Push Out Screening

The national Green Party Women’s Caucus is hosting a screening of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools on Saturday, October 3 at 8 pm. Pushout is a feature-length documentary that takes a close look at the educational, judicial, and societal disparities facing Black girls. Inspired by the groundbreaking book of the same name by renowned scholar Monique W. Morris, Ed.D, the documentary confronts the ways in which the misunderstanding of Black girlhood has led to excessive punitive discipline which in turn disrupts one of the most important factors in their lives, their education

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Write in Toya Woodland

It’s time to stand for something OR CONTINUE TO FALL FOR ANYTHING. Demand what we are owed, don’t be afraid we don’t have another 4 years. Without reparations, the wealth of American Descendants of Slavery Will Go From 2% to zero by 2050! We cannot survive as a people like that. Look around black Minnesotans, the 5th district is the 3rd worst place for black people to live in America.  Not only do we need reparations, but we need someone fighting for you in Congress.  I wish you all could see my heart, I honestly want to see all people living way above the poverty lines, owning their own businesses, owning the homes they are currently renting, I want to see all of Minnesota with Universal Health Care, using solar energy, snow plowed streets, clean water, I want Children to have laptops, and free internet so every child has a successful learning experience. I love people and I’m not telling people how they should not vote, but how to make your vote matter. Biden and Trump have an agenda for everyone but Black People, it’s time we tell this two-party system we are not going to just give you our vote without a black agenda that includes reparations.
No Tangibles, No Vote.

 

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Early Voting Begins in Minnesota! Get out and Vote!

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. Though, early voting by mail and in-person in Minnesota has begun.
 
For information about voting early by mail, including links to request an absentee ballot, go to: https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/other-ways-to-vote/vote-early-by-mail/
 
 
Need to register to vote or check your current registration? Go to: https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/register-to-vote/
 
Are you unable to vote early? Go to https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/election-day-voting/ for information on Election Day (November 3) voting.
 
To view your sample ballot and search candidate filings, go to: https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/whats-on-my-ballot/

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Green New Deal


Dems Take Green Party Candidate off Pennsylvania Ballot

  • Marc Levy/The Associated Press 

(Harrisburg) — The Green Party’s candidate for president did not strictly follow procedures for getting on Pennsylvania’s ballot in the November election and cannot appear on it, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday, delivering a win for Democrats as Joe Biden tries to capture the battleground state’s electoral votes.

The court, with a 5-2 Democratic majority, reversed the ruling by a Republican judge in a lower court on the candidacy of Green Party presidential nominee Howie Hawkins.

All five Democrats on the court joined the majority opinion. The court’s two Republicans agreed the Green Party did not meet the law’s requirements, but, in a dissenting opinion, said it might be possible to allow the Green Party to fix it retroactively.

The Hawkins and Biden campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Democrats have long gone to court to keep Green Party candidates off the ballot, worried that they will siphon otherwise liberal voters in close contests against Republicans in the politically polarized state.

In this case, Democratic party activists challenged what they said were disqualifying irregularities in how the Green Party filed affidavits for the presidential candidate that is supposed to accompany paperwork with at least 5,000 voter signatures to get on the ballot.

Initially, Green Party officials faxed in an affidavit of candidacy for a placeholder candidate — under whose nominal candidacy the party gathered the signatures — by the Aug. 3 deadline. It was submitted separately from the voter signature paperwork, which was delivered by hand.

Hawkins also submitted his affidavit to take the place of the placeholder candidate, a routine procedure used by third parties, given the necessity of gathering signatures before the party formally nominates a candidate.

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Texas Ballot Access

TEXAS 2020 ELECTIONS

Texas Supreme Court rules 3 Green Party candidates should be added back to November ballot

Democrats successfully sued last month to remove from the ballot the Green Party nominees for U.S. Senate, Railroad Commission and the 21st Congressional District.

Days before the deadline to mail ballots to overseas and military voters, the Texas Supreme Court ordered three Green Party candidates to be restored to the November ballot after Democrats had successfully sued to remove them.

The ruling, one of two issued by the Supreme Court on Tuesday that affects mail-in voting procedures, will lead to a scramble at county elections offices. The offices must now update their overseas and military ballots by the Saturday mailing deadline and send new, corrected ballots to replace any that had already been mailed.

Last month, a state appeals court last month sided with the Democrats, who were seeking to kick the candidates off the ballot because they had not paid filing fees. The three candidates are David Collins for U.S. Senate, Katija “Kat” Gruene for Railroad Commission and Tom Wakely for the 21st Congressional District.

The Texas Green Party appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court, which ruled Tuesday that the secretary of state “shall immediately take all necessary actions to ensure these candidates appear on the” November ballot. The Supreme Court did not give its rationale, but said a full opinion was forthcoming.

Also on Tuesday, the Supreme Court again blocked Harris County from sending mail-in ballot applications to all of its 2.4 million registered voters. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had requested the move, arguing in a filing that the mailing of the ballots would confuse voters. Unlike many states, Texas has not expanded mail-in ballot procedures during the coronavirus pandemic.

Texas allows voters to cast ballots by mail if they over 65, will be out of the county during the election period, confined in jail but otherwise eligible or if they cite a disability, which the state defines as a physical condition or illness that makes a trip to the polls a risky endeavor.

The Green Party ruling is the latest development in a spate of legal battles over third parties on the November ballot. At issue is a new requirement that third parties pay filing fees like Democrats and Republicans do. The law, passed last year by the Legislature, is the subject of multiple legal challenges, and many third-party candidates had not paid filing fees amid the pending litigation.

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Wisconsin Update

Well, we finally made the mainstream media, but while 2016 was all about slandering Stein/Baraka as Russian assets, this year it’s that Howie and Angela are tools of the Republican Party that are denying people in Wisconsin their absentee ballots.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Green Party’s track record as being the party of election integrity is clear. We are the ones regularly pressing for integrity from elections authorities around the country. We are the ones pushing to replace bad voting machines with auditable paper ballots and ending voter suppression via racist voter ID laws and party suppression.

The simple solution in Wisconsin is for the Democrats to immediately stop playing games and using delaying tactics to prevent voters from being able to support third-party candidates, get new ballots printed that include Howie and Angela as a choice, and send them out. Both major parties collude to boost their own electoral chances in a myriad of ways and deny voters’ and candidates’ major rights.

SO WHAT EXACTLY IS HAPPENING IN WISCONSIN?

Here’s a quick run-down:

  • When we realized that Angela Walker’s change of address could become an issue, we took it upon ourselves to inform the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
  • After three different sets of instructions over three days, the commission staff finally instructed us to include a notarized statement of candidacy with Angela’s new address when we filed the petitions…which we completed to the letter.
  • The state law only accepts a maximum of 4,000 signatures to be submitted for a minimum of 2,000 signatures needed to get on the ballot. We actually collected nearly 6,000. The staff of the Board of Elections found that more than 3,000 of the signatures were valid.
  • A challenge was filed against our petitions, claiming that the change of address invalidated many of them, which conveniently brought us to below 2,000 signatures.
  • None of the signatures were actually ruled invalid.
  • We were summoned to a hearing with the Elections Commission, during which we were restricted from offering testimony that pointed out the breakdown in process from the commission staff. Our rights of due process were severely restricted by the chair of the commission, a Democrat appointee.
  • The attorney representing the Democratic challenger huddled with the chair of the commission before the hearing to agree on how to restrict our testimony.
  • The commission ended up being deadlocked on the validity of the signatures, which means that they are presumed to be valid.
  • The commission did uphold the challenge to Angela’s address.
  • Because of these irregularities, we decided to sue. Because of the time constraints before absentee ballots were to be printed, we sued in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
  • It took time to find an attorney that would represent us, and every Democrat-aligned attorney we contacted ignored us.
  • The Court ordered the Wisconsin Elections Commission to provide a list of everyone who has requested an absentee ballot, as well as a list of everyone who has actually received one. That list was due last Tuesday at 5 pm CDT.
  • As of our last information, the Elections Commission was not able to provide those lists to the Court. They reported in the media that they were only able to find out information about some of the counties.
  • Yesterday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that NO county has actually mailed out an absentee ballot.

The Democrats are telling the media that they’ve mailed out thousands of ballots, when really county elections officials printed mailing labels and count these as “sent.” This is pure spin and a departure from the truth. They are waging a media battle against us to cover up their own failure to respect the democratic process and to ensure that accurate data was available on demand.

How can we trust that our elections will be fair, when the process is used as a soccer ball between the two ruling parties?

The delay is actually coming from the Democrats, not this campaign or the Green Party. If they would have allowed us to offer a proper testimony in the hearing, they would have been compelled to deny the challenge. If they would have accurate information on county elections data at their fingertips as they should have, there would be no delay.

Further, we have never had any conversations with the state GOP. They are not directing our legal actions. We are compelled by the wishes of nearly 6,000 Wisconsinites who want to see the Green Party on the ballot.

We will not back down from our position that Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker should be placed on the ballot without further delay. Our signatures are solid, the paperwork is in order, and in the interest of serving democracy, the Democrats should abandon the spin and misinformation and step aside so that absentee ballots can be sent out.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

  • Keep in mind that people who are voting against Trump but are willing to compromise on Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, etc. should campaign harder and state their case better, not attack democracy.  You can’t point your finger at Trump if you advocate for doing the same sorts of things.
  • Share this post.  The mainstream media is promoting the Democrat talking points.  We need YOU to counteract that.
  • Sign up to volunteer and phone bank.  You can live anywhere to phone bank into Wisconsin.
  • Donate to help us counteract the Democrat spin with ads and social media.
  • VOTE FOR HOWIE AND ANGELA.  The Wisconsin Green Party needs at least 1% of the statewide vote to regain ballot access and thereby put solid progressives everywhere on the ballot…including in the state legislature, so that they can fix these bad ballot access laws.
  • Tell others that how you vote against Trump matters.  If you want to get rid of Trump AND vote for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, etc., vote for Howie and Angela.

Sandra Bland Reparations Rally

Pictured in this Photo Green Party of the 5th Congressional District endorsed candidate for US Representative Toya Woodland and Mother of Hardel Sherrell Del Shea Perry

Activists gathered in Saint Paul today to demand reparations for those whose ancestors are descendants of American Slavery at the Sandra Bland Rally. The event was in honor of Sandra Bland and the unjust treatment of Black women economically and in the criminal justice system. Sandra Bland was a 28-year-old beautiful loving activist African American woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on July 13, 2015, three days after being arrested during a heated altercation with a police officer during a traffic stop when she was pulled over for no reason. Sandra Bland Traffic Stop   

The incident sparked outrage across the country charges were dropped against the officer who pulled Sandra Bland over. More recently on Sept 1st Governor Abbot of Texas signed the Sandra Bland Act into law. The original bill had police accountability measures but the one signed into law focuses more on mental health issues and rights for inmates: According to the Texastribune.org: The Sandra Bland Act mandates county jails divert people with mental health and substance abuse issues toward treatment, makes it easier for defendants to receive a personal bond if they have a mental illness or intellectual disability and requires that independent law enforcement agencies investigate jail deaths. The law takes effect Sept. 1.

Activists also spoke about the rise of deadly encounters with Black women and law enforcement, student loan debt housing discrimination, CPS, and closing the economic wealth gap via policies like Reparations. Del Shea Perry mother of Hardel Sherrell who died in Beltrami county jail in MN spoke about how victims of crimes by law enforcement are often demonized in an effort to excuse the wrongdoing by any particular agency that's involved in misconduct that results in death. Isis Habibi from MN Youth for Justice and other youth activists spoke and read poems and chanted during the march and protest.

The Green Party platform calls for Reparations for the Descendants of Slavery in America. Local activists are working on bipartisan reparations proposals such as The Saint Paul Recovery Act to start addressing remedies for historical systemic racism and its impact on the Black community in the COVID 19 era. The Twin Cities is home to some of the worst disparities in the nation and these are the policies that must be implemented to close the racial wealth gap.

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REJECT MILITARISM ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11

REJECT MILITARISM ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11 – DISSIDENT VOICE

 

BY HOWIE HAWKINS

Nineteen years after more than 3,000 people were killed on 9/11, there remains a bipartisan commitment to fight an endless “war on terrorism,” instigate regime change coups, increase military spending, enhance US nuclear weapons, deport undocumented residents, curtail civil liberties, and militarize the police.

The September 11, 2001 attacks on the US have obscured “The Other 9/11,” the US attack on Chilean democracy in the US-backed coup on September 11, 1973. The two 9/11s are connected by what the CIA calls “blowback.” The CIA first used the term in describing the unintended negative consequences of the US and UK sponsored coup against the democratically-elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953. The September 11, 2001 attacks were blowback from decades of US intervention in the Middle East. That doesn’t justify the terrorism, but it does explain it. If we want peace and security for our nation, we should respect the peace and security of other nations.

Contrary to Trump’s lies about ending the endless wars, his administration has escalated the “Long War” in the Middle East and North Africa with increased troop deploymentsdrone strikes, and Special Operations.

Trump is also morphing the War on Terror abroad into a war against dissent at home. He encourages and uses law enforcement to attack nonviolent protesters, calling them “thugs” and “antifa terrorists.” He encourages white racist vigilante militias that show up armed to menace Black Lives Matter demonstrators and to intimidate local and state governments in armed protests against climate action (Oregon) and COVID-19 public health measures (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin).

Trump encourages these actions with statements that amplify paranoid far-right fantasies that call climate change and COVID-19 hoaxes perpetrated by secret elite conspiracies. Trump has instructed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) and Border Patrol to violate immigration laws and subject immigrants and asylum seekers to unspeakable brutality, including separating children from their parents and internment in concentration camps where COVID-19 is running rampant. He stokes racial fears and civil strife to justify authoritarian rule. He calls the news media “fake,” the elections “rigged,” and promotes conspiracy fantasies on Twitter. Trump is sowing confusion and demoralization so people will not be able to resist repression by sections of law enforcement and the racist militias should Trump decide to resist a peaceful transfer of power. The ultimate blowback against US coups and wars abroad against democracy threatens to be a coup against democracy at home.

End the Wars on Terrorism Abroad and Dissent at Home

One of my first steps as President would be to end the wars on “terrorism” abroad and at home. Neither major party calls for ending the endless wars against “terror” abroad even though the top priority in the official National Security Strategy of the United States has changed to “Great Power Competition” with the goal of preventing the emergence of strong regional powers in Eurasia, namely China, Iran, and Russia. This New Cold War, like the War on Terrorism, is about the profits of US-based global corporations abroad, not the security of the people of the United States at home.

The nuclear modernization program initiated under Obama and continued under Trump with bipartisan support has destabilized the nuclear balance of terror and kicked off a new nuclear arms race. The nuclear threat, coupled with inaction by the great powers on the climate emergency and the proliferation of disinformation propagated by state actors on all sides that makes it difficult for publics to come to agreement on what to demand of their governments, has prompted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to move their Doomsday Clock the closest it has ever been to midnight.

I would end the saber rattling against Russia, China, and Iran in the Great Power Competition strategy and focus on diplomacy. We need to partner with other major powers to address our common problems, notably nuclear arms, climate, and cyberwar.

I would also end the bipartisan repression of dissent at home. With Trump’s encouragement, law enforcement is using militaristic tactics to suppress peaceful protests against police brutality and systemic racism. Both major parties are united in suppressing whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and publishers like Julian Assange, whose real crimes in the eyes of the National Security State is that they exposed its secret wrongdoings.

The US should speak out against violations of human rights and democracy wherever they occur, but that should not preclude also working with authoritarian governments to resolve life-or-death global issues like climate change and nuclear arms. War and threats of war are the most powerful destroyers of civil liberties, democracy, and human rights. Military threats, economic sanctions, and covert meddling in the politics of other countries only reinforces the nationalist rationalizations of authoritarian governments for repression at home in order to ward off threats from abroad.

The most powerful way to promote human rights is to set a good example. If the US wants its advocacy of human rights to be credible and effective, it must set the right example at home, where police killings of Black people are seen on social media around the world.  A country where there is mass incarceration in the largest prison system in the history of the world, and from where the US military is deployed in some 800 foreign military bases for its endless wars, making the US the nation that the world’s people consider the biggest threat to peace.

The Other 9/11: Chile

Thirty years before the United States’ 9/11, the CIA orchestrated the violent overthrow of the democratically-elected socialist government of Chile on September 11, 1973.

It is a tragic coincidence of the US bloody intervention history in Latin America that President Salvador Allende was overthrown and pushed to suicide on the same date that decades later would affect US soil by a terrorist attack. The same feelings that American felt of being violated by the first foreign attack since Pearl Harbor were felt in Chile that September 11 in 1973. The sin of Salvador Allende in the eyes of Nixon, Kissinger, and CIA Director Richard Helms was to advance deep socialist reforms that would create a more equal society, a just distribution of incomes, real freedom of expression, and a truly democratic framework that could allow, finally, the participation and voices of all sectors, specially the impoverished workers of Chile.

Sound familiar? These are exactly the challenges that the US faces today, problems that have riddled the US throughout its history and become worse in the Trump era – the authoritarian duopoly of Republicans and Democrats, voter suppression, third party suppression, deep inequality from coast to coast, and chronic poverty. It is the same kind of repression that Chile suffers today under the conservative millionaire Sebastián Piñera when people again advance the same reforms that Allende worked for and paid for with his life. It is the same social, economic, and political oppression that the two countries share on this anniversary of 9/11.

Aid, Not Arms – Make Friends, Not Enemies

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, the Green Party of the United States warned against the danger that the two major parties and the corporate media would turn this horrific crime into a rationale for destructive wars abroad and political repression at home.

Instead of treating the 9/11 attackers as criminals to be brought to justice, the US used the attacks as a pretext for a long series of regime change wars in the Middle East and North Africa. The foreign policy leadership of the Bush administration had already written about the need for a “new Pearl Harbor” in order to provide the pretext for an invasion of Iraq to seize its oil fields. They wasted little time in getting started after 9/11.

The Authorization To Use Military Force (AUMF) against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks passed Congress on September 18 with only one dissenting vote. The US invasion of Afghanistan started on October 1. The AUMF legislation is still the legal basis for today’s endless wars.

The Patriot Act, which gave the federal government broad new intrusive surveillance and investigatory powers that weakened civil liberties, was overwhelmingly voted through Congress by October 25.

The Bush administration, joined by the Democratic amen corner led by Senator Joe Biden, lied about weapons of mass destruction and about Iraq’s alleged role in 9/11 to start a second war in Iraq by March 2003.

After 19 years, US combat troops are now engaged in 14 wars. At least 37 million people, and as many as 59 million people, have been displaced by these wars, creating the greatest refugee crisis since World War II.

The annual observation of 9/11 has been turned by politicians into a militaristic celebration of American power that is used to garner public support for US military spending and imperial aggression abroad. Right after 9/11, the world was united in its grief for our country. It was a moment that should have been used to build peace based on mutual cooperation and respect.

Let us remember 9/11 this year by demanding that the US withdraw from its endless wars, prioritize diplomacy to resolve conflicts, end arms sales to belligerents, and provide humanitarian aid for war refugees, including reopening immigration to the US from these countries.

Let’s turn the US into the world’s humanitarian superpower instead of its global military empire. Providing aid instead of arms is the best way to promote peace and security. It is time for the US to make friends instead of enemies.

Howie Hawkins is the presidential candidate of the Green Party of the United States and the Socialist Party USA.

Link: https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/09/reject-militarism-on-the-anniversary-of-9-11/

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