Source: SFGate
“Don Blankenship hasn’t had much success running for office. He ran for the Senate as a Republican in 2018 and sought the White House in 2020 as a third party candidate. He lost badly both times but is on the ballot again in 2024, this time as a Democrat seeking the Senate seat being vacated by Joe Manchin. Blankenship has plenty of baggage heading into the May 14 Democratic primary. Beyond his history of political losses, he’s perhaps best known in this coal-producing state as the former chief executive of Massey Energy who spent a year in federal prison for conspiring to violate mine safety laws before an explosion at his West Virginia coal mine killed 29 men in 2010.” (04/24/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/disgraced-coal-ceo-lost-races-as-gop-and-third-19419496.php
Source: Semafor
by David Weigel
“Nearly one year after the official end of the federal COVID-19 emergency declaration, the regular use of face masks for non-immunocompromised people has faded from American life. Outdoor masking, mandated in many states during the peak of the pandemic, became even rarer after a 2022 CDC advisory scaled it back. But that gradual return to barefaced life never reached left-leaning protests, where face masks are widely used and encouraged. Part of the reason, say organizers, remains an attempt to make a point about exposure to COVID-19 and other health risks, which some in the left-wing protest movements believe remain dire. And part is the threat of a different kind of exposure — from being captured by facial recognition technology or becoming doxxed (their personal information being shared online) by counter-protesters.” (04/23/24)
https://www.semafor.com/article/04/23/2024/the-rise-of-the-masked-israel-gaza-protester
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“The Federal Trade Commission is working to prevent every store in a moderately upscale Southern California mall from having the same owner. More specifically, it wants to prevent the workers who staff those stores from enduring lower wages and benefits. Those are some of the primary stakes in a merger challenge to a proposed $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri Holdings by Tapestry, Inc. Few would recognize these two parent companies, but you probably know their associated brands: Versace, Jimmy Choo, and Michael Kors are part of Capri, while Kate Spade, Coach, and Stuart Weitzman are in the Tapestry empire. All would come under the same corporate owner if the deal were to go through. … The prospect of another U.S. monopoly was enough for all five FTC commissioners (including the two new Republicans, who were just brought aboard in the last month) to vote to block the merger.” (04/24/24)
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-04-24-challenge-fashion-merger-new-antitrust-philosophy/
Source: The Corbett Report
“How to Defeat A Gatekeeper.” (04/24/24)
https://corbettreport.com/how-to-defeat-a-gatekeeper/
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“A painting by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt that was believed lost for the past 100 years has been sold at auction in Vienna. The unfinished work, Portrait of Fraulein Lieser, fetched €30m (£26m; $32m). It was commissioned by a family of Jewish industrialists in 1917, a year before Klimt’s death. However, there are many unanswered questions about the painting and debates about who the woman in the portrait is, as well as what happened to the painting during the Nazi era. It is believed to depict one of the daughters of either Adolf or Justus Lieser, who were brothers from a wealthy family of Jewish industrialists.” (04/24/24)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68886196
Source: Cobden Centre
by Dr. Frank Shostak
“A key factor that constrains people’s ability to generate goods and services is the scarcity of funding. Contrary to popular thinking, funding is not about money as such but about real savings.” (04/24/24)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2024/04/government-outlays-and-economic-growth/
Source: The Hill
“The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3-2 on Tuesday to ban noncompete agreements that prevent tens of millions of employees from working for competitors or starting a competing business after they leave a job. From fast food workers to CEOs, the FTC estimates 18 percent of the U.S. workforce is covered by noncompete agreements — about 30 million people. The final rule would ban new noncompete agreements for all workers and require companies to let current and past employees know they won’t enforce them. Companies will also have to throw out existing noncompete agreements for most employees, although in a change from the original proposal, the agreements may remain in effect for senior executives.” (04/24/24)
https://thehill.com/business/4615452-ftc-votes-to-ban-non-compete-agreements/
Source: Antiwar.com
“Senate Passes $95 Billion for Foreign Wars, Red Cross: Rafah Evacuation Not ‘Possible,’ and More.” (04/24/24)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1xzQpRyXMA
Source: Niskanen Center
by Matt Darling
“The United States funds unemployment insurance (UI) in an unusual way. Most nations fund unemployment insurance through a flat payroll tax — similar to how the United States funds programs like Social Security and Medicare: Every person who works has some fixed percentage taken out of each paycheck1 (up to a certain amount) to fund the unemployment insurance program. The United States uses a different system called experience rating. Under experience rating, unemployment insurance is paid for by a tax on firms, and the level of that tax depends on each firm’s history (or ‘experience’) sending laid-off workers into the unemployment insurance system.” (04/23/24)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/creating-a-more-dynamic-unemployment-insurance-system-the-case-for-eliminating-experience-rating/
Source: The Federalist
by David Harsanyi
“‘I condemn the antisemitic protests’ Joe Biden told reporters after days of anti-Jewish demonstrations at Columbia University and other Ivy League schools. ‘I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.’ Any morally clearheaded American already has a very good idea of what’s going on. Biden is both-siding the actions of Kafiya-wearing terror cheerleaders on Columbia’s Gaza Quad (who target American Jews who have absolutely no bearing on Israel’s actions) with those who refuse to accept the blood libel of ‘genocide’ in Gaza. It is the kind of odious moral relativism one expects to hear from a ‘squad’ member or clout-chasing far-right ‘influencer,’ not the president.” [editor’s note: There was a time, long ago, when Harsanyi seemed to lean kinda sorta a little bit libertarianish. Apparently the lobotomy was a complete success – TLK] (04/23/24)
https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/23/joe-biden-says-there-are-very-fine-people-on-both-sides-of-the-oct-7-debate/
