Good news, everyone! Staten Island, NY Amazon workers vote to form a labor union and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and worker safety from their employer. It ain't over, of course -- Amazon is a big corporation, able to spend millions on lawsuits alleging union election improprieties -- but this vote represents a major victory for workers everywhere. Folks who still look down on warehouse workers (and baristas!) should remember that, many years ago, folks looked down on unionized manufacturing workers -- and now that they're all gone, we lionize them. Why, it's almost like we saw manufacturing workers as "unskilled" because they were unionized! And we learned to see warehouse workers and baristas that way, too, as a sort of preemptive strike against their eventual unionization.
More good news, everyone! A U.S. District Court Judge has blocked large parts of Florida's recent anti-voting law, SB 90, and moreover has required judicial preclearance for all Florida voting rights changes over the next decade, which requirement he may impose under the Voting Rights Act. Choice slab of understatement: "At some point, when the Florida Legislature passes law after law disproportionately burdening Black voters, this court can no longer accept that the effect is incidental." Plenty of folks think either the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals or our Supreme Court will overturn this decision, but I still applaud Judge Walker's courage. It's a shame that applying the law is an act of courage these days.
Our House passes a bill capping the price of insulin -- with only 12 Republicans voting in favor! I, too, thought Republicans wouldn't dare oppose something popular even with Republican voters, but again I find my optimism thwarted, not that I'll abandon it. Alleged moderate Republican Cathy McMorris-Rodgers of Washington state actually said, out loud, "today, it's the government fixing the price of insulin. What's next? Gas? Food?" Hey, while we're at it, how about cable? Seriously, that's what you're left arguing once you've decided to become the objectively pro-killing diabetics party. And you know how the likes of Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert occasionally vote for the right things when you least expect it? Ah, not this time -- all 12 Republicans who voted for it are the kind who'd pass for "moderate" today. Nobody's asked me, but I'd run ads about this bill against every last Republican who voted against it.
Senators refuse to even begin debate on the House-passed Women's Health Protection Act, and the 48 Senators who wouldn't even begin debate include, of course, the Penguin of West Virginia and reputed "moderates" Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both "pro-choice" but, well, not that pro-choice, actually. And just as Republicans don't actually win a whole lot of elections by "energizing the base" with doomed votes, I don't think Democrats will energize the base nearly enough like this, either. Now, that insulin vote, which I presume won't get enough Republican support in the Senate? That's something that'll energize people (not just "the base"!) to vote against Republicans. Too many analysts say "the Democrats need to move to the center to win" instead of Democrats need to support the things everyone supports to win. A lot of them have done that, on insulin and elsewhere; now they just need to promote that.
Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA), running for Pennsylvania's open Senate seat in 2022, accuses Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (who's seeking the same seat) of avoiding a Democratic candidate debate because he doesn't want to answer questions about the time he pulled a gun on a Black jogger in 2013. Mr. Lamb is right that Republicans will make an issue of that incident, but you may also notice that he launched this attack with a full month and a half to go before the primary, which makes me think he's actually doing the party a favor. And if he were doing it just to bolster his campaign, he'd have waited until the last two weeks (or at least the late April debates) before bringing it up.
Finally, ain't no good news Joe "the Penguin" Manchin can't shit on, and so it goes with his hysterical pronouncement that President Biden's decision to rescind Donald Trump's anti-immigration Title 42 "health order" is a "frightening decision." "Frightening"? Really? I thought this was a salt of the Earth guy who didn't frighten easily! Mexicans ain't bringing COVID with them to America, as we would know merely by remembering how high immigration was late last spring and how low COVID numbers were. And Americans have done well enough keeping the COVID pandemic going on our own, thank you very much, largely by throwing tantrums about masks and vaccines; how does Joe Manchin not know this? Oh, I forgot: despite all his strutting around about how Only He Understands the Common Man, he doesn't talk to voters, only to oligarchs.
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