Roundup: Desantis Authoritarianism, Musk Union Busting, Menstrual Cycle Tracking and More

A periodic summary of my social media posts detailing our crazy political world now

DeSantis continues to DeSantis

I had a whole Substack on DeSantis’ attack on local democracy but his authoritarianism includes so much more. See this from a thread of DeSantis meeting with Chicago-area police, including the head of the Chicago police union who supported the Jan 6th assault on the Capitol:

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

Head of Chicago Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) supported the Jan 6 criminal assault on the Capitol. Many police are not pro-law-and-order but just pro-fascist at this point. From thread on DeSantis meeting with Chicago-area police.

Dan Mihalopoulos @dmihalopoulos

The FOP is led by John Catanzara, who has made a series of controversial comments, including this 2021 interview w/ my colleague @ChipMitchell1 https://t.co/XG1pMybYdA

DeSantis is also in the news for a hostile takeover of Florida’s small New College, all in the name of ending “woke” university culture. But behind that move is of course payoffs to cronies and corruption:

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

Behind all the anti-woke rhetoric is always corruption - in this case having the 700 students each pay $1000 in tuition annually for the salary of DeSantis crony Richard Corcoran

heraldtribune.comNew College hires Richard Corcoran as interim president for $699,000 annuallyFlorida’s former education commissioner will earn $400,000 more annually than President Patricia Okker, whom the board fired on Jan. 31.

More Musk Union-Busting:

I have an ongoing thread on Elon Musk’s many criminal assaults on workers’ rights and he added to it this week with a mass firing after Buffalo Tesla workers announced a union drive:

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

And Elon Musk added to his long record of corporate criminal behavior by engaging in illegal mass firings in retaliation for a union organizing campaign at Telsa's Buffalo, NY facility

Josh Eidelson @josheidelson

Scoop: Tesla retaliated by firing dozens of Buffalo Autopilot employees the day after workers announced union campaign, organizers allege in complaint: https://t.co/KNI13snC5v Union seeks federal court injunction. “A form of collective retaliation... designed to terrify everyone"

New York Times response is to describe illegal mass firings as “hardball tactics”, a typical downplaying of white collar crime across the media:

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

Imagine if the NYT described shoplifting as "these shoppers use hardball tactics in gaining discounts on household acquisitions" Only white-collar crime gets this kind of softball treatment that refuses to label folks like Musk as criminals.

Sidenote- just insane that the U.S. military depends on a private contractor run by a MAGA ideologue to provide vital communication services in a warzone:

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

Why is the US govt depending on a billionaire CEO's ideological views to decide whether Ukraine has full Internet access? US should takeover Starlink and no longer depend on government contractors for vital communication links.

Elon Musk @elonmusk

@StationCDRKelly You’re smart enough not to swallow media & other propaganda bs. Starlink is the communication backbone of Ukraine, especially at the front lines, where almost all other Internet connectivity has been destroyed. But we will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3.

Really should use the military budget to buy out Starlink:

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

A really good use of the military budget would be to buy Starlinks using eminent domain power. Just ridiculous that US govt contracts with a private company for communication services in a war zone.

Jay in Kyiv @JayinKyiv

Musk is about to cost thousands of Ukrainian lives. Disallowing Ukrainian military to use Starlinks after US paid him a mountain of cash for them.. This is only to benefit Putin. https://t.co/3J6f0VUHSv

A Handmaids Tale Cometh: The “small government” party continues to ratchet up their police state surveillance and punishment of women, including monitoring of women’s menstrual cycles to assist investigations. Glenn Youngkin blocked a bill promoted by Democrats to ban police use of personal apps tracking such data:

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

World GOP wants- subpoenas for women's menstrual histories to provide evidence to jail them for illegal abortions

theguardian.comVirginia governor blocks bill banning police from seeking menstrual historiesGlenn Youngkin essentially kills bill passed in Democratic-led state senate to ban search warrants for menstrual data on tracking apps

Wrote the substack on GOP attack on Social Security but I am pleased Biden is being so aggressive in taking them down

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

Biden on offense - and the fact that GOP is spending the last few days playing defense shows how brilliant Biden's play was at the State of the Union making that the key story coming out of the speech.

The Recount @therecount

Mocking congressional Republicans who called him a “liar” for saying some Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare, President Biden reads direct quotes from Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Ron Johnson (R-WI). https://t.co/M1XAjeHrJN

Our Broken Constitution and Ongoing Minority Rule in the US: A new study is out finding that since 1990, there is only one two-year period (1996-1998) when Republicans in the Senate represented a majority of the U.S. population. Yet maladjustment of representation in the Senate means they have repeatedly controlled that chamber and with minority-rule Presidents, have a super-majority on the Supreme Court:

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

Just insane that the Republicans have won the majority of the Presidential vote once in the last 25 years and represented a majority of the population in the Senate once in that period- yet managed to appoint and approve two-thirds of the Supreme Court.

Stephen Wolf @PoliticsWolf

NEW: We calculated 3 decades of the U.S. Senate popular vote & how many people each party represented, updated for 2022. The results are striking: Republicans last won more support than Dems in the 1990s yet won the Senate half the time from 2000 onward https://t.co/vO5p1GE4Qo https://t.co/1dgomCeKuR

This is why two years ago I called for organizing for blue state secession, either to demand changes in Senate representation or to actually leave:

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

Two years ago I laid out a strategy for blue states to fight for fairer representation in the Senate. We will never have a functioning democracy and will face threats by a fascist minority until we face this problem head first

thenation.comThe Case for Blue-State SecessionIt’s the only way to ensure democracy and equal justice, not just for blue-state residents but for citizens in all 50 states.

GOP House Hearings emerging as a debacle, largely because Democrats coordinated a pushback that exposed their hypocrisy at every turn. Including this brilliant turn by Freshman House member, Jared Moscowitz:

Matthew Kirsch @KirschPearl

I've never seen anything quite as fantastic as this.

Media Continues to Coddle GOP Christian Antisemitism: John Hagee preaches idea that Hitler was God’s instrument in the mass murder of Jews in order to drive the remaining Jews to Israel to fulfill Christian extremist’s hopes for Armaggedon and the Rapture. And Nikki Haley had this antisemitic creep at the launch of her new Presidential campaign. And the media is fine with that:

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

And media will continue to invite Nikki Haley onto Sunday shows because Christian antisemitism is completely acceptable.

MSNBC @MSNBC

Nikki Haley kicked off her 2024 campaign with a pastor who has said the Holocaust was a divine plan from God. (via MaddowBlog) https://t.co/AHYJUOjVct

Attack on local D.C. democracy highlights need for D.C. Statehood: The D.C. city council voted to reform its criminal code and the U.S. Senate is moving to overturn local decisions on that - so much for GOP principles of respecting local power

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

One more argument for DC statehood. Just amazing how disposable GOP principles on local power is when the local power is black.

Potomac Fever @FeverPotomac

CC @adamlongoTV. Good primer from @PunchbowlNews on what is happening in the Senate. https://t.co/om0oqvWbIf

Ending this post with the Best Endorsement of Joe Biden I’ve Seen

Nathan Newman 🧭 @nathansnewman

“I was not a fan of the judges Barack Obama appointed,” Ted Cruz said... “But Obama’s nominees look positively moderate and reasonable compared to the zealots the Biden administration has put forward.” Best compliment to Biden I've seen. nbcnews.com/politics/congr…