Too much crap about a "worker shortage"

You've undoubtedly seen, from the greedheads' vast kennel of whimpering, groveling propagandist curs in corporate media and elsewhere, about how unemployment is "too low," the retirement age needs to be raised, etc. Despicable.

A so-called ​“labor shortage” in the United States has quickly become a catch-all justification for policies that prevent workers from gaining too much power on the job, or collectively organizing by forming unions.

Not enough applicants for low-paid jobs packing meat, or working the cash register at Dairy Queen? Better crank up the Federal Reserve’s interest rates (a policy explicitly aimed at spurring a recession and putting people out of work), so that we have a larger reserve of the desperate unemployed. Pandemic-era social programs ever-so-slightly redistributing wealth downward? Better shut them down, lest we eliminate the supposed precarity needed to incentivize work.

The concept of a labor shortage can be used to effectively justify any anti-worker policy under the sun. From reading the financial press or listening to business elites, the shortage may seem like an economic fact — a material reality that is beyond dispute. But, in reality, the framing of a ​“labor shortage” is at its heart ideological. As long as we’re talking about a labor shortage, we’re not talking about a shortage of good, dignified union jobs. As long as we’re talking about how people ​“don’t want to work,” we’re not talking about how bosses don’t want to treat their employees with basic fairness and respect. And as long as we’re talking about how it’s bosses who are supposedly hurting, we’re not talking about what it would take to build an economy that doesn’t perpetually harm the poor and dispossessed. - In These Times

Corporate media misrepresented the facts on crime

To say the very least. Of course "if it bleeds it leads" has always been central to news outlets. But recently it's taken on undeniable elements of a deliberate effort to influence voter behavior, on behalf of the Party of Trump. This is the most comprehensive, yet relatively concise, thing I've seen online regarding corporate media's appalling behavior, here.

Fearmongering about crime in Democratic states and cities was certainly central to the Republican Party’s midterm elections strategy, although at this point it is hard to say how effective it was...

What is certain is that the Republican obsession with crime received major attention in the media, and the subject was not always handled with the proper context, often tipping the balance to the conservative partisan narrative...

Of course, the realities of crime data never stopped Republicans from painting Democrats as soft on crime, or blaming crime spikes—real or imaginary—on Democratic policies. In 2022, rather than combating such distortions, various media helped to amplify a simplistic depiction, becoming de facto propaganda arms for the Republican campaigns. - FAIR

Online fundraising methods piss off progressives

Maybe with the biggest progressive website highlighting this there will be some changes. But that’s probably just wishful thinking.

Overwhelmingly voters said they wanted out: 57% of all of the surveyed voters said if there was a universal way to opt out of all these unsolicited contacts, they would use it; a full 72% of independents and 67% of 18- to 34-year-olds (the people who got Democrats elected this time around) said they would (choose) to stop receiving all political campaign emails and texts if they could.

The survey didn’t get into the content of the messages, the never-ending “DOOM” and “THE END IS NEAR” and “WE’RE IN CRISIS MODE” subject lines screaming across the internet to land in your inbox, multiple times. It would be helpful to see as well just how motivating — or not — that is. But based on conversations with all the people I know who follow campaigns closely and give money, they hate them.

But the message from this group of Democratic voters is clear: Being inundated by spam fundraising requests is at best annoying and at worst angering enough to make them tune out. “Democratic campaigns are demoralizing their supporters, annoying potential donors and driving independents away by inundating Americans with unsolicited fundraising emails and texts,” said Nelson. “If Democrats want to preserve their major advantage in grassroots online fundraising, they must stop spamming and scamming potential supporters.” - Daily Kos

Will the latest election in Israel change things in the U.S.?

One can hope.

The importance of Tom Friedman’s article saying the Israel we knew is gone is not about Palestinians. No, the Israel Palestinians know (it) is the same. It is about American Jews. They are finally catching a clue. That is the importance of (early November's) election, the Itamar Ben-Gvir election, in which his fascistic Religious Zionism party took 14 seats, and hard right wing parties took 74 (per Dahlia Scheindlin). The new ugly Israel will alienate American Jews, as Israel lobbyists Dennis Ross and David Makovsky openly fretted in an Op-Ed...

The disarray is a good thing. Zionism — the ideology Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu embody, one of Jewish supremacy in the Jewish land – is at last becoming problematic for American Jews. They are up to their chins in a discriminatory ideology, and so we begin a war over Zionism that will bring down the Israel lobby in the next ten years. Because Zionism destroys everything in its path. - Mondoweiss

Coal ash rules are being dangerously flouted

I don't know what it's going to have to take, for real enforcement to happen.

More than nine out of 10 coal ash impoundments nationwide are contaminating groundwater in violation of federal rules, according to environmental groups’ comprehensive analysis of the latest industry-reported data.

Even as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has stepped up enforcement of federal coal ash rules this year, the groups say more urgent action is necessary, including mandates that companies test all drinking water wells within a half-mile of coal ash impoundments, and that companies cease storing coal ash in contact with groundwater.

Coal ash contains arsenic, mercury and other toxins that have been linked to a range of health impacts. And drinking water wells near coal plants, unlike municipal water systems, do not typically undergo regular testing. - Energy News Network

Medicare Advantage fraud spikes

There is a wide range of opinions about, and experiences with, Medicare Advantage. I'm not prepared to condemn the whole program, outright. But it absolutely needs to be under far more strict and enforceable regulation.

Insurance companies and other brokers are making false or misleading claims to dupe senior citizens into purchasing Medicare Advantage plans, according to a report published (November 3) by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

The report, which comes midway through this year's Medicare enrollment period—described last year by healthcare writer Susan Jaffe as "open season for scammers"—reveals that the number of Medicare beneficiary complaints about dubious private sector marketing tactics more than doubled from 2020 to 2021...

Dr. Jessica Schorr Saxe, a retired family physician, noted in a recent Charlotte Observer opinion piece that "earlier this year, the federal government reported that 13% of denials in Medicare Advantage would not have been refused under traditional Medicare," while "Medicare Advantage plans are also increasingly ending nursing home and rehabilitation care before providers consider patients ready to go home." - Common Dreams

Nuclear's decline needs to be hastened

The World Nuclear Industry Status Report for 2022 was recently released. It's by an independent organization.

As its principal author, Mycle Schneider, pointed out during the rollout, the report’s authors are big fans of empirical data. Indeed, many of the findings in the report are taken from the nuclear industry itself. Facts and physics are pretty much immutable when it comes to nuclear power, and neither favor the industry very well. No amount of nuclear industry aspirational rhetoric can hide the truth about a waning and outdated technology.

The over-riding finding of the 2022 edition of the report is that nuclear power’s share of global commercial gross electricity generation in 2021 dropped to below 10 percent for the first time ever, sinking to its lowest in four decades. - Beyond Nuclear