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WARS
ABROAD, WARS AT HOME
DPPer Christine Maguire
passed this along:
Almost a year after Cleveland police officers gunned down 12-year-old Tamir Rice while playing with a toy gun in a playground, his mother is still waiting for the officers involved to be held accountable. Local prosecutors -- like Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty -- work closely with police officers because they depend on
their testimony
to win cases. That means local prosecutors cannot be expected to hold those
same officers, their trusted colleagues, accountable for criminal
acts.
Almost a year after Cleveland police officers gunned down 12-year-old Tamir Rice while playing with a toy gun in a playground, his mother is still waiting for the officers involved to be held accountable. Local prosecutors -- like Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty -- work closely with police officers because they depend on
A week ago, McGinty released two
reports from outside experts that he had hired. Both reports concluded the
shooting was reasonable -- but within hours of their release the media uncovered
troubling facts about both experts. One had declared in a TV interview before
being hired -- and before he had all of the facts -- that the officers couldn’t
be blamed. Even worse, the second expert was once admonished by the U.S.
Department of Justice for being "unfaithful" to the law, "overly protective of
law enforcement" and going "too far to exonerate the use of
force.2"
Tamir’s death at the hands of
police was senseless, unnecessary, and preventable. When police kill unarmed
children, we expect them to be held accountable for their wrongdoing. We need to
act to make sure these officers are prosecuted.
SURJ members take action. We work
to confront racial injustice in our own communities and across the country. This
may be the only way to get justice for Tamir, so we need to show up.
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BLOOD MONEY,
literally. . .
Alabama judge: Give
blood or go to jail
On Sept. 17,
Perry County Circuit Judge Marvin Wiggins gave two options to those unable to
afford their court fees: give blood or go to jail. Yesterday, the Southern
Poverty Law Center filed an ethics complaint with the Judicial Inquiry
Commission against the circuit judge for what SPLC Deputy Legal Director Sam
Brooke called a “violation of bodily integrity.” “It’s shocking to say that to
avoid jail, you have to give blood,” Brooke said Tuesday. “It’s fundamentally at
odds with how the system is supposed to work.” … According to
Evans, 54 people registered to give blood at that location that day. Of the 54
registrations, 47 people gave blood, and 41 of those units – about 5.5 gallons –
were discarded because it couldn’t be determined if that blood was volunteered.
More
Lawsuit Challenges a
Mississippi Debtors Prison
Low-income
residents of Jackson, Mississippi, are being coerced into working on a penal
farm in a “modern-day debtors prison” for being unable to pay municipal fees and
fines for misdemeanors, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in a federal
court last week. The suit alleges that the City of Jackson, in Hinds County,
employs a “pay or stay” system in which impoverished plaintiffs who are unable
to pay court-ordered fines must work off their debts at the county’s penal farm
in nearby Raymond at a rate of $58 per day. Those unable or unwilling to work
can sit out their debts in jail at a rate of $25 per day. More
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Wednesday,
October 28
Hearing on the Budget
for All Resolution!
Rally 12:30 pm ·
State House Steps
Hearing 1:30 pm
· State House Room A1
You voted for a Budget for All! Now
it’s time to have the Massachusetts Legislature send your message to Congress
and the President. In the big 2012 election, Massachusetts voted for the
Budget for All! public policy question, passing it by an average 3
to 1 margin in each of the 91 cities and towns where it appeared on the ballot
(including towns that voted for Romney or Scott Brown). That referendum called
on state senators and representatives to vote for a resolution from the Mass.
state legislature calling upon Congress and the President them to: Prevent cuts to vital programs
that help all of our families: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans
benefits, and housing, food and unemployment assistance.- Prevent cuts to vital programs that help all of our families: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans benefits, and housing, food and unemployment assistance.
- Create and protect jobs in fields like manufacturing, education, transportation, and other public services.
- End corporate tax breaks, loopholes and offshore tax havens, so that wealthy individuals and corporations pay their fair share.
- Redirect Pentagon spending to meet human needs. The US war budget is greater than the military spending of the next 10 largest military powers combined. While over half of the country’s discretionary budget is being spent to prepare for war, millions of us are unable to get their basic needs met.
Please
join Mel King, veterans, labor leaders, people who are threatened with more cuts
to demand that the Legislature respect the people’s vote? The Massachusetts
House and Senate will hold hearings on the Budget for All resolutions, S.1906
and H.3144. Sponsoring organizations include the Massachusetts Alliance of HUD
Tenants, Massachusetts Peace Action, and American Friends Service Committee.
Full list of 85 sponsoring groups: http://Budget4AllMass.org/sponsors
Saturday, October 24:
Public Transit is
a Public Good that Deserves and Requires Public Funding, 9:30am – 1:30pm,
SEIU Local 32BJ New England 615, 26 West Street, 2nd floor, Boston (off Tremont
St, near Park St. T stop). The Budget for All Coalition invites you to a half-day forum. The
state of public transit in Eastern Massachusetts; Investments needed for a
modern and efficient public transportation system; The impact of public transit
privatization on riders, T employees and their unions; The need for
re-allocation of our Federal Tax Dollars to mass transit; A role for the
Congressional Progressive Caucus’ Peoples Budget in mobilizing to improve mass
transit. Space is limited – To attend please pre-register at http://fed-invest.brownpapertickets.com/. $12 donation
requested to cover expenses, no one turned away
OBAMA VETOES $612
BILLION DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BILL
President Obama
exercised his veto power Thursday for just the fifth time in his presidency,
rejecting a defense authorization bill because of the way it would sidestep
budget limitations for the military and because it would restrict the transfer
of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay. The White House said that the
National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would tap an overseas contingency
operations account designed for emergencies and war costs and use it as a “slush
fund” to avoid budget restrictions. Those restrictions — known as sequestration
— would impose offsetting across-the-board cuts if spending passed certain
levels… The president wants spending limits raised for both non-defense and
defense discretionary spending, but most Republicans want to lift limits on
defense spending but not on non-defense spending. Obama would raise each
category about $38 billion. “The President has been very clear about the core
principle that he will not support a budget that locks in sequestration, and he
will not fix defense without fixing non-defense spending,” the Office of
Management and Budget said when the bill was first proposed.
More
Better Reasons to
Veto the Defense Authorization Bill
Bans new round
of base closures (BRAC): The Pentagon
supports a new round of BRAC as a cost-saving measure; but Congress is reluctant
to pass legislation that might hurt their constituents. Once again, the NDAA
prohibits a new round of base closings. Promotes wasteful missile defense
provisions: The NDAA includes a slew of terrible missile defense provisions,
including adding $30 million for an East Coast missile defense site the Pentagon
does not want, and directing the Missile Defense Agency to chose a specific
location 30 days after an environmental impact study is published. The Pentagon
has made clear that it does not want, or have any need for, a third
missile defense site. Expands the off-budget account for new nuclear
submarines; Limits reduction of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) alert
status; Restricts nuclear weapons dismantlement.
and More
President
Obama's veto also deep-sixed important provisions to assist Israel, including
$475.2 million for Israel's missile defense programs (an increase from the $155
million he had requested) and authorization to develop an anti-tunnel defense
capability - a provision sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) in the House and
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) in the Senate. The President's action sets the stage
for votes in the House and Senate to override the veto. The override vote is
expected to be close in both chambers. RJC encourages you to call your
Congressman and U.S. Senators and urge them to support an override of the
president's veto of the NDAA.
More
Iceland sentences
bankers to prison; US, not so much
In two separate
Icelandic Supreme Court and Reykjavik District Court rulings, five top bankers
from Landsbankinn and Kaupping — the two largest banks in the country — were found guilty of market manipulation, embezzlement, and breach
of fiduciary duties. Most of those convicted have been sentenced to prison for
two to five years. The maximum penalty for financial crimes in Iceland is six
years, although their Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments to consider
expanding sentences beyond the six year maximum. After the crash in 2008, while
congress was giving American banks a $700 billion TARP bailout courtesy of taxpayers, Iceland decided to go in a
different direction and enabled their government with financial supervisory
authority to take control of the banks as the chaos resulting from the crash
unraveled… Meanwhile, in America, not one single banking executive has been
charged with a crime related to the 2008 crash and U.S. banks are raking in more than $160 billion in annual profits with little to no
regulation in place to avoid another financial catastrophe. More
What Could Raising
Taxes on the 1% Do? Surprising Amounts
Sidestepping for
the moment the messy question of just which taxes would be increased, how much
more revenue could be generated by asking the rich to pay a larger share of
their income in taxes? … Raising their total tax burden to, say, 40 percent
would generate about $157 billion in revenue the first year. Increasing it to 45
percent brings in a whopping $276 billion. Even taking account of state and
local taxes, the average household in this group would still take home at least
$1 million a year. If the tax increase were limited to just the 115,000
households in the top 0.1 percent, with an average income of $9.4 million, a 40
percent tax rate would produce $55 billion in extra revenue in its first year.
That would more than cover, for example, the estimated $47 billion cost of eliminating undergraduate
tuition at all the country’s four-year public colleges and universities, as
Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed, or Mrs. Clinton’s cheaper plan for a
debt-free college degree, with money left over to help fund universal
prekindergarten. A tax rate of 45 percent on this select group raises $109
billion, more than enough to pay for the first year of a new $2,500 child tax
credit introduced by Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida.
More
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