RSN: 50 Years On, Mississippi Still Burns

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Andy Borowitz | Bush Creates Painting of What He Imagines Iraq Is Like Today

Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "Talking to reporters at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, the President said he did not read the news before composing his latest work."
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US House Backs Limits on Obama's Authority
Donna Cassata, Associated Press
Cassata writes: "The Republican-led House on Friday overwhelmingly approved a $570 billion defense bill that halts any Guantanamo transfers for a year in the furor over the American-for-Taliban swap and pulls back government spying."
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Pakistani Woman Raped, Killed and Hanged from Tree: Police
Reuters
Excerpt: "A 20-year-old woman has been gang-raped, killed and hanged from a tree in Pakistan in a case with a chilling resemblance to a double rape and murder that caused outrage in neighbouring India last month."
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Albuquerque Protesters Put Police Chief 'On Trial'
Associated Press
Excerpt: "Hundreds of protesters, including some who brought children, marched from Roosevelt Park with signs and a makeshift coffin inscribed with names of people killed by Albuquerque officers in recent years."
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50 Years On, Mississippi Still Burns
Dexter Mullins, Al Jazeera America
Mullins writes: "Saturday marks 50 years since James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered while trying to help African Americans in Mississippi register to vote during the 'Freedom Summer' of 1964."
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5 Links Between Higher Education and the Prison Industry
Hannah K. Gold, Rolling Stone
Gold writes: "American universities do a fine job of selling themselves as pathways to opportunity and knowledge. But follow the traffic of money and policies through these academic institutions and you'll often wind up at the barbed wire gates of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, the two largest private prison operators in the United States."
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Oil Wells Linked to Oklahoma's Stunning Increase in Earthquakes
Polly Mosendz, The Wire
Mosendz writes: "Between 1978 and 2008, Oklahoma had just two earthquakes with a magnitude over 3.0. In 2014, thus far, there have been around 200 such earthquakes there, more even than the highly unstable state of California."
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RSN: FBI Investigates Prison Company, Conservative Group ALEC Trains Sights on City and Local Government, et al

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Robert Parry | The 'We-Hate-Putin' Group Think

Robert Parry, Consortium News
Parry writes: "Across the ideological spectrum, there is rave support for the coup that overthrew Ukraine's elected president - and endless ranting against Russian President Vladimir Putin for refusing to accept the new coup leadership in Kiev and intervening to protect Russian interests in Crimea."
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Behind Clash Between CIA and Congress, a Secret Report on Interrogations
Mark Mazzetti, The New York Times
Mazzetti reports: "It was early December when the Central Intelligence Agency began to suspect it had suffered what it regarded as an embarrassing computer breach."
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Conservative Group ALEC Trains Sights on City and Local Government
Ed Pilkington, Guardian UK
Pilkington reports: "The rightwing group Alec is preparing to launch a new nationwide network that will seek to replicate its current influence within state legislatures in city councils and municipalities."
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Texas: Bringing the 'Pre-Roe' Days Back for Women
Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams
Germanos reports: "Two more reproductive healthcare clinics in Texas that provided abortion closed this week, an 'injustice' critics say has been brought on by legislation that robs women of their rights and 'endangers the lives of the state's most vulnerable women.'"
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FBI Investigates Prison Company
Rebecca Boone, Associated Press
Boone reports: "The FBI has launched an investigation of the Corrections Corporation of America over the company's running of an Idaho prison with a reputation so violent that inmates dubbed it 'Gladiator School.'"
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While We Wait on Keystone Decision, a Different Tar Sands Pipeline Gets Approved
Emily Atkin, ThinkProgress
Atkin writes: "Canada's National Energy Board have approved a proposal by Enbridge Inc. to allow the reversal and expansion of their Line 9 pipeline."
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Bernie Sanders | There's No Need to End Saturday Mail Delivery

Sen. Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News
Sanders writes: "Whether you are a low-income elderly woman living at the end of a dirt road in Vermont or a wealthy CEO living on Park Avenue, you get your mail six days a week. And you pay for this service at a cost far less than anywhere else in the industrialized world."
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Declassify the Senate Report on CIA Interrogation Methods
The Washington Post
Excerpt: "More than a dozen years after the attacks of 9/11, it is time to treat government decisions made in the aftermath as history - to be debated and learned from."
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Pussy Riot Members Attacked With Green Paint and Rubbish
Reuters
Excerpt: "Two members of the Russian protest group Pussy Riot were attacked by a group of men who poured rubbish and bright green paint over them and shouted obscenities at them at a McDonald's restaurant."
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Senate Rejects Blocking Military Commanders From Sexual Assault Cases
Helene Cooper, The New York Times
Cooper reports: "The Senate on Thursday rejected a controversial bipartisan bill to remove military commanders from decisions over the prosecution of sexual assault cases in the armed forces, delivering a defeat to advocacy groups that argued that wholesale changes are necessary to combat an epidemic of rapes and sexual assaults in the military."
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Congressional Black Caucus Demands Darrell Issa Be Removal As Committee Chair
Rebecca Leber, ThinkProgress
Leber reports: "At a House hearing yesterday, Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) cut the mic of Democratic Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), fueling the Congressional Black Caucus to demand Issa face punishment for his 'unequivocally unacceptable' actions."
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MSNBC's Ed Schultz: 'I Was Wrong,' Don't Build Keystone XL Pipeline
Ryan Koronowski, ThinkProgress
Koronowski reports: "Ed Schultz, host of MSNBC's The Ed Show, has changed his mind and become the latest prominent opponent of approving the Keystone XL pipeline."
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Daily Kos: •FBI takes over investigation of CCA's operation of Idaho State Penitentiary nicknamed 'Gladiator School,' RACISM rears its ugly head, et al

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'Annie' is black and racists go crazy In case you were wondering why John McCain is the most unpopular Senator in the country Mike Huckabee hearts God and Vladimir Putin Paul Ryan's brown bag lunch story wasn't entirely untrue. Just the part that mattered. New York Times joins the Port Authority fray Radio host Michael Medved: No state has ever banned gay marriage. 'That is a liberal lie.' Ted Cruz says we 'no longer have a president,' apparently because Barack Obama is now our dictator Brownback's school defunding plan ruled unconstitutional in the state of Kansas FBI takes over investigation of CCA's operation of Idaho State Penitentiary nicknamed 'Gladiator School' Keystone isn't any normal pipeline POLL: Millennial generation is cause for liberal optimism Make change happen. Log in or sign up for Daily Kos, the nation's largest progressive community. Thanks for all you do, The Daily Kos team

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In case you missed this shocking report that been widely circulated....

A private prison in Otay Mesa, Calif. (photo: Getty Images)

6 Ways Private Prisons Make Money

By April M. Short, AlterNet

23 September 13

Private prison companies are striking deals with states that contain clauses to guarantee high prison occupancy rates.

magine living in a country where prisons are private corporations that profit from keeping their beds stocked at, or near, capacity and the governing officials scramble to meet contractual "lockup quotas." Imagine that taxpayers would have to pay for any empty beds should crime rates fall below that quota. Surprise! You already live there.

 

A new report from In the Public Interest (ITPI) revealed last week that private prison companies are striking deals with states that contain clauses guaranteeing high prison occupancy rates. The report, "Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and 'Low-Crime Taxes' Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations," documents the contracts exchanged between private prison companies and state and local governments that either guarantee prison occupancy rates (essentially creating inmate lockup quotas) or force taxpayers to pay for empty beds if the prison population decreases due to lower crime rates or other factors (essentially creating low-crime taxes).

 

Some of these contracts require 90 to 100 percent prison occupancy.

 

In a letter to 48 state governors in 2012, the largest for-profit private prison company in the US, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), offered to buy up and operate public state prisons. In exchange, states would have to sign a 20-year contract guaranteeing a 90 percent occupancy rate throughout the term.

 

While no state accepted CCA's offer, a number of private prison companies have been inserting similar occupancy guarantee provisions into prison privatization contracts and requiring states to maintain high occupancy rates within their privately owned prisons. Three privately run prisons in Arizona have contracts that require 100 percent inmate occupancy, so the state is obligated to keep its prisons filled to capacity. Otherwise it has to pay the private company for any unused beds.

 

The report notes that contract clauses like this incentivize criminilization, and do nothing to promote rehabilitation, crime reduction or community building.

 

"[These contracts run] counter to many states' public policy goals of reducing the prison population and increasing

efforts for inmate rehabilitation," the report states. "When policymakers received the 2012 CCA letter, some worried the terms of CCA's offer would encourage criminal justice officials to seek harsher sentences to maintain the occupancy rates required by a contract. Policy decisions should be based on creating and maintaining a just criminal justice system that protects the public interest, not ensuring corporate profits."

 

In a press teleconference about the report, Reverend Michael McBride, director of Urban Strategies and Lifelines to Healing at PICO National Network said the real human impact of having lockup quotas was unjustifiable.

 

"It's important for us to step back and look at this from a moral perspective; all people of any faith or no faith at all can claim it's reprehensible to imprison someone for making money or financial motives," he said. "It's important to always remember every single person is a human being ... even if they have done something we may find problematic or illegal. They are not profit incentives."

Here are six of the most shocking facts about prison privatization and corporatization, from the report.

1. 65 percent of the private prison contracts ITPI received and analyzed included occupancy guarantees in the form of quotas or required payments for empty prison cells (a "low-crime tax"). These quotas and low-crime taxes put taxpayers on the hook for guaranteeing profits for private prison corporations.


2. Occupancy guarantee clauses in private prison contracts range between 80% and 100%, with 90% as the most frequent occupancy guarantee requirement.


3. Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Virginia are locked in contracts with the highest occupancy guarantee requirements, with all quotas requiring between 95% and 100% occupancy.


4. Though crime has dropped by a third in the past decade, an occupancy requirement covering three for-profit prisons has forced taxpayers in Colorado to pay an additional $2 million.


5. Three Arizona for-profit prison contracts have a staggering 100% quota, even though a 2012 analysis from Tucson Citizen shows that the company's per-day charge for each prisoner has increased an average of 13.9% over the life of the contracts.


6. A 20-year deal to privately operate the Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Ohio includes a 90% quota, and has contributed to cutting corners on safety, including overcrowding, areas without secure doors and an increase in crime both inside the prison and in the surrounding community.