Saturday, October 10, 2015

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, SATURDAY, OCTIBER 10, 2015












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

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


Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

B. ARTICLES IN FULL


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

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



A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS


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

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

  TODAY, Sat. Oct. 10, 1pm

Speak Out - Resist the Colonizers of Yesterday and Today!

No to Gentrification!

24th and Mission Sts, SF




 This coming weekend, we remember our native sisters and brothers whose 500+ year struggle against colonization demonstrates the power of the oppressed in resisting genocide that continues to this day.

On Indigenous People's Day, we remember those who were here first and follow their example of resisting the colonizers of today. From Columbus to Mayor Lee to Donald Trump, poor and working people, the oppressed and dispossessed, continue to be assaulted by those who claim to own where we live and the fruits of our labor.

Join us on Indigenous People's Day to say "RESIST the Colonizers of Yesterday and Today!"
#StopGentrification
#HumanRightsOverPropertyRights

Plus! Come smash a #DonaldTrump Piñata full of sweet candy with a taste of liberation!

More info: 415-821-6545 or www.ANSWERsf.org



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

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

Support Rasmea Odeh in court Oct. 14 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

This is a critical moment in legal process.


Stand with Rasmea and fill the appeals courthouse in Cincinnati! We will organize a support rally in front of the courthouse at 8 AM EDT on Wednesday, October 14, 2015, and then fill the courtroom immediately thereafter, as Rasmea's defense and the prosecution each present their oral arguments to a three-judge panel.

Wednesday, October 14, 2015, at 8 a.m. EDT (appeal starts at 9 a.m. EDT)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit
540 Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse, 100 E. 5th Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202
Register here to join us in Cincinnati on October 14. Visit www.justice4rasmea.org and www.StopFBI.net. Please email justice4rasmea@uspcn.org with any questions.

Explanation:
The Rasmea Defense Committee contends that Judge Gershwin Drain did not allow for a full and fair trial, and believes that is why Rasmea was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison and deportation. We are confident that she has solid arguments on appeal, and wrote in late July that the "defense argues conclusively that the government 'never really addresses the basic constitutional deprivations asserted in Ms. Odeh’s opening appellate brief,' and that Rasmea is 'entitled to present her complete defense to the jury,' which can only happen in a new trial."

After the three appellate judges hear oral arguments on October 14, a decision will be made between two and six months later. If the court agrees with the defense and overturns the conviction and the sentencing, the case gets sent back to the prosecution to possibly re-file charges, whereupon the entire trial process begins anew. But this time, evidence of torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), etc., would be allowed into the courtroom.

If the court upholds the conviction but disagrees with the sentence, the appellate judges send new sentencing guidelines back to Drain for re-sentencing. In the worst possible scenario, her conviction and sentencing would be upheld, meaning that she would have to serve 18 months in prison and then be deported. If this happens, the defense could ask that all of the 6th Circuit appellate court judges, not just the three panelists, review the case, as a last ditch effort to win the appeal.

We are fundraising, organizing public events, and pitching Rasmea's story to media across the country and the world.

This is a critical moment - support Rasmea Odeh in court!
Register here to join us in Cincinnati on October 14. For more information email justice4rasmea@uspcn.org with any questions.

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

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


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
Tour organizer: ISM Support Group in Northern California


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

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




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

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

International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity

AN EVENING OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE CUBAN PEOPLE

Featuring Kenia Serrano Puig, President of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP)  

Friday November 13, 7:30pm

East Bay Center for the Performing Arts

339 11th Street, Richmond CA 94801-3105

Doors Open 6:30pm

$10-20 Donation at the Door

(nobody turned away for lack of funds)

Students and children free admission


This will be a unique opportunity to hear from the Cuban perspective about the new stage of U.S.-Cuba relations and the role that the U.S. Cuba solidarity movement can play in ending the U.S. blockade.

PROGRAM:

Keynote Speaker, Kenia Serrano Puig, President of ICAP

Welcome by Gayle McLaughlin, Richmond City Council Member
Dr. Laura Gomez, recently graduated from the Latin America School of Medicine (ELAM)
Leima Martinez, ICAP North America Division
Walter Turner, KPFA Host of Africa Today 

Musical performance by a local group

ICAP is a social organization founded on December 30, 1960 for the purpose of promoting and explaining to the peoples of the world the relations of solidarity that sparked the Cuban Revolution. ICAP is the vehicle to reach around the globe to people who are in solidarity with Cuba. ICAP is that interface that strengthens the network of solidarity, while representing the Cuban people, and delivering a strong message that solidarity not only benefits Cuba but the peoples of the world who are aspiring to promote the idea that a better world is possible for all.

Initiated by the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity

Co-sponsors: Global Exchange, Richmond-Regla Sister City Association, Berkeley-Palma Soriano Sister City Association.


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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]

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

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



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



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

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




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

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

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

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

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

 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.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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



B. ARTICLES IN FULL


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

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

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

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

1) Teamsters’ Pension Fund Warns 400,000 of Cuts
By

A prominent Teamsters pension fund, one of the largest, has filed for reorganization under a new federal law and has sent letters to more than 400,000 members warning that their benefits must be cut.

Any reorganization of the decades-old Central States Pension Fund would take months and would probably be a brutal battle as workers, retirees, union leaders and employers all seek to protect competing interests. It is a multiemployer plan, the type led jointly by a union and a number of companies, that has caused consternation for many years, because if it failed, it could wipe out a federal insurance program that now pays the benefits of a million retirees.

If the reorganization ultimately proves successful, however, it could serve as a model for other retirement plans with similar, seemingly intractable financial problems.

Cutting retirees’ pensions has generally been illegal, except under the most dire circumstances. But the executive director of the Central States fund, Thomas Nyhan, said that reducing payouts to make the money last longer was the only realistic way of avoiding a devastating collapse in the next few years.

“What we’re asking is to let us tap the brakes a little now, and let us avoid insolvency,” he said. “The longer we wait to act, the larger the benefit reductions will have to be.”

He said the Central States fund had been hit by powerful outside forces — the deregulation of the trucking industry, declining union membership, two big stock crashes and the aging of the population — and it was currently paying out $3.46 in pension benefits to retirees for every dollar it received in employer contributions.

“That math will never work,” Mr. Nyhan said. He said the fund was projected to run out of money in 10 to 15 years, an almost unthinkable outcome for a pension fund that became a political and financial powerhouse in the 1960s, when trucking boomed with the construction of the interstate highway system. Central States became famous back then for financing the construction of hotels and casinos in Las Vegas.

In 1982, the Teamsters were barred from investing their retirees’ money because of the union’s ties to organized crime. Under a federal consent decree, the fund’s investment duties were shifted to a group of large banks, where they have remained. The restructuring plan would not change that.

In the coming months, the Treasury Department will review the Central States restructuring plan, to make sure it complies with the new law. It will also receive comments from affected people through a special master, Kenneth Feinberg, who has been retained by the Treasury to iron out conflicts that have come up in other special circumstances, such as the dispute over whether workers at bailed-out companies could receive contractual bonuses.

The Treasury is expected to decide whether to approve the proposal by next May. If it does, Central States’ roughly 407,000 members will then vote on it. Those facing large cuts would be unlikely to vote in favor of the restructuring. But others might see it as an acceptable way to make their pension plan viable over the long term. Active workers will continue to accrue benefits, for example, and Mr. Nyhan said his projections showed that the restructuring could make the pension fund last for 50 more years.

Mr. Nyhan acknowledged that the process would be emotionally charged. Even if a majority votes no, however, the Treasury Department will have legal authority to impose the changes, because the Central States fund is so large that it qualifies as “systemically important.” That means that if it collapsed, it could take down the multiemployer wing of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, jeopardizing the roughly one million retirees who currently get their pensions through the program. (The federal insurance program for single-employer pensions would not be affected by a possible failure of the multiemployer program.)

In the past, multiemployer pension plans were popular because they gave small companies the chance to offer traditional pensions, and they permitted workers to move from job to job, taking their benefits with them. About 10 million Americans participate in multiemployer pension plans, many of them in sectors like trucking, construction and retailing, where unions are a powerful presence.

Such pension plans were also said to be financially stronger than single-employer pension plans, because if one company went out of business, others would keep contributing to the pooled trust fund that paid the benefits. Both types were insured by the federal government’s pension insurance program, but companies taking part in multiemployer plans paid much smaller premiums and the coverage was very limited — no more than $12,870 per year, compared to around $54,120 a year for a single-employer pension.

Many Teamsters have earned pensions that exceed the multiemployer insurance limit and would be hit hard if the Central States fund failed.

But in recent years, some multiemployer plans ran into severe trouble as more and more participating companies went bankrupt, leaving growing numbers of “orphaned” workers and retirees for the surviving companies in the pool to cover. Companies in the more troubled plans said lenders would no longer give them credit. Last December, Congress enacted the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, which set up a legal framework for distressed pension plans to restructure.

According to a summary provided by the Central States pension fund, its restructuring plan would work by slowing the rate at which active Teamsters will build up their benefits in the coming years, and by lowering the payouts to current retirees, with certain exceptions.

Retirees who are 80 or older will not have their pensions cut, and those over 75 will receive smaller cuts than younger retirees. Disability pensions will continue to be paid in full.

A group of about 48,000 workers and retirees who earned their benefits by working at United Parcel Service will continue to have their pensions paid in full, thanks to labor contracts between the Teamsters and the company. UPS was for many years the largest employer in the Central States pension fund, but it withdrew from the fund in December 2007 after making one large final payment. After the stock market crash the following year, UPS and the Teamsters negotiated a separate agreement calling for UPS to shelter those workers from any cuts the Central States pension fund might have to make.

The group that seems exposed to the largest pension cuts consists of about 43,400 “orphans,” or retirees still in the pension fund, even though their former employers no longer exist. Their pensions will be cut to 110 percent of what they would get from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, or at most, $14,158.

Active workers will not lose any of the benefits they have earned up until now. But in their coming years of work, they will accrue benefits at the rate of 0.75 percent of the contributions their employers pay into the fund. In the past, their accrual rate was 1 percent.

The restructuring will also abolish a rule that bars pensioners from returning to the work force to supplement their reduced pensions.

The president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, James P. Hoffa, wrote to Mr. Nyhan last month, saying the new restructuring law “creates the false illusion of participatory democracy,” because it required a vote “that can simply be ignored.” Although Mr. Hoffa is president of the union, he has no say over the pension fund, which is run by a group of trustees from the companies and the union.

“Participants and beneficiaries get to vote, but their vote only counts if they vote to cut their own pensions,” Mr. Hoffa said. “The people who conceived that cynical scheme should be ashamed.” He said he preferred legislation introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, which if enacted would close tax loopholes and redirect the money to supporting troubled multiemployer pension plans.

Mr. Nyhan said he liked Senator Sanders’s proposal too, but recalled that a similar bill was introduced in 2010, when Democratic Party lawmakers controlled Congress, but was never approved. He said he thought it was even less likely that today’s fiscally hawkish, Republican-controlled Congress would enact such a bill. It was not safe to wait and see if the Sanders bill would pass, he said, because the passage of time made the insolvency more likely.

“The easy thing for my board to do would be ignore the problem,” he said. “We just don’t think this is the responsible thing to do.”

“We need either less liabilities or more money, and Congress is telling us we’re not getting more money,” he said.



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

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

2) Palestinian Protests Turn Up Intensity and Draw a Diverse Crowd
By DIAA HADID and RAMI NAZZAL

RAMALLAH, West Bank — At one riotous demonstration this week, Palestinian university students seemed to be inviting Israeli soldiers to shoot them, moving closer rather than away from the drawn rifles and pointing at their chests as though offering a target.

At another, an unusually large number of young women turned out, their heads and faces — all but their eyes — covered in the signature black-and-white checked kaffiyehs. These teenagers in tight jeans and sneakers hurled rocks and firebombs, too, but resentful boys accused them of sometimes panicking when the Israelis responded with tear gas and of screaming when the rubber bullets flew.

A third protest brought scores of preteen boys, many still in their striped school uniforms and hauling book-filled backpacks. “Look how small you are!” exclaimed an older man as a group of boys who did not reach his waist ducked behind a wall to avoid gas. Laith, all of 10 years old, grinned and boasted, “I want to liberate Palestine!”An apparently uncoordinated series of attacks by Palestinians on Israelis, mostly with knives, over the past week, have been accompanied by swelling protests in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israeli towns with large populations of Arab citizens. Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli settlers and soldiers are as old as the conflict itself, but the demonstrations in recent days have been more numerous, more sustained and more confrontational than those of the past few years.

“We feel that the intifada has begun,” said Mohammad Zeid, 23, an activist at Birzeit University, on a hill outside Ramallah. He said the demonstrations were a way to continue momentum, adding, “This is a letter to our political leaders: We don’t want submission, which is what they think peace is.”

The most intense confrontation so far erupted Friday afternoon after the funeral of Muhanad Halabi, the 19-year-old law student who was killed after fatally stabbing two Orthodox men in Jerusalem’s Old City on Saturday night before being shot dead. The army sprayed skunk water and live bullets, but many of the mourners, who had carried butcher knives and even swords to the burial, were not deterred.

“I am here to march in a hero’s celebration,” Yousef Sarhan, 38, who had come from Jerusalem, said earlier. “His courageous attack has shown the whole world that the Palestinians will keep resisting, despite the martyrs who continue to drop.”

Some of the protests have broken out spontaneously, as when hundreds gathered late Thursday night in Kufr Aqab, a crowded neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem, to block Israeli forces from raiding the home of Thaer Abu Ghazala, 19, who was killed by a soldier after wounding four Israelis with a screwdriver near military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Other were planned by political factions, who bused students from the universities of Birzeit and Bethlehem to friction points with Israelis two days running.

“Cage a cat in a room and it will start scratching you. We are like the cats now,” said Elias Sarras, who has worked at the Bethlehem campus for 32 years and said the atmosphere now “looks like it did” during the Palestinian intifadas, or uprisings, of decades past. “The students encourage each other to protest because of the ongoing conflict, and it doesn’t take much to make them move.”

The Israeli military has bolstered its presence in the West Bank, and the police have flushed Jerusalem with about 2,000 additional officers to contain the outbursts they universally call riots. Several Palestinians have been killed, including five shot Friday by Israeli soldiers at a fence that separates the Gaza Strip from Israel, according to a spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, and a 13-year-old bystander in Bethlehem the army said was shot by mistake on Monday. The Palestinian Red Crescent reported about 1,000 injuries before Friday.

“What we’ve seen in recent weeks is indeed an escalation,” said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the Israeli military.

That was certainly the case on Wednesday near the Ramallah checkpoint. Masked youths filled two-liter water bottles with kerosene at a nearby gas station, then poured the fuel into scores of empty soda bottles and hurled the makeshift firebombs toward Israeli positions. About 300 protesters, mostly Birzeit students, tried to climb up a hill toward the wall of the Israeli settlement Beit El, but soldiers firing into the air chased them back.

Buses from Birzeit returned the next day for a repeat performance, though the presence of so many women changed the dynamic. “The party is just starting!” said one, named Mais, 26, who stood with three girlfriends and, like most of the protesters, spoke on the condition that her last name not be used.

One male student found the female presence frustrating, and he said half the boys had showed up only to stare at the girls. “I shouldn’t say this, but the girls are really causing tensions,” he said, because they shied away when things got intense. “That means we can’t throw rocks. We are too busy making sure the girls are O.K.”

On Tuesday, dozens of small boys and skinny teenagers turned up for a march called by Palestinian leaders at Qalandia, the main checkpoint into Ramallah. Some older brothers could be seen pushing the little ones out of the melee. One man angrily scooped up a boy who was crying behind a concrete barricade and shoved him into a bus leaving the area. But another youngster ignored the elder trying to hold him back, speeding off with a rock in his chubby hand.

“This is fun!” said Yehye, 14, who was clutching a Palestinian flag. He was soon scolded by Firas, 15. “It’s to liberate Al Aqsa,” Firas said, referring to the mosque at the heart of the Old City compound in Jerusalem that Palestinians fear Israel wants to divide. “And it’s for the martyrs. They are taking our lands and our holy sites, and as a Palestinian, I should defend my land.”

So far, the situation is more one of sporadic outbursts than the sustained movement that marked the intifadas of the late 1980s and early 2000s. Unlike those times, most stores and shops in Palestinian cities and neighborhoods were open this week.

“I think that people are not all willing to go out and fight,” said Mousa Ahmad, 21, a Bethlehem business student.

“I remember that Yasir Arafat said the pen of a writer, the brush of a painter, the microphone of a professor are all ways of resisting the occupation,” Mr. Ahmad said of the first Palestinian president. “So let us as Palestinians use these methods instead to increase awareness without losing lives. Life is too valuable to lose, especially at a demonstration.”

Over at Birzeit on Thursday, the student council played pounding, nationalistic music and had five buses ready to take people to the protest, but many did not board.

“I am ready to give my life for Palestine,” said Samih, 21, an engineering student. “But I have a class I can’t miss today.”

Jodi Rudoren contributed reporting from Jerusalem.


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

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

3) Death Toll in Airstrike on Doctors Without Borders Hospital May Rise, Group Says
"He said that when President Obama called the international president of Doctors Without Borders, Dr. Joanne Liu, on Wednesday to apologize for the airstrike, she asked him to support an independent investigation by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission. The commission, founded in 1991 but never activated, would need permission from the United States and Afghanistan to conduct an investigation."
By


KABUL, Afghanistan — The death toll may increase significantly from an airstrike that devastated the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, officials from the organization said on Thursday, as the search continued for 24 staff members, many of them feared to be dead.

The deaths of 12 hospital staff members and 10 patients have been confirmed in the American airstrike, with an additional 37 people wounded. Five days after the Oct. 3 attack, Doctors Without Borders was still unable to find the 24 staff members, despite having a hotline for them to call.

“We are worried,” said Guilhem Molinie, the group’s country representative in Afghanistan. “We haven’t stopped looking for them, and we’re not the only ones. Their families want to know where they are, too. We fear that some of them may be dead.”Mr. Molinie said that there might still be more bodies in the heavily damaged main building of the hospital, but that the group had not been able to return to inspect it because of security concerns.

New details of the attack emerged on Thursday at a news conference the organization held in Kabul, the capital, as its officials repeated their call for an independent, international investigation.

The American warplane that attacked the hospital, believed to be an AC-130 gunship supporting American Special Operations or Special Forces troops, made five bombing runs, spaced about 15 minutes apart, beginning at 2:08 a.m. on Saturday, Doctors Without Borders officials said, and the attack continued for an hour and 15 minutes.

Earlier reports from the group had said the bombing went on for 30 minutes, but the officials said the half-hour referred to the time the bombing continued after Doctors Without Borders had reached Americans in Kabul and Washington to tell them the hospital was under aerial attack.

Each of the five air attacks, described as strafing runs — with the aircraft firing rapidly with munitions that caused explosions inside the building — specifically targeted the main hospital building, which housed the emergency room, intensive care unit, blood lab and X-ray area, the group said.

“It was hit with precision repeatedly while surrounding buildings were left untouched,” Mr. Molinie said.

Most of the victims were in the emergency room, intensive care unit and blood lab. Patients in nearby wards, some of them no more than 10 yards from the main building, were untouched, according to Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the initials M.S.F.

There was no active ground combat in the vicinity of the hospital at the time of the attack, as far as officials inside the hospital could tell, Mr. Molinie said. He described the Friday afternoon and evening before the attack as unusually quiet compared with previous days of fighting since the Taliban captured Kunduz on Sept. 28.

There was a single stray bullet around 11 p.m., but no other audible gunfire near the hospital in the hours leading up to the airstrike, the group’s officials said.

Ambulances were able to bring civilian victims to the hospital that day, including a family of five, hit in their car as they tried to flee the city. Three young children from that family were killed in the airstrike, the officials said.

Both Taliban and government fighters were being treated in the hospital — a fully equipped trauma center specializing in war wounds, with 150 beds and a staff of over 400 that included expatriates and Afghans — but Doctors Without Borders officials insisted that there had been no weapons or explosives anywhere inside the hospital compound, in line with its longstanding policy.

The group has on several occasions immediately shut down its hospitals in Afghanistan when armed men have insisted on entering.

Mr. Molinie said surviving staff members from the hospital, including guards who had been stationed around the perimeter of its campus, all confirmed that no armed men were in the hospital and no gunfire was coming from it at any time during the conflict in Kunduz.

“Military and armed opposition patients lay side by side in the hospital and were given the best care possible, according to their medical needs, with impartiality and neutrality,” Mr. Molinie said. “Once patients are injured, they lose their combatant status, according to international law.”

An operation was underway at the time of the airstrike, with a general surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon and an anesthesiologist, all foreigners, in the operating theater — a separate wing of the building that was struck. The airstrikes, however, were concentrated on the main wing of the building. No foreign staff members were wounded or killed.

“This amounts to a grave violation of international humanitarian law, not just an attack on our hospital, but an attack on the Geneva Conventions as well,” Christopher Stokes, the organization’s general director, said in Kabul.

He said that when President Obama called the international president of Doctors Without Borders, Dr. Joanne Liu, on Wednesday to apologize for the airstrike, she asked him to support an independent investigation by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission.

The commission, founded in 1991 but never activated, would need permission from the United States and Afghanistan to conduct an investigation.

Mr. Obama replied to Dr. Liu that he had confidence in the three military investigations already underway, Mr. Stokes said. One is being conducted by the United States Army and one by NATO, and there is a joint Afghan-American military investigation.

“We believe it wouldn’t be realistic to ask one of the parties of the conflict to investigate themselves,” Mr. Stokes said.

Doctors Without Borders has issued a statement acknowledging that Dr. Liu had “received” Mr. Obama’s apology, but it pointedly did not say she had accepted it.


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

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

4) Walter Scott Family Reaches a $6.5 Million Settlement for South Carolina Police Shooting Case
By RICHARD FAUSSET

The family of Walter L. Scott, the African-American man who was fatally shot by a white police officer in North Charleston, S.C., reached a $6.5 million settlement with the city Thursday that precludes Mr. Scott’s family from bringing civil claims over his death.

The North Charleston City Council voted to authorize the settlement at its meeting Thursday night, according to lawyers for the Scott family and a statement issued by the city.

A passer-by’s video of the April 4 killing appears to show the officer shooting Mr. Scott in the back while he was running away. The shooting sparked a national furor and became part of a broad and passionate conversation about American policing methods and the fate of African-Americans at the hands of some officers.The police officer, Michael T. Slager, was fired shortly after the shooting. He has been jailed since April 7. In June, he was indicted by a grand jury on a murder charge. Mr. Slager has not been arraigned, but Andy Savage, his lawyer, said that Mr. Slager denied any culpability for the killing.

A judge denied Mr. Slager bond in September. The local prosecutor, Scarlett A. Wilson, has said she will not seek the death penalty.

“I am glad the city and the family were able to reach a settlement without the necessity of a lawsuit,” Mayor Keith Summey said in the news release. “As mayor, I was directly in touch with the Scott family immediately after the tragedy occurred and offered our heartfelt condolences for their loss. We have supported the family and are extremely sorry for their loss.”

Before the shooting, Mr. Slager pulled over Mr. Scott for driving with a broken taillight. Mr. Scott initially ran from the officer because, his family has said, he had outstanding child-support obligations and did not want to be arrested. Mr. Slager followed Mr. Scott and caught up with him, after which the two men apparently fought over the officer’s Taser.

After the altercation, Mr. Scott ran again, and Mr. Slager fired eight shots in his direction.

After Mr. Scott’s death, Mr. Slager was named in at least two lawsuits involving other episodes during his tenure as a North Charleston police officer. Those cases are pending.

The North Charleston police chief, Eddie Driggers, said in April that the episode captured on video had “sickened” him, and he said the department’s procedures had not been followed.

Anthony Scott, Mr. Scott’s brother, said that the settlement would help four children who lost their father.

“They’ll be taken care of financially for the rest of their life,” he said. “And that’s very important.”

Alan Blinder contributed reporting.


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

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

5) Flint Will Return to Using Detroit’s Water After Findings of Lead in Local Supply
By


More than a year after residents of Flint, Mich., were switched onto a water supply that has since been linked to rising levels of lead in the blood of some children, state and city officials abruptly reversed course, announcing on Thursday that Flint would return to its old water source.

“The realization of increased lead exposure and a rise in the number of children with elevated blood lead levels was devastating for our community,” Dayne Walling, the mayor of Flint, said at a news conference where he and Gov. Rick Snyder announced plans to spend $12 million to restore the city’s connection to Detroit’s water system, which comes from Lake Huron. “I could hardly sleep knowing that our youngest and most vulnerable children could be at greater risk if precautionary steps were not taken,” said Mr. Walling, who is seeking re-election next month.Residents of Flint and others lauded the decision. Some had been pressing for it for many months as complaints emerged about strange smells and colors coming from faucets, as well as unexplained rashes, ailments and worries about lead.

“I’m happy that the city is finally doing what they should have done a long time ago,” said LeeAnne Walters, a resident who says her 4-year-old son was found to have high lead levels in his blood. “They should have taken it seriously back months ago when we tried to tell them, but they chose to ignore it. If they had been doing their jobs from the start, it wouldn’t have taken all this.”

Flint, an economically troubled city 70 miles from Detroit, switched its water supply to the Flint River last year, after leaving Detroit’s costly water system. As part of efforts to cut costs that had overwhelmed the shrinking city, Flint officials planned to join a new, regional water system, which would also draw water from Lake Huron. But the new system will not be ready until mid-2016, and so the city turned in the interim to the Flint River in April 2014, leaving many residents skeptical.

In addition to the strange appearance of the water in some homes, which some residents began collecting in bottles as evidence, there were other problems. When fecal coliform bacteria turned up in the water, residents were told to boil their water. The extra chlorine that was used to solve that problem caused a new one: elevated levels of another contaminant, total trihalomethanes, which health officials say can lead to liver or kidney problems. At the time, the authorities assured residents they were handling the issues, and that the water remained in safety guidelines.

But then came worries about lead. In early September, a researcher from Virginia Tech reported that tests of the water in nearly 300 Flint homes showed elevated lead levels in the city. A pediatrician announced that blood tests showed increased lead levels in some children since 2014, and last week state officials corroborated those findings.

In recent days, the city, county and state issued advisories — guidance to residents such as installing lead-removing filters; running water for five minutes before using it; and using only cold water for drinking, cooking and making baby formula. But by Thursday morning, there was a more significant announcement, and it was the one some residents like Ms. Walters had long sought: In about two weeks, the city will stop drawing water from the Flint River and return to Detroit’s system until the new regional system is ready.

“We all care about the citizens of Flint, all the citizens in the state, in making sure we can have safe clean water for people,” said Mr. Snyder, who said he would seek $6 million from the State Legislature to help pay for Flint’s temporary return to Detroit water. The city is expected to pay $2 million, and the other $4 million will come from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

Health experts suspect that the water from the Flint River is particularly corrosive and may be leaching lead from some of the city’s oldest pipes and service lines. They said water from Detroit’s facility is treated with substances that help coat the inside of pipes, which tends to prevent such corrosion.

Yet even as officials announced their plans on Thursday, new test results were announced. Sampling of water in Flint’s schools over the past week found that three schools had lead levels higher than a federal standard, state officials said. Flint schools, where water fountains have been turned off in recent days, are providing students with donated bottled water.


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

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

6) Gun Deaths Are Mostly Suicides
by

When Americans think about deaths from guns, we tend to focus on homicides. But the problem of gun suicide is inescapable: More than 60 percent of people in this country who die from guns die by suicide.

Suicide gets a lot less attention than murders for a few reasons. One big one is that news organizations generally don’t cover suicides the way they do murders. There’s evidence that news attention around suicide can lead to more suicides. Suicide is more stigmatized and less discussed than homicide.

But, as a matter of public health, gun suicides are a huge problem in the United States. Suicide is the second-most common cause of death for Americans between 15 and 34, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Across all ages, it is the 10th-most common cause of death, and caused 1.6 percent of all deaths in 2012.Not all of those suicides are by gun, but a majority are. And while some people feeling suicidal impulses will choose another method if a gun is not at hand, public health researchers cite two reasons guns are particularly dangerous: 1) Guns are more lethal than most other methods people try, so someone who attempts suicide another way is more likely to survive; 2) Studies suggest that suicide attempts often occur shortly after people decide to kill themselves, so people with deadly means at hand when the impulse strikes are more likely to use them than those who have to wait or plan.

That means that strategies that make suicide more inconvenient or difficult can save lives. Guns, when they are in the home, can make self-harm both easy and deadly.

There are a few classic studies that look at these factors. One is historical: In England in the first half of the 20th century, many people died after intentionally inhaling lethal fumes in coal gas ovens. When oven technology changed to less dangerous natural gas, fewer people had an easy means of suicide in their home. Only some people found another suicide method, and the suicide rate fell substantially.

Another occurred in Israel, where members of the military had a high suicide rate. In 2006, the army stopped letting soldiers take their service weapons home on weekends. The suicide rate fell there, too, by 40 percent.

The high rate of gun suicides in the United States is not a new problem. Even in the 1980s and 1990s, when violent crime rates were much higher, gun suicides were still a more common cause of death than gun murders. But in recent years, as the gun homicide rate has flattened out, the gun suicide rate appears to be ticking back up slightly.

Many of the gun-control measures that politicians propose to reduce the number of homicides and mass shootings would have a limited effect on gun suicides. Efforts to ban so-called assault weapons or to reduce the number of bullets that could be loaded into a gun at once would probably not make suicide any less likely. But other measures meant to prevent gun homicides might have an effect on gun suicides, particularly those designed to identify and help people with mental health needs. Mental illness, which may contribute to mass shootings, is a clear risk factor for suicide.



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

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

7) A Student Loan System Stacked Against the Borrower
By
OCT. 9, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/business/a-student-loan-system-stacked-against-the-borrower.html?src=busln 

“It feels like I’m being set up to fail.”

That’s how Patrick Wittwer, 31, described his experience trying to repay his roughly $50,000 in student loans. Between misdirected payments by one of the companies servicing his loan and the abusive collection tactics he encountered when he fell behind, Mr. Wittwer said the repayment process simply seemed stacked against him.

A 2008 graduate of Temple University with a degree in media arts, Mr. Wittwer is not alone in his experience. Consumer advocates say student-loan servicers often make an already heavy debt load even more burdensome for borrowers.

A report issued late last month by the Consumer Financial Protection Board supports this view. Even though the economy and labor market have improved, student loan borrowers are experiencing high distress levels compared with borrowers with other types of consumer debt, the government report found. More than one in four student loan borrowers are delinquent or in default on their obligations.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, we learned repeatedly about dubious practices among mortgage servicing companies that made it harder for homeowners trying to repay or renegotiate their loans. Now, similar horror stories are emerging about the companies servicing student loans.

Some 41 million Americans owe $1.2 trillion in student loan debt. The median debt burden among borrowers was $20,000 in 2014, up from $13,000 in 2007.

Companies servicing these loans manage borrowers’ accounts, process their payments and enroll them in alternative repayment plans, including those based on a fixed share of the borrowers’ income. Among the biggest companies are Navient, Great Lakes and Discover Bank.

The Education Department has contracts with 11 loan servicers. But with no federal standards governing these activities, student-loan servicers have great leeway in their practices. Making matters worse, borrowers are not allowed to choose their servicers, so if they encounter problems, they cannot take their business elsewhere.

“Good loan servicing is expensive,” Maura Dundon, senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, said in a recent interview. “It requires reaching out and talking to people, and servicers don’t do it because they don’t get compensated for that. This is the fault of servicers, but it’s also the fault of the Department of Education for not writing this into their contracts.”

Denise Horn, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said the agency continues to strengthen the federal direct loan program “to ensure all students and families receive the highest quality support from their federal loan servicers.” She added: “Everyone needs to do more to protect student loan borrowers — including servicers — and we’ll continue to take steps to strengthen the program and enhance oversight.”

A recent questionnaire by Young Invincibles, a nonprofit advocacy group that focuses on improving financial literacy among young adults, points to some of the weaknesses in student loan servicing.

One common borrower complaint among the roughly 1,200 people who responded to the survey was that servicers simply fail to follow instructions. Borrowers hoping to reduce both the cost and the length of their repayment period, for example, often ask servicers to steer payments toward higher-cost loans first. In a number of cases, recipients said, the companies ignored these requests.

“For servicers to ignore or do the opposite thing that a borrower would request is indicative of something very negative going on in the industry,” said Jennifer Wang, policy director at Young Invincibles.

Improper levying of late fees was another practice cited by those shouldering student loans. So were losing paperwork and making repeated requests for documentation.

Perhaps the biggest problem cited by borrowers and their advocates was the failure of student loan servicers to advise their customers of the full array of repayment plans available to them. In many cases, this means borrowers do not know they are eligible for loan relief and do not receive it.

Such relief includes repayment plans for federal loans based on a borrower’s income and family size, or debt forgiveness programs for borrowers who work in public service. Military service members also have a right to a lower interest rate while they are on active duty.

But many eligible borrowers don’t hear about these options, advocates say. An August report from the Government Accountability Office estimated that 51 percent of student loan borrowers nationwide are eligible for income-based repayment plans, but only 15 percent are enrolled.

Rather than offer one of these programs, servicers often suggest loan forbearance, in which the borrower stops making payments temporarily. But because interest keeps piling up on the loan during the forbearance period, this is an expensive alternative. And some private student loan servicers charge a $150 fee to put an account into forbearance.

Servicers say the complexity of federal student loan arrangements creates problems both for their workers who must try to explain these deals and for borrowers who need to understand them.

But servicers receive $600 million a year for their work, and explaining loan terms is surely one of the jobs they are being paid to perform. “For a servicer to see a student loan borrower struggle and not help them get into the right repayment plan is a huge customer service failure,” Ms. Wang said.

It is also a taxpayer risk, given that such practices raise a borrower’s potential to default.

Mr. Wittwer, who lives in Philadelphia, said he had encountered difficulties with some of his loan payments even though he arranged for them to be deducted automatically from his bank account last year.

“After six or seven months, I get a late notice for my federal loans and I go in to my bank and double-check that the loan was being paid,” he said. “My loans had been transferred to another office, but the original office had kept collecting it.”

It took about a month to fix the problem, Mr. Wittwer said. “You have to be hypervigilant about it because student loans are constantly being sold and moved.”

Ms. Dundon of the Center for Responsible Lending said that the Education Department had fixed some of the problems in its servicing contracts but that financial incentives were still misaligned in certain areas. For example, service companies receive more money if the loans they oversee are being paid off, and less if borrowers stop paying. While this system encourages servicers to keep borrowers current — a good thing — it discourages them from working with borrowers who fall behind.

Mr. Wittwer said he is currently paying $756 a month on his student loans, the minimum amount. He acknowledged that he did not understand the consequences of the sky-high interest rates on his loans when he took them on. But his credit score is rising and he has a job.

The Consumer Financial Protection Board is talking about rules to standardize student loan servicing practices. In the meantime, its enforcement unit has student loan servicing companies under the microscope. It brought a case against Discover Bank last summer, saying it inflated the amounts it said borrowers owed on their loans.

Discover Bank paid $18.5 million without admitting or denying wrongdoing.

Repaying a student loan is challenging enough without servicers adding to the burden with incompetence or dubious practices. Borrowers and taxpayers deserve better.
 


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

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

8) Israeli Soldiers Kill 6 Palestinians in Gaza as West Bank Unrest Grows
By

JERUSALEM — Israeli soldiers killed six young Palestinians on Friday in the Gaza Strip, including a 15-year-old boy, as they opened fire to quell crowds that hurled rocks and rolled burning tires close to the fence separating Gaza from Israel, Israeli military and Gaza health officials said.

The deadly clash came as the roiling violence and unrest of the past week continued across Israel and the occupied West Bank; there were four more stabbing attacks, including the first by a Jewish Israeli against Arabs, and unruly demonstrations that raged into the night.

The deteriorating landscape presented intense political challenges for both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. Neither is ready to make a dramatic diplomatic move that could ease the conflict, yet the spiraling situation tests their ability to maintain control of restive constituencies.For Mr. Abbas, who has preached nonviolence for his entire tenure, the escalating unrest undermines his credibility with international supporters and benefits his more militant rivals, like the Hamas Islamists, who have egged on the attackers.

For Mr. Netanyahu, who has made fighting terrorism the centerpiece of his political life and is still reeling from his failure to stop the Iran nuclear deal, the crisis has exacerbated tensions in his narrow, conservative coalition and left many Israelis asking why he cannot keep their streets safe.

“This upsurge represents a rejection of Abbas’s entire strategy that he’s been working on for most of his adult life,” observed Nathan Thrall, an analyst for the International Crisis Group in Jerusalem. He also said the escalation “looks bad for Israel’s image in the world — you see Palestinian protesters against an occupying army,” especially as Mr. Netanyahu prepares to meet with President Obama in a few weeks to repair their tattered relations.

“You are essentially creating new pressure on moving on the Palestinian issue at a time when he is hoping to have a nice, quiet meeting in Washington where they’re compensating him for the Iran deal,” he explained, “and instead he’s going to also have to talk about what he’s going to do to lower the flames.”

Friday was the first time since the latest outbreak began that it spread to the Gaza Strip, after a Facebook page called “Third Intifada” called for people to “prepare your stones, knives and Molotovs” and “head towards” the Israeli military site outside the kibbutz Nahal Oz.

“We will not be silent in front of all what’s happening in the other half of our homeland,” said Fouad Safwat, 26, one of the demonstrators. As the Palestinians rushed toward the barrier separating Gaza from Israel, he said, “the whole area suddenly turned into a real confrontation.” He added, “It was a real intifada.”

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the Israeli military said there were more than 1,000 men “attempting multiple times and at multiple locations to storm the border fence throughout the day,” hurling projectiles including a grenade.

“Only after firing warning shots in the air did we fire at the main instigators, to get them to stop,” he said.

Four Palestinians were killed there and two others were shot to death farther south, near Khan Younis, according to Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza. He said 80 people had been injured, at least 11 of them minors, and many shot in the head, neck and chest.

Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader in Gaza, urged people to join in the expanding confrontation with Israel during his sermon Friday. “Gaza is ready to fight in the battle of Jerusalem,” he said. “The battle of Jerusalem is our battle, and we will not relent to always be in the right place.”

In Israel, after there were seven separate stabbings by Palestinians on Wednesday and Thursday, Friday morning began with a familiar burst of staccato bulletins on a police WhatsApp message group for reporters: A man in the southern city of Dimona attacked a municipal worker. Then three others. With a knife and a screwdriver. And was arrested.

But this time, the accused assailant was a Jewish resident of the city known to the police, and his victims a Bedouin citizen of Israel and three Palestinians from the West Bank.

Mr. Netanyahu issued a statement saying he “strongly condemns the attack against innocent Arabs,” as did other Jewish leaders, who have criticized their Palestinian counterparts for not denouncing — and sometimes publicly celebrating — stabbings by their people.

Unlike the Palestinian attackers, many of whom were killed or severely injured by security forces — or in one case on Wednesday, a victim who pulled out his personal weapon — the Dimona man was subdued without injury. Later, at the central bus station in the northern town of Afula, an Arab-Israeli woman who tried to stab a security guard was surrounded by police officers who shot and wounded her, prompting outrage from Arab members of Parliament.

“The statements made by Netanyahu and his ministers and the calls to bear arms is tantamount to permission to spill Arabs’ blood,” said one such politician, Basel Ghattas.

Mr. Netanyahu has faced criticism from all corners of the political map. His appeal, during a nationally televised news conference Thursday night, for a national-unity government was roundly rebuffed by Parliament’s opposition leader, Isaac Herzog, who said the prime minister had “lost control over the security of Israel’s citizens.”

At the same time, leaders of West Bank settlements have been camped out at a protest tent outside Mr. Netanyahu’s residence demanding new construction in their communities to punish the Palestinians, something many Israeli security officials say would only further inflame things.

The Jerusalem Post, which leans conservative like Mr. Netanyahu, had on its front page Friday his photo, labeled “Mr. Security” over the query “Is the spate of terrorists attacks denting Netanyahu’s image?” Yossi Verter, the political columnist for the leftist daily Haaretz, said that the prime minister’s “loss of control is evident on both the security and political levels,” and that “what is undoubtedly driving him up the wall is that he has no one on whom to pin the blame.”

Earlier in the week, Sima Kadmon of Yediot Aharonot dismissed Mr. Netanyahu’s reign as “six years of talk; six years of zero action.”

“It truly is a baffling mystery how Netanyahu managed to sell himself as the only person who is capable of delivering security to us,” she wrote, “whereas the reality is that we keep moving from one security failure to the next, from war to uprising, from one threat to the next.”

But Mr. Thrall of the Crisis Group said Mr. Netanyahu’s predicament was preferable to Mr. Abbas’s, because there remains no credible candidate on the Israeli left to challenge him, particularly on security. Mr. Abbas, in contrast, is under pressure from the public and many in his own party, as well as the hard-line factions, to take a stronger stand.

“By definition any upsurge in violence means more power for those who have been quite thoroughly suppressed by Abbas,” Mr. Thrall said. “Most of the fighting against Israel has been driven by Palestinians basically feeling like they’ve given up on their leaders and have to take matters into their own hands.”

Majd Al Waheidi contributed reporting from Gaza.




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

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

9) Big Tobacco’s Staunch Friend in Washington: U.S. Chamber of Commerce
"...the chamber has spent more than $1.1 billion on lobbying, and last year, it had 168 lobbyists working on its behalf, many on its own staff, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. ...For tobacco companies, Mr. Donohue’s chamber has provided cover for those afraid of attracting headlines for fighting their own battles. Mr. Donohue once told Washington Monthly magazine that he wanted to give the chamber’s members 'all the deniability they need.'"
By

LONDON — When the Irish prime minister visited the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last year, he had a message to deliver. Ireland’s economy was recovering and his country was still open for business. “Call me anytime,” he told business leaders.

But Thomas J. Donohue, the chief executive of the chamber, had his own agenda. During the visit, he tried to persuade the prime minister to reject Irish antismoking legislation that would require tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in plain packages with images of diseased lungs or cancer patients.

“Such a measure would undercut well-established protections for intellectual property,” Mr. Donohue wrote to the prime minister, Enda Kenny, in a follow-up letter. The chamber head also sent a letter signed by several other business groups encouraging the same. Even the chamber’s Polish affiliate weighed in.

Since taking over in 1997, Mr. Donohue has transformed the chamber into a powerful lobbying force, an evolution most starkly epitomized by its aggressive advocacy for tobacco. While the organization represents a variety of industries, its strategy has been a boon for cigarette makers, which have relied heavily on the chamber to push their agenda at home and abroad.

Few allies of Big Tobacco are as enduring as Mr. Donohue, who has personally lobbied the speaker of the House, the United States trade representative and the Irish prime minister on the industry’s behalf. A review of industry records, which came to light during government litigation, highlights the longevity of his ties.

In the 1980s, when he was a trucking lobbyist, he was bankrolled by cigarette makers as he led a campaign against excise tax increases, and was described in one corporate document as “a good friend to the Tobacco Industry.”

In the 1990s, after taking over the chamber, Mr. Donohue fought the Justice Department’s tobacco litigation, personally lobbied against antismoking legislation in the Senate and promised “a unique role in determining the future direction of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce” to a big cigarette maker in a letter.

In the early 2000s, Mr. Donohue publicly vowed to fight “outrageous tobacco settlement fees in state after state.” Chamber lawyers filed briefs on behalf of cigarette makers that challenged class-action suits, punitive damages awards and the validity of racketeering claims.

His latest effort is the boldest. The chamber and its foreign affiliates are pressuring governments around the world to turn back antismoking legislation. That pits Mr. Donohue against groups like the World Health Organization, whose officials refer to the chamber as a tobacco industry front group.

For tobacco companies doing business abroad, Mr. Donohue came to power at a pivotal moment.

The W.H.O. and many foreign governments were starting to collaborate on efforts to curb smoking. New rules had also come into effect barring State Department officials from working against foreign antismoking laws.

But the chamber has no such restrictions and has long-established connections to the American government. Diplomats at more than 40 American embassies serve as honorary board members or in other capacities at the chamber’s foreign affiliates, blurring the lines between the organization’s policy and American policy.

The chamber’s own letters, many of which have been published in The New York Times, show the extent of the tobacco campaign, including an attack on excise tax in the Philippines, cigarette advertising bans in Uruguay and restrictions on smoking in public places in Moldova. Many nations, including Ireland, have rejected the chamber’s entreaties.

This chamber’s newly assertive style at times strays from the chamber’s traditional role of promoting agendas that are broadly in the interest of corporate America. By its own bylaws, issues taken up by the chamber are supposed to reflect those of “broad significance to business and industry.”

Mr. Donohue’s tobacco advocacy reflects a chamber more willing to take on parochial interests. And members in other industries, some of whom have benefited from the chamber’s strategy, have largely tolerated revelations about the chamber’s tobacco lobbying.

“Our policy was that we didn’t usually get into single-industry or single-company issues,” said Richard L. Lesher, Mr. Donohue’s predecessor atop the chamber. “We fought issues like tax and budget and certain regulations, but we didn’t carry the water for single companies or single industries. In fact, we had policies prohibiting that.”

Chamber officials adamantly deny they are lobbying on behalf of tobacco.

Mr. Donohue declined to comment, but R. Bruce Josten, the chamber’s second-highest-ranking official, said in an interview that the organization was acting on its long-held opposition to plain packaging, viewing it as an affront to cigarette makers’ intellectual property that could spread to other products, like alcohol and fast food. The chamber has also argued that such laws violate trade agreements.

“The chamber is not opposed to tobacco regulation. Declarative statement,” Mr. Josten said. “We don’t support smoking. Declarative statement.”

A Fresh Start

A few weeks after he took over the organization in 1997, Mr. Donohue received a letter from Roy E. Marden, a Philip Morris executive.

Mr. Marden was blunt. Although he was encouraged by Mr. Donohue’s hiring, he said the chamber “had become a somewhat moribund organization.” He admitted that dues payments from Philip Morris had diminished in recent years, adding that the company felt “there hasn’t been much bang for the buck,” according to documents made public as part of the tobacco litigation.

His frustrations were common. The origins of the chamber date to 1912, when President William Howard Taft called for a “central organization in touch with associations and chambers of commerce throughout the country.” Gradually, it evolved into a far-flung bastion of American-style capitalism, welcoming multinational companies and foreign affiliates into the fold.

But the chamber’s scale slowed decision-making, and policies required the approval of the group’s board. As Mr. Marden put it, mobilizing the chamber on a policy issue was like “pulling teeth.”

And then there was what he called “the debacle over health care.”

Though the chamber usually tilted to the right politically, Mr. Donohue’s predecessor, Mr. Lesher, initially supported the Clinton administration’s 1994 health care reform effort. The decision divided the chamber’s membership and some resigned.

Cigarette companies were particularly incensed because a tobacco tax increase was part of President Clinton’s plan. The chamber was “on the wrong side,” a Philip Morris internal memo, another made public in tobacco litigation, opined at the time. “We have been intensely lobbying them behind the scenes.”

Three years later, Mr. Donohue promised a fresh start. Now 77, he is Brooklyn born, pugnacious and irrepressible, with a puff of white hair. When he took over the chamber, Joan Claybrook, the longtime consumer advocate, said it was “like appointing Dennis Rodman chief of protocol,” a line that Mr. Donohue called “cute.”

Mr. Donohue said of John Sweeney, then president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., “somebody’s got to go hit him in the mouth.” Before making a point at a news conference last year, Mr. Donohue instructed reporters, “If you’re resting a minute, wake up.”

Mr. Donohue’s ambition, he wrote in a reply to the Philip Morris executive, was “to build the biggest gorilla in this town.” He scrapped the chamber’s in-house cable network and magazine, which were centerpieces of his predecessor.

Instead, he focused on activism. Since he took over, the chamber has spent more than $1.1 billion on lobbying, and last year, it had 168 lobbyists working on its behalf, many on its own staff, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Mr. Donohue’s chamber would lean more heavily on large corporations, promising in a letter that the chamber’s small-business members “provide the foot soldiers, and often the political cover, for issues big companies want pursued.” Splinter groups proliferated, like the Institute for Legal Reform, which took money from American automakers to attack tire safety regulations proposed after the Firestone scandal.

“Donohue was hired to revitalize and recapitalize the chamber, and refocus it on advocacy and representation for business in Washington,” said Mr. Josten, the chamber official. “Our revenue was in decline.”

Fund-raising letters were sent to hundreds of companies. “I bet he spent three and a half, four days a week calling C.E.O.s,” Mr. Josten recalled. “At the time, Tom said, ‘The hole’s deeper and the ladder is shorter than I thought.’ I was here; it was a true statement.”

Tobacco companies were among Mr. Donohue’s earliest supporters, in part because he was already well established as an ally.

During his first stint with the chamber in the early 1980s, he was called on to calm restive cigarette makers, who were angered by a chamber health booklet that said smoking increases absenteeism. Mr. Donohue invited the tobacco industry to “supply some additional data” for a revised version, according to a letter later made public. Within a few years, the industry was citing chamber research that found “smoking has no influence on an employee’s likelihood of being absent.”

Mr. Donohue left the chamber in 1984 to run the American Trucking Associations. Reflecting his ambition, he set up an offshoot called the Coalition Against Regressive Taxation, raising money from tobacco and winemakers to fight excise tax increases.

He was tireless. He blanketed Congress with letters, hosted a breakfast with Dick Cheney, then a congressman, and organized a conference in Bal Harbour. He testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee in 1986, and again in 1987, when he told lawmakers that “mom-and-pop stores” were dependent “on sales of tobacco and alcohol.” He decried the “unfairness” of “proposals to nickel and dime buyers of cigarettes, wine and distilled spirits” in a letter to newspaper editors.

He brought the same zeal when he took over the chamber in 1997. The next year, the chamber assailed antismoking legislation proposed by Senator John McCain. Letters were sent to the Senate, news conferences were organized, and other industries were enlisted for public meetings, while Mr. Josten was dispatched to meet with House and Senate staff members.

Mr. Donohue met privately with Newt Gingrich, then the House speaker, outlining the chamber’s opposition to the legislation, and “met or spoke to” five top senators, records show. The bill died in the Senate.

The industry was pleased.

“The chamber has become the antithesis of its former self,” a Philip Morris memo reported in 1999, while an executive said in an internal email, the “chamber is doing good work.”

Deep Ties

A plaque on Mr. Donohue’s desk, well known to visitors, says “Show me the Money.”

There are different ways to interpret this message. It could refer to his predilection for chauffeured Lincolns and chartered flights, or his $5.5 million paycheck in 2013, more than 10 times what his predecessor earned in his last full year, 1996.

It is also a reminder that under his watch, the chamber has become a fund-raising juggernaut.

The chamber is not required to disclose its donors, but from 2008 to 2012, the last two presidential election years, the number of donors who gave more than $1 million doubled, to 42, tax records show. Revenue at the chamber has grown to $164 million in 2013, from $76 million a decade earlier. Including its various affiliates, the total rises to $260 million.

Philip Morris increased its contributions more than sevenfold to $180,000 in 1998, Mr. Donohue’s first full year on the job, from $25,000 annually in the mid-1990s. A chamber official said that represented just 0.2 percent of the chamber’s overall revenue at the time. Philip Morris Companies, known as Altria since 2003, does not disclose its current contributions, but it does have a seat on the chamber’s board.

There are other signs of deepened ties, including the revolving door between the chamber and the industry.

Tom J. Collamore, a former Philip Morris executive, became a top lieutenant of Mr. Donohue’s. And several employees have moved between the chamber and the industry, including Trinh Nguyen, a former chamber employee who is now a spokeswoman for Philip Morris International, which was spun off from Altria in 2008.

A spokesman for Altria, David Sutton, said in an email that the company’s work with the chamber “focuses on issues of general interest to the American business community,” including corporate tax policy and tort reform. “We will continue to work with the U.S. Chamber on issues important to Altria,” he added. Philip Morris International did not comment.

For tobacco companies, Mr. Donohue’s chamber has provided cover for those afraid of attracting headlines for fighting their own battles. Mr. Donohue once told Washington Monthly magazine that he wanted to give the chamber’s members “all the deniability they need.”

The year after the fight over the Senate bill, Philip Morris directed the chamber’s work on a polling project surveying attitudes about government-funded litigation. The chamber took the lead in public, while “PM stays in the background,” a Philip Morris memo outlined. The cigarette maker selected the polling firm and reviewed the questions, according to documents released as part of the litigation and also detailed in a recently published book about the chamber called “The Influence Machine.”

“New Poll Finds Solid Public Opposition to Government Lawsuits” the chamber’s news release was headlined, while leaving out the tobacco industry’s role.

Cigarette makers have not been the only beneficiary of such tactics.

In 2009, health insurers contributed $86.2 million to the chamber to fight President Obama’s health care proposal. The chamber began a sprawling ad campaign criticizing the legislation, though the insurers’ financial backing only came to light the next year.

Complications have arisen in the chamber’s new approach.

Its bylaws say the board “shall determine the eligibility and appropriateness of all proposals to be considered and acted upon.” But under Mr. Donohue, the chamber’s board swelled to more than 100 seats, meaning, in practicality, many decisions are subordinated to committees or affiliated groups.

Chamber officials said no board vote took place before the organization sought to discourage foreign governments from passing antismoking laws.

“We were not aware of these lobbying efforts, and we oppose efforts to promote tobacco use,” said Brooke Thurston, a spokeswoman for Steward Health Care of Boston, a hospital group on the chamber board.

Two insurance giants on the chamber’s board, Anthem and the Health Care Service Corporation, have said little about the chamber’s tobacco industry ties.

“In the long run, they may find it distasteful and against their quoted values for the chamber to be doing what it is doing abroad on tobacco, but they’ll hold their nose,” said Wendell Potter, an outspoken former communications executive for Cigna, another insurer. “They do it because they know the chamber can be very helpful to them at some point down the road.”

Blair Latoff Holmes, the chamber’s spokeswoman, said in an email that “the premise that the chamber has mounted a ‘campaign’ to oppose efforts to discourage smoking simply isn’t true.”

“I’m not surprised to hear that board members haven’t heard of this. That’s because it doesn’t exist,” she said.

The chamber emphasized that it discouraged its own staff from smoking. “To my knowledge,” Mr. Josten said of Mr. Donohue, “Tom has never taken a puff of a cigarette.”

Douglas Dalby contributed reporting from Dublin, and Alain Delaquérière contributed research from New York.




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

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

10) For Alabama’s Poor, the Budget Cuts Trickle Down, Limiting Access to Driver’s Licenses
By

PANOLA, Ala. — It is about an hour and 10 minutes to Tuscaloosa, the nearest big city to this little knot of houses and churches in the Alabama pines. For the hundreds in this poor county who do not have a car or a friend with the spare time, someone can usually be found who is willing to give a ride. For a fee, of course.

“You want to get to T-town, it’s at least $50,” said William Bankhead, 56, sitting in front of a boarded-up building that was once Panola’s general store. “We’re a long ways from a place.”

As of last week, Tuscaloosa is the nearest location where a person here can get a driver’s license, after the state decided to stop providing services at 31 satellite locations around the state. The fallout from this decision has been widespread: national politicians and civil rights advocates have condemned Alabama for shuttering the locations, many of them in the state’s majority black counties, just a year after requiring that people show photo identification at the polling locations.

State officials, saying the critics are acting on bad information, insist that the closings have no effect on access to photo ID.

“They didn’t make it harder to vote,” said John Merrill, the Alabama secretary of state, who on Thursday met with the Rev. Jesse Jackson to discuss the issue. “They just made it harder to drive.”

Here in rural and poor Alabama — where obstetricians are rare, dialysis centers far apart, grocery stores few and decent jobs scarce — this is little consolation. The concerns most often heard here, one of the poorest areas in the country, are not about voting. They are about the more routine consequences: the day-to-day transactions, the morass of court fines, the jail time that awaits if one is caught driving without a license and the necessity of transportation in a place where Alabama’s modest state services seem to be receding year by year.

And more generally, the concerns are about the way cutbacks seem invariably to fall hardest on those at the bottom.

“All this stuff has been cut back to the bare bones,” said John Jackson, a veteran of the civil rights movement who for 30 years was the mayor of White Hall in Lowndes County. “It hurts the poor before it hurts anybody else.”

The national uproar over the access to licenses has centered almost exclusively on its effect on voting. With no early voting and no online registration, Alabama already was one of the least convenient states in which to vote even before it began requiring photo ID.

Driver’s licenses are the most commonly used form of identification. United States Representative Terri Sewell, a Democrat, has demanded a federal investigation, pointing out that the satellite license locations are being terminated in eight of the 10 Alabama counties with the highest percentages of black voters. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democratic candidate for president, called the move “a blast from the Jim Crow past.”

But in a public letter to Ms. Sewell, Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican, called the criticism ill-informed, saying that closing the satellite locations was the least disruptive of bad options given steep budget cuts and insisting that “no additional transportation burden” would be placed on people who needed voter ID.

Previously, he said in the letter, license examiners would travel up to three times a week to the county seats where there are no permanent motor vehicle offices. The examiners, usually setting up in county government buildings, would give tests and issue permits and licenses, conducting about a thousand transactions a year at each location.

Tests now will be given and new driver’s licenses issued in fewer places. But, officials said, people can still renew their licenses and, with the same documents required to get a driver’s license, can obtain free photo IDs in all of the county seats where the license examiners worked.

Critics remain wary. Moreover, said State Representative Darrio Melton, a Democrat based in Selma, “It’s a lot more than voting. IDs impact lives. You need ID in an encounter with law enforcement even if you’re not driving.”

Getting around is already difficult for older adults and the poor in rural Alabama, one of the few states that set aside no funding for public transportation. There seem to be few services left to eliminate in poor, rural areas, but something is usually found come budget time.

“Rural Alabama always takes the brunt of the cuts,” said State Senator Gerald Dial, a Republican, lamenting that this budget — which he considered a major improvement over an earlier and far more austere version that was vetoed by the governor — cuts funding for services for the elderly like Meals on Wheels.

What hurts in rural areas generally is all the more painful in the Black Belt, a broad band across southern Alabama named for its rich soil. The Black Belt counties, nearly all of them majority African-American, are scattered with dying towns, few job opportunities and bad health.

Still, they were again hit by the funding cuts: three of the five state parks slated to close are here.

Officials with the Bentley administration, who had warned of potentially deeper cuts, blame the legislature for not finding more revenue. But in Alabama, the poor tend to get squeezed when it comes to cutting services and raising revenue alike.

Corporate tax breaks are generous and the timber and farming interests that own so much Black Belt land enjoy substantial property tax discounts. At the same time, households earning far below the poverty level are required to pay income tax, while the local and state sales tax burden is among the highest in the United States, and Alabama, unlike nearly every other state, imposes its full sales tax on groceries. With such volatile funding on the state level and so little tax revenue locally, Black Belt schools are chronically underfunded.

“Whenever there are funding cuts it may give a cold to most of the schools, but it gives us pneumonia,” said Daniel Boyd, the superintendent of Lowndes County’s public school system, which has been short of textbooks since 2008.

And so the schools struggle, people move out, the tax base dwindles and more services are cut. This time around, it is the driver’s licenses.

“It’s going to be a problem,” said Carolyn Shields, who was discussing the cutbacks with her sister Caritha in front of Caritha’s mobile home in the tiny community of Geiger.

With people from several counties now having to go to Tuscaloosa, the lines will likely be longer, they said, meaning a whole day off work — maybe two, if the wait is especially long. More young people will probably just drive without licenses, as plenty around here already do, they said.

The sisters said they were not sure about the effect one way or another on voting. For them, the main consideration was whether places like this could remain at all.

“Before long,” Ms. Shields said, “there won’t be nothing here.”




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

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

11) Arkansas: Judge Delays Executions
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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























__._,_.___
Posted by: bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
Reply via web post • Reply to sender • Reply to group • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (1)





.


__,_._,___
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment