US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with allies in a tour of Latin America this week, in which he talked about stepping up US-led efforts against Venezuela.
The Trump administration has been increasingly hostile towards the Caribbean nation, escalating sanctions and even threatening a military “option.”
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is due to start his second term on January 10, having won re-election on May 20, but Washington and several right-wing regional governments have refused to recognize the election and may look to further isolate Caracas in coming days. For its part, Venezuela has repeatedly denounced what it terms US-led destabilization efforts…
On January 12, far-right groups are planning a “We the People” rally to be held at the Wisconsin state capitol. The organizers of this rally include the 3% United Patriots and The Free Men Report.
The 3% United Patriots is a right-wing militia group that has been organizing armed vigilante squads at the US-Mexico border for years. They detain people crossing the border, handcuffing them and delivering them to US Border Patrol. They’ve since spread across the country.
The Free Men Report is a Madison-based far-right group. They organize against the rights of immigrants and against women. They harassed a group of UW students marching against the Kavanaugh appointment, screaming at people as they walked past.
The far right has been exploding in growth since the election of Donald Trump. The murder in Charlottesville at the “Unite the Right” rally and the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue are two of the most visible attacks, but they are not the only ones. Hate crimes have skyrocketed, pipe bombs were sent through the mail, and others were stabbed to death on a train in Portland and at a bus stop in Boston. Far right groups like Patriot Prayer, the Proud Boys, and the 3%ers have grown in membership and influence.
On Dec 29, dozens of us, from many different political organizations and backgrounds, met to discuss the rise of fascism across the world and in Wisconsin and to organize a response to it. At that meeting, we agreed to hold a counter-rally at the time and location of the far-right rally, where we will gather in large numbers to show that anti-immigrant, racist, and sexist groups have no place in Madison.
We will be rallying at the State Capitol on Jan 12 at 11:30am, on the State Street side, to counter this far-right rally.
We are also having a second organizing meeting on Saturday Jan 5 from 2pm-3:30pm. This meeting is open to the public, even if you can’t attend the rally. Find the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/398912914181868/.
If you are a part of an organization or group that would like to sponsor, endorse, or help organize, please reach out to the hosts to get in touch.
Hey Everyone! Thank you for being patient as we take a regrouping break.
Family, Friends & Allies!!!
We are so excited to have a seat and break bread with you.
We welcome you to attend, invite, and support our next Mass Meeting & Potluck. Our community potlucks serve as a time to connect with folks in our city, share love and healing, stories, space, and good food.
We are excited to share our work and provide a space for People of Color and white allies to engage and create action steps to equip, connect, engage and educate our communities.
Mission:
Uplifting Black Liberation and Black Community will equip, connect, and educate Black communities with resources and opportunities that will help provide a sustainable environment free from oppressive systems. This begins by using education about potential impact on the community, and how to heal from post-traumatic slave syndrome.
Vision:
Through outreach and collaboration, UBLAC will help individuals foster understanding about liberation through knowledge and application in order to generate independent living and thinking.
If anyone is interested in being a UBLAC Core team member, please contact Annia Leonard for more information.
On January 12, far-right groups are planning a “We the People” rally to be held at the Wisconsin State Capitol. The organizers of this rally include the 3% United Patriots and The Free Men Report.
The 3% United Patriots is a right-wing militia group that has been organizing armed vigilante squads at the US-Mexico border for years. They detain people crossing the border, handcuffing them and delivering them to US Border Patrol. They’ve since spread across the country.
The Free Men Report is a Madison-based far-right group. They organize against the rights of immigrants and against women. They harassed a group of UW students marching against the Kavanaugh appointment, screaming at people as they walked past.
The far right has been exploding in growth since the election of Donald Trump. The murder in Charlottesville at the “Unite the Right” rally and the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue are two of the most visible attacks, but they are not the only ones. Hate crimes have skyrocketed, pipe bombs were sent through the mail, and others were stabbed to death on a train in Portland and at a bus stop in Boston. Far right groups like Patriot Prayer, the Proud Boys, and the 3%ers have grown in membership and influence.
On Dec 29, dozens of us, from many different political organizations and backgrounds, met to discuss the rise of fascism across the world and in Wisconsin and to organize a response to it. At that meeting, we agreed to hold a counter-rally at the time and location of the far-right rally, where we will gather in large numbers to show that anti-immigrant, racist, and sexist groups have no place in Madison. We will be meeting for this rally at the State Capitol on Jan 12 at 11:30am, on the State Street side, to counter this far-right rally.
On Jan 5, we are having another public organizing meeting to continue to discuss and organize. This organizing meeting is open to all who oppose far-right groups like the Proud Boys, the 3%ers, the Free Men Report, and others, whether you are a political activist or not.
Meeting at Madison Central Library, room TBD.
If you are a part of an organization or group that would like to sponsor, endorse, or help organize, please reach out to the hosts to get in touch.
Protestors stand outside District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office in Philadelphia on the evening of Friday, December 28, 2018. | Photo: Matt Slocum/AP Photo
Supporters of imprisoned freedom fighter Mumia Abu-Jamal demonstrated on December 28 at Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office. They demanded that Krasner not try to overturn Judge Tucker’s ruling that gives Mumia the right to appeal his 1981 frame-up conviction.
For years, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court turned down appeals from Mumia. Among the judges on that court who did so was Ronald D. Castille, who had been Philadelphia District Attorney when Mumia Abu-Jamal had filed his appeals from death row. What sort of justice is that?
Pam Africa of International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal declared that “the people’s movement is responsible for this victory.”
“A new appeal opens the door to Mumia’s freedom, after 37 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit,” she said. “The charges should be dismissed and he should be freed!”
Pam Africa raised a call to action for freeing Mumia on a national conference call for Mumia’s supporters December 27. National rallies will be held on January 5 and international rallies on April 20.
Supporters from Mobilization 4 Mumia, the Nation of Islam, Food Not Bombs, American Postal Workers Union, Project Solidarity, Communist Workers League, Uhuru, New York Mumia Coalition and Real Justice joined the International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal in blocking traffic in front of the district attorney’s office during the evening rush hour on December 28. The chants of “No justice! No peace! Free Mumia!” were heard by thousands.
Broadcasting bias
On December 13, following Judge Tucker’s call to the lawyers in the case for addition information regarding Ron Castille, District Attorney Larry Krasner appeared on WHYY radio showing his own bias.
WHYY host Marty Moss Coane asked Krasner about Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case: “Is your office involved in the case?”
Krasner replied, “To date, we have reported to court multiple times on our searches to date. Our position has been and remains that we do not see evidence of significant involvement by then District Attorney Castille that would disqualify him.”
Mumia’s lawyer Judith Ritter observed that “there are lots of reasons to be concerned about Ronald Castille’s neutrality when he became a state Supreme Court justice.”
Krasner’s statement followed the December 3 hearing in Common Pleas Court before Judge Leon Tucker. Previously suppressed evidence of judicial misconduct by Judge Ronald Castille was supposed to be presented by the district attorney’s office.
On October 29, Tucker postponed his decision on whether Mumia would be granted another chance to appeal. Mumia’s attorneys had argued that his rights has been violated during previous appeals because Castille had refused to recuse himself.
Castille had fought Jamal’s appeals when he was district attorney yet insisted on hearing the Abu-Jamal’s appeals when Castille sat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
That’s a clear violation of the United States Supreme Court’s Williams v. Pennsylvania ruling, which gave a prisoner on death row the right to appeal when a judge in similar circumstances refused to recuse himself.
Pam Africa had this to say about Judge Tucker, a Black judge who is a Republican party member: “Judge Tucker isn’t doing us no favors. He’s doing his job to the letter. We demand the same of D.A. Krasner.”
Tucker’s ruling for Mumia was a split decision. While ruling that Castille should should have recused himself from Mumia’s case hearing, Tucker rejected arguments by Abu-Jamal’s attorneys based on the US Supreme Court decision on William v. Pennsylvania.
Following Judge Tucker’s ruling, the district attorney’s office has 30 days to file a notice of appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court.
Intensify the struggle!
Judge Tucker’s ruling on Mumia follows many people’s victories for prisoners and other workers in 2018.
National prisoner strikes erupted and prisoners demanded to be paid. Voters in Florida restored voting rights for 1.4 million convicted people.
Debbie Africa and Michael Africa of the MOVE 9 were freed after 37 years of being jailed. The right to adequate treatment for Hep-C was won for all Pennsylvania inmates, including Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Even the capitalist U.S. Congress passed a limited criminal justice reform bill that may free a few thousand prisoners.
All these victories spring from a mass workers’ fight against the superstructure of police, prisons and capital that Judge Tucker represents to the letter.
The movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal participated in many of those struggles. The ruling class is now seeking to refortify their prison house of nations.
The International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal has called to intensify the campaign to free Mumia. Brick by brick, wall by wall, we will free Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Pentagon bombing operations against the Horn of Africa state of Somalia have killed numerous people over the last several weeks under the guise of the United States “war on terrorism.”
Although Washington routinely claims these bombing operations only target so-called “terrorists,” there is no way of verifying who is actually struck on the ground. Other damage, such as the deaths of civilians and the dislocation of people in small towns and rural areas, are never acknowledged by the military.
Official statements from AFRICOM indicate that there are approximately 500 soldiers stationed in Somalia. The actual numbers have increased since the ascendancy of the administration of President Donald Trump during 2017 as a part of his purported foreign policy aims of battling armed Islamist groups such as al-Shabaab.
Other AFRICOM reports suggest there have been 37 bombing operations inside this oil-rich Horn of Africa state over the course of 2018. Successive U.S. administrations have supported the federalized governance system which was installed under the tenure of former President George W. Bush, Jr., who founded AFRICOM in early 2008.
Just one week prior to the November 30 attacks, the U.S. announced several bombing missions in Harardere in Galmudug state where over 40 people were killed. The airstrikes between November 19 and 21 were said to have hit an al-Shabaab training camp along with a weapons cache….
However, after decades of military involvement and political machinations the situation remains unstable. The Somalis’ only hope for sustainable peace and development lies within the national unity of its people absent of the tutelage of the United States….
GM’s announced plant closings are illegal and must be stopped!
1. GM is violating the Moratorium on Plant Closings in the UAW-GM Contract.
2. GM is violating the terms of the $8.9 billion taxpayer bankruptcy bailout. It was on condition it build fuel efficient and electric cars. GM is shutting down the plants
which build and supply these vehicles to shift production to gas guzzing high profit SUV;s and trucks.
3. GM is violating the terms of the $3.4 billion in MEGA tax credits it received from the State of Michigan. GM promised to retain Michigan jobs and not relocate the plants.
Only a mass struggle of the workers, the unions and broad community can force profit-hungry GM to stop violating the law and the contract and keep the plants open. Let’s strategize together to build the movement.
Start 2019 off right with FRSO Wisconsin! We’ll be watching “Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland” and having a short discussion. As we enter the new year, let’s dedicate ourselves to developing a better understanding of police crime, how it affects our cities, state, and country, and, most importantly, what we can do to combat it.
This event is free of charge. Snacks and childcare will be provided.
The American Federation of Government Employees on Monday sued the U.S. government on behalf of federal employees being forced to work without pay during the Trump Shutdown. The lawsuit alleges that the government is violating the law by requiring some federal employees to work without pay, including correctional officers, Border Patrol and ICE agents, transportation security officers, and other employees who are labeled as “essential”. “Our members put their lives on the line to keep our country safe,” said AFGE president J. David Cox Sr., noting that positions that are considered ‘essential’ during a shutdown are some of the most dangerous jobs in the federal government. Pointing out that many of those working without pay are military veterans, Cox said that “Our nation’s heroes, AFGE members and their families deserve the decency of knowing when their next paycheck is coming and that they will be paid for their work.” The lawsuit was brought on behalf of all federal employees who are required to work without pay during the shutdown. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has previously ruled in favor of federal employees forced to work without pay during the 2013 shutdown.
