Activism
COMMENTARY: Will Cassidy Hutchinson Shame Republicans to Tell the Truth?
The hearings are intended to help us understand what really happened when a mob nearly prevented a presidential election from being certified. But we can’t get to that until someone has the courage to tell the truth.
By Emil Guillermo
We got our fireworks early this week at the Jan. 6 Select Committee Hearings in Congress.
And boy, did we need them.
The hearings are intended to help us understand what really happened when a mob nearly prevented a presidential election from being certified. But we can’t get to that until someone has the courage to tell the truth.
And it needed to be someone on the MAGA inside, like Cassidy Hutchinson, 25, a white female conservative Republican.
You want to know what it was like on the day of Jan. 6 from within the White House? Hutchinson was in the West Wing, a top aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
And so, Hutchinson did what even her old boss has failed to do — cooperate with the committee.
At the hastily set up hearing this week, under oath, garbed in a white blazer, she was like a symbol of light.
She had the courage to break the Trump code and speak out.
We learned that the morning of the big rally on Jan. 6, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told Hutchinson to “make sure we don’t go to the Capitol.”
The consequences? Hutchinson said Cipollone told her that “we’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.”
Hutchinson testified it wasn’t the first time Cipollone mentioned that going back to the Capitol would look like they were obstructing the Electoral College count or generally inciting a riot.
But as the day of Jan. 6 evolved, Hutchinson said that Trump knew the crowd was violent and armed, and that once the rally attendees made it to the Capitol, Trump wanted to be there. Perhaps to admire his handiwork?
Hutchinson testified about an incident after the rally in the presidential limo, “the Beast,” when Trump was told by Secret Service chief Bobby Engel that they were going back to the White House and not the Capitol.
“I’m the f—ing president,” Trump said according to Hutchinson’s testimony. Then Trump tried to grab the wheel and physically threatened Engel.
Is any of this activity criminal? Let the Justice Department decide. Our lower bar as Americans is to ask if this unhinged man is a person who should have ever been president.
Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman
Before this week, two Black women emerged as the stars of the Jan. 6 Select Committee Hearings: former Georgia election worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, and her mother, Ruby Freeman, who was falsely accused by no less than Donald Trump himself of being a “vote scammer.”
More than legalistic mumbo jumbo, the hearings have detailed the real victims of Trump’s lies. It’s regular people like you and me.
Moss and Freeman were called out by Trump and Rudy Giuliani in the former president’s manic drive to change the results of an election that he wrongly believed was stolen from him.
But as Moss and Freeman testified on June 21, their lives were turned upside down by Trump’s nonsense.
Moss had been an election worker for 10 years, happy to connect people with democracy. But once the false accusations were made, everything changed.
She told the committee she gained 60 pounds.
“I just don’t do nothing anymore,” she said, in tears. “I second guess everything that I do. It’s affected my life in a major way — in every way. All because of lies.”
Trump’s “Big Lie” destroyed a sense of self-worth for many in our democracy. People like Moss and her mother, known as Lady Ruby.
But we all knew that testimony alone isn’t enough to make all Americans understand just how wrong Trump and his cohorts were on Jan. 6.
We need people on the inside like Trump attorney Pat Cipollone and others who have either plead ‘the fifth,’ or totally ignored the committee, to have the courage to break the Trump code and tell the truth.
That also includes all Republicans who continue to support and see Trump as anything but the man who lost and lied.
For the sake of our democracy, they all need to have the courage of Cassidy Hutchinson.
Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He has a webshow on www.amok.com
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of March 13 – 19, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 13 – 19, 2024
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Activism
Oakland Post: Week of March 6 – 12, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 6 – 12, 2024
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Activism
Who are the Alameda County District 4 Supervisor Candidates’ Top Campaign Contributors?
Below, we’ve listed each candidate’s 10 highest campaign contributors. For Miley, two of his top campaign donors also bought their own advertisements to support him and/or oppose Esteen through independent expenditures. Such expenditures, though separate from campaign donations, are also public record, and we listed them. Additionally, the National Organization of Realtors has spent about $70,500 on their own independent expenditures to support Miley.
By Zack Haber
Nate Miley, who has served on Alameda County’s Board of Supervisors since 2000, is running for reelection to the District 4 supervisor seat.
Jennifer Esteen, a nurse and activist, is seeking to unseat him and become one of the five members of the powerful board that sets the county’s budget, governs its unincorporated areas, and oversees the sheriff, Alameda Health System, and mental health system.
District 4 includes most of East Oakland’s hills and flatlands beyond Fruitvale, part of Pleasanton and unincorporated areas south of San Leandro like Ashland and Castro Valley.
Voting is open and will remain open until March 5.
In California, campaign donations of $100 or more are public record. The records show that Miley has received about $550,000 in total campaign donations since he won the previous District 4 election in March 2020. Esteen has raised about $255,000 in total campaign donations since she started collecting them last July. All figures are accurate through Feb. 20.
While Miley has raised more money, Esteen has received donations from more sources. Miley received donations of $100 or more from 439 different sources. Esteen received such donations from 507 different sources.
Below, we’ve listed each candidate’s 10 highest campaign contributors. For Miley, two of his top campaign donors also bought their own advertisements to support him and/or oppose Esteen through independent expenditures. Such expenditures, though separate from campaign donations, are also public record, and we listed them. Additionally, the National Organization of Realtors has spent about $70,500 on their own independent expenditures to support Miley.
Nate Miley’s top campaign contributors:
The California Apartment Association, a trade group representing landlords and investors in California’s rental housing business, has spent about $129,500 supporting Miley’s election bid through about $59,500 in ads against Esteen, $55,000 in ads supporting Miley, and $15,000 in campaign donations.
The independent expenditure committee Preserve Agriculture in Alameda County has spent about $46,025 supporting Miley through about $27,200 in their own ads, and $18,825 in donations to his campaign. Preserve Agriculture has supported reelection efforts for former Alameda County DA Nancy O’Malley, and Sheriff Greg Ahern, a republican. It’s received funding from Chevron, PG&E, and a the California Apartment Association.
Organizations associated with the Laborers’ International Union of North America, or LiUNA, have donated about $35,000 in total. Construction and General Laborers Local 304, a local chapter of the union representing which represents over 4,000 workers, donated $20,000.
Laborers Pacific Southwest Regional Organizing Coalition, which represents 70,000 LiUNA members in Arizona, California, Hawaii and New Mexico, donated $15,000.
William ‘Bill’ Crotinger and the East Oakland-based company Argent Materials have donated $26,000. Crotinger is the president and founder of Argent, a concrete and asphalt recycling yard. Argent’s website says it is an eco-friendly company that diverts materials from landfills. In 2018, Argent paid the EPA $27,000 under a settlement for committing Clean Water Act violations.
Michael Morgan of Hayward, owner of We Are Hemp, a marijuana dispensary in Ashland, has donated $21,500.
Alameda County District 1 Supervisor David Haubert has donated $21,250 from his 2024 reelection campaign. He’s running unopposed for the District 1 seat.
SEIU 1021, which represents over 60,000 workers in local governments, non-profit agencies, healthcare programs, and schools in Northern California, has donated $20,000.
UA Local 342, which represents around 4,000 pipe trades industry workers in Contra Costa and Alameda counties, donated $20,000.
The union representing the county’s deputy sheriffs, Deputy Sheriff’s Association of Alameda County, has donated $17,000.
Becton Healthcare Resources and its managers have donated $14,625. Becton’s mission statement says it provides “behavioral health management services to organizations and groups that serve the serious and persistent mentally ill population.”
Jennifer Esteen’s top campaign contributors:
Mary Quinn Delaney of Piedmont, founder of Akonadi Foundation, has donated $20,000. Akonadi Foundation gives grants to nonprofit organizations, especially focusing on racial justice organizing,
Bridget Galli of Castro Valley has donated $7,000. Galli is a yoga instructor and a co-owner of Castro Valley Yoga.
Rachel Gelman of Oakland has donated $5,000. Gelman is an activist who has vowed to redistribute her inherited wealth to working class, Indigenous and Black communities.
California Worker Families Party has donated $5,000. The organization’s website describes itself as a “grassroots party for the multiracial working class.”
David Stern of Albany has donated $5,000. Stern is a retired UC Berkeley Professor of Education.
Oakland Rising Committee—a collaborative of racial, economic, and environmental justice organizations—has donated about $3,050.
Fredeke Von Bothmer-Goodyear, an unemployed resident of San Francisco, has donated $2,600.
Robert Britton of Castro Valley has donated $2,500. Britton is retired and worked in the labor movement for decades.
Progressive Era PAC has donated about $2,400. Its mission statement says it “exists to elect governing majorities of leaders in California committed to building a progressive era for people of color.”
East Bay Stonewall Democrats Club has donated $2,250. The club was founded in 1982 to give voice to the East Bay LGBTQIA+ communities.
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