I’m in the middle of the busiest day I’ve had in a long time. In addition to my normal paperwork for home and volunteer work for the beginning of a new month, it’s time to change polls. It’s also an international holiday. I started collecting the data and preparing the graphics for tomorrow’s Monthly Report at 4:00 AM. I didn’t even get started on the rest until after 8:00. ARGH! TGIF!!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:34 (average 5:34). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The New Yorker: Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is on pace to adopt rival Bernie Sanders’s positions on all major issues by noon on Thursday, Clinton campaign officials have confirmed.
Within minutes of Sanders’s entry into the Democratic race, Clinton released position papers on trade, income inequality, national defense, and the environment that meticulously aped the Vermont senator’s views on those matters.
Awaking at 8 A.M., Sanders, who had planned to run to the left of Clinton in 2016, discovered that, while he was sleeping, she had already begun running slightly to the left of him.
Oh Andy!! FOMCROTFPIMPLMAO!!
From Daily Kos: Aaron Slator is now the former president of AT&T’s content and advertising sales for the U-verse TV services wing of AT&T. What cost him his job managing billions of dollars? Probably the recently $100 million discrimination lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. It must be pretty bad to get a top executive fired.
The images in question were found on Slator’s phone by an assistant who was asked to transfer data to a new phone, according to the lawsuit filed by Knoyme King, a 50-year-old black woman who worked for Slator.
The lawsuit said one of the images, apparently of an African child dancing with the caption "It’s Friday …" followed by a term offensive to African Americans, had been sent in a text describing it as an "oldie but a goodie".
Slator’s termination is not stopping King’s lawsuit from going forward.
Racism among top executives ahold not be a surprise. 1% Republicans are the people, who fund racism.
From NY Times: It is hard to overstate the extent to which work no longer results in a decent paycheck and a rising standard of living in this country. The portion of the economic pie that goes to working people is currently near the smallest on record, in data going back to 1947. Similarly, the gap between worker pay and labor productivity has widened since the 1970s. In a healthy economy, wages and productivity would rise in tandem, but in recent decades, productivity gains have flowed increasingly to executive compensation and shareholder returns, rather than wages.
These dynamics are not inevitable. Low-wage employers, in particular, pay low wages because they can and the main reason they can is that Congress has failed, over decades, to adequately update the minimum wage and other labor standards, including rules for overtime pay, employee benefits and union organizing.
That failure has had deep and perverse repercussions, extending beyond harming low-wage workers. As a recent report in The Times by Patricia Cohen explained, when work does not pay workers enough to get by, they are forced to rely on public assistance programs, mainly Medicaid, food stamps and low-earner tax credits.
Nearly three-fourths of the people helped by public aid for the poor are members of families headed by someone who works, according to a new study by the Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California. It estimates that state and federal governments spend more than $150 billion a year on such aid.
It’s about time we started getting some mainstream coverage that allowing employers to abuse workers is just another form of Republican welfare for the rich.
Cartoon:
18 Responses to “Open Thread–5/1/2015”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
4:33 All I saw was different shades of purple. This one was hard for me.
5:16 I don't read or understand Japanese.
3:53 That Puddy Tat thought that this was a dinner bell so he rang it, but there was no food!
It was a menu! Sushi and Tempura please!! 😉
New Yorker ~ Now she will be canneling both Bernie and Liz. good one, Andy.
Daily Kos ~ This should be happening to more people than just him. He is not the only guilty racist. I guess I should be thankful that it's a beginning.
NY Times ~ With Bernie in the race, new conversations may begin. I'm optimistic on this score.
Cartoon ~ I say: Let the elephant ride the 1%.
Charges have been filed against the policemen in Baltimore for Greay's death. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/6-baltimore-officers-to-face-murder-charges-in-gray-case/ar-BBj262m?ocid=ansnewsreu11
Thanks for the link!
Daily Kos already has a petition up to thank her.
https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/1228
Thanks Joanne!
Excellent!
Just lost my comment here as if it were Care2 when I was almost done grrrrrrr…I'll be back to try to recreate
4:52 average 5:34 still. Being able to read a little Japanese doesn't help. Being able to read a lot might, but I can't read a lot, so I can't say.
New Yorker – Hoping you were able to get up OK and change your pants. I'm not sure this would be a bad thing – although probably a little too early to have the best effect.
Daily Kos – The racism is no surprise. That someone is calling him to account is. GOOD FOR HER!
NY Times – I wish I could believe that MSM coverage will have the desired effect -even a little bit. We are still up against "the poor can never be made to suffer enough."
Cartoon – That poor elephant! It isn't his (her?) fault that he/she isthe GOP mascot. And I suspect those 1%ers of sweating H2SO4 which would certainly put the elephant in pain!
Whether the elepkand is the victim or the symbol of evil, the rich are nstill the ones that can affoed either the vacation or the Party.
AB is spot on again. Read where Bernie had granted more reporters interviews since he announced than Hillary had since she announced. AB suggests it is because she hasn't learned her new scripts yet.
Kudos to Ms. King. It usually calls for persistance by a victim for an employer to take responsibility for legal violations.
Will WaPo follow the NYT example? In CA we've been publicizing this element about Walmart for almost a decade; last year there were whispers the Legislature was going to make such companies pay the State share of such benefits to their employees–and other firms doing likewise.
I'm with Patty on the cartoon.
Tried the jigsaw today–now I know why I wasn't doing them…
Remember to get some rest, too.
The New Yorker: If only Andy has it right this time!
Daily Kos: I am not surprised. I have discovered that the more money people have, the more likely they are to be racists, they feel entitled.
NY Times: Yes, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, yet the poor keep voting Republican! The Dems have made a poor showing in the last 15 years. They apologize for being liberal, and in the last senatorial election, they ran from Obama instead of supporting. I still think If Alison Grimes had said yes, I voted for Obama, in that interview, she would have defeated McConnell. She was ahead of him in the polls at the time. After she did that, her ratings plummeted.
Cartoon; The 1 percent OWN the elephant.
Puzzle — 3:53 That Puddy Tat thought that this was a dinner bell so he rang it, but there was no food!
The New Yorker — I wonder if Hillary has it in her to be left of anybody except a Republicanus/Teabaggerum! If she wants to protect that little grandchild, she better turn a hard left! We'll just have to wait and see I guess.
Daily Kos — A full bucket of water starts with the first drop. May the drops continue until the bucket overflows!
NY Times — Shaming! We know that WalFart is guilty of letting the taxpayers subsidise their employees with SNAP. Medicaid etc because their wages are atrocious. Perhaps by shaming other companies guilty of the same arrogant actions, the working class and poor will actually have a chance.
And the new legislation to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $12 by 2020, is that a joke? What will it cost to live in 2020. Although this is a start, it would seem to perpetuate poverty level wages.
Cartoon — Perhaps the elephant should just drop a load on top of the 1%.
I clicked through to the NY Times article – and I have to disagree with this last paragraph
"Depressed wages are the result of outdated policies and lack of public awareness, that may, at long last, be changing for the better." – they are not the result of outdated policies! They are the result of a deliberate policy on the Right to destroy the middle classes and depress the working classes and to get as much from government subsidies (which they loudly affect to hate) as they can – look at Walmart!
New Yorker – I agree with Lynn.
Daily Kos – good for her!
Thanks TC!
Thanks all. Pooped! Hugs!