Tag: AP

Society, and all elements of it, are responding to crossroads events. SF Board of Supervisors is feeling the heat of the proverbial feet to the fire in their negotiations with the San Francisco Police Officers Association’s contract renewal, the Board endowed with the grace of leverage to decide if they are committed, or not, to SFPD reform.

Shaka Shakur makes crystal clear that freedom is not given. Freedom is taken and the price is high. The will of the oppressor to protect property and power is vicious and relentless. To win freedom, we must commit to the courage to take it.

Racism reaches its ugly tentacles into any crack available to it, as proven on multiple levels by the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the U.S. Forced to resort to technology with apps like Zoom to communicate with each other and enable some form of education for our children, it is increasingly evident that racism via “Zoombombing” against Black people has emerged nationwide.

Kevin Cooper, still caged in San Quentin after 37 years, 35 years on Death Row, speaks with KPFA’s Flashpoints Dennis Bernstein in an exclusive in-depth interview. Cooper talks about simultaneously surviving Death Row and the COVID-19 pandemic, the blues and highlights the opportunity for Governor Gavin Newsom to order an Innocence Investigation, which will shine direct light on prosecutorial wrongdoings and new DNA evidence to support his innocence.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stood strong in the stature of a giant, and icon and a warrior for democracy during her 27 years on the US Supreme Court. Today the nation mourns the loss of the solid force for good that Justice Ginsburg brought to her relentless service to justice for women and for all people.

San Francisco – In a statement released Aug. 22, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin emphasizes the importance of AB 767, a bill sponsored by Assemblymember Grayson, which would expand California’s Victim Compensation Board benefits to include victims of police violence.

If you have logged onto the Virginia Department of Corrections’ (VADOC) website or listened to Secretary of Public Safety Brian P. Moran during one of the many televised coronavirus briefings, then you probably were left with the impression that VADOC and Greensville Correctional Center (GCC) officials are taking all of the necessary precautions to prevent or mitigate the spread of the deadly COVID-19 behind the walls of GCC or any other prison in the state. If that is your impression, then YOU HAVE BEEN DECEIVED!

The following words lead off a Washington Post story headlined “Civil rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer defied men — and presidents — who tried to silence her” by DeNeen L. Brown published Oct. 6, 2017:

On April 9, the Kitsap Sun reported that Pentagon and Navy brass were in conflict about whether there’s a COVID-19 outbreak on the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Chester Nimitz docked at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. I grew up in Bremerton, so much of this story is familiar to me, but like all COVID-19 stories, it’s changing fast.

Just weeks after it was revealed that six previously undisclosed boxes of files labeled “Mumia” were allegedly “discovered” in an abandoned furniture closet in Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office, hundreds of boxes of prisoner’s files have also been found. A Jan. 18 “supplementary verification” from the DA’s Post-Conviction Relief Act Unit (PCRA) revealed that files from imprisoned journalist and activist Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case were among hundreds of other boxes hidden in a storage room. Supporters of Abu-Jamal say the contents could prove malfeasance and lead to dismissal of charges and the release of Abu-Jamal and other defendants.

“What is wrong with Haiti?” is provocatively offered as a question, along with apologies to the great essayist, G.K. Chesterton. The answer to what is wrong with Haiti is that the hand wringers, meaning those of goodwill who profess undying love for the tiny island nation never seem to ask what is right. Nor do they attempt to discern the source of wrongdoing. For over two centuries, Haiti has balanced on a fulcrum. Heaven and hell hang in the balance and only God knows the outcome.

Kanye West has never been afraid to speak out even if what he had to say wasn’t in line with popular opinion. Kanye saying slavery was “a choice” offended many people by degrading the lives of the millions of people who suffered for centuries as slaves. Recently, at the White House, Kanye sprinkled some gold gems in with the foolishness, especially his statement about the 13th Amendment, which did not abolish slavery, not in prison. I refuse to reject the help when entertainers like Kanye West join prisoners in advocating for prisoners’ rights.

Dr. King’s assassination was the key marker in the transition of a great era of social change, from one where “inclusion” in the broader capitalist system was the general thrust to one where the general focus of the Black fight for equality became a broadly defined “self-determination,” rooted in a recognition of the entrenched nature of racism, not simply as a function of attitudes, but as a method of social control.

America’s Declaration of Independence has served as a model for other nations. One hundred sixty-nine years after its ratification, on Sept. 2, 1945, the leader of the independence movement in Viet Nam, Ho Chi Minh, stood in Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi to deliver his Proclamation of the Birth of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, “Tuyen Ngon Doc Lap Viet Nam Dan Chu Cong Hoa.”

Good evening, Georgia. I stand here tonight grateful to the thousands of you who have joined me on this drive to history. We are writing the next chapter of Georgia’s future. Where no one is unseen, unheard or uninspired. A Georgia where we prosper – together! And I know, for the journey that lies ahead, we need every voice in our party – and every independent thinker in the state of Georgia – energized and by our side to succeed, so I hope you will join our fight for the future.

This Memorial Day, let us renew our commitment to work for peace. Dr. King stated, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Let us ask ourselves, “What would Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. say today?’” Let us remember Dr. King’s sermon. Let us reclaim our belief in the sanctity of human life. Let us turn swords into plowshares. Let us work for peace in our world.

Men and women incarcerated in prisons across the nation declare a nationwide strike in response to the riot in Lee Correctional Institution. Seven comrades lost their lives during a senseless uprising that could have been avoided had the prison not been so overcrowded from the greed wrought by mass incarceration and a lack of respect for human life that is embedded in our nation’s penal ideology. These men and women are demanding humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation, sentencing reform and the end of modern day slavery.

Excerpts from remarks by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova delivered April 19, 2018 – And now I am asking everyone to fasten their belts. During a briefing on the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) report held for the international diplomatic community on April 13, UK Ambassador to Russia Laurie Bristow said that “the Russian state has a record in state-sponsored assassinations including in the UK.”

Angry and frustrated residents are demanding answers after a police-involved shooting left an unarmed, Black man dead. Stephon Clark, 22, was fatally shot in his Meadowview area backyard Sunday, March 18, after two Sacramento Police Department (SPD) officers shot at him more than 20 times. Local and national Black leaders have vowed to demand justice for Clark and his family. Black Lives Matter and Rev. Les Simmons of South Sacramento Christian Center spearheaded vigils and rallies, where those who knew Clark called him a loving son and father of two young boys, who didn’t deserve to die.

I begin this six-month update on the activities of CDCR and the CCPOA with my utmost thankfulness and respect for the San Francisco Bay View. I thank your staff and readers for continuing to shine a bright light on the injustices that occur daily behind enemy lines, as it pertains to human beings who are marginalized as prisoners, defined as slaves by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but yet full citizens of this country! I have now been housed in Pelican Bay Level II SHU for six months, and the situation has not progressed but has rapidly deteriorated.