Monique Morrissey and Jennifer Sherer , Research Staff - Economic Policy Institute
Stephan:
The creation of unions was one of the critical steps in creating the middle class in the United States. When workers can join and negotiate collectively they do better. Here is the proof. The Democrats support unions, the MAGAt Republicans are trying to cut them. You should keep that in mind when you vote in November.
Key findings
Nationally, the public-sector pay gap has widened in the last four years.
State and local government employees earned, on average, 17.6% less than similarly educated private-sector employees, compared with a pre-pandemic pay gap of 13.9%.
Even when factoring in more robust public-sector benefits packages, total compensation is approximately 14.5% lower for public-sector workers than for private-sector workers.
Collective bargaining rights for public employees vary widely across states, and this has an effect on pay gaps between public- and private-sector workers. When compared with private-sector workers, public-sector workers with strong bargaining rights (-14.9%) have a narrower pay gap than those with weak (-20.1%) or no bargaining rights (-22.9%).
Why this matters
State and local governments are facing acute and growing staffing shortages as public-sector pay lags farther behind the pay of private-sector workers. Moreover, the public-sector pay gap disproportionately affects women and Black workers, who are more likely to be employed in public-sector jobs and who are disadvantaged in the broader labor market. Strengthening collective bargaining rights for government workers would narrow the pay gap and reduce racial and gender inequality.
How to fix it
At the national level, Congress should pass the Public Service […]
Jennifer Henderson, Enterprise & Investigative Writer - MedPage Today
Stephan:
Yet another story about the inferiority of the U.S. illness profit system, and how dangerous is is becoming for physicians who try to provide any kind of help for individuals with transgender issues. All of this is happening because of the MAGAt Republican cult and the sexual dysfunctionality of the individuals in this cult.
Threats Against Docs Treating Trans Minors
Kade Goepferd, MD, of Children’s Minnesota Hospital, has received death threats for their work treating transgender youths, NBC News reported
Goepferd is hardly alone. NBC News interviewed a dozen clinicians treating transgender minors in states where it’s still legal, and they raised concerns about legal risks and anti-trans attacks. Many said they’ve had to take additional security measures as anti-trans rhetoric has intensified.
One nonprofit director said there has been a “growing awareness over the last year that the environment is only getting more and more dangerous for providers.”
In Georgia, an arsonist destroyed a transgender care clinic, and the incident is being investigated as a hate crime, the outlet reported. The climate of fear has led many clinics to avoid publicity and increase security measures for staff, including removing staff contact information from websites or considering a complete elimination of their online presence.
“It’s emotionally exhausting to be targeted,” Goepferd told NBC News. “It’s also really sad and painful to watch the patients and families that you care for be targeted.”
Isabel Rosales, John Miller, Nick Valencia, Dakin Andone and Sharif Paget, , Reporters - CNN
Stephan:
The first week of school, students have barely gotten their new text books, and we have already had a school mass murder; the 45th school mass murder this year. And where did a 14-year-old get the gun? And yet in states controlled by Republicans it is getting easier and easier to carry a concealed gun with no license, no training, and to own an assault rifle war weapon. What kind of politician sees these mass shootings happen, and yet chooses to do nothing about it? Look at the difference in the responses of Harris and criminal Trump.
Apalacchee High School Students Credit: Apalachee High School
WINDER, GEORGIA — The 14-year-old suspect in the fatal mass shooting at a Winder, Georgia, high school has been identified as Colt Gray, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at an afternoon news conference.
The suspect is a student at Apalachee High School who will be charged with murder and will be handled as an adult as he moves through the criminal justice system, Hosey and Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith added.
Two teachers and two students were killed, Hosey said. Nine other victims were taken to hospitals, according to the officials.
The gunfire sent students and faculty desperately scurrying for cover as schools across the county went into lockdown and parents scrambled for information.
Wednesday’s shooting is the deadliest of the 45 school shootings so far this calendar year, according to a CNN analysis. It is one of 11 school shootings with four or more deaths since 2008, when CNN first started tracking school shootings.
Maya Rossin-Slater, Research Scientist - Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Stephan:
This paper was published in 2022, but is the latest I could find, in the academic literature, and I doubt very much its conclusions have changed in the subsquent months. Fear of being shot while in school, according to Pew Research Center is now a top concern of American students. My wife and I were talking about this having tea this afternoon, trying to imagine what it would be like to be afraid of being shot in school, something unheard of when we were in school. Or how we would counsel and comfort our children if we had young children today. I just don’t, can’t, comprehend how this continues with nothing being done.
School shooting survivors Credit: ABC News
Key Takeaways
More than 100,000 American children attended a school at which a shooting took place in 2018 and 2019.
Research indicates a higher rate of antidepressant use among those exposed to a school shooting in the years following the gun violence.
School shootings lead to drops in student enrollment and a decline in average test scores.
School shootings also lead to an increase in student absenteeism and the likelihood of needing to repeat a grade in the two following years.
Students exposed to shootings at their schools are less likely to graduate high school, go to college, and graduate college, and they are less likely to be employed and have lower earnings in their mid-20s.
s America reels from yet another school shooting — this one at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas — much of the public discussion has centered on the lives lost: 19 children and 2 teachers. The Uvalde massacre is the second deadliest on record, following the 2012 shooting […]
What I see new in this DOJ report is not that Putin and his Russian government are trying to get criminal Trump elected, it is the blatant treasonous involvement in his schemes of MAGAt Republicans lobbyists and media, and politicians for that matter. We have a portion of the U.S. political system who are openly traitors as this report and public comments by these individuals confirms.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Department of Justice on August 23, 2024 in Washington, DC. Credit: Anna Moneymaker / Getty
The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it is seizing 32 domains tied to a Russian influence campaign accused of spreading propaganda to influence voters in U.S. and foreign elections.
Why it matters: Members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle directed Russian companies to promote disinformation as part of a campaign to influence the 2024 election, the Justice Department alleged.
“The sites we are seizing today were filled with Russian government propaganda that had been created by the Kremlin to reduce international support for Ukraine, bolster pro-Russian policies and interests, and influence voters in the United States and other countries,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Wednesday.
Driving the news: The DOJ also announced charges Wednesday against Russian nationals connected to an alleged scheme to influence U.S. audiences with content that included hidden […]
Andy Kroll and Nick Surgey, Staff Writers - ProPublica
Stephan:
The corruption of Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and his MAGAt lobbyist wife Ginni is astounding to me. How is it possible a man this corrupt and dishonorable can be one of the six people, the christofascist Trump majority on the Supreme Court, who determine how the laws that shape the lives of over 300 million American are defined? Why is nothing being done to clean the scum from the Court?
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and his MAGAt lobbyist wife Ginni Thomas. Credit: CNBC
Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, privately heaped praise on a major religious-rights group for fighting efforts to reform the nation’s highest court — efforts sparked, in large part, by her husband’s ethical lapses.
Thomas expressed her appreciation in an email sent to Kelly Shackelford, an influential litigator whose clients have won cases at the Supreme Court. Shackelford runs the First Liberty Institute, a $25 million-a-year organization that describes itself as “the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious liberty for all Americans.”
Shackelford read Thomas’ email aloud on a July 31 private call with his group’s top donors.
Thomas wrote that First Liberty’s opposition to court-reform proposals gave a boost to certain judges. According to Shackelford, Thomas wrote in all caps: “YOU GUYS HAVE FILLED THE SAILS OF MANY JUDGES. CAN I JUST TELL YOU, THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH.”
