The son of a United Steelworkers (USW) member is leading a Murray (Ky.) State University student protest against their school's choice of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell as this year's graduation speaker May 11. The lad is Devin Griggs, who won the outstanding labor youth award from the Kentucky State AFL-CIO at the state convention in 2011.

Berry Craig, recording secretary for the Paducah-based Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council and a professor of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, is a former daily newspaper and Associated Press columnist and currently a member of AFT Local 1360. Craig sends us this.

Retired Kentucky United Steelworkers (USW) member Jim Pence is doing his bit to help retire Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “Social media is the way to go,” said Pence, who lives in Glendale, Ky., and belonged to USW Local 423 in Louisville. Pence has opened a pair of Facebook pages: Ditch Mitch and 1,000,000 Strong Against Senator Mitch McConnell in 2014.

The compromise version of filibuster reform that the U.S. Senate approved Thursday is “a missed opportunity to move forward or even ensure debate on the critical issues facing our nation," said Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen.

The reforms do streamline some filibuster rules by limiting filibusters on what is known as the “motion to proceed.”

Even a heartless Grinch should understand that cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits is a really bad idea.

Republican congressional leaders offered their budget counter-proposal Monday in response to President Obama's proposal, but it does little more than rehash previous offers that were clearly rejected by the voters in November's election.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republican senators objected to a report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reported, which led to the report being withdrawn by the CRS. The report shows that CRS found no correlation between reductions in top tax rates and economic growth, and little association with savings, investment or productivity.

CRS writes:

The evidence does not suggest necessarily a relationship between tax policy with regard to the top tax rates and the size of the economic pie, but there may be a relationship to how the economic pie is sliced.

Berry Craig, recording secretary for the Paducah-based Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council and a professor of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, is a former daily newspaper and Associated Press columnist and currently a member of AFT Local 1360. Craig sends us this.

The hours are long but, says Kentucky United Steelworkers (USW) member Chris Ormes, “I'm loving it. I'm at ground zero, and that's where I want to be."

Ormes, 37, president of USW Local 1241 in Bardstown, Ky., says ground zero is Ohio. The state's electoral votes likely will decide who wins the presidential election. He is a foot soldier in a small army of union volunteers who are toiling 12- and even 14-hour days to help President Obama take the Buckeye State.

In a televised panel discussion yesterday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka handily put Mitt Romney’s economic polices into perspective: stale and failed.

Countering comments by Romney economic adviser Vin Weber that corporate taxes need to be lowered and deregulation pushed forward, Trumka noted that George W. Bush followed that same prescription with the result that after his eight years as president,

there were fewer jobs in America when he left office then when he came into office. If those were such a great prescription, why did they almost destroy the economy?

Billionaire Warren Buffett is a thorn in the side of Republicans. This pillar of the capitalist community and CEO of the corporate conglomerate Berkshire Hathway, continues to press Congress to raise taxes wealthy people like him. When congressional Republicans answered him by proposing a voluntary check-off box on tax-filing forms for people who want to pay more taxes, Buffet threw down a gauntlet. He’d happily match the voluntary tax contributions made by GOP lawmakers, he said—and he’d even triple-match those made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The holiday season’s here and that means it’s time for the always-fun Jobs with Justice (JwJ) Scrooge of the Year contest. JwJ is now accepting nominations for the greediest, most cold-hearted company, CEO, or politician of 2011 in the 11th annual “Scrooge of the Year” contest. Click here to nominate your candidate.