Ladies and gentlemen, the astroturfing industry:

https://thelensnola.org/2018/05/04/actors-were-paid-to-support-entergys-power-plant-at-new-orleans-city-council-meetings/

«However, astroturfing may be more common than you think. Crowds on Demand is one of the only companies that advertises this kind of work. But UCLA professor Edward Walker, who wrote a book about the phenomenon called “Grassroots for Hire,” said many other crowd services operate under the radar.

“There are hundreds of such firms across the country,” he told CNN in January. “By my estimate, around 40 percent of the Fortune 500 appears on the client list of at least one such firm.”»

Hmm. Another structural “problem”?

https://lornettvestal.wordpress.com/2018/04/09/the-struggle-is-real/

«While some older people joke that college students are all poor but really have mommy and daddy paying their bills, that joke only pertains to the minority of privileged students. For many students, the financial burden of obtaining a higher education is far out of reach and comes with the reality of crippling, lifelong debt. Students from poor and lower-middle-class backgrounds are genuinely feeling pressure. This has only gotten worse since I graduated well over a decade ago.»

Elections have consequences.

http://www.wfsb.com/story/38119534/iowa-governor-signs-nations-strictest-abortion-law

«A federal appeals court in recent years has struck down similar legislation approved in Arkansas and North Dakota, but conservatives say an influx of right-leaning judicial appointments under President Donald Trump could produce a different outcome in the future.»

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2018/05/04/unemployment-rate-hits-floor-employers-need-help-workers-bridge-skills-gap

«In addition to the skills gap, other barriers include high incarceration rates (even a long-ago conviction can keep a worker out of the labor market), child care policies and misaligned job-training programs.»

Recent Vox “The Weeds” podcast episode touched on the uselessness of job training programs. I bet we can do better.

Speaker Ryan had a farm bill (E-I-E-I-O) https://art19.com/shows/the-weeds/episodes/892dc7a9-6d87-4057-9ec5-dd214d7e69d2

Also: Ban the box.

Jobless Rate Looks Like Old Times, but the Economy Doesn’t
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/business/economy/unemployment-jobs.html

«“A 3.9 percent rate today doesn’t suggest as tight a labor market as 3.9 percent in 2000 or 3.9 percent in the late 1960s,” said Ellen Zentner, Morgan Stanley’s chief United States economist.

A lot has changed since the turn of the century. The share of working-age women in the labor force began to fall in 2000, after increasing for decades. Men have been dropping out for much longer. The upshot is that a smaller share of people are participating in the labor market, and it’s easier to get low levels of unemployment when fewer people are vying for jobs.

In fact, a shrinking labor force in April is part of why the unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent from 4.1 percent even as payrolls grew by a fairly routine 164,000 jobs.»

There are indications of wage increases waiting in the wings, though. Craziness.

Also, metal tariffs are starting to affect hiring, but not in a good way. I guess it’s easier to lay people off than to start up a factory. Complex, longer-term implications are always harder to see.

Good read.

https://medium.com/lapsed-historian/the-long-way-round-the-plane-that-accidentally-circumnavigated-the-world-c04ca734c6bb

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/05/criminal-gang-used-drone-swarm-obstruct-fbi-raid/147956/

The future iz here, in ur front yard.

https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/991842388841771008?s=20

Like Blackwater –> Xe Services –> Academi

Interesting thread about a transgender person and a hostile Lyft driver and the kindness of strangers. (Lyft has permanently deactivated the driver.)

Source: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/991707514294194176.html

I intend to develop this into a post on what-if-sparsely-populated-states-become-comfortable-and-a-bit-liberal-what-would-that-look-like-maybe-its-not-beyond-the-realm-of-possibility and the how the way we vote really has to do with the stories we tell ourselves about evil capitalists and welfare queens and hardworking family farmers and cetera, but on the off chance I get distracted by more shiny, here’s the basic post:

Source: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-horrible-2018-senate-map-couldnt-have-come-at-a-better-time/