For Prison Radio:
"The Last Vestiges of Slavery in America, The Criminal 'Just Us' System"
By Kevin Cooper, Innocent Man on Death Row, San Quentin, October 2015
Putting Mice Before Men
On every channel i have seen them grieve
On every channel i have seen them grieve
I have seen them grieve...
For all of my days, i have seen them,
It is an unconscionable sin
Am i worthy of the saem affinity
Will real activists partake in reversing my fate
(c) Tim Young
Root of the Matter
“Struggle” typifies a thousand branches
Racism
Purge or be ruined
(c) Time Young
Tim Young F23374
Tim Young F23374
S.Q.S.P.
San Quentin, CA 94974
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Send Chelsea your messages of support
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Write Chelsea your messages of support
UPDATE: Chelsea’s attorneys have gotten in touch with Chelsea today (Mon, July 11th) and released the following statement:
For Immediate Release: July 11, 2016
Contact: Christina DiPasquale, 202.716.1953, Christina@balestramedia.com
Chelsea Manning Confirms Health Status Through Her Attorneys
Today, Chelsea Manning’s attorneys Chase Strangio, Vincent Ward and Nancy Hollander released the following statement jointly:
“After not connecting with Chelsea for over a week, we were relieved to speak with her this morning. Though she would have preferred to keep her private medical information private, and instead focus on her recovery, the government’s gross breach of confidentiality in disclosing her personal health information to the media has created the very real concern that they may continue their unauthorized release of information about her publicly without warning. Due to these circumstances, Chelsea Manning requested that we communicate with the media and her friends and supporters on her behalf.
“Last week, Chelsea made a decision to end her life. Her attempt to take her own life was unsuccessful. She knows that people have questions about how she is doing and she wants everyone to know that she remains under close observation by the prison and expects to remain on this status for the next several weeks. For us, hearing Chelsea’s voice after learning that she had attempted to take her life last week was incredibly emotional. She is someone who has fought so hard for so many issues we care about and we are honored to fight for her freedom and medical care.”
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You can write to Chelsea with your messages of support. Mail must be addressed as follows:
CHELSEA E. MANNING 89289
1300 NORTH WAREHOUSE ROAD
FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS 66027-2304
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We must not let the Orlando nightclub terror further strangle our civil liberties: Chelsea's new op-ed
After last weekend's tragedy in Orlando,Chelsea Manning cautions us that our response to such violence can be also be dangerous in her June 13th Guardianopinion article.
"We must grieve and mourn and support each other," Manning states, "but in our grief and outrage we must resist any temptations to let this attack – or any attack – trigger anti-Muslim foreign policy, attacks on our civil liberties or as an excuse to descend into xenophobia and Islamophobia."
"We are not safe and secure when the government uses us as pawns to perpetrate violence against others."
Chelsea Manning, Guardian OpEd
June 13, 2016
This morning, I woke up in my cell to an even more shattered and fractured world. We are lost. We are devastated. We are bewildered. We are hurt. And we are angry. I haven’t been this angry since losing a soldier in my unit to an RPG attack in southeastern Baghdad during my deployment in Iraq in 2010.
An attack like this is carefully planned and executed to maximize attention by inflaming the passions of a helpless public..
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Chelsea can continue to be a powerful voice for reform, but we need your help to make that happen. Help us support Chelsea in prison, maximize her voice in the media, continue public education, fund her legal appeals team, and build a powerful movement for presidential pardon.
Please donate today!
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591
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Bay Area United Against War NewsletterTable of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson featuring exchanges with an Outlaw Kindle Edition
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Join the Fight to Free Rev. Pinkney!
Click HERE to view in browser
http://www.iacenter.org/prisoners/freepinkney-1-28-15/
UPDATE:
Today is the 406th day that Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan
languishes in prison doing felony time for a misdemeanor crime he did not
commit. Today is also the day that Robert McKay, a spokesperson for the
Free Rev. Pinkney campaign, gave testimony before United Nations
representatives about the plight of Rev. Pinkney at a hearing held in
Chicago. The hearing was called in order to shed light upon the
mistreatment of African-Americans in the United States and put it on an
international stage. And yet as the UN representatives and audience heard
of the injustices in the Pinkney case many gasped in disbelief and asked
with frowns on their faces, "how is this possible?" But disbelief quickly
disappeared when everyone realized these were the same feelings they had
when they first heard of Flint and we all know what happened in Flint. FREE
REV. PINKNEY NOW.
Please send letters to:
Marquette Branch Prison
Rev. Edward Pinkney N-E-93 #294671
1960 US Hwy 41 South
Marquette, MI 49855
Please donate at http://bhbanco.org (Donate button) or send checks to BANCO:
c/o Dorothy Pinkney
1940 Union St.
Benton Harbor, MI 49022
BACKGROUND:
On December 15, 2014 the Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan was thrown into prison for 2.5 to 10 years. This 66-year-old leading African American activist was tried and convicted in front of an all-white jury and racist white judge and prosecutor for supposedly altering 5 dates on a recall petition against the mayor of Benton Harbor.
The prosecutor, with the judge's approval, repeatedly told the jury "you don't need evidence to convict Mr. Pinkney." And ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE WAS EVER PRESENTED THAT TIED REV. PINKNEY TO THE 'ALTERED' PETITIONS. Rev. Pinkney was immediately led away in handcuffs and thrown into Jackson Prison.
This is an outrageous charge. It is an outrageous conviction. It is an even more outrageous sentence! It must be appealed.
With your help supporters need to raise $20,000 for Rev. Pinkney's appeal.
Checks can be made out to BANCO (Black Autonomy Network Community Organization). This is the organization founded by Rev. Pinkney. Mail them to: Mrs. Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union Street, Benton Harbor, MI 49022.
Donations can be accepted on-line at bhbanco.org – press the donate button.
For information on the decade long campaign to destroy Rev. Pinkney go to bhbanco.org and workers.org(search "Pinkney").
We urge your support to the efforts to Free Rev. Pinkney!Ramsey Clark – Former U.S. attorney general,
Cynthia McKinney – Former member of U.S. Congress,
Lynne Stewart – Former political prisoner and human rights attorney
Ralph Poynter – New Abolitionist Movement,
Abayomi Azikiwe – Editor, Pan-African News Wire<
Larry Holmes – Peoples Power Assembly,
David Sole – Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice
Sara Flounders – International Action Center
MESSAGE FROM REV. PINKNEY
I am now in Marquette prison over 15 hours from wife and family, sitting in prison for a crime that was never committed. Judge Schrock and Mike Sepic both admitted there was no evidence against me but now I sit in prison facing 30 months. Schrock actually stated that he wanted to make an example out of me. (to scare Benton Harbor residents even more...) ONLY IN AMERICA. I now have an army to help fight Berrien County. When I arrived at Jackson state prison on Dec. 15, I met several hundred people from Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo, and Grand Rapids. Some people recognized me. There was an outstanding amount of support given by the prison inmates. When I was transported to Marquette Prison it took 2 days. The prisoners knew who I was. One of the guards looked me up on the internet and said, "who would believe Berrien County is this racist."
Background to Campaign to free Rev. Pinkney
Michigan political prisoner the Rev. Edward Pinkney is a victim of racist injustice. He was sentenced to 30 months to 10 years for supposedly changing the dates on 5 signatures on a petition to recall Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower.
No material or circumstantial evidence was presented at the trial that would implicate Pinkney in the purported5 felonies. Many believe that Pinkney, a Berrien County activist and leader of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO), is being punished by local authorities for opposing the corporate plans of Whirlpool Corp, headquartered in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
In 2012, Pinkney and BANCO led an "Occupy the PGA [Professional Golfers' Association of America]" demonstration against a world-renowned golf tournament held at the newly created Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course on the shoreline of Lake Michigan. The course was carved out of Jean Klock Park, which had been donated to the city of Benton Harbor decades ago.
Berrien County officials were determined to defeat the recall campaign against Mayor Hightower, who opposed a program that would have taxed local corporations in order to create jobs and improve conditions in Benton Harbor, a majority African-American municipality. Like other Michigan cities, it has been devastated by widespread poverty and unemployment.
The Benton Harbor corporate power structure has used similar fraudulent charges to stop past efforts to recall or vote out of office the racist white officials, from mayor, judges, prosecutors in a majority Black city. Rev Pinkney who always quotes scripture, as many Christian ministers do, was even convicted for quoting scripture in a newspaper column. This outrageous conviction was overturned on appeal. We must do this again!
To sign the petition in support of the Rev. Edward Pinkney, log on to: tinyurl.com/ps4lwyn.
Contributions for Rev. Pinkney's defense can be sent to BANCO at Mrs Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union St., Benton Harbor, MI 49022
Or you can donate on-line at bhbanco.org.
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State Seeks to Remove Innocent PA Lifer’s Attorney! Free Corey Walker!
The PA Office of the Attorney General (OAG) filed legal action to remove Corey Walker’s attorney, Rachel Wolkenstein, in November 2014. On Tuesday, February 9, 2016 the evidentiary hearing to terminate Wolkenstein as Corey Walker’s pro hac vice lawyer continues before Judge Lawrence Clark of the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas in Harrisburg, PA.
Walker, assisted by Wolkenstein, filed three sets of legal papers over five months in 2014 with new evidence of Walker’s innocence and that the prosecution and police deliberately used false evidence to convict him of murder. Two weeks after Wolkenstein was granted pro hac vice status, the OAG moved against her and Walker.
The OAG claims that Wolkenstein’s political views and prior legal representation of Mumia Abu-Jamal and courtroom arrest by the notorious Judge Albert Sabo makes it “intolerable” for her to represent Corey Walker in the courts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Over the past fifteen months the OAG has effectively stopped any judicial action on the legal challenges of Corey Walker and his former co-defendant, Lorenzo Johnson against their convictions and sentences to life imprisonment without parole while it proceeds in its attempts to remove Wolkenstein.
This is retaliation against Corey Walker who is innocent and framed. Walker and his attorney won’t stop until they thoroughly expose the police corruption and deliberate presentation of false evidence to convict Corey Walker and win his freedom.
This outrageous attack on Corey Walker’s fundamental right to his lawyer of choice and challenge his conviction must cease. The evidence of his innocence and deliberate prosecutorial frame up was suppressed for almost twenty years. Corey Walker must be freed!
Read: Jim Crow Justice – The Frame-up Of Corey Walker by Charles Brover
Go to FreeCoreyWalker.org to provide help and get more information.
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TAKE ACTION: Mumia is sick
Website:
| Judge Robert Mariani of the U.S. District Court has issued an order in Mumia’s case, granting Mumia’s lawyers Bret Grote and Robert Boyle’s motion to supplement the record. New medical records documenting Mumia’s deteriorated condition from February and March, will be presented June 6th. Judge Mariani has also instructed the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to provide any updates and changes in DOC hep C treatment and policies which affect the plaintiff’s treatment. Calling into Prison Radio, Mumia noted: “My friends, my brothers, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, but there is some motion. It means that we’re moving closer to hopefully some real treatment not of my symptoms, but of my disease. I thank you all for being there. And freedom is a constant struggle. I love you all. From what used to be death row, this is Mumia, your brother.” Mumia remains quite ill. While stable, his curable hepatitis C is still active and progressive. The only treatment Mumia has received over the last 14 months to this day is skin ointment and photo therapy. He has not received the medically indicated treatment for hep C, the very condition that put him in the Intensive Care Unit in March 2015. Hepatitis C is a progressive disease that attacks Mumia’s organs, skin and liver. Unless the court orders the new hepatitis C treatment - one pill a day for 12 weeks, with a 95% cure rate - Mumia's health will remain at serious risk. Before the court is the preliminary injunction motion, which demands immediate medical care. The exhaustion of administrative remedy and the procedural hurdles make it extremely difficult for people in prison to actually get their grievances heard through the review process. The Prison Litigation Reform Act was passed specifically to create these very almost insurmountable barriers to access to the courts. Please read the New Yorker article, Why it is Nearly Impossible for Prisoners to Sue Prisons. In Abu-Jamal vs. Kerestes, one very telling point was when the DOC's Director of Medical Care, Dr. Paul Noel, took the stand. He said that he had never testified before in court! He has worked for the DOC for over a decade. That meant that no prisoner had access to adversarial cross examination. Before Mumia’s day in court in late December 2015, no prisoner ever had the opportunity to expose the PA DOC’s blatant lies. Lies so bold that Dr. Noel disavowed his own signed affidavit, and in court he stated that he “did not sign it and it was false and misleading”. The knowingly false and fabricated document was put in the record by Laura Neal, Senior DOC attorney. Take Action for MumiaCall prison officials to demand immediate treatment! Dr. Paul Noel-Director of Medical Care, DOC 717-728-5309 x 5312 John Wetzel- Secretary of DOC 717+728-2573 x 4109 Dr. Carl Keldie-Chief Medical Officer, Correct Care Solutions 800-592-2974 x 5783 Theresa DelBalso-Superintendent, SCI Mahanoy 570-773-2158 x 8101 |
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The Oasis Clinic in Oakland, CA, which treats patients with Hepatitis-C (HCV), demands an end to the outrageous price-gouging of Big Pharma corporations, like Gilead Sciences, which hike-up the cost for essential, life-saving medications such as the cure for the deadly Hepatitis-C virus, in order to reap huge profits. The Oasis Clinic’s demand is:PUBLIC HEALTH, NOT CORPORATE WEALTH!
WE DEMAND:
PUBLIC HEALTH, NOT CORPORATE WEALTH!
IMMEDIATE AND FREE TREATMENT FOR ALL HCV-INFECTED PRISONERS!
NO EXECUTION BY MEDICAL NEGLECT!
JAIL DRUG PROFITEERS, FREE MUMIA!
This message from:
Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610 • www.laboractionmumia.org
06 January 2016
Mumia Is Innocent! Free Mumia!
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Imam Jamil (H.Rap Brown) moved
Some two weeks ago Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) was moved by bus from USP Canaan in Waymart, PA. to USP Tucson, Arizona. His mailing address is: USP Tucson United States Penitentiary P.O. Box Tucson, AZ. 85734 (BOP number 99974555)
Sign the Petition:
https://www.causes.com/actions/1671495-the-forgotten-imam-jamil-abdullah-al-amin-h-rap-brown?utm_campaign=post_mailer%2Fcampaign_update.cb_71432&utm_medium=email&utm_source=causes
Sign the Petition:
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, THE Bureau of Prisons, The Governor of Georgia
We are aware of a review being launched of criminal cases to determine whether any defendants were wrongly convicted and or deserve a new trail because of flawed forensic evidence and or wrongly reported evidence. It was stated in the Washington Post in April of 2012 that Justice Department Officials had known for years that flawed forensic work led to convictions of innocent people. We seek to have included in the review of such cases that of Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. We understand that all cases reviewed will include the Innocence Project. We look forward to your immediate attention to these overdue wrongs.
ASAP: The Forgotten Imam Project
P.O. Box 373
Four Oaks, NC 27524
ASAP: The Forgotten Imam Project
P.O. Box 373
Four Oaks, NC 27524
Signed,
Luqman Abdullah-ibn Al-Sidiq
Luqman Abdullah-ibn Al-Sidiq
https://www.causes.com/actions/1671495-the-forgotten-imam-jamil-abdullah-al-amin-h-rap-brown?utm_campaign=post_mailer%2Fcampaign_update.cb_71432&utm_medium=email&utm_source=causes
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When Drone Whistleblowers are Under Attack,
What Do We Do?
STAND UP, FIGHT BACK!
We honor Stephan, Michael, Brandon and Cian!
These four former ex-drone pilots have courageously spoken out publicly against the U.S. drone assassination program. They have not been charged with any crime, yet the U.S. government is retaliating against these truth-tellers by freezing all of their bank and credit card accounts. WE MUST BACK THEM UP!
Listen to them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43z6EMy8T28
PLEASE HELP THEM:
1. Sign up on this support network:
www.facebook.com/events/1502272456740302/
2. Sign this petition NOW:
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-congress-attorney-general-loretta-lynch-protect-the-drone-assassination-program-whistleblowers?recruiter=436431670&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink
3. Call and email officials TODAY, listed below and on FB site.
4. Ask your organization if they would join our network.
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Statement of Support for Drone Whistleblowers
(Code Pink Women for Peace: East Bay, Golden Gate, and S.F. Chapters 11.28.15)
Code Pink Women for Peace support the very courageous actions of four former US drone operators, Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant, Cian Westmoreland, and Stephan Lewis, who have come under increasing attack for disclosing information about “widespread corruption and institutionalized indifference to civilian casualties that characterize the drone program.” As truth tellers, they stated in a public letter to President Obama that the killing of innocent civilians has been one of the most “devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world.”* These public disclosures come only after repeated attempts to work privately within official channels failed.
Despite the fact that none of the four has been charged with criminal activity, all had their bank accounts and credit cards frozen. This retaliatory response by our government is consistent with the extrajudicial nature of US drone strikes.
We must support these former drone operators who have taken great risks to stop the drone killing. Write or call your US Senators, your US Representatives, President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, and CIA Director John Brennan demanding that Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant, Cian Westmoreland, and Stephan Lewis be applauded, not punished, for revealing the criminal and extrajudicial nature of drone strikes that has led to so many civilian deaths.
Petition
URGENT: Sign and Share NOW! Drone Whistleblower Protection Petition
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-congress-attorney-general-loretta-lynch-protect-the-drone-assassination-program-whistleblowers?recruiter=436431670&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink
Contacting your Government
- White House comment line: 202-456-1111
- Email President Obama: president@whitehouse.gov and cc info@whitehouse.gov
- White House switchboard: 202-456-1414 for telephone numbers of your Senators and Representatives.
- Email your Senators and Representatives:
http://www.house.gov/representatives/
http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/
-Contact Ashton Carter Secretary of Defense: Go to http://www.defense.gov/About-DoD/Biographies/BiographyView/Article/602689 and select appropriate icon.
- Contact John Brennan, CIA Director: Go to
https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/leadership/john-o-brennan.html and select appropriate icon.
For more information on the 4 Drone Whistleblowers:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1502272456740302/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43z6EMy8T28
(Must see Democracy Now interview with the 4 drone operators)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/18/life-as-a-drone-pilot-creech-air-force-base-nevada
*http://thefreethoughtproject.com/drone-pilots-bank-accounts-credit-cards-frozen-feds-exposing-murder/#fqt0crLvckG2OdbD.99
Code Pink Women for Peace: eastbaycodepink@gmail.com
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Commute Kevin Cooper's Death Sentence
Sign the Petition:
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/petition.php
Urge Gov. Jerry Brown to commute Kevin Cooper's death sentence. Cooper has always maintained his innocence of the 1983 quadruple murder of which he was convicted. In 2009, five federal judges signed a dissenting opinion warning that the State of California "may be about to execute an innocent man." Having exhausted his appeals in the US courts, Kevin Cooper's lawyers have turned to the Inter American Commission on Human Rights to seek remedy for what they maintain is his wrongful conviction, and the inadequate trial representation, prosecutorial misconduct and racial discrimination which have marked the case. Amnesty International opposes all executions, unconditionally.
"The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." - Judge William A. Fletcher, 2009 dissenting opinion on Kevin Cooper's case
Kevin Cooper has been on death row in California for more than thirty years.
In 1985, Cooper was convicted of the murder of a family and their house guest in Chino Hills. Sentenced to death, Cooper's trial took place in an atmosphere of racial hatred — for example, an effigy of a monkey in a noose with a sign reading "Hang the N*****!" was hung outside the venue of his preliminary hearing.
Take action to see that Kevin Cooper's death sentence is commuted immediately.
Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence.
Following his trial, five federal judges said: "There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing."
Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.
Tell California authorities: The death penalty carries the risk of irrevocable error. Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted.
In 2009, Cooper came just eight hours shy of being executed for a crime that he may not have committed. Stand with me today in reminding the state of California that the death penalty is irreversible — Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted immediately.
In solidarity,
James Clark
Senior Death Penalty Campaigner
Amnesty International USA
Kevin Cooper is an African-American man who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 1985 for the gruesome murders of a white family in Chino Hills, California: Doug and Peggy Ryen and their daughter Jessica and their house- guest Christopher Hughes. The Ryens' 8 year old son Josh, also attacked, was left for dead but survived.
Convicted in an atmosphere of racial hatred in San Bernardino County CA, Kevin Cooper remains under a threat of imminent execution in San Quentin. He has never received a fair hearing on his claim of innocence. In a dissenting opinion in 2009, five federal judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals signed a 82 page dissenting opinion that begins: "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." 565 F.3d 581.
There is significant evidence that exonerates Mr. Cooper and points toward other suspects:
The coroner who investigated the Ryen murders concluded that the murders took four minutes at most and that the murder weapons were a hatchet, a long knife, an ice pick and perhaps a second knife. How could a single person, in four or fewer minutes, wield three or four weapons, and inflict over 140 wounds on five people, two of whom were adults (including a 200 pound ex-marine) who had loaded weapons near their bedsides?
The sole surviving victim of the murders, Josh Ryen, told police and hospital staff within hours of the murders that the culprits were "three white men." Josh Ryen repeated this statement in the days following the crimes. When he twice saw Mr. Cooper's picture on TV as the suspected attacker, Josh Ryen said "that's not the man who did it."
Josh Ryen's description of the killers was corroborated by two witnesses who were driving near the Ryens' home the night of the murders. They reported seeing three white men in a station wagon matching the description of the Ryens' car speeding away from the direction of the Ryens' home.
These descriptions were corroborated by testimony of several employees and patrons of a bar close to the Ryens' home, who saw three white men enter the bar around midnight the night of the murders, two of whom were covered in blood, and one of whom was wearing coveralls.
The identity of the real killers was further corroborated by a woman who, shortly after the murders were discovered, alerted the sheriff's department that her boyfriend, a convicted murderer, left blood-spattered coveralls at her home the night of the murders. She also reported that her boyfriend had been wearing a tan t-shirt matching a tan t-shirt with Doug Ryen's blood on it recovered near the bar. She also reported that her boyfriend owned a hatchet matching the one recovered near the scene of the crime, which she noted was missing in the days following the murders; it never reappeared; further, her sister saw that boyfriend and two other white men in a vehicle that could have been the Ryens' car on the night of the murders.
Lacking a motive to ascribe to Mr. Cooper for the crimes, the prosecution claimed that Mr. Cooper, who had earlier walked away from custody at a minimum security prison, stole the Ryens' car to escape to Mexico. But the Ryens had left the keys in both their cars (which were parked in the driveway), so there was no need to kill them to steal their car. The prosecution also claimed that Mr. Cooper needed money, but money and credit cards were found untouched and in plain sight at the murder scene.
The jury in 1985 deliberated for seven days before finding Mr. Cooper guilty. One juror later said that if there had been one less piece of evidence, the jury would not have voted to convict.
The evidence the prosecution presented at trial tying Mr. Cooper to the crime scene has all been discredited… (Continue reading this document at: http://www.savekevincooper.org/_new_freekevincooperdotorg/TEST/Scripts/DataLibraries/upload/KC_FactSheet_2014.pdf)
This message from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. July 2015
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CANCEL ALL STUDENT DEBT!
Sign the Petition:
http://cancelallstudentdebt.com/?code=kos
Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:
Americans now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families.
I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private.
American Federation of Teachers
Campaign for America's Future
Courage Campaign
Daily Kos
Democracy for America
LeftAction
Project Springboard
RH Reality Check
RootsAction
Student Debt Crisis
The Nation
Working Families
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Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson
Write: Lorenzo Johnson
DF 1036
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Rd.
Frackville, PA 17932
Email: Through JPay using the code:
Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC
or
Directly at LorenzoJohnson17932@gmail.com
freelorenzojohnson.org
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Sign the Petition:
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/petition.php
"The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." - Judge William A. Fletcher, 2009 dissenting opinion on Kevin Cooper's case
Kevin Cooper has been on death row in California for more than thirty years.
In 1985, Cooper was convicted of the murder of a family and their house guest in Chino Hills. Sentenced to death, Cooper's trial took place in an atmosphere of racial hatred — for example, an effigy of a monkey in a noose with a sign reading "Hang the N*****!" was hung outside the venue of his preliminary hearing.
Take action to see that Kevin Cooper's death sentence is commuted immediately.
Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence.
Following his trial, five federal judges said: "There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing."
Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.
Tell California authorities: The death penalty carries the risk of irrevocable error. Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted.
In 2009, Cooper came just eight hours shy of being executed for a crime that he may not have committed. Stand with me today in reminding the state of California that the death penalty is irreversible — Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted immediately.
In solidarity,
James Clark
Senior Death Penalty Campaigner
Amnesty International USA
Kevin Cooper is an African-American man who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 1985 for the gruesome murders of a white family in Chino Hills, California: Doug and Peggy Ryen and their daughter Jessica and their house- guest Christopher Hughes. The Ryens' 8 year old son Josh, also attacked, was left for dead but survived.
Convicted in an atmosphere of racial hatred in San Bernardino County CA, Kevin Cooper remains under a threat of imminent execution in San Quentin. He has never received a fair hearing on his claim of innocence. In a dissenting opinion in 2009, five federal judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals signed a 82 page dissenting opinion that begins: "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." 565 F.3d 581.
There is significant evidence that exonerates Mr. Cooper and points toward other suspects:
The coroner who investigated the Ryen murders concluded that the murders took four minutes at most and that the murder weapons were a hatchet, a long knife, an ice pick and perhaps a second knife. How could a single person, in four or fewer minutes, wield three or four weapons, and inflict over 140 wounds on five people, two of whom were adults (including a 200 pound ex-marine) who had loaded weapons near their bedsides?
The sole surviving victim of the murders, Josh Ryen, told police and hospital staff within hours of the murders that the culprits were "three white men." Josh Ryen repeated this statement in the days following the crimes. When he twice saw Mr. Cooper's picture on TV as the suspected attacker, Josh Ryen said "that's not the man who did it."
Josh Ryen's description of the killers was corroborated by two witnesses who were driving near the Ryens' home the night of the murders. They reported seeing three white men in a station wagon matching the description of the Ryens' car speeding away from the direction of the Ryens' home.
These descriptions were corroborated by testimony of several employees and patrons of a bar close to the Ryens' home, who saw three white men enter the bar around midnight the night of the murders, two of whom were covered in blood, and one of whom was wearing coveralls.
The identity of the real killers was further corroborated by a woman who, shortly after the murders were discovered, alerted the sheriff's department that her boyfriend, a convicted murderer, left blood-spattered coveralls at her home the night of the murders. She also reported that her boyfriend had been wearing a tan t-shirt matching a tan t-shirt with Doug Ryen's blood on it recovered near the bar. She also reported that her boyfriend owned a hatchet matching the one recovered near the scene of the crime, which she noted was missing in the days following the murders; it never reappeared; further, her sister saw that boyfriend and two other white men in a vehicle that could have been the Ryens' car on the night of the murders.
Lacking a motive to ascribe to Mr. Cooper for the crimes, the prosecution claimed that Mr. Cooper, who had earlier walked away from custody at a minimum security prison, stole the Ryens' car to escape to Mexico. But the Ryens had left the keys in both their cars (which were parked in the driveway), so there was no need to kill them to steal their car. The prosecution also claimed that Mr. Cooper needed money, but money and credit cards were found untouched and in plain sight at the murder scene.
The jury in 1985 deliberated for seven days before finding Mr. Cooper guilty. One juror later said that if there had been one less piece of evidence, the jury would not have voted to convict.
The evidence the prosecution presented at trial tying Mr. Cooper to the crime scene has all been discredited… (Continue reading this document at: http://www.savekevincooper.org/_new_freekevincooperdotorg/TEST/Scripts/DataLibraries/upload/KC_FactSheet_2014.pdf)
This message from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. July 2015
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CANCEL ALL STUDENT DEBT!
Sign the Petition:
http://cancelallstudentdebt.com/?code=kos
Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:
Americans now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families.
I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private.
American Federation of Teachers
Campaign for America's Future
Courage Campaign
Daily Kos
Democracy for America
LeftAction
Project Springboard
RH Reality Check
RootsAction
Student Debt Crisis
The Nation
Working Families
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Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson
|
DF 1036
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Rd.
Frackville, PA 17932
Email: Through JPay using the code:
Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC
or
Directly at LorenzoJohnson17932@gmail.com
freelorenzojohnson.org
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B. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) After Poised Live-Streaming, Tears and Fury Find Diamond Reynolds
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2) Something More is Required
By Michelle Alexander
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3) DeRay McKesson Among Protesters Arrested Nationwide
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4) New York Senate to Hold Hearings on Hoosick Falls’s Tainted Water
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5) ‘Bomb Robot’ Takes Down Dallas Gunman, but Raises Enforcement Questions
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6) Bernie Sanders Endorses Hillary Clinton, Cementing Democrats’ Unity
Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nominating process,' Mr. Sanders said, as cheers erupted and Mrs. Clinton broke into a wide smile. 'And I congratulate her for that. She will be the Democratic nominee for president, and I intend to do everything I can to make certain that she will be the next president of the United States.'”
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7) U.S. Will Deploy 560 More Troops to Iraq to Help Retake Mosul From ISIS
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8) Child Care Expansion Takes a Toll on Poorly Paid Workers
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B. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) After Poised Live-Streaming, Tears and Fury Find Diamond Reynolds
Diamond Reynolds was cool and composed as an anchorwoman on Wednesday night, her voice strong as she narrated the horrific scenearound her into her phone that was streaming live on Facebook.
“Please, officer, don’t tell me that you just did this to him,” she said, as her boyfriend, Philando Castile, lay slumped and bleeding in the car next to her, fatally shot by a police officer. “You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir.”
By Thursday, Ms. Reynolds had given in to tears, fury and grief.
“She’s not calm right now,” said an aunt, Joyce Doty, who lives in Indiana and was rushing to Minnesota to be with her niece. “She’s a hot mess. She is very, very upset right now.”
About Ms. Reynolds’s Facebook video, which had been viewed more than four million times by Thursday afternoon, Ms. Doty said, “She was doing what she had to do.”
Overnight, Ms. Reynolds, 26, has emerged as an extraordinary figure in the latest shooting of an African-American at the hands of a police officer.
Apparently seconds after Mr. Castile was shot, she began to broadcast the scene live on Facebook, pointing her phone in the direction of the police officer, whose gun was still drawn, and at Mr. Castile, who was in the driver’s seat and wearing a seatbelt, his T-shirt soaked in blood.
In doing so, she became not only a poised and influential witness, but a teller in real time of her own treatment by the police.
Ordered out of the car, then to kneel near the car, she was handcuffed and put in the back of a police cruiser. Yet the Facebook report continued, a mix of confusion, outrage, shock and poised determination to tell her version of what had happened.
On social media and on television, Ms. Reynolds was praised for her strength. “I truly believe Diamond Reynolds was spared her life because she’s got a greater purpose,” wrote the user @full_of_moxie on Twitter. “She’s going to get justice for #PhilandoCastile.”
Mr. Castile, Ms. Reynolds and her 4-year-old daughter spent part of Wednesday running errands and going grocery shopping, she told reporters. Around 9 p.m., she said, they were pulled over by the police, apparently for a traffic violation.
While she streamed video in the aftermath of his shooting, dozens of friends on Facebook wrote messages of concern. Some said they were praying. Others urged her to stay calm and avoid angering the officer. A few tried to ascertain where she was and coordinate efforts to go pick her up.
But she was taken into police custody immediately after the shooting and was not released, she said, until police officers dropped her off at her home at 5 a.m.
Hours later, Ms. Reynolds stood in front of the governor’s mansion, surrounded by crowds of people protesting the killing of Mr. Castile, who was a longtime employee of the St. Paul school district.
“I didn’t do it for pity, I didn’t do it for fame,” she told the cameras and people assembled. “I did it so that the world knows that the police are not here to protect and serve us. They are here to assassinate us. They are here to kill us. Because we are black.”
It was unclear if Ms. Reynolds had slept since her boyfriend was killed. She met with Gov. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, who later spoke about the shooting in unusually forceful terms, saying that he did not believe it would have happened if Mr. Castile was white.
Ms. Reynolds, who goes by Lavish on Facebook, identifies herself on her page as a native of Chicago who works as a housekeeper at a hotel. She said on Thursday that she had no family in Minnesota. Family members said she spent her early childhood living on the South Side of Chicago. “They took my lifeblood,” she told reporters. “That was my best friend. I never got to say my last words to that man.”
Dawn Spikes, Ms. Reynolds’s great-aunt, said from her home in Chicago that the day had passed in a haze of confusion. For hours early on Thursday, they did not know where Ms. Reynolds was and feared that she had been harmed. By the end of the day, she was surrounded by friends and activists. The Rev. Al Sharpton, Ms. Spikes said, had called to offer plane fare to Ms. Reynolds’s mother so she could travel from Indiana to be with her daughter.
Ms. Spikes had not brought herself to watch the full video from Wednesday night. But she said she was not surprised that Ms. Reynolds, who she described as strong and outspoken, reacted the way that she did.
“Diamond was calm, and the baby was calm,” she said. “Like they go through this every day. But they don’t.”
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2) Something More is Required
By Michelle Alexander
Facebook, July 9, 2016
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1040181682736455&id=168304409924191
I have struggled to find words to express what I thought and felt as I watched the videos of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile being killed by the police. Last night, I wanted to say something that hasn’t been said a hundred times before. It finally dawned on me that there is nothing to say that hasn’t been said before. As I was preparing to write about the oldness of all of this, and share some wisdom passed down from struggles of earlier eras, I heard on the news that 11 officers had been shot in Dallas, several killed from sniper fire. My fingers froze on the keys. I could not bring myself to recycle old truths. Something more is required. But what?
I think we all know, deep down, that something more is required of us now. This truth is difficult to face because it’s inconvenient and deeply unsettling. And yet silence isn’t an option. On any given day, there’s always something I’d rather be doing than facing the ugly, racist underbelly of America. I know that I am not alone. But I also know that the families of the slain officers, and the families of all those who have been killed by the police, would rather not be attending funerals. And I’m sure that many who refused to ride segregated buses in Montgomery after Rosa Parks stood her ground wished they could’ve taken the bus, rather than walk miles in protest, day after day, for a whole year. But they knew they had to walk. If change was ever going to come, they were going to have to walk. And so do we.
What it means to walk today will be different for different people and different groups and in different places. I am asking myself tonight what I need to do in the months and years to come to walk my walk with greater courage. It’s a question that requires some time and reflection. I hope it’s a question we are all asking ourselves.
In recent years, I have come to believe that truly transformative change depends more on thoughtful creation of new ways of being than reflexive reactions to the old. What is happening now is very, very old. We have some habits of responding to this familiar pain and trauma that are not serving us well. In many respects it’s amazing that we endure at all. I am inspired again and again by so much of the beautiful, brilliant and daring activism that is unfolding all over the country. Yet I also know that more is required than purely reactive protest and politics. A profound shift in our collective consciousness must occur, a shift that makes possible a new America.
I know many people believe that our criminal justice system can be “fixed” by smart people and smart policies. President Obama seems to think this way. He suggested yesterday that police-community relations can be improved meaningfully by a task force he created last year. Yes, a task force. I used to think like that. I don’t anymore. I no longer believe that we can “fix” the police, as though the police are anything other than a mirror reflecting back to us the true nature of our democracy. We cannot “fix” the police without a revolution of values and radical change to the basic structure of our society. Of course important policy changes can and should be made to improve police practices. But if we’re serious about having peace officers—rather than a domestic military at war with its own people—we’re going to have to get honest with ourselves about who our democracy actually serves and protects.
Consider this: Philando Castile had been stopped 31 times and charged with more than 60 minor violations—resulting in thousands of dollars in fines—before his last, fatal encounter with the police.[1]
Alton Sterling was arrested because he was hustling, selling CDs to get by. He was unable to work in the legal economy due to his felony record. His act of survival was treated by the police as a major crime, apparently punishable by death.
How many people on Wall Street have been arrested for their crimes large and small—crimes of greed and fraud that nearly bankrupted the global economy and destroyed the futures of millions of families? How many politicians have been prosecuted for taking millions of dollars from private prisons, prison guard unions, pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, tobacco companies, the NRA and Wall Street banks and doing their bidding for them—killing us softly? Oh, that’s right, taking millions from those folks isn’t even a crime. Democrats and Republicans do it every day. Our entire political system is financed by wealthy private interests buying politicians and making sure the rules are written in their favor. But selling CDs or loose cigarettes? In America, that’s treated as a serious crime, especially if you’re Black. For that act of survival, you can be wrestled to the ground and choked to death or shot at point blank range. Our entire system of government is designed to protect and serve the interests of the most powerful, while punishing, controlling and exploiting the least advantaged.
This is not hyperbole. And this is not new. What is new is that we’re now watching all of this on YouTube and Facebook, streaming live, as imagined super-predators are brought to heel. Fifty years ago, our country was forced to look at itself in the mirror when television stations broadcast Bloody Sunday, the day state troopers and a sheriff’s posse brutally attacked civil rights activists marching for voting rights in Selma. Those horrifying images, among others, helped to turn public opinion in support of the Civil Rights Movement. Perhaps the images we’ve seen in recent days will make some difference. It’s worth remembering, though, that none of the horrifying images from the Jim Crow era would’ve changed anything if a highly strategic, courageous movement had not existed that was determined to challenge a deeply entrenched system of racial and social control.
This nation was founded on the idea that some lives don’t matter. Freedom and justice for some, not all. That’s the foundation. Yes, progress has been made in some respects, but it hasn’t come easy. There’s an unfinished revolution waiting to be won.
[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3679678/Man-shooting-death-hand-cop-streamed-live-pulled-31-times-charged-63-times-officers-near-home.html
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3) DeRay McKesson Among Protesters Arrested Nationwide
DeRay McKesson, a national voice for the Black Lives Matter movement, was among more than 200 people arrested at demonstrations across the country late Saturday, as protesters expressed anger over the shootings of two black men by police officers last week.
Thousands of people took to the streets in San Francisco, New York City, Baton Rouge, Phildelphia and other cities.
In St. Paul — where more than 100 people were arrested — protesters angered over the killing of Philando Castile in nearby Falcon Heights shut down an interstate for hours. At least 20 officers were injured as people threw rocks, bottles and bricks, the police said on Twitter.
Officials in Baton Rouge, where Alton Sterling was fatally shot early Tuesday, said more than 100 people were also arrested, most of them accused of blocking the road. Among them were a public radio reporter and Mr. McKesson, who filmed his encounter with the police using the live-streaming app Periscope.
Mr. McKesson was confronted by a police officer at about 11:15 p.m. as he and other protesters were marching on Airline Highway, where they were warned by the police not to stray onto the road.
Mr. McKesson, 31, repeatedly tells viewers in the broadcast that there is no sidewalk where they are marching. In the background, an officer can be heard shouting, “You with them loud shoes, I see you in the road. If I get close to you, you’re going to jail.”
“I think he’s talking to me, y’all,” says Mr. McKesson, who often wears a blue vest and red sneakers to demonstrations.
Soon after, Mr. McKesson repeats that there is no sidewalk. “Watch the police, they are just literally provoking people,” he says.
Then, about five minutes into the broadcast, the video gets shaky and a police officer can be heard saying: “City police. You’re under arrest. Don’t fight me. Don’t fight me.” Then Mr. McKesson shouts, “I’m under arrest, y’all.”
As he is taken into custody, his phone is passed into the hands of his fellow protesters who continue the march and loudly demand answers as to where he has been taken.
In a booking record, the Baton Rouge authorities said Mr. McKesson ignored a police officer’s order to stay out of the road. He was charged with simple obstruction of a highway of commerce.
Brittany Packnett, an activist who was with Mr. McKesson when he was arrested, said he had been in contact with friends early Sunday morning and said he had not been physically harmed.
“As of 5:15 this morning he was physically O.K. We are still awaiting his release,” she said in a phone interview.
Ms. Packnett added that she was still not sure why Mr. McKesson had been arrested. “They told him they would arrest him if he stepped over the line, and like every single eyewitness and the video prove that he never stepped over that line,” she said.
As word of Mr. McKesson’s arrest spread on Twitter, where he has more than 460,000 followers, #FreeDeray began trending, with thousands tweeting out messages of support as well as phone numbers for the Baton Rouge police department to demand his release.
The Louisiana National Lawyers Guild, which is providing legal support to protesters, set up an online fund-raiser aimed at raising money to bail out Mr. McKesson and several other protesters arrested in Baton Rouge.
State Police officials defended the arrests of Mr. McKesson and others as a matter of public safety.
“Well, they’re clearly blocking the roadway,” a Louisiana State Police spokesman told Maya Lau, a reporter with The Baton Rouge Advocate, in a video she posted on her Twitter account. “We welcome the protests. We want them to voice their opinions. That’s what we’re here to do, to make sure they’re safe and they’re able to do that.
“We wouldn’t arrest people who are quietly protesting off the roadway,” he said.
A public radio station in New Orleans, WWNO, said on Twitter early Sunday that one of its reporters had also been arrested during a demonstration in Baton Rouge on one count of obstructing a highway. The Advocate said the reporter was Ryan Kailath, who had earlier tweeted images from a New Black Panther Party march.
The killing of Mr. Sterling, who was shot by the police last week outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, inspired protests across the country.
Largely peaceful but intermittently tense demonstrations have taken place each night in Baton Rouge since Mr. Sterling was shot. Thirty people were arrested on Friday night and early Saturday morning, according to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office.
Mr. McKesson, a public school administrator turned activist, first gained national notice with his blunt critiques on Twitter of the police response in Ferguson, Mo., after the death of Michael Brown in 2014.
He ran for mayor of Baltimore, his hometown, earlier this year, ultimately losing the Democratic primary in April to Catherine E. Pugh. He finished in sixth place, with 2 percent of the vote.
He may not have won, but his growing stature as an activist and his social media celebrity made an impact. Within an hour and a half of starting an account on the fund-raising site Crowdpac, he had surpassed Crowdpac’s previous record of 100 donations for a candidate. He also far eclipsed the most money raised by a candidate — $20,000 — in Crowdpac’s existence at the time.
Mr. McKesson’s campaign was considered a major step into the mainstream for the Black Lives Matter movement, which has been criticized for a lack of organized structure and tactics.
His detractors have accused him of being an antipolice anarchist whose comments helped foster protest violence.
His rise to prominence occurred after he left his job as an administrator in the Minneapolis Public Schools to move to the St. Louis area and work as a full-time activist. He then traveled around the country, using Twitter to chronicle protests against racial injustice.
Mr. McKesson traveled to Louisana Saturday morning to join other protesters, including Ms. Packnett and Johnetta Elzie, who with Mr. McKesson started Campaign Zero, which seeks to advance a political platform that includes tackling institutional racism in the criminal justice system and reforming police departments.
Supporters on the Periscope video say four police officers “carried him off” for standing in the road. “They got DeRay,” one supporter says. “They took him off in an armored vehicle.”
As he is taken away, several supporters cry out. “What was his crime?” one shouts. “Why is he being arrested?”
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4) New York Senate to Hold Hearings on Hoosick Falls’s Tainted Water
ALBANY — Amid rising pressure to investigate the causes and consequences of one of the state’s worst recent environmental crises, the New York Senate announced on Friday that it would hold hearings next month on the polluted water in Hoosick Falls.
The announcement, made by the Senate majority leader, John J. Flanagan, a Long Island Republican, capped a week of escalating tension about the level of governmental response in Hoosick Falls. Scores of residents who drank the upstate village’s water have tested positive for perfluorooctanoic acid, which has been linked in some studies to cancer and other serious diseases.
Even as Mr. Flanagan’s news release was issued, United States Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand was completing an emotional meeting with residents of the village and surrounding areas, ending it with a call for more state and federal action on the chemical, known as PFOA.
“I can tell you they are anxious and they are worried,” Ms. Gillibrand, a Democrat, said after the meeting, adding, “And there’s not a lot of clear answers.”
Mr. Flanagan’s decision to hold hearings in August — in the village itself — came two days after the State Assembly scheduled water-quality hearings for early September, with a broader mandate to examine contamination statewide.
PFOA is involved in the making of Teflon. Last year, the chemical was confirmed in dangerously high levels in the village’s water supply, which is drawn from municipal wells near a factory, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics. State officials say the factory was the source of the contamination.
Mr. Flanagan’s decision came after months of pressure from local residents and some lawmakers, who denounced the lack of public hearings on the contamination.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his staff have bristled at the suggestion that they had not acted aggressively enough to address the problem. On Friday, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, once again defended his response, citing efforts to hold accountable the companies tied to the pollution — Saint Gobain and Honeywell International, which preceded Saint Gobain on the site — as well as putting in new water filtration systems.
“I can’t think of what else we could possibly do,” Mr. Cuomo said, adding that monitoring PFOA and other chemicals was going to be a challenge, not just for the state, but also for the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also acted this week, sending letters to Mr. Cuomo’s office and the E.P.A. seeking documents and communications that could show when each entity first learned about the contamination in the water.
In its letter to Mr. Cuomo, the Republican-led committee voiced concern about “a sluggish response” to the crisis and “whether residents received misleading information that indicated the water posed no health risks.” Critics have cited several examples of missed opportunities, including a December fact sheet from state health officials that did not overtly warn residents to use bottled water instead of tap water, despite a previous federal admonition that village officials do so.
On Friday, the State Health Department said that it acted promptly after the E.P.A. made a public statement on PFOA in Hoosick Falls in mid-December. The Cuomo administration, meanwhile, said it would “gladly share our experience in New York” with House officials, as well as the Legislature, but reasserted the need for “clear federal regulations.”
The water in Hoosick Falls, about 30 miles northeast of Albany, has been a brewing political problem for Mr. Cuomo since late January, when he classified the factory a Superfund site and ordered blood tests for residents. In early June, those results began to be released, and the findings were troubling: The median level for those tested so far was nearly 15 times the national median for those 12 or older.
On Friday, Ms. Gillibrand said that she heard residents’ concerns over and over, hardening her desire for additional federal action from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, both of whom she brought to Hoosick Falls.
And while she said she appreciated the governor’s efforts to filter the water and to test the wells and residents’ blood, she suggested the overall government response had fallen short. “There is no one who has done a good job in easing their fears,” she said.
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5) ‘Bomb Robot’ Takes Down Dallas Gunman, but Raises Enforcement Questions
The Dallas police ended a standoff with the gunman suspected of killing five officers with a tactic that by all accounts appears to be unprecedented: It blew him up using a robot.
In doing so, it sought to protect police who had negotiated with the man for several hours and had exchanged gunfire with him. But the decision ignited a debate about the increasing militarization of police and the remote-controlled use of force, and raised the specter of a new era of policing.
The Dallas police chief, David O. Brown, said officers had used one of the department’s “bomb robots,” attaching an explosive device to its arm that was detonated early Friday when the robot was near the gunman. “Other options would have exposed the officers to grave danger,” he said.
But the decision to deliver a bomb by robot stunned some current and former law enforcement officials, who said they believed the new tactic blurred the line between policing and warfare.
They said that it might have been an excessive use of force and that it set a precedent, adding that they were concerned that other departments across the country could begin using the same tactic.
“The further we remove the officer from the use of force and the consequences that come with it, the easier it becomes to use that tactic,” said Rick Nelson, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former counterterrorism official on the National Security Council. “It’s what we have done with drones in warfare.”
“In warfare, your object is to kill,” he added. “Law enforcement has a different mission.”
Other law enforcement officials supported the decision, suggesting they could take a similar approach if the situation called for it. At a news conference on Friday, New York’s police commissioner, William J. Bratton, said that while he was waiting to find out precisely what the Dallas police did, “we have that capability.”
“This is an individual that killed five police officers,” he added. “So God bless ’em.”
The use of the robot and explosive device comes amid questions about whether police departments, which have bought equipment from the Pentagon that was part of efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, have become too militarized. During the turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., two years ago, local law enforcement quelled protests with military-style equipment, angering many who said they felt intimidated. The Obama administration has declined to stop the Pentagon from selling the equipment, saying that a vast majority of it strengthens local policing.
While Chief Brown offered no additional information about the use of the robot, it appeared that officers had repurposed a remote-controlled bomb disposal vehicle that is normally used to inspect dangerous crime scenes or pick up suspected explosive devices for detonation or dismantling.
The decision to use the robot in this way left many questions unanswered, including whether a sniper could have shot the gunman. Also, it was not clear why the police did not wait him out.
One expert in legal issues and robotics said he thought the use of the robot was justified, and saw little difference between its use and having a sniper shoot from a distance.
“No court would find a legal problem here,” said Ryan Calo, a professor at the University of Washington law school. “When someone is an ongoing lethal danger, there isn’t an obligation on the part of officers to put themselves in harm’s way.”
There are other significant issues that arise when using an explosive device, according to current and former law enforcement officials. Explosions can destroy property and cause fires.
One of the few instances in which a police force used explosives occurred in 1985, when Philadelphia officers bombed the headquarters of a self-styled black liberation group, Move. Eleven members of the group, including five children, were killed, and a fire spread through the neighborhood, destroying more than 60 homes.
The Move explosives were dropped by helicopter. Using a police robot “has probably never been done before,” said Robert Louden, former chief hostage negotiator for the New York Police Department and a former professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
But bomb disposal robots have been used to deliver objects to suspects, hostages and others, or to distract or communicate with suspects.
Last year, a man with a knife who threatened to jump off a bridge in San Jose, Calif., was taken into custody after the police had a robot bring him a cellphone and a pizza as part of efforts to talk him down.
In November 2014, the Albuquerque police used a robot to “deploy chemical munitions,” in the words of a department report, in a motel room where a man had barricaded himself with a gun. He surrendered.
Mr. Louden said he did not think the Dallas police had planned to use the robot to deliver a bomb. Rather, he said, at a point where negotiations with the suspect broke down, the officers in charge had to decide what to do about it.
“Are we going to endanger an officer?” Mr. Louden said about the police officers’ thinking. “Or do we try something that’s a little bit unique, but in all probability withstands legal tests for justification of use of force?”
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6) Bernie Sanders Endorses Hillary Clinton, Cementing Democrats’ Unity
Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nominating process,' Mr. Sanders said, as cheers erupted and Mrs. Clinton broke into a wide smile. 'And I congratulate her for that. She will be the Democratic nominee for president, and I intend to do everything I can to make certain that she will be the next president of the United States.'”
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — After 14 months of policy clashes and moments of mutual disdain, Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday, clearing away the last major obstacle to a united Democratic front heading into the party’s convention this month and the general election this fall.
Entering the high school gymnasium together and waving and shaking hands along the rope line and from the stage, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders stood before a giant American flag image flanked by Mrs. Clinton’s motto, “Stronger Together.” They appeared to chat briefly before Mr. Sanders spoke, and he patted her on the back before Mr. Sanders stepped forward to cheers to “Unity!”
“Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nominating process,” Mr. Sanders said, as cheers erupted and Mrs. Clinton broke into a wide smile. “And I congratulate her for that. She will be the Democratic nominee for president, and I intend to do everything I can to make certain that she will be the next president of the United States.”
“I have come here to make it as clear as possible why I am endorsing Hillary Clinton and why she must become our next president.”
Mr. Sanders, the fiercely independent senator from Vermont, who portrayed Mrs. Clinton as a captive of big-money interests during their race, was in a bittersweet but resolute mood, according to Sanders advisers, as he took the stage with her at Portsmouth High School. He was back in a state that once filled his campaign with hope, after he crushed Mrs. Clinton by 22 percentage points in the February primary, and he came around grudgingly to supporting her, the advisers said. But he was also determined to make a strong case against Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and to champion Mrs. Clinton as the only chance to defeat him.
Whether Mrs. Clinton can also win over the 13 million Sanders voters will be one of her biggest challenges at the convention July 25-28 in Philadelphia and in the weeks ahead. About 85 percent of Democrats who backed Mr. Sanders in the primary contests said they planned to vote for her in the general election, according to a Pew poll released last week. Yet she has struggled to appeal to the independents and liberals who rallied behind the senator’s call for a “political revolution” to topple establishment politicians, Mrs. Clinton included.
When Mr. Sanders finished his remarks, he and Mrs. Clinton had a tight hug. “You were great, so great,” Mrs. Clinton said to him. “Thank you so much.” Then, in her own speech, she thanked him profusely and hailed Mr. Sanders’s wife, Jane, while also reaching out to his supporters.
“With your help, we’re joining forces to defeat Donald Trump, win in November, and build a future we can all believe in,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Thank you, thank you Bernie for your endorsement, but more than that, thank you for your lifetime of fighting injustice. I am proud to be fighting alongside you because, my friends, this is a time for all of us to stand together.”
Mrs. Clinton is counting on Mr. Sanders to help bring his supporters into her camp, and Sanders advisers said he would try. In a text message on Tuesday before this campaign event, Michael Briggs, a spokesman for Mr. Sanders, said the senator and his wife feel as if their voters should feel encouraged.
“They feel like the millions of people who were the heart and soul of the campaign have a lot to be proud about,” Mr. Briggs wrote as he drove from Vermont with Senator Sanders and Ms. Sanders to the New Hampshire event.
One person close to Mr. Sanders said the senator and his wife were “putting on a good face” Tuesday but were disappointed that his campaign did not succeed after he gave it so much of his energy and rallied millions of people around his ideas. The person, a longtime top political adviser to Mr. Sanders who spoke on condition of anonymity to share the private views of the couple, also said the senator was resolved to keep his word that he would endorse the Democratic nominee and that he has been told by some high-ranking Democrats that he could become chairman of the committee that will work on trying to carry out a proposed $15 federal minimum wage.
On the campaign trail, Mrs. Clinton has been focused on winning over independents and Republican-leaning women who are turned off by Mr. Trump, exuding confidence that the young voters and liberals who backed Mr. Sanders would get in line and support her when faced with the prospect of a Trump presidency instead.
But behind the scenes, her senior campaign aides have tried to build bridges to a wing of the party skeptical of Mrs. Clinton and the brand of centrist politics her husband advanced. Since she clinched the number of delegates needed to secure her party’s nomination on June 7, the campaign has reached out to Mr. Sanders’s supporters, dispatching the campaign manager Robby Mook, the director of states and political engagement, Marlon Marshall, and the top policy adviser Jake Sullivan, to states where Mr. Sanders defeated Mrs. Clinton, including New Hampshire, Wyoming, Vermont and Washington State.
The détente between the two camps began after Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders met privately at the Hilton in Washington last month. Jeff Weaver, Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager, and Mr. Mook remained behind after the meeting hashing out their differences and discussing policy for the next two hours. In the weeks that followed, Mr. Mook, a Vermont native, and Mr. Weaver were in daily contact, exchanging texts and phone calls and grabbing dinner at the Farmhouse Tap and Grill in Burlington.
Mrs. Clinton also inched toward Mr. Sanders’s positioning on education, with a pledge to make public colleges and universities tuition free for families that make less than $125,000 a year and with a reaffirmation of a “public option” to be built into the Affordable Care Act.
In Orlando, Fla., Mrs. Clinton’s policy adviser, Maya Harris, and Mr. Sander’s policy adviser, Warren Gunnels, sat down to come up with compromises on both issues, though trade and the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, in particular, remains a sticking point between the two camps.
For many Sanders supporters, voting for Mrs. Clinton is still hard to fathom: Recent polls show that only a small fraction of them would support her enthusiastically. At the campaign event here, as well as around the country, there was a relatively lukewarm reception for Mrs. Clinton among the legions of liberals who embraced Mr. Sanders’s attacks on her ties to Wall Street and previous support for global trade deals.
Ethan Winnett, 31, of Waukegan, Ill., said Mr. Sanders might be being “duped” or “threatened” by Mrs. Clinton and vowed never to vote for her even if she’s back by the senator. The computer engineer believes Mrs. Clinton is “more crooked than Trump” and said he felt “betrayed” by Mr. Sanders’s endorsement.
Mr. Winnett added that he also feels betrayed by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and President Obama for their support of Mrs. Clinton. In his frustration with the race, he has already turned to working for the Green Party and this summer helped collect signatures to get the party’s presidential nominee, Jill Stein, on the ballot in Illinois.
However, Winnie Wong, co-founder of People For Bernie, said the group will now be focusing efforts on explaining to people the damage a Trump presidency could do. The group, though, will not be endorsing Mrs. Clinton, she said.
“This is what I expected to happen,” Ms. Wong said of Mr. Sanders’s endorsement. “I will do what I can to stop Trump. We cannot afford a Donald Trump presidency and I think most people from social movements understand that.”
Mr. Sanders’s endorsement comes after weeks of talks between his campaign and Mrs. Clinton’s and after a tough primary battle where he frequently attacked her as not being progressive enough. He often criticized Mrs. Clinton as the “anointed candidate” and assailed her for her ties to Wall Street, for having a “super PAC,” for not more strongly backing an across-the-board $15 minimum wage. He called on her repeatedly to release transcripts of her paid speeches to commercial banks.
Mrs. Clinton attacked Mr. Sanders’s past tepid support of gun control, implicitly tying him to gun violence. His defense – that he represented a state with a hunting population – did little more than remind voters that his entire career had been spent in the removed idyll of Vermont.
Frustrated, Mr. Sanders, at a rally in Philadelphia in early April, called Mrs. Clinton “unqualified” to be president, setting off days of back and forth between the campaigns.
“She has been saying lately that she thinks that I am, quote unquote, not qualified to be president,” Mr. Sanders said then. “I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is, through her ‘super PAC,’ taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds.”
Such language, according to Sanders advisers, would certainly not be part of the speech that Mr. Sanders had written by hand for Tuesday’s endorsement event in New Hampshire.
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7) U.S. Will Deploy 560 More Troops to Iraq to Help Retake Mosul From ISIS
BAGHDAD — President Obama will send 560 more troops to Iraq to help retake Mosul, the largest city still controlled by the Islamic State, a deployment intended to capitalize on recent battlefield gains that also illustrates the obstacles that Mr. Obama has faced in trying to wind down America’s wars.
The additional troops, announced here on Monday by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, are the latest escalation of the American military role in Iraq by Mr. Obama, who withdrew the last American soldiers from Iraq at the end of 2011.
He began sending them back three years later after Islamic State fighters swept into the country from Syria.
Many of the newly deployed troops will be based at an airfield 40 miles south of Mosul that was reclaimed by Iraqi soldiers on Saturday. Administration officials said the airfield would be critical to a successful military operation because the United States could use it as a staging area to provide logistical support to Iraqi forces as they try to retake Mosul.
The Iraqis have struggled with the logistics of moving troops and equipment and these tasks will become more difficult as their forces move closer to Mosul, 250 miles from major supply hubs in Baghdad.
The deployment will bring the official number of American service members in Iraq to 4,647. The United States had about 130,000 service members in the country about a decade ago.
“We need to move to this place to be as close to the fighting as we have been,” said Lt. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland, the head of American forces in Iraq, speaking to reporters with Mr. Carter at the Baghdad airport.
For Mr. Obama, sending more troops raises the chances that he could fulfill his hope of handing over a liberated Mosul to his successor. But it also means that he will leave the next president with a significant military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Last week, Mr. Obama announced the United States would keep 8,400 troops in Afghanistan indefinitely.
At a NATO meeting in Poland over the weekend, the president spoke of his frustrations with these long-running military engagements. In Iraq, he noted, American troops vanquished Al Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni militant group. But the extremists reconstituted themselves in Syria as the Islamic State, before seizing the cities of Falluja and Mosul.
Still, the president said Iraqi forces had made important gains in the last several weeks. Most important, they retook Falluja, a victory that he said, “got a little bit lost in the news, but that’s a big town.”
“They’re now positioning themselves so that they can start going after Mosul,” the president said. The Islamic State fighters, he said, were “on their heels, and we’re going to stay on it.”
White House officials resisted suggestions that more American troops might be needed to uproot the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, from Mosul.
“The president has been very clear about what our mission is and what our mission isn’t,” the press secretary, Josh Earnest, said on Monday. “This is an effort to reinforce our support for Iraqi forces that are enjoying some success in driving ISIL out of strategic, important areas in Iraq, that can put them in a position to succeed on a much bigger goal: driving ISIL out of Iraq’s second largest city.”
Some of the American troops who will be stationed at the airfield, known as Qaiyara Airfield West, specialize in infrastructure projects, like building bridges, which is a technical skill the Iraqis will need for the assault on Mosul because the Islamic State has destroyed many around the city.
The new deployment comes two years after Mr. Obama said that while the United States would help Iraq reclaim territory from the Islamic State, its efforts would “not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.” Since then, he has steadily increased the number of troops and given them more authority. Three service members have been killed.
In April, Mr. Carter came to Baghdad to announce that Mr. Obama had given American military advisers the approval to work closer to the front lines of the conflict with smaller units of Iraqi forces. As part of that announcement, Mr. Obama deployed an additional 217 troops.
Mosul is now the only major city in the country that the Iraqis do not control, and the Islamic State has not seized any substantial new territory since May 2015. Still, the Iraqis do not seem to be able to stop the Islamic State from launching devastating suicide attacks in Baghdad, including one this month that killed 300 people.
“As ISIL loses territory and the fraud of the caliphate becomes more obvious, they are going to start resorting to more traditional terrorist tactics,” Mr. Obama said in his news conference. “They can’t govern. They can’t deliver anything meaningful to the people whose territory they can control. The one thing they know how to do is kill.”
To help the Iraqis stop the bombings, Mr. Carter said a three-star general in charge of the American military’s task force on improvised explosive devices would be sent to Baghdad to work with the Iraqis.
The general and his staff would bring “that substantial experience and tradecraft that we learned by hard experience in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Mr. Carter said.
American commanders have begun referring to the Qaiyara Airfield West as “Key West” or “Q West” because its Iraqi name is difficult for them to pronounce. As the Iraqi military closed in on the base last week, Islamic State fighters quickly fled and the Iraqis, who lost control of it in 2014, faced little resistance. Iraqi military officials said in interviews on Monday that there was substantial damage to the air base that would require repairs.
“We were surprised by how destroyed the base was and how they had done it in an organized way,” said Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, the commander of Iraqi counterterrorism forces, who planned the operation.
Mr. Assadi said one of two runways at the airfield had been badly damaged, along with some buildings. A small group of American forces surveyed the airfield shortly after the Iraqis seized it, but American military officials said it was still unclear how much time it would take before cargo planes and other aircraft could begin landing there.
The official estimate of 4,647 troops in Iraq understates the actual number of American military personnel in the country. The Pentagon uses a system for counting troops that excludes commandos and those who are supposed to be stationed in the country for less than four months.
All told, Defense Department officials have said there are probably more than 5,000 Americans in Iraq.
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8) Child Care Expansion Takes a Toll on Poorly Paid Workers
Carmella Salinas has worked steadily for 14 years as an early-childhood-education teacher, taking care of 4- and 5-year-olds at the nonprofit Family Learning Center in the hardscrabble community of Española, just north of Santa Fe, N.M. Even so, she rarely earns enough to cover all her bills, and has more than once received a disconnection letter from the water, gas or electric company. A few months ago, she arrived home with her 10-year-old son, Aaron, to find the electricity shut off.
“But Mom,” she recalled Aaron saying, “don’t they know it’s your birthday?”
While the scramble to find affordable child care has drawn a lot of attention, prompting President Obama to label it “a must-have”economic priority, the struggles of the workers — mostly women — who provide that care have not.
Yet the fortunes of both are inextricably intertwined. “You can’t separate the quality of children’s experiences from the knowledge, skills and well-being of early educators,” said Marcy Whitebook, director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley.
About two million caregivers look after 12 million children from newborns to 5-year-olds, and they are among the lowest-paid workers in the country, sometimes earning little more than minimum wage, said Ms. Whitebook, who is an author of a state-by-state comparison of the early-child-care work force that was released last week. Caregivers also get few benefits and scattershot training, and they are subject to a tangle of requirements and regulations that can vary from one program to the next.
Scientists established decades ago that the crucial first years of life, in the words of a 2015 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report, “provide a foundation on which later learning — and lifelong progress — is constructed.” Blue states and red, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and children’s advocates have moved toward supporting universal prekindergarten.
But as the academy researchers concluded, “Adults who are underinformed, under-prepared, or subject to chronic stress themselves may contribute to children’s experiences of adversity and stress and undermine their development and learning.”
Ms. Salinas, 43, knows such stress too well. After 14 years, she earns $12.89 an hour, but her work week is capped at 32 hours. If she worked more than that, the nonprofit center would have to provide her with benefits, which it cannot afford. In past years, enough parents managed to pay tuition during the summer, but not this time. As a result, she is without a job until state funding for prekindergarten starts to flow again in September.
For a while, Ms. Salinas got a second job to supplement her paycheck, but the extra money meant she no longer qualified for food stamps and Medicaid.
Without public assistance, she was unable to afford the two inhalers — one was $200, the other was $75 — that she needed for her chronic asthma. “I was hospitalized last year from complications from asthma,” she said. “I was rationing the medication. I am supposed to have four puffs, but I would think, ‘Can I get by with one?’”
Nor could she afford enough groceries. When her food stamps came through a couple of weeks ago, she stocked the refrigerator. Unaccustomed to seeing such a crowd of yogurt, carrots, strawberries, lunch meat, milk and orange juice, her son asked, “Mom, are we rich now?”
“No, baby,” Ms. Salinas recalled saying with a laugh. “We’re really, really poor.”
Ms. Salinas said she could not manage at all if she had not inherited her mother’s house a few years ago. But staying on top of the bills is still tough. When her 1999 Dodge Durango broke down last year, it took her four months to save enough to get it fixed.
New Mexico, like some other states, provides limited stipends to help teachers earn the credentials they lack. But the money, Ms. Salinas said, is only enough to cover one class each semester. She has been taking weekend or evening classes since 2005 to get a bachelor’s degree.
After eight years of similar part-time schooling, Mona Zamora, now 33, earned her diploma while working at a child care center in Las Cruces. At a job fair, she learned about an opening for a kindergarten teacher in Mesa, Ariz., where she is now moving with her two children. Her salary will be $38,000 a year — almost a third more than she earned in New Mexico — plus health insurance and a retirement program.
“Once I graduated and got my degree, the job that I was working at for over eight years wasn’t able to compete with the pay and benefits,” Ms. Zamora said.
Public schools, even in poor states, generally pay better than nonprofit and private child care centers. At the same time, elementary school teachers tend to earn twice as much as prekindergarten teachers, and caretakers of toddlers and infants are further down on the income scale, according to the Berkeley report.
Ms. Whitebook at Berkeley acknowledged that while many mothers did not have a bachelor’s degree, handling a roomful of children required different skills from caring for one’s own. “The work of caring for and educating the youngest children is as complex and requires as much knowledge as working with kids 5 to 8,” she said.
She commended states for focusing on improved training and qualifications, but said it was not enough. Child care workers need professional support in the classroom, she said, and “we need to raise the floor so people are making a living wage.”
But using standards for teachers at public school as a benchmark troubles Katharine Stevens, an education policy researcher at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
“It’s a model that has largely failed disadvantaged kids,” Ms. Stevens said, noting that early childhood education offers a particularly potent opportunity to help level the playing field for poor children, who can lag as much as two years behind by the time they start kindergarten. “This is a crucial area and we need people who are good at it,” she said. “But a college degree may not be necessary to be a very good caretaker of infants and toddlers.”
Child care workers deserve more than poverty wages, Ms. Stevens said, adding: “Leaping to a just-add-water-and-stir solution is going to backfire. We don’t know what credentials or what training leads to child care workers and teachers being effective with very young children.”
And raising wages would also make child care more expensive — putting it further out of reach for low- and moderate-income families, and stretching already tight state budgets.
The Berkeley researchers counter that the push to expand child care has come at the expense of the poorly paid women who do the work. “A major goal of early childhood services has been to relieve poverty among children, yet many of these same efforts continue to generate poverty in the predominantly female, ethnically and racially diverse early-childhood-education work force,” the report states.
Despite all of her own financial hardships, Ms. Salinas in Española said there was no other job she would rather have. “I realized that this was my calling in life,” she said, making the discovery after finding a part-time job at a day care center when her two older daughters were living at home.
Even so, Ms. Salinas and her colleagues have families of their own to support. On a trip to lobby for education funding at the state Capitol in Santa Fe, she remembered meeting with a senator who told her, “You don’t get into this for the money; you’re paid in love.”
“Really?” she replied. “When my landlord comes, can I just give him a hug?”
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