Advocates Call for Recorded Government Interrogations in Kansas and Texas

Innocence Project

Two Kansas exonerees urged their state lawmakers to pass a bill requiring recorded interrogations in an op-ed in the Leavenworth Times last week.

Exonerees Floyd Bledsoe and Eddie Lowery, who spent a combined 25 years in prison in Kansas for crimes they did not commit, said a law requiring recorded interrogations could have prevented their wrongful convictions and could keep more innocent people from doing time for crimes they did not commit.

“Recording interrogations from beginning to end removes any doubt about what occurred during closed-door sessions,” Bledsoe and Lowery wrote. “It protects the innocent by deterring against improper tactics that too often lead to false confessions, which contributed to 28 percent of DNA exonerations nationally. It also benefits law enforcement by verifying authentic confessions and protecting against frivolous allegations of misconduct in the interrogation room.”

Currently, 21 states require the recording of interrogations.

In Texas, a state commission is asking the legislature to implement reforms including electronic recording of interrogations, according to a piece in the Austin American-Statesman.

In a report released in December, the Timothy Cole Exoneration Review Commission recommended that police be required to record interrogations from the time the suspect enters the room. The report revealed that out of 850 law enforcement agencies in the state, 68 percent responded that they recorded questioning of suspects in some capacity, but that does not go far enough because the only way to ensure that there is a complete record of what takes place during an interrogation is a statewide law mandating the recording of interrogations in full.

The commission also had recommendations with regard to creating more transparency around incentivized witnesses, improving forensic testing and adopting best practices in eyewitness identification procedures.

Lawmakers will review the report when they come back into session on January 10.

Human Rights Watch says Israel officials are Calling For Soldiers to Kill Palestinians Based "On Their Suspicion" of Danger

JURIST

Some senior Israeli politicians are calling for Israeli soldiers and police to kill Palestinians who they suspect of harming Israelis, even if the suspects are not currently dangerous, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy site] reported [advocacy site report] Monday. The organization documented numerous statements since October 2015 which encouraged soldiers to use deadly force. "The Israeli government should issue clear directives to use force only in accordance with international law," said Sari Bashi [official bio], the Israel/Palestine advocacy director at HRW. According to the United Nations [official website], deadly force [official guidelines] should only be used when another's life is in danger, and there is no other alternative. According to HRW, 150 Palestinians suspected of attacking Israelis were killed by Israeli security forces since October 2015. Palestinians have killed 33 Israelis during this time.

Recent conflicts between Israel and Palestine over settlements in the occupied West Bank have raised concerns over possible human rights violations. In December, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, expressed concern [JURIST report] over proposed legislation in Israel that would retroactively legalize the Israeli outposts constructed on privately-owned Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. In November the Israel High Court of Justice ruled that the controversial Amona settlement in the West Bank must be dismantled [JURIST report] by December 25. Earlier the same month Israel's Ministerial Committee for Legislation unanimously approved [JURIST report] the Formalization Bill to legalize the West Bank outposts, which was intended in part to stop the evacuation of Amona outpost. In March the spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern [JURIST report] over the apparent extra-judicial execution of a Palestinian man in the West Bank. In January Human Rights Watch urged [JURIST report] businesses to cease operations in Israel settlements. In August 2015 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged both sides of the conflict [JURIST report] to reconcile and move towards peace after an attack occurred in the West Bank village of Duma, where Jewish extremists allegedly set fire to a Palestinian home while a family slept inside.

New Puerto Rican Governor Promises to Push for Statehood

Democracy Now

In Puerto Rico, the new governor, Ricardo Rosselló, has promised to push immediately for U.S. statehood in his inaugural speech Monday, saying there can be no resolution to the island’s economic crisis while Puerto Rico remains a territory of the United States.

Gov. Ricardo Rosselló: "There’s no way to overcome the current crisis that affects Puerto Rico while maintaining this colonial condition. Thus, the time has come to act and to defend the dignity and right to equality of Puerto Ricans as citizens of the United States of America."

Mumia Abu-Jamal Gets Injunction Forcing Pennsylvannia Prison to Provide Hepatitis C Treatment

Democracy Now

In a major victory in Pennsylvania, imprisoned journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal has won an injunction forcing the Pennsylvania prison system to provide him life-saving Hepatitis C medicine. Lawyers with the Abolitionist Law Center say, "This is the first case in the country in which a federal court has ordered prison officials to provide an incarcerated patient with the new medications that came on the market in 2013."

[No Need For a Boycott] Racist Macy's closing 68 stores

USA Today

After seeing sales drop during the holidays, Macy's said Wednesday it has either closed or will shutter 68 stores and cut an additional 6,200 positions at a time when shoppers are going online to buy everything from scarves to lipstick.

Of the 68 stores out of 730 in total, nine closings had been previously announced and three locations have already shut down. But the retail giant revealed the locations of the remaining 59 stores, which will be shuttered by the middle of this year and affect 3,900 employees, some of whom may be offered jobs at other locations.

Macy's identifies 68 stores that will close

The locations span the country, from Florida to Oregon.

Some of the stores are relatively new to the chain. The Macy's store in the Eastland center in Columbus, Ohio, opened in 2006, and has 73 employees. Some, however, are historic or have been around for decades. Macy's said it will shutter its store in downtown Minneapolis opened in 1902, where it has 280 employees. [MORE]

Like Roaches or Thieves in the Night, White GOP Moves Quickly to Whitelash "Obamacare"

LA Times

Congressional Republicans, evidently hoping that by repeating an untruth they’ll convince American voters, and perhaps themselves, that it’s a truth, on Wednesday said the Affordable Care Act has “failed.”

The undistilled version of this view came from House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who emerged Wednesday from a meeting with Vice President-elect Mike Pence to assert: “This law has failed. Americans are struggling. The law is failing while we speak. … Things are only getting worse under Obamacare. … The healthcare system has been ruined — dismantled — under Obamacare.”

Every one of those statements is demonstrably untrue. How do we know this? We know because every measure of healthcare spending, access and cost has improved since the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Timothy McBride of Washington University in St. Louis has done the heavy lifting of pulling together the relevant charts and graphs, and posting them online in a series of 12 tweets compiled on Storify. We’ve culled some of the most important, and present them here.

We should add, first, that Ryan also pledged, once the GOP repeals the law, to “make sure that there is a stable transition to a truly patient-centered system. We want every American to have access to quality, affordable health coverage”

This is nothing but fatuous gobbledygook. The GOP has had six years to come up with an alternative plan, and never has done so. Its current strategy is to repeal the Affordable Care Act now, and then cook up a replacement sometime in the next two, three, even four years. (They can’t even agree on a time frame.) What exactly is a “patient-centered system,” anyway?

Here are the charts, courtesy of professor McBride.  

NAACP President Arrested During Sit-In at Office of Racist Suspect Jeff Sessions

Ny Times

Protesters from the N.A.A.C.P., including its national president, were arrested on Tuesday after an hourslong sit-in at the Mobile, Ala., office of Senator Jeff Sessions, where they demanded that he withdraw his name from consideration as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s attorney general.

Almost two dozen civil rights activists occupied the office around 11 a.m. to denounce what they called the senator’s “hostile” attitude toward civil rights and the Voting Rights Act, which was weakened by a Supreme Court decision in 2013.

The sit-in ended shortly after 6:30 p.m. when the protesters refused an order from the building’s management to leave the premises. It was not immediately clear how many people had been arrested, but a live-stream broadcast on Facebook by Lee Hedgepeth, a local journalist, showed at least six people agreeing to be arrested and kneeling before the police in prayer.

“We are about to be arrested,” said Cornell William Brooks, the national president of the N.A.A.C.P., cutting short a phone call with a reporter on Tuesday night. “We are doing this as an act of civil disobedience standing in the tradition of Rosa Parks and members of the N.A.A.C.P. community.”

On the Facebook livestream, Mr. Brooks could be seen shaking hands with a line of police officers standing in Mr. Sessions’s office.

“We are all well aware of the laws of trespass,” Mr. Brooks told the police. “We are engaging in a voluntary act of civil disobedience.”

A phone call to Bernard Simelton, the president of the Alabama N.A.A.C.P. State Conference, was answered by a man who did not identify himself but said that Mr. Simelton was being arrested as well.

“They’re doing it at this moment,” the man said, before quickly hanging up. “You’re going to have to call back.”

Earlier in the day, Mr. Brooks pointed to a rise in voter suppression tactics and the continuing debate over police killings of unarmed civilians, primarily African-Americans, and denounced Mr. Sessions as “the worst possible nominee for attorney general at the worst possible moment.”

“If we understand depth of commitment to be a requirement for the job of attorney general, then he is not qualified for the job, because he has demonstrated no depth of commitment when it comes to civil rights,” Mr. Brooks said. [MORE]

Kamala Harris sworn in as California's first African-American U.S. Senator

CBS

Kamala Harris was sworn in as California's newest U.S. senator on Tuesday, becoming the first African-American senator in the state's history.

Harris, who was the state's attorney general, is the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica. In addition to becoming California's first African-American senator, she is also the first Indian-American and the second African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate.

On November 8, 2016, she defeated Loretta Sanchez in the 2016 U.S. Senate election to replace outgoing Democratic senator Barbara Boxer, becoming the second black woman and first Indian American elected to serve in the United States Senate. 

Harris was among seven new members of the Senate who joined those who won re-election in receiving the oath of office from Vice President Joe Biden Tuesday afternoon.

Each senator was joined at the dais by current and former senators. They then took their new desks and chatted with fellow lawmakers.

There are two new Republican senators and five Democrats. The Republicans are Indiana Sen. Todd Young and Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy. The Democrats are Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Harris.

Without Notice or Public Input, House Republicans Vote to Dismantle Ethics Oversight Office

Pressure Mounts in Baltimore to Complete Police Consent Decree Before Trump Takes Office

U.N. Says Unlawful Israeli Apartheid Settlements are Unlawful; White GOP Puppeticians Move to Condemn UN

From [HERE] Israeli officials are vowing to build thousands of new settlement homes on occupied Palestinian land, in defiance of a United Nations resolution passed Friday condemning such construction as a "flagrant violation under international law." The Security Council vote was 14-0. The United States abstained, denying a veto sought by Israel and President-elect Donald Trump. It is the first resolution the Security Council has adopted on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years. In the video above, Yousef Munayyer, executive director of US Campaign for Palestinian Rights talks on Democracy Now. 

Congressional Republicans are moving swiftly to denounce the United Nations Security Council’ recent action toward Israel, with GOP lawmakers in both chambers preparing to introduce disapproval resolutions aimed at the United Nations as soon as the new Congress convenes.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), will introduce a “sense of the Senate” resolution next week disapproving of the Security Council's condemnation of Israeli settlement-building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. The resolution is intended to be a companion to the expected House action against the U.N. and could place both chambers at odds with the international body as Congress returns next month.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he had no announcement on whether the chamber would vote on Moran’s resolution or another one like it. Several aides in both parties say there are bipartisan discussions about the Senate censuring the U.N. given the outrage over last week’s Israel vote.

The Senate is expected to quickly proceed to a budget resolution next week, which would give senators the ability to offer unlimited nonbinding amendments at a majority threshold and is often used as a platform for votes on extraneous issues. If a disapproval resolution were introduced and voted upon separately, it could require 60 votes if a senator filibusters it, tying up the Senate floor. [MORE]

Private prison company made illegal contributions to Trump super PAC

NewJersey Today

The Campaign Legal Center filed a letter with the Federal Election Commission providing evidence that private prison company GEO Group illegally contributed a total of $225,000 to the Donald Trump-affiliated super PAC Rebuilding America Now, in violation of the 75-year-old ban on government contractors making political contributions.

“By contributing to a super PAC closely associated with Trump—the only presidential nominee to endorse private prisons—GEO presumably sought to influence the government contracting process and to ensure that a Trump administration would protect its access to taxpayer dollars,” said Brendan Fischer, associate counsel for the Campaign Legal Center.

“Government contracting is the most obvious way for a politician to reward friends and political donors, which is why companies that receive contracts have been banned for 75 years from making political contributions. Officials are supposed to decide how taxpayer money is spent based on what’s best for the public, not based on what’s best for their big money backers.”

The filing is a follow-up letter to CLC’s original complaint filed on Nov. 1, 2016 after GEO gave  $100,000 to Rebuilding America Now the day after the Obama Administration announced it would be ending private prison government contracts. GEO receives 45 percent of its annual revenue from federal contracts, and its stock soared the day after Trump’s election.

The filing describes how the GEO subsidiary that made the $225,000 in contributions, GEO Corrections Holdings, Inc., is listed as the “employer” in multiple labor relations cases involving federally-contracted detention facilities, and has stated in state and federal proceedings that it operates detention facilities. Additionally, both GEO Group and GEO Corrections Holdings, Inc. are effectively indistinguishable and both appear to rely on taxpayer funds for their operations.

The company also contributed $200,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC associated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and last year gave $100,000 to super PAC supporting Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential bid.

CLC filed a similar complaint in July against a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton, Priorities USA Action, for accepting a $200,000 contribution from a federal contractor, Suffolk Construction Company.

CLC more recently filed complaints with the FEC against both the Trump and Clinton campaigns for coordinating with their super PACs in violation of federal law.

Devil Trump says ‘no computer is safe’ when it comes to privacy

NPR

President-elect Donald Trump says that “no computer is safe” when it comes to keeping information private, expressing new skepticism about the security of online communications his administration is likely to use for everything from day-to-day planning to international relations.

Trump rarely uses email or computers despite his frequent tweeting - which is done by staffers. 

“You know, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way. Because I’ll tell you what: No computer is safe,” Trump told reporters during his annual New Year’s Eve bash. “I don’t care what they say.”

Trump has repeatedly cast aside allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia tried to influence the presidential election through hacking. President Barack Obama earlier this week ordered sanctions on Russian spy agencies, closed two Russian compounds and expelled 35 diplomats the U.S. said were really spies. The Russian government has denied the allegations.

Trump, who has said that he plans to meet with intelligence officials next to week to learn more about the allegations, said he wants U.S. officials “to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge.” He pointed to intelligence failures over the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the U.S. invasion, and declared himself an expert in the area.

“I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove, so it could be somebody else,” he said.

He added, cryptically, that he also knows “things that other people don’t know. And so they cannot be sure of the situation.”

Trump made the comments during his annual New Year’s Eve bash at his Mar-a-Lago club. Hundreds of guests gathered in the club’s grand ballroom, including action star Sylvester Stallone and romance novel model Fabio. Reporters were invited to watch as guests arrived.

Earlier in the day, Trump ditched his press pool, traveling to play golf at one of his clubs without a pool of journalists on hand to ensure the public has knowledge of his whereabouts.

Hollywood Sign Changed to HollyWeed

Gates Foundation to Invest Up to $140 Million in HIV Prevention Device

Wall Street Journal and FoxNews

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is investing as much as $140 million to support development of a tiny implantable drug pump it believes could help prevent people in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere from becoming infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. [MORE]