It really is that big a deal. It links Southern workers with the collective action institutions of the North. That’s never happened in a big way before. https://t.co/pAMIYYoVhU
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 20, 2024
Autoworkers union celebrates breakthrough win in Tennessee and takes aim at more plants in the South https://t.co/VmR9Guq0FV
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 21, 2024
The United Auto Workers’ overwhelming election victory at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee is giving the union hope that it can make broader inroads in the South, the least unionized part of the country.
The UAW won a stunning 73% of the vote at VW after losing elections in 2014 and 2019. It was the union’s first win in a Southern assembly plant owned by a foreign automaker…
However, the UAW is likely to face a tougher test as it tries to represent workers at two Mercedes-Benz plants in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A five-day election is scheduled to start May 13, where the union’s campaign has already become heated.
The UAW has accused the German carmaker of violating U.S. and German labor laws with aggressive anti-union tactics, which the company denies.
“They are going to have a much harder road in work sites where they are going to face aggressive management resistance and even community resistance than they faced in Chattanooga,” said Harry Katz, a labor-relations professor at Cornell University. “VW management did not aggressively seek to avoid unionization. Mercedes is going to be a good test. It’s the deeper South.”
Late last year, the UAW announced a drive to represent nearly 150,000 workers at non-union factories largely in the South. The union is targeting U.S. plants run by Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru, Mazda, Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo, along with factories operated by electric-vehicle makers Tesla, Rivian and Lucid…
The White House issued a statement from President Joe Biden congratulating the UAW. Biden — who joined a UAW picket line in Michigan during the union’s strike against Ford, GM and Stellantis plants last year — praised the success of unions representing autoworkers, Hollywood actors and writers, health care workers and others in gaining better contracts.
“Together, these union wins have helped raise wages and demonstrate once again that the middle-class built America and that unions are still building and expanding the middle class for all workers,” Biden said.
Biden criticized six Southern Republican governors, including Bill Lee of Tennessee, who told autoworkers this week that voting for union representation would jeopardize jobs.
Sharon Block, a law professor at Harvard University who worked for the Biden administration on labor and other issues, said the governors’ warning rang hollow after nonunion Tesla revealed that it plans to lay off 10% of its workers after disappointing sales results. She said VW workers saw the governors’ open letter as “an empty threat and a cynical ploy,” and they ignored it.
“Workers for a long time have been told that you can’t organize in the South. And many workers, even not in the South, may work in industries where they’ve been told for a long time you can’t organize,” Block said. “What the UAW showed last night is that we need to go and rethink all those negative statements.”
Yes, a huge win for workers in Tennessee and a big kick in the pants to the governor, the super majority, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty!#UnionStrong https://t.co/tPtq5MUaC4
— Rep. Gloria Johnson (@VoteGloriaJ) April 20, 2024
What do Bill Lee and General Lee have in common?
The Union kicked their ass. https://t.co/lfe3TSfQoz
— Chris Brooks (@chactivist) April 20, 2024
The insane level of anti-worker dedication of Republican politicians is beyond understanding.
"Kill unions to bring higher paying jobs!" is like "Burn down your home to live in a mansion!" or "Slit your throat to improve your quality of life!"
Does anyone buy this crap? https://t.co/7vBLLQxByg
— DCPetterson (@dcpetterson) April 20, 2024
Labor organizers who came to the South to help workers unionize were often met w/violence. A # of them were killed—or "disappeared."
By the end of WW2, pub lynching ended—it was bad for business. So "troublemakers" were treated the same as "uppity" Blacks: killed & vanished.
— Cullen Martin (@CulRMartin) April 20, 2024
And if we don't re-elect Biden, it all turns to dust.
Say what you will about Biden, his NLRB totally slaps.
Trump appointed Antonin Scalia's idiot son as Secretary of Labor.
If you claim to care about workers, you have to vote Biden. https://t.co/y4wBy3H93I
— Erik Loomis (@ErikLoomis) April 20, 2024
The flipside of this is Trump letting Elon Musk turn the NLRB and Labor Department into a Skynet-style AI trained exclusively on the written words of Henry Ford. https://t.co/USMgi7jZ4D
— zeddy (@Zeddary) April 20, 2024
Fair Economist
It’s the fact that the win was a landslide that really raises my hopes. Maybe Southern workers are finally catching on to how they’ve been manipulated at their own expense.
mrmoshpotato
Totally!
NotMax
Hang loose, it’s the weekend. Joint needs moar novelty drumming (51:37 – 54:57).
;)
New Deal democrat
There was a thread yesterday about why Mike Johnson did such a total 180 on aid to Ukraine.
I think we have a smoking gun (backing up a theory some commenters had). The following is the lede of an article last week in Christianity Today, the evangelical Christian media magazine founded in 1956 by Billy Graham:
“Southern Baptist leaders have written to US House Speaker Mike Johnson, a member and former official of their denomination, urging him to support Ukraine in Russia’s war against its Eastern European neighbor.
“‘As you consider efforts to support Ukraine, we humbly ask that you consider the plight of Christians,’ wrote the leaders, who either have ties to the SBC’s Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary or to Ukrainian Baptists. ‘The Russian government’s decision to invade Ukraine and to target Baptists and other evangelical Christians in Ukraine has been a tragic hallmark of the war.’”
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2024/april/ukraine-christians-mike-johnson-us-speaker-southern-baptist.html
For Johnson, in any case of a conflict between Trump and actual Evangelical leaders, Trump is going to lose and the Evangelical position win.
Baud
Go Loomis!
NotMax
Crapola. Link borked at #3? Fix.
Hang loose, it’s the weekend. Joint needs moar novelty drumming (51:37 – 54:57).
;)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Fair Economist: Me too. It was that word “landslide” that caught my eye.
I think the UAW successes over the last six months have made workers believe they do indeed have power if they’ll only seize it.
Lapassionara
@Fair Economist: I will be interested to see how this plays out. When we first moved to South Carolina, Mack Truck decided to build a plant there, north of Columbia. IIRC, the union won the right to have union members move there to work at the plant. Several years later, the plant (and Mack Truck) was gone.
Chattanooga is in a part of Tennessee that has historically been Republican, but in the Rockefeller wing, not the crazy wing. So this election may not be a template for the future.
ETA, Mack Truck is not gone. It has been “restructured” and is owned by Volvo.
zhena gogolia
For those following the antics of the dead-tree New York Times, this morning’s Opinion section has a teeny picture of Trump on trial in the upper left corner. The front page of the section has a giant picture of a rock wedged in the presidential desk, with the headline “GAZA IS BIDEN’S WAR NOW” — advertising more bullshit from Kristof.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
They know how to push wedge issues.
TBone
Today’s photo memories app popped up my photos of Rumpy neighbors’ anti-BLM, pro-cops & Rump rally that the kid organized in front of our high school. One is of the guy with a huge flag featuring Smoky the Bear: “Only YOU can prevent socialism!” In front of the school made possible by all of our small contributions that also pay his father’s public school teacher salary so they can eat 😆😆😆🤮
lowtechcyclist
O Lord, help us unionize Mercedes-Benz…
Cheryl from Maryland
From what I read, the most common complaints from the VW workers was about freedom and fairness. No more calls with less than 24 hrs notice to work weekends – not having a regular, set schedule wrecks havoc with family life. No more tiered pay and benefit plans. Opportunities for line workers to have structured input into plant industrial processes. Even if the workers were well paid (for now), they still owed their souls to the Company.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: 💙❤️💙
TBone
@TBone: they have NO idea that cops’ and teachers’ unions are HUGE. Not an inkling. DUH
Betty Cracker
Loomis is 100% correct. Any working class voters who stick with Trump now can properly be called “scabs” in addition to the other derogatory titles they’ve earned. Biden is dismantling the “trickle down” scam from the bottom up.
TBone
Too bad, so sad
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/19/oxford-future-of-humanity-institute-closes
RaflW
Republican legislatures and governors keep passing red state bills to lower the age limits, lengthen the work hours, and most recently to void lunch break requirements for child labor (the cheapest kind of labor other than undocumented immigrants).
And they are voiding city ordinances or other protections for construction laborers on the most basic things like water breaks in scorching heat.
“Tools of the rich to exploit you” couldn’t be any clearer. And of course evangelical Christian leaders don’t give a rip about any of this. Their “prosperity gospel” is 100% aligned with the money changers in the temple.
JML
Hopefully auto-workers (and frankly everyone in manufacturing) in the South realizes that the corporate bosses are never on their side. They’ll reduce workforce any time they need to buff the stock price, will loot the retirement plans if they can get away with it, and will always always always hand out 1000x the bonuses to the C-suite scumbags than pay the people who do the actual work. And the governors soooooo concerned for them do not care about them at all, just the sweet sweet campaign contributions they get from the execs.
They’re not on your side. Management is pretty much never on your side. But if you have a union, you at least have a chance. Together we bargain, divided we beg.
I hope they can pull it off at Mercedes, who have been infected byt he same anti-union zeal that is soaked in corporate america. (VW is more like traditional European companies where they’re more indifferent) A second win starts to make a wave. If they can get one of the Japanese plants as well, it’s going to be an even bigger deal.
Union Yes!
RaflW
@TBone: A “sister organization to research the threat of artificial intelligence”? Paid for by the guy whose X-site has launched Grok?
TBH, Grok is an LLM posing as AI. But still, the irony (and teh stupid), it burns.
eclare
@JML:
That is a great summation: together we bargain, divided we beg.
TBone
I used to date a Union carpenter. Got the T-shirt. Big, toothy rattlesnake. “Will strike if provoked!”
Also, I live in Union County
TBone
@RaflW: I love that you’re so perceptive
Another Scott
Good, good.
Here’s hoping that unions go after Boeing and BMW in SC, also too. I believe that only a handful are unionized at Boeing’s SC plant where they assemble the 787, and Boeing has fought them there every step of the way…
Grr…,
Scott.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
My dislike of otherwise fauxgressive shitheels like [G]Loomis and Lemeow at LGM is something I’ve mentioned before.
But he’s very right about reelecting the best president of my lifetime.
None of what the UAW just did would have been possible, much less get that kind of vote, if it weren’t for the most pro-union president of my lifetime and a non-hostile NLRB.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Another Scott:
The machinists union opened negotiations with Boeing for the first time in 16 years last month. Articles focus only on what that means for the Pacific NW.
This Boeing blurb is all anybody needs to know about them an unions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/boeing/comments/1aep647/can_you_believe_this/
I have an old friend back in STL, die hard conservative halfway thru Dubya’s first term. Has voted rock solid Dem ever since.
He was a pointy haired, mid-level manager for McDonnel-Douglass, then Boeing when they were bought out. Worked there for 30+ years.
And while he voted Dem starting in 2004, if you ever asked him about the machinists union there, he’d start off with every anti-union trope you’ve ever heard.
Boeing started the entire SC thing in an effort to weaken the Seattle-based machinists union and there’s nothing to indicate they’ll ever stop.
H.E.Wolf
Thank you Anne Laurie for this post, and for its title. It might be my favorite Joe Hill union song.
Here’s Billy Bragg’s cover version for the 2014 film “Pride”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwP-5ac51Dw
lowtechcyclist
@New Deal democrat:
I concur. And I think this will cause the evangelical base to majorly change their view of Russia. As long as (as far as they knew) Russia wasn’t attacking their sort of Christians (IOW, Baptists and other evangelicals), they could get behind Russia as a Christian nation that was against the same things they were, like abortion and gays. (I’m sure they were unaware that the abortion rate in Russia has been way higher than here.)
But now that they see Russia attacking their sort of Christians (they probably wouldn’t give a damn about this Orthodox denomination versus that one), that’s all going to go out the window, and Russia will be the enemy again.
JML
@TBone: I have that button! (I’m a Teamster)
I think it freaked out some people at the university, lol. They weren’t ready for the “practice picket” after our strike authorization vote either…
As a union steward, I have seen and heard so much unbelievable crap from management…never trust, always verify.
TBone
I’m glad I took a mental health day break yesterday for the most part. High as a kite and giggling almost all day. It really helps! Capped it off with Walter Matthau and Tatum O’Neill in ‘Bad News Bears.’ No news on the TV at all. Gearing up for this week’s trial.
Just wait till next year!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xSQxtMWJzGQ
Baud
Good time to remind everyone that corporations are gunning for the NLRB in the courts.
TBone
@JML: 💙❤️💙❤️💙 I wore mine to the office for casual Fridays after the boss sent an an email to all legal admin. staff bitching about us not cleaning up after the attorneys who left crumbs, spills, paperclips, rubber bands, and all other manner of piles of mess all over the building. I responded with a curt email on behalf of all staff telling him that we had no time to be maids on top of our present duties because WE don’t have hired help at home like you guys do, we’re busy earning your paychecks and furthermore I already keep two homes clean and clutter free on my time off!
lowtechcyclist
Having organized VW I think will have a ripple effect over time no matter what, due to that powerful human emotion, envy. If workers at non-union plants see the deals that VW workers are getting, they’ll want some of that action.
TBone
@Baud: I thought about posting about that. Good eye!
mrmoshpotato
@TBone: LOL! Stupid kid.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: that’s why the Governors are crying in public.
stinger
@JML:
Stealing this.
TBone
@stinger: nominated!
TBone
@mrmoshpotato: the hordes of Evangelugicans here are breathtakingly stupid. Like, it literally sucks the breath away.
AM in NC
@Dorothy A. Winsor: And other unions’ successes too! I read one article where a Tennessee worker said they voted yes this time because they saw the Hollywood writers’ strike get results for those workers.
Solidarity between Arts and Industry workers is wonderful to see and can only lead to better places!
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
I looked up which states have gubernatorial elections this year. Kinda bummed to see that the six who signed that letter aren’t up for re-election until 2026.
RaflW
@New Deal democrat: That may have had some effect, but I think the bigger factor is that Trump is a napping, slope-shouldered, no gas in the tank schlub, day after day, stuck in court and muzzled.
And he’ll be there for likely another five weeks. While sucking a 5% skim off House races (prediction: the 5% tribute to Dear Leader will soon become mandatory, not just when the Trump name/likeness is used).
And polling is already starting to wake up to the general election reality vis Biden.
Johnson isn’t a great parliamentarian, and his whip (Emmer) is a dolt, but the House leadership can see the November losses looming and know that the Biden-Harris admin would not, for one nanosecond, let Johnston off the hook if Ukraine got screwed and then fell back drastically against Putin.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: The result at the Chattanooga VW factory should help the Teamsters’ campaign to unionize Amazon.
prostratedragon
“Talking Union” talking blues, Pete Seeger
mrmoshpotato
@TBone:
Nice.
TBone
@AM in NC: YAY FRAN DRESHER!!!!
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: *Wicked Witch of the West voice* They’ll get theirs, my little pretty!
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊😊
rikyrah
That the vote wasn’t close is what’s remarkable 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah: Happy Sunday!
TBone
@mrmoshpotato: I spelled it wrong tho
Evangeluglicans
It was missing the L 😞 for LOSERS
RaflW
Mentioned this the other day, but I’d think Boeing is ripe for unionization at their southern plant.
The whole Jack Welch-ization of Boeing, including a muliti-prong effort to screw Pacific NW union machinists, assembly workers, etc by sending jobs to South Carolina (where they slap together 787s full of loose junk and lost tools).
No offense to the workers, they’re just trying to do impossible jobs while MBAs scream “faster, pussycat, goo-oh-ohh-oh”. They need a union to tell the managers to STFU.
counterfactual
I just sent an email to J.D. Vance encouraging him to take the day off when the Ukrainian aid package comes back to the Senate. And I should send one to Sherrod Brown thanking him for mostly voting as I like without encouragement.
TBone
Dan Rather’s Reason to Smile email gives props to Gloria Gaynor today. Variation on a theme 🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f9rCUQjmkxU
TBone
@counterfactual: I like your style
TBone
@RaflW: I know a guy who works at their southeast PA facility. He’s full on Qanon nutso. No help for his brain will penetrate the tinfoil hat with antennae and chinstrap.
Chief Oshkosh
@New Deal democrat:
So now we know how to squeeze Johnson (pun intended). Gee, I wonder if others will figure that out, too…
Which is to say, I’m glad that, for whatever motivation, Li’l Mikey did right, finally.
But the motivation is still a problem when it doesn’t arise from the principles of representative democracy, but rather one of protecting one’s own version of deity worship.
prostratedragon
“All I Want Is Union,” Pete Seeger and the Hootenanners
RevRick
@lowtechcyclist: Not only that, but this victory breaks the spell of anti-union rhetoric that if you support a union the sky will fall and society will disintegrate.
bjacques
@TBone: Shutting down the institute will benefit humanity in the long term—short term too.
TBone
Dedicated to all you lovely, funny, sometimes spiteful, always glorious jackals, without whom I don’t know how I’d get through some days. 🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=etviGf1uWlg
TBone
@bjacques: 🤣😁
RevRick
@Baud: They’re aiming for the whole regulatory regime. They’re itching to return to Lochner and the “sacred right of contract.”
rikyrah
Luntz is just trying to stay relevant and paid. The Orange Menace was bad for his business model, which was to find the right dog whistle to give to GOP politicians and their enablers in the MSM to create plausible deniability for the GOP.
The Orange Menace saying the quiet part out loud means there is no need for Luntz 😒😒
Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) posted at 8:08 AM on Sat, Apr 20, 2024:
Frank Luntz complaining about “divisiveness” is akin to Typhoid Mary complaining about the spread of infections. Why the media gives him a platform is unreal. He is a huge cause of the vitriol that exists in America.
(https://x.com/matthewjdowd/status/1781671318640857426?t=IKo4-bpEyQF4-uCDeM9shA&s=03)
TBone
@rikyrah: fuck him. We’re gonna get the trifecta this year.
🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JwBjhBL9G6U
rikyrah
@Baud:
Indeed they are
Frank Wilhoit
@Chief Oshkosh: Zelenskyy sent some Ukrainian Xtians to go see Mike Johnson. I think that is what knocked him over. This was a characteristic gesture, on many levels, including playing with fire. In any case, right-for-the-wrong-reasons isn’t right.
TBone
@Frank Wilhoit: the enemy of my enemy, for now…
Geminid
People were wondering yesterday about how soon Ukraine could be provided munitions once the Senate passed the aid bills. Laura Rozen posted an encouraging passage from a Financial Times article by Lauren Fedor and Christopher Miller:
Spanky
I’ve noticed that SteveintheWTF has been pretty quite lately.
TBone
@Geminid: 💙 ridin’ with Biden doing wheelies!
🎶 😁
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qEuV82GqQnE
Baud
@Spanky:
He loves this. More billable hours for him.
TBone
Polling USA xit:
NYC – Mayoral Vote:
Someone Else: 65%
Adams: 16%
Unsure: 19%
Manhattan Institute / April 11, 2024 / n=700
Geminid
@TBone: I’m riding with Biden and I’m gellin’ with Yellen. The Treasury Department hit a couple Israeli foundations with sanctions Friday, for supporting violent West Bank settlers.
Another Scott
@RevRick: “Feudalism Now, Feudalism Tomorrow, Feudalism Forever!!” – GQP
Grr….
I was disappointed that Biden’s 2021 Presidential Commission on the SCOTUS was a bit of a bust. But perhaps it was 11-dimensional chess and laid the groundwork for significant changes in his next term. We need to make it so.
Fight for 15!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Frank Wilhoit: In the case of the Congressional GOP, you have two choices: wrong and right for the wrong reasons. The second one only shows up on rare occasions. We need to take advantage when it does.
Thor Heyerdahl
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you and me.
(Props to H.E.Wolf for getting there first)
eclare
@Baud:
I have no doubt he started planning a trip to Chattanooga on Friday night. Just a meet and greet, wine and dine, grip and grin, with management.
More power to him.
Trivia Man
I would like to see labor in Germany putting pressure in the company. If they are breaking German labor laws in their dealings then that IS their business. I know public shaming isnt a force in this country any more but in Germany it might help.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Good piece on the UAW/VW vote. References the upcoming MB vote in May:
https://inthesetimes.com/article/volkswagen-workers-chattanooga-vote-uaw-win
Per something TBone said above regarding a RWNJ working for Boeing: it’s hard to organize in 3rd World plants like the ‘Murkin South cuz the workers there grew up in a very anti-union, anti-Dem, Southern world. They’ve bought into all the kulture krap and it’s classic “vote against my economic interests every damned time if it means “those people” don’t get anything”.
Thus, it’s hard to make comparisons to how a workforce in the North would act going into a unionization effort.
As I’ve said before, the UAW (and others) clearly recognizes it’s generational window-of-opportunity to begin to change that paradigm given the political backing it has at the federal level.
There’s a new documentary out on the Chris Smalls-led effort to unionize the Amazon Staten Island sweat shop:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/union-review-amazon-union-struggle-1235794285/
Betty
@Frank Wilhoit: Never underestimate Zelenskyy. Some Republicans like to mock him as a former comedian without realizing that really good comedians are often very smart.
Another Scott
@TBone: Thank you!
That’s fun. And always was catchy.
84M views! Zooks!
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@TBone: The parties in NY and NYC need to get their acts together. Electing Monsters, MotUs, or Morons isn’t the way to move forward.
Grr…,
Scott.
Bex
@Frank Wilhoit: I admire Zelenskyy more every day.
Trivia Man
@Thor Heyerdahl: I learned about Joe when i lived in utah. I had an apartment just a few blocks from the site if his execution- funny how theres no marker there and barely any mention if him. Fun fact: after cremation his ashes were sent to every US state and many foreign countries. But not Utah. “I wouldnt be caught dead in utah” says he.
3Sice
What happened to Mike Johnson?
He went down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring and get his orders from Moscow. And…. well we’ve all read “The Heart of Darkness” and seen “Apocalypse Now”.
Never get out of the boat.
TBone
@Another Scott: a wing and a prayer, it’s all I got today. It’s coming, I’m running on, living on, that faith. The Blue Wave is real.
TBone
@3Sice: 😆
TBone
@Geminid: 🌈🦋 fuckin’A!
Geminid
@Another Scott: Maybe Kathy Garcia will run again. She came in second last time, and once all the ranked-choice votes were tallied Eric Adams finished only 8,000 votes ahead of her. Right now Garcia has a job in Albany with the Hochul administration.
Trivia Man
@Trivia Man: I stand corrected. Last November the AFL CIO finally put up a plaque to n Sugarhouse park. About damn time.
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: good work comrade! We’ll get through to even the stubbornly stupid eventually, they’ll have to join or be ground down into dust. If you can’t beat ’em…
TBone
@Another Scott: yours in service,
TBone
(Still shouting out for Fani, her correspondence to Gym Jordan was 🔥😆😎)
Frankensteinbeck
@New Deal democrat:
I think it’s all overcomplicating and looking for explanations that make sense to us instead of looking at the stupid, stupid evidence right in our face. Republican Speakers, including Johnson, dither and posture until the very last moment before bringing necessary, bipartisan bills to the floor. It’s what they’ve been doing since 2010. It’s what Johnson just did. There’s no 180. He’s an incompetent, cowardly dumbass who likes to say performative bullshit he won’t back up with action. That’s practically the definition of a Republican.
TBone
@Frankensteinbeck: we shouldn’t underestimate the power that the religious freaks are currently wielding. Look at the Supremacist Court ferfukksake.
UncleEbeneezer
Accidentally posted this in the Late-Night thread but meant to share it here:
Is anyone else watching Ripley on Netflix? It’s a B/W series of the Talented Mr. Ripley book. Despite being Black & White, the cinematography is absolutely stunning. Makes me really want to visit Italy. Also, it’s a very slow-burn drama the builds the tension in a very gradual way. And Adam Scott (who plays Ripley) is a really superb actor. It’s a very different approach than the 1999 film starring Matt Damon (which was great too), but it’s totally amazing, engrossing and addictive. If you like a good noir crime drama, I highly recommend it!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@TBone: I try not to think too much about the Supreme Court. They scare me stupid.
Frankensteinbeck
@TBone:
Sure, but it’s not necessary. Johnson just did what Republican Speakers have been doing for more than a decade. Why look for some special trick? He was just told it’s the last minute, so he folded. Same as it ever was.
Nukular Biskits
Good (late) mornin’, y’all!
How many times have I told y’all that it’s rude to get started so early?!?!?!?!
🤣
Lyrebird
@Cheryl from Maryland: @TBone:
I grew up knee-jerk pro-union, then I learned about LEO’s unions, etc., but this VW vote sounds like a big win indeed!
I mean, I know of companies that fought unionization by: 1. making hourly workers part of the stock bonus plan, 2. giving them more control over shifts – memory is fuzzy on how, 3. improving health care coverage for hourly and salaried workers. If a company management goes that route, fine by me! But if management is all, let’s do conspiracy theories, propaganda, threats, let alone actually firing leaders… well that’s a big sign they need a union!
TBone
@UncleEbeneezer: I love every version of that movie. Foreign and domestic. Will now be viewing again thank you!
TBone
@Frankensteinbeck: this made a big splash, opinions vary
https://thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/dying-for-us-aid-zelenskyy-agrees
TBone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: hugs to you my dear, I’m with you, I hear you. We’ll hold hands and get through this TOGETHER 💕
eclare
@UncleEbeneezer:
Thanks! Maybe I’ll check it out, the reviews I’ve seen have been mixed. But all of them mentioned the cinematography.
M31
@TBone: lol Mayor Adams at 16%, that’s actually lower than Chris Christie (19, if I’m remembering right)
too bad “nO LaBelZ” imploded those two would be the dream unity ticket for sure
Adams will be on CNN as a commentator soon
bjacques
@UncleEbeneezer: *Andrew* Scott! And he’s brilliant in just about everything he’s in, such as the hot priest in “Fleabag”, and a poignant episode of Black Mirror. He did a great Hamlet. Apparently a cool and funny guy in person.
UncleEbeneezer
@eclare: It’s definitely slow, so I can see that bothering some people. But if you aren’t one of those people (I actually like slow movies/series’ as long as they are still compelling) it is otherwise pretty flawlessly done, imo.
UncleEbeneezer
@bjacques: Wait, which Black Mirror episode?
NotMax
@UncleEbeneezer
Ever watched the 1960 version, Purple Noon? Film that cemented Alain Delon’s star status. Restored trailer.
Omnes Omnibus
@bjacques: He also gave the greatest advice for looking relaxed and natural in a red carpet photo. It works off the red carpet as well. “Step just past your mark. Take half a step back with your right foot. Put one hand in your pocket.”
eclare
@UncleEbeneezer:
Slow is not derogatory to me, thanks! I’ll check it out tonight.
TBone
@M31: 😆😍
Another Scott
Meanwhile, yet another example that it’s important not to believe the hype…
Hackaday.com – Trolling IBM’s quantum processor advantage with a Commodore 64.
tl;dr – Quantum computing research, especially error correction, is important. But it’s not there yet and won’t be for a while.
Even if it doesn’t “get there” soon, it’s important for, among other things, forcing computer scientists to think about new ways of dealing with giant amounts of data (e.g. not all problems need to be reduced to 1 and 0; some problems just need to know “is this more likely than that” – e.g. quantum fuzzy logic inference engines.)
Cheers,
Scott.
TBone
@NotMax: 💜
TBone
@Another Scott: I read Hackaday as “Huckabee” 😆 it’s like the frenzy for health supplement pills
Also, I own a copy of this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Heart_Huckabees
NotMax
@M31
“We had an open spot for a lemon.”
//
Melancholy Jaques
@TBone:
True. I think they need to be defeated four or five elections in a row before they stop dictating terms to the political media.
Princess
@New Deal democrat: Maybe so. I still feel like the whole “evangelicals for Ukraine” story is a face-saving cover for something else. But what do I know?
bjacques
@UncleEbeneezer: Smithereens, where he tries to stage a kidnapping to bring attention to the evils of social media. It’s very moving.
Melancholy Jaques
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think the “I just found out that Russians are killing Christians!” is a cover story he can use with his base. My bet is he changed as soon as he started getting the classified briefings that convinced him that this was no game.
Jackie
Since this post is celebrating good news:
It’s a good article for Biden and us! 😁
TBone
@Melancholy Jaques: we will crush them in good time, it’s a matter of vigilance and perseverance. My motto: don’t stumble looking over your shoulder, but use the eyes in the back of your head and don’t miss one moment of their treacherous doings.
TBone
@Jackie: rainbows and butterflies! 😍
NotMax
@TBone
Cannot help it, always makes the mind go here.
Another Scott
FORTE10 GlobalHawk is back over the Black Sea (but it’s popping in and out of visibility). I haven’t seen one on patrol there in a while (but I don’t check every day). Here’s hoping she’s making a long list of tasty new targets for Ukraine.
Slava Ukraini!!
Cheers,
Scott.
TBone
@NotMax: 😍😆😆😆
TBone
@Another Scott: delicious!
TBone
@Melancholy Jaques: I sincerely hope you are correct.
Mike in NC
One of the most anti-union governors was Nikki Haley of SC, who frequently denounced labor unions and their members as “cockroaches”. Look it up.
Anyway
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Ds in the South aren’t all pro-union. I know die-hard Dem voters from MS, AL etc that are not sold on the advantages of labor unions. They buy into every other D constituency but don’t get unions. Has that changed with the younger generation of Ds?
NotMax
In not so breaking news, hit a home run out of the park with bases loaded in yesterday’s cookery adventure.
Big pan of noodle kugel; picking and choosing amounts and ingredients from among three different recipes and adding a touch of my own. Was full after dinner but could not resist later on sneaking a small slice out of the pan to try. Scrumptious.
Tony Jay
@bjacques:
Also a fully insane (or is he?) Moriarty in Sherlock. No one else does as much with a simple sigh.
Bill Arnold
@bjacques:
Why? Show your work.
smith
More evidence of the civil war brewing within the GQP — Rep Tony Gonzales (R-TX) today:
bjacques
@TBone: If dealing with The Family at least partly explains Johnson’s volte-face on aid, I still trust Zelenskyy’s judgment. It’s pretty clear that if Ukraine falls, US and US-adjacent evangelicals won’t have any future in the Russky Mir. It still looks like a case of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party finally going after their crowd. Russians would be hanging them from bell towers, like in the old WWI propaganda stories about the Heinies in Belgium.
I visited Moscow and St Pete in 2002. In the latter, our digs were a funky Ostblocky hotel decorated mostly in seafoam green, near the train station (to Moscow) and across the boulevard from Scientology. A few years later, I read they’d been hounded out of the country.
@Bill Arnold: I’m all for thinking about the long term, but not for spending it with tech bro “philosophers”.
Nukular Biskits
@Another Scott:
Thanks for the “Trolling IBM” link! That was hilarious, even if I (a senior network/systems engineer) didn’t understand all of it!
citizen dave
Neil Young’s Union Man, a fun little ditty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FooKUdQdwnE.
with the classic/funny lyrics:
This meeting will now come to order
Is there any new business?
Yeah, I think ‘Live music are better’
Bumper stickers should be issued.
What was that?
‘Live music is better’
bumper stickers should be issued
The gentleman says ‘Live music is better’
bumper stickers should be issued
All in favor of what he said signify by sayin’ “ay”
Ay
(Watch out San Diego, first date of Neil Young and Crazy Horse 2024 tour is Wednesday)
Sister Golden Bear
@TBone: 420ing on 4/20 is only appropriate.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: I hope 100 people tweet this at Jane Mayer because of her tweet whining that Biden hasn’t done an interview with the NY Times, WaPo or WSJ, as if he’s required to do that or no other interviews count. I like her reporting, but she just doesn’t get it – Democrats are done cooperating with press outfits that have actively promoted TFG or act like TFG is normal. Biden has given plenty of interviews, he doesn’t need to go to any of those outfits to reach people.
Frankensteinbeck
@smith:
That is… unprecedented. This is a whole new level of internal friction. Accusing another Republican of KKK sympathies? I know it’s a Leopards Eating Faces situation. Republican primary voters consistently pick the most operational defiant disorder asshole they are offered. Eventually they become such assholes they can’t get along with each other. But this… jeez. Hell of a long way from Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment.
Citizen Alan
@TBone: Union County, MS?
Melancholy Jaques
@smith:
But he’ll stay in the party, vote with the scumbags, and vote for the party’s nominee.
It’s all talk. Until he does something, fuck him and every other Republican.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Obviously he’s trying to hide how old he is.
wjca
The question is, will the management there be smart enough to match what VW workers get? Strictly in order to avoid unionization.
Probably not the smart money bets. After all, we see workers in many parts of the country acting (voting) against their economic (and other) interests. No reason to assume management won’t do the same.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
Popcorn futures are way, way up!!1
Reminder – David Pecker and T___p
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
smith
@Frankensteinbeck: Beyond the Eleventh Commandment, we’re also witnessing the crumbling of the Hastert Rule. Even as they go further and further off the cliff of insane partisanship, the GQP has started to rely on Dems to push the necessary things through. The Hastert Rule was already proving to be stupidly counterproductive, being a major contributer to the GQP’s inability to get anything done when they were in charge.
Kay
@wjca:
Union successes sometimes hurts unions:
It happens all the time, in every industry. Unions raise the floor and everyone – union and non union benefit. The “free rider” problem.
It was why non union charter school teachers joined our pro union initiative in Ohio – teachers unions are holding up their wages – without teachers unions they’d be making 12 bucks an hour.
Kay
The most interesting part of unions to me is their resiliency. Wealthy people have been trying to destroy them for more than a hundred years but they keep coming back. It’s because there is no replacement for them – workers have two choices – government regulatory schemes or organize. It’s the only non governmental, pro worker lever out there. Every generation “rediscovers” them :)
Bill Arnold
@bjacques:
Bostrom’s “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies” was published in 2014[1], about 3 years before the 2017 “Transformers” paper that ushered in the large language models that we are currently concerned about, and the associated wealthy techbro nonsense/hype.
It was a good read; he is an intelligent man. I doubt that Musk has read it. (There are indications that he has been a racist in the past; doesn’t show at all in that book.)
[1] I have decent intuitions about such things. 2008/2010 I placed a prediction on a MIT forecasting database (have not found that database, sigh), and also made a on-paper bet with a friend, that by 2023 an AI system would perform at at least human level on at least one high-stakes test. GPT-4 and Gemini both announced such performance in 2023, with interesting high-human scores on the GRE, bar exam, and some other such tests. The current LLMs are seriously flawed as a model for general intelligence (e.g. no backtracking or forward equiv), but there are a host of groups and individuals working on other approaches.
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
You made me look. Each of those newspapers is considerably older than Joe Biden. Might be fun to play that card.
wjca
If it gets their votes to support Ukraine, how much do we really care what their rationalization is?
wjca
From what I’ve seen (IANAL) the case for falsifying business records is rock solid. The uncertainty involves the link to “other crimes”, which is what makes falsifying records a felony rather than a misdemeanor.
rikyrah
@Soprano2:
Thank you. Biden doesn’t owe those muthaphuckas anything 🤬🤬🤬
rikyrah
@Kay:
As someone raised in a two parent Union household, it is satisfying to see folks “discover” them, after all those who bought into Reaganomics. Those were bad years
Starfish
@Anyway: They have no experience with unions and are suspicious of change. The Southern Democrats I know really bought into the whole “no one wants to work” nonsense.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Kay: it’s really simple: rich people can’t be trusted. the sooner workers realize that, the sooner they join the union.
mz visitor is the union rep for her public school teachers.
Kelly
I’m very pro union is spite of being ripped off by the Teamsters at a summer job when I was a teenager. I worked at a vegetable cannery. There were a few hundred year round union workers and maybe 1500 seasonal union workers. When the contract came up for negotiation the company offered and across the board raise. The year rounders told us seasonal that they could get a bigger raise if we voted to strike. The strike vote passed negotiations continued and the deal we ended up with gave the year rounders a much better deal than the seasonals.
Starfish
@Bill Arnold: A lot of effective altruism and longtermism is a rich people tax dodge masquerading as non-profit work.
If I start a non-profit and tell you with a straight face that the work I am doing will be super important to humanity in five hundred years but will accomplish nothing in our life time, should you give me your money?
Kay
Like labor unions, the Democratic Party has a free rider problem. Republicans count on Democrats to protect the social safety net, but they won’t vote for Democrats.
Red states themselves are a free rider problem, really.
Ruckus
I owned and ran a manufacturing company that my dad started, longer than he did, that needed highly skilled labor and we paid top dollar and were still very competitive. We had people that worked for us for decades because we had a clean, safe, well paying company, that rewarded people for the quality of their work and we did not treat them like disposable things. We treated them respectfully, humanly – like we wanted to be treated if we worked for someone. It showed in the workmanship, in the loyalty and pride they showed in their work. Why companies think that screwing their employees for an extra few bucks is a rational, reasonable, humane, profitable concept is beyond me
Part of my comment is that if workers were treated as well as the big wheels, and the big wheels worked in the same environment, the concept and need of unions would not be needed. But the previous sentence is rarely true and as an ex business owner I can’t understand why – other than greed.
The "I Want" Song
@UncleEbeneezer:
I’m inclined to say the cinematography is so stunning *because* it’s shot in black & white. At any rate, I’m really enjoying this series.
Soprano2
@Kay: The GE plant my mom worked at here was the only non-union plant in their division, and that’s how they kept the union out. My mother was a happy free rider who had the Republican knee-jerk dislike of unions. She never turned down the raises and benefits they got for her, though.
Soprano2
@Baud: The commenters raked her over the coals for that tweet, and she’s a good reporter. Even some of the good ones still think Dems should show fealty to national press organs.
TBone
@Lyrebird: sorry I missed that earlier, good comment 😘
wjca
A combination of greed with extreme short-termism. And frankly, I think the latter is at least an equally large part of the problem. Because straight greed would realuze that, in the long term, treating your workers well pays dividends. Big dividends.
Thank you business schools everywhere. /s
Ruckus
@wjca:
First, I am not disagreeing with you at all about the greed.
Second, the extreme short term concept is to me not the entire story. I am in no way saying it doesn’t exist but. First I’ve know a few large business owners, my customers for my first business were entirely other businesses, mostly larger to a lot larger than mine, that produced products made with the tools we built for them. I could give you names of the products those tools produced and many here would recognize them. Most of those customers existed to sell the products our tools made and without them they would have no business. So while greed certainly is a human failing. it is not the entire story. I also find that greed often so narrows one’s vision that many caught in it’s glare would be blinded.
And yes, paying one’s workers a rational, proper, living wage is actually one of the things that makes the whole thing work at all. But because of greed we have at least a minimum wage law. Now for some jobs minimum wage would get one exactly zero workers. It has been that way for my entire life.