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Julia Sneden Wrote: When I was a child, my parents encouraged (or discouraged) my independence, in appropriate measure. They shared their love of vigorous physical activity. They fed my curiosity and encouraged my mental growth. A kid couldn’t ask for a whole lot more. By all lights, I should have matured into a calm, capable, well-adjusted adult, which, mostly, I think I am. But there are a few things in life that shove me over the edge into cranky-old-dame territory, and push my usually normal blood pressure into the red zone.
Ahead of the annual Affordable Care Act (ACA) open enrollment period, the time during which consumers can shop for health plans or renew existing coverage, KFF has updated its Health Insurance Marketplace Calculator and its searchable collection of more than 300 Frequently Asked Questions about open enrollment, the health insurance marketplaces and the ACA. KFF’s Health Insurance Marketplace Calculator provides estimates of 2021 health insurance premiums and subsidies for people purchasing insurance on their own in health insurance exchanges. Users can enter age, income, and family size information to estimate their eligibility for subsidies and how much they can expect to spend on health insurance.
“When we declare a winner, it’s our final word,” AP Deputy Managing Editor for Operations David Scott said during a Sept. 23 briefing hosted by the American Press Institute. “We don’t make projections at the Associated Press. We don’t make predictions. There are no apparent winners or likely winners when we make a race call.” The AP will declare winners in more than 7,000 races around the country after Election Day. The standard is simple: If there is a path to victory for only one candidate, the AP calls the race for that candidate. Its call on the presidential race will take into account on-the-ground reporting — roughly 5,000 AP reporters will fan out across the country and feed information to a core team of 60 analysts — in addition to statistical modeling, pre-election polling, voting history in polling districts, vote counts and votes left to be counted.
Voters in New York City waited hours to cast ballots during the first time early voting has been allowed in the state in a presidential election. Recent mishaps involving mail-in ballots seemed to drive many voters to the polls. Massachusetts acknowledged it has not been able to determine the source of infection in about half of COVID-19 cases, an information gap that epidemiologists say could limit the ability to respond to outbreaks and control transmission of the disease. The Trump campaign and Nevada Republicans asked a state judge to stop the count of Las Vegas-area mail-in ballots, alleging that “meaningful observation” of signature-checking is impossible in the state’s biggest and most Democratic-leaning county.
Jill Norgren Reviews: Penny has won a large international audience — her books have been translated into more than twenty languages — with books that pay as much attention to character as to plot. This makes them rich and well-paced. Gamache, the cop who refuses to be disillusioned, sarcastic, or unhappy holds it all together, but never on his own. He believes in the abilities of others and draws upon their wit along with his own. In Paris Penny lets Gamache draw upon the intelligence and skills several women, including his wife, trained in library science. The scenes describing their work are among the highlights of this new book. Loyal series readers enjoy a trip abroad while first time readers will have no trouble slipping into Gamache’s world.
A newly developed light-sensing protein called the MCO1 opsin restores vision in blind mice when attached to retina bipolar cells using gene therapy. The National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, provided a Small Business Innovation Research grant to Nanoscope, LLC for development of MCO1. The company is planning a U.S. clinical trial for later this year. “The beauty of our strategy is its simplicity,” said Samarendra Mohanty, Ph.D., Nanoscope founder and corresponding author of a report on the mouse study that appears today in Nature Gene Therapy. “Bipolar cells are downstream from the photoreceptors, so when the MCO1 opsin gene is added to bipolar cells in a retina with nonfunctioning photoreceptors, light sensitivity is restored.” ... However, no one knows how the restored vision will compare to normal vision.
With work-from-home (still) in full swing, are you finding your quarantine quarters a little lacking? Do you dread logging into the morning meeting, coveting your colleagues’ digs while you slump at your desk seemingly made of Legos and leftover Ikea hardware? Yes, the ideal home office is the new status symbol, and Mia is here to help with Zoom-ready rooms straight from the galleries. Who wouldn’t want to brainstorm in the Studio of Gratifying Discourse? Or file those TPS reports from the sunny table in Pierre Bonnard’s Dining Room in the Country?
A COVID-19 vaccine or vaccines may become available in the United States in the next several months, at which point the process of actually delivering vaccines to most, if not all, of the population will begin. Although the U.S. has some experience with mass vaccine distribution, including during an outbreak, COVID-19 represents an unprecedented challenge that will require a scale not previously undertaken. Planning has already been underway, including the release of a federal distribution strategy and the federal government’s advance purchase of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine candidates.
After filing sexual harassment charges or engaging in other protected activity, employees may experience retaliation, such as firing or demotion, and EEOC data show that retaliation charges constitute a growing portion of its workload. EEOC's planning documents highlight its intention to address retaliation and use charge data to inform its outreach to employers. However, while EEOC can review electronic copies of individual charges for details, such as whether a previously filed sexual harassment charge led to a retaliation charge, its data system cannot aggregate this information across all charges.
Life was golden for Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman for the first 56 years of his life. He had served in all of the his state’s top political offices – secretary of state, attorney general, lt. Governor and Governor – even though he was a liberal Democrat in an increasingly Republican state. He had friends and contacts, a good marriage and two fine children. He was planning to run for President as soon as he was re-elected in 2002. Then he was slammed with a political hurricane, which went by the name of Karl Rove. Life’s been a steady slide downhill since then. Trial, imprisonment and appeal is a very complicated story which you will have to read the book to appreciate. Suffice it say that both men served their terms and saw their careers ruined.
Jill Norgren writes: I have galloped through this history. I want to end by suggesting how women running for elective office relates to the woman suffrage we celebrate this year. Suffrage is an important, but partial, expression of women’s political and legal citizenship. We must see the suffrage movement as part of something larger ... as intertwined with the temperance movement, the decades-long demands for married women’s property rights which included the right to make contracts and act on behalf of others, the Populist and Socialist movements and, of course, the right to run for elective office, an act Congressman John Lewis would have called “making good trouble.”
Jill Norgren writes: Suffrage is an important, but partial, expression of women’s political and legal citizenship. We must see the suffrage movement as part of something larger intertwined with the temperance movement and the decades-long demands for married women’s property rights. Those rights included the right to make contracts and act on behalf of others, the Populist and Socialist movements and, of course, the right to run for elective office, an act the late Congressman John Lewis would have called “making good trouble.”
How are Supreme Court Justices selected? The President nominates someone for a vacancy on the Court and the Senate votes to confirm the nominee, which requires a simple majority. In this way, both the Executive and Legislative Branches of the federal government have a voice in the composition of the Supreme Court. Published hearing transcripts contain all witness testimony, the question-and-answer portion of the hearing, and any other material requested of the witness by the committee. It may take several months, or even years, for a hearing to be published. Unlike most other congressional documents, hearings are not available from the Senate or House Document Rooms.
Thirty-two states require that their electoral votes go to the candidate who wins the statewide popular vote. Electors who snub the popular preference face fines or criminal charges in a few states. Electors typically vote for president at their state capitol roughly a month after Election Day. Individual secretary of state offices can answer questions about whether voting by presidential electors is open to the public. Maine and Nebraska are exceptions to the winner-take-all-electors rule. Those states have what’s called a “district system.” Two electoral votes go to the statewide popular vote winner. Then there’s one electoral vote for each congressional district, appointed based on the vote winner within the district.
Payrolls have now recovered roughly half of the 22 million decline. After rising to 14.7 percent in April, the unemployment rate is back to 7.9 percent ... A broader measure that better captures current labor market conditions — by adjusting for mistaken characterizations of job status, and for the decline in labor force participation since February — is running around 11 percent...The initial job losses fell most heavily on lower-wage workers in service industries facing the public — job categories in which minorities and women are overrepresented... Combined with the disproportionate effects of COVID on communities of color, and the overwhelming burden of childcare during quarantine and distance learning, which has fallen mostly on women, the pandemic is further widening divides in wealth and economic mobility.
This critically acclaimed exhibition originated at the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City in 2012. It was further developed in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2018 and made its American debut in Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2019. The exhibition presents personal belongings — including photographs, letters, jewelry, cosmetics, medical corsets, and exceptional garments — alongside 34 of Kahlo’s drawings, paintings, and a lithograph that span Kahlo’s entire adult life.The majority of artworks are unique to this venue, including a selection of Kahlo’s drawings that are on public view for the first time and that highlight Kahlo’s time in San Francisco.
Update, Oct. 3: “The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care,” a source familiar with the president’s health told a White House pool reporter in a pool report issued at about noon. “We’re still not on a clear path to a full recovery.” At 74 years old, Trump is at higher risk of developing a more severe case of COVID-19 than younger people. Figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on data available through Aug. 6, show that people ages 65 to 74 are five times as likely as 18- to 29-year-olds to be hospitalized and 90 times more likely to die.
Jo Freeman writes: How to debate a bully? That was the question Tuesday night at the first Presidential debate of 2020. This was not Trump’s first appearance as a schoolyard bully. What was surprising was that he didn’t leave that persona in the closet in favor of wearing one more appealing to a large and diverse audience. Did he choose to act like a bully, or could he just not help himself?
While the president and vice president forgo masks at rallies, the White House is quietly encouraging governors to implement mask mandates and, for some, enforce them with fines. In reports issued to governors on Sept. 20, the White House Coronavirus Task Force recommended statewide mask mandates in Iowa, Missouri and Oklahoma. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is among the Republican governors who have resisted a statewide masking order, despite the White House’s recommendation. “You don’t need government to tell you to wear a dang mask,” Parson said in July at a Missouri Cattlemen’s Association steak fry, according to the Springfield News-Leader. “If you want to wear a dang mask, wear a mask.” Parson and his wife, Teresa, tested positive for COVID-19 last Wednesday.
Roberta McReynolds writes: Imagine a ‘toy store’ dedicated to the decadent, culinary urges of pastry chefs (both professional and amateur) and the scene is set for a dieter’s nightmare. This store exists a mere four miles from my front door, and worse yet, within walking distance from my husband’s favorite hobby shop. The aisles are stocked with innovative gadgets for every conceivable special event and season, with a rich emphasis on wedding supplies. Cake pans, cookie cutters, and candy molds are strategically situated to catch and hold the attention of those who dare enter. I suspect that the sugar-laden atmosphere is delivered directly through the air-conditioning system to reduce any natural resistance, causing a hypnotic-like trance.
In the 1950s, 90% of Americans lived in states that closed their registration rolls two or more weeks in advance of Election Day, a few as much as a year in advance. The situation today is better, but not commendably so. Most Americans live in states where, if you wait until less than two weeks remains in the election to try to register, you’re out of luck. Officials in states with early closing dates say that it’s necessary in order to prepare the paperwork in time for Election Day. In an earlier time, that claim made some sense. In the electronic age when the records are digitally kept and updated, it makes less sense. A dozen states smoothly manage to let their residents wait until the last minute. They allow residents to register when they go to the polls on Election Day.
Kenneth Winneg and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, American Behavioral Scientist, 2017: In this study, University of Pennsylvania researchers look at whether people gained knowledge about policy issues and changed their minds about the candidates after watching televised presidential debates in 2016. What the two scholars learned: While debate watchers gained knowledge about policies, their assessment of candidates’ qualifications did not change. Neither did their opinions of whether individual candidates, if elected, would threaten the well-being of the nation.
Adding a justice opposed to abortion to the bench — which is what Trump has promised his supporters — would almost certainly tilt the court in favor of far more dramatic restrictions on the procedure and possibly an overturn of the landmark 1973 ruling Roe v. Wade. For Ginsburg, those issues came down to a clear question of a woman’s guarantee of equal status under the law. “Women, it is now acknowledged, have the talent, capacity, and right ‘to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation,’” she wrote in her dissent in that 2007 abortion case. “Their ability to realize their full potential, the Court recognized, is intimately connected to ‘their ability to control their reproductive lives.'”
Turning now to the labor market, unemployment was still at 8.4 percent in August and the labor force participation rate still down significantly from February. The extraordinary package of fiscal support in the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) helped to support household incomes and to offset the effect of the huge job losses in March and April. But the act's unemployment provisions have expired, and most of the businesses that received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans report that they have exhausted those funds.4 In addition, one area where increased understanding of the disease has, in many places, not led to general changes in practice is in the widespread school closures this fall. Many parents with children will be forced to work less, or not at all, which is going to be a hardship for them and weigh on the economy. So, I agree with Chair Powell that it will take continued support to sustain a robust recovery.
"At a reception some years ago, a college student asked if I could help her with an assignment. She had one question and hoped to compose a paper by asking diverse people to respond. What, she asked, did I think was the largest problem for the 21st century. My mind raced passed privacy concerns in the electronic age, terrorist threats, deadly weapons, fierce partisan divisions in our legislatures and polity. I thought of Thurgood Marshall’s praise of the evolution of our Constitution’s opening words, 'We, the people,' to embrace once excluded, ignored, or undervalued people — people held in human bondage, Native Americans, women, even men who owned no real property. I thought next of our nation’s motto: E Pluribus Unum, of many, one. The challenge is to make or keep our communities places where we can tolerate, even celebrate, our differences, while pulling together for the common good. 'Of many, one' is the main aspiration, I believe; it is my hope for our country and world."
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