Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice

Instead, their stories depict a struggle between a state government and ordinary people. Georgia’s brash reopening puts much of the state’s working class in an impossible bind: risk death at work, or risk ruining yourself financially at home. In the grips of a pandemic, the approach is a morbid experiment in just how far states can push their people. Georgians are now the largely unwilling canaries in an invisible coal mine, sent to find out just how many individuals need to lose their job or their life for a state to work through a plague.

Estimates vary as to how many businesses might actually reopen now, but none of the Georgians I talked with knew many people who intended to voluntarily head right back to work. That was true in Athens, which has long been one of the Deep South’s most progressive cities, as well as in Blackshear, a small town in the rural southeastern part of the state that tends toward conservatism. Kelly Girtz, the mayor of Athens, estimated that about 90 percent of the local business owners he had spoken with in the past week had no intention of reopening immediately. “Georgia’s plan simply is not that well designed,” Girtz says. “To call it a ‘plan’ might be overstating the case.”

Several of Georgia’s Republican mayors did not return requests for comment, but some have publicly supported Kemp’s decision. In Watkinsville, which is near Athens, Mayor Bob Smith released a statement on Sunday encouraging the town’s residents to return to religious services and their jobs.

Certainly, demand for these businesses’ services still exists. For many hair stylists, the response to Kemp’s reopening announcement was swift. Zach Lee, a salon owner in Blackshear who closed his business well in advance of the state’s shutdown, told me he heard from clients within 15 minutes of Kemp’s press conference. Lee had to tell them he wouldn’t be reopening yet because he didn’t think doing so was safe. “I want to work. I’m a workaholic. I can’t wait to get back behind the chair and do hair,” he said. “But now is not the time. I really don’t feel like being the guinea pig in this situation, and I don’t want my clients being guinea pigs either.”




https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-georgia-reopening-coronavirus-pandemic/610882/

Essential workers to get free college under new Whitmer plan

Essential workers in Michigan would be eligible for free college under a new plan being proposed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The plan, modeled on the GI Bill, would pay for college for those frontline workers who don't have a college degree, Whitmer said in announcing it Wednesday. Those eligible would be workers "like the ones staffing our hospitals and nursing homes, stocking the shelves at grocery stores, providing child care to critical infrastructure workers, manufacturing PPE, protecting public safety, picking up trash or delivering supplies," the state said in the announcement.

The plan is being called "Futures for Frontliners." It is being billed as the first-such program in the nation.

Details about the program, how people would apply for it, how much it would cost, or how it would be funded were not immediately released.

“The Futures for Frontliners program is our way of saying ‘thank you’ to those who have risked their lives on the front lines of this crisis," Whitmer said in a statement. "This program will ensure tuition-free college opportunities and give these dedicated Michiganders an opportunity to earn a technical certificate, associate degree or even a bachelor’s degree.

“I want to assure all of our workers we will never forget those of you who stepped up and sacrificed their own health during this crisis. You’re the reason we’re going to get through this.”



https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2020/04/29/essential-workers-free-college-whitmer-coronavirus/3048260001/

Meat plant workers to Trump: Employees aren't going to show up

New York (CNN Business)Meat-processing plant workers are concerned about President Donald Trump's executive order that compels plants to remain open during the coronavirus pandemic. Meat plant employees are among America's most vulnerable workers, and some say they expect staff will refuse to come to work.

"All I know is, this is crazy to me, because I can't see all these people going back into work," said Donald, who works at Tyson's Waterloo, Iowa, facility. "I don't think people are going to go back in there."
Donald asked to be referred to by his first name only. He is currently recovering after testing positive for the virus.

"I'm still trying to figure out: What is he going to do, force them to stay open? Force people to go to work?" he asked.

On Tuesday, Trump signed the order after some companies, such as Tyson Foods, were considering only keeping 20% of their facilities open. The vast majority of processing plants could have shut down — which would have reduced processing capacity in the country by as much as 80%, an official familiar with the order told CNN.

Over the past several weeks, a number of major meat suppliers have announced temporary closures as workers fall ill with Covid-19. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union estimated Tuesday that 20 meatpacking and food processing workers have died so far.




https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/business/meat-processing-plant-workers-reaction-executive-order/index.html

Biden Fundraiser Highlights Klobuchar as 'Potential VP'

A virtual fundraiser with Joe Biden and Sen. Amy Klobuchar next week is being billed to potential donors with an explicit reference to Klobuchar being a potential running mate, the New York Times reports.



https://politicalwire.com/2020/04/29/biden-fundraiser-highlights-klobuchar-as-potential-vp/

At Least 52 Infected After Wisconsin Primary

At least 52 people in Wisconsin who said they voted in-person or worked the polls for the state’s April 7 primary have tested positive for coronavirus, CNN reports.



https://politicalwire.com/2020/04/29/at-least-52-infected-after-wisconsin-primary/

Virginia announces agreement to waive witness for absentee ballots for June primaries

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced Tuesday an agreement to waive the requirement that a witness sign absentee ballots sent in the mail for the June primaries.

According to an order submitted to a federal court, Virginia will accept absentee ballots for the June 23 primaries without the signature of a witness “for voters who believe they may not safely have a witness present while completing their ballot.”

“This agreement is a win for Virginians because it will protect both the health and voting rights of those who would otherwise have to violate social distancing requirements and jeopardize their well-being just to exercise their fundamental right to vote,” Herring said in a statement. “No Virginian should have to choose between their health and their right to vote during this pandemic.”

Under state law, any voter who submits an absentee ballot by mail must open the envelope containing the ballot in front of another person, fill out the ballot and then ask the witness to sign the outside of the ballot envelope before it is mailed.



https://www.roanoke.com/news/local/virginia-announces-agreement-to-waive-witness-for-absentee-ballots-for-june-primaries/article_2523ca21-c4b8-56a2-9e77-63757a5d446d.html

'Big problem': Rick Scott frets about lavish unemployment payouts

Sen. Rick Scott continued Tuesday to contend that the jobless would indefinitely languish on the dole if benefits were too lavish.

“If given the chance to make more on a government program than in a job, some will make the rational and reasonable decision to delay going back to work, hampering our economic recovery,” Scott, a Naples Republican and former Florida Governor, tweeted Tuesday.

The subject of Scott’s ire was a tweet from the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ noted that, with $600 of weekly pandemic unemployment assistance added to the weekly stipend for the jobless, the nation’s unemployed would bring in nearly $1,000 weekly.




https://floridapolitics.com/archives/330291-big-problem-unemployment-rickscott

OH-03: Incumbent Joyce Beatty soundly defeats Justice Democrat Morgan Harper

How a Digital Ad Strategy That Helped Trump Is Being Used Against Him

Facebook users in five key swing states have been seeing a peculiar sequence of political ads pixelating their news feeds for the past six months.

It begins with a carousel ad from a page called United Research Group asking them to fill out a lengthy survey. Soon afterward, multiple ads from Pacronym, a progressive super PAC, begin to litter the Facebook experience of about half of those who had been surveyed. Then, an ad for a different but related survey appears.

This rather specific experience is an intentional and coordinated effort to reach persuadable voters in critical presidential battlegrounds, a result of months of work by a group of former Facebook employees and data scientists at the progressive nonprofit group Acronym.

Essentially, the group, which includes some who worked on the Trump campaign in 2016, has co-opted the political ad function on Facebook to perform real-time persuasion message testing, to get a sense of how voters are reacting to ads as they see them.

In the fast-paced world of digital advertising, the availability of real-time data beyond mere engagement is fairly small, leaving campaigns with a patchwork of clicks, old polling and hunches to assess the impact of the millions of dollars they are spending on digital platforms.

And Facebook, with about 220 million users in the country, remains the central digital vehicle for reaching Americans who are spending more time online during the coronavirus pandemic. About $100 million has already been spent on the platform for the 2020 presidential election.



https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/us/politics/Facebook-Acronym-advertising.html

Donald Trump's Maricopa problem

Clearly, the problem is Trump, whose style doesn’t sell well in Maricopa County (and in many other urban and suburban areas). As long as he is in the White House or on the ballot, the GOP has a problem in the county, and therefore in the state.

Unfortunately for Trump, he doesn’t have anywhere to turn to make up the votes he is losing in Maricopa County. Together, Maricopa and the state’s second largest county, Democratic Pima (Tucson), account for three-quarters of Arizona’s vote, and the state’s other counties simply don’t deliver a large enough number of voters to change an election outcome.

Even worse for Trump and the Arizona GOP, Maricopa is growing. Quickly.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s July 1, 2019, report on population changes, Maricopa County had the fastest growth in the country, in terms of population change, between 2010 and 2019.

In fact, Maricopa is now the fourth most populous county in the nation, ranking behind only Los Angeles County (California), Cook County (Illinois) and Harris County (Texas).

Why is that important? Because Trump and the GOP underperformed in the nation’s most populous counties in 2016 and 2018.




https://www.rollcall.com/2020/04/28/donald-trumps-maricopa-problem/