People Before Profit blog

Delegates cheer away every blast at Bush

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 07:47:00 +0000

BOSTON – Speakers at the Democratic National Convention here echoed the fighting mood among the 4,500 delegates and the thousands of grassroots activists outside the Fleet Center.

More than 800 of the delegates are trade unionists and about 40 percent are people of color, the highest percentages ever for a Democratic convention. Polls show that 80 percent of the delegates are strongly opposed to the Iraq war. The same polls show that the delegates were to the left of the Democratic Party leadership which toiled to tone down the mood of anger and fightback in the party’s ranks.

Sen. Edward Kennedy reminded the convention crowd that Boston was the cradle of the American Revolution. “Our struggle is not with some monarch named George who inherited the crown although it often seems that way. Our struggle … is with those who put their own narrow interests ahead of the public interest. We hear echoes of past battles in the quiet whisper of the sweetheart deal, in the hushed promise of a better break for the better connected. We hear them in the cries of the false patriots who bully dissenters.”

He flayed Bush for ignoring “the pledges we made. … Most of all, we should have honored the principle that our nations’ founders placed in the very first sentence of the Declaration of Independence – that America must give a decent respect for the opinions of mankind. We failed to do that in Iraq.”

The keynote speaker Tuesday night was Barack Obama, the candidate for U.S. Senate from Illinois, who drew loud cheers when he spoke of “a belief that we are connected as one people. If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief – I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper – that makes this country work.” If elected, Obama will be only the third African American U.S. senator since Reconstruction.

Ron Reagan, son of the late president, did not mention Bush by name but blasted know-nothing politicians like Bush, who obstruct promising stem cell research that could save millions from childhood diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s, the disease that killed his father. “We have a chance to take a giant stride forward for the good of all humanity,” Reagan said. We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology. This is our moment and we must not falter. Vote on Nov. 2 for stem cell research.”

Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of the Democratic nominee, drew laughter when she said, “By now I hope it will come as no surprise that I have something to say,” referring to her telling a reporter from a right-wing Pittsburgh paper to “shove it.” She added, “This evening I want you to acknowledge and honor the women of this world, whose wise voices for much too long have been excluded and discounted. It is time for the world to hear women’s voices … at last.” True patriots, she said, are “those who dare to speak truth to power.”

She reminded the crowd that her husband was a Vietnam War veteran. “For him, the names of many friends inscribed on the Vietnam Memorial – that cold stone – testify to the awful toll exacted by leaders who mistake stubbornness for strength.”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212 @ yahoo.com.

Iron range miners prepare to strike

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 07:44:00 +0000

Two thousand iron ore miners at four taconite mines in Minnesota and Upper Michigan stepped up preparations for a strike against the Cleveland-based company Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., even as negotiations continued pushing up against a July 31 contract expiration. CCI manages and has co-ownership in four taconite plants: Hibbing Taconite and United Taconite in northern Minnesota, and the Empire and Tilden mines in Michigan. Taconite is low-grade iron ore, an essential ingredient in the manufacture of steel.

Mike Carlson, president of United Steel Workers of America Local 4974 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, issued a call to his rank and file from Pittsburgh, where negotiations are taking place, for picket captains and strike and defense workers. He added that the local’s vice-president, Jim DeMarinis, would stay home from the negotiations to “concentrate on preparing for a strike.”

Workers and mining communities across the Iron Range were outraged last week when Cleveland-Cliffs management brought trailers onto company properties to dramatize their plan to use scabs in the event of a strike. The last time strikebreakers were used on the Iron Range was in 1907.

In a July 7 advertisement in The Mining Journal, CCI laid out its plan to bring in strikebreakers. The company took out another ad listing how much per hour it pays for each union employee. The USWA responded by running its own ad detailing the salaries of top CCI executives. According to the union, CCI, CEO John Brinzo took in $1.4 million in total compensation in 2002, an 88 percent increase over five years.

If the miners strike July 31, they will be joining nearly 2,000 Canadian USWA members from three plants in eastern Canada on the picket line. The Wall Street Journal reports that their strike already affects more than 25 percent of North America’s iron ore supply. With corporate profits on the upswing as a result of surging prices for steel and its raw material components, union workers are less inclined to agree to takeaways in their new contract, the Journal reported.

According to union sources, some progress had been made in talks on the issue of controlling the contracting-out of the union members’ work to private companies. The remaining outstanding issue is CCI’s demand to increase health care premiums for both active workers and retirees.

Meanwhile, the city of Hibbing’s Zoning and Planning Department declared that 10 trailers which had been set up on plant grounds for use by replacement workers were “unusable and non-livable until proper permits are issued.” The permit hearing was set for Aug. 9.

Reflecting the widespread community support for the union workers, eight Minnesota state legislators wrote an open letter to Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) asking for an investigation of the two out-of-state union busting companies currently training “paramilitary type personnel” on the Range “in order to replace the local steelworkers.” The lawmakers called on the governor to use his office to “stop this nonsense” and “help avert a potentially dangerous situation.”

The author can be reached at rwood @ pww.org.

Wellstone legacy: Stand up and fight

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 07:42:00 +0000

BOSTON – A plane crash nearly two years ago silenced Minnesota’s Senator Paul Wellstone, who often stood alone in the well of the U.S. Senate hammering Bush administration policies and defending affirmative action, peace, civil liberties, and the rights of working families.

As the Democratic National Convention was poised to open here, Jobs with Justice, a national coalition of labor, faith-based, student and community groups, hosted a living tribute to Wellstone on July 25. Hundreds filled the historic Old West Church to tackle the question, “What must the Democratic Party do to live up to the progressive vision of Paul Wellstone?”

“Paul had the courage to stand the pain that comes with standing for something and not fall for anything,” said United Steelworkers of America union International President Leo Gerard. “That’s what the Democratic Party needs right now. He gave people a reason to fight, to hope.”

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), another panel member, cast the lone vote in Congress against Bush’s Iraq war. Turning her eyes toward Nov. 2, Lee called for “Wellstone Democratic Clubs” to mobilize neighborhoods into the political process to re-order national resources. To cheers, she demanded the presence of international election monitors this November “to prevent the election from being stolen.”

Many in the audience were students at Camp Wellstone, a workshop conducted in Boston for prospective candidates and campaign workers conducted by Wellstone’s campaign manager, Jeff Blodgett, also on the panel. Since its founding in 2002, Wellstone Action has held 34 “camps,” training 4,000 new activists and fielding 50 progressive candidates in the 2004 election cycle. Graduates are currently working in the swing states of Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida.

Rep. Major Owens (D-N.Y.) pointed out that too many liberals, including himself, voted for “welfare reform” in 1996, a legislative measure that has plunged families deeper into poverty. He praised Wellstone as the lone voice defending welfare at the time. He charged the Democratic Party leadership with being too quick to compromise with the GOP, and that such compromises have led to the erosion of the Democratic Party’s support at its base.

Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner quickly jumped in, igniting the audience with a clarion call for popular direct action to ensure accountability from a Kerry administration. “We need Kerry there and we need to be there to purge the cancer (of the Bush administration) from the soul of the body politic,” he said.

When Horace Small, the moderator, pooh-poohed the importance of trade in this election, Jim Hightower, author and radio personality, nearly jumped out of his seat.

“Tell that to Texas farmers who are losing their farms or workers who have lost their jobs to NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement),” Hightower said. “Who the hell elected the WTO (World Trade Organization)? Right now, in Washington, there are too many 5-watt bulbs sitting in 100-watt sockets. The people are revolting – in the best sense. I think we are going to get George.”

Confessing to once being a Republican, columnist Arianna Huffington reminded the assembly of all the dirty tricks and disgusting tactics that are on the horizon as November nears. Saying that “Mobilization is the key,” she proposed reaching out to the 50 percent of the eligible electorate that stayed home in 2000. “If we are able to just energize 10 percent of those voters, we win.”

The program included the presentation of awards to two attorneys, Julie Patino and Nadine Cohen, both of whom have fought difficult battles to protect affirmative action and voting rights of Massachusetts residents and immigrants. Other panelists included Al Franken, media personality, noted Columbia professor Frances Fox Piven and Anna Burger, vice president of the Service Employees International Union.

The author can be reached at dwinebr696 @ aol.com

Forum call for defense of civil liberties

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 07:40:00 +0000

BOSTON – As the Democratic National Convention opened, over 450 delegates, activists and political and public officials held a July 26 forum here on civil liberties and the impact of the USA Patriot Act.

The forum featured Dennis Kucinich, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and James Zogby, head of the Arab American Institute, among others, and included people who had attended the Boston Social Forum the weekend prior. It was held at the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul of the Massachusetts Episcopal Diocese.

Zogby noted that despite legislation like the Patriot Act, there is hope in the United States that – contrary to what happened during the Second World War when the U.S. government put thousands of Japanese into internment camps with little protest – popular resistance to such measures will prevail. After Sept. 11, Zogby said, over 30 groups united to fight discrimination against Arabs and Muslims, and over 300 cities have passed resolutions against the Patriot Act.

Talking about what needs to be done today, Zogby said the most important task is to defeat George W. Bush: “Some people say the worse the better, others say always move to make things a little better. That’s my choice. This election is not about Nader and Bush. It is about Kerry and Bush. We can’t take four more years.”

Jackson also called on people to unite to defeat Bush. Saying, “We’re in the same boat now,” he noted that in Florida the votes of Jews and African Americans were stolen.

Dennis Kucinich told the participants how the Patriot Act was “brought to the floor [of the House] in the dark of the night.” He said most members didn’t know what they were voting for.

Kucinich received a standing ovation when he declared, “There shall be no limitations to freedom of speech,” and blasted the “random searches on public transit” in Boston during the Democratic convention and the “concentration-camp-style area” that was set aside for demonstrations.

The Metropolitan Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), run by the state, searched the handbags, backpacks and briefcases of riders. Anyone who refused to allow a search was told to leave. Anyone who refused to leave was subject to immediate arrest and charged with trespassing.

The National Lawyers Guild and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee filed suit in federal court seeking to stop the MBTA from searching passengers, saying that it is an intrusion of privacy and violates constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches. After an emergency hearing, U.S. District Judge George O’Toole let the MBTA’s search policy stand.

A previous suit sought to permit demonstrators to protest outside the penned-up “designated demonstration zone.” Federal Judge Douglas Woodcock called it “a grim, mean, and oppressive space” and “an offense to the spirit of the First Amendment,” but permitted it anyway.

Marty Martínez, a gay Latino, called on the participants in the forum to support “each other’s struggles” and remembered how the referendum to get rid of bilingual education in Massachusetts passed because it didn’t have enough support from other segments of the community. A poll conducted by the Boston-based Gaston Institute found that 94 percent of Latino voters favored bilingual education. Nevertheless, it failed to get majority support. Martínez also called upon the Spanish-speaking communities to support gay issues.

The author can be reached at j.a.cruz @ comcast.net. Joelle Fishman contributed to this story.

Iraq Veterans Against the War founded

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 07:34:00 +0000

BOSTON – War veterans and their allies gathered in historic Faneuil Hall on the eve of the Democratic National Convention to demand the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and to call for the defeat of George W. Bush Nov. 2.

The meeting was sponsored by Veterans for Peace as part of its national convention. Hundreds of veterans of every war since World War II were in the crowd. A cheer went up when a group of Iraq war veterans filed onto the stage and announced they have formed Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), modeled on Vietnam Veterans Against the War that Kerry helped lead and that played a crucial role in forcing the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.

Michael Hoffman, a former Lance Corporal in the 11th Marine Division, told the crowd that his sergeant told his squad, “You are not here to liberate Iraq. You are here for oil.” The sergeant “also said our obligation was to bring our fellow soldiers home alive and well. We still have that obligation so we have come together to form Iraq Veterans Against the War … to bring them home.”

Kelly Dougherty of Colorado Springs, a former sergeant in an MP unit, said she saw first hand “the conditions the people are living under, conditions that don’t seem to be changing, no jobs, no electricity, no clean water. These are basic human needs. So how can the Iraqi people discuss elections, a constitution? This is a war for empire. You want to support the troops? Demand that they be brought home from Afghanistan and Iraq, that they get the benefits they are entitled to.”

“I don’t think Bush has any intention of withdrawing from Iraq, ever,” declared Daniel Ellsberg, who won fame when he released the Pentagon Papers exposing the lies used to trick the nation into the Vietnam War. He criticized Democrat John Kerry’s vote for the Iraqi war but drew a standing ovation as he urged the standing-room-only crowd to vote for Kerry as the “only way to defeat Bush.”

Already, people around the world “have suffered more oppression from our president than we suffered from King George III,” Ellsberg continued, speaking in the hall where the American Revolution began. “If Bush stays in power, our Bill of Rights will be swept off the board. … We have three-and-a-half months to do everything we can to avoid the Bill of Rights being destroyed.”

Veterans for Peace President David Cline told the World, “There are many threads in the cloth that make up Veterans for Peace. We represent soldiers from many wars. We have to remove the neo-conservatives from the White House and Congress. Kerry is not going to be a savior. We have to have a movement with longevity to push for progressive change in foreign and domestic policies.”

Nancy Lessin, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, told the veterans, “You more than anyone else know what our loved ones go through. Bush lied and who died? Nine hundred of our soldiers and thousands of Iraqis.” She scorned the Pentagon inspector general’s report that there are no “systemic problems” revealed in the torture of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers. “This whole war based on lies is the systemic problem,” she said.

Lessin blasted Camilo Mejia’s one-year prison sentence for refusing to return to active duty in Iraq. Mejia cited torture of Iraqi detainees as one of his reasons for refusing. It is the same sentence handed down against an MP convicted of torture, she said. The crowd cheered when she called for a struggle to free Mejia as a “prisoner of conscience.”

Vietnam veteran Charlie Clement of Massachusetts introduced two survivors of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombing, in which 200,000 people died. “We deeply regret the holocaust of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Clement said. Terumi Tanaka, secretary-general of the Japan Confederation of A&H Bomb Sufferers, was greeted with applause when he called for “a total ban on nuclear weapons.”

Veterans for Peace activist Wayne Wittman, a Korean War vet from St. Paul, Minn., told the World, “People don’t understand the cost of war. It’s our job to instill in them the irreversible, unsolvable situation we create with war. Our friend Paul Wellstone said, ‘Don’t whine. Organize.’”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212 @ yahoo.com.

2004 Boston Tea Party call: We're united, we'll win!

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 07:28:00 +0000

Click here for Spanish text

Stop thief! Demand grows to safeguard 2004 vote

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 04:30:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – A request for United Nations observers to prevent the theft of the 2004 elections has sparked an outpouring of support in the face of Republican attacks.

Florida Rep. Corrine Brown, one of 13 House members who asked the UN to send observers, has been flooded with messages of support since July 15 when Republicans stripped from the House record her speech accusing George W. Bush of stealing the 2000 election and scheming to do it again in 2004.

The uproar came when Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) introduced and the House approved a measure barring any federal official from requesting UN observers to monitor U.S. elections. The gag order was in response to a July 1 letter sent by the 13 House members to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan requesting UN observers to prevent a repeat of the 2000 election debacle.

Brown angrily addressed the Republicans on the House floor. “I come from Florida where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d’état,” she thundered. “We need to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Over and over after you stole the election, you came back here and said, ‘Get over it.’ No, we’re not going to get over it and we want verification from the world.”

Buyer demanded that her words be stricken from the record and the Republican-controlled House complied. Brown returned to the House floor the next day. She called the deletion of her remarks “just another example of the Republican Party’s attempt to cover up what happened in the 2000 election” and hide “their preparations for stealing this year’s election as well.”

In Duval County, which she represents, 27,000 ballots were thrown out in 2000, mostly in heavily Black precincts of Jacksonville, Brown said, part of an illegal, unconstitutional purge of voting rolls. “I saw what happened in my district,” she said, “and there remains a dangerous possibility that we may see a repeat of the flagrant violations of civil rights in the upcoming 2004 election.”

Brown called for a “neutral party, like the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe … to oversee and monitor our elections in an unbiased manner.”

The courageous stand of these lawmakers recalls the “We Charge Genocide” petition exposing U.S. government-sanctioned lynching and systematic oppression of African Americans which Paul Robeson and David Simon, Brown’s press secretary, told the World, “Since her speech, our office has been flooded with calls 90 percent or more supporting Congresswoman Brown. The messages are coming not only from her Florida constituents but also from California, Texas, and many other states.”

Sandy Wayland, legislative chairperson of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, echoed Brown’s warnings. Direct recording electronic voting machines (DREs) that provide no verifiable paper record have been installed across Florida. Her coalition mobilized statewide against Florida Senate Bill 3004, which would have blocked recounts on touch-screen voting machines, Wayland told the World. “We mounted such a strong effort that the language was removed.”

But Gov. Jeb Bush and his secretary of state, Glenda Hood, imposed the ban on vote recounts through an administrative rule. Said Wayland, “They want to eliminate recounts, period. We are demanding audits of all these machines in Florida’s Aug. 31 primary. We want to address this issue before the Nov. 2 election, not after.”

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has announced formation of a network of lawyers and election experts in every state to monitor the vote Nov. 2.

Speaking to thousands of NAACP convention delegates in Philadelphia, July 15, Kerry said, “A million African Americans disenfranchised in the last election – well, we’re not just going to sit there and wait for it to happen. On Election Day in your cities, my campaign will provide teams of election observers and lawyers to monitor the elections and we will enforce the law.”

Newsweek revealed that DeForest Soaries, Republican director of the federal Election Assistance Commission, wants Congress to grant Bush power to “cancel or reschedule” the Nov. 2 election in the event of a “terrorist” attack.

This plan to seize dictatorial power is not new. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 52, authorizing the mass detention of 400,000 people in the event of “civil unrest” protesting a U.S. invasion of Central America.

It was part of a plot, code-named Rex-84 Alpha, cooked up by the National Security Council under the direction of Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North. It called for suspending the Constitution, placing the nation under martial law and canceling the 1984 election.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was to work with 34 other agencies, running the nation as an open police state. FEMA actually carried out a secret dress rehearsal of this fascist-like operation from April 5-15, 1984.

During the Iran-Contra hearings, Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Texas) attempted to ask North about Rex-84 Alpha, also called “Operation Garden Plot.” Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chair of the hearings, reminded Brooks, “We agreed not to get into that subject.”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.click here for Spanish text

Voting, civil rights top NAACP agenda

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 03:20:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA – The NAACP 95th Convention, held here July 10–15, had the theme “The Race Is On.” Two currents flowed throughout every convention session: voting and defending civil rights gains.

The need to register, educate, enthuse and turn out the vote on Nov. 2 in the African American and working-class communities permeated each plenary and workshop. The 8,000 delegates attended concurrent workshops on voter empowerment, education, health care, criminal justice, economic empowerment, labor, and housing segregation. Labor issues were a prominent part of the convention, especially the “Employee Free Choice Act.” (See related story, page 8).

A special plenary on “50 Years Brown and Beyond: Promise and Progress” focused on educational equity, academic gaps and the disparities in the rate of school suspensions, expulsions and dropouts of African American students. Every branch of the NAACP has been asked to commemorate Brown v. Board by campaigning to cut the disparity rates in education by 50 percent and to revise the No Child Left Behind Act’s punitive academic measures.

The Voter Empowerment Workshop went into the nuts and bolts of voter education, registration and mobilization. Speakers from across the country explained the voting laws such as the National Voter Registration Act, which requires verification before voters can be purged from the rolls, and the Help America Vote Act, which requires registrants to show IDs. Two weeks ago the state of Florida was forced to discard a flawed list of 47,000 “potential felons” to be purged from the voters’ rolls. The NAACP, the ACLU and other civil rights groups are in the forefront of monitoring the voting process in states where African Americans were disenfranchised in the 2000 election.

Louise Simpson, chair of the NAACP Political Action Committee, said, “Four to 6 million votes were not counted in 2000 and 1 million were African American votes. The NAACP is recruiting 6,000 lawyers to protect the vote in 2004.”

Joan Funn, from Alexandria, Va., a workshop participant, said, “I’ve been thoroughly energized. I’ll be going into every place where people are to register,” she said.

Hundreds of youth attended the convention, many of them competing in the Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO). Four young people from the Camden County branch – Britton Knox, Alicia Valentine, Brittney Cream and Mark Wilson – told the World they were confident that Black youth will play a big role on Election Day. “Now more than ever African American youth will come out in large numbers due to the war and the current state of our government,” Valentine said. “This election will be powerful and very informative.”

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry addressed the warm and enthusiastic crowd, shaking hands and hugging all the way to the podium. Citing Bush’s snub of the convention, Kerry said, “Bush may be too busy to speak to you today, but he’ll have plenty of time after Nov. 2.” The crowd erupted in applause.

Speaking to the issues of the NAACP program, Kerry said that his campaign is about a job that pays the bills and has enough for some leisure time, fully-funded schools, small classes and better paid teachers, affordable and accessible health care for all, a country independent of Middle East oil and strong collaborative alliances with other countries. Kerry said it was the nation’s moral obligation to end the genocide in the Sudan as well as HIV/AIDS suffering at home and abroad.

He denounced Bush for not fully funding the No Child Left Behind Act, for the advancement of ultra-conservative judges, and for the voting fiasco of 2000, although, some delegates noted, he did not address the failure of Democratic senators, including himself, to join with members of the Congressional Black Caucus in challenging the 2000 election results at the time.

“Our job between now and Nov. 2 is to end the division between the fortunate America and the forgotten America,” Kerry said. “Let’s go out and get the job done.”

The authors can be reached atand damisbell@aol.com.

National Clips

Thu, 15 Jul 2004 03:17:00 +0000

LEXINGTON, Ky.: Miners march for health care, pensions

“There is something wrong in America when 40 million Americans lack health care, millions of children are living in poverty, 3 million good paying manufacturing jobs have left the country and management can screw up companies like Horizon Natural Resources and then walk away from their obligations for providing health care and pensions to employees and beneficiaries,” United Mine Workers of America union President Cecil Roberts thundered before 800 miners and their families marching on the bankruptcy court here. Horizon Natural Resources is the nation’s fourth largest coal corporations.

“It is not just Horizon but the entire system that is bankrupt!” Roberts continued. “The question I pose, is not why the United Mine Workers are marching. The question is why isn’t everyone in America marching?”

Miners rallied and marched June 30 to save their health care and pensions from the bankruptcy court ax. With one stoke of the pen, bankruptcy Judge William Howard can destroy hard-earned and hard-won benefits to 1,000 active coal miners and 2,300 retired miners.

“All they want to do is cut, cut, cut,” protestor Johnny Viars, a miner at Horizon subsidiary Starfire Mining, said. “We’ve had all the cuts we can take.”

Mining coal is not getting any safer. Since June, four miners have been killed at work bringing this year’s total to 14. On May11, 200 miners demanded increased safety enforcement by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration in Hueytown, Ala.

CHARLESTON, W.Va.: Bush, Cheney meet triple protest whammy

More than 1,500 people celebrated the Mountain State’s independence, July 4, in three rallies demonstrating against Bush campaigning in Charleston and Cheney in Wheeling. Speakers at the rallies vowed to deliver the state’s five electoral votes to the Democrats in November. Bush won the state in 2000 by 41,000 votes.

Charleston hosted two rallies. Hundreds of signs reading “Hail to the Thief” and “President Bush: al Qaeda’s Top Recruiter” greeted the presidential motorcade. There were also many “John Kerry for President” signs.

Scores demonstrated against Vice President Dick Cheney’s Wheeling visit. His bus had started in Parma, Ohio, and swung through Pennsylvania into West Virginia.

Two men were arrested in Wheeling for wearing dump Bush/Cheney T-shirts outside the cordoned off protest area. Both men were working in Wheeling for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), addressing recent flood damage.

HOUSTON: Community leader jailed for helping police

Community leader Quanell X, 33, was arrested on June 11 after working with police to facilitate the surrender of a shooting suspect.

Quanell X attempted to drive Derrick Forney, 24, to Houston police. Forney was suspected of shooting a police officer and wanted to surrender but was scared for his life. Quanell X agreed to drive him to jail and accompany him inside. Quanell X has a track record of assisting more than 20 people to surrender safely to Houston police.

Police, however, surrounded Quanell X’s vehicle and arrested both men on the spot. Quanell X said he thought the police were going to escort him to the station.

During the June 11 surrender, Quanell X was in cell phone contact with Executive Assistant Police Chief Chuck McClelland. “I did tell Quanell that I was going to attempt to contact the officers and see what was going on,” McClelland testified.

“I don’t know if I used the word ‘escort,’” McClelland said, but said he may have told Quanell X he’d provide “some assistance” in getting to the police station.

The police video showed Quanell X driving at a normal speed with his hazard lights blinking. He came to a stop after two police cars pulled in front of him.

But Judge Brock Thomas ruled on June 28 that police had probable cause. Prosecutors plan to take Quanell X’s case before the grand jury for indictment for evading arrest.

The Houston community is rallying behind Quanell X. Over 300 rallied at the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, which drew Muslim, Christian and Jewish clergy to support the activist.

“He tried to do the right thing,” Quanell X’s attorney Robert James told the crowd. “Those people … will look into their hearts to see nothing happened there.”

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). Paul Hill of Houston, Texas, contributed to this week’s clips.

Court voids presidents power grab

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 02:14:00 +0000

Defenders of the Bill of Rights greeted two decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court June 28 sharply rebuffing George W. Bush’s claim of sweeping powers to detain U.S. citizens and foreigners indefinitely, without criminal charges, in his so-called “war on terror.”

“A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens,” said Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She was joined by seven of her colleagues in upholding the habeas corpus right of citizens branded by Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft as “enemy combatants.” The detainees have been held in secret without criminal charges for as long as two years at military stockades in the U.S.

Bush had argued that as “unlawful combatants” these detainees have no legal rights under either the Geneva Conventions or U.S. law. Hundreds, if not thousands, of non-citizen detainees have been held at secret U.S. military bases around the world and the high court upheld their habeas corpus rights, as well, i.e., their rights to judicial review of the legality of their detentions.

With only Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting, the court ruled that the administration improperly denied Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen, due process in holding him for two years without criminal charges or right of legal counsel. He is entitled to a “notice of the factual basis for his classification” and a “fair opportunity to rebut the government’s assertions before a neutral decision-maker,” O’Connor ruled.

Neither she nor any of the other justices referred to the horrific photos of U.S. military police torturing naked Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons that started leaking out April 28, two days after the court agreed to hear the appeals of the detainees. But those atrocities clearly weighed heavily in their decisions.

In a second 6-3 ruling, the court held that the 660 detainees at the Guantanamo Detention Center, where many of these torture methods were refined, are also entitled to a judicial hearing in U.S. courts. The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which filed the lawsuit on behalf of 14 of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, hailed the victory and announced they will seek hearings to win freedom for their clients or even a class action lawsuit to free all the Guantanamo detainees.

CCR recently filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit against two private contractors, Titan and CACI International, for their role in the torture of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said, “The Bush administration’s assertion that the president can hold suspects incommunicado indefinitely and without charge is as arrogant as its legal arguments that the president can authorize torture. No president is above the law or the Constitution.”

Leahy praised the high court for rejecting administration pleas to “just trust us” adding, “While the court regrettably sidestepped the urgent issues raised by the Padilla case, the Hamdi and Rasul decisions do reaffirm the judiciary’s role as a check and a balance … on power grabs” by the White House.

He was referring to Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held without criminal charges. The U.S. District Court for New York found his detention unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court used a technicality to avoid a ruling on his detention.

Leahy was sharply critical of the Republican-dominated Senate and House for behaving as a “wholly-owned subsidiary” of the Bush White House in refusing oversight of the Bush-Cheney abuses of power.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said, “No longer can the Bush White House conduct its war on the Constitution in secret. … Even the president cannot use the state of war and the threat of terrorism to strip away a defendant’s right to be heard in court.”

C. William Michaels, author of “No Greater Threat,” a critique of the USA Patriot Act, told the World the decisions could be a harbinger of more civil liberties victories even though they are not directly related to the repressive Patriot Act. “These decisions made no mention of the Abu Ghraib prison abuses, but we may be looking at a refreshing trend of increased judicial scrutiny of the Bush administration,’” he said.

The Bush administration, he added, delivered hardline arguments that the courts have no authority “to even accept a petition for review of the Guantanamo detainees. That case could very well have been decided in the administration’s favor. For the Supreme Court to come to the opposite conclusion is an essential declaration of the role of the federal courts in checking and reviewing executive branch power.”

Former Rep. Mary Rose Oakar (D-Ohio), now the president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the rulings are “a great victory in protecting our core values as Americans … in upholding due process rights.”

Elliott Mincberg, legal director of People for the American Way, said, “The administration’s breathtaking assertion of power over constitutional rights has finally been stopped. Recent revelations about this administration’s detention practices underscore the importance of subjecting their policies to the effective scrutiny of the courts.”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.