The United Auto Workers are now on strike against the three biggest auto makers. However, as I understand it, this doesn’t mean every auto worker in the nation is off the job.
But the UAW strike won’t mean all of the nearly 150,000 union members who work at the three automakers will walk off their jobs en masse.
Instead, workers at three Midwest auto plants –a General Motors assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri, a Stellantis assembly plant in Toledo, Ohio, and part of a Ford plant in Wayne, Mich.– were the first to walk off the job under UAW president Shawn Fain’s “stand up strike” strategy.
After decades in which union membership declined and unions politically marginalized, this strike seems significant. See Peter Coy at the New York Times, In the Auto Workers Strike, One Side Has the Higher Ground.
Also: some interesting stuff from the tell-all book by McKay Coppins on Mitt Romney.
Romney shared a unique disgust for Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who he thought were too smart to believe Trump won the 2020 election but “put politics above the interests of liberal democracy and the Constitution.”
He also was highly critical of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who reinvented his persona to become a Trump acolyte after publishing a best-selling memoir about the working class that Romney loved. “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance,” Romney said.
Can’t argue with that.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’s civil case against Trump has been put on temporary hold by a state appellate court judge. I don’t know if this is a big deal or a speed bump.
The Daily Mail reports that South Dakota governor Kristi Noem and Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski, both married to other people, have been having an affair. I don’t know how credible this is. I can’t say that I care.
So it looks like Ken Chesebro and Sidney Powell will go on trial next month in Georgia, and everyone else will wait. Could be a fun trial.
This is great for the rest of the "perps" as it gives the others the chance to see what is out there before they go under.
Yes, but it also means that evidence against Trump will be presented on live television and Trump's lawyers won't be present to refute it.
The outcome of the election is more important than the outcome of any individual trial. Trump knows this – if he can get back in the WH, Trump plans to make all the cases go away. It should not be possible but I'm not sure who could stop Trump if he was in the WH with his disregard for the Constitution and an A/G equally committed to a Trump dictatorship. The USSC can rule but if the Justice Department won't enforce a ruling, who will?
The GA case will be televised. The Trial with Powell and Chesebro is a precursor to the main trial which probably won't go to the jury before the election. It might be underway.
At the moment, the lawyers for Chesebro and Powell have the "discovery" the evidence that the prosecution will present, or 99% of it. If there's no legal flaw in the prosecution, they will try to bargain out for a lesser charge. SOP. Willis wants one or both of them to flip and testify. If they won't testify against Trump, their only defense (IMO) is to blame Trump and say they believed Trump's instructions were lawful. This means they throw Trump under the bus either way but if they don't testify, they won't get a lesser sentence.
Yeah, I'd be surprised if Trump didn't get a copy of discovery minutes after the Powell/Chesebro defenses did. That ship sailed. The play is the decision by the defense to save their own hides or go down with Trump. RICO carries up to 20 years.
I'm sure we could all use a laugh, and this is a great way to start the weekend. Close up surveillance footage clearly showing Boebert vaping at the theater.
This is a tremendous gift for Adam Frisch, who lost to her by 550 or so votes a year or two ago, and who’s running again, in 2024. I’ve heard he has a big fundraising edge, and this video in any normal race should help push him over the top. Whatever happens in 2024, we might be seeing the last of Boebert.
I’ve been amused by her dumping her husband of twenty years, and generally the big lifestyle upgrade she’s enjoyed since her ascent to Congress. I am so looking forward to the crash.
Frankly, I would be greatly disappointed if that gun-toting tight-jeans-wearing 2020-GED-earning high school dropout was not into vaping.
"After decades in which union membership declined and unions politically marginalized, this strike seems significant"
I've never bought a non-union car. If you drive non-union cars (honda, Toyota, Nissan, Tesla, Kia, Hundo, etc) then you choose not to support the UAW it's that simple.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxcTgY4j9H8
Regarding Bobert and Lewandowski, I don't care who is doing what to who – usually. Those people who would tell others how to live, justified by"family values" are legitimately subject to examination and criticism over their private lives.
Statistically, I suspect a link between conservative leadership and crime that might be hard to measure. But it's Republicans who are getting caught (and getting away) with voting twice. If FL, the election Gestapo made a big deal of busting felons who had voted – often after being told by election officials they could. But they were mostly poor people mostly of color. And mostly, Rhonda Santis has failed to get convictions.
But two people were busted for voting twice. That's deliberate voting fraud. They got a slap on the wrist. Oh, and they were from The Villages, an enclave of GOP white conservatism. But the parade of high-profile members of the GOP who have been busted for child porn and fraud over the last six years is lengthy. (That's by observation, not by research.) IMO, there's a pattern of people who preach it IS the function of government to regulate people's private lives in areas of sex and morality who flagrantly violate their public position. I think there's a class of degenerate con men who find public life more attractive than ever before.
I'm not saying liberals don't commit crime. I'm suggesting that the rate per capita of liberals can be considered the baseline. And I think the rate of persons in general and especially in public life busted for crimes against children, violence against women, senseless violence using guns, running a fund soliciting public contributions which is used for private gain… the statistics are radically skewed. (I'm not claiming I have statistics, just a perception. I'd love to see an objective study.)
The poster boy for this phenomenon might not be Donald Trump – it might be George Santos. Turns out he's got such a completely fake bio and a stream of petty crimes (international) and now there's the evidence of systematic fraud all the way to pandemic unemployment fraud. With a clear paper trail – he's busted.
The point being, there's a new social class of low-lifes who see Trump-style conservatism like a Harry Potter cloak of invisibility. Any charges brought against them for any crimes are political persecution regardless of the facts, law, truth, and evidence. So far, it's not working in court, but it's working pretty well in conservative media circles.
Will long terms in prison drive these people back under the rocks they used to occupy?
I saw a clip of Bobert and her date seated before the show, He was groping her breasts and she had a hand in his lap. Heavy petting is the term for it. Fun in the back seat when you're a teen but inappropriate in public.
https://www.newsweek.com/lauren-boebert-apologizes-video-shows-theater-groping-1827532
File this as an addendum to my post about conservatives who consider themselves exempt from the norms that society expects and the norms those same conservatives want to impose on everyone except themselves.
I'm sure the guy who was with Boebert wasn't exactly looking for any kind of intellectual stimulation. Because if her was he certainly isn't going to find it with her.
I read some background on the UAW strike. It's different from earlier strikes because the car industry is in the middle of a huge change, the switch to electric vehicles. Gas powered vehicles are their bread and butter, and the switch to electrics requires enormous investment to make it happen, money the car companies would rather not spend on labor's demands. Electric vehicles are simpler, requiring fewer components and therefore less labor to build.
The demand for electrics surprised automakers, even big ones like Toyota, who perfected the hybrid (the Prius) years ago, but who haven't moved past this.
As for supporting the union – I worked at a unionized locomotive plant years ago, and fully appreciate that American workers can build anything, with great quality, if only management will let them. Years ago, I owned a Dodge Neon, a great looking car that was deliberately designed to have a short life – effectively a throwaway car. For example, the guy who changed my oil, continually warned me that this was the last time he'd be able to screw the oil plug back into the oil pan, because the pan was aluminum, a soft metal. Many other short sighted design choices like this forced me to dump this car, before the repair bills hit in earnest.
I mostly have driven Toyotas, because they generally don't suffer from stupid design choices like the Neon. I had a well made Tacoma truck that was made in Fremont CA, I don't know if the workforce was unionized or not.
I'm simply not rich enough to go out of my way for union members if it means driving something whose total cost of ownership isn't the best I can find.
Currently I run around in a 16 year old Corolla, probably the most problem free car I've ever owned. It has a rear spoiler, which was in fashion a long time ago, but is hopelessly out of date in 2023. As such it's very easy to find in a parking lot. It was paid off years ago, and it makes me laugh all the way to the bank.