Nov. 17, 2023 ❧ Another homeless sweep by Gruesome Newsom, Antisemitic pastor speaks at DC "March for Israel," and Starbucks workers' "Red Cup Rebellion"
Plus the UK's Minister of Anti-wokeness, Madagascar's chaotic election, George Santos finally gives up, crab construction, and more!
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STORIES THAT SHOULD BE BIGGER
NLRB MAKES IT EASIER FOR FRANCHISED BUSINESSES TO UNIONIZE
The National Labor Relations Board recently approved a new rule which is scheduled to take effect on December 26, and dramatically change the landscape for labor organizing in the United States. Under the NLRB’s new guidelines, chain stores and restaurants that operate with a franchise model—like McDonald’s, Popeye’s, or Ace Hardware—will be considered “joint employers” if they control at least one of the “essential terms and conditions” of their workers’ jobs, like wages, hours, hiring and firing processes, and safety conditions. This means the workers in each franchise would be considered employees of both the parent company and the franchise-holder, rather than just the franchise-holder, as they are currently. As a result, the companies themselves can be held responsible for labor law violations and will have to negotiate with workers who want to unionize.
This is a big deal because the franchise model has long been an obstacle to American labor unions, especially in the fast-food industry. In 2015, for example, Vox’s Eater website cited “the sheer number of franchises,” each of them legally a separate employer, as one of the main reasons the Service Employees International Union failed to unionize McDonald’s in 2012. Writing in support of the NLRB’s new rule, Richard Eiker—a McDonald’s worker and labor leader with the Missouri Workers’ Center—explains just how bad the franchise system is for workers:
McDonald’s controls nearly every aspect of my job, from the required computer software that tracks our productivity to who we call when the ice cream machine breaks. Though McDonald’s corporate office controls so much of my everyday work, I am unable to hold them accountable for unjust working conditions like low wages and unfair labor practices because I work for a franchisee that exercises control over other aspects of my job, like my schedule.
If and when it goes into effect, the new joint-employer rule would change all this.
Of course, there’s already opposition. Speaking to the Associated Press, John Motta—a man who owns 32 Dunkin’ Donuts locations across Virginia and New Hampshire, like some kind of dough-based feudal baron—is just aghast at the idea of paying his workers more:
“We don’t want our corporate partners to be telling us, ‘You have to pay this much per hour,’” he said. “That’s not why I came into this business. I wanted to make all those decisions by myself.”
In Congress, meanwhile, a group of lawmakers including Senators Bill Cassidy, Mitch McConnell, and (of course) Joe Manchin have filed a resolution against the rule, while the Chamber of Commerce is suing the NLRB to stop it from taking effect. With December 26 approaching, they don’t have much time left—and next year, the already-resurgent U.S. labor movement could have a much better playing field to work with.
D.C. “MARCH FOR ISRAEL” HOSTS VIRULENTLY ANTISEMITIC PASTOR AS SPEAKER
This week, numerous politicians and speakers appeared at a “March for Israel” on the National Mall, at which participants showed solidarity with Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has killed more than 11,320 Palestinians as of Thursday. Speakers included prominent members of both parties, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Mike Johnson, both of whom condemned calls for a ceasefire—something that 66 percent of Americans, but almost nobody in Congress, says they support. Meanwhile, CNN anchor Van Jones, who tepidly said he hoped to see “No more rockets from Gaza, and no more bombs falling down on the people of Gaza” (as if they are being dropped out of the clouds and not by the Israeli military) was booed by the crowd and drowned out by chants of “No ceasefire! No ceasefire!”
The speakers also made many statements denouncing a rise in antisemitism that has followed the outbreak of war. They directed plenty of outrage at anti-war college students and members of Congress who have called for a ceasefire. But they had nothing to say about one of their own: the infamous Evangelical Minister John Hagee, who was allowed to speak at the rally despite having made vile statements about Jews for years. Hagee has, at multiple points, said that Jews were responsible for the Holocaust and that their historical persecution is a result of their “disobedience and rebellion” against God. He has also said that “God sent Adolf Hitler” —who he elsewhere called a “half-breed Jew”—to “help Jews reach the promised land,” comments which led the late Senator John McCain to denounce Hagee in 2008. Despite these feelings about Jews, Hagee is staunchly pro-Israel, which is why he was allowed on the stage, though some Jewish groups protested his inclusion, including J Street, which said “A dangerous bigot like Hagee should not be welcomed anywhere in our community. Period.”
But why is Hagee such an ardent Zionist? It’s not because of his abiding love for the Jewish people. It’s because he views the Jewish settlement of Israel as a crucial step towards bringing about the Biblical rapture. His theory of the apocalypse is quite convoluted (check out this article in Mother Jones to learn more), but the upshot is that he believes Jews, Muslims, and Catholics will be enticed by the anti-Christ to forge a peace deal which allows Jews to retake the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. After this, they will be struck down by the return of regular Christ, who will save all Christians while leaving the rest (including Jews) to perish.
Despite its evident kookiness, this belief is not as fringe as you might expect. Belief in the end times is a major reason why Evangelical Christians are even more supportive of Israel than Jewish Americans. According to one 2017 poll from LifeWay, more than 8 in 10 Evangelicals said that the creation of Israel in 1948 was the “fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would bring about Christ’s return.”
President Trump even once said that his decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was “for the evangelicals,” and that “the evangelicals are more excited by that than Jewish people.” End times tourism to Israel, specifically tailored for evangelicals, is actually a booming industry. To learn more about it, check out this 2018 documentary from VICE, in which Hagee makes an appearance:
If the rally’s organizers were truly as concerned about antisemitism as they claim to be, one would hope that they’d keep someone with Hagee’s beliefs about Jews far from the stage. But apparently, even rabid antisemites are totally welcome amongst America’s political elite so long as they are cool with Israel bombing Gaza back to the Stone Age. This entire incident should show the fraudulence of claiming that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are synonymous. That logic will inevitably lead people to conclude that the tens of thousands of Jewish people who have rallied around the country in support of a ceasefire are antisemitic hatemongers (as the Anti-Defamation League has labeled them) while a person who says Jews have a compact with the devil and Hitler was sent by God is their friend.
FIGHTING BACK
STARBUCKS WORKERS LAUNCH “RED CUP REBELLION”
Every November, Starbucks coffee shops hold what the company calls “Red Cup Day”—a festive promotion where they give away a red holiday-themed cup, for one day only. It’s a popular event, but it’s also “one of the most infamously hard, understaffed days for the baristas,” according to Starbucks Workers United. This year, the union announced that—rather than deal with the stress of crowded stores and demanding customers all day—they’d instead launch a labor strike, turning Red Cup Day into a Red Cup Rebellion.
It’s actually the second time this has happened. Back in 2022, workers at more than 100 unionized Starbucks locations in 25 different states went on strike in November. This Thursday’s strike doubled those numbers, with more than 200 stores joining in the strike—and according to NBC, around 30 of them got an early start on Wednesday. By the union’s estimate, this means that more than 5,000 workers took part, making it the largest work stoppage in Starbucks history. The baristas’ demands are simple: first and foremost, to have more workers scheduled for Red Cup Day and any other day that’s expected to have an unusually high workload. Speaking to the New York Times, one shift supervisor at a Seattle Starbucks said her staff received more than 200 drink orders in a single half-hour and were expected to make them all:
I watched as baristas verged on a state of mental breakdown, being verbally berated by customers and feeling pressure from bosses to keep performing when it was unreasonable to do so.
Another worker from Pittsburgh tells a similar story to CBS:
At my store, we're the fourth busiest store on the entire East Coast and we saw upwards of 500 drinks an hour, with six people on the floor. That's simply not realistic[...] We have been asking for mobile orders to be turned off during these high volume days and promotional days because we simply can't keep up with the business.
It’s not as if Starbucks can’t afford to staff a few extra workers, either. The company posted a profit of $21.9 billion in 2022, up 7.93 percent from the previous year. Instead, this is about power, and the company’s refusal to budge an inch in response to workers’ demands. Perhaps Laxman Narasimhan, who took over as CEO from Howard Schulz in March, will see sense and come to the bargaining table. If not, the frustration will keep building, and the strikes will continue.
Starbucks Workers United has asked that customers sign the “No Contract, No Coffee” pledge to support their organizing efforts. It’s available here.
AROUND THE STATES
❧ The city of San Francisco forcibly removed homeless people from its streets before the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. At a public event last Thursday, California governor Gavin Newsom admitted that city authorities were indeed “cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming to town,” just as his critics had accused—most notably for Chinese president Xi Jinping, who met with Joe Biden in San Francisco on the 15th. He failed to mention that “cleaning up this place” actually meant conducting police sweeps on homeless encampments, especially along Van Ness avenue. In recent months, Newsom has urged the Supreme Court to expand cities’ ability to conduct these sweeps, removing a lower court injunction that prohibits arresting anyone simply for sleeping outdoors unless an offer of shelter is made. Often that “offer” can be perfunctory, however, allowing sweeps to continue regardless. In San Francisco, homeless advocates say the most recent wave of removals violated the law, since authorities didn’t give the required 72 hours notice to allow legal observers to be present, and didn’t appropriately collect and tag the belongings of the people they removed. Meanwhile, Nobel Mitchell, a homeless man, sums up what it feels like to be caught up in a sweep: “This is a category five hurricane hitting your spot, and you’re left with nothing.”
AROUND THE WORLD
❧ UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has appointed a new cabinet minister dedicated to combatting “wokeness”... seriously. This new position will be officially known as the “Minister of Common Sense” and will be headed by Esther McVey, previously a host on the certifiably insane GB News network, Britain’s low-rent version of Fox News. McVey, who briefly served in the scandal-ridden Boris Johnson government, has exactly the record you’d expect a Minister of Anti-Wokeness to have. She thinks parents should be able to prevent children from learning about the existence of same-sex couples. While serving Boris, she gave a speech justifying his welfare cuts, which led to a record number of Britons using food banks, by admitting that “Some people could be worse off on this benefit,” but that they’d just have to work more to make up for it. And in a recent news appearance, she complained about King Charles’ apology for Britain’s colonial atrocities in Kenya.
It’s not entirely obvious what she’ll be doing as Britain’s wokeness czar. If anything, this appears to be a last-ditch sop by Sunak to his right flank in the Conservative Party. Sunak drew their ire earlier this week when he appointed anti-Brexit former PM David Cameron to be Foreign Secretary and fired Interior Minister Suella Braverman, who’d called for a tougher crackdown on pro-Palestine protesters and had previously floated the idea of banning charities from giving tents to the homeless (who, she says, are making “a lifestyle choice”). After Braverman’s sacking, about a dozen right-wing Tories met in the Commons to discuss whether they are “going to embrace the realignment” of post-Brexit politics, which seems to indicate they may be considering a leadership shakeup as well. It remains to be seen whether appointing an anti-wokeness czar will be an appealing enough slab of red meat to satiate this faction of the Tory right, but it sure does reek of desperation. (We also find it highly amusing that this was announced just one day after we joked about a hypothetical President Vivek Ramaswamy creating a Department of Anti-Wokeness… Please, nobody tell him about this.)
PAST AFFAIRS
That time Nathan went on GB News
You may recall that our editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson appeared on GBN earlier this year to discuss an article he’d written on masculinity. During that interview, host Laurence Fox—who earlier in the program said COVID-19 and climate change were both hoaxes—incorrectly referred to Nathan as “Jim” and asked him about an incident in which he supposedly defended his wife from a home invader using his Glock… Nathan does not, in fact, have a wife or a Glock. If you’d like to relive the eleven disturbing minutes poor Nathan spent in an alternate reality, his interview with Fox and the equally unpleasant Bushra Shaikh is on YouTube, though as Nathan says, the conversation “was asinine and went nowhere, which is what I expected.” Nathan’s appearance can be found at the 15-minute mark of this video.
Afterward, Nathan reflected on the surreal experience in an article titled “Climate Denial May Escalate Into a Total Rupture With Reality.” At the time of writing, the globe was experiencing the hottest summer on record and being roiled by one catastrophic natural disaster after another. Nathan wrote:
“Fox introduced the segment with a bizarre monologue, which began by telling viewers that ‘there is a theatrical device, often used to keep an audience gripped to a play they’re watching,’ in which a ‘malevolent force manifests itself offstage’ and then ‘encroaches ever closer into the seemingly banal, everyday drama being played out on the stage.’ The ‘dread fear’ that builds over time, perhaps through an offstage fire glowing brighter and brighter, changes the characters’ behavior and leads them to ‘actions they would never have dreamt of committing in ordinary circumstances.’... As I watched this climate segment, I couldn’t really believe what I was seeing. GB News is disreputable, certainly. But the level of derangement here is stunning. To deny that there’s a climate emergency, it’s no longer enough just to ignore scientists. Now you have to ignore the firsthand evidence that comes from just going outside. The ocean water around Florida is as warm as a hot tub, Antarctic sea ice is ‘dropping way below anything we have seen in our record,’ Mediterranean countries are being scorched by nightmarish wildfires, and in Arizona, you can end up hospitalized with burns just from touching the street. And yet Laurence Fox seems completely convinced that the climate emergency is a mere ‘theatrical device’ cooked up by the same powerful forces who previously brought us the hoax of COVID. And I know Fox is not alone.”
Making the interview even more surreal in hindsight was that Fox has since been fired from GB News for making disgusting misogynistic comments about a female journalist. On the same day, he was arrested for encouraging followers to destroy cameras meant to monitor the UK’s Ultra Low Emission Zones, where vehicles are required to meet certain efficiency standards… a demise that is about as fitting as it gets.
❧ Voting has ended in Madagascar’s presidential election, but the country remains in an uproar. As President Andry Rajoelina seeks another term in office, ten of the country’s most prominent opposition candidates have urged voters to boycott the election entirely, calling it a “fraud” and a “joke on Madagascar.” According to documents leaked in June, Rajoelina holds French nationality, having been naturalized in 2014 (apparently so his children could attend French schools.) By Madagascar’s law, this would mean he lost his original citizenship, and is no longer eligible to be President, making the entire election illegitimate. What’s more, Rajoelina first came to power in a coup d’etat in 2009—and at that time, the ousted president Marc Ravalomanana claimed that neo-colonial meddling by France played a key role, calling the new government “a group of bandits, led by Andry Rajoelina and supported by the French.” With the revelation that Madagascar’s President is not merely supported by the French, but is actually a Frenchman—at least on paper—protests have erupted, and polling stations were burned ahead of Thursday’s vote. No matter what result the eventual ballot counts bring, many will refuse to accept it, and Madagascar seems headed for difficult days ahead.
❧ The U.S. continues to be extraordinarily secretive about where it has deployed its thousands of troops in the Middle East. According to Ken Klippenstein in The Intercept, that secrecy is “not for security reasons, but to spare the host nations embarrassment.” For example, the presence of F-15s, which were used to strike at Iranian proxies in Syria, at the Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, has not been acknowledged despite the informal buildup of military hardware there being well-known since 2021. But when talking to the press, the Pentagon has described F-15s being bound for “an undisclosed location” despite geolocation being used to easily detect their presence at the Jordanian airbase, according to open-source researchers. Elias Yousif, a research analyst with the Stimson Center’s Conventional Defense Program, said, “Washington is trying to provide some plausible deniability to host countries at a time when association with the United States is coming to be seen as a political liability.”
⚜ LONG READ: Since early October, Israel has dropped 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, the equivalent of two nuclear bombs. The people who live there—more than half of whom have had their homes damaged—understand exactly how devastating such a bombardment can be. But for people who don’t live in Gaza, which is likely everyone reading this, it can often be difficult to grasp just how staggering the destruction is. A new article from Al Jazeera’s AJ Labs helps to put in perspective by showing what it would look like if the same destruction were wrought on some of the world’s largest cities:
New York City, United States
New York, colloquially known as the Big Apple, comprises five boroughs and covers an area of around 778sq km (300sq miles), making it twice the size of Gaza.
Gaza is about the same length as the distance between Bay Ridge and Yonkers and is about twice as wide as Manhattan.
To put some landmarks in perspective:
Yankee Stadium would be in Deir el-Balah
The Empire State Building would be in the centre of Gaza City
The Statue of Liberty would be in Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighbourhood
THE HASBARA MACHINE CONTINUES TO MALFUNCTION
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (or, “What’s going on with our politicians?”
❧ George Santos has decided not to seek reelection after the House Ethics Committee released a report detailing his “complex web of unlawful activity.” The report, which is unusually readable for a government document, basically confirms what we already knew: that Santos has been committing truly cartoonish amounts of fraud, and “blatantly stole from his campaign” on numerous occasions. In one particularly funny passage, we learn what happened to some of his donors’ money:
After the $50,000[…] was deposited into Representative Santos’ personal accounts, the funds were used to, among other things: pay down personal credit card bills and other debt; make a $4,127.80 purchase at Hermes; and for smaller purchases at OnlyFans; Sephora; and for meals and for parking. The ISC did not find evidence showing that the contributions received from Contributors 1 and 2 were used to support Representative Santos’ candidacy.
It’s worth noting that Santos isn’t actually being punished for being corrupt. In Congress, that’s common enough. Rather, he’s being punished for being corrupt badly. A Representative is supposed to launder things a little better, to make some effort to keep up appearances—not just transfer campaign money into a personal account and blow it all on luxury clothes and OnlyFans subscriptions. In an extremely long tweet, Santos blasted the report as a “disgusting politicized smear,” but says he won’t run for a second term in 2024. He might not get a chance, as Representative Michael Guest of Mississippi has filed a motion to expel Santos from the House, something that was already attempted earlier this month. This time, the effort may well succeed, and bring our most entertaining Congressman’s career to an ignominious end.
Please enjoy this clip of an interview in which Santos claimed to have never heard of OnlyFans, something which even Fox News’ Kennedy finds hard to believe.
❧ Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin tried to fight Sean O'Brien, the president of the Teamsters union, during a Congressional hearing. As if being named “Markwayne” wasn’t embarrassing enough, Mullin couldn’t control his temper on Tuesday, challenging O’Brien to “stand your butt up” and “finish it here” with a physical fight. Earlier in the year, O’Brien had taunted him as a “fraud” and “clown” on Twitter, and apparently the insults still sting. Sounding like a hassled gym teacher, Bernie Sanders had to break the scuffle up, reminding Mullin that “this is a hearing and God knows the American people have enough contempt for Congress.” But as Jarod Facundo points out in the American Prospect, opponents of organized labor like Mr. Mullin have good reason to be frustrated. The hearing’s main focus, after all, was on the gains the labor movement has made in the past year—including the Teamsters’ own landmark contract with UPS, the historic WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in Hollywood, and the UAW’s recent victories against GM, Ford, and Stellantis. In the face of that winning streak, people like Senator Markwayne only have empty bluster and aggression to fall back on.
CRAB FACT OF THE WEEK
Sand bubbler crabs can build themselves little dome-shaped houses!
Of course, it’s not unusual for animals to build structures of various kinds, from the beaver’s dam to the bowerbird’s elaborate nest— but sand bubbler crabs are truly impressive architects. On beaches throughout the Indo-Pacific region, they can be found scooping up sand in their claws, patting it firm into a wall, and repeating the process until they’ve built a dome above their heads. There, they’re safe and secure from the prying eyes of any would-be predator—if not from the galumphing feet of us humans. (Next time you’re on the beach, do be careful!)
Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Fact-checking by Justin Ward. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
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