Republicans love work requirements. Any semi-able-bodied adult seeking to qualify for Medicaid or food stamps needs to find work to qualify, and should rising unemployment rates (such as those expected to be just around the corner once President Trump’s tariffs take effect) make that difficult, well, that’s too damn bad.
But Republicans don’t pay much heed to work itself, particularly the kind of low-paid jobs that employ people poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or food stamps. Or to worker safety: Earlier today, Senate Republicans convened a confirmation hearing for Trump’s nominee to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), David Keeling, whose recent résumé features stints as the guy in charge of worker safety at UPS and Amazon. During Keeling’s tenure at Amazon, injuries at the company’s warehouses occurred at a rate 70 percent higher than that at other warehouses.
If Keeling’s nomination betrays the Republicans’ rather cavalier attitude to worker safety, it actually pales alongside their lack of concern for worker compensation. As I noted several weeks ago, Jonathan Berry, Trump’s nominee for the Department of Labor’s solicitor—its chief legal representative—was arguing in court as recently as this January (while still in private practice) that the 1974 congressional act that extended the minimum wage to domestic workers was unconstitutional. Trump’s key appointees to the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division—the division...
Mandya: In another development to the Dharmasthala complainant issue, a woman, claiming to be the masked man's first wife, has issued statements against him. "He is not a good person. He used to h...