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This drawing has come to symbolize the California prison hunger strike and the solidarity it has generated. It was contributed by Rashid Johnson, a prisoner in Red Onion Prison, Virginia.
Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Resumes
By Erin Sherbert
September 26 2011
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/pelican_bay_hunger_strike_resumes.php
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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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Wed. Sept. 28, 6:30pm
Last Organizing Meeting for Oct. 6-7 Protests on
10th Anniversary of Afghanistan War and Occupation
2969 Mission St. btwn 25th and 26th, San Francisco
near 24th St. BART; #14, 49 MUNI
A gruesome war grows ever more gruesome. October 7 will mark the 10th anniversary of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, and contrary to Washington's claims of "improved security" and "drawdown" the terrible toll just keeps rising.
In the first six months of the year, Afghan civilian casualties were up 15% from the same period in 2010. Tens of thousands of Afghan people have been killed, and hundreds of thousands wounded and displaced.
U.S. combat deaths in the war reached a record this month. An article in the March 4 Washington Post reported that U.S. military doctors now call double-leg amputations with accompanying genital injuries the "signature wound" of the Afghanistan war.
At a time when health, education and other vital government programs are being slashed or eliminated altogether, the war in Afghanistan devours $330 million per day--every day! And that is only about 10% of the real military budget. A recent study estimated that the total cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will total an unimaginable $4.4 trillion-$4,400,000,000,000.
If there is one thing that is clear it is this: Neither Democratic nor Republican politicians will stop the bloody carnage and immense waste of resources unless they are compelled to by the people. That's what makes the upcoming actions on October 6-7, marking the exact 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan war, so important. On those days, a wide range of marches, rallies, direct action and other forms of protest will take place from Washington DC to San Francisco, as well as in many other cities in the U.S. and around the world. Many organizations and individual activists will be marching to say: End the wars & occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and everywhere! Money for jobs, healthcare and schools, not the war machine!
Join us on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 6:30pm for the last meeting to plan for the October 6-7 actions here in San Francisco. The meeting will take place at the ANSWER Coalition office, 2969 Mission St., between 25th and 26th Sts., San Francisco. Also, don't forget to join us this weekend in preparing the final logistics for Oct. 7th.
Sat. Oct. 1, 4pm
Join ANSWER Activists in Preparing for Oct. 7
Banner and Placard-Making, and Phonebanking
2969 Mission St. btwn 25th and 26th, San Francisco
near 24th St. BART; #14, 49 MUNI
The only way to end the bloody and rising carnage in Afghanistan is to immediately withdraw all U.S. and NATO troops and aircraft. Only the people can stop the war-join us!
In the days, ANSWER organizers and volunteers will be working to build the October demonstrations taking place across the country. Please make an urgently needed donation to help support the work of the ANSWER Coalition. We can't do it without your help.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org
http://www.AnswerSF.org
Answer@AnswerSF.org
2969 Mission St.
415-821-6545
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OCCUPY LOS ANGELES
People of Los Angeles, we will occupy our city for the 99 percent of the world.
We will not be silent.
October 1, 2011
LA City Hall
200 N. Spring Street
Bring tents, sleeping bags, food, supplies, friends
http://on.fb.me/qlJzpz#occupyla
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An Evening with Ali Abunimah -- with Special Guest Alice Walker
Wednesday, October 5th, 7:00 PM
First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway
Buy Your Tickets Today:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/194416?
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Alice Walker is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer, including her book Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel. She participated in the US Boat to Gaza, part of the Freedom Flotilla.
Tickets: $15, $10 students/low-income, available at through Brown Paper Tickets, or at local bookstores: (East Bay) Books, Inc.; Diesel; Moe's Books; Walden Pond; (SF) Modern Times. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Benefit for MECA's Maia Project: Clean Water for the Children of Palestine
Wheelchair accessible & ASL interpreted.
Cosponsors: KPFA, Arab Film Festival, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, US Palestinian Community Network, Arab Cultural & Community Center, Jewish Voice for Peace, Bay Area Women in Black, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Global Exchange.
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Protest, March & Die-In on 10th Anniversary of Afghanistan War
Friday, Oct. 7, 2011, 4:30-6:30pm
New Federal Building, 7th & Mission Sts, SF
End All the Wars & Occupations-Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Haiti . . .
Money for Jobs, Healthcare & Schools-Not for the Pentagon
Friday, October 7, 2011 will be the exact 10th anniversary of the U.S./NATO war on the people of Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of Afghani people have been killed, wounded and displaced, and thousands of U.S. and NATO forces killed and wounded. The war costs more than $126 billion per year at a time when social programs are being slashed.
The true and brutal character of the U.S. strategy to "win hearts and minds" of the Afghani population was described by a Marine officer, quoted in a recent ANSWER Coalition statement:
"You can't just convince them [Afghani people] through projects and goodwill," another Marine officer said. "You have to show up at their door with two companies of Marines and start killing people. That's how you start convincing them." (To read the entire ANSWER statement, click here)
Mark your calendar now and help organize for the October 7 march and die-in in downtown San Francisco. There are several things you can do:
1. Endorse the protest and die-in.
2. Spread the word and help organize in your community, union, workplace and campus.
3. Make a donation to help with organizing expenses.
Only the people can stop the war!
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org
http://www.AnswerSF.org
Answer@AnswerSF.org
2969 Mission St.
415-821-6545
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United National Antiwar Committee
UNACpeace@gmain.com or UNAC at P.O. Box 123, Delmar, NY 12054
518-227-6947
www.UNACpeace.org
UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COMMITTEE (UNAC) CALLS FOR ACTIONS IN OCTOBER
TO MARK 10 YEARS OF WAR ON AFGHANISTAN
On June 22, the White House defied the majority of Americans who want an end to the war in Afghanistan. Instead of announcing the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops, contractors, bases, and war dollars, Obama committed to removing only one twentieth of the US forces on the ground in Afghanistan over the next eight months. Another 23,000 will supposedly be withdrawn just in time to influence the 2012 elections. Even if the President follows thru on this plan, nearly 170,000 US soldiers and contractors will remain in Afghanistan. All veterans and soldiers will be raising the question, "Who will be the last U.S. combatant to die in Afghanistan?"
In truth, the President's plan is not a plan to end the war in Afghanistan. It was, instead, an announcement that the U.S. was changing strategy. As the New York Times reported, the US will be replacing the "counterinsurgency strategy" adopted 18 months ago with the kind of campaign of drone attacks, assassinations, and covert actions that the US has employed in Pakistan.
At a meeting of the United National Antiwar Committee's National Coordinating Committee, held in NYC on June 18, representatives of 47 groups voted to endorse the nonviolent civil resistance activities beginning on October 6 in Washington, D.C. and to call for nationally coordinated local actions on October 15 to protest the tenth anniversary of the US war in Afghanistan. UNAC urges activists in as many cities as possible to hold marches, picket lines, teach-ins, and other events to say:
· Withdraw ALL US/NATO Military Forces, Contractors, and Bases out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya NOW!
· End drone attacks on defenseless populations in Pakistan and Yemen!
· End US Aid to Israel! Hands Off Iran!
· Bring Our War Dollars Home Now! Money for Jobs and Education, Not for War and Incarceration!
In this message:
The Wall Street Occupation continues
October 6
October 15
NATO/G8 protests in Chicago
UNAC conference
The Wall Street Occupation continues.
The Wall Street occupation is continuing despite dozens of arrests on Friday. A number of UNAC supporters have joined the occupation. You can join the occupation virtually by joining the viewers of the livestream at: http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution. Here is another video of the occupation from Stan Heller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rfuvDr2wJQ
October 6.
UNAC is supporting the October 6 "Stop the Machine" actions in Washington, DC. Please join us. We will assemble at Freedom Plaza on October 6 and many will continue to occupy the area while conducting various protest activity. For more information: http://october2011.org/.
October 15.
UNAC calls for protest in local areas on October 15 to protest the 10th anniversary of the war on Afghanistan. Click here for a partial list of action:
http://nepajac.org/oct15.htm
Click here to add you action to the national list:
http://www.jotform.com/form/12185630202
NATO/G8 protests in Chicago.
UNAC, along with other organizations and activists, has formed a coalition to help organize protests in Chicago during the week of May 15 - 22 while NATO and G8 are holding their summit meetings. The new coalition was formed at a meeting of 163 people representing 73 different organization in Chicago on August 28 and is called Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANGATE). For a report on the Chicago meeting, click here: http://nepajac.org/chicagoreport.htm
To add your email to the new CANGATE listserve, send an email to cangate-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.
To have your organization endorse the NATO/G8 protest, please click here:
https://www.nationalpeaceconference.org/NATO_G8_protest_support.html
Click here to hear audio of the August 28 meeting:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/54145
Click here for the talk by Marilyn Levin, UNAC co-coordinator at the August 28 meeting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1tHQ7ilDJ8&NR=1
Click here for Pat Hunts welcome to the meeting and Joe Iosbaker's remarks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoNGcnBGGfI
UNAC Conference.
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) conference originally scheduled for November, 11- 13, 2011, has been rescheduled for March 23-25, 2012, in order to tie in to organizing efforts for building massive protests at the NATO/G-8 Summits in Chicago, May 15-22, and to have sufficient time to generate an action program for the next stage of building a mass movement for social change.
Organizations are invited to endorse this conference by clicking here:
http://www.jotform.com/form/12685942513
Donations are needed for bringing international speakers and to subsidize attendance of students and low income participants. Contributions will be accepted at www.UNACpeace.org.
For the initial conference flyer, click here:
http://nepajac.org/conferenceflyer.pdf
Click here to donate to UNAC:
https://nationalpeaceconference.org/Donate.html
Click here for the Facebook UNAC group:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_157059221012587&ap=1
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Please share this announcement widely
MoveOn.org East Bay Council, Alameda Labor Council, San Francisco Labor Council,
New Priorities Campaign, U.S. Labor Against the War and Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15
1PM Rally at Laney College
2:30 PM March to Federal Building & Frank Ogawa Plaza
Urge you to Rally & March for:
Jobs not Cuts !!!
Education not Incarceration
Work not War
Clean Energy not Climate Change
Social Security not Bank Bailouts
Main St. not Wall St.
Prosperity not Austerity
Hands Off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid!
End the Wars! Invest in Our Communities!
BRING ALL THE TROOPS AND WAR DOLLARS HOME!
We want an economy that supports the rights of all people to jobs at decent pay in safe workplaces, affordable healthcare for all, decent affordable housing, quality education in modern schools, a secure retirement, and a clean sustainable environment. We oppose cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs. The rich, corporations, Wall St. banks and financial speculators should pay to fix the crisis that their irresponsibility and greed created. We have made our sacrifices. Now they should make theirs.
Make your voices heard!
www.jobs-not-cuts.org
For more information and to register endorsements, write to:
MoveOnEastBay@gmail.com
NewPrioritiesCampaign@gmail.com
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MEDICARE IN THE CROSS-HAIRS
SOCIAL SECURITY NEXT?
SAN FRANCISCO LABOR COUNCIL TEACH-IN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2011, 7:30-9PM
Plumbers Union Hall, 1621 Market St., S.F.
(5 blocks from Civic Center BART station)
For more information call Carl, San Francisco Labor Council Education Project
415-829-3816
CUTTING MEDICARE-MEDICAID IS THE POLITICIANS CONSENSUS #1 BUDGET TARGET
• President Obama has just proposed a $248 billion cut in Medicare as a starter & another $72 billion in Medicaid cuts.
• Obama indicated September 19 he will support cutting more than $320 Billion if Republicans agree with him on taxes.
• Vice-President Joe Biden last June offered Republicans to cut $400-$500 billion in Medicare-Medicaid
• Republicans last April proposed to raise out-of-pocket costs for Medicare for seniors by $7,000 per year
• The 'Supercommittee' of 12 in Congress said last week they want to cut even more than Obama has proposed. They will report 'how much' more on November 19.
• Congress will vote on how much more in Medicare-Medicaid cuts before December 23.
How Much Will Your Medicare Be Cut?
How Much More Will You Have to Pay?
Come Hear the Facts
Open Discussion to Follow
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For Immediate Release
Howard Petrick's "Rambo" - anti-VietNam activist tells his story-Marsh Berkeleyu-Oct 20-Dec 10
The Little Guy Takes on the Pentagon in Howard Petrick's "Rambo: The Missing Years" at The Marsh-Berkeley, Oct 20-Dec 10
The Hilarious and True Story of the Private Who Protested the Viet Nam War - While Still in the Army!
"Howard's show is proof you can fight bureaucracy and win. How he does so is told with aplomb and a certain sense of mischievousness." - Vancouver Fringe
"The potency of the show...springs from Petrick's first-hand account of his anti-Vietnam activism from within the army...this comes with an intriguing authenticity."- Winnipeg Free Press
"Petrick delivers...For 60 minutes he has you laughing through the fear." - Winnipeg Uptown
San Francisco. September 26, 2011. The Vancouver Sun calls San Francisco's Howard Petrick, "a guy who really knows how to get up the nose of the war machine." Petrick's Rambo: The Missing Years is an hilarious - and true - account of the misadventures of a Vietnam-era draftee who frustrates the military brass by asserting his right to organize his fellow GIs against the war. Petrick's Rambo - not to be confused in the least with the Sylvester Stallone action figure - plays at The Marsh-Berkeley, 2120 Alston Way in Berkeley, October 20 through December 10.
The story begins as Petrick (aka 'Hanoi Howie") reports for the draft and refuses to fill out the forms, befuddling the military bureaucracy for the first of many times to come. Yet, during his time of service he maintains an unblemished military record, breaks no rules, and continues to carry out his military duties.
Directed by Mark Kenward and developed with David Ford, the show plays on Thursday and Friday at 7:00 pm and Saturday at 8:30 pm from October 20 to December 10, 2011 (press opening November 4, no performance on Thanksgiving Day) at The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, near Shattuck. The public may visit www.themarsh.org or call 415-282-3055.
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Here is the official statement from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression on the 1-year anniversary of the raids.
Build the Movement Against Political Repression
One year since the September 24 FBI Raids and Grand Jury Subpoenas
Statement of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, 9-22-2011
Please come to the Committee to Stop FBI Repression one-day Conference in Chicago on November 5, 2011.
http://www.stopfbi.net/national-conference-2011
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression (CSFR) is asking you to build the movement against political repression on the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 24, 2010 FBI raids on anti-war and international solidarity activists. We need your continued solidarity as we build movements for peace, justice and equality.
The storm of political repression continues to expand and threaten. It is likely to intensify and churn into a destructive force with indictments, trials, and attempts to imprison anti-war activists. The last we knew, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald was preparing multiple indictments as he and Attorney General Eric Holder attempt to criminalize the targeted activists and the movements to which we dedicate our lives.
It is one year since the FBI raided two homes in Chicago and five homes plus the Anti-War Committee office in Minneapolis, eventually handing out 23 subpoenas. The anti-war activists' homes were turned upside down and notebooks, cell phones, artwork, computers, passports and personal belongings were all carted off by the FBI. Anyone who has ever been robbed knows the feelings - shock and anger.
The man responsible for this assault on activists and their families, on free speech and the right to organize, is U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago. Fitzgerald has an ugly record of getting powerful Republicans like Dick Cheney and Karl Rove off the hook, while mercilessly pursuing an agenda to scare America into silence and submission with the phony 'war on terror.' Fitzgerald is attempting to criminalize anti-war activists with accusations of 'material support for terrorism,' involving groups in Palestine and Colombia.
First the U.S. government targeted Arabs and Muslims, violating their civil rights and liberties and spying on them. Then they came for the anti-war and international solidarity activists. We refuse to be criminalized. We continue to speak out and organize. We say, "Opposing U.S. war and occupation is not a crime!" We are currently building a united front with groups and movements to defeat Fitzgerald's reactionary, fear mongering assault on anti-war activism and to restore civil liberties taken away by the undemocratic USA PATRIOT Act.
Many people know the developments in the case, but for those who do not, we invite you to read a timeline at stopfbi.net. We think the repression centers on this: During the lead up to the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota, a federal law enforcement officer, using the phony name of "Karen Sullivan" got involved and joined the Anti-War Committee and Freedom Road Socialist Organization in Minneapolis. She lied to everyone she met and helped the FBI to disrupt many activities in the anti-war, international solidarity and labor movements in Minnesota - and also other states and even over in Palestine. It is outrageous.
In fact, many of those being investigated travelled to Colombia or Palestine to learn firsthand about U.S. government funding for war and oppression. There was no money given to any groups that the U.S. government lists as terrorist organizations. However, we met people who are a lot like most Americans - students, community organizers, religious leaders, trade unionists, women's group leaders and activists much like ourselves. Many of the U.S. activists wrote about their trips, did educational events, or helped organized protests against U.S. militarism and war. In a increasingly repressive period, this is enough to make one a suspect in Fitzgerald's office.
This struggle is far from one-sided however. The response to the FBI raids and the pushback from the movement is tremendous. Minneapolis and Chicago immediately organized a number of press conferences and rallies with hundreds of people. Over the first two weeks after the raids, 60 cities protested outside FBI offices, from New York to Kalamazoo, from traveled to the Bay Area. The National Lawyers Guild convention was in New Orleans the day of the FBI raids and they immediately issued a solidarity statement and got to work on the case. Solidarity poured in from anti-war, civil rights, religious and faith groups, students and unions. Groups and committees began working to obtain letters of support from members of Congress. The solidarity was overwhelming. It was great!
It is possible that U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald thought he was picking on an isolated group of activists. Instead, those raided proved to have many friends and allies from decades of work for social justice and peace. Over the months, all the targeted activists refused to appear at the grand jury dates set by U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald's office. In November 2010, a large crew of us travelled to New York City to found the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, after the United National Antiwar Committee meeting.
In December 2010, U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald's office called in three of the Minnesota women and threatened them. We prepared a campaign in case they were jailed for refusing to speak. The FBI also delivered subpoenas to nine more Arab-American and Palestine solidarity activists in December. Their grand jury date was on Jan. 25, 2011, and we organized protests in over 70 American cities, plus a few overseas. The movement was building and expanding, so we organized conferences with over 800 participants in the Midwest, the South, and on the East and West Coasts. While we were organizing a pushback, the FBI was making new plans.
On May 17, 2011, at 5:00 a.m., the Los Angeles, California Sheriff, under the direction of the FBI, busted down the front door of Chicano leader Carlos Montes, storming in with automatic weapons drawn and shouting. The early morning raid was supposedly about weapons and permits, but they seized decades of notes and writings about the Chicano, immigrant rights, education rights and anti-war movements. The FBI attempted to question Carlos Montes while he was handcuffed and in the back of a L.A. sheriff squad car. Montes is going to another preliminary court date on Sept. 29, prepared to face six felony charges, carrying up to three years in prison for each, knowing he is extraordinarily targeted by the FBI. We will walk every step of the way with Carlos Montes, and more. Montes was with us at the Republican National Convention protests; his name was included on the search warrant for the Anti-War Committee office in Minneapolis, and the FBI attempted to question him about this case. We ask you to support Carlos Montes and to organize speaking events with him and local protests on his important court dates, Sept. 29 being the next one.
The same week the FBI raided Carlos Montes in May 2011, the CSFR came back with a big revelation - we released a set of documents, the FBI game plan, which the FBI mistakenly left behind in a file drawer at one of the homes. The FBI documents are on the CSFR website and are fascinating to read. Fitzgerald and company developed 102 questions that come right from a McCarthy witch-hunt trial of the 1950s. It is like turning back the clock five decades.
The whole intention of the raids is clear: They want to paint activists as 'terrorists' and shut down the organizing. They came at a time when the rich and powerful are frightened of not just the masses of people overseas, but of the people in their own country. With a failing U.S. war in Afghanistan, a U.S. occupation of Iraq predicted to last decades, a new war for oil and domination in Libya, a failing immigration policy that breaks up families and produces super-profits for big business, and now a long and deep economic crisis that is pushing large segments of working people into poverty, the highest levels of the U.S. government are turning to political repression.
The only hope for the future is in building stronger, consistent and determined movements. In a principled act of solidarity, the 23 subpoenaed activists refuse to testify before the grand jury. This sets an example for others.
In addition, the outpouring of support and mobilization into the streets from the anti-war, international solidarity, civil rights, labor and immigrant rights movements means that not one of the 24 has spent a single day in jail. That is a victory.
We ask you to stand with us, to stay vigilant and to hold steady as we proceed to organize against wars abroad and injustice at home and as we defend Carlos Montes from the FBI charade in Los Angeles.
Committee to Stop FBI Repression - www.stopfbi.net
follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights reserved.
Thanks for your ongoing interest in the fight against FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists!
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Add us to your address book
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White House Petition for Leonard Peltier
http://tinyurl.com/3qq4muc
A petition in favor of granting clemency to Leonard Peltier is now on the We the People portion of the White House Web site. We have 30 days (until October 22) to get 5,000 signatures in order for our petition to be reviewed by the White House. This petition may only allow US signatories.
Sign the petition here:
http://tinyurl.com/3qq4muc
Due to heavy site traffic, you may have trouble accessing the petition. Keep trying until you succeed. Try during off-peak hours.
Email our petition to your friends, family and others who care about this issue.
Facebook: Post our petition to your Facebook wall to let folks know about it. Here's a sample message you can cut and paste into your Facebook status: Petition for Leonard Peltier on the White House site, We the People. Will you sign it?
Twitter: Tweet about your petition. Here's a sample tweet you can use: Leonard Peltier petition on the White House site, We the People. Will you sign it?
Let's do it!
Launched into cyberspace by the
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND 58106
www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
The Petition:
we petition the obama administration to:
grant clemency to Native American activist Leonard Peltier without delay.
10th Circuit Court of Appeals: "...Much of the government's behavior... and its prosecution of Leonard Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed."
While others were acquitted on grounds of self defense, Peltier was convicted in connection with the 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agents. Evidence shows that prosecutors knowingly presented false statements to a Canadian court to extradite Peltier and manufactured the murder weapon (the gun and shell casings entered into evidence didn't match; this fact was hidden from the jury). The number of constitutional violations in this case is simply staggering.
It's time to right this wrong. Mr. President, you can and must free Leonard Peltier.
Created: Sep 22, 2011
Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties, Human Rights
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/grant-clemency-native-american-activist-leonard-peltier-without-delay/LLWBZq1S
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B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:
[Some of these videos are embeded on the BAUAW website:
http://bauaw.blogspot.com/ or bauaw.org ...bw]
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Children's Art from Palestine--Censored!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_8mHw2-aZQ&feature=youtu.be
You can see the whole exhibit in a new space located just around the corner from MOCHA (Museum of Children's Art) at 917 Washington Street. For more information please call Middle East Children's Alliance at (510) 548-0542 or email at meca@mecaforpeace.org.
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OCCUPY-WALL-STREET-PROTESTERS-ARRESTS( Sept 20, 2011) Spread This Video Please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyvbI6Eq-qA
PEACEFUL FEMALE PROTESTORS PENNED IN THE STREET AND MACED!- #OccupyWallStreet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moD2JnGTToA
UNEDITED - COP KNEE ON THROAT 9/24/2011 #OCCUPYWALLSTREET
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rbXfelyIoM&NR=1
9/24/2011 COPS KETTLING AT UNION SQUARE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJaQvh80L-g&NR=1
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Judge Mathis Weighs in on the execution of Troy Davis
[And he does a great job and he has a huge audience. ...bw]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogBdP6INHlE
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Bill Maher, Michael Moore Defend Tony Bennett for Saying That U.S. Foreign Policy Helped Cause 9/11
By Lauren Kelley | Sourced from AlterNet
Posted at September 24, 2011, 7:44 am
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/670832/bill_maher%2C_michael_moore_defend_tony_bennett_for_saying_that_u.s._foreign_policy_helped_cause_9_11/#paragraph2
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FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!
http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php
Free Them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded
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Troy Davis, Racism, The Death Penalty & Labor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEues_-KoZU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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Empire State Rebellion: An Idea Whose Time Has Come - OpESR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCIlfV1pCZY&feature=player_embedded
Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to Digg Post to StumbleUpon
The video below is dedicated to all the people currently Occupying Wall Street.
See you there again on September 24th at noon, and the day after, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that...
Video Transcript:
Mainstream media in the United States is the most efficient
weapon of mass oppression.
The propaganda system is so extensive.
People are very confused.
They don't really grasp what is happening.
On a very basic and profound level
they understand that global banks have robbed the country.
They get that, but there is so much divide and conquer rhetoric -
it goes from the mainstream media
and it filters all the way down
into independent media.
So it's a matter of finding that place
where you can overcome the divide and conquer propaganda.
And where we can find that place
is on Wall Street and breaking up the banks.
How would a million people clogging lower Manhattan's financial district
play out in the global media?
If we came down there and said:
"We're not leaving until we have commitments
to break up the banks
and end the campaign finance racket."
Let's just go over some statistics here:
· 59 Million people without health care
· 52 Million in poverty
· 44 Million on food stamps
· 30 Million in need of work
· 7 Million foreclosed on
· 5 Million homes over 60 days late on mortgage payments
· $1 Trillion in student debt
We have the highest, most severe inequality of wealth we have ever had,
unlimited campaign spending,
budget cuts for the poor,
tax breaks for the rich -
this is the ultimate recipe for revolution.
America has 239 million people living paycheck to paycheck right now.
Food prices are going up, oil is going up, everything is going up -
these people aren't going to be able to make ends meet.
It's the same everywhere, it's global policies,
whether its Ireland, United States, Egypt, Greece.
People are going to fight back because
the economic central planners have become so arrogant.
Economic central planners, who control the global economy
through the IMF, World Bank and Federal Reserve,
are committed to sentencing tens of millions of people
to a slow death through economic policy.
Obviously, those people, as time goes by,
they are going to fight back,
because they are fighting to survive.
This is a global rebellion.
People don't seem to get the fact that we live in a global economy
and there is a Neo-Liberal centrally planned aristocracy
which runs the global economy,
and we are in the midst of a
worldwide economic war right now.
It is a straight up economic war
with genocidal economic policies,
which of course are going to lead to mass rebellion.
Decentralized global rebellion.
Decentralized resistance.
Decentralized revolutionaries.
We had you on the show a few months ago,
and you called for a revolution.
The revolution is happening right now.
Tells us about A99 Operation Empire State Rebellion.
The revolution is happening right now.
#OccupyWallStreet
Editor's Note: This music video was created on March 16th by Anon and posted to our social network. It was also posted on Max Keiser's website. It features clips from a Max Keiser interview with David DeGraw.
DO SOMETHING: @OccupyWallStNYC | #OccupyWallStreet | #OpESR
Have Fun and Get Something Done on Wall Steet This Weekend (MAP)
YOUR STREET: @OccupyChicago | @OccupyCleveland | @OccupyDallas
@OccupyFDSF | @OccupySTL | @OccupyHouston | VIDEO: Livestream
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9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out
http://911blogger.com/news/2011-09-16/911-explosive-evidence-experts-speak-out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw-jzCfa4eQ
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9/11: A Conspiracy Theory
http://www.corbettreport.com/911-a-conspiracy-theory/
[click on above to view the video]
Everything you ever wanted to know about the 9/11 conspiracy theory in under 5 minutes.
TRANSCRIPT: On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 men armed with boxcutters directed by a man on dialysis in a cave fortress halfway around the world using a satellite phone and a laptop directed the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily-defended airspace in the world, overpowering the passengers and the military combat-trained pilots on 4 commercial aircraft before flying those planes wildly off course for over an hour without being molested by a single fighter interceptor.
These 19 hijackers, devout religious fundamentalists who liked to drink alcohol, snort cocaine, and live with pink-haired strippers, managed to knock down 3 buildings with 2 planes in New York, while in Washington a pilot who couldn't handle a single engine Cessna was able to fly a 757 in an 8,000 foot descending 270 degree corskscrew turn to come exactly level with the ground, hitting the Pentagon in the budget analyst office where DoD staffers were working on the mystery of the 2.3 trillion dollars that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had announced "missing" from the Pentagon's coffers in a press conference the day before, on September 10, 2001.
Luckily, the news anchors knew who did it within minutes, the pundits knew within hours, the Administration knew within the day, and the evidence literally fell into the FBI's lap. But for some reason a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists demanded an investigation into the greatest attack on American soil in history.
The investigation was delayed, underfunded, set up to fail, a conflict of interest and a cover up from start to finish. It was based on testimony extracted through torture, the records of which were destroyed. It failed to mention the existence of WTC7, Able Danger, Ptech, Sibel Edmonds, OBL and the CIA, and the drills of hijacked aircraft being flown into buildings that were being simulated at the precise same time that those events were actually happening. It was lied to by the Pentagon, the CIA, the Bush Administration and as for Bush and Cheney...well, no one knows what they told it because they testified in secret, off the record, not under oath and behind closed doors. It didn't bother to look at who funded the attacks because that question is of "little practical significance". Still, the 9/11 Commission did brilliantly, answering all of the questions the public had (except most of the victims' family members' questions) and pinned blame on all the people responsible (although no one so much as lost their job), determining the attacks were "a failure of imagination" because "I don't think anyone could envision flying airplanes into buildings " except the Pentagon and FEMA and NORAD and the NRO.
The DIA destroyed 2.5 TB of data on Able Danger, but that's OK because it probably wasn't important.
The SEC destroyed their records on the investigation into the insider trading before the attacks, but that's OK because destroying the records of the largest investigation in SEC history is just part of routine record keeping.
NIST has classified the data that they used for their model of WTC7?s collapse, but that's OK because knowing how they made their model of that collapse would "jeopardize public safety".
The FBI has argued that all material related to their investigation of 9/11 should be kept secret from the public, but that's OK because the FBI probably has nothing to hide.
This man never existed, nor is anything he had to say worthy of your attention, and if you say otherwise you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist and deserve to be shunned by all of humanity. Likewise him, him, him, and her. (and her and her and him).
Osama Bin Laden lived in a cave fortress in the hills of Afghanistan, but somehow got away. Then he was hiding out in Tora Bora but somehow got away. Then he lived in Abottabad for years, taunting the most comprehensive intelligence dragnet employing the most sophisticated technology in the history of the world for 10 years, releasing video after video with complete impunity (and getting younger and younger as he did so), before finally being found in a daring SEAL team raid which wasn't recorded on video, in which he didn't resist or use his wife as a human shield, and in which these crack special forces operatives panicked and killed this unarmed man, supposedly the best source of intelligence about those dastardly terrorists on the planet. Then they dumped his body in the ocean before telling anyone about it. Then a couple dozen of that team's members died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
This is the story of 9/11, brought to you by the media which told you the hard truths about JFK and incubator babies and mobile production facilities and the rescue of Jessica Lynch.
If you have any questions about this story...you are a batshit, paranoid, tinfoil, dog-abusing baby-hater and will be reviled by everyone. If you love your country and/or freedom, happiness, rainbows, rock and roll, puppy dogs, apple pie and your grandma, you will never ever express doubts about any part of this story to anyone. Ever.
This has been a public service announcement by: the Friends of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, SEC, MSM, White House, NIST, and the 9/11 Commission. Because Ignorance is Strength.
(c) 2011 The Corbett Report. All rights reserved.
Hosting generously provided by: EuroVPS.com
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HUNDREDS OCCUPY WALL STREET (LIVE STREAM VIDEO)
http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution/share?utm_source=lsplayer&utm_medium=ui-share&utm_campaign=globalrevolution&utm_content=globalrevolution
Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com
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What is the true cost of the Afghanistan war?
Narrated by Tony Benn. Music by Brian Eno
Mass Demonstration October 8, Noon, Trafalgar Square, London
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Bkg8zgoYQ&feature=youtu.be
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LOWKEY OBAMA NATION (BANIDO DA TV)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRFywomdJTM&feature=related
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Remember Building 7 on France 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOaJZr83RJg&feature=share
Sound Evidence for WTC 7 Explosions and NIST Cover Up
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/the-911-files/sound-evidence-for-wtc-7-explosions.html
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Architects & Engineers - Solving the Mystery of WTC 7 - AE911Truth.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZEvA8BCoBw&feature=player_embedded
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Geneva Towers Controlled Demolition -- San Francisco, May 16, 1968
I lived in Geneva Towers in 1967 for about six months. I was married with a six-month-old son when we moved to the Towers. It reminded us of New York (we had just moved to San Francisco in August of 1966 so an apartment building was familiar to us.) But what a difference from New York. I didn't drive at the time and, with a baby, and elevators that often didn't work (we were on the 15th floor--I don't remember which building) I was basically trapped. Mass transit was slow and the distances were long to get downtown. The apartment had heating under the synthetic flooring tiles and the first time we turned it on, the tiles melted where the heating coils were. The electric oven caught fire the first time we used it; and the first time we took a shower the tiles started to pop off the walls. The kitchen cabinets were made of unpainted particle board. The sliding doors to the cabinets were less than a quarter-inch thick and cracked if you slid them too fast! What a pre-fab slum that was!
I was so glad to break the lease and move into the Castro--into a two bedroom, first-floor Victorian flat--in a warm and bustling community close to everything. And the rent was $125.00 a month!
I did make it a point to watch the demolition of the Towers on TV (it was broadcast live.) And I was so glad to see it go. It's the first thing I thought of when I saw the collapse of the World Trade Center. ...Bonnie Weinstein
Geneva Towers Implosion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7XVQ1LE2es&feature=related
The implosion [controlled demolition] of the Geneva Towers near the Cow Palace in San Francisco, CA on May 16, 1998
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Benton Harbor REPEAL RECALL.wmv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woLL-AxOnTk
A few facts from the video:
Whirlpool has been meddling in [Benton Harbor] city politics for 30 years. For every tax break and advantage it can get. As the neighborhoods crumble...
With global sales of $18 Billion Whirpool paid 0% in 2010 federal taxes.
It received a refund of $64 Million.
Whirlpool has received 500 Million in tax breaks just since 2005.
Millions more in the past 3 decades.
Whirlpool took 19 Billion in federal stimulus funds. Then closed plants in the US. Including the plant in BH.
Rep. Fred Upton receives substantial campaign contributions from Whirlpool. And the Koch brothers.
Gov. Rick Snyder signed the Emergency Manager Law. And a budget that taxes pensions and cuts education funding in Michigan.
Then gave corporations (like Whirlpool) a $1.8 Billion tax break."
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Labor Beat: THE PEOPLE'S PUTT PUTT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FkYBneJpds
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The Preacher and the Slave - Joe Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca_MEJmuzMM
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London Riots. (The BBC will never replay this. Send it out)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biJgILxGK0o
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Protest which sparked Tottenham riot
Hours before the riot which swept the area demonstrators gather outside Tottenham Police Station in North London demanding "justice" for the killing of a 29-year-old man, Mark Duggan, who was shot dead by police.
By Alastair Good
August 7, 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/8687058/Protest-which-sparked-Tottenham-riot.html
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Visualizing a Trillion: Just How Big That Number Is?
"1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years."
Digital Inspiration
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
How Much Is $1 Trillion?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPfY0q-rEdY&feature=player_embedded
Courtesy the credit crisis and big bailout packages, the figure "trillion" has suddenly become part of our everyday conversations. One trillion dollars, or 1 followed by 12 zeros, is lots of money but have you ever tried visualizing how big that number actually is?
For people who can visualize one million dollars, the comparison made on CNN should give you an idea about a trillion - "if you start spending a million dollars every single day since Jesus was born, you still wouldn't have spend a trillion dollars".
Another mathematician puts it like this: "1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years".
Now if the above comparisons weren't really helpful, check another illustration that compares the built of an average human being against a stack of $100 currency notes bundles.
A bundle of $100 notes is equivalent to $10,000 and that can easily fit in your pocket. 1 million dollars will probably fit inside a standard shopping bag while a billion dollars would occupy a small room of your house.
With this background in mind, 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is 1000 times bigger than 1 billion and would therefore take up an entire football field - the man is still standing in the bottom-left corner. (See visuals -- including a video -- at website:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
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One World One Revolution -- MUST SEE VIDEO -- Powerful and beautiful...bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE3R1BQrYCw&feature=player_embedded
"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Thomas Jefferson
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Very reminiscent of Obama...bw
Pat Paulsen 1968
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oiQhhdz8ys
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Japan: angry Fukushima citizens confront government (video)
Posted by Xeni Jardin on Monday, Jul 25th at 11:36am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVuGwc9dlhQ&feature=player_embedded
The video above documents what I am told is a meeting between Fukushima residents and government officials from Tokyo, said to have taken place on 19 July 2011. The citizens are demanding their government evacuate people from a broader area around the Fukushima nuclear plant, because of ever-increasing fears about the still-spreading radiation. They are demanding that their government provide financial and logistical support to get out. In the video above, you can see that some participants actually brought samples of their children's urine to the meeting, and they demanded that the government test it for radioactivity.
When asked by one person at the meeting about citizens' right to live a healthy and radioactive-free life, Local Nuclear Emergency Response Team Director Akira Satoh replies "I don't know if they have that right."
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Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class [Full Film]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6ZS91cqpa8
Narrated by Ed Asner
Based on the book by Pepi Leistyna, Class Dismissed navigates the steady stream of narrow working class representations from American television's beginnings to today's sitcoms, reality shows, police dramas, and daytime talk shows.
Featuring interviews with media analysts and cultural historians, this documentary examines the patterns inherent in TV's disturbing depictions of working class people as either clowns or social deviants -- stereotypical portrayals that reinforce the myth of meritocracy.
Class Dismissed breaks important new ground in exploring the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality intersect with class, offering a more complex reading of television's often one-dimensional representations. The video also links television portrayals to negative cultural attitudes and public policies that directly affect the lives of working class people.
Featuring interviews with Stanley Aronowitz, (City University of New York); Nickel and Dimed author, Barbara Ehrenreich; Herman Gray (University of California-Santa Cruz); Robin Kelley (Columbia University); Pepi Leistyna (University of Massachusetts-Boston) and Michael Zweig (State University of New York-Stony Brook). Also with Arlene Davila, Susan Douglas, Bambi Haggins, Lisa Henderson, and Andrea Press.
Sections: Class Matters | The American Dream Machine | From the Margins to the Middle | Women Have Class | Class Clowns | No Class | Class Action
http://www.mediaed.org
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Let's torture the truth out of suicide bombers says new CIA chief Petraeus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sm02UbKNCKQ
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Kim Ives & Dan Coughlin on WikiLeaks Cables that Reveal "Secret History" of U.S. Bullying in Haiti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL0Dk21dC-M
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Operation Empire State Rebellion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJvBlQcaaaU&feature=player_embedded#at=10
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20 Facts About U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know
Click an image to learn more about a fact!
http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php
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Licensed to Kill Video
http://nirs.org/multimedia/video/l2k.htm
Gundersen Gives Testimony to NRC ACRS from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
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Tier Systems Cripple Middle Class Dreams for Young Workers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09pQW6TW8m4&feature=youtu.be
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Union Town by Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ZT71DxLuM&feature=player_embedded
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BRADLEY MANNING "BROKE THE LAW" SAYS OBAMA!
"He broke the law!" says Obama about Bradley Manning who has yet to even be charged, let alone, gone to trial and found guilty. How horrendous is it for the President to declare someone guilty before going to trial or being charged with a crime! Justice in the U.S.A.!
Obama on FREE BRADLEY MANNING protest... San Francisco, CA. April 21, 2011-Presidential remarks on interrupt/interaction/performance art happening at fundraiser. Logan Price queries Barack after org. FRESH JUICE PARTY political action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0&feature=youtu.be
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Max Romeo - Socialism Is Love
http://youtu.be/eTvUs4rY4to
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Cuba: The Accidental Eden
http://video.pbs.org/video/1598230084/
[This is a stunningly beautiful portrait of the Cuban natural environment as it is today. ...bw]
Watch the full episode. See more Nature.
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The Kill Team
How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses - and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon
Rolling Stone
March 27, 3011
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327
Afghans respond to "Kill Team"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3guxWIorhdA
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WikiLeaks Mirrors
Wikileaks is currently under heavy attack.
In order to make it impossible to ever fully remove Wikileaks from the Internet, you will find below a list of mirrors of Wikileaks website and CableGate pages.
Go to
http://wikileaks.ch/Mirrors.html
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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.
"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."
"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse Sharkey, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ
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Domestic Espionage Alert - Houston PD to use surveillance drone in America!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpstrc15Ogg
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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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Flashmob: Cape Town Opera say NO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wElyrFOnKPk
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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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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Your help is needed to defend free speech rights
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org/
info@AnswerCoalition.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
Boston: 857-334-5084 | New York City: 212-694-8720 | Chicago: 773-463-0311
San Francisco: 415-821-6545| Los Angeles: 213-251-1025 | Albuquerque: 505-268-2488
We are writing to urge you to send an email letter today that can make a big difference in the outcome of a free speech fight that is vital to all grassroots movements that support social justice and peace.
It will just take a moment of your time but it will make a big difference.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=326
All across the country people and organizations engaged in producing and disseminating leaflets and posters - the classic method of grassroots outreach used by those without institutional power and corporate money - are being faced with bankrupting fines.
This has been happening with ferocity in the nation's capital ever since the ANSWER Coalition was fined over $50,000 in the span of a few weeks for posters advertising the Sept. 15, 2007, protest against the Iraq war.
Attorneys for the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) filed a major lawsuit in August 2007 against the unconstitutional postering regulations in Washington, D.C.
"The District has employed an illegal system that creates a hierarchy of speech, favoring the speech of politicians and punishing grassroots outreach," Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the PCJF, stated in explaining a basic tenet of the lawsuit. "It's time for that system to end, and it will."
The hard-fought four-year-long lawsuit filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund against Washington, D.C.'s unconstitutional postering regulations has succeeded in achieving a number of important victories, including the issuance of new regulations after the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia warned just last month of an impending declaration of unconstitutionality against the District.
In July 2011 the federal District Court issued a preliminary opinion regarding one aspect of our lawsuit and suggested that the D.C. government "revise the regulations to include a single, across-the-board durational restriction that applies equally to all viewpoints and subject matters."
But this battle is not finished. The new regulations still contain dissent-crushing "strict liability" provisions (explained below) and remain unconstitutionally vague and ambiguous. Plus the District has never withdrawn the tens of thousands of dollars of fines against ANSWER.
The District of Columbia is required by law to open the new rules to public comment, which it has done with an extremely short comment period that is now open. We need people to send a comment today to the government of Washington, D.C. It just takes a minute using our online Submit a Comment tool, which will send your comment by email.
Send a letter today in support of the right to produce and disseminate leaflets and posters in Washington, D.C. We have included a sample comment but we encourage people to use or add your own language.
An Opportunity for You to Make a Difference
In response to our lawsuit, the District of Columbia has now issued "Emergency Regulations" replacing the current system which the city now admits are a "threat to the public welfare," after the court issued a preliminary opinion that agreed with a basic argument of the lawsuit.
This is an important moment and we need you and others who believe in Free Speech to weigh in during the short 15-day public comment period in response to the proposed Emergency Regulations for postering. Submit an online Comment now that makes one or more of three vital points:
Drop the $70,000 fines that have been applied to the ANSWER Coalition for anti-war posters during the past four years.
End "Strict Liability" fines and penalities. Strict Liability constitutes something of a death penalty for Free Speech activities such as producing leaflets and posters. It means that an organization referenced on posted signs can be held "strictly liable" for any materials alleged to be improperly posted, even if the group never even posted a single sign or poster. The D.C. government is even going further than that - it just levied fines against a disabled Vietnam veteran who didn't put up a single poster but was fined $450 because three posted signs were seen referencing a Veterans for Peace demonstration last December, and the District's enforcement agents researched that his name was on the permit application for the peace demonstration at the White House. Any group or person that leaves literature at a bookstore, or distributes literature, or posts .pdf fliers on the Internet, can be fined tens of thousands of dollars simply for having done nothing more than making political literature available.
Insist that any new regulations be clear, unambiguous and fair. The District's new "Emergency" Regulations are still inadequate because they are vague and ambiguous. Vaguely worded regulations in the hands of vindictive authority can and will be used to punish, penalize and fine grassroots organizations that seek to redress grievances while allowing the powerful and moneyed interests to do as they please. The District's postering regulations must be clear and unambiguous if they are to be fair, uniform and constitutional.
Take two minutes right now, click through to our online comment submission tool.
Thank you for your continued support. After you send your comment today to the District of Columbia please send this email to your friends and encourage them to take action as well. Click here to send your comment to the District.
Sincerely,
ANSWER Coalition
www.AnswerCoalition.org
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International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
TAKE ACTION: New Punishment Against Rene Gonzalez
On Oct 7, René González, one of the Cuban 5 Patriots will be released from the US prison in Marianna Florida after serving out his 15 year sentence. Rene's crime was defending the security of the Cuban people against terrorist attacks.
The US government is now trying to stop his immediate return to his homeland, and his family, after he serves out the last day of this unjust sentence. And now, in the most cynical and mean spirited fashion, the US court that sentenced him in 2001 is extending his punishment by making him remain in the United States.
Because Rene was born in the US he will now have to spend an additional 3 years of probation here. Seven months ago his lawyer presented a motion asking the court to modify the conditions of his probation so that after he finished his sentence he be allowed to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family for humanitarian reasons.
On March 25, the prosecutor Caroline Heck Miller asked the judge to deny the motion. On September 16 Judge Joan Lenard rejected the defense motion, alleging among other reasons, that the Court needs time to evaluate the behavior of the condemned person after he is freed to verify that he is not a danger to the United States.
We have to remember that this is the same prosecutor that rejected an attempt to try Posada Carriles as a criminal, and this is the same judge that included in the conditions of his release a special point that while Rene is under supervised release that," the accused is prohibited from associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists are known to be or frequent"
By writing this Judge Lenard made the shameful recognition that terrorists groups do exist and enjoy impunity in Miami. Furthermore she is offering them protection from Rene from bothering or denouncing them upon his release.
It was not enough for the US government to make Rene fulfill the complete sentence to the last day; It was not enough to try and blackmail his family by telling them he would not go to trial if he collaborated against his 4 brothers; it was not enough to pressure Rene with what could happen to his family if he did not cooperate with the government, including the detention and deportation of his wife Olga Salanueva; and it was not enough to deny Olga visas to visit her husband repeatedly all these years.
Why does the US government want to continue punishing René and his family?
The prejudice of the Miami community against the Five was denounced by three judges of the Eleventh Circuit of the Atlanta Court of Appeals on August 27, 2005, where it was recognized who the terrorists were, what organizations they belonged to and where they reside. To mandate that Rene Gonzalez stay another 3 years of supervised "freedom" in Florida, where a nest of international terrorists reside and who publicly make their hatred of Cuba and the Cuban 5 known, is to put the life of Rene in serious risk.
Today we are making a call to friends from all over the world to denounce this new punishment and to demand the US government allow René Gonzalez to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family as soon as he get out of prison.
Contact now President Barack Obama and US Attorney General Eric Holder demanding the immediate return of René Gonzalez to his homeland and his family
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE WHITE HOUSE
Write a letter to President Obama
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500
EE.UU.
Make a phone call and leave a message for President Barack Obama: 202-456-1111
Send an e-mail message to President Barack Obama
HTTP://WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Write a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder
US Attorney General Eric Holder
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Make a phone call and leave a message for US Attorney General Eric Holder: 202-514-2000
Or call the public commentary line: 202-353-1555
Send an e-mail message to US Attorney General Eric Holder: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
To learn more about the Cuban 5 visit:
www.thecuban5.org
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Say No to Police Repression of NATO/G8 Protests
http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression
The CSFR Signs Letter to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
The CSFR is working with the United National Antiwar Committee and many other anti-war groups to organize mass rallies and protests on May 15 and May 19, 2012. We will protest the powerful and wealthy war-makers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Group of 8. Mobilize your groups, unions, and houses of worship. Bring your children, friends, and community. Demand jobs, healthcare, housing and education, not war!
Office of the Mayor
City of Chicago
To: Mayor Rahm Emanuel
We, the undersigned, demand that your administration grant us permits for protests on May 15 and 19, 2012, including appropriate rally gathering locations and march routes to the venue for the NATO/G8 summit taking place that week. We come to you because your administration has already spoken to us through Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. He has threatened mass arrests and violence against protestors.
[Read the full text of the letter here: http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression/full-text]
For the 10s of thousands of people from Chicago, around the country and across the world who will gather here to protest against NATO and the G8, we demand that the City of Chicago:
1. Grant us permits to rally and march to the NATO/G8 summit
2. Guarantee our civil liberties
3. Guarantee us there will be no spying, infiltration of organizations or other attacks by the FBI or partner law enforcement agencies.
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Supporter of Leak Suspect Is Called Before Grand Jury
By SCOTT SHANE
June 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16brfs-Washington.html?ref=world
A supporter of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, who is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, was called before a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday, but he said he declined to answer any questions. The supporter, David M. House, a freelance computer scientist, said he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, because he believes the Justice Department is "creating a climate of fear around WikiLeaks and the Bradley Manning support network." The grand jury inquiry is separate from the military prosecution of Private Manning and is believed to be exploring whether the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, or others in the group violated the law by acquiring and publishing military and State Department documents.
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Justice for Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace: Decades of isolation in Louisiana state prisons must end
Take Action -- Sign Petition Here:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/justice-for-albert-woodfox-and-herman-wallace
For nearly four decades, 64-year-old Albert Woodfox and 69-year-old Herman Wallace have been held in solitary confinement, mostly in the Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola prison). Throughout their prolonged incarceration in Closed Cell Restriction (CCR) Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace have endured very restrictive conditions including 23 hour cellular confinement. They have limited access to books, newspapers and TV and throughout the years of imprisonment they have been deprived of opportunities for mental stimulation and access to work and education. Social interaction has been restricted to occasional visits from friends and family and limited telephone calls.
Louisiana prison authorities have over the course of 39 years failed to provide a meaningful review of the men's continued isolation as they continue to rubberstamp the original decision to confine the men in CCR. Decades of solitary confinement have had a clear psychological effect on the men. Lawyers report that they are both suffering from serious health problems caused or exacerbated by their years of close confinement.
After being held together in the same prison for nearly 40 years, the men are now held in seperate institutions where they continue to be subjected to conditions that can only be described as cruel, inhuman and degrading.
Take action now to demand that Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace be immediately removed from solitary confinement
Sign our petition which will be sent to the Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, calling on him to:
* take immediate steps to remove Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace from close confinement
* ensure that their treatment complies with the USA's obligations under international standards and the US Constitution.
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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
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Stop Coal Companies From Erasing Labor Union History
http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-coal-companies-from-erasing-labor-union-history
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One year after Bradley's detainment, we need your support more than ever.
Dear Friends,
One year ago, on May 26, 2010, the U.S. government quietly arrested a humble young American intelligence analyst in Iraq and imprisoned him in a military camp in Kuwait. Over the coming weeks, the facts of the arrest and charges against this shy soldier would come to light. And across the world, people like you and I would step forward to help defend him.
Bradley Manning, now 23 years old, has never been to court but has already served a year in prison- including 10 months in conditions of confinement that were clear violation of the international conventions against torture. Bradley has been informally charged with releasing to the world documents that have revealed corruption by world leaders, widespread civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. forces, the true face of Guantanamo, an unvarnished view of the U.S.'s imperialistic foreign negotiations, and the murder of two employees of Reuters News Agency by American soldiers. These documents released by WikiLeaks have spurred democratic revolutions across the Arab world and have changed the face of journalism forever.
For his act of courage, Bradley Manning now faces life in prison-or even death.
But you can help save him-and we've already seen our collective power. Working together with concerned citizens around the world, the Bradley Manning Support Network has helped raise worldwide awareness about Manning's torturous confinement conditions. Through the collective actions of well over a half million people and scores of organizations, we successfully pressured the U.S. government to end the tortuous conditions of pre-trial confinement that Bradley was subjected to at the Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia. Today, Bradley is being treated humanely at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. T hanks to your support, Bradley is given leeway to interact with other pre-trial prisoners, read books, write letters, and even has a window in his cell.
Of course we didn't mount this campaign to just improve Bradley's conditions in jail. Our goal is to ensure that he can receive a fair and open trial. Our goal is to win Bradley's freedom so that he can be reunited with his family and fulfill his dream of going to college. Today, to commemorate Bradley's one year anniversary in prison, will you join me in making a donation to help support Bradley's defense?
http://bradleymanning.org/donate
We'll be facing incredible challenges in the coming months, and your tax-deductible donation today will help pay for Bradley's civilian legal counsel and the growing international grassroots campaign on his behalf. The U.S. government has already spent a year building its case against Bradley, and is now calling its witnesses to Virginia to testify before a grand jury.
What happens to Bradley may ripple through history - he is already considered by many to be the single most important person of his generation. Please show your commitment to Bradley and your support for whistle-blowers and the truth by making a donation today.
With your help, I hope we will come to remember May 26th as a day to commemorate all those who risk their lives and freedom to promote informed democracy - and as the birth of a movement that successfully defended one courageous whistle-blower against the full fury of the U.S. government.
Donate now: bradleymanning.org/donate
In solidarity,
Jeff Paterson and Loraine Reitman,
On behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network Steering Committee
www.bradleymanning.org
P.S. After you have donated, please help us by forwarding this email to your closest friends. Ask them to stand with you to support Bradley Manning, and the rights of all whistleblowers.
View the new 90 second "I am Bradley Manning" video:
I am Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-P3OXML00s
Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
"A Fort Leavenworth mailing address has been released for Bradley Manning:
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
The receptionist at the military barracks confirmed that if someone sends Bradley Manning a letter to that address, it will be delivered to him."
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/update-42811
This is also a Facebook event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207100509321891#!/event.php?eid=207100509321891
Courage to Resist needs your support
Please donate today:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning has been defending and supporting our Constitution."
-Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower
Jeff Paterson
Project Director, Courage to Resist
First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq
Please donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!
Please click here to forward this to a friend who might
also be interested in supporting GI resisters.
http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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Drop the Charges Against Carlos Montes, Stop the FBI Attack on the Chicano and Immigrant Rights Movement, and Stop FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!Call Off the Expanding Grand Jury Witchhunt and FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!
Cancel the Subpoenas! Cancel the Grand Juries!
Condemn the FBI Raids and Harassment of Chicano, Immigrant Rights, Anti-War and International Solidarity Activists!
STOP THE FBI CAMPAIGN OF REPRESSION AGAINST CHICANO, IMMIGRANT RIGHTS, ANTI-WAR AND INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY ACTIVISTS NOW!
Initiated by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression stopfbi.net stopfbi@gmail.com
http://iacenter.org/stopfbi/
Contact the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
at stopfbi.net
stopfbi@gmail.com
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY -- ANY DAY
to Fitzgerald, Holder and Obama
The Grand Jury is still on its witch hunt and the FBI is still
harassing activists. This must stop.
Please make these calls:
1. Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300 . Then dial 0
(zero) for operator and ask to leave a message with the Duty Clerk.
2. Call U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder 202-353-1555
3. Call President Obama at 202-456-1111
FFI: Visit www.StopFBI.net or email info@StopFBI.net or call
612-379-3585 .
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights
reserved.
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Please make a donation today at stopfbi.net (PayPal) on the right side of your screen. Also you can write to:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
This is a critical time for us to stand together, defend free speech, and defend those who help to organize for peace and justice, both at home and abroad!
Thank you for your generosity! Tom Burke
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Mumia Wins Decision Against Re-Imposition Of Death Sentence, But...
The Battle Is Still On To
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610
www.laboractionmumia.org
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Call for EMERGENCY RESPONSE Action if Assange Indicted,
Dear Friends:
We write in haste, trying to reach as many of you as possible although the holiday break has begun.......This plan for an urgent "The Day After" demonstration is one we hope you and many, many more organizations will take up as your own, and mobilize for. World Can't Wait asks you to do all you can to spread it through list serves, Facebook, twitter, holiday gatherings.
Our proposal is very very simple, and you can use the following announcement to mobilize - or write your own....
ANY DAY NOW . . . IN THE EVENT THAT THE U.S. INDICTS JULIAN ASSANGE
An emergency public demonstration THE DAY AFTER any U.S. criminal indictment is announced against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Spread the word and call people to come out, across the whole range of movements and groups: anti-war, human rights, freedom of information/freedom of the press, peace, anti-torture, environmental, students and youth, radicals and revolutionaries, religious, civil liberties, teachers and educators, journalists, anti-imperialists, anti-censorship, anti-police state......
At the Federal Building in San Francisco, we'll form ourselves into a human chain "surrounding" the government that meets the Wikileaked truth with repression and wants to imprison and silence leakers, whistleblowers and truthtellers - when, in fact, these people are heroes. We'll say:
HANDS OFF WIKILEAKS! FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!
Join the HUMAN CHAIN AROUND THE FEDERAL BUILDING!
New Federal Building, 7th and Mission, San Francisco (nearest BART: Civic Center)
4:00-6:00 PM on The Day FOLLOWING U.S. indictment of Assange
Bring all your friends - signs and banners - bullhorns.
Those who dare at great risk to themselves to put the truth in the hands of the people - and others who might at this moment be thinking about doing more of this themselves -- need to see how much they are supported, and that despite harsh repression from the government and total spin by the mainstream media, the people do want the truth told.
Brad Manning's Christmas Eve statement was just released by his lawyer: "Pvt. Bradley Manning, the lone soldier who stands accused of stealing millions of pages secret US government documents and handing them over to secrets outlet WikiLeaks, wants his supporters to know that they've meant a lot to him. 'I greatly appreciate everyone's support and well wishes during this time,' he said in a Christmas Eve statement released by his lawyer...." Read more here:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/mannings-message-christmas-eve-i-gr/
Demonstrations defending Wikileaks and Assange, and Brad Manning, have already been flowering around the world. Make it happen here too.
Especially here . . .
To join into this action plan, or with questions, contact World Can't Wait or whichever organization or listserve you received this message from.
World Can't Wait, SF Bay
415-864-5153
sf@worldcantwait.org
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DEFEND LYNNE STEWART!
http://lynnestewart.org/
Write to Lynne Stewart at:
Lynne Stewart #53504 - 054
Unit 2N
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TEXAS 76127
Visiting Lynne:
Visiting is very liberal but first she has to get people on her visiting list; wait til she or the lawyers let you know. The visits are FRI, SAT, SUN AND MON for 4 hours and on weekends 8 to 3. Bring clear plastic change purse with lots of change to buy from the machines. Brief Kiss upon arrival and departure, no touching or holding during visit (!!) On visiting forms it may be required that you knew me before I came to prison. Not a problem for most of you.
Commissary Money:
Commissary Money is always welcome It is how Lynne pay for the phone and for email. Also for a lot that prison doesn't supply in terms of food and "sundries" (pens!) (A very big list that includes Raisins, Salad Dressing, ankle sox, mozzarella (definitely not from Antonys--more like a white cheddar, Sanitas Corn Chips but no Salsa, etc. To add money, you do this by using Western Union and a credit card by phone or you can send a USPO money order or Business or Govt Check. The negotiable instruments (PAPER!) need to be sent to Federal Bureau of Prisons, 53504-054, Lynne Stewart, PO Box 474701, Des Moines Iowa 50947-001 (Payable to Lynne Stewart, 53504-054) They hold the mo or checks for 15 days. Western Union costs $10 but is within 2 hours. If you mail, your return address must be on the envelope. Unnecessarily complicated? Of course, it's the BOP !)
The address of her Defense Committee is:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information:
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Please make a generous contribution to her defense.
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT! FREE KEVIN COOPER!
Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's death row!
http://www.savekevincooper.org/
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
17 December 2010
Click here to take action online:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084
To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf
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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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D. ARTICLES IN FULL (Unless otherwise noted)
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1) Why the Irvine 11 are true American heroes
By Sanah Yassin
The Electronic Intifada
26 September 2011
http://electronicintifada.net/content/why-irvine-11-are-true-american-heroes/10428
2) State Employees Reject Wage Concessions
By THOMAS KAPLAN
September 27, 2011, 2:26 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/state-employees-reject-wage-concessions/?hp
3) U.S. Health Insurance Cost Rises Sharply, Study Finds
By REED ABELSON
September 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/business/health-insurance-costs-rise-sharply-this-year-study-shows.html?hp
4) In North Dakota, Flames of Wasted Natural Gas Light the Prairie
"'I'll tell you why people flare: It's cheap,' said Troy Anderson, lead operator of a North Dakota gas-processing plant owned by Whiting Petroleum. 'Pipelines are expensive: You have to maintain them. You need permits to build them. They are a pain.'"
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
September 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/business/energy-environment/in-north-dakota-wasted-natural-gas-flickers-against-the-sky.html?hp
5) Alabama Inmate Sues to Read Southern History Book
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
September 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/us/alabama-inmate-sues-to-read-southern-history-book.html?ref=us
6) Jailed for Switching Her Daughters' School District
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
September 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/us/jailed-for-switching-her-daughters-school-district.html?ref=us
7) Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Resumes
By Erin Sherbert
September 26 2011
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/pelican_bay_hunger_strike_resumes.php
8) Even Those Cleared of Crimes Can Stay on F.B.I.'s Watch List
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
September 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/us/even-those-cleared-of-crimes-can-stay-on-fbis-terrorist-watch-list.html?hp
9) As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe
By NICHOLAS KULISH
September 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/world/as-scorn-for-vote-grows-protests-surge-around-globe.html?ref=world
10) Report Details Wide Abuse in Los Angeles Jail System
By JENNIFER MEDINA
September 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/us/aclu-suit-details-wide-abuse-in-los-angeles-jail-system.html?ref=us
11) Florida: Few Drug Users Among Welfare Applicants
"The results have prompted Carl Hiaasen, the Florida columnist and author, to suggest that the people who came up with the law should be the ones submitting specimens."
[Boy Oh Boy would I like to see the results of that drug test....bw]
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/us/florida-few-drug-users-among-welfare-applicants.html?ref=us
12) Police Dept. to Examine Pepper-Spray Episode
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
September 28, 2011, 1:37 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/police-department-to-examine-pepper-spray-incident/?ref=nyregion
13) A Spray Like a Punch in the Face
By JIM DWYER
September 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/nyregion/a-burst-of-pepper-spray-like-a-punch-in-the-face.html?ref=nyregion
14) U.A.W. Approves Four-Year Contract With G.M.
"At several large plants, fewer than 40 percent of eligible workers made the effort to vote, based on results posted online, evidence of considerable apathy toward the agreement. Most U.A.W. locals publicly report only the percentage who favored the deal and not actual vote totals, so the overall turnout was not clear."
By NICK BUNKLEY
September 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/business/uaw-approves-four-year-contract-with-gm.html?ref=business
15) Cuba Legalizes General Purchase and Sale of Cars
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/28/business/AP-CB-Cuba-Cars.html?src=busln
16) Unemployment Rates Fell in Majority of US Cities
"Unemployment rates fell in roughly two-thirds of U.S. cities last month, despite zero job growth nationwide. ...People who are no longer searching for jobs aren't counted as unemployed."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/28/business/AP-US-Metro-Unemployment.html?src=busln
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1) Why the Irvine 11 are true American heroes
By Sanah Yassin
The Electronic Intifada
26 September 2011
http://electronicintifada.net/content/why-irvine-11-are-true-american-heroes/10428
For centuries, the philosophy behind higher education has encouraged both students and professors to freely exchange ideas and embark on a quest for truth and a better understanding of the world. Historically, movements which have brought about greater social justice have been grounded in college campuses. Protesting the speeches of Israeli diplomats and political leaders like Michael Oren and Ehud Olmert serve as two more additions to America's rich history of campus protest.
This philosophy, however, seems to be withering away in American universities, where a student's ability to express herself or himself, and a professor's right to academic freedom, have at times been ferociously attacked.
This is exemplified most clearly with regard to speech and expression about Palestine, whether it be professors and students facing backlash for speaking on the displacement of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the Nakba (the wave of ethnic cleansing ahead of Israel's foundation in the late 1940s); universities and other fora refusing to host conferences or events centered around Palestine, due to pressure from Zionist lobby groups; the retaliation that many have been subjected to after comparing Israel to apartheid-era South Africa; academic departments opting out of hosting events which offer the Palestinian narrative or denounce Israel's illegal and immoral conduct; and cases (which go unreported out of fear of academic consequences) in which university professors either advise against or refuse to accept papers written from the Palestinian perspective.
Criminalizing dissent
As was true during the McCarthy era and that of the civil rights movement, it is becoming increasingly clear that the freedom of speech guaranteed by the first amendment may no longer apply to those fighting for social justice and civil rights. Like the communists and African-American leaders of those eras, Arab and Muslim activists in the West have been approached with an increasing sense of distrust and fear.
The conviction of the Irvine 11 is a testament to the degree that Islamophobia has grown in the West. Moreover, it is a testament to how unwilling the United States has become to question its relationship with Israel. Any means can be used to silence such questioning - even the criminalization of free speech.
The Israel lobby and the US government are working hand-in-hand against efforts to raise awareness about the occupation and human rights abuses perpetrated against the Palestinians. This trial, the FBI raids on Palestine solidarity activists in the Midwest and the undermining of the UN Palestinian statehood bid show it.
What are the implications of the conviction of the Irvine 11 for Palestine solidarity student activists? One can only imagine the worries that now must run through the minds of these young students: Will I be seen as a criminal? Will the Israeli authorities deny me entry to Palestine next year due to my activism, when a cursory Google search can easily show that connection? Am I jeopardizing my future job opportunities as a result of my activism? Am I being, or am I going to be, investigated or targeted by the FBI?
One must keep in mind that these students now living in fear are Americans. Their intentions and passion for social justice is an American value. Yet student activists are now vulnerable to being criminalized This fear of criminalization may even echo into social justice movements which have yet to form, so essentially what the Irvine 11 conviction represents is a campaign to instill fear in anyone seeking to challenge the status quo in American politics.
When I served as president of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I had the fortunate opportunity to be one of the 25 or so persons who protested Ehud Olmert's speech at the University of Chicago on 15 October 2009. As we thought about and then carried out the protest, we realized that what we were doing was monumental. We likened our protest to the marches and sit-ins in the 1960s, and felt honored to be able to give a voice to the thousands of people whose voices were stolen at the command of this man.
It could have been me
The feelings and reasoning behind our protest in Chicago are echoed in the statements from the Irvine 11 given after their conviction and sentencing. For me, and other students who have protested in a similar manner, this case is much closer to the heart; the events at the University of Chicago initiated this style of protest, and our actions and motives are no different from those of the Irvine 11. I could have been in the same position, sitting in a court room as a defendant. The level of injustice that Orange County has subjected these youth to is disturbing. This style of protest has since been repeated on a plethora of other campuses and fora nationwide and beyond. None of those protests were deemed illegal, and none of them resulted in protesters on trial.
And now members and alumni of SJP chapters nationwide are organizing, and holding a national conference at Columbia University in less than a month. Rather than giving in to the difficulties posed and obvious attempts to stifle and silence the Palestinian narrative, we are now organizing and connecting more than ever before, making our activism more visible, and voicing our support for the Irvine 11.
The justice system in the US seems to be constructing a strategic precedent with regard to their preferred legal approach to Palestinian solidarity speech and actions that seek to raise awareness of the injustices committed by the Israeli government. The stakes are higher, the consequences apparent, and though we realize that, we will push on, recognizing the importance and the need for the work we do.
Our actions are legal, our motivations moral and our goal is to support greater justice and human rights. The Irvine 11 have only strengthened our resolve, and for that, they are our heroes.
Sanah Yassin serves on the board of recently-established Coalition for Palestinian Rights, based in Chicago. She is an alumni of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is an aspiring law student currently teaching high school history.
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2) State Employees Reject Wage Concessions
By THOMAS KAPLAN
September 27, 2011, 2:26 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/state-employees-reject-wage-concessions/?hp
The second-largest union of New York State employees has rejected a package of wage and benefits concessions negotiated by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, dealing a jarring setback to the governor that is likely to trigger several thousand layoffs.
The union, the Public Employees Federation, which represents 56,000 state workers, announced on Tuesday that its members had voted by a margin of 54 percent to 46 percent against the contract, which would have imposed a three-year freeze on wages and increased health insurance costs. The vote took place by mail over several weeks.
"The decision to reject the tentative agreement was made by our rank-and-file members who clearly feel they are being asked to sacrifice more than others," the president of the union, Ken Brynien, said in a statement.
Mr. Cuomo has repeatedly threatened that there would be layoffs if state workers did not accept deep wage and benefit concessions; the state has estimated that 3,500 members of the Public Employees Federation would lose their jobs if the union rejected the concessions package.
The state's largest union of public workers, the Civil Service Employees Association, announced on Aug. 16 that its membership had voted 59 percent to 41 percent to approve a nearly identical five-year agreement that promised job protections in exchange for wage and benefits concessions.
Mr. Brynien asked the governor on Tuesday to return to the bargaining table. Mr. Cuomo did not immediately comment on Tuesday, although his administration had indicated that layoffs would follow almost immediately if the union rejected the deal.
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3) U.S. Health Insurance Cost Rises Sharply, Study Finds
By REED ABELSON
September 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/business/health-insurance-costs-rise-sharply-this-year-study-shows.html?hp
The cost of health insurance for many Americans this year climbed more sharply than in previous years, outstripping any growth in workers' wages and adding more uncertainty about the pace of rising medical costs.
A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group that tracks employer-sponsored health insurance on a yearly basis, shows that the average annual premium for family coverage through an employer reached $15,073 in 2011, an increase of 9 percent over the previous year.
"The open question is whether that's a one-time spike or the start of a period of higher increases," said Drew Altman, the chief executive of the Kaiser foundation.
The steep increase in rates is particularly unwelcome at a time when the economy is still sputtering and unemployment continues to hover at about 9 percent. Many businesses cite the high cost of coverage as a factor in their decision not to hire, and health insurance has become increasingly unaffordable for more Americans. Over all, the cost of family coverage has about doubled since 2001, when premiums averaged $7,061, compared with a 34 percent gain in wages over the same period.
How much the new federal health care law pushed by President Obama is affecting insurance rates remains a point of debate, with some analysts suggesting that insurers have raised prices in anticipation of new rules that would, in 2012, require them to justify any increase of more than 10 percent.
In addition to increases caused by insurers getting ahead of potential costs, some of the law's provisions that are already in effect -- like coverage for adult children up to 26 years of age and prevention services like mammogram screening -- have contributed to higher expenses for some employers.
The Kaiser survey includes both big and small companies using employer-sponsored coverage representing about 60 percent of all insured Americans of working age. The annual growth in premiums, according to the survey, had slowed in recent years to 5 percent, rising just 3 percent in 2010, in part due to the lingering effects of the recession. After years of double-digit increases, the moderation was a welcome relief.
The unexpected increase in premiums raises questions about whether health care costs are, in fact, stabilizing at all, as people have postponed going to the doctor or dentist and have put off expensive procedures. "No one quite knows," said Mr. Altman.
Throughout this year, major health insurers have defended higher premiums - and higher profits - saying that their expenses would rise once the economy recovered and people believed they could again afford medical care. The struggling economy will probably keep suppressing demand for medical care, particularly as people pay a larger share of their own medical bills through higher deductibles and co-payments, according to benefits consultants and others. About three-quarters of workers now pay part of the bill when they go see a doctor, and nearly a third have a deductible of at least $1,000 if they have single coverage, up from just one in 10 in 2006, according Kaiser.
Although demand for care appears to be growing relatively slowly, insurers and benefit consultants also say prices for medical care continue to climb as prescription drug makers and hospitals charge more. "If they're a popular brand or anchor hospital, they're going to negotiate a significant increase if they can," said Edward A. Kaplan, a benefits expert with the Segal Company, which recently surveyed insurers about medical costs.
The question for employers and insurers is whether the lackluster economy, as well as recent efforts by employer and insurers to better manage the medical care of workers, will keep premiums increasing at a more moderate level. Early responses to a survey by Mercer, a consulting firm, suggest employers are expecting the cost of providing health benefits to go up about 5 percent next year, according to Beth Umland, Mercer's director of research for health and benefits. These companies may be factoring in the more pessimistic view of the economy, she said, where any recovery seems further off than it did a few months ago.
Employers are reporting that their workers are using less medical care, said Ms. Umland, but they and insurers have been slow to estimate costs that reflect the lower demand. "It always takes a while for underwriting to catch up with reality," she said.
Some small business say they expect their premiums to moderate, but only because of changes in their work force - partly caused by younger, healthier employees - that make it less likely that the companies will incur high medical claims. "Up until last year, we saw very hefty increases -- double digits," said Heather Gombos, an executive for R. M. Jones & Company and affiliated businesses in New Britain, Conn., a group that insures about 50 of its 80 employees.
Family coverage is now running $12,000 a year, Ms. Gombos said, and she is waiting to see what rate increases her insurer proposes for the coming year. She thinks premiums will not rise as sharply in 2012. "What it comes down to is we've had some good luck," she said.
Some businesses say they anticipate relief from higher costs in the coming year for a variety of reasons. At Ogilvy & Mather, the New York advertising firm, the company believes its efforts to encourage wellness and better oversee its employees' health through an on-site medical clinic are paying off. "We are not anticipating any cost increase for employer and employee," said Gerri Stone, the senior partner who oversees the firm's benefits strategy.
Ms. Stone acknowledged that the firm's 3,600 employees were relatively young and healthy, helping it avoid some of the sharp increases experienced by other businesses. "We've never gone into the double digits," she said. Family coverage runs about $16,000 a year, she said.
Insurers and benefits consultants say, however, it is difficult to predict whether health care demand will again take off when the economy rebounds or whether some other factor is at play. "We've seen a moderation in the increase in health services, particularly in discretionary services," said Tom Richards, an executive with Cigna. While he attributes some of the moderation to the poor economy, he says the increase in cost-sharing by employees and programs that more closely monitor their health could be having a more permanent impact.
The question, he said, is "what is the economy going to be and what is the new normal."
Obama administration officials argue that new regulations are forcing insurers to be more circumspect about raising rates. Insurers seeking to raise premiums next year by more than the 10 percent maximum will have to publicly justify their rate increases, and the new law requires the companies to spend at least 80 cents of every dollar they collect in premiums on medical care. If they end up taking too much in premiums, they will have to refund the money to consumers.
But employers and others say much more still needs to be done to control overall costs, especially when workers' wages are essentially flat. Of the $15,073 in average premiums paid for family coverage, Kaiser found that employees paid $4,129 towards the cost, in addition to whatever out-of-pocket costs they shouldered.
"We're going to continue to have this yawning gap," said Helen Darling, the chief executive of the National Business Group on Health, which represents employers that provide health coverage to their workers. Health care costs continue to climb much faster than overall inflation, she noted.
"The health economy acts as if it's a boom economy," she said.
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4) In North Dakota, Flames of Wasted Natural Gas Light the Prairie
"'I'll tell you why people flare: It's cheap,' said Troy Anderson, lead operator of a North Dakota gas-processing plant owned by Whiting Petroleum. 'Pipelines are expensive: You have to maintain them. You need permits to build them. They are a pain.'"
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
September 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/business/energy-environment/in-north-dakota-wasted-natural-gas-flickers-against-the-sky.html?hp
NEW TOWN, N.D. - Across western North Dakota, hundreds of fires rise above fields of wheat and sunflowers and bales of hay. At night, they illuminate the prairie skies like giant fireflies.
They are not wildfires caused by lightning strikes or other acts of nature, but the deliberate burning of natural gas by oil companies rushing to extract oil from the Bakken shale field and take advantage of the high price of crude. The gas bubbles up alongside the far more valuable oil, and with less economic incentive to capture it, the drillers treat the gas as waste and simply burn it.
Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way - enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.
The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.
All told, 30 percent of the natural gas produced in North Dakota is burned as waste. No other major domestic oil field currently flares close to that much, though the practice is still common in countries like Russia, Nigeria and Iran.
With few government regulations that limit the flaring, more burning is also taking place in the Eagle Ford shale field in Texas, and some environmentalists and industry executives say that it could happen in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ohio, too, as drilling expands in new fields there unlocked by techniques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.
"North Dakota is not as bad as Kazakhstan, but this is not what you would expect a civilized, efficient society to do: to flare off a perfectly good product just because it's expensive to bring to market," said Michael E. Webber, associate director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas at Austin.
The oil companies say economic reality is driving the flaring in the Bakken, the biggest oil field discovered in the United States in four decades. They argue that they cannot afford to pay for pipelines and processing plants to capture and sell the gas until they actually drill oil wells and calculate how much gas will bubble out of the oil. And reinjection of the carbon dioxide, commonly done in conventional oil fields, is more difficult and expensive in less permeable shale fields.
"This field covers 15,000 square miles, so it takes time to go and test what's there and then build a gathering system and plant," said Harold G. Hamm, chief executive of Continental Resources, one of the biggest oil producers in the Bakken.
The widespread flaring is a step backward for a domestic energy industry. Most oil and gas fields in the United States have well-developed facilities to gather and process gas.
But the recent rise of shale drilling has changed the economic calculus. Natural gas prices have plunged since 2008 as vast shale fields laden with gas are tapped through hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. Meanwhile, those same techniques have opened up other shale fields rich with oil.
With oil prices high amid strong global demand and leases as short as five years for land in the Bakken, drillers have found it more profitable to just grab the oil and burn the gas. Building out the infrastructure to handle gas would substantially raise costs and slow development, and efforts so far to use the gas for electrical generation have had limited success because it contains components that burn too hot.
"I'll tell you why people flare: It's cheap," said Troy Anderson, lead operator of a North Dakota gas-processing plant owned by Whiting Petroleum. "Pipelines are expensive: You have to maintain them. You need permits to build them. They are a pain."
Although capturing the gas is the best option, scientists say that flaring is better for the environment than venting the gas into the atmosphere. Pure natural gas is mostly methane, which has far greater heat-trapping qualities than carbon dioxide.
Regulations on flaring are loose in North Dakota, as they are in most states, and there are no current federal regulations on flaring at oil and gas wells. That is largely because flaring has not been a significant concern since the 1970s, when the federal government insisted that oil companies re-inject gas into Alaska's North Slope rather than flare it.
So far, North Dakota health officials say that flaring has not produced any serious air pollution problems. But flaring could eventually become another environmental headache for an industry already under attack over concerns that hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, could jeopardize water quality.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has recently proposed new air emissions standards for fracked wells, and it has also begun to ask oil companies to compile data on greenhouse gas emissions from drilling and other operations.
"One day a regulator is going to say, 'I'm not going to give you one more permit until you tell me what you are going to do with the gas,' " said Charif Souki, chief executive of Cheniere Energy, who hopes to eventually export the excess gas in liquefied form.
Environmentalists are also beginning to express alarm. "It's time for the regulators to take a hard look at the impacts of flaring and make sure that available solutions to the flaring problem are required before there is any further widespread expansion of the practice," said Amy Mall, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Some of the companies working in North Dakota, including Whiting, are investing $3 billion over the next three years in pipelines and several large processing plants to deliver gas to Midwest markets rather than burn it.
Whiting, a Colorado company that was one of the early explorers in the Bakken, sees particular value in the gas found here because it contains large amounts of propane and butane that it can extract and sell at a profit in addition to the gas itself.
The company is rapidly expanding oil drilling while building and expanding two plants to process its own gas as well as gas produced by others. Whiting was flaring 80 percent of the gas in its first major Bakken field in 2007, but says it has now reduced its flaring to 20 percent across all fields, which will fall further when its second gas plant comes online.
"Our goal is to have zero emissions," said James T. Brown, Whiting's president and chief operating officer. "It's a waste to be wasting all of this energy."
While the projects by Whiting and others could reduce flaring over the next two years, some executives acknowledge that it will be a continuing problem as the industry increases the number of wells in the area from 5,000 to a projected 48,000 over the next 20 years.
Wayde Schafer, the Sierra Club's North Dakota conservation organizer, said that the industry needed to slow down development if it could not protect the air. "You can do it fast or you can do it right," he said.
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5) Alabama Inmate Sues to Read Southern History Book
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
September 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/us/alabama-inmate-sues-to-read-southern-history-book.html?ref=us
The past is never dead, though at the Kilby Correctional Facility outside of Montgomery, Ala., it seems it is not particularly welcome.
Last Friday, Mark Melvin, who is serving a life sentence at Kilby, filed suit in federal court against the prison's officials and the state commissioner of corrections, claiming they have unjustly kept a book out of his hands.
The book, which was sent to him by his lawyer, is a work of history. More specifically, it is a Pulitzer Prize-winning work of Southern history, an investigation of the systematically heinous treatment of black prisoners in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mr. Melvin, 33, alleges in his suit that prison officials deemed it "a security threat."
The dispute began a year ago. Mr. Melvin was entering his 18th year in the state's custody, having been charged at 14 with helping his older brother commit two murders. He was well-behaved enough to be granted parole in 2008, but after committing what his lawyer called "a technical violation" at a transition house, he was sent back.
So he has been reading novels and biographies, studies of World War II and Irish history, his lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, said. After his return to prison, Mr. Melvin was assigned by the warden to work in the prison's law library.
Last September, Mr. Stevenson sent Mr. Melvin a couple of books, including "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II," by Douglas A. Blackmon, the senior national correspondent at The Wall Street Journal. It won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2009.
The book chronicles the vast and brutal convict leasing system, which became nearly indistinguishable from antebellum slavery as it grew. In this system, people, in almost all cases black, were arrested by local law enforcement, often on the flimsiest of charges, and forced to labor on the cotton farms of wealthy planters or in the coal mines of corporations to pay off their criminal penalties. Though convict leasing occurred across the South, the book focuses on Alabama.
Mr. Melvin never received the book. According to his lawsuit, he was told by an official at Kilby that the book was "too incendiary" and "too provocative," and was ordered to have it sent back at his own expense.
He appealed, but in his lawsuit he says that prison officials upheld the decision, citing a regulation banning any mail that incites "violence based on race, religion, sex, creed, or nationality, or disobedience toward law enforcement officials or correctional staff." (Mr. Melvin is white.)
So he sued.
A spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections said officials had not seen the suit on Monday and could not comment.
Mr. Stevenson, who is also the director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, said he considered the lawsuit to be less about the rights of people in prison but primarily about the country's refusal to own up to its racial history
Stanley Washington, a former inmate who is now a caseworker for the equal justice group, said that at the Alabama prison where he was serving a sentence in 2001, inmates were forbidden to watch the mini-series "Roots."
"They didn't give a reason," Mr. Washington said. "We figured they thought it would rile up the blacks against the whites."
Mr. Blackmon, in a phone interview, said he had not heard about any other instance of his book's being banned, though makers of a documentary based on it were prevented from filming in one Alabama town by the mayor and city attorney.
"The idea that a book like mine is somehow incendiary or a call to violence is so absurd," he said.
While doing research on the book in small county courthouses around the state, he said, he was met sometimes with wariness but never with outright resistance.
"To be honest, these events had slipped deep enough into the past that there weren't very many people who even knew to be cautious about them," he said.
Indeed, the last of the thousands of convicts who had been toiling in the deadly Birmingham coal mines were moved out in 1928. They were sent to Kilby.
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6) Jailed for Switching Her Daughters' School District
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
September 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/us/jailed-for-switching-her-daughters-school-district.html?ref=us
Kelley Williams-Bolar, 41, a single mother from Akron, Ohio, was convicted of two felony crimes in January and jailed for nine days after she falsified documents so she could enroll her daughters - one a third grader, the other in junior high - in a neighboring, higher performing school district. This month, Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio reduced the convictions, which were for records tampering, to misdemeanors. He said the original punishment had been too harsh. Ms. Williams-Bolar, who works as a teacher's aide in an Akron public school, is pursuing a degree in family child development. A criminal felony would have hindered her chance of getting a teacher's license. Though the case focused attention on the disparity in the academic quality of school systems, Ms. Williams-Bolar said she did not do it to gain an educational advantage. She explains:
QUESTION You registered your daughters in a school district that didn't serve your neighborhood. Why?
ANSWER My home had been broken into in 2006. I decided to enroll my kids using my dad's address. We're over there a whole lot. He helps raise them. He's very involved with my children. Everything was fine - at least I thought it was - until the second year. I was very concerned about their safety. I didn't want them at home by themselves. I was in school. I worked long hours at the university. I wasn't comfortable with them being that independent. My children were too young. One was in junior high and the other was in third grade. They were too young. I did not have an opinion if the schools were at the level they should be or not. That's not why I did what I did. People do it all the time. My grandparents raised me, so I didn't think it was a problem because I didn't give them a fake address or anything like that. Their grandfather is involved in raising them.
Q. What happened once the school district found out?
A. We received a letter in the mail saying, "You don't actually reside with your father," and they wanted us to come to a meeting. We tried to make it right. So we got my father a power of attorney but they didn't want to accept that, so it went to a judge. We pulled them out when the school year ended. Seventeen months later we received an indictment, even though they had not been in school for almost 18 months.
Q. What did you do?
A. Initially, I didn't know exactly what was going on because it was a secret indictment, so me and my dad went to court and stood before the judge and they explained it. I was shocked. I never thought I would be prosecuted for it. They said that the education had been stolen. That was in November 2009. Initially, I didn't say anything to anybody. I was going through a depression. I didn't say, "I'm getting indicted." [She laughs.] I stayed in my shell. My neighbors knew about it, my co-workers knew about it, and I knew they were looking at it. The reaction was split. Some said they had done it, and the other half said they were getting ready to do it. I spoke to a relative and she said it would be better if people knew about this. So she filled out an online form or something with The A.P. This is my aunt. She said, "Kelly, I think I did this A.P. thing right. I think it caught on." And the next thing you know, it was out there.
Q. How have your children responded to all this?
A. Both my daughters were devastated. There was a trickle-down effect. When I hurt, they hurt. When it first started, I tried not to show that - to be protective of them. But eventually, I had to explain to them: "Mommy enrolled you in Copley-Fairlawn schools and that wasn't right because we don't live there day and night." They still are affected. They still have moments where they think Mommy is going to be taken away.
Q. What was it like to hear a judge tell you that you were being sent to jail?
A. I remember standing there and shaking my head. I remember them putting handcuffs on my wrists and ankles. I can't say it was devastating because it was worse than that. I can't describe the intensity inside of me, what was happening to me. I can't express it to you. It was horrible. I was 40 years old and I had never been in trouble. I didn't know what the inside of a courtroom looked like before that, aside from what I had seen on TV shows. The lowest part was my very first phone call home to my babies. They're crying; I'm crying. And then a television station got the tape and played it on air. That was a hard pill to swallow.
Q. Has this changed you in any way?
A. It's changed me because I think I was innocent. That's no longer there. I was naïve to a lot of things. It took something from our family. We will never be the family we once were. We're stronger. We're definitely stronger.
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7) Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Resumes
By Erin Sherbert
September 26 2011
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/pelican_bay_hunger_strike_resumes.php
Inmates at Pelican Bay state prison are renewing their hunger strike after a short hiatus of eating prison food to protest the "inhumane" conditions, especially when it comes to solitary confinement.
According to the hunger strikers, 513 of the 1,111 prisoners held at Pelican Bay have been in solitary confinement for 10 or more years, and 78 have been held for more than 20 years without access to light or open space for prolonged periods of time.
"What other avenues do prisoners have?" says Laura Magnani, a member of the prisoners' mediation team. "We call on the state of California to move quickly to address the problems of solitary confinement in the state's prisons.
The first strike lasted the month of July, spreading across the state with more than 6,000 inmates participating. Prisoners grew sick and health conditions deteriorated to critical conditions.
The strike has resumed since the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has substantially met the changes outlines in their demands.
Inmates are also claiming that the CDCR is creating a "sham" process to identify gang members to torture them. "Holding people in tiny cells for years on end ... without natural sunlight or human contact, is a clear violation of human rights," says Dolores Canales, the mother of one of the hunger strikers.
It is not yet known how big the strike will be.
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8) Even Those Cleared of Crimes Can Stay on F.B.I.'s Watch List
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
September 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/us/even-those-cleared-of-crimes-can-stay-on-fbis-terrorist-watch-list.html?hp
WASHINGTON - The Federal Bureau of Investigation is permitted to include people on the government's terrorist watch list even if they have been acquitted of terrorism-related offenses or the charges are dropped, according to newly released documents.
The files, released by the F.B.I. under the Freedom of Information Act, disclose how the police are instructed to react if they encounter a person on the list. They lay out, for the first time in public view, the legal standard that national security officials must meet in order to add a name to the list. And they shed new light on how names are vetted for possible removal from the list.
Inclusion on the watch list can keep terrorism suspects off planes, block noncitizens from entering the country and subject people to delays and greater scrutiny at airports, border crossings and traffic stops.
The database now has about 420,000 names, including about 8,000 Americans, according to the statistics released in connection with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. About 16,000 people, including about 500 Americans, are barred from flying.
Timothy J. Healy, the director of the F.B.I.'s Terrorist Screening Center, which vets requests to add or remove names from the list, said the documents showed that the government was balancing civil liberties with a careful, multilayered process for vetting who goes on it - and for making sure that names that no longer need to be on it came off.
"There has been a lot of criticism about the watch list," claiming that it is "haphazard," he said. "But what this illustrates is that there is a very detailed process that the F.B.I. follows in terms of nominations of watch-listed people."
Still, some of the procedures drew fire from civil liberties advocates, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which made the original request and provided the documents to The New York Times.
The 91 pages of newly disclosed files include a December 2010 guidance memorandum to F.B.I. field offices showing that even a not-guilty verdict may not always be enough to get someone off the list, if agents maintain they still have "reasonable suspicion" that the person might have ties to terrorism.
"If an individual is acquitted or charges are dismissed for a crime related to terrorism, the individual must still meet the reasonable suspicion standard in order to remain on, or be subsequently nominated to, the terrorist watch list," the once-classified memorandum says.
Ginger McCall, a counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said: "In the United States, you are supposed to be assumed innocent. But on the watch list, you may be assumed guilty, even after the court dismisses your case."
But Stewart Baker, a former Homeland Security official in the Bush administration, argued that even if the intelligence about someone's possible terrorism ties fell short of the courtroom standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt," it could still be appropriate to keep the person on the watch list as having attracted suspicion.
Mr. Baker noted that being subjected to extra questioning - or even kept off flights - was different than going to prison.
The guidance memo to F.B.I. field offices says someone may be deemed a "known or suspected terrorist" if officials have "particularized derogatory information" to support their suspicions.
That standard may be met by an allegation that the suspect has terrorism ties if the claim is corroborated by at least one other source, it said, but "mere guesses or 'hunches' are not enough."
Normally, it says, if agents close the investigation without charges, they should remove the subject's name - as they should also normally do in the case of an acquittal. But for exceptions, the F.B.I. maintains a special file for people whose names it is keeping in the database because it has decided they pose a national security risk even though they are not the subject of any active investigation.
The F.B.I.'s Terrorist Screening Center shares the data with other federal agencies for screening aircraft passengers, people who are crossing the border and people who apply for visas. The data is also used by local police officers to check names during traffic stops.
The December memorandum lays out procedures for police officers to follow when they encounter people who are listed. For example, officers are never to tell the suspects that they might be on the watch list, and they must immediately call the federal government for instructions.
In addition, it says, police officers and border agents are to treat suspects differently based on which "handling codes" are in the system.
Some people, with outstanding warrants, are to be arrested; others are to be questioned while officers check with the Department of Homeland Security to see whether it has or will issue a "detainer" request; and others should be allowed to proceed without delay.
The documents show that the F.B.I. is developing a system to automatically notify regional "fusion centers," where law enforcement agencies share information, if officers nearby have encountered someone on the list. The bureau also requires F.B.I. supervisors to sign off before an advisory would warn the police that a subject is "armed and dangerous" or has "violent tendencies."
The F.B.I. procedures encourage agents to renominate suspects for the watch list even if they were already put on it by another agency - meaning multiple agencies would have to be involved in any attempt to later remove that person.
The procedures offer no way for people who are on the watch list to be notified of that fact or given an opportunity to see and challenge the specific allegations against them.
Chris Calabrese, a counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, called the watch list system a "Star Chamber" - "a secret determination, that you have no input into, that you are a terrorist. Once that determination is made, it can ripple through your entire life and you have no way to challenge it."
But Mr. Healy said the government could not reveal who was on the list, or why, because that would risk revealing intelligence sources. He also defended the idea of the watch list, saying the government would be blamed if, after a terrorist attack, it turned out the perpetrator had attracted the suspicions of one agency but it had not warned other agencies to scrutinize the person.
Mr. Healy also suggested that fears of the watch list were exaggerated, in part because there are many other reasons that people are subjected to extra screening at airports. He said more than 200,000 people have complained to the Department of Homeland Security about their belief that they were wrongly on the list, but fewer than 1 percent of them were actually on it.
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9) As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe
By NICHOLAS KULISH
September 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/world/as-scorn-for-vote-grows-protests-surge-around-globe.html?ref=world
MADRID - Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.
Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.
They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box.
"Our parents are grateful because they're voting," said Marta Solanas, 27, referring to older Spaniards' decades spent under the Franco dictatorship. "We're the first generation to say that voting is worthless."
Economics have been one driving force, with growing income inequality, high unemployment and recession-driven cuts in social spending breeding widespread malaise. Alienation runs especially deep in Europe, with boycotts and strikes that, in London and Athens, erupted into violence.
But even in India and Israel, where growth remains robust, protesters say they so distrust their country's political class and its pandering to established interest groups that they feel only an assault on the system itself can bring about real change.
Young Israeli organizers repeatedly turned out gigantic crowds insisting that their political leaders, regardless of party, had been so thoroughly captured by security concerns, ultra-Orthodox groups and other special interests that they could no longer respond to the country's middle class.
In the world's largest democracy, Anna Hazare, an activist, starved himself publicly for 12 days until the Indian Parliament capitulated to some of his central demands on a proposed anticorruption measure to hold public officials accountable. "We elect the people's representatives so they can solve our problems," said Sarita Singh, 25, among the thousands who gathered each day at Ramlila Maidan, where monsoon rains turned the grounds to mud but protesters waved Indian flags and sang patriotic songs.
"But that is not actually happening. Corruption is ruling our country."
Increasingly, citizens of all ages, but particularly the young, are rejecting conventional structures like parties and trade unions in favor of a less hierarchical, more participatory system modeled in many ways on the culture of the Web.
In that sense, the protest movements in democracies are not altogether unlike those that have rocked authoritarian governments this year, toppling longtime leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Protesters have created their own political space online that is chilly, sometimes openly hostile, toward traditional institutions of the elite.
The critical mass of wiki and mapping tools, video and social networking sites, the communal news wire of Twitter and the ease of donations afforded by sites like PayPal makes coalitions of like-minded individuals instantly viable.
"You're looking at a generation of 20- and 30-year-olds who are used to self-organizing," said Yochai Benkler, a director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. "They believe life can be more participatory, more decentralized, less dependent on the traditional models of organization, either in the state or the big company. Those were the dominant ways of doing things in the industrial economy, and they aren't anymore."
Yonatan Levi, 26, called the tent cities that sprang up in Israel "a beautiful anarchy." There were leaderless discussion circles like Internet chat rooms, governed, he said, by "emoticon" hand gestures like crossed forearms to signal disagreement with the latest speaker, hands held up and wiggling in the air for agreement - the same hand signs used in public assemblies in Spain. There were free lessons and food, based on the Internet conviction that everything should be available without charge.
Someone had to step in, Mr. Levi said, because "the political system has abandoned its citizens."
The rising disillusionment comes 20 years after what was celebrated as democratic capitalism's final victory over communism and dictatorship.
In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, a consensus emerged that liberal economics combined with democratic institutions represented the only path forward. That consensus, championed by scholars like Francis Fukuyama in his book "The End of History and the Last Man," has been shaken if not broken by a seemingly endless succession of crises - the Asian financial collapse of 1997, the Internet bubble that burst in 2000, the subprime crisis of 2007-8 and the continuing European and American debt crisis - and the seeming inability of policy makers to deal with them or cushion their people from the shocks.
Frustrated voters are not agitating for a dictator to take over. But they say they do not know where to turn at a time when political choices of the cold war era seem hollow. "Even when capitalism fell into its worst crisis since the 1920s there was no viable alternative vision," said the British left-wing author Owen Jones.
Protests in Britain exploded into lawlessness last month. Rampaging youths smashed store windows and set fires in London and beyond, using communication systems like BlackBerry Messenger to evade the police. They had savvy and technology, Mr. Jones said, but lacked a belief that the political system represented their interests. They also lacked hope.
"The young people who took part in the riots didn't feel they had a future to risk," he said.
In Spain, walloped by the developed world's highest official rate of unemployment, at 21 percent, many have lost the confidence that politicians of any party can find a solution. Their demands are vague, but their cry for help is plaintive and determined. Known as indignados or the outraged, they block traffic, occupy squares and gather for teach-ins.
Ms. Solanas, an unemployed online journalist, was part of the core group of protesters who in May occupied the Puerta del Sol, a public square in Madrid, the capital, touching off a nationwide protest. That night she and some friends started the Twitter account @acampadasol, or "Camp Sol," which now has nearly 70,000 followers.
While the Spanish and Israeli demonstrations were peaceful, critics have raised concerns over the urge to bypass representative institutions. In India, Mr. Hazare's crusade to "fast unto death" unless Parliament enacted his anticorruption law struck some supporters as self-sacrifice. Many opponents viewed his tactics as undemocratic blackmail.
Hundreds of thousands of people turned out last month in New Delhi to vent a visceral outrage at the state of Indian politics. One banner read, "If your blood is not boiling now, then your blood is not blood!" The campaign by Mr. Hazare, 74, was intended to force Parliament to consider his anticorruption legislation instead of a weaker alternative put forth by the government.
Parliament unanimously passed a resolution endorsing central pieces of his proposal, and lawmakers are expected to approve an anticorruption measure in the next session. Mr. Hazare's anticorruption campaign tapped a deep chord with the public precisely because he was not a politician. Many voters feel that Indian democracy, and in particular the major parties, the Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, have become unresponsive and captive to interest groups. For almost a year, India's news media and government auditors have exposed tawdry government scandals involving billions of dollars in graft.
Many of the protesters following the man in the white Gandhian cap known as a topi were young and middle class, fashionably dressed and carrying the newest smartphones. Ms. Singh was born in a village and is attending a university in New Delhi. Yet she is anxious about her future and wants to know why her parents go days without power. "We don't get electricity for 18 hours a day," she said. "This is corruption. Electricity is our basic need. Where is the money going?"
Responding to shifts in voter needs is supposed to be democracy's strength. These emerging movements, like many in the past, could end up being absorbed by traditional political parties, just as the Republican Party in the United States is seeking to benefit from the anti-establishment sentiment of Tea Party loyalists. Yet purists involved in many of the movements say they intend to avoid the old political channels.
The political left, which might seem the natural destination for the nascent movements now emerging around the globe, is compromised in the eyes of activists by the neoliberal centrism of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. The old left remains wedded to trade unions even as they represent a smaller and smaller share of the work force. More recently, center-left participation in bailouts for financial institutions alienated former supporters who say the money should have gone to people instead of banks.
The entrenched political players of the post-cold-war old guard are struggling. In Japan, six prime ministers have stepped down in five years, as political paralysis deepens. The two major parties in Germany, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, have seen tremendous declines in membership as the Greens have made major gains, while Chancellor Angela Merkel has watched her authority erode over unpopular bailouts.
In many European countries the disappointment is twofold: in heavily indebted federal governments pulling back from social spending and in a European Union viewed as distant and undemocratic. Europeans leaders have dictated harsh austerity measures in the name of stability for the euro, the region's common currency, rubber-stamped by captive and corrupt national politicians, protesters say.
"The biggest crisis is a crisis of legitimacy," Ms. Solanas said. "We don't think they are doing anything for us."
Unlike struggling Europe, Israel's economy is a story of unusual success. It has grown from a sluggish state-dominated system to a market-driven high-tech powerhouse. But with wealth has come inequality. The protest organizers say the same small class of people who profited from government privatizations also dominates the major political parties. The rest of the country has bowed out of politics.
Mr. Levi, born on Degania, Israel's first kibbutz, said the protests were not acts of anger but of reclamation, of a society hijacked by a class known in Hebrew as "hon veshilton," meaning a nexus of money and politics. The rise of market forces produced a sense of public disengagement, he said, a feeling that the job of a citizen was limited to occasional trips to the polling places to vote.
"The political system has abandoned its citizens," Mr. Levi said. "We have lost a sense of responsibility for one another."
Ethan Bronner contributed reporting from Tel Aviv, and Jim Yardley from New Delhi.
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10) Report Details Wide Abuse in Los Angeles Jail System
By JENNIFER MEDINA
September 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/us/aclu-suit-details-wide-abuse-in-los-angeles-jail-system.html?ref=us
LOS ANGELES - One inmate said he was forced to walk down a hallway naked after sheriff's deputies accused him of stealing a piece of mail. They taunted him in Spanish, calling him a derogatory name for homosexuals.
Another former inmate said that after he protested that guards were harassing a mentally ill prisoner, the same deputies took him into another room, slammed his head into a wall and repeatedly punched him in the chest.
And a chaplain said he saw deputies punching an inmate until he collapsed to the ground. They then began kicking the apparently unconscious man's head and body.
The examples are just a fraction of dozens of detailed allegations of abuse in Los Angeles County's Men's Central Jail and Twin Towers, according to a report that the American Civil Liberties Union is expected to file in Federal District Court here on Wednesday. The Los Angeles County jail system, the nation's largest, is also the nation's most troubled, according to lawyers, advocates and former law enforcement officials.
"This situation, the length of time it has been going on, the volume of complaints and the egregious nature are much, much worse than anything I've ever seen," said Tom Parker, a retired F.B.I. official who led the agency's Los Angeles office for years and oversaw investigations into the Rodney King beating and charges of corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department. "They are abusing inmates with impunity, and the worst part is that they think they can get away with it."
The system has a long history of accusations of abuse and poor conditions. The A.C.L.U. filed a federal lawsuit 35 years ago, and an agreement eventually allowed the organization to place monitors inside the jails. But those monitors say that they receive six or seven complaints a week now, primarily from the two large jails in downtown Los Angeles that house thousands of men. The F.B.I. has also begun to investigate several episodes in the jails.
Sheriff Lee Baca has repeatedly dismissed any suggestion of a systemic problem in the jails, saying that all allegations of abuse are investigated and that most are unfounded.
This week, The Los Angeles Times reported that F.B.I. agents sneaked a cellphone to a prisoner as part of an investigation. Sheriff Baca reacted to the investigation angrily, saying that the agency did not know what it was doing and was putting prisoners and guards in danger.
Sheriff Baca discussed the matter with a Justice Department official in a meeting on Tuesday. Nicole Nishida, the sheriff's spokeswoman, said that the department thoroughly investigated all complaints of abuse that it received and that most were unsubstantiated.
With California under an order from the United States Supreme Court to shed thousands of inmates from the state prisons, county jails are expected to receive many more inmates in the next year, which could aggravate overcrowding and other problems. Officials from the Sheriff's Department have said that they will not place inmates from the state in the Men's Central Jail, which they concede is an antiquated building.
But lawyers from the A.C.L.U. say that the Los Angeles County system is, in many ways, even worse than the state prisons that have been found unconstitutional. They say that many complaints are never properly investigated, and that often the very guards accused of abuse are in the room when an inmate is interviewed about the complaint.
In the last several months, the civil rights group has amassed 70 declarations from former prisoners and civilians who witnessed beatings. The statements suggest few patterns - the complaints span all times of day and multiple units in the jail. But, the A.C.L.U. says, the guards do seem to use the same terms repeatedly, shouting, "Stop resisting!" and "Stop fighting!" while they hit inmates, even when inmates are not moving or are in handcuffs.
Paulino Juarez, a Roman Catholic chaplain who has worked in the jail since 1998, was visiting an inmate's cell early one morning in February 2009 when he heard several thumps and gasps in the hallway. When he moved to the cell door, he saw three deputies hitting a man and yelling, "Stop fighting!"
"But he wasn't fighting; he wasn't even defending himself," Mr. Juarez said in an interview. "When they saw me, they froze. I was frozen, too. I didn't say anything. I was too shocked, and I was terrified."
Mr. Juarez filed a report with the Sheriff's Department but did not hear anything about it for several months. More than two years later, during a meeting with his supervisor and Sheriff Baca, Mr. Juarez was told that the department found that the inmate had resisted going into his cell. There was no record of Mr. Juarez's report, although a guard indicated in the file that the chaplain had exaggerated what he had witnessed. He was told that the inmate, whose name he did not know at the time, had later been released.
"I really don't trust anymore," Mr. Juarez said. "They always say inmates are liars and nobody believes them. But I saw them treated like this."
While the sheriff has repeatedly dismissed complaints from prisoners, the number of civilians who have witnessed beatings has steadily increased, showing the brazenness of many of the guards in the jails, said Peter Eliasberg, legal director for the A.C.L.U. Foundation of Southern California.
This year, Esther Lim, the current monitor for the A.C.L.U., said she saw several deputies beat a man inside the Twin Towers jail, next door to Men's Central, as if he were a "human punching bag." The attack was widely reported in the local news media, and at the time a spokesman dismissed it, saying that Ms. Lim should have reported it sooner and that the inmate was attacking the deputies.
Mr. Eliasberg and Ms. Lim said that inmates who were beaten were routinely placed for several days afterward in isolation, known as "the hole," and were often accused of assaulting the guards.
The A.C.L.U. plans to call for a wide-ranging federal investigation, and for Sheriff Baca to resign.
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11) Florida: Few Drug Users Among Welfare Applicants
"The results have prompted Carl Hiaasen, the Florida columnist and author, to suggest that the people who came up with the law should be the ones submitting specimens."
[Boy Oh Boy would I like to see the results of that drug test....bw]
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/us/florida-few-drug-users-among-welfare-applicants.html?ref=us
Preliminary figures compiled under a new state law requiring drug tests for welfare applicants show that they are less likely than other people to use drugs, not more. The results have prompted Carl Hiaasen, the Florida columnist and author, to suggest that the people who came up with the law should be the ones submitting specimens. Mr. Hiaasen, saying "there is a certain public interest in going after hypocrisy," has offered to pay for drug testing for all 160 members of the Florida Legislature. The figures show that about 2.5 percent of up to 2,000 applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families have tested positive since the law went into effect in July. An additional 2 percent declined to take the test. The Justice Department estimates that 6 percent of Americans 12 and older use illegal drugs. Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, and other supporters of the law say the tests will save money by weeding out people who would use welfare money to buy drugs.
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12) Police Dept. to Examine Pepper-Spray Episode
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
September 28, 2011, 1:37 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/police-department-to-examine-pepper-spray-incident/?ref=nyregion
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said on Wednesday that the Internal Affairs Bureau "will look" into the decision of a high-ranking officer to use pepper spray on a number of female protesters at an Occupy Wall Street demonstration on Saturday.
The pepper spray episode occurred on East 12th Street, where police officers arrested some protesters and corralled others behind orange mesh netting. It was captured on video recordings made by several protesters from different vantage points.
The video, which has been posted on YouTube and the Web sites of numerous news organizations, shows a deputy inspector walking up to a group of women standing on the sidewalk behind the orange netting and shooting pepper spray at them. Then footage then shows the deputy inspector, who has been identified as Anthony Bologna, walking away.
Commissioner Kelly said he had seen video of the pepper spraying only on a television newscast, and questioned whether the snippet he saw offered enough context to evaluate what occurred.
Asked about the episode at a press briefing on Wednesday, Mr. Kelly did not offer an explanation for why Inspector Bologna selected the four women out of the larger crowd as a target.
"I don't know what precipitated that specific incident," he said, but added that demonstrators as a group were engaged in "tumultuous conduct" and were "intent on blocking traffic" as they marched down University Place on their return from Union Square to the financial district, where the protesters have been encamped for more than a week.
Mr. Kelly said concerns about the pepper spray episode had been referred to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent agency that investigates allegations of police misconduct. Mr. Kelly said the department would also "look at it ourselves as well," and added that the internal inquiry would be handled by the Internal Affairs Bureau.
Rob Harris contributed reporting.
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13) A Spray Like a Punch in the Face
By JIM DWYER
September 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/nyregion/a-burst-of-pepper-spray-like-a-punch-in-the-face.html?ref=nyregion
Last week, a girl in the Bronx pulled out a can of pepper spray and used it in a fight with two other girls in her high school, an event that resulted in her arrest, her mother's arrest and a report on WNBC.
The mother got locked up because she bought the stuff and gave it to her daughter, and the law in New York is strict about who can carry it - no teenagers, no felons - and how it is used. There was a long legislative fight over whether people should be allowed to carry it, and in 1996, New York became the last state to make it legal, over the objections of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who felt the rules were lax.
The law requires the following label to appear on the cans:
"The use of this substance or device for any purpose other than self-defense is a criminal offense under the law."
Pepper spray is regulated with other dangerous weapons. For anyone interested in the effect it has on people hit with it, there are plenty of videos available online. You can hear agonizing screams, especially when it hits the mucous membranes and soft tissue like the eyes.
Or you can check in with Chelsea Elliott, 25, who learned about it Saturday while standing on the sidewalk on East 12th Street with others who had been part of a march protesting elements of the American economic system.
"I felt something weird and wet on my face," she said. "I said, 'What's that?' Then it burned so bad, my eyes - it was unbelievably intense. My eyes were on fire."
There are now multiple videos available that show some or all of the encounter, which took place at the end of a march that began in the financial district, where Occupy Wall Street has based itself for more than a week, and continuing to Union Square, a little more than two miles. The protesters did not have a permit, walked the wrong way up some streets, and when the police tried to steer them, just plowed ahead. It's a crowded city: a few hundred people wanted to march anywhere they felt like it, and a few hundred thousand people were going about their lives. In between were the police.
Inevitably, things came to a head.
"It got kind of weird around Union Square," Ms. Elliott said. "That's when they tried to corral us into those nets. The march had ended. I was exhausted - I just wanted to walk back to Wall Street."
She was standing in one of the nets, occasionally screaming when someone was arrested.
Then a deputy inspector, a senior rank in the Police Department, walked up to the corral, quickly doused several people standing there with pepper spray, and just walked off. It stunned the protesters and police officers standing around them.
"I was in a state of shock," Ms. Elliott said. "The officer I was talking to said, 'Thanks for the warning.' "
IN the video, the deputy inspector, Anthony Bologna, looked as if he were spraying cockroaches. When asked about the matter, the chief spokesman for the Police Department, Paul J. Browne, said it had been used "appropriately."
In his statement, he also said, "Pepper spray was used once after individuals confronted officers and tried to prevent them from deploying a mesh barrier - something that was edited out or otherwise not captured in the video."
Other videos have surfaced, and it is hard to square the events described by Mr. Browne with what they show. Earlier in the week, after a different encounter, Mr. Browne said a man had been arrested "for jumping a police barrier and resisting arrest." A sequence of photographs published on the City Room blog of The New York Times showed precisely the opposite: a deputy inspector tried to pull a protester over a barrier, and then he jumped over to grab the protester. Mr. Browne later said he had gotten his facts scrambled.
It is axiomatic that early reports in confusing situations are usually wrong.
The pepper spray videos have gone around the world, trailed by Mr. Browne's instant justification and defense of them. The combination has done little credit to the Police Department, which, in fact, has had a generally civil and accommodating relationship with the protesters, according to many people on the scene.
If a nightstick were substituted for pepper spray, a conventional weapon instead of an exotic one, the events on 12th Street would bear a strong resemblance to simple assault.
"I have respect for police officers, but that man assaulted me," Ms. Elliott said. "Bizarrely. Stupidly. Needlessly."
E-mail: dwyer@nytimes.com
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14) U.A.W. Approves Four-Year Contract With G.M.
"At several large plants, fewer than 40 percent of eligible workers made the effort to vote, based on results posted online, evidence of considerable apathy toward the agreement. Most U.A.W. locals publicly report only the percentage who favored the deal and not actual vote totals, so the overall turnout was not clear."
By NICK BUNKLEY
September 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/business/uaw-approves-four-year-contract-with-gm.html?ref=business
DETROIT - Members of the United Automobile Workers union have ratified a new four-year contract with General Motors, the union said Wednesday, as it also worked toward reaching a deal with the Ford Motor Company by the end of the week.
The union said 65 percent of production workers and 63 percent of skilled-trades workers who voted approved the deal, the first new labor agreement with one of the Detroit carmakers since the government's $82 billion auto industry bailout in 2009. The contract calls for G.M. to create 6,400 jobs at American plants, move some work to the United States from Mexico and raise its entry-level pay scale.
"The U.A.W. and G.M. entered into this set of bargaining as America struggles with record levels of unemployment and an economy that shows little sign of improvement," the union president, Bob King, said in a statement. "Because of President Obama's and the American taxpayers' backing of our jobs and our companies, we were determined to work together with G.M. management to grow jobs in the U.S. and to get more Americans back to work, and we are doing just that."
As a result, the 48,500 G.M. workers covered by the contract will each receive bonuses of $5,000 later this fall. They also will get $1,000 annual bonuses starting in 2013 and larger profit-sharing checks than the old contract provided.
Among the workers who voted, a majority supported the deal at nearly all G.M. plants across the United States. The contract, which was reached Sept. 16, was rejected by only two U.A.W. chapters: Local 602, which represents 3,400 workers who build crossover vehicles near Lansing, Mich., and Local 23, which represents a small number of workers at a metal-stamping plant in Indianapolis that is shutting down this year.
At several large plants, fewer than 40 percent of eligible workers made the effort to vote, based on results posted online, evidence of considerable apathy toward the agreement. Most U.A.W. locals publicly report only the percentage who favored the deal and not actual vote totals, so the overall turnout was not clear.
"In these uncertain economic times, we were able to win an agreement with G.M. that guarantees good American jobs at a good American company," Joe Ashton, the U.A.W. vice president in charge of negotiations with G.M., said in the union's statement. "When G.M. was down, our members sacrificed and saved G.M. Now that G.M. is posting strong profits, our members, as a result of this agreement, are going to share in the company's success."
Meanwhile, the union is closing in on a tentative agreement with Ford, although negotiations have not advanced to the long, late-night sessions that usually occur in the final days.
On Tuesday, Mr. King and other negotiators met with Ford management for several hours before adjourning in the afternoon, according to a recorded message the union posted on a telephone hot line. In the message, Anderson Robinson, the U.A.W. national negotiating team's recording secretary, said that no major breakthroughs occurred Tuesday but the union is "on track to secure an economic package that our membership deserves."
Mr. Robinson did not update its timetable for concluding talks with Ford. On Monday, the hot line message said the union was optimistic that it would have "good news for our membership by the end of the week."
Union negotiators want the Ford contract to follow the same framework as the G.M. deal, but they are seeking a more lucrative deal from Ford, which did not go through bankruptcy. The negotiators have told organizers at Ford plants to prepare for the possibility of a strike, even though there were no signs that a labor stoppage would occur.
G.M. and Chrysler workers gave up their right to strike through 2015 as part of those companies' 2009 bankruptcies.
Talks with Chrysler were continuing but were not expected to pick up until after the union has a deal with Ford. The U.A.W.'s contract with Chrysler has been extended through Oct. 19.
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15) Cuba Legalizes General Purchase and Sale of Cars
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/28/business/AP-CB-Cuba-Cars.html?src=busln
HAVANA (AP) - Cuba legalized the sale and purchase of automobiles for all citizens on Wednesday, another major step in the communist run island's economic transformation and one that the public has been clamoring for during decades.
The government announced the move in April, but sales have been on hold until the measure was published into law in the Official Gazette.
Under the law, which takes effect Oct. 1, buyers and sellers must each pay a 4 percent tax, and buyers must make a sworn declaration that the money used for the purchase was obtained legally.
Unrestricted sales had previously been limited to cars built before the 1959 revolution, one of the reasons Cuba's streets are about the only place on the planet one routinely finds a multitude of finned American classics from the 1950s such as Chevrolets Bel Airs and Chrysler Imperials, all in various states of disrepair.
Doctors, athletes, artists and others sent abroad on official business were allowed to bring cars back or purchase a boxy, Russian-made Lada or Moscovich from the state. Some senior workers were given company cars, though gas usage is strictly monitored to make sure they are only driven for work reasons.
The new law will allow the sale of cars from all models and years, and it legalizes ownership of more than one car, although tax rates go up slightly.
"It is a very positive step," said Rolando Perez, a Havana resident who was standing in line to get a license to go into business for himself. "They should have done it a long time ago."
The 40-page Gazette also says that Cubans who leave the island for good can transfer ownership of their car to a relative or sell it outright. Previously, the state could seize the automobiles of those who emigrated.
While most car sales have been illegal without government permission since the early 1960s, used automobiles have been widely traded in a booming black market for years. Buyers would hand over large amounts of cash under what amounted to handshake agreements, with title not changing hands.
Many cars are generations removed from the original title holder, meaning ownership will have to be untangled once the new regulations take effect.
While Cubans have long complained about restrictions on car sales, it is not clear how many will be in a position to take advantage of the new law. Most islanders make just $20 a month, although remittances from relatives overseas are playing an increasingly important role in household economies. A small number of successful new business owners may also be able to parlay their profits into a new set of wheels.
Cuban President Raul Castro has instituted a series of free-market reforms designed to rescue the island from economic ruin. Cuba has legalized some private enterprise, and allowed citizens to rent out rooms and hire employees.
The government has also announced it plans to legalize the sale and purchase of real estate by the end of 2011.
Paul Haven can be reached at www.twitter.com/paulhaven
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16) Unemployment Rates Fell in Majority of US Cities
"Unemployment rates fell in roughly two-thirds of U.S. cities last month, despite zero job growth nationwide. ...People who are no longer searching for jobs aren't counted as unemployed."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/28/business/AP-US-Metro-Unemployment.html?src=busln
WASHINGTON (AP) - Unemployment rates fell in roughly two-thirds of U.S. cities last month, despite zero job growth nationwide.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that unemployment rates dropped in 237 of the nation's largest metro areas in August from July. They rose in 103 and stayed the same in 32. That's an improvement from July, when rates fell in 193 areas and rose in 118.
Some areas with large agricultural sectors added jobs to coincide with the start of the harvest. Auto companies boosted hiring in several other cities.
Rates also fell in Jackson, Miss., and other cities because thousands of people gave up looking for work. People who are no longer searching for jobs aren't counted as unemployed.
Unlike national and state data, metro unemployment figures are not adjusted for seasonal changes.
The U.S. economy added no net jobs in August, the least amount of hiring in almost a year. The national unemployment rate remained 9.1 percent for the second straight month.
Businesses pulled back on hiring this summer after the government said the economy barely expanded in the first six months of the year.
Most of the cities that reported sharp improvement still suffer from steep unemployment rates. Unemployment dropped the most last month in Yuba City, Calif., a heavily agricultural area in Northern California. The city's rate fell from 18.6 percent in July to 17 percent last month.
Another big decline was in Modesto, Calif., home of the E. & J. Gallo Winery, the largest winemaker in the world. The rate there dropped from 17.3 percent in July to 16 percent last month.
The unemployment rate in Mansfield, Ohio fell from 11.4 percent to 10.1 percent, mostly because the city added manufacturing jobs.
El Centro, Calif. and Yuma, Ariz. had the highest unemployment rates among cities, at 32.4 percent and 29.4 percent, respectively. They are adjacent counties with heavy farm economies and large contingents of migrant labor. Yuma's rate fell while El Centro's ticked up.
Bismarck, N.D. reported the nation's lowest unemployment rate, at 3 percent. Lincoln, Neb. had the next lowest rate, at 3.6 percent, followed by Fargo, N.D., at 3.9 percent.
Among the 49 cities with populations of 1 million or more, Las Vegas had the highest unemployment rate, at 14.2 percent. Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif. had the second highest, 14.1 percent. Both were hit by huge housing bubbles and haven't yet recovered.
Oklahoma City, Okla. had the lowest rate among big cities, at 5 percent.
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