WIC could use a bit of an overhaul

It's a very good and necessary program. An excellent example of government done right, in fact. But there's always room for improvement.

Many federal programs vary across the country due to differences in the way each state administers them. But unlike Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which aims to reduce overall hunger, WIC is restrictive by design. Using analyses done by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASM), the program targets specific nutrient deficiencies among American infants and their parents.

Advocates say the focused nature is what makes it effective. For example, evidence that the program reduces the risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, and infant mortality is strong. But the strict nutrition requirements and hyper-specificity of WIC-approved food shopping lists from state to state can also be confusing for those doing the shopping.

Nearly half of the people eligible for WIC don’t enroll, and a 2019 Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) report identified frustration with the limited range of approved foods and brands in some states as one of the main barriers to participation. In 2020, when the pandemic led to shortages of many items in grocery stores, WIC participants struggled to find approved foods on shelves. The complicated requirements can also shut out smaller food companies, since only the most well-resourced food companies tend to have the resources necessary to manage (and lobby around) the requirements. - Civil Eats

New merger guidelines could help with a lot of things

Like, you know, fairness, justice, and in general over time a better deal for almost everyone.

A major shift is afoot in the federal government’s stance on big business. Earlier this year, the two agencies in charge of enforcing the antitrust laws, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, announced that they plan to revise their merger guidelines. That may sound like a minor technicality, but in fact, it heralds a sea change in the workings of antitrust law. The new guidelines, expected later this year, will likely make it much harder for large corporations to amass power by buying other companies. Over time the guidelines will also shape how judges understand and apply the antitrust laws in their rulings.

Had this shift in enforcement policy come about years ago, Americans wouldn’t be contending with a host of debilitating problems caused by consolidation. Mergers in the food industry, for example, have allowed dominant meatpackers and other processors to slash the incomes of farmers and food workers, while raising grocery prices. Mergers among manufacturers of everything from appliances to beer cans have led to the shuttering of plants, costing communities thousands of jobs. Hospital mergers have sent health care costs soaring, while dozens of rural communities have lost their hospitals altogether, as big hospital chains bought and then closed small facilities. Meanwhile, Amazon, Facebook, and Google have used acquisitions to thwart potential competition and lock in their dominance, to the detriment of small businesses, local newspapers, and others seeking to communicate or sell products online.

New merger guidelines hold the promise of putting a stop to these kinds of domineering moves by powerful corporations. But their potential isn’t limited to simply preventing America’s monopoly problem from getting worse. Strong merger enforcement would create a fairer playing field for small businesses and allow more startups to gain a toehold, deconcentrating industries over time. And as we’ve noted, the merger guidelines provide a framework for understanding the antitrust laws that history shows can significantly influence how the courts apply the law, and not only in merger cases. - ILSR

The CHIPS Act is probably just another mega-corporate giveaway

Perhaps you've seen this extolled in corporate "news" media as a wonderful example of "bipartisanship" on behalf of the American people. That's not the real story.

Millions of children are living in poverty, the planet is warming, and inflation is reaching new heights. Now, a bipartisan coalition in Congress has come together — to push for $76 billion in subsidies to the highly-profitable domestic computer chip industry.

(On July 20), the Senate voted to advance the CHIPS Act by a 64-34 vote. Those voting in favor included 49 Democrats and 15 Republicans. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and 33 Republicans were opposed.

The bill includes a combination of grants and tax credits for chip manufacturers designed to encourage domestic production. The money would subsidize the creation of new plants, known as fabs, and the retooling of existing facilities. The corporations expected to benefit the most are Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron Technology, Global Foundries, and Samsung...

Will $76 billion in subsidies incentivize these companies to build new fabs? Or will this money simply be a windfall for companies that are already expanding their capacity in the United States? - Popular Information

The EPA can still do plenty about emissions

It just needs the gumption, and/or a good kick in the butt.

Even as the EPA resists taking action in Utah, it has a wide range of regulations already on the books or currently planned that are aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It has proposed rules limiting methane emissions from oil and gas facilities and is targeting vehicle tailpipe emissions. The Supreme Court ruling expressly leaves the EPA with the authority to regulate pollution from the electricity sector — as long as it doesn’t order plants to switch from coal to renewable energy the way it would have under Obama’s plan.

(EPA chief Michael) Regan said that his agency also plans to tighten regulations that would force power plants to clean up pollution — in many cases, an expensive undertaking. He made it clear that he hopes that the owners of coal-fired power plants will decide to close dirty facilities rather than spend the money to clean them up. “They’ll see it’s not worth investing in the past,” Regan said. - Mother Jones

O brave new world of worker surveillance

This is atrocious, at least in my view, and I don’t know of a ready fix.

Technological incentives are a new adversary in the long history of workers trying to keep the tentacles of corporate America out of their personal lives. But unlike the precipitating causes of the bloody 1886 Haymarket Riot, where Chicago workers protested the blatant incursion of longer working hours despite their legal entitlement to an eight-hour workday, modern employer surveillance is restructuring the lives of workers in gradual and nearly imperceptible ways. The lines of what is work and what is life in the consecrated “work-life balance” are blurring because of the way surveillance technologies are proliferating. What began in the workplace is leaking its bile across your lap as you sit at home...

The physical workplace may be where employer surveillance started, but it’s not where it ends. The days of surveillance being technologically limited to physical spaces and analog tools like building cameras are slipping away. In their place are more accurate and ubiquitous technologies that run on hardware that employees already use, like computers and phones. And as more employees do their work outside of physical offices, the employer surveillance apparatus has mutated to keep them ensnared. The forecast is that soon at least 70 percent of companies will be using software that tracks worker productivity via their computers. This tracking might include keylogging, location tracking, web and email monitoring, or even in some cases, taking images of workers through their webcams at random intervals throughout the day. The expansion of these tracking technologies was another flare-up that the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated, and the logics of tracking that were established for remote work are here to stay. “Here,” in this case, meaning the home office, the living room, or any personal space where one uses digital devices. - The Baffler

There's nothing much that's "green" about Amazon

From yesterday. Certainly it is preferable to buy legitimately eco/climate-friendly products, when you can. But don't buy the hype.

You’ve probably heard: Amazon Prime Day is happening today and tomorrow (July 12 and 13). There are deals galore, and the internet is alive with timely listicles of Amazon products for every niche—including “eco-friendly” Amazon deals. But the problem is, there’s no such thing. For all its promises and posturing, Amazon is a company with massive negative environmental impacts, and Prime Day embodies some of its worst traits.

First off, there’s all that packaging and waste. Then there’s the transportation emissions ramped up by super-fast delivery. Adding insult to injury are the company’s half-measure, corporate carbon pledges, a flawed emissions self-reporting strategy, and fossil fuel partnerships. So, before you buy into the hype and add a ‘green’ products wishlist into your shopping cart, know that Amazon’s climate track record isn’t so prime. - Earther

Women take the lead in labor organizing

On a related matter, if it was up to me women would hold all political offices in this country, at least for a while. There's no question, from any rational standpoint, that things would be a lot better if that was to happen.

Over the course of the pandemic, the majority of essential workers were women. The majority of those who lost their jobs in the pandemic were women. The majority of those who faced unstable care situations for their children and their loved ones were women.

And now the majority of those organizing their workplaces are women.

Kroger workers are part of a surge in organizing led by women, women of color and low-wage workers impelled by this once-in-a-century pandemic. Many said they feel the pandemic has unmasked the hypocrisy of some employers — they were ​“essential” workers until their employers stopped offering protections on the job, good pay and commensurate benefits.

Among them, a deep recalibration is happening, dredging up questions about why they work, for whom, and how that work serves them and their families. For many it’s the chance to define the future of work. - In These Times

An effort to reform the appallingly corrupt charter industry kicks in

As of July 1. Hopefully this is a first step to entirely snuffing out the charter industry, along with any and all other efforts to destroy public education. Which is a big goal, and it won’t happen quickly or easily to say the very least.

Here are the significant gains.

The Department will make it difficult or impossible for charters run by for-profits to get grants...

There will be greater transparency and accountability for charter schools, state entities, and CMOs that apply for grants...

Regulations to stop white-flight charters from receiving CSP funding and ensure the charter is needed in the community...

Making progress on holding charters accountable and reducing waste, fraud, and profiteering is an extraordinarily difficult task. The goal of the charter lobby is to create as many charters as possible, make schools a marketplace, and eventually overtake our democratically governed schools. We have a long way to go in stopping that. But these regulations are an important first step. - Diane Ravitch's blog

ALEC is still at it

You don't see as much, on the progressive internet, about the American Legislative Exchange Council as you used to. It's still out there, and it's still despicable, and this is a good, current story about what it's still up to.

The Energy Discrimination Elimination Act is just one of the thousands of pieces of legislation ALEC has disseminated nationwide since its formation in 1973. According to a two-year investigation of “copycat” bills published in 2019 by USA Today, the Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity, state lawmakers introduced nearly 2,900 bills based on ALEC templates from 2010 through 2018. More than 600 of them became law.

What explains ALEC’s track record? A big piece of the answer lies in the way the group spreads disinformation and hides its activities from the general public...

ALEC’s disinformation starts with how the group describes itself.

Originally called the Conservative Caucus of State Legislators, ALEC falsely claims it is a “nonpartisan” organization that enables private sector members to collaborate with legislators on policies and programs promoting what it calls “Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty”—a classic libertarian mantra.

Nonpartisan? Hardly. Virtually all of the roughly 2,000 state lawmakers, officials and staffers who pay a token fee of $200 for a two-year ALEC membership are Republicans.

Likewise, despite ALEC’s positive gloss, the principles it espouses would establish a corporatocracy. By “free markets,” ALEC means giving free rein to corporations by rolling back public health, environmental, consumer and voting protections; by “limited government,” it means radically downsizing the federal government; and by “federalism,” it means transferring authority from the federal government to governors and state legislatures, which corporations can more easily dominate. - Independent Media Institute