The Women's Choice Clinic of Oakland, the venerated feminist health clinic that has provided non-judgmental, culturally sensitive abortion and reproductive health care services to Bay Area women for 36 years, is closing its doors. The clinic is the oldest feminist health center providing abortions in the nation. However, it is not anti-abortion protests that are forcing the clinic to close, nor is it a decline in demand for services. It is California's chronic low and slow reimbursements for MediCal services, and budget cuts. On Wed. April 8, a press conference will be held at the Oakland City Hall, at 1pm.

The California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA) held a conference in San Francisco on October 13th. CARA unites retired workers and community groups to win social and economic justice. Members of CARA took a bus from the conference on the afternoon of October 13th to demonstrate in solidarity with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union at a Rite Aid store at the corner of Van Ness and Market Streets. CARA says: "Rite Aid markets to seniors with its *Living More* program. They want our money, but they don't always want to respect workers' rights. And they're not respecting the union in bargaining."

Earlier in the day, CARA members from all over California gathered at San Francisco's Cathedral Hill Hotel to hear political candidates, learn about patient advocate programs, and sing along with the Raging Grannies and the Bay Area Labor Chorus during lunchtime entertainment. Photos | The California Alliance for Retired Americans

Houston Indymedia has recieved 2 reports on the opening publishing newswire that Casa Juan Diego has been subject to regular protests by the Ku Klux Klan. John wrote: This past Wednesday, the 14th, the KKK showed up near Casa Juan Diego to harass clients and staff. They were in the parking lot of the Jack-In-Box, at Shepherd and Washington, yelling racist insults to any brown skinned person who was within shouting distance, this eventually grew to the point of yelling insults to anyone they thought had anything to do with Casa Juan Diego. According to some staff, they appeared to have the approval of Jack-In The Box management for use of their parking lot, as some sort of staging point.
Not only the Klan showed up, but the same sort of harassment was done by other folks as the minutemen. Not that there is any difference in their messages.
Casa Juan Diego has been in existence for more than 25 years, providing a safe place for immigrants to receive shelter and comfort, and is part of the Catholic Worker Movement, started by Dorthy Day, many years ago.

Post from Sarah Hernandez | The mission of Casa Juan Diego is from the bible's Book of Mark chapter 25: Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me... Casa Juan Diego website

From Steven Woods on the open publishing newswire:My name is Steven Woods, and I’m currently an inmate on death row in Texas. A few of my comrades and I are fed up with the deplorable conditions we’re housed in, and we have decided we will no longer eat. We are going to hunger strike until TDCJ moves us to more humane living conditions. We are determined and either conditions will improve or we will starve to death.

For the past several years, I and a few hundred others have been living out what can easily be called a nightmare. After the injustice of being sentence to death by a corrupt legal system, we’ve been shipped of to be warehoused in a penal institution of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). We spend these years stored in the Polunsky Unit, in a segregated housing facility that has been designed to house over 500 people in a complete indefinite isolation.

Since being moved to Polunsky, though, life hasn’t been the same. We’ve been put on 22-hour lockdown. We lost all our group recreation, art programs and supplies, work programs, televisions, and religious services. We’re not allowed contact visits, so the only physical contact we’ll get until they kill us is when the CO’s hold our restrained arms while escorting us. [read the full story]

Anarchy In Chains (Steven Woods Support website) | The full comunique with a list of greivences | Death Row Inner-communalist Vanguard Engagement - DRIVE Movement

From the open publishing newswire: Renee Feltz When protesters tried to shut down Women's Health Clinics in Mississippi, the impact was felt as far as Houston... Then, the Prayer Warriors began a 40 day demonstration outside the downtown Planned Parenthood clinic. Pro-choice activists responded by being there to escort clients past the protest... And on Sunday they gathered to discuss their next steps... [hear and audio report from KPFT local news]

Pedro Near 40-50 people met in Bell Park to defend the right to the abortion public and free. Many conductors sounded their horns in support to the rally. Watch videos here. [more photos and video]

Last week, the Worcester Fire Department confirmed a case of arson direted against the new transitional housing program for homeless women veterans on Cantebury Street. Someone/s poured a flammable liquid up and down the stairway and attempted to burn down the house which was scheduled to have the first two residents move in later that day. Full Story

From Ashville Anti-racist Action: In Jackson Mississippi there is a single abortion clinic. It is the last in a state, which once had seven. All others have been shut down by the actions of theocratic anti-choice groups. The next closest clinic with abortion services is in Texas.

Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue) hopes to shut down this last clinic this summer. Beginning on July 15th, they are planning actions designed to close the clinic for good. Theyre stated time frame is by July 24th. On the 30th of July, yet another Anti-choice group, Oh Saratoga, which has worked with OSA before, will attempt the same thing. Together, these two groups hope to end all abortion services in Mississippi. We intend to disappoint them.

The enemy is fairly frightened of us and we feel weve had some impact on slowing down their assault on the last clinic in Mississippi (and as weve found out since coming, effectively the last clinic in Louisiana as well). Thats the good news.

The bad news also stacks up daily. Weve had no arrests, but we have had moderate to heavy repression. In the last 6 days weve endured a bomb threat, multiple death threats, a car trying to run us over and more preaching than you can stand. We are also CONSTANTLY followed by undercover police officers (have to be locals, feds are WAY better than these clowns), have had Pearl MS officers threaten our undercover activists with a beating in a church parking lot "We arent JPD (Jackson police department), we'll kick your ass."

This campaign needs to continue for another 11 days. The Right has made a commitment to have multiple weeks of actions through August 6th. Our housing is still active. However this campaign is dead broke. The pace of operations and the cost of gas has broken our budget. Although we have not yet sustained any arrests, we can not afford to bail a single person out if we did. Food is not yet a problem but the soup is getting thin. All other groups with national resources will not persist on this campaing past the 23rd. We are it.

You can support this mobilization by donating online and by attending a benefit filmscreening on July 29th hosted by Houston ARA at Sedition Books of The Abortion Diaries.

read the full report by Asheville ARA

Perhaps under pressure from the insurance company, St. Luke's plans to terminate the life of a 53-year old woman, Andrea Clarke, against the wishes of her family and against her own wishes as stated just a few days ago. Unlike the Terri Schiavo case, Andrea Clarke is NOT brain-dead. Her family wants your help in stopping the state-authorized killing of their loved one.

Whose choice is it to terminate life? Hospitals? Insurance companies? Under a 1999 Texas "Futile Care" law (Text of the law ), signed by then-governor George W. Bush, hospitals can unilaterally decide to "pull the plug". Two people previously allowed to die under this law were 5-month old Sun Hudson and Tirhas Habtegris, both cases against the wishes of the family.

When it looked like Hurricane Rita might be headed our way, city officials declared mandatory evacuations in some areas near flood zones, and voluntary evacuation for the whole city. This lead to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of people from Houston in private vehicles. It appears that more people may have died as a result of the evacuation than due to hurricane Rita itself.

A number of Houstonians wrote about their expieriences leaving town and have writen articles analysing the evacuation policy: 2 folks and 2 dogs: One evacuation story | Mark Waller :Fleeing Houston | Jennifer : a rita blog | Lindar Privileged Pig's Vacation | Nick Cooper: Attention Walmart Shoppers, You're On Your Own

People have also commented on how the government (in)actions have been more disasterous than Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Read Disasters by Jordan Flaherty

Malik Rahim, a veteran of the Black Panther Party in New Orleans, for decades an organizer of public housing tenants both there and in San Francisco and a recent Green Party candidate for New Orleans City Council, lives in the Algiers neighborhood, the only part of New Orleans that is not flooded. They have no power, but the water is still good and the phones work. Their neighborhood could be sheltering and feeding at least 40,000 refugees, he says, but they are allowed to help no one. What he describes is nothing less than deliberate genocide against Black and poor people.

"It's criminal. From what you're hearing, the people trapped in New Orleans are nothing but looters. We're told we should be more "neighborly." But nobody talked about being neighborly until after the people who could afford to leave … left."

"We have Amtrak here that could have carried everybody out of town. There were enough school buses that could have evacuated 20,000 people easily, but they just let them be flooded. My son watched 40 buses go underwater - they just wouldn't move them, afraid they'd be stolen.".

"There are gangs of white vigilantes near here riding around in pickup trucks, all of them armed, and any young Black they see who they figure doesn't belong in their community, they shoot him. I tell them, 'Stop! You're going to start a riot.'"

Listen to an interview with Malik Rahim on radioActive San Diego | This report in PDF zine format

A quickly-organized protest was held at UTMB Galveston on Tuesday, over a "roundtable session" on "Social Security reform" attended by President George W. Bush. The meeting was one in a series taking place across the country, and the first visit to Texas on this topic. The Progressive Workers Organizing Committee organized the protest.
Pics: 1 | 2 | 3

Nashville, TN. Clergy from all over the state of Tennessee have called on the people of Tennessee to march on the Capitol of Tennessee to call on the Governor and the Tennessee Legislator to a halt to the proposed TennCare cuts. To not allow the cutting of the 323,000 enrollee and the extreme limit in benefits that will effect hundreds of thousands more. To not allow the change in the definition of medical necessity which will in fact effect the quality of care provided to Tennessee’s Children.

Five finger your groceries? It's either that or pay 5 cents on each dollar of groceries you buy.
The Pennsylvania legislature is moving closer and closer toward a plan that would swap out school property taxes with a 5% tax on food, clothing and most all other items presently exempt from the state sales tax. Proponents say that this will give needed relief to property owners while others call such a tax regressive and unfairly swapping the tax burden from the rich to the poor.

The passage of the bill, scheduled to be introduced to the floor of the House and Senate in June, is by no means certain. Similar proposals have been floated in the past without success, and the governor would be likely to veto any bill if it did pass.

Only 4 states have a state-wide sales tax on food. Three more allow local sales tax on food. More

[ Read More ]

This article contends that the fight to save TennCare is an instrumental civil rights issue. Unfortunately, Governor Phil Bredesen has refused to see the connection between civil rights and maintaining a health care safety net for Tennessee's most vulnerable populations. This will leave a permanent stain on his legacy.

On December 1 Governor Kulongoski presented his recommended budget for the 2005-07 biennium. In determining his priorities the Governor declared six Oregon principles, one of which is to have the basic health, food and shelter needs of Oregon's most vulnerable met. With the state facing a $1 billion deficit the Governor is in a tough position. He proposed continuing OHP coverage for most individual in OHP-plus, but cut dental and vision coverage for adults. The Governor did not put any general funds into OHP-Standard, leaving the program entirely supported by providers and federal matching funds. This means the program would continue to operate with a cap of 24,000. The 25,000 individuals that must be cut before July would not receive coverage, nor is there funding to provide health care to the 50,000 who have already lost coverage. The Governor also proposed reducing prescription drug costs by further managing the prescription usage of OHP enrollees. read more >>

[ Oregonians for Health Security ]