10/01/2018

bauaw2003 BAUAW NEWSLETTER, MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2018

 

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Message to the troops: Do not collaborate with the illegal immigrant detention camps

Dear Friend.

In our new October PDF newsletter, we're again talking about the massive military-hosted immigrant detention camps decreed this summer by the Trump Administration. Just the idea of these concentration camps brings back memories of the forced relocation and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. While resistance has slowed them down, they are moving forward. Many of us thought something like that could never happen again, and yet, here we are.

We need to reach the troops with this simple challenge: Do not collaborate with the illegal immigrant detention camps. With your help, we'll spend one penny per military service member--$20,000--on a strategic outreach campaign. Our stretch goal is two cents.

Along with everything else you can do to resist this affront to humanity, please support our campaign to challenge military personnel to refuse these illegal orders. Your tax-deductible donation of $50 or $100 will make a huge difference.

Also in this issue: Army Capt. Brittany DeBarros / Shutting down recruiting center; Hoisting peace flag / Presidio 27 "mutiny" 50th anniversary events / Whistleblower Reality Winner update--"So unfair" says Trump


Upcoming Events

presidio mutiny50th anniversary events of the Presidio 27 mutiny

San Francisco, California

Panel discussion on Saturday, October 13

Commemoration on Sunday, October 14

At the former Presidio Army Base

More info

COURAGE TO RESIST ~ SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT!

484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559

www.couragetoresist.org ~ facebook.com/couragetoresist




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"Behind every great fortune there is a great crime." —Honoré de Balzac


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A soldier's tale of bravery and morality




Chris Hedges interviews former combat veteran and US Army officer Spenser Rapone about bravery and morality. The second lieutenant was given an "other than honorable" discharge June 18 after an army investigation determined that he "went online to promote a socialist revolution and disparage high-ranking officers," and thereby engaged in "conduct unbecoming an officer."



https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/439962-combat-veteran-bravery-morality/


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URGENT: Demand safety for South Carolina prisoners during Hurricane Florence

ANSWER Coalition

ANSWER Coalition · United States

This email was sent to caroleseligman@sbcglobal.net.

To stop receiving emails, click here.

You can also keep up with ANSWER Coalition on Facebook.


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Pardon Whistleblower Reality Winner

Hi Bonnie.

On June 3, 2017, NSA contractor Reality Leigh Winner was arrested and charged under the Espionage Act for providing a media organization with a single five-page top-secret document that analyzed information about alleged Russian online intrusions into U.S. election systems.

Reality, who has been jailed without bail since her arrest, has now been sentenced to five years in prison. This is by far the longest sentence ever given in federal court for leaking information to the media. Today, she is being transferred from a small Georgia jail to a yet-unknown federal prison.

Several months before her arrest, the FBI's then-Director James Comey told President Trump that he was (in the words of a subsequent Comey memo) "eager to find leakers and would like to nail one to the door as a message." Meanwhile, politically connected and high-level government officials continue to leak without consequence, or selectively declassify material to advance their own interests.

Join Courage to Resist and a dozen other organizations in calling on President Trump, who has acknowledged Winner's treatment as "so unfair," to pardon Reality Winner or to commute her sentence to time served.


D O N A T E



towards a world without war

Upcoming Events

troopsFeds holding last public hearing on draft registration

Los Angeles, California

Thursday, September 20

At California State University Los Angeles

More info

presidio mutiny50th anniversary events of the Presidio 27 mutiny

San Francisco, California

Panel discussion on Saturday, October 13

Commemoration on Sunday, October 14

At the former Presidio Army Base

More info

D O N A T E


to support resistance

COURAGE TO RESIST ~ SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT!

484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559

www.couragetoresist.org ~ facebook.com/couragetoresist

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Transform the Justice System



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We are off to a terrible start. Today President Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly. He praised Saudi Arabia, doubled down on his decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and went on theattack against Iran. Tomorrow we expect it to get even worse when he chairs the United Nations Security Council. We expect he will continue to lambast Iran, using the same rhetoric that may well lead to war.

What we need now is an educated public who will stand up the to absurd claims by the Trump administration that Iran poses a threat to the United States. In the lead up to the war in Iraq 15 years ago, the press failed us by spreading President Bush's lies about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction. Are they going to do it again with Iran? Add your name to our letter to the New York Times and Washington Post demanding they debunk Trump as he beats the drums of war. 

We see what is happening. Trump is trying to take us into war. He tore up the Iran deal, despite the fact that Iran was adhering to it and despite the wishes of the other countries that were signatories to it. Now he is imposing draconian sanctions that are hurting the Iranian people.

Did you see my disruption of US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook? It is part of our new campaign to send social media messages of friendship and support to the people of Iran. Join us by creating a video of yourself telling the people of Iran that you want to be friends and spread a message of peace. You can even try to do it in Persian. Go to our page to learn how to say "I want to be friends" in Persian. Then send us the video by email or post it on social media with the hashtag #PeaceWithIran.

So much is at stake if we let Trump take us into war with Iran. Iraq is still suffering from the death, destruction and destabilization we caused there over a decade ago. We must act now to stop the next war!   

Towards peace and diplomacy,

Medea and the entire CODEPINK team


Donate Now!

    

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  NUCLEAR WAR

   How can it be prevented?


        Forum, free of charge, with


Ray McGOVERN
CIA analyst 27 years, 

now a peace activist,

and two nuclear experts: 


With nuclear experts Jacqueline Cabasso and Marylia Kelley

  plus musical entertainment by Chris Weber


1:00 pm Sunday, September 30, 2018, San Francisco Public Library, 

100 Larkin St. (at Grove), San Francisco 94102, Koret Auditorium at lower level

(near the Civic Center BART and Muni station)

Observing the 50th anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,

first anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,

and 20th anniversary of the War and Law League (WALL). 

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 Cosponsored by SF Public Library and Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament.

   More info at http://www.warandlaw.org or warandlaw@yahoo.com. Donations welcome:

    Check to "WALL"; mail to Coalition, c/o WALL, POB 42-7237, San Francisco, CA 94142.

                 


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URGENT:  Calling all boat and kayak owners to join the PEACE FLEET!

Please share this with all boat and kayak owners…..


Hi Peacemakers!


Image result for peace boat

The Golden Rule


Do you or someone you know own a sailboat, kayak or some other floating vehicle?

Want to join our "Peace Fleet" or "Peace Navy" on October 7, Sunday?


We are getting together as many boats as we can to create an alternative to war image during Fleet Week.

We want to sail our beautiful and colorful Peace Fleet around the S.F. bay on Sunday, October 7, the last day of the SF annual Fleet Week.

We'll be offering colorful sails and banners with beautiful messages of PEACE to bay visitors who come to admire those big, powerful, noisy, and very DEADLY war toys that our military displays during fleet week.


We say: THERE IS NO GLORY IN WAR! and REAL ANGELS DON'T DROP BOMBS!


Help us create a big colorful response to the U.S. military's annual effort to market war and global domination to the public.

Please pass the word around: We need boats, the more the merrier!


Contact Toby Blomé if you can supply a boat:


Unfortunately the "Golden Rule" boat, pictured above, will not be able to join us, because she will be on her global journey soon to educate people on the dangers of the nuclear world that we live in.


Please contact me asap. Preferably by Sept. 15 re: the Peace Navy.


Thanks for any help you can offer.


Toby Blomé

Bay Area CODEPINK

510-215-5974

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I've Been Away Now for a Full Year

By Rasmea Odeh



Today is the one-year anniversary of my deportation, and I miss you all very much. I miss the colorfulness of my life with you, and the value that you added to it! My life now is as grey as everything else in Jordan, but it would be worse without the legacy of struggle that we built together. Our wonderful, strong relationships have deep roots that continue to grow, and these lovely memories accompany me every day, especially on the difficult ones.


This summer was busy and full, despite the fact that I did not have a regular work schedule. When people ask me how my day looks, I do not have an answer! Each day is different than the previous one, and it is extremely difficult to retain my commitment to order. I have never lived a life of such spontaneity. Others cannot understand this! To release this pressure, I go to the gym at least twice a week. Caring for my health and body reenergizes me!

Jordan links Palestine with all the other countries in the region, which causes a buzz here, especially during the summer, so on many days, I received visitors who were in transit to or from Palestine, as well as many from the U.S.


Some of these were already in my schedule, but I enjoyed offering space to those who were not, especially the young people, the oxygen of life and the instrument of change! I am eager to communicate with them and give them some of my time. (Coincidentally, I will be hanging out with two wonderful young Palestinian women from the U.S. today!)


Additionally, I am attempting to build a wide network of relationships with different segments of the citizenry, and restoring connections with old friends. Building and maintaining these relationships takes time and continuous effort, while I also keep up my activism through my travels and my writing.


My dear friends and supporters, I have already told you that you are my chosen family. This is not meant as a courtesy; it is a fact. You are an inseparable part of me—the blood that ran through my veins and the oxygen that kept me alive while the U.S. government tried to suffocate me! You embraced me and stood by my side at the toughest of times.


I spent more time with you than with my family. We combined joy with sadness, laughter and cheer with crying, precautions with courage, marches and demonstrations with strategic planning—all on the path to freedom, justice, and equality!


Lately, I have been pausing to recall the memories, both sweet and bitter, of my case, which persist in my heart and soul. They mean so much to me. I continue to follow your struggle in the U.S., as you, no doubt, follow my Palestinian people's struggle here in the Arab World; and I continue to see the blossoming of our collective uprising against racism, exploitation, and injustice in the U.S., Palestine, and all across the world!


Our challenges are difficult, but we must elevate our will to struggle, and our determination to succeed, so that our tree of resistance is better able to withstand the storms that we face these days!


Before I close, I want to let you know that you are all, as individuals and collectively, valued treasures in my life; you are like bright full moons illuminating my darkest nights in the desert!

The power of your support flows in me despite my exile and deportation. I know that we will continue to make new memories together while accomplishing the goal of making life better for us all. I met you along my Palestinian life's journey on the path of social, political and national resistance, and you have helped me appreciate and value it.


Our future will be full of sunshine, happiness, and love. We will draw strength from each other, because "that which does not kill me will strengthen me," and I add, "…will also provide me with courage, confidence, and steadfastness.


Even with the pain that was inflicted on me by the unjust deportation that turned my life upside down and forced me to re-arrange my entire life, I will never be discouraged or disillusioned! As I have already said so many times, I will continue my organizing wherever I land!


And so on this occasion, I want to repeat a piece of the poem I read in Arabic at my farewell event last year:


لن أدع الابعاد يكسرني

 ولا المسافات تعزلني

دروس الثورة علمتني

بأن حبوب القمح

إذا جفت

تملأ سنابلها الوديان


I will not let the deportation break me


Nor distance isolate me


The lessons of the revolution taught me


That if wheat grain dries


It fills the valleys with stalks

   


I miss and love you all very much.



Rasmea Odeh



September 19, 2018



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Court: Evidence To Free Mumia, To Be Continued...

Rachel Wolkenstein, lawyer for Mumia, reports on the August 30th hearing, 2018

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District Attorney Larry Krasner Opposes Mumia Abu-Jamal's Petition for New Rights of Appeal – Despite Clear Evidence of Ronald Castille's Bias and Conflict of Interest When He Participated As a PA Supreme Court Justice Denying Abu-Jamal's Post-Conviction Appeals from 1998-2012

Next Court Date: October 29, 2018


September 1—Additional demands for discovery made by Mumia's lawyers at the August 30 court proceeding led to Judge Tucker granting a 60-day continuance. The new date for oral argument that Mumia's appeal denial should be vacated and new appeal rights granted is now scheduled for October 29, 2018.  


Two weeks ago, Mumia's lawyers were told by the DA's office that they discovered close to 200 boxes of capital case files that had not been reviewed. A half-dozen were still not found. Last Monday, just days before the scheduled final arguments, a May 25, 1988 letter from DA Castille's office to PA State Senator Fisher (a virulent proponent of expediting executions) naming Mumia Abu-Jamal and 8 other capital defendants was turned over to the defense. 


Krasner's assistant DA Tracey Kavanaugh said the letter was meaningless and opposed the postponement, insisting there is no evidence that Castille had anything to do with Mumia's appeals. Mumia's lawyers argued that finding the background to this communication would likely support their central argument that DA Ronald Castille actively and personally was developing policy to speed up executions, and that he was particularly focused on convicted "police killers." Mumia Abu-Jamal was unquestionably the capital prisoner who was most zealously targeted for execution by the Fraternal Order of Police. 


Judge Tucker agreed with Mumia's lawyers that a search is needed to establish whether Castille was personally involved in this communication. Additional discovery was ordered with Judge Tucker's rhetorical question, "What else hasn't been disclosed?" But the Judge narrowed the required search to particulars around the May 25, 1988 letter.


Not brought out in court is the fact that Mumia's appeal of his trial conviction and death sentence was still pending in May 1988. The PA Supreme Court didn't issue its denial of this first appeal of Mumia until March 1989. This makes any reference of Mumia's case as a subject of an execution warrant highly suspect and extraordinary, because his death sentence was not "final" unless and until the PA Supreme Court affirmed. [The lawyers have not publicly released a copy of the May 25, 1988 letter, so analysis is limited.]


Mumia's lawyers said they would discuss discovery issues with the prosecution and might file a further amended petition with the intention of proceeding to oral argument on the next court date, October 29. 


On Judge Tucker—He is the chief administrative judge overseeing post-conviction proceedings. On August 30 and previously on April 30 opened his courtroom early to for Maureen Faulkner and the Fraternal Order of Police to occupy half of the small courtroom. Not surprising, no consideration was given to Mumia's family including his brother Keith Cook, international supporters from France and the dozens of other supporters who had lined up before 8AM to get into the courtroom. Even press reps suggested that the press be given seats in the jury box to open up space for even lawyers working with Mumia. Even that small consideration was rejected by Judge Tucker.


A more in-depth piece on DA Larry Krasner's opposition to Mumia's petition will be sent out soon. In the meantime, go to: www.RachelWolkenstein.net.



Free Mumia Now!

Mumia's freedom is at stake in a court hearing on August 30th. 

With your help, we just might free him!

Check out this video:


This video includes photo of 1996 news report refuting Judge Castille's present assertion that he had not been requested at that time to recuse himself from this case, on which he had previously worked as a Prosecutor:

A Philadelphia court now has before it the evidence which could lead to Mumia's freedom. The evidence shows that Ronald Castille, of the District Attorney's office in 1982, intervened in the prosecution of Mumia for a crime he did not commit. Years later, Castille was a judge on the PA Supreme Court, where he sat in judgement over Mumia's case, and ruled against Mumia in every appeal! 

According to the US Supreme Court in the Williams ruling, this corrupt behavior was illegal!

But will the court rule to overturn all of Mumia's negative appeals rulings by the PA Supreme Court? If it does, Mumia would be free to appeal once again against his unfair conviction. If it does not, Mumia could remain imprisoned for life, without the possibility for parole, for a crime he did not commit.

• Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent and framed!

• Mumia Abu-Jamal is a journalist censored off the airwaves!

• Mumia Abu-Jamal is victimized by cops, courts and politicians!

• Mumia Abu-Jamal stands for all prisoners treated unjustly!

• Courts have never treated Mumia fairly!

Will You Help Free Mumia?

Call DA Larry Krasner at (215) 686-8000

Tell him former DA Ron Castille violated Mumia's constitutional rights and 

Krasner should cease opposing Mumia's legal petition.

Tell the DA to release Mumia because he's factually innocent.


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Usher in the "Age of the Healer," and Abolish the "Age of the Warrior."


4th Annual SHUT DOWN CREECH,

September 30 - October 6, 2018


Come for all or part of the week!

DSC03990.jpeg

Shut Down Creech 2016



This summer 2,500 peace activistsconverged at U.S. Air Base Ramstein, in Germany, in their first courageous mass civil resistance to Stopp Ramstein!Ramstein, the largest foreign U.S. military base, plays a critical role in the U.S. Drone Killing Program by acting as THE KEY RELAY STATIONin the U.S. global drone assassination program. Without a relay base like Ramstein, the U.S. could not successfully kill remotely from the other side of the planet. German activists demand an end to Germany's complicity in the illegal and immoral U.S. remote killing apparatus. As one German activist shouted out passionately and movingly in this video: "Stop the Murder!"At least 5 American citizens participated in the protest, including CODEPINK members Ann Wright, Toby Blomé and Elsa Rassbach. Dozens of us blocked two merging roads into one gate for nearly an hour, and ultimately about 15 people were arrested, including 2 Americans. It was an amazing collective stance for peace & justice, and the German police were remarkably humane and civil in how they responded. Fortunately all were released after being detained briefly.


Ramstein's "partner drone base," CREECH AFB, plays an equally important role as a CENTRAL DRONE COMMAND CENTERin the U.S. 

Learn more about Ramstein and Creech in this important Intercept investigative report.


SF Bay Area CODEPINKcalls on activists from across the country to converge this fall at Creech AFB for our 4th annual nonviolent, peaceful, mass mobilization to SHUT DOWN CREECH, and help us put an end to the barbarism of drone murder. Per a NY Times articleover 900 drone pilots/operators are actively working at Creech, remotely murdering people in foreign lands, often away from any battlefield, while victims are going about their daily lives: driving on the highway, praying at a mosque, attending schools, funerals and wedding parties, eating dinner with their family or sleeping in their beds. 

WE MUST STOP THESE RACIST KILLINGS NOW! 


Shockingly, one recent report indicated that about 80% of all drone strikes go totally unreported.We must stand up for the right of all people around the planet to be safe from the terror of remote controlled slaughter from abroad. Drone killing is spreading like wildfirewith at least 10 countries now who have used drones to kill. The U.S is fully responsible for this uncontrolled Pandora's box, by developing and proliferating these horrendous weapons without giving concern to the long term consequences. 


WE MUST STOP THE MURDER!



Last April our protestat Creech was reported in over 20 states across the country by mainstream media, including TV, radio, print and military media, thus reaching tens of thousands of Americans about our resistance to these covert and brutal practices. It is remarkable the impact a small handful of peacemakers can have with a well planned action. We need you to help us educate the public and awaken the consciousness of U.S. military personnel. Drone operators themselvesare victims of this inhumanity by bearing deep psychic wounds within. Through our twice daily vigils, we call them over to the side of peace, and encourage them to assess the consequences and reality of having a daily job of remote-control murdering. U.S. drones are the main tool used to terrorize and dominate the planet. We must stand up to these barbaric policies and the system that gives little thought to the world our children's grandchildren will be living in, and the harm it is doing now to our young men and women in uniform. 

RISE AND BE A VOICE AGAINST THE MADNESS!



JOIN CODE PINK and FRIENDS AT CREECH THIS FALL,September 30 - October 6.


Check out our updated website for details on the 4TH Annual SHUT DOWN CREECH.



Let's show the Germans that we have a thriving U.S. resistance to U.S. Global Militarism and Drone Killing too!


We hope to see you there,


Eleanor, Maggie, Toby, Ann, Mary and Tim


Sponsored by S.F. Bay Area CODEPINK


Check out these inspiring videos of this summer's 2018 drone protest at Ramstein, Germany:


Great Overview of Stopp Ramstein(13.5 min - watch the first and last 2-3 minutes)





In Closing: Inspiring words

from Rafael Jesús González, Poet Laureate of Berkeley, Xochipilli Men's Circle


"We cannot say the purpose these millenniums of the Patriarchy have served, but their lopsided reign is toxic and has maimed and sickened men and women and greatly harmed the Earth. It must come to an end. Women, our grandmothers, mothers, aunts, sisters must now take the reins for we men have made a botch of things. Women must take their power and men must step aside, follow, and support them even as we heal and liberate ourselves by freeing and honoring that which is feminine in our nature: loving, caring, nurturing. We must all free ourselves or none will. The long, long Age of the Warrior must come to an end and we must usher in the Age of the Healer.
Please lead us, our sisters. Together we must heal and heal the Earth or court the demise of all that lives."

Ometeo.
Quilticoyotzin



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presidio 27

Presidio 27 "Mutiny" 50 years later

Podcast with Keith Mather

During the Vietnam War era, the Presidio Stockade was a military prison notorious for its poor conditions and overcrowding with many troops imprisoned for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War. When Richard Bunch, a mentally disturbed prisoner, was shot and killed on October 11th, 1968, Presidio inmates began organizing. Three days later, 27 Stockade prisoners broke formation and walked over to a corner of the lawn, where they read a list of grievances about their prison conditions and the larger war effort and sang "We Shall Overcome." The prisoners were charged and tried for "mutiny," and several got 14 to 16 years of confinement. Meanwhile, disillusionment about the Vietnam War continued to grow inside and outside of the military.

"This was for real. We laid it down, and the response by the commanding general changed our lives," recalls Keith Mather, Presidio "mutineer" who escaped to Canada before his trial came up and lived there for 11 years, only to be arrested upon his return to the United States. Mather is currently a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of Veterans for Peace. Listen to the Courage to Resist podcast with Keith.


50th anniversary events at the former Presidio Army Base

October 13th and 14th, 2018

keith matherPANEL DISCUSSION

Saturday, October 13, 7 to 9 pm

Presidio Officers' Club

50 Moraga Ave, San Francisco

Featuring panelists: David Cortright (peace scholar), Brendan Sullivan (attorney for mutineers), Randy Rowland (mutiny participant), Keith Mather (mutiny participant), and Jeff Paterson (Courage to Resist).

presidio 27ON SITE COMMEMORATION

Sunday, October 14, 1 to 3 pm

Fort Scott Stockade

1213 Ralston (near Storey), San Francisco

The events are sponsored by the Presidio Land Trust in collaboration with Veterans For Peace Chapter 69-San Francisco with support from Courage to Resist.


COURAGE TO RESIST ~ SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT!

484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559

www.couragetoresist.org ~ facebook.com/couragetoresist

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Cindy Sheehan and the Women's March on the Pentagon

A movement not just a protest

By Whitney Webb

  WASHINGTON—In the last few years, arguably the most visible and well-publicized march on the U.S. capital has been the "Women's March," a movement aimed at advocating for legislation and policies promoting women's rights as well as a protest against the misogynistic actions and statements of high-profile U.S. politicians. The second Women's March, which took place this past year, attracted over a million protesters nationwide, with 500,000 estimated to have participated in Los Angeles alone.

  However, absent from this women's movement has been a public antiwar voice, as its stated goal of "ending violence" does not include violence produced by the state. The absence of this voice seemed both odd and troubling to legendary peace activist Cindy Sheehan, whose iconic protest against the invasion and occupation of Iraq made her a household name for many.

  Sheehan was taken aback by how some prominent organizers of this year's Women's March were unwilling to express antiwar positions and argued for excluding the issue of peace entirely from the event and movement as a whole. In an interview with MintPress, Sheehan recounted how a prominent leader of the march had told her, "I appreciate that war is your issue Cindy, but the Women's March will never address the war issue as long as women aren't free."

  War is indeed Sheehan's issue and she has been fighting against the U.S.' penchant for war for nearly 13 years. After her son Casey was killed in action while serving in Iraq in 2004, Sheehan drew international media attention for her extended protest in front of the Bush residence in Crawford, Texas, which later served as the launching point for many protests against U.S. military action in Iraq.

  Sheehan rejected the notion that women could be "free" without addressing war and empire. She countered the dismissive comment of the march organizer by stating that divorcing peace activism from women's issues "ignored the voices of the women of the world who are being bombed and oppressed by U.S. military occupation."

  Indeed, women are directly impacted by war—whether through displacement, the destruction of their homes, kidnapping, or torture. Women also suffer uniquely and differently from men in war as armed conflicts often result in an increase in sexual violence against women.

  For example, of the estimated half-a-million civilians killed in the U.S. invasion of Iraq, many of them were women and children. In the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, the number of female casualties has been rising on average over 20 percent every year since 2015. In 2014 alone when Israel attacked Gaza in "Operation Protective Edge," Israeli forces, which receives $10 million in U.S. military aid every day, killed over two thousand Palestinians—half of them were women and children. Many of the casualties were pregnant women, who had been deliberately targeted.

  Given the Women's March's apparent rejection of peace activism in its official platform, Sheehan was inspired to organize another Women's March that would address what many women's rights advocates, including Sheehan, believe to be an issue central to promoting women's rights.

  Dubbed the "Women's March on the Pentagon," the event is scheduled to take place on October 21—the same date as an iconic antiwar march of the Vietnam era—with a mission aimed at countering the "bipartisan war machine." Though men, women and children are encouraged to attend, the march seeks to highlight women's issues as they relate to the disastrous consequences of war.

  The effort of women in confronting the "war machine" will be highlighted at the event, as Sheehan remarked that "women have always tried to confront the war-makers," as the mothers, daughters, sisters and wives of the men and women in the military, as well as those innocent civilians killed in the U.S.' foreign wars. As a result, the push for change needs to come from women, according to Sheehan, because "we [women] are the only ones that can affect [the situation] in a positive way." All that's missing is an organized, antiwar women's movement.

  Sheehan noted the march will seek to highlight the direct relationship between peace activism and women's rights, since "no woman is free until all women are free" and such "freedom also includes the freedom from U.S. imperial plunder, murder and aggression"that is part of the daily lives of women living both within and beyond the United States. Raising awareness of how the military-industrial complex negatively affects women everywhere is key, says Sheehan, as "unless there is a sense of international solidarity and a broader base for feminism, then there aren't going to be any solutions to any problems, [certainly not] if we don't stop giving trillions of dollars to the Pentagon."

  Sheehan also urged that, even though U.S. military adventurism has long been an issue and the subject of protests, a march to confront the military-industrial complex is more important now than ever: "I'm not alarmist by nature but I feel like the threat of nuclear annihilation is much closer than it has been for a long time," adding that, despite the assertion of some in the current administration and U.S. military, "there is no such thing as 'limited' nuclear war." This makes "the need to get out in massive numbers" and march against this more imperative than ever.

  Sheehan also noted that Trump's presidency has helped to make the Pentagon's influence on U.S. politics more obvious by bringing it to the forefront: "Even though militarism had been under wraps [under previous presidents], Trump has made very obvious the fact that he has given control of foreign policy to the 'generals.'"

  Indeed, as MintPress has reported on several occasions, the Pentagon—beginning in March of last year—has been given the freedom to "engage the enemy" at will, without the oversight of the executive branch or Congress. As a result, the deaths of innocent civilians abroad as a consequence of U.S. military action has spiked. While opposing Trump is not the focus of the march, Sheehan opined that Trump's war-powers giveaway to the Pentagon, as well as his unpopularity, have helped to spark widespread interest in the event.

Different wings of the same warbird

  Sheehan has rejected accusations that the march is partisan, as it is, by nature, focused on confronting the bipartisan nature of the military-industrial complex. She told MintPress that she has recently come under pressure owing to the march's proximity to the 2018 midterm elections—as some have ironically accused the march's bipartisan focus as "trying to harm the chances of the Democrats" in the ensuing electoral contest.

  In response, Sheehan stated that: 

   "Democrats and Republicans are different wings of the same warbird. We are protesting militarism and imperialism. The march is nonpartisan in nature because both parties are equally complicit. We have to end wars for the planet and for the future. I could really care less who wins in November."

  She also noted that even when the Democrats were in power under Obama, nothing was done to change the government's militarism nor to address the host of issues that events like the Women's March have claimed to champion.

  "We just got finished with eight years of a Democratic regime," Sheehan told MintPress. "For two of those years, they had complete control of Congress and the presidency and a [filibuster-proof] majority in the Senate and they did nothing" productive except to help "expand the war machine." She also emphasized that this march is in no way a "get out the vote" march for any political party.

  Even though planning began less than a month ago, support has been pouring in for the march since it was first announced on Sheehan's website, Cindy Sheehan Soapbox. Encouraged by the amount of interest already received, Sheehan is busy working with activists to organize the events and will be taking her first organizing trip to the east coast in April of this year. 

  In addition, those who are unable to travel to Washington are encouraged to participate in any number of solidarity protests that will be planned to take place around the world or to plan and attend rallies in front of U.S. embassies, military installations, and the corporate headquarters of war profiteers.

  Early endorsers of the event include journalists Abby Martin, Mnar Muhawesh and Margaret Kimberley; Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly; FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley; and U.S. politicians like former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. Activist groups that have pledged their support include CodePink, United National Antiwar Coalition, Answer Coalition, Women's EcoPeace and World Beyond War.

  Though October is eight months away, Sheehan has high hopes for the march. More than anything else, though, she hopes that the event will give birth to a "real revolutionary women's movement that recognizes the emancipation and liberation of all peoples—and that means [freeing] all people from war and empire, which is the biggest crime against humanity and against this planet." By building "a movement and not just a protest," the event's impact will not only be long-lasting, but grow into a force that could meaningfully challenge the U.S. military-industrial complex that threatens us all. God knows the world needs it.

  For those eager to help the march, you can help spread the word through social media by joining the march's Facebook page or following the march'sTwitter account, as well as by word of mouth. In addition, supporting independent media outlets—such as MintPress, which will be reporting on the march—can help keep you and others informed as October approaches.

  Whitney Webb is a staff writer forMintPress News who has written for several news organizations in both English and Spanish; her stories have been featured on ZeroHedge, theAnti-Media, and21st Century Wire among others. She currently lives in Southern Chile.

  —MPN News, February 20, 2018

  https://www.mintpressnews.com/cindy-sheehan-and-the-womens-march-on-the-pentagon-a-movement-not-just-a-protest/237835/

  


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[HS-Support] @GovernorVA: Don't transfer activist inmate Kevin #Rashid Johnson again


Please sign and share. 


If you are not familiar with the brilliant, compassionate, and courageous imprisoned activist, writer, artist, Kevin Rashid Johnson, check out rashidmod.com

He is not in the federal prison system, he is in the Virginia state system.  However, due to his persistence and depth in exposing the horrific conditions and treatment inside the prisons, he has been locked in solitary confinement and moved around to prisons in Florida, Virginia, and Texas! Please support Rashid with this simple petition

and make a call if you can. It looks like you can also tweet @GovernorVA!

~Verbena


Rashid Threatened with Transfer — Hearing on Sept 10th — BLOCK THE PHONES! We have learned that the Virginia Department of Corrections is planning to hold a hearing Monday September 10th, to have R…


All,

I just got a phone call from Rashid. He's been told that he will have a
hearing on Monday to process him for an Interstate Transfer. He's not
being told where he's going.

We need to get this news out as broadly as possible, and to state that
this is retaliation for his recent publications and interviews. Please
share the news on all your social media accounts, you might do it while
also sharing his Guardian article or other recent works.

Can anyone organize protest? Perhaps an action alert to have people
flood VADOC with complaints, and/or we could prepare to flood wherever
he goes with complaints. If we could organize a street protest of VADOC
HQ before or after the transfer, that would be amazing.

Dustin McDaniel

To: Virginia Department of Corrections; Chief of VA Corrections Operations David Robinson

Release Kevin "Rashid" Johnson From Solitary Confinement Immediately

We call on the Virginia Department of Corrections to immediately release Kevin "Rashid" Johnson from solitary confinement and not to transfer him again out of state.
Why is this important?
 


After signing the petition, please use the tools on the next webpage to share it with your friends.


This work is only possible with your financial support. Please chip in $3 now. 


-- The RootsAction.org Team


P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Frances Fox Piven, Lila Garrett, Phil Donahue, Sonali Kolhatkar, and many others.


Background:




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All Hands on Deck:  Get Malik Washington out of Ad-Seg!


Several weeks ago, friends and supporters of incarcerated freedom fighter Comrade Malik Washington were overjoyed to hear that he was getting released, finally, from Administrative Segregation (solitary confinement) at Eastham Unit in Texas--until TDCJ pulled a fast one, falsely claiming that he refused to participate in the Ad-Seg Transition Program to get him released back to general population.  

This is a complete lie:  Malik has been fighting to get out of Ad-Seg from the moment he was thrown in there two years ago on a bogus riot charge (which was, itself, retaliation for prison strike organizing and agitating against inhumane, discriminatory conditions).  

Here's what actually happened:  when Malik arrived at Ramsey Unit on June 21, he was assigned to a top bunk, which is prohibited by his medical restrictions as a seizure patient.  TDCJ had failed to transfer his medical restrictions records, or had erased them, and are now claiming no record of these restrictions, which have been on file and in place for the past ten years.  Malik wrote a detailed statement requesting to be placed on a lower bunk in order to avoid injury; later that night, he was abruptly transferred back to Ad-Seg at a new Unit (McConnell).  

Malik was told that Ramsey staff claimed he refused to participate in the Ad-Seg Transition program--this is NOT true, and he needs to be re-instated to the program immediately!  He also urgently needs his medical restrictions put back into his records!

-----

We are extremely concerned for Malik's safety, and urgently need the help of everyone reading this. Please take one or more of the following actions, and get a couple friends to do the same!

1. Call Senior Warden Phillip Sifuentes at Malik's current facility (McConnell) and tell them Keith Washington (#1487958) must be transferred out of McConnell and re-admitted to the Ad-Seg Transition Program!

Phone #: (361) 362-2300 (**048) 00 --  ask to be connected to the senior warden's office/receptionist--try to talk to someone, but also can leave a message. 

Sample Script: "Hello, I'm calling because I'm concerned about Keith H. Washington (#1487958) who was recently transferred to your facility.  I understand he was transferred there from Ramsey Unit, because he supposedly refused to participate in the Ad-Seg transition program there, but this is not true; Malik never refused to participate, and he needs to be re-admitted to the transition program immediately!  I am also concerned that his heat restrictions seem to have been removed from his records.  He is a seizure patient and has been on heat and work restriction for years, and these restrictions must be reinstated immediately."

Please let us know how your call goes at blueridgeABC@riseup.net

2. Flood TDCJ Executive Director Bryan Collier with calls/emails!  You can use the above phone script as a guide for emails.  

(936) 437-2101 / (936) 437-2123


3. Flood TDCJ with emails demanding that Malik's health restrictions and work restrictions be restored: Health.services@tdcj.texas.gov


You can use the call script above as a guide; you don't need to mention the Ad-Seg situation, but just focus on the need to restore his heat and work restrictions!


4. File a complaint with the Ombudsman's Office (the office in charge of investigating departmental misconduct); you can use the above phone script as a guide for emails.


5. Write to Malik!  Every letter he receives lifts his spirit and PROTECTS him, because prison officials know he has people around him, watching for what happens to him.


Keith H. Washington

#1487958

McConnell Unit

3100 South Emily Drive

Beeville, TX 78103








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Listen to 'The Daily': Was Kevin Cooper Framed for Murder?

By Michael Barbaro, May 30, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/podcasts/the-daily/kevin-cooper-death-row.html?emc=edit_ca_20180530&nl=california-today&nlid=2181592020180530&te=1





Listen and subscribe to our podcast from your mobile deviceVia Apple Podcasts | Via RadioPublic | Via Stitcher


The sole survivor of an attack in which four people were murdered identified the perpetrators as three white men. The police ignored suspects who fit the description and arrested a young black man instead. He is now awaiting execution.


On today's episode:

• Kevin Cooper, who has been on death row at San Quentin State Prison in California for three decades.




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Last week I met with fellow organizers and members of Mijente to take joint action at the Tornillo Port of Entry, where detention camps have been built and where children and adults are currently being imprisoned. 


I oppose the hyper-criminalization of migrants and asylum seekers. Migration is a human right and every person is worthy of dignity and respect irrespective of whether they have "papers" or not. You shouldn't have to prove "extreme and unusual hardship" to avoid being separated from your family. We, as a country, have a moral responsibility to support and uplift those adversely affected by the US's decades-long role in the economic and military destabilization of the home countries these migrants and asylum seekers have been forced to leave.


While we expected to face resistance and potential trouble from the multiple law enforcement agencies represented at the border, we didn't expect to have a local farm hand pull a pistol on us to demand we deflate our giant balloon banner. Its message to those in detention:


NO ESTÁN SOLOS (You are not alone).


Despite the slight disruption to our plan we were able to support Mijente and United We Dream in blocking the main entrance to the detention camp and letting those locked inside know that there are people here who care for them and want to see them free and reunited with their families. 



We are continuing to stand in solidarity with Mijente as they fight back against unjust immigration practices.Yesterday they took action in San Diego, continuing to lead and escalate resistance to unjust detention, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and to ICE. 


While we were honored to offer on-the-ground support we see the potential to focus the energy of our Drop the MIC campaign into fighting against this injustice, to have an even greater impact. Here's how:

  1. Call out General Dynamics for profiteering of War, Militarization of the Border and Child and Family Detention (look for our social media toolkit this week);
  2. Create speaking forums and produce media that challenges the narrative of ICE and Jeff Sessions, encouraging troops who have served in the borderlands to speak out about that experience;
  3. Continue to show up and demand we demilitarize the border and abolish ICE.


Thank you for your vision and understanding of how militarism, racism, and capitalism are coming together in the most destructive ways. Help keep us in this fight by continuing to support our work.



In Solidarity,

Ramon Mejia

Field Organizer, About Face: Veterans Against the War



P.O. Box 3565, New York, NY 10008. All Right Reserved. | Unsubscribe

To ensure delivery of About Face emails please add webmaster@ivaw.org to your address book.



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It is so beautiful to see young people in this country rising up to demand an end to gun violence. But what is Donald Trump's response? Instead of banning assault weapons, he wants to give guns to teachers and militarize our schools. But one of the reasons for mass school shootings is precisely because our schools are already militarized. Florida shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was trained by U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) program while he was in high school.

Yesterday, Divest from the War Machine coalition member, Pat Elder, was featured on Democracy Now discussing his recent article about the JROTC in our schools. The JROTC teaches children how to shoot weapons. It is often taught by retired soldiers who have no background in teaching. They are allowed to teach classes that are given at least equal weight as classes taught by certified and trained teachers. We are pulling our children away from classes that expand their minds and putting them in classes that teach them how to be killing machines. The JROTC program costs our schools money. It sends equipment. But, the instructors and facilities must be constructed and paid for by the school.

The JROTC puts our children's futures at risk. Children who participate in JROTC shooting programs are exposed to lead bullets from guns. They are at an increased risk when the shooting ranges are inside. The JROTC program is designed to "put a jump start on your military career." Children are funneled into JROTC to make them compliant and to feed the military with young bodies which are prepared to be assimilated into the war machine. Instead of funneling children into the military, we should be channeling them into jobs that support peace and sustainable development. 

Tell Senator McCain and Representative Thornberry to take the war machine out of our schools! The JROTC program must end immediately. The money should be directed back into classrooms that educate our children.

The Divest from the War Machine campaign is working to remove our money from the hands of companies that make a killing on killing. We must take on the systems that keep fueling war, death, and destruction around the globe. AND, we must take on the systems that are creating an endless cycle of children who are being indoctrinated at vulnerable ages to become the next killing machine.  Don't forget to post this message on Facebook and Twitter.

Onward in divestment,

Ann, Ariel, Brienne, Jodie, Kelly, Kirsten, Mark, Medea, Nancy, Natasha, Paki, Sarah, Sophia and Tighe

P.S. Do you want to do more? Start a campaign to get the JROTC out of your school district or state. Email divest@codepink.org and we'll get you started!


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Major George Tillery

MAJOR TILLERY FILES NEW LEGAL PETITION

SEX FOR LIES AND

MANUFACTURED TESTIMONY

April 25, 2018-- The arrest of two young men in Starbucks for the crime of "sitting while black," and the four years prison sentence to rapper Meek Mill for a minor parole violation are racist outrages in Philadelphia, PA that made national news in the past weeks. Yesterday Meek Mills was released on bail after a high profile defense campaign and a Pa Supreme Court decision citing evidence his conviction was based solely on a cop's false testimony.

These events underscore the racism, frame-up, corruption and brutality at the core of the criminal injustice system. Pennsylvania "lifer" Major Tillery's fight for freedom puts a spotlight on the conviction of innocent men with no evidence except the lying testimony of jailhouse snitches who have been coerced and given favors by cops and prosecutors.


Sex for Lies and Manufactured Testimony

For thirty-five years Major Tillery has fought against his 1983 arrest, then conviction and sentence of life imprisonment without parole for an unsolved 1976 pool hall murder and assault. Major Tillery's defense has always been his innocence. The police and prosecution knew Tillery did not commit these crimes. Jailhouse informant Emanuel Claitt gave lying testimony that Tillery was one of the shooters.


Homicide detectives and prosecutors threatened Claitt with a false unrelated murder charge, and induced him to lie with promises of little or no jail time on over twenty pending felonies, and being released from jail despite a parole violation. In addition, homicide detectives arranged for Claitt, while in custody, to have private sexual liaisons with his girlfriends in police interview rooms.

In May and June 2016, Emanuel Claitt gave sworn statements that his testimony was a total lie, and that the homicide cops and the prosecutors told him what to say and coached him before trial. Not only was he coerced to lie that Major Tillery was a shooter, but to lie and claim there were no plea deals made in exchange for his testimony. He provided the information about the specific homicide detectives and prosecutors involved in manufacturing his testimony and details about being allowed "sex for lies". In August 2016, Claitt reaffirmed his sworn statements in a videotape, posted on YouTube and on JusticeforMajorTillery.org.

Without the coerced and false testimony of Claitt there was no evidence against Major Tillery. There were no ballistics or any other physical evidence linking him to the shootings. The surviving victim's statement naming others as the shooters was not allowed into evidence.

The trial took place in May 1985 during the last days of the siege and firebombing of the MOVE family Osage Avenue home in Philadelphia that killed 13 Black people, including 5 children. The prosecution claimed that Major Tillery was part of an organized crime group, and falsely described it as run by the Nation of Islam. This prejudiced and inflamed the majority white jury against Tillery, to make up for the absence of any evidence that Tillery was involved in the shootings.

This was a frame-up conviction from top to bottom. Claitt was the sole or primary witness in five other murder cases in the early 1980s. Coercing and inducing jailhouse informants to falsely testify is a standard routine in criminal prosecutions. It goes hand in hand with prosecutors suppressing favorable evidence from the defense.

Major Tillery has filed a petition based on his actual innocence to the Philadelphia District Attorney's Larry Krasner's Conviction Review Unit. A full review and investigation should lead to reversal of Major Tillery's conviction. He also asks that the DA's office to release the full police and prosecution files on his case under the new  "open files" policy. In the meantime, Major Tillery continues his own investigation. He needs your support.

Major Tillery has Fought his Conviction and Advocated for Other Prisoners for over 30 Years

The Pennsylvania courts have rejected three rounds of appeals challenging Major Tillery's conviction based on his innocence, the prosecution's intentional presentation of false evidence against him and his trial attorney's conflict of interest. On June 15, 2016 Major Tillery filed a new post-conviction petition based on the same evidence now in the petition to the District Attorney's Conviction Review Unit. Despite the written and video-taped statements from Emanuel Claitt that that his testimony against Major Tillery was a lie and the result of police and prosecutorial misconduct, Judge Leon Tucker dismissed Major Tillery's petition as "untimely" without even holding a hearing. Major Tillery appealed that dismissal and the appeal is pending in the Superior Court.

During the decades of imprisonment Tillery has advocated for other prisoners challenging solitary confinement, lack of medical and mental health care and the inhumane conditions of imprisonment. In 1990, he won the lawsuit, Tillery v. Owens, that forced the PA Department of Corrections (DOC) to end double celling (4 men to a small cell) at SCI Pittsburgh, which later resulted in the closing and then "renovation" of that prison.

Three years ago Major Tillery stood up for political prisoner and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal and demanded prison Superintendent John Kerestes get Mumia to a hospital because "Mumia is dying."  For defending Mumia and advocating for medical treatment for himself and others, prison officials retaliated. Tillery was shipped out of SCI Mahanoy, where Mumia was also held, to maximum security SCI Frackville and then set-up for a prison violation and a disciplinary penalty of months in solitary confinement. See, Messing with Major by Mumia Abu-Jamal. Major Tillery's federal lawsuit against the DOC for that retaliation is being litigated. Major Tillery continues as an advocate for all prisoners. He is fighting to get the DOC to establish a program for elderly prisoners.

Major Tillery Needs Your Help:

Well-known criminal defense attorney Stephen Patrizio represents Major pro bonoin challenging his conviction. More investigation is underway. We can't count on the district attorney's office to make the findings of misconduct against the police detectives and prosecutors who framed Major without continuing to dig up the evidence.

Major Tillery is now 67 years old. He's done hard time, imprisoned for almost 35 years, some 20 years in solitary confinement in max prisons for a crime he did not commit. He recently won hepatitis C treatment, denied to him for a decade by the DOC. He has severe liver problems as well as arthritis and rheumatism, back problems, and a continuing itchy skin rash. Within the past couple of weeks he was diagnosed with an extremely high heartbeat and is getting treatment.

Major Tillery does not want to die in prison. He and his family, daughters, sons and grandchildren are fighting to get him home. The newly filed petition for Conviction Review to the Philadelphia District Attorney's office lays out the evidence Major Tillery has uncovered, evidence suppressed by the prosecution through all these years he has been imprisoned and brought legal challenges into court. It is time for the District Attorney's to act on the fact that Major Tillery is innocent and was framed by police detectives and prosecutors who manufactured the evidence to convict him. Major Tillery's conviction should be vacated and he should be freed.


Major Tillery and family


HOW YOU CAN HELP

    Financial Support—Tillery's investigation is ongoing. He badly needs funds to fight for his freedom.

    Go to JPay.com;

    code: Major Tillery AM9786 PADOC


    Tell Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner:

    The Conviction Review Unit should investigate Major Tillery's case. He is innocent. The only evidence at trial was from lying jail house informants who now admit it was false.

    Call: 215-686-8000 or


    Write to:

    Major Tillery AM 9786

    SCI Frackville

    1111 Altamont Blvd.

    Frackville, PA 17931

    For More Information, Go To: 

    Call/Write:

    Kamilah Iddeen (717) 379-9009, 

    Rachel Wolkenstein (917) 689-4009, 



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    Free Leonard Peltier!

    On my 43rd year in prison I yearn to hug my grandchildren.

    By Leonard Peltier


    Art by Leonard Peltier


    Write to:

    Leonard Peltier 89637-132 

    USP Coleman I 

    P.O. Box 1033 

    Coleman, FL 33521

    Donations can be made on Leonard's behalf to the ILPD national office, 116 W. Osborne Ave, Tampa, FL 33603


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    1)  E.P.A. Places the Head of Its Office of Children's Health on Leave

    By Coral Davenport and Roni Caryn Rabin, September 26, 2018

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/climate/epa-etzel-children-health-program.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage&action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage

    The Environmental Protection Agency's headquarters in Washington in July. On Tuesday, the E.P.A. placed Dr. Ruth Etzel, the head of its Office of Children's Health Protection, on administrative leave.


    WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday placed the head of its Office of Children's Health Protection on administrative leave, in an unusual move that several observers said appeared to reflect an effort to minimize the role of the office.

    Dr. Ruth Etzel, a pediatrician and epidemiologist who has been a leader in children's environmental health for 30 years, joined the E.P.A. in 2015, after having served as a senior officer for environmental health research at the World Health Organization. She was placed on administrative leave late Tuesday and asked to hand over her badge, keys and cellphone, according to an E.P.A. official familiar with the decision who was not authorized to discuss the move and asked not to be identified.

    An E.P.A. spokesman, John Konkus, declined to give a reason for the administrative leave.

    The E.P.A.'s Office of Children's Health Protection, created by President Bill Clinton in 1997, is tasked with seeing that agency regulations and programs take into account the particular vulnerabilities of children, babies and fetuses. Children are more vulnerable than adults to pollution and other potential exposure because their bodies are still developing and because they eat, drink and breathe more in proportion to their size. In addition, some of their behaviors, such as crawling or putting things in their mouths, potentially expose them to chemicals or toxins.

    Several people within the E.P.A. or who work closely with the agency said that Dr. Etzel's dismissal is one of several recent developments that have slowed the work of the children's health office. One person cited a proposal outlining a strategy for reducing childhood lead exposure, which had been in development for over a year with the involvement of 17 federal agencies, and which has been stalled since early July.


    The Office of Children's Health Protection is technically housed in the office of the E.P.A. administrator, Andrew Wheeler, who has served as the agency's acting administrator since July.

    Under Mr. Wheeler and his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, who left the position earlier this year amid investigations into his oversight of the agency, the E.P.A. has aggressively pursued an agenda of rolling back environmental restrictions on numerous pollutants, arguing that the regulations are overly strict or that they burden industry. 

    "This seems like a sneaky way for the E.P.A. to get rid of this program and not be upfront about it," said Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the director of the pediatric residency program at Hurley Medical Center, a teaching hospital affiliated with Michigan State University, whose analysis of blood tests in Flint, Mich. — a community that became caught up in a lead crisis affecting its drinking water — played a key role in showing that residents were being poisoned by the lead. Dr. Hanna-Atisha called Dr. Etzel "an international leader in children's health."

    The decision to put the department head on administrative leave "is highly unusual," said Joseph Goffman, a former senior counsel for the E.P.A. during the Obama administration. 

    The office Dr. Etzel oversees is small, with a budget of about $2 million and 15 full-time employees in Washington and 10 regional children's health coordinators, some of whom have other responsibilities in addition to children's health.


    Mr. Konkus, the E.P.A. spokesman, said the Trump administration had no intention to diminish or eliminate an office designed to protect children's health. "Children's health is and has always been a top priority for the Trump administration and the E.P.A. in particular is focused on reducing lead exposure in schools, providing funds for a cleaner school bus fleet and cleaning up toxic sites so that children have safe environments to learn and play," he said in an emailed statement.


    Coral Davenport covers energy and environmental policy, with a focus on climate change, from the Washington bureau. She joined The Times in 2013 and previously worked at Congressional Quarterly, Politico and National Journal.

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    2)  Hundreds of Migrant Children Quietly Moved to a Tent Camp on the Texas Border

    By Caitlin Dickerson, September 30, 2018

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/us/migrant-children-tent-city-texas.html

    Migrant children at a detention facility in Tornillo, Tex.


    In shelters from Kansas to New York, hundreds of migrant children have been roused in the middle of the night in recent weeks and loaded onto buses with backpacks and snacks for a cross-country journey to their new home: a barren tent city on a sprawling patch of desert in South Texas.

    Until now, most undocumented children being held by federal immigration authorities had been housed in private foster homes or shelters, sleeping two or three to a room. They received formal schooling and regular visits with legal representatives assigned to their immigration cases.

    But in the rows of sand-colored tents in Tornillo, Tex., children in groups of 20, separated by gender, sleep lined up in bunks. There is no school: The children are given workbooks that they have no obligation to complete. Access to legal services is limited.

    These midnight voyages are playing out across the country, as the federal government struggles to find room for more than 13,000 detained migrant children — the largest population ever — whose numbers have increased more than fivefold since last year.


    The average length of time that migrant children spend in custody has nearly doubled over the same period, from 34 days to 59, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees their care.

    To deal with the surging shelter populations, which have hovered near 90 percent of capacity since May, a mass reshuffling is underway and shows no signs of slowing. Hundreds of children are being shipped from shelters to South Texas each week, totaling more than 1,600 so far.

    The camp in Tornillo operates like a small, pop-up city, about 35 miles southeast of El Paso on the Mexico border, complete with portable toilets. Air-conditioned tents that vary in size are used for housing, recreation and medical care. Originally opened in June for 30 days with a capacity of 400, it expanded in September to be able to house 3,800, and is now expected to remain open at least through the end of the year.

    "It is common to use influx shelters as done on military bases in the past, and the intent is to use these temporary facilities only as long as needed," said Evelyn Stauffer, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department.

    Ms. Stauffer said the need for the tent city reflected serious problems in the immigration system.

    "The number of families and unaccompanied alien children apprehended are a symptom of the larger problem, namely a broken immigration system," Ms Stauffer said. "Their ages and the hazardous journey they take make unaccompanied alien children vulnerable to human trafficking, exploitation and abuse. That is why H.H.S. joins the president in calling on Congress to reform this broken system."


    But the mass transfers are raising alarm among immigrant advocates, who were already concerned about the lengthy periods of time migrant children are spending in federal custody.

    The roughly 100 shelters that have, until now, been the main location for housing detained migrant children are licensed and monitored by state child welfare authorities, who impose requirements on safety and education as well as staff hiring and training.

    The tent city in Tornillo, on the other hand, is unregulated, except for guidelines created by the Department of Health and Human Services. For example, schooling is not required there, as it is in regular migrant children shelters.

    Mark Greenberg, who oversaw the care of migrant children under President Barack Obama, helped to craft the emergency shelter guidelines. He said the agency tried "to the greatest extent possible" to ensure that conditions in facilities like the one at Tornillo would mirror those in regular shelters, "but there are some ways in which that's difficult or impossible to do."

    Several shelter workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being fired, described what they said has become standard practice for moving the children: In order to avoid escape attempts, the moves are carried out late at night because children will be less likely to try to run away. For the same reason, children are generally given little advance warning that they will be moved.

    At one shelter in the Midwest whose occupants were among those recently transferred to Tornillo, about two dozen children were given just a few hours' notice last week before they were loaded onto buses — any longer than that, according to one of the shelter workers, and the children may have panicked or tried to flee.

    The children wore belts etched in pen with phone numbers for their emergency contacts. One young boy asked the shelter worker if he would be taken care of in Texas. The shelter worked replied that he would, and told him that by moving, he was making space for other children like him who were stuck at the border and needed a place to live.


    Some staff members cried when they learned of the move, the shelter worker said, fearing what was in store for the children who had been in their care. Others tried to protest. But managers explained that tough choices had to be made to deal with the overflowing population.

    The system for sheltering migrant children came under strain this summer, when the already large numbers were boosted by more than 2,500 young border crossers who were separated from their parents under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy. But those children were only a fraction of the total number who are currently detained.

    Most of the detained children crossed the border alone, without their parents. Some crossed illegally; others are seeking asylum.

    Children who are deemed "unaccompanied minors," either because they were separated from their parents or crossed the border alone, are held in federal custody until they can be matched with sponsors, usually relatives or family friends, who agree to house them while their immigration cases play out in the courts.

    The move to Texas is meant to be temporary. Rather than send new arrivals there, the government is sending children who are likely to be released sooner, and will spend less time there—mainly older children, ages 13 to 17, who are considered close to being placed with sponsors. Still, because sponsorship placements are often protracted, immigrant advocates said there was a possibility that many of the children could be living in the tent city for months.

    "Obviously we have concerns about kids falling through the cracks, not getting sufficient attention if they need attention, not getting the emotional or mental health care that they need," said Leah Chavla, a lawyer with the Women's Refugee Commission, an advocacy group.

    "This cannot be the right solution," Ms. Chavla said. "We need to focus on making sure that kids can get placed with sponsors and get out of custody."


    The number of detained migrant children has spiked even though monthly border crossings have remained relatively unchanged, in part because harsh rhetoric and policies introduced by the Trump administration have made it harder to place children with sponsors.

    Traditionally, most sponsors have been undocumented immigrants themselves, and have feared jeopardizing their own ability to remain in the country by stepping forward to claim a child. The risk increased in June, when federal authorities announced that potential sponsors and other adult members of their households would have to submit fingerprints, and that the data would be shared with immigration authorities.

    Last week, Matthew Albence, a senior official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, testified before Congress that the agency had arrested dozens of people who applied to sponsor unaccompanied minors. The agency later confirmed that 70 percent of those arrested did not have prior criminal records.

    "Close to 80 percent of the individuals that are either sponsors or household members of sponsors are here in the country illegally, and a large chunk of those are criminal aliens. So we are continuing to pursue those individuals," Mr. Albence said.

    Seeking to process the children more quickly, officials introduced new rules that will require some of them to appear in court within a month of being detained, rather than after 60 days, which was the previous standard, according to shelter workers. Many will appear via video conference call, rather than in person, to plead their case for legal status to an immigration judge. Those who are deemed ineligible for relief will be swiftly deported.

    The longer that children remain in custody, the more likely they are to become anxious or depressed, which can lead to violent outbursts or escape attempts, according to shelter workers and reports that have emerged from the system in recent months.

    Advocates said those concerns are heightened at a larger facility like Tornillo, where signs that a child is struggling are more likely to be overlooked, because of its size. They added that moving children to the tent city without providing enough time to prepare them emotionally or to say goodbye to friends could compound trauma that many are already struggling with.

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    3)  Kavanaugh and the Blackout Theory

    By Sarah Hepola, September 29, 2018

    "When men are in a blackout, they do things to the world. When women are in a blackout, things are done to them."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/brett-kavanaugh-drinking-blackouts.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

    College students drinking at a tailgate party before a Indiana University football game.


    One of the trickiest things about blackouts is that you don't necessarily know you're having one. I wrote a memoir, so centered around the slips of memory caused by heavy drinking that it is actually called "Blackout," and in the years since its 2015 release, I've heard from thousands of people who experienced them. No small number of those notes contain some version of this: "For years, I was having blackouts without knowing what they were." Blackouts are like a philosophical riddle inside a legal conundrum: If you can't remember a thing, how do you know it happened?

    In the days leading up to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, a theory arose that he might have drunk so much as a teenager that he did not remember his alleged misdeeds. The blackout theory was a way to reconcile two competing narratives. It meant that Christine Blasey Ford was telling the truth but so was Brett Kavanaugh. He simply did not remember what happened that night and therefore believed himself falsely accused. Several questions at the hearing were designed to get at this theory, but it gained little ground.

    I want to be clear, up front, that I cannot know whether Judge Kavanaugh experienced a blackout. But what I do know is that blackouts are both common and tragically misunderstood.

    Before the prosecutor Rachel Mitchell was mysteriously dispatched, she was aiming toward the above line of inquiry.


    "Have you ever passed out from drinking?" she asked.

    Kavanaugh's answer was dismissive but slightly confusing: "I've gone to sleep, but I've never blacked out. That's the allegation? That's wrong."

    A few clarifications. First, I dare you to find the heavy drinker who hasn't passed out from too much booze. To say you were just sleeping is like my dad saying he's resting his eyes when he's napping. It's a semantic dodge.

    Second, and more crucially, this answer tips toward a common conflation of the act of passing out — sliding into unconsciousness, eyes closed, being what drinkers often call "dead to the world" — and the act of blacking out, a temporary, alcohol-induced state in which you can remain functional and conversational, but later you will have no memory of what you did, almost as though your brain failed to hit the "record" button. This phenomenon remains unknown to many, even experts who ought to know better — doctors, journalists, judges.

    Blackouts are caused by a spike in the blood-alcohol level. Crucial is not only how much you drink or what you drink but also how fast. People who don't eat before drinking are at higher risk for blackout. Shot contests, beer-chugging competitions, keg stands — the macho pre-gaming world of intercollegiate boozing is a perfect setup for blackouts, part of why they're so rampant at universities — a 2002 survey conducted by researchers at Duke University found that approximately 50 percent of college drinkers reported having at least one blackout — though adults are no less prone.

    There are two kinds of blackouts. The more common is fragmentary, where slivers of the night are missing. The more extreme version is "en bloc," where several hours can be wiped from the memory drive. Fragmentary blackouts start at a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.2, though they've been found at lower levels; everyone's brain is different. En bloc blackouts happen closer to 0.3, and it's worth noting that at 0.35, it is estimated that about half of drinkers will die, so blackout drinkers are getting up there.


    A common bonding experience in drinking circles is "piecing the night together"— friends sitting around the next day, laughing as they scroll through text messages and camera rolls, trying to fill in the gaps in one another's memories. Some of the missing dots are easy to connect: Oh, that's right, we went to the bar! Others might be confounding: Wait, we went to a BAR? 

    "Piecing things together" is a phrase that jumped out at me when I read Judge Kavanaugh's 2014 speech to the Yale Law School Federalist Society,in which he describes drunken heroics as a routine part of campus life; Senator Richard Blumenthal also leapt on this at the hearing, although Judge Kavanaugh deflected the inquiry, as he did every question about any possible dark side to his consumption.

    One particularly dastardly aspect of blackouts is that other people don't necessarily know you're having one. Some people in a blackout stagger around in a zombie state; others quote Shakespeare. I had friends who told me I got this zombie look in my eyes, like a person who was unplugged, but others friends told me, on different occasions, that I'd seemed fine.

    It wasn't until this century that scientists really understood blackouts. For generations, experts thought they were the exclusive realm of alcoholics, a sign of troubled late-stage drinking. But non-problem drinkers black out all the time. In fact, that kind of drinker would be a good candidate for someone who might remain ignorant of their blackouts. You see this in sexual assault cases: A woman believes she passed out the night before, but she actually blacked out, leaving untold minutes or hours unaccounted for in her memory bank. This is hellishly confusing — because to the person who wakes up not remembering what happened, it feels like you must have been asleep. Disrupting that assumption requires some contrary piece of evidence: Cuts and bruises, strange clothes you don't recall putting on, a friend's testimony, surveillance footage. Today's young people are more aware of their own blackouts — in part because scientists have gained insight about them, allowing media stories to spread, but also because those kids carry around phones that record everything they do, making them much more likely to have that jarring moment of cognitive disconnect. Wait, when did I type THAT? Wait, when was THAT picture taken? Previous generations simply did not carry such handy data collection services in their pockets.

    I suspect Mark Judge — if he were ever able to speak from the heart and not through sworn statements vetted by his lawyer and dispatched from aBethany Beach house — would be able to speak powerfully on this topic. As a recovering alcoholic, Mr. Judge has gotten real about his drinking, something that can be tough for the people around you, who are not nearly so invested in staring down their high school keggers. I believe Mr. Judge when he swears he doesn't remember the incident that Christine Blasey Ford described. I also think that absence of information might have been why, assuming Dr. Blasey's recollection is correct, he had such a queasy reaction when he ran into her at a grocery store. I used to get a hideous gnawing sensation when I stumbled across people I'd blacked out around, because I did not know. What had I said? What had I done? The sheer unknowing rattled me.

    Mr. Judge describes this terror in his memoir "Wasted," where he tells the story of a wedding rehearsal dinner where he got so blasted he doesn't remember the evening's end. A friend informs him the next day that he tried to take off his clothes and "make it" with a bridesmaid. Mr. Judge's response cuts me. "Please tell me I didn't hurt her," he said.

    Inside those haunted words I see a life and a trail of damage that could have been my own. I consider it nothing but a gift of biology, or temperament, or sexual dynamics that I never had to worry I had physically or sexually assaulted anyone in a blackout. I worried I was rude. I worried I was weird, dumb, deathly unsexy. As I grew older, and more risk-taking, I worried I'd had sex with someone I didn't know, a not-uncommon experience in my own daily calendar. But I have known men who drank too much, and I have loved them, and this is a fear that beats in their private hearts. I hope I didn't hurt her. I interviewed a blackout expert for my book, and he told me something I've never forgotten: "When men are in a blackout, they do things to the world. When women are in a blackout, things are done to them."


    One of the most unforgettable moments in an unforgettable hearing came when Senator Patrick Leahy asked Dr. Blasey about her strongest memory of that night. "Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter," she said. The word Dr. Blasey used, hippocampus, is significant. The hippocampus is a part of the brain that plays a central role in memory formation. And damned if it isn't a part of the brain disrupted by a blackout. The hippocampus stops placing information in long-term storage, which means what happened, what you did, what you said, what hurt you might have caused another human — all of it turns to a stream of unremembered words and images that pour forever into the dark night. 

    So while Dr. Blasey's brain was pumping the epinephrine and norepinephrine that would etch the moment on her brain, it is quite possible that one if not both of those men were experiencing something like the opposite: A mechanical failure of the brain to record anything. Such a dynamic is breathtaking in its cruelty, which makes it no less common.

    I suspect we'll never know whether Brett Kavanaugh experienced blackouts as a young drinker. I suspect he'll never know, because what I took from the man at his hearing was that he was not interested in going there. Those days are gone; he has closed the door on that era. But as a wise man once said, just because we are done with the past doesn't mean the past is done with us. You can ask Christine Blasey Ford about that. You can ask Mark Judge. I bet both of them would have a few things to say about the way memories splinter and implant in the body. How the past lives inside us, guides us, owns us. I have often wondered what the body remembers even as the mind forgets. And then there are other things. The ones that will and never can be forgotten.

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    4) Seven Palestinians Killed in Gaza Border Clash

    By Reuters, September 28, 2018

    "Gaza health officials said 505 people were wounded. They identified the dead as males, two of them ages 12 and 14."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/world/middleeast/gaza-palestinians-border.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld&action=click&contentCollection=world&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=10&pgtype=sectionfront

    Palestinian protesters reacting to tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers during a protest at Gaza's border with Israel.


    GAZA — Israeli soldiers fatally shot seven Palestinians, including two boys, who were among thousands of people who thronged to the fortified Gaza border on Friday as part of weekly protests begun six months ago, Gaza health officials said.

    Israel's military said its troops resorted to live fire and an airstrike in response to explosive devices and rocks launched at them and to prevent breaches of the border fence from Gaza, a Hamas-controlled enclave.

    Gaza health officials said 505 people were wounded. They identified the dead as males, two of them ages 12 and 14.

    About 200 Palestinians have been killed since the Gaza protests began on March 30 to demand the right of return to lands that Palestinian families fled or were driven from on Israel's founding in 1948, and the easing of an Israeli-Egyptian economic blockade.


    Hamas said Friday's protest also marked the 18th anniversary of the last Palestinian revolt against Israel.

    A Gaza sniper killed an Israeli soldier in an earlier protest, and Palestinians have used kites and helium balloons to fly incendiary devices over the border fence, destroying tracts of forest and farmland in Israel.

    Israel accuses Hamas, against which it has fought three wars in the last decade, of having deliberately provoked violence in the protests, a charge Hamas denies.



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    5) The Most Important Least-Noticed Economic Event of the Decade

    A localized recession in manufacturing-heavy areas can explain a lot of things.

    By Neil Irwin, September 29, 2018

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/upshot/mini-recession-2016-little-known-big-impact.html?rref=collection%2Fissuecollection%2Ftodays-new-york-times


    Sometimes the most important economic events announce themselves with huge front-page headlines, stock market collapses and frantic intervention by government officials.

    Other times, a hard-to-explain confluence of forces has enormous economic implications, yet comes and goes without most people even being aware of it.

    In 2015 and 2016, the United States experienced the second type of event.

    There was a sharp slowdown in business investment, caused by an interrelated weakening in emerging markets, a drop in the price of oil and other commodities, and a run-up in the value of the dollar.


    The pain was confined mostly to the energy and agricultural sectors and to the portions of the manufacturing economy that supply them with equipment. Overall economic growth slowed but remained in positive territory. The national unemployment rate kept falling. Anyone who didn't work in energy, agriculture or manufacturing could be forgiven for not noticing it at all.


    Yet understanding this slump — think of it as a mini-recession — is important in many ways. 

    It helps explains the economic growth spurt of the last two years. The end of the mini-recession in the spring of 2016 created a capital spending rebound that began in mid-2016, and it has contributed to speedier growth since. Oil prices have reached four-year highs, a major factor in a surge in business investment this year.

    It helps explain some of the economic discontent evident in manufacturing-heavy areas during the 2016 elections. It offers warnings for where the next downturn might come from, and shows how important it is for policymakers to remain watchful and flexible about unpredictable shifts in the global economy.

    Most important, the mini-recession of 2015-16 offers a cautionary tale for any policymaker who might want to think of the United States as an economic island.

    The episode is stark evidence of the risk the Trump administration faces in threatening economic damage to negotiate leverage with other nations on trade and security. What happens overseas can return to American shores faster and more powerfully than once seemed possible.


    The mini-recession defies neatness. It's a story of spillovers and feedback loops and unintended consequences. But here's a summary:

    In 2015, Chinese leaders were concerned that their economy was experiencing a credit bubble, and they began imposing policies to restrain growth. These worked too well and caused a steep slowdown. That in turn caused troubles in other emerging nations for whom China was a major customer.

    Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve, finally growing confident that the United States economy was returning to health, made plans to end its era of ultra-easy monetary policy.

    As the Fed moved toward tighter money, its counterparts at the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan were going in the opposite direction. The prospect of higher interest rates in the United States and lower rates in the eurozone and Japan fueled a steep rise in the value of the dollar on global currency markets.

    That in turn made China's problems worse. China had long pegged the value of its currency to the dollar, so a stronger dollar was also making Chinese companies less competitive globally. When China attempted to reduce this burden by loosening the peg in August 2015, it faced capital outflows, making the economic situation worse.

    Moreover, across major emerging markets, many companies and banks had borrowed money in dollars, so a stronger dollar made their debt burdens more onerous.

    Put it all together, and when the Fed moved toward raising interest rates — as it eventually did in December 2015 — it was essentially making financial conditions tighter and therefore slowing growth across big swaths of the world.


    The slowdown across emerging markets, in turn, meant less demand for oil and many other commodities. That helped cause their prices to fall. The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell to under $30 in February 2016 from around $106 in June 2014. The drops in the prices of metals like copper and aluminum, and agricultural products like corn and soybeans, were also steep.

    That only heightened the economic pain for the many emerging economies that are major commodity producers, such as Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia.

    Given falling prices and high debt loads among energy producers in the United States, the markets for stocks and riskier corporate bonds came under stress, especially in early 2016. That generated losses for investors and fears about the overall stability of the financial system.

    Each of these forces has connections to the others. It wasn't one problem, but an intersection of a bunch of them. That made it devilishly hard to diagnose, let alone to fix, even for the people whose job was to do just that.

    When Federal Reserve officials meet eight times a year to set interest rate policy, their job, assigned by Congress, is to figure out what is best for the United States economy. Their job isn't to set a policy that will be best for China or Brazil or Indonesia.

    Entering 2015, things were looking pretty good for the United States.

    Inflation was below the 2 percent level the Fed aims for, but the traditional economic models on which the central bankers had long relied predicted that it would start to rise thanks to a rapidly falling unemployment rate.

    Even when prices for oil and other commodities started falling in the middle of the year, the Fed's models viewed it as a positive for the overall economy. Sure, some oil drillers and farmers might experience lower incomes, but consumers everywhere would enjoy cheaper gasoline and grocery bills.


    Although officials spent a lot of time monitoring the global economy, the fact remained that the United States wasn't as dependent on exports as many smaller countries. The 2008 financial crisis had shown how the American and European banking systems were deeply intertwined, but the same couldn't be said of the ties with Chinese banks.

    In other words, through the summer of 2015 it sure looked to many Fed officials as if the sound move was to start raising interest rates.

    At the Treasury Department, which is responsible for the United States' currency policies, it seemed well into 2015 that the strengthening dollar was mostly benign.

    "There was a sense that the U.S. was doing well and the rest of the world was not doing very well," said Nathan Sheets, a Treasury under secretary at the time and now chief economist at PGIM Fixed Income. "It was driven by strong U.S. fundamentals."

    But in late summer 2015, financial markets started to react more violently to the feedback loop of global currencies and commodities. It started to seem as if some of the old rules of thumb — about how a rising dollar or falling oil prices might affect the economy — might not apply.

    Perhaps the economics models used by forecasters had become outdated, failing to fully account for the ways surging energy production had become more intertwined with the manufacturing sector and the financial markets.

    "These things were all interconnected in different ways, and they all cycled back on the same industries and parts of the economy," said Jay Shambaugh, a member of the Obama White House Council of Economic Advisers at the time. Still, distilling that complex story into crisp memos for senior officials was no easy task.


    "You have to make memos short and to the point in the White House, and it was hard to say what exactly we thought was happening," he said.

    Behind closed doors at the Fed, officials started debating whether this outburst of volatility in markets really posed a risk to the overall economy. Should they stick to their plans to raise interest rates steadily, or slow down?

    Over two days in October, the debate played out publicly.

    Stan Fischer, the vice chairman of the Fed, was reluctant to adjust the planned rate increases, not wishing to let swings in financial markets dictate policy.

    "We do not currently anticipate that the effects of these recent developments on the U.S. economy will prove to be large enough to have a significant effect on the path for policy," he said in a speech in Lima, Peru, on Oct. 11, 2015.

    Lael Brainard, a Federal Reserve governor who had worked on international issues at the Treasury, was quite a bit more worried.

    "There is a risk that the intensification of international cross currents could weigh more heavily on U.S. demand directly, or that the anticipation of a sharper divergence in U.S. policy could impose restraint through additional tightening of financial conditions," she said on Oct. 12 in Washington.

    Ms. Brainard was right.


    The vicious circle of a stronger dollar, weaker emerging market growth and lower commodity prices caused spending on certain types of capital goods to plummet starting in mid-2015.

    Spending on agricultural machinery in 2016 fell 38 percent from 2014 levels; for petroleum and natural gas structures — think oil drilling rigs — the number was down a whopping 60 percent.

    The oil and gas exploration boom tied to fracking technology came to a halt with energy prices at rock-bottom levels, and with it sales of equipment tied to that boom. 

    With the fall in domestic capital investment in those industries and with weakness overseas, companies in related industries took it on the chin. Caterpillar, the maker of heavy equipment, had 30 percent lower revenue in 2016 than 2014.

    In large segments of the economy, by contrast, it was business as usual. Business spending on investments like computers and office buildings kept rising, as did consumer spending.


    Still, the industrial sector downturn was powerful enough to turn a strong expansion into a weak one. Overall growth fell to 1.3 percent in the four quarters ended in mid-2016, from 3.4 percent in the preceding year.


    The national economy kept adding jobs. But Harris County, Tex., which encompasses energy-centric Houston and its near suburbs, shed 0.8 percent of its jobs in that span. In Peoria, Ill., hometown of Caterpillar, employment fell 3.2 percent.

    In effect, this was a localized recession — severe in certain places, but concentrated enough that it did not throw the overall United States economy into contraction.

    In Williston, N.D., where the economy had been booming for years because of a surge in oil and natural gas drilling on the Bakken oil patch, businesses of all types closed or slashed wages.

    "It varies week to week, but every week keeps getting worse," Marcus Jundt, owner of a restaurant, the Williston Brewing Company, told CNBC in March 2016. "We don't know where the bottom is, but we're not there yet."

    But it could have been worse.

    When Janet Yellen assumed leadership of the Federal Reserve in early 2014, she inherited an economy that had been expanding steadily for years, with a great deal of help from the Fed's interest rate policies.

    Deciding how and when to pull that support — when to raise interest rates, which had been near zero for more than six years — was set to be the defining choice of her tenure.

    In 2015, with signs that the United States economy was returning to health, she and her colleagues believed it was time to begin raising interest rates. She is a leading labor market scholar who spent a career studying, among other things, how a tight labor market can eventually feed through to inflation.

    In July of that year, with stirrings of the emerging markets disruption, the unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, not much above the level Fed officials believed was consistent with a fully healthy labor market. Then the turmoil of August began.

    Ms. Yellen elected not to raise rates in September, waiting for more evidence that the economy was truly on track and that the emerging market troubles wouldn't do too much damage to the domestic economy. But by December she judged that the situation had stabilized enough to raise rates.

    At the same time, the Fed revealed forecasts indicating that its senior officials expected to raise interest rates four more times in 2016. Within weeks, global markets were sending a message: Not so fast.

    The dollar kept strengthening, the price of commodities kept falling, and the Standard & Poor's 500 dropped about 9 percent over three weeks in late January and early February. Bond yields plummeted, suggesting that the United States was at risk of recession.

    In mid-February 2016, the financial leaders of the world's most powerful nations were set to convene in a Shanghai for the periodic G20 summit. With global markets in turmoil, the great question was: Can the officials rein in these forces?

    The official statement released by the participants in the summit contained multiple nods to the turbulence, acknowledging risks from "volatile capital flows" and falling commodity prices. But more important than any words was what followed in the following weeks.


    Two days after the summit, China lowered its reserve requirement on banks, essentially opening the spigot for more lending. In the months that followed, it would put in tighter controls on the movement of capital outside the country, and seek to tie the value of the yuan less closely to the dollar.

    Three weeks after the summit, the Fed had another policy meeting. Rather than raise interest rates further as had been envisioned in December, Fed officials declined to raise rates — and steeply reduced their expectations of how much further they would raise rates over the remainder of 2016.

    Together, these steps were enough to end the vicious cycle. The dollar stopped appreciating and started dropping. Oil prices bottomed out and began a recovery. In the United States, capital spending was growing again by the summer of 2016.

    Some analysts of financial markets have put a conspiratorial bent on the concerted action from the two sides of the Pacific, speculating that leaders had made a secret deal at the G20 meeting in February 2016. They call it the "Shanghai Accord"— essentially, that the Fed would hold off on rate increases if the Chinese also took actions of their own.

    Ms. Yellen said it's not so. She said in an interview that there was an extensive exchange of views and information with the Chinese delegation in Shanghai, but that there were no promises or explicit agreements.


    "I realize it looked to much of the world like some kind of secret handshake deal," she said. "This wasn't a deal. This was the global economy and capital markets affecting the U.S. outlook, and the Fed being sensitive to that, taking that into account and its influencing policy appropriately."


    The Fed, she said, did what it thought was best for the United States economy without knowing exactly what the Chinese would do.

    Mr. Sheets, the former Treasury official, also dismissed the idea of some secret agreement.

    "It's just not how it works," he said. "There were a lot of meetings. A lot of bilaterals and quadrilaterals. You meet with your counterparts and talk about the global economy and think about the challenges and what might be done. But there was nothing agreed behind closed doors that was not part of the formal statement."

    Even if there was no formal secret agreement, the result — leaders of the world's two biggest economies squarely focused on the risks that the situation presented — turned out to be enough.

    The impact of the global commodity-currency spiral of 2015-16 is evident from a glance at the economic statistics. It is less so in the economic debates of 2018.

    First, while the Trump administration has claimed full credit for a surge in business investment, the bounce-back from the mini-recession is a major factor.

    White House economists have presented charts showing a surge starting in the fourth quarter of 2016, when the election took place. But that turnaround began in mid-2016 by most measures, not late 2016 as suggested by the White House's "six quarter compound annual growth rate" measure.

    Second, the mini-recession might well have affected some political attitudes during the 2016 election. While the economy was in pretty good shape for people in large cities on the coasts, 2016 was rough for a lot of people in local economies heavily reliant on drilling, mining, farming or making the machines that support those industries.


    A poll in October 2016 by an agriculture trade publication, Agri-Pulse, found that 86 percent of farmers were dissatisfied with the way things were going in the United States. 

    Third, economic policymakers need to display the flexibility to respond to incoming information, even when it doesn't fit their own forecasts or preconceptions.

    If Ms. Yellen had been more stubborn about sticking to the plan to keep raising rates through 2016 because of her training as a labor market economist, the result might well have been an actual recession. "She's always learning," said Julia Coronado, president of MacroPolicy Perspectives, "and not so egotistical that she's wedded to one view of the world."

    Finally, it shows the global economy is so interconnected that events in Shanghai or São Paulo can cause unpredictable effects in faraway places.

    In the last year, the Trump administration has been lobbing tariffs at China and other major economic partners to extract more advantageous terms for trade. But the mini-recession warns of the risk of ricochet.

    Like it or not, the complexity of our global connections means that policy can't just focus on the home front. In 2016, we learned that lesson the hard way, even if not everybody was paying attention.


    Neil Irwin is a senior economics correspondent for The Upshot. He previously wrote for The Washington Post and is the author of "The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire."


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    6) Under the Fog of Kavanaugh, House Passes $3.8 Trillion More in Tax Cuts

    By Glen Fleishman, September 28, 2018

    http://fortune.com/2018/09/28/house-3-8-trillion-tax-cut-passes/


    With attention fixed on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a new $3.1 trillion tax cut on Friday. The vote was 220 to 191, including three Democrats.

    The down-to-the-wire 2017 tax act passed in late December contained a mix of permanent and temporary changes that had to result in a net increased cost that fell within a structural limit of $1.5 trillion that allowed the Senate to approve the bill with a simple majority.

    The House's new bill takes effect starting in 2025, and would add $600 billion to the national debt within the next decade, and then $3.2 trillion in the 10 years after that, according to Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center.

    Despite the House vote, it is unlikely the Senate will take up the legislation. The first round of tax cuts landed with a thud, with even a leaked Republican National Committee poll—reported on by Bloomberg News—showing American voters thought it benefited "large corporations and rich Americans" by an overall 2-to-1 margin and the same margin among independent voters.

    Without special rules in place, the Senate would vote under normal procedures, which can require 60 senators' votes to pass a bill that is heavily opposed.

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    7) Hundreds of Children Rot in the Desert. End Trump's Draconian Policies.

    By The Editorial Board, October 1, 2018

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/opinion/migrant-children-tent-city-texas.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

    Shoes and toys left at the Tornillo Port of Entry in Tornillo, Tex., where minors crossing the border without proper papers have been housed after being separated from adults.


    It doesn't take a psychologist to understand that ripping children from their beds in the middle of the night, tearing them away from anyone they've forged a connection with and thrusting them into more uncertainty could damage them. 

    Yet the crisis that has led federal immigration authorities to pull nearly 2,000 unaccompanied children (so far) out of shelters around the country in the dead of night and bus them to a "tent city" in the desert town of Tornillo, Tex., is almost entirely of the American government's own making.

    The Trump administration has struggled for solutions as the 100-or-so shelters that normally house unaccompanied minors who've crossed the United States border have filled to capacity in recent months. More and more children stuck in immigration limbo for longer periods of time have strained the entire system that manages such kids. (As The Times reported, officials feared the children being taken to Texas — they are among 13,000 being detained nationwide — would run off if they were told ahead of time, or moved them during waking hours.)

    How to best handle the cases of unaccompanied minors has perplexed immigration authorities since the Obama administration. But the current crowding is not the result of some dramatic increase in the number of children stealing across the southern border. In fact the influx is no greater now than it has been for the past two years.


    Instead, the Trump administration's own draconian policies are to blame. Around the same time that it began separating immigrant children from their parents as they crossed into the United States, the Department of Homeland Security also established strict new requirements for the relatives and friends who might care for these children while their cases are sorted out. Prospective sponsors are now required to submit fingerprints, and to share their information with federal immigration officers. Because most of them are undocumented immigrants themselves, they have been scared off by these new requirements. And with good cause: So far, dozens of applicants who took the chance of applying to be sponsors have been arrested on immigration charges. 

    As would-be sponsors shrink away, more of unaccompanied children are left stranded in federal custody.

    Images of young children who were torn from their parents this summer triggered a massive public outcry, leading the Trump White House and immigration officials to reverse course on family separations. The long-lasting trauma of extended detention, however, is harder to capture on film, and the public has yet to voice its concern over the tighter sponsorship requirements. 

    And yet we must. Proponents of the current system insist that the restrictions on sponsors were put into place for the children's protection. But it's hard to see how any of the new policies could possibly do more good than harm.


    Staff members at shelters cried as the children were taken away, they told The Times, out of dread for what the children would now face. The tent city in Texas is not being held to any of the same rules that group homes or foster care facilities are subject to. And those existing safeguards had already proved inadequate protection against physical abuse, sexual assault and emotional torment. The Department of Health and Human Services has instead offered a thin set of guidelines, but while the tents are air-conditioned, children will not have regular access to schooling or legal services.

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