RETURN OF THE EIGHTIES

The USA Kids Mullet Championship finalists are in and they’re incredible

Niamh Spence

Published 07 August 2022

If you've ever wondered what your child might look like with a mullet, then we've got the answer. The USA Kids Mullet Championships are here, and they're everything we need them to be.

The finalists have been announced and it's the ultimate throwback as the mullet hairstyle seems to be making an official comeback with these juniors.

Credit: mulletchampUSA/Facebook

With celebrities including singer Halsey and Stranger Things' Eddie rocking the 80s style haircut with shorter locks on top and a longer 'tail', it's no wonder it's come down to kids too. And these kids are rocking it.

The official Facebook page for the hairstyle competition revealed the 25 finalists before they choose their winner later this year.

The official page said: "Let's give it up for the 2022 Kids Top 25 ! It was a close race at the finish for those last few spots into the finals.

Credit: mulletchampUSA/Facebook

"We will now take a short break before the Final round takes place. Voting will happen on our website (Date-TBD).

"Parents will be contacted this week as well to go over how the finals will work.

"Thanks again to everyone who voted for all these amazing kids! We hope you are having a blast."

Of the 25 finalists, the hairstyles vary from short mullets to curly and longer styles too. And fans of the page have gone wild for the shortlist.

Credit: mulletchampUSA/Facebook

One fan commented: "How to pick one? They're all glorious."

"Every single one of these haircuts is certified bad ass i dont know how anyone could choose just one," said another.

A third wrote: "Any human with a mullet is a winner."

Credit: mulletchampUSA/Facebook

However, some people have taken issues with the competition and even called it 'child abuse'. One commenter wrote: "Somewhere between child abuse and cruel and unusual punishment."

Another echoed their thoughts, adding: "This is child abuse."

Credit: mulletchampUSA/Facebook

However, one fan clapped back, saying it was all in the name fun: "I’m all about making fun of folks and making them feel bad when they deserve it but these are children, they don’t deserve it and they look great. Adults need to shut their traps and let these kids have fun. These are just little guys."

Credit: @mulletchampUSA/Facebook

However, the hairstyle competition isn't just a bit of fun — it raises money for charity, too.

The Facebook page revealed the kids and teens competitions have raised $3,500. The page wrote: "We are thrilled to announce that through our 2022 Kids/Teens contest we were able to donate $3,500 to Maggie's Wigs 4 Kids of Michigan, Inc.

"Our donation was made this morning and we are hopeful that we can make a small difference in some kids!

"We hope that this contest can continue to bring some fun and smiles to everyone and we can give back along the way.

"Thanks everyone who participated so far in 2022. We appreciate It."

If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via story@unilad.com 

Featured Image Credit: @mulletchampUSA/Facebook

Topics: News, US News, Beauty, Parenting

Rubio tries to hit back after a Pete Buttigieg zinger lands, but he's outclassed and out of touch

Laura Clawson
Daily Kos Staff
Monday July 25, 2022 ·

 
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on the defensive over marriage equality—just as Senate Republicans more generally are fretting about what to do on that issue.

On Sunday, Buttigieg, who is the first openly gay Cabinet member, commented on a marriage equality bill in Congress during a CNN appearance. Buttigieg talked about the importance of his own marriage in his life, saying, “I don't understand how such a majority of House Republicans voted 'no' on our marriage as recently as Tuesday hours after I was in a room with a lot of them talking about transportation policy, having what I thought were perfectly normal conversations with many of them on that subject only for them to go around the corner and say my marriage doesn't deserve to continue.”

He also took specific aim at Rubio, who previously described a bill codifying the right to marriage as “a stupid waste of time.”

“If he's got time to fight against Disney, I don't know why he wouldn't have time to safeguard marriages like mine. Look, this is really, really important to a lot of people. It's certainly important to me,” said Buttigieg, who also noted, with regard to the House vote, that, “If they don't want to spend a lot of time on this, they can vote 'yes' and move on, and that would be really reassuring for a lot of families around America, including mine.”

Exactly. Taking a noncontroversial vote—71% of Americans told Gallup they support legal recognition of same-sex marriage—shouldn’t take up a lot of time. Unless Republicans drag it out, that is.

Buttigieg’s comment about Rubio apparently stung, at least enough to Rubio to sit down and make a video attacking Buttigieg as “a Harvard-educated transportation secretary ... who apparently never learned that there’s a difference between the state level and the federal level,” since the Florida Republican fight with Disney was over a state law. But that’s kind of the point: Rubio had time to insert himself, as a federal official, into that particular state-level dispute, but he’s saying he doesn’t want to waste his time on a vote over a federal marriage law.

What Rubio is really saying is not that this is a waste of time. He’s saying that he opposes—as a practical matter—the right of people to marry who they choose. He’s saying this in a context in which one Supreme Court justice has already formally put on the table the overturn of Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that in 2015 affirmed the federal right to marriage equality. That’s a pretty direct threat given that the Supreme Court just overturned the nearly 50-year precedent of Roe v. Wade. If the court overturns Obergefell, as Justice Clarence Thomas suggested, same-sex marriages would be instantly banned in at least 25 of the 32 states that currently have anti-equality laws on the books.

A CNN canvass of Senate Republicans last week found five—Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman, Ron Johnson, and Thom Tillis—saying they would or probably would vote for a marriage bill, and eight—Rubio, Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Jim Inhofe, and Roger Wicker—saying they would vote against it, with others either not responding or dodging the question.

Democrats need to hold this vote as soon as possible (yes, canceling August recess should be on the table), because they’ve got a widely popular and very important policy that at least a few Republicans are saying they’ll vote for. Taking marriage equality out of the hands of Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh is desperately important. Pinning Republicans down on an issue where the politics are bad for most of them, thanks to the fact that they are out of step with the public, is a very nice bonus for Democrats. Rubio’s defensiveness here speaks volumes. 

Volume One: Hold the Vote Now.

GOP in disarray on LGBTQ rights: State Republicans double down on bigotry as national lawmakers flee


Kerry Eleveld for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Monday July 25, 2022 · 


When House Democrats put a bill on the floor last week protecting same-sex marriage rights, something astonishing happened—nearly 50 House Republicans voted with Democrats to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, 267-157.

Sure, more than three times that number of Republicans voted against the bill, which would codify into federal law both interracial and same-sex marriage rights. But the unprecedented assist from House Republicans immediately made the bill a contender for floor time in the Senate based on the very real possibility of attracting the 10 Senate Republicans needed to beat an inevitable GOP filibuster.

Senate Republicans suddenly realized they had a political hot potato on their hands. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had been laboring to steer his caucus clear of divisive cultural hot-button issues in the lead up to November. McConnell needs Republicans to appear palatable enough to attract the support of the same suburban voters who largely abandoned the party during Donald Trump's disastrous tenure.

Indeed, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, arguably Senate Republicans’ most endangered member, bit the bullet Thursday and said he would vote for the marriage bill if it reached the floor of the upper chamber.

"Even though I feel the Respect for Marriage Act is unnecessary, should it come before the Senate, I see no reason to oppose it," Johnson said in a statement.

As a political party, Republicans have increasingly waved the white flag on same-sex marriage for the last handful of years. As a presidential candidate in 2016, for instance, Donald Trump pledged to nominate justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade in one breath only to claim in the next breath that the freedom to marry wouldn't be jeopardized by those very same judicial appointments.

"It’s law. It was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean it’s done," Trump said of marriage equality in November 2016.

Trump along with many Republican strategists wanted to wash their hands of an issue that quickly grew into a total political loser for them. Their evangelical backers, however, were never going to let it go. And sure enough, just as soon the radicalized Supreme Court majority took out Roe, same-sex marriage was back on the chopping block. In fact, Justice Clarence Thomas wasted no time putting a target on marriage rights in his concurrent opinion.

But here's where the GOP's fundies and their political strategists part ways. Today, marriage equality is a 70-30 loser for Republicans, a far cry from the wedge issue everyone thought it was in the mid-aughts. Yet, just days after that Supreme Court gutted Roe, none of the Michigan GOP's five gubernatorial candidates took up for marriage equality during a primary debate when asked about constitutional protections for gay rights.

“They need to revisit it all,” candidate Garrett Soldano said of LGBTQ rights at the debate in Warren, Michigan.

Several weeks later, however, two West Michigan Republican congressmen, freshman Rep. Peter Meijer and veteran lawmaker Rep. Fred Upton, became two of the 47 House Republicans who backed the Respect for Marriage Act in the successful House vote.

This is where congressional and state Republicans are diverging: At the national level, many Republicans are dodging, downplaying, or even supporting LGBTQ rights, but at the state level, Republicans are largely sticking to a virulent anti-LGBTQ strategy that hasn't yielded fruit as a wedge issue for well over a decade.

The fashion of the day for the state-level GOP bigots is to target a highly vulnerable subset of queer Americans—the transgender community, perhaps because the very same bigots already crashed and burned on marriage equality. As same-sex marriage slipped from their grasp, state GOP lawmakers have homed in with gusto on attacking transgender Americans and youth—who also suffer from disproportionately high levels of suicide. This year alone, Republicans have introduced over 300 bill aimed at restricting LGBTQ rights. The New York Times writes:

In June, Louisiana became the 18th state, all with G.O.P.-led legislatures, to ban transgender students from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity. Laws to prohibit transitioning medical treatments to people under 18, such as puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries — which advocates call gender-affirming care — have been enacted by four states. And after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a law in March banning classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades, more than a dozen other states moved to imitate it.

The bigots may have shifted their tactics slightly, but this is by no means the first time they have sought to resurrect a one-time political wedge issue through the lens of transgender issues.

Enter Terry Schilling, president of the anti-LGBTQ group American Principles Project.

“I believe these are enormous issues for swing voters and moderates,” Schilling told the Times, saying that his group plans to spend up to $12 million on anti-trans ads before November.

"I believe" are truly the operative words in that sentence because this isn't Schilling's first rodeo.

Unfortunately for his donors, Schilling's theory of the case is already a two-time loser. In 2019, Schilling sought to use his strategery to help reelect Kentucky's incumbent GOP Gov. Matt Bevin. Schilling’s group focused on making ads that questioned whether “men” (i.e. transgender women and girls) should be allowed to use women's restrooms and participate in sports for women and girls. The idea was to paint Bevin’s Democratic rival Andy Beshear as “extreme” for supporting transgender rights. It failed. But when Bevin ultimately lost to Beshear in November 2019, Schilling's group commissioned its own study that apparently determined the organization’s anti-trans messaging cut Bevin's loss by 13,000 votes. The American Principles Project immediately morphed Bevin’s loss into a win for the group.

In the 2020 cycle, Schilling went to work selling that losing strategy as a silver bullet that could really turn things around for Trump with suburban voters and moderates.

“We wanted Bevin to win, but more than anything, we wanted to test this out before trying it at a much larger scale," Schilling told Politico in August 2020, as Trump's reelection prospects were dimming. "Now, donors understand that although we came up a few votes short in Kentucky, this can still work."

Only it didn't work in 2020 either—suburban voters mostly stuck with Democrats, forming a critical part of the anti-MAGA coalition that would eject Trump from office.

Now Schilling—who’s zero for two—is apparently back to working his wizardry. Maybe he figured he could piggy back off a good Republican cycle to finally claim credit for what was assumed would be a big GOP rout. Only once again, for all the energy Republicans have put into vilifying transgender Americans and branding Democrats as extremists for supporting them, voters just don’t seem persuaded.

In fact, recent polling suggests that a majority of Americans view Republicans as the real extremists. In May, a CBS New/YouGov poll found the top two words people chose to describe the Republican Party were "Extreme" (54%) and "Hateful" (50%). Respondents' top two choices for Democrats were "Weak" (51%) and "Extreme" (49%).

Polling last week from Navigator Research also found a 44% plurality of Americans agree that "people who support the Republican Party are inclined to resort to violence" in order to push their agenda. Just 35% said the same of Democrats.

The number of Americans who view Republicans as extreme—particularly the suburban swing voters that Schilling hopes to sway—is only likely to increase as Republicans at the state level continue targeting trans kids and same-sex marriage rights, devising draconian abortion bans, trying to place a stranglehold on birth control, and baselessly claiming widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

The Republican Party , whatever it once was, has quickly become the party of government intrusion into Americans’ personal lives. They want control over who Americans marry, their most intimate healthcare decisions, how and when they start a family, how they choose to raise that family, how they parent, the curriculum at their schools, and what books they can read. It is arguably the most extreme agenda put forward by a party in modern American politics.

So despite what Schilling is selling to the press and his donors, targeting transgender Americans won’t pay off for Republicans at the ballot box this November, just like it didn’t work for former North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory in 2016, it didn’t work for former Kentucky Gov. Bevin in 2019, and it didn’t work for Trump in 2020.

In the meantime, the overt bigotry of state-level Republican officials and activists like Schilling will blow up any effort by some congressional Republicans to moderate on popular social issues like LGBTQ rights. At the national level, some Republicans may desperately want to move on, but their state counterparts are dedicated to reminding voters just how antiquated and extreme the entire party is on a host of social issues where voters recoil at the notion of government interference.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M;GHO$TING

Bolt Mobility has vanished, leaving e-bikes, unanswered calls behind in several US cities

Rebecca Bellan
July 31, 2022·



Updated: Article updated to add the city of Richmond and the county of Montgomery in Virginia, as well as St. Augustine, Florida also confirming service has ended there.

Bolt Mobility, the Miami-based micromobility startup co-founded by Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, appears to have vanished without a trace from several of its U.S. markets.

In some cases, the departure has been abrupt, leaving cities with abandoned equipment, unanswered calls and emails, and lots of questions.

Bolt has stopped operating in at least eight U.S. cities, including Portland, Oregon, Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski in Vermont, Richmond, California and Richmond, Virginia, and St. Augustine, Florida according to city officials. Some city representatives also said they were unable to reach anyone at Bolt, including its CEO Ignacio Tzoumas.


TechCrunch has made multiple attempts to reach Bolt and those who have backed the company. Emails to Bolt’s communications department, several employees and investors went unanswered. Even the customer service line doesn't appear to be staffed.

Bolt halted its service in Portland on July 1. Because of the company’s failure to provide the city with updated insurance and pay some outstanding fees, Portland subsequently suspended Bolt’s permit to operate there, according to a city spokesperson.
Bolt zooms then stalls

Bolt Mobility (not to be confused with the European transportation super app also named Bolt) was on what appeared to be a growth streak about 18 months ago. The company acquired in January 2021 the assets of Last Mile Holdings, which owned micromobility companies Gotcha and OjO Electric. The purchaser opened up 48 new markets to Bolt Mobility, most of which were smaller cities such as Raleigh, North Carolina, St. Augustine, Florida and Mobile, Alabama.

After purchasing Last Mile's assets, Bolt agreed to continue as the bike-share vendor in Chittenden County, Vermont, including cities Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski.

That license was even renewed in 2022, said Bryan Davis, senior transportation planner of the county.

“We learned a couple of weeks ago (from them) that Bolt is ceasing operations,” Davis told TechCrunch via email, noting that Bolt ceased operations July 1, but actually informed the county a week later. “They’ve vanished, leaving equipment behind and emails and calls unanswered. We’re unable to reach anyone, but it seems they’ve closed shop in other markets as well.”

Sandy Thibault, executive director of Chittenden Area Transportation Management Association, told the Burlington Free Press that Bolt communicated that employees were being let go and the company’s board of directors was discussing next steps.

A spokesperson at Burlington relayed similar information.

“All of our contacts at Bolt, including their CEO, have gone radio silent and have not replied to our emails,” Robert Goulding, public information manager at Burlington’s Department of Public Works, told TechCrunch.

Davis went on to say that about 100 bikes have been left on the ground completely inoperable and with dead batteries. Chittenden County has given Bolt a time frame in which to claim or remove the company’s vehicles, otherwise the county will take ownership of them.

Bolt also appears to have stopped operating in Richmond, California, according to Richmond Mayor Tom Butt’s e-forum.

“Unfortunately, Bolt apparently went out of business without prior notification or removal of their capital equipment from city property,” wrote Butt. “They recently missed the city’s monthly meeting check-in and have been unresponsive to all their clients throughout all their markets.”

Butt went on to say that the city is coming up with a plan to remove all the abandoned equipment -- about 250 e-bikes that were available at hub locations like BART stations and the ferry terminal -- and asked people to refrain from vandalizing the bikes until the city could come up with a solution.

Service has also ended in Richmond, Virginia. The city confirmed that Bolt Mobility’s permit with the City of Richmond ends today, August 1, 2022.

"The city was informed June 7, 2022 that Bolt Mobility would be ceasing their operations in the City of Richmond (Virginia)," a company spokesperson said in an email. "Scooter companies operate on an annual permit, Bolt paid all its fees with the City of Richmond on August 1, 2021."

The Roanoke Times recently reported that Bolt's bikeshare service, operated under the name RoamNRV, has been inoperable in Montgomery County, where the university Virginia Tech is located, since July 6. Representatives from the town of Blacksburg, where most of Bolt's service was located, could not be reached in time for comment, but the local outlet reports that there are signs posted where the bikes are parked stating they're not operational.

TechCrunch has reached out to several other cities in which Bolt operates and has not been able to confirm that the company has stopped operating entirely. A spokesperson from St. Augustine originally told TechCrunch Bolt’s bike share was running as usual there, but after looking into the matter further, has since confirmed the service is suspended.

Bolt’s social media has also been rather inactive in recent weeks. The company hasn’t posted on Instagram since June 11 or on Twitter since June 2.

The last time TechCrunch heard from Bolt was nine months ago when the company was peddling its in-app navigation system that it dubbed “MobilityOS.” At the time, the startup promised that its next generation of scooters would include a smartphone mount that would double as a phone charger, but it’s unclear if those scooters ever hit the streets.

Bolt has publicly raised $40.2 million, an amount that doesn’t include an undisclosed investment from India’s Ram Charan Company in May. Investors there could not be reached for comment.

Why the Hell Isn’t Biden Ending the Federal War on Cannabis?


Ben Burgis
July 13, 2022·

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

Joe Biden and the Democrats are in deep trouble. The president’s approval ratings are in the sewer and all signs continue to indicate that his party will be pulverized this fall.

It’s not surprising. Biden enjoyed public support at the beginning of his presidency when he was actually doing things for the public (like economic stimulus and child tax credits). All of that’s a distant memory now. The president and his spokespeople barely even talk about the ambitious legislative proposals they introduced with so much fanfare in 2021. And gas and food keep getting more expensive.

Under these circumstances, you would think that the administration would be leaping for any action they could possibly take that lies in the overlap area of the Venn Diagram of (a) promises that Biden made during the 2020 campaign that (b) can be carried out by executive action (no need to get the often recalcitrant Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema on board), and crucially (c), are extremely popular.

And yet.

Culture-War Red Meat Is All the GOP Serves the Working Class

Descheduling cannabis from Schedule I—the DEA’s classification for drugs with the highest risk of abuse and no medical benefits—and pardoning every federal prisoner serving time for non-violent weed offenses would check all three boxes. Amazingly, Biden hasn’t done it.

Promises, Promises

In a campaign ad that hit YouTube seven days before the 2020 election, Biden said, “As president, I’ll work to reform the criminal justice system, improve community policing, decriminalize marijuana, and automatically expunge all prior marijuana convictions.”

He didn’t leave himself a lot of wiggle room there. And while those first two elements could have legislative components for which the standard excuses would apply—Manchin! Sinema! The Republicans! The parliamentarian!—no one doubts that the last two could be done by Biden alone. Any day that he decided to swing into action on this, it wouldn’t even have to take up his whole afternoon.

And yet.

When then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked about this in a press briefing on (ahem) April 20, the best she could say was that Biden was “continuing to review his clemency powers.” Oh, and did she mention that the DEA expanded the list of authorized manufacturers of cannabis for research purposes? Don’t forget that part!

Not only has no one had their criminal record expunged but Daniel Muessig, for example, just started a five-year sentence in federal prison for non-violent marijuana offenses. Biden promised that he would release everyone in his situation, but Daniel’s wife, parents, and all the other people who love him won’t get to see him for five years. Morally, that’s outrageous. Politically, it’s jaw-droppingly stupid.

According to a Gallup poll last fall, 68 percent of Americans said that they wanted to go beyond Biden’s promise. They want full federal legalization of the recreational use of marijuana by adults. The kinds of big dramatic steps in that direction that Biden promised would be attention-grabbing and base-mobilizing (it has 83 percent support among Democrats)—but best of all it wouldn’t even be a potent issue for mobilizing conservative voters.

That poll showed slightly more Republicans were for it (50 percent) than against it (49 percent). Other polls in the last few years have put the Republican “for” number even higher. A Pew poll in November 2019 found that 55 percent of Republican-leaning voters were pro-legalization.

Hell, there's even a case for it from a pro-business Republican perspective. Legal weed businesses would finally be allowed to accept credit card payments.

Ignoring an Open Goal

There are a lot of popular things Biden and the Democratic leadership might have been able to do by this point in the president’s term with just a little bit more political will. They absolutely could have ignored the Senate parliamentarian, for example, when that staffer—who issues non-binding opinions and who could simply be fired at any time—told them they couldn’t use the reconciliation process to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour a year and a half ago. About 62 percent of Americans support that one. Moreover, many low-income Americans would know they owed the raise that brought them out of poverty to Democratic action—which might have helped the party avoid the coming electoral apocalypse.

But changing the administration’s weed policy would be even more popular and the fucking parliamentarian wouldn’t even have to be consulted. It’s a no-brainer. A wide open goal.

And yet.

Back in April he was “reviewing” powers that no one anywhere doubts that he has. (Seriously, if anyone has a novel legal theory according to which the president can’t deschedule marijuana by executive action and pardon any federal prisoner he chooses to pardon, I’d love to hear it.) What’s happened in the last three months?

Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Socialist Successors Are More Woke Than Progressive

Has Biden just forgotten? Unlikely. Just last week, three of the most high-profile senators in the Democratic Caucus (2020 presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker) sent Biden a letter urging the administration to “use its existing authority to (i) deschedule cannabis and (ii) issue pardons to all individuals convicted of non-violent cannabis-related offenses.”

Y’know, folks, it’s just like Biden promised—explicitly, more than once, and in so many words—he would do when he was running for president. It’s also just like the overwhelming majority of Americans want him to do.

Biden was a hardcore War on Drugs hawk for most of his Senate career. He’s one of the villains of Radley Balko’s excellent 2014 book Rise of the Warrior Cop. Maybe in his heart of hearts he wants federal weed-smokers to rot in jail. If so, though, why did he promise to deschedule cannabis, pardon the federal prisoners, and expunge the ex-cons’ records when he was running for president?

It's hard to see an answer to that question other than “he knew it would be good politics.” It would be even better politics for him to actually do it now.

And yet.

NZ

Business claims crisis as country approaches full employment and wages increase

Written

By: MICKYSAVAGE - Date published:

July 12th, 2022 - 

Anyone else getting tired of the media presenting the fact that New Zealand essentially has full employment is a very bad thing?

The country is in a situation it has not been in since the 1970s where it is approaching full employment and the repercussions are totally predictable.  It is harder for employers to fill jobs and the pressure is meaning that wage rates are increasing.

Sounds great doesn’t it.  Everyone has a job and they are earning more.

What could possible be bad about this?

Judging from the extreme positions taken by some in the media lots.

Heather Du Plessis-Allan expressed the thoughts of many small business owners when she said this:

The labour shortage is now so bad that everyone who wants a job has a job. Employers are now stealing workers off each other. For every business that finds a worker, another one loses a worker. It’s a pass the parcel of pain.

It says a lot that ANZ’s CEO Antonia Watson called on the Government to let workers in. She voiced her concern during the PM’s trip to Australia. It apparently went down like a lead balloon with the PM’s office. Watson was supposed to be a cheerleader not a truth talker.

But she’s right. We do “want a more productive economy” but it “will take years and investment” and “in the meantime… people are just crying out for staff”.

The Aussies have realised they need to do both at once: start to invest now in a longer term fix, while importing more crucial skills immediately.

We can’t let this carry on for years while productivity slowly catches up.

We all want Kiwis’ wages to lift. But for them to have wages, they need to have jobs. And for them to have jobs, there need to be thriving businesses creating jobs.

That’s now being prevented by the immigration reset.

Heather’s statement is of course internally contradictory.  We have to increase immigration so that businesses can create more jobs and wages can then increase so that we can counter the current situation where … pretty well everyone has a job and wage rates are increasing.

Heather’s solution will increase unemployment and thanks to market forces drive down wages.  It is weird that right wingers hate market forces when they improve the plight of ordinary workers but are fine with them when they cause misery.

And Heather’s doom and gloom analysis for the country’s economy?  The latest Treasury data where tax revenue is greater and crown spend and debt levels are below what was anticipated would suggest that things are better than Heather is claiming.

This is not an exclusively a New Zealand phenomenon.

And there has been a whole stream of negative comment about how bad it all is.

But here is the thing.  There has been no balance in the presentation of the issue and I am looking at you Radio New Zealand.

For every business owner complaining that their business has been adversely affected they should also interview a worker who now has a greater ability to pay their bills or a family whose children now have better living conditions so their ability to benefit from education has improved.

And these businesses are the very same ones who complained about Covid restrictions affecting their bottom line.  Now that Covid is wide spread and many workers are taking time off to recuperate they are complaining about not having enough workers.  Massive own goal there business owners.

These wall to wall tales of woe without any counter stories of the decency of earning a living wage is class war.

Currently the country is enjoying something that is very good for ordinary people.  The media should present both sides of this story not just tales of woe from employers who in the past have benefited from employing cheap imported labour.

The inflation apocalypse has been canceled. (But not culturally.)

August 07, 2022

The NY Times' Paul Krugman takes note. 

"Food prices are also coming down. Here's the futures price for wheat" [Nasdaq]:

"And business surveys are suggesting a broader decline in inflation."

Krugman also notes that "Republican efforts to regain control of Congress have rested almost entirely on blaming Joe Biden for inflation — and gas prices in particular. Did Donald Trump ... attempt to overturn a legitimate election? Gas is over $5 a gallon! Are Republican judges and state legislators taking away rights women have had for decades? Gas is $5 a gallon!"

Counting on voter ignorance, inattention and their unfortunate propensity to believe today whatever they believed yesterday, no matter the facts a changin', Republicans will keep their inflation doomsday machine cranking at full speed well beyond the point at which rising prices began falling. Such as Oz's tweet issued just as mounting evidence of falling prices was being published.  

You just can't keep good demagogues down.

AMERIKA

Our national parks still need fixing

BY THERESA PIERNO AND MICHAEL MURRAY, 

OPINION CONTRIBUTORS

 - 08/07/22 

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

Two years ago, we witnessed a historic moment for our national parks with the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act — the biggest investment our country has made in our parks in more than 50 years. Even during divisive political times, our national parks brought people from across the nation and across the aisle together.

In just two years, the Great American Outdoors Act has funded more than 220 repair projects across the National Park System like fixing crumbling trails at Mammoth Cave National Park and replacing a failing water system at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, while also contributing $3.8 billion in economic output and creating more than 36,000 jobs. And it’s not just national parks. This bill is providing full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund to conserve more land in and around our national parks and to support recreational facilities in communities across the nation, increasing access to outdoor spaces for all.

The successes of the Great American Outdoors Act are far-reaching, stretching from Acadia to Yellowstone, and covering a wide range of projects from crumbling roads and trails to aging campgrounds and visitor centers, all of which have been put on the backburner for decades because of chronic congressional underfunding. Now, visitors to our national parks will be able to see the results of these much-needed repairs and have even better experiences at these incredible places.

Alcatraz Island National Historic Landmark in California, a rugged 22-acre island, welcomes more than 1.6 million visitors annually, who come to learn about the rich history of this place and hear stories of incarceration, justice and humanity. But everyone who visits this park site, including park staff and concessionaires, can only access the park by ferry. Despite the reliance on the wharf day in and day out, the wharf hasn’t been upgraded since 1939, and over the years, harsh weather conditions have damaged its historic piles, beams and slabs. Through a $36 million investment, the Great American Outdoors Act is rehabilitating this historic structure to better withstand the elements, while also enhancing public safety and access, as well as historic preservation and interpretation.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio is a refuge for iconic wildlife and provides unrivaled recreational opportunities for visitors to kayak the Cuyahoga River, ride the scenic railroad and bike the beloved Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail. But over the years, the effects of climate change and flash floods have exacerbated riverbank erosion, creating unsafe conditions on the popular towpath and railroad. A $21.1 million investment through the Great American Outdoors Act will permanently repair the eroded riverbank, reducing annual and emergency maintenance costs, improving water quality and stabilizing the trails and railways along the riverbank for visitor safety.

Freedom Riders National Monument in Alabama honors the bravery and sacrifice of a group of Freedom Riders, who were viciously attacked and firebombed by white segregationists opposing their fight for equal rights. Mounting repairs and lack of staff have kept the Anniston’s Greyhound Bus Depot and Mural Building that commemorates the Freedom Rider’s journey mostly closed to visitors. But a $6.3 million investment through the Great American Outdoors Act is rehabilitating the bus depot, replacing the roof and restoring it back to the way it looked in 1961, as well as fixing the neighboring Mural Building to provide visitors with more opportunities to learn about segregation and the Civil Rights Movement.

For a few more years, the Great American Outdoors Act will continue to address critical repair projects and improve visitor experiences in our parks. However, the current funding won’t be able to repair every broken bathroom, crumbling trail or outdated visitor center. And like a leaky roof left untreated, fixing these repair issues and subsequent damage will only get harder and more costly overtime.

Years of underfunding have taken a toll on our national parks, as the backlog of repair needs has now reached nearly $22 billion. National parks are more popular than ever before, but these infrastructure needs continue to impact visitor access and safety, park resources and local economies. And this estimate doesn’t account for unforeseen damage our parks will continue to deal with as a result of climate change like the devastating flooding at Yellowstone and raging wildfires at Yosemite.

For two decades, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks urged lawmakers to fix our national parks. And our efforts are paying off huge today. Through congressional investments we’ve made big strides to address our parks’ deferred maintenance problems, but it’s clear that our parks need more support. We call on Congress to extend the funding through the Great American Outdoors Act and fix more national parks.

Just like we did two years ago, national park supporters across the country must come together to stand up for parks. The power our parks have to unite and inspire us all is undeniable. It’s time to harness that power again and ensure these places can thrive for our children and grandchildren to experience for years to come.

Theresa Pierno is president and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Association. Michael Murray is chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.TAGS GREAT AMERICAN OUTDOORS ACT

OPINION
What the Devil won't tell you

People try to put us down: Abortion's generational divide runs deep in GOP


Posted Aug 7, 2022, 
Blake Morlock

TucsonSentinel.com

My skepticism about women's sudden loss of access to abortion having any effect on the electorate was both confirmed and confounded by a recent survey by an Arizona pollster.

The poll of 927 Arizonans in the wake of of Dobbs v. Jackson found that just 52 percent of Arizona voters oppose the U.S. Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade. I thought that would have been higher. If confirmed with subsequent polls, those results should give abortion rights activists pause about asking voters for a constitutional amendment with maximalist protections.

The survey, conducted by OH Predictive Insights, found 66 percent of Democrats said the overturning of Roe v. Wade made them more likely to vote. That's twice the percentage of Republicans energized by the ruling.

OK, but Republicans started from a state of readiness and I would think more Democrats would be shocked to action given the audacity of the attack on female autonomy.

Historically, when Democrats win the White House they are much more interested in using midterms to show their frustration by not voting at all. Overall, Republicans have proven to be the party motivated by social issues.

This time could be different, but you gotta show me before I buy it.

Then again, 2022 is the first time in my lifetime that Republicans have been worse than Democrats at messaging. The GOP I grew up with would have lock onto inflation like a peregrine on a pigeon. Instead, they are allowing themselves to be distracted by sexual regulation and cops in bedrooms. Mitch McConnell must be crying in his Kentucky bourbon while shouting at random passersby "What? The literal? Flunk!?"

And therein lies the bigger problem with abortion, which was revealed by our Arizona poll.

Nearly half (49 percent) of Republican women over 55 strongly support the Dobbs decision, while 22 percent of that group oppose the ruling.

But the pollsters broke that down more and found just 31 percent of women younger than 55 strongly support the right-wing take on abortion and 28 percent strongly oppose it.

It's dangerous to read too much into a single poll but a 24-point divide among fellow travelers has to show something. Although, that 49 percent number among women over 55 isn't exactly a massive showing of hands.

It makes sense when we remember what actually drove the abortion debate into overdrive in the first place. It gets to my two gripes about overturning Roe: It's an attack on the sexual revolution through an embrace of thousands of years of misogyny and makes me have to apologize for my gender.

Older Republican women tend to have bigger problems with sexual freedom. Those who are younger understand they have benefited from it and it's changed the idea of what's possible in their lives.

According to the poll, conducted in the days just before the primary election, 89 percent of Arizonans believe that "abortion should be legal in at least some cases." That's a massive margin, and one that flies in the face of the Republican push to revive a near-total ban on abortions in the state. The poll found that 42% of Arizona voters believe "abortion should be legal in all circumstances."

As pollster Mike Noble said, "Candidates who can sift through the louder sentiments to leverage an actionable abortion messaging strategy will have the advantage going into November."

Just a quick aside: Right up until COVID-19, I cut pro-lifers a bunch of slack. Writers should have empathy. I could see where people who believed that life begins at conception would understand abortion as anti-life. Then I watched the party of life embrace 1 million deaths during the pandemic as proof of freedom. I can still cut slack to anti-choicers who wore a mask, got vaccinated and didn't lie about either. They may actually care about fetuses as "unborn children."

But for the most part, concern about the fetus is meant to polish the appearance of the few who want to reassert their power over the many.

Abortion, contraceptive advancement and freedom from sodomy laws allow adults to separate sex from marriage and childbirth.

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Society has decided it likes it that way. Politically, reversing those advancements is a loser because the U.S. is a democracy and – oh, wait ... maybe not so much ...

Warning: this column is going to contain opinions about the politics of sex. Opinions tend to vary. A columnist's job is to stir the pot, so hang onto something.

Reality One

I'm going to throw two numerical realities at you.

In 1950, the median age of a woman getting married for the first time was 20. Today, it's 28. Remember the median is the middle point; half the sample falls above above and half below. So in 1950, half of women getting married were basically teenagers. Now, half of women wait until they are pushing or over 30 to say "I do."

The average age of men going into a first marriage has increased from 25 to 30.

Women are now entering holy matrimony in a far different position than the teenaged version of themselves. Men don't change as much between 25 to 30.

Back then, a 25-year-old man who married an 18-year-old was expected to be more of a master than a partner. We know this because brides were expected to take a vow of obedience in the traditional wedding ceremony.

Frankly, regardless of time or gender the gender, people fresh out of high school aren't on the same footing as someone in their mid-20s. This columnist doesn't even have a problem with a grad student dating a freshman. Just let the teenager grow up a little bit before putting a ring on it.

On the other hand, a 30-year old man marrying a 28-year-old woman has a partner and one would imagine women prefer the former to the be the latter.

Of course these are generalizations and aren't true in all cases. But do we really want to return to a day when 20-year-old brides were the rule, rather than the exception?

It's one thing for a 19-year-old woman to wait until she's married before engaging in "The Act." Society has a much harder sell telling a 30-year-old to forego a regular adulthood, which includes the right to a healthy sex life.

Society has given its answer because women are waiting now to get married. Having reproductive autonomy has done a lot to give them that choice.

The U.S. Supreme Court and a bunch of legislatures want to take it away.

We are talking about sex, so of course we are talking about a double standard. The sex drive is a biological and evolutionary imperative. It's not Satan working through "she-wolves."

No one expected men to wait until they were 25 back in 1960 and they wouldn't today. There's a term for it: "sowing wild oats." Women who did that were loose and easy because – I guess – good girls got married.

So, in my humble opinion, the abortion issue takes society straight back to the old B.S. about madonnas and whores and the regulation of women's sexuality as necessary "whore control." It's the misogyny that the patriarchy was built upon. If we men need women in chains to preserve our morality then men need to be penned up and left outdoors. We're no better than livestock.

In fact, most younger men today have no problem finding their morality all on their own. Oppressing women is not required. Also, sshshshshsh ... there's more to morality than sex.

A 30-year-old Republican woman doesn't need to have done deep dives on women throughout history to understand their freedom is being messed with. That's the sentiment OH Predictive Insight is no doubt finding.

Women like freedom. Go figure. They think freedom is compatible with righteousness. They might just vote accordingly and then the religious Right would find itself outnumbered as democracy works its will. Oh, wait ...

Reality Two

In 1960, 69 percent of people in the U.S. over the age of 14 were married (yes, 14). That number is down to about half today. That same year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved birth control pills for widespread distribution.

And to a lot of people that was the beginning of the end. Other people saw it as the beginning of personal empowerment.

I remember being the first kid in my 1st grade class to witness his parents get divorced back in 1974. By 10th grade, it was no big deal. I also remember Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s leading the religious right in disparaging "recreational sex." They blamed it on the breakdown of the family. The problem, see, was the nation's overactive libidos.

The sexual revolution got tagged for the breakup of the American family and decay of American culture.

Pope John Paul II called this "The Culture of Death." It was all about "false freedom."

I'm just going to put this on the floor and see if the dog licks it up: Maybe – just maybe – the "housewives" of America had a lousy deal. They got to cook, clean and raise the kids. As every woman was expected to do that, there was no scarcity of labor so the job had no market value. Therefor women had no market value. America likes to equate market value to human value. Women could do the math.

The divorce boom of the 1970s probably had more to do with women feeling dissed. Yeah, 10-year-old me heard a lot of those conversations in the other room with women working through their frustration over wine and weed.

The sexual revolution and the revolution in reproductive medical advances have allowed women to redefine the terms of marriage because they are allowed to grow up and advance through life before donning the ring – if they put one on at all.

They've had that power. They are about to lose it. Taking empowerment from the people is a political loser so long as all the people have a say – oh, wait ...

Anyone thinking "wait, this is ancient history" understands the point. The origins of the war on abortion predates them and are probably foreign to them. So, too is their party's obsession with bedroom cops and uterine detectives.

To control completely

Former Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik had a brother who was a priest. He left the clergy when he fell in love with a nun and they got married.

During the Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal, I talked to him and he told me something that always stuck with me.

I'm paraphrasing a bit, but he said this: "If you have the power to control someone's sexuality, you control them completely."

That sounds like hyperbole until you think about it. If the state has the power to control the most personal and intimate actions, then controlling people's public lives is easy.

I also had a great political science prof who explained how power works in the simplest of terms: Policy gets made when the winners know they've won and the losers don't know they've lost.

Americans are notorious for their short attention spans. So I'm not sure people will really notice the immediate effects of overturning Roe. Someone who is not pregnant still has to buy butter at $5 per pound.

The fullness of the sexual counter-revolution will be unavoidable.

People are going to notice if they can't buy contraception anymore. People are going to notice the first time they know someone arrested for receiving oral sex. People are going to notice if they are again barred from getting married. People are eventually going to notice they have to go through labor and delivery when they accidentally get pregnant.

But I'm not sure the winners will know they won. Banning oral sex and mandating childbirth won't fix the fundamentals of a world fundamentally changing with social media, climate change, artificial intelligence or a ruling class of hyper-wealthy families.

Meanwhile, opinions do vary. I've given you mine. You have yours. Great. Awesome. I'm not trying to pass laws enforcing Blakeist doctrine. The religious Right has no business doing it either.

The right keeps going long on things that older voters like and younger voters don't. That's a big demographic problem for the GOP in a functioning democracy.

What's next? Are they going to ban democracy to – oh, wait ...


Blake Morlock is an award-winning columnist who worked in daily journalism for nearly 20 years and is the former communications director for the Pima County Democratic Party. Now he’s telling you things that the Devil won’t.

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