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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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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October 20-21, 2018

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'sTwitter 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 forMintPress News who has written for several news organizations in both English and Spanish; her stories have been featured on ZeroHedge, theAnti-Media, and21st 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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Support Herman Bell

Last week the New York State Board of Parole granted Herman Bell release. Since the Board's decision, there has been significant backlash from the Police Benevolent Association, other unions, Mayor De Blasio and Governor Cuomo. They are demanding that Herman be held indefinitely, the Parole Commissioners who voted for his release be fired, and that people convicted of killing police be left to die in prison.

We want the Governor, policymakers, and public to know that we strongly support the Parole Board's lawful, just and merciful decision. We also want to show support for the recent changes to the Board, including the appointment of new Commissioners and the direction of the new parole regulations, which base release decisions more on who a person is today and their accomplishments while in prison than on the nature of their crime.

Herman has a community of friends, family and loved ones eagerly awaiting his return. At 70 years old and after 45 years inside, it is time for Herman to come home.

Here are four things you can do RIGHT NOW to support Herman Bell:

1- CALL New York State Governor Cuomo's Office NOW
518-474-8390

2-EMAIL New York State Governor Cuomo's Office
https://www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form

3- TWEET at Governor Cuomo: use the following sample tweet:

"@NYGovCuomo: stand by the Parole Board's lawful & just decision to release Herman Bell. At 70 years old and after more than 40 years of incarceration, his release is overdue. #BringHermanHome."

4- Participate in a CBS poll and vote YES on the Parole Board's decision
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/…/herman-bell-parole-police-ou…/
The poll ends on March 21st. Please do this ASAP!

Script for phone calls and emails:
"Governor Cuomo, my name is __________and I am a resident of . I support the Parole Board's decision to release Herman Bell and urge you and the Board to stand by the decision. I also support the recent appointment of new Parole Board Commissioners, and the direction of the new parole regulations, which base release decisions more on who a person is today than on the nature of their crime committed years ago. Returning Herman to his friends and family will help the heal the many harms caused by crime and decades of incarceration. The Board's decision was just, merciful and lawful, and it will benefit our communities and New York State as a whole."

Thank you for your support and contributions.

With gratitude,
Supporters of Herman Bell and Parole Justice New York

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After almost 14 years of tireless work, we are changing our name to About Face: Veterans Against the War! This has been a long time coming, and we want to celebrate this member-led decision to grow our identity and our work with you.

Member vote at Convention in favor of changing the name

Why change our name? It's a different world since our founding in 2004 by 8 veterans returning from the invasion of Iraq. The Bush Administration's decision to start two wars significantly altered the political landscape in the US, and even more so in the Middle East and Central Asia. For all of us, that decision changed our lives. Our membership has grown to reflect the diversity of experiences of service members and vets serving in the so-called "Global War on Terror," whether it be deploying to Afghanistan, special operations in Africa, or drone operations on US soil. We will continue to be a home for post-9/11 veterans, and we've seen more members join us since the name-change process began.

Click this link to see our new name and site in action!

Over the past 15 years, our political understanding has also grown and changed. As a community, we have learned how militarism is not only the root cause of conflicts overseas, but how its technology, tactics, and values have landed directly on communities of color, indigenous people, and poor people here at home.

So why this name? About Face is a drill command all of us were taught in the military. It signifies an abrupt 180 degree turn. A turn away. That drill movement represents the transformation that has led us to where we find ourselves today: working to dismantle the militarism we took part in and building solidarity with people who bear the weight of militarism in its many forms.

We are keeping Veterans Against the War as our tag line because it describes our members, our continued cause, and because we are proud to be a part of the anti-war veteran legacy. Our name has changed and our work has deepened, but our vision -- building a world free of militarism -- is stronger than ever.

Check out our new website, and let us know what you think

As we make this shift, we deeply appreciate your commitment to us over the years and your ongoing support as we build this new phase together. We know that dismantling militarism is long haul work, and we are dedicated to being a part of it with you for as long as it takes.
Until we celebrate the last veteran,

Matt Howard
Co-Director
About Face: Veterans Against the War
(formerly IVAW)

About Face: Veterans Against the War is a 501(c)(3) charity,
and welcomes your tax deductible contributions

P.O. Box 3565, New York, NY 10008. All Right Reserved. | Unsubscribe

To ensure delivery of About Face emails please add webmaster@ivaw.org to your address book.

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Tell the Feds: End Draft Registration

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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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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Free Leonard Peltier!

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

By Leonard Peltier

Art 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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Artwork by Kevin Cooper

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

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301 Days in Jail,
as of today.

Reality's trial
is now postponed

until October 15th.

That's 500 Days in Jail,
Without Bail!

Whistleblower Reality Winner's trial has (again) been postponed.
Her new trial date is October 15, 2018, based on the new official proceedings schedule (fifth version). She will have spent 500 days jailed without bail by then. Today is day #301.
And her trial may likely be pushed back even further into the Spring of 2019.

We urge you to remain informed and engaged with our campaign until she is free!

"Why We Should All Look Closer At Whistle Blower,
Reality Winner's Case"

One supporter's excellent report

on the details of Winner's imprisonment

~Check out these highlights & then go read the full article here~

"Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Winner is also not allowed to change from her orange jumpsuit for her court dates, even though she is "innocent until proven guilty." Not only that, but during any court proceedings, only her wrists are unshackled, her ankles stay. And a US Marshal sits in front of her, face to face, during the proceedings. Winner is not allowed to turn around and look into the courtroom at all . . .

Upon checking the inmate registry, it starts to become clear how hush hush the government wants this case against Winner to be. Whether pre-whistleblowing, or in her orange jumpsuit, photos of Winner have surfaced on the web. That's why it was so interesting that there's no photo of her next to her name on the inmate registry . . .

For the past hundred years, the Espionage Act has been debated and amended, and used to charge whistleblowers that are seeking to help the country they love, not harm it. Sometimes we have to learn when past amendments no longer do anything to justify the treatment of an American truth teller as a political prisoner. The act is outdated and amending it needs to be seriously looked at, or else we need to develop laws that protect our whistleblowers.

The Espionage Act is widely agreed by many experts to be unconstitutionally vague and a violation of the First Amendment of Free Speech. Even though a Supreme Court had ruled that the Espionage Act does not infringe upon the 1st Amendment back in 1919, it's constitutionality has been back and forth in court ever sense.

Because of being charged under the Espionage Act, Winner's defense's hands are tied. No one is allowed to mention the classified document, even though the public already knows that the information in it is true, that Russia hacked into our election support companies."

Want to take action in support of Reality?

Step up to defend our whistleblower of conscience ► DONATE NOW

FRIENDS OF REALITY WINNER ~ PATRIOT & ALLEGED WHISTLEBLOWER
c/o Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610 ~ 510-488-3559

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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

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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Puerto Rico Still Without Power

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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) Starbucks C.E.O. Apologizes After Arrests of 2 Black Men
By MATT STEVENS APRIL 15, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/us/starbucks-philadelphia-black-men-arrest.html?rref=
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Two black men were arrested on suspicion of trespassing in a Philadelphia Starbucks on Thursday. The police commissioner defended the actions of his officers, but Starbucks apologized.Melissa DePino, via twitter

Two black men walked into a Starbucks in downtown Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon and sat down. Officials said they had asked to use the restroom but because they had not bought anything, an employee refused the request. They were eventually asked to leave, and when they declined, an employee called the police.

Some of what happened next was recorded in a video that has been viewed more than eight million times on Twitter and was described by the chief executive of Starbucks as "very hard to watch." Details of the episode, which the authorities provided on Saturday, ignited widespread criticism on social media, incited anger among public officials and prompted investigations.

The video shows the men surrounded by several police officers wearing bicycle helmets in the Center City Starbucks. When one officer asks another man whether he is "with these gentlemen," the man said he was and called the episode ridiculous.

"What did they get called for?" asked the man, Andrew Yaffe, who is white, referring to the police. "Because there are two black guys sitting here meeting me?"

Moments later, officers escorted one of the black men out of the Starbucks in handcuffs. The other soon followed.

The men, who have not been identified, were arrested on suspicion of trespassing. But Starbucks did not want to press charges and the men were later released, Commissioner Richard Ross Jr. of the Philadelphia Police Department said in a recorded statement on Saturday.

The prosecutor's office in Philadelphia also reviewed the case and declined to charge the men because of "a lack of evidence that a crime was committed," Benjamin Waxman, a spokesman for the office, said.

The company apologized on Twitter Saturday afternoon. Later that day, while the hashtag #BoycottStarbucks was trending on Twitter, Kevin R. Johnson, the chief executive of Starbucks, released a statement in which he called the situation a "reprehensible outcome."

Mr. Johnson said he hoped to meet them in person to offer a "face-to-face apology."

He also pledged to investigate, and to "make any necessary changes to our practices that would help prevent such an occurrence from ever happening again."

"Starbucks stands firmly against discrimination or racial profiling," he said. "Regretfully, our practices and training led to a bad outcome — the basis for the call to the Philadelphia Police Department was wrong. Our store manager never intended for these men to be arrested and this should never have escalated as it did."

A company spokesman late on Saturday would not say whether any employees would face discipline.

A longer video of the episode shows the police talking with the men for at least four minutes before Mr. Yaffe arrives. He informs the police that the men they are about to take into custody are "not trespassing" but instead are "meeting me here."

"That's absolutely discrimination," Mr. Yaffe said in the video. A lawyer for the men did not immediately respond to an email or phone message seeking comment late Saturday. Mr. Yaffe declined to comment.

In his statement, Commissioner Ross defended his officers, noting they had asked the men to leave three times because employees had said they were trespassing. The men refused, he said.

"These officers had legal standing to make this arrest," Commissioner Ross said. "These officers did absolutely nothing wrong. They followed policy, they did what they were supposed to do, they were professional in all their dealings with these gentlemen — and instead they got the opposite back.

"I will say that as an African-American male, I am very aware of implicit bias," he continued. "We are committed to fair and unbiased policing, and anything less than that will not be tolerated in this department."

About 700 of the department's 6,300 officers are equipped with body cameras, he added, but the officers involved were not wearing them.

Jim Kenney, the mayor of Philadelphia, blamed Starbucks, saying that the episode "appears to exemplify what racial discrimination looks like in 2018."

"Starbucks has issued an apology, but that is not enough," he said in a statement. He said he has asked the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations to examine the company's policies and procedures.

Starbucks said such a review was already underway.

"I know our store managers and partners work hard to exceed our customers' expectations every day — which makes this very poor reflection on our company all the more painful," Mr. Johnson said in his statement. He added: "You can and should expect more from us. We will learn from this and be better."

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2) A Black Teenager Asked for Directions. A Man Responded With Gunfire.
By JACEY FORTIN APRIL 14, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/us/michigan-teen-shot-directions.html?rref=
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Brennan Walker and his mother, Lisa Wright. Brennan, who was shot at this week, said he was trying to ask for directions to school when "the guy came downstairs, and he grabbed the shotgun."Clickondetroit.com

Brennan Walker, 14, of Rochester Hills, Mich., woke up around 7:30 a.m. on Thursday — too late. He had slept through his alarm and was going to miss the school bus.

So he decided to walk to Rochester High School, where he is a freshman. That takes about an hour and a half, but he thought he would at least make it in time for his third-period class in world studies, his favorite subject.

Brennan did not have his smartphone that morning, and so, lacking assistance from GPS, he tried to follow the route his bus usually takes. He ended up in a quiet subdivision where the roads looped into each other, and when he noticed he had gone in a circle, he stopped to ask for help.

He tried one home, and then another. A woman answered the door, he said, and began yelling almost immediately, as if he were trying to break into her house.

"She didn't really give me a chance to speak a lot, and I was trying to tell her that I go to Rochester High and I was looking for directions," Brennan said on Friday. "A few moments later the guy came downstairs, and he grabbed the shotgun."

Brennan ran. The man followed briefly, walking out of his house and stepping off his porch, according to home security camera footage reviewed by the authorities. He fired a single shot with a 12-gauge shotgun, but Brennan was not hit. The teenager kept running. A few minutes later he encountered deputies — the woman at the home had called the authorities — and told his story.

"It's disgusting, it's disturbing and it's unacceptable on every level," Sheriff Michael Bouchard of Oakland County said. On Friday, the man, Jeffery Zeigler, 53, was charged with assault with intent to murder and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, the authorities said.

The security footage suggested that Mr. Zeigler was "not terribly weapons-competent," Sheriff Bouchard added. "He was slower to discharge the weapon and as a result, allowed this young man, thankfully, to get farther away."

The episode involving Brennan, who is black, called to mind instances in which black people have been killed by armed civilians or the police in recent years, like Stephon Clark, 22, who was fatally shot last monthby Sacramento police officers, setting off widespread protests. Brennan's story is similar to that of Renisha McBride, 19, who approached a stranger's home in a Detroit suburb and was shot and killed in 2013.

Brennan's mother, Lisa Wright, said she considered Rochester Hills, a Detroit suburb, a safe community but was only half-surprised that her son was threatened. "As a black person, I know it's a possibility," she said.

Mrs. Wright was mindful of what has happened to other black teenagers, like Trayvon Martin, the unarmed 17-year-old in Florida who was killed while wearing a hooded sweatshirt by a neighborhood watch volunteer. She said she had already had the talk with her son about all of the extra things he might have to do to keep himself safe: Don't wear hoodies. Be open and approachable. Take your hands out of your pockets. She added that in the security footage she had seen, her son appeared to be doing everything right on Thursday morning.

"I just remember a huge shotgun being pointed and aimed at my son," she said. "My son was running away."

Mr. Zeigler, a retired firefighter, told a District Court judge on Friday that he was in bed on Thursday morning when his wife began "screaming and crying," The Associated Press reported. "There's a lot more to the story than what's being told," he added, "and I believe that will come out in court."

Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

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3) The Cost of Keeping Children Poor

By Mark R. Rank, April 15, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/opinion/children-poverty-cost.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

ST. LOUIS — This past week, President Trump and House Republicans took initial steps to cut back the social safety net. Both have argued that such spending is counterproductive and wasteful, and that eligibility must be tightened for programs including food stamps and Medicaid. Mr. Trump and House Republicans have also asserted that welfare benefits are far too generous, and work requirements much too lax.

Yet as is so often the case, the reality is much different from what the political rhetoric says. The United States has the weakest safety net among the Western industrialized nations, devoting far fewer resources as a percentage of gross domestic product to welfare programs than do other wealthy countries.

Partly as a result, a majority of Americans will experience poverty during their lives, and America's rate of poverty consistently ranks at or near the top in international comparisons. Rather than slashing anti-poverty programs, the fiscally prudent question to ask is: How much does this high rate of poverty cost our nation in dollars and cents?

Clearly, poverty extracts a heavy toll upon those who fall into its ranks, particularly children. Countless studies have demonstrated the physical and psychological health costs for children experiencing poverty.

Yet a more difficult question to answer is: What are the economic costs to society as a whole? Over the past 40 years, there have been two attempts to answer this question, with the most recent analysis conducted more than 10 years ago. My colleague Michael McLaughlin and I recently decided it was time to revisit this question.

We relied on the latest government data and social science research in making our cost estimates. In particular, we examined the effect that childhood poverty has upon future economic productivity, health care and criminal justice costs, and increased expenses as a result of child homelessness and maltreatment.

In a study published in Social Work Research, we determined that childhood poverty cost the nation $1.03 trillion in 2015. This number represented 5.4 percent of the G.D.P. Impoverished children grow up possessing fewer skills and are thus less able to contribute to the productivity of the economy. They are also more likely to experience frequent health care problems and to engage in crime. These costs are borne by the children themselves, but ultimately by the wider society as well.

An even clearer way of gauging the magnitude of these costs is to compare their total with the total amount of federal spending in 2015. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government spent $3.7 trillion that year, meaning that the annual cost of childhood poverty represented 28 percent of the entire federal budget.

Equally important, we calculated what the cost savings would be for poverty reduction. Our analysis indicated that for each dollar spent on reducing childhood poverty, the country would save at least $7 with respect to the economic costs of poverty.

The bottom line is that reducing poverty is justified not only from a social justice perspective, but from a cost-benefit perspective as well.

Investing in programs that reduce childhood poverty is both smart and efficient economic policy.

Most of us are familiar with the saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." It turns out that this is particularly true in the case of poverty.

It is not a question of paying or not paying. Rather, it is a question of how we pay, which then affects the amount we end up spending. In making an investment up front to alleviate poverty, the evidence suggests, we will be repaid many times over by lowering the enormous costs associated with a host of interrelated problems.

Recognizing the sizable costs of childhood poverty is an important first step toward summoning the political will to address this economic and societal blight. Instead of slashing an already weakened safety net, we should be following the example of most leading countries, which have built effective support systems that prevent poverty. By doing so, we would give our children a much better chance of reaching their full potential, which benefits us all.

Mark R. Rank is a professor of social welfare at Washington University and studies poverty, social welfare, economic inequality and social policy.

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4) Catalan Protesters Demand Release of Jailed Separatist Leaders
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS APRIL 15, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/world/europe/catalan-independence-barcelona-protest.html?rref=
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The scene in Barcelona on Sunday. Lluis Gene/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

BARCELONA, Spain — Hundreds of thousands of Catalan independence backers rallied in downtown Barcelona Sunday to demand the release of secessionist leaders being held in pretrial detention.

Protesters waved Catalan flags behind a huge banner that read "for rights and liberties, for democracy and unity, we want them back home."

The demonstration was organized by two pro-independence groups, the National Catalan Assembly and Omnium Cultural. Their leaders are among nine separatists in prison awaiting trial for their roles in last year's failed breakaway bid by the northeastern Spanish region.

The regional chapters of Spain's two leading labor unions, along with other civil society groups, supported the protest, despite the complaints from some members who disagree with secession for Catalonia. The Barcelona police said some 300,000 people participated in the protest.

"The majority of Catalans, regardless of their political position, agree that pretrial jail is not justified," said a regional union leader, Camil Ros. "What we as labor unions are asking for now is dialogue."

The secession movement in the wealthy region has plunged Spain into its deepest institutional crisis in decades.

Separatist lawmakers defied court orders and held a referendum on independence in October. Their subsequent declaration of independence for the region led to a crackdown by the Spanish authorities, who said they were acting to defend the Spanish Constitution, which declares the nation "indivisible."

Pro-independence parties retained a slim majority in Catalonia's Parliament after an election in December, but courts have blocked their attempts to elect as regional chief any lawmaker who is either behind bars or has fled the country.

The latest opinion poll published by the Catalan government in February said that support for independence had decreased to 40 percent from near 49 percent in October.

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5) Seven Inmates Killed in South Carolina Prison Riot
By MATTHEW HAAG APRIL 16, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/us/south-carolina-prison-riot.html?rref=
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Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, S.C., is a maximum-security prison. Seven inmates were killed there after fights broke out Sunday night. Andy McMillan for The New York Times

Seven inmates were killed and 17 others were injured in a large riot that broke out Sunday night at a maximum-security prison in South Carolina, the authorities said.

The fights started around 7:15 p.m. in three housing units at Lee Correctional Institution, which houses some of the state's most violent and longest-serving offenders. Officers were unable to stop the fighting and secure the prison until around 2:55 a.m. on Monday.

The state's Corrections Department described the fights as "multiple inmate-on-inmate altercations." No police officers or prison employees were injured, the department said.

Lee Correctional Institution, which opened in 1993, houses about 1,500 male inmates. It is in Bishopville, S.C., about 40 miles east of Columbia, the capital.

State officials have pledged for years to make South Carolina's prisons, particularly Lee Correctional Institution, safer after a series of deadly fights. In 2013, Michael McCall, then the warden at Lee, said it was the most dangerous prison in South Carolina.

Two officers were stabbed there in a 2015 fight. An inmate was killed during a fight in July 2017, another was stabbed to death in November, and a third was killed in February.

Last month, several prisoners at Lee overpowered a guard in a dormitory and took control of the building for more than an hour.

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6) A 10-Minute Trial, a Death Sentence: Iraqi Justice for ISIS Suspects
By MARGARET COKER and FALIH HASSAN APRIL 17, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/world/middleeast/iraq-isis-trials.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld&action=click&contentCollection=world&region=
rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

Detainees suspected of being Islamic State fighters in the courthouse in Qaraqosh, Iraq, last year. Detainees have often been sentenced to death after quick trials in special counterterrorism courts.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

BAGHDAD — The 42-year-old housewife had two minutes to defend herself against charges of supporting the Islamic State.

Amina Hassan, a Turkish woman in a flowing black abaya, told the Iraqi judge that she and her family had entered Syria and Iraq illegally and lived in the Islamic State's so-called caliphate for more than two years. But, she added: "I never took money from Islamic State. I brought my own money from Turkey."

The whole trial lasted 10 minutes before the judge sentenced her to death by hanging.

Another accused Turkish woman entered the courtroom. Then another, and another.

Within two hours, 14 women had been tried, convicted and sentenced to die.

Iraq's judicial assembly line has relentlessly churned out terrorism convictions since the battlefield victories over the Islamic State last year led to the capture of thousands of fighters, functionaries and family members. Authorities accuse them of helping to prop up the group's vicious three-year rule over nearly a third of the country.

As millions of Iraqis struggle to recover from the bloodshed and destruction of the period, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has found widespread public support for his push to step up the pace of prosecutions — and for punishments to the full extent of the law, which in Iraq means execution.

"These Islamic State criminals committed crimes against humanity and against our people in Iraq, in Mosul and Salahuddin and Anbar, everywhere," said Gen. Yahya Rasool, the spokesman for the Iraqi joint operations command. "To be loyal to the blood of the victims and to be loyal to the Iraqi people, criminals must receive the death penalty, a punishment that would deter them and those who sympathize with them."

But critics say the perfunctory trials in special counterterrorism courts are sweeping up bystanders and relatives as well as fighters, and executing most of them in a process more concerned with retribution than justice.

The office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that flaws in the judicial process would most likely lead to "irreversible miscarriages" of justice.

Human Rights Watch has criticized Iraq for relying on an overly broad law to quickly achieve the maximum punishment of the most people.

The nation's counterterrorism law allows the death penalty for anyone "who commits, incites, plans, finances or assists in acts of terrorism." So Iraqi courts are meting out one-size-fits-all punishment for the perpetrator of crimes against humanity as well for as the wife of an Islamic State fighter who may have had little say in her husband's career.

"Individual circumstances don't matter," said Belkis Wille, the senior researcher for Iraq for Human Rights Watch. "Cooks, medical workers, everyone is given the death penalty."

The low bar for conviction under the law, she said, also means that the courts are not bothering to investigate some of the worst crimes believed to have been committed by Islamic State members, such as slavery, rape or extrajudicial killings.

Iraq's Justice Ministry rejects such criticism and touts the integrity of its judges and its standards of due process. "If there is evidence then suspects are prosecuted, and if there is no evidence then they are released," said Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, a judge and Justice Ministry spokesman.

The government has not released statistics about its terrorism detainees, but two people familiar with the court who were not authorized to speak to journalists said that approximately 13,000 people had been detained on suspicion of ties to the Islamic State since 2017, when the vast majority of arrests were made.

Human Rights Watch estimated in December that at least 20,000 people accused of ties to the Islamic State were being held by the Iraqi authorities. Last month, The Associated Press reported that Iraq had detained or imprisoned at least 19,000 people since 2014 on accusations of connections to the Islamic State or other terrorism-related offenses.

Many of these detainees were arrested on the battlefield. Some were detained far from combat, based on information gleaned from informers and prison interrogations.

Iraqi intelligence officials say that high-value detainees, people accused of involvement in specific terrorist attacks, are held separately from the majority of prisoners, who are suspected of having been low-level cogs in the Islamic State bureaucracy.

Since the summer of 2017, more than 10,000 cases have been referred to the courts, the people familiar with the court said. To date, they said, approximately 2,900 trials have been completed, with a conviction rate of about 98 percent.

They did not say how many had received the death penalty, nor how many executions had been carried out.

The government said 11 people were executed on Monday for "terrorism crimes," fulfilling "the government's promise to kill those responsible for shedding Iraqi blood," the Justice Ministry said in a statement.

Among those held apart from the general prison population are approximately 1,350 foreign women and 580 children, the majority of whom surrendered to Iraqi security forces last August during military operations to liberate the town of Tal Afar. The vast majority of these detainees are Turkish, Russian and Central Asian.

Iraq says it is determined to try them if evidence links them to the Islamic State, but some of their home countries, including Saudi Arabia, have requested extradition for some of their citizens. Other countries, like Britain and France, have been reluctant to take their citizens back, officials from both countries said.

In rare cases, individuals have been returned to their home countries, such as a group of four Russian women and 27 children in February, after Iraqi authorities concluded they had been tricked into coming to Islamic State territory. Turkey has been working to repatriate minors whose parents took them to the caliphate, as well as those found innocent of wrongdoing.

For a nation that for more than 15 years has been an incubator for Islamist extremists and has been torn apart by terrorist bombings, Iraqis have little appetite for leniency or concern about mitigating circumstances that in other nations could be grounds for clemency. Foreigners in particular are widely assumed to have been the Islamic State's most fervent adherents since they moved here to join the caliphate.

"What concerns me the most in these trials is that the system is fundamentally prejudiced against foreign individuals," said Ms. Wille, who has observed dozens of terrorism trials. "The presumption is because you are foreign, and you were in ISIS territory, there is no need to provide more evidence."

The 14 women convicted in one afternoon this month, 12 Turks and two Azerbaijanis ranging from 20 to 44 years old, had lived in Raqqa, the former capital of the group's territory in Syria. When international airstrikes escalated there and several of their husbands were killed, they moved to Iraq and were among those who surrendered outside Tal Afar.

Gaunt, withdrawn and surrounded by plainclothes security guards, they waited in the florescent-lit hallways of Baghdad's counterterrorism court for their trials to start. Eleven toddlers who had spent the last eight months in detention with their mothers accompanied them to the court.

When Ms. Hassan was called, she handed her child to another detainee to look after. The other women cooed and hummed to try to placate her curly-haired toddler. Some appeared to whisper prayers.

Their state-appointed lawyer, Ali Sultan, said he had not prepared for the trials. He said he had no access to the evidence against his clients because information related to terrorism investigations is classified.

He added that his pay — $25 regardless of whether the case goes to appeal — hardly encourages much effort. The fee is paid only after the final appeal is exhausted or the client is executed which, despite the push to expedite trials, can take months if not years.

After Ms. Hassan was sentenced by Judge Ahmed al-Ameri, he swiftly dispensed with the rest of the docket.

Negar Mohammed told him that she was innocent of all Islamic State crimes; he ruled otherwise.

Nazli Ismail told the judge that her husband pushed her family to go to Syria. Three of her children were killed in an airstrike, she said. The only one to survive was her youngest, a 2-year-old boy named Yahya, who was waiting outside in the hallway.

Judge Ameri asked, "Are you innocent or guilty?"

"I'm innocent," Ms. Ismail replied.

The judge sentenced her to death.

Ms. Ismail accepted her fate with a smile. "This means I will finally go to heaven," she said.

Mother and child left the courthouse under armed guard. It was unclear what would happen to the child.

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7) Is Your Body Appropriate to Wear to School?
By Hayley Krischer, April 17, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/style/student-bra-nipples-school.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=10&pgtype=sectionfront

Lizzy Martinez, 17, pictured outside of her home in Bradenton, Fla., was reprimanded by school officials at Braden River High School for not wearing a bra.CreditZack Wittman for The New York Times

It started with a sunburn.

Lizzy Martinez, 17, a junior at Braden River High School in Bradenton, Fla., had been swimming and tanning all weekend at a water park in Orlando. But when Monday morning came and she had to get dressed for school, Lizzy's bra felt painfully constricting on her burned skin.

So she ditched the bra and purposely chose to wear something dark and loose — a long sleeve, oversize, crew neck gray T-shirt — so she wouldn't draw attention to her chest.

But around 10 a.m., about 15 minutes into her veterinary assistance class, Lizzy was called out of the classroom for a meeting with two school officials, Dean Violeta Velazquez and Principal Sharon Scarbrough. They asked her why she wasn't wearing a bra.

She said she told her school administrators about the sunburn. They insisted that she was violating the school dress code. (The 2017-2018 Code of Student Conduct does not say bras must be worn by female students.) Theytold her to put on an undershirt because boys were "looking and laughing" at her, a detail she later challenged. "No one said a thing to me until I got to the dean's office," Lizzy said.

She was crying and wanted to go home, so Lizzy's mother, Kari Knop, a registered nurse, was called at work. "I said, 'Lizzy, I'm working,'" Ms. Knop said in a phone interview. "I told her, 'Can you just put the undershirt on and call it a day?'"

Lizzy was embarrassed and angry but she relented. When she returned wearing the undershirt, the school principal had left. The dean, according to Lizzy, instructed her to "stand up and move around for her."

"I looked at her and said, 'What do you mean?'" Lizzy said. "I was a little creeped out by that." The school has a strict disciplinary policy and she didn't want to appear defiant. (School officials refused to comment, except in a statement.)

The dean told her that her nipples were still showing through her T-shirt and she should use bandages to cover them up. "She told me, 'I'm thinking of ways I could fix this for you. She said, 'I was a heavier girl and I have all the tricks up my sleeve,'" Lizzy said.

Lizzy was given four adhesive bandages from the school clinic. "They had me 'X' out my nipples," she said.

"They hurt," Lizzy said. "If you ever put Band-Aids on your nipples, those things are stiff. Any time you move around you can just feel it. It's like an annoying, rubbing feeling, especially in a sensitive area." She wore the bandages for 45 minutes before she began crying in class. Her best friend took her to the bathroom and Lizzy lifted her shirt to show her the bandages. Then she peeled them off and contacted her mother.

"I got a text from Lizzy saying, 'This is not a dress code violation and I feel completely attacked,'" said Ms. Knop. She was adamant that if Lizzy had been wearing a see-through or form-fitting shirt without a bra, she wouldn't have allowed her daughter to leave the house. "The fact is that she wore a long sleeve T-shirt that was not see-through. It wasn't even flattering," said Ms. Knop. "So to say she was trying to be a distraction is absolutely absurd."

"She didn't even tell me about the Band-Aids until 28 hours later," she said. "She was so embarrassed."

In a prepared statement, Braden River High School officials said that the situation "should have been handled differently." They maintained that Lizzy was in "violation" of the dress code and that their intention was to "assist the student in addressing the situation."

The incident happened two weeks ago — Lizzy's initial tweet about the incident went viral — but the backlash is still going strong. On Monday, Lizzy and some of her classmates held a silent protest in support of "the destigmitization of natural bodies." Despite threats of disciplinary action, about 30 female students opted not to wear bras, and a number of students decorated their backpacks with Band-Aids in the shape of an X. One student wore a shirt that read, "Do my ni**ples offend you?" (The asterisks were hers.)

In the U.S., more than half of public schools have dress codes. Students are beginning to push back on ones they deem discriminatory, challenging rules against buzz cuts, shirt dresses and hair extensions. In 2014, a group of New Jersey high schoolers created #iammorethanadistraction to push back against their dress code and four years later, it continues to be an active hashtag. Change.org lists over 500 dress code petitions in their database.

Sometimes the rules are overturned.

In March 2017, for example, May and Deanna Cook, two 15-year-old students in the Boston area, were barred from the prom, taken out of extracurricular activities and threatened with suspension if they wouldn't remove their braided hair extensions. The Massachusetts Attorney General ordered the school to reverse their policy. The A.C.L.U. is currently litigating a case against a North Carolina-based public charter school that requires girls to wear skirts to school.

Meredith Harbach, a University of Richmond law professor whose 2016 paper explored sexualization and public school dress codes, said the problem arises when schools impose gender-specific requirements based on sex stereotypes.

In the case of Lizzy, for example, the school is "foisting this notion that unrestrained breasts are sexual and likely to cause disruption and distract other students," Ms. Harbach said. But this kind of messaging that targets young women — your skirt is too short, you look too sexy, you're distracting the boys — "deflects any and all conversation about appropriate mutually respectful behavior in schools between boys and girls," she said.

"Who is disrupted actually? It's Lizzy. Whose learning experience is impacted?" Ms. Harbach said. "It doesn't sound like other kids had a major disruption, but she sure did."

Victoria Schantz, 17, a senior at Indian Trail High School in Kenosha, Wis., has been battling her school dress code since she was in the third grade and a teacher told her that her running shorts were too short. "I didn't see my body as sexual thing at that age and they were making it into one," Ms. Schantz said in a phone interview.

In the seventh grade, Ms. Schantz was sent to an administrator's office for wearing a pair of leggings. In the tenth grade, a male teacher pulled Ms. Schantz out of class because her baggy shirt slipped off her shoulder.

This year, she had enough. Ms. Schantz and 10 other members of the school's student-led Women's Rights and Empowerment Club, created an online petition which received 3,000 signatures, and then they took turns attending school board meetings and speaking about their experiences. Recently, the school board ruled in their favor: Leggings, tank tops and yoga pants will be allowed in the coming school year.

"It's not clear whether the rise we're seeing in advocacy around the issue of dress code is because schools are imposing them in more discriminatory ways now than they were before, or whether more students are feeling empowered to speak up and complain about discriminatory dress codes," said Galen Sherwin, a senior staff attorney at the Women's Rights Project of the A.C.L.U. "But we do definitely see that more students are speaking up."

Her personal suspicion: "This is part of the sea change we're seeing nationwide in speaking up and challenging discriminatory treatment based on sex in all different areas of life."

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8) Judge Orders Lead Inspections in Public Housing
By LUIS FERRÉ-SADURNÍ APRIL 17, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/nyregion/nycha-lead-paint-judge-inspections.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&region=
rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

Jim Walden, a lawyer for public-housing tenants, talked to reporters outside the courthouse in Manhattan as Danny Barber, a tenant leader, held a chart. Kholood Eid for The New York Times

A Manhattan judge hearing a lawsuit by public-housing tenants ordered the New York City Housing Authority on Tuesday to conduct lead inspections in thousands of apartments where young children live.

The preliminary injunction by the judge, Carol R. Edmead of State Supreme Court, marked the latest victory for tenant leaders who sued the authorityafter revelations last November that the agency had not conducted all of the lead paint inspections mandated by federal and local law.

After the lapses became public, in a report by the city's Department of Investigation, the housing authority admitted it had falsely certified lead paint paperwork with the federal government from 2013 to 2017.

Nycha, as the housing authority is known, has about 176,000 units, and in issuing the injunction, Justice Edmead said the agency must identify the thousands of apartments that required annual lead inspections from 2013 to 2017 and inspect them within 90 days.

Her order comes about a week after the resignation of the agency's embattled chairwoman, Shola Olatoye. Ms. Olatoye had come under scrutiny for her handling of lead paint inspections and for the failure of aged boilers that left thousands of residents without heat this winter.

During the hearing, Justice Edmead questioned Nycha's ability to carry out the inspections without a court order.

"There is a whole credibility issue if we should leave this to Nycha or a Nycha-selected contractor," she said.

Lead in paint can cause serious health and developmental problems, particularly in young children.

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9) Israel Celebrates Its Independence, We Mourn Our Loss
By Ayman Odeh, April 18, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/opinion/israel-independence-palestine-nakba.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

Women sit next to the ruins of their dwellings, which were demolished by Israeli bulldozers, in the tiny village of Umm Al-Hiran, in January 2017. Its residents, who are Palestinian citizens of Israel, have unsuccessfully fought the Israeli government for years to receive recognition for their home. Credit
Ammar Awad/Reuters

HAIFA, Israel — Seventy years ago, the world changed around my family. The establishment of the state of Israel represented self-determination for Jews, but a catastrophe — "nakba" in Arabic — for Palestinians. In the area around the Mediterranean city of Haifa, where my family has lived for six generations, only 2,000 Palestinians of a population of 70,000 remained. My grandparents, A'bdel-Hai and A'dla, were among them. Their neighbors were expelled and dispossessed, and never allowed to return.

More than 400 Palestinian communities were destroyed entirely — each one carried the memories and milestones of the families who called it home. My grandparents and all those Palestinian Arabs who remained and became citizens of the state of Israel were placed under military rule in Israel until 1966.

This is a sorrowful and important part of my family's story, and of Palestinian history. It should be recognized and mourned. But in 2011, Israel passed a law declaring that any institution that receives public funds can be financially penalized if it mourns the Nakba on the same day as Independence Day, which Israel celebrates on Thursday.

This law is intended to erase the painful truth of the Nakba, which is an inseparable part of the story of the founding of the state of Israel. It is also a point of proof that the Nakba — the erasure of Palestinians, along with our history, language and stories — is not a single historical event. It is a continuing phenomenon.

The Israeli educational system perpetuates the Nakba by refusing to teach about Palestinian society before 1948. Children in public schools throughout the country, Arab and Jewish, learn about European Zionists like Theodore Herzl, who died well before the establishment of Israel, but nothing about Palestinians before 1948. One would think there was not a Palestinian artist, poet or author before Israel's founding.

The residents of the small village of Umm al-Hiran, whose 1,000 residents are Palestinian citizens of Israel, tasted the continuing Nakba bitterly . They have been battling with the Israeli government for years to receive recognition for their village, which would allow it to finally be connected to the water and electrical grids, and to benefit from public infrastructure like paved roads. But the state dug in its heels in and refused, bulldozing the village over and over.

Finally, desperate to end the uncertainty and pain of living and raising families so precariously, the village residents signed an agreement with the government to move to a nearby town. Umm al-Hiran will be demolished, and a new town called Hiran will be built in its place. According to the planned town's bylaws, it will be home to religious Jews only; these racist requirements are legal under current Israeli law.

Palestinians living in the occupied territories feel the continuing Nakba constantly, at each checkpoint that makes travel unbearable and keeps them contained, at each funeral for an unarmed protester killed by Israeli snipers and each time a settlement is built on stolen land with the blessing of the Israeli government. And if the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu follows through on its desires to annex the West Bank without providing full equal rights to its Palestinian residents, it won't be a new Nakba. It will be the continuation of one that has never fully ended.

I don't believe that my grandparents could have imagined 70 years ago that I would become a member of Knesset, representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, a minority voice in the parliament of the country we did not ask for but that came to us on the land we have always called home. I can't know what place my children and grandchildren will have in their society in the future. But I am sure that to be able to create the kind of future I want for them — one in which they can live with equality and in peace — Israelis will have to do more than recognize the Nakba. They will have to end it.

To end the Nakba is to fully accept our humanity as Palestinians and to acknowledge that the only future for Israelis and Palestinians is a shared future. To end the Nakba, we must end the occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, with Eastern Jerusalem as its capital. To end the Nakba, we must implement a just solution for Palestinian refugees. The Nakba will end when Israel recognizes the crimes of the Nakba and works to correct those mistakes. The Nakba will end when Jewish schoolchildren learn the culture of Arab Palestinians, just as Arab children learn Jewish history and culture, when they study the history of all the indigenous peoples of the land, when Palestinian children grow up with the freedom to move and live and determine their own destinies.

Then we can begin to commemorate the Nakba as a thing of the past, and to mourn it.

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Posted by: bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com

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Thursday, April 19, 2018

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2018

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*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* October 20-21, 2018

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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Support Herman Bell

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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.

By Leonard Peltier

Art by Leonard Peltier

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

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*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* B) ARTICLES IN FULL

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Rio Rico, Ariz.

Michelle Gibbar, teacher at Rio Rico High School

Tempe, Ariz.

Jose Coca, teacher at Kyrene Middle School

North Las Vegas, Nev.

Kelsey Pavelka, teacher at Wilhelm Elementary

Tennessee

Kathryn Vaughn, art teacher

Warren, Mich.

Elliot Glaser, media specialist at Warren Mott High School

Guymon, Okla.

Kristina Johnson, teacher at Guymon Central Junior High School

Providence, R.I.

Rachel Cohen, high-school teacher

Aurora, Colo.

Abby Cillo, elementary-school teacher

Palacios, Tex.

Beth Etzler, teacher at East Side Intermediate Elementary

Boston

David Russell, teacher at McKinley South End Academy

Louisville, Ky.

Ivonne Rovira, teacher at Westport Teenage Parent Program

The desirability of cancelling student debts

The mechanics of cancelling student debts

The benefits of cancelling student debt

The criminalization of private debt

Turning state and local courts into collectors’ courts

Private and public debt in the history of American capitalism

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