Washington, DC – House speaker John Boehner (R-OH) still refuses to allow a vote on legislation to restore unemployment compensation to the long-term jobless. In a May 21 statement on job training, Boehner failed to address the predicament of the nearly 3 million workers who have been hit by the failure of Congress to restore Extended Unemployment Benefits.

After a protracted fight, legislation to extend unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless passed the Senate, April 7, with a handful of Republican votes. The Senate bill would extend the benefits until June 1 and provide for retroactive unemployment compensation payments. The House is unlikely to hold a vote on the proposed measure before June 1, which means the legislation will be back to square one.

Given the outrage that exists around this issue – many unemployed workers are losing their homes, cars and the ability to help their families – most expect that legislative efforts to bring back long term jobless benefits will continue after June 1.

Republicans gained effective veto power over extended unemployment benefits when the Congressional Democratic leadership did not insist on the inclusion of Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) in the December 2013 budget compromise.

#WashingtonDC #unemploymentInsurance #Capitalism #RepublicanAgenda #ExtendedUnemploymentCompensation #workersRights

The 14 Republican House members who participated in the May 9 Weekly Republican Address, titled “Many Bills, One Focus: Jobs,” made no mention of the bill on extended benefits for the unemployed.

Republicans gained effective veto power over extended unemployment benefits when the Congressional Democratic leadership did not insist on the inclusion of Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) in the December 2013 budget compromise.

Since extended benefits expired on Dec. 28, 2013, about 3 million workers have been cut off unemployment insurance.

In the aftermath of the 2007 economic meltdown, the worst crisis of capitalism since the 1930s, large-scale unemployment has been a huge problem in the U.S. and Europe.

In the U.S., California has an unemployment rate of 8.1%, Illinois 8.4%, Nevada is at 8.5% and Rhode Island has the highest unemployment rate, 8.7%.

#WashingtonDC #unemploymentInsurance #Capitalism #RepublicanAgenda #ExtendedUnemploymentCompensation #workersRights #JohnBoehner

The Democratic leadership did not insist on including a benefit extension in last December’s budget compromise, giving Republicans the power to stop legislation to restore Extended Unemployment Compensation.

About 3 million workers have been denied jobless benefits since the program was allowed to expire late last December.

House Democrats are circulating a discharge petition, which if signed by a majority of House members, would force an immediate vote on the measure. To date, the discharge petition has been signed by 193 House members. The House of Representatives has 233 Republicans and 199 Democrats.

#WashingtonDC #unemploymentInsurance #Capitalism #RepublicanAgenda #ExtendedUnemploymentCompensation #workersRights

In Congress ‘fiscally-responsible’ is often a code word for cuts to social programs that serve working and low-income people. ‘Private sector job creation’ means handouts to corporations or removing environmental regulations.

Nationally, Republicans have staked out the political terrain that blames jobless workers for high unemployment rates and poverty on the poor.

More than 2 million workers have been hit by the failure to renew Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) at the end of last year.

Republicans got what amounts to veto power over legislation to extend jobless benefits when the Democratic leadership failed to insist on including extended unemployment insurance into the December 2013 budget compromise.

#WashingtonDC #unemploymentInsurance #RepublicanAgenda #ExtendedUnemploymentCompensation #workersRights #EUC #JohnBoehner

Milwaukee, WI – Despite freezing cold temperatures, Milwaukee students and anti-war activists rallied in solidarity with the Venezuelan government on March 3. They stood waving flags and held up signs reading “U.S. hands off Venezuela,” and “Soy Chavista!” Standing on ice and snow, they chanted against U.S. intervention and in support of Venezuela’s President Maduro. They are joining progressive people around the world holding rallies in solidarity with the Venezuelan government.

The Milwaukee protesters support the powerful Bolivarian movement and the Venezuelan government’s progressive reforms of the past 15 years. Millions of Venezuelans are no longer living in poverty, have learned to read and write and work at new jobs. Venezuelan President Maduro’s government spends billions from state oil revenues on jobs, education, health care and housing, for the benefit of the many. Wealthy Venezuelans and some college students are upset and protesting the government.

The U.S. government is backing the right-wing protests. After 15 years of losing election after election, the wealthy reactionaries are attempting to reverse the Bolivarian Revolution and the progress made by poor people. The majority of Venezuelans reject the turn towards violence by the reactionaries.

Chance Zombor of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization fired up the crowd, “When we occupied the capitol building in Madison, we were fighting for workers’ rights against an extreme right-wing agenda. When we marched with Occupy Wall Street, we were saying that the wealthy should not control our country.” He explained about the protests, “What's happening in Venezuela is the opposite! The demonstrators there do not represent the majority of Venezuelans, who voted to support Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution.”

Milwaukee Anti-War Committee organized the protest along with other organizations. Leaders plan to do more outreach rallies like this one in the Riverwest neighborhood to educate people about U.S. wars and intervention.

#MilwaukeeWI #Venezuela #Coup #RepublicanAgenda #antiwar #USImperialism #PSUV #NicolásMaduro

This is the second great setback for workers and unions in Michigan, coming on the heels of last year’s ramming through of so-called ‘right to work’ laws by Republicans and right-wing Governor Snyder. That same Republican-dominated legislative session overrode a fresh, legally binding referendum passed by Michigan voters that rejected Governor Snyder’s use of Emergency Financial Managers (EFM). The Republicans simply tinkered with the old law and passed a new EFM as part of an appropriations bill – which cannot be put to a referendum.

For union workers in Detroit, a city which is 84% African American, the bankruptcy is a disaster. Despite union givebacks and changes to retirement and pension plans, workers are hearing bankruptcy experts say they can expect between 10 and 20 cents on the dollar for their years of hard work and dedication. So despite years of union contracts, negotiated with local elected officials and approved under state laws, a judge will ultimately decide how much of a pension workers will get.

The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees union, or AFSCME, represents about 70% of Detroit city workers, excluding categories like police and firefighters. AFSCME says their pension benefits were reduced by nearly 40% since 2012. In addition, on the job workers took a 10% pay cut in the past fiscal year to help avoid bankruptcy. Right now the average yearly pension is $19,000, but could go down to $9000 after the judge’s ruling.

There is no doubt that Detroit is a suffering city, whose manufacturing base along with hundreds of thousands of jobs largely disappeared since the 1970s. In previous decades Detroit was seen as a successful and exciting city, popularly known throughout the world for cars, sports, Motown music and good jobs. African Americans and their labor were a large part of this success. People in Detroit were proud of their city, their struggles and their accomplishments and they exercised more control over their lives than ever before.

However the big capitalists began to abandon Detroit starting in the 1970s, taking their investments and production elsewhere – to the suburbs, the South and overseas. Population began to fall, reaching less than half of what it once was, down to 701,000 today. With population falling steeply after 2000, Detroit now has a smaller tax base and the same and sometimes greater responsibilities. Corporations that did stay paid less in taxes. The good jobs dwindled. The great economic crisis that hit in 2008 left even more workers unemployed – today around 18% – hurting city income even more.

During the great economic crisis, the U.S. government spent billions to bail out banks and insurance companies, but there is no lifeline for Detroit and its workers. Instead they are being punished with bankruptcy, as if it is the only option. In the process, the politicians and judges are breaking contracts and abandoning long-held promises to workers and unions. Republican Governor Rick Snyder, instead of working with Detroit to avoid crisis, cut state funding in recent years ($66 million was cut between 2011-2012) and then took over local government by appointing an Emergency Financial Manager, sidelining the Mayor and other elected officials. The Governor has used the EFM to take over in small blue-collar towns, local school districts, and now the city of Detroit. The result of the EFM is always the same: cuts in social programs, privatization of schools and services and a refusal to negotiate with union workers, followed by their eventual replacement. In most cases thus far, the targets of EFM are government bodies run by African Americans.

Detroit faces real problems, but the rich and their politicians take advantage of the situation, and turn it into a crisis so they can seize power. Next they privatize valuable assets, like the Detroit Water and Sewage Department, at bargain basement prices. Wall Street wants to get their hands on the water works, so they can charge higher prices to homeowners and make a profit off of what should be a public utility. The EFM for Detroit, Kevyn Orr, has outside experts providing ‘valuations’ of the full range of city assets, including the parking meters and parking garages, publicly owned land like Belle Isle and other parks, the Detroit-WindsorTunnel (to Canada) and the Coleman A. Young International Airport. It may soon all be up for sale.

Even the public works of art in the Detroit Institute of Art are not safe. Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr had all the art appraised this week by Christie’s auction house. Orr’s representative, the New York investment banker Ken Buckfire, had secretly sent Christie’s appraisers to the art museum in June on an ‘informal’ basis. This past week, Buckfire was forced to cancel an ‘informal’ tour of Detroit. ‘Advisers’ were going to be shown the assets of the city that are going up for sale.

Judge Rhodes’ ruling is an attack on pensions, workers and unions across the country. It opens the door for other cities to run out on their contracts and displace unions. With Illinois pensions being called into question and some California cities facing similar funding problems, Detroit is now a test case. Republicans are leading the charge to force bankruptcy, suspend and override election results, to sell off assets and to cut and privatize social services. The Democrats are shrugging their shoulders and promising things will be different at the next election. The unions are in a life and death fight in Detroit. Workers have a lot at stake.

#DetroitMI #PoorPeoplesMovements #pensions #privatization #RepublicanAgenda #GovernorRickSnyder #antiunionBusting #workersRights

But the reality is that the Republicans will block any legalization bill, while business interests will push the passage of expanding temporary worker and employment based visas. In the meantime immigrants are facing a wave of repression, with the Obama administration having deported a record 2 million undocumented people. So the piecemeal approach is most likely to end up being more of the same for the undocumented: more deportations, no legalization and a temporary reprieve for undocumented who came as children and qualify under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

So why is Obama retreating in the face of Republican opposition to immigration reform? One reason may be a partisan consideration. By making this concession, Obama is trying to keep the immigration issue in the media, hoping to benefit in next year’s election by looking ‘reasonable’ in the face of Republican opposition to immigration reform, even if this means doing little to nothing to advance any immigration reform. But another factor is that many of Obama’s policies are, in fact, moderate Republican ones. Take a look at his Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Two of the most controversial parts of the ACA, the insurance exchanges and the individual mandate, were both Republican ideas that were embodied in the Massachusetts health care reform under Republican governor Mitt Romney.

Fundamentally, this reflects the fact that both the Democratic and the Republican parties represent the 1%, the tiny minority who own half the total wealth in the U.S. and control the large corporations that dominate the economy. While the two parties have their differences, with the Republicans wanting more repression of immigrants with militarization at the border, and the Democrats are more interested in meeting the needs of business through expanding temporary and guest worker programs, they serve the same interests.

Up to now, there have been three views of immigration reform. On the one hand, there were advocates for the undocumented, family reunification and workers, who supported legalization and stopping deportations. They also opposed more militarization of the border, more workplace enforcement, more temporary and guest workers, cuts in family reunification and diversity visas and criminalization of the undocumented and expansion of using local police and sheriffs to crack down on immigrants. More and more of these forces are uniting behind a demand that the president issue a ‘Deferred Action For All’ that expands the DACA program to all the undocumented. This would allow the undocumented to come out of the shadows and be able to work and drive legally, while laying the basis for a stronger push for legalization in the future.

Then there were the right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives, who opposed legalization, and wanted more militarization, more workplace enforcement, more temporary, guest and employment visas and supported criminalization of the undocumented and expansion of ICE-local police programs, as seen in the SAFE act that passed a House committee on a straight party line vote. The House Republicans also support a piecemeal approach so that they can pass what they want (more repression of immigrants) and block what they don’t want (legalization).

In between was the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” or CIR approach, as seen in the Senate immigration reform bill. CIR tried to combine the other two opposing views on immigration reform, as a way of getting Republican support. But with the overall atmosphere of repression, the Senate bill got steadily worse, with a lot more militarization of the border. The House bipartisan bill was widely known to be even worse, but it never got off the ground as the House Republicans pulled support for any bill with legalization and rallied around a piecemeal approach in opposition to CIR. With Obama’s concession to the House Republicans, the CIR approach is basically dead for now.

Backers of the CIR approach have two choices: they can go along with the President’s approach, either openly or trying to hide behind the fiction that CIR is still possible in the House. This will end up with some pro-business changes, such as more temporary worker and employment-based visas, but no legalization and the continuing deportation of record numbers of the undocumented. Or they can join with advocates of legalization and stopping the deportations by backing the Deferred Action For All or DAFA, which would both benefit the undocumented and put pressure on the House to deal with legalization.

Masao Suzuki is a supporter of the Legalization for All network and a regular contributor to Fight Back! newspaper on the economy and the immigrant rights movement.

#SanJoséCA #RepublicanAgenda #BarackObama #immigrationRights #comprehensiveImmigrationReform #AffordableCareAct #DACA

San José, CA – Today, Oct. 15, right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives stopped the House Republican leadership from trying to pass a compromise measure to re-open the federal government and raise its debt ceiling. This marks another step towards the first U.S. debt crisis in history.

On Oct. 17, the federal government will not be able to borrow more money to pay its bills. The federal government will only be able to pay out what it collects in taxes, plus about $30 billion in cash that it has on hand. In the two weeks after that, the federal government will run short of money to pay all its bills, with the most likely date being Nov. 1, when $55 billion in Social Security benefits, Medicare payments, and military pay, benefits and retirement benefits are due.

From now through mid-November, the federal government will have to postpone payment on about $100 billion in payments if the debt ceiling is not raised. This comes to almost 8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP, the standard measure of the size of the economy based on production of goods and services) on an annual basis, enough to throw the economy in a recession even worse than the one following the financial crisis in 2008.

Background to the crisis

The looming debt crisis has several roots. The first are the budget deficits of the federal government, where it spends more than it collects in taxes, so it has to borrow the difference by selling bonds. The federal government budget deficit ballooned to about $1.4 trillion (or $1400 billion), equal to 10% of GDP, in 2009 because the deep recession lowered tax revenues and the federal government increased spending to bail out Wall Street and stimulate the economy. Since then, a combination of higher tax revenues, spending cuts and economic growth have reduced the deficit to almost $600 billion, or about 4% of GDP in 2012, a decline of 60% in relation to the size of the economy.

The total amount of bonds that the U.S. government sells to pay for the budget deficit is the public debt, which is now $16.75 trillion ($16,750 billion). The federal government has a self-imposed limit on the public debt of $16.7 trillion, which means that the government can no longer borrow more money. The reported debt is slightly higher than the limit because the federal government has been shifting money around to avoid running out of cash for the last five months.

While there have been disputes over the debt ceiling in the past, they have been largely partisan affairs that did not come close to forcing the government to actually delay payment. But the recent rise of Tea Party Republicans means that the Republicans, especially in the House of Representatives, are controlled by right wingers who are more than willing to shut down the government and even force the government not to pay its bills in order to achieve their goal of ending Obama’s health care reform known as Obamacare.

What drives the Tea Party

Many Republican members of congress were denying the possibility of a partial shutdown of the federal government right up to the point that the government shut down. Their behavior is similar to their stance on climate change – just deny that it is happening so one doesn’t have to do anything.

Digging a little deeper, one sees that the government agencies that were most affected by the shutdown, such as the Department of Education, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Labor, are the programs most hated by the right wing.

There is also an extreme free-market logic among Tea Party Republicans that the government is bad for business and the economy and that a shutdown of the government will be good for business.

What is likely to happen

The world isn’t going to end on Oct. 17 if the debt ceiling is not raised. But the economic effects are already being felt, as the uncertainty of repayment of bonds after that date is causing the prices of bonds coming due soon to fall, which leads to higher interest rates. The interest rate on the shortest term U.S. bonds (called bills), which come due in 30 days, has now tripled and is higher than the interest rates on 60-day bills, which come due later.

While Democrats and the Obama administration are warning of the danger of default, which is what happens when the federal government does not repay its bonds or interest payment, it is hard to see how the government won’t give Wall Street what it wants. But there is chance that some bank or financial institution will find itself in a squeeze if the federal government doesn’t pay on time, triggering another financial crisis.

What is more likely is that the sudden drop in federal government spending will trigger a new recession. This could quickly feed upon itself in what economists call the ‘multiplier effect,’ where the individuals, businesses and institutions that aren’t being paid by the federal government then cut back their own purchases and payments, putting the economy into a downward spiral.

What a debt crisis would mean

If the House Republicans do manage to block any agreement to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling, the self-inflicted crisis will mark another step in the decline of the U.S. as a world power. Ever since World War II, the U.S. government has been both a protector of Wall Street and big business and the head of worldwide empire of pro-U.S. governments that protect U.S. financial and business interests, backed by the U.S. military.

From an economic point of view, the end in 1971 of the post-World War II system of fixed exchange rates centered on the U.S. dollar, called Bretton Woods, was an early sign of the decline of the U.S. relative to the rising nations of Europe and Japan. This was followed by the OPEC oil boycott in 1973, and then the U.S. military defeat in Vietnam in 1975, showing the rise of the Third World.

Today the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and coming U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan shows that the U.S., despite using hundreds of thousands of troops and spending trillions of dollars, is no longer to set up stable, pro-U.S. governments that can defend U.S. business interests. With the looming debt crisis, more and more governments around the world are losing faith in the economic power of the U.S. and the safety of U.S. government bonds. Foreign governments and investors now own more than $5.5 trillion of U.S. government bonds, and any sell-off in the bond market triggered by a debt crisis would quickly spread a financial crisis around the world.

But even if a financial crisis is avoided, a deep recession in the U.S. will also spread around the world. Europe’s economy is still in a depression with the euro-zone crisis and many economies in the Third World are slowing down already. Another worldwide recession, following so closely on the 2008-2009 so-called Great Depression, could again shake the very foundations of the world capitalist economy.

#SanJoséCA #capitalistCrisis #recession #RepublicanAgenda #TeaParty #governmentShutdown #DebtCeiling

This so-called shutdown would not actually shut down the federal government. Social Security checks would continue to go out, mail will be delivered, and other “essential” services would continue. Ironically, this includes most of the funding for the Affordable Care Act, which like Medicare and Medicaid, is considered an essential service.

But without any spending authorization for Fiscal Year 2014, which starts Oct. 1, “non-essential” federal services will shut down. This would include the closing of about 400 National Parks, monuments and museums. Social Security applications, the passport office, Small Business Administration loans, mortgage guarantees from the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), could all be stopped in their tracks. Up to 800,000 federal workers, or 40% of the federal government workforce, could be furloughed without pay.

There could be a larger economic impact of a loss of up to 1.4% of Gross Domestic Product, which measures the output of goods and services in the U.S. With the U.S. economy only growing at a 1.8% rate in the first half of this past year, this could put the economy close to tipping into another recession.

Even worse, the House Republicans are vowing to repeat this later in October when the federal government hits its borrowing limit. If the House Republicans refuse to raise the debt limit, the federal government will not have enough cash to make good on its promises to pay. If the federal government does not pay interest on the federal debt or pay for its bonds that come due, this would be a debt default that would echo through the entire world economy, as the rest of the world holds more than $5 trillion of U.S. government bonds, which could drop in price, sending interest rates up.

#SanJoséCA #RepublicanAgenda #governmentShutdown

Grand Rapids, MI – More than 200 immigrants and their supporters marched for immigrant rights on Aug. 24. Mexican, Central American and Caribbean groups and families united in Lincoln Park on the Northwest side of Grand Rapids at noon. Leaders from religious, union and community groups spoke and then led a march through the neighborhood to protest outside the Republican Party headquarters. After chanting and singing, the protesters marched the mile back to the park for a cookout and party.

Carlos Gutierrez of Saint Joseph the Worker Parish spoke through a megaphone to the crowd saying, “Millions of immigrants that live in our country did not just come here for a vacation. They came here for their very survival, because they had no other alternative. War, violence, economic and social discrimination, racism, and political repression, are driving people and families out of their countries looking for security and a better future.”

Gutierrez continued, “We have dehumanized our immigrant brothers and sisters and we have forgotten our common human bond. We forget about all the women who travel so bravely to unite their families in the U.S. The mothers who see their sons and daughters leaving home, the mothers who pray that they will return one day, worried that their children might disappear or even be killed. The wives who stay home and keep their family together while their husbands are forced to leave and make great sacrifices to find work in the U.S. Don’t forget the children who grow up without their fathers at home because the fathers had to immigrate to earn money. Remember the sadness of the families who cannot even be united at a funeral, when a loved one dies back at home and they cannot return because of the broken immigration system. There are no strangers here; we are all one family, the family of God.”

Lindsey Rosa of Peace, Hope and Love Forever, spoke about the struggles of undocumented immigrants as the number of deportations continues to rise. Rosa said, “We are coming together on the 50th anniversary March on Washington D.C. We are marching today in solidarity with tens of thousands marching from coast to coast. We are also marching in solidarity with the spirit of Martin Luther King and with all those who have fought for justice throughout history, with Gandhi and with Rigoberta Menchu, with people both known and unknown.”

Rosa ended by saying, “I want to remember today, those who are currently undocumented and living in fear, and stress and anxiety, and those who cannot be here because they have been deported. We still remember and love them. We still continue to fight so this does not continue to happen…the universal fight for justice is the only true and honorable thing a person can do with their life. I know we will continue to fight until immigration reform is realized.”

West Michigan Coalition for Immigration Reform organized the protest and march.

#GrandRapidsMI #RepublicanAgenda #immigrationRights #immigrationReform #legalizationForAll

Asheville, NC – 10,000 people gathered in front of the Buncombe County Courthouse, overflowing into the streets in Downtown Asheville for Mountain Moral Monday, Aug. 5.

Speakers addressed the egregious statewide attacks on women, immigrants, teachers, students and workers. Many protesters had signs addressing voter suppression, in particular HB 589, which is being called “the worst voter suppression bill in the country.”

Protesters blasted Senator Tom Apodaca, who represents several counties in western North Carolina, and who recently said that the Voters Rights Act is “a headache.”

The NAACP’s Reverend William Barber responded to these comments saying, “He used the same language that the white segregationists of 1877 used when the federal troops were pulled out of the south. They said now that the power and protections have been removed we can do what we want. So they passed a bill to eliminate early voting and same day registration – to suppress the right to vote, and to allow vigilante citizens to go into any precinct and challenge people’s right to vote. They passed a bill that allows more money to be put into elections, where people can buy those who are elected. You can tell Senator Apodaca he ain’t seen a headache until you’ve seen us fight to protect the right to vote. If you think we’re going to allow any group, you must be out of your dog-gone-mind!”

Reverend Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, director of the Asheville-based Campaign for Southern Equality spoke, “We have within us the courage and strength not just to stand up to unjust, unconstitutional and immoral laws like Amendment One and the recent voter ID bill, but also to change these laws. One things that history has made clear is that people change, laws change and our nation changes but it never ever happens on its own. It happens because people like us stand up and say ‘Forward together!’” The crowd enthusiastically replied, “Not one step back!”

Beginning in April the North Carolina NAACP organized thousands to protest every Monday at the state capitol in Raleigh to fight the Tea Party agenda being rammed through the state legislature.

Over 900 people were arrested during the protests before the North Carolina legislature ended their session on July 27. There are now plans to take these protests to all 13 North Carolina districts.

#AshevilleNC #RepublicanAgenda #voterSuppression #AmendmentOne #MoralMonday

At the beginning of the legislative session, the Florida District of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) outlined several bills that workers, students and oppressed people in the state should unite against to defeat. Nearly two months later, labor unions, student groups and progressive organizations have a lot to celebrate as Governor Rick Scott and the Republican legislature continue to lose major battles at the Capitol.

By a close vote of 20-20, the Parent-Trigger bill (SB 682) went down in flames on the Florida Senate floor, April 30. Teachers and other union members sitting in the gallery cheered as a visibly frustrated Senate President Don Gaetz announced the tie vote, which effectively defeated the legislation. Parent-Trigger was a major priority for former Republican Governor Jeb Bush and his Foundation for Florida’s Future because it would have allowed corporations to take over public schools and convert them into for-profit charter schools.

Last year, popular pressure from teachers and workers forced the Senate to defeat Parent-Trigger, also by vote of 20-20. Six Republican state senators broke from their party and voted against Parent-Trigger, which defeated it for a second year in a row. The continued dissent in the Republican ranks represents a major body blow to the right-wing’s assault on public schools and it demonstrates the growing resistance to corporate takeovers of education.

Reports from Sunshine State News indicate that Governor Scott feared backlash from teachers and parents and pushed several Republican lawmakers to vote against Parent-Trigger, many of whom were open advocates of the bill last year. This defeat is significant because it shows the growing people’s power outside of the legislature in Florida and it signals disunity in the ranks of the right wing. This is good news for all Florida workers.

Later that day, the Florida Senate also defeated a radical attack on state workers’ and teachers’ pensions (HB 7011) by a vote of 18-22. Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford, a Republican from Central Florida, announced at the beginning of session that his major priority was closing the Florida Retirement System (FRS) defined benefit plan and putting all new state workers’ retirement into risky 401k plans. HB 7011 would transfer the hard-earned retirement benefits of teachers, firefighters and other public workers to Wall Street banks and corporations.

For months, unions held protests and press conferences outside of legislators’ offices to resist these attacks on their pensions. Thousands of phone calls from public workers across the state tied up office phone lines with messages against HB 7011. Despite the distance to Tallahassee, the Florida AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions brought hundreds of workers to the capitol every week of session to directly pressure legislators to vote against this bill.

Although workers should celebrate these people’s victories, the final two days of session promise even more battles. The Florida House remains vehemently opposed to expanding Medicaid coverage for poor and working Floridians and the few remaining days of the normal session makes a special session in the summer likely. Even worse, the Florida Senate will hear SB 1216 in the coming days, which would repeal the wage theft ordinances passed in several Florida counties to protect workers’ rights. These fights will continue well beyond the end of the legislative session and Florida workers ought to build on these victories in order to achieve more.

#TallahasseeFL #pensions #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganization #workersRights #RepublicanAgenda #teachersUnions #ParentTrigger

The important question is “Who is it working for?” We say “Not the people of Florida.”

Since Governor Scott was elected on the right-wing Tea Party wave in the 2010 midterm election, Florida workers, women, students, immigrants, African-Americans and Latinos are facing full-frontal attacks on their rights and their livelihood. However, tireless activists and organizers all across the state are leading people to fight back and beat some of the worst attacks by Governor Scott and the Republican-dominated legislature.

Now as the 2013 legislative session begins, the people of Florida must unite and fight again as Governor Scott pushes more cutbacks and renewed austerity.

The Republican Party dominates the Florida state government and senate districts in part due to gerrymandering. Voting areas are cut up and maps are manipulated in bizarre ways to favor Republicans. Electoral efforts in 2010 to redraw fair congressional and senate districts proved futile in breaking the Republican stranglehold. The Republicans lost their super-majority in the Florida House, but they still maintain a strong majority in both the House and Senate. Worse yet, many of the moderate Republican state senators who stood against Governor Scott’s more reactionary policies either lost to more radical Tea Party Republicans in the 2012 election or were term-limited out. All of it means that the Florida legislature is even more right wing and crazy than last year.

The only appropriate answer to these attacks is mass organizing by the people of Florida. The Florida District of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization will be working tirelessly in the trade unions, student organizations, immigrant rights groups, and by uniting with other progressive forces during the 2013 legislative session to oppose the reactionary policies of Governor Scott and his legislature.

House Bill 7011 – Bail Out Wall Street, Sell Out State Workers

Governor Scott and the Republican legislature are taking aim at the pensions and retirement benefits for state workers, including teachers and firefighters. 1.2 million current or former state workers and teachers are covered under the Florida Retirement System (FRS) defined benefits plan. House Bill 7011, which is still in committees, would close Florida's defined benefit retirement plan and force new state workers to take on a 401(k) plan instead.

This bill is part of a larger plan by Republican lawmakers to break the state government's obligation to workers and transfer the fate of their retirement benefits to Wall Street executives. On Jan. 18, the Florida Supreme Court ruled in favor of Republican Governor Rick Scott, who signed legislation that cut public workers' paychecks 3%, by forcing them to contribute to the FRS. Emboldened by their legal victory, the legislature is seeking to destroy defined benefits entirely.

Florida's pension system makes up a meager 2.4% of the state's annual budget. The pension plan is both sound and solvent, with 86% of its obligations fully funded. This move by the legislature has nothing to do with saving taxpayers money and everything to do with transferring the money for earned retirement benefits of workers to Wall Street banks and corporations.

With the 2008 financial market crash fresh in the minds of workers who saw invested retirement plans destroyed by Wall Street, HB 7011 seeks to deal state workers a major body blow. 401(k) plans lost an estimated $1.6 trillion – approximately one-third of their value – during the 2008 financial crisis, according to a Forbes article in December 2012, leaving many workers with significantly less for retirement. This high-risk model favors employers, corporations, and banks who gamble with the money in retirement plans, but they leave workers vulnerable to losing their retirement benefits.

Labor unions in Florida, including the Florida AFL-CIO, oppose the bill and are already organizing against it. Protecting FRS and opposing this massive transfer of workers’ money to Wall Street is a top priority for all progressive Floridians.

Fighting the School-To-Prison Pipeline

The Florida state government presides over the mass incarceration of Black and Latino youth through a school-to-prison pipeline, which is a series of laws leading to arrests at school. So-called Zero Tolerance laws and minimum sentencing are racist tools of the state’s criminal injustice system. Florida ranks second to California in the U.S. for juvenile incarceration rates. The police and courts in Florida target low-income African-American and Latino youth for harassment, arrest and imprison them, starting at a young age.

The prison industry in Florida is highly lucrative for the private sector because of the state’s repressive laws. Private corporations take over prisons and cut deals with the state government to guarantee a certain inmate occupancy rate. In order to meet these rates, legislators pass harsher minimum sentences and imprison more youth. These private prisons also provide cheap, often involuntary, labor for corporations who profit from paying little in wages to inmates.

Organizations like Dream Defenders are leading the campaign against the school-to-prison pipeline. Dream Defenders demands the repeal of Senate Bill 2112, which allows local sheriffs to establish largely unregulated juvenile detention facilities, full of prisoner abuse and injustices.

During the 2012 legislative session, labor unions in Florida rallied to oppose mass privatization of Florida’s prisons and won. Although the legislature has heard no official legislation on prison privatization yet, Governor Scott and his allies have expressed interest in trying to pass this bill again.

Progressive forces must boldly oppose the Florida legislature’s racist, pro-prison agenda. Unite all who can be united against the expansion of the school-to-prison pipeline!

Blue Ribbon Task Force – Slashing Higher Education

Last year Governor Scott commissioned the so-called “Blue Ribbon Task Force” to make proposals for restructuring Florida’s higher education system. The members of the Task Force included wealthy elites, university administrators, and conservative bureaucrats. No faculty union representatives or students were invited to participate. Unsurprisingly, the Blue Ribbon Task Force proposals seek to take away the rights of students and faculty, raise tuition, and make higher education less accessible for low-income and working students.

Students and faculty overwhelmingly oppose the Task Force’s proposals. The United Faculty of Florida passed local and statewide resolutions condemning the proposals to raise tuition on non-STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) majors, which would gut liberal arts programs. Groups like Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Florida, Florida State University, University of South Florida, and many other public universities have held mass demonstrations against the proposals. Widespread outcry has also focused on the deep budget cuts that higher education experienced every year since the economic crisis in 2008.

As legislation comes out based on the Task Force’s proposals, students and faculty must forge strong unity and resolutely oppose these devastating policies. The Florida legislature should “Chop from the top,” and cut the bloated salaries of administrators instead of slashing programs and jobs.

Parent-Trigger – Corporate-trigger for Public Schools

Across the country, like we saw with the teachers’ strike in Chicago, teachers, students, parents and public education are under attack by the rich. This year, the Florida legislature is debating the so-called “Parent Trigger” bill, which would allow corporations to convert poor and under-funded public schools into private, for-profit charter schools. In the 2012 legislative session, teachers and students organized and defeated Parent Trigger in a close 20 for, 20 against vote tie.

One year later, Parent Trigger is back from the grave and its proponents will stop at nothing to see it passed. Jeb Bush wants to enact Parent Trigger in Florida so he can market these attacks through his Foundation for Florida’s Future to other states and use it as a model for privatized education. The legislature also hopes to further weaken and bust the teachers’ unions across the state by promoting charter schools. It has nothing to do with education and everything to do with making profit.

The Florida legislature refuses to give additional funding for schools they designate as failing. Public schools are funded by local property taxes, causing low-income working class communities to have underfunded schools. The legislature wants to use Parent Trigger to take control of public schools and further privatize education.

Parents, students, teachers, education support workers and whole communities need to organize once again and resist these attacks on Florida’s public education system.

“Local Preemption” – Republican “Big Business” Wage Theft

Another priority for the big business Republicans in the Florida legislature is House Bill 655, which will stop local governments from passing Wage Recovery Ordinances to protect workers' paychecks. Labor activists in Miami-Dade County set a standard for Florida by passing a local ordinance against wage theft by bosses. The new law recovered $437,000 in stolen wages for workers. Workers and unions in Gainesville have an ongoing campaign to enact a similar ordinance.

Wage theft is one of the ways that bosses increase their company profits. Each year approximately $30 billion is stolen from workers in the U.S. Lobbyists for the Florida Retail Federation are demanding politicians to pass HB 655 in order to stop the new ordinances from protecting workers' paychecks and preserve ‘business as usual.’

The Tea Party and the far-right love to rant about “big government,” but the Republican politicians in the Florida legislature are more than willing to take away the rights of the people so big business can profit – even from wage theft. Trade unions across Florida overwhelmingly oppose this “local preemption” bill and workers are taking to the streets to defend wage recovery ordinances in counties that have them.

Unite Against Rick Scott’s Far-right Agenda in the 2013 Florida Legislative Session

The legislative session is a time of great activity for Florida’s progressive forces. In 2010, teachers unions across the state fought and won the battle to veto Senate Bill 6, the so-called ‘merit pay’ bill. In the 2011 session, grassroots coalitions like Awake the State and Fight Back Florida led massive protests against Governor Scott’s right-wing agenda. In 2012, trade unions and student groups won victories against reactionary legislation attacking workers’ rights and higher education.

In 2013, progressives have an opportunity to deepen the people’s struggle in Florida during the legislative session. Overwhelmingly, session is a time when people are talking about politics. Confronting the reactionary policies of the governor and legislature is an important way that people can learn how the wealthy few run the state in their own interest. People can learn to fight and have an impact on the system of oppression we live under.

Some believe that change can only come through the ballot box or through corporate insiders lobbying at the capitol in Tallahassee. Instead, the Florida District of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization calls on all progressive activists and organizers to grab their picket signs, join groups struggling for change, and take to the streets in the legislative session.

#Florida #FL #Labor #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganization #RepublicanAgenda #GovernorRickScott

In recent years, state legislatures have debated laws that would mandate drug testing for people on public assistance, that restrict where folks receiving welfare can spend money, and in the case of one proposed in Minnesota, would make outlaws out of poor people with cash.

This right-wing measure is one of many laws introduced across the U.S. in recent years that aim to blame poverty on the poor, and to pit the employed against the unemployed.

#RaleighNC #PoorPeoplesMovements #welfare #StopTheWarOnThePoor #RepublicanAgenda #PaulStam #lottery

On Nov. 6 Minnesotans will join with the rest of the country to vote on Election Day. But in Minnesota there won’t just be politicians on the ballot – there will also be two proposed constitutional amendments to vote on. If the majority of voters vote ‘yes’ on these amendments they will become part of the state constitution. These two referendums are very dangerous.

We urge all Minnesotans to vote “no” on both proposed amendments: the so-called ‘Voter ID’ (voter suppression) amendment and the anti-gay marriage amendment.

They are two birds of the same feather and they should be shot down together. They were purposely put forward together this year by the most conservative forces in the state as a one-two punch to cement anti-gay discrimination into the state constitution and to take votes and power away from African Americans, students, elderly people, homeless people and others without easy access photo identification. The right wing wants to rig the rules of the game so they can’t lose. Both amendments are part of a backlash against gains made in the struggle for democratic rights since the 1960s. Everyone who supports democratic rights and equality should vote “no” on both amendments and should mobilize others to do so too.

Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment

We stand for full equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer people. With the anti-gay marriage amendment, there is a basic principle of equality at stake. As long as heterosexual marriage carries with it rights and concrete benefits recognized by the government (health insurance coverage, hospital visitation, inheritance, etc.), we must fight for gay marriage to be legally recognized too.

To decide which side you’re on, all you really have to do is look at Michele Bachmann at the head of the rogues gallery of reactionary politicians and institutions pushing this amendment to know that “no” is the way to vote.

This is how the ballot will read:

“Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?”

Although same-sex marriage is already illegal in Minnesota, these reactionaries aren’t content with that. Why? If the anti-gay amendment passes, future legislatures won’t be able to vote to make gay marriage legal in the state, even if the large majority of legislators wanted to. It would cement discrimination into the constitution, setting the bar ridiculously high to change it.

Marriage equality advocates are doing a great job organizing to defeat this amendment. The bright orange “Vote No” yard signs and stickers are everywhere and the Vote No campaign has a sophisticated presence on social media. While it’s not a given by any stretch, according to polls it’s possible that Minnesota could be the first state to defeat such an anti-gay marriage amendment. All progressive people should help make that happen by getting yard signs, stickers and buttons, talking to your neighbors, co-workers, friends and families, and doing phone banking. There are also some public protests coming up that we must mobilize for in a big way. If we can stop this in Minnesota, it will make reactionary forces think twice before bringing up such undemocratic and discriminatory anti-gay proposals in other states. We can turn the tide nationally to stop anti-gay bigotry.

Voter Suppression Amendment

The ‘Voter ID’ amendment should really be called the voter suppression amendment. Here’s how it reads:

“Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to require all voters to present valid photo identification to vote and to require the state to provide free identification to eligible voters, effective July 1, 2013?”

It sounds so innocent and reasonable – why shouldn’t voters be required to present a photo ID to vote? Especially if they can get one for free? But when you read between the lines and look at the motivations of the people pushing this amendment, in fact it’s a sinister right wing attack.

Minnesota consistently has the highest voter turnout in the nation, due to same-day voter registration and a variety of ways a voter can identify themselves at the polls. And ‘voter fraud’ is non-existent. But the right wing is treating Minnesota’s high voter turnout as something suspicious and sinister, as a problem they intend to fix – by suppressing the vote.

If it passes, hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who currently vote will not be able to vote anymore because they won’t have the officially-approved ID. Same-day registration will be essentially gutted. According to studies, the people pushed out of the voting booth will be disproportionately African Americans, Latinos, students, elderly people and homeless people – people who are less likely to have a government issued photo ID and who will tend to have more barriers to getting one. And not-so-coincidentally they are all groups of people that tend to be more progressive.

The Minnesota Voter ID amendment is part of a national campaign of similar voter suppression measures that Republicans are pushing in many states this year. They claim to be clamping down on voter fraud, but it’s a lie. Getting struck by lightning is more common than voter fraud. The voter suppression efforts are particularly an affront to Black people’s long struggle for full equality, since Black people’s right to vote will be hardest hit by this new voter suppression act. It’s no coincidence that Republicans want to suppress Black votes – polls for the presidential election show Black people voting 94% for Obama and 0% (yes, zero percent!) for Republican Mitt Romney. The Republicans are unabashedly continuing this country’s ugly history of racist oppression and disenfranchisement of Black people. The racist attack on Black people’s voting rights must be stopped.

When they first rolled out the voter suppression amendment, it didn’t take long for the racist character of it to become clear. In February, Minnesota Majority, the group campaigning for the amendment, put out an ad with explicitly racist imagery: a Black man in a prison uniform and a Latino wearing a huge sombrero lining up to vote. See the ad here: http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2012/02/minnesota_majority_blasted_for_using_race-baiting_imagery.php. Though they quickly pulled the ad when controversy erupted, the ad was not a mistake – it accurately exposed what their real agenda is.

We don’t oppose the Voter ID amendment out of support for the Democrats. We oppose the Voter ID amendment because it's a naked power grab in which the right wing is trying to change the rules of the game so the most reactionary forces win every time. Its effect will be to make any progressive electoral effort more difficult, including progressive referendums and progressive third party efforts. The racist character of it particularly needs to be exposed and rebuffed.

As with the anti-gay marriage amendment, we urge all progressive people to get a yard sign, stickers and buttons urging a NO vote on the voter suppression amendment. Talk to your neighbors, co-workers, family and friends about it, do some phone banking, and help turn the tide.

It’s a very positive sign that the unions in Minnesota and several independent efforts are calling for people to vote against both reactionary constitutional amendments. These efforts should be supported. Fighting back against these amendments together strengthens both movements.

In November, we can make history in Minnesota. The two referendums on the ballot are part of a national reactionary wave that conservatives are pushing in many states. We have an ability to stop that wave in Minnesota.

Organize people to commit to vote “no” on both referendums in November. Talk about them both together as a choreographed one-two punch by the right wing. Through organizing and struggle, we can stop them both and advance the fight for full equality, stopping the bigots in their tracks.

#Minnesota #MN #OppressedNationalities #LGBTQ #Editorials #AfricanAmerican #RepublicanAgenda #voterSuppression #antigayMarriageAmendment

Tampa, FL – Members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) from the Eastern and Western wings of the Southern Tour met up in Tampa, Florida after completing their tour of campuses in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia.

Along the tour route, organizers met with dozens of activist students, gathered hundreds of phone numbers and emails, built interest in SDS chapters and affiliates, and took interviews by student newspapers and radio stations. Thousands of fliers were distributed for the protest of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Tampa on Monday, as well as the upcoming SDS National Convention in Gainesville, October 26-29.

“We learned a lot of great lessons from this trip, and feel confident we’ll be building one of the strongest student meet-ups of the year at SDS’s National Convention,” said SDS organizer Cecelia O’Brien, from Tallahassee, Florida.

Now gathered with others from the Coalition to March on the RNC, the SDS organizers from around the country are spreading out throughout the city of Tampa to build for the march on the RNC. The protest will start at 10am, August 27, in Nelson Harvey, Sr. Park.

The National Weather Service has reported potential strong weather conditions. When asked about the upcoming weather concerns, SDS organizer Josh West from Salt Lake City, Utah said, “SDSers are going all out to protest regardless of the weather. Republicans and the 1% may be afraid to meet indoors during a rain storm, but those who fight for change will be out in the streets.”

#TampaFL #StudentMovement #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #RepublicanAgenda #RNC2012 #RepublicanNationalConvention2012

Tampa, FL – Members of the Student Labor Action Project will be among the many campus activists who join the massive march that will coincide with the August 27 opening of the Republican National Convention.

Two members of the Student Labor Action Project spoke with Fight Back! about why they were joining the march on the RNC.

Tyler Wright states, “The Student Labor Action Project at UCF [University of Central Florida] stands with the working class to fight back against the hate-filled Republican agenda. We are working to build a new platform in which healthcare and education are no longer privileges for the wealthy few, where families are not torn apart by racist immigration laws and where workers are treated with dignity and respect in their workplaces. The Coalition to March on the RNC is an avenue for the 99% of people who are not represented in our country to finally have their voices heard. Despite our differences, students, workers, community groups, the unemployed, immigrants and many others are coming together to oppose the despicable direction the GOP desires to take us in.”

Shannon McEnteer stated, “The Student Labor Action Project strongly believes that education is a right, not a privilege. We have joined the Coalition to March on the RNC because the Republican agenda works directly against the interest of students, especially working class students. As young people dealing with absurd amounts of debt and unemployment, we have an obligation to stand up to the Republican agenda and fight back.”

#TampaFL #RepublicanAgenda #RNC2012 #RepublicanNationalConvention2012 #StudentLaborActionProject

As part of the Affordable Care Act, $716 billion was cut from Medicare spending (not funding). A big chunk of this cut was reducing spending on the Medicare Advantage program, a failed privatization plan. Medicare Advantage turned over a part of Medicare to private health insurance companies. But instead of costing less, it has always cost more than the government Medicare program to provide the same benefits. This is a no-brainer since the private, for-profit insurance companies have to pay dividends and huge executive salaries that Medicare does not. This is why 98% of Medicare spending goes to health care, while private insurance companies have spent only 80% or even less, with the rest going to shareholders, executives and waste. The Affordable Care Act tries to reign in this spending.

Medicare is paid for by the same payroll tax as Social Security, listed as FICA (Federal Insurance Contribution Act) on your paycheck. By increasing spending, the Romney plan would speed up the date where funding for Medicare runs short of projected costs, from 2024 to 2016. So why would Romney want Medicare’s financial problems to come sooner rather than later? Probably in order to push a scheme to privatize Medicare, turning it over to private insurance companies and doubling the cost to seniors.

This increase in spending would also lead to higher costs for seniors. Researchers estimate that the average senior on Medicare would pay almost $350 a year more in out-of-pocket costs to help pay for Romney’s proposed spending increase.

Fight Back! encourages all of our readers to say no to Romney’s plan, the Republican agenda and the 1% by joining the massive August 27 protest at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.

#UnitedStates #CapitalismAndEconomy #RepublicanAgenda #Medicare #RNC2012 #MittRomney #1 #RepublicanNationalConvention2012

Minnetonka Beach, MN – On August 23, members of the Welfare Rights Committee (WRC) and others protested outside a fundraiser for presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In two days, WRC members will load up in a van for a drive to Tampa, Florida for the protest at the Republican National Convention, which takes place on Monday, August 27.

Romney’s rich friends paid $2,500 per person just to see him for a few hours. Some lucky people with $50,000 lying around had a private dinner with him. Outside the gates of the country club, WRC and a grouping of the 99% rallied and chanted, “Hey Romney, here’s the fix. Stop poor bashing! Tax the rich.”

The WRC’s Kim DeFranco said, “Families are still struggling during this continued economic crisis. The crisis might be over for the 1% but the 99% are still living on the edge between survival and total disaster. Romney continues to spread the lies on why we have to rely on public assistance. His comment about ‘putting work back in welfare,’ shows that he is out of touch with the reality that there simply are not enough jobs for everyone who needs one. It is clear that he will pander to the elite rich class in order to become president.”

A statement from WRC reads, “We are here to tell Romney and the 1% to bring our families out of poverty now. We don't need to be put in an endless hole of no jobs, no unemployment, no healthcare and no hope for us and our children ever escaping poverty.”

Several members of the Welfare Rights Committee will soon be climbing into a van for a 25-hour drive to Tampa, Florida, to participate in the protest against the RNC, which is happening August 27. The protest will begin at 10:00 a.m., at Perry Harvey Sr. Park, 1200 N. Orange Ave in Tampa.

The WRC’s Linden Gawboy says, “I am psyched to protest these crazy republicans in Tampa. We watched the cars drive into the county club today. Almost every one of them costs more than a house should cost. Meanwhile, people around the country are jobless and homeless. All of these politicians pretend that they’re clueless about what so many of us are going through. But they know, because they are getting rich off it. Tampa is where we can make our message heard loud and clear.”

#MinnetonkaBeachMN #WelfareRightsCommittee #PeoplesStruggles #RepublicanAgenda #RNC2012 #MittRomney #RepublicanNationalConvention2012

Jared Hamil, spokesperson for the Coalition, announced several speakers who will greet the August 27 protest. They will include Carlos Montes, a prominent immigrant rights and anti-war leader from Los Angeles and James Lingley, Vice President of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1205. He also announced that Region 3 of AFSCME Council 79, representing 17 different local chapters, has also endorsed the Coalition to March on the RNC. Organizers are looking forward to the massive demonstration set for next week.

“Even until the final days before the event, we will continue to unite all groups and individuals that oppose the agenda of the Republicans and 1% and support a people’s agenda of good jobs, healthcare, affordable education, equality and peace,” said Hamil.

The recent endorsement by Get Equal, an LGBTQ rights group, was announced by Felipe Sousa-Rodriguez, who is the national field director of that organization. He also blasted the Republican Party for their attacks on the rights of LGBTQ and undocumented people.

The struggle for equality was also supported by Marisol Marquez in a prepared statement:

“On August 27, the parties of the 1% will continue to try oppressing immigrants and those who are LGBTQ. We will be there full-force to say no to their continued efforts to oppress us.” Marquez is a member of Students Working for Equal Rights at the University of South Florida.

The possibility of Tropical Depression Isaac entering the Gulf of Mexico and escalating to a larger storm caused questions from reporters. “We will be here on Monday morning to oppose the Republican Agenda, rain or shine,” said Mick Kelly of the Coalition to March on the RNC.

#TampaFL #immigrantRights #LGBTQRights #RepublicanAgenda #RNC2012 #CoalitionToMarchOnTheRNC #RepublicanNationalConvention2012