In many ways, the story of the Keystone XL pipeline project reads like a true crime novel. The project has a long, sordid history that’s rife with corruption.

The Keystone XL was first proposed in September 2008, as oil companies sought to transport more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil through Nebraska, South Dakota, and Montana every day. The Obama Administration repeatedly quashed the Keystone plans despite efforts to fast-track it, declaring that the project did not serve the national interest.

Wednesday, December 4, 2019, 7:00 – 8:30 PM
David Shutkin is a founding member of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence (CJNV).  He has been to Palestine on four occasions since 2015 and will be in Palestine with a fifth delegation this winter.  He has been an anti-occupation activist since 1982. The CJNV engages in nonviolent direct action in opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.  Their work is a form of solidarity activism as we support and collaborate with many Palestinian partner organizations such as Youth Against Settlements and the Good Shepard Coalition. We also partner with numerous Palestinian village counsels including Susya, Umm Al-Khair, and Al-Tawani, in the South Hebron Hillas and Issawiya and Batan Al-Hawa in East Jerusalem. The CJNV brings together members of organizations such as JVP, If Not Now and J Street U.  David will share an overview of the CJNV, some of my back story, and discuss the successes of our most recent collaborative action in the South Hebron Hills where we encountered the violence of the IDF and seventeen people were arrested. Website: 

The death penalty’s slow death is accelerating. At least 140 nations no longer use it. No nation in Europe uses the death penalty. No nation in the Western Hemisphere uses it, except the United States.

Twenty-nine U.S. states have banned capital punishment or imposed a moratorium, and most of the rest have effectively stopped using it.

Virginia, the northernmost east-coast state with the death penalty, has not sentenced anyone to death in over 8 years. Virginia’s death row holds only three men, all of whose sentences are facing challenges in court, meaning that the death row could soon be emptied out without anyone being killed.

The last time Virginia executed a man was in 2017. Now that man’s victim’s daughter is speaking out for abolition of the death penalty.

Anyone who’s been paying attention should get the picture by now. Overall, in subtle and sledgehammer ways, the mass media of the United States -- owned and sponsored by corporate giants -- are in the midst of a siege against the two progressive Democratic candidates who have a real chance to be elected president in 2020.

Some of the prevalent media bias has taken the form of protracted swoons for numerous “center lane” opponents of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The recent entry of Michael Bloomberg has further jammed that lane, adding a plutocrat “worth” upwards of $50 billion to a bevy of corporate politicians.

The mainline media are generally quite warm toward so-called “moderates,” without bothering to question what’s so moderate about such positions as bowing to corporate plunder, backing rampant militarism and refusing to seriously confront the climate emergency.

Sunday, December 1, 6pm
Panera Bread, 300 W. Lane Ave.
Join us for our next Labor Working Group meeting. We'll plan our next labor discussion group event, discuss the latest right wing attack on Ohio's public sector unions, and more.