Sunday, December 31, 2023
Biden and the Elephant Flies
The end of Ukraine?
Christian Nationalism
Monday, December 25, 2023
Trump's Finger Puppet
1. Forensic psychologists discussing the state of Trump's relationship with the electorate and the shared psychosis between him and his followers. This shared psychosis was discussed in terms of a virulent and highly contagious disease that Republicans are unusually susceptible to.
By Kevin Kreneck
Putin's Piggy Bank
2. The Dallas Morning News broke the story confirming that Russian Oligarchs loyal to Vladimir Putin were funneling millions of dollars to Republican PAC's. Is it too late to save the Republican Party? Is it now the Party of Putin?
By Kevin Kreneck
Sad Santa
The approach of the Christmas Holiday Season has not slowed the
terrifying rate at which children continue to be gunned down in this country.
By Kevin Kreneck
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Editorial: Trump the Fascist Joker
Donald Trump has been airing his authoritarian fantasies during the course of his campaign to restore him to the presidency, as he tries to avoid criminal prosecution for various felonies. At first, his signature line was, “I am your retribution.”
At the Conservative Political Action Conference March 4, Trump told the room packed with his cultists that they, not him, were the real targets of his supposed oppressors.
Trump defined MAGA’s enemies with a special emphasis on prosecutors.
“From the beginning, we have been attacked by a sick and sinister opposition, the radical left communists, the bureaucrats, the fake news media, the big money special interests, the corrupt Democrat prosecutors,” he said. “Oh, they’re after me for so many things. Oh, those prosecutors. Some are racists. Some hate our country. They all hate me. They’ll get me for anything, anything.”
“In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” he said. “Today, I add I am your warrior, I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution.”
Since then, Trump and his allies have begun mapping out plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents in a second term. The former president has named individuals he wants to go after, and his associates are drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against protests that might develop.
In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, the Washington Post reported. Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department.
In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The disgraced former president has frequently made corruption accusations against the Bidens that are not supported by available evidence.
Trump’s associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations, the Post reported. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional.
Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington, led by the Heritage Foundation. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act, the Post reported. The law, last updated in 1871, authorizes the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.
The plan also reportedly includes Trump proceeding with plans to greatly expand the number of government employees exempted from protection under the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which was signed into law in 1883 to reduce the number of government jobs awarded as political patronage.
In October 2020 Trump signed an executive order to create a new “Schedule F” classification making “policy-making positions” at-will employees who could be thrown out of work by administrators. President Joe Biden rescinded the order shortly after taking office.
Not only would high-profile employees who publicly disagree with the president be targeted for removal, but also lower level employees tasked with collecting the data and evidence underlying much of what the federal government does — whom MAGA Republicans consider part of the “Deep State” — could be removed.
Trump has frequently argued that punitive steps against his perceived enemies would be justified by the current prosecutions against him. Trump has claimed the criminal charges he is facing — a total of 91 felonies across four state and federal jurisdictions — were made up to damage him politically, though the cases look solid.
“This is third-world-country stuff, ‘arrest your opponent,’” Trump said at a campaign stop in New Hampshire in October. “And that means I can do that, too.”
During an interview on Dec. 5, Fox News’ Sean Hannity tried to help Trump tone down the authoritarian rhetoric. Hannity asked Trump whether he would abuse power if he was returned to office and noted that Trump has been using the line, “I am your retribution” in his campaign. Trump responded by praising Al Capone, who he called “one of the greatest of all time, if you like criminals,” but Trump failed to promise that he wouldn’t abuse power.
Hannity tried again, asking Trump to promise the public that he wouldn’t abuse power as retribution against anybody. “Except for Day 1,” he replied. Trump followed this by saying, “I want to close the border and drill, drill, drill.” Trump then acknowledged that Hannity wanted him to say he’s not going to be a dictator, before repeating that he will be a dictator “on Day 1.”
Some Republicans said the former president was joking when he told Hannity he wouldn’t be a dictator “other than Day 1.”
Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric has not cracked his dominance of the Republican Party, but it has raised concerns among critics in both parties. “I think people who like Donald Trump like Donald Trump regardless of what he says and he entertains them with bombast, which they find humorous and compelling,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict Trump following his Senate impeachment trials. “His base loves the authoritarian streak. I think they love the idea that he may use the military in domestic matters and that he will seek revenge and retribution. That’s why he’s saying it and has the lock, nearly, on the Republican nomination.”
And why would Trump give up on his dream of being a dictator? His heroes are dictators, such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Mohammed bin Salman and Kim Jong Un. In Trump’s view, they know how to run their countries, and he wants to follow their examples.
Many on the center-left are concerned about Joe Biden’s age and his inability to get the price of groceries down to pre-pandemic levels, despite Biden’s success in leading the economic recovery that has kept the unemployment rate 4% or below since December 2021. But remember, Trump is a 77-year-old aspiring fascist who faces 91 felonies in four jurisdictions, including efforts to overturn the election — and he wants to deport Muslims and put his critics in jail, while he uses the presidency as his “Stay Out of Jail” card.
We remain hopeful American voters will make the correct choice, and Trump’s only “Day 1” is when he reports to jail. – JMC
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2024
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Selections from the January 1-15, 2024 issue
How close were you? The lone gunman approaches
EDITORIAL p. 2
Trump the fascist Joker
DON ROLLINS p. 4
Prison for the holidays
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen p. 5
Boomer pols: Be more like the Carters
DISPATCHES p. 5
More jobs drop unemployment rate further.
Study shows corporate profiteering ‘amplified’ global inflation.
It’s high time, as 6 Democratic governors urge DEA to reschedule marijuana by year-end.
Rural jobs grew in September, but still lag.
Senate Republicans hand Putin victory.
Chattanooga VW workers announce push to join UAW.
ART CULLEN p. 6
Woke made Sen. Ernst choke
ALAN GUEBERT p. 6
Soybeans’ big players looking to a bruising year ahead
SONALI KOLHATKAR p. 7
The high cost of low holiday prices
JOHN YOUNG p. 7
How extortion machine fueled the Big Lie
KAZMYN RAMOS p. 8
The importance of home
JOE CONASON p. 9
What the numbers now tell about Biden’s economy
DAVID McCALL p. 10
Workers need a fighting chance
LES LEOPOLD p. 10
Wall Street or the working class: The Democrats must choose
ROBERT KUTTNER p. 11
Charlie Peters and the odyssey of neoliberalism
MARC G. RATCLIFF p. 11
The poignant path to despotism
THOM HARTMANN p. 12
If Democrats ran red states fewer people would die
SARAH ANDERSON p. 13
Scraping away the anti-worker, anti-racial equity vestiges of the Reagan era
JOSEPH B. ATKINS p. 14
Keeping the line to heaven
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas p. 15
Dangerous ideas need stiffling
SAM URETSKY p. 15
Congress finally agrees on George Santos
FRANK LINGO p. 15
Climate conference offers little hope
WAYNE O’LEARY p. 16
Refugee roulette in Israel
JOEL D. JOSEPH p. 16
Henry Kissinger made the biggest mistakes in U.S. history
JAN SCHAKOWSKY p. 16
Hey House GOP, keep hands off Social Security and Medicare!
JASON SIBERT p. 17
Second Cold War will have no winners, except arms makers
JAMIE STIEHM p. 18
Haley best to vie vs. Trump — and Biden
BARRY FRIEDMAN p. 18
If Biden were Trump
LINDSAY KOSHGARIAN p. 18
The Pentagon just can’t pass an audit
RALPH NADER p. 19
Israeli government’s mass terrorism fortified by Biden and Congress
SAVANNAH ROSE p. 20
Outrage in Wyoming erupts over public land auction
ROB PATTERSON p. 20
Finally sold on reading Ebooks
MOVIE REVIEW/Ed Rampell p. 21
Polynesian happiness on the soccer field of dreams
AMY GOODMAN p. 22
Carbon colonialism, COP28 and the climate crisis
GENE NICHOL
The expanded NC Republican sedition caucu
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2024
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Copyright © 2023 The Progressive Populists
Friday, November 24, 2023
Editorial: Steady Joe vs. Lyin’ Don
One of the frustrating things for Democrats heading into an election year is that Joe Biden is getting little credit for the economic recovery under his watch, and continues to lag in polls, as working people think Biden has done little good for them. They reminisce about the good times when Donald Trump was in charge — before the COVID pandemic spurred economic collapse and rampant inflation worldwide. Biden beat the increasingly unbalanced incumbent fair and square, but Trump supporters tried an insurrection to keep their fake populist cult leader in power.
Biden was blamed for higher prices for goods as the nation emerged from the pandemic, even though inflation in the US, which topped out at 9.1% in June 2022, was lower than other industrialized nations.
On Oct. 26, the Department of Commerce announced that the nation’s gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 4.9% in the third quarter. This growth rate ran well above even optimistic forecasts, economist Dean Baker noted. The next week, Biden boasted that the 3.9% jobless rate in October was the 21st consecutive month of unemployment below 4%, the longest stretch in more than 50 years. The following week the Labor Department reported inflation was flat in October. The Core Consumer Price Index, which excludes food and energy, hit a two-year low. And food and fuel prices are also trending down.
Remember that the unemployment rate was 4.7% when Trump took office in January 2021. Barack Obama had put the economy back on track after George W. Bush left it in a recession. The economy was running smoothly when Obama turned it over to Trump, and he rode it for three years, as 6.7 million jobs were created and the jobless rate dropped to 3.5% in January 2020. Good times! But then COVID struck, the unemployment rate shot up to 14.7% in April 2020, and 19.3 million jobs were lost. The economy recovered 9.9 million jobs by January 2021, the jobless rate dropped to 6.7% and Trump finished with a net loss of 2.67 million jobs.
Restoring the economy and getting the US back to normal was a key focus for Biden as he moved into the Oval Office. Under Biden, Democrats managed to pass four major economic packages. The first, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, passed on a party-line vote in March 2021, sent $1,400 stimulus checks to working-class Americans, extended increased unemployment benefits, provided funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings and expanded health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit, which lifted 2.9 million working-class families out of poverty. The bipartisan $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Act was passed in November 2021 and the $891 billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, both passed in 2022 on party lines, were loaded with tax incentives and direct funding for industrial projects and operations.
Construction jobs have grown by 676,000 through October 2023, totaling 8,033,000, According to the Census Bureau, the construction build-out has happened especially fast in the Mountain division in the West, which includes states like Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. South Central divisions have also seen a marked rise.
“Honest to goodness, [the top of my agenda] is finding and training qualified manpower, because that’s what’s needed. We don’t have enough,” Courtenay Eichhorst, president of the New Mexico Building and Construction Trades Council, told The Hill in June.
Manufacturing jobs have grown by 799,000 since Biden took office, for a total of 12,960,000, not including 35,000 workers who were on strike and returned to work in November.
Trump increased the budget deficit from $665 billion in 2017 to $983 billion in 2019, then during COVID it vaulted to $3.1 trillion. Biden got the deficit down to $1.375 trillion in 2022 but it bounced to $1.6 trillion in 2023.
The CHIPS and Science Act was particularly intended to reinforce the semiconductor industry in the US, after manufacturers that depend on computer chips experienced a major shortage from East Asian manufacturers, such as Taiwan, after the pandemic eased. Concerns grew over the territorial ambitions of China, the US’s main economic and military rival, which was taking an increasingly aggressive stance toward Taiwan.
The investments in the CHIPS Act may have moved China’s President Xi Jinping to throttle down the move toward confrontation with the US. When Biden and Xi met in San Francisco Nov. 15, Xi arrived somewhat weakened, owing to the Chinese economy’s recent underperformance. Youth unemployment is high, exports and foreign direct investment are down, and debt is a major issue, Richard Haass, a former aide to George W. Bush, noted in a column after the meeting. “The last thing Xi and China’s economy need are more US export controls, sanctions, and tariffs,” Haass wrote.
After the passage of Biden’s economic package, investment in manufacturing construction shot up to $200 billion in May 2023, more than doubling pre-pandemic levels. Total jobs in the US surpassed Trump’s high point in June 2022, and since then, another 4.5 million jobs have been created, for a total of 13.95 million jobs created under Biden through October.
Biden and Xi had a useful session, agreeing to restart military-to-military communications, curb the deadly opioid fentanyl, cooperate in the fight against climate change, and discuss risks associated with artificial intelligence. But the relationship has been deteriorating for several years and will remain typified by competition more than anything else for the foreseeable future, Haass noted.
As for the impact of inflation, “Fresh data released by the Federal Reserve [in October] confirms that Americans’ inflation-adjusted net worth surged between 2019 and 2022, and real incomes are up as well,” Matthew Yglesias noted at Bloomberg Opinion. “There’s plenty of room to debate and even second-guess the stimulative policies enacted during COVID, but it’s just not the case that inflation has left people worse off than they were before. The labor market recovered rapidly and robustly from pandemic disruptions.”
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., who is up for re-election in 2024, sees most of the price increases as due to corporate greed. He noted that prices on chicken and pork have outstripped inflation.
Even potatoes, traditionally a cheap staple food, have had significant price increases in recent years, now sitting at 60% over last year. And the largest producer of frozen potato products, Lamb Weston Holdings, told shareholders, “it has greatly outperformed the S&P 500 over the past several years because its potatoes are ‘one of the highest-margin food items on the menu.’”
Overall, Casey reports, “For the average Pennsylvania family, costs went up by $3,194 in 2021 and by $3,546 in 2022, just due to corporate profiteering.” To fight back, Casey calls for Congress to pass bills like the Price Gouging Prevention Act and the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax, as well as stronger enforcement of existing consumer protection regulations.
That will require re-election of Joe Biden, who at 81 still appears in better shape than most of his critics, and also holding onto, and expanding the Democratic majority in the Senate, along with putting a Democratic majority in the House and sending current House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson back to the bench. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2023
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Selections from the December 15, 2023 issue
COVER/Reed Abelson, New York Times and Jordan Rau, KFF Health News
Facing financial ruin as costs soar for elder care
EDITORIAL
Steady Joe vs. Lyin’ Don
FRANK LINGO
Mother trees: Wisdom of the forest
DON ROLLINS
The modified servant model
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Too many people with too few resources fuel war
DISPATCHES
Trump mocks Jimmy Carter, continues fascist rhetoric, vowing to drive out the globalists.
Trump’s decline has flown under the radar.
‘No Labels’ is all grift.
UAW clinches record deals with Big 3, turns to organizing Tesla and foreign automakers.
Federal government is funded. What’s next?
Ohio GOP plans to gut constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights ...
ART CULLEN
Food and peace
ALAN GUEBERT
Don’t just bury the CO2 pipelines; bury their very idea
CHRISTINA JEMENEZ
I help seniors get health care. Shouldn’t I be able to afford my own?
JOHN YOUNG
Tongue-tied on reproductive rights
JOE CONASON
The mighty achievements of Joe Manchin
DAVID McCALL
Jobs today, jobs tomorrow
LES LEOPOLD
The UAW’s game changer: The right to strike over mass layoffs
BILAL BAYDOUN
How to make America more affordable
ROBERT KUTTNER
The next insulin scandal
THOM HARTMANN
Democrats can win by confronting crime
SONALI KOLHATKAR
Seeing through the economic bait and switch
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
The case of home dialysis, or when money supports inertia
SAM URETSKY
Immovable force blocks military promotions
GENE NICHOL
Doing the impossible: Separating politics and race in North Carolina
WAYNE O’LEARY
A tale of two motion pictures
JOEL D. JOSEPH
Plastic pollution is an existential threat to humans
ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Militarism vs. our shared humanity
FARRAH HASSEN
Americans want a ceasefire. It’s our politicians who are out of touch.
JAMIE STIEHM
Washington diary watch: All’s not well
BARRY FRIEDMAN
If Biden loses, blame my wife
SETH SANDRONSKY
Private employers hire 113,000 new workers in October; pay growth slows
RALPH NADER
Worries from a major auto dealer about all electric cars
ERNIE ATENCIO
Farewell to two radicals with a common goal — changing the West
ROB PATTERSON
A perfect song for our troubled times
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
RobbieBot-1, Mike Johnson-0
ED RAMPELL
‘Rustin’ tells the full story of the March on Washington
From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2023
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Copyright © 2023 The Progressive Populist
Sunday, November 12, 2023
Editorial: Don’t Panic on Joe Biden
Progressives need to settle down about polls that show criminal defendant Donald Trump running neck and neck, or even slightly ahead of President Joe Biden a year before the election.
Sure, Biden is 80 years old, he will be 81 when the election is held and he’ll be 82 when he starts his second term, but he is healthy, alert and appears to be vigorous as he handles the nation’s affairs. Some of our friends believe Biden should step down and let somebody else lead the Democratic ticket in 2024, but the incumbent Biden certainly is in better shape, physically and mentally, than Trump, who appears increasingly disconnected from reality, as shown in his public ravings as he faces criminal trials on 91 state and federal felony charges in four different jurisdictions, and civil trials for fraud and sexual assault. And if anything happens to Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris is well-qualified to take over, unlike US Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., a little-known third-term congressman from Minnesota who recently entered the Democratic race in the hopes of opening the primary to a “new generation of leaders,” which would seed the corporate media with “Democrats in disarray” stories.
The New York Times fed the paranoia with its Nov. 5 report on a poll conducted by Siena College for the Times from Oct. 22 to Nov. 3 that found Biden trailing Trump by margins of four to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Biden was ahead only in Wisconsin, by two percentage points, the poll found. “Discontent pulsates throughout the Times/Siena poll, with a majority of voters saying Mr. Biden’s policies have personally hurt them,” the Times reported. “The survey also reveals the extent to which the multiracial and multigenerational coalition that elected Mr. Biden is fraying. Demographic groups that backed Mr. Biden by landslide margins in 2020 are now far more closely contested, as two-thirds of the electorate sees the country moving in the wrong direction.”
The Northwest Progressive Institute, based in Redmond, Wash., concluded that Republican voters were oversampled in these polls.
“A whopping four-fifths of the total sample said they consider themselves something other than liberal, or refused to answer. Thirty-nine percent identified as ‘moderate’ — a label that sounds good but doesn’t stand for anything — and 36% identified as conservative, nearly twice as many as those who said liberal.”
The poll found 53% of respondents said Biden’s policies have hurt them, which the NWI analysts found “objectively nonsensical,” as Biden has signed into law a long list of bills to help most Americans. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act is finally allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs. The American Rescue Plan reduced child poverty with the Child Tax Credit. The administration is using its authority under existing law to try to forgive student loan debt.
The same poll found 51% of respondents said Trump’s policies helped them, despite Trump’s policies having been incredibly destructive.
Biden’s actions have been popular among those who know about them. But other polling has showed Americans simply don’t know about these things.
“Americans have heard the most about the Biden administration lowering prescription drug costs, ramping up clean energy, and investing in infrastructure, but even on these accomplishments, fewer than three in five Americans have heard about each one,” Navigator Research reported Oct. 24.
“Communicating around Biden’s accomplishments improves his net job approval rating by double digits, especially among people unfavorable to both Biden and Trump, younger Americans, and college-educated women.” Dems need to spread that information.
The key takeaway: Once voters learn about what Biden and Vice President Harris have gotten done, they become more enthusiastic about supporting the ticket in 2024.
On Capitol Hill, fourth time was the charm in late October as Republicans finally settled on Mike Johnson as House Speaker, three weeks after they ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy Oct. 3 for cooperating with Democrats to keep the federal government operating for six weeks into the new fiscal year.
Johnson, a little-known congressman in just his fourth term representing northwest Louisiana, played the long game: First up was Majority Leader Steve Scalise of the New Orleans suburbs, who was nominated by the Republican conference in a secret 113-99 vote over Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio, but Scalise dropped the bid after more than a dozen hardliners declared their opposition. He could only afford to lose four GOP votes. Next up was Jordan, a leader of the right-wing “Freedom” caucus, who got the nomination but couldn’t consolidate the GOP vote despite a bullying campaign, which reportedly included death threats to the families of holdouts, before the conference dropped Jordan as their nominee. Next up was House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, but two dozen MAGA Republicans opposed his bid after Trump suggested Emmer was a RINO (Republican in Name Only) because he accepted the 2020 election results. Emmer withdrew. At that point, Johnson stepped forward with support of the MAGA Republicans. As a Christian Dominionist leader of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, Johnson had support of the Lyin’ King, who dubbed him “MAGA Mike,” and he consolidated GOP support. including some who set aside their resistance to election deniers. Johnson won with 220 votes Oct. 25.
Johnson’s immediate responsibility was to get a continuing resolution to fund the government into the new year, while Republicans finish work on appropriation bills, but his first legislative priority was to reject additional support for Ukraine and link $14.3 billion in emergency aid to Israel with roughly equivalent cuts to the IRS, disregarding reports from the Congressional Budget Office that the cuts to the IRS would reduce tax collections and add $26.8 billion to the deficit over the next decade.
As speaker, Johnson is expected to pursue proposals to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as he did as chairman of the Republican Study Committee between 2019 and 2021. Johnson helped craft budget resolutions that called for $2 trillion in Medicare cuts, $3 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts and $750 billion in Social Security cuts, noted Bobby Kogan of the Center for American Progress. Johnson also has proposed raising the Social Security retirement age further, lowering annual cost of living benefits and advancing privatization efforts, said Alex Lawson, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works.
Charles Pierce of Esquire.com suggested that after the shutdown is avoided, Democrats should start filing motions to vacate the chair every few days. “Make the Republicans vote to keep the Speakership in the hands of a slick theocratic grifter a few times a week. After all, that stupid Matt Gaetz rule on vacating the chair when one member proposes it is still a ticking time bomb. Maybe it’s time to have a little fun.” — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2023
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Copyright © 2023 The Progressive Populist
Selections from the December 1, 2023 issue
Rural hospitals feel the pinch as Medicare Advantage plans grow
EDITORIAL
Don’t panic on Joe Biden
FRANK LINGO
International Energy Agency paints false rosy future
DON ROLLINS
Sports betting in Ohio: All bets are still on
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Biden should withdraw
DISPATCHES
Trump’s ominous plan for revenge.
Telling the truth costs Meadows.
Gushing: US oil output under Biden beats Trump record.
Families go hungry since Republicans and Joe Manchin ended child tax credit.
Economy adds 150,000 jobs, unemployment stays below 4%.
Trump reminds workers how weird he is.
Republicans are tanking in battleground House districts.
ART CULLEN
Listening to rural working families
ALAN GUEBERT
Now for the really hard, chaotic part
SARAH GERTLER
Americans need to hear more Palestinian voices
JOHN YOUNG
Thou shalt not impede gun hobbyists’ fun
POOJA SALHOTRA
COVID-19 funding halted rural hospital closures across Texas, until now
DICK POLMAN
The most pro-union president in history has scored another big win, in case anyone cares
DAVID McCALL
Pathway to the Middle Class
SAM PIZZIGATI
Is a ‘Mayday!’ now looming for our billionaire class?
SARAH ANDERSON
Why is Biden cracking down on stock buybacks in just one industry?
ROBERT KUTTNER
Debunking the latest attack on Social Security
THOM HARTMANN
Universal Basic Income: If it works for billionaires’ children, why not the poor?
SONALI KOLHATKAR
What’s behind the Texas GOP’s latest attack on people of color?
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
A plan, a plan, our kingdom for a plan
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
The new pseudo-physician legislators
SAM URETSKY
Pick the right Medicare before you need it
SETH SANDRONSKY
Pfizer grows by merging with Seagen
WAYNE O’LEARY
Reaping what’s been sown
LEW KINGSBURY
Stop warrantless government spying now
N. GUNASEKARAN
The unheard voice of the Global South
JAMIE STIEHM
Giant pandas make it all better — for a while
BARRY FRIEDMAN
The box of ducks
PAUL HELLWEG
Talk to a neighbor, feel better, save humanity
RALPH NADER
Mass media needs to probe deeper re: Israel/Gaza conflict
DAVE MARSTON
Creative builders get rural housing done
ROB PATTERSON
A masterful examination of a music scene
ELWOOD WATSON
Matt Gaetz is right about the new Republican speaker
ED RAMPELL
An anti-racist cinematic masterpiece: ‘Stamped from the Beginning’
GENE NICHOL
Mocking justice
From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2023
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Copyright © 2023 The Progressive Populist
Saturday, October 28, 2023
Editorial: Devil Goes Down in Georgia
And House Republicans still can’t get down to business without a speaker.
Donald Trump’s prospects of beating the rap for conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia took a major hit Oct. 20 when Trump-aligned attorney Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to reduced charges brought by Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis. Chesebro agreed to testify in cases against 17 codefendants, including the disgraced former president.
Chesebro’s plea came a day after attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty in a similar deal, and their pleas, as jury selection was beginning in their cases, suggest that the district attorney has a strong RICO case and neither lawyer was interested in going to prison for Trump. Powell’s involvement in Georgia was largely related to efforts to tamper with voting machines in Coffee County, Ga., while Chesebro, who was an attorney with the Trump campaign, was involved in all aspects of the false-electors scheme in Georgia and other states and, the indictment alleges, Chesebro was central to the “strategy for disrupting and delaying the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.” Both Cheseboro and Powell have provided statements to prosecutors and agreed to support the cases against Trump and Rudy Giuliani for their efforts to overturn the election. An Atlanta bail bondsman with a minor role in the alleged conspiracy also has pleaded guilty.
In Chesebro’s case, Willis is dropping six of the seven charges against him, including the racketeering charge, which would have made prison time mandatory. He pleaded guilty to a single felony count of conspiring to file false documents in Georgia and prosecutors are recommending he be sentenced to five years probation, pay a $5,000 fine and write a letter of apology to Georgia voters. For that leniency, Willis — and likely federal prosecutor Jack Smith — get testimony of the lawyer who was in the rooms where the conspiracies happened. And Chesebro’s testimony might help to corroborate any testimony from Powell, who made numerous wild claims about voting machines and dead dictators, which might be used by defense attorneys to undermine her credibility.
As we went to press, another Trump lawyer, Jenna Ellis, accepted a plea deal, leaving John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani under pressure to make their own deals, if prosecutors still need them.
In D.C., it’s been a hard three weeks for MAGA Republicans. On Oct. 3, US Rep. Matt Gaetz, head of the GOP’s Chaos Caucus, brought up then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on the offense of cooperating with Democrats to keep the federal government operating six weeks into the new fiscal year, against the wishes of the “Freedom Caucus” and their Lyin’ King Donald Trump, who apparently thinks a federal shutdown would slow down federal prosecutions against him. (It wouldn’t.)
If Gaetz was embarrassed that it took 208 Democrats along with his eight Chaossians to remove McCarthy from office, the Florida Republican didn’t show it. Nor, apparently, had it occurred to Gaetz that it would be more difficult to elect a successor to McCarthy, since it would require a majority of all House members present, and Dems would be casting their 212 votes for Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries to become speaker.
The top Republican candidates for speaker were Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who earned Trump’s endorsement after participating in efforts to overturn the 2020 election and leading efforts to obstruct official investigations of Trump’s alleged crimes.
Scalise, who once touted himself as “David Duke without the baggage,” got the Republican conference’s nomination as speaker Oct. 11 in a 113-99 vote over Jordan in a secret ballot. But by the next day, more than a dozen Republicans — mainly right-wing hardliners — declared they wouldn’t vote for Scalise. He could lose no more than four Republican votes, so he withdrew from the race.
Jordan saw his way cleared to become speaker, but, unlike Scalise, Jordan went ahead with the floor vote without 217 votes in his pocket. Jordan got 200 votes on the first ballot, Oct. 17, but Jeffries’ polled 212, while 20 Republicans voted for others. Jordan supporters started to put pressure on Republican opponents, including reported threats of violence against House members and their families. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said his wife slept with a loaded gun near her bed after harassing text message and phone calls, but the threats apparently hardened the opposition, as Jordan lost the next vote Oct. 18, with 199, while 22 Republicans voted for others. On Friday, Oct. 20, 25 Republicans voted for others. Following the third defeat, Jordan was willing to give it another try, but the Republican conference abruptly dropped Jordan as their nominee for House speaker and called for new candidates. It still was not encouraging for prospects in the House going forward that 199 Republicans sided with Jordan, even after the bullying and death threats on Jordan’s behalf were reported.
Democrats suggested they might support an effort to give the interim speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), more powers to at least bring the House back into session and conduct crucial business, but that proposal was rejected by Jordan’s right-wing allies and McHenry himself.
“We’re trying to figure out if there’s a way we can get back with a Republican-only solution,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. “That’s what normal majorities do. What this majority has done is prove it’s not a normal majority.”
[Editor's Note: After this went to press, House Republicans nominated Rep. Tom Emmers of Minnesota, the House majority whip, as speaker, but two dozen House MAGA Republicans opposed Emmer's bid, leaving him short of the 217 votes necessary for election, so he withdrew after a few hours. Rep. Mike Johnson, an ally of Trump during his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, stepped forward with the support of the MAGA Republicans and consolidated support of other Republicans to win the gavel ... at least until he pisses off five or more Republican reps and somebody raises a motion to vacate.]
Finally, we think President Joe Biden did a commendable job in his response to the Hamas attack on southern Israel. An estimated 2,400 Hamas commandos crossed from Gaza into Israel, killed 1,400 civilians in Israel, including more than 260 at an outdoor music festival, and took more than 200 hostages back to Gaza while thousands of rockets were fired at Israeli towns and cities.
Biden assured Israelis that the US would continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself against a militia movement that aspires to wipe the Jewish state off the map, but he warned them not to give in to the demand for revenge and he reportedly has cautioned them about invading Gaza.
Biden cautioned Israel against getting bogged down in Gaza, as the US did in Iraq and Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“Justice must be done,” Biden said in Tel Aviv. “But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it … After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”
Biden has received criticism from supporters of Palestinians for not demanding an immediate ceasefire. They claim the US will share the blame for genocide, but it’s hard to sell a ceasefire in Israel while Hamas and other Islamic allies continue to fire rockets from Gaza and Lebanon, as well as Yemen, into Israel.
Israel says it only targets terrorists, who are embedded within the civilian population, and Israeli forces make an effort to avoid civilian casualties. That’s not much of a promise, but the conflict suits Iran just fine, and their support for Hamas might rehabilitate Bibi Netanyahu, whose popularity declined after he sought to rein in Israeli courts and focused on protecting Jewish settlers in the West Bank. . — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2023
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Copyright © 2023 The Progressive Populist
Selections from the November 15, 2023 issue
EDITORIAL
The Devil goes down in Georgia
FRANK LINGO
World’s top influencer wants climate action
DON ROLLINS
He gets us: Slick meets Sleaze
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Truth in war remains hard to ascertain
DISPATCHES
Trump classified documents case has turned into espionage case.
UAW expands strike against Stellantis.
Amid House speaker chaos, GOP confesses attack on Social Security, Medicare still top priority.
Turncoat Dem gave N.C. GOP supermajority in April, just got her reward.
House Republicans destroy party brand ...
ART CULLEN
Crazy talk
ALAN GUEBERT
Getting to ‘ves’ and other Farm Bill worries
AMY ADAMS
Try this in a small town
JOHN YOUNG
Eye for eye, extremism for extremism
DICK POLMAN
Trump is hereby gagged. Lots of his lies are OK (free speech), but he can’t trash talk his criminal trial.
JOE CONASON
The MAGA culture of menace is no surprise
GENE NICHOL
Trump and litmus tests
DAVID McCALL
Putting an end to divide and conquer
LES LEOPOLD
UAW wins fight for just transition
ROBERT KUTTNER
Global capitalists or national champions?
SONALI KOLHATKAR
How California’s fast-food workers won $20 an hour
THOM HARTMANN
How will America weather the historic times we face?
GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Nurses fight the power
SARAH ANDERSON
Let’s trash junk fees
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
The “Am I Dying” test, plus a few others for free-market enthusiasts
SAM URETSKY
Trouble at the neighborhood pharmacy
SETH SANDRONSKY
In California, a tale of two pharma bills
WAYNE O’LEARY
The centrist-corporative nexus in action
JULIE APPLEBY
Medicare enrollees can switch coverage now. Here’s what’s new and what to consider.
TOM H. HASTINGS
First one to commit to nonviolence wins
BARRY FRIEDMAN
A jury of my peers (part two)
JOEL D. JOSEPH
Inequality and lotteries
RALPH NADER
After the attack, Israeli rulers launch genocidal destruction
TED WILLIAMS
Are beavers always the answer? Not really
ROB PATTERSON
Hail, hail Chuck Berry!
PHYLLIS BENNIS
We need an immediate ceasefire in Gaza
ED RAMPELL
‘The American Buffalo’: An interview with Ken Burns
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
Kevin’s new job
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2023
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Copyright © 2023 The Progressive Populist
Friday, October 13, 2023
Editorial: Chaos Rules House
The last straw for the Republican Chaos Caucus occurred Sept. 30, when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy let a stopgap funding resolution make it to the House floor that kept the government open into the new fiscal year, with more Democratic than Republican votes.
McCarthy had been on a short leash from the far-right “Freedom Caucus” after it took 15 votes over four days in January to elect him as speaker, after the California Republican agreed to a change in House rules allowing any member of the House to call for a motion to remove the speaker. McCarthy generally adhered to right-wing priorities, but after a long standoff this past spring risked a default on the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt, McCarthy in May alienated Republican hardliners when he agreed with President Joe Biden on increases in the debt to accommodate current spending levels for the next fiscal year and limit non-defense spending to no more than a 1% increase in fiscal year 2025, heading into the election.
Members of the Freedom Caucus denounced the debt ceiling compromise, which they claimed didn’t go far enough to cut spending. They said it marked a “betrayal” of his commitment to their caucus and 79 Republicans voted against raising the debt limit, which passed 314-117 May 31.
McCarthy reneged on his deal with Biden when the House started drafting appropriations bills calling for deep cuts in domestic social spending and defunding the Department of Justice. He also approved House committees to investigate the state and federal investigations of former President Donald Trump’s activities, which have led to indictments on 91 felony counts in state and federal courts, and he reneged on his earlier promise to hold a vote on launching an impeachment inquiry against President Biden; lacking the votes, he ordered an inquiry to proceed on his own authority, although the allegations Republicans have raised so far have proven to be unfounded.
Trump urged McCarthy and the Chaos Caucasians to push harder against Biden and the Democratic-controlled Senate and force the government shutdown, in an effort to stop the prosecution of Trump by federal prosecutor Jack Smith.
Right-wingers were adamant that McCarthy wait for votes on the 12 separate funding bills, but no bills were approved in the days before the budget ran out Sept. 30, as Republicans were hung up over how deep the cuts should be, so McCarthy proceeded with the stopgap measure, which again infuriated right-wingers. Then, McCarthy accused Democrats of resisting the budget resolution, when they asked for 90 minutes to read it, causing suspicion among Democratic reps that it was not as “clean” as McCarthy claimed. McCarthy also distanced himself from reports that he had made a private pledge with Biden for legislation to fund more military support for Ukraine. The resolution passed 335-91 on Sept. 30, letting the government stay open, but 90 Republicans voting against the resolution,
With the narrow 221-212 Republican majority, it was only a matter of time before Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the leader of the Chaos Caucasians, called for McCarthy’s ouster. After McCarthy let the continuing resolution proceed without the drastic cuts that House Republicans demanded, which McCarthy knew the Democratic Senate would not agree to, his fate was sealed. A senior Republican told Reuters at that time that McCarthy had concluded he would face a challenge to his leadership no matter what he did.
McCarthy expected Democrats to save his speakership, but Democrats were frustrated by McCarthy’s unreliability as a House leader. “Nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), head of the Progressive Caucus, told reporters.
“I don’t distinguish that sharply between Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gaetz,” Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) said before the ouster vote.
Raskin, a manager in Trump’s second impeachment trial, noted that McCarthy, in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, was the first high-ranking leader to call for an independent commission to investigate, Paul Kane noted at the Washington Post.
But within weeks of the assault, McCarthy traveled to visit Trump to make amends, then worked against a Jan. 6 commission and the eventual House Jan. 6 committee.
“This speaker and Republican conference have done everything they can to bring us to this point of chaos, to have an unstable House of Representatives,” Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) told reporters.
Josh Barro wrote on Substack that the Democratic vote to remove McCarthy was sensible, and any successor likely would be motivated by the same things. “Any spending bills enacted under the next speaker will be enacted due to the same laws of political gravity that drove McCarthy’s own actions,” Barro wrote. “The reason he wanted a [continuing resolution] —as he stated repeatedly and loudly — was not some abstract principle about bipartisanship or continuity of government. It was that shutting down the government would have damaged Republicans politically while failing to achieve their policy objectives. Ultimately, any deal to keep the government running was going to require bipartisan support in the Senate and the president’s signature, and that fact severely limited his or any other speaker’s ability to maneuver.”
Still, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote that “plenty of Democrats would have voted to save McCarthy — but his own toxic partisanship prevented him from offering even small concessions in exchange for their support.” Hours before the ouster vote, McCarthy explained why he wouldn’t offer Democrats even a crumb for their votes to save his speakership: “I win by Republicans, and I lose by Republicans.” “And so he did,” Milbank noted.
On Oct. 3, eight hard-right Republicans voted with all 208 Democrats present to oust McCarthy, 216-210.
As we go to press, the House has not picked a new speaker. The leading candidates are Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who refused to comply with a subpoena to appear before the special House Jan. 6 Committee when he was in the minority and has led the efforts to obstruct investigations of Trump, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), a right-winger who once described himself as [former Ku Klux Klan leader] “David Duke without the baggage.” The best that can be said about Scalise is that Trump endorsed Jordan for speaker.
When Hamas mounted a surprise attack on Israel Oct. 7, it didn’t take Republicans long to blame Joe Biden. Trump posted, “This would have never happened with me,” and claimed “American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks,” blaming a $6 billion transfer of Iranian funds that White House officials insisted had not occurred.
Nevertheless, Republican National Chair Ronna McDaniel expressed the party line to Fox News: “I think this is a great opportunity for our candidates to contrast where Republicans have stood with Israel time and time again, and Joe Biden has been weak.”
Meanwhile, the GOP also stands for chaos in the military and diplomacy. as Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) has blocked more than 260 military appointments, including Chief of Naval Operations, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has blocked confirmation of dozens of ambassadorial appointments, including ambassadors for Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and Kuwait. They have their own foreign policy. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, November 1, 2023
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Copyright © 2023 The Progressive Populist
Selections from the November 1, 2023 issue
EDITORIAL
Chaos rules the House
FRANK LINGO
Commander’s side of the story
DON ROLLINS
In defense of scrap culture
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Debt before dishonor
DISPATCHES
UAW wins protection for GM battery plant workers in concession. Members strike at Mack Trucks facilities after rejecting deal.
Media works hard on spinning good jobs numbers into bad economic news.
Texas attorney general files criminal complaints against impeachment managers.
Trump boasts support from Hannibal Lecter.
Guns now leading cause of accidental deaths for kids.
RFK Jr. siblings denounce independent run ...
ART CULLEN
Give me a home where the buffalo roam
ALAN GUEBERT
Fake meat is mostly a fake-out for now
DENISE KOHR
The price of Amazon’s ‘Prime’ business model is our bodies
JOHN YOUNG
Court-adjudicated as baloney
SAM PIZZIGATI
Time for a general strike on Dollar General
DICK POLMAN
Burning down the house: Purging their own speaker is another chapter in the long saga of Republican dysfunction
SHAILLY GUPTA BARNES
A wake up call on poverty
TOM CONWAY
Fighting killer dust
LES LEOPOLD
The inside story of how Wall Street fleeced GM autoworkers and taxpayers
ROBERT KUTTNER
The EU’s tough new rules for tech
THOM HARTMANN
The GOP’s ‘Red Caesar’ plan marches forward
SONALI KOLHATKAR
Kids shouldn’t have to pay for school lunches
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Sweet charity: A hospital’s take on the virtue
SAM URETSKY
Does a college education pay off?
WAYNE O’LEARY
Labor’s moment
SETH SANDRONSKY
Taking to the streets to get homeless into houses
MEL GURTOV
Alarm over Kim Jong Un’s Russia trip
JOEL D. JOSEPH
Seize Starlink from Elon Musk
BARRY FRIEDMAN
A jury of my peers (part one)
GENE NICHOL
Race and the NC Supreme Court
RALPH NADER
Good news — big opportunities on the horizon
DAVE MARSTON
Goats can be a forest’s best friend
ROB PATTERSON
Peter O’Toole’s thespian greatness
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
We’ve evolved, why haven’t they?
Filmmaker connects dots between fugitive slave law and modern-day ‘Karens’
From The Progressive Populist, November 1, 2023
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Copyright © 2023 The Progressive Populist
Sunday, October 1, 2023
Editorial: Labor Shows Its Grit
American workers are mounting an overdue effort to assert their place in the economy, and their actions are beginning to show results.
Reformers at the helm at Teamsters and United Auto Workers have become more aggressive in defending workers’ rights and reclaiming wages and benefits they conceded to help their employers survive.
Teamsters led by Sean O’Brien, president since 2022, threatened to strike in August over UPS’ refusal to install air conditioners in delivery vans, as well as wages and benefits equity. UPS averted the strike by agreeing to boost wages at least $7.50 an hour over five years, ending the forced six-day workweek for drivers and eliminating the lower-paid “second tier” of drivers.
The new contract, which covers 340,000 UPS employees, reverses Teamster concessions in the 2018 contract and brings the starting rate for new hires to $21 right away, and $23 by the end of the contract. And all new trucks will have AC; with hottest areas getting priority for these new trucks. Existing trucks will be retrofitted with fans, heat shields and induction vents.
Then, after years of autoworkers falling behind in pay and benefits while corporate profits have soared and executive compensation has surged, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (the successor to Chrysler) rebuffed the union’s demands, which started with a 36% raise in wages, nearly 13,000 United Auto Workers went on strike at three plants in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri Sept. 15.
Among demands of UAW for 146,000 Big Three employees:
• Scrap the two-tiered wage structure and restore pensions and health benefits for all workers. Under the current system, workers who joined the company in 2007 or earlier earn an average of roughly $33 an hour. But those hired after 2007 are classified as lower tier and earn far less — about $17 an hour.
• Increase wages by a level comparable to the 40% Big Three CEOs have seen over the past four years.
• Restore defined-benefit pensions for all workers and medical benefits for all workers and retirees. Workers hired after 2007 don’t currently get pensions and their health benefits are less generous.
• More paid time off to be with families, with four-day workweeks.
The union also is asking for the right to strike over plant closings. “The Big Three have closed 65 plants over the last 20 years,” the UAW’s website states. “That’s devastated our hometowns. We must have the right to defend our communities.”
UAW on Sept. 22 expanded the strikes to 38 GM and Stellantis parts distribution facilities, which put another 5,000 workers onto the picket lines. “We will shut down parts distribution until those two companies come to their senses and come to the table with a serious offer,” new UAW President Shawn Fain said.
Ford was spared additional walkouts, because there was “real progress” with the company at the bargaining table, Fain said. He cited positive developments in the company’s proposals to end wage tiers, convert temp workers to full-time employees after 90 days on the job, and restore cost-of-living adjustments that were suspended more than a decade ago amid the auto industry crisis.
“Ford is showing they’re serious about reaching a deal,” said Fain. “At GM and Stellantis, it’s a different story.”
This is the first time the UAW has struck all three of the major carmakers at the same time, but the UAW is utilizing a “stand-up strike” strategy, calling members to walk off the job at selected plants rather than all at once. The union says the tactic should maximize its leverage in contract talks and keep the companies off balance as negotiations go on.
Auto workers in 2008 and 2009 agreed to concessions to let General Motors, Ford and what was then Chrysler cut costs to help the car companies survive in the wake of the Great Recession. The UAW sacrificed job security and reduced the companies’ contributions to cover health care for retirees and their families to help the companies obtain loans from the federal government to keep them in business.
In 2008, the average UAW member cost GM about $74 an hour in a combination of wages, health care and pensions. Toyota, by comparison, spent about $45 an hour for employees in the US.
Union workers agreed to a wage freeze, entry of lower-wage “tiered” workers, and other concessions affecting retiree pensions and health care benefits. GM and Chrysler (now Stellantis) went through bankruptcy and government-supported restructuring. In 2009, they suspended cost of living adjustments and haven’t had one since.
Fortunes at the Big Three have come roaring back since then, but there’s little consideration for the workers who helped the corporations survive. The car companies’ profits skyrocketed 92% from 2013 to 2022, totaling $250 billion, the Economic Policy Institute noted. Another $32 billion in profits are expected in 2023. The companies paid out nearly $66 billion in shareholder dividend payments and stock buybacks. But while average consumer prices have increased nearly 40%, autoworker wages have not come close to keeping up.
Over the past four years, the CEOs of General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis have seen their total pay jump by 40% while the wages of the companies’ ordinary employees have risen by just 6%. EPI observed that autoworker wages across the US, union and non-union, have fallen by 19.3% since 2008, after adjusting for inflation. Including the broader motor vehicle parts industries—where outsourcing strategies have long compressed industry wage structures and thus didn’t have as far to fall—average earnings fell 10% in real terms.
Last year, the CEOs of the Big Three automakers received staggering pay packages. Ford’s Jim Farley took home around $21 million, Stellantis’ Carlos Tavares pocketed nearly $25 million, and General Motors’ Mary Barra—the highest-paid of the group—brought in roughly $29 million. That has fueled workers’ ongoing push for better wages and benefits.
The Big Three firms will benefit from taxpayer-funded incentives under President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that offers tax credits for American-manfufactured electric vehicles. Republicans are criticizing the EV transition, but if the Big Three fail to move on EVs, it just presents an opportunity for foreign manufacturers and result in the loss of good union jobs in the US.
If you are interested in supporting strikers, Keith Brower Brown suggested at LaborNotes.org, show up at the picket line to show support. President Joe Biden was scheduled to visit a Detroit-area picket line Sept. 26 (as we went to press).
If you’re far from a picket line, Brown notes that public spaces in front of offices of profiteers, such as BlackRock, Capital Group and Vanguard, who are among top shareholders of the Big Three, are fair game for UAW supporters to spread the word that “auto workers deserve more, and big investors have taken what they never toiled to earn.”
Auto workers deserve better pay, which will trickle down in their communities a lot more than the millions paid to corporate executives, and their success will encourage others. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2023
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