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U.S. Out Now! From Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and all U.S. bases around the world; End all U.S. Aid to Israel; Get the military out of our schools and our communities; Demand Equal Rights and Justice for ALL!
TAX THE RICH NOT THE POOR! MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT WAR!
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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***PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY***
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Emergency rally and press conference to denounce the coup in Honduras.
Monday, June 29th at 4 P.M.
870 Market St. in San Francisco (In front of the Powell BART)
Media Contacts:
John Peterson (Eng./Spa.) 651.373.7609 (HOV)
Miguel Robles (Eng./Spa.) mrmex65@gmail.com (ALIADI)
Latin American solidarity organizations to hold rally to denounce military coup in Honduras
San Francisco, CA - The Hands Off Venezuela campaign, along with other Latin America solidarity organizations, have called for a emergency rally and press conference to denounce the recent military coup against democratically elected Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. The coup came on the day in which Hondurans were to go to the polls to vote on a constitutional referendum that would have laid the basis for dramatically changing the political landscape of the country.
The San Francisco chapter of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign denounces this coup as blatant violation of the democratic will of the people of Honduras. We call for the reinstatement of president Manuel Zelaya and that the will and right to self-determination of the Honduran people be respected. No to U.S. intervention in Honduras and Latin America!
We invite individuals and the media to come to the rally and press conference on Monday, June 29th and 4 PM at 870 Market St. in San Francisco.
*The U.S. Hands Off Venezuela Campaign was initiated in December 2002 as part of the International Hands Off Venezuela Campaign. U.S. HOV opposes all forms of intervention by the U.S. government and its agencies in Venezuela and Latin America. The campaign works to educate and raise awareness about events in Venezuela in order to counter the bias of the mainstream media and to build solidarity between American and Venezuelan trade unionists and working people in general.
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Hands Off Venezuela
PO Box 4244
St. Paul, MN 55104
http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org
sfbayhov@gmail.com
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Urgent News
Hearing on Death Penalty June 30, Sacramento
Please: SIGN-UP TO ATTEND!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1265/t/5820/signUp.jsp?key=4279
On May 1st, the State of California announced that it is moving forward with developing execution procedures in order to comply with a recent legal ruling and resume executions, which have been on hold for more than three years.
The State will be holding a hearing on Tuesday, June 30th from 9am to 3pm in Sacramento to hear public comments about the proposed execution procedures.
Death Penalty Focus, along with our allies, will be organizing a critical Day of Action to End the Death Penalty on June 30th.
What You Can Do to Help:
1. Please plan to attend the hearing on June 30th in Sacramento. We will be organizing buses from the SF Bay Area (more details to be announced very soon).
Please: SIGN-UP TO ATTEND!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1265/t/5820/signUp.jsp?key=4279
We need to pack the room with more than 300 hundred supporters. More than one hundred individuals will be needed to give public comment. If they cannot accommodate everyone who signs up to speak, it is possible they will have to schedule another hearing.
After the hearing, we will head to the Capitol to share ours views with elected officials.
2. Please plan to submit a written comment to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). In just a few days we will be sending out suggestions for your comments and instructions on how to submit your comments. The CDCR is required by law to review and respond to every written comment. We need to generate thousands of comments from across the state, country and globe. We need to flood them with paperwork.
Please help us make this Day of Action a success!
Legislative Successes
Colorado
Colorado came very close to ending the death penalty this month when their State Senate voted 17-18 in favor of replacing the death penalty with life without parole and redirecting funding to solve murders. The State House has already passed the bill by a vote of 33-32.
Connecticut
On May 13, the Connecticut House voted 90-56 in favor of ending the death penalty. The bill now moves on to the Senate.
Several abolition bills are still active in other states, including New Hampshire, Illinois, Washington, and also in the U.S. Senate.
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Greetings! We wanted to thank you again for your on-going support, and let you know about 2 upcoming events:
Reinstatement Hearing [Ward Churchill]
Wed. July 1, 9:00 am
Courtroom 6 (Judge Naves)
1435 Bannock St., Denver 80202
www.wardchurchill.net
CU is attempting to completely ignore the jury's verdict in this case, pretending that there was no finding that it violated the Constitution by firing Ward, and arguing that the judge should refuse to reinstate Ward and refuse pay him (or his lawyers).
Its excuse is that Ward is not "collegial" enough because he refused to accept the conclusions of the investigative committees. An odd argument from an entity which is refusing to accept the verdict in this case.
The hearing is scheduled for all day, with both sides presenting witnesses and arguments. If you're in the Denver area, please come and show your support. More details at www.wardchurchill.net.
"Shouting Fire" - HBO documentary on the state of free speech in America, featuring Ward's case, will air on Monday June 29 at 9:00 pm ET. Directed by Liz Garbus, and also featuring her father, famed First Amendment attorney Martin Garbus.
Review from its Sundance Film Festival premiere is available at:
http://festival.sundance.org/2009/film_events/films/shouting_fire_stories_from_the_edge_of_free_speech
HBO schedule at:
http://www.hbo.com/apps/schedule/ScheduleServlet?ACTION_DETAIL=DETAIL&FOCUS_ID=573085
In struggle and solidarity,
Natsu
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ATTEND THE JULY 10 NATIONAL ASSEMBLY CONFERENCE IN PITTSBURGH!
REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE and DOWNLOAD PRINTABLE BROCHURE (8.5 X 14) at:
https://natassembly.org/Home_Page.html
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
On behalf of the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, we are writing to invite you and members of your organization to attend a national antiwar conference to be held July 10-12, 2009 at La Roche College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The purpose of this conference is to bring together antiwar and social justice activists from across the country to discuss and decide what we can do together to end the wars, occupations, bombing attacks, threats and interventions that are taking place in the Middle East and beyond, which the U.S. government is conducting and promoting.
We believe that such a conference will be welcomed by the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Iran, who are the victims of these policies. It will also be welcomed by victims of the depression-type conditions in this country, with tens of millions losing jobs, homes, health care coverage and pensions, while trillions of dollars are spent bailing out Wall Street and the banks, waging expansionist wars and occupations, and funding the Pentagon's insatiable appetite.
This will be the National Assembly's second conference. The first was held in Cleveland last June and it was attended by over 400 people, including top leaders of the antiwar movement and activists from many states. After discussion and debate, attendees voted - on the basis of one person, one vote - to urge the movement to join together for united spring actions. The National Assembly endorsed and helped build the March actions in Washington D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the April actions in New York City.
We are all aware of the developments since our last conference - the election of a new administration in the U.S., the ongoing occupation of Iraq, the escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the horrific Israeli bombing of Gaza, and the extreme peril of an additional war in the Middle East, this time against Iran. Given all this, it is crystal clear that a strong, united, independent antiwar movement is needed now more than ever. We urge you to help build such a movement by attending the July conference and sharing your ideas and proposals with other attendees regarding where the antiwar movement goes from here.
For more information, please visit the National Assembly's website at natassembly.org, email us at natassembly@aol.com, or call 216-736-4704. We will be glad to send you upon request brochures announcing the July conference (a copy is attached) and you can also register for the conference online. [Please be aware that La Roche College is making available private rooms with baths at a very reasonable rate, but will only guarantee them if reserved by June 25.]
Yours for peace, justice and unity,
National Assembly Administrative Body
Zaineb Alani, Author of The Words of an Iraqi War Survivor & More; Colia Clark, Chair, Richard Wright Centennial Committee, Grandmothers for Mumia Abu-Jamal; Greg Coleridge, Coordinator, Northeast Ohio Anti-War Coalition (NOAC) and Economic Justice and Empowerment Program Director, Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); Alan Dale, Iraq Peace Action Coalition (MN); Donna Dewitt, President, South Carolina AFL-CIO; Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace; Jerry Gordon, Former National Co-Coordinator of the Vietnam-Era National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC) and Member, U.S. Labor Against the War Steering Committee; Jonathan Hutto, Navy Petty Officer, Author of Anti-War Soldier; Co-Founder of Appeal for Redress; Marilyn Levin, Coordinating Committee, Greater Boston United for Justice with Peace, Middle East Crisis Coalition; Jeff Mackler, Founder, San Francisco Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice; Fred Mason, President, Maryland State and District of Columbia AFL-CIO and Co-Convenor, U.S. Labor Against the War; Mary Nichols-Rhodes, Progressive Democrats of America/Ohio Branch; Lynne Stewart, Lynne Stewart Organization/Long Time Attorney and Defender of Constitutional Rights [Bay Area United Against War also was represented at the founding conference and will be there again this year. Carole Seligman and I initiated the motion to include adding opposition to the War in Afghanistan to the demands and title of the National Assembly.
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NATIONAL MARCH FOR EQUALITY
WASHINGTON, D.C. OCTOBER 10-11, 2009
Sign up here and spread the word:
http://www.nationalequalitymarch.com/
On October 10-11, 2009, we will gather in Washington DC from all across
America to let our elected leaders know that *now is the time for full equal
rights for LGBT people.* We will gather. We will march. And we will leave
energized and empowered to do the work that needs to be done in every
community across the nation.
This site will be updated as more information is available. We will organize
grassroots, from the bottom-up, and details will be shared on this website.
Our single demand:
Equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states.
Our philosophy:
As members of every race, class, faith, and community, we see the struggle
for LGBT equality as part of a larger movement for peace and social justice.
Our strategy:
Decentralized organizing for this march in every one of the 435
Congressional districts will build a network to continue organizing beyond
October.
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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"RESOLUTION: The Torture Song" By David Ippolito
http://www.thatguitarman.com/MP3/resolution.mp3
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Petition to Free the Wrongfully Convicted Mississippi Scott Sisters
To whom it may concern:
For over 14 miserable years, these two falsely accused incarcerated sisters (Jamie and Gladys Scott) have languished in a gruesome Mississippi prison for a trumped up $11.00 dollars crime that neither of them committed, in which they both received DOUBLE LIFE! Neither of them had any previous criminal records, no one was hurt, and the entire judiciary process from start to finish was heavily tainted by racial malpractice, witness coercion, threats, and harassment.
This travesty of injustice began in 1993 in Scott County Mississippi. It is alleged that two county Sheriffs had a beef with the sisters' father over him refusing to pay cash payoffs to the Sheriffs, whereas the Sheriffs threatened to wreck havoc upon the entire family if payment did not continue. The father refused, and soon thereafter, the Sheriffs succeeded in carrying out their threat, as Jamie and Gladys were falsely charged with armed robbery and later subsequently convicted. During the trial however, there were numerous inconsistencies and contradictions, and to make matters worst, both of the sister's lawyers were at best incompetent in their legal representation. As of this writing, the State's three witnesses have all recanted their coerced statements implicating Jamie and Gladys by a signed affidavit, but no court has seen fit to either reopen their case or seriously consider the sister's request for a retrial.
We are asking every person to sign this Free the Scott Sisters petition. Both Jamie and Gladys Scott need to be immediately exonerated and released. Your help is also needed and urged.
Thank you all.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-the-Scott-Sisters-Committee/
Sincerely,
The undersigned
Sign this petition!
Petition Author
CONTACT: Nathaniel x Vance, Jr.
Muskogee, Ok. 74401
Phone: 918-304-6017
E-Mail: broali4xx@suddenlink.net
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Keep the Arboretum Free
http://keeparboretumfree.org/
Write the mayor and supervisors:
http://keeparboretumfree.org/email-to-board-of-supervisors-budget-committee
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Troy Anthony Davis is an African American man who has spent the last 18 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted. New evidence and new testimony have been presented to the Georgia courts, but the justice system refuses to consider this evidence, which would prove Troy Davis' innocence once and for all.
Sign the petition and join the NAACP, Amnesty International USA, and other partners in demanding justice for Troy Davis!
http://www.iamtroy.com/
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Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
New videos from April 24 Oakland Mumia event
http://abu-jamal-news.com/article?name=jlboak
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501(c)(3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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IVAW Member Victor Agosto Refuses Deployment to Afghanistan
Sign our Petition in Support of Victor's Resistance Today:
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5966/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=383
Support Victor by making a donation to his legal defense fund:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=27370
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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Don't let them kill Troy Davis
The case of Troy Davis highlights the need for criminal justice reform in the United States.
Please help us fight for the rights -- and life -- of Troy Davis today by signing the petition below, asking Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue to act on behalf of justice and commute Troy Davis's death sentence to ensure that Georgia does not put to death a man who may well be innocent.
Mr. Davis has a strong claim to innocence, but he could be executed without a court ever holding a hearing on his claims. Because of this, I urge you to act in the interests of justice and support clemency for Troy Davis. An execution without a proper hearing on significant evidence of innocence would compromise the integrity of Georgia's justice system.
As you may know, Mr. Davis was convicted of the 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail, a conviction based solely on witness testimony. Seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted or contradicted their trial testimony.
The courts, citing procedural rules and time limits, have so far refused to hold an evidentiary hearing to examine these witnesses. Executive clemency exists, and executive action - and your leadership - is required to preserve justice when the protections afforded by our appeals process fail to do so.
Thank you for your attention.
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/2446/t/4676/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=369
See also:
In the Absence of Proof
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
May 23, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/opinion/23herbert.html?_r=1
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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PETITION IN SUPPORT OF PAROLE OF LEONARD PELTIER
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/parole2008/
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C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) City Seeks New Powers in Its Stalled Fight Against Homelessness
By JULIE BOSMAN
June 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/nyregion/24homeless.html?ref=nyregion
2) Supreme Court Says Child's Rights Violated by Strip Search
By DAVID STOUT
June 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/politics/26scotus.html?_r=1&hp
3) In the Andes, a Toxic Site Also Provides a Livelihood
By SIMON ROMERO
June 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/world/americas/25peru.html?ref=world
4) Detective Perjured Himself at a Youth's Shooting Trial
By DOMINICK TAO
June 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/nyregion/25perjury.html?ref=nyregion
5) U.S. Jobless Claims Rise; G.D.P Revised Upward
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/business/economy/26econ.html?ref=business
6) Warily Moving Ahead on Oil Contracts
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
June 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/world/middleeast/26oil.html?ref=world
7) California Says It Cannot Afford Overhaul of Inmate Health Care
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/26prison.html?ref=us
8) No Recovery in Sight
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
June 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/opinion/27herbert.html?_r=1
9) Supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal Call for Civil Rights Investigation
By Hans Bennett
June 16, 2009
San Francisco Bay View
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/citing-withheld-evidence-supporters-of-mumia-abu-jamal-call-for-civil-rights-investigation/
10) Protesters Confront Soldiers After Coup in Honduras
By MARC LACEY and ELISABETH MALKIN
June 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/world/americas/30honduras.html?hp
11) Insurance Company Schemes
Editorial
June 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29mon1.html
12) New Plan Ties Reduced College Loan Payments to Income
By JONATHAN D. GLATER
June 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/education/30college.html?ref=education
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1) City Seeks New Powers in Its Stalled Fight Against Homelessness
By JULIE BOSMAN
June 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/nyregion/24homeless.html?ref=nyregion
In June 2004, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made a lofty promise to address one of the city's most intractable problems: he would reduce the homeless population of 38,000 by two-thirds in five years.
Today, with the total homeless population down only slightly, and with more families in shelters than five years ago, the administration is seeking state approval for a new set of policies designed to move families out more quickly, applying the same market-driven, incentive-based philosophy to homeless shelters that it has used in schools and antipoverty programs.
Under the new rules, nonprofit agencies that provide shelter beds under contract with the city would be paid more than the usual rate, which is roughly $100 a day, for each family that arrives. But after six months, if the agency has not been able to get the family into stable housing, the city would begin paying it less than the standard rate.
And city officials are trying to toughen rules and consequences for homeless families, forcing them to follow a strict code of conduct or risk being ejected from the shelter.
"The thing that we have been trying to introduce is a greater expectation of accountability, both by the providers and by the clients themselves," Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services, said in an interview. "We want them to overcome homelessness more quickly. We believe they are in shelter far longer than they need to be."
Shelter providers say that they are doing the best they can, and that the proposed payment structure could achieve the opposite of its intended result, especially since the city just imposed a 4 percent budget cut as part of reductions in virtually every city agency.
Christy Parque, the executive director of Homeless Services United, a coalition of more than 60 providers, said that further reductions "could result in an increased length of stay in shelter, because there will be fewer staff and resources to help clients address their problems and return to the community quickly."
Advocates for the homeless called the city's plans mean-spirited, and warned that they would threaten the safety of families, especially children, forced to leave the shelter with no place to go.
"It's an extraordinary change in what has been city policy for nearly three decades," said Steven Banks, the attorney in chief of the Legal Aid Society. "It's striking that the current city administration and the current state administration would be returning to these shelter-termination regulations, which are really a relic of another, harsher era."
The attempt to evict families from shelters began under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, an effort that was blocked by the courts. The Bloomberg administration has been no more successful. In 2002, the city pursued a policy that would allow it to eject families it deemed uncooperative, but backed down and agreed to reserve the right to eject single adults, but not families.
Ms. Gibbs said that an ejection could result from a homeless family "refusing to look for housing, refusing to seek employment, anything that is an unreasonable refusal to participate in the steps they need to take to overcome their homelessness."
"The families need to understand that they can't just thumb their nose at the rules and have no consequences," she said.
One thing is indisputable: While the population of homeless single adults has gone down significantly in the last five years, the number of families sleeping in shelters is near an all-time high. According to the Web site for the Department of Homeless Services, there were 34,774 people in shelters last week, including 9,361 families - often single mothers with children.
About 150 organizations that hold contracts with the city operate most of the homeless shelters. (The city runs a small handful of its own shelters.)
The cost of providing shelter has risen. The city estimates that it costs roughly $36,000 a year to house a homeless family, up from $31,656 in 2004. The average stay in a shelter is about nine months.
City officials have privately expressed frustration at their inability to get a handle on the problem, despite efforts to expand homelessness prevention and introduce rental subsidy programs.
The new policies reflect the administration's determination to rid the system of families who stay in shelters for long stretches, sometimes rejecting apartments offered to them, while giving the shelter providers an incentive to get them out.
Under the new rules, which would take effect in January, the city would pay the agencies a 10 percent premium for the first six months that it houses a family. During that time, the agency is expected to push the family toward economic independence and permanent housing. But if the family stayed longer, the agencies would be paid 20 percent less than the standard rate.
But advocates for the homeless questioned the city's ability to avoid bureaucratic mistakes that could result in a family being wrongly ejected.
In May, a state-mandated program to charge rent to the working homeless was quickly suspended after it began with a dizzying series of errors from both state and city agencies. (City officials say the program is being revamped.)
State approval is required to make changes to social service policies. Anthony Farmer, a spokesman for the State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, said the state commissioner was considering the proposals.
Robert V. Hess, the city's commissioner of homeless services, said that the new policies would be put in place after a long rollout, staff training and orientation, and that ejections would occur only after a thorough review.
"At the end of the day, we're not putting policies in place that are intended, or will result in, people just arbitrarily having their shelter rights terminated," Mr. Hess said. "That's not what we're about."
Bonnie Stone, the executive director of Women in Need, a shelter for women and children, praised the city for its ability to house an ever-increasing number of people who needed help.
But the notion of ejecting a family, she said, made her uneasy.
"I believe that you only do that under huge, huge safety and due process, and not for small things," she said, pausing. "I think it is not what we do."
At the moment, shelter residents who resist following rules are frequently subject to another form of punishment: transfer to a shelter seen as less desirable.
Tina Rodriguez, a pink-haired 23-year-old with a silver stud in her lip, said she and her toddler son, Damonie, had been living in a shelter in Hell's Kitchen since September, and lately workers there had threatened that if she did not move out soon, she would be transferred to a so-called Next Step shelter. The city says such shelters offer more intensive case management, but among families, they are known for stricter rules and more crowded conditions.
Still, when Ms. Rodriguez was recently offered a studio apartment in Harlem, she rejected it. "I was scared to tell my worker that I didn't want it," she said, standing outside the Hell's Kitchen shelter as Damonie slept in a stroller. "But there was no living room. I can't live with a 2-year-old in an apartment like that. They're trying to force me into somewhere that I'm not comfortable."
Amanda Hayes, 24, said she entered the shelter system with her toddler, Xavier, in April after growing fed up with her living arrangements in the Bronx: sharing a one-bedroom apartment with her mother, adult brother and Xavier.
She needs no additional pressure from shelter workers to persuade her to move out, she said.
"I've been looking for work every day," Ms. Hayes said. "I don't need to be threatened about it at every turn."
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2) Supreme Court Says Child's Rights Violated by Strip Search
By DAVID STOUT
June 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/politics/26scotus.html?_r=1&hp
WASHINGTON - In a ruling of interest to educators, parents and students across the country, the Supreme Court ruled, 8 to 1, on Thursday that the strip search of a 13-year-old Arizona girl by school officials who were looking for prescription-strength drugs violated her constitutional rights.
The officials in Safford, Ariz., would have been justified in 2003 had they limited their search to the backpack and outer clothing of Savana Redding, who was in the eighth grade at the time, the court ruled. But in searching her undergarments, they went too far and violated her Fourth Amendment privacy rights, the justices said.
Had Savana been suspected of having illegal drugs that could have posed a far greater danger to herself and other students, the strip search, too, might have been justified, the majority said, in an opinion by Justice David H. Souter.
"In sum, what was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," the court said. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable."
In fact, no pills were found on Savana when her underwear was examined by two school officials, both women, who were acting on a tip passed along by another student.
Thursday's ruling sends the case back to the lower courts to assess what damages, if any, should be paid by the school district. But, by a vote of 7 to 2, the Supreme Court held that the individual officials in the case should not be held liable, because "clearly established law" at the time of the search did not show that it violated the Fourth Amendment.
The portion of the ruling exempting the officials from liability is likely to be greeted with relief by thousands of principals, teachers and other school officials who work to impart knowledge and maintain discipline in a fast-changing world, where children are growing up (or trying to) earlier than ever.
Many school districts already prohibit strip searches, or severely limit them, a fact that was brought out when the case was argued on April 21.
Justice Clarence Thomas was the only member of the court to conclude that the strip search of Savana Redding did not violate the Fourth Amendment. He asserted that the majority's finding second-guesses the measures that educators take to maintain discipline "and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge."
The majority said it meant to cast "no ill reflection" on the assistant principal, Kerry Wilson, who ordered the search at a time when there were incidents of students using alcohol and tobacco. "Parents are known to overreact to protect their children from danger, and a school official with responsibility for safety may tend to do the same," Justice Souter wrote.
But Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not agree, and would not have protected the officials from liability. Justice Ginsburg singled out the assistant principal, noting that he had made Savana sit on a chair outside his office for more than two hours in what Justice Ginsburg called a "humiliating situation" when the case was argued.
"At no point did he attempt to call her parent," Justice Ginsburg wrote on Thursday. "Abuse of authority of that order should not be shielded by official immunity."
During the April argument, Justice Ginsburg seemed taken aback by the circumstances of the case, particularly that Savana came under suspicion because of a "tip" to officials from a classmate. "And nothing is done to check her veracity, nothing is done to follow up on it at all," the justice observed.
Justice Stevens wrote on Thursday that "it does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude."
The majority noted that students in a school setting are protected by something less than the "probable cause" standard that normally determines whether searches are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. "The lesser standard for school searches could as readily be described as a moderate chance of finding evidence of wrongdoing," the court said.
But the search of Savana Redding, who Justice Stevens said was an honors student at the time, did not meet even the lower standard, the majority found. (Ms. Redding is now in college.)
Dan Capra, a Fordham Law School professor, issued a statement in which he said that the fundamental question about the ruling in Safford Unified School District v. Redding, No. 08-479, is "is whether school officials will ever actually be liable for such searches."
"According to the court, the law on the subject was not clearly established, and so the officials had qualified immunity," Mr. Capra said. "But every case will be an application of law to fact. Officials now know they can't do exactly what was done in Safford. But what if there is any change of material fact in the circumstances?"
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3) In the Andes, a Toxic Site Also Provides a Livelihood
By SIMON ROMERO
June 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/world/americas/25peru.html?ref=world
LA OROYA, Peru - Claudia Albino, a washerwoman who earns about $3 a day and lives in a one-room hovel with her family in this bleak town high in the Andes, might seem at first to have nothing to do with Ira Rennert, the reclusive New York billionaire who built one of the largest homes in the United States, an Italianate mansion sprawling over more than 66,000 square feet in the Hamptons.
But Mr. Rennert's privately held industrial empire includes the smelter with a towering smokestack that overlooks Ms. Albino's home, so the health and economic fate of her and thousands of others here rest on the corporate maneuvers he is carrying out.
La Oroya has been called one of the world's 10 most polluted places by the Blacksmith Institute, a nonprofit group that studies toxic sites. But for several months, the Peruvian smelting company in Mr. Rennert's empire has claimed that low metals prices prevented it from completing a timely cleanup to lower the emissions that have given this town such an ignoble distinction.
The tensions here over the lead emissions and the smelter's financial meltdown is precisely the kind of dire mix of foreign investment and environmental contamination feared by indigenous groups elsewhere in Peru, particularly in the country's Amazon basin, where protests over similar issues left dozens dead this month.
Citing financial difficulties, the smelter's Peruvian operators, who have idled most of its operations, have threatened to close entirely for several months, putting in danger 3,000 jobs at the plant and thousands more who rely on it like Ms. Albino, who washes clothes for the wives of smelter workers.
This week, some workers and residents protested against the possible closing, halting traffic and commerce along the highway that descends from La Oroya to the capital, Lima. Then on Tuesday, the government signaled that it might be open to extending the October deadline for the cleanup. Officials involved in talks on Wednesday said that one possible solution to the impasse would involve giving workers some control of the plant.
"This man Rennert, I've heard of him on television, of his great wealth and the homes he has around the world," said Ms. Albino. "As for me, I cannot afford to test the lead levels in my daughters' blood any longer," she said, attributing the stunted growth of her youngest daughter, 7, to the smelter's emissions.
Residents of La Oroya, with a population of 35,000, talk about the lead in their blood like people elsewhere discuss the weather. Ninety-seven percent of children under the age of 6 had lead levels that would be considered toxic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, according to a 2005 study by scientists from Saint Louis University.
But while some here seethe against Mr. Rennert and the company, Doe Run Peru, others defend them for providing work, making for a sharply divided town.
"We are thankful to Doe Run," said Elizabeth Canales, 40, a seamstress and a member of a company-supported group that teaches hygiene to poor families here. "It truly saddens me because I don't know if this is happening because there's a misunderstanding."
Some publicly praise Doe Run Peru while requesting, amid fear of retribution, anonymity to vent their anger at the company. "This town is owned by one company, and we vassals cannot be seen as disloyal to our owners," said one longtime worker.
The discord between those for and against the company festers in La Oroya's labyrinthine streets, packed with stands selling foods like seasoned guinea pig and bars catering to the plant's workers, who largely move here from other parts of Peru and earn salaries that dwarf those of other residents.
Insults and threats are common. Some workers at the plant recently paraded an effigy of Archbishop Pedro Barreto, an outspoken critic of the company's environmental record, burning it at the culmination of their protest.
"When insults don't work, the company resorts to intimidation, and when that fails, to blackmail, which is what it's doing now by saying it will shut the plant unless it gets an extension for its cleanup," said Pedro Córdova, 50, a production mechanic at the smelter who is suing the company over health claims related to a lung ailment.
Environmental activists in La Oroya said they saw parallels between Doe Run Peru's strategies here and those employed elsewhere by Renco, Mr. Rennert's holding company. Even as his fortune remained intact, they contend, some Renco companies in the United States faced complaints over environmental contamination and went into bankruptcy earlier this decade.
Through a spokesman in New York, Mr. Rennert declined to be interviewed, and Renco would say only that it was in talks aimed at "reaching a viable solution."
Doe Run Peru claims that it has "dramatically reduced" the toxic emissions at the smelter since buying it from Peru's government in 1997, leading to "a radical improvement in environmental conditions."
Still, researchers contend Doe Run Peru has misled officials by using 1997, the year it took control of the smelter, as a point of comparison for pollution levels, since contamination climbed that year. "Doe Run Peru has overseen an absolute increase in contamination in La Oroya," said Corey Laplante, an American scholar who researched La Oroya at the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law in Lima.
Despite being pressed by workers here to find a solution, officials in Lima this week said they had concerns about taking over or intervening in the company, pointing to legal battles that could arise from taking some control of a foreign-owned asset.
News reports that Renco had tried this month to buy the Swedish automaker Saab, led angry residents here to ask why Doe Run Peru could not complete its cleanup or prevent a shutdown of the smelter at a time when metal prices have begun to climb again.
Nearly everyone here wants the smelter to remain open and for the cleanup to proceed. But with Peru forging closer ties to the United States in Latin America through its new trade deal with Washington, some here question the benefits of such a pact.
"It's like we're pawns in a game," said Rosa Amaro, 52, a leader of an environmental group here. "What I still fail to understand is why we are exposed to the risks of an American investment," she added, "but not to the environmental protections enjoyed by the citizens of the United States."
Andrea Zarate contributed reporting from Lima, Peru.
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4) Detective Perjured Himself at a Youth's Shooting Trial
By DOMINICK TAO
June 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/nyregion/25perjury.html?ref=nyregion
A New York City police detective was convicted Wednesday of lying on the witness stand in 2007 when he testified in an attempted-murder trial, a finding that a Bronx judge based largely on a recording made on an MP3 player by a defendant the officer had questioned.
The detective, Christopher Perino, was convicted of three felony counts of perjury after the judge found that he had lied while testifying that he had never questioned the defendant, when, in fact, the recording proved he had. He faces up to seven years in prison on each count and is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 18.
The judge, State Supreme Court Justice James M. Kindler, allowed Mr. Perino to remain free on a $15,000 personal recognizance bond until then.
Mr. Perino, who opted for a nonjury trial, was terminated by the Police Department after his conviction, said Paul J. Browne, the chief police spokesman.
"We cannot even begin to address the public safety issues in the city if the testimony on which we must rely is perjured," the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, said in a statement. "The damage is compounded when the person who offers untruthful testimony is a police officer who is sworn to uphold the law."
Mr. Perino's lawyer, Murray Richman, said he planned to appeal. "It's an upsetting verdict," he said. "I believe the police officer was just doing a good job to get a guy with a gun off the street."
The case originated in December 2005, when Detective Perino was investigating a shooting in the elevator of a building in the High Bridge neighborhood of the Bronx. A suspect, Erik Crespo, 17, was arrested six days after the shooting.
Mr. Crespo, who was listening to music on an MP3 player when he was brought to a Bronx station house, used the device to record Detective Perino questioning him, for an hour and 15 minutes, without his parents or a lawyer present.
During cross-examination at Mr. Crespo's trial, Mr. Perino denied that any such interrogation had taken place. According to a transcript of that trial, when Mark S. DeMarco, Mr. Crespo's lawyer, asked the detective if he had asked his client any questions, Mr. Perino replied: "That's correct. He wasn't questioned."
Mr. Crespo was sentenced to seven years in prison on a weapons charge; an attempted-murder charge was dropped when evidence of Mr. Perino's perjury surfaced.
Simon Akam contributed reporting.
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5) U.S. Jobless Claims Rise; G.D.P Revised Upward
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/business/economy/26econ.html?ref=business
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Labor Department said on Thursday that new jobless claims rose unexpectedly last week. And the number of people continuing to receive unemployment was higher than expected.
The figures indicate that jobs remain scarce even as the economy shows some signs of recovering from the longest recession since World War II.
A revised reading on gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's output, said the economy posted a 5.5 percent annualized decline from January through March. That was slightly better than the 5.7 percent estimate made a month ago. Economists generally think the economy is shrinking at a slower rate, about 2 percent, in the current quarter.
During the quarter, businesses held larger stockpiles of goods than in previous quarters, and imports declined more sharply than previously estimated.
Initial claims for jobless benefits rose last week by 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 627,000. Economists had expected a drop to 600,000. Several states reported more claims than expected from teachers, cafeteria workers and other school employees, a Labor Department analyst said.
The number of people who are continuing to receive unemployment insurance rose by 29,000, to 6.74 million, slightly above analysts' estimates of 6.7 million. The four-week average of claims, which smoothes out fluctuations, was largely unchanged, at 616,750.
Most economists still expect the number of initial unemployment insurance claims, which reflects the level of layoffs, to decline slowly in coming months as the recession bottoms out.
"We still firmly believe that the underlying trends in claims is downwards, but it is slow and uneven," Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist for High Frequency Economics, wrote in a client note.
The number of people continuing to receive unemployment aid remains below the peak of 6.8 million reached on May 30. That means job losses are most likely slowing, economists said.
Meanwhile, the rebound in consumer spending in the first quarter was slightly less vigorous than previously reported. Consumers increased their spending at a 1.4 percent rate, down from a 1.5 percent growth rate estimated last month.
Still, that was the strongest showing in nearly two years and a huge improvement from the fourth quarter, when skittish consumers cut spending by the most in nearly three decades.
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6) Warily Moving Ahead on Oil Contracts
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
June 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/world/middleeast/26oil.html?ref=world
BAGHDAD - When Iraq puts development rights to some of its largest oil fields up for auction to foreign companies on Monday, the bidding will be a watershed moment, representing the first chance for petroleum giants like ExxonMobil to tap into the resources of a country they were kicked out of almost 40 years ago.
Yet, there are widespread doubts about whether Iraq is ready for a sudden infusion of capital from international oil corporations. The country is still not safe. Parliament has not approved a law regulating the oil industry. And oil companies are wary of corruption within Iraq's Oil Ministry.
The oil companies are also somewhat disgruntled, being forced to compete for 20-year service contracts and not the more lucrative production sharing agreements they would prefer. Such agreements would allow them to share directly in the profits from oil production, rather than getting fixed fees.
Still, all sides want to move ahead for one simple reason: money.
"Asking why oil companies are interested in Iraq is like asking why robbers rob banks: because that's where the money is," said Larry Goldstein, director of special projects at the Energy Policy Research Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit that studies energy economics. "You can't choose where the resources are. The risks are substantial, but everybody has to play by the same risks."
The Iraqi government says that in order to maintain security and pay the salaries of the hundreds of thousands of its employees hired during the past two years, it has to try to exponentially raise oil production, which accounts for about 95 percent of the country's foreign exchange earnings.
"We are determined to develop our massive hydrocarbon resources as quickly as possible to finance the reconstruction of the country," Hussain al-Shahristani, Iraq's oil minister, said recently. Mr. Shahristani said his goal was to increase production from the current level of about 2.4 million barrels a day to 6 million barrels in six years.
To do that, the government has estimated that its oil sector needs $50 billion in investment on top of the more than $8 billion it has spent during the past several years to try to increase capacity.
But production has been declining for years in southern Iraq, which contains about 80 percent of Iraq's oil. Government officials blame crumbling infrastructure there, while others cite mismanagement.
Under the government of Saddam Hussein, many oil-sector employees who held technical jobs were members of the Baath Party. After the American invasion, many of them fled abroad, were arrested or were killed, leaving the ranks severely depleted. Iraqi oil officials acknowledge that as a result of that and mismanagement, oil production and the current bidding process have suffered.
Oil corporations have complained quietly about the corruption, mismanagement and continuing violence in Iraq, as well as rules that force them to become partners with Iraqi oil companies.
Another contractual requirement dictates that the oil companies that win fields in the auction make payments totaling $2.6 billion to the government. The Iraqi government has described the money as loans that will be paid back once production begins.
More ominously for the oil companies, stiff resistance to the coming auction has been building among members of Parliament, oil unions and even officials in the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
"The service contracts will put the Iraqi economy in chains and shackle its independence for the next 20 years," said Fayad al-Nema, director of the South Oil Company, the state-owned company that produces most of the country's crude oil.
Mr. Nema's opinion is important because the South Oil Company is likely to be chosen as one of the partners in the joint ventures that will be created with foreign companies to operate the six oil fields and two gas fields that are up for bid.
Despite the drawbacks, international oil companies see Iraq as critical for business because few other places have as much oil that is untapped and relatively close to the surface, so it can be extracted relatively cheaply. With 115 billion barrels, the country has the world's third largest proven reserves, trailing only Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Indeed, after months of lobbying by Mr. Maliki and other government officials, most of the world's big oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum and Chevron, are expected to submit bids. The companies were expelled from Iraq in 1972, after Mr. Hussein nationalized the oil industry.
"My guess is that every international oil company in the world, knowing Iraq is blessed with terrific God-given natural resources, is interested in Iraq," Daniel Nelson, a former ExxonMobil vice president, said recently. "I'm not giving any competitive secrets away here."
Last year, an Iraqi plan to award six no-bid contracts to Western oil companies was voided amid sharp criticism from several United States senators.
In the meantime, the Kurdistan Regional Government signed about 30 contracts of its own with international oil companies, though the central government refuses to recognize them.
Each of the six fields open for bidding has more than five billion barrels of oil. Four of the fields are in the south and two are in the northern province of Kirkuk.
The auction is scheduled to begin on Monday, and the government hopes to finish subsequent contract negotiations by the end of August.
Abeer Mohammed contributed reporting.
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7) California Says It Cannot Afford Overhaul of Inmate Health Care
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/26prison.html?ref=us
SACRAMENTO (AP) - The Schwarzenegger administration has rejected a plan intended to end years of litigation over inmate medical care in the California prison system.
In a letter The Associated Press obtained on Thursday, the state's corrections secretary, Matthew Cate, tells a court-appointed receiver that the state cannot afford the $1.9 billion overhaul Mr. Cate agreed to last month.
Mr. Cate and the receiver appointed in federal court, J. Clark Kelso, had agreed to the outline of a deal intended to overhaul inmate medical care. The federal courts, which have ruled that the care in California prisons is so poor that it violates inmates' civil rights, have threatened to take money directly from the state treasury to fix the system.
But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement Thursday that California could not afford the additional cost.
"We cannot agree to spend $2 billion on state-of-the-art medical facilities for prisoners while we are cutting billions of dollars from schools and health care programs for children and seniors," Mr. Schwarzenegger said.
The governor and lawmakers are considering eliminating or significantly reducing education, state parks and core social programs to address the $24.3 billion budget shortfall.
A spokesman for the prison receiver's office, Luis Patino, said the office would have no direct comment on the rejection of the tentative agreement.
The tentative plan significantly scaled back Mr. Kelso's original plan to revamp California's prison medical system.
Mr. Cate said Thursday that California remained committed to improving prison health care, but hoped to do it through legislation signed by the governor in 2007 that provides about $8 billion for prison construction, including $1 billion dedicated to health care improvements.
The tentative plan called for building two prison hospitals to house 3,400 inmates at a cost of $1.9 billion.
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8) No Recovery in Sight
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
June 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/opinion/27herbert.html?_r=1
How do you put together a consumer economy that works when the consumers are out of work?
One of the great stories you'll be hearing over the next couple of years will be about the large number of Americans who were forced out of work in this recession and remained unable to find gainful employment after the recession ended. We're basically in denial about this.
There are now more than five unemployed workers for every job opening in the United States. The ranks of the poor are growing, welfare rolls are rising and young American men on a broad front are falling into an abyss of joblessness.
Some months ago, the Obama administration and various mainstream economists forecast a peak unemployment rate of roughly 8 percent this year. It has already reached 9.4 percent, and most analysts now expect it to hit 10 percent or higher. Economists are currently spreading the word that the recession may end sometime this year, but the unemployment rate will continue to climb. That's not a recovery. That's mumbo jumbo.
Why this rampant joblessness is not viewed as a crisis and approached with the sense of urgency and commitment that a crisis warrants, is beyond me. The Obama administration has committed a great deal of money to keep the economy from collapsing entirely, but that is not enough to cope with the scope of the jobless crisis.
There were roughly seven million people officially counted as unemployed in November 2007, a month before the recession began. Now there are about 14 million. If you add to these unemployed individuals those who are working part time but would like to work full time, and those who want jobs but have become discouraged and stopped looking, you get an underutilization rate that is truly alarming.
"By May 2009," according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, "the total number of underutilized workers had increased dramatically from 15.63 million to 29.37 million - a rise of 13.7 million, or 88 percent. Nearly 30 million working-age individuals were underutilized in May 2009, the largest number in our nation's history. The overall labor underutilization rate in May 2009 had risen to 18.2 percent, its highest value in 26 years."
If it were true that the recession is approaching its end and that these startlingly high numbers were about to begin a steady and substantial decline, there would be much less reason for alarm. But while there is evidence the recession is easing, hardly anyone believes a big-time employment turnaround is in the offing.
Three-quarters of the workers let go over the past year were permanently displaced, as opposed to temporarily laid off. They won't be going back to their jobs when economic conditions improve. And many of those who were permanently displaced were in fields like construction and manufacturing in which the odds of finding work, even after a recovery takes hold, are not good.
Another startling aspect of this economic downturn is the toll it has taken on men, especially young men. Men accounted for nearly 80 percent of the loss in employment in this recession. As the labor market center reported, "The unemployment rate for males in April 2009 was 10 percent, versus only 7.2 percent for women, the largest absolute and relative gender gap in unemployment rates in the post-World War II period."
Workers under 30 have sustained nearly half the net job losses since November 2007.
This is not a recipe for a strong economic recovery once the recession officially ends, or for a healthy society. Young males, especially, are being clobbered at an age when, typically, they would be thinking about getting married, setting up new households and starting families. Moreover, work habits and experience developed in one's 20s often establish the foundation for decades of employment and earnings.
We've seen what happens when you rely on debt and inflated assets to keep the economy afloat. The economy can't be re-established on a sound basis without aggressive efforts to put people back to work in jobs with decent wages.
We also need to consider the suffering that is being endured by these high levels of joblessness, including the profound negative effect on the families of the unemployed. Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, warned about the consequences for children. "What does it mean," he asked, "when kids are under stress because there is no money in the household, or people have to move more, or are combining households, or lose their health insurance? I believe this is going to leave a permanent scar on a generation of kids."
The first step in dealing with a crisis is to recognize that it exists. This is not a problem that will evaporate when the gross domestic product finally begins to creep into positive territory.
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9) Supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal Call for Civil Rights Investigation
By Hans Bennett
June 16, 2009
San Francisco Bay View
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/citing-withheld-evidence-supporters-of-mumia-abu-jamal-call-for-civil-rights-investigation/
On April 6, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal from death-row journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of white Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in a 1982 trial deemed unfair by Amnesty International, the European Parliament, the Japanese Diet, Nelson Mandela and numerous others. Citing the Supreme Court denial and several instances of withheld evidence, Abu-Jamal's international support network is now calling for a federal civil rights investigation into Abu-Jamal's case.
The facts of the Abu-Jamal/Faulkner case are highly contested, but all sides agree on certain key points: Abu-Jamal was moonlighting as a taxi-driver on December 9, 1981, when, shortly before 4:00 a.m., he saw his brother, William "Billy" Cook, in an altercation with Officer Faulkner after Faulkner had pulled over Cook's car at the corner of 13th and Locust streets, downtown Philadelphia. Abu-Jamal approached the scene.
Minutes later when police arrived, Faulkner had been shot dead, and Abu-Jamal had been shot in the chest. The bullet removed from Faulkner, reportedly a .38, was officially too damaged to match it to the legally registered .38 caliber gun that Abu-Jamal says he carried as a taxi driver, after he was robbed several times on the job. Further, Amnesty International has criticized the official "failure of the police to test Abu-Jamal's gun, hands, and clothing" for gunshot residue as "deeply troubling."
Abu-Jamal has always maintained his innocence, and today still fights the conviction from his death-row cell in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, where he also records weekly radio commentaries and has now written six books.
Recently, Abu-Jamal had petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the U.S. Third Circuit Court ruling of March 27, 2008, which rejected his bid, based on three issues, for a new guilt-phase trial. One issue was that of racially discriminatory jury selection, based on the 1986 case Batson v. Kentucky, on which the three-judge panel split 2-1, with Judge Thomas Ambro dissenting.
Ambro argued that prosecutor Joseph McGill's use of 10 out of his 15 peremptory strikes to remove otherwise acceptable African-American jurors was itself enough evidence of racial discrimination to grant Abu-Jamal a preliminary hearing that could have led to a new trial. In denying Abu-Jamal this preliminary hearing, Ambro argued that the court was creating new rules that were being exclusively applied to Abu-Jamal's case. The denial "goes against the grain of our prior actions ... I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents," wrote Ambro.
In his new essay titled "The Mumia Exception," author J. Patrick O'Connor argues that the Third Circuit Court's rejection of the Batson claim and of the other two issues presented is only the latest example of the courts' longstanding practice of altering existing precedent to deny Abu-Jamal legal relief. O'Connor cites many other problems, including the 2001 affidavit by a former court stenographer, who says that on the eve of Abu-Jamal's trial, she overheard Judge Albert Sabo say to someone at the courthouse that he was going to "help" the prosecution "fry the nigger," referring to Abu-Jamal. Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe rejected this affidavit on grounds that even if Sabo had made the comment, it was irrelevant as long as his "rulings were legally correct."
The phrase "Mumia exception" was first coined by Linn Washington Jr., a Philadelphia Tribune columnist and professor of journalism at Temple University, who has covered this story since the day of Abu-Jamal's 1981 arrest. Washington criticizes the Third Circuit's ruling against Abu-Jamal's claim that Judge Sabo had treated him unfairly at the 1995-97 Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) hearings, which was another issue the Circuit Court had considered. Citing "the mound of legal violations in this case," Washington says "the continuing refusal of U.S. courts to equally apply the law in the Abu-Jamal case constitutes a stain on America's image internationally."
Launched campaign cites withheld evidence
The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported that supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal are responding to the March 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling by launching a campaign calling for a federal civil rights investigation into Abu-Jamal's case. The campaign's supporters include the Riverside Church's Prison Ministry, actress Ruby Dee, professor Cornel West and U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel, who is chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means.
In 2004, the NAACP passed a resolution supporting a new trial for Abu-Jamal, and campaign supporters will be gathering to publicize the civil rights campaign at the upcoming NAACP National Convention in New York City July 11-16 and to pressure the NAACP to honor their earlier resolutions by actively supporting the current campaign seeking an investigation. Supporters will then be in Washington, D.C., on July 22 to lobby their elected officials and, in mid-September, they'll return to Washington, D.C., for a major press conference.
Thousands of signatures have been collected for a public letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, which reads: "Inasmuch as there is no other court to which Abu-Jamal can appeal for justice, we turn to you for remedy of a 27-year history of gross violations of U.S. constitutional law and international standards of justice." The letter cites Holder's recent investigation into the case of former Senator Ted Stevens, which led to all charges against him being dropped: "You were specifically outraged by the fact that the prosecution withheld information critical to the defense's argument for acquittal, a violation clearly committed by the prosecution in Abu-Jamal's case. Mumia Abu-Jamal, though not a U.S. Senator of great wealth and power, is a Black man revered around the world for his courage, clarity and commitment and deserves no less than Senator Stevens."
Several campaigns seeking a civil rights investigation into the Abu-Jamal case have been launched since 1995, at which time the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was one of many groups that publicly supported an investigation. In a 1995 letter written independently of the CBC, Representatives Chaka Fattah, Ron Dellums, Cynthia McKinney, Maxine Waters and John Conyers-now chairman of the House Judiciary Committee-stated, "There is ample evidence that Mr. Abu-Jamal's constitutional rights were violated, that he did not receive a fair trial, and that he is, in fact, innocent."
Assistant Attorney General Andrew Fois responded to the CBCs request and, in a September 1995 rejection letter written to Congressman Ron Dellums, Fois conceded that even though there is a five-year statute of limitations for a civil rights investigation, the statute does not apply if "there is significant evidence of an ongoing conspiracy."
One of the 2009 campaign's organizers is Dr. Suzanne Ross, a spokesperson for the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition of New York City.
Citing Andrew Fois' letter, Ross argues that the "continued denial of justice to Mumia in the federal courts, as documented by dissenting Judge Thomas Ambro," is evidence of an "ongoing conspiracy" and thus merits an investigation. "Throughout the history of this case, we were always told 'Wait until we get to the federal courts. They will surely overturn the racism and gross misconduct of Judge Sabo,' but we never got even a preliminary hearing on the issue considered most winnable: racial bias in jury selection, the so called Batson issue."
Ross also criticizes the Third Circuit's denial of Abu-Jamal's claim that Judge Sabo was unfair at the 1995-97 PCRA hearings and considers this denial to be further evidence of an "ongoing conspiracy." Ross argues that the courts' continued affirmation of Sabo's rulings during the PCRA hearings and Sabo's ultimate ruling that nothing presented at the PCRA hearings was significant enough to merit a new trial serves to legitimize numerous injustices throughout Abu-Jamal's case.
Specifically referring to the issue of withheld evidence that was central to the case of former Senator Ted Stevens, organizer Suzanne Ross identifies five key instances in Abu-Jamal's case where "evidence was withheld that could have led to Mumia's acquittal." The DA's office withheld two items from Abu-Jamal's defense: the actual location of the driver's license application found in Officer Faulkner's pocket and Pedro Polakoff's crime scene photos. Then, at the request of prosecutor McGill, Judge Sabo ruled to block three items from the jury: prosecution eyewitness Robert Chobert's probation status and criminal history; testimony from defense eyewitness Veronica Jones about police attempts to solicit false testimony; and testimony from Police Officer Gary Waskshul.
DA suppresses evidence about Kenneth Freeman
In their recent books, Michael Schiffmann (Race Against Death: The Struggle for the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, 2006), and J. Patrick O'Connor (The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, 2008) argue that the actual shooter of Officer Faulkner was a man named Kenneth Freeman. Schiffmann and O'Connor argue that Freeman was an occupant of Billy Cook's car who shot Faulkner in response to Faulkner having shot Abu-Jamal first, and then fled the scene before police arrived.
Central to Schiffmann and O'Connor's argument was the presence of a driver's license application for one Arnold Howard, which was found in the front pocket of Officer Faulkner's shirt. Abu-Jamal's defense would not learn about this until 13 years later, because the police and DA's office had failed to notify them about the application's crucial location. Journalist Linn Washington argues that this failure was "a critical and deliberate omission" and "a major violation of fair trial rights and procedures. If the appeals process had any semblance of fairness, this misconduct alone should have won a new trial for Abu-Jamal."
More importantly, Washington says, "This evidence provides strong proof of a third person at the scene along with Faulkner and Billy Cook. The prosecution case against Abu-Jamal rests on the assertion that Faulkner encountered a lone Cook minutes before Abu-Jamal's arrival on the scene, but Faulkner got that application from somebody other than Cook, who had his own license."
At the 1995 PCRA hearing, Arnold Howard testified that he had loaned his temporary, non-photo license to Kenneth Freeman, who was Billy Cook's business partner and close friend. Further, Howard stated that police came to his house early in the morning on December 9, 1981, and brought him to the police station for questioning because he was suspected of being "the person who had run away" from the scene, but he was released after producing a 4:00 a.m. receipt from a drugstore across town-which provided an alibi-and telling them that he had loaned the application to Freeman, who Howard reports was also at the police station that morning.
Also pointing to Freeman's presence in the car with Cook, O'Connor and Schiffmann cite prosecution witness Cynthia White's testimony at Cook's separate trial for charges of assaulting Faulkner, where White describes both a "driver" and a "passenger" in Cook's VW. Also notable, investigative journalist Dave Lindorff's book (Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, 2003) features an interview with Cook's lawyer, Daniel Alva, in which Alva says that Cook had confided to him within days of the shooting that Freeman had been with him that morning.
Linn Washington argues that "this third person at the crime scene is consistent with eyewitness accounts of the shooter fleeing the scene. Remember that accounts from both prosecution and defense witnesses confirm the existence of a fleeing shooter. Abu-Jamal was arrested at the scene, critically wounded. He did not run away and return in a matter of seconds." Eyewitnesses Robert Chobert, Dessie Hightower, Veronica Jones, Deborah Kordansky, William Singletary and Marcus Cannon all reported, at various times, that they saw one or more men run away from the scene.
O'Connor writes that "some of the eyewitnesses said this man had an Afro and wore a green army jacket. Freeman did have an Afro and he perpetually wore a green army jacket. Freeman was tall and burly, weighing about 225 pounds at the time." Then there's eyewitness Robert Harkins, whom prosecutor McGill did not call as a witness. O'Connor postulates that the prosecutor made that decision because Harkins' account of a struggle between Faulkner and the shooter that caused Faulkner to fall on his hands and knees before Faulkner was shot "demolished the version of the shooting that the state's other witnesses rendered at trial." O'Connor writes further that "Harkins described the shooter as a little taller and heavier than the 6-foot, 200-pound Faulkner," which excludes the 6-foot-1-inch, 170-pound Abu-Jamal.
Linn Washington's 2001 affidavit states that he knew Freeman to be a "close friend of Cook's" and that "Cook and Freeman were constantly together." Washington first met Freeman when Freeman reported his experience of police brutality to the Philadelphia Tribune, where Washington worked. Washington says today that "Kenny did not harbor any illusions about police being unquestioned heroes due to his experiences with being beaten a few times by police and police incessantly harassing him for his street vending."
Regarding the police harassment and intimidation of Freeman, which continued after the arrest of Abu-Jamal, Washington adds: "It is significant to note that the night after the Faulkner shooting, the newsstand that Freeman built and operated at 16th and Chestnut Streets in Center City burned to the ground. In news media accounts of this arson, police sources openly boasted to reporters that the arsonist was probably a police officer. Witnesses claimed to see officers fleeing the scene right before the fire was noticed. Needless to say, that arson resulted in no arrests."
Dave Lindorff argues that the police clearly "had their eye on Freeman," because "only two months after Faulkner's shooting, Freeman was arrested in his home, where he was found hiding in his attic armed with a .22 caliber pistol, explosives and a supply of ammunition. At that time, he was not charged with anything." O'Connor and Schiffmann argue that police intimidation ultimately escalated to the point where police themselves murdered Freeman.
The morning of May 14, 1985, Freeman's body was found: naked, bound and with a drug needle in his arm. His cause of death was officially declared a "heart attack." The date of Freeman's death is significant because the night before his body was found, the police had orchestrated a military-style siege on the MOVE organization's West Philadelphia home. Police had fired over 10,000 rounds of ammunition in 90 minutes and used a State Police helicopter to drop a C-4 bomb-illegally supplied by the FBI-on MOVEs roof, which started a fire that destroyed the entire city block. The MOVE Commission later documented that police had shot at MOVE family members when they tried to escape the fire: In all, six adults and five children were killed.
As a local journalist, Abu-Jamal had criticized the city government's conflicts with MOVE and, after his 1981 arrest, MOVE began to publicly support him. Through this mutual advocacy, which continues today, Abu-Jamal and MOVEs contentious relationship with the Philadelphia authorities have always been closely linked. Seen in this context, Schiffmann argues that "if Freeman was indeed killed by cops, the killing probably was part of a general vendetta of the Philadelphia cops against their 'enemies' and the cops killed him because they knew or suspected he had something to do with the killing of Faulkner." O'Connor concurs, arguing that "the timing and modus operandi of the abduction and killing alone suggest an extreme act of police vengeance."
DA suppresses Pedro Polakoff's crime scene photos
On December 6, 2008, several hundred protesters gathered outside the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, where Pam Africa, coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, spoke about the newly discovered crime scene photos taken by press photographer Pedro Polakoff. Africa cited Polakoff's statements today that he approached the DAs office with the photos in 1981, 1982 and 1995 but that the DA had completely ignored him.
Polakoff states that because he had believed Abu-Jamal was guilty, he had no interest in approaching the defense, and never did. Consequently, neither the 1982 jury nor the defense ever saw Polakoff's photos. "The DA deliberately kept evidence out," declared Africa. "Someone should be arrested for withholding evidence in a murder trial."
Advocacy groups called Educators for Mumia and Journalists for Mumia explain in their fact sheet, "21 FAQs," that Polakoff's photos were first discovered by German author Michael Schiffmann in May 2006 and published that fall in his book, Race Against Death. One of Polakoff's photos was first published in the U.S. by the San Francisco Bay View newspaper on October 24, 2007.
Reuters followed with a December 4, 2007, article, after which the photos made their television debut on NBCs December 6, 2007 Today Show. They have since been spotlighted by National Public Radio, Indymedia.org, Counterpunch, The Philadelphia Weekly and the new British documentary In Prison My Whole Life, which features an interview with Polakoff.
Since May 2007, www.Abu-Jamal-News.com has displayed four of Polakoff's photos, making the following points:
Photo 1: Mishandling the Guns-Officer James Forbes holds both Abu-Jamal's and Faulkner's guns in his bare hand and touches the metal parts. This contradicts his later court testimony that he had preserved the ballistics evidence by not touching the metal parts.
Photos 2 and 3: The Moving Hat-Faulkner's hat is moved from the top of Billy Cook's VW and placed on the sidewalk for the official police photo.
Photo 4: The Missing Taxi-Prosecution witness Robert Chobert testified that he was parked directly behind Faulkner's car, but the space is empty in the photo.
The Missing Divots-In all of Polakoff's photos of the sidewalk where Faulkner was found, there are no large bullet divots, or destroyed chunks of cement, which should be visible in the pavement if the prosecution scenario was accurate. According to that account, Abu-Jamal shot down at Faulkner-and allegedly missed several times-while Faulkner was on his back. Also, citing the official police photo, Michael Schiffmann writes: "It is thus no question any more whether the scenario presented by the prosecution at Abu-Jamal's trial is true, because it is physically impossible."
Pedro P. Polakoff was a Philadelphia freelance photographer who reports having arrived at the crime scene about 12 minutes after the shooting was first reported on police radio and at least 10 minutes before the arrival of the Mobile Crime Detection Unit that handles crime scene forensics and photographs. In Schiffmann's interview with him, Polakoff recounted that "all the officers present expressed the firm conviction that Abu-Jamal had been the passenger in Billy Cook's VW and had fired and killed Faulkner by a single shot fired from the passenger seat of the car." Polakoff bases this on police statements made to him directly and from his having overheard their conversations.
Polakoff states that this early police opinion was apparently the result of their interviews of three other witnesses who were still present at the crime scene: a parking lot attendant, a drug-addicted woman and another woman. None of those eyewitnesses, however, have appeared in any report presented to the courts by the police or the prosecution.
It is undisputed that Abu-Jamal approached from across the street and was not the passenger in Billy Cook's car. Schiffmann argues that Polakoff's personal account strengthens the argument that the actual shooter was Billy Cook's passenger Kenneth Freeman, who, Schiffmann postulates fled the scene before police arrived.
Robert Chobert's legal status withheld from jury
At prosecutor Joseph McGill's request, Judge Albert Sabo blocked Abu-Jamal's defense from telling the 1982 jury that key prosecution eyewitness, taxi driver Robert Chobert, was on probation for throwing a Molotov cocktail into a school yard, for pay. Sabo justified this by ruling that Chobert's offense was not crimen falsi, i.e., a crime of deception. Consequently, the jury never heard about this, nor that on the night of Abu-Jamal's arrest, Chobert had been illegally driving on a suspended license (revoked for a DWI). This probation violation could have given him up to 30 years in prison, so he was extremely vulnerable to pressure from the police. Notably, at the later 1995 PCRA hearing, Chobert testified that his probation had never been revoked, even though he continued to drive his taxi illegally through 1995.
At the 1982 trial, Chobert testified that he was in his taxi, which he had parked directly behind Faulkner's police car, and was writing in his logbook when he heard the first gunshot and looked up. Chobert alleged that while he did not see a gun in Abu-Jamal's hand, nor a muzzle flash, he did see Abu-Jamal standing over Faulkner, saw Abu-Jamal's hand "jerk back" several times, and heard shots after each "jerk." After the shooting, Chobert stated that he got out and approached the scene.
Damaging Chobert's credibility, however, is evidence suggesting that Chobert may have lied about his location at the time of Faulkner's death. As noted earlier, the newly discovered Polakoff crime scene photos show that the space where Chobert testified to being parked directly behind Officer Faulkner's car was actually empty.
Yet even more evidence suggests he lied about his location. While prosecution eyewitness Cynthia White is the only witness to testify seeing Chobert's taxi parked behind Faulkner's police car, no official eyewitness reported seeing White at the scene. Furthermore, Chobert's taxi is missing both from White's first sketch of the crime scene given to police (Defense Exhibit D-12) and from a later one (Prosecution Exhibit C-35). In a 2001 affidavit, private investigator George Michael Newman says that in a 1995 interview, Chobert told Newman that Chobert was actually parked around the corner, on 13th Street, north of Locust Street, and did not even see the shooting.
Amnesty International documents that both Chobert and White "altered their descriptions of what they saw, in ways that supported the prosecution's version of events." Chobert first told police that the shooter simply "ran away," but after he had identified Abu-Jamal at the scene, he said the shooter had run away 30 to 35 "steps" before he was caught. At trial, Chobert changed this distance to 10 "feet," which was closer to the official police account that Abu-Jamal was found just a few feet away from Officer Faulkner.
Nevertheless, Chobert did stick to a few statements in his trial testimony that contradicted the prosecution's scenario. For example, Chobert declared that he did not see the apparently unrelated Ford car that, according to official reports, was parked in front of Billy Cook's VW. Chobert also claimed that the altercation happened behind Cook's VW (it officially happened in front of Cook's VW), that Chobert did not see Abu-Jamal get shot or see Officer Faulkner fire his gun, and that the shooter was "heavyset"-estimating 200-225 pounds. Abu-Jamal weighed 170 pounds.
In his 2003 book, Killing Time, Dave Lindorff wrote about two other problems with Chobert's account. While being so legally vulnerable, why would Chobert have parked directly behind a police car? Why would he have left his car and approached the scene if in fact the shooter were still there? Lindorff suggests that "at the time of the incident, Chobert might not have thought that the man slumped on the curb was the shooter," because "in his initial December 9 statement to police investigators, Chobert had said that he saw 'another man' who 'ran away' ... He claimed in his statement that police stopped that man, but that he didn't see him later." Therefore, "if Chobert did think he saw the shooter run away, it might well explain why he would have felt safe walking up to the scene of the shooting as he said he did, before the arrival of police."
The attempts to silence Veronica Jones
Veronica Jones was working as a prostitute at the crime scene on December 9, 1981. She first told police on December 15, 1981, that she had seen two men "jogging" away from the scene before police arrived. As a defense witness at the 1982 trial, Jones denied having made that statement; however, later in her testimony she started to describe a pre-trial visit from police: "They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it. They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn't do that." Jones then explicitly testified that police had offered to let her and White "work the area if we tell them" what they wanted to hear regarding Abu-Jamal's guilt.
At this point, prosecutor McGill interrupted Jones and moved to block her account, calling her testimony "absolutely irrelevant." Judge Sabo agreed to block the line of questioning and strike the testimony and then ordered the jury to disregard Jones' statement.
The DA and Sabo's efforts to silence Jones continued through to the later PCRA hearings that started in 1995. Having been unable to locate Jones earlier, the defense found Jones in 1996, and, over the DAs protests, obtained permission from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to extend the PCRA hearings for Jones' testimony. Sabo vehemently resisted-arguing that there was not sufficient proof of her unavailability in 1995. However, in 1995, Sabo had refused to order disclosure of Jones' home address to the defense team.
Over Sabo's objections, the defense returned to the state Supreme Court, which ordered Sabo to conduct a full evidentiary hearing. Sabo's attempts to silence Jones continued as she took the stand. He immediately threatened her with five-to-ten years imprisonment if she testified to having perjured herself in 1982. In defiance, Jones persisted with her testimony that she had in fact lied in 1982, when she had denied her original account to police that she had seen two men "leave the scene."
Jones testified that she had changed her version of events after being visited by two detectives in prison, where she was being held on charges of robbery and assault. Urging her to both finger Abu-Jamal as the shooter and to retract her statement about seeing two men "run away," the detectives stressed that she faced up to ten years in prison and the loss of her children if convicted. Jones testified in 1996 that in 1982, afraid of losing her children, she had decided to meet the police halfway: She did not actually finger Abu-Jamal, but she did lie about not seeing two men running from the scene. Accordingly, following the 1982 trial, Jones only received probation and was never imprisoned for the charges against her.
During the 1996 cross-examination, the DA announced that there was an outstanding arrest warrant for Jones on charges of writing a bad check and that she would be arrested after concluding her testimony. With tears pouring down her face, Jones declared: "This is not going to change my testimony!" Despite objections from the defense, Sabo allowed New Jersey police to handcuff and arrest Jones in the courtroom.
While the DA attempted to use this arrest to discredit Jones, her determination in the face of intimidation may, arguably, have made her testimony more credible. Outraged by Jones' treatment, even the Philadelphia Daily News, certainly no fan of Abu-Jamal, reported: "Such heavy-handed tactics can only confirm suspicions that the court is incapable of giving Abu-Jamal a fair hearing. Sabo has long since abandoned any pretense of fairness."
Jones' account was given further credibility a year later. At the 1997 PCRA hearing, former prostitute Pamela Jenkins testified that police had tried pressuring her to falsely testify that she saw Abu-Jamal shoot Faulkner. In addition, Jenkins testified that in late 1981, Cynthia White-whom Jenkins knew as a fellow police informant-told Jenkins that she was also being pressured to testify against Abu-Jamal and that she was afraid for her life.
As part of a 1995 federal probe of Philadelphia police corruption, Officers Thomas F. Ryan and John D. Baird were convicted of paying Jenkins to falsely testify that she had bought drugs from a Temple University student. Jenkins' 1995 testimony in this probe helped to convict Ryan, Baird and other officers and also to dismiss several dozen drug convictions. At the 1997 PCRA hearing, Jenkins testified that this same Thomas F. Ryan was one of the officers who attempted to have her lie about Abu-Jamal.
More recently, a 2002 affidavit by former prostitute Yvette Williams described police coercion of Cynthia White. The affidavit reads: "I was in jail with Cynthia White in December of 1981 after Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. Cynthia White told me the police were making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal shoot Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who did it ... Whenever she talked about testifying against Mumia Abu-Jamal, and how the police were making her lie, she was nervous and very excited and I could tell how scared she was from the way she was talking and crying."
Explaining why she is just now coming out with her affidavit, Williams says: "I feel like I've almost had a nervous breakdown over keeping quiet about this all these years. I didn't say anything because I was afraid. I was afraid of the police. They're dangerous." Williams' affidavit was rejected by Philadelphia Judge Pamela Dembe in 2005, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in February 2008 and, in October 2008, by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Further supporting the contention that police had made a deal with White, author J. Patrick O'Connor writes: "Prior to her becoming a prosecution witness in Abu-Jamal's case, White had been arrested 38 times for prostitution ... After she gave her third statement to the police, on December 17, 1981, she would not be arrested for prostitution in Philadelphia ever again even though she admitted at Billy Cook's trial that she continued to be 'actively working.'"
Amnesty International reports that later, in 1987, White was facing charges of armed robbery, aggravated assault and possession of illegal weapons. A judge granted White the right to sign her own bail and she was released after a special request was made by Philadelphia Police Officer Douglas Culbreth-where Culbreth cited her involvement in Abu-Jamal's trial. After White's release, she skipped bail and has never, officially, been seen again.
At the 1997 PCRA hearing, the DA announced that Cynthia White was dead, and presented a death certificate for a "Cynthia Williams," who died in New Jersey in 1992. However, Amnesty International reports, "an examination of the fingerprint records of White and Williams showed no match and the evidence that White is dead is far from conclusive."
Journalist C. Clark Kissinger writes, a Philadelphia police detective "testified that the FBI had 'authenticated' that Williams had the same fingerprints as White." However, Kissinger continues, "the DA's office refused to produce the actual fingerprints," and "the body of Williams was cremated so that no one could ever check the facts! Finally, the Ruth Ray listed on the death certificate as the mother of the deceased Cynthia Williams has given a sworn statement to the defense that she is not the mother of either Cynthia White or Cynthia Williams." Dave Lindorff reports further that the listing of deaths by social security number for 1992 and later years does not include White's number.
Gary Wakshul's testimony blocked
On the final day of testimony during the original trial, Abu-Jamal's lawyer discovered Police Officer Gary Wakshul's official statement in the police report from the morning of December 9, 1981. After riding with Abu-Jamal to the hospital and guarding him until treatment for his gunshot wound, Wakshul reported: "The negro male made no comment." This statement contradicted the trial testimony of prosecution witnesses Gary Bell, a police officer, and Priscilla Durham, a hospital security guard, who testified that they had heard Abu-Jamal confess to the shooting while Abu-Jamal was awaiting treatment at the hospital.
When the defense immediately sought to call Wakshul as a witness, the DA reported that he was on vacation. Judge Sabo denied the defense request to locate him for testimony, on grounds that it was too late in the trial to even take a short recess so that the defense could attempt to locate Wakshul. Consequently, the jury never heard from Wakshul, nor about his contradictory written report. When an outraged Abu-Jamal protested, Judge Sabo replied: "You and your attorney goofed."
Wakshul's report from December 9, 1981, is just one of the many reasons cited by Amnesty International for their conclusion that Bell's and Durham's trial testimonies were not credible. There are many other problems that merit a closer look if we are to determine how important Wakshul's 1982 trial testimony could have been.
The alleged "hospital confession," in which Abu-Jamal reportedly shouted, "I shot the motherf***er and I hope he dies," was first officially reported to police over two months after the shooting, by hospital guards Priscilla Durham and James LeGrand on February 9, 1982, by Police Officer Gary Wakshul on February 11, by Officer Gary Bell on February 25, and by Officer Thomas M. Bray on March 1. Of these five, only Bell and Durham were called as prosecution witnesses.
When Durham testified at the trial, she added something new to her story which she had not reported to the police on February 9. She now claimed that she had reported the confession to her supervisor the next day, on December 10, making a handwritten report. Neither her supervisor nor the alleged handwritten statement was ever presented in court. Instead, the DA sent an officer to the hospital, returning with a suspicious typed version of the alleged December 10 report. Sabo accepted the unsigned and unauthenticated paper despite both Durham's disavowal-because it was typed and not handwritten-and the defense's protest that its authorship and authenticity were unproven.
Gary Bell, Faulkner's partner and self-described "best friend," testified that his two month memory lapse had resulted from his having been so upset over Faulkner's death that he had forgotten to report it to police.
Later, at the 1995 PCRA hearings, Wakshul testified that both his contradictory report made on December 9, 1981-"The negro male made no comment"-and the two month delay were simply bad mistakes. He repeated his earlier statement given to police on February 11, 1982, that he "didn't realize it [Abu-Jamal's alleged confession] had any importance until that day." Contradicting the DA's assertion of Wakshul's unavailability in 1982, Wakshul also testified in 1995 that he had in fact been home for his 1982 vacation and available for trial testimony, in accordance with explicit instructions to stay in town for the trial so that he could testify if called.
Just days before his PCRA testimony, undercover police officers savagely beat Wakshul in front of a sitting judge in the Common Pleas Courtroom where Wakshul worked as a court crier. The two attackers, Kenneth Fleming and Jean Langen, were later suspended without pay as punishment. With the motive still unexplained, Dave Lindorff and J. Patrick O'Connor speculate that the beating may have been used to intimidate Wakshul into maintaining his "confession" story at the PCRA hearings.
Regarding Abu-Jamal's alleged confession, Amnesty International concluded: "The likelihood of two police officers and a security guard forgetting or neglecting to report the confession of a suspect in the killing of another police officer for more than two months strains credulity."
Conclusion: The DA still wants to execute
"The urgent need for a civil rights investigation is heightened because the DA is still trying to execute Mumia," emphasizes Dr. Suzanne Ross, an organizer of the campaign seeking an investigation. This past March, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Abu-Jamal's appeal for a new guilt-phase trial, but the Court has yet to rule on whether to hear the appeal made simultaneously by the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, which seeks to execute Abu-Jamal without granting him a new penalty-phase trial.
In March 2008, the Third Circuit Court affirmed Federal District Court Judge William Yohn's 2001 decision "overturning" the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v. Maryland precedent, Yohn had ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Albert Sabo's instructions to the jury were potentially confusing, and that therefore jurors could have mistakenly believed that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in order to consider them as weighing against a death sentence.
According to the 2001 ruling, affirmed in 2008, if the DA wants to re-instate the death sentence, the DA must call for a new penalty-phase jury trial. In such a penalty hearing, new evidence of Abu-Jamal's innocence could be presented, but the jury could only choose between execution and a life sentence without parole.
The DA is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court against this 2008 affirmation of Yohn's ruling. If the court rules in the DA's favor, Abu-Jamal can be executed without benefit of a new sentencing hearing. If the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the DA's appeal, the DA must either accept the life sentence for Abu-Jamal or call for the new sentencing hearing. Meanwhile, Mumia Abu-Jamal has never left his death row cell.
How you can help
Actions are being organized throughout the summer to support the campaign for a federal civil rights investigation, including at the upcoming NAACP convention in New York City, July 11-16. Organizers are focusing particularly on July 13, the day that Attorney General Holder will address the convention.
Supporters will then be in Washington, D.C., on July 22 to lobby their elected officials and, in mid-September, they'll return to Washington, D.C., for a major press conference. For more information on how you can support the campaign for a federal civil rights investigation and to sign the online letter and petition to Attorney General Holder, visit http://freemumia.com/civilrights.html.
Hans Bennett is an independent multi-media journalist (www.insubordination.blogspot.com) and co-founder of Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal (www.Abu-Jamal-News.com). Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bennett has been researching Abu-Jamal's case for over ten years and lived in Philadelphia for seven years, documenting the movement to free Mumia and all political prisoners from the frontlines of the struggle.
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10) Protesters Confront Soldiers After Coup in Honduras
By MARC LACEY and ELISABETH MALKIN
June 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/world/americas/30honduras.html?hp
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - One day after the country's president, Manuel Zelaya, was abruptly awakened, ousted and deported by the army here, hundreds of protesters massed at the presidential offices in an increasingly tense face-off with hundreds of camouflage-clad soldiers carrying riot shields and automatic weapons.
The protesters, many wearing masks and carrying wooden or metal sticks, yelled taunts at the soldiers across the fences ringing the compound and braced for the army to try to dispel them. "We're defending our president," said one protester, Umberto Guebara, who appeared to be in his 30s. "I'm not afraid. I'd give my life for my country."
Leaders across the hemisphere joined in condemning the coup, the first in Central America since the end of the cold war. Mr. Zelaya, who touched down Sunday in Costa Rica, still in his pajamas, insisted, "I am the president of Honduras."
The Honduran Congress late Sunday officially voted Mr. Zelaya out of office, replacing him with the president of Congress, Roberto Micheletti. As of Monday morning, however, Mr. Micheletti had not yet addressed the public.
Though political tensions had been building within the government for weeks, the final move to oust the president came unexpectedly, and confusion reigned among many Hondurans about what exactly had happened overnight. People crowded around newspaper stands and spoke among themselves about whether the power shift was temporary, what it meant and how the underlying conflict would be resolved.
"I'm not sure who our president is anymore," said an elderly man in the border town of El Amatillo.
Mr. Zelaya, 56, a rancher who often appears in cowboy boots and a western hat, has the support of labor unions and the poor. But he is a leftist aligned with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, and the middle class and the wealthy business community fear he wants to introduce Mr. Chávez's brand of socialist populism into the country, one of Latin America's poorest. His term was to end in January.
The Honduran military offered no public explanation for its actions, but the country's Supreme Court issued a statement saying that the military had acted to defend the law against "those who had publicly spoken out and acted against the Constitution's provisions."
Mr. Zelaya's ouster capped a showdown with other branches of government over his efforts to lift presidential term limits in a referendum that was to have taken place Sunday. Critics said the vote was part of an illegal attempt by Mr. Zelaya to defy the Constitution's limit of a single four-year term for the president.
Early this month, the Supreme Court declared the referendum unconstitutional, and Congress followed suit last week. In the last few weeks, supporters and opponents of the president have held competing demonstrations. The prosecutor's office and the electoral tribunal issued orders for the referendum ballots to be confiscated, but on Thursday, Mr. Zelaya led a group of protesters to an air force base and seized the ballots.
When the army refused to help organize the vote, he fired the armed forces commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez. The Supreme Court ruled the firing illegal and reinstated General Vásquez.
As the crisis escalated, American officials began in the last few days to talk with Honduran government and military officials in an effort to head off a possible coup. A senior administration official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the military broke off those discussions on Sunday.
The two nations have long had a close military relationship, with an American military task force stationed at a Honduran air base about 50 miles northwest of Tegucigalpa. The unit focuses on training Honduran military forces, counternarcotics operations, search and rescue, and disaster relief missions throughout Central America.
In Costa Rica, Mr. Zelaya told the Venezuelan channel Telesur that he had been awoken by gunshots. Masked soldiers took his cellphone, shoved him into a van and took him to an air force base, where he was put on a plane. He said he did not know that he was being taken to Costa Rica until he landed at the airport in San José.
"They are creating a monster they will not be able to contain," he told a local television station in San José. "A usurper government that emerges by force cannot be accepted, will not be accepted, by any country."
The military also appeared to be moving against Mr. Zelaya's allies. Local news outlets reported Sunday that Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas and the mayor of San Pedro Sula, the country's second-largest city, had been detained at military bases.
The government television station and another station that supports the president were taken off the air. Television and radio stations broadcast no news. Electricity was cut off for much of the day in Tegucigalpa on Sunday, in what local reports suggested was on military orders. Only wealthy Hondurans with access to the Internet and cable television were able to follow the day's events.
The Congress met in an emergency session on Sunday afternoon and voted to accept what was said to be a letter of resignation from the president. Mr. Zelaya later assured reporters that he had written no such letter.
President Obama said on Sunday that he was deeply concerned and in a statement called on Honduran officials "to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic charter.
"Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference," he said. His quick condemnation offered a sharp contrast with the actions of the Bush administration, which in 2002 offered a rapid, tacit endorsement of a short-lived coup against Mr. Chávez.
The Organization of American States issued a statement Sunday calling for Mr. Zelaya's return and said it would not recognize any other government. The organization's secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, called an emergency meeting of the group to weigh further actions.
Obama administration officials said they were working with other members of the Organization of American States to ratchet up pressure on the Honduran military to end the coup, and they dismissed the prospect of outside military intervention in the matter.
"We think this can be resolved through dialogue," said the senior administration official. However, he admitted that the Honduran military was not responding to calls from the United States government.
The officials also dismissed allegations by Mr. Chávez of Venezuela that the coup had been orchestrated by the United States. They said that the Obama administration considered Mr. Zelaya the constitutional leader of Honduras and that Washington had been consistent in its demands for a peaceful resolution to the brewing crisis.
Honduras has had a civilian government since 1982. But as in much of Central America, the military is still a powerful force behind the scenes. The last coup in the region occurred in Guatemala in 1983, when the military overthrew the government headed by Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt.
Marc Lacey reported from Tegucigalpa, and Elisabeth Malkin from Mexico City. Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington.
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11) Insurance Company Schemes
Editorial
June 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29mon1.html
Congressional committees heard a lot this month about the devious schemes used by health insurance companies to drop or shortchange sick patients. It was a damning portrait - and one Americans know from painful personal experience - of an industry that all too often puts profits ahead of patients.
As health care reform moves forward, Congress must impose tighter regulation of companies that clearly are not doing enough to regulate themselves. Creating a public plan could also help restrain the worst practices, by providing competition and an alternative.
A House oversight subcommittee took a close look at a particularly shameful practice known as "rescission," in which insurance companies cancel coverage for some sick policyholders rather than pay an expensive claim. The companies contend that rescissions are rare. But Congressional investigators found that three big insurers canceled about 20,000 individual policies over a five-year period - allowing them to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims.
The companies typically argue that the policyholders withheld information about pre-existing conditions that would have disqualified them from coverage. But the subcommittee unearthed cases where the pre-existing conditions were trivial, or unrelated to the claim, or not known to the patient. When executives for the three companies were asked if they would be willing to limit rescissions to cases where the policyholder deliberately lied on an application form, all said they would not. This tactic will not be ended voluntarily.
Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee was getting an earful from a former head of corporate communications for Cigna, a big health insurer. He charged that the industry deliberately confuses its customers by making it hard to obtain information about its practices and issuing incomprehensible documents.
He also charged that the companies "dump the sick," through rescissions and by purging small businesses whose employees' claims exceed what underwriters expected. They are often hit with huge rate increases intended to force them to drop coverage.
The Commerce Committee also released a staff report elaborating on how insurance companies operating in every region of the country have used statistically manipulated databases to reduce their payments for services provided by doctors outside their networks. Patients must then pay the often considerable difference.
Any legislation to reform the health care system, and extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, must stop these practices.
One way to do that is by creating insurance exchanges where individuals and small businesses could buy policies from insurers that would be required to accept all applicants without regard to pre-existing conditions and charge them premiums unrelated to their health status, and would be barred from dropping them no matter what illnesses they developed.
If health care reform requires virtually all Americans to carry health insurance - as it should - industry leaders acknowledge that there would be enough healthy people paying premiums to offset the higher costs of covering the sick and the need for rescissions and other such practices would disappear.
No matter what happens, strong regulatory oversight will be a must to ensure that insurers skilled in denying coverage don't find new ways to evade just claims.
Competition from a new public plan could provide a benchmark for judging how well private plans are performing. And clear evaluations of both public and private plans would be a boon for consumers. Senator Jay Rockefeller has proposed creating a nonprofit organization to grade all plans offered on a national exchange based on such factors as adequacy of coverage, affordability, customer and health provider satisfaction, and transparency of procedures and decision-making.
The health insurance industry has pledged to assist in the reform effort. Congress will have to be tough and vigilant to ensure that it does.
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12) New Plan Ties Reduced College Loan Payments to Income
By JONATHAN D. GLATER
June 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/education/30college.html?ref=education
For the first time in years, there is good news for college students who borrow to pay for their education.
Starting Wednesday, the federal Education Department will begin offering a repayment plan that lets graduates reduce their loan payments, based on their income.
"We know today's borrowers are concerned about their ability to repay student loans in the current economic environment," Arne Duncan, the education secretary, said in a statement. "This new plan addresses the issue head-on by giving them the option of a reduced monthly payment tied to their annual income."
Also on Wednesday, the interest rate on new federal Stafford loans, the most widely used federally guaranteed student loan, will drop to 5.6 percent, from 6.8 percent. By 2012, the rate will fall to 3.4 percent, under a schedule mandated by Congress.
The changes come as student borrowers face a difficult job environment and after many families have found it harder or impossible to use home equity loans to pay for college. Since the credit crisis, it has also become more difficult and more costly to obtain private student loans, which are not guaranteed by the government and which typically carry variable interest rates determined by borrowers' credit histories.
"These benefits are guaranteed, no matter what happens in our economy, and are kicking in at exactly the right time for millions of Americans," said Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the House education committee.
While the interest rate cut applies to new loans, the new repayment option is available to borrowers who took out federal loans or who used a federal consolidation loan to combine their higher education debts.
The extended payment program, called "income-based repayment," limits what borrowers have to pay to 15 percent of the difference between their gross income and 150 percent of federal poverty guidelines. After borrowers make payments on loans for 25 years, the balance is forgiven. (The Education Department already offered an "income-contingent" repayment plan, which was similar, but less generous.)
"These programs are such an enormous victory," said Christine Lindstrom, director of the higher education access program at U.S. PIRG, the consumer advocacy group. "It enables all borrowers to be able to face their life circumstances and know there is some flexibility and responsiveness based on what life throws their way."
To help borrowers understand the program, the Education Department has set up a Web site with a calculator to determine monthly payments based on income and family size.
The extended payment plan is intended to work with another program that forgives federal loans taken out by people working in public interest jobs. If borrowers make payments under the income-based plan, the balance on their loans point is forgiven after 10 years.
There is a catch, though. To participate in the program, a borrower must shift their loans into the federal Direct Loan program, in which the government extends credit directly. The forgiveness is not available for loans made by banks or other loan companies, like Citigroup or Sallie Mae.
The definition of public service under the forgiveness program is broad. Jobs in government, public schools or colleges, nonprofit organizations, public interest law, early childhood education, public health or public libraries all could qualify, according to the Education Department.
The forgiveness benefit could lead to even greater interest in public service jobs, which are already drawing more applicants. For example, in the 2008-9 academic year, more people than ever applied to Teach for America - 40 percent more than the year before, according to Kerci Marcello Stroud, a spokeswoman.
But the earliest anyone working in public service could see any benefit from the forgiveness program is 2017, because the program began in 2007. So someone who started teaching in 2005, for example, would not get credit toward the 10-year period for working in 2005 and 2006.
Due to the length of the program, people interested in participating will have to be careful to document their public interest employment and to make sure they have the right kind of loans. Neither of the new programs assist with repayment of private loans made by banks or other lenders.
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