April 9, 2020 6:44 AM
Morning Reads – Thursday, April 9, 2020
April 9th is a monumental day in history. On this date in 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in the parlor of Wilmer McClean’s home. Grant allowed Rebel officers to keep their sidearms and permitted soldiers to keep their horses and mules. Though there were still Confederate armies in the field, the war was officially over. The four years of fighting had killed 360,000 Union troops and 260,000 Confederate troops.
These days, we’re fighting something we can’t see.
‘Rona
- And poor Albany.
- Would we turn the World Congress Center into a mega hospital?
- Talking drones for social distancing enforcement.
- Rona and Real Estate: Real Empty Buildings
- Dairies are dumping while groceries are rationing.
- China & US Closer to World War
- …and newspapers probably won’t survive.
- But at least Stephen King is sorry.
Peaches
- ‘Ol Paul Broun really making a name for himself this go around.
- The Democrats are engaging big time ahead of the May 19th primary.
- Stamps have become 2020’s poll tax, at least in Georgia
- But what about the wrongly addressed ballot applications?
- The industry that’s booming amid all this.
Jimmy Carter
- A pardon for Tiger King.
- Backtracking for Biden.
- …and kissing a Democratic future goodbye.
- Insurance policies weren’t crafted for pandemics.
- Poll: Obama > Trump > Biden
- 6 states accuse feds of diverting shipments.
Sweet Tea
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Jessica Szilagyi
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This is a few days old….
“There’s a nickname for Trump’s approach to letting the states fend for themselves: ‘Darwinian federalism’.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/trump-is-using-the-states-as-scapegoats-for-his-coronavirus-calamity/ar-BB12dsmZ?ocid=msn360
“Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) is reportedly working to create a consortium of states that can bid together, instead of against each other, for medical equipment. (A number of wags have suggested the consortium should be called the “United States.”)
I don’t have a solution and that undermines expressing concern, but I’ve concerns we’re heading in the direction of throwing good money after bad. And Vogtle indicates whose money that is likely to be.
Just to update those who are interested– the below is from the GA Dept. of Labor website:
“GDOL is modifying its current online unemployment application adding new questions to better identify those individuals who may be eligible for PUA [Pandemic Unemployment Assistance ]. This modified application is expected to be available on Monday, April 13, 2020, on the GDOL website. Once the application is received, it will take several weeks to process. ”
So it took about 2 weeks to get to this point where they even knew what they needed to modify on the application/website, and now it may take a few more weeks to process the apps. That will mean a 5-6 week lag on any income from time of the assistance bill passage. And maybe they’re setting low expectations, but experience thus far has been that all the promised expediency from Washington, D.C. has been buptkus. The federal DoL couldn’t even get good guidance to GA DoL (or other states) for at least 2 weeks.
Besides another month of economic suffering for many, I think this points at what Mike may have been alluding to the other day, which is systems preparedness and resiliency. After a brief review, it appeared that the Dept. of Labor unemployment procedures and online certification portal hadn’t changed since at least 1997, when I last accessed it. I don’t know details about how much our various systems have been made prepared for migration to more online capabilities, or prepared for online security, including the administrative workforce, but our resiliency score is not looking so good at the moment. Since we’re looking at potential waves of needs for social distancing, I hope the legislature addresses such systems resiliency needs as soon as there’s an ability to do so.
So they haven’t been paying Georgia unemployment now, with a separate supplemental application for federal unemployment coming?
From what I last read, I believe the process supplemental benefits will be up and running quicker, and I think it may be this week or next that they start. I don’t have any direct information on that yet, only what appeared on the site within the past week.
Ben Franklin sent a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy on November 13, 1789. In this letter he said: “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes!”