FIGHTING FOR A LIVING WAGE: A VIRTUAL RALLY WITH DEMOCRATIC VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE UNITED STATES SENATOR KAMALA HARRIS interviewed by Senator Bernie Sanders

"A LIVING WAGE ISSUE for Platform discussion".

The Bernie Sanders Virtual Video begins at the 4:42 minute mark, featuring an extensive interview with the Democratic Party's Vice-Presidential Candidate United States Senator (Ca.) Kamala Harris - 1st interview guest - representing the 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden.

The Electoral College fully defined by Dr. Earl Ofari Hutchinson

 

The Electoral College How it Works - The Hutchinson Report

It’s Up to Us to Defend the Black Vote by Ben Jealous

 

 

Ben Jealous

 

 

 

Editors and Publishers: Please feel free to post and publish free of charge.     It’s Up to Us to Defend the Black Vote By Ben Jealous   Just weeks before Election Day, with millions of people voting already, the Black vote is being attacked from every angle.   After the Supreme Court’s conservatives gutted important parts of the Voting Rights Act a few years ago, many states controlled by right-wing Republicans went wild imposing restrictions on voter registration and voting.   This year, they’re completely out of control.   Massively funded right-wing extremists are using threats and lawsuits against state and local officials to force purges of lists of eligible voters. The Trump campaign is trying to enlist an “army” of poll watchers to intimidate voters. With millions more Americans expected to vote by mail, Trump’s man in charge at the postal service has imposed new work rules that caused chaos and disrupted deliveries.   And those are just a few of the examples of voter suppression efforts around the country. The Republican legislature and governor in Florida overrode millions of voters who passed a constitutional amendment to return the right to vote to people with criminal convictions once they completed their sentences; Republicans added a requirement that returning voters pay all related fines and fees before voting. That’s an unconstitutional poll tax, but courts filled with Trump-nominated judges have let Republicans get away with it.   On top of all that, Republicans are trying to force another Trump justice onto the Supreme Court just in time for the court’s conservatives to hear a case in which they could further erode the Voting Rights Act—and undermine Black Americans’ right to be free from racial discrimination in voting. That justice could also be the nail in the coffin for the Affordable Care Act, which has helped millions of Americans get access to health care. Even more recently, a couple of far-right activists have just been charged with voter intimidation felonies by Michigan’s attorney general after they sent robocalls to voters in Detroit falsely claiming that voting by mail will somehow make people vulnerable to tracking by police and debt collectors.   Attacks on the Black vote have a long history. In the early 1980s, the Republican Party was sued for intimidating minority voters and the party agreed to a federal court order not to engage in “ballot security” efforts. That order expired in 2018, and this year, the Republican Party is spending tens of millions of dollars to block election officials’ efforts to make voting safer and more accessible.   It is enraging that 55 years after passage of the Voting Rights Act, the blood-bought gains of the civil rights movement are at stake. But this is where we are. And that’s why we must defend the Black vote, and why we must overcome every attempt to misinform, intimidate, and suppress Black voters.   Black men, especially young Black men, are top targets of misinformation campaigns. That’s why People For the American Way’s Defend the Black Vote Project is reaching out specifically to Black men between 18 and 35 to combat voter suppression and encourage turnout.   Since COVID-19 has restricted door-to-door canvassing and public events, we’re communicating with Black men through peer-to-peer texting technology. Texting lets us reach younger voters in their preferred form of communication. In key states, where Black voters are most likely to be targeted with misinformation, we are reaching them one-to-one with information about how, when, and where to vote—including information about new voting procedures during the pandemic.   A well-trained volunteer can text up to 2,000 messages an hour, reaching many more people than by going door-to-door. We’re supplementing that with digital advertising, public service announcements on radio, and tele-townhall meetings featuring young Black elected officials.   Every dollar we spend, and every voter we reach, is worth it because there is so much at stake in November’s elections: access to health care, a responsible approach to the pandemic, justice and accountability in policing, and voting rights.   Defending the Black vote means defending the dignity and legal equality of Black people. It’s up to us.  ____________________________________ Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation. Jealous has decades of experience as a leader, coalition builder, campaigner for social justice and seasoned nonprofit executive. In 2008, he was chosen as the youngest-ever president and CEO of the NAACP. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and he has taught at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Democratic Biden/Harris Presidential Ticket Taking Advantage Of Radio’s ‘Captive Audience.’

 

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Story by Inside Radio

The campaign to elect Democratic nominee for President Joe Biden has spent nearly $15 million on radio ads, which have aired in all 50 states. Ad tracking firm Advertising Analytics says Biden’s radio ad spend is 56 times as much as incumbent President Donald Trump, who’s campaign has spent less than $270,000 on radio ads.

While still spending at TV, the Biden campaign is using radio as a cost-effective way to target voters with tailored messages and to boost turnout among Black and Latino voters. The radio ads are “a side dish on top of the main course,” campaign director Patrick Bonsignore told McClatchy DC. “Radio affords us the opportunity where you can get into a specific audience and have more meaningful and relevant communication with them. You have a captive audience that is specific.”

Biden recently launched ad campaigns focused on rural parts of battleground states and religious voters. Five swing states have been the target of most of the former Vice President’s radio ad budget with $4.3 million spent in Florida, $2.2 million each in Pennsylvania and Michigan and $1.4 million in both North Carolina and Arizona. The Biden campaign has spent at least $100,000 in seven other battleground states, Advertising Analytics reports. The campaign has also aired ads on radio shows geared towards African Americans and Spanish speakers.

In comparison, the Trump campaign has spent $112,000 on radio ads in Florida and a combined $154,000 in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump’s paid radio ad campaigns have also focused on Black, Spanish-language and Christian voters, while his “earned media” on AM/FM has him dialing into popular conservative talk radio shows, including a 2-hour appearance Friday on Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated show.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Samantha Zager suggests that Biden’s focus on radio is outdated. “When Joe Biden first ran for office 47 years ago, radio was one of a limited number of ways to reach the electorate,” she said. “Whether it’s through digital, texts, apps, TV or radio, President Trump’s campaign is sharing his message and reaching voters.”

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The late Eddie Van Halen endured a 'horrifying racist environment' before becoming a rock legend

 

Eddie Van Halen endured a 'horrifying racist environment' before becoming a rock legend

Story by Yahoo & NBC News / Written by Kimmy Yam

Fri, October 9, 2020, 9:27 AM EDT

Music fans around the world are mourning the loss of iconic Van Halen rock star Eddie Van Halen. And while many today honor his legacy as one of the all-time greatest guitarists, fans are also highlighting past interviews describing his encounters with painful racism and discrimination because of his mixed race in his early years.

Van Halen, who died Tuesday of throat cancer at 65, was the son of Dutch and Indonesian immigrants and spent his childhood in the Netherlands. His former bandmate David Lee Roth, a fellow rock superstar, once revealed on the podcast "WTF with Marc Maron" just how painful the experience was for the young Van Halen and his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen.

In the 2019 interview, Roth described how poorly the Van Halens' parents were treated because of their mixed-race relationship in the 1950s.

"It was a big deal. Those homeboys grew up in a horrifying racist environment to where they actually had to leave the country," Roth said in the podcast.

He added that the brothers, who were often referred to as "half-breed" in the Netherlands, still met difficult circumstances after immigrating to the U.S.

"Then they came to America and did not speak English as a first language in the early '60s. Wow," Roth told Maron. "So that kind of sparking, that kind of stuff, that runs deep."

The brothers' mother, Eugenia, met their father, Jan, a traveling musician, in Indonesia when it was under Dutch rule. Shortly after World War II, the couple decided to move to the Netherlands, where the rock stars were born. 

Eugenia was treated as a "second-class citizen," Van Halen said in an interview in 2017 with music journalist Denise Quan for Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. The family packed up and left for the U.S. in 1962, making the trek by boat for nine days, before settling in the Pasadena, California, area.

Their early days in the U.S. were difficult, Van Halen told Quan. The family lived in a house shared with two other families. While his mother worked as a maid, his father picked up a job as a janitor and also maintained a music career. The environment at the time wasn't particularly inviting to the young immigrants, and Van Halen described his first day of school as "absolutely frightening."

"We already went through that in Holland, you know, first day, first grade. Now, you're in a whole other country where you can't speak the language, and you know absolutely nothing about anything and it was beyond frightening," he said. "I don't even know how to explain but I think it made us stronger because you had to be."

He told Quan that the school he attended at the time was still segregated and that because he couldn't speak the language, he was considered a "minority" student.

"My first friends in America were Black," Eddie told the journalist. "It was actually the white people that were the bullies. They would tear up my homework and papers, make me eat playground sand, all those things, and the Black kids stuck up for me."

In spite of the racism and discrimination he faced, Van Halen told Quan that looking back on his life, he was grateful for his experience as an immigrant.

"Coming here with approximately $50 and a piano, not being able to speak the language, going through everything to get to where we are, if that's not the American dream, I don't know what is," he said in the interview.

Indonesian social media users have paid tribute to Van Halen, who's seen as a source of pride for many in the community.

Purple Line subway construction progress

  

Story by Maryland Matters   Purple Line progress   An unfinished portion of elevated Purple Line track in downtown Silver Spring. Photo by Josh Kurtz.   Just weeks after work on the Purple Line ground to a halt in the wake of a bitter, years-long financial dispute, the state Department of Transportation announced on Friday that it has assumed numerous key construction contracts.  The move is the first tangible sign that MDOT intends to make good on its promise to jump-start the 16.5-mile project, despite the demise of the agency’s relationship with the financing consortium, Purple Line Transit Partners, and its primary subcontractor, Purple Line Transit Constructors, last month. Maryland’s transportation secretary said agency is “committed” to ongoing negotiations to deliver the project. A dispute over nearly $800 million in cost overruns led the firm to exercise its right to walk away with the line partially built.

Stimulus Update: Trump Kills Covid-19 Relief Until After The Election

 Story by Forbes 

Written by Kelly Anne Smith

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 05: U.S. President Donald Trump stands on the Truman Balcony after ... [+]

 GETTY IMAGES

The stimulus negotiation marathon is (apparently) over.

After recent weeks of progress between White House negotiators and lawmakers in Congress, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter today that all negotiations are now off and a stimulus bill won’t be passed until after the November election.

Details on Trump’s Rejection of a Stimulus Package Deal

On Tuesday afternoon, Trump tweeted that he has officially “rejected” Democrat requests for a $2.2 trillion Covid-19 relief package. The tweet comes just days after he pressured lawmakers, from Walter Reed Medical Center where he was being treated for Covid-19, to pass a stimulus package.

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But worse, Trump added that he has instructed his representatives to stop negotiations until immediately after the election. He said that “... immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Businesses.” He urged Senate Republicans to instead focus on their nomination of Amy Coney Barrett as the new Supreme Court Justice.

On Thursday evening, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) released a statement in response to Trump’s actions, saying, “Clearly, the White House is in complete disarray. Sadly, they are rejecting the urgent warnings of Fed Chairman Powell today, that ‘Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses.’”

Trump drawing stimulus negotiations to a screeching halt comes just 28 days before the November election, and at a time where the president’s image is in increasingly hot water. 

The president has been under harsh scrutiny after his discharge from Walter Reed for taking his mask off while entering the White House, and putting his aides and surrounding workers in immediate danger of contracting a deadly virus that has claimed the lives of over 210,000 Americans. 

The president’s actions, described as irresponsible by medical experts, are increasingly affecting public opinion. He trails Democratic nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden by a gaping 16 points nationally, according to the most recent CNN poll—his largest margin of any CNN poll conducted during the current election. 

The stock market is also reacting to Trump throwing ice on stimulus negotiations—it plummeted just moments after he tweeted.

Trump’s moves are in opposition to what many experts advise, who say the economy is in dire need of Covid-19 related economic relief. Just today, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned that the U.S. economy would face dire consequences if more relief isn’t passed soon.

“A long period of unnecessarily slow progress could continue to exacerbate existing disparities in our economy. That would be tragic, especially in light of our country's progress on these issues in the years leading up to the pandemic,” Powell said in a recent speech. He added that any policy action wouldn’t go to waste.