Today's Stories

October 19, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Dollar Will Not Crash

October 16-18, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
White House v. Fox News: a War Obama Can Win

Saul Landau
Autumn of the Patriarch

Paul Craig Roberts
The Rich Have Stolen the Economy

Carl Ginsburg
Where $18 an Hour is Too Much

Ralph Nader
Barney Frank the Bankers' Consort

Nikolas Kozloff
Rainforest Beef, Factory Farms and Anthony Bourdain's War on Vegetarians

Carlo Galli
Berlusconi: Still Doing Nothing, Still There

Dave Lindorff
Agent Orange in Vietnam: Ignoring the Crimes Before Our Eyes

Catherine Rottenberg / Neve Gordon
Educating Children in War Zones

Marshall Auerback
Dollar Spasms

Nicola Nasser
The Realistic Way Out of Iraq

Windy Cooler
The Ghost of John Brown

James L. Secor
Why I Miss China

Ron Jacobs
Escalation Unopposed

Wes Jackson
A Way of Knowing

Jesse Lerner-Kinglake
Global Food Fight

David Ker Thomson Against Leaders

Missy Beattie
Dinner With the President

Emily Ratner
Taping Our Mouths Shut to Scream Out Our Dissent

Stephen Martin
The Scorched Earth Mindset of the International Banker

Michael Snedeker
"A Place of Greater Safety"

Charles R. Larson
Cheeta: the Last of the Hollywood High-Rollers

David Yearsley
Judith Leyster's Sensuous Passions

Peter Stone Brown
It's a Bob Christmas for Halloween

Poets' Basement
Keeler, Beatty and Anderson

Website of the Weekend
Elements of Nature

October 15, 2009

Andrew Cockburn
Our Cheap Politicians

Brian M. Downing
Rethinking the Afghan Insurgency

Ramzy Baroud
Abbas and the Goldstone Report: Our Shame is Complete

Danny Weil
A Neo-Liberal Arts Education: Diploma Mills and Debt Peonage

M. Idrees Ahmad
Return to Peshawar: a Journey Home

Margaret Kimberley
Michelle's Family Tree

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five: Which Side Are You On?

Harvey Wasserman
Nuking the Climate Bill

Nirmal Ghosh
A Tale of Two Protocols: How Montreal Could Save Us From the Mire of Kyoto

Charles R. Larson
Sarah Palin Bears It All

Website of the Day
Tortured Law

October 14, 2009

Michael Neumann
Fearsome Words? a Suppressed Talk on the Israel/Palestine Conflict

M. Reza Pirbhai
Fighting the Taliban: What, Exactly, is Being Fought in Afghanistan?

Gareth Porter
Hawks Play Up the Taliban's Ties to Al Qaeda

Paul Craig Roberts
War Criminals Are Becoming Arbiters of the Law

John Strausbaugh Fortress Moon

Ralph Nader
The CBO's Flawed Report on Medical Malpractice

Dean Baker
Won't You Please Come to Chicago to Greet the Bankers?

Charles Modiano
White Silence: Where Does Brett Favre Stand on Rush Limbaugh?

Nadia Hijab
Abandoning "Women and Children"

Walter Brasch
An Extension of Her Motherhood: Sherry Carpenter, Journalist and Animal Care Provider

Website of the Day
Nader: Obama Has a "Concessionary Personality"

October 13, 2009

Peter Linebaugh
Putting the Spine Back in the Commonwealth

Shamus Cooke
What Obama Isn't Telling American Workers

John Ross
War on Mexican Women

Brendan Cooney
Ask Awal Khan About Obama's Prize

Frida Berrigan
Operation Enduring Detentions: Losing the Moral High Ground

Yves Engler
Is Canada More Pro-Israel Than the US?

David Macaray
Why the Government Fears Unions

Dave Lindorff
Democrats: Selling Out, But Still Getting Screwed

Mark Weisbrot
Occupying Afghanistan is Making Things Worse

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
History Repeats Itself

Binoy Kampmark
That Dirty Colonial War

Website of the Day
The Health Insurance Industry's Latest Doublecross

October 12, 2009

Pam Martens
Secret Deal Between Wall Street and Washington Shines a Harsh Light on Federal Housing Agency

Mike Whitney
A Dollar Rout or More Bernanke Trickery?

Martha Rosenberg
Yale Lab Tech Causes Two Problems for Animal Researchers

Jessica Arents
The Price of Peace: Our Arrest at the White House

Eamonn McCann
Massacre in Ireland, Massacre in Iraq

Bill Hatch
Dairy Industry Goes Down the Tubes

Sen. Russell Feingold
Time for a Timetable in Afghanistan

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Siren Song of World Praise

Gideon Levy
Obama's Betrayed Mission in the Middle East

Iyad Burnat
Why Does Obama Get a Prize and Bush Got Shoes?

Alan Cabal
Why Obama Deserves the Nobel

Dan Bacher
The Astroturf Method

Website of the Day
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help

October 9-11, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
War and Peace

James Bovard
Eight Years of Big Lies on Afghanistan

Kathleen and Bill Christison
New Crisis Developing in Palestine

Andy Worthington
Congressional Depravity on Gitmo

Marc Levy
Talking Dirty to the Kids

Tariq Ali
Ahmed Rashid's War

Mike Whitney
The Securitization Boondoggle

Paul Craig Roberts
Warmonger Wins Peace Prize

Alan Nasser
Cockeyed Economics

Jack Z. Bratich
The Twitterest Pill: Policing Dissent in the Information Age

Steve Breyman
Time for a War Tax

David Michael Green
A Hapless Presidency

Dave Lindorff
The WTF Prize

Paul Buchheit
Fear of the Rich

Jim Goodman
Feedlots and E. Coli

Missy Beattie
Theater of the Absurd

Michael Leonardi
Ships of Poison

Nadia Hijab
The Plight of the Right of Return

Mel Packer
The Crackdown on Pittsburgh

David Macaray
The Raiding Game

James T. Phillips
Getting Burned

Charles R. Larson
One Man's Walk Through Hell

Michael Donnelly
Behind the Capitalist Curtain

David Yearsley
The Biggest Blot on Mel Gibson's Rap Sheet

Lorenzo Wolff
Rap That Threatens ... and Endures

Poets' Basement
Heyen, Ames and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Jobs Conference

October 8, 2009

Saul Landau
A Late September Morning With Fidel

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Dark Omens for the US in Afghanistan

Linn Washington, Jr.
Pot and Perversion: Judicial Antics Expose Drug War Insanity

Marshall Auerback
Neo-Classical Economics Misses What Matters

Dave Lindorff
A Nation of Snoops

David Rosen
Bankrupt Morality: the Staying Power of Republican Sinners

Chris Darimont / Misty MacDuffee
The Bear Essentials: New Thinking Needed to Save BC's Salmon and Grizzlies

John V. Walsh
Remembering Hinton's Fanshen

Stewart Lawrence
The Edwards / Hunter Affair Reconsidered

Charles R. Larson
Conservatives in the Sandbox

Website of the Day
Et Tu, Code Pink?

October 7, 2009

Brendan Cooney
Are Republicans Breaking US Law in Honduras?

Paul Craig Roberts
Dead Labor: Marx and Lenin Reconsidered

Dean Baker
Bernanke's Recovery: Unemployment Up, Wages Down (But the Banks Have Been Saved ... Sort Of)

Jonathan Cook
A Third Intifada?

John Stanton
HTS: Congress Rewards Failure, Puts Personnel in Harms Way

Joanne Mariner
Tortured Language

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cherry Blossoms

Stephen Lendman
The Gaza War's Effect on Women

Sen. Russell Feingold
Time to Draw Down in Afghanistan

Mary Lynn Cramer
Doublespeak on Health Care

Website of the Day
How to Bag a Wolf by Aerial Assault

October 6, 2009

Mike Whitney
Dollar Hysteria: Is the Sky Really Falling?

Gareth Porter
The Iranian Rift in the IAEA: Leaked Paper Based on Disputed Intel

Jonathan Cook
How Israel Buried the UN's War Crime Probe

Boris Kagarlitsky
My Hour as Talking Head in Moscow

Iain Boal
The New Crisis at Pacifica

Ron Jacobs
Why Are We in Afghanistan?

John Ross
Wave of Anarchist Bombings Strikes Mexico

Michael Dickinson
Panic in Istanbul: Smoke, Mayhem and the World Bank

Stephen Fleischman
Beware the Predator

Ira Glunts
The Audacity of Nope

Missy Beattie
Outside Looking In

Website of the Day
Round Up the Usual Suspects

October 5, 2009

Pam Martens
Wall Street Titans Use Aliases to Foreclose on Families While Partnering with a Federal Agency

Mike Whitney
Dead Man Walking: Welcome to the US Economy

Paul Craig Roberts
How the Feds Imprison the Innocent

Harry Browne
Ireland Says, "Yes, Please"

Sara Mann
My Little Town: Nothin' But the Dead and Dyin'

Omar Barghouti
Dissolve the Palestinian Authority

Shamus Cooke
A Jobless Recovery?

Brenda Norrell
A Dirty New Low for Peabody Coal

Fred Gardner
Situation NORML: Reconciling Medical Pot Use and Legalization

Binoy Kampmark Copenhagen Blues: McChrystal and the Afghan Trap

Website of the Day
In Goldman Sachs We Trust?

October 2-4, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Geezer Renditions

Saul Landau
News From Raul Castro

Diana Johnstone
After the German Elections: Is Socialism Really Dead in Europe?

Greg Moses
Cramming for the Downside

William Blum
The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Another Cold War Myth

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Nuclear Program: Where's the Proof?

Russell Mokhiber
Welcome Back, Michael Moore

John Ross
Chomsky in Mexico

Ellen Brown
IMF Catapults From Shunned Agency to Global Central Bank

David Ker Thomson
Cop Shocks

David Macaray
The Audacity of Toyota

Gary Engler
Unions in a Rut

Robert Fantina
Meet the New Boss (Same as the Old Boss)

Lisa Stolarski / Naomi Archer
Pittsburgh: Still a (Coal) Company Town

Anthony Papa
Here is Your Chance to Help End the Failed War on Drugs

Joe Allen
The Good Wife: Bad View of a Corrupt System

Harry Browne
Tarantino Scalps His Audience

Ron Jacobs
Collective Fiction

Charles R. Larson
Cultural Warriors: Austrialian Aboriginal Art Triennial

David Yearsley
Hanns Eisler's Great National Anthem for East Germany is Available: Make It America's

Poets' Basement
Taylor, Gardner and Landau

Website of the Weekend
Wrongful Convictions of Youth

October 19, 2009

Bizarre License on Highway 59

The Cash Cops of Tenaha

By GREG MOSES

It was Friday of the last day of August, 2007 when Arkansas resident James Morrow attempted to mind his own business while driving peaceably through Tenaha, a small East Texas town in Shelby County  south of Shreveport and Longview.According to a federal lawsuit (Morrow v Tenaha) filed by attorneys Tim Garrigan and David Guillory, there was “no legal justification” for what happened next. Morrow was stopped by Tenaha Deputy Marshall Barry Washington and asked to step out of his car.  Deputy Washington then searched Morrow's car.

Then Deputy Washington was joined at the scene by Shelby County Precinct Four Constable Randy Whatley who searched the car with a dog.  Following two searches of his car, Morrow was asked by Deputy Washington if he had any money, and he said yes, he was carrying about $3,900 in his wallet.  Deputy Washington promptly seized $3,969 from Morrow, confiscated his two cell phones, and arrested him for “money laundering.”

“Washington had no reason  to believe Plaintiff Morrow was guilty of money laundering,” says the federal lawsuit.  “Defendants Washington and Russell  told Plaintiff Morrow they would hold him  prisoner and prosecute him for  money  laundering unless he would agree to forfeit  the $3969.  Under this duress and these threats, Defendants Washington and Russell coerced Plaintiff Morrow  to execute documents memorializing the forfeiture, and released him, and warned him to not hire  a lawyer or try to get his money back.”  The “money laundering” charges were subsequently dismissed.

Morrow is a black African American and the lead plaintiff in a case involving eight motorists who claim they were stopped and stripped of their cash for no other provocation than driving or riding through Tenaha while black.  The cars they all drove were either rented or displayed out-of-state license plates.

On August 13, 2007, Deputy Washington lifted $50,291.00 from two black African Americans from Washington D.C. and Maryland who were traveling through Texas together.

“Washington threatened Plaintiffs with charges of money  laundering and  lengthy sentences if they would not execute documents allowing the seizure or if they otherwise contested the seizure,” says the lawsuit. 

“Washington did not  charge Plaintiffs with any criminal offense, nor did he have legal justification to do so.” On June 11, 2008, Deputy Washington confiscated $13,000 from a black African American from Wisconsin.

“Washington threatened to bring money laundering charges against Plaintiff, and to prosecute him on those charges, if he did not execute documents permitting Defendant Washington’s seizure and forfeiture of the money,” says the lawsuit.  “Under this coercion, Plaintiff signed the documents.” On April 18, 2007, Deputy Washington stopped and detained another pair of black African American motorists, Linda Dorman and Marvin Pearson, both from Ohio.  While under detention they were questioned by Shelby County District Attorney Investigator Danny Green.  He asked them if they had any money.  According to court documents Dorman and Pearson admitted to having $4,500, but after Green confiscated the cash under the usual coercive threats, he handed them a receipt for only $4,000.  No charges against Dorman or Pearson were ever filed. Jennifer Boatwright is a white woman from Texas, but on April 26, 2007 she was driving down Highway 59 near Tenaha with Ronald Henderson, a black African American.  They were stopped and detained by Deputy Washington, then questioned by Washington and D.A. Investigator Green.

“Green threatened to bring money laundering charges against Plaintiffs Boatwright and Henderson,  and to take their children and put them in foster care if Plaintiffs would not sign papers prepared by Defendant Green to authorize the seizure,” says the lawsuit.  “Under coercion, Plaintiffs Boatwright and Henderson complied.”  They handed over $6,000 in cash.  No charges were ever filed against them.

“Now, under Texas law, if you are pulled over and accused of a real crime, police are permitted to take money and other valuables that you might have used in your crime, or received from your crime,” explains CNN correspondent Gary Tuchman in a May, 2009 blog post at AC360. As Tuchman explains, the forfeiture law is intended to take bad money and put it to good use, but after an extensive public information request, the CNN team discovered that District Attorney Lynda K. Russell has collected an estimated $3 million in forfeiture funds to purchase such things as $195 for Tootsie Pops, Dum Dums, and Dubble Bubble that she contributed to a poultry festival, $524 for a popcorn machine and popcorn, $400 for barbecue catering, and at least two checks totaling $6,000 to a local Baptist church.

“But this one, this check, really stands out,” reports Tuchman in an archived transcript of the story.  “This is the check the DA wrote for $10,000 and paid directly to police officer Barry Washington for what are described as investigative costs.” 

With camera rolling, Tuchman asks Russell and Washington for comments, but they both refuse on account of pending litigation.  In federal court documents the defendants deny the charges, claim to have no knowledge of alleged facts, claim immunity as officials, and ask that the case be dismissed.

Republican D.A. Russell was elected by 53 percent of the vote against a Democrat opponent in 2000, according to official numbers posted by the Texas Secretary of State.  In 2004 she increased her general election share to 59 percent against her predecessor, Democrat Karen S. Price, who tried to stage a comeback after a failed effort to get elected in 2000 as a Republican District Judge.  In 2008, D.A. Russell ran unopposed.  No one that year could have made a campaign issue of the federal suit that was filed after the Spring primary but before the Fall general election. During the summer of 2009, lawyers battled over discovery motions.  Plaintiffs are trying to certify a class action lawsuit and therefore want volumes of video and documentation well beyond the eight named cases.  On August 20, Federal District Judge T. John Ward largely granted ACLU requests for more materials and clarified the legal path to possible class action certification.

On the defense side, attorneys argued that they should be allowed to discover “travel itineraries, calendars, journals, or other documents reflecting schedule and/or any travel; all credit card bills/receipts; all receipts for hotel, gas, meals, rental cars; and photographs  from any trips and  of any items  seized.”  Judge Ward agreed, but only if the records were “readily available.”

Lawyers for the police and D.A.'s office also wanted plaintiffs to turn over bank records, income tax returns, and employment records; in an apparent attempt to revisit the “money laundering” charges that were never filed in the first place.  It was a scary request supported by scary argumentation: “In other words,” argued lawyers for the Shelby County law enforcement establishment in their federal filings, “even if the initial traffic stop lacked probable cause, the forfeiture action could proceed and the State could still meet its civil case burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence and the property could still be forfeited.”

The authority the cops were seeking was chilling.  They could stop people for no reason, take their cash, spend it, meanwhile filing no charges of wrongdoing.  All the while, the authorities of East Texas or wherever could count on a federal court order that would allow them to go after the banking, tax, and employment records of their innocent victims if they tried to get their money back.  Judge Ward denied those parts of discovery.

The discovery motions also revealed that collection accounts were not always well kept.  One front-line collector argued that he kept bulk numbers only and could not provide evidence of how much money was taken on any single occasion.  To get your money back from these actors, they may demand that you prove it's not contraband and then prove how much they took. But these East Texas law enforcers are not finished grasping at bizarre license to ply their trade as the cash cops of Highway 59.  D.A. Russell now seeks to use the forfeiture funds to pay for her defense.  In early October the ACLU filed a brief with the Texas Attorney General's Office to prevent the forfeiture funds from being spent to defend alleged abuse of forfeiture powers.  

“Even if it were determined that, under other circumstances, the District Attorney should be permitted to use forfeited assets to pay for legal representation, such an action in this case should be prohibited because it would give the appearance of impropriety,” argues the ACLU brief. “The Plaintiffs claim the funds were taken illegally.  To permit the District Attorney to use them would suggest that law-breakers may profit from ill-gotten gains, the very problem that the asset forfeiture law was created to prevent.” Cash is a lucrative temptation.  Empowering officials to take cash money from passing motorists and  give it to attorneys who can help them keep it is a plain recipe for placing law enforcement powers in the hands of highway forfeiture gangs.

Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review and author of Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence. He is a contributor to Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, published by AK Press. He can be reached at: gmosesx@gmail.com

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