AB 931, the Wellstone Club Recommends New Use of Force Policy

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Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

Assembly Bill 931, which may be going to the full assembly soon, is a progressive bill that will raise the legal standard under which police may use lethal force. At the current time all an officer needs to say after a killing is that it was reasonable in his/her eyes. The new standard requires that lethal force be deemed necessary in the context of the situation and that deescalation protocols or non-lethal methods must be considered first.

The state of California in its intermittent push toward criminal justice reform-1 and half steps forward followed by 1 back–such as moves to end money bail, to monitor police brutality after being the least transparent state in the country, and to restore some programs for the formerly incarcerated, is now working toward a fundamental reform on the use of deadly force when police officers encounter suspects, otherwise known as the public, in AB 931. It is sponsored by Assemblymembers Shirley Weber and Kevin McCarty of San Diego and Sacramento respectively.

The Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, a progressive Democratic Club with members in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda and parts of Contra Costa County, has long advocated for police reform and against the mass incarceration state. As such, we sent this letter to our Assemblymembers Rob Bonta and Tony Thurmond. We urge our readers to contact their Assemblymembers and demand they vote for this important reform.

Here is a copy of the letter that was sent to both Assembly Members:

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August 8, 2018

To: Assembly Member Rob Bonta

 

Dear Assembly Member Bonta,

The Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club strongly supports AB 931 which should come before you shortly. Our club has been on the forefront of advocating for police reform as we did with Oakland’s Measure LL which authorized an independent police commission in Oakland, a city that has paid out millions in settlements over police brutality and wrongful deaths.

But the issue of wrongful death at the hands of local police forces is not just an Oakland problem. According to an ACLU report, “California departments have some of the highest rates of killings in the nation.” https://www.aclusocal.org/en/news/california-can-reduce-number-police-shootings-heres-how

Additionally, the report states that, “AB 931 authored by Assembly Member Shirley Weber, would enshrine that rule in state law and help ensure that police use deadly force only as a last resort……These requirements are becoming more and more common across the country. A number of individual police departments have already implemented variations of AB 931’s provisions, including the FBI, and some have adopted all of them. The San Francisco Police Commission recently approved a use of force policy with a necessity standard. The policy requires that officers use de-escalation techniques and alternatives to deadly force.”

Seattle and Chicago have adopted similar use of force policies but this bill would make California the first state in the country to pass a law that covers all its law enforcement agencies.

As you have led the nation on so many important social justice issues, please consider putting the full force of your office behind enshrining this best practice into law.

Sincerely,

Pamela A Drake

State & Local Politics Coordinator for the Wellstone Club

 

Bay Area Moms Launch Hunger Strike for Family Reunification–Update–Hunger Strike Spreads to Other Cities

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Photo by Jerry Lara, San Antonio Express-News

Photo by Jerry Lara, San Antonio Express-News

MEDIA ADVISORY

The National Rolling Hunger Strike Spreads to Other Cities

August 1, 2018

The hunger strike at the Oakland Federal Building (1301 Clay St.), begun on Monday, July 30th, will close beginning at 5 pm Wednesday, August 1st with a Break the Fast dinner. The following day, a three-day fast will begin in Sacramento.

Organizers plan to continue rolling hunger strikes across the country until their demands are met, with fasts already planned in eight cities as more than 700 children remain separated, and hundreds of parents appear to have been deported without their children. 

For more information: https://www.solidarityhungerstrike.com/
Upcoming hunger strike dates and cities:
August 2-4: Sacramento, CA
August 5-7: Santa Cruz, CA
August 8-10: Portland, OR
August 11-13: Staten Island, NY
August 16-18: Chicago, IL
August 19-21: New York, NY
August 22-24: Ashland, OR
August 27-29: Seattle, WA

Bay Area Moms Launch Hunger Strike for Family Reunification

 As Trump Administration Fails to Meet Deadline, Oakland Kicks Off National Wave of Fasts Demanding Justice for Migrant Families

July 27, 2018

Oakland — As the government failed to meet a court-ordered deadline to reunite immigrant families Thursday, Bay Area parents and grandparents announced a three-day hunger strike—the first in a series of fasts across the country calling for separated parents and children to be released together.

“As a mom, I’m supporting the hunger strike because children deserve to be protected no matter where they are born,” said Xochitl Oseguera of Moms Rising.

The hunger strike will take place outside Oakland’s Federal Building, beginning the morning of Monday, July 30th, and closing on the evening of Wednesday, August 1st. Public mobilizations will take place each day of the strike at 8 am, 12 noon, and 6 pm.

The following day, a three-day fast will begin in Sacramento. Organizers plan to continue rolling hunger strikes across the country until their demands are met, with fasts already planned in Santa Cruz, Portland, and Charlottesville, VA.

Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw gave the Trump Administration a July 26th deadline to reunite all separated families. But only 1,012 of more than three thousand had been reunited by Tuesday, and hundreds of parents appear to have been deported without their children.

Parents and grandparents in the Bay Area and across the country launched the hunger strikes in order to keep pressure on the government to reunite the remaining families—inspired by mothers inside Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas, who went on a rolling hunger strike after being denied the right to speak to their children.

Strikers released the following statement of demands:

“We demand that every migrant family separated by this administration be reunited and released from incarceration. We demand that the families receive support and justice for the trauma inflicted by our government.

We are parents, we are elders, we are clergy members, we are volunteers, we are teachers. We are ordinary people who have decided that enough is enough. We will not silently watch government-sanctioned kidnapping and the torture of migrant families. We will not sit back and watch families torn apart, babies and toddlers deemed ‘ineligible’ for reunification, children returned to their parents so traumatized they can’t speak, parents denied food, water, and medical care, children and women subjected to abuse and mockery. We stand against the criminalization and dehumanization of immigrant families.

We will continue our hunger strike and other solidarity actions until our demand is met.”

Participants also linked their fast to the broader surge of violence and racism facing immigrants, communities of color, and children under the Trump Administration. “My fast is my public demonstration of my brokenheartedness,” said Rabi’a Keeble. “We have the Muslim ban, we have young black women being murdered on public transit, we have a government that is out of control, and trying to turn back the clock on progress sixty years. My fast is dedicated to change, to hope, and to futures that are better than what we have now.”

Contacts:

Carolyn Norr, Families Belong Together: carolynclara@gmail.com, 510-220-5707Rabi’a Keeble: keeblerabia@gmail.com, 510-672-8095

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So Much for the Rule of Law

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'Something about this court makes me uneasy.'

I’m worrying about the powerful abusing the weak and the need to expand rights and opportunities. Them’s my rules.

The Trump regime’s goal of returning us to the days before even the Progressive Era, 1890 to 1918 or 1920, when women finally got the vote, has now given us a truly horrendous Supreme Court pick. [By the way, I’m not one of the sad sack progressives who believes this guy will automatically make it onto the court although I am very close to a state of sad sackism…]  In case you’re not familiar, watch this video for a history of the Progressive era, the good and bad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0Q4zPR4G7M

Let’s circle back to the hue and cry of late from Democrats and some progressives among them that the Republicans are not obeying the “rule of law” by which I think they mostly mean, the norms of civic life more than actual laws. Okay, there are also things like the “emoluments clause” which none of us had likely heard of til now and few yet know what exactly it entails. It seems it was written for folks like Benjamin Franklin who, “for instance, had accepted a snuffbox festooned with 408 diamonds from the King of France.”  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/what-is-the-emoluments-clause-does-it-apply-to-president-trump/2017/01/23/12aa7808-e185-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ca92c7adcdf6

Here’s a tweet which typically references “the rule of law” without stipulating what that means, “In the end of this debacle, there will either be a Republican Party that has joined with Putin to reform our gov.into an authoritarian state, or there will be the rule of law. There can’t be both. The Republicans have committed treason and need to be prosecuted for the crime.”

If it’s referencing colluding with a foreign state, then the law would seem to work as many already have been indicted and given prison terms but if it references the president, it’s vague. Because, by law, the Republican run congress can set aside the findings of the investigation and it’s a toss-up as to whether a sitting president may be indicted. In fact, it’s a political question, not a legal one.

But, if you’re asking whether a politician is above the law, yeah, that’s another issue and we all know the answer to that. Our system was set up to favor a certain group, a group I don’t have to describe. There have been years, even a decade here and there where laws were made to equalize the playing field, although equalize is not really fair if you were placed at a different starting block than others.

So now the Supreme Court and to a greater extent, the lower courts, which we had come to rely on, will be stacked against, hmmm, take a long lunch break while I type these-(Warning-I’m dropping the useless apostrophe here) workers rights, consumers rights, womens rights, Black folks rights, Brown folks rights, disabled folks rights, LGBTQ folks rights, immigrants rights, childrens rights, people who need healthcare rights, people who need to breathe clean air rights, endangered species rights (we should be added to that list). Hey, even most straight white males who own property actually need to preserve some of those rights.

Well, we kept saying, the system worked. The courts have stopped him/them. Yeah, good luck with that now. They will just ignore any judge who disagrees with them after ignoring any existing laws, statutes or NORMS until they get to SCOTUS where their perfidy will be upheld.

Why is any of this a surprise? For most of our history the courts have protected the Wealthy, the White and the American Aristocracy, whether it’s landed dudes who own their workers or tech dudes who, almost own their workers, and so-called Christian dudes who don’t wanna bake cakes in case they call for lavender icing.

We learned to love the Warren Court and hold it as our image of the goodness of lifetime appointments and the belief that if the same guy who proposed the internment/imprisonment of Americans of Japanese descent could turn out to oppose segregation and uphold the 4th Amendment, could evolve so could they all.

Well, good luck with that. But if it’s cause you now wanna defend the FBI, I got some movies that show even Hollywood can set the lie to that. Now I don’t mean to say that the folks who run that Republican organization are all like J Edgar, no, they are more polished than that. And should we defend them, those agents, against the GOP’s obvious partisan and personal attacks, yes, of course. We can read and chew at the same time, right?

BUT, let’s stop getting our panties or our boxers-tired of the feminine reference being used to show weakness and Warning don’t read this if you are offended by gross language-everybody knows a pussy is way more resilient and powerful than a dick-whenever a norm is broken or a law misused. It’s the American way.

I’ve gone to jail twice because I ignored the rule of law, minor laws, laws imposed for expediency sake, for sure. But I’ll do it again and I’d even prefer doing it for “greater” laws as we shall soon see the return of laws against free speech like we did under Woodrow Wilson, yeah, that guy. Check out the Sedition Act of 1918, https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/capitalism/sources_document1.html

Or the ones that go back to John Adams, sigh.

Relying on such a concept of the Rule of Law is a recipe for acquiescing to more racially punishing laws, more denigration of individual and group liberties and the complete collapse of our environment.

No, we need to coalesce around a group of principles against which we will give not an inch. It starts with preventing any of Trump’s SCOTUS picks from getting a fair hearing, Yep, I said fair. All those judges were picked by folks who oppose equal rights for the rest of us so the list is biased against us and we must act accordingly.

Anyway, please discuss, especially the legal minds, tear into this if you will but please define the rule of law before you do, cause really, I don’t know what you folks are worrying about. I’m worrying about the powerful abusing the weak and the need to expand rights and opportunities. Them’s my rules.

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Solo Travel, Part 1: the Airlines & Lisbon

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Traveling and vacationing are two different things. At least it seems vacationing should be relaxing and as stress free as possible. Of course that’s rarely true as getting yourself and your necessary belongings to an, often, unfamiliar place in order to sleep in an unfamiliar bed and eat unfamiliar food is not always as fun as you thought it might be. Surprise.

That’s why many people regularly vacation at the same spot where everything is familiar. But, travel is designed to bring you into new experiences. I imagine that’s why many people go on group tours or even cruises where the unfamiliar is reduced by proportional percentages. On a cruise, you get your own room which moves with you and meal choices based on what you already stipulated was familiar to you.

So here is an account of my latest Travel “Adventure.”

When I pulled my bag from the carousel in the Lisbon airport, I noticed it was soaking wet, my first observation of sunny Portugal was that it was not. On my brief guided tour segment of this trip, the guide kept repeating that this was unusual weather. I had looked it up and found that the mid 70’s was the norm for most of Portugal for the first half of June, but it was decidedly chilly and damp. [welcome to climate change=unpredictability]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VJY97l0jVA 

Dire warnings of overly hot weather never came true. By the time I actually caught up to summer weather, which, admittedly only arrived days before me, I was in the Algarve, the little tourist city of Tavira, to be exact and it had become deliciously warm, even a ittle hot.

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Tavira in the Algarve

Airlines & the Inquisition

But let’s go back a bit because I always marvel at airlines’ ability to make air travel as uncomfortable as possible. First, they warn you to arrive a day or two before your plane is due to taxi the runway endlessly. A slight exaggeration but is there a reason that all planes have to attempt to take to the air at the same time and then airline personnel expect you to arrive hours preflight so that airports can make you wait in labyrinthine lines which snake slowly on the linoleum while denying you even a cup of water?

IMG_2018-06-09_21-11-11And then because the flights are scheduled on top of each other (a scary visual to be sure,) you gotta sit on the tarmac and wait out the actual take off in a line with the other air tubes, then taxi around, then rev up, then taxi some more. Ah…by the time of actual takeoff, you are already in a paroxysm of muscle spasms due to the Inquisition-style seats and the fact that you have only a centimeter between you and your seat mates meaty arm.

The seats were designed to cause maximum pain and then reduced by 30%, all the while we have expanded by 40%.  Your lower back is sunk into your tailbone while your head is forced to jut forward and down. You then have to force it back up at much cost to your spinal health in order to view the little TV on which reside memories of earth as you knew it or knew it if you lived in Glendale in the early 60’s or the Village in the late 60’s in an enormous loft. But I digress.

I carry multiple pillows, some plush and some designed for inflation at the point when my oxygen supply has been reduced to barely breathing. I scour the internet looking for travel pillows and other accessories most of which I send back almost as soon as they arrive, some make it onto the plane with me but rarely make it off. If I were allowed scissors on the air tubes, I would have angrily slashed them to pieces before abandoning them in the seatback. But by some miracle the airline folks always seem to discover them in time to remind me of my loss. Let me not mention all the things that have actually been unwittingly left behind. I’ve already forgotten them.

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multiple pillows can fit in or around my backpack

Anyway, lines, surprise staircases, powdered creamer, multiple seized water bottles (yes in one airport after you have purchased yet another water bottle, they take it at the next gate,) kindles that inexplicably refuse to work and, why oh why don’t airline seats come with foot rests? It became far easier to focus on the brief interlude I had between planes always reduced by extravagant taxiing, I found myself racing then riding to my next air tube so that I could wait for my group which is always Group 3 or 4. Ok, one other airline query (yeah, like they’re going to read this,) why is my gate always the last or next to last one? Don’t they use the others?

Enough about flying or too much already, eh, like childbirth, it’s best forgotten or, you know, the species dies out. Arrival-I run around the airport looking for the Rick Steves designated departure area so I can get the good cabbies, ha, never found that so just got in line and it was fine. The way that driver scooted around traffic woke my bleary eyes right up and gave me someone new to respect…or fear. 20180606_212447 (1)

I arrive at my little hotel and it even had an elevator, after you climbed one short staircase, which is why I use only a carry-on which I check and a backpack which I store under my aching feet. No matter how many weeks I’m away, I still come back with at least one shirt I didn’t wear and I always chuck something I didn’t have the heart to at home on my laundry chair (don’t pretend you don’t know what that is.)

My hotelier offers me breakfast even though I’m officially not yet his guest and a map full of suggestions I’m almost too exhausted to contemplate. I inevitably go off in the wrong direction or take the wrong tram but since I didn’t get pickpocketed and eventually found my way home, I considered it all a rousing success. 20180607_200537 (1)

The next day I stumbled around in the rain, not realizing you have to open the train door yourself, doesn’t open automatically, and I began to wonder what the heck I was up to and why the heck I was traveling alone.

But by the next day, I had become the tour guide to some friends from the Bay Area whom I never see there but who had just arrived in Lisbon the day after me-thanks to a facebook tag. By then I was considered an old hand and we wandered the Alfama (medieval Moorish district) and had a wonderful lunch together after which we both had to join our respective tour companies and go our separate ways. 20180608_112121 (1)

That’s enough about this little trip for one post but I just want to state for those who think San Francisco is hilly, you haven’t seen Lisbon much less Porto or Coimbra (look them up.)

More soon…I think. Meanwhile remember, travel, like life, is not for sissies but if you have cab fare and a paid bedded room somewhere, you are waaay ahead of the majority of the world today which is moving relentlessly and in ever larger groups around the globe in search of any semblance of home. Please donate accordingly.

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Guest Column: James Vann on City Funding for Landlord Evictions

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This guest blog by noted Tenants’ Rights activist, James Vann, is in reference to a proposed program loosely defined in Council Member Lynette McElhaney’s press release, the body of which is posted below the column. I have edited his piece for brevity and clarity.

Here’s some background on the origin of this funding [estimated at $300k] which will provide loans to landlords who evict long-term tenants. These are tenants who now have the right to relocation fees due to the hardship of displacement. I’ll leave it up to the reader as to what extent this funding redefines spin, irony and general what-the-heckism?!

http://www.oaklandpost.org/2018/05/31/oakland-allocated-2-2-million-prevent-evictions-mayors-staff-failed-spend-money/

City Council Member McElhaney Advances a Landlord-Written Tenant-Eviction Plan Funded by State Anti-displacement Grants

At the end of a 4-1/2 hour Community and Economic Development Committee meeting Tuesday afternoon, Council Member McElhaney rushed a plan to provide “no-interest” city loans (and/or grants) to small property owners by an exhausted 3-person committee.  The objectionable plan would enable and assist owners of duplexes and triplexes to evict longtime tenants from their homes of up to 20 or 30 years.  The hastily developed proposal — for which McElhaney somehow recruited Council Member Rebecca Kaplan as a co-sponsor — was framed by landlord advisers to McElhaney –with no opportunity for tenant advocates to review or comment on the proposal prior to its introduction at the Community and Economic Development Committee at its Tuesday meeting.
Oakland has a “Just Cause” ordinance that prohibits the eviction of tenants without cause except in the case of owner move-ins to include family members who displace existing tenants in duplexes and tri-plexes up to five units. In response to that loophole, the City also recently adopted an ordinance that requires these owners to pay significant relocation fees to tenants who may be evicted, due to no fault of their own. These evictions also result in removing these units from the Just Cause prohibition against no-fault eviction.  While the right of such owners and certain relatives to occupy their property is acknowledged, tenants, who have done nothing wrong but are inconvenienced and evicted by their owners and must search for a replacement home, must still be compensated by the occupying owners.
What CM McElhaney has proposed is actually “an incentive” for small property owners to get long-standing tenants out of their homes, and, in the process, have the city pay for the eviction.  Meanwhile, there is no monitoring by the city, so many of these evicting owners will only pretend to occupy, but may never actually live in the unit.  The owner is then able to re-rent the unit at exorbitant prices — a deception that the city will likely never discover.  Many of these no-interest “so-called loans” will actually become grants of public money because the owners will plead low-income, refuse to pay, resell their property, or even put their homes into reverse mortgages.  These evicting owners will not be required to make a down payment nor matching payments, they simply apply to the city and the full cost of the tenants’ eviction and relocation cost is paid for them — making the city the “Evictor-In-Chief.”
This flawed, ill-thought-out ordinance was advanced to City Council by the unanimous vote of Councilmembers Noel Gallo and Anne Campbell-Washington who joined with Lynette McElhaney.  As so often happens in committees and even at city council, despite the fact that obvious weaknesses in the proposed legislation were pointed out in detail,  not one of the council members bothered to even ask any questions.
James E Vann, Co-Founder
Oakland Tenants Union 
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Press Release: “Committee Strengthens Anti-Displacement Efforts”

“McElhaney and Kaplan Advance Amendment to Help Low-Income Owners Support Tenant Relocation

On Tuesday, June 26, 2018, Oakland’s Community and Economic Development Committee unanimously  approved the establishment of a city loan program to help distressed low-income homeowners advance required tenant relocation funds. Under the amendment advanced by Councilmembers Lynette Gibson McElhaney and Rebecca Kaplan, the City will make available no interest loans to fund required tenant relocation payments for cash-strapped  homeowners seeking to return to their homes. To qualify, owners must meet a strict set of criteria including:

  • Own 5 or fewer units
  • Be low-income or have less than 6 months of financial reserves
  • Be denied a cash-out refinance loan on their property, and
  • Certify that the relative moving in is also low or moderate income and does not own any other real estate

“This is common sense anti-displacement legislation that helps preserve the social and economic diversity of home ownership in our City, especially of African American and other low income legacy owners,” said Councilmember McElhaney. “This is about addressing all sides of the displacement issue and not creating pressure on legacy owners to sell the homes they want to return to.”

This past January, the City Council amended the Uniform Residential Tenant Ordinance requiring that tenants who are evicted for an owner or relative move in receive relocation  payments. Payments range from $6,500 for a studio or one-bedroom unit to $9,875 for a three or more bedrooms. These payments may pose a hardship for low income and low asset owners, especially those who need to recover possession of their homes to support themselves or relatives.

The Ordinance will be heard by the full City Council at its next meeting on July 10. ”

Your Resistance To Do List for the week of June 25th

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Families_2

Just added a couple more activities this week due to the horrors coming at us, I’m sure there will be more. Please sign up to twitter.com and keep track. You’ll find me @bethpikegirl

New-Today, Wednesday, June 27th, Bay Resistance is asking you to rally 4 pm at Unon Square or 5 pm at 767 Market St, SF over the Janus SCOTUS decision, bit.ly/januswhy

Since I was out of the country for a bit, the pace of resistance has necessarily picked up in reaction to the pace of government cruelty and incompetence. Not to worry-just kidding, worrying is absolutely required- just pick as many of these actions as you can handle and then add one…or two. Here goes:

Tomorrow, June 25th, Martinez–

Organize against the possible use of the old Concord Naval Base for Detention/Internment Centers:

https://www.facebook.com/events/635555746779348/

Tuesday, June 26th, Oakland City Hall–     2016-03-25 22.08.15 (640x360)

Demand a 180-Day Moratorium of the Sale of Public Land Until the Council Adopts a Public Land Policy, 1 PM, Oakland City Council. More info here-

http://www.oaklandpost.org/2018/06/08/moratorium-public-land-sales-goes-ced-committee-tuesday-june-12/

Also at the City Council Finance Committee- Dan Kalb’s proposing a progressive change to the real estate transfer tax that could raise money for housing services, etc. Let’s get it on the ballot.

https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/will-oakland-adopt-a-mansion-tax/Content?oid=9612287

And Tuesday at the West County Detention Center in Richmond from 7 am to 7 pm. Protest immigration policy and mass incarceration. More info here-

Flyer-June 26 Outreach Families Belong Together

New-Wednesday, June 27th, Oakland Marriott Picket Line, 4 to 7 pm.

https://onejob.org/take-action/

Thursday, June 28th, Humanist Hall in Oakland, the Wellstone Club presents Conn Hallinan on current economic and political conditions in Europe plus election round-up, Potluck at 6, meeting, 7 to 9 pm.

Wellstoneclub.org

New-Friday, at the Alameda County Board of Supes, Audit the Sheriff, 10 am to noon

All Eyes on the Sheriff Campaign, https://www.facebook.com/events/146300372910102/?active_tab=about

The biggie for this week on Saturday, happening all over including Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda and even Piedmont. Check in here-

https://act.moveon.org/event/families-belong-together/search/?source=dk&link_id=1&can_id=bcd62df92c25e6923fe975c71662e4c5&email_referrer=email_375009&email_subject=statefull-default-attn-were-taking-to-the-streets-will-you-join-us

 

For general info on how to keep families together WITHOUT incarcerating them, use thisunnamed–

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSlGbJ_hCLNs3qF0h4br7rBfvASsAMQlGqMx12xnMiSdR9jyHHu5Hvi_QgR3kD59TYqCaiFAILEyQNA/pub

    

And just for fun, on Wednesday between 5:30 and 7:30 pm, some of us will gather for a margarita and goodies at Mexicali Rose which will be closing this coming Friday, as Oakland, continues to change. Hope to see you at any or all of these places!

Your Friend,       download

Pamela

An Open Letter to Nancy O’Malley and her Supporters

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Sanctuary Campaign

It has come to our attention that Alameda County Sheriff Ahern has offered to contribute significant financial resources to your campaign for reelection to the position of Alameda County District Attorney.

Sheriff Ahern has proven his allegiance to the Republican Party and the Trump regime by his words and his actions.

  • The sheriff applied for and accepted a grant from the federal government which most other local agencies declined due to the requirements, including assisting ICE in detaining immigrants in our sanctuary state.   https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Alameda-County-gets-U-S-grant-to-hire-officers-12373292.php ““The tension in Alameda County is that is has a set of sanctuary city policies that are generally immigrant friendly, but the sheriff has always decided that his policy is going to be fairly significant cooperation with ICE,” said Santa Clara University law professor Pratheepan Gulasekaram, who specializes in immigration law.”

These are just some of the concerns we have concerning the linking of our local system of justice with an agency run by an avowed supporter of AG Jeff Sessions and the Department of Justice. These are not the values of Alameda County, and according to DA O’Malley and her supporters, not her values either.

That is why we are asking her to refuse the use of these funds for any expenditures toward her re-election. If these funds are spent on mailers or other advertising without her knowledge, we respectfully request that she match these notices with those condemning such expenditures.

Sincerely,

The California Sanctuary Campaign

The Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club

The Coalition for Police Accountability

Reverend Deborah Lee, UCC Minister

Pastor James Alfred Smith, Jr.

Reverend David Brazil

Pastor Allison Tanner

Malena Mayorga, Immigrant Defense Advocate

[Please contact this website or Pamela Drake, pamelaadrake@gmail.com if you or your organization would like to be added to this letter.]

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The Last Memorial Day, I’m Done

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Okay, it was an interesting 242 years-if you’re using 1776 as a start date-or you could use 1607, the founding of Jamestown, and maybe that’s more fitting because according to https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/a-short-history-of-jamestown.htm “On July 30, 1619, newly appointed Governor Yeardley called for the first representative legislative assembly. This was the beginning of representative government in what is now the United States of America. In that same year, the first documented Africans were brought to Virginia.”

So there we are in a nutshell, a country founded not on freedom and democracy but on commerce and the allowance that some folks might have the right to a little bit of representation while others were here solely for the purposes of exploitation. Our sprawling country was seemingly founded by imperialists from Europe who sought to reproduce themselves. And now it seems time to call it a day….an exceptional day, but  a day nevertheless.

Ah, I know, we’re also a nation where in our little city of Oakland alone, 52 languages are spoken and one of the few countries where folks born here receive the rights of citizenship by birth (no and it didn’t happen just by passing the 14th amendment but through the struggle of the children of Chinese immigrants. See  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark.)

We have a Bill of Rights that was truly revolutionary at the time-setting out some important principles but we have to admit that the 4th and 6th amendments are on life support with the current government working hard to pull the plug (google search and seizure, prisoner rights, etc.) The First Amendment is now so contorted and confused-what with certain religionists forcing a new meaning in which their dogma is to be protected while corporations, with the aid of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, contain and control the media what we know about how business and government work.

Well, no conspiracy theories are necessary to see that our huge country of feudal like kingdoms no longer works very well. And I’m not just talking about the failure to prevent a Goebbels-like tinpot dictator from being “elected” president while his less than competent crime family steals our country’s resources in front of our eyes.

We don’t have a democracy. If we didn’t see that before, it’s all too clear now. Two party rule which can so easily devolve to 1 party rule in such a short time, puts the lie to the uses of representative government versus a parliamentary form with all its complex compromises and muddle now seems to offer a little more-at least if it was in bite size form. Our supersized system produces little more than diabetic offspring.

We don’t even have a national voting policy. Each state or municipality can determine (with a few restrictions) who will vote, when and how. More people have lost their rights to suffrage in the last decade than ever gained it after the Civil Rights laws were finally passed. Between voter suppression laws, reduced polling places and times, to say nothing of foreign interference and machine hacking, we have disenfranchised many more by virtue of our zeal to imprison more folks than, well, it looks like, anybody. Here’s a stat from 2013, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate.

“In October 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world’s population, it houses around 22 percent of the world’s prisoners.”

We can’t even agree with the rest of the world on how to measure stuff or note dates. For those few of us who will get a passport and leave the continent (actually it’s worse than that. Both Mexico and Canada use the metric system,) it’s damn hard to book your stay or apply for visas with our antiquated system. We can’t understand how far anything is or even what time our tour starts unless it’s translated to our so “exceptional” brains. I had to unlearn using my fork and knife in a natural way in favor of swapping them out every time I took a bite after spending a year in Germany at the tender age of 17.

Now we have a rich and powerful country with almost no allies, save Guatemala and Israel. No one much cares about what Guatemalans do-if we’re honest most of us have no idea where it is-and the world over is condemning current Israeli policies in their colonies. [I must assert-no Philistine I-that I have been to Guatemala twice and loved it.]

Everyone gets exercised over national politics but few can do anything at all about them. Do you believe you had any say in who was nominated for president other than feeling personally slighted when your chosen candidate did not get the nod?

But, ok, our local form of democracy has its problems. For instance, in my city when a politician colors outside of the box [by working to get local folks trained for local jobs that local taxes paid for,] she is called a criminal and compared to Trump. She has a predictable reaction to criticism that forces people to chose sides with her or “agin” her (not useful) but when our police chief is caught in a mistake, instead of apologizing, she then lies with charts and drawings (glossies,) she is not compared to GOP characters who do that stuff even better.

Remember Arlo Guthrie (probably not since you’re all 20 years younger than me at least) “Cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American
Blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the
Judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy
Pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each
One explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. ” from Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m57gzA2JCcM

Anyway, since that song is about illegal dumping, I better not mention it since in our city, dumping garbage has become a more serious crime than allowing people to live in tents surrounded by their own filth.

Back to the problem, the United States of America. The number of crises we are confronting since the inauguration of 45, widely understood now to be an illegally elected POTUS, have grown so rapidly, the level of cruelty casual and deliberate has grown beyond what your average soccer mom can comprehend. Some of us were already painfully aware of many of them before this stolen or just bungled election and now, what..uh,yeah…what??

in some countries when they get fed up enough like Poland or Romania, it is possible to take to the streets or go on strike where your capital city, like Paris, is also the most important city. You can make things so inconvenient that governments fold or flee or just shoot down enough people to hold off change for another decade or so. But in the US, places like Washington DC, Harrisburg and Sacramento are the seats of government but otherwise, who cares?

Hardly anyone even in little Oakland knows how the government works or why PG&E, a private company, is in charge of our most important utility, doing it poorly. Just read Nextdoor for an hour or so, low information voters also live in the enclaves of the well-educated and well compensated.

So my modest proposal is that we devolve into regional entities. California is large enough and its residents confused enough to immediately become a country of its own. We grow our own avocadoes and weed, almonds, all on gluten-free trees. Really, we could be two or even three states. One for the folks who think like Alabamans, another for the vegans and the rest for those of us moderate meat eaters who like their edibles on the side.

We could conceivably have our own healthcare system once we are done arguing over how to do it with the purest of motives. Ok, so maybe not. But as Californians we know that thinking will just make it so, not to worry your little botoxed head.

Now that Georgia and Texas have real progressive female candidates, they could get elected and ship their Trump voters to Mexico which could turn out to be the biggest joke on us all once they see they how much they like it-beautiful culture, great food and plenty of holidays plus a very top down government.

Yeah, I know, there’s a blue wave a’comin. And there might be. There are lots of exciting and interesting candidates and the soccer moms are furious. Throw in the rest of us who have been pissed off for a long time, things can change. But Trump and his damage won’t go away soon. The Judiciary is being overhauled top to bottom. We might end up waxing nostalgic for the days when we could lambaste Justice Scalia instead of his younger paler technocratic replacement. The blandness of evil, eh, Neil Gorsuch?

That’s it for me. I need a new country. One in which I have some agency and in which there are national programs for healthcare, education through grad school, real public utilities including use of a modernized internet, no prison industrial complex but a renewable energy complex and housing is a right. Oh yeah, and we play the same national sports the rest of the world gives a dam about but not until the Oakland Warriors win another championship.

Yeah, you know I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…https://www.google.com/search?q=imagine+youtube&oq=imagine%2C+youbu&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.5924j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

My 2018 Primary Recommendations & a Look Foward to November

/ draketalkoakland / 2 Comments

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Vote Dan Kalb AD 15, Pamela Price DA, & Write-in N.O. Confidence for Sheriff

You got your ballot in the mail and your handbook before that and wow, this is another fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. With an open seat in Berkeley/Oakland/Richmond for state assembly and our current governor being termed out from his last incarnation, we have lots of folks to study and TV ads to avoid.

So let’s tackle the governor’s race first. Like most Californians, or most voters, I don’t know any of these guys and gals too well. At least the current governator was once our mayor and though I didn’t much like him, I had some idea what he’d do. Scratch that, with Jerry you’re never sure of anything.

The once flamboyant Governor Moonbeam has turned into Gov Scrooge and it’s well known by all our legislators that if we want more money for programs for kids and housing for the bottom, say, 75% of us, we’ll have to wait for the next boss in Sacramento.

Governor-Delaine Eastin

Gavin Newsom had sucked all the air out of the room until two billionaire charter school proponents, Eli Broad and Reed Hastings, started pumping billions into the race for Antonio Villaraigosa. Having met him once and found him to be a bit sleezy and a lot opportunistic, I would take Gavin over him if those were the only choices.

However, despite Newsom’s image as the brave guy who promoted marriage equality, I remember when San Francisco was on the brink of total gentrification from a wonderful pastiche of cultures and revolutionary instincts to the stultifying center of finance and tech bros it seems to be today, and Newsom presided over that change, encouraging it all the way. Oakland is there now and woe to us if we don’t heed the warning signs.

So my choice was between State Treasurer John Chiang and former Schools Superintendent Delaine Eastin.  Delaine has all the right instincts and when I saw her at Oakland’s rally to repeal Costa Hawkins law which prohibits many municipalities from passing renter protections,  I gave her my vote. You should too.

Lieutenant Governor-Gayle McLaughlin

I am not excited about this race but most voters never are. The only obvious reason to run is to be the next in line for governor. I had thought to endorse Ed Hernandez and then looked at his list of supporters-I was very impressed that he has all the union support but then noticed that that included all the police unions and that worries me. It’s already very difficult to get police reform bills passed, and I doubt he would oppose anything police unions support.

Gayle McLaughlin has operated in the tiny crucible that is Richmond politics where Chevron is the obvious villain to be opposed and most who do, come out looking like heroes. I find her naive and not as grounded as I would like but I will vote for her in lieu of the establishment candidates. BTW, if you notice the inundation of your airwaves with Kounalakis ads, look her up. She is a developer who is the daughter of a developer who has spent her life being appointed to high profile commissions. Don’t let the Obama imprimatur cloud your weepy eyes.

US Senator-Kevin De Leon

State Senator De Leon is responsible for most of the progressive legislation which got through the legislature this year as he was the Senator Pro Tem who pushed and organized the resistance including defining us as a sanctuary state. Now that Senator Feinstein has managed to portray herself as a staunch supporter of the Resistance and, given her millions in campaign cash, Kevin may have little chance but we should look for him to lead our state in some other capacity soon.

Congress-Barbara Lee Speaks for Me-as always

CA Secretary of State-?

I’m sure there are folks who can tell you why or why not to continue to support the incumbent, Alex Padilla, but I could find little or no information on that race. It looks like Padilla is guaranteed a return to that office.

Also, the Wellstone Voting Rights Task Force, for complicated reasons, is voting no endorsement in this race.

Betty Yee for Controller and Malia Cohen for State Board of Equalization.

Attorney General-Xavier Becerra

Ok, so I changed horses in mid-season. My club, the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, had heartily endorsed Dave Jones for Insurance Commissioner and feted him with a celebratory dinner. I got many calls from him and finally decided to endorse him before the California Democratic Convention back in February.

But then I got more info from someone who worked as an attorney in that department under both Garamendi and Jones. Describing Jones as insurance commissioner,”Jones could have pursued a pro-consumer agenda, like John Garamendi. But instead he was as passive as he could possibly be. He didn’t even bother to replace people who were in positions subject to his appointment. He just left the Republican holdovers to keep doing whatever they were doing (he didn’t seem to know or care).”

And more specifically as a reference to Jones’ environmental platform, “But where he has real power to help consumers–by making insurance companies treat policyholders fairly–he’s pathetically timid.
Here’s an example I {former employee} know about:  the insurance commissioner has the authority to disapprove all health insurance contracts (policies). There are department lawyers who review every word to make sure it complies with the law.
There was a huge backlog of these policies (the insurers could use them until and unless they were disapproved).  While literally thousands of these policies were sitting without review the laws changed and included more consumer protections. I tried to get those policies disapproved, since they clearly no longer were valid.
But the policies were being used by insurance companies and Dave Jones didn’t want to upset them. So he ordered that they all be approved, even though they all violated the law.”
I’ve heard that Jones was weak on money bail reform while Becerra was not. So I am now endorsing AG Becerra. Maybe Jerry managed to do something right.
Tony Thurmond for Superintendent of Schools-very important!
Now to the fun down ballot stuff. It often seems like throwing darts at your handbook would work just fine which leads me to believe that some of these positions should be appointed rather than elected as they are based on professional credentials that few have and even fewer may desire. But here we go:
Assessor-James Johnson
I can’t say I know a lot about this office though I suspect it’s one that shouldn’t be based on political expertise. I have a recommendation from a progressive friend who has worked with him that Johnson does indeed know the work of this office and is highly competent to carry it on. She is concerned about that the next assessor see the job as important and not just as a political stepping stone so I’m going with that.
Auditor-Controller-Irella Blackwood
Ok, I’ll admit to knowing little about what this office does too but it seems very important. One of the reasons I chose Irella was that during a forum she mentioned why she would present more transparent reports than her opponent Melissa Wilk, who already works in the county auditor’s office, is currently doing. Of course, promises are cheap and we’ll have to see but it is a concept her opponent did not push.
They both have great endorsements but Blackwood’s includes Ann-Marie Hogan while Wilk’s includes Sheriff Ahern who is being targeted by civil rights groups demanding his department be audited for why spending is going up for county jails while prisoner numbers are falling.
I’m sure they would both be fine auditor’s but I want to see this office removed from the sheriff’s influence.
County Board of Supervisors- Wilma Chan-this incumbent has quietly led the fight against the worst of the Trump crimes here in Alameda County.
District Attorney-Pamela Price
I’m happy to note that since I endorsed her, George Soros has followed my lead, LOL and pumped some money into mailers to elect her and other progressives into the office most responsible for mass incarceration of Black and Brown youth.
I’ve written more extensively about this endorsement here – https://draketalkoakland.com/tag/pamela-price/

And I will just add that while Nancy O’Malley has accomplished good things in the past, she is a traditional DA and the times call for innovation and a focus on dismantling mass incarceration. Whatever happens we should be grateful to Candidate Price for taking this on.

Sheriff-Write-In–N.O. Confidence

As I detailed in the blog above, there was a search for someone to run against this sheriff with the necessary law enforcement background but no one took that on despite our coalition’s effort. Since then, some of us have been beating the bushes to find a write-in candidate who would not be required to have the law enforcement certification but would be the antithesis of what most California sheriffs have become,  gung-ho supporters of the Trump anti-immigration policies and purveyors of the abuses of the mass incarceration state. Because they are elected independently, they act with impunity and little can be done to restrain their most negative impulses.

We still have until May 22nd to find a write-in candidate who embodies what real public safety would look like, a California where everyone is encouraged to watch out for each other without imposing their biases on them and where all feel free to come forward and ask for help in times of need. That person must be a registered voter in the county and be willing to obtain 20 signatures to prove it. That’s it, sign up!

But if as likely, no one steps forward-ideally a POC who works in the re-entry, anti-violence or public health field-then we will promote a campaign for everyone to write in the well known anti-sheriff candidate (gluten free of course) N.O. Confidence, who uses the pronoun “they.“

State Assembly AD 18-Rob Bonta

Assembly Member Bonta is running unopposed probably because he is one of the hardest working folks in that body and is one of our reps who ushered in the resistance against the regime in DC while also fighting for affordable housing, renter protections, and money bail reform. That’s just a sliver of the issues he is taking on. Show him your support.

State Assembly AD 15-Dan Kalb

This is an open seat in a wide-open race. We have a well-heeled candidate, Buffy Wicks, whom almost no one knows and who has’t lived here for long but due to the Obama nostalgia and piles of cash, has a good chance of getting in the top 2 of our weird primary system.

Wicks is also not a supporter of the repeal of Costa Hawkins which would allow municipalities to enact renter protections on some of the units not now affected by any protections, and she is quite willing to take contributions from the charter school industry. Outside of those pivotal issues, she might be a fine rep but I have nothing to base that on. She worked in the Obama administration but I have no way to know what her real contribution was.

My candidate, Dan Kalb, is widely acknowledged to be the most likely to write successful legislative initiatives in the legislature. His expertise ranges from environmental experience to fighting for affordable housing through knowledge of and a willingness to enact police reform. He is a principled politician who will not make promises he can’t keep.

So now I have to add that I like Jovanka Beckles and Cheryl Sudduth. I keep scratching my head wondering why CNA, the nurses’s union, declined to support Beckles in favor of a political neophyte when they might have put Jovanka over the top. Maybe it’ll still happen, we’ll see. In terms of Cheryl, I am really impressed by the number of issues she is involved in, particularly the layers of sanctuary she reps, and the passion with which she addresses them.

Judge Superior Court-Karen Katz

When Tara Flanagan ran she made a big splash and was a very visible and able politician. But since then she has disappointed those who closely watch trials as more law and order, especially for Black defendants, than was hoped for when elected.

Karen Katz has spent her life as a public defender and is running because she says, “we are all safer when justice is administered fairly.” I have no idea if she has a chance to beat a sitting judge, actually that is probably unlikely, but given some of what I have heard about Judge Flanagan’s court, it’s worth a try.

Propositions-County & Regional

RM3-NO

This measure raises the tolls on the Bay Bridge over the next few years to fund a hodgepodge of projects which claim to be public transit oriented but list to the side of ferry boats while stalling out on your daily AC Transit route leaving you stranded as you bike, albeit in better lanes, to the BART where your wait might be a couple of minutes shorter or not, depending on where you live. As one wag said, these are projects inspired by a transit agency that recently moved to the west bay at great expense but wants East Bay drivers to fund far flung transit and highway improvements to traffic nightmares wrought by Silicon Valley. Why must we continue to pay for all their sins?

The worst part about this mishegoss of a measure is that once these tolls are implemented, there will be no place left to go for funding by transit agencies which are still cleaning up the crumbs left by this mess.

As Jack Kurzweil, one of the founders of the Wellstone Club says, “The projects are not presented as part of a grand plan to address the future transportation needs of the Bay Area.  That’s because there is no such grand plan.  Consequently, there is little basis upon which to evaluate the choice of projects.  They are parts without a whole.  The Bay Area needs a transportation vision that makes sense.”

County Measure A-Childcare-Yes

Although it’s a small increase to the sales tax, the type of tax I rarely favor, we can handle this to fund something as desperately needed as good childcare. I recently bought shoes in Santa Monica and their sales tax is higher-yet I saw lots of shoppers there so go ahead and vote for this.

City of Oakland Measure D-Libraries-Yes

This is a relatively small increase in property tax, $75, but it will have a big impact especially for children for whom their local library branch is a sanctuary and the 30% whose school libraries have been shuttered. With this tax, library hours can be increased as well as the services they supply.

By the way, as some of you may know, adult education was wiped out in Oakland over the last decade and the library is one of the remaining spaces which provides adult literacy classes. And if, like me, you’re a kindle user, the library is a great place to get your ebooks too and the librarians are quite helpful in getting you signed up.

Prop 68-Yes-Park bonds

Prop 69-Yes-funds for Transportation to be spent on Transportation-Duh

Prop 70-NO, no,no-Don’t hobble the Legislature waiting on Republican votes for these projects

A Word about the Upcoming Mayoral & Council Contests

As many of Oaklanders look forward to the fall 2018 elections to remove some of the Trump stain, we also have to take stock of our city. We see the cranes all over the downtown and the crowds at the Lake. We have a plethora of renowned restaurants to choose from when we go out–and all this is good.

But  we may be becoming inured to the ever growing empire of tents, the daily displacement of families & couch surfing youth; at the same time as many of our 1920’s cottages turn into million dollar homes, more and more of us live in unspeakable and highly visible squalor on our streets. And others band together in older homes and apartments hoping that when they go out to work, they don’t get attacked and deported by agents of a xenophobic and lawless regime in Washington.

Our neighbor San Francisco now has the lowest percentages of families of any city in the country. Are we on the verge of becoming the same kind of city as that, cleansed of  its Black leaders, its Latino entrepreneurs, its artists and writers, its Bohemian youth, those who struggle and yearn for justice and new ways of living?

We are in the last moments when the way out of that reductionist and ultimately bleak future is clear–reelecting the folks who have tinkered with small solutions and toyed with our fears while so many go quietly away from us, is not the answer. Just as we’re doing on the national scene, we must allow our creative and compassionate ideas to flow and design the Oakland we have always dreamed of. That means we must stop looking for someone to blame and start proposing bold even outlandish solutions, then join with others to make them happen. Si se puede.

PS. Don’t be fooled by those who denounce the regime in Washington while doing little for the least of these in our hometown. Watch what they do, not what they say.

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Trump was Right or They go Low but We Make Jokes?

/ draketalkoakland / 1 Comment

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Not another commentary on the White House Correspondents Dinner, yeah, just a short one. Cause I do have a couple things to add to the mishegoss.

I know  you all heard about Michelle Wolf disparaging Press Secretary Sarah Sanders looks. Well, actually she didn’t and that’s enough of that [but wait, are we as women warriors so fragile? The woman’s face displays all the anger, rage and contempt that her boss has for us.]

You may have missed some of Wolf’s other points and many of them were significant. The current state of comedy is in fact all I have to hold onto. It’s where I learn to find perspective on the true state of our country.

She picked on the one part of Trump’s identity that is subject to shame and that is his supposed wealth. We can guess that their are two good reasons that the fake president does not want his taxes released. The most important of which is that they will show what a poor businessman he is, what a loser who started out with millions, looks like when he has to go to money launderer’s and vile dictators for loans. She said, “Trump is so broke he had to borrow money from the Russians and is now susceptible to blackmail and possibly responsible for collapse of the republic, yay.” Not the funniest joke but the best thumbnail analysis of the mess we’re in.

“But it turns out that Trump is the one pussy you’re not allowed to grab….he said it first, remember?” So while I hate the use of the term pussy to describe something that is weak since that so obviously isn’t true, in this case the use of it is brilliant, it’s a triple entendre, I think.

“Trump is racist though, he loves white nationalists which is a weird term for a Nazi. Calling a Nazi a white nationalist is like calling a pedophile a kid friend.” Great line to illustrate how we have softened the ways we describe the most vile people on the planet.

Her comments about Wall Street were perfect and described succinctly how our government colluded with financial criminals, thieves who have never been punished.

“Although I haven’t been sexually harassed [referring to her time working at Bear Stearns in 2008,] I’ve definitely been fucked. That whole company went down on me without my consent…and no men got in trouble for that one either.” Bada boom! Sexually explicit, not really but wow, pretty descriptive. With Michelle, the last throwaway line is always the kicker.

“Chappaquidick in theaters now” for instance reminds us of the ironies of our changing values. It refers of course to the ouster of Senator Al Franken in a moment of self-righteous panic. Think about how the discussions that are going on in the Senate now [if there any] would’ve looked if Franken were still there and try to hold that in your brain while you ponder what health care would’ve looked like without Ted Kennedy. But don’t think about it too long, you’ll get vertigo and end up “under a tree” hehe.

Did you miss this one, “You guys are going through cabinet members quicker than Starbucks throws out Black people, but don’t worry they’re having an afternoon, that’ll solve it.”

There were some jokes that while I couldn’t help but laugh, also worried my sense of political correctness like those about Mitch McConnell’s neck or Paul Ryan’s missing balls, probably cause I tend to think of having balls as having no sense but charging ahead anyway. That line was good for this crowd though since it gratified some while enraging others or maybe not-last throwaway line on him-“Yeah, bye Paul.” Does anyone even care anymore what that prick does? Oops.

To the Dems referring to the midterms, “You’re somehow gonna lose by 12 points to a guy named Jeff-Pedophile-Nazi-Doctor…oh, he’s a doctor?”

On Ivanka, since no one has freaked out yet on her picking on the First Daughter, I’ll remind you, “she’s done nothing to satisfy women-I guess like father like daughter….pause while they gasped…”oh you don’t think he’s good in bed, com’on.”

On the Handmaids’ Tale, “Mike pence if you haven’t seen it you would love it,” ok that’s VP Pence in a very small nutshell [do I feel a pun coming on, nah, I’ll leave that to Colbert. He loves dick jokes.]  download (6)

She had excellent put downs of every cable news station and one beloved network show that takes itself way too seriously. You could figure out what is happening on This Is Us without any dialogue if all you did was listen to its lugubrious soundtrack. And then she got to our beloved Rachel, “watching Rachel Maddow is like going to Target. You went in for milk but you left with shampoo, candles and the entire history of the Byzantine Empire.” Is it possible to write a better critique of what went wrong with the Maddow show?

“And of course, Megyn Kelly. What would I do without Megyn Kelly…ah probably be more proud of women.” Boom.

You probably heard the comments she made on how the media gave us Trump and why they don’t cover anything but him, best lines, “You guys are obsessed with Trump. Did you used to date him? Because you pretend that you hate him but I think you love him.” Nailed it.

images (2) Ending with, “Goodnight. Flint still doesn’t have clean water!”

After which Trump tweeted that the the WHC dinner “is dead as we know it.” In the interests of keeping the press alive, I have to agree. The need for access and “civility” that only flows one way, the obscene comradery between celebrity reporters, CEOs and the Trump crime family all swishing out in their designer finery has absolutely nothing in common with reporters who eke out stories in our local papers or even TV reporters who have to carry their own cameras much less those of us who follow and investigate the news for nothing after Wall Street emptied the press rooms around the towns, cities-and  the foreign offices where people die trying to get their story. download (7)

Speaking of that, Dana Milbank excoriated Ms. Wolf the day after, saying that instead there should just be a ceremony eulogizing the journalists who died in the line of duty. Yeah, lots of folks will watch that, Dana [are you sad cause your mom named you that?] Yeah, and those of us out here who know we are under attack from this regime, experienced a cathartic moment hearing the truth told by this squeeky-voiced lady and we deserve at least that.

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 Medics carry an injured woman to the ambulance at a hospital after a suicide attack in Kabul Photograph: Mohammad Ismail/Reuters

But if you desire civility with Nazis and in any way see yourselves on the same side as them, we don’t. It’s not an existential threat. That’s way too pretty and removed from what we’re experiencing-the list is too long to enumerate-it’s a very real threat. We don’t want to work alongside those who would destroy our environment, our rights, our families, and our hope.

Lest we get lulled into a stupor by the horror of it all, we need a regular dose of affirmations like this, succinct clear representations of what we are up against and why we need to continue resisting it all. You can say Michelle was mean but I felt the love. It radiated over the tops of the heads of the bourgeoisie all the way to the children of Flint. Those of you “clutching your pearls,” can grow a real pussy.

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