As the Anti-Abortion Movement Terrorized Clinics, Pro-Choice Activists Took Matters Into Their Own Hands

Angela Hume
Tue, September 26, 2023 

“Stop Operation Rescue” poster, October 1988, by Joe and Agnes Sampson. Photo from Joe and Agnes Sampson’s personal collection. Photo illustration by Slate.

Adapted from Deep Care: The Radical Activists Who Provided Abortions, Defied the Law, and Fought to Keep Clinics Open by Angela Hume. AK Press, forthcoming Nov. 14, 2023.

Deep Care follows generations of activists and health workers who orbited Women’s Choice Clinic in Oakland, California, from the early 1970s until 2010, as they worked underground and aboveground, in small cells and broad coalitions. The book is grounded in interviews with activists sharing details of their work for the first time and reveals a story of the radical edge of the abortion movement. The following is an excerpt from Chapter 6: “Your First Line of Defense Is Self-Defense.”

By the mid-1980s, almost 90 percent of abortions were performed at stand-alone clinics, but it was getting harder to be a Feminist Women’s Health Center. (FWHCs were independent abortion and reproductive health care providers operated by feminist-identified laypeople.) The right wing that elected Ronald Reagan president in 1981 had worked throughout the 1970s to recruit and fold free-market conservatives and white Christians into a single, powerful base. By the 1980s, the far-right fringe of this new right wing produced a terroristic anti-abortion campaign. Violence hit Oakland Feminist Women’s Health Center, also known as Women’s Choice Clinic, close to home in 1985, when arsonists firebombed one of its sibling clinics in Los Angeles.

AK Press

How did the anti-abortion movement become such a levia­than? In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the movement mainly included white supremacists who, pointing to declining white birth rates, believed that legalized abortion would mean “race suicide” for white Protestants. Later, in the 1960s, leading up to the ruling on Roe v. Wade, the movement became a Catholic one too. After Roe, the church intensified its cru­sade against abortion, and other conservative groups joined in interpreting the ruling as a rejection of traditional values; newly galvanized, these other religious and interest groups joined the movement.

Starting in the 1970s, the anti-abortion movement began to push for laws that prohibited public funding for abortions. At the same time, Republican politicians were advocating that the government divest from families by slashing public ben­efits (welfare), further racializing poverty. The anti-abortion movement and Republicans in Congress came together to pass the Hyde Amendment, which in 1977 banned Medicaid reimbursements for abortion. The Republican anti-welfare campaign had come to imply an anti-abortion stance. And the implied equation of welfare and abortion—and the imperative to reject both—would animate the right for decades to come.

By the early 1980s, there had been bombings and arsons of clinics by anti-abortion terrorists nationwide. Anti-abortion aggression did not stop the FWHCs from providing services, but on the morning of April 8, 1985, arsonists attacked the L.A. clinic. No one was ever convicted, and the Los Angeles Fire Department never declared the fire to be arson, even though the health center had received threats.

Over the course of the 1980s, the United States lost almost 20 percent of abortion pro­viders. In the words of longtime Women’s Choice Clinic Director Linci Comy, the attacks were spearheaded by “very angry men.” “This was a fight about male superiority,” she told me. “And the worst of the right wing came out to join that struggle. Not only were they women haters, but they were queer haters. It was a Christian militia.”

To grasp what a feat it was for Women’s Choice to survive the war years, which started in the 1980s and escalated in the 1990s, you have to look at the lengths activists were willing to go to defend their clinics.

In January 1985, three months before the L.A. clinic firebomb­ing, a director at Women’s Choice named Pat Parker suggested to her comrades that they get serious about self-defense. She started a group to talk about how they should respond to the anti-abortion attacks. They named their group the Clinic Defense Committee and called for a “Bay Area–wide, broad-based coalition of support for reproduc­tive rights.” Not long after, the committee would rename themselves Bay Area Coalition Against Operation Rescue when the militant organization Operation Rescue came on the scene.

Operation Rescue would organize abortion clinic “hits” (as clinic defenders called them), in which hundreds of OR members would mob a single abortion clinic. So BACAOR members rose up, executing an unprecedented and mil­itant street response that reflected their under­standing that abortion access was a condition for everyone’s freedom and autonomy, and that clinic defense was community self-defense.

Sept. 17, 1988, was set to be Operation Rescue’s first big hit in the Bay Area. When I visited BACAOR member Kass McMahon at her home in Albuquerque, I spent a week rummaging through her plastic bins full of records and ephemera. Kass took copious notes over the years. She was a trained journalist, she explained to me, with a facility for documenting.

Early that September morning, 50 or so BACAOR mem­bers arrived at a clinic called Pregnancy Consultation Center in San Francisco to find hundreds of OR demonstrators blocking the doors. Arriv­ing in vans, the antis had descended upon the clinic well before sunrise and, in no time at all, blockaded the entrance to the mission-style medical building.

“They were fanned out in front of the door in layers,” Kass recalled. “The cops were there, too. They weren’t going to let us get anywhere near OR. And they weren’t going to help get OR out of the way, either.”

But BACAOR wasn’t about to concede—they used bull­horns to lead a noisy counterdemonstration and distracted OR with theatrics. A satirical street theater group called Ladies Against Women arrived dressed in conservative garb and held up signs that read “Every Sperm Is Sacred!” while singing the Monty Python hymn. “One of the things that made us successful was our use of visual activism to pierce the hypocrisy of OR,” Kass explained.

Despite BACAOR’s efforts, OR was indefatigable in its plan to shut down Pregnancy Consultation Center. It was hours later when police finally started carrying away and some­times arresting antis who were lying or sitting limply on the ground in front of the doors. What happened at Pregnancy Consultation Center rein­forced a core principle of BACAOR: You do not depend on the police.

The Sept. 17 hit infuriated and inspired clinic defend­ers to ramp up their response to OR. “BACAOR grew like a Jack-and-the-beanstalk after that,” Kass said. Dozens more people came to the next meeting. “The next time OR hit, we were ready. We had our tac­tics. We had a plan. This was no longer clinic watch. This was clinic defense.”

On a spring afternoon, two clinic defenders named Agnes and Joe (pseudonyms) had me over for a screen­ing. They’d been going through the BACAOR video tapes that they had created and found the noto­rious July 1989 “wedding scene,” an example of BACAOR on the offensive. I’d heard about the wedding, that it was a classic.

Joe hit play on his laptop, and the still image of a group of BACAOR protesters erupted to life. Young people of all genders marched in a tight circle in front of First Orthodox Presbyte­rian Church in San Francisco, chanting, “Racist, fascist, anti-gay! Born-again bigots, go away!”

Demonstrating in front of churches that hosted Operation Rescue was one of BACAOR’s new tactics, and Agnes had the idea that they could stage a mock wedding at this one. She and Joe had made some props and costumes, and to their delight, the group ran with it all. “BACAOR attracted creative types,” Agnes said. “They just made it up right there.”

In front of the church, people got acquainted with their props and into their roles; a young blond woman zipped her­self into the ratty old wedding dress Agnes had just found at a thrift store. It was crusted with dried red paint, especially in the crotch. Wedding attendees circled the bride and started pushing, pulling, and taunting her. They dangled red-painted wire coat hangers in front of her, some of which were strung with naked plastic babies. Some hooked the hangers onto the bride’s dress; others pulled at her dress, tearing it away from her body. The bride moaned, “Nooo!”

One wedding attendee led the group in a prayer:

I pledge obedience

To the men

Of Operation Rescue

And to the repression

For which they stand

One penis

Under God

With slavery and repression

For all women.

Everyone cheered.

When it was time for the ceremony, a man in a thrifted suit ­coat stood next to the disheveled bride. Someone assumed the role of minister and began: “We are here today to join this cou­ple.” Wedding guests threw bloody hangers at the bride while she screamed. One flamboyant guest interjected, “Get over it, honey! You’ll get used to it. Use a little K-Y! It won’t hurt so bad.”

The minister then commanded, “Take this woman, your law­ful wedded wife … and baby-making machine! I pronounce you man and property. You may impregnate the bride.” A member of the wedding party stepped forward and presented a red velvet pillow, on which there was a pair of handcuffs. The groom cuffed one of the bride’s wrists, and then one of his own.

Then wedding guests moved in on the bride and shoved her to her knees in front of the groom. “Do your duty! Do your duty,” they chanted. “Breed! Breed! Breed!” With a look of disgust, the bride started bobbing her head in what appeared to be a mock blow job. (Had this mock wedding really turned into a mock rape? Yes, it had.) Everyone was yelling and screaming. Guests contin­ued to pelt her with bloody hangers and plastic babies. Some started spanking the babies. The bride crawled around miserably.

“Not the church, not the state, we don’t want to procreate!” a BACAOR member started chanting, calling everyone back to cen­ter and ending the scene. Others joined in. “We won’t go back! We won’t go back! We won’t go back!”

In 1989, BACAOR was made up of lots of lesbians and queer folks. Inspired in part by the performative tactics of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), BACAOR embraced visuals and words that confronted and exposed the hypocrisy of its enemies. When its members were on the offense, demonstrating at Christian churches or in the streets, they used humor, camp, and satire.

What struck me most about BACAOR’s mock wedding was that it did not hold back in its representation of violence directed at the bride. “We were unruly,” a BACAOR member named Laura Weide said of the scene. It was too much. And in the “too much” lies the exposure. This is how the satire packed its punch: The moment when the mock wedding, which was bold and bawdy, escalated into a mock rape outside a church—when the satire becomes contemptuous, devastating, and total—was the moment of truth.

It’s difficult to go to these types of places and tell the truth: that the Christian right did (and does) subject women to violence by forcing marriage, heterosexual procreative sex, pregnancy, birth, and parenthood on them; and that this violence can be emotional, physical, sexual, or all three.

In our discussion of the scene, Agnes pointed out that the wedding captures what it might feel like to be a woman who becomes pregnant and doesn’t want to be—as if the whole world is pelting you with dangerous objects, including men and babies.

“It felt great,” she said of pulling off the scene. “There we were, in front of a church, the center of the oppression. And we were able to make just total vicious fun of them and their whole woman-hating thing. It felt good to say what it was really all about, which was women being stomped into the dirt.”

As Agnes’ comments suggest, the scene registers how per­sonal the movement was for clinic defenders. BACAOR had a political analysis, and its members also had lived experience. They were women who had had unplanned pregnancies themselves and who had experienced discrimination and policing by the medical insti­tution, churches, and the state. They were lesbians, gays, queers, and gender-nonconforming people who had been the target of homophobic and transphobic speech and violence. Their street theater reflected the emotional pain, exasperation, and outrage they harbored toward institutions that seemed hellbent on paci­fying, controlling, immiserating, and erasing them. As they wrote around the time of the mock wedding, “The attack on reproduc­tive rights is also an attack on sexual freedom, particularly for women, youth, and lesbians and gay men.”

“The only political statement I’ve ever heard that has more layers to it than ‘the personal is political,’ ” Kass said to me, “is ‘silence equals death’ ”—the message central to ACT UP’s cam­paign. BACAOR members were not afraid to allow their politics to be informed by their deepest, rawest wounds. And they were unwilling to stay silent.

The wedding was satirical improv street theater, but when you start to think about what women and queer and trans peo­ple were up against—especially with the Webster v. Reproductive Health Services decision coming down at that same time and mark­ing the beginning of the end of Roe—the irony starts to crumble. BACAOR did its work at the edge of this sinkhole.

Just as BACAOR worked to develop tactics to fight antis at clinic doors, it also started developing its intelligence arm. In the months that followed, BACAOR members started embedding themselves in OR to do opposition research.

A BACAOR member named Vanessa (pseudonym), an out lesbian and anarchist punk from New York, told me about a time she infiltrated OR. Vanessa’s aim was not to get intel about OR’s plans, but rather to shut down their meeting altogether so that they couldn’t announce the next day’s meeting spot.

The attempted shutdown hap­pened on a Friday night in fall 1989—a turbulent time. Earlier that year in March, at a BACAOR counter rally at St. Dominic’s Church, San Francisco police pepper-sprayed a group of protesters. In April, leading up to the Supreme Court’s Webster decision, which abortion defenders believed that the court could use to overturn Roe, tens of thou­sands of choice supporters took to the streets in San Francisco. Meanwhile, OR continued to escalate its attacks on clin­ics all around the Bay Area. The stakes felt high.

That Friday night, OR’s pre-hit rally was being held at a conservative church in Fremont. Vanessa and two other BACAOR members, Willow and Suki (pseudonyms), arrived at the church in ankle-length skirts. Vanessa had tucked her spiky blue mohawk beneath a wig of thick long hair. She wore a loose-fitting cardigan. She looked like a Christian white woman, or a slightly frumpy secretary.

Vanessa, Willow, and Suki smiled as steadily and widely as they could as ORs warmly welcomed them to the event and ush­ered them into the church. The rally opened with speeches by OR leaders. There was some singing, and then it was time for a skit. Out onto the raised altar came a flamboyant OR mem­ber dressed in a slim-fitting red costume with pointy horns and a red staff. “He started saying that he liked killing babies,” Vanessa recalled. “He kind of swished around on the stage. He was this gay pro-abortion devil. It was clear he loved getting to act gay. Obviously, he was gay.”

Next, OR started to “rile up the troops about babies.” The group screened a slideshow of fake images of mutilated fetuses while the crowd whispered and moaned. Clearly OR was getting ready to announce the approximate location of the next day’s hit. That was Vanessa and her friends’ cue.

The three took turns leaving their pew, staggering their exits so as not to draw too much attention. Long heat vents ran all along the bases of the church’s two side walls. Toward the back, Vanessa pulled a vial out of her sweater pocket and deposited a few drops into the vent. “We had access to some chemicals,” she explained. “Nothing that would hurt anyone. It basically just cre­ated a powerful stink bomb.”

The stink bomb was fast acting. Soon everyone was scream­ing and rushing out the doors. Just as Vanessa crossed the door’s threshold to the outside, a beefy security guard grabbed the back of her cardigan. “Somehow I managed to wriggle out of that sweater and kept running,” she recalled.

Outside the church, BACAOR was holding a counter rally. Vanessa and Willow tried to take cover with friends, but perhaps their secretary garb gave them away, because three cops soon approached and cuffed them. (Suki had taken off on foot.) The cops had Vanessa and Willow stand in the glaring floodlights. ORs swarmed them, eager to identify the perpetrators. “Is this your sweater?” one cop asked Vanessa. “Nope,” she replied. “I’ve never seen that sweater before in my life.”

Even so, Vanessa and Willow were shipped off to Santa Rita Jail, where they would spend the next five days. “We were banned from the entire city of Fremont for two years,” Vanessa told me after finishing the story. “And every time I would go to a defense, ORs would recognize me.”

“What do you think about the action now?” I asked her. Plant­ing a stink bomb at an OR church rally was, after all, one of the riskier offensive actions that BACAOR members took. Vanessa said, “The tactics that OR employed were dangerous to women: threats, screaming in women’s faces, sending in their thugs to beat up clinic defenders. … It took a real toll on a huge range of people—clients, clinic staff, activists, concerned people. I’d like to believe that some of the things we did to counteract those tactics helped convince OR that they had to change, that going to clinics and beating up on people was a bad idea. They had to be countered.” In Vanessa’s mind, she was giving OR a taste of its own terroristic campaign in the form of an inconvenience, or maybe a scare. Moreover, she pointed out, employing tactics that stood a chance of stopping OR from executing a hit was in alignment with BACAOR’s goals.

By that same fall, BACAOR had articulated its goals clearly in its printed materials: “We fight for abortion rights in the context [of] our demands for full reproductive freedom—to be educated about our reproductive options, to be free from forced or coerced sterilization or population control, and to be able to choose to have and to care for our children.” Its numbers had climbed to more than 2,000 people.

BACAOR was explicitly anti-fascist—certainly, it was a leading antifascist movement of its generation. Its philosophy was one of autonomous action: “We understand that we must rely on ourselves, not our elected officials, to defend and expand our freedoms.” In other words, as its members wrote, echoing the com­munity self-defense philosophy of the Black Panther Party: “Our first line of defense is self-defense.”

Later in 1990, BACAOR began to see OR numbers abate in the Bay Area, so it started sharing strategies with clinic defense groups cropping up around the region and country. Some BACAOR members helped organize a national clinic defense conference in March 1990 in Detroit. BACAOR changed its name to the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights to reflect its broader reproductive rights agenda.

The fact that OR mass blockades were dwindling in the Bay Area, at least for the time being, was a win for clinic defenders. But instead of mobbing clinic doors, OR members and other anti-abortion extremists who did show up to harass people at clinics tended to be the “more fanatical bands, mostly of men, who picket[ed] with overt hostility and direct physical combative­ness aimed at escorts.” Their enemy was evolving.

If you pre-order Deep Care from AK Press or a participating bookstore, $2 will go to Keep Our Clinics to help independent abortion clinics keep their doors open.

With spying charges behind him, NYPD officer now fighting to be reinstated

BOBBY CAINA CALVAN
Tue, September 26, 2023


Baimadajie Angwang is interviewed at the Law Office of John F. Carman, Esq., Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023, in Garden City, N.Y. Angwang, a suspended New York City police officer who had been accused -- then later cleared -- of spying for China is fighting to be reinstated, but the department wants him fired for refusing to be interrogated by the bureau of internal affairs exploring possible disciplinary action.

 (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — A suspended New York City police officer who had been accused -- then later cleared -- of spying for China is fighting to be reinstated, but the department wants him fired for refusing to be interrogated by the bureau of internal affairs exploring possible disciplinary action.

The fate of the officer, Baimadajie Angwang, now rests with an NYPD disciplinary judge who is considering arguments made before her Tuesday.

The police department argues Angwang should be fired for insubordination, saying he willfully disobeyed orders to submit himself to questioning in June. That came two months after Angwang filed a lawsuit against the city saying he was wrongfully arrested when he was taken into custody in September 2020 by authorities with guns drawn as he prepared to report for duty at his Queens precinct.

The U.S. Attorney's Office announced Jan. 19 that it was dropping all spying charges against the officer, saying prosecutors had uncovered new information warranting their dismissal. That ended a two-year ordeal for Angwang, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Tibet, who had been accused of spying on expatriate Tibetans in New York on behalf of officials at the Chinese consulate in the city.

Despite his long legal ordeal, Angwang said on the stand Tuesday that he still wants to rejoin the force.

“I still want to be a police officer. I still want to serve,” he said.

Angwang said he refused to appear at the June 5 questioning because he was advised that the order was unlawful because his new attorneys were denied additional time to confer with him and get up to speed with the case. Police also rejected requests for a witness list and other documents ahead of the hearing, which was to focus on any wrongdoing that warranted discipline because of his interaction with Chinese officials in New York.

The lawyer representing the police department, Penny Bluford-Garrett, argued that “taking orders” was part of the job, and that the department’s internal affairs bureau “can investigate you for anything.”

The U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn had initially claimed that Angwang began working as an agent for China in 2018 and was secretly supplying information on Tibetans pushing for their homeland’s independence from the communist government. It said he had worked to locate potential intelligence sources and identify potential threats to Chinese interests.

Tibet has been an especially sensitive issue for communist China.

There was no allegation that Angwang compromised national security or New York Police Department operations.

Angwang, 37, was assigned to an NYPD precinct in Queens as a community liaison.

“Does he deserve to lose his job? The answer to both questions is absolutely not,” said his lawyer, Michael Bloch.

Instead, he said, the department should say, “Thank you for your service, sir, and welcome back.”

Angwang’s lawyers, however, contend that the interrogation was a setup to entrap the officer, despite having his federal case dropped by the Justice Department earlier. An internal affairs lieutenant testified that he had prepared a list of 1,700 questions for Angwang.

Angwang was first notified on May 17 to appear five days later for questioning. But his attorney got a postponement until June 5, giving Anwang time to find new attorneys.

Police marksman who shot dead gangster faces sack despite being cleared

Martin Evans
Wed, September 27, 2023 

Jermaine Baker was shot dead in Wood Green, north London, but officer W80 was cleared of wrongdoing

A Metropolitan Police firearms officer who shot dead a gangster eight years ago faces being sacked despite being cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, The Telegraph can reveal.

The marksman, known as W80, shot dead 28-year-old Jermaine Baker in a police operation in December 2015 as Baker was preparing to spring two prisoners from Wood Green Crown Court, in north London.

He was not charged in connection with the death, but now the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is set to announce that W80 will face a gross misconduct hearing that could result in him being sacked.

The announcement is likely to further inflame tensions within the Metropolitan Police’s firearms command, coming a week after another officer, known as NX121, was charged with murder for the shooting of Chris Kaba.


About 300 armed officers laid down their weapons at the weekend and Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, has admitted that London is currently less protected than normal.

At one stage the military was put on standby to cover for counter-terrorism officers who were refusing to carry guns and Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, announced a review into armed policing.



The IOPC announcement relating to W80 could come as soon as Thursday, The Telegraph understands.

One source within armed policing said: “The timing of this announcement is unfortunate to say the least. There are thousands of firearms officers right across the country contemplating their future right now.

“Not only do they risk being charged with murder when things go wrong, but even if they are cleared by the courts they could still be sacked for gross misconduct.

“The system is unfair and it doesn’t make any sense. How can you be cleared of wrongdoing by one system but found guilty in another?

“Nobody is saying we shouldn’t be accountable for our actions, but there has to be some consistency so we know where we stand. If things don’t change then I’m afraid nobody is going to want to do the job and we are going to have a major crisis on our hands.”
Supreme Court sides with police watchdog

While Baker was not holding a weapon when he was shot, an imitation Uzi submachine gun was recovered from the rear of his car. W80 later said he believed Baker had been reaching for a firearm when he opened fire.

A public inquiry later concluded that Baker had been lawfully killed, despite identifying a string of police mistakes in the planning of the operation.

Within days of the incident, the officer was arrested and investigated by the IOPC on suspicion of murder.

Under criminal law, police officers can claim self-defence if they can show they had an honestly held belief – even if that was mistaken – that their life was in danger.

In June 2017, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that there was not a realistic prospect of conviction and the officer would not face criminal charges.

But the IOPC recommended that W80 face a gross misconduct hearing because disciplinary offences are based on the civil test that states an honest but mistaken belief must also be “reasonable”.

The Metropolitan Police disagreed with the decision and took the case to the Supreme Court to try to have it overturned.

It argued that the criminal threshold ought to be applied in both cases. However, in July the Supreme Court rejected the appeal and sided with the IOPC.

Following the walkout by firearms officers at the weekend, Mrs Braverman announced a review into armed policing.

Sir Mark also published an open letter calling for the subjective criminal law test for self-defence to be applied in misconduct cases. He said: “One simple test will avoid delay, simplify the process and provide better protection for the public.”



The fact that the W80 case has still not been concluded almost eight years on from the incident has also caused grave concern, with Sir Mark appealing for the legal and disciplinary processes to be speeded up to provide more confidence for all concerned.

In his open letter, he wrote: “In the small proportion of cases where officers have acted improperly, the system needs to move swiftly and assertively to deal with them, rather than tying itself in knots pursuing good officers through multiple legal processes over many years. This saps the confidence of all officers to act against criminals.”

The officer known as NX121 is expected to stand trial next year and a hearing to determine whether he can be identified will take place at the Old Bailey next week.

In India-Canada row, a tug toward faith

Christian Science Monitor's Editorial Board
Wed, September 27, 2023

A bit of shocking news last week forced much of the world to study up on a long-simmering rift in India. Canada accused the Indian government of killing a Canadian citizen near Vancouver who was a prominent activist for an independent Sikh state in his native homeland. While much of the focus has been on Sikh separatists and the diplomatic fallout for India, another spotlight turned on Punjab, the Indian state where Sikhs are in the majority.

There the separatist sentiments that fueled a decade of violence between Sikhs and the state half a century ago have significantly diminished. Instead, many of today’s Sikhs are bridging divides, joining hands with Hindus to restore historic Muslim mosques in Punjabi villages. Some of the funding comes from Sikhs living abroad. Sikh and Hindu families have donated land where new mosques now stand.

These projects – more than 165 so far, according to one Islamic association’s count – demonstrate that religions can lay a foundation for unity by practicing their shared tenets, such as meekness and sincerity. “This kind of brotherhood should prevail across India,” Mohammad Mursalin, a resident of the Punjabi village of Kutba Bamaniya, told Religion Unplugged. “Love must be nurtured, and animosity must dissolve. ... All religions emphasize love; none advocate hate.”

The mosque-building marks a healing counterpoint to the lingering tense relations between Sikhs and India’s nationalist Hindu government. Many Sikhs living abroad still worry they are being surveilled by Indian intelligence services, yet even “hard-core faith groups” in the Sikh diaspora have become apolitical, says Gurharpal Singh, an emeritus professor at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. The reason for that shift is significant. “They’ve become much more spiritually oriented,” he told The New Yorker last week.

That coincides with a prevailing sense of spiritual accommodation at home. A comprehensive Pew Research poll on religious tolerance in India in 2021 found that 95% of Sikhs feel very proud to be Indian. Some 70% of Sikhs said a person who disrespects India cannot be a Sikh, while 82% of Sikhs said they feel very free to practice their religion.

As new mosques rise, the community affections they represent may be aiding calls for a formal process of reconciliation to address the violence against Sikhs during the 1980s, especially now amid rising Hindu nationalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Erasing communal divisions, wrote Dharamvira Gandhi, a Hindu former member of Parliament from Punjab, in a newspaper opinion piece, requires repentance, forgiveness, “large-heartedness and broad-mindedness.” Those qualities are consistent with Sikhism’s core tenets of equality, humility, and love-inspired service to others.

It isn’t just mosques. The unity felt in many Punjabi communities has led to shared religious festivals and joint restoration projects of historically significant Hindu and Sikh temples. Such actions are solvents for the fears and suspicions that now have set two democracies at odds with each other.

csmonitor.com


‘Whether it costs our lives or not’: killing of Canadian Sikh leader reignites historic fight

Leyland Cecco in Toronto and Sarah Berman in Vancouver

THE GUARDIAN
Wed, September 27, 2023 at 4:30 AM MDT·6 min read
118



Photograph: Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters


Yellow and blue smoke filled the air as protesters in Vancouver tried setting fire to a damp Indian flag. As the flame eventually took hold, people in the crowd waved Sikh separatist flags and chanted calls for the expulsion of India’s top diplomat in Canada.

Tuesday’s protest outside a heavily guarded Indian consulate came a week after Justin Trudeau, the prime minister, told parliament his government had seen “credible allegations” that India was responsible for the fatal shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Canadian Sikh leader.

Related: ‘Very messy’: India-Canada row over Sikh killing causes diplomatic shock waves

Amid the pounding of drums and shouts from protesters, the activist Harkeerat Kaur told the crowd that Nijjar’s final words to temple worshippers had been a plea to participate in an upcoming vote calling for an independent Sikh homeland, Khalistan: “[He] stated … we should vow to participate in the peaceful Khalistan referendum. We believe in the ballot.”

Since his death in June, Nijjar has been praised by his community as a martyr – and labelled a terrorist by India. The feuding over his legacy, and mounting concern over what Canada’s government claims was an extrajudicial murder on its soil, has refocused attention on Canada’s Sikh diaspora, their longstanding grievances with India – and the Sikh separatist cause.

Canada is home to the largest Sikh community outside India. Despite a long and layered history in the country, many Canadian Sikhs identify with a sense of historical mistreatment at the hands of both British colonial and post-independence governments in India, said Satwinder Bains, the director of South Asian studies at the University of the Fraser Valley. “They’ve felt those frustrations have never been resolved through the justice system, nor through a parliamentary system. They feel like they’ve tried everything,” she said.

Over generations, some have cultivated hope that Sikhs might one day claim a portion of the Punjab region as their own.

That dream has a long – and violent – history. Beginning around partition in the 1940s, the movement transformed into an armed insurgency in the 1980s, under the leadership of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

The Indian flag is torn during a protest outside India’s consulate in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on 25 September 2023. Photograph: Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters

In 1984, the Sikh leader, who stood accused of orchestrating a series of attacks on Hindus in Punjab, sought refuge in Amritsar’s Golden Temple alongside other militants.

The Indian army ordered Operation Blue Star, an attack that led to the killing of 400 Sikhs in the temple, many of whom were pilgrims. In retaliation, the bodyguards for Indira Gandhi, the prime minister, shot her dead, triggering anti-Sikh pogroms that killed more than 3,000 people, with little consequence for the attackers.

“It was a horrific time. And in those moments, the idea of Khalistan, of a safe haven for Sikhs, really meant something,” said Neilesh Bose, an associate professor of history at the University of Victoria.

In 1985, Khalistani militants in Canada targeted two Air India flights, widely seen as revenge for Operation Blue Star. A bomb on Air India flight 182 exploded off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people onboard, including 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens and 24 Indian citizens in the worst act of aviation terrorism before the September 11 attacks. The second bomb exploded in the Tokyo airport, killing two baggage handlers. The attacks led to discrimination against Sikh men, identifiable by their turbans, even though many had little interest in the Khalistan cause.

“Punjabi Sikhs in Canada were often seen as enemies of the state, targeted by police and seen as responsible for this attack,” said Bose, adding that both the bombings and public backlash changed how the Sikh diaspora saw itself in the broader Canadian public. “These events – 1984, the Air India bombing – they’re inescapable for so many in the Sikh community. Everybody lives in this context of these moments, and these inescapable legacies.”

The Khalistan movement is banned in India, but in Canada generations of Sikh activists have freely advocated for an independent homeland. While political leaders have emphasised the right to free speech and expression in Canada, they have also long courted the Sikh community as a powerful voting bloc.

That has prompted frustration in India, which has accused Canada of turning a blind eye to extremist Khalistani activity and refusing to act on information about potential threats. Before the Air India bombing, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) failed to act on intel from India about plots against airliners, and successive Canadian governments have refused extradition requests of Sikh activists from India.

Indian authorities allege Nijjar was among the Khalistani activists involved in terrorist activity on Canadian soil. They have accused him of organising an arms training camp for Sikh extremists in British Columbia in 2016, being involved in a plot to assassinate a Hindu priest and police officers in Punjab and heading a banned militant organisation, the Khalistani Tiger Force. The allegations, which he denied, were not investigated by the Canadian authorities and remain unproven.

It remains unclear how popular the Khalistan cause is within Canada’s Sikh population. For some, the movement is forever tainted by violence and the painful legacy of the Air India bombing. For others, it represents a powerful way to counter India’s Hindu nationalist government and the growing persecution of religious minorities.

Already this year, thousands in Ontario and British Columbia have cast ballots in a Khalistan referendum, a global diaspora effort as Sikh activists attempt to unify the disparate groups and co-ordinate pressure on the Indian government.

Demonstrators rally in support of Khalistan outside the Indian consulate in Toronto on 25 September 2023. Photograph: Cole Burston/AFP/Getty Images

The ballots come as a younger generation has grown more emboldened and provocative. In June, a Sikh group in the city of Brampton prompted outrage with a parade float depicting the assassination of Indira Gandhi, which included a blood-splattered effigy of the murdered leader.

On posters for the referendum championed by leadership at the Guru Nanak gurdwara where Nijjar was shot dead, his image appears alongside a photo of the architect of the Air India bombing.

Such incidents have infuriated India. But the brazen murder of Nijjar – which reportedly involved at least six men who fired around 50 bullets – is only likely to sow further mistrust and resentment among a new generation of Sikhs.

Related: ‘His spirit is still among us’: Sikhs defiant in Canada city where activist was murdered

“These are Canadian-born children. They may never have set foot in Punjab,” said Bains. “But through their parents’ or grandparents’ eyes, they have seen the pain, the anger and hurt. And those feelings have been exacerbated over the years because there has been no justice and no closure.”

Indervir Singh, 36, who attended Monday’s rally, said that Nijjar’s death in June and Trudeau’s subsequent allegations are only a reminder of the escalating human rights abuses in India.

“I’m born here. Ever since I was a kid you heard about the atrocity in 1984 when the government killed thousands of innocent people,” Singh said. “We’ve always been rallying against that, fighting against that, and trying to get justice for that.”

Singh said he joined protests in support of Sikh farmers in 2021, but had largely been ambivalent about the pro-separatist movement. “Personally I didn’t really think about it, nor was I supporting it,” he said. “But now that this happened, I think from a sovereignty perspective we’re demanding that.”

While he doubts independence could ever be achieved in India, he said: “As Sikhs we’re known to fight against injustice – whether it costs our lives or not.”
View comments (118)

US senator wants JetBlue CEO to answer if Spirit deal will hike air fares

Updated Wed, September 27, 2023 



By David Shepardson

(Reuters) -U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has asked JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes to answer if the low-cost airline privately forecast its planned $3.8 billion merger with Spirit Airlines will dramatically hike air fares, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

Warren, a Democrat, cited reports that court documents suggested internally JetBlue had estimated fares on Spirit planes "could go up by as much as 40%," following the merger.

Warren said in the previously unreported letter that if accurate the documents "reveal that you have misled the public about the impacts of your merger – and they reveal that the merger will result in higher costs and reduced service for airline passengers."

The documents were filed by lawyers suing to block the merger on behalf of private travelers. The information Warren cited had been redacted, but remained visible on the documents.

JetBlue said the reported claims do "not reflect facts set out in JetBlue documents." The carrier said the 40% figure was plaintiffs' "spin on confidential evidence" and that "the factual evidence ... will demonstrate that JetBlue intends for the merger with Spirit to increase competition and help lower fares across the board."

Warren also asked if JetBlue documents show "Spirit’s exit from a route results in market-wide price increases of all other airlines serving that route by 30%." She also sent a copy of the letter to Spirit CEO Ted Christie.

A judge has set an Oct. 16 non-jury four-week trial in a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit seeking to halt the JetBlue acquisition. The Justice Department challenged the deal, saying it would eliminate competition, lead to higher ticket prices, reduce passenger capacity and shrink consumer choices.Hayes told Reuters in March that JetBlue will still serve Spirit customers buying very low-cost tickets and rejected the idea fares will go up.

"I fully recognize that very price-conscious customer and it's very important that the larger JetBlue continues to cater and provide a service to that customer and we absolutely will," Hayes told Reuters.

(Reporting by David ShepardsonEditing by Chris Reese and David Gregorio)

3 Questions for Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell about the UAW strike, Trump and working-class voters

Trump and Biden are vying for blue-collar support in the Upper Midwest.

Alexander Nazaryan
·Senior White House Correspondent
Updated Wed, September 27, 2023

: U.S House of Representatives via Reuters, Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Rep. Debbie Dingell is a veteran of Michigan politics and, as a leading Democrat in the House of Representatives, she is always concerned that her party is not taking seriously enough Midwestern voters and the issues that matter to them.

On Wednesday, she spoke to Yahoo News in advance of former President Donald Trump’s visit to an automotive parts dealer outside Detroit. Trump’s trip there coincides with the second Republican primary debate; it also comes a day after President Biden joined striking United Auto Workers members on the picket line in a show of solidarity.

President Biden is greeted by Rep. Debbie Dingell, center, Shawn Fain, top left, president of the United Auto Workers, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, lower left, at the airport in Romulus, Mich., Sept. 26. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) (Evelyn Hockstein / reuters)
Yahoo News: You famously warned the Democratic candidate in 2016, Hillary Clinton, that she needed to devote more time to the Upper Midwest, and Trump went on to carry many of those key swing states. Are you concerned that this time around, with a reinvigorated Trump, that danger could return?

U.S. President Joe Biden joins striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) on the picket line outside the GM's Willow Run Distribution Center, in Belleville, Wayne County, Michigan, U.S., September 26, 2023. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) (Evelyn Hockstein / reuters)

Dingell: I want to be really clear: Michigan is not a blue state, contrary to what everybody thinks. We are a purple state.


President Trump is very good at understanding people’s concerns and anxieties. He uses wedge issues. This is a man who is all words, no action. He is not going to fight for union workers.

Read more on Yahoo News: In UAW strike, Trump pretends to support workers. He's used to stabbing them in the back. (Opinion), from USA Today
Could President Biden, by accelerating and emphasizing the transition to electrical vehicles, pay a political price, even if that transition is an inevitability?

President Donald Trump, second from right, gets a demonstration of an electric pickup truck on the South Lawn of the White House, Sept. 28, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) (Carlos Barria / reuters)

We got to do a better job of standing up and talking about why it matters. We have to make sure that the federal dollars that were invested in that transition are getting to the workers. We have to make sure that the workers are being taken care of.

We just have to make sure we are telling our story and not letting fearmongering win.

Words, not actions.

The president knows this.

Read more on Yahoo News: Biden addresses UAW concerns amid EV transition, from Politico
Union leadership supports President Biden. But is the cultural appeal of Trump more persuasive to the rank and file?


Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, with President Biden and striking autoworkers at the GM Willow Run Distribution Center in Belleville, Mich., on Tuesday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) (Evelyn Hockstein / reuters)

I don't lie. People know I'm in union halls. We have to communicate with workers. They need to know we're fighting for them.

I don't just go to union halls because suddenly there's a strike and there might be a camera around. I sit with these workers all the time. I want them to know that somebody cares about them. And when they see Joe Biden like they did yesterday, they know that he really does stand with them.

But this isn't going to be a slam dunk.

Read more on Yahoo News: Biden urges striking auto workers to 'stick with it' in picket line visit unparalleled in history, from Associated Press

UAW Fight Against Billions in Buybacks Forces Investor Rethink

Esha Dey
Tue, September 26, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Among the sticking points highlighted by United Auto Workers on strike are the billions of dollars Detroit’s legacy carmakers have plunged into stock repurchases.

Now, as the strike extends into its second week, some investors say they’re willing to forgo those coveted share buybacks as the companies face soaring labor costs over the next several years. The UAW is asking General Motors Co., Stellantis NV and Ford Motor Co. for significant pay raises and other concessions in their next four-year contract.

“The companies have room to go higher than their current offer,” said Patrick Kaser, a portfolio manager for Brandywine Global, which has a stake in GM as part of its $54 billion in assets under management as of June 30. “If they pause the buyback because they need to invest in an attractive longer-term plan, that is fine.”

Buybacks are popular with investors and often viewed as signs of management optimism and a healthy balance sheet. They typically result in a short-term boost to the stock price because fewer shares are available in the market.

Labor organizations say companies use buybacks to manipulate stock prices and to reward already wealthy investors, including executives who own shares. Mike Booth, vice president of the UAW, wrote in an op-ed last week that buybacks are “lavishing Wall Street with the results of our labor.”

GM says it has repurchased $14.2 billion in common stock since it returned to the public market in 2010. “We’ve used buybacks and dividends like a great many other companies to return capital to our owners after we’ve invested for growth,” said spokesman Jim Cain.

Stellantis announced in February that it planned to buy back as much as €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in shares this year after posting record full-year results. The company said it also would redistribute more than €2 billion to its employees globally.

“Whatever the past, we consider that it is possible to pay fair wages, invest in the future and provide strong returns for shareholders to the extent that the company’s performance is preserved in the interest of all stakeholders,” Stellantis said in a statement. The company declined to elaborate on its buyback strategy.

Ford bought back $3.5 billion in shares from 2012 to 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, though the company — especially the founding Ford family that controls its super-voting shares — prefers to issue dividends. Ford declined to comment.

Read More: Ford Family Awaits Windfall as Carmaker Joins Dividend Revival

“There is probably a happy medium where you maybe can stop share buybacks for some time and share that equity with labor and not just shareholders,” said Brian Mulberry, a client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management, which owns Ford shares and manages $15 billion in assets.

Scrapping or cutting the dividend, on the other hand, is a non-starter for shareholders. Ford’s annual dividend yield is about 4.8%.

“I do not see an appetite for decreased dividend yield,” Mulberry said. “If interest rates stay over 5% next year, that dividend yield will be important for investors.”

Reducing dividends to conserve cash could trigger a big slide in the share prices, investors said. Discontinuing payouts altogether would force the stocks out of dividend index funds, pressuring them further.

“A dividend cut will be a very bad sign,” Kaser said. “Stopping or cutting them will really be a statement that the companies don’t have extra cash.”

Historic Strike

On Sept. 15, the UAW began its first-ever walkout at plants operated by all three Detroit carmakers. A week later, the union expanded the strike to 38 more GM and Stellantis plants. Ford was spared an escalation after making progress in the negotiations.

Read More: What’s at Stake as US Autoworkers’ Strike Drags On: QuickTake

A prolonged strike would be expensive and disruptive. It also creates uncertainty, which typically doesn’t sit well with shareholders. GM and Ford lost a combined $20 billion in market value in the two months leading up to the UAW contract expiration.

A 40-day strike against GM in 2019 — the longest since the 1970s — cost the company about $3.6 billion in earnings before interest and taxes, according to RBC Capital Markets. The strike dented revenue at parts suppliers and had a ripple effect on the local economy.

“These labor pressures put legacy US manufacturers at a clear disadvantage. This is why we don’t own them,” said Ivana Delevska, chief investment officer at Spear Invest, which has $10 million in assets under management.

--With assistance from Keith Naughton, David Welch, Gabrielle Coppola and Albertina Torsoli.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Biden campaign slams Trump’s ‘incoherent’ Michigan speech

Alex Gangitano
Wed, September 27, 2023 

Biden campaign slams Trump’s ‘incoherent’ Michigan speech

President Biden’s reelection campaign called former President Trump’s speech in Michigan “incoherent” and said that workers aren’t buying his attempts to woo them.

“Donald Trump’s low-energy, incoherent ‘speech’ at a non-union factory in Michigan was a pathetic, recycled attempt to feign support for working Americans. Americans have seen him try this before and they aren’t buying it,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said.

Trump gave an address in Michigan as counterprogramming to Wednesday’s GOP debate, where he called out what he views as a flawed and failing auto industry under the Biden administration. He criticized the White House on policies on China and electric vehicles and argued that employees are worse off under Biden.

Trump gave the address in Michigan, ground zero for strikes launched this month by the United Auto Workers (UAW). The former president sees blue-collar voters as a constituency he can win from Biden in a rematch of their 2020 presidential race; Trump won Michigan in 2016 before losing it to Biden in 2020.


The Biden campaign pushed back on Trump’s criticism, saying he left office with fewer jobs than when he entered office and arguing that he sent jobs overseas. Unemployment fell for most of Trump’s presidency before spiking during the pandemic lockdowns that began in March 2020.

“They know who Donald Trump really is: a billionaire charlatan running on empty words, broken promises, and lost jobs. Under Trump, the ultra-wealthy and big corporations got richer, and American families paid the price. He left office with fewer jobs than when he entered. He created incentives for companies to ship manufacturing overseas. And, he let China get ahead in the race to the future,” Munoz said.

The campaign also sent news headlines about billionaires paying less taxes under the Trump administration and about broken promises to Midwest factory workers that companies wouldn’t move jobs overseas.

“We all remember, and Americans won’t forget come November 2024,” Munoz said.

Biden joined the UAW picket line Tuesday, marking a first-of-its kind moment for a sitting president.

The UAW has not yet endorsed Biden in 2024, saying in May that it has concerns over the White House’s focus on EVs — a policy Trump repeatedly hit Biden over as the reason the workers went on strike in the first place.

 The Hill.


Trump goes on incoherent and incorrect rant on electric vehicles as he skips out on second GOP debate

Graeme Massie
Wed, September 27, 2023 

Donald Trump went on an incoherent and inaccurate rant about electric cars as he gave a speech to a non-union auto parts factory in Michigan and avoided the second Republican debate.

The former president visited the 2024 battleground state the day after Joe Biden joined the United Auto Workers union picket line to support striking workers there.

Mr Trump accused the president of a “cruel and ridiculous” policy on electric vehicles that would be the death of the American car industry, despite Tesla being the highest-valued company in the industry,

He told workers at Drake Enterprises, an automotive manufacturing plant in Clinton Township, that EVs were actually bad for the environment.

“People have no idea how bad this is going to be for the environment, you know those batteries when they get rid of them, and lots of bad things happen, and when they dig it out of the ground to make them, is going to very bad for the environment,” he claimed.

“Why aren’t these manufacturers making cars that are going to sell and go on long journeys? They want windmills all over the place. It is like they are told what to do and go against their industries.”

And he warned: “The electric vehicles are going to put you out of business, the things you make in Michigan they don’t need anything of it.”

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks to guests during a campaign stop at Drake Enterprises, an automotive parts manufacturer, on September 27, 2023 in Clinton Township, Michigan. (Getty Images)

Mr Trump claimed that the Biden administration wanted high gasoline prices to force Americans to buy EVs.

“They want it (high gas prices) so you go all electric so you can drive for 15 minutes before you need to get it charged,” he said.

Then he claimed that EVs, which have ranges of 300 to 500 miles, could only be used on short journeys.

MAGA PROPOGANDA POSTERS

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Drake Enterprises, an automotive parts manufacturer, on September 27, 2023 in Clinton Township, Michigan. (Getty Images)

“These are built specifically for people who want to take extremely short trips…it is crazy, they say the happiest day you buy an electric car is the first 10 mins you drive it then panic sets in and you think where the hell am I going to charge this thing,” he said.

Mr Trump said that he supported anyone who wanted to buy an EV, but that they should not be made mandatory in America.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump tours Drake Enterprises, an automotive parts manufacturer, before speaking to guest at a small rally on September 27, 2023 in Clinton Township, Michigan. (Getty Images)

And he quickly returned to his bizarre criticisms of the vehicles.

“Right now electric cars don’t go far enough and they are far too expensive, people are not going to be able to afford them and the cost of operation is also much more.”

Trump rips into Biden as he seeks to woo Michigan autoworkers

Hanna Trudo
Wed, September 27, 2023 



Former President Trump dug into President Biden on Wednesday in a bid to woo autoworkers in Michigan, a state he lost last election, as his GOP rivals gathered across the country for the second presidential primary debate in Simi Valley, Calif.

Trump, speaking in Clinton Township, a suburb of Detroit, wasted no time before bashing the incumbent president on what he views as a flawed and failing auto industry under the Biden administration, criticizing the White House on everything from China and NAFTA to electric vehicles.

“A vote for Crooked Joe means the future of the auto industry will be ‘Made in China,’” Trump said to a lively audience.

Trump was addressing a raucous crowd who cheered as he sought to draw policy contrasts with Biden — whom he hopes to face as the next Republican presidential nominee — while throwing personal jabs at the Democratic president.

“Crooked Joe Biden is back like a wretched old vulture trying to finish off his prey,” Trump said roughly 20 minutes into his speech.

Trump’s event comes after Biden sought this week to court members of the United Auto Workers union, taking the unusual step of joining striking members on the picket line. Biden announced he would head to the battleground state after Trump announced plans to do the same.

In contrast with Biden’s optimistic tone for frustrated workers, Trump painted a grim picture about what their future could look like under another term for Biden, “radical” Democrats, “environmental lunatics,” and “left-wing crazies,” as he referred to his political opponents.

The event kicked off the unofficial start to the 2024 cycle for working class voters in a part of the Midwest that’s critical to assembling a winning coalition.

“The auto industry is being assassinated,” Trump said. “They’re going to be closing up and building those cars in China and other places. It’s a hit job on Michigan.”

Trump spent a portion of his speech outlining the ways in which he believes employees are worse off under Biden as he pivoted to acknowledge the “suffering of the American factory workers.”

“You’re losing your way of life,” he said emphatically, further contending that jobs and whole industries in the United States are being shredded while Biden is serving as commander in chief.

He also said that Biden has made America’s standing on the national stage weaker, promising that the country will have a renewed sense of credibility under a second Trump term.

“The whole world is laughing at us,” he said. “Give me four more years and I will give you an end to this horrible globalism that’s killing our country.”

The former president, who has sustained two impeachments and is currently undergoing multiple indictments as the GOP front-runner, also made several campaign pledges in an attempt to energize voters.

“I will unleash a thing called American energy,” Trump said while outlining more ways that he would distinguish himself from Biden. “I will be your protector, I will be your advocate,” he pledged, adding, “on day one, I will terminate Joe Biden’s electric vehicle mandate” and levy a tariff on goods made outside of the U.S.

He also took a shot at environmental advocates who have had a major influence on Biden’s administration. Biden has worked to address climate change at a larger scale than past presidents and has faced pushback from Republicans and the fossil fuel industry.

“We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said. “It will have zero environmental difference.”


Trump Brags About Booking Michigan Trip First as He Skips GOP Debate

William Vaillancourt

DAILY BEAST
Wed, September 27, 2023

Rebecca Cook/Reuters

Former President Donald Trump, while speaking at a non-unionized automotive parts supplier in Michigan, criticized President Joe Biden for announcing that he would join United Auto Workers striking on the picket lines days after Trump made his intentions known about traveling to the midwest state.

Biden “came to Michigan to pose for photos at the picket line,” as Trump put it, “but it’s his policies that sent Michigan auto workers to the unemployment line.”

“He only came after I announced that I would be here. You know he announced quite a bit later,” Trump said at Drake Enterprises, about 30 minutes from Detroit.

Biden revealed his plans last Friday—four days after The New York Times reported that his predecessor was planning a trip of his own.

“He spoke for a few seconds,” Trump added dismissively.

Biden Campaign Trolls Trump, Airs Ads on Fox During GOP Debate

Trump spent most of his speech criticizing the U.S. president, instead of his 2024 GOP candidate opponents who took to the stage for the second GOP primary debate in California moments after Trump’s appearance.

The former president had previously confirmed he would skip the event in favor of his Michigan trip, claiming his impressive lead in the polls meant there was no point.

The auto industry, under Biden, was “being assassinated,” Trump claimed, arguing that the advance of electric vehicles will ultimately crush manufacturing in the state.

On Tuesday, Biden became the first sitting president in U.S. history to join a picket line, telling the striking workers, “The middle class built this country. And unions built the middle class. That’s a fact. Let’s keep going. You deserve what you’ve earned, and you’ve earned a hell of a lot more than you get paid now.”

Biden had been invited by UAW President Shawn Fain, whose group had endorsed Biden in the lead-up to the 2020 election but has not yet given its support this time around mainly due to concerns over the president’s electric vehicle initiative.

Yet Fain had even tougher words for Trump in an interview Tuesday.

“I see no point in meeting with him because I don’t think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for,” Fain said on CNN. “He serves the billionaire class and that’s what’s wrong with this country.”


Skipping GOP debate, Trump instead goes to Michigan to criticize EV mandate

Adam Schrader & Sheri Walsh
Wed, September 27, 2023 

Former President Donald Trump, who skipped the GOP debate, blasted the Biden administration's EV mandate during a speech Wednesday at non-union car parts manufacturer Drake Enterprises in Michigan, calling the mandate a "government assassination of your jobs." The event comes amid the ongoing United Auto Workers strike against Ford Motor Co., Stellantis and General Motors. 

File photo by John Angelillo/UPIMore


Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Former President Donald Trump skipped the second Republican debate in California and spent Wednesday evening in Michigan instead, blasting the Biden administration's EV mandate during a speech at non-union car parts manufacturer Drake Enterprises.

Trump made his trip to Michigan as the United Auto Workers union strike against Ford Motor Co., Stellantis and General Motors rolled into Day 13.

Trump spent much of his hourlong speech targeting President Joe Biden's electric vehicle mandate, calling it "a government assassination of your jobs and of your industry."

He added that "current strikes and contracts will not matter in the future," as Trump claimed "they will be building those cars in China and other places."

"Biden's job-killing EV mandate has dictated that nearly 70% of all cars sold in the United States must be fully electric less than 10 years from now," Trump said as he also focused on EV's short range and the "panic about where to get a charge."

"Electric cars don't go far enough and they're far, far too expensive," Trump said as he called for "a future that protects American labor, not foreign labor."

"I want to salute these truly great Americans who do not get the credit they deserve. Now they want to go all electric and put you all out of business," Trump claimed.

Trump's visit to Drake Enterprises, a Clinton Township, Mich., company that opposes the Biden administration's shift to electric vehicles, was announced in a post to Facebook on Tuesday.

"In 2019, we rolled out an employee engagement program centered on patriotism and support for America," the company said in its post Wednesday. "This program has sought to encourage our workforce to embody the American Dream, whatever that may be for each employee. With that said, we value this opportunity and are honored to provide a platform to one of America's former leaders."

"I side with the autoworkers of America and with those who want to make America great again and I always will," Trump said, adding "I'm thrilled to be back with the workers, the UAW members and proud patriots of the great state of Michigan."

While Trump spent much of his speech taking shots at the Biden administration, he made a passing reference to the GOP debate also underway in California.

"You know we're competing with the job candidates. They're all running for a job. They'll do anything," Trump said, adding "Does anyone see a V.P. in the group? I don't think so."

Trump also spent much of his speech talking about his term as president, what has changed since he left office and what he would do with a second term.

"Now I put everything on the line to fight for you. I've risked it all to defend working class from the corrupt, political class that has spent decades sucking the life, wealth and blood out of this country," Trump said, as he began to outline his "vision for a revival of economic nationalism and our automobile vehicle lifeblood."

"I want a future that protects American labor, not foreign labor. A future that puts American dreams over foreign profits, and a future that raises American wages and strengthens American industry," Trump said, before warning that "Under crooked Joe Biden, instead of economic nationalism, you have ultra left-wing globalism."

Trump's remarks came less than a day after the Trump campaign criticized Biden for joining Detroit-area picket lines in support of the union, calling it in a statement a "PR stunt" to "distract and gaslight the American people."

"Yesterday, Joe Biden came to Michigan to pose for photos at the picket lines," he said as the crowd booed. "He spoke for a few seconds and had absolutely no idea what he was saying," Trump claimed, adding, "He wants electrical vehicle mandates that will spell the death of the U.S. auto industry."

"He's selling you out to China, he's selling you out to the environmental extremists and the radical left people who have no idea how bad this is going to be," as Trump emphasized how bad used car batteries are for the environment.

"A vote for crooked Joe means the future of the auto industry will be made in China. A vote for President Trump means the future for the automobile will be made in America, where it should be," Trump said to loud cheers, before referencing the numerous indictments he faces.

"I am working for you, not for me. I will always have your back," Trump said, as he added, "I could have the softest, nicest life, instead I have to beat these lunatics up all day long. I'd never heard of the word indictment, now I hear it every three days."

Trump also blasted "Biden's war on energy," as he compared gas prices during his administration to higher gas prices now.

"I think they want that. That way you'll go all electric so you can drive for 15 minutes before you have to get a charge."

And Trump discussed trade deals and ending "the disaster known as NAFTA."

"With the USMCA, 75% of every car under that deal must be made in North America," Trump said, adding "and perhaps my greatest unsung achievement, I kept Chinese cars the hell out of America. I imposed a whopping 27.5% tariff and tax on all Chinese automobiles coming into our country," Trump said, adding "and it remains in place to this day."

As Trump worked to make his case for an endorsement, UAW president Shawn Fain called it "pathetic irony" that Trump's rally, purported to be in support of union workers, was held at a non-union business as he blasted the former president for his anti-union record in an interview with CNN.

Fain said Trump blamed members of the powerful union for the 2008 recession and then, in 2019, failed to stand by union members when the UAW issued a strike against General Motors. He said he sees "no point" in meeting with Trump during his visit.

"I don't think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for. He serves a billionaire class, and that's what's wrong with this country," Fain said.

When asked if that qualified as an endorsement for President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election, Fain held back -- indicating his comments simply reflected his personal views of Trump. The UAW did endorse Biden in the 2020 presidential election.


Trump makes play for Michigan’s working-class voters as he skips GOP debate

Kristen Holmes, Alayna Treene and Daniel Strauss,

 CNN
Wed, September 27, 2023 

Matthew Hatcher/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trump, the front-runner in the GOP presidential primary race, may not have gotten a welcome from union leaders as warm as President Joe Biden did in Michigan when he skipped the second GOP debate and instead addressed current and former union members outside Detroit.

But his decision is laying the groundwork for a 2024 general election battle over the working-class voters who helped propel him to the White House in 2016 but favored Biden in 2020. It’s the clearest signal yet of the campaign’s shifting focus to the general election and specifically a potential Trump vs. Biden rematch.

Trump used his time at Drake Enterprises, a non-union auto parts supplier in Clint Township, to appeal to the group of current and former union workers gathered there. He sought to cast himself as a fighter for union workers, seeking their leaders’ endorsement for president as he delivered a sustained attack on Biden’s electric vehicle policies.

“But your leadership should endorse me, and I will not say a bad thing about them again,” said Trump, who recently criticized the head of United Auto Workers – a key labor union currently on strike.

Ahead of Trump’s visit – which came just one day after Biden was greeted by UAW President Shawn Fain and made the unprecedented move of joining striking autoworkers on the picket line – the president’s campaign rolled out a new ad criticizing Trump’s treatment of autoworkers. Titled “Delivers,” the 30-second contrast spot is the Biden campaign’s first to directly attack the former president.

The United Auto Workers backed Biden in 2020, but it hasn’t made an endorsement yet for 2024. And despite Fain’s criticism of Trump’s planned visit – which was announced before Biden’s – the former president’s team believes he can drive a wedge between union leadership and the rank-and-file workers, many of whom supported him in 2016.

“The reality is that there’s a disconnect between the political leadership of some of the labor unions and the working middle class employees that they purport to represent,” Trump senior campaign adviser Jason Miller told CNN.

Trump allies began floating the idea of a visit shortly after the strike began, while his team was reaching out to Michigan Republicans to gauge interest.
GOP debate counterprogramming

Trump allies were also encouraged by the timing of the speech, which they saw as more effective counterprogramming to the debate than his sit-down interview with Tucker Carlson that aired during the first Republican primary debate in August, two GOP strategists told CNN. “In Detroit, he’ll actually be speaking to voters that he needs to win over,” one of the strategists said.

The former president, in his remarks, briefly referenced the competing second Republican presidential debate, saying, “You know we’re competing with the job candidates; they’re all running for a job. No, they’re all job candidates – they want to be in the – they’ll do anything – secretary of something. They even say VP. I don’t know. Does anybody see any VP in the group? I don’t think so.”

The suburban Macomb County, where Trump spoke, is historically a blue-collar stronghold where the “Reagan Democrat” voter emerged. Trump won it by about 11 percentage points in 2016 and 8 points in 2020. More recently, the county has been something of a battleground. In 2022, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer won the county by 5 points.

“Macomb County has a big batch of union members and they’re a pro-Trump county, but not by much,” said Barry Goodman, a former Michigan Democratic National Committeeman.

Biden won Michigan union households by 25 points in 2020, according to CNN exit poll data – up from Hillary Clinton’s 13-point advantage among them four years earlier. But Trump’s visit to Macomb, in particular, suggests the former president and his team see some of those voters as up for grabs in 2024.

“The people working on the floor – blue-collar, average guys working hourly for the Big Three – supported Donald Trump because they have traditional values, they own guns, they don’t want their gun rights taken away or restricted. They’re predominantly anti-abortion,” said Brian Pannebecker, a staunch Trump supporter and president of Auto Workers for Trump, who rallied supporters – both union and nonunion workers, including some UAW strikers.

Trump addressed some of those supporters Wednesday, when he spoke to autoworkers, plumbers, electricians, and current and former union members, including some UAW members and their families. He criticized Biden for coming to Michigan “to pose for photos at the picket line” and attacked the president’s policies, which he argued “send Michigan autoworkers to the unemployment line.”

“That’s why I’m here tonight to lay out a vision for a revival of economic nationalism and our automobile manufacturing life blood, which they’re sucking out of our country. I want a future that protects American labor, not foreign labor. A future that puts American dreams over foreign profits,” Trump said.
Trump advisers see opening

The former president’s advisers told CNN they saw an opening with autoworker voters, in particular, because of Biden’s push for electric vehicle production, which Trump has recently begun referring to as an all “electric car hoax,” while also claiming it will move autoworker jobs overseas.

Early in his presidency, Biden announced a target that, by 2030, half of the vehicles sold in the United States would be battery electric, fuel-cell electric or plug-in hybrid, which would be a seismic shift for an auto industry dominated by gas-powered vehicles. Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency released new proposed rules to speed up the process and ensure two-thirds of new cars sold in the US are electric by 2032.

Miller called the movement toward electric vehicles “a direct threat to every UAW worker in Michigan working on gas-powered vehicles.”

The president of Drake Enterprises, the non-union auto parts manufacturer where Trump delivered his speech, echoed this sentiment. “If electric vehicles took over today … we’d pretty much be out of business,” Drake’s Nathan Stemple told Fox News. “If all the trucks and vehicles went electric, we would be scratching for something to do.”

Some members of the UAW have feared Biden’s push for more electric vehicles could threaten its members’ jobs since EVs require fewer people to assemble. Earlier this year, Fain publicly criticized Biden over his administration’s financial support for such a transition. However, on Tuesday Fain told reporters that he believes a move toward electric vehicles does not hurt his union if “companies do the right thing.”

Trump’s rhetoric has little to do with the cause of the ongoing strike, which includes demands for wage hikes and a roll back of previous concessions.

Despite Trump’s history of clashes with unions and his administration’s policies that union leaders have called “pro-business,” the former president has recently tried to cast himself on the side of autoworkers, while not weighing in directly on the strikers’ specific wage concerns.

That hasn’t sat well with union leaders. “Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” Fain recently told CNN, responding to Trump’s planned visit.

“We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class,” he said in an emailed statement.

Biden does have the backing of the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters, whose president pegged Trump as out of touch on the issues important to union workers.

“After four years, one thing was clear: when it comes to the bread and butter issues our members care about – fair wages, safe job sites, and the ability to retire with the dignity we earned – Donald Trump is just another fraud,” UA General President Mark McManus said in a recent statement.

That’s the message Biden’s campaign is leaning into in their new ad, which questions Trump’s support for autoworkers and features footage of him golfing. “Manufacturing is coming back to Michigan because Joe Biden doesn’t just talk, he delivers,” the narrator continues, underscoring the importance of the pivotal battleground for the 2024 race.

This story and headline have been updated with additional details.

CNN’s Jack Forrest, Kate Sullivan and Kim Berryman contributed to this report.