Thu: Work Requirements Don't Work

It's Not Just Rising Sea Levels

Rapidly melting Antarctic ice is dramatically slowing down the flow of water through the world’s oceans and could have a disastrous effect on global climate, the marine food chain, and even the stability of ice shelves, new research says.

The “overturning circulation” of the oceans – driven by the movement of denser water towards the sea floor – helps deliver heat, carbon, oxygen and vital nutrients around the globe.

However, deep ocean water flows from the Antarctic could decline by 40 percent by 2050, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, which warned of effects that would last “for centuries to come”.

“That’s stunning to see that happen so quickly,” said Alan Mix, a paleoclimatologist at Oregon State University and co-author on the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments, who was not involved in the study.

“It appears to be kicking into gear right now. That’s headline news.”

If the model holds true, the deep ocean current will be “on a trajectory that looks headed towards collapse”, said University of New South Wales (UNSW) climate professor Matthew England who coordinated the study.

Rapidly melting Antarctic ice could affect oceans ‘for centuries’

"Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of" - Phil Ochs

Mississippi’s Republican-led Senate voted Wednesday against confirming veteran educator Robert P. Taylor as state superintendent of education, angering some Black Democrats who said the rejection was at least partly because Taylor is Black and wrote years ago about the state’s racist history.

The state Board of Education — which has members chosen by the Republican governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker — conducted a nationwide search for a superintendent last year. Board members announced in November that their unanimous choice was Taylor, who had worked the past 30 years in North Carolina.

“This whole confirmation was a political process, and I knew that coming in,” Taylor told The Associated Press on Wednesday evening after the Senate vote. He said senators in the past have confirmed all previous nominees for state superintendent, and he is disappointed this group of senators did not confirm him.

“The fact that they didn’t, that is what I have to live with,” Taylor said. “I will always respect the process.”

It’s not unusual for nominees to serve while waiting for senators to consider confirmation, and Taylor had been working as superintendent in Mississippi since January. With the Senate’s rejection, the board will search for another superintendent.

Gov DeathSentence Wants to Make It Easeir to Sue Fox Noise (Not Really)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is trying to weaken freedom of the press—and some Republicans are worried that it might hurt right-wing media. DeSantis wants to make it easier to sue news organizations for defamation, gutting the Supreme Court’s New York Times v. Sullivan, a landmark ruling that requires public figures to prove “actual malice,” meaning that the reporter or outlet knew that the information was false or at least seriously doubted its validity.

If you’re asking, “Can Florida just pass a law violating Supreme Court precedent,” the answer, of course, is … it can if what it really wants is a court case inviting the current Supreme Court to weaken freedom of the press nationally. That is the goal, as Florida House Speaker Paul Renner admitted, saying the bill “is designed to challenge current constitutional law” and “tee up a court case.”

In February, DeSantis tried to put a populist spin on his intentions, claiming, “It’s our view in Florida that we want to be standing up for the little guy against some of these massive media conglomerates.” However, since the Sullivan actual malice standard applies to public figures, not private ones, and DeSantis and Florida Republicans also want to fine bloggers who write about state officials without registering first, this sounds a lot more like DeSantis trying to protect himself than “the little guy.”

The reason some Republicans aren’t so happy about this is on display in the defamation suit against Fox News brought by Dominion Voting Systems, because, yes, Fox News is relying on Sullivan to defend itself. More generally, making it easier to sue for defamation could spell trouble for a right-wing media world that runs on spite and questionably truthful claims.

Which Came First, The Chicken Disease or the Egg-Producers' Profits?

Cal-Maine Foods, the biggest U.S. producer of eggs, reported sales doubled and profit surged 718% last quarter from a year earlier amid soaring supermarket egg prices.

The Mississippi-based company, which produces eggs branded Eggland’s Best and Land O’Lakes, reported its average selling price for a dozen eggs jumped to $3.68 in the quarter that ended Feb. 25 from $1.46 a year earlier.

Egg prices topped inflation lists of all U.S. goods and services last year as avian flu wiped out commercial chicken flocks and led to egg shortages. Supermarket egg prices dipped 6.7% in February from a month earlier, but remained high at an average of $4.20, the government reported.

Cal-Maine, however, had no cases of avian flu at its facilities, CEO Sherman Miller said in the earnings statement.

TucKKKer Goes Full Misogynist

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson called Donald Trump’s then-campaign lawyer Sidney Powell the c-word in a text message that was made public Wednesday as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the conservative network.

In a late-November 2020 exchange with an unidentified colleague, Carlson ― who is no stranger to making offensive comments about women ― privately criticized the unfounded claims of election fraud being pushed by the former president and his allies.

When the colleague sent Carlson a news report detailing Powell’s shunning by the Trump campaign because of her increasingly wild conspiracy theories, the widely watched, prime-time personality replied: “That c**t. I hope she’s punished.”

Several days earlier, per legal filings, Carlson said in another exchange that Powell was “lying” and described her as a “fucking bitch” and “crazy person.”

Work Requirements Don't Work

Republicans are gearing up for a new round of attacks on food assistance, part of their nonstop search for ways to stigmatize poor people. Rep. Dusty Johnson has introduced a bill that would expand the age range of the able bodied adults without dependents who are already subject to work requirements to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. That’s just the beginning of the planned efforts to kick people off of food stamps—but it’s bad enough.

“We know that work is the only path out of poverty,” Johnson, a member of the party that has steadfastly refused to raise the minimum wage to be a path out of poverty, told Politico recently. Currently, full-time, year-round work at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour puts a person just a few hundred dollars above the poverty threshold for a single adult. That full-time, year-round work at the minimum wage is more than $4,000 below the poverty threshold for a single parent with one child.

So Republicans need to shut their mouths about work as a path out of poverty until they plan to do something about it. But, of course, they will not do that. The message trumps the reality, because in reality, this is not about encouraging work or building paths out of poverty. It will increase hunger and instability, though.

There’s lots of evidence right now about how work requirements function in the SNAP program because of the existing work requirements. It’s not a mystery, and here’s the result:

Independent studies have repeatedly shown that SNAP’s work-or-lose-benefits time limit does not increase employment or earnings. It just cuts people off from the food assistance they need to buy groceries.[8] A recent study found that the time limit cut SNAP participation among those subject to it by more than half (53 percent), with no effects on employment and earnings overall.[9] Another recent study found SNAP participation was cut between 7 and 32 percentage points a year after the reinstatement of the time limit, again with no evidence of improved earnings or employment.

So work isn’t always a path out of poverty, thanks largely to Republicans. Work requirements don't increase earnings or employment. In short, expanding complicated work requirements to large new groups of people does as much to put out a Republican message about SNAP recipients (lazy, moochers, blah blah blah, you know the line) as it does to cut the rolls. But Johnson’s bill will do a lot to strip people of the SNAP benefits that keep them from hunger, threatening food assistance for up to 1 in 4 SNAP recipients, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Here’s how: Currently, if someone can’t document that they work or participate in a qualifying employment and training program for at least 20 hours a week over a three-month period, they lose their SNAP eligibility and don’t regain it for three years. But that only applies to people without kids and people up to 50 years old. The Republican bill would apply those work requirements to people aged 50 to 64, meaning many people who can no longer work at physically demanding jobs they may once have held. It would also apply the work requirements to people in households with kids over the age of seven. The kids would still be eligible for SNAP, but if the adults in their household weren’t, the kids would be worse off, too.

Here’s who’s at risk if this Republican bill becomes law:

3 million adults up to age 65 who live in households with kids
4 million children
2 million adults aged 50 to 64 in households without children