November 3, 2023

Friday, November 3,2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

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Joe is always busy.

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Kamala is always busy.

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Remember next Tuesday is Election Day across the nation.

Issue 1 abortion ballot measure In Ohio.

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Virginia is also a critical state.

Speaker Emerita Pelosi’s call for volunteers can be applied generically across the nation too, with special focus on Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

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Update on Israeli-Hamas War.

U.S. to Press Israel for ‘Pauses’ in War Against Hamas.

Brief cessations of military operations would allow food, water and other aid to reach Gaza and help with hostage releases, officials say.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will urge the Israeli government to agree to a series of brief cessations of military operations in Gaza to allow for hostages to be released safely and for humanitarian aid to be distributed, White House officials said on Thursday.

The message comes as President Biden revealed on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had previously agreed to halt shelling briefly on Oct. 20 to allow for the release of two Americans, Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter, Natalie Raanan, 17.

The push for what American officials call “humanitarian pauses” is one of several subjects Mr. Blinken will raise with Mr. Netanyahu and other officials when he arrives in Israel on Friday for another round of diplomacy amid fierce fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas, the group that controls Gaza.

White House officials said the request for pauses was far different from an overall cease-fire, which the Biden administration believes would benefit Hamas by allowing it to recover from Israel’s intense bombardment. (New York Times).

Israel posts video footage of the Hamas massacre.

Warning. 💥 You may not want to watch.

https://www.hamas-massacre.net/

From NBC News.

American Intelligence.

Vienna. Touch 👇 to watch the rally.

Czech Republic. Touch 👇 to watch the rally.

Plus this.

In the States. Yes, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel rallies, and antisemitism and Islamophobia plus this too.

Touch 👇 to watch a Hamas spokesman declare their commitment to repeat the October 7th attack. Twice. Three times. Four times.

The message of Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas Politburo, in an Oct. 24 interview on Lebanese television. “We must teach Israel a lesson,” he says, “and we will do this again and again. The Al Aqsa Flood”—the name Hamas gave its Oct. 7 operation to slaughter defenseless Israelis—“is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth,” he says, as translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute. (WSJ).

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Why did some Democrats vote against expelling MAGA Representative George Santos?

155 Democrats and 24 Republicans voted in favor of the expulsion, while 182 Republicans and 31 Democrats voted against it. Several Democrats explained that they opposed the resolution because Santos, who has been indicted on 23 fraud-related charges, has not yet been criminally convicted.

“This would be a terrible precedent to set, expelling people who have not been convicted of a crime and without internal due process,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), one of the Democratic “nay” votes, said.

What’s next: Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said they did not want to censure Santos before the House Ethics Committee had completed its investigation of the New Yorker. According to a statement by the panel, the committee has contacted 40 witnesses and reviewed more than 170,000 pages of documents as part of its probe. The committee said it would “announce its next course of action” on Santos by November 17; it’s possible that a Santos expulsion could gain more support once that investigation is done. (Gabe Fleisher, Wake up to Politics).

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Senators take action against their colleague, MAGA Senator Tuberville of Alabama. Finally.

Tuberville single handedly stopped the appointments of hundreds of military personnel, until now.

Some Republicans tried to stop Tuberville.

Touch 👇 to watch South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

Some supported him. Of course.

But workarounds seem to be happening. Finally.

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Trump update.

Trump seems to be offering a judge a bribe.

Tweedledee and Tweedledum testified in the civil fraud case against the Trumps. They claimed to have no knowledge about the financial statements they provided and signed to get lower interest rates for the Trump businesses.

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A giant is gone.

Ady Barkan in 2019.

Ady Barkan, a well-known activist who campaigned for Medicare for all while struggling with the terminal neurodegenerative disease A.L.S., has died. He was 39.

His death was announced on Wednesday by Be a Hero, a political organization he co-founded in 2018. Mr. Barkan died of complications of A.L.S. at about 6 p.m. local time at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, Calif., the group said.

Mr. Barkan was diagnosed with A.L.S., or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in 2016, four months after the birth of his son, Carl. The disease, which causes paralysis, strikes many patients in the prime of life and often leads to death within two to five years.

As Mr. Barkan confronted his mortality, he dedicated the rest of his life to changing the American health care system.

His profile and influence grew even as his health deteriorated, in part because he had a knack for blending his personal story with calls to action. He testified before Congress, interviewed Democratic presidential candidates and spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

“That’s the paradox of my situation,” he told The New York Times in 2019. “As my voice has gotten weaker, more people have heard my message. As I lost the ability to walk, more people have followed in my footsteps.”

Ady Barkan, a progressive activist who became a champion for single-payer health care after receiving a diagnosis of A.L.S. in 2016, spoke at the Democratic National Convention. 3 minutes. 15 seconds.

Ady Barkan, a progressive activist who became a champion for single-payer health care after receiving a diagnosis of A.L.S. in 2016, spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

Ohad Barkan was born on Dec. 18, 1983, in Boston. His mother, Diana Kormos Buchwald, is a professor of the history of science at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. His father, Elazar Barkan, is a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. Both emigrated to the United States from Israel.

Mr. Barkan was raised in Cambridge, Mass., where his parents were graduate students, and later in California, where he attended high school in Pasadena, a spokeswoman for his political group said. One of his first forays into politics was volunteering on an election campaign for Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California.

He met his wife, Rachael King, who is now a professor of English literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, at Columbia University’s student newspaper when they were undergraduates there.

Mr. Barkan initially wanted to be a lawyer and clerked for a federal judge in New York after law school. But he decided to become a full-time activist after being drawn to the Occupy Wall Street protests that began in Lower Manhattan in 2011.

Before A.L.S., Mr. Barkan was an energetic but relatively anonymous foot soldier for progressive causes like rights for immigrants and workers, ending mass incarceration and reforming the Federal Reserve. After getting sick, he became a hero of the left and a social media star. Politico called him “the most powerful activist in America.”

He was adept at attracting public attention to his progressive causes. On an airplane in 2017, he confronted Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, over a Republican tax bill that he believed could lead to steep cuts in social services like health care.

“Think about the legacy that you will have for my son and your grandchildren if you take your principles and turn them into votes,” Mr. Barkan said. “You can save my life.”

In 2018, he was arrested in his wheelchair in a Senate office building as he protested the Supreme Court nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Be a Hero, which was formally founded that year, eventually grew to include two nonprofits and a political action committee. Among other issues, the group campaigned to protect nurses during the pandemic, and to replace Senate Republicans who it said were the chamber's “most dangerous voices” in the 2022 midterm elections.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said in September that she had watched Mr. Barkan “pick a lot of really good fights” over the years, and that he had been instrumental in stopping Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement.

“Thanks to his persistence, he hasn’t just been in the fight,” Ms. Warren said, speaking virtually to an audience at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in upstate New York, where Mr. Barkan was accepting an award from the Roosevelt Institute for his activism. “He’s been leading these fights, and helping win them.”

In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Barkan made clear that while he endorsed the Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., he disagreed with the candidate on health care policy. (President Biden opposes Medicare for all, and Mr. Barkan had initially endorsed Ms. Warren and later Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.)

In a 2020 discussion with Mr. Barkan over Zoom, Mr. Biden would not commit to doubling the budget for the National Institutes of Health, saying that he would “significantly increase the budget” and ensure that “we spend another $50 billion on biomedical research” over the next several years.

“I think that is not enough,” said Mr. Barkan, who by that point could speak only through a computerized voice using eye gaze technology.

“Well, maybe when I get elected, you can come and help me figure out what’s enough,” Mr. Biden told him.

“Thank you, Mr. Vice President,” Mr. Barkan replied. “I’ll take you up on that.”

Mr. Barkan is survived by his parents; his wife; their two children, Carl, 7, and Willow, 3; a brother, Muki Barkan; and an aunt, Deborah Schrag.

In a video celebrating Mr. Barkan’s 39th birthday, Carl summarized his father’s life’s work with remarkable economy: “He helps to make sure it’s not too expensive for people to go to the doctor.”

Mr. Barkan remained relentlessly optimistic and energetic even as he become paralyzed from the head down and lost control of his own breathing. In 2018, he traveled to 22 states in 40 days. Three years later, he argued in a New York Times Op-Ed that home- and community-based care deserved more federal funding.

“Although I’m not the father I had hoped to be, I’m grateful for each moment with my children,” he wrote. “And it’s all possible because I have 24-hour home care.”

In a speech at the Roosevelt Library in September, his last in-person event, Mr. Barkan opened by thanking his three caregivers and saying that he and Ms. King would soon celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary.

“Every year has been an adventure, and coming to New York this week, especially with our two perfect angels, Carl and Willow, is wonderful evidence that new adventures still await us,” he told the audience from his wheelchair. “And that staying in the struggle can bring beautiful rewards.” (New York Times).

👇 The then Vice President with Ady Barkan.

https://youtu.be/V4CLoiA3vfQ

The then candidate for President Kamala Harris with Ady Barkan. Touch 👇 to watch.

On Ady Barkan’s Twitter page.

Hi all, this is Ady’s wife, Rachael. I’m devastated to share the news that Ady has died from complications of ALS. You probably knew Ady as a healthcare activist. But more importantly he was a wonderful dad and my life partner for 18 years.

From left, Willow, Rachel, Ady, and Carl.

The tributes pour in. May his memory cause a Revolution.

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