(The Consumer Price Index for August rose to 3.7%, from July’s 3.2%, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. Prices rose 0.6% month-over-month, with higher gasoline prices accounting for more than half of that, while the shelter index rose for the 40th consecutive month. Energy was up 5.6%, food at home was up 0.2% and food away from home was up 0.3%.)
FRIDAY 9/15/23
UAW Strikes Detroit Three – The United Auto Workers’ first “stand-up strike” hit Ford Motor Company’s Michigan Assembly Park final assembly plant for its Bronco and Ranger trucks, Stellantis’ Toledo Assembly complex (Jeep Wrangler) and General Motors’ Wentzville assembly plant in Missouri, which builds the Chevrolet Colorado and Express and the GMC Canyon and Savanna. About 13,000 of the UAW members struck the three plants at midnight into Friday morning.
“Tonight, for the first time in our history we will strike all three of the Big Three at once,” UAW President Shawn Fain told his union’s 150,000 members in a Facebook Live broadcast at 10 p.m. Eastern time Thursday. The strategy is to “call on select facilities, locals or units to stand up and go on strike.”
The “stand-up” strike recalls the UAW’s “sit down” strike at GM’s Flint, Michigan plant in 1936-37. Under today’s stand-up strike workers not yet called on will continue working under an expired agreement, with no contract extensions. UAW officials will rotate through Detroit Three factories to “keep the companies guessing,” Fain said. “It will give our national negotiators maximum leverage and flexibility in bargaining. And if we need to go all out we will. Everything’s on the table.”
Earlier Thursday, Ford CEO Jim Farley told NPR from the floor of the National International Auto Show in Detroit that he still hoped his company could reach an agreement with the UAW.
“There’s still time to,” Farley said, “but it’s hard to negotiate when you don’t get much feedback.”
--TL
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THURSDAY 9/14/23
UAW is Headed for a ‘Stand-Up’ Strike – The United Auto Workers remains far apart from General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Stellantis (Chrysler, Jeep, etc.) in negotiations over a new four-year contract, as the current contract, covering about 150,000 workers, expires 11:59 p.m. Thursday. In a Facebook Live broadcast Wednesday, NPR reports, UAW President Shawn Fain announced the union would stage a “stand-up strike,” in which members would be instructed to strike suddenly at strategic, targeted auto plants, and additional locations would follow at moment’s notice until the Detroit Three agree to a new contract.
Why stand-up striking will work: The UAW undoubtedly will hit plants building the most profitable luxury models and big trucks at GM, Ford and Stellantis. The automakers have made record profits by installing computer chips during the pandemic supply chain shortage into these models, which has resulted in the average price of a new vehicle reaching nearly $50,000.
Issues: “We do not yet have offers on the table that reflect the sacrifice and contributions our members have made to these companies,” Fain says. The UAW is demanding a 40% pay raise. The Detroit Three has offered no more than 20%. Automakers and the UAW also remain apart on cost-of-living increases, profit sharing, pensions and retiree healthcare.
Quote: Ford has put forth four “increasingly generous offers,” CEO Jim Farley says. “The future of our industry is at stake. Let’s do everything we can to avoid a disastrous outcome.”
About that future: The Detroit Three, especially Ford, have indicated the massive, ongoing shift from internal combustion engine-power to electric vehicles will require far fewer UAW workers. The union, not surprisingly, is not as enthusiastic about the move to EVs.
Automakers’ interests: During the federal bailouts of GM and Chrysler in 2009-10 all three automakers gained significant concessions from the UAW, including a controversial “two-tier” wage scale paying new line workers considerably less than veteran workers. With last year’s record profits, GM CEO Mary Barra earned total compensation of nearly $29 million, Farley earned $21 million and Stellantis NV CEO Carlos Tavares made $24.8 million, according to Securities & Exchange Commission filings cited by NPR*.
[*An earlier version of this story listed lower compensation for Barra and Tavares, and a slightly higher amount for Farley.]
Political interests: Car guy and “most pro-union president ever” Joe Biden’s economy would take yet another hit with the strike just as many polls show him in a statistical tie with Donald J. Trump for next year’s election.
--Todd Lassa
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WEDNESDAY 9/13/23
‘Weakest’ Impeachment Inquiry Ever – That’s according to Time magazine, which interviewed two highly regarded impeachment experts about Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) announcement that two House committees have formally opened impeachment inquiries into allegations that President Biden was involved in his son, Hunter’s, business deals.
McCarthy’s decision to go forward does not appear to be based on evidence gathered so far by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, says Frank Bowman, professor emeritus from the University of Missouri’s law school and author of High Crimes and Misdemeanors: A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump.
“Biden’s Republican pursuers have got exactly zero, zip, bupkis, on any matter that might be impeachable,” Bowman told Time.
The magazine also quotes constitutional scholar Phillip Bobbitt, professor at Columbia Law School, expert on the history of impeachment and co-author of the updated, 2018 edition of Charles Black’s Impeachment: A Handbook thusly: “This is very disturbing for people who study past impeachments, because impeachment is really a very extreme measure.”
Yet, inevitable: Impeachment is highly political, and the pro-MAGA House Freedom Caucus was going to find a way to investigate Biden over his son’s questionable business dealings, which have been red meat for Donald J. Trump’s followers since before the 45th president pushed then-newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to help gather evidence.
Even after McCarthy’s announcement, one of the MAGA Republicans, Florida’s Matt Gaetz said he will use his leverage over the speaker, including threatening votes to remove him from the post, “over and over again until it works.” (Per Newsweek.)
Minority rule is alive and well.
•••
Slow Train – North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un took his private train, weighed down by armored cars with bulletproof glass, to a summit with Vladimir Putin at a space facility in Russia’s far east, where he pledged his enduring support for Putin’s “sacred struggle” against Ukraine, The Washington Post reports. According to Washington intelligence on the meeting, Putin needs more North Korean weaponry to replenish its dwindling supply lost to its invasion of Ukraine.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa
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TUESDAY 9/12/23
UPDATE -- Speaker McCarthy (R-CA) told reporters Tuesday he is directing House committees to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. The inquiry could center on whether Biden benefitted from his son, Hunter's, business dealings, among other issues, says The Washington Post.
"These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption and warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives. That is why today I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden," McCarthy said in a press conference. He did not take questions from reporters.
Impeachment Inquiry Advances – Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) holds a closed-door meeting with House Republicans Thursday that could launch an impeachment inquiry into whether President Biden was involved in his son Hunter’s business dealings, Punchbowl News reports. McCarthy’s caucus expect an update on the investigations led by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY).
According to the report, McCarthy plans to say Jordan and Comer have uncovered enough information to formalize the impeachment inquiry and obtain the Bidens’ bank records and other documents. [Last week, a CNN poll found that 61% of Americans believe Joe Biden was involved in Hunter’s business dealings.]
Perfect storm: The House of Representatives returns from its six-week summer recess Tuesday with about two weeks to pass a federal budget. Meanwhile, the House Freedom Caucus continues to demand $100 billion in cuts from the 2024 fiscal year budget to which McCarthy and the White House have already agreed, with threat of removing the speaker of his hard-fought post if he fails to reverse himself from that deal, NPR’s Morning Edition reports.
McCarthy also faces threat of removal if he eases off the impeachment inquiry.
Upshot: A House vote to impeach Biden is not a slam-dunk, according to PN, which lists Republicans Ken Buck, of Colorado, and Don Bacon, of Nebraska among moderates who could put pro-impeachment Republicans into the minority.
If the White House could pick from one of these fights with the House Freedom Caucus, it might be the impeachment inquiry rather than the budget fight, as Freedom Caucus members have let it be known they are more than willing to shut down the government for a while and remove Speaker McCarthy over it.
Keeping in mind that Republicans narrowly hold a House majority while Democrats barely hold a Senate majority (though with a more comfortable margin thanks to the filibuster) the 45 members of the House Freedom Caucus would run into a Senate wall on both fights.
Schumer: “Don’t let people way out on the extreme dictate what the House does.” – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
Upshot II: Forty-five House Republicans have the power to shut down the government for at least a few days into October, and it’s likely they will draw out an impeachment inquiry into the Bidens into the election year. Speaker McCarthy is far more vulnerable than President Biden on both these issues.
•••
Google This – The Justice Department’s anti-trust case against Google begins Tuesday, to determine whether Google illegally used its search engine to dominate over competitors in search and advertising. A positive outcome against Google could affect the way we use the Internet, says NPR’s Morning Edition.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa
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Day of Remembrances
MONDAY 9/11/23
President Biden commemorates the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93, from the military base Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, in Anchorage on his way back from the Group of 20 forum in New Delhi, India, and a stop in Hanoi, Vietnam. The stop in Hanoi recalls, of course, the long, protracted war that ended shortly after Biden began his Senate career.
In Hanoi, Biden met with Prime Minister Minh Chinh, President Vo Van Thuong and
chairman of Vietnam’s National Assembly, Vuong Dinh Hue. Biden and Hue spoke of the “importance of people-to-people ties and the vital role that our tireless, mutual work to address painful war legacy issues has played in building trust and understanding that now forms the base of our future partnership,” according to the White House’s readout.
The president’s visit to Hanoi also served to forge deeper ties with Vietnam with the new Comprehensive Partnership to increase trade between the two nations. Vietnam is boosting semiconductor production, which would help the U.S. reduce supply chain dependency on China. Biden described the meeting as a historic moment “that is overcoming a bitter past,” NPR reports.
Biden also visited a memorial to one of his friends in the Senate, the late John McCain (R-AZ), who spent five years in the “Hanoi Hilton” as a prisoner of war during the U.S. conflict with Vietnam.
Fifty years: September 11 also marks the CIA-aided coup of Chile’s elected leader, Marxist Salvador Allende, by Gen. Augusto Pinoche, brutal dictator who led the country for another 17 years.
Two years: Go to https://thehustings.news/reflect-on-9-11/ to read The Hustings’ commemoration of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S.
--Todd Lassa