New Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is making good on his promise to revolutionize the job of district attorney and, in the process, offering an extraordinary experiment in criminal justice reform at the municipal level that could serve as a national model.
Larry Krasner's victory for Philadelphia District Attorney is huge! Krasner has been the main defense attorney for #BlackLivesMatter and Occupy and has freed 80 prisoners on wrongful conviction charges. He ran to end stop-and-frisk, end cash bail, and treat drug law violators via the public health rather than criminal justice system. A huge victory for the movements against police brutality and mass incarceration - for progressive and racial justice movements nationwide.
The major issues are health coverage, pensions and work rules.
Pensions rankle TWU members because theirs don't increase if a worker makes more than $50,000 a year, meaning a union member will receive no more than $30,000 a year in pension payments after retirement even if they earned more than $50,000 when they retired. By contrast, managers with Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority] have no pension caps.
When Bernie Sanders talks about a political revolution larger than himself, it is important to understand that it must also be larger than electoral movements. Although the working class has changed from the halcyon days of yesteryear, it is still the class at the heart of the contradictions of capital, and it is time to take back its true meaning.
The 1985 police attack on the MOVE house is one of the last times a police department dropped an actual bomb on its residents.
The exhibition, in a converted basement space at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in North Philadelphia, is a model of a classroom at Fairhill, a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school a mile away that closed at the end of the academic year in 2013. "reForm" captures the outpouring of protests, grief and tears in response to the closing of 31 publics schools in Philadelphia three years ago.
Reader Comments- Progressive Wins: Philadelphia / Los Angeles; Third Party Builders Meet; What U.S. Really Owes Black America; Thirty Years After MOVE Bombing; The Nakba: The Intentional, Deliberate Dispossession of Palestinians; Remembering Guy Carawan; David Letterman Show and whiteness; Educators and School Staff Make a Difference; Mike Brown Would Have Been 19;
Announcements- Greece Solidarity 4 All U.S. Tour; Left Forum 2015
Today in History-Post-War Strike Wave
The win marks a major victory for the Pennsylvania Working Families Party, which endorsed Kenney. The endorsement lauded Kenney for his work on Philadelphia’s City Council “supporting efforts to raise wages, improving Philly’s schools, increasing access to housing, ending the discriminatory practices of the criminal justice system, and limiting corporate power in politics.”
Today many Philadelphia residents, particularly those under 30 years old, are unaware of that history-staining 1985 police attack on members of MOVE, an anti-establishment group founded in 1972. Authorities deemed MOVE a radical organization. The 11 people incinerated were MOVE members, including the organization’s founder, John Africa.
Reader Comments- Ebola, Capitalism, Cuba, Disease Control; Elections- Black Vote, Voter Restrictions; War against Islamic State; Detroit; U.S. Jews Debate Israel; Berkeley Free Speech Movement, Education- Philadelphia and Common Core; Mexico, NAFTA; Wealth Inequality; New Voters in Ferguson;
Announcements- Black & Brown Unity Event-Los Angeles-Nov 8; New York City Labor Chorus Honoring Pete Seeger-New York-Nov 15; SHE'S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE'S ANGRY-New York showing-Nov 16
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