{"id":15149,"date":"2015-05-01T12:04:22","date_gmt":"2015-05-01T19:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15149"},"modified":"2015-05-01T12:04:22","modified_gmt":"2015-05-01T19:04:22","slug":"open-thread512015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/01\/open-thread512015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–5\/1\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m in the middle of the busiest day I\u2019ve had in a long time.  In addition to my normal paperwork for home and volunteer work for the beginning of a new month, it\u2019s time to change polls.  It\u2019s also an international holiday.  I started collecting the data and preparing the graphics for tomorrow\u2019s Monthly Report at 4:00 AM.  I didn\u2019t even get started on the rest until after 8:00.  ARGH!  TGIF!!<\/font><\/p>\n

Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s took me 3:34 (average 5:34).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is on pace to adopt rival Bernie Sanders\u2019s positions on all major issues by noon on Thursday, Clinton campaign officials have confirmed.<\/p>\n

Within minutes of Sanders\u2019s entry into the Democratic race, Clinton released position papers on trade, income inequality, national defense, and the environment that meticulously aped the Vermont senator\u2019s views on those matters.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Oh Andy!! FOMCROTFPIMPLMAO!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>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<\/a> filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. It must be pretty bad to get a top executive fired.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

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. <\/p>\n

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".<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Slator’s termination is not stopping King’s lawsuit from going forward.<\/p>\n

Racism among top executives ahold not be a surprise. 1% Republicans are the people, who fund racism.<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

That failure has had deep and perverse repercussions, extending beyond harming low-wage workers. As a recent report<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/font><\/p>\n

Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\"0501Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m in the middle of the busiest day I\u2019ve had in a long time.  In addition to my normal paperwork for home and volunteer work for the beginning of a new month, it\u2019s time to change polls.  It\u2019s also an international holiday.  I started collecting the data and preparing the graphics for tomorrow\u2019s Monthly Report […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}