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Julian Assange - 3 Major Developments
Show suppport for Julian Assange Feb. 21 at noon at the corner of Ocean and Water streets in Santa Cruz
By FRANK LAWRENCE FROM ASSANGE DEFENSE CHICAGO
After several months of little progress and minimal US mainstream press attention, there have recently been some significant developments which give renewed hope that Julian Assange could eventually be free from the persecution and prosecution he has faced for more than a decade.
Over the next few weeks, we must put pressure on lawmakers to support efforts to pressure President Biden’s Department of Justice to drop the extradition request, and we must work to convince mainstream journalists of the threat to journalism and journalists that this issue poses.
Key developments:
1. The circulation of House Resolution, HR 934, demanding Biden drop the extradition request. See text that follows.
2. The granting of a UK High Court Hearing on Feb. 20-21.
3. The decision to allow the “CIA spying suit” on Assange's US lawyer to proceed to trial.
HR 934 - Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that regular journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment, and that the United States ought to drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange. Representive Paul Gosar introduced this resolution on Dec.13 and so far it has 7 Republican co-sponsors and only one Democrat, Rep. Ilhan Omar.
“Resolved, that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that:
1. Regular journalistic activities, including the obtainment and publication of information are protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
2. First Amendment freedom of the press promotes public transparency and is crucial for the American Republic.
3. The Federal Government ought to drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange.
4. The Federal Government allow Julian Assange to return home to his native Australia if he so desires.”
Please contact your representative to demand that he or she sign on as co-sponsor.
This resolution follows a Nov. 8 letter to President Biden from a bipartisan Congressional group calling for Biden to withdraw the US extradition request. Nine of 16 signatories were Democrats - AOC, Ayanna Presley, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal, Greg Cesar, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman , and Chuy Garcia.
The letter stated:
“It is the duty of journalists to seek out sources, including documentary evidence, in order to report to the public on the activities of government. The United States must not pursue an unnecessary prosecution that risks criminalizing common journalistic practices and thus chilling the work of the free press. We urge you to ensure that this case be brought to a close in as timely a manner as possible.”
Assange's United Kingdom High Court Hearing will occur Feb. 20-21. This hearing will consider whether Assange can further appeal the extradition order within the UK courts. On Dec. 19, the High Court ruled that Assange “had an arguable point of law that Supreme Court justices may want to consider” and announced that there will be a two-day public hearing on Feb. 20-21, 2024.
“Lord Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice, said Mr. Assange's case had raised a legal question over the circumstances in which judges received and considered assurances from the US about how he would be treated in prison.”
However, if the High Court judges rule out a further appeal following the February hearing, the extradition may be immediate. If the appeal is allowed, we can expect several more months to pass before the legal process is exhausted. Note that Julian Assange has been confined in Prison Belmarsh in London since April 2019 – almost 5 years in a maximum-security prison by the time the February hearing takes place.
The suit regarding the CIA spying on Assange's US lawyer and journalist visitors will proceed to trial. In August 2022, two lawyers and two journalists filed a federal lawsuit against the CIA for spying on them during their visits to Julian Assange while he was based in the Ecuadorian embassy. The CIA sought to have the suit dismissed but on Dec. 19 Judge Koetl of the Southern District of New York ruled that the suit could proceed to trial.
“In his 27-page decision, Koetl said: “[t]he plaintiffs’ complaint contains sufficient allegations that the C.I.A. and [former C.I.A. Director Mike] Pompeo, through [David] Morales and UC Global, violated their reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of their electronic devices.”
The Court said that because Pompeo “in an April 2017 speech … Pompeo ‘pledged that his office would embark upon a ‘long term’ campaign against WikiLeaks,’” there was sufficient reason for the case to continue. Consortiumnews
This suit is of historic proportions – it will involve depositions of those connected with the spying operation (including Pompeo) and discovery of highly sensitive and embarrassing documents. It could impact the case against Assange dramatically.
What is at stake is more than just Julian Assange, but the ability of mainstream and alternative media journalists throughout the world to report on the crimes and misdeeds of the U.S. without fear of being charged with espionage and ending up in a US federal prison for years on end. Certain U.S. allies, especially Britain and Israel, are more than willing to be accomplices to the U.S.'s extraterritorial reach.
Editor's note: The bulk of this story ran previously.
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Update on the Fair Political Practices Complaint
BY JANE WEED-POMERANTZ, FORMER MAYOR OF SANTA CRUZ
Community members have been curious about the status of the Fair Political Practices Commission, FPPC, complaint that involved the Supervisorial campaign of Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson who is currently running for Santa Cruz City Council in District 3, and the local political action committee (PAC), Santa Cruz Together. The complaint was filed a year and a half ago.
The charges involve the appearance of “coordination” between the candidate and an “independent” PAC, mostly funded by wealthy Santa Cruzans and real estate interests, both local, statewide, and in the past, national. According to state and federal law, when independent PACs decide to support candidates, those candidates cannot know what the PACs' strategies and activities are. Independent PACS help donors circumvent campaign donation caps.
Already money is flooding into all our political campaigns, including here in “small-town” Santa Cruz; with even bigger bucks from tech entrepreneurs and CEO’s now influencing campaigns in decidedly liberal cities like San Francisco.
While the candidate who filed, Ami Chen Mills, has been accused of “politically motivated attacks,” and “desperation” for filing the charges, Mills says this:
“I was not desperate, nor was that a planned ‘attack’ of some kind. I and many others in our community care deeply about both campaign finance laws and the fact that we need immediate reform at all levels.
“The first filing, which was declined, was me simply asking the FPPC to look into the situation. As someone who has never filed an FPPC report, I did not know you had to provide all the evidence. I was given the opportunity to re-file and the second time, I gathered all the evidence —which was easy— because they were pretty open about their plans.”
In this case, that evidence included a recording of a joint fundraiser between the Kalantari-Johnson campaign and Santa Cruz Together at the Stockton Cellars winery, which also involved discussion of new voting districts and an elected mayor for the city. Local resident and Prevention of Violence Against Women Commissioner Ann Simonton attended the fundraiser and had immediate concerns about possible Brown Act violations, which prohibit council members and other public officials from meeting together as a majority to discuss city issues without proper notification of the public, posting a public agenda 72- or 24 hours in advance and other considerations. Four council members, Renee Golder, Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, Donna Meyers and Martine Watkins, were at this event, which was publicized to supporters of these council members and to SCT fans, but not the general public. Simonton then recorded the event. That recording and notes about the meeting are still available here.
While this alleged Brown Act violation was refuted by the city attorney and the local DA (citing the city attorney), Brown Act violations are rarely prosecuted. Nonetheless, many past elected officials were angered by the apparent violation, including former Supervisor Gary Patton, and former mayors and councilmembers Tim Fitzmaurice and Katherine Beiers and many others (elected or appointed) who said they have always been, personally, extremely careful about meeting in any setting as a majority. As a former mayor myself, I too was upset.
“I wouldn’t even go to a funeral,” Fitzmaurice said at a press conference in 2022, “if there were three other council members planning on going.”
But the Mills complaint to the FPPC had to do with the fact that a representative for Santa Cruz Together, Lynn Renshaw, spoke to the crowd, with Shebreh present, about SCT plans to produce mailers with monies raised for Shebreh. “The person with the most mailers wins,” she said.
Whether the FPPC will rule this a campaign violation has yet to be seen and so far there has been no response in the year and half since the complaint was filed and the FPPC launched an investigation. According to the FPPC, they are backlogged.
“I don’t know that this violation was planned,” Mills says now. “What bothers me is the arrogance of Santa Cruz Together to be so bold about crossing all these lines, and then the crocodile tears and outrage of the parties when I called this out. No one even apologized.
“Filing a complaint was my right and even my duty, as I see it—if we care about democracy, ethics, transparency and big money in politics at all. And we should all care, actually.”
| Santa Cruz for Bernie Endorsements | Please note that links in the flyer above aren't activated. Click HERE to register to vote or check your registration status. Same day registration and voting at Vote Centers located around the the county from Feb. 2-March 5. Find locations HERE. Click HERE to see recommendations from Progressive Santa Cruz. |  | |
"Jack Has a Plan" A Film About Dealing with Terminal Cancer
"Jack Has a Plan" is the story of Jack Tuller, whose career as a budding San Francisco musician was altered when he was diagnosed with a terminal condition in 1994 and given six months to live. The film tells the story of the following 25 years as Jack dodges one bullet after the next. But Jack somehow turns his predicament into a Left Coast Performance Project, complete with experimental movies, diaries, and funky dance moves. Finally, Jack engineers a graceful exit from life's stage through Medical Aid in Dying (MAID.)
Two showings: Feb. 17, 2-5pm at the Universal Unitarian Church, 6401 Freedom Blvd. Aptos. and Feb. 18, 2-5:30pm, at the Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St. Santa Cruz.
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Watsonville Poetry Reading by Youths and Seasoned Poets
BY SARAH RINGLER
This poetry reading, highlighted in the poster below, on Feb. 17, 2-4pm at 37 Sudden St. in downtown Watsonville, features not only well published poets but also students. Rachel Huerta is this year's Watsonville's Youth Poet Laureate. Madeline Aliah won last year's Watsonville Library Poetry Competition and will have her first book published this month.
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Survey on Aging Well in Santa Cruz County
By SARAH RINGLER
From now to March 31, the County of Santa Cruz's Human Services Department has opened an online survey that hopes to collect feedback on aging and living with disabilities in our county. That information may be used to develop the county's Master Plan for Aging. The goal is to ensure that people of all ages and abilities can be active and engaged in their community. For information and to take the survey, click HERE.
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Help the Warming Center
By SARAH RINGLER
The Warming Center operates from 12-3pm at the levee-side of 150 Felker St. in Santa Cruz. People can access blankets, jackets, tents, clothing, shoes, hygiene supplies, as well as cold and wet weather support gear. The Homeless Emergency Information Hotline 246-1234 will be updated with weather news and info regarding emergency shelters and how to access them.
Donations are needed from money to street clothing, shoes, all rain and cold-weather gear, blankets, tents, etc. Donation Barrels are located at:
- REI Sports, on Commercial Way (next to Marshall's)
- 150 Felker St., Santa Cruz
To donate money online: Click Here. Mail money to: Warming Center Program, PO Box 462, Santa Cruz, 95061 Office is at 150 Felker St. Santa Cruz. Our Website.
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Once in a Blue
By WOODY REHANEK
Once in a blue
the moon turns copper red
and we decode the driftwood
which appears so random
but shifts our point of view.
once in a blue sage
it's a good day to thrive
to be alive, to cry
with joy because we're still here.
once in a blue light
we give thanks
to the sunny angels
who blunt the savage angles
of our nature.
once in a blue mind
we forget to remember
or remember to forget
the past which belongs
to almost someone else.
*******
once in a blue yard
a neighbor down the street
fades away without a trace
& you saw her just last Thursday
carrying a rake.
once in a blue sea
a teenage girl at Lovers Point
gazes enraptured at her own
image for over an hour
lost in her iPhone.
once in a blue spring
Pacific Grove is not
about butterflies but
humans, seals, & searocks.
once in a blue poem
you write simple words
about ordinary things
hoping to reveal their splendor.
*******
once in a blue tree
orange and black orioles
build hanging nests
in native blue fan palms.
once in a blue streak
we rebuild our palm thatch
roof & find enmeshed
in fronds 10 fiber nests
abandoned by orioles.
once in a blue song
a rasta youth pauses
at Poipu sandwich shop
immersed in the exquisite
electric arpeggios of "Voodoo Child."
once in a blue ghost
the woman down the block
dies of cancer without revealing
it to her children and leaves
many things behind...
undone on Vivienne Drive.
******
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Photo by TARMO HANNULA
A brewer's blackbird wades through a puddle following a shower in Santa Cruz.
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Santa Cruz County Covid-19 Report
By SARAH RINGLER
The California Department of Public Health and Santa Cruz County Health Department regularly release data on the current status of Covid-19 in the county as well as information on influenza, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), and Mpox. Since cases of Covid are still appearing, and there are still vulnerable people, I will continue reporting the graphs below.
At-home Covid-19 test kits that were sent free from the government earlier are now expiring. The program that started in Jan. 2022 has distributed 600 million test kits. If you still have those tests, before using, check the date on your box or go HERE to get information. Go HERE for free tests.
The three graphs below were updated on Feb. 14. The first graph below shows the Rt Number. Numbers above one show the spread of the virus is increasing. Below one means the spread is decreasing.
The second graph below shows data that the Health Department collects for Covid from wastewater at the City Influent, for the city of Santa Cruz, and from the Lode Street pump stations for the county.
The third graph below shows hospitalizations.
The vaccination data for the county has stayed fairly constant increasing very little over time. Go HERE for new information on vaccination records, treatments, vaccines, tests, safety in the workplace and more.
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Photo Tarmo Hannula
Fashion Street - A scarecrow is constructed from a used protective suit, commonly worn in agricultural fields when workers apply chemical treatments to crops.
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Labor History Calendar - Feb. 16-22, 2024
a.k.a Know Our History Lest We Forget
Feb. 16, 1916: Emma Goldman arrested for lecturing on birth control in New York City.
Feb. 16, 2011: Sick-out closes Wisconsin schools as teacher protest union-busting legislation.
Feb. 17, 1906: WFM leaders Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone framed on murder
charges.
Feb. 17, 1936: Goodyear sit-down strike.
Feb. 17, 1992: Yale University unions strike in solidarity with Teaching Assistants.
Feb. 17, 2020: Thousands strike JY Ha Nam Co over Covid fears in Vietnam.
Feb. 18, 1916: Magon brothers arrested near Los Angeles and charged with treason for publishing Renereración.
Feb. 19, 1942: FDR sends 120,000 West Coast Japanese, including US citizens to concentration camps.
Feb. 19, 1948: Death of Joe Ettor, IWW organizer.
Feb. 20, 1908: Rally for unemployed becomes riot. 18 arrested for demanding jobs in Philadelphia.
Feb. 20, 1990: UMW settles 10-month Pittston strike.
Feb. 21, 1934: Augusto Cesar Sandino assassinated in Nicaragua.
Feb. 22, 1855: Trails of Eureka Rebellion miners begin, end in acquittals for all in Australia.
Labor History Calendar has been published yearly by the Hungarian Literature Fund since 1985.
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“To be a jazz freedom fighter is to attempt to galvanize and energize world-weary people into forms of organization with accountable leadership that promote critical exchange and broad reflection. The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. As with a soloist in a jazz quartet, quintet or band, individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group—a tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project. This kind of critical and democratic sensibility flies in the face of any policing of borders and boundaries of 'blackness,' 'maleness,' 'femaleness,' or 'whiteness'.”
Cornell West
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Photo by TARMO HANNULA
Nutmeg and New York
By SARAH RINGLER
This old-fashioned cookie is always nice to have in the cookie jar. They keep well so you can have a good supply of goodies on hand whenever the need comes up.
Nutmeg is the predominant flavoring in these cookies. It was commonly used in colonial America.
The tree, from which the nuts come, is native to the Banda Islands in Indonesia and was the only source until 19th century when earlier Europeans in the Middle Ages became familiar with the spice through Arab traders who kept the location of the nutmeg secret. Then, as now, it was highly desirable as a flavoring. It is commonly used in baked goodss but also in toothpaste and cosmetics. It was used in snuff for centuries in Indonesia and India. Consuming too much nutmeg can be fatal.
Arab trade in nutmeg was disrupted when Portuguese naval officer, Afonso de Albuquerque, conquered the Banda Islands and took over the trade. This was followed by battles between the Netherland’s Dutch East India Company, and England’s British East Indian Company culminating in the Treaty of Breda in 1667 when the Dutch got the Banda Island of Run and the Brits got to keep the island of Manhattan, changing the name from New Amsterdam to New York.
However as with all things of high profit, the Dutch only temporarily won the nutmeg trade. In 1810, the British returned to conquer the main island of the Banda Islands and took trees to other parts of the British Empire like Singapore, Ceylon and Grenada. This diluted the Dutch financial advantage. Grenada still is a major producer of nutmeg and it is currently less expensive and more accessible.
The cookies got their name because they resemble an old fashion washboard with parallel ridges that run down the length of the board. The ridges are made with a fork that has been dipped in flour and pressed on the dough.
Washboard cookies
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ cup, 1 stick, unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed, brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
Sift or whisk the dry ingredients — flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg— into a bowl.
With an electric mixer, beat the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy for about 2 minutes. Add the egg and milk and beat for another minute. Reduce the speed of the mixer to low and add the dry ingredients from above and the coconut. Mix just until the dough is well combined.
Put a large rectangle, about 18 inches long, on plastic wrap or wax paper on the counter. Flour your hands and shape the dough into a 15-inch long log on the paper. Flatten the top making the log 3 inches in width and about 1 inch tall. Wrap the log in the plastic wrap or paper and refrigerate until firm, about 45 minutes to an hour.
Arrange the racks in your oven to the upper-middle and lower-middle positions. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Get out two cookie sheets and a cooling rack.
Take the chilled dough out of the refrigerator and cut into ¼ inch slices. Put the slices about 1 inch apart on the cookie sheets. Using a fork dipped in flour, press down on the cookies making a pattern of lines that go perpendicular to the length of the cookie.
Bake until the cookies are golden brown, about 15 to 18 minutes. Keep and eye on them. If you are baking two trays at once, you may want to switch the top and bottom trays about half way through. Cool on the cookies sheets for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Makes about 3 dozen. Keeps well for a week in a cookie tin.
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Send your story, poetry or art here: Please submit a story, poem or photo of your art that you think would be of interest to the people of Santa Cruz County. Try and keep the word count to around 400. Also, there should be suggested actions if this is a political issue. Submit to coluyaki@gmail.com
Send comments to coluyaki@gmail.com
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Subscribe, contact or find back issues at the website https://serf-city-times.constantcontactsites.com
Thanks, Sarah Ringler
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Welcome to Serf City Times Our county has problems and many people feel left out. Housing affordability, racism and low wages are the most obvious factors. However, many groups and individuals in Santa Cruz County work tirelessly to make our county a better place for everyone. These people work on the environment, housing, economic justice, health, criminal justice, disability rights, immigrant rights, racial justice, transportation, workers’ rights, education reform, gender issues, equity issues, electoral politics and more. Often, one group doesn’t know what another is doing. The Serf City Times is dedicated to serving as a clearinghouse for those issues by letting you know what is going on, what actions you can take and how you can support these groups.This is a self-funded enterprise and all work is volunteer.
Copyright © 2024 Sarah Ringler - All rights reserved
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