Death of a Union The chief and crucial reason for labor unions is to fight or advocate on behalf of their members. It’s very simple, really. To employ collective strength to ensure that we have acceptable wages, benefits, hours and safe working conditions. Real unions remain vigilant, focused, unconflicted and unrelenting in that mission. The […]

Cotton, Perdue, etc.   Let’s start by recalling that Donald Trump has made a career out of saying outrageous things from “grab’em by the pussy” to saying he would date his own daughter because she’s hot.   So, Dick Durbin’s revelation that Trump referred to African countries as shitholes is hardly extraordinary or out of […]

Cohn was a lawyer and friend of Trump’s when he was younger. Cohn was a pure maggot, serving as Joe McCarthy’s chief counsel during the infamous Army-McCarthy hearings. He was also a big pal of Roger Stone, another Trump apologist. Stone says of Cohn, “He was interested in power and access.” Stephen Miller, Trump’s bizarre […]

Brunacini in a Lab Coat The diesel extraction systems protecting you from particulates? Thank Dr. Melius for that. Better and more targeted medical exams for firefighters? Thank him for that, too. Workers compensation coverage for occupational cancers? Yep. The Zadroga 9/11 Program? Ditto. And the list goes on and on. Jim died on New Year’s […]

In Like a Lion But Out Like a Lamb Over a year ago, in the Fall of 2016, former New York Local 854 president and IAFF chief of staff Pete Gorman filed a lawsuit in DC court alleging that he had been wrongly terminated after raising concerns about unethical hiring practices at the IAFF. Gorman […]

 Charming But Potentially Deadly, Too “A woman and her two daughters and a niece on the fifth floor were killed when flames from the first floor rushed up the stairwell, filling the passageway with smoke and sending people scurrying down a fire escape.” (NYT)   Older apartment buildings can be very beautiful but will usually […]

  Politico had this to say over the weekend about how Trump’s GOP is treating US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell:   “Corey Stewart, the Trump-aligned local elected official in Virginia who … is now challenging Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, said of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, … “The guy’s toxic, there’s no support for […]

As Bad As Trump The Franken-Photo should be the iconic image used to explain how men in power think and feel about women. And, it’s much worse than it seems. Franken felt so empowered that he wanted a “pic” of the moment for posterity. He wanted to preen as he documented his authority. Not only […]

He is an IAFF Instructor “Many years ago the GP got up in front of a number of instructors and stated plainly that the diversity of the IAFF instructor pool lacked diversity and did not reflect our membership. At the time there were 4 [African-American] IAFF instructors and no women. In mid 2000 3 women […]

Blah, Blah, Blah Everybody knows one. That guy or gal itching to bend your ear. So eager to talk they would chat with a corpse if no one else was around. I once worked with someone who was so verbose that if she cornered you it was known as being “pinned down under heavy fire.” […]