My May Day Rally Speech – May 1, 2026

I recently made comments at a May Day Rally in Cincinnati. These were my comments: Sisters and brothers, Friends, community partners… Champions of working people… Good afternoon! I am Brian Griffin… and I have the honor of serving as the Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Central Labor Council…Representing tens of thousands of working familiesContinue reading “My May Day Rally Speech – May 1, 2026”

Sunday Morning with St. Francis…

I’ve been sitting with this morning’s news and a cup of coffee, and I keep thinking about Francis of Assisi. Not the statue in the garden. The real one. The young man who walked unarmed into a sultan’s war camp in the middle of the Crusades, just to have a conversation. No army. No conditions.Continue reading “Sunday Morning with St. Francis…”

Between Shore and Sure

I’m drowning.My tears well up inside,my lungs fill to overflowing,and I can hardly breathe.I swim and swimand cannot find the shore…or is that sure. I am heavy with feeling.My chest tightens and tightens,each breath slips away,and I can hardly hold on.I reach and reachand cannot find a line…or is that a sign. The tide risesContinue reading “Between Shore and Sure”

Statement by Brian D Griffin | Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Cincinnati AFL-CIO Central Labor Council

October 27, 2025 | CINCINNATI, OH—I am urgently speaking out today on behalf of working people across this community and this state. Every day, people get up at dawn, punch the clock, care for their families, stretch every dollar in tight budgets, and still do everything they can to make ends meet. And now theirContinue reading “Statement by Brian D Griffin | Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Cincinnati AFL-CIO Central Labor Council”

From Bartlet to McAvoy: America’s Dream and Its Reckoning

When Aaron Sorkin gave us President Josiah Edward Bartlet in The West Wing (1999), he gave Democrats a dream. Bartlet was brilliant and flawed, moral and principled. He made politics feel noble again. He quoted scripture and Nobel economics in the same breath, believing government could still be smart, decent, and good. For a partyContinue reading “From Bartlet to McAvoy: America’s Dream and Its Reckoning”

Diminished by Every Death: Guns, Rhetoric, and the Soul of America

Charlie Kirk’s assassination is tragic, but it is not an isolated wound. Daily gun deaths, toxic rhetoric, and unchecked access to weapons are hollowing out our nation — and we refuse to act. “No man is an island. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” John Donne wrote those words fourContinue reading “Diminished by Every Death: Guns, Rhetoric, and the Soul of America”

A Call to the Constitutional Conservatives of My Time

There was a time when Republicans prided themselves on being the party of the Constitution. A time when words like accountability, limited government, and fidelity to the rule of law meant more than party loyalty. The Republican Party I grew up with would never have tolerated, let alone celebrated, the abuses we now see fromContinue reading “A Call to the Constitutional Conservatives of My Time”