Here are my observations and opinions on news of the day.
SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, the New York Democrat who took Hillary Clinton’s old Senate seat in 2009, has been making noises about running for president in 2010, but knowing Bernie Sanders may run again, she knows she has to move further left.
In what appears to be an effort to out do Sanders on the Socialism front, she told the far-left magazine, The Nation, that she wants the government to guarantee everyone a job.
“Guaranteed jobs programs, creating floors for wages and benefits, and expanding the right to collectively bargain, are exactly the type of roles that government must take to shift power back to workers and communities,” she said. But as the editorial board of the New York Post commented, even Bernie Sanders never called for the government to get everyone a job.
The Nation reports that a number of Democrat think tanks are already determining how this could be done. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a paper envisioning an infrastructure bank that would fund vital projects and ensure that jobs are well-paid, with health insurance and paid leave.
How marvelous! The National Investment Employment Corp would guarantee a minimum annual wage of $24,600. The plan’s mean expected wage would be $32,500.
It reminds me of the Universal Business Income (UBI) scheme that big money guys Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson dreamed up recently.
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS has apparently asked outgoing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to consider an offer to become the university’s next chancellor. Tillerson is a native of Texas and a UT alum.
Personally, I was impressed with Tillerson. To me, he exuded the presidential qualities that critics said President Trump lacked. Unfortunately, he wasn’t operating on the same page of the president’s foreign policy goals.
LEAVE IT TO MIKE ALLEN at AXIOS to add a sour note to CNN’s presidential approval poll that rated President Trump at 42 percent, his highest rating in 11 months.
Allen felt the necessity to remind us that the rating is the lowest of modern era presidents at this stage of his first term. Of course, he fails to mention that no other modern era president has undergone the unprecedented media assault of Trump’s every action.
SPEAKING OF CNN – It appears as though their knowledge of things technical is no better than their political analysis. Note in the accompanying screen grab, that the graphic makes the statement “BOEING 777 WILL STRUGGLE TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE ONCE THE FUEL TANKS ARE EMPTY.” Duh
