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De Blasio Staffers Demand `Radical Change from Mayor' in Open Letter

Shant Shahrigian New York Daily News
Two-hundred thirty-six current and former staffers for Mayor de Blasio signed an open letter calling on him to live up to the promises of reform that initially drew them to work for him. One demand is to cut the $6 billion police budget by 1/6.

For Muslim New Yorkers, a Long Path from Surveillance to Civil Rights

Moustafa Bayoumi The Nation - September 29, 2014 edition
For years, Muslim New Yorkers have been spied on, not heard; now they're finding their political voice. As the gears of federal government have ground to a halt, a new energy has been rocking the foundations of our urban centers. From Atlanta to Seattle and points in between, cities have begun seizing the initiative, transforming themselves into laboratories for progressive innovation. This is the latest in the The Nation's series, Cities Rising.

Tales of the Cities: The Progressive Vision of Urban America

Gary Younge The Guardian (UK)
A union leader is being hailed as a possible mayor in Chicago while elsewhere mayors are pursuing policies Obama has been unable to enact on the national stage. Now Karen Lewis is seriously considering running against Rahm Emanuel in Chicago next year. She could win. A Chicago Sun Times poll last month gave Lewis a nine-point lead with 18% undecided.

Working Families Party - What Happened?; Why; What Next?

Ted Fertik; Sarah Jaffe; Charles Lenchner
The Working Families Party recently concluded their New York State convention. Zephyr Teachout, prominent Fordham law professor announced her challenge to Gov. Coumo three days before, and she received 42% of the weighted vote. Gov. Coumo tried to bully the endorsement - it didn't work. Before writing off the WFP's Cuomo endorsement as yet another capitulation, consider the concessions wrung out of him. Will he keep the promises, what happened, what next...read on.

labor

New York City Teachers Vote for Raise and a Nine-Year Contract

Al Baker The New York Times
The teachers agreement agreement, which was passed with more than 77 percent of the roughly 90,000 votes cast and includes billions of dollars in back pay, is likely to set the standard for several other municipal unions that, like the teachers’ union, were left without contracts in the final years of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration.

Open Letter from NY Jews to Mayor de Blasio: `AIPAC does not speak for us'

Adam Horowitz Mondoweiss
Open letter to Mayor de Blasio from prominent New York City Jewish leaders" "the needs and concerns of many of your constituents - U.S. Jews like us among them - are not aligned with those of AIPAC, and that no, your job is not to do AIPAC's bidding when they call you to do so. AIPAC speaks for Israel's hard-line government and its right-wing supporters, and for them alone; it does not speak for us." (The following letter was shared with Mondoweiss)

Tidbits - January 23, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - ACTION NEEDED - Stop Iraq Executions; Voting Rights Act; Martin Luther King and Nonviolence; Our Postal Commons; De Blasio's Election; Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA; Tuition-Free Public College Education; New Orleans Teachers and Katrina; Announcements: Muste Institute 40th Anniversary concert; South Africa Today - Online Meeting; Book Talk-Red Apple: Communism and McCarthyism in Cold War New York; Vandenberg's Role in US Global Domination

Tidbits - January 16, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Kshama Sawant's election; The Vietnam Antiwar Movement; AFL-CIO's new road; Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA; Religious Freedom, or Reproductive Freedom; Israel Boycott Movement Controversy; Chris Christie; Bill de Blasio; Announcements - Chicago (Jan. 18); New York (Jan. 21, 24 and 30); Bay Area (Jan. 22) Today in History
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