James.galbraith

Tens of thousands of young undocumented immigrants who had their first-time Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) applications backlogged due to government delays saw their applications ground to a complete halt following a federal judge’s ruling against the program earlier this month. That was frustrating, devastating, and heartbreaking enough.

But CBS News now reports that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the immigration agency that processes this paperwork and has been experiencing issues that had delayed approval of applications, will not be refunding applicants their $495 application fees. “This is beyond cruel,” tweeted DACA recipient Reyna Montoya. “I personally know many young people who saved up their money to apply for #DACA with the hope of a resolution.”

“USCIS announced on Tuesday that it would place pending first-time DACA applications ‘on hold’ while the Texas court ruling remains in effect,” CBS News reported. “Immigrants with these pending requests will not get a refund for the $495 application fee they paid, USCIS said.” Per that report, at least 81,000 first-time applications had been backlogged due to agency delays, some for months on end, senators led by Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto said last month.

CBS News reported that “Cortez Masto noted that first-time DACA applicants were not responsible for processing delays” at USCIS, yet here they are paying the price—$495 to be exact, not including attorney fees if one was needed—for the government failing to process their applications in a timely manner.

“I funded my first #DACA application by saving the money I was making while sweating and grinding out long hours in the hot, humid Miami weather teaching tennis under that beaming FL sun,” tweeted DACA recipient Adrián Escárate. He’d been responding to Tony Choi, another DACA recipient who recounted working hard to save up enough to apply. “My own initial DACA application was funded by hours and hours working at a sushi takeout place as a cashier,” he wrote. “I know intimately what the human cost of this application is.”

In fact, a major reason why some young immigrants may not have applied right away after the program was reopened under court order last December is precisely because of this expensive fee.

The Biden administration didn’t appear to give any explanation as to why first-time DACA applicants won’t be refunded their fees. While President Biden said following Judge Andrew Hanen’s decision that his administration “intends to appeal this decision in order to preserve and fortify DACA,” CBS News reports that hasn’t actually happened as of yet. “The Biden administration has pledged to appeal this month's court order and to publish a rule that would codify DACA into a regulatory policy, but it hasn't given any timeframe for these actions,” CBS News continued.

Even if you’re generous and assume the federal government is maybe keeping the fees because it hopes it can fight in court to get those pending applications approved, there’s no guarantee it’ll be a quick fight, or that they’ll get approved at all. It’s cruel to continue holding on to that money—and I can’t be convinced that the federal government can’t both refund these fees while continuing to fight to save these applications. It’s the least that can be done for tens of thousands of young immigrants who sent in their applications only to be met with bureaucratic delays, then had their hopes about applying for the program dashed yet again.

"I thought I was basically close to the finish line," 18-year-old Arlette Morales told CBS News. She’d applied this year and had gotten as far as competing her biometric appointment. "But unfortunately, I was not."

Adding to this cruelty is that USCIS approved a number of applicants after Hanen’s ruling. They’re now being informed they don’t have DACA after all. “Per today's court filings, @USCIS mistakenly adjudicated nine first-time DACA applications during the weekend following the court ruling,” Camilo Montoya-Galvez reported. “USCIS is now ‘in the process’ of telling first-time applicants who received approvals during this time that they're not enrolled in DACA.” DACA recipient José Alonso Muñoz called it “beyond heartbreaking. I cannot imagine the devastation this will cause these young people. Unfortunately this is made worse knowing USCIS was extremely delayed in processing these applications in the first place.”

Following Hanen’s ruling, a group of young immigrants met with Vice President Harris at the White House, where they said they “reminded her of the urgency of this moment.” They called Hanen’s ruling “gut wrenching for millions of families, and tens of thousands of immigrant youth who were waiting on deportation reprieve and a work permit [who] now remain in limbo.” They urged congressional Democrats to act on their own to pass relief through the budget reconciliation process. 

“After months of pressure from our people-powered movement, Democrats have included a pathway to citizenship in their budget reconciliation,” United We Dream executive director Greisa Martinez Rosas said. “We made clear the critical role Vice President Harris will play in ensuring that Democrats keep their word and deliver on citizenship this year by casting a historic tie-breaking vote. The reality is that the only way to protect immigrant youth, TPS recipients, farm workers and other essential workers is by passing a pathway to citizenship through reconciliation this year. ”

China's unprecedented crackdown on its technology industry has turned Tencent Holdings from a market darling into the world's biggest stock loser this month. From a report: The Chinese Internet giant had tumbled 23% in July as of Wednesday, set for its worst month ever after erasing about $170 billion of market value. That marks the fastest evaporation of shareholder wealth worldwide during this period, Bloomberg data shows. Nine of the top 10 losers in shareholder value this month are Chinese companies, including Meituan and Alibaba Group Holding. Tencent's shares rebounded by 7.1% on Thursday morning, tracking broader gains in Chinese stocks after Beijing intensified efforts to alleviate concerns about its crackdown on the private education industry. The Shenzhen-based firm is one of the key casualties of an official campaign that targets some of the nation's tech behemoths considered posing a potential threat to China's data security and financial stability. The selloff in its shares intensified earlier this week after Beijing broadened the regulatory clampdown to include other once high-flying industries such as private education.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Black Widow has a new enemy: the Walt Disney. From a report: Scarlett Johansson, star of the latest Marvel movie "Black Widow," filed a lawsuit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Disney, alleging her contract was breached when the media giant released the film on its Disney+ streaming service at the same time as its theatrical debut. Ms. Johansson said in the suit that her agreement with Disney's Marvel Entertainment guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release, and her salary was based in large part on the box-office performance of the film. "Disney intentionally induced Marvel's breach of the agreement, without justification, in order to prevent Ms. Johansson from realizing the full benefit of her bargain with Marvel," the suit said. The suit could be a bellwether for the entertainment industry. Major media companies are prioritizing their streaming services in pursuit of growth, and are increasingly putting their high-value content on those platforms. Those changes have significant financial implications for actors and producers, who want to ensure that growth in streaming doesn't come at their expense.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday issued an executive order instructing the National Guard to assist state law enforcement officers in stopping civilian drivers and contractors who they believe are transporting migrants who have recently crossed into the U.S. If drivers refuse to cooperate, Abbott’s executive order instructs that officers may seize their vehicle.

Abbott’s order uses the pandemic as pretext, but data has indicated that the vaccination rate among migrants newly entering the U.S. through Texas is 90%. Among state residents, it’s just 43.4% as of July 26. Abbott’s order has instead left stakeholders, including city officials, in confusion about how it’ll be carried out, raised concerns of racial profiling, and been slammed by experts as “unconstitutional and fascist.”

“Words cannot describe how horrifyingly illegal @GregAbbott_TX's new executive order is,” American Immigration Council Policy Counsel Aaron Reichlin-Melnick wrote in a Twitter thread responding to Abbott’s order. “He is ordering Texas state police to seize the vehicles of any private citizens or contractors who transport migrants, something which is 100% legal. This is dangerous, dangerous stuff.” Reichlin-Melnick points out a claim in Abbott’s order that twists figures to indicate a massive number of migrants testing positive for COVID-19. While Abbott’s order claims a “900% increase” in migrants who’ve recently tested positive, Reichlin-Melnick says the number is actually 135 people.

”Abbott's lies about migrants can't stand,” he continues. “Let me once again tell you what the actual data shows! Migrants make up less than 1% of overall positive tests. Migrants who test positive nearly all quarantine. 90% of migrants are voluntarily getting vaccinated.”

Advocacy leaders in the state warn that this policy represents an open invitation to racially profile Texans who have already long been dealing with existing immigration checkpoints within the borderlands. “For an area like the Rio Grande Valley, where I think a lot of people already experienced kind of racial profiling from cops, and we have local law enforcement collaborating with Border Patrol, this is just gonna have a catastrophic impact,” La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) Advocacy Director Dani Marrero Hi told The Texas Tribune.

“Gov. Greg Abbott’s latest efforts to make Texas an anti-immigrant police state are yet another unconstitutional assault on civil rights targeting border communities,” American Civil Liberties Union of Texas staff attorney Kate Huddleston said in a statement received by Daily Kos. “The governor’s order will lead to racial profiling and over-policing—with state troopers pulling over cars and buses without lawful justification, profiling passengers, and questioning people about their immigration status.”

Huddleston notes Abbott’s “fiat continues a long, racist history of placing blame for the spread of disease onto immigrants and communities at the border.” It was just the other week that Sen. Ted Cruz pulled the same shit, falsely pinning the rise in cases in South Texas on migrants. Not on people who, say, traveled internationally to sip an icy drink at a resort with electricity and running water. “There is no reason for the governor to halt travel in the state of Texas other than to terrorize these communities and distract from his own leadership failures,” Huddleston continued.

Abbott has also begun arresting a number of migrants under the so-called emergency declaration that was actually rejected by a number of Rio Grande Valley counties for being completely unfounded. “Different day, same hateful and cynical scapegoating,” former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro tweeted. “@GregAbbott_TX is just priming his base to falsely blame undocumented immigrants for the surge in Covid we’re seeing in Texas instead of rightly blaming him for his craven, anti-science Covid response.”

How long is Greg Abbott going to continue exacerbating a public health crisis and blaming immigrants and recent asylum-seekers for it? For as long as he can get away with it—and it is terrifying to think what policy he may consider next. “Governor Abbott enshrines unscientific xenophobia into executive order, pushing the false narrative that migrants are spreading COVID, and appears to ban private citizens or contractors from transporting migrants, which is *flagrantly* illegal and unconstitutional,” Reichlin-Melnick said.

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Today's News:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued updated guidance on Tuesday recommending that vaccinated people wear masks in indoor, public settings if they are in parts of the U.S. with substantial to high transmission, among other circumstances. From a report: The guidance, a reversal from recommendations made two months ago, comes as the Delta variant continues to drive up case rates across the country. Millions of people in the U.S. -- either by choice or who are ineligible -- remain unvaccinated and at risk of serious infection. Community leaders in areas with high transmission rates should encourage vaccination and masking, the agency says. In another reversal, the CDC also recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students and visitors to K-12 schools this incoming school year, regardless of vaccination status. Los Angeles County, New Orleans, Savannah and Chicago are among the major metropolitan areas that reinstated mask mandates amid a rise in cases.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Have you noticed that people act like it's weird that the universe follows rules, but not that one apple and one apple equals two apples?

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Tech companies continue to be at the forefront of how employers respond to the pandemic.

As countless offices prepare to reopen this fall, there’s still a lot of uncertainty about the specifics, namely whether or not employees will need to be vaccinated. Tech companies are now some of the first employers to make their position clear: If workers want to return to the office, they will need to get a Covid-19 vaccine.

Google and Facebook — two of the largest tech companies in the world — announced on Wednesday that they will be requiring that all employees returning to their US offices get vaccinated. Google was the first to announce this at the beginning of the day, and Facebook followed suit a few hours later. The news comes as the US government struggles to get its adult population vaccinated (currently fewer than half of eligible Americans have received one vaccine dose), and cases across the nation are rising as the more contagious delta variant spreads. So far, President Biden has not placed a federal mandate on vaccines, which leaves it largely up to employers to exert pressure if they want their employees to avoid getting Covid-19.

Tech firms were some of the first workplaces to require employees to work from home at the beginning of the pandemic. Now, these same companies are some of the first major employers in the private sector to mandate that employees be vaccinated before they return. And other companies outside the tech industry are likely to follow.

“I hope these steps will give everyone greater peace of mind as offices reopen,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post announcing the requirements. Google is also pushing back the date when it will mandate employees to return to the office from September to October at the soonest, citing concerns about the delta variant. Google also is letting some 20 percent of its employees permanently work from home, and 60 percent work a few days a week in person.

Lori Goler, VP of People at Facebook, released a statement saying that any of the company’s employees working in a US office will need to be vaccinated. Both Google and Facebook said they will have a process for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons. “We continue to work with experts to ensure our return-to-office plans prioritize everyone’s health and safety,” wrote Goler in a partial statement.

Under federal law, it’s been considered legal for employers to require employees to be vaccinated. The courts have recently tossed out cases by people trying to sue hospitals and universities that have required vaccines.

Google and Facebook are also both headquartered in Silicon Valley, a geographic area with one of the highest vaccination rates in the country. But these companies are global firms that employ workers across the political and vaccine-hesitancy spectrum.

At Google, while most employees chiming in on company listservs have so far seemed supportive of the vaccine mandate, some employees have complained, questioning the effectiveness of the vaccines and whether Google has a right to require one, according to a source at the company.

Given how politicized vaccines have become in the US, where many conservative leaders have been slow to support vaccination and stoked vaccine skepticism, it’s likely there will be more resistance.

Nevertheless, these major tech companies are once again setting the tone for how corporate America adapts its working conditions to the realities of the ongoing pandemic.

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A tidal turbine weighing 680 metric tons and dubbed "the world's most powerful" has started grid-connected power generation at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, an archipelago located north of mainland Scotland. CNBC reports: In an announcement Wednesday, Scottish engineering firm Orbital Marine Power explained how its 2 megawatt O2 turbine had been anchored in a body of water called the Fall of Warness, with a subsea cable linking it to a local electricity network on land. It's expected that the turbine, which is 74 meters long, will "operate in the waters off Orkney for the next 15 years," the company said, and have "the capacity to meet the annual electricity demand of around 2,000 UK homes." The turbine is also set to send power to a land-based electrolyzer that will generate so-called green hydrogen. In a statement, Orbital Marine Power's CEO, Andrew Scott, described Wednesday's news as "a major milestone for the O2." Funding for the O2's construction has come from public lenders via Abundance Investment. The Scottish government has also provided £3.4 million (around $4.72 million) of support through its Saltire Tidal Energy Challenge Fund. Looking to the future, Orbital Marine Power said it was "setting its sights" on the commercialization of its tech via the deployment of multi-megawatt arrays.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While I’ve somehow managed to live as a white person for more than five decades without once feeling persecuted over the color of my skin, the 24/7 White Grievance Media sees an America (or, rather, a dwindling majority of very concerned white folks) under existential threat. In other words, it’s easy to sell grievance to conspiracy-primed racists who greedily swallow performative nonsense like a flock of deranged pelicans scarfing down perilously over-microwaved Hot Pockets.

It’s pretty easy to get on the TV these days if you’re sufficiently determined. I imagine if you called Tucker Carlson’s producers and told them you’re a white guy who was standing behind a Black guy in the doughnut queue at a Circle K and the Black dude took the last two crullers—even though you’d clearly remarked on how delicious they looked—there’s a decent chance Tucker would mention you at the top of his show.

Case in point: An apparent astroturf group that was dreamed up by a right-wing organization has been sending flyers to people in Dallas’ wealthy, predominantly white suburbs. The flyers demand that local parents keep their children out of Ivy League schools to make room for more students of color. The pseudo-organization, Dallas Justice Now, also threatened to publish the names of any parents who refused to sign the no-Ivy pledge.

It sounds too “good” to be true, right? Almost like it was purposely concocted to chafe the taint of drunk Uncle Steve, who hates the Ivy League eggheads in charge of so many of our leading institutions, but nevertheless wants said eggheads to remain a soothing shade of ecru.

And that’s exactly what happened.

The Dallas Observer:

Scant public information is available about Dallas Justice Now or its leadership. The group hasn’t replied to the Observer’s inquires, but the group’s website traces back to a right-wing PR firm called Arena. Online research also connects Arena to Keep Dallas Safe, an organization run by a confirmed astroturfer, suggesting there may be deeper connections between these efforts in terms of funders and strategy.

One of the local anti-fascists who combed through the website’s history told the Observer that they “noticed [Dallas Justice Now] had backdated blog posts from before their website was up, and so we started looking through their posts.” (The researcher requested to remain anonymous.)

It didn’t take long for the researchers to locate source code that led back to Arena in an archived version of Dallas Justice Now’s website. From there, they found a server that showed several similar testing sites, including one for Keep Dallas Safe.

Oh, damn. That’s sleazy, huh? Yes, what we really need in this country is more brave patriots willing to sluice napalm onto our country’s long-smoldering racial tire fire.

And there’s even more (alleged) dirt on this gaggle of (allegedly) smarmy astro-Smurfs (to see the unrolled version of the following thread from attorney Geoff Bowser, click here).

Bowser went hunting for the only person publicly associated with the group, Michele Washington.

Then Bowser went looking for more information about the group responsible for the flyers.

Uh oh!

Next, Bowser looked for previous media coverage of the group, and found a very unlikely “journalist.”

Bowser followed the trail to the website where Fairley published her “journalism.”

Needless to say, right-wing media latched onto this story like a pair of Putin-branded nipple clamps on Donald John Trump’s inglorious, special sauce-festooned bosoms. The story showed up on PJ Media, The Daily Mail, and Tucker Carlson Tonight, among other places, because fact-checking is for leftist cucks, apparently.

The right-wing machine wants white people to be very afraid. Very, very afraid … and angry.

Conservatives know how triggering it is for white people when people of color begin insinuating themselves into institutions that were once forbidden to them, and particularly when they demand equal access. There’s been one whole Black president, they lament, and there are even BIPOC superheroes now. Now they want to go to Ivy League colleges? Slow it down, folks. Maybe everyone else can get in after another generation of Kushners is done painting the hallowed halls of Harvard with Coors Light and crushing mediocrity.

Maybe.

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Just $12.96 for the pack of 4! Or if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

As Daily Kos continues to cover, anti-trans legislation popping up around the nation focuses on trans and nonbinary youth. Unsurprisingly, a lot of this discrimination would impact how students are treated at school; for example, the Republican effort to ban transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports teams. While some leaders are pushing hateful agendas, others are doing what they can to make schools a safer place for trans youth who are already more vulnerable to bullying, harassment, and violence than their cisgender peers. 

Virginia, for example, has new policies that will help protect trans students so they can attend school safely as themselves, including, for example, making sure that teachers and staff use the student’s name and pronouns, as well as having inclusive bathrooms and locker rooms available. This should be a good thing, but of course, far-right folks are not only against the new policies that protect vulnerable youth but are willing to protest over it, as reported by the Times News. 

“We can’t discriminate against my little girl and say we’re providing more freedoms for somebody else,” said Jony Baker, an organizer of one Stand Up Virginia rally in Wise County, Virginia. Baker, who works at the local sheriff’s office, said her daughter attends public school in the state and suggested that trans-inclusive policies will remove God from school. 

Baker told about 100 people who attended the protest that she didn’t want her daughter having her mind “corrupted,” and added, “We love our guns. We love our God, we love our Constitution, we love those kids.”

Mind you, of course, giving rights and protections to trans youth—and trans folks in general—hurts no one. It takes rights away from no one else. Cisgender girls and boys will still have all of the same rights and protections. 

But Baker wasn’t the only person to express herself at the rally, which was held outside of the Wise County school board's central office (which was closed at the time as it was after business hours). 

“Homosexuality is a special kind of sin,” said Huey Ellis, who has a child and nephews attending a school in the county. “If I have to, I will take my children out of school and teach them myself.”

Also in the state of Virginia on Tuesday, Circuit Court Judge Fred Watson dismissed a challenge to the Virginia Department of Education, as covered by local outlet WFXR. The Christian Action Network sued to stop trans-inclusive model policies from going into effect, such as requiring teachers to use a student’s name (instead of their name given at birth, or “dead” name) and pronouns. Watson argued that the plaintiffs simply don’t have standing and that one can’t claim they suffered damages related to the trans-inclusive policies that haven’t actually been implemented yet.  

As of now, Stand Up Virginia has another protest planned for Thursday. 

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Google is postponing a return to the office for most workers until mid-October and rolling out a policy that will eventually require everyone to be vaccinated once its sprawling campuses are fully reopened. The Associated Press reports: The announcement Wednesday came as the more highly contagious delta variant is driving a dramatic spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. In an email sent to Google's more than 130,000 employees worldwide, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is now aiming to have most of its workforce back to its offices beginning Oct. 18 instead of its previous target date of Sept. 1. The decision also affects tens of thousands of contractors who Google intends to continue to pay while access to its campuses remains limited. "This extension will allow us time to ramp back into work while providing flexibility for those who need it," Pichai wrote. And Pichai disclosed that once offices are fully reopened, everyone working there will have to be vaccinated. The requirement will be first imposed at Google's Mountain View, California, headquarters and other U.S. offices, before being extended to the more than 40 other countries where the Google operates. Google's vaccine mandate will be adjusted to adhere to the laws and regulations of each location, Pichai wrote, and exceptions will be made for medical and other "protected" reasons. "Getting vaccinated is one of the most important ways to keep ourselves and our communities healthy in the months ahead," Pichai explained.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fortunately, he and his administration were terrible at creating durable policy.

Despite endless evidence depicting the reality of the Jan 6. Capitol insurrection, some Republican officials continue to play dumb and ignore the violence that occurred. In the most recent incident of Republicans failing to accept reality, Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde not only described rioters storming through the Capitol on Jan. 6 as a “normal tourist visit,” but defended his description when questioned about it during a House Rules Committee meeting on Tuesday.

Clyde defended his comments after Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the select panel, called him out after four police officers appeared before the select committee to offer their testimony of the chaos, violence, and destruction that occurred on Jan 6. “Do you stand by your statement that they were tourists?” Raskin asked Clyde.

Clyde then refused to answer the question, claiming that Raskin had read an “interpretation" of his statement and not the statement itself. However, Raskin didn’t come without the receipts. He read Clyde’s statement in full.

“Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes, taking videos and pictures. You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit,” Clyde’s statement said.

“Those are your words,” Raskin continued. After being called out for his words, Clyde— who could have easily apologized for his ignorance and belittling of the violent experience many face— defended his statement. 

“And I stand by that exact statement, as I said it,” Clyde said.

But Clyde’s statements comparing rioters to tourists isn’t the only problematic thing the congressman defended. Clyde also defended his vote against honoring the Capitol Police and D.C. Police officers who risked their lives defending the Capitol by awarding them medals.

The heated exchange follows the officers’ testimonies heard earlier in the day by the select committee. During the hearing, several lawmakers asked the officers to make comparisons between the rioters and normal tourists visiting the Capitol. 

As he recalled his experience defending the Capitol, one officer, Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges, repeatedly referred to the rioters as “terrorists.” When asked why he used this specific term, Hodges read directly from the U.S. code for domestic terrorism to justify why he called the Capitol rioters "terrorists."

Before calling out Clyde for comparing the rioters to tourists, Raskin asked Clyde if he had watched that morning’s hearing. 

Clyde at first attempted to dodge the question, saying that “It’s absolutely irrelevant to this amendment right here.” But Raskin continued to push him, arguing that Clyde “refuses to say whether or not he heard the Capitol officers who risked their lives and have experienced traumatic medical injuries.”

After quoting Clyde’s statement and having him confirm that he still stood by what he said, Raskin addressed the dangers of calling a “medieval mob” a group of “tourists.”

“I spent several hours today, with millions of Americans, watching sworn police officers testify about their battle to defend our lives, the members of the House and the senators. And they took issue, not with, let's put your statement aside, because you think that you've been misinterpreted by people, but they're taking issue with an internet meme that the people here were just tourists, it was a normal day, and they were saying they weren't tourists. They were terrorists," Raskin said. Raskin added that “lots of people online believed your statement that it was a normal tourist visit.”

But despite the fact that Raskin read his statement aloud word for word and Clyde accepted it as the truth, Clyde was unable to handle the consequences of his words and grew angry, claiming Raskin was misquoting him. He alleged he never called those who breached the Capitol “tourists.”

“That is not my statement!” Clyde said. “I’m not responsible for an internet meme, okay?” Clyde continued. He then claimed that Raskin was attempting to make the meeting “another January 6th hearing.”

While Clyde didn’t confirm whether or not he saw the hearing, it’s no surprise many Republican lawmakers didn’t tune in. It’s been months since the violent Capitol insurrection, yet many GOP officials fail to acknowledge the role they played in the event (and continue to play) by downplaying its reality. They need to be held accountable, just like those who stormed the Capitol itself.

Some remote workers would do anything to burn their sweatpants and get back to cubicle life. Aaron Batilo is not one of them. The Denver-based software engineer is the Roger Federer of working from home: He’s gone commute-less for several years now, “way before it was the cool thing to do,” he told me.

The remote-work revolution was supposed to bring Colorado a lot more Aaron Batilos. If you’ve been aching to leave the West Coast, the state can sound like downright paradise: the best hiking you’ll find basically anywhere! An actual home—not some creepy underwater lot—for less than $1 million! And yes, legal weed! There’s just one problem. Squint at the fine print on remote-job listings lately and you might see something like this, for a senior sales manager at Samsung: “This role can be performed remotely anywhere in the United States with the exception of Colorado.” Or like this, for a job at Johnson & Johnson: “Work location is flexible if approved by the Company except that the position may not be performed remotely from Colorado.”

An obscure Colorado labor law that passed in 2019 and went into effect earlier this year requires that all companies in the state include salary details in job postings. The idea is that when would-be employees, especially women and people of color, know how much an employer can offer, they won’t lowball themselves when negotiating their salary. Sounds straightforward enough, but a chunk of companies are doing everything they possibly can to avoid the mandate. When Batilo got wind of what was going on, in late May, he did what any remote-work-loving tech nerd would do: He made a crowdsourced website with all the jobs shutting out Coloradans. Head over to coloradoexcluded.com and you’ll find more than 400 job listings with these Colorado carve-outs—from mega-companies such as Nike, Cigna, and Oracle; nonprofits such as PETA; and … whatever exactly Marsh McLennan is. The site isn’t exhaustive. I went on the job board Indeed and searched for all listings that included the phrase except Colorado. I got 700 hits.

[Read: What bosses really think of remote workers]

What was supposed to be a transformative step toward gender equality is running into corporate America’s very best evasion tactics. “Companies are absolutely scared of this law,” says Paige Ouimet, a finance professor at the University of North Carolina’s business school. Corporations that have no problem shelling out for consultants to teach their employees about microaggressions and intersectionality aren’t willing to take a step that’s been shown to actually narrow the gender pay gap: telling applicants what jobs pay.

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When I first heard about what was going on in Colorado, I reached out to one of the bill’s sponsors, State Senator Jessie Danielson. Had she seen this coming? The Equal Pay for Equal Work Act was signed into law in May 2019—the good ol’ days before remote work blew up—so I expected the Denver-area Democrat to say what politicians usually say when a law isn’t working as planned: We need to make some changes. Not so! “This is simple and straightforward,” she told me. “What these companies are doing is shameful. These bad-actor companies are working very, very hard to continue to underpay women.” When we talked, she called the companies behind these job listings “bad actors” no fewer than six times.

Danielson was fuming for a reason. The bill she helped shepherd into law is one of the most sweeping and ambitious answers to the gender pay gap that’s been passed by any state. And that’s in Colorado, which is historically not quite known for being at the vanguard of progressivism. “I’ve been working on this issue for a long time, and the salary-range requirement is a real game changer,” says Kate Nielson, the senior director of public policy at the American Association of University Women. To get a sense of what making salary ranges public can achieve, take a look at the largest employer in the United States: The federal government has to disclose salaries to job applicants, and sure enough, women on staff earn 93 cents for every dollar earned by a man. For the rest of us private-sector schlubs, it’s a more troubling 84 cents for every dollar.

[Read: The Colorado paradox]

Most companies don’t seem to be sliding in Colorado carve-outs before blasting job openings into the world. Scott Moss, a lawyer at the Colorado Department of Labor, recently ran an analysis and found that just 1 percent of all remote-job listings are blackballing Coloradans. So far, the department he runs, the Division of Labor and Statistics, has let 24 companies know that they have violated the law, and all of them have tweaked their job listings. These businesses might not be doing something nefarious, but rather are just pumping the brakes while they figure out what the deal is with this new law. Or at least that would make sense for the smaller, Dunder Mifflin–type companies out there. “But for big firms? They can comply,” Ouimet told me. “They’re choosing not to.”

I reached out to 10 companies with Colorado carve-outs. Just three would comment. Drizly said it had “exceeded the requirements of the mandates” by releasing two versions of each remote job: one with salary ranges for Colorado workers, and one without them for everyone else. PETA could not explain how the language had ended up in its job listings. And Airbnb said that “the language was included in error,” and it’s been wiped from all job postings.

What exactly are these companies scared of? Let’s say Sophia in Boulder applies to a job at BigCorp that has wage info in the listing. Sophia nails her interview and gets the job. Since she already knows the salary range, she has a cheat code for negotiating her pay, ensuring that she won’t ask for the very bottom of—or even below—what BigCorp can pay. That’s great news for Sophia. But BigCorp has a problem. “This comes at a clear cost to firms: You can’t tell the men they need to take a 20 percent pay cut,” Ouimet said. “The only recourse is to raise women’s wages.”

[Read: One way to ensure equal pay for men and women]

Especially now that companies have to put some extra effort into finding and retaining workers, releasing pay information is an invitation to your competitors to poach your staff with more money, says Emily Hobbs, an employment lawyer with Michael Best in Denver. The Rocky Mountain Association of Recruiters, a trade group, sued to block the law, alleging that since salary ranges are “confidential” and “trade secret,” the regulation violates the First Amendment. The group did not respond to my requests for comment, but a judge struck down the case last month.

The delinquent companies can’t keep this up forever. At some point—maybe in the next few months, maybe later—they’ll realize that they don’t actually have a choice in whether to push forward with Colorado carve-outs. What happens if the holy grail of job candidates sneaks into the applicant pool but lives in Fort Collins? If a particularly essential remote worker in Texas needs to move to Colorado to care for an ailing parent, is the company going to just fire them outright? Earlier this month, Moss tried to clear things up by telling employers that if they have even a single worker in Colorado, these carve-outs are indeed illegal.

A weird side effect of the remote-work boom is that the state-led push for equal pay may soon rejigger corporate practices nationwide. You might be able to skirt the Colorado law, but watch out if you have workers in Rhode Island or Connecticut: Since June, both states have passed their own wage-transparency laws. New York is considering a similar bill. And if and when giant, liberal California joins the club, it’s game over for these companies. The same phenomenon has essentially played out with California and car-emissions standards: California’s rules have become the nation’s rules.

[Read: What gender-pay statistics aren’t capturing]

For now, though, all of the attempts to circumnavigate a trailblazing gender-parity law are a sign that maybe companies aren’t as progressive as they claim. “What we’re seeing is that younger workers are really demanding that their employers prioritize equity,” Ouimet said. Johnson & Johnson funds an award to boost the ranks of women in STEM. Nike has an ad that asks questions such as, “Can you be the generation that ends gender inequality?” (Seriously.) But what are they up to when their workers aren’t looking?

Maybe Nike’s next senior diversity recruiter can help with that—but, well, just don’t think about applying if you live in Colorado.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The official World of Warcraft Twitter account has announced that it will take immediate action to "remove references that are not appropriate for [its] world." While it didn't elaborate on what those references are, they may pertain to in-game elements connected to its senior creative director Alex Afrasiabi, as Kotaku has noted. Afrasiabi was singled out in the lawsuit filed by California authorities accusing Activision Blizzard of fostering a "frat boy" culture that's become a "breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women." According to the lawsuit, Afrasiabi is known for hitting on and touching female employees inappropriately in plain view of other male employees who would try to intervene and stop him. He apparently has such a notorious reputation within the company that his suite was nicknamed the "Crosby Suite after alleged rapist Bill Crosby."(The lawsuit has misspelled Bill Cosby's name.) In addition, executives allegedly knew about his behavior but "took no effective remedial measures." Blizzard President J. Allen Brack talked to him a few times, the lawsuit reads, but gave Afiasiabi a slap on the wrist for the incidents. In response to the lawsuit and the company's "abhorrent and insulting" response to the accusations, some 800+ Activision Blizzard employees are staging a walkout on Wednesday, July 28th. You can read the full message from the Warcraft team here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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President Joe Biden said Tuesday that a Covid vaccine mandate for all federal employees is “under consideration right now.”

“If you’re not vaccinated, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were,” Biden told reporters at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where he addressed the intelligence community in the afternoon.

Prior to Biden’s announcement, White House officials told labor groups they were prepping guidelines on vaccine requirements and strict Covid testing for federal workers and expected to announce them later this week, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

“They’re preparing for it,” said one of the sources.

The discussions, which took place between administration officials and leaders of both public sector and private sector unions, prompted behind-the-scenes pushback from labor leaders who raised concerns about compulsory vaccination and fear that they’d get backlash from their union members.

Several White House officials on Tuesday insisted no final decision had been made.

“While no decision has been finalized, attestation of vaccination, which means confirming vaccination status or abiding by stringent COVID-19 protocols like mandatory mask wearing — even in communities not with high or substantial spread — and regular testing, for federal employees is one option under strong consideration,” a source with direct knowledge of the matter said. “The White House is expected to share more details after completing policy review later this week.”

Serious discussions about vaccination requirements for federal employees have been underway since the weekend, when White House and agency officials talked about an agency-by-agency approach to compel vaccination.

The federal government is the nation’s largest employer and a blanket mandate could affect at least 4 million federal employees, a number that includes civilian workers and members of both the U.S. military and the U.S. Postal Service. It’s unclear whether such a requirement would apply to members of the military. The Pentagon has been heavily debating whether to require troops to get vaccinated, or to implement alternative measures such as requiring weekly Covid tests, according to a defense official familiar with the discussions. No final decisions have been made yet.

“There has been no change to our use of the vaccine as a voluntary measure of protection,” said John Kirby, chief Pentagon spokesperson. “We continue to urge everyone in the Department to get vaccinated.”

While a measure requiring federal workers to get vaccinated or submit to more aggressive Covid testing would have to come from Biden himself, in practice it would likely be channeled through the Office of Personnel Management, an independent agency that manages civil servants, two people familiar said.

An alternative to a government-wide approach, officials said, would be requirements instituted on an agency-by-agency basis. Even within health agencies, officials would be less likely to require vaccines for people who do not interact with patients or other vulnerable populations, said one senior administration official.

However, Biden officials privately applauded the Department of Veteran Affairs’ decision on Monday to require vaccination among its health care workers like physicians, dentists, nurses, physician assistants and other frontline medical staff at its facilities across the country. The VA employees have eight weeks to be fully vaccinated.

Most Congressional Republicans have also held fire for now on the VA move, with some supporting it.

“VA already mandates vaccines for federal employees,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a doctor himself, said Tuesday before reports of broader federal requirements. “Health care facilities typically mandate flu immunization, and for those who don’t take it, certain restrictions... so if they add the coronavirus [vaccine] too, it will frankly be part of just what they normally do.”

“You don’t want people who are sick to be exposed to a health care worker who may have an infection which is vaccine-preventable.”

In addition to Biden's comments, on Monday, New York City announced municipal employees had to get vaccinated or face weekly Covid testing. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said all state employees and health care workers had to get the shots, or would also be subject to frequent testing.

Later Monday night, Justice Department lawyers said that federal law doesn’t stop private businesses or public agencies from mandating Covid vaccines, paving the way for more businesses to require the shots for U.S. workers as Delta fuels a summer surge. The opinion from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, dated July 6, comes roughly two months after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released guidance saying U.S. employers could require all employees physically entering an office space to get the vaccine.

Biden was also questioned Tuesday about whether the CDC’s latest mask guidance is confusing for Americans. He dodged with his common refrain that this is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

“If those other 100 million people got vaccinated, we'd be in a very different world,” Biden said. “So get vaccinated.”

Tuesday’s updated guidance, in which the CDC recommended that all children wear masks in schools this fall, has already made way for yet another partisan pandemic battle. Former President Donald Trump released a statement Tuesday night, saying that “we won’t go back.”

“We won’t mask our children. Joe Biden and his Administration learned nothing from the last year,” Trump said. “Brave Americans learned how to safely and responsibly live and fight back. Don’t surrender to COVID. Don’t go back! Why do Democrats distrust the science? Don’t let this happen to our children or our Country.”

Lara Seligman, Chris Cadelago and Erin Banco contributed to this report.

A Wisconsin police chief has come to the defense of one of his officers, who was the subject of viral video that showed the officer throwing a plastic bag into the back of a car he pulled over on Wednesday. In the video, which was discovered by CBS 58, a passenger in the car can be heard saying: "Hey bro, what's that?" The officer, who hasn't been named publicly, responded with: "What's what?" In the exchange that played out in less than 20 seconds, the passenger questioning the officer said he saw the cop throw the bag into the car and was recording. "I got you on camera bro," the passenger said. The officer responded with: "I got you on camera, we're all good."

Caledonia Police Chief Christopher Botsch said in a statement released on Saturday that in conducting an internal review of the incident, additional footage from the body cameras of officers on the scene revealed the officer “is NOT planting evidence or doing anything illegal.”

Botsch said in the statement:

“On 07-21-21 at about 3:22pm, officers conducted a traffic stop for a vehicle traveling 63 mph in a 45 mph zone.  The vehicle was occupied by a driver along with front and rear passengers.  The driver was identified by her driver’s license.  The front passenger lawfully declined to identify himself.  The rear passengers were not wearing their seat-belts and were asked to identify themselves.

The driver and rear passengers were later removed from the vehicle.  A subsequent search of one of the rear passengers produced an empty corner tear (corner of a plastic baggie) from a passenger’s pocket.  The empty corner tear did NOT contain any illegal substance; however, this type of packaging is a common method for holding illegal drugs.

The empty corner tear was turned over by the searching officer to another officer who was on scene.  That officer turned it over to the officer who is seen on video.  Since there were NO DRUGS in the corner tear, the officers discarded the empty packaging material in the vehicle.  This is what was observed in the video.

The front seat passenger tells the officer that his actions are on video, and the officer replies that he is also recording the incident.  The officer acknowledges to the front seat passenger that he (officer) put the item there and explains that it was taken from one of the passengers and the officer did not want to “hold on to it.”  Essentially, he appears to be discarding the empty baggie.  While we would discourage officers from discarding items into a citizen’s vehicle, the video is clear that the officer is NOT planting evidence or doing anything illegal.  Additionally, the empty corner tear is not itself illegal.

No arrests were made as a result of this incident.   The only arrest/citation arising from this incident was a speeding citation issued to the driver.

While this is only a summary of the events, the origin of the empty corner tear and the circumstances under which it was placed in the vehicle are supported by body worn camera video.

Attached are two video clips (see comments for second video).

There are two separate clips because they are from different officer’s body worn cameras.

Since four officers were present on scene, the body worn camera footage and squad camera footage totals in excess of 6 hours of video.    We are still in the process of reviewing the videos.  All videos, in their entirety, will be released in the very near future.”

In an earlier statement, the police chief asked the public to “please be patient” and said “there is a lot of information to review.” It’s a difficult ask in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder captured on video, which was for many an eye-opening look into how police officers savagely treat people of color.

The responses to the Caledonia police chief’s video are beyond telling of how much distrust there is in communities throughout the country regarding police. "What was the probable cause for them being searched in the first place?” Facebook user Lena Williams asked in the comments of the police chief’s Facebook post. “You don’t search someone’s car because they’re speeding!!! This video is some bs and the statement made! Show the alleged 6 hours of footage, we got time!!!!” Jessica Carter, a white Facebook user, wrote: "I got pulled over for speeding, the passenger nor myself were never asked to exit the vehicle to be searched."

Justin Davis, another Facebook user, wrote: "If you pulled the baggie off the dude he wouldn't have thrown it back in the car it would be on the cops hood as evidence. Clearly a dirty department."

Early cell phone footage of the Caledonia incident:

Botsch’s initial statement in full:

“Earlier today, the Caledonia Police Department was made aware of a cell phone video that is circulating social media platforms depicting the actions of a Caledonia police officer.  We were able to locate the call for service associated with the cell phone video.  The Caledonia Police Department is conducting a comprehensive internal review of the incident.    

All officers assigned to patrol duties are equipped with body worn cameras, and preliminary information indicates the officers on scene of this incident all had their body worn cameras activated.   In addition, marked Caledonia police patrol vehicles are equipped with dashboard mounted cameras.  As part of the internal investigation, we will be reviewing those videos.  We will also need to gather information from all officers who were present.

The complete review will take some time, but I have reviewed portions of the body worn camera video.  Please keep in mind that the cell phone video that is circulating depicts only a small portion of the entire encounter; whereas, all available video may provide more context.  

The Caledonia Police Department believes strongly in transparency; therefore, all body worn camera video will be made available within the coming days.  

Please be patient, as there is a lot of information to review.  Please know that we are taking this matter very seriously.  

Christopher Botsch

Chief of Police”

f-friends?

Now, the effort to discredit them will begin.

The inaugural hearing of the congressional investigation into Jan. 6 kicked off with a palpable display of anguish from four officers who worked to hold the line that day as pro-Trump supporters sought to storm the Capitol and overthrow the U.S. government. 

"Terrorists" was the word several officers invoked to describe the perpetrators of the Jan. 6 insurrection, and the four officers left no doubt about who incited them to action: Donald Trump. "All of them—all of them were telling us Trump sent us," testified Sgt. Aquilino Gonell of the U.S. Capitol Police. "Nobody else—there was nobody else. It was not antifa, it was not Black Lives Matter, it was not the FBI. It was his supporters that he sent them over to the Capitol that day."

The vivid testimony left no doubt about the violence the pro-Trump terrorists unleashed on the U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police forces laboring to defend the Capitol complex that day. "What we were subjected to that day was like something from a medieval battle. We fought hand to hand, inch by inch, to prevent an invasion of the Capitol," recounted Sgt. Gonell. 

"I vividly heard officers screaming in agony, in pain, just an arm's length from me," Gonell said, noting that some of those cries were coming from MPD officer Daniel Hodges, who was wedged in a doorway by attackers in video that later went viral. "I too was being crushed by the rioters," Gonell continued, "I could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself, 'This is how I'm gonna die.'"

Officer Hodges recalled wrestling with a rioter for control of his baton. "I retained my weapon," he said. "After I pushed him back, he yelled at me, 'You're on the wrong team!'... Another [shouted], 'You will die on your knees!'"

The harrowing testimony also made crystal clear that none of what unfolded on Jan. 6 is over for these officers. The weight of hearing each others' testimony appeared to bear down on the officers as they listened to their colleagues’ dramatic accounts. But they not only bear the scars of the violence itself, they also continue to be traumatized by the efforts of GOP lawmakers to gaslight the horrific event out of the nation's conscience.

"What makes the struggle harder and more painful is to know so many of my fellow citizens, including so many of the people I put my life at risk to defend, are downplaying or outright denying what happened," explained MPD Officer Michael Fanone, a self-identified Republican who has become an outspoken critic of those trying to whitewash the actions of the mob. "I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room, but too many are now telling me that hell doesn't exist or that hell actually wasn't that bad."

"The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful!" Fanone continued, angrily slamming his fist to the desk in one of the most powerful passages during the opening statements. Fanone said his law enforcement training had prepared him to deal with some aspects of the siege and its aftermath. "But nothing—truly nothing—has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day, and in doing so, betray their oath of office," he added.  

Fanone later, without explicitly identifying parties, called the members of government who helped incite the riot and then later tried to whitewash the events "representative of the worst that America has to offer."

Capitol Police Pfc. Harry Dunn told the committee he has sought therapy and continues to struggle with emotional scars left by the assault, which became racially charged for him as a Black member of law enforcement. "January 6 isn't over for me," he said bluntly.

At one point, Dunn described the terrorists turning on him after they asserted that "nobody" had voted for Joe Biden. Despite the fact that Dunn said he usually tries to keep politics out of his job, he challenged the assertion. "Well, I voted for Joe Biden," he offered. "Does my vote not count, am I 'nobody?'"

That triggered what Dunn described as a "torrent" of racially offensive epithets.

"You hear that guys, this n***** voted for Joe Biden," one rioter said. "Boooo! Fucking n****!" they screamed, recalled Dunn. "No one had ever, ever, called me a n***** while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police Officer," Dunn added.

Dunn joined the other officers in urging the panel to "get to the bottom" of what happened on Jan. 6. "If a hitman is hired, and he kills somebody, the hitman goes to the jail," he told the committee. "But not only does the hitman go to jail, but the person who hired them does. There was an attack carried out on January 6 and a hit man sent them. I want you to get to the bottom of that."

While the officers' gripping personal accounts figured most prominently on the day, another notable feature of the hearing was the two Republican members of the committee performing their congressional duties like duty-bound, reality-based individuals. "If those responsible are not held accountable, and if Congress does not act responsibly, this will remain a cancer on our constitutional republic, undermining the peaceful transfer of power at the heart of our democracy system," GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming offered during her opening statement as the hearing began.

The other Republican member of the panel, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, expressed his deep gratitude to the officers in a rare show of emotion. While they may “individually feel a little broken," Kinzinger said, choking up, "You guys won, you guys held. Democracies are not defined by our bad days," he continued, "We're defined by how we come back from bad days—how we take accountability for that."

Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida also extended her deep gratitude to the officers. She recounted being trapped in a small basement office with another Democratic member, Rep. Kathleen Rice of New York, only 40 feet away from where Gonell and Hodges were working with other officers to hold back the mob. They could hear it all.

"I listened to you struggle. I listened to you yelling out to one another. I listened to you care for one another," Murphy said. "I'm telling you, you were our last line of defense," she added.

Murphy said their efforts afforded both congresswomen the chance to escape to safety down another hallway. "I think it's important for everybody, though, to remember that the main reason rioters didn't harm any members of Congress was because they didn't encounter any members of Congress," Murphy said. "I have a ten-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter, and they're the light of my life," she offered on a more personal note. "And the reason I was able to hug them again was because of the courage that you and your fellow officers showed that day, and so just a really heartfelt thank you."

The first hearing of the select committee to investigate Jan. 6 provided a compelling, sometimes excruciating window into the events of that day and its aftermath as experienced by some of the heroic officers who managed to keep lawmakers safe at great cost to themselves. The notable absence of any delusional GOP flamethrowers was a welcome reprieve from the way House Republicans have disgraced nearly every other proceeding over at least the last handful of years.

The nation owes these women and men in uniform a profound debt of gratitude for protecting our democracy against the fascist insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol. Four of those officers were able to speak for themselves today—to tell their stories—without the insulting distractions of GOP lawmakers seeking to score political points with Donald Trump. That uninterrupted testimony was made possible by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who blocked GOP attempts to inject the hearing with their usual brand of delusional insolence. Pelosi undoubtedly made the right call by the officers, the congressional members they solemnly worked to defend, and the nation as a whole. 

Below is taste of the day’s hearing.

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has given Congress a deadline on raising the debt ceiling: Oct. 1, the same day that the government could potentially shut down if a funding bill for the next fiscal year hasn't been passed. The House is scheduled to be out starting end of day this Friday, not returning until Monday, Sept. 19. The Senate is also scheduled as of now for nearly a full August recess, out Aug. 9 through Sept. 10. A few weeks ago Majority Leader Chuck Schumer threatened recess could be cut short without progress toward infrastructure deals, both on the bipartisan plan and the budget reconciliation from Democrats.

Well, that doesn't seem likely to happen this week. It conceivably could, but that would require Republicans actually wanting to make a deal. Thus far, they've shown pretty much no evidence of that. On Monday, Schumer reiterated that threat: "Senators should be on notice the Senate may stay in session through the weekend to finish the bipartisan infrastructure bill. […] Further delays may mean the Senate will remain in session into the previously scheduled August recess."

Which means not only is it once again infrastructure week, but we're winding our way to government shutdown/debt ceiling breach threat season, otherwise known as September through Dec. 24. Of any year. With the debt ceiling as a hostage, Senate Republicans are probably not going to make government funding a huge fight in September—they can agree to a continuing resolution that expires in a few weeks or few months, and postpone that fight until later. The debt ceiling, however--that's the issue Sen. Mitch McConnell has considered "hostage" since August 2011.

He recognized it as such two years ago, when he wasn't the one threatening the kidnapping. In 2019, congressional leadership—including McConnell—took that hostage away from the previous president for the duration of his presidency, which was semi-rational. After all, putting a weapon as dangerous for the global economy as that in his hands was a questionable strategy. The problem was, they knowingly made it expire smack dab in the middle of the new president's first year in office, handing McConnell a future hostage for a possible, if not probable, Democratic president.

Here's how the U.S Treasury described a debt default back in 2011, when McConnell was playing terrorist: "If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, the government would default on its legal obligations—an event unprecedented in American history. This would cause investors here and around the world to doubt, for the first time, whether the United States will meet its commitments. That would precipitate a self-inflicted financial crisis potentially more severe than the one from which we are now recovering." That would mean the government "would have to stop, limit, or delay payments on a broad range of legal obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt, tax refunds, and many other commitments."

So it's kind of a big deal. One that should probably be handled promptly. "If Congress has not acted to suspend or increase the debt limit by Monday, August 2, 2021, Treasury will need to start taking certain additional extraordinary measures in order to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations," Yellen told congressional leaders in her letter last week. "For example, on October 1 alone, cash and extraordinary measures are expected to decrease by about $150 billion due to large mandatory payments, including a Department of Defense-related retirement and healthcare investment," Yellen said.

Then there's that whole saving democracy from the Republicans thing that Senate Democrats in particular need to take care of right away, preferably before state Republicans legislatures start gerrymandering their House colleagues out of existence.  

Of course, a very large chunk of the nation is literally on fire right now, as well, with half of the nation breathing in the smoke.

It would also make sense right about now for Senate Democrats to get serious about passing legislation both to combat this fire season and start the work of combatting climate change so that this is not the nation's normal forever.

In a few words, it would be a very good time to cancel recess.

This is not the most effective public health message. But it's what millions of us are feeling.