From Nebraskans For Peace:
Please join us in doubling Lincoln’s recycling. We are working with the League of Conservation Voters in circulating this petition to the Lincoln City Council. The proposal is intended to increase recycling opportunities for citizens, expand the local economy, reduce the need for expensive landfill expansion, and grow a sustainable future for ourselves and our children.
Read more and sign the petition through Change.org.
From Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty:
The Journey of Hope Tour is Coming!
This week NADP has been hard at work with our partners to coordinate a series of events that we are very excited about: The Nebraska of Journey of Hope Speaking Tour. An amazing group of speakers who have been immediately affected by the death penalty will travel all throughout the state to share their stories of moving from violence to healing. Their experiences illustrate the critical need to keep the death penalty out of Nebraska permanently. We hope to see you at an event near you!
From Jill2016.com:
Jill Stein supporters from around the country will be in Houston August 4-7 for the Green Party’s Presidential Nominating Convention — and you’re invited!
This may just be the most exciting national Green Party meeting ever, with Jill Stein climbing in the polls and record numbers of Americans demanding a better choice than what the establishment parties are offering. If you want to get involved in the surging national movement for an America that works for all of us, Houston is the place to be!
One of the highlights of the convention will be the Party for the Revolution on Saturday, August 6, where Jill will kick off the final phase of her game-changing presidential campaign. There will be great music, inspiring speeches, and a chance to get to know Jill’s Vice-Presidential running mate.
Before that, starting on Thursday, August 4, the Green Party will host workshops and presentations on all aspects of the exploding movement for independent progressive politics.
Staff from the Stein campaign will be on hand to lead a number of workshops on the techniques and strategies that are being used in 2016 to fight for people, planet and peace over profit. There will also be a set of hands-on workshops on Sunday morning to help you plug in to the action and take the revolution back to your home state. Don’t miss what’s sure to be an unforgettable and historic gathering of revolutionaries in the fight for a better future.
It’s in our hands!
Read more about the agenda in Houston and register to attend.
The Nebraska Green Party will hold its 2016 State Convention on June 26 in Lincoln. Members will gather at The Meeting Place, 1239 South 14th Street. The meeting begins at 1 p.m.
Members will select the party’s choice for the U.S. presidential election and select delegates to represent Nebraska at the Green Party National Convention, held this year in Houston, August 4-7.
Read more about the National Convention.
From the Lincoln Journal Star:
The death penalty has survived not in spite of Christians, but because of them, according to Shane Claiborne, social activist, author and pioneer in the New Monasticism Movement.
For a long time, Claiborne believed that scripture supported the death penalty: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth… But his gut told him something else. He believed it was not as simple as good versus evil, right versus wrong and life versus death.
“I went back to study Scripture, and I saw how complex it is,” Claiborne said during a recent visit from Philadelphia to Lincoln and Omaha, as part of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Retain a Just Nebraska — both efforts to retain a state law abolishing the death penalty.
More than 200 people attended Claiborne’s June 7 presentations, which coincided with the release of his newest book, Executing Grace: How the Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It’s Killing Us. The book examines the death penalty from all angles: religious, moral, just and practical. Many Nebraska stories are included in the 300-page book.
Claiborne’s appearance was the first in a series of guests invited to Nebraska over the coming months to help convince voters to uphold LB268 which calls for abolishing capital punishment in the state, said Dan Parsons, spokesman for Retain a Just Nebraska.
Read the full story from the Lincoln Journal Star.
Retain a Just Nebraska has two upcoming open-house events for faith leaders to discuss the death penalty:
Learn more at Retain a Just Nebraska and Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
Last November the Lancaster County Commission on a 3 to 2 vote established excessively restrictive decibel standards that effectively prohibit the development of clean energy wind development in Lancaster County. A coalition of groups representing labor, agriculture, business, and the environment have launched a petition campaign to promote safe and sensible standards for wind development in the county’s rural areas. Please take a moment to sign this non-binding petition to express your support for clean energy and to encourage the phasing out of fossil fuels:
Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein explains how the United States political system is broken, and a third party is the solution:
Join us for a Fundraising Birthday Party & Discussion With Marylyn Felion!
Marylyn is a board member of Nebraskans for an Alternative to the Death Penalty and and active volunteer for Retain a Just Nebraska. She accompanied the last person executed in Nebraska and has been a long-time activist for death penalty abolition. Today, she is working tirelessly to Retain LB 268.
To celebrate her birthday, we’re inviting you to attend her fundraising birthday party and give a gift to Retain a Just Nebraska in her honor. Your gift will help the effort to Retain LB 268 and keep Nebraska death penalty free!
Her no-host birthday celebration is open to the public and will be held at Mama’s Pizza in Omaha, 715 N. Saddle Creek Road, on Wednesday, June 8, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. We hope to see you there!
From the Lincoln Journal Star Editorial Board:
Nebraskans who want to keep the death penalty off the books in Nebraska took a proactive step last week to reassure Nebraskans that when a murderer is sentenced to life in prison, it means just that.
The anti-death penalty group included some Nebraskans who can speak with consummate authority.
Here’s what retired District Court Judge Ronald Reagan had to say:
“I want to make sure there is no legal confusion,” Reagan said. “Life imprisonment means life in prison, no chance of parole. Anything else is legal posturing and has no grounding in the legal realities.”
Reagan ought to know. He’s the judge who sentenced John Joubert to death. John Joubert, a sadistic serial killer convicted of stabbing two boys to death, died in the electric chair in 1996. He was one of the last people to be executed in the state.
“I have seen the worst of the worst cases in Nebraska and I have studied the laws very carefully,” Reagan said. “Let me be perfectly clear about what happens when someone is sentenced to life imprisonment in Nebraska – they die in prison.”
From the Lincoln Journal Star:
Instead of engaging in demagoguery around climate change like (George Will in his April 25 column), Nebraska scientists and policy makers are taking steps to address climate change. This session I introduced LR455, which created a special legislative committee to address both the risks and the opportunities from climate change for Nebraska’s people. This committee is composed of seven members from all across the state representing a wide spectrum of political views. The committee will create the framework for a Nebraska Climate Action Plan based on a consensus of scientific evidence, including input from nationally recognized experts from UNL who assembled the 2014 report on the impacts of climate change in Nebraska (Climate Change Implications for Nebraska).