Cuts to family benefits could end college careers

By Betty Holcomb

New York, New York, Oct. 8 (IPS)— For Erin Lane, mother of two and a senior at the University of Montana, Oct. 17 is a critical date. That’s the day Congress adjourns for the winter, regardless of whether the nation’s expired 1996 welfare law has been extended or amended.

That action — or lack of it — could dramatically transform her life and the lives of millions of other American women who depend on federal benefits.

As a federal assistance recipient, Lane depends on the small cash grant she now receives to cover the rent on her home, along with the food stamps, child care vouchers, and federal medical insurance. All of that is now in play as Congress debates the future of federal assistance to families — called TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families).

Lobbyists are pushing legislators to make a decision about the law, whose funding Congress extended to Dec. 31 last week.

One version, pushed by the Bush administration and already passed by the House of Representatives, would end programs like the one in Montana that allows women such as Lane to attend college and still receive welfare benefits.

Most controversial of all are the new work requirements in the House bill, which are ardently supported by the Bush administration. That bill would extend the current law, but require recipients to work 10 additional hours every week — pushing them up to 40 hours — to retain their benefits. There is no new money for childcare.

Advocates for welfare recipients say they are near exhaustion after fighting for nearly a year to improve the current law.

“I never thought I’d say that a simple extension of the law, as it is now, would be a victory,” says Jackie Payne, policy attorney for the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund.

“Now we’re just hoping to keep things from getting worse, to stop the House bill from becoming law and imposing new requirements that are downright punitive.”

Losing any of those benefits or working for pay 40 hours per week could create hardships for Lane and her two daughters, ages three and five. In addition, one pivotal part of the proposals could drastically change the entire family’s current life and future opportunities.

“I may have to drop out of college,” Lane says. “That’s what I worry about the most. That I’d have to go back to waitressing, like I used to do, or just get some minimum-wage job to keep my benefits,” adds Lane, who hopes to get certified to teach art after she graduates.

“Then I’ll be stuck again, never getting ahead. College is my ticket out. I really believe that.”

Robert Rector, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation and a key lobbyist for increased work requirements, as well as the author of the 1996 changes to welfare law, counters that the new work requirements simply build on the success of the five-year-old law.

“Passage of that law was historic. For the first time, we made benefits contingent on work. The welfare caseloads are now down. All we want to do now is push a little further in that direction,” he says. “Moving people from 30 hours a week to 40 is not that big a deal.”

The Montana effort, similar to those in other states, is one of the striking and successful innovations to grow out of the 1996 changes to federal welfare law under the umbrella of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.

Under that law, time limits were imposed on welfare grants, recipients were required to work to “earn” the benefits and recipients could spend, at most, one year in job-training programs.

At the same time, states were given new latitude to define just what constituted “work” and to devise new programs that helped move welfare recipients — who are overwhelmingly female — toward lifelong self-sufficiency.

Montana began to permit welfare recipients to count post-secondary education — college — as a job-training program. In the past, most state welfare laws only allowed vocational education to count as job training, even though such courses rarely have the power to improve lifetime earnings the way a college degree can.

Since then, programs like Montana’s have been touted as models for the future and inspired advocates across the country to fight to extend them.

“We’re doing everything we can to make sure that education is still included in welfare reform, and especially the ability to attend college,” says Evelyn Dortch, head of Direct Action Welfare Group, a welfare-rights group in West Virginia.

“A lot of our members are in college now, and we see this as a critical issue,” says Dortch, a mother of four children and former welfare recipient herself. “How else can women get out of poverty?”

By getting a job immediately, argue supporters of the House bill. “The debate over college and higher education is a ridiculous one,” says the Heritage Foundation’s Rector.

“A college education is not a good road for single mothers to escape from poverty. Very few women on welfare have the verbal or math skills to go to college. What they need is direct work experience.”

“The fact that caseloads are down proves that this approach works,” he says.

But many activists and women on welfare say the drop in caseloads does not necessarily mean welfare recipients have moved out of poverty.

“There’s a big difference between lowering caseloads and moving people into real jobs,” says Tyletha Samuels of Community Voices Heard, a New York-based advocacy group and former welfare recipient. “The real question is whether we are pushing women to work at Burger King because the rent is late, or if we are going to help them get real jobs.”

Activists hope to get support from a bill that is now locked up in Senate committees. It does not increase the work requirement but does include more child-care funding.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle holds the key to further action, because he has the power to schedule bills for a vote on the floor of the Senate.

This summer Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, said the bills needed to include more money for childcare before he would put them on the calendar for a full Senate vote. Since then, the possibility of action has dimmed, as debates over national security dominate the political agenda.

Two weeks ago, senators Olympia Snowe of Maine and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas sent a letter signed by 50 senators urging Daschle to bring the legislation to a vote, but there’s still been no action.

“It’s hard to believe that it went this way,” Payne says. “I think we all approached the reauthorization thinking we could build on some positive things that happened in welfare reform.”

Anti-war activists crash MTV’s Total Request Live

Oct. 10— Eight NYU students crashed the stage of Total Request Live (TRL) yesterday, disrupting the show with an anti-war demonstration and angering Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst.

The students, clad in white T-shirts with the words “No war on Iraq” stenciled in green and orange spraypaint, hit the stage two separate times, interrupting the broadcast.

“A number of us wanted to do an anti-war protest in this critical period of time,” said Jason Rowe, who planned the event along with Dan Ingala, a Steinhardt School of Education sophomore. “We found that the way the media works, there’s not really a space to voice dissent.”

The students had secured tickets to the show and entered posing as two separate groups, pretending not to know each other, and wore the shirts under their normal clothes.

While the new Eminem video, “Cleanin’ Out My Closet,” was being introduced, four of the students stormed the stage.

“Can we have your attention, we have an urgent announcement,” Rowe said.

Corey Eastwood continued:“We have to tell Congress to stop the war.”

“We’re standing with people around the world against the war,” said Luis Manriquez.

As the group was being ushered off the stage, the fourth student, Agatha Koprowski said, “Not in our name will you kill more people in an unjust war.”

“At first it was weird because they seemed as if they were going to let us speak,” Koprowski said afterward. “The DJ sort of looked at us, and the camera sort of looked at us. They were like, ‘Yeah, what’s up?’ and then they realized what we were talking about.”

Security guards immediately escorted the students off the stage and out into the hall, where Rowe said he saw Durst giving them dirty looks.

“We caught some scoff from Fred Durst,” Rowe said. “He gave us a little attitude. He was pissed off.” Meanwhile, the show continued with some hesitation.

“Everyone was really confused,” said Ingala, who was in the second wave of students to hit the stage. “They didn’t know what was going on. Some people thought it was part of the show. Some people were booing.”

Soon after, the four remaining students bolted for the stage in the same manner, but were blocked.

Ingala said he was grabbed by the shoulders and thrown from one security guard to another.

“While I was screaming ‘We’re peaceful. We’re going to cooperate,’ they handed me to an even bigger guy,” Ingala said. “My feet weren’t even touching the ground. That’s how much force they used.

“They handed me to a bigger guy who grabbed me by the throat,” he said. “I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds.”

After the head of security admonished the officers, the students were ordered to lie on the floor before they were kicked off the premises and banned from Viacom property.

The students planned their actions in advance and consulted with a member of People’s Law Collective, a legal group, to determine the possible ramifications of their actions.

The group chose TRL because it provided easy access to national airwaves, he said.

MTV considered calling the police, the students said, but could not charge them with anything since they were invited guests on the program and did not cause any damage.

“It was exhilarating, but more importantly we got what we wanted to be accomplished, which was getting our message on the corporately-owned airwaves for one second and bringing democracy to the airwaves for once,” said Ingala.

MTV could not be reached for comment at press time.

Source: NYU’s Washington Square News

ACLU calls anti-gay Kansas law unconstitutional

Washington, DC, Oct. 10— The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today asked the Supreme Court to declare part of Kansas’s “Romeo and Juliet Law” unconstitutional because it gives gay teenagers much higher prison sentences than heterosexual teenagers who engage in identical consensual sexual activities.

Matthew Limon is appealing a 17-year prison sentence he got for performing consensual oral sex with a nearly-15-year-old male. Limon, who had turned 18 only a week before the incident, would have been sentenced to a maximum of 15 months if he and his partner had been members of the opposite sex, because the “Romeo and Juliet Law” applies only to heterosexuals.

“Matthew Limon’s sentence isn’t different because of what he did – it’s only different because of who he is,” said Tamara Lange, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, which represents Limon. “We aren’t asking to change age-of-consent laws or to reduce sentences for sexual contact with minors, but we do believe that the law should apply equally to everyone.”

In papers filed today, the ACLU asked the Supreme Court to consider the constitutionality of Limon’s sentence. Under the Kansas law, consensual oral sex between two teens is a lesser crime if the younger teenager is 14 to 16 years old, if the older teenager is under 19, if the age difference is less than 4 years, if there are no third parties involved, and if the two teenagers “are members of the opposite sex.”

“Because he had sex with another boy instead of a girl, Matthew Limon will be behind bars until he’s 36 years old,” said Matt Coles, the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project’s director. “After that he will have to undergo five years of supervision, and he will be permanently branded a child molester – all for a consensual act with a boy who was only three years and a month younger. If he were heterosexual, he would have been out of jail long ago.”

Singling out gay teenagers for harsher punishment than heterosexuals receive for the same acts clearly violates the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution, the ACLU said in its brief.

The case is Limon v. Kansas, now awaiting action by the US Supreme Court.

Source: ACLU

San Francisco federal building shut down

Compiled by Sean Marquis

Oct. 16 (AGR)— Hunrdreds of anti-war protesters waved signs and chanted slogans as they surrounded San Francisco’s federal building Friday Oct. 11 to denounce Congress’ vote authorizing President George W. Bush to wage war against Iraq.

Federal officers arrested 46 people for blocking entrances to the building shortly before 8am, preventing thousands of federal workers from getting to their jobs.

Protesters march to Dianne Feinstetin's office, Oct. 10

The building remained closed as a result of the protest for three hours. Most of the protesters were cited for civil disobedience and released. Two protesters were arrested on felony charges of allegedly attacking an assistant US attorney and a court security officer.

“Some people were frantic about getting into work and hostile,” said June Brashares, one of those arrested, “but others just stood back drank their coffee and said I think you guys are doing the right thing.”

Erik Babcock, a defense attorney who was trying to get into the building, said he sided with the demonstrators. “I’m with their sentiments,” he said.

Among the protesters were students and retirees, an impromptu brass band, Buddhist monks, Catholic priests and even children.

The protest began Thursday afternoon after both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly to give Bush the go-ahead to use military force against Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Police break up the blockade outside the federal building on Fri., Oct. 11, 2002

Barely hours after the Congressional vote was complete, some 300 demonstrators marched to the Federal Building from Montgomery St., where they rallied in the early evening, and then set up an all-night vigil and peace camp with blankets, tents and sleeping bags, attended by 200 participants who spent all night organizing affinity groups and discussing tactics for the morning blockade.

After Friday morning’s protests, a band of about 80 demonstrators marched to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office and conducted another action to decry her voting for the resolution giving Bush war powers.

“This is just the beginning,” declared Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange an international human rights group that helped organize the protest. “It is amazing that we were able to pull off such a large spirited show of outrage the day after this ignominious vote. We are building an antiwar movement the likes of which this country has not seen since the peace movement that ended the war in Vietnam.”

Sources: Global Exchange, San Francisco Chronicle

In Seattle, thousands march against war

Compiled by Celene DeLoach

Oct. 15 (AGR) — Anti-war demonstrators numbering close to 3,500 took to the streets of Seattle Oct. 9 in the hope that peaceful alternatives for a resolution in Iraq do not go unnoticed amidst the cacophony of war drums. The five-block long, candle-lit procession had few songs and chants. They mostly walked quietly from downtown Seattle to St. Mark’s Cathedral on Capitol Hill. The demonstration was a call to action by the Church Council of Greater Seattle, which wanted to duplicate the march it sponsored on the eve of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

“I like silent marches because they are so powerful,” said Anne Brewer, a 20-year resident of Capitol Hill. She took part in the march 11 years ago and felt compelled to walk again last night, even though she fears war is inevitable. “I’m frightened for all of us because our civil rights are being jeopardized,” she said.

Many people carried signs such as: “No Iraq War,” “I love my country. I fear my government,” and “I want you to invade Iraq” with a picture of a pointing Osama bin Laden.

“I can think of nothing better to recruit terrorists around the world than an attack on Iraq,” said Warren Jones of North Seattle.

“I don’t like the precedent that this would set,” Scott Morrison of Seattle said of a war on Saddam Hussein, as he carried his 22-month-old son, Finn, on his shoulders and pushed his 8-week-old son, Olaf, in a stroller. “There are a lot of other bad dictators in the world.”

Tami Thomas of Woodinville and John McLaren of Seattle showed up feeling a little bit hopeless, given that opinion polls show many support President George W. Bush’s Iraq policy.

But, McLaren, said there seemed to be what he called cognitive dissonance. “Everybody I talked to is against this bombing. I don’t know where they get that number” (of supporters for the war).

Thomas added: “I’d like people from other countries to see that all Americans aren’t the bullies that the American government is.”

As the rally began, mention of US Rep. Jim McDermott, the Seattle Democrat who has become a controversial opponent of the war, brought the crowd to its feet. So did the news that US Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA, announced she will oppose a resolution that would give war powers to the president.

The Rev. Rich Gamble, of Keystone United Church of Christ in Seattle, told the crowd about his visit to Iraq earlier this year. People there treated him with respect, he said, adding that they knew the difference between a country’s rulers and its people. “Unfortunately,” he said, “we, too, are learning to live in a country ruled by people unresponsive to our wishes.”

Ali-Salaam, imam of the Sea-Tac Masjid Mosque and Islamic Center of Washington, urged people to “take back their synagogues, take back their churches and take back their mosques” from those practicing fundamentalist and intolerant religion.

“Now we’ve walked and been counted by someone in a helicopter,” said Rev. Pete Strimer, canon missioner at St. Mark’s Cathedral, as the protest drew to a close, “and tomorrow we will be underestimated.”

Strimer then returned to the earnest message that all peace activists carry with them: “There will be days of action from this moment until the war is stopped,” he said.

Sources: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Indymedia

Bush threatens appeal on $483 breach of trust

Oct. 2— Bush administration attorneys last month suggested they might challenge an Indian trust fund ruling if resolution of the 30-year-old dispute doesn’t go their way.

In court papers, the US Attorney’s office in South Dakota expressed disagreement with a recent court decision made in favor of Sioux tribal members. A federal judge said about 1,900 Indian beneficiaries were owed an extra $483 for money they have been denied since the 1970s. Government attorneys, however, don’t want the Department of Interior to pay out interest on the $483 amount. A Sept. 16 court filing stated an intent to preserve the issue “on appeal.”

But they also had a bone to pick with US District Judge Lawrence M. Piersol’s reliance on trust standards to restore justice to the plaintiffs. “The court holds that the defendant breached its trust duties by unreasonably delaying the ... distribution,” he wrote in his July 29 ruling.

Assistant US Attorney Jan L. Holmgren of South Dakota countered that there was no “mismanagement” of the money in question “but rather a failure to make any disbursement at all.” Awarding the plaintiffs money for the delay is unlawful, she argued.

The maneuvering is the latest in a drawn-out saga that has pitted the interests of the federal government against those of tribes and individual Indians. Congress in 1972 created a $5.9 million fund to compensate four Sioux tribes and Sioux tribal members for stolen land. The tribes received their share of the money, thanks to political pressure put on Congress and the Interior. But the tribal members have never been paid and at one point, tribal leaders lobbied against the individual Indians.

The lead plaintiff in the case is Casimir Lebeau, now 84. He worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs yet never got an answer from the agency as to the status of his share of the fund. He is owed at least $1,900. Additional delays are in sight due to the Bush administration’s stance on trust. Top officials, including Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, won’t acknowledge the standards by which Indian money and assets are to be managed.

Attempts by tribes to force the issue resulted in an impasse. Department of Justice and White House officials oppose legislation on trust standards for fear of additional litigation.

Also, the administration is waiting on the outcome of two cases before the Supreme Court. The Navajo Nation claims $600 million is owed for a breach of trust while the White Mountain Apache Tribe of Arizona claims $14 million. Citing those disputes, government attorneys tried to delay Lebeau’s case.

Piersol rejected the request in August. If a challenge is mounted, it would land in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Source: Indianz.com

NATION BRIEFS

Lawyers protest prisoner ‘experiment’

Attorneys for California inmates sought Tuesday to block what they claim is an illegal experiment with mentally ill prisoners that would place them in a “dangerous, punitive and inhumane” new Supermax prison.

The block of cells in question – the first of 10 new high-security segregation units scheduled to go on line before the end of the year – is an addition to the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (CSATF) at Corcoran state prison.

In talks with attorneys representing mentally ill prisoners in a 12-year-old class-action lawsuit, prison officials have said they want to determine how well mentally ill inmates cope in a sensory-deprived environment.

Two federal judges in California have held that housing mentally ill people under such conditions violates the 8th Amendment’s bar on cruel and unusual punishment, according to papers filed in Sacramento federal court by the attorneys, who are seeking a temporary restraining order.

While rejecting the categorization of their plan as an experiment, prison officials acknowledge they want to house as many as 52 mentally ill inmates in the new prison for six months to determine possible positive or negative effects of the environment. (The Sacramento Bee)

Anti-US arsonists hit recruiting office

An anonymous caller to a San Jose television station took credit for a pre-dawn fire at a recruiting office Oct. 13, cryptically referring to the blaze as a “pre-emptive strike.”

Fire crews arriving at the facility on McKee Road shortly after 4am found two government-owned vehicles parked in the rear engulfed in flames. They also discovered broken glass doors and the words “Pre-Emptive Strike” written on the front walls in red paint, an apparent reference to the probable US military attack on Iraq.

At about the same time the fire was reported, the news desk at San Jose television station KNTV received a call from an unidentified male who stated, “at 4 o’clock this morning, we have taken a pre-emptive strike against a military recruiting office here on McKee.” (UPI, KNTV)

Anti-Racist 28 cleared

Almost all charges were dropped Oct. 8 against anti-racist activists who demonstrated in Baltimore against neo-Nazis preparing to attend a racist rally at the US capitol on Aug. 24 of this year. The activists were charged with attacking the racists while they were parked at the Baltimore Travel Center inside their chartered bus, and were facing a combined total of 1,177 years behind bars.

According to James Rhodes, attorney for the “Anti-Racist 28,” the case was incredibly weak, much of it relying on a video which could not identify any of the assailants because of the rain and the bus door, which blocked much of the scene. Two charges still stand, but Rhodes says he expects those also to be thrown out before the scheduled Oct. 31 court date. The attack left a number of the Michigan-based Nazis injured, and their bus severely damaged.

The 28 defendants, including a lawyer acting as a legal observer for the demonstrators, reportedly did not arrive on the scene until after the assault. Over the past month, support for the Anti-Racist 28 was widespread, and Sept. 23 was declared an International Day of Solidarity for them.

The activists blame their arrest on an attempt by police to prevent them from attending the counter-demonstrations, which accompanied the racist rally in Washington, DC. They charge police with profiling anti-racists while virtually ignoring neo-Nazis.

Since the activists’ arrests, Nazi groups have compiled the defendants’ addresses from police records and have spread them over the internet via white supremacist web sites. However, no further incidents of violence have occurred. (www.onepeoplesproject.com)