Free Abortion on Demand! No Forced Sterilization!

Counter Demonstration against the Walk for Life:

Saturday, January 21st at 11:00 am

We'll gather at the Philip Burton Federal Courthouse, 450 Golden Gate Avenue to rally, then march to Civic Center where the Walk for Life West Coast will hold their rally.

The National Mobilization for Reproductive Justice is still fighting for bodily autonomy for all, in spite of the overturn of Roe v Wade. The misogynists and racists are emboldened and are working to ban the abortion pill and contraceptives, roll back queer rights and strip protection of Native American and trans children.

Here in San Francisco, Reproductive Justice SF is organizing a rally and counter-protest against the Walk for Life West Coast. And we need you!

It is only weeks away and we will be rallying for reproductive justice to show everyone that we are a pro-abortion city. We need you to join us for a united action that includes everyone who is deeply concerned about the far right's agenda. We especially need people to support the tasks of organizing this united effort! Contact us at reprojustice.sf@gmail.com with questions and to volunteer.

Spread the word by sharing the flyer linked here, and via social media on Instagram and Facebook .

Join our upcoming planning meeting:

Thursday, 1/19 at 6:30 pm

Via Zoom: https://bit.ly/reprosfcoalition

Together we can insist that the right wing will not continue their reign of terror unopposed.

Look for future National Mobilization events on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade at https://reprojusticenow.org.

What we call for:

* Restore & expand Roe v. Wade; safe, legal abortion on demand without apology

* Repeal the Hyde Amendment

* Overturn state barriers to reproductive choices

* Stop forced sterilization

* No to caged kids, forced assimilation, & child welfare abuses

* End medical & environmental racism; for universal healthcare

* Defend queer & trans families

* Guarantee medically sound sex education & affordable childcare

* Sexual self-determination for people with disabilities

* Uphold social progress with expanded voting rights & strong unions

#AbortTheCourt #MyDecisionAlone #UnjustLawsWillBeBroken

Our mailing address is:

Reproductive Justice - San Francisco

747 Polk Street

San Francisco, CA 94109

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February 24-25 :: International Days of Action in Solidarity with Ukraine

On the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, activists throughout the world will be mobilizing for protests and education events in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and their struggle to liberate their country.

The Ukraine Solidarity Network (U.S.) will be organizing actions and events.

Connect with us!

https://linktr.ee/ukrainesolidaritynetwork

Solidarity with Ukraine!

Ukraine Solidarity Network Mission Statement

The Ukraine Solidarity Network (U.S.) reaches out to unions, communities, and individuals from diverse backgrounds to build moral, political, and material support for the people of Ukraine in their resistance to Russia’s criminal invasion and their struggle for an independent, egalitarian, and democratic country.

The war against Ukraine is a horrible and destructive disaster in the human suffering and economic devastation it has already caused, not only for Ukraine and its people but also in its impact on global hunger and energy supplies, on the world environmental crisis, and on the lives of ordinary Russian people who are sacrificed for Putin’s war. The war also carries the risk of escalation to a direct confrontation among military great powers, with unthinkable possible consequences.

It is urgent to end this war as soon as possible. This can only be achieved through the success of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion. Ukraine is fighting a legitimate war of self-defense, indeed a war for its survival as a nation. Calling for “peace” in the abstract is meaningless in these circumstances.

The Ukraine Solidarity Network (U.S.) supports Ukraine’s war of resistance, its right to determine the means and objectives of its own struggle—and we support its right to obtain the weapons it needs from any available source. We are united in our support for Ukraine’s people, their military and civilian defense against aggression, and for the reconstruction of the country in the interests of the majority of its population. We stand in opposition to all domination by powerful nations and states, including by the United States and its allies, over smaller ones, and oppressed peoples.

We uphold the following principles and goals:

1. We strive for a world free of global power domination at the expense of smaller nations. We oppose war and authoritarianism no matter which state it comes from and support the right of self-determination and self-defense for any oppressed nation.

2. We support Ukraine’s victory against the Russian invasion, and its right to reparations to meet the costs of reconstruction after the colossal destruction it is suffering.

3. The reconstruction of Ukraine also demands the cancellation of its debts to international financial institutions. Aid to Ukraine must come without strings attached, above all without crushing debt burdens.

4. We recognize the suffering that this war imposes on people in Russia, most intensely on the ethnic and religious minority sectors of the Russian Federation which are disproportionately impacted by forced military conscription. We salute the brave Russian antiwar forces speaking out and demonstrating in the face of severe repression, and we are encouraged by the popular resistance to the draft of soldiers to become cannon fodder for Putin’s unjust war of aggression.

5. We seek to build connections to progressive organizations and movements in Ukraine and with the labor movement, which represents the biggest part of Ukrainian civil society, and to link Ukrainian civic organizations, marginalized communities and trade unions with counterpart organizations in the United States. We support Ukrainian struggles for ensuring just and fair labor rights for its population, especially during the war, as there are no military reasons to implement laws that threaten the social rights of Ukrainians, including those who are fighting in the front lines.

Click here to read the complete list of USN Endorsements:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRbP5raef3Aq8-g61fPXUaA_mM_Ymf3HRRPzYDD1XWfEGJLZB082eWPuKDvedQQ4FbhhEsrCT9d8igm/pub

Please sign below to add your endorsement:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-ihmachMueK2DKP-lRmPoxURY_xXoG6NyjWi4AfBCbs/viewform?edit_requested=true&fbzx=-9116349616547434088

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SHUT DOWN DRONE WARFARE

Spring Action Week: April 15 - 22, 2023

Holloman AFB, Southern New Mexico

Co-sponsored by CODEPINK & Ban Killer Drones

Mark your calendars & Join Us!

Come for all or part of the week!

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Dear friends and supporters of Kevin Cooper,

We are horrified by the terrible report put out by the Morrison Foerster (MoFo) law firm who were assigned to conduct an independent investigation of Kevin Cooper’s case. As Kevin’s chief attorney, Norman Hile, says: "In short, Mofo did not do an innocence investigation. Instead, they simply looked at the evidence the prosecution used and then hired some of their own experts to affirm what the prosecution said.”

Attached is a brief press statement issued by Kevin’s defense law firm. If you would like to receive the link to the MoFo report (over 200 pages) let me know and I will email it to you.

More analysis and information will follow soon.

An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:

Mr. Kevin Cooper

C-65304. 4-EB-82

San Quentin State Prison

San Quentin, CA 94974

Orrick

January 14, 2023

Kevin Cooper has suffered imprisonment as a death row inmate for more than 38 years for a gruesome crime he did not commit. We are therefore extremely disappointed by the special counsel’s report to the Board of Parole Hearings and disagree strongly with its findings. Most fundamentally, we are shocked that the governor seemingly failed to conduct a thorough review of the report that contains many misstatements and omissions and also ignores the purpose of a legitimate innocence investigation, which is to independently determine whether Mr. Cooper’s conviction was a product of prosecutorial misconduct. The report failed to address that critical issue. The evidence when viewed in this light reveals that Kevin Cooper is innocent of the Ryen/Hughes murders, and that he was framed by the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department.

The special counsel’s investigation ordered by Governor Newsom in May 2021 was not properly conducted and is demonstrably incomplete. It failed to carry out the type of thorough investigation required to explore the extensive evidence that Mr. Cooper was wrongfully convicted. Among other things, the investigation failed to even subpoena and then examine the files of the prosecutors and interview the individuals involved in the prosecution. For unknown reasons and resulting in the tragic and clearly erroneous conclusion that he reached, the special counsel failed to follow the basic steps taken by all innocence investigations that have led to so many exonerations of the wrongfully convicted.

In effect the special counsel’s report says: the Board of Parole Hearings can and will ignore Brady violations, destruction of exculpatory evidence, planted evidence, racial prejudice, prosecutorial malfeasance, and ineffective assistance of trial counsel; since I conclude Cooper is guilty based on what the prosecution says, none of these Constitutional violations matter or will be considered and we have no obligation to investigate these claims.

Given that (1) we have already uncovered seven prosecutorial violations of Brady v. Maryland during Mr. Cooper’s prosecution, (2) one of the likely killers has confessed to three different parties that he, rather than Mr. Cooper, was involved in the Ryen/Hughes murders, and (3) there is significant evidence of racial bias in Mr. Cooper’s prosecution, we cannot understand how Mr. Cooper was not declared wrongfully convicted. The special counsel specifically declined to address ineffective assistance of counsel at the trial or the effect of race discrimination. We call on the governor to follow through on his word and obtain a true innocence investigation.

Anything But Justice for Black People

Statement from Kevin Cooper concerning recent the decision on his case by Morrison Forrester Law Firm

In 2020 and 2022 Governor Newsom signed in to law the “Racial Justice Act.” This is because the California legislature, and the Governor both acknowledged that the criminal justice system in California is anything but justice for Black people.

On May 28th, 2021, Governor signed an executive order to allow the law firm of Morrison Forrester (MoFo) to do an independent investigation in my case which included reading the trial and appellant transcripts, my innocence claims, and information brought to light by the 9th circuit court of appeals, as well as anything else not in the record, but relevant to this case.

So, Mr. Mark McDonald, Esq, who headed this investigation by Morrison Forrester and his associates at the law firm, went and did what was not part of Governor Newsom’s order, and they did this during the length of time that they were working on this case, and executive order. They worked with law enforcement, current and former members of the L.A. Sheriff’s department, and other law enforcement-type people and organizations.

Law enforcement is the first part of this state’s criminal justice system. A system that both the California legislature, and the Governor acknowledge to be racist, and cannot be trusted to tell the truth, will present, and use false evidence to obtain a conviction, will withhold material exculpatory evidence, and will do everything else that is written in those two racial justice act bills that were signed into law.

So, with the active help of those pro-police, pro-prosecutor, pro-death penalty people working on this case to uphold my bogus conviction we cannot be surprised about the recent decision handed down by them in this case.

While these results are not true but based on the decisions made in 1983 and 1984 by the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office, these 2023 results were not reached by following the executive orders of Governor Newsom.

They ignored his orders and went out to make sure that I am either executed or will never get out of prison.

Governor Newsom cannot let this stand because he did not order a pro-cop or pro-prosecutor investigation, he ordered an independent investigation.

We all know that in truth, law enforcement protects each other, they stand by each other, no matter what city, county, or state that they come from. This is especially true when a Black man like me states that I was framed for murder by law enforcement who just happened to be in the neighboring county.

No one should be surprised about the law enforcement part in this, but we must be outraged by the law firm Morrison Forrester for being a part of this and then try to sell it as legitimate. We ain’t stupid and everyone who knows the truth about my case can see right through this bullshit.

I will continue to fight not only for my life, and to get out of here, but to end the death penalty as well. My entire legal team, family and friends and supporters will continue as well. We have to get to the Governor and let him know that he cannot accept these bogus rehashed results.

MoFo and their pro-prosecution and pro-police friends did not even deal with, or even acknowledge the constitutional violations in my case. They did not mention the seven Brady violations which meant the seven pieces of material exculpatory evidence were withheld from my trial attorney and the jury, and the 1991 California Supreme court that heard and upheld this bogus conviction. Why, one must ask, did they ignore these constitutional violations and everything that we proved in the past that went to my innocence?

Could it be that they just didn’t give a damn about the truth but just wanted to uphold this conviction by any means necessary?

No matter their reasons, they did not do what Governor Gavin Newsom ordered them to do in his May 28, 2021, executive order and we cannot let them get away with this.

I ask each and every person who reads this to contact the Governor’s office and voice your outrage over what MoFo did, and demand that he not accept their decision because they did not do what he ordered them to do which was to conduct an independent investigation!

In Struggle and Solidarity

From Death Row at San Quentin Prison,

Kevin Cooper

Call California Governor Newsom:

1-(916) 445-2841

Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,

press 6 to speak with a representative and

wait for someone to answer

(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)

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Ruchell is imprisoned in California, but it is important for the CA governor and Attorney General to receive your petitions, calls, and emails from WHEREVER you live!

SIGN THE PETITION: bit.ly/freeruchell

SEND DIGITAL LETTER TO CA GOV. NEWSOM: bit.ly/write4ruchell

Call CA Governor Newsom:

CALL (916) 445-2841

Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,

press 6 to speak with a representative and

wait for someone to answer (Mon. - Fri., 9 AM - 5 PM PST / 12PM - 8PM EST)

Call Governor Newsom's office and use this script:

"Hello, my name is _______ and I'm calling to encourage Governor Gavin Newsom to commute the sentence of prisoner Ruchell Magee #A92051 #T 115, who has served 59 long years in prison. Ruchell is 83 years old, so as an elderly prisoner he faces health risks every day from still being incarcerated for so long. In the interests of justice, I am joining the global call for Ruchell's release due to the length of his confinement and I urge Governor Newsom to take immediate action to commute Ruchell Magee's sentence."

Write a one-page letter to Gov Gavin Newsom:

Also, you can write a one-page letter to Governor Gavin Newsom about your support for Ruchell and why he deserves a commutation of his sentence due to his length of confinement (over 59 years), his age (83), and the health risks of an elderly person staying in California’s prisons.

YOUR DIGITAL LETTER can be sent at bit.ly/write4ruchell

YOUR US MAIL LETTER can be sent to:

Governor Gavin Newsom

1303 10th Street, Suite 1173

Sacramento, CA 95814

Email Governor Newsom

GOV.CA.GOV/CONTACT

Navigation:

Under "What is your request or comment about?", select "Clemency - Commutation of Sentence" and then select "Leave a comment". The next page will allow you to enter a message, where you can demand:

Commute the sentence of prisoner Ruchell Magee #A92051 #T 115, who has served 59 long years in prison.

He was over-charged with kidnapping and robbery for a dispute over a $10 bag of marijuana, a substance that is legal now and should’ve never resulted in a seven-years-to-life sentence. Ruchell is 83 years old, so as an elderly prisoner he faces health risks every day from still being incarcerated for so long.

Write to District Attorney Gascon

District Attorney George Gascon

211 West Temple Street, Suite 1200

Los Angeles, CA 90012

Write a one-page letter to D.A. George Gascon requesting that he review Ruchell’s sentence due to the facts that he was over-charged with kidnapping and robbery for a dispute over a $10 bag of marijuana, a substance that is legal now and should’ve never resulted in a seven-years-to-life sentence. Ruchell’s case should be a top priority because of his age (83) and the length of time he has been in prison (59 years).

· Visit www.freeruchellmagee.org to learn more! Follow us @freeruchellmagee on Instagram!

· Visit www.facebook.com/freeruchellmagee or search "Coalition to Free Ruchell Magee" to find us on Facebook!

· Endorse our coalition at:

· www.freeruchellmagee.org/endorse!

· Watch and share this powerful webinar on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u5XJzhv9Hc

WRITE TO RUCHELL MAGEE

Ruchell Magee

CMF - A92051 - T-123

P.O. Box 2000

Vacaville, CA 95696

Write Ruchell uplifting messages! Be sure to ask questions about his well-being, his interests, and his passions. Be aware that any of his mail can be read by correctional officers, so don’t use any violent, explicit, or demoralizing language. Don’t use politically sensitive language that could hurt his chances of release. Do not send any hard or sharp materials.

~Verbena

of Detroit Shakur Squad

The Detroit Shakur Squad holds zoom meetings every other Thursday. We educate each other and organize to help free our Elder Political Prisoners. Next meeting is Thurs, Jan 12, 2022. Register to attend the meetings at tinyurl.com/Freedom-Meeting

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Supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal march down JFK Blvd. past the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice and City Hall, in Philadelphia, Friday, December 16, 2022.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer

Results of Mumia Abu-Jamal's Court Hearing

December 16, 2022

In October, Common Pleas Court Judge Lucretia Clemons strongly signaled in a 30-page opinion that she is leaning toward dismissing the defense appeal.

However, she gave the two sides one last chance Friday, Dec. 16, 2022 to argue their positions. The lawyers did so in a courtroom filled with about 50 Abu-Jamal allies, as well as Faulkner’s widow, Maureen, and a smaller number of her supporters. Mumia Abu-Jamal was not present.

Clemons said she would rule within three months. Before ending the hearing, the judge asked the prosecutors and defense lawyers to make sure that Abu-Jamal’s lawyers had reviewed every scrap of evidence that the District Attorney’s Office could share.

“I do not want to do this again,” she said.

Mobilization4Mumia

Mobilization4Mumia.com

mobilization4mumia@gmail.com

Watch the live-stream of the Dec. 16 Court Rally at youtu.be/zT4AFJY1QCo.

The pivotal hearing follows a hearing Oct. 26 at which the Judge said she intended to dismiss Abu-Jamal’s appeal based on six boxes of evidence found in the District Attorney’s office in Dec. 2018. Clemons repeatedly used procedural rules – rather than allowing for an examination of the new evidence – in her 31-page decision dismissing Mumia Abu-Jamal’s petition for a new trial. (https://tinyurl.com/mtvcrfs4 ) She left the door open on Abu-Jamal’s appeal regarding the prosecution’s selection of jurors based on race.

Abu-Jamal’s attorneys Judith Ritter, Sam Spital and Bret Grote filed a “ Petitioner’s Response to the Court’s Notice of Intent to Dismiss PCRA Petition” (https://tinyurl.com/mvfstd3w ) challenging her refusal to hold a hearing on the new evidence.

Just this week, the UN Working Group on People of African Descent filed an Amicus brief, a friend of the court document that reinforced the facts and arguments in Mumia's attorney's PRCRA filing. (https://tinyurl.com/587r633p ) They argued that no judicial time bar should be applied when the defendant is a victim of historic racial bias that may have tainted the possibility of a fair trial and due process.

At a press conference Dec. 13 announcing the Amicus brief, the Hon. Wendell Griffen, Division 5 judge of the 6th Judicial Circuit Court for Pulaski County, Arkansas said, “Clemons is only the second Black judge to hear any aspect of Abu-Jamal’s case. Will she have the courage to say that there are too many factors here that compel for Mumia to justify dismissing the motion? This evidentiary hearing is required, because exculpatory evidence was concealed.” (https://youtu.be/Xh38IKVc_oc )

Griffen clarified his statement on Dec 14 during a Democracy Now interview (https://youtu.be/odA_jjMtXQA): “Under a 1963 decision that every law student knows about, and every lawyer that does criminal law practice, in Brady v. Maryland, the Supreme Court of the U.S. held that due process of law is violated when the prosecution conceals evidence relevant to guilt or punishment from the bench. In this country, that kind of precedent should have required Mumia to be released and the Commonwealth decide whether or not to prosecute him based upon having revealed the right evidence. That hasn’t been done.”

More details on Abu-Jamal’s case can be found at
https://tinyurl.com/ymhvjp8e and https://tinyurl.com/34j645jc.

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Urgent support needed for cancer-stricken, imprisoned writer/artist, Kevin “Rashid” Johnson’s Legal Fund!

Fundraiser for an attorney to represent Rashid’s struggle for medical care
A campaign is underway to hire an attorney to represent Kevin Rashid Johnson’s struggle for medical care. The prison has denied this care to him, despite a cancer diagnosis discovered over one year ago for which no treatment has yet been provided.

Here is the donation link for Rashid’s legal fund:
https://fundrazr.com/025tu2?ref=ab_6BrbV1
Please be as generous as you can.

***IMPORTANT UPDATE CONCERNING COMRADE RASHID***

Prostate cancer can be cured if discovered and treated before it spreads (metastasizes) beyond the prostate. But once it spreads it becomes incurable and fatal.

Rashid's prostate cancer was discovered over a year ago and diagnosed by biopsy months ago, before it had spread or any symptoms had developed. However, he has now developed symptoms that indicate it likely has metastasized, which would not have happened if he had begun receiving treatment earlier. Denied care and delayed hospital appointments continue, which can only be intended to cause spreading and worsening symptoms.

I just received word from Rashid through another prisoner where he is, that he was transported on October 25, 2022 to the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) hospital, which is a state hospital where Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) officials also work. MCV appears to have a nefarious relationship with the VDOC in denying prisoners needed treatment. Upon arrival to the hospital he was told the appointment had been rescheduled, which has now become a pattern.

The appointment was for a full body PET scan to determine if and to what degree his cancer has metastasized. When he met with a radiologist on October 4, 2022, after 3 prior re-schedulings, there was concern that his cancer may have spread because of symptoms he's begun developing. This is his fourth rescheduled hospital appointment which has delayed appointments for weeks to months, preventing him from receiving care.

Because of delayed testing and denied care Rashid has developed symptoms that continue to worsen, which include internal bleeding and pain. The passage of time without care is worsening his condition and making the likelihood of death from the spread of his cancer more certain.

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Sign the petition:

https://dontextraditeassange.com/petition/

If extradited to the United States, Julian Assange, father of two young British children, would face a sentence of 175 years in prison merely for receiving and publishing truthful information that revealed US war crimes.

UK District Judge Vanessa Baraitser has ruled that "it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America".

Amnesty International states, “Were Julian Assange to be extradited or subjected to any other transfer to the USA, Britain would be in breach of its obligations under international law.”

Human Rights Watch says, “The only thing standing between an Assange prosecution and a major threat to global media freedom is Britain. It is urgent that it defend the principles at risk.”

The NUJ has stated that the “US charges against Assange pose a huge threat, one that could criminalise the critical work of investigative journalists & their ability to protect their sources”.

Julian will not survive extradition to the United States.

The UK is required under its international obligations to stop the extradition. Article 4 of the US-UK extradition treaty says: "Extradition shall not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense."

The decision to either Free Assange or send him to his death is now squarely in the political domain. The UK must not send Julian to the country that conspired to murder him in London.

The United Kingdom can stop the extradition at any time. It must comply with Article 4 of the US-UK Extradition Treaty and Free Julian Assange.

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Tell Congress to Help #FreeDanielHale

I’m pleased to announce that last week our client, Daniel Hale, was awarded the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. The “Corner-Brightener Candlestick” was presented to Daniel’s friend Noor Mir. You can watch the online ceremony here.

As it happens, this week is also the 20th anniversary of the first drone assassination in Yemen. From the beginning, the drone assassination program has been deeply shrouded in secrecy, allowing U.S. officials to hide significant violations of international law, and the American Constitution. In addition to the lives directly impacted by these strikes, the program has significantly eroded respect for international law and thereby puts civilians around the world in danger.

Daniel Hale’s revelations threw a beam of light into a very dark corner, allowing journalists to definitively show that the government's official narrative was a lie. It is thanks to the great personal sacrifice of drone whistleblowers like Hale that public understanding has finally begun to catch up to reality.

As the Sam Adams Associates note:

“Mr. Hale was well aware of the cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment to which other courageous officials have been subjected — and that he would likely suffer the same. And yet — in the manner of his famous ancestor Nathan Hale — he put his country first, knowing what awaited him at the hands of those who serve what has become a repressive Perpetual War State wreaking havoc upon much of the world.”

We hope you’ll join the growing call to pardon or commute Hale’s sentence. U.S. citizens can contact your representatives here.

Happy new year, and thank you for your support!

Jesselyn Radack
Director
Whistleblower & Source Protection Program (WHISPeR)
ExposeFacts

Twitter: @JesselynRadack

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Laws are created to be followed

by the poor.

Laws are made by the rich

to bring some order to exploitation.

The poor are the only law abiders in history.

When the poor make laws

the rich will be no more.

—Roque Dalton Presente!

(May 14, 1935 – Assassinated May 10, 1975)[1]

[1] Roque Dalton was a Salvadoran poet, essayist, journalist, political activist, and intellectual. He is considered one of Latin America's most compelling poets.

Poems:

http://cordite.org.au/translations/el-salvador-tragic/

About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roque_Dalton

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Screenshot of Kevin Cooper's artwork from the teaser.

“In His Defense” The People vs. Kevin Cooper

A film by Kenneth A. Carlson

Teaser is now streaming at:

https://www.carlsonfilms.com

Posted by: Death Penalty Focus Blog, January 10, 2022

https://deathpenalty.org/teaser-for-a-kevin-cooper-documentary-is-now-streaming/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=1c7299ab-018c-4780-9e9d-54cab2541fa0

“In his Defense,” a documentary on the Kevin Cooper case, is in the works right now, and California filmmaker Kenneth Carlson has released a teaser for it on CarlsonFilms.com

Just over seven months ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered an independent investigation of Cooper’s death penalty case. At the time, he explained that, “In cases where the government seeks to impose the ultimate punishment of death, I need to be satisfied that all relevant evidence is carefully and fairly examined.”

That investigation is ongoing, with no word from any of the parties involved on its progress.

Cooper has been on death row since 1985 for the murder of four people in San Bernardino County in June 1983. Prosecutors said Cooper, who had escaped from a minimum-security prison and had been hiding out near the scene of the murder, killed Douglas and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and 10-year-old Chris Hughes, a friend who was spending the night at the Ryen’s. The lone survivor of the attack, eight-year-old Josh Ryen, was severely injured but survived.

For over 36 years, Cooper has insisted he is innocent, and there are serious questions about evidence that was missing, tampered with, destroyed, possibly planted, or hidden from the defense. There were multiple murder weapons, raising questions about how one man could use all of them, killing four people and seriously wounding one, in the amount of time the coroner estimated the murders took place.

The teaser alone gives a good overview of the case, and helps explain why so many believe Cooper was wrongfully convicted.

------------------------------------------------------*

A Plea for the Compassionate Release of

Leonard Peltier

Video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWdJdODKO6M&feature=youtu.be

Screen shot from video.

Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.

https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition

Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603

------------------------------------------------------*

The Moment

By Margaret Atwood*

The moment when, after many years

of hard work and a long voyage

you stand in the centre of your room,

house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,

knowing at last how you got there,

and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose

their soft arms from around you,

the birds take back their language,

the cliffs fissure and collapse,

the air moves back from you like a wave

and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor, time after time

climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You never found us.

It was always the other way round.

*Witten by the woman who wrote a novel about Christian fascists taking over the U.S. and enslaving women. Prescient!

------------------------------------------------------*

Resources for Resisting Federal Repression

https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/

Posted on August 6, 2020

Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.

The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.

Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.

Emergency Hotlines

If you are contacted by federal law enforcement you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.

State and Local Hotlines

If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:

Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963

National Hotline

If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:

National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811

Know Your Rights Materials

The NLG maintains a library of basic Know-Your-Rights guides.

Know Your Rights During Covid-19
You Have The Right To Remain Silent: A Know Your Rights Guide for Encounters with Law Enforcement
Operation Backfire: For Environmental and Animal Rights Activists

WEBINAR: Federal Repression of Activists & Their Lawyers: Legal & Ethical Strategies to Defend Our Movements: presented by NLG-NYC and NLG National Office

We also recommend the following resources:

Center for Constitutional Rights

If An Agent Knocks
English | Spanish | Urdu | Arabic

Civil Liberties Defense Center

Grand Juries: Slideshow

Grand Jury Resistance Project

A Few Facts About Grand Juries

Katya Komisaruk

What You Should Know About Grand Juries

Movement for Black Lives Legal Resources

Tilted Scales Collective

A Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant

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Articles

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1) Russia-Ukraine War

Death Toll in Apartment Strike Rises to 40

By Megan Specia, Nicole Tung and Cassandra Vinograd, Jan. 16, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/01/16/world/russia-ukraine-news?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=World%20News

A resident gathered her belongings after Saturday’s missile strike on an apartment building in Dnipro, on Sunday.

Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

The number of dead in a Russian attack on an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to 40, emergency officials said on Monday, as rescuers found more bodies at the site of one of the deadliest attacks against civilians since the start of the war.

As search crews scoured the debris for survivors for a third consecutive day, details began to emerge about the lives lost. Two young mothers — Olha Usova and Iryna Solomatenko — were among the dead, along with Mykhailo Korenovskyi, a boxing coach and father of two, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense. One of the victims, Maria Lebid, was 15 years old, a Ukrainian official said.

“She was school president and ballroom dancer,” the official, Emine Dzheppar, the first deputy foreign minister, wrote on Twitter. “Her beautiful life dance was cut short.”

At least 75 people were wounded and 34 remained unaccounted for as of Monday afternoon, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said in a post on Telegram, the social messaging app. The strike on Saturday at the nine-story residential building prompted renewed calls for Moscow to be charged with war crimes. In an address to Ukrainians on Sunday night, President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was also critical to punish “those who grease the Russian propaganda machine.”

Switching to Russian, he then warned: “Your cowardly silence, your attempt to ‘wait out’ what is happening, will only end with those same terrorists coming after you one day.”

Hundreds of rescuers are working at the site, the emergency service said, and more than 8,000 tons of debris have been moved. Mr. Zelensky said on Sunday night that the rescue operation would last “as long as there is even the slightest chance to save lives.”

“We are fighting for every person,” he said.

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2) The 11 Most Anti-Capitalist Quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.

The truth is, most politicians would distance themselves from Dr. King's stunning (and spot on) indictments of capitalism.

By Katie Halper, Jan. 21, 2019

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/21/11-most-anti-capitalist-quotes-martin-luther-king-jr

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. To be fair, I guess I should wish "Sorry it's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day" to the people who don't believe it should be a holiday and the politicians who voted against making it one. I'm talking to you, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA).

While both parties attempt to claim Dr. King, the Republicans have a much harder time doing so without distorting history and the truth. But the truth is, most politicians would distance themselves from Dr. King's stunning (and spot on) indictments of capitalism. There are, of course, a few exceptions, here and there.

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, let's look at some of the things he said challenged capitalism and are left out of most history books.

1. "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic... [Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive... but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness."

- Letter to Coretta Scott, July 18, 1952.

2. "In a sense, you could say we're involved in the class struggle."

-Quote to New York Times reporter, Jose Igelsias, 1968.

3. "And one day we must ask the question, 'Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.' When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society..."

-Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.

4. "Capitalism forgets that life is social. And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis."

-Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.

5. "Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children."

- Speech to the Negro American Labor Council, 1961.

6. "We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power... this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together... you can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others... the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order."

- Report to SCLC Staff, May 1967.

7. "The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism."

-Speech to SCLC Board, March 30, 1967.

8. "I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective - the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed matter: the guaranteed income... The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty."

- Where do We Go from Here?,1967.

9. "You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism."

- Speech to his staff, 1966.

10. "[W]e are saying that something is wrong ... with capitalism.... There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism."

- Speech to his staff, 1966.

11. "If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell."

- Speech at Bishop Charles Mason Temple of the Church of God in Christ in support of the Memphis sanitation workers' strike on March 18th, 1968, two weeks before he was assassinated.

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3) Record Police Killings in 2022 Show Need to Continue Organizing for Abolition

Building power and transformation is about encouraging the grassroots while confronting a resilient carceral state.

By Austin C. McCoy, January 15, 2023

https://truthout.org/articles/record-police-killings-in-2022-show-need-to-continue-organizing-for-abolition/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=14cb3716-fa53-4854-ac17-d7672cffe0d2

Police watch as immigrants enter a migrant shelter on January 6, 2023, in El Paso, Texas.

Law enforcement killed a record number of Americans in 2022, two years after the largest racial justice uprising in the U.S. According to the Mapping Police Violence database, police slayed 1,183 people in the U.S. last year. Of those murdered, according to the database, 25 percent were Black, although Black people make up less than 13 percent of the national population.

One would think, in a post-George Floyd “moment of reckoning,” that a record number of police killings would garner more attention, especially in an election year. But would an average American recognize the names of Kiaza Miller, Mable Arrington or Joshua Leon Wright? Probably not.

Instead of a reckoning, we are living in a moment of reaction. This is evident in Republican attempts to discredit demands to defund the police through fearmongering around crime. Republican candidates and PACs spent millions of dollars flooding the airwaves with looped images of violence, property theft and destruction in their “law and order” campaigns during the midterm election cycle. Some of the ads were so flagrantly racist and demonizing that they inspired some journalists to recall the Willie Horton ad, George H.W. Bush’s infamous campaign spot designed to portray Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis as “soft” on crime.

However, Republicans did not act alone in the effort to restore police legitimacy and undermine radical demands to transform public safety in 2022. President Biden pledged to “fund the police” multiple times, including in his State of the Union address. Democratic Mayor Eric Adams of New York City proposed funding to hire 578 more police officers. However, New York City’s mostly progressive city council forced him to abandon his campaign promise to expand policing in the city. Lori Lightfoot of Chicago also continued to increase the city’s police budget and pledged support for law enforcement — and they are far from alone. Other cities controlled by Democrats — Houston, Austin, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles — also increased police funding in 2022.

Given the record number of police killings this year, one could be tempted to conclude that protest does not work. However, such a conclusion belies the reality that police power (and structural racism) is deeply entrenched in U.S. society, thus requiring long-term struggle. We only need to observe histories of anti-racist movements and protests to remind ourselves of this fact. Activists such as Ida B. Wells and organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) launched their crusade against lynching in the early 20th century and sought legislation banning extra-legal racist violence for decades. Yet, it would take Emmett Till’s murder and the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 before the movement for racial justice began to escalate. Then, it would take community organizing, direct action and scores of campaigns before the passage of civil rights legislation. And, despite the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, it would not be until 2022 that the U.S. passed anti-lynching legislation. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “the line of progress is never straight.”

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4) How Restaurant Workers Help Pay for Lobbying to Keep Their Wages Low

The National Restaurant Association uses mandatory $15 food-safety classes to turn waiters and cooks into unwitting funders of its battle against minimum wage increases.

By David A. Fahrenthold and Talmon Joseph Smith, Jan. 17, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/us/politics/restaurant-workers-wages-lobbying.html

A restaurant worker seen through the window on a door leading to the kitchen.

More than 3.6 million workers have taken the training, providing about $25 million in revenue to the restaurant industry’s lobbying arm since 2010. Credit...Amir Hamja/Bloomberg

McDonald’s employees marching in support of a $15 minimum wage in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The National Restaurant Association helped to scuttle a bill in 2021 to raise the federal minimum wage for all workers to $15 per hour over five years. Credit...Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

WASHINGTON — For many cooks, waiters and bartenders, it is an annoying entrance fee to the food-service business: Before starting a new job, they pay around $15 to a company called ServSafe for an online class in food safety.

That course is basic, with lessons like “bathe daily” and “strawberries aren’t supposed to be white and fuzzy, that’s mold.” In four of the largest states, this kind of training is required by law, and it is taken by workers nationwide.

But in taking the class, the workers — largely unbeknown to them — are also helping to fund a nationwide lobbying campaign to keep their own wages from increasing.

The company they are paying, ServSafe, doubles as a fund-raising arm of the National Restaurant Association — the largest lobbying group for the food-service industry, claiming to represent more than 500,000 restaurant businesses. The association has spent decades fighting increases to the minimum wage at the federal and state levels, as well as the subminimum wage paid to tipped workers like waiters.

The federal minimum wage has risen just once since 1996, to $7.25 from $5.15, while the minimum hourly wage for tipped workers has been $2.13 since 1991. Minimums are higher in many states, but still below what labor groups consider a living wage.

For years, the restaurant association and its affiliates have used ServSafe to create an arrangement with few parallels in Washington, where labor unwittingly helps to pay for management’s lobbying. First, in 2007, the restaurant owners took control of a training business. Then they helped lobby states to mandate the kind of training they already provided — producing a flood of paying customers.

More than 3.6 million workers have taken this training, providing about $25 million in revenue to the restaurant industry’s lobbying arm since 2010. That was more than the National Restaurant Association spent on lobbying in the same period, according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service.

That $25 million represented about 2 percent of the National Restaurant Association’s total revenues over that same period, but more than half of the amount its members paid in dues. Most industry groups are much more reliant on big-dollar donors or membership support to meet their expenses. Most of the association’s revenues come from trade shows and other classes.

Tax-law experts say this arrangement, which has helped fuel a resurgence in the political influence of restaurants, appears legal.

But activists for raising minimum wages — and even some restaurant owners — say the arrangement is hidden from the workers it relies on.

“I’m sitting up here working hard, paying this money so that I can work this job, so I can provide for my family,” said Mysheka Ronquillo, 40, a line cook who works at a Carl’s Jr. hamburger restaurant and at a private school cafeteria in Westchester, Calif. “And I’m giving y’all money so y’all can go against me?”

Ms. Ronquillo is also a labor organizer in California. She said that she had taken the class every three years, as required, and that she never knew ServSafe funded the other side of that fight.

As workers have become more aware of how their payments to ServSafe are used, something of a backlash is developing. Looking ahead to coming battles over minimum wages in as many as nine states run by Democrats, including New York, Saru Jayaraman of the labor-advocacy group One Fair Wage said she was encouraging workers to avoid ServSafe.

“We’ll be telling them to use any possible alternatives,” Ms. Jayaraman said.

The kind of class that these workers pay for, called “food handler” training, is offered by ServSafe or its affiliates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. But online databases maintained by the National Restaurant Association show the vast majority of its classes are taken in four large states where food-handler classes are mandatory for most workers: Texas, California, Illinois and Florida.

Other companies also offer this training. But restaurant industry veterans say that ServSafe is the dominant force in the market — to the point that some restaurant owners said they did not realize there were alternatives.

“ServSafe is very much the Kleenex” of the industry — a brand that defines the business, said Nick Eastwood, who runs a competitor called Always Food Safe. “We believe they’ve got at least 70 percent-plus of the market. Maybe higher.”

The president of the National Restaurant Association, Michelle Korsmo, declined to be interviewed. In a written statement, she said the group had sought to protect both public health and the financial health of the industry.

“The association’s advocacy work keeps restaurants open; it keeps workers employed, it finds pathways for worker opportunity, and it keeps our communities healthy,” Ms. Korsmo wrote. Her group declined to say how much of the training market it captures.

As money flowed in from the National Restaurant Association’s training programs, its overall spending on politics and lobbying more than doubled from 2007 to 2021, tax filings show. The national association donated to Democrats, Republicans and conservative-leaning think tanks, and sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to state restaurant associations to beef up their lobbying.

During the Clinton and Obama administrations, the association was a major force in limiting employer-provided health care benefits. And though pressure from liberal groups has grown and workers’ wages have fallen for decades when adjusted for inflation, the group helped assemble enough bipartisan opposition to scuttle a bill in 2021 to raise the federal minimum wage for all workers to $15 per hour over five years.

The association had also won a series of battles over state-level wage minimums, though its fortunes reversed last year. Both the District of Columbia and Michigan moved to eliminate the “tip credit” system — where restaurants are allowed to pay waiters a salary below the minimum wage, on the expectation that tips from customers will make up the rest. That was the first time any state had eliminated the tip-credit system in more than 10 years.

Legally, the National Restaurant Association and its state-level affiliates are a species of nonprofit called a “business league,” with more freedom to lobby than a traditional charity.

Since the 1960s, their lobbying has focused heavily on the minimum wage — arguing that labor-intensive operations like restaurants, which employ more workers at or near the minimum wage than any other industry, could be put out of business by any significant increase in employee costs.

Fifteen years ago, they had just lost a battle in that fight.

Over the association’s objections, Congress had raised the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour. Former board members said they were searching for a new source of revenue — without asking members to pay more in dues.

“That’s when the decision was contemplated, of buying the ServSafe program,” said Burton “Skip” Sack, a former chairman of the association’s board. “Because it was profitable.”

At the time, the ServSafe program was run by a charity affiliated with the restaurant association. The association bought the operation, transforming it into an indirect fund-raising vehicle.

After that, state restaurant associations in California, Texas and Illinois lobbied for changes in state law.

Previously, those states had required food-safety training for restaurant managers, which typically was paid for by restaurants themselves. After the association’s takeover of ServSafe, lobbying records show, the state affiliates pushed for a broader and less-common type of mandate, covering all food “handlers” like cooks, waiters, bartenders and those who bus tables.

The three state legislatures agreed, in lopsided votes.

In written statements, the state restaurant associations said they were not trying to raise money. Instead, they said they worked with other groups seeking to reduce food-borne disease.

“This law was happening with or without our participation in the process,” said the president of the California Restaurant Association, Jot Condie. California legislative records show his association was the sponsor of the bill that imposed the mandate.

ServSafe soon had waves of new customers, which in turn generated more money for the association and its lobbying efforts. Today, Florida, California, Texas, Illinois and Utah all have similar requirements. John Bluemke, a senior vice president for sales at ServSafe from 2002 to 2010, said there was little need to pursue mandates in smaller states: “Once you did the big states, who cares about Nebraska?”

“If you’ve got a million people going through that thing, do the math,” Mr. Bluemke said. The National Restaurant Association does not release figures about the cost of offering food-handler classes, but Mr. Bluemke said that — because they are generally offered online — the costs are low and the profits high.

“We always said the first course costs you a million dollars,” Mr. Bluemke said, for making the video. “And the rest are free.”

When managers take mandatory training, restaurant veterans say, the employer usually pays. But state websites say that restaurant employees should expect to pay for these classes themselves, and restaurant workers interviewed by The New York Times said that was their experience.

The restaurant association notes that some employers have covered the costs of getting certified and that employees are given lower rates in certain circumstances. So not all 3.6 million workers paid $15 each.

“The N.R.A. is different from most traditional trade associations in our business model,” Dawn Sweeney, the National Restaurant Association’s chief executive at the time, wrote to members in 2014 — reminding them of what a good deal they had.

Business leagues, which are tax-exempt, are generally allowed to run a for-profit business, as long as it advances the common interest of their broader trade. The National Restaurant Association contends that its business cleanly fits this standard.

“The rules the I.R.S. has passed are not always clear as to what is and is not allowed,” said Anna Massoglia, an investigations manager at OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks the flow of money in politics. “This makes it easier for groups to exploit that lack of clarity. I’m not familiar with another group that has done it to this scale.”

The Internal Revenue Service declined to comment, citing taxpayer-privacy rules.

For restaurant workers, there is little clue that money paid to ServSafe supports lobbying — much less lobbying that tries to keep workers’ pay low. The only hint is a line on ServSafe’s website, saying it “reinvests proceeds from programs back into the industry.”

Even some members of the restaurant association — the beneficiaries of this arrangement — said they did not know how it worked.

Johnny Martinez, a Georgia restaurateur, said he supports a $15 minimum wage and pays at least that much in a state where it is still $7.25 per hour. And he describes his association membership as “the price of entry” for navigating the industry, “even though I disagree with them on a lot of things.”

But he expressed frustration upon discovering the connections between ServSafe and lobbying efforts, saying “it feels very wrong” to him.

“This is a certification that’s also wrapped up inside of a lobbyist,” Mr. Martinez said. “It is weird that the tests that they require the workers to pay for are being run by the same company that’s fighting to make sure those people don’t make more money.”

Tiff Fehr and Will Houp contributed reporting.

Talmon Joseph Smith is an economics reporter based in New York. @talmonsmith

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5) Nurses Are Burned Out and Fed Up. For Good Reason.

By Lydia Polgreen, Jan. 18, 2023

“The only way in our society people get access to care is: one, a woman does it for free through the family; or two, an industry figures out how to make money off of it.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/18/opinion/nurses-strike-pay-staffing-ratios.html

Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times

It is enraging but not particularly surprising that our health care system is failing the most essential of its workers. Nurses are the keystone holding up our rickety and raggedly uneven health care system. We desperately need more of them, but we have created a health care system — indeed, a broader society — that, as if by design, devalues them and takes them for granted. Like workers in other female-dominated professions in the care economy, nurses are spoken of, often with a whiff of condescension, as heroes. But just like teachers, social workers, health aides, day care workers and mothers, we sure don’t treat them that way.

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, America’s nurses were rightly praised for the central role they played. But nurses are burned out. Many are simply leaving the profession. Thousands across the country are doing what the nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai in New York City did last week: go on strike.

Their No. 1 demand is not more pay or better benefits, the traditional stuff of labor negotiations. Instead, they want hospitals and nursing homes to hire more nurses and commit to set ratios of patients to nurses, something institutions have long resisted, in order to reduce their workload and increase patient safety.

In a major victory for the nurses’ union, Mount Sinai and Montefiore medical centers, two of the biggest in New York, agreed last week to do just that, ending the strike in three days.

Given how heavily regulated and bureaucratic America’s health care system is, it may come as a surprise that hospitals aren’t legally required to have a certain number of nurses on hand per patient. Especially since similar rules are in place in other highly regulated industries. Federal regulations require a strict minimum number of flight attendants on each flight depending on the type of aircraft. If the airline is even one short, the plane remains on the tarmac.

Yet nurses in an intensive care unit, a cancer ward, an emergency room or a labor and delivery ward can routinely find themselves juggling many more patients than common sense would suggest they could care for, never mind best practices recommended by medical experts. One striking nurse I interviewed last week told me that he routinely had to juggle 15 to 20 patients, significantly more than the recommended number. Only California regulates the ratio of nurse staffing in every hospital unit. Efforts to expand this practice elsewhere have failed.

This is not a problem created by the pandemic. For years America has been grappling with a nursing crisis, which is now peaking just as our health care system faces perhaps the biggest challenge in its history: the relentless care needs of the aging baby boomer generation.

Yet at precisely this moment, when demand for health care is surging and pay for nurses is rising, tens of thousands of nurses have already fled the profession. Even before the pandemic, surveys showed that roughly half of nurses reported experiencing burnout and one in four were planning to leave their job in the next year. Now it is about one in three. By 2025, the U.S. health care system could be short as many as 450,000 nurses.

We have known for a long time that inadequate nurse staffing leads to more patient deaths. In a 2002 peer-reviewed study, researchers found that each additional patient assigned to a hospital nurse increased the likelihood of death by 7 percent. And yet understaffing is the rule, not the exception.

How did we get here? America spends more on health care per capita than any other developed nation, but what we get in return is a highly uneven set of health outcomes. We pride ourselves on leading scientific advancement of medicine, and the quality of specialists who treat serious illness requiring advanced care is envied the world over.

But the United States is near the bottom of the list of developed nations on some of the most common health problems, like asthma, diabetes and heart disease. It is a scandal that America’s maternal mortality rate is more that double that of many other wealthy nations. There are many factors that lead to these poor outcomes, many of them systemic, like poverty and racism. But a major reason we are sicker and live shorter lives on average than people in other rich nations is our lack of access to the kind of basic, primary care and monitoring that is the bedrock of nursing.

“It’s not a sexy thing, but that’s really what we do day in and day out: Control the traffic and be the beacon for problems, and get the right people in the room when something’s going wrong,” said Christopher Friese, a professor of nursing at the University of Michigan.

Hospital administrators say they are desperate to hire more nurses. Mount Sinai and Montefiore, for instance, have hundreds of openings they have not been able to fill. Part of the problem is that there just aren’t enough nurses who want to work in hospitals, largely for the reasons I’ve outlined: overwork and a feeling of futility from not being able to provide adequate care. This leads to a vicious cycle, as nurses flee jobs in hospitals or the profession altogether early in their careers, making it all the more difficult to attract new ones.

Hospitals operate under the brutal and confounding economics of American health care. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates are set by the government, and, according to the hospitals, don’t cover the actual cost of care. Private insurance companies negotiate to pay as little as they can, frequently creating perverse incentives that skew care toward expensive, high-tech testing and procedures and away from the labor-intensive basics of primary care. So when it is time to cut costs, administrators inevitably look at labor, and nurses almost always make up the biggest work force, said Alexi Nazem, a physician and the chief executive of Nomad Health, a health care staffing company. Our system treats nurses more as a cost center than a value creator, so that the goal in too many cases becomes as few nurses as possible caring for as many patients as possible.

That is incredibly shortsighted, Linda Aiken, a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, told me. In 2021, she and a group of researchers published a study examining proposed legislation in New York that would require hospitals to meet minimum nursing staffing ratios. They studied a group of Medicare patients in New York and found that better staffing ratios could have prevented more than 4,000 deaths and saved upward of $700 million in medical costs over a two-year period — a conservative estimate given the scope of the study.

But the hospital industry lobbied hard against the proposed bill, arguing that hospitals need more staffing flexibility. According to the Healthcare Association of New York State, an industry group, four of five hospitals in the state are either losing money or operating on unsustainable margins.

“Hospitals are pretty much driven by their balance sheet, and not over the long term,” Aiken told me.

The version of the New York legislation that ultimately passed did not include fixed staffing ratios, mandating instead that a committee of nurses and hospital administrators work together to set ratios. If they cannot agree, the law permits the hospital to unilaterally impose its own staffing plan.

This is a real missed opportunity. Like many caring professions, nursing has long been undervalued and taken for granted. It is not a coincidence that these jobs, like so many others that involve caring for others, are performed overwhelmingly by women, though the number of male nurses has been growing.

Gabriel Winant, a labor historian at the University of Chicago who has written a book about health care, said that the failure to value care work of all kinds hurts everyone: “The only way in our society people get access to care is: one, a woman does it for free through the family; or two, an industry figures out how to make money off of it.”

The pandemic showed us all how frayed and unsustainable our systems of care are. Nurses sit at the top of the care hierarchy, and they have a big role to play in transforming the way we value care work, Winant said.

“We could imagine nurses at the leadership of a broad, small-d democratic coalition or movement for higher quality care for all,” he told me.

We spend a lot of time in our politics talking about the need for meaningful jobs that support a middle-class life. It is hard to imagine a more meaningful job than nursing. But to get people interested in doing this job, and sticking with it for the long haul, we need to invest in making it sustainable as a long-term career, imbued with the respect and dignity it deserves. Our lives depend on it.

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6) ‘It Is Time For Us to Grow the F Up’: Stevie Wonder Shares Powerful Message for MLK Day

The musician-activist says the “universe” is profoundly “pissed” off at us for failing MLK's vision of a just society

BY ASAWIN SUEBSAENG

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/stevie-wonder-mlk-day-message-1234661897/

Stevie Wonder in Los Angeles, on December 11, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.

On Monday, legendary singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder released a video commemorating this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The musician-activist’s overall message was that the “universe” is profoundly “pissed” off at us for doing the opposite of achieving the fallen civil-rights leader’s vision of a just society.

Early on in the four-minute video, posted to Twitter on MLK Day, Wonder wishes Dr. King a “happy birthday,” before recounting: “Forty years ago today, I was marching in the cold and snowy streets of Washington, D.C., where thousands of people all believed in the right and the power to convince Congress that this national holiday was needed — not just to honor this man of peace, but to honor the principle of peace and unity.” Wonder adds: “Forty years ago, we marched, and then we peacefully entered the Capitol to explore ways to reach across the aisle.”

Wonder, who has repeatedly denounced candidate and then president Donald Trump over the years, appeared to be emphasizing the word “peacefully,” in order to explicitly differentiate that type of nonviolent activism from the Trump-inspired rioting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Forty years, what have we done for the planet? How have we really helped each other? Where has poverty been eliminated, why are guns still protected, and why has hate been elevated? Truthfully, we’ve done very little in 40 years,” Wonder says. “Now it is time for us to grow the [fuck] up, and get out of our virtual delusions that sell murder, mayhem, terrorism, and hate…Dr. King, I wish I could say you were here. But it feels like we did not deserve you then, and we’re not much better now.”

He adds: “And people, I believe deep in my soul the universe is watching us — and she is pissed. But will we fix it? I hope so.”

Wonder’s decades-long record of social and political activism has been recognized both in the United States and abroad. The United Nations has recognized his work over the years, and the organization writes that Wonder’s “activism has been pivotal in U.S. and world events. In 1983, he spearheaded a campaign to make Martin Luther King Day a national holiday in the United States. He also advocated for the end of apartheid in South Africa.”

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7) Harvard Reverses Course on Human Rights Advocate Who Criticized Israel

News that the university had blocked a fellowship for the former head of Human Rights Watch stirred debate over academic freedom and donor influence.

By Jennifer Schuessler and Marc Tracy, Jan. 19, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/arts/harvard-israel-antisemitism-roth.html

A man in a suit jacket and a button-down shirt, no tie, standing in front of a wall.

Kenneth Roth, the former director of Human Rights Watch, in New York last April. The Harvard Kennedy School recently reversed its early decision to reject his fellowship application because of his criticisms of Israel. Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

An image of buildings on a hill, with a large wall cutting through the town.

A view of the West Bank village of Walaja, in December 2021, showing the Israeli separation wall. Credit...Samar Hazboun for The New York Times

The Harvard Kennedy School reversed course on Thursday and said it would offer a fellowship to a leading human rights advocate it had previously rejected, after news of the decision touched off a public outcry over academic freedom, donor influence and the boundaries of criticism of Israel.

The controversy erupted earlier this month, when The Nation published a lengthy article revealing that last summer, the school’s dean, Douglas Elmendorf, had vetoed a proposal by the school’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy to offer a one-year fellowship to Kenneth Roth, the recently retired executive director of Human Rights Watch. At the time, Elmendorf told colleagues that he was concerned about perceptions that Human Rights Watch had a bias against Israel, according to two faculty members.

The revelation prompted sharp rebukes from prominent free expression groups; a letter signed by more than 1,000 Harvard students, faculty and alumni criticizing what it called “a shameful decision to blacklist Kenneth Roth”; and private complaints from faculty.

In an email to the Kennedy School community on Thursday, Elmendorf said his decision had been an “error” and the school would be extending an invitation to Roth.

Elmendorf, an economist who served as director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2009 to 2015, also pushed back against the charge that donors had influenced his initial decision, which was suggested in the Nation article and reiterated in public statements by Roth.

“Donors do not affect our consideration of academic matters,” he said in the statement. “My decision was also not made to limit debate at the Kennedy School about human rights in any country.”

He did not specify why he had rejected Mr. Roth’s fellowship except to say that it was “based on my evaluation of his potential contributions to the school.”

As for Roth, who after Harvard’s about-face accepted an offer from the University of Pennsylvania, where he is now a fellow at Perry World House, Elmendorf said, “I hope that our community will be able to benefit from his deep experience in a wide range of human rights issues.”

The incident was the latest flare-up in the ongoing debate about when criticism of Israel shades into antisemitism, and when charges of antisemitism, in turn, are used to shut down criticism.

In interviews (and on Twitter), Roth, a Jew whose father fled Nazi Germany as a child, said that Elmendorf’s initial decision reflected the influence of those who seek to delegitimize Human Rights Watch, which has monitored abuses in more than 100 countries, as an impartial observer on Israel. And he has described it as a case of “donor-driven censorship,” though he said he had no proof.

“It clearly looks like this is donor influence undermining intellectual independence,” he said in an interview with The New York Times last week.

(A spokesman for Harvard said the university and its president, Lawrence Bacow, had no comment.)

Donor influence can be murky, with the details of conversations held behind closed doors rarely coming to the surface. But Israel has been a particular flash point in recent years, as some donors concerned with what they see as antisemitic or anti-Israel trends in academia have sought to reverse gifts or sway hiring decisions.

In 2020, the University of Toronto halted the hiring of Valentina Azarova as the director of its law school’s human rights program, after a major donor contacted an administrator to express concerns about her academic work criticizing Israel’s human rights record. (After a public outcry, the university offered the job to Azarova with protections for academic freedom, but she declined.)

Last year, the University of Washington returned a $5 million gift, after a donor to its Israel Studies program expressed unhappiness with a professor who had joined other Israel and Jewish studies scholars in signing an open letter criticizing the Israeli government’s conduct toward Palestinians and Arabs in the country and the Palestinian territories. The donor, according to the university, had requested that the gift agreement be amended to forbid scholars supported by the donation from making statements “seen as hostile to Israel.”

The Kennedy School, a confederation of 12 centers and dozens of other initiatives, is one of the nation’s leading public policy schools. It’s also no stranger to controversy, often stemming not from its regular faculty but from its more than 750 visiting fellows, who include prominent figures from politics, government and media.

In 2017, Elmendorf rescinded a fellowship offered to Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who in 2010 leaked archives of military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks, following criticism from Mike Pompeo, then C.I.A. director, and others in the intelligence community. In 2019, Rick Snyder, a former governor of Michigan, withdrew from a fellowship after his appointment sparked a backlash on social media and from students who cited his role in the Flint water crisis.

As for partisan voices on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the school has hosted a variety of fellows in recent years, including Amos Yadlin, a retired top Israeli general, and Saeb Erekat, then the chief Palestinian negotiator and secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Roth had been recruited for the fellowship, which includes no teaching duties, by Mathias Risse, the director of the Carr Center. In an email to Carr Center students, faculty members, fellows, alumni and others following the Nation article, Risse called him “one of the most distinguished human rights leaders of our time” and said the fellowship rejection was “one of the lowest moments of my professional life.”

In interviews and emails with The Times, Risse and another faculty member, Kathryn Sikkink, said that Elmendorf, in explaining his rejection of Roth, had cited the perception that Human Rights Watch was “biased” against Israel. He told them he had become aware of the issue following discussions with unnamed people within the university, they said.

Donors, they said, were not mentioned. But they said a 2021 report by Human Rights Watch, which concluded that Israel’s policies toward Palestinians in the occupied territories met the legal definition of “the crime of apartheid,” was discussed.

Whether Human Rights Watch is fair to Israel has long been a source of contention, inside and outside the organization. In a 2009 opinion essay in The Times, Robert Bernstein, one of the group’s founders, charged that its criticisms of Israel were “helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”

In 2019, Israel expelled the group’s director for Israel and Palestine and the lead researcher and author of the 2021 report, Omar Shakir, under a law barring foreigners who support a boycott of Israel or its territories. At the time, Shakir denied that either he or Human Rights Watch had called for a wholesale consumer boycott of Israel or its settlements.

With its 2021 report, titled “A Threshold Crossed,” Human Rights Watch became the first major international human rights group to apply the term “apartheid” to Israeli conduct. Six months later, Amnesty International followed suit in its own report. (In 2022, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic issued a similar, less-noticed report.)

Sarah Leah Whitson, a former Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said that the “apartheid” designation had come after “painful” internal debate.

“We had to work for years to build confidence among the senior leadership of the organization that this was an important place for us to go,” said Whitson, now the executive director of Democracy in the Arab World Now, or DAWN. There was a fear “that if you cross those red lines, they will try to decapitate you as an effective advocacy group.”

The Human Rights Watch report was assailed by Israel, whose ambassador to the United States said it bordered on antisemitism. The American Jewish Committee called it “a hatchet job” and accused Roth of harboring personal “animus toward Israel.” Some progressive Jewish groups who expressed concern at “vitriolic attacks” on the report also noted their own disagreement with the term “apartheid.”

A view of the West Bank village of Walaja, in December 2021, showing the Israeli separation wall. Credit...Samar Hazboun for The New York Times

To some on campus, the issue is less about Roth or Human Rights Watch than the balance of discourse on campus.

“From a free speech perspective, yes, he should be entitled to a fellowship” if the Carr Center saw fit to invite him, said Natalie Kahn, a senior at Harvard College and the co-president of Harvard Students for Israel. “I do think, though, that there are so many people at Harvard who are espousing anti-Israel views that we really don’t need another one.”

Ahmed Moor, a 2013 Kennedy school graduate who helped organize an open letter from Palestinian alumni protesting Elmendorf’s initial decision, noted that the school had hosted Yadlin, the Israeli general, but also had “people like me.”

“That’s fine and appropriate for that kind of institution,” because representing numerous viewpoints is part of the purpose of a “premier public policy program.”

With the original decision, he added, “That’s where the current dean mucked things up.”

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8) How to Divide the Working Class

By Charles M. Blow, Jan. 18, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/18/opinion/race-violence-riot-working-class.html

An illustration of burning buildings and a group of people in 19th-century dress. Some are carrying torches and furniture.

The burning of the Colored Orphan Asylum in New York set off the Draft Riots of 1863. Credit...Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

New York City was the site of one of the deadliest riots in United States history 160 years ago this year.

It was the draft riots of 1863, in the middle of the Civil War.

New York then was hardly the monolithic liberal bastion it has since become. Its economy benefited significantly from the slave economy and the cotton it produced. And, although the state’s abolition of slavery became effective in 1827, during the following decades, as the historian Sylviane A. Diouf has noted, the city came to dominate the illegal slave trade to the American South, Brazil and Cuba.

Indeed, the mayor at the time, Fernando Wood, was a pro-Southern, pro-slavery Democrat, who proposed that the city secede from the Union in 1861 after South Carolina became the first state to do so the year before.

Conservative, antiwar Democrats, known as Copperheads, were enraged by the onset of the Civil War, and they were vocal opponents of Abraham Lincoln’s war policies. They saw abolitionists as agitators and their call to end slavery as an affront to states’ rights. Many Copperheads thought the secession was constitutional and the war misguided because, as the historian Jennifer L. Weber explains in The Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, “the Constitution (they rightly pointed out) says nothing about the terms of membership in the Union.”

So the Copperheads and their presses began relentless racist campaigns that inflamed the passions of poor and working-class whites. They offered a kind of “great replacement” theory of its time, claiming that once freed, Black throngs would invade New York City and create competition for whites’ jobs and threaten their way of life.

When Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, it served to cement the replacement paranoia. The editor of a Copperhead newspaper on Long Island wrote at the time that “in the name of freedom for Negroes” the proclamation “imperils the liberty of white men.”

Then, when the Enrollment Act of 1863 passed, establishing the first national draft, tensions boiled over into a bloody five-day riot. More than 100 people died, although some believe there may have been an undercount of hundreds. The riots were anti-government because the government was forcing people to participate in a war to which they were vehemently opposed. They were anti-Black because racist phobias had been drummed into them. And they were anti-elite because another point of tension was that wealthy people could buy exemption from conscription by paying a $300 fee, an amount far out of reach of most working-class men.

Working-class white people had been radicalized by white supremacy, racial tribalism, the fear of new arrivals and anti-government fervor.

A lot has changed since 1863, but devices of division and provocation remain, a means of dividing the white from the nonwhite working class by stoking a combination of grievance against outsiders and against the government and wealthy elites seen to be favoring their interests over those of “ordinary” (i.e., white) citizens.

For much of American history, the holy grail of liberal politics and activism has been to find a way past such divisions, a way to make poor and working-class people of all races see that their fates and interests are linked.

But race, then as now, remains a powerful tool for driving a wedge in the working class. This is not to say that a coalition can’t be built, or has never been built. In the New Deal realignment of the 1930s, Democrats built a coalition that supported the working class, to at least some extent, regardless of race. It wasn’t perfect, of course, because it still accommodated racist Democrats in the South, but it was a coalition.

That coalition began to fall apart in the 1960s with the successes of the civil rights movement. Since that time, Black leaders have been struggling to reshape the coalition, from Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign of the late 1960s, to Jesse Jackson’s National Rainbow Coalition, founded in the 1980s, to the Rev. William Barber’s focus on “fusion coalitions” that came out of his Moral Mondays campaign started in 2013 to protest North Carolina’s hard-right legislative turn.

Liberal politicians have developed another method at coalition-building, one that sometimes works: a cultural bilingualism that tries to speak to the white working class and educated liberals separately, on their own terms and in their own languages.

But as the forces of intellectualism and what we’ve come to call “diversity” exert increasing power in the Democratic Party, non-college-educated white voters have fled. As Nate Cohn pointed out in this paper in 2021, after Joe Biden’s victory: “When the Harvard-educated John F. Kennedy narrowly won the presidency in 1960, he won white voters without a degree but lost white college graduates by a two-to-one margin. The numbers were almost exactly reversed for Mr. Biden, who lost white voters without a degree by a two-to-one margin while winning white college graduates.”

Similarly, according to a Politico analysis, in 2020 Donald Trump won an astonishing 96 percent of those districts in which 70 percent or more of people were white and fewer than 30 percent were college-educated.

This partisan bifurcation of the white vote is being called the “diploma divide,” but it’s more than that. It also frequently represents a basic knowledge gap, which encourages a hostility to truth, which softens the ground for conspiracy peddling, hate-mongering, extremist radicalization and episodes of terrorism.

Yes, 1863 is in the distant past. But themes from that era are percolating at the edges — and sometimes not only the edges — of conservative discourse: The growing expression and occasional endorsement of “great replacement” theory. The calls, still marginal yet increasing, for secession or civil war. The fear of the Other, whether in the form of a liberated slave or a southern border crosser. The routine debasement and growing mistrust of government, and in particular its efforts to improve racial equality.

There aren’t anti-Black race riots brewing in New York City. But a familiar, vintage anger and unease is growing, and it’s deeply worrisome.

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9) Strikes and Protests Across France as Macron Faces Pensions Showdown

Labor unions, opposed to government plans to raise the legal age of retirement, want a show of strength. President Emmanuel Macron is hoping to forge ahead despite the wave of discontent.

By Aurelien Breeden, Jan. 19, 2023

Reporting from Paris

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/world/europe/france-strikes-macron-retirement-age.html

Protesters on Thursday at the Place de la République in Paris, which was crammed with demonstrators.

Protesters on Thursday at the Place de la République in Paris, which was crammed with demonstrators. Credit...Lewis Joly/Associated Press

Classrooms in France were empty, trains were still and the Paris metro was heavily disrupted on Thursday as hundreds of thousands of workers around the country went on strike and protested President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to raise the legal age of retirement.

More than 200 demonstrations were planned, and the authorities expected 550,000 to 750,000 protesters to march on the first day of what could be a prolonged showdown between the government and a united front of labor unions.

Teachers, railway workers and employees at public radio stations and oil refineries went on strike, traffic at the northern port of Calais ground to a halt and the Eiffel Tower was closed. Labor unions at France’s national electric utility company, where nearly 45 percent of employees were on strike, said they had intentionally lowered output.

The walkout represents a crucial test for both the unions, who need a show of strength, and for Mr. Macron, who is hoping to forge ahead despite widespread popular opposition to his plans, which include a measure to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

“If there is no positive response from the government, today is a first step, and there will be a second step,” Philippe Martinez, the head of the CGT labor union, told reporters before the march in Paris.

The strikes and protests were an echo of 2019, when Mr. Macron first tried to retool France’s complex but generous state-backed pension system by overhauling it entirely. Those plans prompted huge demonstrations until the coronavirus pandemic forced the government to drop them.

Mr. Macron’s newest plan is a more straightforward attempt to balance the system’s budget by making the French work longer.

The plan, presented last week and expected to be discussed by Parliament in February, would also accelerate a previous change that increased the number of years that workers have to pay into the system to get a full pension.

But the latest public opinion polls show that roughly 60 percent of French people are opposed to Mr. Macron’s plans, despite measures that the government says will keep the system fair, like continued exemptions allowing those who begin working at younger ages to retire earlier. Older job seekers, who have found themselves effectively shut out of France’s labor market, are particularly worried about the prospect of delayed retirement.

By noon on Thursday, hundreds of thousands of protesters had marched in Nantes, Marseille, Toulouse and other cities, chanting and carrying signs with slogans like “Retirement before arthritis.” The biggest protest was in the capital, Paris, where the Place de la République was crammed with demonstrators.

Fearful of the clashes between police officers in riot gear and violent protesters that often mar French demonstrations, many stores in Paris had boarded up their windows. Over 10,000 police officers were deployed across the country to bolster security at the protests, the authorities said.

In Paris, near the Place de la Bastille, Thomas Ouvriard, 20, a political science university student, and Ignacio Franzone, 23, a worker at the French post office, smiled as they hoisted up a gigantic poster that depicted Mr. Macron dressed as King Louis XIV with an unflinching stare.

“Of course in France, we have cut off the heads of kings in our past history,” Mr. Franzone said. “We’re not there yet with Macron, but we’re here to win this fight.”

Both men said they were protesting partly out of solidarity but also out of concern for their own futures. They argued that the government should fund the pension system by raising taxes on the wealthy and on companies, rather than by making people work longer.

“As it is, young people have a really hard time getting jobs, so we’re starting to work later in life and we’re going to have to keep working later,” Mr. Ouvriard said.

At midday on Thursday, labor unions said that 65 to 70 percent of teachers were on strike in elementary, middle and high schools; the education ministry said the figure was lower, about 35 to 42 percent.

“The government has lost its first battle: convincing people that the reform is necessary,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the prominent leftist politician of the France Unbowed party, and a fierce opponent of Mr. Macron, told reporters in Marseille.

Nationwide, many trains were canceled. In Paris, a handful of metro lines were completely shut down, and many were open only during rush hour or heavily disrupted. Service was also intermittent on many of the Paris region’s commuter lines, some of the busiest in Europe.

The disruptions did not fuel chaos in train stations, however, because many Parisians elected to work from home or use different modes of transportation.

But the delays and cancellations did fuel frustration. At the Gare du Nord, a major train station in Paris, Catherine Gross, 42, was fuming in front of the station board.

“My train keeps getting delayed, I’ve been wandering around the station for two and a half hours,” said Ms. Gross, an insurance saleswoman. “I’m sorry to say that about the strikers, but they are getting on my nerves.”

When another train that she was supposed to take was canceled, she said she had lost all hope of getting to her office in Gennevilliers, north of Paris.

“I get that they are fighting for their right to retire at 62, but right now they are not influencing Emmanuel Macron or Élisabeth Borne, they are just hurting the ones that are willing to go to work,” she said, referring to France’s president and prime minister.

Olivier Dussopt, the French labor minister, told the LCI news channel that the government respected the right of strikers to protest but did not want the country to come to a standstill.

“When it comes to pensions, there are always concerns,” Mr. Dussopt said. “We know that we are asking the French to collectively work more.”

“All pension reforms have had difficulties with public opinion,” Mr. Dussopt added. “For every French person, it is a very personal question.”

Liz Alderman and Tom Nouvian contributed reporting.

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10) Michigan Woman and 2 Sons Freeze to Death After Days on the Street

The sheriff of Oakland County, who noted that a 10-year-old daughter had survived, called the deaths preventable, citing the mother’s untreated mental illness.

By Maya King, Published Jan. 18, 2023, Updated Jan. 19, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/18/us/michigan-family-death-freezing.html

“We don’t give our mental health providers and systems enough support,” Sheriff Michael Bouchard of Oakland County said during a news conference in Pontiac, Mich., on Monday. Credit...Mandi Wright/USA TODAY NETWORK

For days, the authorities said, a Michigan woman experiencing a mental health crisis walked the streets of a Detroit suburb with her three children, knocking on doors, asking for food and sleeping outside, underdressed, in below-freezing temperatures.

Sheriff’s deputies found the woman, Monica Cannady, 35, and two of her children, Malik Milton, 3, and Kyle Milton, 9, dead from hypothermia on Sunday, the authorities said. They were in a wooded field where they had been sleeping in their hometown, Pontiac, Mich., a predominantly Black city of about 60,000 about 20 miles north of Detroit.

Ms. Cannady’s 10-year-old daughter survived and reported the deaths to a nearby resident, saying that her “family was dead in a field,” Sheriff Michael Bouchard of Oakland County said at a news conference on Monday. He said the accidental deaths had been preventable and that they represented a larger, systemic failure.

“This tragedy is fundamentally evidentiary of the breakdown of our mental health system in America,” he said. “We don’t give our mental health providers and systems enough support.”

Details provided by law enforcement officials of the family’s final days paint a grim picture: Ms. Cannady was behaving erratically three weeks before her death, family members told the authorities, but she refused to seek professional help. She left her home in Pontiac with her children late last week, fleeing what she believed was a coordinated conspiracy to kill her, the authorities said.

The family knocked on doors in their neighborhood to ask for food, and some residents offered them money. The authorities said they were seen walking for three days without warm clothing, as local temperatures dipped into the 20s and 30s. Sheriff’s deputies, who were alerted by residents, were unable to find them in time to intervene, Sheriff Bouchard said.

Ms. Cannady’s surviving daughter, who was hospitalized with hypothermia-like symptoms, said to investigators that her mother told her and her siblings to run away whenever anyone approached them.

On Saturday evening, Ms. Cannady told the children to lie down in a field, where they froze to death hours later, Sheriff Bouchard said. It was only after Ms. Cannady’s daughter walked to a nearby home and sought help that the authorities were able to find the bodies of her mother and brothers in the field.

Melanie Rutherford, a City Council member whose district includes the neighborhood where Ms. Cannady and her children died, said that Ms. Cannady’s refusal to seek mental health assistance reflects an anxiety that can persist among some Black people.

“When you think about the mental health issues, especially in the African American community, oftentimes we’re scared to tell anyone. And oftentimes we’re mislabeled,” said Ms. Rutherford, who is Black. “We have to come to the realization that mental health is real. Mental illness is real.”

Citing medical privacy laws, Dana Lasenby, chief executive officer and executive director of the Oakland Community Health Network, which provides mental health services to Oakland County residents, said that she could not comment on whether her office was contacted by Ms. Cannady’s family members.

She said that Ms. Cannady’s case had garnered significant attention in Pontiac, and that her organization was using it as an opportunity to discuss the availability of mental health resources in the area.

“We want to be solution focused. We want to add solutions and responses that will help,” she said. “We want to prevent this from ever happening again.”

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11) The Next Phase of the Abortion Fight Is Happening Right Now in New York

By Michelle Goldberg, Jan. 20, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/opinion/new-york-abortion-rights-legislation.html

Linda Prine wearing a royal blue shirt and looking into the distance.

Linda Prine is a physician and co-founder of the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline. Credit...Alana Paterson

Linda Prine spends a lot of time speaking to frantic women navigating the end of Roe v. Wade.

Prine is a New York physician and co-founder of the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline, which provides support to people using pills to end their pregnancies on their own. She started the hotline during the Trump administration in response to escalating state restrictions. At first, with abortion clinics still operating in every state, there weren’t many calls. Then Texas banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, and more calls started coming in.

After Roe v. Wade was overturned, “it just went through the roof, and it continued to get busier and busier,” said Prine. Now, 60 volunteers keep it staffed 18 hours a day. “Pretty much the phone rings almost nonstop, and we’re getting texts at the same time,” she said.

For those with unwanted pregnancies who live in states with abortion prohibitions, using medication to self-manage an abortion is sometimes the only option. “It’s only a minority of people who can afford the travel,” said Prine. Nonprofits like the Brigid Alliance can help cover expenses, but they can’t ensure people have child care they trust, make their bosses give them time off from work, or explain their absence to unsupportive parents. “So some people are figuring out how to get pills as best as they can,” Prine said.

Doing so can take a frighteningly long time. The Biden administration has authorized telehealth providers to prescribe and ship abortion pills, but online pharmacies won’t mail pills to states where abortion is illegal. Women can rent post office boxes in blue states and then have their mail forwarded, but Prine said that some telehealth providers check their patients’ IP addresses. For people in prohibition states, one of the most reliable sources of mail-order pills is the European organization Aid Access, which Prine works closely with. But because those pills are shipped from India, they can take up to three weeks to arrive, an eternity for someone desperate to end an unwanted pregnancy.

“They’re into the second trimester, not infrequently, when they finally get their pills and when they finally can have two days off from work to use them,” Prine said of the people who call the hotline. Though the F.D.A. authorizes pills for use only up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, in some countries they’re employed much later, and taking them in the second trimester isn’t usually considered medically dangerous. Still, self-managing a late abortion can be harrowing psychologically, especially, said Prine, “if you’re a teenager and nobody’s supposed to know what’s happening to you.”

It’s because of this terror and distress that Prine, along with a few other intrepid doctors, is preparing to start mailing abortion pills across state lines. Before she can get up and running, though, she needs New York to pass a bill ensuring that the state will try to protect her from red state prosecutors and lawsuits.

“If we want to expand access to abortion, we need to think outside the box and try to make some new things happen,” said Prine. “And that’s what this shield law should do: It should let us prescribe into these red states.”

Shield laws for telemedicine abortions are at the cutting edge of pro-choice lawmaking. They’re an attempt, at a time of staggering loss, for supporters of abortion rights to go on the offensive. In anticipation of the fall of Roe v. Wade — a decision that would have turned 50 next week — several blue states, including New York, passed laws protecting abortion providers who care for those traveling from places with abortion bans. Telemedicine shield laws go much further, attempting to protect doctors who break the laws of anti-abortion states by helping the women in them have abortions at home.

Right now, only Massachusetts has such a law, but New York may soon join it; this week, a bill sponsored by State Senator Shelley Mayer was voted out of committee. “We just can’t back away because it’s complicated,” said Mayer. “The doctors are not backing away.”

As Emily Bazelon reported in The New York Times Magazine, some abortion-rights groups initially hesitated to throw their weight behind Mayer’s proposal. The New York Civil Liberties Union worried, among other things, about giving providers a false sense of security, since New York’s ability to protect doctors from legal action by other states is limited, especially once they step outside New York’s borders. But after working with Mayer to refine the bill’s language, the N.Y.C.L.U. has come on board, even though Donna Lieberman, its executive director, said, “It is not the panacea that I wish we could provide for Linda and others.”

Prine knows that, but she’s willing to accept a degree of risk. “I think the PTSD that a lot of people will have from this is going to last a long time,” she said, speaking of some of the women who call her hotline. “And it could all be avoided.” New York lawmakers can help.

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12) How Do You Fight a Drought When It’s Flooding?

By Farhad Manjoo, Jan. 20, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/opinion/california-drought-flooding-climate-change.html

Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

California is built upon the great gamble of irrigation. Left alone, much of the land in the Western United States would be inhospitable to teeming cities. But we’re Americans — we couldn’t let the desert stand in our way. More than a century ago, the United States Bureau of Land Reclamation began taming the water in the West. It’s been a remarkably successful project. In California, where I live, irrigation has turned largely barren regions into some the country’s most fertile farmland and most prosperous metropolises. We’ve built “the most ambitious desert civilization the world has seen,” Marc Reisner put it in “Cadillac Desert,” his 1986 history of Western irrigation.

I’ve been thinking a lot about “Cadillac Desert” in the past few weeks, as the rains fell and fell and kept falling over California, much of which, despite the pouring heavens, seems likely to remain in the grip of a severe drought. Reisner anticipated this moment. He worried that the West’s success with irrigation could be a mirage — that it took water for granted and didn’t appreciate the precariousness of our capacity to control it. “Everything depends on the manipulation of water — on capturing it behind dams, storing it, and rerouting it in concrete rivers over distances of hundreds of miles,” he wrote. “Were it not for a century and a half of messianic effort toward that end, the West as we know it would not exist.”

But what happens to that century of irrigation when the weather changes, as it is now? Experts say that climate change is exacerbating “weather whiplash” in California — that we’ll increasingly suffer years of prolonged, extreme aridity followed by great biblical gushers of precipitation. Can a society adjust to a climate of opposing calamities — a climate of both megadroughts and atmospheric rivers, of far too little and far too much?

Just psychologically, this is a difficult balance to maintain: It’s hard to worry about drought when it’s flooding. It’s hard to worry about flooding when there’s a drought. Adjusting infrastructure and water usage to the seesawing weather is going to require some big and possibly painful changes to many of the state’s key constituencies. Farmers will have to give up some agricultural land and grow different crops. Homeowners and developers might have to leave some flood-prone areas uninhabited. We’re going to have to alter our cities to capture more water and alter our lifestyles to use less of it.

California’s water system “was designed and built and is operated for different climatic conditions — for the climate of the 20th century, not the 21st century,” said Peter Gleick, a co-founder and senior fellow at the Pacific Institute. Gleick says there’s some reason for optimism that we’ll be able to tackle this problem — at least California’s government understands and is determined to address the changing weather. Still, Gleick said, “given what we now know about the unavoidable changes of climate change, our policymakers are not doing enough.”

California’s precipitation patterns are naturally variable — we have always had very dry years and very wet years, and quick shifts from droughts to floods are not unheard-of. But climate change is supercharging this phenomenon. A recent state climate report found that year-to-year weather variability has increased sharply since the 1980s. Anyone living in California over the past decade has seen this firsthand. Between 2012 and 2016, California suffered one of its worst droughts on record. Then, in 2017, we had one of the wettest years on record. Then California and much of the Western United States went back into severe drought, again with some of the driest years ever recorded; a report published in Nature Climate Change last year found that the years between 2000 and 2021 might be the Southwest’s driest 22-year period in 1,200 years. And then, this winter, another deluge.

It’s not just that wet years bring more water; it’s also how the water is falling. Because temperatures are warmer, a lot more of California’s precipitation has in recent years been falling as rain instead of snow. This is a problem for a few reasons. Snow acts as a kind of “frozen reservoir” that stores water from one season to another — the snow falls in the winter, then trickles into California’s water supply as it melts. But when precipitation falls more heavily as rain — and when the storms come in quick succession, as they have recently — water isn’t as easily stored and instead becomes destructive. A 2019 study published in the journal Water Resources Research found that the risk of flood grows as snowfall shifts to rainfall and that floods driven by rain can be much larger than floods driven by snowmelt. When rain falls on snow, the snow melts faster. And when rain pours on cities, little of it is captured for use — and instead washes out to sea.

And so we’re left with this surreal phenomenon of a flood-drenched drought. As the storms pounded California last week, water-management officials were telling people not to go wild with water: “We’re kind of dealing with this extreme flood during an extreme drought, and so we’re, of course, encouraging Californians to continue to conserve water and make conservation a way of life,” one official told The Los Angeles Times.

Water experts say there are ways to mitigate the effects of California’s changing climate on our water supply. Gleick has called for revamping national flood insurance regulations to curtail rebuilding in places that are newly prone to flooding. Leaving some places undeveloped and allowing areas to regularly flood will help recharge California’s groundwater supply, he said.

Capturing storm water is another big opportunity. For years, Los Angeles County has been working on a gigantic effort to collect more rainfall for use. Among other projects, the plan involves creating huge “spreading grounds” — tracts of land where rainwater is allowed to pool and soak into the ground; installing rain barrels and other ways to collect water in apartment buildings and at businesses; and building water-absorbing infrastructure into roadways and sidewalks, like drainage ditches and pavement made out of materials permeable to water. Officials reported collecting 33 billion gallons of water in the recent storms — enough for more than 800,000 people for a year. Expanding such efforts statewide could yield lots of new water.

It’s also clear that California’s agricultural sector has got to use less water. Farming currently accounts for 80 percent of California’s water use. In drought years, lots of the agricultural water is pumped from underground, a practice that experts say cannot be sustained. Farmers can reduce this amount by growing more efficient crops — at the moment too much of our land is used to grow water-hogging crops like alfalfa and almonds — but even so, the agricultural sector will have to get smaller. Farmland will need to be fallowed — at least 500,000 acres, according to researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California.

Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, has not been hiding from these issues. Last summer he proposed a big plan for recycling more water and expanding storage. During the recent storms he called for $200 million more for levees and other flood protection measures.

But adjusting California’s water infrastructure to the shifting weather patterns will need to be a long-term, sustained effort, and it will require political bravery. Newsom’s plans did not call on agriculture to make many sacrifices.

As floods-amidst-droughts continue, he and other politicians will need to make difficult decisions. The desert won’t be kept at bay for long.

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13) Six-Year-Old Accused of Shooting Teacher in Virginia Has ‘Acute Disability,’ Family Says

The child had previously been accompanied by a parent every day in school, but that stopped the week of the shooting, his family said.

By Sarah Mervosh and Campbell Robertson, Jan. 19, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/us/newport-news-teacher-shooting.html

A large crowd, facing away from the camera, gather at night around a field. Many are holding candles.

People gathered for a vigil for Abigail Zwerner, the first-grade teacher who was shot at Richneck Elementary School. Credit...John C. Clark/Associated Press

The 6-year-old boy who is accused of bringing a gun to school and shooting his teacher in Newport News, Va., this month has an “acute disability” and had been under an intensive care plan at school, his family said on Thursday in its first statement since the shooting on Jan. 6.

The statement, released through the family’s lawyer, said that the boy had previously been accompanied in school each day by his mother or father as part of the plan for his disability, and that the week of the shooting was the first time that a parent was not in class with him.

“We will regret our absence on this day for the rest of our lives,” the family said in a statement.

The statement also said that the gun, which the authorities said the boy brought from home, had been “secured,” but did not explain how the boy had gotten access to it.

The police declined to comment. No one has been charged in the case so far, a spokeswoman for the Newport News Police Department said on Thursday. The Newport News school district declined to comment, citing student privacy.

The new details add context to a painful case in which the police say the 6-year-old obtained a handgun at home, brought it to Richneck Elementary School and pulled the trigger in his first-grade classroom, seriously injuring his teacher, Abigail Zwerner, 25. She has been released from the hospital.

The child’s history also raises questions about the school’s response on the day of the shooting, when district officials say that an employee at Richneck Elementary, acting on a tip, searched the boy’s backpack for a gun. No weapon was found at that time, the school district said. Later, around 2 p.m., the police said, the boy held up a handgun in his first-grade classroom and fired one shot at his teacher.

The case, unusual because of the child’s young age, spurred new conversation around school security and access to guns, in an era of increasing school shootings. Richneck Elementary has been closed since the shooting, and the school district announced it would install metal detectors in all school buildings, including elementary schools.

In the statement, the family said it had been committed to “responsible gun ownership and keeping firearms out of the reach of children.”

The police have said that the handgun was legally purchased by the child’s mother. Virginia law prohibits leaving a loaded gun where it is accessible to children under 14, a crime that is punishable as a misdemeanor.

“Our heart goes out to our son’s teacher and we pray for her healing,” the boy’s family said in the statement, adding that Ms. Zwerner had “worked diligently and compassionately to support our family as we sought the best education and learning environment for our son.”

The boy has also been “under hospital care and receiving the treatment he needs,” his family said.

“We continue to pray for his teacher’s full recovery, and for her loved ones who are undoubtedly upset and concerned,” the family said. “At the same time, we love our son and are asking that you please include him and our family in your prayers.”

Paul Bibeau contributed reporting.

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14) Which Came First, Inflation or the Egg Meme?

Home cooks are flocking to the internet to lament skyrocketing prices.

By Becky Hughes, Jan. 20, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/dining/egg-inflation-meme.html

An egg shortage is the subject of the nation’s current internet bit. Credit...Johnny Miller for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Sue Li.

The chicken is crossing the road, and she is doing so glamorously, toting a Louis Vuitton bag, rocking a Derby-style bowler hat and avoiding the paparazzi in sunglasses. In the eyes of frustrated grocery shoppers equipped with Photoshop and social media accounts, chickens have become the misers of a valuable asset, eggs.

Across Facebook and Instagram and Reddit and Twitter and TikTok, consumers fed up with soaring egg prices are coping the modern way: They’re making memes.

Some posts compare cartons of eggs to stacks of gold and cold, hard cash. On TikTok, there are more than 14.2 million videos listed under #eggshortage. Among them, there’s a recurring joke: A person, often wearing a fur coat, weighs, inspects and doles out eggs like a drug dealer. Rick Ross’s “Hustlin’” is the soundtrack to really drive home the gag.

But the videos going viral aren’t always staged. One TikTok filmed at a Costco shows a line of people snaking through the store to buy eggs. It’s a scene familiar to those who remember the toilet paper shortage early in the pandemic.

Don Caldwell, the general manager and editor in chief of the internet archive site Know Your Meme, traces the origin of several egg price jokes circulating online to a tweet posted on Dec. 23 that suggested chickens had unionized. It quickly inspired jokes about chickens “staging some chicken revolution,” he said.

“We’ve seen similar memes around inflationary market pressures,” Mr. Caldwell said, noting the deluge of internet humor in response to the spike in gas prices last spring.

There are several explanations for rising egg prices. A highly contagious bird flu has been going around for almost a year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that at least 57 million chickens have been affected, making it the deadliest bout of avian influenza to date. Another, potentially more impactful factor is inflation. Costs are rising for many components of consumer egg production including fuel, chicken feed, packaging and labor. Other food prices are increasing, too, but the average cost of eggs has nearly doubled.

Eggs are, as the New York Times columnist and egg enthusiast Eric Kim elegantly put it, “a blank canvas for flavor and sustenance, in both form and content.”

As “eggs are this cornerstone of so many other foods,” it’s no wonder egg memes are something that not only “chronically online” people are participating in, said Amanda Brennan, the senior director of trends at XX Artists. “When it hits the local suburban Facebook groups, that’s when you know it’s serious.”

Online searches for “egg substitutes” are up by 16,000 compared with last year. Home cooks and influencers are seizing on the opportunity to share recipes for eggless breakfasts and cupcakes (next, the eggless omelet?).

This isn’t the first time eggs have been spotlighted on social media. In 2019, the @world_record_egg became a beloved Instagram stunt as the account attempted to make a stock photo of an egg the most-liked picture on the platform. (It was successful, beating out Kylie Jenner’s baby announcement, until it was bested by a Leo Messi post after Argentina won the World Cup last month.)

It’s unclear when, or if, consumers can expect prices to fall. In the meantime, there’s not much to do but post through it.

“When people meme things, they’re not necessarily saying they’re not serious or important,” Mr. Caldwell said. “It’s a very social game to play online, to be more connected to people about an issue. It makes people feel less alone.”

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15) What A. Philip Randolph Knew About Jobs and Freedom

By Jamelle Bouie, Jan. 21, 2023

Opinion Columnist

“capitalism knows no color line” and that capitalists “will coin the blood, sweat and suffering of white women and white children or black women and black children into dollars and dividends.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/opinion/-a-philip-randolph-civil-rights-jobs.html

A black-and-white photo of a crowd of people, many of them locking arms or holding signs.

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. A. Philip Randolph is in the front, second from right. Credit...PhotoQuest/Getty Images

A black-and-white photograph of a man in a suit jacket and tie.

A. Philip Randolph, circa 1937. Credit...MPI/Getty Images

I keep a running list of ideas and observations that could be used for columns or essays, and this week, my original plan was to write about A. Philip Randolph, the labor leader and civil rights activist whose work in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s was crucial to the growth and success of the civil rights movement. He had a starring role at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which itself was the culmination of an effort Randolph had begun in 1941 with his fellow activist Bayard Rustin and other allies in the civil rights and labor movements.

I couldn’t make the column work — these things happen! — but I still want to share some of the material, both because it’s intrinsically interesting and because it illustrates a point I have made, and will continue to make, in my work for The Times.

To the extent that Randolph is still known to the public, it is as one of the more moderate leaders of the civil rights movement, a member of the old guard in contrast to younger leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But Randolph was at one point a young man, and as a young man, he was a fierce and radical proponent of economic justice as the foundation for civil rights and democratic equality.

You can see much of this in Randolph’s writing for The Messenger, an independent magazine he co-founded in 1917 with assistance from the Socialist Party (and the help of his wife, Lucille Campbell Green), which was still a significant force in American politics at the time. For example, in a 1919 piece, “Lynching: Capitalism Its Cause; Socialism Its Cure,” Randolph condemns “the economic arrangement in the South” as the “fundamental cause of race prejudice, which is the fuse that causes the magazine of capitalism to explode into race conflicts.” He blasts “prejudice as the chief weapon in the South which enables the capitalists to exploit both races” and warns that in actuality “capitalism knows no color line” and that capitalists “will coin the blood, sweat and suffering of white women and white children or black women and black children into dollars and dividends.”

In one of Randolph’s more arresting formulations, found in a 1926 address, “The Negro Faces the Future,” delivered not long after he was elected president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, he connects the Black experience of slavery and discrimination to the entire class system: “From the beginning of the systematic trade in men up to the present moment, the Negro is the one outstanding unpaid worker in the modern world,” Randolph said.

“To the end of correcting this evil,” he continued, “the Negro’s next gift to America will be in economic democracy” and “demonstrating the virtue of the principle of collective bargaining.”

One of the points I’ve tried to make in my column and in this newsletter is that there are multiple and competing traditions of freedom in American society and that one of the most powerful is an egalitarian vision that makes economic security the foundation of democratic self-rule. A related point I hope to explore in detail this year is that by virtue of the largely shared experience of slavery and peonage, the African American political tradition is especially attuned to the vital importance of economic equality to building a truly democratic society.

Here, I’ll let Randolph have the final word: “The insistent cry for freedom on the part of the Negro has kept the American people face to face with the fact that a democracy has not fulfilled its highest mission so long as there are people in the country, black or white, who cannot participate in the affairs of government, industry or society generally as free, intelligent human beings.”

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1/20/2023

Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, January 20, 2023

Free Abortion on Demand! No Forced Sterilization!

Counter Demonstration against the Walk for Life:

Saturday, January 21st at 11:00 am

We'll gather at the Philip Burton Federal Courthouse, 450 Golden Gate Avenue to rally, then march to Civic Center where the Walk for Life West Coast will hold their rally.

Join our upcoming planning meeting:

Thursday, 1/19 at 6:30 pm

Via Zoom: https://bit.ly/reprosfcoalition

Solidarity with Ukraine!

Ukraine Solidarity Network Mission Statement

Click here to read the complete list of USN Endorsements:

Please sign below to add your endorsement:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-ihmachMueK2DKP-lRmPoxURY_xXoG6NyjWi4AfBCbs/viewform?edit_requested=true&fbzx=-9116349616547434088

Orrick

January 14, 2023

Anything But Justice for Black People

Sign the petition:

Tell Congress to Help #FreeDanielHale

“In His Defense” The People vs. Kevin Cooper

A film by Kenneth A. Carlson

Teaser is now streaming at:

https://www.carlsonfilms.com

Posted by: Death Penalty Focus Blog, January 10, 2022

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Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.

https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.infoAddress: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603

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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression

Emergency Hotlines

State and Local Hotlines

National Hotline

Know Your Rights Materials

Center for Constitutional Rights

Civil Liberties Defense Center

Grand Jury Resistance Project

Katya Komisaruk

Movement for Black Lives Legal Resources

Tilted Scales Collective

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https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition

Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603

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