Saturday, March 24, 2018

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 2018

MARCH FOR OUR LIVES

1:00 P.M. CIVIC CENTER

SAN FRANCISCO

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*Bay Area—Assemble at 11:00 A.M. at Lake Merritt Ampitheater

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JOINING FORCES AGAINST POLICING AND JAILS IN SAN FRANCISCO
A Summit to fight the Prison Industrial Complex

Saturday April 7th, 10am - 3pm
City College, Mission Campus
1125 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110

RSVP today. Space limited!
Facebook to stay updated and spread the word!

DOWNLOAD A PRINTABLE FLYER

Hosted by the No New SF Jail coalition, this event will bring together organizational partners and community activists working to stop the violence of the prison industrial complex in San Francisco. Summit presenters and participants will discuss interrelated topics such as jail construction, gang injunctions, justice for community members murdered by police, tasers, bail reform, increased policing on our streets, and more. Interactive workshops, trainings, and panel discussions will allow for participants to share information and strategize between campaigns. Our goal is to strengthen connections between our organizations and efforts in order to better address the interlocking impacts of imprisonment, policing, surveillance, courts, and prosecution in San Francisco. Join us!

Lunch provided. Donations accepted.

Current Sponsors Include: Asian Law Caucus, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, Communities United Against Violence, Oakland Power Projects, DSA - Justice Committee, American Friends Service Committee, Critical Resistance Oakland, Californians United for a Responsible Budget.

Accessibility: Venue will be wheelchair accessible. Childcare and interpretation provided upon request, please contact us regarding this and other accessibility needs by March 31st.

Sponsorship: Would your organization like to join as a sponsor? Please contact us and fill out this quick survey.

Contact: nosfjail@curbprisonsp ending.org - 5104440484 - http s://nonewsfjail.wordpress.com

_______________________________________________
News mailing list
News@womenprisoners.org
http://womenprisoners.org/mailman/listinfo/news_womenprisoners.org

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Cindy Sheehan and the Women's March on the Pentagon

A movement not just a protest

By Whitney Webb

WASHINGTON—In the last few years, arguably the most visible and well-publicized march on the U.S. capital has been the "Women's March," a movement aimed at advocating for legislation and policies promoting women's rights as well as a protest against the misogynistic actions and statements of high-profile U.S. politicians. The second Women's March, which took place this past year, attracted over a million protesters nationwide, with 500,000 estimated to have participated in Los Angeles alone.

However, absent from this women's movement has been a public antiwar voice, as its stated goal of "ending violence" does not include violence produced by the state. The absence of this voice seemed both odd and troubling to legendary peace activist Cindy Sheehan, whose iconic protest against the invasion and occupation of Iraq made her a household name for many.

Sheehan was taken aback by how some prominent organizers of this year's Women's March were unwilling to express antiwar positions and argued for excluding the issue of peace entirely from the event and movement as a whole. In an interview with MintPress, Sheehan recounted how a prominent leader of the march had told her, "I appreciate that war is your issue Cindy, but the Women's March will never address the war issue as long as women aren't free."

War is indeed Sheehan's issue and she has been fighting against the U.S.' penchant for war for nearly 13 years. After her son Casey was killed in action while serving in Iraq in 2004, Sheehan drew international media attention for her extended protest in front of the Bush residence in Crawford, Texas, which later served as the launching point for many protests against U.S. military action in Iraq.

Sheehan rejected the notion that women could be "free" without addressing war and empire. She countered the dismissive comment of the march organizer by stating that divorcing peace activism from women's issues "ignored the voices of the women of the world who are being bombed and oppressed by U.S. military occupation."

Indeed, women are directly impacted by war—whether through displacement, the destruction of their homes, kidnapping, or torture. Women also suffer uniquely and differently from men in war as armed conflicts often result in an increase in sexual violence against women.

For example, of the estimated half-a-million civilians killed in the U.S. invasion of Iraq, many of them were women and children. In the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, the number of female casualties has been rising on average over 20 percent every year since 2015. In 2014 alone when Israel attacked Gaza in "Operation Protective Edge," Israeli forces, which receives $10 million in U.S. military aid every day, killed over two thousand Palestinians—half of them were women and children. Many of the casualties were pregnant women, who had been deliberately targeted.

Given the Women's March's apparent rejection of peace activism in its official platform, Sheehan was inspired to organize another Women's March that would address what many women's rights advocates, including Sheehan, believe to be an issue central to promoting women's rights.

Dubbed the "Women's March on the Pentagon," the event is scheduled to take place on October 21—the same date as an iconic antiwar march of the Vietnam era—with a mission aimed at countering the "bipartisan war machine." Though men, women and children are encouraged to attend, the march seeks to highlight women's issues as they relate to the disastrous consequences of war.

The effort of women in confronting the "war machine" will be highlighted at the event, as Sheehan remarked that "women have always tried to confront the war-makers," as the mothers, daughters, sisters and wives of the men and women in the military, as well as those innocent civilians killed in the U.S.' foreign wars. As a result, the push for change needs to come from women, according to Sheehan, because "we [women] are the only ones that can affect [the situation] in a positive way." All that's missing is an organized, antiwar women's movement.

Sheehan noted the march will seek to highlight the direct relationship between peace activism and women's rights, since "no woman is free until all women are free" and such "freedom also includes the freedom from U.S. imperial plunder, murder and aggression" that is part of the daily lives of women living both within and beyond the United States. Raising awareness of how the military-industrial complex negatively affects women everywhere is key, says Sheehan, as "unless there is a sense of international solidarity and a broader base for feminism, then there aren't going to be any solutions to any problems, [certainly not] if we don't stop giving trillions of dollars to the Pentagon."

Sheehan also urged that, even though U.S. military adventurism has long been an issue and the subject of protests, a march to confront the military-industrial complex is more important now than ever: "I'm not alarmist by nature but I feel like the threat of nuclear annihilation is much closer than it has been for a long time," adding that, despite the assertion of some in the current administration and U.S. military, "there is no such thing as 'limited' nuclear war." This makes "the need to get out in massive numbers" and march against this more imperative than ever.

Sheehan also noted that Trump's presidency has helped to make the Pentagon's influence on U.S. politics more obvious by bringing it to the forefront: "Even though militarism had been under wraps [under previous presidents], Trump has made very obvious the fact that he has given control of foreign policy to the 'generals.'"

Indeed, as MintPress has reported on several occasions, the Pentagon—beginning in March of last year—has been given the freedom to "engage the enemy" at will, without the oversight of the executive branch or Congress. As a result, the deaths of innocent civilians abroad as a consequence of U.S. military action has spiked. While opposing Trump is not the focus of the march, Sheehan opined that Trump's war-powers giveaway to the Pentagon, as well as his unpopularity, have helped to spark widespread interest in the event.

Different wings of the same warbird

Sheehan has rejected accusations that the march is partisan, as it is, by nature, focused on confronting the bipartisan nature of the military-industrial complex. She told MintPress that she has recently come under pressure owing to the march's proximity to the 2018 midterm elections—as some have ironically accused the march's bipartisan focus as "trying to harm the chances of the Democrats" in the ensuing electoral contest.

In response, Sheehan stated that:

"Democrats and Republicans are different wings of the same warbird. We are protesting militarism and imperialism. The march is nonpartisan in nature because both parties are equally complicit. We have to end wars for the planet and for the future. I could really care less who wins in November."

She also noted that even when the Democrats were in power under Obama, nothing was done to change the government's militarism nor to address the host of issues that events like the Women's March have claimed to champion.

"We just got finished with eight years of a Democratic regime," Sheehan told MintPress. "For two of those years, they had complete control of Congress and the presidency and a [filibuster-proof] majority in the Senate and they did nothing" productive except to help "expand the war machine." She also emphasized that this march is in no way a "get out the vote" march for any political party.

Even though planning began less than a month ago, support has been pouring in for the march since it was first announced on Sheehan's website, Cindy Sheehan Soapbox. Encouraged by the amount of interest already received, Sheehan is busy working with activists to organize the events and will be taking her first organizing trip to the east coast in April of this year.

In addition, those who are unable to travel to Washington are encouraged to participate in any number of solidarity protests that will be planned to take place around the world or to plan and attend rallies in front of U.S. embassies, military installations, and the corporate headquarters of war profiteers.

Early endorsers of the event include journalists Abby Martin, Mnar Muhawesh and Margaret Kimberley; Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly; FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley; and U.S. politicians like former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. Activist groups that have pledged their support include CodePink, United National Antiwar Coalition, Answer Coalition, Women's EcoPeace and World Beyond War.

Though October is eight months away, Sheehan has high hopes for the march. More than anything else, though, she hopes that the event will give birth to a "real revolutionary women's movement that recognizes the emancipation and liberation of all peoples—and that means [freeing] all people from war and empire, which is the biggest crime against humanity and against this planet." By building "a movement and not just a protest," the event's impact will not only be long-lasting, but grow into a force that could meaningfully challenge the U.S. military-industrial complex that threatens us all. God knows the world needs it.

For those eager to help the march, you can help spread the word through social media by joining the march's Facebook page or following the march's Twitter account, as well as by word of mouth. In addition, supporting independent media outlets—such as MintPress, which will be reporting on the march—can help keep you and others informed as October approaches.

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News who has written for several news organizations in both English and Spanish; her stories have been featured on ZeroHedge, the Anti-Media, and 21st Century Wire among others. She currently lives in Southern Chile.

—MPN News, February 20, 2018

https://www.mintpressnews.com/cindy-sheehan-and-the-womens-march-on-the-pentagon-a-movement-not-just-a-protest/237835/

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April 1-7: DRONE RESISTANCE WEEK at CREECH AFB

Mark your calendar: Sept. 30-Oct. 6, SHUT DOWN CREECH:

Mass Mobilization to STOP KILLER DRONES.

Join CODEPINK, Veterans for Peace, and other activists for a week of resistance in the "killer drone fields" of Creech Air Force Base!

With this week's 50th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, where the U.S. military slaughtered over 500 villagers in Vietnam, it is a time to reflect. The U.S. Killer Drone Program is as covert as ever, but continues to brutally kill people in the poorest communities of the world, as the they go about their daily lives, driving on a road, praying in a mosque, eating with their family, studying in school, attending a wedding party or funeral. The ongoing U.S. drone attacks represent modern day mini-My Lai massacres…relentless and barbaric, "hunting" people who have no ability to defend themselves.

As we approach the 50th anniversary of Martin L. King Jr.'s assassination, April 4, I am reminded of his words of truth: "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world: my own country..." Sadly, it has only gotten worse. We refuse to adapt to it.

Join us for all or part of the week of peaceful nonviolent resistance.

Stay in the Goddess Temple guest house or bring your tent and gear and sleep under the beautiful Nevada desert skies. Collaborate with activists, and join our daily am & pm vigils during rush hour commute, when thousands of military flood into and out of Creech AFB, a key command center of the U.S. killer drone program. The day hours between vigils allow opportunities for desert walks, camaraderie with other peacemakers, and nature retreats in the beautiful desert….an opportunity for replenishing our souls and brainstorming inspirations for resistance.

Contacts: ratherbenyckeling@comcast.net or EastbayCodepink@gmail.com

Not too late to join us, and hope to see you there!

Maggie, Eleanor, Cecile, Ann Wright, GG, Michael Kerr, Pamela, Mary Dean, Renay, Susan Witka, and Toby

It is so beautiful to see young people in this country rising up to demand an end to gun violence. But what is Donald Trump's response? Instead of banning assault weapons, he wants to give guns to teachers and militarize our schools. But one of the reasons for mass school shootings is precisely because our schools are already militarized. Florida shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was trained by U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) program while he was in high school.

The Armed Services Committees in Congress can stop the JROTC programs in our schools. Tell Senator McCain and Representative Thornberry, of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, to take the war machine out our schools!

Yesterday, Divest from the War Machine coalition member, Pat Elder, was featured on Democracy Now discussing his recent article about the JROTC in our schools. The JROTC teaches children how to shoot weapons. It is often taught by retired soldiers who have no background in teaching. They are allowed to teach classes that are given at least equal weight as classes taught by certified and trained teachers. We are pulling our children away from classes that expand their minds and putting them in classes that teach them how to be killing machines. The JROTC program costs our schools money. It sends equipment. But, the instructors and facilities must be constructed and paid for by the school.

The JROTC puts our children's futures at risk. Children who participate in JROTC shooting programs are exposed to lead bullets from guns. They are at an increased risk when the shooting ranges are inside. The JROTC program is designed to "put a jump start on your military career." Children are funneled into JROTC to make them compliant and to feed the military with young bodies which are prepared to be assimilated into the war machine. Instead of funneling children into the military, we should be channeling them into jobs that support peace and sustainable development.

Tell Senator McCain and Representative Thornberry to take the war machine out of our schools! The JROTC program must end immediately. The money should be directed back into classrooms that educate our children.

The Divest from the War Machine campaign is working to remove our money from the hands of companies that make a killing on killing. We must take on the systems that keep fueling war, death, and destruction around the globe. AND, we must take on the systems that are creating an endless cycle of children who are being indoctrinated at vulnerable ages to become the next killing machine. Don't forget to post this message on Facebook and Twitter.

Onward in divestment,

Ann, Ariel, Brienne, Jodie, Kelly, Kirsten, Mark, Medea, Nancy, Natasha, Paki, Sarah, Sophia and Tighe

P.S. Do you want to do more? Start a campaign to get the JROTC out of your school district or state. Email divest@codepink.org and we'll get you started!

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New Legal Action is a Path to Mumia Abu-

Jamal's Freedom, But a Re-ignited International Mobilization is Critical for Victory.

by Rachel Wolkenstein

For more information:

rachelwolkenstein@gmail.com

www.rachelwolkenstein.net

Rally and March to Free Mumia

Saturday, April 28, 2018, 12:00 Noon

Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland, CA

Other Regional and International Actions to Free Mumia

Detroit, Michigan: National Conference to Defeat Austerity, Saturday, March 24. 10:00 A.M.—5:00 P.M. St. Matthew's—St. Joseph's Church, 8850 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI 48202. For more information: www.moratorium-mi.org

Houston, Texas: Banner Drop for Mumia, Monday, March 26, 5:30 P.M.—6:30 P.M. Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement will do a banner drop over Houston's busiest freeway for Mumia, on Dunlavy Bridge, over Highway 59.

New York City: Break Down Walls and Prison Plantation: Mumia, Migrants and Movements for Liberation, Friday, March 23. 6:00 P.M. Community Supper 7:30 PM, Holyrood Episcopal Church, 715 179th Street, New York, NY 10033

Jericho Amnesty Movement 20th Anniversary, Saturday, March 24. Holyrood Episcopal Church, 715 W. 179th St, New York, NY, Dinner from 5:00 P.M.—6:00 P.M. Downstairs Program from 6:30 P.M.—9:00 P.M. in Sanctuary.

Sunday, March 25: March and Rally, Gather 12:00 P.M., U.S. Mission (799 UN Plaza: 1st Ave. and 45th St.), March 1:00 P.M., to Times Square for 2:00 P.M. Rally, Buses to Philadelphia: Leaving NYC March 27, 5:30 A.M. from 147 West 24 St. For information email info@freemumia.com or call 212-330-8029.

Vallejo, CA, Saturday, March 24: 1:00 P.M.—4:00 P.M., Vallejo JFK Library, 505 Santa Clara Street, Vallejo, CA 94590, Contact Info: New Jim Crow Movement (Vallejo), 707-652-8367, withjusticepeace@gmail.com

Toronto, Canada, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!, Saturday, March 24, 1:00 P.M., Across the street from the U.S. Consulate
360 University Avenue, march24freemumia@gmail.com

Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday, March 25, Freedom Park RDD, Poetry. Hip Hop. Kwaito. Drama. Local Organizer: Pastor Rev, Contact Info: +27 649 240514

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DROP LWOP Town Hall

Date Saturday March 24

Time 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Import this event into your personal calendar.

Location Details

Red Bay Coffee Roastery, Bar & Garden, 3098 E 10th St, Oakland (Near Fruitvale Bart)

Event Type Teach-In

Organizer/Author California Coalition for Women Prisoners

Email info [at] womenprisoners.org

Phone 415-255-7036 x 4

Drop LWOP Town Hall will feature a panel of formerly incarcerated women describing the injustice of the Life Without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP) sentence which condemns over 5,000 people in California prisons to a living death sentence. With food from Mamacitas Cafe, a raffle, and items for sale made by people living inside women's prisons. Donations Requested: $5-20. No one turned away for lack of funds.

For more event information:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1985868121...
Added to the calendar on Sunday Feb 25th, 2018 8:27 PM

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A Call for a National Conference to
Organize a Fightback to Defeat Austerity

Stop the war by the banks, corporations
and government on the workers and poor

Saturday March 24, 2018

Historic St. Matthews-St. Joseph's Church

8850 Woodward Avenue

(between Holbrook and King)

Detroit, MI 48202

10:00am-5:00pm

Special Conference Guest:
Ricardo Santos Ramos, former President,
Electrical Industry and Irrigation Workers Union (UTIER),
Puerto Rico.

Endorsers

To endorse, email defeatausterity@gmail.com

All progressive activists and organizations are invited to participate in the National Conference to Defeat Austerity taking place in Detroit on Saturday, March 24. The purpose of this gathering is to map out a strategy for defeating the war being waged by the banks, corporations and government against the workers and oppressed. Capitalism cannot continue unchallenged while our very lives are being jeopardized by the ruling elites who are determined to grow richer and more powerful at our expense while whipping up white supremacy, an anti-immigrant offensive, attacks on women and anti-LGBTQ bigotry to keep our class divided.

Detroit along with colonized Puerto Rico has been at the epicenter of bank-imposed austerity against the workers and oppressed in this hemisphere. But every U.S. city, from Chicago to Baltimore to Cleveland to Milwaukee, from New York City to Oakland and Seattle, has felt the brunt of this attack in the form of cutbacks, school closings, mass transit cuts, water shutoffs, gentrification and destruction of public service unions.

The Trump tax plan and Pentagon war build-up continue the massive transfer of wealth to the rich at the expense of the poor. This war by the banks and on the workers and poor is an international phenomenon spanning every continent. On March 24, we will hammer out a program on how to fight back against the corporations, the banks and their lackeys in government at all levels.

The Conference will discuss these issues in depth from the perspective of how they all are products of a capitalist system where profits are everything and people mean nothing. We will mobilize support for making May Day 2018 an anti-Austerity Day, as well as lending solidarity to the Poor Peoples Campaign. We will outline a program of action in solidarity with all movements working for social change and transformation.

For information on housing, please email Sharon at sfsharonfeldman@live.com

If you need child care, please email your request to defeatausterity@gmail.com

Please indicate your intent to participate in the conference by registering at CONFERENCE REGISTRATION.

Finally, donations are needed to cover the cost of the conference. Click here to donate online or write a check to Moratorium NOW, add #DefeatAusterity in the memo line, and mail the check to:

Moratorium NOW! Coalition

5920 Second Ave.

Detroit, MI 48202

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Tell the Feds: End Draft Registration

This morning, in a small community college classroom in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a newly formed federal commission scheduled its first public hearing on the future of draft registration in the United States. "The bipartisan, 11-member Commission was created by Congress to review the military selective service process," notes their press release. In addition to eight more (yet to be scheduled) public hearings across the United States over the next two years, the commission has invited feedback via a webform here.

Courage to Resist Podcast: The Future of Draft Registration in the United States

We had draft registration resister Edward Hasbrouck on the Courage to Resistpodcast this week to explain what's going on. Edward talks about his own history of going to prison for refusing to register for the draft in 1983, the background on this new federal commission, and he addresses liberal arguments in favor of involuntary service. Edward explains:

When you say, "I'm not willing to be drafted", you're saying, "I'm going to make my own choices about which wars we should be fighting", and when you say, "You should submit to the draft", you're saying, "You should let the politicians decide for you."

What's happening right now is that a National Commission … has been appointed to study the question of whether draft registration should be continued, whether it should be expanded to make women, as well as men register for the draft, whether a draft itself should be started, whether there should be some other kind of Compulsory National Service enacted.

The Pentagon would say, and it's true, they don't want a draft. It's not plan A, but it's always been plan B, and it's always been the assumption that if we can't get enough volunteers, if we get in over our head, if we pick a larger fight than we can pursue, we always have that option in our back pocket that, "If not enough people volunteer, we're just going to go go to the draft, go to the benches, and dragoon enough people to fight these wars."

[This] is the first real meaningful opportunity for a national debate about the draft in decades.

Learn more

COURAGE TO RESIST ~ SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT!

484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559

www.couragetoresist.org ~ facebook.com/couragetoresist

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PACK THE COURT FOR MUMIA

Tuesday, March 27, 8:00 A.M.

Court Hearing

Room 1108, Criminal Justice Center

1301 Filbert Street, Philadelphia

In a court case that could eventually lead to Mumia Abu-Jamal's freedom, Judge Leon Tucker has ordered the District Attorney's office to present new testimony in reference to Ronald Castille. A Status Hearing will take place Feb.26 followed by a court hearing on March 27.

Castille is a former PA Supreme Court

judge who refused to disqualify

Himself when Mumia's case came before the court despite having been the Philadelphia District Attorney during Mumia's prior appeals. The US Supreme Court has ruled such conduct unconstitutional.

The people's movement forced the courts to take Abu-Jamal off death row in 2011 but his freedom was not won. Despite his innocence he was re-sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

As an innocent man, Mumia must be freed! It is even more urgent that he gain his freedom because he is suffering from cirrhosis of the liver, severe itching and other ailments.

International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, International Action Center, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (NYC), Campaign to Bring Mumia Home, Educators for Mumia; Food Not Bombs Solidarity

What you can do:

 Call DA Larry Krasner at (215)686-8000.

Tell him to release all DA and police files on Mumia to the public.

Tell the DA to release Mumia because he's factually innocent.

 Pack the court on 2/26 and 3/27.

Mobilization4Mumia@gmail.com;

215-724-1618;
Donate: https://mobilization4mumia.com/donate-1/

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International Letter in Support of Mumia Abu-Jamal

http://www.prisonradio.org/sites/default/files/ABBREVIATED%20INTL%20LETTER%20DEC%2031%2C%202017.pdf

December 9, 2017
To:
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner From:
Concerned Members of International Community

A CALL TO RELEASE THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY AND POLICE FILES RELEVANT TO MUMIA ABU-JAMAL'S CASEAND TO FREE ABU-JAMAL NOW

We, the undersigned individual and organizational members of the international community concerned with issues of human rights, call your attention to an egregious example of human rights violations in your respective jurisdictions: the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Specifically, we call on you both, key officials with the power to determine Abu-Jamal's fate, to:

Assure that all the District Attorney and police files relevant to Abu-Jamal's case, be released publicly as the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas is reviewing the potential involvement of retired Supreme Court Justice Ronald Castille in a conflict of interest when he reviewed Abu Jamal's case as a PA Supreme Court Justice.

Release Abu-Jamal now from his incarceration. That given the mounds of evidence of Abu-Jamal's innocence and even more evidence of police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct, his unjust incarceration, including almost 30 years on death row, his twice near-executions, his prison-induced illness which brought him to the brink of death, and the lack of timely treatment for his hepatitis-C which has left him with a condition, cirrhosis of the liver, which poses a potential threat to his life ... we call for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal now.

Now, Abu-Jamal has a new legal challenge in the Pennsylvania courts on the grounds that PA Supreme Court Justice Ronald Castille had a conflict of interest when he denied Abu-Jamal's appeals from 1998-2014. The new action is based on a precedent setting U.S. Supreme Court decision, Williams v. Pennsylvania, that a judge who had been personally involved in a critical prosecutorial decision violates the defendant's right to an impartial judicial review if he then gets to rule on the case as a State Supreme Court Justice. Castille was the Philadelphia elected District Attorney during Abu-Jamal's first appeal process, after his conviction and death sentence, from 1986-1991. He was a PA Supreme Court Justice from 1994 to 2014, during which time Abu-Jamal's case came before him multiple times.

We demand: Public disclosure of the police and DA files! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!!

To sign onto this letter please email infomumia@gmail.com with the subject line "International Letter for Mumia." Submit your full name as you want it listed and your organizational or professional identification.This identification is critical in a letter of this sort, as names alone carry little leverage.

frantzfanonfoundation@amail.com - 58. rue Daquerre, 75014 Paris. +336 86 78 39 20. frantzfanonfoundation-fondationfrantzfanon.com

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Major George Tillery

A Case of Gross Prosecutorial Misconduct and Police Corruption

Sexual Favors and Hotel Rooms Provided by Police to Prosecution Fact Witness for Fabricated Testimony During Trial

By Nancy Lockhart, M.J.

August 24, 2016

Corruption in The State of Pennsylvania is being exposed with a multitude of public officials indicted by the US Attorney's office in 2015 and 2016. A lengthy list of extortion, theft, and corruption in public service includes a former Solicitor, Treasurer and Veteran Police Officer U.S. Department of Justice Corruption Prosecutions. On Monday August 15, 2016 Pennsylvania State Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane was found guilty of all nine counts in a perjury and obstruction case related to a grand jury leak. Pennsylvania's Attorney General Convicted On All Counts - New York Times

Although this is a small sampling of decades long corruption throughout the state of Pennsylvania, Major George Tillery has languished in prison over 31 years because of prosecutorial misconduct and police corruption. Tillery was tried and convicted in 1985 in a trial where prosecutors and police created a textbook criminal story for bogus convictions. William Franklin was charged as a co-conspirator in the shootings, he was tried and convicted in December of 1980, because he refused to lie on Tillery. Franklin is 69 years old according to the PADOC website and has been in prison 36 years.

Major Tillery Is Not Represented by an Attorney and Needs Your Assistance to Retain One. Donate to Major Tillery's Legal Defense FundMajor Tillery, PA DOC# AM9786, will turn 66-years-old on September 9, 2016 and has spent over three decades in prison for crimes he did not commit. Twenty of those 31 plus years were spent in solitary confinement. Tillery has endured many very serious medical issues and medical neglect. Currently, he is plagued with serious illnesses that include hepatitis C, stubborn skin rashes, dangerous intestinal disorders and a degenerative hip. His orthopedic shoes were taken by prison administrators and never returned.

Tillery, was convicted of homicide, assault, weapons and conspiracy charges in 1985, for the poolroom shootings which left one man dead and another wounded. William Franklin was the pool room operator at the time. The shooting occurred on October 22, 1976.

Falsified testimony was the only evidence presented during trial. No other evidence linked Tillery to the 1976 shootings, except for the testimony of two jailhouse informants. Both men swore that they had received no promises, agreements, or deals in exchange for their testimony. Barbra Christie, the trial prosecutor, insisted to the Court and Jury that these witnesses were not given any plea agreements or sentencing promises. That was untrue.

Newly discovered evidence is the sole basis for Tillery's latest Pro Se filing. According to the Post Conviction Relief Petition Filed June 15, 2016, evidence proves that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania committed fraud on the Court and Jury which undermined the fundamentals of due process. The newly discovered evidence in sworn declarations is from two prosecution fact witnesses. Those two witnesses provided the entirety of trial evidence against Major Tillery. The declarations explain false testimonies manufactured by the prosecution with the assistance of police detectives/investigators. On August 19, 2016 Judge Leon Tucker filed a Notice of Intent to Dismiss Major's PCRA petition. Notice to Dismiss

Emanuel Claitt Has Come Forth to Declare His Testimony as Manufactured and Fabricated by Police and Prosecutors. Claitt states that his testimony during trial was fabricated and coerced by Assistant District Attorney Barbara Christie, Detectives John Cimino and James McNeshy. Claitt swore that he was promised a very favorable plea agreement and treatment in his pending criminal cases. Claitt was granted sexual favors in exchange for his false testimony. Claitt states that he was allowed to have sex with four different women in the homicide interview rooms and in hotel rooms in exchange for his cooperation.

Prosecution fact witness Emanuel Claitt states in his Declaration of Emanuel Claitt, and Emanuel Claitt Supplemental Declaration that testimony against Major Tillery was fabricated, coerced and coached by Assistant District Attorney's Leonard Ross, Barbara Christie, and Roger King with the assistance of Detectives Larry Gerrad, Ernest Gilbert, and Lt. Bill Shelton. Claitt was threatened with false murder charges as well as, given promises and agreements of favorable plea deals and sentencing. In exchange for his false testimony, many of Claitt's cases were not prosecuted. He received probation. Additionally, he was sentenced to a mere 18 months for fire bombing and was protected after his arrest between the time of Franklin's and Tillery's trials.

Trial Lawyer Operated Under Actual Conflict of Interest. Tillery discovered that his trial lawyer, Joseph Santaguida, also represented the victim. In other words, the victim in this case was represented by trial lawyer Santaguida and Santaguida also represented Major Tillery. The Commonwealth has concealed newly discovered evidence as well as, evidence which would have been favorable to Major Tillery in the criminal trial. That evidence would have exonerated him. In light of the new Declarations which prove manufactured testimony by prosecutors and police, Major Tillery needs legal representation. He is not currently represented by an attorney.

Donate: Major Tillery's Legal Defense Fund: Click Here & Donate

Obtain Updates: www.justice4majortillery.info

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Art by Leonard Peltier

Free Leonard Peltier!

On my 43rd year in prison I yearn to hug my grandchildren.

By Leonard Peltier

I am overwhelmed that today, February 6, is the start of my 43rd year in prison. I have had such high hopes over the years that I might be getting out and returning to my family in North Dakota. And yet here I am in 2018 still struggling for my FREEDOM at 73.

I don't want to sound ungrateful to all my supporters who have stood by me through all these years. I dearly love and respect you and thank you for the love and respect you have given me.

But the truth is I am tired, and often my ailments cause me pain with little relief for days at a time. I just had heart surgery and I have other medical issues that need to be addressed: my aortic aneurysm that could burst at any time, my prostate, and arthritis in my hip and knees.

I do not think I have another ten years, and what I do have I would like to spend with my family. Nothing would bring me more happiness than being able to hug my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

I did not come to prison to become a political prisoner. I've been part of Native resistance since I was nine years of age. My sister, cousin and I were kidnapped and taken to boarding school. This incident and how it affected my cousin Pauline, had an enormous effect on me.

This same feeling haunts me as I reflect upon my past 42 years of false imprisonment. This false imprisonment has the same feeling as when I heard the false affidavit the FBI manufactured about Myrtle Poor Bear being at Oglala on the day of the fire-fight—a fabricated document used to extradite me illegally from Canada in 1976.

I know you know that the FBI files are full of information that proves my innocence. Yet many of those files are still withheld from my legal team. During my appeal before the 8th Circuit, former Prosecuting Attorney Lynn Crooks said to Judge Heaney: "Your honor, we do not know who killed those agents. Further, we don't know what participation, if any, Mr. Peltier had in it."

That statement exonerates me, and I should have been released. But here I sit, 43 years later still struggling for my freedom. I have pleaded my innocence for so long now, in so many courts of law, in so many public statements issued through the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, that I will not argue it here. But I will say again, I DID NOT KILL THOSE AGENTS!

Right now, I need my supporters here in the U.S. and throughout the world helping me. We need donations large or small to help pay my legal team to do the research that will get me back into court or get me moved closer to home or a compassionate release based on my poor health and age. Please help me to go home, help me win my freedom!

There is a new petition my Canadian brothers and sisters are circulating internationally that will be attached to my letter. Please sign it and download it so you can take it to your work, school or place of worship. Get as many signatures as you can, a MILLION would be great!

I have been a warrior since age nine. At 73, I remain a warrior. I have been here too long. The beginning of my 43rd year plus over 20 years of good time credit, that makes 60-plus years behind bars.

I need your help. I need your help today! A day in prison for me is a lifetime for those outside because I am isolated from the world.

I remain strong only because of your support, prayers, activism and your donations that keep my legal hope alive.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

Doksha,

Leonard Peltier

If you would like a paper petition, please email contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info.

—San Francisco Bay View, February 6, 2018

http://sfbayview.com/2018/02/free-innocent-leonard-peltier-on-his-43rd-year-in-prison-he-yearns-to-hug-his-grandchildren/?t=1&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw%3D%3D&refsrc=email&iid=50e882c501eb45ed857b582d357f4385&uid=95102586&nid=244+272699400

Write to:

Leonard Peltier 89637-132

USP Coleman I

P.O. Box 1033

Coleman, FL 33521

Donations can be made on Leonard's behalf to the ILPD national office, 116 W. Osborne Ave, Tampa, FL 33603

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More Artwork by Kevin Cooper

http://savekevincooper.org/pages/gallery.html

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SOLIDARITY with SERVERS — PLEASE CIRCULATE!

From Clifford Conner

Dear friends and relatives

Every day the scoundrels who have latched onto Trump to push through their rightwing soak-the-poor agenda inflict a new indignity on the human race. Today they are conspiring to steal the tips we give servers in restaurants. The New York Times editorial appended below explains what they're trying to get away with now.

People like you and me cannot compete with the Koch brothers' donors network when it comes to money power. But at least we can try to avoid putting our pittance directly into their hands. Here is a modest proposal: Whenever you are in a restaurant where servers depend on tips for their livelihoods, let's try to make sure they get what we give them.

Instead of doing the easy thing and adding the tip into your credit card payment, GIVE CASH TIPS and HAND THEM DIRECTLY TO YOUR SERVER. If you want to add a creative flourish such as including a preprinted note that explains why you are doing this, by all means do so. You could reproduce the editorial below for their edification.

If you want to do this, be sure to check your wallet before entering a restaurant to make sure you have cash in appropriate denominations.

This is a small act of solidarity with some of the most exploited members of the workforce in America. Perhaps its symbolic value could outweigh its material impact. But to paraphrase the familiar song: What the world needs now is solidarity, sweet solidarity.

If this idea should catch on, be prepared for news stories about restaurant owners demanding that servers empty their pockets before leaving the premises at the end of their shifts. The fight never ends!

Yours in struggle and solidarity,

Cliff

The Trump Administration to Restaurants: Take the Tips!

The New York Times editorial board, December 21, 2017

Most Americans assume that when they leave a tip for waiters and bartenders, those workers pocket the money. That could become wishful thinking under a Trump administration proposal that would give restaurants and other businesses complete control over the tips earned by their employees.

The Department of Labor recently proposed allowing employers to pool tips and use them as they see fit as long as all of their workers are paid at least the minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour nationally and higher in some states and cities. Officials argue that this will free restaurants to use some of the tip money to reward lowly dishwashers, line cooks and other workers who toil in the less glamorous quarters and presumably make less than servers who get tips. Using tips to compensate all employees sounds like a worthy cause, but a simple reading of the government's proposal makes clear that business owners would have no obligation to use the money in this way. They would be free to pocket some or all of that cash, spend it to spiff up the dining room or use it to underwrite $2 margaritas at happy hour. And that's what makes this proposal so disturbing.

The 3.2 million Americans who work as waiters, waitresses and bartenders include some of the lowest-compensated working people in the country. The median hourly wage for waiters and waitresses was $9.61 an hour last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Further, there is a sordid history of restaurant owners who steal tips, and of settlements in which they have agreed to repay workers millions of dollars.

Not to worry, says the Labor Department, which argues, oddly and unconvincingly, that workers will be better off no matter how owners spend the money. Enlarging dining rooms, reducing menu prices or offering paid time off should be seen as "potential benefits to employees and the economy over all." The department also assures us that owners will funnel tip money to employees because workers would quit otherwise.

t is hard to know how much time President Trump's appointees have spent with single mothers raising two children on a salary from a workaday restaurant in suburban America, seeing how hard it is to make ends meet without tips. What we do know is that the administration has produced no empirical cost-benefit analysis to support its proposal, which is customary when the government seeks to make an important change to federal regulations.

The Trump administration appears to be rushing this rule through — it has offered the public just 30 days to comment on it — in part to pre-empt the Supreme Court from ruling on a 2011 Obama-era tipping rule. The department's new proposal would do away with the 2011 rule. The restaurant industry has filed several legal challenges to that regulation, which prohibits businesses from pooling tips and sharing them with dishwashers and other back-of-the-house workers. Different federal circuit appeals courts have issued contradictory rulings on those cases, so the industry has asked the Supreme Court to resolve those differences; the top court has not decided whether to take that case.

Mr. Trump, of course, owns restaurants as part of his hospitality empire and stands to benefit from this rule change, as do many of his friends and campaign donors. But what the restaurant business might not fully appreciate is that their stealth attempt to gain control over tips could alienate and antagonize customers. Diners who are no longer certain that their tips will end up in the hands of the server they intended to reward might leave no tip whatsoever. Others might seek to covertly slip cash to their server. More high-minded restaurateurs would be tempted to follow the lead of the New York restaurateur Danny Meyer and get rid of tipping by raising prices and bumping up salaries.

By changing the fundamental underpinnings of tipping, the government might well end up destroying this practice. But in doing so it would hurt many working-class Americans, including people who believed that Mr. Trump would fight for them.

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Working people are helping to feed the poor hungry corporations!

Charity for the Wealthy!

GOP Tax Plan Would Give 15 of America's Largest Corporations a $236B Tax Cut: Report

By Jake Johnson, December 18, 2017

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/12/18/gop-tax-plan-would-give-15-americas-largest-corporations-236b-tax-cut-report

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Addicted to War:

And this does not include "…spending $1.25 trillion dollars to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and $566 billion to build the Navy a 308-ship fleet…"

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/18/funding-for-war-vs-natural-disasters/

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Kaepernick sports new T-shirt:

Love this guy!

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1) Farmer Suicides Mark Tough Times for New York Dairy Industry
By Corey Kilgannon, March 19, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/nyregion/farmer-suicides-mark-tough-times-for-new-york-dairy-industry.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

Fred Morgan's son, Cody Morgan, 23, and his grandson, Tucker Bailey, 4, at the family's dairy farm in Eaton, N.Y. Fred Morgan said he had considered committing suicide so that his family could receive a life insurance payout after he was unable to repay debts.

EATON, N.Y. — Fred Morgan was already deep in debt from rebuilding his milking barn after a fire when milk prices plunged in 2015, setting off an economic drought that is now entering its fourth year — the worst in recent memory for dairy farmers in New York State.

Mr. Morgan, 50, saw no way to save the dairy farm in central New York State that he took over as a teenager from his ailing father and ran with his wife, Judy, and their son, Cody.

With the farm operating at a loss and facing foreclosure, Mr. Morgan believed his only solution was his $150,000 life insurance policy. He said he planned on killing himself so his family could receive the payout.

"I'd sacrifice my life so my family could keep the farm," Mr. Morgan said. His wife persuaded him otherwise.

Mr. Morgan was hardly alone in his suicide plan. There has been a spate of suicides in the state as the dairy industry has nose-dived, resulting in the closing of hundreds of small farms. While the dairy industry nationwide is in the grips of an economic crisis — fueled by decreasing demand as customers turn to milk alternatives — the picture is particularly bleak in New York where dairy sales represent about half of total farm sales every year.

New York is the third largest milk-producing state in the country and low milk prices have not only devastated farmers financially — most are selling milk for less than it costs to produce — but also emotionally.

The situation has become so grim that NY FarmNet, a leading farm support group, has started running suicide prevention training for local agricultural service providers and lenders who deal with dairy farmers.

After a local dairy farmer took his life in January, Agri-Mark, a large cooperative that bought milk from the farmer, sent its 550 members in the state a list of suicide and mental health hotlines — along with the news that milk prices would drop even lower this year.

In providing the information, the co-op wanted "to get ahead of the curve" in offering vital services to its member farmers, said Doug DiMento, a spokesman for Agri-Mark, which owns Cabot and McCadam cheese.

It was one of at least three suicides of its member farmers in recent years, Mr. DiMento said.

Hal McCabe, the outreach director for FarmNet, believes the number of suicides is higher on the roughly 4,500 dairy farms across the state during this downturn, but the issue is hard to quantify, he said, because many have been reported as farming or hunting accidents.

There have been 81 work-related deaths on dairy farms reported from 2006 to 2016, with most of the victims the owners of smaller farms, according the state Department of Health.

Whatever the prevalence of suicides, there is no doubt about the widespread hopelessness afflicting the industry.

FarmNet's 24-hour hotline has been fielding an increased rate of calls from distressed farmers, Mr. McCabe said, and the agency has begun offering stress management training for its team of financial and other consultants who assist farmers.

"It's not unusual to get woken up in the middle of the night by a farmer who is potentially suicidal," Mr. McCabe said.

Farming overall is a stressful occupation and farmers have higher suicide rates than almost any other occupation. Those working in farming, fishing, and forestry were 3.4 times more likely than other American workers to commit suicide on the job, according to a 2016 study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Mr. Morgan's case, his wife was able to dissuade from taking such a tragic step and instead seek out the counsel of two FarmNet consultants — Judy Flint, a social worker, and Dewey Hakes, a financial consultant and former dairy farmer.

The Morgans, unable to repay six bank loans and debts to neighbors and suppliers, declared bankruptcy, restructured their finances to help pay off debts and have been seeing increased revenue after switching to producing organic milk, which they can sell at $43 per 100 pounds, or hundredweight.

That is about three times the going price for conventional milk, whose prices have dropped below $15 per hundredweight, down from peaks of over $25 in 2014.

Milk prices are calculated under federal guidelines and have been driven down by a combination of strong milk production and weak demand in both global and U.S. markets with many Americans turning to alternatives such as soy and almond drinks, said Dr. Andrew Novaković, who teaches agricultural economics at Cornell University.

In New York State, many smaller farms, facing financial hardships or run by aging owners, are closing at a rate of over 100 per year. Many of them become part of much larger operations.

So though about 550 dairy farms closed in the state from 2012 to 2017, the number of dairy cows has actually increased from 610,000 to 625,000 in that same period and milk production has risen steadily in recent years, according to the state's Department of Agriculture and Markets, which helps fund FarmNet.

With prices depressed, farmers looking to sell are having a hard time finding buyers.

"A lot of dairy farmers are thinking about closing, but with the prices down, nobody else has the money to buy their equipment and cattle, so you're between a rock and hard place," said Bill Kiernan, 75, a dairy farmer in Copake, N.Y., who runs Walt's Dairy, which has 400 Holstein cows on 768 acres.

Mr. Kiernan's two sons have helped the farm survive by taking construction jobs. When he received the suicide outreach information from Agri Mark, Mr. Kiernan said he "threw it in the garbage."

"Everyone was kind of upset about it — you'd think there would be more optimism," said Mr. Kiernan, who has seen the dark side of dairy farming.

In 2010, his neighbor, Dean Pierson, 59, a dairy farmer, shot all 51 of his milking cows and then turned the weapon on himself, leaving suicide notes on cow tag cards stating that he was "overwhelmed" by personal and financial issues.

Mr. Pierson, whose body was discovered by an Agri-Mark driver, had grown increasingly isolated and "had a lot of things to sort out," said Mr. Kiernan, who buried his neighbor's cows and now rents Mr. Pierson's farmland.

Mr. Pierson's isolation is common to dairy farmers, said Paul Fouts, 45, whose farm in Cortland, N.Y., is also struggling.

"You go into that barn and you're in your own little world," said Mr. Fouts, who wakes up at 2 a.m. every day to milk 410 Holsteins. "There may be days on end you don't go into town. It's easy to get consumed in your own problems."

Mr. Fouts said he would like to see his farm, which his grandfather started in 1937, taken over someday by his two teenage children. But he has exhausted his credit with his lender.

"This is my gamble," he said, pointing out recent improvements to his 750-foot long barn to try to increase his cows' productivity by making them more comfortable. Still, if his financial trajectory persists, he could operate at a $300,000 loss this year and be forced to fold.

"I'm not at the end of my rope, but the rope's getting short," he said.

Like Mr. Fouts, many dairy farmers run farms that have been in their family for generations and the shame of failing financially can be emotionally overwhelming, said Kate Downes, the program coordinator at NY FarmNet, which is based in Ithaca.

But admitting they need help is not always easy. Many farmers would never want their vehicles to be spotted outside mental health offices, said Ms. Downes, whose uncle took his life several years ago at his third-generation dairy farm in Jefferson County.

Farmers tend to work long hours with few breaks from the farm — or each other, if they are a family-run farm. And they often own guns, Mr. McCabe said.

Smaller problems can seem outsized, he said, before describing a recent call from a farmer who said he was suicidal over $27,000 worth of debt.

"You're not just losing your job and your house," he said. "You're losing your entire family history and legacy, through no fault of your own."

After declaring bankruptcy, the Morgans have seen their revenues increase after switching to producing organic milk.

Corey Kilgannon is a Metro reporter covering news and human interest stories. His writes the Character Study column in the Sunday Metropolitan section. He was also part of the team that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. @coreykilgannon Facebook

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2) Deadline Is Today in McDonald's Labor Case That Could Affect Millions
By NOAM SCHEIBER MARCH 19, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/business/economy/mcdonalds-labor.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness&action=
click&contentCollection=business&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

A ruling against McDonald's in a case brought by the National Labor Relations Board could have enormous implications for the franchise business model, forcing corporations to bargain with unionized workers at disparate franchise locations. Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

The Trump appointee charged with enforcing federal labor rights is scrambling to head off a court ruling in a case against McDonald's that could redefine the accountability of companies for the labor practices of their franchisees.

The official, the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, has been exploring settlement terms with workers at the center of the board's complaint against McDonald's, according to lawyers involved in the case. A judge had halted the trial until Monday to give the agency a chance to do so.

If no settlement is reached and the judge were to rule against the company, the decision could have enormous implications for the franchise business model, affecting millions of workers in the fast-food industry and beyond. Corporations could be required to bargain with unionized workers at disparate franchise locations.

The National Labor Relations Board did not respond to a request for comment. A McDonald's spokeswoman said that "settlement discussions are a normal part of any litigation process."

The case was brought during the Obama administration, when the board was under Democratic control. Since President Trump's election, Republican members have regained a majority, steering the board away from a pro-labor orientation.

A central question in the trial is whether McDonald's is a so-called joint employer of workers directly employed by its franchisees. A parent company is considered a joint employer if it controls their working conditions, although the legal criteria for determining control in this context has shifted in recent years.

A finding that McDonald's is a joint employer would make the company liable for labor-law violations committed by its franchisees, and would require it to bargain with restaurant workers who unionize.

The workers in the case asserted that their bosses at McDonald's restaurants disciplined them, retaliated against them and in some cases fired them for taking part in protests beginning in 2012 in which they demanded a $15 hourly wage and a union. Roughly two dozen could be owed a monetary settlement, according to a lawyer involved.

The general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, at the time an appointee of President Barack Obama, investigated their charges and issued complaints against McDonald's and its franchisees in 2014. A trial began in 2015 and continued through this year.

But in January, the labor board's new general counsel, appointed by President Trump, was granted a 60-day stay in the case — expiring Monday — to pursue settlement talks.

The general counsel, Peter B. Robb, argued that two labor board decisions in December, one of which changed the legal standard for determining joint employment, might have weakened aspects of the case against McDonald's and made a settlement more likely.

In his request for a stay, Mr. Robb said a settlement could "facilitate far more prompt and immediate remedial relief for the employees impacted by the alleged unfair labor practices."

Before the December decision by the board, a parent company like McDonald's could be considered a joint employer under federal labor law if it exerted indirect control over workers at a franchisee, or if it had the right to exercise control over workers that it nonetheless did not exercise.

After the board's decision in December, an employer had to have direct and immediate control over workers to be considered a joint employer.

At the time he sought a stay, labor groups argued that Mr. Robb's logic was specious because the board's case against McDonald's did not hinge on which definition of joint employment applied.

Lawyers for the Service Employees International Union and affiliated groups, which helped make the case against McDonald's and have advocated for the workers, argued that even if the general counsel preferred to seek a settlement, it made no sense to stop the trial, which was only days from concluding, in order to do so.

In a court filing, they argued that stopping the trial would give McDonald's an advantage by preventing union lawyers from cross-examining a key witness, and that it fostered "a game of hide-the-ball."

Then, last month, one of Mr. Robb's primary arguments for a pause in the trial abruptly deserted him when the labor board, on a procedural question, reversed its December decision narrowing the definition of a joint employer. At that point, the joint employer definition reverted to what it had been earlier in the trial.

Several Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey, stated in a March 7 letter to Mr. Robb that the board's reversal "eliminates whatever support may have existed for your efforts to settle the McDonald's case so near to the trial's close," and urged Mr. Robb to "swiftly resume and finish the trial."

But Mr. Robb's office pressed ahead with its efforts to reach a settlement before the stay expired. Last week, lawyers from the labor board's regional offices abruptly reached out to several former McDonald's workers involved in the case. In one instance, according to an email to a labor board lawyer from Micah Wissinger, a lawyer advocating the workers' cause on behalf of the union, a labor board lawyer called a worker and asked if she "was ok with $50k" for back pay as part of the settlement. The offer was conditional on her waiving her right to be reinstated in her old job.

Mr. Wissinger said that the calls created the impression that workers needed to accept the offers before they consulted with him or his colleagues or anyone else, and that at least two did.

"It was a done deal by the time we found out," Mr. Wissinger said. "They were completely cutting us out of the process."

Bloomberg reported on the aggressive settlement efforts over the weekend.

Jennifer Abruzzo, who served as deputy general counsel of the labor board until 2017, said settlement discussions that exclude lawyers who back the workers were a break with custom.

"That's unusual," Ms. Abruzzo said. "The charging party is the one that the regions typically go to. And the charging party in this instance is the S.E.I.U."

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3) Forgotten and Suffering in Puerto Rico
By MARIANGELIE ORTIZ ORTIZ MARCH 20, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/opinion/hurricane-maria-puerto-rico.html?action=
click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=
opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region

COMERIO, Puerto Rico — I live with my parents and older brother in this rural mountain town in the center of this island. Hurricane Maria made landfall here six months ago this week. The strong winds began to lash our area by 2 a.m. on Sept. 20. Our power and water had already been shut off for a day by then.

My family, along with about 200 other people, sought refuge at a high school in our town. Whenever the doors were opened to let others in, the wind would whip through the hallways. I was scared. A few of us gathered in a circle, joined hands and prayed, hoping it would bring us some sense of peace. Then chaos broke out.

The La Plata River, which cuts through Comerio, had swelled by more than 60 feet and was creeping ever closer to the school's front door. Fearing the worst, those of us sheltered on the first floor quickly scrambled up the stairs to the second floor, carrying the bedridden elderly with us.

In the end we were spared. Once the eye of the storm settled over us, things calmed down. Soon from the second floor we saw whole families walking toward the school. In all, about 100 more people arrived; wet, muddy, hugging one another and crying. A mother whose house had flooded told us how she and her kids narrowly avoided drowning. She had lifted her three children — all under the age of 5 — on to her shoulders and waded through the water until she reached higher ground. A woman fainted when she recounted how floodwaters had swept her house away.

On the second night we were finally able to go home. It was pitch black and raining. Our terrace roof was gone; a tree that had fallen on the back of the house caused some structural damage, and water had come in through the windows. But our home, built of concrete, still stood.

We were among the lucky ones.

Three days after Maria hit, the streets were still largely impassable. We set out on foot to the very river that was our source of terror during the storm, checking in on neighbors along the way. There was no electricity and no running water, so the river was now our sole source of water. We bathed in it, washed our clothes and dishes on its banks and carried back home as much of it as we could manage to boil for drinking and cooking.

It would be two weeks before the town supermarket reopened, and two more months before we could use our credit cards to shop there. We ran out of cash. The local bank remained closed until the end of November. Gas was scarce. Before the hurricane, I was working toward a master's degree in management and leadership at the University of Turabo. My studies were put on hold. When the university reopened in October, I had to go to neighboring towns that had power to contact my professors and my classmates, or to work on my assignments. Everything became complicated.

For about two weeks we didn't know if my older sister, Maran — who lives in Fajardo, a city in the eastern region of the island — had survived. She finally heard that the street to Comerio was clear and made her way to us. My dad screamed when he saw her. We all gathered around her, crying and hugging.

Since then, little has improved much. There's so much left to do. We're still fighting to get our lights back on. The local government hasn't come to meet with our neighborhood or give us updates. We're getting by with a generator my uncle on the mainland sent us. Other family members and friends have brought us much-needed water filters, batteries, food and tarps.

In total, some 1,500 homes in Comerio were destroyed and 2,400 others sustained significant damage. I began to volunteer with the recovery effort. We're in this together and we're all pitching in to help one another rebuild.

With $10,000 raised through crowdfunding and $5,000 from the Defend Puerto Rico Hurricane Relief Fund, we rebuilt one house and repaired two others with damaged roofs. With the help of Coco de Oro and La Maraña, the organizations I volunteer with, we have raised money to begin work on the next eight houses. But there are 25 more houses in my neighborhood alone needing work and thousands more in all of Puerto Rico.

We're working collectively to lift ourselves out of this nightmare, but we can't do it on our own. I struggle to understand why the United States government continues to withhold the aid we were promised. We're tired of being treated like second-class citizens. The Trump administration must honor its commitment to Puerto Rico. Our hurricane-ravaged island may no longer be in the headlines, but we're still suffering, and we need help.

Mariangelie Ortiz Ortiz is a student at the University of Turabo and a volunteer with the organizations La Maraña and Coco de Oro.

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4) Fifteen Years Ago, America Destroyed My Country

By SINAN ANTOON MARCH 19, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-anniversary-.html?action=

click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=

opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

A statue of Saddam Hussein in front of the burning National Olympic Committee in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2003. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

When I was 12, Saddam Hussein, vice president of Iraq at the time, carried out a huge purge and officially usurped total power. I was living in Baghdad then, and I developed an intuitive, visceral hatred of the dictator early on. That feeling only intensified and matured as I did. In the late 1990s, I wrote my first novel, "I'jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody," about daily life under Saddam's authoritarian regime. Furat, the narrator, was a young college student studying English literature at Baghdad University, as I had. He ends up in prison for cracking a joke about the dictator. Furat hallucinates and imagines Saddam's fall, just as I often did. I hoped I would witness that moment, whether in Iraq or from afar.

I left Iraq a few months after the 1991 Gulf War and went to graduate school in the United States, where I've been ever since. In 2002, when the cheerleading for the Iraq war started, I was vehemently against the proposed invasion. The United States had consistently supported dictators in the Arab world and was not in the business of exporting democracy, irrespective of the Bush administration's slogans. I recalled sitting in my family's living room with my aunt when I was a teenager, watching Iraqi television and seeing Donald Rumsfeld visiting Baghdad as an emissary from Ronald Reagan and shaking hands with Saddam. That memory made Mr. Rumsfeld's words in 2002 about freedom and democracy for Iraqis seem hollow. Moreover, having lived through two previous wars (the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 to 1988 and the Gulf War of 1991), I knew that the actual objectives of war were always camouflaged by well-designed lies that exploit collective fear and perpetuate national myths.

I was one of about 500 Iraqis in the diaspora — of various ethnic and political backgrounds, many of whom were dissidents and victims of Saddam's regime — who signed a petition: "No to war on Iraq. No to dictatorship." While condemning Saddam's reign of terror, we were against a "war that would cause more death and suffering" for innocent Iraqis and one that threatened to push the entire region into violent chaos. Our voices were not welcomed in mainstream media in the United States, which preferred the pro-war Iraqi-American who promised cheering crowds that would welcome invaders with "sweets and flowers." There were none.

The petition didn't make much of an impact. Fifteen years ago today, the invasion of Iraq began.

Three months later, I returned to Iraq for the first time since 1991 as part of a collective to film a documentary about Iraqis in a post-Saddam Iraq. We wanted to show my countrymen as three-dimensional beings, beyond the binary of Saddam versus the United States. In American media, Iraqis had been reduced to either victims of Saddam who longed for occupation or supporters and defenders of dictatorship who opposed the war. We wanted Iraqis to speak for themselves. For two weeks, we drove around Baghdad and spoke to many of its residents. Some were still hopeful, despite being drained by years of sanctions and dictatorship. But many were furious and worried about what was to come. The signs were already there: the typical arrogance and violence of a colonial occupying power.

My short visit only confirmed my conviction and fear that the invasion would spell disaster for Iraqis. Removing Saddam was just a byproduct of another objective: dismantling the Iraqi state and its institutions. That state was replaced with a dysfunctional and corrupt semi-state. We were still filming in Baghdad when L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, announced the formation of the so-called Governing Council in July 2003. The names of its members were each followed by their sect and ethnicity. Many of the Iraqis we spoke to on that day were upset with institutionalization of an ethno-sectarian quota system. Ethnic and sectarian tensions already existed, but their translation into political currency was toxic. Those unsavory characters on the governing council, most of whom were allies of the United States from the preceding decade, went on to loot the country, making it one of the most corrupt in the world.

We were fortunate to have been able to shoot our film in that brief period during which there was relative public security. Shortly after our visit, Iraq descended into violence; suicide bombings became the norm. The invasion made my country a magnet for terrorists ("We'll fight them there so we don't have to fight them here," President George W. Bush had said), and Iraq later descended into a sectarian civil war that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians and displaced hundreds of thousands more, irrevocably changing the country's demography.

The next time I returned to Baghdad was in 2013. The American tanks were gone, but the effects of the occupation were everywhere. I had low expectations, but I was still disheartened by the ugliness of the city where I had grown up and horrified by how dysfunctional, difficult and dangerous daily life had become for the great majority of Iraqis.

My last visit was in April 2017. I flew from New York, where I now live, to Kuwait, where I was giving a lecture. An Iraqi friend and I crossed the border by land. I was going to the city of Basra, in the south of Iraq. Basra was the only major Iraqi city I had not visited before. I was going to sign my books at the Friday book market of al-Farahidi Street, a weekly gathering for bibliophiles modeled after the famous Mutanabbi Street book market in Baghdad. I was driven around by friends. I didn't expect the beautiful Basra I'd seen on 1970s postcards. That city had long disappeared. But the Basra I saw was so exhausted and polluted. The city had suffered a great deal during the Iran-Iraq war, and its decline accelerated after 2003. Basra was pale, dilapidated and chaotic thanks to the rampant corruption. Its rivers are polluted and ebbing. Nonetheless, I made a pilgrimage to the famous statue of Iraq's greatest poet, Badr Shakir al-Sayyab.

One of the few sources of joy for me during these short visits were the encounters with Iraqis who had read my novels and were moved by them. These were novels I had written from afar, and through them, I tried to grapple with the painful disintegration of an entire country and the destruction of its social fabric. These texts are haunted by the ghosts of the dead, just as their author is.

No one knows for certain how many Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion 15 years ago. Some credible estimates put the number at more than one million. You can read that sentence again. The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in the United States as a "blunder," or even a "colossal mistake." It was a crime. Those who perpetrated it are still at large. Some of them have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of Trumpism and a mostly amnesiac citizenry. (A year ago, I watched Mr. Bush on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," dancing and talking about his paintings.) The pundits and "experts" who sold us the war still go on doing what they do. I never thought that Iraq could ever be worse than it was during Saddam's reign, but that is what America's war achieved and bequeathed to Iraqis.

Sinan Antoon (@sinanantoon) is the author, most recently, of the novel "The Baghdad Eucharist."

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5) U.S. Smooths Israel's Path to Annexing the West Bank

By Jonathan Cook

—CounterPunch, March 20, 2018

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/20/us-smooths-israels-path-to-annexing-west-bank/

Seemingly unrelated events all point to a tectonic shift in which Israel has begun preparing the ground to annex the occupied Palestinian territories.

Last week, during an address to students in New York, Israel's education minister Naftali Bennett publicly disavowed even the notion of a Palestinian state. "We are done with that," he said. "They have a Palestinian state in Gaza."

Later in Washington, Bennett, who heads Israel's settler movement, said Israel would manage the fallout from annexing the West Bank, just as it had with its annexation of the Syrian Golan in 1980.

International opposition would dissipate, he said. "After two months it fades away and 20 years later and 40 years later, [the territory is] still ours."

Back home, Israel has proven such words are not hollow.

The parliament passed a law last month that brings three academic institutions, including Ariel University, all located in illegal West Bank settlements, under the authority of Israel's Higher Education Council. Until now, they were overseen by a military body.

The move marks a symbolic and legal sea change. Israel has effectively expanded its civilian sovereignty into the West Bank. It is a covert but tangible first step towards annexation.

In a sign of how the idea of annexation is now entirely mainstream, Israeli university heads mutely accepted the change, even though it exposes them both to intensified action from the growing international boycott (BDS) movement and potentially to European sanctions on scientific co-operation.

Additional bills extending Israeli law to the settlements are in the pipeline. In fact, far-right justice minister Ayelet Shaked has insisted that those drafting new legislation indicate how it can also be applied in the West Bank.

According to Peace Now, she and Israeli law chiefs are devising new pretexts to seize Palestinian territory. She has called the separation between Israel and the occupied territories required by international law "an injustice that has lasted 50 years."

After the higher education law passed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his party Israel would "act intelligently" to extend unnoticed its sovereignty into the West Bank. "This is a process with historic consequences," he said.

That accords with a vote by his Likud party's central committee in December that unanimously backed annexation.

The government is already working on legislation to bring some West Bank settlements under Jerusalem municipal control—annexation via the back door. This month officials gave themselves additional powers to expel Palestinians from Jerusalem for "disloyalty."

Yousef Jabareen, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, warned that Israel had accelerated its annexation program from "creeping to running."

Notably, Netanyahu has said the government's plans are being coordinated with the Trump administration. It was a statement he later retracted under pressure.

But all evidence suggests that Washington is fully on board, so long as annexation is done by stealth.

The U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a long-time donor to the settlements, told Israel's Channel 10 TV recently: "The settlers aren't going anywhere."

Settler leader Yaakov Katz, meanwhile, thanked Donald Trump for a dramatic surge in settlement growth over the past year. Figures show one-in-ten Israeli Jews is now a settler. He called the White House team "people who really like us, love us," adding that the settlers were "changing the map."

The U.S. is preparing to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May, not only pre-empting a final-status issue but tearing out the beating heart from a Palestinian state.

The thrust of U.S. strategy is so well-known to Palestinian leaders—and in lockstep with Israel—that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is said to have refused to even look at the peace plan recently submitted to him.

Reports suggest it will award Israel all of Jerusalem as its capital. The Palestinians will be forced to accept outlying villages as their own capital, as well as a land "corridor" to let them pray at Al Aqsa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

As the stronger side, Israel will be left to determine the fate of the settlements and its borders—a recipe for it to carry on with slow-motion annexation.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has warned that Trump's "ultimate deal" will limit a Palestinian state to Gaza and scraps of the West Bank—much as Bennett prophesied in New York.

Which explains why last week the White House hosted a meeting of European and Arab states to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

U.S. officials have warned the Palestinian leadership, who stayed away, that a final deal will be settled over their heads if necessary. This time the U.S. peace plan is not up for negotiation; it is primed for implementation.

With a Palestinian "state" effectively restricted to Gaza, the humanitarian catastrophe there—one the United Nations has warned will make the enclave uninhabitable in a few years—needs to be urgently addressed.

But the White House summit also sidelined the UN refugee agency UNRWA, which deals with Gaza's humanitarian situation. The Israeli right hates UNRWA because its presence complicates annexation of the West Bank. And with Fatah and Hamas still at loggerheads, it alone serves to unify the West Bank and Gaza.

That is why the Trump administration recently cut U.S. funding to UNRWA—the bulk of its budget. The White House's implicit goal is to find a new means to manage Gaza's misery.

What is needed now is someone to arm-twist the Palestinians. Mike Pompeo's move from the CIA to State Department, Trump may hope, will produce the strongman needed to bulldoze the Palestinians into submission.

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6) Austin Bombing Suspect Mark Conditt Blew Himself Up, Police Say
By DAVE MONTGOMERY and JONAH ENGEL BROMWICH MARCH 21, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/us/austin-bombings-suspect.html?hp&action=
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Investigators at the scene in Round Rock, just north of Austin. Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

ROUND ROCK, Tex. — A suspect in the series of bombings that have terrorized the city of Austin, Tex., died early Wednesday, blowing himself up in his vehicle as officers closed in on him, the authorities said.

A law enforcement official identified the suspect as Mark Anthony Conditt, a 23-year-old white man.

Officials did not rule out the possibility that the man had accomplices.

"We do not understand what motivated him to do what he did," said the Austin police chief, Brian Manley.

The first explosions hit African-American residents whose families are well-known in the city's black community, though two white men were injured by an explosive triggered by a tripwire on Sunday. Chief Manley did not address any potential motive, including race.

Law enforcement officials cautioned that the bomber could have planted other explosives that have not yet detonated. "We still need to remain vigilant," Chief Manley said. "We do not know where he has been in the past 24 hours."

He added, "This investigation is still underway, so we cannot say that this was an individual acting on their own."

In a tweet, President Trump praised law enforcement officials for their work in identifying and locating the suspect.

The suspect lived in Pflugerville, a suburb of 59,000 about 20 miles northeast of downtown Austin, a law enforcement official said.

"There were several leads that led us to this person," including surveillance video, Chief Manley said.

Police and federal agents Wednesday morning entered the home of Mr. Conditt's parents in Pflugerville, a white clapboard, two-story home with an American flag hanging on the front porch. His parents had not answered several knocks on the door from reporters, but later in the morning, the agents pulled up in two vehicles and they were allowed in.

Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, told a local television affiliate that Mr. Conditt lived with two roommates, who were cooperating with the investigation.

"Through those roommates, as well as being able to access social media accounts, as well as getting into the house and gathering information, we're going to learn so much more over the next few hours," Mr. Abbott said. "Before the sun sets today we will have so many other pieces of the puzzle."

The suspect is believed to be responsible for at least six bombs that killed at least two people and wounded five. Four bombs detonated in various locations in Austin where they had been left. Another detonated at a FedEx distribution center in Schertz, Tex., near San Antonio, and a sixth was found, unexploded, in a FedEx facility near Austin's airport.

The attacks started the morning of March 2, when a package bomb detonated on the porch of an Austin home, killing Anthony Stephan House, 39. That was followed 10 days later by two bombs that were found outside homes, one of which killed a 17-year-old boy.

The first three bombs were apparently detonated when they were picked up or jostled. Later, a package bomb exploded outside another Austin home, set off by a tripwire. The bombs at the FedEx centers were found on Tuesday.

"Within the past 24 to 36 hours, we started getting information on one person of interest," Chief Manley said. "This person of interest ultimately moved to being a suspect."

The suspect's vehicle was traced to a hotel in Round Rock, just north of Austin, Chief Manley said, where a SWAT team surreptitiously surrounded the hotel and called other specialized units. But before those teams could arrive, the suspect drove away.

Officers followed the suspect, who stopped in a ditch off Interstate 35, and SWAT officers approached the vehicle on foot.

"The suspect detonated a bomb inside of the vehicle, knocking one officer back" and slightly injuring him, the police chief said. Another officer fired his gun at the vehicle.

Michael Luna, a guest at a Red Roof Inn near the confrontation, told a local news channel that he heard the explosion from the bomb, which sounded as if it had gone off 100 to 200 yards from him, when he was outside smoking a cigarette in the parking lot. Mr. Luna, who said he had been in the military, said that the explosion sounded like two grenades going off at the same time, and that he heard a pop afterward that may have been gunfire.

The portion of Interstate 35 near that confrontation was a traffic nightmare for hours as commuters moved at a glacial pace in the southbound lanes, many of them presumably unaware of what had happened. State troopers barred access at several ramps along that stretch of the highway.

By Wednesday morning, aerial video footage of the area from KVUE, a local television affiliate, showed a red SUV with blown-out windows next to a blue tarp, surrounded by investigators' vehicles.

Mayor Steve Adler of Austin said that the city's residents should continue to watch out for suspicious packages that the bomber may have planted before his death. He expressed hope that residents who had been brought closer together during the attacks would continue to watch out for each other as the threat receded.

Dave Montgomery reported from Round Rock, Tex., Jessica Bidgood from Boston and Jonah Engel Bromwich from New York. Reporting was contributed by Manny Fernandez from Austin, Tex., and Michael Wolgelenter and Richard Pérez-Peña from London.

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7) Trump's Bluster on the Opioid Epidemic
"More broadly speaking, many scholars have concluded that there is no good evidence that capital punishment deters crime."
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD MARCH 20, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/opinion/trumps-bluster-on-the-opioid-epidemic.html?action=
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President Trump has declared that his administration is getting seriousabout the opioid epidemic several times since taking office. But he has repeatedly failed to offer a substantive plan — and he has floated at least a few truly absurd ideas. He did it again this week.

Mr. Trump gave a rambling speech on opioids on Monday in which he offered few details about how he would increase access to substance abuse treatment and prevention to help the millions of Americans suffering from this disease. Some 64,000 people in the United States died of drug overdoses in 2016, including 481 in New Hampshire, one of the hardest hit states in the country, where Mr. Trump gave his speech.

The president went on at length about his preposterous proposal to fight the scourge of drugs by executing drug dealers — an idea that many experts say would not stand up in court and would do little to end this epidemic. He also reprised his cockamamie idea to build a wall along the nation's southern border, arguing that it would "keep the damn drugs out," and accused so-called sanctuary cities of releasing "illegal immigrants and drug dealers, traffickers and gang members back into our communities."

It was Mr. Trump playing his greatest "law and order" hits — as usual, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.

Mr. Trump seems so enamored with autocrats and strongmen that he wants the United States to imitate governments like China and the Philippines by executing drug dealers, claiming such countries "don't have a drug problem" because of their brutality. This is patently absurd. While it is hard to analyze the experience of many of these countries because they do not collect and publish reliable data about substance use, experts say it is clear that they have not eliminated drug abuse or the crime that often accompanies it. More broadly speaking, many scholars have concluded that there is no good evidence that capital punishment deters crime.

But we do have convincing evidence that ratcheting up the war on drugs, as Mr. Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, want to do, would not work. Since the early 1980s, the federal government and states have imposed increasingly harsh criminal penalties on drug dealers and users. Not only did they fail to stem drug use or the availability of illicit substances, but they may have contributed to their spread by taking resources away from treatment and prevention efforts. It is no wonder, then, that the per-gram retail price of heroin fell by about 85 percent between 1981 and 2012, according to a report published in 2016 by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Further, legal experts say it is unlikely that a law authorizing capital punishment for drug dealers would be considered constitutional, because the Supreme Court has previously struck down laws that allowed the use of the death penalty for crimes other than murder.

Mr. Trump's other get-tough policies are also unlikely to help. The wall will not stop drugs — most imported illicit substances like heroin and methamphetamines already come in through legal border crossings. And his plans to penalize sanctuary cities, which choose not to participate in federal deportation crackdowns, would be counterproductive. That's because law-abiding immigrants are less likely to identify and testify against drug dealers and gang members if they fear that helping law enforcement agencies could put them or their relatives at risk of being detained or deported.

Mr. Trump's New Hampshire speech did contain a few good ideas — but only a few. He said that the administration would seek to reduce opioid prescriptions and expand access to medication-assisted treatment for those suffering from addiction. Experts, including a commission appointed by Mr. Trump last year, identified these and other solutions months ago, but the administration has taken little action and provided few details about how it would carry out these ideas.

There are a number of other good ideas that Mr. Trump and his team have done little to advance, like getting health insurance companies to cover mental health and substance abuse treatments as well as they cover other medical treatments, something required by federal law. He could also encourage 18 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to do so. This would make addiction treatment available to millions of additional people. Not only has he not sought to expand that program, but Mr. Trump and Republicans in Congress have proposed deep cuts to Medicaid, which covers about 38 percent of people with an opioid addiction, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Mr. Trump might be sincere in his concern for people suffering from this epidemic. But more than a year into his presidency, he is miserably failing them.

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8) Their Pay Has Stood Still. Now Oklahoma Teachers Could Be the Next to Walk.
By DANA GOLDSTEIN MARCH 20, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/us/oklahoma-teachers-strike.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=
Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Students leaving Carver Middle School in Tulsa last week. Teachers in Oklahoma have not had a raise from the state in a decade and are threatening to strike on April 2.Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

TULSA, Okla. — When she woke up one morning last week, Tiffany Bell, a teacher at Hamilton Elementary School here, had $35 in her bank account.

On take-home pay of $2,200 per month, she supports her husband, a veteran who went back to school, and their three children, all of whom qualify for the Children's Health Insurance Program, a federal benefit for low-income families. The couple's 4-year-old twins attend a Head Start preschool — another antipoverty program.

Money is so tight for Ms. Bell, 26, that she had to think twice before spending $15 on Oreos for a class project, in which her third graders removed differing amounts of icing to display the phases of the moon.

She knew it would be hard to support a family on a teacher's salary. "But not this hard," she said.

When West Virginia teachers mounted a statewide walkout last month, earning a modest raise, it seemed like an anomaly: a successful grass-roots labor uprising in a conservative state with weak public sector unions. But just a few weeks later, the West Virginia action looks like the potential beginning of a red-state rebellion.

In Arizona, teachers clad in red, the color of the teacher protest movement, have conducted a series of #RedforEd demonstrations demanding higher pay. In Kentucky, teachers have organized rallies to protest proposed cuts to their pensions.

And in Oklahoma, where teachers have not had a raise from the state in a decade, they have vowed to go on strike on April 2 if the Legislature does not act to increase pay and education budgets.

All three states are paragons of austerity-minded budgeting, guided by a belief that taxes should be as low as possible to encourage people to spend more and companies to move there and grow. But one result has been a cutback in education, a sector in which a large and popular work force is finding it has labor muscles to flex after all.

"We are hemorrhaging from a lack of funding," said Larry Cagle, a Tulsa teacher and organizer of one of several Facebook groups pushing for a walkout. "If I get fired, I get fired. I will absolutely not back down."

Oklahomans are not always averse to paying more for education. Local districts can use property taxes and bonds to pay for structures, and many of the school buildings are beautiful. Webster Middle and High School in Tulsa is a pristinely maintained Art Deco castle. In 2015, Tulsa voters passed a $415 million bond to invest in technology and the district's physical infrastructure.

But most instructional costs are covered by the state, where laws and politics make it difficult to raise taxes. And it is inside the classroom that students and parents have noticed the impact of depressed state budgets.

Webster, where 88 percent of students come from low-income families, has cut its advanced foreign language courses, along with classes in drama and debate. Six miles away, Carver Middle School has rationed paper and there are not enough parts to go around in robotics class, students said.

About a fifth of Oklahoma school districts, mostly in rural areas, are trying an even more drastic way to save money: a four-day week. (They cannot cut the number of instructional hours, so the school days tend to be longer.)

Across the state, teachers say they make ends meet by selling their blood plasma, or by working second jobs as luggage handlers, Uber drivers or in lawn maintenance.

When teachers here last went on strike, in 1990 for four days, they won a raise and limitations on class sizes. But that was the last time the Oklahoma Legislature raised taxes. In 1992, anti-tax activists successfully organized a ballot referendum to require a three-quarters majority in both the state House and Senate to raise new revenue and today, Oklahoma is one of 13 states that require a supermajority to impose new taxes.

Research has found little direct relationship between tax cuts and indicators like job creation. Oklahoma's economy did well between 2001 and 2014, in part because of a boom in oil and gas. More recently, the state's economy slowed along with a decrease in oil prices.

But ever since the referendum passed, it has become an insurmountable barrier for attempts to increase school spending. The 1990 class size reductions were scrapped for lack of funds. Since 2008, Oklahoma has cut its per-pupil instructional funding by 28 percent — the largest cut in the nation, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank.

The current budget situation is so dire that some superintendents and school boards are supporting, and even helping to organize, the proposed teacher walkout.

Deborah Gist, who as the hard-charging education commissioner in Rhode Island tried to weaken teachers' seniority protections and often clashed with their union, is now Tulsa's schools superintendent and is allied with the Oklahoma union — the Oklahoma Education Association — in a fight for more money.

Dr. Gist said she is unable to attract or retain effective educators because they can earn up to $20,000 more per year by moving to Texas or other neighboring states. Because so few licensed teachers are applying for jobs, Tulsa has relied on emergency certifications to hire more than 100 teachers who lack training in education.

"Our teachers in Oklahoma are going above and beyond every single day for an unacceptable and unsustainable salary that doesn't even provide them with a living wage," she said.

Teachers in Oklahoma earn $45,000 a year on average, the third-lowest in the country; only those in Mississippi and South Dakota earn less, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. They are doing better, though, than many workers in Oklahoma, which has the third-lowest cost of living and where the average teacher salary is about equal to the median household income.

But teachers, especially those in their 20s and 30s, say they live paycheck to paycheck, without the middle-class stability they expected when they chose teaching as a career, often taking on student debt along the way.

Becky Atherton Dukes, an art teacher at Carnegie Elementary School in Tulsa, pays $400 per month for health insurance for herself and her daughter. She and her husband, a house painter, are expecting a second child, and their day care costs will exceed Ms. Dukes's pay. "I love my job," she said. "But it would be nice to be able to afford a family vacation or have money for savings."

Most here believe there is little hope of avoiding the walkout.

In 2016, voters rejected a ballot measure that would have increased education funding through an additional one percent sales tax. More recently, a legislative proposal called Step Up Oklahoma would have funded $5,000 raises by increasing gas and tobacco taxes and modestly raising production taxes on the energy industry. It was supported by Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, the teachers' union and a coalition of business leaders.

On Feb. 12, 63 members of the state House of Representatives voted for it, and 35 against, short of the required 75 percent supermajority.

A quarter of Republicans and more than two-thirds of Democrats opposed the bill. The Platform Caucus, a group of Republican opponents, issued a statement saying the tax increases would have undone the benefits of President Trump's tax cuts. "It is unfortunate that lawmakers and special interests are so quick to try and grab that money," the caucus wrote.

Democratic opponents said the plan was too easy on oil and gas, while raising taxes too high on the wind industry. They also asked for an increase in income taxes on high earners.

Moderate Republicans say colleagues further to the right are wedded to an ideology that no longer makes sense.

"They just won't raise taxes," said Representative Earl Sears, a retired principal and the chairman of the House appropriations committee. "We're at the point where we've cut so much, we now have to go in and make investments. If that means raising taxes, so be it."

Mr. Sears also accused Democrats of wanting the schools crisis to continue, so they could run on the issue in future elections. "They really don't want to give the Republican Party a victory," he said.

Indeed, anger about education cuts has helped fuel something of a blue ripple in this Republican-dominated state, with Democrats flipping four legislative seats in special elections in 2017.

After the defeat of the bill, educators began to gather on Facebook and in person to share their frustration. Rank-and-file teachers pushed their union to support their demand that the state act before April 2 or face a work stoppage. The Oklahoma Education Association is now asking for a $10,000 raise for teachers, a $5,000 raise for school support staff and a $200 million increase in schools funding.

On March 12, Oklahoma teachers took their first steps toward a strike, beginning a "work to contract" protest in which teachers marched out of their schools when the last bell rang. They refused to tutor students, email with parents or grade papers after hours.

At Carver Middle School on Tuesday, students applauded as their teachers filed out of the building.

At Carnegie Elementary School, Ms. Dukes reluctantly canceled her students' annual art show. In preparation, she had meticulously organized and labeled every pinch pot and collage in her classroom. But bringing the event to fruition would have required logging long hours after school and at home, work that she believes entitles her to a raise.

One of her colleagues, she said, had moved away from Oklahoma, and now earns the equivalent of $85,000 per year as a teacher.

Ms. Dukes laughed. "To get her American dream," she said, "she had to move to China."

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9) In Austin, a Bomber’s Rampage Exposes Racial Fault Lines Long Buried
By MANNY FERNANDEZ and RICHARD FAUSSETMARCH 22, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/austin-bombing-race.html?em_pos=
large&emc=edit_rr_20180324&nl=race-related&nlid=26108213edit_rr_20180324&ref=headline&te=1

Draylen Mason, above right, was killed by a bomb left on his family’s doorstep in Austin, Tex. on March 12. Mr. Mason was a promising classical musician. Tamir Kalifa

AUSTIN, Tex. — Ora Houston, an African-American councilwoman here, stood as a proclamation was read inside City Hall on Thursday.

It had nothing to do with the Austin serial bomber, Mark Conditt. It had to do with a deeper, older and far more invisible hurt — the 90th anniversary of a 1928 city plan that created a “Negro district” on the east side of town.

“The Negro district was intentionally created by the Austin City Council to force Negros and Mexicans who lived in other parts of Austin to move to the Negro district,” Mayor Steve Adler said as Ms. Houston, a longtime East Austin resident, looked on at his side. “And the effects are apparent in the racial and economic disparities found in East Austin today.”

Three of the five bombs that terrorized Central Texas this month went off in East Austin, where the majority of the city’s black and Hispanic residents live, prompting the police to investigate them as possible hate crimes. When the fourth bomb was planted in an upscale gated and largely white community west of Interstate 35, the issue of race disappeared from most official statements — a fact that has stirred deep resentment among many black residents. The only two people killed, many have been quick to point out, came from two of the city’s most prominent black families.

The debate over how to characterize the bomber’s nearly three-week campaign of violence has been a reminder, for many, of the ways in which race, geography and class continue to play out in a city that prides itself on tolerance and diversity.

Though Austin is widely seen as a liberal island in a deeply conservative state, the attacks have stoked the raw racial, economic, political and geographical divisions that continue to shape life here, 90 years after the city was segregated by decree. Austin and its suburbs remain sharply divided by class, race and even religion. Like Houston, it is an urban, diverse and Democratic hub surrounded by largely white, Republican suburbs, including Pflugerville, Mr. Conditt’s hometown.

“Austin has gradually started to become aware and conversant about its race issues over the past five years, so the initial suggestion that these bombings could be race-related made people deeply nervous that the problem could be that bad,” said Cecilia Ballí, a writer and cultural anthropologist who lived in Austin from 2008 to 2014 and who now lives in Houston. “Whether or not the bomber’s motive ends up being race, this brought to the forefront one of the city’s challenges and worst fears.”

The police have said that Mr. Conditt, who is white, gave no indication in a 25-minute confession left on his phone that he was driven by racial hatred. News emerged Thursday that one of the explosive packages he sent at a FedEx store was addressed to a spa employee who is white. His past statements, including the views he expressed on a community college blog opposed to gay marriage, have added to speculation that he was anti-gay.

In East Austin on Thursday, Daniel Arriaga, 51, a furniture mover, said he still believed the bomber had a hatred for blacks and Hispanics. He had harmed the two white victims, Mr. Arriaga theorized, “just to throw it off.”

Alejandro Caceres, 30, an organizer for Grassroots Leadership, a prison reform and immigrant rights group, who lives and works in East Austin, said he believed the police were dismissing the concerns of black and Hispanic residents that the bombings were, at least in part, racially motivated.

“We’re being told that all of our feelings and our realities are not true, that this person was not targeting black and brown people, that this person was not a terrorist,” Mr. Caceres said.

Mr. Conditt’s world was, like the Austin region itself, multifaceted and defied easy categorization. In his hometown Pflugerville, about 20 miles northeast of Austin, the mayor, Victor Gonzales, is Hispanic. One of the candidates who ran against him was Philip Emiabata, who was born in Nigeria. One of Mr. Conditt’s roommates was black. And one of his friends was Sierra Davis, a transgender woman and Marine veteran who is part Hispanic.

“Honestly, Mark was a lot like I was,” said Ms. Davis, 23, who got to know Mr. Conditt when they were teenagers. “He was a home schooler, Christian, and I was the same. I mean, we were all awkward at the time. Growing up, Pflugerville had a small-town feel to it. It was a lot more conservative than Austin, a lot more home-school friendly.”

Ms. Davis said that Mr. Conditt told her she was “going to hell” when she was transitioning. “But I wasn’t surprised by what he said,” she said. “We were raised like that and I was tied to those beliefs, too.”

In Austin, I-35 has long been recognized as the dividing line separating most of the city’s minority residents from its white population, and much of its have-nots from the haves. That dividing line has an ugly, decades-old history. In an online examination of the city’s racial and economic divide by The Austin American-Statesman, a real estate ad circa 1915 reads: “Hyde Park is exclusively for white people.”

Jesse E. Washington, 68, a retired city inspector who is black and was born and raised in Austin, lives in a small ranch house his parents built in the 1960s in East Austin. He graduated from a segregated high school in 1967.

“If you wanted to buy a home and own property in Austin, you could only get your utilities turned on if you were in East Austin,” Mr. Washington said.

Now, of course, East Austin is far different.

“If you walk up and down here you see the white kids walking their dogs and riding bicycles,” he said. Many of his black neighbors, he said, “have sold off.”

Mr. Washington lives next door to the scene of one of the explosions, the one that killed Draylen Mason, 17, an African-American classical musician whose grandfather was a well-known dentist. The blast woke Mr. Washington around 6:45 a.m. that morning. At first he thought it was a falling tree limb.

Mr. Washington listened with interest to the police chief’s description of Mr. Conditt’s confession. But he said he still wonders if race had something to do with it.

“You know, the possibilities are endless,” he said. “These mental conditions that are in our minds growing up, the influences people have from the older generations.”

Black leaders and residents have accused the police of failing to take the first bombing seriously because the victim was black, an accusation that police officials have denied. At the time of the first bombing on March 2, the authorities believed it was in retaliation for a drug raid the police had conducted on a similar-looking house on the same street three days beforehand.

“We had a pretty strong working theory that day that led us to believe it was an isolated incident that day,” the Austin police chief, Brian Manley, told reporters recently. “It was very unique. We had no information to believe it was related to a larger plan at that time.”

The bombings have come at a critical time for the city’s black population. A 2014 University of Texas report highlighted the drastic decline in the number of black residents in Austin, even as the city has boomed. Austin’s overall population growth rate was more than 20 percent between 2000 and 2010, making it the third-fastest growing city in the country. But the number of African-American residents declined by 5.4 percent — making it the only one of the 10 fastest-growing cities in the United States to experience a loss in black population.

It was the result, the researchers wrote, of “persistent structural inequalities.” The emerging tech industry was not hiring black and Latino residents. People of color were losing trust in the public schools on the traditionally black east side.

Ms. Houston, the city councilwoman, said she now occasionally feels unwelcome in restaurants in the east side neighborhoods where she grew up, and which are becoming whiter.

“As a black female they look at me like, ‘Why is she here?’” she said.

Race has played out here in the backdrop of the case in other ways. KVUE, an ABC-affiliated TV station in Austin, issued an apology, after the words “this monkey” appeared in a sentence about Mr. Mason during its breaking-news coverage of the bombings. KVUE’s closed-captioning provider, VITAC, issued its own apology and said the error was “not intentional.”

KVUE said it had severed ties with VITAC “due to the terrible mistake.”

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DROP LWOP Town Hall
Date	Saturday March 24
Time	5:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Import this event into your personal calendar.
Location Details
Red Bay Coffee Roastery, Bar & Garden, 3098 E 10th St, Oakland (Near Fruitvale Bart)
Event Type	Teach-In
Organizer/Author	California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Email	info [at] womenprisoners.org
Phone	415-255-7036 x 4
Drop LWOP Town Hall will feature a panel of formerly incarcerated women describing the injustice of the Life Without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP) sentence which condemns over 5,000 people in California prisons to a living death sentence. With food from Mamacitas Cafe, a raffle, and items for sale made by people living inside women's prisons. Donations Requested: $5-20. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 2018

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Cindy Sheehan and the Women's March on the Pentagon

A movement not just a protest

Different wings of the same warbird

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Tell the Feds: End Draft Registration

Courage to Resist Podcast: The Future of Draft Registration in the United States

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Free Leonard Peltier!

On my 43rd year in prison I yearn to hug my grandchildren.

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GOP Tax Plan Would Give 15 of America's Largest Corporations a $236B Tax Cut: Report

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A) EVENTS, ACTIONS AND ONGOING STRUGGLES

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