Friday, October 02, 2015

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, FRIDAY, OCTIBER 2, 2015




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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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Wednesday, October 7, 2015, 7pm in Berkeley!
Vijay Prashad on Palestine and the Middle East
Wednesday, October 7, 7pm
First Congregational Church of Berkeley
2345 Channing Way
(near downtown Berkeley Bart)
Facebook event

Vijay Prashad is a prominent & charismatic scholar and critic of US foreign policy. Two of his 17 books have been named “Books of the Year” by the Village Voice. Currently Professor of International Studies at Trinity College in Connecticut, he was previously Edward Said Chair at the American University of Beirut.

In addition to speaking about his new book, Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War & Occupation, Vijay Prashad will give an overview of ever-changing events in the Middle East – not to be missed

“WHAT WE DO IS TO CREATE A SHORT-CIRCUIT BETWEEN THE HEART AND THE HEAD.” - Vijay Prashad

TICKETS: $10, $15, $20 sliding scale – available now through Brown Paper Tickets!

$15 Tickets also available in bookstores
East Bay: Books Inc./Berkeley, Moe's, Diesel, Walden Pond
San Francisco: Modern Times.
You can also get tickets directly from MECA (no service charge!) -- call or email Sue or Nawal weekdays, 510-548-0542, susan@mecaforpeace.org

Vijay Prashad edited Letters to Palestine, tracing the “swelling American recognition of Palestinian suffering, struggle, and hope, in writing that is personal, lyrical, anguished, and inspiring.” For example, after the 2014 Gaza assault, polls revealed that a majority of Americans under thirty found Israel’s actions unjustified.

Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War & Occupation includes contributions by Mumia Abu Jamal, Naomi Shihab Nye, Robin D.G. Kelley, Teju Cole, Junot Diaz (who wrote the Introduction), Noura Erekat, Huwaida Araf, Remi Kanazi, Sarah Schulman, Nora Barrows-Friedman, Alex Lubin, and more! (Note: these writers will not be speaking at this event.)

Read Vijay Prashad's new piece on the Iran deal here

Check out this recent interview in "Red Pepper" with Vijay Prashad about "Letters to Palestine"

Hear Vijay Prashad on Democracy Now!

Benefit for aid to Palestinian children, cosponsored by KPFA, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Jewish Voice for Peace/Bay Area, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.
Wheelchair accessible. ASL interpreted.

For info www.mecaforpeace.org, 510-548-0542.

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Tour organizer: ISM Support Group in Northern California

California Speaking Tour of David Sheen, Oct. 21-29, 2015

The Bullet, the Ballot, and the Boycott: Racism in Israel Today


Oct. 21-29, 2015, independent Canadian-Israeli journalist and filmmaker David Sheen will present the Bullet, the Ballot & the Boycott at venues in California.  He will cover Israeli incitement to racist violence, the focus of his on-the-ground reporting for the past five years.

David will describe how top Israeli political and religious leaders use dehumanizing discourse to inspire vigilante attacks toward Palestinians, Africans and other non-Jews, especially during the 2014 assault on the Gaza Strip.  It will include material that Sheen presented at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in Brussels, as well as new information never before been made public in English.

David's speaking schedule is as follows.  To make arrangements for David to come to your event or to add the name of your organization as a tour endorser, please call 510-236-4250 or write to us at solidarity@ism-norcal.org.

Wed., Oct. 21
6:00pm
San Jose State University, details to follow
SJSU Students for Justice in Palestine
https://www.facebook.com/sjsusjp

Thu., Oct. 22
TBA
Berkeley, details to follow
Zaytuna University
www.zaytuna.edu

Sun., Oct. 25
2:00pm
Uptown Body & Fender, 401 26th St., Oakland
ISM-NorCal & JVP-Bay Area
510-236-4250, ism-norcal.org
$10 suggested donation


Thu., Oct. 29
TBA
The Markaz, 5998 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles
The Markaz & JVP-LA
www.themarkaz.org 310.657.5511


www.ism-norcal.org
ISM Northern California | Supporting Palestinian-led non...
Northern California branch of the Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods...

View on www.ism-norcal.org
Preview by Yahoo


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Commute Kevin Cooper's Death Sentence

Sign the Petition:
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/petition.php


Urge Gov. Jerry Brown to commute Kevin Cooper's death sentence. Cooper has always maintained his innocence of the 1983 quadruple murder of which he was convicted. In 2009, five federal judges signed a dissenting opinion warning that the State of California "may be about to execute an innocent man." Having exhausted his appeals in the US courts, Kevin Cooper's lawyers have turned to the Inter American Commission on Human Rights to seek remedy for what they maintain is his wrongful conviction, and the inadequate trial representation, prosecutorial misconduct and racial discrimination which have marked the case. Amnesty International opposes all executions, unconditionally.

"The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." - Judge William A. Fletcher, 2009 dissenting opinion on Kevin Cooper's case

Kevin Cooper has been on death row in California for more than thirty years.

In 1985, Cooper was convicted of the murder of a family and their house guest in Chino Hills. Sentenced to death, Cooper's trial took place in an atmosphere of racial hatred — for example, an effigy of a monkey in a noose with a sign reading "Hang the N*****!" was hung outside the venue of his preliminary hearing.

Take action to see that Kevin Cooper's death sentence is commuted immediately.

Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence.

Following his trial, five federal judges said: "There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing."

Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.

Tell California authorities: The death penalty carries the risk of irrevocable error. Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted.

In 2009, Cooper came just eight hours shy of being executed for a crime that he may not have committed. Stand with me today in reminding the state of California that the death penalty is irreversible — Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted immediately.

In solidarity,

James Clark
Senior Death Penalty Campaigner
Amnesty International USA

News Updates

  • Death Row Stories
    Kevin Cooper's case will be the subject of a new episode of CNN's "Death Row Stories" airing on Sunday, July 26 at 7 p.m. PDT. The program will be repeated at 10 p.m. PDT. The episode, created by executive producers Robert Redford and Alex Gibney, will explore how Kevin Cooper was framed by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and District Attorney.Viewers on the east coast can see the program at 10 p.m. EDT and it will be rebroadcast at 1 a.m. EDT on July 27. Viewers in the Central Time zone can see it at 9 p.m. and midnight CDT. Viewers in the Mountain Time zone can see it at 8 p.m. and ll p.m MDT. It will be aired on CNN again during the following week and will also be able to be viewed on CNN's "Death Row Stories" website.
Kevin Cooper: An Innocent Victim of Racist Frame-Up
- from the Fact Sheet at: www.freekevincooper.org
 
Kevin Cooper is an African-American man who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 1985 for the gruesome murders of a white family in Chino Hills, California: Doug and Peggy Ryen and their daughter Jessica and their house- guest Christopher Hughes. The Ryens' 8 year old son Josh, also attacked, was left for dead but survived.

Convicted in an atmosphere of racial hatred in San Bernardino County CA, Kevin Cooper remains under a threat of imminent execution in San Quentin.  He has never received a fair hearing on his claim of innocence.  In a dissenting opinion in 2009, five federal judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals signed a 82 page dissenting opinion that begins: "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." 565 F.3d 581.

There is significant evidence that exonerates Mr. Cooper and points toward other suspects:

  The coroner who investigated the Ryen murders concluded that the murders took four minutes at most and that the murder weapons were a hatchet, a long knife, an ice pick and perhaps a second knife. How could a single person, in four or fewer minutes, wield three or four weapons, and inflict over 140 wounds on five people, two of whom were adults (including a 200 pound ex-marine) who had loaded weapons near their bedsides?

  The sole surviving victim of the murders, Josh Ryen, told police and hospital staff within hours of the murders that the culprits were "three white men." Josh Ryen repeated this statement in the days following the crimes. When he twice saw Mr. Cooper's picture on TV as the suspected attacker, Josh Ryen said "that's not the man who did it."

  Josh Ryen's description of the killers was corroborated by two witnesses who were driving near the Ryens' home the night of the murders. They reported seeing three white men in a station wagon matching the description of the Ryens' car speeding away from the direction of the Ryens' home.

  These descriptions were corroborated by testimony of several employees and patrons of a bar close to the Ryens' home, who saw three white men enter the bar around midnight the night of the murders, two of whom were covered in blood, and one of whom was wearing coveralls.

  The identity of the real killers was further corroborated by a woman who, shortly after the murders were discovered, alerted the sheriff's department that her boyfriend, a convicted murderer, left blood-spattered coveralls at her home the night of the murders. She also reported that her boyfriend had been wearing a tan t-shirt matching a tan t-shirt with Doug Ryen's blood on it recovered near the bar. She also reported that her boyfriend owned a hatchet matching the one recovered near the scene of the crime, which she noted was missing in the days following the murders; it never reappeared; further, her sister saw that boyfriend and two other white men in a vehicle that could have been the Ryens' car on the night of the murders.

Lacking a motive to ascribe to Mr. Cooper for the crimes, the prosecution claimed that Mr. Cooper, who had earlier walked away from custody at a minimum security prison, stole the Ryens' car to escape to Mexico. But the Ryens had left the keys in both their cars (which were parked in the driveway), so there was no need to kill them to steal their car. The prosecution also claimed that Mr. Cooper needed money, but money and credit cards were found untouched and in plain sight at the murder scene.

The jury in 1985 deliberated for seven days before finding Mr. Cooper guilty. One juror later said that if there had been one less piece of evidence, the jury would not have voted to convict.

The evidence the prosecution presented at trial tying Mr. Cooper to the crime scene has all been discredited…         (Continue reading this document at: http://www.savekevincooper.org/_new_freekevincooperdotorg/TEST/Scripts/DataLibraries/upload/KC_FactSheet_2014.pdf)

     This message from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. July 2015

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Free Albert Woodfox!

On June 8, 2015 a federal judge granted Louisiana prisoner Albert Woodfox unconditional release. Albert's conviction had already been overturned three times - most recently in 2013 - yet every time the state has appealed.

Today, Albert is still behind bars after spending four decades in cruel, unjust solitary confinement. He believes that he and fellow prisoners, Herman Wallace and Robert King, were first placed in solitary confinement in retaliation for their activism. All three men were members of the Black Panther Party. Together, they came to be known as the Angola 3.

It is time for the State of Louisiana to stop standing in the way of justice. Call on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to ensure Albert's cruel and unjust confinement is not his legacy. Learn more

http://act.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1839&ea.campaign.id=35593&ea.tracking.id=Country_USA~MessagingCategory_PrisonersandPeopleatRisk&ac=W1506EAIAR2&ea.url.id=414689&forwarded=true

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Amnesty for all those arrested demanding justice for Freddie Gray!

 

Amnesty for ALL those arrested
demanding justice for Freddie Gray!

Sign and distribute the petition to drop the charges!
Spread this effort with #Amnesty4Baltimore

"A riot is the language of the unheard"
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

An estimated 300 people have been arrested in Baltimore in the last two weeks. Many have been brutalized, beaten and pepper-sprayed by police in the streets, and held for days in inhumane conditions. Those arrested include journalists, medics and legal observers.

One individual arrested for property destruction of a police vehicle is now facing life in prison and is being held on $500,000 bail. That's $150,000 more than the officer charged with the murder of Freddie Gray.  

The legal system has made it clear that they care more about broken windows than broken necks; more about a CVS than the lives of Baltimore's Black residents.

They showed no hesitation in arresting Baltimore's protesters and rebels, and sending in the National Guard, but took 19 days to put a single one of the killer cops in handcuffs. This was the outrageous double standard that led to the Baltimore Uprising.

 Sign the petition to drop the charges on all who have been arrested.

Petition to Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

Download PDF of Petition 

http://www.answercoalition.org/amnesty_for_all_those_arrested_demanding_justice_for_freddie_gray?utm_campaign=baltimore_amn1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=answercoalition

Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake
City Hall, Room 250,
100 North Holliday St.,
Baltimore, MD 21202

Dear Mayor Rawlings-Blake:

I stand in solidarity with those in Baltimore who are demanding that all charges be dropped against those who rose up against racism, police brutality, oppressive social conditions and delay of justice in the case of Freddie Gray. The whole world now recognizes that were it not for this powerful grassroots movement, in all its forms, there would be no indictment.

It is an outrage that peaceful protesters have been brutalized, beaten and pepper-sprayed by police in the streets, and held for days in inhumane conditions. Those arrested include journalists and legal observers.

Even the youth who are charged with property destruction and looting should be given an amnesty. There is no reason a teenager -- provoked by racists and justifiably angry -- should be facing life in prison for breaking the windows of a police car.

The City of Baltimore should work to rectify the conditions that led to this Uprising, rather than criminalizing those who took action in response to those conditions. Drop the charges now!

Sincerely,
[add your name below]

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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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MUMIA'S FINAL APPEAL FOR HEALTHCARE DENIED!

Last night Mumia got notice that the final appeal of his PA Department of Corrections grievance was denied. Listen to his reaction here.

This denial comes on top of the magistrate Judge’s proposal to deny Mumia's right to treatment last week.

Remember-- one of the reasons the Judge gave was her claim that Mumia had not "exhausted his administrative remedies" or received a final denial of his request for care. Now he has received that denial.

We know that withholding Mumia’s care is immoral and illegal. We are confident that we will win this battle in court- but we can’t do it alone.





We have 3 days left to raise $2,948 to support Mumia’s legal team in securing his right to hepatitis C treatment!

If you have already joined us, we’re inviting you to ask one friend to match your gift. We need about 50 more freedom fighters to join us to reach our goal— and we want you to make that happen with us!

If you haven’t given yet- now is the time to make a contribution for Mumia. Will you join us?

Health care is a human right- for Mumia, and for all prisoners. Let's prove it.‪ #freemumia #fight4mumia

Reply directly to this email to respond to the campaign owner, Prison Radio . Visit the campaign page to view all comments and updates for this project.

Help spread the word about the campaign!
PRISONRADIO.ORG

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Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson
 
Updates from the New "Team Free Lorenzo Johnson":
Thank you all for your relentless effort in the fight against wrongful convictions and your determination to stand behind Lorenzo.

To garner even more support for Lorenzo Johnson, we have been hard at work updating the website and developing an even more formidable and dedicated team. Please take a moment to visit the new site here.

During the month of July, Lorenzo wrote two new articles for The Huffington Post titled "When Prosecutors Deny Justice for the Innocent," and "Hurry Up and Wait for Justice: The Struggle of Innocent Prisoners." In these articles, Lorenzo discusses the flaws in the criminal justice system, which he deems is a "serious problem in this country."

Lastly, Lorenzo has a message to you all.

A Letter from Lorenzo:

July 23, 2015
Dauphin County Prison
Harrisburg, PA

Dear Supporters,

I hope all is well with everyone and your families. As for myself, I'm still on my journey in pursuit of my vindication. Sorry for my website being shut down for a couple of weeks. It was being transferred to a new provider and management. I'm back and will do my best to keep everything up to speed with what's taking place.

I would like to thank ALL of my loyal supporters in the U.S. and in the MANY different counties that have signed on to support my innocence. Thanks for all of the letters, emails, photos, etc. Like I always say, I get energy to carry on and inspiration hearing form you, please stay engaged in my struggle.

As of this moment, nothing has changed, but – the continued delay tactics are constantly being used by my prosecutor, Deputy Attorney General William Stoycos. With the mounting of evidence that supports my innocence and police and prosecution misconduct claims that is steadily piling up, you would think that I would be having a couple of evidentiary hearings on my actual innocence appeal that have been pending since August 5, 2013.

At the time of this writing, I've been moved from SCI-Mahanoy to Dauphin County Prison and locked down for 23 hours and 40 minutes a day. In the 20 minutes I get to come out, I get to take a shower and make a short call. Prosecutor Stoycos had me moved so I can be a witness in his attempt to have my codefendant Corey Walker's attorney removed from representing him. How dare he call into question an attorney who is seeking justice for her client, when prosecutor Stoycos himself violated multiple constitutional rights of mine and Mr. Walker, that led to us being in prison for 20 years and counting.

Prosecutor Stoycos is continuously abusing his power and his endless resources he has at his disposal. He is not tough on crime, he's tough on Innocent Prisoners. Prosecutor Stoycos is doing everything in his power to prevent justice from taking place. I encourage everyone to continue to speak out against my nightmare, invite others to get involved by going to my website and signing my Freedom Petition and whatever else they're willing to do.

On a positive note, I just enrolled in warehouse management trade and started on July 13th. Unfortunately, you're only allowed to miss a couple of days and Prosecutor Stoycos had me temporarily transferred on July 14th … It's extremely hard on Lifers to get into these trades due to the fact that Lifers are placed at the back of the list of ALL vocational classes. I try to further my education every chance I get, so when I do come home, I will be certified in different work.

The month of the hearing has come and left, without me being brought to the courthouse … I'm one of MANY innocent prisoners who endures this non-stop madness in our pursuit of Justice and Freedom. Now that my webpage is almost caught up to speed, I promise prompt updates and as everyone knows that contacted me directly, I personally reply to those in the states and out of the country. For those who can make a financial contribution, everything counts. Take care and let's continue to fight until we achieve Freedom, Justice, and Equality for all innocent prisoners.

"The Pain Within"

Free the Innocent
Lorenzo "Cat" Johnson

[Note: Lorenzo has since been transferred back to SCI Mahanoy and can be reached at his usual address.]

Thank you all for reading this message and please take the time to visit the new website and contribute to Lorenzo's campaign for freedom!

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

 Email: Through JPay using the code:
              Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC
                                     or
              Directly at LorenzoJohnson17932@gmail.com

Have a wonderful day!
- The Team to Free Lorenzo Johnson


freelorenzojohnson.org

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 Join the Fight to Free Rev. Pinkney!

Click HERE to view in browser

http://www.iacenter.org/prisoners/freepinkney-1-28-15/


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."

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!

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) California: Number of Starving Birds Rises
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS



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2) The Prison Problem
By

Pretty much everybody from Barack Obama to Carly Fiorina seems to agree that far too many Americans are stuck behind bars. And pretty much everybody seems to have the same explanation for how this destructive era of mass incarceration came about.

First, the war on drugs got out of control, meaning that many nonviolent people wound up in prison. Second, mandatory-minimum sentencing laws led to a throw-away-the-key culture, with long, cruel and pointlessly destructive prison terms.

It’s true that mass incarceration is a horrific problem. Back in the 1970s the increase in incarceration did help reduce the crime rate, maybe accounting for a third of the drop. But today’s incarceration levels do little to deter crime while they do much to rip up families, increase racial disparities and destroy lives.

The popular explanation for how we got here, however, seems to be largely wrong, and most of the policy responses flowing from it may therefore be inappropriate.

The drug war is not even close to being the primary driver behind the sharp rise in incarceration. About 90 percent of America’s prisoners are held in state institutions. Only 17 percent of these inmates are in for a drug-related offense, or less than one in five.

Moreover, the share of people imprisoned for drug offenses is dropping sharply, down by 22 percent between 2006 and 2011. Writing in Slate, Leon Neyfakh emphasized that if you released every drug offender from state prison today, you’d reduce the population only to 1.2 million from 1.5 million.

The war on drugs does not explain the rocketing rates of incarceration, and ending that war, wise or not, will not solve this problem.

The mandatory-minimum theory is also problematic. Experts differ on this, but some of the most sophisticated work with the best data sets has been done by John Pfaff of Fordham Law School. When I spoke with Pfaff on Monday I found him to be wonderfully objective, nonideological and data-driven.

His research suggests that while it’s true that lawmakers passed a lot of measures calling for long prison sentences, if you look at how much time inmates actually served, not much has changed over the past few decades. Roughly half of all prisoners have prison terms in the range of two to three years, and only 10 percent serve more than seven years. The laws look punitive, but the time served hasn’t increased, and so harsh laws are not the main driver behind mass incarceration, either.

So what does explain it? Pfaff’s theory is that it’s the prosecutors. District attorneys and their assistants have gotten a lot more aggressive in bringing felony charges. Twenty years ago they brought felony charges against about one in three arrestees. Now it’s something like two in three. That produces a lot more plea bargains and a lot more prison terms.I asked Pfaff why prosecutors are more aggressive. He’s heard theories. Maybe they are more political and they want to show toughness to raise their profile to impress voters if they run for future office. Maybe the police are bringing stronger cases. Additionally, prosecutors are usually paid by the county but prisons by the state, so prosecutors tend not to have to worry about the financial costs of what they do.

Pfaff says there’s little evidence so far to prove any of these theories, since the prosecutorial world is largely a black box. He also points out that we have a radically decentralized array of prosecutors, with some elected and some appointed. Changing their behavior cannot be done with one quick fix.

Some politicians and activists suggest that solving this problem will be easy — just release the pot smokers and the low-level dealers. In reality, reducing mass incarceration means releasing a lot of once-violent offenders. That may be the right thing to do in individual cases, but it’s a knotty problem.

Two final points. Everybody is railing against the political establishment and experts and experienced politicians. But social problems are invariably more complex than they look. The obvious explanation for most problems is often wrong. It takes experience and craftsmanship to design policies that grapple with the true complexity of reality.

Finally, recategorizing a problem doesn’t solve it. In the 1970s, we let a lot of people out of mental institutions. Over the next decades we put a lot of people into prisons. But the share of people kept out of circulation has been strangely continuous. In the real world, crime, lack of education, mental health issues, family breakdown and economic hopelessness are all intertwined.

Changing prosecutor behavior might be a start. Lifting the spirits of inmates, as described in the outstanding Atlantic online video “Angola for Life,” can also help. But the fundamental situation won’t be altered without a comprehensive surge, unless we flood the zone with economic, familial, psychological and social repair.


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3) At the U.N., Raúl Castro of Cuba Calls for End to U.S. Embargo
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN

President Raúl Castro of Cuba called for an end to the economic embargo of his country on Monday at the United Nations General Assembly, repeating a sentiment offered earlier in the day by President Obama.

“Diplomatic relations have been restored between Cuba and the United States,” Mr. Castro declared, adding: “Now begins the long and complex process” of lifting the 53-year-old embargo.

President Obama, speaking in the U.N. chamber earlier in the day, suggested that the U.S. Congress would eventually do just that.

“I’m confident that our Congress will inevitably lift an embargo that should not be in place anymore,” Mr. Obama said in his own speech.

In addition to lifting the embargo, Mr. Castro also called on the United States to return the land occupied by an American military base in Guantánamo Bay, and end anti-government radio and television broadcasts as well as programs he described as “subversive and destabilizing.”The United States and Cuba re-established full diplomatic relations in July, when the diplomatic missions in each country were upgraded from interest sections to embassies.

Mr. Castro and Mr. Obama met for the first time in April and were expected to meet again on Tuesday.

In his address to the General Assembly, Mr. Castro also declared his solidarity with other left-leaning governments of Latin America including Venezuela and Ecuador.

And he blamed the Western industralized nations of NATO for what he characterized as their destabilizing involvement in the Middle East for the current refugee crisis and said, “Europe should take full responsibility for the human crisis that it helped create.”


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4) Missouri Finds Planned Parenthood Didn’t Mishandle Fetal Tissue
By
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/us/planned-parenthood-fetal-tissue-missouri.html?ref=us

An investigation by the attorney general’s office in Missouri has found no evidence that a Planned Parenthood clinic in the state illegally handled fetal tissue.

The conclusions of the attorney general, Chris Koster, were released a day before the organization called for a nationwide demonstration on Tuesday called “National Pink Out Day” to rally support after recent controversy over undercover videos by abortion opponents.

Mr. Koster’s office said in a report released on Monday that it had been asked by Missouri residents and lawmakers to investigate Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis clinic, the only one in the state licensed to perform surgical abortions.

The request to look into practices at the clinic came after the opponents released videos in July that they said showed that Planned Parenthood nationwide illegally handled and disposed of fetal tissue.Planned Parenthood has repeatedly denied the claims made in the videos, which were made surreptitiously by an anti-abortion group called the Center for Medical Progress and released during the summer.

The Missouri attorney general’s report said that it reviewed more than 3,500 pages of documents and conducted multiple interviews of representatives at the clinic and the pathology laboratory. The 47-page report included copies of lab reports and waste-disposal tracking documents.

It said the investigation covered 317 surgical abortions that took place in June, a month that was chosen because the procedures happened before the release of the videos in July.

“As a result of our investigation, the Office of the Missouri Attorney General has found no evidence that PPSLR has engaged in unlawful disposal of fetal organs and tissue,” the report said, using the abbreviation of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region.

Planned Parenthood, which provides an array of health services, including abortions, through clinics and affiliates nationwide, is under criticism over the use of aborted fetal tissue that it provides for medical research.

Led by Republicans, many in Congress want to cut off all federal funding to the organization, and some lawmakers have threatened to shut down the federal government in order to do so.

The president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, appeared before Congress on Tuesday in her first testimony since the undercover videos emerged. In an opinion piece published in The Huffington Post before her testimony, Ms. Richards said the claims by the activists in the heavily edited videos were “false and discredited.”

On Monday, Planned Parenthood sued Utah’s governor for directing state agencies to discontinue their contracts with the health care provider after the videos were released, Reuters reported.
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5) How Many Deaths Did Volkswagen’s Deception Cause in the U.S.?
"The impact of smog and soot pollution on global health is substantial: A recent paper by Jos Lelieveld, at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany, and colleagues estimated that air pollution causes some three million premature deaths a year, and that the number of deaths could more than double by 2050. ...The part of the country that has probably experienced the most harm from the Volkswagen fraud is California, which already has the worst air quality in the nation. About 7,200 premature deaths a year are caused by air pollution there, according to the California Air Resources Board, and 73 percent of the state’s population, or 28 million people, live in counties with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution."
By

Volkswagen’s diesel deception unleashed tons of extra pollutants in the United States, pollutants that can harm human health. So while many commentators have been quick to say that the cheating engines are not a highway safety concern, safety — as in health — is still an issue.Unlike the ignition defect in General Motors vehicles that caused at least 124 people to die in car crashes, Volkswagen pollution is harder to link to individual deaths. But it is clear to public health researchers that the air pollutants the cars illegally emitted damage health, and they have formulas for the number of lives lost from excess pollution in general. Indeed, the Environmental Protection Agency uses its own estimates of the health effects of air pollution to create its regulations of what’s allowed. After consulting with several experts in modeling the health effects of air pollutants, we calculated a death toll in the United States that, at its upper range, isn’t far off from that caused by the G.M. defect.

Volkswagen said last week that it had installed software that deceived emissions tests in 11 million diesel cars, allowing the vehicles to emit far more pollutants than regulations allowed. Our estimates examine only the impact on public health in the United States, but it’s clear the negative effects were probably substantially higher in Europe, where the cars are much more common.

The chemicals that spewed illegally from the Volkswagen diesel cars — known as nitrogen oxides or NOx — have been linked to a host of respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, as well as premature deaths. Nitrogen oxides are a byproduct of burning fossil fuels at high temperature, whether in cars, power plants or other machines like industrial boilers. The chemicals can be harmful to humans, and in warm, sunny conditions, they can also turn into ground-level ozone, or smog, and unhealthy particle pollution.

Nitrogen dioxide and ozone irritate the lungs, increasing airway inflammation, coughing and wheezing, and can lower resistance to respiratory illness like influenza, especially with long-term exposure. The chemicals can also worsen the suffering and risk of serious illness or premature death for those with conditions like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Older people, who are more likely to have these ailments, are particularly vulnerable.

The impact of smog and soot pollution on global health is substantial: A recent paper by Jos Lelieveld, at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany, and colleagues estimated that air pollution causes some three million premature deaths a year, and that the number of deaths could more than double by 2050.

The American Lung Association estimates that nearly 41 percent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy levels of ozone. And that’s with reductions brought about by national air quality standards and regulation. Between 1980 and 2014, the E.P.A. estimates that nitrogen dioxide levels in the air fell by more than half. The Obama administration has stepped up its regulation of emissions from power plants and tightened standards for vehicles. A still tougher ozone standard is expected next month.

The part of the country that has probably experienced the most harm from the Volkswagen fraud is California, which already has the worst air quality in the nation. About 7,200 premature deaths a year are caused by air pollution there, according to the California Air Resources Board, and 73 percent of the state’s population, or 28 million people, live in counties with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution.

California also has the largest number of diesel passenger cars — some 50,000 of them, said Dave Clegern, a spokesman for the state’s air resources board, which regulates air quality in the state. Regulation has helped, Mr. Clegern said, but “we still have a significant problem.” Regulations are developed with automakers at the table, he said, and “in order to do that, you have to have a level of trust.” Regarding the Volkswagen deception, he said, “This kind of thing is, to say the least, absolutely no help.”

The potential damage of technologies like the “defeat device” that allowed Volkswagen to evade pollution rules since late 2008 is substantial. Volkswagen diesel cars represent fewer than 1 percent of cars on the road in the United States. But if every car — gasoline, diesel and electric hybrid — exceeded the legal limits by a similar amount, the consequences for air pollution and human health would be significant.

“Beijing comes to mind,” said Paul Billings, a senior vice president at the American Lung Association.

To estimate the harm in the United States, we used two different scientific models for the effects of nitrogen oxide pollution on human health.

One comes from a sort of natural experiment, when new regulations on power plant pollution caused some counties, but not others, to cut back on nitrogen oxide pollution. The counties subject to regulation reduced their nitrogen oxides emissions by 350 tons a year.

A team of three researchers — Olivier Deschenes, Joseph S. Shapiro and Michael Greenstone — looked at the mortality rates and medical spending before and after the change. In a working paper, they found the reduced pollution was responsible for about five fewer deaths for every 100,000 people in the affected counties each year, as well as for a decrease in spending on prescription drugs. Most of the seemingly excess deaths in the higher pollution regions occurred among older Americans, though other health issues affected the young as well as the old.

The estimated Volkswagen pollution, about 46,000 tons since late 2008, is the equivalent of about 4 percent of the power plant pollution reduction they measured, meaning it could be expected to cause an estimated 106 deaths if it had similar effects.We ran this projection by Mr. Greenstone, a professor of economics and director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, and a contributor to The Upshot. He said it seemed sensible as an estimate, but “the magnifying glass is really close.”

Noelle Eckley Selin, an associate professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at M.I.T., ran the numbers a slightly different way. She looked at the mortality effects of the particulate pollution produced by nitrogen oxides, using the numbers the Environmental Protection Agency uses to make health estimates. Her method brought the effects to about 40 additional deaths over the period, in addition to some other nonfatal health consequences. That probably undercounts the impact, though, since it does not consider the effects of direct nitrogen oxide pollution or smog.

Now for all the caveats. Our estimates for the amount of nitrogen oxide pollution are back-of-the-envelope. We relied on data from Kelley Blue Book on the number of Volkswagen diesel cars registered each year, and we applied a standard number of miles driven by each car, based on a government average, to arrive at a total number of vehicle-miles traveled.

The E.P.A. has said that the vehicles emitted up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides. But earlier research suggests that the pollution levels ranged widely among the vehicles and their driving conditions. We looked at 39 times the legal standard, but that may be a high assumption. (If you want to estimate the effects for emissions at, say, 29 times the legal limit, you can adjust our numbers down accordingly.)

Because smog is worse in the summer, Mr. Greenstone recommended that we look at pollution from five months each year. Ms. Selin’s approach was based on year-round pollution levels.

Of course, modeling the health effects of tailpipe emissions is more complicated than the sort of straight multiplication we have employed in both methods. The harm from nitrogen oxide pollution depends on how close people are to roads, as well as on topography and weather patterns. People who live in large cities, or near major roads, tend to experience disproportionate harm. Other news organizations, including Vox and The Guardian, have calculated slightly different estimates of the amount of pollution and the resulting harm.

Don Anair, deputy director of the vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the precise effect of the Volkswagen fraud would require intense and complex computation.

Still, he cautioned against taking the view that the Volkswagens have reversed the progress with pollution from automobiles. Since the standards went into effect from 2004 to 2009, he said, emissions of nitrogen oxides have been 90 percent lower. “It’s not like this is going to offset the majority of the benefits of these standards,” he said. “But there will be some impact, and we need to get a better handle on it.”


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6) Florida: Officer Killed Man Who Bit Him, Police Say
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS



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7) New York City Bar Association Urges Reduction of Mass Incarceration in Report
By TATIANA SCHLOSSBERG

The New York City Bar Association released a report on Monday urging federal and state leaders to “make the reduction of mass incarceration a top priority.”

Titled “Mass Incarceration: Seizing the Moment for Reform,” the report offers several recommendations for changing sentencing laws and other policies on the state and federal levels, including repealing or reducing mandatory minimum terms, reducing sentences for nonviolent offenses and providing sentencing alternatives to prison.

Judge Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District Court in Manhattan, who is a member of the City Bar Association’s executive committee, said in an interview on Sunday, “Judges did not make the laws that have led to mass incarceration, but we have had to implement them and we have seen firsthand, therefore, some of the terrible results.”

He added, “We have a role to play in trying to make the public aware of problems in the criminal justice system in our country that we as judges see and participate in every day of our lives.”

Politicians from both major parties, legal scholars and activists have recognized mass incarceration as a critical criminal justice issue, especially after police shootings in Ferguson, Mo., and other places, where protesters have repeatedly made connections between racially concentrated policing, the biases of the criminal justice system and mass incarceration.

Over the years, the number of prison sentences and their lengths have increased for both violent and nonviolent offenses, even as crime rates have dropped. This is largely a result of mandatory minimum terms for certain offenses, such as drug convictions, though there are other contributing factors, the report said.

The report also includes many statistics that point out the cost, both human and economic, of certain criminal justice policies. In the United States, more than two million people are imprisoned, including those in local jails — a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

The report also highlights the racial disparities of incarceration: One in 35 African-American men and one in 88 Latino men are in prison, and African-American men are six times more likely than white men to be behind bars. Since 1970, the report states, the prison population has increased fourfold, costing taxpayers $260 billion every year.

“It is heart-rending to see case after case of young black males who are, because of the severe laws that we have, going to be ripped from their families and often spend some of the most formative years of their lives in prison with devastating effects on them, on their families and on the communities as a whole,” Judge Rakoff said.

The City Bar Association is also creating a task force comprising defense lawyers, prosecutors, judges and others to continue to examine the issue.

The bar association has often weighed in on laws and policies that affect New York State and the city, and Judge Rakoff is among several sitting judges who have offered opinions on mass incarceration.

New York City has also emerged as a leader in the effort to reduce prison populations, mostly through its system of drug courts for dealing with nonviolent offenses that often sends people to rehabilitation programs rather than to prison, Judge Rakoff said. He added that New York is not the only city or municipality with these drug courts.

Though advocates and scholars who study the issue said Judge Rakoff’s stance was symbolic and important, they saw a need for more direct engagement.

Alyssa Aguilera, a political director for VOCAL-NY, an advocacy organization for low-income people affected by H.I.V. and AIDS, the drug war and mass incarceration, said that while it was a positive development to see recognition of the issue at many levels, “ultimately, the way that we are able to see change is through our legislative process and through policy shifts in the city, state and nationwide.”

Heather Ann Thompson, a historian at the University of Michigan who studies mass imprisonment and served on the National Academy of Science’s blue ribbon panel on its causes and consequences, said that the focus on sentencing guidelines was important, but that more attention needed to be paid to re-entry programs and addressing the fallout of mass incarceration.

Additionally, she said, Americans should not forget that mass imprisonment is a political product: “Through the politicians we elected, we chose the disastrous policies that led to the crisis of mass incarceration.

“We didn’t need to do it because of historically remarkable crime rates. We chose it, so we must now unchoose it.”


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8) As Banks Retreat, Private Equity Rushes to Buy Troubled Home Mortgages
"Housing advocates and lawyers for borrowers contend that the private equity firms and hedge funds are too quick to push homes into foreclosure and are even less helpful than the banks had been in negotiating loan modifications with borrowers. Federal and state lawmakers are taking up the issue, questioning why federal agencies are selling loans at a discount of as much as 30 percent to such firms."
By

Private equity and hedge fund firms have bought more than 100,000 troubled mortgages at a discount from banks and federal housing agencies, emerging as aggressive liquidators for the remains of the mortgage crisis that erupted nearly a decade ago.

As the housing market nationwide recovers, this is a dark corner from which banks, stung by hefty penalties for bungling mortgage modifications and foreclosures, have retreated. Federal housing officials, for the most part, have welcomed the new financial players as being more nimble and creative than banks with terms for delinquent borrowers.

But the firms are now drawing fire. Housing advocates and lawyers for borrowers contend that the private equity firms and hedge funds are too quick to push homes into foreclosure and are even less helpful than the banks had been in negotiating loan modifications with borrowers. Federal and state lawmakers are taking up the issue, questioning why federal agencies are selling loans at a discount of as much as 30 percent to such firms.

One company has emerged as a lightning rod, criticized by housing advocates and lawyers for borrowers, but admired by investors: Lone Star Funds, a $60 billion private equity firm founded in 1995 by John Grayken. In just a few years, Lone Star’s mortgage servicing firm, Caliber Home Loans, has grown from a bit player to a major force in the market for distressed mortgages.

An examination by The New York Times of housing data and court filings, as well as interviews with borrowers, lawyers and housing advocates, revealed a pattern of complaints that Lone Star was quick to begin foreclosure proceedings, whether the firm had bought a delinquent mortgage at a federal auction or directly from a bank.

Take Charles and Pamela Hubbard of Sacramento. They briefly lost their home when Lone Star’s Caliber subsidiary dealt harshly with their request for a loan modification. The couple said they had submitted the application to reduce their monthly mortgage payments four days before a planned foreclosure sale, but the Lone Star subsidiary said the Hubbards had been late in completing the application and pushed ahead with the sale.

Within a month, the three-bedroom house that the Hubbards had lived in for two decades was auctioned off to another affiliate of Lone Star with the right to resell it later. The foreclosure was rescinded only after the couple went to court.

Caliber declined to comment on individual borrowers, but it said that in general, it was “committed to providing the best possible service to all borrowers, and identifying solutions that allow troubled borrowers to continue to pay their mortgages and stay in their homes is our top priority.” It said it had one of the highest loan modification rates in the industry.

Another window into how Caliber and Lone Star operate can be seen in a rare look into one of Lone Star’s biggest deals — a bundle of 17,000 distressed mortgages that had an unpaid balance of $2.96 billion.

With money from public pension funds, Lone Star bought those mortgages in the summer of 2014 at an auction held by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The loans were originally underwritten before the financial crisis by banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, with insurance guarantees from the Federal Housing Administration.

The list of those mortgages was provided to The Times by the Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio, which obtained them through a Freedom of Information Act request.

HUD rules barred Lone Star from foreclosing on most of the mortgages it had acquired until early March. But since then, the firm has picked up the pace of foreclosures, an analysis showed.

As of the end of August, Lone Star and Caliber had foreclosed on at least 1,500 of those formerly F.H.A.-guaranteed mortgages — or 9 percent of the pool, according to an analysis of the home addresses performed by RealtyTrac, a foreclosure tracking service. Many of the foreclosed homes are clustered in Florida, Ohio, New Jersey, California and Texas.

A majority of the homes foreclosed on by Caliber have been bought back by another Lone Star affiliate at either a trustee or sheriff’s auction. The private equity firm is looking to resell the homes, and many can be found on Zillow, an online real estate listing service.

Moving Fast in Ohio

This foreclosure push was felt by John P. Glynn and his wife, Tammy, of Gahanna, Ohio. They were working with JPMorgan Chase on a loan modification when their mortgage was sold to Lone Star in last summer’s HUD auction.

After Caliber took over the handling of the Glynns’ mortgage, the talks that had been going on with JPMorgan over a modification ended. Caliber filed a lawsuit in February seeking to foreclose on the loan.

“I got the impression they didn’t want to work anything out,” said Mr. Glynn, an industrial engineer.

Caliber is now working toward reaching a settlement with the Glynns.

The firm said it had modified or restructured loans for 2,300 delinquent borrowers in the HUD pool. It noted that modifications were outpacing foreclosures and that it expected “the number of successful modifications to continue to increase over time.”

The number of foreclosures can be expected to rise as well.

In February, a HUD report analyzing the status of some of the 79,000 soured mortgages it sold over the last five years — including those bought by Lone Star — reported that 20 percent of the mortgages had been foreclosed, 9 percent had been restructured and 6.4 percent had been resold to other firms or investors. Borrowers remained delinquent on about half the loans.

In addition to Lone Star, other private equity firms have emerged as big buyers of troubled mortgages from federal agencies and banks. They include Bayview Asset Management, an affiliate of Blackstone Group, and Selene Investment Partners.

These firms have swarmed into troubled mortgages because they can squeeze profits from these loans by either restructuring them or by foreclosing on them and then repackaging the distressed loans into bonds that are sold to mutual funds and hedge funds.

Private equity’s push into the distressed mortgage market has produced some benefits. Thousands of homes that were abandoned by borrowers are now back on the market. In the HUD sales, about 10 percent of homes were vacant, according to the February report.

Still, housing advocates argue that federal housing agencies should make it easier for nonprofit organizations to have a better chance to compete for troubled mortgages, believing that these groups would work harder to avoid foreclosures.

Representative Michael E. Capuano, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote this year to Julian Castro, the HUD secretary, expressing concern that nonprofit housing groups were too often losing out to private equity firms in the bidding for distressed mortgages.

In his letter, Mr. Capuano, who singled out Lone Star, said the HUD sales “may turn out to be an efficient new mechanism for increasing evictions.”

The tendency to act quickly on foreclosures is, in part, by design.

The acquisition of distressed mortgages by Lone Star is the engine in a well-oiled securitization machine that assumes that foreclosure and resale of the homes are inevitable components of the process. In these securitizations, many of the soured loans are bundled into bonds that yield up to 4 percent. They are then sold to hedge funds and mutual funds.

The short-term securities generate income for investors from the proceeds derived from foreclosing on the mortgages and then selling the homes on the open market. Last year, Lone Star sold 17 such securitizations, with a combined unpaid loan balance of $10 billion, and the firm is on pace to complete a similar number of deals this year, according to Intex Solutions, a securitization deal tracking service.

A confidential offering document for one of these Lone Star deals — named VOLT 2015 NPL, a transaction backed by 4,895 delinquent mortgages — indicates that the firm considers foreclosure and sale of the homes the most likely outcome for a majority of the loans.

The offering statement, reviewed by The Times, says “payments on the notes are expected to largely come from liquidation and sale proceeds, although there are expected to be collections each month from monthly payments by mortgagors.”

The document notes that about 9 percent of the mortgages were part of the pool of loans purchased from HUD.

Lone Star and other private equity buyers contend that many of the foreclosures involve homes that have been abandoned by borrowers, or loans beyond hope. The private equity firms also maintain that foreclosures are less profitable than modifications because the process is costly and time-consuming, and the homeowners are not making any payments for years at a time.

Federal housing officials reject much of the criticism of their sales of loans to firms like Lone Star, noting that many of the borrowers have not made a mortgage payment in three years. The private buyers, officials say, often represent borrowers’ last, best hope of striking a deal that can keep them in their homes. HUD officials also point out that the loan sales have reduced the obligation of the F.H.A. insurance program to guarantee mortgages against default, saving billions in the process.

In a letter in May responding to the criticism from Mr. Capuano, the Massachusetts congressman, Erika L. Moritsugu, a HUD assistant secretary, said the program was “putting the loans in the hands of purchasers motivated to help a borrower reperform.”

She said the private buyers were expected to reduce the principal owed by a borrower because “that is often the best way to help someone who is multiple years in arrears” and “headed for foreclosure.”

Nonetheless, in response to the criticism, HUD recently increased the period during which a private buyer cannot foreclose on homes to 12 months from six months, and it sought to create smaller pools of loans to give nonprofits a better chance at submitting winning bids.

While HUD has hoped that buyers of its loans will seek to reduce permanently the principal or debt owed by a borrower, Caliber tends not to do so.

In the first half of 2015, Fitch Ratings said of the loans it had reviewed, Caliber had not completed any modifications that included permanent principal reductions.

Instead, Caliber generally offers to modify loans for five years, during which a borrower makes either reduced monthly payments or simply pays interest on the loan. But those modifications revert to their original payment terms in the sixth year, sometimes with any deferred unpaid principal or unpaid interest added to the back end of the loan.

Short-Term Relief

Such deals provide short-term relief to borrowers but do not provide a permanent remedy for homeowners short of cash.

George Velazquez, 51, an auto appraiser who lives on Staten Island with his wife, Evelyn, said there was no room to negotiate with Caliber when it presented him with a five-year interest-only mortgage modification after Lone Star bought their loan from HSBC.

Diane Cipollone, a lawyer and a consultant to the National Fair Housing Alliance, said these kinds of modifications simply delay the inevitable and do not present “good odds for any of these borrowers to keep their homes when the temporary modifications expire.”

Phillip Harris, 62, who has black lung disease, has lived for more than 40 years in a three-story building in San Francisco that doubles as his home and a boardinghouse. Caliber threatened to foreclose on the mortgage a few months after Lone Star bought the loan from Bank of America and scheduled a sale of the property for March 19.

Mr. Harris sent in an application for a loan modification — a move that under California law would stop the foreclosure process. But because the documents were not yet in Caliber’s computer system, the firm said it intended to go ahead with the foreclosure and sale of the house.

About a week before the trustee sale, Mr. Harris and his lawyer, Tiffany Norman, said they called Caliber and spoke with an employee who identified herself only as Katrina. On the recorded call, Mr. Harris and his lawyer repeatedly told the Caliber employee that the application had been submitted.

“We definitely don’t doubt you guys sent that in,” the Caliber employee said during the phone call, a recording of which was produced in litigation. But the employee said there was nothing she could do to stop the sale because it took five to seven days for an application to be “uploaded into” Caliber’s system.

Ms. Norman went to court and got a temporary restraining order against Caliber. A few weeks ago, a Caliber lawyer approached Ms. Norman about a potential settlement.

Formerly known as Vericrest Financial, Caliber has grown rapidly. Today it manages more than 327,465 mortgages with a combined value of just over $71 billion. Some of Caliber’s growth has come from Lone Star’s steering of standard mortgage origination business to the firm by requiring prospective buyers of the foreclosed homes it puts up for sale to be prequalified for a mortgage from Caliber.

As Caliber has grown, so have the customer complaints. More than 1,000 complaints have been lodged with the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with complaints running 54 percent higher than a year ago, the agency reports. Caliber said in an email that the modifications it had made had reduced the average borrower’s monthly payments more than 20 percent.

“A collaborative solution that turns a nonperforming loan into a performing loan is not only the best outcome for homeowners, but it is the most attractive economic outcome for the long-term oriented investors who own the mortgages,” Caliber said.

Help From the Court

In the case of the Hubbards, it took court action to get Lone Star and Caliber to work with them.

Lone Star bought the loan on their three-bedroom home in Sacramento from Beneficial Financial, a division of HSBC, in the summer of 2014 for an undisclosed sum.

Soon after buying the mortgage, which had an unpaid balance of $300,000, Caliber and Lone Star moved to foreclose. The sale of the home on Jan. 20 sent the couple running to court. They argued that the sale took place even as Caliber employees said they were trying to “find a way to escalate the submission.”

After the Hubbards sued, Caliber and the couple began negotiating. In May, they agreed to a short-term modification that would reduce the Hubbards’ monthly payments on the mortgage by several hundred dollars, to $1,953 for the next five years.

Caliber filed a formal notice with county officials on May 29 that rescinded the sale of the home to Lone Star.While the matter was resolved, it could have turned out differently if a buyer not affiliated with Lone Star had stepped in to buy the home.

“I don’t know why they went through with it because it just didn’t make any sense,” said Mr. Hubbard, 64, a civilian employee with the Army. “Maybe people who get into these situations are categorized as no good, and they simply don’t want to deal with them.”

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9) Judge Allows Class-Action Suit Over Mississippi Prison Conditions
By

Inmates at a privately run Mississippi prison where, they say, guards arranged for prisoners to attack one another, ignored fires set by inmates to signal distress, and allowed prisoners to trade whiskey and cellphones will be permitted to file a class-action lawsuit against the facility, a federal court judge ruled this week.

The judge, William H. Barbour Jr., granted the request by inmates at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility in Meridian on Tuesday in their lawsuit against the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Judge Barbour wrote in his opinion that there was sufficient evidence that the prison had failed to appropriately address complaints that inmates were being denied “adequate food, shelter, medical and mental health care, and safety.”

Further, the judge wrote that evidence, including inmate statements, showed that prisoners had been subjected to “unreasonable harm from other inmates and from prison staff who routinely use excessive force.”

As part of the evidence reviewed by Judge Barbour, a captain at the prison said in a deposition that prisoner-on-prisoner violence was commonplace, that corrections officers were poorly trained, and that guards facilitated inmate violence by opening cell doors and then failed to intervene when prisoners were assaulted.

But Judge Barbour wrote that for the inmates to prevail in the lawsuit, they must prove that prison officials were aware of the potential for harm that the conditions in the facility created and did not take reasonable measures to abate them.

The company that operates the prison, the Management & Training Corporation, based in Utah, also runs another Mississippi prison, the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility, which is under federal court oversight for conditions including severe and systematic violence against inmates.

Issa Arnita, a company spokesman, referred questions to the Mississippi Department of Corrections. A spokeswoman for the department, Grace Simmons Fisher, said, “We are prepared to defend the case as one lawsuit on its merits in court.”

The inmates are being represented by several groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Margaret Winter, associate director of the A.C.L.U.’s National Prison Project, said Thursday that substandard conditions at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility had existed for years.

“We hope that the state will reconsider the wisdom of counting on a profit-motivated industry to run the prisons humanely and safely,” she said.

At the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, about 70 percent of the 1,200 inmates have some form of mental illness, advocates say. Inmates there say that they are punished for seeking medical care, that toilets often do not work and frequently overflow, and that some inmates live in near-total darkness because light bulbs are not replaced.

To attract the attention of corrections officers, prisoners who live in solitary confinement units set fires that the guards sometimes allow to burn out. The inmates use contraband matches or loose wires to set the blazes.


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10) California: Planned Parenthood Clinic Attacked
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS



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11) State’s Chief Judge, Citing ‘Injustice,’ Lays Out Plans to Alter Bail System
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New York State’s chief judge announced a series of administrative changes on Thursday intended to reduce the number of people who are incarcerated for long periods before trial because they cannot make bail.

The judge, Jonathan Lippman, who will retire at the end of the year, has been a longtime advocate for overhauling the bail law in New York, but his proposed bill failed to gain traction in the State Legislature for the last two years.

In a breakfast speech in Manhattan to the Citizens Crime Commission, Judge Lippman said the judiciary could no longer wait for lawmakers to act to address a system he said punishes people for being poor. He said he would take several steps within the current legal framework to urge judges to set bail low enough that defendants could await trial at home, or to use alternatives to cash bail, like electronic monitoring.“Defendants who are unable to post bail serve a sentence before their cases are ever resolved,” Judge Lippman said. “They do so regardless of innocence or guilt, and the harm that this injustice causes is intolerable.”

The judge said the human cost of the bail system was brought into sharp focus in June by the suicide of Kalief Browder, 22, who as a teenager spent three years at Rikers Island, much of it in solitary confinement, awaiting trial on a charge he had stolen a backpack. His bail was set at $3,000, a sum he could not pay, and it was revoked entirely two and a half months later.

Bronx prosecutors eventually dismissed the case because the victim had left the country. But in the meantime, Mr. Browder’s schooling and social life were derailed, his psyche was shattered and he slipped into a deep depression.

Mr. Browder was among approximately 50,000 people jailed each year in New York City because they cannot come up with enough cash or have too little property to secure a bail bond. More than half of those defendants remain in jail for the duration of their cases, which can drag on for more than a year when the accusation is serious. Four out of 10 people on Rikers Island are there because they cannot afford bail.

“Far too many people are trapped in pretrial detention simply because they are poor,” Judge Lippman said. He said being in jail before trial “can tear apart the very fabric of people’s lives.” It often forces people to lose income, fall behind on rent, lose their jobs or forgo education.

For starters, Judge Lippman said, he would set up an automatic review of all bail determinations made at arraignment in criminal court, appointing a judge in each borough to take a second look at those decisions within 10 days to see if bail should be reduced.

For felonies, Judge Lippman said he would order judges to periodically review the strength of the prosecution’s case and the people’s readiness to go to trial. The judge would then consider lowering or eliminating bail if the case has weakened. These reviews might avert another tragedy like the death of Mr. Browder, he said.

“In the Kalief Browder case, there were numerous adjournments, one after another,” he said. “It was not until three years into the case that a judge, after pressing the prosecutor and proactively seeking to resolve the case, learned that the prosecution had lost contact with its key witness.”

Judge Lippman said he was also starting a program in Manhattan that would allow judges to use electronic supervision through bracelets linked to smartphones as an alternative to cash bail.

Finally, the judge said, he would retrain judges and encourage them to employ several less onerous kinds of bail that are available under the current law, passed in 1970.

That law provides for nine kinds of bail bonds, allowing defendants and their families, for instance, to use a credit card to post bail or to pay 10 percent of the bail directly to the court and sign a promise to pay the rest.

In practice, however, judges use only two types of bail — cash or insurance company bail bonds. Judge Lippman said he would step up training for judges and clerks about the alternatives.

He pointed out other jurisdictions, like Washington, that have established alternatives to cash bail. “Make no mistake, in my view, the ultimate goal may well be to end our reliance on cash bail in New York,” he said. He added, “It is fundamentally unfair for a person’s liberty to be all about how much money you have.”

Public defenders applauded Judge Lippman’s plans. Robin Steinberg, executive director of the Bronx Defenders, said the automatic reviews of bail decisions would hold arraignment judges accountable for their decisions and give defense lawyers more time to make a case for lower bail.

Justine M. Luongo, who oversees criminal practice for the Legal Aid Society, agreed, saying such reviews in criminal court, where low-level offenses are handled, could significantly reduce the jail population.

Most impoverished defendants facing misdemeanor charges cannot afford bail and many plead guilty to avoid jail and go home, she said. “For our clients, $500 might as well be a million,” she said.

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said he supported Judge Lippman’s efforts, but he said one of the biggest hindrances to resolving cases quickly was a shortage of judges, especially in criminal court. “It’s like trying to push a swamp through a pinhole,” he said.

Nicholas Turner, the president of the Vera Institute of Justice, said the state was still relying on cash bail to ensure defendants do not skip town, rather than modern risk-assessment surveys and other tools for determining who is likely to return to court. Changing the underlying system, he said, would require legislation.

“We are still operating in a structure that fundamentally needs to be changed down the road,” he said. “We know we have a statute that is outmoded.”


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