AIDS Activists Arrested; Deny Waiver Coalition; Unemployment Emergency

Deny Waiver Coalition Rally at Tweed Shows Outrage over Appointment of Cathie Black as Schools Chancellor

The Deny Waiver Coalition gathered hundreds of parents, elected officials educators and community leaders at the Tweed Courthouse, Headquarters of the NYC Dept. of Education, in a broad based demonstration to denounce Bloomberg's appointment of millionaire publishing Executive Cathie Black as Schools Chancellor despite her lack of qualifications for the position. The Coalition, which will not accept Ms. Blacks appointment as a done deal, is filing a lawsuit to challenge the waiver by NYS Education Commissioner Steiner and is continuing demonstrations across the city. The protests, are evolving into a wider movement against Mayoral Control and the capture of educational decision making by business interests to the exclusion of parents and teachers. For 8 long years, NYC children have enduring the destructive education policies of the Bloomberg Administration and the time has come for a parent and educator led movement to fight for & protect the educational opportunities of NYC's 1.1 million public school children.
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Nine AIDS Activists Dressed As Bagels Arrested In Schmear Campaign Of Mayor Bloomberg
with
. Charles King, Pres. & CEO, Housing Works, a/k/a, an aggressive bagel
. Johnny Guaylupo, arrested baked goods

ACTing UpOn World AIDS Day—Police arrested nine Housing Works AIDS activists wearing giant bagel costumes outside Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s annual World AIDS Day Bagel Breakfast at the Brooklyn Public Library. “Mayor Bloomberg’s attitude to poor people with AIDS is ‘Let them eat bagels!’” said Charles “Sesame” King, president and CEO of Housing Works Bagels’ Schmear Campaign. “We bagels refuse to be implicated in the mayor’s World AIDS Day Bagel Breakfast hypocrisy.” The activists chained themselves together and blocked traffic at Grand Army Plaza to draw attention to Bloomberg’s relentless attacks on AIDS housing services for the poor. The brave bagels were cheered on by dozens of others, many wearing breakfast table costumes. AIDS activists are fed up with Bloomberg.
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Emergency Unemployment Protest
2 Million More Are Loosing Benefits in December
with
. Trudy Goldberg, Chair, National Jobs for All Coalition
. Bill Henning, Vice President of CWA, Local 1180
. Jon Bloom, Executive Director, Workers Defense League,
. Noreen Connell, Past Pres., NOW, NY State

The National Jobs for all Coalition held a protest demonstration in NYC to call for extension of unemployment benefits being held up in Congress by a Republican filibuster and to raise public awareness of the need for bold and decisive federal action to create jobs. The action came on the very day when the newly released monthly statistics reported that the unemployment rate increased to 9.8% highlighting the need for decisive action now. Over 5,000,000 workers have already exhausted their 99 weeks of extended benefits and if unemployment benefits are not extended by Congress beyond the basic 26 week limit over 2,000,000 more are loosing their benefits in December. The coalition will be holding vigils for jobs every first Friday of the month when the unemployment statistics are released, hoping to build grassroots support for jobs now!

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