Sac City Unified Budget Crisis

Choosing Democracy: Sac City Unified Budget Crisis: Failing math Sac schools flirting with disaster By  Kate Gonzales   This article was published on  03.21.19 . Sacramento News and Rev...

antiracismdsa: Fox & Friends Whines About our Sacramento Work

antiracismdsa: Fox & Friends Whines About our Sacramento Work: Fox Contributor: Comic Book For Undocumented Kids Incites ‘Lawlessness’ In fact, the pamphlet specifically tells children not to li...

Call Congress: Oppose U.S. Intervention in Venezuela

,

We're writing today to request that your call your Representative and urge them to cosponsor H.R.1004, Rep Cicilline’s bill to prevent unauthorized war in Venezuela. We ask this of you because we are concerned that the Trump Administration is considering military intervention in Venezuela without even consulting Congress. Here is what to do:

1. Call your Rep at 202-224-3121

2. Tell the staffer that you want your Rep to cosponsor H.R.1004 to prevent unauthorized war in Venezuela 

3. After the call, ask a friend to do the same

Unauthorized military intervention in Venezuela would make a complex situation far more complex and would be illegal under US and international law. There is no military solution to the crisis in Venezuela and we believe our best chance at peace is through the dialogue called for by the the Vatican, Mexico, and Uruguay, lifting the sanctions, and taking unauthorized war off the table. The American people do not want another U.S. military intervention overseas.

So far, Rep Cicilline’s bill has been cosponsored by 54 other members of Congress who are making it clear that the President does not have the required congressional authorization to use force in Venezuela.

Again, call the Congressional switchboard today at: 

202-224-3121

Endorsed by Democratic Socialists of America. 

Sincerely,

Trump's Use of The Wall Has a Long and Racist History

The notion of a white republic is neither new nor a figment of the imagination of the neofascists of our time.

President Trump inspects border wall prototypes in San Diego, California, on March 13, 2018. For the right, Trump's wall is not just a literal wall, but a symbol of racial domination., Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Bill Fletcher, jr.  Although we appear to have been spared another Trump shutdown, we have now been handed an executive power grab in the guise of a “national emergency.” This entire Trump-instigated crisis will remain directly connected in our memories to Trump’s obsession with the “Wall,” i.e., the toy that he has insisted he must have in order to allegedly guarantee the safety of the people of the United States. Walls have a long history of symbolic importance, signifying not only lines of demarcation but frequently the distinction between zones of alleged civilization vs. zones of alleged barbarism. The phrase “beyond the Pale” — which has come to mean beyond a boundary, over the top, unacceptable or outside of reasonable standards — is just one example. The term originates in Ireland and refers to a piece of the island captured by England, within which the current city of Dublin emerged. The English did what they could to enclose this area, essentially setting up a set of fortifications and a ditch. For the English colonizers, “the Pale” was the center of civilization on an island that was viewed as nothing short of barbaric. What is important here is that the ditch or Pale was not simply demarcating territory or even a hostile border. With the Pale, much like the Great Wall of China, there was an ideological notion that beyond that barrier lay a barbarian mystery. In the 1790s, Catherine the Great instituted a Russian “Pale,” which was an area for Jews, outside of which they would be subject to overt acts of repression.

Sacramento Community Groups Oppose ICE

antiracismdsa: Sacramento Community Groups Oppose ICE: (SACRAMENTO, CA,  3/18/19 ) – Sacramento and Yolo county community-based organizations involved with immigration advocacy came together  ...

PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE MARCH ORGANIZING MEETING SATURDAY, 3/16

As Web Turns 30, Pioneer Tim Berners-Lee Says 'You Should Have Complete Control of Your Data'

As Web Turns 30, Pioneer Tim Berners-Lee Says 'You Should Have Complete Control of Your Data'

Sacramento Teachers Authorize a Strike- If necessa...

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Sanders Campaign workers form a union.

NEWS: Bernie 2020 is First Presidential Campaign in History to Unionize 

March 15, 2019
Contact:
Sarah Ford: sarahford@berniesanders.comWASHINGTON -- Bernie 2020 announced today that it will be the first major party presidential campaign in history to have a unionized workforce. In the past week, a majority of the campaign’s bargaining unit employees designated the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 to represent them as their exclusive bargaining representative. 
“Bernie Sanders is the most pro-union candidate in the field, he’ll be the most pro-union president in the White House and we’re honored that his campaign will be the first to have a unionized workforce,” said Campaign Manager Faiz Shakir.
The campaign recognized a card check system to indicate support for the union and did not require an election. This is the model Sen. Sanders has advocated for decades to be applied to unionizing efforts everywhere.

Will 2020 Be the Year Presidential Candidates Actually Take Labor Issues Seriously?

The 2020 elections present a historic opportunity to channel increased militant labor action into concrete policies that enshrine workers' rights.

Beto O'Rourke Will Run for President

en Español

I write to ask you to join me in a campaign to serve this country as the next President of the United States.

At this moment of truth — at this moment where we could make or break our democracy, where we will decide the fate of generations to come on this planet — we must all ask what each of us can give to this country and to the people who will inherit the consequences of our choices.

Amy and I have decided that running to serve America as president is the best way for us to do our part, understanding that we have an historic opportunity to join with millions of our fellow Americans at a time like no other.

The challenges we face are the greatest in living memory. The connected crises in our economy, our democracy and our climate will either consume us or they will afford us the opportunity to demonstrate our resolve, our creativity and our courage.

In other words, this moment of peril produces what is perhaps our greatest moment of promise. We can have a government that serves people instead of corporations. We can invest in the dignity of those working and those seeking work, no matter their gender, race or background. We can guarantee high quality health care to every single American. We can remind ourselves that if immigration is a problem, it’s a great one to have, and ensure that we create lawful paths to enter the country to work, to join family, to flee persecution. We can achieve real justice reform and confront the hard truths of slavery, segregation and suppression. We can listen to and lift up rural communities. We can restore American leadership, find peaceful solutions to global challenges, and end decades-long wars while delivering for every woman and man who has served in them. And we can unleash the ingenuity and political will of millions of Americans to meet the existential threat of climate change before it’s too late.

No one candidate or president, no matter how tough or talented or experienced, can meet these challenges on their own. Only this country can do that, and only if we build a movement that includes all of us – not just to vote and volunteer, but to understand that for democracy to flourish and meet these challenges, it is an everyday responsibility, one that doesn’t end when the ballots are counted.

WEB ONLY / FEATURES » MARCH 5, 2019

Why Is Dianne Feinstein So Opposed to the Green New Deal? Look at Her Family Finances.

Sen. Feinstein has direct financial interests in the same fossil fuel companies that the Green New Deal threatens.

BY BRANKO MARCETICWorking In These Times 

The Feinstein episode points to broader tensions revealed by the Democratic Party's continued reliance on wealthy, well-connected candidates. 

On February 22, footage of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lecturing pleading children about her opposition to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey's Green New Deal resolution went viral. Several media commentators on both sides of the debate cast the video of the 85-year-old senator dressing down the children as a case of generational conflict.

But the episode was also a reminder of the peril of wealth inequality in politics, with Feinstein, one of the very wealthiest members of Congress, having a personal financial stake in industries whose bottom lines would be threatened by the measures in the Green New Deal resolution.

Feinstein, whose net worth stands at $58.5 million, has been married for nearly 40 years to Richard C. Blum, a wealthy investor who still runs the private equity firm he founded in 1975, Richard C. Blum & Associates, Inc. According to Feinstein's most recent financial annual report, filed in May 2018 and covering the 2017 calendar year, Blum owns 100 percent of Yosemite Investments LLC, through which he has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in several fossil fuel companies, some of which he has sold off since the Green New Deal began gaining increasing national attention.

According to an amendment filed in January, Blum in August 2017 invested more than $1 million in the Osterweis Strategic Income Fund, a mutual fund run by investment firm Osterweis Capital Management. Among Osterweis’s top ten holdings are logistics firm XPO, a subsidiary of methanol producer Consolidated Energy Limited, a subsidiary of commercial aircraft leaser Avation PLC, and mining company Teck Resources, which holds interests in a number of different oil sands projects across the border in Canada, including the controversial Frontier project.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Myth of American Innovation

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Myth of American Innovation: The intrepid New Yorker pulls back the curtain on how private companies profit from taxpayer-funded research.

International Women's Day

International Women’s Day

Feminism is  the radical notion that women are people. 

Democrats Need to Think Big : not Small

Robert Borosage

Democrats Need to Think Big for 2020

There is a dizzying array of potential presidential nominees for Democratic primary voters to choose from: so many that they won’t even fit on one debate stage. But there is one basic choice the party will have to make: Will it nominate someone based on perceived electability, which is usually code for incremental policy ideas and a long political career, or a fresh-faced progressive reformer with big ideas? This isn’t a new idea; both parties have embraced this line of thinking in the past. The problem is that it rarely works. If history is any judge, the promise of incremental change and working across the aisle isn’t realism; it’s a pie-in-the-sky fantasy. Barack Obama ran as the great unifier. After becoming president, he attempted to govern by reaching out to Republicans with moderate Republican ideas, exemplified by his health-care plan. He embraced wrongheaded Republican tax cuts that weakened his stimulus plan. He nominated a moderate, pro-corporate judge to the Supreme Court. Yet he received scorched-earth opposition, with Republicans scorning every major entreaty. And Republicans are now even more extreme post-Trump than they were in the Obama era. So before Democrats and the media elevate those with incremental-reform ideas as the pragmatic realists, they might want to take a long look at recent history and think again. In the end, Democrats might do better voting with their hearts than with their heads.

Claim of "Emergency " Shows it is Time to Kick Trump Out !

Sasha Abramsky

Let there be no sugarcoating of this past week’s events: In declaring an utterly manufactured “national emergency” to raid $8 billion from the public coffers for a pet political project, Trump has moved America one giant step closer to dictatorship. He’s doing so with the blessing of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

While there have been many emergencies declared by presidents in the past, not a single one has been declared simply because the executive branch couldn’t convince the legislative branch to pony up cash for an unpopular policy proposal. Until now.

Even in 1939 and 1940, when Britain stood alone against fascism and Winston Churchill begged for arms from America, Roosevelt didn’t simply seize money Congress hadn’t authorized. True, he got creative with the Lend-Lease program; but he did so while still respecting Congress’s control over the purse-strings. And 1939-40, by any measure, was a genuine emergency.

What’s happening on the southern border today, by contrast, is simply a political crisis manufactured by a hate peddler.

Trump’s end run around Congress won’t go unchallenged. There will be lawsuits and Congressional votes of disapproval. There will be demonstrations. It’s even possible that some Republicans, with a vague memory of their once-proud posture as guarantors of the Constitution, will finally break with the president and refuse to support his re-election.