……… §

If there’s anything I learned about Texas, they will gladly freeze your kids to death and give your grandma heat stroke if it means keeping their energy grid private so a few old white guys can buy a 3rd yacht.

— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) June 15, 2021

Can we PLEASE give it back to Mexico?

Initial unemployment clams remained steady last week, and the less volatile 4-week moving average rose slightly.

I don’t find this a surprise.

We are not even close to being out of the proverbial woods:

A recent downward trend in worker filings for jobless benefits stalled in mid-June amid other signs the labor market continues to gradually recover.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial unemployment claims, a proxy for layoffs, moved slightly lower last week to a seasonally adjusted 411,000 from an upwardly revised 418,000 the prior week, when claims rose. The four-week average for claims, which smooths out volatility in the weekly figures, rose slightly off a pandemic low to 397,750.

While last week’s initial claims were higher than projected and claims overall remain above pre-pandemic levels, their downward trajectory, along with a pickup in hiring, a declining unemployment rate and optimistic consumer sentiment, points to gains for the U.S. labor market.

Claims are down sharply from the depths of the Covid-19-induced downturn during 2020, and are hovering at levels half of what they were in January this year. Weekly claims totals are down more than 40% from the 742,000 total posted the week ended April 3.

………

The report showed new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft—so-called core capital-goods orders, a closely watched proxy for business investment—declined 0.1% in May from April. Such orders were up 2.7% the prior month.

………

The Commerce Department also released updated calculations of U.S. gross domestic product—a broad measure of the economy’s output of goods and services. The update said GDP rose at an annual rate of 6.4% in the first quarter, matching previous estimates. 

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens as extended unemployment benefits wind down.

This injection of money into the economy is a large reason why we’ve had a decent recovery.

For years, people in Black communities have been reticent about calling in the cops, because of the distinct chance that it would result in the arrival of an armed racist bully masquerading as a peace officer.

It appears that this reticence is spreading to white communities as well.

This is going to make Cops’ jobs more difficult, and I am not sure if this is necessarily a bad thing:

………

For decades, many Black Americans have believed that cops’ presence will either make a situation worse—or won’t have any impact. And the solution has sometimes been to not call the police at all, even in circumstances where they felt unsafe.

But it’s not just communities of color anymore: White people are now occasionally rethinking whether it’s a good idea to rely so heavily on law enforcement, especially if summoning the police could potentially harm someone. And entire cities have considered whether police officers are the best response to certain kinds of offenses.

Floyd’s fatal arrest last May seems to have hardened that perception. Even the teenage corner store clerk expressed regret over having taken the counterfeit $20 bill from Floyd, which later caused another employee to call the police. “If I would have just not taken the bill, this could have been avoided,” the clerk, Christopher Martin, said on the witness stand during Chauvin’s murder trial. An owner of the store, Cup Foods, decided after cops killed Floyd that from then on he and his employees would only call the cops to report violence, according to the New York Times.

………

While the dialogue about when it’s appropriate to call the police and if they really keep people safe isn’t new, it’s a conversation that some white communities seem increasingly willing to join.

Misha Viets van Dyk, the national chapter network organizer for Showing Up for Racial Justice, which organizes white communities for racial and economic justice, said their organization saw a “giant wave” of white people concerned about police accountability this past year.

“As people learn about their own background or the backgrounds of people around them, they see more and more reasons why putting their trust into this institution of policing is one that harms us,” Viets van Dyk said.

A Gallup poll conducted after Floyd was murdered last summer found that Americans’ confidence in the police had slid to a record low of 48 percent, the first time in nearly 30 years without a majority.

Maybe if cops weren’t also tasked with raising revenue through traffic tickets and citations for other minor offenses, law enforcement in the US would be less dysfunctional, but as it stands right now, law enforcement in the US is profoundly dysfunctional.

Former Congressman Alan Grayson has filed to run for Senate against Marco Rubio in 2022.

Needless to say, the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is almost certain to go after him hammer and tongs, because that’s what happened last time, when they threw their weight behind a big bag of nothing, and former Republican, Patrick Murphy.

You cannot beat something with nothing, but Chuck Schumer now, and Harry Reid then, want to run a nothing, because they are nicer to big dollar donors.

45 people have been killed in Israel in a crowd crush during Lag B’Omer celebrations at Mount Meron.

It appears that this situation has been predicted for over a decade, but political pandering, and a general unwillingness of the political establishment to challenge the Heredi ultra-Orthodox demands for impunity:

The man underneath Avraham Nivin was already limp and lifeless. The men above him were thrashing and flailing. The men to his sides were screaming for help and struggling to breathe.

And crushed in the middle of these limbs and torsos — his legs trapped, his shoes and glasses lost in the melee, his body perpendicular to the floor — was Mr. Nivin himself.

………

He survived, but 45 others did not — turning a night that began as a pilgrimage for tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews, and a joyous return to something approaching post-pandemic normality, into one of the deadliest peacetime tragedies in Israeli history.

………

By Friday night, the stampede had prompted a surge of soul-searching about religious-secular tensions, the resistance to state authority displayed by some ultra-Orthodox Israelis and, above all, questions of blame, responsibility and negligence.

Gee, ya think?

For more than a decade there have been concerns and warnings that the religious site on Mount Meron in northern Israel was not equipped to handle tens of thousands of pilgrims who flock there each year to commemorate the death of a revered second-century rabbi.

Actually, that’s one explanation, the more common reason given for this holiday is the end of a plague against Rabbi Akiva’s students almost 2 centuries earlier.

In 2008 and 2011, reports by the state comptroller, a government watchdog, warned of the potential for calamity there. The leader of the regional government said he tried to close it at least three times. In 2013, the regional police chief warned in an official investigation of the possibility of a lethal stampede. And in 2018, a prominent ultra-Orthodox journalist called it a death trap.

And yet the government still authorized this year’s event, raising questions about its culpability and whether its reliance on ultra-Orthodox political parties had trumped concerns for public safety.

Of course it was politics.  This is Bibi Netanyahu we are talking about.

………

Israel has been racked by tensions between the secular mainstream and ultra-Orthodox Israelis, also known as Haredim, particularly during the pandemic. Among secular Jews, there was widespread anger about a disregard for coronavirus regulations within parts of the ultra-Orthodox community.

………

The night reached its crescendo shortly after midnight, as packed crowds gathered in a cramped open-air arena beside the tomb to sing, dance and watch the lighting of ceremonial bonfires.

The festivities turned to horror afterward as celebrants attempted to leave via a steep, narrow gangway that descends down a short set of steps to a narrow, covered passageway.

………

The Israeli authorities had placed no restrictions on the number of attendees, despite warnings by some health officials about the risk of Covid-19 transmission.

………

For the Haredi community — which was disproportionately hurt by the coronavirus crisis, both by the disease and by the stinging rebukes of secular society — it felt like a particularly cruel turn of events.

………

The compound on Mount Meron includes several large gathering grounds with bleachers and stages, connected by a series of alleyways and path. The 2008 comptroller report said that various additions and changes to the site had been made without the approval of the local and district planning and building committees.

………

Despite the warnings that the infrastructure could not safely bear large crowds, one former official, Shlomo Levy, who had chaired the Upper Galilee Regional Council, said he had come under political pressure to cancel a warrant he had issued in 2008 to close the tomb compound because of safety concerns.

Mr. Levy told Kan, Israel’s public radio, that the public security minister at the time told him he was afraid to touch the site and that it was a “hot potato.”

That wariness likely stemmed from the disproportionate political power long held by ultra-Orthodox parties in Israel’s coalition system. The ultra-Orthodox have been crucial members of successive Netanyahu-led governing coalitions.

In 2015, it was revealed that charter school Success Academy, and its CEO Eva Moskowitz had systematically pushed special needs students out of their school through a program of harassment of the children and the parents.

The parents targeted sued, and the charter school chain has to pay $2.4 million dollars. 

To put that in perspective, that is 3 years of taxpayer funded salary for Ms. Moskowitz:

You might have caught this story, but I don’t want you to miss it.

Success Academy has long been one of the stars of the charter school world. But in 2015, Kate Taylor at the New York Times reported on a secret “got to go” list that targeted students that SA administrators wanted to push out, part of a general pattern of deliberately making life difficult for students that the schools simply didn’t want. It was not a good look for Eva Moskowitz and her charter crew. Moskowitz pushed back and defended the principal who was caught (but then shortly thereafter reassigned Candido Brown to an elementary classroom teaching job). And as the smoke cleared, Moskowitz went back to business as usual.

But five families sued. Their children were on that list, and they had all been pushed out of SA.

They sued Success Academy for targeting families–particularly families of students with special needs– to try to get them to withdraw. Said one of the lawyers handling the case, “Success Academy’s harsh, inflexible, one-size-fits-all approach to discipline is at odds with its obligation to reasonably accommodate students’ disabilities. These children and their families were forced to withdraw from the Success Academy network not only because their educational needs were not being met, but also because they were explicitly not welcome there.”

She’s not kidding. It was ugly.

The litigation centered on five children, then a mere 4 to 5 years old, with diagnosed or perceived disabilities. Success Academy did not provide appropriate accommodations, and frequently dismissed the students prior to the end of the school day – often for behaviors like fidgeting and pouting. Success Academy also threatened to call child welfare authorities to investigate the children’s families, and even sent one child to a hospital psychiatric unit. Each family eventually removed their child from the Success Academy network.

Last month, in a decision that didn’t get nearly as much press as the original allegations, the five families won their suit.“Success Academy forced these families to withdraw their children by bullying and daily harassment, instead of providing a quality education free from discrimination,” said Laura D. Barbieri, Special Counsel to Advocates for Justice. “New York’s parents and children deserve better, and we are pleased these families achieved justice.”

Will a $2.4 million price tag motivate Moskowitz to behave better and stop pushing out families that don’t fit her vision for the schools? I doubt it, though one can hope. But it’s reminder that charter schools are not public schools, and too often do not feel a need to act like public schools.

Actually, at least according to Baltimore City Public Schools, charters are technically public schools, and they are required to follow IEPs.  It’s just that they don’t.

Have some sympathy for Eva Moskowitz.  If she had to spend money on disabled students, she might have to take a pay cut.

As you may be Aware, Tiger Mom author and Yale Law School professor Amy Chua got into a bit of trouble around the time of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, because she told women who were applying for clerkships with him that they needed to have a certain look, and that it was no accident that his female clerks, “looked like models.”

Given that Chua had a huge role in securing clerking positions for law students there was a bit of a to-do about this.  She was removed from the clerkship committee, where she took the leading role.

There was also a bit of a to-do about her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, was suspended from his professorship at Yale for sexual harassment, and forbidden from having contact with students for a period of time.

As a part of dealing with her husbands behavior, Chua agreed to the following:

Additionally, Chua also agreed “on her own initiative” to stop drinking with her students and socializing with them outside of class and office hours, according to the letter.

On her own initiative in this case means, she was told that her husband used her parties to hit on students, some drunk, and that it needed to stop.

Well, it turns out that Chua continued to throw the parties with first year law students, and as a result we learn that, “Yale Law School Strips Amy Chua Of 1L Group For Repeated Violations“.

It appears that attendance at the parties appeared to be pretty much mandatory, and that students complained to the administration, and perhaps to the Yale Daily News, which reported the story:

Law professor Amy Chua will no longer be leading a first-year small group at the Yale Law School next year after students raised allegations that she is still hosting private dinner parties at the home she shares with her husband, suspended law professor Jed Rubenfeld, despite having agreed in 2019 to cease all out-of-class hours interactions with students.

Chua did not respond to multiple requests for comment on her 2019 agreement and punishment, the allegations or losing her small group.

Chua previously agreed to stop drinking and socializing with her students outside of class and office hours in response to allegations of misconduct, according to a December 2019 letter obtained by the News from Law School Dean Heather Gerken to affected parties. But law students met with Law School administrators on March 26 and brought forward documented allegations reviewed by the News that Chua has continued hosting private dinner parties with current Law School students and prominent members of the legal community. Three days later, Chua was removed from the list of professors who will lead small groups, which are intimate groups of around 15 first-year law students led by a professor at the Law School, for the 2021-22 academic year.

………

The News spoke with seven Law School students and alumni, all of whom were granted anonymity due to fear of professional retribution, about Chua’s alleged misconduct and the terms of her punishment. They all emphasized the immense power and influence that Chua holds in the legal community and at Yale, including her prior service on a clerkship committee that helps law students secure their first jobs in the field.

………

Chua and Rubenfeld first came under public scrutiny in September 2018 when they reportedly told female law students that they needed to look and dress a certain way to attain clerkships for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90.

Rubenfeld is currently serving a two-year suspension from the Law School following a University Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct investigation into allegations of verbal harassment, unwanted touching and attempted kissing in the classroom and at his home. Students have since called for Rubenfeld’s permanent removal and demanded greater transparency about the findings of the sexual misconduct investigation into him, but University President Peter Salovey has not released any specifics about Rubenfeld’s case.

A report published in October by students from two groups at the Law School — Yale Law Women and the YLS Title IX Working Group — details a timeline of the case against Rubenfeld, which begins in September 2008 with a report of the “monthly soirees” held at Chua and Rubenfeld’s household. The report also reveals that Rubenfeld’s small group was reassigned in the fall of 2015 after an “informal investigation” from the Law School into his behavior in the classroom and at his house.

I understand that tenure is an important part of academe, but it also appears to me that there are certain lines that should not be crossed, and in this case have been crossed repeatedly.

It’s a complete sh%$ show, and Yale should cut its losses,

By way of background, the The switch in time that saved nine – Wikipedia, was a reversal by the Supreme Court after FDR attempted to pack the court in response to their aggressive hostility to the New Deal using the the Lochner decision, which invalidated things like the minimum wage, health and safety regulations, etc.

Well, Biden has now announced that he is creating a commission to study changes in the US Supreme Court, and that everything is on the table, including increasing the number of justices.

I don’t think that anything will come of this, but I do think that this is a fairly sophisticated way to remind the Court that the structure and staffing of the court is determined to the other two branches:

President Biden created a bipartisan commission Friday to study structural changes to the Supreme Court, giving the group 180 days to produce a report on a range of thorny topics including court expansion and term limits.

The commission, composed of 36 legal scholars, former federal judges and practicing lawyers, fulfills Biden’s campaign promise to establish such a group after activists pushed him to back expanding the court following Republicans’ rush to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett shortly before last year’s election. Biden has said he is “not a fan” of adding seats to the Supreme Court, but he has declined to say whether he supports any other changes to its structure.

The commission, however, is likely to disappoint liberals who are looking for quick action to blunt the court’s conservative majority, while giving the president cover to avoid wading into the contentious debate. The members are not tasked with giving Biden specific recommendations but rather providing an analysis of a range of proposed changes to the court. The executive order establishing the commission mandates that the group hold public meetings and take input from a range of stakeholders, with the report expected in October.

There are people who talk about the sanctity of the court and its non-political nature, but that has been a lie since the Bush v. Gore in 2000.

When push comes to shove, the conservatives on the court will always go with decisions for little more than their desired partisan benefit.

There are a number of important voting and redistricting decisions coming before the court shortly, and Chief Justice John Roberts has dedicated his career to keeping Black and Brown people from voting.

This is a proverbial brushback pitch directed at Roberts, and other more realist justices on the court.

I’ve never been a fan of Maryland Governor Paul Hogan.

It’s not just his being a Republican, nor his no new tax pledge, which prevents meaningful improvements in state government, it’s his not-so-subtle appeals to racism, whether it’s his opposition to services going to Baltimore City and PG County, and now, his veto of the repeal of the so-called “Police Bill of Rights,” which gave police officers extraordinary legal protections not afforded to the general population.

Well, the Maryland legislature has had enough of his crap, and overridden his veto of much needed police accountability legislation.

Let me be clear, I am explicitly stating that his motivation here is hostility to minorities for electoral advantage:

Brushing aside vetoes from Gov. Larry Hogan, Maryland legislators on Saturday passed a landmark police reform package into law that supporters hailed as a major step toward transforming policing in the state.

Hogan, a Republican, contended that central provisions of the sweeping four-part Maryland Police Accountability Act go too far and will treat police officers unfairly. He vetoed three bills Friday evening containing those sections.

But Democrats swiftly overruled his objections. By Saturday afternoon, the Democrat-controlled General Assembly had voted to override the vetoes. The first provisions of the Maryland Police Accountability Act will take effect later this year.

The legislation will overhaul the disciplinary process for officers accused of misconduct, allow public scrutiny of complaints and internal affairs files, and create a new legal standard requiring that police use only “necessary” and “proportional” force. Officers who use excessive force will face additional criminal penalties, including up to 10 years in prison. Also, police will be limited on when they can obtain so-called “no-knock” warrants or raid homes at night.

………

Under one of the bills passed Saturday over Hogan’s veto, complaints against officers — even those rejected by internal affairs investigators as baseless — will become public records and subject to potential release. Supporters like Carter have argued that’s essential to pulling back a veil of secrecy over police discipline and making sure agencies hold officers accountable for misconduct.

Critics, including police unions and many Republican lawmakers, feared the transparency measure will end up smearing the reputations of officers by airing baseless complaints. Sen. Robert Cassilly, a Harford County Republican, accused Democrats of “anti-police animus” in passing the legislation. 

………

Among other far-reaching provisions passed over Hogan’s veto is the repeal of Maryland’s Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, a 1974 law that guarantees job protections and due process rights for officers accused of wrongdoing that critics have long alleged shields officers from accountability and has been among the biggest impediments to reform. Maryland was the first state in the nation to pass such a law, which dozens of others have copied, and now is the first state to repeal it.

The LEBOR provisions were things like requiring a 5 day waiting period before investigators could talk to a police officer (time for them the coordinate their lies), and the purging of complaints after a time.

These were horrible ideas then, and worse ideas now.

It appears that some Democrats in Name Only (DINO) are having conniptions when they discover that they have received campaign donations from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s PAC. 

You just know that if it were Matt Gaetz making the donation, they would be completely fine with it.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is a profoundly and deeply f%$#ed up institution:

As the midterm campaign’s first fundraising deadline approached this week, several vulnerable House Democrats got an unwelcome surprise in their accounts: $5,000 from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The New York Democrat sent the contributions to her colleagues to help keep the House majority ahead of a tough cycle without directly contributing to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, with which she’s publicly clashed. But Ocasio-Cortez’s largesse — and an oversight at the campaign headquarters — has instead raised awkward questions among her colleagues as some swing-district Democrats fret over whether to return her money before the GOP can turn it into an attack ad.

………

While some are grateful for the infusion of cash, at least three Democrats have so far either declined the initial transfer or said they would return the money: Reps. Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania, Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, according to multiple sources.

………

Normally, swing-district Democrats are scrounging for every last dollar to help them secure their reelections, particularly in a first quarter that has been tougher than usual for candidates across the board. But the Ocasio-Cortez donation, these Democrats said, was unsolicited and came without warning. Many of their campaigns did not receive a heads-up from the DCCC about the donation until after it hit members’ accounts — a move that surprised senior aides and campaign consultants.

“The GOP has spent four years saying the frontliners are all socialists. Now they’ve got the receipts to prove it. Anyone telling themselves this won’t be in campaign ads is in denial,” said one Democratic consultant who works for swing-seat members.

In the political donation world, wire transfers are commonly used to quickly move large sums of money from one account to another, particularly in the final stretch of a fundraising quarter and during a pandemic. The Ocasio-Cortez transfers carried clear political risk for some members, however, and some sources pointed out that she could have alleviated the current anxiety by giving to the DCCC directly.

Yes, she should use an organization which has consistently gone after her and hers, and whose management shows a profound hostility to everything she professes to believe.

Yeah, right.

………

Still, other Democrats said they saw Ocasio-Cortez’s interest in helping endangered incumbents as a positive sign for party unity, even if they were stunned by the method. And privately, the liberal star already is personally close with some of the frontliners, many of whom were elected in the same blue wave that helped Democrats recapture the House in 2018.

She offered to make similar donations to frontline Democrats during the 2020 election cycle but only contributed to those who took her up on the offer, according to two sources familiar with her political operation.

The sophomore New York Democrat spent years at loggerheads with the campaign arm and is among several progressives who have refused to pay member dues to DCCC, in part because of its treatment of liberal primary challengers.

Her current round of donations alone — an intended total of $160,000 — amount to more than half of Ocasio-Cortez’s entire dues goal for the 2020 cycle, according to a dues report obtained by POLITICO.

Gee, massive donations from a candidate with national stature.  Don’t throw me in that briar patch.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is craven and worthless.

You may, or may not, recall that when Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash, Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez retweeted an old story from The Daily Beast detailing the (VERY credible) allegations that had been lodged against the Basketball player in the past.

In response to this, the paper suspended her, and did not give her any assistance in responding to the (literally) thousands of death threats against her.

She was reinstated when outrage from the newsroom became such that the Post editors were forced to reinstate her and provide her security.

Because of her status as a survivor of sexual assault, the Post forbade her from covering any stories that touched on this issue, a prohibition that stands to this day, which means, for example, when accused rapist, and ex-Governor, Eric Greitens announced his run for Senate a few weeks back she was not allowed to cover this.

It should be noted, as in the attached tweet, that this is in violation of DC employment law, and it’s not a good look for the Washington Post. 

The problem is that under then Editor-in-Chief Marty Barron and now, journalistic objectivity is defined at 1301 K Street NW as, “What would an upper-middle class white man think.”

It was supposed to be an upbeat town hall to rally the newsroom, as Washington Post leaders highlighted their moves to defend reporter Seung Min Kim from internet trolls. But sources tell us the March 16 Zoom meeting with hundreds of staffers went off the rails briefly when Felicia Sonmez, a breaking news reporter who has spoken openly about her experience as a sexual assault survivor, typed a pointed comment in the chat box: “I wish editors had publicly supported me in the same way.”

Sonmez was referring to an incident that occurred the day Kobe BryantT died in January 2020. Former top editor Marty Baron and upper management suspended Sonmez for tweeting a reminder that the basketball legend being showered in praise had also been accused of raping a woman. The Post retracted the suspension after more than 300 reporters signed a letter demanding her reinstatement. It also sent physical protection for Sonmez, who had to leave her house after her Bryant missive went viral and she received death threats.

………

She didn’t stop there. Sonmez also publicized that she is barred from writing about anything related to sexual misconduct or #MeToo. According to several people familiar with the decision, the prohibition began around the time that sexual misconduct allegations surfaced against Supreme Court Justice Brett KAavanaugh, and continued recently with news about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) acknowledging she is a survivor of assault as well as the harassment allegations against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Last Monday, Sonmez had to take herself off a story about former Missouri Gov. Eric GreitensS running for Senate, according to comments she made in an internal newsroom Slack channel. (Greitens resigned as governor following allegations that he sexually assaulted and blackmailed a woman.) That came just days after the staff meeting, when a fellow reporter followed up on Sonmez’s comment in the Zoom chat and demanded to know why Post leadership defended some reporters but not her. (Acting Executive Editor Cameron Barr, we are told, said the meeting was not the appropriate venue to address the matter.)

………

Sonmez declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for the Post. But the Post reporters I spoke with about this recently questioned the fairness of the ban. Every reporter has internal biases, they said; part of the job is checking them at the door. One said Sonmez has become something of an advocate for sexual assault victims, making management uncomfortable with her writing on this topic. But even that person said a blanket prohibition is overkill.

It’s white male privilege, and it stinks on ice.

………

“I believe it’s important for you to know that The Post’s decision on this matter has had negative repercussions for me personally in the past,” she wrote. “[I]t’s the tortured explanations I have to give whenever there is breaking news on this topic and I’m not allowed to cover it.”

Sonmez was responding to being informed by Ginsberg earlier that day that the Post would maintain its prohibition on her writing about sexual assault or harassment. His deputy, Peter Wallsten, followed up soon after, acknowledging that while the policy may cause her “emotional distress,” the newspaper stood by the arrangement: “I’m really sorry you are unhappy with the parameters of your assignment … But it is up to The Post to determine coverage assignments and I do not anticipate yours changing anytime soon.”

In addition to being a truly sh%$ty way to treat an employee, this is, as noted above, illegal.

(update)

I just did a quick Google, and when this sh%$ blew up again, the WaPo FINALLY reversed the restrictions on Sonmez’s reporting.

Doesn’t make them look any better, because it’s clear that they are only doing so because they were forced to do the right thing.

Mitch McConnell is now threatening to make Senators stay in town if there are any meaningful changes to the filibuster.

We pay Senators $174,000.00 a year in salary, and they are in for 3 days a week.

If they have to stay near for a quorum call or the like, they still are not the most overworked blokes out there.

Also, one of the proposals requires that the people supporting a filibuster, i.e. Mitch’s evil minions™, would have to stay in town, not the Democrats.

Muck Fitch:

A Senate operating in the “nuclear winter” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell promises if the filibuster is eliminated is one in which lawmakers face incessant roll calls and other inconveniences turning their comfortable lives into a living hell.

Why it matters: In employing apocalyptic language to warn about a “scorched-earth” response, the Kentucky Republican is trying to scare Democrats away from the tool they’re considering to break through the GOP’s own political obstinance.

Oh, dear, making it so that Senators need to remain nearby.

What a f%$#ing horror.

The Federal Reserve is looking to reverse its pandemic driven loosening of capital requirements for banks. 

I am generally in favor of higher capital requirements for banks, because when the requirements are lowered, fraud, incompetence, and collapse invariably follow.

On the other hand, I’m not sure if now is the best time for this:

The Federal Reserve has announced that it will let looser capital rules for banks introduced at the start of the pandemic expire at the end of March.

The US central bank’s decision could disappoint banks, which had been pushing for an extension of the capital relief.

Capital rules were eased last year in a temporary change to the supplementary leverage ratio (SLR), and have been the focus of an intense political battle in recent weeks.

While Democrats in Congress had argued that the relief from capital rules should be terminated at the end of this month, many Republicans sided with the banks to argue for an extension.

The Fed said on Friday that the change to the SLR would expire as scheduled on March 31. However, the central bank said it would explore a more permanent overhaul to the rules.

………

The SLR requires large banks to have capital equal to at least 3 per cent of their assets, or 5 per cent for the largest systemically important institutions. Under the April 2020 rule change, lenders were allowed to temporarily exclude holdings of US Treasuries and cash kept in reserve at the central bank from their assets when calculating the ratio.

………

Bank executives have warned that the reimposition of these capital requirements could hamper their ability to extend credit to companies and consumers, and in some cases force them to turn away deposits.

If you cannot justify a loan with a return to (already dangerously lax) existing capital requirements, you should not have made the loan in the first place.

If you are making those loans, then when (not if) you need a bailout, the taxpayers will be on the hook

As I have noted before, “You Don’t Do Good by Doing Bad,” and this goes double for charities that go full scorched earth to suppression union drives, as is the case, unfortunately, for The Audubon Society, which has chosen to go on a jihad against its employees unionization efforts:

As President Biden touts union jobs as central to America’s clean energy future, a fight over unionizing has broken out at one of the country’s leading conservation groups.

Employees at the National Audubon Society are organizing after allegations of widespread workplace problems, including two rounds of layoffs, a mishandled diversity training, and the resignations of two top equity and inclusion officials.

They say they are meeting sharp resistance from the group’s management, which has hired one of the country’s most well-known union-busting firms.

Audubon strongly disagrees with that characterization, saying that it does not oppose the effort and that the firm, Littler Mendelson PC, was hired to provide advice to managers to stay out of the organizers’ way — not to break them up.

Littler Mendelson PC is notorious for busting unions, and half of their own web pages tout their “Union Avoidance” strategies.

But tensions between the organizers, who have rallied under an “Audubon for All” banner, and management nevertheless seem to have quickly reached a boil. They claim Audubon management is deploying some of Littler’s tactics, and they filed a complaint this week with the National Labor Relations Board alleging Audubon’s management is improperly meddling in their organizing effort.

………

In an emailed statement, Audubon said it is “devoted to providing a workplace in which all our employees feel respected, valued, and empowered.”

………

Audubon insisted that Littler is not advising the organization on how to combat the unionizing effort. But Littler’s website states that’s one of its specialties, and a handbook from the firm obtained by E&E News lays out multiple strategies for fighting unionization efforts.

“Our deep experience in representing management serves as a strong counterpoint to the world’s most powerful labor organizations,” its website states. “We guide companies in developing and initiating strategies that lawfully avoid unions or effectively respond to unconventional corporate campaigns.”

Union officials, including from CWA, said Audubon is setting itself apart at the wrong time.

Gee, ya think?

………

President and CEO David Yarnold’s handling of the anonymous survey, including allegedly asking for the names of participants, led to the October resignation of one senior diversity specialist, Devon Trotter. Another official, Deeohn Ferris, left the previous March and said she was forced out.

Those developments coincided with two rounds of layoffs, in which 108 employees were let go. One round took place last June, and another, larger round was announced on Earth Day last April.

It appears that the management wants to run the company like a business, burn it down for the insurance money.

As history shows, the appointment of technocratic apolitical experts to run governments does not run well

This is because if you have a problem, the conventional wisdom, which is ideology that the aforementioned, “Technocratic apolitical experts,” subscribed to, is ALWAYS wrong.

And yes, I mean ALWAYS, because if the conventional wisdom were correct, then the problem would have been solved.

In the latest case of subverting democracy on the alter of “expertise”, the Italian government has been handed to former ECB president Mario Draghi, and he has decided the notoriously corrupt consulting firm McKinsey & Company will help run things, because, given their paying of bounties for opioid overdose deaths, white-washing of mass layoffs, instructing hospitals to game the bailout system that they were managing, suggesting that immigration detainees be starved and denied medical care, self-dealing in bankruptcies, aiding the House of Saud’s persecution of its critics, and aiding and abetting corruption in South Africa.

So, going with McKinsey to fix things in Italy is not going to be the panacea that Draghi think it will be: 

Upon its formation last month, Mario Draghi’s new government was heralded by almost all Italian and international media as a rescue operation. Where the former European Central Bank (ECB) chief Draghi had “saved the euro” in the 2010s, most outlets gushed over “Super Mario” and his plan to “save Italy” by splashing a mooted €209 billion in European recovery fund cash while “reforming” its lackluster economy.

The kind of “reforms” this meant went unmentioned — and after all, this government bears no relation to voter decisions, or the coalitions that ran in the last general election. But for the fourth time since the 1990s, a president called on a technocrat from the world of finance and banking to form a cabinet, halfway through a parliament. Eight of Draghi’s twenty-three ministers are unelected technocrats, in a so-called government of experts.

If these figures are not party-political, they have similar backgrounds and instincts. Economy minister Daniele Franco is a former Bank of Italy official who drafted the famous 2011 ECB letter instructing the government to implement privatizations and cut back collective bargaining. Former Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao — today innovation and digital transition minister — is a former partner at private consultants McKinsey & Company.

Now, it has been revealed that McKinsey is going to be tasked with writing Italy’s economic plan for the coming period, to be submitted for review by the European Commission at the end of next month. Notorious for its role in the Enron scandal as well as the 2008 financial crisis — as it promoted the boundless securitization of mortgage assets — and the botched vaccine rollout in France, the firm is now being called on to shape the Draghi government’s “reform” agenda.

………

The suggestion that this is a purely “technical” collaboration — that McKinsey’s choices will not be political — is patently absurd, not least given that this claim is also widely made for Draghi’s “technical” government itself. For decades, the imposition of neoliberal recipes in Italy has been advanced through this same procedure, with the agenda advanced by privatizers couched in the dogma of “unavoidable choices.”

………

As Lorenzo Zamponi writes, it is quite possible that there is some shift since the “expansive austerity” of the 2010s — that is, Draghi will put economic reforms above a simple reduction in overall spending. Yet the appointment of McKinsey and Bocconi-school ideologues points toward the same gospel of privatization and deregulation that technocrats have been imposing on Italy for decades, without ever winning popular backing.

………

Government by experts may sound good — but only so long as we forget all the previous rounds of such “cures,” which have helped push Italian GDP below the level it was at in 1999. But La Repubblica is, in its own way, quite right to compare this move to a corporation calling in McKinsey. For a failing business isn’t a democracy either — and when the consultants call for restructuring, it’s the workers who get screwed.

Once again, the very serious people in the EU are going to take the wrong actions, based on the wrong world view, on behalf of the people already rich and powerful, and right wing populists will gain yet more ground.

This will not end well.

… And the chaser pic.twitter.com/spDDS5Mqrh

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) March 1, 2021

Yes, this is Erica Jong’s kid writing about “Crushing” on Andrew “Rat-Faced Andy” Cuomo last year.

As Atrios pithily observes, people swooning over a politico because he had a good day in front of the TV cameras is. “How we got Rudy.”

It appears that Boeing 777 -200 and -300 airliners with the PW 4000 series engines have been grounded world wide.

Given that two of these aircraft have had an uncontained fan failure in the past there months, this seems to be a sensible precaution:

Boeing has recommended grounding more than 120 of its 777 jets worldwide following a catastrophic engine failure on a United Airlines plane in Denver.

The company said on Sunday night that airlines using the same type of engine that scattered debris across Denver before making an emergency landing should suspend operations until inspections could be carried out.

Flight 328 was flying from Denver International Airport to Honolulu with 231 passengers and 10 crew on board on Saturday when one engine failed shortly after take-off. Police in Broomfield, Colorado posted photos of pieces of debris from the plane near houses and other buildings. There were no reports of any injuries on the ground or among the passengers.

United Airlines said it was temporarily grounding all 24 of its Boeing 777s on active duty, and Japan’s aviation regulator swiftly followed suit, ordering Japan Airlines (JAL) and All Nippon Airways (ANA) to cease flying 777s that use the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines while it considered whether to take additional measures. Japan said ANA operated 19 of that kind and JAL operated 13.

………

“We reviewed all available safety data following yesterday’s incident,” the FAA saidin a statement from its administrator, Steve Dickson . “Based on the initial information, we concluded that the inspection interval should be stepped up for the hollow fan blades that are unique to this model of engine, used solely on Boeing 777 airplanes.

………

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Sunday an initial examination of the Denver engine showed two fan blades had become fractured. The voice cockpit and flight data recorders have been taken to a lab in Washington for analysis, it said.

Japan’s transport ministry said early on Monday a JAL flight from Naha to Tokyo had to return to the airport on 4 December last year due to a malfunction in the left engine. That plane is the same age as the 26-year-old United Airlines plane involved in Saturday’s incident.

 My guess is some sort of fatigue or stress corrosion cracking.

United Airlines flight 328 from Denver to Honolulu suffered an uncontained engine failure shortly after takeoff, shedding debris over a Denver neighborhood, and requiring a return and emergency landing back at Denver International Airport (DEN).

No injuries have been reported, but I’m pretty sure that some of the passengers and crew will have nightmares over this for years:

A United Airlines flight with 241 people on board experienced engine failure over a suburb of Boulder, Colo., on Saturday afternoon, shedding debris across three neighborhoods before landing safely in Denver, the authorities said.

There were no injuries reported, officials said.

The flight, No. 328, took off from Denver International Airport at 12:15 p.m. local time, said Alex Renteria, an airport spokeswoman.

The F.A.A. said in a statement that the plane, a Boeing 777-200, experienced “a right-engine failure” shortly after takeoff and that it was aware of reports of debris “in the vicinity of the airplane’s flight path.”

The flight was headed from Denver to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu when the episode happened.

………

The police in Broomfield, Colo., which is about 15 miles southeast of Boulder, said unspecified pieces of the plane fell across three neighborhoods around 1:08 p.m. local time.

………

In a video on Twitter, passengers can be heard cheering as the plane safely lands.

Something important to note here, in December, a JAL 777 of similar vintage with the same engines also suffered a very similar engine failure, so I would expect that any Pratt & Whitney PW4077 engine would be getting some pretty intense scrutiny right now.

Now that more has been revealed about issues with NY Governor Andrew Cuomo’s management of the Cuomo crisis, a real opposition has been developing to his dominance in New York state politics.

Rather predictably, Cuomo is completely losing his sh%$ over this, and lashing out like a wounded animal. 

Hizzoner has never been the most amiable of blokes, but he just threatened to “destroy” a state legislator over this:

For months, Assemblyman Ron Kim has been one of the few Democratic lawmakers willing to criticize Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for his handling of the state’s nursing homes during the pandemic, pressing for investigations into the matter.

So when a top aide to Mr. Cuomo recently admitted that his administration had withheld nursing home data from state lawmakers, Mr. Kim, whose Queens district was hit hard by the coronavirus, said it appeared the governor was “trying to dodge having any incriminating evidence.”

Hours after Mr. Kim made that comment to The New York Post last Thursday, he said he got an irate late-night call from the governor. Mr. Cuomo began with a question — “Are you an honorable man?” — and then proceeded to yell for 10 minutes, Mr. Kim recalled, threatening to publicly tarnish the assemblyman and urging him to issue a new statement clarifying his remarks.

Mr. Cuomo made good on his threat on Wednesday afternoon.

………

In lengthy remarks, Mr. Cuomo also accused the assemblyman of a “continuing racket” soliciting donations from nail salon owners, who were upset about a 2015 nail-salon reform law that he helped craft.

“I believe it was unethical if not illegal,” Mr. Cuomo said, suggesting that Mr. Kim was engaging in “pay to play.”

The scathing back-and-forth comes as the Cuomo administration continues to deal with the fallout from a series of revelations about its withholding the data, effectively covering up the full extent of how many nursing home residents died from the virus.

In the last month, the Cuomo administration has nearly doubled the official count of deaths of nursing home residents, from about 8,500 to more than 15,000 — in the face of a blistering report from the state attorney general, Letitia James, and a court order.

Mr. Cuomo has strongly denied any wrongdoing, despite a nearly six-month delay between the formal request from lawmakers in August and the release of the data in the wake of Ms. James’s report.

………

The following day, after the Post story had published, Mr. Kim was home with his wife and about to bathe his children when he received the call from the governor.

Mr. Cuomo, he said, was furious with him about Mr. Kim’s comments to The Post, which quoted him as saying, among other things, that his takeaway from the call was that the Cuomo administration “had to first make sure that the state was protected against federal investigation.”

“He goes off about how I hadn’t seen his wrath and anger, that he would destroy me and he would go out tomorrow and start telling how bad of a person I am and I would be finished and how he had bit his tongue about me for months,” Mr. Kim said. “This was all yelling. It wasn’t a pleasant tone.”

………

Cuomo officials maintained that the governor never said that he would “destroy” Mr. Kim, and characterized the conversation between the two men as “calm,” denying the governor yelled.

I believe Kim, not Cuomo, because Cuomo has cultivated a reputation for viciousness for decades, and I think that he is deathly afraid of what will happen to him when he is no longer feared.

………

“The governor can personally attack me all he wants in an effort to distract us from his incompetent management,” Mr. Kim said in a statement. “But these facts are not going away because they are the facts and are unacceptable.”

Dave Sirota has a very good summary of how Cuomo screwed the pooch by prioritizing campaign donors over public health and then lied about it. 

It has been made worse by his incompetent micro-management of the vaccine rollout, which has had doses thrown out rather than risk his draconian edicts.

The bottom line here is that Cuomo f%$#ed up, and his instinct on this matter, which is to try to bully his way out of this, does not appear to be working.