******Breaking News******
"Don't F*** With Our Activists" - Mobilizing Against FBI Raid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyG3dIUGQvQ
Three houses in Minneapolis raided, other houses in
Michigan, NC, Chicago targeted.
Submitted by smiley on Fri, 09/24/2010 - 09:20
http://twincities.indymedia.org/2010/sep/breaking-news-three-houses-minneapolis-raided-other-houses-michigan-nc-chicago-targeted
FBI raids homes of several Twin Cities war protesters
By RANDY FURST, Star Tribune
September 24, 2010
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/103716384.html?elr=KArks%3ADCiUo3PD%3A3D_V_qD3L%3Ac7cQKUiD3aPc%3A_Yyc%3AaU7DYaGEP7vDEh7P%3ADiUs
[NOW IT IS EVEN MORE IMPERATIVE THAT THE U.S. ANTIWAR MOVEMENT UNITE TOGETHER. Certainly there should be a united Bay Area response in opposition to these raids...BW]
*****
More Thoughts on the Division within the Antiwar Movement in the Bay Area
By Bonnie Weinstein and Carole Seligman
We agree with the demands adopted by the UNAC conference but disagree with organizing separately as is now the case.
A way we can still work together would be to agree to accept all the demands and allow organizing under all of them. It is also clear to us that UNAC (United National Antiwar Committee) does not have the base on the West Coast as it seems to have East of the Mississippi. We don't think we could have organized such a conference out here. Not now. Not yet. It is also clear--as it has been for many years--that ANSWER is firmly established as the leadership of the antiwar movement here in San Francisco, at least, and probably in LA and DC. So, we can't build a separate and competing coalition nor do we want to if we want the movement to keep strong and united and to grow.
Unfortunately, it is clear that local labor organizations here in the Bay Area are focusing on getting out the vote for the Democratic Party this November and have rejected any other type of action here on the West Coast on October 2. This rejection of taking action has nothing what-so-ever to do with the demands voted upon by the 800 people at the UNAC conference and has everything to do with keeping the labor movement tied to the Democratic Party.
We have to be realistic when trying to work with organized labors' "leaders." They are failing miserably to protect jobs and working conditions in San Francisco, in the Bay Area and throughout California and, for that matter, across the country. They are selling their own workers down the river lock, stock and barrel! But we do need to organize working people who, we believe, are far to the left of organized labors' "misleaders." That's why a united antiwar movement with strong demands of its own that ties the war spending and banker bailouts to the miseries working people are facing today--here and in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine--is imperative now!
Our belief is that no matter what demands were voted on at the UNAC conference, it makes no difference to these "labor misleaders." They are fully entrenched in the Democratic Party and are doing what they always do in spite of the continual wars and the drastic assault on the living conditions of workers across the country. They have proven themselves incapable of doing anything else in recent history except for giving workers false hope that voting Democratic will make a difference--i.e., "bringing the change we want"--by voting for Democrats.
They failed to push for the Employee Free Choice Act or single-payer healthcare; they make no mention of the fantastic costs of the wars and how they are impacting the living standards of working people; and again, offered only a vote for Democrats as the answer.
It is just not realistic to think that the demands adopted by UNAC are what's keeping organized labor from the antiwar movement. It's the labor misleaders themselves that are keeping organized labor from the antiwar movement no matter what the demands.
It is very strange to us that one minute the San Francisco Labor Council will pass an antiwar resolution and the next minute hold an honorary banquet for the mass murderer and war monger, Nancy Pelosi. Or to continue their ongoing support to Obama who has escalated the wars and the attacks on the living standards of working people, undocumented workers, students, youth--especially Black youth--etc. Has massively bailed out the wealthy with trillions of our tax dollars. That in the middle of a horrific oil spill sent thousands of National Guard troops--not to clean up the spill--but to patrol the borders between Mexico and the U.S. while deploying other National Guard troops to help hide the effects of the BP spill in the Gulf by chasing away scientists who are trying to gather data about the spill and the dispersants being poured into the oceans we all depend upon.
We haven't the slightest hope that electing Democrats will will improve any of these conditions. Only mass action in the streets demanding the things we want--an end to the wars NOW; an end to the bailout of the wealthy NOW; and an end to the billions spent on defending Israeli Apartheid and the massacre of the Palestinian people--all to protect U.S. interests in Middle East oil and other natural resources throughout the world. This is what the Democratic and Republican parties are all about and what their military is all about.
Working people are doomed if they continue to support the lesser of two evils--the Democratic party. It only leads to more evil as is evident if one's eyes are open.
We can't convince working people to see the truth if we don't tell the truth. And supporting the Democratic Party as a way to resolve the problems of working people, or to end these murderous wars, is NOT the truth!
We can't raise the consciousness of working people if we water down our demands to agree with the labor fakers and the Democratic Party.
In all sincerity,
Bonnie Weinstein
Carole Seligman
Report on September 19th Antiwar Meetings and an Open Letter to the Antiwar Movement
Dear peace activist:
We went to both antiwar meetings Sunday, September 19th -- ANSWER and Bay Area UNAC (United National Antiwar Committee). Both were approximately equal in size, and not very large. Both were attended by several groups who are active in the antiwar movement. Together we would have had a good size meeting of about 80. Actually, together we would have had a much more substantial meeting, because several people stayed away when they learned that there were two meetings at the same time, 1/2 a block away from each other.
People want the antiwar forces to work together to struggle to end these wars. People are disgusted at the great unity shown by the war parties, the Republicans and Democrats--in carrying out these wars. We must demand that the antiwar organizers--ourselves--work together in greater unity than the war parties do. Where we disagree with demands or slogans, let's find a way to include all.
The UNAC meeting scheduled a follow up meeting for Sunday, October 17th. Let's make this meeting one that is co-sponsored with ANSWER and invite all to participate in planning the next series of educational events and actions. Let's create the broadest possible structure for involving the whole movement and inviting people who have not participated before. Let's find a way to organize together! The situation demands it.
Carole Seligman
Bonnie Weinstein
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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Urgent Execution Alert!
Death Penalty Focus
Working for alternatives to the death penalty
crystal@nodeathpenalty.org
510-333-7966
https://death.rdsecure.org/section.php?id=20
Abolitionists,
Please read the urgent execution alert below!
Everyone should be prepared to protest at San Quentin on Tuesday. If any CEDP or Kevin Cooper Defense Committee folks can help with outreach between now and Tuesday please call or e-mail me.
More updates and information to follow.
Crystal
crystal@nodeathpenalty.org
510-333-7966
Working for alternatives to the death penalty
Urgent Execution Alert!
Despite the fact that there are still many unresolved legal issues related to the administration of lethal injection in California, the California Department of Corrections (CDCR) is pushing forward with plans to execute Albert Brown on September 29th at 12:01am. Death Penalty Focus takes the position that CDCR's actions are hasty and harmful to victims' families who are being put through a legal roller coaster ride.
As many of the legal issues surrounding this execution may not be resolved until the last minute, we have decided to move forward with plans to oppose this execution because the death penalty in California is dysfunctional, costly, plagued with inaccuracies, applied in a racially biased manner, and inconsistent with the evolving standards of decency.
We need your help!
Here's what you can do:
1. Please attend one of the following four press conferences and rallies on Tuesday, September 28th to show your opposition to the death penalty. (Because executions occur just after midnight, events occur on the day before the scheduled execution). Events are listed below.
2. Please encourage your friends and family to sign up for DPF's Urgent Action Alerts: SIGN UP HERE!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1265/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=2723
3. Please be prepared to take action in the form of letters to the editor and petitions within the next day or two. We will circulate actions for CA residents and national and international supporters.
Please join us in opposing all executions in California.
Thank you.
Join us on Tuesday, September 28th to Oppose the Dysfunctional Death Penalty in California!
San Quentin State Prison (Marin County)
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH
PRESS CONFERENCE at 3pm
RALLY AT 8:00PM
EAST GATE OF SAN QUENTIN PRISON
You can park on Francisco Blvd. E. but expect to walk 1-1.5 Miles to get to the East Gate of San Quentin.
Contact: Lance Lindsey, lance@deathpenalty.org or office 415-243-0143.
Los Angeles
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH
PRESS CONFERENCE/ RALLY AT 5:00 P.M.
Followed by a march to a nearby church.
WESTWOOD FEDERAL BUILDING
11000 Wilshire Boulevard (Corner of Veteran)
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Contact: James Clark, cell 626-344-0632, jclark@aclu-sc.org
Sacramento
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH
PRESS CONFERENCE/ RALLY AT 5:00 P.M.
State Capitol Building
11th & L Streets
Sacramento, CA
Contact: Ellen Eggers, cell 916-215-0510, ejeggers@aol.com
San Diego
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH
PRESS CONFERENCE AT 5:00 P.M.
Hall of Justice
330 West Broadway
San Diego, CA 92101
Contact: Denise Serrano, 619-398-4486, dserrano@aclusandiego.org
Death Penalty Focus
870 Market St. Ste. 859 San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel. 415.243.0143 - Fax 415.243.0994 - www.deathpenalty.org
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Protest U.S./NATO War in Afghanistan
on 9th Anniversary of Invasion
End colonial occupation-Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and everywhere
Fund Jobs, Schools, Healthcare and Housing-Not the Pentagon
Fight Islamophobia, anti-immigrant attacks and all forms of racism
Wednesday, October 6, 5pm
Powell & Markets Sts., SF
As the U.S./NATO war in Afghanistan enters its tenth year, casualties on both sides are at an all-time high. Spending on the war in Afghanistan alone is over $2.5 billion per week-that's $2,500,000,000 every week-at a time when tens of millions of people have lost their jobs, housing, healthcare and pensions here, and most Afghani people live in extreme poverty. Regardless of public relations proclamations from the White House, the Iraq occupation is far from over, and the U.S.-backed Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people is intensifying.
The real military budget this year is over $1,000,000,000,000-or more than $32,000 per second. The biggest banks, military industries and other corporations are reaping vast profits from the suffering of working people in the war zones and here. At the same time as they sit atop mountains of cash, corporations like the Blackstone Group (owners of the Hilton Hotel) are attacking the health benefits of thousands of union hotel workers in San Francisco who are struggling to win a new contract. Politicians and the right-wing corporate media constantly seek to divide working people by fomenting Islamophobia, anti-Arab and anti-immigrant racism.
Join us on Oct. 6 to say NO to war, racism and all bigotry, and YES to meeting the needs of the people!
Call 415-821-6545 for more info or to get involved.
Initiated by A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition-Act Now to Stop War & End Racism. Endorsed by: Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, Al-Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Justice for Filipino American Veterans, Unitarian Universalists for Peace-S.F., National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, Bay Area United Against War, United National Antiwar Committee, Party for Socialism and Liberation, World Can't Wait, Free Palestine Alliance, Code Pink Women for Peace, Alliance for a Just & Lasting Peace in the Philippines, March Forward!, Socialist Viewpoint, FMLN-Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (list in formation-call or reply to add your organization, 415-821-6545)
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
Make a tax-deductible donation to A.N.S.W.E.R. by credit card over a secure server,
learn how to donate by check.
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October 7 Day of Action in Defense of Public Education - California
http://defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com/
MORE THAN 100 activists from across California gathered in Los Angeles April 24 to debate next steps for the fight against the devastating cutbacks facing public education.
The main achievements of the conference were to set a date and location for the next statewide mass action-October 7-and for the next anti-cuts conference, which will happen October 16 at San Francisco State University. The other key outcome was the first steps toward the formation of an ad hoc volunteer coordinating committee to plan for the fall conference.
These decisions were a crucial step toward deepening and broadening the movement. For example, the fall conference will be the key venue for uniting activists from all sectors of public education, and especially from those schools and campuses which saw action on March 4, but which have yet to plug into the broader movement.
This will be crucial for extending the scope and increasing the strength of our movement, as well as for helping us strategize and prepare for what is certain to be a tough year ahead. Similarly, the fall mass action will be crucial to re-igniting the movement following the summer months.
http://defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com/
* Group home page: http://groups.google.com/group/fallconferencesfsu
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The Most Dangerous Man in America:
Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
*Academy Award nominee available on DVD for community organizations
*Broadcast premiere on PBS Tuesday, October 5
Dear Michael ,
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, concluded that the war was based on decades of lies and leaked 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times, making headlines around the world.
The story of how one man's profound change of heart created a landmark struggle involving America's newspapers, president and Supreme Court, and whose events led directly to Watergate, Nixon's resignation and the end of the Vietnam War is depicted in a new Academy-Award-nominated documentary film and political thriller, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
_________________________
The saga of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers resonates powerfully today. Organizations and activists that address issues of freedom of speech, war and peace, whistle blowing, the First Amendment, civil liberties, government secrecy, and much, much more are able to connect to, and be inspired by, the events surrounding Ellsberg and the publication of the Pentagon Papers.
"[The film] dramatizes a kind of secular spiritual journey-from warrior to anti-warrior, from analyst to activist, from patriot to "traitor." Ellsberg describes the stages of this transformation with his usual precision and ardor." -- David Denby, The New Yorker
I want to alert you to one upcoming event and one important opportunity for you and you organization.
1. On Tuesday, October 5, following a 5-month run in more than 140 theaters nationwide, The Most Dangerous Man in America has its broadcast premiere on the POV series on PBS, at 9pm (check local listings). A special videotaped panel discussion with Daniel Ellsberg, former Times editor Max Frankel, and current editors of The New York Times, will immediately follow the film as part of the broadcast.
2. A new educational DVD of The Most Dangerous Man in America has just been produced, for use in colleges, high schools and community organizations. Among its "extras" will be a Spanish-subtitled version; 30 minutes of "secret" Nixon White House audiotapes (conversations between the President and (among others) Henry Kissinger, John Ehrlichman, J. Edgar Hoover and John Dean (from his notorious "cancer on the presidency" discussion with Nixon), excerpts from Ellsberg's memoir Secrets, biographies of the filmmakers, and more.
Community organizations are authorized to use this "educational use only" dvd for their own non-admission screenings, to raise donations for their organizations, to use as an organizing tool, for outreach, inspiration, information and instruction.
The Most Dangerous Man in America is co-directed by award-winning documentarians Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith.
"Detailed, clearly told, persuasive" - Mike Hale, The New York Times
I would like you to consider use of The Most Dangerous Man in America for your organization. You can learn more about the film and see a trailer at www.mostdangerousman.org, where a dvd of the film can be ordered for your use. CLICK HERE TO ORDER DVD. To obtain a 10% discount, use the discount code UCQ4YJ. Please contact me directly with any questions.
Sincerely yours,
Rick Goldsmith, co-producer/co-director, rgoldfilm@aol.com.
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Free all Palestinian Authority Political Prisoners! Rally for Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Jails Oct. 5-15!
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat + www.freeahmadsaadat.org + info@freeahmadsaadat.org
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat demands the release of all Palestinian Authority political prisoners and an end to the policy of security cooperation
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat demands that the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and its security services to end its policy of political arrests and persecution, free all political prisoners from its jails, and respect the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian Authority continues to adhere to the policy of security cooperation with the occupier, and still continues its violations of human rights, further violating the rights of our people already suffering under Zionist occupation, facing systematic starvation, oppression, impoverishment and siege.
Ahmad Sa'adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and his comrades were victims of the policy of security coordination between the Authority and the Zionist occupier. Therefore, we must naturally reject and oppose the policies of the government of Salam Fayyad and the repressive practices of the security services which only further divide Palestinians, disintegrate the Palestinian national movement, and harm the image of the Palestinian cause and our national struggle.
The policy of political arrests is clearly deeply linked to the policy of security cooperation with the occupier. These attacks on the freedom of the Palestinian people serve the interests only of the occupation and the settlers. Instead of protecting the Palestinian people's resistance and its cadres and supporters in the West Bank, protecting the Palestinian people's civil institutions and charities, the Palestinian Authority chooses to breach all ties with the Palestinian national movement, violate the law, engage in arbitrary arrests and human rights violations, and harm the security of Palestinian citizens, violating their rights and dignity.
It is clear that the people of the world, as well as the people of Palestine, must stand to defend and protect the rights of Palestinian prisoners and the Palestinian people. We call for the widest public participation in Palestine and around the world for the freedom of prisoners in Israeli prisons and to confront the policy of isolation. Join with us on October 5-15 on the International Days of Action for Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners, demanding an end to isolation and the freedom of all Palestinian prisoners!
Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
September 20, 2010
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org
*PLEASE EMAIL US YOUR OCTOBER 5-15 ACTIONS! EMAIL INFO@FREEAHMADSAADAT.ORG*
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The Berkeley Says No to Torture Week Oct 10-16 has a new website, go to:
www.WeSayNoToTorture.net
and then from there, go to the Facebook page. Let this be your "go-to" site for all things regarding the Berkeley Says "No To Torture" Week. The Events Calendar is growing quickly (many not yet posted pending venue confirmation, etc.) We aim to have the best possible local week in Berkeley, AND to encourage and inspire even more resolutions like this all around the country -- any community could pull together around taking this stand, as people are doing here -- so could you please widely forward this new site and Facebook to all your friends and contacts?
TUESDAY Sept. 21, 7 PM: Be There!
Berkeley City Council will vote this week to declare "Berkeley Says No To Torture" Week an official civic week.
This will take our message to a whole new level, and Council needs to know they have wide public support in Berkeley -- and beyond -- to vote YES. Come to the meeting -- look for our contingent -- to show your support. (If you'd like to speak during Public Comment in support of the Resolution, please let us know here ahead of time -- we need a "wide representation" show of support especially speakers.)
And please take a few minutes to SEND City Council members and Mayor Tom Bates your personal or organizational support for the Resolution. (Please copy us here if you send emails). Here is the link:
www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=18496
Please forward this info widely, we hope to see a strong turnout at the Council meeting: Tuesday Sept. 21 7 PM, and please arrive early if you can, at Council Chambers, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley, CA 94704.
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
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Justice for Oscar Grant Rally
Saturday, October 23, 12:00 Noon
Frank Ogawa Plaza
(Oakland City Hall near 14th and Broadway)
Join family and friends of Oscar Grant, Labor and Community to demand:
--Maximum sentence for Johannes Mehserle!
--Stop police brutality! Jail racist killer cops!
--Expand jobs and education, not war and repression!
Stand up and make your voice heard! Johannes Mehserle was only arrested after people took to the streets to express their outrage. Without continuous labor and community action, Mehserle might have been acquitted. Together we can make sure that the killer cop gets the maximum sentence so other cops don't think they can get away with murder.
Sponsored by:
ILWU Local 10
Endorsed by other labor and community organizations.
For more information please contact:
Farless Dailey, Secretary Treasurer, 415-776-8100
local10secretarytreasurer@bayarea.net
---
Media/Publicity: Jack Heyman 510-531-4717, jackheyman@comcast.net
PLEASE ENDORSE OCTOBER 23 RESOLUTION BELOW:
[SEND ENDORSEMENTS TO: jackheyman@comcast.net]
Resolution in Support of October 23 ILWU Rally for Justice for Oscar Grant
Whereas, Oscar Grant's killer, BART police officer Johannes Mehserle received a verdict of involuntary manslaughter on July 8, 2010 and will be sentenced on November 5; and
Whereas, video tapes show clearly that Oscar Grant was lying face down on the Fruitvale BART platform, waiting to be handcuffed with another cop's boot on his neck posing no threat when he was shot in the back and killed in cold blood by Mehserle; and
Whereas, wherever employers try to break a strike, police are there to protect the scabs and attack workers, as we know from the 1934 West Coast Maritime Strike, to the Charleston Five longshore struggle in 2000; and
Whereas, black and brown racial minorities, and especially immigrant workers today, struggling for equal rights have borne the brunt of police violence; and
Whereas , Oscar Grant's killing is another manifestation of the same unjust system where the message for the poor, the working class, and people of color is submission or death; and
Whereas, ILWU Local 10 has initiated the call for a mass labor and community protest rally on Saturday October 23, 2010 in Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza calling for justice for Oscar Grant in the sentencing of Johannes Mehserle,
Therefore be it Resolved, that (name of organization) endorses this rally along with other labor unions, community groups, civil rights organizations, civil liberties organizations and will help to mobilize for this rally for justice for Oscar Grant;
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All.
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STOP U.S. IMPERIALIST WARS!
VICTORY TO THE OPPRESSED PEOPLES IN THE U.S. AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD!
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2010
MARCH ON WASHINGTON
BLACK IS BACK
blackisbackcoalition.org
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NOVEMBER 2010 - CONVERGE ON FORT BENNING, GEORGIA
November 18-21, 2010: Close the SOA and take a stand for justice in the Americas.
www.soaw.org/take-action/november-vigil
The November Vigil to Close the School of the Americas at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia will be held from November 18-21, 2010. The annual vigil is always held close to the anniversary of the 1989 murders of Celina Ramos, her mother Elba and six Jesuit priests at a the University of Central America in El Salvador.
ORGANIZE YOUR COMMUNITY FOR THE 2010 VIGIL!
November 2010 will mark the 20th anniversary of the vigil that brings together religious communities, students, teachers, veterans, community organizers, musicians, puppetistas and many others. New layers of activists are joining the movement to close the SOA in large numbers, including numerous youth and students from multinational, working-class communities. The movement is strong thanks to the committed work of thousands of organizers and volunteers around the country. They raise funds, spread the word through posters and flyers, organize buses and other transportation to Georgia, and carry out all the work that is needed to make the November vigil a success. Together, we are strong!
VIGIL AND RALLY AT THE GATES, NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION, TEACH-IN, CONCERTS, WORKSHOPS AND A ANTI-MILITARIZATION ORGANIZERS CONFERENCE
There will be exciting additions to this year's vigil program. Besides the rally at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia with inspiring speakers and amazing musicians from across the Americas, the four day convergence will also include an educational teach-in at the Columbus Convention Center, several evening concerts, workshops and for the first time, the Latin America Solidarity Coalition will stage a one-day Anti-Militarization Organizers Conference on Thursday, November 18, 2010.
SHUT DOWN THE SOA AND RESIST U.S. MILITARIZATION IN THE AMERICAS
Our work has unfortunately not gotten any easier and U.S. militarization in Latin America is accelerating. The SOA graduate led military coup in Honduras, the continuing repression against the Honduran pro-democracy resistance and the expansion of U.S. military bases in Colombia and Panama are grim examples of the ongoing threats of a U.S. foreign policy that is relying on the military to exert control over the people and the resources in the Americas. Join the people who are struggling for justice in Honduras, Colombia and throughout the Americas as we organize to push back.
Spread the word - Tell a friend about the November Vigil:
http://www.SOAW.org/tellafriend
For more information, visit:
www.SOAW.org.
See you at the gates of Fort Benning in November 2010
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B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:
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"Don't F*** With Our Activists" - Mobilizing Against FBI Raid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyG3dIUGQvQ
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Stephen Colbert's statement before Congress
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39343087#39343087
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PcolaGregg Answers VisitPensacola.com With Truth And Reality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtopYgl9h8Q&feature=player_embedded#!
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s Of Dead Fish Wash Up On New Jersey Beaches
Take The Criminal Record Question Off Job Applications in Detroit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ_32T9NsfM
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What's Going On In The Gulf?
"But remember, one of the world's top oil industry accident experts says that the well may never be killed.
I hope and pray that the relief well is successful. But if there were insurmountable problems in capping the well, do you think we would hear about it before the November elections?"
[There are several video's at this site...bw]
Thursday, September 16, 2010
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/09/whats-going-on-in-gulf.html
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Prof. says HOMELAND SECURITY confiscated samples and NOTES with inside info on dispersant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmuJ_V0-iZk
Science in the Gulf, NPR Science Friday, August 20, 2010:
Darren in College Station, Texas: I'm an adjunct professor here at [Texas] A&M
We were also in the Gulf and got thrown out.
We were testing a theory that the chemical conposition ofthe dispersant they wee using was causing the dispersant to sink. And we'd been there for approximately three days and federal agents told us to get out.
Federal agents said it was in the interest of national security.
They were Homeland Security officers.
They took all the samples we had and they also took some notes that we had, the theory we were operating upon was information that had been given to us by someone who worked in the plant that made that dispersant, and they took everything.
Cary Nelson, president, American Association of University Professors, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois: This is kind of an insane world we've entered into kind of the barring of reputable scientists from a public site who could contribute considerably to the knowledge we have.
Talk of the Nation: Dr D'Elia, have you head of other cases like that?
Dr. Christopher D'Elia, professor and dean, School of The Coast and Environment, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, La.: Yes I've heard of other cases.
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REAL ESTATE RULES
(Scott Stringer, Manhattan borough president: "The entrance fee to live here is a million-dollar condo." - The New York Times, July 4)
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,"
Said Emma Lazarus - but time passes,
And the poor go back to being wretched refuse
For which the condo captains have no use.
And so the needy are forced again to disperse,
To search for ill-lit tenements, or worse,
From which their outcast children may behold
The soaring towers built of glass and gold.
Leon Freilich
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/nyregion/13diary.html?ref=nyregion
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Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love
http://www.booktv.org/Watch/11778/Bad+Sports+How+Owners+are+Ruining+the+Games+We+Love.aspx
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Good morning it was a pleasure speaking with you yesterday about the Diablo Valley film Festival. Our Festival is a benefit for the Contra Costa animal services department and the Martinez schools 20/20 program. Our event is September 11, 2010, this Saturday, and our 11AM feature is "Scarred Lands and Wounded Llives". You can find more information about the festival at our website www.DiabloValleyfilmFestival.com I thought that this would be a showing that would be of interest to you and your organization. We also have a block at five o'clock which is called "Save our Seas" which is a series of shorts on environmental issues regarding the oceans. Tickets can be purchased online at our website and the proceeds go to the above organizations. Your help in getting the word out to your membership and other causes that you think may be interested that I do not have access to will help to change the minds of hopefully more than a few people. Your help and your participation is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Here is a link to a trailer for the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkOCIx6JAd8
Tony Blackburn, Executive Producer
Diablo Valley Film Festival
(925) 231-5365
Scarred Lands and Wounded Lives:
The Environmental Footprint of War
FILM SYNOPSIS
What prompts this film is recognition of our deep dependence on the natural world and the significant threat to that world posed by war and preparations for war.
The scale of environmental damage over the last half century is unprecedented. Falling water tables, shrinking forest cover, declining species diversity - all presage ecosystems in distress. These trends are now widely acknowledged as emanating from forces of humanity's own making: massive population increases, unsustainable demands on natural resources, species loss, ruinous environmental practices. Ironically however, war, that most destructive of human behaviors, is commonly bypassed.
In all its stages, from the production of weapons through combat to cleanup and restoration, war entails actions that pollute land, air, and water, destroy biodiversity, and drain natural resources. Yet the environmental damage occasioned by war and preparation for war is routinely underestimated, underreported, even ignored. The environment remains war's "silent casualty."
Activities that do such damage cry out for far-reaching public scrutiny. The very sustainability of our planet is at stake. We can no longer maintain silence about the environmental impact of war on the grounds that such scrutiny is "inconvenient" or "callous" at a time when human life is so endangered.
If we cannot eliminate war, we can at least require a fuller accounting of war's costs and consequences, and demand that destructive forces used in our name leave a lighter footprint on this highly vulnerable planet. It is to this change in values and actions that this documentary film is directed.
Directors
Alice T. Day was born in New York City and educated at the Brearley School in New York and at Smith College (BA, magna cum laude), Columbia (MA in sociology), and the Australian National University (PhD in sociology). Alice currently sits on the board of the Council for a Livable World; the Task Force on Environment and Natural Resources, Woman's National Democratic Club (Washington); and the Environmental Film Festival (Washington.)
Before moving to Washington, Alice was most recently Hofstee Fellow, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, The Hague, 1994, and Director, Successful Ageing, A.C.T., an Australian government project, Canberra, A.C.T., 1990-93.
Best known books of the more than 30 books, professional articles, book chapters, and reports that she has written are: Remarkable Survivors - Insights into Successful Aging among Women; We Can Manage - Expectations about Care and Varieties of Family Support among Persons 75 Years of Age and Over; and (with Lincoln H. Day) Too Many Americans.
*
Lincoln H. Day was born in Ames, Iowa and educated in the public schools of Denver, Colorado, and at Yale (BA, cum laude) and Columbia (MA and PhD in sociology). He currently sits on the board of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; the Environmental Film Festival (Washington); and is a member of the Council for a Livable World (Washington).
Before moving to Washington, Lincoln was most recently Hofstee Fellow, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, The Hague, 1994, and Senior Fellow in Demography, Research School of Social Sciences, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, 1973-1993.
In addition to some 80 book chapters and articles in professional journals, he is the author of two books, co-author of four others (two of which were written in collaboration with Alice T. Day), and editor and part author of two more. Apart from Too Many Americans (written with Alice T. Day), his best-known books are: The Future of Low-Birthrate Populations; and Analysing Population Trends - Differential Fertility in a Pluralistic Society.
--
Executive Producer of the Diablo Valley Film Festival
www.diablovalleyfilmfestival.com
Student of the Grape
Soccer Player (Goal Keeper)
Wine Maker (In my own mind)
Facebook Ho (Friend Me!)
Motorcycle Rider (Kawasaki ZZR1200)
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From The Gulf Stream To The Bloodstream - THE VIDEO BP DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6drasiXNFaw
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Plume? Stationary ROV covered by non-stop 'clouds' on seafloor (VIDEO)
September 4th, 2010 at 04:21 AM Print Post Email Post
Live feed from Development Driller 2 ROV 1, September 3, 2010 at 6:30 p.m. EDT:
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/plume-stationary-rov-continuously-covered-by-non-stop-clouds-video
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Air Force sprays oil dispersant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtM58wPxf60&feature=related
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Appeals Court Ruling Allows Government to Use GPS to Track People's Moves
Gps
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/2/appeals_court_ruling_allows_government_to
A federal court in California has issued a ruling that's raising widespread alarm among advocates for civil liberties. Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said law enforcement agents can sneak onto a person's property, plant a GPS device on their vehicle, and track their every movements. The court's ruling means the spying is legal in California and eight other Western states.
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HONOR RALLIES AFTER WAR
COMMENTARY BY MUMIA-ABU-JAMAL
http://www.prisonradio.org/audio/mumia/2010MAJ/08August10/HonorRalliesAfterWar.mp3
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New video! Fishermen find dispersants and oil on Mississippi shrimp and oyster grounds
http://bridgethegulfproject.info/node/29
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The Video the US Military doesn't want you to see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1MazfmZYxw
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George Orwell's "1984_
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/08/25/watch-movie-adaptation-george-orwells-1984-3585/
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OBAMA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU_p2i5bfBM&feature=related
Lyrics: Smiling Faces Sometimes
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/the_undisputed_truth/smiling_faces_sometimes.html
Smiling faces sometimes pretend to be your friend
Smiling faces show no traces of the evil that lurks within
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth uh
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof
The truth is in the eyes
Cause the eyes don't lie, amen
Remember a smile is just
A frown turned upside down
My friend let me tell you
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth, uh
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof
Beware, beware of the handshake
That hides the snake
I'm telling you beware
Beware of the pat on the back
It just might hold you back
Jealousy (jealousy)
Misery (misery)
Envy
I tell you, you can't see behind smiling faces
Smiling faces sometimes they don't tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof
(Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes)
(Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes)
I'm telling you beware, beware of the handshake
That hides the snake
Listen to me now, beware
Beware of that pat on the back
It just might hold you back
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof
Your enemy won't do you no harm
Cause you'll know where he's coming from
Don't let the handshake and the smile fool ya
Take my advice I'm only try' to school ya
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Toxic Soup in Ocean Springs Ms By Lorrie Williams
August 13, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXBLCekZiyA
August 16, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/user/LorrieofOceanspring
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BP Oil Spill Cleanup Worker Exposes the Realities of Beach Cleanup In Gulf of Mexico
August 11, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IlMDBAGLFI
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WikiLeaks' Collateral Murder: U.S. Soldier Ethan McCord's Eyewitness Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kelmEZe8whI&feature=player_embedded
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On The Move: Mumia Abu-Jamal's Message to the United National Peace Conference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9QAgr1wNZA&feature=player_embedded
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Video: George Carlin: "The American Dream"/"Workers Nightmare"
Because the Owners of This Country Own Everything - They Own You - They Don't Want Critical Thinking - They Want Obedient Workers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=159216125164&ref=mf
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Citizens of New Orleans Respond to the BP Oil Spill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCCX8kLm3Sc
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Deafening Silence, Chuck Africa (MOVE 9)
Peace People,
This poem is from Chuck Africa, one of the MOVE 9, who is currently serving 30-100 years on trump up charges of killing a police officer. After 32 years in prison, the MOVE 9 are repeatly denied parole, after serving their minimum sentence. Chuck wanted me to share this with the people, so that we can see how our silence in demanding the MOVE 9's freedom is inherently an invitation to their death behind prison walls.
Deafening Silence
Don't ya'll hear cries of anguish?
In the climate of pain come joining voices?
But voices become unheard and strained by inactions
Of dead brains
How long will thou Philly soul remain in the pit of agonizing apathy?
Indifference seems to greet you like the morning mirror
Look closely in the mirror and realize it's a period of mourning....
My Sistas, mothers, daughters, wives and warriors
Languish in prisons obscurity like a distant star in the galaxies as does their brothers
We need to be free....
How loud can you stay silence?
Have the courage to stand up and have a say,
Choose resistance and let go of your fears.
The history of injustice to MOVE; we all know so well
But your deafening silence could be my DEATH KNELL.
Chuck Africa
Please share, inform people and get involve in demanding the MOVE 9's freedom! www.MOVE9parole.blogspot.com
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Instituto del Derecho de Asilo - Casa Museo Leon Trotsky, A.C.
(IDA-CMLTAC)
Avenida RÃo Churubusco No. 410
Col. del Carmen Coyoacán
CP 04100 México, DF -- MEXICO
Tel. 56 58 87 32
gall.museotrotsky@gmail.com
----------------------------
Dear Friends in the United States:
We are writing this letter to invite you to support the effort to preserve and renovate the Leon Trotsky Museum (IDA-MCLTAC) in Mexico City.
Already many of our U.S. supporters have sent out appeals to their friends urging support for our project. We thank them for their efforts, and we thank the dozens of you who have already sent in financial contributions to our fund.
On August 20, at 4 p.m., we launched the International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum at a special event in a larger venue than our Museum's auditorium: the Foro Coyoacanense, Hugo Argüelles, Calle Allende No. 36, in the center district of Coyoacán, in the southern region of Mexico City.
This event was part of a three-day series of activities on August 19-21 marking the 70th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky, the 35th anniversary of the opening of the Trotsky Museum, and the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Institute on the Right of Asylum.
We would like to invite all our friends and supporters in the United States to join "International Friends."
If you would like to join "International Friends," please send us a note to the email address listed above. We welcome all who support our Museum's six-point "Statement on Social Objectives" and our four-point "Renovation Project" [see below], and who wish to help us raise desperately needed funds to promote these objectives.
Our goal is for International Friends to include the broadest possible regroupment of personalities, democratic rights activists (including supporters of the right to asylum, which is one of the main themes of our Museum), political activists, and museologists of different progressive political tendencies and backgrounds.
On August 19 and August 20 we also held in our Museum's auditorium a Conference on "Socialism, Democracy and Dissident Movements." There were presentations by Mexican and international speakers. Some of the panels were the following:
- Trotsky and the Dewey Commission (Prof. Olivia Gall, UNAM and Trotsky Museum),
- Participation and Rights of Latinos in the United States (Prof. Suzanne Oboler, Editor, Latino Studies, CUNY),
- Dissident Social Movements on the Left and the Right in the United States (Alan Benjamin, Editor, The Organizer),
- The Relevance of Victor Serge (Suzi Weissman, KPFK Radio producer and author),
- Trotsky and the Dissident Movements in Eastern Europe (Prof. Gabriel GarcÃa Higueras, University of Lima, Peru), and
- Victor Serge, the POUM and the "Socialism and Liberty" group (Prof. Claudio Albertini, UACM).
The program of the event launching the International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum on August 20 included presentations by Esteban Volkov (Trotsky's grandson and president of the board of directors of the museum) and Olivia Gall (director of the museum); a theatrical presentation by Grupo Sol Azul of Moises Mendelewicz titled "Conversations with Trotsky"; a presentation on Political Asylum in Mexico by Pablo Yankelvich (INAH); and a trailer presentation of the film "Planet Without a Visa" (by David Weiss and Linda Laub), with an introduction by Linda Laub.
Finally, on August 21, there was a placing of a wreath on the tombstones of Leon Trotsky and Natalia Sedova, with a presentation by Esteban Volkov.
We invite you to donate to our Museum preservation/renovation fund and to join our International Friends of the Leon Trotsky group and campaign. Please send your checks, payable to Global Exchange (write "Trotsky Museum" on Memo line of your check), to International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum, P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
Sincerely,
Esteban Volkov Bronstein
Grandson of Leon Trotsky
President of the Board of the IDA-MCLTAC
Olivia Gall
Full Professor, CEIICH-UNAM
Director of the IDA-MCLTAC
* * * * * * * * * *
Appendix No. 1
International Friends of the
Leon Trotsky Museum (IFLTM)
(Excerpts)
The IDA-MCLTAC's Social Objectives
The Social Objective of the Institution is:
1. To maintain, protect, preserve, restore, guard and improve in all pertinent and necessary ways, the Leon Trotsky House-Museum, who must offer its visitors the best possible museology services.
2. To maintain, protect, preserve, guard and increase, in all pertinent and necessary ways, the existing materials in the Rafael Galván Library and in the association's Documentary Center, which must offer its visitors the best possible information and research services.
3. To promote and develop research, analysis, education and effective communication regarding the topic of the right of asylum, and, when related to asylum, on those of migration and refuge.
4. To promote and develop the study, analysis, education and effective communication regarding "the defense of public rights and public freedom."
5. To manage the association's assets and resources, as well as those received through donations, contributions, transfers, bequests, wills, liens, trusts, funding, agreements or employment contracts, in cash or in kind, coming from individuals or corporations, domestic or foreign, public or private. These funds and resources will be used exclusively for the purposes of the Association.
6. To establish partnerships through agreements or other legal forms provided by existing legislation, with any cultural, artistic, social or academic national or international institution, both public and private, which may contribute to the better attainment of its goals.
********************
Appendix No. 2
Renovation Project
The Directive Council of the Institution has developed a project consisting in gradually transforming the IDA-MCLTAC into an institution that takes the figure of Leon Trotsky as its central axis, but also approaches the different ideological and political currents of socialist thought, actions and debates, the right of asylum and the history of revolutionary and post-revolutionary Mexico, in which Trotsky was admitted as a political refugee. The goal is to create an institution that will establish agreements with academics, museums and documentary, visual and bibliographical archives from all over the world, in order to offer the public:
1. A MODERN MUSEUM
* A well-preserved house-museum that will give its visitors an idea of the real environment in which Trotsky, his friends, guards, secretaries and guests lived between May 1939 and August 1940: a tense and anguished environment, not always but sometimes joyful, not very prosperous, but of hard work and comradeship.
* Permanent as well as temporary exhibits built on visual, audiovisual, documentary and interactive materials.
2. A RESEARCH, EDUCATIONAL AND INFORMATION CENTER, INTERESTED IN THE ANALYSIS OF HISTORICAL FACTS AND IN THE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS, THROUGH
* Consultation of printed, graphic, audiovisual and interactive materials, in situ or via the web,
* The development of educational and cultural programs, which will consist in conferences, symposia, book presentations, courses and workshops.
* A small bookstore in which our visitors will find books -in three languages, if possible- related to the institution's subjects.
3. A CINEMA CLUB
In it, old and new short films, movies and documentaries, organized according to different subjects of historical, political, intellectual and cultural interest will be shown and discussed.
4. A SPACE FOR ART, ART CRAFTS, CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT, CUISINE AND SOCIAL GATHERING
A space that will try to constitute an original, simple, elegant and international cultural option that will harbor:
* Diverse cultural expressions of our contemporary world: sculptors, painters, mimes, actors, storytellers, dancers, poets, musicians, etc.
* The house's garden, such as it was kept by Natalia Sedova and by Sieva Volkov's family between 1939 and the early 1970s.
* A cafeteria that will serve very good coffee, tea, pastries and appetizers, and that will offer in Coyoacán a touch of originality given by four combined elements: (a) a simple international menu made by a few Baltic, Jewish, Balkan, Turkish, French, Norwegian and Mexican dishes, typical of the countries where Trotsky lived or was exiled, (b) the access to reading, in situ, some international newspapers and magazines, (c) a decoration that will portray the style of Mexican restaurants in the thirties, and (d) some music or poetry evenings.
* A shop, selling posters, little boxes, mugs, pens, calendars book markers, agendas, etc., so that our visitors may take home some of the museum's souvenirs.
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Say No to Islamophobia!
Defend Mosques and Community Centers!
The Fight for Peace and Social Justice Requires Defense of All Under Attack!
http://www.petitiononline.com/nophobia/petition.html
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Kevin Keith Update: Good News! Death sentence commuted!
Ohio may execute an innocent man unless you take action.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-kevin-keith
Ohio's Governor Spares Life of a Death Row Inmate Kevin Keith
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/us/03ohio.html?ref=us
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Please sign the petition to release Bradley Manning
http://www.petitiononline.com/manning1/petition.html (Click to sign here)
To: US Department of Defense; US Department of Justice
We, the Undersigned, call for justice for US Army PFC Bradley Manning, incarcerated without charge (as of 18 June 2010) at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.
Media accounts state that Mr. Manning was arrested in late May for leaking the video of US Apache helicopter pilots killing innocent people and seriously wounding two children in Baghdad, including those who arrived to help the wounded, as well as potentially other material. The video was released by WikiLeaks under the name "Collateral Murder".
If these allegations are untrue, we call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.
If these allegations ARE true, we ALSO call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.
Simultaneously, we express our support for Mr. Manning in any case, and our admiration for his courage if he is, in fact, the person who disclosed the video. Like in the cases of Daniel Ellsberg, W. Mark Felt, Frank Serpico and countless other whistleblowers before, government demands for secrecy must yield to public knowledge and justice when government crime and corruption are being kept hidden.
Justice for Bradley Manning!
Sincerely,
The Undersigned:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?manning1
--
Zaineb Alani
http://www.thewordsthatcomeout.blogspot.com
http://www.tigresssmiles.blogspot.com
"Yesterday I lost a country. / I was in a hurry, / and didn't notice when it fell from me / like a broken branch from a forgetful tree. / Please, if anyone passes by / and stumbles across it, / perhaps in a suitcase / open to the sky, / or engraved on a rock / like a gaping wound, / ... / If anyone stumbles across it, / return it to me please. / Please return it, sir. / Please return it, madam. / It is my country . . . / I was in a hurry / when I lost it yesterday." -Dunya Mikhail, Iraqi poet
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http://couragetoresist.org/donate
Dear Gio,
Thanks again for supporting military war resisters. We do this work because it is a tangible contribution to a future without empire and war. With your help, we've won a number of victories recently--you might have read about "Hip Hop" stop-loss soldier Marc Hall, or single mom, and Afghanistan deployment resister, Alexis Hutchinson in the news.
Now, intel analyst Bradley Manning is in the headlines and facing decades in prison for leaking a video of a massacre in Baghdad. If Pfc. Manning is the source of the video, then he did what he had to do to expose a war crime. Regardless, he's wrongly imprisoned and we are doing everything we can to support him. Keep an eye out for action alerts in the coming days on how to support Bradley!
If you have not yet had a chance to make a donation recently, I'm asking that you please consider doing so now so that together we can step up to support Bradley Manning and all GI war objectors!
http://couragetoresist.org/donate
Jeff Paterson,
Project Director, Courage to Resist
p.s. Our new August print newsletter is now available:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/aug10-newsltr.pdf
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Please forward widely...
HELP LYNNE STEWART -- SUPPORT THESE BILLS
These two bills are now in Congress and need your support. Either or both bills would drastically decrease Lynne's and other federal sentences substantially.
H.R. 1475 "Federal Prison Work Incentive Act Amended 2009," Congressman Danny Davis, Democrat, Illinois
This bill will restore and amend the former federal B.O.P. good time allowances. It will let all federal prisoners, except lifers, earn significant reductions to their sentences. Second, earn monthly good time days by working prison jobs. Third, allowances for performing outstanding services or duties in connection with institutional operations. In addition, part of this bill is to bring back parole to federal long term prisoners.
Go to: www.FedCURE.org and www.FAMM.org
At this time, federal prisoners only earn 47 days per year good time. If H.R. 1475 passes, Lynne Stewart would earn 120-180 days per year good time!
H.R. 61 "45 And Older," Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (18th Congressional District, Texas)
This bill provides early release from federal prison after serving half of a violent crime or violent conduct in prison.
Please write, call, email your Representatives and Senators. Demand their votes!
This information is brought to you by Diane E. Schindelwig, a federal prisoner #36582-177 and friend and supporter of Lynne Stewart.
Write to Lynne at:
Lynne Stewart 53504-054
MCC-NY 2-S
150 Park Row
New York, NY 10007
For further information call Lynne's husband, Ralph Poynter, leader of the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Send contributions payable to:
Lynne Stewart Organization
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York, 11216
---
Listen to Lynne Stewart event, that took place July 8, 2010 at Judson Memorial Church
Excerpts include: Mumia Abu Jamal, Ralph Poynter, Ramsey Clark, Juanita
Young, Fred Hampton Jr., Raging Grannies, Ralph Schoenman
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
And check out this article (link) too!
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2010/062210Lendman.shtml
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL GRAVELY CONCERNED THAT RULING PUTS TROY DAVIS ON TRACK FOR EXECUTION; CITES PERSISTING DOUBTS ABOUT HIS GUILT
"Judge William T. Moore, Jr. ruled that while executing an innocent person would violate the United States Constitution, Davis didn't meet the extraordinarily high legal bar to prove his innocence."
Amnesty International Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Contact: Wende Gozan Brown at 212-633-4247, wgozan@aiusa.org.
(Washington, D.C.) - Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today expressed deep concern that a federal district court decision puts Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis back on track for execution, despite doubts about his guilt that were raised during a June evidentiary hearing. Judge William T. Moore, Jr. ruled that while executing an innocent person would violate the United States Constitution, Davis didn't meet the extraordinarily high legal bar to prove his innocence.
"Nobody walking out of that hearing could view this as an open-and-shut case," said Larry Cox, executive director of AIUSA. "The testimony that came to light demonstrates that doubt still exists, but the legal bar for proving innocence was set so high it was virtually insurmountable. It would be utterly unconscionable to proceed with this execution, plain and simple."
Amnesty International representatives, including Cox, attended the hearing in Savannah, Ga. The organization noted that evidence continues to cast doubt over the case:
· Four witnesses admitted in court that they lied at trial when they implicated Troy Davis and that they did not know who shot Officer Mark MacPhail.
· Four witnesses implicated another man as the one who killed the officer - including a man who says he saw the shooting and could clearly identify the alternative suspect, who is a family member.
· Three original state witnesses described police coercion during questioning, including one man who was 16 years old at the time of the murder and was questioned by several police officers without his parents or other adults present.
"The Troy Davis case is emblematic of everything that is wrong with capital punishment," said Laura Moye, director of AIUSA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. "In a system rife with error, mistakes can be made. There are no do-overs when it comes to death. Lawmakers across the country should scrutinize this case carefully, not only because of its unprecedented nature, but because it clearly indicates the need to abolish the death penalty in the United States."
Since the launch of its February 2007 report, Where Is the Justice for Me? The Case of Troy Davis, Facing Execution in Georgia, Amnesty International has campaigned intensively for a new evidentiary hearing or trial and clemency for Davis, collecting hundreds of thousands of clemency petition signatures and letters from across the United States and around the world. To date, internationally known figures such as Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter have all joined the call for clemency, as well as lawmakers from within and outside of Georgia.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.8 million supporters, activists and volunteers who campaign for universal human rights from more than 150 countries. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
# # #
For more information visit www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis.
Wende Gozan Brown
Media Relations Director
Amnesty International USA
212/633-4247 (o)
347/526-5520 (c)
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Please sign the petition to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and
and forward it to all your lists.
"Mumia Abu-Jamal and The Global Abolition of the Death Penalty"
http://www.petitiononline.com/Mumialaw/petition.html
(A Life In the Balance - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, at 34, Amnesty Int'l, 2000; www. Amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/001/2000.)
[Note: This petition is approved by Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, San Francisco (E-mail: MumiaLegalDefense@gmail.com; Website: www.MumiaLegalDefense.org).]
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
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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 501c)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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D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) How the CIA ran a secret army of 3,000 assassins
By Julius Cavendish in Kabul
Thursday, 23 September 2010
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/how-the-cia-ran-a-secret-army-of-3000-assassins-2087039.html
2) The Whole Truthiness and Nothing But
By ASHLEY PARKER
Video: Stephen Colbert's statement before Congress
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39343087#39343087
September 24, 2010, 1:19 pm
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/the-whole-truthiness-and-nothing-but/?hp
3) Woman, 41, Is Executed in Virginia
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
September 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/us/24execute.html?_r=1&ref=us
4) Some Obama Allies Fear School Lunch Bill Could Rob Food Stamp Program
By ROBERT PEAR
"A bill that the House is expected to consider within days would come up with some of the money by cutting future food stamp benefits....Nationwide, more than 41 million people receive food stamps, nearly half of them children. The number of recipients has increased 51 percent since the recession began in December 2007. The average monthly benefit is $133 a person, about $4.40 a day." [Starving Mom and Pop Peter to feed baby Paul...bw]
September 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/us/24food.html?ref=us
5) *Breaking News* Three houses in Minneapolis raided, other houses in
Michigan, NC, Chicago targeted.
Submitted by smiley on Fri, 09/24/2010 - 09:20
http://twincities.indymedia.org/2010/sep/breaking-news-three-houses-minneapolis-raided-other-houses-michigan-nc-chicago-targeted
6) FBI raids homes of several Twin Cities war protesters
By RANDY FURST, Star Tribune
September 24, 2010
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/103716384.html?elr=KArks%3ADCiUo3PD%3A3D_V_qD3L%3Ac7cQKUiD3aPc%3A_Yyc%3AaU7DYaGEP7vDEh7P%3ADiUs
7) What the Pot Legalization Campaign Really Threatens
by David Sirota
Published on Friday, September 24, 2010 by Oregon Live
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/24-5
8) We Haven't Hit Bottom Yet
By BOB HERBERT
September 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/opinion/25herbert.html?hp
9) Thousands Face Job Loss When Part of Stimulus Act Expires
By MICHAEL COOPER
September 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/us/26stimulus.html?h
10) Scores of Taliban Killed in 2 Airstrikes
By ROD NORDLAND
September 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/world/asia/26afghan.html?ref=world
11) F.B.I. Searches Antiwar Activists' Homes
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
September 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/us/politics/25search.html?ref=us
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1) How the CIA ran a secret army of 3,000 assassins
By Julius Cavendish in Kabul
Thursday, 23 September 2010
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/how-the-cia-ran-a-secret-army-of-3000-assassins-2087039.html
The US Central Intelligence Agency is running and paying for a secret 3,000-strong army of Afghan paramilitaries whose main aim is assassinating Taliban and al-Qa'ida operatives not just in Afghanistan but across the border in neighbouring Pakistan's tribal areas, according to Bob Woodward's explosive book.
Although the CIA has long been known to run clandestine militias in Afghanistan, including one from a base it rents from the Afghan president Hamid Karzai's half-brother in the southern province of Kandahar, the sheer number of militiamen directly under its control have never been publicly revealed.
Woodward's book, Obama's Wars, describes these forces as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qa'ida and Afghan Taliban havens there. Two US newspapers published the claims after receiving copies of the manuscript.
The secret army is split into "Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams", and is thought to be responsible for the deaths of many Pakistani Taliban fighters who have crossed the border into Afghanistan to fight Nato and Afghan government forces there.
There are ever-increasing numbers of "kill-or-capture" missions undertaken by US Special Forces against Afghan Taliban and foreign fighters, who hope to drive rank-and-file Taliban towards the Afghan government's peace process by eliminating their leaders. The suspicion is that the secret army is working in close tandem with them.
Although no comment has been forthcoming, it is understood that the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, Gen David Petraeus, approves of the mission, which bears similarities to the covert assassination campaign against al-Qa'ida in Iraq, which was partially credited with stemming the tide of violence after the country imploded between 2004 and 2007.
The details of the clandestine army have surprised no one in Kabul, the Afghan capital, although the fact that the information is now public is unprecedented. There have been multiple reports of the CIA running its own militias in southern Afghanistan.
The operation also has powerful echoes of clandestine operations of the 1990s, when the CIA recruited and ran a militia inside the Afghan border with the sole purpose of killing Osama bin Laden. The order then that a specially recruited Afghan militia was "to capture him alive" - the result of protracted legal wrangles about when, how and if Osama bin Laden could be killed - doomed efforts to assassinate him before 9/11.
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2) The Whole Truthiness and Nothing But
By ASHLEY PARKER
Video: Stephen Colbert's statement before Congress
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39343087#39343087
September 24, 2010, 1:19 pm
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/the-whole-truthiness-and-nothing-but/?hp
Stephen Colbert testified in Congress on Friday about an immigration bill that he said - in all truthiness - he had not read, "like most members of Congress."
And when the comedian was challenged by one disgruntled lawmaker about his expertise, which was based on a single day spent hamming it up in a bean field for his show on Comedy Central, Mr. Colbert, keeping completely in character, said that was enough time to make him an expert on anything.
Mr. Colbert testified before the House immigration subcommittee about the day he recently spent picking vegetables on a farm in upstate New York. The gig was part of the "Take Our Jobs" campaign by the United Farm Workers of America to highlight the work done by migrant workers.
Arturo S. Rodriguez, the president of U.F.W., testified among others alongside Mr. Colbert.
Before Mr. Colbert bounded into the unusually packed committee room, the buzz in the crowd was whether Mr. Colbert would show up as the satiric Stephen Colbert, who hosts the "The Colbert Report." He did.
Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat and the panel's chairwoman who invited Mr. Colbert to testify, opened on a slightly wry note.
"We realize there is great interest in the plight of migrant farm workers in America," Ms. Lofgren said, before asking the press to pull back from the witness table where Mr. Colbert was mugging for and winking at the cameras.
On the whole, the mood of the hearing alternated between the serious and the absurd. (His spoken testimony departed significantly from his prepared text, which was straightforward and earnest.)
"I certainly hope that my star power can pump this hearing all the way up to C-Span 1," Mr. Colbert said, before explaining that the "obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables - and if you look at the recent obesity statistics you'll see that many Americans have already started."
But, he continued, his gastroenterologist had explained to him that fruits and vegetables are an important source of "roughage" and said that he "would like to submit a video of my colonoscopy into The Congressional Record."
"I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican - I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan, and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian," Mr. Colbert said, before turning just perceptibly more serious and talking about how difficult work as a farm worker was.
"After working with these men and women, picking beans, packing corn, for hours on end, side by side, in the unforgiving sun, I have to say and I do mean this sincerely: Please don't make me do this again, it is really, really hard," he said.
"The point is, we have to do something because I am not going back out there. At this point, I break into a cold sweat at the sight of a salad bar," he said.
Five minutes later, much to the disappointment of the crowd, Mr. Colbert was done. "U.S.A. No. 1," he said to wrap up his testimony.
Mr. Colbert had only a supporting role in the question-and-answer segment of the hearing, although Representative Lamar Smith did go back and forth with the comedian. The Texas Republican asked the comedian for particulars - if Mr. Colbert knew if the roughly 100 workers he worked alongside with were illegal immigrants and whether he he knew their salary. Mr. Colbert could not provide this information.
"Does one day in the field make you an expert witness?" Mr. Smith pressed.
"I believe that one day of me studying anything makes me an expert," Mr. Colbert replied.
Not everyone was amused. Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, declared in his opening statement that it was an insult to the troops at war to suggest that Americans don't like hard jobs.
"Maybe we should be spending less time watching Comedy Central and more time considering all the real jobs that are out there," he said.
Near the end of the hearing, Mr. Colbert turned sincere, giving a serious answer when asked a serious question by Representative Judy Chu, Democrat of California, about why he had chosen to donate his time to the plight of migrant farm workers out of all possible causes.
Mr. Colbert paused, scratched the back of his head and sounding almost surprised at himself replied, "I like talking about people who don't have any power, and it seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don't have any rights themselves," he said. "Migrant workers suffer and have no rights."
This is not the comedian's first foray into politics. In 2007, Mr. Colbert paid the $2,500 fee and filed papers with the South Carolina Democratic Party to run for president in his home state's primary. He was rejected just hours later by the state's executive council.
And in October, Mr. Colbert will return to Washington with fellow Comedy Central host, Jon Stewart, for rallies on the National Mall. Mr. Colbert will headline the "March to Keep Fear Alive" while Mr. Stewart will lead the "Rally to Restore Sanity," but both are intended as a spoof of conservative radio and television personality Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in late August.
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3) Woman, 41, Is Executed in Virginia
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
September 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/us/24execute.html?_r=1&ref=us
A woman convicted of orchestrating a plot that led to the murders of her husband and stepson was executed in Virginia Thursday night, becoming the first woman executed in the state in almost a century.
The woman, Teresa Lewis, 41, died by lethal injection at a correctional facility in southeastern Virginia. With a crowd of death penalty opponents protesting outside, Ms. Lewis was pronounced dead at 9:13 p.m., the Associated Press reported, citing officials at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. She was the 12th woman executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
The case against Ms. Lewis, the first woman executed in the country since 2005, had drawn international attention. Many of her supporters questioned the fairness of her sentence - her co-conspirators, who fired the fatal shots, were spared capital punishment - and doubts were raised about her mental capacity. Psychologists involved in her case said she was borderline retarded. And her supporters argued that she had been manipulated by the two triggermen, who stood to gain hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings and life insurance payoffs.
Ms. Lewis received support from an unlikely cast. The novelist John Grisham published an op-ed piece calling for leniency, and the European Union sent a letter to Robert F. McDonnell, the governor of Virginia, asking him to commute Ms. Lewis's sentence to life because of her mental capacities. The case was also cited by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a speech to Islamic clerics during a visit to New York this week.
Shortly after her execution, a lawyer for Ms. Lewis, Jim Rocap, called her death "a tragic loss."
"Tonight, the machinery of death in Virginia extinguished the beautiful, childlike and loving human spirit of Teresa Lewis," he said. "Teresa asked that I send her thanks and love to all of those who have supported her in this fight for her life. In her words, 'It's just awesome.' It is our hope that Teresa's death will cause a re-examination of the badly broken system of justice that could allow something as wrong and unjust as this to happen."
For her part, Ms. Lewis did not deny her involvement in the murders, which took place in October 2002. Prosecutors said Ms. Lewis hatched the murders with two men she had been sleeping with. They said she supplied them with money to buy the murder weapons and showered them with gifts.
On the night before Halloween, they said, Ms. Lewis left the doors of her home unlocked and got into bed as her conspirators entered the home. According to the authorities, Ms. Lewis stood by as the two men opened fire: first on her stepson, Charles J. Lewis, 25, a reservist about to be deployed, and then on her husband, Julian C. Lewis Jr., 51.
Ms. Lewis eventually confessed to the crimes and led the police to the gunmen. The judge presiding over the case, Charles J. Strauss of Pittsylvania Circuit Court, sentenced the two gunmen to life in prison. But Ms. Lewis, he concluded in 2003, had been the ringleader, showing a "depravity of mind" that justified the death penalty.
Lawyers for Ms. Lewis later revealed new evidence that pointed to one of the gunmen as the plot's mastermind, including statements that he made in a letter and to a girlfriend. Ms. Lewis's lawyers pleaded unsuccessfully for clemency. Her final, last-ditch appeal for a stay was turned down by the Supreme Court late Tuesday.
According to SkyNews, Ms. Lewis requested a last meal of fried chicken, a slice of German chocolate cake or apple pie, and Dr. Pepper soda. According to reports from the prison, her final words were a message for her stepdaughter.
"I just want Cathy to know that I love her and I'm very sorry," she said.
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4) Some Obama Allies Fear School Lunch Bill Could Rob Food Stamp Program
By ROBERT PEAR
"A bill that the House is expected to consider within days would come up with some of the money by cutting future food stamp benefits....Nationwide, more than 41 million people receive food stamps, nearly half of them children. The number of recipients has increased 51 percent since the recession began in December 2007. The average monthly benefit is $133 a person, about $4.40 a day." [Starving Mom and Pop Peter to feed baby Paul...bw]
September 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/us/24food.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - In her campaign to reduce childhood obesity and improve school nutrition, Michelle Obama has become entangled in a fight with White House allies, including liberal Democrats and advocates for the poor.
At issue is how to pay for additional spending on the school lunch program and other child nutrition projects eagerly sought by the White House. A bill that the House is expected to consider within days would come up with some of the money by cutting future food stamp benefits.
When the Senate passed the bill in early August, Mrs. Obama said she was thrilled. But anti-hunger groups were not. They deluged House members on Thursday with phone calls and e-mails expressing alarm.
"It is wrong to take money from food stamps to finance child nutrition programs," said Edward M. Cooney, executive director of the Congressional Hunger Center, an advocacy group. "You are taking money from low-income people in one program and spending it on low-income people - maybe the same people - in another program."
The Food Research and Action Center and Catholic Charities USA said they supported expanding child nutrition programs but opposed cutting money for food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
More than 100 House Democrats, including leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, have signed a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposing the use of food stamp money to pay for the expansion of child nutrition programs. Labor unions, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the National Education Association, and women's groups have sent similar letters.
Administration officials are pushing House Democrats to pass the Senate bill. The House Democratic whip, James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, sent an e-mail to colleagues this week asking if they supported it.
House Democratic leaders said the House could consider the Senate bill under an expedited procedure that prohibits amendments and requires a two-thirds majority for passage.
Martha B. Coven, a senior staff member at the White House Domestic Policy Council, said the bill "would make a historic investment in school meal programs and go a long way toward achieving Mrs. Obama's goal of ending the epidemic of childhood obesity in a generation."
"We support the bill as a whole," Ms. Coven said. "We strongly support House passage of the Senate bill." She declined to comment on criticism of the food stamp changes.
Lawmakers from both parties and child nutrition advocates have praised many provisions of the Senate bill. It gives the secretary of agriculture the authority to establish nutrition standards for foods sold in schools during the school day, including vending machine items. And it would require schools to serve more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy products.
Also, for the first time in over three decades, it would increase federal reimbursement for school lunches beyond inflation - to allow for the cost of higher-quality meals. It would also allow more than 100,000 children on Medicaid to qualify for free school meals, without filing applications.
Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, said: "I want to pass a child nutrition bill. I am committed to the first lady's campaign. I want to be helpful. But I won't vote for a bill that robs Peter to pay Paul. The White House needs to work with us to find a better way to offset the cost."
Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said, "While I want a strong and robust reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, we cannot do it on the backs of the unemployed, underemployed and chronically poor."
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City weighed in too. He wrote that he was concerned about the health and welfare of the more than one million students in the city's public schools. But he said that Congress should not try to help them at the expense of food stamp recipients.
By reducing future food stamp benefits, Mr. Bloomberg said, the Senate bill "would reduce the availability of nutritious food at children's homes in order to provide those very same children nutritious options at school."
Nationwide, more than 41 million people receive food stamps, nearly half of them children. The number of recipients has increased 51 percent since the recession began in December 2007. The average monthly benefit is $133 a person, about $4.40 a day.
The Senate bill would save $2.2 billion over 10 years by eliminating an increase in benefits provided by the 2009 economic stimulus law. Food price inflation has been lower than expected, so the increase could be ended early, in November 2013, proponents say.
Ellen S. Teller of the Food Research and Action Center said the cuts "would increase poverty and could increase obesity because shoppers would try to stretch their dollars by buying cheaper, calorie-dense food that has low nutritional value."
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5) *Breaking News* Three houses in Minneapolis raided, other houses in
Michigan, NC, Chicago targeted.
Submitted by smiley on Fri, 09/24/2010 - 09:20
http://twincities.indymedia.org/2010/sep/breaking-news-three-houses-minneapolis-raided-other-houses-michigan-nc-chicago-targeted
Urgent - Community Meeting tonight! 5:30 pm Walker Church 3104 16th
Ave S regarding the FBI Raids
On Friday morning, three houses in the Minneapolis area are believed
to have been raided by SWAT Teams. While we have few details right
now, the F.B.I. appears to be targeting people associated with the
Freedom Road Socialist Organization. Besides the raids in Minneapolis,
houses in Michigan, North Carolina and Chicago were also targeted.
Raids occurred at 1823 Riverside, above the Hard Times Cafe, and the
2900 block of Park Ave. One other raid is reported, as well. Outside
Hard Times Cafe, three unmarked black SUVs (one with an Illinois
license plate) sat in the parking area as of 10am, when a lawyer
observed 8 FBI agents sitting in the residence examining materials.
Otherwise the scene was calm.
Agents had broken in the door there at 7am Friday morning, breaking an
aquarium in the process.
The Federal search warrants appear to be focusing on seizing
electronic devices, international travel, and alleging
"co-conspirators." They do not authorize arrests.
The search warrant for 1823 Riverside, the residence of activist Mick
Kelly, sought information "regarding ability to pay for his own
travel" to Palestine and Columbia from 2000 to today. The warrant
hyped potential documents indicating any contacts/facilitation with
FARC, PFLP, and Hezbollah - what it called "FTOs" or "foreign
terrorist organizations". It mentioned seeking information on the
alleged "facilitation of other individuals in the US to travel to
Colombia, Palestine and any other foreign location in support of
foreign terrorist organizations including but not limited to FARC,
PFLP and Hezbollah".
The wording of the warrant appears to indicate the government seeks to
create divisions among social justice and international soldarity
activists by hyping alleged connections to what they call "foreign
terrorist organizations."
The warrant also sought information on "Kelly's travel to and from and
presence in MN, and other foreign countries [sic] to which Kelly has
traveled as part of his work in FRSO [Freedom Road Socialist
Organization", as well as materials related to his finances and the
finances of FRSO, and all computer and electronic devices.
The federal warrant was signed by Judge Susan Nelson at 3:30pm
yesterday, September 23.
FROM: Twin Cities Peace Campaign - Focus on Iraq MESSAGE: Dear
Peacemakers, I have just been informed by Sarah Martin that the FBI
are in the process of raiding the homes of Meredith Aby, Jess Sundin,
and Mick Kelly. They are apparently accusing them of connections with
a terrorist organization. The National Lawyer Guild attorneys are
suggesting that we go to their homes immediately. My phone number is 612-275-2720. Peace in the struggle, Marie Braun
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6) FBI raids homes of several Twin Cities war protesters
By RANDY FURST, Star Tribune
September 24, 2010
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/103716384.html?elr=KArks%3ADCiUo3PD%3A3D_V_qD3L%3Ac7cQKUiD3aPc%3A_Yyc%3AaU7DYaGEP7vDEh7P%3ADiUs
The homes of several leaders of the Twin Cities antiwar movement were raided Friday by the FBI in what an agency spokesman described as an "investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism."
Search warrants were executed on six addresses in Minneapolis and at two in Chicago, said FBI spokesman Steve Warfield.
Among the homes raided were the apartments of Jessica Sundin, who was a principal leader of the mass march of 10,000 on the opening day of the Republican National Convention two years ago, and Mick Kelly, who was prominent in that protest and among those who announced plans to march on the Democratic National Convention in Minneapolis, if the city is selected to host it in 2012.
Ted Dooley, an attorney, said he had reviewed the search warrant issued in the raid on Kelly's apartment. "It's a probe into the political beliefs of American citizens and to any organization anywhere that opposes the American iimperial design," he said.
Steve Warfield, an FBI agent, declined to respond to Dooley's comment. He said in a statement Friday, "We are doing six federal search warrants in Minneapolis that are related to an ongoing Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism. We are doing two search warrants in Chicago as well."
He said the raids were conducted at about 7 a.m., but he declined to say who or what addresses were being raided.
Mick Kelly, who lives on the 1800 block of Riverside Av. in Minneapolis, said in a telephone interview that the FBI kicked down his door, handed him a search warrant and began inspecting his files. He said eight FBI agents were involved in the raid.
Randy Furst • 612-673-7382
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7) What the Pot Legalization Campaign Really Threatens
by David Sirota
Published on Friday, September 24, 2010 by Oregon Live
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/24-5
Here's a fact that even drug policy reform advocates can acknowledge: California's 2010 ballot initiative to legalize marijuana does, indeed, pose a real threat, as conservative culture warriors insist. But not to public health, as those conservatives claim.
According to most physicians, pot is less toxic -- and has more medicinal applications -- than a legal and more pervasive drug like alcohol. Whereas alcohol causes hundreds of annual overdose deaths, contributes to untold numbers of illnesses and is a major factor in violent crime, marijuana has never resulted in a fatal overdose and has not been systemically linked to major illness or violent crime.
So this ballot measure is no public health threat. If anything, it would give the millions of citizens who want to use inebriating substances a safer alternative to alcohol. Which, of course, gets to what this ballot initiative really endangers: alcohol industry profits.
That truth is underscored by news this week that the California Beer and Beverage Distributors is financing the campaign against the legalization initiative. This is the same group that bankrolled opposition to a 2008 ballot measure, which would have reduced penalties for marijuana possession.
By these actions, alcohol companies are admitting that more sensible drug policies could cut into their government-created monopoly on mind-altering substances. Thus, they are fighting back -- and not just defensively. Unsatisfied with protecting turf in California, the alcohol industry is going on offense, as evidenced by a recent article inadvertently highlighting America's inane double standards.
Apparently oblivious to the issues the California campaign is now raising, Businessweek just published an elated puff piece headlined "Keeping Pabst Blue Ribbon Cool." Touting the beer's loyal following, the magazine quoted one PBR executive effusively praising a rate of alcohol consumption that would pickle the average liver.
"A lot of blue-collar workers I've talked to say 'I've been drinking a six-pack of Pabst, every single day, seven days a week, for 25 years,'" he gushed, while another executive added "It's, like, habitual -- it's part of their life. It's their lifestyle."
Discussing possible plans to "develop a whole beer brand around troops" -- one that devotes some proceeds to military organizations -- the executives said their vision is "that when you see Red White & Blue (beer) at your barbecue, you know that money's supporting people who have died for our country."
Imagine marijuana substituted for alcohol in this story. The article would be presented as a scary expose about workers smoking a daily dime-bag and marijuana growers' linking pot with the Army. Undoubtedly, such an article would be on the front page of every newspaper as cause for outrage. Yet, because this was about alcohol -- remember, a substance more toxic than marijuana -- it was buried in a financial magazine and depicted as something to extol.
Couple that absurd hypocrisy with the vociferous opposition to California's initiative, and we see the meta-message.
We are asked to believe that people drinking a daily six-pack for a quarter-century is not a lamentable sign of a health crisis, but instead a "lifestyle" triumph worthy of flag-colored celebration -- and we are expected to think that legalizing a safer alternative to this "lifestyle" is dangerous. Likewise, as laws obstruct veterans from obtaining doctor-prescribed marijuana for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, we are asked to believe that shotgunning cans of lager is the real way to "support our troops."
These are the delusions that a liquor-drenched culture prevents us from reconsidering. In a society drunk off of alcohol propaganda -- a society of presidential "beer summits" and sports stadiums named after beer companies -- we've had trouble separating fact from fiction. Should California pass its ballot initiative, perhaps a more sober and productive drug policy might finally become a reality.
(c) 2010 Creators.com
David Sirota is a bestselling author whose newest book is "The Uprising." He is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network-both nonpartisan organizations. Sirota was once US Senator Bernie Sanders' spokesperson. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota.
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8) We Haven't Hit Bottom Yet
By BOB HERBERT
September 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/opinion/25herbert.html?hp
Wallingford, Conn.
Marcus Vogt is 20 years old and homeless. Or, as he puts it, "I'm going through a couch-surfing phase."
Mr. Vogt is a Wal-Mart employee but he was injured in a car accident and was unable to work for a couple of months. With no income and no health insurance, he quickly found himself unable to pay the rent. Even meals were hard to come by.
(His situation is quite a statement about real life in the United States in the 21st century. On the same day that I spoke with Mr. Vogt, Forbes magazine came out with its list of the 400 most outrageously rich Americans.)
I met Mr. Vogt at Master's Manna, a food pantry and soup kitchen here that also offers a variety of other services to individuals and families that have fallen on hard times. He told me that his cellphone service has been cut off and he has more than $3,000 in medical bills outstanding. But he was cheerful and happy to report that he's back at work, although it will take at least a few more paychecks before he'll have enough money to rent a room.
Other folks who make their way to Master's Manna are not so upbeat. The Great Recession has long since ended, according to the data zealots in their windowless rooms. But it is still very real to the millions of men and women who wake up each morning to the grim reality of empty pockets and empty cupboards.
Wallingford is nobody's definition of a depressed community. It's a middle-class town on the Quinnipiac River. But the number of people seeking help at Master's Manna is rising, not falling. And when I asked Cheryl Bedore, who runs the program, if she was seeing more clients from the middle class, she said: "Oh, absolutely. We have people who were donors in the past coming to our doors now in search of help."
The political upheaval going on in the United States right now is being driven by the economic upheaval. It's sometimes hard to see this clearly amid the craziness and ugliness stirred up by the professional exploiters. But the essential issue is still the economy - the rising tide of poor people and the decline of the middle class. The true extent of the pain has not been widely chronicled.
"The minute you open the doors, it's like a wave of desperation that's hitting you," said Ms. Bedore. "People are depressed, despondent. They're on the edge, especially those who have never had to ask for help before."
In recent weeks, a few homeless people with cars have been showing up at Master's Manna. Ms. Bedore has gotten permission from the local police department for them to park behind her building and sleep in their cars overnight. "We've been recognized as a safe haven," she said.
In two of the cars, she said, were families with children.
It's not just joblessness that's driving people to the brink, although that's a big factor. It's underemployment, as well. "For many of our families," said Ms. Bedore, "the 40-hour workweek is over, a thing of the past. They may still have a job, but they're trying to survive on reduced hours - with no benefits. Some are on forced furloughs.
"Once you start losing the income and you've run through your savings, then your car is up for repossession, or you're looking at foreclosure or eviction. We're a food pantry, but hunger is only the tip of the iceberg. Life becomes a constant juggling act when the money starts running out. Are you going to pay for your medication? Or are you going to put gas in the car so you can go to work?
"Kids are going back to school now, so they need clothes and school supplies. Where is the money for that to come from? The people we're seeing never expected things to turn out like this - not at this stage of their lives. Not in the United States. The middle class is quickly slipping into a lower class."
Similar stories - and worse - are unfolding throughout the country. There are more people in poverty now - 43.6 million - than at any time since the government began keeping accurate records. Nearly 15 million Americans are out of work and home foreclosures are expected to surpass one million this year. The Times had a chilling front-page article this week about the increasing fear among jobless workers over 50 that they will never be employed again.
The politicians seem unable to grasp the immensity of the problem, which is why the policy solutions are so woefully inadequate. During my conversations with Ms. Bedore, she dismissed the very thought that the recession might be over. "Whoever said that was sadly mistaken," she said. "We haven't even bottomed-out yet."
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9) Thousands Face Job Loss When Part of Stimulus Act Expires
By MICHAEL COOPER
September 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/us/26stimulus.html?hp
Tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs within weeks unless Congress extends one of the more effective job-creating programs in the $787 billion stimulus act: a $1 billion New Deal-style program that directly paid the salaries of unemployed people so they could get jobs in government, at nonprofit organizations and at many small businesses.
In rural Perry County, Tenn., the program helped pay for roughly 400 new jobs in the public and private sectors. But in a county of 7,600 people, those jobs had a big impact: they reduced Perry County's unemployment rate to less than 14 percent this August, from the Depression-like levels of more than 25 percent that it hit last year after its biggest employer, an auto parts factory, moved to Mexico.
If the stimulus program ends on schedule next week, Perry County officials said, an estimated 300 people there will lose their jobs - the equivalent of another factory closing.
"It's very scary, because there's just no work," said Brian Davis, a 36-year-old father of four, who got a stimulus-subsidized job with the City of Lobelville after he lost his job of 17 years at an auto parts plant that shed hundreds of jobs. Now he faces the prospect of unemployment again.
"This was a huge help," Mr. Davis said. "The way the economy's been and the way people are struggling, you're worried about putting food on the table for your children and keeping the electricity on."
The money that pays Mr. Davis's salary, and the salaries of tens of thousands of other people around the country, will dry up after next Thursday, when the welfare program in the stimulus act that pays the bills for those jobs is set to expire. While the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress want to extend the program, they are meeting stiff resistance from Republicans, many of whom oppose all things stimulus.
If the program has encountered hostility from Republicans on Capitol Hill, it has been embraced by some Republican governors who have used it to create jobs in their states.
In Mississippi, an innovative program used the money to pay private companies to hire nearly 3,200 workers, and to pay their salaries on a sliding scale so that the employers would end up paying the entire amount after six months.
Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, described the initiative there as "welfare to work." Mr. Barbour, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said in an interview last winter that he hoped the program would be extended past this month, since it took so long for the state's program to get federal approval.
The federal program has helped employ nearly 130,000 adults and has paid for nearly an equal number of summer jobs for young people, according to an analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal policy institute in Washington.
If the program is allowed to lapse, up to 26,000 workers in Illinois will lose their jobs in the coming weeks, along with 12,000 workers in Pennsylvania and thousands more in other states, according to LaDonna Pavetti, the director of the center's welfare reform and income support division.
"I think that given what we know about the number of people that have been impacted by the recession and the limited jobs available, this has been a lifeline for many families with kids who would otherwise not know when their next rent payment or meal would be coming in," Dr. Pavetti said.
The money came from a pot of $5 billion that was included in the stimulus package as an emergency fund for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, the main cash welfare program for families with children. Of the $4.3 billion that has been approved so far, $1.4 billion has gone toward basic assistance, $1.8 billion has been used to help families pay one-time emergency expenses like rent and utility bills, and a little over $1 billion has been used to subsidize jobs.
Some economists consider subsidized jobs one of the most cost-effective ways to stimulate employment: there is no overhead or profit, as there is when firms win bids to perform work for the government.
Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat who championed the idea of creating jobs in hard-hit Perry County and other places with high unemployment, said he would like to see the program extended because it had a more direct impact than other components of the stimulus act, like infrastructure projects and tax cuts.
"I thought we were able to make very efficient use of these funds," he said in an interview on Friday, "with the money not going off into the ether to create jobs on a spreadsheet, but going where you could go find people who had jobs today who did not have them before."
There are success stories in Tennessee. After the Armstrong Pie Company hired 12 workers with stimulus money, it was able to expand its production, add delivery routes and increase sales, said Dalyn Patterson, who owns the company with her husband, Bert. The business increased enough that she said she expected to keep 11 of the 12 workers.
But if the program was supposed to act as a bridge to keep people working until the economy started adding jobs in large numbers again, officials in Tennessee said that it was ending a bit early. And many of the 300 workers who are set to lose their stimulus jobs in Perry County may not be able to collect unemployment benefits. So while people there are grateful for the program, they are nervous about what comes next.
"It was very much a Band-Aid," said Mayor Robby J. Moore of Lobelville, Tenn. "And now the Band-Aid is coming off."
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10) Scores of Taliban Killed in 2 Airstrikes
By ROD NORDLAND
September 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/world/asia/26afghan.html?ref=world
KABUL, Afghanistan - Two separate airstrikes killed more than 70 Taliban insurgents on Saturday, NATO officials said, although some local residents said that civilians were among the victims.
In eastern Laghman Province, a combined force of Afghan and coalition soldiers airlifted troops into the Masooda village in the Alishing district to clear the area of insurgents, the international forces said in a statement. After coming under fire, they called for air support, and 32 insurgents were killed, according to Afghan police officials. NATO officials separately put the death toll at "more than 30."
Several hours after the early-morning engagement, according to the provincial police chief, Ghulam Aziz, a group of more than 100 local residents held an angry demonstration in Mihtarlam, the capital of the province, and police dispersed them with fire hoses and gunshots in the air.
"It was not really a protest," Mr. Aziz said. "It was actually an insurrection by some elements who want to disrupt security."
A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujaheed, interviewed by cellphone, said that there had been no Taliban activity in the area and that all the victims were civilians. A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, Maj. Michael Johnson, said that "as of right now we have no indication of any civilian casualties." The operation in Laghman Province was ongoing, Major Johnson said, and, "If there's any indication at all of civilian casualties, we will investigate it."
In the other encounter, in eastern Khost Province, 42 insurgents were killed at about 2 a.m. on Saturday when they were spotted trying to cross the border from Pakistan, said Maj. Stephen Platt, a NATO spokesman at Forward Operating Base Salerno.
The Khost provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Hakim Isahqzai, put the insurgent death toll even higher, with at least 82 killed in a NATO airstrike and reports that the final toll may reach 200. A But a NATO spokesman, Lt. Col. John Dorrian, said there were no airstrikes by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, in that area. He had no information on who might have carried out such a strike.
There were no complaints of civilian casualties in that encounter, in the Mogholgai region of the Gurboz district, where airstrikes have also been carried out by other United States government agencies, including those by C.I.A. drones. General Isahqzai also said that the police had arrested a major Taliban commander, Mollawi Salim, from Logar Province, at a checkpoint in Khost, and handed him over to American soldiers at the Salerno operating base for detention. The police general said that Mr. Salim was a well-known figure who was responsible for arranging suicide bombings.
The ISAF reported on Saturday the earlier arrests and killings of four other insurgent commanders in three different provinces, Khost, Paktika and Helmand, part of the military's ongoing campaign to focus on midlevel leaders.
The international security force also reported the deaths of two NATO soldiers by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, and that of another NATO soldier killed in a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Saturday.
Copies of War Memoir Destroyed
WASHINGTON - The Defense Department has confirmed that it has destroyed 9,500 copies of an Afghan war memoir by a former intelligence officer to prevent the disclosure of what it considered to be classified information.
A Pentagon spokeswoman said Friday that on Monday, department officials had observed the destruction of the books, the uncensored first printing of Anthony Shaffer's "Operation Dark Heart," the spokeswoman said. A second printing, with about 250 passages blacked out, went on sale Friday.
A person familiar with the negotiations said that the Pentagon had paid St. Martin's Press about $5 a book, for a cost to taxpayers of nearly $50,000. Publishing executives say they think it is the first time the government has destroyed a print run of a book to protect secrets. About 100 uncensored advance copies of "Operation Dark Heart" were distributed before the Pentagon intervened, and some have sold online for as much as $2,000.
An Afghan employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Khost, Afghanistan.
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11) F.B.I. Searches Antiwar Activists' Homes
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
September 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/us/politics/25search.html?ref=us
F.B.I. agents executed search warrants Friday in Minneapolis and Chicago in connection to an investigation of support of terror organizations.
The searches in Minneapolis took place early in the morning at the homes of people who have helped organize demonstrations against the war in Iraq and protests held two years ago during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
"It is rather patently political," said Ted Dooley, a lawyer who represents Mick Kelly, a food service worker at the University of Minnesota and one of those whose homes was searched. "My client denies any wrongdoing."
Steve Warfield, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Minneapolis, said the agents executed six warrants in Minneapolis and two in Chicago.
"They were seeking evidence related to an ongoing Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation," Mr. Warfield said. "They are looking at activities connected to the material support of terrorism."
He said no one in Minneapolis had been arrested while the warrants were executed. He added that agents in Michigan and North Carolina had also questioned people in connection with the investigation.
Mr. Dooley said the F.B.I. broke down Mr. Kelly's door around 7 a.m. and gave a search warrant to his companion. The warrant said agents were gathering evidence related to people "providing, attempting and conspiring to provide material support" to terrorist organizations, and listed Hezbollah, the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
The warrant also authorized the agents to look for information connected to the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and to unnamed "co-conspirators" and allowed them to seize items including electronics, photographs, address books and letters.
Mr. Kelly is known in Minnesota as a prominent organizer of the Anti-War Committee, a group that has protested United States military aid to Colombia and called for the removal of American soldiers from Afghanistan.
During the Republican gathering in 2008 he was a primary organizer of a march that drew thousands of participants.
Mr. Kelly was also served with a summons to appear before a grand jury on Oct. 19 in Chicago. The order directed him to bring along pictures or videos related to any trip to Colombia, Jordan, Syria, the Palestinian territories or Israel, as well as correspondence with anyone in those places.
Jess Sundin, another member of the Anti-War Committee whose home was searched, said a warrant also was executed at the group's office. She said she had not done anything to help terror groups.
"I've protested the government's policies and spoken out and tried to educate people in my community," Ms. Sundin said. "That is the extent of what I've done."
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