Studio Executives, Actors, and Writers Show No Interest in Gov. Gavin Newsom Offer to Help Negotiate Hollywood Strike - AFTER ALL, WHO HAS FUCKED UP CALIFORNIA MORE???

 

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Studio Executives, Actors, and Writers Show No Interest in Gov. Gavin Newsom Offer to Help Negotiate Hollywood Strike

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

BREITBART NEWS

27 Jul 20230

4:38

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom has contacted all sides of the strikes that have hobbled Hollywood, his office said Wednesday, offering to help broker a deal to restart an industry that is crucial to keeping the state’s economy humming amid signs of weakness.

So far, neither studio executives nor actors and writers have shown formal interest in bringing Newsom to the negotiating table, said Anthony York, Newsom’s senior adviser for communications. But York said both Newsom and senior members of his administration have been in touch with all sides as the two strikes stretch deeper into the summer blockbuster season.

“It’s clear that the sides are still far apart, but he is deeply concerned about the impact a prolonged strike can have on the regional and state economy,” York said. He further noted “thousands of jobs depend directly or indirectly on Hollywood getting back to work,” including crew, staff and catering.

The last time the writers went on strike more than a decade ago, the 100-day work stoppage cost the state’s economy an estimated $2 billion. The economic hit could be even bigger this time around now that actors have joined the picket lines. The strikes come after Newsom signed a state budget that included a more than $31 billion deficit in part because of a slowdown in the tech sector, another one of the state’s key industries.

The writers have been on strike since May, and the actors joined them earlier this month. Both unions have concerns about how they will be paid in an age where fewer people are paying to go to the movies or watch cable TV in favor of streaming services. And they are worried how the rise of artificial intelligence will affect the creative process of how movies and TV shows are made and who is paid to make them.

The Democratic governor first offered to help mediate a deal in May, shortly after the writers strike began, saying he was sympathetic to their concerns about streaming and artificial intelligence.

Now in his final term in office, Newsom has worked hard to boost his national profile as he sets his sights on life after the governor’s office. He is widely considered a future presidential contender, though he has said he has no plans to run. Any role for Newsom to help end strikes halting one of the country’s most recognizable industries could bolster his status on the national stage.

Labor actions have lit up California this summer, and it has become common for politicians and their allies to step in to broker deals. New Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, for example, helped negotiate an end to a strike by Los Angeles school staff. Acting Biden administration Labor Secretary Julie Su, a former California labor leader, helped reach an end to a contract dispute at Southern California ports.

Asked about Newsom’s involvement, Bass spokesman Zach Seidl said in a statement that “this is a historic inflection point for our city. … We continue to engage with labor leaders, studio heads, elected leaders and other impacted parties to arrive at a fair and equitable solution.”

York declined to say who Newsom has spoken with, either on the unions’ side or the studios. Representatives for the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers declined to comment.

Hollywood isn’t just a major economic driver in California — it’s also a fundraising powerhouse for mostly Democratic candidates, including Newsom. In 2021, when Newsom was facing a recall election that could have removed him from office, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings donated $3 million to help defeat it. He has received smaller contributions from executives at Disney, Sony and Lionsgate. Prominent directors and producers like Stephen Spielberg and Chuck Lorre have also donated to his campaigns.

Newsom’s relationships with some of Hollywood’s most powerful executives could potentially help him in any negotiations over the strikes as he continues to advocate for the causes of the workers. Newsom also has a connection to Hollywood through his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who used to be an actor and is now a documentary director.

Also this year, Newsom signed a law to extend tax credits for movie and television productions. The big change is that those tax credits will be refundable, meaning if a movie studio has credits that are worth more than what it owes in taxes, the state will pay the studio the difference in cash.

Time Running Out for Democrats to Replace Biden on Primary Ballots, If Need Be

Jeff Chiu, File/AP

JOEL B. POLLAK

27 Jul 20230

3:49

Time is running out for the Democratic Party to find an alternative candidate to incumbent President Joe Biden — if he decides not to run after all, either for health reasons or because of the growing Hunter Biden scandal.

Wednesday’s decision by a federal judge in Delaware not to approve a plea deal between Hunter and federal prosecutors, which would have shielded him from further prosecution relating to business deals in which his father may have been involved, created new potential legal troubles for the president. His claim not to have spoken to Hunter about his business affairs has been shown to be a lie, and further questions may be coming.

George Washington University legal scholar Jonathan Turley suggested Thursday that Biden might do well to pardon his son and then announce that he would no longer be running for reelection — a “happy ending”:

However, the problem with dropping Biden is that Democrats would have to find a replacement on the primary ballot in nearly all of the states, or at least enough to account for a sufficient number of delegates to the party convention in Chicago in August 2024 (when combined with the party’s peculiar system of “superdelegates,” who are a group of notables and insiders that possess at-large votes that can be used to defeat insurgencies).
Each state has different rules for presidential primaries. Presumably, Vice President Kamala Harris could be a replacement for Biden in many states. The problem, however, is that she is even more unpopular than Biden is.

There are already two Democratic challengers to Biden who have been working on qualifying for the ballot in the early primary states — namely, environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson. If Democrats want an alternative — say, perhaps, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who has been building a national profile in anticipation of a future presidential run — they face a rapidly-closing window.

According to Ballotpedia, which compiles information about elections, some deadlines are earlier than others. New Hampshire allows candidates to file until the week before the primary election — whose date is not yet set — while other early states, like Nevada, have tougher deadlines, requiring candidates to file by Oct. 16, 2023. In some states, political parties have discretion over deadlines. But the sheer complexity of the task requires time.

Then-Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY), father of the current candidate, waited until after the New Hampshire primary to enter the 1968 presidential race, and he was on his way to winning the Democratic nomination when he was assassinated in June that year. Certainly the party would move mountains to replace Biden, perhaps tinkering with its own rules — as it did in confirming Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary.

But the task will be a complex one, requiring a national-scale operation. Time is running out — and Democrats may soon find they are down to a choice between Kennedy, Williamson, and perhaps Harris, if Biden drops out.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.