This is actually an urgent rally (details below), considering that the Conservative government is deporting U.S. war resisters to lengthy jail terms. Please help build awareness about the plight of war resisters in your community. It is a shame that the best literature from the United States is about war, but that says a lot about the country. When Joshua Key wrote A Deserter’s Tale with Lawrence Hill (a book that is in Joshua’s voice), he became a big target for the U.S. war machine because he told the truth about Iraq. It’s important to show community support for Joshua Key and his family by attending the rally.         – The Conservative government is deporting U.S. war resisters in Canada to lengthy jail terms         – Joshua has a legal opinion he could get 35 years in a US military prison         – His family would be destroyed The rally is a pro-family, anti-war crime activity. Please invite people through or share this event page on your timeline: https://www.facebook.com/events/310774615795492/ If you can’t attend this rally, please write a sentence in solidarity with the Key family on the event page; sign your name, community and group, if you can represent one. We’ll read them out on Friday. Especially welcome is international (including in Canada) support for keeping the Key family together. * * * * * * Rally in support of the Key Family Fri. Dec. 12 at Noon Shelly Glover, MP’s Constituency office 213 St. Mary’s Road (near Traverse)         The Key family needs a public show of support! Joshua Key, an Iraq war veteran who was disillusioned by the war after witnessing many war crimes, has been applying to stay in Canada since 2005. He has a family in Winnipeg with deep roots here.         They are concerned that the Government of Canada is deporting war resisters to the U.S. to face unjust jail sentences, ignoring international law and breaking up families.         Come out to support this pro-family activity.         Of concern is a legal opinion that Joshua would spend 35 years in a U.S. military prison if he is deported. We’ll sing some pro-family holiday songs. The event is not open to anyone who supports war crimes or the legal excuses used by the Nazis in the Nuremberg tribunal, such as it is legal to obey criminal orders. Info: (204) 792-3371 Keep Resisters in Canada https://www.facebook.com/events/310774615795492/
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Rally in support
of the Key Family
Fri. Dec. 12 at Noon
Shelly Glover, MP’s Constituency office
213 St. Mary’s Road (near Traverse)
The Key family needs a public show of support! Joshua
Key, an Iraq war veteran who was disillusioned by the war
after witnessing many war crimes, has been applying to stay
in Canada since 2005. He has a family in Winnipeg with deep
roots here.
They are concerned that the Government of Canada is
deporting war resisters to the U.S. to face unjust jail sentences,
ignoring international law and breaking up families.
Come out to support this pro-family activity.
Of concern is a legal opinion that Joshua would spend
35 years in a U.S. military prison if he is deported.
We’ll sing some pro-family holiday songs. The event is not
open to anyone who supports war crimes or the legal excuses
used by the Nazis in the Nuremberg tribunal, such as
it is legal to obey criminal orders.
Info: (204) 792-3371 Keep Resisters in Canada
https://www.facebook.com/events/310774615795492/
http://nymetrocommunistparty.org/?p=765
Source:PoliticusUSA
MoveOn.org is trying to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run for president in 2016, but Sen. Warren has already rejected their efforts and made it clear that she won’t be running against Hillary Clinton.
Via a press release, MoveOn announced their member vote to draft Warren, For the first time in its 16-year history, the 8-million-member group is holding a nationwide membership vote on a presidential draft campaign.
If the vote succeeds, the group will focus on persuading the Massachusetts senator, who has become known as a tireless, passionate advocate for middle-class and working families, to seek the presidency.
Voting is open to MoveOn’s full membership across the country until 10 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday morning. The result will be announced at 11 a.m. Eastern.
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The campaign, if ratified by MoveOn’s members, will include:
– offices and staff in early primary and caucus states like Iowa and New Hampshire,
– the assembly of a national volunteer army ready to go to work if Sen. Warren enters the race,
– recruiting small-dollar donors who pledge their support,
– and ads and media products that call attention to how Sen. Warren has stood up and fought for the middle class and her powerful vision for our country’s future.
The organization will invest at least $1 million in the first phase of the launch.
Warren’s press secretary put an end to dream of drafting the senator in 2016 by saying for the billionth time, “As Senator Warren has said many times, she is not running for president.â€
Sen. Warren is not running because she supports Hillary Clinton in 2016. Warren has shown herself to be a tireless campaigner for Democratic candidates and a loyal party member. She seems like anything, but the go it alone type who would break with her party to launch and outsider bid for president.
There is a candidate that would be perfect for the left that groups like MoveOn continue to ignore. Sen. Bernie Sanders is serious about challenging Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, and he would welcome a million dollar investment in a primary campaign organization.
Whether progressives want to believe it or not, Elizabeth Warren is not running. She has made zero moves towards a bid for the presidency. If groups like MoveOn were smart, they would be lining up behind Sanders and stop wasting their time chasing the fantasy of Elizabeth Warren in 2016.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has spent months fishing for a strategist to guide his potential 2016 presidential campaign. On Monday, he hooked a big one: Tad Devine, one of the Democratic Party’s leading consultants and a former high-level campaign aide to Al Gore, John Kerry, and Michael Dukakis.
“If he runs, I’m going to help him,†Devine said in an interview. “He is not only a longtime client but a friend. I believe he could deliver an enormously powerful message that the country is waiting to hear right now and do it in a way that succeeds.â€
Devine and Sanders, who first worked together on Sanders’s campaigns in the 1990s, have been huddling in recent weeks, mapping out how the brusque progressive senator could navigate a primary and present a formidable challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Devine previously served as a senior adviser to the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004 and the Gore-Lieberman campaign in 2000. In 1992, he was campaign manager for then-Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey’s presidential bid.
Both men acknowledged in interviews that Sanders would face an uphill challenge and skepticism from the political class. But they are adamant that there is room in the emerging Democratic field for an independent-minded contender who can speak forcefully about the growing divide between the rich and the poor.
Sanders, a Brooklyn native and a self-described socialist, is the longest-serving independent in congressional history. Before winning election to the Senate in 2006, he served in the House and as mayor of Burlington.
“In terms of fundraising, there would be real interest in him at the grassroots level,†Devine said. “He knows how to do the organizing that’s required. As a mass media person, I also think he would be a great television candidate. He can connect on that level.â€
Sanders, 73, has seen his profile rise since 2010, when he delivered a marathon filibuster on economic policy. That speech turned into a book, and Sanders has since appeared frequently on MSNBC prime-time and HBO.
Over breakfast on Saturday in Los Angeles, Sanders said that he would center a possible campaign on the “collapse of the middle class†and “income and wealth inequality,†which he calls a “huge issue from a moral sense and a political sense.â€
Sanders predicted a focus on those issues could animate some small-dollar Democratic donors and keep his campaign afloat and enable him to create
“movement†behind him. “People are angry and frustrated and they want someone to speak to them,†he said. “Democrats cannot run away from the simple reality that you have a billionaire class in America that is enormously greedy.â€
Sanders said he will return to Iowa in December to meet with activists. “I’ve been there, I think, three times and we’ve already drawn large turnouts,†he said. “We work with grassroots progressives organizations and they bring out a lot of working-class and middle-class people. On the last visit to Des Moines, we couldn’t get any more people in the church. There were about 450 people there.â€
Sanders said again that he is inclined to run in the Democratic primary but has yet to make a final decision on campaign matters. Devine, in his interview, said running within the party “means you have an infrastructure and you don’t need to be on the outside, being a Ralph Nader-type candidate.â€
Sanders is one of several Democrats eyeing a primary campaign against Clinton. Others include former Virginia senator Jim Webb and Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-Md.). Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has been courted by prominent liberals to enter the race, but she has resisted those entreaties and does not appear to be gearing up for a national run.
[Robert Costa is a national political reporter at The Washington Post]
Nashville Aero Lodge 735, IAM & AW, Endorses HR 676
Mike Worrell, Recording Secretary of Aero Lodge 735, International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, in Nashville, Tennessee,
reports that his union has endorsed HR 676, national single payer health
care legislation sponsored by Congressman John Conyers. HR 676, known as
Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, has 63 co-sponsors in the current
Congress.
“Health care is a big part of the collective bargaining process. It gets
more expensive for the companies and the union, and we believe a single
payer plan will benefit everyone,†said Worrell.
Aero Lodge 735 represents 651 members at four different companies. The
members are employed in a variety of jobs from making parts for Air Bus
and Gulf Stream business jets, to making seals, driving shuttle buses and
making fans.
“During bargaining for the last fifteen years, the companies have been
asking for more for less health care,†said Worrell.  “When we received
the letter asking us to endorse HR 676, we talked it over and everybody
agreed at the meeting.â€
The letter encouraging endorsement of HR 676 was from the All Unions
Committee for Single Payer Health Care and from Dr. Art Sutherland, a
retired Memphis cardiologist and state coordinator of Physicians for a
National Health Program of Tennessee.
Worrell also took the resolution to the Central Labor Council of Nashville
and Middle Tennessee where he serves as Secretary of that organization of
16,000 workers in 40 local unions. Both the Executive Board and the
membership of the CLC reaffirmed their support for HR 676 and passed the
resolution.
“Unions led the way in other industrialized countries to assure universal
coverage with good care through a form of single payer. We can do it
too,†states the resolution.
A copy of the resolution passed by Aero Lodge 735 and by the Central Labor
Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee is available here:
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org/tools/sample_resolution
Dr. Sutherland has offered to provide a speaker on single payer to those
Tennessee local unions or labor councils that would like to have one.