Catch-up News outside Foreign Wars, a Bit of Congress

A few pieces from the last week:

After Elon Musk enthusiastically agreed with a hideous antisemitic post, his company X lost advertising, including from Apple, Disney, and IBM. Other major technology and media companies—Lionsgate, Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony, and Comcast/NBC Universal—also declared an advertising pause. X had run Apple and X ads beside posts praising Adolf Hitler and the Nazis as well as accusing “western Jewish populations” of supporting the flooding of the U.S. by “hordes of minorities,” known among conservatives as “the great replacement theory.” Musk now threatens watchdog Media Matters with a “thermonuclear lawsuit” for reporting about the proximity of these ads. The White House also condemned Musk for “abhorrent promotion” of antisemitism for endorsing this conspiracy theory.

Shares in Musk’s Tesla fell, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) replaced Musk with former Sen. John Kerry at speaker at its CEO Summit centering on artificial intelligence. Influential investment advisor Ross Gerber declared Musk’s behavior was “sadly” a win for Tesla competitor Rivian. Gerber said he will be replacing his Tesla for a Rivian and is “sure the rest of L.A. will as well.”

Musk’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, claimed “X’s point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board.” Musk posted that “many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech.” In the past year since he bought Twitter, Musk lost $25 billion on the company.

The government finds Musk’s behavior awkward because it outsources crucial services and infrastructure to his commercial companies such as SpaceX and has few alternatives. NASA has signed a $5 billion contract for 14 astronaut missions to the International Space Station through 2030. Last Friday, SpaceX’s uncrewed spacecraft Starship exploded minutes after its takeoff at 91 miles above the Earth’s surface on a planned 90-minute test mission. In August, the DOJ sued SpaceX for discriminating against legal asylum seekers and refugees in hiring, a violation of U.S. law, but a federal judge in Texas blocked the lawsuit.

Beginning with 90 hours of security video, House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson is releasing 44,000 hours of footage from the January 6 insurrection to the public hoping to show that the “tourist visit” on that day was benign.

The White House told House GOP members to drop their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and requests for interviews with his staff and family members. This week, Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) and Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked for testimony from former White House counsel Dana Remus and several current aides about Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, ridiculed Republicans for switching to the classified documents after mentioning them “in a single footnote” in a September memo justifying its inquiry. Sauber also questioned the impeachment inquiry after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) initiated it without a vote. Comer had accused Biden, with no evidence, of accepting a $5 million bribe from the head of a Ukrainian gas company.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) blockade of military officer promotions can’t be stopped without the aid of GOP senators, and former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander who served with the Army National Guard in Afghanistan, said that Tuberville has dug in too far that he now “can’t see the top.” Kander said:

“I think he’s embarrassed. A lot of people have tried to give him a graceful exit from this hole that he’s dug, and he’s passed so many of those exits that now he has no choice to just force the Senate to go around him.”

Senate rules permitting one member to block confirmation allows Tuberville’s hold up of almost 400 promotions. This week, he rejected the attempt by four Republicans to push through confirmations one at a time, something he earlier suggested they do. Kander suggested that Republicans are afraid of upsetting one of their party members for fear he will turn on them. In addition, Republicans are afraid of primaries because Tuberville uses abortion for the holds. On a show hosted by Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, Tuberville said he can’t find out if the Pentagon permits “abortion after birth,” a procedure that doesn’t exist. His blockade hurts national security around the world.

The man convicted in a federal trial for assaulting Paul Pelosi, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, will face greater legal peril in a parallel state case because of his bizarre defense. The next trial could add years of prison to the 50-year sentence from the federal conviction. The state will have the man’s courtroom testimony, a video of the attack, his confession to law enforcement, and a jailhouse interview with a local TV station. A state conviction could also help the federal verdict if it were appealed.

A Virginian Republican who won his election to the House of Delegates with new boundaries by only 74 votes of almost 30,000 ballots may face a recount from his Democratic opponent. The state will pay for the recount if the difference is under a half-percent, but the state must first certify the result on December 4. The recent election gave the House of Delegates a Democratic majority of 51-49, flipping it from a GOP majority. In 2017, a Democrat supposedly losing by ten votes won a recount, resulting her win by one vote, but lost to a Republican with a random drawing in the House tie.

In Florida, a member of Moms for Liberty (M4L) asked police to arrest a school librarian for checking out a banned YA book to a 17-year-old student, claiming it is a felony to share “pornography” with minors. The teenage girl’s mother reported the claimant had orchestrated the incident: a teacher handed the book to the student and told her to check it out before going to the police. The teacher telling the student to check out the book didn’t work at the school or in the county but instead was an English teacher in a neighboring county. In that county, she had made almost all the 150 book challenges reviewed by her school district, many of them by Black authors or with LGBTQ+ topics.  

The new lawsuit against Fox by former producer Jason Donner reveals more evidence against the network, including its reprimand for publicly disputing Rudy Giuliani’s allegations about voter fraud at the lie-filled November 19, 2020, press conference. Fox knew it was lying, but Donner suffered backlash because founder Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch, succeeding his father as the company’s chair this week, wanted financing from a large audience. It gives the network monthly fees per subscriber, whether they watch Fox or not; Lacklan threatens huge increases in renewals. Fox gains by warning viewers that cable companies want to take Fox away from them.

Once a leader in the political hate industry, the American Conservative Union (ACU) has lost its importance in the right wing, mostly from several men’s sexual harassment allegations against the ACU chair, Matt Schlapp. One of the strongest ACU positions was against the LGBTQ+ community. Within the past few months, multiple board members have resigned, and half the staff left. The departure of board member Morton Blackwell, also RNC member and founder of the group training conservative activists, ”is a signal to the entire conservative movement that the game is over,” according to anti-tax activist Grover Norquist who served on the CPAC board for over 15 years. Schlapp’s legal defense is over $1 million thus far; the ACU treasurer resigned in May, saying that the organization could no longer justify the costs.

Voting on the United Auto Workers agreement with Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis has approved contracts after a six-week strike. Ratification was 68.2 percent at Ford, 54.7 percent at GM, and 69.6 percent at Stellantis. Workers at Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan, truck plant voted 78% in favor of ratification.

Other worker fights:

Las Vegas: MGM Resorts settled with unions representing hospitality workers less than 24 hours before a planned walkout could have shut down the Strip, Caesars Entertainment reached a deal with 10,000 workers, and Wynn Resorts settled with 5,000 workers. Unions also successfully negotiated mandated daily room cleaning and increased safety protections for workers in an “historic” deal. Since the post-pandemic recovery, Vegas casino resort operatives have been earning record profits with room rates surging by 47 percent.

Detroit: A deal may settle the 32-day strike with 3,700 casino workers across five unions. The agreement for three casinos calls for immediate 18 percent pay raises and no cost increases for health care, workload reductions, and other job protections.

Sweden: Dockers at the ports have blocked Tesla car shipments to support a strike by members of the IF Metall union. Taxi Stockholm, the largest taxi company in the Swedish capital, said it would not buy any new Teslas until the dispute was over. The strike is supported by unionized cleaners refusing to clean Tesla buildings, postal workers no longer delivering mail, and electricians stopping service and repair for Tesla, including at Sweden’s charging stations.

California: Thousands of scientists working for the state plan a three-day strike starting last Thursday.

Portland (OR): Educators are still on strike, having started on November 1. Their main issues are pay and more planning time. They have removed their demand of capping class sizes which may settle the strike over Thanksgiving weekend.

Debate Overshadowed by Bigger Events

The November 8 debate was badly overshadowed by many other events of the day:

A major event is a unanimous vote to end the strike by tens for thousands of actors as the union SAG-AFTRA may have concluded labor disputes damaging the U.S. entertainment for six months. The deal is worth over $1 billion with a “streaming participation bonus” along with an increase for pension and health caps with “provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI.” After a successful vote by the membership, actors join over 10,000 unionized writers who ended a parallel strike in September to return from one of the longest and broadest work stoppages in Hollywood history. SAG-AFTRA was on strike for 118 days.

Testimony by Ivanka Trump completed the prosecutors’ case before New York Justice Arthur Engonon in determining the amount of damages in the Trump business fraud case based on conspiracy, insurance fraud, and falsifying business records. She primarily played her two brothers’ games of ignorance and poor recall in her testimony although she did describe a debate in the value of Donald Trump in obtaining a loan. Deutsche Bank had required he must maintain $3 billion in his minimum net worth other than his “brand value.” He claimed it was $4 billion when New York AG Letitia James’ office determined it at $1.5 billion. Documents show that Ivanka negotiated the value at $2.5 billion for a loan to get a “great rate,” according to a 2011 email in which she encouraged the lender to accept her deal.  

Ivanka also testified that her father promised he would pay principal, income, and operating expenses of all assets he borrowed on. His method for doing this was an agreement with three adult children—Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka—in which they pledged their own assets to satisfy the guarantee on a loan supposedly only his own.

Another 2011 email from the federal government to Ivanka expressed concern regarding irregularities in Trump’s financial statements when his company wanted to develop the Old Post Office, a federal property, in which Ivanka personally profited. She said, “There were many emails, many conversations.” The Trump family didn’t deny that they presented greatly different properties’ valuations to banks and insurers but didn’t take responsibility. The two sons blamed accountants, Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) said banks should have known because of the disclaimer clause, and Ivanka said she didn’t know what happened.

Thursday is “file-a-motion” day for DDT’s lawyers because they’re unprepared to present the defense. They had expected Ivanka to testify on Thursday as well as Wednesday. With her testimony completed, they have no other witnesses ready as the trial moves to the defense. Details of Ivanka’s testimony here.

Follow-ups on the November 7, 2023 Election:

In Virginia, GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin expressed disappointment that Republicans lost the legislature but promised to work with Democrats—his same promise before he got elected and then make radically conservative changes in the state.

In Maine, Question 2 was supported by 86 percent of voters with a majority vote in every town. The votes prevents companies and entities owned or controlled by foreign governments to spend money influencing voters on state referendums.

Yusef Salaam, one of the exonerated “Central Park Five” wrongly convicted as a teenager in a 1989 rape case, was elected to represent a central Harlem district on the New York’s City Council. At the time of the accusation, DDT took out a full page newspaper advertiser asking for the death penalty. A serial rapist and murderer confessed to the crime with DNA proof but wasn’t charged because the statute of limitations had expired. The former teenagers’ convictions were vacated in 2002, and they received a combined $41 million settlement from the city. DDT never apologized for his accusation.

“Anti-woke” may be fading: several members of the extremist group Moms for Liberty (M4L) promoting book bans and opposing LGBTQ+ visibility in schools lost their races for school boards in five states: Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In Iowa, one of 13 M4L candidates in four counties won. One of four M4L candidates won in Loudoun County (VA), but liberals now have six of nine members. M4L won two seats in Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) School District in Alaska. In Ohio, two of eight M4L candidates won in Cincinnati, two of eight in Columbus, and one in nine in Stark County.

Over 200 LGBTQ+ candidates won their elections in 2023, 148 of them on November 7, more than any other odd-numbered election year in U.S. history. The number may increase with more election results. In Virginia, Del. Danica Roem moved to the state Senate, becoming the first transgender state senator elected in the state. Mississippi has the first out LGBTQ+ candidate in state legislature; Louisiana is now the only state never to elect an out lawmaker. In Kentucky, Republicans spent over $5 million attacking LGBTQ+ rights connected to newly-elected Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. In Pella (IA), voters rejected giving the city council more control over the library when the councilors’ attempted to ban books with LGBTQ+ themes and characters.

Not all GOP elections are disastrous. In Kentucky, Secretary of State Michael Adams won a second term. The Republican won his three-way GOP primary challenge as a moderate willing to expand ballot access and oppose his party’s election deniers. Although conservative, Adams contests misinformation, conspiracy theorists, “nut jobs” and “kooks.”

Right-wing pundits are shocked by the defense of democracy on November 7. Rick Santorum, who lost his U.S. Senate seat 17 years ago, decried the use of “sexy” topics such as abortion complaining about the “disaster in Ohio.” He added:

“I don’t know what they were thinking. That’s why, thank goodness that most of the states in this country don’t allow you to put everything on the ballot. Because pure democracies are not the way to run a country.”

When former Virginia AG and DDT’s unlawfully appointed top Homeland Security official was on Newsmax, host Rob Schmitt said about the GOP “problem with winning:”

 “We’re not doing something right.”

Fox’s Sean Hannity, DDT’s former close ally and now Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson BFF, complained:

“Democrats are trying to scare women into thinking Republicans don’t want abortion legal under any circumstances.”

Huffington Post responded to Hannity’s misperception of lawmakers’ attempts to block all abortions:   

“In Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia, abortion is now banned in almost all circumstances. In Georgia and South Carolina, abortion is banned after six weeks of pregnancy. Other states have bans after 12, 15 or 18 weeks.”

The article overlooked the ongoing attempts of many conservative congressional members, including the Speaker, who want a federal law completely banning any abortions. Fox contributor Charles Hurt followed Hannity’s false claim with his own misinformation including the lie that Democrats want abortion to the point of birth and “possibly beyond.”

Other pundits are just confused. Fox’s Ainsley Earhardt complained that “nearly seven in ten” people in the U.S. say abortion is important to their 2024 vote and told her Fox & Friends cohosts that “Republicans have to figure out what their messaging is.”

And then there was a GOP presidential candidate debate. At the beginning of the third debate, a few participants half-heartedly supported the missing candidate, DDT, before the sparks began to fly. Vivek Ramaswamy returned to his first debate strategy of personally attacking opponents, especially Nikki Haley, who may be the greatest threat to the others at this time. At one point, he tried to defend himself for joining TikTok by saying that Haley’s daughter has been “using the app for a long time.” When he told Haley to “take care of your family first,” Haley snapped back:

“Leave my daughter out of your voice. You’re just scum.”

To the audience’s boos, Ramaswamy responded:

“You have her supporters propping her up, that’s fine.”

Ramaswamy also promised to build walls on both the southern and northern borders of the U.S. and make Mexico pay for the south one. His incessant interruptions stopped about halfway through the two-hour event; perhaps moderators had a little talk with him. Although Ron DeSantis seemed a bit more comfortable, he delivered his usual non sequiturs such as repeatedly expressing his belief in the “culture of life” immediately after he said he would “shoot them dead” when referring to drug smuggling suspects. Tim Scott, who repeatedly brought up his “momma,” perpetrated the myth of “abortion until the day of birth” in defense of a 15-week limit.

All the candidates shook hands when they left the stage except Haley with Ramaswamy. Doug Burgum, who didn’t make the cut for the debate called it “over two hours filled with petty attacks and in-fighting.” The only reason for the debates is “if Trump chokes on a cheeseburger,” according to Lawrence O’Donnell.

Fourth GOP Presidential Primary Debate:

The RNC has upped the necessary polling percentage to 6 percent, up from 4 percent, in the fourth debate in Tuscaloosa (AL) on December 6. Sen. Tim Scott (SC) and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may be winnowed. The increased percentage might leave Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and possibly businessman Vivek Ramaswamy although Scott claims he will meet the new requirements. DDT’s incoherent ramblings in his rallies and at his testimony this week shows why he doesn’t want to participate.