Beginning on June 2nd, Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) moved to Wednesdays at 11AM on KPFT HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:
- Live online at KPFT.org
- Podcast on your phone’s Podcast App
- Visiting Archive.KPFT.ORG
Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig on 90.1 KPFT- HD2, Where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories.
My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.
Listen live on the radio, or on the internet from anywhere in the world! Please take a moment to visit Pledge.KPFT.org and choose THINKWING RADIO from the drop-down list when you donate.
For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:
- An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
- You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
“There’s a reason why you separate military and police. One fights the enemy of the State. The other serves and protects the People. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the State tend t become the People.” ~ Commander Adama, “Battlestar Galactica” (“WATER”, Season 1 episode 2, at the 28 minute mark.)
POSSIBLE TOPICS: Voting info; STAAR math/reading score declines in Cy-Fair ISD reflect TX trends; Harris County Commissioners Court appoints first county administrator; Harris County considering $14.8M public safety initiatives; Houston approves residential water rate increase after delays; ERCOT will have to release information about power plant outages quicker; Greg Abbott expresses regret over reopening TX bars during coronavirus; TX Republicans move forward with plans for indoor convention in Houston; Majority of TX voters isn’t enough to sway a Republican state gov’t; Biden shift reassures Republican senators on bipartisan infrastructure deal; COMMENTARY – Republicans, Obamacare, & Income Extortion; Where Jobless Benefits Were Cut, Jobs Are Still Hard to Fill; Latest NYC mayoral count voided after ‘test’ ballots included in tally; Boring news cycle deals blow to partisan media; Google’s Internet Ad Dominance Draws Fresh E.U. Antitrust Inquiry; Resistance Fighters Battle Myanmar’s Military in Mandalay; More.
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- Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter InformationTEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
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- Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2021
- Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
- GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
- Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX) <– UPDATED LINK
- Montgomery County (TX) Elections
- Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
- Waller County (TX) Elections
- Chambers County (TX) Elections
- For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG. Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
- If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
- HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting CentersHARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
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- Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
- A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
- Current utility bill
- Bank statement
- Government check
- Paycheck
- A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
- You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
- Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
- Sick or disabled;
- 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
- Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
- Make sure you are registered:
- Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
- CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
- CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
- Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
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- As always, be sure you’re registered to vote, and VOTE! (And try not to let these off-off-off elections sneak past you. Constant vigilance is required.)
- CLARIFICATION BY ANDREW: “Eminent Domain” vs “Civil Forfeiture”.
- NOT SO MUCH AN ANALYSIS AS AN “FYI”: STAAR math, reading score declines in Cy-Fair ISD reflect statewide trends; By Danica Lloyd | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 5:02 PM Jun 28, 2021 CDT | Updated 5:02 PM Jun 28, 2021 CDT
- Cy-Fair ISD saw a general increase in the number of students who did not meet grade-level expectations for STAAR and EOC exams from spring 2019 to spring 2021.
- State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness [STAAR] results from the spring 2021 administration released June 28 showed Cy-Fair ISD students performed better than the state average at every grade level. However, the percentage of students who passed exams was lower in almost every subject in spring 2021 than in spring 2019—the last time STAAR tests were administered.
- MIKE: The article is much longer, with both informative text and charts.
- In split vote, Harris County Commissioners Court appoints David Berry as first county administrator;By Hannah Zedaker | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:19 PM Jun 29, 2021 CDT | Updated 4:19 PM Jun 29, 2021 CDT
- In a split vote, Harris County Commissioners Court appointed David Berry as the first county administrator in Harris County’s history at the June 29 Commissioners Court meeting. …
- [T]he court previously approved an agreement with PFM Consulting Group Inc. in 2019 to conduct an organizational and operational review of Harris County government. The final report, which was published in November, recommended the implementation of structural reforms to streamline the government’s current organization, such as the creation of a county administrator position. … [A] similar study was conducted by KPMG in 1997, resulting in a similar conclusion …
- “… [C]ounty government must implement reforms to become more efficient, effective and resilient, and to address long-standing equity issues experienced by people in diverse communities across the county,” the 2020 report reads.” …
- Under Harris County’s current organizational and reporting structure, more than 20 departments report directly to the Commissioners Court. …[T]he addition of a county administrator position aims to improve coordination, enhance accountability and strengthen oversight by charging the county administrator with providing day-to-day oversight of the county government and providing guidance and coordination to all county departments. …
- [T]he county administrator would be appointed and subject to removal by a majority of the Commissioners Court and would be allocated an initial budget of $2 million. Additionally, … the county administrator would be tasked with the following duties and responsibilities: * Serve as the county budget officer; * Maintain the authority to appoint and dismiss deputies, managing directors and other department heads, expect [sic] where a position must be appointed by Commissioners Court according to Texas statute, in which case appointment should be made by Commissioners Court on the recommendation of the county administrator; * Develop and present regular reports to Commissioners Court on county performance related to identified outcomes and metrics approved by Commissioners Court; * Develop and present the county’s long-range strategic plan for consideration and approval by Commissioners Court; * Coordinate the development and execution of strategic goals and objectives, performance management and sound fiscal management with significant responsibility to proactively identify and resolve issues to ensure ongoing county operations; and * Provide guidance and coordination to all county departments to ensure county business is conducted in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.
- RATIONALE FOR REALIGNMENT: IMPROVE COORDINATION
- The County’s current practice of having over 20 departments report directly to Commissioners Court creates a highly siloed approach with each department focused primarily on its own operations, funding, and personnel. As a result, we miss opportunities to increase efficiency and effectiveness through coordination and collaboration.
- Under a more streamlined administrative structure, the County can establish the mechanisms and incentives needed to facilitate coordination within and among departments and apply its resources more efficiently and effectively to improve the outcomes of programs and services, meet challenges, and eliminate redundancies.
- In the Final Report, PFM proposes creating four Deputy County Administrators that would report directly to the CA and oversee departments based on focus area. Rather than proceed exactly along these lines upfront, this document outlines a process whereby the County Administrator will have 45 days to develop and propose an organizational chart to Commissioners Court for approval that may include one or more deputies or other positions to support the new structure.
- The County’s toughest challenges—from resiliency to natural disasters, to improving public safety, to enhancing health and opportunity—are bigger than any one department. For example, given the many factors related to and stakeholders involved in flood control and other resilience efforts, it is imperative that we have a more coordinated approach to managing and weighing priorities for investments in resiliency and that we can achieve synergies across departments throughout the development and implementation of short- and long-range strategies. …
- Critics of the proposal said they were concerned the creation of a county administrator position would take away power from Harris County voters while also redistributing power amongst court members.
- Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle said, “This is not a D or an R issue; I think whether or not we have a county administrator is more about control of power, not about whether it’s a Republican or Democrat at that time; it’s a power-to-the-people issue. We most likely will vote 3-2 on who’s going to be the new county administrator—that means that three of us will control the county administrator and the power will actually be increased in [the Democrat’s] column, rather than diffused.”
- However, Hidalgo argued the new position would have little effect on how each commissioner currently operates their respective precincts and that decisions will still be made by a majority court vote. “This is simply an internal management adjustment; it’s about keeping the machinery of government well oiled,” Hidalgo said. …
- Following several hours of public comment with speakers both for and against the proposition, the court approved the creation of a county administrator position and appointed Berry to fill that position effective immediately in a split 3-2 vote; the court Republicans, Cagle and Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey, voted against the measure.
- DISCUSSION POINTS: Why devote so much time and space to discussing this particular article? Why was the vote along party lines? What does “Siloed” vs. “apply its resources more efficiently and effectively” mean? Are the negative Republican votes more about preserving ‘fiefdoms’ than preserving “power to the people (Cagle)”?
- Harris County considering $14.8M in new public safety initiatives; By Emma Whalen | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:19 PM, Jun 28, 2021 CDT | Updated 5:48 PM Jun 28, 2021 CDT
- Harris County Commissioners Court on June 29 [was scheduled to] consider $14.8 million worth of initiatives to combat the Houston area’s ongoing rise in violent crime. …
- [Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia] was joined by Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez; County Judge Lina Hidalgo; and Matt Slinkard, Houston Police Department executive assistant chief, to promote the proposals at a press conference June 28.
- Four proposals before the commissioners will include: A) Six new associate judges to assist in 22 criminal district courts; B) Funding for visiting judges to assist the proposed six new associate judges; C) An expansion of jury service at NRG Stadium; and D) Funding within the sheriff’s office for overtime, new body cameras to speed up evidence retrieval and expansion of pilot neighborhoods for the “Shot Spotter program”, which geolocates gunfire in real time.
- The cost of the proposals will be covered by unallocated funds within the sheriff’s and constable’s offices’ budgets, Hidalgo said. …
- “We are using funding that has just been sitting there in a really antiquated system that you really do not see in other governments,” Hidalgo said.
- The proposals, led by Garcia, take aim at resolving the backlog of cases in Harris County, which has grown by 40% since Hurricane Harvey disrupted criminal justice facilities and proceedings in 2017. The issue was also exacerbated because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hidalgo said. …
- DISCUSSION POINTS: Will the new associate judges be elected or appointed, and will any sort of ‘gerrymandering’ be involved? “An expansion of jury service at NRG Stadium”?
- Houston approves residential water rate increase after delays, contentious vote; By Emma Whalen | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:15 PM, Jun 23, 2021 CDT | Updated 4:15 PM Jun 23, 2021 CDT
- Many Houston residents will start to see higher water bills Sept. 1.
- Houston City Council approved a rate increase in a 12-4 vote June 23 and amended the measure to allow the rate to begin Sept. 1 rather than the originally planned July 1 start date.
- An analysis commissioned by Houston Public Works found about 60% of households in Houston will see a $5 increase in monthly water bills as a result of the rate change. However, several council members expressed concern that there are too many unknown variables related to Houston’s water infrastructure to determine an appropriate rate.
- The rate is structured so that any single-family household that uses less than 4,000 gallons of water per month will receive a lower rate than households that use more.
- Mayor Sylvester Turner and all present council members [voted in support of the measure] except for Council Members Mike Knox, Greg Travis, Michael Kubosh and Amy Peck. Council Member Letitia Plummer was absent.
- Municipalities in Texas are required to study their utility rates every five years …
- Houston City Council has not adjusted the water rate since 2010 and because the city needs to fund infrastructure improvements required by a federal consent decree. …
- MIKE: This is more or less an update on a story we had discussed previous on the show. FYI, when any City Council members voted against this increase, they were in effect voting to violate the consent decree, because there would be no way to pay for implementing it. Or, there would just be more cuts in other city services in order to find the money to pay for it.
- ANDREW: True, the money has to come from somewhere, and a $5 increase is probably going to be okay for most people. I just hope that for those households that can’t afford the increase, something else can be done. Perhaps a $5 increase in property taxes for properties valued over $1 million. Just an idea.
- ERCOT will have to release information about power plant outages quicker — but it may not detail what causes them; The Public Utility Commission said the state’s main power grid operator will have three days — instead of 60 — to release some information about power plant outages. But that may not include why the electricity generators were offline. by Mitchell Ferman | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | June 24, 20212 PM Central
- … The directive from the Public Utility Commission comes the week after power grid operator ERCOT [MIKE: aka, the Electric “Reliability-should-not-be-our-middle-name” Council of Texas] asked Texans to conserve electricity because 12,000 megawatts of power generation was unexpectedly offline — enough to power 2.4 million homes on a hot summer day.
- ERCOT says it still doesn’t know why so many power generators were offline and the PUC stopped short of requiring the grid operator to release detailed information about the root causes for the loss of electricity capacity. …
- So the information about last week’s outages [the week of 6/21/2021] — which could be released as soon as next week [i.e., the week of this show] — may not answer lingering questions about root causes raised by experts and regulators. That includes questions about whether there were damages to the power grid infrastructure stemming from February’s deadly winter storm or if nefarious actors were looking to manipulate the electricity market. …
- ERCOT’s independent watchdog is expected to investigate what happened last week. Beth Garza, who was director of the watchdog from 2014 to 2019, said in an interview this week that she had encouraged ERCOT to adopt rules that would allow the grid operator to release information more swiftly after certain electricity or power-related “events.” ERCOT and the PUC never did so.
- Greg Abbott expresses regret over reopening Texas bars during coronavirus; “If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would have been to slow down the opening of bars,” Abbott said in a TV interview Friday evening [6/25/2021]. by Patrick Svitek June 26, 2020 Updated: 6 PM Central
- Greg Abbott on Friday expressed regret for the first known time about the reopening process he spearheaded during the coronavirus pandemic, saying he should not have allowed bars to open as quickly.
- “If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would have been to slow down the opening of bars, now seeing in the aftermath of how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting,” Abbott said during an evening interview with KVIA in El Paso.
- Abbott added that the “bar setting, in reality, just doesn’t work with a pandemic,” noting people “go to bars to get close and to drink and to socialize, and that’s the kind of thing that stokes the spread of the coronavirus.”
- In a subsequent interview with WFAA in Dallas, Abbott reiterated regret over the pace of bar reopenings, calling it an “easy thing to pinpoint” as he looks back on the process.
- Abbott’s comments came hours after he shut down bars across the state as part of a series of moves to contain a coronavirus spike in Texas. He also scaled back restaurant capacity to 50%, shut down rafting and tubing businesses, and banned outdoor gatherings of over 100 people unless approved by local officials. …
- Abbott permitted bars to reopen for the first time on May 22, at 25% indoor capacity. On June 3, he allowed bars to move to 50% capacity as long as customers are seated.
- But cases have climbed rapidly in recent weeks. On Thursday, Texas saw another record number of new cases — 5,996 — as well as hospitalizations — 4,739. The hospitalization number set a record for the 14th straight day. During the increase, Abbott has cited Texas’ large hospital capacity and the availability of respirators. But many hospitals in Texas’ big cities have reported crowded intensive care units in recent days, and some cities have begun reviving plans to treat patients at convention centers and stadiums.
- MIKE: This article is Abbott expressing “regret” over re-opening bars on May 22, just a little over a month ago, but Gov. Abbott has been doing the wrong things during this pandemic for over a year. To “express regret” now, and only for his recent ill-conceived Covid-related decisions is just infuriating. In a sane world, Greg Abbott would resign as governor based on, if nothing else, his criminal negligence in his willful mishandling of the Covid pandemic in Texas. But this assumes the existence of ‘shame’ in Greg Abbott, his cronies, and his enablers. How many Texans’ deaths has Greg about et al. been responsible for since, say, May 2020; over a year ago?
- ANDREW: I really hope the rest of the nation sees this as the warning it is about easing lockdown restrictions too soon. I’m just as excited to get back into the world as everyone else, but the CDC made a mistake in lifting mask mandates, which is effectively what they did because people ARE lying about being vaccinated so they don’t have to wear masks, and every state that’s easing restrictions is playing with fire. The existence of a vaccine does not equate to widespread distribution of that vaccine. I also think about the minimum wage workers who are put back in harm’s way every time Abbott decides bars can open again. Frankly, if governments aren’t going to protect public health, labor should. I think we should consider a general strike until 95% of the US population is vaccinated.
- MEANWHILE, The day after the previous story was published: Texas Republicans move forward with plans for an indoor convention in Houston, the state’s biggest coronavirus hot spot; Greg Abbott is allowing limits on outdoor crowds — but not indoor gatherings. His party’s convention — with an expected attendance of 6,000 — so far will not require attendees to wear face masks. by Meena Venkataramanan | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | June 27, 20205 AM Central
- As the coronavirus pandemic engulfs Texas’ metropolitan areas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has left the door open for massive indoor gatherings. And organizers are moving forward with some big ones, including the Texas Republican Party’s upcoming convention in Houston.
- Harris County, where Houston is located, has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the state, but the Texas GOP plans to press forward with plans to hold an in-person convention from July 16-18 in the city’s George R. Brown Convention Center. …
- On Tuesday, Abbott granted local officials the power to restrict outdoor gatherings of more than 100 people, but made no mention of indoor gatherings. The Texas GOP convention is expected to draw about 6,000 attendees, roughly half of what it would expect for such a convention in normal times…. The party’s website brands its biannual convention as the “largest political gathering in the free world.” …
- David Lakey, the former commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said he believes large indoor gatherings of more than 100 people are not advisable at this time. …
- The party does not plan to require masks at the convention, though chairman James Dickey acknowledged Tuesday that Harris County is currently under an order mandating that businesses require customers to wear masks. …
- That order expires Tuesday, and Dickey said the party will “revisit” the mask issue during another tele-town hall next month before the convention. …
- The Houston First Corporation, which operates the George R. Brown Convention Center, said it is legally obligated to honor a contract with the Republican Party of Texas that was signed before the pandemic began. …
- Abhi Rahman, a spokesperson for the Texas Democratic Party, said …“Their decision is completely baffling, it’s reckless, it’s irresponsible,” he said. “It shows you that they haven’t taken this thing seriously from day one. Houston is one of the biggest coronavirus hotspots right now, and they want to go there, they want to hold an in-person convention without requiring face masks, where they’re gonna put even more people at risk and the hospitality workers at risk.”
- Analysis: A majority of Texas voters isn’t enough to sway a Republican state government; The Texas Legislature has a Republican majority, and knowing what most voters want isn’t the best way to predict what lawmakers will do. You have to know what Republican voters want. by Ross Ramsey | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | June 28, 202115 hours ago
- Texans want to legalize marijuana and don’t think everybody should be able to carry a gun without training or a license.
- So the state Legislature passed a “constitutional carry” bill earlier this year — and the governor signed it. And the marijuana bills that were filed in the recent regular session never came to a vote.
- How does that happen?
- Those are hardly the only issues where public sentiment and state government are out of whack. According to the findings of the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, the list includes the legislative response to electric reliability, Medicaid expansion, banning abortion and voting fraud.
- In that poll, conducted this month, one set of responses points to the answer. To oversimplify it, the state’s Republican Legislature and governor are more responsive to the state’s Republican voters than to the full set of voters that also includes Democrats and Texans who don’t identify as members of either major party. That’s a shift from two years ago, when Republicans were feeling more heat from Democratic voters after close wins in 2018’s elections. Democrats were weak in the 2020 elections, and with another election cycle coming, incumbents in the GOP are worried about challengers from within the party.
- On a wide range of issues, Republican voters were consistently more approving of the Legislature’s actions than Democrats were. It didn’t matter if the topic was 2nd Amendment rights, where approval from Republicans hit 70% and among Democrats was only 15%, or legislative action on homelessness, where 26% of Republicans and 9% of Democrats approved. …
- [O]n big issues of the day — like those getting the spotlight from Gov. Greg Abbott and others as we enter the next political cycle — popularity with conservative voters appears to be an indication of what gets promoted.
- For instance, Texas voters are split — 44% to 46% — on the question of whether abortion should be legal after six weeks of pregnancy. The Legislature passed that into law — and the governor signed it. Here’s a clue: 74% of Republican voters support outlawing abortion after six weeks.
- Along the same lines, the governor signed a bill that would outlaw abortions in Texas if the courts overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, even though 53% of the state’s voters oppose that law. Among Republican voters, 61% favor it.
- The government that purports to represent the majority of Texans often represents only the majority of the people in the party in power. …
- Having the support of 60% of the state’s voters isn’t enough to get the Republican majorities in either the House or the Senate to legalize, or even to vote on it. They’re waiting for the voters they care about.
- DISCUSSION POINTS: PARTY IN POWER’S VOTERS vs ELIGIBLE OR REGISTERED VOTERS. ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES, SO MAKE SURE YOU VOTE!
- IN NATIONAL NEWS, AS YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY HEARD: Biden shift reassures Republican senators on bipartisan infrastructure deal; By Amy B Wang | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | June 27, 2021 at 3:07 p.m. CDT
- President Biden appears to have salvaged a nearly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal, after two days of uncertainty in which GOP lawmakers took issue with remarks by Biden suggesting he would not sign the agreement unless it was linked with another proposal that included more spending for other Democratic priorities.
- In interviews Sunday, several Republican lawmakers resumed an optimistic tone, predicting the bipartisan infrastructure bill would be successful after Biden issued a lengthy statement Saturday asserting that his comments had not amounted to a veto threat. …
- On Thursday … Biden told reporters he would sign it only in tandem with his American Families Plan, a separate bill that includes spending on items Democrats have argued are also critical infrastructure, such as child care and clean-energy investments.
- “If this is the only thing that comes to me, I’m not signing it,” Biden said then. “It’s in tandem.”
- Biden’s remarks prompted [an] uproar by GOP lawmakers, who said they were blindsided and accused Biden of carrying out a bait-and-switch. Some Democrats said Republicans should have known all along that they intended to pursue comprehensive infrastructure investments on two separate tracks. …
- Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), a moderate whose vote could make or break the Democrats’ agenda in a 50-50 Senate, urged his liberal colleagues to support the bipartisan infrastructure bill and sought to assure them that the “human infrastructure” elements would be pursued separately.
- “I hope they just look at the bill,” Manchin said on ABC’s “This Week.” “We have two tracks. And that’s exactly what I believe is going to happen. And we’ve worked on the one track. We’re going to work on the second track.”
- MIKE: This is really simple. Biden can be conciliatory to Senate Republicans, but it’s actually all in Pelosi hands, the disingenuous Republicans know this. Pelosi won’t bring the “bipartisan” bill up for a vote in the House unless the reconciliation bill is also passed by the Senate and is up for a House vote. As I’ve interpreted Pelosi’s comments, Biden will either get both bills to sign or he will get neither.
- ANDREW: So it’s about image, then. Republicans want to be able to tell their base that they got Biden to agree to “their” infrastructure plan independent of “his” American Families Plan, while keeping them mostly ignorant of the package deal that the two bills really were, regardless of whether or not he actually signs both. Base is happy, goes and votes Republican, Republican re-election. Slimy, but smart.
- COMMENTARY: I’ve always wondered why there was so much pushback from businesses (and their Republican allies) against universal healthcare (such as Universal Medicare), or even the less comprehensive program called the ACA/Obamacare.
- Public healthcare eliminates a bottom-line expense and should also enable businesses to price their goods and services more competitively. It also potentially leads to a healthier and perhaps happier working class, which could translate in higher worker productivity. So it’s always seemed clear to me that getting healthcare off their books made perfect sense from a business perspective. Now, I think I’ve figured out why republicans hate Obamacare. It came as a sort of epiphany while watching Health Care Sharing Ministries: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (June 27 show).
- He mentioned that without Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act, or ACA), most people only get medical insurance through their jobs. That’s when something in my mind went “DING”.
- I suddenly had the realization that the Covid unemployment benefit termination being used as an extortionate cudgel to force people to take jobs they don’t want perhaps was perhaps a strategy similar to making medical insurance available only through jobs.
- So now we have a two-pronged approach: The State pays people as little as possible when they’re unemployed to starve them back into work, and keep medical insurance connected to jobs to use their health status to extort people into work.; even unwell people for whom a job may be the ONLY way they can afford or obtain health insurance.
- ANDREW: Without asking conservative business owners why they hate universal healthcare, all we can really do is guess. My guess is the reasoning is ideological. The whole “personal responsibility”, “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps”, “if-you’re-not-making-me-money-you-should-be-dead” mindset, possibly with a little bit of the “socialism is when the government does stuff and the more stuff the government does the more socialist it is” mindset. Even when the facts disagree, I think conservatives’ feelings on the subject take precedence for them.
- Where Jobless Benefits Were Cut, Jobs Are Still Hard to Fill; Missouri scrapped federal pay to the unemployed, saying it kept people out of the labor market. But so far, workers still seem to be choosy. By Patricia Cohen | NYTIMES.COM | Published June 27, 2021, Updated June 28, 2021
- MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. — By lunchtime, the representatives from the recruiting agency Express Employment Professionals decided to pack up and leave the job fair in the St. Louis suburb of Maryland Heights. Hardly anyone had shown up.
- “We were hoping we would see prepandemic levels,” said Courtney Boyle, general manager of Express. After all, Missouri had just cut off federal unemployment benefits.
- Business owners had complained that the assistance, as Gov. Mike Parson put it, “incentivized people to stay out of the work force.” He made Missouri one of the first four states to halt the federal aid; a total of 26 have said they will do so by next month. But in the St. Louis metropolitan area, where the jobless rate was 2 percent in May, those who expected the June 12 termination would unleash a flood of job seekers were disappointed.
- Work-force development officials said they had seen virtually no uptick in applicants since the governor’s announcement, which ended a $300 weekly supplement to other benefits. And the online job site Indeed found that in states that have abandoned the federal benefits, clicks on job postings were below the national average.
- [I]t’s early. But conversations with [potential] employers … and people who are hunting for jobs in the St. Louis area revealed stark differences in expectations and assumptions about what a day’s work is worth.
- The divide raises a fundamental question of what a healthy labor market looks like. Does it mean workers are on such a knife edge that they feel compelled to take the first job that comes along? Or is it one in which employers are the ones who have to scramble and feel pressured to raise wages and improve working conditions? Are the economy and the public better off when workers get to be choosy or when employers do?
- [Katharine G. Abraham, an economist at the University of Maryland and a former commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics said,] “One way you might define normal is when employers and workers have the same idea of what an appropriate package looks like, and then the issue is matching up the people with the jobs.”
- “Clearly part of the problem now,” she said, “is that what employers [think] and what workers think is out of whack.” …
- The labor market’s deeper problem, said Francine D. Blau, an economist at Cornell University, is the proliferation of low-paid jobs with few prospects for advancement and too little income to cover essential expenses like housing, food and health care.
- The pandemic focused attention on many of these low-wage workers, who showed up to deliver food, clean hospital rooms and operate cash registers. “The pandemic put their lives at risk,” Ms. Blau said, “and we began to wonder if we are adequately remunerating a lot of the core labor we need to function as an economy and society.” …
- In St. Louis, a single person needs to earn $14 an hour to cover basic expenses at a minimum standard, according to I.T.’s living-wage calculator. [MIKE: FOR A GENERIC CALCULATOR WHEREVER YOU LIVE, GO HERE.] Add a child, and the needed wage rises just above $30. Two adults working with two children would each have to earn roughly $21 an hour.
- The Biden administration has made clear that it seeks to tilt bargaining power toward workers. At the core of the president’s economic model “is the view that workers too often lack the necessary bargaining clout to claim their fair share of growth that they themselves are helping to produce,” [said Jared Bernstein, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.]
- In recent decades, a declining share of the country’s income and its productivity gains has gone to workers. And for adults without a four-year college degree, the options are especially bleak. From 1974 to 2018, for example, real wages for men with only a high school diploma declined by 7 percent. For those without that diploma, wages fell by 18 percent.
- For most of the last 40 years, less than full employment has tended to give employers the advantage. As it becomes harder to find qualified candidates, though, employers are often slow to adjust expectations. …
- In St. Louis, the Element Hotel held a job fair to hire servers, bartenders and front-desk receptionists. Housekeepers were especially in demand. Janessa Corpuz, the general manager, had come in on a Sunday with her teenage daughter to do laundry because of the shortage.
- The hotel, which is on a major bus line, raised its starting wage to $13.50 an hour, the second increase in two months. It also offers benefits and a $50-a-month transportation allowance. The number of applicants shot up — to 40 from a handful the previous month — after the second wage increase. …
- Amy Barber Terschluse, the owner of three [Express Employment Professionals] franchises in St. Louis, handles mostly manufacturing, distribution and administrative jobs. Wages, hours and a short commute are what matter most to job seekers, she said, and few would work for less than $14 an hour. …
- In industries like hospitality and warehousing, annual turnover rates can surpass 100 percent, which can pare overall growth. Mary C. Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said good job matches between employers and workers produced the most productivity and engagement.
- A dynamic labor market is one where the two sides negotiate over compensation, Ms. Daly said. If jobless benefits allow people to be a little more choosy because they are not destitute, she said, then “I, as an economist, predict that will be better for job matches and a better economy in the long run.”
- Living Wage calculator <– Plug In Your Variables
- Latest New York mayoral count voided after ‘test’ ballots included in tally; By JOE ANUTA and DAVID GIAMBUSSO | POLITICO.COM | 06/29/2021 11:31 PM EDT, Updated 06/30/2021 12:02 AM EDT
- The New York City Board of Elections accidentally included results from a mock trial of the city’s new ranked-choice voting system in unofficial primary returns released Tuesday — a snafu that threw the election process into chaos. …
- Three hours after releasing the numbers, the Board of Elections issued a statement acknowledging a “discrepancy” and subsequently took down the totals from their website.
- After 10 p.m. Tuesday, the board finally came clean with a statement: The “test“ ballots were never cleared out of the tabulation system and thus added the additional votes into the total, skewing the numbers. The board said that it has removed all of the erroneous ballots from the count and will re-run the results — though when the new rankings will be ready was still unclear.
- The error drew harsh recriminations from city leaders already wary of ranked-choice voting …
- The board said it would re-run the results Wednesday [6/30/2021], but the delay has already dealt a significant setback to the process. Absentee ballots, which could prove decisive in the final outcome, won’t be counted until next week. And campaigns that end up on the losing end of the final tally are likely to file a flurry of legal challenges based on the board’s prosecution of the election so far. The worst-case scenario — a manual recount of the votes — could delay a final outcome for months. …
- Susan Lerner of good government group Common Cause New York said that the BOE’s admission showed that human error was to blame and not anything related to the new voting system itself. …
- Despite [some] dire warnings, New Yorkers appeared to take to the new system fairly easily. But the elections board’s tabulation error is likely to draw a series of complaints if the final results are close — especially from the campaigns themselves. More than 124,000 absentee ballots have yet to be counted and the race is still anyone’s call.
- DISCUSSION POINTS: CONFUSION CAUSED BY RANKED CHOICE (1-2-3) VOTING, OR BY SIMPLE HUMAN ERROR?
- Boring news cycle deals blow to partisan media; by Neal Rothschild, Sara Fischer | AXIOS.COM | 20 hours ago – Politics & Policy
- In the months since former President Donald Trump left office, media companies’ readership numbers are plunging — and publishers that rely on partisan, ideological warfare have taken an especially big hit.
- Outlets most dependent on controversy to stir up resentments have struggled to find a foothold in the Biden era, according to an Axios analysis of publishers’ readership and engagement trends. …
- A group of far-right outlets, including Newsmax and The Federalist, saw aggregate traffic drop 44% from February through May compared to the previous six months, according to Comscore data.
- Lefty outlets including Mother Jones and Raw Story saw a 27% drop.
- Mainstream publishers including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Reuters dropped 18%.
- DISCUSSION POINTS: Eyeballs equal dollars in media. Conflict sells. Is this good or bad for our politics and civil discourse, or does it not matter?
- Google’s Internet Ad Dominance Draws Fresh E.U. Antitrust Inquiry; The bloc’s investigation, which takes aim at the heart of Google’s business model, is part of a push to regulate the world’s largest technology companies. By Adam Satariano | NYTIMES.COM | June 22, 2021
- European Union regulators took aim at the heart of Google’s business model on Tuesday, announcing that the Silicon Valley giant is the subject of a new antitrust investigation for potentially abusing its dominance in the online advertising market to stifle competition. …
- “We are concerned that Google has made it harder for rival online advertising services to compete in the so-called ad tech stack,” Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s executive vice president in charge of competition policy, said in a statement.
- “A level playing field is of the essence for everyone in the supply chain,” she said. …
- In Germany, antitrust regulators recently announced an investigation of Google’s data-processing practices. The company has also been targeted by competition authorities in Britain, Australia, Turkey and Russia, among other jurisdictions.
- In the United States, Google is battling a Justice Department lawsuit accusing the company of illegally protecting its dominance in online search and advertising. Authorities said Google unfairly paid for deals with companies like Apple to make Google the iPhone’s default search engine, and impeded competition by using exclusive contracts and agreements with customers. Parallel cases have been brought by attorneys general in dozens of states. …
- DISCUSS: Last week, we touched on what constitutes monopolistic practices, and what is the basis for anti-trust action.
- ANDREW: Good. Big tech needs to be broken up, and Google is one of the companies in most need of a metaphorical jackhammer. There’s got to be a way to have this same convenience of data that we have now while ensuring that no one tech company has everything about us in its servers, and that we can’t sever any links between companies that we so choose for our personal data at any time. Even if there isn’t a way to have our cake and eat it too, we’ll probably have some interesting ideas trying to find one.
- Resistance Fighters Battle Myanmar’s Military in Mandalay; A shootout in Myanmar’s second-biggest city was the first time the military and a group of armed civilians known as the People’s Defense Force clashed in a major urban area. By Hannah Beech | NYTIMES.COM | June 22, 2021
- … Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar, has been a center of anti-military resistance since the junta staged a coup on Feb. 1. Dozens have been shot dead by security forces there. But the boom of heavy artillery so early in the morning was unusual.
- The volleys of gunfire marked the first time that clashes erupted in a big city between the military and a newly formed militia, the People’s Defense Force, affiliated with Myanmar’s ousted elected leadership.
- “We have started and declared war,” said Ko Tun Tauk Naing, a spokesman for the People’s Defense Force in Mandalay. …
- DISCUSS: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”[7][8] ~ John F. Kennedy, “Address on the First Anniversary of the Alliance for Progress,” White House reception for diplomatic corps of the Latin American republics, March 13, 1962. Public Papers of the Presidents – John F. Kennedy (1962), p. 223. Wikisource
- ANDREW: I’m not the biggest fan of the elected Myanmar government– there’s too much conflation of state and religion there in my book– but I’m pretty sure I like it more than I do the military regime. I hope the PDF isn’t U.S.-backed, because this seems like the kind of situation that U.S. politicians would love to manipulate with a gun shipment here, a bribe there, et cetera, but I know that if the U.S. does intervene, the same thing that always happens when the U.S. intervenes will happen: things will get worse, for everyone except the ones in Washington.
Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig 