Episode 80

Trump Legal Trouble, NY Vaccine Mandates, Self-Checkout, Charter Growth

Ravi and Rikki start with the two legal setbacks facing Trump’s lawyers this week, before turning to the shifting vaccine mandates in New York, the growing popularity of charter schools since the pandemic, and the ethical perils of self-checkout shopping.

SHOW NOTES

Ravi and Rikki run down two significant legal blows to Donald Trump, one from NY Attorney General Tish James, in the form of a sweeping civil case accusing the Trump Organization of fraud, and the other from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, who has allowed the DOJ to resume its full investigation of the classified documents taken from Mar-a-Lago.

The hosts then unravel New York’s decision to lift private sector vaccine mandates while leaving the public sector’s intact, debating why that is and whether it makes sense to do so unevenly.

Ravi and Rikki, both admitted thieves, discuss the rise of self-checkout in retail, the coinciding rise in thievery, and what it says about our society.

The hosts finish with some startling data on the number of parents moving their children to charter schools, discussing whether that trend will continue.

Trumpworld Legal Trouble [2:44]

Tish James Makes a Mountain of the Trump Molehill (National Review, 9/21)
Trump suffers setback as appeals panel rejects Cannon ruling (Politico, 9/21)
AG Letitia James speaks after New York sues Donald Trump, company and family members — 9/21/22 (CNBC Television YouTube Channel, 11:20, 9/21)
Dual Legal Blows Hammer Trump (CNN, 9/22)
Trump Accused of Overvaluing His Assets in N.Y. Lawsuit (New York Times, 9/21)
Everything Wrong With Judge Cannon’s Ruling (Lawfare, 9/8)
New York AG Trump lawsuit a ‘political hit job’ driven by left’s desire to ‘punish’ him: Bill Barr (Fox News, 9/21)
Read the lawsuit (New York Times, 9/21)
Donald Trump speaks out on the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago (Fox News YouTube Channel, 9/21)
Tish James’ Twitter Thread on Her Lawsuit Against Trump (NY AG James Twitter, 9/21)
New York AG Trump lawsuit a ‘political hit job’ driven by left’s desire to ‘punish’ him: Bill Barr (Fox News, 9/21)

NY Vaccine Mandates [14:52]

New York City Ends Private Employer Vaccine Mandate and Pushes Boosters (New York Times, 9/20)
Supreme Court to consider taking up challenge to New York’s vaccine mandate (Politico, 9/20)
Fact check: Are more vaccinated people now dying of COVID-19 than unvaccinated? (CBS17, 8/24)
Why City Workers in New York Are Quitting in Droves (New York Times, 7/13)
NYC ending vaccine mandate for private employers on Nov. 1 (ABC News, 9/20)
NYC employees fired for not getting COVID vaccine grows to more than 1,750 (New York Post, 7/23)

Self-Checkout [32:30]

The Food Industry Navigates an Extreme Obstacle Course (Food Industry Association, 2022)
The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (The Atlantic, 3/18)
Nobody likes self-checkout. Here’s why it’s everywhere (CNN, 7/10)
More Self-Checkout Is Coming, No Matter How Much You Hate It (Wall Street Journal, 9/14)
Self-checkout systems create headaches for cashiers (Prism, 5/24)
Wegmans ends self-checkout app after too much shoplifting (CNN, 9/16)
Wegmans Stops Using Self-Checkout App After Suffering Losses (Wall Street Journal, 9/19)
Wegmans Discontinues Self-Checkout App, Citing Losses (New York Times, 9/18)
Wegmans scraps self-checkout app after spate of shoplifting (New York Post, 9/14/2022)
RetailMeNot Survey: Deals and Promotional Offers Drive Incremental Purchases Online, Especially Among Millennial Buyers (RetailMeNot Inc, 4/25/2018)
Self-Service Checkouts Can Turn Customers Into Shoplifters, Study Says (New York Times, 8/10/2016)
Self-Checkout in Retail: Measuring the Loss (ResearchGate, 10/2018)
Self Checkout: Should You Implement It? (CardFellow, 11/7/2019)
Yuval Noah Harari: Workplace Automation & the “Useless Class” (Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs YouTube Channel, 0:16, 3/13/2017)

CA Charters x National District Enrollment [43:30]

Cory Booker: Stop Being Dogmatic About Public Charter Schools (New York Times, 11/18/2019)
California Poll Finds Parents Leaving Traditional Public For Charter Schools (The 74, 9/19)
‘Wake-up Calls’: New Parent Survey Shows 9% Enrollment Drop in District Schools (The 74, 9/20)
Urban Charter School Study Report on 41 Regions (Credo, 2015)
Public Opinion Tracker Deep Dive: Perspectives of Black K-12 Parents (April 2021) (Engage, 5/20/2021)