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Save the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy
iradiophilly started this petition to Mayor of Philadelphia Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenny and 2 others
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney released a revised budget for fiscal year 2021 in response to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic on May 1, 2020. Businesses have been closed and workers have been off the job for weeks, reducing the city's tax revenue significantly. The Office of the Department of Finance projects that without any changes the city would have a $649 million deficit next year. The city cannot legally operate with a deficit. We understand that hard decisions needed to be made and that cut backs and program budget reductions were inevitable. However, to completely eliminate an office that supports a vital industry in the city of Philadelphia, especially one that has been hit very hard during this crisis, is short sighted and should be reversed.
In the new budget, the Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy was budgeted $0 dollars, down from approximately $4.4 million, effectively closing the office. Most of that budgeted money goes directly to the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, which gives grants to hundreds of non-profits in the city.
The presentation of the budget by the Mayor is only the first step. It still must be approved and voted on by City Council before July 1.
SEE: Mayor's Operating Budget – re: page 80
SEE: Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney Delivers New Budget by Video; Jobs/Services Cuts, Tax Hikes
According to the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, the arts and cultural sector generates $4.1 billion in economic impact annually and supports 55,000 jobs. That creates $1.3 billion in household income and $224.3 million in state and local taxes.* The creative economy includes but is not limited to artists, musicians, painters, sculptors, dancers, actors, filmmakers, graphic designers, venues, theaters, museums, galleries, bartenders, waiters, chefs, box office workers, bouncers, sound engineers, tech crews, art/dance/recording studios, and all employed by those entities, as well as support industries such as accountants, lawyers, hotels, ride shares, parking, public relations, marketing, and media. On the other side there are the fans, patrons, concert goers, theater attendees, and more who support the arts and make the purchases.
Most of this industry has been shut down during this crisis and needs support now more than ever to rebound during the economic recovery.
The Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy's mission is to close the gap in access to quality cultural experiences and creative expression through the support and promotion of arts, culture and the creative industries; connecting Philadelphians to enriching, arts-infused experiences; linking local artists and cultural organizations to resources and opportunities; and preserving the City's public art assets. http://creativephl.org
The OACCE is also responsible for the Music Industry Task Force, the Mayor's Cultural Advisory Council, Art in City Hall, all of Philadelphia's public art, and funding the Philadelphia Cultural Fund which gives grants to numerous Philadelphia arts and culture non-profits.
Philadelphia is a vibrant city teeming with culture that has been driving our identity for hundreds of years. The art created in Philadelphia reaches well beyond its borders and has touched the world and helps drive our other industries through attention and attraction to our area. As we look to rebound and recover from this crisis, there are certainly sectors that are essential to our health and safety and must be prioritized. However, unless we take care to ensure our cultural health is also revived, we risk losing our spirit.
Philadelphia's creative economy deserves proper representation in City Hall. Understandably, it is likely not possible for the OACCE to be budgeted at the same level as the original budget, however, the industry's economic impact alone justifies that the office's budget be more than zero. We are simply asking that the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy not be eliminated.
*https://www.philaculture.org/why-arts-culture/prosperityStart a petition of your ownThis petition starter stood up and took action. Will you do the same?Start a petition
Streets Dept signed this petition
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I knew that being included in the photo was a definite long shot, but like any fashionista, I had to thoroughly prepare for the possibility.
Shoshanna Plum Sateen Dress and Kate Spade Slingback Pumps |
I decided I wanted to wear one of my favorite, flattering and most professional dresses for the photo shoot, so I chose the Shoshanna Plum Sateen Pleated Cap Sleeve Dress. I absolutely adore this dress for its beguiling color, waist-enhancing silhouette, and simple cap sleeves that slim the arm.
The dress in this plum color is no longer available, but here's the same dress in a pink floral pattern: Shoshanna Hibiscus Jacquard Charlotte Plated Dress.
I paired the dress with my (current) favorite pair of work shoes: the Kate Spade Celeste Slingback Pumps in black leopard. These Kate Spade shoes are still available online at Amazon.com in a different color, and you can find the same color in just a few sizes (and on sale, too) at Eve's Apple.
If you like this dress, I've found a few others online that have a similar silhouette, so I hope you will check them out if you are in the market for a new addition to your closet:
Cusp: Shoshanna Allison Tweed Dress
Saks Fifth Avenue: Shoshanna Metallic Jacquard Dress
ShopBop: Shoshanna Antonia Print Dress
Nordstrom: Tahari Belted Dress (Petites) -- on sale!
Bluefly: Calvin Klein Cap Sleeve Belted Dress --under $100
Happy shopping!

subset: commoncrawl


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Donald Trump is putting former White House lawyer Don McGhan through the ultimate loyalty test. Don't show up for a subpoena and risk losing your law license or do the patriotic legal thing. McGhan chose to side with Trump for now.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler gaveled open a Trump-Russia hearing Tuesday with an empty witness chair and a stern warning that former White House Counsel Don McGahn will be held in contempt for failing to appear in defiance of the committee's subpoena..
"Our subpoenas are not optional," Nadler said. The panel will hear from McGahn "one way or another," he said. "This committee will have no choice but to enforce the subpoena against him."
Democrats are facing yet another attempt by President Donald Trump to stonewall their investigations. This time they're blocked from hearing from McGahn — a chief eyewitness to the president's handling of the federal Russia investigation — on orders from the White House.
Rep. Doug Collins, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, spoke scornfully of Nadler's position, calling the session a "circus" and saying the chairman preferred a public "fight over fact-finding."
Democrats are "trying desperately to make something out of nothing," Collins said, in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller's findings in the Russia probe.
The committee voted to adjourn the hearing immediately after Collins' remarks.
A lawyer for McGahn had said he would follow the president's directive and skip Tuesday's hearing, leaving the Democrats without yet another witness — and a growing debate within the party about how to respond.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, backed by Nadler, is taking a step-by-step approach to the confrontations with Trump. Nadler said the committee would vote to hold McGahn in contempt, and take the issue to court.
"We will not allow the president to stop this investigation," the chairman said. A contempt vote is not expected until June, as lawmakers are scheduled to leave town for a weeklong recess.
Democrats are encouraged by an early success on that route as a federal judge ruled against Trump on Monday in a financial records dispute with Congress. Trump's team filed notice Tuesday that they would appeal.
But Pelosi's strategy hasn't been swift enough for some members of the Judiciary panel who feel Democrats should be more aggressive and launch a formal impeachment inquiry as they try to get information from the administration. Impeachment hearings would give Democrats more standing in court and could stop short of a vote to remove the president.
The issue was raised in a meeting among top Democrats Monday evening, where some members confronted Pelosi about it, according to three people familiar with the private conversation who requested anonymity to discuss it.
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin made the case that launching an impeachment inquiry would consolidate the Trump investigations and allow Democrats to keep more focus on their other legislative work, according to the people.
Pelosi pushed back, noting that several committees are doing investigations already and they have already been successful in one court case. But some members, several of whom have spoken publicly about a need to be more aggressive with Trump, are increasingly impatient. Other Democrats in the meeting siding with Raskin included Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, California Rep. Ted Lieu and freshman Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse.
Just before the start of Monday's meeting, Cicilline tweeted: "If Don McGahn does not testify tomorrow, it will be time to begin an impeachment inquiry of @realDonaldTrump."
In the hours after the discussion, Pelosi and Nadler met privately. Shortly afterward, Nadler said "it's possible" when asked about impeachment hearings.
"The president's continuing lawless conduct is making it harder and harder to rule out impeachment or any other enforcement action," Nadler said.
McGahn's refusal to testify is the latest of several moves to block Democratic investigations by Trump, who has said his administration will fight "all of the subpoenas." The Judiciary Committee voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt earlier this month after he declined to provide an unredacted version of special counsel Mueller's report. And the House intelligence committee is expected to vote on a separate "enforcement action" against the Justice Department this week after Barr declined a similar request from that panel.
McGahn's lawyer, William Burck, said in a letter to Nadler that McGahn is "conscious of the duties he, as an attorney, owes to his former client" and would decline to appear Tuesday.
Still, Burck encouraged the committee to negotiate a compromise with the White House, saying that his client "again finds himself facing contradictory instructions from two co-equal branches of government."
McGahn was a key figure in Mueller's investigation, describing ways in which the president sought to curtail that federal probe. Democrats have hoped to question him as a way to focus attention on Mueller's findings and further investigate whether Trump did obstruct justice.
If McGahn were to defy Trump and testify before Congress, it could endanger his own career in Republican politics and put his law firm, Jones Day, in the president's crosshairs. Trump has mused about instructing Republicans to cease dealing with the firm, which is deeply intertwined in Washington with the GOP, according to one White House official and a Republican close to the White House not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.
Administration officials mulled various legal options before settling on providing McGahn with a legal opinion from the Department of Justice to justify defying the subpoena.
"The immunity of the President's immediate advisers from compelled congressional testimony on matters related to their official responsibilities has long been recognized and arises from the fundamental workings of the separation of powers," the department's opinion reads.
A federal judge rejected a similar argument in 2008 in a dispute over a subpoena for Harriet Miers, who was White House counsel to George W. Bush. U.S. District Judge John Bates said it was an unprecedented notion that a White House official would be absolutely immune from being compelled to testify before Congress. Miers had to show up for her testimony, but still had the right to assert executive privilege in response to any specific questions posed by legislators, said the judge.
But in 2014, under the Obama administration, the Justice Department issued an opinion arguing that if Congress could force the president's closest advisers to testify about matters that happened during their tenure, it would "threaten executive branch confidentiality, which is necessary (among other things) to ensure that the President can obtain the type of sound and candid advice that is essential to the effective discharge of his constitutional duties."


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Court Side-Steps Whether Sec. 8 Tenant Can Be Evicted For Possession of Under 1 Oz. of Marijuana
In the first of what should be many cases dealing with marijuana use in rental housing, the SJC ruled last week that a Section 8 tenant could be evicted for an undetermined amount of marijuana combined with allowing her live-in boyfriend to deal marijuana and possess a gun at the leased premises. The court overruled Boston Housing Court Justice Jeffrey Winik's prior decision stopping the eviction of the tenant. Judge Winik was unconvinced that a public tenant could be evicted for marijuana possession unless it was over 1 oz. which makes it a crime in Massachusetts, whereas possession of under 1 oz. is merely a civil infraction.
The case is Figgs v. Boston Housing Authority (SJC 11532). A link to the opinion can be found here.
Based on oral arguments and briefings, court watchers were expecting the justices to address the interplay between the recent Mass. law decriminalizing the possession of under 1 oz. of marijuana and federal public housing eviction laws. The justices, however, side-stepped the weight issue, ruling instead that there was more than sufficient evidence of drug dealing at the apartment to warrant eviction based on a serious violation of the lease and criminal activity. Police found a small amount of marijuana, plastic baggies, cash and a firearm in the bedroom of the tenant's boyfriend, charging him with possession with intent to distribute and unlawful possession of a loaded firearm.
Although the question of whether a tenant can be evicted for possession of a recreational sized amount of marijuana (and medicinal marijuana) will be left for another case, the Figgs decision can be used to hold tenants responsible for the drug and criminal activity of their household members, including boyfriends, husbands, children and guests. This should be a helpful tool to enable public housing authorities and private landlords to keep drugs and guns out of rental housing.
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly has become a media circus. But the controversy does not stem from the reasons usually cited.
The media has focused on debating whether he should be allowed to speak at Columbia University on Monday, or whether his request to visit Ground Zero, the site of the Sept. 11 attack in lower Manhattan, should have been honored. His request was rejected, even though Iran expressed sympathy with the United States in the aftermath of those attacks and Iranians held candlelight vigils for the victims. Iran felt that it and other Shiite populations had also suffered at the hands of al-Qaida, and that there might now be an opportunity for a new opening to the United States.
Instead, the U.S. State Department denounced Ahmadinejad as himself little more than a terrorist. Critics have also cited his statements about the Holocaust or his hopes that the Israeli state will collapse. He has been depicted as a Hitler figure intent on killing Israeli Jews, even though he is not commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces, has never invaded any other country, denies he is an anti-Semite, has never called for any Israeli civilians to be killed, and allows Iran's 20,000 Jews to have representation in Parliament.
There is, in fact, remarkably little substance to the debates now raging in the United States about Ahmadinejad. His quirky personality, penchant for outrageous one-liners, and combative populism are hardly serious concerns for foreign policy. Taking potshots at a bantam cock of a populist like Ahmadinejad is actually a way of expressing another, deeper anxiety: fear of Iran's rising position as a regional power and its challenge to the American and Israeli status quo. The real reason his visit is controversial is that the American right has decided the United States needs to go to war against Iran. Ahmadinejad is therefore being configured as an enemy head of state.
The neoconservatives are even claiming that the United States has been at war with Iran since 1979. As Glenn Greenwald points out, this assertion is absurd. In the '80s, the Reagan administration sold substantial numbers of arms to Iran. Some of those beating the war drums most loudly now, like think-tank rat Michael Ledeen, were middlemen in the Reagan administration's unconstitutional weapons sales to Tehran. The sales would have been a form of treason if in fact the United States had been at war with Iran at that time, so Ledeen is apparently accusing himself of treason.
But the right has decided it is at war with Iran, so a routine visit by Iran's ceremonial president to the U.N. General Assembly has generated sparks. The foremost cheerleader for such a view in Congress is Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., who recently pressed Gen. David Petraeus on the desirability of bombing Iran in order to forestall weapons smuggling into Iraq from that country (thus cleverly using one war of choice to foment another).
American hawks are beating the war drums loudly because they are increasingly frustrated with the course of events. They are unsatisfied with the lack of enthusiasm among the Europeans and at the United Nations for impeding Tehran's nuclear energy research program. While the Bush administration insists that the program aims at producing a bomb, the Iranian state maintains that it is for peaceful energy purposes. Washington wants tighter sanctions on Iran at the United Nations but is unlikely to get them in the short term because of Russian and Chinese reluctance. The Bush administration may attempt to create a "coalition of the willing" of Iran boycotters outside the U.N. framework.
Washington is also unhappy with Mohammad ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has been unable to find credible evidence that Iran has a weapons program, and he told Italian television this week, "Iran does not constitute a certain and immediate threat for the international community." He stressed that no evidence had been found for underground production sites or hidden radioactive substances, and he urged a three-month waiting period before the U.N. Security Council drew negative conclusions.
ElBaradei intervened to call for calm after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said last week that if the negotiations over Iran's nuclear research program were unsuccessful, it could lead to war. Kouchner later clarified that he was not calling for an attack on Iran, but his remarks appear to have been taken seriously in Tehran.
Kouchner made the remarks after there had already been substantial speculation in the U.S. press that impatient hawks around U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney were seeking a pretext for a U.S. attack on Iran. Steven Clemons of the New America Foundation probably correctly concluded in Salon last week that President Bush himself has for now decided against launching a war on Iran. But Clemons worries that Cheney and the neoconservatives, with their Israeli allies, are perfectly capable of setting up a provocation that would lead willy-nilly to war.
David Wurmser, until recently a key Cheney advisor on Middle East affairs and the coauthor of the infamous 1996 white paper that urged an Iraq war, revealed to his circle that Cheney had contemplated having Israel strike at Iranian nuclear research facilities and then using the Iranian reaction as a pretext for a U.S. war on that country. Prominent and well-connected Afghanistan specialist Barnett Rubin also revealed that he was told by an administration insider that there would be an "Iran war rollout" by the Cheneyites this fall.
It should also be stressed that some elements in the U.S. officer corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency are clearly spoiling for a fight with Iran because the Iranian-supported Shiite nationalists in Iraq are a major obstacle to U.S. dominance in Iraq. Although very few U.S. troops in Iraq are killed by Shiites, military spokesmen have been attempting to give the impression that Tehran is ordering hits on U.S. troops, a clear casus belli. Disinformation campaigns that accuse Iran of trying to destabilize the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government -- a government Iran actually supports -- could lay the groundwork for a war. Likewise, with the U.S. military now beginning patrols on the Iran-Iraq border, the possibility is enhanced of a hostile incident spinning out of control.
The Iranians have responded to all this bellicosity with some chest-thumping of their own, right up to the final hours before Ahmadinejad's American visit. The Iranian government declared "National Defense Week" on Saturday, kicking it off with a big military parade that showed off Iran's new Qadr-1 missiles, with a range of 1,100 miles. Before he left Iran for New York on Sunday morning, Ahmadinejad inspected three types of Iranian-manufactured jet fighters, noting that it was the anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980 (which the Iranian press attributed to American urging, though that is unlikely).
The display of this military equipment was accompanied by a raft of assurances on the part of the Iranian ayatollahs, politicians and generals that they were entirely prepared to deploy the missiles and planes if they were attacked. A top military advisor to Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei told the Mehr News Agency on Saturday, "Today, the United States must know that their 200,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are within the reach of Iran's fire. When the Americans were beyond our shores, they were not within our reach, but today it is very easy for us to deal them blows." Khamenei, the actual commander in chief of the armed forces, weighed in as well, reiterating that Iran would never attack first but pledging: "Those who make threats should know that attack on Iran in the form of hit and run will not be possible, and if any country invades Iran it will face its very serious consequences."
The threat to target U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the unveiling of the Qadr-1 were not aggressive in intent, but designed to make the point that Iran could also play by Richard M. Nixon's "madman" strategy, whereby you act so wildly as to convince your enemy you are capable of anything. Ordinarily a poor non-nuclear third-world country might be expected to be supine before an attack by a superpower. But as Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the Iranian deputy speaker of Parliament, warned: "Any military attack against Iran will send the region up in flames."
In the end, this is hardly the kind of conflagration the United States should be enabling. If a spark catches, it will not advance any of America's four interests in the Middle East: petroleum, markets, Israel and hegemony.
The Middle East has two-thirds of the world's proven petroleum reserves and nearly half its natural gas, and its fields are much deeper than elsewhere in the world, so that its importance will grow for the United States and its allies. Petro-dollars and other wealth make the region an important market for U.S. industry, especially the arms industry. Israel is important both for reasons of domestic politics and because it is a proxy for U.S. power in the region. By "hegemony," I mean the desire of Washington to dominate political and economic outcomes in the region and to forestall rivals such as China from making it their sphere of influence.
The Iranian government (in which Ahmadinejad has a weak role, analogous to that of U.S. vice presidents before Dick Cheney) poses a challenge to the U.S. program in the Middle East. Iran is, unlike most Middle Eastern countries, large. It is geographically four times the size of France, and it has a population of 70 million (more than France or the United Kingdom). As an oil state, it has done very well from the high petroleum prices of recent years. It has been negotiating long-term energy deals with China and India, much to the dismay of Washington. It provides financial support to the Palestinians and to the Lebanese Shiites who vote for the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon. By overthrowing the Afghanistan and Iraq governments and throwing both countries into chaos, the United States has inadvertently enabled Iran to emerge as a potential regional power, which could challenge Israel and Saudi Arabia and project both soft and hard power in the strategic Persian Gulf and the Levant.
And now the American war party, undeterred by the quagmire in Iraq, convinced that their model of New Empire is working, is eager to go on the offensive again. They may yet find a pretext to plunge the United States into another war. Ahmadinejad's visit to New York this year will not include his visit to Ground Zero, because that is hallowed ground for American patriotism and he is being depicted as not just a critic of the United States but as the leader of an enemy state. His visit may, however, be ground zero for the next big military struggle of the United States in the Middle East, one that really will make Iraq look like a cakewalk.


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