Whenever I have heard Trump talk about coal, and this was in his first term as well, he projects a particular assumption he holds (and when he holds an assumption it is immovable), that when it comes to the people of Appalachia, well, coal mining is all they are good for. They don't "really" want to do anything else, and, unspoken but held, they're not really capable of anything else. High-skilled manufacturing? Nah. Science and engineering? No way. He sees coal miners, and persuades himself that they are actually pretty happy to live (and die) that way forever. The natural order of things.
What I have seen myself and understand about some communities in the mountainous areas in several states where coal is mined, probably don’t have many other jobs that pay as much as mining coal offers. Just another group of voters enticed by his empty promises.
And because there are no affordable colleges and universities, and no other opportunities to learn new skills, little decent housing and abysmal health care, there is no way out.
Both of my grandfathers immigrated to the U.S. at the turn of the last century. In looking for work, along with thousands of other new male immigrants, they took jobs in the coal mines of northern Pennsylvania. It wasn’t long before each left this harsh work environment for other jobs. One grandfather had a career as a butcher with an A&P grocery store in Binghamton, N.Y. The other, my father’s dad, also settled in Binghamton and had a career with Endicott Johnson , a shoe manufacturer. I remember how he used to say in broken English, with a grin on his face: “E.J. OK”
Trump and his cabinet of oligarchs are slime balls and entitled pigs. They will get their just due.
My father was a doctor who treated miners with black lung disease. He told me that name was true — their lungs were black inside. Apparently now there is a resurgence of that horrific disease. My dad died in the 1990s when black lung was considered to have been dramatically reduced. Government safety regulations greatly reduced black lung but it had a resurgence as miners started getting exposed to far more silica dust in deep mines — mines with inadequate air filtering. RFK Jr just fired the respiratory health unit of the CDC that since 2000 has had a lot of success reducing the rate of black lung. Sadly many of the people most affected by this are people who voted for Trump.
Why is it that I have less than zero confidence that a single thing that has or will be spawned from the deepest level of hell that is the location of the summer house beach front mansions of t***p and the members of his administration? They circle him, like demons paying homage to the devil. Every piece of news generated by him or his sycophants, multiple times every day, exposes the toxicity of his intentions and the cruelty of his heart. I am not naturally the most emphatic person you’ll ever meet, but the harm being inflicted on so many American citizens makes me cringe and takes my breath away. The God awful plight of those innocent immigrants locked in a foreign prison is just one example of this presidential administration’s inhumanity and deprivation. Watching his smug and arrogant press secretary announce the reason for the latest despicable act, gleefully lying to the American public, is deeply disturbing to me. Hope for the future of our Democracy is in short supply these days.
My grandfather immigrated from Ireland at the turn of the last century. He ended up in Gary, Indiana working in a steel mill. He died from the steel dust in his lungs. My mother, having grown up in Gary, had dark spots on her lungs for her entire life from the steel dust. Nostalgia for the past is only felt by people who have no idea what they're talking about.
A high school classmate died in his thirties from asbestosis which had lead to mesothelioma. He did not get exposed to asbestos because of his job but his father’s. His dad had worked around asbestos for years and brought the dust home on his clothes. His dad also died from mesothelioma.
My career has led me to many places throughout the country, and one was rural West Virginia (decades ago). It gave me a striking impression that coal mining never gave the workers a better life. I have no doubt that the movie October Sky (story of the son of a coal miner who became a NASA scientist) depicted coal mining accurately. The work is unimaginable.
iPhones might well be made in the United States someday, but they won't be assembled by millions and millions of happy workers tightening tiny screws; they'll be manufactured like most everything else, by robots.
Tariffs are an excuse to cut taxes on the rich by shifting the burden to everyone else. Returning manufacturing to America is meaningless to the workers here and abroad who will lose their jobs to automation.
Coal mining, too, is not going to create lots of jobs that most people would want, because it will be done in the most efficient, most destructive ways. The effects of burning more coal, of course, will be exactly what the planet does not need.
Bottom line, we are not making America "great again" because it doesn't exist. It's an illusion.
The market today will adsorb the Chinese tariff addition. A total of 84% on U.S. goods and agriculture. One good thing, there is plenty of room for our stock market to fall. And don’t forget to think about the cruelty from 5 men on the Supreme Court. If my brother were in that El Salvadoran prison, I don’t see how 5 men could still be on the court. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/cruel-capriciously-smelly-supreme?r=3m1bs
Too bad more Americans haven't visited countries like India, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam and seen the working conditions. Then you could say, "he is trying to make your lives look like this." I think you could even do that with many parts of Russia. A third do not have indoor plumbing, but still that is the country Trump wants to model us after.
People who have come from those countries to get away from that will wonder why they came to the USA. Perhaps that is the point.
Also, I am hearing people disparaging those who are leaving the USA as in, you can only fight from the locality. However, during WWII there were Jews who left Germany and they lived to help fight for the liberation of the camps. There are rolls to play for everyone.
We have yet to see the military being used, although Trump is planning on rolling them out to march on his birthday. That is such a "GREAT" use of our tax dollars. I wish someone were keeping track of all the additional costs we have and wasted money from this administration on a tracker, so that we could all easily access it. Potentially his birthday parade could cost up to 92 million dollars. I know a lot of single mom who could put that money, our tax dollars to better use.
Good grief- where on earth do they find all these smiling hard hat men who stand behind him and pretend that what he’s ranting about is the greatest thing ever during these photo ops? And those Orwellian comments from Lutnick about laid off ‘workers’ finding instant jobs in new iPhone factories? I can’t even.
Trump the billionaire obviously has the idea that Americans are nothing more than warm bodies that can be put to work in factories like it doesn't matter whether they should have a choice. And that it's just fine to turn the country into a huge cancer alley where it resembles the factories in China. The moron is actually yapping about the virtues of coal again and envisions himself as the king who works his subjects literally to death, paying them subsistence wages and no benefits.
Whenever I have heard Trump talk about coal, and this was in his first term as well, he projects a particular assumption he holds (and when he holds an assumption it is immovable), that when it comes to the people of Appalachia, well, coal mining is all they are good for. They don't "really" want to do anything else, and, unspoken but held, they're not really capable of anything else. High-skilled manufacturing? Nah. Science and engineering? No way. He sees coal miners, and persuades himself that they are actually pretty happy to live (and die) that way forever. The natural order of things.
What I have seen myself and understand about some communities in the mountainous areas in several states where coal is mined, probably don’t have many other jobs that pay as much as mining coal offers. Just another group of voters enticed by his empty promises.
And because there are no affordable colleges and universities, and no other opportunities to learn new skills, little decent housing and abysmal health care, there is no way out.
Both of my grandfathers immigrated to the U.S. at the turn of the last century. In looking for work, along with thousands of other new male immigrants, they took jobs in the coal mines of northern Pennsylvania. It wasn’t long before each left this harsh work environment for other jobs. One grandfather had a career as a butcher with an A&P grocery store in Binghamton, N.Y. The other, my father’s dad, also settled in Binghamton and had a career with Endicott Johnson , a shoe manufacturer. I remember how he used to say in broken English, with a grin on his face: “E.J. OK”
Trump and his cabinet of oligarchs are slime balls and entitled pigs. They will get their just due.
My father was a doctor who treated miners with black lung disease. He told me that name was true — their lungs were black inside. Apparently now there is a resurgence of that horrific disease. My dad died in the 1990s when black lung was considered to have been dramatically reduced. Government safety regulations greatly reduced black lung but it had a resurgence as miners started getting exposed to far more silica dust in deep mines — mines with inadequate air filtering. RFK Jr just fired the respiratory health unit of the CDC that since 2000 has had a lot of success reducing the rate of black lung. Sadly many of the people most affected by this are people who voted for Trump.
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/09/nx-s1-5356067/niosh-cdc-coal-miner-black-lung-trump-doge
Why is it that I have less than zero confidence that a single thing that has or will be spawned from the deepest level of hell that is the location of the summer house beach front mansions of t***p and the members of his administration? They circle him, like demons paying homage to the devil. Every piece of news generated by him or his sycophants, multiple times every day, exposes the toxicity of his intentions and the cruelty of his heart. I am not naturally the most emphatic person you’ll ever meet, but the harm being inflicted on so many American citizens makes me cringe and takes my breath away. The God awful plight of those innocent immigrants locked in a foreign prison is just one example of this presidential administration’s inhumanity and deprivation. Watching his smug and arrogant press secretary announce the reason for the latest despicable act, gleefully lying to the American public, is deeply disturbing to me. Hope for the future of our Democracy is in short supply these days.
My grandfather immigrated from Ireland at the turn of the last century. He ended up in Gary, Indiana working in a steel mill. He died from the steel dust in his lungs. My mother, having grown up in Gary, had dark spots on her lungs for her entire life from the steel dust. Nostalgia for the past is only felt by people who have no idea what they're talking about.
A high school classmate died in his thirties from asbestosis which had lead to mesothelioma. He did not get exposed to asbestos because of his job but his father’s. His dad had worked around asbestos for years and brought the dust home on his clothes. His dad also died from mesothelioma.
My career has led me to many places throughout the country, and one was rural West Virginia (decades ago). It gave me a striking impression that coal mining never gave the workers a better life. I have no doubt that the movie October Sky (story of the son of a coal miner who became a NASA scientist) depicted coal mining accurately. The work is unimaginable.
Trump and his people don’t understand the difference between the phrases “Gilded Age” and “golden age.”
Given the guilding of details in the Oval Office, that may be a "feature"
"Gilding". Too early brain.
iPhones might well be made in the United States someday, but they won't be assembled by millions and millions of happy workers tightening tiny screws; they'll be manufactured like most everything else, by robots.
Tariffs are an excuse to cut taxes on the rich by shifting the burden to everyone else. Returning manufacturing to America is meaningless to the workers here and abroad who will lose their jobs to automation.
Coal mining, too, is not going to create lots of jobs that most people would want, because it will be done in the most efficient, most destructive ways. The effects of burning more coal, of course, will be exactly what the planet does not need.
Bottom line, we are not making America "great again" because it doesn't exist. It's an illusion.
The market today will adsorb the Chinese tariff addition. A total of 84% on U.S. goods and agriculture. One good thing, there is plenty of room for our stock market to fall. And don’t forget to think about the cruelty from 5 men on the Supreme Court. If my brother were in that El Salvadoran prison, I don’t see how 5 men could still be on the court. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/cruel-capriciously-smelly-supreme?r=3m1bs
Restoring manufacturing in America also requires research and development, something deemed too wasteful by DOGE.
Too bad more Americans haven't visited countries like India, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam and seen the working conditions. Then you could say, "he is trying to make your lives look like this." I think you could even do that with many parts of Russia. A third do not have indoor plumbing, but still that is the country Trump wants to model us after.
People who have come from those countries to get away from that will wonder why they came to the USA. Perhaps that is the point.
Also, I am hearing people disparaging those who are leaving the USA as in, you can only fight from the locality. However, during WWII there were Jews who left Germany and they lived to help fight for the liberation of the camps. There are rolls to play for everyone.
We have yet to see the military being used, although Trump is planning on rolling them out to march on his birthday. That is such a "GREAT" use of our tax dollars. I wish someone were keeping track of all the additional costs we have and wasted money from this administration on a tracker, so that we could all easily access it. Potentially his birthday parade could cost up to 92 million dollars. I know a lot of single mom who could put that money, our tax dollars to better use.
“Make Black Lung Great Again” — GREAT caption!
Good grief- where on earth do they find all these smiling hard hat men who stand behind him and pretend that what he’s ranting about is the greatest thing ever during these photo ops? And those Orwellian comments from Lutnick about laid off ‘workers’ finding instant jobs in new iPhone factories? I can’t even.
Trump the billionaire obviously has the idea that Americans are nothing more than warm bodies that can be put to work in factories like it doesn't matter whether they should have a choice. And that it's just fine to turn the country into a huge cancer alley where it resembles the factories in China. The moron is actually yapping about the virtues of coal again and envisions himself as the king who works his subjects literally to death, paying them subsistence wages and no benefits.