"don't let a pregnancy get in the way of your crack habit":
why drug addicts are getting sterilized for cash from time: When Joanne Chavarria's grandmother died last summer, she coped by turning to the bottle. "I started to drink. And then I started to smoke some weed. And then I started doing meth," says the 32-year-old from Merced, Calif. Chavarria, who began abusing drugs at the age of 12, was eight months pregnant at the time. Last August, she gave birth to drug-addicted twins, and California's Child Protective Services took the infants, as well as Chavarria's three other children, into custody. As with other addicts, the road to recovery for Chavarria began with counseling and a drug-rehabilitation program. Less orthodox, however, was her decision to undergo a tubal ligation. "Addicts in my situation need to get their tubes tied," she says. "When you stop having kids, it makes you think about what else you can do in life." Chavarria had the procedure done after meeting with Project Prevention, a North Carolina–based charity that gives drug addicts $300 if they go on long-term birth control or undergo sterilization. The aim of Barbara Harris, 57, the organization's controversial founder, is to prevent addicts from having children they can't care for and reduce the number of babies who are born exposed to drugs.
737 US military bases = global empire from global research: With more than 2,500,000 U.S. personnel serving across the planet and military bases spread across each continent, it's time to face up to the fact that our American democracy has spawned a global empire.
marines embedded at los angeles county coroner's office from latimes: Marine Corps Reserve Lance Cpl. Matthew Barlow rides along with Los Angeles County coroner's personnel to retrieve the body of a homeless man found in Hazard Park in Boyle Heights. He is among 14 Marines who were embedded at the coroner's office for three weeks to learn how to collect bodies and personal belongings and identify the dead. The troops are in a special unit that soon will deploy to Iraq, where they will receive the bodies of fallen troops and prepare them for the flight home to the United States.
guardsmen train for urban conflict from nevada daily mail: More than 200 soldiers from the newly formed 1st Battalion, 138th Infantry Regiment of the Missouri Army National Guard came to Camp Clark from across the state on Saturday, March 14, to take part in training in several different combat scenarios. This is the first time Missouri has had an infantry unit in more than 35 years. The new unit, headquartered in Kansas City, has companies and detachments across the state and will have more than 800 soldiers when it reaches full strength, according to a Missouri Army National Guard press release.
britain trains civilian anti-terror force from presstv: Britain has launched a clandestine alliance that recruits citizens and trains them to act as undercover agents against terror suspects. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the initiative is vital for safety in the UK. According to him, tens of thousands of civilians have already been trained for the purpose. Brown said Sunday that the individuals range "from security guards to store managers" who know how to "deal with an incident and know what to watch for as people go about their daily business in crowded places such as stations, airports, shopping centers and sports grounds." British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the strategy, called Contest Two, would be more open than past counter-terrorism efforts.
dozens in cps have criminal records from sacbee: Drug possession, domestic violence, repeatedly driving drunk, assault with a deadly weapon – any one of these charges or convictions could lead child protective services workers to remove children from a home or force a parent into counseling. But all of those crimes and many others appear in the backgrounds of employees of Sacramento County's Child Protective Services, a Bee investigation has found. A review of the agency's 969 workers employed as of Oct. 1 found that at least 68 individuals – 7 percent of the work force – have criminal records in Sacramento County alone. The number is likely to be even higher because some names were too common to retrieve all criminal complaints linked to them, and records in other counties were not searched.
giant shipment of weapons seized at airport from local12: Customs and Border Protection now say a paperwork error may be partly to blame for guns it confiscated at the international airport. The weapons were seized on Monday. Officers say the shipment was listed as "toys" from Turkey. It contained sixty 12-gauge shotguns and 177 pistols. Federal agents say they tested a shotgun and it fired live ammo. The pistols are designed for theatrical use. No charges have been filed, because the investigation is on-going.
despite protests, dekalb goes with marines school from ajc: DeKalb County school officials are forging ahead with plans to open a first-of-its-kind military-style public high school, despite a growing campaign by activists upset at the involvement of the U.S. Marines. “It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in Georgia education,” said Michael Burke, a DeKalb resident and spokesman for the Georgia Veterans Alliance, a group that aligns itself with the work of the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, among others. “The whole thing is just a ploy” to help the Marines recruit, Burke said. “We expect to fight it tooth and nail.” That response irritated DeKalb school system officials. They said it stereotypes the proposed Marine school and students who may be interested in it. The protests — mounted largely through e-mails and letters — have not deterred them, they said.
from philadelphia inquirer: The three New Jersey children with Nazi-themed middle names have been placed in the custody of the state, police said. Holland Township Police Sgt. John Harris workers from the state Division of Youth and Family Services removed 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell and his younger sisters, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell. Harris, who as there to keep order on Tuesday, says DYFS did not tell police the reason the children were removed. DYFS spokeswoman Kate Bernyk says the child-welfare agency does not comment on specific cases. The children and their parents, Heath and Deborah Campbell, received attention last month when a northwestern supermarket bakery refused to put Adolf Hitler Campbell’s name on a birthday cake.
from philadelphia inquirer: Two Philadelphia social workers were among nine charged yesterday in the death of a Danieal Kelly, a 14-year-old girl who starved to death in 2006, her body eaten by bed sores to the bone.
Unveiling a blistering grand jury report today(1.5mb PDF), District Attorney Lynne Abraham blasted the city's Department of Human Services as an indifferent and callous agency that had let Kelly die needlessly.
Drawing gasps at a news conference in which she showed a photograph of Kelly's bloody, emaciated corpse, Abraham urged the state to take over DHS - a call that was not embraced by state officials.
At a later news conference, agency director Anne Marie Ambrose broke down crying at the podium when asked if she had seen the photo in which the dead child was hardly recognizable as human.
from orange punch: As AP reports, “More than 400 children taken from a polygamist sect’s ranch two months ago began returning to the arms of their tearful parents Monday, hours after a judge bowed to a state Supreme Court ruling that the seizure was not justified.”
It’s one thing for Child Protective Services to remove a child from a household where specific abuse is alleged, quite another for it to swoop in and remove hundreds of children from their families in an entire community. The allegation in this case apparently was bogus. Polygamy is strange to most people, but the state overstepped its bounds and undermined parental rights - something that, thankfully, the Texas courts acknowledged.
CPS has far too much power and is driven by an ideology whereby the government is in control of the children, parents are guilty until proven innocent, and everything is litigated in a closed, Soviet-like court system where the rules are rigged in the favor of the government. Talk about an area in need of vast, freedom-friendly reform.
from bbc: An appeal court has ruled that US officials had no right to seize 463 children from a polygamist sect in western Texas last month. The court said that the reasons given for the children's removal were "legally and factually insufficient". But it did not immediately order the return of the children to the ranch.
In April, officials raided a compound of the sect, saying young girls were being forced into marriage and sex. The children were placed into foster care. But the Texas Third Appeal Court ruled that officials failed to demonstrate the children were in any immediate danger, which is the only legally allowable reason for taking children from their homes without court proceedings.
fair use notice: this site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. we are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, & social justice issues, etc. we believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law. In accordance with title 17 usc section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
from time: When Joanne Chavarria's grandmother died last summer, she coped by turning to the bottle. "I started to drink. And then I started to smoke some weed. And then I started doing meth," says the 32-year-old from Merced, Calif. Chavarria, who began abusing drugs at the age of 12, was eight months pregnant at the time. Last August, she gave birth to drug-addicted twins, and California's Child Protective Services took the infants, as well as Chavarria's three other children, into custody. As with other addicts, the road to recovery for Chavarria began with counseling and a drug-rehabilitation program. Less orthodox, however, was her decision to undergo a tubal ligation. "Addicts in my situation need to get their tubes tied," she says. "When you stop having kids, it makes you think about what else you can do in life." Chavarria had the procedure done after meeting with Project Prevention, a North Carolina–based charity that gives drug addicts $300 if they go on long-term birth control or undergo sterilization. The aim of Barbara Harris, 57, the organization's controversial founder, is to prevent addicts from having children they can't care for and reduce the number of babies who are born exposed to drugs.
