— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) March 8, 2017
If I were a True Progressive(tm), I probably wouldn’t be writing this (although, in my defense, for me it’s the end of Tuesday rather than the beginning of Wednesday). Yes, I enjoy putting these posts together — since it’s unpaid labor, Cole could hardly fire me for noncompliance — but it does qualify as work, some days more than others.
Jia Tolentino, in the New Yorker, on “The Women’s Strike and the Messy Space of Change”:
T[oday] is the Women’s Strike, the fourth of ten actions that have been called for by the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington. The strike was planned to coincide with International Women’s Day, and the march organizers, in tandem with a team organizing protests in forty countries around the world, have asked women to take whatever form of action their lives allow for. Take the day off from “paid and unpaid labor,” including housework and child care, if you can, or avoid shopping at corporate or male-owned businesses, or simply wear red in solidarity. There will be rallies in at least fifty cities around the United States.
Comparisons between the strike and the post-Inauguration march—now estimated to be the largest political demonstration in U.S. history—are inevitable, and likely to be unfavorable to the strikers. The decline in unionization has insured that most American workers are unfamiliar with striking and what it entails. And it is, of course, much harder to strike on a weekday than to protest on a Saturday. It is also more difficult to facilitate, measure, and publicize absence than it is to celebrate presence, the way one does at a march. When tens of thousands of immigrants went on strike on February 16th, they did attract some favorable public attention—as well as employer retribution—but a general strike the next day, and a tech-industry strike one week later, escaped public notice almost completely…
A full women's strike for just one day would cost the country $21 billion: https://t.co/ocx9cJNVDd
— American Progress (@amprog) March 7, 2017
From the Washington Post, “The expensive problem with the ‘Day Without a Woman’”:
… Rosie Molina, who works at a District restaurant for $7.50 an hour, woke early to march on the Mall in January. Then she rushed downtown for an afternoon shift. Molina was proud to have briefly joined the movement — her cause is immigrant rights — but she cannot afford to take part in Wednesday’s strike, which would cost her about $60. That’s two weeks of groceries.
“I’m a single mother,” Molina said. “I don’t have the luxury. The last time I took a day off, my paycheck was very low.”
Taria Vines, 44, who makes about $350 each week as a caterer in the Bronx, decided to take the day off to march Wednesday in the nation’s capital with some friends. Vines figures she’ll lose a chunk of pay — probably enough to cover her cellphone bill — but she still wanted to take a stand against sexual harassment and discrimination.
“It’s costing me money to do this,” she said, “but if I don’t fight for what’s right for me, who will?”…
Then there’s the women who could lose their jobs if they miss a day on the clock. Half of American mothers ages 18 to 34, for example, aren’t eligible for unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, according to a January analysis from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a District think tank. (The law provides job-protected days off mostly to full-time workers at companies with more than 100 employees.)…The organizers of A Day Without a Woman acknowledge the uneven access on their website. “Many women in our most vulnerable communities will not have the ability to join the strike, due to economic insecurity,” they wrote. “We strike for them. Many others work jobs that provide essential services, including reproductive health services, and taking off work would come at a great social cost. We recognize the value of their contribution.”
In an excellent piece at NYMag’s ladyblog The Cut, Dayna Evans points out “The Only Way to Know If Striking Works Is to Do It“:
… The strike, like January’s Women’s March on Washington, has been the subject of much discussion and some skepticism. Organized by eight grassroots feminist organizers with the intent of shifting focus from “lean-in feminism” to feminism of the working class, “the 99 percent,” questions still abound. Are the objectives clear enough? What will it achieve? Will women with privilege and financial security be the only ones able to participate? And if they are, what kind of message does that send? Not to mention the fear that not showing up to work could rankle women’s already precarious roles in the workplace. Why strike and why strike now?
Political resistance, as history has taught us, does not guarantee political change — but the first step to finding out is showing up. In Iceland and Poland, where two of the world’s most successful large-scale women’s strikes in recent history took place, there wasn’t time to deliberate about hows and ifs: There was only forward action. Uncertain beginnings, broad, lofty goals, and resistance were not enough to get in their way. Women of both countries didn’t know whether there would be a significant turnout, or if positive political change would be the result of their participation. All they knew was they had a choice to either strike or not. On Wednesday, American women will confront a similar challenge. And if the only way to find out if it striking works is to show up, the question is, will we?…
The #StatueOfLiberty has gone dark tonight. Lights off. America's closed. #DayWithoutAWoman started early pic.twitter.com/J2lzAnEz18
— Alexandra Halaby (@iskandrah) March 8, 2017
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
raven
My wife works in public health, especially in programs that serve underserved women. She won’t be striking thank you very much.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Aimai
I think its silly to imagine all women have to strike for this to be meaningful. I’m wearing red, not shopping, doing my work, keeping a flame of resistance in my soul. I think its worth doing–I do it for those who can’t afford to do it. Like I protest the treatment of immigrants and refugees who can’t protest.
raven
@Aimai: She’s witcha.
Baud
@Aimai: Agree.
Kay
Striking has always involved sacrifice and we’re not equal economically so it will never be evenly shared. I’m not saying people should do it but you can’t really have a “resistance” without risk. Strikes are extreme. The whole point is to show what happens when people withhold their labor- there’s a loss.
Kay
The whole history of strikes is lower paid or hourly workers. The only leverage they have is to withhold labor. The thing is ABOUT not having the power to do anything else.
satby
Good morning everyone and @rikyrah:
I’m off today anyway, so if there’s some demonstration I can get to I may go, but haven’t heard of anything in the area. But, honestly, I always thought the concept of this was pretty weak. As @Aimai: says, we’ll do what we can and see how it goes.
Baud
@Kay:
The ‘Day Without A Woman’ Strike Is Closing Schools Around The Country
Sab
So I am taking care of my 92 year old father. I guess I will go home, relax and call my brother in California and tell him to get on a plane because Dad is on his own today.
LAO
@raven: I can’t strike today either. I’m self-employed with clients that depend on me. I’ll wear red though.
Kay
@Baud:
I saw that and it will piss people off but resistance is adversarial. It’s a fight. Fights piss people off and if you engage in one you’re liable to take a small (or large) hit.
“I was fine with the strikers until my routine was disrupted” means one isn’t “fine with the strikers” because they disrupt. That’s the point. If they don’t disrupt it’s not much of a strike.
Kay
@Baud:
My son in Chicago joked that he supported the Fight for Fifteen “until I had to walk three additional blocks for coffee” :)
He was wavering there. Baud. No one told him this involved people not getting his coffee. Can’t they strike while filling his coffee cup?
Zinsky
Even though I am a male, I fully support this strike. Women, on average, are much more sensible, peaceful and reasonable than men. It’s so unfortunate this country is an outlier when it comes to women in government. Almost every other major Western country has had a woman as president or prime minister, besides the U.S. Sad!
debbie
@Aimai:
Yeah, I can’t just skip work. I also have zero red clothes. I hope my feminist indignation (which my coworkers know very well) will suffice today.
Baud
@Kay: The humanity!
Baud
@Zinsky:
We tried.
NorthLeft12
@Sab: I guess the decision to go on strike is made by everyone with regard for who it will impact and how you feel about it and what in the end it will accomplish. I do not presume to give you advice, but I hope that your efforts in taking care of your father are valued and acknowledged by all of your family.
Kay
I have to work so I plan on telling everyone I encounter that Trump is “taking away health care”
I’m thru with nuance. If they want nuance they can ask a follow-up. I’ll be instilling panic. They should be panicked. He is taking away health care from most of the people I encounter.
kindness
None of the women I work with have said they were taking today off. We’ll see. I hope I see a lot more red at work at least.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: The whole point of any civil action is to get people’s attention. Sadly, for most people the only way to do that is to piss them off.
Baud
@Kay: Nice.
Sab
@NorthLeft12: I dunno if he values my work. He doesn’t come around much. Apparently he is busy with important stuff.
NorthLeft12
@Zinsky: I wish I had a like button for your comment.
I can’t say that Canada has elected a woman to be Prime Minister as Kim Campbell took over [very briefly] when PM Mulroney resigned by winning the Conservative party leadership. She was widely viewed at the time as a sacrificial lamb as the Cons were very unpopular and soon were steamrollered that election by the Liberals.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Strikes. specifically, are about stopping work. Love them or hate them, the whole point is “these people aren’t working and that makes my life worse”. It often makes the strikers life worse, at least temporarily, also.
I guess there could be a strike composed completely of people who won’t have to sacrifice but the sacrifice part is sorta baked in.
WereBear
I took a day off.
But everyone can wear red!
Kay
@Baud:
I feel I have some earned credibility with them. Time to cash in!
Baud
@Kay: I don’t as much about striking as you do, obviously. I take it this is more of a general strike than a labor strike because there aren’t specific demands that the organizers are making.
satby
@Kay: I agree, and most of the women on this thread who support the aims of the strike aren’t striking. Which was entirely predictable the minute they called for it. Which undercuts the message, no matter how much red anyone wears.
Kay
@WereBear:
I wore red on Monday and someone commented on it- I didn’t understand what he meant but maybe he meant this.
I’ll wear red again. The sacrifices I make for the resistance! Inspiring, I tell ya :)
geg6
I took the day off and am wearing red. My job allows me to do this, I don’t have kids or an elderly parent to care for (though the people who do are not expected to strike) and I own red clothes, so easy for me. However, red is not the only color. They have also recommended all black as a sign of solidarity.
Baud
@Kay: You tell them, Kay.
satby
@Baud: And strikes have, historically anyway, been about specific demands. No one unifying message seems to be driving this. I’m taking part by default almost, but I wish it had been better considered and planned.
debbie
@geg6:
All black is something I can do!
WereBear
I think elements of the Left have the same tripwire of today’s Libertarians: the fantasy of perfect knowledge.
Being smart and able to figure things out does not mean we can figure out everything as it happens.
What else can women do but withhold their labor? What other power do they have?
rikyrah
@Kay:
Spread that panic, Kay.
Kay
@satby:
I disagree, I think. If they support the strike then the strikers are their advocates. In my experience people want two things out of political activism- to be heard and for someone to be on their side- an advocate. I would be more worried that they don’t support the strikers.
They say in volunteer work that 10% of the “interested parties” do 90% of the work. If there’s one striker for every 10 or 100 or 1000 sympathizer that’s a good result.
Activism and organizing are different. Activism goes first. It’s the less practical side, the show-offy side, the spectacle side. Deliberately.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
My union never went on strike while I was there. I did participate in a couple of “wildcat” strikes over jobsite issues that refused to get resolved. Managed to piss everybody off, especially our business rep. :-) Also got the issues resolved.
ETA and yes, we all lost a couple days wages because if we don’t work, we don’t get paid.
rikyrah
If we were not in blackout right now at the job, I would have taken off. Wearing red, and totally there in spirit.
p.a.
Past reaction to transit strikes in the ‘progressive’ Northeast is a sad indication of where labor stands currently. (Not wanting to paint with too broad a brush, but support was… spotty.)
p.a.
15 week strike in 1989 kept our fully paid health ins from then through 2012. And there were still innumerates in the union who said “we never got that money back.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: :-)
Baud
@p.a.: Labor is weak. I don’t see a way around that fact.
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear:
You have to ask?
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
The original strikes were all “wildcat” strikes because they didn’t have unions. What labor law did was tame them, put them within a code, make it predictable and orderly with a process.
I’m cranky about this right now, this whole notion of “disruption” without personal sacrifice. Trump and Bannon are running around pretending to be revolutionaries but this revolution involves no sacrifice. They actually benefit financially. It’s like the Reagan Revolution which was the cushiest “revolution” in the history of the world. All those bold revolutionaries made out like bandits.
What’s Paul Ryan’s risk with gutting Medicaid? The worse that could happen to him is he doesn’t get re-elected. He’ll make MORE money outside of Congress than he made in it. This “revolution” is a fucking joke. They passed all the risk off to other people.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: A consumer strike would be more effective.
NorthLeft12
@Sab: I am sorry to hear that. My wife and sister-in-law looked after their mother for about five months before she succumbed to cancer, and while not receiving much daily help from their two brothers [located about three hours away], they did receive financial and emotional support and recognition of their efforts.
As a fellow human being I would like to thank you for your hard work and sacrifice to take care of your father. You are a good person.
Skepticat
Three large impending tax payments, forty-six cats to feed, several expensive house repairs I need done soon, and a Yankee work ethic militate against my taking time away from my online job. Nevertheless, I’ve signed out of work. I also have a couple of large purchases I’ll postpone for a day. I doubt that anyone but I (and you) will notice or care, but I’m taking my thimbleful from the ocean. I admire and salute anyone for whom this is a sacrifice who is willing and able to opt out.
Sab
@Zinsky: I also like this comment I was referring to comment 25. I like your other comments but seems weird to say so
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Soon consumers will be able to strike by refusing to buy iPhones…or healthcare.
satby
@Kay: I don’t think we disagree in reality. Yes, symbolically supporting the strike by wearing red is important, and the guys walking a line were never the full membership of a union,so every single person striking isn’t essential. But as you said above
. And a lot of women can’t or won’t because we do essential work.
I just think calling a visibility action a “general strike” wasn’t the best next step, because the common understanding of a general strike IS that work is stopped and people are inconvenienced. If that doesn’t happen in any big way today it makes the effort look weak when it came off an incredible showing of strength.
I could be wrong, we’ll just have to see. I’m part of the strike, but my coworkers, all women, only knew about it because I told them. They all knew about the marches, even though I was the only one that went.
Kay
This is sort of a big deal in Trump counties. Kasich keeps talking about it because it’s huge. The parents of these addicts are Trump’s base. Addicts themselves aren’t big voters but each one of them has family members.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of the poor and disenfranchised.”
-Paul D. Ryan
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I’m already half way there, I’ve never bought an iPhone.
Baud
@Kay: I’ll take opposition wherever I can find it, but I don’t care one whit about those people. They are monsters.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m having some issues with my Android right now, so I’m tempted to switch.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Give me liberty or give me the death of others.”
-Paul D. Ryan
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: There is always the Lysistrata option.
Mr WereBear is all for it: selectively applied to Republicans, who are causing the problems.
satby
@Baud: Yeah, big meme shared on FB this morning was about how the mother of the transgender boy who was forced to wrestle in the girls competition was starting to regret her vote for Trump.
Seriously bitch, just starting?!?
Kay
Oh, the sacrifices they make! Jesus Christ. They make MORE money the more discredited they are. There is something fundamentally fucked up about our risk/reward ratio. We have all these bold rulebreakers who never, ever get held accountable in any way. It won’t collapse because of strikers. It’ll collapse because it has no relation at all to merit or quality.
“Cheat, steal, lie! You’ll be FINE!”
Baud
@Kay: I can’t help but wonder is whether part of the problem is liberals who like to rage watch these jokers.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I’d go with a Windoze Phone before I’d go with an iPhone. My circa 2014 Note Edge is humming along fine.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: My phone works, but I’ve been having trouble with smart lock and a bit of inconsistent battery drain.
Sab
@NorthLeft12: I kind of like watching the old guy. He is very sweet. It’s just disturbing to see him with dementia. He used to be scary smart. Now, I know golden retrievers who are sharper than he is. On bad days he can’t work the car seat belt. On good days he has problems with the TV remote.
Kay
The Trump Family are still profiting handsomely off their bold fight against The Establishment, I see.
Softest, most comfortable “revolution” ever. When disrupting the “status quo” involves absolutely no personal risk for the disrupters they’re pretty much guaranteed to be reckless and stupid.
You have to admire old timey royalty. At least they risked beheadings. These people think they’re persecuted if they don’t get invited to a party.
Baud
@satby: Hate is a hell of a drug.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Check Settings-Battery, that’ll tell you what’s causing the drain. The wife the other day was saying, “why has my battery drained?”; I looked, while I was making dinner she had the screen on doing stuff.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: When the drain is high, the cause is cell standby. Tried to fix, but it keeps coming back.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: “I only regret that I have but thousands of other peoples’ lives to lose for my country.”
-Addison Mitchell McConnell
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: Ding Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!
amk
heh, now chinese too have bought out the murkkkan ‘president’. mission fucking accomplished.
OzarkHillbilly
@Sab: My father, until his last year or so, was always my father. His personality always shone thru. In the end, Alzheimers took that too, but not without a fight.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: “Live free or kill others.”
— HHS Secretary Tom Price.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Check teh Google or XDA for your phone model, does it have a replaceable battery? If so, how old is the battery?
bemused
@rikyrah:
I’ll do my part. Nuance is so overrated in 2017.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: It’s infuriating. In a just world, Miller would be clawing her way up the retail chain with an eye on a perfume counter position after being drummed out of journalism forever due to her massive and consequential incompetence. Crowley wouldn’t dare show her face in public due to recent revelations that she’s a bald-faced liar and fraud.
Public shaming went too far a few generations ago. It was too widely applied for reasons beyond the control of its recipients and needed reform. But the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Now there’s nothing liars and hypocrites like Miller, Crowley, et al, can’t just brazen out. That’s not healthy for a society.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: If looked at those places. Not removable. Nearly two years old. Thinking of wiping the phone and reinstalling everything to see if that helps.
ET
Alexandria and Prince Georges counties school systems shut down today for the Day Without Women protest.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Two year old battery, probably time to replace that. A wipe and reinstall might help, but phone batteries start to degrade after a year, two years and they’ll have issues.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: It is because they are all subsidized by the same group of crazed billionaires.
It does not work that way on our side: look at Shirley Sherrod, or ACORN, or any of the other blameless people and organizations that were simply targeted and eliminated.
That is why our world does not work. It has been sabotaged.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: If elected, I will create a Department of Public Shaming and make it a cabinet position.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks. Might try that if wipe doesn’t work. I prefer to hold on this phone for a little longer. It works fine for my purposes otherwise.
WereBear
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I have been taking steps to turn my iPad mini into a cell phone.
With a keyboard case, it is my all purpose note taking/blog writing/camera backup/email/map generator in my new position as Roving Blogger. Some of which takes me into remote territory. Some of which doesn’t have a cell signal, but that’s a lot more common than wifi in my literal neck of the woods.
I am currently keeping my dumb phone because it is the only way I can have the car call 911 in case of emergency. Not sure how to get around that one.
Betty Cracker
@WereBear: Excellent point. The sabotage you mention is responsible for warping the risk and reward framework Kay referenced above beyond all recognition. Can civilizations recover from that sort of thing without a massive and violent reckoning?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I told the wife, it’s probably time to replace the battery on hers. The Sammy Service Center is in K-Town and she’s there alot since she’s Korean and like docs and stuff that speak Korean. Most of the docs out here are Armenian.
Sab
@OzarkHillbilly: He was a doctor, because “what else can you do with a biology degree?” My mother was a chemistry major who almost flunked out because Organic Chemistry was so hard. It was his favorite course.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: There were some good phone deals last Black Friday, but I didn’t need a phone then. I’m hoping I can keep mine until Black Friday 2017 and then see what the deals are. Early leaks on the Galaxy S8 look interesting.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Shouldn’t that be “Live free and kill the others.”?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: That would be more accurate.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: The little I’ve seen on the S8 looks nice, and it’ll have been out long enough(should be out late April, from what I last saw), so that it’ll be steeply discounted by Black Friday. I’ll have been using the Note Edge 2 years in December 2017; but I’ll probably hold on to it at least for 3 years(which will make the phone 4 years old).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Sab: O-Chem was when I decided I no longer wanted to be a doctor.
MomSense
@Baud:
I think it’s wise to hold onto it, since you will need to forego a new smartphone so you can invest in health insurance.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
We are SO on the same page it’s frightening :)
I could ask that question every day. I don’t, but I’m thinking it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Sab: Pop was a chemical engineer who worked for Satan his entire career. Ma had a BS in biology, and having raised 5 and a half kids went back to school to be a nurse. Spent the next 15 years or so working Neuro ICU.
rikyrah
Is Trumpcare Already Dead?
The Republican replacement for Obamacare is such a mess that it has united people from across the political spectrum.
BY ALEX SHEPHARD
March 8, 2017
The rollout of the GOP’s long-awaited Obamacare replacement, the American Health Care Act, was a disaster. Instead of unveiling the bill with fanfare, it was leaked to the media on Monday night, which meant that there was precious little spin to help conservatives digest it. The following morning, Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah went on TV to play pitchman, and ended up dominating headlines by telling poor people they have to choose between a smartphone and health insurance. President Donald Trump embraced the bill, but also left a lot of daylight, creating an opening for congressional Republicans and conservative activists to criticize it. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price tried to patch things up by appearing at Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s midday lie jamboree, but came across as squirrelly and unprepared—his main argument for the bill was that it was short, as he stood next to a very tall stack of papers meant to represent Obamacare/big government. By evening, prominent Republicans were proclaiming that the AHCA was DOA and conservatives in the House were in revolt. “I don’t think it’s ever going to arrive in the Senate,” Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told CNN. “I think it’s dead on arrival in the House.”
………………………….
Republicans may agree that the bill stinks, but for vastly different reasons. Some, like the American Enterprise Institute’s Joe Antos. criticized the bill because it would be a political and moral and public health disaster and would cause 10 million to 15 million people to lose their health insurance over the next 10 years. (Some estimates are even higher!) If you think that health care is an entitlement, which is something that Democrats and Donald Trump seem to agree on, this bill is a disaster: It would make coverage more expensive and decrease quality of care.
The counterargument provided by Tom Price is that the bill would offer more choice—you can pick your own doctor! But choice is a secondary concern. People want better care at lower prices, and this bill provides worse health care for higher prices. Perversely, by exchanging Obamacare’s subsidies for an ill-conceived tax credit plan, the AHCA would disproportionately affect the poor and the elderly, which you can see in this handy graphic by Axios Presented By U-North. The AARP, aka the GOP’s base of old people who need health care, isn’t happy and is already cutting ads against the AHCA.
rikyrah
Underground returns tonight!!!
Yeah!!!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Satan’s minions unite!
rikyrah
What Can Betsy DeVos Really Do?
Experts on left and right assess possibilities for expanding school choice and limiting the work of the Office for Civil Rights
by Emmanuel Felton
March 7, 2017 4:44 PM
A month into Betsy DeVos’ tenure as the new Secretary of Education, there is still a big question on the minds of many Americans: How much can she really change the nation’s schools?
Her nomination was controversial from the start, because DeVos and her husband have spent decades pushing to give families more of a say in where their children are educated. They have used their own wealth and a robust fundraising apparatus to push lawmakers to approve school choice proposals that even some proponents of choice question: namely, public charter schools run by for-profit companies, and the use of taxpayer funds to pay private school tuition through vouchers.
By appointing DeVos, President Donald Trump signaled that he was serious about his campaign promise to use $20 billion in federal funds to significantly expand school choice programs.
But that’s not all that worries DeVos’ critics. There is also widespread concern about the fate of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Her detractors particularly fear that she might roll back protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students and that the federal government may walk away from its recent regulations meant to stem sexual assaults on college campuses.
Peale
@Baud: you can hire the Shameless dolts who want jobs at VOICE. Shaming for pay is what they do.
MomSense
@Kay:
I’m on that page, too every damned day. Doesn’t help that I’m surrounded by these idiot trumpkins. Haven’t done this yet but I’m tempted to just make a map of the domestic assaults I know about and compare it to a map of the trumpkins. I haven’t done this because I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It’s really hard not to have worked for Satan at some point or another.
Peale
@Betty Cracker: that would be no. Once the leaders lose the Mandate of Heaven, one needs to find a new dynasty. We aren’t exempt from the dynastic cycle.
rikyrah
“Surprisingly Presidential”
How the GOP became the party of affirmative action for chronic under-achievers.
by Mike Lofgren
March 7, 2017
“The soft bigotry of low expectations.” In the last two decades, this has become a catch phrase among Republicans seeking to deceive the public into thinking that it is they, not the Democrats, who are the authentic foes of discrimination. Since Michael Gerson, George W. Bush’s speechwriter, put that phrase in the mouth of Candidate Bush, conservative commentators have misattributed it to others with more prestige than the 43rd president, no doubt to give it a greater patina of sanctity. Any day now I expect to hear it credited to Jefferson or Lincoln.
It is part of a familiar arsenal of conservative arguments: they play the part of concern trolls in order to criticize affirmative action, social promotion by schools, and similar policies. Affirmative action, according to this reasoning, makes minorities captive subjects of the Democratic plantation; if Martin Luther King were alive today, he’d be a Republican supporting tax credits and enterprise zones.
Whatever the merits or demerits of affirmative action, the Republican position has always been hypocritical balderdash. The last three Republican presidents, born to inherited wealth, enjoyed either legacy entries into Ivy League universities, or a parent wealthy enough to purchase an admission. Log cabin to White House by dint of pluck, grit, and scholarship is not part of the GOP’s playbook. In fact, affirmative action suffuses the entire conservative business model.
………………..
Let us tolerate no more Republican cant about meritocracy, personal responsibility, and all the other bootstrapping homilies. What else explains Betsy DeVos, a secretary of education so woefully ignorant of one of the central conflicts of American history that she thought historically black colleges were a bold experiment in school choice? What do we make of Rick Perry, duly confirmed as secretary of energy without a single dissenting Republican vote, who in 2012 could not even name the very department he had wanted to abolish and now leads? What about Ben Carson, whose bizarre theory about the Egyptian pyramids being grain storage buildings evidently so impressed Trump as to appoint him as housing secretary? We can only guess at what future HUD rental units will look like.
rikyrah
* The folks at NBC’s First Read took a look at Trump’s history of lying and said, “Welcome to our post-truth presidency.” Then they pointed out why that is so dangerous.
ThresherK
Spousal ThresherK, LCSW, is at work today for her disadvantaged and geriatric clients. She had her hours and pay reduced recently, and survived a grant reduction to her agency. So, the strike wins one and loses one here.
rikyrah
We Need to Talk About Trump’s Mental Health
by Nancy LeTourneau
March 8, 2017 8:00 AM
One of the biggest reasons that mental health treatment has been hampered in the attempts by advocates to put it on parity with physical health treatment is the stigma associated with mental illness. The trouble is, that stigma is empowered by silence. Until we can talk as openly about depression as we do about the flu, that won’t change.
We are now witnessing how that silencing works on a massive scale as we see the attempts to shut down any conversation about Donald Trump’s mental health. We are hearing talk of professional and journalistic ethics that continue to shroud mental illness in a cloak of mystery. Lee Siegal provides an interesting analogy:
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The distinction I would make is that the illness he describes doesn’t obviate the election of a president with a mental health disorder. In fact, it increases the chances of that happening unless we all engage in the cure he describes.
I think it is important to have this conversation for two reasons. Not only do we need to address the political and psychological concerns of having someone like Donald Trump in the White House. Perhaps we can also bring the topic of mental illness out of the shadows and deal with the stigma under which it has been shrouded for too long.
rikyrah
Trump betrays those who believed his health care promises
By Steve Benen 03/08/17 08:00AM
In the first 24 hours after House Republicans unveiled their new health care reform plan, one of the unexpected mysteries was whether Donald Trump liked it. Mixed signals from the White House raised the possibility that the Republican president might not endorse his own party’s legislation.
A written statement from the White House on Monday night, for example, expressed lukewarm support and notably did not include an endorsement. The next morning, however, the president himself referred to House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) plan as “our wonderful new Healthcare Bill.” (Trump occasionally capitalizes words he thinks are important.)
HHS Secretary Tom Price endorsed the GOP’s “American Health Care Act” in a letter to Congress, but a few hours later, he hedged during a press briefing. Vice President Mike Pence backed the bill, but Press Secretary Sean Spicer was more circumspect.
It’s likely much of this is the result of a dysfunctional White House, which often struggles to keep its stories straight, but it’s possible Team Trump is struggling because it’s aware of a broader problem: by embracing this Republican plan, the president is doing the opposite of what he told Americans he would do for them. The New Yorker’s John Cassidy explained:
That’s no small development for a president who hasn’t yet been in office for seven weeks.
rikyrah
Chaffetz tries and fails to defend the Republican health care plan
By Steve Benen 03/07/17 01:00PM
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has made quite a name for himself lately. The Utah Republican has gone to almost comical lengths to avoid scrutiny of Donald Trump’s many controversies, while simultaneously latching on to trivia, which he’s labeled “serious.”
Yesterday, true to form, Chaffetz responded to the president’s new wiretap conspiracy theory by telling Fox News, “The Obama administration has been notorious on this type of stuff, and we’re going to look hard at it.” In reality, the Obama administration hasn’t been notorious for anything of the kind, and even Chaffetz conceded he’s seen no evidence to bolster Trump’s claims.
This morning, as the Huffington Post noted, the GOP lawmaker was once again in the spotlight, this time making the case for his party’s woeful health care reform proposal.
Specifically, Chaffetz told CNN, “Americans have choices, and they’ve got to make a choice. So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care. They’ve got to make those decisions themselves.”
rikyrah
Anyone watching the new show Time After Time?
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 3/7/17
Pieces of Trump dossier check out despite investigative dearth
Rachel Maddow notes that while the dossier of intelligence about Donald Trump ties to Russia remains unconfirmed, pieces of it have checked out upon investigation by the press, though the primary government investigators are former Trump campaign officials.
Tazj
@Sab: Hang in there, I know it’s really tough. I almost blew up at my brothers last year when they were home for a visit, but bit my tongue. To be honest, it was really more about my one brother criticizing my kid’s behavior than not helping that much with mom. I felt like “Hello, some mercy here, can’t you see I’m struggling with things?” They are really good guys but both lived out of town last year.
Everyone gets irritable when they need a break and caregivers need breaks.
I heard criticism of The Day Without Women on the radio today and they talked about the same things mentioned here, no clear goals and not everyone can do it. However, then they started talking about how the day sounded negative and how we didn’t need more negativity today. Yes, if we just are positive all the time everything bad will go away!
laura
I’m on strike duty at the Saputo Dairy in Gustine, CA. 2 hours down I-5 from Sacramento and I’ll be wearing red. This is month 3 and no end in sight.
The Union I work for is a bit of a hybrid, traditional craft union on the private sector side, and on the public sector side, craft and trades. Very highly skilled, great apprenticeship training program and really, really good wages and benefits.
So I’ll be working, on the line but skipping any household chores and purchasing stuff. Strikes suck, brief moments of fun, but still important and useful.
Elmo
@laura: What is the dairy strike about, if you don’t mind me asking?
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Aimai: Co-sign.
WereBear
@Kay: The answer, my friends, is NO.
maurinsky
I think instead of a general strike, perhaps a walk-out type of action could take place – where women take 15-30 minutes to walk-out?
It’s damn hard to have a strike these days. People don’t know how to do it and are vulnerable to losing their jobs.
laura
@Elmo: the strike is over health care benefits. The members have a Cadillac plan and management wants them to move to the plan that other employees have. It is a plan that shifts a significant amount of costs to the employees (higher copays, fewer drugs in the formulates and a very narrow provider network). It would act as a really big pay cut and there’s no real intent to offset the cuts.
But it is really about union busting because it’s always about union busting. The dairy (actually a production facility that accepts milk and then makes a variety of milk products including those infuriating half and half teensy over packaged containers) had been owned by Morningstar who was an excellent employer and had years of good relations. Global multinational corporation Saputo bought out Morningstar with 2 years remaining on the collective bargaining agreement. That CBA expired at midnight on New Years Eve. Saputo does not want a unionized workforce and is burning cash willingly to try and wait out its striking workers. The Teamsters represent the production staff and the Stationary Engineers maintain the plants systems. The Teamsters have reported that the place is falling apart. Production is down and staff have been forced to use vacation while out of state scab maintenance crews are unable to keep the place up and running.
I don’t represent these workers, but as staff are required to run the picket line, keep trucks from crossing the sanctioned entrance, answer questions from the public, the press and the cops.
It’s a 24/7 picket line and if it weren’t for books on tape and podcasts, I’d have taken a hostage by now.
S-Curve
Just in case it isn’t clear, the organizers of A Day Without Women have always acknowledged that not everyone can afford to be out of work for the day, and some people do essential work that would endanger others were they to strike. The organizers aren’t clueless or myopic here.There’s more than a tinge of “strikes are stupid” in some of the comments that I don’t understand. We’re currently living in a culture in which labor is absolutely undervalued, to the point that our so-called leaders use Labor Day to commend “job creators.” How else should we illustrate the sine qua non of labor, women’s labor in particular? Not to mention women’s buying power, unpaid work, etc.
Mnemosyne
I couldn’t take the day off work since I have a pre-planned vacation next week and am taking some extra time after that, but I am wearing red and will be eating leftovers for lunch.
I’m going to see a play tonight but, since it’s Finding Neverland, I think there’s only one major women’s part in it. ?
J R in WV
@Kay:
So lately we (wife and I) have discovered that Retirement is actually a hideous plot of management - You Can't Go On Strike Once You're Retired!!!
She said just a few minutes ago "That's it! I'm on Strike today!" and I pitched in, while she surfed B-J on her own laptop in the next room - "Well, you'll have to fix your own sandwich for lunch, I'm on sympathy strike!" Then I added, "You'll need to get your own red tee shirt out and put it on by yourself, too."
But, really, being retired, all we can do is emotionally support strikers. No shopping today, just staying home, as usual…
Seriously, retirement is great. So don’t take me seriously whenever I fuss about it. Never take me too seriously, actually.
Sometimes I write a comment, ready to post, and THEN I realize I should have been using the snark font all along!
J R in WV
@Baud:
Hey, Baud: If you turn the phone off, the battery will last for weeks!! I turn mine on when I need to make a call, or if I’m expecting MRs J to call me. while I’m at the store… I charge it up every 2 or 3 weeks whether it need it or not. Same for the tablet.
ETA: I am kind of kidding, I know people in places with blanket coverage of the cell network have completely different expectations and needs from ours, where we have to drive 20 minutes to find a cell signal.
Step2
Some Game of Thrones inspired music for the ladies.