Equal Protection

Recall that California, earlier this year, enacted a law requiring gig employers to reclassify those folks from contractors to formal employees—with all of the employee expenses that entails: half the payroll taxes due, retirement benefits, health benefits, paid time off, etc, etc, etc.

In response, a number of companies who’ve centered their business models on gig employees, have sued and have been fighting to force the law—AB-5—onto this fall’s ballot for the actual citizens to decide.

Related to the law and the hoo-raw surrounding it, are some additional consequences illustrated by this:

[M]agicians, freelance journalists, and interpreters have found themselves losing work: many small businesses say such measures would be too costly to implement, and have instead opted to cut back on their use of independent workers.

The Left doesn’t care, though, about this collateral damage [emphasis added]:

The ride-sharing and delivery companies’ legal and political push against AB-5 is “such a frustrating example of the way you can buy your way into a regulatory environment that suits you,” said Veena Dubal, a professor who studies employment law at University of California, Hastings, and has been a vocal critic of the companies. “They have been defying the order since Jan. 1. Meanwhile, a yoga studio doesn’t have that luxury.”

Sadly, this is a typical Leftist attitude. The well-off don’t deserve access to the means of legal defense or pushback because they’re well-off and others aren’t. The Left has not a syllable of a move to help those not-well-off gain the same access.

Dubal’s outcome would be one of no one having access. Which would cede everything to Government, where the Left thinks it all belongs, anyway.

Funding the Police

Senator Josh Hawley (R, MO) wants to do that, so he’s introducing the David Dorn Back the Blue Act that would authorize DoJ to

raise the salaries of state and local police forces all across the country—except in cities that have chosen to defund law enforcement in the wake of nationwide protests and riots.

And

If the bill becomes law, police departments will have new federal funding at their disposal allowing them to increase the salaries of officers “up to 110 percent of the local median earnings, and would exclude cities that defund their police[.]”

Hawley is on the right track, but there needs to be an important adjustment to his bill. Rather than simply providing Federal funding to those cities, those funds should be matching funds, requiring the cities to put up their own salary-increasing funds before getting any Federal monies (I claim the matching ratio should require the receiving city to put up at least 50% of the increase). Otherwise, the city would simply shift the cost of the increase onto taxpayers from other States, taxpayers who have their own police departments to support.

Protection

…and extortion. Leaders of many unions are threatening exactly that if they don’t their way.

Unions representing millions of workers, from teachers to truck drivers, pledged to ramp up protests in the leadup to the presidential election, with walkouts aimed at forcing local and federal lawmakers to pass police reform and address what they described as systemic racism.

Actually, it’s the union leaders:

…labor leaders from America’s biggest public and private sector unions said they would organize walkouts….

More the public sector than private sector unions: AFSCME, SEIU, and NEA.

And here’s the crux of it; “systemic racism,” “police reform,” these are just smoke screens:

…redistribute the stolen wealth of the billionaire class….

Pay the vig, suckas. Nice business, nice economy you got there….

Let Them Pound Sand

Here is the Marie Antoinette double standard of the Progressive-Democratic Party rubbed in our faces. In Nancy Pelosi’s (D, CA) San Francisco, yet.

Gyms within government buildings in San Francisco have been open for months, despite privately owned establishments being ordered to close due to the coronavirus.

Wow. The brazen chutzpah of Party.

An Urging

New York State’s governor, Andrew Cuomo (D), has taken to asking those who’ve left the State to return—especially the rich and especially to New York City.

New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio (D), has taken a more blasé attitude. He’s in the What, Me Worry? camp; folks will come back. Even the rich.

I have to ask, though.

Why would anyone want to return to New York City? De Blasio has made the place unlivable, and the Internet has made the place unnecessary.