HAPPY FESTIVUS!!!
When the United Auto Workers submitted its priority list to the Michigan Legislature for the lame-duck session, it included voting for a bill to give illegal immigrants living in Michigan driver’s licenses.
The UAW urged the outgoing Democratic trifecta to “Fight back against divide-and-conquer politics” by voting for the “Drive Safe” bill package, according to a Dec. 4 letter obtained by Michigan Capitol Confidential.
The letter asked lawmakers to vote for House Bills 4410, 4411, and 4412.
“With over 300,000 active and retired members, the UAW is Michigan’s largest union. We fight for the working class, and we strongly encourage our legislators to do the same by taking urgent action to pass legislation that helps working families and our communities,” said the letter signed by UAW President Shawn Fain.
The union’s support of political questions that don’t benefit its members is one reason members either leave the union or choose to pay agency fees that fund representational activity but not political spending, according to Terry Bowman, who has worked for Ford at the Rawsonville Plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, for 28 years. Bowman was a UAW member for 13 years but left after his union dues promoted “political and social agendas I strongly disagreed with and knew were harmful to America's auto industry,” he told CapCon in an email. Click here to read more.
CHICAGO, IL - Taxpayers are set to give the struggling electric bus industry a jolt after Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced nearly $20 million for 70 zero-emission buses at nine Illinois school districts.
On Thursday, Pritzker’s office announced the Illinois State Board of Education awarded a $19.9 million grant from the Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicles Grant Program funded by federal tax dollars as part of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Troy Community Consolidated School District 30-C is set to get 32 school buses and charging infrastructure. Joliet Township High School District 204 and Zion-Benton Township High School District 126 will each get 10 school buses and charging infrastructure. Six other districts will also get at least one bus and charging infrastructure.
Each bus comes to about $284,000.
“[T]hese districts will receive electric school buses, charging infrastructure, and workforce training – reducing harmful emissions and improving air quality,” Pritzker said in a statement.
The grant also funds two full-time ISBE employees to support the program’s implementation and work with districts on other “green energy” initiatives. Click here to read more.
DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – A Detroit Public Schools Community District food service worker was recommended to be fired after missing 58 days of work over 12 months while given nine reprimands or warnings.
The employee had worked for the district for 23 years and the union contract stated that employees who miss 15 days in a year will be terminated. But instead, the district continued issuing reprimands and warnings, according to school district documents.
After the employee missed 58 days, the district held a disciplinary hearing on Sept. 18, 2024. The employee was given another written reprimand at the hearing on top of eight others the district had issued from Oct. 22, 2022 through April 15, 2024.
After the disciplinary hearing, the employee then missed “at least” another 11 days of work, the school district stated.
The employee was recommended to be fired at the December school board meeting. The employee was a member of the Detroit Federation of Para-Professionals union. Click here to read more from Michigan News Source.
President Biden and his administration were largely absent from the onerous negotiations on government funding that gripped Capitol Hill this week.
Instead, President-elect Trump and his allies were the ones wrestling with lawmakers over a continuing resolution as a government shutdown appeared increasingly inevitable.
The White House on Friday blew off a host of questioning over Biden’s absence from the talks, insisting they were staying out of it in part because it was Republicans who had to clean up a “mess” they created. But, Biden’s silence, with no indication that administration officials were heading to Capitol Hill as the funding deadline approached, could prove damaging to the president’s final days in office.
“We’re just not seeing them. And he’s completely disappeared,” GOP strategist Doug Heye said of the president. “Biden is AWOL and it’s reasonable to question whether some of that is because he’s just not up to the task.”
When peppered with questions about why Biden has made no public statements or appearances regarding the funding fight, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it was part of a “strategy” to make it clear that “this is for Republicans in the House to fix.”
That did little to deter more questions in similar veins about what Biden’s plans were if the government shutdown over the holidays, why Biden himself wasn’t speaking to reporters. Click here to read more.
CINCINNATI (WKRC) - A new survey found that less than half of Americans say they attend a church service during the Christmas season.
Lifeway Research, an evangelical research firm, published a survey that found that 47% of polled adults in the United States said they attend church around Christmas, 48% said they do not, and 5% said they were not sure.
The report allegedly polled 1,200 adults over the internet from a variety of backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions.
"While 9 in 10 Americans do something to celebrate Christmas, less than half typically attend church at Christmastime today," said Lifeway Research's executive directior Scott McConnell.
The report broke down the amount of polled adults that said they go to church around Christmas by religion:
Protestants - 57%
Catholics - 56%
Other religions - 53%
Religiously unaffiliated - 21%
Additionally, 56% of participants said they would attend church around Christmas if someone they knew invited them. Click here to read more.
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