WIRED • Mar 18, 2025 • WIRED earns commission on tagged products. Learn moreStrongmen : Mussolini to the Present, by Ruth Ben-Ghiat$17.95booksamillion.com/p/Strongmen/Ruth-Ben-Ghiat/9780393868418Professor and authoritarianism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat joins WIRED to answer the internet’s burning questions about dictators and fascism. Why do people support dictators? How do dictators come to power? What’s the difference between a dictatorship, an autocracy, and authoritarianism? What are the most common personality traits found in tyrants and dictators? Is Xi Jinping a dictator? How do dictators amass wealth? Professor Ben-Ghiat answers these questions and many more on Tech Support: Dictator Support. 0:00 Dictator Support 0:16 wtf is fascism fr 1:41 Shirtless Putin 2:53 What defines a dictator? 3:38 Dictatorship v. Authoritarianism v. Autocracy 4:25 Dictators maintaining power amidst mass unpopularity 5:51 Fascist dictatorships v. Communist dictatorships 6:55 What all tyrants have in common 8:48 What’s with all the statues and such 10:17 How do dictators come to power? 11:07 “self-coup d’etat” 12:03 The Beer Hall Putsch 13:18 Reproductive rights in authoritarian states 14:22 Tacit fascists? In MY populace? It’s more likely than you think. 16:03 How dictators accrue wealth 17:20 Senator Self-Own 18:14 Dictators: Why though 19:53 Rallies 20:57 The internet was a mistake(?) 22:21 Is Orbán a fascist? 23:56 Benevolent dictator? (Nah) 24:24 Rigged! 25:41 A coup by the richest, for the rich 27:04 When oligarchs outlive their use 28:28 Can a dictator be good? 29:47 Game recognizes game 30:35 Blame “the enemy” 31:55 Is Xi Jinping a dictator? 32:30 More power, more assets, more control Buy Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s book Strongmenhttps://www.amazon.com/Strongmen-Muss…When you buy something through our affiliate links, we earn a commission. Director: Lisandro Perez-Rey Director of Photography: Ben Dewey Editor: Paul Tael Expert: Ruth Ben-Ghiat Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas; Brandon White Production Manager: Peter Brunette Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark Casting Producer: Nicholas Sawyer Camera Operator: Constantine Economides Sound Mixer: Sean Paulsen Production Assistant: Caleb Clark Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin Post Production Coordinator: Rachel Kim Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo Additional Editor: Brenda Cespedes; JC Scruggs Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
APWU PRES. MARK DIMONDSTEIN SPEAKS OUT ON THE ILLEGAL USPS TAKEOVER
APWU President Mark Dimondstein went live on MSNBC to speak out against the illegal attack on the USPS that is in the works. President Dimondstein laid bare the dangers of this scheme and made clear what’s at stake for every postal worker and every American who relies on an independent USPS.
Turkish authorities detained President Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival Ekrem Imamoglu on Wednesday on an array of charges including corruption and aiding a terrorist group just days before his expected nomination as the main opposition’s presidential candidate. Thousands later spilled onto the streets of Istanbul in protest.
Issued on: 19/03/2025 – (France24.com)
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Imamoglu of the main opposition CHP is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s main political rival and his detention came just days before the party was expected to name him as its candidate for the 2028 presidential election.
Widely seen as the strongest challenger to Erdogan – whose route to the presidency also included four years as Istanbul mayor – Imamoglu has been targeted by a growing number of what critics say are spurious legal investigations.
Hundreds of police joined the pre-dawn raid on his home, Imamoglu said on X before being taken away, with the authorities then briefly blocking access to social networks.
Street protests erupted despite a heavy police presence on the streets, with hundreds of officers fanning out around City Hall and closing off the central Taksim Square. The governor banned all protests for four days.
“What has happened is an attempted coup,” said the leader of the CHP, Ozgur Ozel, in a speech at City Hall.
“Ekrem Imamoglu’s freedom to be a candidate is not being taken away, it is this nation’s freedom to elect him that is being taken away.”
The mayor’s wife, Dilek Kaya Imamoglu, called it “a targeted political operation aimed at eliminating Turkey’s future president. This is a direct blow to the nation, and we will fight”, she vowed.
Thousands of people rallied in the cold in front of the city hall on Wednesday evening, yelling: “Erdogan, dictator!” and “Imamoglu, you are not alone!”
Hundreds also massed earlier outside the police station where the mayor was being held.
“Whenever this guy and his dirty team see someone strong, they panic and do something illegal,” said a shopkeeper who identified himself as Kurzey, referring to Erdogan and the AKP party, in power since 2003.
“In the past, it was soldiers who carried out coups. Today it’s the politicians,” sighed 63-year-old Hasan Yildiz.
Police earlier fired teargas to disperse 400 students protesting outside Istanbul University over its decision to revoke Imamoglu’s degree, an AFP correspondent said.
The Turkish lira fell 14.5 percent against the dollar and the benchmark stock index BIST 100 closed 8.72 percent lower.
“Today’s dip in the markets shows investors are concerned the arrest was politically motivated,” said Hamish Kinnear, a senior analyst with Verisk Maplecroft.
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Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said Imamoglu was being investigated for the “alleged crime of aiding and abetting a terrorist organisation” – namely the banned Kurdish militant group PKK.
A second investigation, involving 100 suspects, was focused on allegations of “bribery, extortion, corruption, aggravated fraud, and illegally obtaining personal data for profit as part of a criminal organisation”.
More than 80 people were rounded up early on Wednesday with some 20 others still sought – most from the CHP.
The authorities have regularly targeted journalists, lawyers and elected politicians, notably since a failed coup in 2016.
But the crackdown has intensified in recent months, with the authorities removing more than a dozen opposition mayors and taking action against any perceived opponents.
Between October and March, the authorities jailed three CHP mayors in the Istanbul area. They also removed 10 mayors from the pro-Kurdish DEM party, with most replaced by government-appointed trustees.
Imamoglu was one of three more CHP mayors detained on Wednesday.
“What happened this morning was nothing short of a coup against the main opposition party, with far-reaching consequences for Turkey‘s political trajectory,” political scientist Berk Esen at Istanbul’s Sabanci University told AFP.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said it was “deeply concerning” and Berlin denounced it as a “serious setback for democracy“.
But the United States, whose President Donald Trump has a warm relationship with Erdogan, declined to criticise the arrest directly.
“We would encourage Turkey to respect human rights, to handle its own internal framework appropriately,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.
The raid occurred just hours after Istanbul University revoked Imamoglu’s degree, amid claims it was falsely obtained – a significant move as presidential candidates are required by law to have a higher education qualification.
It came just days ahead of a key CHP meeting at which the party was to have named him its candidate for the 2028 presidential race.
“I think it was about Erdogan nipping Imamoglu’s candidacy in the bud,” Soner Cagaptay, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told AFP.
The 53-year-old, who was resoundingly re-elected as mayor of Turkey’s largest city and economic powerhouse last year, has been named in several legal probes, with three new cases opened this year alone.
Israel launched dozens of airstrikes on Tuesday, killing over 400 Palestinians — half whom were women and children. In doing so, they shattered the tenuous ceasefire in Gaza, one they have routinely broken since signing on January 18. For the last two weeks, Israel has completely blockaded Gaza, using starvation as a weapon of war as it continued to kill Palestinians with impunity. And now, with the Trump administration’s greenlight, Israel has resumed its genocidal assault on Gaza. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is waging an all-out war against our communities and our movements for justice. These attacks have left many of us feeling demoralized and overwhelmed. That is intentional: Fascists thrive when we are isolated, too terrified or hopeless to resist…6 minute read
Here’s a list of actions you can take:1. Take action: Tell Congress to block $12 billion in weapons to Israel.Progressives in Congress have introduced legislation to block Trump’s $12 billion weapons giveaway to the Israeli military as it continues to carry out war crimes against Palestinians. Use this tool provided by our sister organization JVP Action to email your members of Congress now.Email Congress
2. Take action: Tell Congress to demand Mahmoud’s release.
We must continue building pressure to ensure Mahmoud is released from ICE custody. Use the action tools provided by our sister organization JVP Action to call and email your members of Congress now.
3. Take action: Demand the U.S. media stop taking it’s cues from Israeli propaganda.Demand U.S. media stop manufacturing consent for Israel’s genocide. Use our click-to-tweet tool to send a message right now to the Associated Press, CNN, Reuters, the New York Times, Axios, and MSNBC. Tweet at the media
4. Take action: Donate to support Palestinians on the ground.After a two week siege on all aid and fuel, and 16 months of genocide, two million people are being starved. Donate now to organizations working on the ground in Gaza to provide aid.Donate
5. Take action: Boycott, Divest, Sanctions.JVP runs campaigns in over a dozen cities to demand divestment from Israel bonds, expose corporations profiting off the genocide, and end tax breaks for Israeli war crimes. If you are active in a JVP chapter: 1. Escalate (or launch) a campaign to divest your city, state, campus or institution from the Israeli government’s occupation and genocide. 2. Join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and genocide profiteering — including starting a boycott of Chevron.
San Francisco once again finds itself at a crossroads between corporate interests and the urgent need for affordable housing. The Mosser Hotel, located at 54 4th Street in the South of Market, seeks permission to convert 72 out of 81 existing residential hotel rooms to tourist hotel rooms, adding to the existing 78 tourist hotel rooms already operating there. If approved, this move would further deepen the city’s affordable housing crisis, hurt hotel workers, and set a dangerous precedent for other property owners looking to prioritize profits over housing stability.
Despite these concerns, the Mosser’s owners claim that lost residential units will be replaced at 509 Minna Street. However, this site has already been in use as supportive housing since 2021, housing people transitioning out of homelessness through a city-supported program run by the Department of Public Health, the Department of Adult Probation, and Westside Community Services.
The Mosser Hotel conversion would destroy affordable housing and hurt hotel workers. Wikimedia images photo.
The Planning Department’s draft motion falsely claims that 509 Minna still contains 72 tourist hotel rooms, when in reality, these rooms have been used as transitional housing since the pandemic. Counting these existing rooms as “new” replacement units is misleading at best, and the project at 54 4th fails to provide one-for-one replacement housing as required by the city’s regulatory codes put in place to prevent the loss of residential hotels. Moreover, the Minna Project serves a specific population in a sober living environment, which is not a direct replacement for general residential housing available to all.
This is not the first time the Mosser has attempted to abandon its obligations as a residential hotel, having applied for a similar conversion of units in 2017. For nearly a decade, the property has claimed a “lack of demand” for low-income housing, despite the city’s ongoing affordability and homelessness crisis. During these years, between 53 and 76 low-income residents could have been housed in the Mosser.
The Mosser’s residential vacancy rates raise serious concerns about the city’s role in approving the unit conversions. Granting a conversion permit now would send a clear message to landlords that not renting out residential units can ultimately lead to approval for more lucrative tourist accommodations.
In addition to the conversion of units, the Mosser must also apply for a Conditional Use Authorization permit to expand its tourist operations, a process that requires the Planning Commission to evaluate impacts on housing, transit, and social services.
Hotel workers at the Mosser are currently not unionized. Expansion of the Mosser’s hotel services would add jobs that do not pay enough for workers to afford living in San Francisco, pushing more employees into long commutes from cities such as Modesto and Sacramento. This would further strain regional transit systems, increase reliance on public assistance, and place additional pressure on surrounding communities.
The economic argument for this hotel expansion is also weak. The Mosser Hotel’s market study, conducted in 2018 with a brief 2023 update, projected visitor spending would return to pre-pandemic levels by 2024—a forecast that has already proven incorrect. The Mosser’s current tourist occupancy rate of 59 percent mirrors citywide averages. Converting more rooms to tourist use would not create new demand but instead take business from existing hotels, leading to job losses and reduced working hours elsewhere in the City’s hospitality sector.
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Given these economic risks, the Planning Commission must carefully weigh whether this project serves the city’s long-term interests. The conversion of residential units into tourist accommodations is not a right in San Francisco—it requires explicit city approval. The Planning Commission has a duty to reject projects that remove housing that is affordable to low-income residents, strain public resources, and fail to offer meaningful economic benefits. San Francisco cannot afford to lose more residential hotels for the sake of yet another tourist hotel. The Commission must deny this application.
Join us at City Hall (Rm 400) Thursday/20 at 1pm to tell the Planning Commission to STOP THE CONVERSIONS.
Angelica Cabande is the executive director of SOMCAN. Established in 2000, SOMCAN is a multi-issue and multi-strategy organisation that uplifts the lives of youth, families, individuals, and workers. We work on a wide range of issues—from tenant rights to community planning to Filipino language access to workers’ rights—and provide culturally competent direct services ranging from tenant counselling, family support, youth empowerment, employment, and health and wellness activities. SOMCAN believes in uplifting the voices of immigrant, people-of-color, and low-income communities so that they will be heard in local policy-making decisions and so that government officials are accountable to their needs.
The National Association of Letter Carriers has been embroiled in a contract fight with the USPS for years. Who should we trust with our mail—the workers who deliver it, or the billionaires who want to gut the postal service?
Barbara O’Donnell, front center, local union members and members of National Association of Letter Carriers rally to protest increase in assaults and robberies on letter carriers in recent years in front of Aurora Main Post Office in Aurora, Colorado on Tuesday, October 24, 2023. Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post
This week, we’re taking a more national focus, and checking in with the National Association of Letter Carriers, who have been embroiled in a years-long contract negotiation with the US Postal Service.
In our episode today, I’m sitting down with Melissa Rakestraw, member of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 825 in Chicago, IL, to discuss the state of negotiations with our nation’s letter carriers, the unprecedented rejection of the recent Tentative Agreement and what happens next, and what would happen if the US Postal Service was privatized.
As a short editorial note before we begin, the interest arbitration process between USPS and the Letter Carriers began on March 17th, with Dennis R. Nolan set as the neutral arbitrator. This episode was recorded at the end of February, before those dates had been set.
Postal workers are also set to hit the streets this weekend–“Fight Like Hell!” rallies are scheduled for March 23 across the country to protest the proposed privatization of the US Postal Service.
Studio Production: Mel Buer Post-Production: Jules Taylor
TRANSCRIPT
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mel Buer:
I got work. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership within these Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is Mel Er and I’m your host for the month of March. Continue to stay tuned this month as we share the mic with workers from all over this country and discuss pressing issues central to today’s labor movement. In these last two weeks, we’ve spoken with workers at multiple unions in Southern California who are working diligently on breaking Deadlocks in their own negotiations. If you haven’t checked those out, you can find those episodes@therealnews.com under our podcast page. This week we’re taking a more national focus and checking in with the National Association of Letter Carriers who have themselves been embroiled in a year’s long contract negotiation with United States Postal Service.
In our episode today, I’m sitting down with Melissa Rakestraw, member of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 8 2 5 in Chicago, Illinois, and we’re discussing the state of negotiations with our nation’s letter carriers, the unprecedented rejection of the recent tentative agreement and what happens next and what would happen if the US Postal Service was privatized. As a short editorial note before we begin, this episode was recorded at the end of February before interest arbitration dates had been set. Those interest arbitration dates began on March 17th with Dennis R. Nolan set as the neutral arbitrator in this situation with me today to discuss their current negotiations and the threat of a privatized postal service is Melissa Rastro, member of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 8 2 5 in Chicago, Illinois. Thanks for coming on, Melissa.
Melissa Rakestraw:
Thanks a lot. I appreciate you having me.
Mel Buer:
I’m glad you’re here. I’d like to kick off this conversation first by giving our listeners a chance to get to know a bit more about you, your work, your organizing, and your union. So what is na? The Association of Letter Carriers, right? National Association of Letter Carriers and who do they represent? How many members do you have, that kind of stuff.
Melissa Rakestraw:
Right. So the NALC is a national association of letter carriers. We’ve existed since the 1890s. We didn’t have collective bargaining rights with the post office until after the great postal strike of 1970 largest wildcat strike in US history. And at that point too, that’s when they moved the post office out of the cabinet and into its own organization. The NALC. I personally have carried mail since 1995. I’m a letter carrier. The last two years I’ve been a full-time officer for my local branch 8 25. We have a lot of offices that we represent all throughout Chicago suburbs. We also represent some smaller offices throughout the state of Illinois. We represent around 1800 active letter carriers and we have around 3000 members total in our branch. So I’m also on the executive council for the Illinois State Association of Letter Carriers. We represent all letter carriers throughout the state of Illinois in our region within the NALC, there’s 15 regions and we’re one of 15.
Mel Buer:
How many members nationally do you have whereabouts?
Melissa Rakestraw:
Yeah, I think it’s around 200,000 in that range. It varies. It might be 189,000, but it does vary. And then around 60% of that would be active carriers because we have a large pool of retirees
Mel Buer:
And these are the folks who are outside of the mail handling post office who are delivering your mail to on route to your house every day.
Melissa Rakestraw:
So yeah, we’re the people that everybody sees as their mailman, the person in the truck in funny little truck where we drive on the wrong side and we’re coming to your doorstep hopefully every day to deliver your mail Monday through Saturday and we are one of the most beloved group of workers out there. Most people love their mailman. We call ourselves letter carriers, but I don’t have any problem with the term mailman myself again and again in pollings you see that the American public is very happy with their letter carrier and their mail service. Over the last few years we’ve seen some of that get deteriorated because of a postmaster general who was slowing down service and increasing rates. But letter carriers are out there every day watching kids grow up, checking on elderly residents who greet them at their mailbox every day. I’ve worked with people who have saved people from burning homes who have donated kidneys to their customers on their route. We are embedded in our communities. We aren’t just out there to do a job. We are out there to look out for the people who live on our routes.
Mel Buer:
I mean, I just certainly in my lifetime have had numerous friendships with letter carriers on the various routes that I’ve lived on, and so I definitely see that. One thing that I would like to kind of draw in our listeners’ attention to is you’ve been in the midst of bargaining a national contract for quite some time, a couple of years at this point, and just recently members voted to reject a tentative agreement with the postal service. For the benefit of our listeners, can you give us a bit of an overview about these negotiations, what’s been going on, what’s at stake and what the demands are for where members across the country, and then maybe we can kind of discuss why this tentative agreement was rejected.
Melissa Rakestraw:
Sure. So right before covid hit, we negotiated a contract and it was set to expire in May of 2023. Throughout covid letter carriers kept working every day. We made sure our customers got all the things that they needed to order online because they couldn’t go to stores. We delivered testing kits for covid, we delivered everything. We kept the economy running in a lot of senses. We were told we were essential workers. We were not paid hazard pay, we were not paid anything extra. We were told by our national leadership that we would get our pay and we would get what we deserve for being so crucial to the US public. When our contract expired, our contract expired in May of 2023. Our national president has pretty much full control over bargaining. He doesn’t have to include any of the rest of the elected officers, so he runs it.
He was negotiating with the postal service throughout the summer. He was giving us updates at different wrap sessions saying that he was planning on seeing seven to 9% salary increases for us year wage wise, our wages were the worst of any. If you look up wages with the rate of inflation, the letter carrier or postal workers’ wages suffered the worst in comparison to inflation over the last five years. So even though we actually have cost of living allowance adjustments, we don’t get full call. So our national president was telling us he’s trying to get seven to 9% increases and people expected that We’re seeing UPS, which we feel is comparable to us, same industry. They don’t actually have to walk house to house like we do, and their top of scale is $49 an hour. Right now our top of scale is under $37 an hour.
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So it’s a huge gap and the law actually says that the postal service is supposed to pay us wages that are comparable to the private sector. We are nowhere near that, nowhere close to it. It takes 13 years for letter carrier to get to the top of the pay scale, which is interminably too long. We’ve had problems staffing post offices ever since Covid because the starting pay and the conditions are too low, the conditions are terrible, people are abused by management, they have low wages and we can’t keep people. And so we’re having very high expectations out of this contract to get considerable pay increases and to address poor working conditions, management’s refusal to comply with the contract, violating the same things over and over, forced mandatory overtime all across the country. Here in Chicago, the post office has paid out millions of dollars to the local NALC branch for not complying with contract settlements.
Now it is ludicrous if you think that them just failing to abide by the agreements they’ve already signed, that alone is costing them millions of dollars. Nobody in management does anything about it. We wanted some resolutions through our contract to force management to comply with our settlements, to give carriers the right to say, when I’m done with my shift, I can go home. You can’t keep me here. 12, 13, 14, 15 hours. You’re seeing people forced to work 16 hours. And it’s so dangerous because our jobs are mainly on the street all day. You’re dealing with traffic, you’re dealing with so many unknown things. We’ve seen crimes against letter carriers skyrocket at one point every day in Chicago, there were numerous robberies of letter carriers out on their route. We’re like sitting ducks out there and nobody’s doing anything to help us. So we had such high expectations of this contract.
We finally were handed tentative agreement in October of 2024, well past 500 days, and it was 1.3% increase per year. A pitance and insult, quite frankly, no protections around the mandatory overtime for people who don’t want to work overtime, no protections in regards to enforcing our contract and management compliance with our contract. And we actually had giveaways where we were agreeing to lower our fixed office time. We have certain things we have to do every morning and they give us credit for that amount of time and they were trying to take back some of that time arbitrarily.
It wasn’t just that the monetary amount of 1.3% was so insulting, which it was also the fact that we’re getting work rules that don’t make sense for us either and make our jobs worse and harder and more difficult, which should not be the goal of a collective bargaining situation. So there were a record amount of people who voted in the vote for the tentative agreement. We at least have that right to vote it up or down. It was rejected by two thirds of the people who voted, which was also something that was historic. A tentative agreement hasn’t been voted down in the NALC since the early eighties, and we organized a vote no campaign. It went across the country. There were folks that started kind of a caucus that you call Build a Fighting NALC, that originated up in Minnesota that was talking about open bargaining and letting the membership know exactly what’s going on during bargaining because our national president wasn’t letting us know that there have been other groups too that have formed around these demands for open bargaining so we know what’s being bargained for and we can hold our leadership accountable.
And these same groups that had fought for open bargaining, like Build A Fighting NALC, the Care for President campaign and the concerned letter carriers group all said when we got this tentative agreement, well now this is an insult and we’re going to have to build a vote no campaign, which was very successful and it was a relief to see that the membership said, this is not sufficient. We will not accept this. You have to do better.
Mel Buer:
Right. I want to take a moment to talk about the historic nature of this vote no campaign. As you said, a contract hasn’t been voted down since the eighties, and there have been a number of labor reporters in the last couple of weeks who have really kind of underscored the sort of unprecedented nature of that. Does that sort of speak to the ways in which conditions either under this current postmaster, general Louis Dejo who may be leaving soon or the sort of deterioration of these conditions and what it means to work as a letter carrier, which historically has been a pretty stable career position? Right,
Melissa Rakestraw:
Right. Yeah, absolutely. So when people take a job in the post office, historically it was looked at as a career. It was looked as something that you’re working towards a pension, particularly with letter carriers. After we reach a minimum retirement age of around 57 and we have 30 years in, we can retire. And by that point your body’s been through enough that you really can’t, in a lot of cases work longer than that. We have the highest rate of injury of any federal worker just because of the physical nature of our job. So people’s expectations with this contract coming out of Covid, seeing what’s going on around us with other unions having historic wins with UPS, with UAW and their standup strikes, it was so invigorating to see those victories and what those workers were able to win. And then feeling like, Hey, it’s our turn now and we were made this promise that you are going to be rewarded for sticking with it, for sticking through covid, for putting up with all the mandatory overtime and now is your time.
That’s how letter carriers felt like now is our time. And when we saw this tentative agreement, it felt like it was an insult from management. Number one, they’ve just given themselves raises. And then it was also an insult from our national president that he would think this was an acceptable deal to try to get us to accept. He went around and campaigned for this deal all over the country and had wrap sessions where he would tell people how wonderful it was and when we’re like, no, it’s not wonderful. We’re not stupid. Don’t try to force feed us this nonsense. And he did everything he could to try to get it to be accepted and people still said no. And that’s not been over the last four decades since the early eighties. It’s not been the type of union where leadership was opposed and leadership was seen as not having fought for us for a very long time. Our national president was one of the people that had led the wildcat stripe, then Sobrato out of New York City, and he was a fighter and he won a lot of advances for letter carriers and we maybe slept on that tradition and got to a point where it was just a business unionist approach that the head of our union thought he could sit down with the head of management and they could figure out a deal and it would be fair and it was anything but
Mel Buer:
Right. Well now you’ve reached the tentative agreement has been rejected and the executive council voted unanimously on February 19th not to agree to terms with a postal service that would’ve given you a modified tentative agreement to vote on. So now technically we’ve reached the point where US Postal Service officials have been notified that they are at impasse, which for the benefit of our listeners really means that there is a stalemate that cannot really be sort of adjudicated between the two parties. They need to bring in a third party to kind of talk about this. And so coming up, this is being recorded on February 28th, likely we will hear dates about hearings that will be coming up in the coming weeks and months in what’s called an interest arbitration process. The proposals on both sides will be considered by a three person panel and then hopefully that means that there will be an agreement that can be reached through this arbitration process. My question for you, watching all of this, being a part of this vote no campaign and hearing from membership over the last months and really years, how do you feel about this development? Do you feel like this is moving in a positive direction? Is it something that is frustrating because you wish it hadn’t gotten to this point? How do you feel?
Melissa Rakestraw:
Well, it’s very frustrating because it’s been over 600 days now since our contract expired, and that means no raises for anybody, no cost of living increases, nothing flat, stagnant wages that we’re already behind. So that’s extremely frustrating. The other aspect of it that’s really frustrating is the union could have forced this negotiation to go into interest arbitration in the fall of 2023. Our national president could have said, then listen, you guys are not anywhere near offering us what we deserve. We’re sending it to the interest arbitration panel and we’ll take our chances. We feel like we have a good argument. And that didn’t happen. He allowed management to drop the plow and slow negotiations and not, and draw this out to the point that where we’re at now and this interest arbitration process, normally both sides will present briefs and witnesses and go through all aspects of the contract.
We present economic issues, work related issues, all of that. But now with the threat of the postal service being moved in the Department of Commerce, having our independent authority taken away, not being run by the Board of Governors anymore, realizing that we may not have anyone in management to negotiate with if those things happen, the union has decided to agree with management to go to an expedited process wherein the union is only going to present economic issues or pay scale management is entitled to put forward what they would like, but the union will put forward our issues. We are not going to be doing briefs, so the membership isn’t going to know after the fact what was asked for on our side, which is very disappointing and it’s a process that lacks transparency and quite frankly needs to be changed. So we’re going to put forward our economic proposals to the arbitrator.
The arbitration panel is three arbitrators, one picked by the union, one picked by management, and then one who we both agree on who’s the tiebreaker. And it sounds to me like in the expedited process, we basically play our case out to the mutually agreed upon arbitrator. He’ll go back and forth and talk to both sides and try to make an expedited ruling. We’re not putting forward as many things as we normally would. Now our national president is telling us that he wants to keep some of the work rules that they agreed on with management. He thinks they’re good even though the membership didn’t just vote down the contract because of the economic issues. People aren’t happy with the work rule issues either. He seems to think they’re a quote win so he can agree to memos with management to put a lot of these work issues into the contract. People are trying to push back on that in the union and say, Hey, let’s leave the work rules how they are right now in the current contract, extend that out and just simply deal with the pay because we know we can work with the current rules we have and how to navigate those,
But we think that your new work rules are not going to be helpful to us. So that fight now is playing itself out as well. And the threats, it’s not existential. I guess it’s an actual real threat from this current administration to attack and get the postal service and invalidate our collective bargaining agreements. So we’ve waited over 600 days for a raise and the longer this plays out, the worse we feel it will be for us. So
Mel Buer:
Yeah, it sounds like to me you waited till the house was on fire before you turned on the hose. And now with these threat, we will talk more when we come back from the break specifically about privatizing the postal service and what that would do to both workers and consumers. But it seems like at this point there’s not enough runway left to be able to get a decent contract out of this current contract period. And again, I want to underscore here that the contract expired in May of 2023. So the contract that is currently being negotiated to a stalemate at this point is supposed to run from 2023 to 2026. And we ran into this with the railroad unions a couple of years back where two and a half years of contract negotiations, we almost went to a national rail strike. The real news reported on this at the time, by the time that it was all said and done and the ink was dry, they were two and a half months out from negotiating the next contract because the periods expire. And so there’s this bottlenecking here that seems to be pretty pronounced, particularly in the NALC that is making it difficult for workers to get paid and also to plan for a much more uncertain future.
Protesters rally outside the Israeli Consulate, demanding an end to violence in Gaza after Israel broke the ceasefire, in Chicago, United States on March 18, 2025. Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.
Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.
Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.
Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.
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On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.
My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.
I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.
I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.
I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear.
While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns — based on racism and disinformation — to go unchecked.Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students — some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation — and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.
If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change — leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.
The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.
Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.
Mahmoud Khalil, a student activist and negotiator in the 2024 Columbia University pro-Palestinian campus occupations, was taken from his apartment building by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on March 8, 2025.More by Mahmoud Khalil
You don’t have to wait until the 2026 midterms–or even this November’s races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia–to send a message to Donald Trump, the GOP and America. You can do all of that right now with the two congressional special elections slated for April 1. The time to shock the nation is now!
Both of these special elections are taking place in Florida after Republican members of the House recently resigned. In Florida’s District 1, Democrat Gay Valimont is taking on Trump backed Jimmy Patronis—who unbelievably wanted Florida taxpayers to fork over $5 million to reimburse Trump for his legal fees spent in his criminal cases.
And in Florida’s District 6, Democrat Josh Weilis taking on Randy Fine—who is not just a Trump backed candidate but a vile religious bigot. I’ll explain more on that below—but Fine doesn’t hide his religious supremacy just as MAGA doesn’t hide their white supremacy.
As we all know, in special elections the turnout is generally very low. That means despite these two districts being solidly red, an upset in one or both races is truly possible. And bluntly, even a close finish in these districts that the GOP candidates in November won by nearly 30 points would send a message to the nation that Trump and his MAGA agenda are as unpopular as polling now shows they are.
Think back to 2017 and the early special elections that year where Democrats greatly closed gaps from the November 2016 elections just a few months earlier. That both grabbed headlines and importantly helped energize the opposition to Trump. We need that same thing now!
When you look at these two races, there is a real path for success. Democratic nominee Gay Valimont is running in Florida’s first (the Pensacola area) to fill the seat that became open when Matt Gaetz—remember that scumbag?!—resigned after Trump nominated him to be Attorney General.
Gay is a tireless activist who first became active in politics after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting that left 20 students and six adults dead. Valimont’s story though includes painful heartbreak when in 2020, her husband Brian was diagnosed with ALS and a few months later their 8-year-old son Eli was diagnosed with a rare and terminal brain tumor. Gay served as the primary caretaker for both until they passed away within months of each other. This experience left her with more than $100,000 in medical bills, making her keenly aware of how our healthcare system is broken and needs to be fixed.
Her opponent Jimmy Patronis not only wanted Florida taxpayers to pay for Trump’s personal legal fees but in his past elections he was funded by the very same insurance companies he was charged with regulating as Florida’s elected Chief Financial Officer. That is why under his leadership, property insurance rates have skyrocketed.
Valimont is packing venues and recently announced she has raised nearly $7 million to flip this red seat. I spoke to Valimont on Wednesday about her run for Congress— which you can hear below. She shared that the top issue by far is the slowing to bad economy.Valimont also explained that veterans of all political backgrounds are outraged with the GOP’s cuts to veterans’ care—which could decide this election given Florida’s First district is home to the most veterans in the Sunshine state.
Over in Florida’s 6th district on the east coast of Florida that includes Daytona Beach, Democratic nominee Josh Weil is also running a great campaign. A teacher and father who is raising his two sons on his own, is outspoken on the need to reduce costs, protect Social Security and make insurance more affordable in Florida. Given Weil’s work as a teacher, he has also made preserving and improving our education system a cornerstone of his campaign.
You can check out a clip of my recent interview of Josh below talking outrageous insurance costs.
Then there is Weil’s opponent, the vile bigot Randy Fine. For starters, Fine doesn’t even live in the district. Trump wanted him to run so he did. But Fine has openly feuded with Ron DeSantis–meaning the DeSantis political machine is not helping him and likely wants to see him lose. That is great for Weil.
Fine has made this campaign about smearing Weil for his Muslim faith, calling him “Jihad Josh” and claimed Weil supports “Muslim terror.” (Weil had been raised Christian, but converted to Islam years ago after marrying a woman who was Muslim.)
The despicable Fine—who is a subscriber of the same far right religious supremacist views of people like Benjamin Netanyahu–has a long, documented history of demonizing Muslims. In September 2024, Fine celebrated the killing of 26-year-old American citizen Ayşenur Ezgi, an activist killed by the Israeli forces while peacefully protesting illegal settlements in the West Bank.
In a November 26, 2024 tweet, Fine targeted Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), writing, “The ‘Hebrew Hammer’ is coming. @RashidaTlaib and @IlhanMN might consider leaving before I get there.” He then added, “#BombsAway,” as a reference to Netanyahu’s massive bombings in Gaza that have slaughtered thousands of women and children.
But Fine also has shown deep contempt for Christians. He has been outspoken in not only supporting the oppression of Christians in the West Bank (there are more than 50,000) but also advocating for the ethnic cleansing of Christians—along with Muslims—from the area to make it exclusively for Israeli Jews. For example, he pledged during this campaign that: “My first bill in congress will be to recognize Gaza and Judea and Samaria as parts of the State of Israel and to call for the expulsion of these monsters [Palestinians] from Israel.”
He has also smeared the Catholics of Ireland as being pro-terrorism for showing support for Palestinian Christians and Muslims–and the list goes on of the hate he has peddled.
Like Valimont, Weil is drawing big crowds and has raised nearly $10 million dollars. Based on early ballots returned, both of these campaigns are well positioned to upset their GOP opponents—or at least greatly close the gap from the 30 point wins the Republicans had in November in their respective districts.
People keep asking what more can I do to take on Trump and Musk?! Well here you go! You can donate, volunteer and/or ensure friends in these two Democrats respective districts get out to vote by April 1. This how we send a message and potentially shock the nation!
Early last week, Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate and leader of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, was arrested by immigration officers and sent to a detention center in Louisiana.
The government has provided no evidence as to why Khalil — a green-card holder married to an American citizen — was detained. Instead, it claimed his activities “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” and alleged that Khalil supports Hamas, which his legal team denies.
Khalil’s story has become the face of the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters — really, a crackdown on free speech.
The exercise of student protest is fundamental to our campus’s history, from more than 60 years ago, through last spring, to this past week: Hundreds gathered on Sproul Plaza in response to Khalil’s detainment, calling for the protection of their free speech. More than a hundred Jewish Berkeley professors signed a statement condemning the tactic of deporting protesters for expressing their views.
Khalil’s arrest — which is an abuse of immigration status to suppress speech that opposes the government — is blatantly unconstitutional.
While the federal government’s decision to detain Khalil has resulted in widespread outrage, Columbia University’s administration is succumbing to pressure from Washington. Under federal investigation into alleged antisemitism on campus, which UC Berkeley also faces, Columbia recently issued multiple suspensions, revocations and expulsions of students involved in the pro-Palestinian occupation of a building at the university last spring.
With the Trump administration holding a $400 million cut in funding over their heads, Columbia’s leaders now face the impossible decision of whether or not to bow down to government mandates that demand harsh punitive measures against demonstrators.
Columbia is an important case. It sends a clear message that academic institutions are having to choose between their students and their survival, and sets a dangerous precedent exemplifying the threat to free speech. It’s a threat that public and federally funded research universities across the country, including UC Berkeley, can’t ignore.
While the Trump administration’s crackdown is worrying, it should not be paralyzing. UC Berkeley has a responsibility to protect its students and, as a public institution, uphold the right to free speech. The constitutional right to assembly is essential to a democracy. Forsaking this right would be a betrayal of the students under the institution’s care.
The university must follow the law and its own enshrined bylaws to protect students’ information and right to protest. Campus should always be a space where students can voice dissent and challenge institutions without fear of retaliation, detainment or deportation.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the editorial board as written by the spring 2025 opinion editor, Amara McEvoy.
After his multiple previous attempts to throw out zoning restrictions in areas near transit hubs have failed, state Senator Scott Wiener has a new measure to streamline larger housing projects near a more limited number of those hubs.
State Senator Scott Wiener has been on a crusade to pump up taller and denser housing projects near transit stations ever since his political career took him to Sacramento. He had a 2018 measure to allow five-story apartment buildings near public transit hubs, even if the area was zoned for only single-family housing, but that died in committee early on. His similar sequel 2020 measure SB-50, which would have essentially upzoned all of San Francisco to a five-story height limit, also died on the full state Senate floor.
But Wiener has gotten closer to the finish line with each consecutive attempt, and now he’s trying again. Streetsblog reports that Wiener introduced yet another housing density near transit hubs measure, this one called SB-79. Under this new bill, apartment buildings could be up to seven stories high, though only closer to a more limited number of what Wiener calls the state’s “highest quality transit” stops.
This time around, that would not include Muni. Those higher limits would only apply to systems like BART and CalTrain, or SoCal systems like the LA Metro and Burbank’s Metrolink.
“It will offer more housing overall, and it will support our public transportation systems with increased revenue and increased ridership,” Wiener said Friday, according to KQED. “We really need more housing, more and better transit, and the two truly go hand in hand.”
This bill will likely not play well with many suburbanites — after all, think of all the Caltrain and BART stations where you do not see housing anywhere near seven stories. But this version of Wiener’s bill seems to single out land owned by the transit agencies, much of it used as parking lots, which may not be seeing as much use these days.
And this version is also likely to draw concerns that it could actually drive up housing prices and aid displacement, concerns heard with that whole “Monster in the Mission” condo project that was slated for the 16th and Mission BART station.
But despite recent years’ momentum for easing restrictions on housing production, that housing is still largely not getting built. Supply-siders blame union work requirements, affordable unit requirements, and legislative carve-outs. But it may be more that construction costs and interest rates are just making this not a good time to build. And Scott Wiener may not be able to legislate his way out of that, no matter how many bills he introduces.
Target Boycott March 5: 40-Day Fast Explained By admin | February 26, 2025 | Uncategorized Published Feb 14, 2025 (Newsweek.com) Activists Call For Target Boycott After DEI Reversal By Suzanne Blake Reporter, Consumer & Social Trends Newsweek Is A Trust Project MemberFOLLOW An Atlanta-based pastor plans a boycott of Target next month that could potentially go nationwide. Target has received pushback... Continue reading →
Intro Empathy Café: Find out how to listen to others and how it feels to speak without interruption or fear of interruption. Meet people from around the world. Mondays at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Zoom Room: https://zoom.us/j/9896109339 How-To: Basic Empathy Circle In a Circle of 3 to 5 Participants 1. The first... Continue reading →
Our already broken health care system is facing a barrage of attacks from right-wing politicians in Washington, D.C., including potentially devastating cuts to Medicaid, medical research, and more. Now more than ever, we need to come together and unite in action. That’s why this March we’re holding Medicare for All... Continue reading →
Target Boycott March 5: 40-Day Fast Explained By admin | February 26, 2025 | Uncategorized Published Feb 14, 2025 (Newsweek.com) Activists Call For Target Boycott After DEI Reversal By Suzanne Blake Reporter, Consumer & Social Trends Newsweek Is A Trust Project MemberFOLLOW An Atlanta-based pastor plans a boycott of Target next month that could potentially go nationwide. Target has received pushback... Continue reading →
Target Boycott March 5: 40-Day Fast Explained By admin | February 26, 2025 | Uncategorized Published Feb 14, 2025 (Newsweek.com) Activists Call For Target Boycott After DEI Reversal By Suzanne Blake Reporter, Consumer & Social Trends Newsweek Is A Trust Project MemberFOLLOW An Atlanta-based pastor plans a boycott of Target next month that could potentially go nationwide. Target has received pushback... Continue reading →
Target Boycott March 5: 40-Day Fast Explained By admin | February 26, 2025 | Uncategorized Published Feb 14, 2025 (Newsweek.com) Activists Call For Target Boycott After DEI Reversal By Suzanne Blake Reporter, Consumer & Social Trends Newsweek Is A Trust Project MemberFOLLOW An Atlanta-based pastor plans a boycott of Target next month that could potentially go nationwide. Target has received pushback... Continue reading →
Resist the attack on environmental and climate justice, our communities and our planet! On Wednesday, news broke that the new EPA Administrator directed the agency to shut down all offices that focus on environmental justice. An ad hoc coalition of local environmental justice organizations has come together to stage an emergency... Continue reading →
Target Boycott March 5: 40-Day Fast Explained By admin | February 26, 2025 | Uncategorized Published Feb 14, 2025 (Newsweek.com) Activists Call For Target Boycott After DEI Reversal By Suzanne Blake Reporter, Consumer & Social Trends Newsweek Is A Trust Project MemberFOLLOW An Atlanta-based pastor plans a boycott of Target next month that could potentially go nationwide. Target has received pushback... Continue reading10:00 am Intro Empathy CaféIntro Empathy CaféMar 22 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Intro Empathy Café: Find out how to listen to others and how it feels to speak without interruption or fear of interruption. Meet people from around the world. Mondays at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Zoom Room: https://zoom.us/j/9896109339 How-To: Basic Empathy Circle In a Circle of 3 to 5 Participants 1. The first... Continue reading2:00 pm Cancelled Chuck Schumer book tour @ Corte Madera (Marin County) and San FranciscoCancelled Chuck Schumer book tour @ Corte Madera (Marin County) and San FranciscoMar 22 @ 2:00 pm – 9:00 pm
5:30 pm Medicare for All @ 100 Larkin StreetMedicare for All @ 100 Larkin StreetMar 22 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Our already broken health care system is facing a barrage of attacks from right-wing politicians in Washington, D.C., including potentially devastating cuts to Medicaid, medical research, and more. Now more than ever, we need to come together and unite in action. That’s why this March we’re holding Medicare for All... Continue readingMar23Sunall-day Target Boycott 40-Day Fast @ Target storesTarget Boycott 40-Day Fast @ Target storesMar 23 all-day