STOP THE WAR NOW! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT WAR!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
ALL OUT SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 11:00 A.M., CIVIC CENTER, S.F.
Dear antiwar activist,
In less than 2 weeks thousands of people will rally and march in the streets of San Francisco as well as in cities around the U.S. The momentum for the San Francisco demonstration is growing each day and along with that comes a great need for volunteers to take care of the many tasks involved in a demonstration of this size.
Because of the grass roots nature of the event we are asking all supporters of the demonstration to help us to come up with a couple of hundred people to act as monitors of the march, crowd collection to help pay for the cost of the day, and many other tasks that will be needed on October 27. We will also need people to help with the set up at Civic Center at 9am and others to help with take down and clean up at Dolores Park after the rally is over at 4pm. (See schedule just below this.)
Please go to our website www.oct27sf. org
Thank you in advance for your support,
Bonnie Weinstein
for the steering committee of the Oct. 27th Coalition to End the War
MARCH AND RALLY SPONSORED BY THE OCTOBER 27 COALITION
oct27sf.org
From: Logistics Committee
To: Members of the October 27th Coalition
Re: Volunteers on October 27th
There will be a need for hundreds of volunteers to provide the logistical infrastructure to make the October 27th activities function smoothly and successfully. The logistics committee is requesting that all members of the October 27th Coalition participate in this aspect of the march. The committee is asking member groups to provide as many volunteers to the logistics of the day as each member group can.
The committee is asking member groups to respond to the coalition email oct27sf@gmail. com
A day of volunteer form will be posted to oct27sf.org
The logistics committee asks that member organizations respond before the next steering committee meeting on October 14th. At the Steering Committee, the logistics committee will report on the status of responses and get any oustanding committments as well.
For anyone participating in security there will be a planning meeting on Thursday, October 18th at 7pm at the ANSWER office at 2489 Mission St., #28 at 21st St.
Below are the specific tasks:
Civic Center
Setup at 8:00 am
Security/Monitors at 9:00 am till the end of the day
Takedown at 12:30 until 2:00. The people taking this assignment will march late after march leaves.
Collection: 9:00 am orientation. This task will be for on the march and at the closing rally
Medical at 9:00 am for all day
ASL signing at 10:30 am for opening and closing rally
Dolores Park:
Setup at 8:00 am
Security/Monitors at 9:00 am
Takedown after rally and convergence ends at 4:30
Collection at 2 pm
Medical at 12 noon
ASL signing at 1:00 pm
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
UPCOMING MEETINGS:
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
South Bay Oct. 27 Organizing Committee
Thursday, Oct. 18, 7:00 P.M.
San Jose Peace Center
48 Seventh Street
Iraq Moratorium Day
Friday, Oct. 19, 12:00 A.M. - 11:30 P.M.
Pots and Pans rally at noon at the SF Federal Bldg.
Solemn vigil at Post & Market (Montgomery Street BART) at 5.
At Diablo Canyon College there will be an action, and Strawberry Creek Lodge there will be a demonstration at 2.
There will be bannering at the Golden Gate Bridge in the early morning.
The postal workers who had flyers and ribbons at 27 SF post offices on Sept 21, will cover the remaining 13 on October 19. New unions are being approached for participation as well.
More at http://www.iraqmoratorium-sfbay.org
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
ENVIRONMENTAL DISTRUCTION:
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Toxic West Virginia: Mountaintop Removal- Episode 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziuFW-7h1LM
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
LABOR CONFERENCE TO STOP THE WAR, OCT. 20, S.F.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Labor Conference to Stop the War!
October 20, 2007
ILWU Local 10 400 North Point Street, San Francisco, California @ Fisherman's Wharf
As the war in Iraq and Afghanistan enters its seventh year, opposition to the war among working people in the United States and the world is massive and growing. The "surge" strategy of sending in more and more troops has become a -asco for the Pentagon generals, while thousands of Iraqis are killed every month. Before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, millions marched against the war in Britain, Italy and Spain as hundreds of thousands took to the streets in the U.S. to oppose it. But that didn't stop the invasion. In the U.S., this "war on terror" has meant wholesale assault on civil liberties and workers' rights, like the impending imposition of the hated TWIC card for port workers. And the war keeps going on and on, as Democrats and Republicans in Congress keep on voting for it.
As historian Isaac Deutscher said during the Vietnam War, a single strike would be more effective than all the peace marches. French dockworkers did strike in the port of Marseilles and helped bring an end to the war in Vietnam. To put a stop to this bloody colonial occupation, labor must use its power.
The International Warehouse and Longshore Union has opposed the war on Iraq since the beginning. In the Bay Area, ILWU Local 10 has repeatedly warned that the so-called "war on terror" is really a war on working people and democratic rights. Around the country, hundreds of unions and labor councils have passed motions condemning the war, but that has not stopped the war. We need to use labor's muscle to stop the war by mobilizing union power in the streets, at the plant gates and on the docks to force the immediate and total withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.
The clock is ticking. It's time for labor action to bring the war machine to a grinding halt and end this slaughter. During longshore contract negotiations in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, Bush cited port security and imposed the slave-labor Taft-Hartley Law against the ILWU in collusion with the maritime employers group PMA and with the support of the Democrats. Yet, he did nothing when PMA shut down every port on the U.S. West Coast by locking out longshore workers just the week before!
In April 2003, when antiwar protesters picketed war cargo shippers, APL and SSA, in the Port of Oakland, police -red on picketers and longshoremen alike with their "less than lethal" ammo that left six ILWU members and many others seriously injured. We refused to let our rights be trampled on, sued the city and won. Democratic rights were reasserted a month later when antiwar protesters marched in the port and all shipping was stopped. This past May, when antiwar protesters and the Oakland Education Association again picketed war cargo shippers in Oakland, longshoremen honored the picket line. This is only the beginning.
Last year, Local 10 passed a resolution calling to "Strike Against the War ï¿∏ No Peace, No Work." The motion emphasized the ILWU's proud history in opposing wars for imperial domination, recalling how in 1978 Local 10 refused to load bombs for the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. In the 1980's, Bay Area dock workers highlighted opposition to South African apartheid slavery by boycotting ("hot cargoing") the Nedlloyd Kimberly, while South African workers waged militant strikes to bring down the white supremacist regime.
Now Locals 10 and 34 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have called for a "Labor Conference to Stop the War" to hammer out a program of action. We're saying: Enough! It's high time to use union power against the bosses' war, independent of the "bipartisan" war party. The ILWU can again take the lead, but action against the war should not be limited to the docks. We urge unions in the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout the country to attend the conference and plan workplace rallies, labor mobilizations in the streets and strike action against the war.
For further information contact: Jack Heyman jackheyman@comcast.net
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
FREE SPEECH:
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Stop Government Attacks
Against the Anti-War Movement!
Take Action to Defend Free Speech
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?JServSessionIdr004=k763kwy604.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=205
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
DOMESTIC WORKERS:
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Domestic workers are one of the most invisible and exploited categories of workers in the United States. Many of them work for diplomats, who enjoy legal immunity and can exploit their domestic workers without any consequences. Employees of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are the largest group of employers of domestic workers in the U.S. The institutions have some direct responsibility in this regard, since they sponsor visas for domestic workers for their employees, but do not monitor the work situations of the domestic workers to make sure that they are being treated fairly.
Please watch the video, share it, and spread it far and wide!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBDwK_zOMRE
And come to Washington DC October 19-21 to protest the IMF and World Bank annual meetings!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
ARTICLES IN FULL:
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Jurors Never Saw Earliest Photos at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 Trial
RECENT DISCOVERY OF 26 PHOTOS OF
OFFICER FAULKNER’S SCENE OF DEATH
More Evidence that Mumia Abu-Jamal was Denied a Fair Trial
By Educators for Mumia | 10.06.2007
http://abu-jamal-news.com/
http://abu-jamal-news.com/temp/German%20Book%20Reveals%20New%20Evidence.html
http://phillyimc.org/en/2007/10/42653.shtml
2) Iraqi Oil Spoils
Editorial
October 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/opinion/15mon1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
3) Castro Speaks by Telephone With Chávez on TV
By SIMON ROMERO
October 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/world/americas/15castro.html?ref=world
4) Subprime Mortgages Concentrated in City’s Minority Neighborhoods
By Ford Fessenden
October 15, 2007, 10:08 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/subprime-mortgages-concentrated-in-citys-minority-neighborhoods/
5) Racial Slur Written on Bench of Harlem Team at Staten Island Game
By THOMAS J. LUECK
October 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/nyregion/15slur.html?ref=nyregion
6) Dissent in U.A.W. Vote on Chrysler
By MICHELINE MAYNARD and NICK BUNKLEY
October 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/business/16auto-web.html?ref=business
7) Could Afghan Poppies Be Painkillers for the Poor?
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
October 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/weekinreview/14mcneil.html?ref=health
8) In New Jersey, a Safety Net Gets Smaller
By SARAH KERSHAW
October 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/nyregion/14coverage.html?ref=health
9) Minnesota Limit on Gifts to Doctors May Catch On
By GARDINER HARRIS
October 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/us/12gift.html?ref=health
10) On Bonuses and Leaving Iraq
Editorial
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/opinion/16tue1.html?hp
11) In Iran, Putin Warns Against Military Action
By NAZILA FATHI and C.J. CHIVERS
October 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/world/17iran.html?hp
12) Failing Schools Strain to Meet U.S. Standard
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/education/16child.html?hp
13) Treasury Chief Urges Action on Housing Slump
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 16, 2007
Filed at 12:40 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Paulson-Housing.html?hp
14) Troubles Mount Within Texas Youth Detention Agency
By SOLOMON MOORE
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/us/16juvenile.html?ref=us
15) FEMA Offers Up to $4,000 as Home Lure for Storm Victims
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
“If the relocation payments are a carrot, the government also has a stick. Beginning in March, the Disaster Housing Assistance Program will reduce rental aid by $50 a month "with the goal of leading families closer to complete housing independence," meaning an eventual aid cutoff.” [Isn’t it amazing how “housing independence,” in this case, translates into “independence from housing”…bw]
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/washington/16fema.html?ref=us
16) Phone Utilities Won’t Give Details About Eavesdropping
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/washington/16nsa.html?ref=us
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Jurors Never Saw Earliest Photos at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 Trial
RECENT DISCOVERY OF 26 PHOTOS OF
OFFICER FAULKNER’S SCENE OF DEATH
More Evidence that Mumia Abu-Jamal was Denied a Fair Trial
By Educators for Mumia | 10.06.2007
http://abu-jamal-news.com/
http://abu-jamal-news.com/temp/German%20Book%20Reveals%20New%20Evidence.html
http://phillyimc.org/en/2007/10/42653.shtml
German linguist, Michael Schiffmann (University of Heidelberg), has disclosed his discovery of 26 photographs, taken by press photographer Pedro Polakoff, which suggest more evidence that basic investigative protocol was violated by police from the earliest moments of the killing.
The very existence of these photos, and what they show, together with the many other indicators of prosecutorial abuse, manipulation of witnesses and violation of Abu-Jamal’s constitutional rights, give still firmer ground that Abu-Jamal did not receive a fair trial.
EMAJ Press Release - 382K
View the PDF version of this press release, featuring the “7 KEY POINTS ON THE POLAKOFF PHOTOS,” which gives in capsule form the significance of the Polakoff photos: http://www.emajonline.com/files/PressRelease.Polakoff.Photos.EMAJ.pdf
View the Photos: http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/
EMAJ EDUCATORS FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
12 Years Educating and Organizing for Abu-Jamal and Justice
PRESS RELEASE – OCTOBER, 2007. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
Contact: Professor Mark Taylor, Princeton Theological Seminary*, 64 Mercer Street, Princeton, NJ 08542. Phone: 609 672-8199. *Institution for identification purposes only.
Jurors Never Saw Earliest Photos at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 Trial
RECENT DISCOVERY OF 26 PHOTOS OF
OFFICER FAULKNER’S SCENE OF DEATH
More Evidence that Mumia Abu-Jamal was Denied a Fair Trial
Princeton, NJ. September 16, 2007. Analysts and leaders in human rights investigations for years have charged that Pennsylvania death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, did not receive a fair trial when convicted in 1982 of the shooting death of Officer Daniel Faulkner. Amnesty International, for example, continues to call for a new trial, a “fair retrial” of Abu-Jamal.
Now in 2007, German linguist, Michael Schiffmann (University of Heidelberg), has disclosed his discovery of 26 photographs, taken by press photographer Pedro Polakoff, which suggest more evidence that basic investigative protocol was violated by police from the earliest moments of the killing. (As a guide to this Press Release, use the one-page summary at the end of the release, “7 KEY POINTS ON THE POLAKOFF PHOTOS,” which gives in capsule form the significance of the Polakoff photos.)
The very existence of these photos, and what they show, together with the many other indicators of prosecutorial abuse, manipulation of witnesses and violation of Abu-Jamal’s constitutional rights, give still firmer ground that Abu-Jamal did not receive a fair trial.
Officer Faulkner was slain near the corner of Locust and 13th Streets in the early morning hours of December 9, 1981. At a trial the following summer of 1982, Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of the crime and continues to be on death row in Pennsylvania.
Now, the photos show a crime scene in 1981 that was almost completely unsecured by police, with officers holding crime weapons in their bare hands though they denied doing so at trial, and, with someone evidently having changed the position of Officer Faulkner’s hat at the scene for later dramatic effect at trial.
Before commenting on these revelations more, recall the basics of the case. Abu-Jamal, previously Wesley Cook, a noted journalist and political activist in Philadelphia, was found on the sidewalk along with his brother, Billy Cook, when police arrived on the scene to find the dying Faulkner. Abu-Jamal had also been shot, was beaten by arriving police, and was arraigned in the hospital during recovery from his own critical injuries.
To get the conviction at the 1982 trial, prosecutors argued that Abu-Jamal emerged from a cab he had been driving in the area, and ran through a parking lot across the street to confront Faulkner who had pulled over a Volkswagen driven by Mumia’s brother, Billy Cook. Prosecutors claim that as he approached, Mumia shot Faulkner in the back, and then straddled Faulkner, in spite of having taken a shot in the chest, discharging his revolver at the fallen officer and killing him with a bullet between the eyes.
Abu-Jamal’s case is one of the most contested in the history of the United States. Prosecutors, and the Fraternal Order of Police in support of them, have always claimed to possess a water-tight case of eye-witnesses and conclusive evidence.
Nevertheless, Abu-Jamal’s conviction and death sentence have prompted jurists and human rights organizations worldwide to denounce the trial and death sentence as a travesty of justice. They cite bias in the original judge, a racially-skewed process of jury selection, numerous other denials of due process, and prosecution and police intimidation of witnesses. Amnesty International advised, for example, that “justice would best be served by granting a new trial.”
Abu-Jamal’s defense team identified 29 claims of constitutional violation of Abu-Jamal’s constitutional rights, three of which have recently (May 17, 2007) been argued before the justices of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals that now is in deliberation on those claims.
Schiffmann’s discovery of the 26 photos is announced in his thorough analysis of the case in his 2006 book, Race Against Death: The Struggle for the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal (published already in Germany, and awaiting publication in English). The book is an excellent introduction to the case’s complexities. The most startling feature of his study, though, may be the 26 photos he discovered through internet research, taken by experienced press photo-reporter, Pedro P. Polakoff.
These photos still have not been acknowledged or discussed at length by the U.S. media in spite of the long-running public controversy this case has engendered. Seven points, summarized in chart form at end of this press release, dramatize the importance of the Polakoff photos:
Point 1 - The Earliest Photos of the Crime Scene. Press photo-reporter Polakoff arrived at the crime scene just 12 minutes after Faulkner’s killing was reported to police, and he produced at least 26 photos of the scene over a 30-45 minute period, completing them before the Philadelphia Police Department’s Mobile Crime Unit began taking its own pictures.
Point 2 - Officials Ignore Polakoff’s Evidence. Polakoff offered his photos to the D.A.’s office, not once, but twice (before the original 1982 trial and during Mumia’s 1995 PCRA hearings), but at neither opportunity did the prosecutors show any interest or respond to Polakoff’s attempts to contact them. No jury, judge or other legal group has formally reflected on these photos.
Point 3 - An Unsecured Crime Scene. Reflecting on the crime scene in conversation with Schiffmann, Polakoff described it as the “most messed up crime scene I have ever seen,” and, contrary to almost all police protocol and manual instructions, he recalls being permitted to move freely almost everywhere at the scene.
Point 4 - Police Ploys at the Crime Scene. Polakoff’s photos show what appear to be manipulation of evidence and corruption of the crime scene:
(a) A key example of the manipulation of evidence is the movement of slain Officer Faulkner’s hat. The police photos taken later, and then presented to the jury in 1982, show the hat lying on the sidewalk where Faulkner was shot. But one of the earlier of Polakoff’s photos shows the hat resting on the top of his brother’s, Billy Cook’s, Volkswagen.
(b) Exemplary of the corruption of the crime scene are signs of police officers touching the revolvers of Faulkner and Abu-Jamal. At trial, Officer James Forbes denied touching the guns’ metal parts during the full one-and-one-half hour he held them. But not only one, but several of Polakoff’s photos show Forbes holding the guns and touching their metal parts while he stood at the crime scene.
Point 5 - Prosecution’s Cab-Driver Witness: Where Was He? One of the prosecution’s key witnesses, cab driver Robert Chobert, claimed that as the shooting started he was sitting in his cab right behind Faulkner’s police car. But two of Polakoff’s photos show the space behind Faulkner’s squad car at the crime scene, and Chobert’s cab is not parked there.
Point 6 - Did the Killer Really Shoot Downwards at Faulkner on the Pavement? Prosecutors argued that Abu-Jamal, after first shooting him in the back, killed Faulkner by standing over him, unloading several shots from his .38 revolver while Faulkner lay face-up and wounded on the sidewalk, one bullet hitting the policeman “right between the eyes, literally blowing his brains out.” But six of the Polakoff photos show only a clean blood-stain trickling toward the street gutter, not the sidewalk splatter that a .38 revolver would have produced. Even more importantly, the photos also show no traces in the side-walk of the large pieces of cement that the other shots from the .38 revolver would surely have broken out from the pavement.
Point 7 - Police Officers’ Early “Passenger” Theory. Polakoff reported to Schiffmann that officers at the crime scene expressed the conviction that the shooter had been in the passenger seat of Billy Cook’s Volkswagen and had shot Faulkner from that position.
Point 7 warrants special commentary. This early theory of the police was abandoned by the prosecution at trial in favor or an argument that the shooter – according to them, Abu-Jamal – shot Faulkner not from Billy Cook’s Volkswagen, but after running from his own cab parked across the street and toward the crime scene. (Abu-Jamal’s defense did not dispute that Mumia came through a parking lot across the street and had been shot by Faulkner, though of course defense denied claims that Mumia was the shooter.)
Nevertheless, the police officers’ reference to the shooter being in the passenger seat of Cook’s car (based on reports by three unnamed witnesses on the street) is another indication that there was a passenger riding with the driver, Billy Cook. This also gives further support to the much talked-about “third man,” who may have been the shooter and fled the scene.
Schiffmann and others have discussed the various indicators that such a third man was present. These include:
(a) testimony from defense witnesses Dessie Hightower and Veronica Jones (and reports by others) claiming that they saw one or more other persons running from the crime scene after the shooting;
(b) testimony at a 1995 Post-Conviction Relief hearing that a driver’s “license” document found in Officer Faulkner’s shirt pocket after the crime, had been lent to one, Kenneth Freeman, Billy Cook’s business partner and friend who often rode with him in his car. (Freeman, an African-American with dreadlocks, could easily have been confused by police with Mumia when he was emerging from the passenger seat of the VW.)
(c) testimony by one of the prosecution’s own star witnesses, Cynthia White, that two distinct figures, both a driver and a passenger, emerged from Billy Cook’s Volkswagen when it was stopped by Faulkner. This testimony is in the transcript of the earlier March 1982 trial of Billy Cook.
This passenger, this third man, Kenneth Freeman, according to a deposition by journalist Linn Washington, Jr., frequently reported his experiences of police brutality to the Philadelphia Tribune where Washington worked. Washington knew Freeman as a person who had been victimized by police abuse. The person eyewitnesses saw leaving the scene is consistent with the physical description of Freeman. (For more context on Washington’s observations, see his sworn Declaration.)
Billy Cook and Mumia Abu-Jamal did not testify about Freeman, which could have meant pinning criminal blame on a friend of the family.
Kenneth Freeman died on May13/14, 1985, the night of the fire-bombing of the MOVE house, “handcuffed and shot up with drugs and dumped upon a Grink’s lot on Roosevelt Blvd, buck naked” (from testimony at a 1995 PCRA hearing).
No jury heard testimony about Kenneth Freeman, this third man at the crime scene.
(written by Mark L. Taylor, for EMAJ)
View the PDF version of this press release, featuring the “7 KEY POINTS ON THE POLAKOFF PHOTOS,” which gives in capsule form the significance of the Polakoff photos: http://www.emajonline.com/files/PressRelease.Polakoff.Photos.EMAJ.pdf
View The Photos: http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/
In a message dated 10/14/07 12:35:57 PM, howardkeylor@comcast.net writes:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Hans Bennett"
> To:
> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 12:05 PM
> Subject: Today's Mumia feature at the Global IMC
>
>
> Hi folks,
>
> Please check out todays Global IMC feature on Mumia (Indymedia.org) and our
> campaign to get the mainstream media to SIMPLY ACKNOWLEDGE the explosive
> new crime scene photos.
>
> Please help spread this around, and if the numerous embedded links do not
> come through on this email, please download the Word doc I am attaching,
> and link directly to Indymedia.org for the full article, (including The SF
> Bay
> View photo of rapper Immortal Technique holding up the Journalist for Mumia
> poster at the May 16 concert in Phily), or to the original link for the
> article:
>
> http://www.indymedia.org/en/2007/10/894288.shtml
>
> All the Best,
> Hans Bennett
> Abu-Jamal-News.com
>
>
> TAKE ACTION! Big Media Must Not Ignore New Mumia Abu-Jamal Crime Scene
> Photos
> Indymedia.org Feature Article, October 14, 2007
>
> As the world waits on a decision from Mumia Abu-Jamal's May 17 hearing
> before the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, new questions are being
> raised as to whether the original jurors had access to all available
> information. On October 6, Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal (EMAJ) issued a
> press-release stating that recently disclosed photos taken by press
> photographer Pedro Polakoff amount to "more evidence that basic
> investigative protocol was violated by police from the earliest moments of
> the killing."
>
> Pictured: Rap artist Immortal Technique holds a poster depicting several of
> Polakoff's photos. From the SF BayView's report on the May 17 hearing.
>
> Dr. Michael Schiffmann of the University of Heidelberg unveiled these 26
> photos in May at a press conference in Philadelphia. (View four of the
> photos here). The story was picked up by independent media, but no
> mainstream media outlet has acknowledged it. Readers are encouraged to
> contact the media directly, and have prepared a list of media contacts and
> a sample letter.
>
> In anticipation of the Third Circuit Court's ruling, supporters in
> Philadelphia, the SF Bay Area and around the world are preparing for
> emergency "day after" actions. They continue to highlight the connections
> between Mumia's struggle and other political prisoners -- such as Leonard
> Peltier, the Cuban Five, the SF 8, and the MOVE 9. Meanwhile, Mumia
> continues his prolific journalism production from death row, with two new
> stories on the housing crisis in the US, as well as stories on Jena,
> Blackwater, and many more (see below).
>
> Related Coverage: Listen to May 17 courtroom audio ||| "In Prison My Whole
> Life" Premieres October 25 (view trailer) ||| Pacifica Radio's Margaret
> Prescod Interviews Mumia ||| Uprising Radio's Sonali Kolhatkar Interviews
> Mumia ||| Mumia Abu-Jamal: On the Road to Freedom? ||| The Trial of Billy
> Cook ||| Attention MOVE: This is America! ||| "Wettlauf gegen den Tod"
> Mumia Abu-Jamal
>
> Mumia Abu-Jamal has also issued audio reports on the following topics:
> FISA, Ahmadinejad, Pakistan, War Resistance, Congress, 9-11,NYC Racism,
> Tennis,
> Los Cinco, MOVE, Troy Davis, Kenneth Foster, Haditha, Katrina, Michael
> Vick, Ward Churchill, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Elections, Think Tanks, War,
> Vietnam,
> Alberto Gonzales, and more.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) Iraqi Oil Spoils
Editorial
October 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/opinion/15mon1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
The quickening pace of oil deals between Kurdish regional leaders and foreign companies is another sign that Iraq is spinning out of control and the Bush administration has no idea how to stop it.
President Bush set enactment of a national oil law that centralizes development and ensures an equitable division of the profits as a key benchmark of progress. Iraq’s leaders, who have little interest in equity or reconciliation, have blithely ignored it. So the Kurds have taken matters into their own hands, signing nine legally questionable exploration deals with foreign companies.
The administration has complained that the deals “needlessly elevated tensions” between the Kurds and the central government. But it apparently hasn’t leaned very hard on the one American oil company involved, Hunt Oil of Dallas, which has close ties to the White House. Iraq’s oil ministry, meanwhile, has warned that the contracts will be either ignored or considered illegal.
We cannot blame the Kurds for wanting to get on with exploiting their region’s lucrative oil deposits for energy and for profit. While the rest of Iraq is convulsed in violence and politically paralyzed, the Kurdish-administered northeast is the one relatively peaceful region, with functioning schools and government, a separate army and booming business.
The oil contracts, however, are a dangerous attempt to establish facts on the ground, fanning even more distrust and resentment. The Sunnis, many of whom live in areas without any oil resources, fear they will get shut out completely from the country’s oil wealth. The Shiite-dominated government suspects that the Kurds are looking for the resources to secede from Iraq. Any sign that Iraq is about to break up will encourage even more dangerous meddling by neighboring Turkey and Iran.
The Kurds agreed to a carefully constructed compromise national draft oil law last February and insist they remain committed to sharing oil revenues with the rest of the country. But as The Times’s James Glanz reported last month, the compromise appears to have collapsed in an ever more bitter struggle among the Shiite-led government in Baghdad and the Sunnis — who both insist on a strong central government role in letting contracts and running the oil fields — and the Kurds, who demand more regional control.
Foreign oil companies are so eager for profits that they don’t seem worried about whether the deals are legally binding or how they may contribute to Iraq’s chaos.
The White House needs to send a clearer warning to these companies — American and foreign — about the dangers of their course. It should also urge the companies to bring their own pressure on Iraqi officials to adopt a law that ensures that whatever system emerges is transparent, accountable and profitable for all Iraqis. Ignoring that is a recipe for continued chaos.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) Castro Speaks by Telephone With Chávez on TV
By SIMON ROMERO
October 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/world/americas/15castro.html?ref=world
CARACAS, Venezuela, Oct. 14 — Fidel Castro of Cuba chatted by telephone with Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, during a live television broadcast on Sunday, with the two leaders going over plans to strengthen economic and political ties.
Mr. Chávez’s weekly television program was broadcast from Santa Clara in central Cuba, where the remains of Che Guevara are kept, to mark the death 40 years ago this month of the iconic guerrilla leader. While Mr. Castro, who is 81, did not appear on the program, it was the first time Cubans were given broad access to a live broadcast of the Cuban leader since he went into seclusion for health reasons last year. The program was shown in Cuba and Venezuela.
With Mr. Castro’s appearances in the Cuban news media closely controlled, his inclusion in a Venezuelan program points to Mr. Chávez’s prominence in guiding the economic destiny of Cuba, which relies on subsidized imports of Venezuelan oil.
Mr. Chávez also showed a short video of a meeting held a day earlier in Havana, in which Mr. Castro, looking frail and speaking with a gravelly voice, accepted as a gift a painting done by Mr. Chávez in prison after the Venezuelan leader’s failed coup attempt in 1992.
In the telephone discussion on Sunday, the voice sounded clearer. “The conditions are more favorable than ever to spring forth the ideas and revolution of which Che spoke,” Mr. Castro said.
The audience in Santa Clara included Cuba’s vice president, Carlos Lage, dressed in a red polo shirt decorated with a Che logo, and Venezuela’s foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro. Notably absent was Cuba’s acting president and Mr. Castro’s brother, Raúl Castro.
Mr. Chávez did most of the talking, highlighting his plans to expand energy subsidies to Cuba to include natural gas exports.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Subprime Mortgages Concentrated in City’s Minority Neighborhoods
By Ford Fessenden
October 15, 2007, 10:08 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/subprime-mortgages-concentrated-in-citys-minority-neighborhoods/
High-cost “subprime” home mortgages became widely popular in New York City, as they have across the region and the country in the last few years. New data from the federal government show that subprime loans made up 32 percent of mortgages on 1- to 4-family residences in the city in 2006, up from 28 percent in 2005. Most of these loans went to minority borrowers.
An interactive graphic by The New York Times allows users to compare neighborhoods according to the rate of subprime mortgages. In the city, subprime loans have been particularly prevalent in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods, including eastern Brooklyn, southeastern Queens and the south-central Bronx.
Throughout the region, the surge in subprime lending across the region in recent years is helping to fuel a boom in foreclosures.
And now a new study by New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, as Manny Fernandez reports in today’s Times, shows that some buyers in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods in New York City were more likely to get their mortgages last year from a subprime lender than home buyers in white neighborhoods with similar income levels.
In general, even middle-class and wealthy minority home buyers have been more likely than their white counterparts to get high-cost, subprime loans, a pattern that housing activists have decried for years as evidence that prime lenders aren’t living up to their responsibilities under the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to lend in areas all areas in which they do business.
The interactive map of mortgage loans by Census tract shows clearly that subprime lending was especially common in the areas of the city where minorities live. The majority of loans in places like Bushwick, East New York, Locust Manor, St. Albans, and much of the Bronx, was subprime, a fact that could have implications for redevelopment in those areas if foreclosures on subprime loans continue to climb.
Most of the lending in Manhattan, northeast Queens, and the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope and Bay Ridge was by prime lenders, at low, prime interest rates. But even in those areas, some mortgages were subprimes.
Any loan that carried an interest rate more than three percentage points above the prevailing rate for longterm treasury bonds was considered a subprime mortgage. During 2006, treasury rates ranged from 4.5 to 5.3 percent. Prime mortgage interest rates averaged between 6.1 and 6.8 percent percent, according to Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) Racial Slur Written on Bench of Harlem Team at Staten Island Game
By THOMAS J. LUECK
October 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/nyregion/15slur.html?ref=nyregion
The police and city education officials said yesterday that they were investigating the appearance of a racial slur on a bench that was to be used by a Harlem high school football team at a game on Saturday at Staten Island Technical High School.
Besides trying to determine who was responsible for the slur, school investigators were looking into the response of Staten Island Tech faculty members, said Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education. The coach of the Harlem team, sponsored by Wadleigh High School, accused two Staten Island Tech faculty members of trying to trivialize the incident.
The coach, Duke Fergerson, said he noticed the slur written in black ink on the top of a metal bench assigned to his team, the Harlem Hellfighters, about an hour before it was to begin its game at noon against the McKee/Staten Island Tech Seagulls. Mr. Fergerson said the slur contained a common racial epithet and the initials “M.S.I.T.,” which he believed to refer to the Staten Island team.
The Seagulls are fielded by a joint athletic program of Staten Island Tech and McKee High School. The Harlem Hellfighters field players from a dozen high schools in Upper Manhattan.
Mr. Fergerson said he reported the discovery to a school security officer, who called the police. Then, Mr. Fergerson said, he was approached by an assistant vice principal from Staten Island Tech. “He said, ‘Why don’t you let it go?’” Mr. Fergerson said yesterday. “He said this could only have been done by kids.”
Mr. Fergerson said an athletic director from Staten Island Tech later chastised him for calling the police and told a referee to move the bench. Mr. Fergerson said he argued that the bench should stay in place until the police arrived, but the referee moved it anyway.
Mr. Fergerson said he could not identify either of the faculty members or the referee by name. He said the police arrived at the field about five minutes after the game began. (The Harlem team won, 44-36, in triple overtime.)
Staten Island Tech’s athletic director, James McCarthy, could not be reached for comment yesterday. Kenneth J. Bonamo Jr., an assistant principal, defended the response by Staten Island Tech officials, saying that they were dealing at the time with a 17-year-old student who had to be resuscitated after he collapsed on the tennis courts about 100 yards from the football field.
“I’m not African-American, so I can’t say I know how they feel, but I think any human being would put life before feelings,” said Mr. Bonamo, who added that he was not among the officials who spoke with Mr. Fergerson. “I think had they known that we had a student under cardiac arrest, they may not have perceived us having a cavalier attitude.”
The police said yesterday that the incident had been turned over to its Hate Crime Task Force, which has been busy. Last week a noose was found on the door of a black professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and anti-Semitic graffiti were splashed across Brooklyn Heights last month.
Ms. Feinberg said the Department of Education was “taking these allegations very seriously, and we are investigating them.”
Mr. Fergerson was a wide receiver in the 1970s and 1980s for the Seattle Seahawks and Buffalo Bills, and the Harlem team was the subject of a documentary that was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival this year.
Staten Island Tech is among the city’s elite schools, with students gaining admission after taking the Specialized High School Admissions Test.
Trymaine Lee contributed reporting.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Dissent in U.A.W. Vote on Chrysler
By MICHELINE MAYNARD and NICK BUNKLEY
October 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/business/16auto-web.html?ref=business
DETROIT, Oct. 15 — United Automobile Workers leaders approved a new tentative agreement with Chrysler LLC today, clearing the way for a vote by about 45,000 Chrysler workers. But the leaders of several union locals voted against the contract, which could spell difficulties for its ratification.
Several union leaders said they were concerned that the contract did not include specific promises by Chrysler for future work at their plants, beyond the vehicles they build now.
The meeting of the U.A.W.’s Chrysler Council was held at Cobo Center in Detroit. The U.A.W. reached a tentative agreement with Chrysler last Wednesday after a six-hour strike.
The contract is similar to a new agreement between the U.A.W. and General Motors.
Local leaders leaving today’s meeting said that the contract had been approved by the council, but that the vote had not been unanimous, unlike a similar vote by leaders of G.M.’s local unions.
Tom Littlejohn, president of Local 1268 in Belvidere, Ill., said he opposed the contract. “I’m not going to recommend ratification,” Mr. Littlejohn said.
Mr. Littlejohn said union officials had not taken a roll-call vote inside the council meeting, but said the voice vote appeared too close to call. “Had I been in charge, I would have called for a count of the house,” he said.
But the union’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, said the contract was “overwhelmingly supported” by the council. “We give people an opportunity to express themselves,” he said of those who opposed it. “We’re a very democratic union.”
He went on: “We did the very best that we could in this set of negotiations. I’m very pleased with the outcome, and we’re prepared to go out into the field” to urge workers to vote for the contract. He said the union hoped to complete voting by the last week of the month.
Mr. Gettelfinger maintained that there was “as strong of language in this agreement as we’ve ever had” on job security, but he did not discuss the company’s investments.
He said he had met Friday with officials at Ford Motor, the final Detroit company with which the union must reach agreement, but would not say when talks there would begin. He said he hoped talks there would be settled “without any altercation.”
The developments on the Chrysler contract came as G.M. released details showing that the health care trust created in G.M.’s new contract stands to become the company’s biggest shareholder.
The trust would hold roughly 16 percent of G.M. stock, because of a convertible note that G.M. is investing in order to establish the trust. That level would make it G.M.’s biggest institutional shareholder, surpassing the State Street Corporation, which has about 13 percent of G.M. stock.
G.M. and the U.A.W. reached agreement on their contract on Sept. 26, after a two-day strike. Workers approved the contract last week.
It established the trust, called a voluntary employee benefit association, which would assume G.M.’s liability for health care benefits for G.M. workers, retirees and their families over their lifetimes.
Today, G.M. said the liability for its U.A.W. members was about $46.7 billion.
G.M. agreed to spend $29.9 billion to finance the trust, which are generally created at a discount to their total liability. The G.M. investment includes cash as well as a five-year, $4.37 billion convertible note, which will be invested in the trust on Jan. 1.
The note is equal to 109 million newly issued G.M. shares at $40 a share. G.M. can convert the note after three years, meaning in 2011, the same year that the U.A.W. contract expires. It can also convert it if G.M.’s share price reaches $48.
G.M. stock was down $1.34, to $41.30 in late morning trading.
The trust would be run by an independent board that is expect to include union and company advisers, although G.M. said it might not take part if that affects the accounting for its liability. The new contract with Chrysler calls for the creation of a similar trust, and it is expected to be a feature of any agreement with Ford Motor, as well.
G.M.’s chief financial officer, Frederick Henderson, said the VEBA “will be a very large shareholder of General Motors.” He said he would expect its trustees to “vote the stock in the same proportion as all shareholders.”
Speaking on another aspect of the contract, Mr. Henderson said G.M. would no longer pay retirement health care benefits for newly hired workers, even when they reach full status at the company.
The contract creates a new two-tier wage and benefit system that pays sharply lower wages and less-generous benefits to workers in the lower tier of wages.
But instead of post-retirement medical benefits, those workers would receive 401(k) funds that presumably would pay for their medical coverage after retirement.
G.M. said it expected to promote workers from the second tier to the higher-paying first tier, as veteran workers retire or leave the company. It said about 75 percent of its workers would be eligible to retire, or take early retirement benefits, by 2011.
But even when the newly hired workers advance, they would not be eligible for traditional retiree health care benefits, G.M. said.
U.A.W. leaders had no immediate comment on the G.M. disclosures.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) Could Afghan Poppies Be Painkillers for the Poor?
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
October 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/weekinreview/14mcneil.html?ref=health
AS opium harvests in Afghanistan have steadily increased, some think tanks and politicians — mostly in Britain — have raised a trenchant question: rather than trying to eradicate Afghanistan’s poppies, why not instead buy them and make morphine?
Given that the World Health Organization estimates that over 6.2 million of the world’s poor are dying of cancer, AIDS, burns and wounds without adequate pain relief, the argument goes, wouldn’t it make sense?
Most prominent among these proposals is an analysis by the Senlis Council, a drug-policy research group with offices in London, Brussels and Kabul. The council argues that the United States and Britain waste more than $800 million a year, as well as soldiers’ lives, trying futilely to eradicate poppies.
Instead, it calculated two years ago, Afghanistan’s whole crop could be purchased for about $600 million — the “farm gate” price, not the street value of the heroin into which it is refined, which is over $50 billion. (The “farm gate” estimate has gone up as the crop has increased, and may be $1 billion now.)
Whatever the price, “enforcement will not work,” said Romesh Bhattacharji, a former narcotics commissioner of India who has investigated the Afghan situation for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. “The Afghan farmer will not switch to alternative crops as long as there is a market for his opium.”
Mr. Bhattacharji says he now endorses the idea of buying the crop.
The United States and British governments are vigorously opposed; instead they favor tough eradication tactics and more encouragement to farmers to grow wheat, cotton or fruit.
“They’re growing a poison, sir — one that kills Afghanistan’s neighbors and corrupts officials,” Thomas A. Schweich, chief of the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, said in a telephone interview. “There needs to be better and more forceful eradication.”
There is an American precedent for buying. In the late 1960’s, the Nixon administration, fighting a heroin epidemic, pressured Turkey, then the world’s chief grower, to eradicate its poppy crops.
Unable to do that (both because of corruption and because peasant farmers vote) Turkey in 1974 started licensing farmers to grow for the morphine trade, and the United States in 1981 gave protected-market status to Turkey and India, obligating itself to buy 80 percent of the raw material for American painkillers from them. Why not, the Senlis Council and others argue, let Afghanistan join the legitimate supply chain? Mr. Schweich and others reply that it is simply impractical — Afghanistan grows 93 percent of the world’s poppies; its crop is 15 times the size of India’s.
Also, heroin smugglers pay better. For example, India officially paid its legal farmers only $20 to $50 per kilogram last year, while farmers interviewed in central India in May said illegal buyers were offering $100 to $190. Prices in Afghanistan, at roughly the same time, were about $125.
“Why would anybody switch to legal opium when they can get those prices?” Mr. Schweich asked. Making up the difference with price supports — another idea with American precedents — would cost as much as an extra $800 million.
“You can do the math,” he said. “If we did it, no one in Afghanistan would grow any other crop, we’d be paying billions for it, and it would become a narco-welfare state.”
The idea meets opposition from other quarters, too. Jagjit Pavadia, the current narcotics commissioner of India, said in an interview that if the world becomes ready to buy more morphine for the dying poor she would like Indian farmers to benefit first. Because of falling demand, India has slowly cut its licensed farmers from 150,000 to 62,000.
A third-generation opium farmer in Neemuch, India, was even more adamant. “We have 150 years’ experience in selling to government,” said Ramchandra Nagda, who also grows wheat, garlic and spices. “There is better control here than there ever will be in Afghanistan.”
The United Nations drugs office estimates that heroin rings buy about 30 percent of India’s crop, despite the efforts of 1,200 narcotics control bureau officers. Diversion in Afghanistan, a lawless warlord state, would presumably be far harder to control.
In the British press, there is some serious discussion of the Senlis proposal. But in the United States, the idea has attracted little attention. The council attributes this partially to the lobbying power of the religious right and law enforcement groups, both of which react with horror to any talk of legalization.
“It’s almost theological, their opposition to our idea,” said Norine MacDonald, the council’s founder.
Also, both she and Mr. Bhattacharji said, with a $600 million annual budget for eradication, the field attracts paramilitary contractors with deep connections to the Bush administration, including Blackwater USA and DynCorp International, both of whom train Afghan anti-narcotics police.
Mr. Schweich called such a view “cynical and inaccurate” and maintained that local Afghan governors were the leading force in eradication, though he agreed that their efforts were plagued with nepotism and corruption.
In any case, many experts — even those favoring the use of Afghanistan’s crop for morphine — say it does not change one looming reality: the heroin trade is so large and so lucrative that someone, somewhere, is going to grow the poppies for it.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) In New Jersey, a Safety Net Gets Smaller
By SARAH KERSHAW
October 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/nyregion/14coverage.html?ref=health
PLAINFIELD, N.J., Oct. 12 — Under its ambitious policy to provide children’s health insurance to the working poor, New Jersey has long been one of the most aggressive states in the nation in throwing a wide safety net out for families like the Martinezes of Bayonne, the Palmers of Sicklerville and the Urquizos of North Plainfield.
But the six children in those three families are among the 11,000 children in low- and middle-income families in New Jersey who will no longer be covered by the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-Chip, under new federal income eligibility rules.
Still more would be cut from the program known as New Jersey Family Care as increases in health care costs deplete the children’s health insurance coffers, state health officials said.
According to health care experts, an estimated one million children across the country would be phased out of the insurance program over the next few years under the $30 billion five-year plan proposed by President Bush.
“They are not looking at the consequences of this for families and children that are going to lose out,” said Ann Martinez, 28, an administrative assistant. She said that she earns too much money to qualify for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, but that she cannot afford the $500 a month it would cost her for coverage for her two children.
Ms. Martinez, who earns $47,000 a year, is covered under her employer’s health plan, but her children are covered by New Jersey Family Care; in 2001, the state raised the eligibility level to allow families like hers earning up to 350 percent of the federal poverty level to qualify ($72,275 for a family of four).
Her son, Jonathan, 13, has high blood pressure and attention deficit disorder. Without the children’s health insurance plan, which covers prescriptions, his medications would cost her $250 a month, stretching a budget that is already squeezed by rent and car payments.
“It’s going to be really sad what happens,” Ms. Martinez said.
New Jersey has the highest income eligibility threshold of any state, but several other states have also raised income caps to cover more families since the program was created in 1997. They would also have to cut children from the insurance rolls, under the new federal rules.
The new rules now cap eligibility at two and a half times the poverty level, but 10 states and the District of Columbia have provided coverage, most of it financed by federal dollars, to children in families earning above that level. Several states, including Connecticut, Maryland and New Hampshire, have put the cap at 300 percent of the poverty level.
New York tried to raise its eligibility threshold to 400 percent of the poverty level, but federal health officials denied the application last month, prompting Gov. Eliot Spitzer, joined by the governors of several other states, to sue the Bush administration over the federal rules.
President Bush vetoed legislation that would have allowed states like New Jersey, with one of the highest costs of living in the nation, to expand coverage under S-Chip, adding four million uninsured children nationwide to the six million covered now.
The bill would have provided $60 billion for the program over five years. It would also have increased eligibility to 300 percent of the poverty level, or $61,950 for a family of four, from the new federal cap of 250 percent, which was announced in August.
Advocates of the Bush administration’s stricter eligibility rules and its spending plan said the program must be reserved for the poorest citizens, not for those in higher income brackets. (Most of New Jersey’s 124,000 enrolled children are from families in lower income brackets.) New Jersey Republicans siding with Mr. Bush said an expansion of the insurance program would give the government far too big a role in health care coverage.
“I’m glad that President Bush stood by his veto threat,” Representative Scott Garrett, Republican of Paramus, said in a statement. “Congress must return to the drawing board and develop a reasonable, bipartisan approach that actually helps our low-income children rather than create a new entitlement for families earning $72,000 per year.”
At ground zero in this raging debate over eligibility and financing is the Plainfield Health Center, where the pediatric unit has brightly colored examination rooms and a waiting room decorated with a brown bear pointing to a caboose and shouting, “All aboard the health train!” On Friday afternoon, the unit was full of patients being treated for asthma, headaches, colds and much worse.
Of the 70 children who are treated daily at the center, about three will lose coverage under the Bush administration’s rules, because their families earn too much. If the state cannot come up with the money to cover the federal share, those children will have to be kicked off the rolls, said Jaspreet K. Sodhi, director of patient financial services.
“These children will be completely uninsured,” Ms. Sodhi said. “We will never deny treatment, but their families will walk out of here and they will be getting a bill.”
New Jersey state officials, who have also filed a federal lawsuit against the Bush administration challenging the stricter eligibility rules, said they were still weighing their options.
In South Jersey, Syeeba Palmer, a widow, earns too much to qualify for Medicaid coverage for her children, ages 2 and 5, because she receives $2,800 a month from her late husband’s Social Security. Ms. Palmer’s monthly mortgage payment is $2,400, she said. And since she was laid off from her job as a health insurance consultant several months ago, she said it cost an estimated $1,100 a month to continue to cover herself and her children. She decided not to get coverage for herself and to apply for New Jersey Family Care for the children.
“If I lose this insurance, there is no way I can afford it on my own,” she said.
Reina Urquizo, a legal resident from El Salvador, works at a factory in Warren that makes cables for cellphones and other electronics. Her two sons, ages 2 and 9, were enrolled in the children’s insurance program, but they would no longer qualify under the new eligibility rule. While she has private insurance, the family cannot afford to cover her husband.
Children’s advocates and legislators and governors from both sides of the aisle are furiously lobbying House Republicans in an effort to override the veto in a vote scheduled for Thursday. The bill was passed 265 to 159 in the House; to override the veto, 290 “yes” votes would be needed, if all 435 House members vote.
In Connecticut, where Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a Republican, was among dozens of governors urging Mr. Bush not to veto the S-Chip legislation, the legislature has already financed coverage of 17,000 children for the next two years; 3,750 of them now are not qualified under the new rules, officials said. Connecticut may not be reimbursed for those children, but unlike New Jersey and New York, that state had no plans to expand its program.
Children’s advocates said New Jersey had been far ahead of other states, and was considered a model of how to stretch state dollars to cover as many uninsured children as possible.
“This really pulls the rug out from under the state, which was really trying to do the right thing,” said Irwin Redlener, president of the Children’s Health Fund, a national health care and advocacy organization based in New York. “We will be seeing large numbers of children with no immunizations, no asthma diagnosed, and this becomes a real-world horrendous burden for families and children at the end of the day.”
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) Minnesota Limit on Gifts to Doctors May Catch On
By GARDINER HARRIS
October 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/us/12gift.html?ref=health
There are bagels and fruit in the morning, sandwiches at lunch, fresh cookies in the afternoon and an occasional restaurant dinner, but many of the doctors who routinely accept these goodies from pharmaceutical sales representatives say they see sales people for the educational messages they bring, not the food.
Maybe doctors in Minnesota are different.
Two years after Minnesota officials forbade drug makers to give doctors more than $50 worth of food or other gifts per year, drug company sales representatives there are having a far harder time marketing to doctors. The rule change was small and almost accidental — a state official decided to interpret a 1993 law differently from his predecessor. But the effect on drug makers has been profound.
The year after the change, the number of visits that Minnesota primary care doctors accepted from drug sales representatives decreased at about twice the rate of the decline reported by primary care doctors nationwide, according to a survey by ImpactRx, a New Jersey firm that tracks pharmaceutical marketing. A growing number of Minnesota hospitals and clinics have banned routine visits from them.
“We have an extended hallway, and the sales reps sit there now without anything except maybe Styrofoam cups filled with M&Ms. The 30 pizzas are gone,” said Dr. Michael Severson, a pediatrician in Brainerd, Minn. “It’s made the doctors think about whether to ban them.”
A 1997 study found that medical students saw gift-bearing drug sales representatives as helpful while viewing with suspicion those without gifts. This experiment is now being played out statewide in Minnesota.
Leslie Pott, a spokeswoman for AstraZeneca, said the company provided “modest meals” to doctors because “given a physician’s demanding clinical schedule, the most efficient time for doctors and medical staff to meet with representatives is often during lunch hour.”
“We believe it is important that physicians have access to the latest information on our drugs,” Ms. Pott said.
She would not comment on Minnesota’s food limit or its effect on her company.
Minnesota also requires drug makers to report all consulting payments made to doctors. Maine, Vermont and West Virginia have passed similar registry requirements, at least a dozen other states are considering them and Congress is considering a national one.
But no other state has adopted Minnesota’s limit on free food. That could change.
New Jersey’s attorney general, Anne Milgram, who announced on Sept. 18 the creation of a task force to examine ways to limit the gifts and money that drug and device makers give doctors, said in an interview that she planned to look closely at Minnesota’s food limit.
“When you see a doctor, you should have confidence that the advice you get is based on what’s best for you and not on some financial incentives or gifts that the doctor is getting,” Ms. Milgram said.
The interest in legislation to register or limit the food, gifts and money that drug and device makers lavish on doctors stems from growing concerns that these benefits lead doctors to prescribe more, and more expensive, drugs and devices, raising the costs of health care and changing care to patients.
Few studies have shown that patients are harmed when their doctors accept gifts or money from drug makers, in part because data comparing the prescribing trends of doctors who accept money and gifts with those who do not have for years been available only to drug makers, not to the public.
In one of the few public analyses of the prescription patterns of doctors, The New York Times found that Minnesota psychiatrists who received money from makers of atypical antipsychotics tended to prescribe the drugs to children the most often despite the profound risks from these drugs.
Drug makers have long argued that buying modest meals for doctors is simply a courtesy that allows doctors to take a moment out of their busy schedules to learn about medicines. Most doctors dismiss the notion that they can be influenced by food.
But the Minnesota experience suggests otherwise.
Dr. Samuel Carlson, chief medical officer of Park Nicollet Health Services, one of Minnesota’s largest private health systems, said that many of his system’s 20 clinics began asking to bar sales representatives after the food limit went into effect. Park Nicollet is considering further systemwide restrictions on sales representatives, Dr. Carlson said.
SMDC Health System of Duluth, Minn., a nonprofit system of 17 clinics and four hospitals, forbids drug sales representatives to make unannounced visits or provide free drug samples, gifts or food. By the end of the year, the system will place strict limits on consulting relationships between its 450 doctors and drug makers.
“No matter how you look at it, we’re all influenced by these marketing activities,” said Dr. Carl Heltne, chief medical officer for SMDC. “But patients come to us and they trust us to make decisions solely on their behalf. To uphold that trust, we can’t have even a perception that companies influence us.”
Michael Clements, the owner of a food-catering business in St. Paul, said the new rules had been disastrous for him. His business of taking lunches, paid for by drug makers, to doctors’ offices all but disappeared after the rule change, cutting his overall sales by two-thirds, Mr. Clements said.
Food has long been a pillar of drug makers’ marketing efforts. In data collected by the state of Vermont, drug makers spent nearly $778,000 last year buying food for Vermont doctors.
Food has not entirely disappeared from the marketing efforts of drug makers in Minnesota. The companies still rent out private dining rooms in restaurants and still hire influential doctors to deliver educational talks about drugs during dinner. But instead of doctors, the companies now invite nurses and secretaries to dine, drink and listen.
Sue Bikke, a geriatric nurse in St. Paul, said she was delighted when she and her nursing colleagues suddenly started receiving invitations to free meals — wine and cocktails included — at the area’s best restaurants.
“I don’t go to those places normally because they’re way too expensive for me,” Ms. Bikke said. “I’m so grateful that nurses are starting to get all these perks.”
Ms. Bikke said that many of her nursing colleagues were puzzled to receive these dinner invitations since they cannot prescribe drugs. But the nurses and secretaries may be ancillary to the companies’ principal target: the speakers at these events.
Those delivering the talks get training that involves learning drug makers’ most important marketing messages. And they receive anywhere from $500 to $5,000 for each talk they give, with some doctors earning more than $100,000 annually.
“This is the companies’ way of thanking high prescribers,” said David J. Rothman, president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University. “Drug companies don’t really care who’s in the audience.”
When asked whether drug makers’ motivation for hiring doctors to educate secretaries may be to influence them instead of the secretaries, many doctors said they had never thought of that.
“That’s a good question,” answered Dr. Kent G. Brockmann, a psychiatrist from the Twin Cities, who earned more than $16,000 from 2003 to 2005 doing educational talks for drug makers. “Maybe they’re trying to keep me loyal to those drugs.”
Still, nearly all said that they were not influenced by the money they earned giving the talks.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) On Bonuses and Leaving Iraq
Editorial
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/opinion/16tue1.html?hp
There are new signs that an American military in distress is reshaping itself to cope with the destructive fallout of Iraq — and to look beyond it, even as President Bush insists on dispatching Americans to go on fighting and dying there. Young officers have been offered big cash bonuses to stay in an Army struggling to retain them. The Marines, meanwhile, are trying to move out of Iraq and into Afghanistan, a more popular mission where they could focus on America’s real enemies — al Qaeda and its allies, the Taliban — instead of trying to police a civil war.
The unprecedented bonuses — up to $35,000 — are a sign of desperation. Lengthy and repeated tours in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan have created critical shortages of younger officers in such important specialties as military intelligence, aviation — and even in the infantry as more and more men and women choose to leave the service rather than re-enlist. The Washington Post reported that when its expansion plans are factored in, the Army is projecting a shortage of 3,000 captains and majors annually through 2013.
What does it tell you when the Marines are considering shifting their mission to Afghanistan? Perhaps it’s too glib to say that they see a failing fight in Iraq and are trying get out while they can, but it’s certainly not good news for Pentagon war planners or the rest of America.
Thom Shanker of The Times reported that Pentagon supporters argue that the proposal, which envisions consolidating Army forces in Afghanistan with those in Iraq, would simplify planning for future troop rotations and make it easier for each branch to sustain troop levels.
Many questions are unanswered, but some experts suspect that the Marines are positioning themselves for a new American president — when troops would be phased out of Iraq and a new struggle for budget resources would be in play. Taking on the Afghanistan mission under overall NATO command would give the Marines a more visible role than in Iraq, where the Army fielded the largest number of troops, and — presumably — more clout to argue for increased defense spending.
The bonuses are another desperate reminder of how little planning was done for the Iraq war, and how much damage it has done to America’s forces. They are also the right thing to do, especially given the prolonged sacrifice demanded of the troops and their families. We are agnostic at this time on the Marine’s proposal for Afghanistan but are relieved that at least somebody is starting to plan for leaving Iraq.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) In Iran, Putin Warns Against Military Action
By NAZILA FATHI and C.J. CHIVERS
October 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/world/17iran.html?hp
TEHRAN, Oct. 16 — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told a summit meeting of five Caspian Sea nations in Iran today that any use of military force in the region was unacceptable and in a declaration the countries agreed that none of them would allow their territories to be used as a base for launching military strikes against any of the others.
“We should not even think of making use of force in this region,” Mr. Putin said.
Mr. Putin’s comments and the declaration come at a time when France and the United States have refused to rule out military action to halt Iran’s nuclear energy program, which they believe masks a desire to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is solely for peaceful purposes.
Asked this morning about Mr. Putin’s remarks, Tony Fratto, the deputy White House press secretary, said simply, “That sounds like a good policy.”
Mr. Putin arrived in Tehran today for meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and leaders from three other nearby Caspian Sea nations that have rich oil and gas resources, promising to use diplomacy to try to resolve the international debate over Iran’s nuclear program.
He was the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since 1943, when Stalin attended a wartime summit meeting with Churchill and Roosevelt. His statements, which were consistent with his past positions cautioning against military action against Iran, were nonetheless stark in their setting and firmly emphasized his differences with the United States over the extent of Iran’s threat and the means to counter it.
“Not only should we reject the use of force, but also the mention of force as a possibility,” Mr. Putin said. “This is very important. We must not submit to other states in the case of aggression or some other kind of military action directed against one of the Caspian countries.”
Russia has blocked a third set of sanctions against Iran at the United Nations that are intended to persuade the country to stop enrichment activities, which Western nations fear could lead to the development of nuclear weapons.
Mr. Putin, who has emphasized the need for further dialogue and working within the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that Iran’s nuclear programs are for peaceful purposes, was scheduled to meet Mr. Ahmadinejad twice today.
He has further called into question the concerns of the United States and France that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, saying that while he seeks transparency of Iran’s program he as yet has not seen clear evidence of any Iranian intention to make nuclear weapons.
In spite of Mr. Putin’s strong statements and the evident show of solidarity among the countries bordering the Caspian Sea, significant regional tensions remain.
The principal reason for the summit in Tehran was further discussion among the leaders of nations that border the Caspian Sea, include the leaders of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, about the division of the sea’s resources, particularly oil.
With world oil prices at about $86 a barrel, the legal status and ownership of oil and gas deposits under the sea bed, and potential transit routes, have become contentious issues.
Iran and the Soviet Union once recognized a water boundary between the two governments and had agreements for sharing its resources. Before 1991, each country took 50 percent of the oil and gas from the sea.
But since the Soviet Union collapsed, the successor governments in the newly independent Caspian states have quarreled over where their sea borders should be drawn. Iran, whose coastline makes up about 13 percent of the sea, has insisted that it will not agree to a share of less than 20 percent.
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have also expressed interest in building pipelines along routes under the sea, which would allow Central Asian governments to bypass Russian pipeline systems as they ship their resources to the West. Russia opposes the idea, which would break its monopoly, citing environmental concerns.
In the absence of a multilateral agreement and mutually accepted borders, the Caspian nations are developing the oil resources as they see fit, although analysts have said that the absence of clear at-sea borders has limited the sector’s development.
“The division of the sea is not less important than the nuclear program,” said Ahmad Nateq Nouri, a former parliamentary speaker, in a report carried on the Fars news agency.
But the issue of Iran’s nuclear program overshadowed the others. Mr. Putin’s remarks also underscored a longstanding unease in the Kremlin with what it regards as a creeping American military presence in Central Asia, a region formerly solely under Moscow’s control.
Since the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, the Pentagon has built a military base in Kyrgyzstan to support operations in Afghanistan, and has expanded its military collaboration with Azerbaijan, including underwriting an upgrade of a former Soviet airfield there.
It also has an agreement allowing military transport planes en route to Afghanistan to refuel in Turkmenistan, a country that has made neutrality a cornerstone of its foreign policy.
The American presence and collaboration in the region has alarmed Moscow, and its potential access to improved airfields in two countries bordering Iran — Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan — has fueled speculation that the airfields could support actions against Tehran.
Mr. Ahmadinejad intimated as much in his statements today. “On many issues we have reached final agreement but we also need collective cooperation,” said Mr. Ahmadinejad at the gathering. “The goal is to keep the sea clear of military competitions and keep foreigners out of the region.”
However, the summit concluded without a clear agreement on territorial demarcation. The leaders said in the declaration that the sea would be used for peaceful purposes and its issues would be resolved by the coastal states.
As part of the talks expected later, Mr. Putin and Mr. Ahmadinejad planned to discuss the completion of a nuclear power plant that Russia is building in the southern city of Bushehr. Russia has given various reasons for the delay in completing the plant.
Mr. Putin was received by the foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, at the Tehran airport, according to state-run television. Mr. Putin, who had flown from Germany, where he met Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday, went ahead with the trip despite a report of a possible assassination plot against him in Iran.
On Sunday evening, the Interfax news agency in Moscow reported that Mr. Putin had received a warning from the Russian special services that his life would be in danger during his trip. Interfax cited a single unnamed source, and wrote of a plot involving suicide bombers. Other news agencies published similar reports on Monday, but without details or evidence. Iran dismissed the reports as a fabrication.
Russia and China hold veto power on the United Nations Security Council, and Iran is relying on both countries which have important trade ties with Iran to oppose another round of sanctions. Moscow voted for two sets of sanctions but it has said that it will not support a third set without convincing evidence that Iran has a program to build nuclear weapons.
In addition to the nuclear power plants, and business ties, Moscow has a long record of military collaboration with Iran, which relies on Soviet-era and Russian weapons and munitions for its armed forces. The Russian president’s visit appeared to underscore the many levels of bilateral ties. Mr. Putin said as much himself.
“Trade with Iran has been increasing continually, and has already reached $2 billion,” he said.
Mr. Putin added that the two countries planned to cooperate on space, aviation and energy issues and suggested that the tensions with the West over Iran’s nuclear program had provided Russia a unique role. “Russia is the only country that is helping Iran to realize its nuclear program in a peaceful way.”
Nazila Fathi reported from Tehran and C.J. Chivers from Moscow. Brian Knowlton contributed reporting from Washington.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) Failing Schools Strain to Meet U.S. Standard
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/education/16child.html?hp
LOS ANGELES — As the director of high schools in the gang-infested neighborhoods of the East Side of Los Angeles, Guadalupe Paramo struggles every day with educational dysfunction.
For the past half-dozen years, not even one in five students at her district’s teeming high schools has been able to do grade-level math or English. At Abraham Lincoln High School this year, only 7 in 100 students could. At Woodrow Wilson High, only 4 in 100 could.
For chronically failing schools like these, the No Child Left Behind law, now up for renewal in Congress, prescribes drastic measures: firing teachers and principals, shutting schools and turning them over to a private firm, a charter operator or the state itself, or a major overhaul in governance.
But more than 1,000 of California’s 9,500 schools are branded chronic failures, and the numbers are growing. Barring revisions in the law, state officials predict that all 6,063 public schools serving poor students will be declared in need of restructuring by 2014, when the law requires universal proficiency in math and reading.
“What are we supposed to do?” Ms. Paramo asked. “Shut down every school?”
With the education law now in its fifth year — the one in which its more severe penalties are supposed to come into wide play — California is not the only state overwhelmed by growing numbers of schools that cannot satisfy the law’s escalating demands.
In Florida, 441 schools could be candidates for closing. In Maryland, some 49 schools in Baltimore alone have fallen short of achievement targets for five years or more. In New York State, 77 schools were candidates for restructuring as of last year.
Some districts, like those in New York City, have moved forcefully to shut large failing high schools and break them into small schools. Los Angeles, too, is trying small schools, along with other innovations, and David L. Brewer III, its schools superintendent, has just announced plans to create a “high priority district” under his direct control made up of 40 problem schools.
Yet so far, education experts say they are unaware of a single state that has taken over a failing school in response to the law. Instead, most allow school districts to seek other ways to improve.
“When you have a state like California with so many schools up for restructuring,” said Heinrich Mintrop, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, “that taxes the capacity of the whole school change industry.”
As a result, the law is branding numerous schools as failing, but not producing radical change — leaving angry parents demanding redress. California citizens’ groups have sued the state and federal government for failing to deliver on the law’s promises.
“They’re so busy fighting No Child Left Behind,” said Mary Johnson, president of Parent U-Turn, a civic group. “If they would use some of that energy to implement the law, we would go farther.”
Ray Simon, the deputy federal secretary of education, said states that ignored the law’s demands risked losing federal money or facing restrictions on grants. For now, Mr. Simon said, the department is more interested in helping states figure out what works than in punishment. “Even a state has to struggle if it takes over a school,” he said.
A federal survey last year showed that in 87 percent of the cases of persistently failing schools, states and school districts avoided wholesale changes in staff or leadership. That is why, Mr. Simon said, the Bush administration is proposing that Congress force more action by limiting districts’ options in responding to hard-core failure.
In California, Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent of schools, calls the law’s demands unreasonable. Under the federal law, 700 schools that California believed were getting substantially better were counted last year as failing. A state takeover of schools, Mr. O’Connell said, would be a “last option.”
“To have a successful program,” he said, “it really has to come from the community.”
Under the No Child law, a school declared low-performing for three years in a row must offer students free tutoring and the option to transfer. After five years, such schools are essentially treated as irredeemable, with the law prescribing starting over with a new structure, new leadership or new teachers. But it also gives schools the option of less sweeping changes, like reducing school size or changing who is in charge of hiring.
Those in charge of troubled schools in Los Angeles admit that the absence of serious penalties coupled with the growing number of schools branded as low-performing is breeding bitterness. But they are not sure what to do.
Carmen Schroeder, the superintendent of District 5 — and Ms. Paramo’s boss — has taken over hiring decisions and keeps a close watch on the lowest performing schools. Ms. Schroeder said she would like to go further and shut some down if there were any place to transfer the students.
That is not so easy when 59 of the 91 schools in her district, the largest of eight in this sprawling city, consistently fall short of standards.
Beyond that, the federal law does not trump contract agreements, and so teachers have generally not lost their jobs or faced transfer when schools stagnate.
In Los Angeles, as the law’s 2014 deadline draws nearer, the promised land of universal high achievement seems more distant than ever.
Schools that serve low-income students are packed, despite new construction. In poor neighborhoods, students are on staggered schedules, starting school in different months and scattering what was once summer vacation into smaller breaks.
Students lose momentum, forget lessons and come out with 17 fewer days of instruction a year. “That’s why our kids are not passing the high school exit exams,” said Ms. Johnson of Parent U-Turn.
Not all states are facing huge numbers of failing schools. Some were late establishing testing systems, and so lack results over five or more years. Others may have small poor populations, better teaching or easier exams.
But the tensions voiced here are echoed by parents elsewhere, as well as by school officials.
At Woodrow Wilson High one recent morning, teachers broke into small groups over coffee studying test scores for areas of weakness. But there were limits to what they would learn.
The teachers analyzed results for the entire school, not for their own students. Roberto Martinez, the principal, said he had not given teachers the scores of their own students because their union objects, saying the scores were being used to evaluate teachers.
“And who suffers?” asked Veronica Garcia, an English teacher at Wilson. “The kids suffer, because the teacher never gets feedback.”
A. J. Duffy, president of United Teachers of Los Angeles, said the union supported test score reviews provided they did not affect teachers’ jobs. Mr. Duffy said the federal law glossed over the travails of teaching students living in poverty. “Everyone agrees that urban education needs a shot in the arm, but it is not as bleak as the naysayers would have it,” he said.
That is not a view shared by many parents. Martha Sanchez, whose three children attend public schools here, said that as students grew older, the schools seemed to give up.
Her eldest, Gonzalo, attends eighth grade at John Adams Middle School, where only 22 percent of students passed the state exams in English and math this year. It is not hard for Ms. Sanchez to see why.
When Gonzalo struggled over equations, she said, his teacher called him slow rather than going over the material again. Ms. Sanchez said that she had complained, but that the teacher had denied the comment. It was only through the private tutoring, available under No Child Left Behind that he managed to pass seventh grade math, she said.
The principal, Joseph P. Santana, said he did not recall Ms. Sanchez’s complaining, but could not rule it out. “There are 1,600 of them,” he said, referring to the students, “and only one of me.”
Still, Ms. Sanchez is not a big fan of the law. Just weeks into the school year, she said, teachers are focusing almost solely on material likely to appear on state exams. Forget about igniting a passion in children, she said.
“Maybe the system is not designed for people like us,” she said.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) Treasury Chief Urges Action on Housing Slump
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 16, 2007
Filed at 12:40 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Paulson-Housing.html?hp
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson called Tuesday for an aggressive response to deal with an unfolding housing crisis that he said presents a significant risk to the economy.
In the administration's most detailed reaction to the steepest housing slump in 16 years, Paulson said that government and the financial industry should provide immediate help for homeowners trying to refinance current mortgages before they reset at much higher rates.
He also called for an overhaul of laws and regulations governing mortgage lending to halt abusive practices that contributed to the current crisis.
''Let me be clear, despite strong economic fundamentals, the housing decline is still unfolding and I view it as the most significant current risk to our economy,'' Paulson said in a speech delivered at Georgetown University's law school. ''The longer housing prices remain stagnant or fall, the greater the penalty to our future economic growth.''
In his most somber assessment of the crisis to date, Paulson said that the housing correction is ''not ending as quickly'' as it had appeared it would and that ''it now looks like it will continue to adversely impact our economy, our capital markets and many homeowners for some time yet.''
Paulson spoke a day after officials from the nation's three biggest banks announced the creation of a fund with up to $100 billion in resources to buy troubled assets such as mortgage-backed securities.
Treasury Department officials participated in the behind-the-scenes discussions that led to creation of the fund, but no government resources have been pledged to the effort.
Paulson said that the government must balance the need to help homeowners stay in their homes against the threat that government action can encourage investors to make risky decisions in the future.
''We must help as many able homeowners as possible stay in their homes,'' Paulson said. ''Foreclosures are costly and painful for homeowners.''
But Paulson also stated, ''When investors are relieved of the cost of bad decisions, they are more likely to repeat their mistakes. I have no interest in bailing out lenders or property speculators.''
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday that the housing problem would be a ''significant drag'' on economic growth into next year and that it would take time for Wall Street to fully recover from a significant credit crunch.
In August, financial markets around the world were roiled by the worst credit crisis in nearly a decade as investors became worried about rising defaults in the mortgage market, causing credit to dry up in a number of markets including the market for commercial paper, short-term loans used extensively by businesses.
At the time, Paulson insisted that the country would be able to work through the problems without any lingering adverse effects. However, as the extent of the troubles in subprime mortgages has grown and the housing slump has deepened, the administration has worked to increase its efforts.
Democrats have also been critical of many of the administration's proposals so far, saying they will offer too little help in the face of the prospect that 2 million mortgages homeowners obtained with low introductory ''teaser'' rates will reset at much higher rates in the coming 18 months.
Paulson said in his speech that it was crucial for more mortgage companies to join in an industrywide effort dubbed Hope Now to boost the number of homeowners who can be reached with credit counseling and help to refinance to mortgages they can afford.
In remarks aimed at lenders, Paulson said, ''We have an immediate need to see more loan modifications and refinancing and other flexibility. For many families, this will be the only viable solution. The current process is not working well. This is not about finger-pointing; it is about putting an aggressive plan together and moving forward.''
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
14) Troubles Mount Within Texas Youth Detention Agency
By SOLOMON MOORE
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/us/16juvenile.html?ref=us
AUSTIN, Tex. — Juvenile detainees as young as 13 years old slept on filthy mats in dormitories with broken, overflowing toilets and feces smeared on the walls. Denied outside recreation for weeks at a time, they ate bug-infested food, did school work that consisted of little more than crossword puzzles and defecated in bags.
After months of glowing state reports, the squalid conditions were disclosed on Oct. 1 by state inspectors at the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte. They are another sign of the deep disarray of the Texas Youth Commission, the nation’s second-largest, after Florida’s, and most troubled juvenile corrections agency.
The agency already faces state and federal investigations into accusations of sexual abuse by juvenile corrections officers. In March, the commission’s board of directors resigned under pressure, and many other top officials have been ousted. After a review by an expert panel, more than 200 inmates were released from some of the state’s 13 residential confinement centers because their sentences had been improperly extended.
There are also reports of endemic violence at some centers. At least 11,000 youth-on-youth assaults occur every year, according to state figures, and in the last 12 months there were 14,000 assaults on staff members.
State officials say chronic job vacancy rates and critical employee turnover are at the root of many of the system’s problems. Employee terminations since September 2006 have far outpaced recruitment. The agency has hired 870 juvenile corrections officers since September 2006 to October 2007. In that period 1,241 officers left their positions, or about half the juvenile corrections officers.
One-third of the departing officers were fired for poor performance, falsification of applications or inappropriate conduct, including physical abuse of detainees.
In August, the acting director of the agency, Dimitria D. Pope, the fourth person to run it since February, was confident enough about the system’s progress that she assured politicians that the abuse of juveniles had been “98 percent” eliminated.
The new Coke County disclosures seem to have shaken Ms. Pope’s optimism.
“I don’t know how deep the problems really are in terms of the corruption in the organization,” she said in an interview.
Ms. Pope has transferred the 197 offenders in Bronte to other institutions, fired seven monitoring officials and canceled an $8 million contract with the GEO Corporation, the prison company in Boca Raton, Fla., that managed the center. The state has also opened a criminal investigation and a review of the adult prisons run by GEO.
GEO executives said in a news release that they had “provided quality detention services at the center for 13 years” and announced plans to market it to local and federal agencies.
The agency’s 13 institutions are often hundreds of miles from metropolitan areas, and salaries starting around $23,000 have hindered recruiting staff members, say corrections officials and juvenile justice experts.
“They get paid about the same as a Wal-Mart employee for a dangerous job that most people don’t want to do,” said Scott Henson, founder of Grits for Breakfast, a criminal justice blog. “So they have had to reach deeper and deeper into the bottom of the barrel.”
State auditors found that on average there was one corrections officer for every 24 juveniles, double the nationally accepted standard. Corrections officials say that with so few guards it is impossible to monitor youths adequately and defuse dangerous situations.
“Insufficiently paid staff, not enough staff — these are fairly common problems throughout the nation,” said Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in Oakland, Calif. “But the breakdown in Texas is more dramatic than any other place I’ve seen.”
The violence in the agency’s institutions has led to soaring injury rates, with more than 700 officers filing claims since September 2006, a higher proportion than at Texas’ adult prisons.
Detainees also suffer injuries. In 2007, Texas public hospitals said that 60 youths had sustained broken bones, many because of improper force by corrections officers. The commission tracked 11,881 uses of force from September 2006 to September 2007, including pepper spray and grappling holds.
Natalie Jordan, a juvenile corrections officer, is a 27-year veteran of the agency and the mother of a 15-year-old serving 12 months for burglary at the Crockett State School in East Texas.
Since he was committed, Ms. Jordan’s son has been in more fights than she can recount. In one fight, a corrections officer dislocated her son’s shoulder while trying to hold him. In another, she said, an officer broke up a fight by blasting her son in the face with pepper spray.
Don Sorgman said his 17-year-old stepson had repeatedly been assaulted by other offenders since he was committed in February for stealing from a snack machine.
Mr. Sorgman learned about the assaults from his son and from a profanity-laced letter sent to him by self-proclaimed gang members who bragged that they had physically dominated the boy. Mr. Sorgman said his son had also been pepper sprayed by guards at least twice.
“He’s a different person than he was,” Mr. Sorgman said, recalling his impressions after a recent visit with his stepson. “The hardships he has been put through has definitely hardened him, changed him, and not for the better.”
The use of pepper spray became a new source of contention for the agency in August, when Ms. Pope issued a memorandum expanding its use. Ms. Pope argued that juvenile corrections officers needed help controlling their short-staffed units and that pepper spray was safer than physically restraining disruptive or violent young people.
Despite a court settlement in September that halted the expansion policy in lieu of public hearings on the question, incidents of using pepper spray have spiked. The agency reported 652 such events from September 2006 to August 2007, a fourfold increase over the previous 12 months.
“I know a lot of people who have broken arms and ankles while trying to hold these kids,” said Tony Cox, a corrections officer at the Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex in Brownwood. “That’s why I’m a strong believer in using pepper spray before actually grabbing a kid.”
In September, a state task force charged with recommending reforms to the agency said the debate between supporters of physical restraints and pepper spray presented “a false choice.”
“The challenge,” it said, was for the agency “to find ways to decrease all uses of force through an emphasis on other methods.”
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
15) FEMA Offers Up to $4,000 as Home Lure for Storm Victims
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
“If the relocation payments are a carrot, the government also has a stick. Beginning in March, the Disaster Housing Assistance Program will reduce rental aid by $50 a month "with the goal of leading families closer to complete housing independence," meaning an eventual aid cutoff.” [Isn’t it amazing how “housing independence,” in this case, translates to “independence from housing”…bw]
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/washington/16fema.html?ref=us
Eager to reduce housing aid to the more than 95,000 households still displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, FEMA announced a program yesterday offering up to $4,000 for relocation expenses for families or individuals who return home or find permanent housing elsewhere by the end of February.
The offer is directed at the nearly 30,000 households receiving rental subsidies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as the more than 65,000 living free in FEMA trailers and the larger mobile home models.
The survivors are far-flung, with "Katrina/Rita households" listed by FEMA in every state except North Dakota. Texas had 13,632; Georgia, 880; Tennessee, 875; Arkansas, 800; and California, 160.
Applicants for the reimbursements need to be already registered and receiving disaster assistance for damaged housing in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi or Texas. They may not have already received more than the current total assistance cap of $26,200. And they may not have received any other relocation aid.
"It's a justification to get out of travel trailers back into a more normal life to where they are self-sustaining," said Mary Margaret Walker, a spokeswoman for the agency in Washington.
As of Sept. 25, Ms. Walker said, 95,439 households were receiving housing aid from the 2005 storms, including 29,798 receiving rent subsidies and the remainder living in FEMA trailers and the larger mobile homes.
All had been moved out of hotels and motels, but 83 survivors with complaints about the air quality in the trailers are temporarily in hotels and motels, Ms. Walker said.
To obtain the relocation money, those in trailers and the other mobile homes would need to move into FEMA-financed or private housing anywhere in the continental United States.
Recipients of agency rent subsidies would have to move to nonsubsidized permanent housing at least 50 miles from their current locations.
People living anywhere now without agency aid would need to relocate to permanent housing in the storm-damaged state that they fled, but at least 50 miles away if they have already returned home.
Relocation costs eligible for reimbursement, the agency said, are air, bus or train fares, rental vehicles, furniture movers and gasoline, as well as lodging expenses if the move is more than 400 miles. Transportation costs for boats, recreational vehicles and other large luxury items are not covered, the agency said.
On Dec. 1, FEMA is to turn over its housing subsidies to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
If the relocation payments are a carrot, the government also has a stick. Beginning in March, the Disaster Housing Assistance Program will reduce rental aid by $50 a month "with the goal of leading families closer to complete housing independence," meaning an eventual aid cutoff.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
16) Phone Utilities Won’t Give Details About Eavesdropping
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/washington/16nsa.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 — The three biggest phone carriers have refused to tell members of Congress what role, if any, they had in the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program. The utilities said it would be illegal to divulge classified information.
“Given the focus of your questions,” a lawyer for AT&T wrote to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a letter released on Monday, “our company essentially finds itself caught in the middle of an oversight dispute between the Congress and the executive relating to government surveillance activities.”
The role of the carriers will be central to the debate in Congress this week over limiting the eavesdropping. The Bush administration has pressed Congress to give the carriers immunity for their cooperation, but House Democrats are balking.
Democrats on the panel had asked AT&T, Verizon and Qwest for detailed responses on the roles. Like AT&T, Verizon and Qwest declined to answer specific questions.
Some Democrats on the House committee were not mollified. Representative John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who leads the panel, said he would continue to press the administration for answers.
Representative Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat who leads the subcommittee on oversight, said, “While I recognize the unique legal constraints the telecommunications companies face regarding what information they may disclose, important questions remain unanswered about how the administration induced or compelled them to participate in the N.S.A.’s eavesdropping program.”
The carriers face a barrage of suits. The administration has sought to thwart the cases by invoking the “state secrets” privilege, and the utilities have said little because of the suits. Letters by the companies released Monday broadly defended the cooperation with law enforcement officials.
The companies also spoke of the damage they said has been done by the controversy.
As a result of the litigation, AT&T said in its letter, “carriers who are alleged to have cooperated with intelligence activities are faced with years of litigation, at great financial and reputational cost, and are forced to remain mute in the face of extreme allegations, no matter how false.”
Verizon said in its response that the burden should be on the government, not the phone companies, to establish that a request was proper and lawful.
“Such an approach is vital to ensure that providers are able to respond quickly to request for assistance,” Verizon said. “Placing the onus on the provider to determine whether the government is acting within the scope of its authority would inevitably slow lawful efforts to protect the public.”
Verizon and the other companies have acknowledged that they routinely comply with what Verizon called “lawful demands” for call records and access to phone lines. In 2006, the Verizon letter said, it received 88,000 such requests, about 34,000 from federal officials and 54,000 from state and local officials. Through September of this year, it received 24,000 federal requests and 37,000 state and local requests.
Verizon also acknowledged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had asked for records to identify what it termed “a calling circle” but said it had not been able to provide them.
Verizon indicated that the F.B.I. had sought records for a broader network of callers than the bureau itself had previously acknowledged by requesting records not just on original targets and the people they had called, but on everyone that those people in turn had called.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
LINKS AND VERY SHORT STORIES
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
California: Veto of 3 Criminal Justice Bills
By SOLOMON MOORE
Bucking a national trend toward stronger safeguards against wrongful convictions, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed bills that would have explored new eyewitness identification guidelines, required electronic recordings of police interrogations and mandated corroboration of jailhouse informant testimony. Mr. Schwarzenegger cited his concern that the three bills would hamper local law enforcement authorities, a contention shared by several state police and prosecutor associations. The proposals had been recommended by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, a bipartisan body of police officials, prosecutors and defense lawyers charged by the State Senate to address the most common causes of wrongful convictions and recommend changes in criminal justice procedures.
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/us/16brfs-VETOOF3CRIMI_BRF.html?ref=us
Illinois: Chicagoans May Have to Dig Deeper
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Chicagoans would have to spend 10 cents more on a bottle of water, pay higher property taxes and spend more for liquor under Mayor Richard M. Daley’s proposed budget for next year. Also financing Mr. Daley’s $5.4 billion budget are higher water and sewer fees and more expensive vehicle stickers for people driving large vehicles, $120 a vehicle sticker, up from $90. Mr. Daley announced his budget to aldermen, calling it a last resort to ask taxpayers for more money. His budget closes a $196 million deficit and avoids service cuts and layoffs. Budget hearings will be held, and a city spending plan will require a vote by aldermen.
Midwest
October 11, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/us/11brfs-CHICAGO.html?ref=us
Wisconsin Iraq vet returns medals to Rumsfeld
By David Solnit, Courage to Resist / Army of None Project.
"I swore an oath to protect the constitution ... not to become a pawn in your New American Century."
September 26, 2007
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Madison, Wisconsin--Joshua Gaines, who served a year long tour in Iraq in 2004 to 2005 with the Army Reserve, returned his Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and National Defense Service Medal to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today by mail as dozens of supporters look on.
Verizon Reverses Itself on Abortion Messages
By ADAM LIPTAK
September 27, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/business/27cnd-verizon.html?ref=us
Manhattan: Slain Soldier to Receive Citizenship
A soldier from Washington Heights who was killed while serving with the Army’s Second Infantry Division in Iraq is to receive citizenship posthumously on Monday, immigration officials said in a statement yesterday. The soldier, Cpl. Juan Alcántara, 22, left, was one of four soldiers killed in an explosion as they searched a house in Baquba on Aug. 6. Representative Charles B. Rangel, a Harlem Democrat, will speak at a ceremony at the City University Great Hall in Manhattan and present a certificate to Corporal Alcántara’s family. The corporal was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in Washington Heights, Mr. Rangel’s office said.
September 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/nyregion/14mbrfs-SOLDIER.html?ref=nyregion
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INFORMATION
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Stop the Termination or the Cherokee Nation
http://groups.msn.com/BayAreaIndianCalendar/activismissues.msnw?action=get_message&mview=1&ID_Message=5580
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
USLAW Endorses September 15 Antiwar Demonstration in Washington, DC
USLAW Leadership Urges Labor Turnout
to Demand End to Occupation in Iraq, Hands Off Iraqi Oil
By a referendum ballot of members of the Steering Committee of U.S. Labor Against the War, USLAW is now officially on record endorsing and encouraging participation in the antiwar demonstration called by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition in Washington, DC on September 15. The demonstration is timed to coincide with a Congressional vote scheduled in late September on a new Defense Department appropriation that will fund the Iraq War through the end of Bush's term in office.
U.S. Labor Against the War
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/
Stop the Iraq Oil Law
http://www.petitiononline.com/iraqoil/petition.html
2007 Iraq Labor Solidarity Tour
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?list=type&type=103
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
FREE THE JENA SIX
http://www.mmmhouston.net/loc/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=114&Itemid=66
This is a modern day lynching"--Marcus Jones, father of Mychal Bell
WRITE LETTERS TO:
JUDGE J.P. MAUFFRAY
P.O. BOX 1890
JENA, LOUISIANA 71342
FAX: (318) 992-8701
WE NEED 400 LETTERS SENT BEFORE MYCHAL BELL'S SENTENCING DATE ON JULY 31ST. THEY ARE ALL INNOCENT!
Sign the NAACP's Online Petition to the Governor of Louisiana and Attorney General
http://www.naacp.org/get-involved/activism/petitions/jena-6/index.php
JOIN THE MASS PROTEST IN SUPPORT OF
MYCHAL BELL & THE JENA 6
WHERE: JENA COURTHOUSE in Louisiana
WHEN: TUESDAY, JULY 31ST
TIME: 9:00AM
THE HOUSTON MMM MINISTRY OF JUSTICE IS ORGANIZING A CARAVAN TO JOIN FORCES WITH THE JENA 6 FAMILIES, THE COLOR OF CHANGE, LOCs, AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS ON THE STEPS OF THE COURTHOUSE THAT DAY TO DEMAND JUSTICE!
ALL INTERESTED IN GOING TO THE RALLY CALL:
HOUSTON RESIDENTS: 832.258.2480
ministryofjustice@mmmhouston.net
BATON ROUGE RESIDENTS: 225.806.3326
MONROE RESIDENTS: 318.801.0513
JENA RESIDENTS: 318.419.6441
Send Donations to the Jena 6 Defense Fund:
Jena 6 Defense Committee
P.O. Box 2798
Jena, Louisiana 71342
BACKGROUND TO THE JENA SIX:
Young Black males the target of small-town racism
By Jesse Muhammad
Staff Writer
"JENA, La. (FinalCall.com) - Marcus Jones, the father of 16-year-old Jena High School football star Mychal Bell, pulls out a box full of letters from countless major colleges and universities in America who are trying to recruit his son. Mr. Jones, with hurt in his voice, says, “He had so much going for him. My son is innocent and they have done him wrong.”
An all-White jury convicted Mr. Bell of two felonies—aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery—and faces up to 22 years in prison when he is sentenced on July 31. Five other young Black males are also awaiting their day in court for alleged attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder charges evolving from a school fight: Robert Bailey, 17; Theo Shaw, 17; Carwin Jones, 18; Bryant Purvis, 17; and Jesse Beard, 15. Together, this group has come to be known as the “Jena 6.”
Updated Jul 22, 2007
FOR FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3753.shtml
My Letter to Judge Mauffray:
JUDGE J.P. MAUFFRAY
P.O. BOX 1890
JENA, LOUISIANA 71342
RE: THE JENA SIX
Dear Judge Mauffray,
I am appalled to learn of the conviction of 16-year-old Jena High School football star Mychal Bell and the arrest of five other young Black men who are awaiting their day in court for alleged attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder charges evolving from a school fight. These young men, Mychal Bell, 16; Robert Bailey, 17; Theo Shaw, 17; Carwin Jones, 18; Bryant Purvis, 17; and Jesse Beard, 15, who have come to be known as the “Jena 6” have the support of thousands of people around the country who want to see them free and back in school.
Clearly, two different standards are in place in Jena—one standard for white students who go free even though they did, indeed, make a death threat against Black students—the hanging of nooses from a tree that only white students are allowed to sit under—and another set of rules for those that defended themselves against these threats. The nooses were hung after Black students dared to sit in the shade of that “white only” tree!
If the court is sincerely interested in justice, it will drop the charges against all of these six students, reinstate them back into school and insist that the school teach the white students how wrong they were and still are for their racist attitudes and violent threats! It is the duty of the schools to uphold the constitution and the bill of rights. A hanging noose or burning cross is just like a punch in the face or worse so says the Supreme Court! Further, it is an act of vigilantism and has no place in a “democracy”.
The criminal here is white racism, not a few young men involved in a fistfight!
I am a 62-year-old white woman who grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Fistfights among teenagers—as you certainly must know yourself—are a right of passage. Please don’t tell me you have never gotten into one. Even I picked a few fights with a few girls outside of school for no good reason. (We soon, in fact, became fast friends.) Children are not just smaller sized adults. They are children and go through this. The fistfight is normal and expected behavior that adults can use to educate children about the negative effect of the use of violence to solve disputes. That is what adults are supposed to do.
Hanging nooses in a tree because you hate Black people is not normal at all! It is a deep sickness that our schools and courts are responsible for unless they educate and act against it. This means you must overturn the conviction of Mychal Bell and drop the cases against Robert Bailey, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, and Jesse Beard.
It also means you must take responsibility to educate white teachers, administrators, students and their families against racism and order them to refrain from their racist behavior from here on out—and make sure it is carried out!
You are supposed to defend the students who want to share the shade of a leafy green tree not persecute them—that is the real crime that has been committed here!
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War
www.bauaw.org
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
"They have a new gimmick every year. They're going to take one of their boys, black boys, and put him in the cabinet so he can walk around Washington with a cigar. Fire on one end and fool on the other end. And because his immediate personal problem will have been solved he will be the one to tell our people: 'Look how much progress we're making. I'm in Washington, D.C., I can have tea in the White House. I'm your spokesman, I'm your leader.' While our people are still living in Harlem in the slums. Still receiving the worst form of education.
"But how many sitting here right now feel that they could [laughs] truly identify with a struggle that was designed to eliminate the basic causes that create the conditions that exist? Not very many. They can jive, but when it comes to identifying yourself with a struggle that is not endorsed by the power structure, that is not acceptable, that the ground rules are not laid down by the society in which you live, in which you are struggling against, you can't identify with that, you step back.
"It's easy to become a satellite today without even realizing it. This country can seduce God. Yes, it has that seductive power of economic dollarism. You can cut out colonialism, imperialism and all other kind of ism, but it's hard for you to cut that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, you'll fold though."
—MALCOLM X, 1965
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=987
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Youtube interview with the DuPage County Activists Who Were Arrested for Bannering
You can watch an interview with the two DuPage County antiwar activists
who arrested after bannering over the expressway online at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/DuPageFight4Freedom
Please help spread the word about this interview, and if you haven't
already done so, please contact the DuPage County State's attorney, Joe
Birkett, to demand that the charges against Jeff Zurawski and Sarah
Heartfield be dropped. The contact information for Birkett is:
Joseph E. Birkett, State's Attorney
503 N. County Farm Road
Wheaton, IL 60187
Phone: (630) 407-8000
Fax: (630) 407-8151
Email: stsattn@dupageco.org
Please forward this information far and wide.
My Letter:
Joseph E. Birkett, State's Attorney
503 N. County Farm Road
Wheaton, IL 60187
Phone: (630) 407-8000
Fax: (630) 407-8151
Email: stsattn@dupageco.org
Dear State's Attorney Birkett,
The news of the arrest of Jeff Zurawski and Sarah Heartfield is getting out far and wide. Their arrest is outrageous! Not only should all charges be dropped against Jeff and Sarah, but a clear directive should be given to Police Departments everywhere that this kind of harassment of those who wish to practice free speech will not be tolerated.
The arrest of Jeff and Sarah was the crime. The display of their message was an act of heroism!
We demand you drop all charges against Jeff Zurawski and Sarah Heartfield NOW!
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War, www.bauaw.org, San Francisco, California
415-824-8730
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
A little gem:
Michael Moore Faces Off With Stephen Colbert [VIDEO]
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/57492/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
LAPD vs. Immigrants (Video)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/qr?term=lapd&Submit=S&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Search&st=s
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Dr. Julia Hare at the SOBA 2007
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/proudtobeblack2/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
"We are far from that stage today in our era of the absolute
lie; the complete and totalitarian lie, spread by the
monopolies of press and radio to imprison social
consciousness." December 1936, "In 'Socialist' Norway,"
by Leon Trotsky: “Leon Trotsky in Norway” was transcribed
for the Internet by Per I. Matheson [References from
original translation removed]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/12/nor.htm
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Wealth Inequality Charts
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
MALCOLM X: Oxford University Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmzaaf-9aHQ
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
ADDICTED TO WAR
Animated Video Preview
Narrated by Peter Coyote
Is now on YouTube and Google Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZwyuHEN5h8
We are planning on making the ADDICTED To WAR movie.
Can you let me know what you think about this animated preview?
Do you think it would work as a full length film?
Please send your response to:
Fdorrel@sbcglobal. net or Fdorrel@Addictedtow ar.com
In Peace,
Frank Dorrel
Publisher
Addicted To War
P.O. Box 3261
Culver City, CA 90231-3261
310-838-8131
fdorrel@addictedtow ar.com
fdorrel@sbcglobal. net
www.addictedtowar. com
For copies of the book:
http://www.addictedtowar.com/book.html
OR SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO:
Frank Dorrel
P.O. BOX 3261
CULVER CITY, CALIF. 90231-3261
fdorrel@addictedtowar.com
$10.00 per copy (Spanish or English); special bulk rates
can be found at: http://www.addictedtowar.com/bookbulk.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
"There comes a times when silence is betrayal."
--Martin Luther King
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
YouTube clip of Che before the UN in 1964
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtATT8GXkWg&mode=related&search
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
The Wealthiest Americans Ever
NYT Interactive chart
JULY 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
New Orleans After the Flood -- A Photo Gallery
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=795
This email was sent to you as a service, by Roland Sheppard.
Visit my website at: http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
DEMAND THE RELEASE OF SAMI AL-ARIAN
The National Council of Arab Americans (NCA) demands the immediate
release of political prisoner, Dr. Sami Al-Arian. Although
Dr. Al-Arian is no longer on a hunger strike we must still demand
he be released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). After an earlier
plea agreement that absolved Dr. Al-Arian from any further questioning,
he was sentenced up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify before
a grand jury in Virginia. He has long sense served his time yet
Dr. Al-Arian is still being held. Release him now!
See:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/16/1410255
ACTION:
We ask all people of conscience to demand the immediate
release and end to Dr. Al- Arian's suffering.
Call, Email and Write:
1- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax Number: (202) 307-6777
Email: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
2- The Honorable John Conyers, Jr
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax
John.Conyers@mail.house.gov
3- Senator Patrick Leahy
433 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202)224-4242
senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov
4- Honorable Judge Gerald Lee
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314
March 22, 2007
[No email given...bw]
National Council of Arab Americans (NCA)
http://www.arab-american.net/
Criminalizing Solidarity: Sami Al-Arian and the War of
Terror
By Charlotte Kates, The Electronic Intifada, 4 April 2007
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6767.shtml
Related:
Robert Fisk: The true story of free speech in America
This systematic censorship of Middle East reality
continues even in schools
Published: 07 April 2007
http://news. independent. co.uk/world/ fisk/article2430 125.ece
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
[For some levity...Hans Groiner plays Monk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51bsCRv6kI0
...bw]
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Excerpt of interview between Barbara Walters and Hugo Chavez
http://www.borev.net/2007/03/what_you_had_something_better.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Which country should we invade next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3g_zqz3VjY
My Favorite Mutiny, The Coup
http://www.myspace.com/thecoupmusic
Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOaTpYl8mE
Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court arguments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LsGoDWC0o
Free Speech 4 Students Rally - Media Montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfCjfod8yuw
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
'My son lived a worthwhile life'
In April 2003, 21-year old Tom Hurndall was shot in the head
in Gaza by an Israeli soldier as he tried to save the lives of three
small children. Nine months later, he died, having never
recovered consciousness. Emine Saner talks to his mother
Jocelyn about her grief, her fight to make the Israeli army
accountable for his death and the book she has written
in his memory.
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2042968,00.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Introducing...................the Apple iRack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KWYYIY4jQ
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
"A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind."
[A T-shirt worn by some teachers at Roosevelt High School
in L.A. as part of their campaign to rid the school of military
recruiters and JROTC--see Article in Full item number 4, below...bw]
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
THIS IS AN EXCELLENT VIDEO DESTRIBUTED BY U.S. LABOR AGAINST
THE WAR (USLAW) FEATURING SPEAKERS AT THE JANUARY 27TH
MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOCUSING ON THE DEMAND - BRING
THE TROOPS HOME NOW.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6935451906479097836&hl=en
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Defend the Los Angeles Eight!
http://www.committee4justice.com/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
George Takai responds to Tim Hardaway's homophobic remarks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcJoJZIcQW4&eurl_
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Iran
http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Another view of the war. A link from Amer Jubran
http://d3130.servadmin.com/~leeflash/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Petition: Halt the Blue Angels
http://action.globalexchange.org/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=458
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/289327
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
A Girl Like Me
7:08 min
Youth Documentary
Kiri Davis, Director, Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, Producer
Winner of the Diversity Award
Sponsored by Third Millennium Foundation
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1091431409617440489
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Film/Song about Angola
http://www.prisonactivist.org/angola/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
"200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today.
Not one of them is Cuban."
(A sign in Havana)
Venceremos
View sign at bottom of page at:
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/index.html
[Thanks to Norma Harrison for sending this...bw]
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
"Cheyenne and Arapaho oral histories hammer history's account of the
Sand Creek Massacre"
CENTENNIAL, CO -- A new documentary film based on an award-winning
documentary short film, "The Sand Creek Massacre", and driven by
Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people who tell their version about
what happened during the Sand Creek Massacre via their oral
histories, has been released by Olympus Films+, LLC, a Centennial,
Colorado film company.
"You have done an extraordinary job" said Margie Small, Tobient
Entertainment, " on the Colorado PBS episode, the library videos for
public schools and libraries, the trailer, etc...and getting the
story told and giving honor to those ancestors who had to witness
this tragic and brutal attack...film is one of the best ways."
"The images shown in the film were selected for native awareness
value" said Donald L. Vasicek, award-winning writer/filmmaker, "we
also focused on preserving American history on film because tribal
elders are dying and taking their oral histories with them. The film
shows a non-violent solution to problem-solving and 19th century
Colorado history, so it's multi-dimensional in that sense. "
Chief Eugene Blackbear, Sr., Cheyenne, who starred as Chief Black
Kettle in "The Last of the Dogmen" also starring Tom Berenger and
Barbara Hershey and "Dr. Colorado", Tom Noel, University of Colorado
history professor, are featured.
The trailer can be viewed and the film can be ordered for $24.95 plus
$4.95 for shipping and handling at http://www.fullduck.com/node/53.
Vasicek's web site, http://www.donvasicek.com, provides detailed
information about the Sand Creek Massacre including various still
images particularly on the Sand Creek Massacre home page and on the
proposal page.
Olympus Films+, LLC is dedicated to writing and producing quality
products that serve to educate others about the human condition.
Contact:
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
7078 South Fairfax Street
Centennial, CO 80122
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
A NEW LOOK AT U.S. RADIOACTIVE WEAPONS
Join us in a campaign to expose and stop the use
of these illegal weapons
http://poisondust.org/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
You may enjoy watching these.
In struggle
Che:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqcezl9dD2c
Leon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukkFVV5X0p4
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-fightback-intro.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
[The Scab
"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad,
and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with
which he made a scab."
"A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul,
a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten
principles." "When a scab comes down the street,
men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and
the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out."
"No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there
is a pool of water to drown his carcass in,
or a rope long enough to hang his body with.
Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab.
For betraying his master, he had character enough
to hang himself." A scab has not.
"Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.
Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of
a commision in the british army."
The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife,
his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled
promise from his employer.
Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor
to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country;
a scab is a traitor to his God, his country,
his family and his class."
Author --- Jack London (1876-1916)...Roland Sheppard
http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret]
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!
Stop funding Israel's war against Palestine
Complete the form at the website listed below with your information.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?
JServSessionIdr003=cga2p2o6x1.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=177
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Sand Creek Massacre
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html
On November 29, 1864, 700 Colorado troops savagely slaughtered
over 450 Cheyenne children, disabled, elders, and women in the
southeastern Colorado Territory under its protection. This act
became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. This film project
("The Sand Creek Massacre" documentary film project) is an
examination of an open wound in the souls of the Cheyenne
people as told from their perspective. This project chronicles
that horrific 19th century event and its affect on the 21st century
struggle for respectful coexistence between white and native
plains cultures in the United States of America.
Listed below are links on which you can click to get the latest news,
products, and view, free, "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" award-
winning documentary short. In order to create more native
awareness, particularly to save the roots of America's history,
please read the following:
Some people in America are trying to save the world. Bless
them. In the meantime, the roots of America are dying.
What happens to a plant when the roots die? The plant dies
according to my biology teacher in high school. American's
roots are its native people. Many of America's native people
are dying from drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, hunger,
and disease, which was introduced to them by the Caucasian
male. Tribal elders are dying. When they die, their oral
histories go with them. Our native's oral histories are the
essence of the roots of America, what took place before
our ancestors came over to America, what is taking place,
and what will be taking place. It is time we replenish
America's roots with native awareness, else America
continues its decaying, and ultimately, its death.
You can help. The 22-MINUTE SAND CREEK MASSACRE
DOCUMENTARY PRESENTATION/EDUCATIONAL DVD IS
READY FOR PURCHASE! (pass the word about this powerful
educational tool to friends, family, schools, parents, teachers,
and other related people and organizations to contact
me (dvasicek@earthlink.net, 303-903-2103) for information
about how they can purchase the DVD and have me come
to their children's school to show the film and to interact
in a questions and answers discussion about the Sand
Creek Massacre.
Happy Holidays!
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html
SHOP:
http://www.manataka.org/page633.html
BuyIndies.com
donvasicek.com.Peace Articles at Libraryofpeace.org">
No comments:
Post a Comment