Oakland // Current

Roots and Branches Oakland

Roots and Branches is a youth-led community-building collective. We improve exposure... more

BASTA
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13 days ago
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San Francisco's Bay Bridge closed after rod snaps, cars hit

Bay Bridge closing indefinitely after pieces fall (10-27) 20:49 PDT San Francisco... more

sk8r408
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25 days ago
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19 arrests in Oakland 'sideshow' crackdown

A new police chief and a fatal crash last weekend has led to a major crackdown on... more

knews121
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29 days ago
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22 comments

Health Care Cuts Hit Alameda County

Health Care Cuts Hit Alameda County Video, Ann Bassette, Oct 17, 2009 Editor's... more

YouthOutlookMultimedia
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1 month ago
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Youth Violence Takes a Toll on Oakland

Life Is No Joke: Youth Violence Takes a Toll on Oakland Commentary and Video, Sean... more

YouthOutlookMultimedia
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1 month ago
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OAKLAND LOCKDOWN by Hannibal, Rekia Jibrin and Jacobs Ladder

Oakland Lockdown raises public and policy awareness about the destructive and discriminatory practices of policing, parolee surveillance, and the social stigmatization of incarcerated and marginalized, low-income residents of Oakland. Using footage from local policing activity in Oakland, intimate interviews of with marginalized residents who have been imprisoned or impacted by the imprisonment of close family members. This documentary brings to light the trauma, destruction, and frustration experienced by those who remain repetitively wreaked by the economic, psychological, social, and moral stigmatization of criminalization. With one in 31 people in the United States under correctional supervision—whether in prison or jail, or on parole or probation, and millions with a felony record that will never be erased, many struggle to regain their lives and be a productive members of their community. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2002, eighty-three percent of people in jail reported income of less than $2,000 in the month prior to arrest, one-third lower than the average monthly wage of the general public. Consequently, people who have been incarcerated face obstacles when attempting to find a job and housing and are vulnerable to homelessness, being banned from federal housing, while simultaneously facing severe ruptures with their families. Oakland Lockdown’s narrative responds to the recent call for a national conversation on American values in cities like Oakland where violence, racism, and incarceration destroys and fragments poor communities of color. This project cannot occur at a more timely political and economic moment with legal mandates ordering Governor Schwarzenegger to reduce and alleviate prison overcrowding. While the governor still appeals the terms of these mandates, his proposals continue to include the construction of more prisons and the transference of prison populations out of the state of California, further away from their families. Amist this prison crisis climate is the spectre of the $19.7 million COPS grant awarded to the city of Oakland that was a part of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill President Barack Obama signed into law this year. The $19.7 million was more money than any other U.S. city received from the Justice Department's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants. How such federal and local police funding intersects with policing practices affecting vulnerable populations on probation, parole, and in particular how the COPS grant may require the Oakland Police Department to participate in enforcement under Section 287 (g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act which can require local police agencies to assist the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) in their invasive and discriminatory activities within Oakland is to be addressed in this project. The impact of the criminal justice system on low-income communities cannot be ignored.Generations of poor, people of color disproportionately face race-based policing, controversial parole practices, and incarceration; this documentary demonstrates just that. It urges for a larger discussion between community members, lawyers, funders, educators, and police officers, about the epidemic of violence that Attorney Eric Holder describes as robbing “our youth of their childhood” and perpetuating “a cycle in which today's victims become tomorrow's criminals.” This doc aims to generate public discussion around the following issues: 1) the criminalization of marginalized populations who experience the mental trauma of violence and lock up, 2) attention towards street policing and parole practices, 3) unreasonable barriers to the reintegration of people returning from prison who are stigmatized with criminal records. 4) Furthermore, even though Oakland remains a sanctuary city, This doc addresses how documented or undocumented immigrants are also subjected to controversial policing practices.Oakland Lockdown raises public and policy awareness about the destructive and... more

jacobsladder
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1 month ago
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FBI Veteran Executive Calls For Special Counsel Investigation, Prosecutions in Sibel Edmonds Case

An 18-year Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Manager for the FBI has called for a Special Counsel to be appointed to investigate the allegations of FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. John M. Cole, who now works as an intelligence contractor for the Air Force, made his comments during an audio interview released late last week with radio journalist Peter B. Collins.

He also offered a detailed insider's look at the concerns among high-level officials inside the Bureau as Edmonds' disturbing allegations began coming to light back in 2002, before they would be quashed for seven long years by the Bush Administration's unprecedented use of the so-called "State Secrets Privilege" to gag her.

Earlier last week, following the publication of a remarkable American Conservative magazine cover story interview with Edmonds --- detailing a broad bribery, blackmail, and espionage conspiracy said to have been carried out between current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials and covert operatives from Turkey and Israel, resulting in the theft and sale of nuclear weapons technology on the foreign black market --- Cole had been quoted by the magazine confirming one of Edmonds' key allegations.

"I am fully aware of the FBI's decade-long investigation of" Marc Grossman, he said in response to the AmCon article/interview. Grossman had served as the third-highest ranking official in the Bush State Department and was alleged by Edmonds in the interview, and in a sworn, video-taped deposition a month earlier, to have been the U.S. ringleader for a massive Turkish espionage scandal reaching through the halls of power and into top-secret nuclear facilities around the country to the benefit of allies and enemies alike. Cole said that the FBI's counterintelligence probe "ultimately was buried and covered up," and that he believes it is "long past time" for an investigation of the case to "bring about accountability."

In his subsequent interview with Collins last week (audio and text excerpts posted below) Cole elaborated on those comments in much greater detail, noting that Edmonds has been "one hundred percent right on the money, on the mark" and confirming the existence of an "ongoing and detailed effort by Turkey to develop influence in the United States" through various illegal activities.

"Yes, I can confirm that," Cole told Collins, "That's true."

The FBI veteran executive also offered an insider's account of the panic that ensued inside the highest echelons of the bureau following Edmonds' first disclosure of information in 2002, recounting how an executive assistant director admitted to him at the time, just after the story first broke, "Well, all I know is that everything that Sibel is stating is true. I read her file. Everything she stated is, in fact, accurate."
Cole further describes how the concerns about Edmonds ultimately led to the Bush Administration's two-time use of the Draconian "State Secrets Privilege" in hopes of keeping her extraordinary information from becoming public. "Everybody at headquarters level at the bureau knew that what she was saying was extremely accurate."

"I know they didn't want her to go out and speak about it at all," Cole revealed, "and I know they were trying to figure out ways of keeping this whole thing quiet, because they didn't want Sibel to come out."

He also offered information which directly counters one of the criticisms of Edmonds' allegations as frequently offered by skeptics. Namely, that as a short time FBI contract translator --- even though she was tasked to review some seven years of counterintelligence wiretaps made from 1996 to 2002 --- she couldn't have had enough understanding of the full scope of the investigations to understand what was really going on.
More...An 18-year Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Manager for the FBI has called for... more

RFIDemocracy
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1 month ago
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7 comments

UC Berkeley Graduates detained in Iran

Since July, three UC Berkeley graduates have been detained in Iran. The three are held... more

richgailenriquez
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1 month ago
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1 comment

Are you the next Spielberg? Check out the 5 Best Venues for Showing Your Film!

Do you have a film that's ready for primetime? Maybe you want to show a private... more

adrienneanderson
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1 month ago
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After the Protests: G20 demonstrators in oakland get roughed up by the cops

This is the story the news didn't show you about the protests in Pittsburgh. The... more

tlarkin244
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1 month ago
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Scraper Bikes on YO!TV

In response to the increasing murder in Oakland, rate scraper bike riders and... more

YouthOutlookMultimedia
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2 months ago
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Filming Locations for September 21st

Wichita, starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, is filming at Nissenbaums Auto Parts... more

beforethetrailer
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2 months ago
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THE LARGEST POLITICAL ESPIONAGE BLACKMAIL & BRIBERY SCANDAL IN AMERICAN HISTORY ~ BREAKING NEWS !!

Dennis Hastert, Stephen Solarz, Bob Livingston, Tom Lantos, Roy Blunt, Dan Burton and... more

gerardange
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2 months ago
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8 comments

wallpaper. - "I Got Soul, I'm So Wasted"

Wallpaper.'s debut full length, "Doodoo Face", is in stores September 22nd.

andyfortson
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2 months ago
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TURKISH AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS / with: DEEP GOVERNMENT CONNECTIONS:

. Former FBI Language Specialist Sibel Edmonds finally gets to testify under oath,... more

gerardange
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3 months ago
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5 comments

BREAKING NEWS/WASHINGTON DC: 8-8-09 BUSH ADMIN-LINKED TO MAJOR COVER UP OF TURKISH INTERESTS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSvlwg3F6q0

Former FBI Language Specialist Sibel Edmonds finally gets to testify under oath, after being hit with a gag order. Bombshells Under Oath: INCLUDE: CONGRESS MEMBERS NAMED IN ESPIONAGE, BRIBERY, SEXUAL BLACKMAIL SCHEMES; NEW BREWSTER JENNINGS / VALERIE PLAME DISCLOSURE...

Long gagged under the "state secrets" privilege by the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration's DoJ chose not to re-invoke privilege, paving the way for this information to finally make its way on to the unclassified public record.

WHEN CORPORATIONS FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS CAN USE OUR COURTS AS A TOOL TO SUBVERT THE FABRIC OF OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS THAT PROTECT ALL CITIZENS. THEN... WE ALL LOSE.

IN A SURPRISE TWIST: Our Trial Judge was quickly switched from The Honorable Barbara Miller to: Judge John M. True III.

OUR FIRST HEARING BEFORE JUDGE JOHN M. TRUE III ~ We were Denied our Constitutional Right to equal justice under the law.

" I was ordered by Judge True to represent our corporate case in trial." " I told Judge True NO! That I couldn't do that because I am not an attorney and, I wasn't qualified and, that we already had an Attorney." Judge True III replied: [quote] "That if I SAID THAT YOU would have to represent yourself - Then... that's exactly what you will have to do!... So, Deal With It-!!!!" . [end quote].

By doing that Judge John M. True III first denied us our Constitutional Right to equal justice under the law and then soon after Judge John M. True III... denied our Second Constitutional Right... The Right to a Trial.

On August 04, 2009, Judge John M. True III on behalf of Gap International, a TurkishAmerican company based in Pennsylvania, with self-claimed
[ Deep Government Connections] dismissed our case against the Defendants,

After six years, a series of quick odd rulings a surprise hearing without our attorney present. Fabricated Phony charges of missing "Assignment of Claims" documents that were in fact... never missing at all.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSvlwg3F6q0 Former FBI Language Specialist Sibel... more