Newspaper & online reporters and analysts explore the cultural and news stories of the week, with photos frequently added by Esco20, and reveal their significance (with a slant towards Esco 20's opinions)
December 17, 2016
The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.
NY TIMES
- A Times investigation reveals missed signals, slow responses and a continuing underestimation of the seriousness of a campaign of cyberespionage to disrupt the presidential race.
- A low-cost, high-impact weapon that Russia had test-fired in elections elsewhere was trained on the U.S., with devastating effectiveness.
The chain of ineptitude and institutional failure that facilitated Russia’s election interference
December 15, 2016
The stresses of poverty in the United States have grown so intense that they are harming the health of lower-income Americans — even prematurely leading to their death.
A report published Monday by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution finds that stress levels have greatly increased for Americans at all income levels since the 1970s, but especially for low-income groups, as the chart below shows.
The report doesn’t measure stress as we typically think about it in daily life. Instead, the researchers track "stress load," an index of certain biological markers such as blood pressure, cholesterol level, and kidney and liver function, that they say are "associated with long-term physiological strain." These metrics are strong indicators of a person's health and mortality, according to the report.
“The poor have seen really striking increases in the stress load index,” said Diane Schanzenbach, one of the report’s authors and the director of the Hamilton Project.
The paper adds to a growing body of research demonstrating that widening inequality in the United States between the rich and the poor is not just an economic phenomenon.
December 13, 2016
December 12, 2016
December 10, 2016
Michigan Supreme Court Slams The Door On Jill Stein’s Recount Case.
The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday shot down Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein’s request to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that had halted the state’s election recount.
The decision effectively ends the Michigan recount ― and in so doing, ends any hope that Stein’s broader recount efforts would change the election result. Stein has sought recounts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as well, but Hillary Clinton needed to be declared the winner in all three states to best Donald Trump in the Electoral College.
December 9, 2016
Small-time union leader receives threats 30 minutes after Trump attacks him on Twitter
Chuck Jones, the president of the local chapter of the United Steelworkers union that represents Carrier employees in Indianapolis, told The Post on Tuesday that the president-elect exaggerated the number of jobs he claims to have saved. It turns out that 550 of the union's members will lose their livelihoods, after all, because Trump was taking credit for keeping 350 engineering positions in the United States that were never going to leave. Yet the company will still collect millions in lucrative tax breaks.
Twenty minutes after his appearance, the man who will be the 45th president of the United States began attacking him on Twitter:
Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!
If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana. Spend more time working-less time talking. Reduce dues
Half an hour after Trump’s first tweet, the union leader's phone began to ring and kept ringing.“Nothing that says they’re gonna kill me, but, you know, ‘You better keep your eye on your kids. We know what car you drive.’ Things along those lines,” he explained.
“My first thought was, ‘Well, that’s not very nice.’ Then, 'Well, I might not sleep much tonight,’” he told our Danielle Paquette in between the threatening calls to his flip phone.
Obama under pressure to disclose Russia’s role in election
Barack Obama is facing increasing pressure from congressional Democrats demanding further disclosures regarding Russia’s role in the 2016 US elections. A group of senior House Democrats has written to the president seeking a classified briefing for colleagues on “Russian entities’ hacking of American political organizations; hacking and strategic release of emails from campaign officials; the WikiLeaks disclosures; fake news stories produced and distributed with the intent to mislead American voters; and any other Russian or Russian-related interference or involvement in our recent election.” Additionally, the White House has not responded to a week-old letter signed by every Democratic and Democratic-aligned member of the Senate intelligence committee seeking declassification of “additional information concerning the Russian government and the US election”.
Trump’s Labor Pick, Andrew Puzder, Is Critic of Minimum Wage Increases
NY TIMES
President-elect Donald J. Trump on Thursday chose Andrew F. Puzder, chief executive of the company that franchises the fast-food outlets Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. and an outspoken critic of the worker protections enacted by the Obama administration, to be secretary of labor.
“Andy Puzder has created and boosted the careers of thousands of Americans, and his extensive record fighting for workers makes him the ideal candidate to lead the Department of Labor,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.
Mr. Puzder, 66, fits the profile of some of Mr. Trump’s other domestic cabinet appointments. He is a wealthy businessman and political donor and has a long record of promoting a conservative agenda that takes aim at President Obama’s legacy. And more than the other appointments, he resembles Mr. Trump in style.
On policy questions, he has argued that the Obama administration’s recent rule expanding eligibility for overtime pay diminishes opportunities for workers, and that significant minimum wage increases would hurt small businesses and lead to job losses.
He has criticized paid sick leave policies of the sort recently enacted for federal contractors and strongly supports repealing the Affordable Care Act, which he says has created a “government-mandated restaurant recession” because rising premiums have left people with less money to spend dining out.
Speaking to Business Insider this year, Mr. Puzder said that increased automation could be a welcome development because machines were “always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall or an age, sex or race discrimination case.”
Trump picks climate change skeptic to lead EPA
Donald Trump selected Scott Pruit, attorney general of Oklahoma and a climate science skeptic, as the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. “His nomination is a clear signal of Republicans’ desire to dismantle Obama’s climate legacy,” writes environment reporter Oliver Milman. Pruitt has called the EPA’s rule “unlawful and overreaching” and is part of legal action waged by 28 states against the EPA to halt the Clean Power Plan, an effort by Obama’s administration to curb greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. Within hours of Pruitt’s appointment, the president-elect, Ivanka Trump and advisers met with Leonardo DiCaprio and the head of his foundation to discuss job creation by renewable, clean energy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)