Friday Politics Roundup | SCOTUS takes on affirmative action; unions get the goods; PA’s ’Don’t Say Gay’ bill; Proud Boys at Penn State. Rings of Power, House of the Dragon, Wheel of Time.

Trump gets subpoenaed by the January 6th committee. 

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to take a wrecking ball to higher education admission policies designed to help level the playing field for Black students and students of color. 

According to a bombshell report in Bloomberg by Josh Eidleson, a former manager at Starbucks in Buffalo, NY testified under oath to the National Labor Relations Board that he was “instructed to single out and discipline pro-union employees.” The manager, David Almond, testified that “Starbucks higher-ups listed names of employees the company had determined supported the union, and told him to punish them.” 

Leonard Leo begins to get the national scrutiny he deserves in a New York Times report on his influence and powerful right-wing network. 

A new study published in the ILR Review shows that “unionization throughout one’s career is associated with a $1.3 million mean increase in lifetime earnings, larger than the average gains from completing college.” 

Pennsylvania Republicans have introduced their own version of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which is even more restrictive than Florida. 

ACLU has filed a complaint against the Central Bucks School District with Civil Rights Divisions of the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education. The complaint argues that the district is in violation of both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment for creating a hostile environment for LGBTQ students. 

The Proud Boys can be heard yelling “We are Penn State!” Yes, a Penn State group calling itself “Uncensored America,” founded by former president of Penn State’s chapter of Turning Points USA and a field organizer for Trump in 2020, is bringing the founder of the Proud Boys, Gavin McInnes, to Penn State on October 24th. Billed as a “comedy show,” Nittany Lions will certainly be treated to all the hilarity of McInnes’s misogyny, racism, and advocacy for political violence. 

Former Central Bucks school board member tweets out a thread about the ongoing trauma resulting from her time on the school board during the rise of extremism in the district. 

The Rings of Power finale is streaming now.  House of the Dragon is closing in on the end of its first season, too. We can look forward to the coming of season 2 of the Wheel of Time