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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: A strong UAW win isn't a risk to Biden, but it is to Trump [1]
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Date: 2023-11-03
John Cassidy/The New Yorker:
What the U.A.W. Won In forcing the Big Three automakers to pay higher wages and make other concessions, the union demonstrated the enduring power of organized labor. Under the new labor contract with Ford, which served as the model for the agreements with Stellantis and G.M., fully vested production-line workers will receive cumulative hourly pay increases of about twenty-seven per cent, and some members of skilled trades will receive raises of more than thirty per cent. All union members will also receive annual cost-of-living adjustments based on the rate of consumer-price inflation. Taken together, these provisions will raise the top hourly wages of Ford production workers from $32.05 to $42.60 in the course of the contract, which will run until 2028, and the hourly wages of skilled workers from $36.96 to $50.97, the union said. The agreement will also shorten the time it takes for new hires to be paid full wages. Under a two-tier pay system that was introduced in 2007, newer Ford workers received roughly half as much pay as older workers, and it took them eight years to make up the difference. Going forward, new hires will be paid eighty-five per cent of the top rate after two years, and a hundred per cent after three years. Between now and October, 2025, according to the union, some Ford workers will see their hourly wages double under this provision.
You have to remember that union workers are Biden’s constituency, while Trump’s is car dealerships. And you also have to remember higher wages are a decent ask because Obamacare makes the benefits fights less fraught. Sometimes good seeds take decades to bear fruit.
x Chrysler-parent Stellantis has agreed to build a new $3.2 billion battery plant and invest $1.5 billion in a new mid-size truck factory in Illinois under its tentative labor agreement, the United Auto Workers union said
https://t.co/5WBVhFPGxR — Reuters (@Reuters) November 3, 2023
Greg Sargent/Washington Post:
The autoworkers’ big win exposes the absurdity of Trump’s populism Again and again, UAW’s president, Shawn Fain, has stressed that this strike is not just about his workers’ bottom lines, but about the country’s class structure. He regularly lambastes the dramatic upward redistribution of wealth of the past few decades, blaming top-down assaults on workers’ bargaining power and the systematic erosion in wages they have wrought… “The labor movement has been most successful when it embodies the larger aspirations and values of working people throughout society,” Damon Silvers, the former political director for the AFL-CIO, told me. He said Fain made the strike about “inequality, wage stagnation, the rich getting everything — the fundamental problem that has been growing in the U.S. economy for 50 years.”
x “We expected fireworks, not a carpet bombing,” Senate Dem aide says after GOP defense hawks skewer Tuberville on the floor for 4.5 hours — Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) November 2, 2023
Steve Benen/”Maddow Blog” on MSNBC:
Tommy Tuberville faces Republican ‘revolt’ over military blockade For months, Tommy Tuberville said he was facing "zero" pressure from his Republican colleagues to end his blockade. Last night, that changed dramatically. The conservative Washington Times described it as a GOP "revolt" against the Alabama senator’s blockade, which it clearly was. For months, Republicans would occasionally grumble about Tuberville’s unprecedented efforts, but they refused to take any meaningful steps, despite appeals from Senate Democratic leaders. On Wednesday night, that changed. Over and over again, Republican senators would bring up a qualified military leader, nominated for a key position, and seek unanimous consent to confirm the individual. In every instance, GOP members would sing the nominee’s praises, highlighting his or her heroic service, and explaining why the person should receive Senate approval. And in every instance, Tuberville objected. Over the course of five hours, this happened 61 times.
x The Hitchhiker’s Guide to what the Senate is considering to go around Tuberville’s military promotion blockade:
https://t.co/HFuEhwhuVH — Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) November 2, 2023
Politico Playbook:
Tommy Tuberville vs. everybody The intraparty conflict got ugly. Sen. DAN SULLIVAN (R-Alaska) — who had been trying to work with Tuberville to assuage his concerns, but ultimately led the GOP confrontation of him last night — accused his colleague of conducting a “national security suicide mission.” “I’m as pro-life as they come!” Sullivan insisted, a reference to Tuberville’s indignation over the Pentagon paying for abortion-related travel for troops stationed in states where the procedure is banned. “America needs to have … our most combat-capable leaders on the field” ASAP, he said, going on to accuse Tuberville of endangering the nation. At one point, Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM held up a photo of LAURA LENDERMAN, who is supposed to be promoted to lieutenant general and deputy commander of Pacific Air Forces. While the South Carolina Republican noted that she’s flown “thousands” of hours and has “zero” to do with the Pentagon’s abortion policy, Tuberville still objected. “You just denied this lady a promotion — you did that,” Graham snarled, launching into a tirade about how Tuberville is setting a new precedent of holding service member advancements hostage over policy disagreements — one that Democrats could adopt someday when Republicans control the White House. “Who the hell wants to serve in the military when your promotion can be canned over something you have nothing to do with? … If you think it’s illegal, go to court!”
x 💥I missed this in the Israeli readout: "Biden has gone so far as to suggest to Netanyahu that he should think about lessons he would share with his eventual successor, two administration officials added."
https://t.co/4S43ODOCQS — Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙 (@NTarnopolsky) November 1, 2023
Justin Jouvenal/Washington Post:
An election chief says the ‘big lie’ ended her career. She’s fighting back. Christine Gibbons was harassed, investigated and dropped as registrar after she was targeted by false election claims. Her career and, some say, fair elections in one Virginia city hang on the outcome of her legal battle. Election workers have left the field in droves in recent years in the face of hostility. In a nearby Virginia county, an entire election office resigned. But Gibbons, like an increasing number, is fighting back. She filed suit, part of a wave of recent lawsuits by election workers who say they feel compelled to battle false allegations inspired by Donald Trump’s “big lie.” Wisconsin’s top election official sued in September after she was fired. Two Atlanta election workers won a defamation case against Rudy Giuliani in August after he falsely implicated them in fraud during the 2020 election. And a top Arizona election official recently sued former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake over her spurious claims that cheating cost her the 2022 election. Legal experts say Gibbons’s suit, which contends that the election board violated her First Amendment right to free political association by removing her for purely partisan reasons, is among the first in the country to make that argument. The Supreme Court has held that it is illegal to fire most government workers over politics. Her attorney hopes it will be a test case, drawing a line in the sand that will help other election workers under partisan political fire.
Shot from Max Burns/The Hill:
‘Bootgate’ and pudding fingers: How Ron DeSantis became 2024’s presidential punchline DeSantis recently sat down with entrepreneur and podcaster Patrick Bet-David for what should have been a pretty friendly interview. But this being a DeSantis media event, the wheels fell off almost immediately. DeSantis clearly wasn’t prepared when Bet-David asked him about an online conspiracy theory that claims the allegedly 5-foot-11-inch presidential hopeful is adding a few inches to his height by concealing lifts in his cowboy boots. The visual of the swaggering Florida governor tip-toeing around in effeminate lifts was too much for the right-wing social media universe to resist. Bet-David’s segment went viral. Professional shoemakers weighed in. Even presidential son Donald Trump Jr. got in on the fun, mocking DeSantis for his “insecurity.” The whole humiliating event solidified DeSantis’s standing as the 2024 campaign’s biggest presidential punchline. Whether or not DeSantis wears lifts in his boots isn’t, in itself, a very important fact. But the media furor around yet another awkward DeSantis outing explains why his campaign has struggled so mightily to reboot itself despite multiple (expensive) attempts. According to social media trends data, Americans who searched for DeSantis during the past week were nearly 10 times more likely to click on a story about his footwear woes than they were to view any other news about him. For some of those users, DeSantis’s scandal will be the only thing they read about him all month.
Chaser from Politico Playbook:
NIKKI HALEY went there. In a “Daily Show” appearance late last night, guest host CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD asked the surging South Carolinian about Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS’ rumored use of height-boosting lifts in his omnipresent cowboy boots. Charlamagne: “Are you wearing higher heels than Ron DeSantis next week at the debate so that you can look taller than him on the stage?” Haley: “I don’t know. We’ll have to figure that out. I can tell you: I’ve always talked about my high heels. I’ve never hid that from anybody. I’ve always said, ‘Don’t wear ’em if you can’t run in ’em,’ so we’ll see if he can run in ’em.”
x BREAKING -- HOUSE passes IRS cut/Israel bill.
This bill is dead in the Senate and has drawn a veto threat from PRESIDENT BIDEN
12 Democrats defied their leadership and the White House and voted yes.
FINAL VOTE: 226-196 — Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) November 2, 2023
Cliff Schecter:
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