Tidbits - Dec. 26, 2019 - Reader Comments: Impeachment-GOP Stirrings, Trump Sanity, First Impeachment, Mormon Women; Tulsi Gabbard; Year of White Racist Terrorism; Witness at the Border-Brownsville TX; Poor People’s Assembly and March-Washington;
Re: Trump Pens Deranged Six-Page Impeachment Letter, Mails It to Nancy Pelosi (Roberto Rosario; Millie Lopez)
Re: We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated (Claire O'Connor)
Re: The A to Z of Things Trump Could and Should Have Been Impeached For (Janet Rackham; Cecily Stephens)
Re: Edmund G. Ross Was a Profile in Impeachment Corruption, not Courage (Om Williamson)
And the Reindeer Went Union
Separated -- cartoon by Mike Luckovich
Mormon Women Support Impeachment - Official Statement (Mormon Women for Ethical Government)
Trump Falls -- cartoon by Mike Stanfill
Re: Trump’s Pal Tulsi (David Ecklein and Marcosa J Santiago; Tom Berkowitz; Elias P Vlanton; Ray Markey)
Re: No Final Defeat (Mike Liston)
How to Save $5,800 on Health Insurance
Re: 'A National Disgrace': Trump Proposes Social Security Change That Could End Disability Benefits for Hundreds of Thousands (JD Scot; Bobby Calimano; Michel Bellefeuille; Wayne Gravelle; Rafael Rodriguez)
Re: They Killed Frank Ordoñez (Alvarado Victor; Rosalina Rosario Melendez; Disraelly Gutierrez Jaime)
Re: The Rent in the Bay Area Is Too Damn High. So These Moms Occupied a Vacant House. (Sionna Breasal; Linda J McPhee)
Re: The Very Bad Space Force Deal (Gordon Galland; Jim Price)
Portside Annual Fund Appeal - Note from a reader in Sydney, Australia
Resources:
This Is America - Eleven years after Obama’s election, and three years into the Trump presidency, the threat of domestic terrorism can’t be ignored. (Photo Essay - New York Magazine)
New book coming January - The Union Member's Complete Guide (Hardball Press)
Announcements:
Witness at the Border - Brownsville TX/Matamoros MX - January 12 (Witness Fund, Inc.)
Save the Date: Poor People’s Assembly and March on Washington, June 20, 2020 (Poor People’s Campaign)
Re: Trump Pens Deranged Six-Page Impeachment Letter, Mails It to Nancy Pelosi
Roberto Rosario
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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It is a compilation of All his lies.......
Millie Lopez
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated
I watched the debate last night. It continues to be obvious despite the powerful and monied opposition, the candidates who are pushing for justice, democracy, equality and a clean healthy planet are still in the lead. And those candidates who argue for "moderation", the middle way, and the current euphemism "working across the isle" are not eroding that lead. They keep pounding the same old drum - let's do it again the same old way. It is a mystery to me how they hope to deflect the force for CHANGE and survival.
But Eureka. This morning I read your piece on the Lincoln Project and determination by some Republicans to defeat Trump. The Democrat Party candidates are hoping to attract those Republican votes. I mean, think of it - who are they going to vote for? Unless they have the power and influence and money it will take to mount a republican contender, their only choice - a "palatable" democrat contender. S#%t. That's the strategy that got us to now!
Claire O'Connor
Re: The A to Z of Things Trump Could and Should Have Been Impeached For
We need more letters in the alphabet
Janet Rackham
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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And that's the short list.
Cecily Stephens
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Edmund G. Ross Was a Profile in Impeachment Corruption, not Courage
Had Johnson been removed and replaced by a Radical Republican perhaps America would have been spared the Jim Crow era and segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement might have been unnecessary a century later.
Om Williamson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Separated -- cartoon by Mike Luckovich
Mike Luckovich
December 22, 2019
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mormon Women Support Impeachment
Official Statement From Mormon Women for Ethical Government on the House Impeachment Vote
December 18, 2019
We assert that our most sacred civic expression is the casting of an individual vote. Any president or leader who forces political support and fails to honor and protect the free and legitimate elections on which our republic rests has lost the moral right to govern. By attempting to compel Ukraine to announce investigations benefitting only his re-election efforts, President Trump forced every American taxpayer to become an unwitting contributor to his political campaign and a supporter of his re-election.
Regardless of the behavior of any other political actor in either party, the president of the United States is never justified in bringing our common resources and might to bear against a political rival. As an organization committed to the defense of ethical government, we feel an urgent need to speak in defense of our norms and institutions. The House of Representatives produced the required articles, following procedures previously established, and voted through a legislatively approved process. They have fulfilled their constitutional obligation.
When presented to the Senate, these articles deserve a full and fair trial with impartial jurors, conducted as required by the Constitution. Even in an era of polarized partisan politics, truth is discernible and powerful. The Senate must resist all impulse to reduce this process to gamesmanship and theater and instead must pursue truth by compelling testimony from the actors at the heart of this inquiry. The president himself must honor his sworn duty to uphold the law by providing the documents Congress has subpoenaed and instructing his staff to testify. If he is innocent, their testimonies will be exculpatory. Subversion of this process, regardless of outcome, represents a subversion of justice.
At MWEG we are committed peacemakers. However, we recognize that true peace is not an absence of conflict. Rather, it requires, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught, a courageous defense of truth and justice. Some argue that an impeachment process must be bi-partisan before it is legitimate. Some say that without Congressional Republican support, investigating the president would be too divisive. We reject this argument as one devoid of moral authority. Peace cannot be purchased so cheaply. Effective leadership does not sacrifice truth and principle on the altar of consensus. Instead, it gives voice to truth and lends courage to those who are fearful. Our nation is truly indivisible only when there is liberty and justice for all.
While we speak to all of our fellow citizens and elected officials, we call specifically upon our co-religionists Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) to honor their oaths of office. We remind them that this oath qualifies them for service and was taken in the name of God. The oath of office does not require our representatives to protect the economy, their political party, their seat, their ambition, or even the president. It demands that those sworn to office will uphold the Constitution and fairly adjudicate on behalf of every citizen. We expect them to honor that oath, and we will hold them to account with our votes.
# # #
Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring women of faith to be ambassadors of peace who transcend partisanship and courageously advocate for ethical government. MWEG is not affiliated with or endorsed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We do, however, fully sustain the leaders and doctrines of the Church.
Trump Falls -- cartoon by Mike Stanfill
Mike Stanfill
December 20, 2019
Raging Pencils
Harold Meyerson here delivers a disgusting hatchet job. Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate who has always spoken most firmly for peace and cooperation rather than war and confrontation. We are teetering close to a major war, not just the perpetual sandbox wars characterized by the opening years of the millennium. This issue is overlooked by most of the other candidates, but war and its preparations will override all other domestic concerns and programs. The superpower monopoly of nuclear weapons has been broken, and a misunderstanding or error in judgment anywhere can lead to existential catastrophe. The clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reads two minutes to midnight.
Hinting about "Russian bots", Meyerson echoes Hillary Clinton, that polar opposite of Tulsi. Hillary was so provokingly aggressive as Secretary of State under the last administration that Obama had to replace her with Kerry. Tulsi Gabbard would make a fine Secretary of State under a Sanders administration - if that happens despite the tactics of Meyerson, Clinton, the DNC, and others not learning their lessons from 2016 when they enabled Trump and his GOP wrecking crew with a poor candidate and a lackluster campaign.
Recall that in 2016 Gabbard resigned as Vice-Chair of the DNC in order to be free to endorse Bernie rather than Hillary, the DNC's pick. If she is out of contention close to the time of the primary, she would most likely endorse Bernie again. So Meyerson delivers a body blow not only at Tulsi, but also at Bernie, who has been gaining great strength since 2016, not only in number of supporters, but also in clarity of his positions, particularly in the realm of foreign affairs.
David Ecklein
Marcosa J Santiago MD
=====
This article was atrocious and beneath Portside or any organization that pretends to do journalism. Did Hillary Clinton write this? Smearing Tulsi with no evidence is the opposite of journalism? What is this linking her with Russia? Any evidence? Any evidence that she is Trump's pal? I saw none. Are you now pushing McCarthyism and red-baiting. Are you now a right wing rag? She is an anti-war and anti-interventionist candidate. Do you oppose that? If Bannon or other right wingers happen to also be anti-war, does that make it wrong? What a simplistic piece of garbage. One more pro-war, Russophobic piece of garbage like this and you will have lost this reader. Outrageous!
Tom Berkowitz
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I was very disappointed with your article from the American Prospect, "Tulsi continues to play to the credulous wing of the left." You bash the most outspoken critic of US foreign intervention because she does not back Nancy Pelosi on impeachment? She made her argument on why she thought censure was a more appropriate option, we can disagree, but because we're not in lockstep with liberals on impeachment doesn't make her supporters dupes or fools. The article denigrates legitimate political debate, and I am sure it gave many interventionist liberals great comfort.
Elias P Vlanton
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Tulsi doesn’t support Sanders. He is just a tool she is using to help elect Trump. This is the same tactic she used in 2016. Having watched this same scene play out before it is hardly believable that anyone on the left would fall for it again. Last time it was a harangue against Hillary Clinton. This time it is just against all Democrats in general.After watching Impeached Trump in action for three years who wouldn’t want to defeat him? The answer is apparently some people on this thread. Impeached Trump must be defeated. Those applauding Tulsi just want criminal Trump to be re-elected.
Who cares what she says. Her actions speak for themselves. In visiting her Congressional Office for over 2 years Indivisible Hawaii found her to be a serial liar.
Ray Markey
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
This is no time for Corbyn and the new Labor to give up. It's time to double, triple down and keep up the fight. The Tories will bumble butt Britain to disaster but a strong united Left Labour can be there to pick up the pieces and lead the people of England (because Scotland is most certainly going to leave the union and perhaps even N. Ireland and Wales) to a better life, good luck and keep up the fight!
Mike Liston
How to Save $5,800 on Health Insurance
Building Trades for Bernie Sanders 2020
post on Facebook
Keep trying to tell you Republicans aren't your friends but no one listens! What else do you need taken before you get the message!
JD Scot
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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So that's how they pay for the rich people tax breaks
Bobby Calimano
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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What a true humanitarian who attacks the disabled, the young and senior's who have a hard enough time getting by day to day now trumpet will make it even harder. Is there no end to the crimes on humanity this criminal will bring upon humanity?
Michel Bellefeuille
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Rich get richer the poor are left to die.
Wayne Gravelle
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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A president that seeks benefits for the well to do but leaves the poor to face hardships is not fit for the job he was elected. The sooner he leaves his position, the better for the majority of Americans.
Rafael Rodriguez
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
(posting on Portside Labor)
So sad
Alvarado Victor
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
=====
Support for the families of the victims is appreciated, it just does not bring them back.
Rosalina Rosario Melendez
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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"On Thursday, December 5th 2019, Frank Ordoñez, 27, a UPS driver and father of two, was killed in a shootout between police and suspects fleeing the scene of a robbery. Ordoñez was taken hostage while covering for a sick coworker when his delivery vehicle was hijacked. Both suspects, Ordoñez, and a bystander, Rick Cutshaw, 70, a business agent with OPEIU Local 100, were killed in the exchange of gunfire at a busy intersection in Miramar, Florida."
Disraelly Gutierrez Jaime
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Rent in the Bay Area Is Too Damn High. So These Moms Occupied a Vacant House.
All we need to do is make a registry of every building that is owned by land speculators, and occupy them and claim them as vacant property.
Sionna Breasal
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
=====
squatting has a long history.
Linda J McPhee
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Very Bad Space Force Deal
All together now, kids:
“Oh, I wanna live a life of danger;
I wanna be a Spaaace Ranger!”
Gordon Galland
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
=====
our Democratic reps voted overwhelmingly for this budget
Jim Price
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Portside Annual Fund Appeal - Not from a reader in Sydney, Australia
Thank you for the material that you send to me on a daily basis. It is always good reading and very much appreciated.
Here in Australia, in many ways, we share similar problems with the USA - like abuse of human rights of refugees, constitutional recognition of our indigenous people, attacks on trade union, and of course, climate change. denial by our government.
Thank you once again from Sydney, Australia (I'm 75 years old - for context)
[This came by mail, with a check for $100 in U.S. funds]
As of Dec. 25th Portside readers have contributed $25,113.98 in our annual Fund Appeal. Thank you Portside Readers! You have contributed about 25% more than this same time last year.
It's not too late to contribute to the once-a-year Portside Annual Fund Appeal. Just click here.
Photo Portfolio By Mark Peterson, Introduction By Claudia Rankine, and Reporting by James D. Walsh
December 19, 2019
New York Magazine
Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images // New York Magazine
When Dylann Storm Roof walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, he joined the Bible-study class before gunning down nine African-Americans as they prayed.
Roof still communicates with his admirers on the outside. In jail, he began exchanging letters with a man in Arkansas named Billy Roper. A former schoolteacher and the son and grandson of Klansmen, Roper leads the Shield Wall Network, a group of several dozen white nationalists who organize rallies and conferences — often collaborating with neighboring hate groups — with the goal of building a white ethno-state.
Roper and Roof are only two of those affiliated with the 148 white-nationalist hate groups in this country. Though it is impossible to calculate their exact membership numbers (as individual groups either conceal or inflate them), their violence is indisputable. White supremacists were responsible for the deaths of at least 39 people in 2018 alone. And the activity has not slowed this year: not in January, as neo-Nazis plastered flyers outside newspaper offices and homes in Washington State and the Carolinas and an army veteran pleaded guilty to killing a black man in New York to “ignite a racial war”; in February, as Vermont synagogues and LGBT centers were vandalized and a self-described white-nationalist Coast Guard lieutenant was arrested for plotting a domestic terror attack; in March, as WELCOME TO GERMANY and GAS THE JEWS were spray-painted outside Oklahoma City Democratic Party and Chickasaw Nation offices and, on the Upper East Side, classmates handed their school’s only black ninth-grader a note reading “n—–s don’t have rights”; in April, as a shooting at a synagogue left one dead and three injured and FBI Director Christopher Wray called white supremacy a “persistent, pervasive” threat to the country; in May, as swastikas fell from the sky — on flyers dropped by drones outside an Ariana Grande concert — and were scrawled on public spaces in at least three states; in June, as far-right groups rallied in Portland, Oregon, for the first time that summer; in July, as a man promoted a white-power manifesto on Instagram before killing three and wounding 17 others at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California; in August, as another angry young man — this one 1,000 miles away in El Paso, Texas — posted an anti-immigrant manifesto online then committed this year’s most deadly mass shooting, killing 22 and injuring 24 at a Walmart; in September, as the Department of Homeland Security added white-supremacist extremism to its list of priority threats, the same month a swastika appeared on its walls; in October, as swastikas also appeared on Cape Cod and invitations to a white-supremacist gathering were mailed to Maine residents; in November, as a white-supremacist group filmed a video outside Mississippi’s Emmett Till Memorial; nor this month, as students flashed possible white-power signs at an Army-Navy football game.
Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images // New York Magazine
After a white supremacist killed 51 people in two New Zealand mosques in March, President Trump was asked if he thought the threat of white nationalism was on the rise. “I don’t, really,” he responded. “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”
Hate-crime statistics are notoriously difficult to calculate. Local and state law-enforcement agencies are not required to submit numbers to the FBI, laws defining hate crimes vary from state to state, and experts estimate that more than half of all hate crimes go unreported. According to the FBI, hate-crime violence hit a 16-year high in 2018 with the black, Jewish, Latino, and transgender communities being targeted more than ever and the nation’s largest cities seeing the most activity. The FBI’s 2019 numbers won’t be available until next November, but indications suggest they will continue to trend upward. The most deadly mass shooting of 2019 was committed by a xenophobic extremist in El Paso, Texas. “Lone wolf” killers have found their pack.
Fractured as it may be, the far right is now connected by public figures arguing for some form of ethno-nationalism. One such figure is Jared Taylor, founder of the New Century Foundation and the American Renaissance Conference, which brings together far-right leaders from various strands of neo-Nazism, the KKK, and the alt-right. Not long ago, Taylor’s pseudo-intellectual ideas were widely considered fringe. Now, they have a powerful advocate in the White House: Before becoming a top Trump adviser, Stephen Miller cited Taylor’s American Renaissance work to a Breitbart News reporter, suggesting that she aggregate a recent “AmRen” story on the (specious) link between immigration numbers and crime rates.
Taylor has also counseled Patrick Casey and Richard Spencer, members of the alt-right involved in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Nate Snyder, a former counterterrorism official in the Department of Homeland Security, says activity on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront jumped after the rally. “But when it really hit a spiking point was directly after the president’s comments, his infamous words about ‘very fine people on both sides.’ You saw activity on this thing exponentially spike,” he explains. “It was a validation point. You started seeing posts like ‘We now have an ally in the White House. I’m setting up a similar rally in my town. Let’s take this online action and move it offline and supply it with money and supply it with people.’ It was a mass mobilization.”
Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images // New York Magazine
A version of this article appears in the December 23, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now! To read more about the reporting process behind this story, click here.
New book coming January - The Union Member's Complete Guide (Hardball Press)
The Union Member's Complete Guide: Everything you need to know about working union.
An easy-to-read, comprehensive guide to how you can get the most out of your job in a unionized workplace -- from understanding what a union is and how it operates to how you can get the most value out of your union card and what you can do to make your union more successful.
- Understanding how unions operate
- Getting your say in contract demands
- The full story on union dues
- A union's responsibility to its members
- Getting help with workplace problems
- Your union card's bonus benefits
- A member's rights and responsibilities
- Labor laws that affect you
- How to file a grievance
- Your union steward's role
- Contact info for every union
Coming January, 2010.
415 Argyle Road
Suite 6A
BROOKLYN, NY 11218
Witness at the Border - Brownsville TX/Matamoros MX - January 12 (Witness Fund, Inc.)
WHERE: Brownsville TX/Matamoros MX
WHEN: On January 12, 2020, we begin a sustained presence
WHY: Remain in Mexico (MPP)
“MPP (Migrant Protection Protocols) are a sham and just one component in the well oiled machine overtly trying to end asylum in this country.”--RAICES (Refugee & Immigrant Center for Education & Legal Services)
PLEASE JOIN US at the Texas-Mexico border as the VIGIL BEGINS on January 12, 2020, to highlight the growing humanitarian crisis among refugees and asylum seekers caused by US immigration policy.
Activists will gather in Brownsville, Texas to protest the Justice Dept.’s "tent courts." We are working in cooperation with the ACLU in their demand for legal transparency and fairness. Activists with passports may also cross the bridge into Matamoros, Mexico at their own risk to bear witness to the life-threatening living conditions of migrants who have been pushed back into Mexico due to recent US policy.
Join us on the ground to bring broad public attention to "MPP," the Migrant Protection Protocols. MPP has forced children and families back into very dangerous conditions in Mexico. The protest will continue for a month, or as long as citizens of conscience come to participate.
“Josh Rubin, [a witness and organizer of the protest], exemplifies the kind of vision, courage and commitment that is needed to turn back the tide against the cruelties that are inherent in the immigration policies promoted by the Trump administration.” --Camilo Perez Bustillo, Hope Border Institute, TX, and Stanford University, CA
Fill out Witness: MPP sign up sheet for travel info and coordination.
Consider supporting the Witness Fund to help others be there: The Witness Fund, Inc.
For more info, write to witnessmpp@gmail.com.
#EndMPP * Follow Witness: Tornillo. Target: MPP on Facebook * #EndMPP
The Poor People’s campaign recently announced an assembly and march in Washington. D.C. on June 20, 2020. Their launch announcement is below.
On this anniversary of the launch of the Poor People’s Campaign in 1967, we are more urgently committed than ever to building a broad and deep national moral movement – rooted in the leadership of poor people – to unite our country from the bottom up.
Over the next 200 days, we are going to Mobilize, Organize, Register and Educate all across the country towards a Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington on June 20, 2020. Today our registration is LIVE!
Please spread the word far and wide with our updated Social Media Toolkit.
On June 20, 2020, we rise to speak truth, to challenge the distorted moral narrative, and to call this nation to the ethic of love and justice. We demand action.
We know the poor and dispossessed of this country must organize to address systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism.
The question isn’t how much it costs to address these moral issues, but what it costs us not to.
When there are 140 million poor, 43% of a nation, who are poor and low-income, in a country this rich, we must RISE! When over 250,000 people a year, over 600 people a day, die from poverty and low wealth, we must RISE!
If the rejected millions—the poor without health insurance, without living wages, without clean water, without voting protections—unite, we can move the moral and political imagination of this country and revive the heart of the nation!
If you believe this movement is important, join us with your financial support by becoming a monthly sustainer or making a one-time donation.
We have solutions that will work. The only scarcity we need to worry about is the scarcity of will. We are building power for a long-term moral fusion movement from the ground up, from Appalachia to Alabama, Kentucky to California, from the Deep South to the Wheat Belt.
Jacqueline, somebody is hurting our people and it’s gone on far too long. We won’t…We can’t…We refuse to be silent anymore. We must rise in the public square, in pulpits, in the voting booths, in state capitols and in the Congress.
Together we must rise!
Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II and Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis
President of Repairers of the Breach & Director of the Kairos Center
Co-Chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
Poor People’s Campaign June 20, 2020 Save the Date Digital Action Guide
Spread the word