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Stop the media blackout on Bradley Manning’s trial!
Despite the unprecedented and historic nature of Army whistleblower Bradley Manning’s trial, journalists have thus far been banned from recording the proceedings. Because Americans more commonly get their news through television than from any other media source, this presents a major barrier to the American public staying informed on a trial that will profoundly affect the future of our country.
It’s outrageous that the American public is being denied
the right to view the trial of U.S. vs. Bradley Manning. Secretary of
Defense Chuck Hagel was appointed by President Obama to ensure civilian
oversight of the U.S. military.
Sign our petition demanding that he ensure
journalists can record Bradley Manning’s court martial proceedings!
When you sign our petition, our e-mail system will send a message on
your behalf to the office of Secretary of Defense.
http://www.bradleymanning.org/featured/stop-the-media-blackout-on-bradley-mannings-trial
The petition:
"According to the PEW research institute, Americans get most of their news on television. United States vs. Bradley Manning is one of the most important trials in America today, and covers such fundamental issues as the American public’s right to know what government officials do in our name with our resources, and whether our military is following international human rights law.
"The judge has determined that most of the proceedings are safe for the public to attend, and so it’s outrageous that journalists are not being allowed to record this historic trial in order that Americans everywhere can stay informed of what happens in the courtroom.
"As the Presidentially appointed office responsible for civilian oversight of the U.S. military, the Secretary of Defense should take responsible for ensuring that these proceedings are accorded as high level of public accessibility as befits the historic and unprecedented nature of the proceedings themselves.
"We therefore call upon Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to act immediately to ensure journalists may use electronic recording in the press room."
Freedom of the Press Foundation Publishes Leaked Audio of Bradley Manning’s Statement
https://www.pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/03/fpf-publishes-leaked-audio-of-bradley-mannings-statement
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Petition to Free Lynne Stewart: Save Her Life - Release Her Now!
Urgent: Please sign the petition for compassionate release for Lynne Stewart
The Global Campaign to Save the Life of Lynne Stewart Gathers Steam: 6,000 and counting! Individuals are reaching out to their friends, family and colleagues. Organizations are reaching out to their members. People throughout the world are joining together in the effort to free Lynne Stewart.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu sent this Cri de Coeur: “It is devastating, totally unbelievable. Is this in a democracy, the only superpower? I am sad. I will sign. Praying God’s blessings on yr efforts.” +Desmond Tutu
Pete Seeger declared: “Lynn Stewart should be outa jail!” on a postcard signed “old Pete Seeger” accompanied by a drawing of his banjo.
Your outpouring of support has lifted Lynne’s spirits as she undergoes the ravaging effects of chemotherapy. On March 20, she sent this message to each and every one of you from her seven-person cell in the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, Texas:
“I want you, individually, to know how gratified and happy it makes me to have your support. It is uplifting, to say the least, and after a lifetime of organizing it proves once again that the People can rise.
“The acknowledgement of the life-political, and solutions brought about by group unity and support, is important to all of us. Equally, so is the courage to sign on to a demand for a person whom the Government has branded with the ‘T’ word — Terrorist. Understanding that the attack on me is a subterfuge for an attack on all lawyers who advocate without fear of Government displeasure, with intellectual honesty guided by their knowledge and their client’s desire for his or her case, I hope our effort can be a crack in the American bastion. Thank you.” — Lynne
Lynne Stewart devoted over 30 years of her life to helping others as a criminal defense lawyer. She defended the poor, the disadvantaged and those targeted by the police and the State. Such had been her reputation as a fearless lawyer, ready to challenge those in power, that judges assigned her routinely to act for defendants whom no attorney was willing to represent.
Now Lynne Stewart needs our urgent help or she may die in prison. Our determination can compel the Bureau of Prisons to file the motion for compassionate release that will free Lynne Stewart.
Check out the Justice for Lynne Stewart website www.lynnestewart.org to view the signatories (up to 03/31/13), comments from signers, the postcard from Pete Seeger, and much more.
Remind your friends to sign the petition and to disseminate it to others. Ask each person to get five people to sign, and each of those five to ask five people of their own. In five stages, you will have reached another 3,000 people! Sign the petition at:
www.change.org/petitions/petition-to-free-lynne-stewart-save-her-life-release-her-now-2
Let the struggle spread far and wide!
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Lynne's letter to Archbishop Desmond Tutu in response to his support:
03/26/13 9:40 am
My dear honorable Desmond Tutu:
I hardly know how to address you for while we have never met face to face we are bonded as only those who fight for the rights and justice of humanity can be. As my husband and I are activists of many years and struggles, we can claim this lovely unity with you harking back to Nelson Mandela at Robbin Island, the original ANC and before. While I know you are still engaged in helping South Africa reach the highest level of the expectations of freedom, I am most pleased and amazed that you have taken the time to support my efforts against the US prison system.
I have now been in jail as a political prisoner since 2009, but only recently been diagnosed with fatal cancer. The "mechanism" in the US law that allows "compassionate release" is so infrequently utilized that the New York Times did an editorial criticizing the system. Anytime the key to the jailhouse is placed in the hands of uncaring bureaucrats, freedom is at stake. Having been informed that their "rule" is that one must have death in the room--a prognosis of a year or less, to be considered, once again forces me to don my armor and do battle---not just for me but for all the millions of prisoners who do not receive the consideration that they deserve. It is a fight to demand that each person is treated with individual care and attention. It is with great joy that I see you joining me and this renews my hope and belief that the worldwide network of good caring people exists and can be made manifest. Thanks. Lynne Stewart
Letter from Dick Gregory to the Federal Bureau of Prisons Director and to the Warden of the Federal Medical Center, Carswell
March 13, 2013
Charles E. Samuels, Jr., Director
Federal Bureau of Prisons
320 First St., NW
Washington, DC 20534
Dear Director Samuels,
I am writing urgently to ask you to make an immediate request of the Bureau of Prisons to file a motion with Judge Koetl for compassionate release of Lynne Stewart 53504-054.
Judge Koetl acknowledged on the record that Lynne Stewart has devoted her life to representing the poor, disadvantaged and oppressed, declaring: “Ms. Stewart has performed a public service not only to her clients but to the nation.”
Lynne Stewart's humanity has provided a moral compass for all of us who have fought for justice. It is only fitting that the humanity that she has manifested to so many should be extended to her.
Now her breast cancer, in remission when she was sent to prison, despite the fact that her legal rights were not exhausted, is in Stage Four, having metastasized to her lymph nodes, shoulder, bones and lungs.
Her physicians have made clear that to surmount her grave illness and to cope with the collateral impact of treatment, it is imperative for Lynne Stewart to have the emotional support essential to survival in daily conjunction with that coordinated treatment from her medical team impossible in her prison setting.
In compliance with the1984 Sentencing Act, I call upon you to urge upon the Court the immediate release of Lynne Stewart.
We, too, will be judged for generations to come by our adherence to legal standards rooted in compassion and decency.
I am attaching the international petition setting forth the reasons for her compassionate release that I endorse in the strongest terms.
Yours sincerely,
Dick Gregory
http://www.change.org/petitions/petition-to-free-lynne-stewart-save-her-life-release-her-now-2
In the event that your computer has an older operating system and browser, send your support for the petition to ralph.poynter@gmail.com so we can incorporate your name in the list of signers.
If you have any doubts about the care Lynne will likely get at Carswell, check out this article from Ms. Magazine:
Carswell Prison Blues
It's a crime how inmates have been treated at a federal hospital for incarcerated women.
My name is Janice Pugh. I was released from FMC Carswell [the only federal prison facility in the U.S. that includes a hospital for inmates] on January 10, 2000. … The reason for me being at Carswell was for medical treatment. I have a history of lung cancer. …The last six months I was coughing up blood, and a lot of it. …There was sputum tests done and a test where they put a scope down your nose. Well, I received NO results from these tests. …[Pugh went home to Alabama after her release; she had served 18 months for drug possession.] On January 20 at the Southern University of Alabama Medical Center there was a test done. …On January 24 I was admitted. …A bacteria was found growing in my lungs …and a mass was found on my top right lobe. They done a biopsy today, January 31, 2000. This is just a few things I have to say and proof that it’s true.
On March 27, 2000, two months after I received this letter, Janice Pugh died of metastasized cancer in a Mobile, Ala., hospice. She
was 52 years old. She had served her sentence at FMC (Federal Medical
Center) Carswell, near Fort Worth, Texas, because of her medical
needs, yet her symptoms went undiagnosed and untreated there. “We were told by the oncologist who treated Mama [in Alabama] that she was ‘very neglected’ at Carswell,” said her daughter, Tracy Ingram.
I wish I could write that Janice Pugh’s case is an aberration. It is not. For almost a decade, I have been writing about the Janice Pughs of FMC Carswell—women as old as 80 and as young as 18, from all races and all classes, who have needlessly suffered or died from what a former Carswell doctor described as “medical mistakes, substandard care and unconscionable delays” in treatment.
Behind the nation’s razor-wire fences, egregious medical neglect has been the norm for decades. But for the most part, this dark side of prison life is ignored by the mainstream media and lawmakers, and too often accepted by the general population as just another price paid by those committing crimes. The Carswell women’s debt to society, however, shouldn’t have included their lives.
The hospital at Carswell is located on a former World War II Air Force base. The facility opened in June 1994 after the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) closed its women’s hospital in Lexington, Ky., following a scathing General Accounting Office report that cited the bureau for failing to provide adequate medical care in its federal prisons and singled out the Lexington hospital’s care as particularly egregious. Little has changed since then, critics say.
According to Bureau of Prison figures, more than 32,500 women were incarcerated in the nation’s federal prisons as of this June. That’s far fewer than men, but women’s rates at all prisons (federal, state, local) are increasing at nearly double the men’s.
Medical neglect is not the only hazard faced by women at Carswell. This May, Vincent Inametti, the prison’s Catholic chaplain for the past seven years, was sentenced to four years in jail for what the judge called “surprisingly heinous” sexual crimes against two imprisoned women. He is now the eighth sexual predator since 1997 to be convicted after working at Carswell. Most were professionals in high positions, including another chaplain, a gynecologist, a counselor, a supervisor of food services and three guards.
Most women currently behind bars in local jails, state prisons, federal penitentiaries and private for-profit penal institutions will eventually return to their communities. Their health care while incarcerated can thus have a huge social impact, financially and otherwise. If not treated effectively in prison hospitals, released inmates return to their homes with a host of mental and medical problems, including untreated AIDS and hepatitis.
Calls for an investigation of Carswell have been made to no avail by inmates’ families for years. Their voices have now been joined by Ross Sears, a retired Texas appellate judge and former Harris County district attorney. He was drawn into the Carswell quagmire when a friend asked him in 2005 to help a breast-cancer victim who suffered from what he terms “grossly negligent follow-up care” at Carswell. He then contacted U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a longtime political friend, asking him to open a congressional investigation. Cornyn’s staff contacted the Bureau of Prisons and got a response, but it was of the no-problems-here variety, so the senator took no further action.
What will get Congress’ attention quicker than anything is media exposure and citizen outrage. In the meantime, little has changed for the Janice Pughs of Carswell, who remain largely forgotten as they continue to die and suffer needlessly from medical neglect in a prison system that is much more of a threat to them than they ever were to anyone else.
The full text of this article appears in the Summer issue of Ms. magazine, available on newsstands or by joining the Ms. community at www.msmagazine.com.
BETTY BRINK is a staff writer for Fort Worth Weekly, where her series of investigative reports on Carswell has won numerous journalism awards.
http://www.msmagazine.com/Summer2008/carsonPrison.asp
For more information, go to http://www.lynnestewart.org
Write to Lynne Stewart at:
Lynne Stewart #53504-054
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
PO Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127
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BOOK:
ANNOUNCING: IZ, by Robert Davis, originally published by Lost Books Press, is now available on Kindle for $7.
This odyssey of a 13 yr. old musical prodigy born into a family of hustlers, criminals and fanatics, takes place at the height of the Vietnam War. It has been called “a masterpiece,” “porno,” “the product of a deranged mind,” “a wonderful comic romp,” and various unmentionable things. When it first appeared in 1995, it won no awards and sold few copies. Very few – and those mainly to relatives and friends who after reading it quit speaking to the author.
But thanks to cheap digital publishing, the world may now be ready for IZ.
Izzy Aronson, on Kindle, is definitely ready for the world.
[Just had to pass this around. It's a great little novel with a real flavor of San Francisco in those times....Bonnie Weinstein]
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. ARTICLES IN FULL
B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.
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A. ARTICLES IN FULL (Unless otherwise noted)
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1) Open the Slaughterhouses
By JEDEDIAH PURDY
WASHINGTON
IN 1999, as a writer for The American Prospect, I went into a slaughterhouse undercover, with the help of some rebellious employees. The floor was slick with the residue of blood and suet, and the air smelled like iron. A part of my brain spent the whole time trying to remember which of Dante’s circles this scene most resembled.
Today, under legislation being pushed by business interests, that bit of journalistic adventure could earn me a criminal conviction and land me on a registry of “animal and ecological terrorists.” So-called ag-gag laws, proposed or enacted in about a dozen states, make, or would make, criminals of animal-rights activists who take covert pictures and videos of conditions on industrial farms and slaughterhouses. Some would even classify the activists as terrorists.
The agriculture industry says the images are unfair. They seem to show cruelty and brutality, but the eye can be deceiving. The most humane way of slaughtering an animal, or dealing with a sick one, may look pretty horrible. But so does open-heart surgery. The problem with making moral arguments by appealing to revulsion is that some beneficial and indispensable acts can also be revolting. With gruesome shots of cadavers, a skilled amateur could make a strong emotional case against using them to teach anatomy in medical school.
Moreover, the industry says, the activists are trespassers, or, when they’re employees working undercover for an animal-rights group or news organization, they’re going beyond the terms of their employment. Slaughterhouses and confined-feeding operations can be dangerous places. Although the industry surely exaggerates the risk, guerrilla actions are not the safest or best way to spur reflection on how we treat animals.
Fairness and safety are real issues. So is transparency, and that is why we should require confined-feeding operations and slaughterhouses to install webcams at key stages of their operations. List the URL’s to the video on the packaging. There would be no need for human intrusion into dangerous sites. No tricky angles or scary edits by activists. Just the visual facts. If the operators felt their work misrepresented, they could add cameras to give an even fuller picture.
There are models for this kind of sunlight requirement. For a couple of decades, federal law has required chemical plants to release details of their toxic emissions to the public. Most scholars agree that embarrassment and public pressure have pushed down pollution as a result, without further regulation.
At first, transparency would mainly inform consumer choice. The pictures might persuade some people to stop eating meat, or to buy it from a more humane source. Of course, changes in personal attitudes often translate into expanded public debate. People who start out by changing how they eat might end up supporting laws for more humane treatment of farm animals.
Open-slaughterhouse laws would not have to go through state legislatures, where agricultural lobbies are strong. Successful ballot initiatives in a few states could change the information environment for everyone. If, say, California put slaughterhouse webcams in place, the public discourse everywhere might change.
Slaughterhouse cameras might seem unfair to the operators. The images might still appeal to emotion and prompt visceral revulsion. Fair enough. But we are not going to decide how we should treat animals through cold reason alone, and certainly not if their treatment is invisible.
Emotional response is part of moral reasoning, and in this case we need more information, not less. The images need to be supplemented by brain studies and other efforts to understand what animal suffering is like — for instance, whether mammals experience trauma when confined and exposed to slaughter. But the images would motivate us to ask the right questions.
Opponents might compare this proposal to bills that require women to view images of their fetuses before having an abortion. The resemblance is misleading. Those laws intrude on intimate, difficult decisions involving a constitutional right.
In contrast, open-slaughterhouse laws would not force anyone to look at anything. They would just increase our resources for thinking and arguing. A teenager debating her parents at the dinner table, or a parishioner discussing the ethics of eating meat with fellow church members, would be able to pull out a cellphone or laptop to support his or her arguments.
Ten years before sneaking into that slaughterhouse, I was helping to slaughter cattle on the small West Virginia farm where I grew up. I still don’t feel that I know what it means, morally, when an animal’s life ends in exchange for our sustenance, or simply because we love grass-fed hamburger. Supporters of ag-gag laws are right that our treatment of animals is a hard problem that is divisive — and often leaves us internally divided — and too often oversimplified. But if advocates of these laws are sincere about those concerns, they should agree to make slaughterhouse operations transparent.
Jedediah Purdy, a law professor at Duke, is the author, most recently, of “The Meaning of Property: Freedom, Community, and the Legal Imagination.”
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2) Another Tank Leaks Water at Japanese Nuclear Plant
By HIROKO TABUCHI
The operator of Japan’s crippled nuclear plant halted an emergency operation Tuesday to pump thousands of gallons of radioactive water from a leaking underground storage pool after workers discovered that a similar pool, to which the water was being transferred, was also leaking.
At least three of seven underground chambers at the site are now seeping radioactive water, leaving the Tokyo Electric Power Company with few options on where to store the huge amounts of contaminated runoff from the makeshift cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Those systems were put in place after a large earthquake and tsunami damaged the plant’s regular cooling systems two years ago, causing fuel at three of its reactors to melt and prompting 160,000 people to evacuate their homes. Since then, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, has been flooding the damaged reactor cores to cool and stabilize the fuel.
But Tepco has struggled to find space to store the runoff water. It initially released what it said was low-level contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean, igniting furious criticism among neighbors and environmental activists. Traces of radioactive cesium were later found in bluefin tuna caught off the California coast.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stressed that he will not permit Tepco — which has effectively been nationalized since the disaster — to again release contaminated water into the ocean. But Tepco says it already stores more than a quarter-million tons of radioactive water in hundreds of tanks at the site, or in underground pools, and that the amount of runoff could double within three years.
The company has said it is building more storage space, and also filters much of the runoff. But with its underground pools vulnerable to leaks, Tepco is being forced to scramble for alternatives.
Workers at the plant had been emptying the No. 2 underground pool after Tepco found that about 120 tons of toxic water, or almost 32,000 gallons, had breached its inner plastic linings and seeped into the soil. Tepco said the leak appeared to be the biggest since the early months after the March 2011 disaster.
But readings around the No. 1 pool, to which the remaining water from the No. 2 pool was being transferred, suggested that it too was seeping water, said Masayuki Ono, general manager at Tepco’s Nuclear Power and Plant Siting Division. A third pool, the No. 3 pool, was also found to have sprouted a small leak on Sunday.
Mr. Ono said Tepco did not think that the contaminated water would reach the sea, since the pools lie about half a mile inland, but said he could not be sure.
Workers will now empty both the No. 1 and No. 2 pools, and transfer them to other pools. Tepco will continue to use the No. 3 pool at less-than-full capacity, because the leak there was minor, Mr. Ono said.
Asked whether the plant’s other underground pools might also be prone to leaking, Mr. Ono had no clear answer.
“We are still assessing the situation,” he said.
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3) Trip to Cuba by Beyoncé and Jay-Z Is Investigated
By DAMIEN CAVE
MEXICO CITY — The United States Treasury Department has begun investigating whether Jay-Z and Beyoncé — music’s royal couple — violated the trade embargo against Cuba by traveling to the island two weeks ago during their wedding anniversary, according to officials and a person who helped arrange their visit.
In a sudden predictable controversy that proves the embers of conflict between Miami and Havana are never far from becoming flames, Treasury officials on Monday said they were working on a response to demands for more information about the trip from two Cuban-American lawmakers from South Florida — Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, both Republicans, who appear to be using the highly photographed visit to rekindle outrage about Americans going to Cuba for fun.
“Cuba’s tourism industry is wholly state-controlled,” Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and Mr. Diaz-Balart wrote in a letter to the Treasury Department on Friday, “therefore, U.S. dollars spent on Cuban tourism directly fund the machinery of oppression that brutally represses the Cuban people.”
Questions about the megastars’ trip have been swirling for days, with some Cuban exile bloggers describing the trip as a propaganda mission “carefully planned and controlled by the Castro dictatorship.” But witnesses in Cuba and a person affiliated with the company that arranged the trip, Academic Arrangements Abroad, contend that the visit was a surprise to Cuban leaders, who struggled to provide adequate security with just a day’s notice.
The three-night sojourn, according to the person who helped plan it, came together without input from the Cuban government like other visits for Americans under a “people to people” license — granted by the Treasury Department for trips that focus on “educational exchange activities that will result in meaningful interaction” between Americans and Cubans.
About 10,000 Americans go to Cuba each year with such tours, and the Treasury Department tightened the rules for trip agendas last year after Senator Marco Rubio, another Cuban-American Republican from Florida, criticized the tours for allowing tourism, which is banned by the embargo.
Jay-Z and Beyoncé visited the children’s theater group La Colmenita, where Beyoncé danced with little girls dressed as bumblebees, and met with students and teachers at the Superior Art Institute. Photographs also showed Jay-Z enjoying a Cuban cigar on the balcony of their government-owned hotel, the Saratoga, but the trip also included personal and intimate exchanges. The restaurants where Cubans saw the stars eating were privately owned “paladars.” Their public cultural outings occurred with an emphasis on interaction with everyday Cubans, not officials.
Miguel Iglesias, the director of the Cuban Contemporary Dance Company, said Beyoncé also went to the company on Friday morning to watch an informal performance. She arrived with her family (her mother was part of the tour group), and half-danced during the show before jumping up at the end with applause, saying the performance was “amazing.” He said she then talked to the choreographer and to him about the score and the choreography, because it is a piece that was written and choreographed by the company.
Asked if he thought it was an interesting exchange, Mr. Iglesias said it was. “If to come here and share ideas and emotions isn’t a legitimate exchange between peoples, I don’t what is,” he said.
He added: “There are those who think that any connection between Cuba and the United States is illegitimate because they disagree with the system. I don’t see it like that at all.”
Karla Zabludovsky contributed reporting.
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4) Student Loan Rate Set to Rise, Despite Lack of Support
By TAMAR LEWIN
The interest rate on many student loans is scheduled to double on July 1, to 6.8 percent from 3.4 percent — just as it was last year, when in the midst of an election campaign, Congress voted to extend the lower rate.
Again this year, no one wants the increase to happen, especially since even the current rate is well above market. But once again, there is likely to be a good deal of brinkmanship before the issue is settled. This time around, though, longer-term solutions may be on the horizon.
On Tuesday, the day before the White House plans to send its budget to Congress, student advocacy groups are releasing an issue brief charging that the federal government should not be profiting from student loans, while more and more students bear a crushing debt burden.
The brief, citing a February report from the Congressional Budget Office, said the federal government makes 36 cents in profit on every student-loan dollar it puts out, and estimates that over all, student loans will bring in $34 billion next year.
“Higher education loans are meant to subsidize the cost of higher education, not profit from them, especially at a time when students are facing record debt,” said Ethan Senack, the higher education advocate at the United States Public Interest Research Group, which is issuing the brief with the United States Student Association and Young Invincibles, an organization for people 18 to 34.
“The revenue from student loans should be used to keep education affordable, and should never be used to pay down the deficit or for other federal programs,” Mr. Senack said.
While it has long been known that the government makes money on student loans, the numbers in the issue brief are surprising, said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education.
“If the numbers are accurate, the government will make more money on student loans than Ford makes on automobiles,” he said. “Using student loans to create a profit center is not what anybody intended.”
Student loan borrowers graduate with an average debt of $27,000, and the scheduled interest rate increase on subsidized Stafford loans would cost almost 10 million borrowers about $1,000 more over the life of their loan, for each year of college.
According to the C.B.O. report, the government will get 12.5 cents in revenue next year for every dollar lent through subsidized Staffords, 33.3 cents per dollar in unsubsidized Staffords, 54.8 cents on each dollar of graduate school loans, and 49 cents per dollar of parent loans, for a total of $34 billion a year.
Borrowers of subsidized Stafford loans make up more than a third of those using federal student aid. More than two-thirds of those borrowers are from families with an annual income under $50,000. Last April, in his re-election campaign, President Obama made a central issue of stopping the Stafford interest rate increase. A few days later, Mitt Romney expressed a similar view.
Now that the lower rate is about to expire, there is general agreement that it should not double. But a solution is unclear.
The White House budget is widely expected to include a proposal to move to a variable interest rate, pegged to the government’s cost of borrowing, that would be reset every year.
“The president’s plan will help middle-class students and their families afford college by stopping interest rates from doubling on July 1 as part of a long-term solution that is fair, fiscally responsible and benefits more borrowers by offering lower interest rates on nearly all federal student loans next year,” said an administration official, who declined to provide details of the plan.
Many Republicans favor a variable interest rate. But the Senate recently passed a budget resolution extending the 3.4 percent rate indefinitely, and Representative Joe Courtney, Democrat of Connecticut, said he planned to introduce legislation this week extending the 3.4 rate for two years, to give Congress time to rethink student loan interest rates as part of the higher education reauthorization bill.
“We have this very fragmented loan system, with subsidized loans and nonsubsidized loans and graduate students who may not qualify for anything,” Mr. Courtney said, “and we need some kind of long-term proposal that isn’t a one-year fix, but would use the low cost of money now as a sweetener.”
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5) Ex-Regulator Says Reactors Are Flawed
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON — All 104 nuclear power reactors now in operation in the United States have a safety problem that cannot be fixed and they should be replaced with newer technology, the former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Monday. Shutting them all down at once is not practical, he said, but he supports phasing them out rather than trying to extend their lives.
The position of the former chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, is not unusual in that various anti-nuclear groups take the same stance. But it is highly unusual for a former head of the nuclear commission to so bluntly criticize an industry whose safety he was previously in charge of ensuring.
Asked why he did not make these points when he was chairman, Dr. Jaczko said in an interview after his remarks, “I didn’t really come to it until recently.”
“I was just thinking about the issues more, and watching as the industry and the regulators and the whole nuclear safety community continues to try to figure out how to address these very, very difficult problems,” which were made more evident by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, he said. “Continuing to put Band-Aid on Band-Aid is not going to fix the problem.”
Dr. Jaczko made his remarks at the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington in a session about the Fukushima accident. Dr. Jaczko said that many American reactors that had received permission from the nuclear commission to operate for 20 years beyond their initial 40-year licenses probably would not last that long. He also rejected as unfeasible changes proposed by the commission that would allow reactor owners to apply for a second 20-year extension, meaning that some reactors would run for a total of 80 years.
Dr. Jaczko cited a well-known characteristic of nuclear reactor fuel to continue to generate copious amounts of heat after a chain reaction is shut down. That “decay heat” is what led to the Fukushima meltdowns. The solution, he said, was probably smaller reactors in which the heat could not push the temperature to the fuel’s melting point.
The nuclear industry disagreed with Dr. Jaczko’s assessment. “U.S. nuclear energy facilities are operating safely,” said Marvin S. Fertel, the president and chief executive of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade association. “That was the case prior to Greg Jaczko’s tenure as Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman. It was the case during his tenure as N.R.C. chairman, as acknowledged by the N.R.C.’s special Fukushima response task force and evidenced by a multitude of safety and performance indicators. It is still the case today.”
Dr. Jaczko resigned as chairman last summer after months of conflict with his four colleagues on the commission. He often voted in the minority on various safety questions, advocated more vigorous safety improvements, and was regarded with deep suspicion by the nuclear industry. A former aide to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, he was appointed at Mr. Reid’s instigation and was instrumental in slowing progress on a proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles from Las Vegas.
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6) Horse Meat Problems Resurface Across Europe
By STEPHEN CASTLE
LONDON — After disappearing briefly from public view, the scandal over horse meat sold as beef re-emerged on Wednesday with an alert over 50,000 tons of meat sold across Europe and an earlier recall of a product in Britain containing a veterinary drug banned from the human food chain.
The Dutch food safety authority said it was trying to trace meat sold to 130 companies in the Netherlands and 370 in 15 other countries, including France, Germany and Spain. The Dutch suppliers of the meat were unable to say where the 50,000 tons in question originated, said Tjitte Mastenbroek, spokesman for the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority.
“There is no specific indication that this is a danger to the public,'’ Mr. Mastenbroek said, ‘'but the company cannot give the origin of the meat, so we cannot give a guarantee.”
The food safety authorities in the 15 countries have been notified about the concerns, and the Dutch companies that bought the meat will be asked to remove it from sale if it can still be traced. The two Dutch meat suppliers were named as Wiljo Import en Export B.V. and Vleesgroothandel Willy Selten B.V.
Late Tuesday in Britain, the Asda chain, which is owned by Walmart, announced a recall of Smart Price Corned Beef. The product was withdrawn from shelves in March after it was found to contain traces of horse meat, and further tests showed that the banned drug, known as bute, had been detected in very small doses, the company said.
“Asda is recalling this product and anyone who has Asda Smart Price Corned Beef should not eat it,” said a statement on the company Web site, which added that the risk to health was extremely low. Consumers were asked to return the product to stores.
The announcement is a new development in the scandal over horse meat in beef products, ranging from frozen lasanga to Ikea’s Swedish meatballs. Until Tuesday, there had been no suggestion that any item sold in Britain posed a health risk.
Eight horses slaughtered in Britain for human consumption tested positive for bute, and although some of that meat was exported to France, none of it was used in British food, according to the authorities.
Tests to detect bute take longer than those for horse DNA, which is why the Asda product was withdrawn from shelves last month well before the discovery of traces of bute that prompted the recall.
A second Asda corned beef product that also contained horse meat traces and had been taken off supermarket shelves is also being recalled as a precaution, although no bute has been discovered, the company said.
In Britain, the Food Standards Agency said Asda’s corned beef contained “very low levels” of bute, four parts per billion, and was the only meat product in which bute had been found. The level of bute found in the corned beef is “considerably lower” than the highest levels found in horse carcasses, 1,900 parts per billion, the agency said.
The agency cited previous comments from the chief medical officer for England, Sally Davies, in which she said that horse meat containing phenylbutazone presents a very low risk to human health.
“Phenylbutazone, known as bute, is a commonly used medicine in horses,” she said. “It is also prescribed to some patients who are suffering from a severe form of arthritis. The levels of bute that have previously been found in horse carcasses mean that a person would have to eat 500 to 600 100 percent horse meat burgers a day to get close to consuming a human’s daily dose. And it passes through the system fairly quickly, so it is unlikely to build up in our bodies.”
“In patients who have been taking phenylbutazone as a medicine, there can be serious side effects but these are rare. It is extremely unlikely that anyone who has eaten horse meat containing bute will experience one of these side effects.”
But Mary Creagh, the environment spokeswoman for the opposition Labour Party, said it was “deeply worrying that bute, a drug banned from the human food chain, has been discovered in one brand of corned beef.”
“This product was withdrawn from sale on March 8 yet has only been formally recalled now, after testing positive for bute, meaning people could have unwittingly been eating meat containing this drug for the last month.
“This exposes the weaknesses in the government’s handling of the horse meat scandal where products were withdrawn but in some cases not tested either for horse meat or bute. The interests of the consumer should have been put first.”
The British food industry has tested around 5,400 beef products and about 1 percent showed traces of horse meat.
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7) Save Wounded Knee
By JOSEPH BRINGS PLENTY
WOUNDED KNEE, S.D.
THE Lakota Sioux word “takini” means “to die and come back” but is usually translated more simply as “survivor.” It is a sacred word long associated with the killing of scores of unarmed Lakota men, women and children by soldiers of the United States Army’s Seventh Cavalry in the winter of 1890.
Wounded Knee was the so-called final battle of America’s war on its Native peoples. But what happened was hardly a battle. It was a massacre.
A band of several hundred Lakota led by Big Foot, a chief of the Mnicoujou Sioux, was intercepted and detained by troops as they made their way from the Cheyenne River Reservation to Pine Ridge for supplies and safety. After a night of drinking, the bluecoats were disarming warriors the next morning when a shot went off. Soldiers opened fire with their Hotchkiss machine guns. At least 150 but perhaps as many as 300 or more Lakota died.
Our fight to survive as a people continues today, a struggle to preserve not just our culture and our language but also our history and our land. Though I now live on the western reaches of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, I grew up in Pine Ridge, among my Oglala kin just a few miles from Wounded Knee. One member of my family survived the killing; others died.
The killing ground stirs great emotion in all of our people — memories of bodies frozen into twisted shapes, of those who were hunted down and murdered as they fled, and of those who escaped in bitter cold across wind-swept plains. These stories have been handed down to us and live within us.
One story I remember vividly was told to me when I was about 8 by a tribal elder, a very old woman whose mother had survived the bloodshed as a child. The old woman’s mother told her how her own mother had gathered her up when the bullets started flying. Just then, a young horse warrior galloped past and took the child up in his arms to help her escape. As she looked back, she saw her mother shot down, her chest torn open by bullets. She told her daughter that she remembered tasting the salt in her tears. The old woman told me all this after I had knocked over a saltshaker. Salt still reminded her of her mother.
There are many such stories. The spiritual power of the place explains why members of the American Indian Movement took it over in 1973 to call the nation’s attention to the economic and cultural injustices against our Native brothers and sisters.
Now, our heritage is in danger of becoming a real-estate transaction, another parcel of what once was our land auctioned off to the highest bidder. The cries of our murdered people still echo off the barren hills — the cries we remember in our hearts every day of our lives. But they may finally be drowned out by bulldozers and the ka-ching of commerce.
The Wounded Knee site passed from the Oglala into private hands through the process known as allotment, begun in the late 1800s, by which the federal government divided land among the Indians and gave other parcels to non-Indians. The idea was to shift control of our land from the collective to the individual and to teach the Lakota and other Native Americans the foreign notion of ownership. But to us, the policy was just another form of theft.
The private owner of the Wounded Knee site, who has held title to the 40-acre plot since 1968, wants to sell it for $3.9 million. If the Oglala of Pine Ridge don’t buy it by May 1, it will be sold at auction.
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is one of the poorest places in the United States, and the Oglala, who are deeply in debt, would be hard-pressed to meet the price. Many elders properly ask why any price should be paid at all. The federal government should buy this land and President Obama should then preserve it as a national monument — just as he did last month at five federally owned sites around the country, including one in Maryland honoring Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.
The massacre site has great meaning not just for the Lakota but for all First Nations — and every American. Wounded Knee should remain a sacred site where the voices of the Ghost Dancers, who more than a century ago danced for the return of our old way of life, still echo among the pines, where the spirits of our elders still walk the hills, and where “takini” still has meaning: the survival of our collective memory.
Chief Joseph Brings Plenty, a former chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, teaches Lakota culture at the Takini School on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.
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8) With Police in Schools, More Children in Court
By ERIK ECKHOLM
HOUSTON — As school districts across the country consider placing more police officers in schools, youth advocates and judges are raising alarm about what they have seen in the schools where officers are already stationed: a surge in criminal charges against children for misbehavior that many believe is better handled in the principal’s office.
Since the early 1990s, thousands of districts, often with federal subsidies, have paid local police agencies to provide armed “school resource officers” for high schools, middle schools and sometimes even elementary schools. Hundreds of additional districts, including those in Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, have created police forces of their own, employing thousands of sworn officers.
Last week, in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shootings, a task force of the National Rifle Association recommended placing police officers or other armed guards in every school. The White House has proposed an increase in police officers based in schools.
The effectiveness of using police officers in schools to deter crime or the remote threat of armed intruders is unclear. The new N.R.A. report cites the example of a Mississippi assistant principal who in 1997 got a gun from his truck and disarmed a student who had killed two classmates, and another in California in which a school resource officer in 2001 wounded and arrested a student who had opened fire with a shotgun.
Yet the most striking impact of school police officers so far, critics say, has been a surge in arrests or misdemeanor charges for essentially nonviolent behavior — including scuffles, truancy and cursing at teachers — that sends children into the criminal courts.
“There is no evidence that placing officers in the schools improves safety,” said Denise C. Gottfredson, a criminologist at the University of Maryland who is an expert in school violence. “And it increases the number of minor behavior problems that are referred to the police, pushing kids into the criminal system.”
Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of students are arrested or given criminal citations at schools each year. A large share are sent to court for relatively minor offenses, with black and Hispanic students and those with disabilities disproportionately affected, according to recent reports from civil rights groups, including the Advancement Project, in Washington, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in New York.
Such criminal charges may be most prevalent in Texas, where police officers based in schools write more than 100,000 misdemeanor tickets each year, said Deborah Fowler, the deputy director of Texas Appleseed, a legal advocacy center in Austin. The students seldom get legal aid, she noted, and they may face hundreds of dollars in fines, community service and, in some cases, a lasting record that could affect applications for jobs or the military.
In February, Texas Appleseed and the Brazos County chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. filed a complaint with the federal Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. Black students in the school district in Bryan, they noted, receive criminal misdemeanor citations at four times the rate of white students.
Featured in the complaint is De’Angelo Rollins, who was 12 and had just started at a Bryan middle school in 2010 when he and another boy scuffled and were given citations. After repeated court appearances, De’Angelo pleaded no contest, paid a fine of $69 and was sentenced to 20 hours of community service and four months’ probation.
“They said this will stay on his record unless we go back when he is 17 and get it expunged,” said his mother, Marjorie Holmon.
Federal officials have not yet acted, but the district says it is revising guidelines for citations. “Allegations of inequitable treatment of students is something the district takes very seriously,” said Sandra Farris, a spokeswoman for the Bryan schools.
While schools may bring in police officers to provide security, the officers often end up handling discipline and handing out charges of disorderly conduct or assault, said Michael Nash, the presiding judge of juvenile court in Los Angeles and the president of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.
“You have to differentiate the security issue and the discipline issue,” he said. “Once the kids get involved in the court system, it’s a slippery slope downhill.”
Mo Canady, the executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, defended placing police officers in schools, provided that they are properly trained. He said that the negative impacts had been exaggerated, and that when the right people were selected and schooled in adolescent psychology and mediation, both schools and communities benefited.
“The good officers recognize the difference between a scuffle and a true assault,” Mr. Canady said.
But the line is not always clear. In New York, a lawsuit against the Police Department’s School Safety Division describes several instances in which officers handcuffed and arrested children for noncriminal behavior.
Many districts are clamoring for police officers. “There’s definitely a massive trend toward increasing school resource officers, so much so that departments are having trouble buying guns and supplies,” said Michael Dorn, director of Safe Havens International, in Macon, Ga., a safety consultant to schools.
One district in Florida, Mr. Dorn said, is looking to add 130 officers, mainly to patrol its grade schools. McKinney, Tex., north of Dallas, recently placed officers in its five middle schools.
Many judges say school police officers are too quick to make arrests or write tickets.
“We are criminalizing our children for nonviolent offenses,” Wallace B. Jefferson, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, said in a speech to the Legislature in March.
School officers in Texas are authorized to issue Class C misdemeanor citations, which require students to appear before a justice of the peace or in municipal court, with public records.
The process can leave a bitter taste. Joshua, a ninth grader who lives south of Houston, got into a brief fight on a school bus in November after another boy, a security video showed, hit him first. The principal called in the school’s resident sheriff, who wrote them both up for disorderly conduct.
“I thought it was stupid,” Joshua said of the ticket and his need to miss school for two court appearances. His guardian found a free lawyer from the Earl Carl Institute, a legal aid group at Texas Southern University, and the case was eventually dismissed.
Sarah R. Guidry, the executive director of the institute, said that when students appeared in court with a lawyer, charges for minor offenses were often dismissed. But she said the courts tended to be “plea mills,” with students pleading guilty in the hope that, once they paid a fine and spent hours cleaning parks, the charges would be expunged. If students fail to show up and cases are unresolved, they may be named in arrest warrants when they turn 17.
In parts of Texas, the outcry from legal advocates is starting to make a difference. Jimmy L. Dotson, the chief of Houston’s 186-member school district force, is one of several police leaders working to redefine the role of campus officers.
Perhaps the sharpest change has come to E. L. Furr High School, which serves mainly low-income Hispanic children on the city’s east side. Bertie Simmons, 79, came out of retirement 11 years ago to try to turn around a school so blighted by gang violence that it dared not hold assemblies.
“The kids hated the school police,” said Ms. Simmons, the principal. They arrested two or three students a day and issued tickets to many more.
Ms. Simmons searched for officers who would work with the students and build trust. She found them in Danny Avalos and Craig Davis, former municipal police officers who grew up in rough neighborhoods, and after years of effort, the campus is peaceful and arrests and tickets are rare. Discipline is usually enforced by a principal’s court with student juries, not summonses to the criminal courts.
“Writing tickets is easy,” Officer Avalos said. “We do it the hard way, talking with the kids and coaching them.”
With new guidelines and training, ticketing within the Houston schools was reduced by 60 percent in one year. Citations for “disruption of classes,” for example, fell to 124 between September and February, from 927 in the same period last year.
“Our role is not to be disciplinarians,” Chief Dotson said in an interview. “Our purpose is to push these kids into college, not into the criminal justice system.”
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9) Checks Find Unsafe Practices at Compounding Pharmacies
By ANDREW POLLACK
After a crash inspection program, federal regulators said Thursday that they had found numerous unsafe practices at about 30 compounding pharmacies, the same type of facility responsible for the tainted drug that caused a deadly meningitis outbreak last year.
Among the problems found were unidentified black particles floating in vials of supposedly sterile medicines, rust and mold in clean rooms where such drugs are made, improper air flow, and clothing that left workers’ skin exposed.
Howard Sklamberg, director of the office of compliance for the drug division of the Food and Drug Administration, said such unsafe practices could cause contamination of drugs. He said the number of problems found at the compounding pharmacies, which were in 18 states, was higher than what is typically seen at conventional pharmaceutical manufacturers.
F.D.A. officials also said the agency had to get a warrant from federal court to inspect one of the 30 compounding pharmacies. Four other operations resisted being inspected but gave in without a court order, agency officials said.
“It may surprise some people to know that, even in light of the recent tragic events, some of the firms we inspect still challenge our authority to conduct full inspections of their facilities,” Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, the F.D.A. commissioner, wrote in a post on the agency’s blog on Thursday.
Mr. Sklamberg said the F.D.A. was exploring actions it might take against the pharmacies if the problems were not corrected.
More than 50 people died from fungal meningitis and another 680 were sickened after receiving injections last year of a contaminated steroid made by the New England Compounding Center. Compounding pharmacies originally made specialized formulations of drugs for patients with particular needs, like a liquid form of a medicine for someone who cannot swallow a pill. But in recent years, the number of compounders has multiplied, and some have become essentially mass manufacturers, distributing huge quantities of medicines all over the country.
A House subcommittee will hold a hearing on Tuesday at which Dr. Hamburg is expected to be questioned as to whether the F.D.A. could have prevented the meningitis outbreak by better policing the compounding pharmacies.
The agency maintains that it has limited legal authority to oversee compounders, which are regulated by state boards of pharmacy even though many ship drugs across state lines.
“Because they don’t register with us, we don’t know who they are, we don’t have a list of what products they produce,” Mr. Sklamberg said in an interview Thursday.
The F.D.A.’s disclosure of the inspection reports and of the resistance its inspectors faced could bolster its case for legislation, already under development in the Senate, to give it more authority over compounding pharmacies.
It could also backfire. Some Republicans who have expressed skepticism about the need for legislation are likely to point to the recent inspections as evidence that the F.D.A. already has the authority it needs, and that it could have done similar inspections in the past.
The F.D.A. had inspected specific compounding pharmacies only when a problem was reported or suspected. Mr. Sklamberg said that regularly inspecting compounding pharmacies in the past would have strained the agency’s resources, given the extra effort required.
Some compounding pharmacies might brush off the F.D.A. findings as being part of a push to win legislation.
“It behooves them to make sure they find observations or violations or deficiencies,” said Scott A. Livingston, a lawyer representing Olympia Compounding Pharmacy in Orlando, Fla., for which the F.D.A. said it required a warrant.
Mr. Livingston said the pharmacy allowed the inspection and access to documents. He said the warrant was required only because the pharmacy, concerned about patient privacy, did not want to provide the F.D.A. with copies of those documents to take with them.
Perhaps seeking to take some heat off the F.D.A., four Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday said the head of the compounding industry’s trade group, the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, should also testify at Tuesday’s hearing.
The Democrats said the trade group’s internal memos showed that it lobbied aggressively for almost two decades to restrict F.D.A. oversight. But Representative Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, seemed inclined to keep the focus of the hearing on the F.D.A.
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10) New Yorkers Brace for Cuts in Unemployment Benefits
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Federal benefits for New Yorkers who have been unemployed for more than six months have been gradually disappearing. Now, the ones that remain are shrinking.
Starting this week, benefits for more than 140,000 New York State residents will be cut by almost 11 percent as a result of the budget stalemate in Washington. New York is one of the first states to carry out the cuts, which are a result of automatic budget cuts known as sequestration, which mandated an $85 billion across-the-board reduction in spending on military and domestic programs.
For Stephanie Cozart, a stage actress in Manhattan, that means a cut to $361 per week from the $405 she had been receiving since last fall. If she does not find work by the end of September, when the cuts expire, the loss would amount to $1,100.
“It just seems really mean and really dumb, given that everyone knows that unemployment benefits stimulate the economy,” said Ms. Cozart, who is married and has a 7-month-old daughter. “I don’t save my unemployment benefits. I spend them on diapers and baby food and so forth.”
As part of the cutbacks, every state was ordered to reduce the benefits paid to people who have exhausted their 26 weeks of regular unemployment benefits and have begun collecting what are known as emergency unemployment benefits. New York is one of 14 states that was ready by early April to reduce the payments, according to Jason Kuruvilla, a spokesman for the federal Labor Department. The cuts will be proportionally larger in states that take longer to start making them.
Though the budget cuts were uniform, the effect on the unemployed is not. People collecting regular benefits are unaffected. And those collecting emergency benefits in states like Connecticut that have been slower to implement the cuts may find work before losing any benefits. Connecticut expects to make the cut in mid-June, when it will amount to about 19 percent of a weekly payment, or about $112 out of that state’s maximum benefit of $591. In New Jersey, the payments start shrinking this week by as much as $66.
“They’re inequitable,” said Maurice Emsellem, a policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project, which has lobbied to preserve the additional benefits that lawmakers in Washington approved when unemployment soared after the financial crisis.
A study released this month by his group reported that five million Americans have been out of work for 27 weeks or more and that the average duration of unemployment nationwide is now 37 weeks.
In New York, as in many other states, the maximum duration of unemployment benefits stretched to 99 weeks at the depths of the recession. But as the state’s unemployment rate has declined, so has the availability of benefits.
At the end of last year, New York stopped offering a sort of last-resort program known as extended benefits that lasted for up to 20 weeks. Now, the longest an unemployed New Yorker can collect benefits for is 79 weeks.
But some who only recently started collecting emergency benefits, like Ms. Cozart, may only collect them for a maximum of 37 weeks. For most of that period, the benefits would be reduced by the automatic cuts.
The $44 a week that Ms. Cozart will lose may not sound onerous in New York City, where it would barely cover one prix fixe dinner during Restaurant Week. But advocates for the unemployed point out that they had to lobby for years in Albany to obtain the $5 increase in weekly unemployment benefits that New Yorkers are scheduled to receive next year.
That increase, the first since 2000, will raise the maximum weekly benefit in the state to $410. But it still will be at least $180 lower than the maximum benefit in Connecticut or New Jersey.
Ms. Cozart’s last role was as Aunt Gert in an Off Broadway revival of “Lost in Yonkers,” and she had hoped to find another acting job. But with a baby to feed and clothe and a husband whose job does not provide health insurance, she said she had begun considering office jobs.
“I would much rather have a job that paid well and provided health benefits than be sort of scrimping and saving,” said Ms. Cozart, 42. Referring to the cut in her weekly benefits, she said: “$40 a week adds up. It just made me see red, made me really angry.”
For Patricia Torres, 29, the cut will just be the latest indignity that has followed the loss of her job selling wireless phone service in Downtown Brooklyn in June. Ms. Torres, who said she earned $60,000 a year before she was dismissed, said she had to move out of a Manhattan apartment she shared with a roommate and back in with her grandmother and ailing grandfather.
She said she ran through her savings in the first few months of unemployment and has defaulted on the student loans she took out to study fashion design and marketing. She has no health insurance because the cost to continue coverage provided by her former employer was $800 a month.
Without insurance, she said, she could no longer afford to see her regular doctors or buy all the medicines they have prescribed. Instead, she visits a city-financed clinic at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, she said.
Most of the jobs she finds in her searches offer low pay and meager benefits, if any, she said.
“My résumé is pretty strong, which is why I get the interviews,” Ms. Torres said. “But they don’t want to pay me anything. They want me to work for minimum wage, which is less than I get from unemployment” — though by a narrower margin than before this week.
“I’ve worked every single day since I was 17 years old,” she said. “For the first time, I need help and they’re taking it away.”
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11) New Tool for Police Officers: Records at Their Fingertips
By WENDY RUDERMAN
As the officers walked up to the entrance of a Harlem housing project, a loose knot of people out front scattered into the damp, dark night and a few lingerers cast cold stares at the officers. One of the officers reached into his pocket and pulled out the newest tool in the Police Department’s crime-fighting arsenal: a smartphone.
Officer Tom Donaldson typed in the building’s street address, and with a few taps of the screen, an astounding array of information bloomed in his palm.
The officers suddenly had access to the names of every resident with an open warrant, arrest record or previous police summons; each apartment with a prior domestic incident report; all residents with orders of protection against them; registered gun owners; and the arrest photographs of every parolee in the building. The officers could even find every video surveillance camera, whether mounted at the corner deli or on housing property, that was directed at the building.
“You can see that in this one 14-story building there are thousands and thousands of records,” Officer Donaldson said while canvassing the Lincoln Houses on Park Avenue during a 6 p.m.-to-2:30 a.m. tour starting on Wednesday night.
“If I see that in the last month, there have been six arrests on the seventh floor for drug trafficking, maybe I want to hang out on the seventh floor for a while,” he said.
The Police Department has distributed about 400 dedicated Android smartphones to its officers, part of a pilot program begun quietly last summer. The phones, which cannot make or receive calls, enable officers on foot patrol, for the first time, to look up a person’s criminal history and verify their identification by quickly gaining access to computerized arrest files, police photographs, and state Department of Motor Vehicles databases.
The technology offers extraordinary levels of detail about an individual, including whether the person has ever been “a passenger in a motor vehicle accident,” a victim of a crime or in one instance, a drug suspect who has been known by the police to hide crack cocaine “in his left sock,” according to Officer Donaldson.
“I tell them, ‘I’m going to see your picture,’ ” the officer said. “They don’t realize we have this technology. They can’t tell me a lie because I know everything.”
The phone application is significantly different from the computers currently installed in roughly 2,500 patrol cars. With the laptops, the Internet connection can be slow and spotty in some of areas of the city, and officers have to log in to separate databases with multiple passwords to retrieve information.
“With one entry point, you can get to a lot of different databases — quickly,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in an interview on Wednesday.
Without the phone, officers who stop a person for a violation, for example, can sometimes get bare-bones information by radioing in a name to a police dispatcher, police said.
“Our dispatcher will tell us if they have a warrant or not but it’s a simple yes or no answer,” said Officer Donaldson, who is assigned to the Housing Bureau. “I don’t know if the guy is wanted for murder or for not paying a parking summons. We rarely know. Now we know.”
The phone is particularly helpful when officers respond to a call of a domestic dispute. It allows officers to know how many times police have been previously summoned to the residence, providing details on those incidents. Typically, officers do not have this information, Commissioner Kelly said.
Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said though the new phone technology held “enormous promise to improve policing and public safety,” she had concerns about “whether it will become a vehicle to round up the usual suspects, to harass people” based on information in the police databases.
On a cold, rainy February night, Officer Donaldson said, he along with Capt. Jerry O’Sullivan and another officer, noticed a car, its engine idling, parked on a sidewalk in front of a Harlem housing project. A woman was in the driver’s seat. She had no identification, but said that she had a driver’s license, and gave a name and date of birth.
“There was no license with that name,” Captain O’Sullivan recalled. “We could tell that she wasn’t giving us the right information.”
The officers ran the car’s license plate number through the phone and learned that the registered owner was wanted by the police, suspected of being involved in a scheme targeting men who solicited prostitutes over the Internet to come to their homes. The car owner was suspected of accompanying two women to the victim’s home, where they would rob him at knife point, according to the criminal complaint.
The woman in the car was one of the suspects, the captain said.
“Ordinarily, as a police officer, what would you do if you were out there late at night, in the cold and the rain, and somebody was being evasive with us? We wouldn’t have any answers,” Captain O’Sullivan said. “Here, we had a phone.”
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12) Rights Groups, in Letter to Obama, Question Legality and Secrecy of Drone Killings
By SCOTT SHANE
In a letter sent to President Obama this week, the nation’s leading human rights organizations questioned the legal basis for targeted killing and called for an end to the secrecy surrounding the use of drones.
The “statement of shared concern” said the administration should “publicly disclose key targeted killing standards and criteria; ensure that U.S. lethal force operations abroad comply with international law; enable meaningful Congressional oversight and judicial review; and ensure effective investigations, tracking and response to civilian harm.”
The nine-page letter, signed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, the Open Society Foundations and several other groups, is the most significant critique to date by advocacy groups of what has become the centerpiece of the United States’ counterterrorism efforts.
While not directly calling the strikes illegal under international law, the letter lists what it calls troubling reports of the criteria used by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command to select targets and assess results. The reported policies raise “serious questions about whether the U.S. is operating in accordance with international law,” the letter says. It is also signed by the Center for Civilians in Conflict and units of the New York University and Columbia Law Schools.
The letter comes as American strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and the example the United States has set for the world, are drawing intense scrutiny. United Nations human rights investigators are reviewing the American record, and Congress has shown a new willingness to discuss the classified program in public, with a House subcommittee hearing on the constitutional and counterterrorism implications of targeted killing set for April 23. That hearing was postponed for a week in an effort to persuade the administration to send an official to testify, a committee aide said.
Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the administration was “committed to institutionalizing and explaining to the Congress and the public as much as possible about our drone policies, including the process for making strike decisions.” She added: “Our approach is marked by scrupulous adherence to the rule of law.”
By the count of the New America Foundation, a research group that tries to track targeted killing, the United States has carried out 422 strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, 373 of them since Mr. Obama took office in 2009, in addition to a handful in Somalia. The foundation estimates the number of deaths resulting from the strikes to be between 2,426 and 3,969, of which about 10 percent were of civilians and nearly as many of which were identified as “unknown.” An overwhelming majority of the strikes have been carried out by unmanned drone aircraft, though cruise missiles, fighter jets and helicopter gunships have also been used.
Agreeing to the degree of openness sought by the human rights groups would mean a sea change for the Obama administration. Though officials have given a series of careful speeches on the administration’s legal reasoning, the Justice Department’s classified legal opinions on the subject have been shared only recently, even with the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, and the government has asserted in battling Freedom of Information Act lawsuits that the Pakistan strikes are too politically delicate even to be officially acknowledged.
Gabor Rona, the international legal director of Human Rights First, said that the letter to Mr. Obama reflected increasing concern that government secrecy has hidden grave legal and practical problems with the strikes.
“The more the administration is rightly forced to disclose about who it is killing and why,” he said, “the more obvious it becomes that the practice is growing, is illegal in its scope, is causing large-scale civilian casualties and is a slow-moving train wreck with serious blowback consequences to U.S. national security.”
In pushing for greater candor, both the human rights groups and Congress are responding to Mr. Obama’s own stated goal. In his State of the Union address in January, the president said: “In our democracy, no one should just take my word that we’re doing things the right way. So, in the months ahead, I will continue to engage with Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.”
No action has followed so far. In announcing his plans for a Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Richard J. Durbin, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, noted that Mr. Obama “has made it clear he wants to work with Congress to establish ‘a legal architecture’ for drone strikes to prevent abuses.” Mr. Durbin said the hearing would “begin this important constitutional debate.”
The Obama administration has been asked to provide a witness to discuss its position on the drone strikes, but the administration has so far not agreed to provide one, according to the committee’s staff. Similarly, efforts on Thursday by Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois, to get John O. Brennan, formerly the president’s counterterrorism adviser and now the C.I.A. director, to discuss strike policies during a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee went nowhere.
“I would say right now that I am at the helm of the C.I.A. and will carry out policy guidance as directed by the administration,” Mr. Brennan said.
Ms. Schakowsky was prompted to question Mr. Brennan in part by an article this week by McClatchy News Service reporting that it had obtained classified government documents showing that the drone strikes had killed hundreds of low-level suspected militants whose identities were not known. The article suggested that the documents undercut assertions by Mr. Obama and his aides.
“There are a lot of things that are printed in the press that are inaccurate, in my mind, and misrepresent the facts,” Mr. Brennan said. When Ms. Schakowsky pressed the point, he said, “I’m not going to engage in any type of discussion on that here today, congresswoman.”
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13) Mounting Tensions Escalate Into Violence During Raid at Guantánamo Prison
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
WASHINGTON — Weeks of mounting tensions between the military and detainees at the wartime prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, escalated into violence on Saturday during a raid in which guards forced prisoners living in communal housing to move to individual cells.
“Some detainees resisted with improvised weapons, and in response, four less-than-lethal rounds were fired,” the military said in a statement. “There were no serious injuries to guards or detainees.”
Capt. Robert Durand, a military spokesman at the base, said the improvised weapons included “batons and broomsticks.” Another military official said that at least one detainee had been hit by a rubber bullet, but that there were no further details about any minor injuries or how the prisoners had resisted.
The raid came shortly after a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross completed a three-week visit to examine the prisoners and study the circumstances of a hunger strike that has been roiling the camp for weeks. The Red Cross visit concluded on Friday, and most of the delegation left that same day, though a few flew out Saturday morning, said Simon Schorno, a Red Cross spokesman.
Mr. Schorno declined to comment on the raid, saying that no one from the Red Cross delegation had witnessed it. But he did say that the Red Cross believed the hunger strike was the result of how legal uncertainty has affected their mental and emotional health. Most of the detainees have been held without trial for more than a decade, and the outward flow of detainees has essentially ceased amid Congressional restrictions on further transfers.
“The I.C.R.C. continues to follow the current tensions and the hunger strike at Guantánamo very closely and with concern,” he said. “If necessary, an I.C.R.C. team will, in coming days, return to Guantánamo to assess the situation of the detainees on hunger strike in view of this latest development.”
As of Friday, the military said, 43 of the 166 detainees at the prison were deemed to be participating in the hunger strike; lawyers for the prisoners contend that the majority of the inmate population is participating.
The military has not allowed reporters to visit the prison for several weeks.
A military news release said the commander of the prison task force, Rear Adm. John W. Smith Jr., ordered the raid at 5:10 a.m. on Saturday “to ensure the health and safety” of detainees because prisoners in the communal areas, where guards rarely enter, had covered surveillance cameras, glass partitions and windows, restricting the ability of the guard force to observe them.
It added that “medical personnel conducted individual assessments of each detainee. The ongoing hunger strike necessitated these medical assessments.”
However, a government official briefed on the action said that the raid began significantly earlier in the morning than the news release said, and that it took longer for guards to regain control of the camp than planned. The official also said the prisoners started covering the cameras and windows several months ago.
Detainee lawyers and military officials also disagree about the catalyst for the hunger strike. The lawyers say their clients told them that the guard force had recently become stricter about living conditions and had conducted a search for contraband in early February that involved looking through prisoners’ Korans, which they considered to be desecration.
The military acknowledged that it conducted that search but said it did so under longstanding procedures, whereby a translator — who is Muslim — handles the Islamic book, not the guards. Military spokesmen have accused the detainees of manufacturing claims of Koran abuse and orchestrating the hunger strike to win attention from the news media.
Carlos Warner, a federal public defender in Ohio who represents several Guantánamo detainees, criticized the guards’ action on Saturday.
“This is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing,” he said. “As of last week, the strike would end if they allowed the men to surrender the Koran. Instead, the military is escalating the conflict.”
Several weeks ago, Captain Durand, the prison spokesman, said in an interview that the military would not accept the detainees’ offer to take away their Korans instead of periodically searching them.
“The hunger strikers have created an unfortunate situation with no clear path to resolution,” he said at the time.
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14) Gitmo Is Killing Me
By SAMIR NAJI al HASAN MOQBEL
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba
ONE man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago.
I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity.
I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.
I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here. Years ago the military said I was a “guard” for Osama bin Laden, but this was nonsense, like something out of the American movies I used to watch. They don’t even seem to believe it anymore. But they don’t seem to care how long I sit here, either.
When I was at home in Yemen, in 2000, a childhood friend told me that in Afghanistan I could do better than the $50 a month I earned in a factory, and support my family. I’d never really traveled, and knew nothing about Afghanistan, but I gave it a try.
I was wrong to trust him. There was no work. I wanted to leave, but had no money to fly home. After the American invasion in 2001, I fled to Pakistan like everyone else. The Pakistanis arrested me when I asked to see someone from the Yemeni Embassy. I was then sent to Kandahar, and put on the first plane to Gitmo.
Last month, on March 15, I was sick in the prison hospital and refused to be fed. A team from the E.R.F. (Extreme Reaction Force), a squad of eight military police officers in riot gear, burst in. They tied my hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary. I was not even permitted to pray.
I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone.
I am still being force-fed. Two times a day they tie me to a chair in my cell. My arms, legs and head are strapped down. I never know when they will come. Sometimes they come during the night, as late as 11 p.m., when I’m sleeping.
There are so many of us on hunger strike now that there aren’t enough qualified medical staff members to carry out the force-feedings; nothing is happening at regular intervals. They are feeding people around the clock just to keep up.
During one force-feeding the nurse pushed the tube about 18 inches into my stomach, hurting me more than usual, because she was doing things so hastily. I called the interpreter to ask the doctor if the procedure was being done correctly or not.
It was so painful that I begged them to stop feeding me. The nurse refused to stop feeding me. As they were finishing, some of the “food” spilled on my clothes. I asked them to change my clothes, but the guard refused to allow me to hold on to this last shred of my dignity.
When they come to force me into the chair, if I refuse to be tied up, they call the E.R.F. team. So I have a choice. Either I can exercise my right to protest my detention, and be beaten up, or I can submit to painful force-feeding.
The only reason I am still here is that President Obama refuses to send any detainees back to Yemen. This makes no sense. I am a human being, not a passport, and I deserve to be treated like one.
I do not want to die here, but until President Obama and Yemen’s president do something, that is what I risk every day.
Where is my government? I will submit to any “security measures” they want in order to go home, even though they are totally unnecessary.
I will agree to whatever it takes in order to be free. I am now 35. All I want is to see my family again and to start a family of my own.
The situation is desperate now. All of the detainees here are suffering deeply. At least 40 people here are on a hunger strike. People are fainting with exhaustion every day. I have vomited blood.
And there is no end in sight to our imprisonment. Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice we have made.
I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late.
Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay since 2002, told this story, through an Arabic interpreter, to his lawyers at the legal charity Reprieve in an unclassified telephone call.
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15)Hedge Fund Titans’ Pay Stretching to 10 Figures
By JULIE CRESWELL
In recent years, the criticism about giant Wall Street hedge funds — those that command billions of investor dollars from pension funds, endowments and the wealthy — is that they’re simply too big to beat the market.
But a number of the hedge fund leaders who had giant paydays last year bucked the trend. They earned their riches the old-fashioned way: by posting big returns on their investments.
Certainly, plenty of hedge fund titans took home billion-dollar paydays last year despite the fact they lagged the big gains in stocks. For example, Steven A. Cohen, who controls $15 billion in assets at SAC Capital Advisors, which has been under intense scrutiny by government investigators, fell just short of the market’s returns for 2012. His take-home pay, however, was about $1.4 billion, earning him the No. 3 spot among the best-paid hedge fund managers.
The Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, the colorful manager whose “Principles” manifesto discusses the virtues of hyenas’ killing wildebeests, also could not quite beat the market. Yet he ended the year $1.7 billion richer, according to the annual ranking released on Monday by Institutional Investor’s Alpha.
But for several on the richest list, good stock bets meant good paydays.
David Tepper, who oversees $15 billion of assets at Appaloosa Management, turned a modest loss in 2011 into a 30 percent gain after fees last year thanks, in part, to big bets on Citigroup, Apple and US Airways. Gains in those stocks helped Mr. Tepper, who charges his investors a 2 percent management fee and takes 20 to 30 percent of any profits, earn a $2.2 billion payday. That was enough to place him No. 1 in the rankings by Institutional Investor’s Alpha. A spokesman for Mr. Tepper declined to comment.
Strong returns also helped Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors, which oversees $7.3 billion in assets. He doubled his money in his fund’s holdings of Sprint Nextel and took profits from Apple when he sold the fund’s entire 266,000-share stake in the fourth quarter. Those moves drove his firm to a 28 percent gain in 2012, giving Mr. Cooperman a payday of $560 million, according to the annual ranking. In an e-mail, Mr. Cooperman declined to comment.
“The managers who did well last year were those who focused on fundamental primary equity research,” said Carter Furr, a portfolio manager at Signature, an independent family office in Norfolk, Va., with $2.8 billion in assets.
“The guys who were paying attention to the macro picture, got caught up in the headlines and fear-mongering, lost sight of the fact we were having a stealth recovery in the United States,” he said.
Pay for the top 25 earners came in at $14.14 billion last year. As high as that is, it was the lowest amount earned since the financial crisis in 2008, but comparable to the $14.4 billion the top 25 earned last year, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha.
Swashbuckling bets and robust returns are exactly what investors are hoping for — and paying for in outsize fees — when they allocate money to hedge funds. But far too often in recent years, investors have paid hefty fees for lackluster returns.
And last year was no different.
For the fourth consecutive year, most hedge funds failed to beat the market. The average hedge fund gained 6.4 percent last year, according to a composite index that tracks 2,200 portfolios compiled by Hedge Fund Research.
By comparison, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index climbed 16 percent when factoring in dividends. In 2011, the average hedge fund lost more than 5 percent, versus a 2 percent gain for the S.& P. 500.
Despite those returns, investors put nearly $25 billion into hedge funds, bringing the industry’s total assets managed at $2.6 trillion, according to the eVestment research firm. That is in part because of investors looking for better performance when bonds are paying low returns and the stock market remains volatile.
“The low fixed-income yields have become a major obstacle for pensions and others to achieve the rates of return that they need,” said Kenneth Heinz, the president of Hedge Fund Research.
Even weak returns at the large firms can produce huge paydays. These firms oversee giant pools of money, typically charging a management fee and taking a big slice of any profits. Institutional Investor’s Alpha arrives at its figures by estimating money managers’ portions of fees along with the value of the personal stakes in their funds.
Even though the funds run inside Mr. Dalio’s Bridgewater returned 1 percent to 12 percent, Mr. Dalio made much of his billion-dollar payday from the management fees the firm charges on the $83 billion in hedge fund assets it oversees, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha. A Bridgewater spokesman declined to comment.
Likewise, SAC Capital Advisors, based in Stamford, Conn., where several current or former employees have been charged or implicated in a long-running government insider-trading investigation, had a below-market return of 13 percent last year.
But Mr. Cohen still pocketed $1.4 billion because his firm, which oversees $15 billion, charges investors a 50 percent performance fee. Mr. Cohen has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but SAC agreed to pay $616 million to settle two insider-trading charges. A spokesman for SAC declined to comment.
James Simons, the former chairman of the Stony Brook University math department, earned a big paycheck for a mixed performance at the company he founded. The funds housed inside the computer-driven trading operation of his Renaissance Technologies produced returns on funds ranging from a loss of 3.1 percent to a gain of more than 27 percent.
Even though Mr. Simons, 74, hasn’t handled the day-to-day management of the firm for three years, he landed in the fourth spot on the list with a payday of $1.1 billion last year, partly on the large sum of money he has personally invested in the firm’s funds. A spokesman for Renaissance declined to comment.
Many others on this year’s list posted double-digit, market-beating returns.
Kenneth C. Griffin, the head of Citadel, based in Chicago, whose two biggest funds nearly collapsed in the market rout of 2008 when they slumped 55 percent, has had two strong years. The firm’s funds had a 2011 gain of 20 percent, followed by a robust 25.5 percent return last year.
It took Citadel nearly three years for its funds to climb to levels where they could once again charge their investors the lucrative performance fees.
For Mr. Griffin, who started trading convertible bonds in his dorm room at Harvard, his 2012 payday totaled $900 million, making him No. 5 on the list. A spokeswoman for Citadel declined to comment.
Another star manager betting big with a highly concentrated fund was Edward S. Lampert. His ESL Investments moved its headquarters from Greenwich, Conn., to Bay Harbour, Fla., last year.
The firm’s returns jumped 20 percent thanks to big gains in Sears, which accounts for about 40 percent of the fund, and Auto-
Nation, which made up about a third. Another winning play for Mr. Lampert was an investment the Gap, which soared 67 percent. A spokesman for Mr. Lampert declined to comment.
The Gap and other consumer retail stocks also paid off for Stephen Mandel Jr. Some of the funds run inside his Lone Pine Capital, which oversees about $22 billion in assets. The firm collects a 1 percent management fee and a performance fee of 13 to 20 percent, giving Mr. Mandel a payday of $580 million last year, according to the rankings. A spokesman for Mr. Mandel declined to comment.
Rounding off this year’s top 10 earners on the Institutional Investor’s Alpha list were two managers who made profitable investments off the beaten track. Bets on residential mortgage-backed securities helped give Oculus — a $9 billion macro fund inside the D. E. Shaw Group, a hedge fund complex built by the computer entrepreneur David Shaw — a return of nearly 21 percent last year, its best performance since 2007. Another Shaw fund had its strongest returns since 2009 with a 15.6 percent gain.
While Mr. Shaw ceded control of the funds’ management several years ago, he still has a large amount of money invested in the firm, which helped him to earn $530 million last year. E-mail messages to D. E. Shaw brought no response.
The highest-paid hedge fund managers all took home considerably more than the top-paid chief executives of public companies. At No. 10 on the list of hedge fund managers was Daniel S. Loeb, the activist manager of Third Point, who took on Yahoo, eventually earning board seats, and made big, winning bets on Greek sovereign debt last year. With a 20 to 21 percent gain in the funds he oversees, Mr. Loeb walked away $380 million richer last year. A Third Point spokesman declined to comment.
But a number of the hedge fund leaders who had giant paydays last year bucked the trend. They earned their riches the old-fashioned way: by posting big returns on their investments.
Certainly, plenty of hedge fund titans took home billion-dollar paydays last year despite the fact they lagged the big gains in stocks. For example, Steven A. Cohen, who controls $15 billion in assets at SAC Capital Advisors, which has been under intense scrutiny by government investigators, fell just short of the market’s returns for 2012. His take-home pay, however, was about $1.4 billion, earning him the No. 3 spot among the best-paid hedge fund managers.
The Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, the colorful manager whose “Principles” manifesto discusses the virtues of hyenas’ killing wildebeests, also could not quite beat the market. Yet he ended the year $1.7 billion richer, according to the annual ranking released on Monday by Institutional Investor’s Alpha.
But for several on the richest list, good stock bets meant good paydays.
David Tepper, who oversees $15 billion of assets at Appaloosa Management, turned a modest loss in 2011 into a 30 percent gain after fees last year thanks, in part, to big bets on Citigroup, Apple and US Airways. Gains in those stocks helped Mr. Tepper, who charges his investors a 2 percent management fee and takes 20 to 30 percent of any profits, earn a $2.2 billion payday. That was enough to place him No. 1 in the rankings by Institutional Investor’s Alpha. A spokesman for Mr. Tepper declined to comment.
Strong returns also helped Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors, which oversees $7.3 billion in assets. He doubled his money in his fund’s holdings of Sprint Nextel and took profits from Apple when he sold the fund’s entire 266,000-share stake in the fourth quarter. Those moves drove his firm to a 28 percent gain in 2012, giving Mr. Cooperman a payday of $560 million, according to the annual ranking. In an e-mail, Mr. Cooperman declined to comment.
“The managers who did well last year were those who focused on fundamental primary equity research,” said Carter Furr, a portfolio manager at Signature, an independent family office in Norfolk, Va., with $2.8 billion in assets.
“The guys who were paying attention to the macro picture, got caught up in the headlines and fear-mongering, lost sight of the fact we were having a stealth recovery in the United States,” he said.
Pay for the top 25 earners came in at $14.14 billion last year. As high as that is, it was the lowest amount earned since the financial crisis in 2008, but comparable to the $14.4 billion the top 25 earned last year, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha.
Swashbuckling bets and robust returns are exactly what investors are hoping for — and paying for in outsize fees — when they allocate money to hedge funds. But far too often in recent years, investors have paid hefty fees for lackluster returns.
And last year was no different.
For the fourth consecutive year, most hedge funds failed to beat the market. The average hedge fund gained 6.4 percent last year, according to a composite index that tracks 2,200 portfolios compiled by Hedge Fund Research.
By comparison, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index climbed 16 percent when factoring in dividends. In 2011, the average hedge fund lost more than 5 percent, versus a 2 percent gain for the S.& P. 500.
Despite those returns, investors put nearly $25 billion into hedge funds, bringing the industry’s total assets managed at $2.6 trillion, according to the eVestment research firm. That is in part because of investors looking for better performance when bonds are paying low returns and the stock market remains volatile.
“The low fixed-income yields have become a major obstacle for pensions and others to achieve the rates of return that they need,” said Kenneth Heinz, the president of Hedge Fund Research.
Even weak returns at the large firms can produce huge paydays. These firms oversee giant pools of money, typically charging a management fee and taking a big slice of any profits. Institutional Investor’s Alpha arrives at its figures by estimating money managers’ portions of fees along with the value of the personal stakes in their funds.
Even though the funds run inside Mr. Dalio’s Bridgewater returned 1 percent to 12 percent, Mr. Dalio made much of his billion-dollar payday from the management fees the firm charges on the $83 billion in hedge fund assets it oversees, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha. A Bridgewater spokesman declined to comment.
Likewise, SAC Capital Advisors, based in Stamford, Conn., where several current or former employees have been charged or implicated in a long-running government insider-trading investigation, had a below-market return of 13 percent last year.
But Mr. Cohen still pocketed $1.4 billion because his firm, which oversees $15 billion, charges investors a 50 percent performance fee. Mr. Cohen has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but SAC agreed to pay $616 million to settle two insider-trading charges. A spokesman for SAC declined to comment.
James Simons, the former chairman of the Stony Brook University math department, earned a big paycheck for a mixed performance at the company he founded. The funds housed inside the computer-driven trading operation of his Renaissance Technologies produced returns on funds ranging from a loss of 3.1 percent to a gain of more than 27 percent.
Even though Mr. Simons, 74, hasn’t handled the day-to-day management of the firm for three years, he landed in the fourth spot on the list with a payday of $1.1 billion last year, partly on the large sum of money he has personally invested in the firm’s funds. A spokesman for Renaissance declined to comment.
Many others on this year’s list posted double-digit, market-beating returns.
Kenneth C. Griffin, the head of Citadel, based in Chicago, whose two biggest funds nearly collapsed in the market rout of 2008 when they slumped 55 percent, has had two strong years. The firm’s funds had a 2011 gain of 20 percent, followed by a robust 25.5 percent return last year.
It took Citadel nearly three years for its funds to climb to levels where they could once again charge their investors the lucrative performance fees.
For Mr. Griffin, who started trading convertible bonds in his dorm room at Harvard, his 2012 payday totaled $900 million, making him No. 5 on the list. A spokeswoman for Citadel declined to comment.
Another star manager betting big with a highly concentrated fund was Edward S. Lampert. His ESL Investments moved its headquarters from Greenwich, Conn., to Bay Harbour, Fla., last year.
The firm’s returns jumped 20 percent thanks to big gains in Sears, which accounts for about 40 percent of the fund, and Auto-
Nation, which made up about a third. Another winning play for Mr. Lampert was an investment the Gap, which soared 67 percent. A spokesman for Mr. Lampert declined to comment.
The Gap and other consumer retail stocks also paid off for Stephen Mandel Jr. Some of the funds run inside his Lone Pine Capital, which oversees about $22 billion in assets. The firm collects a 1 percent management fee and a performance fee of 13 to 20 percent, giving Mr. Mandel a payday of $580 million last year, according to the rankings. A spokesman for Mr. Mandel declined to comment.
Rounding off this year’s top 10 earners on the Institutional Investor’s Alpha list were two managers who made profitable investments off the beaten track. Bets on residential mortgage-backed securities helped give Oculus — a $9 billion macro fund inside the D. E. Shaw Group, a hedge fund complex built by the computer entrepreneur David Shaw — a return of nearly 21 percent last year, its best performance since 2007. Another Shaw fund had its strongest returns since 2009 with a 15.6 percent gain.
While Mr. Shaw ceded control of the funds’ management several years ago, he still has a large amount of money invested in the firm, which helped him to earn $530 million last year. E-mail messages to D. E. Shaw brought no response.
The highest-paid hedge fund managers all took home considerably more than the top-paid chief executives of public companies. At No. 10 on the list of hedge fund managers was Daniel S. Loeb, the activist manager of Third Point, who took on Yahoo, eventually earning board seats, and made big, winning bets on Greek sovereign debt last year. With a 20 to 21 percent gain in the funds he oversees, Mr. Loeb walked away $380 million richer last year. A Third Point spokesman declined to comment.
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16) Small Leak Is Discovered at Plant in Fukushima
By MARTIN FACKLER
April 14, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/world/asia/new-leak-found-at-fukushima-nuclear-plant.html?ref=world
TOKYO — Efforts to remove highly contaminated water from a leaking underground storage pool at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant were delayed on Sunday when the plant’s operator said it had found yet another leak, this time in the pipes that would be used to move the water to above-ground storage containers.
The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, said it has found that almost six gallons of water leaked from a junction in the pipes that are currently used to move water between other storage pools. The company is struggling to find space to store the huge amounts of toxic water that are created by makeshift efforts to cool reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which was damaged two years ago by a large earthquake and tsunami.
Since then, the operator has been essentially pouring water onto the melted reactors and nearby fuel storage pools to keep them from overheating again.
While small, the newest leak will force Tepco to postpone removal of water from the No. 2 storage pool for several days while the company repairs the faulty pipe junction. The pool has spilled some 32,000 gallons of radioactive water, and appears to still be leaking.
Some of that water may have been trapped in the multiple layers of lining in the pool, but an undetermined amount reached the soil below, Tepco said.
The newest leak adds to a series of mishaps that have raised questions about Tepco’s ability to safely manage the stricken plant. That included the temporary loss last month of power for the vital cooling systems after a rat apparently short-circuited part of the electrical system.
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Subject: Jeremy Scahill's new documentary: "Dirty Wars."
Hi folks,
Jeremy Scahill has come out with a new documentary on the U.S. covert wars in Africa and the Middle East, called "Dirty Wars." Here's an interview with him and the film's director, Richard Rowley, on "Democracy Now":
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/22/dirty_wars_jeremy_scahill_and_rick.
Be warned; this can be very emotional, what we are doing around the world causes so much suffering. I know you all know this already, but hearing more details still brings up all those intense feelings.
Thanks to all of you for all of the work you are doing to resist these horrors.
in peace,
Mike Wong
--
Check out our blog: http://www.inthemindfield.com/! (Click on my name to see all my articles.)
"It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism."
People of the world, unite!
www.kiilunyasha.blogspot.com
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UNAC ENDORSES NEW ANTI-DRONE NETWORK AND APRIL DAYS OF ACTION
Thirty representatives from many groups involved in anti-drone actions, met in New York on December 15, 2012 and established a coordinating body to be known as the Network to Stop Drone Surveillance and Warfare (NSDSW).
The group endorsed this draft statement of purpose:
“Horrified by the facts of the era of drone warfare and surveillance technology, we declare our commitment to establishing an ongoing network of groups and organizations. The Network to Stop Drone Surveillance and Warfare seeks to initiate and coordinate events and actions that will raise a united and spirited voice for justice and peace, and to stop weaponized drones and related technology applications. These activities are aimed at highlighting the illegality, immorality, and unconstitutional nature of using drones to spy on and/or kill human beings.”
Anti-drone website: Droneswatch.org. For more information and resources, and to join the Network, contact Nick Mottern - nickmottern@earthlink.net.
The group supported the following actions:
April 16-18 – Drone Research/Training. Actions/teach-ins, etc. at colleges & universities that do drone research or pilot training. Demand an end to research and training related to drone warfare. Coordinator: Marge Van Cleef – mvc@igc.org.
April 27-28 – Drone Bases. Organize protests at bases in region. Hancock Reaper drone base protest organizers calling for large demonstrations there. Coordinator: Dave Soumis – davidso1@charter.net.
C. Drone Warfare War Crimes Tribunal – Explore holding tribunal in September, possibly with victims testifying.
D. Forums/workshops on impact of US intervention/drone attacks in other countries. Organize tours of U.S.-based speakers or people from countries under attack who can analyze and report on internal politics and social movements in countries like Pakistan & Afghanistan and other countries under attack.
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Rally for Bradley Manning.
Join us at Fort Meade on June 1, 2013.
By the Bradley Manning Support Network, February 25, 2013.
http://www.bradleymanning.org/activism/rally-for-bradley-manning-at-fort-meade-june-1-2013
• 1pm Gather (Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland)
• 2pm March
• 3pm Rally and Speak Out
Sponsored by the Bradley Manning Support Network and the national Veterans for Peace organization, with the help of Courage to Resist, and many other groups.
After more than three years of imprisonment, including nine months of torture, Nobel Peace
Prize nominee Bradley Manning’s trial is finally scheduled to begin June 3, 2013, at Fort Meade,
Maryland. The outcome of this trial will determine whether a conscience-driven 25-year-
old WikiLeaks whistle-blower spends the rest of his life in prison. Bradley believed that the
American people have a right to know the truth about what our government does around the
world in our name. We the People must send a message to the military prosecuting authority,
and President Obama, that Bradley Manning is a patriot and heroic truth-teller.
June 1st is the International Day of Action to Support Bradley Manning. Join us at Fort Meade on
the eve of Bradley’s court martial. Solidarity actions are welcome at bases, recruiting centers and US
embassies worldwide. We ask that Veterans for Peace join us in cosponsoring these historic events.
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Monday, June 3, 2013
ATTEND THE BEGINNING OF US v. BRADLEY MANNING
8:30 am, enter Fort Meade at Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland
9:00 am scheduled daily start of hearings at Magistrate Court
4432 Llewellyn Avenue, Fort Meade, MD. It is 2 miles from the Main Gate.
The court martial is expected to last 6-12 weeks. Supporters are encouraged to attend as many days of
this trial as they are able.
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Parking for Saturday, June 1, 2013. We hope to come to an understanding with local
authorities regarding the best place for supporters to park for the Saturday rally. Parking is
available about one mile south near Blue Water Blvd (Weis Market) and US 175. We’ll try to
help shuttle folks as needed.
Portable toilets are expected to be available.
Join us in the courtroom for the trial beginning June 3, 2013. Drive (or taxi) to the Fort Meade Visitor
Control Center at the Fort Meade Main Gate (all the other gates are for military ID holders only), Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland. We suggest arriving when the visitor center opens at 7:30am, and certainly before 8:15am. The proceedings are scheduled to begin at 9am daily. The multiple layers of security take time to navigate, and procedures often change from day to day. Each person will need a valid state or federal photo ID such as a driver’s license, state photo ID card, or passport. Foreign passports are accepted. Anyone driving on to Fort Meade will be required to submit their driver’s license, vehicle registration, and printed (not digital) proof of insurance. Your vehicle will be subject to search, and you may be required to cover over political bumper stickers on your vehicle. Consider walking on base if there are any questions at all regarding your vehicle and paperwork.
The proceedings will be held at the Magistrate Court, 4432 Llewellyn Ave, Fort Meade, MD
20755 (this is one mile from the Visitor Center). Electronic devices, including cell phones,
computers, cameras, are not allowed in the courtroom, and should be left in your vehicle.
There are no pre-registration requirements for the public to attend the proceedings. However,
those wishing to attend as credentialed media should contact the US Army Military District of
Washington Public Affairs Office at 202-685-4645.
GETTING THERE
The Fort Meade Main Gate is less than 10 miles south of the Baltimore-Washington DC
International (BWI) airport. It is located between Washington DC and Baltimore MD.
Driving:
From Washington, DC, take MD-295 N towards BALTIMORE to US 175 EAST, then follow
175 EAST until you come to Reece Road. From Baltimore, MD, take MD-295 S towards
WASHINGTON to US 175 EAST, then take 175 EAST until you come to Reece Road.
Buses:
We hope to charter buses for supporters from both downtown Washington DC and Baltimore,
Maryland.
There is regional bus service from BWI Airport to the Arundel Mills Shopping Center (Bus 017).
Then take the CTC K to the Main Gate. For a Google Maps public transit view of this option:
http://alturl.com/3ehis
Train:
Note that the nearby Odenton MARC train station serves commuter trains only and does not
run on the weekend. Amtrak does not stop at this station.
WHERE TO STAY
There are many hotels serving this area just south of the BWI Airport. The closest of these are
5-6 miles from the Ft. Meade Main Gate. One option is Aloft Arundel Mills, 7520 Teague Rd,
Hanover, MD, 21076 (866-539-0036), $80-$100 night. A hotels.com search of the area turns up
rooms nearby starting at $60 a night. The only lodging really close to the Ft. Meade Main Gate
is the White Gables Motel; however, for a number of reasons, we strongly suggest avoiding it.
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Wealth Inequality in America
[This is a must see to believe video...bw]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QPKKQnijnsM
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Read the transcription of hero Bradley Manning's 35-page statement explaining why he leaked "state secrets" to WikiLeaks.
March 1, 2013
Alternet
The statement was read by Pfc. Bradley Manning at a providence inquiry for his formal plea of guilty to one specification as charged and nine specifications for lesser included offenses. He pled not guilty to 12 other specifications. This rush transcript was taken by journalist Alexa O’Brien at Thursday’s pretrial hearing and first appeared on Salon.com.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/bradley-mannings-surprising-statement-court-details-why-he-made-his-historic?akid=10129.229473.UZvQfK&rd=1&src=newsletter802922&t=7
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Please forward widely
Lynne Stewart Emergency Alert!
Dear Friends,
Below you will find today's critical communication from longtime Lynne Stewart supporter, Betty Davis. The information concerns Lynne's health and her legal status.
As you will read below Lynne's breast cancer has returned. Lynne was successfully treated, we had hoped, two years ago and given a clean bill of health, as much as such diagnoses can be counted on. But a single spot was found on one lung a few months ago. Now another has appeared on the other lung and others in her upper back, all associated with her original breast cancer.
Her husband Ralph Poynter told me today that Lynne's condition was still very treatable and that a cure was not at all to be ruled out and especially so if prison officials allowed her the expert treatment afforded her previously in a prominent New York City hospital. Lynne's request to be moved to that facility was denied. She is to be treated in a prison related facility, but fortunately under the direction of and using the protocols of her doctor/daughter, who is expected to be with Lynne at any moment.
We are still hopeful for a positive outcome, even under the most difficult conditions.
Meanwhile, Lynne's appeal preparations for a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court are now in progress, with Lynne having assembled a first rate team of attorneys including members of the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild.
Lynne campaigned for Mumia's freedom for the several years that she was free on bail and traveling the country in her own defense. She was present at Mumia's court hearing in Philadelphia and appeared on Democracy Now!, with Mumia phoning in in her defense.
I urge you to carefully read the material below and lend a hand. The stakes are high. We will continue to demand the finest medical treatment for Lynne and, of course, continue to campaign for her freedom and immediate release.
Lynne, a prominent civil rights attorney of 30 years, was the victim of a government-orchestrated 2005 frame-up trial that was riddled with violations of fundamental legal principles. She was convicted on five counts of conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism. This was based on the government's charge that her public issuance a press release on behalf of her client, the "blind sheik" Omar Abdel Rachman, an Egyptian cleric who was similarly framed up and imprisoned for life on "terrorism" charges, was illegal.
Ironically, Rachman's freedom is today being demanded by Egypt's new President Mohamed Morsi.
Lynne, 72, was originally convicted and sentenced to 28 months in prison, but this "light" sentence was contested by the reactionary U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and her sentence was outrageously increased to 10 years, by the compliant Federal District Court trial judge, John Koeltl.
I urge you to write to Lynne and convey your love and solidarity. She toured the Bay Area several times in previous years, always speaking to admiring and stunned audiences, who realized that Lynne's case was central to everyone's civil liberties. Lynne's conviction was a message to all attorneys that defense of the unpopular, defense of democratic rights and especially defense of Muslim victims of government persecution, was dangerous. Lynne's conviction and extended sentence served to massively chill the defense bar.
Lynne's freedom and life itself in large part depends on our solidarity.
Write Lynne at:
Lynne Stewart 53504-054
Federal Medical Center Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, Texas 76127
Send your generous contribution payable to:
Lynne Stewart Organization
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
In solidarity,
Jeff Mackler, West Coast Coordinator
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
510-268-9429
jmackler@lmi.net
URGENT MESSAGE OF APPEAL FOR LYNNE STEWART- THE PEOPLE'S ATTORNEY
Greetings
It is urgent that you listen to the audio email below. It is the latest update from Ralph Poynter, Mya Shone & Ralph Schonmann about LYNNE STEWARTS fate in prison.
Lynne Stewart's breast cancer is spreading to her lungs and shoulders. She needs immediate treatment NOW. The prison authorities have known
this since September.
WE ARE ALSO IN THE PROCESS OF LAUNCHING HER APPEAL TO THE SUPREME COURT. DEADLINE FEBRUARY 21, 2013.
All we are asking you to:
Listen to the audio below and update yourself on the facts. Check out the website as well.
You don't have to write the prison authorities because THEY READ EVERYTHING WE SEND AND TELL HER SO.
Send this email out to all your listservs, especially to LAWYERS because we are asking ALL ATTORNEYS SUPPORT HER CERT , (A REQUEST FOR THE SUPREME COURT TO HEAR HER CASE.)
When it comes to the oppressed, there is no such thing as law or justice. THEREFORE, the movement determines the argument before the courts, not this myth of justice before the law. We need attorneys who understand this and understand that LYNNE STEWART was one of the very few attorneys who understood this. She never had her political prisoners surrender their right to self defense or self determination. In her trial when questioned she still defended this human right and her right to give her clients the best defense possible. When she was resentenced from 28 months to ten years, one of the reasons was that SHE "SHOWED NO REMORSE." SHE DOES NOT FEEL REMORSE FOR DEFENDING THE BILL OF RIGHTS, therefore, we should defend her and all POLITICAL PRISONERS.
BETTY DAVIS
NEW ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT
Write a letter of support to Lynne Stewart- 53504 - 054, FEDERAL MEDICAL CNTR, CARSWELL, P.O. BOX 27137, FT. WORTH, TEXAS 76127.
-----Original Message---
But, to listen to the report, go to:
128 kbps version (hi fi):
http://www.takebackwbai.org/lynnestewart/2013-01-16.LynneStewartReport-128.mp3
32 kbps version (lo fi):
http://www.takebackwbai.org/lynnestewart/2013-01-16.LynneStewartReport-32.mp3
Please listen from the links here in this email. Let me know what you think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Abdel-Rahman
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PLEASE SIGN THIS STATEMENT, GET YOUR ORGANIZATION TO SIGN, AND FORWARD WIDELY!
TO SIGN ON, CONTACT Sundus Seif, brooklyncollegesjp@gmail.com
Statement of Support for Brooklyn College Students for Justice in Palestine:
We Condemn Attacks Against Advocates for BDS and Palestinian Rights!
We the undersigned deplore the efforts of politicians and others to bully student activists and faculty and to smear supporters of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel as anti-Semites.
In recent days, opponents of an event on BDS to be held on campus February 7th have attacked the organizers and scheduled speakers, internationally renowned philosopher Judith Butler and Palestinian human rights activist Omar Barghouti, as well as the political science department and university administration for co-sponsoring the event. This is just the latest in a series of incidents involving attempts to silence criticism of Israel at Brooklyn College.
Opponents of the February 7 event have made deeply offensive and inflammatory accusations against supporters of BDS, with State Assemblyman Alan Maisel going so far as to warn of “the potential for a second Holocaust here.” Other prominent critics include lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who has openly called for the United States and Israel to use torture, and State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a follower of the late Meir Kahane, an Israeli-American rabbi whose racist Kach movement has been outlawed by the US and Israel as a terrorist organization for advocating the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and the occupied territories and for carrying out violent terrorist attacks against Palestinians and others.
It is outrageous and perverse to conflate BDS proponents and our stance in support of equal rights and freedom for Palestinians with anti-Semitism and Nazism. Contrary to the claims of these detractors, the BDS movement is an inclusive, nonviolent, civil society-led campaign whose goal is to pressure Israel into respecting Palestinian human rights and abiding by international law, in the absence of action on the part of the US government and international community to do so. It is comprised of people of all faiths and backgrounds, including many Israeli and American Jews. Leaders of the BDS movement have always rejected and condemned any and all forms of racism and bigotry, including anti-Semitism. As SJP-BC’s mission statement says, we “reject any form of hatred or discrimination against any religious or ethnic group.”
As supporters of Palestinian rights and of academic freedom and free speech on campus, we commend Brooklyn College President Karen Gould for showing leadership and not succumbing to pressure from bullies like Dershowitz and Hikind, who seek to suppress criticism of Israel by smearing advocates of Palestinian freedom and equality as bigots.
For nearly 65 years, Palestinians have been dispossessed, colonized, and denied the most basic of human rights and freedoms by Israel. For more than 45 years, they have endured a brutal and illegal Israeli military occupation that becomes more entrenched each day. More than 11 million Palestinian refugees, the survivors and descendants of the approximately 750,000 Palestinians who were ethnically-cleansed during Israel’s creation in 1948, are prevented from exercising their internationally-recognized right of return to the land and homes they were expelled from simply because they are not Jewish, while those Palestinians who remained inside Israel after 1948, who make up about 20% of the population today, face widespread institutionalized discrimination and are treated as second- or third-class citizens. As the international community looks on and does nothing to hold Israel accountable for its actions, global civil society is taking the lead with BDS.
In light of the attacks, we pledge our continued support to SJP’s efforts to educate the public about Israel’s grave and systematic abuses of Palestinian human rights and the racist, apartheid regime Israel has instituted in the territories it controls between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
For more information, visit SJP Brooklyn College's website at www.brooklynsjp.com or email us at brooklyncollegesjp@gmail.com.
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Emergency Appeal—Hunger strike in second month—solidarity funds needed for fired Colombian GM workers
Many of you have heard and met Jorge Parra, president of the Association of Injured Workers and Ex-workers of GM Colomotores (Asotrecol). Asotrecol represents the workers who were fired after sustaining work-related injuries and illnesses at GM’s plant in Bogota, Colombia. They are still fighting for the right to return to jobs at GM that they can do, or receive compensation. The occupation outside the U.S. embassy in Bogota has been maintained for over 500 days. Jorge, who is here in Detroit, is in the second month of his third hunger strike to pressure GM to negotiate with Asotrecol. Thus far GM has not met with him. The situation is urgent.
When Jorge and his coworkers were fired it left them with no source of income; their injuries prevent them from getting other jobs. For this struggle to continue funds are critically needed—for Jorge’s living expenses here and for the families of the workers who are living in tents outside the embassy. Their children, one of whom has a life threatening case of cerebral palsy, are in urgent need of medical care.
We cannot let these courageous autoworkers or their families down.
To make a donation, please send a check to ”Wellspring UCC” with “Colombia relief” on the memo line. Their mailing address is: Wellspring UCC, Box 508, Centreville VA 20122. To make a donation online through paypal visit: www.wellspringucc.org (be sure to write “Colombia relief” on the message subject line).
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Petition to US White House and State Department: Condemn Israeli Aggression in Gaza
Please spread the word far and wide about this petition.
https://www.change.org/petitions/us-white-house-and-state-department-condemn-israeli-agression-in-gaza
Please invite all of your facebook friends to the "event" to sign the petition.
https://www.facebook.com/events/510061649012070/?context=create
If you are on twitter, sign the petition there as well and pass it around.
http://twitition.com/xpj6d/
In solidarity and peace,
BlackCommentator.com
African Americans for Justice in the Middle East and North Africa
Statement Regarding the Aggression Against Gaza
African Americans for Justice in the Middle East and North Africa (AAJMENA) strongly condemns Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza. The arguments offered by the Israeli government for its attack on Gaza are nakedly cynical in both form and content. That a truce had been negotiated, with the assistance of the Egyptian government, between Israel and Hamas only to be broken by the Israeli assassination of Hamas military commander Ahmad Jabari clearly indicates that the Netanyahu government is not interested in peace. Israel is responsible for the escalating violence and for this epic breach of human rights.
This crisis underscores a stunning power imbalance. Nuclear-armed Israel, by far the most powerful military force in the Middle East (and among the mightiest in the world), has unleashed its immense war making capacity on Gaza’s captive population, mobilizing warships and tanks and launching more than 1,000 F-16 airstrikes since the attack began. The use of such weapons on civilians is a flagrant violation of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act.
The aggression against Gaza must be understood as the latest act in the decades-long oppression of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli government. Blockaded Gaza has been plunged into misery by the Israeli-U.S. effort to thwart the democratic will of the Palestinian people as demonstrated in their 2006 legislative elections. When a coup was attempted against Hamas—and failed—the Israelis sealed Gaza, spinning events to make it appear that those not interested in peace were the Palestinians. As a result, Gaza is the largest open-air prison in the world, with 1.5 million people locked into a roughly 140-square-mile strip of land. This latest humanitarian crisis has caused the disproportionate death and suffering of Palestinians, but casualties on both sides will be the consequence of Israeli aggression.
Rather than taking a stand against Israeli’s onslaught and issuing an unambiguous demand for an end to the bloodshed, the Obama administration has condemned alleged Palestinian terrorism, repeating the dishonest line that this violent attack is merely in defense of Israel (a position reinforced by the one-sided coverage of the corporate news media). This represents a massive failure on the administration’s part. For all Obama’s denunciation of the Assad regime in Syria, it appears that his administration regards the outright slaughter of civilians in Palestine as acceptable. It is crucial that we recognize the extent of U.S. complicity in the bloodshed; our tax dollars ($8.5 million a day) enable Israeli militarism at a time when those funds are desperately needed to fill gaps in services and infrastructure back home.
As African Americans and people of African descent in the U.S. from academia, activism and various social movements, we cannot remain silent. We call upon all people of good will to:
1. Endorse this statement.
2. Communicate with the White House and the U.S. Department of State to request that President Obama demand that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and the IDF cease the bombardment of Gaza and withdraw their armed forces immediately. Insist that the U.S. condition aid to Israel on compliance with U.S. and international law.
3. Contact the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. and demand that Israel withdraw its forces and end the blockade.
4. Send your local media outlet a “letter to the editor” expressing outrage against the provocative and murderous acts of the Israeli government.
5. Join protests against Israeli aggression.
6. Support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (www.bdsmovement.net) and U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (www.usacbi.org), and back the efforts of labor unions and student groups to compel their employers and administrators to divest from companies that do business in Israel.
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An Appeal from Conscientious Objectors in Israel - Resistance to serving in the I.D.F. is growing among Israeli youth.
International Support is important in strengthening and broadening this spirit of defiance:
Conscientious objector Natan Blanc sentenced to prison for the first time for his refusal to join the Israeli Army.
CO Natan Blanc, 19 years old from, Haifa, arrived, Sunday, 19 November, to the Induction Base in Tal-hashomer, where he declared his refusal to serve in the Israeli Army. he was sentenced to 10 days of imprisonment for his refusal, he also received a suspended sentence of 10 days.
In his refusal declaration Blanc wrote:
"I began thinking about refusing to conscripted into the Israeli Army during the “Cast Lead” operation in 2008. The wave of aggressive militarism that swept the country then, the expressions of mutual hatred, and the vacuous talk about stamping out terror and creating a deterrent effect were the primary trigger for my refusal. Today, after four years full of terror, without a political process [towards peace negotiations], and without quiet in Gaza and Sderot, it is clear that the Netanyahu Government, like that of his predecessor Olmert, is not interested in finding a solution to the existing situation, but rather in preserving it. From their point of view, there is nothing wrong with our initiating a “Cast Lead 2″ operation every three or four years (and then 3, 4,5 and 6): we will talk of deterrence, we will kill some terrorist, we will lose some civilians on both sides, and we will prepare the ground for a new generation full of hatred on both sides. As representatives of the people, members of the cabinet have no duty to present their vision for the futures of the country, and they can continue with this bloody cycle, with no end in sight. But we, as citizens and human beings, have a moral duty to refuse to participate in this cynical game."
You can read the full declaration here.
His prison address is:
Natan Blanc
Military ID 7571369
Military Prison No. 6
Military Postal Code 01860, IDF
Israel
Fax: ++972-4-9540580
Since the prison authorities often block mail from reaching imprisoned objectors, we also recommend you to send them your letters of support and encouragement via e-mail to: messages2prison@newprofile.org (hitting “reply all” to this message will send the message to the same address), and they will be printed out and delivered during visits.
Recommended Action
First of all, please circulate this message and the information contained in it as widely as possible, not only through e-mail, but also on websites, social networks, conventional media, by word of mouth, etc.
Other recommendations for action:
1. Sending Letters of Support
Please send Natan letters of support to the prison address above and via e-mail to: messages2prison@newprofile.org and Nathanbl@walla.com.
2. Letters to Authorities
It is recommended to send letters of protest on the objectors’ behalf, preferably by fax, to:
Mr. Ehud Barak,
Minister of Defence,
Ministry of Defence,
Hakirya,
Tel-Aviv 61909,
Israel.
E-mail: s...@mod.gov.il or pniot@mod.gov.il
Tel.: ++972-3-6975220
Fax: ++972-3-6962757
Copies of your letters can also be sent to the commander of the military prison at:
Commander of Military Prison No. 6,
Military Prison No. 6
Military Postal Code 01860, IDF
Israel
Fax: ++972-4-9540580
Another useful address for sending copies would be the Military Attorney General:
Denny Efroni,
Chief Military Attorney
Military postal code 9605, IDF
Israel
Fax: ++972-3-569-45-26
It would be especially useful to send your appeals to the Commander of the Induction Base in Tel-HaShomer. It is this officer that ultimately decides whether an objector is to be exempted from military service or sent to another round in prison, and it is the same officer who is ultimately in charge of the military Conscience Committee:
Gil Ben Shaul,
Commander of Induction Base,
Meitav, Tel-HaShomer
Military Postal Code 02718, IDF
Israel.
Fax: ++972-3-737-60-52
For those of you who live outside Israel, it would be very effective to send protests to your local Israeli embassy. You can find the address of your local embassy on the web.
Here is a generic sample letter, which you can use in sending appeals to authorities on the prisoners’ behalf. Feel free to modify this letter or write your own:
Dear Sir/Madam,
It has come to my attention that Natan Blanc (military ID 7571369), a conscientious objector to military service, has been imprisoned for the second time for his refusal to become part of the Israeli army, and is held in Military Prison no. 6 near Atlit.
The imprisonment of conscientious objectors such as Blanc is a violation of international law, of basic human rights and of plain morals.
I therefore call for the immediate and unconditional release from prison of Natan Blanc, without threat of further imprisonment in the future, and urge you and the system you are heading to respect the dignity and person of conscientious objectors, indeed of all persons, in the future.
Sincerely,
3. Letters to media in Israel and in other countries
Writing op-ed pieces and letters to editors of media in Israel and other countries could also be quite useful in indirectly but powerfully pressuring the military authorities to let go of the objectors and in bringing their plight and their cause to public attention.
Here are some contact details for the main media outlets in Israel:
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Contact the Obama campaign now to voice your support for Bradley!
The Obama campaign keeps track of how many calls and e-mails they get about each issue.
Contact President Obama's team now and tell them "Obama must uphold his promise to protect whistle-blowers and free Bradley Manning!"
Call: 312-698-3670
E-mail: http://barackobama.force.com/questions
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You Have the Right to Remain Silent: NLG Guide to Law Enforcement Encounters
Posted 1 day ago on July 27, 2012, 10:28 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Occupy Wall Street is a nonviolent movement for social and economic justice, but in recent days disturbing reports have emerged of Occupy-affiliated activists being targeted by US law enforcement, including agents from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. To help ensure Occupiers and allied activists know their rights when encountering law enforcement, we are publishing in full the National Lawyers Guild's booklet: You Have the Right to Remain Silent. The NLG provides invaluable support to the Occupy movement and other activists – please click here to support the NLG.
We strongly encourage all Occupiers to read and share the information provided below. We also recommend you enter the NLG's national hotline number (888-654-3265) into your cellphone (if you have one) and keep a copy handy. This information is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact the NLG or a criminal defense attorney immediately if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.
You Have the Right to Remain Silent: A Know Your Rights Guide for Law Enforcement Encounters
What Rights Do I Have?
Whether or not you’re a citizen, you have rights under the United States Constitution. The Fifth Amendment gives every person the right to remain silent: not to answer questions asked by a police officer or government agent. The Fourth Amendment restricts the government’s power to enter and search your home or workplace, although there are many exceptions and new laws have expanded the government’s power to conduct surveillance. The First Amendment protects your right to speak freely and to advocate for social change. However, if you are a non-citizen, the Department of Homeland Security may target you based on your political activities.
Standing Up For Free Speech
The government’s crusade against politically-active individuals is intended to disrupt and suppress the exercise of time-honored free speech activities, such as boycotts, protests, grassroots organizing and solidarity work. Remember that you have the right to stand up to the intimidation tactics of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials who, with political motives, are targeting organizing and free speech activities. Informed resistance to these tactics and steadfast defense of your and others’ rights can bring positive results. Each person who takes a courageous stand makes future resistance to government oppression easier for all. The National Lawyers Guild has a long tradition of standing up to government repression. The organization itself was labeled a “subversive” group during the McCarthy Era and was subject to FBI surveillance and infiltration for many years. Guild attorneys have defended FBI-targeted members of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement. The NLG exposed FBI surveillance, infiltration and disruption tactics that were detailed during the 1975-76 COINTELPRO hearings. In 1989 the NLG prevailed in a lawsuit on behalf of several activist organizations, including the Guild, that forced the FBI to expose the extent to which it had been spying on activist movements. Under the settlement, the FBI turned over roughly 400,000 pages of its files on the Guild, which are now available at the Tamiment Library at New York University.
What if FBI Agents or Police Contact Me?
What if an agent or police officer comes to the door?
Do not invite the agents or police into your home. Do not answer any questions. Tell the agent that you do not wish to talk with him or her. You can state that your lawyer will contact them on your behalf. You can do this by stepping outside and pulling the door behind you so that the interior of your home or office is not visible, getting their contact information or business cards and then returning inside. They should cease questioning after this. If the agent or officer gives a reason for contacting you, take notes and give the information to your attorney. Anything you say, no matter how seemingly harmless or insignificant, may be used against you or others in the future. Lying to or misleading a federal agent is a crime. The more you speak, the more opportunity for federal law enforcement to find something you said (even if not intentionally) false and assert that you lied to a federal officer.
Do I have to answer questions?
You have the constitutional right to remain silent. It is not a crime to refuse to answer questions. You do not have to talk to anyone, even if you have been arrested or are in jail. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to consult an attorney. Once you make the request to speak to a lawyer, do not say anything else. The Supreme Court recently ruled that answering law enforcement questions may be taken as a waiver of your right to remain silent, so it is important that you assert your rights and maintain them. Only a judge can order you to answer questions. There is one exception: some states have “stop and identify” statutes which require you to provide identity information or your name if you have been detained on reasonable suspicion that you may have committed a crime. A lawyer in your state can advise you of the status of these requirements where you reside.
Do I have to give my name?
As above, in some states you can be detained or arrested for merely refusing to give your name. And in any state, police do not always follow the law, and refusing to give your name may make them suspicious or more hostile and lead to your arrest, even without just cause, so use your judgment. Giving a false name could in some circumstances be a crime.
Do I need a lawyer?
You have the right to talk to a lawyer before you decide whether to answer questions from law enforcement. It is a good idea to talk to a lawyer if you are considering answering any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer present during any interview. The lawyer’s job is to protect your rights. Once you tell the agent that you want to talk to a lawyer, he or she should stop trying to question you and should make any further contact through your lawyer. If you do not have a lawyer, you can still tell the officer you want to speak to one before answering questions. Remember to get the name, agency and telephone number of any investigator who visits you, and give that information to your lawyer. The government does not have to provide you with a free lawyer unless you are charged with a crime, but the NLG or another organization may be able to help you find a lawyer for free or at a reduced rate.
If I refuse to answer questions or say I want a lawyer, won’t it seem like I have something to hide?
Anything you say to law enforcement can be used against you and others. You can never tell how a seemingly harmless bit of information might be used or manipulated to hurt you or someone else. That is why the right not to talk is a fundamental right under the Constitution. Keep in mind that although law enforcement agents are allowed to lie to you, lying to a government agent is a crime. Remaining silent is not. The safest things to say are “I am going to remain silent,” “I want to speak to my lawyer,” and “I do not consent to a search.” It is a common practice for law enforcement agents to try to get you to waive your rights by telling you that if you have nothing to hide you would talk or that talking would “just clear things up.” The fact is, if they are questioning you, they are looking to incriminate you or someone you may know, or they are engaged in political intelligence gathering. You should feel comfortable standing firm in protection and defense of your rights and refusing to answer questions.
Can agents search my home or office?
You do not have to let police or agents into your home or office unless they have and produce a valid search warrant. A search warrant is a written court order that allows the police to conduct a specified search. Interfering with a warrantless search probably will not stop it and you might get arrested. But you should say “I do not consent to a search,” and call a criminal defense lawyer or the NLG. You should be aware that a roommate or guest can legally consent to a search of your house if the police believe that person has the authority to give consent, and your employer can consent to a search of your workspace without your permission.
What if agents have a search warrant?
If you are present when agents come for the search, you can ask to see the warrant. The warrant must specify in detail the places to be searched and the people or things to be taken away. Tell the agents you do not consent to the search so that they cannot go beyond what the warrant authorizes. Ask if you are allowed to watch the search; if you are allowed to, you should. Take notes, including names, badge numbers, what agency each officer is from, where they searched and what they took. If others are present, have them act as witnesses to watch carefully what is happening. If the agents ask you to give them documents, your computer, or anything else, look to see if the item is listed in the warrant. If it is not, do not consent to them taking it without talking to a lawyer. You do not have to answer questions. Talk to a lawyer first. (Note: If agents present an arrest warrant, they may only perform a cursory visual search of the premises to see if the person named in the arrest warrant is present.)
Do I have to answer questions if I have been arrested?
No. If you are arrested, you do not have to answer any questions. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to assert your right to remain silent. Ask for a lawyer right away. Do not say anything else. Repeat to every officer who tries to talk to or question you that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer. You should always talk to a lawyer before you decide to answer any questions.
What if I speak to government agents anyway?
Even if you have already answered some questions, you can refuse to answer other questions until you have a lawyer. If you find yourself talking, stop. Assert that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer.
What if the police stop me on the street?
Ask if you are free to go. If the answer is yes, consider just walking away. If the police say you are not under arrest, but are not free to go, then you are being detained. The police can pat down the outside of your clothing if they have reason to suspect you might be armed and dangerous. If they search any more than this, say clearly, “I do not consent to a search.” They may keep searching anyway. If this happens, do not resist because you can be charged with assault or resisting arrest. You do not have to answer any questions. You do not have to open bags or any closed container. Tell the officers you do not consent to a search of your bags or other property.
What if police or agents stop me in my car?
Keep your hands where the police can see them. If you are driving a vehicle, you must show your license, registration and, in some states, proof of insurance. You do not have to consent to a search. But the police may have legal grounds to search your car anyway. Clearly state that you do not consent. Officers may separate passengers and drivers from each other to question them, but no one has to answer any questions.
What if I am treated badly by the police or the FBI?
Write down the officer’s badge number, name or other identifying information. You have a right to ask the officer for this information. Try to find witnesses and their names and phone numbers. If you are injured, seek medical attention and take pictures of the injuries as soon as you can. Call a lawyer as soon as possible.
What if the police or FBI threaten me with a grand jury subpoena if I don’t answer their questions?
A grand jury subpoena is a written order for you to go to court and testify about information you may have. It is common for the FBI to threaten you with a subpoena to get you to talk to them. If they are going to subpoena you, they will do so anyway. You should not volunteer to speak just because you are threatened with a subpoena. You should consult a lawyer.
What if I receive a grand jury subpoena?
Grand jury proceedings are not the same as testifying at an open court trial. You are not allowed to have a lawyer present (although one may wait in the hallway and you may ask to consult with him or her after each question) and you may be asked to answer questions about your activities and associations. Because of the witness’s limited rights in this situation, the government has frequently used grand jury subpoenas to gather information about activists and political organizations. It is common for the FBI to threaten activists with a subpoena in order to elicit information about their political views and activities and those of their associates. There are legal grounds for stopping (“quashing”) subpoenas, and receiving one does not necessarily mean that you are suspected of a crime. If you do receive a subpoena, call the NLG National Hotline at 888-NLG-ECOL (888-654-3265) or call a criminal defense attorney immediately.
The government regularly uses grand jury subpoena power to investigate and seek evidence related to politically-active individuals and social movements. This practice is aimed at prosecuting activists and, through intimidation and disruption, discouraging continued activism.
Federal grand jury subpoenas are served in person. If you receive one, it is critically important that you retain the services of an attorney, preferably one who understands your goals and, if applicable, understands the nature of your political work, and has experience with these issues. Most lawyers are trained to provide the best legal defense for their client, often at the expense of others. Beware lawyers who summarily advise you to cooperate with grand juries, testify against friends, or cut off contact with your friends and political activists. Cooperation usually leads to others being subpoenaed and investigated. You also run the risk of being charged with perjury, a felony, should you omit any pertinent information or should there be inconsistencies in your testimony.
Frequently prosecutors will offer “use immunity,” meaning that the prosecutor is prohibited from using your testimony or any leads from it to bring charges against you. If a subsequent prosecution is brought, the prosecutor bears the burden of proving that all of its evidence was obtained independent of the immunized testimony. You should be aware, however, that they will use anything you say to manipulate associates into sharing more information about you by suggesting that you have betrayed confidences.
In front of a grand jury you can “take the Fifth” (exercise your right to remain silent). However, the prosecutor may impose immunity on you, which strips you of Fifth Amendment protection and subjects you to the possibility of being cited for contempt and jailed if you refuse to answer further. In front of a grand jury you have no Sixth Amendment right to counsel, although you can consult with a lawyer outside the grand jury room after each question.
What if I don’t cooperate with the grand jury?
If you receive a grand jury subpoena and elect to not cooperate, you may be held in civil contempt. There is a chance that you may be jailed or imprisoned for the length of the grand jury in an effort to coerce you to cooperate. Regular grand juries sit for a basic term of 18 months, which can be extended up to a total of 24 months. It is lawful to hold you in order to coerce your cooperation, but unlawful to hold you as a means of punishment. In rare instances you may face criminal contempt charges.
What If I Am Not a Citizen and the DHS Contacts Me?
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and has been renamed and reorganized into: 1. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS); 2. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP); and 3. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All three bureaus will be referred to as DHS for the purposes of this pamphlet.
■ Assert your rights. If you do not demand your rights or if you sign papers waiving your rights, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may deport you before you see a lawyer or an immigration judge. Never sign anything without reading, understanding and knowing the consequences of signing it.
■ Talk to a lawyer. If possible, carry with you the name and telephone number of an immigration lawyer who will take your calls. The immigration laws are hard to understand and there have been many recent changes. DHS will not explain your options to you. As soon as you encounter a DHS agent, call your attorney. If you can’t do it right away, keep trying. Always talk to an immigration lawyer before leaving the U.S. Even some legal permanent residents can be barred from returning.
Based on today’s laws, regulations and DHS guidelines, non-citizens usually have the following rights, no matter what their immigration status. This information may change, so it is important to contact a lawyer. The following rights apply to non-citizens who are inside the U.S. Non-citizens at the border who are trying to enter the U.S. do not have all the same rights.
Do I have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any DHS questions or signing any DHS papers?
Yes. You have the right to call a lawyer or your family if you are detained, and you have the right to be visited by a lawyer in detention. You have the right to have your attorney with you at any hearing before an immigration judge. You do not have the right to a government-appointed attorney for immigration proceedings, but if you have been arrested, immigration officials must show you a list of free or low cost legal service providers.
Should I carry my green card or other immigration papers with me?
If you have documents authorizing you to stay in the U.S., you must carry them with you. Presenting false or expired papers to DHS may lead to deportation or criminal prosecution. An unexpired green card, I-94, Employment Authorization Card, Border Crossing Card or other papers that prove you are in legal status will satisfy this requirement. If you do not carry these papers with you, you could be charged with a crime. Always keep a copy of your immigration papers with a trusted family member or friend who can fax them to you, if need be. Check with your immigration lawyer about your specific case.
Am I required to talk to government officers about my immigration history?
If you are undocumented, out of status, a legal permanent resident (green card holder), or a citizen, you do not have to answer any questions about your immigration history. (You may want to consider giving your name; see above for more information about this.) If you are not in any of these categories, and you are being questioned by a DHS or FBI agent, then you may create problems with your immigration status if you refuse to provide information requested by the agent. If you have a lawyer, you can tell the agent that your lawyer will answer questions on your behalf. If answering questions could lead the agent to information that connects you with criminal activity, you should consider refusing to talk to the agent at all.
If I am arrested for immigration violations, do I have the right to a hearing before an immigration judge to defend myself against deportation charges?
Yes. In most cases only an immigration judge can order you deported. But if you waive your rights or take “voluntary departure,” agreeing to leave the country, you could be deported without a hearing. If you have criminal convictions, were arrested at the border, came to the U.S. through the visa waiver program or have been ordered deported in the past, you could be deported without a hearing. Contact a lawyer immediately to see if there is any relief for you.
Can I call my consulate if I am arrested?
Yes. Non-citizens arrested in the U.S. have the right to call their consulate or to have the police tell the consulate of your arrest. The police must let your consulate visit or speak with you if consular officials decide to do so. Your consulate might help you find a lawyer or offer other help. You also have the right to refuse help from your consulate.
What happens if I give up my right to a hearing or leave the U.S. before the hearing is over?
You could lose your eligibility for certain immigration benefits, and you could be barred from returning to the U.S. for a number of years. You should always talk to an immigration lawyer before you decide to give up your right to a hearing.
What should I do if I want to contact DHS?
Always talk to a lawyer before contacting DHS, even on the phone. Many DHS officers view “enforcement” as their primary job and will not explain all of your options to you.
What Are My Rights at Airports?
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is illegal for law enforcement to perform any stops, searches, detentions or removals based solely on your race, national origin, religion, sex or ethnicity.
If I am entering the U.S. with valid travel papers can a U.S. customs agent stop and search me?
Yes. Customs agents have the right to stop, detain and search every person and item.
Can my bags or I be searched after going through metal detectors with no problem or after security sees that my bags do not contain a weapon?
Yes. Even if the initial screen of your bags reveals nothing suspicious, the screeners have the authority to conduct a further search of you or your bags.
If I am on an airplane, can an airline employee interrogate me or ask me to get off the plane?
The pilot of an airplane has the right to refuse to fly a passenger if he or she believes the passenger is a threat to the safety of the flight. The pilot’s decision must be reasonable and based on observations of you, not stereotypes.
What If I Am Under 18?
Do I have to answer questions?
No. Minors too have the right to remain silent. You cannot be arrested for refusing to talk to the police, probation officers, or school officials, except in some states you may have to give your name if you have been detained.
What if I am detained?
If you are detained at a community detention facility or Juvenile Hall, you normally must be released to a parent or guardian. If charges are filed against you, in most states you are entitled to counsel (just like an adult) at no cost.
Do I have the right to express political views at school?
Public school students generally have a First Amendment right to politically organize at school by passing out leaflets, holding meetings, etc., as long as those activities are not disruptive and do not violate legitimate school rules. You may not be singled out based on your politics, ethnicity or religion.
Can my backpack or locker be searched?
School officials can search students’ backpacks and lockers without a warrant if they reasonably suspect that you are involved in criminal activity or carrying drugs or weapons. Do not consent to the police or school officials searching your property, but do not physically resist or you may face criminal charges.
Disclaimer
This booklet is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact an attorney if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.
NLG National Hotline for Activists Contacted by the FBI
888-NLG-ECOL
(888-654-3265)
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Letter from Lynne Stewart
9/27/12 9:15 am
Once again the 2d Circuit has turned me down–this time the whole Court, en
banc. Not surprising, I was well aware that we were dealing with the Company
Store and could expect very little. Nonetheless as a favorite line from Edna
St Vincent Millay:
“Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the Quick mind beholds at every turn”
I never lose hope that my case will be resolved as being too obvious a
contradiction to justice for them to sustain !
Our next stop is the petition for Certiorari to the Supreme Court, asking them
to hear us. We will be trying to impress them with the significant
wrongfulness of the whole prosecution itself and of the errors at trial and
later at sentencing. Our due date is some time in late December and we are
hoping to have Amicus support, so if you are part of a group that supports
lawyers or civil rights etc. please suggest it as early as possible. Contact
Jill Shellow, my lawyer by email, for further explanations.
Looking forward to my 73 birthday on October 8, the one bright ray of light is
that my husband, Ralph Poynter, will be speaking at the National Lawyers Guild
convention held in Pasadena, California from the 10th to 14th of October.
Addressing the Plenary he will speak of my case and that of other political
prisoners locked away for decades by a vindictive government. I wish I could
attend and meet and greet and hug and laugh with my lawyer buddies of many
years and many conventions but I will have to be content with my usual micro-
management style from afar — Texas, that is !!!
Meanwhile, I continue to tough it out. I am feeling quite well after the
surgery, an infection and then a severe iron deficiency — my usual vim and
vigor are back and ready for the fight with the Supreme Court who thinks
corporations are people—what will they make of me, a real person ??!! (smile)
Join me. Bring me Home, where I can join in some of the epic battles now at
hand.
Posted in BEHIND BARS, FROM LYNNE | No Comments »
“Court Denies Lynne Stewart Re-hearing” by Jeff Mackler
September 26th, 2012
Dear Friends of Lynne Stewart,
On Monday, September 24, 2012 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
rejected Lynne’s appeal for a re-hearing before the entire court. Her original
conviction was upheld in 2009 by a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit.
The Second Circuit’s opinion was not unexpected. This was the same court that
earlier pressed Federal District Court John Koeltl to re-consider his original
28-month sentence and instead sentence Lynne to ten years.
Lynne, a leading civil rights attorney for 30 years, was convicted in 2005 on
frame-up charges of conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism. Her crime? She
issued a press release on behalf of her client, the “blind sheik” Omar Abdel
Rachman, a leading Egyptian Islamic cleric, was also a victim of the U.S. “war
on terror” when a government-instigated frame-up trial convicted him of
conspiracy to destroy New York buildings. Typical of “conspiracy” convictions,
no evidence of wrongdoing was presented at his trial.
Rachman, a leading critic of the Hosni Mubarack dictatorship in Egypt, and now
serving a life sentence in Rochester, Minnesota, was the subject of national
attention a few months ago when Egypt’s new president, Mohammad Morsi,
embarrassed the Obama administration by demanding his release.
Lynne’s attorneys explained on Monday that “The clock now starts running on
our Petition for Certiorari to the Supreme Court. We have 90 days to get it
filed (with the possibility of a 30-day extension).”
Lynne is presently imprisoned at FMC Carswell outside of Fort Worth, Texas.
She has successfully recovered from a difficult surgery that was spitefully
delayed by prison authorities. For the past 45 days Lynne was denied all
visitors, mail and other basic prison rights on the trumped-up accusation that she violated prison rules in assisting a fellow prisoner certify a legal document.
Her spirits are high and she is now going through a backlog of some 100-plus
letters from friends and supporters.
Here’s a brief summary/timeline of Lynne’s case.
- indicted on April 9, 2002;
- on February 10, 2005, convicted on all counts of conspiracy to aid and
abet terrorism;
- on October, 17, 2006, sentenced to 28 months;
- on November 17, 2009, a US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit three-
judge panel upheld the conviction, shamelessly accusing Lynne of “knowingly
and willfully making false statements,” re-directing her case to District
Court Judge John Koeltl for re-sentencing, instructing him to consider
enhancements for terrorism, perjury, and abuse of her position as a lawyer –
an outrageous mandate intimidating Koeltl to comply.
- on November 19, 2009, Stewart jailed at MCC-NY, 150 Park Row, New York, NY;
andon July 15, 2010, Stewart re-sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for doing
her job honorably, ethically, and admirably with distinction for 30 years.
Disgracefully, Judge Koeltl explained it, saying: .”(C)omments by Stewart in
2006, including a statement in a television interview that she would do ‘it’
again and would not ‘do anything differently’ influenced (the)
decisionŠ.indicat(ing) the original sentence ‘was not sufficient’ to reflect
the goals of sentencing guidelines.”
Forgotten were Koeltl’s October 2006 comments, calling Lynne’s character
“extraordinary,” saying she was “a credit to her profession,” and that a long
imprisonment would be “an unreasonable result,” citing “the somewhat atypical
nature of her case (and) lack of evidence that any victim was harmed.”
He also considered her age (70), health (at times poor), distinguished career
representing society’s disadvantaged and unwanted, and the unlikelihood she’d
commit another “crime.” However, the Second Circuit Appeals Court intimidated
him to comply, his own career perhaps on the line otherwise.
Please write Lynne at:
Lynne Stewart
53504-054
FMC Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Ft. Worth, Texas 76127
In solidarity,
Jeff Mackler, West Coast Coordinator
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
-->
Write to Lynne Stewart Defense Committee at:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information: 718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
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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Free Mumia NOW!
Prisonradio.org
Write to Mumia:
Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Rachel Wolkenstein
August 21, 2011 (917) 689-4009
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ILLEGALLY SENTENCED TO
LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT PAROLE!
FREE MUMIA NOW!
www.FreeMumia.com
http://blacktalkradionetwork.com/profiles/blogs/mumia-is-formally-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-w-out-hearing-he-s
On August 13, 2012, without any notice and in violation of his constitutional rights and state law, Mumia Abu-Jamal was formally sentenced by Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe to life imprisonment without parole. The impact of this illegal sentencing is to prevent a possible challenge to the slow death of life imprisonment. All sentences, including "mandatory" sentences, require a formal proceeding allowing the person to be sentenced the right to be heard and to challenge his sentence.
Mumia confirmed to his son Jamal and to attorney Rachel Wolkenstein during a visit with him on Sunday, August 19, 2012, that he had no prior knowledge of the re-sentencing. The record of this re-sentencing is contained in the official Court of Common Pleas Docket Sheet. In attempting to find out more details, Wolkenstein searched for the court file on August 20. But there is no file containing a record of this sentencing with the Criminal Division Court of Common Pleas Clerk. The information released so far by Elaine Rattliff, Deputy Clerk of Courts is that the sentencing followed a call from the Department of Corrections and further explanation awaits a call back from Court of Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe.
Notably Judge Dembe is same judge who refused in 2001 to consider a legal challenge to "hanging judge" Albert Sabo's self-confessed racism and bias against Mumia during his trial and post-conviction appeals from 1995-1998. Court reporter Terri Mauer-Carter heard Sabo declare before the start of the trial, "I'm going to help them fry the n-----."
For thirty years Mumia was kept in solitary confinement on death row under a death sentence that was illegally and unconstitutionally imposed. Federal district court Judge William Yohn ruled in December 2001 that Judge Albert Sabo incorrectly and unconstitutionally instructed the jury in deciding on life or death. Despite this decision, Mumia was kept on death row, in solitary confinement for the next ten years, while the prosecution pursued two appeals in the Federal Court of Appeals and two attempts at U.S. Supreme Court rulings to uphold the death sentence. All that time, Mumia sat in solitary confinement. According to Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rappatour on Torture, solitary confinement for longer than 15 days is a form of torture! Mumia should be freed from prison, now!
This latest legal outrage comes nine months after the state conceded defeat in obtaining its desired "legal lynching" of Mumia. On December 8, 2011, Philadelphia District Attorney, Seth Williams—with the support of Maureen Faulkner, the Fraternal Order of Police and former District Attorney, Philadelphia Mayor and PA governor, Edward Rendell—announced that they were no longer seeking a death sentence for Mumia. This was their recognition that it was neither legally possible nor politically advantageous to hold a new sentencing hearing.
Mumia's 1982 trial contained violations of every single element of due process and a fair trial. But it began with framing an innocent man. Mumia was framed for a crime he did not commit. His crime in the eyes of the state is that he was and continues to be "the voice of the voiceless," a former spokesman for the Black Panther Party and continuing supporter of the MOVE organization.
In his first phone call from general population on January 28, 2012, Mumia relayed the following message to his wife, Wadiya Jamal: "My dear friends, brothers and sisters – I want to thank you for your real hard work and support. I am no longer on death row, no longer in the hole, I'm in population. This is only Part One and I thank you for the work you've done. But the struggle is for freedom!"
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Police Attack Antiwar Protester
HANDS OFF NATE BUCKLEY!
http://vimeo.com/23300350#at=0
Police Brutality Against Anti War demonstrator Buffalo New York 2011
NFTA Police and anti terror task force assault anti war demonstration in Buffalo.
Nate Buckley maced while in handcuffs. His new trial date is October 16, 2012.
For updates or to donate please go to:
http://natebuckleydefense.wordpress.com/
Sign the petition:
https://www.change.org/petitions/district-attorney-drop-the-charges-against-nate-buckley
Watch a video of the incident:
http://vimeo.com/23300350#at=0
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Sign the petition for the NATO 5!
Drop all charges against the NATO 5 and all anti-NATO protesters!
Protesters are still being held in Cook County Jail in Chicago. Release them all
now!
Sign the Petition Here:http://www.iacenter.org/dropchargesonnatodefendants
The charges against the NATO 5 and the others are false. All these prisoners
urgently need your solidarity. Please sign our petition. Share it with your
family, friends and coworkers. Signing the petition will generate a direct email
to:
Illinois State's Attorney Anita Alvarez
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart
Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, and
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel,
and several other public officials, demanding all charges against the NATO5
be dropped.
Email addresses for the targets
mayor.emanuel@cityofchicago.org
garry.mccarthy@chicagopolice.org
statesattorney@cookcountyil.gov
sheriff.dart@cookcountyil.gov
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
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Tarek Mehanna - another victim of the U.S. War to Terrorize Everyone. He was
targeted because he would not spy on his Muslim community for the FBI. Under the
new NDAA indefinite military detention provision, Tarek is someone who likely
would never come to a trial, although an American citizen. His sentencing is on
April 12. There will be an appeal.
Another right we may kiss goodbye. We should not accept the verdict and continue
to fight for his release, just as we do for hero Bradley Manning, and all the
many others unjustly persecuted by our government until it is the war criminals
on trial, prosecuted by the people, and not the other way around.
Marilyn Levin
Official defense website: http://freetarek.com/
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HANDS OFF IRAN PETITION
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hands-off-iran/?utm_medium=email&utm_sour\
ce=system&utm_campaign=Send%2Bto%2BFriend
(For a complete analysis of the prospects of war, click here)
http://nepajac.org/unaciran.htm
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"A Child's View from Gaza: Palestinian Children's Art and the Fight Against
Censorship" book
https://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=25
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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-herm\
an-wallace
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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
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Write to Bradley
http://bradleymanning.org/donate
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=2071005093\
21891
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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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 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
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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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. 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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NYC RESTAURANT WORKERS DANCE & SING FOR A WAGE HIKE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_s8e1R6rG8&feature=player_embedded
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On Gun Control, Martin Luther King, the Deacons of Defense and the history of Black Liberation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzYKisvBN1o&feature=player_embedded
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Danny Glover Greetings to the Labour Start Global Solidarity Conference
Join Danny Glover in supporting Nissan Mississippi workers' right to have a free and fair union election. Go to: www.labourstart.org/nissan and send a message to Nissan to stop the union busting and DO BETTER. For more information go to: www.DoBetterNissan.org.
Danny Glover, the star of Lethal Weapon and other Hollywood blockbusters, delivered a message to the LabourStart conference which opened yesterday in Sydney, Australia.
I'd like to ask you to take a minute to watch the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nkZ6yi8xzY&feature=youtu.be
Then please sign up to the online campaign, here:
http://www.labourstart.org/nissan
Here's why:
Management at Nissan’s plant in Mississippi is running an aggressive and sophisticated anti-union campaign against its employees who are forming a union to achieve a voice in the workplace.
Nissan is denying these workers a fair, democratic election, and management has sent a clear message to the workforce that considering a union could cost them their job.
Supported by workers, students, community leaders and human rights activists around the world, the United Auto Workers (UAW) have launched a campaign on LabourStart calling on Nissan’s Chief Operating Officer, Toshiyuki Shiga, to intervene to make things right in Mississippi.
Speaking yesterday at the LabourStart conference now taking place in Sydney Jeffrey Moore, one of the Mississippi auto workers, said:
“Nissan workers are seeking union representation because they want fairness and a chance to be heard. They are seeking a voice on the job just like their colleagues in Japan and elsewhere.”
“At Canton Mississippi, Nissan management is making propaganda against the UAW and intimidating workers depriving them from a free choice. This is unacceptable and against freedom of association,” said Jyrki Raina, General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union in support of the workers’ campaign.
“UAW has offered Nissan a positive, collaborative approach, but the US management is refusing partnership despite the fact that most of Nissan's operations in countries such as Mexico, Spain, UK, Russia, Japan, Australia, South Africa and Thailand are unionized and enjoy constructive labour and management relations,” said Raina.
Please spread the word -- let's make sure that Nissan is overwhelmed with messages of support for the workers in Canton, Mississippi. Please forward this message to your fellow union members, your friends and your family.
Thank you.
Eric Lee
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Fukushima Never Again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU-Z4VLDGxU
"Fukushima, Never Again" tells the story of the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns in north east Japan in March of 2011 and exposes the cover-up by Tepco and the Japanese government.
This is the first film that interviews the Mothers Of Fukushima, nuclear power experts and trade unionists who are fighting for justice and the protection of the children and the people of Japan and the world. The residents and citizens were forced to buy their own geiger counters and radiation dosimeters in order to test their communities to find out if they were in danger.
The government said contaminated soil in children's school grounds was safe and then
when the people found out it was contaminated and removed the top soil, the government and TEPCO refused to remove it from the school grounds.
It also relays how the nuclear energy program for "peaceful atoms" was brought to Japan under the auspices of the US military occupation and also the criminal cover-up of the safety dangers of the plant by TEPCO and GE management which built the plant in Fukushima. It also interviews Kei Sugaoka, the GE nulcear plant inspector from the bay area who exposed cover-ups in the safety at the Fukushima plant and was retaliated against by GE. This documentary allows the voices of the people and workers to speak out about the reality of the disaster and what this means not only for the people of Japan but the people of the world as the US government and nuclear industry continue to push for more new plants and government subsidies. This film breaks
the information blockade story line of the corporate media in Japan, the US and around the world that Fukushima is over.
Production Of Labor Video Project
P.O. Box 720027
San Francisco, CA 94172
www.laborvideo.org
lvpsf@laborvideo.org
For information on obtaining the video go to:
www.fukushimaneveragain.com
(415)282-1908
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Labor Beat: SOJO - The Fight for Social Justice High School
["This is not an education plan, it's a business plan." quote from the video...bw]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEkn1wmxCcE&feature=youtu.be
The fight for community democratic control of Social Justice High School is an important battle waged during the countdown to a possible strike of the Chicago Teachers Union in early September, 2012. And on August 31, students and faculty achieved a victory in forcing SOJO (as the High School is known) to hire back two teachers who were earlier fired for opposing destructive changes in the school's programs. All this took place in the midst of a student sit-in, an intense mass meeting of the school community, and a powerful student protest campaign that got the fired teachers reinstated.
Here are scenes from that fight: The dramatic August 23 mass meeting, testimonies of student leaders (one who reads a poem she was earlier prohibited from reading by CPS toadies), a big Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign indoor rally featuring speeches by the two fired teachers Angela Sangha and Katie Hogan; the student protest march two days later; the reinstatement of the two fired faculty members.
Speaking/interviewed: Andrea Guzman (Little Village community activist); Professor David Stovall (Advisory Local School Council representative); Dennis Kosuth (Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign member); Angela Sangha (founding teacher, Social Justice High School); Katie Hogan (founding teacher, Social Justice High School); Professor Rico Gutstein (University of Illinois - Chicago).
Please make a Donation to Labor Beat (Committee for Labor Access) and help rank-and-file tv:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=2F96...
Produced by Labor Beat. Labor Beat is a CAN TV Community Partner. Labor Beat is a non-profit 501(c)(3) member of IBEW 1220. Views are those of the producer Labor Beat. For info: mail@laborbeat.org, www.laborbeat.org. 312-226-3330. For other Labor Beat videos, visit YouTube and search "Labor Beat".
On Chicago CAN TV Channel 19, Thursdays 9:30 pm; Fridays 4:30 pm. Labor Beat has regular cable slots in Chicago, Evanston, Rockford, Urbana, IL; Philadelphia, PA; Princeton, NJ; and Rochester, NY. For more detailed information, send us a request at mail@laborbeat.org.
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all the sons
By Tommi Avicolli Mecca
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp2jvlAk8-w&list=PL835C332FF6CFF1F3&index=1&feature=plcp
Published on Aug 27, 2012 by avimecca
Men have been going off to war for centuries. In the past couple centuries, they have been migrating to other countries (especially the U.S.) for work. They have been organizing, too, to fight oppression and stop the deaths of their sons and brothers.
"And I don't know why it has to be this way again."
I wrote this song for the mothers, too, who lose their sons to war and murder by police officers. Maybe someday "it doesn't have to be this way again."
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Labor Beat: Chicago Teachers Stand Strong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOLj6B4cF2w&feature=youtu.be
On May 23, 2012, Chicago Teachers Union held a massive rally at the Auditorium
theater to inform their membership about the coming contract struggle they face.
In the climate of school closings, budget cuts, a terrible new proposed
contract, and teacher-bashing on the part of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and Chicago
schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizzard, CTU took to the streets to show their numbers
and appeal to the public, and within two weeks CTU was voting to authorize a
strike.
Meanwhile a few blocks away, Stand Up Chicago, Action Now, and many other
community organizations rallied against the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME,
the operator of the Chicago Board of Trade) and the $110 million tax break
they've been given by Illinois. CME is one of the most profitable companies in
the region, and yet now Illinois government is making broad cuts to social
programs needed by struggling families. These two marches converged at Jackson
and LaSalle in a unified demand for economic justice for Chicago's 99%.
Please make a Donation to Labor Beat (Committee for Labor Access) and help
rank-and-file tv:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=9789970
Produced by Labor Beat. Labor Beat is a CAN TV Community Partner. Labor Beat is
a non-profit 501(c)(3) member of IBEW 1220. Views are those of the producer
Labor Beat. For info: mail@laborbeat.org, www.laborbeat.org. 312-226-3330. For
other Labor Beat videos, visit YouTube and search "Labor Beat".
On Chicago CAN TV Channel 19, Thursdays 9:30 pm; Fridays 4:30 pm. Labor Beat has
regular cable slots in Chicago, Evanston, Rockford, Urbana, IL; Philadelphia,
PA; Princeton, NJ; and Rochester, NY.
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Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Were Tortured with Sesame Street
http://www.inquisitr.com/245285/guantanamo-bay-prisoners-were-tortured-with-sesa\
me-street/
Guantanamo Bay prisoners were reportedly tortured with the sounds of children's
Sesame Street songs, in an attempt to get them to talk.
Read more at
http://www.inquisitr.com/245285/guantanamo-bay-prisoners-were-tortured-with-sesa\
me-street/#HYqlyB1jssypzpFM.99
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15 yr old Teen girl in jail beating video speaks out on cop attacking her in
Police brutality case
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDzQ8Vay3Pg&feature=share
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1000 year of war through the world
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiG8neU4_bs&feature=share
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Anatomy of a Massacre - Afganistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6BnRc11aug&feature=player_embedded
Afghans accuse multiple soldiers of pre-meditated murder
To see more go to http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures
Follow us on Facebook (http://goo.gl/YRw42) or Twitter
(http://www.twitter.com/journeymanvod)
The recent massacre of 17 civilians by a rogue US soldier has been shrouded in
mystery. But through unprecedented access to those involved, this report
confronts the accusations that Bales didn't act alone.
"They came into my room and they killed my family". Stories like this are common
amongst the survivors in Aklozai and Najiban. As are the shocking accusations
that Sergeant Bales was not acting alone. Even President Karzai has announced
"one man can not do that". Chief investigator, General Karimi, is suspicious
that despite being fully armed, Bales freely left his base without raising
alarm. "How come he leaves at night and nobody is aware? Every time we have
weapon accountability and personal accountability." These are just a few of the
questions the American army and government are yet to answer. One thing however
is very clear, the massacre has unleashed a wave of grief and outrage which
means relations in Kandahar will be tense for years to come: "If I could lay my
hands on those infidels, I would rip them apart with my bare hands."
A Film By SBS
Distributed By Journeyman Pictures
April 2012
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Photo of George Zimmerman, in 2005 photo, left, and in a more recent photo.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/02/us/the-events-leading-to-the-sooti\
ng-of-trayvon-martin.html?hp
SPD Security Cams.wmv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WWDNbQUgm4&feature=player_embedded
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Kids being put on buses and transported from school to "alternate locations" in
Terror Drills
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFia_w8adWQ
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Private prisons,
a recession resistant investment opportunity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIGLDOxx9Vg
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Attack Dogs used on a High School Walkout in MD, Four Students Charged With
"Thought Crimes"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wafMaML17w
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Common forms of misconduct by Law Enforcement Officials and Prosecutors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViSpM4K276w&feature=related
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Organizing & Instigating: OCCUPY - Ronnie Goodman
http://arthazelwood.com/instigator/occupy/occupy-birth-video.html
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Rep News 12: Yes We Kony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68GbzIkYdc8
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The New Black by The Mavrix - Official Music Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rLfja8488
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Japan One Year Later
http://www.onlineschools.org/japan-one-year-later/
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The CIA's Heart Attack Gun
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/assassination-studies/the-cias-heart-attack-g\
un-.html
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The Invisible American Workforce
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/5/new_expos_tracks_alec_private_prison
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Labor Beat: NATO vs The 1st Amendment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbQxnb4so3U
For more detailed information, send us a request at mail@laborbeat.org.
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Anti-War Demonstrators Storm Pentagon 1967/10/24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDiFkckszCw
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Liberal Hypocrisy on Obama Vs Bush - Poll
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl_HGEXq_aM&feature=player_embedded
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Greek trade unionists and black bloc October 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHMLD_Vql0o&feature=player_embedded#!
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The Battle of Oakland
by brandon jourdan plus
http://vimeo.com/36256273
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Officers Pulled Off Street After Tape of Beating Surfaces
By ANDY NEWMAN
February 1, 2012, 10:56 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/officers-pulled-off-street-after-ta\
pe-of-beating-surfaces/?ref=nyregion
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Defending The People's Mic
by Pham Binh of Occupy Wall Street
The North Star
January 20, 2012
http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=53
Grand Central Terminal Arrests - MIRROR
Two protesters mic check about the loss of freedom brought about by the passage
of the NDAA and both are promptly arrested and whisked out of public sight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Tj7tEVx8A&feature=player_embedded
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This is excellent! Michelle Alexander pulls no punches!
Michelle Alexander, Author of The New Jim Crow, speaks about the political
strategy
behind the War on Drugs and its connection to the mass incarceration of Black
and Brown people in the United States.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P75cbEdNo2U&feature=player_embedded
If you think Bill Clinton was "the first black President" you need to watch this
video and see how much damage his administration caused for the black community
as a result of his get tough attitude on crime that appealed to white swing
voters.
This speech took place at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on January 12,
2012.
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Release Bradley Manning
Almost Gone (The Ballad Of Bradley Manning)
Written by Graham Nash and James Raymond (son of David Crosby)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAYG7yJpBbQ&feature=player_embedded
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School police increasingly arresting American students?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl-efNBvjUU&feature=player_embedded
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FYI:
Nuclear Detonation Timeline "1945-1998"
The 2053 nuclear tests and explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998 are
plotted visually and audibly on a world map.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk&feature=share&mid=5408
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We Are the 99 Percent
We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to
choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are
suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay
and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1
percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.
Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street. Why will YOU occupy?
OccupyWallSt.org
Occupytogether.org
wearethe99percentuk.tumblr.com
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
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Drop All Charges on the 'Occupy Wall Street' Arrestees!
Stop Police Attacks & Arrests! Support 'Occupy Wall Street'!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT:
http://bailoutpeople.org/dropchargesonoccupywallstarrestees.shtml
DROP ALL CHARGES ON THE OCCUPY WALL STREET ARRESTEES!
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We Are The People Who Will Save Our Schools
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFAOJsBxAxY
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In honor of the 75th Anniversary of the 44-Day Flint Michigan sit-down strike at
GM that began December 30, 1936:
According to Michael Moore, (Although he has done some good things, this clip
isn't one of them) in this clip from his film, "Capitalism a Love Story," it was
Roosevelt who saved the day!):
"After a bloody battle one evening, the Governor of Michigan, with the support
of the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, sent in the National
Guard. But the guns and the soldiers weren't used on the workers; they were
pointed at the police and the hired goons warning them to leave these workers
alone. For Mr. Roosevelt believed that the men inside had a right to a redress
of their grievances." -Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'
- Flint Sit-Down Strike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8x1_q9wg58
But those cannons were not aimed at the goons and cops! They were aimed straight
at the factory filled with strikers! Watch what REALLY happened and how the
strike was really won!
'With babies & banners' -- 75 years since the 44-day Flint sit-down strike
http://links.org.au/node/2681
--Inspiring
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HALLELUJAH CORPORATIONS (revised edition).mov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws0WSNRpy3g
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ONE OF THE GREATEST POSTS ON YOUTUBE SO FAR!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8C-qIgbP9o&feature=share&mid=552
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ILWU Local 10 Longshore Workers Speak-Out At Oakland Port Shutdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JUpBpZYwms
Uploaded by laborvideo on Dec 13, 2011
ILWU Local 10 longshore workers speak out during a blockade of the Port of
Oakland called for by Occupy Oakland. Anthony Levieges and Clarence Thomas rank
and file members of the union. The action took place on December 12, 2011 and
the interview took place at Pier 30 on the Oakland docks.
For more information on the ILWU Local 21 Longview EGT struggle go to
http://www.facebook.com/groups/256313837734192/
For further info on the action and the press conferernce go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz3fE-Vhrw8&feature=youtu.be
Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org
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UC Davis Police Violence Adds Fuel to Fire
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
19 November 11
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/8485-uc-davis-police-violence-add\
s-fuel-to-fire
UC Davis Protestors Pepper Sprayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&feature=player_embedded
Police PEPPER SPRAY UC Davis STUDENT PROTESTERS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuWEx6Cfn-I&feature=player_embedded
Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZ0t9ez_EGI#!
Occupy Seattle - 84 Year Old Woman Dorli Rainey Pepper Sprayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTIyE_JlJzw&feature=related
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THE BEST VIDEO ON "OCCUPY THE WORLD"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o
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Shot by police with rubber bullet at Occupy Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrvMzqopHH0
*---------*
Occupy Oakland 11-2 Strike: Police Tear Gas, Black Bloc, War in the Streets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tu_D8SFYck&feature=player_embedded
*----*
Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest
were actually undercover Quebec police officers:
POLICE STATE Criminal Cops EXPOSED As Agent Provocateurs @ SPP Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoiisMMCFT0&feature=player_embedded
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Quebec police admit going undercover at montebello protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&feature=player_embedded
G20: Epic Undercover Police Fail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJ7aU-n1L8&feature=player_embedded
*----*
WHAT HAPPENED IN OAKLAND TUESDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 25:
Occupy Oakland Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlPs-REyl-0&feature=player_embedded
Cops make mass arrests at occupy Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27kD2_7PwU&feature=player_embedded
Raw Video: Protesters Clash With Oakland Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO-lJr2BQY&feature=player_embedded
Occupy Oakland - Flashbangs USED on protesters OPD LIES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNOPZLw03Q&feature=player_embedded
KTVU TV Video of Police violence
http://www.ktvu.com/video/29587714/index.html
Marine Vet wounded, tear gas & flash-bang grenades thrown in downtown
Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUgPTCgwcQ&feature=player_embedded
Tear Gas billowing through 14th & Broadway in Downtown Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4Y0pwJtWE&feature=player_embedded
Arrests at Occupy Atlanta -- This is what a police state looks like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YStWz6jbeZA&feature=player_embedded
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Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I
*---------*
Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA48gmfGB6U&feature=youtu.be
Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKZpOk7TyM&feature=related
*---------*
#Occupy Wall Street In Washington Square: Mohammed Ezzeldin, former occupier of
Egypt's Tahrir Square Speaks at Washington Square!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziodsFWEb5Y&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street
By adele pham
http://vimeo.com/30146870
*---------*
Live arrest at brooklyn bridge #occupywallstreet by We are Change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto&feature=player_embedded
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FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!
http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded
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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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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
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FREE BRADLEY MANNING
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/national-call-in-for-bradley
I received the following reply from the White House November 18, 2011 regarding
the Bradley Manning petition I signed:
"Why We Can't Comment on Bradley Manning
"Thank you for signing the petition 'Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused
WikiLeaks whistleblower.' We appreciate your participation in the We the People
platform on WhiteHouse.gov.
The We the People Terms of Participation explain that 'the White House may
decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or
similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or
agencies, federal courts, or state and local government.' The military justice
system is charged with enforcing the Uniform Code of
Military Justice. Accordingly, the White House declines to comment on the
specific case raised in this petition...
That's funny! I guess Obama didn't get this memo. Here's what Obama said about
Bradley:
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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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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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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