Petition: President Barack Obama Pardon Private Bradley Manning

 The presidential power to pardon is granted under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:

 

“The President…shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in case of impeachment.”

 

In federal cases, and military court-martials such as Private Bradley Manning’s are federal cases, the President of the United States can, under authority granted by the U.S. Constitution as stated above, pardon the guilty and the innocent, the convicted and those awaiting trial. Now that Bradley Manning has been found guilty of 19 charges and is subject to up to 136 years in prison, probably at Fort Leavenworth, this pardon campaign is more necessary than ever. The man who spoke truth to power about atrocities committed by American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and revealed the perfidious depths of American foreign policy should spend not one more day in the hands of the American government. Free Our Brother! Free Bradley Manning! Free the heroic Wikileaks whistleblower!

 

You can also call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Bradley Manning.

Name                                                  E-Mail Address  _______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

Begin a petition campaign to Pardon Bradley Manning with a form like this

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Also as the Bradley Manning trial is winding down and sentencing is impending everyone should help by doing the following:

 

Call (202) 685-2900-The military is pulling out all the stops to chill efforts to increase transparency in our government. Now, we’re asking you to join us to ensure we’re doing all we can to secure Bradley’s freedom as well as protection for future whistleblowers.

 

Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan is the Convening Authority for Bradley’s court martial, which means that he has the authority to decrease Bradley’s sentence, no matter what the judge decides. As hundreds of activists join us in DC today to demonstrate at Maj. Gen. Buchanan’s base, Ft. McNair, we’re asking you to join our action demanding he do the right thing by calling, faxing, and e-mailing his Public Affairs Office.

 

The convening authority can reduce the sentence after the Judge makes her ruling.

 

Let’s Remind Maj. General Buchanan:

• that Bradley was held for nearly a year in abusive solitary confinement, which the UN torture chief called “cruel, inhuman, and degrading”
• that President Obama has unlawfully influenced the trial with his declaration of Bradley Manning’s guilt.
• that the media has been continually blocked from transcripts and documents related to the trial and that it has only been through the efforts of Bradley Manning’s supporters that any transcripts exist.
• that under the UCMJ a soldier has the right to a speedy trial and that it was unconscionable to wait 3 years before starting the court martial.
• that absolutely no one was harmed by the release of documents that exposed war crimes, unnecessary secrecy and disturbing foreign policy.
• that Bradley Manning is a hero who did the right thing when he revealed truth about wars that had been based on lies.

Remind General Buchanan that Bradley Manning’s rights have been trampled – Enough is enough!

 

Please help us reach all these important contacts: Adrienne Combs, Deputy Officer Public Affairs (202) 685-2900 adrienne.m.combs.civ@mail.mil

 Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, Public Affairs Officer (202) 685-4899 michelle.l.martinhing.mil@mail.mil The Public Affairs Office fax #: 202-685-0706

Try e-mailing Maj. Gen. Buchanan at jeffrey.s.buchanan@us.army.mil

The Public Affairs Office is required to report up the chain of command the number of calls they receive on a particular issue, so please help us flood the office with support for whistleblower Bradley Manning today!

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Al Roberts’ Search For The High White Note Night-Take Three

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

A lot of guys, musical guys anyway, are always trying to reach for that high white note, that elusive note that says they have made it, that they have met god and his graces, in their chosen profession. That reach probably is what has driven more guys (and gals) to play endlessly time after time to at least get to outer contours of that big fat beauty of a sound. A few guys, guys like the Duke, Benny, Lionel, Charlie, Miles and gals, gals like Billie and Big Mama, reached it, reached it at great expense but reached it. Maybe reached it in some approaching dawn hour long after the carrying trade has gone home, the club has shuttered its doors and the guys, guys mainly, smoke wafting through the fetid air, and not only cigarette smoke, got down to the real music in their souls. Others, dog tired from a hard night’s blow, or from cracked fingers over sweaty keyboard, traipsed home to some cold-water flat, some lonely room, neon signs flickering outside their torn window-shaded view, to grab a minute’s shut-eye, maybe fix a drink, or blow a joint and try their hand at immortality.

Still other guys, guys like Al Roberts, though fall down, don’t make it. Maybe it is lack of talent, although Al Julliard –trained on the piano had plenty of talent and his teachers and fellow students stood in awe of his possibilities expecting Carnegie Hall futures, perseverance, although Al from kid time was driven by that beat in his head that would not let him alone, wit, or just plain old circumstances, bad luck or a wrong move but they fall down, fall down hard. Al Roberts, unfortunately was the guy who was the guy in the wrong place at the wrong time almost like something out of an old time black and white B-film noir from the 1940s. He had his dreams; he had his chance to take the brass ring with room to spare but some stuff, some serious stuff, got in the way so we will never know whether he had the stuff to hit that big note floating out into the film noir-like night. First it was that bogus bust for mary jane, hell, a couple of joints, for which he drew ninety days at Rikkers. And then the really bad news came through his agent that a couple of concert halls had put the nix on him, didn’t want the bad karma publicity that came with a doper playing in their venue back in the 1940s and so our man Al, all beautiful hands and ready to make that big note happen any day now, was reduced to back street supper clubs backing up torch singers, torch singers for the most part who could not make the big uptown clubs, and so joined Al’s soul-less fraternity.

Yeah, no question, Al Robert’s was born under an unlucky star or something. Here was a guy with all kinds of talent, including that classical piano training playing for dimes and donuts to make ends meet at some back street supper clubs in New Jack City and staying after hours, after the wee morning hours, tired as hell, no dope around to free his brain, trying to catch that damn note. On a lucky night he might caught a five or ten from some drunken party hungry to hear his sentimental journey stuff, stuff strictly meant for the tourist trade. Jesus. The only bright spot was that his honey, a white night torch singer whom he met at the Kit Kat Club where he had worked for a while on his way back up after the clink.Unusual for the spots Al found himself in she, Susan Sanders, was a singer on the rise with musical dreams of her own. She moreover was strictly first-rate in his book and they, if they could ever rub two dimes together, were going to get married. Oh yeah, and as if to mock him even if unintentionally, they would marry after Susan made it big in Hollywood where that song- bird was headed to make herself a star before they got around to tying the knot.

Well you know the old Hollywood fame song by now. Song- bird Susan, who had enough talent to work the back street supper clubs with Al providing superb piano to hide her rough spots, went crashing down like many young women with Hollywood lust in their eyes before her. Susan wound up serving them off the arm in some hash house in Santa Monica. It came out later, later after the dust had settled and it didn’t matter, that she had also done a few “blue”movies for select clientele after being down on her luck and meeting a“director” who promised her the moon. She too had been “moon-lighting “ a couple of nights a week at Madame DeFarge’s bordello over on Wiltshire in order to make ends meet and to be “discovered.” Don’t laugh, many a young starlet then, and some of them still famous now, turned a trick or two at that locale in hopes of attracting some knighted movie executive to her cause. Al, having come up from a place where rubbing two nickels together was tough, would have understood Susan’s need, her desire, although he probably would have drawn the line on such activity once they were married.

Al, once Susan left for the coast, was lonely, lonely as hell, lonely enough without his muse that he needed to have her at his side. So Al, penniless Al, decided to hitchhike out to share his honey’s fate after he phoned her and she pleaded with him to come out. That search for the high white note be damned, he took the detour. Detoured big time before he was through. The road cross-country was nothing but a lot of short haul rides and lonely waits at miserable back road cross- roads in place like Neola, Iowa and Lawrence, Kansas until he finally got a break. A guy, Charles Haskell, a guy who was a step up in class with a big old convertible, a Packard, stopped and picked him up and said he was heading for the coast.

Yes sir, a big break finally. Except that big break turned into an Al nightmare when the apparently sickly Haskell hauled off and died out in the middle of nowhere leaving Al holding the bag. Who, after all, was going to believe a fairly young guy like Haskell with dough and a big flashy car didn’t meet with anything but foul- play from a penniless tramp out on some desolate highway. Certainly not after several witnesses at various roadside diners along the way saw Haskell picking up the tramp’s tab and buying his cigarettes and other sundries.

In a way Al was right in his thinking. But still he got a little cloudy in his thinking, a little confused, no, a lot confused. See Al came up with the bright idea that he would change identities with the deceased Haskell and abandon the car in L.A. on his way to his honey. Not the best idea, really, but an idea. So he grabbed Haskell’s clothes, wallet, and dough, tossed his body in a ravine set-up as penniless Al Roberts who nobody would give a damn about. Al cleaned himself up a bit, got some rest at a road-side motel, and morphed himself in one Charles Haskell, ah, a sportsman for lack of a better term.

Except Al made one fatal move, not intentionally, but just as fatal nevertheless to show how his luck was oozing away from him by the minute. He picked her up. Her being a wayward and mouthy femme fatale named Vera who, down on her uppers, was hitching the roads west. A kindred spirit he assumed. Just a friendly gesture for a woman on the road. Now this Vera was still a looker, although a working-class looker, one of those whose looks would fade soon, too soon, after too many nights in cheap gin mills fending off married guys looking for a quick good time, after too many night maybe working the streets turning tricks to make ends meet come rent day, or after spending way too much time figuring out the next hustle. Al though, as he looked her over, had an idea in the back of his mind that he might make a play for her just to while the hours away.

But here is where Al really was born under an unlucky star. Vera, having hitched a ride earlier with the deceased Haskell and having had to fend his advances off, knew that Al did not own the car. Vera, who Al to his regret turned out to be nothing but a flat-out gold-digger and hustler, started squawking about her cut from Haskell’s dough and car, or else. Or she would yell, no, scream copper and be done with it.

So after some very one-sided negotiations on Vera’s part concerning splits and the sale of the car she has them act as a married couple as they traveled west. Then Al’s luck got worse when Vera noticed an article in some local paper when they were passing through some hick town, maybe Winnemucca. Haskell’s estranged rich dying father was looking for him. Vera plotted to use that information to get the old man into believing Al was his long lost son. When the deal went down Al finally balked at that idea and Vera threatened to call copper on him for Haskell’s death. He tried to stop her when she was in a drunken rage by attempting to pull the telephone cord through a closed bedroom door on her where she went to make the call. All he did though was strangle her accidently when she got caught up in the cord.

Yeah, but who was going to believe a tramp, a two- bit guy, an ex-jailbird,didn’t have murder and mayhem in his heart not once but twice. So Al never did get to see his song-bird as a free man, get to breathe some fresh coast air, or get that little house in the valley. And worse, Al never got to reach again for that high white note playing after hours at some high-end beach-front supper club blowing out sounds with the wind hard into the Japan Current in the Pacific Coast night. Like I said some guys, some musical guy, just don’t make that note.

 

A traitor? To me Bradley will always be my innocent 'Superman': Devastated British mother of convicted Wikileaks soldier talks for the first time

• Whistleblower, 25, is facing spending the rest of his life in prison
• He was arrested for exposing US military secrets over three years ago
• Decided to act after seeing video of US helicopter shooting Iraqi civilians
• His devastated mother Susan has urged him to 'never give up hope'
• She recalled the moving moment he announced to his family he was gay

By Nic North
PUBLISHED:16:08 EST, 3 August 2013| UPDATED:04:35 EST, 4 August 2013

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The Welsh mother of WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning last night told him to ‘never give up hope’ as he faced up to spending the rest of his life in prison.

Susan Manning says she knows she may never see him again following his conviction last week on spying charges at a US Army court martial hearing.

But in her first interview since Bradley, 25, was arrested for exposing US military secrets more than three years ago, Mrs Manning adds: ‘Never give up hope, son. I know I may never see you again but I know you will be free one day. I pray it is soon. I love you, Bradley and I always will.’

Hero or villain? U.S. military whistleblower Bradley Manning pictured at his mother Susan Manning's in Wales in 2006

She told how she will never forget a visit he made to her in 2006 when she was being treated for a major stroke in her hometown of Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire.

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He was wearing a Superman T-shirt and Mrs Manning, 59, says: ‘Please remember, Bradley, you will always be my Superman.’

It was also during that visit in 2006 that he told her for the first time that he was gay.

A handcuffed Bradley is led away from court last month

Mrs Manning, stricken by health problems that have left her unable to visit her son in the US since February 2011, could not bring herself to turn on her television or radio to hear a US Army judge convict Bradley. Instead she lay curled up in a ball in her bedroom.

She had closed her curtains and was lying in the dark with a mobile phone at her side so her sister Sharon Staples, 50, who lives four miles from her, could keep in touch.
A Mail on Sunday reporter was at the home of Mrs Staples – who helped care for Bradley when he was a child – when the verdict arrived.

Back in May 2010, when it emerged that a skinny, bespectacled American soldier called Bradley Manning had been arrested for the largest leak of classified secrets in US military history, his family were the only people not shocked by the news.

It was revealed that he had forwarded to WikiLeaks more than 250,000 diplomatic cables, 500,000 Army battlefield logs and videos of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan making disparaging remarks about the men they had just killed.

But his family in Wales had witnessed his obsession with computers from an early age – and noted his growing rage against perceived injustices.
Mrs Staples, the aunt who helped raise Bradley after his parents’ marriage collapsed, says: ‘If anyone was going to get themselves arrested for leaking hundreds of thousands of secret documents and end up in jail for it, it was going to be our Bradley.
'He just seemed to have a burning sense of wanting to right any injustice from such a young age.

‘He’d had a very tough childhood in many ways and he’d had to grow up too quickly. His childhood was cut short by all the unhappiness he experienced as a boy.’

Susan met Bradley’s American father, Brian, in Haverfordwest in her early 20s. He was stationed at the nearby Cawdor Barracks, where he served for five years as an intelligence analyst with the US Navy.

Troubled childhood: Bradley aged eight with mother Susan (left) and aunt Sharon

They were married within a year and, when Brian was posted to California a couple of years later, Susan and their daughter Casey, two, joined him. Nine years later, they had moved to Oklahoma, and Bradley was born.
By now Brian was working as an IT executive for car rental agency Hertz and was often away on month-long business trips. Bradley initially enjoyed a happy, carefree childhood in Oklahoma but when he was 12 his parents’ marriage foundered.

After the split, Brian met another woman, also called Susan, whom he later married. Worse still for Bradley, he felt the two sons of his father’s new bride, both close in age to himself, were his dad’s new priorities. It left him feeling rejected and abandoned.
Susan returned to Pembrokeshire with Bradley in 2001 and enrolled him at Tasker Milward comprehensive in Haverfordwest. But he soon became a target for bullies.

THE APACHE 'ATROCITY' THAT TURNED HIM INTO A TRAITOR

Bradley decided to release the batch of classified documents to WikiLeaks after watching a video of an US Apache helicopter opening fire on a group of people in Iraq, incorrectly identified by the pilots as armed insurgents, his aunt believes.

After a voice on the transmission urges the pilots to ‘light ’em all up’, the individuals on the street are shot by the gunship’s cannon.
A few minutes later, a van whose occupants appear to be picking up a wounded person is fired on too.

Two children were among the casualties.
Mrs Staples believes the world will one day see Bradley’s actions as heroic.

She said: ‘How many people wish the Nazi death camp guards who looked the other way had done what Bradley did?

‘One day, maybe even America will recognise that he did the right thing. He felt compelled to let the world see what he had seen.’

Mrs Staples says: ‘They’d pelt their house with eggs day and night and his home life was just as tough. Susan wasn’t at all well and Bradley bore the brunt of that at a time when he should have been working hard for his upcoming GCSEs.

‘Bradley felt he had to look after her and went from being a grade A pupil to leaving school without any GCSEs to his name.
'From the age of 12 or so, Bradley was having to be the man of the house and that placed huge responsibility on his shoulders that I don’t think he was ready for.

‘He was very intense about everything and seemed to have a much stronger sense of injustice, of what is right and wrong, than most people.

‘He was forever talking about the wrongs that he felt were being committed by certain US senators – but of course we’d never heard of any of them so couldn’t contribute to the conversation.
So eventually he’d get bored and go off and sit at one of his computers instead. I sensed that the computer was his escape.’

Bradley flew back to the US when he was 16 after his father persuaded a friend to give him a job with his computer firm. But Bradley’s poor people skills soon let him down.
‘He kept telling his boss how to do his job,’ says Mrs Staples. ‘He’d pull him up all the time for mistakes in the way he was programming his computer. After a few weeks, the boss fired Bradley because he thought he was too big for his boots.’

When Bradley was 18, his father again offered to ‘pull strings’ to land him another job – in the US Army. But Bradley took the initiative and signed himself up while visiting another aunt, his father’s lawyer sister Debbie, in Washington DC.

He remained in regular contact by phone and email with his mother and aunt Sharon in Wales, but they found it difficult to match the ‘scrawny little kid in boxers and a blanket’ to the smart young man now dressed in military uniform.

Mrs Staples says all of his family were ‘very proud’ of him being in the army – but that pride turned to horror in May 2010 when Bradley was arrested.
It was Brian who broke the news to the Welsh side of the family. Mrs Staples, by now running a busy cleaning company employing ten staff, says: ‘I was at work when I got a call from him.

‘His voice was very solemn and he said, “Sharon, Bradley has been arrested. He is in big trouble. Can you let Susan know, please?’’
‘He didn’t tell me any more at the time but told me to watch the TV. I turned it on and there was Bradley’s face staring back.

‘For a second, I thought, what the hell is Bradley doing on the telly? Then I sat down and listened to what he was being accused of.

Moment of Truth: In this courtroom sketch, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, (third from left), stands with lead defense attorney David Coombs, (center), and his defense team as Army Col. Denise Lind, (right), who is presiding over the trial, reads her verdict

Mixed Reactions: Supporters of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley E. Manning hold signs to show support during a demonstration outside the main gate of Ft. Meade July 30th, 2013 in Maryland

‘Memories of him at the computer as a boy flooded back. One thought in particular came back to me of the time he’d come back to Haverfordwest to see his mum at Withybush Hospital, after her stroke in 2006.

‘He was wearing his Superman T-shirt and he’d dyed his blonde hair black. I remembered him telling me and my husband, Joe, that he couldn’t walk round town here because he’d be mobbed.

‘At the time I thought, “Get real, mate, you’re not a celebrity.” But he’s certainly fulfilled his dream now, that’s for sure.’
The family’s horror at his arrest in 2010 deepened the following year when they visited him in jail as he awaited his court-martial.

Susan, accompanied by Sharon and her husband and suffering worsening health problems, made her first and only trip to the US to visit Bradley in February 2011 at a US marines’ base at Quantico in Virginia.
She was permitted four one-hour meetings with her son, who was being kept in solitary confinement. Sharon and Joe were not allowed inside.

HOW BRADLEY BROKE THE NEWS THAT HE WAS GAY

It was during his visit to Wales in 2006 – when he visited his mother in hospital in Haverfordwest – that Bradley announced to the family that he was gay.

His aunt Sharon recalled how Bradley, pictured above with ex-boyfriend Tyler Watkins, told her after she asked him why he was always holding a white seal cuddly toy.

Mrs Staples said: ‘He was sitting on the sofa with this seal around his neck and he stroked it and said, “Steve gave it to me.”

I’d worked it out that Steve was his boyfriend at the time. As long as he’s happy, I thought. Susan felt the same way as me.

‘His father Brian was very understanding too. Bradley said he used to drive him to gay clubs back in Oklahoma, then wait so he could give him a lift home.

I was surprised when he came out though, because when he’d been at school here, he’d had a huge crush on a girl.

‘He bombarded her with gifts but she wasn’t interested. It broke his heart.’

Sharon says that, after the first visit, Susan fell into her sister’s arms and sobbed: ‘You wouldn’t treat a bloody animal like they’re treating Bradley.

‘He was sitting on the other side of a glass partition and when I walked in I heard the sound of the chains round his hands and feet before I saw him.’

Sharon says: ‘Most of the time, they sat in silence but held each other’s gaze. She didn’t get to hug him, but was able to tell him she loved him.

‘I don’t believe Susan will ever see him again. He’ll be behind bars until he’s an old man, if not for ever, and there’s no way Susan is healthy enough to fly out to America now.

‘It’s going to take a miracle to get him out. And to think people are released from prison after 12 years for murder.’

The following November, Mrs Staples and Joe, a 49-year-old kitchen and bathroom designer, made a second trip to the US to visit Bradley.
By now, he had been transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas – a five-hour each way trip from Oklahoma. ‘It was freezing cold and dead deer lined the road as we neared the prison,’ says Mrs Staples. ‘It was pretty bleak.

‘When we arrived, even though we’d been approved for the visit, the guards seemed hell-bent on delaying us so we’d have as little time with Bradley as possible.

‘In the end, we got 40 minutes with him, but it was worth it.

‘We walked in and Bradley was already in this huge room, dressed in orange overalls like they wear at Guantanamo Bay.

‘There were guards and guns everywhere and microphones directly above where we were supposed to sit – but there was no glass partition and he didn’t have his chains on, so we could hug each other.
‘I threw my arms round him and gave him the biggest hug and a kiss. “That’s from your mum,’’ I said. ‘She says to tell you she loves you.

‘He said he was fed up with having to eat chicken all the time because there were no other choices, but he’d been watching plenty of TV. I asked him if he wanted me to send him anything and he said, “Everything I want is in here and here.’’

‘As he said the word “here’’, he pointed to his head, then his heart.
‘His mind certainly seemed organised and strong. I’d always thought of him as a spoilt child but I could see now that he had found a strength I never knew he possessed.’

Mrs Staples has not seen her nephew since that day and although he kept in touch with family by mail for a time, he has not seen, spoken or written to any of his relatives for the past ten months.

‘We’re really worried about why that is,’ she says. ‘Are they preventing him from making contact? We just don’t know.’

Their first glimpse of Bradley since 2011 was this week when he appeared at his court-martial in a small courtroom at Fort Meade, near Baltimore.
Mrs Staples watched on television as the judge acquitted her nephew of the most serious charge of aiding the enemy – but found him guilty of more than 20 crimes.

Experts talk about Bradley Manning's espionage conviction

Military Justice: U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning (right) arrives at the courthouse at Fort Meade, Maryland on July 30th, 2013. Manning learned on Tuesday the verdict in his espionage trial

Security officers stand guard before Private First Class Bradley Manning is escorted into court for the reading of the verdict in his military trial at Fort Meade, Maryland July 30, 2013

‘I phoned Susan,’ she says. ‘She was sitting in her bedroom with the curtains closed. I told her to turn the TV on and watch it and she said, “Is it bad news?”

‘‘No,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t be ringing you to tell you to watch if it was bad news.’ Afterwards, we spoke again on the phone and she said, “Yes, that’s brilliant news.”

‘And it is really because it offers some hope. Like me, Susan knows he’s not coming home any time soon – but at least there’s a chance now that he’ll be released before he dies. There’s something to play for.

‘But I’m not getting carried away – he still faces a maximum of 136 years in prison.’
However, lawyers for the whistleblower are now seeking to reduce his potential sentence by having some of his convictions merged.

The sentencing hearing is scheduled to continue until August 23, but Mrs Staples says she believes the process will last much longer.

‘Bradley’s sister Casey has told me she is one of several witnesses the judge wants to make statements to the court about him – and that is going to take time. It could be months before he is sentenced.

‘I’m just praying for leniency.’

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Pentagon a ripe target for cuts

By Linda Bilmes

| GLOBE CORRESPONDENT

JULY 31, 2013

NORTHROP GRUMMAN

A Global Hawk drone was towed at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota.

THERE IS a common theme that connects recent protests in Turkey, Brazil, Egypt, and elsewhere. That theme is the rising discontent of the middle class brought about by the failure of their governments to deliver popular priorities. Apart from the brief Occupy Wall Street movement, people aren’t taking to the streets here in the United States. Nonetheless there’s growing evidence that some of the trends unfolding abroad also are at work in our own backyard.

Last fall, a coalition of 85 grass-roots organizations, including teachers, veterans, unions, and community activists, placed something called the “Budget for All” on the Massachusetts ballot. The referendum urged the federal government to end the war in Afghanistan, reduce military spending, shift funding to domestic priorities, and increase taxes on the wealthy. Voters in the Commonwealth approved the measure by margins of nearly 3 to 1 in all 91 cities and towns where it was on the ballot, including many places that voted for Mitt Romney in the presidential race.

The Legislature has now taken up the matter. State Senator Dan Wolf, Representative Carl Sciortino, and 34 co-sponsors have proposed a Budget for All resolution that calls on President Obama and the US Congress to embrace these priorities.

In recent hearings at the State House, there was a sense of overwhelming frustration by people from all walks of life who profoundly disagree with the federal government’s taxing and spending policies. They are frustrated that the top 1 percent of Americans has grown extremely rich at the expense of the rest of us; that the national debt exceeds $16 trillion; that the country is mired in sequestration and fiscal cliffs and threats to Social Security while we spend $7 billion per month in Afghanistan; that we’re squandering the lowest interest rates in history instead of rebuilding crumbling roads and bridges.

There was testimony from families of fallen military men and women unable to obtain benefits; biochemists facing cuts to funding for Alzheimer’s research; young teachers who couldn’t afford a home. As Marty Nathan, a mother and family physician at Brightwood Health Center in Springfield summed it up, “We are simply spending federal tax dollars on the wrong things.”

The voters of Massachusetts are on to something. There is ample scope to reduce military spending without jeopardizing national security, and to free up resources for local communities.

Since 2001, the size of the annual military budget has grown by nearly $1 trillion, not including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the last decade, we’ve spent more money on the military, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than at any time since World War II. Despite this influx of cash, our Air Force and Navy fleets and forces are older and smaller than they were 10 years ago.

The defense budget is filled with obsolete, redundant, and underperforming programs and facilities that happen to be located in key congressional districts. The cost of new weapons programs is growing uncontrollably, and many don’t even work well. The Global Hawk, America’s largest and most expensive spy drone (cost: $220 million apiece), cannot be used in difficult weather conditions — so the Air Force is flying U-2s from the 1950s to carry out surveillance over North Korea when the weather is cloudy. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which had an original price tag of $81 million per plane, has now doubled to $161 million each. The entire program has ballooned to $391 billion for a reduced number of planes, and is way behind schedule.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates has estimated that 30 percent of the Pentagon’s budget is consumed by overheads and indirect costs. With these overheads hidden among thousands of individual line items, the current system makes it impossible for the department to monitor and control costs. The Defense Department has flunked its financial audit every year for the past two decades, and cannot account for billions in annual spending. The recent across-the-board cuts in the sequester won’t do anything to root out inefficiencies or to enable the Pentagon to spend more strategically.

The core idea behind the Budget for All is that we can’t afford to continue spending 20 cents of every tax dollar on the military, regardless of whether the item in question is necessary or even good value. Instead, we should reset our national priorities towards more butter, fewer guns, and more equitable taxation. Voters are disillusioned with the gridlock in Washington and the iron grip of special interests. Congress needs to pay attention to the common sense of our Commonwealth voters.

Linda Bilmes, a former assistant secretary of the US Department of Commerce, is the Daniel Patrick Moynihan senior lecturer in public policy at Harvard University.

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Please post your immigrant action calendar items Summer 2013 National Immigrant Solidarity Network Monthly News Digest and News Alert! National Immigrant Solidarity Network No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights! URL: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org e-mail: Info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org Information about the Network: FLYER Washington D.C.: (202)595-8990 New York: (212)330-8172 Los Angeles: (213)403-0131 Chicago: (773)942-2268 Every Donation Counts! Please Support Us! Send check pay to: National Immigrant Solidarity Network/AFGJ National Immigrant Solidarity Network P.O. Box 751 South Pasadena, CA 91031-0751 (All donations are tax deductible) Summer 2013 U.S. Immigrant Alert! Newsletter Published by National Immigrant Solidarity Network Please Download Our Newsletter: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/Newsletter/Summer13.pdf [Requires Adobe Acrobat, to download, go: http://www.adobe.com] Subscribe to Newsletter | Please Join Our E-Mail List | Please Donate to Us! | Past NISN Digests Stopping the Trans-Pacific Partnership IS Immigrant Rights! In This Issue: 1) Stopping the TPP IS Immigrant Rights! 2) 8 immigrant youth activists detained upon re-entry to US 3) House Passes 2014 NDAA; NSA Surveillance Will Lead to Indefinite Detention 4) Senate Immigration Bill Dashes Hopes for Fair, Just Reform 5) How the FBI Uses Rapists and Child Molesters to Entrap Gullible People in Terror Stings 6) Updates, Please Support NISN! Subscribe the Newsletter! Please download our latest newsletter: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/Newsletter/Summer13.pdf Stopping the Trans-Pacific Partnership IS Immigrant Rights! [Alliance for Global Justice] Following is an open, sign-on letter from the Flush the TPP Campaign, of which the Alliance for Global Justice is a part. Right now the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is being negotiated at the same time that Congress is considering a "border surge" in militarization as part of immigration reform. We have already seen that free trade plus border militarization is a combination that kills. This letter explains the relationship between ‘free’ trade agreements and militarization of the border. The struggle for immigrant rights includes opening borders, not locking them down, and creating fair trade for people and the planet, not corporate trade for profit with impunity. Please consider signing on to this letter (fill out the form below). Then also share this letter with individuals and organizations in your community that work for immigrant rights or that also might be willing to sign on, and encourage them to add their names. We can stop the TPP! The first step is to educate more people about the effects the TPP will have on our communities. Then together, we will flush the TPP. We write this letter out of concern regarding a looming humanitarian crisis. The prospect of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) along with a surge in border militarization will leave in its wake a trail of displacement and death. The TPP will continue destroying rural economies and uprooting workers in Mexico and elsewhere. More border militarization and criminalization will leave yet more bodies of the undocumented and their families abandoned and lifeless in the desert. We call on fair trade and immigrant rights activists to join together to stop the TPP and to demand real, just immigration reform. Over 6,000 undocumented workers and their family members have died crossing the US-Mexico border since 1994, the year that the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed. It was also when construction of the border wall began. NAFTA led to a 60% increase in migration across the Southern border–a forced migration of people desperately looking for jobs to feed their families. Because of border militarization the undocumented generally enter the US via its most sparsely populated and harshest desert terrains to avoid apprehension. Those who don’t make it die from dysentery, dehydration and exposure. The Trans-Pacific Partnership has been called “NAFTA on Steroids”. If it passes, it will be the largest FTA in the world, including not only Mexico, the United States and Canada, but also Peru, Chile, Vietnam, Brunei, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore. The Obama administration is asking for “Fast Track” authority to negotiate the TPP.... To read and sign the rest of the letter: http://www.flushthetpp.org/the-tpp-and-immigrant-rights/ To read the letter in Spanish: http://www.flushthetpp.org/detener-el-tpp-es-defender-los-derechos-del-inmigrante/ 6/27: House Passes 2014 NDAA; NSA Surveillance Will Lead to Indefinite Detention By Joe Wolverton - The New American The annual renewal of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is underway on Capitol Hill. On June 14, by a vote of 315-108, the House of Representatives passed the Fiscal Year 2014 version of the NDAA (HR 1960). Several amendments to the defense spending legislation were proposed, many of which were approved either by voice vote or en bloc. The first method of voting requires no report on how individual members voted, while the second method aggregates amendments, allowing them to be voted on in groups. A few of the amendments represent significant improvements to the NDAA of 2012 and 2013. The acts passed for those years infamously permitted the president to deploy U.S. military troops to apprehend and indefinitely detain any American he alone believed to be aiding enemies of the state. While the 2014 iteration doesn’t go far enough in pushing the federal beast back inside its constitutional cage, there are at least a few congressmen willing to try to crack the whip and restore constitutional separation of powers and shore up a few of the fundamental liberties suspended by the NDAA of the past two years. First, there is the amendment offered by Representative Trey Radel (R-Fla.). Radel’s amendment requires the Department of Defense to submit to the Congress a report every year containing: (1) the names of any U.S. citizens subject to military detention, (2) the legal justification for their continued detention, and (3) the steps the Executive Branch is taking to either provide them some judicial process, or release them. Requires that an unclassified version of the report be made available, and in addition, that the report must be made available to all members of Congress. Radel’s amendment was passed by voice vote. Next, an amendment offered by Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) would require the federal government, in habeas proceedings for U.S. citizens apprehended in the United States pursuant to the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), to prove by “clear and convincing evidence” that the citizen is an unprivileged enemy combatant and there is not presumption that the government's evidence is accurate and authentic. The House approved the Goodlatte amendment by a vote of 214-211. Finally, an amendment by Representative Paul Broun (R-Ga.) forbids the Department of Defense from killing a citizen of the United States by a drone attack unless that person is actively engaged in combat against the United States. This trio of amendments represents a laudable attempt to restrain the power of the executive. As constitutionalists and civil libertarians are aware, recent occupants of the Oval Office have usurped sweeping unconstitutional powers, including the authority to target Americans for indefinite detention, to withhold from them rights that have been recognized as unalienable since before the Magna Carta, and to kill American citizens who have been charged with no crime and been given no opportunity to defend themselves from the accusations that qualified them for summary assassination. Despite these small victories in the battle to restore constitutionally protected liberty, the debate on the 2014 NDAA provided several examples of Congress violating their oaths of office by shrinking the scope of basic rights and expanding the power of the president to act as de facto (and now, de jure) judge, jury, and executioner. For example, two amendments offered by Representative Adam Smith (D-Wash.) were rejected by his colleagues, to their dishonor. Smith’s first proposed amendment would have prohibited indefinite military detention of any person detained under AUMF authority in the United States, territories, or possessions by providing immediate transfer to trial and proceedings by a court established under Article III of the Constitution or by an appropriate state court. Not surprisingly, Smith’s amendment failed to garner approval, being voted down by a vote of 200-226 (213 Republicans voted against Smith’s amendment). This was not the first time the “conservatives” in Congress rejected a proposal by Representative Smith that would have protected due process and disgorged the president of powers to which he is not entitled. During last year’s deliberations on the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2013, the House of Representatives voted to perpetuate the president’s power to indefinitely detain American citizens. By a vote of 238-182, members of Congress rejected the amendment offered by Smith and Justin Amash (R-Mich.) that would have repealed the indefinite detention provision passed overwhelmingly in 2011 as part of the 2012 NDAA. The Fiscal Year 2013 NDAA retained the indefinite detention provisions, as well as the section permitting prisoners to be transferred from civilian jurisdiction to the custody of the military. "The frightening thing here is that the government is claiming the power under the Afghanistan authorization for use of military force as a justification for entering American homes to grab people, indefinitely detain them and not give them a charge or trial," Representative Amash said during House debate last year. In his impassioned speech supporting the amendment he proposed last year, Representative Smith reminded his colleagues that the NDAA granted to the president “extraordinary” powers and divested the American people of key civil liberties, as well as divesting civilian courts of their constitutional jurisdiction. Smith pointed out that there was no need to transfer suspects into military custody as “hundreds” of terrorists have been tried in federal courts since the attacks of September 11, 2001. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Members of Congress — mostly Republican members — have united in firm defense of the president’s unconstitutional power to apprehend and indefinitely detain Americans. There are very few more powerful reminders that there is no party in Washington, D.C., that is committed to faithfully adhering to the oath of office or to the upholding of the manifold God-given rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution. Finally, there is in the NDAA for 2014, a frightening fusion of the federal government’s constant surveillance of innocent Americans and the assistance it will give to justifying the indefinite detention of anyone labeled an enemy of the regime. Section 1061 of the 2014 NDAA approved by the House expands on the scope of surveillance established by the Patriot Act and the AUMF. Sec. 1061(a) authorizes the secretary of efense to "establish a center to be known as the 'Conflict Records Research Center.’” According to the current text of the NDAA, the center would be tasked with compiling a “digital research database including translations and to facilitate research and analysis of records captured from countries, organizations, and individuals, now or once hostile to the United States.” In order to accomplish the center’s purpose, the secretary of defense will create an information exchange in cooperation with the director of national intelligence. Key to the functioning of this information exchange will be the collection of “captured records.” Section 1061(g)(1), defines a captured record as "a document, audio file, video file, or other material captured during combat operations from countries, organizations, or individuals, now or once hostile to the United States." When read in conjunction with the provision of the AUMF that left the War on Terror open-ended and previous NDAAs’ classification of the United States as a battleground in that unconstitutional war, and you’ve got a powerful combination that can knock out the entire Bill of Rights. Finally, when all the foregoing is couched within the context of the revelations regarding the dragnet surveillance programs of the NSA, it becomes evident that anyone’s phone records, e-mail messages, browsing history, text messages, and social media posts could qualify as a “captured record.” After being seized by the NSA (or some other federal surveillance apparatus), the seized materials would be processed by the Conflict Records Research Center created by this bill. This center's massive database of electronic information and its collaboration with the NSA converts the United States into a constantly monitored holding cell and all its citizens and residents into suspects. All, of course, in the name of security. To wit, Americans zealous about retaining their rights and resisting the constant repeal of them by the federal government would be wise to remember the words James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1798: “It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” Also Read.. 6/28: Senate Immigration Bill Dashes Hopes for Fair, Just Reform http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1535 7/17: How the FBI Uses Rapists and Child Molesters to Entrap Gullible People in Terror Stings http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1538 MAPA Interactive Map of “Secure Communities” Shows How Many immigrants has been detained/deported under S-Comm) http://migrahack.coshimel.com/ Please download our latest newsletter: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/Newsletter/Summer13.pdf Past National Immigrant Solidarity Netowrk News Letters Spring 2013 | Fall 2012 |Spring 2012 | Summer 2012 | Winter 2011 | Summer 2011 | Fall 2011 | November 2011 | Spring 2011 | September - October 2009 | Spring 2010 | Fall 2010 | October-Novermber 10 May - June 2009 | March - April 2009 | January - February 2009 | November - December 2008 Useful Immigrant Resources on Detention and Deportation Face Sheet: Immigration Detention--Questions and Answers (Dec, 2008) by: http://www.thepoliticsofimmigration.org Thanks for GREAT works from Detention Watch Network (DWN) to compiled the following information, please visit DWN website: http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org Tracking ICE's Enforcement Agenda Real Deal fact sheet on detention Real Deal fact sheet on border - From Raids to Deportation-A Community Resource Kit - Know Your Rights in the Community (English, Spanish) - Know Your Rights in Detention - Pre-Raid Community Safety Plan - Raids to Deportation Map - Raids to Deportation Policy Map More on Immigration Resource Page http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/resource.htm Useful Handouts and Know Your Immigrant Rights When Marches Immigrant Marches / Marchas de los Inmigrantes (By ACLU) EN ESPAÑOL Acerca de la Union Americana de Libertades Civiles Immigrants and their supporters are participating in marches all over the country to protest proposed national legislation and to seek justice for immigrants. The materials available here provide important information about the rights and risks involved for anyone who is planning to participate in the ongoing marches. If government agents question you, it is important to understand your rights. You should be careful in the way you speak when approached by the police, FBI, or INS. If you give answers, they can be used against you in a criminal, immigration, or civil case. The ACLU's publications below provide effective and useful guidance in several languages for many situations. The brochures apprise you of your legal rights, recommend how to preserve those rights, and provide guidance on how to interact with officials. IMMIGRATION Know Your Rights When Encountering Law Enforcement | Conozca Sus Derechos Frente A Los Agentes Del Orden Público ACLU of Massachusetts - Your Rights And Responsibilities If You Are Contacted By The Authorities English | Spanish | Chinese ACLU of Massachusetts - What to do if stopped and questioned about your immigration status on the street, the subway, or the bus | Que hacer si Usted es interrogado en el tren o autobus acerca de su estatus inmigratorio ACLU of South Carolina - How To Deal With A 287(g) | Como Lidiar Con Una 287(g) ACLU of Southern California - What to Do If Immigration Agents or Police Stop You While on Foot, in Your Car, or Come to Your Home | Qué Hacer Si Agentes de Inmigración o la Policía lo Paran Mientras Va Caminando, lo Detienen en su Auto o Vienen a su Hogar ACLU of Washington - Brochure for Iraqis: What to Do If the FBI or Police Contact You for Questioning English | Arabic ACLU of Washington - Your Rights at Checkpoints at Ferry Terminals | Sus Derechos en Puestos de Control en las Terminales de Transbordadores LABOR / FREE SPEECH Immigrant Protests - What Every Worker Should Know: | Manifestaciones de los Inmigrantes - Lo Que Todo Trabajador Debe Saber PROTESTERS ACLU of Florida Brochure - The Rights of Protesters | Los Derechos de los Manifestantes STUDENTS Washington State - Student Walkouts and Political Speech at School | Huelgas Estudiantiles y Expresión Política en las Escuelas California Students: Public School Walk-outs and Free Speech | Estudiantes de California: Marchas o Huelgas y La Libertad de Expresión en las Escuelas Públicas Please Subscribe to the US Immigration Alert Newsletter! A Monthly Newsletter from National Immigrant Solidarity Network 1 year subscription rate (12 issues) is $35.00 It will help us pay for the printing costs, as well as funding for the NISN projects (additional donations to the NISN is tax deductible!) Check pay to: NISN/AFGJ National Immigrant Solidarity Network P.O. Box 751 South Pasadena, CA 91031-0751 Please Join Our Mailing Lists! - Daily email update: The National Immigrant Solidarity Network daily news litserv to join, visit web: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn or send e-mail to: isn-subscribe@lists.riseup.net - Regional listservs: Asian American Labor Activism Alert! 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Support Immigrant Rights! send e-mail to: Border01-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Border01/ Immigrant Deportation and Detention Alert! send e-mail to: isn-deportees-subscribe@lists.riseup.net Chicago/Midwest/Great Lake Region Immigrant List send e-mail to: chicago-immigrantrights@lists.riseup.net or visit: https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/chicago-immigrantrights Please Donate to National Immigrant Solidarity Network! All Donations Are Tax Deductible! Make check payable to NISN/AFGJ and it will be tax deductible! Send your check to: National Immigrant Solidarity Network P.O. Box 751 South Pasadena, CA 91031-0751 Los Angeles, California 90048 ____ $100.00 ____ $ 50.00 ____ $ 35.00 ____ Other Amount $___________ ($35 or more will receive 1 year free subscriptions of the Immigration Alert! Newsletter Print Edition) Donate On-Line: https://org2.salsalabs.com/o/7315/donate_page/actionla-nisn Every Donation Counts! Please Support Us!

Was Benghazi “Consulate” a CIA Front?

May 15, 2013

CNN’s Gloria Borger noted on Tuesday: “White House spokesman Jay Carney says the White House changed the wording from ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ to be more accurate. So what does that mean? Thanks to the digging of Glenn Kessler in The Washington Post, it looks very much like the Benghazi consulate ‘was not a consulate at all but basically a secret CIA operation.’”
In fact, Goodman wrote in November for ConsortiumNews that: “the consulate was the diplomatic cover for an intelligence platform and whatever diplomatic functions took place in Benghazi also served as cover for an important CIA base.” See: “The Why Behind the Benghazi Attack.”
MELVIN GOODMAN, goody789 at verizon.net
Goodman is director of the National Security Project at the Center for International Policy. He was an analyst at the CIA for 24 years. His most recent book is the just-released National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. Goodman just wrote the piece “The Real Benghazi Scandal” for CounterPunch, which states: “When congressional Republicans complete manipulating the Benghazi tragedy, it will be time for the virtually silent Senate intelligence committee to take up three major issues that have been largely ignored. The committee must investigate the fact that the U.S. presence in Benghazi was an intelligence platform and only nominally a consulate; the politicization by the White House and State Department of CIA analysis of the events in Benghazi; and the Obama administration’s politicization of the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General, which has virtually destroyed the office and deprived congressional intelligence committees of their most important oversight tool.
“When U.S. personnel were airlifted from Benghazi the night of the attack, there were seven Foreign Service and State Department officers and 23 CIA officers onboard. This fact alone indicates that the consulate was primarily diplomatic cover for an intelligence operation that was known to Libyan militia groups. The CIA failed to provide adequate security for Benghazi, and its clumsy tradecraft contributed to the tragic failure. On the night of the attack, the small CIA security team in Benghazi was slow to respond, relying on an untested Libyan intelligence organization to maintain security for U.S. personnel. After the attack, the long delay in debriefing evacuated personnel contributed to the confusing assessments.”
Goodman lists a series of major failures by the CIA where no one was held accountable. The most recent: “The politicization of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 was the worst intelligence scandal in the CIA’s history, but there were no penalties for those who supported CIA director George Tenet’s efforts to make phony intelligence a ‘slam dunk’ as well as Deputy Director John McLaughlin’s ‘slam dunk’ briefing to President George Bush. The CIA’s production of an unclassified white paper for the Congress on the eve of the vote to authorize force in October 2002 marked the misuse of classified information to influence congressional opinion, but there were no consequences.
“The destruction of the torture tapes, a clear case of obstruction of justice in view of White House orders to protect the tapes, led to no recriminations at the CIA. The controversy over the use of drone aircraft; the intelligence failure that accompanied the Arab Spring in 2011; and the inadequate security presence in Libya in the wake of the killing of Muammar Gaddafi have not received the necessary scrutiny. Any CIA component in the Middle East and North Africa is a likely target of militant and terrorist organizations because of the Agency’s key role in the Bush administration’s ‘war on terror’ and the Obama administration’s increasingly widespread use of drone aircraft.
“The ability of the Nigerian underwear bomber to board a commercial airline in December 2009 marked an intelligence failure for the entire intelligence community, but there was no serious attempt to examine the breakdown in coordination between five or six intelligence agencies, let alone pursue accountability. Instead, President Obama halted all efforts to return home Yemeni prisoners at Guantanamo.”