The Good: Skilled auto workers at the Volkswagon plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted for union representation – United Automobile Workers Union (UAW). Small step for sure, but one that hopefully will lead to other bigger steps to organize auto workers and workers generally in South. Won’t be easy, but hard to imagine reshaping the political, economic, and cultural landscape of the South, or the country for that matter, without a much, much larger labor movement – not necessarily preceding, but rather embedded in and a decisive part of a broader process of political-social transformation.  http://peoplesworld.org/despite-vicious-opposition-chattanooga-workers-are-unionizing/

The Bad (even though by any measure it fits into the ugly category): The comments of Justice (a misnomer) Anthony Scalia. In a hearing of the Supreme Court on the University of Texas’s admissions policy designed to promote a diverse student body, he said that minority students with inferior academic credentials may be better off at “a less advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.”

“I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible,” Scalia added.

Which prompted this pointed remark by Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) on the Senate floor to say that the only difference between Scalia and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is that “Scalia has a robe and a lifetime appointment.”

The Ugly: Trump’s proposal to bar Muslims from entering U.S. in the aftermath of the terrorist killings in San Bernardino, California. The organizing principle of his campaign is to exploit people’s fears, and, I’m afraid, with some success.