Proud To Be A Democrat!

"No, no, no, no, don't do — let him go," Biden said. "Look, everybody's entitled to be an idiot." https://t.co/Hzsl6BUTq5

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) September 5, 2022

We understand something that MAGA Republicans in Congress don't.

Wall Street didn’t build this country. Working people did.

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 5, 2022

I’m glad he’s not being pushed away from making this point, and I hope he doubles down again and again. There are cowardly Republicans looking for top cover here, to claim Biden is smearing all Republicans. https://t.co/nXgg3dEqJB

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 5, 2022

At a time when workers are having a resurgence, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a Labor Day address in Boston, connecting the fight for a fair workplace to the broader battles for human rights across the country. https://t.co/V5FP8zrahp

— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) September 6, 2022

… “In Congress and state houses across our nation, extremist so-called leaders are fighting to turn back the clock to a time before workers had the freedom to organize,” Harris said. “To a time before women had the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies. To a time before all Americans had the freedom to vote.”

Harris delivered the crowd-pleasing speech at the Greater Boston Labor Council’s annual Labor Day breakfast, as she visited the city to tout the Biden administration’s support for workers and join in a roundtable discussion with local labor leaders.

“President Joe Biden and I are determined to lead the most pro-union administration in America’s history,” Harris told the crowd of about 1,000 who packed the ballroom of the Park Plaza Hotel in downtown Boston.

Harris, who leads the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, cited the Biden administration’s accomplishments in job creation, reducing child poverty, and expanding the Child Tax Credit.

In her 20-minute speech, she also spoke about the importance of teachers, firefighters, health care workers, and others who provide services essential to society, around the country and here in Boston…

Unions, Harris said, protect not just their members but all workers.

“Today on picket lines, in union halls, and on job sites, in hospitals, schools, and grocery stores union workers fight for better wages and safer working conditions,” she said. “Our whole nation, whether they are a member of a union or not, benefits from your work. Because when union wages go up, everybody’s wages go up. When union workplaces are safer, all workplaces are safer. … When unions are strong, America is strong.”

Throughout the breakfast, labor leaders and elected officials spoke about Boston’s history as a center of the labor movement, the recent resurgence of organized labor as new workplaces form or join unions, and about the contributions that working people make to society…

President Biden is set to visit the city next Monday to tout the administration’s massive infrastructure bill…

“Today in America, so many working families are struggling to get by, but instead of standing with working people to lower the price of health care, education, child care, these extremist so-called leaders prioritize breaks for big corporations and the wealthiest 1 percent,” she said.

“But together, we are fighting back,” she added, and the crowd burst into applause.

Well worth reading the whole thing:

As @VP heads to Boston to celebrate Labor Day, @NicholsUprising chronicles her history as an ally of the movement, her leadership as Chair of the White House Labor Task Force and her vision for "the next era of the labor movement."https://t.co/U6X4pJq0Gw

— Kirsten Allen (@KirstenAllen46) September 5, 2022

… The progress of labor is never simply about the actions of presidents and vice presidents. It is determined by multiple factors, including the maelstrom of the times that confront an administration and a country. Harris understands this. Indeed, when I asked about the latest Gallup poll, which found Americans are more supportive of unions than at any time since the 1960s, she pointed to a factor that gets insufficient notice: the coronavirus pandemic.

“There’s so much about the pandemic that, I think, really highlighted for all to see what some of us have known to be the fractures and the fissures and the failures of systems—including the systems that should support working people but don’t,” she said. “We saw, for example, at the height of the pandemic, that 2 million women had to leave the workforce because a real issue for all workers is child care. How many people had to leave the workforce because they didn’t have paid sick leave? Or paid family leave? We saw how many workers were taking so much risk into their hands—especially those frontline health care workers who, through their sheer commitment, were going to work because they care about saving lives. Think about what that meant in terms of a workplace that may not be safe. Think about it in terms of teachers and other frontline workers.”

The term “essential worker” was a catchphrase for the media as the pandemic unfolded. But it resonated with the people who were putting their lives on the line. “Workers started realizing their value and started demanding that the dignity of their work would be respected in every way, including through their wages and benefits,” Harris said…

Ultimately, said Harris, “we need to pass the PRO Act,” a reference to a sweeping set of labor law reforms contained in the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which passed the US House with bipartisan support in 2021, but then stalled in the Senate. To do that, Harris explained, Democrats must hold the House and increase their Senate majority in the November midterm elections. “I’m saying everywhere, [and] the president’s saying it: We need to hold on to our numbers in the Senate, and then we need two more. Then there are a number of things that we could do, including [approving the PRO Act and], as a related issue, pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. There’s a direct nexus and connection between everything you and I are discussing and that issue.” …

The work of this Administration is making a real difference in the lives of Americans across our country. pic.twitter.com/imk0qisk43

— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) September 4, 2022

President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act builds on his legacy of supporting workers and families by:
– Creating clean energy union jobs
– Making the tax code fairer
– Revitalizing American manufacturing
– Supporting collective bargaining and the right to organize

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 5, 2022

Readership capture!

Oh you better believe he’s doing a one man broadway monologue show at some point!

— Pomodoro (Dad Joke Era) (@ilpomodoro2) September 4, 2022