Monday, April 27, 2015

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2015



CANCEL ALL STUDENT DEBT!
Sign the Petition:

 http://cancelallstudentdebt.com/?code=kos

Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:
 
Americans now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families. 

 I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private. 

 American Federation of Teachers
Campaign for America's Future
Courage Campaign
Daily Kos
Democracy for America
LeftAction
Project Springboard
RH Reality Check
RootsAction
Student Debt Crisis
The Nation
Working Families 


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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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#LaborAgainstPoliceTerror
May Day 2015
Friday, May 1, 9:00 A.M.
Oakland Port 

March & Rally to Stop Police Brutality,  Port of Oakland to City Hall

WHERE: Port of Oakland, take Adeline St. to portside of overpass

 9:00 A.M., May 1st,, March to City Hall at 10:00 A.M.  for 11:30 A.M. Rally

https://www.facebook.com/events/1393727560951699/

The labor force has played an integral part in social justice movements throughout United States history and beyond. ILWU, Local 10 in particular, has been at the forefront of many monumental events including, but not limited to the Big Strike of 1934, the 1984 Anti-Apartheid action against South Africa, and the 2010 Oscar Grant rally and port shut down.

Police terrorism in the United States is out of control. We have witnessed an endless onslaught of police brutality and police killings of innocent and unarmed people. These assaults have been mainly directed towards Black men and Black communities. We as union and non-union workers alike cannot standby and become desensitized to these great injustices.

ILWU, Local 10 is leading a Day of Action on May 1st, 2015 to call national attention in order to STOP POLICE TERROR. There will be no longshoremen working on that day in the Port of Oakland. The port will be SHUT DOWN. Disrupting commerce in this country is one means to find viable solutions to STOP POLICE TERROR. Please join us in this action and stand up against police terror.

We will gather at the ALREADY SHUTDOWN port at 9am for an hour long rally which will be at the APL gate near berth 62 close to the overpass (parking is available along Adeline close to 6th & 7th).

After the rally, WE MARCH! We will march from the port to Oscar Grant Plaza as we demonstrate that AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL!

There will be another rally at noon when we reach OGP.

PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES.....

Sponsoring community organizations include:

ONYX Organizing Committee
Alan Blueford Center for Justice
Anti Police-Terror Project
Community Ready Corps
Black Power Network
Workers World
Stop Mass Incarceration Network
 
Union Action to Stop Police Killings of Black and Brown People

Whereas, police are continuing to kill unarmed Black and Brown people across this country, and

Whereas, ILWU shuts down all West Coast ports on Bloody Thursday to remember the killing of two strikers shot in the back by police in the Big Strike of 1934, and

Whereas, ILWU has a proud history of standing up against racial injustice like the 1984 anti-apartheid action and the 2010 shut down for justice for Oscar Grant, and

Whereas, our brothers and sisters in ILA Local 1422 of Charleston, South Carolina have been organizing protests against the recent killing of unarmed Walter Scott shot in the back by police,

Therefore Be It Resolved that if our brothers and sisters of ILA 1422, home of the Charleston 5 struggle of which Local 10 was in the forefront, call on us to join with them now in a protest against police brutality we will stand with them in solidarity.

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May Day
International Workers Day
Workers and Migrants Rising for Dignity, Against State Violence, and Standing for International Solidarity
Friday May 1st
2pm Rally at Story and King, (Corner of Target Plaza)
3pm Gather Up
4pm March
5:45pm Closing Rally at San José City Hall

May 1st Coalition Endorsements: Santa Clara County Wage Theft Coalition, SEIU USWW, MAIZ,CWA 9423, SJSU S.A.H.E., PAWIS, Anakbayan Silicon Valley, NAFCON, Migrante Northern California, BAYAN USA, South Bay Labor Council, Legal Aid Society of Santa Clara County, United States Social Forum San Jose Bay Area LOC, Human Agenda, San Jose Peace and Justice Center, U.A. Plumbers and Fitters Local 393, San Jose R.A.D., CHAM, Pangea Legal Services, UFCW Local 5, LIUNA Laborers Local 270, Working Partnerships USA, Voluntarios de la Comunidad, South Bay International Womyn’s Day Network, SOMOS Mayfair, American Muslim Voice Foundation, Silicon Valley Latino Democratic Forum, SJSU Gente Unida,  SJSU M.E.Ch.A., Amigos of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Asian Law Alliance and the Coalition for Justice and Accountability, SIREN, San Jose Silicon Valley NAACP, All African People's Revolutionary Party (AAPRP), SV Debug,  Low-Income Self-Help Center,IMA South Bay, Santa Clara County El Comité, El Grito de la Cultura.



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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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Prison refuses Mumia Medical CareDear friend,

Mumia is still in medical danger. He is weak, in the infirmary, and still needs a wheelchair to come out to visits. In a phone call on Monday his voice was hesitant and lacked its usual vibrancy.  
 
Yesterday, the PA Department of Corrections notified Mumia’s Attorney Bret Grote (of the Abolitionist Law Center) that it would:
Not allow Mumia to be examined by his own doctor;
Not allow Mumia to be examined by a endocrinologist (diabetes specialist); And they denied access for the doctor to communicate with prison medical staff to assist or direct Mumia’s care; and the Prison has refused to provide for regular phone calls between Mumia and his doctor. Currently, Mumia can only use the phone every other day for only 15 minutes, as the infirmary does not have phone access.

Mumia is being held in the very infirmary that caused his chronic conditions of eczema and late-onset diabetes to become life-threatening. The medical personnel on site were prevented from ordering tests when he was ill in mid-March, and are under the same prison/corporate restrictions today. One postive note, at this time Mumia is being allowed to monitor his own blood sugar multiple times a day, and he is receiving insulin. Since Mumia was hospitalized in ICU on March 30th with life threatening complications from chronic conditions we have been advocating for his treatment. We have to step up our efforts.

Take Action Now!
Demand that the Department of Corrections permit Mumia to have an examination by his doctor! Click here to call and fax the Prison and State officials and state our demands. 

http://www.prisonradio.org/sites/default/files/letters/pdf/Eyes%20on%20Mumia_1.pdf

Mumia needs his own physician specialists!  Please donate now to help make this possible.  Please got to the web site below and give as generously as you can.

Donate at:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mumia-abu-jamal-needs-medical-care-now

and…
Sign the petition
to help save—and free—Mumia.
Go to:

https://www.change.org/p/john-e-wetzel-pa-secretary-of-corrections-tom-wolf-pa-governor-stop-the-medical-execution-of-mumia-abu-jamal-by-neglect-and-malpractice-3

Also,
We need to keep up the pressure
with phone calls:

Let SCI Mahanoy Superintendent John Kerestes and Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel know we insist that Mumia have medical specialists of his own choosing, and that they have daily access rights to examine and treat him. Also let them know that Mumia’s family needs regular and frequent visitation rights.

SCI Mahanoy
Superintendent John Kerestes
(570) 773-2158

SCI Mahanoy
Chief Health Care Administrator Steinhardt
(570) 773-2158

Christopher Oppman
Director, PA Department of Corrections Health Care Services
(717) 728-5309

John Wetzel
Secretary, PA Department of Corrections
(717) 728-4109

NO EXECUTION BY MEDICAL NEGLECT!
SAVE MUMIA'S LIFE!

Mumia is Innocent! Free Mumia Now!

This message by:
Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
20 April 2015

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For Immediate Release: March 30, 2015

Attn: News Desk

Prisoners and Advocacy Groups Win Right to a Trial On Constitutionality of the Silencing Act (PA SB508)

This morning, Chief Judge for the federal court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Christopher Conner, will hear the cases Abu-Jamal v. Kane and Prison Legal News v. Kane in a trial that willl determine the constitutionality of PA SB508 "the Silencing Act".  Defendant PA Attorney General Kane will be hard pressed to argue the constitutionality of the Silencing Act, a censorship law targeted at Mumia Abu-Jamal and other currently and formerly incarcerated people.

Defendant Seth Williams was dismissed from the case based on his explicit disavowal of enforcing the act until a court of competent jurisdiction rules on the constitutionality of the statute. His dismissal does not hinder Plaintiffs ability to obtain the relief of invalidating this law, as a favorable ruling on the First Amendment issue against Defendant Kane will achieve the same result. Williams' disavowal of enforcement is a far cry from his political grandstanding in support of this bill's passage in the fall.

The judge has ordered that this trial will include Plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction merged with a trial on the merits, meaning that if we win we will be granted a permanent injunction against the statute, and the statue will be invalidated.

“Silencing prisoners is one more way of dehumanizing them,” said Amistad Law Project Policy Director Nikki Grant. “We need the voices of the marginalized to shed light on injustice.”

The trial is set for this morning March 30 in Harrisburg, PA approximately 5 months since former Governor Corbett signed this ill-fated bill into law.

 The Abolitionist Law Center, Amistad Law Project, and the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law filed the lawsuit on Nov. 10th to stop enforcement of the law. The law firms represent Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal, Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall, Robert L. Holbrook, Donnell Palmer, Anthony Chance, and Human Rights Coalition.

The Silencing Act, also known as 18 P.S. § 11.1304, allows the Attorney General, county District Attorneys, and victims of personal injury crimes to bring a lawsuit in civil court against the person convicted of the personal injury crime to enjoin conduct that “perpetuates the continuing effect of the crime on the victim”. The actions that could prompt a lawsuit include “conduct which causes a temporary or permanent state of mental anguish.”

“This law is unconstitutional,” said David Shapiro of MacArthur Justice Center. “The facts are on our side and the law is on our side. The Silencing Act targets a huge amount of constitutionally protected speech based on who is speaking.”

After a prerecorded commencement speech by journalist and prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal was played for graduates at Goddard College in Vermont, the Pennsylvania legislature passed and outgoing Governor Corbett signed into law the Silencing Act on October 21st, 16 days after the commencement speech.

Abu-Jamal has spent 33 years in prison, 29 of which were in solitary confinement on death row after being convicted at a 1982 trial that Amnesty International said “failed to meet minimum international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings.”

Robert L. Holbrook, who is serving a death by incarceration, life without parole, sentence he received as a child, had this to say about the law: “there are people in prison who will stop writing, stop publishing, stop speaking out because of this law.”

Bret Grote       bretgrote@abolitionistlawcenter.org    412-654-9070
Ashley Henderson ashley@amistadlaw.org          215-310-0424
Noelle Hanrahan info@prisonradio.org         415-706-5222
David Shapiro david.shapiro@law.northwestern.edu        312-503-0711

Amistad Law Project is a West Philadelphia-based public interest law center.
Our mission is to fight for the human rights of all people by providing
legal services to people incarcerated in Pennsylvania’s prisons.
www.amistadlaw.org | @amistadlaw | 267-225-5884

The Abolitionist Law Center is a public interest law firm inspired by the struggle of political and politicized prisoners, and organized for the purpose of abolishing class and race based mass incarceration in the United States.   412-654-9070

Prison Radio has recorded Mumia and other political prisoners for over 25 years, and we are pulling out all the stops to keep these voices on the air.   415-706-5222

Please donate today to amplify prisoners' voices far and wide beyond the bars:
     Support Prison Radio: prisonradio.org/donate
     Defeat SB 508: bit.ly/defendfreespeech

Copyright © Prison Radio
www,prisonradio.org 415-706-5222
Our mailing address is:
Prison Radio PO Box 411074, SF CA 94141

http://us10.campaign-archive2.com/?u=247585f092e945ff55b9a1bb2&id=e113d0b6d0&e=0107d76ccd

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) Why American Workers Without Much Education Are Being Hammered
By




2) Pennsylvania: Officer Free on Bond on Murder Charge
By REUTERS





3) Baltimore Police Admit Delay in Calling Ambulance for Freddie Gray
By STEPHEN BABCOCK and JOHN CORRALES




4) Training of Deputy in Tulsa Was Faulted in a Report
By




5) Michael Brown’s Family Sues Ferguson Police Officer Who Killed Him
By
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/michael-browns-family-sues-ferguson-police-officer-who-killed-him.html?ref=us




6) Jim Crow San Francisco
By Peter Santina
April 24, 2015
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/jim-crow-san-francisco/Content?oid=2924398




7) Forcing Black Men Out of Society
By





8) Morning Brings Wail of Fire Engines in Wake of Baltimore Riots
By and STEPHEN BABCOCK




9) New York’s Unfair Summons System
By
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/opinion/new-yorks-unfair-summons-system.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region 




10) Frustration Grows in Nepal as Earthquake Relief Trickles In
By and AUSTIN RAMZY

















































































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1) Why American Workers Without Much Education Are Being Hammered
By

The last couple of decades have been terrible for American workers without much education. New research calculates just how bad, and offers some evidence as to why that is.

In short, they face a double whammy. Less-educated Americans, especially men, are shifting away from manufacturing and other jobs that once offered higher pay, and a higher share are now working in lower-paying food service, cleaning and groundskeeping jobs. Simultaneously, pay levels are declining in almost all of the fields that employ less-educated workers, so even those who have held onto jobs as manufacturers, operators and laborers are making less than they would have a generation ago.

Perhaps the single most shocking number in a new review of employment and earnings data by researchers at the Hamilton Project, a research group within the Brookings Institution, is this one: The median earnings of working men aged 30 to 45 without a high school diploma fell 20 percent from 1990 to 2013 when adjusted for inflation.

A group of people not earning much to begin with, in other words, has seen earnings plummet to $25,500 in 2013 from $31,900 in 1990 (both numbers are in 2013 dollars). Men with a high school diploma did only a little better, with a 13 percent decline in median earnings over the same span. Women did better than men, but it has been no era of riches for less-educated women either; those without a high school diploma saw a 12 percent decline in median earnings, and those with a high school diploma or some college a 3 percent gain.

The difficulties of American workers, and especially those with low levels of education, have been well documented. What makes the latest analysis, by Melissa S. Kearney, Brad Hershbein and Elisa Jácome, interesting is in some ways its simplicity. They focused on a slice of census data that avoids some of the more contentious dimensions of these debates.

They are using data over a relatively long period, 23 years, that includes three recessions and three recoveries, so the results should be little affected by exactly where we stand within the economic cycle. They focus on people between ages 30 and 45, so the numbers shouldn’t be much affected if people choose to stay in school longer or retire earlier. They focus only on those who worked at least 750 hours during the year, sidestepping the debate over whether millions of Americans who have left the work force are doing so voluntarily or because they don’t think there are good job opportunities available to them.

There are two common stories for why this has been such a hard couple of decades for less-educated American workers.

First, there is the decline of the number of jobs in manufacturing and other industries that once paid less-skilled workers good wages, a result of technology and globalization. Second, there are changing norms around worker pay and the workplace — less union power, for example, a lower minimum wage when adjusted for inflation, and a culture in corporate America of cutting labor costs to the bone.

It would be dangerous to read too much into a relatively simple crunching of census data, but the Hamilton Project numbers offer some evidence for both.First, there really is a shift away from the sectors where less-educated workers can earn a decent living. In 1990, 40 percent of the prime-age male workers without a high school degree worked as operators and laborers, a number that declined to 34 percent in 2013. Jobs in food service, cleaning and groundskeeping nearly doubled in the same span, to 21 percent from 11 percent. But it wasn’t an even trade: Pay for operators and labors was $25,500 in 2013, compared with $20,400 for the food, cleaning and groundskeeping category.

You’re not imagining it. The jobs that are being created for less-educated workers really do pay less than the ones that are being lost. That suggests that globalization and technological change — the shifts that are making those machine operator jobs fewer and farther between — are a factor in depressed wages.

But the shift in occupational categories, the researchers found, accounts for only about a third of the decline in pay for men without a high school degree and one-sixth of the decline for those with a degree. A bigger effect is downward pressure on pay in jobs held by low-education workers across the board.

So not only did people shift from higher-paying fields to lower-paying ones, but inflation-adjusted pay also fell in all of those jobs. For example, production work — manufacturing, largely — was the highest-paying category for men without a high school diploma in 2013, paying them $28,000. But that sector was both smaller (29 percent of such workers, down from 31 percent) and paid less (down from $33,600) than it did in 1990.

The drop in pay across the board for low-education workers hints more at some of those factors around employers’ bargaining power and practices. Both factors could come into play, though. For example, perhaps a rise in automation and globalization is eliminating manufacturing jobs, and the people who once held those jobs are now competing for work as janitors and food preparers, and the additional supply is helping to depress wages in those fields.

“One thing that’s always bothered me about the political debate is people want to say either it’s globalization and technology, or it’s institutions,” said Ms. Kearney, who is director of the Hamilton Project and a professor at the University of Maryland. “But of course it’s both.”




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2) Pennsylvania: Officer Free on Bond on Murder Charge
By REUTERS



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3) Baltimore Police Admit Delay in Calling Ambulance for Freddie Gray
By STEPHEN BABCOCK and JOHN CORRALES

BALTIMORE — The police commissioner in Baltimore said Friday that Freddie Gray, the unarmed black man who died Sunday after suffering a spinal cord injury while in police custody, should have received medical attention much sooner than he did.

The commissioner, Anthony W. Batts, said during a news conference that officers should have called for an ambulance when Mr. Gray, 25, was first arrested, not about 50 minutes later when he was at the police station.

“We know that police employees failed to get him medical attention in a timely manner,” Mr. Batts said.

Mr. Batts also acknowledged that the officers had violated department procedure by not putting a seatbelt on Mr. Gray while he was being transported.

“We know he was not buckled in the transportation wagon as he should have been,” Mr. Batts said. “No excuses for that. Period.”Mr. Gray was arrested on April 12 after being chased and tackled by officers. In cellphone videos taken by witnesses, he can be heard asking for assistance while on the ground and screaming while being dragged to the van. Six officers have been suspended in the case.

“Over the course of the last 12 days, we have undertaken a massive investigation,” deploying a team of at least 30, Mr. Batts said.

The official in charge of the investigation, Deputy Commissioner Kevin Davis, said investigators were working to piece together all of the events on the day of the arrest, including what happened in the van while Mr. Gray was being taken to the police station.

Gaps remain in the timeline involving three stops made by the van, Mr. Davis said, in particular the last one, when Mr. Gray had to be picked up off the floor of the van and put in a seat.

At the first two stops, Mr. Gray appeared to be able to move and talk, Mr. Batts said, but at the third, he could do neither. But it still remains unclear, Mr. Batts said, exactly when Mr. Gray was injured.

Investigators expected to submit their preliminary findings to the state’s attorney of Baltimore next Friday.

At an earlier news conference on Friday, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and other leaders urged the community to have patience and to allow the investigation to be completed.

“In order to have justice and not just seek justice, the investigation needs to follow procedures,” Ms. Rawlings-Blake said. “We have to be able to follow up on leads, and they have to be as thorough as possible.”

After a week of protests in Baltimore, a large rally is expected Saturday outside City Hall, and Baltimore officials urged protesters to remain peaceful.

“We know that people are coming in from outside of Baltimore,” Ms. Rawlings-Blake said. “If you’re going to come here, come here to help us, not to hurt us.”

The president of the Baltimore branch of the N.A.A.C.P., Tessa Hill-Aston, cautioned outsiders further. “We do not need people coming in bullying our community,” she said.


Stephen Babcock reported from Baltimore, and John Corrales from New York.



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4) Training of Deputy in Tulsa Was Faulted in a Report
By

In an internal investigation six years ago into the volunteer reserve deputy who shot an unarmed man this month, sheriff’s officers in Tulsa County, Okla., said that he did not have the training or skills required for his post, but that commanders told them to ignore such concerns.

The investigator’s report on the 2009 inquiry was published Friday by The Tulsa World. Shortly after, the district attorney, Stephen A. Kunzweiler, released a statement saying that in light of new information, “I have been in contact with independent law enforcement agencies regarding further investigation into these matters.” A person briefed on the matter, who was not authorized to discuss it on the record, said that was a reference to the report and other documents subpoenaed by the district attorney.Mr. Kunzweiler has charged the reserve deputy, Robert C. Bates, 73, with second-degree manslaughter in the shooting of Eric C. Harris, 44, on April 2, as he was being arrested after an illegal gun sale. Mr. Bates, who is white, and the sheriff’s office have said he accidentally fired his pistol instead of his Taser as Mr. Harris, who was black, was held to the ground by other deputies.

Concerns have been raised about whether training requirements were overlooked, or even falsified, for Mr. Bates, because of his close friendship with the sheriff, Stanley Glanz. Mr. Bates’s lawyer and Sheriff Glanz have denied the claims. They did not respond to requests for comment Friday, and the reason for the 2009 inquiry was not known.

Sheriff Glanz said Monday that the F.B.I.’s Oklahoma field office had told him that it had “found no wrongdoing at the sheriff’s office.” But the F.B.I. office said that it had found only that there was no basis for a civil rights investigation; it would neither confirm nor deny that it was investigating claims related to Mr. Bates’s qualifications.

Reserve deputies are required to have at least 240 hours of training. To reach the highest of three levels — the one attained by Mr. Bates, at which reservists can patrol and make arrests without supervision — volunteers also must complete 480 hours of supervised field training.

The sheriff’s office was able to document only 72 hours of field training, according to the 2009 investigator, a sergeant in the agency, who interviewed several officers in the department. A corporal who oversaw Mr. Bates’s training said in the report that it totaled 328 hours and that he was told by commanders that that was enough.

The corporal also said those commanders intimidated him into signing memos that he did not write, stating that Mr. Bates was fully capable of doing the job. The corporal said that he did not believe Mr. Bates was qualified, adding, “I would have asked him to do remedial training.” In another interview, the report says,a sergeant told the investigator that he doubted Mr. Bates had been fully trained, and that deputies voiced concerns “about how Bates operated in the field,” including his inability to perform the basic function of communicating with a dispatcher by radio. He said his superiors told him to overlook his concerns.

Another sergeant, who supervised the reserve deputy program, said Mr. Bates broke rules, like conducting traffic stops on his own before he was authorized. When the sergeant reported the matter to his bosses, he was told to drop it.


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5) Michael Brown’s Family Sues Ferguson Police Officer Who Killed Him
By

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/michael-browns-family-sues-ferguson-police-officer-who-killed-him.html?ref=us

The family of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., last year, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the officer on Thursday, arguing that Mr. Brown had his hands up when the fatal shots were fired.

The civil suit filed in state court asserts that the white officer, Darren Wilson, unconstitutionally stopped Mr. Brown and then provoked him before ultimately taking his life in a hail of bullets. The suit seeks at least $75,000 in damages.

The lawsuit also names Thomas Jackson, the former Ferguson police chief, and the city as defendants, arguing that the city fostered a culture of racial bias and mistreatment of African-Americans, which resulted in the stop where Mr. Wilson killed Mr. Brown, 18, in the middle of a residential street.

The lawsuit comes about nine months after Mr. Brown’s killing and about five months after Mr. Wilson resigned from the Ferguson force. Mr. Wilson, who said he was acting in self-defense after Mr. Brown punched him and later charged at him, was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing by a state grand jury and a federal Department of Justice investigation.

That Justice Department report found conflicting witness accounts of Mr. Brown’s final moments. Forensic evidence and some witnesses’ accounts were consistent with Officer Wilson’s assertion that he shot Mr. Brown because the teenager was charging forward in a threatening way, and that Mr. Brown’s hands were not raised to the sky. But some witnesses said Mr. Brown seemed to be trying to give up and was stumbling toward Officer Wilson before the fatal shots were fired.

Anthony D. Gray, a lawyer for the Brown family who stood alongside Mr. Brown’s parents, Michael Brown Sr. and Lesley McSpadden, during a news conference in Clayton, Mo., on Thursday, said they would reveal “facts that nobody has seen that have been overlooked and placed in the footnotes of some reports.”

Mr. Brown’s killing unleashed a torrent of anger and sparked a protest movement over the police treatment of communities of color. Many activists said that the office of the St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch, did not aggressively investigate or question Mr. Wilson.

“The question really is, ‘When is America going to challenge the standard police narrative?’” said Benjamin L. Crump, another lawyer for the Brown family.

The family’s lawyers said that Mr. Wilson’s own words suggested wrongdoing.

Specifically, they pointed to the grand jury testimony of William J. Mudd, a Ferguson police sergeant, in which Mr. Mudd discussed what Mr. Wilson told him after the shooting. Mr. Mudd resigned last month after a Justice Department report, which excoriated Ferguson for abusive law enforcement policies, revealed that he was one of several Ferguson officials who had sent racist emails.

According to a transcript of the grand jury testimony, a prosecutor asked Mr. Mudd, “I believe you said in that statement that Officer Wilson told you that Michael Brown took off running, and then he stopped and raised his arms and charged him.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Mudd responded.

Later, after the prosecutor asked Mr. Mudd whether Mr. Wilson said he had shot Mr. Brown after he “raised his arms in a charging motion,” Mr. Mudd responded that Mr. Wilson told him he fired when Mr. Brown “took the step forward.”

A spokesman for the city of Ferguson declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. Mr. Jackson and a lawyer for Mr. Wilson did not respond to messages seeking comment.

John Corrales contributed reporting.

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6) Jim Crow San Francisco
By Peter Santina
April 24, 2015
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/jim-crow-san-francisco/Content?oid=2924398

As a deputy public defender in San Francisco, I am not shocked at the revelation there is a white-power network within the Police Department. “All n-----s must f----- hang,” one veteran SFPD officer texted former Sgt. Ian Furminger, who has been convicted and sentenced to prison for violating civil rights and stealing drug money. “White power,” the cops repeatedly texted each other. Four cops were recently found guilty of corruption-related charges in federal court. When Furminger’s text messages were partly released by the federal government last week, Furminger and four additional veteran officers were exposed as “virulent racist[s],” in the words of the federal prosecutor. Every officer involved had been on the job for more than 10 years. Now 10 more officers, including a police captain, are being investigated for racist messages.

Why am I not shocked? For nine years as a public defender, I have witnessed far less openly virulent — but far more damaging — institutionalized racism of the San Francisco criminal justice system. Every morning, young and old African Americans are paraded through courtrooms in San Francisco, dressed in orange jumpsuits not unlike Guantanamo inmates and often shackled in handcuffs or chains. After a very brief court appearance, usually less than two minutes, they are returned to their cells, where they are given terrible food and their families are charged exorbitant fees for their phone calls. I’ve sat beside too many innocent black clients who frightfully whisper, “What was that deal again?” as they watch the jury panel of 80-120 people — almost always less than five and often zero black potential jurors — walk into the courtroom. I’ve heard too many dehumanizing comments from judges, such as one who was fond of explaining her denial of release to people accused of nonviolent drug offenses with the phrase, “Too bad, so sad.” I’ve sat in too many courtrooms where prosecutors asked about, and judges always agreed, a white police officer being legally qualified as an “expert” on “black gangs” or “Latin gangs.” I’ve seen the bewildered faces when I questioned how the “Latin gang expert” was a white man who did not speak Spanish, had never lived in the neighborhood, and conceded that much of his “expertise” was drawn from television shows about gangs. I’ve experienced the casual friendliness of an undercover narcotics officer smiling genuinely at me and calling out, “Hello, counselor!” as his hands move around inside the crotch area of a black man’s pants. If you get charged with a felony in San Francisco, nearly every single prosecution plea bargain will require (after you get released from jail or prison) that you give up your Fourth Amendment right against illegal search and seizure (a “search condition”). Too many of my black clients say, “Well, they’re gonna search me anyway.” It’s too easy to just blame bad cops.

Furminger’s text messages are merely part of the fabric of institutional racism that permeates every aspect of the San Francisco criminal justice system. Sadly, a judge or prosecutor does not need to be a white power activist, a la Furminger’s crew, in order to support institutional racism. Many judges and prosecutors do not privately use racial slurs (I hope) and are friendly with lawyers of color. But the vast majority of judges and prosecutors are resigned to the bureaucratic daily reality: countless black people in orange jumpsuits, shackled and imprisoned, their freedoms thrown away with all the care of a toddler stepping on a roly-poly. Racism in San Francisco has made headlines in the past few years. In 2013, off-duty black Officer Lorenzo Adamson was detained and questioned by three white police officers. They demanded to know if Adamson was on parole, ordered him out of his car, and choked and arrested him. Instead of charging the white officers, District Attorney George Gascon charged the 15-year police veteran with crimes against police. A judge found probable cause that Adamson was guilty. A jury found him not guilty. Adamson’s lawsuit against The City is pending. This is not a new problem here. In 1994, San Francisco made the news when its incarceration rate for black men was twice the U.S. average and 10 times the rate of Apartheid-era South Africa. But in the 21 years since, San Francisco has grown stomach-churningly worse. The City’s jail in 1994 had 4.4 times the proportion of black inmates as in San Francisco as a whole. By 2012, the jail population was 9.5 times more black than The City. But when many non-black people hear about racial disparities, there are two common responses. Some people tend to think poverty is the explanation. There is truth there; the American criminal justice system almost exclusively incarcerates poor people. However, at least in San Francisco, poverty does not explain the disparity. If the jail reflected the poverty rate, the jail would be 37 percent Asian, 28 percent white, 21 percent Latino and just 14 percent black. In fact, the jail is 57 percent black.

The other response is more common but less public: Black people commit more crime. In fact, black people are arrested for hard-drug possession more than three times more often than white people, but a significantly higher percentage of whites use hard drugs. The same statistics apply for marijuana crimes. Most tellingly, when people hear that black people are disproportionately locked up, many become more supportive of harsh prison policies. In 2014, researchers at Stanford University documented that when Bay Area residents were shown mugshots of black inmates, they were more supportive of harsh three-strikes laws. In contrast, when shown mugshots of white inmates, residents wanted to reform three strikes to make it less punitive. Fifty years after Giants’ star Willie Mays faced housing discrimination in San Francisco, the same attitudes pervade our society. Let’s not wait another 50 years for change. Hollywood made a movie about Selma, Ala., and the Justice Department wrote a report about Ferguson, Mo. It is time to address the apartheid-like conditions in the metropolis and stop giving passes to the “liberal” coastal cities like San Francisco.

Peter Santina is a deputy public defender in San Francisco. After graduating from Harvard University and UC Berkeley School of Law, Santina has defended poor people accused of crimes for nine years.

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7) Forcing Black Men Out of Society
By

An analysis in The Times — “1.5 Million Missing Black Men” — showed that more than one in every six black men in the 24-to-54 age group has disappeared from civic life, mainly because they died young or are locked away in prison. This means that there are only 83 black men living outside of jail for every 100 black women — in striking contrast to the white population, where men and women are about equal in numbers.

This astounding shortfall in black men translates into lower marriage rates, more out-of-wedlock births, a greater risk of poverty for families and, by extension, less stable communities. The missing men should be a source of concern to political leaders and policy makers everywhere.

While the 1.5 million number is startling, it actually understates the severity of the crisis that has befallen African-American men since the collapse of the manufacturing and industrial centers, which was quickly followed by the “war on drugs” and mass imprisonment, which drove up the national prison population more than sevenfold beginning in the 1970s.

In addition to the “missing,” millions more are shut out of society, or are functionally missing, because of the shrinking labor market for low-skilled workers, racial discrimination or sanctions that prevent millions who have criminal convictions from getting all kinds of jobs. At the same time, the surge in imprisonment has further stigmatized blackness itself, so that black men and boys who have never been near a jail now have to fight the presumption of criminality in many aspects of day-to-day life — in encounters with police, in schools, on the streets and on the job.

The data on missing African-American men is not particularly new. Every census for the last 50 years has shown the phenomenon.

In earlier decades, premature death played a larger role than it does today. But since the 1980s, the rising number of black men who were spared premature death was more than offset by the growing number shipped off to prison, many for nonviolent drug offenses. The path to that catastrophe was paved by what the sociologist William Julius Wilson described as “the disappearance of work,” which devastated formerly coherent neighborhoods.

As deindustrialization got underway, earnings declined, neighborhoods grew poorer and businesses moved to the suburbs, beyond the reach of inner city residents. As Mr. Wilson wrote in his 1996 book, “When Work Disappears,” for the first time in the 20th century, most adults in many poor inner-city neighborhoods were not working.

Joblessness became the norm, creating a “nonworking class,” that lived in segregated areas where most residents could not find jobs or had given up looking. In Chicago, where, Mr. Wilson carried out his research, employers wrote off the poor by not advertising in places where they could see the ads. The situation was so grave in 1996 that he recommended the resurrection of a Works Progress Administration-like strategy, under which the government would provide public employment to every American over 18 who wanted it.

The stigmatization of blackness presents an enormous obstacle, even to small boys. Last year, for example, the Department of Education reported that black children were far more likely to be suspended from school — even from preschool — than white children. Federal cases also show higher rates of public school suspensions for minority students than for white students for identical behavior, suggesting that racial discrimination against black males starts very early in life.The sociologist Devah Pager, a Harvard professor who has meticulously researched the effect of race on hiring policies, has also shown that stereotypes have a powerful effect on job possibilities. In one widely cited study, she sent carefully selected test applicants with equivalent résumés to apply for low-level jobs with hundreds of employers. Ms. Pager found that criminal convictions for black men seeking employment were virtually impossible to overcome in many contexts, partly because convictions reinforced powerful, longstanding stereotypes.

The stigma of a criminal record was less damaging for white testers. In fact, those who said that they were just out of prison were as likely to be called back for a second interview as black men who had no criminal history at all. “Being black in America today is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding a job,” she wrote in her book, “Marked: Race, Crime and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration.”

In recent months, the many grievous cases of unarmed black men and boys who were shot dead by the police — now routinely captured on video — show how the presumption of criminality, poverty and social isolation threatens lives every day in all corners of this country.


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8) Cuba: High voter turn-out in local polls
Monday, April 27, 2015
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/58862

More than 7.7 million Cubans out of 8 million registered voters cast their ballots on April 19 to elect nearly 12,600 delegates out of about 27,000 candidates to the country’s Municipal Assemblies, TeleSUR English said the next day.

National Assembly president Esteban Lazo highlighted the relevance of these elections in a context of economic changes and the granting of greater powers to municipal assemblies. Runoff elections will be held April 26 for positions where no candidate secured more than 50% vote.

These Assemblies oversee services such as water and power, and are elected every 30 months. They form one of the three tiers of Cuba's government, along with provincial and national assemblies.

Under Cuban law, candidates must be nominated from their community and do not have to have any political affiliation. Voting is done by secret ballot and the public can witness the count.

Opposition candidate Hildebrando Chaviano, a lawyer who failed to win a seat in the capital, Havana, said: "The vote was clean. The count was clean. The people don't want change. They still want revolution."


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8) Morning Brings Wail of Fire Engines in Wake of Baltimore Riots
By and STEPHEN BABCOCK

BALTIMORE — Hundreds of rifle-toting National Guard members began deploying here on Tuesday morning, lining one of the city’s main thoroughfares and taking up posts around a police station in western Baltimore that had been the scene of earlier protests.

The guardsmen were expected to be joined over the course of the day by thousands of police officers from outside the city as Baltimore struggles to recover from rioting, arson and looting that left 15 police officers injured — six seriously — and damaged or destroyed dozens of businesses, homes and cars. It is not known how many rioters have been injured.

Gov. Larry Hogan, who visited injured officers and damaged neighborhoods, said that while the city was under control, officials were concerned about what tonight might bring. “It’s not going to happen again,” Mr. Hogan said of the violence.While the rioters largely dispersed during the night, fire engines raced across this city early Tuesday as the Fire Department strained to extinguish blazes. Some firefighters were reported to have had cinder blocks heaved at them as they responded to emergencies. As a result, police officers were deployed overnight alongside weary and harried firefighters to ensure their work was not disrupted by people with “no regard for life,” the Police Department said.

As dawn broke, the city was relatively calm. Overnight, the police said, two people were shot, each in the leg, in separate incidents. One victim, a woman, was shot on Fulton Avenue near where some of the worst rioting and looting had occurred hours earlier. The other victim, a man, was shot about two miles west of the Mondawmin Mall, where the rioting began.

At the mall early Tuesday, a few police cars sat in the parking lot, but the rioters seemed long gone. Governor Hogan walked through the mall, which is closed, to see the damage. The police said that a flier circulated on social media had called for a period of violence on Monday afternoon to begin at the mall and to move downtown toward City Hall.

Near the debris-strewn corner of Pennsylvania and North Avenues, scene of some of the worst rioting on Monday, including the burning of a police car and the looting of a CVS drugstore, state police troopers in riot gear were lined up in a human barrier across two intersections as the sky began to lighten. No rioters were visible. Some people had begun to clean up, with a pickup truck full of scrap metal parked near one line of police officers.

But fire engine sirens could still be heard and acrid smoke wafted from some of the areas hardest hit by arsonists who have left the Baltimore Fire Department stretched to its limits. One early-morning fire struck a large pawnshop in a commercial strip on the west side of the city, and several fire companies were called to put out the blaze.

Members of the National Guard began to arrive on the streets just after dawn, wearing tan and earth-green military fatigues and driving sandy-color humvees. They took up posts around the city’s Western District police station, while more than a hundred other guardsmen lined the street in front of Baltimore’s inner harbor.

State and city officials said they hoped that measures scheduled to be put into effect on Tuesday— including the National Guard deployment and a curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.— would reduce the chances of a repeat of Monday’s unrest, where the police acknowledged that, at least early on, they had been outflanked and outnumbered.By the early hours of Tuesday, it was clear that in addition to the many rioters fueled by fury over the death of Freddie Gray — who died of a spinal cord injury sustained while in police custody — there were many other residents who, while also upset by Mr. Gray’s death, were troubled by Monday’s violence.

These included members of Mr. Gray’s own family, who said he would not have approved of the rioting. It also included people like Katrina Carter, who grew up near the Mondawmin Mall, a place, she said, “where they had pageants and everything you could do with kids.”

Standing in the mall’s parking lot late Monday night, Ms. Carter said she understood the anger of the teenagers who had thrown rocks and bricks at the police. “I’m 38, but had I been 12, I probably would have been out there,” she said. But she said the teenagers needed to learn a better way to protest.

“They need to understand how to push pens, not people,” she said.

Mr. Gray’s death on April 19 has opened a deep wound in this majority-black city, where the mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and the Baltimore police commissioner, Anthony W. Batts — both of whom are black — have struggled to overhaul a police department that has a history of aggressive, sometimes brutal, treatment of black men.

Mr. Gray was chased and restrained by police officers on bicycles at Gilmor Homes on the morning of April 12; a cellphone video of his arrest showed him being dragged into a police van, seemingly limp and screaming in pain. The police have acknowledged that he should have received medical treatment immediately at the scene of the arrest and have also said that he rode in the van unbuckled.

After his arrival at the police station, medics rushed him to the hospital, where he slipped into a coma and died. His family has said that 80 percent of his spinal cord was severed, and that his larynx had been crushed.

The death spawned a week of protests that had been largely peaceful until Saturday night, when demonstrators — who had spent the afternoon marching through the city — scuffled with officers in riot gear outside Camden Yards, the baseball park.

The authorities attributed the scattered violence that night to outsiders who, Ms. Rawlings-Blake said, “were inciting,” with “ ‘go out there and shut this city down’ kind of messaging.”

But the violence on Monday was much more devastating and profound, a blow for a city whose leaders had been hoping Mr. Gray’s funeral would show its more peaceful side. At the New Shiloh Baptist Church, Mr. Gray lay in an open white coffin in a white shirt and tie. There was a pillow bearing a picture of him in a red T-shirt, against a backdrop of a blue sky and doves, with the message “Peace y’all.”

The service was more than a celebration of Mr. Gray’s short life; it was a call for peace and justice — and for residents of Baltimore to help lead the nationwide movement for better police treatment of black men that emerged last August after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

The Rev. Jamal Bryant, who delivered Mr. Gray’s eulogy, insisted that Mr. Gray’s death would not “be in vain.” He vowed that Baltimore residents would “keep demanding justice,” but he also issued a pointed rebuke to the congregation, telling members that black people must take control of their lives and force the government and the police to change.

Mr. Bryant came back to the neighborhood after the burial on Monday afternoon to appeal for calm.

“This is not what the family asked for, today of all days,” Mr. Bryant said. “For us to come out of the burial and walk into this is absolutely inexcusable.” He said he was “asking every young person to go back home,” adding, “it’s frustration, anger and it’s disrespect for the family.”

Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting from Baltimore, and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York.





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9) New York’s Unfair Summons System
By

The New York Police Department has long argued that the drop in crime in recent years could be attributed, in part, to the department’s tough stance on nuisance offenses. But there’s evidence that crime also went down in cities that did not take a similar “zero tolerance” approach to minor crimes.

Meanwhile, this policing approach has alienated minorities and overwhelmed the courts with low-level offenders who pose no danger to public safety. Summonses issued for violations like drinking alcohol in public or riding a bicycle on the sidewalk account for more than half the cases in criminal court.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and the state’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, recently took steps to make the confusing summons process more transparent. But the reforms do not get to the underlying issue, which is that the police are issuing too many trivial summonses to begin with, a point underscored in a federal civil rights lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the summons system. The lead plaintiff, Sharif Stinson, says he was walking out of his aunt’s apartment building in Upper Manhattan when several officers stopped and searched him, without cause, then held him at the precinct for several hours. His summons for disorderly conduct was later dismissed.

The suit, Stinson v. City of New York, argues that officers are being pressured by superiors to issue bogus summonses — a practice, they contend, that violates their constitutional rights and can lead to an arrest and lost time from work or school. The suit also claims that summonses are disproportionately issued in minority neighborhoods, where officers have been known to sniff coffee cups and juice cartons for evidence of alcohol so they can issue a summons for public drinking. (In a widely publicized decision three years ago, Judge Noach Dear, of Brooklyn Criminal Court, observed that every defendant who had come before him charged with drinking alcohol in public had been black or Latino, and he said that he could not recall ever having a white person before him on such a charge.)

The Police Department issued 359,000 summonses last year. Just a little more than one-fourth of them led to convictions, suggesting that many were issued without legitimate cause. Even so, people who fail to appear in court have warrants issued for their arrests, which puts them at risk of being arrested, fingerprinted and taken to jail, where they could spend days waiting to go before a judge. In essence, the warrant turns a nuisance offense that might have been dismissed into a serious problem. The summons court system currently has about 1.2 million open warrants of this nature.The de Blasio administration wants to make it easier for people to remember their court dates so that warrants are not issued for their arrests. It is rolling out a new summons form that clearly states a date of appearance and, beginning this summer, will call or send text messages to people reminding them of their court dates. A pilot program in Manhattan will allow individuals to appear in court any time in the week before their scheduled appearances if that is more convenient.

In addition, the city will post quarterly summons data broken down by precinct and race. This will make it easier to determine if some neighborhoods are being treated unfairly. The Police Department’s annual report will also include demographic information related to summonses. On Monday, Judge Lippman supported the idea of reclassifying some low-level offenses and removing them from criminal court.

These changes are clear improvements over the status quo. But the city must also go back to basics — and make doubly sure that summonses are issued fairly and with cause.


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10) Frustration Grows in Nepal as Earthquake Relief Trickles In
By and AUSTIN RAMZY

KATMANDU, Nepal — Residents of Katmandu living in tent camps after Nepal’s powerful earthquake said on Tuesday that their biggest worry was a lack of safe drinking water, even as they endured the latest pelting of rain.

That and other claims of slow disaster relief have kindled growing public frustration here with the Nepalese government, which has struggled to deliver food, water, tents and other aid across this poor, mountainous country of 28 million people.

Since the earthquake struck Nepal on Saturday, killing more than 5,000 people at the latest count, the government has instituted disaster-response plans, galvanized the army and received planeloads of aid every day from dozens of other countries.

The government has established 16 large camps in Katmandu, and many other residents have made do by sleeping on the street or in open spaces away from damaged buildings and walls.But residents have complained that the help is not reaching them or is arriving too slowly, and many accuse the government of incompetence, neglect or even corruption.

“I don’t think the government is doing anything,” Sudesh Tulachan, a building worker and shop owner sheltering from the rain under a canopy where hundreds of Katmandu residents displaced from their homes gathered, including 24 of his relatives.

“Only this tent was provided by the government, but for everything else, we have had to rely on our own labors,” he said as relatives swayed their heads in agreement. “You can see how many humans are in need.”

It is a common complaint in the tent camps across Katmandu, the capital, where aftershocks have deterred many residents from sleeping indoors and where many older buildings have crumbled into piles of broken brick.

But the government faces a conundrum in distributing aid, one senior military official said. Though urban residents can protest loudly about their hardships, the most pressing needs are in isolated villages in remote valleys and mountainsides, where the earthquake caused devastating landslides. Prime Minister Sushil Koirala said on Tuesday that the number killed could reach 10,000.

“Our primary, primary, primary goal is to rescue the people,” the official, Brig. Gen. Jagadish Pokharel, a spokesman for the Nepalese Army, told a group of reporters after a briefing on the aid effort. “We are also trying to synchronize it and to distribute to the needy people. We will do our best.”

For a government fractured by political rivalries, juggling the demands of distressed citizens could become more difficult if the clean water and other aid fail to flow faster in coming days and blunt public frustration.

“The bureaucracy has been a bit slow, but they did seem to get organized in the past 24 hours,” Jamie McGoldrick, the United Nations resident coordinator for Nepal, said in a telephone interview.

“We’ve got camps with a population we will need to support for the much longer term,” he said. “The material is getting out there, but this is a massive operation.”

The hub of the earthquake relief effort in Nepal is the Tribhuvan International Airport on the outskirts of Katmandu and the adjacent domestic terminal and military quarters. Planes from India, China and other countries have been landing with supplies of water, food, tents, stretchers, medicines and other aid.

In the military operations section of the airport, Nepalese officers in mottled fatigues coordinate arrivals of supplies and operate helicopters rescuing badly injured victims of the earthquake from far-off areas. The supplies wait in a warehouse and hangar until civilian government officials allocate them.

“We brought in close to 30 tons of drinking water yesterday,” Wing Cmdr. S. S. Birdi, a spokesman for the assisting Indian Air Force, said in an interview at the airport military operations center. “What’s happening is people are all facing hardship, but the people in the remote areas are in much more hardship.”

Many Nepalese people have voiced suspicion that much of the assistance has not been shared fairly, or at all, because of incompetence, poor planning or corruption.

Hundreds of Nepalis, mostly young men, gathered outside the National Parliament in Katmandu on Monday, chanting in anger at what they said was the government’s slow and inept response to the earthquake, including a lack of safe drinking water.

“They have not given anything,” one of the protesters, Sajjwal Chaulagain, a 20-year-old student, said in an interview. He and others echoed the widespread belief that the foreign assistance was plentiful and being hoarded by officials.

“This is the corruption and laziness in government,” said Sudip Thebe, a business student who joined the protest. “We look at the news, and every country gives us something, but the Nepal government doesn’t give to us.”

Not all Nepalese people were angry with the government, and many spoke of their hardships in weary resignation. “I’m angry with being here, but the government is trying,” said Kabin Joshi, a 20-year-old trainee lab technician staying in one of the camps for residents. “We need more help; that’s a fact.”

Some relief organization workers said delivering help to villages devastated by the earthquake was a physical challenge that would test any government. The office of the United Nations’ resident coordinator in Nepal on Monday cited estimates that the earthquake had affected eight million people in the country, including two million in the 11 worst affected districts. About 1.4 million of them needed help with food.

“The geography is very, very difficult,” Peter Oyloe, the director for nutrition for Save the Children in Nepal, said in a telephone interview. “Trying to deal with geography, trying to get to those people, the most vulnerable especially up in the high mountains, is very difficult.”

In Katmandu, with over a million inhabitants, most residents have been able to find enough to eat, and many people return to their homes to pick up food and perhaps cook a meal. By Tuesday, more shops had reopened, making it easier for residents to buy supplies.

But safe drinking water has been more difficult to find, especially for poor residents, after the earthquake fractured pipes and tanks, introducing potential dangerous contaminants.

The Nepalese Army has been making a more visible effort to improve people’s conditions in at least some tent camps in Katmandu.

On Tuesday at Tundikhel, a parade ground near the center of the city that has been turned into a tent camp, Col. Prayog Rana oversaw soldiers handing packets of cooking oil to women. The soldiers have also built more toilets and cleaned the campsite, which holds 6,000 residents, and they were setting up tanks of disease-free drinking water, he said.

“I want to organize this place in a very systematic way,” Colonel Rana said, watching soldiers shepherd the women and children into lines. “But so far there are not the resources.”

Chris Buckley reported from Katmandu, and Austin Ramzy from Hong Kong.



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