Worked Over Something Awful

America, where pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is a bit difficult due to all the sharp bootstrap-cutting objects lying in your path.

A Tupelo woman hired earlier this month by a KFC was fired Monday after the franchise owner discovered she’s homeless.

Eunice Jasica has been staying at the Salvation Army lodge since early December after losing her job, her car and her home.

The nonprofit organization requires its residents to seek employment daily and, upon finding it, to pay for lodging and start saving for a place of their own. Jasica said she had been job hunting for months and was relieved to find work on March 11 at the KFC on North Gloster Street.

A document signed by that location’s general manager on March 12 confirms Jasica had been hired to perform “prep work” and would receive a paycheck every two weeks.

But when Jasica reported for duty Monday, franchise owner Chesley Ruff withdrew the job offer upon learning she lived at the Salvation Army.

“He told me to come back when I had an address and transportation,” Jasica recalled. “But how am I supposed to get all that without a job?”

Firing someone you hired because they don’t have a place to live when the entire reason they took the job was to be able to afford a place to live, and you don’t pay enough to afford a place to live?  I’m betting Chesley Ruff is a lifelong Republican.

Luckily, this story now has a better ending.

A woman fired from a KFC in Tupelo for being homeless has found a new job and an outpouring of support.

Eunice Jasica was tentatively hired Tuesday by On Time Transportation to shuttle Medicaid and Medicare patients to and from doctors’ appointments. She still must complete the final stages of her application process but should be on the job by early April, said the company’s office manager, Yolanda Baskin.

The much larger problem is America is largely designed to keep poor people poor, and ridiculously rich people ridiculously rich.

Respect Given, Respect Earned

I've had my problems with Chris Hayes in the past, but I am reminded by Ann Friedman at the Columbia Journalism Review (as Hayes moves forward to MSNBC's prime time 8 PM weekday slot next month) that the objective data from his year plus on his weekend morning show demonstrates his commitment to diversity when so many weekend show pundits and panelists are white men.

But earlier this month, after MSNBC announced it was giving Chris Hayes his own daily primetime news show, Media Matters published a chart that showed how his weekend show, Up with Chris Hayes, differed from its cable-news competitors: It wasn’t all white dudes. Specifically, 57 percent of the show’s guests were not white men. (Full disclosure: I have, in the past, been one of the non-dudes featured on said program.) To hear lots of journalists tell it, this is an impossible feat. So I called up Hayes to ask how he and his team created a shining oasis of diversity in a cable-news desert of sameness.

“We just would look at the board and say, ‘We already have too many white men. We can’t have more.’ Really, that was it,” Hayes says. “Always, constantly just counting. Monitoring the diversity of the guests along gender lines, and along race and ethnicity lines.” Out of four panelists on every show, he and his booking producers ensured that at least two were women. “A general rule is if there are four people sitting at table, only two of them can be white men,” he says. “Often it would be less than that.”

If they did end up booking a show that featured a majority of white men, they’d call it “taking a gender hit.” Hayes explains, “and then we’d be like, well, we have to make up for that either in the second half of the show or on the Sunday show.”

In other words: quotas. Hard quotas.

“The editorial decisions, the content we decided to pursue, also dovetailed with that,” he continues. “We had three Iraqis join us when we talked about the 10-year anniversary of the war. We did a full show about feminism. And so, part of it is that we weren’t talking about the Ryan budget every week. Often we were discussing topics on which there was a natural affinity between people of backgrounds different than the standard one that is often presented on television.”

And while some of his guests are maddeningly obnoxious, at least they tend to be outnumbered rather than making up the majority.  That's a huge deal, and considering the ratio of white men to everyone else on other weekend punditry roundups tends to be 2 to 1, the opposite is true on Up With Chris Hayes.

Here's hoping that tradition continues on his new show, All In...but my question is where's the praise for Melissa-Harris Perry?

StupidiNews, Easter Weekend Edition!

• Some 17 people are confirmed dead and dozens more trapped after the collapse of a 16-story building under construction in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
• A new study by the CDC has once again found no link between vaccinations and autism.
• Former South African president and international civil rights icon Nelson Mandela is "in good spirits" in a Johannesburg hospital, being treated for a lung infection.
• A US federal judge has dismissed a large portion of the lawsuits against major banks over manipulation of the world benchmark Libor interest rate.
• Swiss adventurer Andre Borschberg plans a flight tour across the US in his solar-powered plane beginning May 1.

Last Call

The Big Apple has just approved a citywide ordinance that will give paid sick days to thousands who don't get them...that is if companies decide 14 is a great number, and the real issue is mayoral candidate and current NYC City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's reaction.

The mandate will take effect on April 1, 2014, and will extend to include businesses with 15 or more employees a year later, under the accord, which was confirmed by Robin Levine, a City Council spokeswoman. It will also require all employers in the city to provide unpaid sick leave starting in 2014.

“The final outcome leaves out over 300,000 New Yorkers,” said city Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, a rival to Council Speaker Christine Quinn among five Democrats running for the party’s mayoral nomination. She had previously blocked efforts to bring such a proposal, backed by 38 of the 51 council members, to a vote.

The law, if adopted, will mean workers won’t have to fear losing a job because of illness. It will affect 1 million New Yorkers by 2015. A similar measure has won approval in Portland, Oregon, while others are pending in Massachusetts, Vermont and Washington state.

Quinn for three years resisted calls from a majority of the council to permit a vote on a bill that would have covered employers with five or more workers, saying it would impose too great a burden on small businesses while the unemployment rate remained at more than 9 percent. As a mayoral candidate, she has been criticized by de Blasio and others for her opposition to the measure. 

The loopholes are big enough to drive a truck through, frankly.   But good for Christine Quinn to at least recognize that half a loaf here is better than none.  When the nation's largest city instituttes a law like this, I'm only hoping more cities will follow.

Fueled Up, Ready To Go

The Obama administration is today having the EPA lay out major new rules for cleaner gasoline with less sulfur.  Big energy companies are screaming it will "dramatically" raise the price of fuel by 9 cents a gallon, the reality is it'll add less than a penny and be the equivalent of taking about 12% of the nation's 250 million plus cars off the roads in reducing emissions.

While gasoline sulfur itself does not pose a public health threat, it hampers the effectiveness of catalytic converters, which in turn leads to greater tailpipe emissions. These emissions — nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide and fine particles — contribute to smog and soot, which can cause respiratory and heart disease.

The proposed standards were first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday afternoon and confirmed by the administration Thursday night.

The regulations are supported by environmental advocates, state regulators and even automobile companies, who would prefer uniform sulfur standards for fuel nationwide. But oil industry officials and their congressional allies say it will cost up to $10 billion to upgrade refineries and an additional $2.4 billion in annual operating costs.

Both public health advocates and the administration say the ultimate cost would be much lower because of provisions giving refiners flexibility in complying with the standards. The EPA estimates annual health benefits of up to $23 billion by 2030.

The agency surveyed 111 U.S. refineries and found 29 already can meet the sulfur standard or come close to it, 66 can reach it with modest modifications and 16 would require a major overhaul.

Time to invest those record tens of billions in profits back in your businesses and into the health of your customers, energy companies.  Of course, Big Oil knows it can jack up the prices whenever it feels like and they can continue being the most profitable companies on Earth, so I have no sympathy for them.

But the Obama EPA is doing the right thing here for all of us.  More of this, please.

Ohio Comes To Carolina

Back home in North Carolina, the Zandarparents inform me that new GOP Gov. Pat McCrory and the Tea Partified legislature are on a roll now that Democratic Gov. Bev Purdue is gone. She was the only thing standing between the Tarheel State and nonsense like this.

Two bills filed by Republican lawmakers seek to cut back early voting and eliminate same-day registration in North Carolina.

Senate Bill 428, filed by Sen. Jerry Tillman, R-Randolph, would cut the early voting period from two weeks to one and would eliminate same-day voter registration.

House Bill 451, filed by Rep. Edgar Starnes, R-Caldwell, goes even further. In addition to cutting early voting and same-day registration, it would also outlaw early voting on Sunday and straight-ticket voting.

To recap, Republicans are happily running in NC on "We want fewer people to vote, and fewer people to be allowed to vote." Nobody apparently sees the problems with this. They're not even trying to hide the fact that it's voter suppression anymore.

Democrats say such bills are intended to make it harder to vote and will disproportionately affect low-income, working and minority voters – groups that traditionally favor Democrats.

The Sunday ban, in particular, would affect popular "Souls to the Polls" voting drives at African-American churches.

"I think Sundays just should be – some things you just shouldn't do on Sundays, so I am just opposed to voting on Sunday," Starnes said.

You can practically see the hidden "those people" before the word "voting" in that sentence there. But again, Republicans are actively saying A) we make it too easy to vote in North Carolina, so we should probably put an end to it, because if you can't vote during banker's hours on a Tuesday, you don't deserve to be a part of the body politic.

Tillman said his bill isn't meant to be partisan, noting all voters would still have equal access to the polls.

Meanwhile, he said, keeping early voting sites open for two weeks costs money that could be better spent elsewhere.  "We're paying people for two weeks to run those election centers," he said. "Let's cut it to one week, and we can do the same thing. It's not to disenfranchise anybody."

Why should representative democracies spend money on stupid crap like "voting", anyway? GOP learned their lesson in Ohio, and that lesson is "if the minorities can vote, we lose." Gotta actively legislate the end of that, call it non-partisan, and say God didn't want you to vote on Sundays anyway, plus why are we spending money to hold elections? Let's take the difference and cut some taxes for some one percenters, and they'll create votes instead!

StupidiNews!

• North Korea's response to US B-2 Stealth bombers is to place rockets on standby to attack US bases, with Kim Jong Un declaring that it's time to "settle accounts" with the West.
• Maine may become the next state to legalize and tax marijuana, as at least 35 lawmakers are interested in giving the state revenue from sales of pot.
• The Mexican war on drug cartels moves to Reynosa, Mexico, the city of 600,000 is now ground zero for the battle between the Mexican army and cartels along the border with Texas.
• Harvard, Yale, and Columbia universities recorded some of the highest rejection rates in school history, with 7.3% or less of freshman applicants accepted this fall.
• Video game designer Jason Rorher has buried his latest creation somewhere in the Nevada desert, where it may take centuries to find.

Last Call

To recap, "GOP savior Marco Rubio" just signed up with Rand Paul to block all Senate gun control legislation.

Republican Sens. Marco Rubio (FL) and Jim Inhofe (OK) have signed on to a letter threatening to filibuster new gun legislation, according to Sen. Mike Lee's (R-UT) communications director. 

Sure.  This will help the GOP.

Reverse Energy Poll-arity

Seems Americans are nothing more than filthy eco-hippie commie pinkos who actually care about the environment and getting more clean energy, particularly solar power.


 What's this?  Over two-thirds of Republicans think we should put more emphasis on solar power?  Three-quarters of independents?  But that means we should build infrastructure to encourage solar projects, what about FREEDOM and LIBERTY and DON'T TREAD ON ME and stuff?

What about King Coal?  Well, if you're not in Kentucky or West Virginia, it turns out no, it's even less popular than nuclear power.

At the same time, Americans seem to think natural gas (and fracking!) is a pretty good idea...but not as good as wind or solar.  Go figure.

Ashley, Alison, And The Turtle, Part 3

As I have been telling folks, I would have loved to have seen Ashley Judd run and win, but there wasn't any way she was going to survive King Coal, Kentucky Blue Dog Dems, and Bill Clinton.

Regretfully, I am currently unable to consider a campaign for the Senate.I have spoken to so many Kentuckians over these last few months ~ — ashley judd (@AshleyJudd) March 27, 2013

So while it's increasingly looking like Alison Lundergan Grimes will run, because six more years of Turtle is going to give me a heart attack...

BREAKING: Sources: Alison Lundergan Grimes has spoken w DSCC, plans to file for #KySen exploratory committee @alisonforky — Joe Arnold (@joearnoldreport) March 27, 2013

So is a Blue Dog better than Mitch? We'll see by how much. Here's a hint, it won't be by a lot, as Yellow Dog reminds us.

I trust Mitchie-poo is suitably grateful to the Kentucky conservadem establishment, the DINO Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, Bill Clinton and his buddy Jerry Lundergan (father of Alison) for sabotaging the only chance Kentucky had to get rid of him.

It's going to be damn hard for Lundergan Grimes to inspire liberals in the state to come to her aid when her positions on mining, labor, the environment and the state's badly needed safety net aren't any different from Mitch, and that's where Judd would have been clearly different. On the other hand, Mitch's plan if he wins in 2014 is simple: to take health care away from tens of millions of Americans by repealing Obamacare, including hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians. On the gripping hand, King Coal still runs this gorram backwater hellhole, and all the other supposedly top-line Dems (Gov. Dinosaur Steve Beshear, Lt. Gov. Dan "The Coal Man" Mongiardo, AG Jack "I lost to effing Rand Paul" Conway, and Rep. John "Deep Blue Dog" Yarmuth) all ran screaming from this race like the cowards they are. So yeah, we're down to the daughter of the state's former good ol' boy Dem party chair and a huge, long-time Clinton backer. Thrilled about that, just thrilled. All that might be enough to get Grimes the win. I don't honestly know. Better than Mitch? Yes, but with serious reservations. We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• The US says it sent B-2 Stealth bombers from Missouri to South Korea and back as a military exercise and reminder to the increasingly belligerent North Korea.
• Former Florida GOP state chairman Jim Greer will spend 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of fraud, theft, and money laundering.
• Ashley Judd will not be running for the Senate in Kentucky, putting an end to months of speculation.
• After almost two weeks, Cypriot banks will reopen today with strict cash withdrawal limits and transfer restrictions in effect for at least the next week and a half.
• A study of Pacific island fossils suggests as much as 10% of Earth's bird species were wiped out by human colonization over 3,000 years.

Last Call

Dear Wal-Mart: When you cut hours, cut employees, cut wages, cut cut cut to the point where there's not enough people in the store to keep things stocked and clean, people don't care about your "everyday low prices" being a few cents cheaper and they head to your competitors.

Margaret Hancock has long considered the local Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) superstore her one- stop shopping destination. No longer.

During recent visits, the retired accountant from Newark, Delaware, says she failed to find more than a dozen basic items, including certain types of face cream, cold medicine, bandages, mouthwash, hangers, lamps and fabrics.

The cosmetics section “looked like someone raided it,” said Hancock, 63.

It was raided by the heirs to the Walton family fortune.  They're worth billions and they gotta have more, you know.

Wal-Mart’s loss was a gain for Kohl’s Corp. (KSS), Safeway Inc. (SWY), Target Corp. (TGT) and Walgreen Co. (WAG) -- the chains Hancock hit for the items she couldn’t find at Wal-Mart.

“If it’s not on the shelf, I can’t buy it,” she said. “You hate to see a company self-destruct, but there are other places to go.”

It’s not as though the merchandise isn’t there. It’s piling up in aisles and in the back of stores because Wal-Mart doesn’t have enough bodies to restock the shelves, according to interviews with store workers. In the past five years, the world’s largest retailer added 455 U.S. Wal-Mart stores, a 13 percent increase, according to filings and the company’s website. In the same period, its total U.S. workforce, which includes Sam’s Club employees, dropped by about 20,000, or 1.4 percent. Wal-Mart employs about 1.4 million U.S. workers. 

That's right, during the Great Recession, the nation's biggest retailer and employer cut 20,000 jobs but added more than 450 stores.  Why do you think the company's lobbyists are pushing to rid the country of minimum wage?  If the nation's biggest single private sector employer could cut wages to $5 an hour, don't you think they would?  What would hundreds of thousands of "associates" do in this economy, quit?

Wal-Mart is the biggest single employer of minimum wage workers in America.  Think about that for a second.

Then refuse to shop there anymore.

The Long Derpy Arm Of The Law

Texas GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert is still a little fuzzy on the whole "Lawmakers are subject to laws" thing, apparently.

Outspoken Tea Party Republican Rep. Louis Gohmert (TX) got into a late-night altercation with U.S. Park Police over a parking ticket earlier this month. According to Politico, Gohmert attempted to pull rank with the police officers to get out of the citation.

A National Park Service (NPS) police report said that Gohmert’s black Ford SUV was cited at 11:00 p.m. on March 13 for parking in a spot reserved for NPS vehicles at Washington’s Lincoln Memorial. Gohmert, said the report, was “rude and irate” in his confrontation with the officers.

“I was issued a ticket and I am a congressman and parked my vehicle in the NPS parking only because I have a Congress placard, see,” Gohmert said to one officer. “I am going to a meeting on the Hill and I am the one who oversees the National Park Services and Natural Resources.”

Another officer described Gohmert as “ranting.”

“Oversight of Park Service is my job!” he shouted. “Natural resources! Thus the Congressional Plate in the window.”

Telling an officer he “did not have time” to deal with the issue, Gohmert left his business card with the officer holding his ticket, but insisted that he would not pay it. He then drove away.

He's way too important to deal with the likes of the US Park Police.  Expect a bill cutting funding for US Park Police by say, oh, 95%.  That's how the Tea Party rolls, you see.  YOU have to obey liberty and religious freedom, but not Louie here.

Keep that in mind.

Please Hemp Me I'm Falling

Kentucky's legislative session is wrapping up for the year (yes, Kentucky legislators work for approximately 3 months out of the year) and two last minute actions require attention:  first, the much maligned help bill is a go.

Legislators reached a last-hour deal Tuesday to pass a bill to license Kentucky farmers to grow hemp.

The deal between House Democrats and Sen. Paul Hornback, R-Shelbyville, will allow hemp licensing by the Kentucky Industrial Hemp Commission under the control of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.

Who would do the licensing had been a big snag for House Democrats, who apparently buckled under public pressure.

Agriculture Commissioner James Comer said the bill will leave the hemp commission with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. The research functions will be performed by the University of Kentucky.

The House voted 88-4 and sent the bill back to the Senate where it passed 35-1.

Only one small problem:  the federal government has to stop treating hemp as a restricted schedule II drug, there's no difference between hemp and cannabis under DEA protocols right now.  Until that changes (and Kentucky's congressional delegation is pushing for it) this bill's dead in the water anyway.

And speaking of dead in the water, so is logic here in the Bluegrass State.

The Kentucky General Assembly voted Tuesday night to overturn Gov. Steve Beshear's veto of controversial legislation known as the "religious freedom" bill, which was opposed by many human and gay rights groups and leaders of some of Kentucky's biggest cities.

The override passed the Democratic House 79-15 and the Republican Senate 32-6.

Rep. Bob Damron, D- Nicholasville, sponsored the bill after the Kentucky Supreme Court issued a ruling last year upholding a state law requiring the Amish to display bright orange safety triangles on their drab buggies so motorists could better see them. Several Amish men in rural Western Kentucky felt so strongly that displaying the triangles violated their religious belief against calling attention to themselves that they went to jail rather than comply with the law.

The legislation protects "sincerely held religious beliefs" from infringement unless there is "a compelling governmental interest."

The bill means that laws in Kentucky now must have a "compelling governmental interest" or you can simply claim that it's conflicting with your First Amendment rights and you shouldn't have to follow the law.  Lawsuits from this are going to cost the state millions, but FREEDOM so hey, let's all join in.

I'll tell you what, the Creation Museum conflicts with my beliefs.  Show me a compelling governmental interest in keeping the place open, right?

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/03/26/2575323/kentucky-house-votes-to-override.html#wgt=rcntnews#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/03/26/2575185/hemp-bill-still-alive-if-barely.html#storylink=cpy

StupidiNews!

• As tensions continue to mount on the Korean peninsula, North Korea has cut off military communication with the South.
• San Diego Mayor Bob Filner has come to an agreement with Medbox, Inc., manufacturer of marijuana vending machines, for use in a few locations in the city.
• The First Fan welcomed LA's two 2012 champion teams to the White House on Tuesday, the NHL's Kings and MLS's Galaxy.
• President Obama has signed into law the continuing resolution that locks in sequestration cuts in order to keep the government operation through October 1.
• British scientists have taken the fiber out of fiber optics, leaving cables that can move data at 99.7% the speed of light.