Richmond Jail Mocks Constitution and Human Decency‏

The conditions at the Richmond Jail are unconstitutional and bring shame to our city, state, and country. Many have needlessly suffered and died because of sadistic treatment at the Richmond Jail. Those in charge of the Jail and the city government show no regard for the protections guaranteed under the Bill of Rights. The Sheriff, Commonwealths Attorney, Mayor,and Council profit from their abuse of poor people. The illegitimate "leaders" plan to spend double the amount of money jailing Richmonders than any other function of government in 2011. The Covetous crony capitalists will fund an expanded jail through something called the Virginia Public Private Education Facilities and Infrastructure Act, what a sick joke.

Amendment VIII of United States Constitution States Excessive bail shall not be required,nor excessive fines be imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted. The Sheriff and the commonwealth's attorney along with Council the Mayor and the Richmond Police act in opposition to this constitutional protection. Many inside the jail are being abused for actions that can not be considered crimes under the constitution like drug possession or driving on a suspended license. The US prison population could not be the largest in the world without arbitrary and unconstitutional incarceration.

This Tyranny must and will end. The Richmond Sheriff's Platform Committee is calling for the release of all prisoners in the Richmond Jail with non violent drug charges brought against them,mentally handicapped,and all others who pose no threat to the public and whose offenses do not violate the US Constitution. We are also calling for the resignation of Sheriff CT Woody for his crimes and violations of the law of the Land the United States Constitution.

This communique is dedicated to the political prisoners in the for profit prison industrial complex. It is inspired by John Mahoney, aka Hippie John.

Chris Dorsey, Richmond Sheriff's Platform Committee

Cuba Commutes Death Sentence, Zero People on Death Row

On Tuesday the Cuban Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of Humberto Eladio Real to 30 years in prison. Real was the last person on death row in Cuba.

Real was convicted of killing a man in a 1994 terrorist attack against Cuba. Real and six others illegally entered northern Cuba with assault rifles and killed a man. They were captured shortly afterward. The terrorists had intended to carry out acts of sabotage and destruction in order to destabilize the Cuban government.

Real was sentenced to death and his men were given long prison sentences.

The Cuban constitution allows for the death penalty, but they have been postponing death sentences for years now.

Earlier this month the Cuban government commuted the death sentences of two captured terrorists from El Salvador who had played a role in bombing Cuban tourist sites in the 1990's. They were given 30 year prison sentences.

As of 2009, the United States has 3,261 people on death row. As of December 2010, due to the commuting of Humberto Eladio Real's sentence, Cuba has zero people on death row. While anti-communists and the so-called "victims" of the Castro regime try to portray Cuba and communism as brutal dictatorships, the Cuban regime has shown mercy by not killing those who would destroy it. This speaks volumes against the imperialist, anti-Cuba propaganda.

Washington admits Cuban counterrevolutionaries lack popular support

The following article was taken from Liberation News (linked to on left)

After decades of failed attempts to overthrow the socialist government of Cuba, the U.S. government has secretly concluded that domestic counterrevolutionaries have proven to be totally ineffective. A leaked diplomatic cable from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana states: “We see very little evidence that the mainline dissident organizations have much resonance among ordinary Cubans.”

For over 50 years, Washington has funded and organized invasions, assassination attempts and terrorist attacks against Cuba with the assistance of reactionary forces inside the country and abroad. Nothing has been able to overthrow the revolutionary government.

Now, even Washington must admit that right-wing forces are “not likely to supplant the Cuban government,” and that simply “seeking resources” (i.e., U.S. taxpayer dollars) has become their “primary concern.”

The Cuban revolution has been able to survive because of the heroic efforts of the Cuban people. Using methods of socialist planning and distribution, health care, education, housing, employment and a variety of other essentials are guaranteed to everyone. The people of Cuba have endured tremendous hardships to defend their revolution, and it has become undeniably clear that they will not be fooled by domestic counterrevolutionary groups.

Conservatives Getting Government Handouts

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a Republican from Minnesota, is now in the spotlight for taking over a quarter of a million dollars in taxpayer money for her own use.

According to the Environmental Working Group, a watchdog group that monitors who receives government farm subsidies, has found that the Bachmann family farm took $251,973 in government money from 1995 to 2006. The Bachmann family took $20,000 dollars of your money in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005.

This is ironic, as Bachmann has voted against letting regular people get the same financial protection her farm received from the government. She voted against every foreclosure relief bill aimed at helping homeowners, but she was elected to represent a district with the highest foreclosure rate in Minnesota.

Then there is Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, another anti-socialist warrior, whose family has received $1 million in government farm subsidy money ("handouts"). Grassley himself took $238,974 of that money. His child used even more of it, but of course Grassley is against spending government money to help your children get health care and a good education.

Even the capitalist Heritage Foundation criticized Grassley on his pocketing of taxpayer dollars.

Senator Sam Brownback, a Republican form Kansas, has taken $500,000 in government money.

Max Baucus, a fiscally conservative Democrat representing Montana, took $250,000 in government farm subsidies. At the same time, he fights to keep regular people at the mercy of the market mechanisms that subsidies protect his farm against. Another one of these Blue Dog Democrats, Blanche Lincoln, recieved $715,000 of your money over a ten year period. She spent $10,000 of it for fun in 2007. $844,725 was collected by the father of Stephanie Sandlin, another Blue Dog Democrat.

The members of Congress, these so-called anti-spending, anti-handout, anti-socialist warriors, are the true "welfare queens." When they take your tax dollars for their large farms and, at the same time, try to stop government "handouts" to the poor and falling middle class, they are only trying to secure more money for themselves and their corporate bosses by taking money from the ordinary people.

In the Paris Commune, of which Marx drew much of his theory, and under Lenin in the Soviet Union, government representatives were paid only as much as a skilled worker and no more. That is one way to prevent politicians from robbing the people.

Fox News Viewers Significantly More Misinformed

A study was recently released by the World Public Opinion project, which is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, that shows that viewers of Fox News are significantly more misinformed than viewers of other news sources.

The study also showed that prolonged exposure to Fox News increases misinformation. However, the study also showed that the rest of the media is far from honest. CNN viewers were found to be only slightly less misinformed than those who tune in to Fox, and MSNBC also had a less than brag-worthy record.

These results are similar to another study done by the Program on International Policy Attitudes which showed that viewers of Fox News were more misinformed about the Iraq War others. This same study showed that the audiences of NPR/PBS were the most informed.

NBC/Wall Street Journal and Pew Research Center studies have also shown the delusional beliefs of Fox propaganda consumers when it comes to Obama and health care.

It is clear now why conservatives want to stop funding NPR and PBS. Doing so would strengthen the grip of deceitful propaganda in the United States and make it easier to manipulate the minds of the American people. The capitalist media, whether liberal or conservative, is a pool of lies. If you wish to be informed, then please continue to visit The Partisan and visit the other websites we've linked to on the left side of the page.

Boston police punch, kick 16-year-old at Roxbury Community College

The following article was taken from Liberation News (linked to on left in "News" section)

On Oct. 22, Boston police brutally arrested a 16-year-old at Roxbury Community College. Caught on video by several witnesses who used their cell phones to record the incident, at least one police officer is seen punching and kicking the young man, while several other officers hold him to the ground. In one video, you can hear the young man cry out in pain as he is forcefully held down while being punched and kicked.

The videos, posted on YouTube and shown on many news outlets, have been seen by tens of thousands of people. One of the videos was taken by student Eusida Blidgen, who should be commended for her actions as she continued to record despite being illegally told by an officer she must stop. Despite the police’s attempts to claim otherwise, it is legal to record the police in public.

Following protests and public outcry, the police announced that Michael T. McManus, the officer seen punching and kicking on the video, has been placed on paid administrative duty pending an investigation from the district attorney’s office.

The official police report greatly differs from the accounts of students and other witnesses who say the young man did not resist or attack police officers. Neither the district attorney nor the Boston police should be trusted to investigate this or any other incident of police misconduct, as they work hand-in-hand on a daily basis. Instead, there must be community control over the police through the creation of a civilian review board that is empowered to fire police officers.

Several protests have been held since the video went viral on YouTube. Several students at Roxbury Community College have taken a lead in organizing. Kieashia Hartfield, a junior, called for all of the officers involved to be fired, saying, “If they get to keep their job then that's just a slap in the face saying that they can do whatever they want to our people and get away with it.”

Student Government representative Tajudeen Akinbode pointed to the fact that this happened on a campus and in a neighborhood that is predominantly Black and Latino, noting, “This would not have happened at Boston University.”

Future actions will be organized as the students and others in the community have made it clear they will continue to raise their voices and fight back against all acts of racist police brutality.

Drug giant Pfizer used blackmail to cover up killing children

The following brief was taken from PSLweb.org (Liberation news, linked to on left)

In 1996, 11 children died as human guinea pigs in tests by Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, when 100 of them were given an experimental antibiotic. Many others suffered deafness, muteness, blindness, paralysis and brain damage.

After charges were brought by the Nigerian government—criminal and civil—a tentative settlement was reached in 2009 ordering Pfizer to pay $75 million in compensation.

But compensating devastated families or survivors would cut into Pfizer’s massive super-profits. The company wanted to do everything possible to avoid this, so it turned to illegal methods to beat the charges.

According to diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, Pfizer sought to do this by blackmailing Nigeria’s attorney general. Pfizer hoped they could force him to drop the charges through slander and intimidation. They hired private investigators to dig up things to be used against him, and also leaked information to the press to tarnish his reputation.

The conversations revealing Pfizer’s attempt to corruptly avoid legal responsibility for killing 11 children and disabling others took place between a Pfizer CEO and U.S. officials at the embassy at Abuja. The discussions further reveal the collusion between big business and its backers in the seats of imperialist power.

http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/04/09ABUJA671.html

Shell oil planted spies in the Nigerian government

The following brief was taken from PSLweb.org (Liberation News, linked to on left)

A 2009 diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks revealed that the oil giant Shell has staff secretly operating in every key ministry of the Nigerian government. In the cable, a Shell executive boasted to U.S. diplomats about having knowledge and influence over "everything that was being done."

Nigeria is the leading oil producer in Africa. It ranks eighth in the entire world for oil exports. Billions in profits are raked in from the oil underneath the homes of the Nigerian people, yet more than 70 percent of Nigerians live below the “official” poverty line.

http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/10/09ABUJA1907.html

Tag Team partners Double H and the Cooch benefit from rigged system‏

The following article was submitted by Chris Dorsey of Richmond's Justice Enforcement League.

l will begin by quoting Joe Lieberman talking to a colleague before a vote on the Senate floor several weeks ago. "It's rigged it's all rigged". Yes America, just like pro wrestling our political system and government is fixed. Over the past two years the American people have been manipulated to anger over legislation written by and for the Insurance industry giants, known to most as Obamacare. Now two local fascists, "Judge" Henry Hudson (aka Double H) and Ken Cuccinelli (aka The Cooch), have decided that the crappy so called health care bill violates the US Constitution. These are empty words coming from two people who have rose to power by body-slamming our founding document.

Double H got his start as an enemy of the people as an appointee of Federal Reserve prostitute and bad actor Ronald Reagan. Double H was later the director of the US Marshall during the unconstitutional siege at Ruby Ridge and subsequent murders which included a child. Since he began his current stint on the bench he has carried out the will of the illegitimate institutions that control the current US government.

Some think the Cooch may be from parts unknown, however he is really a carpetbagger from New Jersey who earned his belt as the undisputed champion of diarrhea-mouths for the bigoted venom he spews towards gay people and anyone who is not white. He also is a dutiful hooker to Dominion Power and Mcguire Woods. The Cooch is also complicit in Northrop Grumman's take over of Virginia's State Government and gleefully stands by as the weapons producer steals tax payer money and periodically shuts down the computer system for State Government agencies.

This tag team came together through Campaign Solutions, which is a political consulting firm which has done work for the Cooch and Sarah Palin (aka the Wackjob from Wasilla). If the whole system was not entirely rigged one may think that Double H who is an investor in Campaign Solutions would have a conflict of interest when hearing cases that involve the Cooch. Double H and the Cooch, just like Tim Kaine and Barack Obama, serve the same Globalist Bankers at the expense of the people and the US Constitution. They and their fellow plutocrats must and will be stopped for the good of America and the world.

US Bombs Sudan

It seems that the United States has been violating Sudan's territorial integrity. The US bombed trucks and people in an area of Sudan that is away from any international border. The statements made at the end of the document seem to suggest that the politicians don't want us to see this leaked cable, which is linked to below.

Read more at: http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/02/09KHARTOUM249.html

Posted as part of The Partisan's support for Operation Leakspin.

Wikileaked Cable from Bogota

The Partisan found the following sentence in a leaked cable from Wikileaks.

"Still, Pearl noted that the deaths of three [FARC] Secretariat members in 2008 had resulted in replacements that were more educated, intellectual, and aware of the international context of the conflict."

This one sentence from a leaked document disproves the myth that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been weakened by the attacks on their top members. If anything, FARC has become stronger because of the new Secretariat members.

The rest of this document from Wikileaks simply discusses the plans for peace talks between the Colombian government, FARC, and ELN. This leaked cable came from a bourgeois embassy in Bogota, the capital of Colombia. So keep in mind who is speaking and their motives. Read more at: http://213.251.145.96/cable/2010/01/10BOGOTA13.html

Though The Partisan does not speak on behalf of Anonymous, this was done in solidarity with their Operation Leakspin. We encourage our readers to participate. Do it for transparency in government, do it for free speech on the internet, do it for FARC, do it for yourself, for your mother, it doesn't matter, just do it.

US Tax Dollars fund Afghan Sex Slavery

Wikileaks has recently made a cable from Afghanistan public. The information revealed that United States government contractor DynCorp is involved in the forced sex trafficking of little boys in Afghanistan.

It was reported that DynCorp threw a party for Afghan security recruits that involved trafficked children as sexual entertainment. Bacha bazi, as it is called, is the traditional Afghan "boy play" in which small boys are forced to dress as girls, dance for older men, and are then pimped (sold) for sex to the highest bidder.

These disgusting acts of child molestation are funded by American tax dollars via DynCorp, a firm which gets 95% of its budget from American tax dollars.

Afghan Minister of Interior Hanif Atmar has fought vigorously to keep this a secret. When he found out that journalists were investigating DynCorp's involvement in the forced sex trade of young boys in Afghanistan, he requested that the US suppress the story. Claiming that publishing this would endanger lives, Atmar has put the lives and health of children at risk.

This is not the first time DynCorp and American tax dollars have been linked to human trafficking. In Bosnia in 1999, it was revealed that DynCorp's staffers were pimping out Eastern European girls as young as 12 years old.

Tea Party President Wants Voting Restricted to Rich

Tea Party Nation president Judson Phillips made a very controversial statement recently. On the Tea Party Nation radio program, he advocated the removal of voting rights by saying:

"The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. It wasn't you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense..."

The outdated idea he is advocating has its roots in the bygone days of before the industrial revolution, when slavery thrived and women could not vote.

Republicans such as Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia, Governor of Texas Rick Perry, Representative Paul Broun of Georgia, and Senator Mike Lee of Utah have all said that they wish to repeal the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This Amendment is the one that states all Senators must be elected by the people.

By trampling on the Constitution which they claim to uphold and defend, the conservatives are waging class warfare in the name of the rich (CEO's and bought-off politicians) against regular people like you and I. These are the very same people who tell you to fear socialism because it is, in their minds, "undemocratic." Yet here they are, trying to take away your right to vote.

“When the oppressive forces maintain themselves in power against laws they themselves established, peace must be considered already broken.” - Che Guevara

IWW supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in support of Palestinian Rights

The following article was taken from IWW.org.

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies) has officially voted to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in support of Palestinian rights. The “Resolution in Support of the Workers of Palestine/Israel” was adopted in an overwhelming vote both at the IWW’s convention in Minneapolis and by the membership via referendum. This vote makes the IWW the first union in the US and the third union in Canada to officially support the Palestinian United Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

Inspired by the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the BDS movement calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel until such time as fundamental Palestinian rights are recognized. The BDS call is supported by a broad cross-section of Palestinian society, including Palestinian unions.

The resolution to support the BDS campaign comes out of the work of the IWW’s International Solidarity Commission and the IWW Friends of Palestinian Workers Group, a grassroots network of Wobblies supportive of the Palestinian, Israeli and international struggle against Israeli apartheid. Support for the BDS campaign was also stressed by all the Palestinian workers who met with members of the IWW on the IWW delegation to Palestine, particularly the Independent Workers Federation of Palestine, with whom the IWW shares a close bond of solidarity.

“For a union concerned with international solidarity, supporting the BDS movement is the right thing to do”, said IWW member Nathaniel Miller, who serves on the International Solidarity Commission and attended the IWW delegation to Palestine. “By officially supporting this BDS call, the IWW stands shoulder to shoulder with Palestinian workers in a global picket line against Israeli apartheid.”

“Our support of the BDS movement is in line with traditional wobbly principles of anti-racism and international solidarity”

The IWW Friends of Palestinian Workers Group resolves to continue to advance the cause of Palestinian rights inside and outside of the IWW.

Founded in 1905, the IWW is a union with a long tradition of solidarity and anti-militarism, and has been central to some of the most important struggles in US working class history. More recently, the IWW has been successfully organizing at Starbucks and in the fast food industry, among workers long thought to be unorganizable.