BAUAW Newsletter: 05/17/2009

Saturday, May 23, 2009

BAUAW NEWSLETTER - SATURDAY, MAY 23, 2009

Friday, May 22, 2009

BAUAW NEWSLETTER - FRIDAY, MAY 22, 2009

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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL

(If you would like to be added to the BAUAW list-serve and receive this newsletter via email, send your name (opitional) and email address to: bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com -- it's free. Please put "Add me to the list" in the subject line.)

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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

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MEETING TO DISCUSS THE CASE OF KEVIN COOPER
AND THE ONGOING FIGHT AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 7:00pm at the Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, Oakland

SPECIAL APPEAL FROM KEVIN COOPER:

"I, Kevin Cooper, am asking you to get involved in a life and death struggle. This struggle is not just about me. Even though the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just denied my petition, if you read the 101 page dissent you will see that many of the judges acknowledged my innocence. They write that the evidence was tampered with, and that my constitutional rights were violated. I have been fighting, and will continue to fight. And I am asking you to fight, too.

You best believe that this state is now working very, very hard to have the legal obstacles to starting executions again removed. By the time this brief moratorium is over, there may be close to 20 inmates in here without any appeals left. Just think how many more men, and maybe women, will have their appeals denied by the court, and will be sitting here waiting to be tortured and murdered by this state?! This state will become 'Texas West' if they restart this killing machine in California! So what are we going to do about it? Are we ready for it, because it's coming?!"

INTRODUCTION:

Dear Friends,

Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on death row, was denied by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on May 11th. His case will next go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kevin got support from a substantial minority of justices who voted against the denial. Judge Fletcher, who wrote the dissenting opinion, began his dissent: "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." The dissent describes in detail the case for Kevin's innocence, the tampering, planting, and mishandling of evidence, police and prosecution misconduct, and the constitutional violations.

At the same time, a public comment period on the lethal injection process for the state of California has begun, and will end June 30th with a public hearing in Sacramento. The wrangling over the issue of lethal injection has stopped the State from executing anyone. If the courts approve the latest method, executions will restart.

Kevin, his friends and allies would like to invite you to a meeting to discuss Kevin's case and the state of the death penalty in California, and plan a course of action.

The meeting will be held Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 7:00pm at the Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, Oakland.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent: http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf

May 18, 2009 interview with Kevin Cooper on Flashpoints radio show:
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/50927

Kevin Cooper's website: www.savekevincooper.org

Contact:

Campaign to End the Death Penalty
phone: 510-394-8625
e-mail: california@nodeathpenalty.org

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SF Single Payer Rally - Friday, Noon, May 29
Put Single Payer on the Table for Discussion
Support HR 676
List of 32 national rallies plus Healthcare Now news.

Dear Single Payer Healthcare Activist,
We invite you to help build and attend our May 29 rally at the SF Federal Building. The noon rally will be at 450 Golden Gate. We will be demanding that Congress Member Nancy Pelosi foster a discussion on the single payer legislation, HR 676, the US National Healthcare Act. Our rally will be one of over 30 national rallies. See list below.
We also need help calling our phone tree and sending out a mailing for this event. The mailing party will be held at the home of Susan Cieutat at 531 Grove St. in San Francisco. We will send out the mail on Thursday, May 21 between 2pm and 10pm, and on Friday, May 22 from 11am to 9pm.
Below is the latest alert from Healthcare Now. It contains information on national single payer events. I encourage you to join their action alert list at http://www.healthcare-now.org/campaigns/may-30th-day-of-action/
Please let us know if you can attend the rally, help with our mailing party, or help call our phone tree.

___ I plan to attend the May 29th noon rally in San Francisco.
___ I can help call our phone tree.
___ I can attend the mailing party on Thurs., May 21 between 2pm and 10pm.
___ I can attend the mailing party on Friday, May 22 between 11 and 9pm.
___ I have forwarded this message.

Thank you.
Don Bechler
415-695-7891
www.singlepayernow.net

Rally for Healthcare Minus the Insurance Companies
Tell Congress Member Nancy Pelosi to:
Put Single Payer Healthcare on the Table.
Support HR 676, the US National Healthcare Act
Fri. Noon, May 29
450 Golden Gate - SF
( The Federal Building )

Sponsored by Senior Action Network, the California Alliance for Retired Americans, San Francisco Gray Panthers, and Single Payer Now.
For more information, call 415-695-7891 or email dbechler@value.net labor donated

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End the Siege of Gaza! Rally in San Francisco on June 6
Solidarity Day on the 42nd Anniversary of Israel's seizure of Gaza
Support the Palestinian Right of Return! Stop U.S. Aid to Israel!
Saturday, June 6
12:00 noon
UN Plaza (7th and Market Sts.)

Saturday, June 6 marks the 42nd anniversary of the Israeli seizure of Gaza. Organizations and individuals in solidarity with the people of Palestine will be taking to the streets once again to demand: End the Siege of Gaza!

The world looked on in horror this past winter as Israel mercilessly starved and bombed the people of Gaza, killing around 1,200 Palestinians (at least a third of whom were children). The Arab world now refers to the dark days from the end of December to mid-January "The Gaza Massacre." Although the mainstream media no longer focuses on Gaza, the suffering continues there nonetheless. Using the pretext of combating terrorism, Israel has refused to allow in even one truckload of cement into Gaza. In other words, the city that was reduced to rubble still lies in rubble today. All these months later, people are still living in tents and are scarcely able to secure the necessities of life.

People of conscience around the world continue to raise their voices in outrage at this crime against humanity, and in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Gaza. We will also stand for all Palestinian people's inalienable right to return to their homes from which they were evicted. Let your voice be heard -- join us Saturday, June 6, at 12 noon at UN Plaza in San Francisco (7th and Market Sts.). There will be a joint action in Washington DC on June 6.

Sponsoring organizations include ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), Muslim American Society (MAS) Freedom, National Council of Arab Americans (NCA), Free Palestine Alliance (FPA), Al-Awda - Palestine Right of Return Coalition, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and more!

Contact us at 415-821-6545 or answer@answersf.org to endorse or volunteer!

The June 6 demonstration is a major undertaking and we can't do it without the support of the large number of people who are standing with Palestine. Please click this link right now to make a generous donation:

https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=1443&JServSessionIdr010=5e0ldsoh91.app6a

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Appeals court to hear Pinkney defense June 9, 2009
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
The Michigan Citizen
http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=1&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=7344&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1070&hn=michigancitizen&he=.com

To sign a petition in support of Pinkney:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/624471377

On June 9, the State Appeals Court of Michigan will hear defense arguments in the case of Rev. Edward Pinkney. Pinkney, who is the leader of the Benton Harbor Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizers (BANCO), was convicted by a Berrien County, all-white jury in March 2007 on trumped-up charges related to false allegations of voter fraud.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan has taken Pinkney's case and was successful in winning his release on bond in December 2008, pending the outcome of the appeal.

Pinkney was convicted of four felony counts and one misdemeanor after heading a successful recall campaign against a City Commissioner.

As a result of the recall, the courts in Berrien County overturned the election results citing irregularities. The first trial against Pinkney ended in a hung jury in 2006. The charges were reinstated leading to Pinkney's conviction and subsequent house arrest. He was initially sentenced to one year in jail and four years probation by Berrien County Judge Alfred Butzbaugh.

Pinkney was placed on a tether and not allowed to step outside of his home. His phone calls were monitored and he was prohibited from engaging in community or church activities in Berrien County.

When Pinkney published an article in the Chicago-based People's Tribune newspaper criticizing Judge Butzbaugh's actions in his case, Berrien County hauled Pinkney into courtroom in December of 2007. He was charged with threatening the life of the trial judge and sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison because in the article he had quoted the Book of Deuteronomy 28:14-22.

Over the next year Pinkney was transferred to over six correctional facilities throughout the state.

A nationwide campaign in his defense drew worldwide attention to the pastor's plight as a political prisoner. Even though Pinkney was released on appeal bond on December 24, 2008, his conditions of probation are draconian.

Rev. Pinkney's bond hearing was held in the same Berrien County court system. Under his appeal bond he is denied the right to preach, grant interviews, write articles, address crowds or engage in politics.

Support Builds for Appeals Hearing

In March three friend-of the court briefs were filed in support of overturning the conviction of Rev. Pinkney. A broad-based group of religious organizations, law professors and free speech advocates submitted the legal documents.

"We are thrilled with the overwhelming support from the religious community, constitutional scholars and free speech organizations," said Michael J. Steinberg, ACLU of Michigan Legal Director. "The groups persuasively argue for the fundamental American principle that a preacher cannot be thrown in prison for his religious speech even if some find it offensive."

The religious freedom brief encompasses the views of numerous faith-based organizations.

Another brief was submitted by 18 law professors from various universities including Wayne State Law School, University of Detroit Law School and the Thomas M. Cooley Law School. The brief states that "In this country, under this Constitution, and on this Court's watch, he must not be imprisoned for speaking his conscience."

Also the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression argued in its brief that "In finding that Rev. Pinkney's newspaper editorial violated his conditions of probation, the lower court punished speech at the core of First Amendment protection: public criticism of the judiciary."

Berrien County and American Apartheid

This southwest Michigan county is a stark representation of racism and national oppression in the United States. Benton Harbor, which is over 90 percent African American, is one of the most underdeveloped cities in the state of Michigan. In neighboring St. Joseph, a nearly all-white city, the standard of living is much higher and it is the seat of the county where the court is located.

Over the last several years a so-called development project, Harbor Shores, has unveiled plans to take control of large sections of Benton Harbor to construct a golf course and residential enclave for the wealthy. These plans, along with astronomical foreclosure and unemployment rates, are forcing many residents of Benton Harbor to leave the area.

According to an article published by Dorothy Pinkney, the wife of the persecuted minister, the presiding trial Judge Butzbaugh has interests in the Harbor Shores development project. The Whirlpool Corporation, which is highly-influential in the region, is major promoter of the Harbor Shores scheme.

"My husband was denied due process and the right under state law to an impartial decision maker because the trial judge, Alfred Butzbaugh, had a financial interest in the development of Harbor Shores. This huge development project is what motivated my husband to seek the recall of the corrupt Benton Harbor City Commissioner Glen Yarbrough," Dorothy Pinkney wrote.

She continues by pointing out that "The trial court's financial interest in the Harbor Shores project was not known to my husband until after the trial. The Harbor Shores project which has been primarily pressed by Cornerstone Alliance on behalf of Whirlpool Corporation began in 1998 when the community economic development corporation was formed by John Dewane of the law firm Butzbaugh and Ryan." (BANCO website, April 2009)

The Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI), the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO) and the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights (MCHR) are mobilizing people to attend the appeals hearing for Rev. Pinkney on June 9.

The hearing will take place in Grand Rapids at the Court of Appeals Building, 350 Ottawa St at 9:00 a.m.

For information on transportation from the Detroit area please call MECAWI at 313.680.5508. [For other Michigan transportation, contact
lynnmeadows@provide.net]

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Urgent News
Hearing on Death Penalty June 30, Sacramento
Please: SIGN-UP TO ATTEND!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1265/t/5820/signUp.jsp?key=4279

On May 1st, the State of California announced that it is moving forward with developing execution procedures in order to comply with a recent legal ruling and resume executions, which have been on hold for more than three years.

The State will be holding a hearing on Tuesday, June 30th from 9am to 3pm in Sacramento to hear public comments about the proposed execution procedures.

Death Penalty Focus, along with our allies, will be organizing a critical Day of Action to End the Death Penalty on June 30th.

What You Can Do to Help:

1. Please plan to attend the hearing on June 30th in Sacramento. We will be organizing buses from the SF Bay Area (more details to be announced very soon).

Please: SIGN-UP TO ATTEND!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1265/t/5820/signUp.jsp?key=4279

We need to pack the room with more than 300 hundred supporters. More than one hundred individuals will be needed to give public comment. If they cannot accommodate everyone who signs up to speak, it is possible they will have to schedule another hearing.

After the hearing, we will head to the Capitol to share ours views with elected officials.

2. Please plan to submit a written comment to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). In just a few days we will be sending out suggestions for your comments and instructions on how to submit your comments. The CDCR is required by law to review and respond to every written comment. We need to generate thousands of comments from across the state, country and globe. We need to flood them with paperwork.

Please help us make this Day of Action a success!

Legislative Successes

Colorado
Colorado came very close to ending the death penalty this month when their State Senate voted 17-18 in favor of replacing the death penalty with life without parole and redirecting funding to solve murders. The State House has already passed the bill by a vote of 33-32.

Connecticut
On May 13, the Connecticut House voted 90-56 in favor of ending the death penalty. The bill now moves on to the Senate.

Several abolition bills are still active in other states, including New Hampshire, Illinois, Washington, and also in the U.S. Senate.

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ATTEND THE JULY 10 NATIONAL ASSEMBLY CONFERENCE IN PITTSBURGH!
REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE and DOWNLOAD PRINTABLE BROCHURE (8.5 X 14) at:
https://natassembly.org/Home_Page.html
Dear Brothers and Sisters:

On behalf of the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, we are writing to invite you and members of your organization to attend a national antiwar conference to be held July 10-12, 2009 at La Roche College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The purpose of this conference is to bring together antiwar and social justice activists from across the country to discuss and decide what we can do together to end the wars, occupations, bombing attacks, threats and interventions that are taking place in the Middle East and beyond, which the U.S. government is conducting and promoting.

We believe that such a conference will be welcomed by the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Iran, who are the victims of these policies. It will also be welcomed by victims of the depression-type conditions in this country, with tens of millions losing jobs, homes, health care coverage and pensions, while trillions of dollars are spent bailing out Wall Street and the banks, waging expansionist wars and occupations, and funding the Pentagon's insatiable appetite.

This will be the National Assembly's second conference. The first was held in Cleveland last June and it was attended by over 400 people, including top leaders of the antiwar movement and activists from many states. After discussion and debate, attendees voted - on the basis of one person, one vote - to urge the movement to join together for united spring actions. The National Assembly endorsed and helped build the March actions in Washington D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the April actions in New York City.

We are all aware of the developments since our last conference - the election of a new administration in the U.S., the ongoing occupation of Iraq, the escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the horrific Israeli bombing of Gaza, and the extreme peril of an additional war in the Middle East, this time against Iran. Given all this, it is crystal clear that a strong, united, independent antiwar movement is needed now more than ever. We urge you to help build such a movement by attending the July conference and sharing your ideas and proposals with other attendees regarding where the antiwar movement goes from here.

For more information, please visit the National Assembly's website at natassembly.org, email us at natassembly@aol.com, or call 216-736-4704. We will be glad to send you upon request brochures announcing the July conference (a copy is attached) and you can also register for the conference online. [Please be aware that La Roche College is making available private rooms with baths at a very reasonable rate, but will only guarantee them if reserved by June 25.]

Yours for peace, justice and unity,
National Assembly Administrative Body

Zaineb Alani, Author of The Words of an Iraqi War Survivor & More; Colia Clark, Chair, Richard Wright Centennial Committee, Grandmothers for Mumia Abu-Jamal; Greg Coleridge, Coordinator, Northeast Ohio Anti-War Coalition (NOAC) and Economic Justice and Empowerment Program Director, Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); Alan Dale, Iraq Peace Action Coalition (MN); Donna Dewitt, President, South Carolina AFL-CIO; Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace; Jerry Gordon, Former National Co-Coordinator of the Vietnam-Era National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC) and Member, U.S. Labor Against the War Steering Committee; Jonathan Hutto, Navy Petty Officer, Author of Anti-War Soldier; Co-Founder of Appeal for Redress; Marilyn Levin, Coordinating Committee, Greater Boston United for Justice with Peace, Middle East Crisis Coalition; Jeff Mackler, Founder, San Francisco Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice; Fred Mason, President, Maryland State and District of Columbia AFL-CIO and Co-Convenor, U.S. Labor Against the War; Mary Nichols-Rhodes, Progressive Democrats of America/Ohio Branch; Lynne Stewart, Lynne Stewart Organization/Long Time Attorney and Defender of Constitutional Rights [Bay Area United Against War also was represented at the founding conference and will be there again this year. Carole Seligman and I initiated the motion to include adding opposition to the War in Afghanistan to the demands and title of the National Assembly.

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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS

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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf

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Don't let them kill Troy Davis

The case of Troy Davis highlights the need for criminal justice reform in the United States.

Please help us fight for the rights -- and life -- of Troy Davis today by signing the petition below, asking Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue to act on behalf of justice and commute Troy Davis's death sentence to ensure that Georgia does not put to death a man who may well be innocent.

Mr. Davis has a strong claim to innocence, but he could be executed without a court ever holding a hearing on his claims. Because of this, I urge you to act in the interests of justice and support clemency for Troy Davis. An execution without a proper hearing on significant evidence of innocence would compromise the integrity of Georgia's justice system.

As you may know, Mr. Davis was convicted of the 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail, a conviction based solely on witness testimony. Seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted or contradicted their trial testimony.

The courts, citing procedural rules and time limits, have so far refused to hold an evidentiary hearing to examine these witnesses. Executive clemency exists, and executive action - and your leadership - is required to preserve justice when the protections afforded by our appeals process fail to do so.

Thank you for your attention.

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/2446/t/4676/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=369

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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) A Journey to New York, and Death at Rikers Island
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
May 17, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/nyregion/17inmate.html?ref=nyregion

2) Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama
By Jeremy Scahill
May 15, 2009
AlterNet.org
http://www.alternet.org/rights/140022/little_known_military_thug_squad_still_brutalizing_prisoners_at_gitmo_under_obama/

3) Prosecutors Block Access to DNA Testing for Inmates
By SHAILA DEWAN
May 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/us/18dna.html?hp

4) Prison Workers Fired After Shocking Children With Stun Guns
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/us/18shock.html?ref=us

5) Published by the New York Civil Liberties Union (http://www.nyclu.org)
Record Number of Innocent New Yorkers Stopped, Interrogated by NYPD
May 12, 2009
http://www.nyclu.org/node/2389

6) A Newsroom to Cover the Disenfranchised Voices in Harlem
By JASON GRANT
May 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/nyregion/18harlem.html?ref=nyregion

7) G.M. Seeks More Imports From Low-Wage Regions
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
"General Motors is engaged in negotiating a reorganization that could increase vehicle imports from its plants in Mexico and Asia while closing factories and cutting the work force in the United States."
May 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/business/18auto.html?ref=business

8) War's Psychic Toll
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
May 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/opinion/19herbert.html?_r=1

9) Executions Debated as Missouri Plans One
By MONICA DAVEY
May 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/us/19death.html?ref=us

10) Cost of Cigarette Litter May Fall on San Francisco's Smokers
By JESSE McKINLEY
[Cigarette smoking is a horrible addiction. My mother died of complications from it. Why must we continue to punish the victims of this cold and calculated industry of poison manufacture and sales? Tobacco companies' profits should be taxed 100 percent to pay for the medical needs of those they have gotten addicted as well as all other related problems that they have induced with their lethal products. The tobacco companies should be shut down; their profits commandeered by we, the people! Again, we have the right to choose people over profits!...bw]
May 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/us/19smoke.html?ref=us

11) Pension Plans May Exclude Pregnancy Leaves, Justices Rule
By ADAM LIPTAK
May 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/us/19pregnancy.html?ref=us

12) Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
May 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.html?ref=world

13) Death Row Foes See Newsroom Cuts as Blow
By TIM ARANGO
May 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/business/media/21innocent.html?ref=us

14) Tape of Beating Leads to Firing of 5 Officers
By ROBBIE BROWN
May 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/21birmingham.html?ref=us

15) In a Switch, City Tells Schools to Monitor On-Campus Military Recruiting
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
May 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/nyregion/20recruit.html?ref=education

16) Somali Piracy Suspect Pleads Not Guilty
By Benjamin Weiser
May 21, 2009
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/somali-piracy-suspect-pleads-not-guilty/

17) G.M. and Union Reach Deal on Contract Changes
By NICK BUNKLEY
May 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/business/22auto.html?ref=business

18) Blue Double Cross
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
May 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/opinion/22krugman.html?_r=1

19) Getting Healthy, With a Little Help From the Boss
Patient Money
By LESLEY ALDERMAN
May 23, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/health/23patient.html?hp

20) Oil Industry Braces for Trial on Rights Abuses
By JAD MOUAWAD
May 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/business/global/22shell.html?hp

21) Ex-Soldier Gets Life Sentence for Iraq Murders
"At least four other soldiers have pleaded guilty or were convicted in military courts for their roles in the rape and murders. While most received long prison terms, none are facing the death penalty, and all will be eligible for parole in 10 years or less."
By JAMES DAO
May 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/us/22soldier.html?ref=world

22) Plan to Charge Working Homeless Draws Fire, Again
By Julie Bosman
May 22, 2009, 11:36 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/plan-to-charge-working-homeless-draws-fire-again/

24) The top 10 enemies of single-payer
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER
April 15, 2009
http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=489

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1) A Journey to New York, and Death at Rikers Island
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
May 17, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/nyregion/17inmate.html?ref=nyregion

Early one April morning, a man named Clarence Mobley boarded a bus in North Carolina bound for New York City. He wore his customary baseball cap and jeans, splattered with paint from his work as a handyman. In his pockets, he carried phone numbers for relatives and $40 that his brother Jonathan had given him for the trip.

"Last time I saw him he was good to go," said Jonathan Mobley, who took Clarence to the bus station in Charlotte.

At the other end of the journey, Mr. Mobley's son, Darian Mobley, waited for his father's call; they planned to get together soon after the bus arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Eventually, they were going to join Mr. Mobley's daughter, Ayanna Castro, for a family funeral.

But when the bus pulled away from Charlotte at 12:30 a.m. on April 25, it was the last time any family member heard from Clarence Mobley.

Then on May 4, a friend told Darian Mobley about a newspaper article about a man by that name who had died in custody at a jail on Rikers Island. Darian Mobley called his sister and asked her to check the Internet.

"At that moment I go numb," Mrs. Castro said. "I want to hope against hope that it couldn't possibly be my father."

But it was. The city's Department of Investigation and the Bronx district attorney's office are reviewing what led to Mr. Mobley's death on May 2. The medical examiner's office said Mr. Mobley, 60, died from a tear in his liver that was a result of a blow, but it will not decide whether his death was a homicide until the investigations are completed.

Stephen J. Morello, a spokesman for the city's Correction Department, which runs the jails on Rikers, said Mr. Mobley had menaced a correction officer with a meal tray while in custody on attempted burglary charges. Other officers helped subdue him, and he was placed in a holding cell. When officers checked on him later, they found that Mr. Mobley had died.

Mr. Mobley's relatives said they were unable to reconcile how the slight, loving man known as Eddie could be the same person who, according to the police, court records and interviews, was arrested twice after arriving in New York and seemed to be behaving erratically. In one instance he was spotted jumping on a car, and on another occasion he was seen trying to loosen railings at an apartment building, where residents said he sounded incoherent when they asked what he was doing.

Mrs. Castro, 37, recalled how Mr. Mobley sang at her wedding in 2000 and how he adored his grandchildren.

Jonathan Mobley described how Clarence, the oldest of six boys, took care of them after school when they were growing up in Lancaster, S.C. He made the children laugh at family gatherings, briefly served in the Air Force, and lived for a while in New York City, where he had several jobs including driving a truck.

Clarence Mobley also had his share of struggles, with misdemeanor arrests for drunkenness in South Carolina and for carrying a pocketknife in North Carolina, Jonathan Mobley said. He sometimes came across as incoherent, stuttering violently when he was upset or felt no one was listening, and in recent years suffered from arthritis so crippling that he had to sit on his hands to make them unfold. That made finding odd jobs difficult, his brother said.

The final days of Mr. Mobley's life are partly illuminated by court papers, interviews and official statements about his death. On April 29, Mr. Mobley was arrested about 1 a.m. on 19th Street in Astoria, Queens, on a disorderly conduct charge for jumping atop a Chevy Blazer, according to a criminal complaint. He was released after a court appearance.

A spokesman for the Queens district attorney's office said Mr. Mobley declined his right to make a phone call after his arrest, which baffled Darian Mobley, 31, who lives near where his father was arrested.

"Why didn't he call me? What was he doing?" said the son, who drives a school bus. "Nothing adds up to me, nothing makes sense to me. Sometimes circumstances give you an understanding that helps you deal with grief. To lose my father the way I lost him and have so many questions unanswered, it is hard."

On the morning of April 30, Mr. Mobley was arrested again, this time inside 108-07 101st Street in Richmond Hill, Queens, and charged with trying to break into an apartment there. After hearing scratching noises at their door, Tazeen Danish, who lives in the apartment with her husband and children, said she looked through a stairwell to the ground floor and saw a man trying to unscrew a railing.

"He had a long, new screwdriver and he was waving it like he wanted to kill somebody with it," she said. "We said, 'Who are you? Why are you here?' He said, 'Blah, blah.' We could not understand him." After his arrest, Mr. Mobley was taken to Queens Hospital Center for a psychiatric evaluation and then to the 102nd Precinct station house. He was arraigned on attempted burglary and other charges.

"At court he was very quiet," said Barbara Byrne, Mr. Mobley's court-appointed lawyer, who works for the Legal Aid Society. "I could not get him to say very much. He was staring at the floor and picking at the bars of his cell. Another attorney who had talked to him said he was completely incoherent."

The court ordered Mr. Mobley to remain in custody and undergo another psychiatric evaluation, Ms. Byrne said. He was then sent to Rikers. "They were clearly aware that the gentleman had psychiatric problems," she said.

Mr. Mobley was checked into the Anna M. Kross Center at Rikers at 8:42 a.m. on May 2, his first name misspelled as "Clarnice," said Mr. Morello, the Correction Department spokesman. As he was being prepared to be taken to Bellevue Hospital Center for the examination, he "took a swing at a corrections officer" and was "subdued" by the officer and others, Mr. Morello said.

Mr. Mobley, who was 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed 115 pounds, was put alone in a holding cell. Mr. Morello said he did not know how much time elapsed before he died.

As part of its review, the city's Investigation Department, officials said, will interview jail personnel and examine surveillance video recorded in the jail's public areas.

Mr. Mobley's family started searching for him after he failed to contact his family after his bus arrived. "The alarm bells started going off when it hit nightfall," said Mrs. Castro, who lives in Laurel, Md. They called Greyhound and confirmed that he had transferred buses in Washington to continue his trip to Manhattan.

After a few days, Darian Mobley contacted the station house in the Midtown South precinct. He was told the family needed to file a missing-persons report in South Carolina because Mr. Mobley was from there.

"It is unfortunate," Mrs. Castro said. "He fell through the cracks."

She recalled her father's last words to her before he boarded the bus to New York. "He said when he got off the phone, 'Baby girl, I love you, see you soon,' " Mrs. Castro said. "That was pretty much it."

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2) Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama
By Jeremy Scahill
May 15, 2009
AlterNet.org
http://www.alternet.org/rights/140022/little_known_military_thug_squad_still_brutalizing_prisoners_at_gitmo_under_obama/

The "Black Shirts" of Guantanamo routinely terrorize prisoners, breaking bones, gouging eyes, squeezing testicles, and "dousing" them with chemicals.

As the Obama administration continues to fight the release of some 2,000 photos that graphically document U.S. military abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, an ongoing Spanish investigation is adding harrowing details to the ever-emerging portrait of the torture inside and outside Guantánamo. Among them: "blows to [the] testicles;" "detention underground in total darkness for three weeks with deprivation of food and sleep;" being "inoculated ... through injection with 'a disease for dog cysts;'" the smearing of feces on prisoners; and waterboarding. The torture, according to the Spanish investigation, all occurred "under the authority of American military personnel" and was sometimes conducted in the presence of medical professionals.

More significantly, however, the investigation could for the first time place an intense focus on a notorious, but seldom discussed, thug squad deployed by the U.S. military to retaliate with excessive violence to the slightest resistance by prisoners at Guantánamo.

The force is officially known as the Immediate Reaction Force or Emergency Reaction Force, but inside the walls of Guantánamo, it is known to the prisoners as the Extreme Repression Force. Despite President Barack Obama's publicized pledge to close the prison camp and end torture-and analysis from human rights lawyers who call these forces' actions illegal-IRFs remain very much active at Guantánamo.

IRF: An extrajudicial terror squad

The existence of these forces has been documented since the early days of Guantánamo, but it has rarely been mentioned in the U.S. media or in congressional inquiries into torture. On paper, IRF teams are made up of five military police officers who are on constant stand-by to respond to emergencies. "The IRF team is intended to be used primarily as a forced-extraction team, specializing in the extraction of a detainee who is combative, resistive, or if the possibility of a weapon is in the cell at the time of the extraction," according to a declassified copy of the Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta at Guantánamo. The document was signed on March 27, 2003, by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the man credited with eventually "Gitmoizing" Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-run prisons and who reportedly ordered subordinates to treat prisoners "like dogs." Gen. Miller ran Guantánamo from November 2002 until August 2003 before moving to Iraq in 2004.

When an IRF team is called in, its members are dressed in full riot gear, which some prisoners and their attorneys have compared to "Darth Vader" suits. Each officer is assigned a body part of the prisoner to restrain: head, right arm, left arm, left leg, right leg. According to the SOP memo, the teams are to give verbal warnings to prisoners before storming the cell: "Prior to the use of the IRF team, an interpreter will be used to tell the detainee of the discipline measures to be taken against him and ask whether he intends to resist. Regardless of his answer, his recent behavior and demeanor should be taken into account in determining the validity of his answer." The IRF team is authorized to spray the detainee in the face with mace twice before entering the cell.

According to Gen. Miller's memo: "The physical security of U.S. forces and detainees in U.S. care is paramount. Use the minimum force necessary for mission accomplishment and force protection ... Use of the IRF team and levels of force are not to be used as a method of punishment."

But human rights lawyers, former prisoners and former IRF team members with extensive experience at Guantánamo paint a very different picture of the role these teams played. "They are the Black Shirts of Guantánamo," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented the most Guantánamo prisoners. "IRFs can't be separated from torture. They are a part of the brutalization of humans treated as less than human."

Clive Stafford Smith, who has represented 50 Guantánamo prisoners, including 31 still imprisoned there, has seen the IRF teams up close. "They're goons," he says. "They've played a huge role."

While much of the "torture debate" has emphasized the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" defined by the twisted legal framework of the Office of Legal Council memos, IRF teams in effect operate at Guantánamo as an extrajudicial terror squad that has regularly brutalized prisoners outside of the interrogation room, gang beating them, forcing their heads into toilets, breaking bones, gouging their eyes, squeezing their testicles, urinating on a prisoner's head, banging their heads on concrete floors and hog-tying them-sometimes leaving prisoners tied in excruciating positions for hours on end.

The IRF teams "were fully approved at the highest levels [of the Bush administration], including the Secretary of Defense and with outside consultation of the Justice Department," says Scott Horton, one of the leading experts on U.S. Military and Constitutional law. This force "was designed to disabuse the prisoners of any idea that they would be free from physical assault while in U.S. custody," he says. "They were trained to brutally punish prisoners in a brief period of time, and ridiculous pretexts were taken to justify" the beatings.

So notorious are these teams that a new lexicon was created and used by prisoners and guards alike to describe the beatings: IRFing prisoners or to be IRFed.

Former Guantánamo Army Chaplain James Yee, who witnessed IRFings, described "the seemingly harmless behaviors that brought it on [like] not responding when a guard spoke." Yee said he believed that during daily cell sweeps, guards would intentionally do invasive searches of the Muslim prisoners' "private areas" and Korans to "rile the detainees," saying it "seemed like harassment for the sake of harassment, and the prisoners fought it. Those who did were always IRFed."

"I'll put it like this," Stafford Smith says. "My clients are afraid of them."

"Up to 15 people attempted to commit suicide at Camp Delta due to the abuses of the IRF officials," according to the Spanish investigation. Combined with other documentation, including prisoner testimony and legal memos, the IRF teams appear to be one of the most significant forces in the abuse of prisoners at Guantánamo, worthy of an investigation by U.S. prosecutors in and of themselves.

The IRF-ing of Omar Deghayes

Perhaps the worst abuses in the Spanish case involve Omar Deghayes, whose torture began long before he reached Guantánamo, and intensified upon his arrival.

A Libyan citizen who had lived in Britain since 1986, in the late 1990s, Deghayes was a law student when he traveled to Afghanistan, "for the simple reason that he is a Muslim and he wanted to see what it was like," according to his lawyer, Stafford Smith. While there, he met and married an Afghan woman with whom he had a son.

After 9/11, Deghayes was detained in Lahore, Pakistan, for a month, where he allegedly was subjected to "systematic beatings" and "electric shocks done with a tool that looked like a small gun."

He was then transferred to Islamabad, Pakistan, where he claims he was interrogated by both U.S. and British personnel. There, the torture continued; in a March 2005 memo written by a lawyer who later visited Deghayes at Guantánamo, he described a particularly ghoulish incident:

"One day they took me to a room that had very large snakes in glass boxes. The room was all painted black-and-white, with dim lights. They threatened to leave me there and let the snakes out with me in the room. This really got to me, as there were such sick people that they must have had this room specially made."

Deghayes was eventually moved to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where he was beaten and "kept nude, as part of the process of humiliation due to his religion." U.S. personnel placed Deghayes "inside a closed box with a lock and limited air." He also described seeing U.S. guards sodomize an African prisoner and alleged guards "forced petrol and benzene up the anuses of the prisoners."

"The camp looked like the Nazi camps that I saw in films," Deghayes said.

When Deghayes finally arrived at Guantánamo in September 2002, he found himself the target of the feared IRF teams.

"The IRF team sprayed Mr. Deghayes with mace; they threw him in the air and let him fall on his face ... " according to the Spanish investigation. Deghayes says he also endured a "sexual attack." In March 2004, after being "sprayed in the eyes with mace," Deghayes says authorities refused to provide him with medical attention, causing him to permanently lose sight in his right eye. Stafford Smith described the incident:

"They brought their pepper spray and held him down. They held both of his eyes open and sprayed it into his eyes and later took a towel soaked in pepper spray and rubbed it in his eyes.

"Omar could not see from either eye for two weeks, but he gradually got sight back in one eye.

"He's totally blind in the right eye. I can report that his right eye is all white and milky-he can't see out of it because he has been blinded by the U.S. in Guantánamo."

In fact, Stafford Smith says his blindness was caused by a combination of the pepper spray and the fact that an IRF team member pushed his finger into Deghayes' eye.

The Spanish investigation into Deghayes' torture draws much from the March 2005 memo, which described several acts of abuse of Deghayes at the hands of the IRF teams. (The memo refers to IRF by its alternative acronym ERF):

ERF-ing Omar-The feces incident

On one of the ERFing incidents where Omar was abused, the officer in charge himself came into the cell with the feces of another prisoners [sic] and smeared it onto Omar's face. While some prisoners had thrown feces at the abusive guards, Omar had always emphatically refused to sink to this level. The experience was one of the most disgusting in Omar's life.

ERF-ing Omar-The toilet incident

In April or May 2004, when the Guantánamo administration insisted on taking Omar's English-language Quran, he objected. The ERF team came into Omar's cell and put him in shackles. He was not resisting. They then put his head in the toilet, pressed his face into the water. They repeatedly flushed it.

ERFing Omar-The beating

In one ERFing incident, Omar was shackled by three American soldiers in their black Darth Vader Star Wars uniforms. The first was going to punch Omar, but before he could, the second kneed Omar in the nose, trying to break it. The third queried this, and the second said, "If his nose is broken, that's good. We want to break his ******* nose." The third soldier then took him to hospital.

ERF-ing Omar-The drowning

The ERF team came into the cell with a water hose under very high pressure. He was totally shackled, and they would hold his head fixed still. They would force water up his nose until he was suffocating and would scream for them to stop. This was done with medical staff present, and they would join in. Omar is particularly affected by the fact that there was one nurse who "had been very beautiful and kind" to him to [sic] took part in the process. This happened three times.

ERF-ing Omar-Tango block

Omar was out on the Tango block rec yard when 15 ERF soldiers came, with two other soldiers in the towers, armed with guns. They grabbed him (and others) and sprayed him.

They then pulled him up into the air and slammed his face down, on the left side, on the concrete. They had someone from the hospital there, and she just watched. She then came up to him and asked whether he was OK. He was taken off to isolation after that.

A medical examination cited in the Spanish investigation confirmed that Deghayes suffered from blindness of the right eye, fracture of the nasal bone and fracture of the right index finger, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder and "profound" depression.

Evidence destroyed?

At the Pentagon, an official paper trail should exist that documents the IRFing of Deghayes. What's more, according to Gen. Miller's SOP memo, all of the actions of the IRF teams were to be videotaped as well.

After a prisoner was IRFed, "The medical personnel on site will conduct a medical evaluation of the detainee to check for any injuries sustained during the IRF," and, "all IRF Team members are required to submit sworn statements." These statements, reports and video were "to be kept as evidence."

As of early 2005, there were reportedly 500 hours of video; the ACLU attempted to force their release, but they never have been produced.

"Where are those tapes?" asks CCR President Michael Ratner. In some cases, the answer may well be that they never existed or no longer do. "When an IRFing took place a camera was supposed to be present to capture the IRFing," said Army Spec. Brandon Neely, who was on one of the first IRF teams at Guantánamo. "Every time I witnessed an IRFing a camera was present, but one of two things would happen: (1) the camera would never be turned on, or (2) the camera would be on, but pointed straight at the ground."

Neeley recently gave testimony to the University of California, Davis' Guantánamo Testimonials Project. He also described one IRFing where the video of the incident was destroyed.

Regarding the videos, Stafford Smith says, "There are some things I can't talk about, but I will confirm there is photographic evidence. I am absolutely confident that if all of the photographs were revealed to the world, they would provide irrefutable physical evidence that the prisoners had been" abused by the IRFs.

As for the "sworn statements" by IRF team members, a review of hundreds of pages of declassified incident reports reveals an almost robotic uniformity in the handwritten accounts, overwhelmingly composed of succinct portrayals of operations that went off without a hitch. Almost all of them contain the phrases "minimum amount of force necessary" and the prisoner "received medical attention and evaluation" before being returned.

"All internal investigations of Gitmo so far have completely whitewashed the IRF process," says Horton. "They did so for obvious reasons."

"The IRF program was supported by advice secured from the Justice Department suggesting that insubordinate behavior could be cited to justify a departure from guidelines against physical force. It has a conspiratorial odor to it," says Horton. "In fact the use of IRFs was illegal, a violation of Common Article 3 [of the Geneva Convention] and a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which forbids the use of unnecessary force against prisoners."

While Spain will probably pursue the role the IRF teams played in the torture of its citizens or residents, its scope goes far beyond those specific incidents.

"I have seen detainees IRFed while they were praying, or for refusing medication."

Deghayes' treatment at the hands of the feared IRF teams mirrors that of several other released Guantánamo prisoners.

David Hicks, an Australian citizen held at Guantánamo, said in a sworn affidavit, "I have witnessed the activities of the [IRF], which consists of a squad of soldiers that enter a detainee's cell and brutalize him with the aid of an attack dog ... I have seen detainees suffer serious injuries as a result of being IRFed. I have seen detainees IRFed while they were praying, or for refusing medication."

Binyam Mohamed, released in February, has also described an IRF assault: "They nearly broke my back. The guy on top was twisting me one way, the guys on my legs the other. They marched me out of the cell to the fingerprint room, still cuffed. I clenched my fists behind me so they couldn't take [finger] prints, so they tried to take them by force. The guy at my head sticks his fingers up my nose and wrenches my head back, jerking it around by the nostrils. Then he put his fingers in my eyes. It felt as if he was trying to gouge them out. Another guy was punching my ribs, and another was squeezing my testicles. Finally, I couldn't take it any more. I let them take the prints."

A report prepared by British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce, documents the alleged abuse of a Bahraini citizen, Jumah al Dousari by an IRF team. Before being taken to Guantánamo, al Dousari was widely known to be "mentally ill." On one occasion, the IRF Team was called into his cell after al Dousari allegedly insulted a female soldier. Another prisoner who witnessed the incident described what happened:

"There were usually five people on an ERF team. On this occasion there were eight of them. When Jumah saw them coming, he realized something was wrong and was lying on the floor with his head in his hands. If you're on the floor with your hands on your head, then you would hope that all they would do would be to come in and put the chains on you. That is what they're supposed to do.

"The first man is meant to go in with a shield. On this occasion, the man with the shield threw the shield away, took his helmet off, when the door was unlocked ran in and did a knee drop onto Jumah's back just between his shoulder blades with his full weight. He must have been about 240 pounds in weight. His name was Smith. He was a sergeant E-5. Once he had done that, the others came in and were punching and kicking Jumah. While they were doing that the female officer then came in and was kicking his stomach. Jumah had had an operation and had metal rods in his stomach clamped together in the operation.

"The officer Smith was the MP sergeant who was punching him. He grabbed his head with one hand and with the other hand punched him repeatedly in the face. His nose was broken. He pushed his face, and he smashed it into the concrete floor. All of this should be on video. There was blood everywhere. When they took him out, they hosed the cell down and the water ran red with blood. We all saw it."

Force-feeding as a form of torture

The IRF teams were also used to force-feed hunger-striking prisoners at Guantánamo, including in August 2005. Deghayes was among the hunger strikers, writing in a letter, "I am slowly dying in this solitary prison cell, I have no rights, no hope. So why not take my destiny into my own hands, and die for a principle?"

While the U.S. government portrayed a situation where the hunger strikers were being given medical attention, lawyers for some of the men claim that the tubes used to force feed them were "the thickness of a finger" and "were viewed by the detainees as objects of torture."

According to attorney Julia Tarver, one of her clients, Yousef al-Shehri, had a tube inserted with "one [IRF member] holding his chin while the other held him back by his hair, and a medical staff member forcibly inserted the tube in his nose and down his throat" and into his stomach. "No anesthesia or sedative was provided to alleviate the obvious trauma of the procedure." Tarver said this method caused al-Shehri and others to vomit "substantial amounts of blood."

This was painful enough, but al-Shehri, described the removal of the tubes as "unbearable," causing him to pass out from the pain.

According to Tarver, "Nasal gastric (NG) tubes [were removed] by placing a foot on one end of the tube and yanking the detainee's head back by his hair, causing the tube to be painfully ejected from the detainee's nose. Then, in front of the Guantanamo physicians ... the guards took NG tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitization whatsoever, reinserted it into the nose of a different detainee. When these tubes were reinserted, the detainees could see the blood and stomach bile from the other detainees remaining on the tubes." Medical staff, according to Tarver, made no effort to intervene. This was one of many incidents where IRF teams facilitated such force-feeding.

Aside from hunger strikes, other forms of resistance were met with brutal reprisal. Tarek Dergoul, a prisoner interviewed by Human Rights Watch, described how IRF teams beat him because he "often refused to cooperate with cell searches during prayer time. One reason was that they would abuse the Quran. Another was that the guards deliberately felt up my private parts under the guise of searching me."

Dergoul said, "If I refused a cell search, MPs would call the Extreme Reaction Force, who came in riot gear with plastic shields and pepper spray. The Extreme Reaction Force entered the cell, ran in and pinned me down after spraying me with pepper spray and attacked me. The pepper spray caused me to vomit on several occasions. They poked their fingers in my eyes, banged my head on the floor and kicked and punched me and tied me up like a beast. They often forced my head into the toilet."

Jamal al-Harith claims he was beaten by a five-man IRF team for refusing an injection: "I was terrified of what they were going to do. I had seen victims of [IRF] being paraded in front of my cell. They were battered and bruised into submission. It was a horrible sight and a frequent sight. ... They were really gung-ho, hyped up and aggressive. One of them attacked me really hard and left me with a deep red mark from my backbone down to my knee. I thought I was bleeding, but it was just really bad bruising."

The IRF-ing of Army Sgt. 1st Class Sean Baker

Ironically, perhaps the most well-publicized case of abuse by this force was not inflicted on a Guantanamo prisoner, but on an active-duty U.S. soldier and Gulf War veteran.

In January 2003, Sgt. Sean Baker was ordered to participate in an IRF training drill at Guantánamo where he would play the role of an uncooperative prisoner. Sgt. Baker says he was ordered by his superior to take off his military uniform and put on an orange jumpsuit like those worn by prisoners. He was told to yell out the code word "red" if the situation became unbearable, or he wanted his fellow soldiers to stop.

According to sworn statements, upon entering his cell, IRF members thought they were restraining an actual prisoner. As Sgt. Baker later described:

"They grabbed my arms, my legs, twisted me up and, unfortunately, one of the individuals got up on my back from behind and put pressure down on me while I was face down. Then he-the same individual-reached around and began to choke me and press my head down against the steel floor. After several seconds, 20 to 30 seconds, it seemed like an eternity because I couldn't breathe. When I couldn't breathe, I began to panic and I gave the code word I was supposed to give to stop the exercise, which was 'red.' ... That individual slammed my head against the floor and continued to choke me. Somehow I got enough air. I muttered out: 'I'm a U.S. soldier. I'm a U.S. soldier.'"

Sgt. Baker said his head was slammed once more, and after groaning "I'm a U.S. soldier" one more time, "I heard them say, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa,' you know, like ... he was telling the other guy to stop."

According to CBS:

Bloodied and disoriented, Baker somehow made it back to his unit, and his first thought was to get hold of the videotape. "I said, 'Go get the tape,'" recalls Baker. "'They've got a tape. Go get the tape.' My squad leader went to get the tape."

Every extraction drill at Guantanamo was routinely videotaped, and the tape of this drill would show what happened. But Baker says his squad leader came back and said, "There is no tape."

The New York Times later reported that the military "says it can't find a videotape that is believed to have been made of the incident." Baker was soon diagnosed with traumatic brain injury. He began suffering seizures, sometimes 10 to 12 per day.

"This was just one typical incident, and Baker was recognizable as an American," says Horton. "But it gives a good flavor of what the Gitmo detainees went through, which was generally worse."

IRFing continues under Obama

On January 7, 2009, a prisoner named Yasin Ismael threw a shoe in frustration at the inside of a cage to which he had been confined. The guards accused Ismael of attacking them and called in an IRF team.

According to his attorneys, "The team shackled him, and he put up no resistance. They then beat him. They blocked his nose and mouth until he felt that he would suffocate and hit him repeatedly in the ribs and head. They then took him back to his cell. As he was being taken back, a guard urinated on his head. Mr. Ismael was badly injured, and his ear started to bleed, leaving a large stain on his pillow."

Less than two weeks later, on Jan. 22, newly inaugurated President Obama issued an executive order requiring the closure of Guantánamo within a year and also ordered a review of the status of the prisoners held there, requiring "humane standards of confinement" in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

But one month later, the Center for Constitutional Rights released a report titled "Conditions of Confinement at Guantánamo: Still In Violation of the Law," which found that abuses continued. In fact, one Guantanamo lawyer, Ahmed Ghappour, said that his clients were reporting "a ramping up in abuse" since Obama was elected, including "beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-force feeding detainees who are on hunger strike," according to Reuters.

"Certainly in my experience there have been many, many more reported incidents of abuse since the inauguration," Ghappour said.

While the dominant media coverage of the U.S. torture apparatus has portrayed these tactics as part of a "Bush era" system that Obama has now ended, when it comes to the IRF teams, that is simply not true. "[D]etainees live in constant fear of physical violence. Frequent attacks by IRF teams heighten this anxiety and reinforce that violence and can be inflicted by the guards at any moment for any perceived infraction, or sometimes without provocation or explanation," according to CCR.

In early February 2009, at least 16 men were on hunger strike at Guantanamo's Camp 6 and refused to leave their cells for "force feeding." IRF teams violently extracted them from their cells with the "men being dragged, beaten and stepped on, and their arms and fingers twisted painfully." Tubes were then forced down their noses, which one prisoner described as "torture, torture, torture."

In April, Mohammad al-Qurani, a 21-year-old Guantánamo prisoner from Chad managed to call Al-Jazeera and described a recent beating: "This treatment started about 20 days before Obama came into power, and since then I've been subjected to it almost every day," he said. "Since Obama took charge, he has not shown us that anything will change."

Al-Jazeera reported:

Describing a specific incident, which took place after change in the U.S. administration, al-Qurani said he had refused to leave his cell because they were "not granting me my rights," such as being able to walk around, interact with other inmates and have "normal food."

A group of six soldiers wearing protective gear and helmets entered his cell, accompanied by one soldier carrying a camera and one with tear gas, he said.

"They had a thick rubber or plastic baton they beat me with. They emptied out about two canisters of tear gas on me," he told Al-Jazeera.

"After I stopped talking, and tears were flowing from my eyes, I could hardly see or breathe.

"They then beat me again to the ground, one of them held my head and beat it against the ground. I started screaming to his senior 'see what he's doing, see what he's doing' [but] his senior started laughing and said 'he's doing his job.'"

In another incident after Obama's inauguration, prisoner Khan Tumani began smearing excrement on the walls of his cell to protest his treatment. According to his lawyer, when he "did not clean up the excrement, a large IRF team of ten guards was ordered to his cell and beat him severely. The guards sprayed so much tear gas or other noxious substance after the beating that it made at least one of the guards vomit. Mr. Khan Tumani's skin was still red and burning from the gas days later."

The CCR has called on the Obama administration to immediately end the use of the IRF teams at Guantánamo. Horton, meanwhile, says "detainees should be entitled to compensation for injuries they suffered."

As the abuse continues at Guantánamo, and powerful congressional leaders from both parties and the White House fiercely resist the appointment of an independent special prosecutor, the sad fact is that the best chance for justice for the victims of U.S. torture may well be an ocean away in Madrid, Spain.

"The Obama administration should not need pressure from abroad to uphold our own laws and initiate a criminal investigation in the U.S.," says Vince Warren, CCR's executive director. "I hope the Spanish cases will impress on the president and Attorney General Eric Holder how seriously the rest of the world takes these crimes and show them the issue will not go away."

Jeremy Scahill, an independent journalist who reports frequently for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now, has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is currently a Puffin Writing fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His writing and reporting is available at Rebel Reports.

- AlterNet.org, May 15, 2009

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3) Prosecutors Block Access to DNA Testing for Inmates
By SHAILA DEWAN
May 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/us/18dna.html?hp

In an age of advanced forensic science, the first step toward ending Kenneth Reed's prolonged series of legal appeals should be simple and quick: a DNA test, for which he has offered to pay, on evidence from the 1991 rape of which he was convicted.

Louisiana, where Mr. Reed is in prison, is one of 46 states that have passed laws to enable inmates like him to get such a test. But in many jurisdictions, prosecutors are using new arguments to get around the intent of those laws, particularly in cases with multiple defendants, when it is not clear how many DNA profiles will be found in a sample.

The laws were enacted after DNA evidence exonerated a first wave of prisoners in the early 1990s, when law enforcement authorities strongly resisted reopening old cases. Continued resistance by prosecutors is causing years of delay and, in some cases, eliminating the chance to try other suspects because the statute of limitations has passed by the time the test is granted.

Mr. Reed has been seeking a DNA test for three years, saying it will prove his innocence. But prosecutors have refused, saying he was identified by witnesses, making his identification by DNA unnecessary.

A recent analysis of 225 DNA exonerations by Brandon L. Garrett, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, found that prosecutors opposed DNA testing in almost one out of five cases. In many of the others, they initially opposed testing but ultimately agreed to it. In 98 of those 225 cases, the DNA test identified the real culprit.

In Illinois, prosecutors have opposed a DNA test for Johnnie Lee Savory, convicted of committing a double murder when he was 14, on the grounds that a jury was convinced of his guilt without DNA and that the 175 convicts already exonerated by DNA were "statistically insignificant."

In the case of Robert Conway, a mentally incapacitated man convicted of stabbing a shopkeeper to death in 1986 in Pennsylvania, prosecutors have objected that DNA tests on evidence from the scene would not be enough to prove his innocence.

And in Tennessee, prosecutors withdrew their consent to DNA testing for Rudolph Powers, convicted of a 1980 rape, because the victim had an unidentified consensual sex partner shortly before the attack.

Such arguments, defense lawyers say, often ignore scientific advances like the ability to identify multiple DNA profiles in a single sample.

Defense lawyers also say the arguments ignore the proven power of DNA to refute almost every other type of evidence.

In a case before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, for example, Lynne Abraham, the Philadelphia district attorney, argued that the defendant, Anthony Wright, was not entitled to DNA testing because of the overwhelming evidence presented at trial, including his confession, four witnesses and clothing stained with the victims' blood that the police said was found at Mr. Wright's home. The Pennsylvania DNA statute requires the courts to determine if there is a "reasonable possibility" that the test would prove innocence.

Prosecutors say they are concerned that convicts will seek DNA testing as a delay tactic or a fishing expedition, and that allowing DNA tests undermines hard-won jury verdicts and opens the floodgates to overwhelming requests.

"It's definitely a matter of drawing the line somewhere," said Peter Carr, the assistant district attorney who handled the case of Mr. Wright, who was accused of raping and killing a 77-year-old woman. The defendant did not request testing until 2005, three years after the statute was passed, Mr. Carr said, and in his view there was no possibility that the test would show innocence.

"There's also the idea that you want finality for the victim's sake," Mr. Carr said. "If someone else's semen was found at the crime scene, we'd have to talk to the victim's family about whether the victim was sexually active."

Barry Scheck, a co-founder of the Innocence Project, a New York legal advocacy group that uses DNA to help the wrongfully convicted, said that most prosecutors no longer resisted testing in cases like Mr. Wright's, where there is one perpetrator. More obstacles arise, Mr. Scheck said, in cases with multiple defendants or cases where a test result might point to another suspect, even if it does not clearly prove the innocence of the defendant.

In one such case near Austin, Tex., a defendant who was convicted in the bludgeoning death of his wife requested a DNA test on a bloody bandanna found 100 feet from the house. On its own, a test of the bandanna would not prove the guilt or innocence of the defendant the same way testing semen in a rape case might. But if it matched DNA found at the scene of a similar crime in the same county, or DNA in a database of convicted felons, it would be significant evidence that someone else might be responsible - the kind of evidence that might plant a reasonable doubt in a juror's mind or lead to a confession by a perpetrator.

Although such matches have been found in many cases, most state DNA statutes focus only on whether a test alone could prove innocence. The purpose of Tennessee's DNA statute, a court there said, was "to establish the innocence of the petitioner and not to create conjecture or speculation that the act may have possibly been perpetrated by a phantom defendant."

Law enforcement officials often say, " 'We're not going to consider the possibility that a third party did it,' " Mr. Scheck said, adding, "which is completely crazy because you use the databank every day to make new criminal cases."

In Mr. Reed's case in East Baton Rouge Parish, the district attorney who first prosecuted the case and now his successor, Hillar C. Moore III, have appealed every DNA-related ruling in Mr. Reed's favor and objected to even a hearing on the matter.

They have argued that Mr. Reed's identity was not an issue in the trial because he was identified by the defendant, even though DNA evidence has repeatedly contradicted eyewitness identifications. They have argued that there was no way of knowing whether the evidence would yield a usable DNA profile - a question that would be settled by testing it.

The victim testified that two attackers had sexual intercourse with her, but the prosecutors now argue that it might have been only one, Mr. Reed's accomplice. Even if Mr. Reed's DNA was nowhere to be found, said Prem Burns, the first assistant district attorney, he would still be guilty of aiding the rapist.

Mr. Reed's lawyers have argued that a test on a rape kit and semen could prove his innocence if it shows two distinct profiles and neither is a match.

But Ms. Burns said that under her reading of the law, the mere possibility that the test would show two profiles is not enough - Mr. Reed has to demonstrate, in advance, that a favorable test result would resolve his innocence without question.

But the prosecutors also seem to believe that Mr. Reed's arguments are far-fetched. "There are simply too many 'ifs' in this case," Mr. Moore wrote in a recent appeal.

Prosecutors said much the same when Douglas Warney, convicted of murder in Rochester in 1997, argued that a DNA test could lead to the real killer. They called his assertion "a drawn-out kind of sequence of if, if, if." Yet that is exactly what happened after Mr. Warney's DNA test, and the killer, when he was identified, confessed.

Nina Morrison, a lawyer for Mr. Wright, said: "The one thing I've learned in doing this for seven years is there's no reason to guess or speculate. You can just do the test."

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4) Prison Workers Fired After Shocking Children With Stun Guns
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/us/18shock.html?ref=us

MIAMI (AP) - Demonstrations at three Florida prisons where more than 40 children were shocked with stun guns have led to the dismissal of three employees and the resignation of two others, the Department of Corrections said.

The incidents took place on April 23, national Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. As part of demonstrations at two prisons, children held hands in a circle, and one was shocked with the stun gun, passing the shock around the circle. At another prison, children were shocked individually.

The children, ages 5 to 17, felt the shocks either directly or indirectly, but none of the children were seriously hurt, the department said.

All of the children had parents who work for the department and some parents gave permission for their children to be shocked.

That did not excuse officers' using the stun guns, the Department of Corrections secretary, Walter McNeil, said on Friday.

"We believe this behavior is inexcusable," Mr. McNeil said in a telephone interview. "I apologize to the children and parents. None of these kids should have been exposed to these devices."

Mr. McNeil said that he had never been shocked by a stun gun but that the circle demonstration was commonly done in training classes for correctional officers.

Officials are also investigating a demonstration of tear gas at Lake Correctional Institution in Clermont. Children there were accidentally exposed to the gas when the wind shifted, but none required medical care. That investigation is not complete.

The circle stun gun demonstrations were at two prison in the southern part of the state, Indian River Correctional Institution in Vero Beach and Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown. Seven other children were shocked directly at Franklin Correctional Institution in Carrabelle, southwest of Tallahassee.

Unlike a Taser gun, which shoots a probe that delivers a shock, the devices used at the prisons were stun guns, which work when touched to a person's skin and affect a smaller area of the body. The result is two temporary marks that look like mosquito bites but may later turn into bruises about the width of a pencil eraser.

The department said that 55 of its prisons, just under half, participated in the national event. Many of the facilities had pancake breakfasts, speakers, canine demonstrations and tours of the outside of prisons. Some facilities had trainers demonstrate stun guns on themselves, not a violation of the department's policy.

None of the wardens knew the devices would be used with children, Mr. McNeil said.

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5) Published by the New York Civil Liberties Union (http://www.nyclu.org)
Record Number of Innocent New Yorkers Stopped, Interrogated by NYPD
May 12, 2009
http://www.nyclu.org/node/2389

Related
# The NYCLU's Letter to Commissioner Kelly (PDF)[1]
# The First Quarter Stop-and-Frisk Report (PDF) [2]

The NYPD stopped and interrogated more innocent people during the first three months of 2009 than during any three-month period since the Department began collecting data on its troubling stop-and-frisk program. Police made more than 151,000 stops of completely innocent New Yorkers - the overwhelming majority of whom were black and Latino. These innocent people did nothing wrong, but their names and addresses are now stored in a police database.

"In just three months, the NYPD stopped enough totally innocent New Yorkers to fill the new Yankee Stadium three times over. What's worse is that the disrespect suffered in the stop is not the end of it - these New Yorkers' personal information is now stored in an NYPD database," said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "The mayor and the Police Department's top brass must immediately address this racially-targeted, counterproductive tactic. New Yorkers shouldn't have to be afraid when they see a police officer walking toward them."

According to an NYPD report obtained by the NYCLU and released today, police stopped and interrogated New Yorkers 171,094 times between January and March - a record for total stops. Nearly nine out of 10 of these stops resulted in no charges or citations. This record number of stops fell disproportionately on the city's communities of color - 89,000 of those stopped were black and 56,000 were Latino, while only 16,000 were white.

Overall, this record number of stops represents a 22 percent increase from the 140,151 stops conducted during the last three months of 2008, and an 18 percent increase from the 145,098 stops conducted during the first three months of 2008 - the prior record. If stops continue at this pace, the NYPD will conduct a record 626,767 stops in 2009. In 2008, the current record, police stopped New Yorkers 531,159 times.

Over the past five years, New Yorkers have been subjected to the practice more than 2 million times - a rate of nearly 1,250 every day.

In a letter sent today to NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the NYCLU expressed deep concern about the blanket use of the stop-and-frisk practice and about the NYPD retention of the name and home address of everyone it stops. Calling the database "a gross violation of privacy," the NYCLU called on Kelly to end the practice of recording the names and addresses of everyone stopped and to expunge from the database the names and addresses of everyone stopped without being arrested or given a summons as well as the names and addresses of all people who were arrested or given a summons but whose charges were dismissed or otherwise disposed of.

"The NYPD is, in effect, building a massive database of black and brown New Yorkers," said NYCLU Associate Legal Director Christopher Dunn. "Innocent New Yorkers who are the victims of unjustified police stops should not suffer the further harm of having their personal information kept in an NYPD database, which simply makes them a target for future investigations."

In the summer of 2007, the NYCLU served the NYPD with a formal legal request to turn over the complete stop-and-frisk database under the state's Freedom of Information Law. The Department resisted transparency and so, in November 2007, the NYCLU filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court challenging the NYPD. In May of 2008, the NYCLU won that case and received the database in October, 2008. The NYCLU is currently analyzing that database and will publish its findings this year.

The NYCLU requested the information to allow for an independent analysis of the Department's stop-and-frisk practices, which have been the subject of enormous controversy since the 1999 shooting death of Amadou Diallo.

"Every year hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers are stopped, searched and interrogated by the police for doing nothing more than walking down the street," Lieberman said. "We are deeply concerned about this practice and about racial profiling by the police, and we believe the department must take aggressive measures to address this problem."

The NYCLU's concerns about excessive numbers of stops are supported by the RAND Corporation study commissioned by the Department in 2007. That report estimated that, "[e]ven with the most liberal assumptions," one would expect the NYPD to have "roughly 250,000 to 330,000 stops" each year. Even when measured against the most permissive of standards, the NYPD is on its way to conducting 300,000 more stops than would be expected.
Source URL:
http://www.nyclu.org/node/2389

Links:
[1] http://www.nyclu.org/files/NYCLU_Ltr_ Stop-and Frisk_5-12-09.pdf
[2] http://www.nyclu.org/files/NYPD_Stop-and-Frisk_Report_1stQtr2009.pdf

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6) A Newsroom to Cover the Disenfranchised Voices in Harlem
By JASON GRANT
May 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/nyregion/18harlem.html?ref=nyregion

Cable news radiates from the giant flat-screen television over the green-tile fireplace with a jutting wooden mantel. The rest of the apartment, in a regal town house on Strivers' Row in central Harlem, is crammed with computers, office furniture, handheld video cameras and other electronic equipment.

Two young men sitting side by side edit video reports on large computer monitors. Their boss, Joseph Hayden, occasionally glances up at the television as Nellie Hester Bailey, the director of the Harlem Tenants Council, stands nearby, suggesting ways to promote Mr. Hayden's one-man crusade - building a "CNN for Harlem."

Mr. Hayden, 68, calls himself a news junkie, but adds that what he sees or, more to the point, does not see on the news can be infuriating.

"There's not enough air time for low-income communities and our issues and ideas," he said as he leaned back into his newsroom's couch, a small jade Buddha and gold chain hanging from his neck. "All they talk about is the middle class. They never look down. No one talks to us. They never ask my opinion." During last year's presidential campaign, he said, he "stayed virtually in a state of rage because the mainstream media. They talked with such arrogance and such certitude about what the American people felt."

Determined to change that, at least on a local level, he and two other men last year invested $40,000 to start a news organization, Still Here Harlem Productions, that would, in the words of its mission statement, "cover every aspect of the community life of the marginalized and voiceless in Harlem," which stretches, as Mr. Hayden is fond of saying, "from West 110th Street to Washington Heights, and river to river."

Still Here's half-hour videos began appearing on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network cable channel in September, and in February Mr. Hayden started a Web site, All Things Harlem, which posts video news reports and recordings of Harlem political, social and cultural events.

Mr. Hayden was born in Harlem, and though his current life revolves around television and the Internet, his earlier decades read like chapters in a crime novel. The son of a housecleaner who raised the family by herself, he was first locked up at 16, for heroin possession. He landed in Attica on another conviction (which he said was later overturned), for the attempted murder of a police officer, and he left right before inmates seized the prison. By the time he was in his 30s, he was running nightclubs and had become an associate of Nicky Barnes, the leader of one of the city's largest heroin rings.

"To me, crime is a response," Mr. Hayden said. "You play the hand you're dealt in life. And the hand I was dealt was very harsh."

He was among those indicted with Mr. Barnes on federal charges in 1977, and he was convicted of money laundering. He plays down his connection to the Barnes ring, though Mr. Barnes himself once testified that Mr. Hayden was one of his top lieutenants.

After his release from federal prison, he was convicted of manslaughter - he insisted that he acted in self-defense - but in state prison he earned bachelor's and master's degrees and began teaching. Upon his release he became a community organizer. "As I educated myself and developed, I began to see opportunity in other areas," Mr. Hayden said. "I started to work on changing the system - on trying to reform the system." Community organizing, he added, "felt like the most natural thing in the world to me."

Hitting the street with a video camera seems to come naturally to him as well. On a recent Wednesday, Mr. Hayden and Paolo Walker, one of his producers, were on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard asking passers-by to grade President Obama on his first 100 days in office. That evening they posted their report on their Web site and on CNN's iReport.

A day earlier, Mr. Hayden had covered a rally on gun and gang violence at 135th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard that focused on the shooting of a 13-year-old boy at a party a couple of days before (he later died).

And while covering a symposium and book party at Riverside Church with Mr. Walker the previous weekend, Mr. Hayden saw several familiar faces, including one of the speakers, Jamal Joseph, the chairman of Columbia University's graduate film program.

"It was good to see our news team on the ground," said Mr. Joseph, a former Black Panther, who has known Mr. Hayden for decades. "People will care about the news when it relates to them."

Back in his newsroom, the huge television was still on and Mr. Hayden's hands swept the air as he discussed how his vision was unfolding. "Everybody in the world knows about Harlem," he said. "So I figured if I could limit my coverage, if I could just cover this community effectively, then I could build a model here."

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7) G.M. Seeks More Imports From Low-Wage Regions
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
"General Motors is engaged in negotiating a reorganization that could increase vehicle imports from its plants in Mexico and Asia while closing factories and cutting the work force in the United States."
May 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/business/18auto.html?ref=business

General Motors is engaged in negotiating a reorganization that could increase vehicle imports from its plants in Mexico and Asia while closing factories and cutting the work force in the United States.

That approach drew a sharp rebuke from the United Automobile Workers union on Friday. In a letter to each member of Congress, the U.A.W., which represents G.M. factory workers, argued that to qualify for more government assistance, the auto giant should be required "to maintain the maximum number of jobs in the United States."

The administration, however, appears to accept the proposition that to return to profitability as quickly as possible, G.M. must import a significant percentage of cars from its plants in low-wage countries, like Mexico and China, or low-cost countries, like Japan.

G.M. already imports a third of the vehicles that go to showrooms in this country. That percentage would not change in the plan that G.M. is preparing to submit to the administration to justify billions of dollars in new loans to stave off collapse. G.M. would emerge a smaller company, with fewer employees and less output in this country and abroad. But imports would rise from low-cost countries, particularly Mexico and China, and that would be offset by fewer imports from Canada and Europe.

Some economists, like David Autor of M.I.T., say that G.M. cars made in China, among other countries, "are pretty competitive and could be sold here."

Others, like Harley Shaiken, at the University of California, Berkeley, argue that if G.M. focused more intensely on technology and auto quality, it could concentrate production in the United States and still be competitive. "The other way to go," he said, "is to cut costs by importing more vehicles from Mexico and China, and lifting the bottom line that way."

A Treasury spokeswoman said over the weekend that "G.M. and the U.A.W. are in active and constructive deliberations around all aspects of their plan. This is one of several issues they are focused on and the administration is supportive of their efforts to come to a resolution."

G.M. is asking Washington for billions of dollars more in federal loans to survive, on top of the $15.4 billion already borrowed. In a presentation to Congress, the company laid out the plan for the shifts in production to lower-cost countries. In the United States, G.M. would close 16 of its remaining 47 plants and eliminate an additional 21,000 jobs. The company also announced on Friday that 1,100 dealers would be eliminated from its American network by the fall of next year.

In the letter to Congress on Friday, Alan Reuther, the U.A.W.'s legislative director, also argued that if G.M. cut back production in Canada, it would hurt small manufacturers in the United States that supply parts to G.M.'s Canadian assembly plants.

But the Obama administration apparently sees interference in such plans as crossing a line into industrial policy, rather than helping a giant multinational get back on its feet as a successful, privately managed global operation. Insisting that G.M. preserve American jobs by shifting production to the United States from abroad, this argument goes, would require many times more in federal aid than the $16.3 billion in loans now anticipated.

"The idea is to get G.M. off the government dole," Mr. Autor said. "And if that is the case, then one has to take the steps that a free-standing company must take to be profitable."

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8) War's Psychic Toll
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
May 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/opinion/19herbert.html?_r=1

I couldn't have been less surprised to read last week that an American G.I. had been charged with gunning down five of his fellow service members in Iraq. The fact that this occurred at a mental health counseling center in the war zone just served to add an extra layer of poignancy and a chilling ironic element to the fundamental tragedy.

The psychic toll of this foolish and apparently endless war has been profound since day one. And the nation's willful denial of that toll has been just as profound.

According to authorities, John Russell, a 44-year-old Army sergeant who had been recognized as deeply troubled and was on his third tour in Iraq, went into the counseling center on the afternoon of May 11 and opened fire - killing an Army officer, a Navy officer and three enlisted soldiers. The three enlistees were 19, 20 and 25 years old.

This is what happens in wars. Wars are about killing, and once the killing is unleashed it takes many, many forms. Which is why it's so sick to fight unnecessary wars, and so immoral to send other people's children off to wars - psychic as well as physical - from which one's own children are carefully protected.

The fallout from the psychic stress of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been vast, but there was no reason for its destructive effects to have surprised anyone. There was plenty of evidence that this would be an enormous problem. Speaking of Iraq back in 2004, Dr. Stephen C. Joseph, who had been an assistant secretary of defense during the Clinton administration, said, "I have a very strong sense that the mental health consequences are going to be the medical story of this war."

I remember writing a column about Jeffrey Lucey, a 23-year-old Marine who was deeply depressed and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D., when he returned from Iraq after serving in the earliest months of the war. He described gruesome events that he had encountered and was harshly critical of himself. He drank to excess, had nightmares, withdrew from friends and wrecked the family car.

On the afternoon of June 22, 2004, he wrote a note that said, "It's 4:35 p.m. and I am near completing my death." He then hanged himself with a garden hose in the basement of his parents' home.

Because we have chosen not to share the sacrifices of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the terrible burden of these conflicts is being shouldered by an obscenely small portion of the population. Since this warrior class is so small, the same troops have to be sent into the war zones for tour after harrowing tour.

As the tours mount up, so do the mental health problems. Combat is crazy-making to start with. Multiple tours are recipes for complete meltdowns.

As the RAND Corporation reported in a study released last year:

"Not only is a higher proportion of the armed forces being deployed, but deployments have been longer, redeployment to combat has been common, and breaks between deployments have been infrequent."

Recent attempts by the military to deal with some of the most egregious aspects of its deployment policies have amounted to much too little, much too late. The RAND study found that approximately 300,000 men and women who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan were already suffering from P.T.S.D. or major depression. That's nearly one in every five returning veterans.

The mass-produced tragedies of war go far beyond combat deaths. Behind the abstract wall of RAND's statistics is the immense real-life suffering of very real people. The toll includes the victims of violence and drunkenness and broken homes and suicides. Most of the stories never make their way into print. The public that professes such admiration and support for our fighting men and women are not interested.

Other studies have paralleled RAND's in spotlighting the psychic toll of these wars. A CBS News survey found that veterans aged 20 to 24 were two to four times as likely to commit suicide as nonveterans the same age. A Time magazine cover story last year disclosed that "for the first time in history, a sizable and growing number of U.S. combat troops are taking daily doses of antidepressants to calm nerves strained by repeated and lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan."

We're brutally and cold-bloodedly sacrificing the psychological well-being of these men and women, which should be a scandal. If these wars are so important to our national security, we should all be engaging in some form of serious sacrifice, and many more of us should be serving.

But the country soothes its conscience and tamps down its guilt with the cowardly invocation: "Oh, they're volunteers. They knew what they were getting into."

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9) Executions Debated as Missouri Plans One
By MONICA DAVEY
May 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/us/19death.html?ref=us

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Officials in this state are preparing to execute a prisoner for the first time since 2005, when criticisms about the state's lethal injection method emerged and one doctor who carried out executions acknowledged being dyslexic and sometimes "improvising" when it came to the amounts of chemicals he administered.

That doctor will no longer take part, and a United States Supreme Court ruling last year upheld a lethal injection procedure similar to the one Missouri will use, but some lawmakers, including some prominent Republicans, say they have lingering questions about the state's system of capital punishment.

The focus of those questions has shifted some, no longer centering on the method of execution but turning toward which prisoners are condemned and which are not, and whether those choices make sense.

"I still favor the death penalty, but I just want to make sure we put the right people to death," said State Representative Bill Deeken, a Republican, explaining why he last week proposed delaying the death penalty for two years more until a study can determine whether it is meted out fairly in this state. "At this point, we just do not know."

In 2006, a federal judge had found the state's methods so chilling that he ordered a stop to executions - and a remaking of the system here - until state officials issued a protocol for lethal injection that satisfied him.

At 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, Dennis J. Skillicorn is to be executed for his role in the murder of Richard Drummond, a businessman who had offered help to Mr. Skillicorn and two others when he saw their car broken down on the side of a road one night in August 1994. Mr. Drummond was forced to drive to a remote area, then was shot and killed, and the men drove away in his car.

In the final days of the state legislative session in Jefferson City last week, a death penalty moratorium was rejected, but the House, which Republicans control, passed a provision calling for a commission to study the question. The Senate, also controlled by Republicans, did not vote on the issue.

House leaders say their chamber's vote sent a signal to Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat in his first term, who has yet to issue a decision on Mr. Skillicorn's request for clemency.

People here are deeply split over Mr. Skillicorn. His supporters say that while he participated in robbing Mr. Drummond and was convicted of murder, another man (now also awaiting execution) was the one who fired the gun that killed Mr. Drummond. They point to Mr. Skillicorn's work in prison leading a hospice program, editing a magazine for death row inmates, and, in the view of even some prison workers, helping to create a calmer, safer atmosphere behind bars.

"He is not the one who actually killed the person, and that just says to me: 'Whoa! Let's take a step back,' " said State Representative Steven Tilley, the Republican leader. "Look, I'm not soft on crime, but we can't redo this once we've executed this person," Mr. Tilley said, adding that he has been a supporter of the death penalty, but fears it is flawed as it is being carried out.

But State Representative Bob Nance of Excelsior Springs, the community not far from Kansas City where Mr. Drummond had lived, said Mr. Skillicorn "should hardly be held up as a poster child for what's wrong with the death penalty."

Mr. Skillicorn was implicated for his involvement in other murders - though never, he says, as the gunman. He was convicted of second-degree murder in a 1979 burglary with accomplices in which a farmer was killed. And in the days after Mr. Drummond's death, he and his accomplice went on a cross- country spree and, the authorities say, his accomplice shot and killed an Arizona couple. Mr. Skillicorn pleaded guilty to murder in that case.

"When we look back on our lives, it is the sum of all the stories," Mr. Nance said, "and frankly, it's hard to believe someone would be at the wrong place at the wrong time so many different times."

On Monday, the State Supreme Court rejected a request for a stay, and lawyers for Mr. Skillicorn filed a similar request with the United States Supreme Court. They have three other appeals pending in the federal courts, and met on Monday with counsel to Mr. Nixon, who previously served as attorney general.

Mr. Nixon declined interview requests. His aides said he was giving Mr. Skillicorn's clemency request "a full and fair review."

Mr. Skillicorn, 49, had by last week been transferred to the facility at Bonne Terre where executions take place. In a telephone interview, he said he was sorry for his drug-addled behavior of years past, but that he considered his death sentence arbitrary in a way, and said that he was not the worst of the worst. "I was there," he said, "But in my case, I didn't kill anybody."

He said he was drawing strength from his wife, a former reporter for The Kansas City Star who met him after he was behind bars, and from his religious faith, a notion he was quick to note some people will find phony. "What good would it do me now," Mr. Skillicorn said of his faith, "if it wasn't real to me?"

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10) Cost of Cigarette Litter May Fall on San Francisco's Smokers
By JESSE McKINLEY
[Cigarette smoking is a horrible addiction. My mother died of complications from it. Why must we continue to punish the victims of this cold and calculated industry of poison manufacture and sales? Tobacco companies' profits should be taxed 100 percent to pay for the medical needs of those they have gotten addicted as well as all other related problems that they have induced with their lethal products. The tobacco companies should be shut down; their profits commandeered by we, the people!...bw]
May 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/us/19smoke.html?ref=us

SAN FRANCISCO - In what he casts as an attack on litterbugs and nicotine addiction alike, Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to impose a fee on an age-old inhabitant of city streets: the cigarette butt.

The proposal, to be introduced next month to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, would add 33 cents to the cost of a pack of cigarettes, to offset the estimated $10.7 million the city spends annually removing discarded butts from gutters, drainpipes and sidewalks.

The added cost, Mr. Newsom hopes, will also dampen smokers' urge to light up.

"In general, fees help reduce the consumption and use of tobacco," he said in an interview. "And we think that will have a very beneficial public health component."

Officials here say the municipal fee would be the first in the country to take aim specifically at cigarette butts, particularly filters, which are not biodegradable. But the idea is expected to run into fierce opposition from tobacco companies.

"Obviously we think people should follow the littering laws, in California and elsewhere," said Frank Lester, a spokesman for Reynolds American Inc., the nation's second-largest manufacturer of cigarettes. "But we oppose any additional taxation on smokers to pay for that."

Philip Morris USA, the nation's biggest cigarette company, generally echoed that anti-fee sentiment, though it said it would not comment on Mr. Newsom's proposal specifically until it was formally presented to the board.

San Francisco has already proved to be tough on smokers. Last year the city imposed a ban on the sale of tobacco at drugstores, a restriction that is being challenged in state and federal courts.

Mr. Newsom, moreover, has shown a willingness to legislate good health in other ways, proposing a fee in 2007 on any large store that sells drinks with high levels of fructose corn syrup. This so-called soda tax has not yet been taken up by the Board of Supervisors but is expected to be debated there this summer, said Nathan Ballard, a mayoral spokesman.

Mr. Newsom said cigarette butts became a target after San Francisco's annual "litter audit" found that cigarette detritus made up a quarter of all the trash in the city's public spaces. With the city spending some $44 million a year on litter cleanup - and facing a $500 million deficit for the coming fiscal year - a fee was born.

"It's not a huge part of the overall budget," the mayor said of the $11 million or so in annual revenue that the fee could generate. "But it's enough to keep street sweepers employed."

But Mr. Lester, of Reynolds American, said smokers were often targets of budget-crunched legislators, most recently on April 1, when the federal excise tax on cigarettes rose 62 cents a pack, to $1.01. "We feel smokers are already paying their fair share," he said.

Serena Chen, regional director of policy and tobacco programs for the American Lung Association in California, said litter-mitigation efforts aimed specifically at cigarettes had been proposed in legislatures in a couple of states (though never enacted), but that a city-level approach was new and welcome.

"Anytime you raise the price of cigarettes, you discourage new starters," Ms. Chen said, "and you increase the motivation of people who want to quit."

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11) Pension Plans May Exclude Pregnancy Leaves, Justices Rule
By ADAM LIPTAK
May 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/us/19pregnancy.html?ref=us

WASHINGTON - Employers need not give women credit for some pregnancy leaves in calculating their pension benefits when they retire, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a 7-to-2 decision.

The case involved four women who took maternity leaves from AT&T between 1968 and 1976. At the time, it was lawful for employers to treat pregnancy leaves different from leaves for other sorts of disabilities.

That changed in 1978, when Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which made discrimination based on pregnancy-related conditions a form of sex discrimination. But the 1978 law was not retroactive, and companies were not required, for instance, to provide back pay to women who had taken unpaid leaves while their colleagues were paid for leaves for other kinds of disabilities.

The question in the case decided Monday, AT&T v. Hulteen, No. 07-543, was what should happen when companies calculate pension and similar benefits when women retire decades after taking such pregnancy leaves.

In an opinion by Justice David H. Souter, the court said the four women were not entitled to full credit for their leaves and so will receive smaller pensions.

AT&T's pension system, Justice Souter wrote, "provides future benefits based on past, completed events that were entirely lawful at the time they occurred." Indeed, the Supreme Court ruled, in General Electric v. Gilbert in 1976, that differential treatment of pregnancy leaves did not amount to sex discrimination.

Not requiring recalculation of pension benefits to take account of leaves before 1979, Justice Souter said, results in "predictable financial consequences, both for the employer who pays the bill and for the employee who gets the benefit."

Justice Souter was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, dissented.

Justice Ginsburg said the court had "erred egregiously" in Gilbert, which she described as advancing "the strange notion that a benefits classification excluding some women ('pregnant women') is not sex-based because other women are among the favored class ('non-pregnant persons')."

She said Congress in 1978 "intended no continuing reduction of women's compensation, pension benefits included, attributable to their placement on pregnancy leave."

The plaintiffs, Justice Ginsburg said, "will receive, for the rest of their lives, lower pension benefits than colleagues who worked for AT&T for no longer than they did." Indeed, she said, the logic of Gilbert brought to mind a critique of legal reasoning more generally.

"Perhaps the admonition of Professor Thomas Reed Powell to his law students is apt," she wrote, quoting a 1974 trial court decision. "If you can think of something which is inextricably related to some other thing and not think of the other thing, you have a legal mind."

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12) Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
May 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.html?ref=world

WASHINGTON - President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a "preventive detention" system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said.

The discussion, in a 90-minute meeting in the Cabinet Room that included Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other top administration officials, came on the eve of a much-anticipated speech Mr. Obama is to give Thursday on a number of thorny national security matters, including his promise to close the detention center at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Human rights advocates are growing deeply uneasy with Mr. Obama's stance on these issues, especially his recent move to block the release of photographs showing abuse of detainees, and his announcement that he is willing to try terrorism suspects in military commissions - a concept he criticized bitterly as a presidential candidate.

The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting dismayed.

They said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about "the long game" - how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White Houseofficials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders' accounts.

"He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can't charge and detain," one participant said. "We've known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning."

The other participant said Mr. Obama did not seem to be thinking about preventive detention for terrorism suspects now held at Guantánamo Bay, but rather for those captured in the future, in settings other than a legitimate battlefield like Afghanistan. "The issue is," the participant said, "What are the options left open to a future president?"

Mr. Obama did not specify how he intended to deal with Guantánamo detainees who posed a threat and could not be tried, nor did he share the contents of Thursday's speech, the participants said.

He will deliver the speech at a site laden with symbolism - the National Archives, home to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Across town, his biggest Republican critic, former Vice President Dick Cheney, will deliver a speech at the American Enterprise Institute.

Mr. Cheney and other hawkish critics have sought to portray Mr. Obama as weak on terror, and their argument seems to be catching on with the public. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats, in a clear rebuke to the White House, blocked the $80 million Mr. Obama had requested in financing to close the Guantánamo prison.

The lawmakers say they want a detailed plan before releasing the money; there is deep opposition on Capitol Hill to housing terrorism suspects inside the United States.

"He needs to convince people that he's got a game plan that will protect us as well as be fair to the detainees," said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who agrees with Mr. Obama that the prison should be closed. "If he can do that, then we're back on track. But if he doesn't make that case, then we've lost control of this debate."

But Mr. Obama will not use the speech to provide the details lawmakers want.

"What it's not going to be is a prescriptive speech," said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama's senior adviser. "The president wants to take some time and put this whole issue in perspective to identify what the challenges are and how he will approach dealing with them."

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13) Death Row Foes See Newsroom Cuts as Blow
By TIM ARANGO
May 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/business/media/21innocent.html?ref=us

Opponents of the death penalty looking to exonerate wrongly accused prisoners say their efforts have been hobbled by the dwindling size of America's newsrooms, and particularly the disappearance of investigative reporting at many regional papers.

In the past, lawyers opposed to the death penalty often provided the broad outlines of cases to reporters, who then pursued witnesses and unearthed evidence.

Now, the lawyers complain, they have to do more of the work themselves and that means it often doesn't get done. They say many fewer cases are being pursued by journalists, after a spate of exonerations several years ago based on the work of reporters.

The decline in newsroom resources has also hampered efforts by death-penalty opponents to search for irrefutable DNA evidence that an innocent person has been executed in America.

Because judges and prosecutors are usually reluctant to reopen cases after an execution, advocates have been seeking to enlist the media as plaintiffs, to file motions under a novel legal theory that news organizations should have access to physical evidence under the First Amendment and state sunshine laws, which establish access to government records.

And here, the worry is that weakened newspapers will be increasingly reluctant to dedicate any resources.

"It's extremely troubling, some of the leading investigative journalists in this country have been given golden parachutes or laid off," said Barry Scheck, the co-founder of the Innocence Project in New York, which is affiliated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. "When procedural mechanisms begin to fail, the press is the last resort for the public to find out the truth."

One such case in Texas took a long time to reach the courts because advocates had difficulty finding a media plaintiff. In December of 2000, Claude Jones died by lethal injection for robbery and murder.

For the last two years, a group including lawyers from the Innocence Project and The Texas Observer, a liberal magazine that signed on after larger media organizations declined, have been seeking to have a single strand of hair tested for DNA. These people, including Mr. Scheck, say they believe that Mr. Jones was present at the crime scene, but was not the killer. So far, they have succeeded in preserving the evidence, but not in winning a judge's approval for testing.

In a case in Tennessee, DNA evidence from a rape and murder for which a man was executed in 2006, but for which doubts about his guilt exist, sits untested because Mr. Scheck and others have not been able to recruit a local newspaper or media organization to become a plaintiff.

Since 1992, 238 people in the United States, some who were sitting on death row, have been exonerated of crimes through DNA testing. But proving with scientific certitude that an innocent person has been executed is difficult.

"The problem that we've had in these capital cases is that evidence has been destroyed," said Mr. Scheck.

This approach - enlisting a newspaper as a plaintiff to petition courts to preserve and test DNA evidence - has been tried before in some states, including Virginia, where testing confirmed a defendant's guilt, and Georgia, where the results were inconclusive. Still, Mr. Scheck said of the Jones case: "We were in the legal netherworlds of law. We're doing it on the grounds of the First Amendment and the public's right to know."

Some news organizations are reluctant to join the effort out of fear of blurring the line between advocate and objective collector of the news. "My feeling always was we should do it on our own," said Maurice Possley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who wrote many death penalty and wrongful convictions stories while a reporter for The Chicago Tribune.

Mr. Possley, who left The Tribune last year, had discussions with Mr. Scheck about the paper becoming involved as a plaintiff in the Jones case. "I think the more you link up, people will think you have a bias or an agenda," Mr. Possley said.

There are only a handful of cases where there is enough evidence of innocence for lawyers to pursue after a defendant is executed. The American Bar Association estimated in 2003 that the wrongful conviction rate was 0.5 percent.

The case in Tennessee, in which Sedley Alley was executed in 2006 for the rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman, attracted the notice of Mr. Scheck. Mr. Alley tried without success to have crime scene evidence tested for DNA as he waited on death row. Since then, Kelley Henry, a Nashville public defender who represented Mr. Alley, has paid out of her own pocket to preserve and store material that could be tested for Mr. Alley's DNA. But no motions can be filed until a plaintiff is found.

"No Tennessee media outlet has shown any willingness to be a media plaintiff," said Ms. Henry.

More broadly, the issue of fewer journalistic resources around the country to pursue stories tied to innocence claims has lawyers fretting that fewer wrongful convictions will be overturned.

"The problem is that stories that were getting written three, four years ago that supplemented the legal work the innocence projects were working on, are just not happening," said Seth Miller, the executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida. Mr. Miller is working on his own postexecution case, but with a twist: the claim is that the dead body in the murder case did not belong to the alleged victim. He is currently looking for a plaintiff to file a lawsuit seeking the testing, and has sought help from The St. Petersburg Times, which so far has not agreed.

At a time of sharp cutbacks, newspapers are reluctant to take on the costs associated with pursuing such investigations.

"If you're talking about wrongfully convicted people, it takes a long time," said Henry Weinstein, a former reporter at The Los Angeles Times who now teaches law and journalism at the University of California, Irvine. "You may run up some travel bills, some massive photocopying bills."

At a conference earlier this year, Mr. Possley said he differentiated between cases in which the stories were gift-wrapped for reporters versus earlier-stage cases in which reporters tracked down witnesses themselves.

"I think that largely those opportunities to bring those types of cases to journalists is largely reduced," said Mr. Possley. "More and more, journalists are going to want the stories packaged with a bow."

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14) Tape of Beating Leads to Firing of 5 Officers
By ROBBIE BROWN
May 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/21birmingham.html?ref=us

Five police officers in Birmingham, Ala., were fired Wednesday after a video became public that shows them beating and kicking an apparently unconscious man in 2008 after a highway chase.

Chief A. C. Roper of the Birmingham Police Department called the actions "shameful," and the state Bureau of Investigation is considering charges.

The video, filmed on Jan. 23, 2008, by a patrol car camera, showed officers chasing a suspect, Anthony Warren, who lost control of his van and was ejected from a window in the crash.

After the officers raced toward Mr. Warren, motionless on the roadside, they could be seen punching, kicking and beating him with a billy club.

The video was released by the city on Wednesday. Prosecutors for the district attorney of Jefferson County, Brandon Falls, found the tape in March while preparing their case against Mr. Warren, who received a 20-year sentence for first-degree assault for hitting an officer with his van in the chase.

Mr. Warren filed a claim against the city for more than $100,000, saying the beating left him with a severe concussion, a skull fracture, and other injuries, said his lawyer, Wendy Crew.

"He was not a threat to anyone," Ms. Crew said. "There was no reason for the excessive force."

She also accused the police department of tampering with the video.

Chief Roper did not identify the officers, but said they were veterans.

"We've terminated over 50 years of combined service due to 10 seconds of injustice," he said. "In addition to these terminations, we're also reviewing our supervisor's actions, reporting mechanisms and policies."

Many officers and supervisors in the police department viewed the video in the past year but did not report it, the authorities said.

Mayor Larry P. Langford likened the beating to the police violence that occurred in the city during the civil rights movement.

"Dr. King wrote from the Birmingham Jail that 'injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,' " Mayor Langford said. "More than 40 years later, we must send the message that all citizens deserve equal and fair treatment under the law."

The officers can appeal their terminations.

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15) In a Switch, City Tells Schools to Monitor On-Campus Military Recruiting
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
May 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/nyregion/20recruit.html?ref=education

"Last fall, the number of students submitting opt-out forms increased to 45,717, up from 38,227 in 2007 and 22,357 in 2003, according to data released at a meeting of the city's Panel for Educational Policy on Monday night. "

[Recently in San Francisco the School Board, in a predictable 4 to 3 vote, voted to reinstate the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps that were supposed to be off campuses by the end of this school year, 2009.

The main reason for this "predicted" decision was that the movement failed to carry out a campaign to involve students and parents themselves into the anti-military recruitment campaign. The main emphasis of the movement was to convince individual school board members to "do the right thing," which they proved they were incapable of doing--and predicatively so.

The stats showing an increase in "opting out" of military contact in this article proves that antiwar sentiment among our youth is growing. It is imperative that we focus our counter-recruitment organizing efforts among the students and parents of our schools and NOT depend upon the elected officials to "do the right thing."

In solidarity,

Bonnie Weinstein, bauaw.org]

In a Switch, City Tells Schools to Monitor On-Campus Military Recruiting
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
May 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/nyregion/20recruit.html?ref=education

Schools will be required to provide military opt-out forms to 9th- and 10th-grade students and to develop a plan to monitor on-campus recruiting by the armed forces, according to new guidelines announced by the city's Department of Education on Monday night.

The requirements, set to go into effect this fall, follow months of criticism from civil liberties groups, which had pushed to curtail recruiters' access after school officials decided last year to give military recruiters access to a central database of students' names, addresses and telephone numbers. Previously, recruiters had been forced to go from school to school to collect students' data.

The new guidelines extend the requirement to include opt-out forms in orientation packets to younger high school students; in the past, only 11th- and 12th-grade students received the forms. The Department of Education will also add information on opting out to its instructions on their rights and to materials for students who take an armed services aptitude test.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, praised the changes, which include a requirement that principals appoint a staff member to oversee a military recruiting plan for each school. Ms. Lieberman said that too often there was not enough oversight of the recruiters and that in some cases they were too aggressive.

"They are not to get unfettered access to the students in the school," she said. "They have to be regulated."

The Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, who had also lobbied education officials to make the changes, called the guidelines "real and substantive."

"This is really going to protect our kids," he said.

Last year, when the city's decision to centralize the recruiting process drew an outcry from civil liberties advocates, the Department of Education defended the change. Education officials said it would allow the city to improve its monitoring of students' use of opt-out forms and tell schools with unusually low numbers to make sure they were being properly distributed.

Last fall, the number of students submitting opt-out forms increased to 45,717, up from 38,227 in 2007 and 22,357 in 2003, according to data released at a meeting of the city's Panel for Educational Policy on Monday night.

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16) Somali Piracy Suspect Pleads Not Guilty
By Benjamin Weiser
May 21, 2009
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/somali-piracy-suspect-pleads-not-guilty/

A lawyer for the Somali teenager brought to New York and charged with piracy said on Thursday that his client had been in virtual isolation since his arrival in a detention center about a month ago, locked in solitary confinement, barred from calling his lawyers, and limited to a single one-minute phone conversation with his mother.

The teenager, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, has also been unable to communicate with others in the jail because of a lack of Somali interpreters, the lawyer, Philip L. Weinstein, said.

"It has an impact," Mr. Weinstein told a judge in Federal District Court in Manhattan, where Mr. Muse was arraigned on a 10-count federal indictment that was returned earlier this week.

The indictment charges Mr. Muse with piracy and conspiracy to seize a ship by force and to take hostages; the piracy count carries a mandatory life sentence.

In contrast to the smiling face Mr. Muse offered to cameras when he was moved by the authorities after his arrival in New York, he appeared subdued and downtrodden in court on Thursday.

Wearing a dark smock over an orange shirt, he kept his hands clasped in front of him, and he looked down as he responded through an interpreter to questions posed by the judge.

"How do you plead, sir?" Judge Loretta A. Preska asked.

"Not guilty," he said.

Mr. Muse was the only survivor of a group of men who boarded an American-flagged cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama, off Somalia on April 8, according to the authorities. The ship's captain, who had offered himself as a hostage, was later rescued in a daring Navy Seal operation, in which three of his captors were killed.

In court, Mr. Weinstein told the judge that Mr. Muse had wanted to call his mother because he needed surgery on his left hand, which was stabbed during a struggle with crew members who tried to subdue him during the hijacking, the authorities have said.

An assistant United States attorney, Michael E. Farbiarz, told the judge that the government would work to remedy the problems. "There's no one here," Mr. Farbiarz said, referring to the prosecution team, "who wants there to be any difficulty whatsoever with respect to the defendant's medical situation or his ability to communicate freely, or as frequently as he would like."

A Somali official, Idd Beddel Mohamed, the deputy permanent representative to the Somali Mission to the United Nations, said later that his government had "full confidence" in Mr. Muse's defense team, and also offered "our sympathy" to the families of the captain and crew of the Maersk.

"Over all, we have full confidence in the American legal system, and I think in due course, justice will be served on both sides."

Since he was captured, Mr. Muse's age has been in dispute, with prosecutors saying that he is over 18 and that he led the pirate band that boarded the Maersk and fired a gun at the captain. His lawyers and father say that he is as young as 15 and should be treated as a juvenile.

For now, he is being treated as an adult, though his lawyers said they will try to prove that he is under 18. They visit him regularly in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, they added.

"He's confused. He's terrified," one of the lawyers, Deirdre von Dornum, said. "As you can imagine, he's a boy who fishes, and now he's ended up in solitary confinement here." She added, "He's having a very difficult time."

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17) G.M. and Union Reach Deal on Contract Changes
By NICK BUNKLEY
May 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/business/22auto.html?ref=business

DETROIT - The United Automobile Workers union said Thursday that it had reached a tentative deal with General Motors and the Treasury Department that would help G.M. cut its labor costs and reduce its obligations to a new retiree health care fund by billions of dollars.

The U.A.W. did not release details of the deal, which is subject to ratification by G.M. workers. The agreement is expected to be similar to one reached last month with Chrysler, which allowed that automaker to substitute equity for up to half of the $10 billion owed to its retiree health care fund. G.M. owes about twice that amount to the fund for its workers.

The deal is one of the government's requirements for G.M. to win more loans but is not enough in itself to keep the carmaker from having to file for bankruptcy protection on June 1, the government's deadline. More important, G.M. needs to persuade nearly all of the bondholders who hold more than $27 billion of its debt to swap their claims for stock in the restructured company. Most analysts expect the offer to fail.

Two days ago, G.M. said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it did not expect to reach an agreement with the U.A.W. before May 26, the deadline for bondholders to decide on the exchange offer.

But the U.A.W.'s president, Ron Gettelfinger, and G.M.'s chief executive, Fritz Henderson, have been involved in intense talks with Treasury officials in Washington since Monday.

G.M. has said it wanted to give the U.A.W. nearly 39 percent of the company, while bondholders would receive a 10 percent stake and existing shareholders would account for 1 percent. The Treasury, which has lent $15.4 billion to G.M. since December, would forgive half of that debt and receive a majority interest in G.M.

Earlier this month, Mr. Gettelfinger said he expected the union to reach an agreement with G.M. that contained nearly identical terms as the one with Chrysler. "I cannot believe that Treasury would mediate something better at G.M. to put Chrysler at a disadvantage," he said on May 4. "The collective bargaining piece of it should pretty much be a template."

Yet on Tuesday, he was quoted by reporters in Washington as saying that the parties had "a long way to go" to reach a deal.

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18) Blue Double Cross
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
May 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/opinion/22krugman.html?_r=1

That didn't take long. Less than two weeks have passed since much of the medical-industrial complex made a big show of working with President Obama on health care reform - and the double-crossing is already well under way. Indeed, it's now clear that even as they met with the president, pretending to be cooperative, insurers were gearing up to play the same destructive role they did the last time health reform was on the agenda.

So here's the question: Will Mr. Obama gloss over the reality of what's happening, and try to preserve the appearance of cooperation? Or will he honor his own pledge, made back during the campaign, to go on the offensive against special interests if they stand in the way of reform?

The story so far: on May 11 the White House called a news conference to announce that major players in health care, including the American Hospital Association and the lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans, had come together to support a national effort to control health care costs.

The fact sheet on the meeting, one has to say, was classic Obama in its message of post-partisanship and, um, hope. "For too long, politics and point-scoring have prevented our country from tackling this growing crisis," it said, adding, "The American people are eager to put the old Washington ways behind them."

But just three days later the hospital association insisted that it had not, in fact, promised what the president said it had promised - that it had made no commitment to the administration's goal of reducing the rate at which health care costs are rising by 1.5 percentage points a year. And the head of the insurance lobby said that the idea was merely to "ramp up" savings, whatever that means.

Meanwhile, the insurance industry is busily lobbying Congress to block one crucial element of health care reform, the public option - that is, offering Americans the right to buy insurance directly from the government as well as from private insurance companies. And at least some insurers are gearing up for a major smear campaign.

On Monday, just a week after the White House photo-op, The Washington Post reported that Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina was preparing to run a series of ads attacking the public option. The planning for this ad campaign must have begun quite some time ago.

The Post has the storyboards for the ads, and they read just like the infamous Harry and Louise ads that helped kill health care reform in 1993. Troubled Americans are shown being denied their choice of doctor, or forced to wait months for appointments, by faceless government bureaucrats. It's a scary image that might make some sense if private health insurance - which these days comes primarily via HMOs - offered all of us free choice of doctors, with no wait for medical procedures. But my health plan isn't like that. Is yours?

"We can do a lot better than a government-run health care system," says a voice-over in one of the ads. To which the obvious response is, if that's true, why don't you? Why deny Americans the chance to reject government insurance if it's really that bad?

For none of the reform proposals currently on the table would force people into a government-run insurance plan. At most they would offer Americans the choice of buying into such a plan.

And the goal of the insurers is to deny Americans that choice. They fear that many people would prefer a government plan to dealing with private insurance companies that, in the real world as opposed to the world of their ads, are more bureaucratic than any government agency, routinely deny clients their choice of doctor, and often refuse to pay for care.

Which brings us back to Mr. Obama.

Back during the Democratic primary campaign, Mr. Obama argued that the Clintons had failed in their 1993 attempt to reform health care because they had been insufficiently inclusive. He promised instead to gather all the stakeholders, including the insurance companies, around a "big table." And that May 11 event was, of course, intended precisely to show this big-table strategy in action.

But what if interest groups showed up at the big table, then blocked reform? Back then, Mr. Obama assured voters that he would get tough: "If those insurance companies and drug companies start trying to run ads with Harry and Louise, I'll run my own ads as president. I'll get on television and say 'Harry and Louise are lying.' "

The question now is whether he really meant it.

The medical-industrial complex has called the president's bluff. It polished its image by showing up at the big table and promising cooperation, then promptly went back to doing all it can to block real change. The insurers and the drug companies are, in effect, betting that Mr. Obama will be afraid to call them out on their duplicity.

It's up to Mr. Obama to prove them wrong.

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19) Getting Healthy, With a Little Help From the Boss
Patient Money
By LESLEY ALDERMAN
May 23, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/health/23patient.html?hp

Get ready to get well. Boss's orders.

Once upon a time, corporations offered generous health benefits as a way to woo employees into their ranks. Now, most companies have turned from amorous suitors into stern parents - shifting more costs, and more responsibilities, to their employees.

According to a January survey by the benefits consulting firm Hewitt Associates, nearly two-thirds of large employers planned to transfer more costs to employees. At the same time, one-third planned to put greater emphasis on wellness plans - programs that encourage employees to adopt healthier lifestyles. (So long, Big Macs).

Congress is climbing onto the wellness bandwagon, too. Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who is a leader of the Congressional health reform movement, recently proposed giving tax incentives to companies that offer comprehensive wellness programs to their employees.

The focus on healthier lifestyles makes sense. Unhealthy employees use significantly more medical services than healthy ones and cost employers more money.

"If you are an employer who wants to keep providing health care coverage, you have to target employees' exercise, diet and nutrition habits," says Dr. Kenneth E. Thorpe, chairman of the health policy and management department at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.

Three-quarters of the money the nation spends on health care is for chronic conditions, Dr. Thorpe pointed out. If companies can get workers to make behavioral changes to control problems like high blood pressure or diabetes, the businesses' costs typically go down.

But though the logic seems sound - employees get healthier and employers reduce their overall costs - not all wellness plans are alike.

At paternalistic companies like General Mills, employees have a host of generous options. Workers at the company's headquarters just outside Minneapolis can exercise at the on-site gym, get eye exams at the medical office and see a physical therapist for random aches and pains - all free of charge.

But some aspects of wellness plans may feel more meddlesome. About 80 percent of big employers offer health risk surveys, which are aimed at identifying health problems or potential health problems. And 60 percent of employers give financial incentives to employees who fill them out, according to a joint survey by the benefits consulting firm Watson Wyatt and the National Business Group on Health, an association of more than 300 large employers.

After a worker takes such a survey - the results are off limits to the employer - a coach or nurse from the outside contractor running the program will call the person and suggest medical interventions or lifestyle changes. Those changes may involve exercising more, eating less meat or losing weight.

"It's one thing for an employer to offer insurance that protects you from illness," says Ronald C. Kessler, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. "It's another when they start suggesting that you shouldn't eat a P.B.&J. sandwich for lunch. That can feel intrusive."

But whether you love them or hate them, wellness programs are probably here to stay. Here's how you can make them work for you.

UNDERSTAND THE TOOLS More and more companies are using health questionnaires as a way of to create personalized health improvement plans for their workers. These surveys ask about your body mass index, how much you exercise and whether you smoke, and are typically administered by a third party.

According to privacy laws, the information you provide to the plan administrators cannot be used by your employer for any purpose related to your employment status. In addition, an employer cannot deny health insurance to an employee for failure to complete a health risk questionnaire, says Martin J. Moderson, vice chairman of employee benefits and executive compensation at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal.

While many employers offer incentives for filling out health surveys, there is some debate over whether it is legal for them to do so. Under the federal health privacy law known by its acronym, Hipaa (pronounced HIP-ah), your employer can provide an incentive for filling out a risk survey, as long as the reward does not exceed 20 percent of the cost of coverage under the plan, and certain other requirements are satisfied, Mr. Moderson said.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, however, has questioned whether such incentives would violate the American with Disabilities Act. If you feel coerced into filling out a questionnaire, or annoyed that some employees get compensated for doing so, speak to the human resources department.

MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU If you're already using your company's wellness plan, great. But if you've been reluctant, find out what your company has to offer.

"The guy who is not taking advantage of the company wellness plan is underwriting the one who is," Mr. Kessler said. "You're basically leaving money on the table."

Call up your human resource department and find out what you might be entitled to. Or go on your company's intranet site and look for a health portal where the information is housed. Common perks are ones that even the change-averse are likely to appreciate: discounts on gym memberships and free flu shots, blood pressure tests and mammograms.

MAKE SUGGESTIONS If your company doesn't offer wellness benefits, and you wish they did, talk to your supervisor or human resources department.

"There's been a dramatic shift in attitudes toward health at all sized companies," said Shelly Wolff, national health and productivity leader at Watson Wyatt. "Start by asking for simple things that don't cost much money."

Can the company arrange for a corporate discount at a local Y or gym? Will they sponsor a baseball or basketball team? Could they arrange to have a yoga class once a week in an empty conference room? If they snarl, remind them that studies show wellness programs result in less absenteeism and lower costs.

What boss can argue with that?

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20) Oil Industry Braces for Trial on Rights Abuses
By JAD MOUAWAD
May 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/business/global/22shell.html?hp

Fourteen years after the execution of the Nigerian author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa by Nigeria's former military regime, Royal Dutch Shell will appear before a federal court in New York to answer charges of crimes against humanity in connection with his death.

The trial, scheduled to begin on Wednesday, will examine allegations that Shell sought the aid of the former Nigerian regime in silencing Mr. Saro-Wiwa, a vociferous critic, in addition to paying soldiers who carried out human rights abuses in the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta where it operated.

Shell strongly denies the charges.

But the trial is the latest in a series of cases aimed at some of the world's biggest oil companies, asserting misdeeds in developing countries where they were once seen as unassailable. Oil companies are being sued on charges of environmental damage, collusion with repressive governments and contributing to human rights abuses, among others.

Chevron, for example, could face up to $27 billion in liability in Ecuador for pollution of the jungle.

Exxon Mobil is being sued by Indonesian villagers from the province of Aceh who allege human rights violations committed by soldiers hired to guard a natural gas plant.

And these legal challenges are just the latest tests for an industry increasingly hard pressed to find new sources of petroleum.

The most prominent case of supposed company complicity - the execution of Mr. Saro-Wiwa and eight other members of the Ogoni tribe - led to fierce protests against Shell, which was already under heavy criticism from environmentalists for its record in the Niger Delta. The event, which ignited worldwide condemnation of Nigeria, prompted changes in Shell's approach to community relations in Nigeria and elsewhere.

While civilian rule has returned to Nigeria, violence in the delta has escalated in recent years, fueled by poverty, corruption and graft. Over the last week, there has been a new round of fighting between government forces and militant rebel groups, which have declared an "all-out war" in the region and threatened the operations of oil companies.

The civil suit was brought by relatives of Mr. Saro-Wiwa and other victims of Nigeria's former military regime, who are taking advantage of a Supreme Court decision that gives foreign victims of human rights abuses a measure of access to American courts.

The suit asserts that in the early 1990s, Shell became worried about Mr. Saro-Wiwa's campaign to protest the impact of oil production throughout the Niger Delta. The suit asserts that Shell feared Mr. Saro-Wiwa's activities would disrupt its operations and tarnish its image abroad, and "sought to eliminate that threat, through a systematic campaign of human rights violations."

Shell said the allegations were "false and without merit." In a statement, Stan Mays, a company spokesman, said: "Shell in no way encouraged or advocated any act of violence," and, in fact, "attempted to persuade that government to grant clemency."

The case could have global repercussions for the oil industry, said Arvind Ganesan, the head of the business and human rights practice at Human Rights Watch.

In the last decade, oil companies have been under increasing pressure to comply with strict standards of behavior while operating in countries with poor human rights records and few democratic controls.

"The lesson here is that these cases aren't going away," Mr. Ganesan said. "If a jury found Shell guilty, this would change the behavior of the industry pretty quickly."

The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York law firm specializing in human rights, on behalf of Mr. Saro-Wiwa's son and other plaintiffs who fled Nigeria's military regime and did not trust they could sue Shell in Nigerian courts even after civilian rule returned in 1999.

The current suit was brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act, an arcane law written in 1789 to fight piracy, which is increasingly being used for lawsuits asserting human rights violations that occurred overseas. The Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 in 2004 that foreigners could use American courts in limited cases, like crimes against humanity or torture. While sovereign states cannot be sued, American courts have accepted that a wide variety of actors, including corporations, can be called to account.

So far no corporation has been found guilty under the alien tort law, though human rights lawyers note that several cases are still moving through the court system.

In 2004, Unocal, a California oil company accused of using slave labor in the construction of a pipeline in Burma during the 1990s, agreed to compensate villagers there. The terms of the settlement were not made public.

Last year, Chevron was cleared of wrongdoing by a jury after being accused of complicity in the shooting of Nigerian villagers who occupied an offshore oil barge in 1998 to protest its environmental record and hiring practices.

Shell's activities in the Niger Delta, a region of mangroves and swamps roughly the size of Maryland where most of Nigeria's oil is located, have long been criticized by environmentalists. Shell drilled the country's first successful well in 1956, and has since dominated Nigeria's oil sector, through decades of civil war, military rule and authoritarian governments.

In recent years, protests against government corruption have become more violent. The operations of Shell, in particular, have been come under attack from militant groups seeking a greater share of the country's oil wealth.

For Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., who returned to Nigeria from exile in 1999, the trial could provide bittersweet vindication of his father's campaign.

"My father always said that one day Shell would be on trial," said Mr. Saro-Wiwa, who now works as an adviser to the government on community issues. "It's important for those involved in the conspiracy against my father to be held to account. It's a communal exorcism, if you like, for Shell to account and bear responsibility for what it did."

The elder Mr. Saro-Wiwa, who founded the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni Peoples in 1990, was one of the most vocal critics of Shell for the damage done to the delta communities, including gas flaring and the destruction of mangroves to make way for pipelines.

According to the lawsuit, a Shell official identified Mr. Saro-Wiwa as being "influential" in organizing the protests and sought the assistance of the Nigerian government to silence him.

The company is also accused of paying soldiers who committed human rights abuses and providing them with transportation, including helicopters. During a military raid, one plaintiff, Karalolo Kogbara, was shot by Nigerian troops while she was speaking out against the destruction of crops bulldozed to build a pipeline.

"We are not saying that Shell just did business in a bad place," said Jennie Greene, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights. "Shell was an actor here. Shell wasn't just standing by."

Mr. Saro-Wiwa was arrested in 1994 and put on trial before a special military court along with the other Ogoni advocates, on charges that human rights groups and Western governments said were trumped up. Despite international pressure, Shell initially refused to intervene, saying at the time, "the company does not get involved in politics."

The lawsuit charges that Shell bribed at least two crucial witnesses to change their testimony during the trial. It also asserts that Shell's manager in Nigeria at the time, Brian Anderson, met with Owens Saro-Wiwa, Mr. Saro-Wiwa's brother and also a plaintiff, and tried to pressure the jailed activist to abandon his struggle in exchange for help in securing his release. Mr. Saro-Wiwa reportedly refused.

Shell's chief executive eventually faxed Gen. Sani Abacha, Nigeria's military ruler, a request for a pardon after Mr. Saro-Wiwa's appeal for clemency was denied. By then it was too late: Mr. Saro-Wiwa and the other advocates were hanged on Nov. 10, 1995.

Shell denied it had sought to silence Mr. Saro-Wiwa.

"Shell attempted to persuade that government to grant clemency; to our deep regret, that appeal - and the appeals of many others - went unheard," Shell said in its statement. "We were shocked and saddened when we heard the news."

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21) Ex-Soldier Gets Life Sentence for Iraq Murders
"At least four other soldiers have pleaded guilty or were convicted in military courts for their roles in the rape and murders. While most received long prison terms, none are facing the death penalty, and all will be eligible for parole in 10 years or less."
By JAMES DAO
May 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/us/22soldier.html?ref=world

A jury in Kentucky sentenced a 24-year-old former soldier to life in prison without parole on Thursday for raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her, her parents and a younger sister in Iraq.

The verdict spared the defendant, Steven D. Green, death for a crime that prompted Iraqi demands for retribution and raised questions about Army oversight of its combat-stressed forces.

After deliberating for just one day, the 12-member jury, sitting in Paducah, Ky., declared itself hung late Thursday afternoon, resulting in the lesser sentence, said Dawn Masden, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, based in Louisville.

The verdict seemed likely to anger Iraqis who had argued that Mr. Green and the other soldiers involved in the murders should have been tried by an Iraqi court and who had asserted that only a death penalty could satisfy the family and fellow villagers.

At least four other soldiers have pleaded guilty or were convicted in military courts for their roles in the rape and murders. While most received long prison terms, none are facing the death penalty, and all will be eligible for parole in 10 years or less.

Mr. Green's trial was the first capital punishment case tried under a 2000 law allowing federal criminal courts to try crimes committed overseas by former members of the military, military dependents, contractors and other civilians, legal experts said. Mr. Green left the Army, with an honorable discharge on a diagnosis for a personality disorder, just weeks before he was arrested in 2006.

The March 2006 murders in Mahmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, were so bloody that American and Iraqi authorities first thought they were the work of insurgents. The American soldiers were implicated after at least one acknowledged to fellow soldiers a role in the crimes.

At the time, the Iraq insurgency was near its violent apex, and American forces were suffering heavy casualties. Private Green's unit, Bravo Company, First Battalion, 502nd Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division, was sent to a particularly violent area that soldiers called the Triangle of Death soon after arriving in Iraq in the fall of 2005.

The battalion quickly suffered casualties, including a sergeant close to Private Green. In December, Private Green, along with other members of his platoon, told an Army stress counselor that he wanted to take revenge on Iraqis, including civilians. The counselor labeled the unit "mission incapable" because of poor morale, high combat stress and anger over the deaths, and said it needed both stronger supervision and rest. It got neither, testimony at Mr. Green's trial showed.

On March 11, 2006, after drinking Iraqi whiskey, Private Green and other soldiers manning a checkpoint decided to rape an Iraqi girl who lived nearby, according to testimony. Wearing civilian clothing, the soldiers broke into a house and raped Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. Soldiers in the group testified that Private Green killed the girl's parents and a younger sister before raping and then shooting the girl in the head with the family's own AK-47, which it had kept for self defense.

At his trial, Mr. Green's lawyers built a case intended less to deny his role in the crime than to plant questions about whether he deserved the death penalty.

Mr. Green, who was reared in Midland, Tex., came from a broken and chaotic home, defense witnesses testified, and despite scoring well on intelligence tests, was highly impulsive and did poorly in school. He got into the Army in 2005 on a so-called morals waiver, having had problems with alcohol and drug abuse.

On May 7, the same jury that issued the life sentence convicted Mr. Green on 17 counts, including premeditated murder.

In the sentencing phase of the trial, the Army stress counselor, Lt. Col. Karen Marrs, a mental health nurse practitioner, testified that Private Green was disturbed by deaths in his unit and had expressed a desire to hurt Iraqi civilians. But Colonel Marrs also said such sentiments had been expressed by other members of the unit and were not uncommon among troops in combat. On questioning from the prosecution, she also said that she thought Private Green clearly understood that hurting civilians would be wrong and that he had no plans to act on his anger.

The defense argued that the Army should have provided stronger leadership to Private Green's unit and should have removed Private Green from front-line duty for more intensive mental health care.

The prosecution strenuously rejected that argument, saying that many combat troops faced the same kinds of trauma and stress as Private Green and his platoon, but that few committed atrocities.

"The defendant failed to live up to his duty to protect the innocent people of Iraq," Marissa Ford, one of the federal prosecutors, said near the beginning of the penalty phase.

After the sentencing, Doug Green, 28, Mr. Green's brother, told The Associated Press: "I do think it gives him a chance to have some semblance of a life. We're grateful for that."

The team of defense lawyers, Scott Wendelsdorf, Darren Wolff and Patrick Bouldin, said in a statement: "The defense thanks the jury for their careful consideration and ultimate decision. There are no winners in a case like this that is tragic on so many levels."

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22) Plan to Charge Working Homeless Draws Fire, Again
"The rent program is based on a 1997 state law that had not been enforced. The amount of rent owed varies based on factors that include family size and what shelter is being used, but it should not exceed 50 percent of a family's income."
By Julie Bosman
May 22, 2009, 11:36 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/plan-to-charge-working-homeless-draws-fire-again/

City Councilman Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn, the chairman of the General Welfare Committee, lashed out at city officials in a letter on Thursday for their role in a program charging rent to the working homeless in city shelters.

Addressing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Robert V. Hess, the commissioner of the homeless services department, Mr. de Blasio called the implementation of the state-mandated policy "premature and poorly planned."

"Homeless families in shelter are a vulnerable population with few resources," Mr. de Blasio wrote. "Any plan requiring payment from them, particularly one that comes with the threat of ejection from shelter for noncompliance, should have been better thought out prior to implementation."

The rent program is based on a 1997 state law that had not been enforced. The amount of rent owed varies based on factors that include family size and what shelter is being used, but it should not exceed 50 percent of a family's income.

After the program was implemented earlier this month, hundreds of shelter residents said that they had not received notice of their rent payments or that they had been overcharged.

On Thursday, Anne Heller, a deputy commissioner at the Department of Homeless Services, informed shelter providers that "technical issues" had forced officials to shut down the state-mandated program until the issues could be resolved.

Mr. de Blasio said he intended to question Mr. Hess about the program on Tuesday, during a budget hearing at City Hall.

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23) City Temporarily Stops Charging Rent to the Working Homeless
By JULIE BOSMAN
May 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/nyregion/22homeless.html?ref=nyregion

The Bloomberg administration has stopped charging rent to homeless people who have income and live in city shelters, temporarily suspending a state-mandated program that has been marked by mismanagement and the threat of a lawsuit.

In a memo sent by e-mail to 56 family shelter providers on Thursday morning, Anne Heller, a deputy commissioner at the Department of Homeless Services, said that "technical issues" had forced officials to shut down the program until the issues are resolved.

The three-week-old rent program was openly loathed by shelter providers, who hold contracts with the city and were forced to begin collecting rent from people who live in the shelters but have income from jobs.

"No one liked the idea, and we were quite shocked that they were even implementing it," said Manuela Schaudt, the executive director of Concourse House, a family shelter in the Bronx.

The state required the city to begin the program this month - based on a 1997 state law that had not been enforced. The amount of rent owed varies based on factors that include family size and what shelter is being used, but should not exceed 50 percent of a family's income, an official has said.

Immediately after the program went into effect, many shelter residents complained that they were not properly notified of their rights to contest the rent, and some residents were asked to pay far more than they were supposed to.

Michael Hayes, a spokesman for the State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, said a "technical glitch" caused notices to shelter residents to contain errors, or for some affected families not to receive notices at all.

Of the roughly 500 homeless families who were meant to receive notices advising them to begin paying rent, about 190 received notices with errors, including miscalculations in the amount of rent due, Mr. Hayes said. He said the Human Resources Administration, the city's welfare agency, was responsible for some of the errors, largely for some notices not getting out.

Steven Banks, the attorney in chief for the Legal Aid Society, threatened to sue the city, pointing to errors resulting in residents being locked out of their rooms in shelters and threatened with eviction. "We would hope that the entire concept would be re-evaluated," he said.

Robert V. Hess, the commissioner of homeless services, said the program would be revamped and expressed hope "that we can end up with a program that makes sense." Even as city officials became aware of problems with the program, they asked shelter providers to help them promote it.

Providers fumed over another e-mail message sent on Wednesday, this one on behalf of Ms. Heller, the deputy commissioner, requiring them to give the Department of Homeless Services examples of families who are working full time and successfully paying rent - so the department could "put a positive spin" on the rent program. "Anne wants to send a message that these are not the working poor, but individuals who are capable of contributing toward their cost of shelter," the e-mail read.

"I'm amazed by it," said Ralph Nunez, chief executive of Homes for the Homeless, a shelter provider. "I don't work for the Department of Homeless Services. I work for homeless families."

Heather Janik, a department spokeswoman, said that the message sent on Wednesday was sent in error and that Ms. Heller did not direct it to be sent.

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24) The top 10 enemies of single-payer
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER
April 15, 2009
http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=489

Most people, when they arrive in Washington, D.C., see it for what it is - a cesspool of corruption.

Two reasonable reactions to the cesspool.

One, run away screaming in fear.

Two, stay and fight back and bring to justice those who have corrupted our democracy.

Unfortunately, many choose a third way - stay and be transformed.

Instead of seeing a cesspool, they begin seeing a hot tub.

The result - profits and wealth for the corporate elite - death, disease and destruction for the American people.

Nowhere does this corrupt, calculating transformation do more damage than in the area of health care.

Outside the beltway cesspool/hot tub, the majority of doctors, nurses, small businesses, health economists, and the majority of the American people - according to recent polls - want a Canadian-style, single payer, everybody in, nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospital, national health insurance system.

Inside the beltway cesspool/hot tub, the corrupt elite will have none of it.

They won't even put single payer on the table for discussion.

Why not?

Because it will bring a harsh justice - the death penalty - to their buddies in the multi-billion dollar private health insurance industry.

The will of the American people is being held up by a handful of organizations and individuals who profit off the suffering of the masses.

And the will of the American people will not be done until this criminal elite is confronted and defeated.

(Remember, virtually the entire industrialized world - save for us, the U.S. - makes it a crime to allow for-profit health insurance corporations to make money selling basic health insurance.)

Before we confront and defeat the inside the beltway cesspool/hot tub crowd, we must first know who they are.

To wit, we present the Top Ten Enemies of Single Payer (listed here in alphabetical order):

American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).

AARP, one of DC's most powerful lobbying groups, has worked inside the beltway for years to defeat single payer. Why? AARP makes about a quarter of its money selling insurance through its affiliate, United Healthcare Group, the nation's largest for-profit insurance company. AARP must defeat single payer - which if enacted, would wipe out that revenue stream.

American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).

The private health insurance industry. Public enemy number one. The health insurance corporations must die so that the American people can live. Of course, facing the death penalty, AHIP is the most aggressive opponent to single payer. No compromise with AHIP.

American Medical Association.

With a shrinking base of doctors (only 25 percent of doctors nationwide belong) - the AMA is the most conservative of the doctors' organizations. I just returned from a health care policy forum at the Center for American Progress. As usual, not one of the panelists mentioned single payer. Only during the question period did a self-identified patient/citizen ask the single payer question. And a pit bull-like Nancy Nielsen, president of the AMA, ripped into the questioner. "Sounds more like a statement than a question," Nielsen said. "And clearly you have a point of view about that. And I don't happen to share that point of view." Clearly she doesn't. But just as clearly, the majority of doctors, probably even a majority of doctors who belong to the AMA, support single payer. Nielsen is in denial and must be defeated.

Barack Obama.

He was for it when he was a state Senator in Illinois. Now, ensconced in the corporate prison that is the White House, he says single payer is off the table. To get off the list, Obama needs to put single payer back on the table.

Business Roundtable.

Dr. David Himmelstein, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), was at a health care forum a couple of years ago sponsored by the Business Roundtable. And the moderator asked the audience - made up primarily of representatives of big business - to indicate their preference of health care reforms. And the majority came out in favor of single payer. Why then is the Business Roundtable opposed? Himmelstein put it this way: "In private, they support single payer, but they're also thinking - if you can take away someone else's business - the insurance companies' business - you can take away mine. Also, if workers go on strike, I want them to lose their health insurance. And it's also a cultural thing - we don't do that kind of thing in this country."

Families USA.

A major inside the beltway liberal foundation and long-time foe of single payer. It's chief executive, Ron Pollack, was once an advocate for single payer. But no more. In November 1991, Pollack was at a Washington hotel debating Yale University professor Ted Marmor in front of then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Marmor was making the argument for single payer. Pollack against. A November 1994 article in the Washington Monthly, co-authored by Marmor, reported the result this way:

"After the two advocates finished, Clinton looked thoughtful, pointed to Marmor and said, 'Ted, you win the argument.' But gesturing to Pollack, Marmor recalls, the governor quickly added, 'But we're going to do what he says.' Even considering the Canadian system, everyone in the room agreed, would prompt GOP cries of 'socialized medicine' - cries that the press would faithfully report."

Health Care for American Now.

The largest coalition of liberal groups promoting a choice between a public plan and private insurance companies. "They are saying - we can't do single payer because Americans don't want it," said Kip Sullivan of the Minnesota chapter of PNHP. "That's based on junk research conducted by Celinda Lake for the Herndon Alliance. It is bad enough to say we can't do single payer because the insurance industry is too powerful to beat. But it is just plain insidious to say we can't do single payer because the American people don't want it. In fact, polling data indicates that two-thirds of Americans support a single payer system. And that level of support exists despite the fact that there is little public discussion about it."

Kaiser Family Foundation.

One of the most prestigious liberal inside the beltway think tanks on health reform policy. Saul Friedman is a reporter for Newsday. In February, Friedman wrote an article for Newsday arguing that single payer is suffering from a conspiracy of silence. And he says Kaiser is the most culpable of the co-conpsirators. Kaiser, funded initially by insurance industry money, regularly keeps single payer off the table, Friedman says. When single payer advocates released a study in January asserting that Congressman John Conyers' single payer bill (HR 676) could create 2.6 million new jobs and would cost far less than the private insurance currently paid for by individuals and employers, "the Kaiser Family Foundation's daily online report on health care developments at kff.org didn't mention it," Friedman reported. "Nor has Kaiser, the most comprehensive online source of health care information, made any mention of single-payer or the Conyers bill since it was introduced in 2003, despite widespread support for such a plan according to Kaiser's own polls." After a number of insistent inquiries, Kaiser told Friedman that they would publish charts in March comparing the Stark and Conyers bills. They never did.

The Lewin Group.

The go-to consulting firm for health reform studies. The most recent study, released last week and widely quoted in the press, of the public plan option, showed that the insurance industry would lose 32 million policy holders if a public plan is enacted. Lewin's health reform policy guru, John Sheils, told the Associated Press: "The private insurance industry might just fizzle out altogether." What the mainstream press didn't report was that The Lewin Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ingenix, which is in turn owned by UnitedHealth Group, the nation's largest health insurance corporation. Lewin Group has conducted studies on single payer at the state level - and their studies consistently show that single payer is the most efficient cost saving system. But Lewin Group has never done a study on HR 676 - which would create a single payer for the entire country and drive The Lewin Group's parent - UnitedHealth Group- out of business. When asked why Lewin Group never has done a study on HR 676, Sheils said - "the President didn't propose single payer, did he?" No, he didn't. That's why he too is on this list. (Sheils says The Lewin Group has studied national single payer. He points to a recent comparison of the different health reform proposals floating on Capitol Hill - including one by Congressman Pete Stark (D-California). Stark's bill would give every American the option of opting into Medicare. But that's not single payer, because it keeps the private insurance industry in the game. Sheils counters that he modeled the Stark bill as single-payer. "The employer coverage option under the Stark bill is made so unfavorable that no employer would do it. We have everyone in Medicare, with the resulting savings." Sheils says that of all the plans studied, the Stark bill saves the most money.)

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association of America (PHRMA).

PHRMA chief executive Billy Tauzin says that under single payer, the government would become a "price fixer." By which he means, the government, as a single payer, will have the power to negotiate drug prices downward, thus costing the drug corporations millions in excess profits. In recent years, PHRMA has infiltrated liberal sounding groups like America's Agenda - Health Care for All. PHRMA's Vice President for Government Affairs and Law, Jan Faiks, now sits on the board of America's Agenda and PHRMA contributes money to the group - which has worked in recent years to undermine single payer at the state level. (America's Agenda Mark Blum won't say how much money PHRMA gives to his group.)

We have met the enemy.

And they ain't us.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of Corporate Crime Reporter and founder of singlepayeraction.org

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