Can Hope & Trumpism Coexist?

EXTRA EXTRA:  URGENT ACTION REQUESTED

Dejoy can be indicted.  You were perhaps wondering as I was why no one had suggested saying like that aloud.  New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell. Jr. seems to have thought of it. According to Daily Kos. Pascrell has made a criminal referral in New Jersey, asking that a grand jury be empaneled to indict DeJoy on charges of deliberately interfering in a federal election—not destruction of government property, but interfering with an election. This is the water tight case to get behind. 

 

IMMEDIATE ACTION: Call 202-225-3121 and tell your senators and representatives to join Pascrell in asking for a criminal indictment against Louis Dejoy for deliberate interference in a federal election.

 

Hope & Trumpism

From my own perspective. I gave up hope for Lent years ago, way before our current Saturnalia. I think hope tends to be a slippery, misleading word, evoking an equally fuzzy concept. It strikes me what it’s angling for is evasion of personal responsibility. Often when they use the word “hope,” people really mean “Let Joe Do it.” But Joe retired some years ago and there is no forwarding address. Instead, I favor a thing people call faith, faith in human kind and its ability to learn to feel its own pain, and feeling that, to feel the pain of others—and faith in this week’s “roses amidst the thorns” because they reflect the work of millions of people of good will pushing against the tide.

 

We already know the obvious: anyone, even a functionary like Dejoy, committing more than $1,000 damages to government property is a felon, yet Congress—so far at least—seems to be doing its regulation skirt swishing. The great majority of people living in America like to defer to higher authority, it knows best, otherwise it wouldn’t be a higher authority, now would it? And whenever functionaries or politicians make a promise, of course they intend to keep it, don’t they? Of course they do!

 

That’s a mold that never quite appealed to me. I disfavor circular reasoning. I like to question accepted truths, and I am fortunate to know a number of people who indulge in that type of speculation as well. So this week, I prefer not to bore my readers by repeating myself. Not having worn skirts for a number of years, I’m not given to skirt swishing and this newsletter has already talked about a coup before any other news sources got around to it, not any that I know of anyhow.

 

Let me share something else I’ve learned, not so much by my own efforts, but from the kind people who’ve shared bits of knowledge with me this week as I write postcards to some of the reluctant or intimidated voters in states like Texas, and Michigan. A web site exists that instructs people in the exact particulars of voting state by state. How to request an absentee ballot. How soon votes can be cast. Where to deposit completed ballots in their signed envelopes (preferably with county and city clerks offices or in dedicated blue post office box drops explicitly designed for that purpose). It is an active website and asks that, as knowledge changes—which it invariably does—people contact its authors and bring those changes to their attention. Its very magnitude is a thing of beauty, and I invite all readers to take a look. Fivethirtyeight (538) is the name of project behind it and the website link is   https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/how-to-vote-2020/ 

 

The newsletter has always been free, but this week I ask my readers please to forward the link (and if you like the entire newsletter) to everyone you know and please ask them to forward it (like one of those letters we used to receive telling us that if ten people forwarded it in an uninterrupted chain, each one of us would receive manna from heaven, and other assorted treats.) By a very long shot, this treat just might be Democracy!

 

Note: My blogger keeps changing its template in the true American tradition of always needing to make things better, a dangerous idea, because it doesn’t always work. But no matter, it keeps people in their jobs inventing better ways of doing things. As a result, I had trouble loading pictures and no self-respecting newsletter can breathe without pictures. So this week I will try again to load one or two of last week’s  particularly good pictures. Wish me luck!

 

                                        ACTION

Call 202-225-3121 and tell your senators and representative to join Pascrell in asking for a criminal indictment against Louise Dejoy for deliberate interference in a federal election.

 

JOIN the #SaveThePostOffice August 25 National Day of Action  

 

Phone Bank to call inconsistent voters in swing states

 

Oppose hauling dangerous nuclear waste across America

                 ROSES AMONGST THIS WEEKS THORNS

 

Takoma and Wenatchee postal workers defy order to not restart sorting machines.

 

Despite an  Aug., 14 gag order, postal workers from carriers to union chairs and processors are sounding the alarm about what they’re seeing.

 

UN Secretary General calls for a global cease fire so people in war torn regions can have life-saving air to fight the pandemic.

 

Belarus gets it, why can’t we: factory workers heckle Belarusian strongman “go away!”: as nationwide general strike kicks off.

 

West African mediators arrive in Mali to push for coup reversal.

 

Nice try: Belarus color revolution already dead as west-back candidate flees to Lithuania.

 

Australia secures deal for potential COVID vaccine, will provide it free to all citizens.

 

Australia rules out mandatory immunizations.

 

#45 backed Venezuela regime change alliance dwindles.

 

Venezuela’s Maduro thanks Iran for helping oil industry overcome U.S. sanctions.

 

As U.S. vaunts “Plan Colombia,” Colombia opens case against Ivan Duque over financial scandal.

 

Historic bill would penalize Israel for annexation and apartheid.

 

Global South  calls for sanctions on apartheid Israel.

 

Extinction Rebellion activists launch ocean-focused offshoot with direct actions targeting luxury cruise liner.

 

“We’re back”: after meeting with Merkel  Greta Thunberg kicks off third year of Fridays for Future protests in Germany.

 

In Ontario near Caledonia city, 1492 Land defenders begin reoccupation in opposition to construction of a housing development on unceded lands.

 

Federal government agrees to protect green sea turtle habitat.

 

A stunner: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represent many of the corporations which would benefit most from suspension of FICA—has announced its opposition to #45 attend to defund social security by fiat.

 

Headline “first” by Daily Kos: Postmaster General Louis Dejoy can be indicted, impeached, sued, and removed! (Actually this newsletter said it first.)

 

Rep. Bill Pascrell asks grand jury be empaneled to indict Dejoy on charges of election tampering as well as filing an indictment against #45 and other White House functionaries negating #45 immunity from the law.

 

Very bad news for #45 as federal judge reject his claim that tax records subpoena amounts to “harassment.” putting Manhattan DA one step closer to #45 tax returns

 

Watch that pardon clock ticking: Greasy White House strategist and Nazi wannabe Steve pulled off billionaire’s #28 million yacht, arrested by law enforcement agents from the USPS, and charged with conspiracy to commit fraud for stealing up to a million bucks, and money laundering.

 

More than 6 years after Flint water crisis began, Michigan officials announce $600 million settlement for city residents.

 

War Resister activists block entrance to Combined Systems with giant tear gas cans and masks, calling out the names of all cities where tear gas has been used against people.

 

Protesters bang pots and pans nice and early last Saturday at PM general’s Dejoys condo.

 

Community-based farms rise to the occasion as big food supply chains stall.

 

State attorneys General appear ready to sue #45 over changes at the USPS.

 

Congressional candidates and voters sue to stop #45 sabotage of USPS.

 

Public Citizen and LDF announce suit  to stop sabotage of USPS. ahead of Nov. elections.

 

Dems demand McConnell bring Senate back into session to “protect USPS and our election.”

 

Rep, Katie Porter demands IG probe into whether #45 violated ethics laws by putting pharma exec in charge of COVID vaccine effort.

 

Katie  Porter ready to grill DeJoy  as he agrees to testify before House Oversight Committee.

 

Postal Service board member who resigned over #45;s meddling will brief House Democrats.

 

“It’s going to take everyone”: demonstrations planned nationwide to ‘save the Post Office from #45.

 

Kentucky relaxes absentee voting requirements.

 

LA places “Reimagine LA “ with provision for community investment, opportunity and care on Nov. Ballot

 

N.Y.C. Mayor DeBlasio shifts $1 billion from NYPD, at least on paper. and Minneapolis city council members vow to dismantle police department and build new model of public safety.

 

BLM, antifa overwhelm armed white racists in Stone Mtn., Ga.

 

After organizing mass sick-out, Arizona teachers and school staff applauded for bold collective action to stop unsafe reopening.

 

Campus workers sue UNC system over unsafe working conditions.

 

School bus drivers lead protest to safely reopen Los Angeles Schools.

 

Detroit teachers vote overwhelmingly to authorize safety strike.

 

New York teachers union to strike against school reopening.

 

“It ain’t gonna happen, #45: Goodyear workers rally in Akron after #45 calls for boycott. because of company regulations prohibiting MAGA hats at work.

 

DNC workers at 9 local in 23 airports win pandemic negotiations victory.

 

Jailer who organized assault on inmate sentenced to prison.

 

Georgia police officer fired after viral TikTok showed him tasing a Black woman outside her home.

 

                             SUNDAY FUNNIES

 

Three surgeons compare notes:

First surgeon: I  removed a patient’s testes, and in 6 weeks he was looking for work.

Second surgeon: That’s nothing: I replaced a patient's brain and within two weeks he was looking for work.

Third surgeon: That’s nothing: I excised a man’s testes, replaced his brain, and any day now, he’ll be trying to run for a second term!

 

 

 

 

COVID Under Occupation

On this 112th day of living under the pall of COVID-19 combined with the plague of genocidal U.S. regime “leadership,” where one headline reads “Trump killed plans for a national testing strategy because COVID-19 ‘hit the blue states hardest,’” to calm and settle my thoughts I have been reading When Paris Went Dark by Ronald C. Rosebottom. Why? Because Paris under Nazi occupation reminds me of the United States-of-COVID , but in comparison with Paris, it’s a much more sinister occupation because it’s by our own “government” regime.  

 

In Rosebottom’s account, hundreds of voices weave their tapestry of what Paris felt like under Nazi occupation. Here is Camus, author of La Peste (The Plague):

“It was… the feeling of exile—that sensation of a void within [that] never left us, that irrational longing to hark back to the past or else to speed up the march of time, and those keen shafts of memory that stung like fire. Sometimes we toyed with our imagination, composing ourselves to wait for a ring of the bell announcing somebody’s return, or for the sound of a familiar footstep on the stairs, but…that game of make-believe could not last….We realized that the separation was destined to continue, we had no choice but to come to terms with the days ahead. In short, we returned to our prison-house, we had nothing left us but the past, and even if some were tempted to live in the future, they had speedily to abandon the idea…once they felt the wounds that the imagination inflicts on those who yield themselves to it.” The Nazi occupation lasted 4 years.

 

I walk my city’s empty streets, avoid the occasional passersby, masked or unmasked, yielding the sidewalk or unyielding, witness boarded up store fronts, boarded up churches, boarded up businesses, I know each stretch of sidewalk, count the pebbles, the fallen leaves, the curbside leavings of those evicted, know just which streets I will take, what paths I will follow, what benches offer shade and sites for meditation under the trees, for breathing in oxygenated air, and which paths and which streets I will take to return home. I know which patches of grass will offer bedding for the homeless man to catch some sleep, and where the despairing man, head bent, will sit for hours contemplating what for him must be road’s end.

 

And for the bang-bang, car chase and mayhem so craved by many American movie watchers, if I want, I can scan footage of federal forces wielding their death machines, tear gassing the streets of Portland from daylight far into the night as protesting crowds of unarmed young people call for justice in one voice. 

 

How incredibly courageous they are to hold justice above their own safety, braving the risks of this pandemic to cry out: “Enough. We have had enough of wanton killing, No more!” Now we’ve found our courage at last, we must expand that cry to include people of color everywhere, world over, in Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, in Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia, and in all countries whose people suffocate under the knee of the U.S. government’s police bully brutality. That is what Peace! and the cry for Peace means, an end to brutal policing, not just at home, but throughout the world.

 

 

Add your name: We need a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy that prioritizes diplomacy over militarism.

 

Act now to stop the racist federal prison lockdown.

 

Demand Pelosi reject the GOP’s giveaway to the Pentagon of COVID-19 relief.

 

                      Bass Ackwards Bestiary

Stop Gestapo in Portland, escalating NYPD violence.

 

Oppose stealing from Social Security and Medicare during the pandemic.

 

Support wearing a mask during the pandemic should be a national mandate.

 

INFECTION

Chart showing probability of infection relative to masking 

Drop charges against Julian Assange.

 

Demand Senate fund the Postal Service.

 

Read Law Enforcement Exposed: massive blue leaks, police Pentagon papers.

 

 

In Spain, Canada, France and Italy, laborers opposed to the ongoing war in Yemen in which 85,000 children have died of starvation, refused to load weapons onto ships sailing to Saudi Arabia. and track the passage of trains and ships carrying such weapons.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) reconvenes Emergency Committee after COVID worldwide upsurge.

 

Cuba has not recorded any deaths from COVID over two weeks.

 

Australia fell U.S. it has no intention of damaging important China ties.

 

Venezuela wins right to appeal ruling barring access to its gold reserves.

 

‘Our obligation is to defend democracy’: Bolivians join mass marches and mobilizations against election delay by right-wing coup government. (think we could describe ours any differently?)

 

‘Our lungs are under attack’: tribes call for an immediate moratorium on Amazon extraction.

 

South Africans push back against 5 G towers in their backyards.

 

As lists of Israeli targets leaked, Tel Aviv fears worst in ICC investigation of Israeli war crimes.

 

Iran opens supermarket in Venezuela with high-tech COVID defenses. (Why can’t we?)

 

After more than 200 years, California’s Esselen tribe rightfully regains ancestral lands.

 

Seventy-five groups slam GOP effort to use COVID funds for weapons of war.

 

U.S. to pull nearly 12,000 troops from Germany, costing billions (to reposition them on the Russian border.)

 

Pressured by climate activist groups, Deutsche Bank ditches drilling in the Arctic.

 

With dirty energy crashing, nearly 70 groups urge fed to stop buying up wasteful fossil fuel industry debt.

 

New Mexico Public Regulation Commission embraces 100% renewable future for Four Corners, probably the most exquisite site on Earth.

 

In wake of recent pipeline victories, Standing Rock activists carry on with renewed hope.

 

ACLU analysis of crime data shreds GOP’s argument against decarceration during pandemic.

 

Coalition of over 500 faith leaders demand utility shutoff moratorium during pandemic.

 

Citing fears a defeated #45 won’t go quietly, Warren calls on cabinet officials to end deployment of federal agents against protests.

 

Calling it ‘unacceptable and Un-American, 6 mayors demand Congress block federal agents from U.S. cities.

 

Law enforcement exposed with massive blue leak from websites and fusion  centers proving that police identify protesters and any government critics nationwide as  terrorists justifying violence.

 

Alameda police chief out after top cop arrests black man for dancing in the street. (no card playing on Sundays either.)

 

Oakland City Council approves task force to defund OPD.

 

Federal agents to leave Portland says governor.

 

Hours after #45 says they won’t leave Portland, Fed announce withdrawal from Portland (who’s on top?).

 

Following lawsuit, #45 administration backs down from deporting migrants detained at Texas hotel.

 

Portland anti-racist protesters hold firm after 2 months.

 

‘This order is vital to our national health’: Court blocks #45 administration’s ‘public charge’ rule.

 

Even jerks have their limits: top Republicans reject #45’s suggestion to delay election.

 

Mental health experts issue dire warning: another 4 years of tin-pot dictator, #45 would stop at nothing.

                        #45 and cabinet room light fixture

Thanks to parents and activists, House passes Child Care is Essential cat and Child Care for Economic Recovery Act, ensuring $50 billion fund for child sector.

During NWC”S annual National Whistleblower Appreciation Day, Chuck Grassley proposes new amendments to False Claims Act encouraging government contractors accept liability for fraud.

 

After 17 years of organizing, 45,000 childcare workers now have a union, CCPU under SEIU and AFSCME.

 

Calling it a ‘red line for a humane society,’ more than 360 DNC delegates vow to oppose democratic platform if it doesn’t include Medicare for all.

 

Watchdog groups demand probe into joyless ‘voter suppression tactics’ by postal service chief, and major #45 donor, Louis DeJoy.

 

25 civil rights groups condemn #45 over election delay threat, and demand Congress fund voting protections.

 

Progressive coalition urges Biden to curb excesses of corporate power by ending White House revolving door.

 

Sanders campaign co-chairs applaud DNC delegates for continuing Medicare-for-All fight.

 

House passes increased public media funding.

 

In N.Y. State thousands of police discipline records kept secret for decade now published.

 

Denver judge prohibits use of ‘chemical weapons’ on peaceful protesters.

 

Eight Minneapolis City Council members announce their intention to disband the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with community-led system to guarantee the community’s safety.

 

In Richmond, white supremacists arrested trying to amplify protest violence.

 

In plans for decades, House passes bill creating National Museum of the American Latino.

 

Major teachers’ union will back ‘safety strikes’ to block unsafe school reopenings.

 

Activists deliver 130,000 petition signatures to call on the FTC & Congress to investigate and curb Facebook profiting from voter suppression (and why you should boycott Facebook).

 

N.Y. State on verge of banning glyphosate for good.

 

Federal appeals court overturns Boston marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s death sentence.