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Scuba's JournalStatement from National Lawyer Guild on recent Wisconsin Capitol Police brutality, racial profiling
What follows is a statement from the National Lawyers Guild, Madison, Wisconsin Chapter:
August 28, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
National Lawyers Guild Madison Chapter
Contact Patricia K. Hammel 608-279-4136
Attorneys Representing Capitol Dissidents Deplore Capitol Police Brutality and Racial Profiling
Two well publicized arrests of African Americans at the Solidarity Sing Along August 26 in the Wisconsin State Capitol showed Capitol Police officers using excessive force and pain compliance techniques. Christopher (C.J.) Terrell’s arms were wrenched behind him and police applied to pressure to the front and side of his neck to immobilize him, after he sat down during his arrest, then he was dragged out with arms pinned behind him. Six officers tackled Damon Terrell, pinned him to the marble rotunda floor, twisted his wrist, and carried him out in a prone position face down; he was later charged with felony assault of an officer although he appears to be the victim. On August 21 a young woman was arrested using pain compliance as well.
Attorney Jeff Scott Olson, who represents some of the cited activists, said, “Efforts to seek injunctive relief in court against these unlawful police tactics have been contemplated for some time, but have been on the back burner awaiting developments on other fronts. It’s pretty clear we have to put them on the front burner now, before someone gets seriously hurt.”
Observers have noted that the only disturbance or threat to the public safety at the daily Sing Along occurs when Capitol Police emerge to arrest participants. Many participants and spectators were shocked by the degree of physical force used by four to six officers against the Terrells Tuesday and Emily Hoppe last Wednesday. All have been present at recent noontime Sing Alongs along with renewed attendance by union members, teachers, police and fire fighters.
According to attorneys who represent many of the more than 140 people arrested since July 24, the defendants have generally been polite and cooperative, and use of handcuffs and physical force has been far out of proportion to what police need to issue a civil forfeiture ticket. Most people arrested have been charged with participating in an “unlawful assembly” under the Wisconsin Administrative Code, which is not a crime and carries a maximum fine of $500.00. However an increasingly younger and more diverse crowd has turned up the volume and energy of the two and a half year old singing event in response to the July and August “crackdown.”
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was taped during a fake phone call from “David Koch” in February 2011considering planting provocateurs to instigate violence to discredit opponents during the protests that gave rise to the Sing Along. Activists now speculate that the Capitol Police use of force in arrests may be a deliberate attempt to provoke a violent reaction for a public disturbed by the sight of mass arrests for peaceful protests.
Wisconsin: Planned Parenthood fights back against Mike Ellis and his Republican cronies
Planned Parenthood Press Release
Today, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin launched the first phase of an ad campaign highlighting Senate President Mike Ellis and his abysmal record on restricting access to women’s health care. The ad features the public debate in the State Senate earlier this summer around a bill (SB 206) that was quickly passed to restrict women’s access to safe and legal abortion. The ad campaign comes on the heels of a successful rally earlier this week that gathered hundreds of people from across the state to call on their legislative leaders to stop the attack on women’s health and rights. The media campaign targets the Senate President Mike Ellis because he has used his power to shut down debate and facilitate the quick passage of an unprecedented number of bills that restrict women’s healthcare access and rights. Since the start of his reign as Senate President, Senator Ellis has facilitated the passage of many bills that include:
2011 Act 32: State Budget that ended funding at Planned Parenthood for patients receiving cancer screenings, wellness exams and birth control resulting in the closure of four rural Health Centers,
2013 Act 20: State Budget which cut thousands of hardworking Wisconsin citizens from Badgercare,
2011 Act 219: which repealed equal pay protections for women
2011 Act 216: which repealed medically accurate age appropriate sex education guidelines for our youth to reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy and the spread of STD’s
2013 Act 37: to restrict women’s access to safe and legal abortion by adding unnecessary regulations for doctors providing abortion and additional requirements for women seeking this medical care.
“Senate President Ellis has shown himself to be a career politician who doesn’t listen to his constituents and consistently votes against women’s ability to access essential healthcare,” said Tanya Atkinson Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
In Wisconsin right now, women are struggling more than ever before when it comes to getting health care. Over the last three years, Governor Scott Walker and the Legislature’s Republican leadership have introduced, moved and passed over a dozen bills restricting women’s access to everything from equal pay protections, health insurance coverage, sex education and birth control to abortion. Because of these laws women’s health will suffer. Our health care costs will increase. There will be more undiagnosed cancers, sexually transmitted disease, unintended pregnancies, delayed prenatal care and yes, more abortions. Walker and the Republican majority are playing politics with women’s health and reversing decades of bipartisan progress.
“Wisconsin voters who value commonsense, quality women’s health care have voices that matter,” concluded Atkinson. “It is up to us to insist that our leaders protect our health and wellbeing and stop this assault on women’s access to health care.”
As part of this campaign Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin will be educating our supporters to make sure they are aware of the dangerous bills that have already been passed restricting women’s access to healthcare and the danger of even more policies will have on the health and safety of women, families and Wisconsin communities.
“Through this campaign we will remind community members that we can prevail in protecting women’s health and rights, but only if we remain engaged and hold our elected leaders accountable and call on them to represent our best interests as a state.”
WI Capitol Police Crackdown on Dissent: What You Wouldn’t Know From Reading Wisconsin’s Newspapers
Excellent article, detailing the still-open court case, the hard-handed tactics of Walker's henchmen and the misleading and flawed-by-omission reporting of the State's major propaganda outlets, e.g., newspapers.
http://wcmcoop.com/2013/08/28/wi-capitol-police-crackdown-on-dissent-what-you-wouldnt-know-from-reading-wisconsins-newspapers/
This characterization of the preliminary injunction is misleading on three fronts:
One – they do not acknowledge that the case is still open and the legality of the permitting process is still under question.
Two – the sentence suggests that the judge somehow condoned the DOA’s decision to enforce the permitting policy by declaring an unlawful assembly and arresting participants and observers.
And three – the DOA and Capitol Police were free to enforce their permitting policy before the judge’s ruling, they made a choice to start enforcing the policy by declaring an unlawful assembly and the court did not mandate arresting and citing participants.
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Wisconsin: Guv Walker's Newest Bizarre Scheme to Stop Singers
Recommend reading the entire article. It's a nice quick summary of how we got to this point, plus an update on Damon Terrell, who was arrested this week in a violent takedown by the police.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/29/1234774/-Wisconsin-Guv-Walker-s-Newest-Bizarre-Scheme-to-Stop-Singers?detail=facebook#
Scott Walker has hit a laughable new low in his attempt to stop the Solidarity Sing Along, a singing protest/lovefest that has occurred every weekday at the Wisconsin State Capitol since March 11th, 2011. Walker’s administration is working with grinchy right-wing organizations to reserve the Wisconsin State Capitol rotunda for bogus events in a futile attempt to ruin Christmas for the Whos down in Whoville.
...
So far, the Walker administration has tried all kinds of tactics to suppress the joyous dissenters. In late 2011, they modified the Capitol Access Policy from a two page reservation form to a 25-page document that requires users to agree to all sorts of speech-chilling conditions. When singers ignored their demand to apply for a permit and sign the agreement, the Walker administration ordered its Capitol Police officers to issue hundreds of citations alleging violations of obscure sections of the Wisconsin administrative code. I received 4 of the citations last fall, including one for walking in a circle which they deemed to be disorderly conduct, and another for holding a cloth banner which they claimed was a hazardous material. Nearly all of those citations have been dismissed, and many more will be soon.
When that didn’t work, the Walker Administration declared an emergency, allowing them to temporarily modify the state administrative code and give themselves power to declare the Sing Along an “unlawful assembly.” When the singers continued to gather each day anyway, Walker ordered his palace guard to arrest singers, with handcuffs and everything, and issue them more citations. In the past few weeks they have arrested nearly 200 people, including working journalists covering the story, members of Veterans for Peace, numerous Raging Grannies wearing big hats and colorful aprons, at least two minors, school board members, firefighters, and other peaceful singers.
...
Obviously, nothing is working for the Walker administration in their attempts to kill off the peaceful and legal dissent, so now we see their latest brilliant scheme. They know the singers politely move outside when another event has been scheduled inside the building, so they have convinced their nutty allies to take out permits, denying the space to the Sing Along (and to any other group that might want to use the space.) In an attempt to “trap” the singers for public relations purposes, they don’t announce the event on their website until the day before, or sometimes not at all, hoping to cause confusion and a confrontation when people arrive for the Sing Along. Nice, huh?
Paying CEOs Top Dollar for Poor Performance
http://billmoyers.com/2013/08/28/paying-ceos-top-dollar-for-poor-performance/Consider the case of Richard Fuld, who ran Lehman Brothers from 1994 until 2008. Fuld made the list of America’s twenty-five highest-paid executives for eight years in a row, until the bank collapsed under a slew of bad investments. The Lehman bust was the largest bankruptcy in the nation’s history and a defining event in the financial crisis. For his leadership in the eight years prior to the collapse, while the firm was making bad bets and covering them up with accounting tricks, Fuld raked in more than $466 million.
“So many of the CEOs that wound up leading our economy to disaster showed up on the list [of America’s twenty-five highest-paid CEOs] both before and after the financial crisis,” said Sarah Anderson, one of the report’s authors and the director of the Global Economy Project at IPS. While the financial sector is heavily represented in the list of poorly performing, highly paid executives, women are noticeably absent. In two decades, only four broke into the top twenty-five.
More than a fifth of the highest-paid executives ran firms that either received taxpayer money or collapsed during the financial crisis. Another 14 percent of all top earners ultimately lost their jobs because they were fired, forced to retire, or their company went bankrupt. Then these CEOs walked away with severance packages averaging $47.7 million. “The average worker is very lucky to get a small severance. To see that the average ‘golden parachute’ was worth 48 million [dollars] reinforces the belief that there is no accountability here,” Anderson said.
Why I sing at the Wisconsin Capitol without a permit
No, not me (yet), but the author of this piece...
http://www.isthmus.com/daily/article.php?article=40758
Rights and permits are incompatible. The word "permit" implies permission. If you "permit" your neighbors to fish on your land, by definition you are choosing to allow them. If Native Americans have treaty rights to fish on your land it makes no sense to say you "permit" them. If they asked for your permission, they'd be admitting that they need it and therefore that they don't have a right to fish except at your discretion.
By the same token, if I applied for a permit to protest in the Capitol, I'd be admitting that a permit can be required. This means granting the state the power to decide when and if demonstrations critical of its own policies will be allowed. Permits are a needless obstacle to the exercise of our rights. As the officer who arrested me admitted, whoever takes out a permit is responsible -- and financially liable -- for everyone else's conduct. But how can anyone be responsible for the conduct of every stranger who happens to visit the Capitol during the noon hour?
...
To enforce the Constitution, I have to violate unconstitutional laws. One quirk of our legal system is that no citizen has standing in court to challenge the constitutionality of a law unless he or she is accused of breaking that law. I can't simply write a letter to the court asking them to overturn a rotten law. Only by submitting to arrest do I get my day in court. In a sense, I'm performing a law enforcement function. The Capitol Police and I are each enforcing a law and thereby breaking another. The cops enforce an ordinance and violate the Constitution; someone has to violate an ordinance to uphold the Constitution.
Fighting Bob Fest Kick-Off Event at the Barrymore Theatre 9/6 -Bernie, Hightower and others
From my email .... What a lineup!!!!
Friday, September 6, 2013 at 7:00 p.m.
FightingBob.com, The Capital Times, & The Progressive host
WORT 89.9 FM and The MIC 92.1 FM welcome
FIGHTING BOB FEST
2013 KICK-OFF EVENT
RECLAIMING OUR DEMOCRACY
Get inspired by
Sen. Bernie Sanders, Jim Hightower,
Wis. Rep. Chris Taylor, Ruth Conniff,
Ed Garvey, John Nichols,
and Gordon C. Thayer of the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribe.
and laugh along with comedian
Will Durst!
This is the place to recharge
your political batteries.
Hilarity and Solidarity!
Tickets are $10.00
On sale at Sugar Shack, Star Liquor, Mad City Music, B-Side, Frugal Muse (Northgate & Junction Rd), Strictly Discs, and barrymorelive.com
buy tickets
When Fighting Bob Fest takes place in less than two weeks, on September 7th at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Reclaiming Our Democracy in Wisconsin and the nation will be the topic we will focus on. Go to FightingBobFest.org for the current schedule. Register for Fighting Bob Fest today, and keep checking the site for updates and inspiration.
As usual, Bob Fest will kick-off on Friday night, Sept. 6th, at the Barrymore. Sen. Bernie Sanders will headline.
Doors open at 6:00 pm.
Program starts at 7:00 pm.
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