Maryland is considering putting a $25 minimum wage on the ballot! With costs rising and wages falling behind, workers know the status quo isn’t working.
A living wage is essential. If lawmakers won’t lead, let the people vote. seiu.co/48Qtw3V
I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.
RNC chair actively undermining a GOP Senate candidate who actually has a chance of flipping a seat in deep-blue Maryland & whose victory would virtually guarantee a GOP Senate majority.
Implication here is that fealty to Trump is more important than having a GOP-run Senate https://t.co/DuxAKyib0O
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) June 2, 2024
Some reporter, any reporter, please badger Republicans about slandering Democrats as "Marxists" and "Communists," disrespecting us as the "Democrat Party," etc., before this performative act of "balance" on behalf of the Republican Party. https://t.co/QZeGE5mr4g
I noted last week that I caught Taj Mahal performing "Queen Bee" on The Tavis Smiley Show and about a minute into his performance went looking for a pen and a piece of paper...which I was glad to have because after Mahal finished performing, I flipped to the next channel just as Father John Misty was beginning his performance of this week's tune on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Two great tunes new to me in the space of ten minutes--again, surprise and wonder, wonder and surprise...
Father John Misty (and what a great moniker that one is) was born Joshua Tillman in Rockville, Maryland and grew up in a very religious family. After attending college for a year, he headed to the music mecca of Seattle in 2002 and began his career in earnest. He originally performed under his given name, was in the bands Fleet Foxes and Saxon Shore, before finally settling in as Father John Misty in 2012. He has released eight albums as Josh Tillman, four as Father John Misty, one with Fleet Foxes, and two with Saxon Shore. He's had three top twenty albums as Father John Misty, with one of them reaching the top ten. Tillman has also been nominated for four Grammys and won once.
"Holy Shit" (and what a great single title that one is) was not released as a single so yet again we have no shout outs for the Billboard Hot 100 this week. It was on the 2015 LP I Love You, Honeybearwhich reached number 17 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard 200 chart. Interestingly (or not) for this day and age, 30% of its sales have come in the form of the good old-fashioned LP.
"Holy Shit" was written on the day Tillman married his wife (they're still together so I'm assuming the somber tone of the song wasn't a warning shot that the marriage was doomed from the start), and it lists a litany of life's ills and emotions, as well as cultural phenomena, on its way to its chorus which basically questions what's going on in the protagonists soul as he ponders his mortality...in all honesty, I really don't know what the song is about. But I like its anthemic nature, the way the piano and the acoustic guitar play off each other, and I like Tillman's pained yet hopeful vocals (wedding day doubts/joy?)--especially the elongated "Oh" that ends the chorus and I always imagine is probably the moment in concert when everybody in the arena is "Ohhhing" along. I also like the way Tillman plays on the words holy shit in terms of the songs religious overtones and imagery, juxtaposing it with the surprise one usually has when those two words are uttered. In the end, what I like most about it is that numerous listens after the first time I heard it on Colbert, I still think, "Holy shit, this is a great song..."
Lyric Sheet: "Oh, and no one ever really knows you, and life is brief/So I've heard, but what's that gotta do with this black hole in me..."
General Motors announced yesterday that it will be closing as many as five plants and laying off over 14,000 employees--and in doing so, also noted that Donald Trump's misguided steel tariffs had cost GM over a billion dollars. Two of those plant closing are here in my home of Dtroit--and one of them, the Warren plant, is roughly thirty minutes from where I live.
It will not be a Merry Christmas for the families of those losing their jobs. Or the businesses that those workers support with the strong wages they receive from said jobs.
I don't think it's an accident that now almost three years into the Trump Administration--after the Herculean efforts by President Obama and his Administration to save the auto industry--that once again good paying jobs are disappearing under republican leadership. The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer isn't a bug of conservatism, it's a feature.
Maybe someday it's base will recognize this and start to dig themselves out of the hole republicans have been throwing them into for the last thirty years.
Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley yesterday became the third Democrat to enter the race for the party's 2016 Presidential nomination. O'Malley has strong progressive credentials and will offer youthful good looks and exuberance to potential Democratic voters.
Unfortunately for O'Malley, Bernie Sanders is already in the race running to Hillary Clinton's left (one supposes should Jim Webb enter the race he will run to Hillary's right--and good luck with that in Democratic primaries) which leaves O'Malley the unpalatable option of claiming he's more electable than Sanders. That ought to go over really well with the die-hard Liberal base.
Don't get me wrong--I like O'Malley and would have no problem voting for him. I just think he has very long odds considering he has to beat electoral behemoth Hillary Clinton and left wing darling Bernie Sanders, both of whom are far ahead of him in name recognition as well. He also has one big caveat: as Mayor of Baltimore, his hardcore policing tactics have many believing his leadership on crime prevention played a large role in the recent strife in the city following the death of Freddie Gray, and O'Malley will certainly face hard questioning in regard to said role.
On the coolness quotient, though, O'Malley is a shoo-in. He'd be the first President who can play guitar (that I know of) and he's actually pretty damn good at it:
The average American gets paid just enough so he doesn't quit his job, and works just hard enough so he doesn't get fired.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." Source unknown
Uncle emaycee Wants You For the Coming Class War! Enlist today....
Capitalism: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you can exploit his labor, become filthy rich, and keep the poor bastard living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of his life.
