Sunday, March 08, 2015

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2015





SF Antiwar Protest on 12th Anniversary of U.S. Invasion of Iraq

Saturday, March 21, 12 noon, Powell and Market Streets

In solidarity with the “Spring Rising” protest at the White House on Mar. 21

Stop Pres. Obama’s proposed new 3-year AUMF – Authorization for Use of Military Force!

End U.S. War and Occupation in the Middle East and Central Asia – U.S. Out!

No to U.S. sanctions and intervention vs. Iran, Venezuela, Korea, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Haiti and everywhere

Free Palestine – End U.S. Aid to Israel!

Fund People’s Needs, Not Endless War!

To Endorse or Volunteer reply to: answer@answersf.org
More info: 415-821-6545 or visit www.ANSWERsf.org.
ANSWER SF

To join the Facebook event for Spring Rising: https://www.facebook.com/events/430232700485435
For more information, click here:
http://nepajac.org/springrising.html

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Cancel the #DetroitWater Debt and Start Afresh

Sign the petition:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/cancel-the-detroitwater-debt-and-start-afresh


We call on the City of Detroit and the newly-formed Great Lakes Water Authority to cancel the existing debts of Detroit Water and Sewerage customers and start afresh with simple, affordable rates: all customer past-due balances are wiped clean.

Last year, Detroit made international headlines when tens of thousands of residents lost their access to water through an aggressive shut-off program by the water department.

The city of Detroit has endured decades of economic turmoil, drastic depopulation and repeated mismanagement. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) is over $5 billion in debt (over $4,500 per family in the metro Detroit area).To compensate, they have increased rates over 119% in the last decade.¹Residents who fall behind on their bills risk water shutoff, and in 2014 that’s exactly what happened to tens of thousands of Detroiters.

The shutoff program didn't work, and the DWSD collected less than 3% of the over $100 million currently owed.² A large number of the families who entered into payment plans last year are now defaulting on them yet again because they lack sufficient income.

In contrast, a voluntary bond tender offer initiated during the shutoffs allowed the city to renegotiate high interest rates on municipal water bonds and save over $250 million in interest fees for the city.³

The bond markets know that Detroit's water debt is junk and the city will unlikely ever be able to pay the current interest rates, which is why Default Trends proclaimed Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) its "Biggest Default of 2014".⁴

Corruption in the DWSD has been rampant, with former Department head Victor Mercado currently serving an 8-month federal corruption sentence for "conspiracy to commit extortion" by padding department contracts and rigging bids that netted his business associates millions. Although many of those contracts are now being scrutinized by the city's legal team, Detroiters are still paying dearly for the fraud of past leaders.

The overbearing Detroit water debt has a human side, too: it has pushed Detroit into an outright humanitarian crisis. Rates of infectious disease and sickness are up dramatically, leading the National Nurses union recently to declare a 'Public Health Emergency' in Detroit.⁵The water department is significantly under-staffed and water infrastructure is crumbling, leading to leaks that cost taxpayers tens of millions annually. The department is unable to address these time-sensitive issues due to lack of funding, as it currently spends 46% of its operating revenue on debt service to banks - the largest line-item by far in its budget.

We call on the City of Detroit and the newly-formed Great Lakes Water Authority to cancel the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department's existing debts and start afresh with simple, affordable rates: all customer past-due balances are wiped clean.

Detroit's existing water/sewerage rate structure is highly-regressive and unaffordable for too many families. We call on the city to implement the 2005 Water Affordability Plan to ensure that no family pays more than the EPA-recommended threshold for water, including "lifeline rates" for essential quantities of drinking/bathing water.⁶

The water department acknowledges that 90% of its operating costs are fixed⁷, meaning they don't depend upon how much water is consumed by users. Still, they charge usage-based rates that fluctuate dramatically with weather (up to 18% decrease in usage) and with broader demographic shifts in the region (2/3 of Detroit's population has left the city since 1950). Creating a progressive rate structure based at least partially upon a family's income - as is done with many public services like streetlights, schools, libraries, etc - would more equitably distribute the burden of operating a system relied upon by over 4 million people for essential drinking water.

The Detroit Water Brigade has provided emergency relief and advocacy to hundreds of families since June of 2014, including providing immediate financial assistance to families currently without water.⁸We've seen first-hand the disastrous effects of these harsh, debt-driven austerity policies.

We pledge to escalate this campaign in the coming months until we bring relief to the tens of thousands of metro Detroit families living without water today and the millions living precariously with unaffordable water rates.


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Free Albert Woodfox!
End the Injustice. Don’t Oppose Bail for Albert Woodfox

In 1972 a young white prison guard named Brent Miller was fatally stabbed inside Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as “Angola.” Although no physical evidence tied Albert Woodfox to the crime, he was immediately assumed to be guilty and placed in solitary confinement; 23 hours a day isolated in a small cell, four steps long, three steps across. He was eventually convicted of the crime after trials tainted with constitutional violations and other legal issues, and has been held in solitary confinement, fighting to prove his innocence ever since.

Albert believes that he and fellow prisoners, Herman Wallace and Robert King, were placed in solitary confinement in retaliation for their activism and outspoken critique of injustice. All three men were members of the Black Panther Party and campaigned for better treatment, racial solidarity, and an end to the brutal sexual slavery in prison. Woodfox, Wallace and King came to be known as the Angola 3.

Albert Woodfox’s conviction has been overturned three times - most recently in 2013 on the basis of racial discrimination in the selection of a grand jury foreperson. In late 2014, an appeals court upheld the decision in Alberts favor, and on February 6, his lawyers filed for bail. After years of the State of Louisiana appealing decisions in Albert’s favor, It is critical that Governor Bobby Jindal show leadership, and ensure that Albert’s cruel and unjust isolation is not his legacy. April 2015 will mark 43 years since Woodfox was first placed solitary - for a crime he maintains that he didn't' commit, a claim that much of the available evidence supports. It is time for the State to let the wisdom of the courts stand and ensure his release.


Amnesty International
http://act.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1839&ea.campaign.id=35593&ea.tracking.id=Country_USA~MessagingCategory_PrisonersandPeopleatRisk&ac=W1502EAIAR2&ea.url.id=359128&forwarded=true

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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

B. ARTICLES IN FULL



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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS



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Justice for Rasmea: All out for March 12!

On March 12, Rasmea is set to appear once again in the Detroit courtroom of Judge Gershwin Drain, this time for a sentencing hearing. We are seeking letters to the judge requesting leniency.

For this round of letters, we are NOT looking for a mountain of individual statements, but rather letters from prominent individuals who represent broader constituencies. We need you to work with leaders of faith-based, labor, and community organizations, as well as student governments, student organizations (national), prominent professors, and legislators in your area to draft and submit letters.

Below you will find an outline you can use to draft these letters, but it is important for the authors to write them in their own voices. Letters should be submitted by February 4 to justice4rasmea@uspcn.org.

Stay tuned! Keep sharing Rasmea’s story and organizing fundraisers. Watch for calls for your support as we prepare for sentencing and appeal. Our organizing is key to winning #Justice4Rasmea.

follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend
Copyright © 2015 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights reserved.
Thanks for your ongoing interest in the fight against FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists!
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414

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Save the Date - UNAC National Conference, May 8 - 10, 2015


UNAC is the major national antiwar coalition in the U.S. today.  The existence of a United National Antiwar Coalition is vital and we need your financial support to continue our work and to expand.

With U.S. wars today accelerating and expanding globally in various forms – from drone attacks on Yemen and Pakistan, never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, support to neo-fascists in Ukraine, and proliferating Africom forces to threats of war for regime change in Syria – we have an obligation to do whatever is possible to educate the public and to take action to stop the carnage.

The wars abroad are connected to global warming with most wars fought over energy resources with the U.S. war machine as the largest polluter.

At home, we see hugely growing income inequality, a militarized and racist police force, mass incarceration of Blacks and Latinos, and a massive police state apparatus that includes global surveillance and laws to quell dissent.

In spite of the trillions spent by the U.S. corporate war government and its controlled media propaganda machine to keep us in check, the people are fighting back.  We’ve been inspired and strengthened by the hundreds of thousands of new activists taking to the streets of this country to stop police brutality, to build Occupy encampments, to fight for decent wages, to demand full rights for immigrants, to win marriage equality, to end global warming, to demonstrate solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza, and to protest unending U.S. wars.

UNAC has played an active, often leadership role, in all of the antiwar and social justice movements of our time.  While most activists are focused on their particular issues, the most vital role we can play is to connect the issues to their source.  All of the injustices and crimes we protest, stem from the imperialist insatiable drive for expanding profit and control – and the U.S. is the largest imperialist power militarily and economically.  When there should be plenty for all, only the obscenely wealthy benefit while the rest of the 99% struggle just to survive.

Some of our recent major accomplishments:
·       Initiated protest against NATO and 15,000 marched in Chicago in 2012.
·        Called for immediate actions against threats of war and coups directed at Libya, Iran, No. Korea, Africa, Latin America,    Ukraine, and maintaining the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
·        Organized a national tour for Afghan leader Malalai Joya.
·        Sent representatives to international NATO protests and conferences.
·        Serve on the Board of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms to act against Islamophobia , racist attacks on Muslims, and attacks on our civil liberties.
·        Participated in national efforts to organize anti-drone actions.
·        Campaigned to defend victims of government repression who speak out and expose Washington’s crimes, including Rasmea Odeh, Mumia abu Jamal, Lynne Stewart, Chelsea Manning, and the Midwest activists targeted by the FBI.
·        Produced national educational conference calls featuring experts on topics such as U.S. intervention in Africa, the destruction of Libya, the developing wars in Syria, and others.
·        Built an antiwar contingent in the massive New York City Climate Change march and built Climate Change action in other cities around the country.
·        Helped organize protests against Israel’s attack on Gaza
·        Helped organize protests against the murder of Blacks by white police and the militarization of the police forces in the U.S.

UNAC has a history of bringing hundreds of activists together at large national conferences to learn about the issues of the day, to discuss the way forward and to vote on an Action Program for the coming period.

The UNAC conference next May will bring activists from all the movements in motion to cross-fertilize these struggles.  We are particularly dedicated to bringing young activists together to support and learn from each other.  For this, we need your help to offer subsidies to leaders from Ferguson, from the border wars in the southwest, from the Native Americans who are fighting against the pipelines ruining their lands, from the Students for Justice in Palestine, and many others.

Please give generously so that we can continue our work to bring harmony and justice to the peoples of this earth.

You can send a check to UNAC at PO Box 123, Delmar, NY 12054 or click the button below to contribute on-line with your credit or debit card.

 https://www.unacpeace.org/

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On Behalf of Wadiya Jamal and
Mumia Abu-Jamal,
A Contribution Request

The message following is a forward from:
Rachel Wolkenstein
Sister, Advocate and Friend of the Extended Family

Samiya “Goldii” Abdullah, a daughter of Wadiya Jamal and Mumia Abu-Jamal died on December 17, 2014 after years of battle with breast cancer. Samiya would have been 37 this January 9 and is survived by two young daughters, Aiyanah and Aaiyah, affectionately known as Dolly and Puddy, ages eleven and four.

Samiya was a remarkable woman. She was accomplished as a musician, an activist and rapper on social justice, particularly in the struggle for Mumia’s freedom. She devoured books and education. During her long, often debilitating illness, Samiya finished her Masters Degree in School and Mental Health Counseling from the University of Pennsylvania with honors. She was dedicated to her young daughters and wanted them to grow up loving each other as much as she did her brothers and sisters. And she wanted her daughters to see Mumia (called “Pop Pop” by them) walk out of prison and home with their grandmother, Wadiya.

Samiya's active fight for Mumia's freedom, began at the young age of four. Mumia wrote about this in “The Visit” printed in Live from Death Row in 1994. This was recreated in the movie "Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary."

"My father is still considered to be a dangerous individual … his mind is what they fear, there is over- whelming evidence that would exonerate him of his conviction.
"He is an innocent man and the commonwealth has always known this, but being too Black, too smart, and too strong … The government will silence anyone that possesses the power to open the minds of the people."   
                     —Goldii

Samiya’s strength, character and spirit were nurtured by Wadiya and Mumia and are being passed on to her daughters.

On behalf of Wadiya Jamal and Mumia Abu-Jamal, this is a request for funds to assist Wadiya for care of her granddaughters, Dolly and Puddy.

A financial contribution of any amount will be greatly appreciated.

Please send checks or money orders, made payable to Wadiya Jamal:

Wadiya Jamal
P.O. Box 19404
Kingsessing Postal Station
Philadelphia, PA 19143-9998

In loving memory of Samiya and in tribute to her fierce fight for life,

Rachel Wolkenstein
Sister, Advocate and Friend of the Extended Family


Hear Mumia’s Words (and Song) played before the Janazah for Samiya on December 20, 2014: “Samiya Abdullah Makes Transition”:

http://prisonradio.org/sites/default/files/audio/uploads/SamiyaAbdullahMakesTransition12-19-2.mp3?download=1

This message has been sent to you by:
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222  •  Oakland CA  •  510.763.2347
www.laboractionmumia.org

Donate Now
to fight the “gag” law!
go to:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protect-freedom-of-speech-keep-mumia-on-the-air

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Support Prison Radio

$35 is the yearly membership.

$50 will get you a beautiful tote bag (you can special order a yoga mat bag, just call us).

$100 will get the DVD "Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary"

$300 will bring one essay to the airwaves.

$1000 (or $88.83 per month) will make you a member of our Prison Radio Freedom Circle. Take a moment and Support Prison Radio

Luchando por la justicia y la libertad,

Noelle Hanrahan, Director, Prison Radio

PRISON RADIO

P.O. Box 411074 San Francisco, CA 94141

www.prisonradio.org
info@prisonradio.org 415-706-5222


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Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson

Lorenzo Speaks Concerning Prosecution's Brief:
JANUARY 1, 2015—The prosecutor has run away from (almost) every issue raised in my PCRA by begging the Court to dismiss everything as “untimely”. When they don’t do this, they suggest that me and my lawyers were “defamatory” towards either my former prosecutor Christopher Abruzzo or Detective Kevin Duffin, in our claims they withheld, misused or hid evidence of my Innocence, in order to secure an unjust conviction in this case. If I charged, a year ago, that about a dozen AGs (attorneys general) were involved in circulating porno via their office computers, people would’ve laughed at me, and seen me as crazy.

But, guess what? During 2014, we learned that this was the truth. How can it be defamatory to speak the truth? Notice the OAG (Office of Attorney General), never said the obvious: That AG Abruzzo didn’t inform the Defense about the relationship between his Motive Witness and his head detective (Victoria Doubs and Det. Duffin); that Det. Duffin doesn’t deny Doubs was his god-sister, and that she lived in his family home, or that he assisted her whenever she got into trouble.

Why not? Because it is true. How can you defame someone who defames himself? Mr. Christopher Abruzzo, Esq., when a member of the higher ranks of the OAG, sent and/or received copious amounts of porno to other attorneys general and beyond. What does this say about his sense of judgment? He thought enough about his behavior to resign from his post in the Governor’s Cabinet. If he thought that his behavior was okay, he’d still be sitting in the Governor’s cabinet, right? The OAG cannot honestly oppose anything we’ve argued, but they try by seeking to get the Court to do their dirty work, how? By denying an Evidentiary Hearing to prove every point we’ve claimed.

The prosecution is trying desperately to avoid dealing with the substance of my claims in Com. v. Lorenzo Johnson. So, they slander my Legal Team and blame them for defaming the good AG’s and Cops involved with this case. They try to do what is undeniable, to deny that they hid evidence from the Defense for years. They blamed me for daring to protest the hidden evidence of their malfeasance and other acts to sabotage the defense. They claim that they had an “Open File” policy with my trial counsel. But “Open File” is more than letting an attorney read something in their office. If it’s a search for the truth it must include what is turned over to the attorney, for how do we really know what was shown to her?

They say it is inconceivable that an attorney would read a file, beginning on page nine (9), and not ask for the preceding eight (8) pages. Yet, it is conceivable if trial counsel was ineffective for not demanding the record of the first eight pages. Pages that identify the State’s only witness as a “SUSPECT” in the murder for which her client was charged! How could such an attorney fail to recognize the relevance of such an issue, barring their sheer Ineffectiveness and frankly, Incompetence.

By seeking to avoid an evidentiary hearing, the prosecution seeks to avoid evidence of their wrongdoing being made plain, for all to see. If they believe I’m wrong, why not prove it? They can’t. So they shout I filed my appeal untimely, as if there can ever justly be a rule that precludes an innocent from proving his innocence! Not to mention the fact that the prosecution has failed to even mention the positive finger prints that ay my trial they said none existed. Don’t try to hide it with a lame argument about time. When isn’t there a time for truth? The prosecution should be ashamed of itself for taking this road. It is unworthy of an office that claims to seek justice.

After the trial verdict The Patriot-News (March 18, 1997) reported, “Deputy Attorney General Christopher Abruzzo admitted there were some serious concerns about the strength of the evidence against Johnson and praised the jury for doing a thorough job.” I guess he forgot to mention all of the evidence he left out to show Innocence.

Now, more than ever, Lorenzo Johnson needs your support.
Publicize his case; bring it to your friends, clubs, religious
and social organizations. 


SIGN LORENZO JOHNSON'S FREEDOM PETITION

http://www.freelorenzojohnson.org/sign-the-petition.html

CONTRIBUTE TO LORENZO'S CAMPAIGN FOR FREEDOM!
http://www.freelorenzojohnson.org/how-can-i-help.html


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



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Click HERE to view in browser
http://www.iacenter.org/prisoners/freepinkney-1-28-15/
       
Join the Fight to Free Rev. Pinkney!

On December 15, 2014 the Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan was thrown into prison for 2.5 to 10 years. This 66-year-old leading African American activist was tried and convicted in front of an all-white jury and racist white judge and prosecutor for supposedly altering 5 dates on a recall petition against the mayor of Benton Harbor.

The prosecutor, with the judge’s approval, repeatedly told the jury “you don’t need evidence to convict Mr. Pinkney.” And ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE WAS EVER PRESENTED THAT TIED REV. PINKNEY TO THE ‘ALTERED’ PETITIONS. Rev. Pinkney was immediately led away in handcuffs and thrown into Jackson Prison.

This is an outrageous charge. It is an outrageous conviction. It is an even more outrageous sentence! It must be appealed.

With your help supporters need to raise $20,000 for Rev. Pinkney’s appeal.

Checks can be made out to BANCO (Black Autonomy Network Community Organization). This is the organization founded by Rev. Pinkney.  Mail them to: Mrs. Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union Street, Benton Harbor, MI 49022.

Donations can be accepted on-line at bhbanco.org – press the donate button.

For information on the decade long campaign to destroy Rev. Pinkney go to bhbanco.org and workers.org(search “Pinkney”).

We urge your support to the efforts to Free Rev. Pinkney!Ramsey Clark – Former U.S. attorney general,
Cynthia McKinney – Former member of U.S. Congress,
Lynne Stewart – Former political prisoner and human rights attorney
Ralph Poynter – New Abolitionist Movement,
Abayomi Azikiwe – Editor, Pan-African News Wire<
Larry Holmes – Peoples Power Assembly,
David Sole – Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice
Sara Flounders – International Action Center

MESSAGE FROM REV. PINKNEY

I am now in Marquette prison over 15 hours from wife and family, sitting in prison for a crime that was never committed. Judge Schrock and Mike Sepic both admitted there was no evidence against me but now I sit in prison facing 30 months. Schrock actually stated that he wanted to make an example out of me. (to scare Benton Harbor residents even more...) ONLY IN AMERICA. I now have an army to help fight Berrien County. When I arrived at Jackson state prison on Dec. 15, I met several hundred people from Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo, and Grand Rapids. Some people recognized me. There was an outstanding amount of support given by the prison inmates. When I was transported to Marquette Prison it took 2 days. The prisoners knew who I was. One of the guards looked me up on the internet and said, "who would believe Berrien County is this racist."  

New Court Date on 4 Motions for Rev. Pinkney 

TUES, FEB. 24 1pm Berrien County Court 

Background to Campaign to free Rev. Pinkney

Michigan political prisoner the Rev. Edward Pinkney is a victim of racist injustice. He was sentenced to 30 months to 10 years for supposedly changing the dates on 5 signatures on a petition to recall Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower.

No material or circumstantial evidence was presented at the trial that would implicate Pinkney in the purported5 felonies. Many believe that Pinkney, a Berrien County activist and leader of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO), is being punished by local authorities for opposing the corporate plans of Whirlpool Corp, headquartered in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

In 2012, Pinkney and BANCO led an “Occupy the PGA [Professional Golfers’ Association of America]” demonstration against a world-renowned golf tournament held at the newly created Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course on the shoreline of Lake Michigan. The course was carved out of Jean Klock Park, which had been donated to the city of Benton Harbor decades ago.

Berrien County officials were determined to defeat the recall campaign against Mayor Hightower, who opposed a program that would have taxed local corporations in order to create jobs and improve conditions in Benton Harbor, a majority African-American municipality. Like other Michigan cities, it has been devastated by widespread poverty and unemployment. 

The Benton Harbor corporate power structure has used similar fraudulent charges to stop past efforts to recall or vote out of office the racist white officials, from mayor, judges, prosecutors in a majority Black city. Rev Pinkney who always quotes scripture, as many Christian ministers do, was even convicted for quoting scripture in a newspaper column. This outrageous conviction was overturned on appeal. We must do this again!

To sign the petition in support of the Rev. Edward Pinkney, log on to: tinyurl.com/ps4lwyn.

Contributions for Rev. Pinkney’s defense can be sent to BANCO at Mrs Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union St., Benton Harbor, MI 49022

Or you can donate on-line at bhbanco.org.

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COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org/

New Action- write letters to DoD officials requesting clemency for Chelsea!

November 24, 2014 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network

Secretary of the Army John McHugh
President Obama has delegated review of Chelsea Manning’s clemency appeal to individuals within the Department of Defense.
Please write them to express your support for heroic WikiLeaks’ whistle-blower former US Army intelligence analyst PFC Chelsea Manning’s release from military prison.
It is important that each of these authorities realize the wide support that Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning enjoys worldwide. They need to be reminded that millions understand that Manning is a political prisoner, imprisoned for following her conscience. While it is highly unlikely that any of these individuals would independently move to release Manning, a reduction in Manning’s outrageous 35-year prison sentence is a possibility at this stage.
Take action TODAY – Write letters supporting Chelsea’s clemency petition to the following DoD authorities:
Secretary of the Army John McHugh
101 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-0101
The Judge Advocate General
2200 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-2200
Army Clemency and Parole Board
251 18th St, Suite 385
Arlington, VA 22202-3532
Directorate of Inmate Administration
Attn: Boards Branch
U.S. Disciplinary Barracks
1301 N. Warehouse Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-2304
Suggestions for letters send to DoD officials:
  • The letter should focus on your support for Chelsea Manning, and especially why you believe justice will be served if Chelsea Manning’s sentence is reduced.  The letter should NOT be anti-military as this will be unlikely to help
  • A suggested message: “Chelsea Manning has been punished enough for violating military regulations in the course of being true to her conscience.  I urge you to use your authorityto reduce Pvt. Manning’s sentence to time served.”  Beyond that general message, feel free to personalize the details as to why you believe Chelsea deserves clemency.
  • Consider composing your letter on personalized letterhead -you can create this yourself (here are templates and some tips for doing that).
  • A comment on this post will NOT be seen by DoD authorities–please send your letters to the addresses above
This clemency petition is separate from Chelsea Manning’s upcoming appeal before the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals next year, where Manning’s new attorney Nancy Hollander will have an opportunity to highlight the prosecution’s—and the trial judge’s—misconduct during last year’s trial at Ft. Meade, Maryland.
Help us continue to cover 100% of Chelsea’s legal fees at this critical stage!



Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
 Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org

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 B. ARTICLES IN FULL




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1) Seeking Drugs and Weapons, Rikers Locks Down Inmates for 34 Hours
By and




2) The Fed Knew the Economy Was a Disaster in 2009. Here’s What They Talked About Instead.
By





3) A New Kind of Mental Disturbance? Drone Pilots Are Quitting in Droves
The people on the ground are not the only ones being traumatized.
By Pratap Chatterjee
March 5, 2015
http://www.alternet.org/world/new-kind-mental-disturbance-drone-pilots-are-quitting-droves?akid=12858.229473.3JCKH4&rd=1&src=newsletter1032849&t=8




4) U.S. Economy Added 295,000 Jobs in February; Unemployment Rate at 5.5%
By




5) Ferguson Report Puts ‘Hands Up’ to Reality Test
By , and




6) Wisconsin Closer to Becoming a Right-to-Work State
By




7) Some in Ferguson Who Are Part of Problem Are Asked to Help Solve It
"The emails uncovered by the Justice Department included a cartoon portraying President Obama as a chimpanzee and a joke about giving a black woman a crime-prevention award for having an abortion."
By and





8) Wisconsin Police Fatally Shoot Black Teenager, Prompting Protest
By REUTERS





9) Ferguson Became Symbol, but Bias Knows No Border
By , and

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/us/ferguson-became-symbol-but-bias-knows-no-border.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0




10) Despite Protections, Miami Port Project Smothers Coral Reef in Silt
“I’m not quite sure that county taxpayers fully understand that they are on the hook for paying for this...”
By









 













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1) Seeking Drugs and Weapons, Rikers Locks Down Inmates for 34 Hours
By and

New York City correction officials this week took the unusual step of locking down more than half of the inmates at Rikers Island in their cells for 34 hours straight, as part of an effort to curb escalating gang violence.

The lockdown, which ended Wednesday afternoon, was the largest such operation in years, according to city officials. And it is yet another indication of just how difficult remaking the jails is proving to be, despite a significant commitment of resources by the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Over the last two weeks, gang violence has led to nearly a dozen stabbings or slashings and 23 inmate fights at the jail complex, according to correction officials.

The purpose of the lockdown was to enable correction officers to search for weapons and drugs. It meant that about 6,800 inmates in four of Rikers’s largest jails were confined to their cells, unless they had court appearances or needed to receive medical treatment.“In the past two weeks, we have specific information about gangs that are targeting other gangs,” the department said in a statement. “They are designating hits across different facilities and getting ahold of weapons to perform the hits.”

According to city officials, much of the recent violence at Rikers stems from a feud between two factions of the Bloods, known as the Blood L-Gang and the Blood Brim.

The department singled out about 2,000 inmates as particularly high risk and searched all of their cells, their personal belongings and mattresses for contraband. Each inmate was strip-searched and was required to pass through a metal detector, city officials said.

Contraband is a major driver of violence, as inmates fight for control over drug and weapons sales, investigators say. At Rikers, a single cigarette can sell for as much as $20, they say.

As a result of the searches, correction officials said, they found a dozen homemade weapons, including sharpened plexiglass, metal rods and shoe shanks.

In the two months before the lockdown, nine weapons were seized from inmates and visitors, including a foot-long knife, a folding knife, a single-edge razor and six scalpels. Drug seizures have included marijuana, tobacco, heroin, cocaine and Suboxone. While some of the contraband enters the jail during visits, investigators say that Rikers employees are responsible for a large share of the smuggling.

To clean up the jails, the de Blasio administration has allocated tens of millions of dollars in additional financing to hire more correction officers and clinical staff members and create new programming for inmates.

Even so, inmate-on-inmate violence, attacks on staff members and brutality by guards have continued to rise.

The New York Times last month documented 62 cases of inmates who were seriously injured in altercations with guards in the six months after the United States attorney in Manhattan published a graphic report describing widespread abuse of inmates.

In 2014, there were 93 slashings and stabbings at Rikers, the most in a decade. Since Jan. 1, there have been 24 slashings and stabbings, compared with eight in the same period a year ago.

This week an inmate, Raleek Young, was charged with attempted rape and sexual abuse in connection with an assault of a female correction officer.

The inmate pulled off the officer’s sweater and groped her before she was able to fight him off, according to a criminal complaint.

Correction officers have complained that they now have fewer tools for controlling inmates. In December, the department ended solitary confinement as punishment for 16- and 17-year-olds. In the weeks that followed, there was a spike in violence among inmates.

In the jails that were locked down Tuesday and Wednesday, solitary confinement is still used, but it has been curtailed. Previously an inmate could be held in solitary confinement for as long as 90 days, but now the limit is 30.

“It appears to me that the inmates are being emboldened to think that there is virtual impunity for their actions,” said Sidney Schwartzbaum, president of the union for assistant deputy wardens.

The correction commissioner, Joseph Ponte, has said that other significant reforms at Rikers must wait until violence is brought under control.

To address concerns about the reduced use of solitary confinement, the department last month opened a 250-bed unit where some of the most disruptive inmates are to be housed together. They will be permitted out of their cells for just seven hours a day, instead of the usual 14. So far, only 20 inmates have been moved into the unit.

“I’m hoping and praying that this initiative reduces violence and creates a safer environment,” Mr. Schwartzbaum said. “However, we must have a Plan B if that doesn’t work.”


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2) The Fed Knew the Economy Was a Disaster in 2009. Here’s What They Talked About Instead.
By

The winter of 2009 was the worst, scariest time for the American economy in modern memory. Employers were slashing jobs at a frenetic pace; another major bank failure seemed to lurk around every corner; and the newly installed Obama administration was having a hard time finding its footing to fight the crisis.

And at the Federal Reserve, we now know from transcripts of all that year’s monetary policy meetings, there was a great deal of hand-wringing over whether any losses on programs to increase lending would be borne by the Treasury Department or the Fed — an institution that, as it happens, passes along the money it makes to the Treasury Department, meaning that taxpayers were on the hook either way.That is a recurring theme in 1,600 pages of transcripts released Wednesday: sweating the small stuff when the global economy was burning. Earlier installments of the transcripts showed a committee of policy makers struggling to understand the grave peril facing the domestic economy. But by 2009 virtually the entire committee had a clear understanding of the economic disaster that was underway. That clear understanding just did not always carry over to a sense of great urgency.

In fairness, the officials involved were making fast-paced decisions with incomplete information. They were caught in the fog of war, not able to take advantage of five years’ worth of hindsight. (Who among us did not say some things we wish we had not in 2009?) And a few central bank officials did display a combination of sharp economic analysis and a sense of urgency in trying to combat the downturn.

But even as the unemployment rate soared by half a percentage point each month early that year, voices urging more aggression to fight the Great Recession were often counterbalanced by fretting over all the possible downsides of their actions.

Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, warned in January 2009 about the risk of too much government stimulus, potentially aided and abetted by the Fed’s easy money, “It strikes me that there is enormous fear in the marketplace about the potential for open-ended stimulus in fiscal policy, and there is great concern that we will acquiesce by monetizing fiscal policy,” he said.

Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond Fed, was particularly worried about the possibility that the Fed’s interventions to fight a breakdown in credit markets were distorting the economy and essentially preserving institutions and forms of lending that ought to go the way of buggy whip manufacturers.

“People make choices on their way to making adjustments,” he said. “Would these leveraged borrowers like there to be a greater demand for their liabilities? Yes. This all looks as though demand is low. I will ask you a question. The buggy whip industry — is that sector broken?”

(What Mr. Lacker did not mention was that this all took place at the same time the domestic auto industry was receiving federal bailouts, and General Motors and Chrysler were at risk of becoming the 21st-century version of buggy whip makers themselves.)

And to assuage the fears of many on the committee that the Fed was compromising its treasured independence from political influence, the chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, spent a great deal of time discussing with his colleagues an agreement he was working on with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to codify the relationship between the Fed and Treasury in their crisis response efforts.

At one point in the March meeting, Mr. Bernanke seemed to be hoping his colleagues would wind down their questioning about that accord and move on to the real business of the meeting, weighing a vast expansion of the Fed’s quantitative easing efforts to pump money into the moribund economy. “I’m happy to answer as many questions as people want to ask,” Mr. Bernanke said, “but, again, I also hope to hear something about asset purchases before we close today.”

In isolation, these are all perfectly worthwhile subjects for Fed officials to be weighing and debating. But there is far less in the transcripts that suggest the kind of hair-on-fire urgency to do more to try to help the domestic economy in its darkest hour.

What would that sense of urgency look like? As it happens, one member of the committee, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, offered at the March meeting the kind of statement that, knowing what we know now, looks remarkably prescient.

“The economy is just a disaster area,” said Janet L. Yellen, now the chairwoman of the institution. “The economic outlook is utterly dreadful, and we have said we stand ready to do absolutely everything that’s needed to support the economy. We have let some time pass without doing anything, and in light of the outlook I would want to do everything we can.”

She continued by endorsing the idea of the Fed’s expanding its quantitative easing program to buy Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities, calling the idea that the Fed was “monetizing the debt” a legitimate concern, but dismissing it as not a primary one in the environment of early 2009.

“I don’t think we’ve lost our independence, I think people realize these are unusual and exigent circumstances, and taking a step like that now is a favorable thing for the economy,” she said.

She endorsed bond buying and said she was “very open-minded about magnitudes.”

Translation: Let’s print some money.

Almost six years later, the Fed has done exactly that, on a scale that officials undoubtedly never imagined in that winter of 2009. The consequences and ripple effects of those policies will be debated for a long time, but what is absolutely clear is that the United States economy is in much better shape now than it was then.

History is likely to treat well the Fed officials who saw the panic of 2008-2009 as a profound economic threat that warranted whatever they could do to stop it.




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3) A New Kind of Mental Disturbance? Drone Pilots Are Quitting in Droves
The people on the ground are not the only ones being traumatized.
By Pratap Chatterjee
March 5, 2015
http://www.alternet.org/world/new-kind-mental-disturbance-drone-pilots-are-quitting-droves?akid=12858.229473.3JCKH4&rd=1&src=newsletter1032849&t=8

The U.S. drone war across much of the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa is in crisis and not because civilians are dying or the target list for that war or the right to wage it just about anywhere on the planet are in question in Washington. Something far more basic is at stake: drone pilots are quitting in record numbers.

There are roughly 1,000 such drone pilots, known in the trade as “18Xs,” working for the U.S. Air Force today. Another 180 pilots graduate annually from a training program that takes about a year to complete at Holloman and Randolph Air Force bases in, respectively, New Mexico and Texas. As it happens, in those same 12 months, about 240 trained pilots quit and the Air Force is at a loss to explain the phenomenon. (The better-known U.S. Central Intelligence Agency drone assassination program is also flown by Air Force pilots loaned out for the covert missions.)

On January 4, 2015, the Daily Beast revealed an undated internal memo to Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh from General Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle stating that pilot “outflow increases will damage the readiness and combat capability of the MQ-1/9 [Predator and Reaper] enterprise for years to come” and added that he was “extremely concerned.” Eleven days later, the issue got top billing at a special high-level briefing on the state of the Air Force. Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James joined Welsh to address the matter. “This is a force that is under significant stress -- significant stress from what is an unrelenting pace of operations,” she told the media.

In theory, drone pilots have a cushy life. Unlike soldiers on duty in “war zones,” they can continue to live with their families here in the United States. No muddy foxholes or sandstorm-swept desert barracks under threat of enemy attack for them. Instead, these new techno-warriors commute to worklike any office employees and sit in front of computer screens wielding joysticks, playing what most people would consider a glorified video game.

They typically “fly” missions over Afghanistan and Iraq where they are tasked with collecting photos and video feeds, as well as watching over U.S. soldiers on the ground. A select few are deputized to fly CIA assassination missions over Pakistan, Somalia, or Yemen where they are ordered to kill “high value targets” from the sky. In recent months, some of these pilots have also taken part in the new war in the Syrian and Iraqi borderlands, conducting deadly strikes on militants of ISIL.

Each of these combat air patrols involves three to four drones, usually Hellfire-missile-armed Predators and Reapers built by southern California’s General Atomics, and each takes as many as 180 staff members to fly them. In addition to pilots, there are camera operators, intelligence and communications experts, and maintenance workers. (The newer Global Hawk surveillance patrols need as many as 400 support staff.)

The Air Force is currently under orders to staff 65 of these regular “combat air patrols” around the clock as well as to support a Global Response Force on call for emergency military and humanitarian missions. For all of this, there should ideally be 1,700 trained pilots. Instead, facing an accelerating dropout rate that recently drove this figure below 1,000, the Air Force has had to press regular cargo and jet pilots as well as reservists into becoming instant drone pilots in order to keep up with the Pentagon’s enormous appetite for real-time video feeds from around the world.

The Air Force explains the departure of these drone pilots in the simplest of terms. They are leaving because they are overworked. The pilots themselves say that it’s humiliating to be scorned by their Air Force colleagues as second-class citizens. Some have also come forward to claim that the horrors of war, seen up close on video screens, day in, day out, are inducing an unprecedented, long-distance version of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD).

But is it possible that a brand-new form of war -- by remote control -- is also spawning a brand-new, as yet unlabeled, form of psychological strain? Some have called drone war a “coward's war” (an opinion that, according to reports from among the drone-traumatized in places like Yemen and Pakistan, is seconded by its victims). Could it be that the feeling is even shared by drone pilots themselves, that a sense of dishonor in fighting from behind a screen thousands of miles from harm’s way is having an unexpected impact of a kind psychologists have never before witnessed?

Killing Up Close and Personal From Afar

There can be no question that drone pilots resent the way other Air Force pilots see them as second-class citizens. "It's tough working night shifts watching your buddies do great things in the field while you're turning circles in the sky," a drone instructor named Ryan told Mother Jones magazine. His colleagues, he says, call themselves the “lost generation.”

“Everyone else thinks that the whole program or the people behind it are a joke, that we are video-game warriors, that we're Nintendo warriors,” Brandon Bryant, a former drone camera operator who worked at Nellis Air Force Base, told Democracy Now.

Certainly, there is nothing second-class about the work tempo of drone life. Pilots log 900-1,800 hours a year compared to a maximum of 300 hours annually for regular Air Force pilots. And the pace is unrelenting. “A typical person doing this mission over the last seven or eight years has worked either six or seven days a week, twelve hours a day,” General Welsh told NPR recently. “And that one- or two-day break at the end of it is really not enough time to take care of that family and the rest of your life.”

The pilots wholeheartedly agree. "It's like when your engine temperature gauge is running just below the red area on your car’s dashboard, but instead of slowing down and relieving the stress on the engine, you put the pedal to the floor," one drone pilot told Air Force Times. "You are sacrificing the engine to get a short burst of speed with no real consideration to the damage being caused."

The Air Force has come up with a pallid interim “solution.” It is planning to offer experienced drone pilots a daily raise of about $50. There's one problem, though: since so many pilots leave the service early, only a handful have enough years of experience to qualify for this bonus. Indeed, the Air Force concedes that just 10 of them will be able to claim the extra bounty this year, striking testimony to the startling levels of job turnover among such pilots.

Most 18Xs say that their jobs are tougher and significantly more upfront and personal than those of the far more glamorous jet pilots. “[A] Predator operator is so much more involved in what is going on than your average fast-moving jetfighter pilot, or your B-52, B-1, B-2 pilots, who will never even see their target,” Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Black, a former Air Force drone pilot says. “A Predator pilot has been watching his target[s], knows them intimately, knows where they are, and knows what’s around them."

Some say that the drone war has driven them over the edge. "How many women and children have you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile? How many men have you seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound for help while bleeding out from severed legs?" Heather Linebaugh, a former drone imagery analyst, wrote in the Guardian. "When you are exposed to it over and over again it becomes like a small video, embedded in your head, forever on repeat, causing psychological pain and suffering that many people will hopefully never experience."

"It was horrifying to know how easy it was. I felt like a coward because I was halfway across the world and the guy never even knew I was there,” Bryant told KNPR Radio in Nevada. "I felt like I was haunted by a legion of the dead. My physical health was gone, my mental health was crumbled. I was in so much pain I was ready to eat a bullet myself."

Many drone pilots, however, defend their role in targeted killings. “We’re not killing people for the fun of it. It would be the same if we were the guys on the ground,” mission controller Janet Atkins told Chris Woods of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. “You have to get to [the enemy] somehow or all of you will die.”

Others like Bruce Black are proud of their work. “I was shooting two weeks after I got there and saved hundreds of people, including Iraqis and Afghanis," he told his hometown newspaper in New Mexico. "We'd go down to Buffalo Wild Wings, drink beer and debrief. It was surreal. It didn't take long for you to realize how important the work is. The value that the weapon system brings to the fight is not apparent till you're there. People have a hard time sometimes seeing that."

Measuring Pilot Stress

So whom does one believe? Janet Atkins and Bruce Black, who claim that drone pilots are overworked heroes? Or Brandon Bryant and Heather Linebaugh, who claim that remotely directed targeted killings caused them mental health crises?

Military psychologists have been asked to investigate the phenomenon. A team of psychologists at the School of Aerospace Medicine at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio has published a series of studies on drone pilot stress. One 2011 study concluded that nearly half of them had "high operational stress." A number also exhibited "clinical distress" -- that is, anxiety, depression, or stress severe enough to affect them in their personal lives.

Wayne Chappelle, a lead author in a number of these studies, nonetheless concludes that the problem is mostly a matter of overwork caused by the chronic shortage of pilots. His studies appear to show that post-traumatic stress levels are actually lower among drone pilots than in the general population. Others, however, question these numbers. Jean Otto and Bryant Webber of the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, caution that the lack of stress reports may only “reflect artificial underreporting of the concerns of pilots due to the career-threatening effects of [mental health] diagnoses, [which] include removal from flying status, loss of flight pay, and diminished competitiveness for promotion.”

Seeing Everything, Missing the Obvious

One thing is clear: the pilots are not just killing “bad guys” and they know it because, as Black points out, they see everything that happens before, during, and after a drone strike.

Indeed, the only detailed transcript of an actual Air Force drone surveillance mission and targeted killing to be publicly released illustrates this all too well. The logs recorded idle chatter on February 21, 2010, between drone operators at Creech Air Force base in Nevada coordinating with video analysts at Air Force special operations headquarters in Okaloosa, Florida, and with Air Force pilots in a rural part of Daikondi province in central Afghanistan. On that day, three vehicles were seen traveling in a pre-dawn convoy carrying about a dozen people each. Laboring under the mistaken belief that the group were “insurgents” out to kill some nearby U.S. soldiers on a mission, the drone team decided to attack.

Controller: “We believe we may have a high-level Taliban commander.”

Camera operator: “Yeah, they called a possible weapon on the military-age male mounted in the back of the truck.”

Intelligence coordinator: “Screener said at least one child near SUV.”

Controller: “Bullshit! Where? I don’t think they have kids out this hour. I know they’re shady, but come on!”

Camera operator “A sweet [expletive]! Geez! Lead vehicle on the run and bring the helos in!”

Moments later, Kiowa helicopter pilots descended and fired Hellfire missiles at the vehicle.

Controller: “Take a look at this one. It was hit pretty good. It’s a little toasty! That truck is so dead!”

Within 20 minutes, after the survivors of the attack had surrendered, the transcript recorded the sinking feelings of the drone pilots as they spotted women and children in the convoy and could not find any visual evidence of weapons.

A subsequent on-the-ground investigation established that not one of the people killed was anything other than an ordinary villager. "Technology can occasionally give you a false sense of security that you can see everything, that you can hear everything, that you know everything," Air Force Major General James Poss, who oversaw an investigation into the incident, later toldthe Los Angeles Times.

Of course, Obama administration officials claim that such incidents are rare. In June 2011, when CIA Director John Brennan was still the White House counterterrorism adviser, he addressed the issue of civilian deaths in drone strikes and made this bold claim: “Nearly for the past year, there hasn’t been a single collateral death, because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop.”

His claim and similar official ones like it are, politely put, hyperbolic. “You Never Die Twice,” a new report by Jennifer Gibson of Reprieve, a British-based human rights organization, settles the question quickly by showing that some men on the White House “kill list” of terror suspects to be taken out have “'died' as many as seven times."

Gibson adds, “We found 41 names of men who seemed to have achieved the impossible. This raises a stark question. With each failed attempt to assassinate a man on the kill list, who filled the body bag in his place?” In fact, Reprieve discovered that, in going after those 41 “targets” numerous times, an estimated 1,147 people were killed in Pakistan by drones. Typical was the present leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri. In two strikes against “him” over the years, according to Reprieve, 76 children and 29 adults have died, but not al-Zawahiri.

Deserting the Cubicle

Back in the United States, a combination of lower-class status in the military, overwork, and psychological trauma appears to be taking its mental toll on drone pilots. During the Vietnam War, soldiers would desert, flee to Canada, or even “frag” -- kill -- their officers. But what do you do when you’ve had it with your war, but your battle station is a cubicle in Nevada and your weapon is a keyboard?

Is it possible that, like their victims in Pakistan and Yemen who say that they are going mad from the constant buzz of drones overhead and the fear of sudden death without warning, drone pilots, too, are fleeing into the night as soon as they can? Since the Civil War in the U.S., war of every modern sort has produced mental disturbances that have been given a variety of labels, including what we today call PTSD. In a way, it would be surprising if a completely new form of warfare didn’t produce a new form of disturbance.

We don’t yet know just what this might turn out to be, but it bodes ill for the form of battle that the White House and Washington are most proud of -- the well-advertised, sleek, new, robotic, no-casualty, precision conflict that now dominates the war on terror. Indeed if the pilots themselves are dropping out of desktop killing, can this new way of war survive?


Pratap Chatterjee is managing editor of CorpWatch and the author of Halliburton's Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War (Nation Books, 2009).






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4) U.S. Economy Added 295,000 Jobs in February; Unemployment Rate at 5.5%
By

The outlook for the economy became sunnier on Friday after the Labor Department reported that employers added 295,000 workers in February, far exceeding expectations, and also recorded a drop in the unemployment rate. The data, though, offered disappointing results for wage growth, which for months has barely budged.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.5 percent, its lowest since mid-2008, down from 5.7 percent in January. Last month, wages rose just 0.1 percent, according to the Labor Department, a disappointment coming off an increase of 0.5 percent in January.

Analysts had called for muted results largely because of unusually snowy weather. Instead, the report prompted a new round of optimism about the economy’s recovery and speculation on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve might be inclined to move to raise interest rates midyear rather than wait until fall.

“We were all on guard for signs of a February freeze-up, but this is a barn burner of a jobs report,” said Mark Hamrick, an analyst at the personal finance site Bankrate.com. “The Fed will say the pieces are coming together.”

Job growth came particularly from the service sector, with leisure and hospitality adding 66,000 jobs, as well as an expansion of 54,000 jobs in education and health.

Still, one consistently dark patch in the recovery has been the sluggish growth of wages. Average hourly wages for private-sector workers have been rising slowly, at around 2 percent, for the last few years.

Slow wage growth has helped prevent the economy from returning to its potential, making many Americans feel as if the recovery has left them behind.

Also in February, the labor force participation rate fell slightly, dropping to 62.8 percent, from 62.9 percent.

“Everyone knows of someone who has been laid off or has a friend or relative who has been laid off,” said Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. “We hear we’re on the road to recovery, but people aren’t convinced of that.”

Still, many economists have a rosier outlook, expecting wages to finally start to increase at a faster pace this year as the job market tightens.

“We’re facing a turning point, and we’re going to see more pressure on wages,” said Tara Sinclair, chief economist at the job search site Indeed.com.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said current wage growth data appeared gloomier than the underlying reality, in part because of demographic factors. As well-paid baby boomers enter retirement, to be replaced by younger workers starting out at lower salaries, he said, the overall wage pattern has tilted slightly lower. Also, people who have been out of work for long stretches are starting to come back into the labor force and accepting lower wages.

“That’s biasing down the measure of wage growth,” Mr. Zandi said.

But there is growing evidence, he said, that an improvement is underway. One indication is the growing number of younger workers changing jobs as they gain more confidence in their prospects. On average, workers who switch jobs get a 14 percent pay increase in their new salaries.

Paradoxically, Mr. Zandi cited the labor dispute at West Coast ports and strikes at refineries as good news for the economy.

“You don’t see those kinds of actions in a labor market that’s weakening,” Mr. Zandi said.

Another positive sign for wages is coming from the retail sector. Last month, Walmart said it planned to raise its minimum hourly pay to $9 and lift it to $10 next year. TJX Companies, which owns Marshalls and T.J. Maxx, announced similar raises.

But labor advocates like the National Employment Law Project say retailers should also be focusing on adding hours as well as lifting pay for some workers. The group said that retail workers make up 11 percent of working adults but that 18 percent of those who are working part time would rather be employed full time. Many who want more hours are women from minority groups.

“In addition to paying a fair wage, retailers like Walmart need to provide their work force with stable hours and predictable schedules that allow people to pay their bills, plan their lives and care for loved ones,” Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, said in a release this week.

Shannon Henderson, 29, works part time in customer service at a Walmart store in Sacramento, and she supports two children with her $10-an-hour wages. Her hours are unpredictable, often interfering with her breast-feeding schedule for her 9-month-old. She wants to work more but said the company did not have more full-time positions.

If Ms. Henderson worked full time, she said, she might be able to afford a car. For now, she said, “I don’t make enough money.”




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5) Ferguson Report Puts ‘Hands Up’ to Reality Test
By , and

They were four words that became the national rallying cry of a new civil rights movement: “Hands up, don’t shoot.”

Protesters chanted it, arms raised, in cities across the country in solidarity for Michael Brown, the black teenager who some witnesses said was surrendering when he was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo.

The slogan was embraced by members of Congress, recording artists and football players with the St. Louis Rams.

It inspired posters and songs, T-shirts and new advocacy groups, a powerful distillation of simmering anger over police violence and racial injustice in Ferguson and beyond.“It remains not only valid — but essential — to question how such a strong alternative version of events was able to take hold so swiftly, and be accepted so readily,” Mr. Holder said Wednesday.

For many, the answer to that question was contained in a second Justice Department report released on Wednesday that described in blistering detail how Ferguson had used its police department and court system as moneymaking ventures that disproportionately targeted African-Americans and routinely violated their constitutional rights.

As the nation digested the two federal investigations into Ferguson, police groups that are often sharp critics of Mr. Holder found vindication in the report on Mr. Brown’s death, seeing in it a final rebuttal to a narrative that demonized Mr. Wilson. They called the shooting a tragedy, but said it had never been a crime fueled by racial bias.

“The lie got repeated over and over again,” said Ron Hosko, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, which supports officers accused of crimes in the course of duty. “It was the headline in major newspapers and other major media publications all summer, all fall. And the subtext was: Racist rogue cop kills innocent black teen. And it was a lie.”

But protest leaders who marched through streets around the country with their arms raised and founded groups such as Hands Up United or the Don’t Shoot Coalition said the report did not undercut their efforts to push for police reforms and advocate for victims of law enforcement violence.

And they, too, found vindication for their protests in the second Justice Department report on Ferguson’s criminal justice system, which Mr. Holder described as having created “a highly toxic environment, defined by mistrust and resentment, stoked by years of bad feelings, and spurred by illegal and misguided practices.”

“While there is an issue as to whether his hands were up, the bigger question is whether we as a nation are going to step up to try to bridge this gap of distrust between police and those who they are sworn to protect and serve,” said Representative Elijah E. Cummings, a Democrat of Maryland, who appeared on the steps of the Capitol with other black members of Congress, all posing with their hands up.

Others rejected the Justice Department’s conclusions entirely, and said they still believed Mr. Brown was trying to surrender when he was killed.

They said they did not trust an earlier state grand jury process that had cleared Mr. Wilson, who left the Ferguson police force late last year, of state criminal charges in November, and had no faith in the federal investigation or the high bar set to find a law enforcement officer responsible for civil rights violations.

“To me, he had his hands up,” said Michael T. McPhearson, co-chairman of the Don’t Shoot Coalition in St. Louis. “It doesn’t change it for me.”

Protest organizers said that no matter what Mr. Brown had been doing with his hands when he was shot — balling them, holding them out or pulling up his pants, according to various witness accounts outlined by the Justice Department — he had still been shot at least six times, and his body had been allowed to lie in the street for hours.

They said that “hands up, don’t shoot” had taken on a power of its own that arced beyond Ferguson, becoming a broader evocation of anger and injustice that now stood with earlier protest calls like “si, se puede,” “we shall overcome” or “I can’t breathe,” one of the last things said by Eric Garner, a black man who was killed in a chokehold by a white New York police officer on Staten Island.

“ ‘Hands up, don’t shoot’ has become a larger symbol of the desire to prove one’s innocence,” said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist who is African-American and has spoken out forcefully about police practices in Ferguson, in an email message. “In many ways, it will always resonate as a symbol of an unarmed dead teenager lying for hours on the street. Just like ‘I can’t breathe’ will never go away. They are forever etched in the complicated story of racial bias in our criminal justice system.”But many law enforcement officials and supporters of Mr. Wilson said they had long disliked the slogan and its implicit assumptions about what had happened during the brief confrontation between him and Mr. Brown. Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee, who has been an outspoken critic of Mr. Holder and the demonstrators in Ferguson, said the talk swirling around Ferguson had veered away into irresponsible hyperbole long before investigators had offered a full accounting of the shooting.

“Let’s let the standard be facts, evidence, the rules of law,” said Sheriff Clarke, who is black. “Not hype, emotion and mob rule.”

In November, Jeff Roorda, a spokesman for the St. Louis Police Officers Association, condemned the Rams players who strode onto the field and raised their gloved hands. He said he had been deluged with hate mail because of it, and said he still blamed the news media and politicians for creating a “rush to judgment” that may indelibly harm Mr. Wilson.

“I worry that he’ll still be a casualty of history,” Mr. Roorda said in an interview on Thursday. “Fifty years from now, he’ll still be the white police officer who shot an unarmed black teen.”

But Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, said he had no regrets about making the “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture in a speech on the House floor last year as part of a series of speeches by Congressional Black Caucus members.

“If I had to do it again, I would proceed in exactly the same way,” he said. “I made clear in my remarks that ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ is a rallying cry for people all across America who want to see the constitutional promise of equal protection under the law brought to life.” He added, “At no point in that speech did any member of the black caucus indicate that that’s what occurred between Mr. Wilson and Mike Brown.”

Activists said “hands up, don’t shoot” would still echo through rallies and protesters would continue to raise their hands when they encounter the police. But eventually, another fatal, galvanizing confrontation between a police officer and a resident is likely to create a new catchphrase of outrage, said Phillip Agnew, one of the leaders of the Dream Defenders, a young activists group that formed in Florida after the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012.

“It will continue to be a rallying cry until, unfortunately, something happens again, and there’ll be another rallying cry,” he said.

The expression emerged quickly in the aftermath of Mr. Brown’s killing as Ferguson residents began to demonstrate and anger over his death coursed across social media. Morgan Paar, a filmmaker in New York who was an early user of the hashtag #handsupdontshoot, did not know who first came up with the phrase, but said it developed a life of its own.

“It has more to do with people’s feelings than it does with a single person and what happens on a single day,” he said.

Timothy Williams and Samantha Storey contributed reporting.






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6) Wisconsin Closer to Becoming a Right-to-Work State
By

MADISON, Wis. — The State Assembly on Friday approved legislation barring unions from requiring workers to pay the equivalent of dues, leaving Wisconsin poised to become the 25th state with what advocates describe as a right-to-work law.

Gov. Scott Walker, who said before he was re-elected to a second term in November that he did not expect right-to-work legislation to be taken up this session, has since said that he will sign the measure within days. The move was expected to burnish Mr. Walker’s image as a conservative willing to take on unions as he flirts with a run for the Republican nomination for president.

It also was to further shift the climate in the Midwest when it comes to unions. Wisconsin’s action follows similar moves in recent years by Indiana and Michigan. Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois said last month that he would end a requirement that all state workers pay the equivalent of dues, and on Thursday, labor unions filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate his action.Though the legislation has stalled in some state legislatures for years, it moved with remarkable speed through Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Capitol, passing both chambers in a matter of a few weeks.


Union members rallied outside the Capitol building in frigid temperatures on Thursday, as they have in recent days, but their numbers were far smaller than the tens of thousands who gathered here in 2011 when Mr. Walker pressed to cut collective bargaining rights for most public-sector workers. The new bill will affect private-sector workers.

The State Assembly, which includes 63 Republicans and 36 Democrats, passed the bill 62-35, along partisan lines. Last week, the State Senate passed the bill, 17 to 15, also mainly on party lines.

In hours of debate that ran all night Thursday and into Friday, Democrats denounced the measure as one likely to diminish wages for workers in the state. They said it was aimed, too, at lessening the political power of unions in a state with a rich history in the labor movement.

“Right to work is desperately wrong for Wisconsin,” said Peter Barca, the minority leader in the Assembly. “In fact, I can’t think of any policy that’s more antithetical to Wisconsin values, to our very heritage, to the Wisconsin way of doing business than this bill.”

Mr. Barca alluded to the early 20th-century progressivism of Robert M. La Follette Sr., a bust of whom sits in this Capitol. “Figuratively, you are taking a sledgehammer to his bust,” Mr. Barca told the Republicans. “Literally you are tearing away, week by week, his very legacy that made this state great.”

But Robin Vos, the Republican speaker, said much of the information spread about the effects of right-to-work bills was wrong. In places like Indiana with similar measures, he said, unions have not shrunk and jobs have grown. “For the people who believe in a union, this is not going to have any impact at all,” he said. But for those who feel they are not represented well by a union, Mr. Vos said, this would allow an option. “I’m going to take my money and vote with my checkbook.”

At times, the atmosphere grew chaotic here. At one point, protesters in the galleries of the State Assembly chamber began chanting as Republicans spoke: “Right to work is wrong for Wisconsin”; “Unions built the working class.” Officials then cleared the galleries.


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7) Some in Ferguson Who Are Part of Problem Are Asked to Help Solve It
"The emails uncovered by the Justice Department included a cartoon portraying President Obama as a chimpanzee and a joke about giving a black woman a crime-prevention award for having an abortion."
By and

FERGUSON, Mo. — When Mayor James Knowles III announced Wednesday that one official had been fired and two others were under investigation in connection with racist emails, he said that the behavior was “in no way representative” of the city or its employees.

On Thursday, however, a city spokesman revealed that the fired official was not a low-level officer but the city’s top court clerk, Mary Ann Twitty. In a court system that the Justice Department found was rife with constitutional violations, Ms. Twitty wielded power nearly on par with a judge. The emails uncovered by the Justice Department included a cartoon portraying President Obama as a chimpanzee and a joke about giving a black woman a crime-prevention award for having an abortion.

They were circulated widely, Justice Department officials said, and no discipline has been announced for those who received the emails and said nothing.

While Ms. Twitty was terminated, her involvement in the emails and their wide distribution illustrate how difficult fixing the Ferguson Police Department and municipal court will be when many city officials led, participated in or tolerated the most controversial practices uncovered by the Justice Department. Those city employees include the police chief who authorized arrests without probable cause; the municipal judge who adds new charges when people contest their citations, yet quietly got his own traffic ticket wiped away; and the city manager who was the force behind the financially driven policies that led to widespread discrimination.

Many of those same officials will now be the ones attempting to carry out the reforms demanded by the Justice Department.

“We cannot just leave this region to its own devices to take care of this problem itself,” said Patricia Bynes, a Democratic committeewoman in Ferguson and the surrounding area who has become a national critic of the Police Department since Officer Darren Wilson, who is white, shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, in August. “I know that people in power do not have the courage, the boldness or the persistence to actually do the right thing.”

In particular, the responsibility for making changes will fall to John Shaw, the 39-year-old city manager. He is the city’s chief executive, responsible for supervising the police department, nominating the municipal judge and running the city. And he is cited repeatedly in the Justice Department’s scathing report.

Mr. Shaw has kept a low profile since Mr. Brown’s death and the angry protests that followed. He has let the mayor, who has far less power, become the public face of the city. Ferguson’s government returned to business as usual on Thursday, a day without protests or police lines. But Mr. Shaw did not return messages, and a visit to see him in City Hall ended when the city’s spokesman said Mr. Shaw would not be available to comment.

Over the past several months, Mr. Shaw has been the city’s lead official in discussions with the federal authorities over ways to improve the city. The Justice Department’s report, however, shows that Mr. Shaw aggressively pushed the police to bring in more money through tickets and fines that disproportionately fell on African-Americans. And he ignored warnings that the criminal justice system was unfair and needed fixing.

Though Justice Department officials say Ferguson appears willing to make improvements, they have been repeatedly frustrated by city officials over the past six months. In repeated conversations, federal authorities found Mr. Shaw to be a sympathetic listener who acknowledged that changes should be made. But frustration in Washington grew as change was slow to come, even as police officials seemed to antagonize blacks by wearing bracelets supporting Mr. Wilson and releasing a video, at a time of great tension, that showed Mr. Brown robbing a convenience store.Federal investigators were especially upset by city officials who said they were unaware of the problems that the Justice Department had uncovered. The report showed that the police stopped and searched black motorists far more often than whites and made warrantless, suspicionless stops of black pedestrians. Those figures came from the city’s own files. “Either you’re not engaged or you’re being willfully blind,” one federal investigator said.

Jeff Rainford, the former chief of staff for the St. Louis mayor, said he worked closely with Mr. Shaw after the shooting. “My recollection of John Shaw is that he understood the depth of the problem and understood that they were incapable of handling it on their own,” he said.

Mr. Shaw told people he supported changes, including forcing the police chief, Thomas Jackson, to resign, Mr. Rainford said. But while congressional officials and police officials from surrounding departments urged Mr. Shaw to remove Chief Jackson, it never happened; some said the city manager was uncertain whether he could legally do so. Mr. Shaw hired Chief Jackson, and officials say the two are close.

Mr. Shaw “always seemed to always be concerned that he wasn’t doing enough to please the City Council,” said Brian P. Fletcher, the former mayor of Ferguson who hired him. Mr. Shaw was tough and demanding of city officials but left it to them to handle problems. “Maybe he left too much to the department heads instead of getting more involved himself,” Mr. Fletcher said.

According to Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Shaw said Wednesday night that the city expected to reach a settlement with federal officials.

It is not unusual for Justice Department officials to negotiate a settlement with local officials whom they regard as part of the problem. While federal investigators are sometimes welcomed, they are more often greeted coolly, even in places that ultimately settle the disputes. In 2012, when a reporter asked Joseph Maturo, the mayor of East Haven, Conn., what he would do for Latinos amid federal allegations of illegal police searches, he replied, “I might have tacos when I go home.” The city and the Justice Department reached a settlement months later.

The Justice Department has called for an overhaul of Ferguson’s criminal justice system. Meeting federal demands would require abandoning the city’s police philosophy, which focuses on generating revenue; retraining the entire department; and building a community-oriented force. An outside monitor would be installed, and a federal judge would be empowered to enforce the settlement. A settlement would not resolve a lawsuit from Mr. Brown’s family, which lawyers said Thursday was coming.

A federal settlement would also probably force significant change of the city’s court system, which does not function as an independent branch of government. The Justice Department’s report outlines how the municipal judge, Ronald J. Brockmeyer, a lawyer from neighboring St. Charles County, created fees as a way to boost revenue. Many of them are “widely considered abusive and may be unlawful,” the Justice Department’s analysis said. The report suggested that Mr. Brockmeyer worked with the city prosecutor and the police department to maximize fines and fees.

“Suggest you come to court someday and see for yourself that the allegations are unfounded,” Mr. Brockmeyer wrote in an email response to questions from The New York Times.

John Eligon reported from Ferguson, and Matt Apuzzo from Washington. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.





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8) Wisconsin Police Fatally Shoot Black Teenager, Prompting Protest
By REUTERS

Wisconsin police fatally shot an apparently unarmed African-American teenager on Friday, prompting dozens of people to protest at the site of the killing, according to police and videos published on social media.

Madison Police Chief Mike Koval told reporters that an officer responded to a disturbance at around 6:30 p.m. local time and later forced his way into an apartment that the 19-year-old, who was also suspected of a recent battery, had gone into.

Koval said that a struggle between the suspect and the officer ensued and the teen was fatally shot, according to a recording of the news conference published by broadcaster WKOW.

”The initial finding at the scene did not reflect a gun or anything of that nature that would have been used by the subject,” Koval said.

The shooting comes at a time of heightened scrutiny of police violence against minorities across the country. Protests have been held in Los Angeles and Washington state in recent days over police killings of unarmed men from minority groups.

Videos published on social media showed around 100 protesters at the scene of the shooting chanting slogans like, “Who can you trust? Not the police,” in front of a row of officers.

Many of the demonstrators then moved the protest to inside the Madison City County building, according to videos published on Twitter. It was not immediately clear if there were any arrests.

The Wisconsin State Journal newspaper reported that friends of the teenager, identified as Anthony “Tony” Robinson by demonstrators, gathered at the site and said he was a happy person.

”I still can’t even fully wrap my head around this,” 17-year-old Jack Spaulding told the Journal.

Koval did not identify the suspect during the news conference.

Madison Mayor Paul Soglin told the Journal that there would be an out-of-area investigation into the shooting as required by a newly passed state law.

”It’s a tragedy beyond description,” Soglin told the Journal. “I expect there will be a lot of anger and frustrations.”


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9) Ferguson Became Symbol, but Bias Knows No Border
By , and

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/us/ferguson-became-symbol-but-bias-knows-no-border.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

If the shooting of Michael Brown had taken place about 500 yards to the southeast, he would have died not in Ferguson, Mo., but in the neighboring city of Jennings. The court system there, which is overseen by a white judge but has almost exclusively black defendants, routinely sends people to jail for failure to pay minor traffic fines, a new lawsuit alleges.

Had the shooting occurred three and a half miles to the north, the world’s attention might have turned to the city of Florissant, where in 2013, the police stopped black motorists at a rate nearly three times their share of the population. Less than four miles to the northwest, in Calverton Park, court fines and fees accounted for over 40 percent of the city’s general operating revenue last year.

But it was Ferguson and its government that came under federal scrutiny almost unprecedented for a city of its size, culminating in a Justice Department report last week that described explicit racism among city officials, abusive policing and a system that seemed to view people “less as constituents to be protected than as potential offenders and sources of revenue.” And it is Ferguson that will almost certainly be forced to make wholesale changes.

Ferguson, a city of 21,000, is unusual in some respects — it has issued the most warrants of any city in the state relative to its size, for example — but the unfairness in its court system that the Justice Department highlighted is not limited to it, to St. Louis County or even to Missouri. In one meeting of federal investigators, a Missouri F.B.I. agent told colleagues that if he had been asked to predict which cities were most likely to erupt over racially charged policing, Ferguson would have been low on his list. Yet Ferguson’s neighbors are not under the same pressure to change.

“Ferguson is one dot in the state, and there are many municipalities in the region engaged in the same practices a mile away,” said Vanita Gupta, the Justice Department’s top civil rights prosecutor. “It would be a mistake for any of those neighboring jurisdictions to fold up their hands. They should absolutely take note of this report.”

Ms. Gupta urged police and city officials nationwide to read the report on Ferguson and take stock of whether their police and court systems were equally in need of an overhaul. “The Ferguson report really does highlight some issues that jurisdictions around the country are plagued with,” she said. “Police departments shouldn’t wait for us.”

Across the country, a mounting number of investigations and lawsuits have focused attention on the justice system’s heavy burdens on the poor. In Alabama, which has tried to make up for deep cuts to court funding by imposing fees like $35 for posting bail, half a dozen lawsuits contend that local courts perpetuate a cycle of steep fines for minor offenses and jail for those who cannot pay. And as early as 2009, Florida became a model for aggressive collection of court fees and fines.

“There’s clear case law that police can’t illegally search you for no reason, but it happens 10,000 times a day,” said Alec Karakatsanis, a co-founder of Equal Justice Under Law and the lead lawyer in suits against Ferguson and Jennings. “The Constitution is not self-executing.”

While statistics alone are not clear-cut proof of discrimination, there are cities around St. Louis with far greater racial disparities in traffic stops than Ferguson, and cities with court systems that appear even more predatory than the Justice Department says Ferguson’s is. According to a report from Better Together, a nonprofit group, Ferguson does not even rank among the top 20 municipalities in St. Louis County in the percentage of its budget drawn from court fines and fees. The small city of Edmundson, five miles away, brings in nearly $600 a year in court fines for every resident, more than six times the amount in Ferguson.

Antonio Morgan, the owner of a car repair business, has spent months in various St. Louis County jails, paid thousands of dollars and been shocked by a Taser, mostly because of traffic violations. “People are actually getting mad that everybody thinks it’s Ferguson, Ferguson, Ferguson,” Mr. Morgan, 29, said. “They pull over a lot of black people, yeah, but they’re not the worst, I’ll tell you that. It’s worse ones than that.”

Not only do nearby cities work in the same ways as Ferguson, but they work with the same people. Ronald J. Brockmeyer, the municipal court judge in Ferguson whom the Justice Department report singled out for ticket-fixing, is a judge in another city and a prosecutor in three more.

Ms. Gupta said civil rights prosecutors were seeking information to help small cities and towns that may have problems but are unlikely to attract attention in Washington. But she also made clear that it was incumbent on local governments to make changes themselves, because “the Justice Department can’t be everywhere.”

Officials in nearby cities rejected any comparison to Ferguson.

“You don’t dismantle the whole house in order to kill one bug,” said Mayor Patrick Green of Normandy, who is black. He said that his police force had issued more citations since state agencies asked it to help patrol Interstate 70, and that the money had been used to pay for public safety. “Everyone’s saying, ‘Oh, no, that’s cities just taking advantage of the poor,’ ” he said. “When did the poor get the right to commit crimes?”

James A. Paunovich, chairman of the board of trustees of Calverton Park, echoed Mr. Green’s sentiment, saying, “You’re blaming the police officer or you’re blaming the municipality or blaming the judge for enforcing the law.” He added, in a common refrain, that cities the size of his, with few or no businesses, do not have many ways to raise money.

“They have to find a recession-proof revenue generator,” said Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, a political-science professor at the University of Rhode Island, adding that the best solution for small, financially struggling cities like Ferguson was probably to declare bankruptcy. “No matter how poor people are

On Friday, Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, acknowledged that “the Ferguson municipal court is not alone” and expressed support for a variety of changes, such as the cap on the percentage of revenue a city can collect from traffic tickets and court fees, and alternatives to jail for people who cannot afford to pay fines.

Benjamin Sutphin, the mayor of Jennings, declined to comment because of the lawsuit against his city. Officials in Florissant did not return calls for comment.The St. Louis County Municipal Court Improvement Committee, formed after the Brown shooting, has recommended voluntary changes such as increasing the use of community service as a sentence for indigent offenders and setting a uniform fine schedule across jurisdictions. (It found that the fine for driving without insurance, for example, ranged from $99 in Bridgeton to $377 in Ferguson.)

Frank J. Vatterott, the municipal judge of Overland and the chairman of the committee, who is white, said a majority of courts had responded positively to the recommendations. But he added: “I don’t have any power. We have no legal or moral authority over the other courts.”

Enforcement would also be a problem for the kind of revenue caps being pushed by Mr. Nixon and some state legislators. The state already limits fines and fees to 30 percent of municipalities’ yearly operating revenue, and Missouri’s attorney general, Chris Koster, has sued five cities in St. Louis County for exceeding that. Mayor Green, whose city is a defendant in the lawsuit, said the cap would hit predominantly black cities hardest.

Brendan Roediger, a professor at Saint Louis University School of Law, said the only solution was to discard the county’s municipal court system and replace it with something else.

“I don’t think that it could possibly be fixed,” said Mr. Roediger, who, along with Arch City Defenders, a nonprofit legal group, is suing several municipalities over their court practices. “The system is absolutely rotten from the core.”

He pointed to the routine ticket-fixing by officials across city lines described in the Justice Department report. This collusion, along with the everyday transfers of people from city jail to city jail, shows just how much the municipal governments are tied together, he said.

Qiana Williams, 36 and the mother of a 9-year-old girl, said she had been jailed multiple times for traffic violations. She was once arrested when she called the police for help after a former boyfriend hurt her. None of this took place in Ferguson, she said: Some of her worst experiences were in another county altogether.

“They’re all suffering from the same problems,” said Ms. Williams, who is black, adding that she had already been working with a group of activists to plan a protest against the municipal court in Pine Lawn when the shooting of Mr. Brown in August drew the protests northwest to Ferguson.

“St. Louis knows that it’s not just a Ferguson problem,” she said. “I don’t know if the country knows.”


Campbell Robertson reported from New Orleans, Shaila Dewan from New York and Matt Apuzzo from Washington.


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10) Despite Protections, Miami Port Project Smothers Coral Reef in Silt
“I’m not quite sure that county taxpayers fully understand that they are on the hook for paying for this...”
By

MIAMI — The government divers who plunged into the bay near the Port of Miami surfaced with bad news again and again: Large numbers of corals were either dead or dying, suffocated by sediment.

The source of the sediment, environmentalists say, is a $205 million dredging project, scheduled to end in July and intended to expand a shipping channel to make room for a new generation of supersize cargo ships.

The damage to the fragile corals was never supposed to have happened. In 2013, federal agencies created a plan to protect the animals from the churn of sand and rock by placing them at a distance from the dredge site. It was a strategy intended to balance Miami’s economic interests with the concerns of environmentalists, who worry about the rapid deterioration of reefs across South Florida.Crucial to the plan was safeguarding the staghorn coral, a variety listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. But the vast majority of staghorn in the area was never relocated: Either it was missed during the initial 2010 survey by contractors for the Army Corps of Engineers, or it had spawned just as work began in 2013.

The corps, the agency in charge of the project, did relocate 924 other, nonendangered corals.

Florida and the Caribbean are rapidly losing their coral reefs, some of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, and the damage has raised intense criticism of how the Army Corps of Engineers has managed the project.

Environmentalists sued the corps in October, saying it violated the Endangered Species Act and the terms of a permit issued by the State Department of Environmental Protection.

“We’ve seen profound and severe impacts to our reef just off of Miami; it looks like a moonscape,” said Rachel Silverstein, the executive director of Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper, the lead environmental group bringing the lawsuit. “This damage stems from the fact that the corps and the contractors simply weren’t following the rules that were laid out for them when they started this project.”

Reefs around the world have experienced drastic declines as a result of pollution, acidification and overfishing. Higher ocean temperatures, which can bleach coral and kill it, have also damaged reefs. Some coral near the port suffered from bleaching last summer. In certain areas of South Florida, 90 percent of the coral is gone.

In Florida, coral reefs lure residents and tourists, who dive and snorkel to see their vivid colors and the tropical fish that they attract. Just as important, reefs serve as crucial wave buffers during tropical storms, protecting beaches and shoreline homes.

A report completed last month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees endangered and threatened marine species, said 23 percent of the staghorn identified in the area by its divers in October was dead or dying. Another tract of nearby staghorn also appeared badly damaged but could not be fully surveyed.

The damage has prompted the corps and other federal agencies to dissect what went wrong, the extent of the harm and how best to avoid a repeat of similar problems.

A speedy review is especially important, environmentalists said, because Broward County, just north of here, is hoping to expand its shipping channel at Port Everglades, one of the country’s biggest ports and an area with considerably more staghorn than Miami. Environmentalists said they feared those plans repeated some of the mistakes in the Port of Miami dredging.

“The Army Corps will really need to sit down and try to figure out what happened in this case so we can design some better responses in the future,” said David Bernhardt, NOAA’s division chief for protected resources in the southeast.

The corps said it was possible that the Miami corals had been affected by the dredging, but it called the effects of the program “short term.” The corps defended its actions and said it had continually reported its concerns and findings to federal and state oversight agencies.

“We are reporting all of these things,” said Susan J. Jackson, a spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers.

The corps, she said, is abiding by the rules of the permit and increased its monitoring of the corals once it learned they were ailing. In addition, Ms. Jackson said, the corps has not been charged with any violations by enforcement agencies and has diligently worked to correct problems as they have arisen. Lessons, she said, are always learned.

“We’re a learning organization,” Ms. Jackson said, adding that the corps was already better prepared for the Port Everglades expansion. “We take the lessons learned and apply them, not only to projects under execution, but to our future planning for projects.”

The loss of coral near the Port of Miami is indisputable. Federal and state divers reported finding some colonies so buried by sediment that they were virtually invisible. The sediment, reports by several government agencies said, was having a “profound” and “long lasting” effect on many corals.

Because coral needs light to survive, the cloudiness of the water has also worsened conditions. Divers reported difficulty seeing beyond five feet.

Though the dredge being used protects the reef from scraping, it appears to have caused more sediment than anticipated.

“Everyone was feeling the sedimentation issues would really be minor, so it sounded reasonable,” Mr. Bernhardt of NOAA said.

Shortly before dredging began, the corps realized it had significantly undercounted the staghorn near the channel; there were at least 243 colonies, not 31. NOAA approved a plan to move the 38 corals closest to the dredge about 820 feet away from the channel.

Things got worse from there. Underwater monitors created to measure the sediment did not work. The corps relied on divers to keep weekly tabs on the coral. Additionally, barges used to move the dredged material to shore were spilling or leaking sediment into the water.

Federal and state environmental agencies both asked the corps to remedy the barge problems. In a December letter to the corps, the federal Environmental Protection Agency listed 49 violations. The state sent its own letters about violations. The corps responded that it would fix the problems but denied that they were violations.

Last summer, NOAA, alarmed by the field reports, recommended the immediate relocation of the staghorns. After a delay, the corps paid NOAA to do the job in October. But half the dives were aborted, in part because the dredge was over the reef, making conditions dangerous. Divers managed to collect tissue from 77 percent of 205 ailing corals, though some had vanished or died.

Whatever the cause, in this case local taxpayers will bear the cost of the damage, which will be determined after the project is completed.

“I’m not quite sure that county taxpayers fully understand that they are on the hook for paying for this,” Ms. Silverstein said.


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