Here’s the text of a new bill in Congress: PDF.

Here’s a petition from Code Pink promoting it.

Needless to say, this is the best bill introduced into Congress in decades.

Here’s the ending:

“Congress supports moves to reduce the priority given to war in our foreign policy and our current war-based national economy by using significant cuts, up to $350,000,000,000 as detailed above, from current budget plans, while using the funds to increase our diplomatic capacity and for domestic programs that will keep our Nation and our people safer.”

The details above in the text of the bill include:

(1) eliminating the Overseas Contingency Operations account and saving $68,800,000,000;

(2) closing 60 percent of foreign bases and saving $90,000,000,000;

(3) ending wars and war funding and saving $66,000,000,000;

On Sunday morning, June 14 there was a Short North demonstration in support of North Star and Brassica restaurant staff who have quit in protest of the 50% discount given to police officers, as well as the refusal of the owners to sign on to a Columbus City Council Resolution declaring racism a public health issue. 

Unless election protection activists rise up, primary election disasters in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Georgia could signal the death of American democracy this fall.

In all three states, gerrymandered Republican legislatures successfully sabotaged attempts to stage free and fair elections. They specifically targeted communities of color with mass disenfranchisement and degrading mistreatment at the polls.

In Wisconsin, attempts to deal with the coronavirus with Vote by Mail and reasonable postponements were aggressively assaulted by legislative fiat and partisan court decisions.

Mayor Ginther and many others are calling for a civilian review board to investigate and rule on police misconduct, but recent history from other cities has shown many civilian review boards to be mostly ineffective.

Take Minneapolis, which has had several civilian review boards come and go over this century. Since 2012, over 2,600 complaints were filed against police, but only 12 resulted in discipline, the most severe punishment being a 40-hour suspension, this according to the Communities United Against Police Brutality, a twin-city advocacy group.

The fundamental problem is, almost all civilian review boards in the US can only recommend how police should be punished. Out of the 200 civilian review boards in our major cities, only a handful have the authority to make final decisions on punishment.

Final say on punishment is instead delivered by a department’s chief of police or a city’s safety director.

If Minneapolis had a civilian review board with the final authority on how police should be disciplined – such as removing an officer from duty – would George Floyd be alive today?

Over 200 people have quickly signed a new petition in Charlottesville, Va. at http://bit.ly/cvillepeace

Almost all of the signers are from Charlottesville.