Retail federation says rise in overtime threshold “demotes millions”

By Dan Brooks in Close Reading 0 Comment
Kombat! Kids: How many black men can you find in this image search for "white collar employees?"

How many black men can you find in this image search for “white collar employees?”

Today, the Labor Department will release new regulations that raise the salary threshold for overtime pay to $47,476 a year. Since 2004, salaried employees have been ineligible for overtime if they made more than $23,660. This threshold established the terms of work recognizable to people around my age: 40 hours a week when you interview, 50 to 60 hours a week for the same pay once you’ve got the job. Raising the threshold will increase the number of salaried employees who get paid extra for working more, forcing employers to either hire more people or better compensate those they already have. It also reduces the number of people who are considered “management” in the Labor Department rubric. Perhaps that’s what prompted David French of the National Retail Federation to say this:

“This is an extreme revision in the white-collar threshold. By executive fiat, the Department of Labor is effectively demoting millions of workers.”

It’s the kind of demotion where they get paid more. If French ever loses his job at NRF, he’s a shoe-in for a position at the National Board of Sophistry.

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Close Reading: AT&T “doesn’t comment on matters of national security”

By Dan Brooks in Close Reading 0 Comment
National Security Agency headquarters, which looks like freedom

The National Security Agency headquarters just looks like freedom.

Using documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the Times wrote Saturday that the NSA’s ability to spy on US internet traffic “has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T.” NSA documents praise AT&T’s “extreme willingness to help” and remind contractors visiting the company to be polite, since “This is a partnership, not a contractual relationship.” I think we can all agree that a partnership between one of the nation’s largest telecommunications companies and the federal government to secretly monitor our communication is an exciting direction for America to go. As if this relationship did not smack of corporatocracy already, there’s this refusal from an AT&T spokesman to discuss any of the findings: “We don’t comment on matters of national security.” It’s subtle, but it’s the subject of today’s Close Reading.

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Close Reading: MT House rejects religious freedom bill on 50-50 vote

By Dan Brooks in Close Reading 4 Comments
Montana Rep. Carl Glimm (R–Kila), his family, and their ideological clarity

Montana Rep. Carl Glimm (R–Kila), his family, and their certainty

Last Thursday, Indiana passed a bill authorizing business owners to refuse service to gays and lesbians based on sincerely held religious beliefs. The state immediately became a laughingstock. I guess laughingstock is the wrong word for this civil rights issue; Indiana became a cryingstock, or maybe just a boycottingstock. Regardless, it was a disaster. The very next day, the Montana House took up its own religious freedom bill, sponsored by Rep. Carl Glimm (R–Kila.) That bill failed on a 50-50 vote, after a contentious debate that saw Glimm brandishing his camouflage Bible on the House floor. He also said this:

[The U.S. Constitution] is the word of God, and the First Amendment says I have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

Literally no part of the sentence is true, and yet it tells us so much. Close reading after the jump.

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Close Reading: Cheney defends “enhanced interrogation”

By Dan Brooks in Close Reading 0 Comment
Yeah, see?

Yeah, see?

This weekend, former Vice President and possible war criminal Dick Cheney appeared on Meet the Press to discuss his reaction to the CIA torture report. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t like it. Cheney insisted that waterboarding and other practices were not torture, and said of the events described in the report that he’d “do it again in a minute.” He meant he’d order someone he’d never met to do it again in a minute, but whatever. The important thing is that what Bush and Cheney told the CIA to do, which we’re just finding out about now in an alarming declassified report, was great for America and definitely not torture. I quote:

Torture is what the Al Qaeda terrorists did to 3,000 Americans on 9/11. There is no comparison between that and what we did with respect to enhanced interrogation.

And that, dear friends, is the subject of today’s Close Reading.

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Close Readings: An alarming message from Healthcare.gov

By Dan Brooks in Close Reading 0 Comment
You know that scene in Scanners where the guy's head blows up?

You ever seen that scene in Scanners where the dude’s head blows up?

Caption readers are hereby issued an apology for the compound movie reference. Link clickers are issued an apology for the quality of that video. And health insurance exchange customers are issued their usual packet of vague information and warnings. We also got an email beginning with this sentence:

You’re unique, so why should your health plan be any different?

Uh…[explodes.] Close reading of why this sentence is a threat to skull integrity after the jump.

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