The Department of Labor released its employment statistics for April on Friday, and it was a big disappointment. Many economists thought the economy would create around a million jobs for the month, but the actual figure was only 266,000 jobs. That total would be acceptable if America had a healthy economy, but it falls far short of what is needed to recover from the Covid-created recession.
The increase in the civilian workforce was 430,000 in April. The net result was a rise in the number of unemployed workers. This caused the unemployment rate for April to tick up by 0.1% to 6.1%.
The media are filled with reports that employers say they can’t find enough workers for the jobs they have available. Leaving aside the devastating loss of childcare that occurred during the pandemic which is keeping many women at home, more workers will return if employers do two things: First, make sure the workplace is safe for returning workers. Second, PAY A LIVABLE WAGE. Enough ranting. On to cartoons.
Whatâs with the vaccine hesitancy?
âIncentivesâ are the new solution:
GOP tells Cheney it isnât personal, itâs just business:
Two-faced Mitch:
The GOP is showing it intends to control the government, no matter what:
Last week, Yahoo News revealed that the USPSâs Inspection Service have been tracking Americansâ social media posts as part of its Internet Covert Operations Program, known as iCOP. That prompted more than two dozen Republican lawmakers to demand hearings about the program. But in the hearing, the Chief Postal Inspector testified that the USPS had been given authority to monitor Americans in 2017 by Trump.
âTheir theory of the case is, theyâve got to protect their workers and properties….If you already have engagement with other agencies like FBI, Homeland Security, NSA, whatever, then why arenât you asking them for help….Why not just call the agencies whose job it is, who are probably already surveilling American citizens?â
Imagine their silence when the chief postal inspector told lawmakers that those agencies:
â…would not cooperate…so the USPS [decided] to have iCOP patrol social media, searching for potential threats from upcoming protests.â
But they still love all the Trump they can get. On to cartoons.
What Bidenâs first 100 days really is about:
Weâre in a second Gilded Age. One where 50% of Americans with just 2% of the wealth pay 41% of the income taxes, while corporations only pay 6% of the federal governmentâs income.
Sen. Tim Scott gave the Republican speech response. Things didnât go well:
Rudyâs efforts to shop Hunter Bidenâs laptop computer at the DOJ comes back to bite him:
Arizona GOP starts yet another recount of Bidenâs votes:
Last Thursday, the House passed a bill for DC statehood. The cause has been around for at least 30 years. Itâs got more energy right now because of the Democratâs desire to break up Republican obstruction in the Senate.
The current 50-50 party split in the Senate means that 41 million more Americans are represented by Democrats than by Republicans, even though their number of seats is equal.
Republicans have argued that the bill is a Democratic “power grab”. Some GOP lawmakers agree with Democrats that DC residents should have representation in Congress but say they should become part of Maryland or Virginia, rather than having their own state. They also claim that DC has too small a population, even though it has more residents than both Wyoming and Vermont.
One of their grasping-at-straws arguments is that thereâs not a car dealership in DC (actually, they sell Tesla’s). Â They also complain there isnât an airport. But neither of those are prerequisites for statehood. On to cartoons.
Just another form of vote suppression:
Speaking of vote suppression, the GOP is on the march:
Just after Biden said heâs removing all troops from Afghanistan, we learn that weâre deploying additional troops to Afghanistan to aid in Bidenâs plan for withdrawing all combat troops. Confused? So are these guys:
One team racks up its first score:
The GOP made a tiny counter proposal to Bidenâs infrastructure plan:
The NYThas a great explainer about the new Georgia voting law. The Times summarizes:
âGo page by page through Georgiaâs new voting law, and one takeaway stands above all others: The Republican legislature and governor have made a breathtaking assertion of partisan power in elections, making absentee voting harder and creating restrictions and complications in the wake of narrow losses to Democrats.â
Below are a few of the changes, with links to the appropriate section of the article.
A few quick thoughts on Georgiaâs new voter suppression law. You may remember the day in 2013 when Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that âThings have changed dramaticallyâ in the South.
He had just authored the majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, where the Court struck down the Voting Rights Actâs Section 4, that determined which states needed federal approval for changes to their election law. That made one of the lawâs most important parts inoperative. Today, the new voter suppression law in Georgia is Exhibit A for why Roberts was wrong.
Biden carried Georgia in November, and Black voters turned out again in record numbers in January to elect Democrats Warnock and Ossoff, thus giving control of the Senate to the Dems. The response from Georgia Republicans was to pass a sweeping rewrite of the stateâs election laws, making it harder for Democratic voters to vote and have their ballots counted.
The new law allows the GOP-controlled legislature to appoint a majority of members of the state election board. It gives the board the power to take over county election boards, making it easier for Republicans to challenge election results, or to decline to certify the results.
These are things that Trump tried and failed to get Georgia to do in 2020.
The not-so-funny thing is that should HR-1 (now S-1) become law, Roberts gets another chance to review the state of voting rights in America. Will he “atone” for his egregious error in gutting the original VRA? Donât count on that. On to cartoons.
And now itâs a crime in Georgia to give water to people in line:
Itâs easy to understand Republican priorities. They make access to BALLOTS more difficult, and make access to BULLETS easier:
Thereâs always another Boulder for Dems to worry about:
Mitch tries offering a compromise:
Of all the busters, only the filibuster has to go:
Welcome to the first week of spring. Last week, 12 House Republicans voted against a resolution to award Congressional Gold Medals to the Capitol Police, the DC police and the Smithsonian Institution in recognition of those who protected the Capitol when it was attacked by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6.
They said they objected to the use of the term âinsurrectionistsâ in the resolution. On to cartoons:
Most Republicans say the American Recovery Plan isnât necessary, that the economy is on its way back without additional intervention. They should read this report from the Associated Press: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âIn a stark sign of the economic inequality that has marked the pandemic recession and recovery, Americans as a whole are now earning the same amount in wages and salaries that they did before the virus struck â even with nearly 9 million fewer people working.â
AP says that Americans earned $9.66 trillion in wages and salaries in February 2020 but by April, that figure had shrunk by 10%. It recovered to $9.67 trillion in December, last year. Thatâs just wages and salaries; it doesnât include unemployment payments, Social Security, or other benefit payments.
Of the nearly 9 million jobs that have been eliminated by the pandemic, 40% have been in restaurants, bars, hotels, arts, and entertainment. Retailers have lost nearly 400,000 jobs while many low-paying jobs, such as nursing home attendants and home health care aides, have also been laid off.
Another reason why job losses have had zero impact on the nationâs total pay is that so many of the affected employees work part time. The average work week in the industry that includes hotels, restaurants and bars is less than 26 hours. The average for all industries is nearly 35 hours. The New York Fedâs research shows how concentrated the job losses have been. For people making less than $30,000 a year, employment fell by 14% as of December. For those earning more than $85,000, it has actually risen slightly.
The wage and salary data also help explain the big stock market gains, which have been led by companies whose products are being purchased by higher-income Americans, such as Apple iPads, Peloton bikes, or Amazonâs online shopping.
So clearly, the bottom 30% need help. Too bad Republicans canât see it. After not voting for the Recovery Plan, they introduced a bill to repeal the estate tax. If it passed, it would provide a $1.7 trillion tax break to millionaires and billionaires! On to cartoons.
With the Senate’s passage of the Covid relief bill along Party lines, Wrongo is certain that given the chance, the GOP will do to Biden precisely what they did to Obama: Obstruct nearly everything in the hope that it will help them return to control of House and/or the Senate in 2022.
There may be agreement on an infrastructure bill, but if the filibuster remains in place, that will be the only other thing that Democrats achieve before the 2022 midterms.
Itâs important to remember that a family of four that makes $13.25/hour is living at the poverty level if they are working a 40-hour week. Few of those workers receive retirement, health benefits, or paid vacations.
Yet America is willing to provide many school-age children in this socio-economic segment three meals a day, often when school isnât in session. Itâs analogous to America failing to provide health care to the neediest, while letting the most critically ill into a local emergency room. The case for increasing the minimum wage is overwhelming.
Rome is burning. We should be willing to overpay for more fire extinguishers. That means end the filibuster. On to cartoons.
Opinions differ based on viewpoints:
Elephant plans to update Seuss:
People are starting to think we might get back to normal:
Sorry that we didnât have Sunday cartoons. For the first time in 11 years writing this little blog, Wrongo couldnât find much that was worthy of publishing, except this one:
The NYT reported that around one-third of Americaâs military have declined to take the Covid vaccine. The reluctance is largely among younger troops, and that itâs a warning about the potential hole in the broad-scale immunity goals for the country. Here is whatâs known: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âRoughly one-third of troops on active duty or in the National Guard have declined to take the vaccine, military officials recently told Congress. In some places, such as Fort Bragg, N.C., the nationâs largest military installation, acceptance rates are below 50%.â
The Defense Department doesnât collect data on who fails to take the shot, but says: (emphasis by Wrongo)
â…there is broad agreement that refusal rates are far higher among younger members, and enlisted personnel are more likely to say no than officers. Military spouses appear to share that hesitation: In a December poll of 674 active-duty family members conducted by Blue Star Families, a military advocacy group, 58% said they would not allow their children to receive the vaccine.â
Although hundreds of thousands of military members have received shots so far, taking the vaccine is voluntary for military members, since itâs only been approved for emergency use by the FDA. If it becomes a standard, approved vaccine, the military can order troops to take the shot.
The rule limiting the Pentagonâs authority to mandate vaccinations unless theyâve been approved by the FDA was designed to protect soldiers from being treated as medical guinea pigs by Uncle Sam. Troops cited the militaryâs use of an anthrax vaccine in the late 1990s which was believed to cause adverse effects as evidence that the military should not be on the front lines of a new vaccine.
There are many other examples from LSD experiments to radiation exposure that have been visited on Americaâs military in our lifetimes. But this is an example of a good rule thatâs produced a possibly bad outcome, since the vaccine has already been given to nearly 50 million Americans.
This shot doesnât quality as âexperimentingâ on the military, but rules are rules and vaccine skeptics within the ranks are taking advantage. Mandating compliance is likely to bring other problems. The NYT says:
âIn some ways, vaccines are the new masks: a preventive measure against the virus that has been politicized.â
Weâve written about how the military is moving rightward politically. Most of the reasons quoted by the Times for not getting vaccinated sound more like the QAnon party line than what we hear in civilian society.
More from the Times, quoting a 24-year-old female airman in Virginia who said she declined the shot even though she is an emergency medical worker:
âI would prefer not to be the one testing this vaccineâ….She also said that because vaccine access had become a campaign theme during the 2020 race for the White House, she was more skeptical, and added that some of her colleagues had told her they would rather separate from the military than take the vaccine should it become mandatory.â
The NYT says in the article that the militaryâs vaccine skepticism is simply a reflection of the society at large. They quote  Dr. Michael S. Weiner, the former chief medical officer for the Defense Department:
âAt the end of the day, our military is our society….They have the same social media, the same families, the same issues that society at large has.â
Whatâs happening in the military is like what weâre seeing across the entire US: Thereâs a higher percentage of older people taking the vaccine, and that percentage trends down with age.
According to the latest poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 77% of Americans 65 or over have either gotten a shot or plan to do so as soon as possible. But just 41% of Americans aged 18-29 say the same.
The military traditionally operates in confined quarters. On ships, in barracks, or at a duty station where there’s little room for social distancing. There soon may be enough military anti-vaxxers where they can cause issues with readiness. There was a Covid outbreak on a navy ship that infected 1,100 crew members, about 20% of the shipâs crew.
Time to wake up America! Returning to nearly normal will take a few things: First, keeping your distance from others who may have the virus; it doesnât spread easily at distance. Second, taking FDA-approved precautions like getting the shots. Or third, at least wearing a mask.
If you wonât do any of those three, you risk yourself, your family and the rest of us.
To help you wake up, listen to Hennessey the Band do their song “8 Men“:
Sample Lyric:
8 men have all the money.
8 men have more than half of the money than everyone else in the world has combined.
Believe it or not, on Monday, Merrick Garland finally gets a hearing in front of a Senate committee! Whether he will be confirmed remains to be seen. John Pavlovitz nails it, and also nails Ted Cruz:
âTed Cruz represents the heart and soul of the Republican Party: thatâs why he left people in pain, thatâs why he fled a crisis, thatâs why he will be defended by his callous Republican counterpartsâand why so many GOP voters will vote for him again, should they survive their cruelty.â
More:
â…Cruz is the defective moral compass of those whoâve spent the past twelve months doing everything they could to be a deadly pandemicâs greatest allies and causing nearly half a million Americans to die;
after four months of stoking fake election fraud conspiracies that incited a murderous assault on our nationâs Capitol….after weeks of being so enamored with defending their disgraced cult leaderâs non-existent honor, theyâve been useless in creating a stimulus plan to rescue those millions whose lives have be upended by a historic health crisis he did nothing to combat.â
As Pavlovitz says, thereâs no sense of right and wrong with the GOP, only what they believe they will get away with. On to cartoons.
Ted left for Mars:
Ted didnât forget:
Finally, Mexico is concerned Texas isnât sending their best:
Finally, Mexico is concerned Texas isnât sending their best: