From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Sat Dec 1 09:30:02 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 06:30:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} GP mention-( NYT) To Mulsim Girl, Scouts offer a chance to fit in Message-ID: <729203.70867.qm@web44811.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> November 28, 2007 To Muslim Girls, Scouts Offer a Chance to Fit In By NEIL MacFARQUHAR MINNEAPOLIS ? Sometimes when Asma Haidara, a 12-year-old Somali immigrant, wants to shop at Target or ride the Minneapolis light-rail system, she puts her Girl Scout sash over her everyday clothes, which usually include a long skirt worn over pants as well as a swirling head scarf. She has discovered that the trademark green sash ? with its American flag, troop number (3009) and colorful merit badges ? reduces the number of glowering looks she draws from people otherwise bothered by her traditional Muslim dress. ?When you say you are a girl scout, they say, ?Oh, my daughter is a girl scout, too,? and then they don?t think of you as a person from another planet,? said Asma, a slight, serious girl with a bright smile. ?They are more comfortable about sitting next to me on the train.? Scattered Muslim communities across the United States are forming Girl Scout troops as a sort of assimilation tool to help girls who often feel alienated from the mainstream culture, and to give Muslims a neighborly aura. Boy Scout troops are organized with the same inspiration, but often the leap for girls is greater because many come from conservative cultures that frown upon their participating in public physical activity. By teaching girls to roast hot dogs or fix a flat bicycle tire, Farheen Hakeem, one troop leader here, strives to help them escape the perception of many non-Muslims that they are different. Scouting is a way of celebrating being American without being any less Muslim, Ms. Hakeem said. ?I don?t want them to see themselves as Muslim girls doing this ?Look at us, we are trying to be American,? ? she said. ?No, no, no, they are American. It is not an issue of trying.? The exact number of Muslim girl scouts is unknown, especially since, organizers say, most Muslim scouts belong to predominantly non-Muslim troops. Minneapolis is something of an exception, because a few years ago the Girl Scout Council here surveyed its shrinking enrollment and established special outreach coordinators for various minorities. Some 280 Muslim girls have joined about 10 predominantly Muslim troops here, said Hodan Farah, who until September was the Scout coordinator for the Islamic community. Nationally, the Boy Scouts of America count about 1,500 youths in 100 clubs of either Boy Scouts or Cub Scouts sponsored by Islamic organizations, said Gregg Shields, a spokesman for the organization. The Girl Scouts? national organization, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., has become flexible in recent years about the old trappings associated with suburban, white, middle-class Christian scouting. Many troops have done away with traditions like saying grace before dinner at camp, and even the Girl Scout Promise can be retooled as needed. ?On my honor I will try to serve Allah and my country, to help people and live by the Girl Scout law,? eight girls from predominantly Muslim Troop 3119 in Minneapolis recited on one recent rainy Sunday before setting off for a cookout in a local park. Some differences were readily apparent, of course. At the cookout, Ms. Hakeem, a former Green Party candidate for mayor, negotiated briefly with one sixth grader, Asha Gardaad, who was fasting for the holy month of Ramadan. ?If you break your fast, will your mother get mad at me?? Ms. Hakeem asked. Asha shook her head emphatically no. The troop leader distributed supplies: hot dogs followed by s?mores for dessert. All was halal ? that is, in adherence with the dietary requirements of Islamic law ? with the hot dogs made of beef rather than pork. It was Asha?s first s?more. ?It?s delicious!? she exclaimed, licking sticky goop off her fingers as thunder crashed outside the park shelter with its roaring fire. ?It?s a good way to break my fast!? Women trying to organize Girl Scout troops in Muslim communities often face resistance from parents, particularly immigrants from an Islamic culture like that of Somalia, where tradition dictates that girls do housework after school. In Nashville, where Ellisha King of Catholic Charities helps run a Girl Scout troop on a shoestring to assist Somali children with acculturation, most parents vetoed a camping trip, for example. They figured years spent as refugees in tents was enough camping, Ms. King recalled. But a more common concern among parents is that the Girl Scouts will somehow dilute Islamic traditions. ?They are afraid you are going to become a blue-eyed, blond-haired Barbie doll,? said Asma, the girl who at times makes her sash everyday attire. Asma noted that her mother had asked whether she was joining some Christian cabal. ?She was afraid that if we hang out with Americans too much,? the young immigrant said, ?it will change our culture or who we are.? Troop leaders win over parents by explaining that various activities incorporate Muslim traditions. In Minneapolis, for instance, Ms. Hakeem helped develop the Khadija Club, named for the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad, which exposes older girls to the history of prominent Muslim women. Suboohi Khan, 10, won her Bismallah (in the name of God) ribbon by writing 4 of God?s 99 names in Arabic calligraphy and decorating them, as well as memorizing the Koran?s last verse, used for protection against gossips and goblins. Otherwise, she said, her favorite badge involved learning ?how to make body glitter and to see which colors look good on us? and ?how to clean up our nails.? Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. does not issue religious badges, but endorses those established by independent groups. Gulafshan K. Alavi started one such group, the Islamic Committee on Girl Scouting, in Stamford, Conn., in 1990. The demand for information about Muslim badges, Mrs. Alavi said, has grown to the point where this year she had the pamphlet listing her club?s requirements printed rather than sending out a photocopied flier. She also shipped up to 400 patches awarded to girls who study Ramadan traditions, she said, the most ever. Predominantly Muslim troops do accept non-Muslim members. In Minneapolis, Alexis Eastlund, 10, said other friends sometimes pestered her about belonging to a mostly Muslim troop, although she has known many of its members half her life. ?I never really thought of them as different,? Alexis said. ?But other girls think that it is weird that I am Christian and hang out with a bunch of Muslim girls. I explain to them that they are the same except they have to wear a hijab on their heads.? Ms. Farah, who served as an outreach coordinator in Minneapolis and remains active in the Scouts, said she used the organization as a platform to try to ease tensions in the community. Scraps between African-American and Somali girls prompted her to start a research project demonstrating to them that their ancestors all came from roughly the same place. Ms. Hakeem, the troop leader, said she tried to find projects to improve the girls? self-esteem, like going through the Eddie Bauer catalog to cut out long skirts and other items that adhere to Islamic dress codes. All in all, scouting gives the girls a rare sense of belonging, troop leaders and members say. ?It is kind of cool to say that you are a girl scout,? Asma said. ?It is good to have something to associate yourself with other Americans. I don?t want people to think that I am a hermit, that I live in a cave, isolated and afraid of change. I like to be part of society. I like being able to say that I am a girl scout just like any other normal girl.? Home World U.S. N.Y. / Region Business Technology Science Health Sports Opinion Arts Style Travel Jobs Real Estate Automobiles Back to Top Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS First Look Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Be a better pen pal. Text or chat with friends inside Yahoo! Mail. See how. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efficacy at msn.com Mon Dec 3 11:48:34 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 11:48:34 -0500 Subject: {news} "War on Drugs" Opponent to Speak in Norwalk Message-ID: ` FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Efficacy DFA Fairfield County PO Box 1234 John Hartwell 860 657 8438 203-216-1425 Hartford, CT 06143 johnhartwell at democracyforct.net efficacy at msn.com www.democracyforct.net www.Efficacy-online.org "War on Drugs" Opponent to Speak in Norwalk "The drug war is meant to be waged, not won." This is the message that Clifford Thornton, international expert on drug policy and 2006 Green Party candidate for Governor, will bring to the December 5th MeetUp of Fairfield County Democracy for America in Norwalk. The meeting will take place at 7:00pm at the Silver Star Diner, 210 Connecticut Avenue. Admission is free and the public is urged to attend. "Just the other night," said Thornton, "two more people were killed in drug-related violence in Hartford. What are we going to do about it? And why are the sentences of some white offenders commuted to community service and rehabilitation instead of what most people color endure -- jail or prison time?" "This discussion is long overdue," said Scott Kimmich, a local DFA supporter. "We spend billions every year with very little to show for it." Thornton is a retired African-American businessman who encourages citizens to re-examine drug policy, challenges the mentality of the drug war, and promotes open discussion of alternatives and public-health awareness. Although he speaks about the need to change the laws regarding all drugs, Thornton believes that marijuana law reform is the key to all drug policy reform, and in 1995 he founded Efficacy, a non-profit devoted to drug policy education. More information on Efficacy can be found at their web site www.Efficacy-online.org. In the last three years Thornton has spoken to over 400,000 people on drug reform in some 450 venues all over the U.S., Columbia, Canada, Europe, and New Zealand, and he has been interviewed on 500 radio shows. As a result of his tireless advocacy Thornton is the 2007 recipient of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation's Robert C. Randall Award for Achievement in the Field of Citizen Action. Democracy for America is a national grassroots group dedicated to supporting socially progressive, fiscally responsible candidates at every level of government. Fairfield County meetings are held the first Wednesday of each month in Norwalk and focus on national, state, and local issues. See www.democracyforct.net for more information. ##### -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From roseberry3 at cox.net Tue Dec 4 05:23:55 2007 From: roseberry3 at cox.net (B Barry) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 05:23:55 -0500 Subject: {news} There will be no SCC meeting of GP of CT in 12-07 because Message-ID: <20071204102401.INCX16464.eastrmmtao102.cox.net@eastrmimpo01.cox.net> the last Tuesday of December 2007 is 12-25-07, Christmas Day. (Nor will the SCC meet on 1-1-08, New Year?s Day.) The SCC meeting has been postponed until Tuesday, 1-8-08: place likely to be in New Haven. There will also be a 1-9-08 meeting (likely in New Haven) about outlining 2008 Electoral Campaigns for potential Green Party Candidates. Above determined at the 11-19-07 EC meeting and the 11-27-07 SCC meeting. Barbara Barry, Secretary of Green Party of CT No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.13/1169 - Release Date: 12/3/2007 10:56 PM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efficacy at msn.com Tue Dec 4 07:32:49 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 07:32:49 -0500 Subject: {news} GP RELEASE Green Party's Thornton awarded for work on drug policy reform Message-ID: It is now official. This now appears on the front page of the National Green Party web site. GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES http://www.gp.org For Immediate Release: Monday, December 3, 2007 Contacts: Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty at greens.org Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene at gp.org Clifford Thornton, national co-chair of the Green Party, 860-657-8438, efficacy at msn.com Green Party leader to receive award from the Drug Policy Alliance for leadership in drug law reform Cliff Thornton of Connecticut will receive the Robert C. Randall Award for Achievement in the Field of Citizen Action on December 8 WASHINGTON, DC -- The Green Party congratulates Connecticut Green Clifford Thornton on an award he will receive from the Drug Policy Alliance > for his leadership in the movement to reform drug laws. Mr. Thornton, co-founder of the drug law reform organization Efficacy, Inc. >, is a national co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. In 2006, he ran on the Green Party ticket for governor of Connecticut. "Cliff Thornton's work for the reform of US drug policy is in line with Green opposition to the War on Drugs, unjust and draconian drug laws, and the use of drug laws to fill up prison cells with black, brown, poor, and young Americans. We're proud that Cliff is a member of the Green Party," said Alfred Molison, co-chair of the Green Party's national Black Caucus >. Excerpts from a November 29, 2007 Drug Policy Alliance press release announcing the award: "Longtime Connecticut drug policy reform advocate and activist Clifford Thornton will receive the Robert C. Randall Award for Achievement in the Field of Citizen Action from the Drug Policy Alliance. The award honors citizens who make democracy work in the difficult area of drug law and policy reform. Thornton will be among leading advocates that work courageously to promote and implement more sensible drug policies who will be honored at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference, in New Orleans, December 5-8. The conference is organized by the Drug Policy Alliance and dozens of other organizations. The Drug Policy Alliance is the nation's leading organization working to end the war on drugs and promote new drug policies based on science, compassion, health and human rights. The winners will be honored during an awards ceremony on Saturday, Dec. 8.... Thornton is the primary speaker for Efficacy, Inc. -- a non-profit organization that has concentrated on drug policy reform. Thornton ran for governor in Connecticut in 2006 on the Green Party ticket. His campaign centered on drug policy reform. Thornton has done over 400 radio shows on drug policy. Thornton has spoken to over 300,000 people in some 450 venues about the drug war as it relates to health, economics, race, class, and white privilege. Efficacy is partially responsible for the removal of D.A.R.E. from the Ocean City, NJ school system in 2001. Thornton gave a presentation to the board of education that received great reviews and helped facilitate its demise. Thornton taught a graduate-level course, "Illegal Drugs and Public Policy" at Trinity College in Hartford, CT in 2002." Media contacts for Drug Policy Alliance >: Tony Newman, 646-335-5384; Tommy McDonald, 646-335-2242 MORE INFORMATION Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org 202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN Fax 202-319-7193 Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers Green candidate database for 2007 and other campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml "War on drugs is a war on youth, people of color Green Party press release, May 16, 2007 http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2007_05_16.shtml "Green Party says racially biased US justice system needs drastic overhaul" Green Party press release, July 25, 2007 http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2007_07_25.shtml ~ END ~ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From justinemccabe at earthlink.net Tue Dec 4 07:50:30 2007 From: justinemccabe at earthlink.net (Justine McCabe) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 07:50:30 -0500 Subject: {news} Fw: USGP-INT Release: Canadian Greens congratulate Australia on Kyotoratification (fwd) Message-ID: <138401c83674$40a3ec10$0402a8c0@JUSTINE> Green Party of Canada Media Release For Immediate Release December 3, 2007 Green Party congratulates Australia on Kyoto ratification OTTAWA - Green Party leader Elizabeth May extended congratulations to Australia for ratifying the Kyoto protocol and urged Prime Minister Stephen Harper to rethink his strategy to block international action on climate change. "Newly-elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ratified the Kyoto protocol in his first act after being sworn in," said Ms. May. "Mr. Rudd has pledged to do everything in his power to ensure Australia is a leader on taking action against climate change. Unfortunately for Canadians, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has taken the opposite approach. He has damaged Canada 's reputation since the day he took office by obstructing action to arrest the climate crisis." Ms. May added that there is every indication the Conservative government will continue to act as global saboteur as negotiations on the second phase of Kyoto begin at the United Nations climate change conference Bali. She noted that today, on the opening day of the conference, Canada has the shame of being awarded the third-place Fossil of the Day award from Climate Action Network International, behind only the United States and Saudi Arabia. "Mr. Harper must drop his disgraceful stance on Kyoto and climate change and follow Australia 's lead by honouring Kyoto and playing a constructive - not obstructive - role in the second phase negotiations." -30- Contact: Camille Labchuk Press Secretary 613-562-4916 x 244 clabchuk at greenparty.ca From efficacy at msn.com Tue Dec 4 08:19:12 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 08:19:12 -0500 Subject: {news} JPI Report -- 97 Percent of Large Counties Witnessed Racial Disparities in Drug Imprisonment Message-ID: Hi all, Can you make sure that this is posted every where possible as it is yet another important--OFFICIAL document. The report is now available on our website at www.justicepolicy.org So far, the report has generated articles in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, The Miami Herald, and about a dozen smaller papers throughout the country. Attached are some "frequently asked questions" about the report. Copies of "The Vortex" will be available at the DPA conference. Jason Ziedenberg Justice Policy Institute --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Embargoed until Contact: LaWanda Johnson, Tuesday, December 4th, 12:01 am 202-558-7974 ext. 308 (Tuesday??Ts Newspapers) Eric Wingerter 202-243-9995 Groundbreaking Study Examines Drug Imprisonment in 198 Counties; 97 Percent Experienced Racial Disparities WASHINGTON??"A new report released today by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) finds that 97 percent of the nation??Ts large-population counties imprisoned African Americans at a higher rate than whites. The report documents racial disparities in the use of prison for drug offenses in 193 of the 198 counties that reported to government entities. (The findings for the 198 counties are available from JPI on an embargoed basis). ??oThe Vortex: The Concentrated Racial Impact of Drug Imprisonment and the Characteristics of Punitive Counties > ,??? found that counties with higher poverty rates, larger African-American populations and larger police or judicial budgets imprison people for drug offenses at higher rates than counties without these characteristics. These relationships were found to be independent of whether the county actually had a higher rate of crime. ??oThe Vortex??? is the first study to examine the relationships between these sociodemographic structures and the specific annual rate at which people are admitted to prison for drug offenses, and the first to localize the racially disparate impact of drug imprisonment at the county level. ??oThe exponential removal of people of color who have substance abuse problems from their communities and into prisons undermines and destabilizes neighborhoods??"it does not make them safer,??? says Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. ??oDrug addiction doesn??Tt discriminate but our drug policies do.??? The report is being released just days before the Drug Policy Alliance hosts its 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Major findings include: * While tens of millions of people use illicit drugs, prison and policing responses to drug behavior have a concentrated impact on a subset of the population. In 2002, there were 19.5 million illicit drug users, 1.5 million drug arrests, and 175,000 people admitted to prison for a drug offense. * While African Americans and whites use and sell drugs at similar rates, African Americans are ten times more likely than whites to be imprisoned for drug offenses. * Of the 175,000 admitted to prison nationwide in 2002, over half were African American, despite the fact that African Americans make up less than 13 percent of the U.S. population. * There is no relationship between the rates at which people are sent to prison for drug offenses and the rates at which people use drugs in counties. For example, although Rockingham County, NH, has a larger percent of its population reporting illicit drug use, Jefferson Parish, LA, sent more people to prison for a drug offense at a rate 36 times that of Rockingham. * Higher county drug prison admission rates were associated with how much was spent on policing and the judicial system, higher poverty and unemployment rates, and the proportion of the county??Ts population that is African American. Researchers attributed disparate policing practices, disparate treatment before the courts, mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws, and differences in the availability of drug treatment for African Americans compared with whites as reasons for the significant racial disparities seen in drug imprisonment rates. ??oLaws??"like drug laws??"that are violated by a large percentage of the population are particularly prone to selective enforcement,??? says Phillip Beatty, co-author of the study. ??oThe reason African Americans are so disproportionately impacted may, in part, be related to social policy, the amount spent on law enforcement and judiciary systems, and local drug enforcement practices.??? While the report does not make detailed recommendations for counties, the authors suggest that policymakers consider reforming drug policies to include: * De-escalation of the ??odrug war.??? Drug enforcement practices are focused in the African-American community, despite evidence that they are no more likely than their white counterparts to be engaged in drug use or drug delivery behaviors. Local, state and federal policymakers should closely examine racial disparities in local drug imprisonment rates that result from these practices, and consider alternative approaches to reducing drug use and sales. * Careful consideration of public safety funding. While policing and judicial expenditures need to be prioritized to help deal with violent crime, other ways to promote public safety would include investments in public health policies and services that reduce poverty and unemployment. * A shift to evidence-based drug enforcement practices. Reform drug enforcement practices, and collect data to analyze the fairness of local drug enforcement tactics and policies. ??oRather than focus law enforcement efforts on drug-involved people who bear little threat to public safety, we should free up local resources to fund treatment, job training, supportive housing, and other effective public safety strategies,??? says Jason Ziedenberg, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute. The report, ??oThe Vortex: The Concentrated Racial Impact of Drug Imprisonment and the Characteristics of Punitive Counties,??? is embargoed until Tuesday, December 4, 12:01 a.m. (Tuesday??Ts Newspapers). After December 4th, the report will be available on JPI??Ts website at www.justicepoilicy.org > . For more information, contact LaWanda Johnson at 202/558-7974 ext. 308 or ljohnson at justicepolicy.org ###### About Justice Policy Institute The Justice Policy Institute is a non-profit, public policy and research institute dedicated to ending society's reliance on incarceration and promoting effective and just solutions to social problems. Efficacy PO Box 1234 860 657 8438 Hartford, CT 06143 efficacy at msn.com www.Efficacy-online.org "THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON" Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax deductible -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efficacy at msn.com Tue Dec 4 11:35:46 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 11:35:46 -0500 Subject: {news} Drug Laws Called Unfair to Minorities Message-ID: US: Drug Laws Called Unfair to Minorities URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n1395/a01.html Newshawk: Herb Votes: 0 Pubdate: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 Source: Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT) Copyright: 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc Contact: edit at ctpost.com Website: http://www.connpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/574 Author: Peter Urban Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?244 (Sentencing - United States) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Sentencing+Commission Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/crack+cocaine Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) DRUG LAWS CALLED UNFAIR TO MINORITIES WASHINGTON - More than 200 inmates incarcerated in federal prisons in Connecticut for crack cocaine offenses could see their sentences cut by an average of 27 months under a plan contemplated by the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The independent commission is considering applying newly established crack cocaine sentencing guidelines retroactively to those sentenced prior to Nov. 1, when the guidelines took effect. In Connecticut, the retroactive proposal would mean that 57 federal inmates would be eligible for release within the first year, 87 more would be eligible for release in the following five years and another 47 after that. Overall, 19,482 federal inmates sentenced between Oct. 1, 1991 and June 30, 2007 could be eligible for a reduced penalty with as many as 3,800 freed within the next year. Cliff Thornton, executive director of Hartford-based Efficacy, a nonprofit social justice organization, said there is a definite racial and socio-economic bias in the nation's drug laws. "There are two types of justice - one for the well-connected and one for the unconnected," he said. Thornton pointed out that those convicted of drug crimes involving crystal methamphetamine - a drug popular in rural, White America - do not face similarly stringent sentencing guidelines even though the drug is considered as dangerous as crack. "The driver behind this whole thing is money and the glue is race. If whites were incarcerated for drugs like this there would literally be armed insurrection," he said. While applauding the proposed changes, Thornton said more needs to be done to repair the damage of two decades of discrimination that has "screwed up the lives" of not only the crack convicts but their families and communities. "I feel strongly that we have to look at what we are going to do with all these people. We've screwed up their lives forever. It is difficult to reintegrate into the community and it will be tough to get jobs," he said. "And, I'd be willing to bet that the kids on the street today - one or both of their parents is serving time for drug charges." Congress established harsh mandatory minimum penalties for crack cocaine in 1986 after the death of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, who had just been selected as the top NBA pick by the Boston Celtics. Bias died after snorting powder cocaine. Since then, more than 76,000 crack offenders have been sentenced under the federal guidelines. In 2000, the average prison sentence for trafficking in crack was 117 months, while the average sentence for trafficking in powder cocaine was 74 months. The commission, which was established in 1984 to bring more consistency to sentencing in federal courts, has recommended a reduction in harsh sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine offenses since 1995 but had been thwarted by Congress until this year. This May, the commission again proposed reducing penalties for crack cocaine to bring them more in line with powdered cocaine and Congress took no action to block the effort. The new guidelines took effect Nov. 1. The change is expected to reduce new crack sentences by an average of 15 months. The commission is now deciding whether to apply the guidelines retroactive as it has done previously when it reduced sentences involving LSD and for growing marijuana. More than 33,000 letters of comment have already been sent to the commission on the retroactive proposal. The commission also recently held a public hearing on the subject at Georgetown University School of Law. The Bush administration opposes the new plan, arguing that it would overburden federal courts and release potentially dangerous drug offenders. U.S. Attorney Gretchen Shappert, who serves in the Western District of North Carolina, argued against applying the sentencing guidelines retroactively saying it would harm African-American communities. "Crack cocaine is not a victimless crime. The victims are the people who are addicted to it, their neighbors and the communities," she said. "They create open-air drug markets where there is 24-hour-a-day dealing in relatively small quantities of crack that profoundly impact the community." Shappert also argued that going back to review the 536 defendants in her district that could be eligible for a reduced sentence would take time away from prosecuting new cases. "We have seen, in the past year and the past three years in Charlotte, a significant rise in the murder rate, an increase in violence. Indeed, the murder rate has gone up 44 percent since 2005 and has remained at that level," she said. U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor in Connecticut agreed with Shappert and said he is concerned that revising prior sentences for crack convictions would burden his office and the courts. "One of the challenges is not just the number of cases involved but many of the prosecutors in those cases have left the office," he said. "So we would have to have someone else get up to speed on those files that have not been looked at for years." O'Connor said that his office has focused most of its drug enforcement strategy on those bringing large quantities of drugs into the state rather than on the street-level dealer. Most of the cases involve crack cocaine or heroin, which tend to be the drugs of choice in Connecticut. State Rep. Michael Lawlor, who co-chairs the Judiciary Committee, said that treating crack cocaine differently than powdered cocaine is unfair and ineffective. "We are talking about different penalties for the same drug. It would be like having one penalty for drunk driving if you drank whiskey and a different penalty if you drank beer," Lawlor said. Until 1995, Connecticut imposed higher penalties for those convicted of drug crimes involving an ounce of powdered cocaine or 0.5 grams of crack cocaine. State lawmakers tried to raise the "trigger" to an ounce for both types of cocaine but Gov. Jodi Rell vetoed that bill. A compromise was reached later, setting the "trigger" at 0.5 ounces for each variety. Beyond the obvious disparity in setting different standards for essentially the same drug crime, the law also drew sharp criticism as unfairly targeting poor African-Americans. Of the 19,482 federal inmates that could receive a reduced sentence for possession and distribution of crack cocaine 86 percent are African-American, 8 percent Hispanic and 6 percent white, according to the commission's analysis. The commission did not break down the racial or ethnic profiles of the 217 Connecticut inmates that could be eligible for a reduced sentence. Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau, urged the commission earlier this month to make the sentencing guidelines retroactive. "Few people today argue that policy makers could have foreseen, 20 years ago, the vastly disparate impact the 1986 law would have on communities of color, yet the fact that African-Americans and especially low-income African-Americans continue to be disproportionately and severely penalized at much greater rates than white Americans for drug use," she said. While 83 percent of those convicted of federal cocaine offenses are African-American, the federal government's most recent survey found that less than 18 percent of the nation's crack cocaine users were African-American, Shelton said. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton also told the commission that the sentencing disparity between crack and powdered cocaine is fundamentally unfair to the African-American community that has seen a "disproportionate number" of African- American males incarcerated for significant periods of time as a result of their involvement in crack cocaine. After some soul searching, Walton said he also came to believe that the new guidelines should apply retroactively. "I just don't see how, in good faith, one can say that just because someone was sentenced on October 30th, that they get a certain sentence, whereas someone who's sentenced on November 1st receives a different sentence," he said. While the commission can take some steps to reduce the disparity in sentencing, it cannot change the mandatory minimum and maximum sentences in the law enacted by Congress. Congress, however, is contemplating those changes in at least three bills that have been introduced in the Senate. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., has proposed legislation that would eliminate sentencing differences between crack and powder cocaine in favor of a single mandatory minimum at the current powder cocaine levels. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has introduced a bill this year that would increase the amount of crack cocaine needed to trigger the five-year mandatory minimum sentences from five to 25 grams and the 10-year mandatory minimum from 50 to 250 grams. And, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has proposed a bill that would raise the crack cocaine "trigger" to 20 grams for the five-year minimum sentence and 200 grams for the 10-year minimum. It would also reduce the "trigger" for powdered cocaine from 500 grams to 400 grams for the five-year minimum and 5 kilograms to 4 kilograms for the 10-year minimum. Efficacy PO Box 1234 860 657 8438 Hartford, CT 06143 efficacy at msn.com www.Efficacy-online.org "THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON" Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax deductible -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: rate.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1720 bytes Desc: not available URL: From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Tue Dec 4 19:20:46 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 16:20:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} Fwd: [usgp-nc] Call for submissions to Green Pages for Winter 2008 issue Message-ID: <365949.17339.qm@web44806.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> David McCorquodale wrote: Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 05:46:26 -0800 (PST) From: David McCorquodale To: natlcomvotes at green.gpus.org, natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org Subject: [usgp-nc] Call for submissions to Green Pages for Winter 2008 issue This is a reminder to submit your Op.Eds., Cartoons, Pictures or State Reports to Green Pages for the Winter 2008 issue. Please pass this on to your states, caucuses and committees. Green Pages, the national newspaper of the Green Party of the United States,is looking for concise opinion pieces (op-eds) for the Winter 2008 issue, as well as timely reports from states, caucuses, and committees. (Please see reports guidelines below.) Opinion submissions are evaluated by the entire editorial board on the basis of relevance, timeliness, writing quality, research quality and diversity. A publishable opinion piece is informative, grounded in fact, and uses logical argument to make its case. Topics specific to Greenissues preferred. DEADLINES AND WHERE TO SEND YOUR GREEN NEWS -Op-eds (max 800 words) and letters to the editor (max 200 words) should be sent by December 15 to greenpages at greens.org. -Unsolicied news briefs (max 350 words) should be sent by December 15 to greenpages at greens.org . -Cartoons, illustrations, and charts should be sent by May 15 to ninth.st at verizon.net. -Photos for op-eds, photos of Greens in action for unsolicited news briefs, with captions and photographer credits, should be sent by December 15 to the section editor who is receiving the related article. See latest issue of Green Pages for section editor list). Please indicate for which story they are intended. -Head shots for op-eds should be sent by December 15 to Deyva Arthur at darthur at nycap.rr.com. -State reports (max 300 words) or Caucus or committee reports (max 300 words) should be sent by December 15 to mccorq at comcast.net or contact if expecting late breaking news. Please note that any state report concerning election results may be included in the elections section. -Photos or logos for state/caucus/committee reports, with captions and photographer credits, should be sent by December 15 to mccorq at comcast.net. Please indicate which report they concern. ***If you have story ideas that don't fall into the above categories, get in touch with us at greenpages at greens.org. ***All text should be sent as an attached Word document. Include a byline indicating your Green affiliation (i.e. in what state, if any, you are registered). Word counts will be strictly enforced. Submissions that are longer than the word counts suggested above or that are received after the due date will not be considered or will be edited.*** REPORTS GUIDELINES Whenever possible, we strongly encourage you to identify Greens from your state/caucus/committee with a journalsm/media background to prepare the state report and photos. In most cases, the person/s who have knowledge about what has happened in the past couple of months would best be used as a source for the reporter rather than actually writing the report. Here are some tips to keep in mind: -Reports should be kept to a maximum of 300 words. If you have a longer feature in mind about major events in your state, or a profile of a Green officeholder or activist who has accomplished something of note that would make a good feature story for Green Pages, please contact Deyva Arthur at darthur at nycap.rr.com as soon as possible with a brief query. -Reports should have an emphasis on newsworthiness. Some examples: accomplishments, recognitions, trends, major plans(e.g., the state plans to run a full slate of candidates next year), new projects in the works, etc. -Think about your piece visually and find out early on who can provide a photograph to run with the text. -Reports are news briefs and should follow basic journalism standards. In general we suggest that reports follow traditional inverted pyramid format (i.e. the most important information should be at the top-if the editors need to cut the report due to space constraints, they should be able to cut the last paragraph first, then the second-to-last paragraph, etc.) -Use the third person ("they"), not first person("we") in reporting about your states/caucus/committee activities. Avoid editorializing in the reports-just report on the facts about what's happening in the state/caucus/committee. Stick to the basics: what, when, where, why, who, and how. -Consider using brief quotes to give voice to Greens, to offer different viewpoints and perspectives, and for reader interest. -Be concise! Edit out any extra words or phrases. Identify somebody ahead of time who can edit your piece to cut out the fat. -Avoid cliches. We get a lot of reports that include lines like, "It isn't easy being Green in XX state," or "XX state is working hard and is Green and growing," or other generalizations. While we appreciate the sentiments, space for reports is limited, and we ask that you focus on issues and actions. -Avoid long lists and other information that make for dull reading. -Plan accordingly. Identify one or more writers, photographers, and editor/coordinators early on. We really appreciate early submissions. Late submissions cannot be accepted. -Submit text as a Word document. Include a byline indicating the reporter's Green affiliation (i.e. in what state, if any, they are registered). -Photos should be JPGs, 200 dpi or larger, at a physical size (height and width) that they should be printed at. Minimum size is 1.875 inches wide(one column wide--for head shots, for example. Submit larger photos if they include many people or complicated activity.). Include who should be credited for the photo, and the photographer's Green affiliation (i.e. in what state, if any, they are registered). Be sure to include a one-sentence caption with the photo to explain the content of the photo to readers. For complete submission guidelines, the Green Pages editorial policy and a style sheet, visit: http://www.gp.org/greenpages/submissions.php Still have questions? Reach us at greenpages at greens.org. David McCorquodale Delaware delegate and Co-chair, Green Pages ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. Make Yahoo! your homepage. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _______________________________________________ Natlcomvotes mailing list To send a message to the list, write to: Natlcomvotes at green.gpus.org To unsubscribe or change your list options, go to: http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/natlcomvotes If your state delegation changes, please see: http://gp.org/committees/nc/documents/delegate_change.html To report violations of listserv protocol, write to forummanagers at lists.gp-us.org For other information about the Coordinating Committee, see: http://gp.org/committees/nc/ *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From greenpartyct at sbcglobal.net Wed Dec 5 12:04:06 2007 From: greenpartyct at sbcglobal.net (Green Party-CT) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 09:04:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} (PRESS RELEASE) Green Party Calls for Slavery Reparations Message-ID: <274578.92125.qm@web81402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES http://www.gp.org For Immediate Release: Wednesday, December 5, 2007 Contacts: Cliff Thornton, NATIONAL CO- CHAIR and former CT.Green Party Candidate for Governor (860) 657-8438 Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty at greens.org Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene at gp.org On the eve of a major US House hearing on HR 40, Greens make the case for reparations for the descendents of slaves WASHINGTON, DC -- On the eve of a major House hearing on the subject, Green Party leaders called for reparations for the descendents of slaves and a national discussion on how reparations should be implemented. The hearing will take place on Thursday, December 6, before the United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn Building in Washington, DC. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chair of the committee, is the sponsor of HR 40, the Reparations Study Bill . "The most effective way to show the nation's regret for centuries of stolen labor is to make restitution," said Alfred Molison, co-chair of the Green Party's Black Caucus and a Texas Green. Mr. Molison noted that the Green Party of Texas and the Harris County Green Party have adopted a statement calling for the study of reparations as part of their platforms. "The history of Jim Crow laws, enforced poverty and segregation, and the denial of human rights show that the ideology on which slavery was founded didn't disappear after emancipation, with lasting effects on the lives of African Americans. Red-lining in housing and job discrimination occurred within recent memory, persisting even after the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The targeting of black people for incarceration in the War on Drugs fills up cells and provides dirt-cheap labor for the prison industry and associated corporate contractors -- a new form of slavery. The obstruction of African American votes in the 2000 and 2004 elections and the treatment of black people in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina reveal the same ideology at work," added Mr. Molison. The Green Party -- unlike the Democratic and Republican parties -- endorses reparations in its national platform . In 2006, Greens expressed their support for a lawsuit that would hold Brown Brothers Harriman, a major US financial corporation, liable for its involvement in the slave trade . "The call for reparations is a call to revive the unfinished work of the Reconstruction after the Civil War," and to correct the abuse of America's criminal justice system in the form of the War on Drugs," said Clifford Wallace Thornton, Jr, national co-chair of the Green Party, Connecticut Green Party co-chair, and co-founder of Efficacy, Inc. . "The Reconstruction was interrupted when Southern states began to pass anti-black Jim Crow laws, while at the same time the Supreme Court granted corporations rights as persons under the 14th Amendment, which was originally passed to protect freed slaves." "The Green Party seeks to restore human rights where they belong -- to humans. Reparations were part of the Reconstruction, and Greens insist that reparations are essential today in the movement for equality, human rights, and democracy," said Mr. Thornton. MORE INFORMATION Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org 202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN Fax 202-319-7193 ? Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml ? Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers ? Green candidate database for 2007 and other campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml "Groundbreaking Study Examines Drug Imprisonment in 198 Counties; 97 Percent Experienced Racial Disparities" Justice Policy Institute, December 4, 2007 http://www.justicepolicy.org/content.php?hmID=1811&smID=1581&ssmID=69 Restitution Study Group http://www.rsgincorp.com National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA) http://www.ncobra.com ~ END ~ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tim McKee cell (860) 778-1304 or (860) 643-2282 National Committee Member of the Green Party(Connecticut) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dbedellgreen at hotmail.com Wed Dec 5 18:15:53 2007 From: dbedellgreen at hotmail.com (David Bedell) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 23:15:53 +0000 Subject: {news} 4th CD nominating meeting 12/16 in Norwalk In-Reply-To: References: <21f4f7390711291722l63ccd061p718b5b47350745f2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I sent the following notice to the Secretary of the State. Note that the meeting will be SUNDAY 12/16 (not Saturday 12/15, as previously mentioned). We are trying to get Cindy Sheehan (http://www.cindyforcongress.org ) or John Nirenberg (http://www.marchinmyname.org ) as keynote speaker. Richard Duffee (http://richardduffee.blogspot.com ) has offered to run, and we will entertain other nominations. Whatever we decide, if we put a candidate on the ballot in 2008, we expect it to be binding this time, not conditional as in 2006. David Bedell ---------------Original message----------------------------------- From: dbedellgreen at hotmail.com To: lead at po.state.ct.us Subject: Notice of 12/16 nominating meeting Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 19:23:45 +0000 December 5, 2006 Legislation and Elections Administration Division Secretary of the State PO Box 150470 Hartford CT 06115-0470 To Whom It May Concern: Pursuant to CT General Statutes Sec. 9-452a, as Secretary of the Fairfield County chapter of the CT Green Party, I hereby provide statutory notice of a Party nominating meeting to be held: Date: Sunday, December 16, 2007 Time: 2:00 PM Location: Norwalk Public Library (2nd floor auditorium), 1 Belden Ave., Norwalk, CT Purpose: Nominate candidate for U.S. Congress representing CT?s 4th District Nominations shall be accepted from the floor. Anyone who meets the requirements of membership as defined by the bylaws of the CT Green Party, who resides within CT?s 4th Congressional District and is present at the meeting is eligible to vote. The nominees must receive support from a simple majority of those who actually vote. If there is more than one person nominated for the same office, instant runoff voting will be used and abstentions will not be counted as votes. Respectfully submitted, David Bedell, Secretary Fairfield County Chapter, CT Green Party _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live.Download today it's FREE! http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_sharelife_112007 From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Sat Dec 8 20:06:47 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 17:06:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} (PRESS RELEASE) CA GREENS PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (NADER & MCKINNEY) Message-ID: <359245.52592.qm@web44814.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> News Advisory THE GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA www.cagreens.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, December 6, 2007 Contacts: Susan King, spokesperson, 415.823-5524 funking at mindspring.com Cres Vellucci, press secretary, 916.996-9170 greenparty-press at comcast.net Dr. Robert Vizzard, spokesperson, 916.206 8953, thevizz at earthlink.net Sara Amir, spokesperson, 310.270-7106 saraamir at earthlink.net Former Democratic congressperson Cynthia McKinney joins Ralph Nader and 5 others on Green Party presidential ballot in California SACRAMENTO (Dec. 6, 2007) ? Former Democratic Party congressperson Cynthia McKinney and longtime consumer advocate and presidential candidate Ralph Nader are among seven names on the California Green Party presidential ballot for the Feb. 5 Primary, according to the Green Party of California in a statement released today. In addition to McKinney (www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com), a former member of Congress from Georgia who has re-registered in the Green Party, and Nader (www.draftnader.org), the 1996 and 2000 Green Party nominee, others whose name will appear on the ballot include: * Jared Ball (www.jaredball.com), a college professor and freelance journalist from the District of Columbia; * Elaine Brown (www.elainebrown.org), a former Black Panther Party leader, noted author and community and prison justice activist from Georgia; * Jesse Johnson (jesse at mtparty.org), a filmmaker and 2006 Senate candidate and 2004 gubernatorial candidate for the Mountain Party from West Virginia; * Kent Mesplay (www.mesplay.org), a biomedical engineer who sought the Green Party presidential nomination in 2004; * Kat Swift (www.votekat.info), the Texas State Party Co-chair, progressive activist and newspaper credit manager. "This promises to be the most competitive presidential primary on record for the Green Party of California. And it comes at a time in our state and nation's history when voters need a real choice at the polls, and an opportunity to elect a President who will make a real difference in truly ending the war in Iraq now, protecting our planet now and providing universal, single-payer health care for all now," said Susan King, GPCA spokesperson. -30- (Distribution of this release by the Green Party of California does not imply endorsement of any candidate for office.) _______________________________________________ *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From edubrule at sbcglobal.net Sun Dec 9 11:25:25 2007 From: edubrule at sbcglobal.net (edubrule) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 11:25:25 -0500 Subject: {news} Fw: Upcoming events for immigrant rights and against hate crimes Message-ID: <001a01c83a80$22035dd0$b0824c0c@edgn2b574u14bi> 6-Story Newsletter Template + Images ----- Original Message ----- From: AFSC Connecticut To: edubrule at sbcglobal.net Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 5:00 PM Subject: Upcoming events for immigrant rights and against hate crimes American Friends Service Committee Connecticut In This Issue: Dec 5 2007 . Dec 6: Nashawn Williams Solidarity Vigil . Dec 10: March & Rally against ICE raids in Parkville, Hartford . Dec 15: Nashawn Williams Solidarity Rally in Plainfield CT Dec 6: Nashawn Williams Solidarity Vigil Thursday, December 6, 2007 Candlelight Vigil 5:30 - 5:50 PM Steps of Charter Oak Cultural Center 21 Charter Oak Ave, Hartford Discussion & Networking on Ways to Resist Racist Hate Crimes 5:50 PM - 7:00 PM Nashawn Williams, a 16-year old African-American male, was beaten, dragged and had hot coffee thrown on him by a racist gang called "K Nation" in Plainfield CT on Oct. 19. (Plainfield is near RI, pop = 15,000, 99% white.) He suffered a concussion and has been afraid to go to school since then. The police chief calls K Nation "a bunch of idiots pretending to be a gang." Nashawn's injuries are not pretend. NO arrests in 7 weeks! So far only the NAACP has publicly come out in solidarity with Nashawn and his mother. Sponsored by People of Faith Network and Men of Color Initiative. Dec 10: March & Rally against ICE raids in Parkville, Hartford On Dec 10th, International Human Rights Day, join us in calling on the federal government to Stop all ICE Raids in the Parkville neighborhood of Hartford and release all the detainees. March on the ICE Headquarters in Hartford Monday, December 10th. Gather at 4:30 p.m. in South Green Park (corner of Park and Main streets) March to the ICE headquarters, 450 Main St., for a rally. This will be a peaceful protest of the 21 arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Parkville neighborhood over the first week of November. ICE has terrorized Hartford by its actions and must be held accountable. Arrests of innocent working-people have nothing in common with a fair, humane immigration reform that recognizes the rights of immigrants to live and work in the U.S. Hartford: Never again! This call comes out of a unanimous vote of more than 50 activists and organizations from across the city and state at a recent public meeting at St. Augustine's Church which included members of the Connecticut Federation of Educational & Professional Employees; American Friends Service Committee; Hartford Areas Rally Together; Hartford Organizing for Power and Equality - H.O.P.E.; Greater Hartford Interfaith Coalition for Equity and Justice; Connecticut Center for a New Economy; Stop the Raids, Trinity College; CT Jobs with Justice; CT People of Faith; National Lawyers Guild - CT Chapter; Capitol Community College SDS; Unidad Latina en Acci?n of New Haven; Latinos Against the War; Queers Without Borders; Campaign to Stop the ICE Raids in Danbury; Voluntown Peace Trust; CT Transadvocacy Coalition; Free People's Dec 15: Nashawn Williams Solidarity Rally in Plainfield CT Nashawn Williams Solidarity Rally Saturday, December 15, 2007 12:30 PM Plainfield Town Hall, Plainfield, CT Nashawn Williams, a 16-year old African-American male, was beaten, dragged and had hot coffee thrown on him by a racist gang called "K Nation" in Plainfield CT on Oct. 19. (Plainfield is near RI, pop = 15,000, 99% white.) He suffered a concussion and has been afraid to go to school since then. The police chief calls K Nation "a bunch of idiots pretending to be a gang." Nashawn's injuries are not pretend. NO arrests in 7 weeks! So far only the NAACP has publicly come out in solidarity with Nashawn and his mother. Carpools leaving 2550 Main Street, Hartford at 11:00 AM Sponsored by Men of Color Initiative. More info: Cornell Lewis: 860-220-4051 pager American Friends Service Committee Connecticut Area Office 56 Arbor Street, Suite 213 Hartford, CT 06106 Phone: 860.523.1534 Fax: 860.523.1705 Email: connecticut at afsc.org Visit AFSC CT Online Unsubscribe | Update Profile | Confirm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Mon Dec 10 10:37:50 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 07:37:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} National Green Ballot Access Report - December 9, 2007(please forward) Message-ID: <666485.75458.qm@web44815.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Phil Huckelberry wrote: Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 02:23:08 -0600 To: natlcomvotes at green.gpus.org From: Phil Huckelberry CC: bac at gp-us.org Subject: [usgp-nc] Ballot Access Report - December 9, 2007 The updated Ballot Access Report follows. The news is not good - but the situation can improve. In 2007 we have gained only two ballot lines - Arkansas (by petition, made possible through a major bequest) and West Virginia (by affiliation). Half of the states which should have begun petition drives did not do so. Increasingly I feel that in order to turn this situation around, GPUS must make a commitment to hire a Field Director who will work largely on the ballot access issue. This, in turn, would require a dramatic reversal of fundraising fortunes, which itself requires substantial participation from state parties and especially delegates to the Green National Committee. We are so far behind pace right now in Georgia and North Carolina that we will have a very hard time collecting the required signatures there. These states have a combined population of around 17,000,000. Lose them both, and we can likely kiss the chances of our presidential candidate winning 5% of the national vote in 2008 goodbye. The biggest litmus test coming up is Arizona, with a deadline of early March. If we lose Arizona, I believe it will cause a ripple effect and we will wind up losing the other 10-15 most difficult states as well. Arizona, of course, is one of the few places where you can continue to petition on a consistent basis throughout December and January without people fleeing from the weather. You all are the leaders of this political party at the national level, and many if not most of you are also the leaders of this political party at the state level. How serious is your commitment to make 2008 a banner year? If the members of the Green National Committee will not commit to tackling the fundraising and ballot access issues, who will? We can turn this around, but we've got to work together, and that means we've got to *work*. Let's get some people talking about making things happen. Let's bury the destructive tripe we've been subjected to on these lists with positive, affirming discussion about how to actually make a difference in building the party up. And let's not wait. Every week that goes by without anything being done on the ballot access front makes it that much harder for us to accomplish what we should be able to accomplish in 2008. Let's come together, get this ship righted, and get our presidential nominee on the ballot throughout this country. Phil Huckelberry Co-Chair, GPUS Co-Chair, BAC Delegate, Illinois GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES BALLOT ACCESS REPORT PREPARED BY THE GPUS BALLOT ACCESS COMMITTEE DECEMBER 9, 2007 GENERAL SUMMARY Note: District of Columbia is referred to as a state throughout, so for the purposes of this report, there are 51 states. In addition, information is included about Guam and Puerto Rico, although very little is known about them. As of January 1, 2004, the Green Party had ballot access in 23 states. We lost ballot access in seven states in 2004: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Rhode Island, and Utah. The status of the Alaska ballot line wound up in court. As of January 1, 2005, the Green Party had ballot access in 15 states. These are: California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawai'i, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, and Wisconsin. As of January 1, 2007, the Green Party had ballot access in 19 states. These are the same 15 as in 2005 minus Hawai'i, with the additions of Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Nevada As of December 1, 2007, the Green Party had ballot access in 21 states, having added ballot lines in Arkansas (via petitioning) and West Virginia (via affiliation of the Mountain Party). It is anticipated that 21 will be the number of ballot lines as of January 1, 2008. Because of differing ballot laws from state to state, "having ballot access" in a state may not always mean the same thing. In general, throughout this report, "having ballot access" refers to having a guaranteed ballot line for President. Usually in a state where we have a guaranteed presidential ballot line, we have a guaranteed ballot line for all partisan offices throughout the state, but this is not always the case. The emphasis in this report is on state-level ballot access. Since some states have mechanisms for ballot access at smaller jurisdictional levels, relevant information is included for those states. This report presumes that in evaluating ballot access goals at the national level that presidential lines will not be the only consideration, and that it is possible that there might be coordination directly between local groups and the national party. Much of the information included in this report comes from Richard Winger and Ballot Access News. All information in this report is subject to change and revision. This report is designed to present mostly basic factual data with some limited analysis. More thorough analysis may be available from the Ballot Access Committee in the form of other papers. ALABAMA Contact(s): Matthew Hellinger GP Ballot Access? No The signature requirement for minor parties and non-presidential statewide independents is 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, which is 37,513 for 2008. The current requirement for an independent presidential line in Alabama is 5,000 signatures. The 11th Circuit recently upheld these requirements, but the case has gone to the Supreme Court where it is expected to be heard. Party petitions are due June 3, 2008. Independent petitions are due September 8, 2008. ALASKA Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? No In 2006, a Green Party lawsuit regarding the state's definition of "party" lost in the Alaska Supreme Court, but then the legislature made the definition worse, and that suit is still in lower court. The original suit wanted the test for continuing party status to be 3% of any statewide office instead of just the highest office. However, in 2006, the Green Party did not win 3% in any statewide race, so even a victory in the current lawsuit would not restore ballot access. Regaining party access requires registering 7,124 members, but GPAK is only at about half that and it is not clear what work is being done there. The other method is a candidate petition, which would require 3,128 signatures, and which is due August 6, 2008. ARIZONA Contact(s): Claudia Ellquist (Pima County), Richard Scott (Maricopa County) GP Ballot Access? No Petitioning is pegged to a percentage of the vote. The party needs 20,449 signatures. The window is open and the deadline is very early, March 6, 2008. The independent method actually requires slightly more signatures. Because of the early deadline, Arizona should be considered our #1 priority at this time. After becoming ballot-qualified, a party can retain ballot status through partisan registration if within one year it reaches 2/3 of 1%. Ballot access was achieved in 2000 but little to no attempt was made to aggressively pursue registrations to maintain that access. The vast majority of the state's population is in two counties, Pima (Tucson) and Maricopa (Phoenix), and the locals for those areas are working semi-autonomously on the ballot drive, so it is wise to consult with both about ideas. As of December 1, 2007, AZGP had collected an estimated 7,500 signatures for 2008. ARKANSAS Contact(s): Mark Swaney GP Ballot Access? Yes 1,000 signatures are needed for the presidential ballot line. 10,000 signatures are needed for statewide ballot access. A new Arkansas law creates a floating 60 day window with an overall August 2008 deadline. GPAR was able to successfully complete the party petitioning requirement in 2007. This was accomplished largely due to a received bequest which allowed for hiring of paid petitioners. The ballot line is retained by receiving 3% in a statewide race. CALIFORNIA Contact(s): Larry Cafiero GP Ballot Access? Yes Ballot access in California is secured through voter registration numbers and success in statewide elections. A state-sponsored primary will be held on February 5, 2008. COLORADO Contact(s): Brian Herzfeld, Bruce Meyer GP Ballot Access? Yes The ballot line is secured by voter registration, with 1,000 members needed and about 5,000 Greens currently registered. CONNECTICUT Contact(s): Mike DeRosa GP Ballot Access? No 7,500 signatures are required for a statewide candidate, including President. There is no process for full-party status. According to Richard Winger, a party can only qualify for ballot access for individual offices. Deadline is August 6, 2008, petitioning window does not open until 2008. The threshold to hold access is 1% of the vote, and that threshold is office-by-office. DELAWARE Contact(s): None GP Ballot Access? Yes The ballot line is held through registration numbers, but the numbers are not available. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Contact(s): Joyce Robinson-Paul GP Ballot Access? Yes The ballot line was secured by gaining enough votes in an at-large DC city office race. DC is participating in a state-sponsored primary on February 12, 2008. FLORIDA Contact(s): GPFL Secretary GP Ballot Access? Yes The party must simply be organized as part of a national party holding a national convention in order to have a ballot line in Florida. GEORGIA Contact(s): Nan Garrett, Harry Rezzemini --------------------------------- GP Ballot Access? No 44,089 signatures are required for state-level party access ? meaning only for President and Senate ? with a deadline of July 8, 2008. The petitioning window opened in April 2007. It is estimated that a comprehensive ballot drive might cost $80,000. Access is held with a vote total of 1% of registered voters in the state. There is significant interest from COFOE in this potential ballot drive because of the opportunity it would provide to file suit against the State of Georgia for other restrictive elements of their ballot law. On the whole, Georgia's ballot access laws are considered the worst in the country, and therefore the most liable to be found unconstitutional using an equal protection test. As of December 1, 2007, GAGP has collected an estimated 3,000 signatures for 2008. GUAM Contact(s): John Dansgraff GP Ballot Access? N/A Note: Guam does not have an affiliated or recognized Green Party at this time. HAWAI'I Contact(s): Jim Brewer GP Ballot Access? No The statewide party requirement is 663 signatures (0.1% of registered voters). The deadline is April 19, 2008, and the window is open. Richard Winger reports that this is being worked on, but no information has been available from GPHI. IDAHO Contact(s): Robert McMinn GP Ballot Access? No 5,984 are needed for a statewide independent candidate in 2008; 11,968 signatures for the party. The deadline is August 29, 2008. The window opened on August 29, 2007. Idaho will need significant outside support whichever path they choose, as their contact has moved to New York and there is little party infrastructure remaining. The Idaho Election Code is available at http://www.idsos.state.id.us/elect/elec_law_06.pdf. ILLINOIS Contact(s): Phil Huckelberry GP Ballot Access? Yes Ballot access was secured for 2008 and 2010 by virtue of securing 5% of the vote for Governor in 2006. A state-sponsored primary will be held on February 5, 2008. INDIANA Contact(s): Bill Stant GP Ballot Access? No Indiana access is pegged to 2% of the number of votes cast in the last election for Indiana Secretary of State. Richard Winger provides an estimate number of 32,742. The window is already open, and the deadline is June 23, 2008. The petition is for a candidate, not for a party. INGP to date has not prepared a petition for 2008. IOWA Contact(s): Holly Hart GP Ballot Access? No 1,500 signatures needed for a single statewide candidate; there is no petitioning mechanism for full statewide ballot access. The signatures must come from at least 10 different counties. Access is maintained by receiving 2% in either the gubernatorial or presidential race. The window is already open, with a deadline of August 15, 2008, but the low requirement usually compels them to wait until after the convention when the nominee will be known. KANSAS Contact(s): None GP Ballot Access? No 5,000 signatures are needed for an independent candidate for President. For a party line, the number is pegged to a percentage; for 2008, this number will be 16,994 signatures. Under Kansas law the signatures can be collected in any 180 day window preceding an election, with an August 4, 2008 deadline. Ballot line retention is fairly easy once secured, but the Kansas Green Party has twice unsuccessfully petitioned and does not appear to have much energy to try again. Significant outside help is needed; they need GPUS to take the lead (they could not even identify a contact person.) Since the window is floating, it is best to start when the most good weather days will be incorporated, so the drive will probably begin in mid-February. KENTUCKY Contact(s): None GP Ballot Access? No Note: There is no GPUS-affiliated state party in Kentucky. 5,000 signatures are required to secure a presidential line in Kentucky. The deadline is September 2, 2008. The window opened on November 7, 2007. LOUISIANA Contact(s): Sean Clark GP Ballot Access? Yes Ballot access is retained by having 1,000 registrants. The particular circumstances of Hurricane Katrina make Louisiana a state that should be monitored. Although the ballot line for 2008 seems to be secure, the likelihood is that enough registrants left Louisiana to pull us below 1,000; the law seems to suggest that once a party becomes ballot-qualified, it may remain so indefinitely so long as it fields candidates. The relevant statute is online ? http://www.legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=81575 ? and may need some followup. MAINE Contact(s): Ben Chipman GP Ballot Access? Yes Ballot access is maintained by performance in the Governor's race. MARYLAND Contact(s): Patsy Allen, Tim Willard GP Ballot Access? Yes Maryland reacquired ballot access in late 2006 by collecting 10,000 signatures. MASSACHUSETTS Contact(s): candidates at green-rainbow.org GP Ballot Access? Yes Massachusetts regained ballot access by receiving 3% in a statewide race in 2006. MICHIGAN Contact(s): John La Pietra GP Ballot Access? Yes Ballot access in Michigan can be maintained by achieving a certain percentage of the vote in any state-level race, including University of Michigan Regent, which is how they have held ballot access since 2000. MINNESOTA Contact(s): Danene Provencher GP Ballot Access? No 110,150 signatures are required for full state-wide access in 2008, but only 2,000 signatures are required for a single statewide office, so the latter approach would be used. 5% for President would retain ballot access for 2010. MISSISSIPPI Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? Yes A party need only be organized in Mississippi to secure a ballot line. MISSOURI Contact(s): Dee Berry GP Ballot Access? No The signature requirement is a flat 10,000 with a July 29, 2008 deadline. The window is already open, but no petition has been put together. PPMO has expressed significant burnout from past drives and feel they will need outside help. MONTANA Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? No 5,000 signatures are required to secure access in Montana. The window is open, and the deadline is July 30, 2008. This is one of the few states which had a petition on the ground in 2007. As of December 1, 2007, MTGP had collected an estimated 500 signatures. NEBRASKA Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? Yes Ballot access in Nebraska is secured by congressional district, not on a statewide basis. There are three congressional districts, and NEGP is qualified in all three, so is therefore on the ballot statewide. NEVADA Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? Yes Ballot access was secured by receiving 1% of the vote for Governor in 2006. NEW HAMPSHIRE Contact(s): Gerald Sykes (this should be checked) GP Ballot Access? No Note: There is no GPUS-affiliated state party in New Hampshire. 12,106 signatures are required for full party access; 3,000 signatures for a single statewide candidate. The window is open, with an August 6, 2008 deadline. The lack of a state party makes starting early difficult, but help should be available from Maine. NEW JERSEY Contact(s): George DeCarlo GP Ballot Access? No There is no petitioning mechanism for securing statewide ballot access but only 800 signatures are required for a statewide candidate in 2008. The deadline is July 28, 2008 and the window is open. The method for establishing statewide ballot access requires pulling 10% of all votes for all statewide Assembly positions. Assembly seats in New Jersey are elected in odd years. NEW MEXICO Contact(s): David C. Thompson GP Ballot Access? Yes The ballot line was originally secured by petition and is maintained by vote totals. The NM Secretary of State recently issued a ruling that NMGP would hold its ballot line; there was some concern the line would be lost due to confusion over the intent of the law, but the ruling was favorable. NEW YORK Contact(s): Gloria Mattera GP Ballot Access? No 15,000 signatures are required to secure the presidential line in New York. The deadline is August 19, 2008, and the window is very short. NORTH CAROLINA Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? No North Carolina has the worst presidential ballot line restriction in the country based on raw numbers. 69,734 signatures are required, and it even takes 500 signatures to file as a write-in. The deadline is June 12, 2008, and the window is open. NCGP has been petitioning and seems to have a substantial number of signatures collected, but they will definitely need outside support. There is a joint Libertarian-Green lawsuit active against the party requirement in North Carolina. As of the last available report, NCGP has collected 14,000 signatures, but there are conflicting reports. NORTH DAKOTA Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? No Note: There is not a GPUS-affiliated state party in North Dakota. 7,000 signatures are required for statewide ballot access; 4,000 signatures for a single statewide candidate. The window is open; the candidate deadline is September 5, 2008, and the party deadline is April 11, 2008. OHIO Contact(s): Paul Dumouchelle GP Ballot Access? No An independent presidential line requires 5,000 signatures. A law governing statewide access has been ruled unconstitutional, but the Ohio Secretary of State issued an advisory ruling which set the party petition at about 21,000 signatures. GPOH did not attempt to use this mechanism, however, and will wind up using the independent mechanism. The independent line has an August 21, 2008 deadline, and the window is currently open. OKLAHOMA Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? No Oklahoma has the most difficult presidential ballot line restrictions in the country: 46,324 signatures for a party line and 43,913 for an independent statewide candidate. The deadline is July 15, 2008 and the window is open. Oklahoma is only the 28th largest state, so this would be a monumental undertaking. OBAR (Oklahomans for Ballot Access Reform) recently attempted to place a referendum on the statewide ballot but the effort failed due to onerous aspects of Oklahoma law, including criminal penalties for out-of-state circulating. OREGON Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? Yes Information has not been available, except that the ballot line is held. PENNSYLVANIA Contact(s): Bob Small GP Ballot Access? No There is no statewide party line mechanism. Individual statewide candidates will need an estimated 24,000 signatures in 2008. The deadline is August 1, 2008; the window is not yet open. GPPA and other parties have taken the Commonwealth to court and the case is still pending. A lot of work is being done via the Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition ? www.paballotaccess.org. Pennsylvania courts have ruled that candidates whose petitions are found to be short of the number of signatures required must repay costs to the people who got them thrown off the ballot. This means that it is vitally important that a drive in Pennsylvania get a significant overage. PUERTO RICO Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? N/A Note: There is no GPUS-affiliated Green Party operating in Puerto Rico. RHODE ISLAND Contact(s): Greg Gerritt GP Ballot Access? No The signature threshold and vote test are both 5% in Rhode Island; these are the highest requirements in the New England states. The party needs 18,557 signatures for a statewide line. A single statewide candidate needs 1,000. The candidate deadline is September 5, 2008, with the window opening on July 1, 2008. The party window closes on May 30, 2008. They intend to use the candidate mechanism. SOUTH CAROLINA Contact(s): Gregg Jocoy GP Ballot Access? Yes South Carolina maintains the line by participating in an election in the preceding election year. SOUTH DAKOTA Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? No Note: There is not a GPUS-affiliated state party in South Dakota. 8,389 signatures are required for statewide access; 3,356 for a single state-level candidate. The deadline is August 5, 2008; the window is open. Richard Winger reports that South Dakota will not allow a "candidate swap", so petitioning for just the presidential line would not be able to happen until after the convention. TENNESSEE Contact(s): Martin Pleasant GP Ballot Access? No Statewide ballot access requires 45,254 signatures. An independent presidential candidate can qualify through a strange method of having 11 presidential electors each collect 25 signatures. This means that the signatures must be collected from separate congressional districts. The deadline is August 21, 2008. Bills are pending in the legislature to lower the party petition to 2,500 signatures and to allow new parties to nominate by convention. Richard Winger is hopeful that these bills will pass because of a controlling precedent in the 6th Circuit from the recent victory over Ohio law. TEXAS Contact(s): sec-contact at txgreens.org GP Ballot Access? No 43,991 signatures, from registered voters who do not vote in the Republican or Democratic primaries, collected in a 75-day window, are necessary for ballot access in Texas. This is one of the hardest states in the country to secure a ballot line in because of the restrictions. There is not a lower threshold for individual candidates. The deadline is May 27, 2008. Legislation may be taken up to deal with the "primary screen-out" issue which bars people who voted in the primary from signing such petitions. UTAH Contact(s): Tom King GP Ballot Access? No The state ballot line requires 2,000 signatures with a February, 2008 deadline; a single statewide candidate needs 1,000 with a September 2, 2008 deadline. The party mechanism window is open. As of December 1, 2007, GPUT had collected an estimated 500 signatures. VERMONT Contact(s): Jim Hogue <> GP Ballot Access? Yes Ballot access in Vermont is secured by organizing town meetings which will occur in October 2007. VIRGINIA Contact(s): Audrey Clement, Tom Yager GP Ballot Access? No There is no statewide party mechanism. 10,000 signatures are required for individual state-level candidates, with at least 400 signatures from each of Virginia's 11 congressional districts. The deadline is August 22, 2008; the window does not open until 2008. WASHINGTON Contact(s): wagreens at gmail.com GP Ballot Access? No There is no statewide party mechanism. 1,000 signatures are required for individual state-level candidates. The deadline is July 26, 2008; the window does not open until 2008. There are additional bizarre requirements under Washington law involving "nominating conventions" but this has not presented a challenge in past years. WEST VIRGINIA Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? No Gubernatorial elections are in presidential years; a gubernatorial candidate would have to be fielded in 2008 with 15,118 signatures required. Retention is 1% of the vote. The threshold for other offices is 2%. The Mountain Party secured the line via their gubernatorial showing in 2004. WISCONSIN Contact(s): Ron Hardy, Ruth Weill GP Ballot Access? Yes Wisconsin maintains the ballot line with 1% of the vote in any statewide race in a gubernatorial year. WYOMING Contact(s): GP Ballot Access? No 3,868 signatures are required for a party line or for an independent candidate. The independent deadline is August 25, 2008; the party deadline is June 2, 2008; and the window for both is open. APPENDICES _______________________________________________ Natlcomvotes mailing list To send a message to the list, write to: Natlcomvotes at green.gpus.org To unsubscribe or change your list options, go to: http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/natlcomvotes If your state delegation changes, please see: http://gp.org/committees/nc/documents/delegate_change.html To report violations of listserv protocol, write to forummanagers at lists.gp-us.org For other information about the Coordinating Committee, see: http://gp.org/committees/nc/ *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efficacy at msn.com Mon Dec 10 19:05:42 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 19:05:42 -0500 Subject: {news} Medical Marijuana Topic of High Debate in Wilton Forum Message-ID: Toni Boucher runs unopposed, we someone to oppose her. Suggestions please!!! Please read and give Ideas. Everyone and mean everyone is talking about change US CT: Medical Marijuana Topic of High Debate in Wilton Forum URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n1421/a02.html Newshawk: Educators For Sensible Drug Policy: http://www.efsdp.org Votes: 0 Pubdate: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 Source: Wilton Bulletin (CT) Copyright: 2007 Hersam Acorn Newspapers Contact: newsroom at wiltonbulletin.com Website: http://www.wiltonbulletin.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4650 Author: Justin Reynolds Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?232 (Chronic Pain) MEDICAL MARIJUANA TOPIC OF HIGH DEBATE IN WILTON FORUM The topic of the legalization of medical marijuana has elicited high debate in the past, and last week was no exception. The Wilton League of Women Voters continued its "hot topic" discussion series, hosting a forum on the topic in the Brubeck Room of the Wilton Library last Thursday. The league invited two politicians to discuss the legal aspects of medical marijuana and two physicians to talk about the medical side. State Rep. Toni Boucher, Republican of the 143rd District, spoke against the legalization of medical marijuana while State Rep. Michael Lawlor, Democrat of the 99th District, voiced his support. "For me, this issue has a lot to do with the integrity of the criminal justice system," said Mr. Lawlor, a lawyer and professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven. "When the criminal justice system is fighting a losing battle" we must "reconsider whether or not the criminal justice system is the right venue" to address the issue. Mr. Lawlor said most law enforcement officers would not arrest someone for possession of marijuana if it was clear that person was using the drug to help combat a "legitimate illness." Mr. Lawlor told the story of Mark Braunstein, a librarian at Connecticut College, who became paralyzed from the waist down in 1990. Mr. Braunstein has been very vocal of the fact he grows marijuana in his house and smokes it to help alleviate his pain. "To this day, no law enforcement agency has taken action against him," Mr. Lawlor said. Because this law is not being enforced, Mr. Lawlor said he believes it needs to be changed. "Without a modification of the law, people will lose respect for the criminal justice system," he said. Earlier this year, Connecticut's House of Representatives passed a bill that would have legalized medical marijuana, by a vote of 89-58. The bill would have allowed sick patients to grow up to four, four-foot plants. The state Senate voted in favor of the bill, 23-13. Mr. Lawlor said the bill was "debated at great length" and "modified significantly." "We talked about all the legitimate concerns," Mr. Lawlor said. "It seems to me this proposal met the legitimate concerns of the people who raised them." Mr. Lawlor described the vote as "overwhelmingly bipartisan." Gov. M. Jodi Rell, however, vetoed the bill in June, which would have made Connecticut the 14th state to have legalized medical marijuana. Ms. Boucher supported Ms. Rell in her veto, and continued her support of the governor's stance on the issue at Thursday's forum. "Proponents have gone a long way to say the drug is benign," Ms. Boucher said. "The facts just simply are not there." Ms. Boucher said studies have shown marijuana can lead to tumors, damaged lungs, cancer and impaired memory and learning. "Legalizing marijuana for any purpose undermines everything we've done," Ms. Boucher said. "It is not the same drug of the 60s and 70s. It is much more powerful and addictive." "We want them to live a healthy life," Ms. Boucher said of potential medical marijuana patients. By prescribing them marijuana, patients could develop "a secondary problem that could be worse than the first," she said. Ms. Boucher went on to say legalizing medical marijuana was "counterintuitive to everything we know." An elected official's job is "to improve the living of people we represent," she said. "It does not save or improve lives," she said of marijuana. Larry Katz, a father who lost his son to an overdose in 1996, commented to the panel after their presentations. "We have to set clear guidelines for young people," Mr. Katz said, adding that legalizing medical marijuana is "giving children another reason to take it" by telling their parents it's a medicine. Medical Side Two physicians who treat cancer patients were also on the panel. Dr. Andrea Ruskin, of Norwalk Hospital, and Dr. Seyed Aleali, of St. Vincent's Hospital generally agreed they wouldn't prescribe marijuana to their patients and that enough research hasn't yet been done to conclude there are enough medicinal benefits of the drug. "I'm not so convinced that marijuana is a great pain reliever. I'm not so convinced marijuana controls nausea," Dr. Ruskin said, adding that more studies need to be done to verify or disprove these claims. If new studies show medicinal benefits, "I would be all for approval," she said. "What is lacking is a mode of delivery for THC," Dr. Aleali said of marijuana's most psychoactive chemical, tetrahydrocannabinol. "We have drugs that are much more powerful" than marijuana, he said. "As a physician, I think I have enough stuff at my disposal." Selectman Ted Hoffstatter said while it was "great" to have the forum on a controversial topic, he "felt it was one sided." "Studies all over the world have been done to show the possible benefits" of medicinal marijuana, Mr. Hoffstatter said. "I've heard story after story after story of people who were otherwise law-abiding citizens who told us that this helped them," Mr. Lawlor said of medical marijuana patients. "Feeling that they're breaking the law adds to their suffering. To me that's the most compelling argument." Since the law would allow patients to grow four, four-foot plants, Ms. Boucher said it would be difficult to monitor whether it was obeyed. "The opportunity for abuse here is just so high," she said. "Four plants can produce thousands of joints of marijuana" and "there's no way to administer dosage." The medical community has yet to come to an agreement on its stance on medical marijuana, the doctors said. "It would put us in an awkward situation as doctors," Dr. Ruskin said. "There's no consensus in the medical community that the benefits outweigh the risk. I would have a lot of ethical issues writing prescriptions." "I don't think there is any reason for us with all this information to use marijuana as a pain reliever," Dr. Aleali said, adding legalization of medical marijuana will "never ever" occur, "not in my lifetime, not in your lifetime." Bigger Picture While the forum was centered around the discussion of medical marijuana, many agreed the push to approve medical marijuana was part of the issue of outright legalization of the drug and the effect it might have on children. Ms. Boucher said more people are now seeking treatment for marijuana than for heroin and cocaine. "We know we have a system where over 90% are arrested for personal use," Mr. Hoffstatter said, adding it "doesn't mean they're addicts" and that they're "mandated to go to treatment" by the courts. Clifford Thornton, the Green Party's candidate for governor of Connecticut in 2006, attended the event. Mr. Thornton also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "I think there was a lot of mis- and dis-information given," Mr. Thornton said in an interview following the event. "It was a decent forum, but most of the people there were uninformed." Mr. Thornton took the approach of listener at the forum, as he said he wanted to sit back and hear what people thought about the issue and not influence the discussion himself. "What I picked up is that a lot of people are still in the dark," he said. "I'm not arguing for drug use, I'm arguing for a reasonable approach to this problem," he said, adding the problem is "created and sustained by the very laws themselves." Mr. Lawlor repeated he was mostly interested in the criminal justice side of the issue. "The goal of our policy should be to prevent the use of drugs," he said, adding that our country's current policy doesn't seem to eliminate drug use. "How well are we doing with the War on Drugs?" Mr. Lawlor asked. "Thirty years is enough time to see if the policy is working. We're spending more money to run prisons in Connecticut than we are spending on colleges. What we're doing now is just not working." Mr. Lawlor said poll data suggests as many as 80% of Americans favor decriminalization of marijuana. "It's important to point out that on this issue, if you look at polls, an overwhelming percent support the idea of decriminalization and regulating medical marijuana," he said. "I do feel like polls are not accurate," Ms. Boucher said, adding "questions are phrased unfairly." "Yes, we have a massive problem here" but if we legalize medical marijuana "our problems can be magnified, our costs can be magnified," she said. "The agenda is not about medical marijuana, but about the legalization of drugs." Mr. Thornton said Connecticut stood to gain millions of dollars from legalized marijuana, and agreed with Ms. Boucher's sentiment that legalizing medical marijuana is a step towards pushing for the legalization of marijuana. "It's definitely a wedge issue," Mr. Thornton said. "Don't get me wrong here, the push for medical marijuana is for sick people, however - and to me it's a no-brainer - it is definitely a wedge issue and the broader issue is the outright legalization of marijuana." "What we need to do is expose the issue," he said. "In this history of man, no one has died from direct ingestion of marijuana. People are never going to stop using this drug, at least that's what history shows." "I do not advocate the use of drugs in any way, shape, or form," Mr. Hoffstatter said, adding he thinks the medical marijuana bill, however, "should have passed." Efficacy PO Box 1234 860 657 8438 Hartford, CT 06143 efficacy at msn.com www.Efficacy-online.org "THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON" Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax deductible -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: rate.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1720 bytes Desc: not available URL: From chapillsbury at igc.org Mon Dec 10 22:29:04 2007 From: chapillsbury at igc.org (Charlie Pillsbury) Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 22:29:04 -0500 Subject: {news} next New Haven chapter meeting this Thurs. 12/13 7:30pm References: <141737.46651.qm@web82302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <003f01c83ba5$fb1e03b0$6600a8c0@S0031616584> Our December chapter meeting will be held this coming Thursday 12/13 from 7:30-9:00pm. The location is the Never Ending Book Store, 810 State Street. We will be debriefing the November election, discussing with Allan, Daniel and Ralph what worked, and what we could do better in 2009. We also will discuss the CTGP request to find a candidate to run for Congress in the 3rd District in 2008. Please let me know if you have any other items of business to add to the agenda. Thanks. See you there, Charlie Charlie Pillsbury 247 Saint Ronan Street New Haven CT 06511 203-865-6575 chapillsbury at igc.org __._,_.___ . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dbedellgreen at hotmail.com Tue Dec 11 02:29:43 2007 From: dbedellgreen at hotmail.com (David Bedell) Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 07:29:43 +0000 Subject: {news} 4th District nominating caucus press release In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: NEWS For immediate release Date: December 10, 2007 Contact: David Bedell, (203)581-3193, dbedell at greens.org Richard Duffee, (203)588-0161, richard.duffee at gmail.com GREEN PARTY CONSIDERS RUN FOR CONGRESS Richard Duffee to Seek Nomination NORWALK, CT?On Sunday, December 16, the Connecticut Green Party will hold a nominating meeting to select a candidate for Congress from the 4th District. Richard Duffee of Stamford, a retired lawyer and impeachment activist, has announced his intention to seek the nomination. The meeting will take place at the Norwalk Public Library beginning at 2:00 PM on Sunday. The meeting is open to the public. All Green Party members residing in the 4th District are encouraged to attend and vote on the nomination, while other interested voters are welcome to attend as observers. When asked his reasons for running, Duffee cited the need to reverse the current Iraq war policies, to prevent war against Iran, and to counter the Bush administration's environmental legacy and failure to address global warming or public safety threats such as the nearby Indian Point nuclear power plant. Congress Has Failed to Impeach Above all, however, Duffee decided to run because Congress has not used its power of impeachment to end what he describes as the criminal activities of George Bush and Dick Cheney. "I believe the current Congress has not taken seriously the oath of office to defend the Constitution. We are in a constitutional crisis that cannot end until we repudiate empire and imperial presidencies and return to our Republic. "We need a government based on trust, openness, honesty, and disinterested public action. It is clear that Bush and Cheney regard us not as citizens, but as subjects, using all the techniques of ruling an empire?secrecy, deceit, betrayal, fraud, mystification, and violence. These are inherently incompatible with the moral prerequisites for maintaining a Republic based on the rule of law." Duffee has started a campaign blog at http://richardduffee.blogspot.com. He ran in 2006 for the same seat, but withdrew two weeks before Election Day, citing an agreement with the local Greens to endorse Democrat Diane Farrell because they felt she had a better chance of defeating Republican Christopher Shays in a close race. The same scenario will not be considered in the next election, according to David Bedell, Secretary of the Fairfield County chapter of the Green Party. "Richard has offered to run, and we will entertain other nominations from the floor, including None of the Above. But whatever we decide, if we put a candidate on the ballot in 2008, we expect it to be binding this time, not conditional as in 2006." Bedell explained that minor parties such as the Green Party have to petition their way onto the ballot, and if they do not run a candidate in any given year, then they lose their ballot line for that office. For the Congressional seat, the Green Party will have to collect at least 2100 signatures of voters in the 4th District. _________________________________________________________________ You keep typing, we keep giving. Download Messenger and join the i?m Initiative now. http://im.live.com/messenger/im/home/?source=TAGLM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 12 11:46:10 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:46:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} State" Draft Nader" committee for Green Nomination (please forward) Message-ID: <784222.24557.qm@web44801.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Dear Greens and Ralph Nader supporters, I am forming a Draft Nader for President to push Ralph Nader for the Green Party Nomination in 2008. Our goal is a local effort to push for local people who want Ralph Nader to seek the Green Party nomination and reach a WIN of 5%. This goal of 5% will trigger MILLIONS of dollars to the future Green Party Presidential race and cement us as a real third party in the legal standings of U.S. Laws. Please join us. There are many good Greens seeking the nomination, but I feel our 3% in 2000 was just a beginning! We were divided in 2004 but Greens in 2007 and 2008 on a national level want a "win" of 5% in an all out full campaign. Please email me back as soon as possible if you want to work on this committee. or call me at 860-643-2282 join our yahoo group! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CTDraftNader/?yguid=327662005 Remember this is a "Draft" committee at the this stage! We expect an announcement this month! So time is very fleeting! get involved now! Tim McKee P. S. Watch PBS on DEC 18 for the showing of "AN UNREASONABLE MAN" the story of Ralph Nader and his past Presidential experiences! (rumor has it right after that date an announcement will be coming from Ralph!) *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efficacy at msn.com Wed Dec 12 12:40:24 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:40:24 -0500 Subject: {news} Let Adam Smith be the drug pusher Message-ID: Let Adam Smith be the drug pusher Jay Hancock November 7, 2007 http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.hancock07nov07,0,2948012.column There is a way to stop Baltimore's murder epidemic. Improve Baltimore's schools. Revive Baltimore's neighborhoods. And it doesn't involve more police, higher taxes or longer prison sentences. Instead, it requires restructuring what is possibly the city's biggest industry. Legalize heroin and cocaine sales, and you erase the economic force behind Baltimore's heartache. Jay Hancock Recent columns Would it lead to new addicts? Of course. Would it send a bad message to kids? Yep. Would it cause problems we can't envisage? Probably. And it would be an enormous improvement. We've tried everything else. Not only has the war on drugs failed to stop addiction, it wreaks damage a hundred times worse than the problem it addresses. Why are voters and politicians still shy about trying the only thing with a chance of succeeding? As of yesterday afternoon 254 people had been killed in Baltimore this year. Any police officer will tell you almost all the deaths were probably drug-dealer related. The small businesses retailing cocaine and heroin are financing murder as surely as Legg Mason contributes to United Way. As former Baltimore policeman Peter Moskos pointed out in The Sun three years ago, maintaining a private army is essential if your company can't resolve disputes in the court system the way other businesses do. Iraq's Shiite militias don't have much on the Bloods or the North Avenue Boys. Society needs to apply a force more powerful than a Glock 17 or a Jessup prison cell: economics. Only by fighting business with business can we put dealers out of business. I don't mean letting drug dens spread like McDonald's. Legal dope must be dispensed by heavily regulated clinics. But government-sponsored competition will hurt dealers in a way that the Drug Enforcement Administration can't. Incumbent merchants have terrible marketing problems, for one thing. Their street-corner venues are cold and dangerous. Prices are high to cover the cost of security, lawyers, confiscated inventory and shipping from Colombia and Afghanistan. Quality is always a question. Even the government, rarely known for efficiency, would quickly undercut the drug lords, steal their customers and wipe out their profits. Addicts would still be here, but without the violence and contaminated needles. No single change in policy would lead to so many good outcomes. Neighbors could take back neighborhoods. Housing values and the tax base would rise. Arrests and incarceration would plummet. Billions blown on the drug wars and prisons could be spent instead on tax cuts and schools - and drug treatment and drug education. With no narcotics lords as role models, more city kids might pay attention to schoolwork. With less city violence, more companies might move in to employ them. And Baltimore murders, a daily occurrence, might fall to one a week. But don't legalize drugs just for Baltimore. Do it for American troops fighting insurgents financed by narcotics. Do it for the people of Afghanistan, Colombia and Peru, where drug money keeps outlaw warlords in business and prevents the countries from joining the developed world. If Baltimore and all its problems were a nation, you'd get Colombia, where narco-gangsters rule and the United States has spent more than $2 billion trying in vain to stop the cocaine flow. Illegal drug money finances bad guys all over the world. Dispensing legal heroin and cocaine bought through licensed, controlled sources would strike a bigger blow against terrorism than a lot of what Washington is doing and at a much cheaper price. Of course no politician with a chance of getting elected is talking about this. Former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke was ridiculed for broaching the idea in the 1990s. A. Robert Kaufman, the Socialist candidate in yesterday's mayoral election, has long supported legalization. He probably got less than 1 percent of the vote. Presidential candidates Ron Paul (a libertarian Republican), Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich (Democrats), all skeptical of the war on drugs, are likely to do about as well. Yes, legalizing drugs is a drastic step. Of course you're against it. Got any better ideas? The status quo is ripping the city apart. We began the war on drugs so Americans wouldn't become addicted. Well, the addicts are here. The business of selling cocaine and heroin isn't going anywhere. The only question: Will it be conducted on the Bloods' terms? Or ours? jay.hancock at baltsun.com Efficacy PO Box 1234 860 657 8438 Hartford, CT 06143 efficacy at msn.com www.Efficacy-online.org "THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON" Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax deductible -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 756733.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 10875 bytes Desc: not available URL: From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 12 13:56:36 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:56:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} Massachusetts Green Primary Ballot Message-ID: <893981.18283.qm@web44804.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Massachusetts Green Presidential Primary December 10th, 2007 Six names will be on the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party?s presidential primary ballot in February: Jared Ball, Elaine Brown, Cynthia McKinney, Kent Mesplay, Ralph Nader, and Kat Swift. Massachusetts doesn?t require candidates in presidential primaries to file; the law says the Secretary of State should place candidates on the ballot who are mentioned in the news media. In the case of minor parties, states with laws like this generally let the state party chair decide whom to list, and this list was approved by the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party?s leadership. No Comments *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chapillsbury at igc.org Wed Dec 12 20:05:00 2007 From: chapillsbury at igc.org (Charlie Pillsbury) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:05:00 -0500 Subject: {news} Cancelling chapter meeting this Thurs. 12/13 Message-ID: <001201c83d24$2fbece90$6500a8c0@S0031616584> Because of tomorrow's storm, Allan and I decided to cancel December's chapter meeting. Instead, we will meet on the 2nd Thursday in January 01/10/08, same time, same place, same agenda. Meanwhile, please plan on coming to Allan's swearing-in on Tuesday January 1, 2008, @noon, at a place TBD. ----- Original Message ----- From: Charlie Pillsbury To: newhavengreens at yahoogroups.com ; nhgreensannouncements at yahoogroups.com Cc: ctgp-news at ml.greens.org Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 10:29 PM Subject: next New Haven chapter meeting this Thurs. 12/13 7:30pm Our December chapter meeting will be held this coming Thursday 12/13 from 7:30-9:00pm. The location is the Never Ending Book Store, 810 State Street. We will be debriefing the November election, discussing with Allan, Daniel and Ralph what worked, and what we could do better in 2009. We also will discuss the CTGP request to find a candidate to run for Congress in the 3rd District in 2008. Please let me know if you have any other items of business to add to the agenda. Thanks. See you there, Charlie Charlie Pillsbury 247 Saint Ronan Street New Haven CT 06511 203-865-6575 chapillsbury at igc.org __._,_.___ . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 12 14:50:28 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:50:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} Kucinich booted from Iowa Debate- so it begins!!! Vote Green! Message-ID: <831272.84776.qm@web44816.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Kucinich booted from Iowa debate By Klaus Marre | Posted 12/12/07 9:15 AM [ET] December 12, 2007 -The Hill Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D) is being excluded from this week?s Iowa presidential debate because he has not rented office space in the Hawkeye State, his campaign said Wednesday. "); //--> The Des Moines Register informed the campaign that Kucinich is not invited because the newspaper determined ?that a person working out of his home did not meet our criteria for a campaign office and full-time paid staff in Iowa,? the campaign said. Kucinich, who is running his second consecutive presidential campaign but is doing poorly in national polls, has received strong support in online surveys from liberal groups such as Democracy for America. The Ohio lawmaker?s anti-war campaign resonates with parts of the Democratic base even though that support has not boosted Kucinich from the lower tier of candidates. The campaign blasted the decision to exclude the lawmaker from the debate. ?The Iowa caucuses have been portrayed as having national implications, and if the Register has decided to use hair-splitting technicalities to exclude the leading voice of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, then the entire process is suspect,? the campaign said in a statement about the ?arbitrary and unreasonable exclusion.? The campaign claims that Kucinich has also been barred from public appearances by ?the Iowa Democratic Party, Iowa Public Television, and well-funded political interests ? With nearly twenty candidates running for the nominations of the two major parties, the format of the debates have been an issue all year long. Some of the lower-tier candidates have repeatedly complained that they are not being asked as many questions as the frontrunners. Meantime, some of the White House hopefuls have sought to limit the crowd. In July, former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) was overheard discussing the issue with Democratic frontrunner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.). *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dbedellgreen at hotmail.com Thu Dec 13 13:23:36 2007 From: dbedellgreen at hotmail.com (David Bedell) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:23:36 +0000 Subject: {news} 4th CD nominating meeting POSTPONED to 1/5/08 Message-ID: December 13, 2006 Legislation and Elections Administration Division Secretary of the State PO Box 150470 Hartford CT 06115-0470 RE: RESCHEDULING OF NOMINATING MEETING To Whom It May Concern: Pursuant to CT General Statutes Sec. 9-452a, as Secretary of the Fairfield County chapter of the CT Green Party, I hereby provide statutory notice of a Party nominating meeting to be held: Date: Saturday, January 5, 2008 Time: 10:00 AM (Snowdate: Sunday, January 6, 2:00 PM) Location: Norwalk Public Library (2nd floor auditorium), 1 Belden Ave., Norwalk, CT Purpose: Nominate candidate for U.S. Congress representing CT?s 4th District Nominations shall be accepted from the floor. Anyone who meets the requirements of membership as defined by the bylaws of the CT Green Party, who resides within CT?s 4th Congressional District and is present at the meeting is eligible to vote. The nominees must receive support from a simple majority of those who actually vote. If there is more than one person nominated for the same office, instant runoff voting will be used and abstentions will not be counted as votes. Respectfully submitted, David Bedell, Secretary Fairfield County Chapter, CT Green Party _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec From efficacy at msn.com Fri Dec 14 09:35:25 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 09:35:25 -0500 Subject: {news} Clinton Campaign Is Backwards on Racist Drug War Message-ID: Clinton Campaign Is Backwards on Racist Drug War Posted by Tony Newman, HuffingtonPost.com at 12:01 PM on December 13, 2007. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/70570/?cID=789100#c789100 Every presidential election year there is a news cycle about candidates' drug use. The "I did not inhale" statement by then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton was one of the most humorous and pitiful "admissions" that still makes the eyes roll. Another pathetic example of hypocrisy came from George W. Bush. "Mr. Straight Shooter" still refuses to answer questions about his "youthful indiscretions," and the record has been expunged. In this context, Sen. Barack Obama's honesty on this topic was so refreshing. In his book, Dreams from My Father, Obama openly admits to not only smoking marijuana but trying cocaine. We also have read about Obama's current struggles over giving up cigarettes. Why should any of us be surprised that any politician, whether it be Sen. Obama, former Vice President Gore, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, has tried (and maybe even enjoyed) marijuana or other drugs. Remember, despite 40 years of attempting to make a "Drug-Free America," half of all high school students have tried marijuana before they graduate from high school. Tens of millions of Americans still use drugs (alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, Viagra, cocaine, caffeine, prescription drugs) both for pleasure and to soothe pain. The fact that Obama used drugs in his youth only humanizes him. I believe that it will backfire for Hillary and her campaign to try to "Willie Horton" Obama on the drug question. Hillary is still facing anger from voters for her cynical support of Bush's devastating war in Iraq. Far from showing leadership, Hillary has constantly been behind the curve and public sentiment regarding the war in Iraq. And now Hillary is showing that she is behind the curve when it comes to the other war: the war on drugs. Not only is her campaign trying to take down Obama with drug baiting, she is also backwards when it comes to our racist drug laws. Federal mandatory minimums enacted by Congress in the 1980s punished sellers of crack cocaine 100 times more severely than those convicted of powder-cocaine offenses. Five grams of crack means an automatic five years in jail. It takes up to 500 grams of powdered cocaine for the same punishment. This has not led to less drug use but, instead, a prison system that mass incarcerates African Americans and Latinos. While drug abuse doesn't discriminate, our drug policies do. Despite equal drug use among blacks and whites, blacks go to jail on drug charges at 13 times the rate of whites. Hillary Clinton is the only major Democratic presidential candidate who did not support the Sentencing Commission's unanimous vote this week to apply recent sentencing reductions for crack-cocaine offenses retroactively. The war in Iraq and the war on drugs are two unwinnable wars that have caused unimaginable suffering and death. The country is looking for leadership and for exit strategies that will allow us to heal from these catastrophes. Hillary has decided to put her chips on the Bush Administration's fearmongoring. Hillary is tone deaf and living in the past. In upcoming elections it is going to be "drug baiting" and support of inhumane and racist laws that will cost more votes than having tried marijuana when you were young. Efficacy PO Box 1234 860 657 8438 Hartford, CT 06143 efficacy at msn.com www.Efficacy-online.org "THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON" Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax deductible -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From apbrison at hotmail.com Sat Dec 15 19:25:21 2007 From: apbrison at hotmail.com (allan brison) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:25:21 -0500 Subject: {news} 2007 aldermanic inaugural ceremony - Jan 1 at noon Message-ID: Friends, and Supporters, I will be inaugurated, along with the other 29 alderman, on New Years Day at noon. I think that it would be a good idea to have a good show of support in attendance. I would urge anyone who is free to stop by. The ceremony will be at the Beecher School, 100 Jewell Street. Jewell Street runs between Whalley and Fitch near Edgewood Park. I believe the ceremony will last about an hour. It will be followed by a reception. Also: does anybody have a green tie that I can borrow for the occasion? Best, Allan Allan Brison Ward 10, Alderman-Elect New Haven -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From justinemccabe at earthlink.net Sun Dec 16 07:14:40 2007 From: justinemccabe at earthlink.net (Justine McCabe) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 07:14:40 -0500 Subject: {news} NYT oped: "I Am Not a Health Reform" letters of support needed Message-ID: <03f401c83fdd$3c466db0$0402a8c0@JUSTINE> Dear all, Great NYT oped by single-payer advocates Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein. Please write letters of support. Talking points could include that USGP advocates a single-payer health plan for all. Letters should be no more than 150 words: letters at nytimes.com Thanks, Justine McCabe -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- December 15, 2007 Op-Ed Contributors I Am Not a Health Reform By DAVID U. HIMMELSTEIN and STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER Cambridge, Mass. IN 1971, President Nixon sought to forestall single-payer national health insurance by proposing an alternative. He wanted to combine a mandate, which would require that employers cover their workers, with a Medicaid-like program for poor families, which all Americans would be able to join by paying sliding-scale premiums based on their income. Nixon's plan, though never passed, refuses to stay dead. Now Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all propose Nixon-like reforms. Their plans resemble measures that were passed and then failed in several states over the past two decades. In 1988, Massachusetts became the first state to pass a version of Nixon's employer mandate - and it added an individual mandate for students and the self-employed, much as Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards (but not Mr. Obama) would do today. Michael Dukakis, then the state's governor, announced that "Massachusetts will be the first state in the country to enact universal health insurance." But the mandate was never fully put into effect. In 1988, 494,000 people were uninsured in Massachusetts. The number had increased to 657,000 by 2006. Oregon, in 1989, combined an employer mandate with an expansion of Medicaid and the rationing of expensive care. When the federal government granted the waivers needed to carry out the program, Gov. Barbara Roberts said, "Today our dreams of providing effective and affordable health care to all Oregonians have come true." The number of uninsured Oregonians did not budge. In 1992 and '93, similar bills passed in Minnesota, Tennessee and Vermont. Minnesota's plan called for universal coverage by July 1, 1997. Instead, by then the number of uninsured people in the state had increased by 88,000. Tennessee's Democratic governor, Ned McWherter, declared that "Tennessee will cover at least 95 percent of its citizens." Yet the number of uninsured Tennesseans dipped for only two years before rising higher than ever. Vermont's plan, passed under Gov. Howard Dean, called for universal health care by 1995. But the number of uninsured people in the state has grown modestly since then. The State of Washington's 1993 law included the major planks of recent Nixon-like plans: an employer mandate, an individual mandate for the self-employed and expanded public coverage for the poor. Over the next six years, the number of uninsured people in the state rose about 35 percent, from 661,000 to 898,000. As governor, Mitt Romney tweaked the Nixon formula in 2006 when he helped devise a second round of Massachusetts health care reform: employers in the state that do not offer health coverage face only paltry fines, but fines on uninsured individuals will escalate to about $2,000 in 2008. On signing the bill, Mr. Romney declared, "Every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance." Yet even under threat of fines, only 7 percent of the 244,000 uninsured people in the state who are required to buy unsubsidized coverage had signed up by Dec. 1. Few can afford the sky-high premiums. Each of these reform efforts promised cost savings, but none included real cost controls. As the cost of health care soared, legislators backed off from enforcing the mandates or from financing new coverage for the poor. Just last month, Massachusetts projected that its costs for subsidized coverage may run $147 million over budget. The "mandate model" for reform rests on impeccable political logic: avoid challenging insurance firms' stranglehold on health care. But it is economic nonsense. The reliance on private insurers makes universal coverage unaffordable. With the exception of Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic presidential hopefuls sidestep an inconvenient truth: only a single-payer system of national health care can save what we estimate is the $350 billion wasted annually on medical bureaucracy and redirect those funds to expanded coverage. Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Obama tout cost savings through computerization and improved care management, but Congressional Budget Office studies have found no evidence for these claims. In 1971, New Brunswick became the last Canadian province to institute that nation's single-payer plan. Back then, the relative merits of single-payer versus Nixon's mandate were debatable. Almost four decades later, the debate should be over. How sad that the leading Democrats are still kicking around Nixon's discredited ideas for health reform. David U. Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler are professors of medicine at Harvard and the co-founders of Physicians for a National Health Program. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efficacy at msn.com Sun Dec 16 09:55:58 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 09:55:58 -0500 Subject: {news} When A Youth Died Of A Heroin Overdose, His Words Lived On To Help Explain Message-ID: This story reminds of my story some fourty years ago when my mother died of an apparent heroin overdose two weeks before I was to graduate high school. Are we as a nation stupid, we keep hearing and reading the same patterns over and over again? Justin: Filling In The Blanks When A Youth Died Of A Heroin Overdose, His Words Lived On To Help Explain http://www.courant.com/news/custom/topnews/hc-heroin1216.artdec16,0,323311.story?page=4&coll=hc_tab01_layout THE PARENT FAMILY at Justin's 2006 graduation from Glastonbury High School. From left, Justin's younger brother, Josh; his father, Brian; Justin; and his mother, Wanda. During the following summer, Justin and a friend bought heroin in Hartford, brought it home to Glastonbury and used it, an experience he wrote about in a Penn State freshman English essay. On Oct. 25 of this year, Justin died of an overdose. (COURTESY PARENT FAMILY / December 14, 2007) By ARIELLE LEVIN BECKER | Courant Staff Writer December 16, 2007 Talk to those who knew Justin Parent, and the same words come up again and again: Outgoing. Driven. Funny. He was the class clown who seemed to own a spot on the honor roll at Glastonbury High School, a pre-med student at Penn State who could lighten a room with an almost defiant ability to make people laugh. He was the kind of kid who knit himself into his friends' families, who showed a tough front to the world but still spoke to his family's pets with silly voices, who seemed to achieve whatever he set his mind to. Not the kind of kid who dies of a heroin overdose two months before his 20th birthday. If there were warning signs, no one saw them leading to this. Justin had a good life in college, a girlfriend he adored, good grades and, it seemed, no demons to numb. This semester, he started dating a classmate he'd met the year before named Kayla Wells. They hung out and watched movies, text-messaged each other throughout the day, and stayed up into the early morning talking. He told a friend he was in love, and likened their relationship to the romance movie "The Notebook." At least to those around him, Justin's world looked very different from the one he wrote about in the essay his mother found. In it, he described in vivid detail what he was really doing the summer before he left for college. He'd sleep late, then drive with a friend to the North End of Hartford, and walk up two flights of rickety stairs to the apartment of the man who sold them heroin. The man was usually high off crack, Justin wrote, with a woman passed out in his bed. They bought four to six bags, then drove back to the friend's house to get high and watch TV. "On this drug, you could be doing absolutely nothing but you feel so good and euphoric that nothing else matters," he wrote. "Granted I would have to get up every hour or so and vomit outside his back door and come back in casually because we were used to getting 'dope sick.'" Hardly anyone knew what he and the friend were doing, Justin wrote. "They didn't know we shared a habit, and at that time in my life, that was a stronger bond than friendship." He imagined how his parents had interpreted his sleeping late into the day. "'Hey, this is his last summer before he goes off to college, he's done very well, and let's just let him relax until he leaves,'" he wrote. "Looking back on it now, I wish they did just the contrary." But by the time he wrote the paper, Justin wrote, heroin was a thing of the past, hard to even write about. "The only reason I am speaking about this tragic point in my life on paper now is because I know that part of my life is over and will never come up again," he wrote. "I am stronger now and have been through it and know that I am too good for that garbage." Justin wrote that he felt privileged to be in college, not in jail or dead. His death would devastate many people, he wrote, "but what would hurt the most is that no one knew or even thought that would be the way I would go out." Please Call On college campuses, drug use has increased considerably over the last decade or so. But heroin use - while going up as well - has remained limited to a relatively small proportion of students, according to a study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. According to the study, the portion of college students who said they used heroin in the past year increased from 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent between 1993 and 2005, and focus groups of students indicated that very few knew any classmates who used heroin. Among high schoolers in Connecticut, a 2005 student health survey indicated that 4.3 percent of students had used heroin at least once, nearly double the national rate of 2.4 percent. More broadly, illegal drug use among suburban students is equal to or higher than that of urban students, according to a 2004 analysis by the Manhattan Institute, which examined data on national adolescent behavior. Justin's father, Brian Parent, said he and Wanda aren't naive. They've heard the statistics and the stories about teen drug use, but he figured his family was different. Justin knew right from wrong, and he didn't have a history of trouble or a delinquent streak that might put a parent on alert. Brian and Wanda didn't think there were kids using heroin in Glastonbury, a town they chose for the good schools and involved parents. Looking back, Brian Parent said, he can't see any warning signs he should have noticed. All the signs of drug use were masked in typical things teenagers do. The summer after high school, Justin was out a lot, Brian Parent said, but Justin often spent time at friends' houses, becoming almost a part of other people's households. The Parents knew Justin's friends and many of their families. That summer, Justin slept late. But what teenager doesn't when he gets the chance? Brian Parent wondered. And Justin would still get up at 7 a.m. if he had to. It's not an unprecedented story - high achiever from a close family and an insulated suburb gets pulled in by drugs, leaving few answers and a world of questions. But in Justin's case, there was one clue. And it came from Justin himself. Two days before Justin died, his mother, Wanda, came across it accidentally. During his freshman year, nearly 10 months earlier, Justin had written a paper for an English class describing his summer before college. In the paper, Justin wrote about trips with a friend to a sleazy apartment in the North End of Hartford, where they would buy bags of heroin, return to Glastonbury and bask in the euphoria of the drug, even as it made Justin vomit. He called it "my beautiful, binding, self-destruction." It ended that summer, he wrote, saying he hadn't touched the drug since August 2005. For Wanda and Brian Parent, parents who considered themselves on the nosy side, who talked to their kids about drinking and drugs and kept an eye on their friends, finding the paper that October day was a shock. Justin was coming home in a few days for a visit, and they planned to talk to him about it then. Instead, two days later, on Oct. 25, two police officers and a grief counselor showed up at their door. Justin had been in cardiac arrest in his apartment near the Penn State campus when emergency workers reached him. He died soon afterward - an accidental overdose, according to the county coroner. In some way, Brian Parent said, the essay has brought a measure of solace. Instead of being left to wonder, they now have something of an explanation, answers to the questions they can't ask Justin. "He filled in all the blanks," Brian Parent said. Why Heroin? But some questions haven't been answered. Did Justin continue using heroin after that summer? An autopsy showed no signs of long-term drug use, according to the county coroner, Scott Sayers. Justin had just one needle mark on his arm, and another mark that might have come from a needle, Sayers said. And why - or when - did he go back to using the drug? By all accounts, Justin was thriving in college. He had rushed a fraternity and built a group of friends, earning a reputation as an outgoing kid, nicknamed "J-Rent," who took tough science classes, loved the Red Sox and The Weather Channel, and had musical tastes that ranged from rap to country to even the stuff his parents liked, like Foreigner and the Eagles. One sign, though, that something might have been wrong was a plea Justin made that summer to his longtime best friend, Ross Malara: "Ross, no matter what, promise me that you'll keep calling me, please." Malara didn't quite get it, but he called - even if Justin didn't answer, even though Justin kept blowing him and their other friends off, even if the others didn't understand why Malara kept trying. They'd been best friends since third grade, and he wasn't going to end a friendship over a missed call or text-message, Malara said recently. He and Justin were so close they finished each other's sentences. They'd think of the same thing out of the blue at the same time. Their families vacationed together and held a combined high school graduation party for them He only now has an idea of what the request was about: a plea for a lifeline back from the dangerous world Justin had gotten into. "I understand now that he'd probably see my phone call and then it'd be 'Oh, I need to stop this,'" Malara said. A Confession As they went off to separate colleges that fall - Justin to Penn State, Malara to Florida Atlantic University - it bothered Malara how they'd grown apart. So for Christmas break, Malara visited Justin at Penn State, and the two drove back to Glastonbury together. Malara figured a long car ride would help them reconnect. Not long after that, Justin told Malara about his heroin use the summer before. He told him he was writing an essay about it for class. Justin didn't go into detail - he was probably embarrassed, Malara said. And he said he was done with it. "He said he never had an addicting character, so I kind of believed him with that," Malara said. Still, Malara told Justin he had to stop. If something happens, it would devastate your family and friends, Malara said he told Justin. You have to do this for yourself. But also for your family and friends. They had other conversations like it since then, Malara said, but he never really knew when or if Justin was using. For the most part, he believed Justin was done with heroin. Justin had told Wells about the drugs too, during one of their nighttime conversations. As he did with Malara, Justin described heroin to Wells as a piece of his past. "It wasn't part of him, because of his family and because of his friends and because of himself," she said. "He knew that it was something that he couldn't be a part of, and he didn't want to be a part of." Things seemed routine in late October. Justin was looking forward to a trip home for Thanksgiving and a family vacation to Florida. He was anticipating the upcoming new movies, like "Saw IV" and "I Am Legend"; he and Wells already had plans to see "National Treasure 2" when it came out on his birthday, Dec. 21. But he still talked about heroin, at least occasionally. The Saturday before he died, Justin told Malara he was staying clean. He said Wells made him so happy, he didn't even feel like using drugs anymore. A few days later, Malara said, Justin seemed to be struggling a bit, but nothing about it struck him as alarming. "Somewhere along the lines, something went wrong and he drifted back into it," he said. On Oct. 25, Justin wasn't feeling well and slept in, Wells said. But they spoke on the phone and text-messaged into the evening; nothing, she said, seemed out of the ordinary. Justin also talked to his mom on the phone during the day about plans for his trip home. Later in the day, she missed his call while she was in Stop & Shop; when she called back, he told her he was carrying food back from Panda Express and would call her back. By 9 p.m., Justin was dead. Malara still wonders what pulled his best friend into drugs. "He didn't really have pains," Malara said. "He had good grades. He had good friends, a good family that loved him." That was yet another question Justin's essay didn't explain. At the bottom of the paper, Justin's professor, who gave him a B-plus, wrote a series of suggestions and questions. "Why did you get into heroin in the 1st place?" was one. Another was, "Did parents ever find out?" Another Side Wanda Parent was really looking for an essay Justin's younger brother, Josh, wrote. Josh was preparing to apply for college, and Wanda, who saves her sons' schoolwork, figured she could find the paper Josh wanted to use for his applications. But in the room where she keeps their work, Wanda found Justin's essay. He called it "Addiction Without Dependence." It was a shock. But nothing in the essay made the Parents think they should rush to campus for an intervention. If there was one thing Justin tried to make clear in his writing, it was that he was done with heroin. The Parents believed him. Justin was so resolved, he did anything he put his mind to, Wanda Parent said. They planned to talk about it with him when he came home in a week and a half. They would have done anything to give him whatever help he needed, they said. "You think you have some time, because reading it, it didn't end with 'I'm still fighting it,'" Brian Parent said. They have to admit, they do wonder if Justin's professor said something to him, or suggested he get help. They wish she had told someone, perhaps even let them see the essay back then, so they could have done something. But they're not focused on that. "We lost the most treasured thing you can lose," Brian Parent said. "Blame doesn't do anything for me." What they want is for something good to come of Justin's death. Soon after Justin died, the Parents gave the essay to their sons' friends, figuring it would have the most effect on kids who knew Justin. If it would keep one person from trying heroin or another hard drug, Brian Parent said, it would be worth it. Then they sent it to co-workers, and it spread by e-mail. They now get calls from teachers and professors who want to use the essay in classes, and they hear from people whose relatives have struggled with addiction, people who, like Justin, didn't fit the stereotypical image of a heroin user. They don't plan to give speeches or become crusaders; Justin's death is still raw. But they want people to use it any way it helps - to reconnect with their kids, use it as a way to start a conversation, understand the power of drugs and the demons of addiction, realize drugs can affect even the kids you might least expect. It's also a way to show the world the other side of Justin, the parts that don't come through as a statistic or a headline about a teenager dead from drugs. "He shared something with the world, what his struggles were," Brian Parent said. Contact Arielle Levin Becker at alevinbecker at courant.com. Efficacy PO Box 1234 860 657 8438 Hartford, CT 06143 efficacy at msn.com www.Efficacy-online.org "THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON" Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax deductible -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 34296360.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 61063 bytes Desc: not available URL: From efficacy at msn.com Sun Dec 16 12:00:37 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:00:37 -0500 Subject: {news} Race and the Justice System Message-ID: This is a must. I have been saying this for years and predicted this would eventually happen. The authorties have created a culture of crime and violence thru the war on drugs. Those that go along to get along become complicit in the process. You know what I am talking about. http://www.justicetalking.org/ Cliff Efficacy PO Box 1234 860 657 8438 Hartford, CT 06143 efficacy at msn.com www.Efficacy-online.org "THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON" Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax deductible -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Mon Dec 17 16:59:24 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:59:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} Fwd: Ralph on Hardball Tonight, 12/17, Air America 12/18 & An Unreasonble Man on PBS 12/18-12/24 Message-ID: <275807.72273.qm@web44807.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Nader for President 2004 wrote: Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:00:22 -0800 (PST) From: "Nader for President 2004" Subject: Ralph on Hardball Tonight, 12/17, Air America 12/18 & An Unreasonble Man on PBS 12/18-12/24 To: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Dear Friend, Watch Ralph TONIGHT, Monday December 17th, talk about the national broadcast of An Unreasonable Man on MSNBC with Chris Matthews on Hardball ? Check local listings for time(s). Listen to Ralph on Air America Radio's The Young Turks show from 6-9am on Tuesday December 18th He'll talk about the national broadcast of An Unreasonable Man. Check airamerica.com for times. Finally, Join us for the national premier broadcast of on An Unreasonable Man Tuesday, December 18 at 9 PM EST/8 PM CST, on PBS's Independent Lens series. The documentary will air over 700 times on over 220 PBS metropolitan area affiliates between December 18-24, 2007. For Movie Information and the Local Broadcast Schedule In Your Area Visit: http://www.itvs.org/shows/broadcast.php?showID=7713 http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/unreasonableman/ The film shows Nader's harshest critics and most eloquent supporters to create an inspirational film to show people have the power for peace and justice. Please Forward this Email, Invite your friends over to watch, and Help Spread the Word! Watch the Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC9Hal0gycg Thank you for your own good work and support. The Nader Camejo Team _______________________________________________________ |Paid for by Nader for President 2004 General Election Committee| _______________________________________________________ Contributions are not tax deductible ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nader Camejo 2004 www.votenader.org PO Box 18002 Washington, DC 20036 USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nader for President 2004 www.votenader.org PO Box 18002 Washington, DC 20036 USA If you do not wish to receive this message please remove timmckee2008 at yahoo.com: http://www.rttr3.com/eis-cgi-bin/u?c=5997,3722&e=timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Powered by Relevant Tools. If you have any problems with this message please see: http://www.rttr3.com/contact_email.html *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Mon Dec 17 17:13:08 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:13:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} GP RELEASE Seven candidates for 2008 Green pres. nomination on primary ballots Message-ID: <902952.25710.qm@web44813.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> DC Statehood Green Party wrote: Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:09:52 -0800 (PST) From: DC Statehood Green Party Subject: GP RELEASE Seven candidates for 2008 Green pres. nomination on primary ballots To: dcsgpnews2 at yahoo.com GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES http://www.gp.org For Immediate Release: Monday, December 17, 2007 Contacts: Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty at greens.org Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene at gp.org Seven candidates for the 2008 Green nomination will be on state ballots for the primaries ? The candidates: Jared Ball, Elaine Brown, Jesse Johnson, Cynthia McKinney, Kent Mesplay, Ralph Nader, Kat Swift WASHINGTON, DC -- The Green Party will have up to seven candidates for the party's presidential nomination on state ballots for the primary elections in 2008. "The Green Party, in most states where Greens have ballot status, participate in the primaries just as Democrats and Republicans do," said Jim Coplen, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. "Green voters will vote in the primaries the same way registered Democrats and Republicans vote." Among other primaries, the Green Party will participate primaries in four states on February 5. The Green Party has vowed to achieve 51 ballot lines in 2008 in all the states and the District of Columbia, and has committed party resources for this purpose. Greens currently have ballot access in 21 states Green Parties (including DC) .. "We're especially proud of the diversity and depth of political experience represented by our candidates. We look forward to a vigorous and friendly competition for the nomination," said Ruth Weill, co-chair of the Green Party's Annual National Meeting Committee. The list of Green presidential hopefuls includes three women (two of them African American), one African American man, at least two candidates with Native American ancestry, one of Arab ancestry, a former member of Congress, two former Green presidential candidates, the former leader of the Black Panther Party, an environmental engineer, a college professor, a candidate who will turn 35 in June 2008, and a 73-year-old. The nomination will be decided by about 800 delegates from state parties who will gather at the Green Party national convention in Chicago, Illinois, July 10-13. The candidates: ? Jared Ball, independent journalist; radio host (WPFW 89.3 FM Pacifica Radio in Washington, DC), hip-hop scholar, assistant professor of communications studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland http://www.jaredball.com ? Elaine Brown, 2005 Green candidate for Mayor of Brunswick, Georgia; former leader of the Black Panther Party; organizer of Mothers Advocating Juvenile Justice and National Alliance for Radical Prison Reform http://www.elainebrown.org ? Jesse Johnson, 2006 US Senate candidate and 2004 gubernatorial candidate for the Mountain Party in West Virginia (now affiliate state party of the Green Party of the United States); filmmaker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMxgYnmdHfg ? Cynthia McKinney, former member of the US House of Representatives (Georgia), 1993 to 2003, 2005 to 2007; former member of the Georgia House of Representatives, 1988-1992 http://www.runcynthiarun.org ? Kent Mesplay, 2004 candidate for the Green presidential nomination; former president of Turtle Island Institute; environmental engineer, alternative energy activist; California Green organizer http://www.mesplay.org ? Ralph Nader, 1996 and 2000 Green candidate for President; 2004 independent candidate for President; consumer advocate (Howie Hawkins of the Green Party of New York State has consented to serve as a 'placeholder' candidate until Mr. Nader announces his intentions for the 2008 election) http://www.draftnader.org ? Kat Swift, Texas Green organizer; former Campus Greens leader; activist with Clean Money San Antonio and San Antonio Democracy Now http://www.bexargreens.org/katforprez Contact information, photographs, video clips, and bios of the candidates can be found on the candidates' own web sites. Video clips of many of the candidates are also linked at .. Not all seven of the candidates will be on the ballot in every state where Greens are participating in primaries. In states where deadlines have already passed, most but not all of the campaigns have submitted required petitions with valid signatures to their respective elections offices. MORE INFORMATION Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org 202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN Fax 202-319-7193 ? Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml ? Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers ? Green candidate database for 2007 and other campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml Media credentialing http://www.gp.org/committees/media/kit.shtml Green Party Presidential Campaign Support Committee http://www.gp.org/committees/pcsc/index.shtml ~ END ~ ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Mon Dec 17 17:18:27 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:18:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} Democrats "Nader Effort" exposed by Pitts. Post Gazette Message-ID: <768810.77582.qm@web44808.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> "The "Nader effort" is an apparent reference to a Democratic project to challenge the ballot petitions of the independent presidential candidate, who they feared would peel away votes from Democratic nominee Sen. John F. Kerry. Mr. Nader's ballots were later thrown out as a result of the petition challenge and the state Supreme Court later ordered Mr. Nader to pay the Democratic party's legal costs. The e-mail messages also show apparent widespread use of the Democratic caucus employees, offices and computer systems for political work." E-mails show how Dems tied staffers' bonuses to campaign work Sunday, December 16, 2007 By Dennis B. Roddy and Tracie Mauriello, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette HARRISBURG -- E-mail messages exchanged by top aides in the Democratic caucus starting in 2004 make clear that taxpayer-funded bonuses were given to legislative employees for their work on election campaigns. The messages, obtained by the Post-Gazette, are a key component in an investigation by Attorney General Tom Corbett into the bonuses and whether they constituted an illegal use of state money for political work. In startlingly blunt language, a group of aides, at points working under the direction of then-House Minority Whip Michael Veon, D-Beaver, rated the political work of state employees, sometimes adjusting the amounts of the bonuses based on time they spent in the field or, in one instance, in getting presidential candidate Ralph Nader off the Pennsylvania ballot. "Mainly, I based my decisions on the number of days people spent in the field," wrote Eric Webb, director of Democratic member services, in one of the e-mails, "but a few people were bumped up for extra efforts, like being a phone bank captain," or "helping with the Spanish phone bank." The system that produced the pay bonus scandal now roiling the state Capitol took shape at least three years ago when a cadre of top House aides began tracking campaign hours put in by Democratic caucus employees and then tied them to taxpayer-funded salary bonuses. The records obtained by the Post-Gazette show that in 2004 managers working inside the Democratic caucus based year-end payroll bonuses on time spent working political campaigns. A year later, the same group employed a spreadsheet that logged political work performed by the employees and used that data in deciding pay bonus amounts. A trio of spreadsheets attached to an Aug. 31, 2005 e-mail by Mr. Webb, who kept track of volunteer hours, ranked caucus employees as "rock stars," "good," and "OK" and assigned bonuses according to the rankings. In another e-mail, dated Nov. 22, 2004, a House aide advised Mr. Veon that a list of year-end bonuses was based on "performance during session" and "Outside activities" which included election work that encompassed, "specials, general, Nader effort." The "Nader effort" is an apparent reference to a Democratic project to challenge the ballot petitions of the independent presidential candidate, who they feared would peel away votes from Democratic nominee Sen. John F. Kerry. Mr. Nader's ballots were later thrown out as a result of the petition challenge and the state Supreme Court later ordered Mr. Nader to pay the Democratic party's legal costs. The e-mail messages also show apparent widespread use of the Democratic caucus employees, offices and computer systems for political work. DeWeese investigation Most of the e-mails and spreadsheets were first uncovered by House Majority Leader H. William DeWeese, of Waynesburg, who had delegated much of the day-to-day operation of the caucus to Mr. Veon. Mr. DeWeese, after accumulating information from state computers, provided thousands of e-mail exchanges, which are now at the core of the state attorney general's case. None of the materials obtained by the Post-Gazette suggests that Mr. DeWeese was aware of the scheme. Mr. Veon did not respond to a message seeking comment. After initially being told by staff that the bonuses were routine seniority and holiday awards, Mr. DeWeese said he discovered that the bonuses amounted to $1.9 million. He then ordered an internal inquiry, calling in William Chadwick, a former prosecutor, in March, prior to the announcement of a criminal probe by the attorney general. Mr. Chadwick's in-house probe resulted in the accumulation of tens of thousands of e-mails that had been automatically archived but which most employees thought had been deleted long ago. In all, 31,000 archived e-mails thought to have been deleted were later recovered. The inquiry also found that virtually every e-mail regarding pay bonuses sent on the caucus computer system in 2006 had been erased, as had all record of Mr. Veon's e-mails. What investigators later uncovered were e-mails from 2004 and 2005 that included an outline of the scheme that suggested it had been ongoing for several years. The Post-Gazette obtained copies of some 2006 e-mails -- most of them sent by Stephen Keefer, director of the Democratic House Information Technologies department which oversaw the computer system used by caucus members. They reflect the level of political activity apparently taking place inside the Capitol offices, a place where partisan campaigning is legally forbidden. They begin with a Feb. 27 dispatch to information technologies employees pressing them to work for Mr. Veon's primary campaign. In subsequent e-mails, Mr. Keefer speaks of "locking myself in the office today" to focus on Veon duties, and one week before the primaries assures colleagues who can't reach him, "sorry folks, only one more week." Mr. Veon's political committee, in fact, sent blast e-mails into the caucus accounts pressing for volunteers to come forward and work on his campaign. The deletion of the 2006 e-mails and attempted destruction of documents in the Democratic Office of Legislative Research are among matters under investigation by the attorney general. While the e-mails focus entirely on what appears to be a Democratic caucus practice of using state funds to pay volunteers for political work, Mr. Corbett's office is also investigating complaints of similar activities in the Republican caucus. On Nov. 13 Mr. DeWeese forced out seven top House Democratic aides, including his chief of staff, Michael Manzo. He acted after receiving information from Mr. Chadwick, the Washington attorney and security consultant he had hired months earlier. Mr. Manzo has denied any wrongdoing in the bonus arrangement. Both he and Scott Brubaker, the director of staffing and administration for the Democratic caucus, appeared for a 90-minute meeting in February with Mr. Corbett and several deputy attorneys general to explain how the bonuses were awarded. Both men later gave statements to the FBI, as well, according to a source inside the caucus. Both Mr. Manzo and Mr. Brubaker have insisted that the bonuses were based on performance. Mr. Manzo last month also said the bonuses began as an effort to reward Mr. Veon's employees, who they expected to be out of work after their boss lost his bid for re-election in 2006. "They've got e-mails from years ago. I'm not entirely sure what's in any of them," said Mr. Manzo, who said he was made aware of the e-mails on the day he and six other caucus members (including Mr. Brubaker) were forced out by Mr. DeWeese. He declined other comments. Pittsburgh attorney Robert J. Ridge, who represents Mr. Brubaker, said his client had no comment. Mr. Webb did not respond to a card left at his house requesting that he contact the Post-Gazette, and his attorney, Matthew V. Haverstick of Phildelphia, did not return a phone call Friday. Some caucus employees, drawn from a variety of departments, including the "floater" pool of employees assigned on a day-by-day basis to assist House members, have told investigators they were recruited to work various House campaigns. State employees -- some of whom later testified before the statewide investigating grand jury -- say they were pressed into volunteering to help in various campaigns, including Mr. Veon's. In some instances, they said, word circulated among volunteers that they would be compensated for their work. The source of that money was never explained, and some believed checks were likely to come from the House Democratic Campaign Committee. Several of the volunteers said they were instructed to forward a record of the hours they worked on campaigns to Mr. Webb. Those volunteers said they later were surprised by the size and source of the bonuses. Tracking volunteer hours One volunteer who did not get the word to forward his campaign hours to Mr. Webb's office said he never received a bonus. A search of caucus e-mail accounts later yielded a copy of a spreadsheet program that tracked volunteer hours. An e-mail Mr. Webb wrote to Mr. Manzo in August of 2005 suggests that Mr. Webb made the initial determination about payroll bonuses that year. In an attached spreadsheet, Mr. Webb lists various employees and their accomplishments. The "rock stars" include more than a dozen House aides, including Mr. Manzo's wife, Rachel, Mr. Veon's top aide, Brett Cott, and Mr. Webb himself. Notations in column G, contain such comments as "went off payroll for 7 days," "helped with oppo research," "team captain, spent a month volunteering," "phone bank leader," and "volunteer coordinator." The next day, Mr. Manzo forwarded the rankings to Mr. Brubaker in staffing and administration. "We're thinking about 1K [$1,000] for the rock stars, 500 for the good, 250 for the OK. Thoughts?" Mr. Manzo writes. "OK with me," Mr. Brubaker replied 13 minutes later. "The amounts aren't excessive, but they reinforce the point." Mr. Brubaker suggests a category of "super rock stars -- eg. Those who spent more than two weeks in the field, particularly if they were burning their leave." A bonus list for 2005 in fact shows the "rock star" category members receiving, in addition to standard seniority and Christmas bonuses, $1,000 each. A year earlier, Mr. Manzo forwarded to Mr. Veon, then the minority whip, a list of staff members to be given bonuses. It was that e-mail, dated Nov. 22, 2004, in which Mr. Manzo advised Mr. Veon that the bonuses were based on both legislative performance and "outside activities" that included elections and the Nader effort. "Let me know what you think. Would like to have it processed this week so our superstars can enjoy a brighter X Mas," Mr. Manzo wrote. Eight minutes later, Mr. Veon replied. "List looks good," the reply reads. "Want to add some of my DO [district office] staff. They did lots and lots extra nights and weekends on Nader project and all went to Butler many times last month ... ." "Butler" was an apparent reference to a three-way race for an open House seat in which Mr. Veon's staff was involved in helping the Democratic nominee. Mr. Manzo forwarded the list to Mr. Brubaker. "We are gonna make some hard workers very pleased," he wrote. The next day, Mr. Brubaker forwarded the bonus list to Earl J. Mosley, director of personnel for the House Democratic caucus. What followed was an awkward exchange in which Mr. Mosley, after being advised to process the bonuses "as soon as humanly possible," asked whether he was getting a bonus as well. "Scott, any love coming this way for Joe and I?" Mr. Mosley replied, referring to himself and a staff aide in his office. "I'll ask. Not my decision," Mr. Brubaker replied. "How many days did you guys do?" After assuring Mr. Brubaker that he was not begrudging anyone else a bonus, Mr. Mosley referred to his own political work. "Joe and I went to Montgomery County for four days (would have been 5 but went to the hospital). Lori did two days. We also went to Bloomsburg and did the phone bank for Bloomsburg as well as secured signatures for candidates. Trust me, I'm not upset because in my mind I thought that if I had gotten anything it might have been about $250." After another exchange, Mr. Mosely suggests, "perhaps I just need to do more for the caucus." Mr. Brubaker had something of the same opinion about his own political work, telling Mr. Manzo at one point that he thought one staff member, Jonathan L. Price, a policy analyst, deserved more money in his year-end bonus. "26 days in the field along with oppo plus the $$. He's a star compared to me," Mr. Brubaker said, suggesting his own bonus was excessive. "Good point on Price," Mr. Manzo replied. "Add another grand. You're staying put though!!!!" "Will do. On both," Mr. Brubaker responded. "Thanks so much. Very generous." "Enjoy," Mr. Manzo responded. "Get yourself that new truck!!!" Dennis B. Roddy can be reached at 412-263-1965 or droddy at post-gazette.com. Tracie Mauriello can be reached at 717-787-2141 or tmauriello at post-gazette.com. First published on December 16, 2007 at 12:00 am *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vantagetax at aol.com Tue Dec 18 19:20:02 2007 From: vantagetax at aol.com (vantagetax at aol.com) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:20:02 -0500 Subject: {news} Ralph Nader Documentary Movie on PBS tonight and tomorrow evening In-Reply-To: <902952.25710.qm@web44813.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: An Unreasonable Man - Academy Award nominated documentary about the life and public citizenship of Ralph Nader will be aired in Connecticut tonight and tomorrow night: Tuesday, Dec. 18 at 9:00 pm on CPTV Wednesday, Dec. 19 at 9:00 pm on WNET 13 "Probing and Informative" A.O. Scott, NY Times "Compelling" Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times "Entertaining" Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle "Lively and informative" Jim Emerson, RogerEbert.com "Incisive and often surprising" Andrea Chase, Killer Movie Reviews "Doesn't just preach to the choir" Chris Hewitt, St. Paul Pioneer Press "A one-stop civics lesson no one should miss." Ann Hornaday, Washington Post "Grade A! Thrilling, haunting, perceptive and beautifully made." Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly "It's that willingness, even eagerness, to put in such passionate contrary viewpoints that distinguishes "An Unreasonable Man" from the usual political documentary." Rob Thomas, Capital Times (Madison, WI) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From roseberry3 at cox.net Tue Dec 18 20:43:52 2007 From: roseberry3 at cox.net (B Barry) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:43:52 -0500 Subject: {news} 2nd notice: There will be no SCC meeting of GP of CT in 12-07 because Message-ID: <20071219014351.YVSS8815.eastrmmtao107.cox.net@eastrmimpo03.cox.net> From: ctgp-news-bounces at ml.greens.org [mailto:ctgp-news-bounces at ml.greens.org] On Behalf Of B Barry Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 5:24 AM To: ctgp-news at ml.greens.org Cc: roeseberry3 at cox.net Subject: {news} There will be no SCC meeting of GP of CT in 12-07 because the last Tuesday of December 2007 is 12-25-07, Christmas Day. (Nor will the SCC meet on 1-1-08, New Year?s Day.) The SCC meeting has been postponed until Tuesday, 1-8-08: place likely to be in New Haven. There will also be a 1-9-08 meeting (likely in New Haven) about outlining 2008 Electoral Campaigns for potential Green Party Candidates. Above determined at the 11-19-07 EC meeting and the 11-27-07 SCC meeting. Barbara Barry, Secretary of Green Party of CT No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.13/1169 - Release Date: 12/3/2007 10:56 PM No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.4/1187 - Release Date: 12/16/2007 11:36 AM No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.4/1189 - Release Date: 12/18/2007 9:40 PM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: ATT00004.txt URL: From dbedellgreen at hotmail.com Tue Dec 18 21:20:53 2007 From: dbedellgreen at hotmail.com (David Bedell) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 02:20:53 +0000 Subject: {news} Richard Duffee in the Norwalk Hour Message-ID: This was in yesterday's paper. We are planning a caucus of Fourth District Greens for Jan. 5, when we will decide whether to run or not. Norwalk Hour 12/17/07 This year, Green Party will not back off the ballot By JARED NEWMAN Hour Staff Writer REGION - Richard Duffee wants another shot at impeaching the president. A member of the Green Party who ran for the state's fourth district seat in congress two years ago, Duffee is seeking the party's nomination again for the 2008 elections. Impeachment is so important to him that if nominated, he'll continue to run even if it means less votes for the Democrats in a close race. "I do not think it's much better to have democrats in office than republicans until the democrats say that they will fulfill their oaths of office," Duffee said. "You're not going to reinstate the constitution if you can't even say that violating it is wrong." Duffee pulled out of the 2006 election only a couple weeks from election day. A poll found that Diane Farrell, a democrat, had a chance at unseating Chris Shays, the republican incumbent, and the Green Party was afraid of siphoning votes from Farrell. This time, the party has said if they place a candidate on the ballot, they won't back out. "It's an enormous effort to get onto the ballot," David Bedell, secretary of the Fairfield County chapter of the party, said. "You have to collect a lot of signatures, and then to do all that work and change our minds - it's a wasted effort." Duffee is a 59 year-old retired lawyer who has traveled to almost 30 countries and lived in India for seven years. After graduating from Pace Law School, he said he lost faith in the democratic party when the Legal Services Corporation, a federal agency that provides free legal aid, reduced it's scope under President Bill Clinton. Now a resident of Stamford, Duffee talks extensively, when prompted, about the aspects of America that anger him. His voice cracks when describing how much money the country spends on defense - roughly 50 percent of the entire world's spending - and how other countries view the U.S. as an empire. "We in this country don't understand how the rest of the world perceives us, or why, because we don't look at ourselves from the outside," Duffee said. He wants progressive taxes to even the country's distribution of wealth. At a more local level, he wants the license revoked for Indian Point, a nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y. On Iraq, Duffee said the U.S. should pull out immediately and pay reparations. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice should all stand trial before an international criminal court for leading the country to war, Duffee said. But Duffee's marquee issue remains impeachment, a stance supported by the Green Party. The new congress takes over Jan. 3, 2009, providing a 17 day window to get it done. "You can impeach, even in a day," Duffee said. Staff writer Jared Newman can be reached at (203) 354-1045 or jnewman@ thehour.com _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From efficacy at msn.com Thu Dec 20 04:40:50 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:40:50 -0500 Subject: {news} Big Easy offers only tough choices for America's drug war Message-ID: Big Easy offers only tough choices for America's drug war With unemployed middlemen and roaming dealers claiming new turf, New Orleans is a microcosm of the failed 'war on drugs', writes Ethan Brown http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2229413,00.html Tuesday December 18, 2007 Guardian Unlimited People gather underneath Interstate 10 where over 100 homeless locals sleep each night in New Orleans. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images Drug policy chiefs have had few concrete successes in convincing the public or policymakers to retrench in the decades-long drug war. But when the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) held its international Drug Policy Reform conference in New Orleans recently there was the sense that its time - and place - were finally right. Just a few days before the conference kicked off at the Astor Crowne Plaza in the French Quarter, the November 27 issue of Rolling Stone featured a sprawling, 15,000-word investigation by Ben Wallace-Wells into the US failed drug policy called How America Lost the War on Drugs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Though anti-drug war broadsides are about as common in Rolling Stone as paeans to the late Hunter S Thompson, Wells' piece was unusually effective because it was not about the unappreciated pleasures of psychedelia but instead a methodical assessment of the high costs and low benefits of highly-punitive drug policies employed by the US. Indeed, in praising the piece as the "smartest drug story of the year," Slate's Jack Shafer compared Wells to "an auditor called in to assess the wreck of a Fortune 500 company". And there could certainly be no more appropriate place for the Drug Policy Alliance to bring its anti-prohibitonist message than New Orleans - Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the US, yet still has still has extraordinarily high levels of drug use, drug dealing and drug related homicide. Unsurprisingly, it was a pair of panel discussions about the flourishing of the drug trade and collapse of the criminal justice system in New Orleans - Drug cultures in post-Katrina New Orleans and Post-Katrina, can New Orleans afford to keep fighting the failed 'war on drugs?' - that yielded the deepest and most unexpected insights. A team of sociologists and criminologists with the National Development and Research Institutes (NDRI), a New York-based non-profit research and educational organisation which conducts studies in public health and criminal justice policy, provided near-novelistic accounts of the changes in the drug business in New Orleans since the storm. Interviews with more than 100 drug dealers and users in New Orleans and Katrina turned up stories like: white crystal meth cookers instructing black crack dealers on how to cook up the drug on their kitchen stoves; an explosion in heroin use and availability that has resulted in the drug being consumed in all manner of strange and fascinating ways from heroin-laced gumbo sold for $10 a cup, to tightly-rolled marijuana blunts packed with the drug; dealers from storm-wracked neighborhoods moving into surrounding areas and clashing with established dealers (this may go far in explaining the current murder epidemic in New Orleans); and, perhaps most disturbingly, thousands of "emancipated youths" (teenagers returning to New Orleans to live on their own, with absolutely no parental supervision) entering into the drug game in order to support themselves financially. The NDRI team also catalogued the criminal justice meltdown in New Orleans in devastating detail, from the immediate aftermath of the storm when few parts were up and running to today, when they are operating yet highly dysfunctional. Soon after the storm receded, a makeshift court and jail was set up at the New Orleans Amtrak station, dubbed "Camp Amtrak" by local law enforcement officials. Working conditions at "Camp Amtrak" were so horrendous that the district attorney actually worked from the station's gift shop. Since then, the DA has worked in temporary quarters on Poydras Street in downtown New Orleans and has struggled to keep up with the surge in robbery, murder and drug cases. In 2006, the city infamously released 3,000 suspects under Article 701 of the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure, and this year has not been much better - there were 580 so-called 701 releases in January alone. The sense among hustlers that there is a near-total lack of consequences for their actions has actually eliminated employment in at least one level of the drug business according to the DPRI sociologists and criminologists. Before Katrina, drug dealers would use intermediaries to get product to customers who wouldn't enter certain neighborhoods (for example, the French Quarter visitor looking for cocaine who didn't want to venture into predominantly black neighborhoods like Treme or Mid-City was served by an intermediary). Since the storm, dealers have grown so bold that they sell directly to just about anyone on the streets, a big break in tradition in the drug business - particularly crack - in which selling to unfamiliar customers is verboten as they often turn out to be informants or undercover cops. "The dealer does not think there is any likelihood of arrest or conviction," explained DPRI's Stanley Hoogerwerf, "so he has eliminated the intermediary, who is now added to the ranks of unemployed in New Orleans". Interestingly, as described by the DPRI team, the plight of the post-Katrina street hustler - stressed out by the loss of their place of residence and skyrocketing living expenses ranging from higher heating bills to rent - is remarkably similar to the average overburdened New Orleanian. That strain, unsurprisingly, is soothed by a boom in demand for prescription pills like Xanax and Valium which are increasingly sold by New Orleans hustlers along with the stable of illicit substances like cocaine, meth and marijuana. Indeed, New Orleans-based rapper Lil Wayne had a huge hit this year with his woozy ode to sedatives I Feel Like Dying. In the song, Wayne rhapsodises about being a prisoner behind "Xanax bars" (high dosage pills of Xanax are dubbed "bars" on the streets because they resemble miniature chocolate bars). Given the widespread abuse of illegal substances (and the illegal use of legal substances) the options for in-patient rehab in New Orleans are surprisingly sparse. Else Pedersen-Wasson, executive director of substance abuse treatment centre Bridge House, explained on the separate discussion panel that the few in-patient rehab beds in the city are quickly filled when they (rarely) become available, indeed, by one estimate there are just 200 such beds in all of New Orleans. It would be comforting to think that New Orleans is uniquely dysfunctional, unfortunately, however, the criminal neglect that characterises the state of the criminal justice system in New Orleans - huge resources allocated toward arrest and incarceration while rehabilitation is left high and dry - is mirrored across the country. That's precisely what made the DPA's message of treating drugs as a public health rather than criminal justice issue so powerful, even though the conference itself could have used more purely analytical voices like Leap (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), who offered stories at several panels about making waves of arrests and then realising that they'd made little or no dent in the drug trade. Coincidentally, on the second day of the conference, the justice department released a report stating that there were approximately 2.38 million people incarcerated in state and federal facilities as of 2006. Of those incarcerated, 905,600 are African-American, an all-time high. Yet, as the wave of arrests and incarceration crests, there are signs that the tide may be turning against US drug policy. Virginia Democratic Senator Jim Webb recently held hearings on mass incarceration in which he proclaimed that "with the world's largest prison population, our prisons test the limits of our democracy and push the boundaries of our moral identity". At a DPA conference panel called Black America: The debate within, Brown University economics professor Glenn Loury enthusiastically praised Webb's fearlessness on such a politically unappealing issue to rapturous applause from the packed ballroom. Few politicians, Loury said wryly, are "in a rush to declare the drug war a failure". Perhaps the increasingly glaring policy failures of the drug war in New Orleans and in the rest of the Efficacy PO Box 1234 860 657 8438 Hartford, CT 06143 efficacy at msn.com www.Efficacy-online.org "THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON" Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax deductible -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: sp.gif Type: image/gif Size: 43 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 20368-1027349557.gif Type: image/gif Size: 3166 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ne4.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 20633 bytes Desc: not available URL: From justinemccabe at earthlink.net Fri Dec 21 06:11:10 2007 From: justinemccabe at earthlink.net (Justine McCabe) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 06:11:10 -0500 Subject: {news} our Letter published in NYT on single payer Message-ID: <095d01c843c2$318f4b10$0402a8c0@JUSTINE> To my surprise, the NYT published our letter on single payer health care which mentions the Green Party (last one below). Letters of support can be sent to: letters at nytimes.com Thanks, Justine McCabe ------------------------------------------------- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/opinion/l21health.html?_r=1&oref=slogin -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- December 21, 2007 Letters To Our Health, in the New Year To the Editor: Re "I Am Not a Health Reform," by David U. Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler (Op-Ed, Dec. 15): While the authors make a compelling economic argument for a single-payer health care system, they do not address a fundamental underlying question: why should a government provide health care for its citizens? I believe that the answer to that question rests on two notions. First, we need to accept the idea that a right to good health is essential in a democratic society. Pursuing democracy's noble goals of life, liberty and happiness is problematic for people dealing with serious health care problems. Second, we must put aside the idea that our health care system responds to "market forces." Patients needing critical care cannot bargain for the best deal. When I had a heart attack several years ago, I was in no position to ask my cardiologist if he was inserting the least expensive stent into my blocked artery. Rivers Singleton Jr. Newark, Del., Dec. 15, 2007 The writer is an associate professor of biological sciences and English at the University of Delaware. . To the Editor: There are alternative ways to achieve universal health insurance coverage besides a single-payer health care system. Germany and the Netherlands, for example, have used employer and individual mandates for decades to assure that all citizens have access to health care. Individuals and families are subsidized if they are unable to pay for insurance, and the mandates in those nations are enforced by law and peer pressure. In the United States, even a less-than-perfect "mandate model" would be better than the status quo. Alan B. Cohen Boston, Dec. 17, 2007 The writer is executive director of the Boston University Health Policy Institute. . To the Editor: As a physician in a state in which all of its citizens are now supposed to have health insurance, I am continually dismayed at the number of individuals I see who do not have health insurance or whose "insurance" plans barely cover anything. And among those lucky enough to have reasonably good health insurance, I am constantly confused by the various insurance plan rules about how often I can see patients or what drugs I can prescribe. The single-payer plan that David U. Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler put forward would not only cost less than our current expenditures on health care and simultaneously cover everyone, but it would also be far simpler for both patients and physicians to navigate. Why can't the leading Democratic candidates muster the courage to propose real health reform that will save lives, time and money - and in addition that would be the most equitable of all options - instead of rehashing proposals that have never resulted in universal coverage and haven't done anything to rein in the costs of health care? We have single-payer armed services, fire prevention and road maintenance. Aren't we long overdue for single-payer universal health care? J. Wesley Boyd Needham, Mass., Dec. 15, 2007 . To the Editor: David U. Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler present several important cases in which states that have tried to put into effect health insurance plans based on an employer or individual mandate have failed both to restrain costs and to cover the uninsured. We agree that the crux of this failure lies in the fact that "reliance on private insurers makes universal coverage unaffordable." Private insurance companies waste billions of dollars a year on marketing and administrative costs that do nothing to improve the quality of our health care. Physicians and hospitals are forced to waste money on staff hired solely for the purpose of filling out endless forms required by multiple insurers used by their patients. That is why we are convinced, and numerous studies have shown, that a single-payer national health system is the most efficient, cost-effective way to provide universal coverage. It is time our elected officials stopped treating health care as a commercial commodity and recognized it as a public good. We all suffer if we all do not have access to quality, affordable health care. Peter Pepper New York, Dec. 15, 2007 The writer is president of The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring, an organization dedicated to community, Yiddish culture and social justice. . To the Editor: Your compelling Op-Ed article cites the overwhelming evidence that the Democratic front-runners' "mandate model" for health care won't work. In 1999, we wrote a single-payer bill in Connecticut. We argued that despite being the insurance mecca, Connecticut - small and wealthy - was a good place to experiment with this, following the example of Social Security, which began in one state. Alas, despite popular support here for a publicly financed insurance plan, such an experiment was apparently too dangerous for the insurance industry. What is truly dangerous is the vise grip corporations have on our candidates, hence our policies. Consequently, third parties like the Green Party, which advocates publicly financed elections and single-payer health insurance, are, like Dennis J. Kucinich, not given a hearing. It appears that until our political system is transformed, neither will our health care system. Justine McCabe John Battista New Milford, Conn., Dec. 15, 2007 The writers are, respectively, a clinical psychologist and a psychiatrist. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: logoprinter.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1810 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spacer.gif Type: image/gif Size: 45 bytes Desc: not available URL: From chapillsbury at igc.org Fri Dec 21 13:16:26 2007 From: chapillsbury at igc.org (Charlie Pillsbury) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:16:26 -0500 Subject: {news} FW: Green Presidential Candidates Compete for Party Nomination Message-ID: <003901c843fd$9ad3fc70$d07bf550$@org> From: Green Party of the United States [mailto:office at gp.org] Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 11:42 AM To: chapillsbury at igc.org Subject: Green Presidential Candidates Compete for Party Nomination December 2007 News Headlines Green Party Co-Chair receives award for leadership in drug law reform The Green Party congratulates Connecticut Green and newly elected Green Party of the United States Steering Committee Co-Chair Clifford Thornton on an award he received from the Drug Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicy.org for his leadership in the movement to reform drug laws. Mr. Thornton, co-founder of the drug law reform organization Efficacy, Inc. http://www.Efficacy-online.org , is a national co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. In 2006, he ran on the Green Party ticket for governor of Connecticut. "Cliff Thornton's work for the reform of US drug policy is in line with Green opposition to the War on Drugs, unjust and draconian drug laws, and the use of drug laws to fill up prison cells with black, brown, poor, and young Americans. We're proud that Cliff is a member of the Green Party," said Alfred Molison, co-chair of the Green Party's national Black Caucus http://gpblackcaucus.blogspot.com . Read the Green Party Press Release here . Seven Green Presidential Candidates to Compete in State Primaries The Green Party will have up to seven candidates for the party's presidential nomination on state ballots for the primary elections in 2008. "The Green Party, in most states where Greens have ballot status, participate in the primaries just as Democrats and Republicans do," said Jim Coplen, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. "Green voters will vote in the primaries the same way registered Democrats and Republicans vote." The list of Green presidential hopefuls includes three women (two of them African American), one African American man, at least two candidates with Native American ancestry, one of Arab ancestry, a former member of Congress, two former Green presidential candidates, the former leader of the Black Panther Party, an environmental engineer, a college professor, a candidate who will turn 35 in June 2008, and a 73-year-old. The nomination will be decided by about 800 delegates from state parties who will gather at the Green Party national convention in Chicago, Illinois, July 10-13. "We're especially proud of the diversity and depth of political experience represented by our candidates. We look forward to a vigorous and friendly competition for the nomination," said Ruth Weill, co-chair of the Green Party's Annual National Meeting Committee. The Candidates: Jared Ball, independent journalist; radio host (WPFW 89.3 FM Pacifica Radio in Washington, DC), hip-hop scholar, assistant professor of communications studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland http://www.jaredball.com Elaine Brown, 2005 Green candidate for Mayor of Brunswick, Georgia; former leader of the Black Panther Party; organizer of Mothers Advocating Juvenile Justice and National Alliance for Radical Prison Reform http://www.elainebrown.org Jesse Johnson, 2006 US Senate candidate and 2004 gubernatorial candidate for the Mountain Party in West Virginia (now affiliate state party of the Green Party of the United States); filmmaker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMxgYnmdHfg Cynthia McKinney, former member of the US House of Representatives (Georgia), 1993 to 2003, 2005 to 2007; former member of the Georgia House of Representatives, 1988-1992 http://www.runcynthiarun.org Kent Mesplay, 2004 candidate for the Green presidential nomination; former president of Turtle Island Institute; environmental engineer, alternative energy activist; California Green organizer http://www.mesplay.org Ralph Nader, 1996 and 2000 Green candidate for President; 2004 independent candidate for President; consumer advocate (Howie Hawkins of the Green Party of New York State has consented to serve as a 'placeholder' candidate until Mr. Nader announces his intentions for the 2008 election) http://www.draftnader.org Kat Swift, Texas Green organizer; former Campus Greens leader; activist with Clean Money San Antonio and San Antonio Democracy Now http://www.bexargreens.org/katforprez Contact information, photographs, video clips, and bios of the candidates can be found on the candidates' own web sites. Video clips of many of the candidates are also linked at http://www.gp.org/audio_video.shtml . Not all seven of the candidates will be on the ballot in every state where Greens are participating in primaries. In states where deadlines have already passed, most but not all of the campaigns have submitted required petitions with valid signatures to their respective elections offices. Ballot Access Arizona Arizona is the next state on the Ballot Access Committee list. Arizona has been working to get signatures for many months and has until March 1st to turn them in to the various County Election Offices. The committee sees two ways to help Arizona: 1) help mobilize and coordinate volunteers to go to Arizona to physically help get signatures and 2) raise revenue to help pay for professional signature gatherers. The signature goal is 28,000 and Arizona currently has approximately 8000 in hand. If you are interested in a warm sunny vacation in Arizona during the Winter break, contact Richard Scott in the Phoenix area(scotty at azgp.org) or Claudia Ellquist in the Tucson area(ellquist.co.atty at juno.com). They will arrange housing and petitioning opportunities for you. Out of State people can help petition but they must be paired with an Arizona petitioner. You can donate to the Ballot Access Committee and designate Arizona as the State you wish to share your donation with - simply click here to help Arizona gain ballot status. You can download a copy of the petition and complete instructions by going to the Arizona web site:http://www.azgp.org Green Party Earthflower Sweatshirt. Sweatshirts are the perfect items for these cold winter months. All of our items are union-made and sweatshop free so you can be green when you buy green. Union Made and Sweatshop free in 80% cotton/20% poly, front pocket. $37.50 including shipping. Green Party online shopping just got easier! To Order: online store. Register Green. Vote Green. Give Green. The Green Party does not accept corporate donations. We depend entirely on donations from people who are committed to building a powerful and progressive alternative to the two corporate parties. We ask you to challenge corporate influence in politics by supporting the Green Party of the United States! Show your resistance to the status quo by enabling us to continue organizing and mobilizing for real change. Please help us get out our positive, progressive values to new communities, and to deepen our involvement where we're already anchored. Support us today and please consider becoming a sustainer (look for the recurring donation option). Green Party online shopping just got easier! Visit our improved online store. Americans are ready for Change America is ready for the Green Party's message. But we need your help in bringing the message to the American people! Donate now to the Green Party Donate to GP Fund Make your friends GREEN with envy. Become a card-carrying Green today! Buy Your Card Online Buy Your Green Party Card Online (or download a PDF order form ). The latest, coolest item in the wallets of progressives is the personalized Green Party Card. For $36.00 a year* you can be a card-carrying Green. When you become an active supporter of the Green Party of the United States, you'll receive our spanking-new card, which shows the world that you stand committed to time-honored progressive values like liberty, equality, democracy, social justice, personal responsibility and focus on the future. In addition, you will receive a Green Party button and bumper sticker, a one-year subscription to Green Pages, plus all of the information you need to get involved and active as a Green. Half of your contribution will be shared with your state's Green Party. The Future is Green! Order Your Green Party Card Online Today ------------- Federal law requires political committees to use their best effort to collect and report the name, mailing address, occupation and employer for each individual whose contributions exceed $200 in a calendar year. Contributions form the following individuals and entities are prohibited: corporations, labor organizations, national banks, government contractors, people under 18 years of age, and foreign nationals. *$36.00 is roughly equivalent to the $1.00 paid for a one-year membership in the Populist Party of the 1890s. The Populist Party was a multiracial, progressive, grassroots third party of working people which agitated for many popular progressive reforms. The Green Party of the 21st century continues the Populist's fight for citizen empowerment and progressive reforms at all levels today. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = DO NOT REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = All comments, feedback and content suggestions should be sent to: office at gp.org. You've been reading Green Line, the monthly e-newsletter of the Green Party of the United States. Subscribe for free at gp.org . Click here to unsubscribe. Paid for by the Green Party of the United States -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efficacy at msn.com Sat Dec 22 09:48:56 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 09:48:56 -0500 Subject: {news} [usgp-media] Cynthia McKinney Video gets SECOND YouTube HONOR Message-ID: Cynthia McKinney Video gets SECOND YouTube HONORCynthia McKinney Video of her Green Party Presidential announcement gets SECOND YouTube HONOR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03cOM9r51Nw Click on the Honors link. in addition to breaking top 100 in Most Viewed (This Week) - News & Politics It's #65 in Most Linked (This Week) - News & Politics. It's gone up another 800 or so since the last honor 18,855 Keep viewing and keep spreading the link to blogs, e-lists, news sites. Efficacy PO Box 1234 860 657 8438 Hartford, CT 06143 efficacy at msn.com www.Efficacy-online.org "THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON" Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax deductible -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Thu Dec 27 19:08:34 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:08:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} Green Part y Presidential Debate (with Nader) on Jan.13 Message-ID: <452598.99610.qm@web44815.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> http://thirdpartywatch.com/2007/12/27/green-party-presidential-debate-scheduled-for-jan-13/ Green Party Presidential Debate scheduled for Jan. 13 According to the Alameda County (CA) Green Party, there will be a Presidential Debate on January 13, 2 p.m. in San Francisco. Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Elaine Brown, Jared Ball and Kent Mesplay are all listed. The California Primary on February 5 will include all five of these candidates as well as Kat Swift of Texas, and Jesse Johnson of the West Virginia Mountain Party, which affiliated with the Green Party (US) this summer. In most states, delegates to the GPUS Presidential Nominating Convention will be selected by state convention or other internal methods such as balloting, but in four states (Arkansas, California, Mass & Illinois) and DC there will be a state run primary. California, which will likely control between 20 and 25 percent of the delegates at the national convention, is the big prize and the race to watch. A Green Debate in San Francisco is very appropriate. Whether the debate will be televised live or recorded for re-broadcast remains to be seen. At any rate, if you are in the San Francisco Area this is an event that is NOT to be missed! Digg This! ? Add to del.icio.us ? Stumble *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From timmckee2008 at yahoo.com Fri Dec 28 13:13:41 2007 From: timmckee2008 at yahoo.com (Tim McKee) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 10:13:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} (Norwich Bulletin) Lebanon Man becomes 3rd catollndidate in 2nd District race (Deshefy) Message-ID: <937561.27275.qm@web44807.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Lebanon man becomes 3rd candidate in 2nd District race Dec 28, 2007 @ 04:02 AM By MARISA MALDONADO Norwich Bulletin Lebanon, Conn. - A Lebanon resident Thursday declared his candidacy for the 2nd Congressional District on the Green Party ticket, saying he is an alternative to established political parties. G. Scott Deshefy, a retired supervising environmental analyst for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said he sent his papers to the Federal Election Commission Dec. 20. He joins incumbent U.S. Rep. Joseph Courtney, D-2nd District, and Republican Sean Sullivan of Ledyard as candidates for the seat in 2008. Deshefy said his 25 years at the DEP, where he headed the Underground Storage Tank Enforcement Program, give him the experience to tackle environmental problems and stand up to corporations. As a third-party candidate, he said he can make decisions independent of corporate influences and Republican and Democratic leadership. Deshefy said he will not accept campaign donations from corporations. ?Not being a part of the two-party system, I won?t have to curtsy to any of the party leaders in terms of what their agenda might be,? Deshefy said. ?I can do what?s best for the nation, what?s best for the second district of Connecticut, and not what?s best for the Democrats or Republicans getting re-elected.? Brian Farber, a spokesman for Courtney, declined to comment on Deshefy?s announcement. Sullivan did not return a call Thursday afternoon for comment. Courtney, a first-term congressman, defeated three-term Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons by just 83 votes in 2006. Sullivan, a retired Naval officer, works for the Norwich law firm Brown Jacobson and is a former commander of the Groton submarine base. He is making his first bid for elected office. This is the first time the Green Party will have a candidate in Connecticut?s 2nd Congressional District, said Tim McKee, a member of the party?s national committee. He said the party nationwide has had 230 people elected to city and county positions. In Windham, Jean deSmet was elected first selectman in November, ousting incumbent Democrat Michael Paulhus. Reach Marisa Maldonado at 425-4255 or mmaldonado at norwichbulletin.com PROFILE: G. Scott Deshefy Age: 55. Political affiliation: Green Party. Residence: Native of Montville, lives in Lebanon. Occupation: Retired supervising environmental analyst, state Department of Environmental Protection. Education: Bachelor?s degree in biology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; master?s degree in zoology, Clemson University. Other experience: Montville Board of Education member, 1982-87; board chairman 1985-87. Family: Wife, Nancy; daughter, Alea. Web site: www.newmenu.org/deshefy4congress_ct *********************************************************************** Tim McKee Manchester CT Home-860-643-2282 Cell-860-778-1304 Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT. BLOG- http://TheBigGreenPicture.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chapillsbury at igc.org Sat Dec 29 15:30:15 2007 From: chapillsbury at igc.org (Charlie Pillsbury) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:30:15 -0500 Subject: {news} New Haven aldermanic inaugural ceremony - Jan 1 at noon References: Message-ID: <006201c84a59$9f2b02c0$6500a8c0@S0031616584> This is a reminder. Ring in the new year at noon on Tuesday by celebrating Allan Brison's swearing-in as a Green alder. Please compliment him, not only for winning a tough election, but also for the green tie he will be wearing. The newly renovated Beecher School is off Whalley Avenue behind the Jewish cemetery. Jewell Street actually runs parallel to Fitch one block closer to downtown between Whalley Ave. and Blake St. See you there, Charlie p.s. The next New Haven Green Party chapter meeting will be the 2nd Tuesday of the month 7:30pm January 10 at the NeverEnding Book Store at 810 State St. From: allan brison Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 7:25 PM Subject: [newhavengreens] 2007 aldermanic inaugural ceremony - Jan 1 at noon Friends, and Supporters, I will be inaugurated, along with the other 29 alderman, on New Years Day at noon. I think that it would be a good idea to have a good show of support in attendance. I would urge anyone who is free to stop by. The ceremony will be at the Beecher School, 100 Jewell Street. Jewell Street runs between Whalley and Fitch near Edgewood Park. I believe the ceremony will last about an hour. It will be followed by a reception. Also: does anybody have a green tie that I can borrow for the occasion? Best, Allan Allan Brison Ward 10, Alderman-Elect New Haven . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From apbrison at hotmail.com Sat Dec 29 15:44:57 2007 From: apbrison at hotmail.com (allan brison) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:44:57 -0500 Subject: {news} New Haven aldermanic inaugural ceremony - Jan 1 at noon In-Reply-To: <006201c84a59$9f2b02c0$6500a8c0@S0031616584> References: <006201c84a59$9f2b02c0$6500a8c0@S0031616584> Message-ID: The parking lot for the new Beecher School is on Fitch one block up from Whalley. From: chapillsbury at igc.orgTo: newhavengreens at yahoogroups.com; nhgreensannouncements at yahoogroups.comDate: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:30:15 -0500CC: ctgp-news at ml.greens.orgSubject: {news} New Haven aldermanic inaugural ceremony - Jan 1 at noon This is a reminder. Ring in the new year at noon on Tuesday by celebrating Allan Brison's swearing-in as a Green alder. Please compliment him, not only for winning a tough election, but also for the green tie he will be wearing. The newly renovated Beecher School is off Whalley Avenue behind the Jewish cemetery. Jewell Street actually runs parallel to Fitch one block closer to downtown between Whalley Ave. and Blake St. See you there, Charlie p.s. The next New Haven Green Party chapter meeting will be the 2nd Tuesday of the month 7:30pm January 10 at the NeverEnding Book Store at 810 State St. From: allan brison Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 7:25 PM Subject: [newhavengreens] 2007 aldermanic inaugural ceremony - Jan 1 at noon Friends, and Supporters, I will be inaugurated, along with the other 29 alderman, on New Years Day at noon. I think that it would be a good idea to have a good show of support in attendance. I would urge anyone who is free to stop by. The ceremony will be at the Beecher School, 100 Jewell Street. Jewell Street runs between Whalley and Fitch near Edgewood Park. I believe the ceremony will last about an hour. It will be followed by a reception. Also: does anybody have a green tie that I can borrow for the occasion? Best, Allan Allan BrisonWard 10, Alderman-ElectNew Haven . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efficacy at msn.com Sun Dec 30 09:50:34 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:50:34 -0500 Subject: {news} US NJ: Scared Silent Message-ID: This story has been repeated over and over again for the last three decades. The question becomes what are we going to do about such cases in the coming new year? On average five children eighteen years and younger are killed every single day because of drug war malidies. Newshawk: Crack vs Powder Disparity www.mapinc.org/alert/0356.html Pubdate: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2007 The New York Times Company Contact: letters at nytimes.com Website: http://www.nytimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298 Author: David Kocieniewski Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/snitch Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) SCARED SILENT So Many Crimes, and Reasons to Not Cooperate CAMDEN, N.J. -- When her 16-year-old son was shot dead on a street corner here in June, Rosalynn Glasco became the latest mother left to search for justice in a world without witnesses -- where the stigma of being seen as a snitch or the fear of retaliation prevents many from testifying about even the worst crimes. But Ms. Glasco held out some hope, all the same. Determined not to let her son's killer go unpunished, she urged her daughter and other relatives to work the grapevine in the neighborhood where he was killed, Whitman Park, searching for evidence, and maybe somebody willing to share it. Discovering nothing, she pressed on. Ms. Glasco's extended family put together fliers and started assembling a Web site to publicize a reward. She gathered her life savings and set the figure for information at $5,000. She delayed posting it because Camden detectives asked her to wait, saying they had promising leads in the investigation. The leads fizzled; a trip to see the mayor produced more promises of effort, but no arrests. The murder of Ms. Glasco's son, Salahuddin Igwe -- shot at 5 a.m. as he walked home from a party -- remains unsolved. Ms. Glasco is disappointed. She is also realistic. If the tables were turned, she admits, and if another mother were at her doorstep asking for information, she is not sure she would help, either. "Snitching, telling on people, isn't something that I personally would involve myself with," she said in an interview last week. "People don't want to talk to you if they think you're a snitch. If they were your friends, they're not your friends anymore. You're left totally all alone." As the most violent neighborhood in one of the nation's most dangerous cities, the Whitman Park section of Camden is on the front lines of the struggle with witness intimidation. An array of powerful forces converge here to discourage people from cooperating with the investigation of crimes -- crimes committed against their own homes, their own neighbors, their own children. Drugs are sold openly from street corners and abandoned row houses. Gunfire is a neighborhood soundtrack. And the competing gangs that control Whitman Park have made it clear that the price for defying them is death. Within blocks of the street where Ms. Glasco's son was killed, six people were murdered in less than a year. Yet many residents of Whitman Park say their reluctance to help investigators is based on more than just fear of gang retaliation. It is also a consequence of their deep distrust of the local police and prosecutors and politicians. Like residents of many other struggling, predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods across the country, people here complain that racial profiling, police corruption and the excesses of the war on drugs have made them suspicious of virtually any arm of government. Atmosphere of Distrust It was here in Whitman Park, after all, that a once-lauded community police officer was sentenced to prison last year for robbing drug dealers. And it was here that Gov. Christie Whitman was photographed frisking a young black man who had been falsely suspected of carrying drugs, an image that surfaced publicly in 2000 and came to symbolize New Jersey law enforcement's longstanding practice of racial profiling. And that is not all. The neighborhood's grim economic and social realities, which have convinced any number of young people here that drug dealing is the best job available, leaves many law-abiding residents with conflicting loyalties. There are so many people in the neighborhood with friends or relatives in the drug business that to help police arrest a dealer may jeopardize a family's financial security. It adds up, the police say, to an environment where they encounter people who, however much they despise the gangs, are more comfortable coexisting with the Bloods, Crips or Latin Kings than assisting the police. "There's a lot of history and a lot of reasons for people to stay quiet that are hard to understand unless you're from there," said Capt. Al Handy of the Camden police. "We've been trying to work with people and win back the trust. But it's a long, long process." The social stigma against helping the police has become an exasperating obstacle confronting officials as they try to combat increased gang violence in urban communities. According to Deputy Attorney General Hester Agudosi, who supervises New Jersey's 21 county prosecutor's offices, the number of witnesses who remain silent because they fear for their safety is probably less than one-tenth the number who refuse to talk because they fear the social repercussions. One small, glaring symptom of the dilemma is the "Stop Snitchin'" movement, an underground effort, popularized in rap videos and with T-shirts, urging criminals not to testify against other suspects in exchange for more lenient sentences. But the sense of estrangement is far broader, crossing generational lines and testing the consciences of people whose only involvement with crime is as a victim or potential witness. "A lot of white Americans from suburban communities can't understand why people wouldn't talk to law enforcement," said Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor who is studying witness intimidation for the National District Attorneys Association. "But in a lot of inner-city communities, there is so much hostility to the police that many people of color can't fathom why someone would even seriously consider helping them." In Whitman Park, a neighborhood of less than half a square mile that is home to 6,000 people, young men in black hooded sweatshirts are a fixture on street corners and front stoops, openly flagging down drivers to offer cocaine. Of the 43 murders that the Camden police have reported this year, seven have occurred there. The reasons for not talking about those murders -- or other crimes -- can be varied. "Let's say you make a police report and they run your name and find out you have a warrant from five or six years ago you forgot about," said Verdell Peterson, 52. "In this neighborhood, $250 is a lot of money, and if you don't have it to pay your bail, you're going to sit in jail until someone else does." 'You Might Get Killed' But many say that steering clear of the police is a matter of trust, and survival. Neil Reynolds, 18, said that his upbringing in Whitman Park taught him that "the wrong friends will get you shot and cops will get you shot or locked up." "If you talk to the police, you might get killed," said Mr. Reynolds, who has a record for narcotics sales but says he is now trying to leave the drug business. But even those who aren't physically harmed, he said, face repercussions. "No one wants anything to do with you, because when they get in trouble, they think you'll tell on them, too." At Community Baptist Church, where funeral services have been held for a half-dozen of Whitman Park's murder victims in recent years, the Rev. David King said an entire generation of Whitman Park children were being raised to fear the police. Working from a run-down building with oil poured on unused doorways to prevent narcotics dealers from congregating, Mr. King runs anti-gang and drug rehabilitation programs and urges church members to keep an open mind about the police. But last month, when a police officer who is well known and well liked at the church crashed his car out front, Mr. King said he was dismayed to see neighborhood children cheering. "All they could see was his uniform," he said. Police and prosecutors have tried various strategies to regain the trust of Camden residents in recent years. The Shooting Response Team, which quickly floods the scene of any gun crime with a crew of city, county and state investigators, has been credited with an improved response to gun crimes. Statistics indicate that the department has tripled its success in solving shootings, to 42 percent in 2006 from 14 percent in 2003. But efforts to strengthen the community policing efforts in the neighborhood and start a neighborhood watch program were set back late last year when the officer assigned to Whitman Park, Cpl. Michael Hearne, was arrested on charges that he and an accomplice had been robbing drug dealers at gunpoint. Corporal Hearne pleaded guilty and is serving a seven-year prison term. Even those residents who are willing to trust the police can be dissuaded from reporting drug activity to the authorities because narcotics have become such an integral part of Whitman Park's economy. Steven Carmichael, a postal carrier who is acting president of the United Neighbors of Whitman Park, said that in many instances people are ambivalent because they want to drive off the drug dealers, but are friends with their parents. "Do you say something to the parent? But maybe the parents already know and are afraid to put the kid out on the street where he might get shot or killed," said Mr. Carmichael, whose cousin across town was killed by rival drug dealers last year. "Or maybe the parents are out of work and don't ask where he gets that money so long as it helps them put food on the table. From the outside it seems black and white, but out here, things get complicated." Things certainly got complicated for Mr. Carmichael after his cousin's death. "I couldn't go to the funeral because people know I try to help the police," he said. In November, when detectives were stymied in the case of 12-year-old boy killed in a Camden housing project, investigators brought the child's mother up from Florida to canvass the neighborhood in hopes that a "mother to mother" conversation with people near the scene of the shooting might encourage witnesses to come forward. The case remains unsolved. Little Help From the Top Ms. Glasco had hoped to help her son Salahuddin, known as Sal, avoid the temptations and perils of Camden, and so in 2005 she moved with him to Lindenwold, a suburb. Although his father is in prison and his sister has had brushes with the law, Sal was the child who everyone had hoped might at least escape the city. One of Sal's jobs was at the Boys and Girls Club of Cherry Hill, near Whitman Park. He frequently spent the night at his sister's home, on Thurman Street, and socialized with friends down the block. One June night he never made it back to his sister's. Ms. Glasco eventually found herself on the telephone with a detective, who, she recalled, "told me that he was sorry to inform me that my son had been killed." From the outset of the investigation, detectives warned the family that witnesses would be difficult to come by. But Ms. Glasco was adamant that she was "not going to let this one go." So she went looking for witnesses. "I wanted to let them know this was about a mother and her son," she said. "And maybe that would make them do the right thing." She and her relatives would shake loose a nickname of a potential suspect, but turn up little else. The police did little better. A meeting in September with Mayor Gwendolyn A. Faison offered one glimmer of hope when the mayor picked up the telephone a few minutes into the conversation and got the deputy police commissioner on the line. There was little follow-up, however, and Ms. Faison said she wasn't surprised: Camden's government has been under state supervision for nearly 20 years because of corruption, so the police do not report to her. "I can call, and I did," Mayor Faison said, "but I have no authority over them." The Camden police declined to discuss the case, but the Camden County prosecutors say they are satisfied with the detectives' work and optimistic that they're moving toward an arrest. Since her son's death, Ms. Glasco said, she is often not certain where to focus her anger. She is infuriated with the killer and frustrated with the police. She is anguished by the thought that someone knows who is responsible, but is too scared or cynical to come forward. And she is honest enough to understand why they might not. Still, she pleads. "People have to put themselves in my shoes," she said. "I'm a mother with a dead kid. And the person who did it is out there, smiling, thinking that they got it made." Efficacy PO Box 1234 860 657 8438 Hartford, CT 06143 efficacy at msn.com www.Efficacy-online.org "THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON" Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax deductible -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From efficacy at msn.com Sun Dec 30 14:30:54 2007 From: efficacy at msn.com (Clifford Thornton) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:30:54 -0500 Subject: {news} We Are All Prisoners Now Message-ID: http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=12113 We Are All Prisoners Now by Paul Craig Roberts Thursday, December 27, 2007 -- At Christmas time it has been my habit to write a column in remembrance of the many innocent people in prisons whose lives have been stolen by the US criminal justice (sic) system. Usually I retell the cases of William Strong and Christophe Gaynor, two men framed in the state of Virginia by prosecutors and judges as wicked and corrupt as any who served Hitler or Stalin. This year is different. All Americans are now imprisoned in a world of lies and deception created by the Bush Regime and the two complicit parties of Congress, by federal judges too timid or ignorant to recognize a rogue regime running roughshod over the Constitution, by a bought and paid for media that serves as propagandists for a regime of war criminals, and by a public who have forsaken their Founding Fathers. Americans are also imprisoned by fear, a false fear created by the hoax of "terrorism." It has turned out that headline terrorist events since 9/11 have been orchestrated by the US government. For example, the alleged terrorist plot to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower was the brainchild of an FBI agent who searched out a few disaffected people to give lip service to the plot devised by the FBI agent. He arrested his victims, whose trial ended in acquittal and mistrial. Raising doubts among Americans about the government is not a strong point of the corporate media. Americans live in a world of propaganda designed to secure their acquiescence to war crimes, torture, searches and police state measures, military aggression, hegemony and oppression, while portraying Americans (and Israelis) as the salt of the earth who are threatened by Muslims who hate their "freedom and democracy." Americans cling to this 'truth' while the Bush regime and a complicit Congress destroy the Bill of Rights and engineer the theft of elections. Freedom and democracy in America have been reduced to no-fly lists, spying without warrants, arrests without warrants or evidence, permanent detention despite the constitutional protection of habeas corpus, torture despite the prohibition against self-incrimination ?- the list goes on and on. In today's fearful America, a US Senator, whose elder brothers were (1) a military hero killed in action, (2) a President of the United States assassinated in office, (3) an Attorney General of the United States and likely president except he was assassinated like his brother, can find himself on the no-fly list. Present and former high government officials, with top secret security clearances, cannot fly with a tube of toothpaste or a bottle of water despite the absence of any evidence that extreme measures imposed by "airport security" makes flying safer. Elderly American citizens with walkers and young mothers with children are meticulously searched because US Homeland Security cannot tell the difference between an American citizen and a terrorist. All Americans should note the ominous implications of the inability of Homeland Security to distinguish an American citizen from a terrorist. When Airport Security cannot differentiate a US Marine General recipient of the Medal of Honor from a terrorist, Americans have all the information they need to know. Any and every American can be arrested by unaccountable authority, held indefinitely without charges and tortured until he or she can no longer stand the abuse and confesses. This predicament, which can now befall any American, is our reward for our stupidity, our indifference, our gullibility, and our lack of compassion for anyone but ourselves. Some Americans have begun to comprehend the tremendous financial costs of the "war on terror." But few understand the cost to American liberty. Last October, a Democrat-sponsored bill, "Prevention of Violent Radicalism and Homegrown Terrorism," passed the House of Representatives 404 to 6. Only six members of the House voted against tyrannical legislation that would destroy freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, and that would mandate 18 months of congressional hearings to discover Americans with "extreme" views who could be preemptively arrested. What better indication that the US Constitution has lost its authority when elected representatives closest to the people pass a bill that permits the Bill of Rights to be overturned by the subjective opinion of members of an "Extremist Belief Commission" and Homeland Security bureaucrats? Clearly, Americans face no greater threat than the government in Washington. Efficacy PO Box 1234 860 657 8438 Hartford, CT 06143 efficacy at msn.com www.Efficacy-online.org "THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON" Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax deductible -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: