Friday, August 29, 2014

BAUAW NEWSLETTER: FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 2014

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

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

Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. ARTICLES IN FULL
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.


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

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

A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

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

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

Special event to kick off CISPES’ 15th National Convention

Migration: Causes and Responses
Perspectives from the US and El Salvador
Friday, August 29th at 6:30 pm
Women’s Building, 3543 18th St. San Francisco (between Valencia and Guerrero, 16th St. BART)
This space is wheelchair accessible; Spanish-English interpretation provided
Suggested donation: $10-$30

Stay for refreshments, live music, DJs and dancing!
While the mainstream news is finally talking about the poverty and insecurity that are separating families in México and Central America and forcing so many to leave their homes, there is little analysis of the role that U.S. policy plays in creating those conditions. Even less is being said about what left and progressive governments are doing, for example in El Salvador and Nicaragua, to reduce poverty and inequality, which often involves standing up to transnational corporations and the enormous power they wield through trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA.
The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) is thrilled to welcome Claudia Escobar, one of the women in leadership of the Salvadoran Union Front, which formed in 2005 as the Salvadoran working class’ “instrument of struggle.” She is the president of her union, which represents workers at the Ministry of Labor, and has a unique perspective on both labor and women’s struggles under the new FMLN government.
She will be joined by Angela Sanbrano, president of the National Alliance of Latino and Caribbean Communities (NALACC), and by David Bacon, who has written extensively on the root causes of migration, especially when it comes to US economic and foreign policy.
We will also take the opportunity to celebrate many generations of the Central American solidarity movement being under one roof so please stay for refreshments, live music, and dancing!
Feel free to check out the Facebook invitation here and please to spread the word among other solidarity-minded friends and allies.  
Please contact Karl Kramer at 415-509-9712 or bayarea@cispes.org with any questions. Hope to see you there!
 
CISPES le invita a un evento especial para abrir su Convención Nacional 15o
 
Migración: Causas y Respuestas
Perspectivas desde los EEUU y El Salvador
 
Viernes el 29 de Agosto a las 6:30 pm
Women’s Building, 3543 18th St. San Francisco (entre Valencia and Guerrero, 16th St. BART)

El espacio es accesible por sillas de rueda; habrá interpretación entre inglés y español
Donación de $10-$30 sugerida
¡También habrá comida y bebida, música en vivo, DJ, y baile!
 
El tema de la pobreza y la inseguridad cómo una causa fundamental de la separación de millones de familias Mexicanas y Centroamericanas ha surgido por los medios de comunicación pero no hay una análisis muy profunda del rol de las políticas de los EEUU en crear estas mismas condiciones. Aún menos se oiga de las iniciativas de gobiernos progresistas y de izquierda para disminuir la pobreza y la desigualdad, por ejemplo en El Salvador y Nicaragua, las cuales frecuentemente causan reacción de las empresas transnacionales que hoy en día manejan un poder muy fuerte a través de los Tratados de Libre Comercio.
El Comité en Solidaridad con el Pueblo de El Salvador (CISPES) tiene el honor de dar la bienvenida a  Claudia Escobar, una lideresa del Frente Sindical Salvadoreño, lo cual se aglutinó en 2005 como el “instrumento de lucha del clase trabajador.” Como presidenta de su sindicato, lo cual representa las y los trabajadores al Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión Social, ofrecerá una perspectiva única sobre la lucha de ambos las mujeres y los sindicatos bajo el nuevo gobierno del FMLN.  
Daremos la bienvenida también a Angela Sanbrano, presidenta de la Alianza Nacional de Comunidades Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (NALACC) y David Bacon, un autor que ha escrito extensivamente en el tema de las causas fundamentales de la migración, especialmente en relación con la política económica de los EE.UU.
 
También vamos a celebrar la unificación de varias generaciones del movimiento en solidaridad con Centroamérica - İ vengar para bailar y disfrutar un convivio muy genial con música en vivo, comida y bebidas!  
Favor de compartir esta invitación y también el anuncio por Facebook con sus amig@s y aliad@s solidari@s.
Favor de comunicarse con Karl Kramer a 415-503-0789 o bayarea@cispes.org con cualquier pregunta. İLe esperamos el Viernes 29 de Agosto!
--
Allan Fisher
afisher800@gmail.com
415-954-2763
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

National March for Justice for Michael Brown
 
National marches for Ferguson and Gaza this weekend!

Saturday, Aug. 30, 2014, 10:00 a.m in Ferguson, Mo., Canfield Dr. and W. Florissant Ave (Ground Zero)

March to police headquarters

The following call to action was issued by the Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Council, made up of community leaders on the ground in Ferguson.

Protest against police killings, brutality, profiling and legal coverups

"This will be a national massive march on Ferguson. People of conscience, from all walks of life, and all over the United States, will come together in Ferguson in the largest single mass demonstration to demand justice for Michael Brown," said Akbar Muhammad of the Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Council.

The march demands:

1. We demand that Darren Wilson, the officer involved in the shooting death of Michael Brown be immediately fired from Ferguson police department instead of remaining on paid leave. We demand Darren Wilson be charged and vigorously prosecuted for the murder of Michael Brown.

2. We demand that Missouri Governor Jay Nixon under the emergency law clause he issued immediately remove St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch from the case involving Michael Brown.

3. We call upon the United States Federal Attorney General Eric Holder and Missouri State Attorney General Chris Koster to investigate the policies and practices of the local municipalities in Saint Louis County, Saint Louis City and other municipalities throughout the state of Missouri, that have demonstrated a legacy of racial profiling. Accordingly, we call upon those officials to develop penalties/policies to put an end to those practices.

4. We call for the Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich to do an audit of the funds of the local municipalities that have demonstrated a history of racial profiling. We demand accountability of how much revenue is being generated from traffic violations and how these funds are being spent.

5. We call for the Ferguson Mayor James Knowles and Police Chief Thomas Jackson to immediately resign from their positions of authority and if not we will call upon the people to immediately do a recall of the Mayor of Ferguson.


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

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

PEOPLE'S CLIMATE RALLY

n solidarity with the historic September 21 NYC event called by 350.org and
hundreds of local and national environmental, trade union and social justice
organizations across the country.

All Out for Sun., Sept. 21

2 pm – 5 pm

Oakland's Lake Merritt Park Amphitheater

Amphitheater is the new grassy area at the end of Lake Merritt near 12th
Street, across from the Henry J. Kaiser Center, a few blocks from Lake Merritt BART
Station.

The historic NYC protest on Sunday, September 21 is 2 days before the UN
Climate Summit of world leaders. Tragically, more inaction or inadequate
action can be expected.   We want to show the world that the climate crisis
can no longer be ignored, that the planet earth is burning, that massive &
unprecedented measures must be taken now to assure humanity’s future.

The People’s Climate March is shaping up to be one of the largest climate
justice mobilizations in history, with organizers of the march setting a goal of getting a half million people to demonstrate in NYC.

For additional information:  http://peoplesclimatemarch.org

While people all over the country are mobilizing for New York, many of us will
gather in support in Oakland.

Let's make the  West Coast Solidarity action a great success!

• For a world with an economy that works for people and the planet

• For a world safe from the ravages of climate change

• For a world with good jobs, clean air and water, peace and justice and
healthy communities

Bay Area September 21 Coalition: Co-sponsors (Very initial list! Add your
organization now!): 350 Bay Area; Sunflower Alliance; System Change Not
Climate Change; KPFA; Peninsula Peace and Justice Center; Social Justice
Committee/Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists; Our Place in the
World; Adam Hochschild, author/founder Mother Jones magazine; Green Party of
Alameda County; United National Antiwar Coalition; Democratic Socialists East
Bay; Alameda County Peace and Freedom Party; No. Calif. Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and  Socialism; Socialist Action; Mobilization to
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal; Oakland Socialist Group; Bay Area Solidarity; Dr. Jack
Rasmus, Host, Alternative Visions Radio Show/Progressive Radio Network;
International Socialist Organization; San Francisco Bay View newspaper; One
Hundred Thousand Poets for Change; CodePink Bay Area; Multifaith Voices for
Peace & Justice; Food & Water Watch; Cesar Chavez Holiday Parade and Festival;
San Jose Peace and Justice Center, Bay Area IWW; 350 Santa Cruz; SF Sierra
Club; Peace Action of San Mateo County; Solar Justice; Sonoma County Peace and
Justice Center; Project Censored

Send your endorsement to: endorse@BayAreaSept21.org

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

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

Please forward and post widely

Protest Now! No To Police Censorship of Mumia, and Teachers! 

Reinstate the Urban Dreams Website!

Action Still Needed! Please send messages to the School Board!

- Scroll down for School Board addresses -


Here’s what happened: Under pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)—operating through a friendly publicity agent called Fox News—the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) earlier this year shut down an entire website composed of teacher-drafted curriculum material called Urban Dreams.  Why?  Because this site included course guidelines on the censorship of innocent political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal!  The course material compared the censorship of Mumia’s extensive radio commentaries and writings, with that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s later writings, which focused on class exploitation and his opposition to the US’ imperialist War against Vietnam. Both were effectively silenced by the big media, including in Mumia’s case, by National Public Radio (NPR).

Mumia Is Innocent! But He’s Still a Top Target of FOP

Abu-Jamal has long been a top-row target for the FOP, which tried to get him legally killed for decades.  Mumia was framed by the Philadelphia police and falsely convicted of murdering a Philadelphia policeman in 1982, with the extensive collaboration of lying prosecutors, corrupt courts, the US Justice Department, and key political figures.

Mumia’s death sentence was dropped only when a federal appeals court judge set it aside because of blatantly illegal jury instructions by the original highly racist trial judge.  (The same federal judge upheld every bogus detail of Mumia’s conviction.)  The local Philadelphia prosecutor and politicians chickened out of trying to get Mumia’s original death sentence reinstated due to the fact that all their evidence of his guilt had long been exposed as totally fraudulent! 

FOP: Can’t Kill Him? Silence Him!

The FOP had to swallow the fact that the local mucky-mucks had dropped the ball on executing Mumia, but they were rewarded with a substitute sentence of life without the possibility of parole, imposed by a local court acting in secret.  Mumia is now serving this new and equally unjust sentence of “slow death.”

This gets us back to the FOP’s main point here, which is to silence Mumia. They can’t stop Mumia from writing and recording his world-renownd commentaries (which are available at Prison Radio, www.prisonradio.org). But they look for any opportunity to smear and discredit Mumia, and keep him out of the public eye; and these snakes have found a morsel on the Urban Dreams web site to go after!

Urban Dreams Was Well Used by Teachers

Urban Dreams was initially set up under a grant from the federal Dept. of Education in 1999-2004 and contains teacher-written material on a wide variety of issues.  It is (was) used extensively in California and beyond. The OUSD’s knee-jerk reaction to shut the whole site down because of a complaint from police, broadcast on the all-powerful Fox News network, shows the rapid decline of the US into police-state status.  Why should we let a bunch of lying, vicious cops, whose only real job is to protect the wealthy and powerful from all of us, get away with this?

Fresh from defeating Obama’s nominee to head the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department because he served for a period as Mumia’s attorney, the FOP is attacking a school lesson plan that asks students to think outside the box of system propaganda. But the grave-diggers of capitalist oppression are stirring.

Labor Says No To Police Persecution of Mumia!

In 1999, the Oakland teachers union, Oakland Education Association (OEA), held an unauthorized teach-in on Mumia and the death penalty.  Later the same year, longshore workers in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) shut down all West-Coast ports to Free Mumia.  Other teacher actions happened around the country and internationally.  And now the Alameda County Labor Council, acting on a resolution submitted by an OEA member, has denounced the FOP-inspired shutdown of Urban Dreams, and called for the site’s complete restoration (ie no deletions).

Labor Says No To Censorship of Mumia, and Teachers!

We are asking union members particularly, and everyone else as well, if you abhor police-sponsored censorship of school curricula, and want to see justice and freedom for the wrongfully convicted such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, send your message of protest now to the Oakland School Board, at the three addresses below.

Union members: take the resolution below to your local union or labor council, and get it passed!

 Whatever you do, send a copy of your protest letter or resolution, or a report of your actions, to Oakland Teachers for Mumia, at communard2@juno.com.

Here is the Alameda County Labor Council resolution:

_   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _

Labor Speaks: Urban Dreams Censorship Resolution

Alameda County Labor Council

Whereas Mumia Abu-Jamal, an award winning journalist, defender of the rights of the working class, people of color, and oppressed people has been imprisoned since 1982 without parole for a crime he didn’t commit after his death sentence was finally overturned;

Whereas the Oakland Unified School District’s censorship of the Urban Dreams website was in reaction to a Fox News and Fraternal Order of Police attack on a lesson plan asking students to consider a parallel between censorship of Martin Luther King’s radical ideas and censorship of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and;

Whereas it is dangerous and unacceptable to allow the police to determine the curriculum of a major school district like Oakland, or any school district;

Whereas removal of the Urban Dreams OUSD website denies educators and student access to invaluable curriculum resources by Oakland teachers with social justice themes promoting critical thinking, and;

Whereas in 1999, the Oakland Education Association led the teach-in on Mumia Abu-Jamal and the death penalty which helped deepen the debate in the U.S. on the death penalty itself, and greatly intensified the spotlight on the widespread issue of wrongful conviction and demanded justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and;

Whereas OEA and Alameda Contra Costa County Service Center of CTA cited the Mumia teach-in and the censored unit on Martin Luther King Jr. in its Human Rights WHO AWARD for 2013;

Be it resolved that the Alameda Labor Council condemns OUSD’s censorship of the Urban Dreams website and demands that it immediately restore access to all materials on the website, reaffirms its demand for justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and issues a press release to seek the widest possible support from defenders of free speech and those who seek justice for Mumia.

- Submitted by Keith Brown, OEA

- Passed, Alameda County Labor Council, 14 July 2014
_   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _

Now It’s your turn!
Join with Ed Asner, and with the Alameda County Labor Council, in protesting the
Oakland School Board’s censorship of the Urban Dreams web site!
    • Ask your local union, labor council or other organization to endorse the resolution by the Alameda County Labor Council.
    • Demand the School Board reinstate the Urban Dreams website without any deletions!
    • Send your union resolutions or letters of protest to the following; 
        1. Oakland Board of Education: boe@ousd.k12.ca.us 
        2. Board President Davd Kakishiba: David.Kakishiba@ousd.k12.ca.us 
        3. Superintendent Antwan Wilson: Antwan.Wilson@ousd.k12.ca.us

Important: Send a copy of your resolution or email to:
Bob Mandel/Teachers for Mumia at: communard2@juno.com.
Thank you for your support!

-This message is from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal,
and Oakland Teachers for Mumia.
communard2@juno.com.

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

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

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

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


 B. ARTICLES IN FULL
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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


1) LA Police Refuse to Release Information on In-Custody Deaths, Community Pushes Back
Tuesday, 26 August 2014 12:06  
By Bethania Palma Markus
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25815-lapd-refusal-to-release-information-on-in-custody-deaths-feeds-community-mistrust





2) Cops terrorize a mother with 4 small children at gunpoint
Reported by Liku Zelleke
August 27, 2014
http://naturallymoi.com/cops-terrorize-a-mother-with-4-small-children-at-gunpoint/


3) How the Supreme Court Protects Bad Cops
By ERWIN CHEMERINSKY




4) The Expanding World of Poverty Capitalism
By




5) In Aftermath of Missouri Protests, Skepticism About the Prospects for Change
"Many of the towns have come to rely on court fines; in St. Ann, which has a population of around 13,000 and a 27-person jail, court fines and fees make up well over a third of the general fund revenues. ...The problem, said Devondre Hykes, 21, is that a person needs money to pay a ticket and get rid of a warrant, but with a warrant a person’s driver’s license is suspended and employment is difficult."
By and




6) Recording May Capture Shots Fired at Michael Brown
By and




7) Bratton Spurned 25% of Board’s Police Misconduct Findings in First Half of ’14
By





8) Crime Scene - New Orleans
By Greg Palast, GregPalast.com
August 27, 2014
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/25550-focus-crime-scene-new-orleans


9) Seeking Answers in Utah Shooting
By THE NEW YORK TIMES




10) Heroin’s Death Toll Rising in New York, Amid a Shift in Who Uses It
By





11) Businesses Are Winning Cat-and-Mouse Tax Game
"By exploiting existing loopholes and devising new ones, some of the country’s best-known companies are making it harder than ever for the federal government to replenish its already depleted coffers. As a result, business income tax revenue remains stagnant at about 2 percent of gross domestic product even as corporate profits hit records. Business taxes now make up less than 10 percent of federal revenue, and in some years as little as 6.6 percent. That is sharply down from the years after World War II, when about 30 percent of federal revenue came from corporate taxes."

By
12) Evictions Soar in Hot Market; Renters Suffer
By




13) With Gaza War, Movement to Boycott Israel Gains Momentum in Europe
By

14) Taser Use in Arrest Leads to Suit in Georgia
By ALAN BLINDER




15) Injected Drugs Said to Kill Man in Flawed Execution
By




16) Law Boosts Oversight of Use of Solitary Confinement at Rikers Island
By
































 
 





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

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

1) LA Police Refuse to Release Information on In-Custody Deaths, Community Pushes Back
Tuesday, 26 August 2014 12:06  
By Bethania Palma Markus
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25815-lapd-refusal-to-release-information-on-in-custody-deaths-feeds-community-mistrust

Community activists continue to push the Los Angeles Police Department for transparency after two unarmed men died within days of each other as a result of violent stops by LAPD officers. But to date, no information has been given.

Ezell Ford, 25, and Omar Abrego, 37, died on August 11 and August 2, respectively. Police placed a "security hold" on the autopsy reports of both men on August 15, meaning neither report will be released to the public until the hold is lifted. As of now, the LAPD has not released the names of the officers involved. The deaths happened within blocks of each other, and community outrage coincided with civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri after police there shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown to death on August 9. Anger in Los Angeles has taken the form of peaceful marches and rallies seeking legal action against the officers involved.

"It's an outrage and a disgrace; they're abusing their power," said Keyanna Celina from the Coalition for Community Control Over the Police. "There's nothing democratic about a family being denied the autopsy report and the officers' names."

LAPD Officer Bruce Borihanh of the media relations division said the department was not going to answer further questions on the two cases and referred to the press releases on its website.

"One reason the names aren't being released is officer safety and their families' safety has to be assessed. The officers' safety hasn't been assessed," he said. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck makes the executive decision on releasing the officers' names.

It remained unclear why security holds were placed on the autopsy reports, or why the holds were placed days, or in Abrego's case, two weeks after the deaths. LA County Coroner Asst. Chief Ed Winter said law enforcement or judges can send a letter requesting the holds, but don't have to say why they are needed. They can be in place for months or even years.

"Nicole Simpson is still on hold to this day," he said. Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered 20 years ago, and her autopsy report has since been on hold by Judge Lance Ito, who presided over the murder trial.

Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware, an open government advocacy group, said the only legal basis for withholding autopsy reports "is that the death is under criminal investigation. There's nothing in the law about a 'security hold.'"

He cited case law Dixon v. Superior Court, in which the court found exempting an autopsy report from public disclosure was necessary only when "public interest in nondisclosure clearly outweighed the public interest in disclosure."

Steven Lerman, attorney for Ezell Ford's family, said he sent Chief Beck a letter asking him what legal code allowed him to maintain a hold on a completed autopsy report. He has yet to receive a written response.

"I think it's because of the public pressure. A lot of times these things happen in the dark and there's no community presence and there are no protests or actions and there's no public awareness of it," Celina said. "The community has continued to maintain a peaceful presence demanding answers and for that reason we believe there is more pressure on them."

Lerman will file a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging the wrongful death of Ezell Ford by the LAPD, and would say only, "As a result of my investigation, I'm completely convinced it was an unjustified use of force." He called Ford's death a "horrifying loss for this family." Lerman successfully represented Rodney King in his federal lawsuit against the city police department.

Community activists rallied on August 21 outside the criminal court building in downtown Los Angeles, where Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey's office is housed, and demanded charges be filed against the officers involved. They had hoped to meet face-to-face with Lacey, but her public relations team met with them in the hallway outside the elevator and told them she was out of town.

While the district attorney's PR staff assured the activists their office takes these cases seriously, took a list of names and contact information for families whose members have been killed by police officers and gave them cards with an email address they could send their concerns to, Celina said being made to sit on a bench in an open hallway by the elevators was "demeaning."

"I would say, personally, that if that is how they received us, sitting on a bench next to the elevator like children waiting for their parents, then I can't imagine how the families of loved ones are treated," she said.

Los Angeles County DA spokeswoman Jane Robison said the DA's office has not yet received the case from the LAPD, because the police department is still doing their own investigation. Once the DA's office gets the case, it will be turned over to the Justice System Integrity Division, which handles police officer misconduct investigations.

There's wide space between stories told by eyewitnesses and those told by police in both cases, and Celina said the community doesn't have much trust in the LAPD or that their investigation will be unbiased. The refusal to release information has exacerbated that mistrust, she said.

A witness told local station KTLA that Ezell Ford, who family members have described to the media as mentally disabled, was lying down when he was shot multiple times by officers in the back. More eyewitnesses have come forward to reporters, one telling The Huffington Post that Ford was on the ground and one of the officers shouted "shoot him" before he was killed. Police contend officers from the department's Newton Area Gang Enforcement Detail "attempted to talk" to Ford (in an earlier release they called it an "investigative stop") who continued walking. They got closer and police say he grabbed one of them, then wrestled to the ground and attempted to grab one of the officer's guns, according to the LAPD official press release, and at that point both officers opened fire.

Two witnesses also told local news station KTLA they saw officers striking Abrego repeatedly, and one said the beating lasted 10 minutes. A grainy video shows Abrego being held face down over a pool of blood. It appears he is crying out in distress. Police contend two officers also from the department's Newton Area Gang Enforcement Detail stopped Abrego because he was driving erratically. After they stopped him, he tried to run away, according to LAPD's official media statement. A "physical altercation" took place, resulting in a "laceration" and an ambulance was called.
Celina said if the DA's office doesn't file charges, her organization plans to go over their heads and seek them from State Attorney General Kamala Harris' office and if necessary, will go higher than that.

"It takes a lot, so much to raise a child. It takes only a second for them to take them away," she said. "There're no words to describe it. You put so much into raising your child and keeping them on the right path. Then to have them gunned down by the people who are supposed to be protecting and serving, it's the opposite of civilization."

 

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

2) Cops terrorize a mother with 4 small children at gunpoint
Reported by Liku Zelleke
August 27, 2014
http://naturallymoi.com/cops-terrorize-a-mother-with-4-small-children-at-gunpoint/

A mother and her four young children were pulled over at gunpoint by police in Forney, TX. The whole incident was recorded on a patrol car’s dash cam.

In the footage, Kametra Barbour is suddenly stopped by the police as she was driving her children home. Her car is then surrounded by officers and then one of them is heard ordering, “Driver let me see your hands, everybody stick their hands out the window.”

Barbour asks, “What is wrong?” to which the officer replies “I’ll tell you in a minute.”

She is then ordered to exit the vehicle with her hands above her head and she complies. Officers then handcuff her.

Barbour then asks, “What is wrong? …My kids!”

The officer asks back, “How old are they?”

“They’re six and eight and ten, nine. What are we doing?”

“Hold on a second, okay?”

“What is going on? Oh my God, you will terrify my children.”

“We got a complaint of a vehicle matching your description and your license plate, waving a gun out the window,” replies the officer.

Apparently, the police executed the traffic stop because they acting on a tip. A 911 call had been made where the caller told dispatch that four black men were seen waving a gun out the window of a beige- or tan-colored Toyota.

What has many people scratching their heads is the fact that Barbour’s car is burgundy red and the make is a Nissan Maxima.

Police only realized they had made a mistake when Barbour’s son, 6-year-old Ryan, came out of the front-passenger side of the car with his hands raised too.

Then the following conversation occurs between the officers:

Officer 1: “Do they look young to you?”

Officer 2: “They do to me.”

Officer 1: “Huh?”

Officer 2: “They do to me.”

Officer 1: “Yep, they’re young.”

Officer 1: [To other officers] “Gun down, gun down, gun down.”

Officer 1: [As the child exits the vehicle] “Come on back here, son. Come on back here, you’re alright.”

The officers then proceed to calm and pacify the terrified kids.

Officer: “Y’all okay?

Child: “I’m scared.”

Officer: “It’s okay.”

Child: “Are we going to jail?”

Officer: “No. No one is going to jail.”

Child: [Scream, crying]

Officer: “Hey, stop crying. It’s okay. It’s okay. Everything’s fine now.”

The Forney police have since apologized over the incident. 



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

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

3) How the Supreme Court Protects Bad Cops
By ERWIN CHEMERINSKY

IRVINE, Calif. — LAST week, a grand jury was convened in St. Louis County, Mo., to examine the evidence against the police officer who killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, and to determine if he should be indicted. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. even showed up to announce a separate federal investigation, and to promise that justice would be done. But if the conclusion is that the officer, Darren Wilson, acted improperly, the ability to hold him or Ferguson, Mo., accountable will be severely restricted by none other than the United States Supreme Court.

In recent years, the court has made it very difficult, and often impossible, to hold police officers and the governments that employ them accountable for civil rights violations. This undermines the ability to deter illegal police behavior and leaves victims without compensation. When the police kill or injure innocent people, the victims rarely have recourse.

The most recent court ruling that favored the police was Plumhoff v. Rickard, decided on May 27, which found that even egregious police conduct is not “excessive force” in violation of the Constitution. Police officers in West Memphis, Ark., pulled over a white Honda Accord because the car had only one operating headlight. Rather than comply with an officer’s request to get out of the car, the driver made the unfortunate decision to speed away. The police chased the car for more than five minutes, reaching speeds of over 100 miles per hour. Eventually, officers fired 15 shots into the car, killing both the driver and a passenger.

The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and ruled unanimously in favor of the police. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that the driver’s conduct posed a “grave public safety risk” and that the police were justified in shooting at the car to stop it. The court said it “stands to reason that, if police officers are justified in firing at a suspect in order to end a severe threat to public safety, the officers need not stop shooting until the threat has ended.”

This is deeply disturbing. The Supreme Court now has said that whenever there is a high-speed chase that could injure others — and that would seem to be true of virtually all high-speed chases — the police can shoot at the vehicle and keep shooting until the chase ends. Obvious alternatives could include shooting out the car’s tires, or even taking the license plate number and tracking the driver down later.

The court has also weakened accountability by ruling that a local government can be held liable only if it is proved that the city’s or county’s own policy violated the Constitution. In almost every other area of law, an employer can be held liable if its employees, in the scope of their duties, injure others, even negligently. This encourages employers to control the conduct of their employees and ensures that those injured will be compensated.

A 2011 case, Connick v. Thompson, illustrates how difficult the Supreme Court has made it to prove municipal liability. John Thompson was convicted of an armed robbery and a murder and spent 18 years in prison, 14 of them on death row, because of prosecutorial misconduct. Two days before Mr. Thompson’s trial began in New Orleans, the assistant district attorney received the crime lab’s report, which stated that the perpetrator of the armed robbery had a blood type that did not match Mr. Thompson’s. The defense was not told this crucial information.

Through a series of coincidences, Mr. Thompson’s lawyer discovered the blood evidence soon before the scheduled execution. New testing was done and again the blood of the perpetrator didn’t match Mr. Thompson’s DNA or even his blood type. His conviction was overturned, and he was eventually acquitted of all charges.

The district attorney’s office, which had a notorious history of not turning over exculpatory evidence to defendants, conceded that it had violated its constitutional obligation. Mr. Thompson sued the City of New Orleans, which employed the prosecutors, and was awarded $14 million.But the Supreme Court reversed that decision, in a 5-to-4 vote, and held that the local government was not liable for the prosecutorial misconduct. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said that New Orleans could not be held liable because it could not be proved that its own policies had violated the Constitution. The fact that its prosecutor blatantly violated the Constitution was not enough to make the city liable.

Because it is so difficult to sue government entities, most victims’ only recourse is to sue the officers involved. But here, too, the Supreme Court has created often insurmountable obstacles. The court has held that all government officials sued for monetary damages can raise “immunity” as a defense. Police officers and other law enforcement personnel who commit perjury have absolute immunity and cannot be sued for money, even when it results in the imprisonment of an innocent person. A prosecutor who commits misconduct, as in Mr. Thompson’s case, also has absolute immunity to civil suits.

When there is not absolute immunity, police officers are still protected by “qualified immunity” when sued for monetary damages. The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia in 2011, ruled that a government officer can be held liable only if “every reasonable official” would have known that his conduct was unlawful. For example, the officer who shot Michael Brown can be held liable only if every reasonable officer would have known that the shooting constituted the use of excessive force and was not self-defense.

The Supreme Court has used this doctrine in recent years to deny damages to an eighth-grade girl who was strip-searched by school officials on suspicion that she had prescription-strength ibuprofen. It has also used it to deny damages to a man who, under a material-witness warrant, was held in a maximum-security prison for 16 days and on supervised release for 14 months, even though the government had no intention of using him as a material witness or even probable cause to arrest him. In each instance, the court stressed that the government officer could not be held liable, even though the Constitution had clearly been violated.

Taken together, these rulings have a powerful effect. They mean that the officer who shot Michael Brown and the City of Ferguson will most likely never be held accountable in court. How many more deaths and how many more riots will it take before the Supreme Court changes course?

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the School of Law at the University of California, Irvine, is the author of the forthcoming book “The Case Against the Supreme Court.”

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

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

4) The Expanding World of Poverty Capitalism
By

In Orange County, Calif., the probation department’s “supervised electronic confinement program,” which monitors the movements of low-risk offenders, has been outsourced to a private company, Sentinel Offender Services. The company, by its own account, oversees case management, including breath alcohol and drug-testing services, “all at no cost to county taxpayers.”

Sentinel makes its money by getting the offenders on probation to pay for the company’s services. Charges can range from $35 to $100 a month.

The company boasts of having contracts with more than 200 government agencies, and it takes pride in the “development of offender funded programs where any of our services can be provided at no cost to the agency.”

Sentinel is a part of the expanding universe of poverty capitalism. In this unique sector of the economy, costs of essential government services are shifted to the poor.

In terms of food, housing and other essentials, the cost of being poor has always been exorbitant. Landlords, grocery stores and other commercial enterprises have all found ways to profit from those at the bottom of the ladder.

The recent drive toward privatization of government functions has turned traditional public services into profit-making enterprises as well.

In addition to probation, municipal court systems are also turning collections over to a national network of companies like Sentinel that profit from service charges imposed on the men and women who are under court order to pay fees and fines, including traffic tickets (with the fees being sums tacked on by the court to fund administrative services).

When they cannot pay these assessed fees and fines – plus collection charges imposed by the private companies — offenders can be sent to jail. There are many documented cases in which courts have imprisoned those who failed to keep up with their combined fines, fees and service charges.

“These companies are bill collectors, but they are given the authority to say to someone that if he doesn’t pay, he is going to jail,” John B. Long, a lawyer in Augusta, Ga. active in defending the poor, told Ethan Bronner of The Times.

A February 2014 report by Human Rights Watch on private offender services found that “more than 1,000 courts in several US states delegate tremendous coercive power to companies that are often subject to little meaningful oversight or regulation. In many cases, the only reason people are put on probation is because they need time to pay off fines and court costs linked to minor crimes. In some of these cases, probation companies act more like abusive debt collectors than probation officers, charging the debtors for their services.”

Human Rights Watch also found that in Georgia in 2012, in “a state of less than 10 million people, 648 courts assigned more than 250,000 cases to private probation companies.” The report notes that “there is virtually no transparency about the revenues of private probation companies” since “practically all of the industry’s firms are privately held and not subject to the disclosure requirements that bind publicly traded companies. No state requires probation companies to report their revenues, or by logical extension the amount of money they collect for themselves from probationers.”

Human Rights Watch goes on to provide an account given by a private probation officer in Georgia: “I always try and negotiate with the families. Once they know you are serious they come up with some money. That’s how you have to be. They have to see that this person is not getting out unless they pay something. I’m just looking for some good faith money, really. I got one guy I let out of jail today and I got three or four more sitting there right now.”

Collection companies and the services they offer appeal to politicians and public officials for a number of reasons: they cut government costs, reducing the need to raise taxes; they shift the burden onto offenders, who have little political influence, in part because many of them have lost the right to vote; and it pleases taxpayers who believe that the enforcement of punishment — however obtained — is a crucial dimension to the administration of justice.

As N.P.R. reported in May, services that “were once free, including those that are constitutionally required,” are now frequently billed to offenders: the cost of a public defender, room and board when jailed, probation and parole supervision, electronic monitoring devices, arrest warrants, drug and alcohol testing, and D.N.A. sampling. This can go to extraordinary lengths: in Washington state, N.P.R. found, offenders even “get charged a fee for a jury trial — with a 12-person jury costing $250, twice the fee for a six-person jury.”

This new system of offender-funded law enforcement creates a vicious circle: The poorer the defendants are, the longer it will take them to pay off the fines, fees and charges; the more debt they accumulate, the longer they will remain on probation or in jail; and the more likely they are to be unemployable and to become recidivists.

And that’s not all. The more commercialized fee collection and probation services get, the more the costs of these services are inflicted on the poor, and the more resentful of the police specifically and of law enforcement generally the poor become. At the same time, judicial systems are themselves in a vise. Judges, who in many locales must run for re-election, are under intense pressure from taxpayers to cut administrative costs while maintaining the efficacy of the judiciary.

The National Center for State Courts recently issued a guide noting that while the collection of fines and costs is “important for reasons of revenue,” even more important is the maintenance of “the integrity of the courts.”

In dealing with more serious crimes involving substantial sentences, the rising costs of maintaining and building new prison facilities has prompted many state governments, and even the federal government, to turn to the private prison industry.This industry, which began to grow in the early 1980s, now faces significant problems. As incarceration rates drop, and as some states adopt more lenient sentencing practices, the industry is struggling to find new ways to fill vacant cells.

Take the Corrections Corporation of America, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and reported revenues of $1.69 billion in 2013. The firm describes itself as “the nation’s largest owner of privatized correctional and detention facilities and one of the largest prison operators in the United States behind only the federal government and three states.”

In its 2013 annual report, C.C.A. was clear about the problems facing the company: “under a per diem rate structure, a decrease in our occupancy rates could cause a decrease in revenue and profitability. For the past three years, occupancy rates have been steadily declining in C.C.A. facilities, from 90 percent in 2011, to 88 percent in 2012 and 85 percent in 2013.”

These numbers reflect the brutal math underlying profit margins in private prisons. The “revenue per compensated man-day” for each inmate rose by 35 cents from $60.22 in 2012 to $60.57 in 2013. But expenses “per compensated man-day” rose by 70 cents from $42.04 to $42.74, for a net decline in operating income for each inmate from $18.18 a day to $17.83.

In combination with declining occupancy rates, the result was a dip in total revenue from $1.72 billion in 2012 to $1.69 billion in 2013.

The founders of C.C.A. include Tom Beasley, a former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party. One of its early investors was Honey Alexander, who is married to Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee. Alexander, according to the Sunlight Foundation, has received in excess of $63,000 from C.C.A. employees and the company PAC since his election to the Senate in 2002.

Poverty capitalism and government policy are now working on their own and in tandem to shift costs to those least equipped to pay and in particular to the least politically influential segment of the poor: criminal defendants and those delinquent in paying fines.

Last year, Ferguson, Mo., the site of recent protests over the shooting of Michael Brown, used escalating municipal court fines to pay 20.2 percent of the city’s $12.75 million budget. Just two years earlier, municipal court fines had accounted for only 12.3 percent of the city’s revenues.

What should be done to interrupt the dangerous feedback loop between low-level crime and extortionate punishment? First, local governments should bring private sector collection charges, court-imposed administrative fees and the dollar amount of traffic fines (which often double and triple when they go unpaid) into line with the economic resources of poor offenders. But larger reforms are needed and those will not come about unless the poor begin to exercise their latent political power. In many ways, everything is working against them. But the public outpouring spurred by the shooting of Michael Brown provides an indication of a possible path to the future. It was, after all, just 50 years ago — not too distant in historical terms — that collective action and social solidarity produced tangible results.


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

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

5) In Aftermath of Missouri Protests, Skepticism About the Prospects for Change
"Many of the towns have come to rely on court fines; in St. Ann, which has a population of around 13,000 and a 27-person jail, court fines and fees make up well over a third of the general fund revenues. ...The problem, said Devondre Hykes, 21, is that a person needs money to pay a ticket and get rid of a warrant, but with a warrant a person’s driver’s license is suspended and employment is difficult."
By and

MAPLEWOOD, Mo. — On Monday night, just a few hours after Michael Brown was laid to rest, an amiable judge sat in the City Council chambers here and weighed in on the traffic violations and petty crimes, one by one, of more than a hundred people. At least two-thirds of those waiting were black, roughly a reverse racial image of the demographics of Maplewood itself.

The scene was banal compared to the tear gas and outrage over the last two weeks in Ferguson, 13 miles away. But it is in courts like this that the daily frustrations that led in part to the turmoil in Ferguson begin to fester.Young black men, who in many towns in St. Louis County are pulled over at a rate greater than whites, routinely find themselves in the patchwork of municipal courts here, without lawyers and unable to pay the fines levied for their traffic violations. Many end up being passed from jail to jail around the county until they can pay their fines and in some cases other administrative fees, a revenue source on which some towns are growing increasingly reliant.

“It angers people, because it seems like they’re just messing with you,” said Cameron Lester, a 22-year-old college student who knew Mr. Brown, and days earlier was protesting his death. He described how an unpaid $75 ticket once turned into days behind bars in two different police stations and hundreds of dollars in fees. He was skeptical about change.

“Will it make a difference?” he asked. “Same thing as Trayvon Martin. Where’s that now?”

Though the shooting of Mr. Brown turned a few blocks of suburban St. Louis into disputed territory, many local protesters emphasized that their frustrations go far beyond the city of Ferguson and the police shooting. Instead, they said grievances with the police are common throughout the area. Political leaders at all levels have promised change. President Obama has ordered a review of policies leading to police militarization. The Missouri attorney general said he was exploring ways to improve diversity within police departments, which across St. Louis County tend to be whiter than the towns they serve. Several departments are considering body cameras for police officers.

Ferguson officials have discussed ways to increase the number of black police officers and to encourage officers to live in Ferguson. But in a brief interview, Mayor James Knowles III said he could not commit to any measures without the City Council, whose meeting on Tuesday night was postponed, Mr. Knowles said, until a bigger site could be found. “We don’t want it just to be rhetoric,” he said. “We want it to be action that we’re committed to.”

At the same time, voter registration drives and even an effort to recall the mayor are aimed at changing the political leadership, almost entirely white, in Ferguson. Activists have demanded investigations and audits of the municipalities with the highest racial disparities in police stops and arrests. “I don’t think we’re going back to normal,” said Jerryl Christmas, a lawyer and former St. Louis city prosecutor who was among the black leaders trying to tamp down on disorder at the nightly protests. “The lid has been blown off.”

But even Mr. Christmas acknowledged that the world that created Ferguson is not going to change quickly or easily. The unemployment rate for blacks in St. Louis County in 2012 was more than 10 percentage points higher than that of whites; more than one in five black residents lived below the poverty level.

“It’s hard,” said Lakeisha Taylor, 23, gathering paperwork out of the trunk of her car in the scorching parking lot of a social services office in the city of Florissant. She was coming here once again to find out why she has not received child care assistance. With two small children and a $9-per-hour, 32 hour-per-week job as a home health aide, Ms. Taylor could neither stay at home, nor afford day care.She did not come away from the Ferguson protests with hope. “It seems they’re more against you than for you,” she said. Like others, her main frustration was with the police.

That there is racial disparity in police stops is borne out by official numbers.

In Maplewood, according to a 2013 report by the state attorney general, black motorists were searched or arrested during stops at more than twice the rate of whites. Yet searches of whites and blacks were almost equally likely to turn up contraband. Messages for the police chief in Maplewood were not returned.

In the city of Hazelwood, blacks were twice as likely as whites to be searched during a police stop, and nearly three times as likely to be arrested, while searches of whites were about one and a half times as likely to yield contraband.

City officials, pointing out that there is extensive training to avoid racial profiling, said these numbers cannot be interpreted without context.

“If our stops may reflect a higher percentage of people, perhaps that reflects the percentage of people who are coming through Hazelwood,” said Gregg Hall, the city’s police chief.

Many of the towns have come to rely on court fines; in St. Ann, which has a population of around 13,000 and a 27-person jail, court fines and fees make up well over a third of the general fund revenues.

Matt Conley, the St. Ann city administrator, said that a rise in the number of tickets there came from a crackdown on speeding because of frequent accidents.

“Nobody is forcing people to go out there and speed and commit traffic issues,” he said, adding that radar cameras cannot detect race.

When a person fails to appear and pay, here as in many other places, a warrant is issued and that person’s license is suspended. In the hodgepodge of cities that make up St. Louis County, some drivers may have multiple warrants. In Ferguson, more than one and a half warrants have been issued for every resident. And as the warrants stack up, so do the fines: Not showing up to pay a $90 taillight violation means a failure-to-appear warrant with its own fee of $100 or more; each successive failure-to-appear warrant adds to that; and if there is a stop, there are incarceration fees and towing fees.

In the end, said Brendan Roediger, an assistant professor at St. Louis University Law School, a person who had trouble coming up with $90 might owe a jurisdiction well over a thousand dollars.

“The police aren’t actually pulling people over to find contraband,” he said. “They’re pulling people over to see if they have warrants. And they always do. If you run a system that ultimately makes every black person in your town have a warrant, then racial profiling does work.”State Senator Jamilah Nasheed, who represents part of the city of St. Louis, said the racial disparity in traffic stops, the unwillingness of cities to consider ability to pay and the fact that small city budgets are increasingly reliant on court fines show how officials have learned to “sustain their municipalities by pulling young black men over.”

The problem, said Devondre Hykes, 21, is that a person needs money to pay a ticket and get rid of a warrant, but with a warrant a person’s driver’s license is suspended and employment is difficult.

“I cannot bring you money when you’re hindering me from getting money, and it’s all going to lead to me being in jail” he said, adding that he recently showed up in Maplewood to sort out a traffic warrant, was put into handcuffs and then released and told to return to court. “Do I have $127? No, I have zero dollars.”

Sherry Melson, an owner of Bad Apple Bail Bonds in St. Louis County, sees these cases all the time. She says for many who are stopped the choice was between paying a ticket or paying rent. If you do not pay and are caught, she said, “you’re making the rounds.”

“Making the rounds,” the “muni-shuffle,” the “jail hop”: Talk to a young black man in northern St. Louis County and he knows what this is. When someone is stopped on a warrant in any of the municipalities in north St. Louis County, he knows he is going to jail everywhere he has a warrant for an unpaid traffic ticket. Whether the full amount of the fine — often in addition to hundreds of dollars in fees — is still due after a few days in jail is up to the judge.

“You sit in jail for a week and you get out and you still owe it,” said Brandon Ghoston, 33, who works at a car dealership and has done the rounds himself.

His brother, Nikos Chatman, who paints airplanes at the St. Louis Downtown Airport, has a ritual: “If I know I have warrants in five or six different places, and I get pulled over, the first thing I do is light a cigarette because I know I’m gone, I’m going to do the rounds.”

“I’m 30 years old and I’ve never been locked up for anything but a traffic ticket,” Mr. Chatman added. “I’ve been locked up a lot of times.”

Mr. Roediger and several lawyers from the law school legal clinic and ArchCity Defenders, a nonprofit group, sent a letter to Mayor Knowles last week, urging him to cancel warrants for nonviolent offenses, given the “depths of discord” exposed by the protests.

Antonio D. French, a St. Louis city alderman, said that long-term change would come most reliably through the electoral process, in which many blacks in north St. Louis County have until now not taken part. But he suggested that quick-fix policy solutions are rarely straightforward. If the Ferguson Police Department were simply to be dissolved, as some have proposed, the St. Louis County police would take over.

“They’re the ones who brought out the tanks,” he said, referring to the deployment of armored vehicles during the protests. “Is that better or is that worse?”

Alicia Parlapiano contributed reporting from Washington.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

6) Recording May Capture Shots Fired at Michael Brown
By and

FERGUSON, Mo. — The federal authorities have received a brief video clip from a man who lives near the site where Michael Brown was killed and which, the man’s lawyer says, inadvertently captured the sounds of the gunshots fired at Mr. Brown.

The audio portion of the clip, which was first played on CNN, reveals what sounds like at least 10 gunshots — about six, a pause, and then four more. The voice of the man, who was in his bedroom in a nearby apartment recording the clip of himself for a friend, can also be heard, according to the man’s lawyer, Lopa M. Blumenthal.The federal authorities said Tuesday that they could not verify the authenticity of the recording, but that they were investigating it along with other evidence in their inquiry into the Aug. 9 shooting death of Mr. Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer. A St. Louis County grand jury is also investigating the shooting, which set off protests in a city, which is roughly two-thirds black and where most elected leaders and police officers are white.If authenticated, the recording would provide new information about the number of shots fired that day. Previously, a federal autopsy by military coroners showed that Mr. Brown was struck six times, and a private autopsy on behalf of Mr. Brown’s family showed that he was hit at least six times. Witnesses have told The New York Times and investigators that they saw Mr. Brown and Officer Wilson struggling just before shots were fired, with Officer Wilson inside his patrol car and Mr. Brown leaning in through a window. Evidence shows that the officer’s weapon went off inside the car, according to law enforcement officials. The witnesses say that Mr. Brown then fled and that Officer Wilson got out of his car and fired at him as Mr. Brown was running away. At some point, those witnesses said, Mr. Brown turned around and was facing Officer Wilson when the officer fired the final shots.

One of those witnesses, Michael T. Brady, a janitor who lives near the scene of the shooting, said in an interview that Mr. Brown was bent over when one of the shots hit him in the head. “The officer lets out three more shots at him,” Mr. Brady said. “The second one goes into his head as he was bending down.”

Ms. Blumenthal said she did not know what precisely the new recording would reveal to investigators. “What I do know happened, just from the evidence, is that there was a pause,” Ms. Blumenthal, of Blumenthal & Blumenthal, said in an interview in her small offices in north St. Louis County. “So, at some point, the shooter stopped momentarily and then resumed shooting. What the rationale or reasoning is, I have no way to know.”

Ms. Blumenthal declined to name her client, who she said met with federal officers on Monday night and was expected to again on Tuesday. She also declined to permit his image in the 12-second video clip to be made public, saying that he was trying to maintain his privacy and was already feeling nervous and overwhelmed about the extraordinary level of news media attention on the case. The video shows only the man’s image inside his room, not images of the shooting.

Ms. Blumenthal said her client did not know Mr. Brown, his family or Officer Wilson. She said she approached him — and urged him to go to the authorities — only after his roommate, a former client of hers, showed her the clip last week in passing at a social event and did not seem to grasp the significance of it as evidence.

As for the veracity of the recording, Ms. Blumenthal said, “I am about as sure as I can be — mainly because they had no idea what they had recorded and they had no motivation to come forward.” Ms. Blumenthal, who said she is representing the man who made the recording at no cost, added, “Our main concern was getting it to the authorities.”

Monica Davey reported from Ferguson, and Michael S. Schmidt from Washington. Frances Robles contributed reporting from St. Louis.



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

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

7) Bratton Spurned 25% of Board’s Police Misconduct Findings in First Half of ’14
By

Since taking over the New York Police Department in January, Commissioner William J. Bratton has replaced each of the top officials in charge of disciplining officers and moved to remake training at the Police Academy to prevent misconduct.

But the effect of those changes has yet to be felt in one key area: the rate at which complaints about misconduct brought by the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent oversight agency, are discarded by the Police Department.

In the first six months of 2014, the department has declined to sanction officers in over 25 percent of cases in which the board found cause for discipline. That rate is near the high end of what was seen during the last years of the Bloomberg administration, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly were generally hostile to external oversight.How officers are disciplined has come under new scrutiny following the death of Eric Garner during an arrest that included, the city medical examiner said, the use of a chokehold, which is banned by the Police Department. A review by The New York Times last month of substantiated chokehold complaints found their use by officers rarely resulted in strong discipline, despite recommendations from the review board.

The review board is the main avenue for people to formally challenge the conduct of police officers. In a process that can span months and sometimes years, statements are given, including from the officers involved; an investigation is conducted; and the board rules on whether the complaint is valid. If it finds that it is, a discipline recommendation eventually goes to the police commissioner, who has final say.

In about a quarter of cases in recent years, Mr. Kelly rejected the recommendation. In the first six months under Mr. Bratton, that rate held steady.

In a telephone interview on Tuesday, Mr. Bratton said those figures were representative of the broken system he had inherited and vowed to fix. “I suggest you come back in six months and see how we’re doing,” he said.

He also said the review board was sending him cases with recommendations for overly harsh punishment. “Based on my eight months sitting in that chair,” he said, “my sense was that C.C.R.B. was significantly overcharging and overpenalizing.”

Describing discipline as “the engine that drives the Police Department,” Mr. Bratton said that “if it’s thought to be unfair, if it’s thought to be inconsistent, if it’s thought to be delayed, all of that has negative effects on the way the officers respond.”

A decade ago, the department followed the board’s recommendations much more closely, tossing out only about 3 percent of cases each year and, in one year, fewer than 1 percent. But beginning in 2007, the department changed course, declining to pursue discipline in more than a third of cases.

That increase led, in part, to the creation of a prosecution unit within the complaint review board for the most serious cases. Now, it is only the lower-level cases — those in which an officer does not risk suspension or termination — that can be summarily dismissed by the commissioner; in the serious cases, the board is given the opportunity to present its case to a Police Department trial board.

“Given the administration’s laudable concern about police accountability, the last thing the Police Department should be doing is to continue to dismiss cases of misconduct found to be valid by the C.C.R.B.,” said Christopher Dunn, the legal director for the New York Civil Liberties Union.

“It sends a very loud message to officers and the public that the Police Department does not take seriously civilian complaints of police misconduct.”

The cases that Mr. Bratton has declined to pursue include ones that involved stop-and-frisk encounters by officers in Manhattan, a home entered without proper justification in Brooklyn and racially offensive language used by transit officers.

In all but one of the 13 cases that Mr. Bratton declined to pursue, which covered actions before 2014, the board recommended command discipline, a middle-ground punishment that can include the loss of vacation days. In the other case, the board asked for a lighter punishment of “instructions,” or a review of the rules. In each, the police commissioner threw out the case, resulting in no punishment at all.

Nine other cases resulted in no discipline because the 18-month statute of limitations had expired.

In sum, in the cases reaching Mr. Bratton’s desk, the board found proof of misconduct by 53 officers, but only 31 officers received any discipline.

At a public meeting of the board this month, its new chairman, Richard D. Emery, described a historical lack of respect of the board by the Police Department.

“We have to come to a system where discipline is discipline, and it’s not just some recommendation to a higher authority,” said Mr. Emery, a civil rights lawyer and friend of Mr. Bratton, whom the mayor appointed last month.

“It means that Commissioner Bratton, or any police commissioner, has to buy into a different process.”

Mr. Bratton said in the interview that he and Mr. Emery were working to revamp the process and to set a standard for handling proven misconduct. That will involve more mediation by the board, Mr. Bratton said, and fewer future cases sent to the Police Department for final adjudication.

“A lot of things that are complained about against police officers can be corrected with training, with instruction, rather than with discipline and suspension days,” Mr. Bratton said, adding that sometimes punishment was necessary.

“We spend a lot of time on this,” he said. “It is not just a willy-nilly process.”


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

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

8) Crime Scene - New Orleans
By Greg Palast, GregPalast.com
August 27, 2014
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/25550-focus-crime-scene-new-orleans

Nine years ago this week, New Orleans drowned. Don’t you dare blame Mother Nature. Miss Katrina killed no one in this town. But it was a homicide, with nearly 2,000 dead victims. If not Katrina, who done it?

It wasn’t an Act of God. It was an Act of Chevron. An Act of Exxon. An Act of Big Oil.

Take a look at these numbers dug out of Louisiana state records:

Conoco 3.3 million acres

Exxon Mobil 2.1 million acres

Chevron 2.7 million acres

Shell 1.3 million acres

These are the total acres of wetlands removed by just four oil companies over the past couple decades. If you’re not a farmer, I’ll translate this into urban-speak: that’s 14,688 square miles drowned into the Gulf of Mexico.

Here’s what happened. New Orleans used be to a long, swampy way from the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricanes and storm surges had to cross a protective mangrove forest nearly a hundred miles thick.

But then, a century ago, Standard Oil, Exxon’s prior alias, began dragging drilling rigs, channeling pipelines, barge paths and tanker routes through what was once soft delta prairie grass. Most of those beautiful bayous you see on postcards are just scars, the cuts and wounds of drilling the prairie, once America’s cattle-raising center. The bayous, filling with ‘gators and shrimp, widened out and sank the coastline. Each year, oil operations drag the Gulf four miles closer to New Orleans.

Just one channel dug for Exxon’s pleasure, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet ("MR-GO") was dubbed the Hurricane Highway by experts—long before Katrina—that invited the storm right up to—and over—the city’s gates, the levees.

Without Big Oil's tree and prairie holocaust, "Katrina would have been a storm of no note," Professor Ivor van Heerden told me. Van Heerden, once Deputy Director of the Hurricane Center at Louisiana State University, is one of the planet’s the leading experts on storm dynamics.

If they’d only left just 10% of the protective collar. They didn’t.

Van Heerden was giving me a tour of the battle zone in the oil war. It was New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, which once held the largest concentration of African-American owned homes in America. Now it holds the largest contrition of African-American owned rubble.

We stood in front of a house, now years after Katrina, with an "X" spray-painted on the outside and "1 DEAD DOG," "1 CAT," the number 2 and "9/6" partly covered by a foreclosure notice.

The professor translated: "9/6" meant rescuers couldn’t get to the house for eight days, so the "2"—the couple that lived there––must have paddled around with their pets until the rising waters pushed them against the ceiling and they suffocated, their gas-bloated corpses floating for a week.

In July 2005, Van Heerden told Channel 4 television of Britain that, "In a month, this city could be underwater." In one month, it was. Van Heerden had sounded the alarm for at least two years, even speaking to George Bush’s White House about an emergency condition: with the Gulf closing in, the levees were 18 inches short. But the Army Corps of Engineers was busy with other rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates.

So, when those levees began to fail, the White House, hoping to avoid Federal responsibility, did not tell Louisiana's Governor Kathleen Blanco that the levees were breaking up. That Monday night, August 29, with the storm by-passing New Orleans, the Governor had stopped the city’s evacuation. Van Heerden was with the governor at the State Emergency Center. He said, "By midnight on Monday the White House knew. But none of us knew."

So, the drownings began in earnest.

Van Heerden was supposed to keep that secret. He didn't. He told me, on camera––knowing the floodwater of official slime would break over him. He was told to stay silent, to bury the truth. But he told me more. A lot more.

"I wasn't going to listen to those sort of threats, to let them shut me down."

Well, they did shut him down. After he went public about the unending life-and-death threat of continued oil drilling and channelling, LSU closed down its entire Hurricane Center (can you imagine?) and fired Professor van Heerden and fellow experts. This was just after the University received a $300,000 check from Chevron. The check was passed by a front group called "America’s Wetlands"—which lobbies for more drilling in the wetlands.

In place of Van Heerden and independent experts, LSU’s new "Wetlands Center" has professors picked by a board of petroleum industry hacks.

In 2003, Americans protested, "No Blood for Oil" in Iraq. It’s about time we said, "No Blood for Oil"—in Louisiana.



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

9) Seeking Answers in Utah Shooting
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

SALT LAKE CITY — Family and friends of a 20-year-old white Utah man fatally shot by the Salt Lake City police say they will continue to hold protests outside state and federal government offices until the authorities answer questions about the shooting.

The man, Dillon Delbert Taylor, was shot twice outside a 7-Eleven after an Aug. 11 confrontation with officers. His supporters say he was unarmed and complain that the episode has received little news media attention outside the state, unlike the case of Michael Brown, the unarmed black man who was killed by the police in Ferguson, Mo.

Mr. Taylor’s family, including a brother and cousin who were with him at the time of the shooting, have said that he was reaching to pull up his pants while following police instructions when he was shot.

Three protest events have been held since the shooting, Aaron Swanenberg, a longtime friend of Mr. Taylor’s, said Wednesday. “We want answers — we need them,” he said.

The South Salt Lake police have declined to release evidence or to comment on witness accounts of the shooting.


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

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

10) Heroin’s Death Toll Rising in New York, Amid a Shift in Who Uses It
By

A heroin crisis gripping communities across the country deepened in New York last year, with more people in the city dying in overdoses from the drug than in any year since 2003.

In all, 420 people fatally overdosed on heroin in 2013 out of a total of 782 drug overdoses, rising to a level not seen in a decade in both absolute numbers and as a population-adjusted rate, according to preliminary year-end data from the city’s health department.

The death toll from heroin has more than doubled over the last three years, presenting a growing challenge to city officials who have so far been unable to reverse the rise. By contrast, amid a concerted effort to stem prescription pill abuse, especially on Staten Island, overdoses from opioid pills leveled off during the same time period, with 215 deaths recorded in 2013.The data, to be released on Thursday, track the spread of heroin into new areas of the city, hitting hardest among white and higher-income New Yorkers but also spiking with older Hispanic users in the Bronx.

The biggest jump was in Queens, where 81 people died last year compared with 53 the year before, an increase attributed by the health department primarily to a rising use among young white men. That trend is most pronounced on Staten Island, where all but two of the 32 residents who fatally overdosed on heroin were white.

The profile of an average user has shifted in the last 10 years, said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, an addiction specialist who was at the health department in 2003, when heroin overdoses last rose above 400.

“It was almost exclusively central Brooklyn, South Bronx, east Harlem and overlapped with New York City’s highest-need neighborhoods,” said Dr. Kolodny, now the chief medical officer at the Phoenix House Foundation, a drug-treatment center. “The rest of the city — Staten Island, Queens, most of Manhattan — close to nothing.”

Even before the latest data became available, the scope of the heroin problem was apparent on the streets, in treatment centers and at police precincts.

Seizures of heroin spiked as the city became a hub for trafficking along the East Coast. Overdose victims turned up in neighborhoods from East Tremont in the Bronx to Tottenville in southern Staten Island, prompting the New York Police Department to begin outfitting officers this year with naloxone, a medication that reverses the effects of an overdose from both heroin and opioid pills.

In an interview on Wednesday, Dr. Mary T. Bassett, the city health commissioner, celebrated the effectiveness of naloxone, which has been used to reverse well over 500 overdoses since 2010, when the city began an aggressive effort to get it into the hands of those closest to drug abusers.

She also noted a significant downturn in overdoses from prescription pills and a modest dip in deaths from heroin on Staten Island, saying that door-to-door outreach to doctors and education about heroin abuse had helped reverse the trend in that borough.

“We’re going to be turning attention to using some of these strategies in the Bronx,” Dr. Bassett said.

From 2003 to 2010, overdoses from heroin declined in the city as older users died or found treatment and the drug fell out of favor in communities ravaged during the last epidemic, in the 1970s.

But older addicts have not vanished and, in fact, continue to make up a large percentage of users.

In the Bronx, Hispanic men in their late 40s and early 50s disproportionately fell victim to the drug last year, driving the high overdose rate in the borough, where 94 people died in 2013, one more than the year before. Across the city, Hispanic users showed the greatest increase in overdose deaths — to 146 last year, from 64 in 2010.

“We have a much older demographic,” said Deborah Witham, the chief program officer at VIP Community Services, a Bronx treatment center where most of the patients are on Medicaid. But, she added, younger users are increasingly in the mix, as are those coming to the center with mental health issues, which complicates their treatment.

Affluent areas of the north Bronx and eastern Queens have become hot spots as well, reflecting the heavy opioid pill abuse and heroin use in the surrounding suburbs in Westchester County and on Long Island.

“I think it’s going to get worse,” said Kathleen A. Riddle, the head of Outreach Project, which runs treatment centers in Brooklyn, in Queens and on Long Island.

It is a situation repeated across the country: A new generation of younger and often more affluent users begin by using prescription opioid pills that deliver the same effects as heroin and then shift to the illegal drug because it provides a better high for less money, sometimes as little as $5 a hit.

That grim progression characterized the growth in heroin abuse on Staten Island, where abuse of prescription pills was by far the highest in the city. In recent years, the authorities closed many rogue pain clinics, where young users could obtain illicit prescriptions, and arrested pill dealers who sold on the street.

Those efforts coincided with the introduction last August of increased monitoring of prescriptions. By drying up the supply of pills, many treatment experts predicted a rise in heroin abuse as dependent addicts moved into the black market.

“People who are used to getting high are not going to stop cold turkey,” said William A. Fusco, the director of Dynamic Youth Community, a drug-treatment center in Brooklyn where many young addicts from Staten Island end up.

“The drugs that you use are the drugs that you find.”

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

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

11) Businesses Are Winning Cat-and-Mouse Tax Game
"By exploiting existing loopholes and devising new ones, some of the country’s best-known companies are making it harder than ever for the federal government to replenish its already depleted coffers. As a result, business income tax revenue remains stagnant at about 2 percent of gross domestic product even as corporate profits hit records. Business taxes now make up less than 10 percent of federal revenue, and in some years as little as 6.6 percent. That is sharply down from the years after World War II, when about 30 percent of federal revenue came from corporate taxes."

By


A pharmaceutical company moved its headquarters to Ireland, sharply reducing its tax rate. A billboard company reclassified itself as a real estate concern, meaning it will no longer pay corporate taxes. And a big oil producer split itself in two, cleaving off a multibillion-dollar division that now operates tax-free.

Across corporate America, companies large and small are finding new ways to address one of the business world’s oldest irritations: paying taxes.

By exploiting existing loopholes and devising new ones, some of the country’s best-known companies are making it harder than ever for the federal government to replenish its already depleted coffers.

As a result, business income tax revenue remains stagnant at about 2 percent of gross domestic product even as corporate profits hit records.

Business taxes now make up less than 10 percent of federal revenue, and in some years as little as 6.6 percent. That is sharply down from the years after World War II, when about 30 percent of federal revenue came from corporate taxes.

The decline is the result of the rise of untraditional business structures, the effects of a more globalized economy and a labyrinth of subsidies and tax credits. And though the erosion has happened gradually over decades, the surging popularity of inversions — acquisitions of overseas companies that allow American corporations to reincorporate abroad — is raising concerns that an already precarious situation is growing untenable.

“There’s been a long, slow, steady decline,” said William G. Gale, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and an economic adviser to President George H. W. Bush. “It’s a confluence of a bunch of things, and it’s increasingly difficult to figure out how to effectively tax corporations.”

Lawmakers in Washington are calling for an overhaul of the corporate tax code. Upon becoming chairman of the Senate Finance Committee this year, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said it was time to revamp the “dysfunctional, rotting mess of a carcass that we call the tax code.” But political gridlock makes the possibility of any quick action all but nonexistent.

While officials may not be in the mood to cooperate, they are taking notice of recent developments. Three tax-avoidance tactics in particular have grabbed the attention of lawmakers and the White House, though the root of the problem runs much deeper.

Most prominently, the number of inversions is at an all-time high, fueled by a rush of health care companies striking deals for overseas rivals.

AbbVie, which will become one of the 50 largest companies in the world through its $54 billion takeover of the Irish drug maker Shire, became the largest American company to strike an inversion. But more than a dozen other firms have made similar moves, most likely costing the government nearly $20 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Republicans and Democrats have called for legislation to end inversions, even in the absence of broader corporate tax reform. But the threat of new laws to curb them only seems to be quickening the pace.

“Wall Street is whispering in the ears of all these corporate executives saying, ‘Congress might shut this down, you’ve got to do it now,’ ” said Rebecca J. Wilkins, senior counsel at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Another corporate structure being exploited now more than ever is the master limited partnership. These partnerships are part of a broad class of companies known as pass-through entities because they pass all profits along to shareholders and are therefore exempt from paying corporate income taxes.

Dozens of these have been created in the last two years, reducing the Treasury’s income by about $1.6 billion annually, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. Last year, the oil and gas company Phillips 66 spun out its pipeline assets into a master limited partnership, shielding millions of dollars in profits from taxation.

In response to the uptick in master limited partnerships, the Internal Revenue Service temporarily halted new approvals of the structure this year, and the Treasury Department said it was examining the effects on future tax revenue.

Another type of pass-through entity, the real estate investment trust, is also experiencing record popularity. Like master limited partnerships, real estate investment trusts pass profits along to investors, exempting them from corporate taxes.

But loose standards have allowed an ever wider variety of businesses to reclassify themselves as real estate investment trusts, broadening the universe of businesses avoiding taxes altogether. CBS Outdoor, the billboard company, relisted as a REIT this year.

And in a recent ruling, the I.R.S. allowed Windstream, a telecommunications firm, to spin off its underground cables and assorted real estate into a separate publicly traded company. Tax experts believe the ruling opens the door for a new wave of such transactions from a broad range of businesses.

Corporate advisers say that companies are pursuing these structures because, in the face of slow organic growth, executives are looking for additional profits wherever they can find them.

“It’s self-help tax reform,” said Kyle E. Pomerleau, an economist at the Tax Foundation. “If Congress is not willing to reform the corporate tax code, companies are going to do it for themselves.”

Despite the outsize attention in Washington being paid to the tax-avoidance techniques, they represent only a small part of the reason corporate tax revenue has declined so precipitously.

“Inversions are the very small end of the tail,” Mr. Gale said. “They just happen to be the part that’s wagging right now.”

The more fundamental issue is a series of systemic changes to the tax system and the shifting international tax landscape.

Over the years, a growing portion of the United States economy has shifted away from traditional corporations and into lower-taxed structures like partnerships and S-corporations, which are exempt from paying income taxes. This has put a growing swath of the economy beyond the reach of the I.R.S.

“It’s gotten much easier to never put money into the corporate sector, or to move it around internationally once it is in the corporate sector,” Mr. Gale said.

Only 6 percent of businesses are traditional corporations subject to the corporate income tax, according to the Congressional Research Service. That is down from 17 percent in 1980. The result is that less than half of the government’s business income comes from corporations, down from about 80 percent in 1980.

And while most S-corporations are small to midsize businesses, as was intended, some of the country’s largest private companies, including Bechtel, one of the country’s largest engineering firms, are also organized as S-corporations to avoid corporate income taxes.

“A lot of the income that used to be earned at the corporate level is now being moved to the S-corp level,” Mr. Pomerleau said.

And for those traditional corporations that are subject to the United States corporate tax rate, which at 35 percent is the highest in the world, there are myriad ways to avoid paying anything close to that. By taking advantage of a warren of credits, deductions and exemptions, corporations pay an average effective rate of just 12.6 percent, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Much of the tax avoidance comes as multinational corporations take advantage of overseas subsidiaries to shuffle money, intellectual property and assets into lower-taxed jurisdictions. In 2010, a majority of overseas profits reported by American firms were recorded in just 12 low-tax countries like the Netherlands, Bermuda, and Ireland, according to Citizens for Tax Justice.

That skewed distribution of profits is a result of the changed global tax landscape, where many countries have sharply lowered their corporate rates while the United States has not.

Those attractive overseas rates — and the fact that, unlike the United States, other countries do not tax international earnings — are among the reasons that companies are rushing to strike inversion deals.

“We cannot compete with zero,” Ms. Wilkins said.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress and the White House all agree the country is overdue for comprehensive tax reform. The last big revision of the tax code came in 1986. Before that, the previous rewrite was in 1954. But ideas on how to proceed vary wildly, diminishing the likelihood of any rapid reforms.

“There’s no primitive law of nature that every 30 years they will revise the tax code,” Mr. Gale said. “I don’t see much in terms of comprehensive tax reform happening with this Congress and this administration. It feels like they’re done talking to one another.”


 

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

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

12) Evictions Soar in Hot Market; Renters Suffer
By

MILWAUKEE — Just after 7 a.m., sheriff’s deputies knocked on the door of the duplex apartment, holding a fluorescent orange eviction notice. The process was quick and efficient. A moving crew began to carry out the family’s possessions and stack them neatly at the curb. Celeste Wilson, the tenant, appeared on the front step in pajama pants.

Ms. Wilson, 36, explained that the family had missed a month of rent when her husband fell ill, so the landlady filed for eviction. Knowing they would be thrown out, the Wilsons had already found a new home, paying a double security deposit and an extra $300 because of the open eviction case.

“It’s the stability I worry about,” Ms. Wilson said, watching her five children trickle out into the yard that had been their playground for five years. “They’ve got to start off fresh, get new friends, new neighbors. It might not show now, but maybe later on in life.”For tens of thousands of renters, life has become increasingly unstable in recent years, even as the economy has slowly improved. Middle-class wages have stagnated and rents have risen sharply in many places, fueled by growing interest in urban living and a shortage of rental housing. The result is a surge in eviction cases that has abruptly disrupted lives, leaving families to search for not just new housing that fits their budgets but new schools, new bus routes and sometimes new jobs.

In Milwaukee County, for instance, the number of eviction cases filed against tenants leapt by 43 percent from 2010 to 2013, according to figures gathered by the Neighborhood Law Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Other parts of the country have seen similar, if less drastic spikes — and not only in high-cost cities like San Francisco.

Landlord-tenant laws and housing market conditions vary widely, and evictions are not surging everywhere. And a court filing does not necessarily result in eviction; some cases are resolved through payment plans or other agreements. But from 2010 to 2013, Maine experienced a 21 percent increase in eviction filings, Massachusetts 11 percent and Kentucky 8 percent. In the fiscal year that ended in June, New Jersey, which has some of the strongest tenant protections in the country, had one eviction filing for every six renter households. In Georgia, where court statistics do not differentiate between tenants evicted by a landlord and homeowners evicted after foreclosure, filings soared to almost 270,000 last year, a 9 percent jump since 2010. Over the same period, according to the research firm CoreLogic, the number of foreclosures dropped by half.

Perhaps the simplest explanation for the rise in evictions is a severe shortage of rental housing caused by a lack of new construction during the recession and the wave of foreclosures that turned homeowners into renters and occupied housing into abandoned blight.

A vast majority of renters live in cities, but evictions are not limited to urban settings. Rural areas like western Oklahoma, where an oil and gas boom has increased demand for housing, have also seen an increase in eviction filings.

The rising demand for, and tight supply of, apartments means landlords can now afford to be more exacting in their standards, if not outright aggressive in replacing renters with those who can pay more. In the second quarter of this year, the rental vacancy rate sunk to its lowest in almost 20 years, while rents, in inflation-adjusted dollars, remained close to their peak. Some advocates for tenants said that court filings were just the tip of the iceberg — many renters have been displaced by rising rents, threatening letters, one-time payoffs and condo conversions, without ever going to court.

The rental shortage has made the most vulnerable tenants susceptible to eviction. “So many of our clients are people of color, people with disabilities, people who have suffered extreme health crises or a long-term chronic illness,” said Christine Donahoe, a staff attorney with Legal Action of Wisconsin.

Over two days in Milwaukee County, sheriff’s deputies evicted two renters with mental illnesses, one of whom responded only to the initials V.G., for victim of government. The boss of the moving crew, Jim Brittain, said: “I’m seeing this more and more. One out of every five people we move, it seems like, have mental health issues.”

Eviction can have a domino effect: People double up with relatives, placing their hosts at risk of eviction themselves for having unauthorized guests. Children miss school, parents find themselves far from their jobs or their normal means of transportation.

“You would think that eviction is caused by job loss, but we found evidence that eviction can actually cause you to lose your job,” said Matthew Desmond, a Harvard sociologist who studied evictions in Milwaukee. He found that women in poor, minority neighborhoods were evicted at higher rates than men, and that in court cases, tenants living with children were almost three times more likely to be evicted than those without children.

“We also found evidence that people that are evicted, even years later, have higher rates of depression and higher rates of material hardship,” like hunger or lack of medical care, he said.

In some cases, economic realities have affected landlords as well as tenants, pushing them to act. In housing court in Madison, Wis., Denise Carty, a nursing consultant who owns one rental unit, said she had reluctantly filed a case against her tenant, a single mother, after years of charging below-market rent and tolerating late or missed payments. The debt had built up to more than $5,000. “I can’t sustain this anymore,” Ms. Carty said.

Even if an eviction case is ultimately dismissed or decided against the landlord, it can cause problems for a tenant who is looking for a new apartment.In Madison, Jawana Echols, a 34-year-old mother of two, said her previous landlord filed an eviction after one late payment, and the filing has haunted her ever since, even though she settled the bill. After seven rejections, she found a new apartment with the help of a social service agency, but car repairs left her $100 short on the rent one month, so she now has a second eviction filing. Again, she paid what she owed, but she believes that her record will make it impossible to move, even though it takes her an hour and a half by bus to get to work, since her car broke down once more.

In a few states, there have been efforts to strengthen laws protecting tenants. A new law in Rhode Island seeks to keep renters in place if their residence goes through foreclosure. Virginia recently extended landlord-tenant regulations to small landlords. In Oregon, it is now illegal for a landlord to count eviction filings against a prospective tenant unless the tenant lost the case, and it is less than five years old.

But other efforts to slow evictions have been less successful. In California, a recent effort to narrow the Ellis Act, which allows rent-controlled apartments to be converted into condominiums, failed in the State Legislature. From early 2010 to early 2013, the number of Ellis Act evictions in San Francisco increased by 170 percent, while the number of evictions over all went up 38 percent, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

And in Wisconsin, the Legislature has gutted local landlord-tenant regulations in a series of bills, barring cities from enforcing statutes that required landlords to give tenants a reason for declining to renew a lease or to assess an apartment applicant’s ability to pay based on history rather than income. Money that went to legal aid groups to help prevent homelessness, allocated beginning in 2009 as part of the federal stimulus program, has dried up. A 2012 study by the Boston Bar Association found that renters with lawyers were twice as likely to avoid eviction as those without.

Tenants living in subsidized housing or using a federal housing voucher can find that support jeopardized by an eviction filing. That is why Lynette Moore and her two school-age daughters were living in Super 8 Motel in Madison about a month after being evicted from the three-bedroom house in a suburb of Milwaukee where they had lived for eight years.

The landlord had given her notice that he planned to sell the house, she said, but without a place to go, she had stayed on until he had filed against her in court. Now she is looking for work in Madison, where she hopes life will be easier, while commuting to her job as a health care aide in Milwaukee and hoping that a legal aid lawyer will be able to get her rental voucher restored. The disruption sidelined her plans to work more hours and go back to school, Ms. Moore said.

“We was just getting to the point where we could do life-changing things,” she said.

The move had come just as her daughter Aleisha, 17, was about to start her senior year in high school, and Ailyah, 10, had one year to go in elementary school. Now the two are biding their time until they start at new schools in the fall. During an interview Aleisha said little, but Ailyah chattered incessantly as she pretended to feed a toy dog, Sparky, some of her dinner.

“Abby’s going to be really mad,” Ailyah said. Abby is another stuffed animal, but unlike Sparky, she had been packed away in storage until the family finds a new home.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

13) With Gaza War, Movement to Boycott Israel Gains Momentum in Europe
By
LONDON — A branch of Sainsbury’s grocery store removed kosher products from its shelves, it said, to prevent anti-Israel demonstrations. The Tricycle Theater in north London, after hosting a Jewish film festival for eight years, demanded to vet the content of any film made with arts funding from the Israeli government. George Galloway, a member of Parliament known for his vehement criticism of Israel, declared Bradford, England, an “Israel-free zone.”

Mr. Galloway, in comments being investigated by the police, said, “We don’t want any Israeli goods; we don’t want any Israeli services; we don’t want any Israeli academics coming to the university or college; we don’t even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford.”

The war in Gaza and its aftermath have inflamed opinion in Europe and, experts and analysts say, are likely to increase support for the movement to boycott, disinvest from and sanction Israel, known as BDS.“We entered this war in Gaza with the perception that the Israeli government is not interested in reaching peace with the Palestinians,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli analyst at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, a private university. “Now, after the casualties and the destruction, I’m very worried about the impact this could have on Israel. It could make it very easy for the BDS campaign to isolate Israel and call for more boycotts.”

Gilead Sher and Einav Yogev, in a paper for the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, warn that Gaza means Israel pays “a much heavier price in public opinion and in erosion of support for its positions in negotiations with the Palestinians.”

Along with reports of “familiar anti-Semitic attacks on Jews,” they said, “the movement to boycott Israel is expanding politically and among the public.”

Daniel Levy of the European Council on Foreign Relations points to the debate over halting arms exports to Israel, which has been given new momentum in Britain and Spain by the asymmetry of the Gaza war.

“You’re beginning to see the translation of public sympathy into something politically meaningful,” he said. He noted two tracks — the governmental one, which distinguishes between Israel and the occupied territories, and the social one of academic, commercial and artistic boycotts.

But for all the new attention around the BDS movement, the economic impact has been small, experts say. The European Union, which has been looked to for leadership on the issue, does not support the idea.

Instead, the Europeans are drawing a legal distinction between Israel within its 1967 boundaries and Israeli towns and settlements that are beyond them in occupied land. Brussels regards all Israelis living beyond the 1967 lines, including those in East Jerusalem, as settlers living in illegal communities whose status can be regulated only through a negotiated peace agreement with the Palestinians.

In matters such as scientific cooperation, funding for research, import duties and labeling requirements, Brussels has sought a strong relationship with pre-1967 Israel, while demanding a different status for institutions and products from beyond the Green Line, the armistice lines that ended the 1967 fighting but did not fix borders or create a Palestinian state.

Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, said before the Gaza conflict that “there is no boycott” of Israel by the European Union, citing trade and scientific cooperation. “The European Union defends the right of existence of Israel with all its means,” he said. “The view that the Europeans are against Israel, I repeat it, is wrong.”

Some members of the 28-nation European Union are closer to Israel than others, but the bloc is united on Israel within its 1967 boundaries.

“Our relationship with Israel is close and one of the best we have in the region, but only with Israel in its 1967 lines unless there is a peace agreement,” said a senior European Union official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol. “We are clear, however, that what came under Israeli control in 1967 is not a part of Israel, so the settlements are illegal under international law and not helpful in the peace process.”

To that end, the European Union has demanded that all products produced by Israelis beyond the 1967 lines be labeled differently, and they are excluded from the duty-free trade agreement the bloc has with Israel proper. Goods from settlements are imported, but under different labels and tariffs. “There is no question of a boycott,” the European official said.

In an agreement last December on scientific exchanges and funding, known as Horizon 2020, Brussels insisted, despite fierce opposition from the Israeli government, on keeping Israeli institutions in the West Bank, like Ariel University, out of the deal. Since European funding is so important to Israeli academic institutions, the Israeli government gave in, attaching a legally meaningless appendix opposing the distinctions.

While some Israeli companies label goods produced in the West Bank as Israeli, the Europeans have tried to crack down, insisting that permits have a physical address attached and not simply an Israeli post office box. Goods can be labeled “West Bank” or as coming from a particular place, but cannot say “Made in Israel.”

The European Union has gone considerably further than the United States, declaring that Israeli settlements over the Green Line are “illegal” under international law; the United States simply calls them “illegitimate” and “obstacles to peace.”

Israel says its settlement activity is consistent with international law, although it accepts that some settlements are built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land and says that all will be resolved as part of a final deal with the Palestinians.

The United States also has no regulations requiring separate labeling of products from Israeli-occupied land.

The recent fuss over SodaStream and one of its spokeswomen, the actress Scarlett Johansson, was indicative of the passions raised. Oxfam insisted she quit SodaStream, which has a factory in the large West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, or quit her work with Oxfam; Ms. Johansson chose to quit Oxfam. SodaStream defended itself by citing the number of jobs it was providing for Palestinians, who were being paid the same wages as Israeli workers.

The debate was indicative of shifting attitudes. During the period around the Oslo Accords, in the early 1990s, when peace seemed close and economic cooperation between Israel and the new, interim Palestinian Authority was considered an important part of a future relationship built on mutual dependency and confidence, factories in occupied territory were praised.

With the failure of Oslo to produce a Palestinian state, the tone has changed, and companies once seen by many as in the forefront of economic cooperation are now being seen by some as colonial occupiers undermining a future Palestinian state.

But the interconnection of Israel with the settlements is difficult to untie — every major Israeli bank has a branch in the settlements.

Some countries, like Britain, have gone further. Britain issued voluntary labeling guidelines in December 2009 “to enable consumers to make a more fully informed decision concerning the products they buy,” according to the UK Trade and Investment agency, because “we understand the concerns of people who do not wish to purchase goods exported from Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

More troubling to Israel, in December the agency warned companies and citizens to be “aware of the potential reputational implications” of investments in settlement areas. “We do not encourage or offer support to such activities,” it said.

But even these concerns should be distinguished from the organized BDS campaign against the state of Israel itself. Begun in 2005, the campaign is supposed to last, the Palestinian BDS National Committee says, until Israel “complies with international law and Palestinian rights.”

Its three goals are “the end of Israeli occupation and colonization of Arab land and dismantling the Wall,” “full equality” for “Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel,” and respect for the right of return of Palestinian refugees. Israelis see the first two as compatible with two states, but the third as the end of the Jewish state.

Then there is the associated effort at an academic and cultural boycott of Israel, which has attracted well-known figures like Stephen Hawking and Sinead O’Connor. Others defend artistic freedom or the unifying nature of culture, or believe, as the writer Ian McEwan said, “If I only went to countries I approve of, I probably would never get out of bed.”




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

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

14) Taser Use in Arrest Leads to Suit in Georgia
By ALAN BLINDER

ATLANTA — More than four months after a 24-year-old man died following an arrest in which the police used Taser devices on him up to 13 times, his family Thursday filed a wrongful-death suit against the Atlanta suburb of East Point and two of its former officers.

The family of Gregory L. Towns Jr., who was arrested on April 11 after he fled on foot from officers who wanted to question him about a domestic dispute, said in the lawsuit that police officers in East Point had “acted with malice and a deliberate intent to cause grievous bodily injury, pain and death” to Mr. Towns.

Amid national attention to police shootings involving black men, Mr. Towns’s death seemed certain to provoke new discussion about the use in law enforcement of Tasers, which critics have implicated in hundreds of deaths nationwide. The lawsuit came ahead of a decision by a prosecutor here over whether to pursue charges against any police officers in connection with Mr. Towns’s death. Mr. Towns was black, as were both of the officers named in the lawsuit.

But lawyers representing Mr. Towns’s family said they believed they had already gathered enough evidence to file a civil case against the officers, Sgt. Marcus Eberhart and Cpl. Howard J. Weems Jr., and East Point, a city of about 35,500 just south of Atlanta. The lawsuit, filed in the name of Mr. Towns’s estate and his infant son, contends that officers abused and eventually killed a handcuffed Mr. Towns after his arrest by using Taser devices on him up to 13 times in a 29-minute period.

“East Point needs to pay for what they did to my brother because he didn’t deserve to be electrocuted 13 times, or anything more than one time,” Tiarra Towns said Thursday at a news conference. The family declined to say how much compensation they would seek.

The episode began when the police wanted to speak with Mr. Towns about a domestic dispute and he tried to elude officers. The authorities apprehended Mr. Towns after a chase they said stretched nearly a mile, and Mr. Towns, saying the pursuit had exhausted him, said he was unable to walk immediately to a police car.

Corporal Weems said in a report that Mr. Towns did not “display any distress,” and that he warned Mr. Towns that he would use his Taser device if he did not obey instructions from officers. Police officers acknowledged in written statements that Mr. Towns, who was handcuffed in a creek for much of the time in dispute, was ultimately shocked multiple times.

Police records cited in the lawsuit indicate the officers used their Taser devices up to 14 times, including at least one instance when an officer activated his Taser as a warning to compel Mr. Towns to cooperate. (Lawyers representing the family conceded that they did not know exactly how many times Mr. Towns had been shocked, but they said the 14 uses of the Taser devices collectively amounted to more than a minute of actual or threatened electrical stimulation.)

A Fulton County medical examiner listed the cause of death in a May report as hypertensive cardiovascular disease that had been aggravated by “conducted electrical stimulation” and strenuous physical activity.

The East Point Police Department, which asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to review the episode, declined on Thursday to discuss the lawsuit. Sergeant Eberhart, who resigned after Mr. Towns’s death, could not be reached on Thursday, and a lawyer for Corporal Weems, who was fired and is appealing his dismissal, declined to comment.

The lawsuit accuses Sergeant Eberhart and Corporal Weems of violating department rules, which impose restrictions on when officers may use Taser devices.

But Dale T. Preiser, who is representing Corporal Weems, told WSB-TV previously that the “use of drive stun to gain compliance is permitted under federal and Georgia law.”



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

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

15) Injected Drugs Said to Kill Man in Flawed Execution
By

Clayton D. Lockett, the prisoner whose prolonged writhing during his execution on April 29 led Oklahoma to suspend executions and caused national questioning of lethal injection methods, was killed by the injected drugs and not by a heart attack as state officials originally announced, according to a state-commissioned autopsy report released Thursday.

The report, prepared by the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas, which serves as the Dallas County medical examiner, did not explore what caused Mr. Lockett’s execution to go awry.

Its conclusion about the cause of death was not inconsistent, however, with the findings of an independent medical expert who examined the body on behalf of defense lawyers.

Those findings concluded that it was the inexpert placement of an injection line in Mr. Lockett’s groin that caused the lethal drugs to spread through local tissue, rather than coursing directly into the bloodstream.

Defense lawyers, while not disputing the cause of death, criticized the Dallas team for failing to explore evidence of what led to the protracted procedure.

“What this initial autopsy report does not appear to answer is what went wrong during Mr. Lockett’s execution, which took over 45 minutes, with witnesses reporting he writhed and gasped in pain,” said Dale A. Baich, a federal public defender based in Phoenix who represents a group of Oklahoma death row prisoners, in a statement.

After the bungled procedure, Gov. Mary Fallin also asked the commissioner of public safety to conduct a review of what happened and whether execution procedures should be overhauled. In a news release on Thursday the commissioner, Michael C. Thompson, said he had nearly completed a preliminary report and would discuss the findings at a news conference next week.

An initial account of Mr. Lockett’s death by the Oklahoma corrections director, Robert Patton, described a chaotic scene as Mr. Lockett, after having been declared unconscious and after the injections began, started to pull against his restraints and mumble audibly.

More than a half-hour into what should have been a 10-minute procedure, after discovering that the drugs were not being properly delivered, Mr. Patton officially called off the execution. But 10 minutes after that, an attending doctor declared Mr. Lockett dead.

Mr. Patton emerged to tell reporters that Mr. Lockett’s vein had “blown,” that he had halted the execution but that Mr. Lockett had died anyway of a heart attack.

The new, state-sponsored autopsy report indicates that it was the delayed effect of the lethal drugs that caused the death. In a three-drug combination that Oklahoma had not previously used, Mr. Lockett was first injected with midazolam, a sedative intended to render the prisoner unconscious. This was followed by injections of vecuronium bromide, a paralyzing agent that stops breathing, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

Without proper sedation, medical experts say, the second two drugs can cause excruciating pain.

The newly released autopsy did describe needle marks on Mr. Lockett’s arms, neck and right foot and on both sides of his groin, consistent with official accounts that medical technicians spent nearly an hour trying to place a catheter before believing they had done so in the femoral veins in his groin.

At the instruction of the Texas attorney general, the Dallas medical team did not release along with its autopsy report any details that are secret under Oklahoma law, such as the pharmacies that provided the injection drugs and the identities of medical personnel who participated in the execution, The Tulsa World reported.


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

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

16) Law Boosts Oversight of Use of Solitary Confinement at Rikers Island
By

In the wake of growing criticism over conditions at Rikers Island, Mayor Bill de Blasio enacted legislation on Thursday to boost oversight of the use of solitary confinement at the jail.

The law, which was passed by the City Council last week, will require the Department of Correction to publish quarterly reports detailing the number of inmates in solitary confinement, their length of stay and whether they were injured or assaulted. But it does not include any provisions that would directly curtail guard brutality or, as inmate advocates have long hoped, the use of isolation as punishment.

Mr. de Blasio said the law would “help us to manage the jails more effectively and address the problems that were left to us.” The first report is due in January.At Rikers, solitary confinement, also known as punitive segregation, is used to discipline inmates who violate jail rules. Inmates are locked in small cells for 23 hours a day and have almost no human contact besides short interactions with the jail staff. Inmates are given an hour of recreation time per day, which they are allowed to spend outside shackled and in small cages. Some inmates spend months locked away.

Studies have shown that such isolation is profoundly damaging. In segregation, inmates have been shown to harm themselves and attempt suicide more frequently.

There is also evidence that solitary confinement, far from containing violence, actually contributes to it. Violence at Rikers Island spiked over the last four years, as the use of solitary confinement expanded under the Bloomberg administration. During that time, there was a 174 percent increase in personal injury claims made at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center, which houses the largest solitary confinement unit, according to the city comptroller’s office.

Inmates with mental illnesses and adolescents have the most problems with solitary confinement. In a report on the treatment of adolescent inmates at Rikers, the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan said that the Correction Department’s use of prolonged solitary confinement was “excessive and inappropriate.” It found that on any given day, 15 to 25 percent of the adolescent population was in segregation.

The Correction Department commissioner, Joseph Ponte, had been praised by prison reformers for his efforts to scale back solitary confinement in Maine, where he led the state prison system for three years. Since coming to New York in April, however, he has resisted calls to do the same at Rikers, saying that viable alternatives must be in place first.

On Thursday, Mr. Ponte said the bill was an important step toward reform and expressed hope that the department would come to rely “less and less” on solitary confinement in the coming years.

He has come under pressure from the powerful correction officers’ union, particularly its president, Norman Seabrook, who has said that any efforts to curtail solitary confinement could put the union’s members at risk.

“You run a red light, you pay a ticket,” Mr. Seabrook said at a City Council hearing in June. “You punch an officer in the eye, you go to punitive segregation.”

The new legislation, which takes effect immediately, will require the Correction Department, in coordination with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, to provide detailed data including the number of inmates subject to enhanced restraints, such as shackles, waist chains and hand mittens. The department must also report the number of recreation hours used by inmates as well as the number of shower days given.

Critically, inmate advocates say, reports must include information about allegations of abuse and use of force against inmates by correction officers.

At the signing on Thursday, Daniel Dromm, who was the legislation’s principal sponsor in the Council, said he hoped the law would let the city ultimately move away from using solitary confinement as punishment.

“Dispelling the darkness that has thus far shrouded the practice of punitive segregation is a significant first step in what I hope will be a radical rethinking of how our city deals with incarcerated individuals,” he said.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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













C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND
ONGOING CAMPAIGNS


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

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

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

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

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

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

Free the Whistle-Blowers

An Appeal from Daniel Ellsberg

July 21, 2014 by Daniel Ellsberg

Time Magazine coversNSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, a personal hero of mine, has recently filed to renew his asylum in Russia.  Exiled thousands of miles from friends and family, he awaits his fate. He learned from the example of another top hero of mine, Chelsea Manning.  Manning helped inspire his revelations that if he released his vital information while in this country he would have been held incommunicado in isolation as Chelsea was for over ten months—in Snowden’s case probably for the rest of his life.  And facing comparable charges to Chelsea’s, he would have no more chance than Chelsea to have a truly fair trial—being prevented by the prosecution and judge (as I was, forty years ago) from even raising arguments of public interest or lack of harm in connection with his disclosures.  Contrary to the hollow advice of Hillary Clinton or John Kerry, if he were to return to America he would not be able to “make his case” neither “in court,” nor “to the public” from a prison cell.

 I am immensely thankful to both these young whistle-blowers who have so bravely stood up against the powerful forces of the US government in order to reveal corruption, illegal spying and war crimes.  They were both motivated by their commitments to democracy and justice.  They both chose to reveal information directly to the public, at great cost to themselves, so that citizens and taxpayers could be fully informed of the facts.  They also revealed the amazing potential of new technologies to increase public access to information and strengthen democracy.  It saddens me that our current political leaders, rather than embracing this potential, have chosen to tighten their strangleholds on power and information, turning away from both progress and justice.

 Shockingly, the Obama administration has prosecuted more whistle-blowers under the Espionage Act than every previous president combined. These heroes do not deserve to be thrown in prison or called a traitor for doing the right thing.  Obama’s unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of the Espionage Act—as if it were a British-type Official Secrets Act, never intended by Congress and a violation of our First Amendment—and Manning’s 35-year prison sentence will have a chilling effect on future citizens’ willingness to uncover hidden injustices.  The government has already brought comparable charges against Snowden.

 The only remedy to this chilling precedent, designed to effect government whistle-blowers as a whole, is to overturn the Manning verdict. Given that Manning’s court martial produced the longest trial record in US military history, it will take a top legal team countless hours to prepare their defense.  But as an Advisory Board member for the Chelsea Manning Support Network, I was inspired by the way citizens around the world stepped forward to help fund a strong defense during Manning’s trial.  I remain hopeful that enough people will recognize the immense importance of these appeals and will contribute to help us finish the struggle we started. That struggle, of course, is for a just political system and freedom for our whistle-blowers.

Chelsea Manning has continued to demonstrate uncommon bravery and character, even from behind bars.  With the New York Times Op-Ed she published last month, she has cemented her position as a compelling voice for government reform.  Working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, Manning was privy to a special view of the inner-workings of our military’s propaganda systems.  Despite her personal struggles, she felt compelled to share her knowledge of what was happening in Iraq with the Americans people.  If the military hadn’t hidden the number of civilian casualties and incidences of torture detailed in the Iraq Logs she released, we would have known far sooner to expect the civil war that has gripped Iraq fully today.  Her exposure of US knowledge of the corruption in Tunisia, by the dictator our government supported, was a critical catalyst of the non-violent uprising which toppled that dictator, in turn directly inspiring the occupation of Tahrir Square in Egypt and then the Occupy movement in the US

 I personally am inspired by Chelsea Manning as I am by Edward Snowden, which is why I have spent countless hours advocating for both of them.  I’m asking you to join me today in supporting what I believe to be one of the most important legal proceedings in our country’s history. We are fortunate to have a truly impressive legal team that has agreed to partner with us.  Already, our new appeals attorney Nancy Hollander and her team have begun to research legal strategies, and are collaborating with Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the international news media to highlight the significance of this case.

 Chelsea is only 26 now, younger than I was when I learned to recognize the injustices of the Vietnam War.  She wishes to complete her education, as I did, and go into public service. Imagine what great things she could both learn and teach the world if she were free. Now imagine if our corrupt government officials are allowed to get their way, holding her behind bars until life has almost passed her by, and extraditing Snowden to suffer the same outcome.  What a sad result that would be for our country and our humanity.

 I have been waiting forty years for a legal process to at long last prove the unconstitutionality of the Espionage Act as applied to whistle-blowers (the Supreme Court has never yet addressed this issue).  This appeals process can accomplish that, and it can reduce Chelsea’s sentence by decades. But unfortunately, without your help today it will not happen. We must raise $100,000 by September 1st, to ensure that Chelsea’s team have the resources to fully fight this stage of the appeals process. 

Unless Manning’s conviction is overturned in appeals, Snowden and many other whistle-blowers, today and in the future, will face a similar fate. And with them will perish one of the most critical lifelines for our democracy.  But you can join me in fighting back.  I’m asking you to do it for Chelsea, to do it for Snowden, and to do it because it’s the right thing to do to preserve our democracy.  We can only win this great struggle with your help. Please contribute to help us fund Chelsea’s legal appeals today.

        It’s time we band together on the right side of history once again.

        Daniel Ellsberg

Please contribute to help us fund Chelsea’s legal appeals today!

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

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

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

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

 Only an Innocent Man Would Voluntarily Return
to Prison to Fight Against his Life Sentence
and For Exoneration —
That Courageous Man is Lorenzo Johnson.

The PA Attorney General’s Office Agrees to Investigate New Facts and Witnesses —
  Send Your Message Now to PA AG
Kathleen Kane: Dismiss the Charges!
Free Lorenzo Johnson!

On January 29, 2014 Lorenzo Johnson’s attorney, Michael Wiseman, met with representatives of PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane to discuss the new evidence of Lorenzo Johnson’s innocence contained in legal filings now pending in the Pennsylvania courts. This includes affidavits confirming Johnson’s presence in New York City at the time of the Harrisburg murder and the identity of the actual killers, as well as police and prosecutorial misconduct.

Attorney Wiseman said Kane’s office promised to investigate these new facts in order to assess whether they merit the relief that Lorenzo Johnson seeks in his PCRA petition.

Speaking to AP reporter Mary Claire Dale on February 11, 2014 Wiseman said, “We believe the witnesses we presented to them are credible, and give a coherent version of the events. I take them at their word, that they’re going to do a straightforward, honest review.”  Kane spokesman Joe Peters confirmed the meeting to AP “but said the office won’t comment on the new evidence until the court filing,” (referring to the March 31, 2014 date for the AG’s response to Johnson’s October 2013 court filing).

It is the Office of the PA Attorney General that is responsible for the false prosecution of Lorenzo Johnson from trial through appeals. And just a few months ago, the Attorney General’s office opposed a federal petition based on this new evidence saying there was no prima facie claim for relief. This resulted in the denial of Lorenzo Johnson’s Motion to File a Second Writ of Habeas Corpus in the federal court.

On December 18, 2013 a press conference called by the Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson protested these actions of the PA Attorney General and delivered petitions demanding dismissal of the charges and immediate freedom for Lorenzo. Tazza, Lorenzo’s wife, declared, “1,000 signatures means we are not in this alone…I won't stop until he’s home. There is nothing and no one that can stop me from fighting for what’s right.”

This is Lorenzo Johnson’s second fight for his innocence and freedom. In January 2012, after 16 years of court battles to prove his innocence, a federal appeals court held his sentence was based on insufficient evidence – a judicial acquittal. Lorenzo was freed from prison. But after a petition filed by the PA Attorney General the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated Lorenzo Johnson’s conviction and he was re-incarcerated to continue serving a life sentence without parole for a murder he did not commit.

This innocent man drove himself back to prison in June 2012—after less than five months of freedom—leaving his new wife and family, construction job and advocacy on behalf of others wrongfully convicted. The reason Lorenzo Johnson voluntarily returned to prison? Because he is innocent and fighting for full vindication.

In the words of Lorenzo Johnson, “A second is too long to be in prison when you are Innocent, so eighteen years … is Intolerable.”

Add your voices and demand again: Dismiss the charges against Lorenzo Johnson. Free Lorenzo NOW!

 SIGN LORENZO JOHNSON'S FREEDOM PETITION

CONTRIBUTE TO HELP TAZZA AND THE OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS VISIT LORENZO AND STAY IN CONTACT!


Write: Lorenzo Johnson
            DF 1036
            SCI Mahanoy
            301 Morea Rd.
            Frackville, PA 17932

 Email: Lorenzo Johnson through JPAY.com code:
              Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC


 www.FreeLorenzoJohnson.org

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

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

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.
 
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

 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

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

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


WITNESS GAZA

http://www.witnessgaza.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]

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

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

Prison vs School: The Tour 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogmtAQlp9HI


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

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

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

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:
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment