Fractured Fairy Tales

Grim  Fairy Tale I

Once upon a time, there was an Ogre or a Monster. Call it Grendel or maybe Baba-yaga. It committed unspeakable vulgarities. It had a crown of bristles circling its head, and a voice so loud it could make volcanoes shudder beyond the Western seas, and spew their boulders (targeted for precision strikes) over the mountains of the East.

But one day the ground opened up and swallowed the Ogre or the Monster whole, and the volcanoes stilled, and the Ogre or Monster was never seen again.

Grimmer Fairy Tale II

Once upon a time, there was an Ogre or a Monster. Call it Grendel or maybe Baba-yaga. It committed unspeakable vulgarities. It had a crown of bristles circling its head, and a voice so loud it could make volcanoes shudder beyond the Western seas, and spew their boulders (targeted for precision strikes) over the mountains of the East.

One day the ground  opened up but the Monster or Ogre was safe inside his house, his voice still growing louder and louder. Photographers photographed the hole. Maintenance crews erected traffic cones around it; cops strung caution tape around it.  And while the Monster howled, the hole kept getting bigger and bigger.

Even Grimmer Fairy Tale III

Once upon a time, there was an Ogre or a Monster. Call it Grendel or maybe Baba-yaga. It committed unspeakable vulgarities. It had a crown of bristles circling its head, and a voice so loud it could make volcanoes shudder beyond the Western seas, and spew their boulders (targeted for precision strikes) over the mountains of the East.

One day the ground  opened up but the Monster or Ogre was safe inside his house, his voice still growing louder and louder. Photographers photographed the hole. Maintenance crews erected traffic cones around it; cops strung caution tape around it. And while the Monster howled, the hole kept getting bigger and bigger.

Some people hoped the hole would swallow the Monster or the Ogre up as it had so reliably done before. Some people eyed the hole with growing apprehension.

 

Grimmest Tale of all

Once upon a time, there was an Ogre or a Monster. Call it Grendel or maybe Baba-yaga. It committed unspeakable vulgarities. It had a crown of bristles circling its head, and a voice so loud it could make volcanoes shudder beyond the Western seas, and spew their boulders (targeted for precision strikes) over the mountains of the East.

One day the ground opened up but the Monster or Ogre was safe inside his house, his voice still growing louder and louder. Photographers photographed the hole. Maintenance crews erected traffic cones around it; cops strung caution tape around it. People watched it grow. But while the Monster howled, the hole kept getting bigger and bigger.

Some people hoped the hole would swallow the Monster or the Ogre up. Some people eyed the hole with growing apprehension. They loved the Monster or the Ogre so much, one day they discovered that they looked just like him because all along they had been growing bristles just like his and howling in louder and louder voices. And by now, there were so many of them, no matter how big it got, the hole couldn’t swallow them all up.

Opinion

Witness what is happening on the White House lawn.  With efforts seriously afoot to sink the Trump regime and scores of people changed with digging while tweeting, the mainstream media reported that Evangelicals, reluctant to tell the truth that sinkholes are the mark of God’s disfavor, are claiming it’s a conspiracy by what’s left of the Left (sinkholes have also appeared at Mar Lago, making it unsafe for golfing) and some are even claiming it’s a sign Mother Earth is mighty pissed. Lefties want to do away with Trump and all his trappings, including his 99 eyesore hotels–worldwide, and scientists, always the ones to have the last word, are saying it’s a symptom of man-made climate change.

Sign on to the nuclear ban agreement.   Since 122 nations adopted the treaty at the United Nations on July 76, 2017, 58 countries have already signed and 7 countries have ratified the treaty. Once 50 countries ratify the treaty, it will enter into legal force, becoming binding under international law.

Sign up to join the Treaty Compliance Campaign today.

 

(The good news this week is that there are too many roses to be able to provide any links. For further reading, please look them up.)

With its draconian reduction in food stamps, (SNAP) House farm bill collapses amidst Republic disarray.

Nation-wide, cooperative utilities far exceed total of investor-owned and public power utilities, according the Smart Electric Power Alliance. 

In a huge step toward holding police accountable in California, and ending a blue wall of secrecy, SB 1421 passes out of committee.

With a vote of 360 to 59, the federal criminal justice bill passes through the House  of Representatives.

Houston police chief calls for gun control.

Vancouver bans plastic straws and foam containers.

Estonia becomes the first country to offer free public transportation in the city of Tallinn before going nation-wide.

Challenging high prices, Vermont passes a drug importation law.

The Matsés, an Amazon people, create a 500-page traditional medicine encyclopedia—in Matsé.

The Rohrabacher-Blumenauer Amendment preventing Federal interference in State

medical marijuana laws is adopted in the Appropriations Committee.

Eleanor Holmes Norton becomes the first member of the U.S. Congress to pledge support for the UN agreement on he prohibition of nuclear weapons.

Activists disrupt Morgan Stanley’s annual shareholder meeting by blocking vehicle access to protest financing for Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access, Bayou Bridge, and Marine East Pipelines.

New protest site blocks Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Grandfather scales tree, erecting mid-air camp to stop Kinder Morgan clear-cutting.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline faces civil rights complaint after key permit is blocked.

In France, demonstrations have been held nation-wide opposing the government’s official policy of support for Israel, with cultural figures refusing to take part in the government’s cultural activities designed to promote Israel.

The “Freedom” flotilla to Gaza vessels dock in Copenhagen with aid, and activists from the world over.

Michigan sets a massive precedent by passing law effectively banning  the NSA.

In a Gloucester Country, N.J. bathroom use case, a federal judge rules in favor of a transgender student.

In Connecticut, Senate Governor Dan Malloy, has signed the National Popular Voter bill, making Connecticut the latest state to enact it. So far the bill is now law in 12 jurisdictions with 172 electoral votes.

Amy McGrath wins the Democratic nomination in Kentucky’s Six Congressional District.

David Richardson qualifies for the ballot in  Florida’s 27^th Congressional District.

Paulette Jordan, a Native American state legislator wins the Democratic nomination in Idaho.  In other states, non-politicians, women, veterans and non-whites lead the effort to take back the House and Governorships.

Seventy-two percent women dominate the primaries, including 62 Democrats.

Lupe Valdez, a gay Latina sheriff wins the Texas Governor’s primary.

Gina Ortiz Jones, the first LGBTQ candidate, is nominated to run in Texas 23^rd District.

A school teacher!!! ousts the majority leader of the Kentucky House of Representatives.

The NRDC announced election protection initiatives in Ohio, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Winning 92.6 percent of votes, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro wins his second presidential term, despite the U.S. announcing—even before the voter—that it would not recognize the election results.

Four Guatemalan ex-officials, 3 of them torture “School of the Americans” graduates, are convicted of kidnapping and rape and the forced “disappearance” of members of the Theissen family.

Palestinian journalists form committee to file legal case against Israeli with the International Criminal Court after two of them are slain by the IDF.

Pope Francis chimes in, telling gay man “God made you like this.”

After three years of organizing by Arab Youth Programming, San Francisco  Board of Education votes to continue allow it to provide cultural linguistic and academic services to Arab youth.

Pacific Fishery Management Council votes to close a Washing-state-size area to bottom trawling.

Despite Trump’s announcement that U.S. public libraries can be zeroed out, France’s “we sign it” announced that with a petition of 14,000 plus signatures, it allowed libraries to remain open evenings and weekends.

In Europe, (not in the U.S.) Amazon signs a contract with unions regarding work shifts.

Ireland makes abortion a reality after voting overwhelmingly to repeal eighth amendment of their constitution.

Silence

It began with a question: "What would happen "if 200,000 Palestinians headed peacefully to cross the border [into their ancestral home, now called Israel], while raising a poster that says they only want to go back to their land?" This was the idea that set the whole process in motion, explains Enas Fares Ghannam, a Palestinian translator and writer.

 

 

The UN has predicted that "Gaza will become unlivable by 2020." Ninety-seven percent of its water is contaminated and undrinkable. Only four hours of electricity are available per day. Unemployment runs rampant and its infrastructure is collapsing. The director of the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem said in a recent statement that Gaza residents, most of whom have "never had a chance to leave the small patch of land" have "lived their lives without any political rights, devoid of any hope for a reasonable future, totally subject to the decisions and policies of the Israeli government."

And this is what happened:

For more than a month, Israeli soldiers have been shooting and killing unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, using high-powered sniper rifles and live ammunition. Israeli soldiers wounded more than 2,700 Palestinian protesters and killed dozens more with rifle fire on Monday. At least five children were killed, including an 8-month-old baby girl who died after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers. Tuesday, a few hundred Palestinians have defiantly returned to protest near the Gaza fence after yesterday’s carnage. Early reports indicate that there has already been one death and dozens of injuries from live ammunition and gas inhalation, while casualties have been reported during separate protests in the West Bank.

Palestinians have been shot while kneeling for prayer. They have been shot in the back. Children have been targeted and killed. Journalists, clearly marked as such, have been shot, killed and maimed. Thousands have been injured, and some have had to amputate their limbs to survive their injuries.

Meanwhile a small region of western France totaling 4,000 acres in Les Landes, historically noted for its independence, established a small community of worker owned cooperatives. So when they defeated plans for the airport projected for Nantes, the government proceeded to move in on this anti-Capitalist community known as ZAD (zone a defendre) with rubber bullets, and bulldozed all their houses.

What’s to rejoice about

While Haspel, our grotesque torture queen, has been confirmed as the new head of the CIA, the UN approved a war crime probe, as the chief of human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein ripped Israel’s horrifying massacre of Palestinians. Only Big Brother voted against the probe (the U.S. and Australia) and 14 smaller brothers bravely abstained (Germany, the U,K,, and Switzerland among them).

Opinion 

Last week I attended the demonstration at the Israeli consulate in San Francisco called for the day after the new capital of Israel was moved to Jerusalem, and some 60 people were being shot dead by snipers not 70 miles away. Both sides of the trafficked street were crowded with protesters including a small contingent of people waving the Israeli flag, some of their faces bespeaking the centuries of vast intelligence and book learning—and sadness—that underlies Jewish history.

Both sides shouted at each other, slogans, a yes/no boondoggle leading to no where. Because no where is our name now. No where, and tears.  Endless tears that yet again, the human species, which always considers itself so exceptional, is capable of this.

Whereas it is a time to weep, its only possible response for us impotent ones protesting in the street, is to bear witness.  To bear witness with intent. Silently. It is not a time to shout. 

Over the week, the internet has been crowded with stories of Palestine, of the Nakba, of brave resistance by Palestinians. But what did the press have to say when the American frontier decimated the very people who had lived there for thousands of years in order to steal their land, their territories, to kill their buffalo, to take over their rivers and lakes—and oceans— and pollute them with the White Man’s glut? What did the American press have to say about that? What does anyone have to say about displacement, about invasion by the latest comer, pushing all aside in its wake?

And all the bought, mostly white, politicians who say nothing while this carnage goes on, because the killers du jour have cornered the purse strings, and the politicians need to be re-elected, and the tail wags the dog. What happened to the idea of the golden bough: the king must be sacrificed after seven years of rule? Where would our bottom feeders be then? There might—for one thing—be fewer slogans and fewer empty promises.

But would there be less racism? What is it about white European “civilization” that pushes all aside in its devastating wake?

The press says nothing about the dilemma when one country (Palestine) is magnanimously handed over to a group of stateless people who are told: Here, here is your promised land? How can such a dilemma conclude any other way? Silence is the only response possible in the face of a tragedy foregone.

Palestinian lives matter: sanction Israel

Go to Care2 petitions to sign: the U.S. Must condemn the Indiscriminate Shooting of Gaza Strip Protesters to sign. (The link refuses to upload).

Join Bernie Sanders petition demanding the end to the shooting of unarmed Palestinian protesters.

Sign and share the petition demanding Gillbrand and Schumer block Trump from arming Saudi starvation of Yemeni kids.

Support the effort to shut down the Miramar ICE center in Florida which forces hundred of visitors to stand for hours in the sun without shade, water, or bathrooms waiting for ICE meetings.

Forbid the separation of families at the border.

Tell the Senate: no nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Read why: John D’Agata: About a Mountain.

U.S. Senate votes to restore net neutrality.

There’s a strong probability (because they do not make any MONEY) that 25% of U.S. nuclear plants will close.

At the local and state level, new campaign aims to generate national support for un treaty banning nuclear weapons.

Wind overtakes nuclear energy in the U.K. in the first three months of 2018.

Faith communities oppose nuclear dump in New Mexico.

Judge William Alsup rules against the postal service in lawsuit against  Berkeley zoning overlay meaning that the gorgeous Italianate building housing the downtown Post Office cannot be sold to make into a Target store.

A new farming technique using drastically less water is catching on (Huff Post).

The Standing Rock Tribal Council endorse efforts to bring renewables to the rez.

Border patrol agent faces retrial for the killing of José Antonio.

Sen. Gillibrand introduces new bill to hold out-of-control Immigration agents accountable.

Richmond, CA, city council voted to enact a Sanctuary City contracting ordinance sponsored by councilmember Jovanka Beckles and Ada Recinos barring contracts with ICE data brokers,

Tucson passed a resolution banning the privatization of its jails and detention centers, joining a small but growing number of cities and counties that are tell GEO Group and Core Civic they are not welcome.

Burlington, Vermont nixes F-35s, citing environmental impact statement.

Progressive democratic wing of the Democratic party scores an upset victory in Nebraska’s 2^nd congressional district.

Pennsylvania primaries deliver strong wins for Democratic women.

San Francisco sets up a task force to establish a city-owned bank.

A Philadelphia neighborhood achieves inclusive control through a community land trust.

Seattle reins in Amazon with a new tax.

A dozen Google employees quit to protest Google’s collaboration with the Pentagon automating drone targeting. And four thousand more sign a letter of protest.

Demonstrating deep hunger among the electorate for a progressive agenda, candidates running on platforms of Medicare for all, free college, and a living wage, emerged victorious in the primaries. Big wins were scored in Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Nebraska.

Democratic AGs  keep the DACA program alive, protecting Dreamers from deportation, fight back against Betsy DeVos, block Trumps attack on sanctuary cities, and stand up to EPA Pruitt’s agenda with over 80 actions protecting the environment.

Largest act of organized teacher political action is recorded as No. Carolina joins the national wave of teacher strikes.

A federal appeals court nullifies key permit for Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

The European Union moves to forbid members’ compliance with Trump’s economic sanctions reimposed on Iran.

How to Lose 1500 Children

U.S. Government Official Steven Wagner, the acting secretary of Health and Human Services should propose giving lessons to the rest of us about exactly how to achieve those numbers, especially after disclosing to a Senate “homeland security” subcommittee that the agency only learned of its missing children when it placed calls to persons taking responsibility for them. Now 1500 (1475 to be exact) such losses (after all, they’re only children) is already quite an achievement. And as such future “losses” are planned, it’s a good idea to buckle up for a major Losing Workshop.

How do you “lose” 1500 children (1475 to be exact)? Various effective methods could be proposed. First of all the Border is a mine field. You have all those fresh, unaccompanied minors. These kids need to be lost. Aren’t they suffering from the violence and orphaning that drug cartels and gangs have imposed on them or their parents, rendering them desperate and unfit for the American lifestyle?? And they travel here on the roofs of freight trains. So no loss there. So far so good, wouldn’t you agree?

Or kids whose parents are so desperate for their children to see a better life, but too poor or desperate to accompany them, well, surely we wouldn’t want a class of people that poor interfering with the American dream, now would we?

And anyway, these kids are a real bother: the expense of incarcerating them before turning them over to approved sponsors who can sodomize them, before returning them to clog the deportation courts because they speak Spanish, or some obscure Indian dialect, and no lawyer represents them. Even if they can’t understand a word of what’s being done to them, chaining them together, and banging a gavel each time costs MONEY.

Now how about if people like that get to stay in the land of opportunity — like the 8 kids who were indentured to work on an egg farm in Marion, Ohio? They could be stealing the vote right now for the Republicrats.

Which is why this morning’s mail includes the 2018 National Illegal Alien Election Survey which suggests that the integrity of my sacred, all-American voting rights have been jeopardized — no, not by caging practices, or hacking the Republican-owned voting machines, or denying the vote to felons who have served their time, and not by Facebook’s manipulations of people discouraging them to vote — but by ALL THOSE ILLEGAL ALIENS who just keep on voting all the time. Which is why we need to punish them as much as possible, and separate them from their families, and hate them for skins less White than ours. Wouldn’t you agree?

Well shucks, Health & Human Services has a limited budget.

How can you expect them to spend money tracking the welfare of vulnerable unaccompanied minors all the time…especially when other agencies need to fly on private jets, eat off $31,000 dining sets, and christen $4.4 billion Bath Ironworks battle ships with champagne so the U.S. Mediterranean Fleet can keep bombing countries Israel doesn’t like — like maybe Syria and Iran.

An app called Notifica has now been created which will alert a support network when ICE comes calling. Spread the word.

Sign Move On’s petition Don’t separate families at the border.

Urge Schumer and Gillibrand to oppose the next Saudi arms deal.

Prison Reform

The Maine House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to override Gov. Paul LePage’s veto of a bill that will finally begin the implementation of a regulated adult-use marijuana market.

The Pennsylvania Health Department announced that it will implement all of the improvements recommended by the medical marijuana advisory board.

Racial Justice groups are freeing black women from jail for Mother’s Day.

Prisoners organizing national strike against “modern-day slavery.”

Energy

Costa Rica’s new president promises to go 100% renewable by 2020.

California becomes first state requiring all new homes be built with solar.

Chiefs from 133 First Nations join fight against Kinder Morgan Pipeline and oilsands expansion.

Winds farms boost tax base for local U.S. governments.

State court declares Bayou Bridge Pipeline illegal.

Climate Change

Acknowledging sea level rise, Connecticut legislature passes sweeping climate change bill.

Justice

Of 831!!! state arrests for Standing Rock, 578 have been concluded so far, with 337 either dismissed or acquitted.

Judge rules in favor of NAACP DACA lawsuit making 36,000 immigrants of Africa and 20,000 youth from Caribbean eligible for DACA.

Fourth circuit rules that suspicionless forensic searches of electronic devices at the border are unconstitutional.

More than 1000 representatives of indigenous peoples traveled to the UN in late April to participate in the 17th session of the UN permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

The British Government has apologized to Abdul-Hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar for the UK’s role in their abduction, torture, and rendition to Libya. He was a prominent opponent of the Gaddafi dictatorship and she was pregnant at the time of abduction.

Aid workers who rescued 51 migrants are cleared of criminal charges in Greece.

Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B. sums up the hypocrisy of many in the ‘pro-life’ movement:”I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there.

New York City parole board is releasing more people and no longer catering to their #BlueLivesMatter agenda that calls for death in prison for people like Herman Bell, who have been convicted of killing police officers, regardless of their age, rehabilitation or current public safety risk.

South Carolina democrats kill So. Carolina Senate GOP abortion ban with days-long filibuster.

Tetra Tech supervisors found guilty for fraud in “cleanup” at Hunter’s Point Shipyard superfund site.

U.S. Politics

American Samoa has the second U.S. public bank.

Texas has been litigating a gerrymandering case capable of remaking political map of Texas.

NRDC sues Gov. Walker for holding special elections, and state supreme court candidate Dallet won re-election.

Ohio voted for a bipartisan ballot measure making redistricting more fair.

Tenants Together announces: California judiciary committee passes AB 2925 requiring landlords to state cause for any eviction. (1000 evictions a month in Oakland.)

The administration just endorsed letting states decide how to regulate marijuana,

The administration has frozen funding for the White Helmets.

Arizona teachers win some concessions from the state.

Puerto Rico

Teachers & parents launch strike against standardized testing.

Worth It

The Left better have its plans in place for “Day After.” “Day After” is a blanket expression that refers to whenever the U.S. lets another one fly. That other one is another outbreak of what the U.S. does best: Make War. It’s the only thing the U,S. really does, (besides mass incarceration) in the vain hope that it will “get it right,” despite defeat after defeat. 

Yet, like baseball and football, making war is a super favorite among the voters, and determines whether people get elected or not (although voters seem not to like domestic mass shootings all that much—especially in grammar and high schools). We love our hawks and we like them carrying a big stick—or a big whatever.

Case in point: the Sixth fleet is steaming through the Mediterranean, to cow what we assume are weaker governments, readying itself for another surgical strike wherever it may be needed.

This battleship could pay for yearly teacher attrition twice over

And Netanayu, Prime Minister of Israel, seems to be the one originating our foreign policy these days, calling for action against Iran on the pretext that Iran still has a nuclear weapons programme, something the Iranian government mothballed ages ago under the aegis of the UN inspection team.  Not to mention that  poor little put-upon Israel stores over 80 nuclear warheads at Dimona, its poor little put upon nuclear site, a truth revealed by whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, according to The Guardian, who took a hard rap for his efforts. This included 18 years incarceration, 11 of them in solitary, and prohibition from leaving Israel, or holding interesting conversations, any of them planned ahead of time, and any of those not to last in excess of 30 minutes.

It’s a curious relationship, that between the U.S. and Israel with its brand new and shining capital slated to be located in Jerusalem—such is the power of empires it moves capitals of other countries at will) as to which tail is wagging which dog, and what dirt which holds over which. Only time will tell exactly where that dirt is to be excavated and when, and meanwhile we have all the nice decimation of the Middle East to contemplate, not to leave out anti-Muslim turmoil, and the deaths of millions, from war, starvation and cholera, (but of course they will all be “worth it.” as Madeline Albright, ex-Jewish, ex-Secretary of State assured us). And of course, she had a point: in a fibrillating market, “Defense” is the only sector doing spectacularly.

Dwight Cocke Obituary  

 

California lost one its most historically important anti-nuclear activists on the night of of April 27th when Dwight Cocke passed away at his long term residence in San Francisco. Dwight played the key role of getting proposition 15 on the statewide ballot in 1976 that stopped all further expansion of nuclear power in California.  His role in bringing the nuclear issue up for public debate was the first time in America if not the world.   In the 1960’s, California was held up as a world leader in promoting nuclear energy with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) calling for the construction of up to 60 reactors in its own territory, but due to prop 15 ended up leading the world away from nuclear and into renewable energy development.

Dwight was one of the two staff people with Californians for Nuclear Safeguards that coordinated the 1976 California statewide proposition 15 initiative.  Thanks to Dwight’s coordination, the group setup a statewide network of thousands of volunteers that obtained the 500,000 signatures needed to put it on the statewide June ballot.  The initiative campaign made national news when three General Electric engineers quit to form MHB Associates.   PG&E and pronuclear advocates were so frightened by Prop 15 that the company agreed with alternative legislation that banned any future nuclear power development in California until there was a working solution for spent nuclear fuel.

The legislation’s ban led to General Electric’s San Jose nuclear headquarters being closed and the abandonment of nearly 30 nuclear stations being planned at that time in the state.  The group then took on the giant $4.8 billion nuclear project that was fronted by PG&E for the L.A. Dept. of Water and Power located near Bakersfield in Kern County.   Dwight coordinated the campaign against the 1978 Kern County nuclear permit advisory ballot initiative (it included a door to door county wide canvass) that voted down the proposed 4 units by a whopping 70%.  In 1983,  PG&E contested the legislation banning further nuclear development to the U.S. Supreme court but failed.  Many other states would enact similar legislation that played a major role in limiting new reactor development.
 

Dwight would also become executive director for the first Fate of the Earth Conference held in 1982.  Dwight also coordinated the Sept. 11th, 1986 satellite Spacebridge tel-conference between Moscow, San Francisco and the east coast with top scientists from the two countries for Esalen’s Russian exchange program.   He was also a director of the Oakland based Russian-American joint medical exchange program called Heart-to-Heart.

To read more about Dwight’s history please see chapter Five and Six of Marc Evanoff’s unpublished book on the history of California’s anti-nuclear movement from 1981.

In later years, Dwight worked for the consumer watchdog organization called TURN (The Utility Reform Network) who gave him their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 during their 35th anniversary celebration.  TURN monitors the activities of the California Public Utilities Commission.

Dwight once told me that during the early 1970’s when he first started working against nuclear power he would routinely be called a communist by nuclear proponents in public.  His fearless dedication and work that created the first public debate ever around the dangers of nuclear energy played a key role in it being phased out in California and for this he should be remembered as one of our most important activists.

Dwight William (Jr.) was born in 1937 to Dwight and Florence Ziegelasch in Washington DC.

A memorial is planned for July.

Sign now to prevent war with Iran.

Sign now demanding that the House end the Yemeni famine now.

Call Congress to demand they stop the  ICE practice of family separation. The Department of Homeland Security cannot account for the whereabouts of 1400 such children.  Sign also.

Tell the Department of Homeland Security to stop separating families at the border.

Tell Governor Haslam to veto the mass deportation bill.

Support the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.

Urge Congress to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Stop raids on agricultural workers unless you want to pay a hella lot more for food.

 

And Flint still doesn’t have water. Sign of you think water is a human right.

A bill repealing the death penalty has passed both chambers of the New Hampshire state legislature. Sign the petition demanding Gov. Sununu not veto it.

Planet

EU bans bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides. (Common Dreams)

Scientists create plastic-eating enzyme.  But we do not yet know what the planetary consequences may be.  (Daily Kos.)

Come November, City of Berkeley will be almost entirely green powered under a program of community choice energy.

Puerto Rico made history by briefly becoming the largest U.S. territory to be renewable energy powered.  (Solartopia.)

SCOTUS could give native American tribes new legal traction to flight for environmental protections. (Daily Kos.)

A state appeals court rules that valve turners can proceed with necessity defense. (Common Dreams.)

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announces termination of Levy County Units 1 and 2, acknowledging that a cypress swamp may not be such a good place to build two nuclear reactors.

Australia pledges $379 Million to save Great Barrier Reef.

Peace

Both North and South Korea embrace at Panmunjom and agree to bring official end to the Korean war after 55 years and fully de-nuclearize the peninsula. (Common Dreams.)

Veterans Professionals for Sanity urged the president to get evidence first, strike Syria afterwards.

Weapons inspector refutes U.S.-Syria chemical claims.

De-militarization

Durham, N. Carolina, voted unanimously to prohibit police exchanges with Israel.

The Bay Area bans Urban Shield.

NRA partner fined $2 million.

Dick’s  Sporting Goods (don’t you love that name) destroys their stock of assault rifles.

Waffle House hero James Shaw gets real. (Daily Kos.)

Labor

Nearly 5,000 JetBlue flight attendants voted to unionize: (Sara lahm in these times.)

Maryland Senator starts paying interns.  (Daily Kos.)

Arizona teachers stage first statewide walkout as teacher revolt grows. They join w. Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Colorado.

California Federation of Teachers calls for an end to McTeacher Nights.  

Carrying placards reading “Make Amazon Pay,” German workers booed Jeff Bezos.

Immigrants

In cities adopting welcoming policies, stats show fewer deportations.

A  Federal appeals court ruled that the administration cannot withhold grants from cities and states refusing to follow federal immigration laws.

Federal judges rule that the U.S. must keep DACA and accept new applications.

The Courts & Mass Incarceration

In landmark decision Federal Jury finds former Bolivian President and Minister of Defense responsible for over 50 extrajudicial killings.

Lakota People’s Law Project announces it will go after Tiger Swan.  

Federal appeals court rejects Ohio’s attempt to defund Planned Parenthood.

Because of Philadelphia’s new DA, Meek Mill has been released. (Color of Change.)

Senate judiciary committee voted 14 to 7 to approve legislation protecting special counsel Robert Mueller.

Seattle moves to vacate more than 120 years of marijuana-related convictions. (Daily Kos.)

New Jersey Muslim community wins suit settling the NYPD’s surveillance case.

Connecticut   becomes the 12^th state to pass the National Popular Vote bill guaranteeing that the U.S. presidency will go to the candidate reeiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and D.C.

Miscellany

Oakland, CA passes strongest surveillance oversight law in the U.S.

More than 75% Americans back campaign finance reform.  (Common Dreams.)

More than 100 U.S. mayors sign pledge to defend the open internet at the local level. (Common Dreams.)

Democrat Steve Stern wins a seat in New York 10^th Assembly District.