55 Guantanamo Detainees Were Cleared For Release Three Years Ago, But Are Still Held At Gitmo

ThinkProgress

The Justice Department released the names of 55 prisoners still being held in Guantanamo Bay three years after the Obama administration’s Guantanamo Bay Task Force cleared them for transfer. The disclosure comes a month after the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the names and will help the detainees’ attorneys publicly advocate for their release.

DOJ previously suggested releasing the names “could confuse, undermine, or jeopardize our diplomatic efforts . . . and could put at risk our ability to move as many people to safe and responsible locations as might otherwise be the case.” Late last week, however, they announced that they no longer fear doing so will endanger diplomatic efforts:

In the over two years since the Task Force completed its status reviews, circumstances have changed such that the decisions by the Task Force approving detainees for transfer no longer warrant protection. The efforts of the United States to resettle Guantanamo detainees have largely been successful – they have resulted in 40 detainees being resettled in third countries because of treatment or other concerns in their countries of origin since 2009. In addition, 28 detainees have been repatriated to their countries of origin since 2009. Consequently, the diplomatic and national security harms identified in the Fried Declaration are no longer as acute. In Respondents’ view, there is no longer a need to withhold from the public the status of detainees who have been approved for transfer.

More than a third of the men who have been languishing in Guantanamo for the past three years are from Yemen, which is not considered stable enough to receive the detainees. One name not included on the list was Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, who died earlier this month after the Department of Defense twice recommended he be transferred out of Guantanamo.

The Justice Department recently lost a case in which they attempted to block detainees’ access to counsel. The ACLU has also sued for the names of prisoners in indefinite detention, conditional detention and prosecution.

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Mittens = Obama on The War in Afghanistan

Propublica 

Despite trading barbs on the campaign trail, President Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney don’t differ that much on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

Both candidates basically endorse a 2014 withdrawal, though Romney allows that conditions on the ground could change that. Both emphasize strengthening the Afghan military and governing institutions. Of course, during Obama’s time in office violence in Afghanistan has continued, and turning over more control to the Afghan government has proven difficult. We break down what the candidates have said on some of the war’s pressing issues.

Withdrawal Date

Obama famously campaigned in 2008 on his early and vocal opposition to the war in Iraq. By contrast, he dubbed Afghanistan “the War We Need to Win” and pledged to — and did— increase troop levels in Afghanistan. At the same time, he committed to fixed withdrawal dates.

In a December 2009 speech, Obama simultaneously announced a “surge” of 30,000 soldiers and a pledge to begin the withdrawal of U.S. troops by July 2011. A year later, the administration backed away from that date, and agreed to a framework with other NATO members to turn over control to Afghan forces by 2014.

In June of last year, Obama announced he would bring home the surge troops by this summer. Romney criticized Obama for disregarding the counsel of top commanders when setting this date. The Defense Department announced late last week that the last of the 30,000 surge troops had left Afghanistan, leaving 68,000 troops still on the ground.

Despite Obama’s assertions earlier this month that “Romney doesn’t have a timetable” for withdrawal from Afghanistan, Romney does support a target withdrawal date of 2014. However, Romney has refused to set that date in stone, repeatedlysaying conditions on the ground should guide the decision. Romney said he would use his first 100 days to consult with field commanders and conduct a full interagency assessment of the transition.

The situation on the ground

Aside from a timetable for withdrawal, Obama’s other stated goals in Afghanistan have been to “deny al Qaeda a safe haven,” “reverse the Taliban’s momentum” and leave Afghanistan with its own robust security forces, trained and armed by the U.S. and its allies.

The White House has launched an aggressive campaign against Al Qaeda along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, which the administration says has killed top terrorists (and generated its own share of controversy over claims of civilian deaths and diplomatic ruptures with Pakistan). Romney has in someinterviews commended Obama for his use of drone strikes but hasn’t made a definitive statement on whether he would continue the practice or change the intensity of the drone campaign. We’ve reached out to the Romney press office for elaboration, and will update the post when we hear back from them.

Meanwhile, forces hostile to the U.S. and its allies continue to carry out lethal strikes, particularly so-called “green-on-blue attacks,” in which Afghan police and soldiers turn on their coalition counterparts. Green-on-blue attacks began to increase last year and have accounted for 14% of coalition deaths this year, according to CNN. Some blame the attacks on Taliban “double agents” among Afghan forces, while others say they are conducted by ordinary Afghans furious at civilian casualties and the prolonged U.S. presence. Either way, they’ve undermined trust between coalition troops and their Afghan partners. In the wake of recent insider attacks, the U.S. suspended training of Afghan police and NATO curtailed joint operations with the Afghans. Obama said Wednesday that the reaction to insider attacks would not change U.S. plans to leave by 2014 or America’s commitments to the Afghan government.

The Taliban continues to mount traditional attacks; last week its fighters penetrated one of the largest NATO bases in Afghanistan. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, claimed recently that while Taliban attacks continued, they had been forced “into an increasingly smaller series of areas, districts, where we have, in many respects, contained them."

Romney hasn’t said much about the green-on-blue attacks, or how the war is going in general. According to the AP, he’s the first Republican presidential nominee since 1952 not to mention war during his convention speech — a decision he defends by pointing to a speech he made to veterans at the American Legion in Indianapolis the night before.

Turning over control to the Afghans

So assuming it all goes according to plan, what do the candidates say Afghanistan will look like after 2014? Again, the differences don’t seem drastic.

On May 1, 2012, Obama signed a strategic partnership with Afghan president Hamid Karzai, giving broad terms for the U.S. presence in Afghanistan after 2014. It includes a pledge for a decade of help for the Afghan economy and institutions, but doesn’t give dollar figures. Similarly, Romney has said the U.S. mission should be to leave Afghanistan capable of defending itself against the Taliban, “ensure that [it] will never again become a launching pad for terror,” and, as he said in a January debate, to hand “Afghanistan and its sovereignty over to a military of Afghan descent.”

Obama has been careful not to frame the American mission in Afghanistan as one of nation-building; in a speech announcing the partnership he said “our goal is not to build a country in America’s image, or to eradicate every vestige of the Taliban.”

But the candidates have a significant difference: Obama, as CNN notes, has said the U.S. is pursuing “a negotiated peace” with the Taliban, accepting the possibility of its non-violent participation in Afghan affairs. Romney has insisted that he will not negotiate with the Taliban.

Though Romney has not said much on a specific plan of action, his campaign says he would work with the Afghan government to fight the narcotics trade fueling the insurgency.

Relations with Pakistan

Both candidates have signaled that Pakistan plays a crucial, but complicated role in the war in Afghanistan and the broader campaign against al Qaeda.

As Foreign Policy blogger Uri Friedman notes, U.S.-Pakistani relations have grown shaky over the last few years, though publicly, the Obama administration continues to say that the U.S. can have a relationship that “respects Pakistan’s sovereignty, but also...respects our concerns with respect to our national security.” Pakistan cut off a critical supply route to Afghanistan for 7 this year after U.S. air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The covert drone war in Pakistan has also been the source of diplomatic tension and widespread resentment among the Pakistani public.

Mitchell Reiss, special adviser to the Romney campaign and former head of policy planning at the State Department, told a group of foreign journalists that a Romney administration would treat Pakistan with a “little bit more respect.” The campaign’s issue statement emphasizes his desire for a strong working relationship between the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan; if the U.S. shows its resolve and commitment to rid the region of the Taliban, then Pakistan should follow suit.

Romney hesitates to send American troops into Pakistan, largely due to the country’s fragile state, as he noted at a primary debate in November 2011. “We have to work with our friends in that country to get them to do some of the things we can’t do ourselves,” he said. He also said that Pakistan is “comfortable” with U.S. drone strikes.

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Like the US, Iraq ignores UN calls to overturn death penalty

Rt.com

A UN investigator has called for Iraq to overturn its death penalty system, equating the government’s methods to “arbitrary killing.” Amnesty International supports the calls, stating that parties awaiting death have...

US Marines face criminal charges over Afghan urination video

Rt.com

Two US Marine staff sergeants are facing criminal charges for their role in a video which showed American soldiers urinating on the corpses of dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, the Marine Corps announced Monday....

Anti-American Protests: Cutting Through Media Propaganda

Dissident Voice

Protests over the vile racist film Innocence of Muslims that began outside U.S. diplomatic institutions in Egypt and Libya have spread across the world, from Bangladesh and India to Iran, Iraq and Morocco.

The mainstream media in the U.S., from Fox News to National Public Radio, have framed these protests through the simplistic lens of “anti-American violence in the Muslim world.” This framing communicates an entire world view that is taken for granted.

First, it discredits protest against the U.S. by painting the demonstrators as violent. This focus on the violence and on the sensational allows the media to conveniently skip over the complex reasons why people in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa might be angry with the U.S.

This particular racist film–which portrays the Prophet Muhammad as a womanizer, a pedophile, a bumbling idiot, and a bloodthirsty fanatic and anti-Semite–is the tip of the iceberg. It has become a symbol of the disrespect with which the U.S. holds people in Muslim-majority countries, and it has brought to the fore deep-seated grievances over how the U.S. conducts itself in the Middle East and elsewhere. Yet this complexity is left out in favor of simplistic explanations and caricatures.

Second, by using the term “Muslim world,” the media invite us to look at people in Muslim-majority societies primarily through the lens of religion. While sections of the demonstrators are there to express outrage at the film, the focus on Islamist involvement in the protests to the exclusion of other voices casts this as a religious rather than a political confrontation. Thus, the protesters are presented not as political actors, but religious zealots.

Third, what follows from this is that the U.S. is an innocent victim–a misunderstood champion of democratic rights, secularism and free speech under attack from the irrational fanaticism that we have come to expect from “those Muslims.”

In short, what is a political clash is turned instead into a cultural conflict and the “clash of civilizations” between the secular West and the religious and backward “Muslim world.”

*****

Speaking about the attacks in Libya, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lamented: “I ask myself, how could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction?”

Fully 11 years after the events of 9/11, the same question is being asked about why people in the Middle East might be angry with the U.S., and the same ridiculous explanations are on offer–it is a clash of values, a clash of civilizations.

In 2001, George Bush explained: “They hate… a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”

A few days ago, Clinton said: “All over the world, every day, America’s diplomats and development experts risk their lives in the service of our country and our values, because they believe that the United States must be a force for peace and progress in the world, that these aspirations are worth striving and sacrificing for. Alongside our men and women in uniform, they represent the best traditions of a bold and generous nation.”

The difference between the two statements, it seems, is that the “clash of civilization” rhetoric has developed in these 11 years from a supposed hatred of our freedoms right here to a hatred of our soldiers and diplomats over there. [MORE] 

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Palestinian child prisoners 'abused' - video

Aljazeera

Human rights organisations say youths arrested by Israeli security forces face prospect of beatings and limited rights.

Oakland Police Claim Alan Blueford's prints on gun

SF.com

A potentially crucial piece of evidence has surfaced in the police shooting that led a mob to shut down last week's Oakland City Council meeting.

Law enforcement sources tell us newly completed lab tests show Skyline High School senior Alan Blueford's fingerprints were on the handgun that he allegedly pointed at an Oakland police officer before being shot and killed May 6.

That would seem to bolster the department's assertion that the officer was acting in self-defense. It may do little to dispel a charge being pushed by some bloggers, however, that a cop planted the gun by the 18-year-old's body.

"Many have concluded" as much, wrote Davey D on his Hip Hop Corner blog. "This would not be unusual in a city that in the past 10 years has had to shell out 58 million dollars in wrongful death shootings and police brutality incidents."

Police point out that the gun was found 20 feet from Blueford's body, an unlikely place to plant a weapon. But then, as one law enforcement source told us, "There is no willingness (in Oakland) to accept any amount of (police) force."

In late May, when Police Chief Howard Jordan showed up at a meeting at the Acts Full Gospel Church in East Oakland to discuss the shooting, Occupy Oakland protesters drowned him out, following him to his car with a bullhorn. It was pretty much the same story at last week's City Council meeting, where shouting protesters - including one dancing on the dais - brought the proceedings to a halt.

The Alameda County district attorney's office is investigating the shooting. Attorney John Burris has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Blueford's family, saying the teen was unarmed.

Burris said only that he expects to have the police reports soon and will compare officers' statements and other evidence with "the information I've gathered independently, and advise the family accordingly."

"Feeling Threatened" Houston Police Officer Fatally Shoots One Armed White Man in Wheelchair

Houston Chronicle

A schizophrenic double amputee waving a writing pen from his wheelchair was fatally shot early Saturday by a Houston police officer, authorities said.

Police were called to the East End personal care home around 2 a.m. because resident Brian Claunch had become agitated after his caretaker refused to give him a soda and a cigarette, said John Garcia, the owner of the home at 4309 Polk.

here we go with the Police spin -- "He was approaching them aggressively," said Houston Police Department spokes­woman Jodi Silva. "He was attempting to stab them with what is now found to be a pen."

Claunch, who had been living at the home for the past 18 months with two other men, ignored officers' commands and made threats against them and other occupants of the home, Garcia said the caretaker told him. Claunch trapped one of the officers in a corner, authorities said.

Matthew Marin, a five-year HPD veteran, fired his weapon at least one time, fearing for his partner's safety and his own, Silva said. Claunch died at the scene.

Home's owner shocked

Garcia said he was stunned at the news when he arrived at the home Saturday morning, shortly after the incident.

"He sometimes would go off a bit, but you just ignore it," Garcia said of Claunch.

Garcia has operated the personal care home for the past eight years.

In one prior incident, Garcia said, Claunch failed to return to the house and Garcia called for police assistance. Once Claunch saw the police, he returned home willingly.

Claunch told him that he lost his right leg to just above the knee and all of his right arm when he was hit by a train, Garcia said.

The victim, who was in his mid-40s, came to the East End personal care home more than a year ago, as part of a placement by the Harris County guardianship program. A call to his guardian was not immediately returned Saturday.

Garcia said Claunch liked to "doodle" and two days ago he had given him a black felt pen to draw with. Garcia said he was not sure if it was that pen or another one that Claunch was waving at the time of the incident.

Renters heard shot

Three men who rent a house across the street from the group home said its presence posed no trouble for the neighborhood.

"It's a quiet little area," said Randy Kingery, a land surveyor. "We've never had any problems."

Kingery said he and his roommates, who were on the front porch when police arrived, heard a gunshot about two minutes after the first officers pulled up.

"We said, 'There's no way they have a gun in the house,' " he said.

As is standard practice with officer-involved shootings, Marin, who is assigned to the South Central Patrol Division, will work three days of desk duty. The incident will be investigated by HPD's homicide and internal affairs divisions, as well as the Harris County District Attorney's Office, Silva said.

Mittens Threatened to Cancel Univision Forum If Organizers Didn’t Allow Him To Bus In Supporters

Colorlines

Mitt Romney packed the audience for a Univision forum earlier this week, BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins reports, busing in local supporters “after exhausting the few conservative groups on campus.” The campaign threatened to “reschedule” the event if organizers did not allow the “rowdy activists from around southern Florida in order to fill the extra seats at their town hall.”

Romney also refused to come out on stage after the hosts introduced him by noting that he “had agreed to give the network 35 minutes, and that Obama had agreed to a full hour the next night.” Univision re-taped the introduction after Romney allegedly “threw a tantrum.”

During the event, Romney dodged four questions about whether he would maintain President Obama’s directive allowing young undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States on a temporary basis and said that he is happy to be known as “the grandfather of Obamacare.”

Romney has a history of padding the audience. During a speech before National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) in June, the GOP presidential candidate also brought in his supporters to the address.

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Fox News Highlights Anniversary of Emancipation Proclamation with Discussion Of How "Government Is Enslaving People"

Media Matters for America

From the September 22 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

No Officers Names Released/None Fired in Police Murder of Black Man Shot 46 Times: Saginaw demotes 1 officer, disciplines 2

Detroit Free Press

A police supervisor has been demoted and two officers were disciplined for their roles in the fatal shooting of a knife-wielding, mentally ill, homeless man in a parking lot, city officials said Friday.

The on-scene supervisor during the July 1 shooting of Milton Hall, 49, was reprimanded and demoted to patrolman, Saginaw Acting Police Chief Brian Lipe said, and the two officers received reprimands for not following the department's mobile video and audio policy.

The command officer "failed to take command and control of the situation," Lipe said at a news conference. Some patrol-car video was working, but some in-car audio wasn't turned on and some microphones worn by the officers didn't have working batteries, he said.

The officers involved will return to active duty, said Lipe, who defended the officers' overall response. Their names were not released.

According to investigators, Hall refused to drop a knife and six officers fired 46 shots at him, hitting him 11 times. Video taken on another witness' cell phone and later obtained by CNN showed Hall collapsing in a hail of gunfire after police ordered him to drop the knife.

The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, protested the killing and called for the officers to be punished.

City officials said Friday that they hoped citizens upset about the shooting would be able to come together following the review. Some critics, however, expressed disappointment.

"You all had the audacity to come in here and tell us we need to go forward," the Rev. Cirven Merrill said. "Going forward to us is firing those ... officers who shot Milton Hall."

Prosecutors and state officials said this month that none of the officers would face criminal charges. The task force that reviewed the officers' conduct was appointed by City Manager Darnell Earley.

"There are people who will feel the discipline of three officers is not justice," Mayor Greg Branch said. "But it is the extent of justice within the laws applicable to this venue."

Mission Rally against San Francisco Police Shooting Tonight (video)

On African Refugees and Jewish Heartlessness

Daily Beast

Next week, Jews around the world will gather to fast and pray. We will hear, as we do every year, the words of the prophet Isaiah:

They ask Me for the right way, they are eager for the nearness of God: "Why, when we fasted, did You not see? When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed?" Because on your fast day you see to your business and oppress all your laborers!... Is such the fast I desire, a day for men to starve their bodies?... No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock the fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free; to break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe him.

I wonder, as we hear these words, how many of us will bring to mind the 21 Eritrean refugees Israel recently left to languish in the summer sun—without food, without shelter, with about a gallon of water a day to be shared among all of them, until, contrary to international agreements to which Israel is a signatory, the state finally forced 18 to return to the documented cruelties of Sinai smugglers and took three (including a 14 year old boy) to prison.

I wonder how many of us will bring to mind the fact that soldiers fired live rounds into the air and tear gas at the refugees as they huddled under a scrap of fabric between two national borders, and reportedly prodded them with an iron pole, in an effort to get them to leave. Testimony from the three Eritreans who were brought to Israeli prison reveals that

None of [them] wanted to return to Egypt. They knew they were destined for torture and death. Two or three days before it all ended, five of the men, who were stronger than the rest, dragged themselves to the Egyptian fence and asked the Egyptian gunmen whether they could return; the reply was that if they did, they would be shot. But, the Egyptian gunmen added, should they attempt this, they should bring the women with them, as the gunmen wanted to rape them.

…[When the state reached its final decision], IDF gunmen cut through the fence, crossed it, pulled the two women and the boy inside, and dragged the rest of the refugees on the cloth towards the Egyptian fence. The refugees, few of whom could move at this stage, screamed and begged to be shot, telling the gunmen they preferred this to a return to Egypt…. Their fate is unknown.

I wonder how many of us will bring to mind the fact that this horrifying story—a story steeped in heartlessness and lies, from the lowliest soldier to the highest government officials—is, in fact, merely the natural outgrowth of attitudes and policies that have greeted African refugees in Israel for more than five years?

After they enter the country, usually via the Egyptian border, those who are caught are jailed without charge for an arbitrary period; when Israel needs to make way for more prisoners, the asylum seekers are dumped in south Tel Aviv and other cities.

…Once out of jail, the state either refuses to process refugees’ individual requests for asylum or arbitrarily rejects them without adequately investigating their claims [note: again, contrary to international agreements to which Israel is a signatory]. Instead, Israel gives citizens of Sudan and Eritrea group protection. So they get visas, but not work visas—forcing refugees onto the black market where they face exploitation.

I wonder how many of us will bring to mind the recent survey that showed that while nearly 80% of Israelis have no African migrants living anywhere near them, fully 80% of Jewish respondents said that Israel shouldn’t have an “open-door policy” for refugees “who were persecuted in their countries of origin.” Eighty-three percent supported the violent demonstrations that broke out against the refugees in south Tel Aviv a few months ago, and 52% of Jews surveyed agreed with Member of Knesset Miri Regev who, speaking at one of those demonstrations-turned-riot, said that “unauthorized Africans living in Israel are a cancer in the body of Israel.”

I lived the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for 14 years and have written about it for nearly 20. I frequently call on Israelis to have compassion for Palestinians and Palestinians for Israelis, but I understand why they often fail to do so. It really is a war, and in war, compassion is often ground to dust.

I understand that countries have borders for a good reason. I understand that in a country struggling with enormous social inequities, the influx of tens of thousands of undocumented laborers is a genuine problem. I understand fear of the unknown.

But this is not that.

This is a level of inhumanity that frankly boggles my mind and makes me ill. No one treks 1300 miles across unforgiving ground in search of a professional advancement. No one leaves family and friends and chooses privation and possible torture in order to make life hard on someone in Tel Aviv. The refugees from Sudan, South Sudan, and Eritrea are fleeing barbarous repression, so anxious to never return that some have been known to jump off moving trucks to their deaths to avoid repatriation.

And to the extent that we in America do not call our Israeli brothers and sisters on this inhumanity, we are complicit in it.

This is the fast I desire: To share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe him.

Texas executes Robert Harris - Black Man had Low IQ, White Jury

CBS News

Robert Wayne Harris, who confessed to killing five people at a Dallas-area car wash a week after he was fired from his job there in 2000, was executed Thursday evening.

Harris, 40, received a lethal injection less than two hours after the U.S. Supreme Court refused appeals to halt his punishment.

Harris expressed love to his brother and three friends who were watching through a window.

"I'm going home. I'm going home," Harris said. "Don't worry about me. I'll be alright. God bless, and the Texas Rangers, Texas Rangers."

He snored briefly as the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, then all breathing stopped. He was pronounced dead at 6:43 p.m.

Harris was convicted of two of the five slayings in March 2000 at the Mi-T-Fine Car Wash in Irving. He also was charged with abducting and killing a woman months before the killing spree and led police to her remains.

Harris didn't deny the slayings, but his lawyer unsuccessfully contended in appeals he was mentally impaired and should be spared because of a Supreme Court ban on execution of mentally impaired people. Attorney Lydia Brandt also argued prosecutors improperly removed black prospective jurors from serving on his trial jury. Harris is black.

Harris died "without ever having had a fair trial" on the issues, Brandt said.

Harris' brother asked to leave the death chamber before the procedure was complete. A half-dozen friends and relatives of the victims also were present, watching in another room. Harris never looked at them. Two of them hugged after it was apparent Harris was dead. They declined to speak with reporters afterward.

State attorneys opposed Harris' appeals, saying IQ tests disputed the mental impairment claims and that no racial component was involved in jury selection.

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George Zimmerman court hearing in Trayvon Martin Murder case set for Oct. 17

FloridaCourts

Court hearing for George Zimmerman, the 28-year-old neighborhood watch captain who is charged with the second-degree murder of unarmed black 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in a gated community in Sanford, FL, on 26 Feb. Zimmerman says he shot Martin in self-defense and his case sparked nationwide protests and debates about the rights to self-defense and racial profiling, with President Barack Obama saying 'if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon'. A not guilty plea was entered in May and Zimmerman's attorney Mark O'Mara has said his client could invoke Florida's 'stand your ground' law, which allows the use of deadly force by anyone who feels a reasonable threat of death of serious injury. Zimmerman, whose father is white and mother Hispanic, handed himself in after prosecutor Angela Corey announced the charge on 11 Apr, for which he could face life in prison if convicted.

Case no. 2012-CF-001083-A 

Event Start Date: 2012-10-17

Event End Date: 2012-10-17

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Low-Income Smokers In New York Spend A Quarter Of Their Income On Cigarettes

ThinkProgress

Although cigarette taxes are a very effective way to encourage people to stop smoking — as well a potential source of important revenue for some cash-strapped states — a new study suggests that they also work to highlight income inequality among American smokers.

New York places a $4.35 tax on each pack of cigarettes, the highest rate in the country, and researchers used data from the state health department to calculate how much money its residents are spending on cigarettes each year. They found that that smokers in New York who earn less than $30,000 a year spent an average of 23.6 percent of their annual income on cigarettes, while the state’s wealthier smokers — defined as those earning over $60,000 a year — spent an average of just 2.2 percent of their earnings to support their smoking habit.

Because of this discrepancy, researchers pointed out that this tax may be disproportionately straining low-income New Yorkers:

“Although high cigarette taxes are an effective method for reducing cigarette smoking, they can impose a significant financial burden on low-income smokers,” Matthew Farrelly and his co-authors wrote in the conclusion of their paper, which was published this month in Plos One, an online, peer-reviewed journal. [...]

The low-income now spend twice as much of their earnings on cigarettes as they did in 2003, when the state imposed a tax of $1.50 [compared to the current $4.35 tax] on each pack.

The researchers concluded that to make the cigarette tax less regressive, the state should spend more of the resulting revenue on programs that help low-income smokers quit the habit, although both the researchers and the health department say this would be a challenge.

The study acknowledged that low-income populations tend to have higher percentages of smokers, highlighted by the fact that smoking rates among low-income New Yorkers did not decline at all between 2003 and 2010, even though smoking rates dropped by about 20 percent among all income groups during the same period. According to 2010 figures from the Centers for Disease Control, 28.9 percent of adults below the poverty level were smokers, a full 10 points higher than the rate for the adult population at or above the poverty level. Anti-smoking advocacy groups have also noted the correlation between smoking and income level, pointing out that encouraging lower-income Americans to quit smoking can help save states money on their Medicaid program expenditures, since approximately 10 to 20 percent of all Medicaid funds — totaling more than $30 billion each year — is spent on costs related to smoking-related illnesses.

But as the researchers noted, states could attempt to combat some of these issues by choosing to use the revenue generated by their cigarette taxes to invest in programs to help lower smoking rates among low-income populations. Turning a smoking habit into a bigger financial investment may deter some smokers, but cigarette taxes only represent one part of a broader public health strategy that should also include preventative education and support programs.

Obama Nominee Would Be First Black Woman To Join Washington DC Trial Court In 30 Years

ThinkProgress

Nearly half of Washington, DC’s residents are black, yet an African-American woman has not served on the federal trial court that presides over the District of Columbia since 2003, when former Chief Judge Norma Holloway Johnson stepped down from the federal bench. Yesterday, President Obama took the first step towards rectifying this by nominating Sentencing Commission member Ketanji Brown Jackson to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. If confirmed, Jackson will be the first black woman to join this court in over thirty years, when Judge Johnson took the bench. President Clinton also nominated a black woman, Rhonda Fields, to the same court, but she was not confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate.

10 Questions Romney Must Answer About His Taxes

ThinkProgress

On Friday afternoon, the Romney campaign released the candidate’s 2011 tax return, which showed that he paid a tax rate of approximately 14 percent on more than $13 million of reported income. The campaign also disclosed that Romney voluntarily forfeited about $1.8 million in charitable deductions to inflate the tax rate he would have to disclose to the public. The campaign continues to refuse to release returns prior to 2010, flunking an accepted standard of transparency, first established by Mitt’s father George Romney, of releasing multiple years’ returns.

In a blog post, Romney’s lawyer and the trustee of his “blind trust” said, “After you have reviewed all of the newly-posted documents, you may have further questions.” Yes, we do. Lots.

Here are 10 unanswered questions about Romney’s taxes:

1. After the election, when the subject of your tax returns is outside of the public glare, will you file an amended tax return to claim your full deduction of charitable contributions? Was the tax rate you reported for other years similarly manipulated?

2. Why was your 2011 income $7 million lower than you estimated it to be in January? How does someone overestimate their income by $7 million?

3. Financial disclosures show that you have as much as $82 million in your tax-deferred Individual Retirement Account, despite the fact that tax rules limited contributions into such accounts to $30,000 per year. Did you lowball the value of the assets you put into your IRA, as tax experts suspect? And did you do the same with gifts into your sons’ trusts?

4. What was the purpose of your Swiss bank account and the myriad offshore entities shown on your return, based in countries like the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg, if not to avoid taxes?

5. Can you explain what one tax expert has called a “mysterious one-time infusion of foreign tax credits” in 2008?

6. You have not disclosed any foreign bank account reports (FBARs). Did you file all FBARs on all of your offshore accounts with the Treasury Department by the legal deadlines each year?

7. You claim to have paid an average tax rate of 20 percent over the last 20 years based on a flawed calculation. What was your real tax rate?

8. Your 14 percent tax rate –- not to mention the approximately 10 percent tax rate you would have paid had you not inflated it — is less than what many middle-class Americans pay. And you paid just 0.2% of your income in payroll taxes, while most Americans pay about 15%. Do you think that is fair?

9. Your tax returns show that the Marriott Corporation paid you $260,390 in directors’ fees in 2011. When you were the company’s audit committee chair in the 1990s, were you aware that the company was abusing a notorious illegal tax shelter?

10. You say you’ve made a “commitment to the public” that your tax rate should not be below 13 percent. If you believe that the richest Americans shouldn’t be paying an exceptionally low tax rate, why don’t you support President Obama’s “Buffett Rule”?

Romney’s lack of transparency on his tax returns is especially troubling given that he is similarly evasive on the details of his tax policies. From what we know about his tax plan, Romney would shower massive tax breaks on the wealthiest Americans, which means that it can only adds up with a major middle-class tax hike. How much will Romney raise your taxes in order to cut taxes for people like him? That’s the biggest unanswered question of all.

Maxine Waters will not be charged with ethics violations

theGrio 

California Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters will not be charged with ethics violations.

At a meeting Friday, House Ethics Committee members said they found no violations in their investigation of allegations she steered a $12 million federal bailout to a bank where her husband owns stock. Waters is a senior Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.

The committee, however, said Waters’ chief of staff, Mikael Moore, did take actions in Congress in an attempt to help the bank and violated standards of conduct. Moore likely will receive a letter admonishing him for his conduct. but will not face more severe punishment, such as a reprimand, by the full House.

Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, who is acting chairman of the panel, announced the tentative findings at a hearing but noted the committee has not issued a final report.

Goodlatte said the committee was convinced that when Waters asked for a meeting at the Treasury Department to discuss financial help for minority banks, she believed she did so on behalf of all minority banks — not just OneUnited, where her husband owns stock. Goodlatte said the committee agreed with Waters’ assertion.

Goodlatte said that when Waters realized that OneUnited was in serious trouble, she told then-chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., to handle any further matters in the case. Goodlatte said, however, that Moore continued efforts in Congress to get committee help for OneUnited, even sending the committee staff an email saying, “OneUnited is in trouble.”

Moore defended his actions, saying he violated no House rules.

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Mexico reviewing Alabama immigration law under international labor treaty

Jurist 

The Mexican government announced Thursday that it is reviewing a complaint [complaint, PDF] by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) [union website] that Alabama's immigration law [HB 56, PDF] violates [press release] the North American Fair Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) [texts]. The SEIU argues that the law violates the NAALC, the labor side agreement to NAFTA, by failing to meet labor standards and ensure workers' access to procedures and remedies for obtaining workers' compensation. The SEIU specifically alleges that Alabama's immigration law is violating the protections granted to migrant workers under...

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