Jonathan Kissam

Psychohistory teaches us that there is a 99% chance someone has already made this joke, but here goes anyway: Elon clearly thought he was The Mule, but turns out he was just an ass.

“We made major gains in the last contract and our goal this round was to maintain those gains. We accomplished that, but with a fight. “Bargaining conditions since Trump took office have shifted dramatically, companies feel emboldened to demand take-aways and our solidarity is the only thing stopping them. “If you are bargaining a contract this year, get strike ready because they are coming for us, but if we stick together we can still beat them on the shop floor where our power is.” —UE Local 1123 President Charles King Charles stands in the photo

Group of Local 1123 members stand together with fists raised and UE banners

Members stand for a photo at the warehouse

On April 25, Local 1123 members ratified a new three-year agreement with their employer, National Consolidation Services (NCS).

Members maintained the right to strike midcontract and secured raises that have kept pace with inflation over the past ten years.

www.ueunion.org/ue-news/2025...

modems screaming at us in the 90s was a warning and we didn't take it

Jill Sobule, Singer of History-Making 1995 Single 'I Kissed a Girl,' Dies in House Fire at 66 Singer Jill Sobule, who made history with "I Kissed a Girl," which became the first openly gay song to break the Billboard chart's Top 20, died at 66.

Shocked beyond words to learn of the passing of Jill Sobule, a great friend and frequent guest of FOW www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

Me, listening to mediocre 90s music in my (otherwise) favorite bar: god, the 90s had the worst music

*Cracker comes on*

Me: well, maybe not entirely...

Domestic Left #105: Birth, school, work, death I was born on Easter Sunday, just a few days shy of 52 years ago, at Columbia Presbyterian in New York City. According to some random guy on the subway whose take was making the rounds of social media...

“You don’t meet too many people in this world who you just click with. When you do, you've got to hold on to them.” -my mom. domesticleft.substack.com/p/domestic-l...

So today I saw a Tesla in the left-turn lane with its right-turn signal on. Make of that what you will.

On This Day In Music… April 19, 1980: the band played their first gig as R.E.M.—the show at the Kaffee Klub (or Koffee Klub) in downtown Athens was stopped by the local👮‍♂️.

Domestic Left #104: The end of history? The disorganization of American historians

Someone has got to step up and articulate what “higher education as a democratic public good” might actually mean to people who have never gotten, or will never get, a college education. My latest Substack post: domesticleft.substack.com/p/domestic-l...

YouTube video by Leuthen2 Lazlo

My favorite #ValKilmer movie: Real Genius, a mainstream Hollywood movie in which it is taken as a moral given that the people doing research to produce a weapon that could target individuals for assassination should destroy it rather than let the U.S. gov't have it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoT-...

YouTube video by PublicEnemyVEVO Public Enemy - Shut 'Em Down (Official Music Video)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXCr...

wait, don't we call them "Ivy League university presidents"?

Title: "Attacks on Campus Protest a Grave Threat to Civil Liberties and Worker Rights," a UE logo, and the attribution "Statement of the UE General Officers"

The UE officers have released a statement denouncing the arrest, detainment and threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent legal resident of the U.S., in retaliation for his peacefully speaking out on political issues. 1/7

I dunno if any fellow music nerds follow me on here, but if so, you're gonna want to subscribe to my newsletter (link in bio) so you can read this 3K+ word essay on rock and roll's simplest chord progression tomorrow.

Once again, I forgot what 8 was for

Domestic Left #97: On not doing things When I was in college, I took exactly one political science class, and only under some duress.

This week's newsletter is a bit of a meditation on the dialectic between rest and resistance in the current moment. Also, ham sandwiches. domesticleft.substack.com/p/domestic-l...

Reinstate Fired Worker Bob Pearson UE Local 106 member Robert Pearson was unjustly terminated in January from his position at the Buckeye marine terminal in Port Reading, New Jersey. The members of Local 106 are demanding that his job ...

UE Local 106 member Robert Pearson was unjustly terminated in January from his position at the Buckeye marine terminal in Port Reading, NJ. The members of Local 106 are demanding that his job be restored along with back pay he missed.Take action here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/re...

Domestic Left #96: Anthracite country Some weeks ago, a reader wrote to me with a request: “what I would like MORE of is what you see as you go around the country.” A fellow reader of Chris Arnade’s “Walks the World” Substack, she told me...

Two centuries of coal and commerce in northeast Pennsylvania domesticleft.substack.com/p/domestic-l...

Whenever I see posts about this event I think about that bit in Spinal Tap when Derek comes up to Nigel and David and tells them, "They're playing a bit of your history" on the TV. (As a delegate at both the 1996 founding convention and 1998 1st constitutional convention of the Labor Party.)

It's honestly comical to me that anyone believes there is an all knowing, all loving God who would let the Chiefs just keep getting away with it.

I'm actually laughing.

I honestly don't understand the point of the CIA if they aren't going to assassinate Elon Musk.

We need one of those efficiency experts, like on Office Space, to go through all the agents and ask them what the hell they are doing all day.

Happy Kansas Day everyone! domesticleft.substack.com/p/domestic-l...

Domestic Left #92: The blood left on the tracks I’ve never gotten used to it, I’ve just learned to turn it off

I know there's a lot going on today, but here's something a little lighter for your feed: it's the 50th anniversary of Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan's best album (according to me, and many other people). domesticleft.substack.com/p/domestic-l...

20-01-1934 GERMANY: The Nazis abolish collective bargaining and union elections. According to the law "the head of the company decides for the employees and workers in any matter concerning the company [...] The workers owe their loyalty to him".

The Laken Riley Act isn’t about public safety — it’s an attack on constitutional protections for working people. Call your Senators & urge them to vote no on the Laken Riley Act. (202) 224-3121

Working on an analysis of All The Things for work and sadly deciding that it would not be appropriate to use the phrase “a bizarre, delusional game of Risk.”