• Network groups, organizations, and individuals to stop the repression caused by "never ending wars" at home and abroad, by the US corporate military state
• Support organizations having common ground
• Educate and activate the general public

• East Timor & Indonesia Networks (ETAN)
  
• Delco Waging Peace
  
• Granny Peace Brigade - Philadelphia
• Otherjones - A blog by Deena Stryker
  
• Media Tank  
• Philly Against War
• Northeast Philly for Peace & Justice
  
• Philadelphia Veterans For Peace
• Wounds of War
• Northwest Greens
• Progressive Democracy of South Jersey (PDSJ)
• UFPJ-Delaware Valley Network
• UPenn - FASWI
• Delaware Valley Veterans for America

National Organizations

• United For Peace & Justice (UFPJ)
• World Can't Wait
• ACLU's Blog of Rights

Progressive Democrats of America - Conference Calls of the End Wars & Occupations IOT

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"Political Allies Newsletter" email listserve which is sent out a few times a month. There are actions you may want to support & local, national & international articles, most of which are not printed in the Phila Inquirer or NY Times. Topic titles are listed. You may read any portion, file away for another time or delete any or all.

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Upcoming Events

Gay Pride Parade - Vets For Peace and FUMCOG contingents

May Day 2014

Pennsylvania's Gvernor Tom Corbett arrages to meet with students of one of the schools that he's been defunding, but cancels when students, parents and teachers make it clear that they were goingto protest his visit. We all assembled anyway.

Anti-drones protest

Syria strike protest

Protest at Horsham Air Base about proposed Drone Command Center

Last (?) Protest on behalf of Pfc. Bradley Manning

The 2013 Philly Gay Pride Parade

Demonstration on behalf of Bradley Manning, whose court-martial begins next Monday.

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May Day 2013

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Protesting drones at Horsham Air Base

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Vigil for Sandy Hook Elementary School
Visual essay on event and on the gun control issue

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Occupy message to Veterans
Convergence in Philly
Official NatGat promo video
National Gathering Facebook page
Live-blog of National Gathering

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Rally at the School Board to defeat the Knudsen Plan

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May Day Rally
Also, same problems that apply to privatized schools apply to prisons as well.

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DecarceratePA march & rally
PhillyIMC story

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The "Final Friday" vigil concludes

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Occupation of Dilworth Plaza, Philadelphia

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Protesting War in Libya

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Declare Peace & protest of interception of Boat to Gaza

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Mt Airy Day 2011

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Philadelphia's Take Back The Night annual march and testimony

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UNAC opposed to the wars abroad

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Noting the beginning of the 8th year of the Iraq War. Also, protest of how Pfc. Bradley Manning is being treated.

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Two protests in support of the citizens, workers and unions of Wisconsin.
MSB Plaza     Love Park

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In support of the Egyptian people against their dictator Hosni Mubarak. Update on situation. Videos of another protest shortly afterwards.

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Veteran-Led Civil Resistance to U.S. Wars
Announcement    \ Flyers    Photos   Huffington Post

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March & Rally to End the Wars

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Protesting Islamophobia at Temple U.

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One Nation Rally Washington DC Oct 2010

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Protesting FBI intimidation of peace activists. Brandywine piece on PhillyIMC. Pieces on PhillyAgainstWar blog 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5.

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Fundraiser for US Ship to Gaza

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Philadelphia's second annual Gay Pride Parade

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Info, articles, etc.

President Obama is getting lots and lots of advice from the opposition party. Problem is, it's all pretty vague and useless.

Chilling tale of voter suppression in Georgia.

Good to hear that Speaker Boehner's lawsuit against President Obama is very unpopular.

Todd Aiken comes back and tries toexplain his "legitimate rape" comment. It does not go well.

So Citigroup settles for its role in the financial crisis that started off in late 2007 with the collapse of the housing bubble and went on to wipe out a huge portion of our economy. How much is $7 billion to them? Here's a quote from their site: "Our Hedge and Private Equity Servicing business also surpassed $500 billion in alternative assets..." So the settlement is little more than a mild inconvenience to them.

Detroit's water “crisis.” Well, the crisis is real enough, but it's entirely deliberate, the result of conscious, deliberate action, applied with malice and forethought.

"Pension smoothing" is a budgetary gimmick. It's not as good as plain ol deficit spending. Speaker Boehner opposes it for an extension of unemployment benefits but supports using it to support the Highway Trust Fund. Both higher taxes and deficits are of course really awful and terrible and compleely off the table, not to be used under any circumstances. So the question is, why does Boehner hate the unemployed?

A thinkpiece on the strategy used by Hamas in Gaza.

A look at the failed records of Tea Party Governors. Special looks at Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rick Scott of Florida.

DKos strongly condemned Maureen Dowd for her column today. Dowd criticized Chelsea Clinton. Granted, out of the $900K Clinton makes, if she were paid exclusively for her talent, she'd make 1/10th of that or less. But y'know, it' not like the sons and daughters of celebrities and business tycoons don't get privileges in any event. Pretty sad to pick on Chelsea for something that's done all over the place.

Update: Media Matters tells us that Clinton gives most of her money to charity. I didn't know that.

I agree with this evaluation of Meet The Press and especially agree that replacing David Gregory with Joe Scarborough will turn a terrible situation into a catastrophic one.

“Why, then, if Gazans want to live in peace do they continue their equally counterproductive rocket attacks on Israel?” Gaza is suffering a dire shortage of fuel and an increasingly miserable population. Gaza by the numbers. A description of the “roof tap” technique. Film of same.

Heh! Ann Coulter has a Frankenstein-meets-his-monster moment as she criticizes a Tea Party kinda guy.

Digby has the latest update on the Benghazi news. As we always thought, Benghazi was a tragedy, but as US troops could not have gotten to the scene any faster than they did, it wasn't a scandal.

Pretty hard to read this and to conclude that Rep. Paul Ryan is anything but a hard-core, utterly devoted Randian. Heh! Took Rep. Paul Ryan FIVE times, but he FINALLY had a non-wealthy person speak on his hearings on poverty. She was lectured by another Congressman about how her receiving public assistance made her "dependent." She had no idea what the Congressman was talking about.

The health situation in Gaza was not great before the Israeli bombardment began. An animated introduction to the Israeli-Palestinian relationship.

It's really wonderful that Bill Cassidy loves and supports and stands behind his single, pregnant teenage daughter. Kudos to him. But what would REALLY help his daughter and many millions of young people like her would be to drop this whole "abstinence-only" nonsense. It didn't work for Bristol Palin, hasn't worked for anyone else, drop it already!

A look at how opponents of the ACA/Obamacare have to keep revising their predictions of disaster. Reminds me of how Germans knew they were losing World War II: "Our 'glorious victories' kept occurring closer and closer to home."

Bwah-hah-hah! Spending on anti-ACA ads may have actually INCREASED enrollment in the program! Very interestingly, predictions that the program would soon be canceled increased the urgency of "Get good medical care while you can!"

Heh! Families who lost children in the Sandy Hook massacre wanted to meet with Governor Christie, who begged off with a BS excuse. I like the way Joe Scarborugh words it: "I think it’s kind of chicken 'something,' which I won’t say on the air. It’s chicken, we’ll say 'salad,' for Chris Christie to not meet with these families for at least five to 10 minutes."

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) launched "Operation Protective Edge" on July 7th in response to militants firing rockets from Gaza.

Sarah Palin demands that Obama be impeached. As I said on Speaker Boehner's impeachment threats, President Obama is more enthusiastic about such talk than any of the Republicans are.

Chris Christie has hard time defending his position on the 10-round limit for guns (He's against it) because, well, his position is pretty shameful and hard to defend.

Having been a History major back in college, I agree, it's very distressing to see the media reach for utterly inappropriate analogies. No, there is no "Obama's Katrina." Did Reagan have a "Bay of Pigs"? Did Carter have a "Grenada"? Did Clinton have a "Vietnam"? Of course not. All of these events were unique to certain presidencies.

In response to the poll that claims Obama is the “Worst President” since FDR, here are some charts that prove the claim is "less than meets the eye."

Wow! What an amazing, astonishing, totally unpredictable surprise! [/snark]. In other amazing, totally unforeseeable news, an elder white guy thinks the Hobby Lobby decision is completely insignificant.

A look at Governor Chris Christie and the New Jersey economy. Not looking good for a presidential campaign. New Jersey's economy is going to be a real drag on any campaign.

The sexual assault survivor whose case George Will referenced speaks out and very STRONGLY disputes the idea that she gained any sort of privilege from being assaulted.

June

Damn! The Hobby Lobby decision came out the wrong way. It benefits religious people of a particular sub-section of faith who also happen to own large corporations. Everybody else in America is outta luck. Objections to the Hobby Lobby decision from Supreme Court Associate Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Situation in Iraq a VERY confused mess! Oh, and Russia is sending jets to Iraq. Ayad Allawi (Former Prime Minister of Iraq) feels that US policy there is incoherent. "The valiant Iraqi army has nothing to fight for. This brave army has lost its identity and its role. It doesn’t know whether it is fighting for the country or fighting for the sect or for the person or for the party." ISIS declares a "caliphate" of parts of Iraq and Syria. The Iraqi Army tried and failed to re-take Tikrit.

Entirely predictable problems concerning charter schools. One especially not-surprising conclusion: “Charter schools as a whole fare no better than traditional schools in educating students in poverty.” This is because education is a very labor-intensive activity. When expenditures don't really matter all that much, neither does the public-private institutional difference.

No, Matt Lauer interviewed several male CEOs and no, the question of how they balance home and family life never once came up. So when he asked a female CEO how she balanced home and family life, yes, the question was deeply sexist.

Sounds to me like Philly's Police Chief needs to be fired and replaced with someone who will respect votes and properly-constituted authority.

Good heavens, what a horrible, horrible decision by the Supreme Court on buffer zones around abortion clinics! Very distressing that it was unanimous. Major practical difficulty, as I see it, with arguing with a woman who's at the door of the clinic is that it's, uh, kinda late. Their minds are usually made up and all you're doing at that point is to add a layer of harassment, annoyance and bad feelings.

Chief Justice John Roberts said: " “Petitioners wish to converse with their fellow citizens about an important subject on the public streets and sidewalks..." How well does that theory work in practice, in the real world? Wel-l-l-l...

I largely agree with all of the items on today's round-up (27Jun2014). The cell-phone privacy decision is a unreservedly good one, The abortion, buffer-zone decision and the presidential appointments decisions are both horrible ones that are blind to today's realities. More on buffer zones. Abortion clinics have suffered 4,700 instances of violence since 1995.

Army clears Bowe Bergdahl of any misconduct that he may have engaged in while a prisoner of war of the Afghan Taliban.

Speaker Boehner threatens to sue President Obama. On what charges? Wel-l-l-l, that's not so clear. Apparently, for a bunch of items that were perfectly fine when G.W. Bush did them.

UN has to intercede on behalf of Detroit citizens who were getting their water shut off.

Cool! The establishment Republican beats the Tea Party guy by a fraction of a point! The Tea Party guy was the one that wanted to send white "election observers" to black districts, y'know, just to make sure everything was legit.

Very excellent news! LONG overdue! A process for citizens to get taken off the no-fly list should have been a built-in, integral part of the list from the very beginning.

Y'know, for Fox News to not cover the capture of the guy who directed the Benghazi attack is understandable, everyone knows they're a propaganda outlet. But what's up with all the other shows? What's their excuse?

Rev. Frank Schaefer wins appeal. He performed the wedding ceremony for his gay son and lost his church position for that. He announced that his UMC clergy orders were restored at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown.

Rachel Maddow encourages Congress to speak up, clearly, about the situation in Iraq. Very good question concerning Iraq. What WAS all that money spent on?!?!!?

Oh, and ThinkProgress gives us a good list, the people the media SHOULD be interviewing about the situation in Iraq and Emptywheel reminds us about the “success” that General Petraeus had training Iraqi troops.

Excellent point! Why bother having a moderator when the guest will just say any ol' thing that pops into his head without the slightest fear of contradiction? Gregory's a useless, empty suit.

Bwah-hah-hah! This fellow is convinced, CONVINCED I tell you!!1!!, that IRS chief Lois Lerner's emails are politically significant enough to cause the Democratic Party real problems. Uh, no. The Bush Administration lost 22 million emails concerning very real and serious problems that should have resulted in serious criminal charges (Fox News skips over that of course) and nobody remembers that today.

Excellent question!!! Why DOES the media feel that Sen. John McCain is the go-to guy on foreign policy? When has the guy been right about anything?!?!! And why is Karl Rove being interviewed on the subject? And heavens! Dick & Liz Cheney are also being consulted!?!?

But the former vice president — who spent years arguing that anyone who questions the administration during a time of war is unpatriotic ... [says] “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many,” 

Fellow who was leader of Benghazi attack captured. Right-wing reaction: "It's a distraction, I tell you!!! A distraction that diverts us from the REAL scandal here!!!11!! Pay no attention that man behind the curtain!!! Arrggh!!!" Also, [Fox News reporter] Rosen asked, "Following your own logic...why didn't we pose as a reporter to capture [Ahmed Abu Khattala] then?"

*Sigh* *tch* Erm, because that would endanger real reporters? Do you guys have ANY notion of how neutrality works in wartime situations?

Should we press Republicans on whether they intend to impeach the President? Heck yes! It's a win-win! If they deny it, they'll demoralize the voters who think they're serious about doing it, if they affirm it, that'll motivate Democrats to get to the polls!

So what's the score on possibly utilizing Iranians against ISIS? The Obama Administration seems to be leaning towards it, Sen. Lindsey Graham likes it (He's always wrong) but Bill Kristol hates it (He's also always wrong), Think Progress thought it was a bad idea (They're usually right) and Juan Cole warned that "The enemy of my enemy" is not always my friend.

Uh, no. The current situation in Iraq proves exactly the opposite of what Fox News says it does. It proves that the only alternative to ISIS making such gains was for US forces to stay in Iraq for 100 years. It was clear in 2011 and is clear today that such a plan just an't gonna happen. Oh, and report on Bush's “prescience” is BS.

Juan Cole as long been a very highly credible source on Middle Eastern affairs. His “7 Myths” is well worth reading.

Good ruling from the Supreme Court on straw purchases of guns. Can't do it under any circumstances. Have to purchase the gun yourself.

Oh-h-h-h yeah-h-h!!! THIS ought to be fun! Buncha American bikers want to go to Mexico to free an American Marine. Hoo boy!

In case you were saying to yourself: "Dang! I missed the Sunday talk shows. I wonder what wisdom they would have imparted. " Never fear, you didn't miss much. People interviewed on the Sunday morning talk shows were pretty much all old, conservative, white men. Conclusion sentence: "This week, for example, Melissa Harris Perry’s show had 10 guests, 4 of whom were women and 5 of whom were people of color. It was also the only show to feature an Iraq war veteran." (emphasis added) Rep, Barbara Lee shares a rare non-old white guy perspective. Note that she was one of the people in the government that was right the first time.

Words are very cheap and easy things to expend when it comes to "support the troops," but when it requires money on the table, Republicans suddenly find "deficits" and "frugality" to be more important.

Yeesh! Mitt Romney says we're about to lose everything "we" fought for. The veteran responds

I must have missed you over there, but it was a busy place. We. The guy who helped set up “pro-draft” rallies and yet somehow managed to avoid service in Vietnam is upset about losing what “we” fought for? We.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) shows himself to be very confused about the history of the Iraq War. Think Progress runs through the options as regards ISIS. Yuck! NONE of them are really any good. And no, I've never seen using airpower as more than a purely defensive means of making sure ISIS doesn't get to Baghdad. And yes, the Iraq War was still very much in progress when the US left in 2011. Iran sends troops to aid Iraqis.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), thinks health-care for veterans is an “entitlement.” But it was okay to pour over $2 trillion into the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, eh? Funny how no one ever says we “can't afford” to launch wars of choice.

The US may end up fighting with Iranian infantry and US air support. One of the reasons that might not be such a bad thing is that Iran has been cooperative on nuclear issues lately (Last piece in Round-up), but the traditional media has been relucttant to acknowledge this. As Jon Stewart's Daily Show makes clear, the situation is enormously complicated.

If you want to know why the economy's been so crappy for the last several years, this explains Cantor's part in making it so.

Mosul, Iraq falls to ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Iraqi army, with 15 to 1 advantage, crumbles just the way the South Vietnamese Army did in 1975. Juan Cole, a noted and respected voice during the Iraq War, examines the fall of Mosul and finds LOTS of people to blame for it, most prominently the G.W. Bush Administration, for tearing apart the country, demolishing the old regime and putting nothing in its place. Al Qaeda wasn't a problem in Iraq before the invasion. Now al Qaeda has actual territory of its own.

Very good to see politicians taking on an pundit. George Will gets a much-needed and very properly called for slapdown. Will had expressed the belief that women who got raped benefited from the social status of being a victim.

Hoo boy! This guy who won the primary against House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is NOT good for America! Granted, I read I.F. Stone's Trial of Socrates so I'm pretty sour on Socrates, but this should be concerning anyway: "And he has called for drastic cuts to education funding, explaining, 'My hero Socrates trained in Plato on a rock. How much did that cost? So the greatest minds in history became the greatest minds in history without spending a lot of money.'"

Very happy to hear that a veteran's funding bill is passed DESPITE obstructionism from the GOP!

Wow! Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), the House Majority Leader (2nd in rank after the Speaker), loses primary to an unknown Tea Partier! Conservative blames loss on Cantor not being conservative enough.