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.

Ethiopia received 23k tons of wheat, Yemen got 40k tons.
Russian lines move back, a counter-attack is expected
In the Kherson area, Ukrainians are attacking on multiple axes.
The bridge from Crimea to Kerch, Russia is clogged with Russian civilians trying to escape Crimea.
IAEA inspection team suffering lots of Russian interference on its way to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Russians have begun a stealth conscription in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Russia has already used 7 million shells. Sanctions mean their supply won’t last past December.

Christina Bobb was the Custodian of Records for Trump, so she was the one who signed the “sworn certification that the documents represent all responsive records.” Oops! She’ll either find her license to practice law in jeopardy or she’ll become a witness who claims she believed what Trump told her.

September

Okay, fine. Biden is not acting to try and reach "Unity" with his political opponents. But how exactly have Republicans attempted to reach unity since Senator McConnell decided back in 2009 to adopt a "scorched earth" approach?

The Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre points out that while the President is trying for unity, many in the other party are making threats. Biden is hardly the only one who is not uniting!

Ukrainian counter-offensive in the Kherson region is going well! Main objective has been to blast ammo stockpiles. Russian artillery is already running low! Ukrainians are going to try and take city with minimal casualties by cutting off supplies.

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision stripping away abortion rights, Republicns are frantically backtracking. Ha! Too late! We see you! Good rant. Preach it, sister! Preach it!

If this is true, then like Lincoln in 1861, Zelenskyy egged on his opponent to make the first move, thereby permitting Zelenskyy to claim that the other fellow was the aggressor. It’s a risky strategy as the other side may gain victory in his initial assault, but it gains sympathy for the attacked side

Lawyer reviews DOJ filing. Truly flabbergasting statement: The Trump lawyers asserted that

...they had not found any more classified records, and any records that remained were in the storage room. They refused to let the FBI agents look at the boxes in the storage room. (emphasis added)

$%#@!!!! What!?!?!?!!

The last leader of the Soviet Union passed away last night. Blogger looks back at Gorbachev's legacy.

Nearly two years after the 2020 election, Governor DeSantis of Florida arrests 20 people for illegally voting. Whose fault was it? D’oh! Florida’s!

"Mississippi Capital Without Any Water For 180,000 People"
It's a problem that's been building fo decades. The tried, worn-out system finally gave way. And please keep in mind that Governor Reeves is the guy who spent a lot of time on Fox News talking about the abortion issue. I think there were more important things he could have been working on!

Unfortunately for the former president, the “fully debunked Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax” was never debunked and never a hoax. It was always solidly based on facts.

Ooh! Not good! A field glaciologist reports on what’s going on with glaciers.

Woo hoo! Offensive operations begin in Kherson!
Ukrainians were already exploiting the thinning out of troops in other sectors.

Norway contributes $200 million to see to it that Ukrainian homes are heated this winter.
Russia Defense Minister “sidelined.” His subordinates didn’t respect him.

Ukrainian forces have opened a broad based offensive against Kherson.

Unpleasant doings at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
65-year old Russian woman sets fire to Russian official’s car.

Very good news from Ukraine! Sounds as though they're making great progress in re-taking Kherson. If absolutely nothing else, they making Russians move units frantically around, trying to keep up with what Ukrainians are doing.

"Biden's 'soul of the nation' speech and the battle against MAGA 'semi-fascism' in America"

Fox News reacts to Biden speech. You know what the best way for the media to respond to this would be? It would be for them to examine the charge that Biden is making. Fascism is a very deeply-studied subject, so coming up with solid definitions isn’t hard.

Speaking of fascism, the media would also do well to seriously examine whether Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is one or not (Spoiler alert: He is).

The MAGA Republicans are really annoyed and upset that Biden is calling them fascists!

The blogger agrees with various right-wing critics, they aren’t “semi-fascist,” the MAGA types are just plain ol’ fascists, period.
Also, blogger lists the 14 defining characteristics of fascism.

Again, it's really hard to take these complaints seriously when CPAC hosted the Hungarian Viktor Orban just a few weeks ago, who was speaking of "soft fascism" and who has been referred to as a fascist.

As the Russian economy sputters under sanctions that came because of the war against Ukraine, Jewish people in Russia feel increasingly scapegoated for economic hard times.

*Sigh!* Again, people are trying to compare Clinton's emails with Trump's illegally-retained documents. Okay 1. Hillary Clinton did not deliberately have classified documents in her email, People sent her documents that were clasified. She never sent any herself. 2. Yes, if a document is marked classified, then yes, it’s classified. No, the president cannot simply declare a document unclassified. System doesn’t work that way. 2.a. The relevant agency must not be simply notified, they can object to declassification. 2.b. Certain information, such as nuclear designs, cannot be declassified!

I have no problem holding these two people to the same standard. Out of 33k emails, a trivial number had classified information in them. Trump, OTOH, deliberately, consciously, with malice and forethought, took clearly-marked documents that he knew full well were not his to take.

A non-military target, a movie house, is destroyed.
Authorized strength of Russian army increased by 140k. Far from clear is where those extra bodies will come from.
It’s really hard to understand what Russia thinks it’s gaining by endangering the lives of people who work at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
A look at “filtration camps.”

Read several years ago that the US made a serious error in the way they got replacement troops to the battlefield, they sent soldiers to the front a few at a time, y’know “We need three more riflemen.” These troops were lost at a very high rate! The Germans during World War II had a much better way. They waited for the unit to take so many losses, they pulled the whole unit out, introduced the new people to the vets, did training for a few days so that the new people were brought up to speed. When they got back to the front, they fought as a unit.
What the Russians are doing now, introducing a whole new unit with no veterans?!?!?! Insane!

Ah, it's the anniversay of Obama wearing the tan suit! The only real scandal during Obama's presidency! 1. He actually did it. 2. We had the evidence right away. 3. People were shocked and horrified.

*Sigh*! And to think, this blithering idiot was once a White House Chief of Staff! Just and merely "about documents?"

Response:

Hey Mick, why do you think the Fourth Amendment mentions “papers” as being protected against unreasonable search and seizure? Could it be that they can constitute…evidence of a crime?

Because of glaciers in the North of Pakistan melting, 2 million acres of farmland have been destroyed and nearly 800k livestock animals have been killed.

Huh! I had no idea Karen Carpenter was a really skilled drummer.

The author is a former addict and then a drug counselor and says “Oh, yeah!” Don Jr. is a cocaine user.

Inna Yashchyshyn pretended to be Anna de Rothschild with her roots in the European banking dynasty. Instead, the Russian-speaking immigrant from Ukraine turned out to be another scammer, with four different fake passports.

Showing that Mar-a-Lago’s security was awfully lax to the point that they never even suspected she wasn’t who she said she was.

Russians appear to be trying to head off a Ukrainian counter-attack.
Ukraine is carefully laying the groundwork for an offensive at Kherson.
The economic war between the two adversaries. How it’s affecting first Russia, then Ukraine.

Wow! A whale returned a cell phone to people! The whale knew somehow "These small objects are very important to the humans."

Very, very interesting. How many of these confidential informants lost their live because Trump carelessly stored their identities where foreign agents could access them? Or did he sell that information?

Adding to the mysterious deaths of intelligence sources over the last few years is the fact that the former president really, really doesn't like whistleblowers!

I am so happy that Elon Musk wasn't able to take over Twitter!

Elon Musk says population collapse ‘potentially the greatest risk to the future of civilization’

We have at least one very famous example of population collapse, Rome. During the whole Medieval Era, the population of Rome shrank so that living quarters in the city never even reached the outer walls that were built durng Rome's glory days. It wasn’t until the Renaissance that occupied buildings reached those walls again.

Problems with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant appear to be over. Let’s hope they are.
Threatened food crisis easing as Ukrainian ships make their way out of the Black Sea.
The front is stable and pretty much unchanged. That’s not because Russians aren’t attacking, but because their attacks generally don’t get much of anywhere.
Ukrainian artillery continuing to degrade supply lines into Kherson.
All 20+ HIMARS launching platform are operational, 50+ Russian ammo dumps have been eliminated.
Deep dives into two women who were Russian spies.

Good Twitter thread on 1991, NATO expansion vs Russian imperial behavior.

Post includes an explanation of the “Dark Brandon” meme.
A New Jersey native has been credited as the Deputy Director of Platforms in the White House Office of Digital Strategy. She set the lead and everyone has followed to slam the hypocrisy of complaining about student loan recipients getting a break.

Targets of tweets respond.

"Jared Kushner on Trump: 'He didn’t adapt to Washington to play by their rules, and he was an existential threat to their power...'"
Jared Kushner engages in sheer, utter wishful thinking here. As people said about Europeans after Trump's first summit meeting with them, they took Trump's measure and dismissed him. Trump was far too undisciplined and scattershot to pose a real threat to anyone.

CNN completely drops the ball. Trump wasn't just getting legal advice from a fellow named Tom Fitton, who's the head of Judicial Watch. t would have been extremely helpful to note that Fitton is not a lawyer!!! Trump was getting incompetent legal advice!!!

"Why the Right Wingers in Israel and the US Really Oppose Iran Nuclear Deal: They want Regime Change Instead"
Erm, this didn’t work out well the last time we tried it. An Iran that followed JCPOA guidelines would be de-fanged as far as any nuclear threat went, but it would also be supportive of Palestinians versus the Israeli occupation and would support militias in Iraq and Lebanon. On the other hand, the US support of the 1953 Iranian coup that overthrew the democratically-elected, populist prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, resulting in an extremist Iran in 1979. There simply is no perfect solution that solves all of the problems that are caused by a strong Iran.

Heh! Right-wing Congresspeople are trying to diss the student loan forgiveness plan, so when they speak out, the White House informs the public of how much PPP money they were forgiven!

Did Project Veritas steal Ashley Biden’s diary? No, but they certainly acted to get ahold of what they knew was stolen property from those who did steal it. PV paid $40k for it and contracted for more!

According to a Yale study, the Russian economy is staggering along on its last legs. Will Biden be able to claim victory before the midterm elections? Odds are pretty good he’ll be able to.

"Lindsey Graham believes he’s above the law, tells judge that Georgia DA must explain her questioning"
Senator Graham talked with Georgia election officials on the phone. These were one on one conversations. No, they fall under neither "speech" nor under "debate." He's making what we call a "frivolous" case.

They finally fired this knucklehead! The Schools Police Chief of Uvale who frittered around while children died. He wanted to wait until the public "calmed down" before he made any public appearances. He can now stay in private life, all by himself, for as long as he pleases!

About the end of June, HIMARS arrived and the Russian advance has pretty much been stopped ever since. The rocket system is seriously effing up Russian supplies.

Hmm. Highly questionable economic theories from Trump. He appears to think spending a lot of money is a terrible policy. Since when does he know anything about the economy anyway? When the economy pretty much collapsed under the weight of Covid, Trump didn’t have the vaguest clue how to respond.

Yes, Congress passing a law that overrides a Supreme Court decision is precisely how the system is supposed to work. Congress is at the top of the ladder.

President Zelenskyy looks back at the half-year mark of the war against Russia.
Along with military aid package, Biden has remarks as well.
Russia strikes at railway centers.
Blogger reproduces lengthy excerpt and recommends that readers read the whole WaPo report on Wednesday as it’s about the Ukrainian decision to resist the Russian invasion.

Biden gets serious debt relief foe student loan borrowers.

"Democrats' student loan socialism is a slap in the face to working Americans..."
Essentially, this argument is continually used against any sort of positive change. If you were spanked as a child and we decide spanking is bad, you can complain that "Well, I had to go through it! What makes young people today so special?" Senate Minority Leader McConnell makes a variation on that argument here.

Don Jr. is not exactly a good representative for the "pull yourself up by your bootstrats" crowd, he wasn’t able to go to college because he made sacrifices, he went because he had a rich daddy, who was rich because his daddy made sacrifices!
Also, Don Jr. claims his dad “played” people like Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin “like a fiddle.” Hmm. Okay. Did the elder Trump ever win meaningful concessions from any of them? Didn’t think so.

Someone posted a piece evaluating media outlets by ideology. The thread here shows that on at least the question of whether Biden should pardon Trump. The NY Times is all over the frikkin’ place! They ran pieces from hither and yon, saying all sorts of stuff! Can you sort media by ideology? Ehh, to a degree, but that really doesn’t tell you anything about credibility and people might us ideology as a proxy (Goldilocks system, those in the middle will be considered more credible).

Horrors! More on children being moved after the fall of Mariupol.

Good! Uvalde parents are suing local, state and federal law enforcement for $27 billion!

I make fun of the guy who tells me that Ukraine is “Doomed, I tell you! Doomed!” Here’s why I dismiss his pessimism. The Ukrainians damaged the bridge from Crimea to Kherson. They waited for the Russians to fix it. They then waited for ammunition trucks to try and cross it. then they struck! Ukrainians may be out-muscled and overrun, but they’ll never be out-maneuvered! Also, their surveillance is top-notch.

Representative Jordan lists a whole series of events in Trump's presidency - Russia, Mueller (twice), impeachment (twice), Covid and the Mar-a-Lago "raid" and then claims that "Despite it all, President Trump is still fighting for us." Kind of a problem with that is that is that in none of these cases was he fighting for "us," that is, America, especially not in the case of Covid!

Examination of the situation at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Interesting film clip. Yeah, it’s from my buddy who tells me Ukraine is “Doomed, I tell you! Doomed!” Fellow in the first 10 minutes tries to convince us that the Russian army is this super together, powerful and organized force. Well, they might have been that six months ago, before the invasion of Ukraine began! They’ve lost at least 30k Killed in Action, tens of thousands more in the hospital or convalescing at home with wounds severe enough to keep them out of action for the foreseeable future. Russians lost at least a dozen Flag Officers (paygrade O-7 (Brigadier General ) or above) before HIMARS rockets made their appearance. Since then? Well, those rockets have three primary targets, ammo dumps, anti-aircraft defenses and headquarters buildings/tents of any sort, so who know how many FOs have been eliminated since?
So no, Russians may have adopted good tactics at the start, that is, they pound the other guys with artillery, then advance. If opposition is strong, retreat. If not, keep advancing. But they have no ability to switch tactics now as their professional cadres are decimated.

The alleged killer of Daria Dugina.
War in Ukraine reaches six-month mark. Our blogger reviews his past posts on the war.
Soldier from Luhansk say they’d had quite enough of the war, thank you very much. Russia so far seems to be resorting to bribery.
Russians claim to have identified the killer of Daria Dugina. Lots of questions about that.

Hoo yah for Poland! They’ll spend 1% of their GDP to help refugees.

Two good pieces to read together. In the first, just why has US law enforcement been convinced that Trump has been working closely with Russia?

And second, Trump's very unhinged and angry response to being suspected of working closely with Russia.

CNN's Jim Acosta faces a former Secreary of Homeland Security and shows us how to deal with a liar.

Shorter Trump's lawyer: “We want to know who the informants were so can see to it that they sleep with the fishes.”

Kyiv displays destroyed Russian tanks.
Battlefield advances for both sides were minimal.
Ukraine is hammering back areas of Russian troops, making supplying them difficult.
Picture of the successful drone attack on Black Sea Fleet Headquarters. Ships immediately set sail so as to not be targets.

Russians preparing show trial of captured Mariupol defenders.
Thoughts on the assassination attempt on the Dugins.

Jerusalem Post takes note of the fact that a Texas school district has ordered the removal of Anne Frank's diary. Foreigners are aware of what Americans do.

Good piece that takes off from an NY Mag piece that looks at why Senate Minority Leader McConnell is so pessimistic about regaining control of the Senate this November.

NY Times headline:

In chaotic exit, Trump delayed sorting records

I'll give the explanatory piece a "hard agree!"
The President is permitted to keep personal records! He's not permitted to keep any official records! He should have had a system to sort those records from the very beginning. No, this was not a delaying problem or lack of time. This material should have been sorted out on a continuous, ongoing basis. Personal and official files should have both has their own designated storage places.

In break with Trump’s usual pattern, he was actually quite interested in, and well-informed, about nuclear weapons.

"This president and this administration are doing everything they can to pursue their own agenda and not the agenda of the American people"
First off, what Jeanine Pirro is describing is how the government is supposed to run! You put a party into power, they run the US according to what their party platform says they're going to do and at the end of four years, the population decides whether they've done a good job or not. That's what Biden and the Democrats are doing. Why did Democrats complain when Trump was doing what he was doing? Because he was doing awful things that weren't accomplishing anything useful!