BrainWorms

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9993508

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All I want for Christmas is universal workers rights

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/11015562

Briefly: Stanislav Kozlovsky, the director of Russian Wikimedia project (which supports the Russian Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, etc.), has been declared a "foreign agent" by Russia. He has been forced to resign from his job at the Moscow State University. Following the event, Russian Wikimedia has decided to dissolve itself.

English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AWikipedia_Signpost%2F2023-12-24%2FIn_focus

Russian: https://ru.wikinews.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B0_%D0%A0%D0%A3

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/720784

The minimum wage is set to increase in 22 states on Jan. 1, 2024.

Why it matters: For Americans making minimum wage, it's an automatic raise — but it also ripples out. Typically, increasing the wage floor for the lowest earners pushes up pay for those who make a bit more than the minimum, as employers have to adjust pay scales upwards.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9786504

And pull themselves up by their bootstraps as usual?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9772125

In a landmark decision, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that former president Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on the state’s primary ballot next year.

The Justices’ 4-3 ruling concludes that Trump engaged in an insurrection with his words and actions around the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and therefore cannot hold the nation’s highest office again.

“We are also cognizant that we travel in uncharted territory,” wrote Colorado’s Supreme Court in its unsigned 213-page decision.

This is the first time a state’s high court has concluded the 14th Amendment’s Civil War-era Disqualification Clause applies to both the office of the presidency and the actions of the former president. Supreme Courts in Minnesota and Michigan dismissed similar complaints.

“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” wrote the Justices. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”

In a statement, the Trump campaign called the ruling "a completely flawed decision" and said it would swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9726767

[A]round 2000, chatter that Thomas was dissatisfied about money circulated through conservative legal circles and on Capitol Hill, according to interviews with prominent attorneys, former members of Congress and Thomas’ friends. “It was clear he was unhappy with his financial situation and his salary,” one friend said.

...

During his second decade on the court, Thomas’ financial situation appears to have markedly improved. In 2003, he received the first payments of a $1.5 million advance for his memoir, a record-breaking sum for justices at the time. Ginni Thomas, who had been a congressional staffer, was by then working at the Heritage Foundation and was paid a salary in the low six figures.

Thomas also received dozens of expensive gifts throughout the 2000s, sometimes coming from people he’d met only shortly before. Thomas met Earl Dixon, the owner of a Florida pest control company, while getting his RV serviced outside Tampa in 2001, according to the Thomas biography “Supreme Discomfort.” The next year, Dixon gave Thomas $5,000 to put toward his grandnephew’s tuition. Thomas reported the payment in his annual disclosure filing.

Larger gifts went undisclosed. Crow paid for two years of private high school, which tuition rates indicate would’ve cost roughly $100,000. In 2008, another wealthy friend forgave “a substantial amount, or even all” of the principal on the loan Thomas had used to buy the quarter-million dollar RV, according to a recent Senate inquiry prompted by The New York Times’ reporting. Much of the Thomases’ leisure time was also paid for by a small set of billionaire businessmen, who brought the justice and his family on free vacations around the world. (Thomas has said he did not need to disclose the gifts of travel and his lawyer has disputed the Senate findings about the RV.)

By 2019, the justices’ pay hadn’t changed beyond keeping up with inflation. But Thomas’ views had apparently transformed from two decades before. That June, during a public appearance, Thomas was asked about salaries at the court. “Oh goodness, I think it’s plenty,” Thomas responded. “My wife and I are doing fine. We don’t live extravagantly, but we are fine.”

A few weeks later, Thomas boarded Crow’s private jet to head to Indonesia. He and his wife were off on vacation, an island cruise on Crow’s 162-foot yacht.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9672745

Almost three years since the deadly Texas blackout of 2021, a panel of judges from the First Court of Appeals in Houston has ruled that big power companies cannot be held liable for failure to provide electricity during the crisis. The reason is Texas’ deregulated energy market.

The decision seems likely to protect the companies from lawsuits filed against them after the blackout. It leaves the families of those who died unsure where next to seek justice.

In February of 2021, a massive cold front descended on Texas, bringing days of ice and snow. The weather increased energy demand and reduced supply by freezing up power generators and the state’s natural gas supply chain. This led to a blackout that left millions of Texans without energy for nearly a week.

The state has said almost 250 people died because of the winter storm and blackout, but some analysts call that a serious undercount.