- Kershaw disagrees with Dodgers’ decision to reinstate gay ‘nun’ group for Pride Night award The Associated Press
- Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw disagreed with organization’s decision to honor Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Fox News
- Clayton Kershaw details objections to Dodgers’ plan to honor controversial LGBTQ group ABC7
- Clayton Kershaw explains objections to Dodgers’ plan to honor Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence group for LGBTQ Pride Night KABC-TV
- What Were the L.A. Dodgers Thinking? – WSJ The Wall Street Journal
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Tag Archives: reinstate
Trump news today: Meta to reinstate his Facebook and Instagram as 2024 campaign gears up
Marjorie Taylor Greene positioning herself to be Trump’s VP pick for 2024
Donald Trump celebrated his return to Facebook and Instagram on Wednesday after parent company Meta announced that its decision to reinstate the former president’s accounts in the “coming weeks”.
In a statement on Truth Social – where he described himself as the “favorite president” despite failing to be elected to a second term – Mr Trump claimed that “such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution”.
Mr Trump was banned from Facebook and Instagram for two years in the wake of the Januayr 6 Capitol riot.
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, announced on Wednesday that he can return to the platforms but that there will be new guard rails put in place to “deter repeat offences”.
The decision has divided opinion, with Rep Adam Schiff condemning Facebook for “caving”.
“Trump incited an insurrection. And tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. He’s shown no remorse. No contrition. Giving him back access to a social media platform to spread his lies and demagoguery is dangerous. @facebook caved, giving him a platform to do more harm,” he tweeted.
‘Ridiculous joke’: Critics respond to Meta’s decision on Trump accounts
Predictably there was a wave of negative responses to the news that Meta was reinstating the former president after banning him two years ago.
Graig Graziosi reports on the reaction to the announcement.
Oliver O’Connell26 January 2023 13:00
It’s OK for leaders to keep state secrets. Just not at home.
The highest US secrets, it now appears, are not necessarily safe with the highest officials. Not when they’re in the hands of Trump, who disdains the rules and customs of government, and not in the hands of Biden and Pence, who subscribe to them.
Namita Singh26 January 2023 12:35
Cruz called out for wildly different reactions to Pence and Biden documents cases
Texas Senator Ted Cruz is being blasted for his two very different reactions to the discoveries of classified documents at the homes of President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.
Gustaf Kilander reports on the senator’s apparent hypocrisy.
Namita Singh26 January 2023 11:55
Trump mocks Meta in response to decision to reinstate him on Facebook
Donald Trump has reacted to the news of Meta’s decision to reinstate his Facebook and Instagram accounts by posting on Truth Social, his own platform set up following his ban from mainstream social media.
The former president wrote:
FACEBOOK, which has lost Billions of Dollars in value since “deplatforming” your favorite President, me, has just announced that they are reinstating my account. Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution! THANK YOU TO TRUTH SOCIAL FOR DOING SUCH AN INCREDIBLE JOB. YOUR GROWTH IS OUTSTANDING, AND FUTURE UNLIMITED!!!
Mr Trump has 4.84 million followers on Truth Social, whereas he had an audience of approximately 34 million on Facebook and 23 million on Instagram.
Namita Singh26 January 2023 11:15
Meta accused of giving Trump ‘platform to do more harm’
Congressman Adam Schiff, a member of the January 6 committee and a sharp critic of Donald Trump, accused the company of giving the former president a “platform to do more harm.”
“Trump incited an insurrection. And tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power,” the California Democrat wrote on Twitter yesterday.
“He’s shown no remorse. No contrition. Giving him back access to a social media platform to spread his lies and demagoguery is dangerous. Facebook caved.”
Namita Singh26 January 2023 10:35
Read Meta’s statement in full
Facebook parent company Meta has announced that former President Donald Trump will be reinstated on Facebook and Instagram, ending a ban on his accounts following the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, released a statement on the company’s website on Wednesday evening. Read his statement in full:
Namita Singh26 January 2023 09:55
Woman pleads guilty to sending ricin to Trump
A Canadian woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to mailing a threatening letter containing the poison ricin to then-President Donald Trump at the White House.
The letter from Pascale Ferrier directing Trump to “give up and remove your application for this election,” was intercepted at a mail sorting facility in September 2020, before it could reach the White House.
Namita Singh26 January 2023 09:15
DeSantis out-polls Trump as ex-president hosts ‘Libs of Tik Tok’ and Babylon Bee dinner
The Florida governor, who has not yet announced a 2024 campaign, was leading the former president in a straw poll of the North Carolina Faith and Freedom Coalition released yesterday.
The poll is one of the reliable bellwethers for tracking the support of white evangelicals active in Republican Party presidential primaries.
More in this report from my colleague John Bowden:
Namita Singh26 January 2023 08:35
Trump pilloried as ‘4-year-old cheat’ over golf tournament claims
Sportswriter and author Rick Reilly has criticised Donald Trump as a “cheat” after the golf-loving former president claimed victory in a competitive tournament earlier this week – despite missing the first day.
He declared that it was “a great honour” to have won the tournament “[at] one of the best courses in the country”.
Namita Singh26 January 2023 08:13
Meta’s move to reinstate Trump ‘a disaster’
Letting Donald Trump back on Facebook sends a signal to other figures with large online audiences that they may break the rules without lasting consequences, said Heidi Beirich, founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism and a member of a group called the Real Facebook Oversight Board that has criticised the platform’s efforts.
“I am not surprised but it is a disaster,” Ms Beirich said of Meta’s decision. “Facebook created loopholes for Trump that he went right through. He incited an insurrection on Facebook. And now he’s back.”
NAACP president Derrick Johnson blasted the decision as “a prime example of putting profits above people’s safety” and a “grave mistake”.
Former US president Donald Trump greets people as he arrives for a New Years event at his Mar-a-Lago home on 31 December 2022 in Palm Beach, Florida
(Getty Images)
“It’s quite astonishing that one can spew hatred, fuel conspiracies, and incite a violent insurrection at our nation’s Capitol building, and Mark Zuckerberg still believes that is not enough to remove someone from his platforms,” he said.
Namita Singh26 January 2023 07:55
Meta to reinstate Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts
Jan 25 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) said Wednesday it will reinstate former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks, following a two-year suspension after the deadly Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021.
The restoration of his accounts could provide a boost to Trump, who announced in November he will make another run for the White House in 2024. He has 34 million followers on Facebook and 23 million on Instagram, platforms that are key vehicles for political outreach and fundraising.
His Twitter account was restored in November by new owner Elon Musk, though Trump has yet to post there.
Free speech advocates say it is appropriate for the public to have access to messaging from political candidates, but critics of Meta have accused the company of lax moderating policies.
Meta said in a blog post Wednesday it has “put new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.”
“In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation,” wrote Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, in the blog post.
The decision, while widely expected, drew sharp rebukes from civil rights advocates. “Facebook has policies but they under-enforce them,” said Laura Murphy, an attorney who led a two-year long audit of Facebook concluding in 2020. “I worry about Facebook’s capacity to understand the real world harm that Trump poses: Facebook has been too slow to act.”
The Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Free Press and other groups also expressed concern Wednesday over Facebook’s ability to prevent any future attacks on the democratic process, with Trump still repeating his false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.
Others said it was the right decision.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and a former ACLU official, defended the reinstatement. He had previously endorsed the company’s decision to suspend Trump’s account.
“The public has an interest in hearing directly from candidates for political office,” said Jaffer. “It’s better if the major social media platforms err on the side of leaving speech up, even if the speech is offensive or false, so that it can be addressed by other users and other institutions.”
OTHER REACTIVATIONS?
The decision to ban Trump was a polarizing one for Meta, the world’s biggest social media company, which prior to the Trump suspension had never blocked the account of a sitting head of state for violating its content rules.
The company indefinitely revoked Trump’s access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts after removing two of his posts during the Capitol Hill violence, including a video in which he reiterated his false claim of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
It then referred the case to its independent oversight board, which ruled that the suspension was justified but its indeterminate nature was not. In response, Meta said it would revisit the suspension two years after it began.
Meta’s blog post Wednesday suggested it may reactivate other suspended accounts, including those penalized for their involvement in civil unrest. The company said those reinstated accounts would be subject to more stringent review and penalties for violations.
Whether, and how, Trump will seize upon the opportunity to return to Facebook and Instagram is unclear.
Trump has not sent any new tweets since regaining his account on Twitter, saying he would prefer to stick with his own app Truth Social. But his campaign spokesman told Fox News Digital last week that being back on Facebook “will be an important tool for the 2024 campaign to reach voters.”
In a post on Truth Social, Trump responded to his reinstatement on Meta apps, saying: “Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!” He did not indicate if or when he would begin posting on Meta platforms again.
Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat who previously chaired the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the decision to reinstate him.
“Trump incited an insurrection,” Schiff wrote on Twitter. “Giving him back access to a social media platform to spread his lies and demagoguery is dangerous.”
Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas and Katie Paul in Palo Alto; additional reporting by Greg Bensinger, David Shepardson, Kanishka Singh, Eva Mathews and Yuvraj Malik; Editing by Kenneth Li and Rosalba O’Brien
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Trump lashes out at Kanye West as aides rush to reinstate guardrails at Mar-a-Lago
The backlash over former president Donald Trump’s pre-Thanksgiving meal with antisemitic rapper Kanye West and white nationalist Nick Fuentes has led the twice-impeached ex-president’s aides to revive a 2020-era measure used to keep him from embarrassing himself while Mr Trump is reportedly blaming the disgraced musician for the negative press.
According to a source who spoke to NBC News, Mr Trump has directed his anger at Mr West, who just two years ago waged a third-party presidential campaign aimed at siphoning votes off from Joe Biden to help the then-president win reelection.
“He tried to f*** me. He’s crazy. He can’t beat me,” the ex-president said, referring to Mr West’s stated intention to mount another campaign for the presidency with an eye towards the 2024 general election.
According to reports, it was Mr West who brought Mr Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and white nationalist who has long been one of Mr Trump’s most vocal supporters, to the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago club last week.
NBC reported that the dinner was initially supposed to be a two-man affair for Mr Trump to sit down with his friend in the wake of the Mr West’s public expulsion by multiple business partners who no longer wanted to be associated with him following a series of racist and antisemitic remarks on social media and elsewhere.
Instead, Mr West (who now legally goes by the mononym “Ye”) brought a trio of guests including Mr Fuentes, an ex-campaign aide Karen Giorno, and online troll, former Breitbart News staffer Milo Yiannopoulos.
In response to the nearly universal and bipartisan outrage from the news that Mr Trump broke bread with the controversial figures, aides to Mr Trump are making arrangements to keep at least one staffer from his nascent presidential campaign at his side at nearly all times.
The decision revives a similar arrangement that was in place during his presidency to keep him from coming across people who could bring political headaches for him.
While access to Mr Trump was tightly controlled during his White House years thanks to strict security protocols, at his Mar-a-Lago estate he is known to walk freely about and interact with members who pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for the privilege.
With additional reporting by agencies
Google refuses to reinstate man’s account after he took medical images of son’s groin | Technology
Google has refused to reinstate a man’s account after it wrongly flagged medical images he took of his son’s groin as child sexual abuse material (CSAM), the New York Times first reported. Experts say it’s an inevitable pitfall of trying to apply a technological solution to a societal problem.
Experts have long warned about the limitations of automated child sexual abuse image detection systems, particularly as companies face regulatory and public pressure to help address the existence of sexual abuse material.
“These companies have access to a tremendously invasive amount of data about people’s lives. And still they don’t have the context of what people’s lives actually are,” said Daniel Kahn Gillmor, a senior staff technologist at the ACLU. “There’s all kinds of things where just the fact of your life is not as legible to these information giants.” He added that the use of these systems by tech companies that “act as proxies” for law enforcement puts people at risk of being “swept up” by “the power of the state.”
The man, only identified as Mark by the New York Times, took pictures of his son’s groin to send to a doctor after realizing it was inflamed. The doctor used that image to diagnose Mark’s son and prescribe antibiotics. When the photos were automatically uploaded to the cloud, Google’s system identified them as CSAM. Two days later, Mark’s Gmail and other Google accounts, including Google Fi, which provides his phone service, were disabled over “harmful content” that was “a severe violation of the company’s policies and might be illegal”, the Times reported, citing a message on his phone. He later found out that Google had flagged another video he had on his phone and that the San Francisco police department opened an investigation into him.
Mark was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, but Google has said it will stand by its decision.
“We follow US law in defining what constitutes CSAM and use a combination of hash matching technology and artificial intelligence to identify it and remove it from our platforms,” said Christa Muldoon, a Google spokesperson.
Muldoon added that Google staffers who review CSAM were trained by medical experts to look for rashes or other issues. They themselves, however, were not medical experts and medical experts were not consulted when reviewing each case, she said.
That’s just one way these systems can cause harm, according to Gillmor. To address, for instance, any limitations algorithms might have in distinguishing between harmful sexual abuse images and medical images, companies often have a human in the loop. But those humans are themselves inherently limited in their expertise, and getting the proper context for each case requires further access to user data. Gillmor said it was a much more intrusive process that could still be an ineffective method of detecting CSAM.
“These systems can cause real problems for people,” he said. “And it’s not just that I don’t think that these systems can catch every case of child abuse, it’s that they have really terrible consequences in terms of false positives for people. People’s lives can be really upended by the machinery and the humans in the loop simply making a bad decision because they don’t have any reason to try to fix it.”
Gillmor argued that technology wasn’t the solution to this problem. In fact, it could introduce many new problems, he said, including creating a robust surveillance system that could disproportionately harm those on the margins.
“There’s a dream of a sort of techno-solutionists thing, [where people say], ‘Oh, well, you know, there’s an app for me finding a cheap lunch, why can’t there be an app for finding a solution to a thorny social problem, like child sexual abuse?’” he said. “Well, you know, they might not be solvable by the same kinds of technology or skill set.”
Judge Orders Reinstate of Seven Fired Starbucks Baristas
“I’m so happy with this outcome,” said Florentino Escobar, one of the fired Starbucks baristas. “This is one more step to make Starbucks a better place.”
In the face of a fierce anti-union campaign led by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, the ruling marks a crucial victory for the campaign to unionize Starbucks, one of the most promising movements that labor has seen in a generation.
The efforts to unionize at Starbucks have contributed to a major increase in union election filings this year, including first-time union victories at Amazon, Trader Joe’s and Apple retail stores.
Reggie Borges, a Starbucks spokesperson, said the company respects the union process and will “bargain in good faith,” but would also appeal the ruling and request a stay of the order, which could result in a pause of the reinstatement until the review is finished.
“We strongly disagree with the judge’s ruling in this case,” Borges said. “These individuals violated numerous policies and failed to maintain a secure work environment and safety standards. Interest in a union does not exempt partners from following policies that are in place to protect partners, our customers and the communities we serve.”
Last week, Starbucks requested that the NLRB “immediately suspend all Starbucks mail-ballot elections nationwide” following a whistleblower report that NLRB staffers in Kansas had interfered with election proceedings.
“Howard Schultz thought he could terrify an entire nation of baristas by firing the Memphis organizing committee,” said Richard Bensinger, a lead organizer of the Starbucks Workers United campaign. “Thankfully a federal judge has found that Schultz is not above the law.”
All of the seven fired baristas in Memphis were in favor of joining Starbucks Workers United, which is part of Workers United. Five of them were on the organizing committee. The NLRB announced in June that workers at the store in Memphis at the store had voted 11-3 to unionize.
More than 220 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since last December. Forty-seven stores have voted against unionization, according to the NLRB.
Meanwhile, the union says Starbucks has fired at least 75 union leaders and unionizing baristas, according to Starbucks Workers United, creating a chilling effort for new union election filings, the union said.
The NLRB has issued more than 19 complaints against Starbucks for violating workers’ union rights, according to the agency. The agency is also investigating more than 286 unfair labor practice charges, most of which are filed against Starbucks. Many involve allegations that Starbucks illegally fired workers involved in organizing.
“Today’s federal court decision ordering Starbucks to reinstate the seven unlawfully fired Starbucks workers in Memphis is a crucial step in ensuring that these workers, and all Starbucks workers, can freely exercise their right to join together to improve their working conditions and form a union,” Jennifer Abruzzo, general counsel for the NLRB, said in a statement.
Mariners Reinstate Julio Rodriguez, Designate Luis Torrens
The Mariners announced a handful of roster moves during tonight’s off day. Center fielder Julio Rodríguez is back from the injured list, while catcher Curt Casali has been reinstated from his own IL stint. To create active roster space, Seattle optioned outfielder Jarred Kelenic back to Triple-A Tacoma and designated catcher Luis Torrens for assignment. Torrens’ DFA drops the 40-man roster tally to 39.
Rodríguez returns after not much more than a minimal IL stint. He last played on July 30 before a right wrist contusion cost him around two weeks. The 21-year-old star is back to add to a Rookie of the Year-caliber resume, owner of a .271/.334/.482 line with 18 home runs and 21 stolen bases. He’s already the best player on a 61-52 team that currently holds the second American League Wild Card spot. The Mariners are 1 1/2 games in front of the Orioles and Rays, the clubs tied for the AL’s final postseason berth at the moment.
Kelenic and Sam Haggerty have platooned in center field over the past week and a half. Kelenic collected just two hits in 26 at-bats, continuing his struggles at the big league level. He’s hitting .124/.187/.265 over 123 MLB plate appearances on the season. The 23-year-old has a quality .288/.353/.550 showing over 252 trips to the dish with the Rainiers, and he’ll continue to get everyday run in the minors. He’s joined in Tacoma by former Rookie of the Year Kyle Lewis, who was optioned out yesterday, while the Mariners roll with an outfield of Jesse Winker, Rodríguez, Mitch Haniger and Haggerty, with Jake Lamb working as a corner bat off the bench.
In addition to the outfield shakeup, the M’s make a switch behind the plate. Seattle acquired Casali from the Giants in the hours leading up to last Tuesday’s trade deadline. The veteran backstop was on a minor league rehab assignment at the time, working his way back from an oblique strain suffered on July 4. He’d hit .231/.325/.370 through 41 games in San Francisco and will get an opportunity to back up Cal Raleigh for the remainder of the season. Casali is slated to hit free agency at the end of the year.
The timing of the designation has to smart for Torrens, who’s only two days removed from a walk-off single to cap a dramatic win over the Yankees. The acquisition of Casali seemed to suggest the writing was on the wall for Torrens with the big league club, though. He’s out of minor league option years, meaning he had to stick on the MLB roster or be designated for assignment. With Raleigh and Casali in the fold, there’d no longer be room for Torrens unless the team wanted to carry three catchers.
Of course, Torrens’ struggles were a driving factor for the club’s acquisition of Casali in the first place. He’s mustered just a .214/.262/.252 line across 141 plate appearances, striking out at an elevated 31.9% clip. He’s also consistently rated as a well below-average defensive catcher throughout his MLB career, annually posting subpar pitch framing metrics and being behind the dish for 17 wild pitches in only 267 1/3 innings this season. Those certainly don’t all fall on Torrens, but Defensive Runs Saved has pegged him as 24 runs below average in 1067 2/3 career frames as a catcher.
Manager Scott Servais got Torrens a fair bit of time as a designated hitter last season, when he popped 15 home runs and 16 doubles in 108 games. That’s solid production for a #2 catcher, even a bat-first option, but Torrens’ offensive struggles mounted this year. Coupled with his defensive shortcomings, they eventually pushed him off the roster.
With the trade deadline having passed, the only option is to place Torrens on outright or release waivers within the next couple days. He’s playing this season on a $1.2MM salary after qualifying for early arbitration as a Super Two player last winter. He’s due around $369K through year’s end. Any claiming team would assume the remainder of that money and could control Torrens through 2024. As a player with more than three years of big league service time, he would have the right to refuse an outright assignment in favor of minor league free agency if he goes unclaimed on waivers. Doing so would mean forfeiting the remainder of his guaranteed salary, however, as he has less than five years of service. It therefore seems likely he’d accept an assignment to Tacoma if he clears.
Mariners Reinstate Mitch Haniger From 60-Day IL
In between games of today’s doubleheader with the Angels, the Mariners reinstated outfielder Mitch Haniger from the 60-day injured list. Abraham Toro was optioned to Triple-A in the corresponding move.
Haniger has played in just nine games this year, due to both a two-week stint on the COVID-related IL to begin the season, and then this extended trip on the 60-day IL because of a Grade 2 high ankle sprain. Tonight’s game will mark just the second time Haniger has been able to take the field since April 15. 2022 has been another injury-plagued year for Haniger, who missed over half of the 2019 season and the entire 2020 season due to a ruptured testicle.
Haniger had emerged as a productive bat for the Mariners in 2017-18, and was named to the AL All-Star team in 2018. Returning from his long layoff last year, Haniger basically picked up right where he left off, hitting .253/.318/.485 with 39 home runs over 691 plate appearances and 157 games in 2021.
A healthy and in-form Haniger is an enormous boost to the Mariners’ chances of finally returning to the postseason for the first time 2001. It’s probably safe to assume that he’ll get a few extra DH days to ease back into the lineup, but Haniger’s return as the regular right fielder will move Adam Frazier back into full-time second base work. Julio Rodriguez is still recovering from a wrist injury, but a Seattle outfield featuring Rodriguez and Haniger is a much more daunting challenge for opposing pitchers.
With a little less than two months remaining in the regular season, Haniger will get at least some kind of a platform to post some numbers and add to his market as a free agent this winter. Between his injury history and his age (Haniger will be 32 on Opening Day), the outfielder will need a big finish to give himself a shot at a lucrative multi-year contract. With the qualifying offer now back in play for all free agents, Haniger could be an intriguing candidate to receive and perhaps accept a QO, presuming the Mariners are willing to make what would be a $18MM-$19MM investment in Haniger on a one-year deal.
Dodgers Place Clayton Kershaw On Injured List, Reinstate Chris Taylor
The Dodgers announced they’ve placed Clayton Kershaw on the 15-day injured list, citing low back pain. Utilityman Chris Taylor is back from his own IL stint to take the vacated active roster spot. Los Angeles also recalled reliever Reyes Moronta from Triple-A Oklahoma City and optioned outfielder James Outman.
Kershaw lands on the IL for the second time this season. He lost around a month between early May and June with inflammation in his right hip area. The future Hall of Famer returned and went on to make ten more starts before yesterday’s outing. After throwing four innings of two-run ball in an eventual win over the Giants, Kershaw went out to the mound for his warm-up tosses to start the fifth. He pulled himself from the game after experiencing some pain in his lower back, and that issue will apparently keep him out of action for at least the next few weeks.
The team hasn’t provided a timetable on Kershaw’s return, and the announced diagnosis of “low back pain” remains nebulous. They’ll surely be cautious with the 34-year-old, particularly since he’s landed on the injured list at least once in each season since 2016. That included stints for back issues every year between 2016-18. With a 12 1/2 game lead over the Padres in the NL West, the Dodgers can feel comfortable playing things slowly with key players for the final couple months.
While Kershaw no longer takes on the kind of workloads he did during his prime, he’s still among the sport’s best pitchers on a rate basis. Through 85 1/3 innings this season, the three-time Cy Young winner carries a 2.64 ERA with an above-average 26.2% strikeout rate and 48.5% ground-ball percentage. Kershaw’s fastball is sitting in the 90 MPH range, but he owns arguably the game’s best command and hasn’t walked more than 6% of batters faced in a season for a decade.
Kershaw’s trip to the IL leaves Julio Urías, Tony Gonsolin, Tyler Anderson and Andrew Heaney as the rotation’s top four for the time being. Ryan Pepiot and Michael Grove are depth options at Triple-A, and the club seems likely to welcome hard-throwing righty Dustin May back in the not too distant future. Manager Dave Roberts told MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM this afternoon that May is likely to return by the club’s August 19-21 series against the Marlins (Twitter link). The 24-year-old has been out all season recovering from May 2021 Tommy John surgery, but he’s been on a rehab stint since mid-July. Roberts indicated he’s likely to make two more starts in Oklahoma City before returning to the big league club, although he left open the possibility May rejoins the MLB team after just one more Triple-A appearance.
Taylor makes his return to the starting lineup, exactly a month after fracturing his left foot. It’s a quick bounceback for an injury of that magnitude, and Roberts suggested he’ll get the nod at second base tonight. It’ll be Taylor’s first infield appearance of the season, as he’s worked exclusively on the grass this year. Taylor has logged 502 innings in left field, along with 57 and 56 frames in center and right, respectively.
Of course, Taylor made a name for himself with his defensive flexibility in previous seasons. He’s capable of playing virtually everywhere on the diamond other than catcher, and it seems the club is content to get him back onto the infield on occasion. Gavin Lux and Trea Turner make for an excellent middle infield duo, with Max Muncy playing primarily third base as Justin Turner landed on the IL on Tuesday. Taylor will presumably spend the bulk of his time in the outfield still, but the ability to log some action on the dirt will allow Roberts more flexibility in managing infield reps. The 31-year-old will try to get going offensively after his month away, as he carries a .238/.319/.409 line with a huge 35.4% strikeout rate across 285 plate appearances on the year.
Judge rules Amazon must reinstate fired warehouse worker
A judge has ruled Amazon must reinstate a former warehouse employee who was fired in the early days of the pandemic, saying the company “unlawfully” terminated the worker who led a protest calling for Amazon to do more to protect employees against COVID-19.
The dispute involving Gerald Bryson, who worked at an Amazon warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island, has stretched on since June 2020, when Bryson filed an unfair labor practice complaint with The National Labor Relations Board, claiming Amazon retaliated against him.
Later that year, the NLRB said it found merit in Bryson’s complaint that Amazon illegally fired him for workplace organizing. Amazon didn’t accept the findings, and the federal board filed a formal complaint against the company, triggering a lengthy administrative court process.
On Monday, administrative law judge Benjamin Green said Amazon must offer Bryson his job back, as well as lost wages and benefits resulting from his “discriminatory discharge.” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement that the company will appeal the ruling.
“We strongly disagree with this ruling and are surprised the NLRB would want any employer to condone Mr. Bryson’s behavior,” Nantel said. “Mr. Bryson was fired for bullying, cursing at and defaming a female co-worker over a bullhorn in front of the workplace. We do not tolerate that type of conduct in our workplace and intend to file an appeal with the NLRB.”
Bryson first participated in a March 2020 protest over working conditions led by Chris Smalls, another warehouse employee who was fired by the online retail giant and is heading up the Amazon Labor Union, the nascent group which won a union election earlier this month at the Amazon facility where both men worked.
After Smalls was fired, Bryson led another protest in April 2020 in front of the warehouse. While off the job during the protest, Bryson got into a dispute with another worker. He was later fired for violating Amazon’s vulgar-language policy.
Court filings give an account of the altercation between Bryson and a female employee. A recording of their dispute detailed by the NLRB showed both Bryson and the woman using profanities during a heated exchange that lasted several minutes. The agency’s account shows the woman began the exchange, and twice tried to provoke Bryson into a physical altercation with her, which he did not do. The woman was given a “first warning.”
The woman also told Bryson, who is Black, to “go back to the Bronx,” which the judge said Bryson could construe as “racial” since “since he is African-American and might question why, other than his race, someone would assume he is from the Bronx.”
Bryson testified that he informed an Amazon manager who spoke with him about the incident about that comment. The manager has denied Bryson made a reference to a racial comment. But the judge sided with Bryson’s account, saying it was unlikely that he would “fail to convey such a prominent remark to which he had a strong reaction.”
The judge said in his decision that Amazon rushed to judgment and pursued a “skewed investigation” into the argument designed to blame only Bryson for that incident, adding the company wanted discharge Bryson for his “protected concerted activity instead of fairly evaluating” what happened.
In its investigation into the altercation, Greene said Amazon “preferred not to obtain information from someone who was protesting with Bryson even though that person was likely in the best position to explain what happened.”
Instead, he said multiple witness accounts of the incident submitted by the company were coincidently “one-sided,” adding he found it implausible the statements were made “unless such accounts were solicited from them.”
The NLRB had also pushed for Bryson’s reinstatement in a federal lawsuit filed last month, using a provision of the National Labor Relations Act that allows it to seek temporary relief in federal court while a case goes through the administrative law process. Amazon has used the case as one of its objections over the Staten Island election results, accusing the agency of tainting the vote by pursuing Bryson’s reinstatement in the lead-up to the election.