut down the investigation," they shuttered the entire division that does those investigations. If that's correct this is obviously a coincidence. Anyone with more info? Otherwise this seems like itsfuckingnothing.gif

 

[MisterHero]

Will this be enough to switch me to Bing?

Uhhhh

 

[Saucycarpdog]

Jared Knushner is an arrogant, shit-faced, greedy, pile of steaming trash who's only use to the trump administration is ass-licking Russian politicians to stay on good terms with Putin.

Now, if you could get the education department to clear my student loans Trump that would be great.

 

[SoundofSilence]

Expecting to hear about a new investigation of Tesla soon

For truth. I was just thinking the same thing.

 

[wildfire]

I suggest we don't conflate everything with corruption.

Trump is notorious for going after everything Obama did and he loves to do things that preserves his own businesses. Trump was always going to destroy the agency that investigated labor practices.

If you would argue that Google made a deal to expedite that process well I wouldn't be surprised by that. My point is that Google isn't the reason these agencies were going to get crippled in the first place. But if they did make some sort of deal with the Trump admin to speed this process up that would be a serious problem.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Will this be enough to switch me to Bing?

Uhhhh

https://duckduckgo.com/

 

[Dyle]

I think we're burying the lede here.

Fuck this administration.

Yup, this goes way beyond just stopping one investigation, it would presumably stop all such investigations into employee discrimination. The Trump admin just removes federal protection after federal protection, unless it's something that protects oil and coal.

 

[kirblar]

It sounds like they didn't "shut down the investigation," they shuttered the entire division that does those investigations. If that's correct this is obviously a coincidence. Anyone with more info? Otherwise this seems like itsfuckingnothing.gif

This very much looks like clickbait, sensationalizing a real story about the mundane evil of the Admin in favor of a "EVIL CORPORATIONS BRIBING BILLIONAIRES" one.

 

[uncredited male]

This is poor analysis. Every company being investigated most likely benefited from these closures.

 

[Dan]

It sounds like they didn't "shut down the investigation," they shuttered the entire division that does those investigations. If that's correct this is obviously a coincidence. Anyone with more info? Otherwise this seems like itsfuckingnothing.gif

Yeah, I don't think this has anything to do with Schmidt's comment. Closing the division benefits all kinds of companies that surely have done and said infinitely more positive things about Trump/Kushner. This is just about boosting business and not caring about minorities.

 

[wildfire]

I think we're burying the lede here.

Fuck this administration.

It isn't just that division. They are destroying it by forcing a merger with it and the division that handles processing the requests to help employees in the private sector with their claims about workplace discrimination and harassment. After the merger the unified dept is going to have their budget slashed.

So both the public and private sector are simultaneously going to have a major service gutted by Trump.

 

[wildfire]

Yeah, I don't think this has anything to do with Schmidt's comment. Closing the division benefits all kinds of companies that surely have done and said infinitely more positive things about Trump/Kushner. This is just about boosting business and not caring about minorities.

And grabbing women by the pussy.

 

[Cyan]

Ok if there's anything more solid to this than "Schmidt said something nice about Kushner" people can let me know via PM, but since this appears to be just clickbait I'm locking.

Obviously the WaPo story on the shutting down of the DoL division is substantive in itself and worth a thread for discussion if there isn't already one.