Joy Reid and Stephanie Ruhle

Dear Commons Community,

MSNBC is negotiating pay cuts with night anchors Joy Reid and Stephanie Ruhle as the cable channel nosedives in the ratings after the election according to The Huffington Post.

Rachel Maddow, arguably the star of the network, previously agreed to pare down her $30 million salary, it was reported.

The Ankler’s report this week about Reid and Ruhle negotiating pay cuts should come as no surprise.

Parent company Comcast generated concern over MSNBC’s future by announcing a plan to spin off MSNBC and some other NBCUniversal properties into a new company.

But perhaps more urgent is the station’s plummeting viewership. Its prime-time audience tanked 55% from Nov. 4 through Dec. 15, according to Nielsen ratings cited by The Wrap. (CNN, a mainstream counterpart, experienced a 46.7% drop.)

“The ReidOut” host Reid and “11th Hour” host Ruhle, whose salaries are believed to be considerably lower than Maddow’s, are experiencing audience declines in line with the network’s overall numbers.

Newly promoted “Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire has also been presented with a new deal at a lesser salary, according to Ankler.

Sad times at MSNBC!  Not sure if it will survive?

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Facing a government shutdown deadline, the Senate rushed through final passage early this morning of a bipartisan plan that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster aid, dropping President-elect Donald Trump’s demands for a debt limit increase into the new year.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had insisted Congress would “meet our obligations” and not allow federal operations to shutter ahead of the Christmas holiday season. But the day’s outcome was uncertain after Trump doubled down on his insistence that a debt ceiling increase be included in any deal — if not, he said in an early morning post, let the closures “start now.”

The House approved Johnson’s new bill overwhelmingly, 366-34. The Senate worked into the night to pass it, 85-11, just after the deadline. At midnight, the White House said it had ceased shutdown preparations.  As reported by CNN and other news media.

“This is a good outcome for the country, ” Johnson said after the House vote.

President Joe Biden, who has played a less public role in the process throughout a turbulent week, was expected to sign the measure into law later today.

“There will be no government shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

The final product was the third attempt from Johnson, the beleaguered House speaker, to achieve one of the basic requirements of the federal government — keeping it open. And it raised stark questions about whether Johnson will be able to keep his job, in the face of angry GOP colleagues, and work alongside Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who called the legislative plays from afar.

Trump’s last-minute demand was almost an impossible ask, and Johnson had almost no choice but to work around his pressure for a debt ceiling increase. The speaker knew there wouldn’t be enough support within the GOP majority to pass any funding package, since many Republican deficit hawks prefer to slash federal government and certainly wouldn’t allow more debt.

Instead, the Republicans, who will have full control of the White House, House and Senate next year, with big plans for tax cuts and other priorities, are showing they must routinely rely on Democrats for the votes needed to keep up with the routine operations of governing.

“So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?” scoffed Musk on social media ahead of the vote.

The drastically slimmed-down 118-page package would fund the government at current levels through March 14 and add $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in agricultural assistance to farmers.

Gone is Trump’s demand to lift the debt ceiling, which GOP leaders told lawmakers would be debated as part of their tax and border packages in the new year. Republicans made a so-called handshake agreement to raise the debt limit at that time while also cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.

It’s essentially the same deal that flopped the night before in a spectacular setback — opposed by most Democrats and some of the most conservative Republicans — minus Trump’s debt ceiling demand.

But it’s far smaller than the original bipartisan accord Johnson struck with Democratic and Republican leaders — a 1,500-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected, forcing him to start over. It was stuffed with a long list of other bills — including much-derided pay raises for lawmakers — but also other measures with broad bipartisan support that now have a tougher path to becoming law.

House Democrats were cool to the latest effort after Johnson reneged on the hard-fought bipartisan compromise.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said it looked like Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, was calling the shots for Trump and Republicans.

“Who is in charge?” she asked during the debate.

Still, the House Democrats put up more votes than Republicans for the bill’s passage. Almost three dozen conservative House Republicans voted against it.

“The House Democrats have successfully stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, crashing the economy and hurting working-class Americans all across the nation,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

In the Senate, almost all the opposition came from the Republicans — except independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said Musk’s interference was “not democracy, that’s oligarchy.”

Trump, who has not yet been sworn into office, is showing the power but also the limits of his sway with Congress, as he intervenes and orchestrates affairs from Mar-a-Lago alongside Musk, who is heading up the new Department of Government Efficiency.

The incoming Trump administration vows to slash the federal budget and fire thousands of employees and is counting on Republicans for a big tax package. And Trump’s not fearful of shutdowns the way lawmakers are, having sparked the longest government shutdown in history in his first term at the White House.

“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now,” Trump posted early in the morning on social media.

More important for the president-elect was his demand for pushing the thorny debt ceiling debate off the table before he returns to the White House. The federal debt limit expires Jan. 1, and Trump doesn’t want the first months of his new administration saddled with tough negotiations in Congress to lift the nation’s borrowing capacity. Now Johnson will be on the hook to deliver.

“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling,” Trump posted — increasing his demand for a new five-year debt limit increase. “Without this, we should never make a deal.”

President Biden has been in discussions with Jeffries and Schumer, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Republicans blew up this deal. They did, and they need to fix this.”

As the day dragged on, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell stepped in to remind colleagues “how harmful it is to shut the government down, and how foolish it is to bet your own side won’t take the blame for it.”

For a recap of the what is in and out of the new funding bill, check out this recap at:  https://www.aol.com/news/government-funding-agreement-144719808.html

It is a shame that every year federal workers have to go through the agony of whether or not there will be a shutdown.

Tony

Amazon workers on strike in New York City.

Dear Commons Community,

Amazon workers affiliated with the Teamsters union launched a strike at seven of the company’s delivery hubs less than a week before Christmas.

The Teamsters said the workers, who voted to authorize strikes in recent days, joined picket lines yesterday after Amazon ignored a Sunday deadline the union had set for contract negotiations.

The company says it doesn’t expect the strike to impact holiday shipments.

Amazon has a couple hundred employees at each delivery station. The Teamsters mainly have focused on organizing delivery drivers, who work for contractors that handle package deliveries for the company. But Amazon has rebuffed demands to come to the negotiating table since it doesn’t consider the drivers to be its employees.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters also says the union represents some Amazon warehouse workers.

Here are some takeaways and what you need to know if you are an Amazon customer:

Where are the strikes happening?

The strikes are taking place at three delivery hubs in Southern California, and one each in San Francisco, New York City, Atlanta, Georgia, and Skokie, Illinois, according to the union’s announcement.

The union hasn’t said how many workers are participating in the strike, nor how long it will go on. Vinnie Perrone, the president of a local Teamsters union in metro New York, said Thursday that the walkout would continue “as long as it takes.”

The union, which claims to represent 10,000 Amazon workers at 10 facilities, said workers in more locations were prepared to join the fight.

Employees at a company air hub in California have authorized a strike. So have workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York, which unionized with the nascent Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and has since affiliated with the Teamsters.

The Teamsters says its local unions are also putting up picket lines at other Amazon warehouses. A company spokesperson said yesterday the strikers were “almost entirely outsiders, not Amazon employees or partners, and the suggestion otherwise is just another lie from the Teamsters.”

What do the workers want?

The striking workers are fighting for higher wages, better benefits, and safer work conditions.

The Teamsters have tried to get Amazon to come to the negotiating table since last year, when the labor organization first said it had unionized a group of delivery drivers in California who work for a contractor. Amazon — which denies it employs the workers — refused, leading the union to file unfair labor charges against the company at the National Labor Relations Board.

In August, prosecutors at the federal labor agency classified Amazon as a “joint employer” of subcontracted drivers. In September, the company boosted hourly pay for the drivers amid the growing pressure.

Amazon warehouse workers who voted to unionize in the New York City borough of Staten Island also have tried to get the company to engage in contract negotiations.

The National Labor Relations Board certified the Amazon Labor Union election, but the company objected to the representation vote and refused to bargain. In the process, Amazon also filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the labor board, which it accused of tainting the vote.

Some organizers involved with the unionization effort there have long believed Amazon would not come to the negotiating table unless workers went on strike.

What about holiday deliveries?

Amazon says it doesn’t expect the strike to impact its operations, but a walkout — especially one that lasts many days — could delay shipments in some metro areas.

An Amazon spokesperson said Thursday that the company intentionally builds its sites close to where customers are, schedules shipping windows and works with other large carriers, such as UPS, to deliver products.

“We believe in the strength of our network and plan for contingencies to minimize potential operational impact or costs,” the spokesperson said.

Tony

Neil Cavuto Waves Goodbye to Viewers.

Dear Commons Community,

Neil Cavuto, a  journalist, who hosts a weekday afternoon show on the Fox News Channel and has been with the network since its inception in 1996, is leaving the cable news network. Yesterday was his last show.

A workhorse at the network, Cavuto also hosts programs at Fox’s sister, the Fox Business Network. As reported by Fox News and the Associated Press.

“Neil Cavuto’s illustrious career has been a master class in journalism and we’re extremely proud of his incredible 28-year run with Fox News Media,” the network said. “His programs have defined business news and set the standard for the entire industry. We wish him a heartfelt farewell and all the best on his next chapter.”

Unlike many at Fox, he has not interviewed President-elect Donald Trump since 2017 and sometimes has angered him. Trump said on social media that Cavuto “is one of the WORST on television” after the Fox host said on his show that Trump had “decisively lost” his debate with Democrat Kamala Harris.

Cavuto’s contract was coming to an end and he and Fox could not agree on an extension, said a person at the network with knowledge of the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about contracts.

The exit had nothing to do with Trump taking office next month for a second term, the person said.

Cavuto, 66, has stayed on the job despite a number of health issues through the years. He has multiple sclerosis, underwent heart surgery and had bouts of long COVID.

There’s no immediate word on who will replace Cavuto at 4 p.m. Eastern on Fox’s schedule.

I watched his  show last evening.  He gave  a classy farewell thanking Fox News for standing with him during his past and ongoing medical episodes.  He will be missed.  He is the only Fox News personality to present “fair and balanced” reporting.  There is no reason to ever turn on Fox News again unless you want to watch Republican Party spin.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education had a featured article yesterday of how small-town Aurora, New York was coping with the closure of Wells College, its economic and social-cultural engine.  Here is an excerpt from The Chronicle article

Overnight, the fire department in Aurora, N.Y., lost a quarter of its volunteers.

The sole local doctor found herself reassuring anxious patients that they would still be able to get treatment for heart disease and diabetes.

And Jim Orman, mayor of the small upstate village, had to come up with $200,000 to keep the community’s water-treatment plant, operated for nearly a century by Wells College, running. “Do you want a public-health hazard on your hands?” he said.

All of this upheaval had a single cause: The abrupt announcement this spring by Wells, a private liberal-arts college, that it was closing its doors. The decision, made public just a week before final exams, left students — including members of an already-admitted freshman class — scrambling to find a new college for the fall. Professors, who had missed the academic hiring season, were out of a job.

The impact of college closures reverberates beyond the campus, though. Higher-education institutions are often among their region’s largest employers, and their graduates can feed into the local work force. Students keep the coffee houses and by-the-slice pizzerias humming. When their parents visit, they pay for nice dinners and dorm-room supplies.

And the relationship between colleges and their communities runs deeper than dollars and cents. Colleges can be cultural magnets, neighborhood anchors, gathering spots, partners in solving everyday challenges.

“This is no longer a time when communities or colleges see the edge of campus as a boundary line,” said Matt Wagner, chief innovation officer for Main Street America, an organization that promotes community preservation and revitalization.

While many of us associate the words “college town” with football-playing flagship universities, America has hundreds and hundreds of college towns like Aurora, which was home to Wells for 156 years. In these communities, the college is part of the fabric of the place, central to its identity.

That identity is also under threat. College closures have been picking up since the pandemic, averaging about one a week this year. In addition to Wells, Goddard College, in Vermont; Fontbonne University, in Missouri; and Birmingham-Southern College, in Alabama, have shut down in the past few months.

Financial pressures, a demographic squeeze, and growing skepticism about the value of a degree could lead more to disappear. Fitch Ratings recently called the outlook for American higher education “deteroriating.” Many of the most vulnerable institutions are small colleges like Wells in small towns like Aurora.

For some of these places, the college “is the center of their universe,” said Jonathan Nichols, who wrote about the demise of Saint Joseph’s College, in Indiana, where he taught English. “When that falls away, you have to find a new universe.”

As the article implies, college closings in small towns will accelerate in the coming years leaving many of these communities devastated.

Tony

MacKenzie Scott (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

Dear Commons Community,

Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $2.1 billion in the past year, she said in an online post listing recipients, bringing her total reported giving to more than $16 billion since 2019.

While previous announcements have included detailed essays about the reasons for her donations, Scott offered only a three-sentence post titled “(Giving Update)” this year, writing, “Excited to call attention to these 360 outstanding organizations, every one of whom could use more allies.” She added, ”Inspired by all the ways people work together to offer each other goodwill and support.”

The gifts include three donations of $25 million to affordable housing nonprofit Mercy Housing, reproductive care organization Upstream USA and youth training group Year Up, according to her Yield Giving website.

It’s not known if those are the largest gifts made in the past year as the database of gifts on the website withheld the amount donated to more than 100 of the recipients in 2023, with the explanation, “Disclosure delayed for benefit of recipient.”

The brevity of the announcement stood out compared to how other philanthropists publicize their work, said Gabrielle Fitzgerald, founder and CEO of The Panorama Group, which has researched the impact of Scott’s gifts on nonprofits.

“My word count had that it was 54 words,” she said. “It’s almost like a haiku.”

The gifts were consistent with Scott’s focus on economic security, education, equity and health, Fitzgerald said, though there were many this round that went to organizations that describe themselves as working on health. Scott also supported several organizations that work on caste equity.

As in previous years, a significant portion of Scott’s donations this year focused on housing organizations, including community land trusts, advocates for affordable housing and legal aid societies, which often represent tenants among other clients.

The San Francisco Community Land Trust received a $20 million gift, which they first announced in August and which represents about ten times their annual budget. Saki Bailey, its executive director, said that the wealth created in Silicon Valley has created deep inequality, in part seen through the astronomical cost of land and housing.

“We’re seeing the highest number of tech billionaires per capita. But we’re also seeing the incredible destruction of communities and the houselessness problem at a new scale in the Bay Area,” she said. “So that deep inequality of wealth is really, really evident.”

Her organization corresponded with The Bridgespan Group for about six months answering questions for an anonymous donor, who turned out to be Scott. Still, Bailey said the total amount of the gift was more than they could have ever hoped for. Because of that, they will allocate some of the funds towards a collaborative effort to fundraise to increase the capacity of her organization and other West Coast community land trusts, which seek to keep housing affordable by removing land from the commercial real estate market permanently.

The Hawai‘i Community Foundation was in the rare situation of receiving a second donation from Scott, this time of $5 million to support its Maui Strong Fund, which it started to benefit the survivors of the wildfire that wreaked havoc on the island in August.

The foundation said the donation was supporting evolving needs like child care, connecting people to jobs and finding short- and long-term housing. Part of the donation also went to the foundation itself, in order to cover its internal operations. It’s promised that all donations to its Maui Funds will go directly to supporting recovery efforts.

“We really respect the way she approaches philanthropy, in that she trusts those of us who are on the ground and most importantly, in the community, with where to put the dollars so that they can have the most impact,” said Micah Kāne, CEO and president of Hawai‘i Community Foundation, of Scott. “We are trying to do the same.”

Scott declines to comment about her donations, which often are the largest a nonprofit has ever received, beyond blog posts, now published on her website, which she launched in December 2022. For the first time in March, she opened an application process to receive funding, promising to grant $1 million to 250 organizations. Some 6,300 nonprofits applied, according to Lever for Change, the organization overseeing the application process, which has said it will announce the winners in early 2024.

Scott has promised to give away more than half of her wealth, which largely comes from her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

According to a Center for Effective Philanthropy report released in November, Scott’s giving is “unprecedented” because she provides “meaningfully sized” donations to groups without any restrictions.

Most of Scott’s wealth comes from shares of Amazon that she received when she divorced the company’s founder, Jeff Bezos. Forbes estimates her current wealth to be $31.7 billion, even after giving away her money for five years.

Gabrielle Fitzgerald, founder and CEO of The Panorama Group, has researched Scott’s giving and provided advice and support for nonprofits who have received Scott’s gifts. She said she sees a growing focus in Scott’s giving on issues of poverty.

“She is creating an amazing role model for philanthropists, although I don’t see very many that have followed her role modeling,” Fitzgerald said. “But it really shows that it’s easy to give away a lot of money to good groups.”

May God bless her!

Tony

Source:  K-12 School Shooting Database

Dear Commons Community,

Gun violence on school grounds has seen an uptick in recent years, according to a review of data collected by the K-12 School Shooting Database.

More than 50 shootings with at least one victim have occurred during school time each year since 2021, according to the database, a research project that tracks all instances in which a gun was fired or brandished on school property. The victims and suspects were not all minors.

They include a Memphis teenager who shot another classmate last month during a dispute in his high school parking lot; a teenage girl in Dallas who was grazed by a bullet in September when a fight broke out across the street from her school; and the attack at Apalachee High School in the same month that killed two students and two teachers in Winder, Ga.

From 2010 and 2019, the annual figure did not exceed 30.

The uptick in school gun violence re-entered the national conversation this week after the authorities said a 15-year-old student opened fire at a Christian school in Madison, Wis., on Monday, killing another student and a teacher.

The shooting, which injured at least six other people, became the latest high-profile attack to terrify children and their families. It came during a period in which overall gun homicides and active shooter incidents also remain above their prepandemic levels.

Please God protect our children from violence!

Tony

Jiangmen Neutrino Detector located 2,297 feet Underground.  AP Photo. Ng Han Guan.

Dear Commons Community,

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory in southern China will soon begin the difficult task of spotting neutrinos: tiny cosmic particles with a mind-bogglingly small mass. Nobel Laureate (1988) Louis Lederman was one of the first scientists to discover the neutrino.

The detector is one of three being built across the globe to study these elusive ghost particles in the finest detail yet. The other two, based in the United States and Japan, are still under construction. As reported by The Associated Press.

Spying neutrinos is no small feat in the quest to understand how the universe came to be. The Chinese effort, set to go online next year, will push the technology to new limits, said Andre de Gouvea, a theoretical physicist at Northwestern University who is not involved with the project.

“If they can pull that off,” he said, “it would be amazing.”

What are neutrinos?

Neutrinos date back to the Big Bang, and trillions zoom through our bodies every second. They spew from stars like the sun and stream out when atomic bits collide in a particle accelerator.

Scientists have known about the existence of neutrinos for almost a century, but they’re still in the early stages of figuring out what the particles really are.

“It’s the least understood particle in our world,” said Cao Jun, who helps manage the detector known as JUNO. “That’s why we need to study it.”

There’s no way to spot the tiny neutrinos whizzing around on their own. Instead, scientists measure what happens when they collide with other bits of matter, producing flashes of light or charged particles.

Neutrinos bump into other particles only very rarely, so to up their chances of catching a collision, physicists have to think big.

“The solution for how we measure these neutrinos is to build very, very big detectors,” de Gouvea said.

A big detector to measure tiny particles

The $300 million detector in Kaiping, China, took over nine years to build. Its location 2,297 feet (700 meters) underground protects from pesky cosmic rays and radiation that could throw off its neutrino-sniffing abilities.

On Wednesday, workers began the final step in construction. Eventually, they’ll fill the orb-shaped detector with a liquid designed to emit light when neutrinos pass through and submerge the whole thing in purified water.

It’ll study antineutrinos — an opposite to neutrinos which allow scientists to understand their behavior — produced from collisions inside two nuclear power plants located over 31 miles (50 kilometers) away. When the antineutrinos come into contact with particles inside the detector, they’ll produce a flash of light.

The detector is specially designed to answer a key question about a longstanding mystery. Neutrinos switch between three flavors as they zip through space, and scientists want to rank them from lightest to heaviest.

Sensing these subtle shifts in the already evasive particles will be a challenge, said Kate Scholberg, a physicist at Duke University who is not involved with the project.

“It’s actually a very daring thing to even go after it,” she said.

China’s detector is set to operate during the second half of next year. After that, it’ll take some time to collect and analyze the data — so scientists will have to keep waiting to fully unearth the secret lives of neutrinos.

Two similar neutrino detectors – Japan’s Hyper-Kamiokande and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment based in the United States – are under construction. They’re set to go online around 2027 and 2031 and will cross-check the China detector’s results using different approaches.

“In the end, we have a better understanding of the nature of physics,” said Wang Yifang, chief scientist and project manager of the Chinese effort.

Understanding how the universe formed

Though neutrinos barely interact with other particles, they’ve been around since the dawn of time. Studying these Big Bang relics can clue scientists into how the universe evolved and expanded billions of years ago.

“They’re part of the big picture,” Scholberg said.

One question researchers hope neutrinos can help answer is why the universe is overwhelmingly made up of matter with its opposing counterpart — called antimatter — largely snuffed out.

Scientists don’t know how things got to be so out of balance, but they think neutrinos could have helped write the earliest rules of matter.

The proof, scientists say, may lie in the particles. They’ll have to catch them to find out.

If we can collaborate internationally in physics,why can’t we in politics?

Tony

NASA astronauts Suni Williams, left, and Butch Wilmore.   AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)

Dear Commons Community,

NASA’s two stuck astronauts just got their space mission extended again. That means they won’t be back on Earth until spring, 10 months after rocketing into orbit on Boeing’s Starliner capsule.

NASA announced the latest delay in Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams’ homecoming  yesterday.

The two test pilots planned on being away just a week or so when they blasted off June 5 on Boeing’s first astronaut flight to the International Space Station. Their mission grew from eight days to eight months after NASA decided to send the company’s problem-plagued Starliner capsule back empty in September.

Now the pair won’t return until the end of March or even April because of a delay in launching their replacements, according to NASA.

A fresh crew needs to launch before Wilmore and Williams can return and the next mission has been bumped more than a month, according to the space agency.

Most space station missions last six months, with a few reaching a full year.

We wish NASA and the two astronauts luck with this!

Tony