UNDERNEWS Aug 4, 2000 THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW For more than 35 years, Washington's most unofficial source Editor: Sam Smith 1312 18th St. NW #502, Washington DC 20036 202-835-0770 Fax: 835-0779 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WEB SITE: http://prorev.com ----------------------------------------------------- WORD Written laws are like spider's webs; they catch, it is true, the weak and the poor, but would be torn to pieces by the rich and powerful -- Scythian prince in Plutarch "Parallel Lives." PHILADELPHIA *** ACT UP: Philadelphia demonstrators are being held using bails as high as $450,000 -- this is unprecedented in the history of US demonstrators. We are being held so that we do not exercise our constitutional rights to freedom of speech and assembly during the Republican Convention. People have been picked off the streets while walking alone and have not been heard from in days. Calls to their cell phones reach police officers who try to lure the caller to meet them by posing as a Jefferson Hospital staff member caring for the person, who has been "injured." 10:45 am Thursday--We just got reports that cops are holding gloves soaked in pepper spray near (but not against) the eyes of demonstrators to get them to agree to be arraigned -- they are practicing jail solidarity to ensure the safety of all of them . . . Some demonstrators have been held for up to 14 hours hog-tied with handcuffs. There were screams from the area where the men are being held of "torture! " and "medic!" When the women called out to find out what was going on, they were denied bathroom privileges. *** INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER: There are unconfirmed reports that two separate one million dollar bails have been set for John Sellers, coordinator of the Ruckus society, and a member of ACT UP . . . One man, who had stripped naked to protect himself from being identified, was sexually assaulted. There has been extremely limited access to one particular cell block of men. An R2K lawyer was allowed to see them only once, very briefly. In the brief contact, however, they indicated that intense brutality had occurred . . . Impostors pretending to be attorneys from R2K Legal have tried to convince detainees to break jail solidarity . . . 150 men and women are still on hunger strike . . . Two cars of undercover police patrolling the area around the Friends Meeting House. Four plainclothes cops jumped out of one car and began harassing two people who had left the meeting house. The two fled on foot . . . The Quakers have opened their doors for the night to anyone staying on for jail solidarity. The police have surrounded the meeting house and are threatening anyone in the area not in transit with arrest. More than 60 activists are camped outside the Roundhouse at 8th and Race streets, demanding the release of over four hundred prisoners held there. The Roundhouse, as the police headquarters is called, is an imperious cement building with no corners, where protesters arrested on Tuesday await arraignment in basement cells. At the park across the street at 8th and Vine, protesters with tents and drums have joined in solidarity with the prisoners inside who, in an effort to be released together without being charged, have refused to give their names to authorities . . . We have received reports that police toilet-papered one of their own squad cars, photographed it with the protesters in the background, and then moved into the park as if to break up the campsite. However, the stunt seemed designed simply to intimidate the group, as no arrests were made . . . At nightfall, spirits were high. Tents were going up and people were grilling food while the drum circle kept a steady beat. Jerry from Ashville, North Carolina, who has been arrested before for protesting and was hospitalized for the beating he received during questioning, said that "we've got work to do too. As much fun as were having here, we've got to make sacrifices to get our people out." Arrested protesters have told their legal contacts harrowing stories of beatings, solitary confinement, refusal of bathroom privileges and denial of medication. Prisoners suffering from problems like anxiety, asthma, hemophilia, and injuries incurred during their arrests are not receiving the treatment they need. Seven witnesses report seeing a woman dragged down the hallway, naked and bleeding. http://www.phillyimc.org Mayor Street's office at 215-686-2181 Stefanie Stuber Mayor Chief of Staff 215-686-7508 The Roundhouse Jail 215-686-1776, 215-685-8574 *** JAMES RIDGEWAY, VILLAGE VOICE: In a phone call at 1:30 this morning, Rebecca Hill, a New York City graduate student, told her stepmother, Penny Hill, that she was being held in a five-by-seven cell with five others in Roundhouse. Hill said jailers have been providing two cheese sandwiches and iced tea per day. Some of her cell mates were badly hurt, Hill said, including one woman with an open gash to the head. The woman had not received any medical attention, Hill said. The women had allegedly been held with no outside contact since Tuesday, when they were arrested. They have not been arraigned, and no have charges been filed. Hill said there is talk of bail being set at $15,000. This morning the Philadelphia Inquirer, in two news columns, congratulated the police for tireless restraint and vigilance, noting that the cops had performed top-flight intelligence work before the convention by eavesdropping on chat rooms and building portfolios on activists. According to the Inquirer, what appeared to out-of-town visitors as a virtual melee Tuesday in Center City was in fact a carefully choreographed script . . . Buried in the Inquirer story was this comment from an irate cop who said the demonstrators were squirting liquids in the faces of police officers: "You can't react, but it pisses you off," the officer said. "I hope they really nail a lot of those guys who did that. And you know a lot of them aren't from around here. They probably live with Mommy and Daddy in some $250,000 house in Connecticut and don't have anything better to do. I just wish I could kick their asses." http://www.villagevoice.com GOOD NEWS GUARDIAN, LONDON: Britain has had the world's largest fall in premature deaths from lung cancer thanks to the drive to help smokers give up, according to a study reported yesterday in the British Medical Journal. Lung cancer deaths have halved since 1965, mainly due to a reduction in the number who smoke. The findings come when, looking worldwide, deaths from tobacco related illnesses are increasing. http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,349823,00.html JUST POLITICS PUBLIC I: Under the guidance of Richard Cheney, a get-the-government-out-of-my-face conservative, Halliburton Company over the past five years has emerged as a corporate welfare hog, benefiting from at least $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans. One of these loans was approved in April by the US Export-Import Bank. It guaranteed $489 million in credits to a Russian oil company whose roots are imbedded in a legacy of KGB and Communist Party corruption, as well as drug trafficking and organized crime funds, according to Russian and US sources and documents. Those claims are hotly disputed by the Russian oil firm's holding company . . . If Halliburton has benefited from government generosity, it also has reciprocated with substantial political contributions, largely to Republicans. During Cheney's five years at the helm, the company has donated $1,212,000 in soft and hard money to candidates and parties, according to numbers compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. In the five years prior to his arrival, the company had given $534,750. http://www.public-i.org RASMUSSEN RESEARCH: While 42% of Americans have a generally favorable view of the people waving the signs and, a little over half, 54%, say it's OK for Philadelphia to make the demonstrators get permission to demonstrate, over half the country, 56%, agrees with the idea of very heavy police presence in the streets and demonstration sites to help contain the demonstrators' enthusiasm should it get out of hand. http://portraitofamerica.com/html/poll-1106.html LAND OF THE FREE ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFO CTR: In response to a lawsuit filed by EPIC, a federal judge in Washington has ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to establish a timetable for the expedited release of information about the "Carnivore" system no later than August 16. The ruling came during an emergency hearing convened by US District Judge James Robertson only hours after EPIC filed an application for the immediate public disclosure of information concerning the FBI's controversial surveillance system. EPIC's lawsuit charges that the Department of Justice and the FBI have violated the law by failing to act on a request to expedite the processing of a Freedom of Information Act request EPIC submitted to the FBI on July 12. LEGAL MEMO http://www.techlawjournal.com/courts/epicvdoj/20000802mem.asp DRUG BUSTS NORML: The Ontario Court of Appeals called Canada's prohibition of marijuana unconstitutional and said if Parliament does not amend the law to allow for medical use within a year, marijuana possession for all Ontario residents will be legal. The appeals court ruled that Canadian law fails to recognize that marijuana can be used as a medicine for patients with chronic illnesses . . . The appeals court suggested Parliament write into the law a nationwide medical marijuana exception. COURT DECISION http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/decisions/2000/july/parker.htm THE MEDIACRACY INSIDE: New York Daily News gossip columnist Mitchell Fink is normally a pretty feisty fellow. But his barb-laden, celebrity-tweaking tone was nowhere to be found when he wrote today that Mortimer Zuckerman and his wife are -- as he might say if the story didn't involve his boss -- splitsville. "Here is some sad news," Fink intones gravely. "Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman and his wife, Marla Prather, will be separating." The three-sentence item, buried at the end of Fink's column beneath a blurb about Dick Cheney, indicates that Zuckerman and Prather -- who was named curator of postwar art for the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York last fall -- will share joint custody of their 3-year-old daughter. The item also seems to serve as a terse and tactful press release for Zuckerman and his wife, who, Fink concludes, "will not be making any other comments to the press." In the Daily News's defense, it must be noted Liz Smith, a gossip columnist for cross-town rival The New York Post, gave equally deferential treatment to the crumbling marriage of Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of the Post's parent company, News Corp. In April 1998, Liz wrote: "It is with some personal sadness that I announce the amicable separation of Rupert Murdoch and his beautiful wife, Anna, after 32 years of marriage and three children." Three months later, when Anna Murdoch filed for divorce, Smith adopted an even more tragic tone: "I was hoping against hope I would never have to write about the divorce of Anna and Rupert Murdoch...They are my bosses, both of them -- in a manner of speaking -- but my feelings of hope for a reconciliation were strictly personal." http://www.inside.com http://www.nydailynews.com/today/News_and_Views/Daily_Dish/a-75172.asp http://www.nymag.com/page.cfm?page_id=3617 FEEDBACK A number of readers have feelings about the use and definition of the word "gravitas." http://www.prorev.com/bb.htm FIELD NOTES CLINTON SCANDALS: An impressive rundown of Clinton scandals, players, victims, charges, indictments, witnesses. http://www.freedomusa.org/gallery.html FEMA PHILLY PLAN: The FEMA GOP Convention emergency response plan http://216.167.120.50/rnc2000-frp.htm PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES For those who want to get Ralph Nader on the David Letterman show with Bush and Gore (Letterman's apparently ambivalent at this point) there is Letterman e-mail address. http://www.cbs.com/network/tvshows/mini/lateshow/clubhouse/email_us ----------------------------------------------------- PROGRESSIVE REVIEW INDEX: http://www.prorev.com/ UNDERNEWS: http://www.prorev.com/indexa.htm * * * * * * * * * * THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW 1312 18th St NW (5th Floor) Washington DC 20036 202-835-0770 Fax: 202-835-0779 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Editor: Sam Smith INDEX : http://prorev.com RECENT UNDERNEWS : http://prorev.com/indexa.htm TODAY'S HEADLINES: http://prorev.com/altnews.htm ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day. ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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