Vivek's sophistry, Haley's austerity

Plus, a major win for American workers and new data for the GOP primary field.  

WHAT YOU MISSED:

GOP frontrunner and World’s Most Indicted Guy Donald Trump is officially scheduled to appear in court for election interference on March 4, 2024, in Washington D.C. Trump’s legal team attempted to push the date back to April 2026, but U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected the proposal. Should the proposed date hold, it would fall on the eve of Super Tuesday, which is one of the most important days in the Republican primary calendars as it is when the largest portion of state delegates are up for grabs.

More details have emerged into the nature of a mass shooting that occurred in Jacksonville, Fla. last Saturday. The suspect, who killed three individuals — Angela Michelle Carr, 52, Anolt Joseph Laguerre Jr., 19, and Jerrald De’Shaun Gallion, 29 — before turning the gun on himself, has been identified as a 21-year-old white man from Clay County. The shooting was, according to Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters, “racially motivated.”

"He wanted to kill n------. That's the one and only time I'll use that word,” Waters said, referring to the multiple, racist manifestos released by the shooter to his family, news outlets and law enforcement. Waters went on to say that the shooter armed himself with a handgun and assault-style rifle, the former of which had swastikas inscribed on it.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a new statement that the Department of Justice will be “investigating this attack as a hate crime.”

“No person in this country should have to live in fear of hate-fueled violence and no family should have to grieve the loss of a loved one to bigotry and hate,” he said. “One of the Justice Department’s first priorities upon its founding in 1870 was to bring to justice white supremacists who used violence to terrorize Black Americans. That remains our urgent charge today.”

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy doubled down on incendiary remarks he directed towards U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) while speaking at an Iowa campaign event. Ramaswamy had previously compared comments that the congresswoman had made in the past to that of the Ku Klux Klan.

“The KKK wasn’t just about rhetoric — they lynched people, they murdered people, they raped people, they burned their homes. If you want to have an intellectual discussion do you think that maybe comparing [Pressley] to the grand wizard and the notion of what she said to being a modern leader of the KKK was maybe a step too far, or you stand by what you said?” Bash asked the one-time pharmaceutical grifter.

“I stand by what I said to provoke an open and honest discussion in this country,” he responded. “We need to have real, open, honest, raw conversations as Americans. That is our path to national unity.”

NLRB creates new ruling to strengthen worker’s rights

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced last Friday that they will implement a new framework concerning union elections. The ruling, which fell along party lines, will bolster the ability for workers to unionize, even when an employer refuses to recognize their legal right to do so.

Under this latest decision, if a majority of employees in a workplace sign union cards, employers must either negotiate with the newly formed union or request an NLRB election. Tampering with said election by the company — like, say, illegally firing key organizers in the bargaining unit — would mean that the NLRB would compel them to begin mediations with the new union.

“The Board explained that the revised framework represents an effort to better effectuate employees’ right to bargain through their chosen representative while acknowledging that employers have the option to invoke the statutory provision allowing them to pursue a Board election,” the NLRB said in a statement.

“When employers pursue this option, the new standard will promote a fair election environment by more effectively disincentivizing employers from committing unfair labor practices.”

This announcement means a return to what was commonly known as “Joy Silk”, in reference to a 1949 ruling by the board which “required an employer to bargain with a union unless it had a good-faith doubt of the union's majority status.” The Supreme Court erroneously overturned this during the 1969 case NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co, wherein the Court believed that the Board had abandoned the principle.

“The abandonment of Joy Silk made a huge difference in employer behavior… eliminating Joy Silk’s standard for the remedy when employers refused to recognize their workers’ pro-union preference led to an immediate increase in employer violations of the NLRA’s letter and spirit,” wrote American Prospect editor Harold Meyerson in a profile of Jennifer Abruzzo, the general counsel of the NLRB.

Abruzzo is credited as the brains behind this recent bureaucratic maneuver, one that has been on the minds of labor activists for years. And reimplementing it could help undo decades of union membership decline.

“The Board is taking a proactive stance, that unfair labor violations are going to be challenged. We haven’t seen this kind of activism from the Board since the 1940s,” Seth Goldstein, a labor lawyer who represents workers who attempt to unionize, told Vice News.

“I think this is going to really help workers.”

QUICK HIT:

Nikki Haley’s groundbreaking policy to lower government spending is to raise the retirement age. It’s like Reagan never died!

POLL WATCHERS:

As the fallout of the first GOP primary debate settles, polling amongst potential Republican voters reveals clues into who “won” the adult food fight. All the candidates gained some momentum besides Donald Trump, who was not present on the stage, but some earned more momentum than others—according to data collected by FiveThirtyEight and the Washington Post. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgrum and the aforementioned Vivek Ramaswamy saw some pretty substantial upticks in support.

Still, it’s hard to imagine anyone getting any meaningful electoral results from this as long as Trump remains in the race.