Ramona Charles

Retired RN.

[Dr. Abdul El-Sayed @AbdulElSayed]

Senator @VanHollenForMD is a determined fighter for working people, a statesman of the first order, and has shown what it means to lead with your values, rather than be beholden to corporate interests and foreign lobbies. I'm looking forward to working with Senator Van Hollen in the US Senate, and I am deeply grateful to earn his endorsement.

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

Sen. @ChrisVanHollen is 100% right. This is what it looks like when you put US national interest ahead of partisan politics. Other Democrats should follow suit.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

It hasn’t gotten much attention, but the Cuban government just passed the most sweeping economic reforms arguably ever since the revolution, opening up state-owned companies to foreign investment, allowing private real estate development financed by Americans, allowing private banks to operate and so on.

There’s long been an internal push for such reforms, modeled on the Vietnamese and Chinese systems, but sanctions and the blockade made it so there was little political space to maneuver or take risks. The current government clearly believes they have nothing to lose at this point with Trump threatening an invasion.

[The Hind Rajab Foundation @HindRFoundation]

🚨🇨🇱 Major breakthrough: A Chilean court has recognized its authority to exercise universal jurisdiction in a Gaza war crimes case following the #HindRajabFoundation's criminal complaint against Israeli-Ukrainian sniper Ron Kovtun. The wall of impunity is beginning to crack.
➡️ More → https://t.co/FmbmkxuNIH

[BreakThrough News @BTnewsroom]

BREAKING: United Auto Workers today passed a resolution at its convention, 321-287, to divest from Israeli bonds.

With nearly 400,000 members, UAW becomes the largest US union to officially divest from Israel.

The vote received support from a range of sectors, including a large number of Michigan auto delegates, in addition to legal services and higher education.

The original call for divestment came from a wildcat strike of 2,000 mainly Arab American workers at Chrysler’s Dodge Main in 1973. Amid the genocide in Gaza, pro-Palestinian labor groups and UAW locals renewed and intensified their campaign.

Speakers motivated for the resolution by citing the union’s legacy of divesting from South African apartheid in 1978.

[Dr. Butch Ware @ButchWare]

Theories of anti-capitalist and decolonial transformation must inform our efforts, but revolutions are built in practice, not on paper. History must be our guide, but this moment in the collapse of Western imperialism has no precise precedent, so our freedom dreams must surpass our ancestors’ in their audacity. Revolution is evolution; it is a dynamic process that must be given new life in each age and epoch until freedom is finally seized. We must cultivate the radical imagination, ingenuity, and empowerment to light our own way to liberation.

Join Dr. Butch Ware, and a host of artists, intellectuals, activists, and organizers for an afternoon of political organizing, cultural production, spiritual communion, and solidarity building. 

There will be panel discussions, musical performances, free food and drink, poetry, live podcast recordings, mutual aid activations, direct action and electoral power building sessions.

The goal is to connect comrades, creators, and communities so that together we can chart our next steps in building revolutionary culture, love, and political power.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

Powerful piece, highly recommend reading. Democrats need people like Platner if they are going to come to terms with the true nature of our country, with what we have done to people at home and abroad, and pull together the coalition needed to heal and reshape it.

“A tiny minority of Americans (6%) ever serve in the military. Of these, only 40% of veterans have ever deployed to a combat zone. And of those deployed, only about 10% participated in actual ground combat. I am one of those, and so is Platner. His pathology: a combination of traumatic stress, substance abuse, impulsive decision-making in the past, and deep anger at the moral injury he sustained wearing the cloth of this nation, is something this country ought to consider when it sends its young men and women to war. The question before Maine is not whether Graham Platner is perfect. The question is whether the United States Senate, the state of Maine, and the country as a whole would benefit from having his voice in the room when decisions are made. The answer is yes…”

“A democracy that insists on perfection will eventually find itself represented only by people skilled at hiding their flaws.”

[Senator Chris Van Hollen @ChrisVanHollen]

Democrats have provided reflexive & unconditional support to Netanyahu & Israeli governments, even as they undermined the values we claimed to stand for.

It's time to end taxpayer-funded support & condition arms sales to end the occupation & salvage a 2-state solution.

https://t.co/u0670ATFRE

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

Philly city machine breaking the law to send text messages to a massive universe of Democratic voters attacking Chris Rabb

This party establishment is not going to relinquish power easily.

[Dr. Butch Ware @ButchWare]

#housingfirst

[Dr. Jill Stein🌻 @DrJillStein]

You're not supposed to see this.
Join the @butchware write in rebellion.

[Sabby Sabs @SabbySabs2]

This woman is organizing creators not just to help Thomas Massie but to fight corruption in politics. No billionaire donor. No fancy organization. She just put a call out on X and said come through. Whether you support Massie or not, this is smart.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

MTG sacrificed her political career to stand against genocide, against Trump, against the Epstein Class, and to defend the survivors of Epstein’s trafficking. If that doesn’t earn credibility I don’t know what possibly could.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

AOC is right that there are important differences between her and @mtgreenee:

1) AOC emphatically condemns policies only when Trump and the GOP do them, gets muted and deferential when Dems do. By contrast, MTG criticizes policies with equal fervor regardless of which party does them.

2) MTG condemns GOP leaders when they betray their purported values, even risking her political career to do so. By contrast, AOC lies to protect Dems who betray their supposed values (Kamala "is working tirelessly for a ceasefire" in Gaza!), and has supreme devotion to partisan advancement and self-interest above all.

3) MTG introduced a bill to cut all US financing of Israel's military. AOC voted NO, arguing Americans should pay for Israel's "defensive weapons." Big substantive difference.

4) MTG scorns the AIPAC/ADL tactic of accusing Israel critics of being racist and "anti-Semitic." AOC embraces and fortifies that accusatory smear campaign to justify why only liberal critics like her are compassionate and legitimate and everyone else is just racist.

5) MTG only cares about results and outcomes, and will thus work with anyone (left or right) to stop a policy she considers evil and wrong. AOC only cares about posturing and her political branding -- not outcomes -- and will thus reject the opportunity to form majorities to stop stop some policy evil if it means admitting that not only Dems have good ideas and can be good people.

AOC is the embodiment of privilege: having no real urgency about stopping things that don't personally affect her (like Israeli wars and US financing of them). That's why she has harsher words for GOP critics of Israel than she does for Dem supporters of Israel.

This, and more, is why MTG was pushed out of her own party, while AOC has fully morphed into Nancy Pelosi Jr. and is one of the Democratic Party's most valuable partisan tools, and why she's beloved by Dems as such.

[Cenk Uygur @cenkuygur]

@Acyn This is just terrible. She sounds just like the establishment. She’s attacking an opponent of Israel as an antisemite. This is exactly what Israeli supporters want - split the anti-war movement and the critics of Israel’s genocide. Deeply counterproductive. And selfish.

[Peter Daou @peterdaou]

AOC slams Marjorie Taylor Greene as an "antisemite who doesn't know what's good for Israelis."

This is the same @AOC who did cuddly photo ops with war criminals Joe Biden and Kamala Harris while @mtgreenee had the guts to break with the GOP over Gaza.

[Sabby Sabs @SabbySabs2]

Look, there are several issues where I disagree with MTG. But unlike AOC she PUBLICLY called out Trump during his presidency. AOC refused to do this to Biden. MTG was willing to lose her seat! AOC is not. Out here using Zionist talking points & calling ppl antisemitic. Girl bye 👋.

[Rathbone @_rathbone]

Democrats are scared of @ButchWare on the debate stage, aren’t they…

[Ramona Charles @athene7]

@briebriejoy So true. As a white babyboomer I became very aware of this when doing memoir work.

[Ramona Charles @athene7]

@TheDailyShow @jordanklepper https://t.co/nBpPx3hnf7

[Dr. Jill Stein🌻 @DrJillStein]

If you were wondering why the Democrats threw Butch Ware off the ballot, just imagine mealy-mouthed corporate shills trying to debate this.