This Is Your Social Safety Net on DOGE

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Elon Musk has repeatedly said government functions should be privatized.

You already know how that works out for the U.S., because it’s one of the biggest single differences between the cost of living in other first world countries and the U.S.

It’s also one of the biggest differences in life expectancy between other first world countries and the U.S.

Healthcare in the EU, for example, costs much less than it does in the U.S., and outcomes measured in life expectancy are far better.

But healthcare in the EU is not fully privatized; though not identical across all EU members, it’s based on universal access and publicly subsidized.

Ditto for Canada and Greenland, the countries Trump wants to seize. Better that they seize us and bring their healthcare systems with them.

But this month has also demonstrated the risk of taking Elon Musk seriously when it comes to privatization.

Imagine this is our social security system:

Screenshot of the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq composite indexes mid-day Friday, April 11, 2025 via Google Finance.
 

Who’s not going to get their checks if the bottom drops out even further? Why should Americans who’ve paid into Social Security over a lifetime of work have to worry about additional risk to their futures because unelected and unconstitutionally appointed Musk believes exposure to the market is what Americans need?

It’s bad enough that Americans’ cost of daily living expenses is further exposed to market risks because of Trump’s misbegotten, ill-considered tariffs. Musk believes Americans’ retirement years should be even more deeply risky.

It makes zero sense to listen to a man who has no empathy for others’ concerns, who has no experience dealing with a limited income and trying to make ends meet. He doesn’t have adequate background let alone personal history to make such judgments about what will work best for the American people; he doesn’t even view his children’s health as personal obligations (ex. recent public pleas by two of his children’s mothers for assistance with healthcare matters).

~ ~ ~

What really takes the cake is the silence of the business world.

Of course the financial industry is silently slavering over the chance to get their grubby mitts on our Social Security, and they’re staying quiet about it because they know they dare not set off the American public.

But Jeff Bezos’ Amazon-derived fortune was made in no small part off the subsidy that the U.S. Postal Service has been to American business.

USPS is the fallback for shipping nearly anything nearly anywhere in the U.S.; Bezos didn’t have to worry about whether his books would sell in North Utter Remote, Outer Territory USA. There was a post office nearby where purchasers could pick up their orders if they couldn’t be delivered to their door by USPS carriers on foot.

Bezos didn’t have to negotiate that. Didn’t have to buy sorter equipment, trucks, hire and train personnel, build sorting facilities, so on. All of that was on our dime when it wasn’t paid for by postage, until Amazon was successful enough to consider reducing shipping and handling costs further with their own trucks.

Furthermore, Bezos knew what the competitive rate for shipping a majority of Amazon’s products would be based on USPS rates – rates set by USPS bidding out trucking and equipment purchases. When Amazon started buying its own trucks, Amazon knew its costs had to be no more than USPS’ costs to deliver.

In short, our tax dollars and our volume of postage helped underwrite Jeff Bezos’ billions.

And he’s just going to sit there smug and mum, enjoying his irrational wealth while Musk shoots off his mouth about privatizing government.

Because Bezos will probably ensure the next billions he makes off our backs is from Amazon Postal Service.

Can’t begin to imagine how much our health care will cost once Amazon has the contract both for postal delivery of medications and health care insurance.

You can only imagine when Musk takes his chainsaw to Amtrak what will happen next: he’ll claim only his vaporware Hyperloop is the alternative, and American people should pay him billions to implement it instead of a long-proven passenger rail system.

Privatization will not yield better outcomes for the American people and you already know that. Don’t wait until Musk uses DOGE to shut off funds to the USPS; he’s already targeted USPS personnel. Contact your representative and senators and insist that government should NOT be privatized.

Not our Social Security, not our mail delivery, not a single government service which could end up becoming a pricey-to-us privatized profit center for billionaires.

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Somebody’s Off Their (Shower)Head [UPDATE]

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** 8:30 PM ET — UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST. **

While the market and Americans’ college funds, 401Ks, and retirement accounts whipsawed today after their multi-day plummet, somebody had other priorities.

I don’t know at what time this was published by the White House, but this has Trump’s tiny grip all over it.

He’s obsessed with water pressure, confusing it with showerhead function; he’s been obsessed for years with this.

December 27, 2019 – Trump Vs. Toilets (And Showers, Dishwashers And Lightbulbs)

July 23, 2020 – With 137,000 U.S. Deaths, Trump Stays Focused on Shower Heads

August 13, 2020 – ‘My hair has to be perfect’: Trump prompts change in showerhead rule – video

August 21, 2020 – Trump talks shower heads, sharks, and more on DNC’s last day

December 17, 2020 – Trump Bemoaned Water Pressure. Now His Administration Has Eased Standards

August 6, 2023 – ‘I Want Water To Pour Down On Me’: Trump Has Cold Words For Showers At GOP Dinner

January 7, 2025 – Making Sense of Trump’s January 2025 Remarks About Showerheads and Rain Falling from Heaven

I’m sure if I dig harder I can find more instances where Trump whined about water pressure in the shower but you get the gist.

And like 2020 when Americans were dying by the thousands each week from COVID and Trump complained about showerheads, Trump once again leaned into his personal bête noire while Americans became increasingly panicked about their financial well being and the state of the nation’s economy under Trump’s tariff-tax.

It’s ridiculous that our country has allowed one exceedingly vain man spend so much of our tax dollars on something which will not result in the blast of water he wants for his “perfect” hair.

Musk and his Muskrats are taking a chainsaw to our entire government, creating enormous risks in the misbegotten effort to increase efficiency and cut government spending — and Trump pisses away any efficiencies with his obsessive, unnecessary change to water and energy saving regulations affecting showerheads.

When the next Articles of Impeachment are drafted, there should be an article for abuse of power for personal use with Trump’s fucking obsession with showerheads as an example. Especially since it’s a form of lawmaking by the executive branch to the detriment of the American public.

~ ~ ~

While Trump was dicking around with his bête noire, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing. Many of you have already read or heard about Rep. Steven Horsford’s (D, NV-02) questions to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer about the dramatic change in the Trump administration’s approach to tariffs — a change which was announced over social media by Trump while Greer was in front of the committee, without apparent advance notice to Greer.

As Horsford noted, the Republicans on the committee weren’t in attendance. It’d be nice to know if those weasels left because they didn’t want to be on the spot on camera during the hearing, or if they were daytrading to capitalize on the announcement.

What isn’t being discussed is that the Senate had a similar hearing the day before during which Greer also testified about the tariffs. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) didn’t sound too happy with the Trump tariff-tax strategy, asking, “Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?”

Greer does a weaselly tap dance in response.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto also grilled Greer more pointedly about the Trump tariff-tax upending the trade agreements including the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) the Trump administration spent two years working on during Trump’s first term.

She asked, “Why would any country want to do business with us, much less negotiate a trade deal if we don’t even honor our ongoing our ongoing agreements?”

Greer did his weaselly tap dance again and she called him out on this because she and Greer had had a one-on-one discussion in her office about trade matters and the USMCA including a blanket tariff strategy.

It’s hard not to watch these video segments from two days of hearings and not come away thinking Greer’s job has nothing to do with trade and everything to do with providing a punching bag between the Trump tariff-tax and our elected representatives.

He does little in these excerpts to make one feel any better about the Trump tariff-tax, mostly because Trump himself appears to ignore Greer, doing anything he wants on a whim to screw with trade and the entire global market without accountability.

Not to mention dicking around with showerheads.

One might wonder when the GOP members of Congress will organize and get a collective spine and consider impeaching and convicting a president who thinks government is just his personal chew toy, treating Congress like they’re irrelevant.

How many angry constituents will it take before they catch a clue? Are they really more afraid of a guy obsessed with showerheads than their own voters?

~ ~ ~

Speaking of angry constituents, please recruit others to help combat H.R. 22, the voter suppression bill Republicans call the SAVE Act. Contact every person you know and ask them to contact their representatives and ask them to vote down this bill.

See: https://indivisible.org/campaign/trumps-new-executive-order-eo-silence-americans-what-you-need-know

As our team member Peterr wrote in comments yesterday,

While it is critical to call your GOP representatives to let them know how much you are opposed to this un-American bill, it is at least as important to call your Democratic reps to tell them to stand up to this, and thank them for doing so.

As a pastor, I am quite familiar with getting phone calls from folks who dislike something I believe needs to be done. Getting the “thank you” calls makes it a lot easier to do what I believe needs to be done. This is how you help Dems grow a stronger spine.

Call your representative no matter their party affiliation. This is too important, leave no stone unturned. When you’re done, call your senators and ask them not to support the SAVE Act just as you did your representative.

If you’re a member of a women’s group, recruit them all because women are the largest single bloc likely to be disenfranchised by this bill.

Don’t wait, make this a priority because a vote could happen as early as today.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE – 8:30 PM ET —

H.R. 22 passed the House nearly along party lines, 220-208.

Four Democrats voted along with the GOP to disenfranchise a substantive portion of their own constituents let alone their own voters. Apparently they don’t care if they ever win election again.

Indivisible emailed an update; if you’re on their mailing list you may also have been told how your representative voted. Of course those of you who are represented by these four Democrats have been betrayed:

Ed Case (HI-01)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03)
Jared Golden (ME-02)

Our next step is to contact your senators and ask them to vote down the SAVE Act.

The Senate only is in session tomorrow (H.R. 22 was one of the last pieces of business on which the House GOP scheduled a vote before fleeing Washington DC). Congress will be on holiday break and in a state work session from April 12 through April 27.

Contact your senators’ closest local office and find out if they are having town halls or will be at other events where you can ask them in person to vote against the SAVE Act.

VoteVets has also sent out an email about the damage this bill poses to the rights of military personnel:

Trump and Elon’s agenda is overwhelmingly unpopular. We’ve got the GOP on their heels.

And now — like clockwork — Republicans are desperate to make it harder for people to vote.

Republicans in the House passed the SAVE Act today, under the guise of election security. It’s a blatant effort to make it harder for people to register to vote and cast their ballot. And if it becomes law, it’s going to impact Veterans, Military Families, and Active Duty.

SAVE would require all voters, including Military voters, to present very specific proof of US citizenship — either a passport or a birth certificate — in person at a government office in the United States to register or update their voter registration. Military IDs and service records are not enough proof to register. It would ban automatic, online, and mail in registration.

How might all of that impact Troops deployed overseas, their spouses, or disabled Veterans who can’t get to an office? It could effectively ban them from registering.

This bill is terrible. It’s an effort to suppress Military votes. If it passes the Senate, it’s going to undermine our elections. And today, we need you to speak out against it.

I hope VoteVets has a chat with veteran Jared Golden over his betrayal of veterans, military families, and active duty service members.

There’s one more important reason this bill needs to be defeated, besides the fact it will disenfranchise a massive number of American voters.

We voters can’t save Republicans from themselves and their leader if we can’t vote. Some of the GOP senators *know* everything is going to hell in a handbasket. They own it if there isn’t a brake applied. This is one of those brakes — they can vote to preserve their constituents’ right to vote by voting against the SAVE Act.

If you can’t find your senators’ local office numbers, you can always contact them through the Congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or use Resist.bot to contact them.

Don’t sit this one out, it’s far too big, far too important. It’s especially important to contact these Democratic senators if you live in their states because their track record isn’t good based on their previous votes related to immigration:

Catherine Cortez Masto (NV)
John Fetterman (PA)
Ruben Gallego (AZ)
Maggie Hassan (NH)
Mark Kelly (AZ)
John Ossoff (GA)
Gary Peters (MI)
Jacky Rosen (NV)
Jeanne Shaheen (NH)
Elissa Slotkin (MI)
Mark Warner (VA)
Raphael Warnock (GA)

I’m embarrassed to say two of them are my senators. I will be contacting them, though. I can’t afford not to. And I will recruit others to do so, too.

Get them on the record as soon as you can, too. Where do they stand? Let’s keep track.

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Stupid or Evil? It’s Definitely Not Liberation

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I don’t have the words for Donald Trump’s liberation-by-massive-tax-increase yesterday. I’ll let an academic handle it:

The one problem with France 24’s video above is that it repeats Trump’s bullshit, even though it offers a rebuttal to the tariffs themselves.

The “economically illiterate” bullshit it repeated was the percentage Trump claimed other countries assessed the US. The numbers are skewed.

One potential source for the inaccuracy: AI. Krishnan Rohit queried several AI platforms and received a freakishly uniform response which may explain Trump’s numbers.

The rest of the thread can be found here.

Somebody with more smarts about large language models (LLMs) and AI will have to validate this, but it sure looks fishy. Given Team Trump’s predilection for appointing/hiring individuals based on ideology and affinity with Trump, it’s not impossible AI was relied on during the tariff formulation and rollout process, versus the expertise and experience of qualified individuals.

Whatever the case, Trump just rolled out a massive tax increase on the American public. Oddly, CNN conveyed this succinctly in spite of its bent toward pro-Trump rhetoric:

Note the rollout using one of the stupidest Trump appointees across either of Trump’s terms — Peter Navarro. He’d parrot bullshit all day if a mic is shoved in his face.

Also note the phrase “repeated belief,” not a fact but a belief. Team Trump expects the public take what they are saying on faith and not on the basis of past experience.

And then the outright lies CNN’s Chris Isidore points out in that bit emphasized with a red underline: tariffs are NOT paid abroad but here in the US by the importer. The tariffs are added to the cost of goods sold, thereby increasing the likelihood prices to consumers will be higher very soon.

Another academic explains how tariffs — taxes on buyers of imported goods work. See Richard Wolff’s explanation at 5:17 to 6:20 in this video:

Tariffs on imported goods = taxes on us.

You like coffee and tea? It’s going to be more expensive, especially since we don’t grow tea here and our coffee industry is minuscule, consisting of Kona coffee beans. Even fabric for clothing made in the US will be more expensive because we don’t have a fabric industry here in the US any longer at any serious scale; it would take years to re-establish manufacturing here.

Re-establishing industries to replace products now so much more expensive will be challenging given the cost of materials and the competition for labor both to build facilities and staff them after completion.

It’ll take much longer than the 10 years over which this massive tax increase is supposed to generate $6 trillion dollars in revenue — that’s about $1800 per American citizen, $150 more a month.

This country has made this same stupid choice before, so stupid it became part of a movie’s economics teacher’s schtick:

What does uber conservative Ben Stein think about this iteration of voodoo economics rising from the grave, wearing orange foundation and a straw-like hairdo, stomping about as if credibly alive? What does he think about Trump kicking off an unnecessary recession and possibly a depression with his irrational import duties?

This entire mess represents two facets of Trump his base haven’t accepted or ignored. He’s the kind of guy who likes to destroy stuff but can’t successfully build a better version afterward, as if he’s permanently stuck in the demolition phase of construction.

He’s also a plain old fashioned mafioso. All of this is a form of shakedown, borne by the American public as well as global trading partners. You know he’d lift tariffs on any country that offered him vigorish of some form. Quid pro quos are his thing.

He’s a made man — which may explain why tiny islands with US bases on them being assessed tariffs, but Russia isn’t.

Are we really supposed to believe that because trade with Russia is so low that Russia should escape tariffs altogether, while our most valuable trade partners haven’t?

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Reaching Velocity to Escape Anti-Vax Stupidity

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Before I go any further, here’s a public service announcement:

If you were born between 1960 and 1968 and have not been vaccinated for measles since 1968, go make appointments for a two-shot MMR vaccine regimen.

“Starting in 1963 we started vaccinating,” [CBS News’ Dr. David] Agus said. “The first five years of the vaccine — some batches of it were not very good. None of us really know which batch we got.”

“So you can either go to your doctor and say, ‘Draw a blood test and see if I have a high enough level,’ or just get the shot,” he said. “By the way, it’s a lot cheaper to just get the shot. So people who were vaccinated from 1963 to 1968 — that needs to happen.”

According to Agus, those who were born before 1957 were most likely exposed to measles, meaning 95-98 percent of them have enough antibodies to fight the disease. From 1968 to 1989 doctors gave only one shot, meaning immunity among those people may be a little lower than those who received two shots.

source: CBS News

I’m in that group and I’ve gotten my first shot of the series with the next in a couple weeks. I got mine at the local health department office, easy in and out. If you’re in the age bracket, get it done some place you trust.

~ ~ ~

I wish I could have gotten one at my usual provider – the pharmacy where I’ve gotten all my vaccinations for decades. Unfortunately that’s where things got weird immediately after my recent flu shot.

After getting my flu shot I asked the pharmacist – a new person I’d never see before – if I could get an MMR vaccine because of my age and uncertainty about my level of immunity to measles, if any. I had concerns because I was going to be around persons who were flying to and from Texas and could be exposed to measles during travel.

They told me the pharmacy only gives MMR vaccines to children, that I’d have to have a script from a physician to get one, and a physician might require a titer run first to determine if I needed a booster at all.

Then the pharmacist proceeded to tell me measles was only an Old World problem (what the fuck, I thought), that everyone in the Old World had immunity from exposures (what the actual fuck), and that the outbreak in Texas was from “border crossers” (OH NO MOTHERFUCKER).

I exited that pharmacy as fast as I could. I probably left a vapor trail behind me like the Road Runner.

I felt gross, digusted, like I needed a shower after that wretched dose of stupid.

I wish I’d known what that person really thought before I let them touch me, because I would have left and gone to a different pharmacy.

Having such a close brush with stupidity and racism was revolting. I didn’t dare confront this person in a confined space about their stupid assumptions knowing the measles outbreak was centered in a community of white Christian Texans of the Mennonite faith and not “border crossers” — code for those brown people coming into the US from Central and South America, which is the New World.

You’d think there’d be an institutional safety net protecting us from this wretchedness across the country. Sadly, we’re all of us now exposed to this kind of stupidity thanks to the Trump administration’s appointee helming Health and Human Services, our new chief anti-vaxxer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

~ ~ ~

The Food and Drug Administration’s director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Dr. Peter Marks, resigned yesterday.

In his letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press, Marks said he was “willing to work” to address the concerns expressed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about the safety of vaccinations. But he concluded that wasn’t possible.

“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” he wrote.

Of course this was RFK Jr’s work, not a resignation but a firing because Marks — a hematologist oncologist who earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Columbia University, followed by a Doctor of Medicine and PhD in cell and molecular biology from New York University — wasn’t willing to roll over and rubber stamp RFK Jr’s bullshit anti-vax nonsense.

And by nonsense I mean the deadly kind – misinformation and disinformation about vaccines directly leading to the deaths of 83 Samoans from measles after being misled by RFK Jr. about measles vaccinations.

That RFK Jr. learned absolutely nothing from these deaths, continuing to spread his well-known, well-documented dispersion of anti-vaxx bullshit, is a shame.

That he has now cost our country the top official in FDA’s vaccine regulatory system while the US is experiencing a spreading measles outbreak, is on the verge of bird flu making a human-to-human leap, and still dealing with the COVID pandemic borders on criminal.

His nonsense is even more toxic in that he not only discourages scheduled vaccinations; RFK Jr. has promoted alternative therapies which are not effective and instead create more health risks.

RFK Jr. – who is not a medical doctor, has no education in science, having a BA in American history and literature, a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law, and a Master of Laws from Pace University — touted vitamin A as a means to treat measles. This vitamin only works to alleviate some measles symptoms in patients who are malnourished; it is not an acceptable therapy.

Unlike water soluable vitamins like B and C which flush out of the body as wasted in urine, vitamin A will bio-accumulate in the body’s fat until the body can use it. An excess of vitamin A can damage the liver. Knowing this you can predict what could happen next: someone takes RFK Jr’s bullshit seriously and poisons themselves or their children thinking they’re doing the right thing for measles.

What do you know but now there are patients with liver problems:

Several patients at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock have been found to have abnormal liver function, CNN reported, which can occur when a person takes excessive doses of vitamin A. Those being treated include “a handful of unvaccinated children who were given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage,” the New York Times reported.

This is exactly the kind of crap which cost the lives of mostly infants in Samoa. Well-meaning parents took RFK Jr’s idiocy seriously and didn’t seek measles vaccinations which are safe and have spared hundreds of millions of people from illness and death over the last six decades.

The worst part of this mess is that some portion of the American public is just plain stupid and willful. They rely on authority figures to tell them what’s best; if it doesn’t conflict with their beliefs they’ll seize it. The parents of the six-year-old who died of measles in Texas are a perfect example:

The Texas parents of an unvaccinated 6-year-old girl who died from measles Feb. 26 told the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense in a video released Monday that the experience did not convince them that vaccination against measles was necessary.

“She says they would still say ‘Don’t do the shots,’” an unidentified translator for the parents said. “They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be.” …

“We would absolutely not take the MMR,” the mother said in English, referring to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination children typically receive before attending school. She said her stance on vaccination has not changed after her daughter’s death.

“The measles wasn’t that bad. They got over it pretty quickly,” the mother said of her other four surviving children who were treated with castor oil and inhaled steroids and recovered. …

source: Texas Tribune

I’m only surprised these poor children received castor oil and not cod liver oil for vitamin A therapy.

These are the kind of people to whom RFK Jr. is a real risk. We can only expect more illnesses and deaths among those who take seriously RFK Jr’s practicing medicine without a license let alone adequate appropriate education and training.

~ ~ ~

How are we going to escape this stupidity? I don’t know, but you can protect yourself from some of the damage by making sure your vaccinations are up to date. Make sure your friends and family are up to date as well.

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Donald J. Trump wearing an apron while dispensing french fries at a McDonald's fast food restaurant in Pennsylvania as part of a campaign stunt on Sunday, October 20, 2024. Photo by Doug Mills/AP.

What Wannabe Cosplayer-in-Chief Doesn’t Grab

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Trump cosplayed this weekend before his Nazi love fest in Madison Square Garden, using a photo of himself in his McDonald’s costume in a social media post:

Funny how he depicts Biden in real presidential attire, as if Trump’s unconscious recognizes he is not presidential while Biden is.

(Trump also claimed unearned credit for repairing ice cream equipment resolved wholly without his participation in any way.)

He cosplayed once again today, pretending to drive a truck:

It’s still just dress up, though.

Trump is playing around, including using his image like a child would have used a paper doll decades ago. Pop Mr. Trump in a McDonald’s drive-thru, add his nemesis Mr. Biden with an ice cream because Mr. Biden likes ice cream, get it? What a good job, Donnie. What will you do with a photo of you “driving” a truck?

Meanwhile, reality grinds on, chewing up real lives and crushing real futures.

Trump’s responses to reality remain as flat and shallow as his playtime.

~ ~ ~

I had a moment recently, before Trump indulged in his McDonald’s cosplay fixation. I was triggered deeply as I packed up to leave my classroom; I made it to my car where I managed to fend off a PTSD panic attack.

Yes, I’m back in school. I’m pursuing another degree as part of a personal goal. I’m on campus in class several times a week. It’s a little awkward at times being older than the rest of the students, half of which are freshmen, not to mention being older than the instructors.

At my age the experience is also a solid kick in the head. Two months into class I’ve realized that I’ve forgotten so much about my own experience beginning college. My fellow students bring it all back.

I had forgotten how goddamned poor I was then. Some weeks I just barely scraped by living on dimes obtained by scavenging soft drink cans and turning them it for the deposit money. Thank goodness Michigan has had a bottle deposit law for decades or it would have been even worse.

A classmate reminded me unintentionally of the experience when they mentioned they would have to see if they could afford the necessary supplies for our next class segment after they got their next paycheck.

In contrast, as soon as I had received an email that I was approved for this class I’d ordered everything I needed all at once. I order double of a few items, didn’t even give the cost a second thought.

It wasn’t always this way. Back in 1978 when I was starving student I’d have had to ask for extra hours at work or find a way to defer a payment in order to purchase something required for a class.

Eventually I had to leave school because I couldn’t afford tuition and fees. In the big picture it all worked out – I landed jobs with companies that paid my tuition – but my late teens and early twenties were really grim. The Reagan years I’d rather not recall at all, thank you.

It was incredibly difficult to make ends meet on 20-36 hours a week at minimum wage jobs. I was fortunate I never had to work in fast food though I’d applied for my share of those jobs. I dreaded the possibility I’d not only get shitty hours I couldn’t count on from week to week, but I might come home smelling like catsup-mustard-onions-pickles with a coating of fryer grease.

A close friend who worked for a major fast food chain couldn’t get the odor out of their hair and skin; it embedded itself in any synthetic fabric. They smelled like a Wendy’s burger for as long as they worked there. Kamala Harris knows what this is like, the feeling of being branded by a necessary but short-term low-wage job.

Cosplayers don’t have to deal with that reality.

Because I worked in retail for a decade, my uniform was business professional with nylons and heels. No apron or hairnet required but 4 to 8 hours on your feet in 2-3 inch heels isn’t fun. It screws with your feet and posture for years afterward.

(Heel spurs, Donnie? Hah. What a pussy.)

Doing stock work in this kind of attire is also distinctly unpleasant, humping bulky and heavy inventory from boxes in the back room to the front of the store to hang on rods you may have just finished waxing, also part of the job while wearing a smile for customers.

I dreaded the stock work because I might ruin a pair of pantyhose. They’d cost me a couple hours’ pay to replace before my next shift. Don’t snap off a heel or break a shoe strap because that’s a week’s pay to repair and more to replace.

Gods help me if the vehicle I relied on – not mine as I couldn’t afford payments, plates, insurance – needed repairs, the cost of which I’d have to help absorb.

If you’re cosplaying you don’t have to worry about little financial set backs like these.

Thankfully I was healthy then. I also didn’t have to worry about my family or daycare at the time.

Unfortunately my classmate not only has to count pennies to afford the next class segment, but their remaining parent is suffering from a life-threatening illness. You know where much of the household’s income is going – right into Big Pharma’s pockets.

That detail isn’t included in the cosplay kit.

Cosplaying a minimum wage worker’s job is simply not the same as actually doing their job, not the same as living their life.

It’s so fucking hard in reality that I “forgot” about it decades later, blocking the unpleasantness of hardship. I also know that it’s considerably more difficult now than it was back then. Health care alone is a nightmare, even with Affordable Care Act coverage.

~ ~ ~

Math is also not part of the cosplayer’s kit.

In reality, the math is inescapable.

There’s no escaping the fact the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and it’s been that since 2009. Minimum tipped wage is $2.13 per hour provided base wage and tips total $7.25 per hour.

States’ minimum wage may be more, but 21 states’ minimum wages are also $7.25 per hour.

Doesn’t matter if individual state’s cost of living index is higher or lower than the average.

Which means the expenses have steadily outstripped wages for years.

Minimum wage jobs are rarely full-time because employers who need cheap labor also don’t want to pay unemployment. The most part-time workers can expect is 36 hours a week and probably not regularly to avoid the appearance of full-time work.

Most will average 20-36 hours a week.

Which means gross pay is somewhere between $145 and $261 a week, or $7540 to $13572 a year.

Now take those numbers and analyze them using NerdWallet’s average monthly expenses by category:

The average expenditures among all consumer units totaled $77,280 annually. That’s up 5.9% from 2022.

Average monthly expenses for housing:
Average expenses for housing totaled $25,436 annually. That works out to $2,120 per month.

Average monthly expenses for transportation:
$13,174 annually. That works out to $1,098 per month.

Average monthly expenses for food:
$9,985 annually. That works out to $832 per month.

Average monthly expenses for personal insurance and pensions:
$9,556 annually. That works out to $796 per month.

Average monthly expenses for entertainment:
$3,635 annually. That works out to $302 per month.

Average. Monthly. Expenses. There’s no way a single person working 20-36 hours a week for federal minimum wage comes close to covering half of these expenses, even if insurance, pensions, and entertainment are completely removed from the calculations.

BLS Employment Cost Index for July 31, 2024 indicates wages have increased, but whose wages and where?

… Wages and salaries increased 4.2 percent for the 12-month period ending in June 2024 and increased 4.6 percent for the 12-month period ending in June 2023. Benefit costs increased 3.8 percent over the year and increased 4.2 percent for the 12-month period ending in June 2023. …

Chances are good these increases still don’t make a dent anywhere in the U.S. when benefits also increased and corporations continue to gouge consumers on top of it to make record profits.

Cosplayer TFG may actually know a little bit about this but from the perspective of a landlord and an employer. He’s cheated renters in his lifetime violating the Fair Housing Act and hired undocumented workers repeatedly because he won’t pay a living or legally-mandated wage to documented workers.

No cosplay required – the guy who’s familiar with this bit of economics wears a blue suit and red tie when he’s not wearing a white golf shirt and khaki golf slacks.

He wants to do this kind of cheating on housing and wages all the time to every American.

No costume required to be an asshole.

~ ~ ~

Let me be more direct: Cosplayer TFG has avoided answering questions about increasing the minimum wage, failing to respect working Americans by offering a bullshit response:

Trump held a campaign photo op Sunday at a McDonald’s in swing-state Pennsylvania, where he was asked about raising the minimum wage.

“Well, I think this. These people work hard. They’re great,” the Republican nominee responded.

The vice president pounced on the remark, criticizing Trump on Monday by saying that she “absolutely” believed in raising the minimum wage to ensure that “hardworking Americans, whether they’re working at McDonald’s or anywhere else, should have at least the ability to be able to take care of their family.”

No wonder he hid behind his McDonald’s costume or climbed into another truck cab.

~ ~ ~

I wish I could assure my classmate that there’s an end to this hardship in sight soon, that there will be elected officials who will work as hard as they do to ensure they get the opportunities they need and a lifeline when necessary.

But that’s on all of you who have yet to vote and aren’t in my class this term.

We aren’t going back. Do something and make this better. Vote for someone who understands what it’s going to take and is willing to do it. Vote for the candidates down ticket who’ll help her deliver.

Vote for somebody who isn’t going to cosplay at working while being a fascist slacker in reality.

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President Biden’s Address to the Nation

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In case you missed his remarks broadcast and streamed Wednesday evening, here is a video and a transcript.

Alternate source: https://www.c-span.org/video/?537306-1/president-biden-addresses-nation-decision-drop-2024-race
(Caveat: the transcript at C-SPAN is awful)

Transcript:

My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you tonight from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. In this sacred space, I’m surrounded by portraits of extraordinary American presidents. Thomas Jefferson wrote the immortal words that guide this nation. George Washington showed us presidents are not kings. Abraham Lincoln implored us to reject malice. Franklin Roosevelt inspired us to reject fear.

I revere this office, but I love my country more. It’s been the honor of my life to serve as your president. But in the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think it’s more important than any title. I draw strength and find joy in working for the American people. But this sacred task of perfecting our union is not about me, it’s about you. Your families, your futures.

It’s about we the people. And we can never forget that. And I never have. I’ve made it clear that I believe America is at an inflection point. On those rare moments in history, when the decisions we make now determine our fate of our nation and the world for decades to come, America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division.

We have to decide: Do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy. In this moment, we can see those we disagree with not as enemies but as, I mean, fellow Americans—can we do that? Does character in public life still matter? I believe you know the answer to these questions because I know you the American people, and I know this: We are a great nation because we are a good people. When you elected me to this office, I promised to always level with you, to tell you the truth. And the truth, the sacred cause of this country, is larger than any one of us. Those of us who cherish that cause cherish it so much, the cause of American democracy itself. We must unite to protect it.

In recent weeks, it has become clear to me that I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.

So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation. I know there was a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.

Over the next six months, I will be focused on doing my job as president. That means I will continue to lower costs for hard-working families, grow our economy. I will keep defending our personal freedoms and civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose. I will keep calling out hate and extremism, making it clear there is no place, no place in America for political violence or any violence ever, period. I’m going to keep speaking out to protect our kids from gun violence, our planet from climate crisis as an existential threat.

I will keep fighting for my Cancer Moonshot, so we can end cancer as we know it because we can do it. I’m going to call for Supreme Court reform because this is critical to our democracy—Supreme Court reform. You know, I will keep working to ensure American remains strong, secure and the leader of the free world.

I’m the first president of this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world. We will keep rallying a coalition of proud nations to stop Putin from taking over Ukraine and doing more damage. We’ll keep NATO stronger, and I will make it more powerful and more united than any time in all of our history. I will keep doing the same for our allies in the Pacific. You know, when I came to the office, the conventional wisdom was that China would inevitably pass, surpass the United States.

That’s not the case anymore. And I’m going to keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war. We are also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.

You know, we’ve come so far since my inauguration. On that day, I told you as I stood in that winter—we are stood in a winter of peril and winter of possibilities. Peril and possibilities. We are in the group of, we were in the group of the worse pandemic in the century. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. We came together as Americans. We got through it. We emerged stronger, more prosperous and more secure.

Today we have the strongest economy in the world, creating nearly 16 million new jobs—a record. Wages are up, inflation continues to come down, the racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years. We are literally rebuilding our entire nation—urban, suburban and rural and tribal communities. Manufacturing has come back to America. We are leading the world again in chips and science and innovation. We finally beat Big Pharma after all these years to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors.

And I’m going to keep fighting to make sure we lower the cost for everyone, not just seniors. More people have health care today in America than ever before. I signed one of the most significant laws helping millions of veterans and their families who were exposed to toxic materials. You know, most significant climate law ever, ever in the history of the world. The first major gun safety law in 30 years.

And today, the violent crime rate is at a 50-year low. We are also securing our border. Border crossings are lower today than when the previous administration left office. I’ve kept my commitment to appoint the first Black woman to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. I also kept my commitment to have an administration that looks like America and be a president for all Americans. That’s what I’ve done.

I ran for president four years ago because I believed and still do that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake. That is still the case. America is an idea. An idea stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world. That idea is that we hold these truths to be self-evident.

We are all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. We’ve never fully lived up to it—to this sacred idea—but we’ve never walked away from it either. And I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.

In just a few months, the American people will choose the course of America’s future. I made my choice. I’ve made my views known. I would like to thank our great vice president, Kamala Harris. She is experienced, she is tough, she is capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country.

Now the choice is up to you, the American people. When you make that choice, remember the words of Benjamin Franklin hanging on my wall here in the Oval Office, alongside the busts of Dr. King and Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez.

When Ben Franklin was asked, as he emerged from the convention going on, whether the founders have given America a monarchy or a republic, Franklin’s response was: “A republic, if you can keep it.” A republic, if you can keep it. Whether we keep our republic is now in your hands. My fellow Americans, it’s been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years.

Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and in Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as the president of the United States, but here I am.

That’s what’s so special about America. We are a nation of promise and possibilities. Of dreamers and doers. Of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things. I’ve given my heart and my soul to our nation, like so many others. And I’ve been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people. I hope you have some idea how grateful I am to all of you.

The great thing about America is, here kings and dictators do not rule—the people do. History is in your hands. The power’s in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. You just have to keep faith—keep the faith—and remember who we are. We are the United States of America, and there are simply nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together. So let’s act together, preserve our democracy. God bless you all and may God protect our troops. Thank you.

~ ~ ~

This is an open thread.

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Happy (Forced) Mother’s Day!

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Hope all of the mothers in our community are having a restful Sunday, whether mothers in fact or mothers of invention.

Not wishing a happy day to this senator, however.

Remember this GOP senator’s freakish fundie-speak rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union? She’s back with an attempt to move this country ever closer to Gilead of The Handmaid’s Tale.

She and 13 co-sponsors — Sen. Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Cramer (R-ND), Sen. Daines (R-MT), Sen. Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Sen. Marshall (R-KS), Sen. Moran (R-KS), Sen. Ricketts (R-NE), Sen. Rounds (R-SD), Sen. Schmitt (R-MO), Sen. Tillis (R-NC), Sen. Wicker (R-MS), and Sen. Lankford (R-OK) — submitted S.4296, the “More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed Act,” a.k.a. the “MOMS Act” this past week.

As Salon and the Guardian reported, the bill creates a database which allows the federal government to track persons who use a government-developed and hosted website, “pregnancy.gov,” while seeking information and resources related to pregnancy.

The bill may initially look innocuous to those who aren’t familiar with how websites work, but one doesn’t have to read very deeply to see this is horrifying:

11 “(a) WEBSITE. — Not later than 1 year after the date
12 of enactment of this section, the Secretary shall publish
13 a public website entitled ‘pregnancy.gov’. The Secretary
14 may not delegate implementation or administration of the
15 website below the level of the Office of the Secretary. The
16 website shall include the following:
17 “(1) A clearinghouse of relevant resources
18 available for pregnant and postpartum women, and
19 women parenting young children.

[page] 3
1 “(2) A series of questions through which a user
2 is able to generate a list of relevant resources of in-
3 terest within the user’s zip code.
4 “(3) A means to direct the user to identify
5 whether to list the relevant resources of interest that
6 are available online or within 1, 5, 10, 50, and 100
7 miles of the user.
8 “(4) A mechanism for users to take an assess-
9 ment through the website and provide consent to use
10 the user’s contact information, which the Secretary
11 may use to conduct outreach via phone or email to
12 follow up with users on additional resources that
13 would be helpful for the users to review.

The server on which the website is hosted would capture the user’s IP address. That’s normal for all web servers. Because we don’t have a national standard curriculum for computers and networks, the average American will not understand they shed this information whenever they visit any website.

If the prospective user then seeks any resource near them, they may not only validate their physical location but pregnancy or postpartum status.

Someone from Health and Human Services could follow up with them — *shudder* — although the bill gives a weak nod to consent.

If they speak other than English — think asylum seekers here — their ethnic/national identity might be deduced by this bit on page 5 of the bill:

3 “(d) SERVICES IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES.— The
4 Secretary shall ensure that the website provides the widest
5 possible access to services for families who speak lan-
6 guages other than English.

Worse, all this data will be reported to Congress:

7 “(e) REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.—
8 “(1) IN GENERAL.— Not later than 180 days
9 after the date on which the website is established
10 under this section, the Secretary shall submit to
11 Congress a report on—
12 “(A) the traffic of the website;
13 “(B) user feedback on the accessibility and
14 helpfulness of the website in tailoring to the
15 user’s needs;
16 “(C) insights on gaps in relevant resources
17 with respect to services for pregnant and
18 postpartum women, or women parenting young
19 children;
20 “(D) suggestions on how to improve user
21 experience and accessibility based on user feed-
22 back and missing resources that would be help-
23 ful to include in future updates; and

[page] 6
1 “(E) certification that no prohibited enti-
2 ties are listed as a relevant resource or are in
3 receipt of a grant under subsection (b)(3).
4 “(2) CONFIDENTIALITY.— The report under
5 paragraph (1) shall not include any personal identi-
6 fying information regarding individuals who have
7 used the website.

The confidentiality requirement is a fucking joke. Once this data is released to Congress, it’d be far too easy to hunt down the users. It’s yet another opportunity to breach users’ privacy, just like every other website and application for any purpose.

There’s nothing helpful about this at all. It’s a means to allow the federal government directly into women’s uteruses across the country, not exactly small government.

This also blows away the idea of states’ rights when it comes to regulating reproductive rights, though the states are supposed to provide the contact information of approved Gilead resources to be offered through this national website. If states want to offer pregnancy or postpartum resources they can do that through state health departments. They don’t need the feds harvesting this data in a central repository.

The really aggravating part about this bill? The creation of yet more federal and state government bureaucracy intended to get deep into mothers’ and prospective mothers’ crotches, while a non-governmental solution has existed for years with federal support through block grants, eventually suppressed by far-right anti-reproductive rights lawmakers and the orange hellbeast.

Maybe you’ve even heard of it before — it’s a national nonprofit called Planned Parenthood.

~ ~ ~

Comment Operations Note

You may have noticed a change in the comments system this week. After many complaints about comments being unreadable after fourth or fifth reply to a reply to a comment especially on mobile devices, the maximum width of threaded nested comments has been set to four.

In other words, this is what will be permitted as seen on a desktop:

A fifth reply to the fourth comment in this thread will not see a Reply button.

If you wish to leave a reply to that fourth comment, preface the comment with the user’s name and date/time of the comment to which you wish to reply. You can also pick up the link to that comment by right-clicking on the date/time and then pasting into the preface of your reply. Example:

Rayne (edit)

Reply to Legonaut, May 3, 2024 at 6:11 pm

Nice or Noise?

Not an actual reply in that thread, just an example of how to leave a fifth-wide comment and what it will look like.

Will it slow your comments down? Sorry, yes, it may, but if you really feel compelled to share a comment this is a trade-off for readability. What good is your comment if it can’t be read by a substantial portion of the EW community?

I should also add here that wordy comments lacking concision have also helped force this change. You know who you are; think more about your audience here because even at four wide, some comments will still be challenging on mobile devices. Under the previous setting, those overlong comments acted like a Denial of Service to other readers.

There will be more changes to comments in the near future, though a couple tweaks to the righthand sidebar will happen first. Watch for them.

~ ~ ~

Treat this as an open thread.

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Three Things: Goodbye, Good, Buy? Good – Bye!

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Given the quantity of news today worth discussing but not necessarily worth an entire dedicated post, I’m going to pull together three topics under this umbrella.

Consider this an open thread.

~ 3 ~

Goodbye – Mitch McConnell will step down as Senate minority leader, three years ahead of his retirement from the Senate.

I didn’t see this coming today, but then it probably should have been expected given the bullshit going on with the federal budget negotiations.

Hapless House Leader Mike Johnson has screwed up the negotiations in a whole bunch of ways, allowing the GOP’s vulnerabilities to be exposed each time a new sticking point surfaces to halt progress.

This past week, as one example, it was a poison pill amendment to halt prescriptions of abortion drugs like Plan B for dispensing through pharmacies and by mail. Oh, we can work with that – just look at what happened in Kansas post-Dobbs, when voters turned out in August 2022 to defeat a GOP effort to pass a state constitutional amendment banning abortion.

Not to mention the hassle of an evidence-free impeachment by the House of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas which the Senate must now consider for conviction and removal. Way to make GOP senators look both absurd and racist at the same time thanks to Johnson’s leadership in the House.

McConnell says the recent death of his wife’s family member reminded him of his mortality, which encouraged him to step down and take a seat in the back.

I think at 82 years of age, in iffy health, McConnell simply doesn’t want to have to sweep up after the rogue elephants in his party any longer.

~ 2 ~

Good, buy? – President Biden signed an executive order prohibiting the sale of Americans’ personal data to politically-adversarial countries like China and Russia.

This is an important measure which Congress should take up and write into legislation so that future expansions of privacy protections can be added as amendments.

It’s bothered me that so much personal data is freely available – your driver’s license or state ID and your property taxes are just a couple examples of data anyone can locate and use without any real friction like fees or documented requests kept on file.

But pair that data with purchasing habits acquired by data brokers and the accrued data is highly weaponizable.

It’s not a little thing for persons who are politically active, or even prone to exercising their First Amendment right of free speech.

The Department of Justice has deterred at least four assassination plots targeting persons in the U.S., stopping them before someone died as ordered by a foreign government. Imagine how easy it is to find a target and profile them to make the assassination fast and easy using personal data acquired from data brokers for mere pennies. No more assigning teams of personnel for surveillance – just buy the data, hack a few local area internet-connected cameras, and dispatch a killer.

Or send a drone, like Trump did to Iran’s General Soleimani, likely breaking norms against such assassinations.

Knowing that personal data is less likely to be acquired by hostile foreign governments might make some Americans more comfortable with making purchases which might create data sold by brokers.

Or, maybe not.

~ 1 ~

Good – Bye! – Trump could only post a $100 million bond today against the $454 million he owes in the E. Jean Carroll defamation NY state business fraud case.

It’s a pretty solid indication he’s broke. It should be a familiar feeling because he’s declared six business bankruptcies before.

Heck, given that many bankruptcies under his belt, this one he should be able to file on his own in his sleep. Maybe he’ll be able to save on attorneys’ fees by doing much of the work himself.

~ 0 ~

Bonus: Michigan’s primary results = so many bad hot takes.

I mentioned this in the wee hours this morning on Mastodon; the first take I saw in Washington Post missed a critical point about the way Michigan’s primaries are conducted, and how that affects the poll results.

RayneToday @[email protected]

There’s a critical problem with this analysis of the Michigan primary results: there are crossover voters who voted for Nikki Haley who will vote for Biden in November. The “uncommitted” vote may actually be a smaller percentage of total Democratic voters because of this practice of crossing over during the primary.

Unlike neighboring Ohio, voters aren’t locked into a party and can cross back in November. See 2000 primary when McCain won the Michigan primary. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/27/4-takeaways-michigan-primary/

Feb 28, 2024, 01:14

Union members are encouraged to do this though it may depend on circumstances surrounding the candidates.

The percentage of Democratic votes are not as they appear; there will have been Democratic voters who threw behind Nikki Haley, making Trump’s win margin look smaller than it is, while also making the “uncommitted” Democratic vote numbers appear larger as a percentage of the total vote.

I am absolutely certain this took place; I was asked by Democratic voters who planned to crossover which not-Trump GOP candidate would optimize this approach.

Of course in my opinion the best fuck-you to Trump is voting for a woman of color.

With regard to the “uncommitted” vote, what should be noted is where the most votes occurred in highest concentrations. Dearborn, where the largest number of Muslim and Arab-heritage voters live in Michigan, would obviously be expected as the location of the largest number of “uncommitted” votes.

For large news outlets to trumpet as a headline the protest vote sent a message is rather misleading, especially when most of these outlets couldn’t be bothered to report on the crossover vote.

Again, this is an open thread.

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Boeing 737 MAX 9: The Comment Heard Around The World

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If I had any doubts this last week whether I should post about Boeing’s quality problems, a comment posted in Leeham News on January 16 convinced me the topic needs more attention. I had goosebumps several times as I read it.

Kudos to Leeham News for maintaining a comment section; it’s not easy but it’s clearly needed.

I’m not screenshotting the entire comment, only enough to convince you this is something worth reading and understanding amid a sea of layoffs and a surge of AI implementation across nearly every industry. Imagine as you read it how this could be made worse by fewer well-educated personnel and less communication between humans.

Before you scroll further, read the article which spawned the comment:

“Unplanned” removal, installation inspection procedure at Boeing
https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-installation-inspection-procedure-at-boeing

This story was published ten days after Alaska Air’s flight 1282  departed Portland OR’s PDX airport for California only to lose a door minutes later. The Boeing 737 MAX 9 safely returned to PDX roughly 20 minutes after takeoff.

The original comment both parts 1 and 2 can be found directly below the article — use keyword “throwawayboeing” to find them using Ctrl-F in your browser as many more comments have appeared since the article was first published.

If Leeham News should crash from high traffic volume or a possible attack, you can find parts 1 and 2 along with the article at the Internet Archive (keep in mind the earliest archived versions of the article may not have the comments beneath them):

https://web.archive.org/web/20240122193511/https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-installation-inspection-procedure-at-boeing/

An observer in my social media feed whose name I didn’t record noted that every little problem Boeing planes experience is now news. United Airlines discovering loose bolts on Boeing 737 aircraft reported only days after the Alaska Air door failure would and should have made the news; Alaska Air has also found more problems with bolts since then.

Google Trends suggests there’s some truth to the claim every Boeing problem is now news:

How many of the increased mentions are well-deserved snark is hard to say:

Well-deserved if dark. So dark. Mentions of new resources like Is My Plane A 737 MAX may also magnify Boeing’s problems in the media, but if there wasn’t a safety problem tools like this wouldn’t be seen as necessary.

Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness member Mark Warner (D-VA), and Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz (R-TX) are scheduled to meet today with Boeing’s CEO Dave Calhoun about the aerospace manufacturer’s ongoing quality crisis.

Calhoun already met last week with the heads of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Seems rather late after the crazy stones Boeing manifested by asking on January 5 for its 737 MAX 7 to be exempted from safety rules to allow the aircraft to fly.

Let’s hope the FAA and NTSB are focused on the quality problems at Boeing and not on the source of the comment above until the comment’s veracity is called into question. The First Amendment should protect just this kind of speech from corporate suppression given the absolute risk all passengers take when boarding a Boeing aircraft.

You’ll note the image used on the front page for this post is a Boeing 737 — but it’s a military craft. Boeing is a federal contractor. If workers can’t safely blow the whistle on manufacturing quality problems with aircraft our defense personnel and our elected officials rely on, purchased with our taxpayer dollars, what good is the First Amendment?

~ ~ ~

What all of this has to do with labor is fairly clear in the original article published in Leeham News. I can’t add more to what’s been written.

But all of this could be worse in time depending on how Boeing addresses solutions in concert with cost controls.

One thing the public should know more about is the impact AI will have in manufacturing environments, especially ones in which both adherence to specifications and safety are tightly linked.

Four days after the Alaska Air Boeing 737 Max 9 lost its door mid-air, there was a report about a vulnerability found in Bosch brand cordless, handheld pneumatic torque wrenches which are used in the automotive industry. The wrenches are programmed to ensure nuts are tightened to specification and operate using Wi-Fi.

What are the chances that similar vulnerabilities may exist or be introduced into aerospace manufacturing, compounded by the increasing amounts of AI used in automation?

Let’s say a certain aerospace manufacturer gets its shit together and fixes its corporate culture and procedures so that all parts are tracked and all actions and omissions are likewise accounted for and documented as it builds aircraft.

What could happen if the no-longer-missing bolts are over- or under-tightened because of a vulnerability like the one in Bosch’s Rexroth’s NXA015S-36V-B wrenches?

It’s not enough to analyze and remedy existing quality and safety problems; future problems must be anticipated at the same time.

~ ~ ~

Since I began drafting this post this morning, The Seattle Times has reported on Boeing’s door problem, mentioning the comment left at Leeham News. You’ll want to follow up with this story as aerospace manufacturing is journalist Dominic Gates beat; he’s covered other similar stories like the ongoing Boeing 737 challenge.

In fact, if you read the comments at Leeham News you’ll see Gates as well.

Yet another example of why well-moderated news sites’ comments can be important.

This is NOT an open post. Please stay on topic in comments.

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In Memoriam: Rosalynn Carter

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Former first lady Rosalynn Carter died this afternoon at age 96, two days after entering hospice. Her husband former president Jimmy Carter remains in hospice care where he has been since February this year.

Born in Plains, Georgia, Rosalynn came from a working class family. She was salutatorian of her high school graduating class and accepted at state public school Georgia Southwestern College. She left college when she married Jimmy which was typical for young women in 1946.

Carter differed from her predecessors Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, and Betty Ford; she’d sought not to be a typical First Lady. This may in part have been due to her southern working class upbringing, the changing times during which her husband was in the White House, and in part the continued role raising their fourth child Amy while her husband Jimmy was president. While her three older brothers were adults at the time, Amy was only nine when her father was inaugurated.

Rosalynn was a staunch advocate for mental health care during Jimmy’s governorship in Georgia. She remained one as First Lady, serving on the National Association of Mental Health’s board of directors.

While Jimmy was in the White House, the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment faced an initial 1979 deadline for ratification. Rosalynn supported the ERA; honored by the National Organization for Women, she spoke at the 1977 National Women’s Conference. Her advocacy included campaigning for Bob Graham, an ERA proponent who was elected as Florida’s governor in 1978 and eventually as Senator in 1986. She played a direct role in ratification by the 35th state, calling a fence-sitting Democratic Indiana state legislator to ask them to vote for the ERA.

Her humanitarian work didn’t end when her husband left office. Co-founding with Jimmy the Carter Center, her continued mental health care advocacy was folded in with other initiatives including disease prevention, conflict resolution, and advancing peace and democracy. In later years she worked alongside her husband on Habitat for Humanity projects.

The Carter Center published a press release this afternoon which included a statement by Rosalynn’s husband:

“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” President Carter said. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

Rosalynn and Jimmy celebrated their 77th wedding anniversary earlier this year; she is survived by her spouse, their four children, 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

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