Monday, September 01, 2014

BAUAW NEWSLETTER: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2014

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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.


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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

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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

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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:

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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
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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.

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 B. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) 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





2) Evictions Soar in Hot Market; Renters Suffer
By




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

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




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




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





7) 50 Days of War Leave Israelis and Palestinians Only More Entrenched
By




8) At Gateway to Hamptons, Ku Klux Klan Advertises for New Members
By




9) Death of Man in Police Custody Is Ruled a Homicide
By BENJAMIN MUELLER





10)  The Changing Face of Temporary Employment

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/upshot/the-changing-face-of-temporary-employment.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&abt=0002&abg=0




11) At Ferguson March, Call to Halt Traffic in Labor Day Highway Protest
By and





12) Arundhati Roy: How Corporate Power Converted Wealth Into Philanthropy for Social Control
The new book, 'Capitalism: A Ghost Story,' explores the blurred connection between corporations and the foundations they endow.
By Arundhati Roy
AUGUST 27, 2014
http://www.alternet.org/books/arundhati-roy-how-corporate-power-converted-wealth-philanthropy-social-control?akid=12189.229473.ALYd_g&rd=1&src=newsletter1017538&t=9
13) More Workers Are Claiming ‘Wage Theft’
By





14) Israel Claims Nearly 1,000 Acres of West Bank Land Near Bethlehem
By ISABEL KERSHNER




15) Baby’s Drug Co-Pay Jumps, and a Health Reporter Is Stumped
By Charles Ornstein

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/upshot/babys-drug-co-pay-jumps-and-a-health-reporter-is-stumped.html?ref=business&abt=0002&abg=0


















 
 





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1) 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.”


 

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2) 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.
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3) 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.”



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4) 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.”



 
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5) 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.


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6) 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.



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7) 50 Days of War Leave Israelis and Palestinians Only More Entrenched
By

JERUSALEM — Only time will tell whether Israel will maintain the quiet it so desperately sought during 50 days of war with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, and whether Hamas will leverage the world’s outrage over so many civilian casualties to improve the lives of the coastal enclave’s 1.7 million residents.

But any gains for either side appear at best incremental and relatively short term, analysts said. The prospect of resolving the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, already a long shot, was dealt a significant setback, many experts believe, with both sides dug deeper into intransigent, irreconcilable positions.“Hope lost and fear won,” said Udi Segal, the diplomatic correspondent for Israel’s Channel 2 News. Referring to Secretary of State John Kerry’s nine-month negotiations whose collapse in April contributed to the escalation, Mr. Segal added, “I don’t think the people in Palestine or in Israel feel more confidence in those Western, American Kerry-like ambitions to solve our problem with those peace slogans.”

Sami Abdel Shafi, a Gaza-based political consultant, said, “A very thin line separates between this being taken as an opportunity versus this latest round resulting in further disaster.”

He continued: “It has just been demonstrated that military conflict will not present solutions. The only trouble is it doesn’t look like at least the present government of Israel is interested in a political solution.”

After a cease-fire agreement this week finally appeared to halt the hostilities, leaders on both sides rushed to claim victory, pointing to their specific battlefield achievements and the other’s weaknesses.

But Hamas, the militant Islamist group that dominates Gaza, stood down without winning the concessions it repeatedly said it would require to halt the fighting. Many Israelis complain that their campaign lacked clear, ambitious goals, and even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged in a television interview Friday that there was “not a certainty but a chance for us to have an extended period of quiet.”

In terms of the big picture, long-term aspirations of people on both sides of the fences that divide the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, analysts see a bleaker terrain than before this latest battle began.

The vast majority of Israeli Jews want, most of all, to feel safe, physically, and to secure the future of Israel as a Jewish democracy. Polls and interviews in recent days suggest most now feel more vulnerable.

The repeated attacks through tunnels from Gaza raised the specter of similar underground operations on other borders. Hamas rockets reached all over Israel, and there is no protection from the mortar shells that killed two men and a 4-year-old boy in the war’s final chapter. (On Friday, an off-duty soldier injured in a rocket attack a week before died, bringing the toll on the Israeli side to 71 — 64 of them soldiers killed in action.)

Israel did deal a harsh blow to Hamas, killing several of its top commanders, destroying dozens of tunnels and hundreds of rocket launchers. Some commentators have noted that the 2006 Lebanon war was widely deemed a failure at the time, but that Hezbollah, Hamas’s counterpoint to Israel’s north, has not attacked since.

Restiveness among Israel’s Arab citizens and Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, along with anti-Semitism that reared in Europe and the rise of the radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, have only deepened Israelis’ anxiety.

“We have entered a period of great and dangerous uncertainty,” Shimon Shiffer, a columnist for Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s leading daily, wrote Friday. Aviad Kleinberg, a historian at Tel Aviv University, said in a column Wednesday that Israel has “no long-term plan, no initiatives that will gain it allies in the region and supporters around the world.”

In a poll published Thursday in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, more than half of Israelis said there was no winner. “For every Israeli asking himself if Israel didn’t go too far in the destruction and suffering it inflicted on Gaza,” wrote Amos Harel, the paper’s military correspondent, “there are two or three others who are convinced that the Israel Defense Forces should have hit harder.”

Gaza residents, and the broader Palestinian public, yearn, primarily, for freedom from Israeli restrictions on the crowded coastal territory (and in the West Bank) and the establishment of a sovereign Palestine.

Despite victory proclamations to the contrary, many say they are deeply disappointed that after all the destruction, the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire deal only returned them to where they were at the end of 2012. There is slightly more room to fish and farm, and a promise that cement, steel and gravel will soon flow more freely, but one nongovernmental organization estimated Friday that rebuilding alone could take two decades.

“You can’t really talk about victory when there’s 500 kids dead,” said Diana Buttu, a West Bank-based lawyer and analyst, referring to the number of Gazans under 18 among the more than 2,100 killed. Still, she said, the militants’ performance “gave a measure of dignity back into Palestinian politics” by presenting an alternative to years of fruitless negotiations with Israel.

“What happened was, at the end of 50 days, people are still standing,” Ms. Buttu said. “The Israelis have to acknowledge or deal with the fact that there’s a different way of thinking than there was before.”

Secretary Kerry and other Western diplomats have stressed that the Gaza cease-fire must be accompanied by a renewed peace process, but the skepticism that surrounded the last one has only been amplified.

Mr. Netanyahu has talked lately of a new “diplomatic horizon,” and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority has spoken of a new “political initiative.” Neither has provided details, but they do not appear to be in sync.

Mr. Netanyahu said during the conflict that it had only convinced him Israeli troops must remain in the West Bank indefinitely, something Mr. Abbas has long said is not tolerable. The Palestinian leadership, meanwhile, is demanding an international deadline for ending Israel’s occupation and establishing a state on the pre-1967 lines, something Mr. Netanyahu and his coalition partners have refused as a precondition for talks.

“Enough is enough,” Mr. Abbas said in an interview on Palestine TV Thursday night. “We will not allow the situation to remain the same.”

Mr. Netanyahu had said in a news conference the night before that Mr. Abbas “will have to decide which side he is on,” harking back to his weeks of withering criticism after Mr. Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organization signed a reconciliation pact with Hamas in April after a seven-year schism. Just as Israeli leaders seem more open to accepting the Palestinian government of technocrats formed in June, Mr. Abbas’s team is talking about forming a true unity government that would include Hamas members.

Martin S. Indyk, the former United States special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, said this week that the “Gaza war may have put another nail in the coffin of the two-state solution.”

“I think it has made it a lot more difficult — as if it wasn’t difficult enough already — because it has deepened the antipathy between the two sides,” Mr. Indyk said in an interview with ForeignPolicy.com. “There was already the problem of distrust between the people and the leadership. I’m afraid that’s just going to be compounded by what’s happened.”


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8) At Gateway to Hamptons, Ku Klux Klan Advertises for New Members
By

HAMPTON BAYS, N.Y. — All along the bucolic back roads of this blue-collar gateway to the more opulent Hamptons, residents agree: There is nothing sophisticated about the Ku Klux Klan’s continuing drive to recruit new members.

The pamphlets the group has distributed seem to have been made in somebody’s basement, printed on threadbare paper with a printer in need of ink. They are stuffed into plastic sandwich bags, along with a few Jolly Rancher candies serving as weights, and tossed onto driveways in the dead of night.

Among the recipients have been Latino immigrants — the very target of the Klan’s campaign.

“They didn’t have enough forethought to think about where they should really put it, and where they shouldn’t,” said Karen Fritsch, 56, whose husband discovered a packet from the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan around the same day their neighbors, Colombian immigrants, got one. “If you’re an organized group that has an intention, why would you just throw it anywhere?”

The leafleting, from late July to late this month, has been limited to two or three streets and though several residents found pamphlets, only four complained to the authorities.

Besides a recruitment form and a crude drawing, there was a pamphlet: “A introduction to The Platform and Principles,” of the group.

It included supporting “a national law against the practice of homosexuality,” putting United States troops on “our border to STOP the flood of illegal aliens,” and promoting “our unique European (White) culture.”

Since it is considered constitutionally protected free speech, the Southampton Town police say, there is no criminality.

Given the K.K.K.’s history as a hate group, law enforcement and elected officials, clergy, immigrant advocates and neighbors are concerned, in part because memories of Long Island’s history of racial discord are never far from the surface.

Two decades ago, Hampton Bays was the scene of a leafleting effort during a time of widespread bias crimes across Long Island that led to the formation of a local anti-bias task force.

And as vast numbers of immigrants from Mexico and Central America, eager to fill menial jobs in the region’s agricultural or service industries, have transformed the demographics, the influx has sometimes provoked ugly episodes.

In September 2000, two Mexican day laborers were lured to an abandoned building by two white men, stabbed and beaten with tools in what prosecutors said was a racially motivated attack. A white teenager was convicted of killing a Hispanic immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, in a 2008 attack at a train station that became emblematic of similar crimes against Latino newcomers.

This summer, as the leaflets fell on properties in Hampton Bays, many here raised the same question: Why now?

Representative Timothy H. Bishop, a Democrat who represents much of Suffolk County on Long Island, noted that hundreds of unaccompanied children, detained at the border with Mexico, have been sent to Suffolk County.

“I am not linking the two,” Mr. Bishop said. “I am saying that is the only new thing I can cite, in this area of immigration, that might generate Ku Klux Klan activity.”

In fact, Robert J. Jones, who called himself the grand dragon of the Loyal White Knights, which is based in North Carolina, said in an interview that his organization was behind the Hampton Bays campaign and that it was motivated by the surge of immigrants entering the country.

“A lot of Americans are fed up with immigration right now,” he said. “This immigration problem, immigrants coming into America, is destroying this place.”

Similar efforts are underway around the country, Mr. Jones said. In Hampton Bays, Mr. Jones said, the work is being done by a 32-year-old “active exalted Cyclops,” a man he declined to identify but who, he said, lives in town, where he runs a klavern, or local chapter, that is one of three in New York State.

Several people, Mr. Jones said, had sent applications to an address, in Pelham, N.C., that is listed on the leaflets or had called a hotline listed on them.

“I have never seen the Klan expanding the way it is now,” he said.

Despite whatever success Mr. Jones might claim, the K.K.K. today is a feeble group, according to those who track hate groups. Klan enrollment nationwide stands at about 5,000 over more than a dozen groups, said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center. By comparison, the Klan had about four million members in the mid-1920s, when it was unified.

The Loyal White Knights, which was formed in 2012, is the largest Klan group in the country, Mr. Potok said, but the various groups are often squabbling and competing for members. He says the groups are using the immigration debate to gain attention.

“It’s almost as if they’re getting the message from the narrative that’s out there,” Mr. Potok said. “It’s opportunistic.”

Sister Mary Beth Moore, who runs Centro Corazon de Maria, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Hampton Bays, called the leafleting “a nasty thing,” and “distressing,” and yet another problem confronting local immigrants. Many immigrants live in poverty, occupy “the most modest housing stock” and fill the public schools with children who struggle to speak or read English, she said.

As their ranks have steadily increased in this hamlet of 13,000, the friction between foreign-born and longtime residents — mostly middle-class Long Islanders and retirees on fixed incomes — has become palpable.

“They are not accepted,” Sister Moore said. “There’s a tension, particularly in Hampton Bays, because it is the poorest of the Hamptons, and people here live modest lives. They feel put upon, because we have the largest population of Latinos.”

Anna Throne-Holst, the town supervisor of Southampton, said the leafleting was not “at all reflective of the community we live in.” But it cannot be brushed off, she added, and town leaders are considering holding a rally. “It’s certainly offensive,” she said.

That is how Andrea Londono, 17, took it. Her hands trembled as she stood outside her home on Thursday, holding the papers her father had found there days earlier.

Her father, Carlos, 58, came to the United States from Colombia in 1984, worked as dishwasher, then had construction jobs and bought the family’s neat stucco home here eight years ago. He is proud that Andrea is finishing high school with plans to study astrophysics in college.

The ink on the pamphlet was smudged, and the words faint. But Andrea clearly made out the crude sketch of three men, a Jew, an African-American and a Latino, above the words: “We want your jobs — We want your homes — We want your country.”

“That’s mean,” Ms. Londono said, standing alongside her sister Carina, 10, and their father in their driveway on Columbine Avenue. “It’s really stereotyping,” Andrea said, “and not at all like anyone I know.”


 
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9) Death of Man in Police Custody Is Ruled a Homicide
By BENJAMIN MUELLER

The New York City medical examiner announced on Friday that a man’s death in police custody while he was high on PCP was a homicide.

The man, Ronald Singleton, died from physical restraint by the police while he was in a state of “excited delirium” caused by PCP, or angel dust, the medical examiner said in a statement. Mr. Singleton was 45, according to a police report. An autopsy found that heart disease and obesity were contributing factors in his death, just after midnight on July 13.

Mr. Singleton was cursing and screaming in the rear seat of a taxi cab when the driver flagged down a police officer at the corner of East 51st Street and Fifth Avenue near St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the authorities said. Mr. Singleton then lashed out at the officer and tried to fight him after leaving the taxi, the police said, prompting officers to call for backup and members of a special unit to restrain Mr. Singleton by placing him in “a protective body wrap.”

Mr. Singleton was not placed under arrest, the police said, but was taken away as an emotionally disturbed person by emergency medical personnel. He went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance and was pronounced dead at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, the police said.

In declaring the manner of death a homicide, the medical examiner’s office is not suggesting a crime was committed, but is stating its conclusion that the intervention of the police played a role in the death.

The medical examiner’s ruling arrives at a time of heightened scrutiny for the New York Police Department, which has been buffeted by accusations of overly aggressive arrest tactics since a 43-year-old Staten Island man, Eric Garner, died on July 17 from compression of his chest and a police chokehold. His death, which came after officers tried to arrest him for selling untaxed cigarettes, was also ruled a homicide by the medical examiner.

The Staten Island district attorney, Daniel M. Donovan Jr., has said he would call a special grand jury that could bring charges against the officer who dragged Mr. Garner to the ground.

No officers have faced disciplinary action for Mr. Singleton’s death. The police said they would cooperate with an investigation into his death by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.


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10)  The Changing Face of Temporary Employment

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/upshot/the-changing-face-of-temporary-employment.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&abt=0002&abg=0

Temps aren’t just employees who sort mail and answer the boss’s phone.

The work of temping has changed vastly — today 42 percent of temporary workers labor in light industry or warehouses. And there are more of them. The number of workers employed through temp agencies has climbed to a new high — 2.87 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and they represent a record share of the nation’s work force, 2 percent.

Labor groups fret that the trend signals the decline of full-time and permanent jobs with good benefits. But what is happening with temp employment is no sharp break with the past.

Temp employment has traditionally followed the business cycle, though in an exaggerated way. Temps are disproportionately thrown out of work when there is a slowdown, but when the economy starts to pick up — with businesses still wary of committing to making permanent hires — they disproportionately hire temps.

More than five years into a recovery marked by halting growth, many businesses are still adding temp jobs rather than permanent ones. “This is a reflection of business uncertainty, that businesses need to be more responsive, and part of that is keeping their work force flexible,” said Steven Berchem, the chief operating officer of the American Staffing Association.

Mr. Berchem is reluctant to accept the government’s numbers. “Certainly staffing employment has grown, and it has returned to prerecession levels,” he said. “Whether it’s a record is still an open question. Our own set of numbers show substantial growth, but not at the level the B.L.S. has.”

Mr. Berchem plays down the growth and success of his industry partly because the more it grows the more heat it faces. “We still account for only 2 percent of the work force,” he said. “During the depths of the recession, we were much closer to 1 percent. We have never substantially exceeded 2 percent of the work force.”

One source of that heat is a worker advocacy group, the National Employment Law Project, which voices dismay about the strong growth in temp jobs. The group is releasing a report Sunday warning that temp work often means a pay cut and can be more dangerous than regular jobs. The report says median pay for temps is about $3.40 an hour less than for the typical private-sector worker. The report also says that 42 percent of temp jobs are light industrial — about twice the percentage of office and administration temp jobs — and has climbed from 28 percent in 1990.

“There is certainly a lot of evidence that many of these jobs are not good on health and safety and other working conditions,” said Rebecca Smith, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project.

According to a study of workers in Washington State published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, temps had substantially higher rates of injuries, especially in construction and manufacturing, than other workers. Moreover, they usually missed work longer because of those injuries — 40 days compared with 27 days for regular workers. Two other studies found that the injury rate for workers on the job for just one month — that is often the situation for temps — is more than twice that of workers employed for a year.

These statistics and some horrific accidents involving temp workers have drawn the attention of David Michaels, the director of the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “We’ve seen over and over again temporary workers killed or seriously injured on their first day at work,” Mr. Michaels said. “When we investigate, we see that most employers don’t treat temporary workers the way they treat their permanent employees — they don’t provide them with the training that is necessary.”

Last week his agency released a guide to employers called “Recommended Practices: Protecting Temporary Workers.” Among other things, the guide urges temp agencies to evaluate the host employer’s work site and to train agency staff to recognize safety and health hazards.

OSHA’s new guide for employers singles out the case of a 28-year-old man hired as an equipment cleaner at Tribe Mediterranean Foods, a hummus manufacturer in Taunton, Mass. While cleaning a food grinding machine, the temp worker, Daniel Collazo, came into contact with rotating parts and was pulled into the machine and crushed to death.

The agency links his death to the temporary nature of the job. In announcing a $702,300 fine, Mr. Michaels said, “The employer knew it needed to train these workers so they could protect themselves against just this type of hazard, but failed to do so.”Temp workers do complain about lack of training. Yvonne Jones, a 32-year-old mother of two, who temped for six months at an auto parts factory in Lorain, Ohio, said she received just 10 minutes of training and nearly no safety training when she was first assigned to a spot welding machine.

“I could have used more training,” she said. “Things messed up on the machine all the time.” She noted that the floor near her work station was often wet, and she feared slipping while carrying heavy motors. She said she was suddenly fired several days after she asked to go home one afternoon because of a migraine headache.

Mr. Berchem of the staffing association said worker safety was a priority for staffing firms.

Many employees praise temping, not just employers, he said. Pointing to a survey done by his group, he said 90 percent of temps say temping makes them more employable, and 49 percent say it helped them get their foot in the door for a permanent job.

But some temps are skeptical there will be a path to permanent work. David Fields, a forklift driver for four months at a warehouse in Gary, Ind., finds temp work less promising than he expected. He turned to temping after the auto parts store where he was the manager closed.

“Temp jobs really don’t do much for you,” he said, complaining about the lack of benefits. “I get only 20 to 25 hours a week — they keep telling me things are going to pick up.” Mr. Fields, 45, had started with 40 hours a week, but now his part-time hours make it hard for him to support his wife, who has returned to school, and their 8-year-old son.

“Everywhere I look for jobs today, it’s all temporary,” Mr. Fields said. “The temporary agencies have picked up all the contracts.”

Mr. Fields would certainly agree with one conclusion from the National Employment Law Project’s report: “Staffing work is one part of a larger story about the declining middle class in our country.”


 



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11) At Ferguson March, Call to Halt Traffic in Labor Day Highway Protest
By and

FERGUSON, Mo. — Activists on Saturday called for mass civil disobedience on the highways in and around this St. Louis suburb to protest the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer, with the leaders of one coalition encouraging supporters to stop their cars to tie up traffic on Labor Day.

The appeal came at a peaceful if at times tense march and rally on Saturday that drew what appeared to be well more than 1,000 demonstrators to some of the same Ferguson streets where the police clashed with protesters in the days after the killing of Michael Brown. Mr. Brown, 18, was shot Aug. 9 by Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department, and his bloody body lay on Canfield Drive for about four and a half hours before it was removed.Organizers at the rally called on demonstrators to drive on Interstate 70 and other area highways at 4:30 p.m. Monday, turn their hazard lights on and stop their vehicles for four and a half minutes to symbolize the four and a half hours that Mr. Brown’s body lay in the street.

“We’re going to tie it down, lock it down,” Anthony Shahid, one of the lead organizers of the rally, told supporters from the stage at a park. The following week, if the coalition’s demands were not met, including that Officer Wilson be fired and arrested on charges of murder, another four-minute traffic shutdown would occur on two days instead of just one, he said.

“I want the highways shut down,” he said of the Monday protest. “I know it’s a holiday, but it won’t be no good holiday.”

Mr. Shahid’s announcement was met with applause by many marchers, but it was unclear how many people would take part. Only a few hundred demonstrators were in the park when Mr. Shahid made the appeal, and another organizer suggested that the plan for Monday could change because the action was still under discussion. It was also unclear what the authorities intended to do in response to the civil disobedience plan.

“There will be an appropriate, measured response based on conditions, but we cannot discuss the specifics of operational plans,” said Mike O’Connell, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Public Safety.

The march and rally were organized by a coalition of black activists and leaders largely from the St. Louis region, including state legislators, lawyers, and representatives of the Nation of Islam, the N.A.A.C.P., the New Black Panther Party and the Green Party. Organizers with the group, called the Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Coalition, said they wanted Saturday’s event to be peaceful and had coordinated with city, county and police officials. They estimated the crowd at 10,000. For much of the event, the police had a light presence compared with the show of force seen at other protests.

“They’ve already seen the whole world look at the missteps that they made, how they handled the black community like an army going to war in Iraq,” said Akbar Muhammad, an organizer of the demonstration and a top aide to Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. “If they had any sense, they will handle it in a tactful manner.”

The march on Saturday showed how difficult it may be to direct the actions of a young, decentralized and assertive protest movement. A mile into Saturday’s demonstration, the march seemed to split, with some heading to a scheduled rally in a public park and others insisting that the marchers continue to the Ferguson police station. Few seemed to know whether the turn into the park was the plan all along or an unscheduled deviation, and several marchers began a chant of “Ain’t no justice in the park!”

“If they stop here a lot of people will feel misled,” said Trinette Buck, 40. She said that the younger protesters were not waiting on leadership, nor were they concerned about what might happen if things turned ugly at the police station.

“There is no fear anymore,” she said. “It’s either stand up or die.”

A few marchers began heading to the police department without waiting for official word, peeling off in small groups and walking along the shoulder for two miles of road, drawing supportive honks from cars along the way. By the time the main body of the march, as well as the demonstration’s leaders, arrived at the police station, well more than a 100 had already gathered and were chanting in a somewhat tense face-to-face confrontation with a line of police officers.

Shortly after 5 p.m., one of the marchers who had been taunting the police line was surrounded by law enforcement officers and was apparently placed under arrest. It was unclear why.


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12) Arundhati Roy: How Corporate Power Converted Wealth Into Philanthropy for Social Control
The new book, 'Capitalism: A Ghost Story,' explores the blurred connection between corporations and the foundations they endow.
By Arundhati Roy
AUGUST 27, 2014
http://www.alternet.org/books/arundhati-roy-how-corporate-power-converted-wealth-philanthropy-social-control?akid=12189.229473.ALYd_g&rd=1&src=newsletter1017538&t=9


The following is an excerpt from Arundhati Roy's new book, Capitalism: A Ghost Story, (Haymarket Books, 2014).

What follows in this essay might appear to some to be a somewhat harsh critique. On the other hand, in the tradition of honoring one’s adversaries, it could be read as an acknowledgment of the vision, flexibility, sophistication, and unwavering determination of those who have dedicated their lives to keeping the world safe for capitalism.

Their enthralling history, which has faded from contemporary memory, began in the United States in the early twentieth century when, kitted out legally in the form of endowed foundations, corporate philanthropy began to replace missionary activity as Capitalism’s (and Imperialism’s) road-opening and systems maintenance patrol.

Among the first foundations to be set up in the United States were the Carnegie Corporation, endowed in 1911 by profits from Carnegie Steel Company, and the Rockefeller Foundation, endowed in 1914 by J. D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Company. The Tatas and Ambanis of their time.

Some of the institutions financed, given seed money, or supported by the Rockefeller Foundation are the United Nations, the CIA, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), New York’s most fabulous Museum of Modern Art, and, of course, the Rockefeller Center in New York (where Diego Riviera’s mural had to be blasted off the wall because it mischievously depicted reprobate capitalists and a valiant Lenin; Free Speech had taken the day off ).

Rockefeller was America’s first billionaire and the world’s richest man. He was an abolitionist, a supporter of Abraham Lincoln, and a teetotaler. He believed his money was given to him by God, which must have been nice for him.

When corporate-endowed foundations first made their appearance in the United States, there was a fierce debate about their provenance, legality, and lack of accountability. People suggested that if companies had so much surplus money, they should raise the wages of their workers. (People made these outrageous suggestions in those days, even in America.) The idea of these foundations, so ordinary now, was in fact a leap of the business imagination. Non-tax-paying legal entities with massive resources and an almost unlimited brief—wholly unaccountable, wholly nontransparent— what better way to parlay economic wealth into political, social, and cultural capital, to turn money into power? What better way for usurers to use a minuscule percentage of their profits to run the world? How else would Bill Gates, who admittedly knows a thing or two about computers, find himself designing education, health, and agriculture policies, not just for the US government but for governments all over the world?

Over the years, as people witnessed some of the genuinely good work the foundations did (running public libraries, eradicating diseases)—the direct connection between corporations and the foundations they endowed began to blur. Eventually, it faded altogether. Now even those who consider themselves left wing are not shy to accept their largesse.

By the 1920s US capitalism had begun to look outward for raw materials and overseas markets. Foundations began to formulate the idea of global corporate governance. In 1924 the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations jointly created what is today the most powerful foreign policy pressure group in the world—the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which later came to be funded by the Ford Foundation as well. By 1947 the newly created CIA was supported by and working closely with the CFR. Over the years the CFR’s membership has included twenty-two US secretaries of state. There were five CFR members in the 1943 steering committee that planned the United Nations, and an $8.5 million grant from J. D. Rockefeller bought the land on which the United Nations’ New York headquarters stands.

All eleven of the World Bank’s presidents since 1946—men who have presented themselves as missionaries to the poor—have been members of the CFR. (The exception was George Woods. And he was a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and vice president of Chase Manhattan Bank.)

At Bretton Woods, the World Bank and IMF decided that the US dollar should be the reserve currency of the world, and that in order to enhance the penetration of global capital it would be necessary to universalize and standardize business practices in an open marketplace. It is toward that end that they spend a large amount of money promoting Good Governance (as long as they control the strings), the concept of the Rule of Law (provided they have a say in making the laws), and hundreds of anticorruption programs (to streamline the system they have put in place). Two of the most opaque, unaccountable organizations in the world go about demanding transparency and accountability from the governments of poorer countries.

Given that the World Bank has more or less directed the economic policies of the Third World, coercing and cracking open the market of country after country for global finance, you could say that corporate philanthropy has turned out to be the most visionary business of all time.

Corporate-endowed foundations administer, trade, and channel their power and place their chessmen on the chessboard through a system of elite clubs and think tanks, whose members overlap and move in and out through the revolving doors. Contrary to the various conspiracy theories in circulation, particularly among left-wing groups, there is nothing secret, satanic, or Freemason-like about this arrangement. It is not very different from the way corporations use shell companies and offshore accounts to transfer and administer their money—except that the currency is power, not money.

The transnational equivalent of the CFR is the Trilateral Commission, set up in 1973 by David Rockefeller, the former US national security adviser Zbignew Brzezinski (founder-member of the Afghan mujahidin, forefathers of the Taliban), the Chase Manhattan Bank, and some other private eminences. Its purpose was to create an enduring bond of friendship and cooperation between the elites of North America, Europe, and Japan. It has now become a pentalateral commission, because it includes members from China and India (Tarun Das of the CII; N. R. Narayana Murthy, ex-CEO of Infosys; Jamsheyd N. Godrej, managing director of Godrej; Jamshed J. Irani, director of Tata Sons; and Gautam Thapar, CEO of Avantha Group).

The Aspen Institute is an international club of local elites, businessmen, bureaucrats, and politicians, with franchises in several countries. Tarun Das is the president of the Aspen Institute, India. Gautam Thapar is chairman. Several senior officers of the McKinsey Global Institute (proposer of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor) are members of the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, and the Aspen Institute.

The Ford Foundation (liberal foil to the more conservative Rockefeller Foundation, though the two work together constantly) was set up in 1936. Though it is often underplayed, the Ford Foundation has a very clear, well-defined ideology and works extremely closely with the US State Department. Its project of deepening democracy and “good governance” is very much part of the Bretton Woods scheme of standardizing business practice and promoting efficiency in the free market. After the Second World War, when communists replaced fascists as the US Government’s Enemy Number One, new kinds of institutions were needed to deal with the Cold War. Ford funded RAND (Research and Development Corporation), a military think tank that began with weapons research for the US defense services. In 1952, to thwart “the persistent Communist effort to penetrate and disrupt free nations,” it established the Fund for the Republic, which then morphed into the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, whose brief was to wage the Cold War intelligently, without McCarthyite excesses. It is through this lens that we need to view the work that the Ford Foundation is doing with the millions of dollars it has invested in India—its funding of artists, filmmakers, and activists, its generous endowment of university courses and scholarships.

The Ford Foundation’s declared “goals for the future of mankind” include interventions in grassroots political movements locally and internationally. In the United States it provided millions in grants and loans to support the credit union movement that was pioneered by the department store owner Edward Filene in 1919. Filene believed in creating a mass consumption society of consumer goods by giving workers affordable access to credit—a radical idea at the time. Actually, only half of a radical idea, because the other half of what Filene believed in was a more equitable distribution of national income. Capitalists seized on the first half of Filene’s suggestion and, by disbursing “affordable” loans of tens of millions of dollars to working people, turned the US working class into people who are permanently in debt, running to catch up with their lifestyles.

Many years later, this idea has trickled down to the impoverished countryside of Bangladesh when Mohammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank brought microcredit to starving peasants with disastrous consequences. The poor of the subcontinent have always lived in debt, in the merciless grip of the local village usurer—the Baniya. But microfinance has corporatized that too. Microfinance companies in India are responsible for hundreds of suicides—two hundred people in Andhra Pradesh in 2010 alone. A national daily recently published a suicide note by an eighteen-year-old girl who was forced to hand over her last 150 rupees, her school fees, to bullying employees of the microfinance company. The note read, “Work hard and earn money. Do not take loans.”

There’s a lot of money in poverty, and a few Nobel Prizes too.

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13) More Workers Are Claiming ‘Wage Theft’
By

MIRA LOMA, Calif. — Week after week, Guadalupe Rangel worked seven days straight, sometimes 11 hours a day, unloading dining room sets, trampolines, television stands and other imports from Asia that would soon be shipped to Walmart stores.

Even though he often clocked 70 hours a week at the Schneider warehouse here, he was never paid time-and-a-half overtime, he said. And now, having joined a lawsuit involving hundreds of warehouse workers, Mr. Rangel stands to receive more than $20,000 in back pay as part of a recent $21 million legal settlement with Schneider, a national trucking company.

“Sometimes I’d work 60, even 90 days in a row,” said Mr. Rangel, a soft-spoken immigrant from Mexico. “They never paid overtime.”The lawsuit is part of a flood of recent cases — brought in California and across the nation — that accuse employers of violating minimum wage and overtime laws, erasing work hours and wrongfully taking employees’ tips. Worker advocates call these practices “wage theft,” insisting it has become far too prevalent.

Some federal and state officials agree. They assert that more companies are violating wage laws than ever before, pointing to the record number of enforcement actions they have pursued. They complain that more employers — perhaps motivated by fierce competition or a desire for higher profits — are flouting wage laws.

Many business groups counter that government officials have drummed up a flurry of wage enforcement actions, largely to score points with union allies. If anything, employers have become more scrupulous in complying with wage laws, the groups say, in response to the much publicized lawsuits about so-called off-the-clock work that were filed against Walmart and other large companies a decade ago.

Here in California, a federal appeals court ruled last week that FedEx had in effect committed wage theft by insisting that its drivers were independent contractors rather than employees. FedEx orders many drivers to work 10 hours a day, but does not pay them overtime, which is required only for employees. FedEx said it planned to appeal.

Julie Su, the state labor commissioner, recently ordered a janitorial company in Fremont to pay $332,675 in back pay and penalties to 41 workers who cleaned 17 supermarkets. She found that the company forced employees to sign blank time sheets, which it then used to record inaccurate, minimal hours of work.David Weil, the director of the federal Labor Department’s wage and hour division, says wage theft is surging because of underlying changes in the nation’s business structure. The increased use of franchise operators, subcontractors and temp agencies leads to more employers being squeezed on costs and more cutting corners, he said. A result, he added, is that the companies on top can deny any knowledge of wage violations.

“We have a change in the structure of work that is then compounded by a falling level of what is viewed as acceptable in the workplace in terms of how you treat people and how you regard the law,” Mr. Weil said.

His agency has uncovered nearly $1 billion in illegally unpaid wages since 2010. He noted that the victimized workers were disproportionately immigrants.

Guadalupe Salazar, a cashier at a McDonald’s in Oakland, complained that her paychecks repeatedly missed a few hours of work time and overtime pay. Frustrated about this, she has joined one of seven lawsuits against McDonald’s and several of its franchise operators, asserting that workers were cheated out of overtime, had hours erased from timecards and had to work off the clock.

“Basically every time that I worked overtime, it didn’t show up in my paycheck,” Ms. Salazar said. “This is time that I would rather be with my family, and they just take it away.”

Business advocates see a hidden agenda in these lawsuits. For example, the lawsuit against Schneider — which owns a gigantic warehouse here that serves Walmart exclusively — coincides with unions pressuring Walmart to raise wages. The lawyers and labor groups behind the lawsuit have sought to hold Walmart jointly liable in the case.

Walmart says that it seeks to ensure that its contractors comply with all laws, and that it was not responsible for Schneider’s employment practices. Schneider said it “manages its operations with integrity,” noting that it had hired various subcontractors to oversee the loading and unloading crews.

Business groups note that the lawsuits against McDonald’s have been coordinated with the fast-food workers’ movement demanding a $15 wage. “This is a classic special-interest campaign by labor unions,” said Stephen J. Caldeira, president of the International Franchise Association. In legal papers, McDonald’s denied any liability in Ms. Salazar’s case, and the Oakland franchisee insisted that Ms. Salazar had failed to establish illegal actions by the restaurant.Lee Schreter, co-chairwoman of the wage and hour practice group at Littler Mendelson, a law firm that represents employers, said wage theft was not increasing, adding that many companies had become more vigilant about compliance. But that has not stopped lawyers from bringing wage theft complaints because of the potential payoff, Ms. Schreter said. “These are opportunistic lawsuits,” she said.

Michael Rubin, one of the lawyers who sued Schneider, disagreed, saying there are many sound wage claims. “The reason there is so much wage theft is many employers think there is little chance of getting caught,” he said.

Commissioner Su of California said wage theft harmed not just low-wage workers. “My agency has found more wages being stolen from workers in California than any time in history,” she said. “This has spread to multiple industries across many sectors. It’s affected not just minimum-wage workers, but also middle-class workers.”

Many other states are seeing wage-theft cases. New York’s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, has recovered $17 million in wage claims over the past three years. “I’m amazed at how petty and abusive some of these practices are,” he said. “Cutting corners is increasingly seen as a sign of libertarianism rather than the theft that it really is.”

In Nashville last February, nine housekeepers protested outside a DoubleTree hotel because the subcontractor that employed them had failed to pay a month’s wages. “The contractor said they didn’t have the money, that the hotel hadn’t paid them,” said Natalia Polvadera, a housekeeper. “We went to the hotel manager — he showed receipts that they had paid the contractor.”

Nonetheless, the protests persuaded DoubleTree to pay the $12,000 in wages owed.

Mr. Weil said some executives had urged him to increase enforcement because they dislike being underbid by unscrupulous employers.

His agency has begun cracking down on retaliation against workers who complain, suing a Texas company that fired a janitor when he refused to sign a statement that falsely said he had already received back wages due him from a Labor Department investigation.

“This is just not acceptable,” Mr. Weil said. “You can’t threaten people to lose their jobs because they are asserting rights that go back 75 years.”

Dabrali Jimenez contributed reporting from New York.


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14) Israel Claims Nearly 1,000 Acres of West Bank Land Near Bethlehem
By ISABEL KERSHNER

JERUSALEM — Israel laid claim on Sunday to nearly 1,000 acres of West Bank land in a Jewish settlement bloc near Bethlehem — a step that could herald significant Israeli construction in the area — defying Palestinian demands for a halt in settlement expansion.

Peace Now, an Israeli group that opposes the construction of settlements in the West Bank, said that the action on Sunday might be the largest single appropriation of West Bank land in decades and that it could “dramatically change the reality” in the area.

Palestinians aspire to form a state in the lands that Israel conquered in 1967.

Israeli officials said the political directive to expedite a survey of the status of the land came after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in June while hitchhiking in that area. In July, the Israeli authorities arrested a Palestinian who was accused of being the prime mover in the kidnapping and killing of the teenagers. The timing of the land appropriation suggested that it was meant as a kind of compensation for the settlers and punishment for the Palestinians.

The land, which is near the small Jewish settlement of Gvaot in the Etzion bloc south of Jerusalem, has now officially been declared “state land,” as opposed to land privately owned by Palestinians, clearing the way for the potential approval of Israeli building plans there.

But the mayor of the nearby Palestinian town of Surif, Ahmad Lafi, said the land belonged to Palestinian families. He told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa that Israeli Army forces and personnel posted orders early Sunday announcing the seizure of land that was planted with olive and forest trees in Surif and the nearby villages of Al-Jaba’a and Wadi Fukin.

Interested parties have 45 days in which to register objections.

The kidnapping of the teenagers prompted an Israeli military clampdown in the West Bank against Hamas, the Islamic group that dominates Gaza and that Israel said was behind the abductions. The subsequent tensions along the Israel-Gaza border erupted into a 50-day war that ended last week with an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire.

The land appropriation has quickly turned attention back to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and exposed the contradictory visions in the Israeli government that hamper the prospects of any broader Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, condemned the announcement and called for a reversal of the land claim, saying that it would “further deteriorate the situation.”

Though Israel says that it intends to keep the Etzion settlement bloc under any permanent agreement with the Palestinians and that most recent peace plans have involved land swaps, most countries consider Israeli settlements to be a violation of international law. The continued construction has also been a constant source of tension between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as Israel and its most important Western allies.

A State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the United States urged Israel to reverse its decision, calling it “counterproductive to Israel’s stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians.”

The last round of American-brokered peace talks broke down in April. Israel suspended the troubled talks after Mr. Abbas forged a reconciliation pact with the Palestinian Authority’s rival, Hamas, which rejects Israel’s right to exist. American officials also said that Israel’s repeated announcements of new settlement construction contributed to the collapse of the talks.

Yair Lapid, Israel’s finance minister, who has spoken out in favor of a new diplomatic process, told reporters on Sunday that he “was not aware of the decision” about the land around Gvaot and had instructed his team to look into it. “We are against any swift changes in the West Bank right now because we need to go back to some kind of process there,” he said.

But Yariv Oppenheimer, general director of Peace Now, said that instead of strengthening the Palestinian moderates, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel “turns his back on the Palestinian Authority and sticks a political knife in the back” of Mr. Abbas, referring to the latest land appropriation.

“Since the 1980s, we don’t remember a declaration of such dimensions,” Mr. Oppenheimer told Israel Radio.
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15) Baby’s Drug Co-Pay Jumps, and a Health Reporter Is Stumped
By Charles Ornstein

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/upshot/babys-drug-co-pay-jumps-and-a-health-reporter-is-stumped.html?ref=business&abt=0002&abg=0

It’s not easy being an educated health care consumer.

I was reminded of this when I went to refill a prescription this month for an asthma and allergy medication for my 9-month-old son, Holden.

The first time I filled his prescription for Montelukast granules — the generic version of Singulair from Merck — my insurance co-payment was $15. A month later, the co-payment had risen to $30 (and my insurance was paying $85.94, rather than $118.53).

Why? My insurance coverage hadn’t changed. My son’s prescription hadn’t changed. Our pharmacy was the same. Why was I now asked to pay twice as much out of pocket?

I asked the CVS pharmacist. This happens all the time, she replied. Call the insurance company to find out why.

Consumers are navigating a health care system in which they pay an increasing share of the cost but often have insufficient information to make the right decisions. They assume that pharmacies are charging them the right co-payments, that insurance companies are paying the correct share. But as health plans’ rules for prescription drugs become more complicated, it’s harder to tell.

It used to be that generic drugs had one common co-pay and name-brand drugs another. But that’s not always the case anymore, as with my plan. Some generic drugs are expensive, and consumers sometimes pay a higher share of their cost, more akin to what they would pay for a name brand.

Pam, the first customer service agent with whom I spoke at my insurer, Oxford Health Plans, a division of UnitedHealthcare, told me that it looked as if there was a mistake with the refill, and that I was entitled to a $15 refund. She gave me a tracking number and told me to call back in two to five business days.

Dutifully, I did so, and talked to another agent, named Mike. He told me that there had been a mistake, but that it was with the first prescription. The co-pay should have been $30, not $15, but as a courtesy because of its error, the plan would not seek to recoup the money. The baby’s prescription was on a higher-cost tier because it was for granules of the drug, essentially a powdered version, and not for tablets, which are in the lowest-cost tier.

But a look at Oxford’s website and at its drug list, also known as a formulary, revealed that Montelukast is listed as a Tier 1 drug, with the lowest cost. No distinction is made between tablets and powder.

Insurance plans with multiple cost tiers have become more prevalent in recent years, as prescription drug costs have increased over all. In 2000, nearly half of workers with private insurance had two price categories — typically, one for generics, the other for name-brand drugs, according to a survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust. An additional 22 percent of covered workers paid the same price for all drugs.

By 2013, though, such arrangements had practically disappeared. More than eight in 10 workers had private insurance plans with three or more tiers of drug prices.
Continue reading the main story

But my co-payments may not be the same as yours. Each insurance company — and employer — sets its own list of approved drugs and out-of-pocket costs. Some are fixed amounts and others are percentages of a drug’s cost, sometimes called coinsurance. Medicare prescription drug plans also have their own rules.

Another change is that generic drugs aren’t as cheap as they used to be. An article in The New York Times in July detailed how the cost of some generic drugs had doubled recently, as suppliers left the market and reduced competition. Other reports have found similar patterns.

Some insurance companies, including mine, have increased the share that consumers pay for more expensive generic drugs, placing them on tiers once reserved for name-brand drugs. Your health plan should have a list on its website.

I wasn’t satisfied with the conflicting answers about Holden’s prescription. I could have asked to speak with a supervisor and then a supervisor’s supervisor. Instead, I emailed the health plan’s representatives, telling them that I was a reporter and planned to write about this experience.

Pretty soon I received a call from a manager and her supervisor, offering me an apology and telling me that, based on the recordings of my interactions with Oxford staff members, there were “opportunities for improvement.”

They said that Mike, the second customer service agent, was correct and that the drug dispensed initially was coded incorrectly by Oxford’s pharmacy benefits manager — another division of UnitedHealthcare — and should have been classified as a higher-cost, Tier 2 drug. They also called my son’s doctor, and he said my son could switch to the tablet version (with the lower co-pay) and I could crush it myself. Or, they said, I could apply for an exemption to the higher co-payment, citing the confusion.

I’m not sure that every consumer gets such a call from supervisors, so I told them that I didn’t want to be treated any differently because I was a reporter. A few days later, my request for an exemption to the higher co-payment was denied. I was given instructions for how I could appeal.

Mary McElrath-Jones, a UnitedHealthcare spokeswoman, said in an email: “Although we strive for perfection when entering hundreds of NDC [drug] codes and testing our system for accuracy, we sometimes find errors like the one you brought to our attention. And just as we have in this instance, we act quickly to resolve the issue and notify our members.”

Mistakes can happen in any industry. But what I still can’t understand is why Montelukast is listed as Tier 1 in the company’s online formulary. Shouldn’t consumers get accurate information if they spend the time to research a drug’s cost? The answer wasn’t exactly encouraging.

“Our online prescription drug list (PDL) — while comprehensive — is not all encompassing for every drug and classification for all manufacturers,” Ms. McElrath-Jones wrote. “It is published twice per year and includes the top 500 most commonly used drugs. It is a great first stop for our members who wish to know if a particular drug is included in our formulary. For a more customized pharmacy tool, Oxford and UnitedHealthcare members can get specific drug pricing” online.

Many consumers aren’t up for this fuss. They either throw up their hands and pay what’s asked or turn to experts like Lorie Gardner, a registered nurse and the chief executive of Healthlink Advocates Inc., a paid service that helps patients navigate the health care system. “It’s a maze, a complete maze trying to figure out which end is up,” Ms. Gardner said. “There are errors everywhere, unfortunately.”

If you find yourself in such a predicament, what should you do? First, be prepared. Sign up for an account online with your health insurance company, review your benefits and review your claims. You’ll be amazed by how much — and sometimes how little — your health insurer pays for various treatments and drugs. Second, if you encounter a problem, ask questions. While you may have to pay the bill at the pharmacy if you want to leave with the prescription, you should follow up with your health plan and ask to speak with a supervisor.

Finally, if the stakes are high enough, consider a health advocate like Ms. Gardner. Some advocacy firms are run by former health insurance executives, who help navigate the roadblocks that their former companies have erected.

But, ultimately, you may well end up doing what I did: paying the higher fee with gritted teeth and gaining a new appreciation of how confusing our health care system really is.

Charles Ornstein is a senior reporter for ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. The Upshot provides news, analysis and graphics about politics, policy and everyday life. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND
ONGOING CAMPAIGNS


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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
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 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

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

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

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Wealth Inequality in America

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

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

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Read the transcription of hero Bradley Manning's 35-page statement explaining why he leaked "state secrets" to WikiLeaks.

March 1, 2013

Alternet

The statement was read by Pfc. Bradley Manning at a providence inquiry for his formal plea of guilty to one specification as charged and nine specifications for lesser included offenses. He pled not guilty to 12 other specifications. This rush transcript was taken by journalist Alexa O'Brien at Thursday's pretrial hearing and first appeared on Salon.com.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/bradley-mannings-surprising-statement-court-details-why-he-made-his-historic?akid=10129.229473.UZvQfK&rd=1&src=newsletter802922&t=7

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You Have the Right to Remain Silent: NLG Guide to Law Enforcement Encounters

Posted 1 day ago on July 27, 2012, 10:28 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

Occupy Wall Street is a nonviolent movement for social and economic justice, but in recent days disturbing reports have emerged of Occupy-affiliated activists being targeted by US law enforcement, including agents from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. To help ensure Occupiers and allied activists know their rights when encountering law enforcement, we are publishing in full the National Lawyers Guild's booklet: You Have the Right to Remain Silent. The NLG provides invaluable support to the Occupy movement and other activists – please click here to support the NLG.

We strongly encourage all Occupiers to read and share the information provided below. We also recommend you enter the NLG's national hotline number (888-654-3265) into your cellphone (if you have one) and keep a copy handy. This information is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact the NLG or a criminal defense attorney immediately if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.

You Have the Right to Remain Silent: A Know Your Rights Guide for Law Enforcement Encounters

What Rights Do I Have?

Whether or not you're a citizen, you have rights under the United States Constitution. The Fifth Amendment gives every person the right to remain silent: not to answer questions asked by a police officer or government agent. The Fourth Amendment restricts the government's power to enter and search your home or workplace, although there are many exceptions and new laws have expanded the government's power to conduct surveillance. The First Amendment protects your right to speak freely and to advocate for social change. However, if you are a non-citizen, the Department of Homeland Security may target you based on your political activities.

Standing Up For Free Speech

The government's crusade against politically-active individuals is intended to disrupt and suppress the exercise of time-honored free speech activities, such as boycotts, protests, grassroots organizing and solidarity work. Remember that you have the right to stand up to the intimidation tactics of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials who, with political motives, are targeting organizing and free speech activities. Informed resistance to these tactics and steadfast defense of your and others' rights can bring positive results. Each person who takes a courageous stand makes future resistance to government oppression easier for all. The National Lawyers Guild has a long tradition of standing up to government repression. The organization itself was labeled a "subversive" group during the McCarthy Era and was subject to FBI surveillance and infiltration for many years. Guild attorneys have defended FBI-targeted members of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement. The NLG exposed FBI surveillance, infiltration and disruption tactics that were detailed during the 1975-76 COINTELPRO hearings. In 1989 the NLG prevailed in a lawsuit on behalf of several activist organizations, including the Guild, that forced the FBI to expose the extent to which it had been spying on activist movements. Under the settlement, the FBI turned over roughly 400,000 pages of its files on the Guild, which are now available at the Tamiment Library at New York University.

What if FBI Agents or Police Contact Me?

What if an agent or police officer comes to the door?

Do not invite the agents or police into your home. Do not answer any questions. Tell the agent that you do not wish to talk with him or her. You can state that your lawyer will contact them on your behalf. You can do this by stepping outside and pulling the door behind you so that the interior of your home or office is not visible, getting their contact information or business cards and then returning inside. They should cease questioning after this. If the agent or officer gives a reason for contacting you, take notes and give the information to your attorney. Anything you say, no matter how seemingly harmless or insignificant, may be used against you or others in the future. Lying to or misleading a federal agent is a crime. The more you speak, the more opportunity for federal law enforcement to find something you said (even if not intentionally) false and assert that you lied to a federal officer.

Do I have to answer questions?

You have the constitutional right to remain silent. It is not a crime to refuse to answer questions. You do not have to talk to anyone, even if you have been arrested or are in jail. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to consult an attorney. Once you make the request to speak to a lawyer, do not say anything else. The Supreme Court recently ruled that answering law enforcement questions may be taken as a waiver of your right to remain silent, so it is important that you assert your rights and maintain them. Only a judge can order you to answer questions. There is one exception: some states have "stop and identify" statutes which require you to provide identity information or your name if you have been detained on reasonable suspicion that you may have committed a crime. A lawyer in your state can advise you of the status of these requirements where you reside.

Do I have to give my name?

As above, in some states you can be detained or arrested for merely refusing to give your name. And in any state, police do not always follow the law, and refusing to give your name may make them suspicious or more hostile and lead to your arrest, even without just cause, so use your judgment. Giving a false name could in some circumstances be a crime.

Do I need a lawyer?

You have the right to talk to a lawyer before you decide whether to answer questions from law enforcement. It is a good idea to talk to a lawyer if you are considering answering any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer present during any interview. The lawyer's job is to protect your rights. Once you tell the agent that you want to talk to a lawyer, he or she should stop trying to question you and should make any further contact through your lawyer. If you do not have a lawyer, you can still tell the officer you want to speak to one before answering questions. Remember to get the name, agency and telephone number of any investigator who visits you, and give that information to your lawyer. The government does not have to provide you with a free lawyer unless you are charged with a crime, but the NLG or another organization may be able to help you find a lawyer for free or at a reduced rate.

If I refuse to answer questions or say I want a lawyer, won't it seem like I have something to hide?

Anything you say to law enforcement can be used against you and others. You can never tell how a seemingly harmless bit of information might be used or manipulated to hurt you or someone else. That is why the right not to talk is a fundamental right under the Constitution. Keep in mind that although law enforcement agents are allowed to lie to you, lying to a government agent is a crime. Remaining silent is not. The safest things to say are "I am going to remain silent," "I want to speak to my lawyer," and "I do not consent to a search." It is a common practice for law enforcement agents to try to get you to waive your rights by telling you that if you have nothing to hide you would talk or that talking would "just clear things up." The fact is, if they are questioning you, they are looking to incriminate you or someone you may know, or they are engaged in political intelligence gathering. You should feel comfortable standing firm in protection and defense of your rights and refusing to answer questions.

Can agents search my home or office?

You do not have to let police or agents into your home or office unless they have and produce a valid search warrant. A search warrant is a written court order that allows the police to conduct a specified search. Interfering with a warrantless search probably will not stop it and you might get arrested. But you should say "I do not consent to a search," and call a criminal defense lawyer or the NLG. You should be aware that a roommate or guest can legally consent to a search of your house if the police believe that person has the authority to give consent, and your employer can consent to a search of your workspace without your permission.

What if agents have a search warrant?

If you are present when agents come for the search, you can ask to see the warrant. The warrant must specify in detail the places to be searched and the people or things to be taken away. Tell the agents you do not consent to the search so that they cannot go beyond what the warrant authorizes. Ask if you are allowed to watch the search; if you are allowed to, you should. Take notes, including names, badge numbers, what agency each officer is from, where they searched and what they took. If others are present, have them act as witnesses to watch carefully what is happening. If the agents ask you to give them documents, your computer, or anything else, look to see if the item is listed in the warrant. If it is not, do not consent to them taking it without talking to a lawyer. You do not have to answer questions. Talk to a lawyer first. (Note: If agents present an arrest warrant, they may only perform a cursory visual search of the premises to see if the person named in the arrest warrant is present.)

Do I have to answer questions if I have been arrested?

No. If you are arrested, you do not have to answer any questions. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to assert your right to remain silent. Ask for a lawyer right away. Do not say anything else. Repeat to every officer who tries to talk to or question you that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer. You should always talk to a lawyer before you decide to answer any questions.

What if I speak to government agents anyway?

Even if you have already answered some questions, you can refuse to answer other questions until you have a lawyer. If you find yourself talking, stop. Assert that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer.

What if the police stop me on the street?

Ask if you are free to go. If the answer is yes, consider just walking away. If the police say you are not under arrest, but are not free to go, then you are being detained. The police can pat down the outside of your clothing if they have reason to suspect you might be armed and dangerous. If they search any more than this, say clearly, "I do not consent to a search." They may keep searching anyway. If this happens, do not resist because you can be charged with assault or resisting arrest. You do not have to answer any questions. You do not have to open bags or any closed container. Tell the officers you do not consent to a search of your bags or other property.

What if police or agents stop me in my car?

Keep your hands where the police can see them. If you are driving a vehicle, you must show your license, registration and, in some states, proof of insurance. You do not have to consent to a search. But the police may have legal grounds to search your car anyway. Clearly state that you do not consent. Officers may separate passengers and drivers from each other to question them, but no one has to answer any questions.

What if I am treated badly by the police or the FBI?

Write down the officer's badge number, name or other identifying information. You have a right to ask the officer for this information. Try to find witnesses and their names and phone numbers. If you are injured, seek medical attention and take pictures of the injuries as soon as you can. Call a lawyer as soon as possible.

What if the police or FBI threaten me with a grand jury subpoena if I don't answer their questions?

A grand jury subpoena is a written order for you to go to court and testify about information you may have. It is common for the FBI to threaten you with a subpoena to get you to talk to them. If they are going to subpoena you, they will do so anyway. You should not volunteer to speak just because you are threatened with a subpoena. You should consult a lawyer.

What if I receive a grand jury subpoena?

Grand jury proceedings are not the same as testifying at an open court trial. You are not allowed to have a lawyer present (although one may wait in the hallway and you may ask to consult with him or her after each question) and you may be asked to answer questions about your activities and associations. Because of the witness's limited rights in this situation, the government has frequently used grand jury subpoenas to gather information about activists and political organizations. It is common for the FBI to threaten activists with a subpoena in order to elicit information about their political views and activities and those of their associates. There are legal grounds for stopping ("quashing") subpoenas, and receiving one does not necessarily mean that you are suspected of a crime. If you do receive a subpoena, call the NLG National Hotline at 888-NLG-ECOL (888-654-3265) or call a criminal defense attorney immediately.

The government regularly uses grand jury subpoena power to investigate and seek evidence related to politically-active individuals and social movements. This practice is aimed at prosecuting activists and, through intimidation and disruption, discouraging continued activism.

Federal grand jury subpoenas are served in person. If you receive one, it is critically important that you retain the services of an attorney, preferably one who understands your goals and, if applicable, understands the nature of your political work, and has experience with these issues. Most lawyers are trained to provide the best legal defense for their client, often at the expense of others. Beware lawyers who summarily advise you to cooperate with grand juries, testify against friends, or cut off contact with your friends and political activists. Cooperation usually leads to others being subpoenaed and investigated. You also run the risk of being charged with perjury, a felony, should you omit any pertinent information or should there be inconsistencies in your testimony.

Frequently prosecutors will offer "use immunity," meaning that the prosecutor is prohibited from using your testimony or any leads from it to bring charges against you. If a subsequent prosecution is brought, the prosecutor bears the burden of proving that all of its evidence was obtained independent of the immunized testimony. You should be aware, however, that they will use anything you say to manipulate associates into sharing more information about you by suggesting that you have betrayed confidences.

In front of a grand jury you can "take the Fifth" (exercise your right to remain silent). However, the prosecutor may impose immunity on you, which strips you of Fifth Amendment protection and subjects you to the possibility of being cited for contempt and jailed if you refuse to answer further. In front of a grand jury you have no Sixth Amendment right to counsel, although you can consult with a lawyer outside the grand jury room after each question.

What if I don't cooperate with the grand jury?

If you receive a grand jury subpoena and elect to not cooperate, you may be held in civil contempt. There is a chance that you may be jailed or imprisoned for the length of the grand jury in an effort to coerce you to cooperate. Regular grand juries sit for a basic term of 18 months, which can be extended up to a total of 24 months. It is lawful to hold you in order to coerce your cooperation, but unlawful to hold you as a means of punishment. In rare instances you may face criminal contempt charges.

What If I Am Not a Citizen and the DHS Contacts Me?

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and has been renamed and reorganized into: 1. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS); 2. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP); and 3. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All three bureaus will be referred to as DHS for the purposes of this pamphlet.

? Assert your rights. If you do not demand your rights or if you sign papers waiving your rights, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may deport you before you see a lawyer or an immigration judge. Never sign anything without reading, understanding and knowing the consequences of signing it.

? Talk to a lawyer. If possible, carry with you the name and telephone number of an immigration lawyer who will take your calls. The immigration laws are hard to understand and there have been many recent changes. DHS will not explain your options to you. As soon as you encounter a DHS agent, call your attorney. If you can't do it right away, keep trying. Always talk to an immigration lawyer before leaving the U.S. Even some legal permanent residents can be barred from returning.

Based on today's laws, regulations and DHS guidelines, non-citizens usually have the following rights, no matter what their immigration status. This information may change, so it is important to contact a lawyer. The following rights apply to non-citizens who are inside the U.S. Non-citizens at the border who are trying to enter the U.S. do not have all the same rights.

Do I have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any DHS questions or signing any DHS papers?

Yes. You have the right to call a lawyer or your family if you are detained, and you have the right to be visited by a lawyer in detention. You have the right to have your attorney with you at any hearing before an immigration judge. You do not have the right to a government-appointed attorney for immigration proceedings, but if you have been arrested, immigration officials must show you a list of free or low cost legal service providers.

Should I carry my green card or other immigration papers with me?

If you have documents authorizing you to stay in the U.S., you must carry them with you. Presenting false or expired papers to DHS may lead to deportation or criminal prosecution. An unexpired green card, I-94, Employment Authorization Card, Border Crossing Card or other papers that prove you are in legal status will satisfy this requirement. If you do not carry these papers with you, you could be charged with a crime. Always keep a copy of your immigration papers with a trusted family member or friend who can fax them to you, if need be. Check with your immigration lawyer about your specific case.

Am I required to talk to government officers about my immigration history?

If you are undocumented, out of status, a legal permanent resident (green card holder), or a citizen, you do not have to answer any questions about your immigration history. (You may want to consider giving your name; see above for more information about this.) If you are not in any of these categories, and you are being questioned by a DHS or FBI agent, then you may create problems with your immigration status if you refuse to provide information requested by the agent. If you have a lawyer, you can tell the agent that your lawyer will answer questions on your behalf. If answering questions could lead the agent to information that connects you with criminal activity, you should consider refusing to talk to the agent at all.

If I am arrested for immigration violations, do I have the right to a hearing before an immigration judge to defend myself against deportation charges?

Yes. In most cases only an immigration judge can order you deported. But if you waive your rights or take "voluntary departure," agreeing to leave the country, you could be deported without a hearing. If you have criminal convictions, were arrested at the border, came to the U.S. through the visa waiver program or have been ordered deported in the past, you could be deported without a hearing. Contact a lawyer immediately to see if there is any relief for you.

Can I call my consulate if I am arrested?

Yes. Non-citizens arrested in the U.S. have the right to call their consulate or to have the police tell the consulate of your arrest. The police must let your consulate visit or speak with you if consular officials decide to do so. Your consulate might help you find a lawyer or offer other help. You also have the right to refuse help from your consulate.

What happens if I give up my right to a hearing or leave the U.S. before the hearing is over?

You could lose your eligibility for certain immigration benefits, and you could be barred from returning to the U.S. for a number of years. You should always talk to an immigration lawyer before you decide to give up your right to a hearing.

What should I do if I want to contact DHS?

Always talk to a lawyer before contacting DHS, even on the phone. Many DHS officers view "enforcement" as their primary job and will not explain all of your options to you.

What Are My Rights at Airports?

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is illegal for law enforcement to perform any stops, searches, detentions or removals based solely on your race, national origin, religion, sex or ethnicity.

If I am entering the U.S. with valid travel papers can a U.S. customs agent stop and search me?

Yes. Customs agents have the right to stop, detain and search every person and item.

Can my bags or I be searched after going through metal detectors with no problem or after security sees that my bags do not contain a weapon?

Yes. Even if the initial screen of your bags reveals nothing suspicious, the screeners have the authority to conduct a further search of you or your bags.

If I am on an airplane, can an airline employee interrogate me or ask me to get off the plane?

The pilot of an airplane has the right to refuse to fly a passenger if he or she believes the passenger is a threat to the safety of the flight. The pilot's decision must be reasonable and based on observations of you, not stereotypes.

What If I Am Under 18?

Do I have to answer questions?

No. Minors too have the right to remain silent. You cannot be arrested for refusing to talk to the police, probation officers, or school officials, except in some states you may have to give your name if you have been detained.

What if I am detained?

If you are detained at a community detention facility or Juvenile Hall, you normally must be released to a parent or guardian. If charges are filed against you, in most states you are entitled to counsel (just like an adult) at no cost.

Do I have the right to express political views at school?

Public school students generally have a First Amendment right to politically organize at school by passing out leaflets, holding meetings, etc., as long as those activities are not disruptive and do not violate legitimate school rules. You may not be singled out based on your politics, ethnicity or religion.

Can my backpack or locker be searched?

School officials can search students' backpacks and lockers without a warrant if they reasonably suspect that you are involved in criminal activity or carrying drugs or weapons. Do not consent to the police or school officials searching your property, but do not physically resist or you may face criminal charges.

Disclaimer

This booklet is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact an attorney if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.

NLG National Hotline for Activists Contacted by the FBI

888-NLG-ECOL

(888-654-3265)

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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



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"A Child's View from Gaza: Palestinian Children's Art and the Fight Against

Censorship" book

https://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=25

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WITNESS GAZA

http://www.witnessgaza.com/

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The Battle Is Still On To

FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!

The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610

www.laboractionmumia.org

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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT! FREE KEVIN COOPER!

Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper

Chronicle Editorial

Monday, December 13, 2010

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL

Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's

death row!

http://www.savekevincooper.org/

http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255

URGENT ACTION APPEAL

- From Amnesty International USA

17 December 2010

Click here to take action online:

http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&\

b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084

To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to

http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success

For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):

http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf

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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work

The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's

work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown

on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l

Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected

over the past nine years.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl

Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial

support to carry out its work.

To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to

http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html

and follow the simple instructions.

Thank you for your generosity!

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D. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:

[Some of these videos are embeded on the BAUAW website:

http://bauaw.blogspot.com/ or bauaw.org ...bw]

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Prison vs School: The Tour 

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


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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

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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

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NYC RESTAURANT WORKERS DANCE & SING FOR A WAGE HIKE

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

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On Gun Control, Martin Luther King, the Deacons of Defense and the history of Black Liberation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzYKisvBN1o&feature=player_embedded

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Fukushima Never Again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU-Z4VLDGxU

"Fukushima, Never Again" tells the story of the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns in north east Japan in March of 2011 and exposes the cover-up by Tepco and the Japanese government.

This is the first film that interviews the Mothers Of Fukushima, nuclear power experts and trade unionists who are fighting for justice and the protection of the children and the people of Japan and the world. The residents and citizens were forced to buy their own geiger counters and radiation dosimeters in order to test their communities to find out if they were in danger.

The government said contaminated soil in children's school grounds was safe and then

when the people found out it was contaminated and removed the top soil, the government and TEPCO refused to remove it from the school grounds.

It also relays how the nuclear energy program for "peaceful atoms" was brought to Japan under the auspices of the US military occupation and also the criminal cover-up of the safety dangers of the plant by TEPCO and GE management which built the plant in Fukushima. It also interviews Kei Sugaoka, the GE nulcear plant inspector from the bay area who exposed cover-ups in the safety at the Fukushima plant and was retaliated against by GE. This documentary allows the voices of the people and workers to speak out about the reality of the disaster and what this means not only for the people of Japan but the people of the world as the US government and nuclear industry continue to push for more new plants and government subsidies. This film breaks

the information blockade story line of the corporate media in Japan, the US and around the world that Fukushima is over.

Production Of Labor Video Project

P.O. Box 720027

San Francisco, CA 94172

www.laborvideo.org

lvpsf@laborvideo.org

For information on obtaining the video go to:

www.fukushimaneveragain.com

(415)282-1908


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1000 year of war through the world

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

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Anatomy of a Massacre - Afganistan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6BnRc11aug&feature=player_embedded

Afghans accuse multiple soldiers of pre-meditated murder

To see more go to http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures

Follow us on Facebook (http://goo.gl/YRw42) or Twitter

(http://www.twitter.com/journeymanvod)

The recent massacre of 17 civilians by a rogue US soldier has been shrouded in

mystery. But through unprecedented access to those involved, this report

confronts the accusations that Bales didn't act alone.

"They came into my room and they killed my family". Stories like this are common

amongst the survivors in Aklozai and Najiban. As are the shocking accusations

that Sergeant Bales was not acting alone. Even President Karzai has announced

"one man can not do that". Chief investigator, General Karimi, is suspicious

that despite being fully armed, Bales freely left his base without raising

alarm. "How come he leaves at night and nobody is aware? Every time we have

weapon accountability and personal accountability." These are just a few of the

questions the American army and government are yet to answer. One thing however

is very clear, the massacre has unleashed a wave of grief and outrage which

means relations in Kandahar will be tense for years to come: "If I could lay my

hands on those infidels, I would rip them apart with my bare hands."

A Film By SBS

Distributed By Journeyman Pictures

April 2012

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Photo of George Zimmerman, in 2005 photo, left, and in a more recent photo.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/02/us/the-events-leading-to-the-sooti\

ng-of-trayvon-martin.html?hp

SPD Security Cams.wmv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WWDNbQUgm4&feature=player_embedded

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

Terror Drills

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

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Private prisons,

a recession resistant investment opportunity

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

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

"Thought Crimes"

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

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Common forms of misconduct by Law Enforcement Officials and Prosecutors

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

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Organizing and Instigating: OCCUPY - Ronnie Goodman

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

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Rep News 12: Yes We Kony

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

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The New Black by The Mavrix - Official Music Video

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

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Japan One Year Later

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

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The CIA's Heart Attack Gun

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

un-.html

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The Invisible American Workforce

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

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Labor Beat: NATO vs The 1st Amendment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbQxnb4so3U

For more detailed information, send us a request at mail@laborbeat.org.


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The Battle of Oakland

by brandon jourdan plus

http://vimeo.com/36256273

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Officers Pulled Off Street After Tape of Beating Surfaces

By ANDY NEWMAN

February 1, 2012, 10:56 am

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/officers-pulled-off-street-after-ta\

pe-of-beating-surfaces/?ref=nyregion

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This is excellent! Michelle Alexander pulls no punches!

Michelle Alexander, Author of The New Jim Crow, speaks about the political

strategy

behind the War on Drugs and its connection to the mass incarceration of Black

and Brown people in the United States.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P75cbEdNo2U&feature=player_embedded

If you think Bill Clinton was "the first black President" you need to watch this

video and see how much damage his administration caused for the black community

as a result of his get tough attitude on crime that appealed to white swing

voters.

This speech took place at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on January 12,

2012.

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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

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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

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

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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/

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We Are The People Who Will Save Our Schools

YouTube:

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

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In honor of the 75th Anniversary of the 44-Day Flint Michigan sit-down strike at

GM that began December 30, 1936:

According to Michael Moore, (Although he has done some good things, this clip

isn't one of them) in this clip from his film, "Capitalism a Love Story," it was

Roosevelt who saved the day!):

"After a bloody battle one evening, the Governor of Michigan, with the support

of the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, sent in the National

Guard. But the guns and the soldiers weren't used on the workers; they were

pointed at the police and the hired goons warning them to leave these workers

alone. For Mr. Roosevelt believed that the men inside had a right to a redress

of their grievances." -Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'

- Flint Sit-Down Strike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8x1_q9wg58

But those cannons were not aimed at the goons and cops! They were aimed straight

at the factory filled with strikers! Watch what REALLY happened and how the

strike was really won!

'With babies & banners' -- 75 years since the 44-day Flint sit-down strike

http://links.org.au/node/2681

--Inspiring

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HALLELUJAH CORPORATIONS (revised edition).mov

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

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

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

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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale

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

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