Republicans Hate America 8: UAW, the Belvidere Illinois Assembly plant and revived Union Strength

In Union there is strength and Labor is prior to and independent of Capital.  - Abraham Lincoln or Karl Marx?

Republicans are furious they believed they had functionally killed Unions reducing them to a shell of their former selves via their Right-to-Work (For Less) Legislation and big Court rulings.

Here in Illinois for example, in the 2018 Janus Ruling, Republicans thought they had severed the roots of Union member solidarity and ushered in the slow withering of Unions.  It was only a matter of time before every worker would "choose" to not pay Union dues and Unions would slowly die.

TraitorTrump was a fan of the Janus Ruling as he's famous for not paying people who do work for him.

But, then the President Biden had to go and walk the picket line with the striking UAW members, and the stunned Corporate Media quickly tried to ham-handedly proclaim Actually BothSides love Union workers.

Well, the striking UAW has just won 3 successive victories for their members over the automakers, Ford, GM, and Stellantis.

Mr. Belvidere, site of the new Dodge Dakota

I drive past the Belvidere plant just south of Rockford occasionally and recall when the demonstration vehicles were removed from their little display hills in front.  Well now it's going to be a powerhouse for EV in Illinois;

“Eight months ago, Stellantis idled Belvidere Assembly Plant, putting 1,200 of our members on the street. From the strength of our strike, we are bringing back those jobs and more,” stated UAW Vice President Rich Boyer. “Stellantis is reopening the plant, and the company will also be adding over a thousand jobs at a new battery plant in Belvidere.”

According to the UAW, the new product at the plant will be a new mid-sized pickup truck. While many believed it would be a variant of the Brazilian-built compact Ram Rampage pickup, our sources have indicated that it could be a true successor to the popular Dodge Dakota.

UAW President Shawn Fain indicated that the new pickup would offer electrified and internal combustion engine (ICE) power. “We are bringing both combustion vehicle and battery jobs to Belvidere,” said Fain.

Shawn Fain is the type of Union leader we haven't seen in a while.  Every time he's been interviewed he stays on message and doesn't allow Corporate Media to interject their pro-plutocrat talking points into his interviews or get him to concede to their anti-Union stance. 

And this deal besides again showing President Biden's solidarity with Labor also highlights Governor J.B. Prtizker's continued leadership and investment in the people and state of Illinois,

With the announcement that United Auto Workers and Stellantis have reached a tentative agreement that’s good for workers and good for the state of Illinois, auto workers can get back on the job with higher wages, expanded benefits, and new and valuable opportunities in a growing industry.  

For over two years, I have been laser-focused on working toward a permanent solution in Belvidere that retains and grows good-paying jobs, while supporting economic development in the surrounding region. Since the plant was idled in February, we’ve provided support to furloughed auto workers, while concurrently leading a collaborative effort with local officials and legislators to craft aggressive incentives that position Illinois at the forefront of the EV manufacturing industry. Thanks to that collaboration and the passage of the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act and the Reimagining Energy and Vehicles Act, we are on the verge of significantly advancing that effort. 

I’ve been in constant contact with auto workers, Stellantis executives, UAW representatives, and the White House as the bargaining has unfolded, and I am delighted we are now on the verge of getting this done. I look forward to finalizing the state’s economic package and not only reopening the shuttered assembly plant in Belvidere to manufacture electric vehicles, but also co-locating a new battery production facility. This will be thousands of jobs, billions in investment, and a huge win for Illinois.

Once more Governor J.B. is everything the Corporate Media has tried to force us to believe Shrimpy Boots DeSantis is but, DeSantis is a Republican he hates America, his every policy has been to impoverish, harm, and kill people, while feeding his hateful degenerate base a steady diet of lies, bigotry, hatred, and racism.

The choice is clear; the Democratic Party and Leadership is for the American people and for a better standard of living while the Republican Party hates America; viscerally, intractability

Illinois: Land of Abortion

I would enjoy if the official moniker for Illinois was changed from Land of Lincoln to Land of Abortion and if the familiar abstract profile of President Lincoln became something else... But, that would shock and outrage the sensibilities!  This is because for a long, long time Abortion has been treated as a dirty secret, a moral outrage if not outright criminal in nature.  And it isn't.  Abortion is Healthcare.

The "Pro-Life" Movement is going to result in Quiverfulls of dead humans. Everyone knows the Anti-Reproductive rights and freedom movement which adopted the moniker "pro-life" has zero regard for mothers, children, or fetuses.  What they care about is dictating and controlling Women.

The Forced Birther Movement has claimed for years to be the Silent Majority but, when put to the voters by referendum, abortion bans always fail, as they did in Kansas or Michigan.  The American people don't want reproductive rights curtailed.  They don't want the restrictive religious laws imposed on them.  They don't want what Sam Alito is selling.  They don't want the Anti-Choice agenda.  Which is precisely why Republicans are forcing it upon them.

So, Illinois stands out as a state with Reproductive freedom and bulwark against the rapacious zealotry of bigoted Republican slavery.  And now the Illinois legislature has passed measure to stop the deceitful anti-abortion facilities from deceiving people seeking healthcare at a proper clinic.  The bill which passed the Illinois Legislature and will soon be signed by Governor J.B. Pritzker amends the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, which currently does not include health care professionals. It would apply the existing language to the abortion industry.

“This is literally giving and clarifying the authority of the attorney general in order to prosecute these cases where people are using misleading and deceptive practices in order to take women away from being able to actually get the abortion care that they are looking for,” State Senator Celina Villanueva.

Because we did not get to this point overnight.  The Republicans agenda of oppression and control of Women has been a long slow slog since 1973 and Roe.  And they never resigned themselves to settled law but chipped at the edges and crafted programs to undermine freedom all along the way.

One of those methods was the Pregnancy Crisis Center (aka "limited practice facilities") and its' workers; who falsely advertise services on websites.  This tactic is now no longer needed in a some states which have simply pushed through draconian anti-Abortion legislation but, in Illinois it's the prime method for curtailing women that rightwingers still possess.

"The attack on sidewalk counseling - actually trying to regulate the speech of people standing on a public sidewalk advocating against abortion - that is unique.  Here you have a real attempt to stop citizens from expressing themselves on a public sidewalk as they see fit."

"Sidewalk Counseling" is a hell of euphemism for shouting burn in hell slut and threatening to murder women who are going to an abortion clinic.  Of course, what these people also do is more nefarious as they often flag people down and pretend to be from the abortion clinic ask for the driver's license, and direct the person seeking care towards the anti-abortion clinic as though this is the real location for their appointment.

"There is nothing in this bill that limits speech, nothing at all,” lead bill sponsor Rep. Terra Costa Howard, D-Glen Ellyn, said while debating the bill. “‘Cause if you’re not lying, what do you have to worry about?”

What Peter Breen of the Thomas More Dead Women Society is arguing in his blinkered disingenuous way, that he and others of his ilk have a 1st Amendment right to lie and defraud people i.e express themselves as they see fit.  Because remember what evangelicals like Breen and so many others believe is their dishonesty is noble, as lying for Jesus washes away all crimes.

The Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 37: A lotta Illinois Policemen are suddenly gonna discover they have "Long Covid"

Police tend to be rightwing.  Police also tend to be incurious and incredulous.  So it's no coincidence you find a large portion of Police Officers were Covid denialists, as well as, Vaccine hesitant, anti-mask and vehemently against other mild Covid mitigation protocols.

But, Cops are also woe-is-me, cynical, lazy bums who literally invented "Quiet Quitting" decades ago under the name "The Blue Flu".  But, if we've seen anything from rightwingers over the years, it's that they don't actually abide by the values, rules, and ethics they supposedly cherish.

So, the news that Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed The Act-of-Duty Law (HB3162), which modifies the Illinois Police Pension code to address disability from Covid and post-Covid complications, will place these Officers in a ethical quandary,

(e) For the purposes of this Section only, any policeman

who becomes disabled as a result of exposure to and

contraction of COVID-19, as evidenced by either a confirmed

positive laboratory test for COVID-19 or COVID-19 antibodies

or a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 from a licensed medical

professional, shall:

(1) be rebuttably presumed to have contracted COVID-19

while in the performance of an act or acts of duty;

(2) be rebuttably presumed to have been injured while

in the performance of an act or acts of duty; and

(3) be entitled to receive a duty disability benefit

during any period of such disability for which the

policeman does not have a right to receive salary, in an

amount equal to 75% of the policeman's salary, as salary

is defined in this Article, at the time the disability is

allowed, in accordance with subsection (a).

The presumption shall apply to any policeman who was

exposed to and contracted COVID-19 on or after March 9, 2020

and on or before June 30, 2021; except that the presumption

shall not apply if the policeman was on a leave of absence from

his or her employment or otherwise not required to report for

duty for a period of 14 or more consecutive days immediately

prior to the date of contraction of COVID-19.

Ha ha ha!  Who am I kidding?  There will be no quandary!  What we're going to find is a bunch of Cops who previously dismissed, denied, or outright proclaimed Coronavirus to be a Hoax (despite Covid being the leading cause of Officer deaths for the last 3 straight years) will suddenly find they, in fact, had caught it between March 2020 and June 2021.  And these deniers will no doubt discover that their Long Covid is so severe will inhibit their performance of their duty as much as it impacted former Chicago Blackhawk player Jonathan Toews.

Now, of course, Cops are also miserly and petulant so even though Governor Pritzker has looked out for Law Enforcement he's a Democrat! and that's the worst thing ever, so expect all these jabroni's to collect their disability while grousing about Pritzker's toilets.