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

---

Midsection archive

Anti-Nuclear War 16Jul

---

Pro-Choice march 24Jun2022

---

Poor People's Campaign Washington DC

---

March For Our Lives gun safety demo

---

Pro-Choice Rally by Democrats

---

Poor People's March

---

Supporting Ukraine

---

Pro-Ukrainian Rally

---

No War with Russia Rally

---

Poor People's Campaign

---

Pro-Palestinian Demonstration

---

March for Palestinians

---

Protesting Israel's attack on Palestine

---

Defund the Pentagon

---

2nd Amazon-Alabama protest

---

Union demonstration Amazon-Alabama

---

Nuclear weapons declared illegal by UN

---

Getting signatures

---

BLM March - September

---

Pro-Post Office protest

---

Rally at African-American Museum

---

BLM March 13 June

---

Black Lives Matter marches - 6-8 June

---

Info, articles, etc.

Columnist engages in victim-blaming to excuse her awful column of four years ago. The title was “Calm down. Roe v. Wade isn’t going anywhere.”

Ukrainians say hey, Russians claim to have left Snake Island as a goodwill gesture. Give us more weapons so we can see even more “goodwill gestures!”

EPA takes big blow to its authority. Fossil-fuel companies rejoice.

I might have heard earlier that Justice Gorsuch was the son of Anne Gorsuch, Ronald Reagan’s first EPA administrator. I recall she was awful on the environment.

Right-wing Supreme Court Justices are “fair weathered textualists,” meaning they use textual analysis when it suits them to do so.

Justice Kagan agrees.

Even Jeb Bush and Rick Scott weren’t as bad as Ron DeSantis when it came to protecting LGBTQ youth.

June

This was big on twitter yesterday. An anonymous source who, unlike Hutchinson, was not speaking publicly, under oath or after a deposition, was elevated to the same status and given the same credibility that she was.

Justice Beyer is now officially retired.

And the hand-off is made! Her name is now Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson!

Russia bravely and heroically deploys a missile against an apartment building.
President Zelenskyy discusses Russia’s goals and motivations. The West is finally realizing where things stand.
Russians used a hypersonic anti-ship missile against “an ordinary five-story building.” This was among nine other missiles, all of which hit civilian targets in just one city..
Big POW swap gets Azov defenders back.
NATO reveals new strategic concept.

Russia was initially really, really concerned about the Lithuanian port of Kalinagrad being partially cut off to them and rattled their saber about that. Russia has now pretty much just muttered and grumbled about EU sanctions on Kaliningrad.

...the sanctions don’t affect food or consumables like toilet paper. If Russia wants to ship construction equipment or other things that aren’t sold in a grocery store, they can use boats or planes.

Radio host Joe Rogan concludes Trump is hopeless and that Florida Governor DeSantis is the new Glorious Leader for the Republican Party.

Latest on Pennsylvana senatorial race.

Yikes! The statement made by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is deeply alarming! According to her, red flag laws

"will be a tool to disarm any gun owner that wants to stop abortion"

Erm, is she saying the proper answer to abortion is a loaded rifle?!?!?!?!

Cassidy Hutchinsin's testimony for Janary 6th Committee.

Yeah, for Trump to have accompanied the attackers would have been a whole new level of awful.

An extremely serious charge, that of witness tampering by Trump and associates. One that the Justice Department should look into as it’s a current, right-now problem.

Y'know, if the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee wants to testify under oath, he’s free to do so and to then take issue with what Cassidy Hutchinson had to say.

Heh! Yep, The Former Guy sure is upset with what's her name, because, hey, y'know who can recall the name of a traitor, amirite? Saw a snippet of Laura Ingraham of Fox News saying none of the Fox people who knew Hutchinson has any confidence in her. Well, obviously, no one is going to contradict their Glorious Leader, so that was predictable.

US sending Ukraine a Norwegian surface-to-air missile.
Unfortunately, the price of Finland and Sweden to eventually join NATO is to abandon the Kurds to Turkey’s tender mercies.

Good! Glad to see Ghislaine Maxwell going away for what’s probably going to be the rest of her life.

The mainstream media’s “bothsiderism” is going to kill us all. The NY Times compares the number of subpoenas issued by the January 6th Committee to those issued by the various Republican Benghazi investigations. Yeah, never mind that the two events being investigated were as differenet as could be.

Good grief! This guy actually celebrates the arrival of "Catholic Taliban" rule in the US!

As America adopts strict anti-choice laws, we might recall the unhappy experience of Ireland in that regard. I recall the long lines of women in 2018 traveling back to Ireland, specifically so they could vote against the anti-choice law that was on the books.

Ana Navarro points out that if you’re going to have anti-choice laws, you need to increase your social services budgets! If you don’t, you’re simply making life harder for people for no good reason.

"Alex Wagner to Succeed Rachel Maddow at MSNBC"
Not at all surprising. Wagner has the same "Can you believe this $%#@?" manner that Maddow does.

I was following a Russian-born pundit when Ukraine was re-invaded. She kept insisting that Putin was not a strategic genius. Here Russia has fired a missile at a shopping center that was holding 1k people when the sirens went off. The G7 is currently meeting.

President Zelenskyy discusses the missile strike on the shopping mall in Kremenchuk. Fortunately, the majority of people in the mall were able to get out in time. “The Russian state has become the largest terrorist organization in the world.”

Someone looks at Russia's missile strike on a shopping mall and wonders if the missile was actually aimed at a military target, but was so inaccurate that it hit the mall instead. Problem is, the Russians knew the missile was inaccurate and used it on a target in a crowded urban area anyway. So not having aimed at a mall doesn't relieve them of any of their guilt.

Over the course of six years a UN official became convinced that “Apartheid” was an appropriate term to use concerning Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. Israeli occupation fits definitions of apartheid “under the Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute.”

The popular belief is that Muslim women are oppressed. Compared to American women at the moment? Ehh, not so sure about that.

Representative AOC nails the hypocrisy and extremely narrow perspective of the Governor of Arkansas. How does Arkansas deal with babies born after they're born? Quite poorly.

This was something I noticed back during the late 70s. States that are fanatically anti-choice on abortion are also very stingy when it comes to helping out the already-born.

Piece starts with a video of Charlie Kirk being asked for vaccination papers and him wondering whether he was in Nazi Germany. Yeah, he’s that much of a moron! Hmm, the way he talks about educated women, did he try to date an educated woman in the past? Is he bitter because she/they turned him down? Sure seems like it.

Thinkpiece on why young people leave small towns for bigger towns.

Pop star Olivia Rodrigo (an American, but the concert is in Glastonbury, England), who has two million followers on Twitter, talks and sings to a really massive crowd about pregnancy choice. Heh! In the comments, a number of non-vagina owners try complaining. More on that.  

Heh! Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is convinced that none of the people who attacked our Capitol on January 6th were armed. Representative Jamie Raskin clearly knows something she doesn't know.

In response to January 6th hearings, Trump writes a message on his social media platform demanding equal time. Kind of a problem with that is that he's had a year and a half to present evidence for his side of the story and had presented nothing.

As far as hearing "the other side" goes, in late 2019, the House held hearings on Donald Trump's first impeachment. Each side had 45 minutes to make an opening statement for each witness. What did the Republican side have to say in defense of the-then president? Nothing.
In this instance, Trump put out a lengthy written statement with footnotes and including references to Dinesh D'Souza's movie "2000 Mules." It was pretty much just a rehash of long-debunked talking points.

Roe vs Wade overturned.

I’m on a train right now & the number of women who have tears in their eyes, including myself, is something I’m going to remember for the rest of my life.

"In concurring opinion, Clarence Thomas offers a laundry list of other rights he wants to strike down"
Hmm. Interesting that Supreme Court Justice Thomas doesn't mention Loving vs Virginia. He's married to a white woman and that wasn't legal until the Loving decision was handed down. Thing is, Loving is of a piece with the other three decisions mentioned here. It established that there's a zone of privacy where the government simply has no business being.

All sorts of hate and discontent over the Supreme Court ruling that threw out Roe.

Of course, as a president who appointed three Supreme Court Justices, Trump pats himself on the back for the reversal of Roe.

Interesting "sign of the times." Two young lovers stroll through a park in Kyiv, casually passing by an anti-tank barrier on the way.

Originalists like Judge Robert Bork and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, unfortunately get their history quite wrong and make their arguments based on incorrect understandings of history.

Just as the Senate passed sweeping gun legislation, the Supreme Court pushes the other way. New York state had required citizens to show “proper cause” to carry a concealed weapon. The court has now eliminated that requirement.

An MSNBC panel explained last night why Representative Matt Gaetz’s idea of a very broad pardon wouldn’t work. A presidential pardon has to be worded so as to pardon a very specific crime. If Trump had written a pardon to excuse people for having worked on the January 6^th attack on the Capitol, then he would have had to have admitted directing that attack or at the very least, he would have had to have explicitly approved of that attack.

Ah, great work, Putin! Ukraine is now an official candidate for EU membership! President Zelenskyy thanks all of the other members in turn.

To people who ask "What does the Republican Party stand for?" Here ya go!

Hmm, we can "let children go hungry by blocking funding for school lunches unless they allow LGBTQ students to be discriminated against."

There’s a very obvious choice coming up for Texas. They can reelect Governor Abbott, who is working hard to cover up the massive incompetence of the Police Chief in Uvalde or it can elect Beto O’Rourke, a reformer who will make a clean sweep.

More on the incompetence in Uvalde.

Very happy to hear that the President is still committed to renewable energy! He may need to increase fossil fuel supplies in the short run, but renewable energy is out long-term best bet.

This is very, very good news! The gun-safety bill is nowhere near as strong it needs to be, but it’s better than anything we’ve had in quite a long while.

Donbas military force has lost over 2k soldiers, or 55% of their force.
Partisans in Kerson and kamikaze drones!
Lots of top-level replacements for Russian forces.
Lithuania is blocking Russian goods from using its port at Kaliningrad. Russia is very unhappy about that!
Russia trying hard to influence US voters. Russia is counting on donor fatigue.

President Zelenskyy is lobbying hard for Ukraine’s EU membership.

Appears that adopting the Istanbul Convention was something Ukraine considered to be necessary for ratification of EU membership.

...references to and reporting of an increase in partisan underground activity in Kherson directed at the Russian occupiers and Ukrainian collaborators…

Counter-attacks around Kherson.

Mike Pence, in an ad, says he and Trump "Delivered for the American people." Erm, delivered WHAT?!?! What on Earth did those two bozos deliver that was worth a damn?!?!?!

Those who support the rule of law are given the pejorative term "one-sided." Why does the NY Times continue to fail the nation so badly?

Gee let's see, "Team Democracy's" piece is run on Thursday, page A18, "Team Impunity's" piece is Sunday, page A1. Hmm. Gee. I wonder which team the NY Times is rooting for! And as the blogger points, the piece placed on A1 is really, truly awful.

Yeah, an example of wishful thinking. Mick Mulvaney made a really bad prediction in 2020. The WSJ was ignoring Trump’s continual drumbeat about voter fraud that he had been banging since before the 2016 election.

Problem with the current Israeli parliamentary governing coalition is that it includes Palestinian-Israelis. As neutral and apolitical as they are, they just can’t go along with colonialist apartheid policies.

Reader speaks of the cult of the “tactical” in gun culture. Yeah, I’ve seen the ads for “tactical flashlights.”

The January 6^th hearings are having an effect on Republicans! The plan was to ignore the hearings and try and change the subject but they’re having an effect.

The House Minority Leader badly screwed up last year when he refused to take any part in the House January 6th investigation. Now Trump has joined the chorus of critics!

Mildly amusing how Trump and his supporters try to sound like Jan Brady with their "Russia, Russia, Russia!" But there was always quite a bit to the Russia allegations, and if the allegations were so obviously without substance, why did AG Barr try so hard to bury the Mueller Report?

Many things the former president says I don't believe. His pledge that he will never ride a bicycle? I find that completely credible! I totally believe him.

Interesting video. Because counter-battery fire is so effective, guns have to be set up, they get three shots off and then they have to scoot before the enemy can zero in on where those shots came from.

Journalist realizes that journalists in this country have gone way overboard on fairness between the two parties. Treating the two parties the same does a favor to the worse party and no one else.

Lengthy thread on whether Trump’s 12-page memo of his constitutes an actual legal defense. The NY Times seems to think so. No one else agrees.

Representative Gaetz refers specifically to “Red Flight” as Representative Greene talks about the Georgia citizens who will leave if Georgia votes in Stacey Abrams as Governor.

The Former Guy himself is putting out an energetic defense of his conduct on January 6^th. Curiously, he’s pretty much doing that all by himself. Republicans aren’t joining in.

There have been rules on how to occupy enemy territory since the early 20^th century. The Lutheran Church says that Israel violates those rules with their occupation of Palestinian territory.

Not that there was ever much doubt, but an image of the bullet that killed American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh makes it clear that it was shot out of an Israeli military rifle.

Hercules was a box-office dud back in 1997, but it’s had staying power, so they’re going to try a live-action remake.

Eric Trump's completely unwarranted presumption here is there's some relationship between being a Biden voter and being a CNN viewer.

EU negotiations are going well.
A woman Ukrainian medic has been returned.
Russia is becoming increasingly authoritarian.

More Ukrainians soldiers singing.

Gee, happy to see that Montana Governor Greg Gianforte takes his job so seriously [/snark]. With catastrophic flooding in the Yellowstone region this week, the governor was still in Italy, on vacation! The Lieutenant Governor was signing everything in Gianforte’s absence, but yeesh!

A bit of an equalizer between Ukrainian and Russian artillery (Russia has many more big guns than Ukraine does) is that Ukrainians are aiming their ordnance strictly and exclusively at Russian military assets. Russians are aiming their artillery just everywhere.

Excellent thread explaining how coups work and what happens when they don't.

Good interview with Noam Chomsky. He echoes a lot of my view, that the expansion of NATO wasn’t just a one-sided aggressive move, but had support from Eastern Europeans. And yes, the 2003 invasion of Iraq has a great deal in common with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year.

Makes sense for Ukraine President Zelenskyy to attend G7 meeting as his country will probably be a major topic of conversation in any event.

Four EU leaders met in Kyiv and agreed with Ukrainian goals.
“Gazprom is simply pulling on the gas chain…” trying to get Europe to stop supporting Ukraine.
Possible EU membership for Ukraine.
Russians stuck in Sieverodonetsk.

Russia is actively colonizing captured Ukrainian territory. Yes, this is illegal under international law.

Hmm. This statement from Steve Bannon has a lot of “Thousand-year Reich” energy to it.

“You're witnessing, right now, a political realignment like 1932. And we will govern for 100 years after we win 100 seats."

The siege of Gaza is now 15 years old. Two million-plus residents caught in an “open air prison.” Israel may have security needs, but as an occupying power, they also have obligations.

Chris “Captain America” Evans comments on people and countries who are freaking out about a lesbian couple that’s briefly seen in Buzz Lightyear’s film. Evans is the voice actor for Lightyear. Lightyear has a close, but non-romantic relationship with a fellow astronaut, who is the one who sets up house  with a woman.

Rah! Rah! Hoo yah! Preach it!

Hakeem Jeffries is fucking done with Clarence & Ginni Thomas.

Representative Loudermilk was the fellow who put out a press release saying his Capitol tour just prior to January 6th was no big deal, but he wouldn't appear before the January 6th Committee and give sworn testimony. Problem is, we have video of guess taking pictures of things like stairwells and tunnel entrances, not things that guests normally take pictures of.

What I find concerning is that Loudermilk had all this time to disclose that he had led this tour. He chose to keep it quiet. A Congresswoman was interviewed on the Rachel Maddow show who says there were other tours she had witnessed, so there are still other people who have yet to speak up.

Very, very interesting! Loudermilk

I agreed with D'Souza's statement, right up until the point where he claimed that the January 6th Committee was unaware that indicting the former president could lead to civil conflict. Of course they're aware of that. Why are they proceeding anyway? Because democracy is at stake. If the government gives Trump a pass because they fear civil unrest, that's an open invitation for him to try again!

Senator Blackburn's theory has a bit of surface appeal. She suggests Biden is goosing up gas prices in order to incentivize Congress and businesses to move to green energy. But a closely-divided Senate with a Republicans who aren't going to respond to anything and two stick-in-the-mud Democratic senators who won't support their party isn't going to respond to higher gas prices with positive legislation, period.