“The grinding battle over congressional redistricting is drawing to a close. And, contrary to expectations that the process would result in big Republican gains, the final House of Representatives map may well improve somewhat for Democrats.
The main reason is gerrymandering — redrawing of district lines for partisan benefit. Republicans built on their existing gerrymanders to try to expand their House advantage, but Democrats fired back even more powerfully with gerrymanders of their own.
Basically, Democrats saved themselves by resorting to a tactic they’ve previously denounced as not only unfair but downright unethical — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called gerrymandering “unjust and deeply dangerous” in 2019. But in the absence of national reforms banning the practice, refusing to gerrymander would have meant effective unilateral disarmament, ceding the GOP a significant advantage in the battle for control over the House.
Redistricting has proceeded like a tug of war. As state legislatures, judges, and commissions have approved new maps, creating more safe or swing districts in various states, the underlying partisanship of the median House district has been pulled in one direction, and then the other. The most powerful pulls came from either state legislatures that gerrymandered, or state courts that struck down certain gerrymandered maps”
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“it’s entirely possible, perhaps likely, that Democrats will still lose badly in House elections this fall — the party has a small majority, President Biden is unpopular, and the historical pattern is for the incumbent’s party to struggle in the midterms. But unlike much of the previous decade, the underlying map may be at least somewhat less biased in Republicans’ favor.”
“State and local governments are struggling to hire and retain workers amid a tight labor market, even as private-sector employment is reaching pre-pandemic levels.
Despite an influx of federal cash they received in response to Covid-19 — much of which remains unspent — and their own booming revenues, governments are having a hard time competing for workers as salaries at private companies rise.
Economists and unions warn that if public-sector employers can’t reverse the trend, it will erode the quality of services like education and slow the overall economic recovery. ”
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“Altogether, the public sector has gained back 53 percent of the jobs lost since February 2020, a ZipRecruiter analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data found. The private sector has won back 93 percent.”
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“Economists cite a historically tight labor market as one driver of the discrepancy. Employers in every industry are struggling to attract and retain talent, which has put upward pressure on pay and perks such as remote work that governments thus far have been unable to match.
There were a record 11.3 million job openings in January, the most recent month for which data is available — about 5 million more than there are employed workers. At the same time, average hourly earnings have surpassed $31 — a more than 5 percent increase from the previous year.
The year-over-year growth rate for hourly private-sector salaries and wages in each of the past four quarters has exceeded that for state and local governments by the largest margin on record, according to a Pew analysis of Labor Department data.
“Really across the board, many governments are often facing intense competition for workers,” Mike Maciag, who studies the government sector at The Pew Charitable Trusts, said. “Slower [public-sector] wage growth is playing a major role in hindering efforts by a lot of governments to fill openings and retain workers.”
Maciag points to a recent report from Arkansas’ Office of Personnel Management that found competing offers from Walmart, McDonald’s, Amazon and the like were impeding that state’s efforts to fill some positions. All paid significantly more than the state for entry-level jobs — despite the fact that the “complexity and responsibility” of the government roles “far exceeded” that of the private-sector ones, according to the report.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/05/treasury-russia-debt-u-s-accounts-00022979
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been using the policy implemented at the onset of the pandemic to immediately expel migrants apprehended at the border, while progressives, pro-immigration activists and institutions such as the United Nations and Doctors Without Borders have rebuked the policy for shutting the door on thousands of desperate families and stranding them in unsafe camps with limited options.
Almost everyone in this debate recognizes that the necessity of Title 42 to prevent Covid transmission is a pretense. Public health experts have long contended that the rule is scientifically baseless. In fact, officials in the previous administration explored enacting the policy before the pandemic by using the flu and measles as justification. But the benefits of repealing or leaving in place Title 42 are not as straightforward as either border security or human rights advocates claim, which both sides would be wise to understand as they argue the political merits of the administration’s next moves. If approached smartly, rescinding Title 42 could lead to a more secure and prosperous America rather than the chaos that some warn of.
Proponents of keeping Title 42 in place assert that the quick expulsions are needed because they give officials greater ability to intercept and turn back more migrants. A recent report from the Migration Policy Institute notes that Title 42 expulsions can take as little as 15 minutes, while removals under standard immigration law, which require more procedures and paperwork, can often take an hour and half.
But the procedural steps that Title 42 bypasses are critical for the U.S.’s ability to target smuggling networks and discourage repeat crossings. This is why Border Patrol agents warned in a 2021 report from the Government Accountability Office that Title 42 “negatively affected enforcement” because the expulsions gave them no time to collect intelligence from migrants concerning nearby smugglers and other illegal activity.
The quick expulsions under Title 42 also cut corners in ways that prevent authorities from deterring migrants as they attempt to reenter the country. Before the pandemic, officials were able to use criminal prosecution, fines and other penalties to deter people from repeatedly crossing the border. This is because apprehended migrants were being processed under standard immigration law. Title 42, however, is a provision that exists under health law, which means that authorities are incapable of issuing penalties for reentry against migrants who are expelled under this provision. Border Patrol officials have stated that because of Title 42, migrants now try to cross multiple times a day. Since the pandemic expulsions began, repeat crossings jumped from 7 percent in 2019 to 26 percent in 2020. It’s not unheard of for people to make as many as 30 attempts at crossing in just the span of a few weeks.”
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“But even when considering all the security liabilities that Title 42 is responsible for, proponents of the policy are correct in saying that Biden needs a plan in place as he works to rescind the program. This plan must include interagency coordination that rapidly expands capacity as more families arrive to claim asylum. The administration must also work with humanitarian organizations to ensure that they’re in the best position possible to monitor and shelter migrants — and that their capacity is being fully utilized.
At the same time, advocates for ending Title 42 as well as the Biden administration must acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of people who are being expelled under the policy haven’t been families seeking asylum, but rather single adults fleeing extreme economic deprivation and in search of work. In February alone, more than 90 percent of Title 42 expulsions were single adults — the vast majority from Mexico. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has acknowledged this reality and urged Biden several times last year to work with him to expand guest worker programs for the U.S., Mexico and the Northern Triangle. Though the Biden Administration recently suggested a willingness to do so, it has not yet provided any details.
It’s critical that Biden’s post-Title 42 strategy includes increased access to guest worker programs. Extensive research shows that when expanded legal channels are paired with border security measures, illegal immigration rapidly declines. This was exactly what happened in the mid-1950s when the U.S. government expanded their agricultural worker program for Mexicans, which caused illegal immigration to collapse by 95 percent in just 5 years. Border Patrol saw the success of the agricultural program and warned that restricting it would cause “a large increase in the number of illegal alien entrants into the United States.” But in 1960, the Department of Labor did just that, causing employer use of the program to drop by 30 percent in just one year while Mexican apprehensions increased by 55 percent. When the program was eliminated altogether, apprehensions continued to grow, reaching nearly 1 million in 1976.”
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“With a surge at the border and a shortage of workers, maintaining Title 42 has done nothing to solve either crisis — aside from creating more jobs for human smugglers. Though the Biden administration is right to rescind Title 42, chaos at the border will continue to drive headlines and the U.S. economy will limp forward until Biden prioritizes expanding legal channels for those in pursuit of a better life.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/03/the-supreme-court-has-never-been-apolitical-00022482
“The U.S., the U.K. and Australia will start joint work on hypersonic missile technology and electronic warfare capabilities under the umbrella of the AUKUS security pact.
The decision, announced Tuesday by the leaders of the three governments, is the latest move in an international race for hypersonic weapons, which can travel up to 10 times the speed of sound, making them much harder to detect.
It is also a further example of the deepening security partnership between the U.S., Britain and Australia, after their creation of AUKUS last September scuppered a mega submarine deal for France, souring relations between Washington and Paris. Developing hypersonic missiles represents a long-term aim for Canberra, which is seeking to step up the long-range strike capabilities of the Australian Defence Force.”
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“In March, Russia said it had used a hypersonic missile to strike an ammunition warehouse in western Ukraine. Last year, China reportedly tested two hypersonic weapons, causing alarm at the Pentagon.
The U.S. successfully tested a hypersonic missile in mid-March but did not announce it for two weeks to avoid increasing tensions with Russia, according to media reports.”
“Immigrant advocates and public health experts — and many top Democrats — for months have pushed back on the Biden administration’s continued use of Title 42, calling it unlawful, inhumane and not justified by public health considerations. They’ve argued that the policy, enacted in March 2020, has been utilized not to keep Covid-19 out of the U.S., but to keep migrants from seeking asylum, a legal right under U.S. and international law.
“It’s long overdue for Title 42 to end,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in a joint statement. “Title 42 is a public health regulation that should never have been used as a border enforcement policy, and its misguided implementation put countless people in danger and wreaked havoc on our asylum system that desperately needs repair.””
“He helped sink one of Joe Biden’s labor nominees, pushed the president to open new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and hammered the administration over lifting pandemic-era restrictions on the southern border.
No, it’s not a Republican. It’s Mark Kelly.
The Arizona Democratic senator is breaking palpably with the president as he pursues a full six-year term this fall in a once-reliable red state that’s recently become fertile territory for Democrats. Though Kelly has at times sought distance from the president on the border and economic issues during his 16 months in Congress, his recent run of schisms with the White House demonstrates that it’s not just Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) calling her own shots in the Copper State.”
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““I tell them when I think they’re not getting stuff right, like in this case. There’s no plan,” Kelly said in an interview, referring to the Title 42 rollback.
He added that he’s talked extensively to the White House and Homeland Security Department: “They understand that this is a real concern and they’re putting together a plan, I just haven’t seen a plan that looks sufficient.””
“gender-affirming care — especially the varieties that are usually used in children, such as puberty blockers — are validated and accepted by pretty much every child medical society in the US and the world. Lots of scientific studies have validated the value of gender-affirming care for children and, of course, adults.”
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“The governor’s order kind of caught us off guard. If this continues and this gets enforced more broadly, I think we are going to have to leave, and that sucks because we’ve lived here for almost two decades. We love living in Houston. We’ve been pretty happy here. But we are going to do what’s right for our family and obviously we cannot stay here with the state threatening to take away our children, who we love very much and we’re just trying to support their gender identity. It’s a shitshow, what can I say?”