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TRAILER: Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhydyxRjujU&feature=player_embedded
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U.S. Out Now! From Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and all U.S. bases around the world; End all U.S. Aid to Israel; Get the military out of our schools and our communities; Demand Equal Rights and Justice for ALL!
TAX THE RICH NOT THE POOR! MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT WAR!
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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Protest: No Cuts To Any of the Services that We, the Workers Earn and Deserve
Tues. Aug. 25, 12noon-2pm
State Building, 455 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco
Our taxes are supposed to help us, the workers, have services that guarantee healthcare, education, housing and jobs for ourselves and our families, but the government is only thinking of and protecting the rich.
They gave 4.7 trillion to the financial sector to help them in their "crisis"; meanwhile they cut 500,000 children from receiving healthcare.
The Chevron Corporation made a profit of $24 billion last year, yet they haven't paid one penny in taxes for extracting the oil in California. Meanwhile, the government is cutting in-home care for thousands of disabled people.
The government gave trillions to save the housing industry and banks, and the bankers gave themselves million dollar bonuses, meanwhile the workers that lost and continue to lose their houses have not been given one penny to save their homes.
The government gave billions to the Chrysler and Ford auto industry and in return the auto industry laid off thousands of workers.
We must fight for our right to housing, healthcare, education and jobs.
We should be the ones to decide where cuts should take place. We do not need investigating units to investigate the poor and their services. We demand investigating units to investigate the rich and their thievery. We must cut the bureaucrats that do nothing but shuffle papers and recommend cutting programs in order to save their $200,000 jobs.
We don't need more police that only protect the rich and kill the poor like Oscar Grant.
What we need is what belongs to us; a decent life for all. It is our right, we work for it.
If you want to fight for yourself, join us.
We will demonstrate in front of the State Building to tell them where the cuts should be.
Sponsored by Companeros Del Barrio, Barrio Unido, ANSWER Coalition, and the Party for Socialism & Liberation (PSL). Call 415-821-6545 for more info.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.answersf.org
answer@answersf.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
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8/25 Solidarity Rally For BART 1555 Workers and CA Public Workers
August 25th (Tuesday) 2009 , 7:00 PM
Alameda Labor Temple
8400 Enterprise St at Hegenberger, Oakland
Oakland Solidarity Rally for ATU 1555 BART Workers
and CA Public Workers
Defend ATU 1555 BART Transit Workers And All Public Workers
Stop the Concessions and Union Busting Now
ATU 1555 Transit Workers are under a massive corporate attack blam-
ing them for any strike and charging them with making greedy demands.
The call by BART bosses for the public to confront ATU 1555 members
individually has resulted in BART workers facing being shot at by BBs
and verbally harassed and attacked on the job by people who are buying
this propaganda.
This anti-labor hysteria is not only aimed against the ATU 1555 BART
workers but all public workers in California. This has been orchestrated
by BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger who made $452,453 last
year and the anti-labor BART board of directors who voted unanimously
to impose an union busting contract on ATU 1555.
The governor as well is attacking SEIU 1000 state workers with imposed furloughs and is now aiming to destroy the public pensions of all those in the State Pension plans in California. In the bay area Richmond United Teachers face possible strike action along with the Oakland Education Association and many other workers in Northern California. The closure as well of the UAW NUMMI Toyota plant is another attack on organized labor.
All transportation and public workers need to come together to back each other up and unite in action the 1.5 million public workers in California. The working people of California can no longer afford to have public workers pitted against other workers and to fight in isolation against these assaults.
Join us and bring your brothers and sisters to hear from SPEAKERS: (Partial list)
ATU 1555 BART Workers
Betty Olson-Jones - Oakland Education Association President
Charles Smith - AFSCME 444 Chief Shop Steward
Jack Heyman - ILWU Local 10 Executive Board Member
Diane Brown - UTR member and Progressive Teachers Caucus leader
ATU 192 AC Members of Transit Workers Action Caucus (TWAC)
Sponsored by AFSCME 444, Transport Workers Solidarity Committee TWSC www.transportworkers.org, United Public Workers For Action www.upwa.info
Labor Donated
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Notice of planning meeting for October 17:
Saturday, August 29 at 11:00 a.m.
Unitarian Universalist Church
1187 Franklin (at Geary)
San Francisco
We will meet in the Chapel. Follow the signs.
(The church is wheelchair accessible via the side entrance on Geary. Simply, turn left on Geary as you pass the church and enter through a walkway on the left. Use the ramp. There you will find two large doors that must be opened from the inside. A person accompanying a wheelchair person should first go inside the church at the Franklin entrance to make arrangements for the sextons to open the doors. We will make every effort to be there early to assist.)
There was a unanimous vote to have a rally/protest to build for Oct 17 on Sept. 4, 2009 at 8:00 AM at the St. Francis Hotel where Nancy Pelosi will be speaking at a breakfast.
Solidarity,
Jeff
510-268-9429
Report:
A broad group of antiwar groups and individuals met Saturday, August 15 and voted to organize a local/regional march and rally Saturday, October 17. The rally will be at U.N. Plaza. The march route is still to be determined. The consensus is to have a "New Orleans"-style funeral march. Committees are working on permits, logistics, outreach, program, finances, etc.
The group adopted the following demands:
Money for Human Needs Not War!
Immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops, military personnel, bases, contractors, and mercenaries from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Colombia.
End U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine! End the Seige of Gaza!
U.S. Hands Off Iran and North Korea!
Self-determination for All Oppressed Nations and Peoples!
End War Crimes Including Torture and Prosecute the War Criminals!
The consensus of the meeting was that although we do not think that this will be a massive outpouring representing the real majority opposition to the wars by the U.S. population, it is important for the voice of opposition to these escalating wars be heard on the eighth anniversary of the war on Afghanistan and the 40th anniversary of the massive October 17, 1969 Vietnam Moratorium.
See historical images of the Vietnam Moratorium at:
http://images.google.com/images?q=vietnam+moratorium&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=lGaISs7pMIP-sQOr2OznAg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4
Image of San Francisco Vietnam Moratorium, Golden Gate Park, October 17, 1969 (I was there...bw):
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rchrd.com/photo/images/pb2-12-15.jpg&imgrefurl=http://rchrd.com/photo/archives/1969/&usg=__FeHN5CAwDXv-ewwCt2Hfni6ZUn8=&h=567&w=850&sz=143&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=EJH6Kzj6YI6zzM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=145&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvietnam%2Bmoratorium%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1
We encourage antiwar activists to attend the next meeting and help plan this important event. A list of endorsers will be forthcoming.
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
https://www.natassembly.org/
Additional report:
Dear Antiwar Activists,
Thanks for attending and/or helping to organize the successful Saturday, August 15 meeting of antiwar activists.
Here's an update and summary of what we decided and progress made. I have also included in the list above the email addresses of all those present plus the addresses of participants in the conference call that initiated the meeting.
Some 32 people attended the August 15 meeting representing a diverse range of groups and organizations. For me what was most important was the collaborative spirit, respectful tone and openness to all ideas presented and the respectful manner that differences of opinion and emphasis were treated.
Organizations present or people who identified as members of organizations present included:
The Iraq Moratorium
The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanisran Wars and Occupations
ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop Wars and End Racism)
UFPJ (United for Peace and Justice)
Workers Action
San Bruno Teachers Union
San Francisco Teachers Union
Labor for Peace and Justice
World Can't Wait
International Action Center
Workers World Party
Peace and Freedom Party
San Jose Peace and Justice Center
Peninsula Peace and Justice Center
ANSWER South Bay
Bay Area United Against War
Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
Socialist Viewpoint magazine
Unitarian Universalists for Peace
Socialist Action
Solidarity
Workers International League
Socialist Organizer
International Action Center
Gray Panthers
BHDC
In addition, we received messages of commitment/pledges of participation and/or apologies for not being able to be present from groups including:
International Socialist Organization
Code Pink
UFPJ
USLAW
Alan Benjamin, SF Labor Council and others
After a thorough discussion two motions were approved unanimously:
1) To organize a Saturday, October 17 march and rally at San Francisco's United Nations Plaza. Since the meeting, we have successfully reserved the UN Plaza.
2) To adopt the following demands for this rally.
•Money for Human Needs Not War! (To be flushed out to include priorities like jobs, pensions, money to stop evictions/foreclosures, healthcare, education, etc.)
• Immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops. military personnel, bases, contractors, and mercenaries from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan!
• End U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine! End the siege of Gaza!
• U.S. hands off Iran and North Korea!
• Self-determination for all oppressed nations and peoples!
• End war crimes including torture; prosecute the war criminals!
It was also agreed that we could/would produce two leaflets with each emphasizing different aspects of the above demands, for example, one focusing on jobs, healthcare, etc and the other focusing on the wars. Of course, the links between the two would also be prominent.
It was further agreed that all participating groups would be free to produce their own leaflets to express their own priorities, issues, objectives, basis for endorsement, etc..
A list of some 65 organizations, national, regional and local, that have endorsed calls for coordinated local and regional October 17 actions was distributed. (See below).This broad range of organizations endorsed October 17 based on the umbrella demand, "Money for Human Needs Not War!" FOR A COMPLETE LIST: https://www.natassembly.org/
The meeting opened with a report that explained that the October 17 date was selected to mark the month that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were begun and to mark the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam Moratorium that mobilized literally millions of people to protest the Vietnam War.
Meeting participants were fully cognizant of the fact that the antiwar movement was presently at a low ebb due to many factors, including widely held illusion that the present administration would bring these wars to an end and the shock absorbed at the depth and scope of the attacks on working people that stemmed from the present economic crisis.
Meeting participants also expressed a variety of concerns focusing on the need to avoid ritual repetitions of past marches and rallies, to have fewer speakers, to develop new and creative ways to express the movement's concerns, to reach out to new constituencies, etc.
From this reporter's vantagepoint, it appeared that everyone present was attuned to these concerns and realized the need to work together in a collaborative and inclusive spirit. Staying in the stress and mobilizing as best as the times allow was seen as a preclude to the times to come when a return to truly massive mobilizations would be on the agenda.
A motion was approved that all future meetings would be wheelchair accessible.
Saturday, August 29 at 11 am was set as the next meeting, place to be determined. There was agreement that our ad hoc organizing group could be called something like the "October 17 Antiwar Coalition."
The following committees were established and met briefly with interim volunteer conveners. Most everyone stayed to sign up for a committee and set a time for a meeting.
Program/Speakers/Tom Lacey and many others
Logistics/Mark/Forrest/Bonnie.
Outreach/Bill, Mel and many others
Fundraising/Carole and Jeff
Initial Leaflet preparation/Julia/Gabe/Michaela
Publicity/Media/Rebecca/others
In solidarity,
Jeff Mackler
510-268-9429
"It will be a great day when the schools get all the money they need and the Navy has to hold a bake sale to buy a ship!" --Sylvia Weinstein
http://www.holtlaborlibrary.org/SylviaWpg2.html
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CodePINK Womyn's Emergency
R O U N D T A B L E
GROUND THE DRONES
Sunday, August 30th
6:00pm
Redwood Gardens,
2951 Derby St, Berkeley
What are DRONES? Who's making them? How many are there? Who's operating them? What do they do?
As Obama DRONES on, what will we do?
How many Americans know about these murderous killing machines assassinating civilians and CIA/Pentagon/Military targeted "bad guys", at a 'success' ratio of 50:1
Come to this Round Table and find out all you never really wanted to know about DRONES and DRONING; and help strategize how we will "GROUND the DRONES"!
As always: music, song, POT LUCK! Bring a Dish to share
Co-sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against War and others
SAVE the DATES: Sept 25th - 30th Encampment Creech AFB
BACK TO THE STREETS!!!
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
protest on the 8th anniversary of the War on Afghanistan
5 pm
new Federal Building, 7th Street btw. Market and Mission, SF
http://www.answercoalition.org
U.S./NATO OUT--BRING TH TROOPS HOME NOW!
HEALTH CARE--NOT WARFARE!
[DON'T BE FOOLED. DON'T LET THE PUBLIC OPTION HEALTH INSURANCE SCAM DIVERT/DIVIDE. THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED. MEDICARE FOR ALL NOW!]
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Eyewitness Gaza:
Breaking the Siege
ANSWER Educational Forum
San Jose:
Tuesday, September 8, 6:30 p.m.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Library
150 E. San Fernando Street (at S. 4th St.)
ANSWER South Bay
408-829-9506
ANSWERsouthbay@gmail.com
San Francisco:
Thursday, September 10, 7:00 p.m.
Centro del Pueblo
474 Valencia Street (Between 16th and 15th Streets)
ANSWER Coalition, Bay Area
415-821-6545
ANSWER@answersf.org
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National Call For Action And Endorsements at the
G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, PA
Sept. 19 - 25, 2009
Endorsers (list in formation): Iraq Veterans Against the War Chapter 61, Pittsburgh; PA State Senator Jim Ferlo; Veterans for Peace Chapter 047, Pittsburgh; National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations; Thomas Merton Center Pittsburgh; Codepink Pittsburgh Women for Peace; Bail Out The People; Green Party of Allegheny County; World Can't Wait; ISO (International Socialist Organization); WILPF (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom) Pittsburgh; Socialist Action; Ohio Valley Peace
Activists from Pittsburgh, the U.S., and across the globe will converge to protest the destructive policies of the G-20 - meeting in Pittsburgh this September 24-25.
The Group of Twenty (G-20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors represents the world's economic leaders, intimately connected to the most powerful multi-national corporations that dominate the global economy. Their neo-liberal policies have squandered billions on war, plunged economies into deep recessions, worsened social, economic and political inequality, and polluted the earth.
We believe a better world is possible. We anticipate involvement and support from like-minded people and organizations across the country for projected actions from September 19-25:
People's Summit - Sept. 19, 21-22 (Saturday, Monday, Tuesday)
A partnership of educators and social justice groups is organizing a People's Summit to discuss global problems and seek solutions that are informed by the basic principles of genuine democracy and human dignity. This will bring together informed speakers and panels to discuss problems we face and possible solutions, also providing interactive workshop discussions.
Mass March on the G-20 - Friday, Sept. 25:
Money for human needs, not for war!
Gather at 12 noon, march to the City County Building downtown
A peaceful, legal march is being sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center, an umbrella organization that supports a wide variety of peace and justice member projects in Pittsburgh. We will hold a mass march to demand "Money for human needs, not for war!"
WE SEEK THE BROADEST RANGE OF SUPPORT, PARTICIPATION, AND ENDORSEMENTS FOR THE MASS MARCH AND PEOPLE'S SUMMIT
To endorse, E-mail: info@pittsburghendthewar.org
Or contact: Thomas Merton Center AWC, 5125 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Several other events are being planned by a wide variety of community and social justice groups in Pittsburgh.
For more information and updates please visit:
http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/g20action.htm
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On the 8th Anniversary of the War on Afghanistan
U.S. -- NATO OUT!
BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
End colonial occupation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Haiti...
Healthcare, jobs, housing, education for all--Not War!
San Francisco Protest:
Wednesday, October 7, 5:00 p.m.
New Federal Building
7th and Mission Streets, Near Civic Center BART
Initiated by the ANSWER Coalition--Act Now to Stop War and End Racism
Volunteers needed: 415-821-6545
answer@answersf.org
ANSWERcoalition.org
ANSWERsf.org
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NATIONAL MARCH FOR EQUALITY
WASHINGTON, D.C. OCTOBER 10-11, 2009
Sign up here and spread the word:
http://www.nationalequalitymarch.com/
On October 10-11, 2009, we will gather in Washington DC from all across
America to let our elected leaders know that *now is the time for full equal
rights for LGBT people.* We will gather. We will march. And we will leave
energized and empowered to do the work that needs to be done in every
community across the nation.
This site will be updated as more information is available. We will organize
grassroots, from the bottom-up, and details will be shared on this website.
Our single demand:
Equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states.
Our philosophy:
As members of every race, class, faith, and community, we see the struggle
for LGBT equality as part of a larger movement for peace and social justice.
Our strategy:
Decentralized organizing for this march in every one of the 435
Congressional districts will build a network to continue organizing beyond
October.
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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 SAN FRANCISCO MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST THE WARS
(TIME AND ROUTE DETAILS TO BE ANNOUNCED)
Commemorating the eighth anniversary of the war on Afghanistan and the 40th anniversary of the massive October 17, 1969 Vietnam Moratorium.
Money for Human Needs Not War!
Immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops, military personnel, bases, contractors, and mercenaries from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Colombia.
End U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine! End the Seige of Gaza!
U.S. Hands Off Iran and North Korea!
Self-determination for All Oppressed Nations and Peoples!
End War Crimes Including Torture and Prosecute the War Criminals!
See historical images of the Vietnam Moratorium at:
http://images.google.com/images?q=vietnam+moratorium&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=lGaISs7pMIP-sQOr2OznAg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4
Image of San Francisco Vietnam Moratorium, Golden Gate Park, October 17, 1969 (I was there...bw):
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rchrd.com/photo/images/pb2-12-15.jpg&imgrefurl=http://rchrd.com/photo/archives/1969/&usg=__FeHN5CAwDXv-ewwCt2Hfni6ZUn8=&h=567&w=850&sz=143&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=EJH6Kzj6YI6zzM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=145&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvietnam%2Bmoratorium%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1
This is an initial announcement. Contact information, endorsers and further details to be announced.
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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From: Labor Cmte. for Peace & Justice
To: bay_area_lc4pj@lists.riseup.net
Sent: Fri, Aug 21, 2009 2:46 am
Subject: [BayArea LC4PJ] Why boycott Whole Foods?
Does John Mackey live in this country, or even on this planet? Reading his recent op-ed article on health-care reform in the Wall Street Journal raises that question. And it's prompted quite a few people to swear off shopping at Whole Foods, of which he is co-founder and CEO.
He wrote in part: "With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
"While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead , we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction-toward less government control and more individual empowerment."
He touts his company's own coverage model, notwithstanding that, by his own admission, it carries a high deductible and leaves 11 percent of its employees uncovered.
What prompt my question about his place of residence are the "reform" proposals he makes in the article. You can read it (and weep, or scream, or tear your hair out, or whatever) at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html
Richard Knee
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Scraping By
Opinion | Op-Ed
In the first of a series by the filmmaker Stewart Thorndike on life during the economic crisis, a tent city in Redmond, Wash., is filling up with the newly homeless who are forming a makeshift community.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/08/06/opinion/1247463860996/op-ed-scraping-by.html
06/26/1787 James Madison Statement: "The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge the wants or feelings of the day-laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe, - when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability."
As quoted in Notes of the Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787 by Robert Yates. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/yates.asp
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Madison
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END THE DEATH PENALTY NOW! END "LIFE WITHOUT POSSIBILITY OF PAROLE"!
This video is a very compelling story of a man who spent 14 years on Death Row for murders he did not commit. He was finally released upon evidence of his innocence and of racial prejudice at his trial. The whole criminal "In-Justice" system in this country is racist to the core and corrupt. That's why the death penalty and life w/o possibility of parole must be overturned and all inmates should be awarded new chances for exoneration...Bonnie Weinstein
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCZK7AxUCQ
Death Penalty Focus
870 Market St. Ste. 859 San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel. 415.243.0143 - Fax 415.243.0994 - www.deathpenalty.org
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This is a must-see video about the life of Oscar Grant, a young man who loved his family and was loved by his family. It's important to watch to understand the tremendous loss felt by his whole family as a result of his cold-blooded murder by BART police officers--Johannes Mehserle being the shooter while the others held Oscar down and handcuffed him to aid Mehserle in the murder of Oscar Grant January 1, 2009.
The family wants to share this video here with you who support justice for Oscar Grant.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/21/18611878.php
WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!
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Urgent: Ahmad Sa'adat transferred to isolation in Ramon prison!
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/
Imprisoned Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa'adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was transferred on August 11, 2009 to Ramon prison in the Naqab desert from Asqelan prison, where he had been held for a number of months. He remains in isolation; prior to his transfer from Asqelan, he had been held since August 1 in a tiny isolation cell of 140 cm x 240 cm after being penalized for communicating with another prisoner in the isolation unit.
Attorney Buthaina Duqmaq, president of the Mandela Association for prisoners' and detainees' rights, reported that this transfer is yet another continuation of the policy of repression and isolation directed at Sa'adat by the Israeli prison administration, aimed at undermining his steadfastness and weakening his health and his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Sa'adat has been moved repeatedly from prison to prison and subject to fines, harsh conditions, isolation and solitary confinement, and medical neglect. Further reports have indicated that he is being denied attorney visits upon his transfer to Ramon.
Ahmad Sa'adat undertook a nine-day hunger strike in June in order to protest the increasing use of isolation against Palestinian prisoners and the denial of prisoners' rights, won through long and hard struggle. The isolation unit at Ramon prison is reported to be one of the worst isolation units in terms of conditions and repeated violations of prisoners' rights in the Israeli prison system.
Sa'adat is serving a 30 year sentence in Israeli military prisons. He was sentenced on December 25, 2008 after a long and illegitimate military trial on political charges, which he boycotted. He was kidnapped by force in a military siege on the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where he had been held since 2002 under U.S., British and PA guard.
Sa'adat is suffering from back injuries that require medical assistance and treatment. Instead of receiving the medical care he needs, the Israeli prison officials are refusing him access to specialists and engaging in medical neglect and maltreatment.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat demands an end to this isolation and calls upon all to protest at local Israeli embassies and consulates (the list is available at: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/ About+the+Ministry/Diplomatic+mission/Web+Sites+of+Israeli+ Missions+Abroad.htm) and to write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the Israelis ensure that Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners receive needed medical care and that this punitive isolation be ended. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at jerusalem..jer@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat!
Ahmad Sa'adat has been repeatedly moved in an attempt to punish him for his steadfastness and leadership and to undermine his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Of course, these tactics have done nothing of the sort. The Palestinian prisoners are daily on the front lines, confronting Israeli oppression and crimes. Today, it is urgent that we stand with Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners against these abuses, and for freedom for all Palestinian prisoners and for all of Palestine!
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
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Troy Anthony Davis is an African American man who has spent the last 18 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted. New evidence and new testimony have been presented to the Georgia courts, but the justice system refuses to consider this evidence, which would prove Troy Davis' innocence once and for all.
Sign the petition and join the NAACP, Amnesty International USA, and other partners in demanding justice for Troy Davis!
http://www.iamtroy.com/
For Now, High Court Punts on Troy Davis, on Death Row for 18 Years
By Ashby Jones
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
June 30, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/06/30/for-now-high-court-punts-on-troy-davis-on-death-row-for-18-years/
Take action now:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12361&ICID=A0906A01&tr=y&auid=5030305
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Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
New videos from April 24 Oakland Mumia event
http://abu-jamal-news.com/article?name=jlboak
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501(c)(3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) C.I.A. Said to Use Outsiders to Put Bombs on Drones
By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI
August 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/us/21intel.html?ref=world
2) U.S. Military to Stay in Philippines
By THOM SHANKER
August 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/world/asia/21military.html?ref=world
3) U.S. and Cuba Work Together on Storms
By MARC LACEY
August 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/world/americas/21storm.html?ref=world
4) Michigan: Prisoners' Lawsuit
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Midwest
August 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/us/21brfs-PRISONERSLAW_BRF.html?ref=us
5) American Indian activist denied parole [RE: Leonard Peltier...bw]
Aug 21 2009 12:50PM
Associated Press
http://www.kxmc.com/News/424465.asp
6) All the President's Zombies
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
August 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html
7) Justice Dept. Report Advises Pursuing C.I.A. Abuse Cases
By DAVID JOHNSTON
August 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/us/politics/24detain.html?hp
8) Report Cites Abuse at State Juvenile Prison Centers
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
August 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/nyregion/25juvenile.html?hp
9) The Philippines Face Classroom Shortage
By SETH MYDANS
August 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/world/asia/25iht-phils.html?ref=world
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1) C.I.A. Said to Use Outsiders to Put Bombs on Drones
By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI
August 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/us/21intel.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON - From a secret division at its North Carolina headquarters, the company formerly known as Blackwater has assumed a role in Washington's most important counterterrorism program: the use of remotely piloted drones to kill Al Qaeda's leaders, according to government officials and current and former employees.
The division's operations are carried out at hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company's contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. They also provide security at the covert bases, the officials said.
The role of the company in the Predator program highlights the degree to which the C.I.A. now depends on outside contractors to perform some of the agency's most important assignments. And it illustrates the resilience of Blackwater, now known as Xe (pronounced Zee) Services, though most people in and outside the company still refer to it as Blackwater. It has grown through government work, even as it attracted criticism and allegations of brutality in Iraq.
A spokesman for the C.I.A. declined to comment for this article.
The New York Times reported Thursday that the agency hired Blackwater in 2004 as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top Qaeda operatives.
In interviews on Thursday, current and former government officials provided new details about Blackwater's association with the assassination program, which began in 2004 not long after Porter J. Goss took over at the C.I.A. The officials said that the spy agency did not dispatch the Blackwater executives with a "license to kill." Instead, it ordered the contractors to begin collecting information on the whereabouts of Al Qaeda's leaders, carry out surveillance and train for possible missions.
"The actual pulling of a trigger in some ways is the easiest part, and the part that requires the least expertise," said one government official familiar with the canceled C.I.A. program. "It's everything that leads up to it that's the meat of the issue."
Any operation to capture or kill militants would have had to have been approved by the C.I.A. director and presented to the White House before it was carried out, the officials said. The agency's current director, Leon E. Panetta, canceled the program and notified Congress of its existence in an emergency meeting in June.
The extent of Blackwater's business dealings with the C.I.A. has largely been hidden, but its public contract with the State Department to provide private security to American diplomats in Iraq has generated intense scrutiny and controversy.
The company lost the job in Iraq this year, after Blackwater guards were involved in shootings in 2007 that left 17 Iraqis dead. It still has other, less prominent State Department work.
Five former Blackwater guards have been indicted in federal court on charges related to the 2007 episode.
A spokeswoman for Xe did not respond to a request for comment.
For its intelligence work, the company's sprawling headquarters in North Carolina has a special division, known as Blackwater Select. The company's first major arrangement with the C.I.A. was signed in 2002, with a contract to provide security for the agency's new station in Kabul, Afghanistan. Blackwater employees assigned to the Predator bases receive training at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada to learn how to load Hellfire missiles and laser-guided smart bombs on the drones, according to current and former employees, who asked not to be identified for fear of upsetting the company.
The C.I.A. has for several years operated Predator drones out of a remote base in Shamsi, Pakistan, but has secretly added a second site at an air base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, several current and former government and company officials said. The existence of the Predator base in Jalalabad has not previously been reported.
Officials said the C.I.A. now conducted most of its Predator missile and bomb strikes on targets in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region from the Jalalabad base, with drones landing or taking off almost hourly. The base in Pakistan is still in use. But officials said that the United States decided to open the Afghanistan operation in part because of the possibility that the Pakistani government, facing growing anti-American sentiment at home, might force the C.I.A. to close the one in Pakistan.
Blackwater is not involved in selecting targets or actual strikes. The targets are selected by the C.I.A., and employees at the agency's headquarters in Langley, Va., pull the trigger remotely. Only a handful of the agency's employees actually work at the Predator bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the current and former employees said.
They said that Blackwater's direct role in these operations had sometimes led to disputes with the C.I.A. Sometimes when a Predator misses a target, agency employees accuse Blackwater of poor bomb assembly, they said. In one instance last year recounted by the employees, a 500-pound bomb dropped off a Predator before it hit the target, leading to a frantic search for the unexploded bomb in the remote Afghan-Pakistani border region. It was eventually found about 100 yards from the original target.
The role of contractors in intelligence work expanded after the Sept. 11 attacks, as spy agencies were forced to fill gaps created when their work forces were reduced during the 1990s, after the end of the cold war.
More than a quarter of the intelligence community's current work force is made up of contractors, carrying out missions like intelligence collection and analysis and, until recently, interrogation of terrorist suspects.
"There are skills we don't have in government that we may have an immediate requirement for," Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who ran the C.I.A. from 2006 until early this year, said during a panel discussion on Thursday on the privatization of intelligence.
General Hayden, who succeeded Mr. Goss at the agency, acknowledged that the C.I.A. program continued under his watch, though it was not a priority. He said the program was never prominent during his time at the C.I.A., which was one reason he did not believe that he had to notify Congress. He said it did not involve outside contractors by the time he came in.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who presides over the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the agency should have notified Congress in any event. "Every single intelligence operation and covert action must be briefed to the Congress," she said. "If they are not, that is a violation of the law."
Mark Landler contributed reporting.
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2) U.S. Military to Stay in Philippines
By THOM SHANKER
August 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/world/asia/21military.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has decided to keep an elite 600-troop counterinsurgency operation deployed in the Philippines despite pressure to reassign its members to fulfill urgent needs elsewhere, like in Afghanistan or Iraq, according to Pentagon officials.
The high-level attention given to the future of the force, known as the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, illustrates the Pentagon's difficulty in finding enough of these highly trained units for assignments to two wars - as well as for the wider effort to combat insurgencies and militancy in other parts of the world deemed to be threats to American interests.
Senior officials said the decision also acknowledged a cautionary lesson from Afghanistan: that battlefield success should be rewarded with sustained commitment, while prematurely turning the military's attention elsewhere - as when the Bush administration shifted focus to Iraq - provides insurgents and terrorists the opportunity to rush back in.
In the seven years that the Philippines-based American force has been operating, its members have trained local security units and provided logistical and intelligence support to Filipino forces fighting insurgents.
Senior officials say the American force and partners in the Central Intelligence Agency were instrumental in successes by the Filipino armed forces in killing and capturing leaders of the militant group Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, antigovernment organizations operating in the south.
In a simultaneous counterinsurgency effort in the Philippines, members of the American force have completed hundreds of infrastructure projects, including roads, schools, health clinics and firehouses, conducted medical examinations and administered vaccines.
Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of American forces in the Pacific, said the force's work was not yet done. "The successes we enjoy, and the gains, can tend to anesthetize us a little bit," he said. "When the options were presented to our leadership, the decision was made to continue the Philippines mission."
Before making his decision, Mr. Gates visited the Philippines in June. Then, Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, followed with an unannounced visit in July - underscoring the tight link between the military and intelligence efforts.
"Based on his briefings heading into Manila and his meetings on the ground there, Secretary Gates just felt this is not the right time to begin scaling back our support," said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. "While we have made real progress against international terrorist groups there, everyone believes they would ramp back up their attacks if we were to draw down."
Even independent, nongovernmental organizations that normally look skeptically on American military efforts have praised the Philippines operation.
"In general, the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines has been regarded as a success story, especially in terms of winning hearts and minds through civic action and medical assistance projects," said Mark L. Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group.
He noted, however, that the insurgency in the Philippines "is a political problem first and foremost" and that no military effort alone can bring success against antigovernment forces.
Special Operations Forces are the most highly skilled in the military at capture-and-kill missions against insurgent and terrorist leaders. Within their ranks, Army Special Forces, known as the Green Berets, have for decades been training allied troops on their home soil and conducting counterinsurgency missions.
The American ambassador to the Philippines, Kristie A. Kenney, said that measuring the impact of the military mission there was difficult, but she emphasized that the task force's efforts were multiplied by being closely coordinated with the Filipino government and American development assistance.
Col. Bill Coultrup, the task force commander, said that when he arrived in 2007, his goal was simple: "Help the Philippines security forces. It's their fight. We don't want to take over."
His service includes deployments with Special Operations units in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Bosnia, where the mission focused on capturing or killing adversaries. But in the Philippines, Colonel Coultrup's work has been only 20 percent combat-related. That portion of the military mission is designed to "help the armed forces of the Philippines neutralize high-value targets - individuals who will never change their minds," he said.
Eighty percent of the effort, though, has been "civil-military operations to change the conditions that allow those high-value targets to have a safe haven," Colonel Coultrup added. "We do that through helping give a better life to the citizens: good governance, better health care, a higher standard of living."
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3) U.S. and Cuba Work Together on Storms
By MARC LACEY
August 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/world/americas/21storm.html?ref=world
MEXICO CITY - The first tropical storms of the season have begun raging across the Atlantic, bringing with them all manner of panic and potential destruction - and, behind the scenes, a little boost in United States-Cuba relations.
The gusty winds, heavy rains and ocean swells that hurricanes produce do not know the difference between Guantánamo and Galveston, which has made the weather one of the few topics on which the United States and Cuban governments regularly engage.
"We've had a close working relationship in regard to tropical cyclones that goes back to the '70s and '80s," said Max Mayfield, who retired in 2007 after seven years as director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "Any storm that goes toward Florida goes over Cuba, so we need their observations. And they need our data from the aircraft."
With coastal communities in both countries vulnerable, meteorology could bring the longtime adversaries closer together, especially with the policy of increased engagement pushed by President Obama, experts argue. Wayne Smith, a former American diplomat in Havana who is now a fellow at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, has brought an array of American officials to Cuba in recent years to look at how Cuban disaster preparedness programs manage to keep the number of hurricane deaths on the island so low.
Among those who made the trip last month were Russel Honoré, a retired lieutenant general who was the commander of the military's Hurricane Katrina task force; Robert Turner, regional director of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East; and Stewart Simonson, assistant secretary for emergency preparedness in the Department of Health and Human Services during the George W. Bush administration.
Ivor van Heerden, a hurricane expert at Louisiana State University who visited Cuba last year, contends that American policies should be loosened to allow a transfer of technology to Cuba to help bolster its oceanographic and weather data collection. The United States could learn from Cuba's evacuation plans, post-disaster medical support and citizen disaster education programs, he said.
"No matter how much our government may decry the Cuban regime, it is a fact that they are very successful in orchestrating evacuations and meeting the public health and medical needs of their population during disasters," Mr. van Heerden wrote in a paper several months ago for the Center for Democracy in the Americas, a Washington-based group that wants to normalize relations with Cuba.
Cubans are taught about hurricanes in elementary school, and every block has a captain whose job it is to help evacuate people and relocate their possessions to safe locations. Evacuations are compulsory in Cuba, which keeps casualties low but also highlights the government's control over most aspects of people's lives. Those same captains also keep tabs on neighbors' loyalty to the government.
"We have a different form of government in the United States," Lyda Ann Thomas, the mayor of Galveston, Tex., told reporters during a visit to Cuba in April to examine Cuba's preparedness plans. "When we call for a mandatory evacuation and citizens are warned they may be left without water and resources, they still have the right to tell their government they do not wish to leave their homes."
For years, the Cubans have allowed American government "hurricane hunter" planes to enter their airspace to measure storms from the air. Even during Mr. Bush's presidency, when the trade embargo between the countries was tightened, American and Cuban government meteorologists were cooperating when it came to storms.
While one part of the United States Commerce Department was in charge of enforcing the embargo - fining those who visited Cuba illegally or purchased outlawed Cuban cigars - another part of it was trading information and engaging in training exercises with the Cubans on storms.
Tensions do still arise. The two governments have turned down hurricane aid from each other, and when advocacy groups held a United States-Cuba hurricane summit meeting in Mexico in 2007, an American government meteorologist said he received a call from the State Department as he was heading there ordering him not to attend.
"The State Department called me at the airport and said, 'You're not allowed to go to the meeting,' " said Lixion Avila, a Cuban-born hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center. "I told them that we meet Cuban meteorologists regularly."
Still, Cuban hurricane experts participate in the annual training exercises at the hurricane center in Miami. "It's not as simple as with Jamaica when it comes to visas, but we work together," Mr. Avila said.
Mr. Mayfield, who is now a hurricane specialist for a Miami television station, said he understood those who were pushing for greater engagement with Cuba and those who considered the government so abhorrent that isolation was the only acceptable approach. "I have a lot of Cuban friends whose parents were taken off to prison by the military," he said. "I understand their views, but it seems there are some areas where it makes sense to talk."
Mr. Mayfield said his counterpart at Cuba's Institute of Meteorology, José Rubiera, had the advantage of having his own government television station to reach the population in advance of approaching storms. "It's easier if you have a government-run television station," Mr. Mayfield said. "He could get the message out anytime he wanted to. There were times I would have liked to have had that platform."
Mr. Avila, whose mother lives in Cuba, sees his work with Cuban meteorologists as apolitical. "I'm trained to save lives and it doesn't matter if they are Cuban, Chinese or American lives I'm saving by forecasting storms," he said.
But he said the evacuation approach used in his birthplace would not necessarily work for his adopted home.
"There, they put everyone in a truck and move them," Mr. Avila said. "You can't do that in the U.S."
But some things are more transferable. Mr. Turner, the Louisiana flood official who visited Cuba last month, said he was impressed with the islandwide disaster drills and the regular inspections of homes to determine their ability to withstand strong winds.
"There are probably lessons that can be learned on both sides," he said.
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4) Michigan: Prisoners' Lawsuit
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Midwest
August 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/us/21brfs-PRISONERSLAW_BRF.html?ref=us
Four hundred more current or former female inmates have filed claims for part of a $100 million settlement in the month since the state resolved accusations that prisoners had been raped, groped and peeked at by male members of the corrections staff, a lawyer said. All told, more than 900 women are seeking money for alleged sexual misconduct inside state prisons from March 1993 to July 2009. The development was disclosed as a Washtenaw County circuit judge, Timothy Connors, gave final approval to the class-action settlement, despite complaints from some former inmates who won at trial, but will get less under the settlement. Ten lawyers who worked on the case will get $28.7 million for their work and for administering the settlement. The remaining $71.3 will be given to victims based on the severity of abuse. Deborah Labelle, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the settlement was fair. "A hundred million dollars recognizes the kind of human rights violations that went on by the state," Ms. Labelle said.
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5) American Indian activist denied parole
Aug 21 2009 12:50PM
Associated Press
http://www.kxmc.com/News/424465.asp
Bismarck, N.D. (AP) U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley says imprisoned American Indian activist Leonard Peltier has once again been denied parole.
Wrigley says the next scheduled hearing for Peltier is 2024, when Peltier would be 79 years old.
Peltier is serving two life sentences for the execution-style deaths of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams during a June 26, 1975, standoff on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
He was convicted in Fargo, N.D., in 1977. He has claimed the FBI framed him, which the agency denies, and unsuccessfully appealed his conviction numerous times.
Peltier had a full parole hearing for the first time in 15 years last month at the Lewisburg, Pa., federal prison where he is being held.
Defense attorney Eric Seitz declined comment on the U.S. Parole Commission decision Friday, saying the Justice Department had not informed him.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APNP 08-21-09 1247CDT
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6) All the President's Zombies
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
August 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html
The debate over the "public option" in health care has been dismaying in many ways. Perhaps the most depressing aspect for progressives, however, has been the extent to which opponents of greater choice in health care have gained traction - in Congress, if not with the broader public - simply by repeating, over and over again, that the public option would be, horrors, a government program.
Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism - by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.
Call me naïve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.
Let's talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.
First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the "magic of the marketplace" were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn't happen.
To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.
Moreover, most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years. President George W. Bush, who had the distinction of being the first Reaganite president to also have a fully Republican Congress, also had the distinction of presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover in which the typical family failed to see any significant income gains.
And then there's the small matter of the worst recession since the 1930s.
There's a lot to be said about the financial disaster of the last two years, but the short version is simple: politicians in the thrall of Reaganite ideology dismantled the New Deal regulations that had prevented banking crises for half a century, believing that financial markets could take care of themselves. The effect was to make the financial system vulnerable to a 1930s-style crisis - and the crisis came.
"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals," said Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937. "We know now that it is bad economics." And last year we learned that lesson all over again.
Or did we? The astonishing thing about the current political scene is the extent to which nothing has changed.
The debate over the public option has, as I said, been depressing in its inanity. Opponents of the option - not just Republicans, but Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad and Senator Ben Nelson - have offered no coherent arguments against it. Mr. Nelson has warned ominously that if the option were available, Americans would choose it over private insurance - which he treats as a self-evidently bad thing, rather than as what should happen if the government plan was, in fact, better than what private insurers offer.
But it's much the same on other fronts. Efforts to strengthen bank regulation appear to be losing steam, as opponents of reform declare that more regulation would lead to less financial innovation - this just months after the wonders of innovation brought our financial system to the edge of collapse, a collapse that was averted only with huge infusions of taxpayer funds.
So why won't these zombie ideas die?
Part of the answer is that there's a lot of money behind them. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something," said Upton Sinclair, "when his salary" - or, I would add, his campaign contributions - "depend upon his not understanding it." In particular, vast amounts of insurance industry money have been flowing to obstructionist Democrats like Mr. Nelson and Senator Max Baucus, whose Gang of Six negotiations have been a crucial roadblock to legislation.
But some of the blame also must rest with President Obama, who famously praised Reagan during the Democratic primary, and hasn't used the bully pulpit to confront government-is-bad fundamentalism. That's ironic, in a way, since a large part of what made Reagan so effective, for better or for worse, was the fact that he sought to change America's thinking as well as its tax code.
How will this all work out? I don't know. But it's hard to avoid the sense that a crucial opportunity is being missed, that we're at what should be a turning point but are failing to make the turn.
In my column last Monday, I made a joke about the Swiss that fell flat with some readers. Also, the Swiss don't wear lederhosen.
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7) Justice Dept. Report Advises Pursuing C.I.A. Abuse Cases
By DAVID JOHNSTON
August 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/us/politics/24detain.html?hp
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department's ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.
The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Department is about to disclose on Monday voluminous details on prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the C.I.A.'s inspector general but have never been released.
When the C.I.A. first referred its inspector general's findings to prosecutors, they decided that none of the cases merited prosecution. But Mr. Holder's associates say that when he took office and saw the allegations, which included the deaths of people in custody and other cases of physical or mental torment, he began to reconsider.
With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the C.I.A. It is politically awkward, too, for Mr. Holder because President Obama has said that he would rather move forward than get bogged down in the issue at the expense of his own agenda.
The advice from the Office of Professional Responsibility strengthens Mr. Holder's hand.
The recommendation to review the closed cases, in effect renewing the inquiries, centers mainly on allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department report is to be made public after classified information is deleted from it.
The cases represent about half of those that were initially investigated and referred to the Justice Department by the C.I.A.'s inspector general, but were later closed. It is not known which cases might be reopened.
Mr. Holder was said to have reacted with disgust earlier this year when he first read accounts of abusive treatment of detainees in a classified version of the inspector general's report and other materials.
In examples that have just come to light, the C.I.A. report describes how C.I.A. officers carried out mock executions and threatened at least one prisoner with a gun and a power drill. It is a violation of the federal torture statute to threaten a prisoner with imminent death.
Mr. Holder, who questioned the thoroughness of previous inquiries by the Justice Department, is expected to announce within days his decision on whether to appoint a prosecutor to conduct a new investigation; in legal circles, it is believed to be highly likely that he will go forward with a fresh criminal inquiry.
Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said Sunday that the Justice Department recommendation to reopen the cases had not been sent to the intelligence agency. He added: "Decisions on whether or not to pursue action in court were made after careful consideration by career prosecutors at the Justice Department. The C.I.A. itself brought these matters - facts and allegations alike - to the department's attention."
The report by the Justice Department's ethics office has been under preparation for more than five years, and its critique of legal work on interrogations provoked bitter complaints from Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey as he was leaving office as the Bush administration's final attorney general.
The Justice Department's report, the most important since Mr. Holder took office, was submitted by Mary Patrice Brown, a veteran Washington federal prosecutor picked by Mr. Holder to lead the Office of Professional Responsibility earlier this year after its longtime chief, H. Marshall Jarrett, moved to another job in the Justice Department.
There has never been any public explanation of why the Justice Department decided not to bring charges in nearly two dozen abuse cases known to be referred to a team of federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., and in some instances not even the details of the cases have been made public.
Former government lawyers said that while some detainees died and others suffered serious abuses, prosecutors decided they would be unlikely to prevail because of problems with mishandled evidence and, in some cases, the inability to locate witnesses or even those said to be the victims.
A few of the cases are well known, like that of Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in 2003 in C.I.A. custody at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after he was first captured by a team of Navy Seals. Prosecutors said he probably received his fatal injuries during his capture, but lawyers for the Seals denied it.
Over the years, some Democratic lawmakers sought more details about the cases and why the Justice Department took no action. They received summaries of the number of cases under scrutiny but few facts about the episodes or the department's decisions not to prosecute.
The cases do not center on allegations of abuse by C.I.A. officers who conducted the forceful interrogations of high-level Qaeda suspects at secret sites, although it is not out of the question that a new investigation would also examine their conduct.
That could mean a look at the case in which C.I.A. officers threatened one prisoner with a handgun and a power drill if he did not cooperate. The detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was suspected as the master plotter behind the 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole.
All civilian employees of the government, including those at the C.I.A., were required to comply with guidelines for interrogations detailed in a series of legal opinions written by the Justice Department. Those opinions, since abandoned by the Obama administration, were the central focus of the Justice Department's internal inquiry.
It has been known that the Justice Department ethics report had criticized the authors of the legal opinions and, in some cases, would recommend referrals to local bar associations for discipline.
But the internal inquiry also examined how the opinions were carried out and how referrals of possible violations were made - a process that led ethics investigators to find misconduct serious enough to warrant renewed criminal investigation.
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8) Report Cites Abuse at State Juvenile Prison Centers
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
August 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/nyregion/25juvenile.html?hp
ALBANY - Children at four juvenile detention centers in New York were so severely abused by workers that it constituted a violation of their constitutional rights, according to a report by the United States Department of Justice made public on Monday.
The findings raise the possibility of a federal takeover of the state's entire youth detention system if the problems are not addressed.
The report caps a nearly two-year investigation by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division into claims of excessive physical force at some of the state's 28 juvenile residential centers, which house children who were convicted of criminal acts but are too young to serve in adult jails and prisons.
Federal investigators found that workers at the four locations - the Lansing Residential Center and the Louis Gossett Jr. Residential Center in Lansing, N.Y., and two facilities, one for boys and one for girls, at Tryon Residential Center in Johnstown, N.Y. - routinely used physical force to restrain residents, despite rules allowing force only as a last resort.
The report documented dozens of episodes at the four centers in a period of less than two years that resulted in serious injuries, including broken teeth and bones. It found that physical force was often the first response to any act of insubordination by residents, who are all under 16.
"Staff at the facilities routinely used uncontrolled, unsafe applications of force, departing from generally accepted standards," says the report, which was given to Gov. David A. Paterson on Aug. 14. "Anything from sneaking an extra cookie to initiating a fistfight may result in a full prone restraint with handcuffs," the report continued. "This one-size-fits-all approach has not surprisingly led to an alarming number of serious injuries to youth, including concussions, broken or knocked-out teeth, and spiral fractures" (bone fractures caused by twisting).
The investigation is the latest blow to New York's troubled juvenile justice system, which currently detains about 1,000 youths.
In a report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union issued in September 2006, New York's juvenile residential centers were rated among the worst in the world.
Later that year, an emotionally disturbed teenager, Darryl Thompson, died after two employees at the Tryon center pinned him down on the ground. The death was ruled a homicide, but a grand jury declined to indict the workers. The boy's mother is suing the state.
During the same period, a separate joint investigation by the state inspector general and the Tompkins County district attorney found that the independent ombudsman's office charged with overseeing juvenile detention centers had virtually ceased to function.
In a statement on Monday, after the report became public, Gladys Carrión, the commissioner of the Office of Children and Family Services, said that the administration had inherited a juvenile justice system "rife with substantial systemic problems" but acknowledged that efforts so far to overhaul it had fallen short.
"We have made great strides," said Ms. Carrión, "but much more still needs to be done."
The previous scandals had spurred a major effort within Ms. Carrión's department, which oversees juvenile residential centers, to overhaul the system. It reconstituted the ombudsman's office and issued clearer policies on the use of physical force, leading to a sharp drop in instances where restraints were applied. The department has also required new training for the staffs at juvenile detention centers.
Officials have also sought to close down centers that were underused and redirect resources to counseling and other services, as other states have done, though they have faced fierce resistance from public employees' unions and their allies in the Legislature. Last year, Mr. Paterson appointed a commission to recommend further changes.
The report by federal investigators revealed that despite those changes, problems at some of the centers remain severe. Under federal law, New York has 49 days to respond with a plan of action to comply with the report's recommendations. If the state does not meet the deadline, the Justice Department can initiate a lawsuit that could result in a federal takeover of the state's juvenile residential centers.
In one case described in the report, a youth was forcibly restrained and handcuffed after refusing to stop laughing when ordered to; the youth sustained a cut lip and injuries to the wrists and elbows. One boy, after glaring at a staff member, was forced into a sitting position and his arms were secured behind his back with such force that his collarbone was broken.
Another youth was restrained eight times in three months despite signs that she might have been contemplating suicide. "In nearly every one of the eight incidents," the report found, "the youth was engaged in behaviors such as head banging, putting paper clips in her mouth, tying a string around her neck, etc."
Officials at the centers also routinely failed to follow state rules requiring that instances in which force is used be reviewed after the fact. In some cases, the same staff member involved in an episode conducted the review. And even when a review determined that excessive force had been used, the staff members responsible sometimes faced no punishment.
In one case, it was recommended that a youth counselor with a documented record of using excessive force should be fired after throwing a youth to the ground with such force that the youth's chin required stitches. But after the counselor's union intervened, the punishment was downgraded to a letter of reprimand, an $800 fine and a two-week suspension that was itself suspended.
The report also found that state officials failed to provide youths in detention with adequate counseling and mental health treatment, something the vast majority of residents require. Three-quarters of residents enter New York's juvenile justice system with drug or alcohol problems, more than half have diagnosed psychological problems and a third have developmental disabilities, according to figures published by Office of Children and Family Services.
"The majority of psychiatric evaluations at the four facilities did not come close to meeting" professional standards, investigators determined, and "typically lacked basic, necessary information."
In many instances, a single resident received several different or conflicting diagnoses - and correspondingly different regimens of psychotropic drugs - from different psychiatrists or counselors. The medications were dispensed without rigorous monitoring. Typically, parents were not offered an opportunity to give their informed consent for the treatment.
One 15-year-old, according to the report, was on six medications at once, with no record of an agreed-upon diagnosis or description of the symptoms the drugs were intended to target. Another resident, a boy who was mentally ill, told a doctor that he thought he might be pregnant.
"Despite this significant incident," the report noted, "it appears that the youth's belief that he was pregnant and the possibility that he was delusional was not communicated to the treating psychiatrist. It is unknown whether this was addressed in the youth's individual therapy."
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9) The Philippines Face Classroom Shortage
By SETH MYDANS
August 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/world/asia/25iht-phils.html?ref=world
MANILA - When Irene Mendevil, a high school English teacher, shouts at her students, she said, she gets a sore throat. So she has begun to use an amplifier.
"I had the experience of losing my voice completely," she said of her constant shouting. "No sounds came out of my mouth. I had to write on paper to tell my students what to do."
Ms. Mendevil, 33, shouts because her class is so big that just getting the students to listen is a challenge. There are 100 of them, more or less the same number as in the other classes here in Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma High School.
And the school itself is not unusual in a country whose population of 92 million is exploding so fast, and whose education budget is so small, that it cannot find space to teach its children.
More children are also coming into the public schools as the economy tightens and families cannot afford the haven of private schools, with their smaller classes.
This school year opened with a nationwide enrollment of 21 million students from elementary through high school, almost exactly a million more than in the previous year.
Although the government began a classroom-building program three years ago, the schools are still 27,124 classrooms short, according to Juan Miguel Luz, a former under secretary of education who works with the National Institute of Policy Study, which advocates better education policies.
To squeeze in all the students, many classrooms have been divided into two by partitions. Stairwells and corridors have been converted into miniature classrooms. In 2006, double sessions were introduced to take off some of the pressure.
Toilets are a problem of their own, with 62 percent of schools suffering shortages, Bashir Rasuman, under secretary for public works, said recently. In the capital, Manila, Education Department figures show an average of one toilet for every 143 high school students and one for every 114 elementary school students.
Here at Muñoz-Palma High School, some lavatories have been converted into claustrophobic faculty lounges, while the lounges have been put to use as classrooms.
"I have 106 students in my class and 90 seats," said Rico Encinares, 34, a chemistry teacher. "Everybody has seats if some of them are absent. But if they all come, there are not enough seats. They have to share seats."
Only about 10 percent of his students - the truly motivated ones - get a quality education, he said. Individual attention is almost impossible.
"I don't know the names of all my students, even at the end of the school year," he said. "You only remember the ones who are very noisy or very good. But the silent ones who just sit there listening, you can't recall their names."
He said he planned to buy an amplifier to reach the ones in the back rows as soon as he had the money.
According to the World Bank, the Philippines spends $138 per student per year. By comparison, Thailand spends $853 per student, Singapore spends $1,800 and Japan spends $5,000.
The Philippine government spends 2.19 percent of its budget on education, according to official figures, well short of the 6 percent that educators say is optimal - despite a constitutional mandate to make education a priority.
At the start of the decade, educators talked of a radical overhaul of the education system, but the main change since then has been increasingly intense overcrowding, Mr. Luz, of the policy study institute, wrote in a recent paper.
"Sadly, today, we have the same overcrowded structure, the same processes and the same low education standards but with millions more children to attend to," he said.
In her state of the nation speech last month, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called education a priority and said the government was building new classrooms.
Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said in a report that the department planned to build 1,908 new classrooms and renovate 2,513 classrooms. He said 6,322 toilets would be installed, though only 194 were to be completed this year. Not long ago, Mr. Lapus also announced that schools would be collecting scrap material to build and repair furniture.
In the Department of Education, a certain amount of manpower was used working out the alliteration of a new program called Operation 10 R - recycle, repair, refurbish, rehabilitate, restore, remodel, repaint, renew, redistribute and reuse.
At the Muñoz-Palma High School, students scavenge for plastic bottles, hauling them in huge sacks to help pay the costs of school equipment.
At the Payatas Elementary School nearby, Edmon Miguel Jr., 24, is spending his own money to try to improve conditions.
"We are just waiting for our salary, the other teacher and me," said Mr. Miguel, who earns 9,000 pesos, or $187, a month. "We will make it a beautiful classroom. We will make it a classroom conducive to learning."
His classroom is a narrow passageway with a tin roof and no windows where 62 children ages 8 to 12 sit crammed together at tiny desks. It floods during monsoon season.
"When it rains, my shoes get wet, but I continue to teach the children," Mr. Miguel said. "Sometimes their notebooks fall in the water."
This is a poor community, he said, and he sometimes buys notebooks and paper for the students. "So each time we have a test," he said, "I buy them a piece of paper."
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