8/04/2019

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019

 


Month of Momentum:
 30 Days of Action to Close the Camps (ICE SF)
A month of daily actions every day in August from Noon to 1pm
(Unless otherwise specified)

ICE – San Francisco
630 Sansome St
SF


Calendar: https://bit.ly/32MTXEs  

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You're Invited to Livermore Lab on Hiroshima Day

Tuesday, August 6, 2019, 8:00 A.M.
Livermore Lab



Bay Area groups will jointly mark the 74th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Livermore Lab, where the Trump Administration is presently spending billions to create new nuclear warheads.

The Tuesday, August 6, 2019 commemoration is titled, "Designing Armageddon at Livermore Lab: Rally, March and Nonviolent Direct Action for Nuclear Disarmament." Participants will gather at the northwest corner of the Livermore Lab (Vasco Road and Patterson Pass Road). The rally will begin at 8 AM and will feature music, speakers, poetry, art and more. There is free parking at the event site.

Daniel Ellsberg will deliver the keynote address.  Ellsberg is the military analyst and whistleblower who shone a bright light on U.S. policy and helped end the Vietnam War when he released the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg published an award-winning memoir in 2017, "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner." He remains a brilliant analyst, commentator and sought-after speaker.

Nobuaki Hanaoka, an atomic bomb survivor, will be the rally's special guest speaker. Hanaoka was an infant when the bomb fell on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. His mother and sister died from illnesses linked to radiation poisoning and his brother died at age 39 from premature aging associated with fallout from the bomb. Hanaoka is a retired minister in the United Methodist Church, who came to the U.S. following seminary training in Japan. He has settled in the Bay Area where he speaks, writes and teaches on topics of peace and human rights.

Rafael Jesús González, the first poet-laureate of Berkeley and an organizer of the 1983 International Day of Nuclear Disarment will speak.

Marylia Kelley of Tri-Valley CAREs will also be featured. 

Immediately following the rally program, at approximately 9:15 AM, will be a "call to action," in which participants will be invited to march a short distance to the Livermore Lab West Gate. At the gate, Japanese activists will lead a traditional bon dance. Everyone is invited to participate.

Following the dance will be a commemorative die-in and symbolic chalking of the bodies to mimic the "shadows" left by men, women and children vaporized by the A-bomb blast. Those who choose will then peaceably risk arrest. Others will conduct a legal witness and support. 

A flyer is available with nonviolence guidelines, vanpool info, and how to RSVP for the August 4th and 5th kid-friendly Peace Camp. 
We hope you can join us.
 ###

Marylia Kelley
Executive Director, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
Main office: 4049 First St., Suite 243, Livermore, CA 94551
Satellite office: 902 N. Central Ave., Tracy (office hours vary; call for appointment)

Website: www.trivalleycares.org


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San Francisco-Bay Area Veterans For Peace and 
Other Organizations and Individuals will hold a:

Vigil to Expose Monsanto, on
International AGENT ORANGE DAY

Saturday, August 10, 2019
12 Noon to 2 pm, Union Square, San Francisco
< We have Large Striking Photo Boards of Viet Namese Victims of Agent Orange, < plus a large, long banner: 
"Vietnam Veterans and Vietnamese People Still Suffering from Agent Orange."
&  2 new smaller banners:  
"August 10 - International Agent Orange Day"  &
"Agent Orange - Monsanto's Chemical Weapon in the Viet Nam War"
 - all with the VFP Logo and VFP/AO Webs.
< We will have 1/2 page hand-outs and Orange Cards for the public to sign, making the Agent Orange connection to Monsanto-Bayer and recent high-profile lawsuits.
We hope you all might be willing to join us.   
CONTACT: Nadya Williams
Cell: (415) 845-9492,  E-mail: NadyaNomad@gmail.com




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Mitchel Cohen is touring California in August

to present his new book,


The Fight Against Monsanto's Roundup:
The Politics of Pesticides

Written and edited by Mitchel Cohen    
Foreword by Vandana Shiva     
Skyhorse Publishing 2019

A Comprehensive Look at the Worldwide
Battle to Defend Ourselves and Our Environment
Against the Peddlers of Chemical Poisons

"This may be one of the most important books you read this year. We are being poisoned, and this book is sounding a well-informed alarm. Read it. Get educated and then join the thousands rising up against those who care more for profit than the health of our bodies and our earth."   -- Eve Ensler, 
New York Times best-selling author of I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World, The Vagina Monologues, and In the Body of the World

Chemical poisons have infiltrated all facets of our lives — housing, agriculture, work places, sidewalks, subways, schools, parks, even the air we breathe. More than half a century since Rachel Carson issued Silent Spring — her call-to-arms against the poisoning of our drinking water, food, animals, air, and the natural environment — The Fight Against Monsanto's Roundup: The Politics of Pesticides takes a fresh look at the politics underlying the mass use of pesticides and the challenges people around the world are making against Monsanto's most dangerous creation, glyphosate.

Events in the Bay Area and Nearby:

Events are listed chronologically, and by location.
Scroll down for events near you!

Events Nearby:

FRESNO, Saturday, Aug. 3rd, 2-5 pm: Benefit for Pacifica radio affiliate KFCF, 2136 East Olympic Ave., (at Copper and Maple)  $20 donation. No one turned away for lack of funds.

SEBASTOPOL, Monday, Aug. 5th, 6:30 pm: Benefit for PRESERVE RURAL SONOMA COUNTY, at Sebastopol Grange,  6000 Sebastopol Ave, Sebastopol, CA. $12. Tickets: www.DailyActs.org/Events. Limited seating. Register early! Supports Pesticide Action. No one turned away for inability to pay. Contact: 707-789-9664.

UKIAH, Sunday, Aug. 11th, 3 pm: 809 Maple Avenue (between Hazel & Live Oak), Ukiah. Free. For details, call 707-391-5853.

SANTA ROSA, Monday, Aug. 12th, 6:30 pm: Santa Rosa Peace and Justice Center, 467 Sebastopol Ave, Santa Rosa (with Sallie Latch and Dennis Bernstein), 707-575-8902.

Events in the Bay Area:

BERKELEY, Wednesday, Aug. 14th, 6:30 pm: Sports Basement, 2727 Milvia Street, Berkeley. Wheelchair accessible. Free. (with Dennis Bernstein and Sallie Latch) For details, call 510-646-5253. 

OAKLAND, Friday, Aug. 16th, 7 pm: "The wider context." E.M. Wolfman Bookstore, 410-13th St., Oakland (with Dennis Bernstein and Sallie Latch). For details, call 510-679-4650

BERKELEY, Saturday, Aug. 17th, 7 pm: Revolution Books, 2444 Durant Ave. at Telegraph, Berkeley. Free. For details, call 510-848-1196.
_  _  _  _  _  _  _

Please visit www.thepoliticsofpesticides.com for more info on author/editor Mitchel Cohen, the other contributors, chapter excerpts, and praise for the book from Bill Ayers, Joel Raskin, Karl Grossman, Sylvia Federici, Bertell Ollman and many others.

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We're excited to announce our new fact sheet series outlining the reasons why we should abolish war. 
  1. War Is Immoral
  2. War Endangers Us
  3. War Threatens Our Environment
  4. War Erodes Liberties
  5. War Impoverishes Us
  6. War Promotes Bigotry
  7. We Need $2 Trillion/Year for Other Things
The fact sheets are designed as printable handouts that can be used for tabling events, grassroots lobbying meetings, and much more. Each one contains a list of references, so you can learn more about any of the details mentioned.

We believe that education is a critical component of a global security system, and an essential tool for getting us there. We educate both aboutand for the abolition of war. Our educational resources are based on knowledge and research that expose the myths of war and illuminate the proven nonviolent, peaceful alternatives that can bring us authentic security.

Thank you to numerous volunteers, including Gayle, Joanne, Tim, and Ben, who helped us complete the fact sheet series!

For questions or more information about our peace education programs and volunteer opportunities, please email me at greta@worldbeyondwar.org

For a world BEYOND war,

Greta Zarro
Organizing Director
World BEYOND War
greta@worldbeyondwar.org

World BEYOND War is a global network of volunteers, activists, and allied organizations advocating for the abolition of the very institution of war. Our success is driven by a people-powered movement – 
support our work for a culture of peace. 
              
World BEYOND War 513 E Main St #1484 Charlottesville, VA 22902 USA
Privacy policy.
Checks must be made out to "World BEYOND War / AFGJ" or we can't deposit them.



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Solidarity with Wayfair workers in their struggle to end profiteering from im/migrant suffering!

Worker power can bring an end to the concentration camps!


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Political Prisoners and Assange: Carole Seligman At S.F. Assange Rally
As part of an international action to free Julian Assange, a rally was held on June 12, 2019 at the US Federal Building in San Francisco and Carole Seligman was one of the speakers. She also speaks about imperialist wars and  the cases of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Fumiaki Hoshino.
For more info:
Production of Labor Video Project
www.laborvideo.org 

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Act Now to Save Mumia's Eyesight and to 

Demand His Release!


Tell them to approve Mumia's cataract surgery immediately!


Tell them to release Mumia Abu-Jamal NOW because he can receive better healthcare outside of prison and also because he is an innocent man!

Update



Prison officials turn away thousands of petitions for Mumia


Dozens of community activists traveled hundreds of miles from four states to Mechanicsburg, Penn., on July 24 to deliver petitions signed by 3,000 people from around the world, simply requesting the right to proper vision care for political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. They expected at the very least that someone with authority in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections would step out to accept the petitions.

The PA DOC instead placed several burly Capitol District cops and a couple of DOC staff members outside the front doors to "greet" the community representatives.

The activists fighting for Abu-Jamal's freedom — representing a global movement for the freedom of all political prisoners — insisted on their right to speak to John Wetzel, head of the state prison authority or one of his near-equals, before handing over the signatures from thousands of Mumia supporters.

Agreement to meet

Outside the main doors of the state facility, the first of two non-uniformed men to speak to the activists was a Mr. Barnacle. When Pam Africa, representing the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, asked who he was, he pulled out a badge marked "staff," dated 2018. When told someone with real authority and current identification was needed, Barnacle eventually agreed to allow three participants to enter the building to deliver the petitions to a DOC official.

While the assembled activists waited to be joined by people in two additional vehicles from New York City, Megan Malachi, from REAL Justice, read the petition to the press titled "Act Now to Save Mumia's Eyesight and to Demand His Release." (tinyurl.com/y4s3ekpr)

Aminata Sandra Calhoun, from Mobilization4Mumia, followed with a statement from Mumia's medical proxy, Rev. Mark Taylor, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, serving presently as Mumia's "spiritual advisor." The statement read in part:

"So far, the prison officials are discouraging and making complicated the eye-doctor's ability to share with me the medical information that Mumia wants me to have. They have not scheduled his surgery. Every cooperative effort on these matters is being made by Mumia's family and friends; still there is too much stalling by prison officials.

"We insist that SCI-Mahanoy and the PA DOC honor every legal step that Mumia needs to be taken, so that he receives quality eye-care immediately. He must no longer be subject to medical neglect or to any withholding of full information about his medical condition.

"The abuse Mumia suffered in the past nearly killed him, and even when finally addressed left him with cirrhosis of the liver. There is time for PA officials to turn a new corner." (tinyurl.com/yxvmabkr)

Abu Jamal has a lot of trouble reading and doing other tasks that require good eyesight. His eyesight is seriously threatened by glaucoma, a vitreous detachment and cataracts in both eyes. These jeopardize his quality of life and wellbeing, as well as his journalistic profession.

The ophthalmologist whom Abu-Jamal was taken to see outside Mahanoy Prison recommends surgical procedures to remove the cataracts on both eyes.
But months of delays echo the years of delays Abu-Jamal experienced before the DOC was finally forced by a federal court to treat him with the cure for hepatitis C in 2018.

DOC reneges on agreement

When three designated activists — Dr. Suzanne Ross, Rev. Keith Collins and a videographer — later tried to enter the DOC state headquarters, they were met by another DOC staff member, Ken Smith, who claimed he was a Major in "Special Operations," but would not show any valid identification to that effect.

Smith then reneged on the earlier agreement and said he would take the petitions, but would not allow the representatives to enter the building and meet with a DOC official.

The activists were unbending in their demand that a valid DOC person of authority formally accept, "on the record," the inch-think bundle at a location inside the building.

Dr. Ross, designated as one of the petition delivery trio, told Smith: "The DOC has already failed from 2015 to 2017 to make available to Mumia the cure that was available for hep C at that time. The two-year delay left Mumia with cirrhosis of the liver [and other hep C-related damage]. Mumia supporters are determined to prevent the damage that could be caused by a comparable delay in treating his visual problems … . We've been here before and met with people. One time it was with the head of the press office. Send us the press officer."

Rev. Keith Collins, who visited Mumia on July 4 and was also appointed to deliver the petitions, said: "I'm a pastor, a decorated veteran, a paratrooper, also an ex-cop … . We just want to deliver these petitions … . Mumia told me he can see to get around but not to read and that's very important — for a journalist to read and to study … . So we're here … to get him access to the doctor … and to let him come home. He's served forty years for a crime he did not commit."

Despite arguing for over an hour, the activists could not get the DOC to relent. Because of the commotion and locked doors, when a FedEx worker tried to deliver a package, no one on the outside would sign for it, and he was told to come back another time.

Yet the DOC wanted petitions from 3,000 people to be handed over to undesignated staff, off the record, with no way of tracking the petitions, which could immediately be trashed.

Finally, Abu-Jamal's supporters marched away, but not before Pam Africa said: "We're leaving now, but it's not over. Wetzel, we're going to find out wherever you be at, cause there ain't no power like the power of the people." The group left chanting, with the petitions in Rev. Collins' hands, undelivered.

Legal struggle continues

The DOC's refusal to meet with community representatives comes less than a week after the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court decision that Corrections Department employees could be sued for their decisions regarding the 65-year-old Mumia. Abu-Jamal asserts his initial denial of treatment with two antiviral drugs for hepatitis C violated his constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. In an unprecedented January 2017 decision, Federal District Court Judge Robert Mariani used that argument to order the DOC to treat Abu-Jamal with direct-acting antiviral medications for his hep C infection.
Abu-Jamal's supporters argue that because deliberate delay resulted in Mumia's cirrhosis of the liver and because the current delay in cataract surgery may cause further deterioration in his overall health, he should immediately be released to seek treatment that the DOC refuses to make readily available to him.

Abu-Jamal is not alone in enduring these cruel and unusual assaults on his health. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of state prisoners age 55 or older increased 400 percent between 1993 and 2013. Across the nation elderly prisoners experience a torturous journey toward the end of their lives, suffering from life-threatening illnesses without adequate treatment or any "compassionate release." Abu-Jamal's appeals for his right to treatment and for his release could result in increased rights for the freedom of all prisoners experiencing cruel and unusual conditions.

Abu-Jamal is serving a life sentence in the Pennsylvania prison system. The sentence, for the alleged 1981 murder of a Philadelphia policeman, came down in the context of a corruption-ridden and racist police department. That sentence has been declared unfair by human rights organizations and prison activists the world over.

Although Abu-Jamal has suffered a travesty of justice in the denial of his many appeals over the years, now both the Philadelphia District Attorney and the courts have recognized his right to have his appeals re-argued. This was determined by a momentous decision by Common Pleas Court Judge Leon Tucker in December 2018. Abu-Jamal is currently waiting for his Post Conviction Relief Act appeals to be reheard before a new panel of Pennsylvania Superior Court judges.

While the PA DOC remains resistant to giving Abu-Jamal his full rights to timely health care, and while the political powers in Pennsylvania continue to vilify him, Abu-Jamal and his supporters remain strong and energized by his recent court victories.
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
Questions and comments may be sent to info@freedomarchives.org


Mumia Abu-Jamal

Take Action:

1.    Sign the petition
2.    Call: Dr. Courtney P Rodgers – (570) 773-7851 and SCI Mahanoy Superintendent Theresa A. Delbalso - (570) 773-2158
3.    Call: Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf – (717) 787-2500; PA DOC Secretary John Wetzel – (717) 728-2573; Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner – (215) 686-8000


Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PA DOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733




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The Campaign To Bring Mumia Home


             
             

ONA MOVE
The MOVE Organization would like to bring to people's attention a very dangerous situation that is currently occurring with our Brother Delbert Africa. For the past two weeks Delbert has been suffering from severe swelling from the bottom of his waist all the way down to his toes. For the past two weeks prison officials at SCI Dallas have ignored Delbert's request for medical until this past week when several calls were made to his counselor. A medical visit was finally scheduled for this past Wednesday 7/31/2019 where it was explained to Delbert that he has a fluid build up which required to be drained. Delbert was immediately taken to an outside hospital; as of today 8/3/2019 we still do not know where Delbert is.
For several days now Delbert has been kept incommunicado from calling his MOVE Family, His Blood Daughter, and even his lawyer. Prison officials and also hospital officials will not give any one information pertaining to where Delbert is at.

Something very suspicious is happening here and it appears the same pattern that occurred with Phil Africa in 2015 where a simple stomach virus turned to a weeklong trip to the outside hospital held incommunicado from family and friends to return back to the prison and be placed in hospice care and to only die a day later. In 1998 Merle Africa who had a stomach virus was forced in her cell and told she was dying only to die a couple of hours later.

This system has no issue with murdering MOVE people and that's what they are trying to do with Delbert now. They have already given ground by letting innocent MOVE people out on parole and they do not want to do this with Delbert. As we said before, this system has always seen Delbert as the leader and isolated him and this latest tactic is no different. Delbert is set to go before the board this September after winning his appeal; now this happens.

As of now, we have heard that it has been stated based on the medical report given from Outside medical they are stating that Delbert has Anemia, High Potassium, High Psa's, Acute malignancy of lower intestines, Kidney Trouble, and Suspicion of prostate cancer. The only thing that Delbert has agreed to with any treatment or exams is the submission of a catheter to be used.

Delbert has requested a phone call to his MOVE Family, which neither the prison nor the hospital will allow. We are highly suspicious that this prison has done something to Delbert to bring on these symptoms so quickly. They could not kill Delbert August 8th after the brutal beating they gave him and now they want to finish the job before he can come home on parole.

These officials are so arrogant; this is the same way they murdered Phil Africa and Merle Africa .

As we have stated before, they have isolated our Brother so they can kill him. They won't let anyone speak to him. This is very dangerous!!!

We need people now to call

SCI Dallas Superintendent Kevin Ransom 570 675-1101
Geisenger Hospital 570 808-7300
We want people to demand that Delbert Orr Africa Am4895 be allowed to call his MOVE Family and let them know what's going on.

Even Though it's the weekend we are still asking people to call and Monday we are going full blast .

The MOVE Organization
People can reach
Sue Africa 215 387-4107
Carlos Africa 215 385-2772
Janine Africa 610 704 4524

          

"When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is just, yet refuse to defend it--at the moment you begin to die. And I have never seen so many corpses walking around talking about justice" 

-Mumia Abu-Jamal
Follow on Twitter | Friend on Facebook 
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50 years in prison: 
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!

FREE Chip Fitzgerald 
Grandfather, Father, Elder, Friend
former Black Panther 
              
Romaine "Chip" Fitzgerald has been in prison since he was locked up 50 years ago. A former member of the Black Panther Party, Chip is now 70 years old, and suffering the consequences of a serious stroke. He depends on a wheelchair for his mobility. He has appeared before the parole board 17 times, but they refuse to release him.

NOW is the time for Chip to come home!

In September 1969, Chip and two other Panthers were stopped by a highway patrolman. During the traffic stop, a shooting broke out, leaving Chip and a police officer both wounded. Chip was arrested a month later and charged with attempted murder of the police and an unrelated murder of a security guard. Though the evidence against him was weak and Chip denied any involvement, he was convicted and sentenced to death.

In 1972, the California Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty. Chip and others on Death Row had their sentences commuted to Life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. All of them became eligible for parole after serving 7 more years. But Chip was rejected for parole, as he has been ever since. 

Parole for Lifers basically stopped under Governors Deukmajian, Wilson, and Davis (1983-2003), resulting in increasing numbers of people in prison and 23 new prisons. People in prison filed lawsuits in federal courts: people were dying as a result of the overcrowding. To rapidly reduce the number of people in prison, the court mandated new parole hearings:
·        for anyone 60 years or older who had served 25 years or more;
·        for anyone convicted before they were 23 years old;
·        for anyone with disabilities 

Chip qualified for a new parole hearing by meeting all three criteria.

But the California Board of Parole Hearings has used other methods to keep Chip locked up. Although the courts ordered that prison rule infractions should not be used in parole considerations, Chip has been denied parole because he had a cellphone.

Throughout his 50 years in prison, Chip has been denied his right to due process – a new parole hearing as ordered by Federal courts. He is now 70, and addressing the challenges of a stroke victim. His recent rules violation of cellphone possession were non-violent and posed no threat to anyone. He has never been found likely to commit any crimes if released to the community – a community of his children, grandchildren, friends and colleagues who are ready to support him and welcome him home.

The California Board of Parole Hearings is holding Chip hostage.

We call on Governor Newsom to release Chip immediately.

What YOU can do to support this campaign to FREE CHIP:


1)   Sign and circulate the petition to FREE Chip. Download it at https://www.change.org/p/california-free-chip-fitzgerald
Print out the petition and get signatures at your workplace, community meeting, or next social gathering.

2)   Write an email to Governor Newsom's office (sample message at:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwbP_eQEg2J1T2h-tLKE-Dn2ZfpuLx9MuNv2z605DMc/edit?usp=sharing

3)   Write to Chip: Romaine "Chip" Fitzgerald #B27527,
CSP-LAC
P.O. Box 4490
B-4-150
Lancaster, CA 93539

--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/

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Support Chuck Africa for Parole

Michael Africa Jr. started this petition to Pennsylvania Governor


Charles Sims Africa #AM 4975 has been in prison since age 18. He is now 59 years old and a recovering cancer patient. He has been eligible for parole since 2008 but continually denied because of  his political views.
Charles has 8 codefendants. Two has died in prison, four has been released from prison onto parole. Chuck's sister Debbie Sims Africa is one of the four codefendants released onto parole.
Since coming home from prison, Debbie is thriving. Our community of support has supported Debbie to excel and we are committed to do the same for Chuck so that he can excel as well. 
http://chng.it/Yprs8pXBBp

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On Abortion: From Facebook

Best explanation I've heard so far..., Copied from a friend who copied from a friend who copied..., "Last night, I was in a debate about these new abortion laws being passed in red states. My son stepped in with this comment which was a show stopper. One of the best explanations I have read:, , 'Reasonable people can disagree about when a zygote becomes a "human life" - that's a philosophical question. However, regardless of whether or not one believes a fetus is ethically equivalent to an adult, it doesn't obligate a mother to sacrifice her body autonomy for another, innocent or not., , Body autonomy is a critical component of the right to privacy protected by the Constitution, as decided in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), McFall v. Shimp (1978), and of course Roe v. Wade (1973). Consider a scenario where you are a perfect bone marrow match for a child with severe aplastic anemia; no other person on earth is a close enough match to save the child's life, and the child will certainly die without a bone marrow transplant from you. If you decided that you did not want to donate your marrow to save the child, for whatever reason, the state cannot demand the use of any part of your body for something to which you do not consent. It doesn't matter if the procedure required to complete the donation is trivial, or if the rationale for refusing is flimsy and arbitrary, or if the procedure is the only hope the child has to survive, or if the child is a genius or a saint or anything else - the decision to donate must be voluntary to be constitutional. This right is even extended to a person's body after they die; if they did not voluntarily commit to donate their organs while alive, their organs cannot be harvested after death, regardless of how useless those organs are to the deceased or how many lives they would save., , That's the law., , Use of a woman's uterus to save a life is no different from use of her bone marrow to save a life - it must be offered voluntarily. By all means, profess your belief that providing one's uterus to save the child is morally just, and refusing is morally wrong. That is a defensible philosophical position, regardless of who agrees and who disagrees. But legally, it must be the woman's choice to carry out the pregnancy., , She may choose to carry the baby to term. She may choose not to. Either decision could be made for all the right reasons, all the wrong reasons, or anything in between. But it must be her choice, and protecting the right of body autonomy means the law is on her side. Supporting that precedent is what being pro-choice means.", , Feel free to copy/paste and re-post., y
Sent from my iPhone

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Celebrating the release of Janet and Janine Africa
Take action now to support Jalil A. Muntaqim's release


Jalil A. Muntaqim was a member of the Black Panther Party and has been a political prisoner for 48 years since he was arrested at the age of 19 in 1971. He has been denied parole 11 times since he was first eligible in 2002, and is now scheduled for his 12th parole hearing. Additionally, Jalil has filed to have his sentence commuted to time served by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Visit Jalil's support page, check out his writing and poetry, and Join Critical Resistance in supporting a vibrant intergenerational movement of freedom fighters in demanding his release.

48 years is enough. Write, email, call, and tweet at Governor Cuomo in support of Jalil's commutation and sign this petition demanding his release.

http://freedomarchives.org/Support.Jalil/Campaign.html
Write:
The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo
Governor of the State of New York
Executive Chamber State Capital Building
Albany, New York 12224

Michelle Alexander – Author, The New Jim Crow
Ed Asner - Actor and Activist
Charles Barron - New York Assemblyman, 60th District
Inez Barron - Counci member, 42nd District, New York City Council
Rosa Clemente - Scholar Activist and 2008 Green Party Vice-Presidential candidate
Patrisse Cullors – Co-Founder Black Lives Matter, Author, Activist
Elena Cohen - President, National Lawyers Guild
"Davey D" Cook - KPFA Hard Knock Radio
Angela Davis - Professor Emerita, University of California, Santa Cruz
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - Native American historian, writer and feminist
Mike Farrell - Actor and activist
Danny Glover – Actor and activist
Linda Gordon - New York University
Marc Lamont Hill - Temple University
Jamal Joseph - Columbia University
Robin D.G. Kelley - University of California, Los Angeles
Tom Morello - Rage Against the Machine
Imani Perry - Princeton University
Barbara Ransby - University of Illinois, Chicago
Boots Riley - Musician, Filmmaker
Walter Riley - Civil rights attorney
Dylan Rodriguez - University of California, Riverside, President American Studies Association
Maggie Siff, Actor
Heather Ann Thompson - University of Michigan
Cornel West - Harvard University
Institutional affiliations listed for identification purposes only
Call: 1-518-474-8390

Email Gov. Cuomo with this form

Tweet at @NYGovCuomo
Any advocacy or communications to Gov. Cuomo must refer to Jalil as:
ANTHONY JALIL BOTTOM, 77A4283,
Sullivan Correctional Facility,
P.O. Box 116,
Fallsburg, New York 12733-0116


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Painting by Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on San Quentin's death row. www.freekevincooper.org

Decarcerate Louisiana

Declaration of Undersigned Prisoners
We, the undersigned persons, committed to the care and custody of the Louisiana Department of Corrections (LDOC), hereby submit the following declaration and petition bearing witness to inhumane conditions of solitary confinement in the N-1 building at the David Wade Corrections Center (DWCC). 
Our Complaint:
We, the Undersigned Persons, declare under penalty of perjury: 
1.    We, the undersigned, are currently housed in the N-1 building at DWCC, 670 Bell Hill Road, Homer, LA 71040. 
2.    We are aware that the Constitution, under the 8th Amendment, bans cruel and unusual punishments; the Amendment also imposes duties on prison officials who must provide humane conditions of confinement and ensure that inmates receive adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and must take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates. 
3.    We are aware that Louisiana prison officials have sworn by LSA-R.S.15:828 to provide humane treatment and rehabilitation to persons committed to its care and to direct efforts to return every person in its custody to the community as promptly as practicable. 
4.    We are confined in a double-bunked six-by-nine foot or 54 square feet cell with another human being 22-hours-a-day and are compelled to endure the degrading experience of being in close proximity of another human being while defecating. 
5.    There are no educational or rehabilitation programs for the majority of prisoners confined in the N-1 building except for a selected few inmates who are soon to be released. 
6.    We get one hour and 30 minutes on the yard and/or gym seven days a week. Each day we walk to the kitchen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which takes about one minute to get there. We are given ten minutes to eat. 
7.    The daily planner for inmates confined in the N-1 building is to provide inmates one hour and 30 minutes on yard or gym; escort inmates to kitchen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to sit and eat for approximately ten minutes each meal; provide a ten minute shower for each cell every day; provide one ten minute phone call per week; confine prisoners in cell 22-hours-a-day. 
8.    When we are taking a shower we are threatened by guards with disciplinary reports if we are not out on time. A typical order is: "if you are not out of shower in ten minutes pack your shit and I'm sending you back to N-2, N-3, or N-4"—a more punitive form of solitary confinement. 
9.    When walking outside to yard, gym or kitchen, guards order us to put our hands behind our back or they'll write us up and send us back to N-2, N-3, N-4. 
10.  When we are sitting at the table eating, guards order us not to talk or they'll write us up and send us back to N-2, N-3, N-4. ) 
11.  Guards are harassing us every day and are threatening to write up disciplinary reports and send us back to a more punitive cellblock (N-2, N-3, N-4) if we question any arbitrary use of authority or even voice an opinion in opposition to the status quo. Also, guards take away good time credits, phone, TV, radio, canteen, and contact visits for talking too loud or not having hands behind back or for any reason they want. We are also threatened with slave labor discipline including isolation (removing mattress from cell from 5:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M.,) strip cell (removing mattress and bedding and stationery from cell for ten to 30 days or longer), food loaf  (taking one's meal for breakfast, lunch, or dinner and mixing it all together into one big mass, bake it in oven and serve it to prisoners for punishment.)
12.  When prison guards write up disciplinary reports and transfer us to the more punitive restrictive solitary confinement in N-2, N-3, N-4 or N-5, guards then enforce an arbitrary rule that gives prisoners the ultimatum of sending all their books and personal property home or let the prison dispose of it. 
13.  Louisiana prison officials charge indigent prisoners (who earn less than four cents an hour) $3.00 for routine requests for healthcare services, $6.00 for emergency medical requests, and $2.00 for each new medical prescription. They wait until our family and friends send us money and take it to pay prisoners' medical bills. 
Our concerns:
14.  How much public monies are appropriated to the LDOC budget and specifically allotted to provide humane treatment and implement the rehabilitation program pursuant to LSA- R.S.15:828? 
15.  Why does Elayn Hunt Correctional Center located in the capitol of Louisiana have so many educational and rehabilitation programs teaching prisoners job and life skills for reentry whereas there are no such programs to engage the majority of prisoners confined in the N-1, N- 2, N-3, and N-4 solitary confinement buildings at DWCC. 
16.  It is customary for Louisiana prison officials and DWCC prison guards to tell inmates confined in the prison's cellblocks to wait until transfer to prison dormitory to participate in programs when in fact there are no such programs available and ready to engage the majority of the state's 34,000 prisoner population. The programs are especially needed for prisoners confined in a six-by-nine foot or 54 square feet cell with another person for 22-or-more-hours-per-day. 
17.  Why can't prisoners use phone and computers every day to communicate with family and peers as part of rehabilitation and staying connected to the community? 
18.  Why do prisoners have to be transferred miles and miles away from loved ones to remote correctional facilities when there are facilities closer to loved ones? 
19.  Why are prison guards allowed to treat prisoners as chattel slaves, confined in cages 22-or-more-hours-per-day, take away phone calls and visitation and canteen at will, and take away earned good time credits for any reason at all without input from family, one's peers and community? 
20.  Why do the outside communities allow prison guards to create hostile living environments and conditions of confinement that leaves prisoners in a state of chattel slavery, stress, anxiety, anger, rage, inner torment, despair, worry, and in a worse condition from when we first entered the prison? 
21.  Why do state governments and/or peers in the community allow racist or bigoted white families who reside in the rural and country parts of Louisiana to run the state's corrections system with impunity? For example, DWCC Warden Jerry Goodwin institutes racist and bigoted corrections policies and practices for the very purpose of oppression, repression, antagonizing and dehumanizing the inmates who will one day be released from prison. 
22.  David Wade Correctional Center Colonel Lonnie Nail, a bigot and a racist, takes his orders from Warden Jerry Goodwin, another racist and bigot. Both Goodwin and Nail influences subordinate corrections officers to act toward prisoners in a racist or bigoted manner and with an arrogant attitude. This creates a hostile living environment and debilitating conditions of confinement for both guards and prisoners and prevents rehabilitation of inmates.
23.  In other industrialized democracies like Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, et al, it is reported that no prisoner should be declared beyond reform or redemption without first attempting to rehabilitate them. Punitive or harsh conditions of confinement are not supported because they see the loss of freedom inherent in a prison sentence as punishment enough. One Netherlands official reported that their motto is to start with the idea of "Reintegration back into society on day one" when people are locked up. "You can't make an honest argument that how someone is treated while incarcerated doesn't affect how they behave when they get out," the official added. 
24.  Additionally, some Scandinavian countries have adopted open prison programs without fences or armed guards. Prisoners who prove by their conduct that they can be trusted are placed in a prison resembling a college campus more than a prison. The result is a 20 percent recidivism rate, compared to a 67 percent rate in the United States. 
25.  The National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) in a position statement says: "Prolonged (greater than 15 consecutive days) solitary confinement is cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, and harmful to an individual's health."
 What We Believe: 
26.  We believe that when the greater portion of public monies goes to war and the military, this leaves little funds left for community reinvestment and human development.The people have less access to resources by which to get a better idea of human behavior and rely on higher education instead of prison to solve cultural, social, political, economic problems in the system that may put people at risk to domestic violence and crime as a way to survive and cope with shortcomings in the system. 
27.  We believe that investing public monies in the rehabilitation program LSA-R.S.15:828 to teach prisoners job and life skills will redeem inmates, instill morals, and make incarcerated people productive and fit for society. 
28.  We believe that confining inmates in cellblocks 15-or-more=hours-per-day is immoral, uncivilized, brutalizing, a waste of time and counter-productive to rehabilitation and society's goals of "promoting the general welfare" and "providing a more perfect union with justice for all." 
29.  We believe that corrections officers who prove by their actions that incarcerated people are nothing more than chattel slaves are bucking the laws and creating hardening criminals and these corrections officers are, therefore, a menace to society. 
Our Demands:
30.  We are demanding a public conversation from community activists and civil rights leaders about (1) the historic relationship between chattel slavery, the retaliatory assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and the resurrection of slavery written into the 13th Amendment; (2) the historic relationship between the 13th Amendment, the backlash against Reconstruction, Peonage, Convict Leasing, and Slavery; (3) the historic relationship between the 13th Amendment, the War Against Poverty, the War on Drugs, Criminal Justice and Prison Slavery. 
31.  We demand that the Louisiana legislature pass the Decarcerate Louisiana Anti-Slavery and Freedom Liberation Act of 2020 into law and end prison slavery and the warehousing of incarcerated people for the very purpose of repression, oppression, and using prisoners and their families and supporters as a profit center for corporate exploitation and to generate revenue to balance the budget and stimulate the state economy. 
32.  We are demanding that Warden Jerry Goodwin and Colonel Lonnie Nail step down and be replaced by people are deemed excellent public servants in good standing with human rights watchdog groups and civil rights community. 
33.  We are demanding that the LDOC provide public monies to operate state prison dormitories and cellblocks as rehabilitation centers to teach incarcerated people job and life skills five-days-a-week from 7:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. 
34.  We are demanding that the LDOC release a public statement announcing that "from this day forward it will not support punitive or harsh conditions of confinement," and that "no prisoner should be declared beyond reform or redemption without first attempting to rehabilitate them."
35.  We are demanding that the prison cellblocks be operated as open dormitories (made in part a health clinic and part college campus) so that incarcerated people can have enough space to walk around and socialize, participate in class studies, exercise, use telephone as the need arise. Prisoners are already punished by incarceration so there is no need to punish or further isolate them. Racism and abuse of power will not be tolerated. 
36.  We are demanding an end to unjust policies and practices that impose punishments and deprive incarcerated people of phone calls, visitation, canteen, good time credits, books and other personal property that pose no threat to public safety. 
37.  We are demanding that LDOC provide incarcerated people cellphones and computers to communicate with the public and stay connected to the community. 
38.  We are demanding the right to communicate with reporters to aid and assist incarcerated persons in preparing a press release to communicate to the public Decarcerate Louisiana's vision and mission statements, aims, and plans for moving forward. 
39.  We are demanding the right to participate in the U.S.-European Criminal Justice Innovation Project and share our complaint, concerns, and demands for a humane corrections program. 
40.  We are only demanding the right to enough space to create, to innovate, to excel in learning, to use scientific knowledge to improve our person and place and standing in the free world. The rule of law must support the betterment and uplifting of all humanity. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said: "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." 
41.  We demand that the responsibility for prisoner medical care be removed from DOC wardens and place it under the management of the state's health office; increase state health officer staff to better monitor prisoner healthcare and oversee vendor contracts. 
42.  We have a God-given right and responsibility to resist abuse of power from the wrongdoers, to confront unjust authority and oppression, to battle for justice until we achieve our demands for liberation and freedom. 
We, the undersigned, declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. 
Executed on this 28th Day of January 2019. 
Ronald Brooks #385964 
David Johnson #84970 
Freddie Williams #598701 
Earl Hollins #729041 
James Harris #399514 
Tyrone Carter #550354 
Kerry Carter #392013 
Ivo Richardson #317371 
Rondrikus Fulton #354313 
Kentell Simmons #601717 
Jayvonte Pines #470985 
Deandre Miles #629008 
Kenneth P. #340729 
Brandon Ceaser #421453 
Tyronne Ward #330964 
Jermaine Atkins #448421 
Charles Rodgers #320513 
Steve Givens #557854 
Timothy Alfred #502378 
—wsimg.com, January 2019
https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/1f4bce95-7ddd-4b2d-8ee7-d8edf36f394f/downloads/Declaration_of_Undersigned_Prisoners.pdf?ver=1555809786117



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New Prison and Jail Population Figures Released by U.S. Department of Justice

By yearend 2017, the United States prison population had declined by 7.3% since reaching its peak level in 2009, according to new data released by the Department of Justice. The prison population decreases are heavily influenced by a handful of states that have reduced their populations by 30% or more in recent years. However, as of yearend 2017 more than half the states were still experiencing increases in their populations or rates of decline only in the single digits. 
Analysis of the new data by The Sentencing Project reveals that: 
  • The United States remains as the world leader in its rate of incarceration, locking up its citizens at 5-10 times the rate of other industrialized nations. At the current rate of decline it will take 75 years to cut the prison population by 50%.
      
  • The population serving life sentences is now at a record high. One of every seven individuals in prison – 206,000 – is serving life.
      
  • Six states have reduced their prison populations by at least 30% over the past two decades – Alaska, Connecticut, California, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont.  
  • The rate of women's incarceration has been rising at a faster rate than men's since the 1980s, and declines in recent years have been slower than among men.
      
  • Racial disparities in women's incarceration have changed dramatically since the start of the century. Black women were incarcerated at 6 times the rate of white women in 2000, while the 2017 figure is now 1.8 times that rate. These changes have been a function of both a declining number of black women in prison and a rising number of white women. For Hispanic women, the ratio has changed from 1.6 times that of white women in 2000 to 1.4 times in 2017. 
The declines in prison and jail populations reported by the Department of Justice today are encouraging, but still fall far short of what is necessary for meaningful criminal justice reform. In order to take the next step in ending mass incarceration policymakers will need to scale back excessive sentencing for all offenses, a key factor which distinguishes the U.S. from other nations. 

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[Note: China's population is 1,419,147,756* as of April 26, 2019 with 1,649,804 in prison***; while the population of the USA is 328,792,291 as of April 27, 2019** with 2,121,600 in prison.*** 
*http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/china-population/
**https://www.census.gov/popclock/
***https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate]


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Courage to Resist
daniel hale drone activist
Drone vet turned activist facing 50 years for whistle-blowing
Daniel Hale, an Air Force veteran and former US intelligence analyst was arrested May 9th and charged with violating the Espionage Act. Daniel is a well-known anti-drone activist who has spoken out a number of anti-war events and conferences. He's a member of About Face: Veterans Against the War, and he's featured in the documentary "National Bird." For years, Daniel has expressed concern that he'd be targeted by the government.  Learn more.
Hal Muskat
Podcast: "There were US anti-war soldiers all over the world" - Hal Muskat
"I told my command officer that I wasn't going to, I was refusing my orders [to Vietnam] … In his rage, he thought if he court-martialed me, he'd have to stay in the Army past his discharge date." While stationed in Europe, Hal Muskat refused orders to Vietnam and joined the GI Movement, resulting in two court martials. This Courage to Resist podcast was produced in collaboration with the Vietnam Full Disclosure effort of Veterans For Peace. Listen to Hal Muskat's story.



Chelsea Manning returned to jail after brief release; Faces half million dollar fine in addition to another 18 months prison
chelsea manning resists
Since our last newsletter less than two weeks ago, Chelsea Manning was freed from jail when the grand jury investigating Julian Assange and WikiLeaks expired. However, a few days later, she was sent back to jail for refusing to collaborate with a new grand jury on the same subject. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga ordered Chelsea fined $500 every day she is in custody after 30 days and $1,000 every day she is in custody after 60 days -- a possible total of $502,000. Statement from Chelsea's lawyers.
Stand with Reality Winner, rally in DC
chelsea manning resists
June 3, 2019 at 7pm (Monday)
Lafayette Square, Washington DC 
Please join friends and supporters as we raise awareness of the persecution of this young veteran and brave truth teller. This marks two years of imprisonment of Reality for helping to expose hacking attempts on US election systems leading up to the 2016 presidential election. For more info, visit the "Stand with Reality" pages on Twitter or FacebookOrder "Stand with Reality" shirts, banners, and buttons from Left Together protest shirts.


COURAGE TO RESIST ~ SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT!
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559
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Funds for Kevin Cooper

https://www.gofundme.com/funds-for-kevin-cooper?member=1994108

For 34 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California. 

Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here . 

In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered  limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison. 

The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, paper, toiletries, supplementary food, and/or phone calls.

Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!




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Don't extradite Assange!

To the government of the UK
Julian Assange, through Wikileaks, has done the world a great service in documenting American war crimes, its spying on allies and other dirty secrets of the world's most powerful regimes, organisations and corporations. This has not endeared him to the American deep state. Both Obama, Clinton and Trump have declared that arresting Julian Assange should be a priority. We have recently received confirmation [1] that he has been charged in secret so as to have him extradited to the USA as soon as he can be arrested. 
Assange's persecution, the persecution of a publisher for publishing information [2] that was truthful and clearly in the interest of the public - and which has been republished in major newspapers around the world - is a danger to freedom of the press everywhere, especially as the USA is asserting a right to arrest and try a non-American who neither is nor was then on American soil. The sentence is already clear: if not the death penalty then life in a supermax prison and ill treatment like Chelsea Manning. The very extradition of Julian Assange to the United States would at the same time mean the final death of freedom of the press in the West. 
The courageous nation of Ecuador has offered Assange political asylum within its London embassy for several years until now. However, under pressure by the USA, the new government has made it clear that they want to drive Assange out of the embassy and into the arms of the waiting police as soon as possible. They have already curtailed his internet and his visitors and turned the heating off, leaving him freezing in a desolate state for the past few months and leading to the rapid decline of his health, breaching UK obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights. Therefore, our demand both to the government of Ecuador and the government of the UK is: don't extradite Assange to the US! Guarantee his human rights, make his stay at the embassy as bearable as possible and enable him to leave the embassy towards a secure country as soon as there are guarantees not to arrest and extradite him. Furthermore, we, as EU voters, encourage European nations to take proactive steps to protect a journalist in danger. The world is still watching.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/us/politics/julian-assange-indictment-wikileaks.html
[2] https://theintercept.com/2018/11/16/as-the-obama-doj-concluded-prosecution-of-julian-assange-for-publishing-documents-poses-grave-threats-to-press-freedom/
https://internal.diem25.org/en/petitions/1

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Words of Wisdom

Louis Robinson Jr., 77
Recording secretary for Local 1714 of the United Auto Workers from 1999 to 2018, with the minutes from a meeting of his union's retirees' chapter.

"One mistake the international unions in the United States made was when Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers. When he did that, the unions could have brought this country to a standstill. All they had to do was shut down the truck drivers for a month, because then people would not have been able to get the goods they needed. So that was one of the mistakes they made. They didn't come together as organized labor and say: "No. We aren't going for this. Shut the country down." That's what made them weak. They let Reagan get away with what he did. A little while after that, I read an article that said labor is losing its clout, and I noticed over the years that it did. It happened. It doesn't feel good."

[On the occasion of the shut-down of the Lordstown, Ohio GM plant March 6, 2019.]
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/01/magazine/lordstown-general-motors-plant.html

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Get Malik Out of Ad-Seg


Keith "Malik" Washington is an incarcerated activist who has spoken out on conditions of confinement in Texas prison and beyond:  from issues of toxic water and extreme heat, to physical and sexual abuse of imprisoned people, to religious discrimination and more.  Malik has also been a tireless leader in the movement to #EndPrisonSlavery which gained visibility during nationwide prison strikes in 2016 and 2018.  View his work at comrademalik.com or write him at:

Keith H. Washington
TDC# 1487958
McConnell Unit
3001 S. Emily Drive
Beeville, TX 78102
Friends, it's time to get Malik out of solitary confinement.

Malik has experienced intense, targeted harassment ever since he dared to start speaking against brutal conditions faced by incarcerated people in Texas and nationwide--but over the past few months, prison officials have stepped up their retaliation even more.

In Administrative Segregation (solitary confinement) at McConnell Unit, Malik has experienced frequent humiliating strip searches, medical neglect, mail tampering and censorship, confinement 23 hours a day to a cell that often reached 100+ degrees in the summer, and other daily abuses too numerous to name.  It could not be more clear that they are trying to make an example of him because he is a committed freedom fighter.  So we have to step up.


Who to contact:
TDCJ Executive Director Bryan Collier
Phone: (936)295-6371

Senior Warden Philip Sinfuentes (McConnell Unit)
Phone: (361) 362-2300

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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.

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.

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

Major Tillery Needs Your Help:


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:
    Security Processing Center
    Major Tillery AM 9786
    268 Bricker Road
    Bellefonte, PA 16823
    For More Information, Go To: JusticeForMajorTillery.org
    Call/Write:
    Kamilah Iddeen (717) 379-9009, Kamilah29@yahoo.com
    Rachel Wolkenstein (917) 689-4009, RachelWolkenstein@gmail.com




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    ILPDC NEWSLETTER BANNER
      

    On Monday March 4th, 2019 Leonard Peltier was advised that his request for a transfer had been unceremoniously denied by the United States Bureau of Prisons.

    The International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee appreciates and thanks the large number of his supporters who took the time to write, call, email, or fax the BOP in support of Leonard's request for a transfer.
    Those of us who have been supporting Leonard's freedom for a number of years are disappointed but resolute to continue pushing for his freedom and until that day, to continue to push for his transfer to be closer to his relatives and the Indigenous Nations who support him.
    44 years is too damn long for an innocent man to be locked up. How can his co-defendants be innocent on the grounds of self-defense but Leonard remains in prison? The time is now for all of us to dig deep and do what we can and what we must to secure freedom for Leonard Peltier before it's too late.
    We need the support of all of you now, more than ever. The ILPDC plans to appeal this denial of his transfer to be closer to his family. We plan to demand he receive appropriate medical care, and to continue to uncover and utilize every legal mechanism to secure his release. To do these things we need money to support the legal work.
    Land of the Brave postcard-page-0

    Please call the ILPDC National office or email us for a copy of the postcard you can send to the White House. We need your help to ask President Trump for Leonard's freedom.
      


    Free Leonard Peltier!


    Art by Leonard Peltier
    Write to:
    Leonard Peltier 89637-132
    USP Coleman 1,  P.O. Box 1033
    Coleman, FL 33521

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    Working people are helping to feed the poor hungry corporations! 
    Charity for the Wealthy!

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    1) "Better Living Through Chemistry?" Think Again!

    By Chris Kinder, May/June 2019 Socialist Viewpoint, Vol. 19, No. 3
    http://socialistviewpoint.org/mayjun_19/mayjun_19_29.html

    The Fight Against Monsanto's Roundup, the Politics of Pesticides
    Mitchel Cohen and others. Forward by Vandana Shiva
    Skyhorse Publishing
    New York, 2019
    "Better Living Through Chemistry" was an advertising slogan, I think for Dow Chemical, seen on black and white TV when I was a youth in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It all seemed so innocent back then. But it never was. 
    The stuff chemical giants like Dow, Dupont, etc., were selling then—pesticides such as DDT and malathion for instance—were all part of an explosion of chemical products following World War II, most based on the development of chemical warfare during the war. Development for war continued, as with the notorious Agent Orange—the long-lasting and harmful effects of which were covered up by Dow and Monsanto—used in the devastating U.S. war on Vietnam. But proliferation of toxic chemicals doesn't stop there. 
    Massive applications of pesticides and herbicides such as Monsanto's Roundup, along with genetically-engineered crops and artificial fertilizers, have transformed big agriculture in a new sort of war. The "green revolution" was supposed to help "feed the world," but we now see it as not only promoting U.S. imperialist interests for market domination, but also actually destroying healthy food production worldwide, all in the name of profit. But imperial domination on the farm fields is only one side of the widespread effects of chemical saturation on humans, animals and the environment.

    Roundup causes cancer

    Roundup's reputation as a cancer-causing poison has been getting some well-deserved ink lately, with a couple of precedent-setting court wins by victims. Over a thousand additional cases against Monsanto are pending. Despite Monsanto's lying insistence that Roundup attacks plants only, not animals, a high correlation between Roundup usage and contraction of non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a cancer that starts in the white blood cells—which are key to the body's immune system—has been found—but not by U.S. regulatory agencies! 
    It took the World Health Organization's cancer unit, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), to find that glyphosate—the key ingredient in Roundup—was a "probable cause" of cancer in humans and animals. U.S. regulatory agencies, compromised by collusion with chemical corporations—under both Democratic and Republican administrations—were AWOL on this issue.  Unfortunately, the IARC finding came only in 2017, over 40 years after the introduction of Roundup as a herbicide, and after it had already been widely used by the cancer victims coming forward today.

    Activists and scientists take on Monsanto

    Environmental activist, anarchist and poet Mitchel Cohen is the lead author and editor of this book, which includes 14 other authors, including Brian Tokar, lecturer on environmental studies at the University of Vermont; Steve Tvedten, who describes the lessons of his 50 years as a pest control operator; and Stephanie Seneff, PhD, a senior research scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. The preface is by Vandana Shiva, PhD, an Indian scholar, physicist, and environmental and food sovereignty advocate and activist. Together, these writers describe a disturbing and alarming story of the poisoning of the earth in graphic detail. 
    Cohen, as a co-founder of the No Spray Coalition, is a veteran of this struggle and many others. As a leader of the No-Spray Coalition, he helped win a seven-year fight against then New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani's indiscriminate spraying of the organophosphate malathion by aircraft and spray trucks over the city to combat the so-called West Nile Virus. He also organized a campaign to rid NYC public schools of milk from cows injected with Bovine Growth Hormone, a genetically-engineered monstrosity also from Monsanto, also discussed in this book. Mitchel is a long-time Green Party activist who has run for mayor of New York City. And he's a poet, with compilations delightfully titled, One-Eyed Cat Takes Flight, and The Permanent Carnival

    Spraying the city

    This West Nile virus was much less of a threat than it was portrayed. The spraying operation killed more people than the virus ever did, including people sprayed, and operators of the trucks doing the spraying! Eight members of the No-Spray Coalition itself died from cancers or other disorders caused or exacerbated by the spraying. 
    Mitchel describes his first encounter with the spraying:
    "[September 4th, 1999] I was strolling through Prospect Park in Brooklyn on that warm day near the end of summer. Hundreds of people were out in the park sunbathing, reading, kissing, walking their dogs. Kids were everywhere playing baseball and soccer. Suddenly, helicopters buzzed just above the tree line spraying a substance we later learned was malathion—one of a class of organophosphate pesticides invented as a nerve gas by the Nazis in World War II—spewing out in substantial bursts. They drenched 526-acre Prospect Park that afternoon, spraying the malathion over and onto hundreds of children. There were a few police cars patrolling, but none of them warned people to get out of the park and off the streets. I ran like a lunatic trying to get the kids away from the spray. And then I held my breath as long as I could and ran out of the park."

    The politics of pesticides

    The politics of all this is never far from Cohen's (and the other authors') rendering. The title of the Chapter in which this personal experience is reported is, "Poisoning the Big Apple—Forgotten History in the Lead-Up to 9/11." Two years before 9/11, as Mitchel reports, U.S. government officials were ramping up preparations for an attack on Saddam Hussein. Hussein, they said, "...had sent to New York City some arcane virus that was killing birds, mostly crows, and that it could be transmitted to people by mosquitoes. Panic ensued." Just as today as Trump's personal lawyer, Giuliani, then working from his bunker in the World Trade Center, was in lock-step with the nefarious plans of U.S. imperialism.
    The intertwining of the development and use of noxious chemicals such as malathion and Monsanto's Roundup with the international aims of U.S. capitalism is central to this book. Roundup, as well as genetically-engineered crops pioneered by Monsanto to work in tandem with it, is shown to be a key to the transformation of agriculture in the U.S., and to U.S. designs to dominate world food markets, as well as to Monsanto's immense profits, of course. This war by other means has devastated agriculture worldwide from Mexico to India, and threatens the health of farmers and others who use Roundup, as well as the health of the soil, the very basis of all agriculture.

    Glyphosate is derived from an amino acid

    Roundup's key ingredient, glyphosate, is a derivative of the amino acid glycine. (This connection with glycine forms another whole side of the story.) It was discovered in 1950, acquired years later by Monsanto, and formulated for use as an herbicide. Widespread usage began in the 1970s, but the proliferation of this poison shot up dramatically when Monsanto came up with a neat little trick to corner a key agricultural market for itself: the development of genetically-engineered (GE) "Roundup ready" crops. Use of these pesticide-saturated GE crops—soon to be dubbed "franken foods"—caused sales to skyrocket for Monsanto because Roundup could be sprayed randomly over the fields, killing "weeds" everywhere, without harming the crop. 
    While Roundup reduced labor costs for farmers by eliminating the need for weed removal by hand, Monsanto profited both from Roundup sales and also by monopolizing the market for the seeds. This, together with other GE monstrosities such as seeds programmed to produce plants which lack viable seeds, prevents farmers from saving their seeds for future planting. But this is what farmers have done for millennia!

    A death-knell for agriculture 

    All of this is part of a swift and sure demolition of today's agriculture. The advent of synthetic pesticides after World War II helped launch a new era, that of mono-cropping on huge factory farms using pest control with chemicals sprayed regularly as preventatives. Mono-cropping itself encourages the development of insect predators on the huge single-crop fields, but the pesticide spraying (allegedly) took care of that—until it didn't.
    Insects, given their short life-spans—like the bacteria that have developed resistance to antibiotics—can evolve many, many times faster than large mammals such as humans. Crop-eating insects did just that, developing immunities to pesticides, despite numerous replacements of pesticide/herbicide chemicals with new, stronger poisons. This includes Roundup.
    Steve Tvedten, a former pest-control operator for over 50 years, reports in Chapter 11 that despite 70 years of "waging continuous chemical warfare, we have not controlled much less eliminated a single pest species. In fact, there are now many more pests causing much more damage than when we first began to spray pesticides after World War II!" One would think that scientists could have predicted this disaster.

    A fungus now immune to drugs

    As I was starting to write this review, and wondering how I could even begin to describe the vast amount of information in this book, a front-page article in the New York Times caught my eye: "Fungus Immune to Drugs Quietly Sweeps the Globe" (NYT April 7, 2019.) The story, part of a series called "Deadly Germs, Lost Cures," documents the "urgent" threat posed by a fungus germ, Candida auris. Apparently impervious to medications, C. aurishas caused panic in some medical establishments because of its apparent immunity to treatment, its ability to stubbornly permeate hospital environments, and its sometimes lethal effects. C. aurishas been around in relatively harmless forms for thousands of years, but apparently now there is this new strain. Dutch researcher Dr. Meis is quoted saying that "drug-resistant fungi were developing thanks to heavy use of fungicides on crops."
    Enter Roundup. While Cohen's book does not deal in any detail with fungi or fungicides specifically, it does make the point that glyphosate is toxic to more than just plants, and that it destroys the soil on farms by attacking the living organisms within. As University of Vermont lecturer Brian Tokar reports in Chapter 4, "[Roundup] is 100 times more toxic to fish than to people and is toxic to earthworms, soil bacteria, and beneficial fungi." Roundup and similar pesticides have to continually be ramped up or replaced with more toxic formulas, due to the rapid evolution of plants, which—as with bacteria, and the fungi in the soil—adapt to these poisons quickly.

    The interconnection of everything: "what is a weed?"

    This connection with a story on a fungus run amok in the New York Timesgoes to the heart of Mitchel Cohen's book: the interconnection of everything. In his Chapter 18 (Mitchel's seven Chapters are dispersed throughout the book,) He goes to the heart of science today; that is, science as dominated by capitalist corporations like Monsanto, versus what it ought to be. This not just about the facts—well discussed in this book—of Monsanto's use of ghost-written reports and other "scientific" documents that were never peer-reviewed or published to hoodwink corrupted U.S. regulatory agencies into passing on glyphosate. It is about the scientific method—as applied under capitalism—which tends to isolate the parts from the whole, and the whole from its parts. It's about the reductionist methodology that corporations like Monsanto use to isolate the pests it wants to eliminate from the overall environment. And it's about the need for a holistic approach, which views every element as part of a whole that needs to work together.
    "What is a weed?" Mitchel asks. Is it a pest to the farmer, but also a food for another species? We need only to consider the plight of the Western Monarch Butterfly. "It's not that anyone wants to kill butterflies," says Cathryn Swan, author of Chapter 7 in the book. Want to or not, Monsanto wasn't paying attention to this "part" of the whole. The widespread use of Roundup to destroy "weeds" has contributed to the obliteration of milkweed, which is the essential, and in fact only, food that the Monarch's larvae can eat. Monarchs migrate across the continent in an amazing three-generation-long cycle, in which the milkweed-eating larvae are an essential part. But these beautiful butterflies are now on the point of extinction, after a rapid several years-long decline due primarily to the loss of milkweed in California's rural farmland areas.

    Glyphosate's varying effects

    Many interconnections such as this proliferate in this book, such as those in Robin T. Falk Esser's Chapter 13, "Consequences of Glyphosate's Effects on Animal Cells, Animals, and Ecosystems." Falk Esser demolishes Monsanto's claim that glyphosate's water solubility would prevent it from harming animal species. Esser shows that, when combined with the fat solubility of other key ingredients in Roundup, glyphosate is in fact "found to be bioaccumulated by animal cells as well as plant cells!"  
    Also, MIT scientist Stephanie Seneff, in Chapter 20, "Glyphosate Acting as a Glycine Analogue, Slow Insidious Toxicity," makes some frightening conclusions about the possible links between glyphosate exposure and a whole raft of human conditions and diseases, including diabetes, obesity, Autism, kidney failure, Parkinson's and ALS, among others. 
    As the title of Seneff's Chapter indicates, glyphosate is derived from the amino acid glycine; and thus it retains glycine "residues," as Seneff describes it. This chemical connection allows glyphosate to imitate glycine, or "act as an analogue" of this amino acid in the human body's development of proteins. This, in turn, can corrupt and render useless certain proteins that the body needs. It also, says Seneff, could trigger an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system detects something wrong with this protein, and launches an attack, which could encompass the actual, uncorrupted protein. 
    Seneff also points to another alarming trait of glyphosate, that is, its ability to bond with toxic metals, such as arsenic, aluminum and lead. Noting that glyphosate was first used as a pipe cleaner because of its ability to strip metals off of metal pipes, and noting that Roundup is used widely in the agricultural areas surrounding Flint Michigan, Seneff says that, "one has to wonder whether glyphosate was a major contributor to the high levels of lead found in the drinking water" in that city!

    Think outside the spray truck!

    Seneff makes sure to point out that her theories have been indicated as possible by many studies, they have not been scientifically proven. While acknowledging that, she suggests several laboratory experiments which could be performed to validate her theories; and she says, "While many chemistry experts are skeptical that glyphosate could insinuate itself into proteins by mistake in place of glycine, it has not yet been proven that this does not happen. And, in my opinion, no compelling reasons preclude the possibility." She goes on: "In my opinion, the evidence is overwhelming that glyphosate is wreaking havoc on the earth's ecosystem, with multiple species beyond our own being adversely affected by this insidious, pervasive, toxic chemical." She advocates the shutting down of "the factories where it is being produced," and advises one and all to "switch to a 100 percent certified organic diet." 
    In an introductory comment at the head of Seneff's Chapter, Mitchel notes that the decision to include Seneff's hypotheses in the book "...is mine and mine alone, [and this inclusion] should not be used to malign or detract from the work of the other brilliant contributors to this book. We are opening up space for thinking outside the spray truck." (Emphasis mine)
    My opinion? I think this is great; all avenues suggested in this book should be looked into. Hopefully the book will inspire other honest scientists with access to labs to pursue proofs of Seneff's hypotheses.

    Monsanto's future? Or the future of our planet?

    Monsanto has recently been acquired by Bayer AG, the German chemical and pharmaceutical giant. Already a major producer of fungicides, insecticides and herbicides, Bayer also comes with a back-story of complicity in the Holocaust. This merger will give the combined company further ability to monopolize the world seed supply, and dominate the pesticide business. But why, Cohen asks in a recent radio interview about his book, would Bayer buy a company like Monsanto that comes with a multi-billion-dollar liability potential in over 11,000 lawsuits (and climbing,) in which cancer victims are now starting to win huge settlements? His answer: the company is planning to make a fortune on GE cannabis and herbicides, the business plan that made Monsanto huge profits! They're planning to ramp up Monsanto's example in new markets, and continue the poisoning of the earth.
    That's just another reason why I agree with Eve Ensler, whose comment, "This may be one of the most important books you read this year. We are being poisoned and this book is sounding a well-informed alarm," is on the cover of the book. 
    This work—and it did take several years of hard work to produce this—does sound a very important alarm. But the point, paraphrasing Marx, is not just to analyze the world, but to change it. And here I also agree with Bill Ayers, of Weather Underground fame, who writes in the first of 15 endorsements on the opening pages, "Seriously engaging the environmental catastrophe, which this important collection edited by Mitchel Cohen does brilliantly, and taking the necessary steps to solve it, will mean—I'll spit it out—overthrowing capitalism. This is the real choice in front of us: the end of capitalism or the end of the habitable earth, saving the system of finance capital or saving the system, which gives us life. Which will it be?"
    Indeed.

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    2) The manifesto of the El Paso white supremacist killer
    Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist, August 4, 2019
    https://louisproyect.org/2019/08/04/the-manifesto-of-the-el-paso-white-supremacist-killer/

    Patrick Crusius, white supremacist murderer

    The Inconvenient Truth

    About Me

    In general, I support the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto. This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas. They are the instigators, not me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion. Some people will think this statement is hypocritical because of the nearly complete ethnic and cultural destruction brought to the Native Americans by our European ancestors, but this just reinforces my point. The natives didn't take the invasion of Europeans seriously, and now what's left is just a shadow of what was. My motives for this attack are not at all personal. Actually the Hispanic community was not my target before I read The Great Replacement. This manifesto will cover the political and economic reasons behind the attack, my gear, my expectations of what response this will generate and my personal motivations and thoughts.

    Political Reasons

    In short, America is rotting from the inside out, and peaceful means to stop this seem to be nearly impossible. The inconvenient truth is that our leaders, both Democrat AND Republican, have been failing us for decades. They are either complacent or involved in one of the biggest betrayals of the American public in our history. The takeover of the United States government by unchecked corporations. I could write a ten page essay on all the damage these corporations have caused, but here is what is important. Due to the death of the baby boomers, the increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric of the right and the ever increasing Hispanic population, America will soon become a one party-state. The Democrat party will own America and they know it. They have already begun the transition by pandering heavily to the Hispanic voting bloc in the 1st Democratic Debate. They intend to use open borders, free healthcare for illegals, citizenship and more to enact a political coup by importing and then legalizing millions of new voters. With policies like these, the Hispanic support for Democrats will likely become nearly unanimous in the future. The heavy Hispanic population in Texas will make us a Democrat stronghold. Losing Texas and a few other states with heavy Hispanic population to the Democrats is all it would take for them to win nearly every presidential election. Although the Republican Party is also terrible. Many factions within the Republican Party are pro-corporation. Procorporation = pro-immigration. But some factions within the Republican Party don't prioritize corporations over our future. So the Democrats are nearly unanimous with their support of immigration while the Republicans are divided over it. At least with Republicans, the process of mass immigration and citizenship can be greatly reduced.

    Economic Reasons

    In short, immigration can only be detrimental to the future of America. Continued immigration will make one of the biggest issues of our time, automation, so much worse. Some sources say that in under two decades, half of American jobs will be lost to it. Of course some people will be retrained, but most will not. So it makes no sense to keep on letting millions of illegal or legal immigrants flood into the United States, and to keep the tens of millions that are already here. Invaders who also have close to the highest birthrate of all ethnicities in America. In the near future, America will have to initiate a basic universal income to prevent widespread poverty and civil unrest as people lose their jobs. Joblessness in itself is a source of civil unrest. The less dependents on a government welfare system, the better. The lower the unemployment rate, the better. Achieving ambitions social projects like universal healthcare and UBI would become far more likely to succeed if tens of millions of dependents are removed.
    Even though new migrants do the dirty work, their kids typically don't. They want to live the American Dream which is why they get college degrees and fill higher-paying skilled positions. This is why corporations lobby for even more illegal immigration even after decades of it of happening. They need to keep replenishing the low-skilled labor pool. Even as migrant children flood skilled jobs, Corporations make this worse by lobbying for even more work visas to be issued for skilled foreign workers to come here. Recently, the senate under a REPUBLICAN administration has greatly increased the number of foreign workers that will take American jobs. Remember that both Democrats and Republicans support immigration and work visas. Corporations need to keep replenishing the labor pool for both skilled and unskilled jobs to keep wages down. So Automation is a good thing as it will eliminate the need for new migrants to fill unskilled jobs. Jobs that Americans can't survive on anyway. Automation can and would replace millions of low-skilled jobs if immigrants were deported. This source of competition for skilled labor from immigrants and visa holders around the world has made a very difficult situation even worse for natives as they compete in the skilled job market. To compete, people have to get better credentials by spending more time in college. It used to be that a high school degree was worth something. Now a bachelor's degree is what's recommended to be competitive in the job market. The cost of college degrees has exploded as their value has plummeted. This has led to a generation of indebted, overqualified students filling menial, low paying and unfulfilling jobs. Of course these migrants and their children have contributed to the problem, but are not the sole cause of it.
    The American lifestyle affords our citizens an incredible quality of life. However, our lifestyle is destroying the environment of our country. The decimation of the environment is creating a massive burden for future generations. Corporations are heading the destruction of our environment by shamelessly overharvesting resources. This has been a problem for decades. For example, this phenomenon is brilliantly portrayed in the decades old classic "The Lorax". Water sheds around the country, especially in agricultural areas, are being depleted. Fresh water is being polluted from farming and oil drilling operations. Consumer culture is creating thousands of tons of unnecessary plastic waste and electronic waste, and recycling to help slow this down is almost non-existent. Urban sprawl creates inefficient cities which unnecessarily destroys millions of acres of land. We even use god knows how many trees worth of paper towels just wipe water off our hands. Everything I have seen and heard in my short life has led me to believe that the average American isn't willing to change their lifestyle, even if the changes only cause a slight inconvenience. The government is unwilling to tackle these issues beyond empty promises since they are owned by corporations. Corporations that also like immigration because more people means a bigger market for their products. I just want to say that I love the people of this country, but god damn most of y'all are just too stubborn to change your lifestyle. So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.

    Gear

    Main gun: AK47 (WASR 10) – I realized pretty quickly that this isn't a great choice since it's the civilian version of the ak47. It's not designed to shoot rounds quickly, so it overheats massively after about 100 shots fired in quick succession. I'll have to use a heat-resistant glove to get around this. 8m3 bullet: This bullet, unlike pretty much any other 7.62×39 bullet, actually fragments like a pistol hollow point when shot out of an ak47 at the cost of penetration. Penetration is still reasonable, but not nearly as high as a normal ak47 bullet. The ak47 is definitely a bad choice without this bullet design, and may still be with it.
    Other gun(if I get one): Ar15 – Pretty much any variation of this gun doesn't heat up nearly as fast as the AK47. The round of this gun isn't designed to fragment, but instead tumbles inside a target causing lethal wounding. This gun is probably better, but I wanted to explore different options. The ar15 is probably the best gun for military applications but this isn't a military application.
    This will be a test of which is more lethal, either it's fragmentation or tumbling.
    I didn't spend much time at all preparing for this attack. Maybe a month, probably less. I have do this before I lose my nerve. I figured that an under-prepared attack and a meh manifesto is better than no attack and no manifesto

    Reaction

    Statistically, millions of migrants have returned to their home countries to reunite with the family they lost contact with when they moved to America. They come here as economic immigrants, not for asylum reasons. This is an encouraging sign that the Hispanic population is willing to return to their home countries if given the right incentive. An incentive that myself and many other patriotic Americans will provide. This will remove the threat of the Hispanic voting bloc which will make up for the loss of millions of baby boomers. This will also make the elites that run corporations realize that it's not in their interest to continue piss off Americans. Corporate America doesn't need to be destroyed, but just shown that they are on the wrong side of history. That if they don't bend, they will break.

    Personal Reasons and Thoughts

    My whole life I have been preparing for a future that currently doesn't exist. The job of my dreams will likely be automated. Hispanics will take control of the local and state government of my beloved Texas, changing policy to better suit their needs. They will turn Texas into an instrument of a political coup which will hasten the destruction of our country. The environment is getting worse by the year. If you take nothing else from this document, remember this: INACTION IS A CHOICE. I can no longer bear the shame of inaction knowing that our founding fathers have endowed me with the rights needed to save our country from the brink destruction. Our European comrades don't have the gun rights needed to repel the millions of invaders that plaque their country. They have no choice but to sit by and watch their countries burn.
    America can only be destroyed from the inside-out. If our country falls, it will be the fault of traitors. This is why I see my actions as faultless. Because this isn't an act of imperialism but an act of preservation. America is full of hypocrites who will blast my actions as the sole result of racism and hatred of other countries, despite the extensive evidence of all the problems these invaders cause and will cause. People who are hypocrites because they support imperialistic wars that have caused the loss of tens of thousands of American lives and untold numbers of civilian lives. The argument that mass murder is okay when it is state sanctioned is absurd. Our government has killed a whole lot more people for a whole lot less. Even if other non-immigrant targets would have a greater impact, I can't bring myself to kill my fellow Americans. Even the Americans that seem hell-bent on destroying our country. Even if they are shameless race mixers, massive polluters, haters of our collective values, etc. One day they will see error of their ways. Either when American patriots fail to reform our country and it collapses or when we save it. But they will see the error of their ways. I promise y'all that.
    I am against race mixing because it destroys genetic diversity and creates identity problems. Also because it's completely unnecessary and selfish. 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanics form interracial unions at much higher rates than average. Yet another reason to send them back. Cultural and racial diversity is largely temporary. Cultural diversity diminishes as stronger and/or more appealing cultures overtake weaker and/or undesirable ones. Racial diversity will disappear as either race mixing or genocide will take place. But the idea of deporting or murdering all non-white Americans is horrific. Many have been here at least as long as the whites, and have done as much to build our country. The best solution to this for now would be to divide America into a confederacy of territories with at least 1 territory for each race. This physical separation would nearly eliminate race mixing and improve social unity by granting each race self-determination within their respective territory(s).
    My death is likely inevitable. If I'm not killed by the police, then I'll probably be gunned down by one of the invaders. Capture in this case if far worse than dying during the shooting because I'll get the death penalty anyway. Worse still is that I would live knowing that my family despises me. This is why I'm not going to surrender even if I run out of ammo. If I'm captured, it will be because I was subdued somehow.
    Remember: it is not cowardly to pick low hanging fruit. AKA Don't attack heavily guarded areas to fulfill your super soldier COD fantasy. Attack low security targets. Even though you might out gun a security guard or police man, they likely beat you in armor, training and numbers. Do not throw away your life on an unnecessarily dangerous target. If a target seems too hot, live to fight another day.
    My ideology has not changed for several years. My opinions on automation, immigration, and the rest predate Trump and his campaign for president. I putting this here because some people will blame the President or certain presidential candidates for the attack. This is not the case. I know that the media will probably call me a white supremacist anyway and blame Trump's rhetoric. The media is infamous for fake news. Their reaction to this attack will likely just confirm that.
    Many people think that the fight for America is already lost. They couldn't be more wrong. This is just the beginning of the fight for America and Europe. I am honored to head the fight to reclaim my country from destruction.

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    3) Sicilian Fisherman Risk Prison to Rescue Migrants: "No Human Would Turn Away"
    A father and son describe what it's like to hear desperate cries on the sea at night as Italy hardens its stance against incomers
    By Lorenzo Tondo, August 3, 2019
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/03/sicilian-fishermen-risk-prison-to-rescue-migrants-off-libya-italy-salvini

    Main image: Carlo Giarratana and his father, Gaspare, in Sciacca, Sicily. The family has fished off the Libyan coast for more than 50 years. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Observer

    Captain Carlo Giarratano didn't think twice when, late last month, during a night-time fishing expedition off the coast of Libya, he heard desperate cries of help from 50 migrants aboard a dinghy that had run out of fuel and was taking on water. The 36-year-old Sicilian lives by the law of the sea. He reached the migrants and offered them all the food and drink he had. While his father Gaspare coordinated the aid effort from land, Carlo waited almost 24 hours for an Italian coastguard ship that finally transferred the migrants to Sicily.
    News of that rescue spread around the world, because not only was it kind, it was brave. Ever since Italy's far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, closed Italian ports to rescue ships, the Giarratanos have known that such an act could land them with a hefty fine or jail. But if confronted with the same situation again, they say they'd do it all over 1,000 times.
    "No seaman would ever return to port without the certainty of having saved those lives," says Carlo, whose family has sailed the Mediterranean for four generations. "If I had ignored those cries for help, I wouldn't have had the courage to face the sea again."
    I meet the Giarratanos at the port of Sciacca, a fishing village on the southwestern coast of Sicily. I know the town like the back of my hand, having been born and raised there among the low-rise, colourful homes built atop an enormous cliff overlooking the sea. I remember the Giarratanos from the days I'd skip school with my friends and secretly take to the sea aboard a small fishing boat. We'd stay near the pier and wait for the large vessels returning from several days of fishing along the Libyan coast.
    Those men were our heroes, with their tired eyes, sunburnt skin and ships overflowing with fish. We wanted to be like them, because in my hometown those men – heroic and adventurous like Lord Jim, rough and fearless like Captain Ahab, stubborn and nostalgic like Hemingway's "Old Man" Santiago – are not simply fishermen; they are demigods, mortals raised to a divine rank.
    Fishermen in Sciacca are the only ones authorised to carry, barefoot, the one-tonne statue of the Madonna del Soccorso during religious processions. Legend has it that the statue was found at sea and therefore the sea has a divine nature: ignoring its laws, for Sicilian people, means ignoring God. That's why the fishing boats generally bear the names of saints and apostles – except for the Giarratanos', which is called the Accursio Giarratano.
    "He was my son," says Gaspare, his eyes swelling with tears. "He died in 2002 from a serious illness. He was 15. Now he guides me at sea. And since then, with every rescue, Accursio is present."
    Having suffered such a loss themselves, they cannot bear the thought of other families, other parents, other brothers, enduring the same pain. So whenever they see people in need, they rescue them.
    "Last November we saved 149 migrants in the same area," says Carlo. "But that rescue didn't make news because the Italian government, which in any case had already closed the ports to rescue ships, still hadn't passed the security decree."
    In December 2018 the Italian government approved a security decree targeting asylum rights. The rules left hundreds in legal limbo by removing humanitarian protection for those not eligible for refugee status but otherwise unable to return home, and were applied by several Italian cities soon afterwards. Then, in June, Rome passed a new bill, once again drafted by Salvini, that punished non-governmental organisation rescue boats bringing migrants to Italy without permission with fines of up to €50,000 and possible imprisonment for crew members.
    "I'd be lying if I told you I didn't think I might end up in prison when I saw that dinghy in distress," says Carlo. "But I knew in my heart that a dirty conscience would have been worse than prison. I would have been haunted until my death, and maybe even beyond, by those desperate cries for help." It was 3am when Giarratano and his crew located the dinghy in the waters between Malta and Libya, where the Giarratanos have cast their nets for scabbard fish for more than 50 years. The migrants had left Libya the previous day, but their dinghy had quickly run into difficulty.
    "We threw them a pail to empty the water," says Carlo. "We had little food – just melba toast and water. But they needed it more than we did. Then I alerted the authorities. I told them I wouldn't leave until the last migrant was safe. This is what we sailors do. If there are people in danger at sea, we save them, without asking where they come from or the colour of their skin."
    Malta was the nearest EU country, but the Maltese coastguard appears not to have responded to the SOS. Hours passed and the heat became unbearable. From land, Gaspare asked Carlo to wait while he contacted the press. Weighing on his mind was not only the duty to rescue the people, but also, as a father, to protect his son.
    "I wonder if even one of our politicians has ever heard desperate cries for help at high sea in the black of night," Gaspare says. "I wonder what they would have done. No human being – sailor or not – would have turned away." The Italian coastguard patrol boat arrived after almost 24 hours and the migrants were transferred to Sicily, where they disembarked a few days later.
    "They had no life vests or food," says Carlo. "They ran out of fuel and their dinghy would have lost air in a few hours. If you decide to cross the sea in those conditions, then you're willing to die. It means that what you're leaving behind is even worse, hell."
    Carlo reached Sciacca the following day. He was given a hero's welcome from the townspeople and Italian press. Gaspare was there, too, eager to embrace his son. Shy and reserved, Carlo answered their questions.
    He doesn't want to be a hero, he says, he was just doing his duty.
    "When the migrants were safely aboard the coastguard ship, they all turned to us in a gesture of gratitude, hands on their hearts. That's the image I'll carry with me for the rest of my life, which will allow me to face the sea every day without regret."
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    4) Mass Shootings in 2019: A Week of Bloodshed Underscores the Scale of Violence
    This year, there have been at least 32 fatal shootings with three or more victims in the United States.
    By Neil Vigdor, August 3, 2019
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/mass-shootings.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

    Law enforcement agencies responded to an active shooting near Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso on Saturday.CreditJoel Angel Juarez/AFP/Getty Images

    At least nine people were killed early Sunday when a gunman attacked an entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio, the nation's third mass shooting in less than a week after fatalities in El Pasoand Gilroy, Calif.
    The bloodshed in Ohio on Sunday was the 32nd mass killing by firearms in the United States this year. A mass killing is defined by the Justice Department as three or more killings in a single episode. There is no legal definition for the term "mass shooting," despite its frequent use by gun control groups and the news media.

    Here are some of the deadliest shootings in 2019. (Death tolls do not include the people who carried out the attacks.)

    AUG. 3 — 20 KILLED
    At least 20 people were killed and 26 were wounded in a shooting that targeted shoppers in a Walmart store in the majority-Hispanic border city. One suspect, a white man in his 20s, is in custody. Law enforcement officials are studying an anti-immigrant manifestothat was posted online shortly before the attack to determine whether it was written by the gunman.
    JULY 28 — 3 KILLED
    An annual garlic festival in an agricultural community south of San Jose turned deadly when a 19-year-old man opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle that he had bought legally in Nevada. The shooter killed himself in the attack. The victims included a 13-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy.
    JULY 6 — 5 FOUND DEAD
    The bodies of five men who had been fatally shot were discovered in an apartment building by police officers in north St. Louis County, according to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The victims ranged in age from 37 to 65. Two men were arrested in the killings, which the police said were connected to "drug activity," as reported by The Post-Dispatch.
    JUNE 8 — 5 KILLED
    Five members of the Yakama Nation were killed in White Swan, a remote community on the Yakama Indian Reservation in central Washington State. Four people were arrested in the shootings, the latest act in a cycle of criminal activity on the reservation, which is nestled between the Cascade mountains and the Columbia River. Two of the men charged in the killings took a child hostage at gunpoint, the authorities said.

    MAY 31 — 12 KILLED
    A city engineer quit his job and then went on a shooting rampage at Building No. 2 of the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. The suspect, a former soldier, was armed with two handguns and a cache of ammunition as he targeted his former co-workers in offices and hallways, according to the authorities. His victims were civil servants in the public works and public utilities departments and a contractor who was at the offices to discuss a permit. Until the attack in El Paso on Saturday, the shooting at Virginia Beach was the greatest loss of life in a mass killing this year.

    FEB. 15 — 5 KILLED
    A disgruntled employee who had been fired from his job returned to a suburban Chicago factory with a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun with a laser sight, which the authorities said he used to kill five of his former co-workers. The shooter was not supposed to have a weapon, as his gun permit had been revoked a year earlier because of a felony assault conviction. The victims included an intern who was on his first day of work and a grandfather of eight.

    JAN. 23 — 5 KILLED
    Five women were fatally shot while they were lying on the ground in a SunTrust Bank branch by a 21-year-old man, who called an emergency dispatcher and said, "I have shot five people." The killer, who was charged with five counts of first-degree premeditated murder, was wearing a T-shirt that bore the image of four scythe-wielding grim reapers on horseback.

    Neil Vigdor is a breaking news reporter on the Express Desk. He previously covered Connecticut politics for the Hartford Courant. @gettinviggy  Facebook

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    5) Yes, America Is Rigged Against Workers
    No other industrial country treats its working class so badly. And there's one big reason for that.
    "As workers' power has waned, many corporations have adopted practices that were far rarer — if not unheard-of — decades ago: hiring hordes of unpaid interns, expecting workers to toil 60 or 70 hours a week, prohibiting employees from suing and instead forcing them into arbitration (which usually favors employers), and hamstringing employees' mobility by making them sign noncompete clauses."
    By Steven Greenhouse, August 3, 2019
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/opinion/sunday/labor-unions.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

    Illustration by Alvaro Dominguez; Photographs by Chris Clor and Classen Rafael/EyeEm, via Getty Images

    The United States is the only advanced industrial nation that doesn't have national laws guaranteeing paid maternity leave. It is also the only advanced economy that doesn't guarantee workers any vacation, paid or unpaid, and the only highly developedcountry (other than South Korea) that doesn't guarantee paid sick days. In contrast, the European Union's 28 nations guarantee workers at least four weeks' paid vacation.
    Among the three dozen industrial countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States has the lowest minimum wage as a percentage of the median wage — just 34 percent of the typical wage, compared with 62 percent in France and 54 percent in Britain. It also has the second-highest percentage of low-wage workers among that group, exceeded only by Latvia.
    All this means the United States suffers from what I call "anti-worker exceptionalism."
    Academics debate why American workers are in many ways worse off than their counterparts elsewhere, but there is overriding agreement on one reason: Labor unions are weaker in the United States than in other industrial nations. Just one in 16 private-sector American workers is in a union, largely because corporations are so adept and aggressive at beating back unionization. In no other industrial nation do corporations fight so hard to keep out unions. 
    The consequences are enormous, not only for wages and income inequality, but also for our politics and policymaking and for the many Americans who are mistreated at work.

    To be sure, unions have their flaws, from corruption to their history of racial and sex discrimination. Still, Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson write of an important, unappreciated feature of unions in "Winner-Take-All Politics": "While there are many 'progressive' groups in the American universe of organized interests, labor is the only major one focused on the broad economic concerns of those with modest incomes."
    As workers' power has waned, many corporations have adopted practices that were far rarer — if not unheard-of — decades ago: hiring hordes of unpaid interns, expecting workers to toil 60 or 70 hours a week, prohibiting employees from suing and instead forcing them into arbitration (which usually favors employers), and hamstringing employees' mobility by making them sign noncompete clauses.
    America's workers have for decades been losing out: year after year of wage stagnation, increased insecurity on the job, waves of downsizing and offshoring, and labor's share of national income declining to its lowest level in seven decades.
    Numerous studies have found that an important cause of America's soaring income inequality is the decline of labor unions — and the concomitant decline in workers' ability to extract more of the profit and prosperity from the corporations they work for. The only time during the past century when income inequality narrowed substantially was the 1940s through 1970s, when unions were at their peak of power and prominence.
    Many Americans are understandably frustrated. That's one reason the percentage who say they want to join a union has risen markedly. According to a 2018 M.I.T. study, 46 percent of nonunion workers say they would like to be in a union, up from 32 percent in 1995. Nonetheless, just 10.5 percent of all American workers, and only 6.4 percent of private-sector workers, are in unions.

    But this desire to unionize faces some daunting challenges. In many corporations, the mentality is that any supervisor, whether a factory manager or retail manager, who fails to keep out a union is an utter failure. That means managers fight hard to quash unions. One study found that 57 percent of employers threatened to close operations when workers sought to unionize, while 47 percent threatened to cut wages or benefits and 34 percent fired union supporters during unionization drives.
    Corporate executives' frequent failure to listen to workers' concerns — along with the intimidation of employees — can have deadly results. On April 5, 2010, a coal dust explosion killed 29 miners at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia. A federal investigation found that the mine's ventilation system was inadequate and that explosive gases were allowed to build up. Workers at the nonunion mine knew about these dangers. "No one felt they could go to management and express their fears," Stanley Stewart, an Upper Big Branch miner, told a congressional committee. "We knew we'd be marked men and the management would look for ways to fire us."
    The diminished power of unions and workers has skewed American politics, helping give billionaires and corporations inordinate sway over America's politics and policymaking. In the 2015-16 election cycle, business outspent labor $3.4 billion to $213 million, a ratio of 16 to 1, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. All of the nation's unions, taken together, spend about $48 million a year for lobbying in Washington, while corporate America spends $3 billion. Little wonder that many lawmakers seem vastly more interested in cutting taxes on corporations than in raising the minimum wage.
    There were undoubtedly many reasons for Donald Trump's 2016 victory, but a key one was that many Americans seemed to view him as a protest candidate, promising to shake up "the system" and "drain the swamp." Many voters embraced Mr. Trump because they believed his statements that the system is rigged — and in many ways it is. When it comes to workers' power in the workplace and in politics, the pendulum has swung far toward corporations.
    Reversing that won't be easy, but it is vital we do so. There are myriad proposals to restore some balance, from having workers elect representatives to corporate boards to making it easier for workers to unionize to expanding public financing of political campaigns to prevent wealthy and corporate donors from often dominating. 
    America's workers won't stop thinking the system is rigged until they feel they have an effective voice in the workplace and in policymaking so that they can share in more of the economy's prosperity to help improve their — and their loved ones' — lives.

    Steven Greenhouse, who was the labor and workplace reporter for The New York Times for 19 years, is the author of the forthcoming "Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor," from which this essay is adapted.

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    6) Overflowing Toilets, Bedbugs and High Heat: Inside Mexico's Migrant Detention Centers
    By Kirk Semple, August 3, 2019
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/world/americas/mexico-migration-conditions.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

    Migrants waited in Veracruz, Mexico, to be assigned to a detention center. Detentions have surged in the past four months.CreditCreditVictoria Razo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

    ACAYUCAN, Mexico — Migrants have been held in a wrestling arena, at a fairground and in government offices. They've been forced to sleep in hallways, on an outdoor basketball court, even directly on the hard ground.
    Mexico's detention centers have at times reached triple, quadruple and even quintuple their capacity. Detainees at some centers have endured extreme heat, bedbug infestations, overflowing toilets, days without showers, and shortages of food and decent health care.
    President Andrés Manuel López Obrador campaigned for the presidency last year on promises that his migration policy would break from his predecessors' emphasis on enforcement and focus instead on respecting migrants' human rights and treating them with dignity. But under threat from the Trump administration, he has reversed course and overseen a sharp increase in migrant detentions and deportations.

    This iron-fisted approach has helped lower the number of migrantstrying to cross the southwest border of the United States. But it has also resulted in a crisis in Mexico's detention centers that, critics say, is subjecting adults and children to inhumane conditions, exposing the Mexican government's lack of preparedness and serving as a glaring rebuke of Mr. López Obrador.

    From April to June, the Mexican authorities detained about 73,400 migrants, well over double the number detained during the first three months of the year.
    The sudden increase has created "unsustainable conditions" in many of Mexico's approximately 60 centers, said Salva Lacruz, a coordinator at the Fray Matías Human Rights Center, a migrants' advocacy group in the southern city of Tapachula.
    "Everything's a disaster," he said.
    Under pressure from critics, including the government's human-rights ombudsman, the López Obrador administration has acknowledged in recent days the sorry state of the detention system and has promised improvements.

    In the meantime, however, things remain grim.
    Interviews with several asylum seekers released in recent days from a large detention center here in Acayucan, a small city in southeastern Mexico, painted a picture of hardship and scarcity.

    People slept on thin mattresses wherever they could find space. Others didn't even have that, and stretched out on the ground. They spoke of poor-quality food — and not enough of it. And some said that even the drinking water would frequently run out.
    One Cuban migrant said that right before he was detained, he had been mugged and injured in southern Mexico. But in the detention center, he said, he was denied medical attention for eight days. He was eventually taken to a hospital, he said.
    The migrants described filthy conditions, which would improve only when delegations of human-rights observers or others were scheduled to drop by. In advance of the visits, the detention center's staff would scour the facility.
    "You could get sick from being there," said a Honduran asylum seeker who gave only his surname — Escobar — out of concern for his safety.
    Conditions within the detention system have been criticized for years. But the failings have become more evident in recent months amid the enforcement crackdown.
    In April, after overseeing a sharp drop in detentions and deportations during his first four months in office, Mr. López Obrador suddenly started to get tough on illegal immigration. Spurred by President Trump's threats to close the border with Mexico to thwart illegal immigration, the Mexican government moved quickly to increase detentions and deportations.

    These efforts accelerated in June when Mr. Trump threatened to impose punitive tariffs on Mexico.
    But while the Mexican government may have been quick to respond to Mr. Trump's demands, it apparently made little effort to prepare its detention network for the resulting stress.

    The National Migration Institute, which oversees the migrant detention system, had already been struggling in the face of Mr. López Obrador's effort to bring down the cost of government. As part of this austerity program, the agency's budget was cut by 23 percent this year.
    Since the spring, reports of the deteriorating conditions have multiplied.
    "There is concern about the violation of rights for people who will inevitably go to immigration stations," the Citizens Council of the National Migration Institute, a group that advises the migration agency, said in a statement in mid-June. "Due to the increase in immigration containment, the stations become saturated, causing overcrowding and precarious conditions."
    Yet the situation has barely improved.
    In an interview in his office, Edgar Corzo Sosa, rapporteur for migrant issues at the National Human Rights Commission, an autonomous government agency, said that in "a normal migration flow," space in the system would be sufficient. But Mexico is experiencing what he called "an intense migration flow."
    Mr. Corzo picked up a document — the government's daily population count for each of the detention centers — and began citing statistics. Some of the facilities were way over capacity.
    In the northern border city of Reynosa, 210 migrants were crowded into a facility designed for 50, Mr. Corzo said. In a center in Palenque, there were 210, nearly double the capacity. Some 86 migrants were jammed into another center fit for 30.
    During a recent visit to a center in the southern state of Chiapas, Mr. Corzo documented about 400 detainees in a space meant for no more than 80. Another Chiapas shelter, Siglo XXI in the city of Tapachula with a capacity of about 960, saw a daily average of more than 1,400 in recent months, at times reaching about 2,000, according to government statistics from the first six months of the year.

    "Tell me if this isn't problematic," he said. "There are many complications."
    A few days earlier, a Salvadoran migrant had died while being held in an improvised detention center in the offices of the National Migration Institute in the northern city of Monterrey. It was a rare death of a migrant inside the nation's detention system. Mr. Corzo said the authorities were investigating the cause.
    Migration officials have also been wrestling with a large and increasing number of child migrants traveling either unaccompanied or with families.

    About 130 percent more migrant children from Central America were detained during the first six months of the year than during the same period last year, according to the National Migration Institute.
    In May, a 10-year-old Guatemalan girl died after falling from a bed bunk in a major detention center in Mexico City, officials said. The authorities are still investigating the cause and whether she received adequate medical attention.
    Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico's foreign secretary, owned up to the poor conditions of the detention centers: "They are very bad," he said during a news conference.
    "The assessment presented to us is terrible — the drains do not work, the abandoned bathrooms," he said. "An immense, enormous effort has to be made. It's not so much the money but the commitment."

    The López Obrador administration has earmarked some $3.1 million to improve several major detention centers in southern Mexico and says it intends to renovate centers in the north as well.
    But migrants' advocates point out that the government has not made an equivalent commitment to expanding the resources of the government's overburdened asylum agency, which was on the verge of collapse even before the surge in detentions.
    "In the budget allocations, you can measure the political will," said Ana Saiz Valenzuela, general director of Sin Fronteras, a migrants' advocacy group in Mexico City.
    Mr. Corzo said he hoped the López Obrador administration follows through on its promise to improve conditions in the centers and its treatment of detainees.
    "It's a new government," he said. "It's a new opportunity to make big changes."
    But, he acknowledged, "there are big challenges."

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    7) Demonstrators in Hong Kong Dodge Tear Gas in Fast-Moving Mass Protests
    By Mike Ives, August 4, 2019
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/world/asia/hong-kong-protests.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage

    Protesters marched in Tseung Kwan O, a residential district of Hong Kong, on Sunday.CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times

    HONG KONG — Thousands of antigovernment demonstrators in Hong Kong dodged police tear gas and occupied a major shopping district and other central areas on Sunday, in the second of three straight days of large-scale civil disobedience.
    The flash mob-style maneuvers came a day after violent street clashes erupted between protesters and riot police officers, resulting in more than 20 arrests, and a day before a planned citywide strike that may significantly disrupt daily life in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory.
    The long weekend of civil unrest — in which thousands of black-clad protesters have deliberately kept the authorities guessing their next move — may place a new level of pressure on Hong Kong's deeply unpopular government to meet the protest movement's broad range of demands.

    Those demands include an independent inquiry into police violence against protesters and the complete withdrawal of suspended legislation that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China, where the courts are controlled by the ruling Communist Party.

    "Protests have been happening in multiple districts at the same time rather than one concentrated area, which is rather unprecedented," Samson Yuen, an expert on social movements at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, said of the weekend protests. "As protests move toward residential areas, anger and momentum has been building towards the general strike on Monday."
    The strike and other events in the largely leaderless protest movement have been organized informally through social messaging apps like Telegram. Mr. Yuen said the strike, which has been endorsed by major trade unions and could include traffic disruptions throughout the city, would probably have a much greater impact than one that was attempted last month.

    "If a general strike does happen tomorrow, it means it can happen again," Mr. Yuen said.
    On Sunday, the Hong Kong government warned the public not to participate in strikes the next day by disrupting traffic and blocking roads, saying such acts would push the territory into a "very dangerous situation."
    The mostly peaceful protests this summer, which began nearly two months ago, have thrown Hong Kong into its worst political crisis since Britain handed control to China in 1997. The Hong Kong government and police force are under pressure from Beijing to restore order as the protests become more unruly and as demonstrators increasingly direct their ire at mainland rule.

    The local news media reported that objects hurled at police officers during street clashes on Saturday night included at least two gasoline bombs, a possible sign of an escalation in protest tactics.
    Last week, the commander of the People's Liberation Army garrison in Hong Kong warned that violent protests that challenged China's political system were "absolutely intolerable." But the prospect of a Chinese military intervention in Hong Kong still appears remote, even as the embattled Hong Kong police struggle to maintain public order.
    The protest on Sunday began with a police-approved march in Tseung Kwan O, a quiet residential district in eastern Hong Kong that lies across the harbor from the city's main island.
    In a light drizzle, a crowd of protesters of all ages wove through the streets as curious residents opened their high-rise windows to watch.

    "Monday, we strike!" the protesters chanted.
    Lee Lai-ping, 67, who lives in Tseung Kwan O and attended the march, said it was only the second time this summer that she had come out to protest. She said she had been motivated to attend after watching television footage of riot police officers clashing in the small hours of Sunday morning with older residents of Wong Tai Sin, a working-class Hong Kong neighborhood.
    "I have grandchildren already, and they are still very young," she added. "I don't want them to grow up in a city run by Communists and the police."

    Some protesters vandalized the Tseung Kwan O police station with eggs and spray paint, and broke many of its windows by throwing bricks.

    By early evening, many protesters had joined an unauthorized march from a western area of Hong Kong's main island toward Sheung Wan, a dense neighborhood in the heart of the city's central business district.

    The route of the unauthorized march was set to pass by the Chinese government liaison office, a building that protesters defaced two weeks ago with eggs and graffiti, drawing an angry rebuke from Beijing.
    But shortly after 7 p.m. — before protesters could reach the liaison office — riot police officers began to clear the streets by firing tear gas. The police force had accused them of "participating in an unauthorized assembly."

    By 8 p.m., the protesters had largely moved to the Causeway Bay district, farther east on the island, using makeshift barricades to block off a major shopping district there that includes luxury boutiques and an Apple store.
    Other protesters briefly blocked the Hong Kong Island side of a nearby tunnel that passes under the city's harbor, and which had been blocked by protesters a night earlier from the opposite side.
    Some began marching west, toward a square on the island's waterfront whose main attraction is a golden statue of a bauhinia flower, an emblem of the city. They spray painted the statue with the words "liberate Hong Kong," one of many popular slogans in this summer's protests.
    The square is the place where, in a 2017 speech marking the 20th anniversary of the former British colony's handover to Chinese control, President Xi Jinping of China warned Hong Kong residents against challenging the central government's authority.

    Shortly before 10 p.m. on Sunday, riot police officers descended on Causeway Bay and fired multiple rounds of tear gas. The force said on Twitter that it took the measure only after issuing "repeated but futile warnings" for protesters to stop occupying roads and damaging property.

    Many protesters then fled north by public transport across the harbor to various parts of Kowloon, where they were expected to continue occupying roads and antagonizing the police into the small hours, as they had done the night before.

    Demonstrators on Sunday said their aim was to move quickly from one target to the next to minimize the number of people who would be at risk of arrest.
    "We are not as well equipped as the police, so we have to be as fluid as possible," said one protester, Jason Law, a 19-year-old student.
    The protest movement began in early June because of opposition to the contentious extradition bill, which has since been suspended and called "dead" by the territory's unpopular leader, Carrie Lam. But she has refused to formally withdraw it as protesters have demanded, stoking further public discontent.
    The protesters are also seeking Mrs. Lam's resignation, direct elections, the retraction of the government's characterization of a protest on June 12 as a riot and the unconditional release of all protesters who have been arrested since early June. But for now, it seems unlikely that Mrs. Lam's pro-Beijing government or its backers in the Chinese mainland will make further concessions.
    After Saturday night's unrest, the police said they had arrested more than 20 people on suspicion of a range of offenses, including assault and unlawful assembly. That came days after dozens of other antigovernment protesters were arrested following earlier clashes.

    Demonstrations on Saturday began as an approved protest but devolved into an occupation of a major shopping district on Kowloon. Some protesters attacked a nearby police station with bricks and paint-filled bottles.
    At one point on Saturday afternoon, protesters removed a Chinese flag from a pole and tossed it into the harbor.
    In a statement the next day, the mainland government agency responsible for Hong Kong affairs said that that action "must be severely punished in accordance with the law, and not softly."

    Tiffany May, Katherine Li and Ezra Cheung contributed reporting from Hong Kong, and Claire Fu contributed research from Beijing.


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    8) A Quarter of Humanity Faces Looming Water Crises
    By Somini Sengupta and Welyi Cal, August 6, 2019
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/06/climate/world-water-stress.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
    BANGALORE, India — Countries that are home to one-fourth of Earth’s population face an increasingly urgent risk: The prospect of running out of water.
    From India to Iran to Botswana, 17 countries around the world are currently under extremely high water stress, meaning they are using almost all the water they have, according to new World Resources Institute data published Tuesday.
    Many are arid countries to begin with; some are squandering what water they have. Several are relying too heavily on groundwater, which instead they should be replenishing and saving for times of drought.

    In those countries are several big, thirsty cities that have faced acute shortages recently, including São Paulo, Brazil; Chennai, India; and Cape Town, which in 2018 narrowly beat what it called Day Zero — the day when all its dams would be dry.
    “We’re likely to see more of these Day Zeros in the future,” said Betsy Otto, who directs the global water program at the World Resources Institute. “The picture is alarming in many places around the world.”
    Climate change heightens the risk. As rainfall becomes more erratic, the water supply becomes less reliable. At the same time, as the days grow hotter, more water evaporates from reservoirs just as demand for water increases.
    Water-stressed places are sometimes cursed by two extremes. São Paulo was ravaged by floods a year after its taps nearly ran dry. Chennai suffered fatal floods four years ago, and now its reservoirs are almost empty.

    Groundwater is going fast

    Mexico’s capital, Mexico City, is drawing groundwater so fast that the city is literally sinking. Dhaka, Bangladesh, relies so heavily on its groundwater for both its residents and its water-guzzling garment factories that it now draws water from aquifers hundreds of feet deep. Chennai’s thirsty residents, accustomed to relying on groundwater for years, are now finding there’s none left. Across India and Pakistan, farmers are draining aquifers to grow water-intensive crops like cotton and rice.

    More stress in the forecast

    Today, among cities with more than 3 million people, World Resources Institute researchers concluded that 33 of them, with a combined population of over 255 million, face extremely high water stress, with repercussions for public health and social unrest.
    By 2030, the number of cities in the extremely high stress category is expected to rise to 45 and include nearly 470 million people.

    How to fix the problem?

    The stakes are high for water-stressed places. When a city or a country is using nearly all the water available, a bad drought can be catastrophic.
    After a three-year drought, Cape Town in 2018 was forced to take extraordinary measures to ration what little it had left in its reservoirs. That acute crisis only magnified a chronic challenge. Cape Town’s 4 million residents are competing with farmers for limited water resources.
    Likewise, Los Angeles. Its most recent drought ended this year. But its water supply isn’t keeping pace with its galloping demand and its penchant for private backyard swimming pools doesn’t help.
    For Bangalore, a couple of years of paltry rains revealed how badly the city has managed its water. The many lakes that once dotted the city and its surrounding areas have either been built-over or filled with the city’s waste. They can no longer be the rainwater storage tanks they once were. And so the city must venture further and further away to draw water for its 8.4 million residents, and much of it is wasted along the way.
    A lot can be done to improve water management, though.
    First, city officials can plug leaks in the water distribution system. Wastewater can be recycled. Rain can be harvested and saved for lean times: lakes and wetlands can be cleaned up and old wells can be restored. And, farmers can switch from water-intensive crops, like rice, and instead grow less-thirsty crops like millet.
    “Water is a local problem and it needs local solutions,” said Priyanka Jamwal, a fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment in Bangalore.
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    9) Stopped, Ticketed, Fined: The Pitfalls of Driving While Black in Ferguson
    Despite five years of changes in Missouri, black drivers continue to be stopped at much higher rates than white drivers in communities throughout the state.
    By John Eligon, August 6, 2019
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/us/black-drivers-traffic-stops.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

    De’Shaun Bunch, 21, said he has been pulled over about eight times in different municipalities in St. Louis County over the course of two years.CreditCreditWhitney Curtis for The New York Times

    FERGUSON, Mo. — They avoid main roads. They maintain good posture. Sometimes they choose not to drive at all.
    For years, some black drivers in the St. Louis area have taken those precautions to avoid getting pulled over by the police. And yet it hasn’t seemed to prevent them from getting stopped, ticketed and fined at higher rates than people of other races.
    After a police officer killed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown five years ago this month in Ferguson, Mo., protests there rocked the nation, leading to a public outcry over race and policing. People were outraged to learn municipalities throughout St. Louis County had been issuing traffic tickets to finance city services — and jailing drivers who could not afford to pay — with black residents bearing the brunt of those policies.

    Five years later, black drivers continue to be stopped at much higher rates than white drivers, a disparity that has actually grown in Ferguson despite changes — including a new state law — that have greatly reduced the number of traffic tickets, fines and arrest warrants issued.

    Statewide, black motorists were nearly twice as likely as other motorists to be stopped, based on their share of the driving-age population, according to the Missouri attorney general’s annual report on traffic stops. White drivers were stopped six percent less than would be expected. In Ferguson, the disparity in traffic stops of black drivers has increased by five percentage points since 2013, while it has dropped by 11 percentage points for white drivers.
    “I can’t say things have gotten better,” said Blake Strode, the executive director of ArchCity Defenders, a legal advocacy organization that has fought ticketing practices. “I understand the status quo to be one of structural racism, poverty, overinvestment in the carceral system, and policing and prosecution. That is as real today in 2019 as it was five years ago in 2014.”
    Jason Armstrong, who became Ferguson’s police chief last month after serving at a department in suburban Atlanta, said the data may not tell the entire story, noting that the disparities grew in Ferguson even as the department has transformed from being largely white to more than half black. Since Mr. Brown’s death, the number of black officers in the Ferguson department has skyrocketed to 21 from four.
    “At the end of the day, how are people being treated,” Chief Armstrong said. “Does the officer treat you like you are a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a husband, a wife? Do they treat you professionally? That’s the biggest part of it to me.”

    While traffic courts in the region might be less crowded than they were several years ago, the makeup of the drivers looks largely the same.

    During a traffic court session in Ferguson in mid-July, the line stretched out the door. Although the city is two-thirds black, almost everyone appearing before the judge that day was black. African-Americans also accounted for the overwhelming majority of drivers appearing in traffic courts recently in the nearby towns of Florissant and St. Ann — both of which have predominantly white populations.
    In Ferguson, the dreary routine of traffic court played out over two and a half hours — 90 minutes longer than was scheduled. People filed through a metal detector and had to store their cellphones in manila envelopes to take them into the courtroom.
    As a black man driving a 2000 Lexus LS 400 with tinted windows, De’Shaun Bunch said he was a prime target. He said he had been pulled over about eight times in different municipalities in St. Louis County over the course of two years and was in court in Ferguson recently for tickets he had received for speeding and driving without insurance.
    “I’m a black man and I’m driving a nice car,” he said. “It’s the same. They were doing it before, they’re still doing it now. It ain’t changed since Mike Brown died.”
    Mr. Bunch, who works in a shipping and receiving warehouse, said he had skipped previous court dates. He finally decided to show up after getting stopped about a month earlier. There had been a warrant for his arrest because of the delinquent tickets. In the past, he very likely would have been thrown in jail. But Mr. Bunch said the officer simply took him to a nearby police station, booked and released him, and told him to go to court.
    While that was a better outcome than having to spend time behind bars, Mr. Bunch said the underlying racial dynamics of driving while black in St. Louis remained the same as they have for years. When he is pulled over, officers sometimes do not cite a violation for stopping him, he said.

    Law enforcement officials in Missouri have argued that black drivers were pulled over at higher rates because they accounted for most of the drivers passing through particular communities. But this was the first year that the state’s report also analyzed instances in which officers pulled people over in the communities in which they resided. Black drivers were still pulled over at higher rates in many places, including Ferguson.
    “The overwhelming majority of the pull-overs that I’ve made in my career, I didn’t know who the person was that was driving the car,” said Chief Armstrong. “Do I believe that there are some officers in this country that may see somebody that they don’t like and pull them over for that? Absolutely. But I think that’s more of the anomaly.”

    In an effort to curb excessive ticketing, state lawmakers passed Senate Bill 5 with broad bipartisan support in 2015., The law capped the percentage of revenue that municipalities were allowed to earn from their courts at 20 percent, among other things.
    The results have been stark. Municipal courts statewide collected a total of $60.5 million in fines last year, a 45 percent decrease from 2013. The number of warrants issued statewide fell by 18 percent to 545,484 over the same period.
    One of the champions of the bill in the senate was Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is now the state’s attorney general. In his new role, Mr. Schmitt has attempted to go after municipalities in court. Last month, he reached a settlement with the city of Diamond, in southwestern Missouri, to end its traffic ticket quota.

    Yet these changes were not enough to prevent Kylie Malveaux from choosing to give up driving all together out of fear that she might amass more tickets and fines on top of what she already owed.
    She left traffic court in Florissant last month with $230 worth of unpaid fines. On top of that, she was in danger of getting her license suspended because of several other tickets, and had hopes of hiring a lawyer to help her avoid that outcome. 
    Ms. Malveaux, 24, now leaves most of the driving to her partner, Akil Poynter, 25, who was also in Florissant traffic court last month for driving with a suspended license and a broken taillight. Both of them needed to return on a later date to settle their tickets. They seemed to take the hassle in stride.
    “It’s something you get used to,” Mr. Poynter said.
    “It’s terrible that you’re used to it,” Ms. Malveaux added. “At the end of the day, you can’t tell a cop who to pull over and who not to pull over. They have the freedom to do whatever.”


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