Dear friends,
Our mayor made headlines with his cool anti-violence tux at the Met Gala, but his new anti-gun units are engaged in the life-threatening work of increased traffic stops.
The NYPD’s new anti-gun teams are mainly conducting car stops to find illegal weapons as part of a recycled strategy that only turned up three firearms during the first few weeks.
We know that traffic stops lead to a lot of police violence.
In addition, there’s a new database in town,
the Gun Recidivist Investigation Program list, known as the GRIP List, an NYPD supervisor with knowledge of the list said. The list is made up of people the department believes are involved in recent gun violence.
Civil liberties and anti-surveillance advocates are concerned about the list, which both the advocates and law enforcement sources say may include not just people with gun charges, but also suspects, witnesses, and victims. Law enforcement sources said rank-and-file officers can access the list through an internal NYPD portal and that several NYPD units are using the list as part of investigations, on patrol, and to surveil those on the list.
The public is not pleased with the mayor’s performance in addressing crime (among other things). Nonetheless, we cannot accept further assaults on civil rights.
Tell the mayor that we must address violence without attacking civil rights.
Rebecca Solnit, commenting on the recently leaked Supreme Court draft, noted parenthetically:
it’s bitterly amusing that a court that wants to set policies reaching into the uteruses of people across the country apparently feels violated by having its own internal workings exposed with this leaked draft opinion.
Solnit is hoping for an electoral backlash that will bring pro-choice candidates into office to maintain Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. The hope is to legislate federal protections of abortion rights. She points out that
it’s worth remembering that Mexico, Ireland and Argentina are among the countries that recently did so.
Jessica Cisneros is challenging Henry Cuellar, the only Democrat in the House who opposed the passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act. I am not a political pundit, so I can’t explain why Cuellar still has support from the Democratic Party.
Cuellar’s district includes Starr County [TX], where the district attorney charged 26-year-old Lizelle Herrera with second-degree murder and forced her to spend three days in jail last month for allegedly self-inducing an abortion, before dropping the charge.
Cisneros is a human rights attorney and this is her second attempt to best Cuellar in a primary. She came within a few hundred votes last time. The primary is less than three weeks away.
Support Jessica Cisneros for Congress.
Another of the ironies of the so-called ‘pro-life’ faction is their abiding disinterest in the actual lives of children and their families. George Carlin’s 1996 send-up of this indefensible position is still funny.
Mom’s Rising is organizing to move Congress to build a care infrastructure, including: childcare and pre-K, the monthly Child Tax Credit, home- and community-based services for the elderly and people with disabilities, health equity policies and full access to quality prenatal healthcare for everyone, and paid family and medical leave.
Sign the Care Can’t Wait petition to Congress. This is a 15-second action.
My own springling sent along the next action to support incarcerated women, who are also “mothers, daughters, grandmothers, granddaughters, aunties, and caretakers.”
The longer struggle is to release women and end incarceration. Meanwhile, we can help them to meet their immediate needs and take the best care of themselves they can, under the circumstances.
Show solidarity with incarcerated women by contributing funds to their canteen for food, personal hygiene items, stamps, phone calls, and more.
Those of us who really respect life know that human lives are not the only ones at stake. The planet’s bird populations are decreasing due to habitat destruction, the climate crisis, and chemical pollutants. The long-term figures in the US and Canada show a decrease of 3 billion birds since 1970.
“The growing footprint of the human population represents the ultimate driver of most threats to avian biodiversity. A lack of progress in conserving [birds] usually reflects a lack of resources or political will, rather than a lack of knowledge of what needs to be done.”
Support the American Bird Conservancy’s work to preserve habitat.
The city’s COVID alert level was raised this week because the case rate has surpassed 200 per 100,000 people.
Two boroughs -- Manhattan and Staten Island -- are now considered medium-risk COVID counties by the CDC as well. Of the 56 U.S. counties with a high-risk CDC designation as of Wednesday, more than half are in New York state.
Continue to mask in public, even if you’re vaccinated and boosted!
Is everyone else tired, too?
Learn more about the Nap Ministry. This is a book scheduled for fall release and also a series of playlists devoted to the idea that Rest is Resistance.
Check out a Nap Ministry playlist on Spotify.
with love,
L