DirtEdonE
DirtEdonE's JournalIs Gig Work a Job? Uber and Others Are Maneuvering to Shape the Answer
Fucking labor again.
Side hustle. LOFL It's just another example of capitalism at its finest, where the many pay for the few.
Is Gig Work a Job? Uber and Others Are Maneuvering to Shape the Answer
By Noam Scheiber
March 26, 2019
"It was a potentially sweeping proposal from a Texas regulator: Companies that use a “digital network” to dispatch workers the way Uber does could label them contractors rather than employees."
...
"When such companies are able to classify workers as contractors, they don’t have to contribute to unemployment insurance or workers’ compensation, or heed minimum-wage and overtime laws. Industry officials estimate that a work force of employees costs companies 20 to 30 percent more than a work force of contractors — a sum worth many hundreds of millions of dollars per year to Uber."
...
"What is notable about the Texas initiative, which would apply only to unemployment insurance, is that it emerged not from a democratically elected body but from an opaque bureaucracy. There were no hearings where outsiders were questioned, no meaningful floor debates — just a few perfunctory statements at public meetings and a 30-day comment period before the agency could issue a final proposal."
...
"Emails involving one commissioner and her staff show extensive communications with lobbyists working with Tusk Ventures, a venture-capital and political-strategy firm. Tusk, in turn, was retained by Handy, a company that dispatches workers, Uber-style, to perform household chores like cleaning and repairs. The strategy firm’s founder, Bradley Tusk, was once a top political consultant for Uber and remains a large shareholder who could cash out millions in equity when Uber goes public this year."
Read the rest:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/business/economy/gig-economy-lobbying.html?emc=edit_th_190327&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=469281980327
Now you do the math and see who is going to get fucked again. Gig economy my ass. Side hustle bullshit.
Murphy shelves his promised expansion of medical marijuana while leaders work on a new legal weed de
Murphy shelves his promised expansion of medical marijuana while leaders work on a new legal weed dealUpdated Mar 26, 7:24 PM; Posted Mar 26, 6:35 PM
By Susan K. Livio | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com and Brent Johnson
"Gov. Phil Murphy has withdrawn a planned announcement to forge ahead with a massive expansion of the New Jersey’s medicinal marijuana program, one day after a failed attempt to pass a bill to legalize recreational pot in the state, sources told NJ Advance Media.
Hours after top state lawmakers called off the legal weed measure Monday, Murphy told a town hall audience he was prepared to announce Tuesday or Wednesday that state would seek applications for dozens of new growers, cultivators and retailers for the medicinal program that currently relies on six operators serving 42,000 patients.
He said such a move could boost enrollment to as many as 200,000 patients.
“We’ll likely aggressively further open up the medical regime in the next day or two,” the Democratic governor said during the event at a Union City elementary school, adding the number of people enrolled in the program “probably should be at 150,000 or 200,000.”"
This bullshit is just getting comical now. And NOT funny comical. This is exactly the mistake they made in the beginning of this mess - linking already legal medical with recreational use. chris christie fucked up the entire medical program but instead of just fixing the mess he made DEMOCRATS WHO HOLD POWER ACROSS THE ENTIRE STATE GOVERNMENT just can't seem to get the easy stuff done. Over sixty percent of New Jersey voters approve of recreational use. Over NINETY PERCENT approve of medicinal use.
But we just can't seem to get it done. Funny, when that criminal chris christie was in office and the Democrats held the Assembly and Senate, they just couldn't seem to find a way to stop him.
This makes us look weak and ineffective and it's all over petty inside squabbles. After performing like this while in full control what the hell do they expect next election?
'Doomsday vault' town warming faster than any other on Earth
'Doomsday vault' town warming faster than any other on EarthBy Sarah Lazarus, CNN
Updated 1:50 AM ET, Wed March 27, 2019
"CNN In 2014, Mark Sabbatini noticed cracks in his apartment walls. Then a mysterious bulge appeared in his bedroom and the apartment block's communal staircase became crooked. "Doors and windows weren't shutting properly," he says.
Sabbatini, the editor of a local newspaper, was living in Longyearbyen, the world's northernmost town located just 800 miles from the North Pole, which is also the capital of a cluster of Norwegian islands called Svalbard."
...
"Inger Hanssen-Bauer, senior researcher at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and editor of a new report about Svalbard, says the climate in Longyearbyen is probably warming faster than in any other town on Earth. That's because of accelerated Arctic warming -- as rising temperatures reduce ice and snow cover, less sunlight is reflected and more solar energy is absorbed by the darker surfaces that have been exposed."
According to Hanssen-Bauer, the annual mean temperature in Longybearbyen in 1900 was -7.8°C. Since then, it has risen by 3.7°C -- more than three times the global average of around 1°C. The town increasingly experiences days when the temperature exceeds zero. "All the projections show that this will continue," she says."
This is all starting to remind me of THX1138, and it's all happening a few centuries early.
trump just shot America dead on 5th Avenue and no one cares
mueller handed barr the pistol. barr loaded the pistol and handed it to trump. trump shot America dead on 5th Avenue and no one cares.
I don't think the full gravity of what just happened has sunk in yet. It happens in such small steps, by the time the last step is taken it's impossible to even realize we just stepped off a cliff into the abyss.
Legal weed won't happen right now in N.J. Lawmakers call off big vote.
Source: Advance Media/NJ.com
Top state lawmakers have canceled a planned vote Monday on a bill that would legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older in New Jersey, saying they simply haven’t gathered enough support in the state Senate.
But they vowed to take up the measure — one of Gov. Phil Murphy’s signature proposals — at a future date.
“We’ll be back at this," state Senate President Stephen Sweeney,
D-Gloucester, said at a news conference shortly after the vote was called off at the Statehouse in Trenton. "Anybody who thinks this is dead is wrong,”
...
NJ Advance Media was the first to report Sweeney called off the vote. He made the call after it became clear the Senate — the upper house of the Democratic-controlled state Legislature — would remain a handful of votes shy of the minimum 21 needed for passage.
Read more: https://www.nj.com/marijuana/2019/03/legal-weed-wont-happen-right-now-in-nj-lawmakers-call-off-big-vote.html
Another huge buzzkill in a week of huge buzzkills.
WTF? New Jersey? Half the state is always high and the other half is looking to score. JHC, what the fuck happened to this state, this country?
Bizarro America.
At least calling off the vote will give them the choice to call it again instead of waiting to put on the ballot next election.
I want the medical marijuana reforms made NOW. No use waiting any longer. The medical reforms have very broad support. Maybe with the Democrats in full control of both houses of the legislature and the governor's mansion they'll be able to at least accomplish that light lift.
Our Chess Champion Has a Home
Some much needed good news.
Updating this thread:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211930811
Our Chess Champion Has a Home
The 8-year-old refugee who last week was thrilled to have a trophy suddenly has so much more.
By Nicholas Kristof
Opinion Columnist
March 23, 2019
"Tanitoluwa Adewumi, age 8, skidded around the empty apartment, laughing excitedly, then leapt onto his dad’s back. “I have a home!” he said in wonderment. “I have a home!”
A week ago, the boy was homeless, studying chess moves while lying on the floor of a shelter in Manhattan. Now Tani, as he is known, has a home, a six-figure bank account, scholarship offers from three elite private schools and an invitation to meet President Bill Clinton.
“I think I am still dreaming,” said Tani’s dad, Kayode Adewumi. “I hope I don’t wake up.”
I wrote in my column last weekend about Tani as a reminder of the principle that talent is universal, even if opportunity is not. A Nigerian refugee who had learned chess only a bit more than a year earlier, he had just defeated kids from elite private schools to win the New York state chess championship for his age group. He lugged a trophy nearly as big as he is back to the homeless shelter.
Now the story gets even better."
READ MORE!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/opinion/sunday/homeless-chess-champion-tani.html?emc=edit_th_190324&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=469281980324
Why be depressed and disheartened?
Here's why:
US reacts to end of Mueller probe with relief, skepticism
By MATT SEDENSKY yesterday
"PHILADELPHIA (AP) — With the long-awaited special counsel’s investigation finished but its contents still shrouded in mystery, Americans waited for details, yawned with boredom or stayed fixed to their long-cemented positions on President Donald Trump, the man at the probe’s center.
For all the expected splash of Robert Mueller’s report, it arrived with more of a thud, thanks to the secrecy surrounding it. Few saw reason to think it would sway many opinions in a divided republic.
...
“Now maybe we can move on to better things,” said Bubba Metts, a 61-year-old conservative who is a financial adviser in Lexington, South Carolina. “Twenty million dollars spent — for nothing.”
Dajah Harris, 21, a college senior at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, is a Democrat and no fan of Trump. But she saw the investigation as a distraction from more important things like homelessness, college debt and welfare programs. The country should never have elected someone, she said, whose background raises such questions."
Read the rest:
https://www.apnews.com/a347bfa2b2d043c28589c8c99eb9ced2
Nothing changes. The story line is now complete. This nonsense of SDNY or anyone else picking up the ball is all pipe dreams. The federal case was the key. The gop and trump's control of government and the courts as well as the cult-like supporter from the magats will negate anything SDNY or anyone else tries to do.
They'll just be seen as those liberals trying to derail trump with another "witch hunt" again.
It's mueller time. lofl - no wonder trump never fired mueller - he was trump's man on the inside all along.
Legal weed for N.J.? It's too close to call right now.
Source: Advance Media/NJ.com
We may not know until Monday.
In fact, New Jersey leaders may not know whether there’s enough support in the state Legislature to legalize recreational marijuana in the Garden State until just hours before the planned vote.
With only four days left before lawmakers are scheduled to decide the fate of the controversial, long-delayed proposal, state leaders are still a handful of votes short of the number they need for it to pass, six sources with direct knowledge of the situation told NJ Advance Media on Thursday.
Both the state Senate and Assembly — each of which are controlled by Democrats — need to approve the bill for Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, a major proponent of legal weed, can sign it into law.
Read more: https://www.nj.com/politics/2019/03/legal-weed-for-nj-its-too-close-to-call-right-now.html
I posted about this last week or so. I was more optimistic then but it looks like Democratic control of both branches of the legislature and the governor's office still might not be enough to get us across the line. I certainly hope New Jersey Democrats come to their senses.
This type of division in our own party, even a state party, does not bode well, IMO, for 2020. We need to start looking at the big picture. Petty BS needs to be put aside. People are criticizing Governor Murphy for refusing to be a transactional politician but what ever happened to just doing what is right?
Oh, BTW, they included and therefore tied up medical marijuana reform in this bill. And after what chris christie did to the medical program reform is really needed.
'People lie, photos don't,' lawyer charges as civil trial begins for cops
‘People lie, photos don’t,’ lawyer charges as civil trial begins for cops who punched, unleashed dog on suspectBy Rebecca Everett | For NJ.com
"Attorney Jennifer Bonjean told jurors in Camden federal court Thursday that her client was guilty of a crime and has taken responsibility for repeatedly driving drunk on Nov. 14, 2012.
She said Charlie Harrison should have gone to jail that night.
“But he shouldn’t have gone to jail looking like this,” she said, as photographs of Harrison in a hospital bed appeared one after another on screens in the courtroom. His eyes were blackened and swollen shut, and his left leg was torn and bloodied by a police dog’s teeth.
Harrison, now 58, is suing the Atlantic City Police Department and five of its officers, alleging they used excessive force when they punched him and ordered a K-9 to attack his leg after stopping the inebriated man.
In opening statements Thursday, Bonjean said Harrison was drunk and confused when police stopped him, but tried to comply before he was assaulted."
https://www.nj.com/atlantic/2019/03/people-lie-photos-dont-lawyer-charges-as-civil-trial-begins-for-cops-who-punched-unleashed-dog-on-suspect.html
Another shining example of U.S. law enforcement at it's finest. Don't they give psychological exams to weed out the sadists before sending new recruits off to the academy?
Spreading the Mosque Shooting Video Is a Crime in New Zealand
Source: NY Times
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — A lone white supremacist is the suspect in the Christchurch mosque killings. But under New Zealand law, many others could face charges for spreading or perhaps even possessing all or part of the 17-minute Facebook Live video streamed by the killer as he methodically shot the victims.
As of Thursday, at least two people had been charged with sharing that video via social media, under a law that forbids dissemination or possession of material depicting extreme violence and terrorism. Others could face related charges in connection with publicizing the terrorist attack, under a human-rights law that forbids incitement of racial disharmony.
...
Facebook and other social media platforms also could face new legal issues because of the video, and not only in New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand has vowed to investigate the role that social media played in the attack and to take action, possibly alongside other countries, against the sites that broadcast it.
“We cannot simply sit back and accept that these platforms just exist and that what is said on them is not the responsibility of the place where they are published,” she told Parliament on Tuesday. “They are the publisher, not just the postman.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/world/asia/new-zealand-attacks-social-media.html?emc=edit_th_190322&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=469281980322
First an assault weapons and high capacity magazine ban in 72 hours and now a vow to investigate "social" media platforms.
It's about time. The adults are obviously in charge now in New Zealand. Time for the adults to re-take control here in the USA. Way past time.
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