Archive for the ‘Veterans’ Category
This report is listed on NADINE along with the mountain of data used to compile it. 20,000 plus pages and 6,000 photos.
Thursday, August 19th, 2010 4:11 am
Killings of homeless people have risen to their highest level in a decade, with 43 killed last year and many more injured in often brutal attacks that are raising concerns among law enforcement officials, rights advocates, and politicians, says the New York Times. The rise in killings, from 27 in 2008, comes as state and local governments are wrestling with the problem of what to do with the growing number of people forced onto the streets by economic woes. Some states and cities are moving to prosecute violence against the homeless as a hate crime; others are imposing tougher measures to prevent people from living on the streets in the first place.
Cases compiled by the National Coalition for the Homeless showed homeless people doused with gasoline and set on fire, attacked with bottles, metal pipes and baseball bats, and sprayed with pepper spray, often for the sport of it. Because the FBI does not track crimes against the homeless, data from the coalition is considered the most definitive. U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) plans to lead a hearing next month on the rising homeless problem, including violence against those living on the streets. Criminologists and others who worked on the study said they believed the rise in fatal attacks has been fueled by a combination of factors, including tough economic times, the popularity of amateur Web videos on “bum fights” and on-line games that glorify and trivialize attacks, an increase in gang initiations involving the homeless, and crackdowns on homeless encampments that have bred hostility.
Links:
NEW YORK TIMES
The Crime Report
Comment: We have been saying that for years!
Guardians of Liberty- 12,227
Activists 3,955
11,622 Anti-P2P IChats Disrupted. 5751 repeat performers. 624 hot tu-chats. 49 Slammer Worm Sites. (Russian and Chinese) 311 Voice/Video Chat Attacks. 806 HVT
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- Seattle Police run off doorway sleeper’s on Thanksgiving!
- Come boo the new mayor-to be posted next month.
- Rangers plan to carry coffins next year on a twenty-mile procession in uniform. number of coffins to match number of homeless deaths.
- Homeless couple plan a four year legal action to keep city and county on track with 10YP.
- 12,000 individual meals were passed out yesterday to illegal encampments and sleeping areas.
- 57 defendants, 2 plantiffs in 10yp lawsuit.
A unscheduled meeting of the VFBA will meet in Everett, Washington tonight to discuss their role in the current HU campaign.
July 22, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Another update just in from a spokesperson for the encampment that calls itself “Nickelsville,” currently set up on state-owned land along the eastern edge of West Seattle (2nd SW/Highland Park Way), and under orders to clear out by Thursday night:
Yesterday Attorneys Robert Siegel and Peggy Herman filed a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in Federal District Court. Judge Richard Martinez said he will issue an order either today or tomorrow. He has decided not to hold a public hearing before issuing his decision.
If Judge Martinez grants the TRO request, Nickelsville will have up to 2 weeks before a second hearing. At a second hearing a permanent order might be granted. If Judge Martinez does not issue a Temporary Restraining Order, at 5:00 PM Thursday Nickelsville and arriving supporters will load-up vehicles and trucks, in which case Nickelsville has asked the State to allow up to 12 PM Friday for people who have chosen to leave to leave, and for people to be given the opportunity to move both their own and Nickelsville community property.
Nickelsville’s residents who commit to stay through the arrival of Police, should this happen, will not be verbally abusive or disrespectful to either those issuing the orders, or those carrying them out.
“It is our opinion that it is both wrong and illegal to remove this community from this permanent site without having another permanent site available. Contrary to some claims, no church or other property owner has offered Nickelsville a site to go to. It is true that a temporary site is not suitable for our community. Our goal is to survive and solve homelessness with this stable, functional alternative, and not suffer continual disruption.”
WEST SEATTLE BLOG
Seattle.
HU begins rotation of crew’s after five years. VFBA Rangers will now celebrate with R and R and Delta’s will now fill in for the team. Rotation’s are common. As we bring in new faces, they too will fill over-watches and back-watches starting tonight. Spectra was a success. Fiifteen homeless provided information leading to the drug stings.
Kevin Johnson may want to rethink his plan before launching another attack on a mass group of Homeless. Next time it might screw up some criminal cases.
HU Command Center-Burien, Washington.
At 9:30 Pacific Daylight Time this morning, a request was made by both the VFBA and HU personnel at HU’s Headquarters to the Board of Directors with Roger Clark (National Commander of VFBA North America) and Jeff Harwood Acting National Director for the homeless Underground, both presenting arguments for a large scale ground action expected to happen within the next day or so.
At the request of Amanda Long District 6 Operations Director, the use of helicopter support was deemed worthy in the event of an all out clash between the homeless and city officials.
HU Board of Directors has authorized the use of HU delta’s based out of Los Angeles. As many as six helicopters will be used to supply food, water, generators and medical supplies.
At 12:30 pm, six mobile command posts and thirty three buses have arrived in Sacramento, California in what could be called the largest “bonehead” contemptuous action by any mayor in U.S. History.
At 1:30 pm, three of the six HH-60-H’s were on the flight lines ready to fly-their load-mobile low powered jammers and semi’s were loaded with bambi buckets; capable of delivering thousands of gallons of water per load.
At last word, all were at the ready. Delta’s and Rangers will act as eyes and ears for the pilots. As many as thirty three deltas will be used. Bullet resistant vests will be used.
Welcome to Infoshop News
Sunday, December 28 2008 @ 08:04 PM CST
Opening of Seattle’s first public squat
Sunday, December 28 2008 @ 04:45 AM CST
Contributed by: Anonymous
Views: 165
Housing On January 1st, 2009, a new squat will be opening up in Seattle. A rally of homeless residents from the U-District’s Tent City, which the community simply calls “Nickelsville” after Seattle’s Mayor Greg Nickels, will have live music and speakers giving talks on the need for free housing for the homeless and impoverished.
At 12:30 in the afternoon, residents and supporters of Nickelsville will gather to discuss their situation, and at 2:30 all will march to the house we intend on expropriating. As a group we will clean up the house, stuff it full of food and goodies, and secure it for our own use.
The rally is being held on the corner of 15th and 45th at the Tent City at 12:30 in the afternoon on Jan. 1st. Please bring signs pertaining to housing rights, squatting, anti-capitalism, and direct action. Bring noise makers and bring friends!
For contact info in the Seattle area please call:
(206) 850 9626
or email:
team_victory_will_win@yahoo.com
-John
INFO SHOP
11/16/08
ANNE USHER/Cox News Service
WASHINGTON – At least one in four U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffers from a multi-symptom illness caused by exposure to toxic chemicals during the conflict, a congressionally mandated report being released Monday found.
For much of the past 17 years, government officials have maintained that these veterans — more than 175,000 out of about 697,000 deployed — are merely suffering the effects of wartime stress, even as more have come forward recently with severe ailments.
“The extensive body of scientific research now available consistently indicates that ‘Gulf War illness’ is real, that it is the result of neurotoxic exposures during Gulf War deployment, and that few veterans have recovered or substantially improved with time,” said the report, being released Monday by a panel of scientists and veterans. A copy was obtained by Cox Newspapers.
Gulf War illness is typically characterized by a combination of memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue and widespread pain. It may also include chronic digestive problems, respiratory symptoms and skin rashes.
Two things the military provided to troops in large quantities to protect them — pesticides and pyridostigmine bromide (PB), aimed at thwarting the effects of nerve gas — are the most likely culprits, the panel found.
The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, created by Congress in 2002, presented its 450-page report to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake on Monday. It said its report is the first to review the hundreds of U.S. and international studies on Gulf War vets since that have been conducted the mid-1990s.
In a 2004 draft report to Congress, the panel said that many Gulf veterans were suffering from neurological damage caused by exposure to toxic chemicals.
The new report goes further by pinpointing known causes and it criticizes past U.S. studies, which have cost more than $340 million, as “overly simplistic and compartmentalized.”
It recommends that the Department of Veterans Affairs order a re-do of past Gulf War and Health reports, calling them “skewed” because they did not include evaluations of toxic exposure studies in lab animals, as Congress had requested.
The panel examined such tests and noted that recent ones — unethical to carry out on humans – have identified biological effects from Gulf War exposures that were previously unknown.
While it called some new VA and DOD programs promising, it noted that overall federal funding for Gulf War research has dropped sharply in recent years. Those studies that have been funded, it said, “have little or no relevance to the health of Gulf War veterans, and for research on stress and psychiatric illness.”
“Veterans of the 1990-1991 Gulf War had the distinction of serving their country in a military operation that was a tremendous success, achieved in short order. But many had the misfortune of developing lasting health consequences that were poorly understood and, for too long, denied or trivialized,” the committee’s report says.
The report also faults the Pentagon, saying it clearly recognized scientific evidence substantiating Gulf War illness in 2001 but did not acknowledge it publicly.
It said that Acting Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Gulf War illnesses Lt. Gen. Dale Vesser remarked that year that although Saddam Hussein didn’t use nuclear, biological, or chemical agents against coalition forces during the war — an assertion still debated — “It never dawned on us ././. that we may have done it to ourselves.”
Click here for the rest of story
For more about the Committee and its activities, click here.
Able to leap tall condo’s at a single bound-Greg’s got nerve-kick him to the curb! Fascism’s best friend.
