"It's a good contract, you just can't get around that," said one UAW local president. "You look at the investment we got in 2019 compared to now, it's not rocket science. It's just better."
As voting wrapped up on Friday, United Auto Workers members at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis were all on track to approve contracts finalized during a six-week UAW strike demanding improved pay, benefits, and working conditions from the "Big Three."
The union's online trackers had the ratification vote results as 68.2% to 31.8% at Ford, 54.7% to 45.3% at GM, and 69.6% to 30.4% at Stellantis as of press time. The UAW and companies have not yet commented on the results.
The UAW launched its "Stand Up Strike" in mid-September, and increased walkouts at various U.S. locations throughout the talks. Rutgers University labor studies professor Rebecca Givan toldThe New York Times that the strategy "really upended a lot of conventional wisdom" in the labor movement and helped reverse some concessions the union had previously accepted, showing that "if workers build enough power, they can win things back."
The pending agreements, which were reached over a few days at the end of last month, don't deliver on all worker demands but celebrated provisions include 25% wage increases and cost-of-living adjustments through April 30, 2028.
Workers at Ford's Dearborn, Michigan, truck plant voted 78% in favor of ratifying the agreement Friday, putting Ford over the top, according to UAW Local 600 President Nick Kottalis.
"It's a good contract, you just can't get around that," Kottalis said. "You look at the investment we got in 2019 compared to now, it's not rocket science. It's just better."
The contracts' expiration date sets up a possible mass action around International Workers' Day on May 1, 2028. The UAW said last month that "we invite unions around the country to align your contract expirations with our own so that together we can begin to flex our collective muscles."
Also framing the Big Three battle as part of a bigger effort, UAW president Shawn Fain declared last month that "if we are going to truly take on the billionaire class and rebuild the economy so that it starts to work for the benefit of the many and not the few, then it's important that we not only strike, but that we strike together."
Fain on Tuesday testified at U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) hearing about how unions raise up working families and take on corporate greed. The UAW leader stressed the "essential role" of federal lawmakers, calling on them to not only support "our fights and other fights like ours," but also "finish the job for economic and social justice for the entire working class."
Already, the historic Big Three deals are leading to "UAW bumps" at other automakers including Honda, Hyundai, Subaru, and Toyota. The union is also aiming to help organize workers at Telsa, the electric vehicle company of billionaire Elon Musk.
Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection next year, became the first sitting president to join striking workers on a picket line in late September, when he rallied with UAW members outside a GM plant in Belleville, Michigan.
The Biden campaign's Ammar Moussa said in a statement Friday that "Joe Biden isn't just saying that he'll always have workers' backs—he's proving it. After President Biden made history by standing with striking autoworkers, unions have notched historic wins and even nonunionized auto companies are taking note, increasing workers' wages.
"This is what happens when you have a president who cares about working people," added Moussa. "Workers win."
Originally published on November 17th, 2023, in Common Dreams
As UNICEF spokesperson James Elder recently put it, “Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else.”
In its initial attack on Israel, Hamas killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped about 240 more. By the end of October, less than four weeks later, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza had reached a wholly disproportionate 8,805 people. (Since then, the number has surpassed 11,000.)
This run-up in the death count was so rapid that prominent voices resorted to outright denialism. John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesperson, labeled the Gaza Health Ministry, which is responsible for tallying the Palestinian dead, “a front for Hamas” (Fox, 10/27/23). (The ministry actually answers to the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority—Reuters, 11/6/23.)
And President Joe Biden, much to Fox’s delight (10/25/23), declared: “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed…. I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”
A Washington Post factcheck (11/1/23) diplomatically described this statement as an example of “excessive skepticism:
The State Department has regularly cited ministry statistics without caveats in its annual human rights reports. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which tracks deaths in the conflict, has found the ministry’s numbers to be reliable after conducting its own investigation. “Past experience indicated that tolls were reported with high accuracy,” an OCHA official told the Fact Checker.
Some deaths count more
For cable news, however, determining the precise number of Palestinian dead may not be all that relevant. Because for them, an important principle comes first: Some numbers don’t count as much as others. Whereas around seven times as many Palestinians died as Israelis during October, Palestinian victims appear to have received significantly less coverage on cable TV.
A slew of searches on the Stanford Cable TV News Analyzer, which scours transcripts from MSNBC, CNN and Fox News to determine the frequency with which given words and phrases are mentioned on cable news, bears this out. Here’s the breakdown of the screen time awarded to various search terms related to Israeli and Palestinian deaths over the course of October 2023 (see note 1):
In each instance above, coverage of Israeli victims outpaced coverage of Palestinian victims, often to a significant degree.
Even if they had reached numeric parity, that would still have translated to about seven times the mentions of Israeli deaths per dead Israeli compared to Palestinian deaths per dead Palestinian.
In their seminal study on media bias Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky make a distinction between worthy and unworthy victims. As far as the US media is concerned, the worthy include citizens of the US and allied nations, as well as people killed by state enemies. The unworthy include those killed by the US government and its friends.
Herman and Chomsky argue that we can expect the worthy and unworthy to be treated far differently by US media. The former will be the recipients of sympathy and support. The latter will be further victimized by neglect and perhaps even disdain.
It’s not hard to see who the media considers worthy in Israel and Palestine.
Unnewsworthy war crimes
Victims aren’t the only ones who receive different treatment according to group status. So do victimizers. Consider, for example, how often war crimes are covered when they are committed by Hamas versus when they are committed by the Israeli military.
One war crime Hamas is often accused of is the use of civilians as “human shields.” As the Guardian (10/30/23) has reported:
Anecdotal and other evidence does suggest that Hamas and other factions have used civilian objects, including hospitals and schools. Guardian journalists in 2014 encountered armed men inside one hospital, and sightings of senior Hamas leaders inside the Shifa hospital have been documented.
However, the same article continues:
Making the issue more complicated…is the nature of Gaza and conflict there. As the territory consists mostly of an extremely dense urban environment, it is perhaps not surprising that Hamas operates in civilian areas.
International law also makes clear that even if an armed force is improperly using civilian objects to shield itself, its opponent is still required to protect civilians from disproportionate harm.
And it’s worth noting, as the Progressive (6/17/21) has, but the Guardian article unfortunately does not, that detailed investigations following the 2008–2009 and 2014 conflicts [between Israel and Hamas] by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the United Nations Human Rights Council and others have failed to find a single documented case of any civilian deaths caused by Hamas using human shields.
For its part, Israel has been accused of the use of white phosphorus in Gaza, a violation of international law. And its “indiscriminate military attacks” on Gaza have been described by United Nations experts as “collective punishment,” amounting to “a war crime.”
Yet coverage of these Israeli war crimes doesn’t even come close to coverage of “human shields.”
While “human shield(s)” got an estimated 907 mentions throughout October, “collective punishment” got only 140, and “white phosphorus” a mere 30.
Distracting from context
The difference in media’s treatment of a friendly victimizer—one that may cause more death and destruction, but is a longstanding close ally of the United States—and of an official state enemy doesn’t stop there.
On top of downplaying the friendly victimizer’s current war crimes, the media are also happy to distract from a context in which the friendly victimizer has been oppressing a population for years. In this particular case, Israel has illegally occupied Palestinian land since 1967, and has enacted “ruthless policies of land confiscation, illegal settlement and dispossession, coupled with rampant discrimination.” It has subjected Gaza to an illegal air, land and sea blockade since 2007. And it has imposed a system of apartheid on the Palestinian population in the occupied territories, as documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B’Tselem.
Cable coverage of this context can’t exactly be described as extensive. Shows in which “Hamas” was mentioned near “terrorism” or “terrorist(s),” in fact, outnumbered shows that mentioned “Israel” near “apartheid,” “occupation,” “blockade” or “settlement(s)” more than 3-to-1 during the month of October. (See note 2.)
Put simply, coverage of Israel’s long-standing oppression of the Palestinian people doesn’t appear to come anywhere close to coverage of Hamas’s terrorist acts. Context is swept under the rug. An enemy’s crimes are displayed indignantly on the mantel.
This sort of coverage does not contribute to creating a population capable of thinking critically about violent conflict. Instead, its main purpose seems to be to stir up hatred for a state enemy, and blind support for a state ally. All a viewer has to remember are two simple principles:
The suffering of our allies matters. The suffering of our enemies? Not so much.
The crimes of our enemies matter. The crimes of our allies? Not so much.
Originally published on FAIR.org, November 17th, 2023. Reprinted with permission.
If he becomes the official nominee of the Republican Party in next year’s presidential race, Donald Trump will receive tens of millions of votes in the general election. He may get less than the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. He may get more. Regardless, tens of millions of GOP, conservative, and extremist voters will cast their ballots for him.
In 2016, despite his history of elitist, racist, and sexist behavior, failed businesses, lack of governing experience, and no demonstrated past of caring for anyone but himself, he wonnearly 63 million votes. While stillalmost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton got, it was not just enough for a victory in the Electoral College but a clear warning of things to come.
In 2020, after four years of non-stop chaos, the death of more than 200,000 Covid victims at least in part because of his mishandling of the pandemic, a legitimate and warranted impeachment, abuse of power, ceaseless corruption, and more than30,000 documented public lies, he gained 74 million votes, even if, in the end, he lost the election.
Now, in addition to all that history, you can add on the incitement of a violent insurrection, a second impeachment for attempting to overthrow the government, four criminal indictments (91 separate charges), being found liable for sexual abuse, and a stated plan to exactretribution against his enemies in a second term. And yet he will undoubtedly again receive many tens of millions of votes.
In fact, you can count on one thing: the 2024 election will not resolve the authoritarian attraction that the Trump vote represents. So perhaps it’s time to prepare now, not later, for the political crisis that will undoubtedly emerge from that event, whatever the vote count may prove to be.
The Authoritarian Threat Continues
A year from the next election, multiple scenarios are imaginable including, of course, that neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden will be contenders. While Biden’s health seems fine at present, he will be only weeks away from his 82nd birthday on Election Day 2024. A lot can happen, health-wise, in a year. When it comes to Trump, however, Biden is now likely to be significantly healthier (mentally and physically) than him. Among other things, no blatant lies or well-tailored suits can hide his unhealthy obesity.
And while he relishes castigating Biden’s cognitive state, it was Trump who only a few weeks ago, while giving a speech attacking the president’s capabilities, stated that he beat “Obama” in an election, that Americans needed IDs to buy bread, and that Biden would lead the country into “World War II,” which just happens to have ended 78 years ago. While some of Trump’s GOP opponents like Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis, and Nikki Haley have indeed launched ageist attacks against him, it’s true that he’s roughly in the same age group as Biden.
Meanwhile, don’t forget that Donald Trump’s legal health is on life support. It’s a good bet that, in 2024, he will spend more time in courtrooms than on the campaign trail. He may very well face that moment of truth when he has to decide to cut a deal that keeps him out of prison and out of the White House.
In any case, the current trajectory remains Biden vs. Trump 2.0 while, whatever the outcome of the election, this nation seems to be headed for a crisis of historic proportions. No matter who wins, next November 7th will do nothing to end the divisions that exist in this country. In fact, it’s only likely to exacerbate and amplify them.
Trump Remains a Danger
Trump has already made it clear that he won’t accept any losing outcome. Neither will millions of his followers. For modern Republican Party leaders and their base, election rejection (if they lose) has become an ironclad principle. On the stump, Trump has already begun to emphasize that the spiraling legal cases against him are “election interference,” that the Democrats are putting the pieces in place to steal the election from him, and that the Black judge and prosecutors holding him accountable are “racists.”
As he wrote on one of his social media posts (in caps) those individuals are to him “RIGGERS.” That stable genius’s use of a term that rhymes with a racist slur against Black people was undoubtedly no accident. After all, he spends a considerable amount of his private time branding people. White supremacists wasted hardly a moment in beginning to use the term online, in part, to get around censors on the lookout for explicitly racist terminology.
He is, in other words, already laying the foundation to claim election fraud and creating the basis for another MAGA revolt. While there’s plenty of reason to believe he won’t be able to draw tens of thousands of his supporters to attack the Capitol again, not the least being the Justice Department’s prosecution of hundreds of those who tried it the last time, he’ll certainly have GOP members in Congress ready to resist certifying a Democratic victory.
Trump’s desperation to win is driven not only by the prospect of multiple convictions in his various trials, drawn-out appeals (that are unlikely to be successful), and possible prison time of some sort, but also by the brutal public dismantling of what’s left of his financial empire.
The civil suit New York Attorney General Letitia James brought against Trump and the Trump organization has already resulted in a devastatingjudgmentby Judge Arthur Engoron. He ruled Trump and his adult sons liable and immediately stripped them of their control over their businesses. Trump may now not only lose all his New York business properties but have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution. For someone whose whole identity is linked to his purported wealth, there could hardly have been a more crushing blow.
In his mind, a second term as president clearly has little to do with benefiting the country, the Republican Party, or even the rest of his family. It’s his only path to shutting down the two federal cases against him in Florida and Washington, D.C. However, even such a win wouldn’t help him with the election interference case in Georgia or the hush-money criminal case in New York. Convictions in either of those would mean further accountability sooner or later. A second term would undoubtedly offer him another chance to monetize the presidency, just as he did the first time around, in a fashion never before seen.
His record is still being investigated but, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Trump raked in tens of millions of dollars that way. It reports that Trump’s businesses took in more than $160 million from international sources alone, and a grand total of more than $1.6 billion from all sources, during his presidency. AsCREW put it: “Trump’s presidency was marred by unprecedented conflicts of interest arising from his decision not to divest from the Trump Organization, with his most egregious conflicts involving businesses in foreign countries with interests in U.S. foreign policy.”
Trump’s Violence Advocacy Grows
Trump’s legitimate fear of losing is pushing him toward ever more strident and violent language. He’s also signaling to his followers that the use of force to put him in power (or go after those who deny it to him) is all too acceptable. His visit to the Palmetto State Armory gun shop in Summerville, South Carolina, on September 25th was an unambiguous message to them: get ready for war.
There, he admired a Glock pistol and was visibly eager to purchase it. However, he ran into a legalsnafu. His spokesperson, Steven Cheung, initially posted a video on social media celebrating Trump’s purchase of the Glock, a special “Trump edition” that had a likeness of him and the words “Trump 45th” etched on it. According to the New York Times, Trump gleefully said, “I want to buy one.”
However, after a staff member apparently realized that no one under federal indictment could legally do so, the post was deleted and a subsequent statement was put up that read, “President Trump did not purchase or take possession of the firearm. He simply indicated that he wanted one.” The store would also have been liable under federal law 18 U.S.C. 922, given that it would have been hard for its proprietors to deny that they knew the former president was under multiple indictments.
That visit was more than just a message to his followers to arm themselves. There are 158 gun stores in South Carolina and yet Trump selected the very onelinkedto a mass killing of Black people in Florida.
At least one of the guns used in those murders had been purchased at that very gun shop. On August 26, 2023, white supremacist Ryan Christopher Palmeter went to a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, and murdered three African Americans — Angela Michelle Carr, 52; Jerrald Gallion, 29; and Anolt Joseph Laguerre Jr., 19 — and then killed himself as the police closed in.
The shooter had two guns, a Glock and an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, one of them from the South Carolina Palmetto State Armory gun store. Palmeter also left behind several racist manifestos.
That carnage occurred just a month before Trump’s visit and his implicit decision to associate himself with that explosion of bigoted violence — like an earlier trip to Waco, Texas, the site of a deadly gunfight between federal law enforcement agents and antigovernment extremists — helped reinforce the idea on the far right that violent force is acceptable for political ends. In his speech at Waco, his first “official” campaign rally for election 2024, Trump stated, “I am your warrior, I am your justice… For those who have been wronged and betrayed… I am your retribution.”
The chaos and disorder likely to follow any Trump loss in 2024 will only be further enhanced if the GOP keeps control of the House of Representatives or wins control of the Senate. A number of congressional Republicans have shown that they will not hesitate to do all they can to put Trump back in the White House, including igniting a constitutional crisis by refusing to certify Electoral College votes.
All that said, Trump losing and sending his supporters into the streets amid tantrums by congressional Republicans and Republican state governors and legislatures would hardly be the worst possible scenario.
After all, if Trump were to win, the extremists in and out of government would immediately be empowered to carry out the most right-wing agenda since the height of the segregationist era. A reelected Trump will find the most loyal (to him) and corruptible cabinet members possible. Their only necessary qualification will be a willingness to follow his orders without hesitation, whether or not they’re legal, ethical, or by any stretch of the imagination good for the country.
Count on one thing: it wouldn’t be an America First but a Trump First and Last administration.
He would undoubtedly engage in a series of personal vendettas with the sort of viciousness and resolve never before seen in Washington. He would take a victory, no matter how marginal or questionable, in the Electoral College as a mandate to attack all his perceived enemies with whatever power his new presidency could muster. He’s also well aware of a Department of Justice policy (of questionable legality) not to prosecute a sitting president, which he’ll interpret as a license of perpetual lawlessness. Trump’s persecution administration would harken back to the worst days of McCarthyism and beyond.
And lest you think that’s the end of the matter, it only gets worse.
Trump Will Have Significantly More Help in a Second Term
Beyond Trump’s individual sociopathic behavior, a far-right agenda is being created that will provide a certain ideological clarity to his bumbling authoritarianism. The policy work, not just from the Trump campaign but from Project 25, should scare everyone. A $22 million initiative by the rightwing Heritage Foundation, Project 25 has already produced a 920-page book, Mandate for Leadership: the Conservative Promise, detailing plans to reshape the federal government. If implemented, its strategy would write “the end” to the classic separation of powers, checks and balances, and even a non-partisan civil service. Every single federal department and agency would instead be restructured to fall under the complete control of the president.
It also offers hundreds of new policies on issues ranging from the environment and labor rights to education and health care. Its underlying assumption: that, post-2024, a conservative president will be in power for some time to come. (If so, Trump will, of course, have the backing of Republicans in Congress, who again may control one or both chambers, and a 6-3 Supreme Court majority.)
Count on this: resistance will be swift, massive, and enduring. Trump and Republican minority rule would not go unchallenged and the repression sure to follow would only generate yet more resistance and, undoubtedly, a generation of political turbulence.
On the other hand, a significant electoral defeat for the Republicans and Trump (along with his conviction on any number of criminal charges) would certainly prove a major obstacle to future authoritarianism. However, tens of millions of his voters will not go quietly into the night, while far-right elected officials in Congress and state legislatures will continue to push extreme conservative policies. White nationalists and radical evangelicals will mobilize as best as they can. Financial and political resources will be available.
The effort to defeat MAGA at all levels and in all ways politically will go on, but progressives need to prepare for the challenge of 2024 and the perilous years to follow.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s new headquarters will be in Maryland, a significant victory for the state following years of jockeying against Virginia and debate throughout several presidencies about where best to locate the law enforcement agency.
The General Services Administration picked the Greenbelt site Wednesday over the Springfield, Virginia, and Landover options, according to a source with knowledge confirming the GSA’s decision to Maryland Matters and States Newsroom.
GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan said in a written statement to States Newsroom and Maryland Matters that “GSA looks forward to building the FBI a state-of-the-art headquarters campus in Greenbelt to advance their critical mission for years to come.”
“Thank you to everyone at GSA, DOJ, FBI, Congress, and others who helped reach this important milestone after a comprehensive, multi-year effort,” Carnahan said.
A spokesperson for the federal agency said in a written statement that “GSA determined Greenbelt to be the best site because it was the lowest cost to taxpayers, provided the greatest transportation access to FBI employees and visitors, and gave the government the most certainty on project delivery schedule.
“It also provided the highest potential to advance sustainability and equity,” the spokesperson said.
The Washington Post originally reported the decision.
The Maryland congressional delegation along with several other officials, including Gov. Wes Moore (D) and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) said in a written statement that the decision is a “historic moment” for the FBI and the country.
“Our decades-long, bipartisan effort to bring the Maryland sites’ many merits to the GSA’s attention was never about politics,” they wrote. “It was always about making the case for what is best for the FBI, our region, and the country.”
Virginia Democratic U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine said in a written statement they’re “deeply disappointed that despite the clear case that Virginia is the best home for the FBI, the Administration went a different direction.”
“We spent years appropriately criticizing the last Administration for politicizing the new FBI headquarters — only for a new Administration to come in and allow politics to taint the selection process,” Warner and Kaine said.
Virginia Democratic U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly said in a written statement that he was not given a heads-up about the decision.
“In making this decision, GSA has shamelessly caved to political pressure, putting blatant politics over the merits and amending the weighting of long-established criteria to make this decision all but predictable,” Connolly wrote.
“While Virginia’s loss is also the FBI’s, GSA’s reputation for objective procurement free from politics has taken a mortal hit today from which it will struggle to recover for years into the future,” Connolly added.
Congress will still need to provide funding for construction, which is expected to take several years to complete.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation will be moving from its current headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. The J. Edgar Hoover building, which opened in 1974, puts the FBI between the White House and the U.S. Capitol on a street that presidents often walk down during their Inauguration parades.
Nearly two decades ago, in 2005, the FBI’s Asset Management Plan indicated the agency would soon need a new headquarters, given the building’s structural and space issues.
Plans progressed slowly during the latter years of the Obama administration, but the Trump administration tried to keep the FBI in its existing location with reports alleging former President Donald Trump didn’t want the site potentially sold to a rival hotel.
Plans to move the FBI headquarters to the suburbs outside of Washington, D.C. began moving forward again during the Biden administration.
The Maryland and Virginia delegations pitched their states to the GSA in March, a provision that was required in a government spending package.
The GSA considered five criteria in picking the new location, including FBI mission requirements, access to transportation, site development flexibility, sustainability and equity, and cost.
FBI mission requirements included the distance to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia as well as the U.S. Department of Justice in downtown Washington, D.C.
The GSA weighted each of the categories, though it changed that criteria in July.
Proximity to the FBI mission-related locations moved from 35% to 25%, transportation access moved from 25% to 20%, site development flexibility stayed at 15%, sustainability and equity increased from 15% to 20% and cost increased from 10% to 20%.
Maryland officials react
The “Team Maryland” statement from congressional, state and county leaders said the failing infrastructure at the Hoover Building was no longer serving the FBI’s operational needs, “which has undermined our national security.”
“The once fabled building has crumbled before our eyes, with nets surrounding the facility for years to protect pedestrians from falling debris. Today’s decision by the General Services Administration (GSA) will ensure we fulfill the FBI’s dire, longstanding need for a new consolidated headquarters that meets the modern-day demands on the Bureau’s work to protect Americans and our nation,” the statement continued. “…We are committed to doing everything we can to ensure the FBI has the best possible headquarters in the quickest timeframe so that we can facilitate a smooth transition to Prince George’s County. We look forward to building a strong, productive partnership with the Bureau and its staff.”
Alsobrooks held a Zoom press briefing Wednesday night and praised Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-5th) as “a leader” in the long effort. The county executive also said equity played a major part in the GSA’s decision.
For the last 15 years, the county executive said the federal government invested $460 billion in Virginia compared to $120 billion in Prince George’s.
“There’s a huge difference between equity and diversity. Virginia was very confused,” she said. “[Virginia officials talked] about counting heads, how many Black or brown people live in a jurisdiction. When we talked about equity, we’re talking about the investments that were made, how many federal dollars were spent in one jurisdiction versus another.”
She continued: “We know that these investments do yield income and allow for job growth to happen,” Alsobrooks said. “What we were saying is that we wanted to be able to grow our county in our state, and to have this important job center come down to Prince George’s County.”
Del. Jazz Lewis (D-Prince George’s), who was part of Hoyer’s staff between 2014 and 2021, praised his former boss.
“A big congratulations to Congressman Steny Hoyer for quarterbacking this over three presidential administrations, multiple GSA leads and FBI leads at the top of their departments,” Lewis said. “This is the right message to send for equity in the region as far as the placement of facilities. I’m very happy it is landing in gorgeous Prince George’s.”
Greenbelt Mayor Emmett Jordan, who was top vote-getter in Tuesday night’s election, said the city represents the best location that includes being in walking distance of a Metro station.
“We have the capacity to accommodate the project, which would create jobs [and] provide a boost to our local economy and attract retail and commercial businesses to Prince George’s County,” he said. “We’re very excited to hear that the GSA and the FBI have finally made a decision.”
This article originally appeared in the Maryland Matters on November 10th, 2023.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)