I want to be clear here--Richard Nixon would have LOVED to have vetoed the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. But it passed Congress by an easily overridden number and he wouldn't risk political capital on that. Nixon deserves ZERO credit.

This Day in Labor History: December 30, 1969. Richard Nixon reluctantly signed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act into law. The first comprehensive legislation in American history to protect the lives of coal miners, it came after the deaths of tens of thousands of miners!!!

If you are still on the search for the Maltese Falcon, it's in the lobby of my father-in-law's senior apartment building.

Grading finals on Christmas Eve may not be an ideal activity. But I am reminded of my perplexity when I hear professors who go into administration because they are now bored by teaching? Why would you be bored by teaching? I really don't get that. I love teaching so much. And also I loathe admin.

This Day in Labor History: December 24, 1913. Striking Italian copper workers in Calumet, Michigan held a Christmas party in the town’s Italian Hall. Someone shouted “fire.” Could have been company thugs, but we will never know. People rushed the exit and 73 died, including 59 children!!!

This Day in Labor History: December 23, 1872. Coal miners near Clearfield, Pennsylvania got into a fight with strikebreakers trying to mine coal during a strike. This moment tells us a great deal about how miners defined their jobs and their rights in 1872, providing lessons to us today!!!

Pleased that Robert Earl Keen's "Merry Christmas from the Family" happened to come up on my playlist today

This Day in Labor History: December 22, 1988. The Brazilian rubber worker, union leader, and environmental activist Chico Mendes was murdered by a rancher named Darcy Alves who hated everything he stood for. Let's talk about this horrible moment but also Mendes' great movement!

SEAN O'BRIEN IS A DEMOCRATIC UNIONIST! This is a big part of my point about the cult of democratic unionism. O'Brien comes out of the democratic unionist movement in the Teamsters! It is not better!

Great question! Running a union is hard and not very many people are capable of doing so. Democratic unionists are often not actually competent of running organizations. The myth is that "more democracy equals better unionism." But any study of the fact doesn't demonstrate that.

The IWW doesn't even exist as a real thing--at the very least, can we please stop projecting our revolutionary desires on structures that can't support them?

This Day in Labor History: December 21, 1907. The Chilean military massacred perhaps 2,000 striking nitrate miners, though possibly significantly more than that. Let's talk the horrors of the Santa Maria Massacre, part of the global war on workers!

What is going on with the UAW is another example of how the Labor Notes/DSA/Jacobin crowd are just as abusive and corrupt in power as the people they claim to hate. The history of democratic unionist activists coming to power in unions is in fact very bad. www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

Well, at least the days get longer now

Notre Dame got "robbed" of a playoff bid, a team that somehow lost to both Miami and A&M, presently playing in one of the worst postseason games ever played.

This Day in Labor History: December 19, 1907. The Darr Mine near Smithton, Pennsylvania, caught fire and exploded. 239 people died, many of them children. This was the largest workplace disaster in Pennsylvania history. Let's talk about this horrible tragedy and all the dead coal miners of this era!

If there's one thing that Trump years have proven, its that you can lie and no one who votes for you will care Lot for Democrats to learn here.

Got to publish my Norman Podhoretz obituary, which was fun for so many reasons. Who should I write an obituary on next? I know....Alan Dershowitz! www.wonkette.com/p/norman-pod...

I quit Skocpol's Scholars Strategy Network because she refused to recognize her workers' union campaign and forced them through an NLRB election instead of just recognizing their union. So........

Really, everyone left of center--from DNC types to the far left--lies to themselves all the time about what THE PEOPLE believe. If you think "the people" secretly believe what you do, if only they could be mobilized, my recommendation is to actually talk to people. Because they don't.

I mean....there was the time that LBJ forced the networks to carry him speaking about absolutely nothing just to stop the nation from hearing Fannie Lou Hamer's testimony at the 1964 DNC, so..........

I have obituaries ready to run for both of these vile motherfuckers

I admit to feeling that this is basically nonsense. We are never safe, not a single one of us, while we have these guns in our society. It just happened in my community, but really, what's the difference between this and any other day in America? www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

This kind of thing completely misunderstands the context of the time. Even if Garfield wanted to live up to this rhetoric--a highly questionable assumption given the rest of the Republican Party of the 1880s--Congress would have put a stop to it and in this era, Congress ruled, not the president.

The idea that James Garfield was going to save Black civil rights is one of the most absurd ideas in the liberal intellectual world this century. Not to mention that Garfield was more than happy to take illegal railroad cash.

If you watch Trump's speech, you need psychiatric care. I can think of zero reasons a mentally healthy person would watch this.

The vile evil awful Norman Podhoretz is dead and here's all the info you need on why we should not mourn. www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/12/podh...

We absolutely live in David Duke's country. You can say the same about Pat Buchanan and Ed Meese. These are the winners of the politics of the last 50 years.

This Day in Labor History: December 17, 1953. The National Labor Relations Board ruled in the Livingston Shirt Corporation Case that companies could force workers to sit through anti-union meetings. Let's talk about this horrible ruling and how Eisenhower sucked!

This Day in Labor History: December 16, 1977. Eight women bank workers at Citizens National Bank in Willmar, Minnesota went on strike, charging sex discrimination they faced on the job. Let's talk about these brave women and their fight for justice!

Word is from my music circles that the great Joe Ely has passed away. One of the all time great Texans. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZG5...

This Day in Labor History: December 15, 1989. The Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers come to an agreement with the German chemical company BASF for the company’s largest plant, in Geismer, Louisiana, after a five year lockout. Let's talk about the alliance with environmentalists that helped win!

This Day in Labor History: December 14, 1945. The House passed what would become the Employment Act of 1946 once Harry Truman signed it. Let's talk the attempt for a real full employment bill and the watered down bill that actually got passed.

This Day in Labor History: December 12, 1957. The AFL-CIO evicted four unions from the federation for corruption, most notably the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Let's talk about the issue of corruption in midcentury unions!

It's really more a return to 1925 than a new frontier

This Day in Labor History: December 11, 1886. The Colored Farmers’ Alliance was established in Lovelady in Houston County, Texas. Let's talk about this brave attempt for Black rural organizing in the Jim Crow South!

This Day in Labor History: December 10, 1976. Undocumented workers in Chicago leather plants voted to unionize, leading to battle for them to have access to U.S. labor rights. The employer had them deported, but they sued and the Supreme Court ruled in workers favor in 1984!!! Wouldn't happen today!

Will they, even then? I have my doubts.

Look, the shingles vax does kinda suck. You know what is like 10,000 times worse? Shingles.

I cannot imagine ever writing words like this about anyone and really, you shouldn't imagine it either.

It's December 8 and I am officially Done with Winter.

This Day in Labor History: December 8, 1886. The American Federation of Labor formed at a meeting of union officials in Columbus, Ohio. No one in the labor history world really likes the AFL, but let's try to understand what it was about and how it adapted to Gilded Age realities.

One point here--the story quotes the student rep on the Board of Regents extensively. These were largely created by the student movements of the late 60s but in reality, no one on the Board is more beholden and bootlicking to administration than the student rep. They know who pays in the future.

This is such a fucking fantastic film, one of the greatest ever made, all should watch

If the politics of liberals are nothing more than "Deals with the guy who won't be running in 2028 effectively" it's lose, lose, lose

Where should the Democratic Party be on "fucked Kimberly Guilfoyle while doing a lot of cocaine for five years?"

Update: Richard Sherman knows the game www.nytimes.com/athletic/686...

Really excited that RFK is repealing the Health Industrial Complex so that we can return to quality medical care of the past, like this.

I assume the Roberts Court will rule every Democratic gerrymander illegal based on the legal doctrine of Fuck Democrats and there will nothing anyone can do about it