Hi friends,
I try hard not to idolize people, because it is both unfair to them AND it is a set-up for disappointment. I should have learned my lesson growing up, as I looked up to my older brother with too much intensity. Still, there are people I admire dangerously. Stacey Abrams is one of those people.
"I know firsthand how medical costs and a broken healthcare system put families further and further in debt," Abrams said in the press release from Fair Fight.
"Across the Sunbelt and in the South, this problem is exacerbated in states like Georgia where failed leaders have callously refused to expand Medicaid, even during a pandemic," she added. "For people of color, the working poor and middle-class families facing crushing costs, we hope to relieve the strain on desperate Americans and on hospitals struggling to remain open."
Like Abrams, I’m a fan of changing the system instead of relying on the generosity of donations to address big problems. It is also the case that addressing problems like crippling medical debt is urgent. This donation is a humanitarian act and an indictment of the elected officials who have prevented Medicaid expansion.
Honor a friend or family member with a donation to RIP Medical Debt.
There are still tens of millions of Americans without health insurance — roughly 10 percent of the population — in large part because twelve states never expanded their Medicaid coverage. Clearly, this human rights issue cannot be left up to the people governing Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Tell Congress to close the Medicaid coverage gap.
There’s been a lot of coverage of the resistance to vaccine mandates and too little acknowledgement of how successful the mandates are. Yesterday, the mayor noted that
91% of the more than 400,000 municipal employees complied with the mandate and got at least one dose of a vaccine by Friday. However, about 9,000 workers were suspended without pay Monday when the order went into effect.
Another 12,000 workers have applied for a medical or religious exemption.
Those awaiting responses on applications for exemptions may continue to work and have been told to expect responses in “a matter of days.”
More than five million people around the world have lost their lives to COVID-19 and we have the tools to vastly curtail infections. Vaccine mandates are the proper use of government authority, and there is reason to believe that they are driving the downward trend of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in NYC.
Ignore the hyperbole about short-staffing of the NYPD due to the vaccine mandate. Only 34 out of 35,000 officers were suspended yesterday, along with 40 civilian employees.
As for cops quitting or retiring, sources said 58 officers with less than 20 years, but more than five on the job, vested their pensions and quit in October compared with 11 in October 2020. Another 105 officers resigned without vesting their pensions in October compared with 33 in October 2020.
There were 118 full retirements October 2021; the number was 114 in October 2020. There were, however,
a wave of retirements in 2020 in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests. In September 2020, the NYPD saw 196 retirements, and that number dropped to 69 in September 2021.
The structure and function of the NYPD needs further examination and massive reform. We do not, however, have a shortage of police.
“Public safety is so important to taxpayers, they basically close their eyes,” he said. “They say, listen, as long as we feel safe, so what if you stopped 600,000 Black and brown children a year? As long as I can enjoy my theater at Lincoln Center, so what if you’re spending $11 billion?
By the middle of October, the NYPD had blown through their FY22 overtime budget. Note that NYC has exceeded its overtime budget every year for decades.
[T]he overtime system fosters a flawed incentive structure and a pattern of petty arrests that entangle low-income residents and people of color with the criminal justice system. It also levies a social cost on over-policed neighborhoods that beg for more social services but just get more cops instead.
Assuming we elect Eric Adams today, we will hold him to his promise:
Adams [has] committed to cutting overtime spending in half before the end of his first year in office, in a recent interview with Bloomberg News. Tackling the problem requires changing the way the force deploys officers and how they get paid, he said.
Our good news theme today is action to remedy or repair something bad. Right now, the federal government is taking comments to consider designating the Meeker Avenue plume in Brooklyn as a Superfund site. The Meeker Avenue Plume resulted from seepage of chemical contaminants into the soil and groundwater.
The chemicals originated from local businesses — dry cleaners, foundries and metalworking shops — and include chlorinated solvents and petrochemicals that cause noxious vapors which have penetrated “homes and businesses across a wide swath of Greenpoint and East Williamsburg.”
“Ultimately, having a federal Superfund designation would be meaningful in a lot of ways. Specifically, it’s bringing necessary attention and resources to what I would say is not a very well known issue,” said Willis Elkins, the executive director of the Newtown Creek Alliance, a local environmental group which has urged the government to fully remediate the plumes. “There is not a ton of information that is available about the extent of the contamination, what’s happening with the remediation, and potential impacts on human health with those that are living or working above or near the plume.”
The comment period is an opportunity. We have some options: you can post your own individual comments AND/or I can post a comment on behalf of the group. According to the rules, if we all send similar comments, they will
Write a comment to the EPA to push for Superfund designation of the Meeker Avenue Plume. Or comment below to tell me why I should or should not send an organizational comment.
After six months of organizing, a new independent union, the Amazon Labor Union, has met the National Labor Relations Board’s benchmark to hold a union election. This impressive bit of organizing, at Staten Island’s JFK8 warehouse and three nearby Amazon facilities, “represents at least 30 percent of the proposed bargaining unit,” according to the NLRB. Amazon will fight this unionization drive as it fought the one in Bessemer earlier this year. We will be following this story.
Effective yesterday, the NYS Hero Act allows employees to form their own workplace safety committees. As Thomas Gesualdi of the Teamsters Union noted,
Too many companies called their employees essential last year not to celebrate their work, but as an excuse to ignore their safety.
The hope is that these committees will protect workers from retaliation when they raise health and safety concerns on the job.
Did you vote yet?! Have a great day!
with love,
L