Category: Featured

Stop the F-35 Coalition, a local group which has mobilized to persuade the Air Force not to base the next generation fighter/bomber at Burlington International Airport, took their campaign Wednesday to the Burlington office of senior U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy.
They were demanding he hold a public hearing on the basing question.
Leahy supports the basing of the plane at the airport.
As about 100 coalition supporters rallied outside, a smaller group visited the office to ask Leahy to convene a public hearing on the issue — so he “can hear from and respond to constituents regarding the F-35,” the group said in a prepared statement.
They were met by Leahy staffer John Tracy, who kept them in Leahy’s tiny waiting room, with a locked door and a bullet-proof window between them and the suite of offices.
Tracy told the group he would relay their concerns to Leahy. He refused to try to get Leahy on the phone, and he deflected their demands for a public hearing by saying the F-35A basing has already been discussed in public meetings.
The protest group included UVM Social Work professor Laurie Larson, who after leaving the anteroom described the meeting as “sad.”
“Basically,” she said of Tracy’s comments to the group, “he’s saying the Air Force makes the decision and (Leahy) is impotent to do anything about it.”
She said she feels Leahy’s seniority in the Senate would carry weight. . “He has a lot of cachet in D.C.,” she said, “and I think he could influence if the basing happens here.”
Responding to Tracy’s insistence that Leahy was working on the impending “fiscal cliff” national finance issues, she said, “The F-35 is the fiscal cliff. That’s the trade we’re making.”
The coalition said in written comments that Leahy’s support for the basing facilitates the need for “thousands of homes” to be added to the sound zone near the airport that the Federal Aviation Administration’s standards define as “unsuitable” for habitation.
The Stop the F-35 group is asking Leahy to add his voice to the opposition “in view of the devastating effects” the F-35 would bring to South Burlington, Winooski, Williston and parts of Burlington.
Leahy has not met with the South Burlington City Council, which voted in opposition to the basing, the coalition said, nor has he met with council Chairwoman Rosanne Greco, a retired Air Force colonel who has studied the Air Force’s environmental study on the basing, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. That report was issued last spring and its final version is now in preparation. It documented that the F-35A would result in increased aircraft noise and would affect additional thousands of individuals in surrounding communities.
The group said prior to the rally that it intended a peaceful protest and was not intending conduct that would lead to arrest to dramatize its views.
No police officers were present at the protest.
Nicole Citro, the South Burlington founder of Green Ribbons for the F-35, which supports the basing, said that from her perspective proponents for the basing outnumber opponents by “100 to 1.”
Citro said that as she has distributed “thousands” of green ribbons and spoken to many people about the plane, she has heard repeatedly “they are frustrated the vocal minority (opposing the plane) have been given so much attention.”
“The audacity and sense of entitlement these protesters display is astounding,” she said in a message to the Free Press. “I guess they are just ignoring that fact that a majority of this community have already voiced their support for these planes.”
She said that opponents have discounted petitions for the plane circulated by support groups which gathered close to 11,000 signatures because many signers don’t live near the airport. “The last time I checked,” she wrote, “it is the Vermont Air National Guard not the Chittenden County Air National Guard. We say ‘I am Vermont Strong’ it is because when something happens to one of us, it happens to all of us. We all sleep under the blanket of protection the Guard provides and all of us will be affected, economically and otherwise, if the base closes.”
In a statement released late in the afternoon, Leahy didn’t acknowledge that protesters had gone to his office. He said that eight “public meetings and forums” on the F-35A have taken place this year in Chittenden County, and he said he and others in the congressional delegation have “facilitated communication” of Vermonters with the Air Force. He said he has also responded to questions about the basing.
He added: “Protecting the American people is the reason we have a fleet of fighter jets, as we saw on and after 9/11, when Vermont-based F-16s defended the airspace over New York and Washington, Burlington,” he continued, “is ideally situated for training and is just a short flight to the Atlantic Ocean for supersonic training, and these operational considerations are a key to the Air Force’s choice.”

From FoodFreedomUSA:

Do you feel and think that governments have the right to deprive us of our Constitutional right to grow, have and eat healthy food? Do you agree that they can force you and me to eat toxically-produced pseudo food that will eventually collect in our bodies and cause disease in most of us?

We at Right To Choose Healthy Food work hard to preserve our Constitutional rights to healthy food. We do what we can to stop government actors including politicians and judges in the pockets of big agriculture and the processed-food industries from eliminating family farmers.

Wisconsin State government charged him with producing and selling milk without license and permits. However, only owners of the of the farm consume the food produced for them by the Hershberger family. The food is stringently and safely produced just as the owners want their food produced for themselves.
Governments have no business in this family-neighborhood farm where no food is distributed to the public.

The foods the farm produced have never harmed anyone and there is no scientific evidence that proves it could harm anyone. The State is acting like mafia saying, “Do things our way, pay us for allowing you to feed yourselves, but still in a few years, we will bankrupt you and close your farm.”

The families who own the Hershberger family farm are independent, caring for themselves. They have harmed no one, there are no victims, no crime. They act to protect themselves because governments are not protecting the food supply. In fact, they aid and abet the poisoning of our food supply.

Many of the farm-owners became farm-owners because processed industrial foods made them or their children very ill. Now that they have delicious health-promoting raw milk and other healthy-grown foods,they are no longer ill. There is no better science than that evidence.

Please join the members of Right To Choose Healthy Food in defeating government actors, including judges, from depriving us of our Constitutional rights to grow, have and eat healthy foods with our informed and intelligent choices.

Support the Hershbergers, you and your family’s rights to healthy food by coming to the trial at Baraboo Courthouse, Sauk County, Wisconsin the week of January 7, 2013. It is a jury trial in which the judge is a referee and not judge of the case. People like you and I on the jury will judge the case. No matter what the law codes state, jurors have the right to nullify bad laws. It is a right in our Constitution. It is time to take our government powers back and out of the grips of power- and money-hungry corporate and government stooges behaving like mild-mannered mafia-criminals.
Additionally, you can support this food-rights movement by donating to
Right To Choose Healthy Food (RawMilk.org) and/or Farmer To Consumer Legal Defense Fund. Thank you for your common sense and intelligence that will allow us to regain our rights to be healthy.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Yale Law School’s Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic today filed a petition against the United States with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR) for the unlawful detention and torture of José Padilla, a U.S. citizen, whom the United States detained and interrogated for four years.

The petition was filed by Padilla’s mother, Estela Lebron, on her own and on her son’s behalf. Padilla and Lebron had previously filed federal lawsuits – since dismissed – against current and former government officials for their roles in Padilla’s torture and other abuse.

The petition is an international complaint asking the IACHR, which is an independent human rights body of the Organization of American States, to conduct a full investigation into the human rights violations suffered by Padilla; to find that his mistreatment violated the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man; and to recommend that the United States publicly acknowledge the violations and apologize for its unlawful conduct.

“The U.S. justice system denied a day in court to a U.S. citizen who was arrested and then tortured on U.S. soil by his own government,” said Steven Watt, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. “The U.S. has historically been a leader in ensuring access to justice for human rights violations around the world, but it has effectively closed the courtroom door to all victims and survivors of the Bush administration’s torture regime. Denied redress in U.S. courts, torture survivors like Padilla are now left with no choice but to turn to international justice.”

In 2002, President Bush declared Padilla an “enemy combatant” and ordered him to be placed in military custody. U.S. officials seized Padilla from a civilian jail in New York and secretly transported him to the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., where they held him for 43 months without charge. Interrogators subjected Padilla to torture and other egregious forms of abuse, including forcing him into stress positions for hours on end, punching him, depriving him of sleep and threatening him with further torture, “extraordinary rendition” and death.

“For more than a decade, Estela Lebron has lived with the terrible knowledge that her own government tortured her son, but there has never been any official acknowledgement, let alone an apology,” said Alaina Varvaloucas, a student with Yale’s Lowenstein Clinic who worked on preparing the petition. “The pain and indignity of that betrayal continue to this day.”

For the first 21 months of his captivity, Padilla was held incommunicado, without access to lawyers and his family.

“No human being deserves what happened to our family, and I will continue to work for my son and for justice as long as I’m breathing. As a mother, I want to be sure this never happens to anyone else,” said Lebron. “This petition may be my last chance.”

Today’s petition filed with the IACHR is available at:
www.aclu.org/files/assets/iachr_padilla_petition.pdf
Information on the dismissed federal lawsuit against U.S. officials is available at:
www.aclu.org/national-security/padilla-v-rumsfeld

Source: ACLU Press Release
CONTACT:
Josh Bell, (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

From ABC’s WCVB:

A local family says a language barrier may have resulted in police using a Taser on a woman after she tried to buy too many iPhones at a local mall. Police, however, say the incident isn’t that clear cut.

Xiaojie Li, of Newton, said she is embarrassed by Monday’s Pheasant Lane Mall in New Hampshire incident.

“So my mom says she don’t know why they called the police, because she doesn’t understand what they are talking about,” her 12-year-old daughter Jiao Jay said.

Jay said her mother bought two iPhones last Friday, and was told that was the limit. When she took video of others she claimed were buying more, the store manager asked her to leave.

The confrontation involving the Taser happened when Li went to the store on Monday to pick up two iPhones she ordered online.

“The management of the store asked us to have her removed. The officer approached her, told her she wasn’t welcome in the store, and she refused to leave,” Nashua Police Capt. Bruce Hansen said.

Police say the store had issued a stay-away order against Li.

“Two days prior to that, she had been asked to leave the store by store personnel for doing something that they didn’t want,” Hansen said, referring to Li’s photographing other customers in the store.

A video posted on YouTube shows Li and police officers on the floor outside the Apple store at the Nashua mall. The crackle of the Taser and Li’s screams can be heard on the video.

“She was scared, she didn’t understand,” said John Hugo, who said he was Li’s fiance’. “I was outraged. You go into a store, and you end up getting brutalized by the police.”

From FoxNews.com:

A Fox News contributor was punched in the face during a pro-union protest Tuesday in Michigan, one of a series of confrontations between union demonstrators and opponents on the day the state Legislature approved so-called “right to work” legislation that unions oppose.

Steven Crowder, a conservative comedian and Fox News contributor, had spent the day questioning demonstrators, and video he posted on YouTube showed some of them becoming verbally aggressive, with one telling him, “get the f— out of my face!”

Another protester can be seen later in the video punching Crowder in the face before being restrained by another man.

Crowder later posted photos on his Twitter account showing a chipped tooth and “minor cut on forehead.” He told the website TheBlaze.com that the scuffle started when protesters tried to tear down a tent set up by conservative organization Americans for Prosperity.

“They were trying to tear down the tent and people were trying to pull them off. … And as they did that, a few people tripped,” he told the website. “This guy tripped over a tent peg and then got up and hit me.”

The Lansing Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a spokesperson said police would have further information on the incident some time Tuesday night.

Gov. Rick Snyder signed the legislation Tuesday evening after the state House gave final approval of the bills, which bar unions from collecting mandatory fees from workers they represent under collective bargaining agreements.

Earlier Tuesday, two people were arrested after trying to get into a Michigan state building where Snyder has an office.

By evening, dozens of state troopers in riot gear swept protesters away from the building. State police accompanied by sheriff’s deputies on horses moved shoulder-to-shoulder to clear the area across the street from the Capitol. Some people who refused to move were physically picked up.

The new laws deliver a blow to the labor movement in the heart of the U.S. auto industry. One bill dealt with public sector workers, the other with government employees. Both measures cleared the Senate last week.

“There will be blood, there will be repercussions,” state Democratic Rep. Douglas Geiss, speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, warned ahead of the votes.

Earlier in the day, two state school districts closed after hundreds of teachers called out, presumably to join the protests.

FoxNews.com confirmed that the Warren school district had to close Tuesday after so many teachers called out absent; WDIV in Detroit reported that the Taylor school district had to do the same. A statement from the Warren system said that by 8 a.m. local time, 750 staff members had called out.

Fox News’ Mike Tobin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This is why I love video cameras. Because they make situations transparent. They create an objective record of what exactly is happening. Is this kid a provocative deuchebag? You could say that. But are the cops infringing on his rights? Absolutely. And without an objective record, these cops would lie about the incident and follow through with their plans to “get this kid kicked out.” It’s a good thing this kid not only knew his rights but recorded the interaction when calling the police’s bluff. I bet they’ll think twice before raiding their next college dorm!