Ray Torres is the director of the short film

Beyond Credit Unions

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

Flyer

Also: Press Release

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

Brief history of PRAWN

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

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

National Organizations

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

Upcoming Events

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Midsection archive

Pro-Choice Rally by Democrats

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Poor People's March

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Supporting Ukraine

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Pro-Ukrainian Rally

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No War with Russia Rally

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Poor People's Campaign

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Pro-Palestinian Demonstration

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March for Palestinians

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Protesting Israel's attack on Palestine

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Defund the Pentagon

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2nd Amazon-Alabama protest

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Union demonstration Amazon-Alabama

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Nuclear weapons declared illegal by UN

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Getting signatures

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BLM March - September

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Pro-Post Office protest

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Rally at African-American Museum

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BLM March 13 June

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Black Lives Matter marches - 6-8 June

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Info, articles, etc.

Senator Chuck Grassley tries to escape accountability for how Republicans treated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Cool! Usagi Yojimbo is a comic book series that began in the late 80s and is still going strong. This is a cartoon version that takes place in the far future. Begins late April.

Because Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson apparently believes in what has been called a “Living Constitution,” as opposed to the conservative philosophy of “Originalism,” Senator Blunt can’t support her. He believes Justice Thomas has followed the philosophy of Originalism and so, despite his obvious conflict of interest in having a activist, radical, extremist wife, Thomas is okay.

Representative Jamie Raskin looks into why we have a seven-hour gap in Trump’s phone records.

Just an utterly meaningless, pointless atrocity in the recently-reacquired city in Ukraine.
"A civilian was killed by a shot in his head while [bicycling] in Bucha."

Russians are rapidly abandoning areas around Kyiv, but in their wake is massive evidence of atrocities. Yes, bad things happen in war and the US has also done terrible things, but that’s

no excuse for accepting them in the present. That bad things have been done in our name doesn’t absolve us of the need to seek justice.

Ah yes, the ol’ “crisis actors” line.

Thefts.

Short thread of American/British rapes of German women in World War II compared to Russia’s. (Can scroll up to see previous comments).

Heh! Fox News and Tucker Carlson just two months ago.

Why do Democrats want you to hate Putin? Has Putin shipped every middle class job in your town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked your business? Is he teaching your kids to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Does he eat dogs?

Horrendous, heartbreaking story of the siege of Mariupol.
It is typical for Russians who occupy cities to commit murders on their way out. We saw that back during World War II and during the Chechnya battles.

From the piece:

What Ingraham is describing here with her trademark lock-jawed, menacing smugness isn’t "choosing where your dollars go," and it sure as hell isn’t legitimate regulation of industry. It’s fascism.

"Media Uses Hunter Biden As Excuse To Ignore Real Scandals"
Truly sad! As with Whitewater and "but her emails," we're seeing yet another pointless obsession!

Ukrainian grain is under continuous attack. This impacts global grain markets. Blogger figures Russia is deliberately trying to create food crisis to use as propaganda tool.

Good Heavens! Russians have opened up an open-air market in Belarus in order to sell what they've looted from Ukraine!

White House call logs have a seven-hour gap in them covering the January 6th attack CNN is vastly too credulous here! They give far too much credence to Trump White House sources.

"Why the GOP's push to ‘expunge’ Trump’s first impeachment matters"
We’re still dealing with fall-out from Trump’s using Javelin missiles as leverage to force President Zelenskyy to deliver dirt on Joe Biden, so no, we can’t just forget Trump’s 2019 impeachment.

The judge is so annoyed at Florida’s abuse of voting systems, he takes direct aim of the Shelby County Supreme Court decision that said “...that we live in a post-racial society.”

Representative Jamie Raskin finds Representative Madison Cawthorn’s sex and drugs story about his colleagues to make a very good talking point about Republicans and hypocrisy.

Woo hoo! The first Amazon workplace to be unionized!

"Bannon Goes Ballistic Over Likely Confirmation Of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson"
Seems Steve Bannon has concluded that any Supreme Court Justice appointed by a Democrat, no matter how qualified, is in no way good enough.

The Ukrainian Air Force would like a word about how important it is to dominate the airspace.
Also: Russians moving around are not withdrawing, but doing tactical repositioning.
Russia TV (RT) publishes video of one of their tanks shooting at residential houses.
Details on how Putin is delivering for Trump. This is active collusion.

The US immigration system is broken. We're doing the bare minimum by accepting just 100k refugees from Ukraine, but we still haven't settled all of the Afghanistan refugees yet.

Wow! Why do Republicans hate America?  A bill to lower the price of insulin to $35 a month – all Democrats voted yes. 12 Republicans joined them, 193 Republicans voted no. 

Truly amazing how after four years of giving Trump a pass on pretty every garbled or undisciplined utterance, the press is now frantic to exploit Biden’s “gaffe.”

March

Whooo-weee!!! Anti-choicer caught with five fetuses in her house! Was she planning to give them a burial? Nah, she's been holding them for over a year. Yes, they're considered a biohazard and were removed by people in hazmat suits.

Good! Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has strong support among even Republicans. The "ankle-biters" didn't cause any harm.

President Zelensky doubts that Putin is negotiating in good faith.
Add the Red Cross to the Russian targets that are hit in Ukraine.

Russian forces in Ukraine have forcibly deported the staff and patients of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, sending more than 70 people to Russia, the city council said. It’s at least the second hospital to undergo that fate, with more than 20,000 people now sent to Russia against their will, the officials said.

Fascism has a very specific description developed after scholars studied regimes of the mid-20th Century. Putin's Russia meets those definitions.

Ukrainian Mayor of Melitopol was captured for a few days, says Russian soldiers have NO idea why they invaded!

Tweet of a WaPo story about "Hunter Biden's laptop." Comments beneath the tweet are well worth reading. The question of "Why was this story even written?" is a very highly pertinent and relevant one.

Senator Ted Cruz says:

“So, Biden’s been president what, 15 months? In that entire time, I haven’t spoken to him once.”

Okay, but the question is why on Earth would Senator Cruz have spoken with President Biden? When has Cruz had any useful or productive ideas that he could have presented to Biden? When has Cruz shown the slightest interest in governing as opposed to being a far-right partisan?

I've had a bit of respect for the former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham because she demonstrated remorse and regret. She openly recognized she had been on the wrong side. Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has done absolutely nothing to warrant rehabilitation. It's far from clear what value he brings to his new gig as an analyst at CBS News.

Comment on federal judge who stated very clearly that the then-President committed a crime.

50-item thread on Clarence/Ginni Thomas. Piece has thread reader to make reading easier.

Very interesting!

The lack of an official White House notation of any calls placed to or by Trump for 457 minutes on Jan. 6, 2021 – from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. – means the committee has no record of his phone conversations as his supporters descended on the Capitol...

That's a bit over seven hours that we don't have any official record of Trump's phone calls. Lawyers call that "consciousness of guilt," when you take care to see to it that there's no record of your activities during a particular time. BTW, Trump says he has no idea what a 'burner phone" is.

Yeah, I found Trump’s statement that he had never even heard of a “burner phone” to be very highly implausible! Sure enough, he knows full well what they are.

Ah, okay. Trump had several personal phones in addition to his official presidential phone, so he probably just used one that was “off the grid” for White House operators.
Other items in the same post:
Explainer that the recent “deescalation” is, ehh, not really.
Latest of the idea of relieving Mariupal.
Thread on “The Human Face of Putin’s War…”

I don't usually like Meghan McCain much, but she's spot-on here. Representative Cawthorn is very specific that he's talking about people he respects and that these people invited him personally to drug-fueled orgies, meaning he's clearly talking about right-wing Republicans. McCain is urging him to get specific about who he meant.

Russia’s pulling in personnel from Syria in order to fight in Ukraine.
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich delivered a letter from Zelensky to Putin and was poisoned for his troubles.
The liberation of the town of Irpin, very close to Kyiv, is a pretty big deal.
Anders Aslund writes a thread about how much Russians know about Ukraine (not much).

Newswoman Lara Logan feels that Charles Darwin must have been financed by the Rothschilds. I did a few quick look-ups. Darwin was born into a wealthy British family in the early 1800s and was attached to the crew of the HMS Beagle (HMS stands for His Majesty’s Ship, meaning Darwin worked for the government), he then stopped in at his father’s house, then found a place of his own. He soon published the first of numerous books about his time on the Beagle. So he needed a bit of support at times, but it’s far from clear that he needed substantive financial help from anyone.

Credit where it's due! Very cool! Ivanka Trump contributes meals to Ukraine.

With the founding of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin developed "agitprop." This was propaganda that was designed to make listeners angry. Fox News gives us an example of people who make vague comments about what President Biden said and then proceed to work themselves into a frenzy over...well, over comments that would have been appropriate at any Fourth of July picnic.

Senator Lindsey Graham confirms that if there is a Supeme Court vacancy while Biden (or any Democrat) is president and there is a Republican-run Senate, no Supreme Court Justice will be approved.

A pissed-off Will Smith at the Oscars! He got angry because comedian Chris Rock told a joke that Smith's wife, Jada Pinkette Smith, was made very sad by. It was about the movie GI Jane, where Demi Moore had really close-cropped hair. Jada Smith also has really close-cropped hair due to cancer. Basically, Will Smith blew up several decades of carefully building an image by slapping Chris Rock.

Generally, Jeanine Pirro's comment isn't bad, but yeah "the Oscars are not the hood" suggests that for Smith to have smacked Rock in a Black neighborhood would have been completely normal and unexceptional.

Yeah, the trucker protest is still going on! I just have a really hard time working up any sympathy for this guy!

The American convoy has a sort of amorphous anti-federal government smell, but very little in the way of meaningful policy demands.

Yee hah! About $%#@ing time! The truckers were staying at a speedway and racing season’s about to begin, so their hosts began shooing them out.

Update (10 Apr): Limbaugh's "sad, forgotten legacy."

Problem with US position on the Israel-Palestinians dispute is that it’s all tied up in knots and can’t be reconciled with international law.

Wow! Ukrainian figure skaters performed rehearsals for this while their homes were under siege. They had no time to assemble costumes.

Interesting comment from President Zelensky:

..says that he is "99.9% certain" that Russian leadership was told by pro-Russian political forces in Ukraine that Ukrainian people were awaiting Russian forces with "flowers and smiles" and that Zelensky’s government was widely unpopular.

Family describe escape from Mariupol.

Examining how Russia and Putin are “victims” of the US.

Who’s defying Russia sanctions? Why, it’s our old buddy Charles Koch and all of his brought-and-paid-for Congressional allies!

There's very little that the Democrats can and/or will do about Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife. The Chief Justice can do much more and what's really at stake is the legitimacy of the court's decisions.

Laura Ingraham and her guest overlook what makes an alliance like NATO work, if one country slacks off and refuses the burden that everyone else is carrying, that makes for hate and discontent on the part of those who are sacrificing.

An ice shelf of about 460 square miles (about the size of New York City) has collapsed.

Russia gets dramatic about the possible consequences of the war. “Russia's very existence is at stake today"
And no, Russians are simply not negotiating in good faith. It is incredibly naive for people to think that the US needs to get serious on negotiations.

Good Heavens! What a horrible, horrible experience the Russian army is for many conscripts!

At the end of this post comes very bad news for Russia. Their clear weakness in Ukraine has inspired rebellions elsewhere.

"LOL: Pence Lies, Says Trump Was Tough On North Korea"
In diplomacy, it's very important to define your terms. Trump never managed to get North Korea to define "denuclearization." It seems to have a pretty clear meaning and the US offered its own definition, but Kim Jong Un never responded with a definition of his own. No, the diplomacy of Trump's was a complete failure.

Ukraine doesn't need troops. They've got plenty of motivated, fit and ready people. What they need is equipment, helmets, body armor, etc. They need to be able to send people to Poland to train on the equipment.

Piece also addresses need to change over our energy to renewables.

Woo hoo!

BREAKING: U.S. unemployment claims just hit their LOWEST level since 1969.

James Bond perished in the Faroe Islands (in the North Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and the Shetland Islands) in his last film, so inhabitants of one of the islands built a tombstone for him.

400k Ukrainian citizens removed to distant lands within Russia.

Good! The now-month old crisis in Ukraine could accelerate the world-wide move towards renewables and away from fossil fuels.

Woman was escaping Mariupal with her own child and acquires three more on the way, because so many other parents have died.

So, one out of three cheers to the NY Times for finally acknowledging that Amnesty International had accused Israel of practicing apartheid two months ago.

The Alabama AG refuses to testify that Biden was legimately elected. So much for his credibiliy as a witness against Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

NYT's @adamliptak scolds both sides for failing to engage the nominee. I know he knows better, so why did he write it that way? There is something terribly wrong and warping about the culture there.

This is a case where blame can be affixed to just one side! There's only one side that's trying to turn the hearing over the Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court nomination into a circus! Why is the NY Times trying to make it appear to be a "BothSides" issue?