Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is learning that, in 2021, sowing distrust in basic functions of democracy can be good electoral politics.
JoinWhat strikes me most about the on-going Gaetz clown show isn’t the audacity but the irrelevance. Gaetz has moved full bore into Deep State grievance/conspiracy theory mode. It’s not about statutory rape or sex trafficking, he claims. The Deep State and the Elites are coming after him because he stands for the common man. As he wrote in his Examiner Oped, “They aren’t coming for me — they are coming for you. I’m just in the way.”
There is a new study out over the weekend from Israel suggesting that the so-called South African COVID variant is more able to breakthrough the Pfizer COVID vaccine than the original strain of the virus and other variants. The sample sizes are small and the numbers themselves have been reported in a confusing or incorrect way in a number of write-ups.
Here’s what the study found.
From TPM Reader DG …
JoinI too have experience as a union organizer. What XX says is right on target. Besides what XX said, I believe there are two areas that need to be addressed:
From TPM Reader LV …
JoinLike the previous reader, I too was a union organizer earlier in my career. His/her description of both sides of the campaign as “by the book” are both depressingly accurate and infinitely repeatable if something doesn’t change.
And here is where I have a rather small suggestion that the Biden administration could make to rebalance things.
With your indulgence I wanted to re-up this appreciation of Ulysses S. Grant I wrote back in January 2018. It’s one of my favorite posts of the last decade or so.
On the unionization vote in Bessemer, Alabama, a note from TPM Reader XX …
JoinI hesitate to comment before the votes are in. But I would be surprised if the RWSDU won the election. Based on my former experiences as a union organizer (including one campaign in Alabama,) I believe there are three reasons–
First, there’s a reason companies place factories–and this is a factory, in internal organization if not in name–in rural areas, especially in the South: The pay and benefits are so much better than anything else in the area. These are good jobs, relatively speaking.
April 9th is a glorious anniversary: the day Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding General of the US Army, received the surrender of Robert E. Lee, a renegade US Army Colonel who was a leader of a violent rebellion against the United States which killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Grant offered generous terms to Lee and the other traitors making up his army. Six days later President Lincoln was assassinated in Washington, DC.
JoinIn case you’re not following it, the union organizing drive at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama seems to be going down to a blow out defeat. Out of 3,215 votes cast the current tally is Yes: 294, No: 691. In other words, rejected so far by more than a 2 to 1 margin. I don’t have enough experience with this to know whether there are factors that can make early votes different from late votes or if that concept even applies here. But this rough proportion has been very consistent since the first couple hundred votes were counted. So it seems like the organizers didn’t even come close.
On this week’s pod we spend most of the time talking about the burgeoning Matt Gaetz scandal, which appears to be growing more serious for the congressman with each passing day.
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