Colin Powell gives a briefing on Jan. 17, 1991. Photo: Rick Maiman/Sygma via Getty Images
As secretary of state in 2003, Powell lied at the United Nations about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.
Peter Maass October 18 2021, 2:40 p.m. (theintercept.com)
“I am saddened by the death of Colin Powell without being tried for his crimes in Iraq.” —Muntadher Alzaidi
COLIN POWELL IS being hailed, at his death, as a trailblazer. He certainly was that.
Raised in the South Bronx by immigrant parents, Powell was a graduate of the City College of New York and rose through the ranks of the U.S. military to become the first Black chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under President George H.W. Bush during the Persian Gulf War. After that — and most famously — he served as America’s first Black secretary of state during the presidency of George W. Bush. He died today at 84 of complications related to Covid-19.
His contemporaries in the U.S. cannot find enough words of praise. “Colin Powell was the North Star to a generation of senior American military officers including me,” wrote retired Adm. James Stavridis. For Richard Haass, who heads the Council on Foreign Relations, Powell was “the most intellectually honest person I ever met.”
It’s a different story in Iraq, where millions of people likely share the sentiments of Muntadher Alzaidi, who memorably threw his shoes at George W. Bush during a 2008 press conference in Baghdad. Reacting to Powell’s death, Alzaidi expressed sadness only over the fact that he did not face a war crimes trial for his pivotal role in the invasion of Iraq. “I am sure that the court of God will be waiting for him,” Alzaidi wrote on Twitter.
Powell’s friends in America tend to briefly note, in the soft glaze of his own regret, the most consequential act of his life. On February 5, 2003, Powell made a 76-minute speech to the United Nations Security Council in which he argued the Bush administration’s case for invading Iraq. He insisted that Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, was overseeing a secret program to make weapons of mass destruction. Powell brandished satellite photos of what he confidently said were decontamination trucks, aluminum tubes, and other WMD paraphernalia. He even held up a vial that he said could contain anthrax.
There was, of course, a big problem with all of his assertions: They were lies. The intelligence behind his speech was the opposite of emphatic — it was false, manipulated, and fabricated. The trucks were just trucks. The tubes were just tubes. There was no anthrax. There was, more fundamentally, no reason to invade Iraq. Nonetheless, thanks to Powell’s presentation, the Bush administration went ahead with its plans, and in the ensuing catastrophe, at least several hundred thousand Iraqis lost their lives, as well as more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers.
There is no shortage of senior officials in the Bush era who had a higher quotient of intentional malignance than Powell. We know their names well: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, Paul Wolfowitz, and, of course, Bush himself. But Powell was unique in a way that does not flatter his legacy: He was perhaps the only public figure who could have stopped the White House from going ahead with its lunatic invasion, and he failed to do so. In a lengthy article published last year, writer Robert Draper traced the what-if of Powell, the most popular member of Bush’s post-9/11 Cabinet, telling the truth when it mattered:
What if that same voice that publicly proclaimed the necessity of invading Iraq had instead told Bush privately that it was not merely an invitation to unintended consequences but a mistake, as he personally believed it to be? What if he said no to Bush when he asked him to speak before the U.N.? Powell would almost certainly have been obligated to resign, and many if not all of his top staff members involved in the Iraq issue would also have quit.
Dominoes would have continued to fall. The British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, would have almost certainly followed Powell’s example, which meant that the crucial British support for the invasion would have cratered. In the U.S., Draper noted, “Doubters in the upper ranks of the American military — there were several — would have been empowered to speak out; intelligence would have been reexamined; Democrats, now liberated from the political pressures of the midterm election, would most likely have joined the chorus.”
That was the path not taken, because Powell would not stand up to Bush.
“I didn’t have any choice,” Powell told Draper feebly. “What choice did I have? He’s the president.”
The ironic twist of not just Powell’s career but also the careers of so many American generals is that they abjectly lacked, when the moment called for it, the one thing that soldiers are supposed to possess in abundance: courage. The history of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is filled with U.S. generals who were lauded as heroes but lacked the guts or honesty to stand up to the whims and dictates of their superiors. Millions of people have been killed and injured on their failed watch since 9/11.RelatedAmerica’s Generals Are Cowards. Fire Them All.
Powell resigned from the Bush administration in 2004 and never really owned up to what he had done. He recognized that his U.N. speech was inaccurate and described it, in an interview with celebrity journalist Barbara Walters, as “painful” and a “blot” on his career. Those comments, not long after he left office, were pretty much as far as he would ever go in terms of introspection or criticism. He was unable to admit the truth that his chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson now acknowledges. “I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community, and the United Nations Security Council,” Wilkerson has said.
The “blot” did not matter that much to Powell’s reputation in the U.S., because after the Iraq disaster, he continued to blaze a lucrative path in the corporate world, joining the board of directors of Salesforce and Bloom Energy and becoming a “strategic adviser” to the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. (He was already very rich — he had received a $6 million advance for his 1995 memoir “My American Journey.”) He was a trailblazer, in this way, for a generation of retired generals who have coasted into 1 percent status thanks to the flattering reviews they receive in cultural and political circles no matter the actual consequences of their government service.
In fact, there are many levels on which Powell can be described as trailblazing, and it’s complicated to consider them together. As reporter Terrell Jermaine Starr and columnist Karen Attiah noted within hours of Powell’s passing, he was an important and inspiring figure to a large number of Black Americans, particularly before his service in the Bush administration. “I am genuinely sad about Colin Powell’s death — while acknowledging his role in America’s reckless decision to invade Iraq,” Attiah wrote on Twitter.
Scholar and journalist Marc Lamont Hill struck a similar balance in his assessment today. “At the personal level, Colin Powell was a nice man,” Hill wrote. “He was also a trailblazer. But he was also a military leader and key strategist of an empire that killed countless people and undermined the sovereignty of multiple nations. In our memorials, we must be honest about all of this.”
TK News While President Biden’s 2020 candidacy was largely supported by environmental activists over the incumbent President Trump, their movement has grown increasingly frustrated by what they see as a betrayal in the approval of fossil fuel projects like Line 3. Over the week of October 11 to 15, climate activists held direct action throughout Washington DC, leading to a total of more than 400 arrests as the movement demanded Biden cancel the pipelines, declare a climate emergency, and govern toward a green future. Ford Fischer / News2Share, with additional footage from TJ Jones Activism Uncensored, a Collaboration with TK News
As if his own record weren’t bad enough, former coal baron and current West Virginia senator Joe Manchin’s daughter Heather Bresch — who doubles as a major donor to Joe — is a price-gouging drug profiteer who has played a central role in her father’s destructive political career.
Heather Bresch holds up a two pack of EpiPens as she testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on September 21, 2016, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)
Our new issue, “The Working Class,” is out in print and online now. Subscribe today at a discount to get it.
Should you maintain any lingering attachment to “girlboss” ideology — the prevalent liberal idea that capitalism is better and more humane when women are in charge — the CV of Heather Bresch, West Virginia senator Joe Manchin’s daughter, makes for bracing reading. She’s enjoyed some accolades as a smasher of glass ceilings. She was the first female CEO of a large pharmaceutical company and one of only eighteen women to run a Fortune 500 corporation. In 2014, Bresch was named one of Fortune magazine’s “50 Most Powerful Women in Business.”
It’s quite a set of credentials. But looking more closely at the details of her career, Bresch has had a remarkably horrible impact on society, even by the usual standards of American capitalists.
You can always tell something about politicians by the connections of their close family members, spouses, and friends, as we argued here two years ago. Such people influence the way they think — all things being equal, we’d much rather elect a politician married to a nurse or a teacher, for example, than to a fossil fuel executive. Of course, humans aren’t wholly responsible for their family members, thank goodness, and in not every case will a relative’s questionable line of work affect a politician’s capacity to govern sensibly.
In the case of West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, however, his daughter’s former job — she was president, top lobbyist, and CEO of Mylan, a drug company — represents such a massive conflict of interest, with implications for policy that are shocking and disqualifying even by normal Washington, DC, standards. She’s not only the senator’s daughter, she’s a major donor.
And it’s worse than that. Much worse.
Last month, the Intercept’s Ryan Grim reported that Bresch worked with the CEO of Pfizer to keep the prices of the EpiPen artificially high. The EpiPen, as many readers with severe allergies know, is a lifesaving device patients carry with them in case of a serious allergic reaction that injects epinephrine into the body. As Grim reported, the emails about the 2011 deal between the CEOs were released as part of a lawsuit. Pfizer agreed to divest from its EpiPen competitor, giving Mylan a monopoly, allowing the company to continue raising prices without any competitive curb. (The deal — and the resulting price increase — was profitable to both companies, as Pfizer acquired King Pharmaceuticals, the company that made the epinephrine, while Mylan continued to make and distribute the device itself.)
In 2007, when Mylan first got the rights to the EpiPen, a two pack cost less than $100; after Bresch cut the aforementioned deal with Pfizer, the price increased to more than $600, with catastrophic results, especially for those who had to pay full price due to lack of adequate insurance coverage. As CNBC reported in 2016, the EpiPen only costs a couple dollars to make — including the drug. Oh, and as a side note, after the price increase, Manchin’s wife, Gayle Conelly Manchin, lobbied for federal legislation requiring schools to have EpiPens onsite.
The Manchins are truly the worst family in America.
Pfizer has settled a lawsuit on price-fixing in the case, and a similar legal action against Mylan is ongoing. Bresch stepped down from Mylan last year amid criticism over the unconscionable price increases. (Also, in 2017, Mylan was fined $465 million for ripping off Medicaid. You go, girl!) Bresch’s exit package was an eye-popping $37.6 million.
You could buy a lot of EpiPens with that, even at gouged prices. Perhaps that’s why Bresch’s remorse over this episode — expressed when she was questioned about it by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform — has seemed pro forma at best: with such a “retirement” nest egg, why should she care if children die? As one 2016 Bloomberg Business headline put it: “Mylan CEO Regrets Patient Blowback, But Not Expanded EpiPen Use.”
The main reason Joe Manchin is famous right now is that he is holding up a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package that will allow American society to address a wide array of urgent social and environmental needs. It is crucial to the everyday survival of millions of working-class Americans, and the fate of life on Earth, as well as the short-term electoral future of the Democrats. One of the most popular provisions in that bill would make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors by allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies, a policy change that would vastly complicate the sort of shenanigans that have made Manchin’s daughter such a rich woman.
We all have disreputable relatives, but Manchin is implicated in his daughter’s career — she got her first job at Mylan after her dad put in a good word for her. What’s more, Bresch is far more involved than most daughters in her father’s career. As OpenSecrets reported last month after Grim’s story broke, Bresch’s company — PAC and employees — was one of Joe Manchin’s largest campaign contributors before it was purchased by Viatris in 2020. The largest donor to the Mylan PAC during the 2010 and 2012 cycles was Heather Bresch. In 2016 and 2018, Bresch and her husband, Jeff, a former partner at the law firm Jones Day, donated the maximum amount as individuals to Manchin’s campaign.
Last Tuesday, protesters with the Sunrise Movement, Ohio Valley Environmental Resistance, and Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America picketed Bresch’s $10 million home in Pittsburgh. Protesters asked Bresch to lobby her father to stop cutting the full $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act, with no cuts to its investments in human survival and a livable planet. The protesters delivered a job offer letter to her, pointing out that 68 percent of West Virginia voters want the full legislation to pass, including the climate provisions, but Manchin “does not listen to his constituents and is trying to cut the bill into nothing. So, we need someone he will listen to . . . we believe that is you.”
The wrongdoing of his daughter should not overshadow the full horror Manchin’s awfulness as an individual. He was a coal baron before he was a senator, and he collects half a million dollars a year in dividends from his coal company. No wonder he opposes all the most important climate provisions in the proposed budget. His own conflicts of interest would disqualify him from office, if we had a sensible constitution aimed at preventing the capture and control of government by capitalists. Since we don’t, his constituents should have the good sense to vote him out. They’ve got plenty of good reasons to do so, but his Big Pharma daughter surely offers one more.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Liza Featherstone is a columnist for Jacobin, a freelance journalist, and the author of Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart.
The numbers are almost incomprehensible. According to an ongoing report called Billionaire Bonanza 2020, in the first 17 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos increased his already massive fortune by $75 billion. In that same time period, fellow aspiring astronaut and Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly added $150 billion to his own wealth, while Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg gained $74.2 billion.
The report, copublished by the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness, examines pandemic-era wealth accumulation by U.S. billionaires. Since it was last updated in August, the estimated wealth of all of these astoundingly rich individuals has only explodedfurther. But despite their individual economic growth, the country’s richest people often manage to pay exactly $0 in federal income taxes. ProPublica’s widely read, ongoing, in-depth reporting on “a vast trove” of recently leaked Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents revealed that billionaires like Bezos and Musk have all avoided paying any federal income taxes in previous years — some for multiple years, in fact.
Even before the IRS leak, investigating the legal ways wealthypeopleregularly circumvent paying federal income taxes was a familiar journalistic endeavor. After all, if tens of millions of Americans pay federal income taxes every year, why don’t the country’s wealthiest people have to do the same? How do people with inconceivable fortunes manage to owe the IRS nothing in federal income taxes? Chye-Ching Huang, executive director of the Tax Law Center at NYU School of Law, chats with Teen Vogue about some of the main ways the richest Americans keep the bulk of their financial empires out of IRS coffers.
Income from wealth and income from work are taxed differently
The vast majority of working Americans get their income from hourly wages or a regular salary. In both cases, it’s typical for income taxes to be automatically deducted. But people with a high net worth, Huang explains, often collect the majority of their income from assets like stock holdings, property, or other investments. As those assets increase in value — the stock market goes up, pieces in their art collection get more expensive, the real estate market shifts in their favor — their total wealth increases too.
“That income [is only] subject to taxes if they actually sell the asset that generated that income,” Huang says. “So, unlike the ordinary wage and salary owner who’s paying taxable income in real time, very high net worth people can choose whether and even when to pay taxes on the growth of their wealth.”
The current federal income tax rate, at its highest, enforces a tax rate of 37% for individual taxpayers making $523,600 or more and for married couples making $628,300 or more. To avoid the tax rate in this income bracket, it’s not uncommon for business owners with a high net worth to pay themselves lower salaries. For example, Bezos collected just $80,000 per year as the CEO of Amazon. Apple founder Steve Jobs, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Meg Whitman, Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Facebook’s Zuckerberg all accepted a salary of $1 per year, likely for the same purpose.
Remember when Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders came out with their own wealth tax proposals during the 2020 campaign season? Implementing a regular wealth tax would finally ensure that income from wealth is taken into account alongside income from work. So even though wealthy corporate executives could still minimize their federal income tax by accepting comically low salaries, their existing wealth would be subject to taxes regardless. Warren and Sanders have continued to push for the policy, introducing the revived Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act in March with other progressive Democrats. Even President Joe Biden has proposed using wealth taxes to pay for key social-spending programs.
Wealth can be translated into spending money without being taxed
If income from wealth functions differently and is taxed differently than income from work, how is it used to purchase something? How does an asset transform into spendable money? The short answer is that wealthy people often rely on loans.
“For many of these folks, instead of selling the stocks or the real estate — which would cause [it] to be subject to tax — and then using the proceeds to fund their lifestyle, they instead borrow money and [use that] to fund their lifestyles,” Huang explains.
Banks are much more willing to offer wealthy people huge loans that benefit from extremely low interest rates, Huang says. Business Insiderreported that billionaire investor Larry Ellison, for example, opened a $9.7 billion line of credit in 2014 using some of his stock shares. The outlet also reported last year that Musk used a portion of his Tesla stock to get a loan for $550 million. Because borrowed money doesn’t count as income, that money isn’t taxable either.
“If a bank looks at somebody who has a few billion dollars in stocks or even a few million, they’re very, very low risk,” says Huang. “So they can fund those lifestyles and really enjoy the benefits of that income without having to pay taxes on that.”
Rich people hire lobbyists and lawyers devoted to keeping their taxes low
People with a high net worth often use their inordinate resources to hire professionals, donate to lawmakers, and invest in policies that are devoted to keeping their taxes low and their wealth growing unreservedly.
Tax lobbyists working on behalf of the richest Americans and corporations facilitate and maintain direct access between wealthy people’s economic interests and policymakers, essentially guaranteeing that the country’s richest people have a consistent foothold on Capitol Hill. Huang tells Teen Vogue that tax policy is regularly one of the top three most-lobbied issues in Congress. Also, high net worth people often employ tax lawyers who are well-versed in the tax code and can do the heavy lifting of finding loopholes during the tax filing process to legally save their clients as much money as possible.
“Unlike most ordinary Americans, [wealthy people have] the ability to shape laws by having their voices heard at every stage of the lawmaking process and the making of regulations,” Huang says. “They have armies of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists who weigh in on legislation [and] on regulations and can help them through the process of challenging the IRS in court.”
Tax lawyers are also prepared for the off-chance that their multi-million-dollar or multi-billion-dollar client is audited by the IRS — a disproportionately infrequent practice that allows the wealthiest Americans to illegally skip out on an estimated $175 billion in taxes each year. Due to years of repeated budget cuts, the IRS rarely has the staff or internal resources to undertake the expensive, labor-intensive auditing process to force the biggest corporations and the wealthiest individuals to actually pay what they owe the IRS and any associated penalties. At this moment, Huang explains, those missing billions are needed to fund a number of major nationwide initiatives and much-needed infrastructure investments.
“Congress is right now considering how it might pay for investments in things that would have broad benefits,” adds Huang. “Ensuring that high-income people pay at least some tax on their huge incomes that currently go untaxed over a lifetime is a really key opportunity for lawmakers to retilt that playing field so that it’s not so heavily tilted [toward] income from wealth over income from work. And that’s the absolute minimum in my view.”
Santiago Siri on the left; Vitalik Buterin, Co-founder of Ethereum
Santiago Siri can hardly forget what happened to him this week: the Argentine entrepreneur who promotes a universal digital basic income captured an investment from the revolutionary young creator of Ethereum, Vitálik Buterin.
The founder of the second most important crypto globally after Ether used 50 units, equivalent to about USD 200,000 to buy the UBI (the acronym in English for universal basic income) and then, “burned” them, so that, when reducing the available supply, caused its value to increase immediately 10 times.
But that was not all: after Buterin’s decision, several members of the global community of investors in cryptocurrencies joined this initiative with the same operation and, thus, in their ninth month of life, the UBIs came to operate a record volume close to 36 million dollars in one day.
The initiative to provide a universal digital income with the cryptocurrency ether, to assist poor people without any middleman, was launched earlier this year together with his foundation Democracy Earth and Kleros.
In dialogue with Infobae , Siri detailed from Spain how everything happened, after having expressed his emotion on social networks.
“It was an ordinary week; I went to drop off my daughter at school, my cell phone was without battery and when I charged it I found out that the night before Vitalik made a decision that I would have liked him to make: he took 50 Ether, which is about 200 thousand dollars, and bought 8% of UBI’s total offer; he immediately burned it and that had an impact on the price, which went from 3 to 30 cents “
“But it was even more important that the entire crypto system interpreted that decision by Vitalik as a sign of immense support for the UBI system: the volume that was moved was 36 million dollars, when, at the launch of the project, when there was a stage of initial furor, it moved a million dollars ”.
“From this, many people were able to donate money to their parents, travel or pay for their studies. Now that we have a community, it is a very strong push, since the 10,000 users were benefited by the support of Vitalice, with the message that universal income does not have to imply begging the State, but rather an issue that is resolved in technological terms. This week, he gave us an example of how new possibilities can be generated for this project, ”he said.
In this regard, he explained that the ex-wife of Elon Musk and mother of his son, Grimes, “is studying the issue because she said she is interested in a project of this style.”
“We are getting closer to Elon Musk and hopefully he gets more excited about this than about Dogecoin, which is nothing more than a meme. We have users in China, in all regions of the world and of course in Latin America in general and in Argentina in particular “
“We do not depend on the government and we went straight to people’s wallets and this was very emotional; so the first thing I did was convey that feeling that I couldn’t stop crying ”.
Siri recalled that he met the founder of Etherem in 2019, when they went together “to the Parliament of Canada to present ideas of digital democracy.”
“He’s a young boy, he listens more than he talks, he has a great sense of humor like any good nerd; He is the most influential person of his generation, who has not only displaced the strongest entrepreneurs in the United States, but also the model that emerged in Silicon Valley, because he is Canadian and the son of Russians. He is more interested in being an intellectual, a hacker, ”explained the Argentine entrepreneur.
Siri said that other figures in the crypto world could join in as happened with Vitálik. “Yes, because in the end it is all a matter of technology coordination. Hopefully what we are doing with the UBI is a universal income and all interested capitals coordinate with a token like this one ”.
The first step is the human identity identification system: a person shows their identity on the Blockchain and other humans can vote to validate whether they are a person or not through this proof of life.
If identity is verified effectively, the person will have access to Universal Basic Income (UBI), which has several advantages, because it accumulates in their electronic wallet in real time.
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove James Tunney, LLM, is an Irish barrister who has lectured on legal matters throughout the world. He is a poet, a scholar, and author of The Mystery of the Trapped Light: Mystical Thoughts in the Dark Age of Scientism plus The Mystical Accord: Sutras to Suit Our Times, Lines for Spiritual Evolution; also Empire of Scientism: The Dispiriting Conspiracy and Inevitable Tyranny of Scientocracy and TechBondAge: Slavery of the Human Spirit. His website is http://www.jamestunney.com. Here he describes the work of George William Russell who was known by his pen name of “AE”. Russell was a fine artist, poet, dramatist, critic, playwrite, statesman, publisher, and mystic. He was closely associated with W. B. Yeats and served as an inspiration for a generation of esotericists, writers, and political activists. His life reflects a balance between engagement with the inner and outer worlds. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). (Recorded on October 1, 2021) For a complete, updated list with links to all of our videos, see https://newthinkingallowed.com/Listin…. If you would like to join our team of volunteers, helping to promote the New Thinking Allowed YouTube channel on social media, editing and translating videos, creating short video trailers based on our interviews, helping to upgrade our website, or contributing in other ways (we may not even have thought of), please send an email to friends@newthinkingallowed.com. Check out our new website for the New Thinking Allowed Foundation at http://www.newthinkingallowed.org. There you will find our incredible, searchable database as well as opportunities to shop and to support our video productions. There, you can also subscribe to our free, weekly Newsletter! To download and listen to audio versions of the New Thinking Allowed videos, please visit our podcast at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/n…. You can help support our video productions while enjoying a good book. To order The Mystery of the Trapped Light by James Tunney, click here: https://amzn.to/3cPLRR4. OTHER BOOKS : James Tunney, The Mystical Accord: Sutras to Suit Our Times, Lines for Spiritual Evolution – https://amzn.to/2ugamVh James Tunney, Ireland I Don’t Recognize Who She Is — https://amzn.to/2UZfExY James Tunney, Blue Lies September – https://amzn.to/3ak4NFt (As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.) Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/newthinkinga… Our Twitter page: https://twitter.com/newthinkallowed Our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/jeffreymish… Our LinkedIn discussion group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13860… Our Discord channel: https://discord.gg/VZU9HKK
Clarence Lusane author, activist, journalist and professor at Howard University, where he is director of the International Affairs Program and former chair of the Department of Political Science.
We look at the life and legacy of Colin Powell, who is best known for giving false testimony to the U.N. Security Council in 2003 about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, paving the way for the U.S. invasion and occupation that would kill over 1 million Iraqis. Powell, who was the first Black secretary of state, the first Black and youngest chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first Black national security adviser, died on Monday due to blood cancer and Parkinson’s disease that left him vulnerable to infection from COVID-19. Tributes poured in from top U.S. leaders in both Republican and Democratic circles on Monday, but in other parts of the world Powell is remembered very differently. We speak with journalist and author Roberto Lovato, and Clarence Lusane, activist, journalist and political science professor at Howard University. Lusane describes Powell as “a complicated political figure who leaves a complicated legacy” whose public image was “in conflict with many of the policies of the party he supported and the administration in which he was involved.” Assessing Powell’s role in U.S. invasions around the world, from Vietnam to Central America, Lovato says “he’s made a career out of being a good soldier and supporting U.S. mass murder around the world, but evading the credit for it.”
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin during his swearing in ceremony in San Francisco, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)Jeff Chiu / Associated Press
The second campaign to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is done collecting signatures, though organizers have not provided a progress report on how many signatures they received in over two weeks.
To trigger a recall election, organizers must gather 51,325 valid signatures by Oct. 25. The first recall campaign fell 1,714 signatures short, with organizers citing confusion over the fact that there were two separate recalls as a significant hindrance to collecting signatures.
This second recall campaign announced Monday evening — a week before the submission deadline — that “the signature gathering phase of our campaign is now closed.” “We will share the final number of signatures once every signature is counted,” they added.
Organizers did not respond to multiple SFGATE requests for comment on why the campaign has not provided a recent progress report. Proponents gathering signatures for recalls of Gov. Gavin Newsom and three members the San Francisco Board of Education providedfrequentprogress reports in the weeks leading up to their respective deadlines.
The San Francisco Board of Education recall had the same same signature threshold (and goal of gathering 70,000 signatures because some will be deemed invalid during the city review process), and organizers often took to Twitter to share their progress.
“OVER 60K RECALL SIGNATURES!!!” the group wrote in in August. “And just over two weeks left to get 10k more to ensure we qualify.”
Once the board recall organizers hit their goal of 70,000 signatures, they announced, “WE DID IT! 70K SIGNATURES!!!… Thanks to EVERYONE of you for helping us get here!”
The Boudin recall organizers previously providedregularprogress reports, citing a 70,000 signature goal up until Aug. 25, at which point they announced they had collected 63,720 signatures. Then, over a month passed before the group wrote on Oct. 4, “As of today, 1 in 10 San Franciscans have signed the petition to #RecallChesa.” This would imply they have over 80,000 signatures — seemingly blowing past the goal.
It is unusual that the month of September saw no progress reports or fanfare around apparently exceeding the 70,000 signature goal — especially given how organizers for the Newsom and board of education recalls celebratedhitting their respective goals.
It is possible that the previous progress reports Boudin recall organizers shared were accurate, but they did not want to publicize hitting the goal out of fear it would dissuade more people from signing and providing extra cushion during the review process. But it is also possible that in their progress reports, organizers may have double-counted the signatures for both recalls. Recall organizers did not respond to our requests for clarification.
Until the group provides a new progress report — which apparently won’t come until after they tally all the signatures they collected, or they tell us why they stopped issuing such reports — we’ll be left guessing.
Eric Ting is the editor of California Issues, SFGATE’s politics section. He is an East Bay native who has a Master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University. Eric did his undergrad at Pomona College, where he majored in politics and minored in economics. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com
Support Apache Stronghold bringing their case to protect Oak Flat sacred site from mining destruction to the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco.
See list of actions/events in San Francisco below graphic
Actions for Oak Flat in San Francisco for Wednesday, Thursday & Friday
Wednesday, Oct. 20th ~ 4:00pm – 6:00pm, #LandBack Now! Apache Stronghold Vigil Rally & Mural Action in SF
In person
SF Federal Building 7th & Mission St. SF
The Apache Stronghold convoy is arriving in the Bay Area today. On October 20th at the US Federal Building in San Francisco there will be a Prayer Vigil-Mural Action to highlight their legal case to save Oakflat.
We’ll be joined by Poor People’s Campaign Co-chair Rev Dr Liz Theoharis and Apache Stronghold leaders, as well as local and statewide faith leaders, testifiers and advocate
Friday, 9:00am – 1:00pm, Listening Session, Protect Oak Flat (Today is the scheduled court hearing)
In person
Civic Center Plaza At Larkin St. between Grove & Fulton St. SF
Updated Oct. 18th: “Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Friday, October 22 at approximately 9:30 am. PST Courtroom #3 (time may change) Oral argument will be held virtually at this link: Live Video Streaming of Oral Arguments and Events
Attorney Luke Goodrich and Dr. Wendsler Nosie, Sr. will be available for comment immediately following the hearing. Join us for statements live on Twitter @BECKETlaw”
Support Apache Stronghold bringing their case to protect Oak Flat sacred site from mining destruction to the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco.
What:
Oral Argument in Apache Stronghold v. United States
Who:
Luke Goodrich, Becket vice president & senior counsel Dr. Wendsler Nosie, Sr., Apache Stronghold
When:
Friday, October 22 at proximately 12 p.m. PST (time may change)
Chi’chil Bildagoteel (Oak Flat) is a sacred site for the San Carlos Apache—a place to pray, collect water and medicinal plants, gather acorns, honor the people who are buried there, and perform sacred ceremonies. In 2014, the United States government promised the land to a copper mining company to build a two mile wide mine. Wendsler Nosie Sr. returned home to this space in November 2019 and asks us to join him in prayer and action to prevent the destruction of Oak Flat.
PRAY
• Find a prayer practice that fits you—take a walk, light a candle, sit quietly…
• Pray for Wendsler’s safety, the San Carlos Apache Nation, the fresh water that runs at Oak Flat, action in Congress, the trees, plants, and animals in danger,
Join a discussion on how the Indigenous movement of Rights of Nature can impact the activist work to transform and end humanity’s nuclear legacy.
PANELISTS:
–Shannon Biggs, Movement Rights co-founder
–Cynthia Lazaroff, founder of NuclearWakeUpCall.Earth, award-winning documentary filmmaker, and author of “Dawn of a New Armageddon”
–Kumu Hula Puna Dawson, Hawaiian Cultural Practitioner
–Marian Naranjo, Founder and Director, Honor Our Pueblo Existence (H.O.P.E.)
–Susi Snyder, Financial Sector Coordinator, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
–Ambassador Elayne Whyte Gomez, Presided over Proceedings of the United Nations Conference that Negotiated and Adopted the Landmark Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Through collaborative community engagement, education, film, mediation, indigenous wisdom, music and cultural exchange, we are encouraging the peoples of the US and Russia – the two countries with over 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons – to act now to compel their political leaders to take concrete steps that will immediately reduce the nuclear risk and at the same time work with all countries towards a world without nuclear weapons.
2. Wednesday, 12Noon – 1:00pm, Support October 20 South Korean General Strike For Equality & Free KCTU President Yang Ky
In person
South Korean Consulate 3500 Clay St. SF
On October 20th, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions has called for a general strike to:
• Eradicate precarious work & Reform the labor law to guarantee fundamental trade union rights for all! • For a Just Transition & Moratorium on dismissals/ government responsibility to secure jobs! • Strengthen public services & social protection! The government has also imprisoned the president of the KCTU Yang Kyung-soo after he led a march of 8,000 workers in Seoul for health and safety and temporary workers.
3. Wednesday, 12Noon, Rally to Stop the SIP (Shelter In Place) Hotel Closures
In person
Tilden Hotel 345 Taylor St. SF
Join the Stop the SIP (Shelter In Place) Hotel Shutdown Coalition, unhoused neighbors, and allies for an outdoor rally outside of the Tilden Hotel to urge the city of San Francisco and Mayor London Breed to keep the Shelter In Place (SIP) Hotels open and to move unhoused people off of the streets and into these hotels.
In January of 2021, the Biden administration, in direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic, announced that across the country, local municipalities will be fully reimbursed for the cost of housing people in hotels, who are currently experiencing homelessness through FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) through the end of the year. Meanwhile the city has closed down more than five hotels and has three more they are shutting down this fiscal year. It is unacceptable and dangerous to not utilize this resource!
In the new window in your browser, click “Open Zoom Meeting” button
Enter in the meeting ID: 820 3710 5590
If the link does not work, go to: www.zoom.com and click in the top right “Join a Meeting,” and then entire the meeting ID (above)
If you would like to download the Zoom app on your computer or smartphone to
make a free account (for meetings):
Go to the App store or Google Play store, search for “Zoom,” and click “Download” – the app should now be on your home screen
Open the app, click “join” on Zoom’s home screen, and enter the meeting ID: 820 3710 5590OR follow steps 1-3 above, and your app should automatically open
If you have a smartphone and would like to listen to the meeting over the
phone (“Dial-in”):
Dial the #: +1 (408) 638-0968 and when prompted, dial the meeting ID on your keypad: 820 3710 5590
Learn what national security provisions have been implemented at ports of entry in California for immigrants & noncitizens and how to navigate these provisions.
The NLG-SFBA Immigration Justice Committee is partnering with the SF-Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on a webinar surveying what immigrants and noncitizens might face when entering or leaving a port of entry in California. Speakers will cover what to expect when questioned by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), what authority the government has with investigating electronics, and how to take action when CBP goes outside of that authority and violates the rights of the person detained, depending on their immigration status.
Speakers:
· Brittney Rezaei is the Immigrants’ Rights Attorney for office of the CAIR-SFBA. She leads CAIR-SFBA’s immigrants’ rights work and provides direct legal services to immigrant communities and their families.
· Sophia Cope is a Senior Staff Attorney on the EFF’s civil liberties team, working on a variety of free speech and privacy issues. She has been a civil liberies attorney for 15 years and has experience in both litigation and policy advocacy.
Moderator:
Kelsey Morales is an Immigration Litigation Fellow with the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office and NLG-SFBA Immigration Justice Committee Member
(click on the link or copy and paste it into your browser)
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing
information about joining the meeting.
The Living Wage Coalition is building a grassroots movement of low-wage workers and their allies to win economic justice. Anyone who works full
time should be able to survive on what they earn and support themselves and their children. We are engaged in a transformative rethinking of
the economy that makes the goals of public policy living wage jobs for all. Come to be a part of discussing next steps in pursuing an economic justice agenda.
7. Wednesday, 7:00pm – 8:30pm, Understanding Police Misconduct Records with ‘On Our Watch’
When California’s SB 1421 was signed into law, it opened the door to previously hidden police files. KQED went to court with a cadre of lawyers and assembled a coalition of media partners to uncover and expose misconduct, abuse and criminal behavior by agencies and individuals engaged in law enforcement in California.
A look into the “On Our Watch” podcast and how journalists, activists and citizens can access public records to uncover misconduct.
When California’s SB 1421 was signed into law, it opened the door to previously hidden police files. KQED went to court with a cadre of lawyers and assembled a coalition of media partners to uncover and expose misconduct, abuse and criminal behavior by agencies and individuals engaged in law enforcement in California.
Through records requests, tough reporting and litigation, the California Reporting Project has brought secrets to light, gained the compliance of unwilling agencies and amplified the stories of victims.
Learn firsthand from the creators of the KQED and NPR podcast On Our Watch how this work led to the show. Get behind the scenes insight on the legal battles from the lawyers who fought them, and learn how to request and use police records to hold California agencies accountable. This event for journalists, activists and concerned citizens is being presented in collaboration with the First Amendment Coalition.
Featuring
Featuring Alex Emslie – Criminal Justice Reporter, KQED Sukey Lewis – Criminal Justice Reporter, KQED David Snyder – Executive Director, First Amendment Coalition Tenaya Rodewald – Special Counsel, Sheppard Mullin
Accessibility: ASL interpretation & live captioning will be provided
We’ll give updates about: – MACRO – Legislative victories in Sacramento – MH First – James Ramsey – Nicole Bratton – Justice for Steven Taylor, and – Justice for Jonathan Cortez
Latina Equal Pay Day –Broadcast @ 10 am PT / 1pm ET –Twitterstorm @ 11 am PT / 2 pm ET
We Are Essential Summit –Kickoff @ 11.30 am PT / 2.30 pm ET
Spanish interpretation available
join ERA, Justice for Migrant Women, Parent Voices, and a growing list of partners across the country to help secure livable wages, rights, protections, and dignity for Latinas and other low-paid essential workers.
FEATURING:
–Dolores Huerta, Founder & President of the, Dolores Huerta Foundation
–Monica Ramirez, Founder & President, Justice for Migrant Women
–Wendy Chun-Hoon, Director, Women’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor
–Noreen Farrell, Executive Director, Equal Rights Advocates
10. Thursday, 10:00am – 4:00pm, 55th Annual Celebration & Commeratation of The Black Panther Party’s Continuing Legacy
Bayview Opera House 4705 3rd Street SF
Free breakfast for children and the community. Performances and poetry. Music, Giveaways, and Health awareness information including sickle cell testing and vaccines.
Speakers will include community leaders: Elain Brown, Dr. Saturu Ned, Professor Steve McCutchen
11. Thursday, 11:00am, Press Conference demanding reparations for the Ahmadi family & end to the US terror drone program
In person
Congress woman Barbara Lee’s office (outside)
1 Kaiser Plaza Oakland 94612
Join CodePink and Ban Killer Drones, demands for reparations to the Ahmadi family, who lost 10 family members, including 7 young children and 3 adults, in the 10.29.21 drone murders in Kabul, Afghanistan. The US terror drone program must end!
$30 Million Minimum in Reparations for Afghan Family Demanded by U.S. National Group Opposing Drone Attacks
Ban Killer Drones, a national network opposed to drone attacks, is calling for reparation payments of at least $3 million for each of the 10 members of the Afghan Ahmadi family killed on August 29, 2021, by a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone. The group says thousands of others killed by U.S. drones deserve similar payments, which should be made under the oversight of Congress’ Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.
12. Thursday, 6:00pm – 7:00pm, Monthly gathering: Remembering Alex with Refugio and Elvira Nieto
Alex Nieto’s Altar Bernal Hill SF
On the monthly anniversary of Alex’s murder by SFPD on the 21st day of each month, gather with Alex’s parents Refugio and Elvira Nieto at Alex’s Altar.
If you can’t attend light a candle on this evening for Justice for Alex and ALL the lives of people that have been taken by the police.
On March 21, 2014, Alejandro “Alex” Nieto, 28 years old, was killed when he was struck by 14 – 15 bullets (of a total of 59 shots) fired by four San Francisco Police Department officers on Bernal Hill Park, without justification. The officers who killed Ales are: Sgt. Jason Sawyer (then lieutenant. He is also the killer of John Smart in 1998). Officer Roger Morse, Officer Richard Schiff and Officer Nathan Chew.
Friday, October 22
13. Friday, 1:00pm – 2:00pm,Shut Down The San Francisco Police Officers Association
In person
SF Police Officers Association (outside) 800 Bryant St. (@ 6th St) SF
RESIST with “Mothers On The March”, “Black and Brown for Justice and Equality”, Family’s whose love ones have been killed by cops from SFPD, and the Community.
– Demand the San Francisco Police Officers Association be Shut Down!
– The SF Police Officers Association Be Declared a Non Grata Organization
– Call for the abolishment of the ‘Officers Bill of Rights’
– Jail Killer Cops – demand killer cops be charged with murder.
– Abolish the Police
The POA has supported and defended officers who have executed people in our communities.
Weekly presence.
If you can’t attend contact Mayor London Breed tell her that you oppose funding for SFPD:
14. Friday, 6:00pm – 9:00pm, 25th Anniversary of O22 National Day Against Police Brutality
In person
Fruitvale BART Station Oakland
Join the efforts of Families United For4 Justice - California as we mobilize to recognizes all those martyr by police for the 25th Annual October 22; National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.
October 22nd is a day that people around the nation have mobilized every year since 1996 for a National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. It is crucial that we bring forward a powerful National Day of Protest in cities and towns across the U.S. to challenge the ongoing violence against the people.
This October 22nd, stand with thousands across the country to express our collective outrage, creativity, and resistance in response to the crimes of this system. We will light 300 candles in representation of the thousands of lives murdered at the hands of policing.
15. Saturday, 12 Noon, Why Should I Care About Julian Assange? Global Day of Education (Teach-in & Rally)
In person
Grand Lake Theatre 3200 Grand Avenue Oakland
Free Speech, Free Press, Free Journalists!
Drop the charges, Stop the Extradition, No Endless U.S. Wars!
The full appeal will be heard at the High Court on October 27 and 28.
Speakers:Nozomi Hayase, Author of Wikileaks, the Global Fourth Estate: History is HappeningDennis Bernstein, KPFA FlashpointsShahid Buttar, organizer and activistMickey Huff, Project CensoredAndrew Kodama, Mt. Diablo Peace & JusticeTom Lacey, Bay Area Peace & Freedom PartyJeff Mackler, United National AntiWar CoalitionCynthia Papermaster, CodePinkRick Sterling, Task Force on the AmericasSF Labor Council repPrerecorded messages from:Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Mumia Abu Jamal, Boots Riley, and Alice WalkerDownload the flyer here! Host: Bay Action Committee to Free Julian AssangeInfo: Julian Assange: Global Day of Education : Indybay
Help Outreach Working Group lift the fog of corporate media. Donate to help us maintain this website and distribute literature on the street.
The Institute for the Critical Study of Society at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library OUR CURRENT SCHEDULE (NOTE: These are all tentative and may be changed. Please check back the week before, or sign up for our weekly reminders/updates at cuyleruyle@mac.com) Sun, Dec 27, 2020: 10:30... Continue reading →
Get out the vote in Virginia! Sister District San Francisco & Friends Virtual Phone Bank: Sunday, October 24, 12–2 PM PT. It’s time to Get Out The Vote in Virginia to protect Democratic control of this key Southern state. Join Sister District San Francisco & Friends and collaborators in the Bay... Continue reading →
WHAT: Campaign for NY Health Statewide Grassroots Organizing Call WHEN: Tuesday, October 26, 5:30pm-7:00pm EST WHERE: Zoom (video optional) RSVP www.nyhcampaign.org/bigcall102621 Hear from our partners at Advocacy Institute about the landscape and strategy to move forward on the NY Health Act Hear from campaigners from around the state about how they... Continue reading →
Neighborhood Outreach to Renters in the Fillmore Interested in tenant organizing? Join Neighbors United for our weekly phonebank, Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m. We’ll be calling tenants in the Fillmore to let them know about their rights, and how to access rent relief. On June 30th at 6:00 p.m. in Jefferson Square Park, we’ll be... Continue reading →
DSA – Medicare for All Committee Meeting Posted by LaborSolidarityCommittee WHEN: October 27, 2021 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm CONTACT: Event website MEETING With the pandemic and its multiple, intersecting crises, and the polling popularity of Medicare for All, our commitment to the movement is more important than ever. Come... Continue reading →
Join us Thursday for another engaging conversation on our national organizing call at 6PM EST. We’ll be discussing the Supreme court and Birddog strategies with Center for Popular Democracy’s very own Julia Peters from CPD’s Innovation Team! We’ll also be discussing Medicare-for-all and Senate filibuster updates happening in our progressive fight. Hope... Continue reading →
Stand with Chesa We need to fight these Republican recalls tooth and nail! Chesa Boudin, who Bernie Sanders endorsed back in 2019, is in danger of being recalled and big money is being spent in the effort! Please help us keep District Attorney Chesa Boudin in office to do what... Continue reading →
WHAT: Campaign for NY Health Statewide Grassroots Organizing Call WHEN: Tuesday, October 26, 5:30pm-7:00pm EST WHERE: Zoom (video optional) RSVP www.nyhcampaign.org/bigcall102621 Hear from our partners at Advocacy Institute about the landscape and strategy to move forward on the NY Health Act Hear from campaigners from around the state about how they... Continue reading5:30 pm Neighborhood Outreach to Renters... @ OnlineNeighborhood Outreach to Renters... @ OnlineOct 26 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Neighborhood Outreach to Renters in the Fillmore Interested in tenant organizing? Join Neighbors United for our weekly phonebank, Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m. We’ll be calling tenants in the Fillmore to let them know about their rights, and how to access rent relief. On June 30th at 6:00 p.m. in Jefferson Square Park, we’ll be... Continue readingOct27Wed6:00 pm DSA – Medicare for All Committee... @ Online via ZoomDSA – Medicare for All Committee... @ Online via ZoomOct 27 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pmDSA – Medicare for All Committee Meeting Posted by LaborSolidarityCommittee WHEN: October 27, 2021 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm CONTACT: Event website MEETING With the pandemic and its multiple, intersecting crises, and the polling popularity of Medicare for All, our commitment to the movement is more important than ever. Come... Continue readingOct28Thu3:00 pm Center for Popular Democracy wee... @ OnlineCenter for Popular Democracy wee... @ OnlineOct 28 @ 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Join us Thursday for another engaging conversation on our national organizing call at 6PM EST. We’ll be discussing the Supreme court and Birddog strategies with Center for Popular Democracy’s very own Julia Peters from CPD’s Innovation Team! We’ll also be discussing Medicare-for-all and Senate filibuster updates happening in our progressive fight. Hope... Continue reading5:30 pm Stand with Chesa @ OnlineStand with Chesa @ OnlineOct 28 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Stand with Chesa We need to fight these Republican recalls tooth and nail! Chesa Boudin, who Bernie Sanders endorsed back in 2019, is in danger of being recalled and big money is being spent in the effort! Please help us keep District Attorney Chesa Boudin in office to do what... Continue reading