Speaker Mike Johnson floated a fresh idea for heading off a shutdown after the Nov. 17 deadline — one that would seemingly create a series of rolling funding threats and could draw opposition from across the political spectrum.
....While it’s not totally clear how that would work, Johnson seemed to be referring to different lengths of funding for each of the 12 individual appropriations bills, triggering ongoing shutdown threats for different parts of government.
First he conditioned Israel aid on funding cuts for the IRS. Now he's proposing 12 separate shutdowns for different parts of the government.
Is this just a sign of inexperience? Johnson has never been in a leadership role before. Or is it a sign that even after being elected unanimously he's running scared of the nutball caucus and flailing for ways out?
Maybe both. But I'd put most of my money on the latter. The nutballs still rule the Republican caucus.
The Wall Street Journal says more and more workers are filing discrimination complaints if their company won't let them work from home:
The number of charges filed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging discrimination against individuals with anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder rose by at least 16% for each condition from 2021 to 2022.
....“Mental illness is at an all-time high, and Covid was a huge contributor,” said Hannah Olson, whose software firm, Disclo, helps employers manage the disability-accommodations process. “The other piece is return-to-office. People are asking for more things, and companies don’t know how to manage this.”
The EEOC in September sued a Georgia employer for declining to allow a digital marketing manager with anxiety and other mental-health disorders to work remotely three days a week.... With remote-work requests, “there’s a fine line between ‘I want it because it makes me happy,’ and ‘I want it because if I don’t get it I’ll be depressed or anxious,’” said Patty Pryor, a Jackson Lewis attorney who represents employers.
As happens so often with the Journal, the evidence supporting their central claim is spotty. There are more disability claims these days, they say, but "agencies don’t disclose the events leading to the charges." So we don't know if this has anything to do with remote work requests. The article is based solely on anecdotal reports from "lawyers, government officials and disability advocates."
Naturally I've taken the liberty of digging up some relevant numbers:
The top chart shows mental health discrimination claims filed with the EEOC. They've been going up steadily for two decades, and nothing special happened after COVID started. There is a bit of an uptick in 2022, but only anxiety is above its trendline—and even there only by a little bit. And note that these are all mental health claims. At most, only a tiny fraction are due to remote work complaints.
The bottom chart is less useful: it shows Social Security disability claims for all causes. However, if mental health claims have been rising you'd expect at least a small increase in total claims. But there isn't one. Absolutely nothing has changed from before to after the pandemic.
So color me skeptical. There may indeed be some discrimination filings based on remote work demands, but the numbers must be very small indeed. It's a dramatic claim, but the numbers really don't back it up.
As a matter of courtesy, not law, I asked what this bicyclist should do. Just stay there because it's a bike lane and that's that? Or, because it's also a right-turn lane, move up a bit and let the right turners make their turns?
I genuinely didn't know how this was going to go, but I didn't expect such a lopsided response:
I'm surprised that such a huge majority think she should stay put. Is that because many of you don't live in states where you can make a right turn on red? It doesn't matter there, of course. Aside from that, though, it takes no effort to stop a little further up instead of right in the lane blocking traffic. So why not do it?
Apparently this argument cuts no ice. Bicyclists can stop where they like, and motorists shouldn't worry about it. End of story.
We've now had two quarters in a row of strong productivity growth. This doesn't tell us much about the health of the economy right now, but it's good long-term news since productivity growth is the core of long-term prosperity.
Fears that Israel’s expanding military operations in Gaza could escalate into a regional conflict are clouding the global economy’s outlook, threatening to dampen growth and reignite a rise in energy and food prices.
....“This is the first time that we’ve had two energy shocks at the same time,” said Indermit Gill, chief economist at the World Bank, referring to the impact of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East on oil and gas prices.
Am I the only one shaking my head over this? The war in Gaza is important for lots of reasons, but even if it expands it's far too small to affect the global economy. Just for the record, here's the price of oil over the past few weeks:
There's no telling what could happen if the war escalates, but the oil market sure doesn't seem to be worried about it. The price of crude has barely budged since the war broke out, and there's no reason to think that OPEC countries are willing to risk their own economies by starting up an embargo over the fate of the Palestinians in Gaza. Nor does the text of the article provide any evidence for this.
On the other hand, I'm more or less in the more general camp that believes the world economy is fairly fragile right now and could easily be pushed into recession. In fact, I continue to think it's likely. I just don't see the war in Gaza having anywhere near the heft to influence things one way or the other.
Here's a question for the hive mind. I'm genuinely undecided about it and I'm curious what other people think.
At red lights, motorists are supposed to move to the right if they want to make a right turn. In many places around here, this means (legally) moving into the bike lane. However, if there's a bike ahead of the motorists, they're stuck. For example:
This is not a legal question, just one of courtesy. Should the bicyclist move forward and around the corner in order to leave the right-turn lane free? Or should motorists just accept that sometimes bicyclists in bike lanes will be in their way?
Senators of all stripes, even Republicans, are getting fed up with Tommy Tuberville's hold on hundreds of military promotions. Tonight it all spilled out:
Republican senators angrily challenged Sen. Tommy Tuberville on his blockade of almost 400 military officers Wednesday evening, taking over the Senate floor for hours to call for individual confirmation votes after a monthslong stalemate. Tuberville, R-Ala., stood and objected over and over again, extending his holds on the military confirmations and promotions with no immediate resolution in sight.
....Showing obvious frustration and frequent flashes of anger, the Republican senators — Sullivan, Graham, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, Indiana Sen. Todd Young and others — read lengthy biographies and praised individual nominees as they called for vote after vote. They said they agree with Tuberville on the policy, but questioned — as Democrats have for months — why he would hold up the highest ranks of the U.S. military.
I don't get this. The Senate majority leader—that would be Democrat Chuck Schumer—is not required to honor holds. He can call for a vote on all 400 promotions any time he feels like it. The only thing standing in his way is that a motion to proceed can be filibustered and would require 60 votes to break.
But if Republicans are truly tired of Tuberville's shenanigans it should be no problem to overcome a filibuster. Are they fed up enough to spend all night calling for votes but not fed up enough to break a filibuster? Why not?
JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): We had a former CIA guy come on "Primetime" the other day, and he said the CIA makes money on the side with drug trafficking.... And one of the reasons — one of many reasons — Donald Trump was defeated was because the CIA had had it with this guy, because he was threatening the cash flow....
DANA PERINO (CO-HOST): Wait, you're saying the CIA is funding itself by the drug trade?
WATTERS: Yeah, they take a cut. That's what the former CIA guy told me.
You know, I could be convinced the CIA funds itself with planeloads of smack or meth. Why not? That stuff happens in movies all the time, right?
But Donald Trump secretly trying to put a stop to it? That's a bridge too far, my friend. We all know that Trump would not only have adored the idea, he would have regaled his post-presidential Mar-a-Lago pals all day long with stories about drug-financed assassinations or something. Sadly, that hasn't happened. Sorry, Jesse.
Have you heard? Republicans are threatening democracy and are probably racist and transphobic for trying to expel state legislators who don’t abide by the rules of their chambers and disrupt legislative business — and now they’re trying to kick nearly an entire caucus out of a state legislature it controls!
Well, except that the move to wipe out a whole legislative caucus is being done by Democrats.... We are yet again reminded that the rules are all Calvinball to Democrats and their mouthpieces in the national political press. They mean none of it, ever.
That sounds bad. But maybe you'd like to hear the actual story here?
Oregon is a Democratic state, something that Republicans obviously don't like much. So, since they can't win actual elections, Republican legislators have developed a habit of leaving the state en masse to prevent the legislature from reaching the quorum it needs to do business. This got tiresome, so last year Oregon voters approved Measure 113, which bars members from reelection if they miss ten or more legislative sessions. It was enormously popular, passing by a whopping 68-32% margin.
Republican legislators thumbed their noses at it. In May they walked out again for 42 days. As a result, they are barred from running for reelection in 2024 (or possibly not until 2026 depending on how a court case turns out).
In other words, "Democrats" aren't doing anything. Obviously Measure 113 was their idea, but it was approved overwhelmingly by the public and its penalties were well known to the Republicans who walked out. They were automatically disqualified from reelection by law—enforced by the Secretary of State—not by a partisan vote in the legislature.
This all seems straightforward enough, but McLaughlin thinks it's outrageous because....
....It's not clear, really. The closest he comes to a reason is that Republicans used their walkouts as a way of "stymieing extreme Democratic proposals on abortion, guns, transgender surgeries, and other issues." It's not clear to me why he thinks this is a reason the law shouldn't apply.
McLaughlin is an odd duck. In former days he was a relatively moderate conservative, but he has since moved to National Review and become outraged about absolutely everything Democrats do. This is life in Donald Trump's Republican Party, I guess, even if you don't like Trump yourself.
