On Thursday, thousands of airport workers from at least 15 American airports rallied to call for better working conditions. In three airports—Boston Logan International, Chicago’s O’Hare International, and Newark Liberty International—workers went on a full strike, calling attention to unfair labor practices by their employer Swissport USA and Swissport Cargo, including poor working conditions and improper payment and wage theft.
BREAKING: @SwissportNews Cargo workers in Chicago just walked off the job and are on a ULP strike demanding #GoodAirports for all. #AirportsUnited pic.twitter.com/FhmDUuDWW0
— Fight For 15 Chicago (@chifightfor15) December 8, 2022
HAPPENING NOW: Airport service workers in Charlotte, NC, are demanding that Congress pass the Good Jobs for #Goodairports Act! This bill will set wage and benefit standards for airport service workers at major airports nationwide. @GoodAirports #AirportsUnited pic.twitter.com/ue9y0F8yDG
— Union of Southern Service Workers (@RaiseUptheSouth) December 8, 2022
The workers are pushing Congress to pass the Good Jobs for Good Airports Act. The bill would introduce national wage and benefit standards, setting a $15 minimum wage for all airport service workers (including those working at vendors like restaurants or retail stores), and baseline benefit standards for paid time off and health care.
Introduced in June by Representative Jesús “Chuy” Garcia and Senator Ed Markey, the bill holds 15 Senate and 89 House co-sponsors. There has been little Republican support for the bill, even as Republicans last week pretended to care about America’s rail workers.
Senators Markey, Blumenthal, Schumer, as well as Representative Garcia and D.C. House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton appeared alongside workers on Thursday in Washington, D.C., lobbying for the bill’s passage.
Resonance with the rail workers’ struggle can’t be missed. “We don’t get enough paid time off. We’re supposed to get a week of paid sick days. But we’re so short staffed they make it almost impossible for you to take a sick day,” said Omar Rodriguez, a ramp agent and cabin cleaner employed by Swissport USA, in a statement provided by the SEIU. “We get blamed for delays, but we’re only given a few minutes to clean and don’t have enough people to do the work.”.
“No one wants to stay because the pay and benefits are not enough for what we do,” he added.
The House of Representatives passed the behemoth $858 billion annual defense bill on Thursday in a 350-80 vote. Among its many provisions is one aimed at improving security for federal judges, which became part of the final bill despite some criticism from judicial watchdog groups.
The provision, known as the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act of 2022, would generally forbid the unauthorized disclosure of a judge’s personal information or that of an immediate family member. It would cover home addresses, phone numbers, license plate details, and information about next-of-kin’s workplaces, schools, and daycares, and similar data.
The bill is named after the son of Judge Esther Salas, whose New Jersey home was targeted in an apparent assassination attempt in 2020. The gunman killed Daniel and wounded Salas’ husband before fleeing the scene. Local police later identified the assailant as Roy Den Hollander, a lawyer against whom Salas had previously ruled on a procedural matter. He died by suicide before he could be apprehended. After her son’s death, Salas advocated for stronger security protections for federal judges. New Jersey’s two senators, Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, introduced the bill that eventually became part of the defense budget package this week.
Attacks on the federal judiciary are relatively rare in the United States but not unheard of. Three federal judges were assassinated in the 20th century and a fourth, John Roll, was killed when a gunman attacked an event held by then-Arizona Representative Gabby Giffords in 2011. In 2005, Judge Joan Lefkow’s husband and mother were murdered in a targeted attack in suburban Chicago. The U.S. Marshals Service, which is charged with protecting judges and courthouses, has told Congress that the number of threats has increased in recent years.
The bill’s breadth nonetheless drew some criticism in recent days from judicial-transparency advocates and from some journalists. The Free Law Project, a nonprofit group that tracks the federal courts, said the bill was “unconstitutional” and warned that it would lead to censorship against them. “If this bill becomes law, we’ll have to fight it in court or take down vital accountability information from our site,” the group wrote on Twitter on Wednesday night. “This is not OK.” Fix the Court, a Supreme Court-oriented watchdog group, also described it as “clearly unconstitutional.”
Much of the criticism centered on provisions that would allow immediate members of a judge’s family to take down information about their employers. “Lawmakers have just added a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act protecting Supreme Court spouses from having to reveal any outside employer, in the name of security,” Jane Mayer, a New Yorker staff writer who has written about the Supreme Court justices, claimed on Wednesday. “If it passes, Ginni Thomas’s professional entanglements would effectively be state secrets.” Thomas, who is married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has come under intense scrutiny over the last two years for her ties to groups that sought to overthrow the 2020 election.
If signed into law, the bill could face legal challenges from websites and publishers that decline to take down information about judges’ families. Those challenges would then have to survive the scrutiny of federal judges who have watched with concern as the number of threats against them grew in recent years. Any lawsuit would also likely face the ultimate test before the Supreme Court, most of whose members saw protests outside their homes after the court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade earlier this year. Persuading them to make it easier to disclose private information about their family members might be a tall order for any lawyer.
On Thursday, Representative-elect Maxwell Frost, who will become the first Gen Z member of Congress, said he was denied an apartment in Washington, D.C. due to his “really bad” credit. He also lost his application fee.
Just applied to an apartment in DC where I told the guy that my credit was really bad. He said I’d be fine. Got denied, lost the apartment, and the application fee.
This ain’t meant for people who don’t already have money.
— Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@MaxwellFrostFL) December 8, 2022
Such an outcome is familiar to many. After all, housing nationwide seems to only get increasingly expensive, as landlords and rental companies enjoy the mountain of fees they rake in from renters desperate to find a home.
The ridiculousness of it all is only heightened while individuals elected to serve in the nation’s capital can’t even afford to live there.
Like Frost, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was another member who, upon arriving to D.C. in 2018, had trouble finding housing before receiving her congressional salary of $174,000.
Frost explained that his credit worsened after running up debt while campaigning over the past year and a half, noting he did not make enough money driving for Uber.
“It isn’t magic that we won our very difficult race,” Frost wrote. “I quit my full time job cause I knew that to win at 25 yrs old, I’d need to be a full time candidate. 7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day. It’s not sustainable or right but it’s what we had to do.”
The amount of money a candidate has is important—particularly if you are a challenger like Frost or Ocasio-Cortez, whose races required all the more time and effort to win.
How difficult it is for someone to get involved in a country’s politics tells you something about said country. Especially if that country purports itself to be a “representative democracy.” Frost offers yet another example of how America really does not encourage working people—who perhaps need the most advocacy in halls of power—to get involved.
Thursday morning, the Biden administration announced that Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner would be released from Russian detainment, in a one-for-one prisoner swap with former Russian military officer and arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Afterwards, the right-wing wasted no time inciting outrage about the freeing of an American detained in Russia for 294 days.
No one cuts better deals than Biden. We get an awful America hating WNBA player, while Russia gets an INTERNATIONAL ARMS DEALER!!! The adults are back! https://t.co/zPMKzuB2SA
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 8, 2022
This is the lowest point in US foreign policy in my lifetime.
Collapse of an empire.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 8, 2022
Some weren’t even trying to feign logic, and were instead outright racist and homophobic:
She’s a black lesbian who hates America. Biden is just bringing another voter back home. https://t.co/2XL3xqOCWL
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) December 8, 2022
Prisoner swaps do not lend themselves well to “ideal” scenarios. But there are basic facts here that these outrage-drivers simply have no interest in. They act as if Biden unhesitatingly made the deal, and has not been trying to rescue other American detainees, like former U.S. marine Paul Whelan. But according to a senior U.S. official, Whelan is being treated as an espionage case.The Russian government gave them a choice over who to free: “one [Griner] or none.”
Meanwhile, Paul Whelan’s family is sharing much more grace than the right-wingers fomenting outrage over their loved one, acknowledging both the good news of Griner’s release, and still the urgency to free Whelan:
NEW from the Whelan family: “There is no greater success than for a wrongful detainee to be freed & for them to go home. The Biden Admin made the right decision to bring Ms. Griner home, & to make the deal that was possible, rather than waiting for one that wasn’t going to..”
— Nick Kalman (@NickKalmanFN) December 8, 2022
Griner’s wife Cherelle said they both are committed to working to help free those left behind in Russian detention, including Whelan:
Cherelle Griner says Brittney Griner and “I will remain committed to the work of getting every American home, including Paul.” pic.twitter.com/npWModqAwq
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) December 8, 2022
But right-wingers have no interest in nuance, or the facts undergirding such a difficult situation.
In the meantime, Griner’s restored freedom warrants rejoicing. And an urge to support all who are imprisoned—especially those on inane charges like less than a gram of cannabis oil—ought to be maintained. As Dave Zirin wrote, “there is no politics more basic than solidarity with the imprisoned.”
The House of Representatives voted 258–169 Thursday to approve a historic bill enshrining the right to marriage equality.
The Respect for Marriage Act will now go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. The bill, which applies to both same-sex and interracial marriage, would require that two people be considered married so long as their marriage was legal in the state in which it was performed. The act also repeals a 1996 law defining marriage as between a man and a woman, which has remained on the books despite being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2015.
Many civil rights activists have warned that after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, same-sex marriage may be next on the chopping block.
During debate beforehand, Republicans accused Democrats of overreacting, insisting that the 2015 Supreme Court ruling ensuring equal marriage would continue to stand. Two Republican representatives, Vicky Hartzler and Bob Good, went so far as to claim the bill discriminated against religious institutions—despite being backed by most major religious organizations—and threatened heterosexual marriage.
The act had already passed the House over the summer, although 156 voted against it—including a shockingly hypocritical “nay” vote from Representative Glenn Thompson, who attended his son’s same-sex wedding just a week later. Thompson again voted no on Thursday.
Critics of the bill say, though, that it does not go far enough with LGBTQ protections. Part of the amendment says that religious organizations do not have to marry same-sex couples, which would allow groups to continue to be homophobic, and the bill does not require all states to actually issue same-sex marriage licenses.
Over one thousand New York Times employees have embarked on a 24-hour walkout, the first protest of its kind at the nation’s paper of record in more than four decades.
Members of the NewsGuild of New York had been negotiating with management for nearly two years. Finally, the union reached a tipping point, announcing last week that more than 1,100 union members would walk out at 12:01 a.m. Thursday morning, unless a deal was made. As can be seen, no agreement was reached.
While there has been no updated contract since March 2021, staff also have not received raises in more than two years. This, while inflation and rent have both rocketed.
Negotiations had been ongoing this week, with 12 hours of bargaining on Tuesday. On Wednesday, The New York Times union guild said management “backed off its attempt to kill our pension and agreed to expand fertility benefits,” but they still were short on other priorities, including pay increases and health care contributions.
The union has said some major desks will be short 90 percent of their workforce on Thursday, with some departments being essentially empty. Consequently, numerous desks will be run by managers—if at all—as employees picket outside the New York Times building.
Meanwhile, the company has directed members to work in advance of the strike in order to complete assignments.
Further, employees who walk out will not be paid. CNN retrieved an internal memo sent to employees by the Times’ human resources department, reading that striking employees “will not be paid by the company for the duration of the strike” and that they “cannot use vacation or personal days to account for this time” unless it was approved before last Friday. The union has argued that this is a walkout, not a strike, since it is for limited duration.
New York Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha told the Associated Press that the Times had “solid plans in place” to continue business, including relying on international reporters and other nonunion journalists.
Thursday will reveal what a hollower New York Times looks like—and whether it really can continue business as usual, even for 24 hours.
WNBA star Brittney Griner has been released by the Russian government and is coming home.
She was released Thursday in a one-for-one prisoner swap with Viktor Bout, a former Russian military officer who was serving a 25-year sentence in the United States for conspiring to kill Americans, exporting missiles, and conspiring to help a terrorist organization. The Russian government has sought his release for a decade, since his 2012 sentencing in New York.
Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport in February on drug-smuggling charges. She testified that she inadvertently packed cannabis oil in her luggage and in August was sentenced to nine years in prison.
President Biden spoke Thursday morning shortly after 8:30 a.m. from the White House in the company of Griner’s wife, Cherelle. From NBC’s Peter Alexander:
NEW: Griner’s wife, Cherelle, is here in Oval Office, @NBCNews has learned. She and @POTUS spoke to Brittney Griner together and then Cherelle had a private talk with her wife from the president’s study.
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) December 8, 2022
Cherelle said, “The most important emotion I have right now is sincere gratitude for President Biden and his entire administration.” Biden said: “Britney is an incomparable athlete. She endured mistreatment and a show trial in Russia with characteristic grit and integrity.” Biden said he’d been working for her release since July and mentioned Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine still detained in Russia on espionage charges. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported Thursday morning that the Biden administration pushed hard for Whelan’s release after four years in prison, but Russia wouldn’t budge.
Biden will surely take some heat from the right wing for releasing Bout, who had a long record of arms dealing and supporting terrorist groups like Colombia’s FARC before he was convicted. Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney who prosecuted Bout, said at the time of his sentencing: “Viktor Bout has been international arms-trafficking enemy number one for many years, arming some of the most violent conflicts around the globe.”
But make no mistake. This is a great day—obviously for Brittney and Cherelle, for the Biden team, for the United States, and for justice.
The final text of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, was released Tuesday, and absent was Senator Joe Manchin’s so-called “Dirty Deal,” a set of provisions he was promised in exchange for his support for the Inflation Reduction Act (a bill he massively watered down).
Now Manchin is trying yet again to include his provisions, this time as an amendment to the annual defense spending bill. Manchin released his amendment Wednesday, with various concessions to try to appeal to Republican support instead of members of his own party. Nevertheless, he seems unlikely to garner enough support.
The bill would weaken environmental review processes and fast-track the permitting process for energy projects, including pipelines and fossil fuel infrastructure.
Manchin’s bill seeks to clear the path for the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline, a West Virginia project opposed by several community and environmental groups, facing lawsuits in state and federal courts, and even invalidated by an appeals court.
Federal agencies would be called to proceed in issuing permits and leases, superseding citizen challenges and clearing the path for the legally and communally opposed fossil fuel project.
But the effort failed for a second time Tuesday, after Manchin previously attempted to attach the bill to the September continuing resolution that avoided a government shutdown.
Manchin’s provisions were not all inherently bad. They sought to promote construction of new electrical transmission lines, which are urgently needed in order to reach net-zero emissions. And to be fair, opposition to energy infrastructure projects can be rooted in Nimby-esque rationales; expedited permitting can help push forward the construction of urgently needed green infrastructure.
But Manchin’s approach, foregrounded by his thirst for a natural gas pipeline, did not capture those potential benefits. Democrats don’t have to trash the entire bill, but they also ought not leave the fight for permitting reform to the most conservative Democrat in Congress.
After Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s loss in Georgia Tuesday night, some Republicans are conceding that maybe attacking methods of voting isn’t a good way to, well, get votes.
On his program Tuesday night, Fox News host Sean Hannity looked to Republicans including House leader Kevin McCarthy and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich for insight as to why “Republicans have been unwilling, for whatever reason … to vot[e] early and vot[e] by mail.”
“Republicans in the past, we had an advantage because we would vote early, we would vote by mail, and we put that away,” McCarthy said.
Gingrich, an election denialist who had previously suggested arresting election workers after the 2020 election, told Hannity that “you have to play the game by the rules that are existing,” encouraging Republicans to vote early and by mail.
On Wednesday, Senators Lindsey Graham and Rick Scott also suggested that their party could improve on its early and mail-in voting stances. Fomenting distrust in such practices “has to change because we need to bank votes like they do,” said Graham.
The reason Republicans haven’t been voting early or by mail is because Donald Trump—and his followers—all discouraged it. From January to September 2020, Trump attacked mail-in voting over 100 times, according to The Washington Post. And Republican politicians, officials, and media followed suit, leading to 18 states passing legislation that made mail-in voting harder this year.
Georgia Republicans themselves sought to block early voting from beginning on November 26.
Hannity too has shared Project Veritas videos peddling mail-voting conspiracies to his millions of followers on Twitter and has hosted segments attacking mail-in and early voting practices, sowing doubt in the integrity of such methods.
Unfortunately, Republicans still can’t outright say, “It’s good to make voting easier for people,” in the same way they can’t outright denounce Trump.
“There were many in 2020 saying, ‘Don’t vote by mail, don’t vote early,’” said RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel Tuesday on Fox News. “And we have to stop that and understand that if Democrats are getting ballots in for a month, we can’t expect to get it all done in one day.”
An RNC spokesperson later said that McDaniel apparently wasn’t talking about Trump, who has been the loudest voice on the matter and called to ban early voting when he announced his 2024 candidacy last month.