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BREAKING NEWS - Lynne Stewart Petition Campaign Urgent Update
May 13, 2013 2:00 p.m. PST:Urgent: Please sign the petition for compassionate release for Lynne Stewart
http://www.change.org/petitions/petition-to-free-lynne-stewart-save-her-life-release-her-now-2
The International Petition Campaign to Free Lynne Stewart and Save Her Life is gratified to report that today, May 13, following urgent communications from former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and social activist Dick Gregory, that Federal Bureau of Prisons General Counsel Kathleen Kenney telephoned Ramsey Clark to advise that a recommendation of Compassionate Release for Lynne Stewart from FMC Carswell Warden Jody R. Upton is on the desk of FBP Director Charles E. Samuels, Jr. with a full package of documentation.
Ramsey Clark and the International Petition Campaign are on stand-by for further news regarding Federal Bureau of Prisons implementation of Compassionate Release for Lynne Stewart with the appropriate filing of this Motion with Judge John Koetl.
We call upon all to intensify our collective efforts and expand the Petition Campaign as this life and death decision for Lynne Stewart is pending.
Our grateful thanks to all for your dedication and commitment in waging this struggle for justice, compassion and freedom for Lynne Stewart
(This Breaking News Update was prepared by Co-Cordinators Mya Shone, Ralph Schoenman and Ralph Poynter.)
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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Stop the media blackout on Bradley Manning's trial!
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
*****
Want to flashmob for WikiLeaker Bradley Manning?
Some San Francisco activists and all-around fun folks are organizing a flash mob on Saturday, June 1st, an International Day of Action for whistle-blower Bradley Manning before his court martial begins. And we want YOU to join us!
Wondering what a "flash mob" is? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_mob)
Our flash mob, which we view as a creative way to bring public attention to the plight of Bradley Manning, will consist of people in military-style jackets saluting, then removing the jackets to reveal "Free Bradley Manning" t-shirts while dancing to Michael Jackson's "They Don't Care About Us."
The dance comes from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YklR5sRMHm0 but will be easier and shorter (sans Drill). If you don't know the dance, we're going to teach you! We don't care if you 'dance' or not. Practice will be on all Mondays leading up to the day of action.
Practice times: Mondays, 7:45 - 9:30pm, starting now. This Monday (April 22nd) we'll start from the beginning of the dance, and teach the first half.
Practice location: Feintech room @ ODC (351 Shotwell b/w 17th & 18th Streets in the Mission)
Instructional videos:
Full speed (we're skipping Drill, so start at 1:10): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B1yMhpfBoQ
Breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeaICotBAUc
Please RSVP to join our practices on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/610475588979938
Hasta la victoria! (See you Monday.)
Leez, Emma and Mariko
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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) City Plans New Approach to Disciplining Mentally Ill Inmates
By VIVIAN YEE
9) South Africa: Mine Strikes Resume
By REUTERS
By VIVIAN YEE
9) South Africa: Mine Strikes Resume
By REUTERS
10) Fatal Encounter With Police Is Caught on Video, but Kept From the Public
By IAN LOVETT
By IAN LOVETT
15) Illinois: Lawsuits Filed Over Chicago School Closings
By MOTOKO RICH
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/us/illinois-lawsuits-filed-over-chicago-school-closings.html?ref=us
16) New Jersey Hospital Is the Costliest in the Nation
By JULIE CRESWELL, BARRY MEIER and JO CRAVEN McGINTY
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/business/bayonne-medical-center-has-highest-us-billing-rates.html?hp&_r=0
17) Seven Teenagers Arrested for End-Of-Year Water Balloon Prank
By MOTOKO RICH
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/us/illinois-lawsuits-filed-over-chicago-school-closings.html?ref=us
16) New Jersey Hospital Is the Costliest in the Nation
By JULIE CRESWELL, BARRY MEIER and JO CRAVEN McGINTY
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/business/bayonne-medical-center-has-highest-us-billing-rates.html?hp&_r=0
17) Seven Teenagers Arrested for End-Of-Year Water Balloon Prank
Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Yanik Chauvin
May 17, 2013
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/7-teenagers-arrested-end-year-water-balloon-prank?akid=10452.229473.9IVRiA&rd=1&src=newsletter841956&t=5
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1) City Plans New Approach to Disciplining Mentally Ill Inmates
By VIVIAN YEE
New York City will soon change the way mentally ill inmates are disciplined after breaking rules while in jail, creating alternatives to the more traditional approach of solitary confinement used for most inmates.
Instead, the city Correction Department will transfer severely mentally ill inmates to an internal clinic where psychiatrists will administer treatment and medicine, and the less seriously mentally ill will go to counseling programs designed to help them change their future behavior. Inmates will not be released back into the regular jail setting until they complete treatment.
The new approach, to begin in July, is intended to address what both city officials and prisoners’ rights advocates say is a growing problem: not only are there a disproportionate number of mentally ill inmates in the city’s jails, but they are also more likely to break rules multiple times and stay in jail longer than others.
“The jail has become one of the major providers for people with mental illness in our society, and it’s just now that our systems are keeping up with that,” said Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the city health commissioner, adding that solitary confinement does not work for the mentally ill. “For an inmate with mental illness, that’s not going to make them more likely to improve their behavior,” Dr. Farley said in an interview. “It’s going to make the symptoms of their illness worse.”
More than one-third of New York City’s inmates have a mental illness, according to the city. Of those, about one-third are considered seriously mentally ill, with conditions like major depression and schizophrenia.
Currently, all mentally ill inmates who break prison rules are moved to the same segregated unit, regardless of their condition. Like healthy inmates in solitary confinement, they live in isolated cells, kept in lockdown as long as 23 hours a day. They may also get an hour of group counseling a day and a weekly session of individual therapy.
Under the new policy, seriously mentally ill inmates will get medication and therapy in a setting similar to a hospital psychiatric ward, living in dormitory-style units with other inmates or in more isolated cells. Those not considered severely mentally ill — generally, those who do not require medication — will still be segregated from the general population and from one another. But they will take part in a three-phase program with group and leisure activities aimed at teaching them behavioral control, reducing their time in the program if they actively participate and exhibit good behavior.
The correction commissioner, Dora B. Schriro, said the change would turn a “one size fits all” policy into a tailored program that would do more to help inmates succeed both in jail and once they return to the outside world.
Prisoners’ rights advocates have condemned the use of solitary confinement — in industry parlance, “punitive segregation” — which they say amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Its use in New York City has increased 44 percent over the past several years, prisoners’ advocates said, giving New York City one of the highest rates of solitary confinement in the nation even as its overall jail population has declined.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the city should reduce its use of solitary confinement for all prisoners, not just the mentally ill. “The irony should not be lost on us that solitary confinement creates mental illness itself,” she said, referring to what she said were the devastating psychological effects of being kept in extreme isolation.
The civil liberties union filed a federal lawsuit in December against New York State’s prison system, accusing it of overusing solitary confinement.
The new system is ultimately expected to shrink the number of solitary confinement units in the system, as mentally ill inmates go through the counseling and treatment programs instead, said Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services. The programs are expected to lower the number of rule infractions and shorten mentally ill inmates’ stays in jail.
Steven Banks, the chief lawyer at the Legal Aid Society, said that while the changes were for the better, more needed to be done to improve services for the mentally ill throughout the city so they did not end up in jail. He said he was skeptical that the city would deliver on its promises of reform.
“The fact that Rikers Island has essentially become a de facto mental health facility for a third of the jail population speaks volumes about the need for more resources and more attention to the mental health system over all in the city,” he said, “instead of simply focusing on counseling versus punishment for those that end up falling through every crack in the social services system.”
Ms. Gibbs said the new policy was one of several efforts by the city to improve services for the mentally ill, including a program that works with the courts to treat low-level mentally ill offenders rather than sending them to prison, and another to make sure mentally ill people continue to receive treatment after leaving jail.
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2) Phone Records of Journalists Seized by U.S.
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and LESLIE KAUFMAN
WASHINGTON — Federal investigators secretly seized two months of phone records for reporters and editors of The Associated Press in what the news organization said Monday was a “serious interference with A.P.’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.”
The A.P. said that the Justice Department informed it on Friday that law enforcement officials had obtained the records for more than 20 telephone lines of its offices and journalists, including their home phones and cellphones. It said the records were seized without notice sometime this year.
The organization was not told the reason for the seizure. But the timing and the specific journalistic targets strongly suggested they are related to a continuing government investigation into the leaking of information a year ago about the Central Intelligence Agency’s disruption of a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner.
The disclosures began with an Associated Press article on May 7, 2012, breaking the news of the foiled plot; the organization had held off publishing it for several days at the White House’s request because the intelligence operations were still unfolding.
In an angry letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Monday, Gary Pruitt, the president and chief executive of The A.P., called the seizure, a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its news gathering activities.
“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,” he wrote. “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the news gathering activities undertaken by The A.P. during a two-month period, provide a road map to A.P.’s news gathering operations, and disclose information about A.P.’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”
The development represents the latest collision of news organizations and federal investigators over government efforts to prevent the disclosure of national security information, and it comes against a backdrop of an aggressive policy by the Obama administration to rein in leaks. Under President Obama, six current and former government officials have been indicted in leak-related cases so far, twice the number brought under all previous administrations combined.
Justice Department regulations call for subpoenas for journalists’ phone records to be undertaken as a last resort and narrowly focused, subject to the attorney general’s personal signoff. Under normal circumstances, the regulations call for notice and negotiations, giving the news organization a chance to challenge the subpoena in court.
The Justice Department referred questions about the subpoena to a spokesman for Ronald C. Machen Jr., the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who was assigned by Mr. Holder last June to lead one of two major leak investigations. Those inquiries came amid a Congressional uproar over several disclosures of national security information in the media.
“We must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation,” Mr. Machen’s spokesman, William Miller, said.
“Because we value the freedom of the press,” Mr. Miller added, “we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws.”
But First Amendment experts and free press advocates portrayed the move as shocking in its breadth.
The Newspaper Association of America issued a statement saying: "Today we learned of the Justice Department’s unprecedented wholesale seizure of confidential telephone records from the Associated Press. These actions shock the American conscience and violate the critical freedom of the press protected by the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”
A spokeswoman for Dow Jones, which owns The Wall Street Journal, said the company was concerned about the “broader implications” of the action.
Jay Carney, a White House spokesman, said the White House was not involved in the subpoena. “Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the A.P.,” he said, adding “we are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a question about whether a similar step was taken in the other major government leak investigation Mr. Holder announced last June. It is believed to be focused on a New York Times reporter, David E. Sanger, and his disclosures in articles and in a book about a joint American-Israeli effort to sabotage Iranian nuclear centrifuges with the so-called Stuxnet virus.
David McCraw, a lawyer for The New York Times, said, “We’ve had no contact from the government of any sort.”
Mr. Holder announced the two special leak investigations in June amid calls in Congress for a crackdown on leaks after a spate of disclosures about the bomb plot, cyberwarfare against Iran, Mr. Obama’s procedures for putting terrorism suspects on a “kill list,” and the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The revelations had been published by The New York Times, The A.P. and in several books.
Republicans accused the administration of deliberately leaking classified information, jeopardizing national security in an effort to make Mr. Obama look tough in an election year — a charge the White House rejected. But some Democrats, too, said the leaking of sensitive information had gotten out of control.
Mr. Holder’s move at the time was sharply criticized by Republicans as not going far enough. They wanted him to appoint an outside special counsel, and a Senate resolution calling for a special counsel was co-sponsored by 29 Republican senators.
On Monday, however, after The A.P. disclosed the seizure of the records, some Republican leaders criticized the administration as going too far. Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner, said: “The First Amendment is first for a reason. If the Obama Administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a damned good explanation.”And Doug Heye, a spokesman for Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the majority leader, linked the revelation to a brewing controversy over the targeting of Tea Party groups for greater scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service, saying “these new revelations suggest a pattern of intimidation by the Obama administration.”
The A.P. said Monday that it first learned of the seizure of the records last Friday afternoon when its general counsel, Laura Malone, received a letter from Mr. Machen, the United States attorney. The letter to Mr. Holder said the seizure included “all such records for, among other phone lines, an A.P. general phone number in New York City as well as A.P. bureaus in New York City, Washington, D.C., Hartford, Connecticut, and at the House of Representatives.”
The Associated Press is a nonprofit global news cooperative owned by its American newspaper and broadcast members.
Charlie Savage reported from Washington, and Leslie Kaufman from New York. Christine Haughney contributed reporting from New York.
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3) Two Waiters Arrested in Killing of Malcolm X’s Grandson
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
MEXICO CITY — The police here arrested two men on murder and robbery charges on Monday in the beating death last week of Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of Malcolm X, though many questions about the case remained unresolved.
The men taken into custody, David Hernández Cruz and Manuel Alejandro Pérez de Jesús, worked as waiters at the Palace Club, a downtown bar where Mr. Shabazz, 28, was beaten, in what the city prosecutor called a dispute over an excessive bill.
Two other bar employees who the authorities said participated in the beating, which left Mr. Shabazz with fatal skull, jaw and rib fractures, were being sought.
The body of Mr. Shabazz, who for years had wrestled with living in the shadow of his grandfather’s fame, was still at a city morgue on Monday while American consular officials worked to have it returned to the United States. A family spokeswoman said they would have no comment, and no funeral plans have been announced.
Mr. Shabazz arrived in Mexico City from Tijuana, the prosecutor, Rodolfo Fernando Rios Garza, said at a news conference. He went to the bar on Thursday with a man whom friends identified as Miguel Suárez, a Mexican labor activist whom Mr. Shabazz had befriended in the United States and who had been recently deported.
When the argument over the tab broke out around 3 a.m. as they prepared to leave, the two were separated by bar employees, but, for reasons the prosecutor said had not yet been determined, only Mr. Shabazz was beaten. A blunt object was used but no other details were given.
Mr. Shabazz’s companion was taken to another part of the bar and robbed but said he managed to escape and call for help.
The pair disputed a tab that came to around $1,200, Mr. Rios Garza said. Two young women had approached them on the street and invited them to the bar, but although Mexican newspapers have identified the bar as a known brothel, Mr. Rios Garza waved off questions regarding prostitution. Many of the bars in that rundown area charge customers for even a conversation with their female employees, according to Mexican news reports.
Mr. Shabazz consumed several drinks; a prosecutor’s office statement said he had a blood alcohol concentration more than three times the legal limit for driving in most American jurisdictions. But the prosecutor, while not offering details on how much liquor was consumed, said the bill was excessive and was part of the effort to rob Mr. Shabazz and his companion.
He said he found no evidence that race or any motive other than robbery was in play, and there was no indication that the attackers knew Mr. Shabazz came from a famous family.
The investigation, however, has had its stumbles.
There were security cameras in the bar, but after a search of the property two days after the attack, video recording equipment was missing and the cameras were turned toward the walls, the prosecutor’s statement said. It was unclear why the search was delayed, but justice reform advocates have long complained that Mexican investigators do not always move with the speed and forensic acumen of the police in the United States.
The police have interviewed Mr. Suárez, who could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Shabazz was 12 when he set a fire in Yonkers that killed his grandmother, Betty Shabazz. After serving prison time, he walked an erratic path away from his troubled youth.
He had gone to Mexico City with Mr. Suárez with plans to draw media attention to his deportation, Mr. Suárez said on Facebook.
Karla Zabludovsky contributed reporting from Mexico City, and Kia Gregory from New York.
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4) Global Retailers Join Safety Plan for Bangladesh
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and JIM YARDLEY
Under mounting pressure to improve working conditions in Bangladesh’s garment factories, several of the world’s largest apparel companies agreed on Monday to a landmark plan to help pay for fire safety and building improvements after the collapse last month of the Rana Plaza factory complex, which killed more than 1,100 people.
The agreement, hailed by labor and consumer groups as a major breakthrough, came as the Bangladeshi government also took steps to respond to the April 24 disaster at Rana Plaza outside Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital. In the last two days, the government has pledged to raise wages for garment workers and change labor laws to make it easier to form trade unions.
The parallel announcements by global brands and the Bangladeshi government were a significant shift: For years, Bangladesh has seen some of the worst practices in the global garment industry. Wages are the lowest in the world, starting at roughly $37 a month. Factory conditions are often unsafe. Yet global brands have often sought to deflect any direct responsibility for the problems, while the government has often been tepid in protecting worker rights.
But the Rana Plaza disaster, the deadliest in the garment industry’s history, has created tremendous pressure for change. On Monday morning, the Swedish retail giant H&M and Inditex, owner of the popular Zara chain, endorsed the safety plan. Within hours, the large Dutch retailer C&A also joined the agreement, as did the low-cost British retailers Primark and Tesco.
“Fire and building safety are extremely important issues for us, and we put a lot of effort and resources within this area,” said Helena Helmersson, head of sustainability at H&M. “With this commitment we can now influence even more in this issue. We hope for a broad coalition of signatures in order for the agreement to work effectively on the ground.”
H&M is the largest purchaser of garments from Bangladesh, and its endorsement was seen as influential to other brands. The agreement calls for independent, rigorous factory safety inspections with public accountability and mandatory repairs and renovations underwritten by Western retailers. It also enhances the roles played by workers and unions to ensure factory safety.
“H&M’s decision to sign the accord is crucial,” said Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a factory-monitoring group in Washington that is backed by 175 American colleges and universities. “They are the single largest producer of apparel in Bangladesh, ahead even of Walmart. This accord now has tremendous momentum.”
Labor groups and others were already trying to pressure other big brands, including Walmart and Gap, to sign onto the agreement. “We call on these companies to do the right thing on behalf of the more than 1,250 textile workers killed in Bangladesh factory disasters in the last six months, including Rana Plaza, where the tragedy is still unfolding,” said Philip J. Jennings, the general secretary of the UNI Global Union, the international association of trade unions. “This is black and white, life and death.”
Gap has been the target of an online petition that obtained more than 900,000 signatures in support of the agreement. But the company has resisted signing on, objecting to the agreement’s legally binding nature and arguing that it had already hired a fire inspector and promised $22 million in loans for factory improvements.
PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Izod, announced it would sign the deal, an expanded version of a proposal that PVH had already signed. The new plan lasts five years, while the previous one was to last only two. PVH also announced on Monday that it would contribute $2.5 million to underwrite factory safety improvements as part of the new plan.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s cabinet on Monday approved changes in labor laws. Gowher Rizvi, a top adviser to Bangladesh’s prime minister, said the changes — which still require approval by Parliament — are part of a broader government effort to come into compliance with international labor standards and improve on-the-job conditions.
“Worker safety and worker welfare have now been brought into the forefront,” Mr. Rizvi said in a telephone interview. He said discussions on these changes predated the Rana Plaza collapse but agreed that the disaster had intensified the pressure for reforms.
“This is the goose that lays the golden egg,” he said of the garment industry’s importance to Bangladesh. “Don’t kill it. We have to strengthen it. We have to nurture it. Nurturing it means fair treatment of the workers.”
Bangladesh is now the world’s second-leading garment exporter, trailing China. Its low wages and lack of regulation have helped it attract billions of dollars in orders from Western retailers and apparel brands. Not only are wages the lowest in the world, but labor unions, which face impediments in organizing, are largely absent in garment factories. Some workers who have tried to organize unions have been dismissed or harassed.
Mikail Shipar, the country’s labor secretary, said one onerous restriction was removed by the cabinet on Monday. Under the current rules, organizers must present the government with a list of names showing that at least 30 percent of workers in a factory want a union. But that list is then turned over to the factory’s owner to verify the authenticity of the names — a step that some owners have used to engage in union busting and firing union supporters.
The list will no longer be turned over to factory owners, Mr. Shipar said, removing “a major barrier in getting registration of a trade union in a factory.”
Other changes involve benefits. Severance and retirement payments will be increased for workers with longer tenures; annual payments under a welfare fund will be equalized so that every garment worker, regardless of the size of the factory he or she works in, will receive the same amounts.
Government officials also are creating a wage board that would begin discussions between labor and management on setting a new minimum wage for garment workers. Mr. Shipar said the process might take six months, but officials have said that changes would be retroactive to May 1.
Bangladesh has roughly 5,000 garment factories, employing more than 4.5 million people. Nearly 80 percent are women, many poorly educated and from rural villages. In the past, even the low factory wages were better than working in the fields. But as inflation has risen in the last two years, garment workers have grown increasingly angry about low wages. On Sunday, at least 100 garment factories had to be closed as workers staged protests, demanding higher pay.
By Monday afternoon, the death toll at Rana Plaza had reached 1,127 people. Work crews have almost completed clearing debris and searching for the victims — yet families of missing workers continue to linger.
Local labor groups sifting through the rubble have found labels or documents of brands that were being produced by factories in the building. Several investor, religious, consumer and labor groups are pressing these companies to sign the new safety deal. Companies known to have obtained clothes from the factories include Benetton, Cato Fashions, Children’s Place, el Corte Ingles and Loblaws.
Steven Greenhouse reported from New York, and Jim Yardley from New Delhi. Julfikar Ali Manik contributed reporting from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
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5) Lawyers Say DNA Clears Florida Inmate in Two Killings
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
MIAMI — Seven years after he was sentenced to death in the fatal stabbings of two Florida women, Clemente Javier Aguirre appeared in a Seminole County courtroom on Monday to present DNA evidence that could win him a new trial.
Mr. Aguirre’s lawyers said that DNA testing they had ordered on dozens of previously untested items from the crime scene turned up none of Mr. Aguirre’s blood. But, the lawyers said, it revealed blood drops throughout the crime scene belonging to the daughter of one of the victims, a woman with a history of mental illness.
No crime scene DNA testing was ever requested by Mr. Aguirre’s original trial lawyer in 2006.
“It’s the rare case in which you have DNA in multiple places at the scene of a homicide showing the blood of someone other than a convicted person,” said Nina Morrison, a senior staff lawyer at the Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted prisoners. Ms. Morrison is advising appellate lawyers for Mr. Aguirre, who is now 33.
After a two-week evidentiary hearing, the judge will decide whether to grant a new trial.
State Attorney Phil Archer said in a statement, “These are extremely important questions that need to be fully explored in open court.”
In 2006, a jury convicted Mr. Aguirre in the murders of Cheryl A. Williams, 47, and her mother, Carol Bareis, 68, based mostly on circumstantial evidence, much of it compelling: the victims’ blood was found on his clothes, which he later put in a bag and tried to hide, and on a knife he had held; he did not report the crime; and he was a neighbor who had socialized with the women.
Mr. Aguirre initially told the police he knew nothing about the deaths, then later changed his story. He had reason to panic, said his lawyers, who work for Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, which represents indigent death-row inmates. He had immigrated illegally from Honduras and feared being deported.
Mr. Aguirre later told the police that by the time he stepped inside the women’s mobile home at 6 a.m. on June 17, 2004, the two were dead. He said he rolled Ms. Williams onto his lap and checked her pulse, smearing her blood on his clothes in the process. Then he grabbed the knife, found the other victim, walked around the mobile home to see if anyone was there, and left, hoping that no one would know he had been there.
Despite evidence of violence — Ms. Williams was stabbed 129 times — none of Mr. Aguirre’s blood was found at the crime scene, his lawyers said. They argued in court on Monday that Ms. Williams’s daughter, Samantha, was responsible for the killings. The two had argued before the killings, the lawyers said. The daughter left to spend the night with her boyfriend.
Defense lawyers said the DNA tests found Samantha Williams’s blood near the victims’ blood in various places.
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6) A Change in Temperature
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Since 1896, scientists have been trying to answer a deceptively simple question: What will happen to the temperature of the earth if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles?
Some recent scientific papers have made a splash by claiming that the answer might not be as bad as previously feared. This work — if it holds up — offers the tantalizing possibility that climate change might be slow and limited enough that human society could adapt to it without major trauma.
Several scientists say they see reasons to doubt that these lowball estimates will in fact stand up to critical scrutiny, and a wave of papers offering counterarguments is already in the works. “The story is not over,” said Chris E. Forest, a climate expert at Pennsylvania State University.
Still, the recent body of evidence — and the political use that climate contrarians are making of it to claim that everything is fine — sheds some light on where we are in our scientific and public understanding of the risks of climate change.
The topic under discussion is a number called “climate sensitivity.” Finding this number is the holy grail of climate science, because the stakes are so high: The fate of the earth hangs in the balance.
The first to take a serious stab at it was a Swede named Svante Arrhenius, in the late 19th century. After laborious calculations, he declared that if humans doubled the carbon dioxide in the air by burning fossil fuels, the average temperature of the earth would rise by something like nine degrees Fahrenheit, a whopping figure.
He was on the high side, as it turned out. In 1979, after two decades of meticulous measurements had made it clear that the carbon dioxide level was indeed rising, scientists used computers and a much deeper understanding of the climate to calculate a likely range of warming. They found that the response to a doubling of carbon dioxide would not be much below three degrees Fahrenheit, nor was it likely to exceed eight degrees.
In the years since, scientists have been pushing and pulling within that range, trying to settle on a most likely value. Most of those who are expert in climatology subscribe to a best-estimate figure of just over five degrees Fahrenheit.
That may not sound like a particularly scary number to many people — after all, we experience temperature variations of 20 or 30 degrees in a single day. But as an average for the entire planet, five degrees is a huge number.
The ocean, covering 70 percent of the surface, helps bring down the average, but the warming is expected to be higher over land, causing weather extremes like heat waves and torrential rains. And the poles will warm even more, so that the increase in the Arctic could exceed 10 or 15 degrees Fahrenheit. That could cause substantial melting of the polar ice sheets, ultimately flooding the world’s major coastal cities.
What’s new is that several recent papers have offered best estimates for climate sensitivity that are below four degrees Fahrenheit, rather than the previous best estimate of just above five degrees, and they have also suggested that the highest estimates are pretty implausible.
Notice that these recent calculations fall well within the long-accepted range — just on the lower end of it. But the papers have caused considerable excitement among climate-change contrarians.
It is not that they actually agree with the new numbers, mind you. They have long pushed implausibly low estimates of climate sensitivity, below two degrees Fahrenheit in some cases. But they appear to be calculating that any paper with a lowball number is a step in their direction.
James Annan, a mainstream climate scientist working at a Japanese institute, offers a best estimate of four and a half degrees Fahrenheit. When he wrote recently that he thought some of the highest temperature projections could be rejected, skeptics could not contain their enthusiasm.
“That is what we call a landmark change of course — by one of climatology’s most renowned warmist scientists,” declared a blogger named Pierre L. Gosselin. “If even Annan can see it, then the writing is truly emblazoned on the wall.”
But does this sort of claim — that we can all breathe a sigh of relief about climate change — really hold up?
Dr. Annan said in an e-mail that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a mainstream body that periodically summarizes climate science, should be bolder about ruling out extreme temperature scenarios, but he still believes global warming is a sufficient threat to warrant changes in human behavior.
He noted that climate skeptics “are desperate to claim that the I.P.C.C. is being unreasonably alarmist, but on the other hand they don’t really want to agree with me either, because my views are close enough to the mainstream as to be unacceptable to them.” He added that he finds it “amusing to watch their gyrations as they try to square the circle.”
It will certainly be good news if these recent papers stand up to critical scrutiny, something that will take at least a year or two to figure out. But the need for additional scientific vetting before we accept the lower numbers is not the biggest flaw in the contrarian argument.
Remember, the climate sensitivity number, whatever it turns out to be, applies to a doubling of carbon dioxide.
Given how weak the political response to climate change has been, there is no reason to think that human society is going to stop there. Some experts think the level of the heat-trapping gas could triple or even quadruple before emissions are reined in. Only last week the level of carbon dioxide passed a milestone of 400 parts per million at the flagship monitoring station atop Mauna Loa, in Hawaii, evidence that efforts to control emissions are failing.
Even if climate sensitivity turns out to be on the low end of the range, total emissions may wind up being so excessive as to drive the earth toward dangerous temperature increases.
So if the recent science stands up to critical examination, it could indeed turn into a ray of hope — but only if it is then followed by a broad new push to get the combustion of fossil fuels under control.
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7) Japanese Reactor Is Said to Stand on Fault Line
By HIROKO TABUCHI
TOKYO — Experts said Wednesday that a nuclear reactor in western Japan stands above an active fault, a finding that could lead to the first permanent shutdown of a reactor since the Fukushima crisis two years ago.
The decommissioning of the No. 2 reactor at the Tsuruga power plant on Japan’s western coast would deal a big blow to a push by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to get the country’s nuclear program back online.
It would also show that the country’s new nuclear regulator, put in place to bolster oversight of the nuclear industry after the 2011 disaster, has teeth. Its predecessor was criticized for its close industry ties and lax approach to safety.
All of Japan’s 50 reactors were closed for inspections after the multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi station, which forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people. Since then, only two have been restarted.
The fate of the country’s reactors lies in safety assessments being carried out under the new regulator, the Nuclear Regulation Authority, which has been studying earthquake, tsunami and other safety risks at those reactors.
There is considerable pressure from Japan’s power industry, business community and pro-nuclear politicians in Mr. Abe’s ruling party for the agency to allow more reactors to restart.
Keeping the reactors closed has led to hundreds of millions of yen in losses for power companies, which have been forced to make up for the power shortfall with expensive fossil fuel imports. The blow of a permanent closure could lead some power companies to become insolvent.
A string of power companies have said that they intend to restart their nuclear reactors later this year, providing that they pass safety checks.
Japan Atomic Power Company, which operates the two-reactor Tsuruga station, has argued that the fault is not active. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Dozens of ruling party lawmakers formed a group on Tuesday to push for the resumption of Japan’s idled nuclear reactors, saying that Japan’s economic recovery depended on a stable power supply.
Large manufacturers in Japan have warned that rising energy costs will hurt business.
In Wednesday’s announcement, seismologists directed by the regulatory authority to study a known fault that runs under the Tsuruga No. 2 reactor said that the fault showed signs of being geologically active, suggesting a high earthquake risk.
The authority’s chairman, Shunichi Tanaka, said last year that he would not allow the reactor to come back online if the fault was found to be active. But the authority does not have legal power to order a permanent shutdown, a situation that could leave the reactor in limbo.
There is a second reactor at the Tsuruga site and two more are under construction. It was not clear how these reactors would be affected by the authority’s decision on the No. 2 reactor.
The authority is also carrying out assessments of faults under five other reactors across earthquake-prone Japan and the results are expected in coming weeks.
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By NIKI KITSANTONIS
May 14, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/world/europe/greek-civil-servants-walk-out-over-ban-on-teachers-strike.html?ref=world
ATHENS — Greek civil servants walked off the job on Tuesday to protest the government’s use of an emergency law to ban a planned strike by teachers. But a popular rally in the capital was the smallest in several months, a sign that public support for the country’s once-mighty unions may be dwindling.
It was the third time this year that Greece’s fragile governing coalition had invoked the emergency measure, the civil mobilization law, to combat trade unions that oppose the austerity measures demanded by the country’s international creditors in exchange for continued rescue financing.
As with Athens subway workers and seamen, who were forced back to work earlier this year, secondary school teachers face arrest and dismissal if they go ahead with a 24-hour strike planned for Friday, the first day of university entrance examinations for high school students. The teachers object to the government’s plans to increase their working hours, fearing the move will lead to staff cutbacks.
But instead of thriving in the face of what political opposition parties have denounced as “blackmail” and “authoritarian tactics” by the government, unions appear increasingly split and weakened.
Tuesday’s strike by the civil servants union, Adedy, which disrupted tax offices and other public services, was not backed by protesting teachers, who were angered by Adedy’s refusal to support their planned walkout on Friday.
Echoing the government’s objections, Adedy said it was reluctant to support a job action that would create havoc for more than 100,000 pupils trying to secure a university or college position amid spiraling youth unemployment, which has topped 64 percent.
The rift bubbled to the surface at a rally by civil servants in Athens on Tuesday, which drew no more than 300 people, when a senior Adedy unionist was harangued by teachers crying, “Traitors!”
Addressing a business conference on Monday night, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said his government would continue to “protect the public good over sector-specific interests.”
If the authorities make good on this pledge, they may win support from an austerity-weary public that is keen to see the privileges of the few revoked, some say.
“The teachers don’t have the support of the people,” said Takis Michas, a political analyst. “Complaining about extra working hours when you have three months a year paid vacation and when unemployment is skyrocketing is not going to strike a chord with the average Greek.”
Last week, the finance minister, Yannis Stournaras, said authorities had liberalized hundreds of professions that formerly restricted access, including notaries and taxi drivers, and would open dozens more in coming months, including the powerful legal sector.
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9) South Africa: Mine Strikes Resume
By REUTERS
South African workers at the world’s No. 3 platinum producer, Lonmin,
began a wildcat strike on Tuesday, halting all mine operations and
prompting fears of a return to the violence that rocked the industry
last year. The towns of Rustenburg and Marikana, which saw violent
strikes at Lonmin and other producers last year, have endured disputes
over looming job cuts and wage talks. The striking workers marched to
the rocky outcrop near the Marikana mine where 34 strikers were shot
dead by the police last August.
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10) Fatal Encounter With Police Is Caught on Video, but Kept From the Public
By IAN LOVETT
LOS ANGELES — When Maria Melendez emerged from Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, Calif., just before midnight last Tuesday, she said, she heard screams that have kept her awake at night for an entire week.
A half-dozen Kern County sheriff’s deputies were across the street beating a man with clubs and kicking him, she said. So she whipped out her mobile phone and began to video the episode, announcing to the officers what she was doing.
For about eight minutes, Ms. Melendez said, the man screamed and cried for help. Then he went silent, she said, making only choking sounds.
Finally, having hogtied him, a number of witnesses said, two officers picked up the man and dropped him, twice. One deputy nudged the man with his foot. When he did not respond, they began CPR.
“He was like a piece of meat,” said Ms. Melendez, 53, who was visiting her son at the hospital after he was injured in a car accident. “We were telling them: ‘He’s dead. You guys already killed him.’ ”
Responding to a call, deputies had arrived at the scene to find the man, David Sal Silva, a 33-year-old father of four, on the pavement. Their attempts to rouse him resulted in the altercation, the authorities said. Mr. Silva was pronounced dead less than an hour later at Kern Medical Center.
Ms. Melendez said she recorded the entire episode on her phone, as did her daughter’s boyfriend. But before they could send the videos to news media outlets, detectives from the Kern County Sheriff’s Office took their phones before a warrant for them had even arrived, Ms. Meledez and her family said.
Ray Pruitt, a sheriff’s spokesman, said the two phones were confiscated in accordance with search warrants and had been handed over to the Bakersfield Police Department as part of the investigation.
The sheriff has requested that the F.B.I. investigate the episode.
In the meantime, six deputies and a sergeant who were there during the encounter with Mr. Silva have been allowed to return to full duty while the episode is investigated. Two California Highway Patrol officers were also present.
The seizure of the phones has led to accusations that the sheriff’s department is trying to cover up the episode. David K. Cohn, a lawyer representing Mr. Silva’s family, said they planned to file a federal civil rights complaint. He said there was no reason that the sheriff’s office should not have already returned the phones unless they wanted to keep the videos from being seen by the public.
“Now they’ve given the cellphones to the Bakersfield police?” he said. “That just smacks of collusion.”
Sheriff Donny Youngblood of Kern County did not return calls seeking comment on Tuesday. But in a news release last week, the sheriff’s office said Mr. Silva was “uncooperative” and had continued to resist arrest even after a number of officers had arrived.
Laura Vasquez, who was with Ms. Melendez, recalled the encounter very differently.
She said that sheriff’s deputies told Mr. Silva to stay on the ground. When he tried to get up, she said, deputies ran up and hit him in the head with their clubs. Soon, she said, he was crying for help as at least eight officers hit him, kicked him and pressed their knees into his chest and stomach.
“For the first couple minutes he was screaming for help, basically pleading for his life,” said Ms. Vasquez, 26. “Then we couldn’t see him anymore. That’s how many cops were on top of him.”
After everyone had gone home, sheriff’s detectives showed up at the house of Ms. Melendez’s daughter, Melissa Quair, about 3 a.m.
Ms. Quair said she and her boyfriend were kept from leaving the house for three hours. When her boyfriend tried to leave for work, a detective shoved him, closed the door and told him to hand over his phone, she said. Eventually he did.
Ms. Melendez said her phone was also confiscated by sheriff’s detectives at Ms. Quair’s house later the same day. Mr. Pruitt and a sheriff’s detective investigating the case would not discuss the seizures.
Jody Armour, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law, said legal precedents about the power of the police to seize such videos are still emerging as new technology is developed.
In the two decades since the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers was captured on tape, he said, “these videos have become powerful agents of debate, perhaps even change, and we have a public interest in that.”
He added, “It could have a chilling effect on the willingness of bystanders to make these recordings, if they worry that they could be accosted by law enforcement.”
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11) Iowa: Judge Cuts Settlement for Mentally Disabled Workers
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A judge has reduced a landmark $240 million verdict to $1.6 million for 32 mentally disabled workers who suffered years of abuse by their caretakers. Senior Judge Charles Wolle of Federal District Court entered the judgment on Tuesday against Henry’s Turkey Service of Goldthwaite, Tex. Judge Wolle said he must limit the judgment to $50,000 per employee, the cap included in the Americans with Disabilities Act for businesses with fewer than 101 workers. Jurors found on May 1 that Henry’s discriminated against the men, who were hired out to work at an Iowa turkey processing plant, and awarded each $7.5 million.
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12) Delivering KFC by Tunnel, Not Too Fast but Satisfying
By FARES AKRAM
GAZA CITY — The French fries arrive soggy, the chicken having long since lost its crunch. A 12-piece bucket goes for about $27 here — more than twice the $11.50 it costs just across the border in Egypt.
And for fast-food delivery, it is anything but fast: it took more than four hours for the KFC meals to arrive here on a recent afternoon from the franchise where they were cooked in El Arish, Egypt, a journey that involved two taxis, an international border, a smuggling tunnel and a young entrepreneur coordinating it all from a small shop here called Yamama — Arabic for pigeon.
“It’s our right to enjoy that taste the other people all over the world enjoy,” said the entrepreneur, Khalil Efrangi, 31, who started Yamama a few years ago with a fleet of motorbikes ferrying food from Gaza restaurants, the first such delivery service here.
There are no name-brand fast-food franchises on this 140-square-mile coastal strip of 1.7 million Palestinians, where the entry and exit of goods and people remain restricted and the unemployment rate is about 32 percent. Passage into Egypt through the Rafah crossing is limited to about 800 people a day, with men 16 to 40 years old requiring special clearance. Traveling through the Erez crossing into Israel requires a permit and is generally allowed only for medical patients, businessmen and employees of international organizations.
Palestinians generally refer to Gaza as being under siege or blockade by Israel, and isolation from the world is among the most common complaints of people here. That can create an intense longing for what those outside Gaza see as mundane, or ordinary.
“The irregular circumstances in Gaza generate an irregular way of thinking,” explained Fadel Abu Heen, a professor of psychology at Al Aqsa University in Gaza City. “They think of anything that is just behind the border, exactly as the prisoner is thinking of anything beyond the bars.”
Professor Abu Heen noted that when Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, breached the border with Egypt in 2008, during the height of the Israeli siege, thousands of Gazans flooded into El Arish and bought not just medicine and food staples but cigarettes, candy and things they did not need — just to show they had managed to bring something back from outside. Breaking the blockade, then and now, is seen as part of resisting the Israeli enemy, giving a sense of empowerment and control to people here, even if it comes in the form of fried chicken.
Even as Israel has relaxed restrictions on imports over the past few years, hundreds of illegal tunnels have flourished in Rafah. Weapons and people are smuggled underground, but so are luxury cars, construction materials and consumer goods like iPads and iPhones. And now: KFC.
Formerly called Kentucky Fried Chicken, a KFC franchise opened in El Arish, just over Gaza’s southern border, in 2011, and in the West Bank city of Ramallah last year. That, along with ubiquitous television advertisements for KFC and other fast-food favorites, has given Gazans a hankering for Colonel Sanders’s secret recipe.
So after Mr. Efrangi brought some KFC back from El Arish for friends last month, he was flooded with requests. A new business was born.
“I accepted this challenge to prove that Gazans can be resilient despite the restrictions,” Mr. Efrangi said.
In the past few weeks, Mr. Efrangi has coordinated four deliveries totaling about 100 meals, making about $6 per meal in profit. He promotes the service on Yamama’s Facebook page, and whenever there is a critical mass of orders — usually 30 — he starts a complicated process of telephone calls, wire transfers and coordination with the Hamas government to get the chicken from there to here.
The other day, after Mr. Efrangi called in 15 orders and wired the payment to the restaurant in El Arish, an Egyptian taxi driver picked up the food. On the other side of the border, meanwhile, Ramzi al-Nabih, a Palestinian cabdriver, arrived at the Hamas checkpoint in Rafah, where the guards recognized him as “the Kentucky guy.”
From the checkpoint, Mr. Nabih, 26, called his Egyptian counterpart and told him which of the scores of tunnels the Hamas official had cleared for the food delivery. He first waited near the shaft of the tunnel, but after a while he was lowered on a lift about 30 feet underground and walked halfway down the 650-foot path to meet two Egyptian boys who were pushing the boxes and buckets of food, wrapped in plastic, on a cart.
Mr. Nabih gave the boys about $16.50, and argued with them for a few minutes over a tip. A half-hour later, the food was loaded into the trunk and on the back seat of his Hyundai taxi, bound for Gaza City.
Back at Yamama, Mr. Efrangi sorted the meals for his motorcyclists to deliver to customers’ doorsteps. He said he limited the menu to chicken pieces, fries, coleslaw and apple pie because other items could be too complicated.
“Some clients would need a sandwich without mayonnaise, or a more spicy one, or a sandwich with or without sauce,” he said. “That’s why we do not bring everything, to avoid delivering the wrong order.”
Ibrahim el-Ajla, 29, who works for Gaza’s water utility and was among those enjoying KFC here the other day, acknowledged that the food was better hot and fresh in the restaurant, but he said he would be likely to order again. “I tried it in America and in Egypt, and I miss the taste,” he said. “Despite the blockade, KFC made it to my home.”
Mr. Efrangi may not have the fast-food market to himself much longer. A Gaza businessman who asked to be identified only by his nickname, Abu Ali, to avoid tipping off his competitors, said he applied for a franchise from KFC’s Middle East dealer, Americana Group, two months ago. Adeeb al-Bakri, who owns four KFC and Pizza Hut franchises in the West Bank, said he had been authorized to open a restaurant in Gaza and was working out the details.
“We need to get approval to bring chicken from Gaza farms with the KFC standards, we need to make sure that frying machines would be allowed in, we need the KFC experts to be able to head for Gaza for regular monthly checkups,” Mr. Bakri said. “I do not have a magic stick to open in Gaza quickly.”
Mr. Bakri was unaware of Mr. Efrangi’s delivery service, and when told the details, he frowned at the four-hour odyssey from oven to table.
“We dump it after half an hour,” he said.
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13) Baffling Rise in Suicides Plagues the U.S. Military
By JAMES DAO and ANDREW W. LEHREN
After Specialist Freddy Hook, a medic with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, killed himself in 2010, the trail of possible causes seemed long.
He had used illegal drugs: Was it the demons of addiction? His rocky relationship with his fiancée? A wrenching deployment to earthquake-ravaged Haiti or the prospect of an impending tour in Afghanistan?
As with most of suicides plaguing the military today, no one will know for sure.
“There are so many factors,” said his mother, Theresa Taylor, of Lafayette, La. “Everything that was important to him was having problems.”
Of the crises facing American troops today, suicide ranks among the most emotionally wrenching — and baffling. Over the course of nearly 12 years and two wars, suicide among active-duty troops has risen steadily, hitting a record of 350 in 2012. That total was twice as many as a decade before and surpassed not only the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan but also the number who died in transportation accidents last year.
Even with the withdrawal from Iraq and the pullback in Afghanistan, the rate of suicide within the military has continued to rise significantly faster than within the general population, where it is also rising. In 2002, the military’s suicide rate was 10.3 per 100,000 troops, well below the comparable civilian rate. But today the rates are nearly the same, above 18 per 100,000 people.
And according to some experts, the military may be undercounting the problem because of the way it calculates its suicide rate.
Yet though the Pentagon has commissioned numerous reports and invested tens of millions of dollars in research and prevention programs, experts concede they are little closer to understanding the root causes of why military suicide is rising so fast.
“Any one variable in isolation doesn’t explain things,” said Craig J. Bryan, associate director of the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah. “But the interaction of all of them do. That’s what makes it very difficult to solve the problem. And that’s why we haven’t made advances.”
An emerging consensus among researchers is that, just as among civilians, a dauntingly complex web of factors usually underlie military suicide: mental illness, sexual or physical abuse, addictions, failed relationships, financial struggles. Indeed, the most recent Pentagon report of suicides found that half of the troops who killed themselves in 2011 had experienced the failure of an intimate relationship and about a quarter had received diagnoses of substance abuse.
Studies have also found that certain patterns of suicide among civilians seem intensified within the military. Among civilians, young white males are one of the most likely groups to kill themselves. In the military that group, which is disproportionately represented, is even more likely to commit suicide. Among civilians, firearms are the most common means; in the military, as might be expected, guns are used even more often, in 6 of every 10 instances.
Deployment and exposure to combat can act as catalysts that worsen existing problems in a service member’s life, like drug abuse, or cause new ones, like post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries, which may contribute to suicidal behavior. Indeed, a study published this week in the medical journal JAMA Psychiatry found that troops with multiple concussions were significantly more likely to report having suicidal thoughts than troops with one or no concussions.
Yet deployment and combat by themselves cannot explain the spiking suicide rates, researchers say. Pentagon data show that in recent years about half of service members who committed suicide never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. And more than 80 percent had never been in combat.
“This probably is the keenest misconception the public has: that deployment is the factor most related to the increased rates of suicide,” said Cynthia Thomsen, a research psychologist at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego.
Another question lingers: Is the current trend unique, or typical of war throughout the ages? Because detailed data on military suicides was not collected until after Vietnam, it is impossible to know, though many experts believe that suicides rose during and after the two World Wars, Korea and Vietnam.
What is known is that since 2001, more than 2,700 service members have killed themselves, and that figure does not include National Guard and reserve troops who were not on active duty when they committed suicide.
Suicide among veterans has also risen somewhat since 2001, to an estimated 22 a day, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Just 12 years ago, when the rate of military suicide was so much lower, many experts believed that military culture insulated young people from self-harm. Not only did it provide steady income and health care, structure and a sense of purpose, the reasoning went, military service also screened personnel for criminal behavior as well as for basic physical and mental fitness.
But a decade of war has changed that perception.
“There is a difference between a military at war and a military at peace,” said Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. “There is no doubt that war changes you.”
The Loved Ones’ Question
The Pentagon’s 2011 annual report on suicide, the most recent available, paints this picture: About 9 of 10 suicides involved enlisted personnel, not officers. Three of four victims did not attend college. More than half were married. Eight in 10 died in the United States. Most did not leave notes or communicate their intent to hurt themselves.
Each of those suicides comes with its unique set of circumstances, its own theory as to why. But in the voices of loved ones left behind, themes echo. Surprise. Confusion. A relentless question: Could we have done more?
Cpl. Wade Toothman of the Marine Corps deployed to Iraq, where a good friend was killed, and then to Afghanistan, where a roadside bomb blew out one of his eardrums.
After he left the Marines in 2011, he complained of chronic headaches, a possible symptom of a traumatic brain injury. But he did not seek treatment. His mother also worried that he had post-traumatic stress. But he denied it and refused to see a doctor, saying he feared that the diagnosis would make it impossible to get a job. “People will say I’m crazy,” he told her.
Experts say the months just after a service member leaves the military can be a particularly disorienting and even dangerous time. Once cocooned in close-knit units, new veterans must learn to be individuals again, freer yet often more alone, surrounded by a society that knows little about military life.
Once back in his tiny Oklahoma hometown, Prue, Corporal Toothman got bored and moved to Hawaii, where he had been based. But he could not find work, returned to Oklahoma, took a prison-guard job that he hated and talked idly of re-enlisting.
“He was having a hard time being a civilian,” said his mother, Louise Toothman.
She did not realize just how hard. One October weekend in 2012, she went with her son to shop for groceries and pick up the tags for his new pickup truck. He seemed content. “He was making plans,” she said.
Two days later, he killed himself with a shotgun she had given him as a gift.
After his death, she began to uncover clues. Medical records showed that despite his denials about post-traumatic stress, the Marine Corps had treated him for the disorder, including by prescribing him antidepressants.
He also left behind an anguished note that made his mother believe he could not forget seeing a close friend killed in Iraq. “I’ve held a lot of guilt and anger and sadness inside for a very long time,” he wrote her. “I was too ashamed and proud to say it to you.”
“I stopped drinking and tried dealing with it on my own and I failed,” he continued. “I’m sorry I let you down. I was really hoping for some crazy, noble, heroic death. I love you and there’s nothing you or anyone could do. This is my decision. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.”
Ms. Toothman wept as she read his words. “If I had known these things, I would have acted differently,” she said. “I would have been right there.”
Don Lipstein knows that feeling.
His son, Petty Officer Second Class Joshua Lipstein, had been a heavy drinker as a teenager growing up in Wilmington, Del. But motivated by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks four years earlier, he enlisted in the Navy and joined a riverboat crew that seemed to give him a sense of fulfillment, his father said. He made plans to make the Navy a career.
But during his second Iraq tour, doctors discovered he had a brain tumor and sent him home. In late 2009, he underwent surgery that caused him to lose hearing in one ear. Assigned to a desk job, he seemed headed for a medical discharge. The prospect of losing a career he loved was wrenching.
In the ensuing months, his father recalls, he became dependent on opioid pain killers. He told his father he was not addicted, just self-medicating. But Mr. Lipstein pushed him to enroll in a drug rehabilitation program. It did not help: months afterward, Petty Officer Lipstein started using heroin.
Even the birth of a daughter did not seem to relieve his inner struggles. In March 2011, while he was awaiting his final discharge, he spoke to his father on the phone. Mr. Lipstein could hear the despondency; alarmed, he asked his son to unload his gun.
“Dad,” he replied, “I can’t do that.” He killed himself soon after.
Mr. Lipstein, who speaks and counsels about suicide for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, a nonprofit organization, says he does not blame the military for his son’s death, noting how much he loved his work.
But he wonders whether commanders missed telltale signs — a problem the Pentagon acknowledges may be widespread. He wonders if he missed them, too.
“I didn’t look at him as suicidal,” he said. “Looking back, there were all kinds of stressors on his life. If I could have considered he was suicidal, could I have done something to prevent it?”
Looking for What Works
For Kathryn Robinson, seeking treatment for her post-traumatic stress disorder and occasional thoughts about suicide was not an issue. Finding a program that worked was.
A member of the Army National Guard, she deployed to Iraq in 2007 as a combat videographer. There, a sniper shot off one of her fingers during a fierce firefight. After active duty, she isolated herself from friends and family and became dependent on antidepressants.
But unlike some veterans, Ms. Robinson, 45, who lives in Detroit, sought treatment repeatedly: a residential program for post-traumatic stress disorder, a women’s trauma recovery program, horse therapy, songwriting therapy, transcendental meditation, running.
Travel seems to work best of all, she said: “I call it trying to outrun the crazy.”
Under intense pressure to expand and improve treatment and prevention programs, the armed services have hired additional mental health counselors, conducted advertising campaigns to encourage troops to seek care and instituted resiliency programs to help them control stress through diet, exercise, sleeping habits, meditation or counseling. Commanders are being instructed on how to identify the telltale signs of suicidal behavior as an early-warning system.
Yet the persistently high suicide rates have raised questions about which, if any, programs work. According to a 2010 report, the Department of Defense had nearly 900 suicide prevention activities, with multiple “inconsistencies, redundancies and gaps” in services.
Some experts say the Pentagon should focus on fewer programs that might have quicker impact. Some studies suggest, for instance, that simply improving sleeping habits can improve mental well-being. Others show that strengthening social connections, such as by having commanders or friends send “caring letters” to troubled service members, can prevent suicide.
But the stubborn nature of the problem is prompting more serious consideration of what suicide prevention experts call “means restriction,” particularly reducing access to privately owned firearms.
“If we want to limit suicide, we should put means restriction at the front because it works,” said Dr. Bryan of the University of Utah.
Indeed, the Pentagon is considering policies to encourage family members to take personal firearms away from suicidal service members. Commanders already have the authority to confiscate military-issue firearms from potentially suicidal service members.
But any such program is sure to be contentious and stir opposition from Second Amendment advocates. Dr. Woodson, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said that the program would be voluntary, but that details were still being developed.
Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the Pentagon is simply getting suicidal service members into treatment. Surveys show that despite campaigns to reduce stigma, many service members continue to believe that treatment will be ineffective or hurt their careers, said Dr. Charles Hoge, a psychiatrist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
“The problem isn’t the specific treatments, but the fact that individuals aren’t seeking care or are dropping out,” Dr. Hoge said. “There’s quite a bit of effort put into addressing stigma. But the fact remains that it is still a big problem.”
Encouraging Help
For that reason, the Pentagon’s first department-wide suicide prevention policy, to be released this year, will require “leaders to foster a command climate that encourages Department of Defense personnel to seek help,” Jacqueline Garrick, acting director of the Defense Suicide Prevention Office, told Congress in March.
Theresa Taylor wonders whether any of that would have saved her son, Specialist Hook, who seemed to fall through one crack after another.
His family had a long history of military service. But his mother, an Air Force veteran, encouraged him to enlist because he was a bright underachiever who used drugs. The military, she hoped, would help him grow up.
For two years, he seemed to thrive as a medic with the 82nd Airborne Division. But in 2010, his life veered wildly off track. He seemed deeply affected by suffering he witnessed during a humanitarian mission to Haiti early that year. Over the following months, there were tensions with his fiancée. An arrest for driving 160 miles an hour. A relapse into drug use.
When he visited his mother in Louisiana in October 2010, he seemed agitated, “not in a good place,” she said. He had begun taking antidepressants and seemed worried that his dream of joining the elite Army Rangers was becoming vanishingly distant. Adding to his stress, he was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan the next March.
“He didn’t want to go,” Ms. Taylor said. “It didn’t have to do with the war or the Army. He felt like he needed to get his life straight.”
As Christmas approached, Ms. Taylor learned that he had asked his fiancée to enter into a suicide pact. She told his commanders at Fort Bragg, and they promised to put him on suicide watch.
But a mental health professional at the post decided that he was not suicidal and cleared him to go on holiday leave, Ms. Taylor said. Over the next day, he stabbed a drug dealer while trying to reclaim a Rolex watch, a cherished gift that he had traded for drugs, his mother said.
His sergeant, whom he told about the stabbing, took him to turn himself in. But on the way to the police station, Specialist Hook called his fiancée and said, “I’ll see you on the flip side.” Then he stepped from the car and shot himself using a pistol he had taken from a friend. He died on Christmas Day at the age of 20.
Ms. Taylor acknowledged that many of her son’s problems had predated enlistment. But she is haunted by a tape loop of questions about whether she, or her son’s friends, or his commanders, could have done more to help him.
“There is enough blame for everyone to go around,” she said. “The only reason you can blame anyone at all is that he was so young. If he was 40 and pulling these stunts, you’d say he should have learned. But he wasn’t.”
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14) Ceiling Collapse at Shoe Factory in Cambodia Kills 2
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG — A ceiling at a small factory making shoes on the outskirts
of the capital of Cambodia collapsed on Thursday morning, killing at
least two workers and underlining global worries about factory safety in
poor countries.
Ken Loo, the secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, said that steel beams holding up a concrete-floored storage area at mezzanine height between two buildings had given way. In addition to the two dead, nine workers were injured, three of them severely, by falling concrete, Mr. Loo said.
The collapse outside the capital, Phnom Penh, came 22 days after the collapse of a garment factory complex in Bangladesh killed at least 1,127 people and prompted an international outcry for multinational retailers to assume more responsibility for the safety of workers at their suppliers.
Mr. Loo said that the factory had been making shoes for Asics, a large Japanese athletic shoe company that is based in Kobe. Naomichi Hatori, a spokesman for Asics, confirmed that the factory, called Wing Star Shoes, made sports shoes for the company. He could not immediately say which market the shoes were shipped to, or whether the plant also made shoes for other brands.
He said Asics “offered its deepest sympathies” to the victims and their families, and that the company would consider actions to revamp safety measures at its overseas suppliers.
Telephone calls to the Wing Star Shoes offices in Kampong Speu, the Cambodian province where the accident took place, were not answered on Thursday, and an e-mail to the company drew no immediate response.
Popular with runners, Asics has been particularly successful in the American market, where it emphasizes corporate responsibility. According to the company’s Web site, the Asics name is an acronym “derived from the Latin phrase, Anima Sana In Corpore Sano — a sound mind in a sound body.”
Bradley Gordon, an American lawyer based in Phnom Penh, said that Cambodia had strong laws on safety and other issues, drafted partly with help from international advisers over the last two decades, but that regulatory enforcement is often weak. Many factories in Cambodia have only been built in the past decade, so building collapses are rare.
Mr. Gordon predicted that the Cambodian government would be genuinely worried about Thursday’s incident and would put a great deal of effort into making sure that there would be no further collapses.
“The garment industry is one of the key industries in Cambodia and is just too important to the government and the population” for a problem like this not to receive considerable scrutiny, he said.
Worker safety advocates were quick to cite Thursday’s incident as further evidence of a need for broad changes in how the West’s clothing and footwear are now made in poor countries.
“The shoe and garment industry is built upon huge profits and little concern for the well-being of their workers,” said Tessel Pauli, a spokeswoman for the Clean Clothes Campaign. “It is inherently unsafe and dangerous to work in. As long as workers are marginalized and deprived of their basic rights, the situation will not improve.”
Multinational clothing retailers have been considering Cambodia as one of several countries that could be alternatives to Bangladesh for manufacturing. Cambodia has some of the lowest labor costs in Asia, with workers earning $120 a month in salary and benefits before overtime, but that compares with just $37 in Bangladesh.
Bruce Rockowitz, the group president and chief executive at Hong Kong-based Li & Fung, one of the world’s largest sourcing companies, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, before the Cambodian factory collapse, that the collapse of the factory in Bangladesh had already taught multinationals that visual inspections of factories’ structural stability was not enough.
“We visually always inspected them, but you need true engineers,” he said.
The far lower death toll from Thursday’s incident at the Cambodian factory, a low steel structure, than from the collapse of the eight-story Rana Plaza complex on the outskirts of Dhaka three weeks ago could intensify pressure on retailers to avoid buying from multistory factories. Any such shift could put Bangladesh, India and Pakistan at a disadvantage.
Factories in South Asia have tended to be taller because countries in that region have lagged in highway and road construction, and land prices have soared in those areas that do have good road access. In Bangladesh, factory owners have also complained of problems in persuading utilities to provide electricity and water connections suitable for larger sites.
Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo.
Ken Loo, the secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, said that steel beams holding up a concrete-floored storage area at mezzanine height between two buildings had given way. In addition to the two dead, nine workers were injured, three of them severely, by falling concrete, Mr. Loo said.
The collapse outside the capital, Phnom Penh, came 22 days after the collapse of a garment factory complex in Bangladesh killed at least 1,127 people and prompted an international outcry for multinational retailers to assume more responsibility for the safety of workers at their suppliers.
Mr. Loo said that the factory had been making shoes for Asics, a large Japanese athletic shoe company that is based in Kobe. Naomichi Hatori, a spokesman for Asics, confirmed that the factory, called Wing Star Shoes, made sports shoes for the company. He could not immediately say which market the shoes were shipped to, or whether the plant also made shoes for other brands.
He said Asics “offered its deepest sympathies” to the victims and their families, and that the company would consider actions to revamp safety measures at its overseas suppliers.
Telephone calls to the Wing Star Shoes offices in Kampong Speu, the Cambodian province where the accident took place, were not answered on Thursday, and an e-mail to the company drew no immediate response.
Popular with runners, Asics has been particularly successful in the American market, where it emphasizes corporate responsibility. According to the company’s Web site, the Asics name is an acronym “derived from the Latin phrase, Anima Sana In Corpore Sano — a sound mind in a sound body.”
Bradley Gordon, an American lawyer based in Phnom Penh, said that Cambodia had strong laws on safety and other issues, drafted partly with help from international advisers over the last two decades, but that regulatory enforcement is often weak. Many factories in Cambodia have only been built in the past decade, so building collapses are rare.
Mr. Gordon predicted that the Cambodian government would be genuinely worried about Thursday’s incident and would put a great deal of effort into making sure that there would be no further collapses.
“The garment industry is one of the key industries in Cambodia and is just too important to the government and the population” for a problem like this not to receive considerable scrutiny, he said.
Worker safety advocates were quick to cite Thursday’s incident as further evidence of a need for broad changes in how the West’s clothing and footwear are now made in poor countries.
“The shoe and garment industry is built upon huge profits and little concern for the well-being of their workers,” said Tessel Pauli, a spokeswoman for the Clean Clothes Campaign. “It is inherently unsafe and dangerous to work in. As long as workers are marginalized and deprived of their basic rights, the situation will not improve.”
Multinational clothing retailers have been considering Cambodia as one of several countries that could be alternatives to Bangladesh for manufacturing. Cambodia has some of the lowest labor costs in Asia, with workers earning $120 a month in salary and benefits before overtime, but that compares with just $37 in Bangladesh.
Bruce Rockowitz, the group president and chief executive at Hong Kong-based Li & Fung, one of the world’s largest sourcing companies, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, before the Cambodian factory collapse, that the collapse of the factory in Bangladesh had already taught multinationals that visual inspections of factories’ structural stability was not enough.
“We visually always inspected them, but you need true engineers,” he said.
The far lower death toll from Thursday’s incident at the Cambodian factory, a low steel structure, than from the collapse of the eight-story Rana Plaza complex on the outskirts of Dhaka three weeks ago could intensify pressure on retailers to avoid buying from multistory factories. Any such shift could put Bangladesh, India and Pakistan at a disadvantage.
Factories in South Asia have tended to be taller because countries in that region have lagged in highway and road construction, and land prices have soared in those areas that do have good road access. In Bangladesh, factory owners have also complained of problems in persuading utilities to provide electricity and water connections suitable for larger sites.
Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo.
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15) Illinois: Lawsuits Filed Over Chicago School Closings
By MOTOKO RICH
Parents in Chicago have filed two federal lawsuits opposing proposed
school closings. In March, the Chicago Public Schools identified 53
schools that it planned to close to save $560 million over 10 years. The
school board will vote on the proposal next Wednesday. The suits, filed
Wednesday in Federal District Court for the Northern District of
Illinois Eastern Division, say the closings would violate the Americans
With Disabilities Act. In a complaint seeking to postpone them for a
year, three parents seeking class-action status allege that the closings
would pose “significant disruption” to special-education students. The
second suit, which seeks to stop the closings altogether, alleges that
they would “needlessly uproot, transfer and destabilize the children.”
The suit further says the closings would violate Illinois civil rights
law because the schools fall disproportionately in areas where the vast
majority of students are black.
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16) New Jersey Hospital Is the Costliest in the Nation
By JULIE CRESWELL, BARRY MEIER and JO CRAVEN McGINTY
BAYONNE, N.J. — The most expensive hospital in America is not set amid the swaying palm trees of Beverly Hills or the luxury townhouses of New York’s Upper East Side.
It is in a faded blue-collar town 11 miles from Midtown Manhattan.
Based on the bills it submits to Medicare, the Bayonne Medical Center charged the highest amounts in the country for nearly one-quarter of the most common hospital treatments, according to a New York Times analysis of 2011 data, the most recent available. No other hospital was at the top of the price list more often.
Bayonne Medical typically charged $99,689 for treating each case of chronic lung disease, five times as much as other hospitals and 17 times as much as Medicare paid in reimbursement. The hospital also charged on average of $120,040 to treat transient ischemia, a type of small stroke that has no lasting effect. That was six times the national average and 24 times what Medicare paid.
For those prices, the quality of care at Bayonne Medical is no better — or worse — than that at most other New Jersey hospitals. In a 2011 state hospital quality report, Bayonne Medical scored only in the top 50 percent. But profits at the hospital, which was bankrupt in 2007, have soared in recent years, in part because it has found a way to turn some of those high billings into payments.
The increasingly contentious issue of hospital charges drew renewed attention last week when the federal government released Medicare data showing that facilities nationwide submitted widely divergent bills for the same treatments. And while the unassuming, six-story brick hospital here holds a notable place in those rankings, others stand out as well.
The midsize Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, Pa., was the top biller in the country for urinary tract infections, while one prestigious Manhattan hospital, NYU Langone Medical Center, charged twice as much as the equally high-end NewYork-Presbyterian to implant a cardiac pacemaker. But Medicare considers the two New York hospitals so similar it pays them both about $20,000 for the procedure. The hospital industry is quick to say that the charges are irrelevant because virtually no one — private insurers, Medicare or even the uninsured — pays anywhere near those amounts. Medicare sets standard rates for treatments and insurers negotiate with hospitals. But experts add that the charges reflect decades of maneuvering by hospitals to gain an edge over insurers and provide themselves with tax advantages.
Until a recent ruling by the Internal Revenue Service, for instance, a hospital could use the higher prices when calculating the amount of charity care it was providing, said Gerard Anderson, director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at Johns Hopkins. “There is a method to the madness, though it is still madness,” Mr. Anderson said.
A close look at the finances of Bayonne Medical Center sheds light on how hospital pricing at the extremes may financially benefit an institution. The practices at Bayonne Medical also highlight a new financial strategy used by a small number of hospitals to increase their profits by “going out of network” — severing ties, and hence contractual agreements that limit reimbursement rates, with large private insurers.
Neither officials nor owners of Bayonne Medical responded to multiple calls and e-mail requests for interviews. Because the company is privately held, it does not have to release financial data.
Bayonne Medical, which was founded in 1888, was losing nearly $1.5 million a month before it filed for bankruptcy in 2007. By 2011, under new ownership and a new financial model, its patient revenue had nearly tripled and its operating income had reached $9.3 million, according to the American Hospital Directory, a publication that compiles data from Medicare and other sources about health care facilities.
The hospital’s turnabout started in 2008 when it was acquired out of bankruptcy by a consortium of buyers in a deal valued at about $41 million.
Bayonne’s purchasers included Vivek Garipalli, who worked at the private equity giant Blackstone Group before co-founding the International Sleep Network, a company based in New Jersey that treats patients with sleep apnea and other disorders. Joining Mr. Garipalli was Jeffrey Mandler, the head of a health care imaging firm. To make money from Bayonne Medical, the new buyers made some big changes in the hospital’s business strategy.
First, they converted Bayonne Medical from a nonprofit to a for-profit hospital at a time when such hospitals were a rarity in New Jersey. Next, they moved to sever existing contracts with large private insurers, essentially making Bayonne Medical an out-of-network hospital for most insurance plans.
Under New Jersey law, patients treated in a hospital emergency room outside their provider’s network have to pay out of pocket only what they would have paid if the hospital was in the network. But an out-of-network hospital can bill the patient’s insurer at essentially whatever rate it cares to set. While the insurers can negotiate with the hospital, they generally end up paying more than they would have under a contractual agreement.
In recent years, Bayonne Medical put up digital billboards highlighting the short waits in its emergency rooms in an effort to attract more patients. Insurers complained that the hospital was seeking to take advantage of the higher rates it could charge.
While the law was aimed at giving patients more hospitals to choose from, it “has had the unintended consequence of rewarding folks for these inflated charges,” said Wardell Sanders, president of the New Jersey Association of Health Plans. “When people say these charges are just the sticker price and it’s meaningless, it’s not meaningless.”
Community leaders in Bayonne, fearing the hospital could close its doors, said the buyers were always candid about the methods they intended to use to make the hospital a profitable enterprise.
“That raised a lot of concern, but what other choice did we have?” said Jeanne Otersen, who was a member of the Coalition to Save Bayonne Medical Center and is policy director for the Health Professionals and Allied Employees, a union that represents nurses at the facility.
Not surprisingly, the insurers fought back against the out-of-network model. In 2009, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey filed an injunction in New Jersey Superior Court saying Bayonne Medical’s owners had “flatly rejected” and refused to negotiate an in-network hospital contract with Horizon. When the existing agreement expired in early 2009, Horizon said Bayonne sharply increased its prices. Bayonne’s in-network charges to Horizon averaged $13,000 a day in 2008. A year later, when it was out of network, the charges soared to $29,000, the insurer said in a spring 2009 news release.
Bayonne Medical denied allegations in Horizon’s lawsuit that it was artificially inflating prices, and filed its own lawsuit against Horizon, claiming the insurer had intimidated patients and tried to get them to leave the facility before completing their treatments.
The two eventually settled in 2011, and Horizon became an in-network insurance provider. A spokesman for Horizon declined to comment on Bayonne Medical’s charges, citing terms of the settlement agreement.
Still, many other large insurance companies, including Cigna, United Healthcare and Aetna, remain out of network at Bayonne and are paying the higher bills.
“Their model is to charge exorbitant rates, particularly for emergency room services, and if the insurance companies don’t pay them, they threaten to go after the member for the balance of billing,” said Carl King, head of national networks for Aetna, whose in-network contract was also ended by Bayonne in 2008.
Like Horizon, Aetna said its bills from Bayonne Medical soared, and it also filed a lawsuit in 2011. The suit was dismissed.
Aetna’s internal data showed that Bayonne Medical’s emergency room charges jumped again in 2012 and are running 6 to 12 times as high as those of surrounding hospitals. Last fall, Mr. Garipalli bought the designer Tory Burch’s oceanside home in Southampton for $11 million, according to public records.
After purchasing Bayonne Medical, the investor group went on a buying spree, acquiring Hoboken University Medical Center in 2011 and the bankrupt Christ Hospital in Jersey City last year.
“This hospital is clearly pursuing an out-of-network strategy with a profit motive in mind and taking advantage of members who seek emergency services at their facility,” Mr. King said.
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17) Seven Teenagers Arrested for End-Of-Year Water Balloon Prank
Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Yanik Chauvin
May 17, 2013
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/7-teenagers-arrested-end-year-water-balloon-prank?akid=10452.229473.9IVRiA&rd=1&src=newsletter841956&t=5
Thanks to North Carolina, we now have the latest example of police
and the criminal justice system interfering with kids, simply for being
kids.
This year, a handful of students at Enloe High School in Raleigh
North Carolina appear to have plotted perhaps the most unimaginative
prank in high school history: tossing water balloons at other students.
But thanks to aggression from the school's administration and local
police, the prank didn't end peacefully.
In anticipation of the prank, school officials called in "increased
security" and teachers held their students inside classrooms. After the
balloons flew, seven boys were arrested, at least one handcuffed after
being taken down down the asphalt by police.
Six are being charged with disorderly conduct, while one is being charged with assault and battery.
Russ Smith, senior director of security for the school system, told local station WRAL that school officials are taking the incident seriously.
"Somebody gets hit with a water balloon. They don't like it. So,
the potential is there for there to be a physical altercation," Smith
said.
Three of the boys remained in custody overnight, with one held on $3,000 bail.
Anyone who attended high school will remember seniors'
end-of-the-year pranks. They're usually harmless and relatively
uninventive acts: moving furniture out of classrooms, soaking younger
students with squirt guns, parking cars in the wrong places. In the Fast
Times at Ridgemont High era, water balloons would have been all fun and
games. But today, as police and security guards increasingly patrol
high school hallways, this joke was no laughing matter.
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B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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GUANTANAMO: 100+ PRISONERS...100 DAYS OF HUNGER STRIKE.......11 YEARS of INDEFINITE DETENTION: How many more will die? NO HOPE
Dear Friends, Today marks the 100th day of the Hunger Strike at Guantanamo.......some are near death.
A VERY TRAGIC DAY INDEED!
Won't you please find time to break the silence and join one or more of the many solidarity actions planned in the Bay Area this weekend? (See below for details)
SUNDAY, MAY 19, 9:00-1:00pm GIANT BANNERS FOR HUNGER STRIKERS!
I am organizing a solidarity vigil and bannering on the University Ave. foot bridge, Berkeley.
(just south of University Ave over hwy 80).......In memory of Adnan......
Can you please be there with us for one (or more) of the hours during this important vigil?
CLOSE GUANTANAMO NOW! NOT ONE MORE DEATH!
While on the bridge, we will write postcards to the prisoners at Guantanamo.
Bring postcards to share. Bring large banners. Food and drink to share welcomed.
PLEASE rsvp: Toby: ratherbenyckeling@comcast.net
And join CodePink and World Can't Wait for one or more of the other amazing actions planned this weekend. See below for details.
In Memory: Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif:
The last prisoner to die at Guantanamo
Adnan's Poem:
They are artists of torture,
They are artists of pain and fatigue,
They are artists of insults and humiliation.
Where is the world to save us from torture?
Where is the world to save us from the fire and sadness?
Where is the world to save the hunger strikers?
- Adnan Latif: Poems from Guantánamo
Please read more about Adnan here:
http://witnesstorture.org/survivors/adnan-farhan-abdul-latif/
TODAY or ANYDAY:
Call Obama: 202-456-1111
Tell him to release the 86 detainees cleared of any wrong doing!
SHUT DOWN GUANTANAMO NOW! STOP THE TORTURE
Forced-feeding is Torture!!!
SATURDAY MAY 18
Guantánamo Vigil & Speak-out
Downtown San Francisco
Powell & Market
12 Noon to 3 PM
Stand Up for the Hunger Strikers!
SUNDAY MAY 19, 9:00 AM to 1:00 pm
FREEWAY BANNERING: GIANT BANNERS
Dress in Orange and Black, Some detainee jumpsuits will be available to wear.
To include Postcard writing to Hunger Strikers
CLOSE GUANTANAMO, 100 DAYS, 100 HUNGER STRIKERS
SUNDAY MAY 19, 2:00 PM
Discussion with Andy Worthington
(Skype from London)
Stop the Torture! Close Guantánamo!
at Revolution Books in Berkeley
2425 Channing Way
(510) 848-1196 for information
Support World Can't Wait's Full Page Ad in the NY Times:
http://www.sfbaycantwait.net/
SUNDAY MAY 19, 4PM-5PM, Press Conference, Old City Hall Steps, 2134 MLK Jr. Way
4pm-5pm Press Conference, Old City Hall Steps, 2134 MLK Jr. Way
Invited Speakers: Codepink, Berkeley No More Guantanamos, Berkeley City Council members, Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission members, Amnesty International, National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Alliance for Justice, National Lawyers Guild, Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, ACLU, Boalt Human Rights Institute, Ecumenical Peace Institute, Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, World Can't Wait, Andy Worthington, Democracy Now's Andres Thomas Conteris, KPFA's Kriss Welch
“Cleared Guantanamo Detainees Fund Drive” Kick-Off, with Berkeley No More Guantanamos, Codepink Women for Peace. John Yoo expected to make $50,000 pledge and receive Codepink “Pink Badge of Courage”
Fast in Solidarity with Gitmo Hunger Strikers
Orange jumpsuited 'detainees' with feedling tubes will dramatize plight of hunger strikers.
The American Medical Association has condemned the force feeding of about 100 prisoners who have refused food in protest of their indefinite confinement.
Postcard writing and March 2 blocks to Berkeley Post Office to mail cards to fasting detainees,
Obama & Yoo
UC Law Professor and ‘architect of U.S. torture policy in the Bush Administration John Yoo’ is expected to make a pledge to kick off the "Berkeley No More Guantanamos" Cleared Guantanamo Detainees Fund Drive,presenting a big check for $50,000 to the group at a press conference this Sunday, May 19, 4pm, at Old City Hall in Berkeley, 2134 MLK Jr. Way. Yoo will be awarded a “Pink Badge of Courage” from Codepink Women for Peace for this unexpected but welcome humanitarian gesture.
A 2011 Berkeley City Council resolution welcoming one or two cleared Guantanamo detainees to settle in Berkeley is moving a step forward on Sunday with the launching of the campaign to raise private funds for the detainees’ expenses. Pledges will be made and then collected when the cleared detainees are allowed by Congress to come to the U.S.
A spokesman for John Yoo said that this gesture was done in the spirit of the return of the “Age of Acquarius.” Yoo declared “I used to say that the people protesting my legal opinions authorizing torture were Birkenstock-wearing holdouts from the 60’s. I've come to realize that hundreds of innocent men were renditioned, tortured and otherwise treated inhumanely, and are being detained indefinitely because of my legal advice to Cheney and Bush. While I still think we were right to torture terrorists to establish an Al Qaeda-Sadam Hussein connection in order to justify the invasion of Iraq and protect the United States from future 9/11 attacks, knowing that many of the Guantanamo detainees are innocent makes me want to help them to transition to freedom, in my own community, as established by a Resolution of the Berkeley City Council two years ago. This gift will help them come here and rebuild their lives."
“UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who authored legal opinions allowing waterboarding and other inhumane and illegal treatment of detainees, was asked to make a pledge to the Cleared Guantanamo Detainees Fund, to help cover mental health services, housing, food, transportation and other necessary expenses until the detainees can get on their feet. Yoo lives in the Berkeley Hills, has several BMWs, we pay him over $280,000 a year to teach at our public University and he gets enormous speaking fees at Tea Party, Young Republican, American Enterprise Institute and Federalist Society events. He can well afford to contribute, especially in light of his role in the detainees’ suffering. Some of the 86 cleared and 100 fasting detainees have been tortured, they’ve all been mistreated. Yoo’s pledge of $50,000 is not only a fitting humanitarian gesture, but it’s totally amazing!” says Cynthia Papermaster of “Berkeley No More Guantanamos.” Jay Winks, a member of the Golden Gate Chapter of Codepink added “Codepink is thrilled that John Yoo has found it in his heart to pledge generous monetary support for these men, some of whom are near death by starvation. Yoo will receive a “Pink Badge of Courage” as a token of gratitude from the Berkeley community.”
A possible detainee for settlement in Berkeley is Shaker Amer, the last remaining British citizen at Guantanamo. Cleared by the Bush Administration in 2007 for release, Amer, who is not a terrorist and not even anti-American, has been imprisoned for 11 years but has never been charged with a crime. He says he has little hope of ever seeing his wife and children again. He has written that he is frequently beaten, isolated, and taunted with food while on hunger strike. Having lost over 30 pounds and so weak he can barely walk, he is being strapped down and painfully force fed.
COME OUT ON SUNDAY TO JOIN THE CALL FOR RELEASE OF FASTING GUANTANAMO DETAINEES! Banner on the Overpass, Sign Up to FAST IN SOLIDARITY, Write to a Detainee & to President Obama, THANK JOHN YOO for Pledging to the “Cleared Guantanamo Detainees Fund” and please make a pledge yourself! Our fund raising goal is $100,000 in pledges this year; we’re half way there with Yoo's pledge!
Contact: Berkeley No More Guantanamos and Codepink Golden Gate,cynthia_papermaster@yahoo.com
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STOCKTON, FRI., MAY 31st - 2 pm - JUSTICE FOR JAMES RIVERA
Just want to let folks that a bus will be available to transport folks from Oscar Grant Plaza to Stockton on May 31st. Bus leaves at 12:30pm.
MAY 31,2013 @ 2:00 Stockton court house come out and support Justice 4 James E. Rivera Jr.
Visit the Oscar Grant Committee at www.oscargrantcommittee.weebly.com.
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COURAGE TO RESIST SF BAY AREA EVENTS
May 17, 2013 ~ "Supporting the troops who refuse to fight!"
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We are less than a month away from heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning's court martial. Even though he will be tried at Fort Meade, Maryland, there are many local ways to get involved as well. Here are three upcoming events:
Tuesday, May 21 ~ 5pm
BRADLEY MANNING SUPPORT NETWORK MAILING PIZZA PARTY
55 Santa Clara Ave, Oakland 94610
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/09/18736576.php
https://www.facebook.com/events/500398416675943/
Saturday, June 1-8
BRADLEY MANNING FLASH MOB ACTIONS
We’re going to flashmob Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” June 1st-8th, the international week of action for Bradley Manning, at SF Pride, and at various open spaces until Bradley can come dance with us.
PRACTICE SESSION: MONDAYS, 7:45pm – 9:30pm
Feintech room @ ODC (351 Shotwell b/w 17th & 18th Sts) San Francisco
https://orders.bradleymanning.org/support_events/dance-flashmob-for-bradley
https://www.facebook.com/events/610475588979938/
Sunday, June 30 ~ 10am
BRADLEY MANNING SF PRIDE OFFICIAL CONTINGENT
Meet at Beale and Howard Sts (near the temporary Trans-bay Terminal)
https://orders.bradleymanning.org/support_events/bradley-manning-sf-pride
https://www.facebook.com/events/327236664071988/
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COURAGE TO RESIST
484 Lake Park Ave. #41, Oakland CA 94610
http://couragetoresist.org
510-488-3559
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Please Sign Immediately and pass on!
EMERGENCY CALL! JOIN US IN STOPPING TORTURE IN US PRISONS!
June 21, 22 and 23 Will Be Days of Solidarity With the Struggle to End Prison Torture!
Tens of thousands of people imprisoned in the US are being subjected to torturous, inhumane conditions. Many are:
· Held in long term solitary confinement; locked in tiny, windowless, sometimes sound proof, cells; cut off from fresh air and sunlight for 22-24 hours every day and given small portions of food that lacks basic nutritional requirements.
· Denied human contact and violently taken from their cells for petty violations.
· Put in solitary arbitrarily, often because of accusations of being members of prison gangs based on dubious evidence, and have no way to challenge the decisions of prison authorities to place them in solitary.
Many are forced to endure these conditions for months, years and even decades! Mental anguish and trauma often results from being confined under these conditions. Locking people down like this amounts to trying to strip them of their humanity.
These conditions fit the international definition of torture! This is unjust, illegitimate and profoundly immoral. WE MUST JOIN IN AN EFFORT TO STOP IT, NOW!
People imprisoned at Pelican Bay State Prison in California have called For a Nation-wide Hunger Strike to begin on July 8, 2013. They have also issued a call for unity among people from different racial groups, inside and outside the prisons. People who are locked down in segregation units of this society's prisons, condemned as the "worst of the worst," are standing up against injustice, asserting their humanity in the process. We must have the humanity to hear their call, and answer it with powerful support!
A Nation-wide and World-wide Struggle Needs to Be launched NOW to bring an End to this widespread Torture Before those in the Prisons Are Forced to Take the Desperate step of going on hunger strikes and putting their lives on the line!
To the Government: We Demand an Immediate End to the Torture and Inhumanity of Prison House America – Immediately Disband All Torture Chambers. Meet the demands of those you have locked down in your prisons!
To People in this Country and Around the World: We Cannot Accept, and We Should Not Tolerate This Torture. Join The Struggle to End Torture in Prisons Now!
To Those Standing Up in Resistance Inside The Prisons: WE SUPPORT YOUR CALL FOR UNITY IN THIS FIGHT, AND WE WILL HAVE YOUR BACKS!
June 21, 22 and 23 Will Be Days of Solidarity With the Struggle to End Prison Torture! There will be protests, cultural events, Evenings of Conscience, sermons in religious services, saturation of social media – all aimed at laying bare the ugly reality of wide spread torture in US prisons and challenging everyone to join in fighting to STOP it.
Send Your endorsements (name . and if you wish, organization and/or title, to:
StopMassIncarcerationBayArea@gmail.com
For more information and to join in this struggle contact the Stop Mass Incarceration Network at:
http://www.stopmassincarceration.org/support-california-prison-hunger-strikers.html
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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
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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
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Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrvMzqopHH0
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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
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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
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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
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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
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#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
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#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street
By adele pham
http://vimeo.com/30146870
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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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