Mailing a letter the other day, I saw a “Help Wanted” sign in the post office window, for jobs starting at $17.59 an hour. Some quick math in my head and that’s about $700 a week, which is maybe $600 of take-home after taxes. Here in Washington, a person who earned $700 a week befo[...]
Archive for August, 2020
New analysis suggests D. B. Cooper splashed down in the Columbia River
A scientist using an electron microscope to study biological material on the D. B. Cooper cash found in a Columbia River sandbar in 1980 by a boy camping with his family says the money couldn’t have been in the water for more than a few months, ruling out an early FBI theory that Cooper jumped[...]
August 4th, 2020 - 3:22 pm § in Politics
McConnell will back any relief bill negotiators agree on
GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell now says he’ll back any relief bill that Democrats and White House negotiators come up with, CNBC reported on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020. That’s significant because it removes a potential major obstacle to passing a bill. GOP senators are divided and it appea[...]
WHO warns of “long road back”
“The World Health Organization warned on Monday that, despite strong hopes for a vaccine, there might never be a ‘silver bullet’ for COVID-19, and the road to normality would be long,” and “exhorted all nations to rigorously enforce health measures such as mask-wearing,[...]
Why the cops killed George Floyd
By now everyone has seen, or heard about, the video of accused police officer Derek Chauvin choking George Floyd to death while two other cops held Floyd down and another stood by fending off horrified onlookers; and to almost everyone watching that video, it looked like an act of murder. That video[...]
August 3rd, 2020 - 12:41 pm § in Donald Trump, Politics
Democrats issue Supreme Court threat
“Democrats are warning Republicans not to fill a possible Supreme Court vacancy this year after denying President Barack Obama the chance in 2016, saying it would embolden a push on the left to add seats to the court,” NBC News said on Monday, Aug. 3, 2020, under the headline, “Dem[...]
August 2nd, 2020 - 7:48 pm § in Donald Trump, Politics
This Trump appointee is too rancid even for some GOP senators
Trump makes him DoD’s top policy guy anyway A conspiracy nut who called President Obama a “Muslim terrorist” President Trump nominated Tony Tata to be Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, but withdrew him from consideration after the nomination stalled in the Senate Armed Services Committ[...]
August 1st, 2020 - 4:54 pm § in Politics
Is the Senate unbalanced?
Yes, says Lee Drutman (bio here), at FiveThirtyEight. And he’s not even a psychiatrist. For those watching today’s partisan warfare — Mitch McConnell, when he became Senate Majority Leader, famously declared his mission was to make President Obama a failure — it may come as a[...]