Photo courtesy of MN State Judicial Branch “Find a mentor – find someone you like and ask them to be your mentor.” – Anne McKeig
Growing up in Federal Dam, population 108, Anne McKeig never met a lawyer. She and her brothers spent most of their time outdoors: roaming the family’s 40 acres, building forts, tending three big gardens, hunting and fishing. At age 13, she started working, first washing dishes in a supper club and later waitressing. Continue reading
L-R: Bo Thao-Urabe and Kaoly Ilean Her Photo by Mary Turck “We are the experts on our lives and on our needs. Women have to speak up. Women have to organize if we want to elect someone who will care about us.” – Kaoly Ilean Her
The first Hmong candidates to win elected office were Minnesota women: Choua Lee on the St. Paul school board in 1991 and Mee Moua in the Minnesota Senate in 2002. Now, in 2016, Minnesota has the first Hmong women’s political action committee: Maiv PAC. (“Maiv” is pronounced “my,” which is a term of endearment.)
Filed under elections, gender, immigration
Communications prof Melissa Zindars posted an exposé of fake news, complete with a list of “False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical ‘News’ Sources.” Then, reports the Los Angeles Times, she took down the list, as “a safety measure in response to threats and harassment she and her students and colleagues had received.” That’s the power, and the peril, of good reporting in a time when fake news wins elections and earns big bucks. Continue reading
One of the eleven charts in the Vox article – read entire article here.
A series of charts published by Vox compares prices for 11 different medications and medical procedures.
Example: “Humira, a medication for multiple forms of arthritis, skin conditions, and inflammatory bowel diseases, costs three times as much in the United States as in Switzerland.”
Filed under Uncategorized
Four thousand people gathered in Minneapolis on November 9 to protest against Trump’s election. Photo by Fibonacci Blue, used under Creative Commons license.
Yeah, I get it. Wearing a safety pin is a quick-and-easy way to show that you support all the people getting slammed by the rising tide of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. When I grew up, safety pins were a very temporary and unsatisfactory fix when something badly needed mending. Right now, the whole fabric of our community and nation badly needs repair. So here are some things you can do, right now this week in Minnesota, that go beyond the safety pin: Continue reading
Filed under human rights, race
(courtesy of Rini Templeton)
Trump’s win – and the magnitude of the Trump vote across the country and in Minnesota – is a triumph for ignorance. And hate. And fear.
But — we go on. So what next? Continue reading
Filed under elections
PolitiFact is a fact-checking website run by the Tampa Bay Times that focuses on political actors and statements. Politifact classifies statements as True, Mostly True, Half True, Mostly False, False, and Pants on Fire.
The Star Tribune published a commentary piece October 28 featuring “The Top 10 whoppers of both leading presidential candidates” as identified by Politifact.com. What’s wrong with that? Plenty.
The clear implication is that both candidates are equally liars. That’s wrong. Even worse, the “everybody is a liar” meme increases cynicism not only about the candidates but about the political system, voting, and the possibility of meaningful choice. Continue reading
UPDATE, 10 a.m. October 28: More than 100 people were arrested on October 27. Police fired beanbag rounds and teargas. Meanwhile, an Oregon jury said that the armed white men who forcibly occupied federal offices for 41 days are not guilty of anything. For more reports on October 27, see:
When I tune in to the live Facebook feed, less than an hour after it begins, some 4,000 people are watching police move in on protesters – water protectors – who have barricaded Highway 1806 in North Dakota. They are trying to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, trying to protect the waters of the Missouri River from the oil pipeline that is planned to run under the river, trying to protect sacred sites of the Dakota Sioux people. This is the frontline camp, the north camp. Less than an hour later, the number is up to 16,000 people and climbing.
A young Native American man, E’esha Hoferer broadcasts live from the site, saying he is reporting for One Nation TV. We hear the police telling protesters to move south, to take their tents with them. We see people carrying straw bales and American flags. We hear the police broadcast loud, ululating noise to disrupt communications or to warn people to move back. We see the lines of law enforcement, like wings extending in both directions from their vehicles on the road. Continue reading
Filed under environment, human rights, media, race, religion
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My dad liked to say that there are lies, damn lies and statistics. A Buzzfeed investigative report shows something a little different: lies, damn lies and Facebook’s phony news sites. Buzzfeed analyzed the Facebook pages of three left-wing, three right-wing and three mainstream news sites. They found lies in almost 20 percent of the left-wing pages’ posts and 38 percent of the right-wing pages’ posts. Even worse, they found that “the least accurate pages generated some of the highest numbers of shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook — far more than the three large mainstream political news pages analyzed for comparison.” Continue reading
Demonstration outside Minneapolis City Hall
More than 400 of us gathered outside Minneapolis City Hall October 25 to demand that Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek bring back county officers and equipment sent to North Dakota. Stanek sent the county forces to support North Dakota’s repressive police action against Standing Rock water protectors, aimed at stopping protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Continue reading
Filed under environment, human rights
Seems like every week brings more news of government surveillance. You’d think the right wing would be up in arms about this government overreach and invasion of privacy—but it’s their folks who are taking the photos and setting up the databases of protesters and immigrants and anyone else who happens to get captured on some […]
On June 16, Kash Patel announced on social media that an alleged plot to mount a drone attack on Trump’s UFC fight had been “stopped cold.” And then the story went away. Why? This attack was not international terrorism. Even Patel could not spin it as a left-wing plot. Those arrested came from home-grown, right-wing […]
Bombing schools and hospitals is a war crime. Deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime. Yesterday’s fulminations from the Führer in the White House go beyond war crimes to announce that he intends genocide: the wiping out of an entire people and civilization.
ICE is only one of the federal agencies surveilling people. Federal surveillance reaches far beyond immigrants. Federal agents use massive databases, facial recognition, cell phone photos, and license plate records. Beyond surveillance, they target and threaten people involved in protests, bringing the full weight of federal power to bear on individuals. Their actions often remain […]
Five years after the violent attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, the attacks on democracy and on elected officials continue. Yesterday, two politicians currently under attack by the Trump administration spoke out with anger and eloquence.
Mary Turck