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BeckyDem
BeckyDem's Journal
Home country: USA
Member since: Thu Feb 9, 2017, 12:31 PM
Number of posts: 7,004
Unions discussing general strike if Trump refuses to accept Biden victory
( Smart, peaceful, and ultimately, patriotic. )
Union federations in Rochester, Seattle and Massachusetts approved resolutions should Trump seek to subvert outcome
Steven Greenhouse
Fri 30 Oct 2020 03.00 EDT
US unions have begun discussing the idea of a general strike if Donald Trump refuses to accept an election results showing a Joe Biden victory.
Such a move would be unprecedented in the modern era. There has not been a general strike in the United States since 1946 – and that was restricted to Oakland, California.
The local labor federation in Rochester, New York, was the first union group to officially support the idea. Union federations in Seattle and in western Massachusetts have followed suit, approving resolutions saying a general strike should be considered if Trump seeks to subvert the election outcome.
Dan Maloney, president of the Rochester-Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation, said his 100,000-member group adopted the resolution to get people discussing the idea – from local unions to the AFL-CIO, the nation's main labor federation which represents more than 12.5 million people.
On 8 October, the Rochester federation voted to support preparing for and holding "a general strike of all working people, if necessary, to ensure a constitutionally mandated peaceful transition of power as a result of the 2020 presidential elections.". The union leaders voted to stand "firmly in opposition to any effort to subvert, distort, misrepresent or disregard the final outcome" of the election.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/30/us-unions-general-strike-election-trump-biden-victory?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Posted by BeckyDem | Fri Oct 30, 2020, 10:15 AM (5 replies)
Is this guy great or what?: #ChefsForThePolls
https://twitter.com/chefjoseandres/status/1321566561627443201
An outstanding human being!
Posted by BeckyDem | Wed Oct 28, 2020, 04:41 PM (0 replies)
We've got to make this history ourselves By Cori Bush
In a few short days, this election will be over. In a few short days, the hard work of two long years will draw to a close, and the United States will decide what we want the next two, or four, or 10 years to be like. It's been said countless times before, but that's because it's true: this is one of the most consequential elections of our lifetimes.
But it's not just these past four years that will be accounted for on November 3. For many of us, this struggle has been decades in the making. Nearly every day for the past four years, we've watched as the current father of racism, Donald Trump, and his administration stoop to new lows. Many of us are rightly shocked at the cruelty, bigotry, and hatred that our president and his white supremacist movement sow.
Across our region, Black organizers have taken the lead in making sure the voices of St. Louisans are heard. Action St. Louis has led the charge to make sure our communities are fully counted in the census. Young Black organizers have been leading massive canvassing operations to increase voter turnout. We've built a framework for what it takes to win in St. Louis. We proved it worked in my primary victory in August by building a coalition that brought thousands of new voters to the ballot boxes. We did it by reaching out to the community and inviting voters back into the system, by letting them know that they had something important to bring to this movement.
Because St. Louis voted, I am slated to become Missouri's first Black congresswoman. I am slated to become Missouri's first nurse congresswoman. I am slated to become the first woman to represent Missouri's 1st Congressional District. And I am slated to become our nation's first Black Lives Matter activist in Congress. But we still have more to accomplish.
We have a lot to be proud of—from my two close friends, former state Representative Bruce Franks Jr. and current state Representative Rasheen Aldridge, to my siSTARS Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner and St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura O. Jones—we have every reason to be full of hope for the future. Because we know what starts in St. Louis can effect change all across Missouri.
We have the chance to flip the whole state Blue and start a new chapter in our history. We can defeat Trump, Governor Mike Parson, and the entire movement of white supremacy that they rode to power on. So, let's recognize our individual power. Let's recognize that we all have something great to bring to the table. And let's push that forward. Because this movement is strong, but collectively, we can make it even stronger.
When we vote, we win. So, I'm asking you to vote. And I'm asking you to volunteer. Make phone calls. Send text messages. Knock doors, and help drop literature. Then do just a little bit more. Talk to your friends, talk to your neighbors, and talk to your colleagues.
We don't want to wake up on November 4 asking ourselves the same question we asked four years ago: Could I have done more? We have the opportunity to set our state and our nation on a new path. This is a history-making moment, but no one is going to make it for us. We've got to make this history ourselves—and we can. Let's win this thing together, St. Louis.
http://www.stlamerican.com/news/columnists/guest_columnists/we-ve-got-to-make-this-history-ourselves/article_7067e958-1872-11eb-b0ef-db9658c50709.html
Posted by BeckyDem | Wed Oct 28, 2020, 09:20 AM (0 replies)
QANON AND A RAPE JOKE SPELL TROUBLE FOR REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN IN FLORIDA
Just think about that, how American politics has incorporated QAnon type wackos. Granted we have had low life racists and sexual predators as lawmakers, but this is a new low for modern times. May they all be politically crushed asap.
Rep. Brian Mast has apologized for his jokes, but they could cause him to lose votes to a QAnon-associated independent candidate.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY has engaged in a delicate dance with the sprawling movement known as QAnon, exploiting the energy behind it where possible, while working to keep a safe public distance elsewhere. As Election Day draws nearer, however, Republicans are dropping some of their reticence. In Georgia, the official arm of House Republicans is backing QAnon believer Marjorie Taylor Greene, a congressional candidate whose endorsement was coveted by the leading Republican Senate candidates in the state.
In one race in Florida, however, the conspiracy-minded movement could blow up an incumbent Republican's reelection campaign and in the process tilt control of the state congressional delegation to Democrats.
Because the Q movement is thoroughly disconnected from reality, it's impossible to say with any seriousness what its fundamental philosophical or politics tenets are, as adherents to the cause range from people vaguely concerned about child sex trafficking to those convinced that Democrats and their "deep state" allies have built a secret elite society that engages in pedophilia and cannibalism. The connective tissue is the defense of children being preyed upon by the powerful, and that's how Republican Rep. Brian Mast stepped into the movement's crosshairs.
In August, the South Florida Sun Sentinel resurfaced old Facebook posts of Mast's in which the veteran bantered with Florida man Rocco LeDonni, a friend-turned-campaign manager, about sex with 15-year-olds.
https://theintercept.com/2020/10/28/qanon-florida-republican-mast/
Study "finds increase in number of BLM protests within a state is associated with a decrease
https://twitter.com/owasow/status/1321152569624977408
because it's a start.
Posted by BeckyDem | Tue Oct 27, 2020, 01:21 PM (2 replies)
Waiting for the Help That Was Promised in Eastern Kentucky
The stimulus checks are gone, and unemployment claims remain unprocessed. The Jaynes family is holding on to half a tank of gas and a dollar-fifty in change.
By Oliver Whang
Robin Jaynes, who's forty-five, was born and raised in Magoffin County, in eastern Kentucky. Not quite a decade ago, her third husband, Tim, was forced to retire, and Robin, who spent much of her twenties and thirties raising six children, began looking for a job. Tim grew up at the head of a holler in neighboring Johnson County, near the West Virginia border, and served for fifteen years in the Army, until he was honorably discharged, in 1993, after developing a tremor, and he went to work at Family Dollar. He started seeing Robin ten years later, and they had a son, Timmy, in 2006. After eighteen years of twelve- and thirteen-hour workdays, Tim had a minor heart attack on the job, in 2011, the culmination of medical problems—high blood pressure, high cholesterol—that had dogged him for years. A doctor recommended that he apply for disability and supplemental security income (S.S.I.), which he did, reluctantly. "I liked working," he told me. "I worked there until literally they had to call an ambulance and take me out. That's when I had to give it up, and then she started," he said, referring to his wife.
Robin worked at fast-food places for a while, Burger King and K.F.C. and Wendy's. The customers were often rude, she said, but those jobs paid the rent for the family's subsidized three-bedroom apartment. By 2016, her three oldest children had moved out, and Robin decided that she and Tim and the three younger kids should move to a two-bedroom place owned by the Highland Church of Christ in Paintsville, which would save them eighty dollars a month. Robin became a member of the church, though she worked too much to get to services often. The apartment, she told me, was a little small for two parents and three kids, "but we got them a bunk bed set, and the oldest one had a twin-sized bed, so it worked out." She took a job as a cashier at Dollar General, which paid her seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour. She worked her way up to assistant manager, organizing the shelves and handling customers and making sure the two cash registers didn't break down the way they used to. Her hourly pay went up to ten dollars and ten cents. Tim's total fixed income usually amounted to eight hundred dollars a month.
Last year, the Jayneses moved to Indiana to be closer to Robin's mother's side of the family, but they returned shortly after having a fight with her brother. The church rented their apartment back to them, at the same rate, but all the moving had used up the family savings, and they fell behind on rent. Robin returned to Dollar General and started paying off the debt, which had grown to a couple thousand dollars, little by little. Standing all day can be difficult for Robin, who has asthma and the beginnings of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She usually worked between forty and fifty hours a week.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/waiting-for-the-help-that-was-promised-in-eastern-kentucky?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker&utm_social-type=earned
McConnell should be losing in the polls, he is as evil as Trump.
Posted by BeckyDem | Tue Oct 27, 2020, 09:05 AM (8 replies)
U.S. joins global anti-abortion pact as Polish women march to protest clampdown
Signatories of the Geneva Consensus Declaration pledge to work together to "reaffirm that there is no international right to abortion."
Oct. 23, 2020, 8:16 AM EDT / Updated Oct. 23, 2020, 10:22 AM EDT
By Adela Suliman
The United States on Thursday signed an anti-abortion declaration along with more than 30 countries representing over 1.6 billion people.
Overnight, women in Poland took to the streets to protest a clampdown on abortion rights in that country.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar took part in a virtual signing ceremony of the Geneva Consensus Declaration. Egypt, Uganda, Brazil, Hungary and Indonesia co-sponsored the pact along with the U.S. Thirty-two nations signed it.
The nonbinding declaration says it seeks to improve women's health, preserve human life and strengthen the family unit.
"We, the representatives of our sovereign nations do hereby declare in mutual friendship and respect, our commitment to work together to: Reaffirm that there is no international right to abortion," the declaration read.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-joins-global-anti-abortion-pact-polish-women-march-n1244487
Outrageous how backward this is. grrrrrr
Posted by BeckyDem | Mon Oct 26, 2020, 12:23 PM (6 replies)
Ben O'Keefe (he/him) @benjaminokeefe: This is Brooklyn. Lines are double wrapped for 6 blocks.
https://twitter.com/benjaminokeefe/status/1320042905655009281
Voter suppression should not exist in the United States of America, period!
Posted by BeckyDem | Sun Oct 25, 2020, 03:30 PM (10 replies)
Chuck Schumer@SenSchumer: We recently learned a tragically sad story of a veteran in Rochester
https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/1320119612357435398
As many Republicans as possible must be politically defeated, they clearly hate people.
Posted by BeckyDem | Sun Oct 25, 2020, 02:54 PM (0 replies)
The White Issue: Has Anna Wintour's Diversity Push Come Too Late?
No one should be surprised by this and there was no mistake, Wintour made these decisions with her eyes open.
Vogue's September issue celebrated Black culture and contributors. But some employees say the magazine's powerful editor fostered a workplace that sidelined women of color.
By Edmund Lee
Updated Oct. 25, 2020, 12:19 p.m. ET
Vogue's September issue was different this year. Anna Wintour and her staff put it together when more than 15 million people were marching in Black Lives Matter protests nationwide and employees at Vogue's parent company, Condé Nast, were publicly calling out what they viewed as racism in their own workplace. At 316 pages, the issue, titled "Hope," featured a majority of Black artists, models and photographers, a first for the magazine.
For members of Vogue's editorial team, the September edition came in the uneasy wake of an internal email Ms. Wintour had sent on June 4. "I want to say plainly that I know Vogue has not found enough ways to elevate and give space to Black editors, writers, photographers, designers and other creators," wrote Ms. Wintour, the Vogue editor in chief since 1988 and Condé Nast's artistic director since 2013, making her the editorial leader of all its titles. "We have made mistakes, too, publishing images or stories that have been hurtful or intolerant. I take full responsibility for those mistakes."
Black editors who have worked with Ms. Wintour said they saw her apology as hypocritical, part of a calculated play by an executive known for her ability to gauge the public mood. Other Black journalists who are current or former employees of Condé Nast said the email and the September issue that followed it represented an awkward, though heartfelt, attempt at genuine change.
-excerpt-
Under Ms. Wintour, 18 people said, Vogue welcomed a certain type of employee — someone who is thin and white, typically from a wealthy family and educated at elite schools. Of the 18, 11 people said that, in their view, Ms. Wintour should no longer be in charge of Vogue and should give up her post as Condé Nast's editorial leader.
"Fashion is bitchy," one former Black staff member said. "It's hard. This is the way it's supposed to be. But at Vogue, when we'd evaluate a shoot or a look, we'd say 'That's Vogue,' or, 'That's not Vogue,' and what that really meant was 'thin, rich and white.' How do you work in that environment?"
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/business/media/anna-wintour-vogue-race.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
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