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Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

I definitely stuck where I was comfortable for the last almost 25 years - 3 jobs total. The reason being that I've worked for bad people, and it SUCKED. I'd rather keep a good situation that I curate through my cultivated superiors and peers. Good bennies, minimal commutes when I had them (for the most part) and good customers, interesting work... I took the lower pay as compensation for the quality of life, frankly.

Welcome to America, Inc.

TAZ89 wrote:

One thing to keep in mind is that raises are proportional to how your annual pay compares to the average for your job.

That definitely doesn't jive with my experience until my most recent job (I do understand why it may be true in some positions).

My company (private, woman founded/owned, tech marketing/comms) has doubled my pay in 9 years, including an 18% bump last review cycle that my manager was annoyed couldn't be higher. I guess we are fairly spoiled by US standards, as I also have 30 days of PTO a year (exclusive of 10 days off at the end of each year) and can carry 20 of them over. We also get 2 weeks of paid leave to care for sick relatives, 2 weeks for bereavement and 16 weeks parental leave.

But if I hated the people I worked with, I'd leave pretty quickly.

For those of you unhappy with either your situation or pay, i can't encourage you enough to get out and look around. There is a once in a generation opportunity right now to increase your pay and benefits due to the staffing situation across the globe. We likely will never have more power as employees than we do right now. Don't let comfort or nerves prevent you from trying to better your situation.

I am going to write a book about my career journey.
I figure I have to tell my story anyways for interviews every year or two.
So why not write a book during the "great resignation"?

I work two jobs, one in a county parks and rec department, the other providing respite care for an adult man with severe developmental disabilities. Neither one has any formal, guaranteed yearly raises.

My immediate supervisor at the former, who is a nice guy but doesn't always know how to read the room, announced 8% raises like it was going to be received with a round of applause instead of a shrug and a, "Cool. That's almost keeping up with inflation. Thanks for not cutting our effective pay by as much as you could have?" These decisions happen several levels above him, so I don't bear him any ill will or anything, I just found it kind of a funny conversation. It's not all bad: I get full bennies through them despite technically being part-time, and they're kicking in another $5k annually in tuition assistance (not a loan, I don't have to pay it back) which helps make up some of the difference.

The latter keeps announcing "temporary bonus increases," at first to retain people through COVID lockdowns, then just to retain people, and most of them have ultimately been made permanent, meaning I've gotten a total of about a 30% pay increase in the past couple years, which is nice. It's in the field I ultimately want to be in which is good, and it's easy work. Down side is that I don't particularly like the company-- they're good at making sure I keep all my certifications up to date and not much else-- or the current client's primary caregiver. But I see the latter for five minutes at the beginning and ending of my shift and the former less than that, so it's whatever.

I just need the current labor market to stay as it is (or improve!) for another year while I finish my Master's, and then I fully plan to jump ship on both.

Turnout by Republicans Was Great. It’s Just That Many of Them Didn’t Vote for Republicans.

After yet another disappointing showing for Republicans in Georgia’s Senate runoff on Tuesday, some conservatives — like Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich and Kevin McCarthy — have begun to point to a surprising culprit: a failure to take advantage of early voting.

The theory seems to be that Republicans are losing because early voting is giving Democrats a turnout edge. It follows a similar conversation after the midterm elections, when a chorus of conservatives said Republicans needed to start encouraging mail voting.

But as more data becomes available on turnout in this year’s election, it is quite clear that turnout was not the main problem facing Republicans.

In state after state, the final turnout data shows that registered Republicans turned out at a higher rate — and in some places a much higher rate — than registered Democrats, including in many of the states where Republicans were dealt some of their most embarrassing losses.

Instead, high-profile Republicans like Herschel Walker in Georgia or Blake Masters in Arizona lost because Republican-leaning voters decided to cast ballots for Democrats, even as they voted for Republican candidates for U.S. House or other down-ballot races in their states.
Georgia is a fine example. While Mr. Walker may blame turnout for his poor showing in November and earlier this week, other Republican candidates seemed to have no problem at all. Gov. Brian Kemp won by nearly eight points over Stacey Abrams; Republican candidates for House won the most votes on the same day.

Yet Senator Raphael Warnock won in Georgia anyway because a large group of voters willing to back other Republicans weren’t willing to back Mr. Walker.

The final turnout figures make it clear that Republicans — including Mr. Walker — benefited from very favorable turnout last month. Unlike in recent years, Republican primary voters were likelier to vote than Democrats (by a modest margin). Meanwhile, the white turnout rate exceeded the Black turnout rate by the widest margin since 2006.

We went back and looked at the respondents to our pre-election Times/Siena survey, and matched them to post-election vote turnout records. We found that the respondents who said they backed Mr. Walker were actually likelier to vote than those who said they backed Mr. Warnock.

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But Mr. Walker still lost.

On Tuesday, Mr. Walker lost again. This time, he lost by three points — two points worse than in November. The final turnout data won’t be in for weeks, but for now it is reasonable to suppose that Mr. Warnock fared better because the turnout was incrementally more favorable to him than it was in November.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean Democrats enjoyed a great turnout. All of the Republicans running for statewide office — other than Mr. Walker — could have easily survived an electorate that was two points less favorable.

By our estimates, the 2022 electorate was several points more favorable to Republicans in Georgia than the 2020 electorate — which wasn’t great for Democrats, either.

Any Democratic gains in the runoff almost certainly weren’t because of early voting. After all, this election was held with just one week of early voting, as opposed to three weeks in the general election. The number of Election Day voters actually increased in the runoff. So did the share of votes cast on Election Day. But it was the Democrat who fared better.

Georgia is just one example of a broader national turnout gap, including in many of the places where Republicans blame early voting for their woes.

Take Maricopa County in Arizona. It’s home to Phoenix and around 70 percent of the state’s voters. Some Republicans say — without any clear evidence — they faltered in Arizona because some Maricopa voters were unable to cast ballots at the polls on Election Day, but the final turnout data shows that 75 percent of registered Republicans turned out, compared with 69 percent of Democrats. That was enough to yield an electorate in which registered Republicans outnumbered Democrats by nine percentage points. Yet Republicans like Mr. Masters and Kari Lake lost their races for Senate and governor.

Or consider Clark County in Nevada. There, 67 percent of Republicans voted, compared with 57 percent of Democrats, implying that Republicans probably outnumbered Democrats statewide. Yet the Democrat — Catherine Cortez Masto — prevailed in the Senate while Republicans won the governorship and also won the most votes for the House.

Wherever I’ve dug into the data, I see a similar story. You can read comprehensive analyses of North Carolina, Florida or New York, all showing a considerable Republican edge as well.

In the key Senate states mentioned in this article, Republican House candidates received more votes than Democratic ones. The final Times/Siena polls showed that voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada preferred Republican control of the Senate.

It’s fair to say voters in these key states probably preferred Republican control of government, in no small part because more Republicans showed up to vote. They just didn’t find Republican candidates they wanted to support at the top of the ticket.

hbi2k wrote:

I work two jobs, one in a county parks and rec department,

Obligatory -

IMAGE(https://i.insider.com/5cfeaf295e99490f93367916?width=750&format=jpeg&auto=webp)

Prederick wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

I work two jobs, one in a county parks and rec department,

Obligatory

That show came out before I took on this job, and I remember thinking that it was totally unrealistic for the head of the department to be a self-identified libertarian so schooled in self-delusion and hypocrisy that he thinks nothing of drawing a paycheck from the very government whose validity he refuses to recognize.

I was so young. Green as summer grass.

Looks like some domestic terrorists attacked the power grids in Washington and Oregon. Not sure if it is connected to the attack in NC. I'm surprised this isn't getting more airplay.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Looks like some domestic terrorists attacked the power grids in Washington and Oregon. Not sure if it is connected to the attack in NC. I'm surprised this isn't getting more airplay.

They are white. Of course we won’t talk about it much

Good story on the problem here:

Attacks on multiple electrical substations left more than 40,000 customers in Moore County, North Carolina, without power on Sunday night, prompting local officials to call in the FBI to aid in an investigation.

The attacks, which involved gunfire and as of yet have no clear motive or suspects, highlight the physical vulnerability of the United States’ vast power grid in a world increasingly concerned by the risk of cyber intrusion. More than 55,000 power substations help keep electricity flowing across the country. Physical attacks on these and other power grid infrastructure are more common than one might think — and increasing in frequency.

There were 70 reports of emergency electric incidents and disturbances caused by suspected physical attacks, sabotage or vandalism from January to August 2022, Grid’s analysis of the most recently available data from the Department of Energy found. That figure represents a 75 percent increase from 40 such reports in all of 2015, the first year for which comparable data is available.

Jon Wellinghoff, former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said the susceptibility of the nation’s electric infrastructure is “a problem that should take a relatively little amount of money and time to rectify, and one that can be taken care of with a few measures that would obstruct these pieces of infrastructure — primarily transformers — from view and from harm from projectiles.”

It’s not comparable due to economic and cultural differences but this year we fought a pretty intense campaign to end up with about a 10c/hr pay raise. And we’ve had other campaigns over the past five years just to keep conditions from worsening.

Where are we on the whole “I think I want to nominate this award to my reformed orthodox rabbi Bill Clinton” from The Game Awards tonight? I'm in the "It's a first class train ticket to Cleveland" mindset.

Sinema shows her true colors, and they're not blue.

Politico wrote:

She said her closely held decision to leave the Democratic Party reflects that she’s “never really fit into a box of any political party” — a description she said also applies to her fiercely independent state and millions of unaffiliated voters across the country.

This is the first glimmer of integrity I've seen from Sinema. Glad to know she'll be out of office after 2024.

You see integrity, I see her desperate to stay in the limelight.

For sure! I just appreciate that she's acknowledging she's never been a Democrat, she just exploited their infrastructure for her own personal gains. I'll be astonished if the people of Arizona reward her horrible behavior with another six years, after which she'll parley her abysmal political record into a multi million dollar deal with either a lobbying firm or a news media company like they all do.

SallyNasty wrote:

You see integrity, I see her desperate to stay in the limelight.

First thing I thought when I saw the headline in the paper this morning. Pretty sure getting the headline was the point.

Keystone pipeline shut after 14,000-barrel oil spill in Kansas

It is the third spill of several thousand barrels of crude on the pipeline since it first opened in 2010.

If feels like the people at standing rock and other places who opposed this were correct. It will cause environmental harm and not really help the prices we pay.

Really our dependence on a limited supply commodity will be the death of us.

WellAdjusted wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

You see integrity, I see her desperate to stay in the limelight.

First thing I thought when I saw the headline in the paper this morning. Pretty sure getting the headline was the point.

I mean, she knows she's never going to win the Democratic nomination again anyway, so what does she have to lose?

Arizona may be not be a deep blue state, but West Virginia it ain't. Manchin is relatively safe. She's not.

And didn't she just give away all her power to Manchin? And how is she going to raise money without DNC backing?

Arizona DNC already stated she was getting primaried a couple years ago when she started pulling all her sh*t.

House Republicans brace for doomsday scenario

With the increasing likelihood that the speaker's race could go to multiple ballots, McCarthy's allies and foes alike are quietly planning next steps

IMAGE(https://mystickermania.com/cdn/stickers/simpsons-stickers/sticker_2122-512x512.png)

farley3k wrote:

House Republicans brace for doomsday scenario

With the increasing likelihood that the speaker's race could go to multiple ballots, McCarthy's allies and foes alike are quietly planning next steps

Nothing to see here. Just political theater.

McCarthy deserves everything coming to him.

Seth wrote:

Sinema shows her true colors, and they're not blue.

Politico wrote:

She said her closely held decision to leave the Democratic Party reflects that she’s “never really fit into a box of any political party” — a description she said also applies to her fiercely independent state and millions of unaffiliated voters across the country.

This is the first glimmer of integrity I've seen from Sinema. Glad to know she'll be out of office after 2024.

That woman is more crooked than a dogs hind legs.

The first Gen Z member of Congress was denied a D.C. apartment due to bad credit

NPR wrote:

Congressman-elect Maxwell Frost was excited.

He thought that for the first few months of living in DC, he'd be couch surfing to save money. But as luck would have it, he found an apartment in Washington, D.C.'s Navy Yard neighborhood with monthly rent he figured he could swing.

This week, he went to view the apartment and spent about an hour filling out the application and providing information for a credit check. He also submitted a $50 application fee.

There was one thing he was worried about, though. After a year and half of campaigning (and winning, which, having been born in 1997, made him Congress's first elected Generation Z lawmaker), Frost had gotten himself into debt. And, as a result, he had a low credit score.

Despite his low credit, Frost, said, the apartment representative said he'd be fine.

He wasn't.

"Just applied to an apartment in DC where I told the guy that my credit was really bad. He said I'd be fine. Got denied, lost the apartment, and the application fee. This ain't meant for people who don't already have money," Frost tweeted Thursday.

Landlords often use credit checks to approve a tenant's rental application. But research has shown that credit scores actually perpetuate racial disparities. Sometimes the information provided in a credit check is even wrong, unfairly costing people an opportunity at housing, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Frost told NPR that he posted his tweet in a moment of frustration, but also to highlight this serious problem of affordability and accessibility in the D.C. political world for people who don't come from wealth. While Frost dealt specifically with a credit rejection, other incoming lawmakers and politicians —especially younger members — have dealt with Washington's lack of affordable housing in recent years.

"[Frost] just stating this publicly is kind of saying the quiet part out loud and shining a light on a reality that it's incredibly expensive to live in D.C., to be young in D.C., and then maintain it even for members of Congress," Casey Burgat, the legislative affairs program director at George Washington University.

This lack of affordability has a trickle-down effect, Burgat said.

"It makes Congress exactly what it's been for so long: A disproportionately wealthy, disproportionately white institution," Burgat said. "This is a main contributor for why people can't afford to run for office. It's not seen as a viable path. And though we're getting a little bit better at our diversity, we still have a long way to go and the cost of it is not getting cheaper."

TheGameguru wrote:
Seth wrote:

Sinema shows her true colors, and they're not blue.

Politico wrote:

She said her closely held decision to leave the Democratic Party reflects that she’s “never really fit into a box of any political party” — a description she said also applies to her fiercely independent state and millions of unaffiliated voters across the country.

This is the first glimmer of integrity I've seen from Sinema. Glad to know she'll be out of office after 2024.

That woman is more crooked than a dogs hind legs.

Yeah, but I saw an article that said that this was a smart move for her because she won’t be primaried when she runs again and if a Democratic candidate runs against her, then they will probably split the vote giving the win to the Republican candidate

I think they underestimate how much she is hated by the Dems. Now she might split some Republicans votes.

Stealthpizza wrote:

I think they underestimate how much she is hated by the Dems. Now she might split some Republicans votes.

Pretty much every voter demographic doesn't like her. Old. Young. White. Hispanic. Democrat. Independent. Republican. No one likes her.