Support Masonique Saunders - Victim of Columbus Police Injustice

Close up of young black woman smiling

https://youtu.be/9zMu9Y7aues

Featured during this esteemed film festival is a real life example of biased law-enforcement running roughshod over a community of color. A challenge to our solidarity, a plea to donate to the defense fund for 16 years young Masonique Saunders, who is being charged with Felony Murder (and being charged as an adult has been mentioned), for the murder ACTUALLY committed by a Columbus Police officer and his Columbus Police issued gun. ...and his Columbus Police issued training.

Two U.S. Veterans For Peace Refused Bail, Charged with Trespassing at Shannon Airport

Bases, Europe, Nonviolent Activism

Two U.S. Veterans For Peace Refused Bail at Ennis District Court

Charged with Trespass and Causing Criminal Damage at Shannon Airport

Monday 18 March

Two US veterans were arrested at Shannon Airport on 17 March for entering the airfield to inspect and investigate an OMNI Air International plane on contract to the U.S. military. The two, Tarak Kauff and Ken Mayers, were refused bail at Ennis District Court today.

The plane, tail number N351AX, arrived at Shannon Airport about 8.30 a.m. from Eielson US air force base in Faribanks Alaska, believed to be on its way to the Middle East with up to 300 armed US troops.

At about 10 am Mayers, a former Marine Corps Major and Kauff, a former Army paratrooper, both members of US Veterans For Peace, entered the airfield carrying a large banner that said:

U.S. Veterans say

MARCH GREEN DRINKS. Earth Day Kick-Off

Drawing of a martini made out of a tree trunk and leaves at top with olives

Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Tickets: $5 for two drinks. In collaboration with Grange Audubon Center and Great Lakes Brewing Company, we invite you to join us for our March Green Drinks 2018. We will be selling drink tickets at $5 for two drinks. Snacks and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided for free. All proceeds will go towards Earth Day Columbus supplies (mulch, topsoil, etc).  We are excited about what can happen right here in Columbus in 2019. Help us make this event a great success. Bring your friends and family, and we hope to see you there! Stay updated and find out more about our participating tabling partners!  For more information regarding Earth Day: http://www.earthdaycolumbus.org/.   

Book review: Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson’s White House by Joshua Zeitz

White book cover with a photo of the back of a man holding his arms out wide and the title of the book and author name

The legacy of President Lyndon B. Johnson has been and forever shall be overshadowed by the war in Vietnam. But LBJ’s administration was about more than what he referred to as “that bitch of a war.” In the space of a little more than two years, Johnson’s administration developed the most ambitious and far reaching social policies since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Great Society—the phrase was thought up by his speech writer, the late Richard Goodwin, who had worked for JFK—enlarged and strengthened the miniscule American social safety net and provided, among other things, medical care for the old and the poor; food support; money for public schools; a domestic Peace Corps (VISTA); and community action programs. He also moved JFK’s stalled civil rights legislation through Congress, signing the Civil Rights Act in the summer of 1964; after a year and the four murders of voting rights activists, he signed the Voting Rights Act. He knew full well the political costs of both measures, but he supported them anyway. Johnson accomplished this from scratch and purposefully with a staff that was every bit as good as the vaunted Best and Brightest who worked for John F.

BLUES FOR MR. CHARLIE Theater Review The James Baldwin Renaissance Keeps Rolling Out the Hits:

Loft Ensemble’s lofty, must-see, powerful production of Blues for Mr. Charlie is the latest in a growing list of a revival of works by author/ playwright/polemicist James Baldwin, one of America’s “poet laureates” opposing racism. I believe this Renaissance was launched by Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s Best Documentary Academy Award-nominated 2016 I Am Not Your Negro, with Samuel L. Jackson giving voice to the man who wrote 1962’s The Fire Next Time and so much more.

 

Trolls Just Want to Have Fun

“Our research suggests that, for those (trolls) with sadistic personalities, (their) ideal self may be a villain of chaos and mayhem”

 

A 2014 psychology journal article done by a group of Canadian researchers studied the personality traits of internet trolls. The well-designed study was published in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences. It was titled “Trolls Just Want to Have Fun”.

 

The article included these comments:

 

“Trolling correlated positively with sadism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism”;

The Sins of Ilhan Omar Start With Challenging Rigid Orthodoxy

Democrats have gone all atwitter (pun intended), scattering ruffled feathers all over the barnyard as if a fox were after them when the only serious threat to their blinkered preconceptions comes from a bird of different plumage. Not all Democrats are squawking like chickens with their heads cut off (as it were), but enough of the older, backward-looking birds are making enough noise to make the whole party look idiotic.

In plainer language, the Democratic Party remains in the grip of white privilege, which can only be a losing position in a country where there’s no effective challenge to Trump for the white supremacy vote. Want proof? Nominate Biden. But that’s only a prediction. What’s going on right now in the House of Representatives is reprehensible enough as reflexive ideologues swarm to block the smallest whiff of any fresh air.

How Chatbots Win Elections

Drawing of hand holding a phone with texts happening on it and a robot off to the side texting too

Most of us are aware and skeptical of “bots” interfering with our daily lives. Some modern examples of this include suspicious insurance calls and obviously fake suitors on dating apps. It seems most of us have encountered them in one way or another.

The creation of these bots came from the modern need for automation — using robots to increase efficiency. This often means removing human responsibility. For instance, we know from the accounting industry that automation has all but erased the need for the human touch in data entry.

Medicare 4 All Barnstorm Canvases

Woman holding up a sign saying Medicare For All! Love it! Improve it!

March 17 (1:00 - 3:00 PM), March 20 (5:00 – 7:00 PM), and March 23 (10:00 AM – Noon), 2019
Almost a month ago, we hosted a Medicare 4 All Barnstorm, an initiative of National Nurses United (NNU).  Only through an "uprising" of the people, will the Medicare For All Act of 2019, HB 1384, be moved through the Congressional House. Canvassers will be going door to door to ask our neighbors to call their member of the Congressional House to become a cosponsor of Medicare.  If you would like to participate or need more information, please email to Bob Krasen, brkrasen@gmail.com.  In case these Canvasses are not convenient, go to the medicare4all.org website, click on ACTIONS, and the map will lead you to other Canvasses that are scheduled, hopefully nearby.  Location:  Meet at Whetstone Library, 3903 N High Street Columbus, 43214. 

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