In-Box Topics Which May Be of Interest

Evey day, I get an array of emails in my In-Box offering up articles or what they think can be interesting reads. Some are hawking subscriptions too. I like to subscribe to news letters and magazines. The problem being, I never get a chance to finish them all.

Law

Why the Supreme Court rejected a case about LGBTQ+ conversion therapy bans, slate.com, Dahlia Lithwick and Joseph Stern. SCOTUS refused to take up Tingley v. Ferguson, a First Amendment challenge to Washington state’s ban on LGBTQ+ conversion therapy for minors. Make believe cases and standing. (303 Creative).

This Is The Alito Court, Digby’s Hullabaloo, Digsby. “dynamics help explain why the responses stacked up so speedily to the draft opinion in February 2022: Justice Alito appeared to have pregamed it among some of the conservative justices, out of view from other colleagues, to safeguard a coalition more fragile than it looked.”

What Do You Get When You Cross Samuel Alito with the State of Texas? Washington Monthly, Garrett Epps. Alito’s opinion in the 2022 decision that demolished any claim to a constitutional right to choose abortion is neither. It resembles nothing so much as the pattern left on a wall after a petulant child has hurled their spaghetti bowl against it.

How Police Have Undermined the Promise of Body Cameras, ProPublica, Eric Umansky and additional reporting by Umar Farooq. Hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars have been spent on what was sold as a revolution in transparency and accountability. Police departments routinely refuse to release footage, even when officers kill.

The Historian Our Democracy Needs Now: The Notorious HCR!, annieasksyou…, Annie. The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cast such an outsized shadow that she was affectionately named The Notorious RBG.

Healthcare

CMS releases 2022 National Health Expenditures highlights: Uninsured rate dropped to historically low 8%! ACA Signups, Charles Gaba. In 2022, the insured share of the population reached 92% (a historic high). Private health insurance enrollment increased by 2.9 million individuals and Medicaid enrollment increased by 6.1 million individuals.

Getting the Lead Out, The American Prospect, Ramenda Cyrus. The Biden administration sets a goal of removing all lead water pipes throughout the country in the next ten years.

Mask Rift Puts Health Workers in Jeopardy Again, medscape.com, Amy Maxmen. Three years after more than 3,600 health workers died of covid-19, occupational safety experts warn that those on the front lines may once again be at risk if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention takes its committee’s advice on infection control guidelines in health care settings, including hospitals, nursing homes, and jails.

The Texas horror and the Republican dilemma, InFidel753 blog, Infidel. As I write this, it appears that the tormenting of Kate Cox is over. 

Economy

Income in the United States: 2022, census.gov, Gloria Guzman and Melissa Kollar. Under the age of 65 householders experienced a decline in median household income of 1.4 percent from 2021. Householders aged 65 and over did not experience a significant change in median income between 2021 and 2022.

Here is the average income for retirees in the US — how do you compare? msn.com, Amy Legate-Wolfe. Americans 65 years and older reported a median annual income of $50,290 in 2022, according to the United States Census Bureau.

Strong Job Growth Pushes Unemployment Rate Down to 3.7 Percent, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Dean Baker. The rise in unemployment from the 3.4 percent low hit in April had some worried that a recession was looming. The Sahm Rule holds that a 0.5 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate presages a larger increase. New Deal democrat also discusses the Sahm rule.

Here’s a Complete Rundown of Wall Street’s 2024 Stock Market Predictions, business insider, Matthew Fox. After a dismal 2022, stocks soared in 2023. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 jumping more than 20% and 50%, respectively.

Congress and President Biden should not trade away human rights and asylum protections for temporary defense funding, Economic Policy Institute, Daniel Costa and Samantha Sanders. Senate, House, and White House are embroiled in down-to-the-wire negotiations to trade harmful changes to the asylum system and draconian immigration enforcement measures in exchange for approving a one-time defense supplemental funding package. 

Most Americans Are Better Off, The Atlantic, James Surowiecki. A new survey by Bankrate published on Wednesday. Only 21 percent of those surveyed said their financial situation improved since Joe Biden was elected president in 2020, against 50 percent who said it had gotten worse.

HENRYs Turning to Unusual Type of Mortgage As Home Prices Soar, business insider, Eliza Relman. Some ​​Americans who are high earners, but not rich yet, known as HENRYs, are opting for unusual interest-only mortgages that boost affordability, at least in the short-term.

The Myth of the Unemployed College Grad, The Atlantic, Kevin Carey. A bachelor’s degree continues to be a great investment. Why do the media keep suggesting otherwise?

New Empirical Evidence Calls for a Return to the Antimonopoly Roots of Corporate Taxation, Roosevelt Institute, Niko Lusiani. Tax scholars and advocates have long called for rewriting the tax rules to tackle the extreme levels of income and wealth concentration enjoyed by a handful of households in the US. But lost under the rug of 40 years of neoliberalism is an even longer American history of using the tax code as a tool to prevent and address market concentration by big business. 

“real-world economics review,” Special Issue, Multiple authors and articles. How can we construct an economics consistent with the biophysical limits to economic growth?

Science

Why are some black holes bigger than others? An astronomer explains how these celestial vacuums grow, the conversation, Jaclyn Champagne. Why are there small and big black holes?

Mesopotamian bricks unveil the strength of Earth’s ancient magnetic field, phys.org, University College London. Ancient bricks inscribed with the names of Mesopotamian kings have yielded important insights into a mysterious anomaly in Earth’s magnetic field 3,000 years ago, according to a new study involving University College London researchers.

Education and Climate

Chicago Public Schools wants to start shifting away from school choice, Chalkbeat, Reema Amin and Becky Vevea. Chicago school leaders want to move away from the district’s system of school choice in which families apply to charter, magnet, test-in, or other district-run programs.

A True New Deal for Higher Education: How a Stimulus for Higher Ed Can Advance Progressive Policy Goals, Roosevelt Institute, Suzanne Kahn, Jennifer Mittelstadt, Lisa Levenstein. In “A True New Deal for Higher Education,” Suzanne Kahn, Director of Roosevelt’s Education, Jobs and Worker Power Program; and Professors Jennifer Mittlstadt and Lisa Levenstein from Scholars for a New Deal in Higher Education argue that higher education institutions urgently need more federal funding.

Climate Change: A Toxic Gift for the Next Generation, Fair Observer, India Nye Wenner. These gases raised heat to unprecedented levels. The ten warmest years ever recorded have all been since 2010.

More lessons from Canadian small house designs, Carbon Upfront, Lloyd Alter. You don’t need a thousand square feet per person to live comfortably.

Can Policy Feedback Inoculate Clean Transitions? The Case of Spanish Solar, Roosevelt Institute, Sunny Malhotra. The United States under President Joe Biden has invested an unprecedented amount of money in building out America’s green energy infrastructure, setting the tone for future investment in the climate transition.

Climate Change and Southern Black Migration, Capital B News, Adam Mahoney. The desire for a better quality of life is pushing Black people toward the epicenter of climate disasters and racism.