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Texas AG tells judge to free Dallas woman ‘unjustly jailed’ for operating hair salon
Fox News, May 6, 2020
(https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-ag-tells-judge-to-free-dallas-woman-unjustly-jailed-for-operating-salon)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday sent a letter urging a Dallas judge to free a woman he sent to jail a day earlier after she refused to apologize for keeping her hair salon open in violation of Gov. Greg Abbott’s order aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
Soon after, Abbott said he agreed with his attorney general on the matter. Later Wednesday, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick vowed to pay her fines — $500 for each day the salon was open — and volunteered to go under house arrest on the condition she be freed.
Paxton, whose office said Shelly Luther was “unjustly jailed” in a release, told Dallas County State District Judge Eric Moyé that he had abused his discretion and emphasized that the woman was keeping her business open in order to feed her family
DALLAS SALON OWNER WHO REOPENED DESPITE CORONAVIRUS RESTRICTIONS GETS 7 DAYS IN JAIL
“As a mother, Ms. Luther wanted to feed her children,” Paxton said in his letter. “As a small business owner, she wanted to help her employees feed their children. Needless to say, these are laudable goals that warrant the exercise of enforcement discretion.”
Luther was given three choices by the judge: She could offer an apology for selfishness, pay a fine and shutdown until Friday, or serve jail time.
“I have to disagree with you, sir, when you say that I’m selfish because feeding my kids is not selfish,” she told the judge. “I have hairstylists that are going hungry because they would rather feed their kids. So sir, if you think the law is more important than kids getting fed, then please go ahead with your decision. But I am not going to shut the salon.”
Her sentence reportedly was meant to reflect the seven days she kept her salon open in violation of the governor’s order, but on Wednesday the governor sided with Luther.
“I join the Attorney General in disagreeing with the excessive action by the Dallas Judge, putting Shelley Luther in jail for seven days,” Abbott said. “As I have made clear through prior pronouncements, jailing Texans for non-compliance with executive orders should always be the last available option. Compliance with executive orders during this pandemic is important to ensure public safety; however, surely there are less restrictive means to achieving that goal than jailing a Texas mother.”
Patrick tweeted: “7 days in jail, no bail and a $7K fine is outrageous. No surprise Texans are responding. I’m covering the $7K fine she had to pay and I volunteer to be placed under House Arrest so she can go to work and feed her kids.”
(Read more: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-ag-tells-judge-to-free-dallas-woman-unjustly-jailed-for-operating-salon)
James O’Keefe: CBS Faked a Line of Cars to Make Corona Tests Seem Harder to Get
Scott Whitlock, MRC Newsbusters, May 6, 2020
(https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/scott-whitlock/2020/05/06/james-okeefe-cbs-faked-line-cars-corona-tests-seem-harder-get)
Did CBS fake a line of cars in Michigan in order to make it seem like COVID-19 testing was even more difficult? That’s what Project Veritas creator James O’Keefe asserts in a new video. Footage of the May 1 CBS This Morning shows a long line of vehicles waiting for drive-by testing in Michigan.
According to O’Keefe, “A CBS News crew pulled medical professionals off the floor at the Cherry Medical Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to line up in their vehicles so a CBS film crew would have a long line for their COVID-19 coverage.”
O’Keefe talked to an anonymous witness in Grand Rapids who alleged that CBS “told us that medical personnel were taken away from treating patients and making the line longer for actual patients wait for the COVID-19 test.”
Here’s the actual video from the segment that aired on last Friday’s CBS This Morning:
In the segment, co-host Anthony Mason tinged it all with politics, chiding, “Michigan’s Republican-led legislature has voted to sue the state’s Democratic governor to stop her extending the coronavirus state of emergency there. Hundreds of protesters, some of them with guns, gathered at the state capitol yesterday demanding an end to emergency restrictions.”
Co-host Gayle King added, “Only six states have reported more cases than Michigan, but fewer than two percent of its people have been tested for the virus.”
On his website, O’Keefe explained:
Nick Ross, a corporate cleaning site supervisor at the Cherry Health facility, said he was there when the CBS News crew arrived and set up the video shoot at the COVID-19 testing site in the parking lot, “Apparently the news crew wanted more people in the line because they knew it was scheduled.”
…
“It’s just annoying cause we could have done other stuff,” said one registered nurse there recorded with a hidden camera by a Project Veritas insider.
Now, remember how journalists melted down over the White House presenting a “propaganda” video of scripted comments on corona. On April 14, John King lashed out: “At times, It bordered on dangerous,” adding “The President began with a propaganda video. He played it in the room, that cherry-picked moments. This was a Trump-is-awesome video, at taxpayer expense.”
CBS News President Susan Zirinsky gave a statement to O’Keefe and is denying any attempt at fakery. But the network is removing a portion of the video.
CBS News did not stage anything at the Cherry Health facility. Any suggestion to the contrary is 100% false. These allegations are alarming. We reached out to Cherry Health to address them immediately.
They informed us for the first time that one of their chief officers told at least one staffer to get in the testing line along with real patients. No one from CBS News had any knowledge of this before tonight. They also said that their actions did not prevent any actual patients from being tested.
We take the accuracy of our reporting very seriously and we are removing the Cherry Health portion from the piece.
Most people know that B-roll video for news events is packaged and shaped for the TV audience. But journalists show their hypocrisy when they freak out over carefully “cherry-picked moments.” Like an exaggerated line of cars?
Here is the video O’Keefe produced for his Project Veritas site:
Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds (long)
First major study of scheme comes as economic toll of coronavirus prompts fresh interest in idea
John Henley, The Guardian, May 7, 2020
(https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/07/finnish-basic-income-pilot-improved-wellbeing-study-finds-coronavirus)
Europe’s first national, government-backed basic income experiment did not do much to encourage recipients into work but did improve their mental wellbeing, confidence and life satisfaction, according to the first big study of a Finnish scheme that has attracted fresh interest in the coronavirus outbreak.
“The basic income recipients were more satisfied with their lives and experienced less mental strain than the control group,” the study, by researchers at Helsinki University, concluded. “They also had a more positive perception of their economic welfare.”
The study comes as the devastating economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis – including soaring unemployment worldwide – sparks renewed interest in basic income schemes. The pope suggested in his Easter address that “this may be the time to consider a universal basic wage”.
The Spanish government said last month it aimed to roll out a basic income “as soon as possible” to about a million of the country’s poorest households, with the economic affairs minister, Nadia Calviño, saying the Socialist-led government hoped a universal basic income would become “a permanent instrument”.
Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said this week the virus and its economic consequences had “made me much, much more strongly of the view that [universal basic income] is an idea that’s time has come”.
Finland’s two-year scheme, which ran in 2017 and 2018 and attracted widespread international interest, paid 2,000 randomly selected unemployed people across the country a regular monthly income of €560 (£490), with no obligation to seek a job and no reduction in their payment if they accepted one.
Aimed primarily at seeing whether a guaranteed income might encourage people to take up often low-paid or temporary work without fear of losing benefits, the scheme was not strictly speaking a universal basic income trial because the recipients came from a restricted group and the payments were not enough to live on.
But it was watched closely by other governments who see a basic income not only as a way to get more people into some form of work, but also as a route to reducing dependence on the state and cutting welfare costs. The idea has gained traction amid predictions that automation could threaten up to a third of current jobs.
The researchers, who conducted 81 in-depth interviews with participants in the scheme, concluded that while there was significant diversity in their experiences, they were generally more satisfied with their lives and experienced less mental strain, depression, sadness and loneliness than the control group.
The researchers also noted a mild positive effect on employment, particularly in certain categories, such as families with children, adding that participants also tended to score better on other measures of wellbeing, including greater feelings of autonomy, financial security, and confidence in the future.
“Some people said the basic income had zero effect on their productivity, as there were still no jobs in the area they were trained for,” said Prof Helena Blomberg-Kroll, who led the study. “But others said that with the basic income they were prepared to take low-paying jobs they would otherwise have avoided.
“Some said the basic income allowed them to go back to the life they had before they became unemployed, while others said it gave them the power to say no to low-paid insecure jobs, and thus increased their sense of autonomy.”
The scheme also gave some participants “the possibility to try and live their dreams”, Blomberg-Kroll said. “Freelancers and artists and entrepreneurs had more positive views on the effects of the basic income, which some felt had created opportunities for them to start businesses.”
It also encouraged some participants to get more involved in society, by undertaking voluntary work, for example. “Some found the guaranteed income increased the possibility for them to do things like providing informal care for their family or their neighbours,” said one of the researchers, Christian Kroll.
“The security of the basic income allowed them to do more meaningful things, as they felt it legitimised this kind of care work. Many of the people who performed such unpaid activities during the two-year period referred to it as work.”
Kroll said the results of the study could support arguments both for and against basic income. “But as we’ve all learned in the early part of 2020, insecurity is not a good way to live,” he said.
“While basic income can’t solve all our health and societal problems, there is certainly a discussion to be had that it could be part of the solution in times of economic hardship.”
Two-thirds of Manitobans support basic income
(https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/coronavirus/two-thirds-of-manitobans-support-basic-income-570252842.html)
A majority of Manitobans support the idea of a guaranteed minimum income, and even more believe governments should lean on big business and rich people to pay for the COVID-19 pandemic, a new poll has found.
METHODOLOGY
Probe Research surveyed online 803 randomly selected Manitoba adults from April 24 to 28. The sample was taken from both Probe’s online panel and a national surveyor, and slightly weighted for age, gender and region.
Technically, online samples do not have margins of errors like phone samples, but Probe says its results should be interpreted as having an MOE of 3.46 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
“This has really thrown into focus how precarious people’s incomes are. And that’s why I think we’re seeing the high degree of support for a universal basic income (UBI),” said Curtis Brown, a principal at Probe Research.
His firm polled 803 Manitobans online a week ago, asking to what extent they’d support governments taking various steps “after the pandemic is over” to “help people and businesses.”
The polling, released Tuesday to the Free Press and CTV Winnipeg, found the most support for raising taxes on corporations and high-income earners.
But Probe also found 62 per cent support “introducing a universal basic income,” with majority support across income, age and employment sector.
PC voters, however, were the least supportive, at 40 per cent.
(Read more: https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/coronavirus/two-thirds-of-manitobans-support-basic-income-570252842.html)
Coronavirus and the Universal Basic Income
The furlough scheme was an extraordinary move from a Conservative government and an essential underpinning for the incomes of millions of people.
The suggestion that British people have become addicted to the scheme is offensive to those who face destitution without it but it also ignores the fact that furlough is under the control of employers not workers, and those running businesses are as desperate to reboot the economy – safely – as the chancellor is. We are through the first emergency so what next?
What the government needs is to provide a financial safety-net for everybody in the country over the coming months and years as the labour-market and the economy continue to be turbulent and unpredictable.
Obliged
The obvious answer is the long-standing Green policy of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme. It would provide each individual with an income sufficient to meet their basic needs with additional payments to cover housing costs for those in rented accommodation and for the disabled.
Demands for UBI have become louder during the crisis, with a parliamentary Early Day Motion gaining support from nearly 100 MPs.
Such a policy would have more effectively underpinned the lives of citizens than the complex system of schemes devised by the chancellor. And it is those who have slipped through his net who are the best argument for a basic income beyond the crisis.
Both Labour and Conservative parties have resisted this policy, because they are both wedded to the wage-labour system that lies at the heart of a capitalist economy.
Admittedly from opposite sides: one from the side of labour one from the side of capital. But neither has the courage to challenge the fundamental law of the capitalist system that every citizen is morally obliged to work.
Insecure
This 19th-century mindset is blocking support for a policy that would offer the flexibility we need to respond to this economic calamity.
A government that accuses those who are trying to feed their families of being addicted to handouts will probably also fear that a temporary basic income scheme might become permanent and turn us into a nation of scroungers.
Recent research from Finland shows that this is far from the case. A two-year study found that those in receipt of the benefit enjoyed greater financial security and mental health but there was no disincentive to work.
In fact, without the fear of losing benefits, they were more able to take flexible but insecure opportunities.
But a basic income would only provide fundamental security and would leave most people on lower incomes than they enjoyed before the crisis.
Crisis
Without much larger injections of cash, we would still be facing a reduction in aggregate demand and an inevitable recession.
Alongside UBI we need a massive programme of public investment, again a longstanding Green Party policy called the Green New Deal.
This would kickstart investment in green infrastructure, electrifying our railways, retrofitting our homes, and converting space heating from gas to electricity.
It would create well-paid, skilled jobs in all our local economies. A Green New Deal would mean that we come out of the coronavirus crisis much better prepared for the bigger, and more fundamental, climate crisis.
How we fund this Green New Deal will determine how successful it is in achieving equality as well as sustainability.
(Read more: https://theecologist.org/2020/may/07/coronavirus-and-universal-basic-income)
Finland’s universal basic income study has revealed that the programme doesn’t seem to disincentivise work
Universal basic income seems to improve employment and wellbeing
The world’s most robust study of universal basic income has concluded that it benefits recipients’ mental and financial wellbeing, as well as modestly improving employment.
Finland ran a two-year universal basic income study in 2017 and 2018, during which the government gave 2000 unemployed people aged 25 to 58 monthly payments with no strings attached.
The payments of €560 per month were not means tested and were unconditional, meaning they were not reduced if an individual got a job or later had a pay rise. The study was nationwide and selected recipients were not able to opt out, as the test was written into legislation.
Minna Ylikännö at the Social Insurance Institution of Finland announced the findings in Helsinki today via livestream.
The study compared the employment and wellbeing of basic income recipients to a control group of 173,000 people who were on unemployment benefits.
Between November 2017 and October 2018, people on basic income worked an average of 78 days, which was six days more than those on unemployment benefits.
There was a greater increase in employment for people in families with children, as well as those whose first language was not Finnish or Swedish – but the researchers aren’t yet sure why.
When surveyed, people who received universal basic income instead of regular unemployment benefits reported better financial wellbeing, mental health and cognitive functioning, as well as higher levels of confidence in the future.
When asked whether basic income could help people dealing with situations such as the economic fallout of the covid-19 pandemic, Ylikännö said that it could help alleviate stress at an uncertain time.
“I think it would bring people security in very insecure situations when they don’t know whether they’re going to have an income,” she said.
The data suggests that basic income doesn’t seem to disincentivise people working.
However, the effect of basic income was complicated by legislation known as the “activation model”, which the Finnish government introduced at the beginning of 2018. It made the conditions for accessing unemployment benefits stricter.
The timing made it difficult to separate the effects of the basic income experiment from the policy change, said Ylikännö. “We can only say that the employment effect that we observed was as a joint result of the experiment and activation model,” she said.
Preliminary findings, released in February last year, had previously found no difference between the two groups for the number of days worked in 2017.
“Money matters, but alone it’s not sufficient to significantly promote either labour supply or demand,” said Ylikännö.