"The time has come for someone to put his foot down.
And that foot is me."
By the way, F.O.O.T. would work well as an acronym for an organization like-minded individuals zealously devoted to the maintenance of an official narrative, such as, say, Fomenters Of Orderly Truth.
"Election" is a great political satire. Reese Witherspoon's portrayal of the proto-Hillary, Tracy Flick, is superb. And Matthew Broderick as the middle aged and sexually frustrated social studies teacher who tries, and fails, to thwart her rise to power is also brilliant.
You are the only person I can find cover this aspect of this story. Please keep going. Is it possible they are trying to validate a fake media story after the fact?
The act of filing the complaint is itself probably the whole point of the exercise. I would guess they don't intend to seriously pursue it and that they do not believe it would be given serious consideration. But I base that assessment at least in part on the assumption that the UAW would not want to leave itself too long exposed to the charge of its obvious self-dealing hypocrisy in making this move. But, given how brazen those who have been employing these lawfare tactics against Trump have been willing to be, my assumption may be a flawed one.
I wonder if theres ever a level of political bias in support of industrial masochism masochism the UAW could reach that would lead to a break with its members. Of course the president and the union itself has endorsed Kamala (who hates manufacturing, men, working people, cars, energy, the economy, industrialization, American jobs, and America) but why not widespread and vociferous backlash from the rank and file union members?
I truly think if somebody started a competitor union that was explicitly right wing aligned it would inspire people and attract thousands and thousands of workers to willingly join. Any type of Jimmy Hoffa character today (one who was ornery, populist, charismatic; appealing to real industrial workers who are majority white men plus other men) would clearly be right wing coded.
The first unions to form who are explicitly right wing, in any industry, will attract and inspire more men than any legacy union has in the last 50 years, and start a cascade of transformation across American politics and work places
The UAW had 1.5 million members in 1970, and a little over 300,000 members now. It's withering away, despite expanding the number of industries it covers. I was a UAW member as a teaching assistant in the University of California:
It's dying, but smug and hard and throwing punches...at the ONE GUY who's talking about bringing automaking jobs home. "Industrial masochism" is right.
I was a UAW member as a legal aid attorney. I still have a faded, torn t-shirt inscribed with "Justice For Those Who Seek Justice For Others" that we wore during contract negotiations.
As significant as the shift in union membership from industrial to service/professional workers has been, it's the commensurate shift in their membership and power base from private to public sector unions that seems to have really altered and corrupted the way they operate, politically and otherwise.
I'd prefer a non-partisan union both able and willing to play both/all political sides. But that may be a pipe dream. I'm not even sure what a "right wing" union would look like. But, then, I don't consider either "right" or "left" wing to serve well as descriptors of any coherent set of policy or political positions. They are mostly placeholder terms that serve either as identity markers or pejoratives to hurl at the other side.
I do wonder how significant it was that the Teamsters Union head spoke at the Republican National Convention. The Teamsters always seem to have been willing to go their own way, for better or for worse.
Yes, and now the media can say that, in addition to being a "felon" and being charged with this and that, he has federal labor charges, too. It's at least partly an attempt to further dirty him in the minds of the public, especially the blue-collar union folks. Just when we saw that Trump was making inroads with the blue-collar working class, we get this.
It will also make good negative ad copy for the election and get-out-the-vote materials the unions and their affiliated Pacs or other subaltern organizations, of the super-, dark money-, and other varieties, put out, either targeted to their membership or to a wider audience, on behalf of Democrats in general and Harris in particular.
It's not a server log and it only lists what was already accepted to the docket. You wouldn't know about any failed attempts rejected by software or low level clerks. But you can always fill out, save the form and send it to the media.
It doesn’t even have to be meritorious, the point of lawfare is to generate news, and to consume resources of the person being harassed. From that perspective, it looks like it’s already working.
Apparently, the UAW leadership fears that Trump's initiatives to bring manufacturing back to the US and cut workers' taxes will demonstrate to those workers that Trump can do more for them than their union leadership can.
If the NLRB doesn’t tell the UAW to pound salt, that will be two federal government entities interfering in the election, one by commission (NLRB) and one by omission (FEC).
The FEC, to my knowledge, has not enforced the Byzantine regulatory process—reams of attorney filings naming officers of the campaign, tracking money, etc., to be cleared to campaign for federal office regarding the Harris campaign. Naomi Wolf laid it all out a few days after the Biden coup.
When Truth, Love, Democracy, Equality, and Justice are all on the line, of what import are the equal and nonpartisan application and thorough and proper administration of federal election laws? Surely those niceties can wait to be sorted out until after the election.
this is completely wacko if it's true, but since 2020 there's precedent for repurposing an agency for action far beyond their turf. in NY, andrew cuomo put the state liquor authority in charge of booking music at restaurants (strict caveat: only "incidental music," which i think means "no lyrics criticizing us")
and remember the CDC trying to take over from OSHA when hypoxia from face masks went viral?
Trump is his own worst enemy. Why would he publicly bitch about unions when his base consists of middle and working class people? And Musk is smart and still he brings up this issue in a public forum? When the election is tight and there is no room for alienating constituents? Maybe Trump should campaign from his basement and let Vance handle the speaking engagements. Jeez.
And Chris, just let this story go and quit amplifying it. We already know the media is biased, so there’s nothing to gain by stating the obvious.
The thing I most appreciate about Trump is that he's not one of these scripted robots that just spits out lines written by his staffers. It's also his greatest weakness. I love that he speaks freely –– wait, shit. In this case, I would agree that bitching about union workers isn't politically productive.
I think dropping the story is a bad idea. The UAW is weaponizing a regulatory process that's supposed to be about protecting workers.
I could be wrong about this, but I suspect most people who both belong to or support unions and also support Trump will put his statement about firing striking workers into the "take him seriously but not literally" category. I suspect most of them understand the degree to which unions have been ethically compromised, and weakened, by the brazenness of their complicity with the Democratic Party.
I agree that you should pursue this story, both in defense of the integrity of the complaint process itself and as a way of further exposing the UAW's willingness to exploit it for partisan ends as part of the larger campaign of lawfare against Trump and his campaign.
Musk is butthurt because unions in european nations hasn't backed down to attempts to threaten them (legally threaten, obviously) coming from Musk/Tesla; instead, they have told him and Tesla the same thing Musk told bob Iger last year:
Yeah, Musk is going to put all his focus on expanding production in America and China. He has that big factory in Berlin, but the Europeans are making it impossible at every level to operate an industrial concern, so I don't think investing more there will be a priority going forward.
Well, the government has shown, with their novel interpretation of the Enron felony obstruction laws used against the J6’ers, they’re willing to find a law, any law, stretched outside of all normal usage, to use against their opponents. If you’re the UAW, why not try it? I suspect it was government lawyers that gave them the idea anyway.
Unfortunately, I believe there remain many ways things could continue to get worse. The best approach to dealing with that prospect may be to have fun with it by, say, writing up a BINGO card with a separate box for each plausible scenario for how things could go ever more sideways and downward.
A reader emails to say that Trump has been put on Double Secret Probation, and yes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tfK_3XK4CI
I cackled like Kamala on this one.
I literally NEVER get tired of watching Animal House & LMAO.
"The time has come for someone to put his foot down.
And that foot is me."
By the way, F.O.O.T. would work well as an acronym for an organization like-minded individuals zealously devoted to the maintenance of an official narrative, such as, say, Fomenters Of Orderly Truth.
Faithful Officiators of Official Truth
Food fight
some subversive shit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh3TXsx8B40
"Election" is a great political satire. Reese Witherspoon's portrayal of the proto-Hillary, Tracy Flick, is superb. And Matthew Broderick as the middle aged and sexually frustrated social studies teacher who tries, and fails, to thwart her rise to power is also brilliant.
You´re right, but at first I didn´t know it was satire. I thought is was a reality show involving Democrats.
🤣
You are the only person I can find cover this aspect of this story. Please keep going. Is it possible they are trying to validate a fake media story after the fact?
Sharon, Here is the report. https://thehill.com/business/4825606-uaw-files-charges-trump-musk/
This is like the other charges against Trump, conjured to keep him out of office and Fake
The act of filing the complaint is itself probably the whole point of the exercise. I would guess they don't intend to seriously pursue it and that they do not believe it would be given serious consideration. But I base that assessment at least in part on the assumption that the UAW would not want to leave itself too long exposed to the charge of its obvious self-dealing hypocrisy in making this move. But, given how brazen those who have been employing these lawfare tactics against Trump have been willing to be, my assumption may be a flawed one.
I wonder if theres ever a level of political bias in support of industrial masochism masochism the UAW could reach that would lead to a break with its members. Of course the president and the union itself has endorsed Kamala (who hates manufacturing, men, working people, cars, energy, the economy, industrialization, American jobs, and America) but why not widespread and vociferous backlash from the rank and file union members?
I truly think if somebody started a competitor union that was explicitly right wing aligned it would inspire people and attract thousands and thousands of workers to willingly join. Any type of Jimmy Hoffa character today (one who was ornery, populist, charismatic; appealing to real industrial workers who are majority white men plus other men) would clearly be right wing coded.
The first unions to form who are explicitly right wing, in any industry, will attract and inspire more men than any legacy union has in the last 50 years, and start a cascade of transformation across American politics and work places
The UAW had 1.5 million members in 1970, and a little over 300,000 members now. It's withering away, despite expanding the number of industries it covers. I was a UAW member as a teaching assistant in the University of California:
https://www.uaw4811.org/
It's dying, but smug and hard and throwing punches...at the ONE GUY who's talking about bringing automaking jobs home. "Industrial masochism" is right.
I was a UAW member as a legal aid attorney. I still have a faded, torn t-shirt inscribed with "Justice For Those Who Seek Justice For Others" that we wore during contract negotiations.
As significant as the shift in union membership from industrial to service/professional workers has been, it's the commensurate shift in their membership and power base from private to public sector unions that seems to have really altered and corrupted the way they operate, politically and otherwise.
I'd prefer a non-partisan union both able and willing to play both/all political sides. But that may be a pipe dream. I'm not even sure what a "right wing" union would look like. But, then, I don't consider either "right" or "left" wing to serve well as descriptors of any coherent set of policy or political positions. They are mostly placeholder terms that serve either as identity markers or pejoratives to hurl at the other side.
I do wonder how significant it was that the Teamsters Union head spoke at the Republican National Convention. The Teamsters always seem to have been willing to go their own way, for better or for worse.
Yes, and now the media can say that, in addition to being a "felon" and being charged with this and that, he has federal labor charges, too. It's at least partly an attempt to further dirty him in the minds of the public, especially the blue-collar union folks. Just when we saw that Trump was making inroads with the blue-collar working class, we get this.
It will also make good negative ad copy for the election and get-out-the-vote materials the unions and their affiliated Pacs or other subaltern organizations, of the super-, dark money-, and other varieties, put out, either targeted to their membership or to a wider audience, on behalf of Democrats in general and Harris in particular.
By the way, you can also review an electronic log of all case activity at the NLRB for the last two weeks, updated through today:
https://www.nlrb.gov/last-two-weeks-activity?items_per_page=100&page=0
Again, no complaints against Trump or Musk from the UAW.
It's not a server log and it only lists what was already accepted to the docket. You wouldn't know about any failed attempts rejected by software or low level clerks. But you can always fill out, save the form and send it to the media.
"But you can always fill out, save the form and send it to the media."
This is what happened, clearly.
Here is the report if you haven't seen it. https://thehill.com/business/4825606-uaw-files-charges-trump-musk/
No free speech for Trump!
It doesn’t even have to be meritorious, the point of lawfare is to generate news, and to consume resources of the person being harassed. From that perspective, it looks like it’s already working.
Right. Without risking a defamation suit.
Apparently, the UAW leadership fears that Trump's initiatives to bring manufacturing back to the US and cut workers' taxes will demonstrate to those workers that Trump can do more for them than their union leadership can.
Yeah and they aren't paying Trump
More lawfare. More profligate waste of taxpayer dollars and the useless bureaucrat time to persecute Trump. Reuters has ethics officials? LMAO.
No rules, only weapons.
If the NLRB doesn’t tell the UAW to pound salt, that will be two federal government entities interfering in the election, one by commission (NLRB) and one by omission (FEC).
The FEC, to my knowledge, has not enforced the Byzantine regulatory process—reams of attorney filings naming officers of the campaign, tracking money, etc., to be cleared to campaign for federal office regarding the Harris campaign. Naomi Wolf laid it all out a few days after the Biden coup.
Just saying.
When Truth, Love, Democracy, Equality, and Justice are all on the line, of what import are the equal and nonpartisan application and thorough and proper administration of federal election laws? Surely those niceties can wait to be sorted out until after the election.
Good luck with that https://thehill.com/business/4825606-uaw-files-charges-trump-musk/
this is completely wacko if it's true, but since 2020 there's precedent for repurposing an agency for action far beyond their turf. in NY, andrew cuomo put the state liquor authority in charge of booking music at restaurants (strict caveat: only "incidental music," which i think means "no lyrics criticizing us")
and remember the CDC trying to take over from OSHA when hypoxia from face masks went viral?
Since 2020, there’s also a precedent for whacko
as a new yorker i can testify that wacko goes waaaaaaay back before 2020 ;(
W.H.A.C.K.O. stands for We Hold All (the) Cards, Kowtow, Obey.
Please keep covering this. Thanks for the hard work.
Trump is his own worst enemy. Why would he publicly bitch about unions when his base consists of middle and working class people? And Musk is smart and still he brings up this issue in a public forum? When the election is tight and there is no room for alienating constituents? Maybe Trump should campaign from his basement and let Vance handle the speaking engagements. Jeez.
And Chris, just let this story go and quit amplifying it. We already know the media is biased, so there’s nothing to gain by stating the obvious.
The thing I most appreciate about Trump is that he's not one of these scripted robots that just spits out lines written by his staffers. It's also his greatest weakness. I love that he speaks freely –– wait, shit. In this case, I would agree that bitching about union workers isn't politically productive.
I think dropping the story is a bad idea. The UAW is weaponizing a regulatory process that's supposed to be about protecting workers.
I could be wrong about this, but I suspect most people who both belong to or support unions and also support Trump will put his statement about firing striking workers into the "take him seriously but not literally" category. I suspect most of them understand the degree to which unions have been ethically compromised, and weakened, by the brazenness of their complicity with the Democratic Party.
I agree that you should pursue this story, both in defense of the integrity of the complaint process itself and as a way of further exposing the UAW's willingness to exploit it for partisan ends as part of the larger campaign of lawfare against Trump and his campaign.
Musk is butthurt because unions in european nations hasn't backed down to attempts to threaten them (legally threaten, obviously) coming from Musk/Tesla; instead, they have told him and Tesla the same thing Musk told bob Iger last year:
Go **** yourself.
Hence his whinging about unions.
Yeah, Musk is going to put all his focus on expanding production in America and China. He has that big factory in Berlin, but the Europeans are making it impossible at every level to operate an industrial concern, so I don't think investing more there will be a priority going forward.
LOL
The Kamala campaign is colluding with the UAW to influence the election and hurt Trump.
Aren’t the big bosses at the NLRB Obama appointees?
Just looked: Still one Trump appointee on the NLRB. But mostly Democratic appointees, yes.
Well, the government has shown, with their novel interpretation of the Enron felony obstruction laws used against the J6’ers, they’re willing to find a law, any law, stretched outside of all normal usage, to use against their opponents. If you’re the UAW, why not try it? I suspect it was government lawyers that gave them the idea anyway.
same with how tish james and her cronies cobbled together the case against trump
Sounds like FAKE NEWS....
It's a complete crock of shit, but the precise details of the stupid falsehood are still unclear.
Still- it wouldn’t surprise me if the unions went all in on election interference on behalf of the dems.
The unions ARE the dems.
Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse....
Unfortunately, I believe there remain many ways things could continue to get worse. The best approach to dealing with that prospect may be to have fun with it by, say, writing up a BINGO card with a separate box for each plausible scenario for how things could go ever more sideways and downward.