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TIDBITS-OCT. 8: READER COMMENTS: RAPE CULTURE AND THE CORNELL SEVEN;
DILEMMAS OF SOCIALIST GOVERNANCE OF A CAPITALIST STATE; STATEMENT FROM
MAYOR ZOHRAN KWAME MAMDANI ON THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF OCTOBER 7;
HANDS OFF CUBA – LET CUBA LIVE VIRTUAL EVENT  
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October 8, 2026
xxxxxx

*
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*
*
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_ Reader Comments: Rape Culture and the Cornell Seven; Dilemmas of
Socialist Governance of a Capitalist State; Measles; Statement From
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani on the Third Anniversary of October 7;
Hands Off Cuba - Let Cuba Live Virtual Event; more _

Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, and cartoons -
Oct. 8, 2026, xxxxxx

 

* CORNELL  --  CARTOON BY ROB ROGERS
* RE: WHY FRENCH STUDENTS ARE REVOLTING  (ROB PRINCE)
* RE: THE DILEMMAS OF SOCIALIST GOVERNANCE OF A CAPITALIST STATE
 (LEWIS GRUPPER)
* RE: THE ROAD TO UNIVERSAL MEDICARE  (MARILYN ALBERT)
* WE’RE SELF-POLICING  --  CARTOON BY MIKE LUCKOVICH
* RE: SUNDAY SCIENCE: SUPERPOWERS RACE TO PUT NUCLEAR REACTORS ON
THE MOON  (MARK)
* RE: REGIME CHANGE  (ELEANOR ROOSEVELT)
* MEASLES...AND PARENTS  --  CARTOON BY EMILY FLAKE
* BUT IT WOULD BE WRONG, THAT’S FOR SURE  --  CARTOON BY JACK
OHMAN
* THE CORNELL SEVEN  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY NICK ANDERSON

 

RESOURCES:

* STATEMENT FROM MAYOR ZOHRAN KWAME MAMDANI ON THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY
OF OCTOBER 7
* NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHORS CALL FOR THE RELEASE OF
PALESTINIAN LEADER MARWAN BARGHOUTI  (FREE MARWAN NOW)
* WATCH NAZA

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

* HANDS OFF CUBA - LET CUBA LIVE - STOP THE GENOCIDE - VIRTUAL
MEETING - OCTOBER 11 (LABOR-COMMUNITY ALLIANCE OF SOUTH FLORIDA, MIAMI
COALITION TO END THE U.S. BLOCKADE OF CUBA, PEOPLE'S PROGRESSIVE
CAUCUS OF MIAMI-DADE)
* SOUNDS OF SOLIDARITY: A BENEFIT CONCERT FOR PALESTINE - JERSEY
CITY - OCTOBER 25  (MECA - MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN'S ALLIANCE)..CORNELL
 --  CARTOON BY ROB ROGERS

 

Rob RogersOctober 6, 2026https://robrogers.com
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 RE: WHY FRENCH STUDENTS ARE REVOLTING 

C'est tout aussi grave ici, aux États-Unis.

  _ It's just as serious here, in the United States._

Rob PrincePosted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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RE: THE DILEMMAS OF SOCIALIST GOVERNANCE OF A CAPITALIST STATE 

I really enjoyed your latest article in xxxxxx “The Dilemmas of
Socialist Governance of a Capitalist State
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Your praise for Zohran Mamdani’s and DSA’s electoral success is
tight on the money. I agree with about 95% of your article.  One area
of disagreement is your call for a “revolutionary rupture”
(eventually).  Your excellent advice that the dogmas of the past will
not serve us is prescient.  Unfortunately those of us trained in
Leninism may still cling to remnants of those dogmas. I hope Bernie
Sanders’ Campaigns for President (following in Eugene V. Debs’
footsteps) has dispelled many of those illusions.  But that
“revolutionary rupture” at a time where the Left is nowhere near
that stage will just isolate us from the working class we need to win.

Lewis Grupper

 

RE: THE ROAD TO UNIVERSAL MEDICARE 

xxxxxx recently posted an article by Robert Kuttner
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claiming that what I call "small steps" such as the Public Option, or
Medicare Buy In, will lead to a high quality universal guaranteed
health system for all.

Two experts on Medicare for All, responded to Kuttner in the Health
Justice Monitor article cited above - Drs. Hank Abrons and James Kahn
- a physician and a leading health economist.

Many other activists in the movement for Improved Medicare for
All/single payer health care will disagree with Kuttner - we want a
one-tier, one risk pool, equal access, improved care system. We don't
want "different strokes for different folks"!

Marilyn AlbertRetired
Nursehttps://www.healthjusticemonitor.org/whats-wrong-with-medicare-public-option/

 

WE’RE SELF-POLICING  --  CARTOON BY MIKE LUCKOVICH 

Mike LuckovichSeptember 30, 2026Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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RE: SUNDAY SCIENCE: SUPERPOWERS RACE TO PUT NUCLEAR REACTORS ON THE
MOON 

The New York Times:

The United States wants a reactor on the moon by 2030. A
Russian-Chinese alliance is working on one for 2036. Some leading
scientists say the danger is great.

Stop. I expect far, far more from the NYT than this idiocy that's fit
for the old National Enquirer.

"An explosion or a meltdown on the moon’s surface would risk turning
entire regions into no-go zones."

The author clearly has never set foot into a science class. They
appear to think the Moon has an atmosphere, and a strong magnetic
field, that filters out the immense radiation from the Sun. Even
noticing the radiation after a meltdown would barely raise the
radiation level already there.

mark

 

RE: REGIME CHANGE 

That Trump coin looks like something they'd give away at a Shell
station in 1966. And is worth as much.

Eleanor RooseveltPosted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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MEASLES...AND PARENTS  --  CARTOON BY EMILY FLAKE 

 

Emily FlakeFebruary 2, 2015The New Yorker
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BUT IT WOULD BE WRONG, THAT’S FOR SURE  --  CARTOON BY JACK
OHMAN 

 

Jack OhmanOctober 6, 2026Jack Ohman's You Betcha!
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THE CORNELL SEVEN  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY NICK ANDERSON 

 

Donald Trump returned to the White House carrying something unusual
for an American president: a civil jury verdict finding him liable for
sexual abuse.

But Trump isn’t the only prominent figure in his political orbit to
have faced allegations of sexual assault or misconduct. Several men
Trump has nominated, appointed or selected for powerful
positions—including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health and Human
Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Supreme Court Justice Brett
Kavanaugh and former attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz—have faced
allegations or findings involving sexual misconduct.

In Trump’s case, there’s an actual civil verdict. A federal jury
found in 2023
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that Trump sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll and defamed her. The
Supreme Court declined in June 2026 to hear Trump’s appeal, leaving
the $5 million verdict intact. Trump has denied Carroll’s
allegation, but 27 other women have also accused him of sexual
misconduct
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The pattern seems pretty clear.

Then there’s Hegseth. Before Trump selected him to run the Pentagon,
Hegseth had been accused of sexually assaulting a woman
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following a Republican women’s conference in Monterey, California,
in 2017. Police investigated but no charges were filed. Hegseth told
police the encounter was consensual and has denied sexually assaulting
the woman. Trump nominated him anyway. The Senate confirmed him, and
he now oversees roughly 1.3 million active-duty military personnel.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice to run the Department of
Health and Human Services, was accused by a former family babysitter
[[link removed]], Eliza Cooney, of
groping her in the late 1990s. Kennedy said he had no memory of the
alleged incident and subsequently sent Cooney a text apologizing for
anything he may have done that made her uncomfortable. He, too, was
confirmed.

The pattern extends back to Trump’s first term.

Brett Kavanaugh was accused by Christine Blasey Ford
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of sexually assaulting her when the two were teenagers. Kavanaugh
categorically denied the allegation. Deborah Ramirez separately
accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her while they were students
at Yale, which he also denied.

After one of the most contentious Supreme Court confirmation battles
in modern history, Kavanaugh was confirmed 50-48.

And then there’s Matt Gaetz. Trump selected the former Florida
congressman to become attorney general after the 2024 election. Gaetz
withdrew before confirmation, but the bipartisan House Ethics
Committee subsequently released its investigation
[[link removed]].

Its findings went considerably beyond an unsubstantiated allegation.
The committee said there was “substantial evidence” that Gaetz
regularly paid women for sex and had sex with a 17-year-old girl in
2017, which the committee concluded violated Florida’s
statutory-rape law. Gaetz denied having sex with a minor and has
denied wrongdoing. A separate Justice Department investigation ended
without criminal charges.

So the common denominator isn’t that all these men were proved
guilty of sexual assault. It’s that allegations or findings of
serious sexual misconduct repeatedly failed to disqualify men Trump
wanted in positions of extraordinary power. That represents a
significant change from the political assumptions of an earlier era,
when merely facing a serious allegation could derail a nomination.

With Trump, the allegations themselves have increasingly become part
of the confirmation fight rather than an automatic end to it.

Hegseth is perhaps the clearest example. Senators knew about the 2017
sexual-assault allegation during his confirmation process. The police
investigation and Hegseth’s denial were publicly available. The
Senate considered them, and confirmed him anyway.

Kennedy’s allegation was also public before he entered Trump’s
Cabinet.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings became nationally televised
examinations of Ford’s allegation.

And Gaetz was selected to become the nation’s chief law-enforcement
officer despite a long-running House Ethics investigation into
allegations that included sexual misconduct. The committee’s
findings became public only after he withdrew.

In Trump’s political movement, sexual-misconduct allegations that
once might have ended a nominee’s prospects have repeatedly become
obstacles to overcome rather than barriers to office, and perhaps
nothing illustrates that transformation better than the man making the
appointments.

The president selecting nominees accused of sexual misconduct is
himself a man whom a federal jury found liable for sexual abuse. Given
his track record, he seems to see it more as a qualification rather
than an impediment.

Nick AndersonOctober 6, 2026Pen Strokes
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STATEMENT FROM MAYOR ZOHRAN KWAME MAMDANI ON THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF
OCTOBER 7 

October 7, 2026NYC Official website
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Today, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani released the following statement on
the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks:

_This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks
three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. On that day,
Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We
grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that
unthinkable loss._

_The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued
through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in
Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians—including
more than 21,000 children. Even since the so-called ceasefire, more
than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed. That suffering has
intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting
outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building
or journalist, and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border
crossing. Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief,
and we mourn alongside them—all while knowing that our tax dollars
fund these war crimes._

_Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which
occupation and apartheid continue, where war crimes are met with
impunity, and our federal government continues its complicity with
every arms shipment._

_To honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person
can live with freedom, safety, and dignity._

###

Media Contact: [email protected]

 

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHORS CALL FOR THE RELEASE OF PALESTINIAN
LEADER MARWAN BARGHOUTI 

 

“We express our grave concern at the continuing imprisonment of
Marwan Barghouti, his violent mistreatment and denial of legal rights
whilst imprisoned. We call upon the United Nations and the Governments
of the World to actively seek the release of Marwan Barghouti from
Israeli prison.”

Signed:

Margaret AtwoodKaliane BradleyRob DelaneyStephen FryMohsin HamidJohann
HariMarlon JamesRupi KaurRashid KhalidiLily KingNaomi KleinGabor
MatéColin MeloyDavid NichollsPhilip PullmanSally RooneyArundhati
RoyZadie SmithColm TóibínOliver Jeffers

Join the campaign, @FreeMarwanNow
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#NYT #NYTBESTSELLERS #NEWYORKTIMES #booktok

Post created by: Free Marwan Now
[[link removed]] - The International Campaign
to #FreeMarwan Barghouti and all Palestinian political prisoners

 

WATCH NAZA 

 

 

HANDS OFF CUBA - LET CUBA LIVE - STOP THE GENOCIDE - VIRTUAL MEETING -
OCTOBER 11 (LABOR-COMMUNITY ALLIANCE OF SOUTH FLORIDA, MIAMI COALITION
TO END THE U.S. BLOCKADE OF CUBA, PEOPLE'S PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS OF
MIAMI-DADE) 

REGISTER HERE
[link removed]
[[link removed]]

 

SOUNDS OF SOLIDARITY: A BENEFIT CONCERT FOR PALESTINE - JERSEY CITY -
OCTOBER 25  (MECA - MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN'S ALLIANCE) 

 

 

SOUNDS OF SOLIDARITY: A BENEFIT CONCERT FOR PALESTINE

FEATURING: THE PALESTINIAN YOUTH CHOIR & MUSICAL GUESTS

On Sunday October 25, 2026, join us at Grace Church Van Vorst for a
benefit concert in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

For over three years, Gaza has endured relentless bombardment,
displacement, and blockade, with children bearing the heaviest toll.
Tens of thousands of children have been killed, orphaned, and cut off
from food, clean water, and medical care. The devastation has
stretched far beyond the immediate loss of life as entire families
have been erased, homes and hospitals reduced to rubble, and an entire
generation left to grow up amid trauma, grief, and uncertainty about
what, if anything, will be left to return to.

Every dollar from your ticket purchase goes directly to the Middle
East Children's Alliance (MECA), which provides humanitarian aid,
medical relief, and support for children and families in Gaza and
across Palestine.

Sounds of Solidarity is sponsored by:

* CFN NJ
* VP NNJ
* NJ PEACE ACTION
* 4 FALASTEEN NJ
* PALESTINIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY CENTER
* YOUNG VISION AFRICA

 

MUSICAL LINEUP:

THE PALESTINIAN YOUTH CHOIRCON VIVO MUSICPOPPIES 4 PALESTINESPECIAL
GUESTS

DOORS OPEN AT 3:30. CONCERT RUNS FROM 4:00-6:00 PM.

Join us for an afternoon of music, community, and solidarity.

If you are unable to join but still want to make a contribution,
please use the "additional donation" field to do so. You may make an
additional donation without purchasing a ticket. All donations and
tickets are tax deductible.

If you would like to join but cannot afford any of the listed tiered
ticket prices, please email us at [email protected] so we can
arrange a ticket for you. FOR TICKETS CLICK HERE
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* Reader Comments
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* sexual assualt
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* Sexual Violence
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* Rape
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* Rape culture
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* Cornell University
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* Fraternities
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* Women
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* war on women
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* transphobia
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* Donald Trump
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* MAGA
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* Politics
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* Strategy
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* antifascism
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* capitalism
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* socialism
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* Reconstruction
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* Third Reconstruction
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* Zohran Mamdani
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* universal healthcare
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* nuclear weapons
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* nuclear weapons in space
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* moon
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* Oct 7
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* anti-Semitism
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* zionism
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* Israel
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* Palestine
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* Israel-Gaza War
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* U.S.-Israel military aid
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* measles
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* Marwan Barghouti
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* NAZA
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* Cuba
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* Cuba solidarity
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* Palestine solidarity
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* Cartoons
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* resources
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* Announcements
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*
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*
*
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