Category: History

The Innocence Project in New York says DNA alone has freed 289 prisoners since 1989.

By David G. Savage / LA Times / May 21, 2012

WASHINGTON — More than 2,000 people have been freed from prison since 1989 after they were found to have been wrongly convicted of serious crimes, according to a new National Registry of Exonerations compiled by University of Michigan Law School and Northwestern University.

Its sponsors say it is by far the largest database of such cases, and they hope it will help reveal why the criminal justice system sometimes misfires, prosecuting and convicting the innocent.

“The more we learn about false convictions, the better we’ll be at preventing them,” said Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor.

This weekend is the crazy weekend for Chicago. NATO is meeting about Afghanistan, protests are happening, nurses storm the streets demanding taxes on the rich wearing Robin Hood masks on, Iraq and Afganistan veterans are throwing away their medals in protest of the wars – and now, an attempt to trump it all, we have “terrorism” charges against some activists which are being met with swift denials and charges of “set up”.

President Obama had a sleep-over for world leaders at Camp David, getting ready for a G8 meeting on Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars plan on leading a march of thousands on Sunday, May 21, alongside Vietnam veterans, and will be presenting their medals to NATO officials during. This anti-war march will proceed through Chicago’s downtown area to the convention center where NATO is holding its summit.

And of course, inside the summit will be President Obama and other world leaders. The City of Chicago is bracing for major protests. Organizers are hoping the rally, which caps a week-long series of anti-NATO actions, will draw thousands. The Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam veterans will hold a reconciliation

By Barbara Ehrenreich / TomDispatch / May 17, 2012

Individually the poor are not too tempting to thieves, for obvious reasons. Mug a banker and you might score a wallet containing a month’s rent. Mug a janitor and you will be lucky to get away with bus fare to flee the crime scene. But as Business Week helpfully pointed out in 2007, the poor in aggregate provide a juicy target for anyone depraved enough to make a business of stealing from them.

The trick is to rob them in ways that are systematic, impersonal, and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators. Employers, for example, can simply program their computers to shave a few dollars off each paycheck, or they can require workers to show up 30 minutes or more before the time clock starts ticking.

On Friday, May 18th – the Ocean Beach Historical Society presents their annual show, OB Exposed! It will be held at the Masonic Center – at 1711 Sunset Cliffs Blvd, from 6 to 8:30 pm.

Here are some reasons that the OB Historical Society says are great reasons to attend:

• We have some incredible photo entries in this years OB Exposed!

• We also have several additions to the show: A series of 8″x 10″ photos from 1911-1912 of the restored historic home on the corner of Del Mar Ave. and Cable (Hundred year anniversary of the home being built). The photos show the six week period the house was built in.

• We will be showing the film of the recent “Respect OB ” Event.

• The Green Store has lent us their picture boards of 23 years of photos.

By Bill of Rights Defense Committee

Last New Year’s Eve, while most Americans were out celebrating, President Obama signed into law the most potentially oppressive national security legislation considered in our country since the onset of the war on terror more than 10 years ago. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA) includes military detention provisions that, along with the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), could enable any future president to suspend the right to trial and detain Americans indefinitely in military custody without trial.

If you thought the PATRIOT Act was bad, the NDAA is even worse. It could be used to criminalize any political party or ideology, round up ethnic minorities, enable recurring torture in military custody, or suspend the right to trial for people the government wants to detain (for whatever reason) without having to establish proof of any crime.

By John Lawrence / Will Blog for Food / May 12, 2012

In this article we explore how the price of gas at the pump is determined. This is an opaque subject which has been heaped in layers of obfuscation because the oil companies don’t want you to know what a huge scam they are perpetrating on the American public systematically ripping them off at the gas tank. They want you to think that gas prices are set by immutable, impersonal factors like the “world oil market” over which we have no control nor ever could we.

When the oil company executives went before a Congressional hearing in May 2011 as gas prices hit $4.00 a gallon, Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, was asked “how are oil prices set?” He responded that they were based on the marginal cost of producing the next barrel of oil. Nothing could be further from the reality of the situation although it would be a worthy aspirational ideal, something to shoot for in a more perfect world.

Editor: This piece by Noam Chomsky demonstrates that he and the OB Rag are on the same page. Our blogger JEC was literally sailing by Cartagena during the summit, and was one of the first American bloggers to report what really happened.

“At the Cartagena summit, the drug war became a key issue at the initiative of newly-elected Guatemalan President Gen. Perez Molina, whom no one would mistake for a soft-hearted liberal.”

By Noam Chomsky / Nation of Change / May 8, 2012

Though sidelined by the Secret Service scandal, last month’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, was an event of considerable significance. There are three major reasons: Cuba, the drug war, and the isolation of the United States.

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner / May 10, 2012

Suppose a pollster called you on the phone and asked your opinion about whether a “strong mayor” form of government is a better deal for San Diego than a “city manager” system? Would your answer be: uh…well…hmmm…??

Okay, let’s admit it — most of us don’t pay that much attention to City Hall. And for sure, most of us don’t have a clue about how the switch to a “strong mayor” government (which we voters agreed to seven years ago) has affected daily life in San Diego.

Given that our first strong mayor will soon be replaced by our city’s second strong mayor (Bob Filner? Bonnie Dumanis? Nathan Fletcher? Carl DeMaio?) a few clues about how city government has been faring these last few years might prove helpful when choosing our next mayor. A quick reminder of how we got

These words are in memory
of a dear friend whom I met in 1975
through my soul mate Nancy
who also is no longer alive
although they both will
exist forever, in my inner being, spirit wise.
And as it is with life,
I could have never known
back then
that this new friend,
Charlie McKain, Lucky,
would represent the kind of
human progress
in which he has been
involved in
(my mother, by the way,
is turning in her grave
with that ordering of words
as she was the queen of the preposition) –

Local media has covered the construction of the replica of the galleon Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo used when he sailed into San Diego Bay back in 1542. The San Diego Maritime Museum – in conjunction with the City and Port of San Diego – are sponsoring the building of the boat modeled after the San Salvador, itself built 500 years ago on the shores of Mexico, over at Spanish Landing. Begun in February 2011, the ship is now a quarter completed – with the plan to have it finished by November 2013.

One of the big threads in the story of this ship being built is how it’s being built. Not only are ten different kinds of wood being used – hauled in from Africa and South America, and other places – , and not only are the workers using the same technology – outside of the power tools, but the new San Salvator is being built mainly by San Diego volunteers. This is the big story here.

Editor: This is a talk that Noam Chomsky gave recently, and is an excerpt out of his latest book. Also, please check out the TomDispatch introduction to Chomsky’s article, with many great links.

By Noam Chomsky / TomDispatch / May 8, 2012

The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained through a long, dark period ahead – because victory won’t come quickly – it could prove a significant moment in American history.

By John Nichols / The Nation / May 8, 2012

The Wisconsin uprising against Governor Scott Walker’s assaults on union rights, public education and public services spawned a recall movement that has forced Walker and his political allies to face new elections. And the first of these takes place today, with Democratic and Republican primaries for governor, lieutenant governor and four state Senate seats.

So what should we watch for today?

Turnout

Very sunny, mild day in Wisconsin—great for voting.

But Wisconsin has never held a primary in May.

The Wisconsin recall elections are unprecedented, not just for the Badger State but for the nation. Never before has a single state had citizen-initiated elections on the same day that could shift control of the executive branch and the dominant chamber in the state legislature.