Ray Torres is the director of the short film

Beyond Credit Unions

The film is available for groups to show. Contact Ray at 215 753 9022

Flyer

Also: Press Release

I kinda like this as an anthem for the left these days.

Brief history of PRAWN

• 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

Upcoming Events

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Midsection archive

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Union demonstration Amazon-Alabama

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Nuclear weapons declared illegal by UN

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Getting signatures

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BLM March - September

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Pro-Post Office protest

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Rally at African-American Museum

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BLM March 13 June

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Black Lives Matter marches - 6-8 June

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Between the marches - morning of 3 June

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Memorial Day protest

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May Day Car Caravan

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Pro-Impeach and Remove from office

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Demonstration against Iran War

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Demonstration against Iran War

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Demonstration against Iran War

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Impeachment Eve rally

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Rally to support the Kurds

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Climate Strike

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Pro-Venezuela Anti-Intervention

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Horsham Air Base protest

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Protesting giving GW Bush a medal

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Pro-Mueller Investigation protest

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Rally to abolish ICE

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Democratic Rally

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Climate March

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Anti-Drones protest

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Rally at Logan Circle for families

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Protest against the Trump family separatin policy on the Mexican border

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Anti-Drone Protest

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Palestinians and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

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Rally for Palestinians

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March For Our Lives

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Lancaster Direct Action against a fossil fuel pipeline.

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Women's March 2018

Info, articles, etc.

Senate Minority Leader McConnell earns a grade of "pathetic" from Speaker Pelosi after condemning Trump, bascially undercutting his own vote to acquit.

Update (28 Feb): McConnell says he'll support Trump runnng again in 2024.

I've dealt with the end of the trial here as the situation was fairly complicated. The final vote was 57 guilty, 43 innocent. As 67 votes were needed to convict, Trump walked.

"Auditor says Trump admin. knew ‘zero-tolerance’ would separate children from parents at border"

But many Republicans on the committee were like Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, who defended the policy, saying that adults who crossed the border illegally had committed a crime and should be punished.

Yeah, but appropriateness? Proportionality? Taking children from their parents, in many cases permanently, reminds us of the Belgian Congo, where colonists would chop off the hands of people who wouldn't work hard enough.

Representative and one of the impeachment managers Stacey Plaskett takes note of the demographics of the people that were featured in the videos presented by the defense council.

*Sigh!* Yeah, Don Jr. complains that Democrats treat the BLM response to the horrific murder of George Floyd and the 6 January attack on the Capitol are apples and oranges, like they're two completely separate events that have nothing in common. Ya know why that is? Yeah! Because the comparison is apples and oranges! '

Daily Kos is live-blogging the impeachment trial. Good point here;

This incredible montage of Democrats saying the word “fight,” shorn of all context, might mean something … if any of these Democrats’ supporters had stormed the Capitol. Which they did not.

Again, there isn’t the slightest question that the President knew full well what was going on and dd nothing to stop it.

Chris Wallace of Fox News is not at all impressed with the defense of Donald Trump.

During the former president's last month in office, he complained that the First Lady had never gotten a photo feature in a magazine. Well, to do that, a magazine needs an extensive interview to go with the photos.
This is a clear exhibit as to why there was never an extensive interview during the four years that Mrs. Trump occupied the White House.

The tape potentially connects Melania to inauguration crimes, according to Meidas Touch. Melania also references Mark Burnett, the Celebrity Apprentice producer who is said to hold a lot of incriminating tapes of Trump.

Israel has illegal settlements all over the Palestinian West Bank. The UN has identified the 112 companies that do business with them.

Well, that's pretty cool! Released from a Saudi prison after over 1k days. Happy to note that she looks unbowed and unbroken!

The prominent Saudi Arabian women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul has been released, but authorities can "return her to prison at any time for any perceived criminal activity." So when the heat's off, she'll be back in jail.

How does Donald Trump feel about political violence? Let's roll the tape and find out! Hmm, he apears to think violence is okay if it's carried out by his side. See "Knock the crap out of 'em!" The fourth video down.

Republican senator tries to draw a parallel between BLM protests in the summer and 6 January. Nope. Apples and oranges.

Huh! Interesting.

“It’s continuing to open wounds for the American public and it is something that President Trump has condemned in no uncertain terms — the terrible violence that went on there."

I'm sorry, remind me please! When did the former president condemn the violence on 6 January?!?!?! Oh yeah, that's right, he read out a speech that someone else had written for him! As far as I know, that's the only time he condemned the violence then!

During the former president's second impeachment trial, Trey Gowdy cuts to the heart of the matter:

"What's not split is the president's lawyers need to come up with a factual defense for what was he doing once he learned the siege began."

Did they ever come up with one? Actually, no. They never did.

Ahh, normal politicians doing public-spirited thing! The First Lady and Second Gentleman
make phone calls to nurses to discuss COVID-19 concerns.

Are Trump fans in actual financial need or do they just think they're in financial need because they're engaged in a status race with each other?

Not only is President Biden more popular than Trump ever was, his first bill is already more popular than anything Trump ever passed!

Hmm. Larry Flynt dies. Historically important. Hustler was never to my taste. He did win a free speech case against Jerry Falwell where the "accusation" against Falwell was so outlandish as to be obviously a joke.

This is distressing as I'm very familiar with both the work of Joss Whedon and Charisma Carpenter. Whedon is reputed to have been very abusive of many of his actors.

This is very sad. Wealthy and healthy white folks who could very easily wait are jumping into line at neighborhoods they ordinarily would never go into in order to get the vaccine early. Selfish of them because the people who live there need it more urgently than the line-jumpers do.

The United Arab Emirates is now the fifth country to have placed a satellite into orbit. The Deputy Project Director is Her Excellency Sarah bint Yousef Al Amiri. Yep, princesses don't just sit around drinking tea all day!

Former President Trump shouldn't be too upset as a big chunk of the Senate voted for a clearly nonsensical theory that doesn't stand up to even a casual examination. This theory is what House impeachment manager Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) calls the "January exception," the idea that in an incumbent's last January in office, he gets a "free throw" (basketball) or "free kick" (soccer). This is, of course, a completely insane theory.

So after the lead Democratic impeachment manager described the completely insane theory of the "January exception," a Republican senator adopts precisely that theory!

Blogger makes a very serious, in-depth comparison between the Mahdi Army in Iraq and today's Republican Party.

Senator Rob Portman is very upset with Neera Tanden’s language she’s used to (accurately) describe various Republican senators. Funny, when he was asked about tweets by the former President, gee, it seems somehow he never managed to see them before he was interviewed! Funny how that kept happening!

Yeah, this is an immensely important context
whenever anyone tries to bring up impeaching Trump after he’s left office.

Mitch McConnell just voted (again) that the this trial is unconstitutional, which is rich because he’s the one who stopped the trial from beginning while Trump was still president.

If you ever run across "I'm not a cat!" this is where the phrase comes from. Poor fellow was making a legal brief and his child was using the computer beforehand, so he appeared as a cat! The other people on the Zoom call understood.

Wow, the Trump lawyers get horrible reviews from all across the political spectrum! Everybody hated these guys!

Heh! Uh yeah, the RNC Chairperson who saw the Republican Party engage in an extreme lurch to the right and whose people routinely violated the Hatch Act is now deeply concerned about partisanship on the other side!

We're really not clear as to who was behind the cyber-attack on the Oldsmar water treatment plant in Florida. It wasn't necessarily an organized or directed attack at all. But it is quite serious and deserves a lot of attention.

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows alleges that the former President Trump offered more National Guard troops to Washington DC during the summer. Why this would be relevant, even if it were true, is far from clear. As the blogger points out, those troops were needed on 6 January and the federal government refused to release them at that time.

I knew a lot of this, but yeah, the comedian Amber Ruffin makes a powerful case that history is not being taught correctly.

A preview of the arguments of various Republican senators. A real problem with disallowing busting someone who’s out of office due to his term having expired. If the off-going President commits impeachable acts during his last few days in office, doesn’t that theory give him a free pass to do whatever he pleases? Sorry, but even if the Founding fathers left that loophole in the law, we should close it!

Ah yes, the 2020's version of Joe $%#@ing Lieberman! Lieberman was a plague on the aughts (2000-2009) Democratic Party. *SIgh!* Looks like Senator Manchin likes that role.

Wow! What the hell is this guy smokin'? Maria Bartolomo is hopelessly gullible, just saying "Wow!" as Navarro spins tall tales.
Now, first off, the idea that Bill Barr's Justice Department slow-walked 30 Executive Orders by Trump is entirely believable. At best, Biden would have had to do some extra paperwork to cancel them all. But the idea that Biden had to clear his EOs through Trump's Justice Department?!?!?! Whaaa?!?! That's where Navarro is clearly doin' lots of reefer!

I absolutely, positively 100% approve of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin's priorities! Her priority is to fix the problem as opposed to stinting on the money!

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) has come up with a really terrible definition of antisemitism that deliberately confuses opposition to the existence of the Jewish people to criticism of the policies of the state of Israel. This is a serious battle that critics of Israel are fighting.

The blogger demolishes the argument that Democrats will look just as bad as Trump does if they dug up videos of Democrats saying awful things about the former president. Hearing the lawyer speak, he brings up an argument that was addressed and settled during Trump’s first impeachment. The argument is that a specific crime needs to have occurred. In lawyer-speak, “The question was asked and answered.” Brookings examines the argument.

Yeah, the problem, as I’ve pointed out concerning Ivanka Trump and others, is that we only have the word of completely unreliable narrators who, as they say, “have a dog in that fight.”

Wow! Seriously? Really? Those are the best arguments against impeachment she can come up with?!?!?!

A detailed examination of the complete and utter cluster%$@# known as Operation Warp Speed. Actually, the part where they prodiced the vaccine was well done. It was the "last mile" when they had to get it distributed to people that they completely screwed it up.
Good quote from the story.

Doing good on vaccinations, up to having administered 11.7 doses per 100 people.

D’oh! Lou Dobbs got abruptly canceled when a multi-billion dollar lawsuit threatened Fox Business News. One of the casualties was the former President’s lawyer, who was going to start making a public case for his client.

An iceberg that broke off from Antarctica in 2017 was initially about twice the square mileage of Delaware.

Through the last several US presidential terms, Israel has been flooding their own settlers into the occupied Palestinian territories. The UN has finally declared this to violate international law. The ideas of “Two State Solution” and “peace process” are both dead.

“Donald Trump Should Not Receive Intelligence Briefings Because Of His “Erratic Behavior,” Joe Biden Tells CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell”
I agree with this. The chances of Trump selling information to the Russians or to do other mischief is very, very high!

Interesting. The 6 January rally was supposed to be just a rally, not a march. By directing people to march to the Capitol, Trump was violating the terms of the Park Service contract.

The economist Larry Summers has written that he fears excess stimulus. This is a silly thing to worry about. The dangers of under-stimulating are quite real and worth worrying about.

Tomi Lahren doesn't seem to grasp that the world is not the simple place she knew as a kindergartner. Democrats cannot take a simple, straightforward approach to law enforcement because there is police brutality as well as heroes like Officer Sicknick.

Doing a bit better. Daily new cases of Covid are dropping.

It’s instructive to read this piece first and then to watch the second one to note that Representative Jordan stays well away from discussing any of the specifics of the Representative Greene case.

Being unable to defend Representative Greene, Senator Graham turns to "whataboutism" and not by coincidence, against the Black person who's our current Vice President.

Representative Greene says: "I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true." So she then takes no responsibility for her actions and suggests she's just as vulnerable to QAnon lies as she was before.

The good news is that Representative Greene was removed from all of her committees. The bad news is that she's still in Congress. As Joy Reid points out, is that Republicans own her!

As to the "free speech" argument made for Trump's 6 January speech right before the Capitol was attacked, my own legal analysis (I’m not a lawyer) on this assertion is that yelling “fire” in a crowded theater when there’s no fire amounts to what I’d call a “public safety exception” to free speech. When a politician incites violence, that would fall under the same exception.

Asha Rangappa (Who is a lawyer) talks about the legality of Trump's speech immediately prior to the invasion of the Capitol. No, it doesn't fall under "free speech," but under something more like employment law. 

"With clean sweep, Biden's Pentagon chief clears out Trump picks"
Seems the big reason that Trump wanted to place loyalists on Pentagon advisory boards is that such members have access to highly classified information. Biden Administration has said "Nuh-uh!" and has closed down ALL such boards!

Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was honored yesterday by being featured in the Capitol Rotunda.

Update (27 Feb): A suspect has been identified in Sicknick's death. The suspect directed bear spray into Sicknick's face during the 6 January attack on the Capitol. 

Trump generally stayed within five points of a 40% approval rating his entire term and never once broke the 50% mark. Biden’s already up to roughly a 54% approval !

I’m convinced Trump would have lost anyway due to a fundamental lack of competence. He never had a grasp of how to do anything.

Alexey Navalny addressed the court.

NBC claims Pete Buttigieg is the first openly gay cabinet member. Megyn Kelly says not so, Richard Grenell was openly gay. Problem is that Grenell was "Acting" DNI. He was neither nominated nor confirmed to be an actual cabinet member.

An analysis from someone who's looked at both of the impeachment briefs. Sounds pretty open-and-shut and that the former president is guilty.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is a really tough problem for House Republicans to solve.

Exactly! The defense of "it happened before she was elected" would be compelling if the same types of accusations weren't leveled against Bill Clinton!

Basically, the R Party has to choose between Representatives Liz Cheney and Marjorie Greene. Their tent can't be big enough to house both.

Very sad! The House Minority Leader, by refusing to choose between Cheney and Greene, completely fails!

House Minority Leader McCarthy has decided to keep both Representatives Liz Cheney (evil, but sane) and Marjorie Greene (evil and complete fruitcake). This is a temporary solution as the House will vote later.

President Biden properly and respectfully hears the proposal put forward by Republican senators (Was it a “bipartisan” proposal? No, it didn’t have any input from Democrats or from the rest of the Republican caucus.) and happily, there’s no indication that anyone in the Democratic caucus is prepared to reduce the size of the Covid rescue package.

Got PA Senator Pat Toomey’s newsletter and he whines about

These unilateral, partisan actions to unwind the work of the previous administration create an unpredictable regulatory environment that undermines any economic recovery while dividing us even further.

In other words, Toomey was clearly not part of the Republican “peacemakers.”

Biden Administration has been disappointing on Palestinians/Israel, but the war on Yeman has been a humanitarian catastrophe The US needs to act to end it and it appears they will.

Update (27 Feb): Hoo boy, is this a complex problem!

Republican Party could very well be headed for a break-up. The Dems are already pretty much the only grown-up in the room.

Because the last President just didn't feel like/wasn't in the mood to collect accurate COVID-19 data, we have to depend on volunteers who were going the job for free.

Senator Ted Cruz talks about "Things the Senate should be focusing on instead of Democrats’ impeachment:" and then lists a number of good things. Okay. And what were you guys doing between about April and October of 2020? As I recall, the Republican Party was basically just sitting around and twiddling its thumbs! Democrats passed a really big bill and the GOP didn’t even take it up until half a year later.

Good thread about Meghan McCain having a baby and realizing that the US needs paid maternity leave because it wasn’t really a problem until it happened to her!

It's a rather stupid idea to give Jared Kushner and others a Nobel Peace Prize for “making peace” between Israel and “the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.” Why is it stupid? Because Israel was never at war with any of these countries in the first place!

Yeah.

It's hard to imagine a newsroom surveying the current political landscape and deciding the chairman of the RNC, who has overseen the party's loss of the White House, House, and Senate, as well as a murderous Republican mob that ransacked the U.S. Capitol, as being someone who's riding a real hot streak.

Also, did Ronna McDaniel push back against Trump's lie that he won the election and not Biden? She says she did in private, but there's no evidence she did in public. So WHY is this person being rehabilitated in the press?

Part of a lengthy thread on Trump's organization and the worldwide money laundering scheme by which rich dictators do business with more legitimate people.

"Cops Pepper Spray Nine-Year-Old Girl In Handcuffs"

Another entry in my series "Capitalism isn't completely worthless." Company heads who see employees storming the Capitol are firing those employees.

"Dozens of former Bush officials leave Republican Party, calling it 'Trump cult.'"
I think the former Bush officials are right.

A look at how Nixon's "Imperial Presidency" has morphed into today's behemoth. Senate Majority, now Minority Leader McConnell has aided the rise of shifting even more power to the Executive Branch by making the Senate into a relatively useless and inactive branch.

Lengthy thread exploring just how complicit federal institutions and Republican legislators were in the 6 January attack on the Capitol. Trump apparently decided a year in advance that he couldn’t possibly win a free and fair election.

January

Thousands of people being arrested in Russia over Navalny's treatment.

Republicans make completely unserious counter-proposal on Covid relief. Total joke. Deserves back-of-the-hand dismissal.

News media is excited by the idea of bipartisanship in the proposal (Democratic plan is $1.9 trillion, Republican plan is $0.6 trillion), but Democrats are completely and utterly uninterested.

Update (1 Feb): Republicans met with Biden and Harris to discuss their proposal. As of 13 Feb, there's no evidence tht Biden made any concessions at all.

Shorter Stephen Miller: "Waaah! Sob! Boo hoo! We lost the election!"

Good! The precedents of 1993 and 2009 are being remembeed and heeded and Biden is resolutely avoiding. Biden knows that we can expect zero cooperation from his political opponents. So he's not even going to try.

People concluding that the Republican Party can no longer be salvaged.

Senator Joe Manchin believes payments to Americans should be targeted so as to save money. As we see in VP Harris’ interview, the Biden Administration doesn’t agree. The fellow at Balloon Juice believes Manchin is a sweet and innocent child who really should know better.

"Trump's impeachment defense team leaves less than two weeks before trial"
Not at all surprising. Low probability of ever getting paid, and client is clearly guilty. Also, “Trump wanted the attorneys to argue there was mass election fraud” A few problems with this: 1. Doesn’t justify launching an autogolpe (Spanish for “self-coup”), 2. Five deaths and 140 officers wounded, including 15 who had to be hospitalized, 3. Around 60 court cases failed to provide any evidence of fraud.

What's interesting here is to listen to Tucker Carlson talk about how dangerous Representative AOC is and to then check out the second video (Teabaggers) in this next post where you can hear Rush Limbaugh and some Fox News guy talk about how dangerous Democrats are. There has been no evolution. They're saying exactly the same thing!

Hysterically overstating much? Senator Cruz says Biden, who has signed 25 Executive Orders, has signed more EOs in his first week than the past 15 presidents had during their entire terms. Erm, uh, Trump signed 220 EOs during his one term.

Wow! So remember that wacky, deranged, lunatic Representative who was talking about "Jewish space lasers" and shooting Speaker Pelosi? The former President just gave her a call and is in 100% support!

With the silencing of the Trump/Twitter & Fox News combination, Biden has a rare opportunity to really set the national agenda.

Chief Justice Roberts has ducked out of presiding over the second impeachment of Trump. This is not a legal problem, but it IS one of political “optics.”

Israel controls all borders to Palestinians (West Bank & Gaza) and thereby all access to the outside world. That makes it 100% responsible for seeing to it that they have access to anti-Covid medications.

Again, a Trump policy is swept away like a sandcastle on a beach. President Biden is adopting a new, more effective policy.

Update (13 Feb): Discarding Trump policies seems to be causing a rise in disapproval from a low of 34% to 37.2% today, but his approvals have remaied steady at 53% to 54%. Democrats give him a 98% approval while Republicans give him 85% disapproval.

So, remember when Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and his wife Louise Linton posed as though they were victorious super-villains with sheets of freshly-printed bills? Linton's an actress and here's her latest film:

A deepthink thread on impeachment

[snark/] Ah yes, the tremendously powerful and influential Representative AOC is dominating social media! But how about the poor fellows who are producing toxic materials that are speeding up climate change? Why don't they have big social media platforms?

Wow! How urgent do people consider Covid to be? This urgent! Actually, it's a pretty cool story:

Freezer storing vaccines breaks Thursday night in Seattle.
Medical center posts urgent message, sets up 11 p.m.-2 a.m. appointments before doses expire.
Hundreds show up in pajamas and robes to receive vaccine.
All doses administered.