 | |
| |
| |
 | |
| |
| |
| |
| |
 | |
| |
| |
 |
Tuesday, October 08, 2024
Defend the American River Parkway from Destruction
Saturday, October 05, 2024
Ways to Participate in these Vital Elections
Ways to participate in elections.
Volunteer to be a poll worker
Volunteer to be a poll watcher
Boost voter turn out. Send cards, text messages, phone bank.
Defend the right to vote. Oppose voter interference. Voter suppression.
Educate your friends and neighbors, and union members, church members, civil rights organizations, etc.
The California Poor People’s Campaign has produced a voter education page.
The California Poor People's Campaign has prepared the following,
We’ve put together a voting education page to support you as you make preparations to vote. The page offers a variety of resources to prepare for this year’s elections, including:
A Voting Record: This voting record graphic will help you see where major candidates and parties stand on the big issues of the day, from raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour to lowering prescription drug prices. It offers detailed information about how they’ve voted on these issues in the past.
Voter Protection Resources: These resources include voter protection hotlines and websites for help if you face any issues voting in this year’s elections. Trained experts will ensure you are able to cast a ballot.
Everything You Need to Vote: This graphic includes clickable links to essential resources, such as important deadlines for voting in your state, registration checks, absentee ballot requests, ballot previews ahead of time, finding local polling place locators, election reminders, and registration to vote.
We encourage you to share this page with your friends, family, and social networks. These resources will help guarantee that we can mobilize many poor and low-income infrequent voters during this year’s elections.
Local campaigns where you can get involved.
Wednesday, October 02, 2024
How Many Undocumented Are There in the U.S.A.?- J.D. Vance
J.D. Vance. Claim. BBC. Tues. Oct. 1, 2024
Are there up to 25 million illegal aliens in the US?
CLAIM: Vance: “We’ve got 20-25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country.”
VERDICT: These numbers are much higher than estimates for the number of illegal immigrants in the US.
Vance made this claim while criticising the border policies of President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
It is impossible to know exactly how many illegal immigrants have come to the US, as many will have evaded law enforcement agencies, but several estimates put the number at around half what Vance claims.
A report published by the Office of Homeland Security earlier this year estimated the number of illegal immigrants living in the US, as of January 2022, at 11 million.
Pew Research Center and the Migration Policy Institute came up with similar estimates for 2022 and 2021.
And the Center for Immigration Studies estimated there were approximately 12 million illegal immigrants in May 2023.
Save the Date
North Star Webinar. ( Actually a meeting)
The Border, Immigration, Dog Whistle Politics and Political Reality.
Videos, updates from the border, and strategy.
Plus, Break out rooms to promote open discussion.
Sunday, October 20, 2024. 2 PM Pacific. 5 PM Eastern.
Presented by North Star Caucus.
Registration to follow.
Who Are the ‘Undecided’?
Saturday, September 28, 2024
antiracismdsa: Latino Civil Rights vs.Project 2025
Friday, September 27, 2024
Economic Crisis: Why Do Some People Still Support Trump ?
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Musk Threatens Vice President- Others, now deleted
Musk Threatens Vice President- Others
Robert Reich,
Shortly after the apparent second assassination attempt against Trump, Elon Musk responded in a now deleted post: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala 🤔 ????”
Musk later said his post was intended as a joke. But it could be interpreted as a call to murder Biden and Harris — at least by one of the 198 million followers of Musk who initially received it. Presumably this is why the Secret Service is investigating it.
Under 18 U.S. Code Section 871, threatening a president or vice president or inciting someone to harm them is a felony that can result in a large fine and up to five years in prison.
Yet even as Musk posted a potential death threat against the sitting commander-in-chief, his multiple defense contracts with the U.S. government have given him access to highly sensitive information.
Reportedly, Musk has been given security clearance notwithstanding his admitted use of drugs (Musk says he has submitted to random drug testing at the request of the government), including smoking weed in public and using ketamine (for which he claims to have a prescription).
Quite apart from the drugs, when was the last time the U.S. government gave access to sensitive national security information to someone who posted a potential death threat against the president and vice president, even if he later called it a joke?
Underlying this is a broader question: When in history has one unelected individual held such sway over American national security?
Musk’s SpaceX has nearly total control of the world’s satellite internet through its Starlink unit. With little regulation or oversight, Musk has already put more than 4,500 Starlink satellites into orbit around the globe, accounting for more than half of all active satellites. Musk plans to have as many as 42,000satellites in orbit in coming years.
Space X and its Starlink system have become strategically critical to American security. Starlink is providing connectivity to the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Space Force signed a $70 million contract late last year to provide it with military-grade low-earth-orbit satellite capabilities. According to Reuters, the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees U.S. spy satellites, has a $1.8 billion contract with SpaceX.
This gives Musk — the richest person in the world — remarkable power. Single-handedly, he can decide to shut down a country’s access to Starlink and the internet. He also can also gain access to sensitive information gathered by Starlink. “Between, Tesla, Starlink & Twitter, I may have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone ever,” Musk tweetedin April 2023.
Meanwhile, NASA has increasingly outsourced spaceflight projects to SpaceX, including billions in contracts for multiple moon trips and $843 million to build a vehicle that will take the International Space Station out of commission.
Conflicts of interest between Musk’s ventures around the world and U.S. national security abound, and they are multiplying.
When Putin attacked Ukraine, Musk and SpaceX’s Starlink provided Ukraine with internet access, enabling the country to plan attacks and defend itself. (This was not a charitable move by Musk; most of the 20,000 terminals in the country were funded by outside sources such as the U.S. government, the United Kingdom, and Poland).
But in the fall of 2022, when Ukraine entered territory contested by Russia, Musk and Space X abruptly severed the connectivity. Musk explained at the time that “Starlink was barred from turning on satellite beams in Crimea at the time, because doing so would violate U.S. sanctions against Russia!”
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
Teachers For Harris/Walz Call In
JD Vance is "disturbed" by teachers without children.1
Trump just presented a keynote address for Moms for Liberty—an extremist Project 2025 hate group focused on undermining public education and banning books in schools.2
It's clear to us and the public: Donald Trump and JD Vance simply despise teachers and educators.
If you, like most people, respect our educators, have fond memories of your childhood teachers, or have educators in your family—or maybe you are one yourself—you know that we have to fight back against Trump's Project 2025 plans to derail our education system entirely.
That's why MoveOn and the nation's two biggest organizations of educators and teachers—the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the National Education Association (NEA)—are hosting an "Educators for Harris" call to make it clear to the public that teachers and educators matter now, more than ever—and who controls the White House in 2025 will be critical to the futures of educators, our schools, our students, and our families all across the country.
Join us on Thursday, September 26 at 7:30 p.m. ET for a virtual event where we will discuss the importance of this election for our education system at both the federal and state level. We will hear from teachers on the front lines fighting against attacks on our freedom to learn and discuss the dangers of a Trump presidency for our education system.
We will be joined by Randi Weingarten, President of the AFT; Rebecca "Becky" Pringle, President of the NEA; Stacy Davis Gates, President of the Chicago Teachers Union; and revered writer, poet and educator Nikki Giovanni, along with several teachers and educators speaking to their experiences.
Teachers and educators have been some of the top contributors to the Harris-Walz campaign, because they recognize the high stakes of this election for our education system.3 They have faced right-wing attacks directly—from efforts to privatize our schools, to the relentless book bans, to the efforts to demonize what educators can and cannot teach about our shared history. Educators and teachers, and so many others, have too much to lose in the event of a Trump-Vance administration. There's too much at stake in this election for any of us to sit on the sidelines.
This event is an opportunity to hear from former and current educators who are directly impacted, and an opportunity for us to come together, and hear even more about the stakes ahead of this crucial election. RSVP for "Educators for Harris" and join us on Thursday, September 26 at 7:30 PM ET/6:30 PM CT.
Thanks for all you do.
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
How False Narrative About Haitians Gained Traction
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Saturday, September 14, 2024
Friday, September 13, 2024
Civic Education for Students
The Office of California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, Ph.D., would like to invite you to our upcoming 2024 California College Civic and Voter Empowerment Summit.We would also greatly appreciate your help with spreading the word about this important event. Please share the information below with your networks, college students and anyone who would benefit from learning about college civic and voter empowerment and the upcoming General Election on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
Event Details
Join California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, Ph.D., and the Students Vote Project for important updates on the 2024 General Election. Learn from civic engagement leaders, enhance campus civic involvement, and participate in a virtual internship fair for college students.
Wednesday, October 9, 202410 a.m. – 12 p.m. PDTTopics to include:
- Importance of Voting Rights and Civic Engagement
- Civic and Voter Empowerment Coordinator “Best Practices” Panel
- Presentation on “What is on the Ballot?”
- Virtual California State Internship Fair for College Students
View social media graphics and flyer for the virtual meeting: drive.google.com/drive/folders/14fKu4UMu9WeZTGI7tmCFAZm19i-kHlvt
Thank you for helping us spread the word! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at caststudentsvote@sos.ca.gov.
For media requests, please contact sospress@sos.ca.gov.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Normal Meets Weird: Debate
Father of Child Killed in Ohio Crash Begs Trump, Vance To Stop Politicizing Son’s Death
How JD Vance Turned The Conspiracy Machine On Haitians In A Small Ohio City
Monday, September 09, 2024
Laying Out Their Economics Before Tomorrow’s Debate
Saturday, September 07, 2024
Texas Take Over of Public Schools Fails
The Troubling Trend of State Takeovers of Public Schools
Despite aiming to close achievement gaps, state takeovers of school districts worsen education inequality for low-income and minority students.
Blogging Our Great Divide
August 06, 2024
The state takeover of Houston Independent School District, the eighth-largest public school system in the United States, is entering its second year.
State-appointed superintendent Mike Miles is celebrating the occasion by touting state test score results that show preliminary improvement in student achievement. Other leaders in education across the country are paying close attention to Miles’ tactics to see if they’re effective enough to implement in their own schools.
Since 1989, over 100 school districts across the U.S. have been subjected to state takeovers, in which the state seizes control of low-performing or financially struggling school districts, replacing their locally elected school boards. This is done with the goal of dramatically improving the district’s academic or financial performance. State takeovers are difficult to neatly describe because they vary from place to place depending on the policies that the state-appointed board and superintendent decide to implement. But they are overwhelmingly ineffective.
A 2021 study done by researchers from Brown University and the University of Virginia analyzed over 100 state takeovers between 1989 and 2016. It found “no evidence that takeover generates academic benefits.” In fact, it can take years for schools to return to their previous levels of academic achievement after a takeover.
Texas State Takeovers.
https://inequality.org/great-divide/the-troubling-trend-of-state-takeovers-of-public-schools/
Thursday, September 05, 2024
Monday, September 02, 2024
Celebration of Labor Day
As we celebrate Labor Day, 2024, there is some very good news.
Bernie Sanders
Public approval of labor unions, at 70%, is higher today than it has been in decades. Over the last year major unions like the UAW have won some highly publicized strikes, while many other unions have negotiated trail-blazing contracts for their members. Young people at Starbucks and on college campuses are now more involved in labor organizing than ever before. And, for the first time in American history, a president of the United States, Joe Biden, walked a picket line with striking workers.
It is not an accident as to why we are now seeing more militancy and growth in the labor movement. The working people of our country are increasingly aware of the unprecedented level of corporate greed and power we are now experiencing, and the outrageous level of income and wealth inequality that exists. They understand that never before in American history have so few had so much, while so many continue to struggle. And they are fighting back. They know that workers in unions can negotiate contracts that give them better wages, working conditions and benefits than non-union workers. They appreciate that when you’re in a union you have some power against the arbitrary decisions corporate bosses.
Working people today are more than aware that, over the last 50 years, there has been a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. They are disgusted that, despite huge increases in worker productivity, real inflation-accounted for wages for the average American worker are lower now than they were over 50 years ago as 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. They are insulted that CEOs of major corporations make almost 350 times as much as their average employee. They are concerned that the American dream is ending and that their kids may have an even lower standard of living than they do. And they worry that with the rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence and robotics, they have no power as to what will happen to their jobs as the economy undergoes major transformations.
The average American worker also understands that his/her political power has been significantly diminished as billionaires pour huge amounts of money into both political parties as they undermine our democracy. It is no great secret as to who now has the clout in Congress. It is the billionaires, the corporate CEOs, the campaign donors and their well-connected lobbyists.
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Georgia is in Play
Georgia is back in play. Just over a month ago, Democrats had all but written it off. It’s now one of six major states that could go either way.
Yesterday, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz kicked off their first post-convention campaign swing with a bus tour through rural southeast Georgia, culminating in a rally today in Savannah.
Conventional wisdom holds that Democrats only win elections in the South with the help of voters in places like metropolitan Atlanta, who tend to be better-educated and more liberal.
So why are Harris and Walz spending time in rural southeast Georgia? Because they need rural voters — especially Black voters who comprise about a quarter of the state’s rural population, to offset Trump’s potential win of white rural voters.
It’s similar in North Carolina, whose urban-suburban “research triangle” has generated most Democratic voters over the last several election cycles but whose rural Black population could offset white rural Trumpers. Black voters comprise more than a third of the population in 17 North Carolina counties.
Trump continues to have a slight edge in recent Georgia state polling but that edge may be waning quickly. His antics in 2020 and 2022 cost Republicans a Senate seat or two, and he has only recently stopped feuding with the state’s popular governor, Brian Kemp.
Harris and Walz’s rural bus tour signals they have several paths to winning 270 electoral votes, compared to the limited number that had been open to Biden, and compared to Trump-Vance.
Since Harris and Walz are easily packing rallies in places like Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee — big, blue swing-state cities — it makes sense for them to gather votes in the rural South. It also signals to the Trump campaign — and to America — that Harris-Walz is a “unity” ticket appealing to a diverse America.
Trump and Vance haven’t given up on Georgia. But if Vance’s awkward visit to a rural Georgia donut shop earlier this week is any indication (see clip, below), they don’t know what they’re doing there.
Georgia may still be treacherous for Harris-Walz because of election rules recently green-lighted by three Trump-approved members of the Republican-controlled Georgia state election board.
The new rules allow county election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into the accuracy of results before certifying them, and allow individual members of county election boards to “examine” election related documentation created during the conduct of elections.
“Reasonable inquiries” and “examinations” won’t necessarily cause certifications to run past the legal deadline — thereby allowing Republicans in Congress to question their legality and help push the election into the House. But Georgia’s new rules give officials license to hunt for election irregularities, and move certification past the deadlines. Since 2020, many Georgia county election officials have objected to certifying elections, including one county official as recently as March of this year.
On August 3, at a rally in Georgia, Trump congratulated the three Republican state election board members who came up with the new rules, calling them“pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.”
Fortunately, Democrats aren’t passively accepting this. On Monday, several Georgia election officials and the Democratic Party sued the Georgia State Election Board, claiming the new rules violate state and federal election laws. They’re asking the Fulton County Superior Court “to prevent chaos in November” by making clear — through a “declaratory judgment” — that the state deadlines for certifying the results are mandatory and the new rules don’t change that.
Remember: Winning on November 5 is necessary but not sufficient.
We must also maintain vigilance over who will be running the election machinery. Notify state and national levels of the Democratic Party of any serious potential irregularities so they can focus their small army of lawyers on them, as they’re doing in Georgia.
Robert Reich,State Margins Low income not voting
Arizona 10,000 votes 840,000. Did not vote.
Georgia 12,000 746,000 did not vote
Wisconsin 20,000 1 million did not vote.
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Polling Shows Voters Want to See Action on Corporate Power
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Shawn Fain Explicates ‘Scab’
The Joyful Warrior and the Happy Warrior
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Sunday, August 18, 2024
Talking Points to Smear DNC Protesters
4 Talking Points Used to Smear DNC Protesters—And Why They’re Bogus
https://inthesetimes.com/article/democratic-national-convention-dnc-protest-gaza-harris-walz
How to make sure your disruptive protest helps your cause
Five key factors determine whether controversial protests are more likely to spark backlash or create positive outcomes.
Mark Engler and Paul Engler August 9, 2024
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/08/how-to-make-sure-disruptive-protest-helps-cause/
Friday, August 16, 2024
Will Tim Walz Make Democrats the Education Party Again?
Will Tim Walz Make Democrats the Education Party Again?
Harris’s decision to choose a teacher as her running mate creates an opportunity to remake the Democratic Party’s image for public schools.
- JEFF BRYANT
- AUG 12, 2024
In choosing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate, Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has not only picked a progressive governor and a Midwestern populist to lead the party’s national ticket but she also may have signaled that the Democratic Party is ready to take back its reputation as the education party.
Walz, a former public school teacher and football coach in Mankato, Minnesota, draws on his experience as an educator to inform his political persona and policy beliefs, saying in a 2007 interview with Education Week—after he was elected to Congress—that teachers are “more grounded in what people really care about.”
As governor of Minnesota, he acted on that philosophy of caring by pushing for and signing into law a $72 billion state budget in May 2023 that significantly increased funding for the state’s public schools, provided for a new $1,750-per-child tax credit, free college tuition for families earning less than $80,000 per year, funding for free school meals for K-12 students statewide, and paid sick leave for workers, as well as a paid family and medical leave.
https://www.laprogressive.com/education-reform/democrats-the-education-party
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
The Case for Pragmatic Socialism
Friday, August 09, 2024
Thursday, August 08, 2024
The American Left's Problem With Antisemitism
https://newrepublic.com/article/184236/american-left-problem-antisemitism
The American Left’s Problem With Antisemitism
Anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim hate are just as pernicious, of course. But there is no segment of the left that denies the existence of those. Why do some ignore antisemitism?
Tuesday, August 06, 2024
Humphrey Without Vietnam, but More Down-Home
Sunday, August 04, 2024
Venezuela Election Report
Marc Cooper , from his substack.
I HAVE to say something about Venezuela. Too much of the American Left along with a few groupuscles in Latin America are the only people in the world still believing that the Maduro Dictatorship in Venezuela is actually an anti-imperialist beacon of socialist solidarity and prosperity.
In fact, it is a hell hole from which a full quarter of the population — some 8 million— have fled. And having run into some of the 700,000 who are now in Chile, these are poor people who were plain hungry and tired of the Chavista-Maduro bullshit.
Maduro has created a new class of wealthy government lackeys, parasites, and favored loyalists who are swimming in money — and not exactly short on cocaine (google Maduro’s wife and family for that one). As Chavez dubbed his regime Bolivarian, the new rich are called the Boliburgueses.
Since the election a week ago Sunday, hundreds of thousands of protesters have come into the streets denouncing the obvious fraud perpetrated. Around 20 have been shot dead. Among the various election observers, many from progressive Latin American organizations, the Carter center, the international press, and the opposition itself, it appears that Maduro actually lost by a margin as big as 2 to 1 but simply declared victory. The AP has concluded he really lost. Duh. So has everybody else. Well, almost everybody. There are still American progressives like acrobats in pain, contorting themselves to justify one of the most fixed elections in recent history.
Much of the American Left cannot articulate a strong critique of regimes like Venezuela or Cuba for that matter, and currently not even Russia, because there is a large percentage of American lefties who are wittingly or otherwise, are what we Old Leftists call “campists.”
They believe in their hearts that only the US has imperialist or military agency and that any country in the world, regardless of its regime, is to be supported if it is “anti-imperialist” which in the end translates as anti-American. So… for these campists, yeah, Iran and China and even Russia and certainly Venezuela, are seen ONLY as victims of US imperialism with absolutely NO regard for the living conditions of the respective populations. Nor is any independent agency ever assigned to these “anti-imperialist” states because whatever they do, whatever evil they perpetrate on their own people or others, is rotuinely justified by these campists as legitimate resistance to.. multiple choice: a)the cia b) the state department c) NATO, D) and generally, US Imperialism.
And while leftists are properly quick to point out all the anti-democratic aspects of American elections they are usually dead silent on these sort of chronic human rights violations imposed by various dictatorships — so long as they call themselves socialist (they are not) or, simply engage in phony anti-Imperialist rhetoric. The case study for the latter is Nicaragua where the dictatorial Ortega family has buried both the Sandinista Revolution and basic democracy and in the name of Sandino has imposed a ruthless pro-capitalist dictatorship with socialist rhetoric. I guess that is the China model. Savage capitalist dictatorship with enormous inequality all in the name of Chinese socialism. I mean, how do these reptiles get through a party convention without cracking up in laughter (but dont ask Code Pink about Chinese democracy because China is a victim of US Imperialism — and also a pretty direct funder of Code Pink!
This chronic inability to liberate themselves from these Stalinist impulses, their ability to apologize for brutally anti-democratic dictatorships so long as they are a thorn in the American side. render this sort of American leftist politically inert at best — radioactive at worst.
--------- ---------------- -----------------
Many of us will remember Marc Cooper from his informed writings on Chile at the time of the coup, and during the dictatorship.
(https://thecoopscoop.substack.com/p/coop-scoop-do-progressives-really(https://thecoopscoop.substack.com/p/coop-scoop-do-progressives-really))
The AP Results.
https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-maduro-machado-biden-gonzalez-a625eb01979bc9cf5570d03242f198b1
Friday, August 02, 2024
Information on Project 2025
We have a new category on our Defeat MAGA/Fight for Democracy platform.
The category is Project 2025.
There is an AFL-CIO analysis.
And, an analysis by a group Democracy Forward.
Democracy Forward guide to Project 2025. https://democracyforward.org/the-peoples-guide-to-project-2025/
Our project: Defeat MAGA / Fight for Democracy:
Action Opportunities.
To organize and advance our work, we have created a platform, a google docs site to learn from each other and share activist opportunities including Block and Build, battleground states and districts, left coalition efforts and more. The google site is for the recording of opportunities for political participation; phone banks, canvasing, donations, union contacts, links to important documents (such as Project 2025).
Here is the link to the Google site.
