Sunday, February 09, 2014

BAUAW NEWSLETTER: SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2014




AN URGENT FUNDRAISER FOR LYNNE STEWART'S MEDICAL NEEDS

http://lynnestewart.org/

ST. PETER’S CHURCH

THE JAZZ CHURCH

619 Lexington Ave @ 54 St

Buses M57, M31, M50, M101, M103;Subways E, M, 4,  5, 6

Fully accessible

Friday, February 14th at 6pm


On Valentine’s Day – Come to an evening of music, song and sharing love for recently released People’s Lawyer Lynne Stewart. Because of a determined people’s movement, Lynne is finally home with her family. But she has urgent medical needs and costs. Lynne’s Stage 4 breast cancer spread a year ago to both lungs, back, bones and lymph nodes. Now 74, she has lost weight and has trouble breathing; doctors estimate her lifespan at 12 months. Lynne will soon begin treatment requiring her to pay deductibles and co-payments. To boost the odds, she’ll use a special diet, vitamins, and other healing methods – some costly and none covered by insurance.

Lynne’s spirit is indomitable – help her fight to survive!

“I fought lions, I fought tigers, and I’m not goimg to let cancer get me,” Stewart said.

Lynne has always come to the aid of those who needed her. Now it’s our turn to stand by Lynne.

SEND LYNNE A VALENTINE AND A DONATION AT:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/send-lynne-stewart-a-valentine

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Tell Maj. Gen. Buchanan why Chelsea
deserves to be free!


PVT Chelsea Manning has served nearly four years in prison, yet she’s showing a remarkable spirit of persistence. She is unjustly imprisoned, but not defeated. With plans to enroll in a prelaw/political science university program, and a legal name change underway, she continues planning for her future and working to fulfill her dreams. She is determined to make the best of her situation. However, we know she could contribute more to the world if she was free.
Please write a letter to Convening Authority Major General Buchanan today urging him to reduce Chelsea’s sentence!
We began collecting letters to include in PVT Manning’s clemency packet last fall. We expected that the military would finalize her record of trial last December, and that she could then submit her application to Maj. Gen. Buchanan by the end of 2013. Just like so many times before, however, the military’s process has slowed Chelsea’s ability to defend her rights. Defense attorney David Coombs now estimates that it will be at least another month before the clemency application can be submitted.
Want to make sure decision-makers know why you believe Chelsea deserves to go free? If you haven’t done so yet, please write a short letter to Maj. Gen. Buchanan. Hundreds of people have already submitted letters for us to use, including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and award-winning author Alice Walker.
As Alice Walker wrote:
Private Manning was the one soldier willing to speak out against what he thought was wrong. When others silently followed orders, Manning could not. Pvt. Manning is a humanist, meaning he sees humanity before nationality, and values human life above all else. When he released documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, he wanted the American people, and the world, to judge for themselves if the U.S. military was properly valuing human life in Iraq and Afghanistan. As taxpayers who fund that military, we deserve that opportunity.
Learn now how you can write a letter to be included in Chelsea Manning’s official application for clemency!
Please share this information to friends and community leaders, urging them to add their voice to this important effort before it's too late.
http://www.privatemanning.org/pardonpetition



Help us continue to cover 100%
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591


COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
A. ARTICLES IN FULL
(Unless otherwise noted)

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*




1) At New Brooklyn District Attorney’s Door, a Tidal Wave of Wrongful Conviction Cases
By





2) How to Stop Heroin Deaths
By ROBERT S. HOFFMAN




3) Huge Leak of Coal Ash Slows at North Carolina Power Plant
By and





4) Voices from Solitary: Hunger Strike in Menard Prison
By Aviva Stahl
February 6, 2014
http://solitarywatch.com/2014/02/06/voices-solitary-hunger-strike-menard-prison/




5) N.S.A. Program Gathers Data on a Third of Nation’s Calls, Officials Say
By




6) California: Two More Deputies Are Charged in Jail Investigation
By REUTERS




7) Payroll Data Shows a Lag in Wages, Not Just Hiring
By




8) Two quakes strike near Fukushima
Published time: February 08, 2014 09:59
Edited time: February 08, 2014 11:16
http://rt.com/news/two-earthquakes-fukushima-coast-167/




9) Fukushima radiation levels underestimated by five times - TEPCO
Published time: February 08, 2014 07:03
http://rt.com/news/fukushima-radiation-levels-underestimated-143/





10) The End of Snow?
By PORTER FOX




11) The Case for a Higher Minimum Wage
By




12) Snowden Used Low-Cost Tool to Best N.S.A.
By and




13) Owners of Bangladesh Factory Surrender in Deadly Fire
[Note: Nothing said here about the criminal responsibility of Corporate CEOs of U.S. companies raking the profits from the overpriced clothes they sell. And who have done everything in their power to reduce the cost of production of those garments to increase their rate of profit...bw]
By




13) Owners of Bangladesh Factory Surrender in Deadly Fire
[Note: Nothing said here about the criminal responsibility of Corporate CEOs of U.S. companies raking the profits from the overpriced clothes they sell. And who have done everything in their power to reduce the cost of production of those garments to increase their rate of profit at all costs--human or otherwise...bw]
By




14) Economy and Crime Spur New Puerto Rican Exodus
By












 












 





















 
 
 

 
 
 

 

 


 





 

 
 

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

1) At New Brooklyn District Attorney’s Door, a Tidal Wave of Wrongful Conviction Cases
By



Antonio Yarbough is serving a sentence of 75 years to life in prison, convicted of stabbing and garroting his mother, his 12-year-old sister and another 12-year-old girl in a Coney Island housing project in 1992. Yet no physical evidence links him to the crime, and DNA evidence found under his mother’s fingernails matches DNA found on another murder victim in 1999 — when Mr. Yarbough had already been imprisoned for seven years.

William Lopez was freed from prison last year after 23 years when a federal judge threw out his murder conviction, condemning it as “rotten from Day 1.” Originally convicted of fatally shooting a drug dealer in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, in 1989, Mr. Lopez faces another obstacle in his quest to clear his name: Prosecutors have appealed to uphold his guilt.

Jonathan Fleming has been in prison for 24 years for shooting a man outside a Williamsburg, Brooklyn, housing project in 1989, a murder that new evidence suggests he may not have committed: One witness has recanted; another has confirmed his alibi and identified a different shooter.

These men are just three of many whose fates rest with Kenneth P. Thompson, the new Brooklyn district attorney. Little more than a month after sweeping into office amid promises to restore justice to the wrongfully convicted, Mr. Thompson is confronting the possibility that the barrage of killings that battered Brooklyn in the drug-plagued 1980s and early 1990s bred a wave of wrongful convictions that could dwarf other exoneration scandals.

“The term ‘tip of the iceberg’ is clichéd, but if ever it was applicable, it’s applicable to this situation,” said Steven Banks, the chief lawyer for the Legal Aid Society. “There’s no question that this is going to be painstaking work to undo a problem that was years in the making.”

Thursday offers Mr. Thompson one of his first opportunities to wield his newfound power: Mr. Yarbough and his co-defendant, Sharrif Wilson, who have been in prison since they were teenagers, will appear at a court hearing where their lawyers are confident their convictions will be vacated.

Daunting in their own right, the dozens or hundreds of potential wrongful convictions also present a political quagmire for Mr. Thompson. His predecessor, Charles J. Hynes, was credited for creating a conviction integrity unit after several convictions were questioned in recent years, but sharply criticized for moving too slowly, defending prosecutors accused of misconduct and clinging to convictions even after they were discredited.

Now, in Mr. Thompson’s fifth week in office, defense attorneys are eager for the reforms Mr. Thompson promised while campaigning to unseat Mr. Hynes. Though the lawyers say they understand Mr. Thompson has inherited a formidable task and needs time to establish his office, several privately grumble that members of his staff have not returned calls while their clients languish in prison.

“This is what Ken campaigned on. He said, ‘I don’t think Hynes put enough resources into it,’ so he’s got to do that,” said Barry C. Scheck, one of the founders of the Innocence Project, who has met with Mr. Thompson’s transition team about the wrongful convictions. “And I expect that he will.”

He deserves patience, Mr. Scheck added, because “it’s important to get it right.”

In an interview in December, Mr. Thompson said he planned to add more prosecutors, paralegals and investigators to the conviction integrity unit, which had just a few employees under Mr. Hynes. But he has not yet appointed a leader for the unit.

On Wednesday, Mr. Thompson said he had been reviewing the questionable convictions and had begun the process of rebuilding and expanding the conviction integrity unit, which he called “a top priority.”

“We understand the need to work quickly, but are not willing to sacrifice speed for thoroughness in the pursuit of justice,” Mr. Thompson said in a statement.Perhaps hundreds of murder convictions may need review because of coerced confessions, intimidated or untrustworthy witnesses, prosecutorial misconduct or discredited detectives like Louis J. Scarcella, whose hard-charging tactics as a Brooklyn homicide detective, reported by The New York Times last year, prompted Mr. Hynes to begin an official review of more than 50 of Mr. Scarcella’s cases.

Pressure to solve cases during the violent years of the crack epidemic, along with a lack of oversight, bred a “round up the usual subjects, the ends justify the means” attitude that may have produced wrongful convictions, Mr. Banks said.

Legal Aid represents 20 clients in whose cases Mr. Scarcella was involved, 15 of whom remain in jail. Believing that other detectives probably used similar tactics, the group has sent Mr. Thompson a list of more than 900 clients it represented on appeal involving murders in Brooklyn during the years Mr. Scarcella was active. Already, many of the cases defense lawyers are pushing Mr. Thompson to revisit were not Mr. Scarcella’s.

Representatives of Legal Aid, the Innocence Project and other legal advocacy groups, along with a few defense lawyers, are asking to meet with Mr. Thompson to help devise a protocol similar to that used in areas where clusters of exonerations have been warranted. One model is Dallas County, Tex., where 24 men have been exonerated using DNA evidence since 2001.

Yet the Dallas effort pales next to Brooklyn’s in complexity as well as size. DNA evidence can make guilt or innocence relatively straightforward. But in many of the Brooklyn cases, potential police or prosecutorial misconduct that may have violated defendants’ due process rights, not physical evidence, is casting doubt on convictions.

Chief among Mr. Scheck’s recommendations, he said, is instituting an information-sharing agreement between defense lawyers and conviction integrity unit investigators. The two sides may disagree about whether evidence points to innocence, exposes misconduct or compels a new trial, he said, but both would have the tools to argue constructively before a judge. Collaboration between both sides would also combat bias, he said.

In another complication, prosecutors who still work in the district attorney’s office could be accused of misconduct as more cases are reviewed, raising the possibility that Mr. Thompson will need to refer cases to an independent reviewer. He endorsed the idea in a Huffington Post column in April, calling for Mr. Hynes to turn over Mr. Lopez’s case, among others, to a state authority. (Mr. Hynes commissioned an independent panel to review the Scarcella cases, but drew criticism for stacking it with friends and donors.)

Many of the cases will be new to the office, but a few, including Mr. Fleming’s, had already received reviews under Mr. Hynes. His investigators had been expected to resolve several cases before he left office, but did not.

Other defendants, like Mr. Lopez, have been released. His conviction was overturned because of weak evidence, a witness who said she had cut a secret deal with prosecutors to testify and what the judge called bewildering or simply bad behavior by every stakeholder in the trial, from judge to jury. But his case remains urgent because Mr. Hynes appealed the overturning of his conviction to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which some lawyers believe is more likely to side with prosecutors, and which will schedule oral arguments soon. Mr. Lopez’s lawyer, Richard Levitt, hopes Mr. Thompson will drop the appeal before then. He has reason to feel confident: Mr. Thompson repeatedly criticized Mr. Hynes over Mr. Lopez’s case while campaigning.

“It’s important that Mr. Lopez have some closure here, and the sooner he has it, the better,” Mr. Levitt said. “They have said nothing to us, but we completely understand that he has a thousand different things he has to do to get up to speed as D.A. of a county as large as Brooklyn.”

In the case of Mr. Yarbough, who was 18 at the time of the murders, and Mr. Wilson, who was 15, Mr. Hynes’s office resisted requests to reinvestigate for months, their lawyers said. Investigators eventually confirmed that no physical evidence linked either man to the crime scene, and matched the DNA found on Mr. Yarbough’s mother to that found on the 1999 murder victim.

Medical records showed that the victims probably died when both defendants were known to be still in Manhattan. Mr. Wilson recanted his confession and testimony incriminating Mr. Yarbough, saying that his confession had been coerced and that he had been offered a lighter sentence to testify against Mr. Yarbough. And in an affidavit, Mr. Yarbough’s original lawyer said she had been unprepared to defend him.

Now they have pinned their hopes on Mr. Thompson.

“It’s only been a month,” said Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, Mr. Yarbough’s lawyer. “But the urgency is that every day somebody wrongfully spends in prison is another tragedy.”


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

2) How to Stop Heroin Deaths
By ROBERT S. HOFFMAN



PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, who died of an apparent heroin overdose on Sunday, was just one of hundreds of New Yorkers who fall victim to this drug each year. Heroin-related deaths increased 84 percent from 2010 to 2012 in New York City and occur at a higher rate — 52 percent — than overdose deaths involving any other substance.

I am an emergency physician at NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital, but I rarely see victims die of heroin overdose because most fatalities occur before patients get to the hospital. Overdoses often take place over one to three hours. People just slowly stop breathing; often they are assumed to be sleeping deeply, or they are alone.

The most frustrating part is that each of these deaths is preventable, because there is an antidote to heroin overdose that is nearly universally effective. Naloxone, an opioid antidote, is a simple compound that has been in clinical use for more than 30 years. It can be administered via needle or as a nasal spray, and it works by displacing heroin from its receptors in the brain and rapidly restoring the overdose victim to consciousness and normal breathing.

An analysis in the Annals of Internal Medicine last year suggested that up to 85 percent of users overdose in the presence of others. This provides an opportunity for friends, family and other non-health care providers to intervene. In New York State, it has been legal to distribute naloxone to ordinary citizens since 2006. But the distribution has to be done with medical supervision. Naloxone is purchased by the city and state health departments, which then distribute the antidote through hospitals, harm-reduction programs and other outlets at no cost to patients.

Some New York City hospitals are now distributing kits containing naloxone to users and their friends and families. For the past three years, the New York City Department of Homeless Services has administered naloxone in shelters. And a new pilot program on Staten Island — which has the highest rate of heroin overdose deaths in New York City — is supplying the antidote through the Police Department’s 120th Precinct there.

The city’s health department is conducting a large study following people who get naloxone to assess how frequently the antidote is used to reverse overdose. In 2012, the health department filed a public letter to the Food and Drug Administration recommending that the F.D.A. approve naloxone for over-the-counter use. The letter stated that more than 20,000 kits had been distributed in New York City. It also noted that more than 500 overdose reversals had been reported by civilians who had administered the antidote.

Some people might argue that the widespread distribution of a safe, effective and inexpensive antidote might actually encourage drug use. But that’s like suggesting that air bags and seatbelts encourage unsafe driving. Naloxone is a public-health method of intervening when a life is in the balance. Its distribution is endorsed by the American Medical Association.

A new bill that would make it easier for users to obtain naloxone was introduced in the New York State Legislature just last week, and on Tuesday it passed the State Senate Health Committee. It would increase access to the antidote by allowing doctors and nurses to write standing orders — prescriptions that can be used for anyone — and issue them to community-based drug treatment programs. The programs would then train people on the signs of overdose and provide them with the naloxone kits. This means that the programs would not have to have a doctor present to distribute the antidote, overcoming one major hurdle that impedes widespread distribution.

This bill empowers a community to protect itself and others. If the bill becomes law, it would be one step closer to making naloxone available over the counter — as it already is in Italy.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose is now the leading cause of injury-related fatalities in the United States, ahead of motor-vehicle collisions and firearms accidents. We make cars safer by having speed limits, seatbelts, crumple zones and D.W.I. laws. We make it harder to buy a firearm with background checks and waiting periods, and we teach gun safety and sometimes mandate trigger locks. We can make heroin safer, too, by supplying methadone or buprenorphine as medications to treat physical dependence, providing clean needles to help prevent the spread of hepatitis and H.I.V., and facilitating the wide availability of naloxone to counteract overdoses.

While Mr. Hoffman’s death was without a doubt a tragedy, it is also emblematic of a societal need to take action to prevent the hundreds of deaths that otherwise go largely unnoticed. We can’t control heroin — that’s the job of law enforcement — but we can make it safer.


Robert S. Hoffman is an emergency physician at NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital and the director of the Division of Medical Toxicology at the New York University School of Medicine.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

3) Huge Leak of Coal Ash Slows at North Carolina Power Plant
By and



A massive leak of toxic coal ash from a retired North Carolina power plant into a neighboring river dwindled on Thursday, utility officials said, but hundreds of workers had yet to seal the breach in a drainage pipe where the leak was detected more than four days ago.

State regulators promised a detailed inquiry into the accident once the area was stabilized and the Dan River’s water was shown to be safe. But environmental and citizens’ groups criticized the response, saying the leak was the result of decades of lax oversight.

From 50,000 to 82,000 tons of coal-ash slurry flowed into the Dan after the collapse of a corrugated metal drainpipe only a few feet beneath a 27-acre pond, known as an impoundment. Duke Energy, the utility that owns the impoundment and the Dan River Steam Station in Eden, N.C., which closed in 2012, says that 27 million gallons of contaminated water also leaked into the river. Coal ash, a murky gray sludge that is the residue from burning powdered coal to generate electricity, contains high levels of toxic elements, including lead, mercury, selenium and arsenic.

The state said it began testing the Dan’s waters on Tuesday for the presence of 28 toxic metals. A spokesman for the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Jamie Kritzer, said Thursday that the first results would be available by Friday.

The department said that five downstream communities that take drinking water from the river were monitoring and filtering the water and had deemed it safe.

In Danville, Va., a town of 43,000, “we’ve done some testing, and it’s been verified that there is none of the heavy metals coming downstream” in the treated water, David Stiles, the chemist for the Danville Water Treatment Plant, said in an interview. The river was opaque with ash on Monday, the day after the spill was detected, he said, but the latest measurements indicated that the ash content was less than a quarter of its recent peak.

Officials in Virginia Beach closed a drinking-water intake at Lake Gaston, a reservoir fed by the Dan, The Associated Press reported.

A spokeswoman for Duke Energy, Lisa Hoffmann, said the company’s own tests of river water near the plant showed that levels of lead, arsenic and selenium were below two parts per billion, well below federal Environmental Protection Agency standards.

“We’re doing water samples every four hours in 11 different places” on the river, she said. “The priority is to safely plug the pipe and at the same time conduct the necessary environmental remediation.”

The Duke samples were taken two miles or more away from the spill. The clean-water advocacy group Waterkeeper Alliance said Thursday that its own tests of water just yards from the leak showed levels of arsenic 10 times greater than the Duke tests showed.

Both Duke and the Dan River Basin Association, a regional conservation group, said the leak’s impact on wildlife remained unclear. The federal Fish and Wildlife Service sent experts to help assess the damage to fish stocks that live in the river, including the endangered Roanoke logperch.

The Dan River spill is but the most recent in a string of problems in coal-ash ponds in North Carolina and nationally. But it is a particular embarrassment to state regulators and to Duke, both of which have come under attack for what critics call lackadaisical oversight of ash ponds at all 14 power plants where Duke burns or once burned coal.

The company agreed in November to spend at least $1.5 million to install public water lines in Flemington, N.C., after tests showed that arsenic and other chemicals from a coal-ash pond had leaked into groundwater. Last March, a clutch of environmental groups threatened to sue Duke for coal-ash chemical leaks that they said had polluted Mountain Island Lake, which supplies drinking water to Charlotte.

Duke officials said then that the leak was “extremely small” and did not affect the lake’s water quality. State regulators have since filed lawsuits against Duke accusing it of allowing coal-ash leaks at Mountain Island Lake and its 13 other plants. But they came only after environmental groups served notice that they would be filing suits under the Clean Water Act unless the state compelled the utility to comply with the law.

The groups have since argued in court that the state’s settlement of two lawsuits was inadequate because it required only that Duke study the leaks further, not stop them. They are seeking to intervene in other actions against Duke that have yet to be settled.

North Carolina has all but ignored mounting problems at coal-ash basins for years, said Peter Harrison, a staff lawyer for Waterkeeper Alliance.

State discharge permits for such facilities are “extremely lax, in many cases expired, and they completely ignore the issue of leaking contamination from coal-ash impoundments,” Mr. Harrison said. “It wasn’t until citizen groups put the spotlight on the problem that the state undertook enforcement action.”

Mr. Kritzer, the state resources department spokesman, disagreed, saying that Gov. Pat McCrory was the first to take action on the ash basins.

The Environmental Protection Agency stated in 2012 that 45 ash storage sites nationwide had a “high hazard potential,” meaning that failure could cause loss of life.


Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

4) Voices from Solitary: Hunger Strike in Menard Prison
By Aviva Stahl
February 6, 2014
http://solitarywatch.com/2014/02/06/voices-solitary-hunger-strike-menard-prison/

A little over a year ago, the notorious Tamms Correctional Center was closed, after a long battle by activists and with the support of Governor Pat Quinn. Individuals were rehoused in prisons across Illinois, including Menard Correctional Center, the largest maximum-security institution in the state. While few would argue that it is anything but an improvement over Tamms, according to some prison advocates and individuals on the inside, Menard has also long been beset by problems. This past June, Solitary Watch featured a letter from an individual housed in segregation at Menard. He describes what it is like to be double-celled in a space less than five feet wide.

On January 15, a group of individuals housed at the Administrative Detention unit at Menard went on hunger strike. The following is a letter from someone housed at the prison sent before the strike began, explaining the conditions that prompted the decision as well as the strikers’ demands. Since we did not have explicit permission from the author to use his name, we are publishing it anonymously. Over the past few days Solitary Watch spoke to prison advocates in touch with individuals on the inside, and also viewed several letters received since the hunger strike began. According to these accounts, as of Monday, February 3, about 10 to 15 people are still refusing to eat.
The physical conditions on the inside have seemingly improved – guards have been cleaning the units and mental health staff are making rounds. However, the prison has so far still refused to provide written explanations for placement in solitary or publish a set of rules for “stepping-down” to general population. Several hunger strikers said they received bogus disciplinary tickets and one person was reportedly beaten. Guards have also allegedly threatened hunger strikers with physical violence if or when they require medical attention, which is of particular concern since there are no cameras in the infirmary at Menard.

Solitary Watch contacted the Illinois Department of Corrections to ask for a comment on the ongoing hunger strike. Director of Communications Tom Shaer said that there was reason to suspect that the hunger strikers were getting commissary food from others in the unit, based on what he said were “normal or close to normal” ketone levels and less weight loss than what “is normally seen in actual hunger strikers.” He contested the allegation that individuals placed in Administrative Detention do not know why, telling Solitary Watch, “before being assigned to AD, every inmate has long since been interviewed about issues causing his placement and, thus, has a very good idea of the reasons.” He said that the placement decisions and 90-day reviews contain confidential information, so issuing copies to prisoners could pose a security threat, and that AD “reviews/decisions are not made by one person and that the initial AD decision goes all the way up to the Director of the IDOC.”

Finally, Tom Shaer told Solitary Watch, “we don’t have Solitary Confinement in Illinois prisons.” As evidence he presented policy documents state that individuals in Administrative Detention have at least five hours of recreation outsides of their cells per week and two showers per week, in addition to two non-contact visits and one 15-minute phone call per month; those in Segregation are supposed to receive the same, minus phone privileges. These conditions–23-hour cell lockdown–do, however, conform to the definitions of solitary confinement provided by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and most human rights and civil liberties groups.
–Aviva Stahl

Update: After reading this post, Tom Shaer of the IDOC contested virtually all of the statements made in the following letter, saying that those in segregation have cleaning supplies; that their cells are not filthy, moldy, or cold; that they do have mental health assessments; they receive mail in a timely manner; they have access to legal boxes; and they and receive educational programming, though they sometimes must “wait in line” for it. The letter’s author and other hunger strikers stand by their allegations. –AS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I am in a part of segregation in Illinois DOC, in Menard CC, that has been designated “High Security Unit” – Administrative Detention. As I’m sure you know, Tamms supermax was shut down by Governor Pat Quinn. As all systems of oppression have the nature of a chameleon, the prisoncrats forced adjustment since the closure of Tamms has been to find new ways to do the same thing – repression. The High Security Unit (HSU) is being called by officers “mini-Tamms.” Tamms isolation camp is being replaced via the establishing of multiple “mini-Tamms” as here at Menard & in several seg units in medium security prisons…

The conditions here are inhumane & repressive. So much that we are forced to make a stand as men in righteous indignation. We in HSU have planned a hunger strike on the 15th of January. We have put together a list of demands in individual grievances with the hope that it would shield us from administrative revenge. Our complaints are all pursuant to our constitutional rights & human dignity. Such as “implement uniform written policies that provide for constitutionally adequate ‘notice’ of why an inmate is being placed in Administrative Detention at the HSU, & reasonable, periodic review in the form of annual informal hearings that allow me to refute the alleged reasons why my placement in AD is being continued.”… No one here has been given ‘notice’ to why we’re here.
Other issues concern the conditions we’re forced to live in.

- It is absolutely filthy here, we are provided no cleaning supplies to clean our own cells, no disinfectants, no toilet brushes, as of now all we’re provided with is a small 2”x3” sponge once a month, there are no written policies for the HSU that requires the daily sweeping & mopping of the wings, the showers are filthy & infested with mold, as of now the wing is never swept or mopped.

- There is no mental health screening & evaluation of inmates prior to being placed in the HSU, there’s no specially trained mental health staff assigned to identity the deterioration of an inmate’s mental health due to long term isolation.

- The mail, including legal mail, is not processed in a timely manner, as of right now, mail takes sometimes 3 weeks from the post mark to be delivered

- There’s no reasonable access to our legal boxes, as of now, access is limited to approximately once a month, this is unacceptable

- There’s no educational programming

- The cells are cold more often than not, & we’re not allowed to purchase cotton blankets off commissary (the state issued blanket is thin & inadequate)

- The food is not only awful & an unauthorized deviation from the statewide menu, but low calorie intake have us losing weight

- We’re not issued our own individual coats, we have to share coats with numerous men that leaves a stink behind, some of us here are not even given coats at all.

These are some of the conditions we are forced to live under & have resolved to take a stand against thru peaceful protest. However, IDOC officials will interpret our righteous indignation as an act of aggression & challenge to their authority. And Menard CC, which is in southern Illinois, is notorious for their spiteful retribution. Public awareness is our only shield from unjust abuse of authority, which is why we ask for your support of our peaceful protest against our conditions of confinement. The HSU is a “new” program & we know not the economic incentive or who stands to benefit the most, so we know they will bring the heat. We only ask that that you & your friends call the Governor’s office, the Director of IDOC S.A. Godinez, & the Warden of Menard CC, and inquire about our peaceful protest & our reasons & conditions of confinement.

Our conditions are inextricably linked to the social mobilization across the nation against the injustice of mass incarceration. We hope that we have your support & we thank you.

Very truly yours in struggle.
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org

Questions and comments may be sent to claude@freedomarchives.org
 

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

5) N.S.A. Program Gathers Data on a Third of Nation’s Calls, Officials Say
By



WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency’s once-secret program that is collecting bulk records of Americans’ domestic phone calls is taking in a relatively small portion of the total volume of such calls each day, officials familiar with the program said on Friday.

While the agency is collecting a large amount of landline phone data, it has struggled to take in cellphone data, which has undergone explosive growth in recent years and presents additional technological hurdles, the officials said.

The revelation came days after the nation’s secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved President Obama’s proposal to impose new restrictions on when and how analysts with the N.S.A. may gain access to the raw database containing the bulk phone records, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The bulk call records program began under the Bush administration and was based on claimed wartime powers. In 2006, the program was brought under the surveillance court’s authority. It came to light after leaks by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden.

On Friday, The Washington Post reported that the N.S.A. is currently taking in data on less than 30 percent of phone calls. The article also said the agency had been collecting nearly all records about Americans’ phone calls in 2006, and that the N.S.A. was now trying to restore comprehensive coverage.

Officials partly confirmed The Post’s report, although they said it was difficult to put a precise number on the percentage. But they disputed that the agency had ever had near-universal access to phone data, saying cellphone records have always presented problems.

The Wall Street Journal reported in June that T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless were not part of the N.S.A.’s data collection, and a report on surveillance policy last month by a review group appointed by Mr. Obama said that while the program “acquires a very large amount” of phone data each day, that was still “only a small percentage of the total” calls.

One official said intelligence agencies have quietly chafed at assumptions that the N.S.A. was collecting all phone records. But they have been reluctant to correct the record because they did not want to draw attention to the gap and because it is, in fact, the agency’s goal to overcome technical hurdles that stop them from ingesting them all.

The greater attention to the gap puts new light on claims about the effectiveness of the program. Critics say the gap may undermine the argument that the program, as it currently exists, can provide peace of mind about links to potential terrorists: a negative result might instead mean only that the data was missing.

Supporters, however, say the gap might undermine the argument that the program is ineffective because it has thwarted no attacks and uncovered only a minor case in which some men sent several thousand dollars to a Somali terrorist group.

“We should have a debate about how effective would it be if it were fully implemented,” one official said.

In a speech last month, Mr. Obama announced that he intended to find a way to get the government out of the business of holding onto the bulk records, but he also said that its capabilities should be preserved.

Mr. Obama also announced that he wanted to immediately impose new limits on how the database is used, by requiring the N.S.A. to wait for a judge on the surveillance court to sign off before querying records associated with a number that is suspected of links to terrorism — except in emergencies — and by limiting analysts to only pulling up records of people who are up to two levels removed from that number.

Previously, the surveillance court had allowed the N.S.A. to decide that a search was justified, and had let analysts go up to three levels out — meaning an exponentially larger number of people’s calls would be scrutinized.

On Wednesday, according to a statement issued late Thursday in the name of James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, the surveillance court issued an order amending the rules in line with Mr. Obama’s proposed changes.

On Friday, a judicial clerk announced that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. had made his first selection to the main Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court since Mr. Snowden’s revelations about spy programs that had been secretly approved by the court.

The leaks have focused greater attention on how Chief Justice Roberts has used his unilateral authority to select judges to serve seven-year terms on the court. Of the 11 judges currently serving — all appointed by Chief Justice Roberts — 10 had been appointed to judgeships on other federal courts by Republican presidents.

But in May, when the term expires for Judge Reggie B. Walton of the District of Columbia, Chief Justice Roberts has selected an Obama appointee, Judge James E. Boasberg, also of the District of Columbia, to fill the position until 2021. Judge Boasberg, a former federal prosecutor, was appointed to the Federal District Court by Mr. Obama in 2011. He has handled several cases involving national security and secrecy matters since joining the court.

In 2012, for example, he sided with the Central Intelligence Agency, and rejected a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking public disclosure of photographs of the corpse and burial of Osama Bin Laden.

But last year, Judge Boasberg ruled against the Department of Homeland Security, saying it had to release documents explaining a secret policy about the government’s ability to shut down commercial and private wireless network services in certain circumstances. The Obama administration has appealed the ruling.

Chief Justice Roberts also selected Judge Richard C. Tallman, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, to fill a vacancy on the three-member review panel that hears rare appeals of the surveillance court’s rulings.

While Judge Tallman was appointed by President Bill Clinton, his nomination was part of a political deal over judicial nominations in which his seat would go to a person acceptable to Senator Slade Gorton, Republican of Washington.

Several members of Congress have proposed changing the way judges are selected to serve on the court to achieve greater ideological diversity in light of its evolving role and growing power, and Mr. Obama’s surveillance review group also recommended doing so.




*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

6) California: Two More Deputies Are Charged in Jail Investigation
By REUTERS


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

7) Payroll Data Shows a Lag in Wages, Not Just Hiring
By



For the more than 10 million Americans who are out of work, finding a job is hard. For the 145 million or so who are employed, getting a raise is even harder.

The government said on Friday that employers added 113,000 jobs in January, the second straight month of anemic growth, despite some signs of strength in the broader economy. The unemployment rate inched down in January to 6.6 percent, the lowest level since October 2008, from 6.7 percent in December.

But the report also made plain what many Americans feel in their bones: Wages are stuck, and barely rose at all in 2013. They were up 1.9 percent last year, or a mere 0.4 percent after accounting for inflation. Not only was that increase even smaller than the one recorded in 2012, it was half the normal rate of wage gains in the two decades before the last recession. The stagnation helps explain why many people feel apprehensive even though the economy grew at a robust pace in the second half of 2013, corporate profits rose, the stock market boomed and the housing market continued to gain ground. The issue cuts across the American work force. In fact, white-collar workers did a bit worse than blue-collar workers last year in terms of wage growth.

“People are running in place in terms of their living standards,” said Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “There’s almost no growth in spending power.” As recently as 2008, when the economy sank deeper into recession and Lehman Brothers collapsed, wages still managed to rise by 3.5 percent, before inflation. But the combination of a backlog of workers left behind in the recession’s wake, as well as productivity gains resulting from new technologies, means salaries may not rebound anytime soon.

“We won’t see stronger wage growth until unemployment gets below 6 percent and we begin adding 200,000 jobs a month,” Mr. Harris predicted. Friday’s data from the Labor Department shows an economy performing well below that level, however. The 113,000 jobs that were added in January fell far short of the 180,000 economists had anticipated, and came after a particularly weak December. Despite the decline in the jobless rate, some economists said on Friday that job creation had indeed slowed, in what might be called a winter wobble for the economy — the cold weather equivalent of last year’s summer swoon.

Dean Maki, chief United States economist at Barclays, noted that over the course of November, December and January, the more reliable three-month pace of job creation stood at 154,000, roughly 75,000 positions fewer than employers added in September, October and November. Initially, the weak report for December was blamed on wintry conditions that inhibited hiring, but Mr. Maki said a second straight month of disappointing job gains led him to conclude that the cold and snow could not be blamed this time.

“I don’t think we can say weather affected January payrolls,” Mr. Maki said, noting that the construction sector, for example, bounced back in January after a weak showing in December. Nevertheless, Mr. Maki and most other economists said they did not believe the weak numbers for job creation in December and January would prompt the Federal Reserve to reverse course on its decision late last year to steadily reduce its stimulus efforts in 2014.

“This will get the Fed’s attention, but it won’t affect their trajectory,” Mr. Maki said. Still, another poor showing for hiring when the next employment report comes out in early March might prompt a pause among Fed policy makers at their meeting later that month, especially if other indicators show a parallel cooling.

Wall Street shrugged off the unemployment report on Friday, as bullish investors sent stocks higher, with market indexes finishing higher for the week after three straight weeks of losses. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 165.55 points, or 1.1 percent, to close at 15,794.08. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index gained 23.59 points, or 1.3 percent, finishing at 1,797.02. The Nasdaq surged by 68.74 points, or 1.7 percent, to 4,125.86.

In bond trading, the price of the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 5/32 to 100 18/32, while its yield dropped to 2.69 percent from 2.7 percent late Thursday.

One reason Wall Street may have looked on the bright side Friday is that the separate survey of households the Labor Department uses to calculate the unemployment rate told a different story from the payroll data survey. It showed a gain of more than 600,000 workers, helping bring down the unemployment rate.

In the payroll data survey for January, the public sector held back overall payrolls, as government employment shrank by 29,000 jobs in January. Excluding that loss, private employers added 142,000 positions, a slightly better showing. Several other sectors which had been strong in recent months — education and health care, as well as retail — also lost positions, contributing to the overall weakness.

The falloff in hiring in the health care sector was especially noteworthy. In December and January together, just 2,600 health care positions were filled. By contrast, as recently as November, nearly 25,000 health care workers were added to payrolls.

Although this area of the economy is undergoing a transformation as President Obama’s new health care plan is slowly introduced, that is unlikely to have caused the abrupt slowdown in hiring, said Mr. Harris, the Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist. If anything, he said, the law should create new jobs in the sector as health care coverage is expanded, even if higher costs for some employers result in job cuts elsewhere in the economy.

As for retail, which lost nearly 13,000 jobs in January, Mr. Harris said that some of the reduction could have been because of excess hiring in December, when stores added nearly 63,000 positions as the holiday shopping season peaked. The cuts may also have been spurred by weak results at some retailers, with chains like J. C. Penney announcing major job cuts last month, and Loehmann’s, the venerable discounter, now in liquidation.

The employment-population ratio, which has been falling as more workers drop out of the job market, edged up 0.2 percentage points, to 58.8 percent in January.

While salary gains have been muted across the work force, more educated workers continue to enjoy much better employment options than those with a high school degree or less. The unemployment rate for college graduates in January stood at just over 3 percent, compared to 6.5 percent for high school graduates and 9.6 percent for people who lack a high school diploma.

The problem for economic growth in general, and wage growth in particular, is that only one-third of the American work force — 50.4 million out of 155 million — have a college degree or more. By contrast, there are approximately 73 million workers who have a high school diploma or some college, and 11 million workers who did not finish high school.

With many less educated workers chasing a limited number of new jobs, employers have little reason to increase wages. “It’s just an extremely competitive environment for workers, where people have little negotiating power,” Mr. Harris said.



*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

8) Two quakes strike near Fukushima
Published time: February 08, 2014 09:59
Edited time: February 08, 2014 11:16
http://rt.com/news/two-earthquakes-fukushima-coast-167/

Two magnitude-5 earthquakes struck off the coast of Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, the site of the 2011 tsunami and earthquake that killed more than 18,000 people and sparked the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

The first quake hit 34 kilometers off the coast of Namie, Japan at 21:18 GMT on Friday. The US Geological Survey (USG) measured its magnitude at 5.1. The tremor caused no serious damages, and no tsunami warning was issued in its wake, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The second quake, measured magnitude 5.0, and struck 34 kilometers from Iwaki, Japan at 6:34 GMT on Saturday. Like the previous quake, no tsunami warning was issued, though they posed stark reminders of the chronic insecurity at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 megathrurst earthquake struck off the coast of Japan. The quake triggered a massive tsunami, which inundated the nuclear power plant causing three reactors to melt down.

Nearly three years later, authorities have failed to cap radioactive leaks, and Tokyo Electric Power Co. [TEPCO], the plant’s operator, was recently forced to admit they had underestimated radiation levels by five times.

Meanwhile, ongoing seepage of contaminated water used to cool the damaged reactors continues to hinder cleanup efforts, which will probably take years to complete.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

9) Fukushima radiation levels underestimated by five times - TEPCO
Published time: February 08, 2014 07:03
http://rt.com/news/fukushima-radiation-levels-underestimated-143/
 


TEPCO has revised the readings on the radioactivity levels at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant well to 5 million becquerels of strontium per liter – both a record, and nearly five times higher than the original reading of 900,000 becquerels per liter.

Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission with a half-life of 28.8 years. The legal standard for strontium emissions is 30 becquerels per liter. Exposure to strontium-90 can cause bone cancer, cancer of nearby tissues, and leukemia.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. originally said that the said 900,000 becquerels of beta-ray sources per liter, including strontium - were measured in the water sampled on July 5 last year.

However, the company noted on Friday that the previous radioactivity levels had been wrong, meaning that it was also likely reading taken from the other wells at the disaster-struck plant prior to September were also likely to have been inaccurate, the Asahi Shimbum newspaper reported.

The Japanese company has already apologized for the failures, which they said were a result of the malfunctioning of measuring equipment.

TEPCO did not mention the radioactivity levels of other samples of both groundwater and seawater taken from between June and November last year – which totaled some 140.

However, the erroneous readings only pertain to the radiation levels measured in water – readings taken to measure the radiation levels in air or soil are likely to have been accurate.

In the basement of the station, the drainage system and special tanks have accumulated more than 360,000 tons of radioactive water. The leakage of radioactive water has been an ongoing problem in the wake of the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant.

TEPCO also said on Thursday that 600 liters of contaminated water – which had 2,800 becquerels of beta-ray sources per liter in it, leaked from piping leading to a tank at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

A record high level of beta rays released from radioactive strontium-90 was detected at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant beneath the No. 2 reactor's well facing the ocean, according to the facility’s operator who released news of the measurements mid-January.

TEPCO measured the amount of beta ray-emitting radioactivity at more than 2.7 million becquerels per liter, Fukushima’s operator said as reported in the Japanese media.

In March 2011, an earthquake triggered a tsunami that hit Japan’s coast, damaging the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The catastrophe caused the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the facility, leading to the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

The water used to cool the reactors has been leaking into the soil and contaminating the ground water ever since. Some of the radioactive water has been escaping into the Pacific Ocean.  

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

10) The End of Snow?
By PORTER FOX



OVER the next two weeks, hundreds of millions of people will watch Americans like Ted Ligety and Mikaela Shiffrin ski for gold on the downhill alpine course. Television crews will pan across epic vistas of the rugged Caucasus Mountains, draped with brilliant white ski slopes. What viewers might not see is the 16 million cubic feet of snow that was stored under insulated blankets last year to make sure those slopes remained white, or the hundreds of snow-making guns that have been running around the clock to keep them that way.

Officials canceled two Olympic test events last February in Sochi after several days of temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and a lack of snowfall had left ski trails bare and brown in spots. That situation led the climatologist Daniel Scott, a professor of global change and tourism at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, to analyze potential venues for future Winter Games. His thought was that with a rise in the average global temperature of more than 7 degrees Fahrenheit possible by 2100, there might not be that many snowy regions left in which to hold the Games. He concluded that of the 19 cities that have hosted the Winter Olympics, as few as 10 might be cold enough by midcentury to host them again. By 2100, that number shrinks to 6.

The planet has warmed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1800s, and as a result, snow is melting. In the last 47 years, a million square miles of spring snow cover has disappeared from the Northern Hemisphere. Europe has lost half of its Alpine glacial ice since the 1850s, and if climate change is not reined in, two-thirds of European ski resorts will be likely to close by 2100.

The same could happen in the United States, where in the Northeast, more than half of the 103 ski resorts may no longer be viable in 30 years because of warmer winters. As far for the Western part of the country, it will lose an estimated 25 to 100 percent of its snowpack by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed — reducing the snowpack in Park City, Utah, to zero and relegating skiing to the top quarter of Ajax Mountain in Aspen.

The facts are straightforward: The planet is getting hotter. Snow melts above 32 degrees Fahrenheit. The Alps are warming two to three times faster than the worldwide average, possibly because of global circulation patterns. Since 1970, the rate of winter warming per decade in the United States has been triple the rate of the previous 75 years, with the strongest trends in the Northern regions of the country. Nine of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000, and this winter is already looking to be one of the driest on record — with California at just 12 percent of its average snowpack in January, and the Pacific Northwest at around 50 percent.

To a skier, snowboarder or anyone who has spent time in the mountains, the idea of brown peaks in midwinter is surreal. Poets write of the grace and beauty by which snowflakes descend and transform a landscape. Powder hounds follow the 100-odd storms that track across the United States every winter, then drive for hours to float down a mountainside in the waist-deep “cold smoke” that the storms leave behind.

The snow I learned to ski on in northern Maine was more blue than white, and usually spewed from snow-making guns instead of the sky. I didn’t like skiing at first. It was cold. And uncomfortable.

Then, when I was 12, the mystical confluence of vectors that constitute a ski turn aligned, and I was hooked. I scrubbed toilets at my father’s boatyard on Mount Desert Island in high school so I could afford a ski pass and sold season passes in college at Mad River Glen in Vermont to get a free pass for myself. After graduating, I moved to Jackson Hole, Wyo., for the skiing. Four years later, Powder magazine hired me, and I’ve been an editor there ever since.

My bosses were generous enough to send me to five continents over the last 15 years, with skis in tow. I’ve skied the lightest snow on earth on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, where icy fronts spin off the Siberian plains and dump 10 feet of powder in a matter of days. In the high peaks of Bulgaria and Morocco, I slid through snow stained pink by grains of Saharan sand that the crystals formed around.

In Baja, Mexico, I skied a sliver of hardpack snow at 10,000 feet on Picacho del Diablo, sandwiched between the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean. A few years later, a crew of skiers and I journeyed to the whipsaw Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey to ski steep couloirs alongside caves where troglodytes lived thousands of years ago.

At every range I traveled to, I noticed a brotherhood among mountain folk: Say you’re headed into the hills, and the doors open. So it has been a surprise to see the winter sports community, as one of the first populations to witness effects of climate change in its own backyard, not reacting more vigorously and swiftly to reverse the fate we are writing for ourselves.

It’s easy to blame the big oil companies and the billions of dollars they spend on influencing the media and popular opinion. But the real reason is a lack of knowledge. I know, because I, too, was ignorant until I began researching the issue for a book on the future of snow.

I was floored by how much snow had already disappeared from the planet, not to mention how much was predicted to melt in my lifetime. The ski season in parts of British Columbia is four to five weeks shorter than it was 50 years ago, and in eastern Canada, the season is predicted to drop to less than two months by midcentury. At Lake Tahoe, spring now arrives two and a half weeks earlier, and some computer models predict that the Pacific Northwest will receive 40 to 70 percent less snow by 2050. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise — they grew 41 percent between 1990 and 2008 — then snowfall, winter and skiing will no longer exist as we know them by the end of the century.

The effect on the ski industry has already been significant. Between 1999 and 2010, low snowfall years cost the industry $1 billion and up to 27,000 jobs. Oregon took the biggest hit out West, with 31 percent fewer skier visits during low snow years. Next was Washington at 28 percent, Utah at 14 percent and Colorado at 7.7 percent.

The winter sports industry contributes $66 billion annually to the nation’s economy, and supports more than 960,000 jobs across 38 states, according to the Outdoor Industry Association. A surprisingly large sector of the United States economy appears to be teetering on the brink.

Much of these environmental data come from a 2012 report, “Climate Impacts on the Winter Tourism Economy in the United States,” by two University of New Hampshire researchers, Elizabeth Burakowski and Matthew Magnusson. The paper was commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council and a start-up advocacy group called Protect Our Winters. The professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones started that group, known as POW, in 2007 when he realized that many of the slopes he had once ridden no longer held snow. It has since become the leading voice for those fighting to save winter, largely because few others are doing anything about it.

The National Ski Area Association has reacted with relatively ineffective campaigns like Sustainable Slopes and the Climate Challenge, while policies at ski resorts range from aggressively green to indifferent. Somewhere in between lie the majority of American ski areas, which are struggling to make ends meet while pushing recycling, car-pooling, carbon offsets and awareness campaigns to show they care.


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

11) The Case for a Higher Minimum Wage
By



The political posturing over raising the minimum wage sometimes obscures the huge and growing number of low-wage workers it would affect. An estimated 27.8 million people would earn more money under the Democratic proposal to lift the hourly minimum from $7.25 today to $10.10 by 2016. And most of them do not fit the low-wage stereotype of a teenager with a summer job. Their average age is 35; most work full time; more than one-fourth are parents; and, on average, they earn half of their families’ total income.

None of that, however, has softened the hearts of opponents, including congressional Republicans and low-wage employers, notably restaurant owners and executives.

This is not a new debate. The minimum wage is a battlefield in a larger political fight between Democrats and Republicans — dating back to the New Deal legislation that instituted the first minimum wage in 1938 — over government’s role in the economy, over raw versus regulated capitalism, over corporate power versus public needs.

But the results of the wage debate are clear. Decades of research, facts and evidence show that increasing the minimum wage is vital to the economic security of tens of millions of Americans, and would be good for the weak economy. As Congress begins its own debate, here are answers to some basic questions about the need for an increase.

WHAT’S THE POINT OF THE MINIMUM WAGE? Most people think of the minimum wage as the lowest legal hourly pay. That’s true, but it is really much more than that. As defined in the name of the law that established it — the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 — the minimum wage is a fundamental labor standard designed to protect workers, just as child labor laws and overtime pay rules do. Labor standards, like environmental standards and investor protections, are essential to a functional economy. Properly set and enforced, these standards check exploitation, pollution and speculation. In the process, they promote broad and rising prosperity, as well as public confidence.

The minimum wage is specifically intended to take aim at the inherent imbalance in power between employers and low-wage workers that can push wages down to poverty levels. An appropriate wage floor set by Congress effectively substitutes for the bargaining power that low-wage workers lack. When low-end wages rise, poverty and inequality are reduced. But that doesn’t mean the minimum wage is a government program to provide welfare, as critics sometimes imply in an attempt to link it to unpopular policies. An hourly minimum of $10.10, for example, as Democrats have proposed, would reduce the number of people living in poverty by 4.6 million, according to widely accepted research, without requiring the government to tax, borrow or spend.

IS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE? No. Other programs, including food stamps, Medicaid and the earned-income tax credit, also increase the meager resources of low-wage workers, but they do not provide bargaining power to claim a better wage. In fact, they can drive wages down, because employers who pay poorly factor the government assistance into their wage scales. This is especially true of the earned-income tax credit, a taxpayer-provided wage subsidy that helps lift the income of working families above the poverty line.

Conservatives often call for increases to the E.I.T.C. instead of a higher minimum wage, saying that a higher minimum acts as an unfair and unwise tax on low-wage employers. That’s a stretch, especially in light of rising corporate profits even as pay has dwindled. It also ignores how the tax credit increases the supply of low-wage labor by encouraging more people to work, holding down the cost of labor for employers. By one estimate, increasing the tax credit by 10 percent reduces the wages of high-school educated workers by 2 percent. There are good reasons to expand the tax credit for childless workers, as President Obama recently proposed. It is a successful antipoverty program and a capstone in the conservative agenda to emphasize work over welfare. But an expanded E.I.T.C. is no reason to stint on raising the minimum wage — just the opposite. A higher minimum wage could help offset the wage-depressing effect of a bolstered E.I.T.C., and would ensure that both taxpayers and employers do their part to make work pay.

HOW HIGH SHOULD IT BE? There’s no perfect way to set the minimum wage, but the most important benchmarks — purchasing power, wage growth and productivity growth — demonstrate that the current $7.25 an hour is far too low. They also show that the proposed increase to $10.10 by 2016 is too modest.

The peak year for the minimum wage was 1968, when its purchasing power was nearly $9.40 in 2013 dollars, as shown in the accompanying chart. Since then, the erosion caused by inflation has obviously overwhelmed the increases by Congress. Even a boost to $10.10 an hour by 2016 (also adjusted to 2013 dollars) would lift the minimum to just above its real value in 1968. So while it is better than no increase, it is hardly a raise.

The situation is worse when the minimum wage is compared with the average wages of typical American workers, the ones with production and nonsupervisory jobs in the private sector. From the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when one full-time, full-year minimum wage job could keep a family of two above the poverty line, the minimum equaled about half of the average wage. Today, it has fallen to one-third; to restore it to half would require nearly $11 an hour, a better goal than $10.10.

The problem is that the average wage, recently $20.39 an hour, has also stagnated over the past several decades, despite higher overall education levels for typical workers and despite big increases in labor productivity. People are working harder and churning out more goods and services, but there’s no sign of that in their paychecks. If the average wage had kept pace with those productivity gains, it would be about $36 an hour today, and the minimum wage, at half the average, would be about $18.

That is not to suggest that the hourly minimum wage could be catapulted from $7.25 to $18. A minimum of $18 would be untenable with the average hovering in the low $20s. But it does confirm that impersonal market forces are not the only, or even the primary, reason for widespread wage stagnation. Flawed policies and changing corporate norms are also to blame, because they have allowed the benefits of productivity gains to flow increasingly to profits, shareholder returns and executive pay, instead of workers’ wages.

DOES IT KILL JOBS? The minimum wage is one of the most thoroughly researched issues in economics. Studies in the last 20 years have been especially informative, as economists have been able to compare states that raised the wage above the federal level with those that did not.

The weight of the evidence shows that increases in the minimum wage have lifted pay without hurting employment, a point that was driven home in a recent letter to Mr. Obama and congressional leaders, signed by more than 600 economists, among them Nobel laureates and past presidents of the American Economic Association.

That economic conclusion dovetails with a recent comprehensive study, which found that minimum wage increases resulted in “strong earnings effects” — that is, higher pay — “and no employment effects” — that is, zero job loss.

Evidence, however, does not stop conservatives from making the argument that by raising the cost of labor, a higher minimum wage will hurt businesses, leading them to cut jobs and harming the low-wage workers it is intended to help. Alternatively, they argue it will hurt consumers by pushing up prices precipitously. Those arguments are simplistic. Research and experience show that employers do not automatically cope with a higher minimum wage by laying off workers or not hiring new ones. Instead, they pay up out of savings from reduced labor turnover, by slower wage increases higher up the scale, modest price increases or other adjustments.

Which brings the debate over raising the minimum wage full circle. The real argument against it is political, not economic. Republican opposition will likely keep any future increase in the minimum wage below a level that would constitute a firm wage floor, though an increase to $10.10 an hour would help tens of millions of workers. It also would help the economy by supporting consumer spending that in turn supports job growth. It is not a cure-all; it is not bold or innovative. But it is on the legislative agenda, and it deserves to pass.



*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

12) Snowden Used Low-Cost Tool to Best N.S.A.
By and



WASHINGTON — Intelligence officials investigating how Edward J. Snowden gained access to a huge trove of the country’s most highly classified documents say they have determined that he used inexpensive and widely available software to “scrape” the National Security Agency’s networks, and kept at it even after he was briefly challenged by agency officials.

Using “web crawler” software designed to search, index and back up a website, Mr. Snowden “scraped data out of our systems” while he went about his day job, according to a senior intelligence official. “We do not believe this was an individual sitting at a machine and downloading this much material in sequence,” the official said. The process, he added, was “quite automated.”

The findings are striking because the N.S.A.’s mission includes protecting the nation’s most sensitive military and intelligence computer systems from cyberattacks, especially the sophisticated attacks that emanate from Russia and China. Mr. Snowden’s “insider attack,” by contrast, was hardly sophisticated and should have been easily detected, investigators found.

Moreover, Mr. Snowden succeeded nearly three years after the WikiLeaks disclosures, in which military and State Department files, of far less sensitivity, were taken using similar techniques.

Mr. Snowden had broad access to the N.S.A.’s complete files because he was working as a technology contractor for the agency in Hawaii, helping to manage the agency’s computer systems in an outpost that focuses on China and North Korea. A web crawler, also called a spider, automatically moves from website to website, following links embedded in each document, and can be programmed to copy everything in its path.

Mr. Snowden appears to have set the parameters for the searches, including which subjects to look for and how deeply to follow links to documents and other data on the N.S.A.’s internal networks. Intelligence officials told a House hearing last week that he accessed roughly 1.7 million files.

Among the materials prominent in the Snowden files are the agency’s shared “wikis,” databases to which intelligence analysts, operatives and others contributed their knowledge. Some of that material indicates that Mr. Snowden “accessed” the documents. But experts say they may well have been downloaded not by him but by the program acting on his behalf.

Agency officials insist that if Mr. Snowden had been working from N.S.A. headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., which was equipped with monitors designed to detect when a huge volume of data was being accessed and downloaded, he almost certainly would have been caught. But because he worked at an agency outpost that had not yet been upgraded with modern security measures, his copying of what the agency’s newly appointed No. 2 officer, Rick Ledgett, recently called “the keys to the kingdom” raised few alarms.

“Some place had to be last” in getting the security upgrade, said one official familiar with Mr. Snowden’s activities. But he added that Mr. Snowden’s actions had been “challenged a few times.”

In at least one instance when he was questioned, Mr. Snowden provided what were later described to investigators as legitimate-sounding explanations for his activities: As a systems administrator he was responsible for conducting routine network maintenance. That could include backing up the computer systems and moving information to local servers, investigators were told.

But from his first days working as a contractor inside the N.S.A.’s aging underground Oahu facility for Dell, the computer maker, and then at a modern office building on the island for Booz Allen Hamilton, the technology consulting firm that sells and operates computer security services used by the government, Mr. Snowden learned something critical about the N.S.A.’s culture: While the organization built enormously high electronic barriers to keep out foreign invaders, it had rudimentary protections against insiders.

“Once you are inside the assumption is that you are supposed to be there, like in most organizations,” said Richard Bejtlich, the chief security strategist for FireEye, a Silicon Valley computer security firm, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “But that doesn’t explain why they weren’t more vigilant about excessive activity in the system.”

Investigators have yet to answer the question of whether Mr. Snowden happened into an ill-defended outpost of the N.S.A. or sought a job there because he knew it had yet to install the security upgrades that might have stopped him.

“He was either very lucky or very strategic,” one intelligence official said. A new book, “The Snowden Files,” by Luke Harding, a correspondent for The Guardian in London, reports that Mr. Snowden sought his job at Booz Allen because “to get access to a final tranche of documents” he needed “greater security privileges than he enjoyed in his position at Dell.”

Through his lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, Mr. Snowden did not specifically address the government’s theory of how he obtained the files, saying in a statement: “It’s ironic that officials are giving classified information to journalists in an effort to discredit me for giving classified information to journalists. The difference is that I did so to inform the public about the government’s actions, and they’re doing so to misinform the public about mine.”

The N.S.A. declined to comment on its investigation or the security changes it has made since the Snowden disclosures. Other intelligence officials familiar with the findings of the investigations underway — there are at least four — were granted anonymity to discuss the investigations.

In interviews, officials declined to say which web crawler Mr. Snowden had used, or whether he had written some of the software himself. Officials said it functioned like Googlebot, a widely used web crawler that Google developed to find and index new pages on the web. What officials cannot explain is why the presence of such software in a highly classified system was not an obvious tip-off to unauthorized activity.

When inserted with Mr. Snowden’s passwords, the web crawler became especially powerful. Investigators determined he probably had also made use of the passwords of some colleagues or supervisors.

But he was also aided by a culture within the N.S.A., officials say, that “compartmented” relatively little information. As a result, a 29-year-old computer engineer, working from a World War II-era tunnel in Oahu and then from downtown Honolulu, had access to unencrypted files that dealt with information as varied as the bulk collection of domestic phone numbers and the intercepted communications of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and dozens of other leaders.

Officials say web crawlers are almost never used on the N.S.A.’s internal systems, making it all the more inexplicable that the one used by Mr. Snowden did not set off alarms as it copied intelligence and military documents stored in the N.S.A.’s systems and linked through the agency’s internal equivalent of Wikipedia.

The answer, officials and outside experts say, is that no one was looking inside the system in Hawaii for hard-to-explain activity. “The N.S.A. had the solution to this problem in hand, but they simply didn’t push it out fast enough,” said James Lewis, a computer expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has talked extensively with intelligence officials about how the Snowden experience could have been avoided.

Nonetheless, the government had warning that it was vulnerable to such attacks. Similar techniques were used by Chelsea Manning, then known as Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was convicted of turning documents and videos over to WikiLeaks in 2010. Evidence presented during Private Manning’s court-martial for his role as the source for large archives of military and diplomatic files given to WikiLeaks revealed that he had used a program called “wget” to download the batches of files. That program automates the retrieval of large numbers of files, but it is considered less powerful than the tool Mr. Snowden used.

The program’s use prompted changes in how secret information is handled at the State Department, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, but recent assessments suggest that those changes may not have gone far enough. For example, arguments have broken out about whether the N.S.A.’s data should all be encrypted “at rest” — when it is stored in servers — to make it harder to search and steal. But that would also make it harder to retrieve for legitimate purposes.

Investigators have found no evidence that Mr. Snowden’s searches were directed by a foreign power, despite suggestions to that effect by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan, in recent television appearances and at a hearing last week.

But that leaves open the question of how Mr. Snowden chose the search terms to obtain his trove of documents, and why, according to James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, they yielded a disproportionately large number of documents detailing American military movements, preparations and abilities around the world.

In his statement, Mr. Snowden denied any deliberate effort to gain access to any military information. “They rely on a baseless premise, which is that I was after military information,” Mr. Snowden said.

The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, told lawmakers last week that Mr. Snowden’s disclosures could tip off adversaries to American military tactics and operations, and force the Pentagon to spend vast sums to safeguard against that. But he admitted a great deal of uncertainty about what Mr. Snowden possessed.

“Everything that he touched, we assume that he took,” said General Flynn, including details of how the military tracks terrorists, of enemies’ vulnerabilities and of American defenses against improvised explosive devices. He added, “We assume the worst case.”




*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

13) Owners of Bangladesh Factory Surrender in Deadly Fire
[Note: Nothing said here about the criminal responsibility of Corporate CEOs of U.S. companies raking the profits from the overpriced clothes they sell. And who have done everything in their power to reduce the cost of production of those garments to increase their rate of profit at all costs--human or otherwise...bw]
By



NEW DELHI — A husband and wife whose factory in Bangladesh was consumed by fire in 2012, a disaster that killed 112 employees, surrendered to the police on Sunday in Dhaka, the capital.

In December, the police filed charges of culpable homicide against the owner of the Tazreen factory, Delowar Hossain; his wife, Mahmuda Akther, and 11 associates, including the factory’s manager and an engineer.

On the night of the fire, more than 1,150 people were at their work stations in the eight-story building, working on a tight deadline to fill orders for international buyers. When the fire broke out and an alarm sounded, some managers told their employees to ignore the alarm and continue to work.

As the fire spread, many workers found themselves trapped in smoke-filled staircases or behind windows that were covered with iron grilles.Bangladesh’s garment industry is extraordinarily powerful, both economically and politically, and in the past the state has sought to protect their interests. Factory owners are rarely held responsible for safety violations. After the Tazreen fire, the police initially said they did not have enough evidence to bring a case against Mr. Hossain, and investigators suggested that the fire might have been set by saboteurs.

But after activists and lawyers submitted a petition, the country’s High Court ordered officials to investigate further. The high-level government investigation that followed accused Mr. Hossain of “unpardonable negligence,” noting that some of his managers closed collapsible gates to block workers from running down staircases. The investigation also found that the factory lacked a mandatory closed-circuit television monitoring system, that none of the building’s fire extinguishers appeared to have been used and that the factory lacked a valid fire safety certificate.

In December, Mr. Hossain said that he intended to plead not guilty.

This year will serve as a test of the Bangladeshi authorities’ willingness to hold factory owners accountable. The fire at the Tazreen factory was followed several months later by the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory building, which killed 1,129, the deadliest disaster in the history of the garment industry.

After the Rana Plaza disaster, High Court judges ordered the police to arrest the building’s owner, Sohel Rana, along with the owners of factories inside the building.

 

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

14) Economy and Crime Spur New Puerto Rican Exodus
By



SAN JUAN, P.R. — Alexis Sotomayor has many reasons to stay in Puerto Rico: his two children; his mother and their gossip sessions over plates of fried rice; and the balm of salt and sun that leavens his life on the island.

But the artisanal soap business that Mr. Sotomayor built is barely hanging on amid rising costs and taxes, and sales that have sunk by 40 percent in five years. Crime is rampant; his girlfriend was nearly carjacked at gunpoint recently. So last month he boarded a flight to Orlando, Fla., to interview for a job at a rum distillery in the hope of joining the ever-growing Puerto Rican diaspora.

“I don’t see it improving,” said Mr. Sotomayor, a 47-year-old chemical engineer. “I see it getting worse. It’s the uncertainty. What am I going to do — wait until it gets worse?”

Puerto Rico’s slow-motion economic crisis skidded to a new low last week when both Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s downgraded its debt to junk status, brushing aside a series of austerity measures taken by the new governor, including increasing taxes and rebalancing pensions. But that is only the latest in a sharp decline leading to widespread fears about Puerto Rico’s future. In the past eight years, Puerto Rico’s ticker tape of woes has stretched unabated: $70 billion in debt, a 15.4 percent unemployment rate, a soaring cost of living, pervasive crime, crumbling schools and a worrisome exodus of professionals and middle-class Puerto Ricans who have moved to places like Florida and Texas.

The situation has grown so dire that this tropical island, known for its breathtaking beaches, salsero vibe and tax breaks, is now mentioned in the same breath as Detroit, with one significant difference. Puerto Rico, a United States territory of 3.6 million people that is treated in large part like a state, cannot declare bankruptcy.

From bottom to top, Puerto Ricans are watching it unfold with a mixture of disbelief and stoicism.

Alejandro García Padilla, who was elected Puerto Rico’s governor by a sliver of a margin in 2012, said that after he began to wade deeply into the island’s economic and social quagmire, his fight-or-flight instincts kicked into high gear.

“I thought about asking for a recount,” Mr. García Padilla, 42, said with a grin during a recent interview in La Fortaleza, the 500-year-old government residence, recalling, among other things, the $2.2 billion deficit. “But now it’s too late.”

A sense of pessimism pervades on the island. Streets are lined with empty storefronts in San Juan and in smaller cities like Mayagüez; small businesses, hit hard by high electricity, water and tax bills and hurt by drops in sales, have closed and stayed closed.

Schools sit shuttered either because of disrepair or because of a dwindling number of students. In this typically convivial capital, communities have erected gates and bars to help thwart carjackers and home invaders. Illegal drugs, including high-level narcotrafficking, are one of the few growth industries.

Puerto Rico, about 1,000 miles from Miami, has long been poor. Its per capita income is around $15,200, half that of Mississippi, the poorest state. Thirty-seven percent of all households receive food stamps; in Mississippi, the total is 22 percent.

But the extended recession has hit the middle-class hardest of all, economists said. Jobs are still scarce, pension benefits for some are shrinking and budgets continue to tighten. Even many people with paychecks have chosen simply to parlay their United States citizenship into a new life on the mainland.

Puerto Rico’s drop in population has far outpaced that of American states. In 2011 and 2012, the population fell by nearly 1 percent, according to census figures. From July 2012 to July 2013, it declined again by 1 percent, or about 36,000 people. That is more than seven times the drop in West Virginia, the state with the steepest population losses.

A Lack of Hope

Coupled with a falling birthrate, the decline is raising worries about how Puerto Rico will thrive with a rapidly aging population and such a large share of jobless residents. Of the island’s 3.67 million people, only one million work in the formal economy. The island has one of the lowest labor participation rates in the world, with only 41.3 percent of working-age Puerto Ricans in jobs; one in four works for the government.

“Today, Puerto Ricans with jobs are moving to the U.S.,” said Orlando Sotomayor, an economist at the University of Puerto Rico and the brother of Alexis. “Even people in their 40s and 50s, college professors with complete job security, are doing so. Some are starting all over. The phenomenon is highly uncommon and underscores the lack of hope that the ship can or will be righted.”

The current exodus rivals the one in the 1950s, when job shortages on the island forced farmers and rural residents to find factory work in cities like New York and Boston. Today, it is doctors, teachers, engineers, nurses, professors who are leaving Puerto Rico behind.

Just about everyone in Puerto Rico has a relative who left recently for Florida, New York, Texas or Virginia, among others. But the decision is never easy. Fathers leave behind children. Houses must be rented or sold at a loss in a glutted market. Businesses must be shut. And English must be polished, or in some cases learned, in a hurry.

Alexis Sotomayor said that on his January flight to Orlando, two acquaintances sitting nearby were also headed there hoping to find work. “Going out there in the morning and returning in the evening, after an interview,” he said.

After Coca-Cola laid him off in 2001, Mr. Sotomayor started experimenting with distilling plant extracts. He found he could make natural soaps and decided to go into business for himself, a move that would allow him more time to spend with his children.

Business boomed for years. So much so that he moved his homespun facility out of his house in 2005 and into a small building he bought in San Juan. He found that he was earning more money making soap than working as a chemical engineer.

Then in 2008, the recession pounded at his door. For five years, he has tried to lift his business; he went to fairs around the island, set up booths in shopping malls, promoted his flower-infused soaps, candles and lotions on television. He divvied up his store last year and decided to rent out half the building. He let go two of his four employees.

But his expenses mounted, including $600 a month in power bills, more than double what consumers pay on the mainland. The sky-high cost is a consequence of Puerto Rico’s inefficient government-run monopoly on electricity and its 67 percent dependency on petroleum for electric power. Other utilities are exorbitant, too. Last year, water rates rose 60 percent in a bid to help cut the state-run water company’s debt.

The cost of private tuition for his children, a total of $2,000 a month, is one nonnegotiable expense for him. Like most middle- and upper-class Puerto Ricans, he long ago lost faith in the island’s troubled public schools. Public school enrollment has plummeted in recent years, in part because of declining birthrates but also because of the schools’ poor quality.

“Many parents, even lower-middle-class parents, put all their money into their children’s private school, even if sometimes they have to live in rented houses,” said Nilsa Velazquez, an economics professor at the University of Puerto Rico who plans to move to Virginia with her family this summer.

For many, the high rate of violent crime has been the capper. There were 1,136 murders in 2011, a record and far higher than the mainland’s rate. It fell to 883 homicides last year, a point of pride for the governor.

But the damage had been done. Life here has always been full of trade-offs, including a high cost of living. Now, though, there is little left to trade.

‘Live Here Just to Survive?’

“Between making less money and not knowing when someone will jump you, that pushed the quality of life very low,” Alexis Sotomayor said. “To live here just to survive? No, thanks.”

For Ms. Velazquez, the tenured professor who lives in Mayagüez, and her husband, who works for the Air Force Reserve, the mental calculations were similar. She is 50, she said. The last thing she wanted to do was give up her job as an economics professor, move her two teenage children and uproot her 76-year-old mother, who speaks no English and has never left the island.

But she has grown so disillusioned with the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez — one of the crown jewels of the island’s higher-education system, where she has worked for nearly three decades — that she no longer views it as a viable option for her children. In the face of continuing economic stress, the University of Puerto Rico has suffered the loss of a steady stream of valued professors and funding for important research projects. Even tenured professors have left, Ms. Velazquez said.

“The most important thing for me is my children’s education, and the second is my quality of life,” she said. “You see all of these fees and taxes going up, but the streets are terrible.”

This summer she will try to rent out her house rather than selling it and take a loss, and will move to Fairfax County, Va., where her husband will work for the federal government and her children will attend a top public high school. As an economist with a law degree, she is hoping to find some kind of job.

“I thought I could do anything in Puerto Rico,” she said. “Now that is gone.”

The frustrations of Mr. Sotomayor and Ms. Velazquez speak to the depth of the island’s economic problems.

The origins of the crisis, though, stretch back more than a decade. Tax incentives have long been a draw for corporations seeking to do business in Puerto Rico, and the island in turn has benefited from its ability to offer such breaks, in large part structuring its economy around them.

Tax laws were once abundantly generous, which fueled the spread of factories that made textiles and pharmaceuticals, among other things. That came to a crash in 2006, after the 10-year phaseout of a subsidy that provided American firms operating in Puerto Rico with tax-free income. Changes to the global economy and the worldwide recession exacerbated the situation. Since 1996, factory jobs on the island spiraled from 160,000 to 75,000.

Little was done to try to revamp the island’s economic framework. Instead, deficits climbed and pensions spun out of control. In 2006, the government shut down for two weeks because it lacked the cash to meet expenses. The governor moved to raise taxes. In 2010, the next governor reduced taxes and laid off 33,000 government workers. But Puerto Rico’s governors began borrowing even more heavily to get out of the economic logjam.

“It was cheap and easy to borrow,” said Mike Soto, the president of the Puerto Rican Center for a New Economy. “It got to the point where we tapped out what we can borrow.”

Painful Corrections

Last year, Mr. García Padilla, the first governor from the countryside, took over. With the island’s economy a shambles, and credit agencies threatening a downgrade to junk status, he had no choice but to take swift action.

Economists have given him credit for acting to remedy problems that have festered for decades. In one year, he moved to overhaul three major pensions, including for teachers, that were on a pace to run out of money soon. Two of them are still pending final court approval. He reduced the deficit by 70 percent. And he is holding the four main debt-laden government-run companies more accountable and insisting on more transparency.

Vowing not to lay off any more workers, he raised taxes sharply to provide much-needed revenue and then got the legislature to approve incentives to entice wealthy investors, like the hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, who has invested in an exclusive beach resort and condo complex. A number of businesses have left the island, scared away by the groaning economy and the high cost of electricity. But others have arrived or expanded, like Eli Lilly, Seaborne Airlines and Cooper Vision.Four days before the junk status decision, Mr. García Padilla announced that he would present a balanced budget for next year, one year ahead of his own schedule. But his job just got harder. Analysts said the credit downgrades would make it harder to improve the economy. The governor ordered agencies to cut budgets by 2 percent.

“I’ve done everything I can to avoid a downgrade,” Mr. García Padilla said in an interview, calling the move “unjust.” “Maybe I can’t detain the winds right now, but I can build the windmills. I am an incurable optimist.”

But not everyone is applauding. His tax increases have hit some businesses hard, which could pose a further drag on the economy. Among the many taxes he initiated, the governor raised the corporate tax rate to a maximum of 39 percent. Last year, the economy continued on a slide. “The new administration has a bookkeeping mentality as opposed to an economic development mentality,” said Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico’s nonvoting representative in Congress and a political opponent of the governor. “Here you find Puerto Rico with an underlying economic problem charging its corporations — its job creators — 39 percent. Hello!”

Perhaps the most maligned is the new lucrative gross receipts tax, which some owners of small- and medium-size businesses say threatens to put them out of business. Because of the way the tax is structured, it affects companies with less than a 5 percent net profit margin. This means that many food-related companies, like supermarkets, and new businesses, are hit hardest. The smaller the margin, the higher the tax.

Some stores are paying an effective tax rate of 130 percent, said Manuel Reyes Alfonso, the vice president of a trade association that represents the food industry. If the tax is not revised, some will be forced to shut down and others will have to raise prices, he said.

“It is absurd,” said Mr. Reyes Alfonso. “It’s like selling the car to buy gas.”

In response, the governor is forming a committee to take a second look at the new taxes and the island’s complicated tax code. Waivers to the tax are available, but Mr. Reyes Alfonso said they were difficult to obtain.

As he sipped coffee in the bakery section of one of his stores, José Revuelta, the president of SuperMax grocery stores in Puerto Rico, said he managed to expand during the recession. But now, with the gross receipts and corporate tax cutting into his business, he is holding back on capital investments, raises and bonuses. He said he wanted reassurance that the tax hikes would be temporary.

“I can understand doing this on a short-term basis,” he said. “But there needs to be a plan.”

Not many are confident that a long-term plan exists to lift the island from such a sustained crash. But it cannot get much worse, they say.

“Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to restore yourself,” said Mr. Soto, of the Center for a New Economy. “I’m hoping that’s what’s happening.”


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*


B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Forwarded from the San Francisco Tenants Union:

After hosting successful neighborhood conventions in the Mission, Chinatown, Richmond/ Haight, Castro and SOMA/ Tenderloin, the citywide convention will bring us all together to discuss and vote on the proposals that were generated from the neighborhoods.

If you live in rent-controlled housing in San Francisco, please join us.

Saturday, February 8th,

Tenderloin Elementary School

627 Turk St. @ Van Ness

Lunch at Noon. Convention from 1:00-4:00pm.

The San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition (SFADC) is a new coalition of organizations that have joined together in this moment of crisis to fight the widespread displacement of residents from San Francisco. Our focus for 2014 is to support policies and actions that stop the wave of evictions and loss of rent controlled housing that is devastating our communities and that threatens the economic and social diversity of our city.

RENTERS: WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR VOICE!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Call to Action for February 8 Solidarity Rally against LGBTQ and Political Repression in Russia on the Opening Day of the Olympic Games


What: Planning meeting to organize an action in solidarity with targets of fascism in Russia
When: Tuesday, January 21, 2014, 6:00-7:30pm
Where: New Valencia Hall, 747 Polk Street, Civic Center (at Ellis Street and on/near Civic Center BART/Muni and #19, 31, 47, 48 & 49 Muni bus lines)

Dear friend,

Please don't miss the next community organizing meeting on Tuesday, January 21, 2014, the purpose of which is to further decided details for a public rally on Saturday, February 8 in San Francisco demanding queer and civil rights in Russia during the Olympic Games and to show solidarity with targets of escalating fascism.

The 2014 Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi, Russia from February 7–23.  Many of you are aware that state-supported violent bigotry and repression against the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer community and others in Russia is an increasingly serious reality.  Also being targeted are dissidents, radicals, feminists, artists, immigrants, and national and religious minorities.  The Putin Administration, instead of advancing equality for all, is dragging Russia backward by instituting laws making it a crime to be gay or to even advocate for LGBT rights, throwing socialists, anarchists, and feminists like punk rock group Pussy Riot into prison, and clamping down on all forms of public protest. These policies aim to divert working people’s anger at economic austerity measures and are emboldening a growing fascist movement.  (Links to more information can be found below.)

We believe that oppressed and working people everywhere have a stake in the fight to stamp out dangerous rightwing scapegoating. What’s needed is a public display of solidarity in order to show that people in the Bay Area support civil liberties for all, the separation of church and state, and solidarity with the oppressed—in Russia and here at home.

We invite you to join the ad hoc community group meeting to discuss and plan a visible and disciplined protest rally happening at UN Plaza 11am-1pm on Saturday, February 8 in San Francisco to oppose Putin’s repression and also hopefully plan other community actions on February 7 as well. Your ideas, support, endorsement, and help are all greatly needed.  The next planning meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 21, 6:00–7:30pm at New Valencia Hall, 747 Polk Street in San Francisco (between Ellis and Eddy and near Civic Center BART/Muni).  Wheelchair accessible. Everyone is welcome.  We hope to see you there—please spread the word.

For more information or to get involved, please contact Masha at 415-678-8232 or Toni Mendicino at 415-730-2917, or email .

More information can be found here:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/10/gay-russian-teens-avoid-propaganda-law
http://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/dmitry-chizhevsky/
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/downfall-toward-fascism/489100.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/rising-russian-nationalism-sets-off-ethnic-tension/2013/11/11/9c9c15ae-495c-11e3-b87a-e66bd9ff3537_story.html
www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/?q=node/2594   (“Russia’s new anti-LGBT law denounced”)
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1006504/
http://www.vocativ.com/11-2013/russian-neo-nazis-now-beating-gays-ukraine/
 

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*


C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND
ONGOING CAMPAIGNS


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*



End Drone Killing, Drone Surveillance and Global 
Militarization 
United National Antiwar Coalition Call for Spring Days of
 Action 2014

Today we issue an international call for Spring Days of Action—2014, a coordinated campaign in April and May to end drone killings, drone surveillance and global militarization.

The campaign will focus on drone bases, drone research facilities and test sites and drone manufacturers.

The campaign will provide information on:

1. The suffering of tens-of-thousands of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Gaza who are under drone attack, documenting the killing, the wounding and the devastating impact of constant drone surveillance on community life.

2. How attack and surveillance drones have become a key element in a massive wave of surveillance, clandestine military attacks and militarization generated by the United States to protect a global system of manufacture and oil and mineral exploitation that is creating unemployment and poverty, accelerating the waste of nonrenewable resources and contributing to environmental destruction and global warming.

In addition to cases in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, we will examine President Obama’s “pivot” into the Asia-Pacific, where the United States has already sold and deployed drones in the vanguard of a shift of 60 percent of its military forces to try to control China and to enforce the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership. We will show, among other things, how this surge of “pivot” forces, greatly enabled by drones, and supported by the U.S. military-industrial complex, will hit every American community with even deeper cuts in the already fragile social programs on which people rely for survival. In short, we will connect drones and militarization with “austerity” in America.

3. How drone attacks have effectively destroyed international and domestic legal protection of the rights to life, privacy, freedom of assembly and free speech and have opened the way for new levels of surveillance and repression around the world, and how, in the United States, increasing drone surveillance, added to surveillance by the National Security Agency and police, provides a new weapon to repress black, Hispanic, immigrant and low-income communities and to intimidate Americans who are increasingly unsettled by lack of jobs, economic inequality, corporate control of politics and the prospect of endless war.

We will discuss how the United States government and corporations conspire secretly to monitor U.S. citizens and particularly how the Administration is accelerating drone surveillance operations and surveillance inside the United States with the same disregard for transparency and law that it applies to other countries, all with the cooperation of the Congress.

The campaign will encourage activists around the world to win passage of local laws that prohibit weaponized drones and drone surveillance from being used in their communities as well as seeking national laws to bar the use of weaponized drones and drone surveillance.

The campaign will draw attention to the call for a ban on weaponized drones by RootsAction.org that has generated a petition with over 80,000 signers:

http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6180

And to efforts by the Granny Peace Brigade (New York City), KnowDrones.org and others to achieve an international ban on both weaponized drones and drone surveillance.

The campaign will also urge participation in the World Beyond War movement.
The following individuals and organizations endorse this Call: 
Lyn Adamson, Co-chair, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace; Dennis Apel, Guadalupe Catholic Worker, California; Judy Bello, Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones & End the Wars; Medea Benjamin, Code Pink; Leah Bolger, Former National President, Veterans for Peace; Canadian Voice of Women for Peace; Sung-Hee Choi, Gangjeong Village International Team, Jeju, Korea; Chelsea C. Faria, Graduate student, Yale Divinity School; Promoting Enduring Peace; Sandy Fessler, Rochester (NY) Against War; Joy First; Bruce K. Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; Holly Gwinn Graham, Singer/songwriter, Olympia, WA; Regina Hagen, Darmstaedter Friedensforum, Germany; Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence; Malachy Kilbride; Marilyn Levin and Joe Lombardo, Co-Coordinators, United National Antiwar Coalition; Tamara Lorincz, Halifax Peace Coalition, Canada; Nick Mottern, KnowDrones.org; Agneta Norberg, Swedish Peace Council; Pepperwolf, Director, Women Against Military Madness; Lindis Percy, Coordinator, Campaign for the Accountability of American; Bases CAAB UK; Mathias Quackenbush, San Francisco, CA; Lisa Savage, Code Pink, State of Maine; Janice Sevre-Duszynska; Wolfgang Schlupp-Hauck, Friedenswerkstatt Mutlangen, Germany; Cindy Sheehan; Lucia Wilkes Smith, Convener, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM),  Ground; Military Drones Committee; David Soumis, Veterans for Peace; No Drones Wisconsin; Debra Sweet, World Can’t Wait; David Swanson, WarisACrime.org; Brian Terrell, Voices for Creative Nonviolence; United National Antiwar Coalition; Veterans for Peace; Dave Webb, Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK); Curt Wechsler, Fire John Paki Wieland, Northampton (MA) Committee to Stop War(s); Loring Wirbel, Citizens for Peace in Space (Colorado Springs, CO); Women Against Military Madness; Ann Wright, Retired U.S. Army colonel and former diplomat; Leila Zand, Fellowship of Reconciliation.
United National Antiwar Coalition
UNACpeace@gmail.com
UNAC
P.O. Box 123
Delmar, NY 12054
518-227-6947
www.unacpeace.org

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*


Sireen Khudairy Appeal Update.

Sireen Khudairy was arrested again at 4am on Tuesday 7th January 2014. According to reports she has been taken to Huwwara military point. When the Israeli army took her from her home they didn't show any papers to her or the person she was with.

This follows eight months of harassment of this 24-year-old Palestinian woman who is a teacher, activist and supporter of the non-violent action against the Israeli occupation. She was previously imprisoned from May to July 2013, and has been subjected to frequent harassment ever since. See further details at:

http://freesireen.wordpress.com

Please help by contacting your Embassies urgently to demand her release and spread her appeal widely. Follow updates on:

https://www.facebook.com/FreeSireenKhudiri?ref=hl

Please contact us to let us know any action you take. We will pass this information on to her family. Thanks for your solidarity and support.  

Steven Katsineris, January 2014
 
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

U.S. Court of Appeals Rules Against Lorenzo Johnson’s
New Legal Challenge to His Frame-up Conviction!
Demand the PA Attorney General Dismiss the Charges!
Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied Lorenzo Johnson’s motion to file a Second Habeas Corpus Petition. The order contained the outrageous declaration that Johnson hadn’t made a “prima facie case” that he had new evidence of his innocence. This not only puts a legal obstacle in Johnson’s path as his fight for freedom makes its way (again) through the state and federal courts—but it undermines the newly filed Pennsylvania state appeal that is pending in the Court of Common Pleas.

Stripped of  “legalese,” the court’s October 15, 2013 order says Johnson’s new evidence was not brought into court soon enough—although it was the prosecution and police who withheld evidence and coerced witnesses into lying or not coming forward with the truth! This, despite over fifteen years and rounds of legal battles to uncover the evidence of government misconduct. This is a set-back for Lorenzo Johnson’s renewed fight for his freedom, but Johnson is even more determined as his PA state court appeal continues.

Increased public support and protest is needed. The fight for Lorenzo Johnson’s freedom is not only a fight for this courageous man and family. The fight for Lorenzo Johnson is also a fight for all the innocent others who have been framed and are sitting in the slow death of prison. The PA Attorney General is directly pursuing the charges against Lorenzo, despite the evidence of his innocence and the corruption of the police. Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!

—Rachel Wolkenstein, Esq.
   October 25, 2013

For more on the federal court and PA state court legal filings.
Hear Mumia’s latest commentary, “Cat Cries”
Go to: www.FreeLorenzoJohnson.org for more information, to sign the petition, and how to help.
 
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

PUSH CHELSEA'S JAILERS TO RESPECT HER IDENTITY
Call and write Ft Leavenworth today and tell them to honor Manning's wishes around her name and gender:
Call: (913) 758-3600


Write to:
Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander
U.S. Detention Barracks
1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027

Private Manning has been an icon both for the government transparency movement and LGBTQ activists because of her fearlessness and acts of conscience. Now, as she begins serving her sentence, Chelsea has asked for help with legal appeals, family visits, education, and support for undergoing gender transition. The latter is a decision she’s made following years of experiencing gender dysphoria and examining her options. At a difficult time in her life, she joined the military out of hope–the hope that she could use her service to save lives, and also the hope that it would help to suppress her feelings of gender dysphoria. But after serving time in Iraq, Private Manning realized what mattered to her most was the truth, personal as well as political, even when it proved challenging.

Now she wants the Fort Leavenworth military prison to allow her access to hormone replacement therapy which she has offered to pay for herself, as she pursues the process to have her name legally changed to ‘Chelsea Elizabeth Manning.’

To encourage the prison to honor her transgender identity, we’re calling on progressive supporters and allies to contact Fort Leavenworth officials demanding they acknowledge her requested name change immediately. Currently, prison officials are not required to respect Chelsea’s identity, and can even refuse to deliver mail addressed to the name ‘Chelsea Manning.’ However, it’s within prison administrators’ power to begin using the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ now, in advance of the legal name change which will most likely be approved sometime next year. It’s also up to these officials to approve Private Manning’s request for hormone therapy.
Call: (913) 758-3600


Write to:
Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander
U.S. Detention Barracks
1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027

Tell them: “Transgender rights are human rights! Respect Private Manning’s identity by acknowledging the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ whenever possible, including in mail addressed to her, and by allowing her access to appropriate medical treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT).”

While openly transgender individuals are allowed to serve in many other militaries around the world, the US military continues to deny their existence. Now, by speaking up for Chelsea’s right to treatment, you can support one brave whistleblower in her personal struggle, and help set an important benchmark for the rights of transgender individuals everywhere. (Remember that letters written with focus and a respectful tone are more likely to be effective.) Feel free to copy this sample letter.

Earlier this year, the Private Manning Support Network won the title of most “absolutely fabulous overall contingent” at the San Francisco Pride Parade, the largest celebration of its kind for LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning) people nationwide. Over one thousand people marched for Private Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning in that parade, to show LGBTQ community pride for the Iraq War’s most well-known whistleblower.

Help us continue to cover 100%
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591

COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
 

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

 SAVE CCSF!


Two campaigns that need funds – Please donate!
Posted on August 25, 2013

Cartoon by Anthonty Mata for CCSF Guardsman

DOE CAMPAIGN
We are working to ensure that the ACCJC’s authority is not renewed by the Department of Education this December when they are up for their 5-year renewal. Our campaign made it possible for over 50 Third Party Comments to be sent to the DOE re: the ACCJC. Our next step in this campaign is to send a delegation from CCSF to Washington, D.C. to give oral comments at the hearing on December 12th. We expect to have an array of forces aligned on the other side who have much more money and resources than we do.
So please support this effort to get ACCJC authority revoked!

LEGAL CAMPAIGN
Save CCSF members have been meeting with Attorney Dan Siegel since last May to explore legal avenues to fight the ACCJC. After much consideration, and consultation with AFT 2121’s attorney as well as the SF City Attorney’s office, Dan has come up with a legal strategy that is complimentary to what is already being pursued. In fact, AFT 2121’s attorney is encouraging us to go forward.
The total costs of pursuing this (depositions, etc.) will be substantially more than $15,000. However, Dan is willing to do it for a fixed fee of $15,000. He will not expect a retainer, i.e. payment in advance, but we should start payments ASAP. If we win the ACCJC will have to pay our costs.

PLEASE HELP BOTH OF THESE IMPORTANT EFFORTS!
Checks can be made out to Save CCSF Coalition with “legal” in the memo line and sent to:
Save CCSF Coalition
2132 Prince St.
Berkeley, CA 94705
Or you may donate online:  http://www.gofundme.com/4841ns

http://www.saveccsf.org/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

16 Years in Solitary Confinement Is Like a "Living Tomb"

American Civil Liberties Union petition to end long-term solitary confinement:
California Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard: We stand with the prisoners on hunger strike. We urge you to comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 recommendations regarding an end to long-term solitary confinement.

In California, hundreds of prisoners have been held in solitary for more than a decade – some for infractions as trivial as reading Machiavelli's "The Prince."

Gabriel Reyes describes the pain of being isolated for at least 22 hours a day for the last 16 years:

“Unless you have lived it, you cannot imagine what it feels like to be by yourself, between four cold walls, with little concept of time…. It is a living tomb …’ I have not been allowed physical contact with any of my loved ones since 1995…I feel helpless and hopeless. In short, I am being psychologically tortured.”

That’s why over 30,000 prisoners in California began a hunger strike – the biggest the state has ever seen. They’re refusing food to protest prisoners being held for decades in solitary and to push for other changes to improve their basic conditions.

California Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard has tried to dismiss the strikers and refuses to negotiate, but the media pressure is building through the strike. If tens of thousands of us take action, we can help keep this issue in the spotlight so that Secretary Beard can’t ignore the inhumane treatment of prisoners.

Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.

Solitary is such an extreme form of punishment that a United Nations torture rapporteur called for an international ban on the practice except in rare occasions. Here’s why:

The majority of the 80,000 people held in solitary in this country are severely mentally ill or because of a minor infraction (it’s a myth that it’s only for violent prisoners)
Even for people with stable mental health, solitary causes severe psychological reactions, often leading people to attempt suicide
It jeopardizes public safety because prisoners held in solitary have a harder time reintegrating into society.

And to add insult to injury, the hunger strikers are now facing retaliation – their lawyers are being restricted from visiting and the strikers are being punished. But the media continues to write about the hunger strike and we can help keep the pressure on Secretary Beard by signing this petition.

Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.

Our criminal justice system should keep communities safe and treat people fairly. The use of solitary confinement undermines both of these goals – but little by little, we can help put a stop to such cruelty.

Thank you,
Anthony for the ACLU Action team
P.S. The hunger strikers have developed five core demands to address their basic conditions, the main one being an end to long-term solitary confinement. They are:

-End group punishment – prisoners say that officials often punish groups to address individual rule violations

-Abolish the debriefing policy, which is often demanded in return for better food or release from solitary

-End long-term solitary confinement

-Provide adequate and nutritious food

-Expand or provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates

Sources
“Solitary - and anger - in California's prisons.” Los Angeles Times July 13, 2013
“Pelican Bay Prison Hunger-Strikers' Stories: Gabriel Reyes.” TruthOut July 9, 2013
“Solitary confinement should be banned in most cases, UN expert says.” UN News October 18, 2011
"Stop Solitary - Two Pager" ACLU.org
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

What you Didn't know about NYPD's Stop and Frisk program !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rfJHx0Gj6ys#at=990

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Egypt: The Next President -- a little Egyptian boy speaks his remarkable mind!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeDm2PrNV1I

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Wealth Inequality in America

[This is a must see to believe video...bw]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QPKKQnijnsM

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*


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)

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*



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



*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

"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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

WITNESS GAZA

http://www.witnessgaza.com/

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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!

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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]

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Checkpoint - Jasiri X 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq6Y6LSjulU



Published on Jan 28, 2014
"Checkpoint" is based on the oppression and discrimination Jasiri X witnessed firsthand during his recent trip to Palestine and Israel "Checkpoint" is produced by Agent of Change, and directed by Haute Muslim. Download "Checkpoint" at https://jasirix.bandcamp.com/track/ch....

Follow Jasiri X at https://twitter.com/jasiri_x

LYRICS
Journal of the hard times tales from the dark side
Evidence of the settlements on my hard drive
Man I swear my heart died at the end of that car ride
When I saw that checkpoint welcome to apartheid
Soldiers wear military green at the checkpoint
Automatic guns that's machine at the checkpoint
Tavors not m16s at the checkpoint
Fingers on the trigger you'll get leaned at the checkpoint
Little children grown adults or teens at the checkpoint
All ya papers better be clean at the checkpoint
You gotta but your finger on the screen at the checkpoint
And pray that red light turns green at the check point

If Martin Luther King had a dream of the checkpoint
He wake with loud screams from the scenes at the checkpoint
It's Malcolm X by any means at the check point
Imagine if you daily routine was the checkpoint

Separation walls that's surrounding the checkpoint
On top is barbwire like a crown on the checkpoint
Better have ya permits if your found at the checkpoint
Gunmen on the tower aiming down at the checkpoint
The idea is to keep you in fear of the checkpoint
You enter through the cage in the rear of the checkpoint
It feels like prison on a tier at the check point
I'd rather be anywhere but here at this checkpoint
Nelson Mandela wasn't blind to the check point
He stood for free Palestine not a check point
Support BDS don't give a dime to the checkpoint
This is international crime at the checkpoint
Arabs get treated like dogs at the checkpoint
Cause discrimination is the law at the checkpoint
Criminalized without a cause at the checkpoint
I'm just telling you what I saw at the checkpoint
Soldiers got bad attitudes at the checkpoint
Condescending and real rude at the checkpoint
Don't look em in they eyes when they move at the checkpoint
They might strip a man or woman nude at the checkpoint
Soldiers might blow you out of ya shoes at the checkpoint
Gas you up and then light the fuse at the checkpoint
Everyday you stand to be accused at the checkpoint
Each time your life you could lose at the checkpoint

If Martin Luther King had a dream of the checkpoint
He wake with loud screams from the scenes at the checkpoint
It's Malcolm X by any means at the check point
Imagine if you daily routine was the checkpoint

At the airport in Tel Aviv is a checkpoint
They pulled over our taxi at the checkpoint
Passport visa ID at the checkpoint
Soldiers going all through my things at the checkpoint
Said I was high risk security at the checkpoint
Because of the oppression I see at the checkpoint
Occupation in the 3rd degree at the checkpoint
All a nigga wanna do is leave fuck a checkpoint

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Exceptional art from the streets of Oakland:

Oakland Street Dancing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRRnAhmB58

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqH9s5mwTEY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atyTZ8prhCg

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

NYC RESTAURANT WORKERS DANCE & SING FOR A WAGE HIKE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_s8e1R6rG8&feature=player_embedded

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

1000 year of war through the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiG8neU4_bs&feature=share

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Kids being put on buses and transported from school to "alternate locations" in

Terror Drills

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFia_w8adWQ

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Private prisons,

a recession resistant investment opportunity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIGLDOxx9Vg

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Attack Dogs used on a High School Walkout in MD, Four Students Charged With

"Thought Crimes"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wafMaML17w

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Common forms of misconduct by Law Enforcement Officials and Prosecutors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViSpM4K276w&feature=related

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Organizing and Instigating: OCCUPY - Ronnie Goodman

http://arthazelwood.com/instigator/occupy/occupy-birth-video.html

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Rep News 12: Yes We Kony

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68GbzIkYdc8

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

The New Black by The Mavrix - Official Music Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rLfja8488

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Japan One Year Later

http://www.onlineschools.org/japan-one-year-later/

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

The CIA's Heart Attack Gun

http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/assassination-studies/the-cias-heart-attack-g\

un-.html

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

The Invisible American Workforce

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/5/new_expos_tracks_alec_private_prison

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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.


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

The Battle of Oakland

by brandon jourdan plus

http://vimeo.com/36256273

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*


School police increasingly arresting American students?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl-efNBvjUU&feature=player_embedded

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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/

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*


We Are The People Who Will Save Our Schools

YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFAOJsBxAxY

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

HALLELUJAH CORPORATIONS (revised edition).mov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws0WSNRpy3g

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

ONE OF THE GREATEST POSTS ON YOUTUBE SO FAR!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8C-qIgbP9o&feature=share&mid=552

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

UC Davis Police Violence Adds Fuel to Fire

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

19 November 11

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/8485-uc-davis-police-violence-add\

s-fuel-to-fire

UC Davis Protestors Pepper Sprayed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&feature=player_embedded

Police PEPPER SPRAY UC Davis STUDENT PROTESTERS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuWEx6Cfn-I&feature=player_embedded

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZ0t9ez_EGI#!

Occupy Seattle - 84 Year Old Woman Dorli Rainey Pepper Sprayed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTIyE_JlJzw&feature=related

*---------*

THE BEST VIDEO ON "OCCUPY THE WORLD"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Shot by police with rubber bullet at Occupy Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrvMzqopHH0

*---------*

Occupy Oakland 11-2 Strike: Police Tear Gas, Black Bloc, War in the Streets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tu_D8SFYck&feature=player_embedded

*----*

Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest

were actually undercover Quebec police officers:

POLICE STATE Criminal Cops EXPOSED As Agent Provocateurs @ SPP Protest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoiisMMCFT0&feature=player_embedded

*----*

Quebec police admit going undercover at montebello protests

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&feature=player_embedded

G20: Epic Undercover Police Fail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJ7aU-n1L8&feature=player_embedded

*----*

WHAT HAPPENED IN OAKLAND TUESDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 25:

Occupy Oakland Protest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlPs-REyl-0&feature=player_embedded

Cops make mass arrests at occupy Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27kD2_7PwU&feature=player_embedded

Raw Video: Protesters Clash With Oakland Police

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO-lJr2BQY&feature=player_embedded

Occupy Oakland - Flashbangs USED on protesters OPD LIES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNOPZLw03Q&feature=player_embedded

KTVU TV Video of Police violence

http://www.ktvu.com/video/29587714/index.html

Marine Vet wounded, tear gas & flash-bang grenades thrown in downtown

Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUgPTCgwcQ&feature=player_embedded

Tear Gas billowing through 14th & Broadway in Downtown Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4Y0pwJtWE&feature=player_embedded

Arrests at Occupy Atlanta -- This is what a police state looks like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YStWz6jbeZA&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I

*---------*

Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA48gmfGB6U&feature=youtu.be

Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKZpOk7TyM&feature=related

*---------*

#Occupy Wall Street In Washington Square: Mohammed Ezzeldin, former occupier of

Egypt's Tahrir Square Speaks at Washington Square!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziodsFWEb5Y&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street

By adele pham

http://vimeo.com/30146870

*---------*

Live arrest at brooklyn bridge #occupywallstreet by We are Change

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto&feature=player_embedded

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!

http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

To unsubscribe go to: bauaw2003-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment