You know what time it is, welcome back to the Mondat GNR, with all the good news to start your day off right, courtesy of myself, Killer300 and Bhu. So lets dispense with the preamble and get right into the good stuff.
Despite the near-constant danger, 36-year-old Walid Abdel Mawla al-Sideeg regularly heads out to the battle-ridden streets of Khartoum to deliver food to families holed up in their homes.
He is not a humanitarian worker; during peacetime, he was a journalist. Instead, like many other Sudanese civilians, his actions are borne out of a dogged determination to protect the country’s vulnerable as the country’s infrastructure is torn apart by war.
Al-Sideeg started the Khartoum Food Bank on April 18, three days after fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted. The food bank has since grown into an essential lifeline for thousands of families in the city.
But, it is just one of countless civilian committees across the country that have banded together to support the communities racked by shortages of food, water and medical supplies. Prices have also skyrocketed, leaving many unable to afford essentials.
Always look for the helpers.
That’s a far from comprehensive look at the US labor movement activity last week, but it is a revealing snapshot of contemporary working-class organization on May Day 2023. The reform movements in both the UAW and the Teamsters, while each distinct in their character, have the wind at their backs. And while union leaders tend to use fiery rhetoric no matter what their actual plans may be, all signs suggest that the two unions, representing a powerful set of manufacturing and logistics workers, are starting to change the way they operate.
Both unions are also preparing to negotiate their largest contracts and vowing to strike if necessary. The Teamsters’ nearly 350,000-worker contract with the United Parcel Service (UPS) expires on July 31, and the UAW’s 150,000-worker contract with the Big Three automakers expires on September 14. As newly elected UAW Region 9A director Brandon Mancilla put it at a recent New York fundraiser for the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, “United, the entire labor movement is going to get what we deserve.”
Late stage capitalism is a blight on this planet, as companies continue to grind businesses and people into the dirt in search of endless profits. The cure? Unionization. The workers putting their foot down and reminding the bosses who really makes business go. People have had enough and the fighting is just ramping up.
avid Deon doesn’t downplay the challenge trucking companies will face in complying with California’s sweeping new mandate to decarbonize its trucking sector. But as president of Velocity Truck Rental & Leasing, a major provider of commercial trucks, he is preparing to help them do it.
“I believe zero-emissions vehicles are the future. You can’t ignore it,” he said.
And now that the California Air Resources Board unanimously approved an Advanced Clean Fleets rule on Friday, he foresees plenty of demand from customers looking to rent or lease the 200 battery-electric trucks his company will be bringing to Southern California over the next two years.
The more EV’s on the road the better.
In this fascinating interview with distinguished anthropologist, Brian Ferguson, who has made a deep study of this critical question we learn much about how anthropology is done, about how easy it is to think we’re seeing signs of warfare when we’re not, and most importantly how we’re justified in concluding that war is not inevitable and we can learn to avoid it.
We are not an inherently warlike species, we can do better.
But the more she learned about the way the UFCW was being run nationally, the more perturbed she became. Not much money was going toward organizing new workplaces, yet some union officials had salaries of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which struck her as unconscionably high. Oligario, who makes $24.40 an hour at Safeway after nearly four decades on the job, began getting mad. Was this what she had donated countless hours of her life to help build? Had she struggled to raise four kids on a meager salary while a group of lazy union officials lived extravagantly with her dues? Had she urged her poor coworkers to donate to a union that wasn’t willing to spend that money to help organize workers in need?
“That pissed me off,” she says.
Inside of the UFCW, a reform movement is rising — and its epicenter is Oligario’s own Local 3000.
This is interesting because the UFCW is MY union. So I will be watching this unfold with much interest.
A Utah judge ruled in favor of a Planned Parenthood request on Tuesday to block the state's latest anti-abortion law from going into effect Wednesday.
Driving the news: Third District Court Judge Andrew Stone approved an injunction that prevents the state from enacting its abortion clinic ban while courts review a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood Association of Utah and ACLU of Utah.
- The clinic ban, initially scheduled to take effect May 3, would have allowed abortion in only hospitals and some of their satellite clinics — facilities that historically have performed about 1% of Utah's abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Once again, we will not go back, no matter what the GOP tries.
A Missouri state court on Monday temporarily stayed an order by the state's attorney general imposing restrictions on gender-affirming care for transgender youth and adults from taking effect.
The big picture: The order, issued by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, is among the first state actions to target gender-affirming care for adults, as more legislation has focused on prohibiting access to trans minors.
- Bailey's order was set to take effect last week, but a judge stayed it until May 1. Monday's court ruling extends that stay until May 15.
Once again, the courts are resisting the most disgusting of the GOP’s transgressions. Thank goodness for that.
“Pretty much since the 1950s, nearly every building, whether it is new, or remodeled, has been required by local governments to have a certain number of off-street parking spaces,” notes Catie Gould of the Sightline Institute. These mandates affect the form and cost of housing and commercial properties nationwide—and not in good ways.
Reform has been building for many years—but recently has hit a critical mass, according to experts. For cities that don’t manage curb parking, the reforms may have unintended consequences. The benefits, however, include more reuse of old buildings, reduction in housing costs and suburban sprawl—and even reduced vehicle miles traveled.
Elimination of off-street parking mandates began in downtown areas, where historic buildings don’t meet modern zoning regulations, according to Gould. “That’s where it started, but it’s not where we are headed. … We are seeing a rapid rise in the number of cities eliminating all parking mandates, citywide. Some examples in the news lately include Anchorage Alaska, which covers an area larger than Rhode Island, and San Jose, California, home to a million people.”
Ha! Take that NIMBY’s.
It took me a moment to process the comment I had just heard: “We thought you had left Waco!” But over the next few moments of our impromptu meeting, it became clear to me that those few scattered meetings I had attended, the few comments I had volunteered and the one time I volunteered to edit a document for a new program: they had actually meant something. This was reiterated at a later meeting with the MPO director who emphasized the same thing: ordinary people shouldn’t underestimate the power of their presence. Most city departments and agencies never hear from everyday residents.
Coming to meetings, giving feedback, volunteering to help with a project… it all counts.
We need to increase people’s engagement in politics to be sure.
Unionized film and television writers are on strike Tuesday after a midnight deadline came without a deal with executives of the major producers and streaming giants in Hollywood.
The negotiating committee representing both the East and West Coast branches of the Writers Guild of America said in a statement that the strike would be in effect as of 12:01 am and that members — who voted last month to authorize a strike if one became necessary — would be on the picket line beginning Tuesday afternoon in both Los Angeles and New York.
“Though we negotiated intent on making a fair deal — and though your strike vote gave us the leverage to make some gains — the studios’ responses to our proposals have been wholly insufficient, given the existential crisis writers are facing,” the WGA said in a statement. “The companies’ behavior has created a gig economy inside a union workforce, and their immovable stance in this negotiation has betrayed a commitment to further devaluing the profession of writing.”
I am very excited by this, go get em WGA! Take no prisoners.
Alright time for everyone’s favorite segment, THE GNR LIGHTNING ROUND!
The Swiss cheese method of reducing gun violence
Sweden buildings worlds first electrified E road
1 in 3 cars will be electric by 2030
Ocean census aims to discover100,000 new species
Massive Geothermal apartment in Brooklyn, first of its kind
Trash interceptor weathers the storm
US adult cigarette smoking hits all time low
GSK’s RSV Vaccine gets EU Regulator’s Nod
Japan approves abortion pill for first time
No new Mpox cases since initial outbreak
The Full PUMP act is in effect, protecting lactating parents
The Cook islands have decriminalized homosexuality
Alright, good lightning round, now back to the regular GNR.
either corporate earnings nor the latest GDP numbers imply we're careening toward an economic contraction.
Why it matters: Last year, as the Fed tightened rates at the most rapid clip since the early 1980s — and stocks fell about 20% — obsession with the possibility of a downturn overtook both executives and the business press.
The big picture: To paraphrase the economist Robert Solow, the downturn has been everywhere, but in the economic statistics.
- Solid corporate profits, low unemployment, and Thursday's sturdy GDP data suggests the U.S. economy is more or less fine.
- Sure, it's slowed down — which is necessary to lower inflation — but there's scant evidence the economy is wobbling on the cliff's edge.
The latest: New numbers Thursday showed Q1 GDP grew at an annualized rate of just 1.1%, less than the 1.9% expected.
- But the undershoot was driven largely by notoriously noisy inventory numbers, which fell sharply — and this doesn't tend to signal much about the actual economy's health, as Axios' Courtenay Brown reported.
Yeah we’re not in a recession its just that corporations are being assholes.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is underwater among national female voters on a variety of issues championed by conservatives as part of the so-called culture wars, according to a new poll.
DeSantis has been rumored to join the Republican presidential fray this month following months of skepticism of whether he would challenge GOP front-runner Donald Trump, who has ratcheted up his attacks against the popular governor in recent weeks.
DeSantis has a lot of problems. Namely that he is a horrible disgusting eel person, or maybe a lamprey, something pale and wiggling you’d find in a cave to be sure.
Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis appears to be losing a popularity contest with Disney after the company filed a federal lawsuit against his state last month.
A Navigator Research poll published on Thursday showed that Disney is far more popular among registered voters than the Florida governor—including among crucial independent voters.
DeSantis is widely expected to enter the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination but he has not yet formally declared his candidacy, while some prominent GOP figures have questioned his feud with Disney.
Speaking of DeSantis having a lot of problems. Really Ron, what made you thin this was a good idea?
You chose this hill to die on DeSantis, and when you do die on this hill Disney is gonna buy it and build a resort over it.
The “Ron DeSantis done fucked up memorial beach resort.”
With drag shows on weekends.
That is your fate DeSantis. Two Dozen drag queens dressed like Disney Princesses singing “Let it go” on stage (A stage built right over your grave no less). And above the stage is a plaque that will read “Here lies some dipshit who isn’t even forth remembering.”
The latest non-farm payrolls data is out, and once again it thumped expectations with 253,000 jobs added in April. Basically, if there’s a recession coming someone forgot to tell the US economy.
After playing around on the Bloomberg terminal we discovered that this is actually the 13th straight month where US job creation has surpassed the median forecasts of economists polled by the Borg.
In fact, since the beginning of 2022 NFPs have beaten predictions every month save March 2022. Over that period the US economy has added nearly 6mn jobs, compared to the cumulative 4.2mn jobs forecast by economists.
Biden is getting people back to work, good for him and good for us.
Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell made no promise to pause a forceful campaign to rein in inflation after the US central bank lifted its benchmark interest rate above 5 per cent for the first time since 2007.
But for anyone listening to his nearly hour-long press conference on Wednesday, it was abundantly clear which way he was leaning.
“He couldn’t commit to a pause, but he all but did,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.
The trajectory of US monetary policy has entered a new phase after 10 successive interest rate rises since March 2022. Raging inflation has begun to subside and economic growth is slowing. Turmoil in the financial sector, with failures of regional banks such as First Republic this week, have emboldened arguments for a pause in rate increases.
Yeah it looks like they may be backing off their plan to do something about inflation that wont actually help and would just make things worse. Yeah lets tackle the actual problem with “Inflation”.
The Republican plan for 2024 is already failing, and the party leadership can see it and knows it.
There was no secret to a more intelligent and intentional Republican plan for 2024. It would have gone like this:
(1) Replace Donald Trump at the head of the ticket with somebody less obnoxious and impulsive.
(2) Capitalize on inflation and other economic troubles.
(3) Offer plausible ideas on drugs, crime, and border enforcement.
(4) Reassure women worried about the post-Roe future.
(5) Don’t be too obvious about suppressing Democratic votes, because really blatant voter suppression will provoke and mobilize Democrats to vote, not discourage them.
Unfortunately for them, Republicans have turned every element of the plan upside down and inside out. Despite lavish anti-Trump donations by big-money Republicans, Trump is cruising to easy renomination. Rather than capitalize on existing economic troubles, Republicans have started a debt-ceiling fight that will cast them as the cause of America’s economic troubles. Worse for them, the troubles are fast receding. Inflation is vexing, but the recession that Republicans hoped for did not materialize: Instead, Joe Biden has presided over the fastest and steepest unemployment reduction in U.S. economic history.
Yeah I’m feeling really good about 2024, anyone else?
And on that note another Monday GNR draws to a close. I hope you all had as much fun reading the good news as we did putting it together. Have a good week, stay positive, and lets work to make a better future for all.