Labor Day

I would think that since Penn. is a union-friendly state that would be a deal breaker but after years of anti-union propaganda and seeing what has happened in Michigan a very pro-union state, dummies will think this is a good thing.

— Been there Done that (@Beenthe67549681) September 5, 2022

... But they did come out in force in 2012, 2018, 2020, liking something about Obama and Biden and really not liking Trump after watching him. Abortion issue and some others work with these, I think, but the union issue is a really good one (see Sherrod Brown success).

— Three Blog Night (@Yastreblyansky) September 5, 2022

Stupid Economist Tricks: Pattern or Practice

Drawing by George Herriman. Via.

After the savage beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police was filmed in 1991 and the film became public—the original viral video of police violence—the street demonstrations and (naturally) accompanying misbehavior and property damage eventually led to a more focused effort to do something about police violence, in which our friend Senator Joe Biden played a distinguished part. Namely, in his much-maligned 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, there was a provision allowing the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to step in whenever they saw evidence of a police department engaging in a "pattern or practice" of violating people's constitutional rights.

In what came to be called a pattern or practice investigation, a preliminary inquiry (which could be any DOJ lawyer reading a newspaper story) can lead to a formally announced review by designated experts of the department's training policies, disciplinary procedures, and day-to-day interactions with the public, and that can lead in turn to one of a list of possible actions: a Technical Assistance Letter, which is a form of friendly advice from DOJ to the department, not especially binding; a Memorandum of Understanding which is a more rigorous step but still doesn't involve the courts; or an actual lawsuit, which isn't meant to proceed to trial but to the negotiation of a Consent Decree, a legally enforceable agreement to whatever the department needs to do to rectify the situation. It quickly became a really good resource, at least sometimes, as my source for this history, a Bloomberg article from the Freddy Gray moment in 2015, explains, as in the case of one of the first investigations, that of the same Los Angeles Police Department:

Something is not rotten in the state of Denmark

A rare moment of disharmony in Copenhagen came in 2010, when Carlsberg workers struck over management demands that they drink beer only during lunch hour. Via CBS News.

What's David Brooks wrong about today? He's startled to note that the congressional Republicans haven't offered any help to the workers who, he believes, put them in office ("The Workers Paradise", missing apostrophe sic):

I am appalled that Republicans didn’t seek to balance this tax bill with an equal effort to help the people who actually got them elected. The central problem of our time is the stagnation of middle-class wages, the disintegration of working-class communities and the ensuing fragmentation of American society.

So he's got one of those laundry lists of "reform" conservative proposals from the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and National Affairs, including of course "mobility vouchers" to help people flee their dying villages and go where the jobs are, which is a great way of halting the disintegration of working-class communities, as is well known (another effective method is hurricanes).

Thing that really stood out for me was this:

Sparing you the sarcasm

Senator Hatch at the keyboard in 2006. Photo by Cameron Craig/Associated Press via New York Times.

So Orrin Hatch (R-UT) lost his temper with Sherrod Brown (D-OH), for saying, "That whole thing about higher wages, well, it’s a good selling point. Just spare us the bank shot, spare us the sarcasm, and the satire."

Mr. Hatch, who had wearily tolerated hours of debate on a bill that Republicans have always planned to push along party lines, had heard enough.

“What you’ve said is not right,” Mr. Hatch said. “I come from the lower middle class originally, we didn’t have anything, so don’t spew that stuff on me.

“I come from the poor people, and I’ve been here working my whole stinking career for people who don’t have a chance, and I really resent anybody saying I’m just doing it for the rich,” he said. “Give me a break.”

Well, OK, I'll spare you the sarcasm for a change, more or less.