Crooked Media - What A Day: Pregnant pOz

- Pennsylvania GOP Senate candidate Dr. Oz on who should be involved in making women’s health decisions. That’s going to be a crowded exam room.

We’re getting down to the wire this election season, and Republicans are still polling pretty well despite their weak roster of crockpot candidates, which perhaps demonstrates just how far gone the mainstream Republican voter is.  

• Republicans have fanned anger over inflation on the campaign trail, but if you can even believe it, their agenda would not reduce inflation, and the “solutions'' they have put forth would be disastrous. Congressional Republicans have vowed to make the 2017 Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations permanent (inflationary), and would repeal the corporate tax increases president Biden signed into law back in August (also inflationary). Liz Truss just suggested doing this in the United Kingdom and the pound crashed immediately and she ended up resigning as Prime Minister in disgrace, but sure, go ahead. Laxer taxes and rules would also exacerbate corporate greed, which is already contributing to inflation (not to mention that tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations is one of the top contributors to an explosion in the national debt). Few economists (on either end of the political spectrum!) believe that the GOP will improve the economy, and in fact, their policies could easily make price pressures worse. And that’s before they try to take the full faith and credit of the United States hostage!

• Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-PA) and TV doctor, salesman, and enemy of every animal humane society, Dr. Oz held their long-awaited debate Tuesday night. Fetterman has held a comfortable lead throughout most of this race, but Republicans have successfully exploited the stroke he suffered back in May, and now this pivotal election in the Keystone State is too close for comfort. Fetterman’s doctors have certified his fitness to serve, but the debate format showcased his lingering speech-processing disability, and Republicans and even most mainstream media outlets have been ripping him to shreds. This is an absurd reaction, and Democrats should have executed an immediate counteroffensive. Dr. Oz is a Trump-loving right-wing charlatan who said during the debate that he wants to ban abortions with only a few narrow exceptions and thinks “tough decisions” in women’s reproductive health should be between “women, doctors, and local political leaders.” Not to be indelicate, but John Fetterman's corpse propped up “Weekend at Bernie's”-style would be a better Senator than Dr. Oz.
   

• Lower-profile Senate races are also laying the Republican Party’s character bare. In Alaska, the state Republican Party voted on Monday to censure Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for backing incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) (a rare GOP “moderate”) over Trump-backed candidate Kelly Tshibaka. Earlier this year, the Arizona Republican Party also censured multiple Republican officials who would not endorse the Big Lie, and their Trump-loyalty test is spreading.

The GOP establishment knows that its base of voters is dwindling, and have thus embraced a program of outright cheating. 
 

• Los Angeles-based right-wing influencer Jacob Wohl is bringing criminal fraud to Gen Z. The 24 year-old Wohl and 56 year-old conservative operative Jack Burkman pleaded guilty to a telecommunications fraud charge for arranging thousands of robocalls in 2020, which falsely warned voters that the information they included in their mail ballots would be shared with law enforcement and debt collectors to dissuade them from voting. Each man was charged with multiple counts of bribery and telecommunications fraud. They’ll face up to one year in prison and a fine of $2,500 (seems low, to be honest!) after they’re sentenced on November 29. 
   

• The Republican National Committee and its allies say that they have staged thousands of training sessions across the country teaching their disciples how to “monitor” voting and lodge complaints ahead of the midterms. In crucial Pennsylvania, party officials say that they have recruited six times as many poll watchers as in 2020. In Michigan, where the Big Lie is scripture, a right-wing group announced that it launched “Operation Overwatch” to “hunt down” what they deem to be election malfeasance (that is, to harass citizens trying to cast ballots). The thousands of die-hard Trump supporters who have enlisted as poll watchers and workers in battleground states could subject voting results across the country to an unprecedented level of suspicion and baseless doubt. 

After 2016, Democratic Party strategists and voters alike should know to take nothing for granted, and that no Republican is too brazenly idiotic or dangerous to get elected. We can’t lose hope or take our eye off the ball. There’s still time to push through in the final stretch, and it’s going to take all of our efforts to pull it off.

If you’ve ever messaged a friend about a manager who won’t stop texting after hours or a co-worker who keeps posting weirdly suggestive Austin Powers GIFs in Slack - you’re not alone. On Crooked Media’s newest podcast, Work Appropriate, author and host Anne Helen Petersen sets out to find solutions to these oddly specific yet completely universal listener-submitted questions. Whether you work in an office chair or a sixth grade classroom - the problems may be limitless but so are the solutions! 

Listen to the first episode of Work Appropriate now wherever you get your podcasts. Check it out!

A single company controls the cardboard and paper goods market in the U.S.: Uline. What is less well known is that the stewards of the multibillion-dollar Uline fortune are fueling election deniers and far-right extremist candidates across the country. Shielded by the dullness of their cardboard-box empire, Dick and Liz Uihlein of Illinois are the largest contributors to GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, a January 6 insurrectionist who simply cannot stop collaborating with virulent antisemites. They have donated to Jim Merchant, the Nevada Secretary of State GOP nominee who said he opposed the certification of the 2020 election results. They give boatloads of money to Big Lie groups, including Restoration of America, a group that says it exists to “get on God’s side of the issues,” and “punish leftists.” Fun! 

The Uihleins are the No. 1 federal campaign donors for Republicans ahead of the November elections having spent at least $121 million on state and federal politics in the past two years alone. They’re fighting against all the classics of a functioning, equitable society: taxes, unionization, abortion rights, you name it. The now-deceased patriarch of the Uihlein family, Edgar, was a prominent opponent of civil rights in the 1960s (surprise!) and major donor to segregationists like George Wallace. The present-day Uihleins followed in Edgar’s footsteps, donating to the most regressive causes and candidates while also imposing a brutal dresscode on their female employees in particular, who (for instance) are not allowed to wear pants, except on Fridays. Naturally, like all dark-money billionaires, most of the company’s money is tied up in a trust controlled by the Uihlein family, meaning that when Liz and Dick die, their billions will be beyond the reach of the estate tax.

A judge ordered former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify before the Fulton County, GA, special grand jury investigating disgraced former president Donald Trump and his cronies’ “alleged” (wink) attempts to overturn the 2020 election. 

A New York state judge ruled today that a group of sanitation workers fired for refusing to comply with New York City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for government employees should be reinstated with back pay. Not a great precedent!

A World Health Organization official said yesterday that the more times someone becomes infected with COVID-19, even “mild” cases, the more likely the person is to contract long-term health effects from the virus. 

Pennsylvania Republicans announced plans today to impeach and potentially remove Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner from office on spurious allegations of dereliction of duty. Krasner is a national leader among progressive prosecutors who was re-elected in a landslide last year. 

A second woman has come forward to claim that Georgia Senate GOP nominee and self-professed anti-abortion absolutist Herschel Walker pressured her to have an abortion and funded the procedure in the 1990’s. 

The Los Angeles Police Department has launched an investigation into the source of the leaked racist recordings of L.A. City Council members Nury Martinez, Kevin De Leon, and Gil Cedillo. 

The three men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) were convicted of all charges today. Somewhere a terrible right-wing pundit is writing a think-piece about how this verdict is an extension of “cancel culture” as we speak. 

Jared Kushner was spotted in the front row of an investment forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia today hosted by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. Nothing untoward to see there I’m sure!

Elon Musk’s automotive manufacturer Tesla is under a Department of Justice investigation over claims that the company’s electric vehicles are capable of self-driving after more than a dozen crashes related to the feature, some fatal. Musk has previously insisted that any autopilot problems stem from customer error. Sure, buddy.

Iranian officials say they’ve arrested a gunman who carried out an attack on a Shi’ite Muslim shrine today, murdering 15 people. The man was a member of the militant Islamic State, and the shooting further escalates tensions in a country still reeling from protests over the murder of Mahsa Amini by Iran’s morality police. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for previous attacks in Iran, but today’s killings happened to coincide with ongoing clashes between protesters and Iranian security forces, which the Iranian government tried to use to their rhetorical advantage. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi blamed the protests for paving the way for the attack on Shi’ite pilgrims, and President Ebrahim Raisi promised that the attack would “not go unanswered.” Human rights groups have said that at least 250 protesters have been killed by the Iranian government in the 40 days since Amini’s death, and thousands more have been arrested.

Book Bans Must Be Stopped

This is important. Freedom of expression protects our right to read, learn and share ideas free from viewpoint-based censorship—but recent legislative efforts across the country threaten that right. 

Book bans in schools and public libraries—places that are central to our abilities to explore ideas, encounter new perspectives, and learn to think for ourselves—are unconstitutional—and we need your support to fight back. Sign up today if you’re with us.

The vast majority of book bans that are taking hold across the country—whether through legislative proposals or direct school district or board actions—specifically aim to remove books that are by and about communities of color, LGBTQ people, and other marginalized groups. 

These book ban efforts work to effectively erase the history and lived experiences of women, people of color and LGBTQ people and censor discussions around race, gender and sexuality that impact young people’s daily lives. It’s wrong and it’s unconstitutional.

We all have a right to read and learn free from viewpoint-based or partisan censorship. Sign up today to help us fight for our right to read and learn.

Thank you for taking action,

The ACLU Team

China began administering an inhalable Covid-19 vaccine today, the first of its kind in the world. If scientists find a way to put it in vape form, I think we could eradicate this thing entirely. 
 

A record number of LGBTQ candidates are running for office, and some breakthrough victories are likely this November. 

California’s planet-warming emissions dropped nearly nine percent in 2020 compared to the year before, as pandemic restrictions kept many people at home and out of their cars. 

American school buses are expected to go fully electric in the next decade, with the EPA awarding nearly 400 school districts roughly $1 billion in grants for such upgrades.