Lawyers for the District argued Wednesday for the dismissal of a lawsuit that challenges city regulations requiring some child-care workers to obtain associate degrees or risk losing their jobs.
The requirements … stipulate that childcare center directors must earn bachelor’s degrees, and assistant teachers and home-care providers must earn Child Development Associate (CDA) certificates.
— Washington Post, June 22, 2018
About 1,000 teachers in D.C. Public Schools — a quarter of the educator workforce — lack certification the city requires to lead a classroom, according to District education leaders.
— Washington Post, June 22, 2018
ON THE WEALTH OF NATIONS …
Tariffs are the greatest! Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs. It’s as simple as that — and everybody’s talking! Remember, we are the “piggy bank” that’s being robbed. All will be Great!
— President Donald Trump on Twitter, July 24, 2018
THIS IS YOUR TRADE WAR ON DRUGS
Brand-new Ford Transit Connect vans, made in Spain, are dropped off at U.S. ports several times a month. First, they pass through customs — and then workers hired by the automaker start to rip the vehicles apart. The rear seats are plucked out.
The seat belts in back go, too. Sometimes, the rear side windows are covered with painted plates. Any holes left in the floor are patched over.
This is how Ford Motor Co. tries to get around the half-century-old “chicken tax” … a 25 percent U.S. duty slapped on pickup trucks and work vans produced outside North America — 10 times the 2.5 percent duty on imported passenger vans. President Lyndon B. Johnson imposed the big tariff aimed at European automakers such as Volkswagen.
— Washington Post, July 6, 2018
GREEN ENERGY CORPORATE WELFARE
[NextEra Energy] has grown into a green Goliath, almost entirely under the radar; not through taking on heavy debt to expand or by touting its greenness, but by relentlessly capitalizing on government support for renewable energy, in particular the tax subsidies that help finance wind and solar projects around the country. It then sells the output to utilities, many of which must procure power from green sources to meet state mandates.
— Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2018
SUPPORTS PROHIBITION FOR 37 YEARS, NOW WANTS TO SUBSIDIZE DRUG SELLING
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D‑NY) today formally introduced new legislation to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. The bill … creates a new funding stream to help ensure that women and minority entrepreneurs have access to the new marijuana industries in their states.
— Sen. Chuck Schumer, Press Release, June 27, 2018
ATTENTION ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO TO VENEZUELA TO SEE SOCIALISM IN ACTION
The federal government on Monday delivered a withering rebuke of New York City’s housing authority, accusing officials of systematic misconduct, indifference, and outright lies in the management of the nation’s oldest and largest stock of public housing.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said the authority, which houses at least 400,000 poor and working-class residents, covered up its actions, training its staff on how to mislead federal inspectors and presenting false reports to the government and to the public about its compliance with lead-paint regulations.
— New York Times, June 11, 2018
THE 1930S CALLED. THEY WANT THEIR POLITICS BACK.
Leftwing politicians are singing the praises of border control while rightwingers call for expanding the welfare state. Old political certainties could be turned upside down in Germany this summer as the far ends of the country’s political spectrum both moot a “national social” turn.
— Guardian, July 22, 2018
I REMEMBER WHEN LIBERALS SUPPORTED FREE SPEECH AND CONSERVATIVES SUPPORTED FREE TRADE
Conservatives, said Justice Kagan, who is part of the court’s four-member liberal wing, were “weaponizing the First Amendment.”
— New York Times, June 30, 2018