Early voting is underway in Wisconsin. You can now cast an in-person absentee ballot for the November 6 elections at your local municipal clerk’s office.

Find your Early Voting Times and Locations: Cities, towns and villages set their own dates and hours for in-person absentee voting.  Check the dates and hours for early voting in your area by contacting your municipal clerk. Many early voting locations end on close business Friday, November 2. Milwaukee and Madison will continue early voting until Sunday, November 4.

Bring Your ID: You will need to bring a photo ID with you to cast an early ballot. Information about acceptable photo IDs can be found at www.bringit.wi.gov.

Make Sure You’re Registered: You can register to vote at your local municipal clerk’s office until the close of business on Friday, Nov. 2. You can also register to vote at your polling place on election day. You must provide proof of residence such as a valid driver’s license, utility bill, pay stub, or residential lease agreement. More proof of residence documents can be found here.

Problems at the Polls? Call the Election Protection hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE

Early voting is quick and easy. Request a ballot in person at your local early voting location, fill out your ballot and hand the ballot to staff who will sign and seal your ballot. After you cast your ballot for working family candidates, help us encourage others to get to the polls by volunteering with our Labor 2018 program. Stop into one of our union locations to make calls, knock doors and get out the vote!

UNITE HERE!

Puerto Rico Tribunal

Convening an emergency international people’s tribunal against the United States Government for the crimes of 120 years of colonialism in Puerto Rico.

Hosted by Milwaukee IWW

End Prison Slavery

Two IWW members will be at Milwaukee Central Library, 814 W. Wisconsin, meeting room 2A, on Monday, November 5, 5:00-6:30 PM. They will be working on some of the activity they regularly do for the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, supporting the campaign against arbitrary regulations at Columbia Correctional, coalition efforts to shutdown the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility, and connecting different networks inside prison walls. Our work includes research, writing letters, data entry, and developing ideas for disrupting the horror that is the Wisconsin prison system. Come by if you want to see what’s involved with this organizing, ask questions, and maybe get involved in this. Free coffee and snacks are provided. Let us know if you need a ride to be able to attend. This gathering will be followed by our strategy meeting at 6:30, visitors are welcome to attend this as well.

If you are interested in this event and can’t make this time or location, please post in this event, message us or send an email at iwoc.milwaukee@gmail.com We will schedule the next event to work for your schedule, or followup one-on-one. Also contact us if you would need childcare, translation or other accommodations to be able to attend this event. You can also fill out this online survey to volunteer for specific tasks: https://bit.ly/2vyZam9 You can get more information on Wisconsin prison conditions and resistance to them at our website: https://wisconsinprisonvoices.org/

https://fighting-words.net/

By Cassandra Devereaux

In the latest assault by the Trump administration on transgender rights and the dignity of transgender persons, it has been revealed via a leaked memo that the Department of Health and Human Services is planning to enact a guideline that will restrict the definition of a person’s sex to that recorded on the original copy of their birth certificate. The effect of this will strip away the civil rights afforded to transgender people under Title IX as well as adversely impact the rights of intersex persons.

Protests against the bigoted HHS guideline have taken place across the country, from New York City and Washington, D.C., to Oakland, California, and Los Angeles, and a growing list of places in between. “We won’t be erased!” is the main battle cry as trans people (and their supporters) fight for their very lives in the face of Trump’s new plan.

The hostility toward transgender people by this craven administration is nothing new. Indeed, rescinding civil rights protections for the trans community has been a priority from the beginning. A month after the 2017 inauguration, it turned back protections that allowed students to use bathroom facilities according to their self-identified gender. This has been a vital protection for a community that regularly suffers violence in public restrooms.

Then, Trump attempted to ban transgender people from military service. While U.S. military might serves to impose imperialist rule over the global south, the “poverty draft” has been a means of survival and subsistence for oppressed peoples. Transgender people, especially those of color, suffer profound economic disenfranchisement and this path out of poverty must be acknowledged.

The cruelty of this act was appreciated by those enacting it. The Washington Post quoted an unnamed senior official who spoke of their political opponents by saying, “It will be fun to watch some of them have to defend [transgender service members].” Ultimately, the courts overturned this ban. The proximity of this latest assault on trans rights to the swearing in of far-right Supreme Court justice and sexual offender Brett Kavanaugh, after nearly two years of stacking the courts with reactionary judges, is noteworthy.

This proposed HHS guideline says that the legal category of sex (and therefore gender as well) is to be based on science, but it lacks scientific insight. There’s still much to understand on the matter, but neurological studies indicate that there are near-identical activation patterns and structures in the brains of both trans and cisgender women, as distinct from those of cisgender and trans men. The same patterns hold true for transgender and cisgender men. This points to the fact that transgender identity has a biological basis, meaning this policy will be in defiance of science. But, of course, this has never been about science.

Fight back against bigotry and violence

Trans lives are too often brief ones. Half of transgender people suffer from depression and/or anxiety. Forty-one percent report having attempted suicide, nine times the rate of their cisgender peers. The number of completed suicides among the trans population is unknown.

The murder rate, too, is unknown, largely due to misgendering in police reports and in the media. At the time of this writing on October 24, there have been 22 known trans murder victims in 2018, most of whom were trans women of color. Hate, and the social and material disenfranchisement that flows from it, costs lives.

The rights to be suppressed by this HHS action are, by and large, those that were won by applying pressure to the previous presidential administration. This illustrates the unavoidable truth that rights won through bourgeois electoral politics are fickle. What is given one day may be easily taken away the next.

The very real possibility of the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the loss of abortion rights and bodily autonomy for half the population is another chilling example. This is because we are at the mercy of the mercurial whims of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, of which any President is only the head.

When explaining this action, Trump, a self-described nationalist, said the HHS proposal is to “protect all Americans.” In saying this, he reveals what he hopes to uphold, and who is a threat. More to the point, it’s a statement of who he intends to live in the country he claims to be making great, and who he wants to stop existing.

Real liberation cannot be won in our ballot boxes today; only a temporary respite of certain oppressions can be achieved. Division and oppression are the nature of the capitalist imperialist system. They have kept us at each other’s throats in order to keep us from turning against them, our true oppressors. This awful system can be dismantled only with solidarity across lines of oppressions and of those who stand with us.

In order to defend ourselves and those we hold closest to our hearts, we must come together as a class and as oppressed peoples in solidary and self-defense. We must protect each other, love each other, and fight together shoulder to shoulder. We must be a united fist thrust forth in defiance of the rich and powerful.

It’s time we come together and get to work.

Cassandra Devereaux is a Bay Area (California) transgender activist and Communist Workers League organizer. https://fighting-words.net/

We Won’t Be Erased: Rally for Resistance

200 E Wells Street, Milwaukee City Hall, 5-7 P.M.

We won’t be erased. And we will be heard!

Milwaukee Pride is partnering with leading LGBTQ organizations to demonstrate our resistance to ANY attempted erasure of transgender lives or legal status in America. Read our press release: http://bit.ly/rallyT18

An attack on any of us is an attack on all of us. This is no longer a time to watch, wait and say “it can’t happen here.” This is a time for unity and community. This is a time to support our trans, gender non-conforming and non-binary friends and family.

This is a time for ACTION.

Meet us at the City Hall archway (Water at Wells) at 5:00 p.m. for a rally featuring local LGBTQ leaders, followed by early voting (for Milwaukee residents) until 7:00 p.m.

We thank our proud partners FORGE, Diverse & Resilient, ACLU of Wisconsin, AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, ZAO Milwaukee Church, Courage MKE, the Wisconsin LGBT Chamber of Commerce, Fair Wisconsin, Milwaukee LGBT Community Center and the Milwaukee Equal Rights Commission for standing united against hate, discrimination and exclusion against any aspect of the LGBTQ community.

https://fighting-words.net/

By David Sole

Pro-Israel forces at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor have launched a series of attacks on the right to express support for the Palestinian people and their struggle against Zionist occupation and oppression.

In September, Dr. John Cheney-Lippold refused to write a letter of recommendation for a student seeking to study abroad in Tel Aviv, Israel. The professor cited the academic boycott of Israel “in support of Palestinians living in Palestine.” The boycott is part of the growing Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) global movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Cheney-Lippold came under attack as being “anti-Semitic.” On October 3, university officials retaliated by denying him a scheduled two-year sabbatical and his merit pay raise. They also threatened that such future actions on the professor’s part could result in termination of employment.

Former Black Panther Party Minister of Culture and renowned artist Emory Douglas also came under attack by Zionists after giving a lecture at the University of Michigan on October 4.

Douglas’ guest presentation to the students at UM’s School of Art and Design included one slide of a poster of Benjamin Netanyahu and Adolf Hitler with the word “genocide.” One student created a Facebook post attacking UM for “forcing” her to sit through the lecture. Other Zionist media have picked up this attack.

Support for Dr. Cheney-Lippold has come from many sources. The American Association of University Professors issued a letter supporting the professor and urging UM to rescind their punishments.

CWL extends solidarity  

The Communist Workers League issued a strong statement in solidarity with both Cheney-Lippold and Douglas, stating in part: “Academic institutions have a gruesome history of supporting imperialism and colonialism across the globe. Their roles range from performing military research and investing in companies that profit from imperialism, to acting as recruiting grounds for the intelligence and military apparatuses and providing critical intellectual support to ruling class think-tanks….

“At UM in particular, the university has longed resisted any attempts by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) and other Palestinian solidarity groups to even begin an audit of the university endowments’ investments in companies that profit from the occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, let alone actually completely divest.”

UM graduate student instructor Lucy Peterson also refused a student’s request for a recommendation to study in Israel. In her op-ed piece in the October 16 issue of the campus newspaper the Michigan Daily, Peterson wrote eloquently defending her action:

“Israel routinely discriminates against and bans Palestinian-Americans, which means many of my students would be denied study abroad opportunities… I would not write a letter of recommendation for any program that discriminates and does not share the [University of Michigan’s] commitment to equal opportunity for all community members. By choosing not to contribute to Israel’s discriminatory practices, I am defending equality and justice for Palestinians.”

Peterson is Jewish, which further exposes that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.

Support continues to grow and find expression, especially at UM. A call has gone out for supporters to rally on campus and march to the administration building to deliver a letter in defense of Cheney-Lippold and Peterson on Tuesday, October 23. The letter has been signed by almost 300 graduate students.

David Sole, who is Jewish, received his MS degree in 1969 from the University of Michigan’s Biological Chemistry department.

Independent journalist Randi Nord (Geopolitics Alert, Mint Press News) spoke out this afternoon on the situation in Yemen, and America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. Geopolitics Alert

Filmed by Ford Fischer

Press Conference: The Evidence is there!

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: October 24, 2018

Contact: Pam Africa, 267-760-7344, Dr. Suzanne Ross, 917-584-2135, Joe Piette, 610-931-2615

WHAT: Press conference

DATE AND TIME: Thursday, October 25, 11 AM

WHERE: DA Krasner’s office, THREE PENN PLAZA

SPEAKERS: Journalist, Linn Washington; Rev. Renee McKenzie, Church of the Advocate; Attorney Leon Williams; Basym Hasan, Prison activist, PA Prison Society; Pam Africa, MOVE Organization and the Uncompromising International Concerned Family and Friends of MAJ, Dr. Anthony Monteiro, Dr. Suzanne Ross

WHY: A letter about the legal proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal will be delivered to Krasner during the Press Conference. Listed among the signers are NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD, ALICE WALKER, NOAM CHOMSKY, CORNEL WEST, NOTED HUMAN RIGHTS ATTORNEYS KATHLEEN CLEAVER and SOFFIYAH ELIJAH, THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BLACK LAWYERS (Michigan Chapter), the INTERNATIONAL DOCKWORKERS COUNCIL, and many others. (Complete List of Signers in separate document.)

The letter asserts that Abu-Jamal should be granted a new appeals process. Abu-Jamal, an internationally renowned Black political prisoner, former writer and activist in the Black Panther Party, award winning journalist and writer who has published 10 books while in prison, and a MOVE supporter who has spent almost 37 years in prison, the majority of them in isolation on death row is being denied that opportunity by DA Larry Krasner. The signers are demanding that Krasner stop insisting, preposterously, that Ronald Castille was not significantly involved in Abu-Jamal’s case. Furthermore, the signers demand that Krasner drop his battle to close off the possibility for Abu-Jamal to win a new appeals process in the Court of Common Pleas (CCP).

LEGAL ARGUMENTS: The current court battle is based on a new legal action Abu-Jamal filed in the CCP on August 7, 2016 to reopen the appeal of his conviction. A new appeal could lead to Abu-Jamal’s freedom. Abu-Jamal’s argument is that Castille should have recused himself when Abu-Jamal’s case came before him in the PA Supreme Court since he had also been involved in the same case as a DA. Abu-Jamal’s attorneys twice asked for Castille to recuse himself, in 1996 and in 2002, but Castille refused both times claiming he could be fair, had no conflict of interest and, again, absurdly that he had no direct knowledge of Abu-Jama’s case. Now, however, the recent US Supreme Court ruling in Williams v. Pennsylvania, where like in Mumia’s case, Justice Castille had been both a DA in the case and later a Supreme Court Justice, and did not recuse himself, there has been a US Supreme precedent-setting US Supreme Court ruling that Castille should have recused himself in the Williams’ case. This obviously provides a strong basis for reopening Abu-Jamal’s case as well since there are many similarities between the cases on this issue.

For almost a year, since Larry Krasner became the District Attorney of Philadelphia in January 2018, we have witnessed an unending charade of actions and statements on the part of the DA’s office aimed at creating an image of his office as making an earnest attempt to conduct an assessment of Ronald Castille’s involvement in Abu-Jamal’s case. With a pretense of regret, the DA’s office keeps claiming they have found nothing that would indicate Castille’s involvement

It is hard to assess the presence or absence of such documentation as these documents are not open for examination by Abu-Jamal supporters. It is possible that the potentially incriminating documents are not there, that they may have ‘disappeared’ or been destroyed through the work of Abu-Jamal enemies in the court system. But regardless of those documents, some documents that are open to everyone have emerged which are clear evidence of Castille’s involvement. Still, Krasner’s office is doing everything possible to minimize their importance and, therefore, invalidate the argument that they, in addition to all the other logical indications of Castille’s engagement in the conviction and sentence of Abu-Jamal, should call for a new appeals process.

In October 2017, months before Krasner became the DA, a letter from DA Castille written on June 15, 1990 to Governor Casey urged the governor to issue death warrants in Philadelphia capital cases where the appeals process was complete. “I urge you to send a clear and dramatic message to all police killers that the death penalty actually means something.” There were three “police killers” on PA’s death row at the time, with Abu-Jamal being one of them. This letter clearly points to targeting of Abu-Jamal along with two other “police killers”.

Recently, there has been more evidence pointing to Castille’s active involvement in Abu-Jamal’s case. It has been established that Castille personally added the “police killers” phrase to a draft of the letter written by his assistant. Also, there is evidence of Castille communicating with a virulently pro-death penalty state legislator pushing for the death warrant. All this in addition to Castille’s public and virulent advocacy for execution of those convicted of homicide, especially “police killers”, of his support from and to the FOP, and of his frequent bragging of these ‘accomplishments’.

Yet, shamelessly, on August 30th Krasner’s office argued as vehemently as his predecessors had, all FOP allies, in the 90’s, against any iota of justice for Abu-Jamal. The DA office’s position is that Abu-Jamal’s petition to reopen the appeal process “should be denied without further discovery and without evidentiary hearing”

The letter signers’ position is that the documentary proof, described above, meets the Williams (v. PA) standard that Abu-Jamal’s state court appeal denials should be vacated because of Judge Castille’s extreme bias, conflict of interest, and lack of any semblance of judicial neutrality.