26 December 20
Lacking for December: Larger Donors
So far for December larger donations, even those of one hundred dollars or more have been scarce. The volume of donations is actually up, but the dollar figures are down.
Not everyone can make a larger donation. But it would really help.
For your consideration, respectfully.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
26 December 20
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How Real Is the Threat of Prosecution for Donald Trump Post-Presidency?
Ed Pilkington, Guardian UK
Pilkington writes: "At noon on 20 January, presuming he doesn't have to be dragged out of the White House as a trespasser, Donald Trump will make one last walk across the South Lawn, take his seat inside Marine One, and be gone."
Legal threats range from investigations into his business dealings in New York to possible obstruction of justice charges – but all come with a political cost
From that moment, Trump’s rambunctious term as president of the United States will be over. But in one important aspect, the challenge presented by his presidency will have only just begun: the possibility that he will face prosecution for crimes committed before he took office or while in the Oval Office.
“You’ve never had a president before who has invited so much scrutiny,” said Bob Bauer, White House counsel under Barack Obama. “This has been a very eventful presidency that raises hard questions about what happens when Trump leaves office.”
For the past four years Trump has been shielded from legal jeopardy by a justice department memo that rules out criminal prosecution of a sitting president. But the second he boards that presidential helicopter and fades into the horizon, all bets are off.
The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, is actively investigating Trump’s business dealings. The focus described in court documents is “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization” including possible bank fraud.
A second major investigation by the fearsome federal prosecutors of the southern district of New York has already led to the conviction of Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen. He pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations relating to the “hush money” paid to Stormy Daniels, the adult film actor who alleged an affair with Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.
During the course of the prosecution, Cohen implicated a certain “Individual 1” – Trump – as the mastermind behind the felony. Though the investigation was technically closed last year, charges could be revisited once Trump’s effective immunity is lifted.
It all points to a momentous and fiendishly difficult legal challenge, fraught with political danger for the incoming Biden administration. Should Trump be investigated and possibly prosecuted for crimes committed before and during his presidency?
“It looks like the incoming administration will have to confront some form of these issues,” said Bauer, who is co-author of After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency. “The government is going to have decisions to make about how to respond, given the potential that it becomes a source of division.”
Any attempt to hold Trump criminally liable in a federal prosecution would be a first in US history. No exiting president has ever been pursued in such a way by his successor (Richard Nixon was spared the ordeal by Gerald Ford’s contentious presidential pardon).
Previous presidents have tended to take the view that it is better to look forwards in the name of national healing than backwards at the failings of their predecessor. And for good reasons – any prosecution would probably be long and difficult, act as a huge distraction, and expose the incoming president to accusations that they were acting like a tinpot dictator hounding their political enemy.
That a possible Trump prosecution is being discussed at all is a sign of the exceptional nature of the past four years. Those who argue in favor of legal action accept that there are powerful objections to going after Trump but urge people to think about the alternative – the dangers of inaction.
“If you do nothing you are saying that though the president of the United States is not above the law, in fact he is. And that would set a terrible precedent for the country and send a message to any future president that there is no effective check on their power,” said Andrew Weissmann, who was a lead prosecutor in the Mueller investigation looking into coordination between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
As head of one of the three main teams answering to the special counsel Robert Mueller, Weissmann had a ringside seat on what he calls Trump’s “lawless White House”. In his new book, Where Law Ends, he argues that the prevailing view of the 45th president is that “following the rules is optional and that breaking them comes at minimal, if not zero, cost”.
Weissmann told the Guardian that there would be a price to be paid if that attitude went unchallenged once Trump leaves office. “One of the things we learnt from this presidency was that our system of checks and balances is not as strong as we thought, and that would be exacerbated by not holding him to account.”
Bauer, who was an adviser to Biden during the presidential campaign but has no role in the transition team, is also worried that a sort of double immunity would be established. Presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office under justice department rules, but under such a double immunity nor could they be prosecuted once leaving the White House in the interests of “national healing”.
“And so the president is immune coming and going, and I think that would be very difficult to square with the idea that he or she is not above the law.”
Biden has made clear his lack of enthusiasm for prosecuting Trump, saying it would be “probably not very good for democracy”. But he has also made clear that he would leave the decision to his appointed attorney general, following the norm of justice department independence that Trump has repeatedly shattered.
Other prominent Democrats have taken a more bullish position, adding pressure on the incoming attorney general to be aggressive. During the Democratic primary debates, Elizabeth Warren called for an independent taskforce to be set up to investigate any Trump corruption or other criminal acts in office.
Kamala Harris also took a stance that may come to haunt the new administration. The vice president-elect, asked by NPR last year whether she would want to see charges brought by the Department of Justice, replied: “I believe that they would have no choice and that they should, yes.”
There are several possible ways in which the justice department could be forced to confront the issue of whether or not to take on Trump. One would be through a revelation as yet unknown, following the emergence of new information.
Weissmann points out that the Biden administration will have access to a wealth of documents that were previously withheld from Congress during the impeachment inquiry, including intelligence agency and state department files. Official communications sent by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump through their personal emails and messaging apps – an ironic move given the flak Hillary Clinton endured from the Trump family in 2016 for using her personal email server – may also become available for scrutiny.
But the two most likely avenues for the pursuit of any criminal investigation would relate to Trump’s use of his presidential pardon power and alleged obstruction of justice. “Trump issued a series of pardons largely characterized by political self-interest,” Weissmann said.
Though the presidential pardon power is extensive, it is not, as Trump has claimed, absolute – including the “absolute right” to pardon himself. He is not immune from bribery charges if he were found to have offered somebody a pardon in exchange for their silence in a judicial case.
For Weissmann, the way Trump continually teased his associates – including Roger Stone and Paul Manafort – with the promise of pardons in the middle of federal prosecutions was especially egregious. “There may be a legitimate reason to give somebody a pardon, but what’s the legitimate reason for dangling a pardon other than to thwart that person from cooperating with the government?”
Perhaps the most solid evidence of criminal wrongdoing compiled against Trump concerns obstruction of justice. John Bolton, the former national security adviser, went so far as to say that for Trump, obstruction of justice to further his own political interests was a “way of life”.
In his final report on the Russia investigation, Mueller laid out 10 examples of Trump’s behavior that could be legally construed as obstruction. Though Mueller declined to say whether they met the standard for charges – the US attorney general, Bill Barr, suggested they did not, but gave no explanation for his thinking – he did leave them in plain sight for any future federal prosecutor to revisit.
In one of the starkest of those incidents, Trump tried to scupper the special counsel inquiry itself by ordering his White House counsel, Don McGahn, to fire Mueller. When that became public he compounded the abuse by ordering McGahn to deny the truth in an attempt at cover-up.
Weissmann, who played a key role in gathering the evidence against Trump in the Mueller report, said that such obstruction goes to the heart of why Trump should face prosecution.
“When the president, no matter who it is, obstructs a special counsel investigation there have to be consequences. If you can obstruct an investigation criminally but you don’t have to worry about ever being prosecuted, well then, there’s no point in ever appointing a special counsel.”
National Guardsmen stand outside the White House. (photo: Evelyn Hockstein/WP)
Pandemic and Unrest Fuel the Biggest National Guard Mobilization Since World War II
Alex Horton, The Washington Post
Horton writes: "A year defined by a wave of protests, wildfires and a deadly pandemic brought a milestone for the National Guard, which activated more troops for duty than at any time since World War II, officials said."
Tens of thousands of Guardsmen were mobilized in all 50 states, three territories and Washington, logging more than 8.4 million duty days this year, according to National Guard data. The bulk of efforts has focused on the coronavirus pandemic, with roles in administering tests, distributing protective equipment and in some cases, retrieving the dead.
In interviews, Guardsmen described their work in ways as varied as their missions, from pride in helping neighbors in crisis to frustrations over bureaucratic hurdles.
Others said they felt conflicted over missions to help quell civil unrest after the police killing of George Floyd in May sparked demonstrations nationwide.
Jason Robertson, a noncommissioned officer in the California National Guard, was activated in early April to help support food bank operations after demand surged. Soldiers packaged produce, distributed canned goods and gave logistics tips to food bank workers.
Soldiers who could not return home nightly because they lived too far from the site were put up in hotels for weeks, he said. But a tangible mission to assist people in need helped alleviate stress, Robertson said, and bolstered a sense of purpose when many of his civilian colleagues were self-isolating.
“I’m very grateful for getting called up for that,” he said.
Some of the missions did not run smoothly. In North Carolina, amid concerns hospitals would be overwhelmed, a task force of about 40 soldiers from an engineer unit supported a mission in April to survey sites for a temporary field hospital. The soldiers would design and construct a facility if needed.
The National Guard has deep experience in working with government agencies in emergencies such as hurricanes, but rarely has had to coordinate with private health-care officials, said a soldier in the North Carolina National Guard with knowledge of the operation.
“A hospital CEO just has what he sees on TV about Javits to go by,” the soldier said, referring to a field hospital that was set up in New York this spring when cases in the city exploded. “We built the plane in flight, more or less.”
Talks broke down after staffing questions for the field hospital arose. Medical staff from the Guard couldn’t be pulled from their duties to fill those roles, said the soldier, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media.
Soldiers on the mission experienced other frustrations, including too few computers with necessary software, according to the soldier.
Ultimately, the hospital was not built after hospitals concluded they could handle the demand. But the soldiers salvaged the effort by collecting a book of best practices that could be helpful in another pandemic.
Guard activations rose sharply in the summer following the death of Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. The single busiest day of the year was June 8, with 86,400 mobilized Guardsmen fanned out across the country. About half of them were on civil disturbance missions, according to National Guard data.
Tension within the Guard over its role to bolster police spilled into public view on May 30. Khaled Abdelghany, a Black soldier in the D.C. Guard, was shown on video emotionally mouthing the protest chant “I’m Black and I’m proud” in a moment that went viral.
“We were conflicted, we were in pain, we were feeling every emotion,” Abdelghany told The Washington Post, referring to himself and other minority service members. “I’m a Black man before I put the uniform on.”
The Guard’s image, which has improved since the dark days of the Kent State killings in 1970, was tested the next day. Federal police, backed by D.C. National Guardsmen, fired pepper balls and rubber pellets at protesters in Lafayette Square outside the White House.
Hours later, a pair of D.C. Army Guard helicopters descended as low as 45 feet over demonstrators in an apparent effort to disperse them, prompting a backlash and an investigation by the D.C. Guard.
The fallout was immediate in some corners of the force. Some Guardsmen turned down voluntary call-ups for civil unrest support because they didn’t want to be associated with potential violence, an Army officer in the National Guard said.
“It’s a hard thing to do when you say you’re up for every mission,” said the officer, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media. Some leaders recommended that soldiers not wear their uniforms while traveling for military duty to avoid confrontations with civilians, the officer said.
Other Guardsmen were heartened by moments in which they connected with protesters in an effort to distinguish themselves from police. In Nashville, guardsmen laid their riot shields on the ground at the request of demonstrators during unrest in June.
“I’ve been proud to be part of the organization that did that,” said Thomas Hayden, a warrant officer in the Maine National Guard who mobilized for coronavirus duty to help supply nursing homes with protective coronavirus equipment. “You hear cries of defund the police. But no one is saying that about the Guard.”
Guardsmen also mobilized for hurricane, flooding and wildfire response missions. California National Guard pilots rescued more than 200 people trapped by a fire northeast of Fresno in September, airlifting them on three perilous flights through dense black smoke.
Lisa Montgomery was set to be executed by lethal injection in December. (photo: NBC)
Judge Delays Execution of Lisa Montgomery
Michael Balsamo, Associated Press
Balsamo writes: "A federal judge said the Justice Department unlawfully rescheduled the execution of the only woman on federal death row, potentially setting up the Trump administration to schedule the execution after president-elect Joe Biden takes office."
U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss also vacated an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons that had set Lisa Montgomery’s execution date for Jan. 12. Montgomery had previously been scheduled to be put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, this month, but Moss delayed the execution after her attorneys contracted coronavirus visiting their client and asked him to extend the amount of time to file a clemency petition.
Moss prohibited the Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Lisa Montgomery’s execution before the end of the year and officials rescheduled her execution date for Jan. 12. But Moss ruled on Wednesday that the agency was also prohibited from rescheduling the date while a stay was in place.
“The Court, accordingly, concludes that the Director’s order setting a new execution date while the Court’s stay was in effect was ‘not in accordance with law,’” Moss wrote.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Under the order, the Bureau of Prisons cannot reschedule Montgomery’s execution until at least Jan. 1. Generally, under Justice Department guidelines, a death-row inmate must be notified at least 20 days before the execution. Because of the judge’s order, if the Justice Department chooses to reschedule the date in January, it could mean that the execution would be scheduled after Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
A spokesperson for Biden has told The Associated Press the president-elect “opposes the death penalty now and in the future” and would work as president to end its use in office. But Biden’s representatives have not said whether executions would be paused immediately once Biden takes office.
Montgomery was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore in December 2004. She used a rope to strangle Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, and then a kitchen knife to cut the baby girl from the womb, authorities said.
Prosecutors said Montgomery removed the baby from Stinnett’s body, took the child with her, and attempted to pass the girl off as her own. Montgomery’s legal team has argued that their client suffers from serious mental illnesses.
“Given the severity of Mrs. Montgomery’s mental illness, the sexual and physical torture she endured throughout her life, and the connection between her trauma and the facts of her crime, we appeal to President Trump to grant her mercy, and commute her sentence to life imprisonment,” one of Montgomery’s lawyers, Sandra Babcock, said in a statement.
Two other federal inmates are scheduled to be executed in January but have tested positive for coronavirus and their attorneys are also seeking delays to their executions.
A vehicle burns near the site of an explosion in the area of Second and Commerce in Nashville, Tennessee, Dec. 25, 2020. (photo: Andrew Nelles/Reuters)
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Warnings Before Nashville Explosion on Christmas
Nashville: FBI Combs Wreckage as Mystery Surrounds Christmas Day Blast
Emily Shapiro, Aaron Katersky, Josh Margolin and Mike Levine, ABC News
Excerpt: "A parked recreational vehicle exploded in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on Christmas morning, in what Nashville police believe was an 'intentional act.'"
The remains have not been identified.
Nashville police officers were first called to a report of shots fired, police said. There was no evidence of shots fired, but "there were announcements coming" from an RV saying a potential bomb would detonate within 15 minutes, police said.
The recording only began playing a short time after police reported to the scene, a law enforcement official told ABC News.
Officers were working to evacuate nearby buildings when, around 6:30 a.m., the RV exploded, blowing out the windows of nearby buildings.
Human remains have been found at the scene of the explosion in downtown Nashville, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News.
The remains have not been identified and it's unclear whether they're identifiable.
"We found tissue that we believe could be human remains," Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at a press conference Friday evening. "We'll have that examined and we'll be able to tell you from that point."
The explosion knocked one officer to the ground. Another officer sustained temporary hearing loss.
Three people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
It's not known whether anyone was in the RV when it exploded, authorities said.
Nashville International Airport temporarily halted flights Friday afternoon after losing phone and internet in the air traffic control tower due to the blast.
AT&T said service was impacted in Nashville and surrounding areas because of damage to its facilities from the explosion.
Communications capabilities came back in the tower about an hour after the ground stop was issued and service resumed, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Resident Buck McCoy said he heard gunshots before the explosion, which "blew everything all over the entire apartment."
"All the windows came in from the living room into the bedroom," he told ABC News. "There was glass everywhere from the windows. There wasn't really any part of the apartment that wasn't damaged or pushed or moved or affected by the explosion ... the whole apartment was just completely a mess."
"My building is pretty tall and pretty strong so it had to have been a very strong explosion to blow out all those windows," he said.
Several buildings suffered structural damage, authorities said.
McCoy said he "started to go downstairs, saw some people in the hallway -- they were in shock, you know, they're crying."
He then reached the street which he said looked "like a movie ... it was just surreal."
The debris field extends for at least a few blocks. Streets around the exploded vehicle have been closed down.
In the search for the suspect, there are "investigative leads to be pursued" and "technical work that needs to happen," the FBI said.
"We will find out what happened here," the FBI said.
The FBI, the lead investigating agency, asks anyone with information to submit a tip on the FBI website.
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have also responded.
President Donald Trump, President-elect Joe Biden, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen have been briefed on the incident.
Authorities said they are not aware of other imminent danger. K-9 officers swept the downtown area as a precaution, police said.
Mayor John Cooper also instituted a curfew for the area affected by the explosion from 4:30 p.m. on Friday to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday.
Fate Vincent Winslow was released from prison last week after serving 12 years of a life sentence for marijuana. (photo: Innocence Project New Orleans)
How a Man Serving Life Without Parole for $20 of Weed Gained His Freedom
Tana Ganeva, The Intercept
Geneva writes: "Fate Vincent Winslow was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole after selling an undercover officer $20 worth of marijuana in 2008. As the middleman between the cop and a dealer, he made $5 in the transaction."
nnocence Project lawyers relied on a July Louisiana court ruling to make a case for Fate Winslow’s release. He’d been in prison for 12 years.For 12 years, Winslow, who is now 53 years old, was imprisoned at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, better known as Angola — a prison complex roughly the size of Manhattan that sits atop a former slave plantation. During that time, more than a dozen states legalized recreational marijuana. While Winslow made 80 cents a week cleaning crowded prison dorms, pot entrepreneurs made millions selling the same drug that landed him in prison. The reason was not a mystery to him. “We both [know] no money no justice that’s just the way the world is,” he told the Intercept in 2018.
But a series of unexpected twists and significant changes in the criminal justice system led to Winslow’s freedom last week. “I am so full of joy. I never thought this day would come!” he told The Intercept a few days after his release.
For most of his sentence, Winslow’s chances of getting out were virtually nil. He is guilty of the crime he was convicted of, so there was no path to getting his conviction thrown out. And it was his fourth offense, precluding the possibility of catching the attention of a public sympathetic to the plight of “first-time offenders” — like activists did with Alice Marie Johnson — to appeal to the mercy of executive lawmakers with pardon power. Johnson was granted clemency by President Donald Trump after viral appeals from celebrities like Kim Kardashian, who stressed that Johnson had made just one mistake. Because Winslow wasn’t eligible for parole, it was unlikely he would get a grant of clemency from the Louisiana governor, as governors tend to defer to parole boards.
He didn’t have a lawyer until his case was taken up by the Innocence Project of New Orleans in 2019. That his case was taken up by a group whose primary goal is to take on cases in which the prisoner is innocent of the crime, and whose most high-profile work has been to overturn wrongful convictions in capital punishment cases, signals a shift in the advocacy community’s understanding of innocence, guilt, and punishment.
In the spring, as Covid-19 ravaged Angola, Winslow got sick and feared he might die. The guards’ handling of the crisis did not inspire confidence, he said at the time.
“Today all the guards showed up to work with masks on to protect themselves from us, when it is us that needs protection from them,” he wrote in April. “No caution for human life, no compassion, no Love.”
Three months later, in July, a change in Louisiana law regarding post-conviction changes to sentencing, coupled with the Innocence Project’s advocacy and the support of the local prosecutor, made Winslow’s release possible. On December 15, the judge overseeing his case resentenced him to 12 years of time served, and he was released the next day.
His last night in prison, too restless to sleep, Winslow fantasized about the perks of freedom. “Can’t wait to get some Popeyes chicken!” he joked. A few days later he had a feast of fried chicken, red beans, and mashed potatoes, a far cry from the prison fare he ate for years in a crowded mess hall.
Winslow’s fate was a consequence of unjust sentencing laws, an underfunded public defense system that so often lacks the resources to vigorously defend indigent clients, and the racism that is pervasive throughout the criminal justice system.
In 2008, he’d been living on the streets of Shreveport, Louisiana, when two undercover officers approached him and asked for “a girl.” Winslow declined to bring them a sex worker. But he was able to get them some weed. He went to a dealer he knew and returned to the cops with $20 worth of pot. Winslow has said that he took part in the deal because he was hungry and didn’t have enough money for food.
The officers arrested him — but not the white dealer. Winslow went to trial. The 10 white jurors voted guilty, while the two Black jurors voted not guilty. Because he had priors — all nonviolent, all linked to living on the street and drug addiction — the prosecutor, Jason Brown, pursued life without the possibility of parole. Brown, who was later fired for withholding evidence in a murder case, was recently discovered to have “Whites Only” signs on his property.
Eight years later, in 2018, Winslow wrote to The Intercept that maybe a rich person would take notice and help him get a lawyer to appeal his sentence, but indicated he wouldn’t be holding his breath: “A rich person … ha ha,” he wrote skeptically. “Luck does happen …”
The next year, Jee Park, the head of the Innocence Project in New Orleans, heard about Winslow’s case from another New Orleans lawyer. “Whether it’s an innocence case or not, there’s something wrong with this case. Take a look at it,” she recalled that he told her.
Park immediately recognized the injustice of Winslow’s sentence — life without the possibility of parole is effectively a death sentence — but did not see a clear path to his freedom. “There was no obvious legal claim to overturn the conviction,” Park said. “There was no obvious legal mechanism for pardon or clemency.”
Still, Park approached District Attorney James E. Stewart Sr., a former judge elected in 2015 and the first Black top prosecutor in Caddo Parish. Stewart is no flamethrower. Caddo Parish is conservative even by Louisiana standards, and his campaign messaging revolved around vague themes like “community investment.” But he was a far cry from his predecessor, Charles Scott, who was part of a trifecta of prosecutors that earned the parish the nickname “death penalty capital of America” in the aughts.
After he carefully reviewed the documents, Stewart told Park that he wouldn’t oppose clemency for Winslow, but he couldn’t be seen as subverting the will of the jury or the authority of the original sentencing judge, she told The Intercept. Stewart’s office declined to comment for this article.
Park’s team pored over the case for months, weighing different legal strategies. In the fall of 2019, the Louisiana Supreme Court agreed to take up a case — State v. Harris — that involved a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, an argument that a defendant’s sentence should be revisited because his trial lawyer hadn’t put up a strong enough defense during the sentencing portion of the trial, failing to perform adequate discovery or call witnesses. At the time, Louisiana was the only state that prohibited a claim of inadequate counsel post-conviction.
“We knew the outcome of this case could have an impact on how we shape our legal claim for Fate,” Park told The Intercept.
In July 2020, the state Supreme Court decided that ineffective assistance of counsel could be used to argue that a sentence was unconstitutional. And suddenly, Winslow’s lawyers had their legal strategy figured out. “The Harris decision gave us the legal hook to raise ineffective assistance of counsel claim for Fate,” Park said.
There was plenty of evidence in the court record that Winslow’s public defender neglected to take basic steps that would have mitigated his sentence. The lawyer didn’t hire an investigator. He failed to inform the court that Winslow was unhoused. He failed to make it clear that Winslow was not a regular dealer, or bring up the fact that the white dealer who was never arrested gave Winslow the pot. “His attorney even failed to say ‘I object,’ when the verdict was announced, which is standard procedure,” Park said.
Park had a solid argument, but a positive outcome was far from guaranteed.
“Bringing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel successfully is quite rare,” David Carroll, executive director of the Sixth Amendment Center, told The Intercept. “It’s a very high burden of proof. Plus, the court has to admit a mistake was made and that the lawyers did a bad job; that’s rarely going to happen.” A 2010 Innocence Project study found that in 81 percent of cases where a suspect was exonerated based on DNA evidence, the courts had initially rejected an ineffective assistance claim.
Park took her claim of ineffective assistance of counsel to Stewart, the district attorney, hoping to get a green light before taking it to court.
“Not only did he agree to not contest our filing on behalf of Fate but he agreed that Fate should receive credit for time served and be immediately released,” Park said. Stewart’s support not only bettered their chance of success — it also expedited Winslow’s release.
“The case was presented to the Judge as fait accompli, where both sides agree so the Judge should just grant what both sides agree on. Grant the post-conviction application, then sentence Fate to 12 years with credit for time served,” Park said. “And that is exactly what happened. “
On December 11, Deedee Kirkwood, a California activist who’s spent years advocating for Winslow, was shocked to get the following message from him: “Well Mrs. Deedee I talked to Jee Park today a legal call every thing she said was good no parole no paper,” he wrote. “Free as a bird she say. I will leave Wednesday at the most. Jee Park is going to set up a website for me with my daughter it will go threw (sic) her so as soon it get done I will let you know … thank you so much for all your help you are a real angel.”
Kirkwood held her hopes in check. “I didn’t let myself believe it was for real because there were so many people coming forward over the years claiming to free him that I didn’t want to get my hopes up again,” she told The Intercept. “I was holding my breath until I saw the photo of him with that huge grin eating at the fast food restaurant,” she said. “I laughed and cried tears of joy.”
When Winslow found out he’d be getting out after all, he could hardly believe it.
“It was like the whole world changed,” he said. What he’s looking forward to most of all is spending the holidays with his family and meeting his 9-year-old grandson for the first time.
“I’m doing my best to stay focused,” he said. “Do it right this time.”
Fire and smoke billow above buildings in Gaza City during Israeli strikes. (photo: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images)
Israel Bombs Gaza Strip While Protests Continue in West Bank
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Israeli jets have bombarded several civilian targets in At Tuffah neighborhood this Friday, including the Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, Al-Dorra Hospital for Children, and Al Bureij refugee camp."
Loud explosions were heard and F-16s were reportedly spotted.
The Israeli strikes caused power cuts throughout the enclave. Material damage in civilian structures has been reported. The Israeli occupation forces has claimed it had directed the attacks at “Hamas targets” in response to alleged rockets fired from Gaza.
Meanwhile in the West Bank, this Friday dozens of Palestinians have been injured as a result of the repression by Israeli forces against the protests in the occupied territory.
Several cities throughout the West Bank have again been the scene of demonstrations against the construction of more illegal settlements by the regime in Tel Aviv. The Israeli military has brutally repressed the outraged Palestinians, using live ammunition and tear gas.
In the village of Deir Yarir, northeast of Ramallah, at least one Palestinian demonstrator has been wounded by rubber bullets and several others have suffered suffocation from tear gas thrown by Israeli uniforms, the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, announced.
According to local witnesses, Israeli forces have prevented Palestinian ambulances from going to the site of the clashes in Deir Yarir to take the injured to a nearby hospital.
Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinians who were participating in a demonstration in the village of Beit Dajan, east of the city of Nablus, have presented respiratory difficulties as a result of Israeli repression.
In addition, a Palestinian, 10 years old, and another, 19 years old, have been injured in the village of Kafr Qadum, after being hit by bullets from Israeli forces. During the march, the Palestinians have called for expanding the popular resistance to the end of the occupation, as the local agency Paltoday reports.
Despite the fact that the United Nations Organization (UN) and the international community are demanding that Israel immediately end its expansionism, the Zionist regime continues with its plans to build more colonies on Palestinian lands, especially in the West Bank.
Faced with such a situation, the Palestinians regularly and peacefully protest against the regime in Tel Aviv, but Israel uses the silence of the international community to kill unarmed Palestinians in cold blood and to continue with its annexationist plans.
'Manufacturers had been discharging chemicals into the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina - a regional drinking water source - for decades.' (photo: B&T)
'Forever Chemicals' Pollute Water From Alaska to Florida
Lynne Peeples, Guardian UK
Peeples writes: "Tom Kennedy learned about the long-term contamination of his family's drinking water about two months after he was told that his breast cancer had metastasized to his brain and was terminal."
Whichever state you are in, there could be harmful PFAS chemicals in water near you
The troubles tainting his tap: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a broad category of chemicals invented in the mid-1900s to add desirable properties such as stain-proofing and anti-sticking to shoes, cookware and other everyday objects.
Manufacturers in Fayetteville, North Carolina, had been discharging them into the Cape Fear River – a regional drinking water source – for decades.
“I was furious,” says Kennedy, who lives in nearby Wilmington. “I made the connection pretty quickly that PFAS likely contributed to my condition. Although it’s nothing that I can prove.”
The double whammy of bad news came more than three years ago. Kennedy, who has outlived his prognosis, is now an active advocate for stiffer regulation of PFAS.
“PFAS is everywhere,” he says. “It’s really hard to get any change.”
Indeed, various forms of PFAS are still used in a spectrum of industrial and consumer products – from nonstick frying pans and stain-resistant carpets to food wrappers and firefighting foam – and have become ubiquitous. The chemicals enter the environment anywhere they are made, spilled, discharged or used. Rain can flush them into surface sources of drinking water such as lakes, or PFAS may gradually migrate through the soil to reach the groundwater – another key source of public water systems and private wells.
For the same reasons the chemicals are prized by manufacturers – they resist heat, oil and water – PFAS also persist in the soil, the water and our bodies.
More than 200 million Americans may be drinking PFAS-contaminated water, suggests research by the nonprofit Environmental Working group (EWG), an advocacy group which is collaborating with Ensia on its Troubled Waters reporting project.
As studies continue to link exposures to a lengthening list of potential health consequences, scientists and advocates are calling for urgent action from both regulators and industry to curtail PFAS use and to take steps to ensure the chemicals already in the environment stay out of drinking water.
PFAS dates back to the 1930s and 1940s, when Dupont and Manhattan Project scientists each accidentally discovered the chemicals. The Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, now 3M, soon began manufacturing PFAS as a key ingredient in Scotchgard and other non-stick, waterproof and stain-resistant products.
Thousands of different PFAS chemicals emerged over the following decades, including the two most-studied versions: PFOS and PFOA. Oral-B began using PFAS in dental floss. Gore-Tex used it to make waterproof fabrics. Hush Puppies used it to waterproof leather for shoes. And DuPont, along with its spin-off company Chemours, used the chemicals to make its popular Teflon coatings.
Science suggests links between PFAS exposure and a range of health consequences, including possible increased risks of cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, liver damage, kidney disease, low birth-weight babies, immune suppression, ulcerative colitis and pregnancy-induced hypertension.
“PFAS really seem to interact with the full range of biological functions in our body,” says David Andrews, a senior scientist with EWG. “Even at the levels that the average person has in this country, these chemicals are likely having an impact.”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has even issued a warning that exposure to high levels of PFAS might raise the risk of infection with Covid-19 and noted evidence from human and animal studies that PFAS could lower vaccine efficacy.
Once PFAS gets into the environment, the chemicals are likely to stick around a long time because they are not easily broken down by sunlight or other natural processes.
Legacy and ongoing PFAS contamination is present across the US, especially at or near sites associated with fire training, industry, landfills and wastewater treatment. Near Parkersburg, West Virginia, PFAS seeped into drinking water supplies from a Dupont plant. In Decatur, Alabama, a 3M manufacturing facility is suspected of discharging PFAS, polluting residents’ drinking water. And in Hyannis, Massachusetts, firefighting foam from a firefighter training academy is the likely source of well-water contamination, according to the state. Use of PFAS-containing materials such as firefighting foam at hundreds of military sites around the country, including one on Whidbey Island in Washington state, has also contaminated many drinking water supplies.
“It works great for fires. It’s just that it’s toxic,” says Donald (Matt) Reeves, an associate professor of hydrogeology at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo who studies how PFAS moves around, and sticks around, in the environment. It can be a near-endless loop, he explains. Industry might discharge the chemicals into a waste stream that ends up at a wastewater treatment plant. If that facility is not outfitted with filters that can trap PFAS, the chemicals may go directly into a drinking water source. Or a wastewater treatment facility might produce PFAS-laced sludge that is applied to land or put into a landfill. Either way, PFAS could leach out and find its way back in a wastewater treatment plant, repeating the cycle. The chemicals can be released into the air as well, resulting in some cases in PFAS getting deposited on land where it can seep back into drinking water supplies.
His research in Michigan, he says, echoes a broader trend across the US: “The more you test, the more you find.”
In fact, a study by scientists from EWG, published in October 2020, used state testing data to estimate that more than 200 million Americans could have PFAS in their drinking water at concentrations of 1 part per trillion (ppt) or higher. That is the recommended safe limit, according to some scientists and health advocates, and is equivalent to one drop in 500,000 barrels of water.
“This really highlights the extent that these contaminants are in the drinking water across the country,” says EWG’s Andrews, who co-authored the paper. “And, in some ways, it’s not a huge surprise. It’s nearly impossible to escape contamination of drinking water.” He references research from the CDC that found the chemicals in the blood of 98% of Americans surveyed.
Inconsistent regulation
US chemical makers have voluntarily phased out their use and emission of PFOS and PFOA, and industry efforts are underway to reduce ongoing contamination and clean up past contamination – even if the companies do not always agree with scientists on the associated health risks.
“The weight of scientific evidence from decades of research does not show that PFOS or PFOA causes harm in people at current or historical levels,” states Sean Lynch, a spokesperson for 3M. Still, he says that his company has invested more than US$200m globally to clean up the chemicals: “As our scientific and technological capabilities advance, we will continue to invest in cutting-edge cleanup and control technology and work with communities to identify where this technology can make a difference.”
Thom Sueta, a company spokesperson for Chemours, notes similar efforts to address historic and current emissions and discharges.
Environmental officials fined the company after its Fayetteville plant in NC dumped large quantities of the PFAS compound GenX, contaminating the drinking water used by Kennedy and some 250,000 of his neighbors.
Sueta said in an email: “We continue to decrease PFAS loading to the Cape Fear River and began operation this fall of a capture and treatment system of a significant groundwater source at the site.”
Most of the ongoing PFOS and PFOA contamination appear to come from previous uses cycling back into the environment and into people, Andrews says.
A big part of the challenge is that PFAS is considered an emerging contaminant and is, therefore, not regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 2016, the EPA set a non-binding health advisory limit of 70 ppt for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water. The agency proposed developing federal regulations for the contaminants in February 2020 and is currently reviewing comments with plans to issue a final decision this winter.
Several US states have set drinking water limits for PFAS, including California, Minnesota and New York. Michigan’s regulations, which cover seven different PFAS chemicals, are some of the most stringent. Western Michigan University’s Reeves says that the 2014 lead contamination crisis in Flint elevated the state’s focus on safe drinking water.
Still, the inconsistency across the country has created confusion. “The regulation of PFAS remains varied. States are all having different ideas, and that’s not necessarily a good thing,” says David Sedlak, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. “People are uncertain what to do.”
The Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council, or ITRC, a coalition of states that promotes the use of novel technologies and processes for environmental remediation, is working to pull together evidence-based recommendations for PFAS regulation in the absence of federal action.
University of Southern Denmark and Harvard professor Philip Grandjean suggests a safe level of PFAS in drinking water is probably about 1 ppt or below. The European Union’s latest risk assessment, which Grandjean says corresponds to a recommended limit of about 2 ppt for four common PFAS chemicals, is “probably close”, he says. “It’s not a precautionary limit, but it’s certainly a lot closer than EPA’s.”
GenX, introduced in 2009 by DuPont to replace PFOA, is among a newer generation of short-chain PFAS designed to have fewer carbon molecules than the original long-chain PFAS. These were initially believed to be less toxic and more quickly excreted from the body. But some evidence is proving otherwise: studies suggest that these relatives may pose many of the same risks as their predecessors.
“The family of PFAS chemicals being used in commerce is a lot broader than the small set of compounds that the EPA is considering regulating,” says Sedlak. “Up until now, the focus of discussion related to regulation has centered around PFOS and PFOA with some discussion of GenX. But the deeper we dig, the more we see lots and lots of PFAS out there.”
Andrews notes that the ongoing pattern of replacing one toxic chemical with another is a problem that the federal government urgently needs to fix. “This entire family of chemicals shares many of the same characteristics,” he says.
Environmental health advocates express hope that 2021 will bring greater progress on PFAS regulation. President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to set enforceable limits for PFAS in drinking water and to designate PFAS as a hazardous substance – which would accelerate the cleanup of contaminated sites under the EPA’s Superfund program.
