PETALING JAYA The chief of Umno Youth has called for a political ceasefire amid a resurgence in Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, and for politicians to focus instead on national reconciliation.

The wing's head, Datuk Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki, said the current Covid-19 situation is troubling as cases have continued to spike while the economy is shrinking, and this has affected the livelihood of the people.

"Don't let us be punished by the people who are sick and tired of the attitude of politicians who continue to fight over political issues of power endlessly," Mr Asyraf said.

"It's the right time for politicians, despite their political parties, to hold a political ceasefire in order to think of the best solutions for the welfare of the people," he said in a Facebook post yesterday.

"Maybe this is the best time for all parties to set aside their differences and give focus to a National Reconciliation agenda." He did not say what he meant by the reconciliation agenda.

He made the call amid a jockeying for posts in the seven-month-old ruling Perikatan Nasional (PN) alliance led by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

Umno leaders are pushing for new terms to remain in PN, and have threatened the collapse of the government if Tan Sri Muhyiddin fails to meet these demands.

A senior Umno leader said the party wants the deputy prime minister's post and other key Cabinet positions.

Its call was made following opposition chief Anwar Ibrahim's audience with the King last week, at which he claimed to have a "formidable" majority of MPs behind him to form a new government and become the new prime minister.

Meanwhile, a senior Umno leader and a Cabinet minister in the Muhyiddin administration said Malaysia should hold a general election, and pick a new prime minister, only after overcoming the coronavirus pandemic.

Umno Supreme Council member Annuar Musa said in a tweet yesterday: "No need to think of a replacement for now... We are in consensus, help the government. When Covid-19 eases, immediately dissolve Parliament and leave it to the public... Give chance for PM to save the country and public lives first."

He was responding to news reports that the political party of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, Pejuang, has nominated the 95-year-old statesman as the candidate to replace Mr Muhyiddin.

Umno, its ally Parti Islam SeMalaysia and Mr Muhyiddin's own Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia were set to meet yesterday evening to discuss their cooperation under the Muafakat Nasional pact.

Umno has, meanwhile, postponed a meeting today of the Supreme Council, its highest decision-making body, where it was to discuss its continued cooperation with PN.

Mr Asyraf said "National Reconciliation" does not mean that each party has to disregard its political identity or its own party struggles.

"Instead, the National Reconciliation will allow political parties to temporarily suspend any dispute in terms of a power struggle," he said.

Malaysia logged 867 Covid-19 infections yesterday, the third day in a row of 800-plus cases in a 24-hour period.

THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK

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Umno Youth chief calls for ceasefire amid tussle in ruling alliance - The Straits Times

Gov. J.B. Pritzker held off filling top vacancies at Illinois unemployment office because he was planning to merge it with another state department.

Then COVID-19 upended the nation.

Starting in March, as authorities shut down businesses and schools and 2 million Illinois workers flooded the state for jobless benefits, the state Department of Employment Security was already at one of its weakest moments in recent history, records and interviews show.

At that moment, agency staffing was at an all-time low, according to its then-acting director. Veteran employees were retiring in droves to be replaced by rookies. And when key jobs were filled it was sometimes with political aides who had little or no agency experience.

Before the national health crisis, Illinois had been ranked among national leaders for speedy delivery of unemployment benefits. Suddenly, IDES plunged to being among the worst in the nation on several key performance measures.

In the months since, as problems have persisted, the administration has offered a range of explanations for its inability to handle the surge of claims.

Pritzker has blamed his Republican predecessor for hollowing out IDES and leaving the agency with inadequate staff and outdated technology. He has also criticized President Trump for unfair and chaotic rollouts of federal unemployment benefits.

But government records and interviews offer a more complex portrait, and reveal the frenzy inside an agency diminished by staff vacancies at every level in the 18 months Pritzker was in charge even before the crisis.

State-by-state data from the U.S. Labor Department, hundreds of agency emails and internal agency documents obtained by the Better Government Association show:

Pritzker administration officials acknowledged to the BGA the agency had problems, but Hynessaid unfilled leadership positions at IDES had little impact.

There was not instability at the top, hesaid. I think what was lacking was everything underneath there.

There was great attrition in the rank-and-file employees who were at the front lines of services. There was outdated technology, a lack of investment in technology that had occurred over the last 10 years. Thats really what was lacking.

Hynes said IDES worked hard under incredible stress to pay out a staggering $14.2 billion in benefits to an unprecedented 2.1 million Illinois claimants from March through August.

The volume and surge of claims that overtook the agency was really unprecedented and unsolvable until we figured out how to allocate the resources in the right way, Hynes said. It was heart-wrenching among all of us to urge patience among peoplewho were desperate to get help, but knowing that we were unable to deal with everybody all at once.

Pritzker this summer named Kristin Richards, a former chief of staff to state senate presidents John Cullerton and Don Harmon, the new acting director at IDES.

More so than anything, I feel a responsibility to try and bring some stability for claimants, find some stability for people that are attempting to reach us, Richards said. Its a really big problem-solving exercise but its the right time to throw every bit of muscle we can to try to do it, and thats what were going to do.

Experts say reforms are welcome and sorely needed.

These problems at IDES came at a cost to people. Some applicants had desperate financial problems, said Jeremy Rosen, Director of Economic Justice at Chicagos Shriver Center on Poverty Law. The governor was right that no state was properly prepared. But given the crisis every state faced, why did Illinois not respond as effectively as other states?

Before the pandemic, Illinois had been paying about 80% of initial unemployment claims within seven days.

That quick payout rate plummeted to around 1% and held there through September, putting Illinois last among states on this timeliness measure, according to newly released data from the federal labor department.

IDES told the BGA these quick payments slowed because Illinois like many states waited one week before starting the clock prior to the pandemic.After the crisis, Illinois and 36 other states cut out the waiting week in an effort to get more money out quickly.

Agency officials offered no explanation why it performed so much worse than all other states, including those that waived the waiting week. Only nine other states fell to less than 10% on this 7-day measure, the federal records show.

Federal rules do not require a 7-day turn around. Instead, the guidelines require states to pay out nearly 90% of all initial unemployment checks within 21 days.

On that 21-day measure Illinois also fell short by distributing only 61%. However, Illinois stillperformed better than most states. By comparison, the national average for meeting the three-week window is nearly 55%.

Still, every day matters to laid-off Illinois workers borrowing from relatives to pay their rent or mortgage bills, selling personal belongings and using food banks to get groceries to their families, according to emails pleading for help that reached the governors cabinet.

There is no standard for seven days, said Richards, the IDES acting director. I agree with you it is important to claimants. Every day is important to claimants.

The difficulties Illinois was facing amid the pandemic were reflected in federal labor department score cards required by the federal government, which rank states for the promptness of payments, the effectiveness of audits and eight other agency functions.

States submit reports every three months to indicate adequate performance or something less by labeling each of the 10 categories with either a green or red mark. IDES veterans call this chart the Christmas tree.

While IDES had been slowly improving since 2015 on the core labor department metrics, by March of this year Illinois was the only state failing all three categories labeled integrity measures, which includes detection of overpayments, improper payments, and the recovery of those mistaken payouts.

Asked for the states scorecard data through June, Pritzker administration officials declined to provide the records.

The Christmas tree is a document put together for internal purposes only and is not available for public consumption, IDES spokeswoman Rebecca Cisco told the BGA in an email.

The BGA, however, obtained a copy of that report, which shows erosion as Illinois failed five of 10 performance measures.

Amid the chaos, IDES was so far behind in processing claims that it triaged cases by prioritizing people referred by local politicians, the BGA found.

In a June 5 report to the bipartisan Senate oversight panel, IDES responded to questions about the lack of uniformity in how unemployment claims are submitted.

Claimants continue to call IDES in addition to their elected officials, the report said. Therefore, often, even though we move an elected officials constituent to the front of the line, the constituent has often already been able to get through to the call center.

We will continue to pull our staff out of the call center to call claimants sent to us by an elected official, that report added, but with hundreds of elected officials submitting issues to IDES, we cannot ensure the claimant will receive a response prior to their being able to get through to the call center.

Later that month, more than 50 House Democrats wrote to the agency that each of them was fielding 60 to 90 complaints from constituents on any given day. The lawmakers asked for additional IDES staff to handle their claims. In a column in the Chicago Sun-Times, Rich Miller reported on the lawmakersletter.

In a recent email to the BGA, Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh called the IDES practice of responding to claims referred by elected officials an attempt for the Department and its employees to help as many people as possible at a time when there was no structure in place.

The BGA has filed a pending public records request for details on the number of claims referred by each elected official since March.

Illinois began the pandemic era in a proud position, first among states to begin paying out the initial $600-per-week Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation payments on April 6, records show.

That early success quickly became a footnote as IDES was overwhelmed with 519,269 new claims for regular unemployment benefits that month more than 10 previous Aprils combined and federal authorities poured $500 billion in crisis relief into an alphabet soup of new and existing programs for laid-off workers.

Records show how Illinois struggled to implement those federal programs.

It was the 44th state to apply for the $300-per-week Lost Wage Assistance benefit: While most states deployed that program in August, Illinois did not start making payments until September 4, records show.

It was among 23 states that did not offer workers partial benefits when their employers reduced hours instead of laying them off. IDES told the Senate oversight panel in August it decided against offering the benefit because its staff was stretched thin.

Illinois also trailed all but seven states in processing the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA benefit, to independent contractors and gig workers. Illinois did not begin processing PUA payments until May 11, and didnt starting paying until a week later.

Emails between Hynes and then-IDES Acting Director Thomas Chan obtained by the BGA through a public records request detail the pressure inside IDES as Illinois PUA program was rolled out.

Folks I am counting on you to launch the independent contractor unemployment system ASAP and no later than May 11, Pritzker wrote to Chan and Hynes at 7:43 a.m. on May 4. Can you confirm that will happen? JB.

IDES hustled to update its policies and computer code, and minutes before midnight on May 10 Chan emailed Hynes that he and aides did a test run by filing a small sample of claims.

Minor hiccups but no show stoppers, Chan wrote.

Within 10 minutes of Illinois PUA system going live the next morning, on May 11, more than 1,500 people applied for benefits through the state portal, records show. Hynes conducted his own test minutes later.

I called the 800 number. Hit the correct prompts for PUA, Hynes wrote in an email to Chan at 8:01 a.m.

An automated voice told Hynes there was a high volume of calls. Then it hung up on him, Hynes emailed.

Its not even 830, Hynes wrote. This is not good.

Illinoisstruggle to roll out the new federal benefits came amid staffing shortfalls at every level of IDES.

Acting Director Chan was a placeholder pending the governors merger plans. Pritzker had named a replacement for Chan in 2019 then withdrew that appointment days later without explanation. And there were months-long vacancies in the deputy director and audit positions.

On March 14, 2020 as Pritzker was closing Illinois schools and dine-in restaurants and limiting gatherings to no more than 50 people Chan sent Hynes an urgent email that revealed the staffing shortfalls within IDES.

I need permission to fill IDES Chief Operating Officer position as soon as possible, Chan wrote. Please know that Im doing everything in my power to get you what is needed. But I need some help.

The Pritzker administration granted that request, and Chan rode out the harrowing next months at the helm of IDES. Chan declined to comment for this report.

Beyond leadership vacancies, rank-and-file numbers also were dropping.

In 2010, the year after Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn took office, the agency headcount stood at almost 2,000. That number declined to around 1,300 when Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner took over in 2015. When Pritzker assumed office in 2019, there were 1,100, records show.

By April, the IDES staff level had slipped to 1,041, according to state records.

Illinois had been struggling to onboard new employees faster than the rate of attrition, Chan told the states Employment Security Advisory Board.

In other words, heading into this downturn, our baseline staffing numbers, the employees hired to operate our programs and meet minimum federal performance standards, were, despite our best efforts, at an all-time low.

Whats more, experience had been drained from the agency.

In 2014, Chan told the panel, about 86% of IDES workforce had more than five years experience with the agency. By June it had dropped to 67%. Managers are serving in multiple roles and performing the work of multiple employees, Chan said, according to the boards meeting minutes.

Amid the pandemic, on April 29, IDES contracted with a private accounting firm to bolsterthe force of 100-plus IDES staffers answering phones. But those new agents often did not have adequate training to answer even the simplest questions, instead transferring claimants to the better-trained IDES employees, records show.

Pritzker wants to add 226 IDES employees next year. Illinois also is planning to issue bonds to borrow more than $5 billion to bail out the IDES Trust Fund, which uses taxes levied from employers to pay out worker benefits claims, records and interviews show.

What were going to do ourselves over the coming months and years is to figure out what weve learned from this experience, Hynes said. And that applies to what technology systems we have and need, what sort of human resources we need to devote to this agency, what type of best practices we should be borrowing from other states.

On hold for now: the governors plan to merge IDES with the state labor department.

It would not be a prudent thing to try to move pieces around and make changes in an agency that is really struggling just to meet its basic operations, Hynes said.

See the article here:
Illinois Poorly Prepared for Flood of Unemployment Claims - Better Government Association (BGA)

Gov. J.B. Pritzker held off filling top vacancies at Illinois unemployment office because he was planning to merge it with another state department.

Then COVID-19 upended the nation.

Starting in March, as authorities shut down businesses and schools and 2 million Illinois workers flooded the state for jobless benefits, the state Department of Employment Security was already at one of its weakest moments in recent history, records and interviews show.

At that moment, agency staffing was at an all-time low, according to its then-acting director. Veteran employees were retiring in droves to be replaced by rookies. And when key jobs were filled it was sometimes with political aides who had little or no agency experience.

Before the national health crisis, Illinois had been ranked among national leaders for speedy delivery of unemployment benefits. Suddenly, IDES plunged to being among the worst in the nation on several key performance measures.

In the months since, as problems have persisted, the administration has offered a range of explanations for its inability to handle the surge of claims.

Pritzker has blamed his Republican predecessor for hollowing out IDES and leaving the agency with inadequate staff and outdated technology. He has also criticized President Trump for unfair and chaotic rollouts of federal unemployment benefits.

But government records and interviews offer a more complex portrait, and reveal the frenzy inside an agency diminished by staff vacancies at every level in the 18 months Pritzker was in charge even before the crisis.

State-by-state data from the U.S. Labor Department, hundreds of agency emails and internal agency documents obtained by the Better Government Association show:

In recent months, IDES has issued around 1 percent of its unemployment checks within seven days of the initial applications, making it the slowest state in the nation by that measure. Before the pandemic, it was among the fastest. On some key federal measurements for processing unemployment claims, IDES performed better during the pandemic than other big states or than the nation as a whole. Still, Illinois failed to meet standards in five of 10 performance measures collected by federal authorities, ranging from timely benefits distribution to the soundness of internal audits that detect fraud and underpayments. The Pritzker administration denied a request for these scorecards, but the BGA obtained them anyway. In June, the overwhelmed and understaffed agency told a senate oversight panel, in writing, that it moved jobless claims that came through elected officials to the front of the line over applications that came directly from taxpayers, the BGA found. In emails and internal presentations, the acting head of the agency sounded the alarm repeatedly and urgently. Please know that Im doing everything in my power to get you what is needed, he wrote in a March 14 email to his boss, Deputy Governor Dan Hynes. But I need some help.

Pritzker administration officials acknowledged to the BGA the agency had problems, but Hynes said unfilled leadership positions at IDES had little impact.

There was not instability at the top, he said. I think what was lacking was everything underneath there.

There was great attrition in the rank-and-file employees who were at the front lines of services. There was outdated technology, a lack of investment in technology that had occurred over the last 10 years. Thats really what was lacking.

Hynes said IDES worked hard under incredible stress to pay out a staggering $14.2 billion in benefits to an unprecedented 2.1 million Illinois claimants from March through August.

The volume and surge of claims that overtook the agency was really unprecedented and unsolvable until we figured out how to allocate the resources in the right way, Hynes said. It was heart-wrenching among all of us to urge patience among people who were desperate to get help, but knowing that we were unable to deal with everybody all at once.

Pritzker this summer named Kristin Richards, a former chief of staff to state Senate Presidents John Cullerton and Don Harmon, the new acting director at IDES.

More so than anything, I feel a responsibility to try and bring some stability for claimants, find some stability for people that are attempting to reach us, Richards said. Its a really big problem-solving exercise but its the right time to throw every bit of muscle we can to try to do it, and thats what were going to do.

Experts say reforms are welcome and sorely needed.

These problems at IDES came at a cost to people. Some applicants had desperate financial problems, said Jeremy Rosen, director of economic justice at Chicagos Shriver Center on Poverty Law. The governor was right that no state was properly prepared. But given the crisis every state faced, why did Illinois not respond as effectively as other states?

From best to worst

Before the pandemic, Illinois had been paying about 80 percent of initial unemployment claims within seven days.

That quick payout rate plummeted to around 1 percent and held there through September, putting Illinois last among states on this timeliness measure, according to newly released data from the federal labor department.

IDES told the BGA these quick payments slowed because Illinois like many states waited one week before starting the clock prior to the pandemic. After the crisis, Illinois and 36 other states cut out the waiting week in an effort to get more money out quickly.

Agency officials offered no explanation why it performed so much worse than all other states, including those that waived the waiting week. Only nine other states fell to less than 10 percent on this seven-day measure, the federal records show.

Federal rules do not require a seven-day turn around. Instead, the guidelines require states to pay out nearly 90 percent of all initial unemployment checks within 21 days.

On that 21-day measure, Illinois also fell short by distributing only 61 percent. However, Illinois still performed better than most states. By comparison, the national average for meeting the three-week window is nearly 55 percent.

Still, every day matters to laid-off Illinois workers borrowing from relatives to pay their rent or mortgage bills, selling personal belongings and using food banks to get groceries to their families, according to emails pleading for help that reached the governors cabinet.

There is no standard for seven days, said Richards, the IDES acting director. I agree with you it is important to claimants. Every day is important to claimants.

A Christmas tree on fire

The difficulties Illinois was facing amid the pandemic were reflected in federal labor department score cards required by the federal government, which rank states for the promptness of payments, the effectiveness of audits and eight other agency functions.

States submit reports every three months to indicate adequate performance or something less by labeling each of the 10 categories with either a green or red mark. IDES veterans call this chart the Christmas tree.

While IDES had been slowly improving since 2015 on the core labor department metrics, by March of this year Illinois was the only state failing all three categories labeled integrity measures, which includes detection of overpayments, improper payments, and the recovery of those mistaken payouts.

Asked for the states scorecard data through June, Pritzker administration officials declined to provide the records.

The Christmas tree is a document put together for internal purposes only and is not available for public consumption, IDES spokeswoman Rebecca Cisco told the BGA in an email.

The BGA, however, obtained a copy of that report, which shows erosion as Illinois failed five of 10 performance measures.

Front of the line

Amid the chaos, IDES was so far behind in processing claims that it triaged cases by prioritizing people referred by local politicians, the BGA found.

In a June 5 report to the bipartisan Senate oversight panel, IDES responded to questions about the lack of uniformity in how unemployment claims are submitted.

Claimants continue to call IDES in addition to their elected officials, the report said. Therefore, often, even though we move an elected officials constituent to the front of the line, the constituent has often already been able to get through to the call center.

We will continue to pull our staff out of the call center to call claimants sent to us by an elected official, that report added, but with hundreds of elected officials submitting issues to IDES, we cannot ensure the claimant will receive a response prior to their being able to get through to the call center.

Later that month, more than 50 House Democrats wrote to the agency that each of them was fielding 60 to 90 complaints from constituents on any given day. The lawmakers asked for additional IDES staff to handle their claims. In a column in the Chicago Sun-Times, Rich Miller reported on the lawmakers letter.

In a recent email to the BGA, Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh called the IDES practice of responding to claims referred by elected officials an attempt for the Department and its employees to help as many people as possible at a time when there was no structure in place.

The BGA has filed a pending public records request for details on the number of claims referred by each elected official since March.

This is not good

Illinois began the pandemic era in a proud position, first among states to begin paying out the initial $600-per-week Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation payments on April 6, records show.

That early success quickly became a footnote as IDES was overwhelmed with 519,269 new claims for regular unemployment benefits that month more than 10 previous Aprils combined and federal authorities poured $500 billion in crisis relief into an alphabet soup of new and existing programs for laid-off workers.

Records show how Illinois struggled to implement those federal programs.

It was the 44th state to apply for the $300-per-week Lost Wage Assistance benefit: While most states deployed that program in August, Illinois did not start making payments until September 4, records show.

It was among 23 states that did not offer workers partial benefits when their employers reduced hours instead of laying them off. IDES told the Senate oversight panel in August it decided against offering the benefit because its staff was stretched thin.

Illinois also trailed all but seven states in processing the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA benefit, to independent contractors and gig workers. Illinois did not begin processing PUA payments until May 11, and didnt starting paying until a week later.

Emails between Hynes and then-IDES Acting Director Thomas Chan obtained by the BGA through a public records request detail the pressure inside IDES as Illinois PUA program was rolled out.

Folks I am counting on you to launch the independent contractor unemployment system ASAP and no later than May 11, Pritzker wrote to Chan and Hynes at 7:43 a.m. on May 4. Can you confirm that will happen? JB.

IDES hustled to update its policies and computer code, and minutes before midnight on May 10 Chan emailed Hynes that he and aides did a test run by filing a small sample of claims.

Minor hiccups but no show stoppers, Chan wrote.

Within 10 minutes of Illinois PUA system going live the next morning, on May 11, more than 1,500 people applied for benefits through the state portal, records show. Hynes conducted his own test minutes later.

I called the 800 number. Hit the correct prompts for PUA, Hynes wrote in an email to Chan at 8:01 a.m.

An automated voice told Hynes there was a high volume of calls. Then it hung up on him, Hynes emailed.

Its not even 830, Hynes wrote. This is not good.

Staffing levels hit all-time low'

Illinois struggle to roll out the new federal benefits came amid staffing shortfalls at every level of IDES.

Acting Director Chan was a placeholder pending the governors merger plans. Pritzker had named a replacement for Chan in 2019 then withdrew that appointment days later without explanation. And there were months-long vacancies in the deputy director and audit positions.

On March 14, 2020 as Pritzker was closing Illinois schools and dine-in restaurants and limiting gatherings to no more than 50 people Chan sent Hynes an urgent email that revealed the staffing shortfalls within IDES.

I need permission to fill IDES Chief Operating Officer position as soon as possible, Chan wrote. Please know that Im doing everything in my power to get you what is needed. But I need some help.

The Pritzker administration granted that request, and Chan rode out the harrowing next months at the helm of IDES. Chan declined to comment for this report.

Beyond leadership vacancies, rank-and-file numbers also were dropping.

In 2010, the year after Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn took office, the agency headcount stood at almost 2,000. That number declined to around 1,300 when Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner took over in 2015. When Pritzker assumed office in 2019, there were 1,100, records show.

By April, the IDES staff level had slipped to 1,041, according to state records.

Illinois had been struggling to onboard new employees faster than the rate of attrition, Chan told the states Employment Security Advisory Board.

In other words, heading into this downturn, our baseline staffing numbers, the employees hired to operate our programs and meet minimum federal performance standards, were, despite our best efforts, at an all-time low.

Whats more, experience had been drained from the agency.

In 2014, Chan told the panel, about 86 percent of IDES workforce had more than five years experience with the agency. By June it had dropped to 67 percent. Managers are serving in multiple roles and performing the work of multiple employees, Chan said, according to the boards meeting minutes.

Amid the pandemic, on April 29, IDES contracted with a private accounting firm to bolster the force of 100-plus IDES staffers answering phones. But those new agents often did not have adequate training to answer even the simplest questions, instead transferring claimants to the better-trained IDES employees, records show.

Best practices to borrow

Pritzker wants to add 226 IDES employees next year. Illinois also is planning to issue bonds to borrow more than $5 billion to bail out the IDES Trust Fund, which uses taxes levied from employers to pay out worker benefits claims, records and interviews show.

What were going to do ourselves over the coming months and years is to figure out what weve learned from this experience, Hynes said. And that applies to what technology systems we have and need, what sort of human resources we need to devote to this agency, what type of best practices we should be borrowing from other states.

On hold for now: the governors plan to merge IDES with the state labor department.

It would not be a prudent thing to try to move pieces around and make changes in an agency that is really struggling just to meet its basic operations, Hynes said.

This story was produced by the Better Government Association, a nonprofit news organization based in Chicago.

Read more here:
Better Government Association: Illinois poorly prepared for flood of unemployment claims - The Herald-News

A 3m funding boost is on the way to improve the condition of some Gwynedd schools as seperate plans for a new 5m primary take a vital step forward.

While a formal consultation will take place on a new 150 pupil school in Cricieth, Gwynedd Council was recently been successful in securing grant funding through the 21st Century Schoolsprogramme, allowing improvements to another seven schools across the county.

The schools to benefit from the 3.3m cash injection will bethe primary schools at Bethel, Llanrug and Ffridd y Llyn near Bala.

Also receiving a slice will be the secondary schools; Eifionydd (Porthmadog), Botwnnog, Glan y Mr (Pwllheli) and Syr Hugh Owen (Caernarfon).

The work on the seven schools includes internal remodelling and enhancement of existing buildings to make suitable as 21stcentury teaching and learning environments.

Construction is expected to start in the schools in the new year.

Cllr Cemlyn Rees Williams, the councils cabinet member for education, said: This is great news for many of our pupils and staff.

This funding enables us to modernise some of our buildings to make them suitable to effectively deliver the curriculum, to benefit our children today and for the future.

These projects offer value for money by improving our existing buildings to be able to adapt to the long term needs of schools.

Councillor Craig ab Iago, who hold the housing and property portfolio, added: Maintaining the condition of schools is financially challenging and therefore attracting this funding to improve the standard of school buildings will be of great assistance.

We will also look forward to opportunities to attract further grants with the aim of delivering improvements to more Gwynedd schools in the future.

Meanwhile, Tuesday saw the council cabinet vote unanimously to proceed with a formal consultation to build a replacement for Ysgol Treferthyr in Cricieth.

The cabinet report highlighted significant issues with the current building, describing it as significantly impairing the staffs ability to deliver the curriculum due to thevery poor and beyond repair 1970s-built facility.

Plans for the new 150 pupil school, with a site earmarked just off the A497 on the western approach into Criccieth, will now go to formal consultation with hopes that the new building will be up and running by the summer of 2023.

Ysgol Treferthyr had 114 pupils on the books in September 2019, just short of the schools capacity of 119, but a formal consultation is needed as the new building would increase its capacity by more than 25%.

Having also successfully secured the bulk of the funding thanks to the Welsh Governments21st Century Schools Programme, the authority looks set to contribute the remaining1.89m of the estimated 5.4m cost.

The cabinet was told that the capacity would be increased following patterns seen elsewhere where new buildings tend to attract more pupils than was previously the case.

The local councillor, Eirwyn Williams, said: Cricieth really needs a new primary school and following being part of the discussions, I agree that the favoured site is a very good choice as a location.

See more here:
3.3m of improvements on the way for Gwynedd schools - North Wales Chronicle

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks during a press conference on the introduction of legislation to establish a Commission on Presidential Capacity on Capitol Hill on Oct. 9 in Washington, D.C. Tribune News Service

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced support for legislation Oct. 9 that would allow Congress to establish a permanent commission that can be called upon by the vice president to judge a presidents ability to serve using the 25th Amendment. The amendment provides guidelines for replacement of a president in scenarios of death, removal, resignation or incapacitation. Pelosi supported this bill days after accusing President Donald Trump of being in an altered state because of his COVID-19 treatment.

The legislation has been the subject of much scrutiny from Republicans. Many accused Pelosi of using this as a way to remove Trump from office. Pelosis support for the legislation is simply a political move and not a true consideration of Trumps health.

Originally introduced in 2017 by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-MD, the legislation seeks to establish a nonpartisan commission separate from the presidents cabinet with regards to the 25th Amendment. The commission would be composed of eight former executive officeholders and eight physicians and psychiatrists, all appointed by congressional leaders in both parties. The chair of the commission is selected by these 16 members.

The 25th Amendment includes language on dealing with a president who is deemed unfit to serve but won't relinquish their position. It allows for the vice president and either a majority of the cabinet or another group designated by Congress to temporarily remove the president from their role.

In relation to Raskins bill, the vice president would still have to initiate this process. This bill would finally create a commission that could have a role in determining the president unfit to serve.

Pelosi began supporting the proposed legislation before it was announced Trump fully recovered from COVID-19 on Sunday. It is unreasonable to continue to focus on the bill with the news of Trumps recovery. But if news broke Trump was struggling with COVID-19 and his chances of recovery appeared slim, then this bill may have some value.

After stating Trumps COVID-19 diagnosis reminded her of the need for this commission, Pelosi began supporting it. Recent reports show Trump has tested negative and is not infectious to others. That should draw attention away from this bill and allow members of Congress to put it toward a stimulus bill and Judge Amy Coney Barretts nomination to the Supreme Court.

Trumps health being a forefront concern in the House right now is a waste of time. A new stimulus bill was released from the White House that both Republicans and Democrats, including Pelosi, were not pleased with.

The House passed a stimulus bill of their own in May and again Oct. 1, but its shown no signs of going anywhere since Republicans countered with two of their own. Both are less than Democrats minimum asking price of $2 trillion. The White Houses $1.8 trillion stimulus proposal was called insufficient and harmed ongoing negotiations, Pelosi said.

Clarifying language is still being waited on from the White House, but there is little faith from members of Congress any new stimulus bill will pass before Election Day. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, expressed doubt about any bill getting done soon. It is frustrating to see this pressing issue get nowhere while time is being spent on a bill that lacks immediate value.

The presentation of Raskins bill is blatantly partisan and beyond disappointing. The bill may establish a nonpartisan commission, but Republicans have made it clear they have no interest in supporting this legislation. The last thing America needs is more inaction in Congress.

This proposed bill is clearly a political stunt and not a genuine consideration of Trumps health. As a result, the American people pay the price because Congress fails to act on what they actually need.

Armando Bracco (he/him) is a freshman studying journalism. He is interested in politics and political reporting.

Like what you're reading? Support independent, award-winning college journalism on this site. Donate here.

IU has made no progress in addressing sexual assaults.

The House Judiciary Committee's report provides a framework for it.

Getting your flu shot early is essential to its efficacy.

View post:
OPINION: Democrats' support for bill involving 25th Amendment is a distraction from real issues - Indiana Daily Student

The chief executive of a 1,300-home housing association has been appointed as the long-awaited replacement third member of the Grenfell Inquiry panel.

Sharelines

Ali Akbor will step down as chief executive of Leeds-based Unity Homes and Enterprise to take up the role with the inquiry on 2 November.

The inquiry has been seeking a third member for its panel since January, when previous pick, Benita Mehra, stepped down after it emerged a charity she chaired had received funding from Grenfell-cladding manufacturer Arconic.

Ms Mehra was a short-notice replacement for the original candidate, Professor Nabeel Hamdi, who resigned without explanation in December.

Survivors and bereaved have been pressing for an appointment since, concerned that the current panel of retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick and architect Thouria Istephan lacked insight into matters relating to social housing and community relations.

Last week, Grenfell United which represents many of the former residents of the tower wrote to prime minister Boris Johnson branding the delay unacceptable.

Under the rules governing public inquiries, the government must appoint the panel, the recruitment being handled by the Cabinet Office.

Reacting to the appointment of Mr Akbor, Grenfell United said: We can only but hope that this panellist has been thoroughly checked and will live up to the responsibility he has before him.

We have already heard evidence on how we were labelled as troublemakers for speaking out for our safety. Its imperative that the panel learn the lessons and produce meaningful recommendations so that social housing tenants are never treated in this way again.

The inquiry is this week hearing from witnesses at the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) about their role in the refurbishment. On Monday, it emerged that tenants who asked for details of the plans were branded antagonists.

Mr Akbor said: I have been privileged to work with Unity colleagues and partners for more than two decades to deliver high-quality affordable homes and other essential services to those in greatest need.

We have radically improved the quality of life for thousands of people. This is a source of great pride to me and I know that this wonderful work will go on.

The future of the association and its customers will be in excellent hands.

Unity was first established in 1987 to address the housing needs of the black and minority ethnic population in Leeds. It now owns and manages 1,300 homes for tenants of all ethnicities.

The association also runs a service supporting local entrepreneurs that provides 142 affordable business units for more than 80 diverse businesses across three centres.

Mr Akbor is a qualified accountant and held senior roles in Salford City Council before joining Unity, where he has been chief executive since 1999. He was awarded an OBE last year for services to the community in Leeds.

The panellists will assist chair Sir Martin in reviewing the evidence and writing the inquirys final report.

View original post here:
Housing association chief executive appointed to Grenfell Inquiry panel - Inside Housing

Gov. J.B. Pritzker held off filling top vacancies at Illinois unemployment office because he was planning to merge it with another state department.

Then COVID-19 upended the nation.

Starting in March, as authorities shut down businesses and schools and 2 million Illinois workers flooded the state for jobless benefits, the state Department of Employment Security was already at one of its weakest moments in recent history, records and interviews show.

At that moment, agency staffing was at an all-time low, according to its then-acting director. Veteran employees were retiring in droves to be replaced by rookies. And when key jobs were filled it was sometimes with political aides who had little or no agency experience.

Before the national health crisis, Illinois had been ranked among national leaders for speedy delivery of unemployment benefits. Suddenly, IDES plunged to being among the worst in the nation on several key performance measures.

In the months since, as problems have persisted, the administration has offered a range of explanations for its inability to handle the surge of claims.

Pritzker has blamed his Republican predecessor for hollowing out IDES and leaving the agency with inadequate staff and outdated technology. He has also criticized President Trump for unfair and chaotic rollouts of federal unemployment benefits.

But government records and interviews offer a more complex portrait, and reveal the frenzy inside an agency diminished by staff vacancies at every level in the 18 months Pritzker was in charge even before the crisis.

State-by-state data from the U.S. Labor Department, hundreds of agency emails and internal agency documents obtained by the Better Government Association show:

In recent months, IDES has issued around 1 percent of its unemployment checks within seven days of the initial applications, making it the slowest state in the nation by that measure. Before the pandemic, it was among the fastest. On some key federal measurements for processing unemployment claims, IDES performed better during the pandemic than other big states or than the nation as a whole. Still, Illinois failed to meet standards in five of 10 performance measures collected by federal authorities, ranging from timely benefits distribution to the soundness of internal audits that detect fraud and underpayments. The Pritzker administration denied a request for these scorecards, but the BGA obtained them anyway. In June, the overwhelmed and understaffed agency told a senate oversight panel, in writing, that it moved jobless claims that came through elected officials to the front of the line over applications that came directly from taxpayers, the BGA found. In emails and internal presentations, the acting head of the agency sounded the alarm repeatedly and urgently. Please know that Im doing everything in my power to get you what is needed, he wrote in a March 14 email to his boss, Deputy Governor Dan Hynes. But I need some help.

Pritzker administration officials acknowledged to the BGA the agency had problems, but Hynes said unfilled leadership positions at IDES had little impact.

There was not instability at the top, he said. I think what was lacking was everything underneath there.

There was great attrition in the rank-and-file employees who were at the front lines of services. There was outdated technology, a lack of investment in technology that had occurred over the last 10 years. Thats really what was lacking.

Hynes said IDES worked hard under incredible stress to pay out a staggering $14.2 billion in benefits to an unprecedented 2.1 million Illinois claimants from March through August.

The volume and surge of claims that overtook the agency was really unprecedented and unsolvable until we figured out how to allocate the resources in the right way, Hynes said. It was heart-wrenching among all of us to urge patience among people who were desperate to get help, but knowing that we were unable to deal with everybody all at once.

Pritzker this summer named Kristin Richards, a former chief of staff to state Senate Presidents John Cullerton and Don Harmon, the new acting director at IDES.

More so than anything, I feel a responsibility to try and bring some stability for claimants, find some stability for people that are attempting to reach us, Richards said. Its a really big problem-solving exercise but its the right time to throw every bit of muscle we can to try to do it, and thats what were going to do.

Experts say reforms are welcome and sorely needed.

These problems at IDES came at a cost to people. Some applicants had desperate financial problems, said Jeremy Rosen, director of economic justice at Chicagos Shriver Center on Poverty Law. The governor was right that no state was properly prepared. But given the crisis every state faced, why did Illinois not respond as effectively as other states?

From best to worst

Before the pandemic, Illinois had been paying about 80 percent of initial unemployment claims within seven days.

That quick payout rate plummeted to around 1 percent and held there through September, putting Illinois last among states on this timeliness measure, according to newly released data from the federal labor department.

IDES told the BGA these quick payments slowed because Illinois like many states waited one week before starting the clock prior to the pandemic. After the crisis, Illinois and 36 other states cut out the waiting week in an effort to get more money out quickly.

Agency officials offered no explanation why it performed so much worse than all other states, including those that waived the waiting week. Only nine other states fell to less than 10 percent on this seven-day measure, the federal records show.

Federal rules do not require a seven-day turn around. Instead, the guidelines require states to pay out nearly 90 percent of all initial unemployment checks within 21 days.

On that 21-day measure, Illinois also fell short by distributing only 61 percent. However, Illinois still performed better than most states. By comparison, the national average for meeting the three-week window is nearly 55 percent.

Still, every day matters to laid-off Illinois workers borrowing from relatives to pay their rent or mortgage bills, selling personal belongings and using food banks to get groceries to their families, according to emails pleading for help that reached the governors cabinet.

There is no standard for seven days, said Richards, the IDES acting director. I agree with you it is important to claimants. Every day is important to claimants.

A Christmas tree on fire

The difficulties Illinois was facing amid the pandemic were reflected in federal labor department score cards required by the federal government, which rank states for the promptness of payments, the effectiveness of audits and eight other agency functions.

States submit reports every three months to indicate adequate performance or something less by labeling each of the 10 categories with either a green or red mark. IDES veterans call this chart the Christmas tree.

While IDES had been slowly improving since 2015 on the core labor department metrics, by March of this year Illinois was the only state failing all three categories labeled integrity measures, which includes detection of overpayments, improper payments, and the recovery of those mistaken payouts.

Asked for the states scorecard data through June, Pritzker administration officials declined to provide the records.

The Christmas tree is a document put together for internal purposes only and is not available for public consumption, IDES spokeswoman Rebecca Cisco told the BGA in an email.

The BGA, however, obtained a copy of that report, which shows erosion as Illinois failed five of 10 performance measures.

Front of the line

Amid the chaos, IDES was so far behind in processing claims that it triaged cases by prioritizing people referred by local politicians, the BGA found.

In a June 5 report to the bipartisan Senate oversight panel, IDES responded to questions about the lack of uniformity in how unemployment claims are submitted.

Claimants continue to call IDES in addition to their elected officials, the report said. Therefore, often, even though we move an elected officials constituent to the front of the line, the constituent has often already been able to get through to the call center.

We will continue to pull our staff out of the call center to call claimants sent to us by an elected official, that report added, but with hundreds of elected officials submitting issues to IDES, we cannot ensure the claimant will receive a response prior to their being able to get through to the call center.

Later that month, more than 50 House Democrats wrote to the agency that each of them was fielding 60 to 90 complaints from constituents on any given day. The lawmakers asked for additional IDES staff to handle their claims. In a column in the Chicago Sun-Times, Rich Miller reported on the lawmakers letter.

In a recent email to the BGA, Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh called the IDES practice of responding to claims referred by elected officials an attempt for the Department and its employees to help as many people as possible at a time when there was no structure in place.

The BGA has filed a pending public records request for details on the number of claims referred by each elected official since March.

This is not good

Illinois began the pandemic era in a proud position, first among states to begin paying out the initial $600-per-week Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation payments on April 6, records show.

That early success quickly became a footnote as IDES was overwhelmed with 519,269 new claims for regular unemployment benefits that month more than 10 previous Aprils combined and federal authorities poured $500 billion in crisis relief into an alphabet soup of new and existing programs for laid-off workers.

Records show how Illinois struggled to implement those federal programs.

It was the 44th state to apply for the $300-per-week Lost Wage Assistance benefit: While most states deployed that program in August, Illinois did not start making payments until September 4, records show.

It was among 23 states that did not offer workers partial benefits when their employers reduced hours instead of laying them off. IDES told the Senate oversight panel in August it decided against offering the benefit because its staff was stretched thin.

Illinois also trailed all but seven states in processing the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA benefit, to independent contractors and gig workers. Illinois did not begin processing PUA payments until May 11, and didnt starting paying until a week later.

Emails between Hynes and then-IDES Acting Director Thomas Chan obtained by the BGA through a public records request detail the pressure inside IDES as Illinois PUA program was rolled out.

Folks I am counting on you to launch the independent contractor unemployment system ASAP and no later than May 11, Pritzker wrote to Chan and Hynes at 7:43 a.m. on May 4. Can you confirm that will happen? JB.

IDES hustled to update its policies and computer code, and minutes before midnight on May 10 Chan emailed Hynes that he and aides did a test run by filing a small sample of claims.

Minor hiccups but no show stoppers, Chan wrote.

Within 10 minutes of Illinois PUA system going live the next morning, on May 11, more than 1,500 people applied for benefits through the state portal, records show. Hynes conducted his own test minutes later.

I called the 800 number. Hit the correct prompts for PUA, Hynes wrote in an email to Chan at 8:01 a.m.

An automated voice told Hynes there was a high volume of calls. Then it hung up on him, Hynes emailed.

Its not even 830, Hynes wrote. This is not good.

Staffing levels hit all-time low'

Illinois struggle to roll out the new federal benefits came amid staffing shortfalls at every level of IDES.

Acting Director Chan was a placeholder pending the governors merger plans. Pritzker had named a replacement for Chan in 2019 then withdrew that appointment days later without explanation. And there were months-long vacancies in the deputy director and audit positions.

On March 14, 2020 as Pritzker was closing Illinois schools and dine-in restaurants and limiting gatherings to no more than 50 people Chan sent Hynes an urgent email that revealed the staffing shortfalls within IDES.

I need permission to fill IDES Chief Operating Officer position as soon as possible, Chan wrote. Please know that Im doing everything in my power to get you what is needed. But I need some help.

The Pritzker administration granted that request, and Chan rode out the harrowing next months at the helm of IDES. Chan declined to comment for this report.

Beyond leadership vacancies, rank-and-file numbers also were dropping.

In 2010, the year after Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn took office, the agency headcount stood at almost 2,000. That number declined to around 1,300 when Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner took over in 2015. When Pritzker assumed office in 2019, there were 1,100, records show.

By April, the IDES staff level had slipped to 1,041, according to state records.

Illinois had been struggling to onboard new employees faster than the rate of attrition, Chan told the states Employment Security Advisory Board.

In other words, heading into this downturn, our baseline staffing numbers, the employees hired to operate our programs and meet minimum federal performance standards, were, despite our best efforts, at an all-time low.

Whats more, experience had been drained from the agency.

In 2014, Chan told the panel, about 86 percent of IDES workforce had more than five years experience with the agency. By June it had dropped to 67 percent. Managers are serving in multiple roles and performing the work of multiple employees, Chan said, according to the boards meeting minutes.

Amid the pandemic, on April 29, IDES contracted with a private accounting firm to bolster the force of 100-plus IDES staffers answering phones. But those new agents often did not have adequate training to answer even the simplest questions, instead transferring claimants to the better-trained IDES employees, records show.

Best practices to borrow

Pritzker wants to add 226 IDES employees next year. Illinois also is planning to issue bonds to borrow more than $5 billion to bail out the IDES Trust Fund, which uses taxes levied from employers to pay out worker benefits claims, records and interviews show.

What were going to do ourselves over the coming months and years is to figure out what weve learned from this experience, Hynes said. And that applies to what technology systems we have and need, what sort of human resources we need to devote to this agency, what type of best practices we should be borrowing from other states.

On hold for now: the governors plan to merge IDES with the state labor department.

It would not be a prudent thing to try to move pieces around and make changes in an agency that is really struggling just to meet its basic operations, Hynes said.

This story was produced by the Better Government Association, a nonprofit news organization based in Chicago.

Continued here:
Better Government Association: Illinois poorly prepared for flood of unemployment claims - Northwest Herald

In September, members of Mid Sussex District Councils Conservative cabinet agreed to shutter to the community venue, weeks after it was removed from the contract with Places Leisure.

The decision has been called in by the Liberal Democrats and will be debated by the councils scrutiny committee for community, customer services and service delivery tomorrow (Tuesday).

When the decision was taken, officers noted how the use of Clair Hall had fallen in recent years, with the cost of maintaining and repairing the building over the next 20 years estimated to be in the range of 1million.

The community venue has not reopened since closing earlier this year due to the lockdown.

Alison Bennett, Liberal Democrat group leader, said: Theres lots of public anger about the way this decision has been rushed through. Clair Hall is a much-loved part of Haywards Heath and theres a feeling that it is just been snatched away under the cover of Covid. Voters have got a right to have their voice heard on this and thats what well make sure happens on Tuesday.

We dont expect the council to get everything right but we think this is a bad decision, reached through a flawed process. This meeting could give the cabinet a chance to reset and come back with a plan that ensures the town doesnt have to wait years for a replacement facility.

Ahead of the meeting, the Lib Dems say that these questions need answers:

What is driving the decision to push the closure of Clair Hall through at breakneck speed without proper regard to the councils own decision-making rules?

2. What does the council want to do with this prime town centre site?

What are the alternative uses envisaged for the site? What alternative locations are being considered for Clair Halls replacement?

3. Why were the public not consulted before the cabinet decided to close Clair Hall?

One of the councils principles of decision making is that proper regard should be paid to internal and external consultation according to the decision in question. Why has this not happened?

4. Is this council still committed to facilitating culture and the arts across Mid Sussex?

When MSDC closed Martlets Hall in Burgess Hill in 2018, one justification was that hall users could be relocated to Clair Hall in Haywards Heath. What does the closure of Clair Hall mean for this councils future community and culture strategies?

5. Is Covid-19 being used to push through the closure of Clair Hall something MSDC have been attempting to achieve since the 2007 Haywards Heath masterplan?

With venues as varied as the Royal Albert Hall and Hurstpierpoint Village Centre both reopening despite social distancing restrictions, why does MSDC say that it is not possible for Clair Hall to do the same?

Redevelopment of the Clair Hall site has been on the cards for over decade. Isnt Covid being used as a convenient excuse?

See more here:
'Rushed through' decision to close Clair Hall to be challenged - Mid Sussex Times

Solve Internet access

The covid-19 pandemic has highlighted a number of issues that disproportionately affect low-income families, resulting in various government actions to alleviate the problems. As promising as it is to see action being taken, it's important to recognize that many of these problems existed long before this crisis and most will remain long after the pandemic has ended. One such issue is lack of access to reliable Internet for low-income and rural students.

This is not a problem created by the covid-19 pandemic. Low-income and rural students have been disadvantaged by lack of Internet access for as long as Internet access has been integral to the public-school curriculum. This summer, Governor Hutchinson announced that a portion of the money allocated by the CARES Act would be used for Wi-Fi hotspots to ensure Internet access for students, but what happens after the pandemic ends and the CARES Act funding runs out?

If public schools are going to continue to require Internet access to complete assignments, then the state should find a way to continue providing Internet to low-income and rural students. This pandemic has only made Internet access more embedded into our daily lives, no matter where in the state we live or how much money our families make. Overall, it's important that we recognize that many of the problems highlighted by this year will not end with the pandemic unless we do something to fix them.

MARISSA FENNELL

Bentonville

Please ring the buzzer

Those who claim any pretense to objectivity watched the Trump-Biden debate as though staring into an abyss. The only way that this abyss can get deeper, darker and more depressing is if either one of the two contestants wins the election.

Let's face it; one is a narcissistic idiot and the other seems more than slightly confused. In the abyss we not only find Tweedledee and Tweedledum, we find the American voter who has accepted the stupid game-show format of the debate. "Mr. President, you have two minutes to answer the following question, and Mr. Vice President, you will have one minute to respond. Ring the bell if you need a hint, and each of you can make one phone call. The clock is ticking."

By contrast, when Abraham Lincoln debated Stephen Douglas in multiple debates (1858) the format was as follows: Opening speaker had 60 minutes of uninterrupted time, followed by his opponent who had 90 minutes, followed by a 30-minute rebuttal. Does this need more commentary?

Please pass the Prozac.

SCOTT McGEHEE

Little Rock

Thanks for memories

Thanks for the beautiful pictures of the C-47 flyover in last Friday's paper. I was on my way to work Thursday afternoon, and looked up and saw it all. What a thrill. I worked on the C-47s in the early '60s as an airman at the airbase.

Thanks for the memories, and happy 65th anniversary to the airbase.

WAYNE T. JONES

Little Rock

At cross-purposes?

President Trump has said that he would like everyone that gets covid-19 to have the same fetal embryonic cocktails that he has taken to spread up their recovery. With millions of people already sick, how does he plan to provide these if he appoints a Supreme Court justice in hopes of overturning Roe v. Wade?

CHARLES MAYS

Rogers

Democrats' strategy

Jennifer Rubin points out Mitch McConnell's hypocrisy for denying Merrick Garland a hearing in 2016 yet promising to deliver a vote to replace Justice Ginsburg. But after accusing Trump of being "a president bent on burning down the house of democracy to keep power," she opines that Democrats will retaliate once a new president and Senate take office.

Lest I be accused of fear-mongering, let me quote her directly: "Democrats will expand the Supreme Court and change the lifetime tenure of justices," "Democrats will eliminate the legislative filibuster" and "Democrats will admit D.C. and Puerto Rico as states." In other words, Democrats will take actions to ensure they "burn down the house of democracy" by ensuring Democrats keep power for the foreseeable future.

While Ms. Rubin states these threats are reactions to confirming Justice Ginsburg's replacement, they are Democrat Party staples: President Roosevelt advocated court-packing during his administration and Democratic presidential candidates advocated court packing in the last year. The Democrat Party has been discussing D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood for months. These actions are intended to permanently skew both the Senate and electoral college in their favor.

Democrats have long indicated that once in power they will fundamentally change America and American institutions to ensure they have a permanent majority. Ms. Rubin advocates voting a straight ticket for Democrats in 2020. Doing so will subjugate the nation to one-party rule: unhindered, unbalanced and unhinged.

JAMES T. BROCKWAY

Maumelle

Republicans by rote

It's election time again and, right on cue, the Democrat-Gazette heads to the rusted-out and moldy filing cabinet over in the corner, opens it up, blows the dust off, and pulls out endorsements for pretty much every Republican in sight. All it seems is changed year after year is the name. This paper can endorse all the continued incompetence and corruption it pleases; that doesn't mean readers have to follow it.

For example, on Saturday there was an endorsement for Tom Cotton. Within seconds, I swiped to the left, meaning I spent about as much time on the endorsement as it was worth of my time. Once on page 7B, I read a good guest column by Lynn Foster, who points out the incompetent federal response to the pandemic, one that Tom Cotton stands behind. We will not get back to normal until there is a nationwide strategy on the virus, and right now we don't have one and governors are just winging it.

Anyone voting Republican this year is approving of the continued decline of our country.

RICHARD MOORE

Little Rock

Damned either way

Kamala Harris demonstrated a lack of political savvy with the proud statement during the debate that Joe Biden is a practicing Catholic. She lost both ways pointing that out; those who despise or are prejudiced against Catholics, and Catholics who would prefer he quit practicing and do it for real.

TOM ZALOUDEK

Little Rock

See more here:
OPINION | LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Solve Internet access | Please ring the buzzer | Thanks for memories - Arkansas Online

Prime Day is an avalanche of deals, but frankly most of these so-called hot buys arent such great deals at all, or else are discounts on products you shouldnt buy at any price. Weve filtered through thousands of deals to find the sales that really matter, but ultimately, its our readers who determine whats most compelling. These are the things our readers are buying the most this Prime Day.

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$40 Amazon Gift Card + $10 CreditDeal price: $40; street price: $50

This ones pretty simple: Amazon is giving you an extra $10 in store credit if you buy at least $40 worth of Amazon gift cards. Yep, thats free money, provided youre interested in shopping at Amazon to begin with. You can input a custom amount of exactly $40, or go higher if you want. Just remember to use the code GC20PRIME to get the credit.

Rubbermaid Brilliance Storage 24-Piece Plastic LidsDeal price: $28; street price: $40

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Yes, I know, Amazons Alexa-powered smart devices are good for all kinds of thingstracking packages, getting the forecast, playing music, and morenot just driving your progeny crazy. But my colleague Jon Chases ode to messing with his kids via Alexa integrations is so good, I just wanted to call it out again here. The Echo Dot is Amazons cheapest Alexa speaker, and it works great anywhere you dont need room-filling audio quality: at your bedside, on your office desk, or in the garage. At this price, why not put em in every room?

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Read our review of the best media streaming devices.

Philips Norelco Multigroom Series 7000 MG7750 Beard TrimmerDeal price: $45; street price: $55

Different people have different comfort levels when it comes to stepping outside during the pandemic. Personally, I dont go anywhere I dont have to go, and that includes going to visit my barber. (Sorry, Jake.) To keep from looking like a mountain man, I picked up this trimmer kit. It does indeed take awesome care of my beard, but Ive also used it to give myself what I can honestly describe as a pretty decent-looking fade. Those 14 guide combs really come in handy!

Read our review of the best beard trimmers.

iProven DTR-1221A ThermometerDeal price: $11; street price: $13

Speaking of pandemic things, heres a great deal on a reliable thermometer. In our testing, we found that this stick thermometer returned accurate, consistent results within 10 secondsquicker than most of the competition. Its longer and more flexible than other stick thermometers, too, so you can read it while its taking your temp. This is something every family should have in the medicine cabinet, and its rarely been cheaper.

Read our review of the best thermometers for kids and adults.

Gillette Mach3 Sensitive Men's Razor Blades, 20 Blade Refills Deal price: $28; street price: $48

If you shave, but you arent the beardy type and havent been seduced by the cult of Harrys and Dollar Shave Clubor gone all-in on straight razors and artisan shaving lotiontheres a good chance youre shaving with a Gillette Mach3. And if thats the case, you know how expensive blade refills can be. Heres a great discount on a 20-pack, enough to keep you going for a while before your next re-up. We love these blades because they provide a reliably great shave without too much irritation, and they dont get clogged with hair.

Read our review of the best mens razors (for any face).

Amazon Music Unlimited4 Months for $1Deal price: $1; street price: $32

Hi there, longtime Spotify user. Amazon would like to tempt you away from your music streaming service of choice, so its offering you, as a new subscriber, four months for one whole dollar. Yes, thats basically free. And its a pretty attractive service, as well. Amazons music library (around 50 million songs) is comparable in size to Spotifys, and if you have Alexa devices, you can make more complex requests for moods, themes, and activities than you can with Spotify.

Burts Bees Beeswax Lip Balm (4-Pack)Deal price: $8; street price: $10

I dont wear lip balmits a texture thingbut I buy a lot of it for my partner, and even I know that Burts Bees is a stone-cold classic. It may not have wild mixologist-inspired flavors or protect your lips from sunburn, but its thick and waxy (thanks, bees), and it keeps those smackers hydrated all day long with little reapplication necessary. Our testers reported that the original peppermint flavor on sale here produced a nice tingling sensation, though people with sensitive lips may need to look for another (sadly non-sale, but still affordable) flavor.

Read our review of the best lip balms.

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The 20 Most Popular Prime Day Discounts According to Wirecutter Readers - The New York Times