Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte (Ret.)

Retired Alameda County Superior Court judge; leader of historic recall of former mayor Sheng Thao; passionate defender of democracy and the rule of law

[Seneca Scott @SenecaSpeaks21]

Measure E looks like it’s failing.
Cue the soggy panic.

[Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte (Ret.) @ForteHarbin]

@HonSokhomMao Yaaaayyy Oaklanders! Great job

[Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte (Ret.) @ForteHarbin]

@JoeQPublic24 @samsinger VOTE NO ON MEASURE E! Stop the graft, the corruption and the collusion

[Oakland Report @oaklandreportca]

Oakland city union warns of a strike if city council does not approve pay raises, other demands.
"I stood in a photo with you before I knocked doors for Measure E."
IFTPE Local 21 union members reminded the city council that the union "worked really hard to help elect" them. 👇

💰 IFPTE has donated over $120,000 to the Yes on E campaign, and its members have assisted with campaign rallies and door-to-door canvassing efforts.

📃 Union members demanded that the city deliver promised pay raises, abandon proposed benefit changes, fill vacant positions (around 25% of IFPTE-represented positions are vacant), and agree to the union’s proposed extension of telework policies.

🚨 One union member warned that the union is so disgruntled about the city’s negotiations over the upcoming union contract renewal, that there are “whispers” of a union strike.

“We were asked to work for less and with less... people are so upset, all I've heard is whispers of the s-word: strike... This is not a threat.”

Read the full article at Oakland Report: https://t.co/0jqPz73zHB

[MichelleHailey @LovPrideFreedom]

Well well well, I lived through poverty pimps, non profit grifts, Oakland OPD Riders, but didn't have on my bingo card Oakland fire department becoming Public Safety Pimps (PSP'S) Here we have Sonoma charcuterie Seth pulling down over 800k that not a penny he'll pay to pass this tax talking about response times. How long to get here from Sonoma Seth? It takes some big Charcuteries to get in front of a camera flexing like this. May 30, 2026 enter the public safety pimps
@care4community1 @OaklandFire @OaklandFireCA @OaklandFFs

[Oakland Report @oaklandreportca]

Measure E didn't start as a "citizen" initiative. It started inside Oakland City Council months earlier — as the council's hunt for $40M in new taxes.
Then it was handed off to unions to put it on the ballot, and lower the voter threshold. Here's the trail. 👇 https://t.co/0Vxbd3n1EM

[Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte (Ret.) @ForteHarbin]

@lorenmtaylor Ignore my friend Loren’s guide on the judicial races and vote for Judge Patricia Miles, not Selia Warren. We need experience on the bench, not someone who has never had the responsibility of deciding disputes.

[Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte (Ret.) @ForteHarbin]

@lorenmtaylor Vote for Patricia Miles for Judge, not Selia Warren! Judicial experience and life experience matter, and are what the court needs. Judge Miles has that in spades over Selia Warren, who has never run a courtroom.

[MichelleHailey @LovPrideFreedom]

No on Measure E ! This was a paid for by Unions for the City Council. No citizen led measure hires State Ballot Law firm and has all contact information directed to SEIU. Paid for by SEIU and FireFighters. Sonoma Charcuterie Seth Olyer and other fire fighters and Oakland employees will not pay for this tax. They take their huge salaries to their own community. As I said it takes some big Chacuteries to ask of others what you don't pay yourself!

[Seneca Scott @SenecaSpeaks21]

Oakland Taxpayer REVOLT!
No on E!

[Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte (Ret.) @ForteHarbin]

@Jassmini2 3

[Sam Singer @samsinger]

Vote NO on Measure E in Oakland. Send a message to the corrputed processes at city hall.

[Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte (Ret.) @ForteHarbin]

@Beno10_MFC Earring on girl on the right

[The Husky @Mr_Husky1]

She gave her three-year-old daughter a sedative, wrapped her in a blanket, and placed her in a large leather suitcase. With her heart pounding, she waited in line to leave the Nazi ghetto, watched closely by armed guards. If the little girl made a sound, or if a guard decided to open the heavy bag, they would both be executed on the spot.

When she finally made it outside the gates and her child was safe, she did something completely unthinkable. She went back inside.

And then she saved another child. And another. She did this dozens of times, risking her life with every single step she took.

For most of her life, that little girl, Henia Lewin, believed her mother, Gita Wisgardisky, had performed a single, desperate miracle just for her. It was not until her mother’s funeral many years later that the shattering truth finally emerged.

An elderly survivor approached Henia at the cemetery, looked into her eyes, and revealed a secret kept for decades.

"Your mother saved so many," the survivor told her. "No one knows how many. Maybe she didn’t even know herself. She didn’t count them."

Gita had smuggled countless children out of the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, hidden deep inside suitcases or carried through secret passages, right under the noses of the oppressors.

Henia was born in 1940 into a normal, loving Jewish family. That normalcy completely vanished when the Nazis invaded and forced the Jewish population into a cramped, disease-ridden ghetto. Hunger and sudden deportations became the daily reality.

Gita saw through the lies early on. While some people hoped for the best, she understood the dark truth. She knew that when the Nazis spoke of relocating children, they actually meant killing them. Gita refused to wait for the end.

Working secretly with a brave Lithuanian Catholic priest, she found kind families willing to hide Jewish children in the countryside. But getting the children out of the heavily guarded gates was a suicide mission.

The children had to be perfectly still and silent. This was why Gita used sedatives. She put her own daughter into a deep, heavy sleep, placed her in that suitcase, and walked toward the guards.

When a soldier stopped her, Gita did not panic. She calmly offered her watch and her best pair of leather boots as a bribe. The guard took them, looked away, and she passed through the gates.

Little Henia was taken in by a Christian family. She was taught to call strangers mom and dad, and she learned to never mention her real name. Though she was only three, she understood the danger and kept the secret for two long years.

Meanwhile, Gita went right back into the nightmare. She returned to the ghetto to find more children. Each trip involved a new suitcase, more sedatives, and a fresh set of bribes. She never asked for recognition. She simply acted.

Miraculously, Gita, her husband Jonas, and Henia all survived the war. They eventually moved to the United States, where Henia grew up to become a school teacher and a passionate voice for Holocaust education.

Today, Henia shares this story because memory is a torch that must be passed from hand to hand. It reminds us that even in the darkest corners of human history, love can conquer the greatest fears.

Gita went to her grave without ever boasting about her heroism, but her legacy lives on in the generations of children who got to grow up, laugh, and have families of their own because one mother refused to leave anyone behind.

Some stories are not meant to be closed—they are meant to be carried forward.

[Marleen @marleensacks]

The San Francisco Chronicle, East Bay Times, Empower Oakland, and League of Women Voters all say VOTE NO on Measure E!!

[ɠɧıʂɧ @rirokpik]

“I don't want you telling me to go back to Africa, unless you going back where you come from. I got a note one day telling me to go back to Africa and ever since that time-it's been three times a week I say it when I am in a white audience-I say, 'We'll make a deal. After you send all the Koreans back to Korea, the Chinese back to China, the Jewish people back to Jerusalem, and you give the Indians their land back and you get on the Mayflower from which you come'... We all here on borrowed land. We have to figure out how we're going to make things right for all the people of this country.” - Fannie Lou Hamer

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

The Republican Party quietly deleted their own ad attacking Ken Paxton's record on crime... because Paxton is now the Republican Party's nominee to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate.

Figured if the ad is important enough to delete, it's important enough to see...

[Oakland Report @oaklandreportca]

95% of Oakland is now off-limits to encampments under the city's new "sensitivity area" map. The 5% where they're allowed? Almost entirely the majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods of West and East Oakland.
A new form of redlining — by another name.
https://t.co/HaO2tR0qhV

[East Oakland Dad @EastOaklandDad]

The League of Women Voters (LWV) opposes Measure E. That's significant because some Oakland activists have tried to paint Measure E opponents as conservatives or right-wingers.

LWV is non-partisan org. Lets see if they call LWV right wingers.. I'll wait..

[Sam Singer @samsinger]

Chronicle Editorial: NO on Oakland Measure E Tax: "The city has failed to keep many of the staffing and service promises ... Residents now pay some of the highest local taxes in California and still have deteriorating public services, chronic budget instability and widespread frustration over basic city governance." https://t.co/YosttVzpMa