Book cover, Song for Hard Hit People, white lettering on red background

arrived today!

Biden, Trump, the media, the public—we have all failed the residents of East Palestine, OH “I'm pissed at how many people have forgotten about what happened here. I'm pissed that everybody thinks we're doing fine, that everything in East Palestine, OH, is good. It's not.”

I was in East Palestine this week for the 3-yr anniversary of one of the worst industrial disasters in US history. Here's the compilation of testimonies residents in/around EP shared w/ me @therealnews.com

I beg you to listen & share their stories w/ everyone you can
therealnews.com/biden-trump-...

I really appreciate the work that
@heyjohnrussell.bsky.social and
@moreperfectunion.bsky.social are doing to reach poor white voters in red states.

I’ve always thought that getting Bernie Sanders in front of Trump voters would be fruitful and it was.

👏👏👏

(Longer mini-doc is on YouTube.)

MEDIA BLACKOUT: America’s Poorest Counties Devastated By Catastrophic Flooding YouTube video by More Perfect Union

Flash flooding has killed at least six people, including a 3-year-old, in West Virginia.

In the middle of it all people are stepping up to help one another.

With the state's capacity limited, and Trump making severe cuts to FEMA, neighbors are helping neighbors.

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

I support Ohio Valley Mutual Aid! Show your support with a contribution today.

If you're able to help the folks on the front lines helping one another recover from these latest floods, here's a mutual aid link: secure.actblue.com/donate/ohio-....

We Talked To Trump Voters. They Have A Warning For Him. | Ft. John Russell YouTube video by More Perfect Union

Love seeing @heyjohnrussell.bsky.social and @moreperfectunion.bsky.social go to my hometown of Parkersburg and actually talk to people there instead of just making assumptions about hem from afar. youtu.be/KuZBd9Bd6Fk?...

Kash Patel's FBI Arrests Wisconsin Judge Accused of Obstructing ICE: Jess & John React Jess & John Pod · Episode

And listen to the @jessandjohnpod.bsky.social wherever you get pods.
open.spotify.com/episode/4U6h...

If you’re wondering how we fix this — and where we are in the rabbit hole — I wrote the whole thing up. Me and @kaburbank.bsky.social break it down on the new @jessandjohnpod.bsky.social pod.

Read it here 👇

www.theholler.co/p/if-youre-w...

A general strike is on a lot of tongues.

Egg heads studied hundreds of movements: turns out every one that mobilized 3.5% of people won.

Labor dynamo @flyingwithsara.bsky.social says: it’s no sick day—it’s a serious lift. Eat your Wheaties. We’ll probably need it.

A working-class agenda cuts across left and right. Trump supporters tell me they’re into it.

But in the absence of a real political movement offering the goods, they’re chowing down on lies from a dude running a bait-and-switch for billionaires.

The corporate core of the Democrats are ripe for a Trump-style hostile takeover from the labor left.

Workers, renters, and organizers taking the wheel and tapping into what’s driving the Bernie and AOC rallies in their own words.

People are showing up to @sanders.senate.gov and @ocasio-cortez.house.gov rallies in record numbers because they feel what we all feel: we’re sliding into total control by the dumbest, greediest people in America.

He calls it “populist nationalism,” but populism means delivering the bread.

What Bannon and Trump deliver is a circus with no carbs.

All vibes, no healthcare. And they’ll arrest your ass if you don’t like it, so eat your heart out.

Meanwhile Steve Bannon is out here doing his job:

Selling performative masculine fantasy to working people as a pacifier while robbing them blind.

Let’s be real:

If David Hogg is too radical for the party, then the party is already a zombie.

He’s not Bernie. He’s not even white people spicy. He’s suggesting moderate reforms nicely.

While all that’s happening, the @democrats.org is busy trying to stop David Hogg from primarying deadweight Dems in safe seats.

Their solution?

Dust off the “neutrality” playbook. Make the reformers look like dangerous partisans.

Kash Patel, director of the FBI:

“We’re putting you all on notice.”

Seb Gorka, Counter Terrorism Csar:

~ You love America or you’re with the terrorists. ~

Happy 2025 everyone! The fascist fan fiction has a federal budget.

ICE showed up to Judge Hannah Dugan’s courtroom without a warrant.

Now she’s indicted on federal felony charges after letting someone leave.

Trump’s goons bragged on air about coming for enemies of the state. Now they’re giving the 9/11 tools a spin at home.

Trump’s FBI arrested a judge.

Steve Bannon is selling fascism in camo cosplay calling it populism.

And the Democratic Party’s big plan?

Take out David Hogg for being mildly effective.

A new substack about the latest episode of What the Hell is Going on in America? 🧵

Fight to Win! The revelatory history of the American labor movement, from independent journalist and Teen Vogue labor columnist Kim Kelly, now adapted for young ...

✨ my new YR book ‘Fight to Win! Heroes of American Labor’ comes out in one week! ✨

if you’re a parent, educator, librarian, or someone else who has kids in their life, and you want to teach them about labor and working class history, this book is for you: www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fight-...

MEDIA BLACKOUT: America’s Poorest Counties Devastated By Catastrophic Flooding YouTube video by More Perfect Union

And it's also nuts that the national news coverage of what has happened to West Virginia, which is similar to what happened to Puerto Rico back in the first Trump presidency, is being left to @moreperfectunion.bsky.social and @heyjohnrussell.bsky.social:
youtu.be/gRvbdidqAhs

Don’t mess with a coal miner’s wife From fundraising and stocking the strike pantry to marching side by side with their spouses, the wives of striking coal miners in Brookwood, Alabama, have been a vital, unsung force behind the ongoing...

Four years ago this week, I was in West Blocton, Alabama with a group of striking coal miners’ wives, talking about how their husbands’ brutal working conditions impact their families.

@therealnews.com let me do a whole mini-documentary on their story: therealnews.com/dont-mess-wi...

Judge sets May 7 hearing for NIOSH case • West Virginia Watch U.S. District Judge Irene Berger has scheduled a hearing against Health and Human Services Secretary over federal cuts affecting NIOSH.

NEWS: West Virginia coal miner Harry Wiley, who is suffering from the early stages of black lung disease, is suing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over the admin’s misguided and harmful gutting of the NIOSH facility in Morgantown, WV westvirginiawatch.com/2025/04/23/j...

34,000 Showed Up for Bernie and AOC in Denver — Here’s What Happens If We Waste That Energy The rallies are breaking records, and the Democrats are sleepwalking through a realignment. We need a cattle call to flood the zone with 1,000 new and different candidates — not a coronation of 10.

Read the rest of the piece for free and give it a share plzzz

www.theholler.co/p/34000-show...

Amber sees the profit motives in denied care.
She sees union-busting gut her hospital.
She lives the broken system.

And she should be on the ballot.

There are thousands more like her — we just haven’t called them yet.

Let the candidates be like Amber.

She’s a nurse I met in Denver. Two jobs. Autistic twins. No polish. No handlers.

She looked me in the eye and said:

“Fuck all the oligarchs trying to run this country. You’re not it. You're not the country. We are.”

We don’t need 10 torchbearers.

We need a cattle call.

1,000 new and different candidates running for Congress, for state house, for every seat we lost under Obama.

Flood the zone. Force billionaires to play defense everywhere.

At the Denver rally, it felt like Bernie was passing the torch to AOC — and the surviving Squad.

But if we bottle this energy and hand it to 10 known progressives?

That’s not a movement.
That’s a hit list.

I travel the country with @moreperfectunion.bsky.social talking to people across the political spectrum.

Trump voters. Urban liberals. Corporate middle managers.
They’re whispering the same truth:

This system is rigged for billionaires — and they want someone to fight it.