Coverage On www.MediaSanctuary.tv Begins 7 PM Friday

This weekend (July 23-25), live and recorded video coverage of the National Conference to Bring the Troops Home Now! taking place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Albany, NY will be available online at www.MediaSanctuary.tv beginning on Friday at 7 PM.

The newly-formed Valley Alliance is inaugurating its activities by retaining expert legal counsel to address widespread public concerns about the future of Hudson's waterfront, thus integrating the work over the past three years of Save the South Bay into a broader framework.

The Alliance announced Monday morning that it has raised the funds necessary to retain the well-respected land use attorney Warren Replansky of Pine Plains to analyze the City's Draft Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, or LWRP. The organization will be co-directed by activists Peter Jung and Sam Pratt.

LEGAL NOTICE
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
CITY OF ALBANY

Join the Syracuse Peace Council in a protest of the drones coming to Syracuse. Sunday, November 15.

Don't miss the excitement Saturday (11/7) from 2-9 PM for the Indymedia 10th Anniversary Film Festival at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, featuring music by Haale!

Don't miss the exciting series of events at The Sanctuary for Independent Media beginning Saturday, September 26 and continuing through December, featuring The Yes Men, Kathy Kelly, Haale and much, much more! Visit www.MediaSanctuary.org for the complete Spring 2009 schedule.

Express your support for parole for
Native American leader and political prisoner
Leonard Peltier! Hearing scheduled for July 27
Your letter must be received before July 14. The FBI has persecuted Peltier ever since a 1975 FBI armed raid on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, in which two of their agents were killed. The FBI raid was the culmination of three years of a murderous U.S. government war on the residents of Pine Ridge, in which over 60 traditional members and American Indian Movement activists were murdered.

As Congress negotiates health care reform, Democratic leaders have put the interests of insurance companies ahead of the needs of American citizens. If Americans want an affordable, quality health care system that enables consumers to choose whom they receive health care services from, private for-profit insurance companies must be eliminated. The proposals being advanced by the White House and Congressional Democratic leaders will leave tens of millions without health insurance or care; will mandate expensive and inadequate health insurance to many more (so medical bankruptcies will continue to proliferate); and will actually increase the amount of money spent for health care. If implemented, these shortcomings will undercut future support for real reform.

A palpable sense of triumph accompanied the passage last week of a first-of-its-kind global warming bill in the US House of Representatives. Rep. Henry Waxman of California, one of the bill's two main sponsors, called it a "decisive and historic action," and President Obama described the bill as "a bold and necessary step." Yet The bill falls far short of international standards in mandating a meaningful level of reductions in global warming pollution, and seeks to implement decades of emissions cuts through the market-based device known as "cap-and-trade." It also contains a number of Trojan Horse provisions that could ultimately forestall, rather than encourage, genuine climate progress.

On behalf of the Media Alliance, the NY Civil Liberties Union is suing the City of Troy and Public Works Commissioner Robert Mirch for shutting down a local arts and media center on purported code violations in March 2008 after a controversial art exhibit opened there.
The lawsuit maintains that Mirch used his official powers to have the building closed, violating the Media Alliance’s First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly, and its due process and equal protection rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments.

A hundred single payer universal health care advocates rallied in the rain at the state Capitol as part of a national week of action to make healthcare a human right in America. (www.healthcare-now.org. We are fed up with the health insurance we have, fed up with health insurance we can't afford, fed up with the insurance that doesn't cover the care we need and completely fed up with the fact that the top insurance company executive took home $24 million in 2008. Also national releases from Health Care-Now and Green Party of US.

Back in December the Obama-Biden transition team organized thousands of “Health Care Community Discussions.” The President-elect (with Tom Daschle) issued a call for “health care reform that comes from the ground up.” As the community meetings occurred, PNHP received a flood of reports from participants that single payer was the unanimous recommendation from hundreds of gatherings. The transition team report blamed the popularity of single payer on “encouragement by advocacy groups,” characterized the proposal as “radical change” and devoted about one solitary page in a 122-page document, enough to dismiss single payer proposal and its advocates. So much for health reform that comes from the ground up.