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FREE LYNNE STEWART NOW!
Lynne Stewart in Jail!
Protest Lynne Stewart's incarceration!
San Francisco Federal Courthouse, 7th and Mission, SF
Monday, November 23, 5:00 pm
Radical Lawyer Convicted of Aiding Terrorist Is Jailed
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
November 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/nyregion/20stewart.html?ref=nyregion
Defiant to the end as she embraced emotional supporters outside the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, Lynne F. Stewart, the radical lawyer known for defending unpopular clients, surrendered on Thursday evening to begin serving her 28-month sentence for assisting terrorism.
"This is the day they executed Joe Hill, and his words were, 'Don't mourn me, organize,' " Ms. Stewart said as she walked toward the courthouse, referring to the labor organizer executed on Nov. 19, 1915, after a controversial trial. "I hope that will be the message that I send, too."
After a lengthy trial, a jury in 2005 convicted Ms. Stewart, now 70, of providing material aid to terrorism and of lying to the government while helping an imprisoned client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, communicate with his followers in Egypt.
The sheik, a blind fundamentalist cleric, was serving a life sentence after his 1995 conviction for organizing a thwarted plot to blow up landmarks in New York. Ms. Stewart assisted him by communicating a statement from him to a reporter in Cairo, which allowed his followers to learn of it.
The start of her prison term was put off while she appealed her conviction and so she could receive treatment for breast cancer. But on Tuesday, a federal appeals court panel upheld the verdict and ordered that Ms. Stewart begin serving her sentence.
The appellate judges, questioning what one called a "breathtakingly low" sentence, also sent the case back to the trial judge, John G. Koeltl of Federal District Court, to determine if Ms. Stewart deserved a longer sentence in light of the seriousness of her conduct and the possibility that she had lied during her trial.
Two co-defendants, Ahmed Abdel Sattar and Mohamed Yousry, were also convicted at the 2005 trial. Mr. Sattar is serving a 24-year sentence. Mr. Yousry, who translated Ms. Stewart's conversations with her client, was sentenced to 20 months and also surrendered.
Ms. Stewart surrendered to United States marshals at the courthouse. Prosecutors said that it had not been determined where she would be sent. In sentencing Ms. Stewart, Judge Koeltl wrote that she had engaged in "extraordinarily severe" criminal conduct. But he also acknowledged her long record of representing the disadvantaged, the destitute and the despised.
Indeed, over the years, Ms. Stewart often took on cases nobody else wanted. She won an acquittal for Larry Davis, who had been accused of wounding six police officers in a 1986 shootout in the Bronx, and represented David J. Gilbert, a member of the Weather Underground convicted in the 1981 robbery of a Brink's armored car in Rockland County. Other clients, however, were merely poor and obscure, and Ms. Stewart was a passionate advocate for them.
As she walked slowly toward the courthouse, holding the arm of her husband, Ralph Poynter, she paused to greet friends. More than 100 people chanted "Free Lynne Stewart."
Then she stood behind metal barricades and gave a farewell speech. She said she would not change much about the past if she could, and urged younger lawyers to defend clients zealously.
"They can put me in jail, but my love, my ideas, my forcefulness I hope will remain with all of you," she said. "And I will return."
Background:
Following the November 16 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit that rejected Lynne Stewart's appeal of her 1995 frame-up conviction on five counts of aiding and abetting terrorism, Lynne's legal team as well the federal district court were in a quandary as to how to proceed. [Lynne has been a leading civil and human rights attorney for 30-years. She is a member of the National Lawyers Guild and a member of the Continuations Committee of the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations.]
The Second Circuit made what amounted to an unprecedented decision to not only affirm her conviction and reject her appeal but to order that her bail be revoked and that she be remanded to prison. But lacking clear orders as to who would carry out this decision and when it would happen, the last two days have seen Lynne appear, along with her supporters at two rallies in her defense and numerous press conferences and interviews while judges and lawyers tried to ascertain what to do. That decision has been made and Lynne will begin serving a 28-month prison term.
However, the Second Circuit's 2-1 decision also remanded the issue of the length of Lynne's sentence back to Judge John Koeltl's Federal District Court ordering Koeltl to reconsider the 28-month jail sentence that he originally imposed. Obviously furious at the relatively short duration of the sentence, the Second Circuit accepted the prosecution's assertion that Koeltl had not properly considered the question of whether or not Lynne has perjured herself during her trial. If that were to be determined, according to the Second Circuit, the length of Lynne's sentence could be extended. The single dissenting judge went further - expressing his outrage at Lynne relatively short sentence and suggesting that a qualitatively longer sentence be imposed than the majority contemplated. The government originally demanded a 30-year sentence!
Still fighting, Lynne's attorney's will ask the Second Circuit for a delay in her incarceration based on Lynne's scheduled December surgery. Here too, Lynne guesses that this will be denied, with the court holding that prison facilities are adequate for any medical needs that Lynne, a diabetic with hypertension and recovering from breast cancer surgery, may have.
Meanwhile, a new sentencing hearing before Judge Koeltl is scheduled for December 2 at the Foley Square Courthouse. Federal prosecutors are expected to ask for the maximum sentence possible. Also appearing in court will be Mohammed Yousery, Lynne's innocent co-defendant and translator. Koeltl was also ordered to reconsider Yousery's 20-month sentence. The prison term of a third defendant in Lynne's case, Ahmed Sattar, who was sentenced to 20-plus years, was not challenged.
At this point we can only speculate as to whether Judge Koeltl will stand by his original sentence or be pressured by the Second Circuit to extend Lynne and Mohammed's sentence. The judge is known to carefully consider his sentences. Close observers believe that he is unlikely to bend and impose a longer sentence.
Should Koeltl refuse to add additional years to Lynne's prison term, the government is expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Government prosecutors and obviously the Second Circuit are outraged that a "convicted terrorist" has been walking around the streets for the past five years, free to champion her own cause and those of all others who suffer political repression. It was clear from Judge Koeltl's short sentence and high praise of Lynne's record as an attorney and human being, a "credit to her profession," said Koeltl during the sentencing hearing, that he felt compelled to take his distance from the government's desire to put Lynne, 70, in prison for what would amount to the rest of her life.
Lynne will appeal the Second Circuit's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. She has repeatedly stated that her prosecution and persecution are consciously orchestrated by the government to chill the defense bar, that is, to instill the fear of government prosecutions into any attorney who seeks to afford alleged terrorists or others who are victims of unjust government persecution, a vigorous and dedicated defense. Lynne points to the upcoming U.S. prosecution efforts of Guantanamo prisoners as a prime example.
Again, join us on Monday, November 23 at 5:00 pm at the San Francisco Federal Courthouse, 7th and Mission.
For further information contact: Jeff Mackler, Coordinator, West Coast Lynne Stewart Defense Committee 510-268-9429 jmackler@lmi.net
Mail tax free contributions payable to National Lawyers Guild Foundation. Write in memo box: "Lynne Stewart Defense." Mail to: Lynne Stewart Defense, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610.
SEND RESOLUTIONS AND STATEMENTS OF SUPPORT TO DEFENSE ATTORNEY JOSHUA L. DRATEL, ESQ. FAX: (212) 571 3792 AND EMAIL: jdratel@aol.com
SEND PROTESTS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Department of Justice Main Switchboard - 202-514-2000
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line - 202-353-1555
To send Lynne a letter, write:
Lynne Stewart
53504-054
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, NY NY 10007
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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
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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PROTEST! When Obama Announces Afghanistan Escalation
The World Can't Wait
Stop the Crimes of Your Government
News from the San Francisco
Bay Area Chapter
Emergency Response Plan for the SF Bay Area:
World Can't Wait is joining with other anti-war forces including the local chapters of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Code Pink and others [list in formation] to mobilize
On the SAME WEEKDAY** that Obama announces the escalation:
5:00 PM at Fifth & Market (Powell St. BART): San Francisco street protest including die-ins
In the East Bay, feeder rallies and a BART march:
3:30 PM Rally: Marines Recruiting Station, 64 Shattuck Square, Berkeley
4:00 PM Rally: downtown Berkeley BART station then march by BART to arrive 5:00 PM at Fifth & Market in SF
** NOTE: If the news breaks on a weekend, these protests will happen the following MONDAY
The day of the announcement, the World Can't Wait SF office [(415) 864-5153] will have a recorded message confirming the protest times and locations.
Send us info on other campus and community protests that we can also publicize.
PROTEST IN THE STREETS THE DAY AN ANNOUNCEMENT IS MADE TO SEND MORE TROOPS INTO AFGHANISTAN
STOP THE ESCALATION - OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!
STOP THE CRIMES OF YOUR GOVERNMENT - THE WORLD CAN'T WAIT!
sf@worldcantwait.org
(415) 864-5153
sfbaycantwait.org
www.myspace.com/sfbaycantwait
World Can't Wait SF
2940-16th St., Rm. 200-6
San Francisco CA 94103
Bay Area United Against War endorses this emergency action.
bauaw.org
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for immediate release:
Contact: Hendrik Voss
202-234-3440, media@soaw.org
Mass Mobilization to Shut Down the School of the Americas
November 20-22, 2009, Fort Benning, Georgia:
* The SOA graduate-led military coup in Honduras and the increasing U.S. military involvement in Colombia put a renewed focus on the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) and the policies it represents.
* Thousands from across the Americas will converge on November 20-22 at Fort Benning, GA for a vigil and civil disobedience actions to speak out against the SOA/ WHINSEC and to demand a change in U.S. foreign policy.
* The vigil will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1989 SOA graduate-led Jesuit massacre in San Salvador, and the many other thousands of victims of SOA/ WHINSEC violence.
The military coup led by SOA graduates in Honduras has once again exposed the destabilizing and deadly effects that the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) has on Latin America. Torture survivors and human rights activists from across the Americas, including Bertha Oliva, the founder of the Committee of the Family Members of the Disappeared (COFADEH) from Honduras and human rights defenders from Colombia will travel to Fort Benning, Georgia to participate in the mobilization.
The campaign to close the SOA/ WHINSEC is in a crucial phase right now. Despite promising comments from President Obama during his 2008 election campaign, the SOA/ WHINSEC is still in operation, the U.S. is poring millions into failing "military solutions" to combat the drug problems in Mexico and the Pentagon is moving forward with plans to use seven Colombian military bases in Colombia for offensive U.S. military operations.
"It is up to us to hold those responsible accountable and to push for to closing of the School of the Americas and a change in US foreign policy" said Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch. "Too many have died and continue to suffer at the hands of graduates of this notorious institute."
In the fall of 2009, opponents of the SOA/ WHINSEC achieved a victory when a joint House and Senate conference committee agreed to include language in the FY 2010 Defense Authorization bill that requires the Pentagon to release names of the graduates of the SOA/ WHINSEC to the public. The Pentagon had classified the names after the continued involvement of SOA/ WHINSEC attendees in human rights abuses became public.
For more information about the November vigil to close the SOA/ WHINSEC, lead-up actions and a complete schedule of events, visit www.SOAW.org
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"The End of Poverty"
Democracy Now Interview with Filmmaker Philippe Diaz
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/10/filmmaker_philippe_diaz_on_the_end
The film opens in San Francisco on December 4 at the 4-Star Theatre on Clement Street.
http://www.theendofpoverty.com/
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Four years ago activists around the world were mobilizing and organizing against the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams. We need to continue that fight today.
Fourth Annual Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Summit
MOBILIZING THE MOVEMENT FOR JUSICE
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13TH, 3:00-6:00 P.M.
MERRITT COLLEGE
Huey P. Newton/Bobby Seale Student Lounge
12500 Campus Drive, Oakland
For directions go to www.merritt.edu
For more information: 510-235-9780
KEVIN COOPER, TROY DAVIS, MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: THREE INNOCENT MEN ON DEATH ROW
Featuring:
Angela Davis, author and activist.
Barbara Becnel, co-author and friend of Stanley Tookie Williams
Martina Correia, sister of Troy Davis
Release of report, "What's Really Happening on California's Death Row?"
Messages from "The Three Innocent Men"
Sneak Preview, "The Justice Chronicles," dramatic presentation of prison writings
Memorial Movie, for Oscar Grant III
Sponsors:
Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network; Campaign to End the Death Penalty; Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, African American Studies Department, Merritt College
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U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!
FREE PALESTINE!
San Francisco March and Rally
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
11am, Civic Center Plaza
National March on Washington
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
Fri., March 19 Day of Action & Outreach in D.C.
People from all over the country are organizing to converge on Washington, D.C., to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan and Iraq.
On Saturday, March 20, 2010, there will be a massive National March & Rally in D.C. A day of action and outreach in Washington, D.C., will take place on Friday, March 19, preceding the Saturday march.
There will be coinciding mass marches on March 20 in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The national actions are initiated by a large number of organizations and prominent individuals. (see below)
Click here to become an endorser:
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=5940&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&autologin=true&link=endorse-body-1
Click here to make a donation:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=2302&autologin=true&donate=body-1&JServSessionIdr002=2yzk5fh8x2.app13b
We will march together to say "No Colonial-type Wars and Occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine!" We will march together to say "No War Against Iran!" We will march together to say "No War for Empire Anywhere!"
Instead of war, we will demand funds so that every person can have a job, free and universal health care, decent schools, and affordable housing.
March 20 is the seventh anniversary of the criminal war of aggression launched by Bush and Cheney against Iraq. One million or more Iraqis have died. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops have lost their lives or been maimed, and continue to suffer a whole host of enduring problems from this terrible war.
This is the time for united action. The slogans on banners may differ, but all those who carry them should be marching shoulder to shoulder.
Killing and dying to avoid the perception of defeat
Bush is gone, but the war and occupation in Iraq still go on. The Pentagon is demanding a widening of the war in Afghanistan. They project an endless war with shifting battlefields. And a "single-payer" war budget that only grows larger and larger each year. We must act.
Both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were predicated on the imperial fantasy that the U.S. could create stable, proxy colonial-type governments in both countries. They were to serve as an extension of "American" power in these strategic and resource-rich regions.
That fantasy has been destroyed. Now U.S. troops are being sent to kill or be killed so that the politicians in uniform ("the generals and admirals") and those in three-piece suits ("our elected officials") can avoid taking responsibility for a military setback in wars that should have never been started. Their military ambitions are now reduced to avoiding the appearance of defeat.
That is exactly what happened in Vietnam! Avoiding defeat, or the perception of defeat, was the goal Nixon and Kissinger set for themselves when they took office in 1969. For this noble cause, another 30,000 young GIs perished before the inevitable troop pullout from Vietnam in 1973. The number of Vietnamese killed between 1969 and 1973 was greater by many hundreds of thousands.
All of us can make the difference - progress and change comes from the streets and from the grassroots.
The people went to the polls in 2008, and the enthusiasm and desire for change after eight years of the Bush regime was the dominant cause that led to election of a big Democratic Party majority in both Houses of Congress and the election of Barack Obama to the White House.
But it should now be obvious to all that waiting for politicians to bring real change - on any front - is simply a prescription for passivity by progressives and an invitation to the array of corporate interests from military contractors to the banks, to big oil, to the health insurance giants that dominate the political life of the country. These corporate interests work around the clock to frustrate efforts for real change, and they are the guiding hand behind the recent street mobilizations of the ultra-right.
It is up to us to act. If people had waited for politicians to do the right thing, there would have never been a Civil Rights Act, or unions, women's rights, an end to the Vietnam war or any of the profound social achievements and basic rights that people cherish.
It is time to be back in the streets. Organizing centers are being set up in cities and towns throughout the country.
We must raise $50,000 immediately just to get started. Please make your contribution today. We need to reserve buses, which are expensive ($1,800 from NYC, $5,000 from Chicago, etc.). We have to print 100,000 leaflets, posters and stickers. There will be other substantial expenses as March 20 draws closer.
Please become an endorser and active supporter of the March 20 National March on Washington.
Please make an urgently needed tax-deductible donation today. We can't do this without your active support.
The initiators of the March 20 National March on Washington (preceded by the March 19 Day of Action and Outreach in D.C.) include: the ANSWER Coalition; Muslim American Society Freedom; National Council of Arab Americans; Cynthia McKinney; Malik Rahim, co-founder of Common Ground Collective; Ramsey Clark; Cindy Sheehan; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK; Deborah Sweet, Director, World Can't Wait; Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild; Ron Kovic, author of "Born on the 4th of July"; Juan Jose Gutierrez, Director, Latino Movement USA; Col. Ann Wright (ret.); March Forward!; Partnership for Civil Justice; Palestinian American Women Association; Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines; Alliance for Global Justice; Claudia de la Cruz, Pastor, Iglesia San Romero de Las Americas-UCC; Phil Portluck, Social Justice Ministry, Covenant Baptist Church, D.C.; Blase & Theresa Bonpane, Office of the Americas; Coalition for Peace and Democracy in Honduras; Comite Pro-Democracia en Mexico; Frente Unido de los Pueblos Americanos; Comites de Base FMLN, Los Angeles; Free Palestine Alliance; GABRIELA Network; Justice for Filipino American Veterans; KmB Pro-People Youth; Students Fight Back; Jim Lafferty, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild - LA Chapter; LEF Foundation; National Coalition to Free the Angola 3; Community Futures Collective; Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival; Companeros del Barrio; Barrio Unido for Full and Unconditional Amnesty, Bay Area United Against War.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Oakland's Judge Jacobson ruled at 4:00PM Friday, October 16 to move the trial of Johannes Mehserle, killer of unarmed Oscar Grant, OUT OF OAKLAND. The location of the trial venue has not been announced.
In the case of an innocent verdict, folks are encouraged to head to Oakland City Hall ASAP to express our outrage in a massive and peaceful way! Our power is in our numbers! Oscar Grant's family and friends need our support!
For more information:
Contact BAMN at 510-502-9072
letters@bamn.com
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The Story of Mouseland: As told by Tommy Douglas in 1944
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqgOvzUeiAA
The Communist Manifesto illustrated by Cartoons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KUl4yfABE4
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Support mom still facing Afghanistan deployment, court martial
By Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist. November 16, 2009
"I currently don't have a family care plan, but they told me they did not
care and for me to get ready to go to Afghanistan," explained Oakland,
California native Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, a 21-year-old soldier based at
Hunter Army Airfield outside of Savannah, Georgia.
As I spoke to Alexis on the phone, I believed if I found her a civilian
lawyer to work with the military, a reasonable resolution would be quickly
found. Unlike most service members Courage to Resist assists, Alexis was not
refusing to deploy. She was not looking to speak out against war. She was
simply asking for more time to find someone to care for her 11-month old son
Kamani. Within a few days, however, the Army had tossed Alexis in the
stockade and turned Kamani over to the Chatham County (Georgia) foster care
system.
Read more...
http://couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/792/1/
Please make a tax-deductible donation to Alexis' legal and family support
fund.
http://couragetoresist.org/alexis
Details:
Courage to Resist Urgent Action Alert
Army sends infant to protective services, mom to Afghanistan this weekend
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/789/1/
Army has mom, Alexis Hutchinson, arrested and 11-month old son put into county foster care system. Alexis has now been ordered to deploy to Afghanistan on Sunday, November 15, where she will be court martialed.
Action Alert: Contact Congresswoman Barbara Lee to urge her to "Request that the Army not deploy Alexis Hutchinson to Afghanistan so that she can care for her son." From the 9th District (Oakland-Berkeley, CA) phone: 510-763-0370 (fax: 510-763-6538). Nationwide: 202- 225-2661 (fax: 202-225-9817).
Donate to Alexis' legal and family support fund (couragetoresist.org/alexis)
Alexis' attorney now available for media interviews.
By friends of Alexis and Courage to Resist. November 12, 2009
Specialist Alexis Hutchinson of Oakland, CA is the single mother of an 11-month old boy, Kamani. Currently she is confined to Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, Georgia, where she has been posted since February 2008, and threatened with a court martial if she does not agree to be deployed to Afghanistan, even though she has not found anyone to take care of her child while she is away.
In anticipation of going overseas Specialist Hutchinson flew to California and left her son with her mother Angelique Hughes of Oakland, as per her Army family care plan. However, after a week of caring for the child Specialist Hutchinson's mother realized that she was unable to take care of Kamani on top of her other duties to her special-needs daughter, her ailing mother, and her ailing sister. In late October Angelique Hughes informed Hutchinson and her commander, Captain Gassant, that she was not able to care for her daughter's baby after all. The Army gave Specialist Hutchinson an extension of time to find someone else to care for her son, and in the meantime her mother brought Kamani back to Georgia. However just a few days before Specialist Hutchinson was scheduled to deploy she was told that she would not get the extended time after all and would have to deploy, even though there was no one to care for her child.
Faced with that choice Specialist Hutchinson did not show up for her plane. The military had her arrested and they put her child in the county foster care system. Currently, Specialist Hutchinson is scheduled to fly to Afghanistan for a special court martial on Sunday and is facing up to one year in jail. Her mother flew to Georgia and retrieved the baby but is overwhelmed, and does not feel able to provide long-term care for Kamani.
Specialist Hutchinson would like to have more time to find someone to care for her infant. However, she does not have a lot of family or friends who could do so. She says: "It is outrageous that they would deploy a single mother without a complete and current family care plan. I would like to find someone I trust who can take care of my son, but I cannot force my family to do this. They are dealing with their own health issues."
Also in the news:
Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan
by Dahr Jamail, Inter Press Service. November 13, 2009
Online version with possible updates
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/789/1/
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HANDS OFF JUANITA YOUNG!
Statement from the NY October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality
http://www.petitiononline.com/JYoungNY/petition.html
Soon after 6:00am on October 27th, five cops raided the house of Juanita Young, the mother of Malcolm Ferguson who was gunned down by a plainclothes cop in 2000. They threatened to break down her door, tried to climb in through her bathroom window, put a gun in Juanita's face and took away her son, Buddy. The cops justified their outrageous and illegal behavior by citing a warrant, refusing to identify who or what the warrant was for. Later it was claimed that the warrant was for Buddy failing to appear in court for a Desk Appearance Ticket on October 13th, just two weeks earlier. This made it clear that it was both an unusually quick response and out of the ordinary violence for this offense.
This is not the first time cops have run roughshod over the rights of Juanita and her family. Juanita Young has been an outspoken opponent of police brutality, fighting for justice not only for her son Malcolm, but for all victims of police brutality. This has made her a target of persistent persecution by the police:
--June 2003: During an illegal eviction carried out by the NYPD, Juanita was arrested for trespassing in her own home. She was handcuffed and aggressively pushed out of her apartment and building, falling twice and injuring her arm. In October 2007, a Bronx civil jury determined that the arresting officer used excessive force in her arrest.
--November 2005: After voicing her disapproval of a brutal arrest at a demonstration, Juanita was arrested after a commanding officer said, "Get her, too." She was refused medical attention that she needed due to an asthma attack. Young was hospitalized for three days and faced criminal charges, but before the date of her arraignment, she received notice in the mail that the charges were dropped.
--November 2006: Juanita was arrested after more than 8 cops entered her apartment during an ambulance call for her daughter. The cops jumped her, punched and kicked her. She was taken to the hospital, where she was handcuffed to the bed and tortured by police for four days, only to be handed a ticket on the last day an hour after a press conference about her attack took place. In October 2008, a Bronx jury acquitted Young of all charges.
--August 2009: During a cookout in front of Juanita's building, over a dozen cops broke down the front door, slammed her oldest son up behind the door, and beat him on the head. The cops also arrested her daughters. This was another attempt to intimidate Juanita Young - through striking out at her loved ones - in hopes of silencing this powerful voice against police brutality.
All these attacks are outrageous, illegitimate and illegal. We say: HANDS OFF JUANITA YOUNG! The NYPD must stop this intimidation and harassment of Juanita and her family. Speaking out against police brutality is no crime. But targeting someone in retaliation for speaking out is illegal.
From Juanita Young's statement to supporters:
"Not only have my rights been violated in the most blatant ways, but I feel physically and psychologically terrorized. I fear for my safety, my very life, and the lives of my children and grandchildren." (October 29, 2009)
We refuse to allow Juanita Young, this fighter against police brutality and injustice, to stand alone against this onslaught.
We demand:
1: The NYPD stop its persecution of Juanita Young!
2: Bronx DA Robert Johnson investigate the role of the 43rd Precinct in this persecution.
3: An investigation of the Warrant Squad and how they were charged, and how they went about, in serving the warrant at Juanita Young's house on October 27th.
Sign Petition Here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/JYoungNY/petition.html
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Cleve Jones Speaks At Gay Rights Rally In Washington, DC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvC3hVXZpc4
Free the SF8: Drop the Charges!
by Bill Carpenter ( wcarpent [at] ccsf.edu )
Monday Oct 12th, 2009 11:20 AM
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/10/12/18625220.php
Sony Piece of crap (Hilarious!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I-JByPDJm0
Sick For Profit
http://sickforprofit.com/videos/
Fault Lines: Despair & Revival in Detroit - 14 May 09 - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ7VL907Qb0&feature=related
VIDEO INTERVIEW: Dan Berger on Political Prisoners in the United States
By Angola 3 News
Angola 3 News
37 years ago in Louisiana, 3 young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000-acre former slave plantation called Angola. In 1972 and 1973 prison officials charged Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King with murders they did not commit and threw them into 6x9 ft. cells in solitary confinement, for over 36 years. Robert was freed in 2001, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
http://angola3news.blogspot.com/2009/09/video-dan-berger-on-political-prisoners.html
Taking Aim Radio Program with
Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone
The Chimera of Capitalist Recovery, Parts 1 and 2
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
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JROTC MUST GO!
The San Francisco Board of Education has re-installed the Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps in San Francisco schools -- including allowing it to count for Physical Education credits.
This is a complete reversal of the 2006 decision to end JROTC altogether in San Francisco public schools. Our children need a good physical education program, not a death education program!
With the economy in crisis; jobs and higher education for youth more unattainable; the lure, lies and false promises of military recruiters is driving more and more of our children into the military trap.
This is an economic draft and the San Francisco Board of Education is helping to snare our children to provide cannon fodder for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and for over 700 U.S. military bases around the world!
We can't depend upon "friendly politicians" who, while they are campaigning for office claim they are against the wars but when they get elected vote in favor of military recruitment--the economic draft--in our schools. We can't depend upon them. That has been proven beyond doubt!
It is up to all of us to come together to stop this NOW!
GET JROTC AND ALL MILITARY RECRUITERS OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS NOW!
Write, call, pester and ORGANIZE against the re-institution of JROTC in our San Francisco public schools NOW!
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
San Francisco Board of Education
555 Franklin Street, 1st Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
415/241-6427, (415) 241-6493
cascoe@sfusd.edu
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HELP VFP PUT THIS BOOK IN YOUR HIGH SCHOOL OR PUBLIC LIBRARY
For a donation of only $18.95, we can put a copy of the book "10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military" into a public or high school library of your choice. [Reason number 1: You may be killed]
A letter and bookplate will let readers know that your donation helped make this possible.
Putting a book in either a public or school library ensures that students, parents, and members of the community will have this valuable information when they need it.
Don't have a library you would like us to put it in? We'll find one for you!
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/826/t/9311/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=4906
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Showdown In Chicago
The Showdown in Chicago is underway! Thousands of Americans are in the midst of a series of demonstrations against Wall Street banks and their lobbyists to call for financial reform. Check out the latest news:
http://www.showdowninchicago.org/
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EYE WITNESS REPORTS FROM GAZA Video Free Gaza News October 22,2009
http://www.youtube.com/gazafriends#p/a/1/nHa-CzNCF3c
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ANSWER Statement on Proposed SF Parking Meter Hours
The ANSWER Coalition-SF Bay Area strongly opposes the proposal to extend parking meter hours in San Francisco. The SFMTA, the Metropolitan Transit Agency, is proposing to have parking meters in most of SF run until midnight Monday-Saturday, and from 11 am-6 pm on Sundays!
This is another attempt by the politicians to solve the city's budget crisis by squeezing every last dollar they can out of working people. They have outrageously jacked up MUNI fares, other city fees and parking fines. At the same time they have let the big banks, developers and other wealthy corporate interests-the ones who have created the current economic and budget crisis-off the hook.
The DPT (Department of Parking and Traffic) has already begun a policy of "enhanced enforcement," super-aggressively ticketing vehicles from 9:01 am to 5:59 pm, Monday-Saturday. Every day in every working class neighborhood of SF you can see the booted cars and trucks. On top of the $53, $63 and higher parking tickets, it costs over $200 just to get a boot removed! If your car gets towed, you have to pay $400 or more to get it back. This is causing many low-income people to lose their vehicles.
City officials are trying to mislead people by falsely claiming that the reason for extending meter hours is to collect more quarters and "open up more parking spaces." What they really want is to hit us with thousands more high-priced tickets, and then collect the ransom for booted and towed cars.
This is a class issue. The rich and the well-to-do don't have to worry about where to park in this small and crowded city. They have garages or can afford to pay for parking. It is overwhelmingly working class people who are being hit and who will be hit much, much harder if the new policy goes into effect. Many residents in neighborhoods with meters have no choice but to park at meters after 6 pm and move their vehicles before 9 am the next morning. There just aren't enough spaces otherwise.
As Cristina Gutierrez of Barrio Unido, an immigrant rights group opposed to the plan, asked: "What are we supposed to do, run out of our homes every hour at night to feed the meter?"
But the MTA board and some misguided individuals are trying to pose the issue as MUNI riders vs. car drivers. Some have even ignorantly asserted that if you own a car, you can't possibly be poor. Really? Tell that to the growing number of people forced to LIVE in their cars due to the depression!
The reality is that many people in SF both ride MUNI and own cars (some ride bikes, too). For a lot of people getting to work, shopping, medical appointments, etc. requires a car. That's especially true for families and for people whose jobs are outside SF or not easily accessible by mass transit. Posing the issue as bus riders vs. car riders is false and reactionary.
Does MUNI need more funding? Of course. Should MUNI fares be cut and service increased? No question about it. The issue is: Who should pay?
While taxes, fees, fines, fares, etc., etc, have been constantly increased for us, the taxes on corporate profits have been going down. Many big banks and corporations have been able to avoid paying income tax altogether. While we're told that there's no money for people's needs, $500,000,000 is spent every day on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trillions of dollars have been handed over to the biggest banks in just the last year.
It's time to say: Enough is Enough! It's time for the politicians to stop trying to make working people pay for the economic crisis that the rich created. It's time to make those who can afford it-big business-pay for the services that the people of the city, state and country need.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.answersf.org
answer@answersf.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
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This is a must-see video about the life of Oscar Grant, a young man who loved his family and was loved by his family. It's important to watch to understand the tremendous loss felt by his whole family as a result of his cold-blooded murder by BART police officers--Johannes Mehserle being the shooter while the others held Oscar down and handcuffed him to aid Mehserle in the murder of Oscar Grant January 1, 2009.
The family wants to share this video here with you who support justice for Oscar Grant.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/21/18611878.php
WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!
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Urgent: Ahmad Sa'adat transferred to isolation in Ramon prison!
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/
Imprisoned Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa'adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was transferred on August 11, 2009 to Ramon prison in the Naqab desert from Asqelan prison, where he had been held for a number of months. He remains in isolation; prior to his transfer from Asqelan, he had been held since August 1 in a tiny isolation cell of 140 cm x 240 cm after being penalized for communicating with another prisoner in the isolation unit.
Attorney Buthaina Duqmaq, president of the Mandela Association for prisoners' and detainees' rights, reported that this transfer is yet another continuation of the policy of repression and isolation directed at Sa'adat by the Israeli prison administration, aimed at undermining his steadfastness and weakening his health and his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Sa'adat has been moved repeatedly from prison to prison and subject to fines, harsh conditions, isolation and solitary confinement, and medical neglect. Further reports have indicated that he is being denied attorney visits upon his transfer to Ramon.
Ahmad Sa'adat undertook a nine-day hunger strike in June in order to protest the increasing use of isolation against Palestinian prisoners and the denial of prisoners' rights, won through long and hard struggle. The isolation unit at Ramon prison is reported to be one of the worst isolation units in terms of conditions and repeated violations of prisoners' rights in the Israeli prison system.
Sa'adat is serving a 30 year sentence in Israeli military prisons. He was sentenced on December 25, 2008 after a long and illegitimate military trial on political charges, which he boycotted. He was kidnapped by force in a military siege on the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where he had been held since 2002 under U.S., British and PA guard.
Sa'adat is suffering from back injuries that require medical assistance and treatment. Instead of receiving the medical care he needs, the Israeli prison officials are refusing him access to specialists and engaging in medical neglect and maltreatment.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat demands an end to this isolation and calls upon all to protest at local Israeli embassies and consulates (the list is available at: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/ About+the+Ministry/Diplomatic+mission/Web+Sites+of+Israeli+ Missions+Abroad.htm) and to write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the Israelis ensure that Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners receive needed medical care and that this punitive isolation be ended. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at jerusalem..jer@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat!
Ahmad Sa'adat has been repeatedly moved in an attempt to punish him for his steadfastness and leadership and to undermine his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Of course, these tactics have done nothing of the sort. The Palestinian prisoners are daily on the front lines, confronting Israeli oppression and crimes. Today, it is urgent that we stand with Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners against these abuses, and for freedom for all Palestinian prisoners and for all of Palestine!
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
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Troy Anthony Davis is an African American man who has spent the last 18 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted. New evidence and new testimony have been presented to the Georgia courts, but the justice system refuses to consider this evidence, which would prove Troy Davis' innocence once and for all.
Sign the petition and join the NAACP, Amnesty International USA, and other partners in demanding justice for Troy Davis!
http://www.iamtroy.com/
For Now, High Court Punts on Troy Davis, on Death Row for 18 Years
By Ashby Jones
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
June 30, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/06/30/for-now-high-court-punts-on-troy-davis-on-death-row-for-18-years/
Take action now:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12361&ICID=A0906A01&tr=y&auid=5030305
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Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
New videos from April 24 Oakland Mumia event
http://abu-jamal-news.com/article?name=jlboak
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501(c)(3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Free Lynne Stewart
"We are in here for you. You are out there for us! Free All Political Prisoners"
[Illustration shows Mumia Abu-Jamal and Lynne Stewart]
Here a Terrorist, There a Terrorist, Everywhere a Terrorist
See the article below and illustration by Christopher Hutchinson, General Strike at this site:
http://www.generalstrikecomics.com/
2) Civil Rights Attorney Lynne Stewart Speaks Out
Democracy Now Interview By Amy Goodman
November 18, 2009
http://i1.democracynow.org/2009/11/18/exclusive_civil_rights_attorney_lynne_stewart
3) Regents Raise Tuition in California by 32 Percent
By TAMAR LEWIN
November 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/education/20tuition.html?hp
4) A Gift to Credit Card Companies
NYT Editorial
November 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/opinion/20fri3.html
5) Russia: Moratorium on Executions
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
World Briefing | Europe
November 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/world/europe/20briefs-ExecutionBrf.html?ref=world
6) Watchdog Urges Caution on Claims of 640,000 Stimulus Jobs
By MICHAEL COOPER
November 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/us/politics/20stimulus.html?ref=us
7) Jobless Rate Got No Help From Hiring for Holidays
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
November 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/nyregion/20jobs.html?ref=nyregion
8) PG&E SHUTOFFS AFFECTING MORE HOUSEHOLDS IN THE REGION THIS YEAR
Lizet Moreno [mailto:lizet@energyservices.org]
Thursday, November 19, 2009 2:42 PM
Homeowners and renters can call CCES at 1-888-728-3637 for a HEAP application.
Press Contact: Lizet Moreno, 831-761-7080 x123 or Lizet@EnergyServices.org
9) An American Catastrophe
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/opinion/21herbert.html?hp
10) The Breaking Point
Hospital Falters as Refuge for Illegal Immigrants
By KEVIN SACK
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/health/policy/21grady.html?hp
11) Couple Plead Guilty in Cuba Spying Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21cuba.html?ref=world
12) Canada: Court Orders Refugee Board to Consider 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' in Army Deserter's Case
By IAN AUSTEN
World Briefing | The Americas
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/world/americas/21briefs-Canada.html?ref=world
13) In Survey, Hard Times Before Slump
By SAM ROBERTS
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21census.html?ref=us
14) Jobless Rate Up in 29 States, Hitting Records in 4 of Them
"In the states reporting record jobless rates, California was at 12.5 percent; South Carolina, 12.1 percent; Florida, 11.2 percent; and Delaware at 8.7 percent. The District of Columbia also set a high with an 11.9 percent rate."
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/business/economy/21jobless.html?ref=us
15) Dismissal of Case for Guard in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/world/middleeast/21XE.html?ref=us
16) Pennsylvania: Partial Immunity
"Two former judges accused of taking kickbacks to supply juveniles to private detention facilities have been granted partial immunity from civil liability."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Mid-Atlantic
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21brfs-PARTIALIMMUN_BRF.html?ref=us
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1) Free Lynne Stewart
"We are in here for you. You are out there for us! Free All Political Prisoners"
[Illustration shows Mumia Abu-Jamal and Lynne Stewart]
Here a Terrorist, There a Terrorist, Everywhere a Terrorist
See the article below and illustration by Christopher Hutchinson, General Strike at this site:
http://www.generalstrikecomics.com/
Following the November 16 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit that rejected Lynne Stewart's appeal of her 1995 frame-up conviction on five counts of aiding and abetting terrorism, Lynne's legal team as well the federal district court were in a quandary as to how to proceed. [Lynne has been a leading civil and human rights attorney for 30-years. She is a member of the National Lawyers Guild and a member of the Continuations Committee of the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations.]
The Second Circuit made what amounted to an unprecedented decision to not only affirm her conviction and reject her appeal but to order that her bail be revoked and that she be remanded to prison. But lacking clear orders as to who would carry out this decision and when it would happen, the last two days have seen Lynne appear, along with her supporters at two rallies in her defense and numerous press conferences and interviews while judges and lawyers tried to ascertain what to do. That decision has been made and Lynne will begin serving a 28-month prison term.
However, the Second Circuit's 2-1 decision also remanded the issue of the length of Lynne's sentence back to Judge John Koeltl's Federal District Court ordering Koeltl to reconsider the 28-month jail sentence that he originally imposed. Obviously furious at the relatively short duration of the sentence, the Second Circuit accepted the prosecution's assertion that Koeltl had not properly considered the question of whether or not Lynne has perjured herself during her trial. If that were to be determined, according to the Second Circuit, the length of Lynne's sentence could be extended. The single dissenting judge went further - expressing his outrage at Lynne relatively short sentence and suggesting that a qualitatively longer sentence be imposed than the majority contemplated. The government originally demanded a 30-year sentence!
Still fighting, Lynne's attorney's will ask the Second Circuit for a delay in her incarceration based on Lynne's scheduled December surgery. Here too, Lynne guesses that this will be denied, with the court holding that prison facilities are adequate for any medical needs that Lynne, a diabetic with hypertension and recovering from breast cancer surgery, may have.
Meanwhile, a new sentencing hearing before Judge Koeltl is scheduled for December 2 at the Foley Square Courthouse. Federal prosecutors are expected to ask for the maximum sentence possible. Also appearing in court will be Mohammed Yousery, Lynne's innocent co-defendant and translator. Koeltl was also ordered to reconsider Yousery's 20-month sentence. The prison term of a third defendant in Lynne's case, Ahmed Sattar, who was sentenced to 20-plus years, was not challenged.
At this point we can only speculate as to whether Judge Koeltl will stand by his original sentence or be pressured by the Second Circuit to extend Lynne and Mohammed's sentence. The judge is known to carefully consider his sentences. Close observers believe that he is unlikely to bend and impose a longer sentence.
Should Koeltl refuse to add additional years to Lynne's prison term, the government is expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Government prosecutors and obviously the Second Circuit are outraged that a "convicted terrorist" has been walking around the streets for the past five years, free to champion her own cause and those of all others who suffer political repression. It was clear from Judge Koeltl's short sentence and high praise of Lynne's record as an attorney and human being, a "credit to her profession," said Koeltl during the sentencing hearing, that he felt compelled to take his distance from the government's desire to put Lynne, 70, in prison for what would amount to the rest of her life.
Lynne will appeal the Second Circuit's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. She has repeatedly stated that her prosecution and persecution are consciously orchestrated by the government to chill the defense bar, that is, to instill the fear of government prosecutions into any attorney who seeks to afford alleged terrorists or others who are victims of unjust government persecution, a vigorous and dedicated defense. Lynne points to the upcoming U.S. prosecution efforts of Guantanamo prisoners as a prime example.
Again, join us on Monday, November 23 at 5:00 pm at the San Francisco Federal Courthouse, 7th and Mission.
For further information contact: Jeff Mackler, Coordinator, West Coast Lynne Stewart Defense Committee 510-268-9429 jmackler@lmi.net
Mail tax free contributions payable to National Lawyers Guild Foundation. Write in memo box: "Lynne Stewart Defense." Mail to: Lynne Stewart Defense, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610.
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2) Civil Rights Attorney Lynne Stewart Speaks Out
Democracy Now Interview By Amy Goodman
November 18, 2009
http://i1.democracynow.org/2009/11/18/exclusive_civil_rights_attorney_lynne_stewart
AMY GOODMAN: Civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart has been ordered to prison to begin serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence after a federal appeals court upheld her conviction on Tuesday.
Lynne Stewart was found guilty in 2005 of distributing press releases on behalf of her jailed client, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as the "Blind Sheikh," who's serving a life sentence on terror-related charges. Prosecutors had sought a thirty-year sentence, but Stewart was sentenced to two-and-a-half years after the judge rejected the prosecutors' argument that she threatened national security and ruled there was no evidence her actions caused any harm.
On Tuesday, a three-judge appeals court panel ordered the trial judge to revoke Stewart's bond and said she must begin serving her twenty-eight-month sentence. The panel rejected Stewart's claim she was acting only as a "zealous advocate" for her imprisoned client when she passed messages for him. The appellate ruling said, quote, "a genuinely held intent to represent a client 'zealously' is not necessarily inconsistent with criminal intent."
The panel also described Stewart's twenty-eight-month sentence as, quote, "strikingly low" and sent the case back to the trial judge to determine whether she deserved a longer prison term. The ruling said Stewart, who's seventy years old, was to surrender to US marshals immediately, but her lawyers won her an extension until at least 5:00 p.m. today.
Well, Lynne Stewart has come to our studios here in New York. And we welcome you, Lynne, to Democracy Now! Can you describe your reaction to the ruling?
LYNNE STEWART: Well, in its sweeping and negative tone, I must say I was first a little bit shocked, because we had expected, or had hoped, at least, that some of these important constitutional issues would be decided, and then very disappointed, on my own behalf, certainly-personally, you can't discount-but actually, for all of us, Amy, because these important constitutional issues-the right to speak to your lawyer privately without the government listening in, the right to be safe from having a search conducted of your lawyer's office-all these things are now swept under the rug and available to the government.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you, for people who haven't followed your case, explain exactly what happened, why you were charged?
LYNNE STEWART: I represented Sheikh Omar at trial-that was in 1995-along with Ramsey Clark and Abdeen Jabara. I was lead trial counsel. He was convicted in September of '95, sentenced to a life prison plus a hundred years, or some sort-one of the usual outlandish sentences. We continued, all three of us, to visit him while he was in jail-he was a political client; that means that he is targeted by the government-and because it is so important to prisoners to be able to have access to their lawyers.
Sometime in 1998, I think maybe it was, they imposed severe restrictions on him. That is, his ability to communicate with the outside world, to have interviews, to be able to even call his family, was limited by something called special administrative measures. The lawyers were asked to sign on for these special administrative measures and warned that if these measures were not adhered to, they could indeed lose contact with their client-in other words, be removed from his case.
In 2000, I visited the sheikh, and he asked me to make a press release. This press release had to do with the current status of an organization that at that point was basically defunct, the Gama'a al-Islamiyya. And I agreed to do that. In May of-maybe it was later than that. Sometime in 2000, I made the press release.
Interestingly enough, we found out later that the Clinton administration, under Janet Reno, had the option to prosecute me, and they declined to do so, based on the notion that without lawyers like me or the late Bill Kunstler or many that I could name, the cause of justice is not well served. They need the gadflies.
So, at any rate, they made me sign onto the agreement again not to do this. They did not stop me from representing him. I continued to represent him.
And it was only after 9/11, in April of 2002, that John Ashcroft came to New York, announced the indictment of me, my paralegal and the interpreter for the case, on grounds of materially aiding a terrorist organization. One of the footnotes to the case, of course, is that Ashcroft also appeared on nationwide television with Letterman that night ballyhooing the great work of Bush's Justice Department in indicting and making the world safe from terrorism.
The course of the case followed. We tried the case in 2005 to a jury, of course sitting not ten blocks from the World Trade Center, and an anonymous jury, I might add, which I think went a long way to contribute to our convictions. And all three of us were convicted. Since that time, the appeals process has followed. The appeal was argued almost two years ago, and the opinion just came like a-actually like a thunderclap yesterday. And to just put it in perspective, I think, it comes hard on the heels of Holder's announcement that they are bringing the men from Guantanamo to New York to be tried. That-I'll expand on that, if you wish, but that basically is where we're at. It's said that I should be immediately remanded, my bail revoked.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Lynne Stewart. She could be going to prison at any point. Lynne, I wanted to read to you from the Times, their description, saying, "In addressing whether [Ms.] Stewart's sentence was too lenient, Judge Sack wrote that Judge Koeltl had cited her 'extraordinary' personal characteristics, and had described her as 'a dedicated public servant who had, throughout her career, "represented the poor, the disadvantaged and the unpopular."'
"But Judge Koeltl had declined to determine whether Ms. Stewart had lied at trial, a factor he should have considered in weighing her sentence, Judge Sack wrote. 'We think that whether Stewart lied under oath at her trial is directly relevant to whether her sentence was appropriate.'"
What they talking about? What is their accusation about you lying at trial?
LYNNE STEWART: Well, of course, I'm not rendering a legal opinion here, Amy, because I'm officially disbarred. But I will say that my understanding of the law is that the judge may consider whether or not a client or a person who testified in their own defense lied or even shaded the truth to their own benefit. And my sense of reading-and I haven't read them over recently, but my sense of the sentencing was that the judge did consider it, at least in a manner. He basically said he did not think it was relevant, and the court of appeals argued with this.
I, of course, committed no perjury. I spoke on my own behalf. I described what I did. I'm not sure that the court of appeals may have liked what I said, but that is, you know, because the US attorney went into my politics at great length, as if to say, "See, she has radical politics, so we know she would have done something radical." I've always said my politics are very, very different from the sheikh's politics, and that was an unfair cut. But notwithstanding that, they do have the right to consider it. It can be something, if the judge believed you lied, that can increase your sentence.
I have every reason to believe that Judge Koeltl, who is a most careful judge, a most-a judge described, in the opinion by Judge Calabresi, as being someone who makes very wise decisions, considered it-considered it, rejected it, and went ahead. This was the number-the sentence he arrived at, twenty-eight months, and we hope that he will retain the courage that he had in making that sentence, to stick with it now that the government, through the Second Circuit, has challenged it.
AMY GOODMAN: Lynne Stewart, as you were being sentenced in 2006, you had breast cancer. How are you today? How's your health?
LYNNE STEWART: The breast cancer is good; I have no recurrence. I just had a mammogram, even though I'm seventy. I don't know how that falls into the new warnings. But at any rate, I'm cancer-free. I have some other aging problems, woman plumbing stuff, which I actually am scheduled for surgery on December 7th. My lawyers are hoping to be able to go to the Second Circuit and ask them to extend the period of time that I would have to surrender, in order that this surgery may be accomplished right here in New York at Lenox Hill Hospital. We're not sure of that. It does seem that they're-
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain how this happens today, because at this point you have an extension until 5:00 p.m. today-
LYNNE STEWART: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: -before going to prison? What will happen today?
LYNNE STEWART: Well, the judge has asked the lawyers to research whether he has the power at this point-I mean, this is like ancient English Magna Carta law. You know, the case has been appealed. It's in the Second Circuit. In order for him to order me to prison, it has to be before him. In other words, the papers, I guess, have to be carried from the upper floor to the lower floor to the district court. He wanted them to research whether or not he can do anything before he has that mandate. He, of course, can decide that I'm turning myself in tomorrow. He can also decide that he doesn't have it until-usually the mandate takes a week to ten days to come down. So we're sort of on the edge. It will not preclude my lawyers from going to the circuit directly and asking them to stay their order of my immediate remand and revocation of bail. So we're sort of on the edge. We're-
AMY GOODMAN: Do you know where you will be imprisoned?
LYNNE STEWART: Say that again?
AMY GOODMAN: Do you know where you will be imprisoned?
LYNNE STEWART: No. See, that's one of the other reasons. It's not only my surgery. It also is the fact that I've never been designated and also the fact that the pre-sentence report on which they usually base these designations is three years old at this point. It doesn't take into account anything that has happened since then.
So we think there are some grounds for extending the time, but I think it's fair to say that at this point I have brought my books and my medicines with me to go to court this afternoon, and I expect-I expect the worst, being Irish, but hope for the best, because I'm a leftist and always optimistic.
AMY GOODMAN: What books have you brought with you?
LYNNE STEWART: I have Snow by-I never pronounce his name right-Orhan Pamuk. I have The Field of Poppies; I can't remember the author, terrible, given to me by a dear comrade, Ralph Schoenman. And I have a couple of mysteries, because I'm an addict of mysteries, and it passes the time quickly for me.
AMY GOODMAN: Lynne, would you do anything differently today, or would you do anything differently back then, if you knew what you knew today?
LYNNE STEWART: I think I should have been a little more savvy that the government would come after me. But do anything differently? I don't-I'd like to think I would not do anything differently, Amy. I made these decisions based on my understanding of what the client needed, what a lawyer was expected to do. They say that you can't distinguish zeal from criminal intent sometimes. I had no criminal intent whatsoever. This was a considered decision based on the need of the client. And although some people have said press releases aren't client needs, I think keeping a person alive when they are in prison, held under the conditions which we now know to be torture, totally incognito-not incognito, but totally held without any contact with the outside world except a phone call once a month to his family and to his lawyers, I think it was necessary. I would do it again. I might handle it a little differently, but I would do it again.
AMY GOODMAN: Lynne Stewart, I want to thank you for being with us. I hope we can talk to you in prison. Lynne Stewart has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail, to be served beginning today, unless a judge is able to intervene. Thanks so much for being with us.
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3) Regents Raise Tuition in California by 32 Percent
By TAMAR LEWIN
November 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/education/20tuition.html?hp
The University of California Board of Regents approved a plan on Thursday to raise undergraduate fees - the equivalent of tuition - 32 percent by next fall, to help make up for steep cuts in state funding.
The state allocation for the 10-campus system, one of the leading public university systems in the nation, was cut $813 million, or 20 percent, this year, leading to a hiring freeze, furloughs and layoffs.
The impact on the University of California campuses has been dramatic: faculty hiring is not keeping up with enrollment demand, and many course sections have been eliminated. Instructional budgets are being reduced by $139 million, with 1,900 employees laid off, 3,800 positions eliminated and hiring deferred for nearly 1,600 positions, most of them faculty.
Several campuses are planning to admit more out-of-state students, who pay higher tuition, to help close the budget gap. And there is a growing worry that senior faculty may begin to defect to other institutions.
Since the school year began, thousands of students have protested both the budget cuts and the proposal for higher fees, which would bring in-state tuition to more than $10,000 a year. On Wednesday 14 protesters, including 12 students, were arrested at U.C.L.A., for disrupting the meeting of the Regents Finance Committee, which was eventually closed to visitors.
On Thursday, as the Regents met at U.C.L.A.'s Covel Commons, hundreds of demonstrators from campuses across the state gathered outside to protest the fee increases. Some carried signs that said, "Freeze the Fees," "No to the Cuts" and "R.I.P. Higher Education."
Some students set up a tent city on campus overnight, and others occupied Campbell Hall, where they remained during the Regents meeting.
There were also large protests on the Berkeley campus by union workers, students and faculty.
Mark Yudof, president of the system, said the University of California now received only half as much support from the state, per student, as it did in 1990. Even with the higher student fees, the system needs a $913 million increase in state financing next year to avoid further cuts. If that extra money is not provided, next year's freshman enrollment will most likely be cut.
"When it comes to the university's core support, we have only two main sources - taxpayer dollars from the state and student fees," Mr. Yudof said. "Even with deep administrative cuts, when one goes down, the other almost inevitably must go up."
To help students who cannot afford the increasing fees, the Regents were also expected to approve the expansion of the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, for undergraduates whose family income is below $70,000.
In the public comment period at the Regents meeting, many students spoke out against the fee increase, telling of their families' struggles to get them a college education, their difficulty affording even the current fees, and the likelihood that higher fees would make the system's campuses inaccessible to low-income students.
Rebecca Cathcart contributed reporting from Los Angeles.
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4) A Gift to Credit Card Companies
NYT Editorial
November 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/opinion/20fri3.html
Congress left consumers extremely vulnerable when it gave the credit card industry as long as 15 months to end the deceptive predatory practices outlawed in the spring in the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act. The credit card industry, which clearly wants to make a killing in the Christmas season, used this unnecessarily long grace period to intensify its predations, doubling interest rates on people who pay on time and driving up rates by an industry wide average of about 20 percent.
These ravages seemed not to have registered with Senator Thad Cochran, a Republican of Mississippi, who represents the nation's poorest and most economically vulnerable state. On Wednesday, Mr. Cochran blocked a vote on a bill introduced by Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat of Connecticut, that would have immediately frozen credit card interest rates and fees.
Mr. Cochran said through his office that he objected to the bill on behalf of unknown Republican colleagues who had their own objections. But it is difficult not to see his maneuver in yet another act of obeisance by Senate Republicans to the banking and credit card industries.
The same was true of Congress's decision in May to delay implementation of the original credit card reform bill. Had the act gone into effect immediately, credit card issuers would have been forced to end many of the practices that have trapped millions of Americans in debt that they had no hope of repaying.
Arbitrary increases like the ones that appear to have become even more common since the spring would have been immediately outlawed. So would the practice of penalizing customers who are late paying an unrelated bill - known as universal default - and the rip-off in which companies charge cardholders new interest on debts that they have paid a month or two earlier. And the companies would have been forced to end the outrageous practice of burdening teenagers with credit cards without first judging their ability to pay the bills or getting a signature from a responsible adult.
The Dodd bill appears to be off the table for the moment. But a stronger bill that would move up the effective date of the credit card law to Dec. 1 has already passed the House. The Senate version has been introduced by Mark Udall, a Democrat of Colorado. With December almost upon us, the measure should long since have become law.
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5) Russia: Moratorium on Executions
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
World Briefing | Europe
November 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/world/europe/20briefs-ExecutionBrf.html?ref=world
Russia's Constitutional Court extended the country's moratorium on the death penalty on Thursday, though it stopped short of fully abolishing capital punishment. In a statement, the Constitutional Court argued that permitting capital punishment would violate Russia's commitments as a member of the Council of Europe. The moratorium on executions was imposed in 1996 and was set to expire in January.
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6) Watchdog Urges Caution on Claims of 640,000 Stimulus Jobs
By MICHAEL COOPER
November 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/us/politics/20stimulus.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - The government watchdog overseeing the federal stimulus program testified Thursday that he could not vouch for the Obama administration's recent claims that the money had saved or created 640,000 jobs. He suggested that the administration should have treated the number with more skepticism.
The 640,000 figure, announced by the White House with some fanfare last month, came from reports filed by recipients of the stimulus money, many of which have been shown to be inaccurate or overstated since they were made public. But the watchdog, Earl E. Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said that it was also possible that the figure understated how many jobs were affected. Up to 10 percent of the recipients had not filed the required reports showing how many jobs they had created or saved, he said.
"I have no doubt that there's a lot of jobs being created," Mr. Devaney said at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "I think it could be above or below 640. I think missing reports might drive the job numbers up, and I think there's enough inaccuracies in here to question if the 640 number might go down."
When the White House announced the figures three weeks ago, officials hoped to reassure people that the $787 billion stimulus program was working in the face of rising unemployment. Many economists credit the stimulus with helping the economy, but tallying the actual jobs has proved difficult. A series of embarrassing reports - of raises being counted as new jobs, of jobs claimed in Congressional districts that do not exist, of school districts claiming to have saved the jobs of more teachers than they employ - may have ended up undermining confidence in the stimulus program.
This week, Representative David Obey of Wisconsin, an influential Democrat who helped write the stimulus bill, issued a blistering statement calling the mistakes in the data "ludicrous" and "outrageous."
"Credibility counts in government, and stupid mistakes like this undermine it," he said. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was even quizzed about the figures when he sat for an interview on "The Daily Show."
Also Thursday, a report issued by the Government Accountability Office identified "significant" problems with the jobs numbers. It found that 58,386 of the jobs were being claimed by recipients who had not reported spending any money; on the other hand, recipients who had received nearly $1 billion had claimed no jobs at all.
Administration officials have said that they believe that mistakes overcounting jobs are likely to be offset by mistakes undercounting them.
Representative Darrell E. Issa, the ranking Republican on the committee, read the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of propaganda at the hearing, and suggested that the administration was using the faulty jobs figure to promote its policies.
He read a series of statements of administration officials trumpeting the figure, and asked Mr. Devaney if it would have been better to have simply acknowledged that the data came from recipients and could not be verified.
Mr. Devaney, who has warned for months that the data was likely to contain inaccuracies, seemed to agree, saying that he liked that statement. The data is all publicly available on the government's Web site, www.recovery.gov, which he oversees.
Elizabeth A. Oxhorn, a White House spokeswoman, said that Mr. Biden had warned publicly that the data was not 100 percent accurate and would require corrections.
Mr. Devaney said that the mistakes were coming to light because of the effort toward transparency, and said, "My expectation is that any embarrassment suffered will encourage self-correcting behavior and lead to better reporting in the future."
Jackie Calmes contributed reporting.
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7) Jobless Rate Got No Help From Hiring for Holidays
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
November 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/nyregion/20jobs.html?ref=nyregion
The usual preholiday hiring by stores did not happen in October as New York City's unemployment rate held at 10.3 percent, its highest level in 16 years, the State Labor Department said Thursday.
The city's official unemployment rate remained slightly above the national rate, which rose to 10.2 percent last month, and well above the state's rate, which edged up to 9 percent in October, the department said.
The only fields in the city that grew significantly last month were education and health services, which added a combined total of 21,600 jobs, said James Brown, an analyst with the Labor Department. Otherwise, Mr. Brown said, "the job market showed broad weakness."
Employers traditionally add to payrolls in the fall, but they have shown a reluctance to hire this year, despite proclamations from some government officials that the recession has ended. Stores, restaurants and hotels usually start taking on workers in September and October and shed them in January and February.
But that pattern has been as weak this year as it was last year. The number of jobs in the retail trade in the city declined by 1,100 in October, Mr. Brown said.
The leisure and hospitality sector "lost jobs last holiday season and is doing slightly worse so far this year," Mr. Brown said. "Unfortunately, this latest monthly report suggests that the city's job market remains quite weak, and Christmas hiring will be both late and subdued."
Mr. Brown does not adjust the city's job figures for the usual seasonal fluctuations, but Barbara Byrne Denham, an economist who does, said that, after those adjustments, October appeared to have been the city's worst month since December.
Ms. Denham, a chief economist for Eastern Consolidated, a real estate investment company, said that the city lost 15,600 jobs in October and had now lost more than 125,000 jobs during this downturn. The biggest losses last month came in construction, securities brokerages, restaurants and retail stores, according to Ms. Denham.
The number of unemployed city residents has averaged more than 413,000 for the past three months, a level it had not reached in more than 32 years of record keeping. The city's unemployment rate - a measure of how many people are looking for jobs but are unable to find them - has also been lifted by continuing growth of the city's labor force.
The number of people working or looking for work in the city has remained above four million for almost all of 2009, up about 10 percent since the start of this decade. The labor force usually shrinks in a recession, as some people give up looking for jobs and are no longer counted. City officials point to the growing labor force as a sign of optimism about the local economy.
The city's comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., said the latest data reinforced a report his office released this week that showed that education and health care had grown steadily through the recession and should be nurtured as critical industries. "It's time to take these sectors seriously as potential engines for our city's employment growth," he said.
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8) PG&E SHUTOFFS AFFECTING MORE HOUSEHOLDS IN THE REGION THIS YEAR
Lizet Moreno [mailto:lizet@energyservices.org]
Thursday, November 19, 2009 2:42 PM
Homeowners and renters can call CCES at 1-888-728-3637 for a HEAP application.
Press Contact: Lizet Moreno, 831-761-7080 x123 or Lizet@EnergyServices.org
MEDIA ADVISORY
PG&E SHUTOFFS AFFECTING MORE households in the region this year
Customers faced with a demand for immediate payment of overdue bills
Watsonville, CA - (November 19, 2009) - Central Coast Energy Services (CCES) has seen an increase in applicants in need of emergency assistance with utility bill shutoff notices as compared to 2008.
Customers falling behind in their bill:
2008 - 1,534; 2009 - 1,923
The upward trend of customers falling behind on their bill or facing shutoff for nonpayment has increased by 899 as compared to last year. Since January (2009), CCES has made commitments to PG&E on behalf of 1923 eligible customers (households) that have received 15 day or 48 hour shutoff notices. Last year, this number was 1534.
While the increased need of emergency assistance with shutoff notices can very well be attributed to a slump in the economy, PG&E customers are encountering extreme enforcement of payment policies and fewer options to actually pay past-due bills.
In most situations, customers who apply for emergency assistance are considered high risk as a result of a past due balance or because of a poor payment history and are being charged a fee or "deposit" of up to twice the total monthly bill (& sometimes more) on top of the original balance due. In most cases, the deposit (and original balance) is charged in full, as the high-risk customer would likely not qualify for a PG&E payment plan.
Actual customer bill:
209.16 - original balance
200.00 - payment
______
9.16 - balance carried forward
64.35 - new month's balance
9.16 - previous months balance
163.00 - DEPOSIT + fee
______
236.51 - TOTAL AMOUNT DUE
As shown in the above example, the addition of a deposit on top of existing charges, with no option of a payment plan, makes it virtually impossible for an already-struggling household to catch up on their bill, putting them once again at risk of being shut off. With first-time unemployment claims at an all-time high, and the Winter season well under way, customers will need additional options to make payments on their PG&E bill.
The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to take up the matter at their meeting tomorrow, Friday, November 20th at 10 am in the Auditorium at 505 Van Ness Avenue , San Francisco , where a CCES representative will testify to the issue.
CCES administers the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) for low-income households in Monterey , Santa Cruz , and South Santa Clara Counties . HEAP provides payment assistance of up to $385.00 with PG&E bills one time per calendar year. Households with a shutoff notice (48_hour or 15_day) may be eligible to receive immediate help.
Homeowners and renters can call CCES at 1-888-728-3637 for a HEAP application.
Press Contact: Lizet Moreno, 831-761-7080 x123 or Lizet@EnergyServices.org
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9) An American Catastrophe
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/opinion/21herbert.html?hp
Detroit
In many ways, it's like a ghost town. It's eerily quiet. Driving around in the middle of the afternoon, in a city that once was among the most productive on the planet, you see very little traffic, minimal commercial activity, hardly any pedestrians.
What you'll see are endless acres of urban ruin, block after block and mile after mile of empty and rotting office buildings, storefronts, hotels, apartment buildings and private homes. It's a scene of devastation and disintegration that stuns the mind, a major American city that still is home to 900,0000 people but which looks at times like a cross between postwar Berlin and the ruin of an ancient civilization.
Detroit was the arsenal of democracy in World War II and the incubator of the American middle class. It was the city that taught mass production to the rest of the world. It was a place that made cars, trucks and other tangible products, not derivatives. And it was the architect of the quintessentially American idea of putting people to work and paying them a decent wage. It's frightening to think seriously about what we've allowed to happen to this city and what is now happening to the middle class and the American economy as a whole.
I was in Detroit with Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in labor issues. He grew up in Detroit and his love for the city and its people are palpable, as is his grief for the horrors the city has endured.
The popular narrative of what happened to Detroit contains a great deal of truth but its focus is too narrow to account for the astonishing decline of this former industrial colossus. Yes, there were the riots of 1967, and white flight; and political leadership that was not just shortsighted but at times embarrassingly incompetent and corrupt. And, yes, the auto industry was a case study in self-destruction.
But as Mr. Shaiken points out, Detroit was still viable enough for the Republican Party to hold its convention here in 1980, when it nominated Ronald Reagan. And it was not the riots, but the devastating recession of the early '80s that really knocked the city senseless. "That's when the place really cracked," said Mr. Shaiken, "and that was about aggressive globalization and the lack of an industrial policy, not the riots."
Detroit and its environs are suffering the agonies of the economic damned because of policies, crafted at the highest national and corporate levels, that resulted in the implosion of crucially important components of America's manufacturing base. Those decisions have had a profound effect on the fortunes not just of Detroit, or even Michigan, but the entire U.S. economy.
"We've been living with the illusion that manufacturing - making things - is so 20th century," said Mr. Shaiken, "and that we could succeed by concentrating, for example, on complex financial instruments while abandoning the industrial base that sustained so many American families."
The idea that the fallout from the wrongheaded economic concepts of the past 30 or 40 years could be contained, with the damage limited to the increasingly troubled urban areas while sparing prosperous suburbia, has now proved as phony as Bernie Madoff's fortune. Americans, whether they live in big cities, suburban towns or rural areas, need jobs, and when those jobs are eliminated (for whatever reasons - technological advances, globalization) without being replaced, the national economy is guaranteed at some point to hit a wall.
Professor Shaiken and I drove past vast lots filled with rubble and garbage and weeds, past the old Michigan Central Terminal, which was once Detroit's answer to New York's Grand Central Terminal but which has long since been abandoned; past a onetime Cadillac manufacturing plant that is now an empty lot.
We stopped at an old Ford plant and stood in a stiff, cold wind, reading a plaque put up by the Michigan Historical Commission: "Here at his Highland Park plant, Henry Ford began the mass production of automobiles on a moving assembly line. By 1915 Ford built a million Model T's. In 1925 over 9,000 were assembled in a single day. Mass production soon moved from here to all phases of American industry and set the pattern of abundance for 20th century living."
Professor Shaiken's grandfather, Philip Chapman, took a job at the Highland Park plant in 1914, earning five dollars a day, and worked on production at Ford until his retirement in the mid-1950s.
We're at a period no less significant to the U.S. than Mr. Chapman's early years at Ford. We need a revitalized industrial policy, including the creation of whole new industries, if American families are to prosper in the coming decades. If there is any sense of urgency about this in the hearts and minds of our corporate and government leaders, I've missed it.
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10) The Breaking Point
Hospital Falters as Refuge for Illegal Immigrants
By KEVIN SACK
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/health/policy/21grady.html?hp
ATLANTA - Each had crossed the border years before, smuggled across the desert by a coyote, never imagining the journey would lead to a drab and dusty clinic on the ninth floor of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Some knew before the crossing that they had diabetes or lupus or high blood pressure, but it was only after they arrived that their kidneys began to fail. To survive, they needed dialysis at a cost of about $50,000 a year, which their sporadic work as housekeepers, painters and laborers could not begin to cover.
And so they turned to Grady, a taxpayer-supported safety-net hospital that would provide dialysis to anyone in need, even illegal immigrants with no insurance or ability to pay. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning, the 15 or so patients would settle into their recliners, four to a room, and while away the monotonous three-hour treatments by chitchatting in Spanish.
That all changed on Oct. 4, when the strapped public hospital closed its outpatient dialysis clinic, leaving 51 patients - almost all illegal immigrants - in a life-or-death limbo.
For Grady, which has served Atlanta's poor for 117 years, it was an excruciating choice, a stark reflection of what happens when the country's inadequate health care system confronts its defective immigration policy.
Like other hospitals, particularly public hospitals, Grady has been left to provide costly treatments to nonpaying illegal residents who most likely could not have obtained such care in their home countries. American taxpayers and health care consumers have borne the expense.
Over time, the mounting losses have compromised Grady's charitable mission, forcing layoffs, increases in fees and the elimination of services.
"Years and years of providing this free care has led Grady to the breaking point," said Matt Gove, one of the hospital's senior vice presidents. "If we don't make the gut-wrenching decisions now, there won't be a Grady later. Then, everyone loses."
But for the dialysis patients, the sudden end to their reassuring routine has prompted a panic.
"We didn't know what to do," said Ignacio G. Lopez, 23, who had been sustained by the clinic for more than three years. "We can pass away if we stay like two weeks without dialysis. They were just sending us out to die."
The chairman of Grady's recently reconstituted board, A. D. Correll, has said the hospital would not let that happen. "We made a commitment right up front that people are not going to die on the street because of these actions," said Mr. Correll, a former chairman of the Georgia-Pacific Corporation and a prominent civic leader here.
Soccer and Telenovelas
In fact, the future for many of the patients remains uncertain. Like most of the country's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, they have little access to continuing health care, a reality not addressed by the legislation now under discussion in Washington.
Across the years, the Grady dialysis patients had forged a community, a family, really, of people who share a history and language, as well as a life-threatening condition. As the machines cleansed the toxins from their blood, they would talk about the scarcity of work, the ruthlessness of their disease and their hopes for a transplant. Some would sleep, while others crooned folksongs to drown out the snores.
Any given morning might find Mr. Lopez bickering with Fidelia G. Perez about whether to watch their soap operas, or telenovelas, in English or Spanish. From another chair, Rosa Lira, a frail grandmother, would look up from her prayer book to boast of the previous night's exploits by Club America, her favorite Mexican soccer team. Rosa Palma de Gamez, from El Salvador, would grin when Ismael Sagrero arrived with his trademark greeting - "Hola-hola!" - which had become his nickname.
Now the patients are trying desperately to figure out their next steps.
With limited exceptions, illegal immigrants are ineligible for public insurance programs like Medicaid and Medicare and often cannot afford private coverage. When major illness strikes, they have few options but to go to emergency rooms, which are required by federal law to treat anyone whose health is deemed in serious jeopardy.
Officials at Grady, which will provide more than $300 million in uncompensated care this year, estimate that as many as a fifth of its uninsured patients are illegal immigrants. Although the numbers are elusive, a national study by the RAND Corporation concluded that illegal immigrants account for about 1.3 percent of public health spending.
The recession has prompted some state and local governments to pare programs that benefit illegal immigrants. And although illegal immigrants may account for about seven million of the country's 46 million uninsured, the health care bills being negotiated by Congress exclude them from expansions of subsidized public insurance. (The House bill that passed on Nov. 7 would allow illegal immigrants to buy policies at full cost on government-run exchanges, while legislation being considered in the Senate would forbid it.)
Calling it "a horrible situation," Mr. Correll said that governments at all levels had decided that immigrants were not their problem. "But somehow," he said, "they've become Grady's problem, which seems totally unfair."
Some of the Grady dialysis patients have chosen to return to their countries, encouraged by the hospital's offer of free airfare, cash payments, three months of paid dialysis and assistance in seeking insurance or other long-term remedies. Others are trying their luck in states where Medicaid policies may be less restrictive.
But most remain in Atlanta, taking full advantage of a last-minute offer by the hospital, in response to a lawsuit, to pay for three months of dialysis at commercial clinics. They are hopeful that the reprieve will buy time for the lawsuit to progress or for private dialysis providers to take them as charity cases.
What they fear, however, is that their already fragile lives will soon be reduced to a frenzied search for their next dialysis, most likely in an emergency room after a descent into crisis.
Looking for a Better Life
They need only look to Ms. Perez to see what the future may hold.
After hearing that the clinic would close, Ms. Perez, 32, set out for Alabama on Sept. 6 because cousins told her they might be able to procure dialysis there. Grady was not yet offering its deal for three months of treatment, and instead gave her $1,300, enough to cover dialysis for a week or two.
Ms. Perez said the money was quickly spent on rent, food and transportation. After going without dialysis for 16 days, she walked into an emergency room near Birmingham, which found that the potassium levels in her blood were high enough to require immediate filtration. Eight days later, she did the same at another Birmingham hospital.
"They said this was the first and last time they would help me," she said. "They told me I didn't have any right to be there."
She went back to the first hospital, where she was dialyzed again, and then found a third hospital that was willing to provide three treatments. A doctor there tried to find a private dialysis clinic that would accept her but came up empty, she said.
So she returned to Atlanta on Oct. 11, and underwent one more emergency treatment before agreeing to fly home to Mexico with assistance from Grady and a California company, MexCare, that the hospital has hired to help repatriate interested patients.
Ms. Perez's parents live in Mexico and can care for her, but in many cases the patients' families and sources of support are in the United States. Some do not want to uproot their American-born children, or abandon their spouses or jobs. Often they do not trust the quality or availability of dialysis in Latin America.
Like other patients, Adolfo D. Sanchez, 31, said he was astonished to learn when his kidneys failed in 2004 that Grady would provide him ongoing dialysis without charge. A subsistence farmer in Mexico, he said he had paid a coyote $1,500 in 2001 to lead him on an eight-day trek across the Arizona border to Phoenix and then to Atlanta, where his sister had settled.
Three years later, while working in construction, he found he could not keep down the small tacos he ate for lunch. A local clinic referred him to Grady, which diagnosed his kidney failure and placed him on dialysis.
"No place in Mexico would have offered dialysis for free," he said, sitting in the spare apartment he shares with his girlfriend and their 13-year-old son. "It was better to be here. I am really grateful that this is possible in this country, because if I were in my country I would already have died"
Bertha A. Montelongo, a 59-year-old widow who said she entered the United States illegally in 2005, started having seizures and shortness of breath about a month after arriving in Atlanta.
"I came to look for a better life," she said, "but then I became sick, and that was it."
A diabetic, Ms. Montelongo has survived for four years on dialysis, but lost her vision last December. That has made her dependent on her daughter, who baby-sits and sells homemade tamales; her son-in-law, an out-of-work landscaper; and her granddaughters. They live in a rented house in the suburbs where the mantel is lit with votives.
For a blind woman, returning to Mexico, where few family members remain, is not an option, Ms. Montelongo and her family said.
"All the people here on dialysis think the same thing," said her daughter, Letecia. "They all think that if they go back to Mexico, they will die sooner. In Mexico, it's different. There, you have to pay."
Creating a Crisis on Purpose
It has been different for the 25 or so United States citizens who were patients at the dialysis clinic. They were either already on Medicare or about to become eligible, and are thus being readily treated by private dialysis clinics. After a three-month waiting period, the federal insurance program covers anyone with end-stage renal disease, regardless of age, and pays 80 percent of the cost of dialysis.
But illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicare, and legal immigrants must wait five years to qualify. A few states use emergency Medicaid programs to cover ongoing dialysis for certain illegal immigrants, but Georgia discontinued the practice in 2006.
That sent waves of uninsured dialysis patients from across the region to Grady, which is supported by direct appropriations from Fulton and DeKalb Counties, ostensibly to care for their own residents. The hospital lost $3.5 million on the dialysis clinic last year, said Mr. Gove, the Grady spokesman. Its 88 dialysis patients accounted for a 10th of total losses at a hospital with more than 800,000 patient visits a year, he said.
The board acted, Mr. Correll said, because Grady's dialysis equipment had become obsolete, requiring heavy investment. It was evident, given that so many patients were undocumented and uninsured, that the losses would never stop.
"It was just financially hopeless," Mr. Correll said. "For every vacancy that opened up, another nonpaying patient would walk in the door, so it was going to last forever."
Mr. Correll said the hospital "had to precipitate a crisis" in the hope that other hospitals, dialysis centers and governments might pitch in.
Each of the remaining patients has signed an agreement stipulating that Grady will pay for private dialysis provided by Fresenius Medical Services for no more than three months, Mr. Gove said. The patients agreed to work with the hospital during that period to devise long-range plans for their care, possibly including repatriation.
What Grady has not told the patients is that its contract with Fresenius, which sets a price of $280 per treatment, covers their care for up to one year. Mr. Gove said the contract gave Grady the flexibility to continue paying for patients who fail to make other arrangements by Jan. 3. But he said the hospital's offer to arrange repatriation would end at that point.
"As patients, they are ultimately responsible for their care," Mr. Gove said.
The hospital's agreement with MexCare, obtained through a state open records request, calls for Grady to pay $18,000 for every patient relocated - $6,750 in travel expenses and escort fees, a $750 administrative fee, and payment for 30 dialysis treatments at $350 each.
Two years ago, the Grady board, then dominated by political appointees, undercut its chief executive's plan to close the dialysis clinic. The new board, now led by business leaders, hopes to save the hospital by convincing corporations and other potential donors that its fiscal discipline is worthy of support.
Mr. Correll said closing the dialysis clinic was "important to the future financial and operational success of Grady, because people have confidence now that the board will make a tough decision if it has to, and do it in the most humane way possible."
When Mr. Lopez first showed up at Grady in 2006, five years after he had crossed into Arizona at age 15, his disease had turned his skin a pallid gray. The doctors told him he was lucky he had not waited another day.
The charge for the initial hospital stay ran to $40,000; he said his stack of bills now totaled more than $100,000. "I try to pay little by little," he said, "but I'm never going to finish."
He said he had never expected such generosity from American health care, calling it "very humane." After each dialysis treatment at Grady, he said, he would thank the nurses.
"You saved my life," he would tell them. "One more time, you saved my life."
Yolanne Almanzar contributed reporting from Miami.
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11) Couple Plead Guilty in Cuba Spying Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21cuba.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON (AP) - A retired State Department worker and his wife have pleaded guilty in federal court to spying for Cuba over three decades.
The retired worker, Walter Kendall Myers, and his wife, Gwendolyn, both in their 70s, were caught in an undercover F.B.I. sting operation, arrested in June and held without bail. Judge Reggie B. Walton accepted their pleas on Friday afternoon.
Mr. Myers pleaded guilty to plotting to commit espionage and to wire fraud and agreed to serve a life sentence. Ms. Myers pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of plotting to gather and transmit national defense information and agreed to serve six to seven and a half years in prison. Both agreed to cooperate with investigators.
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12) Canada: Court Orders Refugee Board to Consider 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' in Army Deserter's Case
By IAN AUSTEN
World Briefing | The Americas
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/world/americas/21briefs-Canada.html?ref=world
The Federal Court ruled Friday that a refugee board must consider the treatment of homosexuals by the United States military when examining the case of an Army deserter who is a lesbian. The court ordered the Immigration and Refugee Board to again review the case of the deserter, Bethany Lanae Smith, who fled the Army for Canada in 2007 shortly before being posted to Afghanistan. Her initial application for refugee status was rejected. Ms. Smith said that she had received hundreds of threats of violence and death while stationed in Fort Campbell, Ky., where a gay serviceman had been killed in 1999. Officers at the base denied her request for a discharge under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy after she disclosed her sexual orientation.
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13) In Survey, Hard Times Before Slump
By SAM ROBERTS
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21census.html?ref=us
Even before the recession, more than one in five Americans could not pay for basic needs without help from family, friends or outsiders, according to a survey by the Census Bureau.
Fourteen percent of all Americans and 26 percent of blacks who responded to the 2005 survey reported that at sometime in the preceding year they were not able to meet essential expenses on their own, like paying bills for basic needs, avoiding foreclosure and buying sufficient food.
"Presumably, this would be more severe than just being late with your utility payment," said Kurt J. Bauman, a bureau analyst.
In addition to household income, a variety of measures of well-being were recorded in the bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation, which was released on Thursday.
While 99 percent of the nation's 113 million households reported having a refrigerator and a stove, that means that more than a million households lacked those appliances. Ninety-nine percent also said they owned a television.
The survey found that more American households had air conditioners and microwave ovens than computers.
Since 1998, the share of households with a personal computer increased to 67 percent, from 42 percent. The poor, the elderly and people without a high school diploma were least likely to own one.
Ninety percent owned landline telephones (down from 96 percent in 1998) and 71 percent owned cellphones (up from 36 percent). Among households headed by people under age 30, more owned cellphones (81 percent) than landlines (71 percent).
Since the survey was conducted well before the recession started in December 2007, presumably many measures of economic well-being have since gotten worse. Still, 9 percent of households over all and more than 25 percent of those below the poverty line could not afford nutritionally adequate food without resorting to food pantries or other emergency supplies, or to scavenging.
Compared with the 1990s, people over all said they were more likely to expect help if they needed it from family, friends, social services agencies or religious institutions. Black and Hispanic respondents, though, were a little less likely to expect such help; blacks were a little more likely to have received it.
Generally, people surveyed were more likely than in the 1990s to say they were satisfied with the safety and overall condition of their neighborhoods. Still, in 2005, 20 percent of blacks said they stayed at home because they were concerned about their safety, and 32 percent of blacks said they were afraid to walk alone at night.
Because respondents were not asked to elaborate, some of the results seemed anomalous. Almost the same proportion of householders lacking medical insurance said they were as satisfied with health services as those who were insured.
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14) Jobless Rate Up in 29 States, Hitting Records in 4 of Them
"In the states reporting record jobless rates, California was at 12.5 percent; South Carolina, 12.1 percent; Florida, 11.2 percent; and Delaware at 8.7 percent. The District of Columbia also set a high with an 11.9 percent rate."
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/business/economy/21jobless.html?ref=us
California, Delaware, South Carolina and Florida registered record rates of unemployment in October, the Labor Department said Friday.
Joblessness rose in 29 states last month compared with 22 in September, the agency said in a monthly state breakdown. Michigan had the highest jobless rate at 15.1 percent, followed by Nevada at 13 percent and Rhode Island at 12.9 percent.
The unemployment rate fell in 13 states, including Massachusetts, where it declined to 8.9 percent from 9.3 percent; New Hampshire, with a drop to 6.8 percent from 7.2 percent; and West Virginia, which fell to 8.5 percent from 8.9 percent.
The number of states with at least 10 percent unemployment held at 14 last month, the Labor Department's report showed. In the states reporting record jobless rates, California was at 12.5 percent; South Carolina, 12.1 percent; Florida, 11.2 percent; and Delaware at 8.7 percent. The District of Columbia also set a high with an 11.9 percent rate.
"Virtually every sector aside from the health care sector is losing jobs," said Sean Snaith, an economist at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla. "Housing has been central to Florida's economic story throughout the entire cycle. Unfortunately, it has spread well beyond the sectors directly involved in the housing market."
Payrolls declined last month in 21 states, the report showed. New York showed the biggest drop, with 15,300 jobs lost. Florida had 8,500 job losses, followed by Georgia with 7,500 and Virginia with 7,100.
Over the last year, California showed the biggest loss of jobs, with payrolls falling by 687,700 workers, the report showed.
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15) Dismissal of Case for Guard in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/world/middleeast/21XE.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department intends to drop manslaughter and weapons charges against one of the security guards from the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide who were involved in deadly Baghdad shootings in September 2007, prosecutors said Friday in court documents.
The shootings in Nisour Square left 17 Iraqis dead and set off inquiries that led the State Department to cancel the company's lucrative contract to guard American diplomats in Iraq.
A one-paragraph notice filed Friday said that prosecutors had asked that the case against Nicholas Slatten of Sparta, Tenn., be dropped. The government's detailed request asking the judge to dismiss the case was filed with the court and with the defendant, but was not made public.
Mr. Slatten was one of five guards who worked for Blackwater to be charged in the case. Blackwater is now Xe Services.
Prosecutors filed the request on Friday in a way that allows them to file new charges against Mr. Slatten later. The case against the remaining four guards is scheduled to go to trial in February.
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16) Pennsylvania: Partial Immunity
"Two former judges accused of taking kickbacks to supply juveniles to private detention facilities have been granted partial immunity from civil liability."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Mid-Atlantic
November 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21brfs-PARTIALIMMUN_BRF.html?ref=us
Two former judges accused of taking kickbacks to supply juveniles to private detention facilities have been granted partial immunity from civil liability. Judge Richard Caputo of Federal District Court said the former judges, Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. of Luzerne County, were entitled to partial immunity from lawsuits filed by former juvenile defendants. Judge Caputo said he realized that his decision would be unpopular but that the doctrine of judicial immunity required him to shield the judges from civil liability for any actions they took from the bench. The judges could still be sued for actions off the bench. Mr. Conahan and Mr. Ciavarella have pleaded not guilty to federal racketeering charges.
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