Statement of SEIU President Andy Stern on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Dedication to Working Families

"We must work unceasingly to uplift this nation that we love to a higher destiny, to a higher plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humanness”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"This weekend, we will remember the life and the dream of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his dedication to uplifting all Americans seeking social justice and economic freedom.

Watch "Inside Guantanamo" on Sunday, April 5th, 8 PM CST or Wednesday, April 8, 7 PM CST - Check your local listings.

By Dave Lindorff

A group of six ordinary people in a Colorado courtroom saw through the McCarthyite political tactics of the University of Colorado officials and Colorado politicians who conducted a witch hunt against tenured professor and long-time Native American activist Ward Churchill, saying with remarkable clarity and sense that he never would have had his tenure revoked and been fired by the university had it not been for his unapologetic left-wing politics and writings.

It was an enormous victory for academic freedom and for the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech.

DOJ Watchdog 'Revising' Report Critical Of John Yoo's Legal Work On Torture
By Jason Leopold of The Public Record | Consortium News

Before leaving office, senior Bush administration lawyers secured changes in a Justice Department watchdog agency’s report that reportedly was sharply critical of legal opinions granting President George W. Bush sweeping powers, including the right to abuse “war on terror” captives.

In a letter to two U.S. senators, the Justice Department said the changes to the report by the Office of Professional Responsibility followed comments from then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, then-Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip and the Office of Legal Counsel, which was still run by Steven Bradbury, one of three lawyers who had been singled out for criticism in OPR's initial draft.

ACLU demands Obama release torture memos | Raw Story

The American Civil Liberties Union has called on the Obama administration to end debate ahead of a approaching court deadline in their Freedom of Information Act case which seeks the release of three Office of Legal Counsel memos that are believed to have authorized torture of prisoners in CIA custody.

The memos were written by Stephen Bradbury in May 2005 when he was a lawyer at the Justice Department.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Obama officials are hotly debating whether to release the memos. White House Counsel Gregory Craig and Attorney General Eric Holder are apparently in favor of releasing the memos "as quickly as possible to distance the new administration from the most controversial policies of the Bush years."

How National Security Letters Violate Our Privacy

The overwhelming majority of NSL requests seek our most sensitive information -- telephone bills, email subscriber information, and financial records. And even if the FBI determines that the subject of an NSL is completely innocent, it keeps the information it collects, amassing vast dossiers on innocent Americans.

Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) have called for a stop to the use of NSLs to invade the privacy of innocent people. This week, Reps. Nadler and Flake reintroduced the National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009. Previously introduced in 2007, this bipartisan bill aims to curb federal law enforcement's rampant abuse of NSLs. The legislation already has 17 cosponsors, including former presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX).

Call today and ask your representative to cosponsor the National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009. Call your senators and ask them to support the legislation in the Senate. Find out how to contact your members of Congress.

Watch Part 2 by clicking "Read more."

Congressional Progressive Caucus
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov
77 Strong and Growing: Open to New and Different Ideas
April 2, 2009

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Harry Reid, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate

Dear Madam Speaker and Majority Leader,

Regarding the upcoming health care reform debate, we believe it is important for you to know that virtually the entire 77-Member Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) prefers a single-payer approach to healthcare reform. Therefore, it will come as no surprise as you work to craft comprehensive health care reform legislation, that we urge the inclusion of a public plan option, at a minimum, in the final legislation. We have polled CPC Members and a strong majority will not support legislation that does not include a public plan option that is supported on a level playing field with private health insurance plans.

April 10-12, 2009 Chicago, IL

National Immigrant Solidarity Network

UIC Student Center West 828 South Wolcott, Chicago, IL 60612 (Two Block West from CTA Pink Line POLK Station)

Stop Immigrant Raids! Support Immigrant Workers Rights! Together We Build A New Immigrant Rights Movement!

http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org/2009Conference

Phone: (773)942-2268 | e-mail: info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org

Muslim Americans at Odds Over FBI Contact
By Jacqueline L. Salmon | Washington Post

A behind-the-scenes controversy has broken out among Muslim American leaders over a coalition of Muslim organizations' threat to cut off contact with the FBI because of what it calls the agency's "McCarthy-era" tactics.

The coalition of two dozen Muslim American groups said last week that the FBI's treatment of one of its member organizations and what it regards as inappropriate FBI infiltration of mosques have disrupted the growing trust between the agency and the Muslim community. The coalition blasted the FBI, saying in a statement that "these McCarthy-era tactics are detrimental to a free society."

Longer version with more detail and advice: HERE.

Recommendations

For Meetings with Congress Members and Senators

During April 4-19, 2009, Recess

Adjust to your  communities’ priorities and to fit your representative and senators.  Make the case to them of the necessary trade-off in defunding war in order to fund human needs. Make alliances with activist groups wishing to pressure elected officials on domestic funding needs and workers’ rights.

I. PEACE

Oppose Escalation of War in Afghanistan and Pakistan

A bipartisan group of fourteen members of Congress recently wrote to the president asking him to reconsider his proposal to send more troops to Afghanistan.  Your representative and senators should send similar letters, and should include opposition to missile strikes or the introduction of troops into Pakistan.

Not so long ago, I blogged about similarities and differences in struggles for rights for atheists and gays. Little did I know how misguided this whole notion was, and that we would need Newt Gingrich to rise from the dead and save us from gay secular fascism.

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet

Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that key provisions set to expire this year are 'exceptionally helpful.'

Earlier this month, the ACLU released a report taking stock of the USA PATRIOT Act, almost eight years after its passage. The study, titled "Reclaiming Patriotism," identifies key sections of the law that codified the most radical abuses of power under the Bush administration, interweaving stories of people who were unlawfully spied on, coerced, and intimidated through the PATRIOT Act's sweeping powers.

"More than seven years after its implementation, there is little evidence to demonstrate that the Patriot Act has made America more secure from terrorists," the report's authors write. "But there are many unfortunate examples that the government abused these authorities in ways that both violated the rights of innocent people and squandered precious security resources."

The ACLU report highlights three specific provisions of the PATRIOT Act that have led to unprecedented surveillance against Americans:

READ THE REST.

Would save $400 billion on bureaucracy, enough to cover all 46 million uninsured Americans

From Physicians for a National Health Program

Challenging head-on the powerful private insurance and pharmaceutical industries, Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a single-payer health reform bill, the American Health Security Act of 2009, in the U.S. Senate Wednesday. The bill is the first to directly take on the powerful lobbies blocking universal health reform in the Senate since Sen. Paul Wellstone’s tragic death.

If we weren't, there'd probably be a lot of us pushing for single-payer.

Oh, wait.

A strong majority of Americans keeps telling pollsters we want single-payer.

HR 676 has 72 cosponsors and is endorsed by:
U.S. Conference of Mayors and
City of Austin

By Russell Mokhiber, Published by Common Dreams, and PDA.

I'm an Arab American.

If I listen to the leadership of the Arab American organizations, I'm supposed to be proud of my fellow Arab Americans who make it in American society.

So, for example, the Arab American Institute promotes all Arab American politicians--no matter their political persuasion.

At its annual dinner, the American Task Force on Lebanon gives awards to the likes of Darryl Issa (R-California) and General John Abizaid, former head of the U.S. Command in Iraq.

A couple of years ago, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee gave an award to National Public Radio's Diane Rehm, a prominent Lebanese American.

Rehm's a corporate liberal.

She'll espouse corporate Democratic Party liberalism--but won't go out on the limb for the American people.

Take the issue of health care reform.

Fifty million Americans are without health insurance.

Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes
By Naomi Wolf | AlterNet

In early March, more shocking details emerged about George W. Bush legal counsel John Yoo's memos outlining the destruction of the republic.

The memos lay the legal groundwork for the president to send the military to wage war against U.S. citizens; take them from their homes to Navy brigs without trial and keep them forever; close down the First Amendment; and invade whatever country he chooses without regard to any treaty or objection by Congress.

It was as if Milton's Satan had a law degree and was establishing within the borders of the United States the architecture of hell.

I thought this was -- and is -- certainly one of the biggest stories of our lifetime, making the petty burglary of Watergate -- which scandalized the nation -- seem like playground antics. It is newsworthy too with the groundswell of support for prosecutions of Bush/Cheney crimes and recent actions such as Canadian attorneys mobilizing to arrest Bush if he visits their country.

The memos are a confession. The memos could not be clearer: This was the legal groundwork of an attempted coup. I expected massive front page headlines from the revelation that these memos exited. Almost nothing. I was shocked.

Pioneering historian John Hope Franklin dies at 94
By Martha Waggoner | Google News | Duke University's John Hope Franklin Web Site

John Hope Franklin, a towering scholar and pioneer of African-American studies who wrote the seminal text on the black experience in the U.S. and worked on the landmark Supreme Court case that outlawed public school segregation, died Wednesday. He was 94.

David Jarmul, a spokesman at Duke University, where Franklin taught for a decade and was professor emeritus of history, said he died of congestive heart failure at the school's hospital in Durham.

Text of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

Wikipedia: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

Amnesty: 30,000 immigrants jailed in U.S. | UPI

The number of immigrants held in U.S. detention each day has tripled from 10,000 in 1996 to more than 30,000 in 2008, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

The detainees, who include some U.S. citizens, are being held without receiving hearings to determine whether their detentions are warranted and most of them experience "extreme difficulty" in retaining lawyers or getting help to navigate the U.S. legal process, the human rights group said in a release.

By Andy Worthington
As published on the website of the Future of Freedom Foundation.

It’s a sign of how much the Bush administration skewed America’s moral compass that we are currently facing the possibility that the only way to bring the torturers to account is through a “Nonpartisan Commission Of Inquiry” -- essentially, a toothless truth and reconciliation commission -- of the type proposed by Sen. Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

New Mexico has abolished the death penalty: here's how.

Senator Russ Feingold has introduced a bill to ban the federal death penalty: here.

By William Fisher, The Public Record

A leading legal rights group charged today that the Obama Justice Department is using immigration law to censor debate by selectively barring U.S. entry to foreign scholars.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) appeared in a federal appeals court in New York City today to argue that a Swiss professor and leading Muslim scholar was denied entry to the U.S. based on his political views.

The ACLU argued that the government’s exclusion of Professor Tariq Ramadan is illegal and was motivated not by anything he did but by his vocal criticism of U.S. foreign policy.

Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU, the lead lawyer in the case, told us, "It is disappointing to see the lawyers from the Obama Justice Department taking exactly the same positions as their predecessors during the Bush era."

By Sherwood Ross

The United States today is housing tens of thousands of inmates in long-term solitary confinement, a form of numbing mental torture that drives about one-third of them psychotic, induces irrational anger in 90 percent, and ups the likelihood they will commit violent crimes upon release.

“It’s an awful thing, solitary,” U.S. Senator John McCain once wrote of his two years spent in a fifteen by fifteen foot prison cell in Viet Nam. “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” Testimony from other notables that have endured long stretches in solitary have elicited like comments.

Mr. Obama and the Rule of Law | NY Times Editorial

Mr. Obama also should stop resisting an investigation of Mr. Bush’s policies on terrorism, state secrets, wiretapping, detention and interrogation....But understanding all that has gone wrong is the only way to ensure that abuses will truly end. That investigation should be done calmly rather than under the pressure of some new, shocking revelation. Former Vice President Dick Cheney is still proclaiming that waterboarding detainees prevented another attack. Among other things, an investigation would examine that assertion — for which Mr. Cheney offers no evidence, and which others have challenged. Everyone wants to move forward. The only way to do that, and make sure the system of justice is working properly, is to know exactly how Mr. Bush broke it.

As much as it needs to happen, we never expected President Obama to immediately reverse every one of President George W. Bush’s misguided and dangerous policies on terrorism, prisoners, the rule of law and government secrecy. Fixing this calamitous mess will take time and care — and Mr. Obama has taken important steps in that direction.

FBI planting spies in U.S. mosques, Muslim groups say
By Eliott C. McLaughlin | CNN

Ten U.S. Muslim organizations threatened this week to cease working with the FBI, citing "McCarthy-era tactics" by the agency, including efforts to covertly infiltrate California mosques.

The groups claim the FBI has sent undercover agents posing as worshippers into mosques, pressured Muslims to become informants, labeled civil rights advocates as criminals and spread misinformation.

The FBI declined to comment on specific allegations but called the proposed move unproductive.

Sexual Assault Permeates U.S. Armed Forces

CBS Evening News: Shocking Report On Frequent Attacks, Low Rate Of Investigation, Prosecution

(CBS) 

They've become an integral part of modern warfare - 200,000 active duty women serving alongside their band of brothers.

Jessica was one of those women. Born into a military family, at 24 she enlisted in the Army.

Matt Daloisio of the 100 Days Campaign filed this report at the campaign's half-way mark.

We have passed the mid-point of the 100 Days, and the campaign continues to be quite busy! Here is a brief update on how things have been, and how you can get involved. Follow the campaign here which is updated daily.

100 DAYS VIGIL – THE UIGHURS - CONGRESSIONAL OUTREACH - MEDIA – SPEAKERS
& FILMS – DAY 100 (come to dc!) - 10 WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

100 DAYS VIGIL

As the seasons change, more and more folks are coming by our Monday – Friday, 11am-1pm, vigil in front of the White House. In the last few
weeks we have seen Joe Biden, Joe the Plumber, and the Prime Minister of Japan (just to name a few). We maintain a solemn presence in orange

Defense Department Press Briefing on Sexual Assault Prevention in the Military

Kaye Whitley, director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), conducted a press briefing at the Pentagon to discuss the fiscal 2008 Report on Sexual Assault in the Military.

Watch it here.