Category: California

By Los Angeles Times – Editorial / July 20, 2011

Conditions in California prisons are so bad that a panel of federal judges ruled that they violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, but until recently the ensuing protests came mainly from lawyers rather than the inmates themselves. That changed on July 1, when thousands of inmates at one-third of the state’s prisons started a hunger strike.

by Marjorie Cohn / CommonDreams .org / July 19, 2011

The torture of prisoners in U.S. custody isn’t confined to foreign countries. For more than two weeks, inmates at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison have been on a hunger strike to protest torturous conditions in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) there. Prisoners have been held for years in solitary confinement, which can amount to torture. Thousands of inmates throughout California’s prison system have refused food in solidarity with the Pelican Bay prisoners, bringing the total of hunger strikers to more than 1,700.

On Friday, July 15th, leaders of the Pelican Bay hunger strike unanimously rejected a proposal from the California Department of Corrections and Rehab (CDCR) to end the strike. In response to the prisoners’ five, straightforward demands, the CDCR distributed a vaguely worded document stating that it would “effect a comprehensive assessment of its existing policy and procedure” about the secure housing units (SHUs). The document gave no indication if any changes would be made at all.

Religious Coalition Says California’s Use of Prolonged Solitary Confinement is Tantamount to Torture

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In response to the ongoing hunger strike by inmates incarcerated in multiple California prisons, Rev. Richard Killmer, Executive Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, released the following statement:

“Hunger strikes are the last resort of prisoners protesting inhumane confinement conditions….”

by Cesar Diaz /California Federation of Labor / July 14, 2011

According to a recent report, Sempra Energy’s plan to offshore green energy production to Mexico would result in as many as 15,000 lost U.S. jobs and nearly $300 million in lost local, state and federal tax revenue. 90% of the direct job losses would occur in Imperial County, which had the highest unemployment rate in the nation as of April 2011 at 27.9%

Today, hundreds of inmates in five California state prisons ended the second week of a hunger strike to protest living conditions, in what has become the largest coordinated protest by state inmates.

And the State of California continues its “disinformation campaign” about the hunger strike which began July 1, by declaring that the strike was “probably synchronized … through organized criminal networks.”

By Leo E. Laurence, J.D. / NUG Magazine / July 12, 2011

When you carry a badge, you learn to smell trouble; you can sense it sometimes. Some believe the struggle for medical marijuana dispensaries in Southern California is in serious trouble.

“We’ve got a lot of trouble coming,” stressed Ken Cole, an outspoken former Australian basketball coach who played on two Olympic teams. He owns the elegant One-on-One dispensary at 923 Sixth Avenue in the Gaslamp Quarter. He totally restored the 1865 interior of the one-time bar, including the antique beer spigots behind the wide, New York style bar.

With all the precincts counted, L.A. Councilwoman Janice Hahn has defeated Republican Craig Huey by 9 points in the special election to replace Rep. Jane Harman. Despite the Tea Party energy — and all the lawn signs — in support of Huey, he was unable to overcome the huge Democratic advantage in the 36th Congressional District.

Editor: A former SDSU running back who played for the Bengals was shot and killed over the weekend by Kern County Sheriff deputies during an suspicious altercation that raises a number of questions.

David “Deacon” Turner was a star running back at Shafter High School, Bakersfield College and the San Diego State University before he played three seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals from 1978 to 1980.

What began as a hunger strike among inmates of the isolation wing of California’s Pelican Bay prison has turned into a statewide display of solidarity. A number of prisoners in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit, California’s highest-security complex, refused their state-provided morning meal on Friday to protest the inhumane conditions of their confinement. Inmates in the Security Housing Unit spend 23 hours per day in soundproofed, windowless cells. Their daily hour of exercise is walking around a small, walled space. The intent is to keep prison-gang members and those considered dangerous to others separated from fellow inmates.

By Gail Pérez / La Prensa San Diego

In 1970 when the Chicano community took over the land under the Coronado Bridge and demanded that a long-promised park finally be constructed in the Logan Heights neighborhood, park activist José Gómez announced to the world that anyone attempting to take the land from the community would have to “wade through our blood.”

Progress towards a new labor contract between unions and three Southern California supermarket chains is moving at a glacial pace, but the rhetoric is heating up over the main sticking point – health care.

A Vons grocery chain spokesman on Tuesday characterized the unions’ health care benefit proposal as “unrealistic,” while a San Diego union leader said the grocery stores’ claim that half of the union workers don’t contribute to their health benefit package is “a blatant lie.”