Miscellaneous
[Want to view/hear the full episode? Become a patron today!] A quick update in the post-failed-recall era: Governor Newsom in the last week has addressed three bills that needed signing on his desk, to mixed results. The good? He signed a bill targeting Amazon and protecting employees who want to take breaks--you know, like human beings. The bad? He's fucked farm labor unions who wanted to have vote by mail elections (you know, the kind that state Democrats celebrate in our primary and general elections). Now they're marching across the state to French Laundry, in hopes of finding and speaking with the multimillionaire governor. He also signed a bill tinkering with single-family zoning in the state, which is fine but by no means a game-changer for progressives. (See a list of Newsom's potential progressive bill signings here.) As we look forward to the start of the 2022 election cycle, it's profoundly important for socialists and progressives to identify which state Democrats have been disappointing at the Capitol, and to find real progressives to push them out of office. CalMatters's California Legislator Tracker is a good start in the process, and they plan to incorporate even more info in the future: How campaign contributions might influence lawmakers’ decisions How many gifts legislators receive from special interests Whether lawmakers are showing up for important votes This is the kind of thing folks need in a state where the GOP is fully neutered and the term 'Democrat' has become so broad it's lost its meaning. Keep an eye out for lefties like our friends at Dabyreak PAC, who are identifying the right folks to primary all the Democrats who aren't fighting for the people of California. Speaking of Democrats who are nowhere near as progressive as they deign to be, President Joe Biden's goons at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement have been caught abusing the 15,000 Haitians at the Texas border. The White House has said that they'll stop using ICE agents on horseback from now on, presumably because you can't whip other human beings from inside a car, but that doesn't mean that the human rights abuses are about to end any time soon.