We’re eight days out from the Iowa People’s Presidential Forum on Saturday, Sept. 21 from 12-5 p.m. CST. Leading presidential candidates will be in Des Moines, answering real questions from real people – members of People’s Action. Get your ticket or sign up to watch our livestream or host a house party, all for free. This is a no-stump zone: we’re flipping the script and challenging candidates to find out who the real people’s champion in 2020 will be.
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MORNING MESSAGE
It’s time. After months of preparation, the Iowa People’s Presidential Forum will be this Saturday, September 21, at noon in Des Moines. At Iowa CCI Action, we’re ready – buses from across the state are booked, and our questions are prepped. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Julián Castro, and Pete Buttegieg will all be there. Will you? But haven’t we already seen all of these candidates on the nightly news and heard their stump speeches? Our forum’s difference is people. Real people, real Iowans, and folks from across the Midwest asking real questions. People like Barb Kalbach, a fourth-generation family farmer and registered nurse who’s watched rural America has become a healthcare desert. And student Chris Simmons, who grew up in Newton, once the “washing machine capital of the world” until Maytag closed shop and moved jobs to Mexico, where they pay poverty wages. These are our members, who will draw on their lived experiences to ask the hard questions every presidential hopeful must answer if we are to find out if any one of them is up to the task. They are the People’s Action difference, and the ones who will make the Iowa People’s Presidential Forum a no-stump zone.
The Iowa People’s Presidential Forum, hosted by People’s Action and the Iowa CCI Action Fund, will be Saturday, September 21 from noon to 5 p.m. CST in Des Moines. Click here for free tickets to our livestream or to host a house party.
Saudi Strikes Explode Oil Prices
Saudi attacks send oil prices soaring. CNN: “Oil prices opened up Monday after the world’s largest oil processing plant in Saudi Arabia was attacked over the weekend. President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday that the US has “reason to believe that we know” who is responsible and they were ‘locked and loaded depending on verification.’ Yemen’s Houthi-run Al-Masirah news agency said Saturday that the rebels claimed the attacks, but neither the US nor Saudi Arabia is buying that.”
GM Workers Strike Nationwide
UAW hits GM with nationwide strike. CBS: “Some 46,000 members of the United Auto Workers went on strike early Monday, walking off General Motors factory floors and setting up picket lines as their midnight strike deadline came and went. Workers shut down 33 manufacturing plants in nine states across the U.S. as well as 22 parts distribution warehouses. It wasn’t clear how long the walkout would last, with the union saying GM has budged little in months of talks while GM said it made substantial offers including higher wages and factory investments. Talks were scheduled to resume at 10 a.m. EDT Monday. It’s the first national strike by the union since a two-day walkout in 2007.”
Oxycontin Maker Files For Bankruptcy
Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, files for bankruptcy. NYT: “Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, the drug widely seen as igniting the opioid crisis, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday night, a move at the center of the company’s efforts to shield itself and its owners from more than 2,600 federal and state lawsuits. The terms of the filing, which include a proposed resolution of most of those cases, are expected to be fiercely contested by a group of 26 states that have refused to settle with Purdue and are intent on pursuing the company’s owners, the Sacklers, considered one of the wealthiest families in the United States. A showdown in bankruptcy court in White Plains could come as early as this week. Restructuring the company through bankruptcy was at the heart of a tentative settlement agreement reached last week between the company and thousands of cities and counties that have sued it in federal court for its role in the opioid epidemic. Twenty-four states and five United States territories have also accepted the agreement.”
New Kavanaugh Allegations Emerge
The Kavanaugh revelations: Why the Supreme Court is broken. WaPo: “For the GOP, nothing will be allowed to derail its effort to create a generation-long conservative majority on the court. And that helps to explain why Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh was railroaded through his confirmation hearings last year after what amounted to a pretend inquiry into the various charges against him. The costs of this approach were underscored this weekend by a New York Times report that offers new corroboration for charges by Deborah Ramirez that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when both were undergraduates at Yale. In denying the charge, Kavanaugh told the Senate that had it been true, the incident would have been ‘the talk of the campus.’ Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly — drawing on their new book, ‘The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation’ — write tellingly: “’Our reporting suggests that it was.’”
Trump’s NLRB Faces Conflict Of Interest
Trump’s NLRB, Trying to Cut Protections for Millions of Temps and Fast-Food Workers, Trips Up Again. ProPublica: Trump’s NLRB, trying to cut protections for millions of temps and fast-food workers, trips up again. ProPublica: “The labor-relations board’s attempt to kill an Obama rule protecting third-party employees fizzled once because of a conflict of interest. Now, two representatives charge, there’s a new conflict and it involves the agency’s own use of temps. Under the Trump administration, the National Labor Relations Board has been trying to roll back an Obama-era decision that made companies more responsible for temporary staffers, fast-food-franchise workers and others who work for them indirectly. The first attempt was foiled in early 2018 when a Trump appointee to the board was found to have a conflict of interest. Now, as the NLRB tries to undo the rule for a second time, it’s facing questions from two Democratic representatives about another potential conflict of interest — and this one involves the NLRB’s own use of temporary staffers. In May, the labor board engaged a company called Ardelle Associates to supply lawyers and paralegals to help review public comments on the proposed overhaul of the provision in question, which is known as the ‘joint-employer rule.’”
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