Welcome to the first day of fall - it is cool and breezy and even rainy - a stark change from yesterday in San Antonio.

Yet there is no stark change in our Nuclear Mayor.

Last night Nuclear Mayor Castro declared that he had made up his mind on the nuclear option for CPS Energy’s and San Antonio’s future. He proceeded to outline the reasons why.

He sounded like a mouthpiece for CPS Energy and the Nuclear Industry, continuing the rhetoric and attempting to pass it off as “a decision based on merit.”

The Nuclear Mayor and I are only a year apart in age, yet it is obvious we are a world apart in logic. He had and still has the opportunity to be a statesman and leader for our community on this issue, which will define a generation in this country. Others look to the youth to make better choices than our forefathers, yet this youth, our Nuclear Mayor Castro, is falling lock step with those forefathers in remaining in the box of close-minded, rhetorical politicians who care more about their ascent to power and prominence in the short term and even less about the long term results of their decisions on the world community.

Why do I make these charges?

* San Antonio is first on the list for getting a permit to build the first nuclear reactor in the U.S. in 30 years.
* Wall Street won’t finance the building of nuclear reactors,
* the federal government is only providing loan guarantees of $18.5 billion for all the nuclear reactors to be built (divided equally at this point, we’re looking at about $4.6 billion for us if there are only four),
* we have no cost guarantees and the cost estimate has gone up from $5.4 billion to $13 billion in the last two years,
* we have no way to deal with the waste generated by the existing nuclear reactors the world over let alone new ones,
* we’re talking about spending $500 million on PAPERWORK for these new nuclear reactors - an amount of money that could bolster existing renewable energy plans and give us a return on our $
* we have a plan - Mission Verde - nuclear is not sustainable and therefore does not fit into the plan
* a nationally renowned nuclear fusion engineer, Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and author of Carbon Free Nuclear Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy, offered his services free of charge to the City of San Antonio if our mayor would become El Alcalde Verde and LEAD SA into a sustainable future, it only takes political will.
* independent analysis and research has shown CPS Energy is misrepresenting, obfuscating, and omitting pertinent information - see energiamia.org and nukefreetexas.org for studies and more
* Drought conditions have prevailed, but CPS wants to use another 23,170 gallons of water per minute to generate power, most of which, ~2/3rds, will be lost to evaporation - http://nukefreetexas.org/downloads/ross_report.pdf
* From Moody’s Global…New Nuclear Generation: Ratings Pressure Increasing
..from a credit perspective, the risks of building a new nuclear generation are hard to ignore, entailing significantly higher business and operating risk profiles, with construction risk, huge capital costs, and continual shifts in national energy policy… Moody’s has said repeatedly that they will downgrade any utility who builds new nuclear - this in turn will effect our bond interest rates for all City bonds in existence and in the future resulting in higher taxes to pay the difference!
* this deal involves getting into bed with a company, NRG, that is rated speculative or “junk” grade - Ba3 (questionable credit quality) -Read more here
* On August 27th the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) Panel found that the nuclear applicant, South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC), had failed to adequately analyze issues raised by concerned citizens in their Petition to Intervene in the proposed expansion at STP.

What of the above makes the decision to go new nuclear a good idea for residents of San Antonio?

What are these “merits” that Nuclear Mayor Castro keeps referring to?

Will we ever find out?

Not likely! - yet i can be proven wrong…

Day two of the City of San Antonio’s “public hearing” on CPS’ plan for nuclear energy uber alles!

Citizens had from 1p-2p to sign up to speak - it’s a Wednesday during a work week.
Citizens were given 3 minutes to speak - great! from 2-4pm (still in work hours)

There are 40 people here, some of those work for CPS, some are media. Monday night the place was close to being packed - well over 150 or more seats. It was also pointed out that the activists know what is going on, but the general populace does not. The CPS hearings are a start, but they are not televised on free television. The newspapers are covering this, but their readership is a minority of the community.

This is in a town of how many millions? the seventh largest city in the US!

How can citizens speak out when they have to work to pay their bills?

Now for the questions/comments made by citizens:

Will the CEO of CPS be going to work for NRG or one of its subsidiaries? (NRG is the company who wants to build our new nuclear reactors.)

One citizen continued to educate the council on Solar Technology
some examples:
solar energy generation system - SEGS - new tech
nevada solar one plant - 64MW generating capacity 250million dollars to build
bright source energy - 400MW solar building plant in mojave desert
and more….so where’s the baseload problem with Solar????

Human Error!

Rate hikes, we don’t want them for this type of investment

Redundancy of computer systems - these reactors will only have ONE computer system

i repeat

These two new reactors will ONLY have ONE computer system

cps sidestepped the water issue on monday, reduction of ground water supply, unregulated dilution of pollution to meet standards, lacks consideration of water issues at mining and disposal sites, and more…

What does CPS think the definition of sustainability is? based on my work with sustainability, nuclear does not meet the definition of sustainability. they are not taking into the account the whole process from start to finish, uranium mining through waste storage.

then there’s the guy who keeps saying the same thing and claims that the federal government is responsible for the waste produced by the nuclear plants, not the people who built it….or maybe he’s saying something else, but it’s not understandable. he supports nuclear.

i came to support nuclear on monday but then i heard the arrogance of CPS in responding to citizen questions. CPS said that they have their assumptions posted on the internet, i went back and looked and could not find any supporting information. if ppa’s are appropriate for renewables, wouldn’t they be appropriate for nuclear? recommend set up a non-cps, non-city, citizen input session to address this issue.

CPS keeps saying that nuclear is the cheapest energy, but the federal energy regulatory agency figures do not support their claim. Risks: cost/time to complete, rate increases, no need for power, and more.

Real costs for building the plant, cps is only looking at fuel costs, not the externalized costs. the costs of degradation of public health and environment must be included. these costs are not there with renewables. nuclear safety is a concern. we haven’t had a major incident since three mile island, but there have been small incidents that could have lead to meltdowns. we don’t hear about them. we need to look forward not return to the stone age.

Councilmember from Hondo, they buy energy from CPS and want CPS to invest in renewable energy and spark the green economy in south texas. this is a regional issue.

Since i didn’t get permission to quote these people, i’ve not cited them here, but the above paraphrases were the general gist of what was said.

interestingly the people who speak for nuclear either work for the nuclear industry or work for CPS…gee what does that tell you?

now to councilmember questions to cps:

Ivy Taylor (District 2): 1. comment - chart given out at public hearing, was helpful, is the info on the website and in the libraries.
cps: it should be on the website and we’ll include it in the library report
(note the chart is bogus)
2. does this chart include the external factors and costs - that’s rhetorical i’ll move on (exactly!)
3. citizens advisory committee have been briefed as often as the board over the last three years.
4. recurring question comes up on fire at plants toshiba built in japan
cps: the fires associate with earthquake in 2007, plants of same style for new project, abwr type, nothing was related to safety at the nuclear plant
(wait WHAT, how can a fire not be related to the safety of the plant????)
5. referencing comment by former council woman patty radle regarding father who worked on nuclear sub and that no strides made in relation to storage of nuclear waste. what breakthroughs will be made in renewables in the next 9 yrs that would make them better options?
cps there are advances in tech for reusing spent fuel, we aren’t using the tech as a matter of public policy (yeah cause the use is for killing people and contaminating the land). we anticipate continued progress in renewables so we will continue to be focused on pilot projects and we are pioneering the breakthroughs in wind and solar.
(BOGUS!!! well i’m sure it’s a half truth, but for real, pioneers?)

MAry Alice Cisneros - District One (my council person):
followup to question on monday night adopting mission verde principles of sustainability. where are we in our plan in providing green jobs for our community?
cps: vision 2020 document outlies two goals 1200 MW of renewable energy, close to 750MW today, looking to expand goals in upcoming months. balancing out issues. 200MW solar RFP out right now, for geo-thermal as well. ready to partner on those projects.
MAC - give us your plan, us on council. follow up: in what year will plants one and two need to be decommissioned?
CPS: current license expire 2027, 2028, we will be filing for a 20 year extension and are confident we’ll receive that through 2048, 2049.
MAC: cost involved, what will it take plant was built for 50 year life?
CPS: millions of dollars for license extension, $115million for the package, and takes about a year. they look at variety of things to extend and we will apply in the next two years to extend. (he didn’t want to say the figure and was really quiet when he did - they tried to just say “it is an application fee”) we can keep it operating beyond it’s lifespan.

Mayor Castro: will the largest users subject to the general public rate increases?
CPS: yes
Castro: to the same extent? 1:1 ratio?
CPS: based on rate classes, but the increases will be based on CLASS, all classes subject to increases
Castro: concern in community about keeping rates low and in the business community as well. to what extent does CPS have the latitude, regardless of the rate, to accomodate the deal to bring jobs to SA
CPS: developed economic development rate for city council in discussion with various companies to give locating companies a rate for 5-6yrs that is then raised. that is our only latitude.
Castro: violations at STP 1 and 2
CPS: we sent an email to staff, the nrc routinely inspects plant, so far there are no actual firm violations. We’ll report back when we have any more info from the plant
Castro: please provide us a list of all violations. Rate hikes for fixed income users. rates will go up no matter what we do to address the needs. CPS offers different discounts for low income. are you going to allocate more money to those programs?
CPS: we designed a low income discount offset rate increases who were eligible under that discount. we also doubled the funding in REAP program - .5 million before, apply through city department of community initiatives, raised the funding to 1 million. We’ll revisit the rate discount with new rate hikes.
Castro: commend for increasing REAP, but we agree 1 million is very small part of the budget and in these times, it would be appropriate to increase during these times regardless of what we do.
regarding geo-thermal is not on your chart. there is community question about geo-thermal - what is the price per kilowatt hour?
CPS: we had biomass and geo-thermal but it was a busy chart, we don’t have the figures with us today, we can provide by the end of the day. we have the figures.
Castro: process for the structure of the hearing on monday, questions in advance to allow you to research and have answer. my understanding is that you will have answers to ALL questions that were submitted even though they were not included Monday.
CPS: no later than Aug 20th we’ll have all answers to the 18 pages of questions.
Castro: how many years will rates go up? difference between nuclear at 40%, 20%, and natural gas - what impact on rates?
CPS: every option capped rate increases at 5% every two yars. don’t have the figures today, but we have the figures and can get them to you. consistent strategy, for ten years and enough in the base rates to cover. the amount of leverage we keep on our books. (i have no idea what she is talking about do you?)
Castro: carrying higher debt impacts our ability to engaged in capital costs in other projects in the future.
CPS: no doubt this will limit out ability in the future. the rate structure covers the amount of the new plants and estimates for other projects. we have extra money for other projects.
Castro: but that money for extra projects that are already in the bucket. but there is nothing in the model to consider new technology developments that we may want to invest in?
CPS: it includes stuff that we already are working on but that we haven’t given the city
Castro: list of projects assumed in the model to council. some suggest CPS hasn’t given
CPS: from the financial perspective, we use estimates on what we know on how the tech would work. costs to build solar and backups.
to do that in 2009 or in 2016
CPS: today’s tech. the tech isn’t there and uncertainty of whether it will be in the next decade. this decision we are making is not the last decisino we will be making. in 5 or 6 years we’ll need a new decision. it may be the next major decision could be solar. we don’t have luxury today to guess. we have to go with the tech and prices we have today to make a decision. a decsion on a new tech five years from now does not make the previous decision
Castro: last year CPS came to council to approve the STEP program for energy conservation, weatherization, etc. if you took 800+million between now and 2020 771MW cumulative savings by 2020. if you took the 5million dollars and invested in STEP, would that cover the needed increase in energy?
CPS: there is a crossover point, it can be done cheaper than building a new plant, but then energy becomes very expensive because you used up the low hanging fruit.
Castro: is that cost greater than the cost of investment in nuclear or natural gas
CPS: energy efficiency is the lowest cost. as we go and it becomes harder to get people to participate so it would go from 2cents - 4cents/KWH. the full 5 million could not be slotted for
Castro: you say this much and i want to know how much it costs
CPS: we’ll have to get you figures. we’ll need more and more power as we go through the decades.
Castro: i want an exact analysis from CPS
(yay castro)

Clamp (District 10): ppa’s existing for STP1 and 2 or any baseload we have now? (power purchase agreement) and what about 3 &4?
CPS: NO we don’t. we give them to other communities we sell power to in the outlying areas. 40% ownership in this project is the threshold for veto rights in the process. 60% for affirmative action in the agreement.
CLAMP: PPA’s are cost based, not fixed. what percent for PPA
CPS: 20% option is achievable (owning 40% and finance 20%)
Clamp: decommissioning trust federal law
CPS: included in the cost factor included compares costs.
Clamp: is it a percentage or set dollar amount
CPS: targets updated with the NRC and collect based on that
Clamp: City’s 14% included in factors
CPS: yes
Clamp: talk to me about geo-thermal, where in the market cycle geo thermal is
CPS: currently there are none operating in texas, operating in western us. it is expensive. we know the geology of texas, the resource is not as rich as in the western us. there is a lot of research going on. it is difficult to use the energy to generate electricity. harder to generate electricity. study in the 80s wasn’t viable (that’s two decades ago!) will be pilot projects in texas and we want to keep an eye on.
Clamp: wholesale sales grid sales, how important is that to the city of sa and payments to the city.
CPS: eat what we can and sell the rest like blue bell ice cream. last year was a good year and we made a healthy margin with our excess coal generation. coal marginal costs 1MW hours after building plant - operation costs only $15/MWH and sell for $30-40 and spikes to $100 and $2000 spikes when natural gas spiked. this year way down.
Clamp: how is grid cells going to go into the future?
CPS: if we go 40% with PPAs at 20%, we would cost based contract and the primary benefactor would be CoSA (city of sa).

David Medina (District 5):
how much money for weatherization program set aside?
CPS: roughly 18-20% of STEP Funding 150 million through 2020, and extra 12.3 million for the next two years with stimulus funds

Reed Williams (District 8):
Rate issue, i understand your model and 5% increase assumption every two years. this causes confusion with constituents if we could say if there is no nuclear project, what are the increases?
1. no project, 2. nuclear, 3. combined cycle. what is the revenue requirement if we do nothing?
CPS: the presentations we have been making, the last slide compares the rate adjustments over the next 20 years and contrast with rates needed if we don’t build anything with the assumption that we’ll buy power off the grid if we need power. less than 3% if we don’t build. and maybe not increase in some years.
Williams: we need perspective of the revenue requirement under various scenarios but not out of your average rate case graph.
CPS: what we can do is a bill analysis for 1000KW/month under a no bill scenario for various levels of consumption.
Williams: if you think it is going to take a 2% for a no build in 2010 and maybe 3% in 2013, we want to see the reality not the fixed 5% in the model
CPS: we have that info and can do it that way, you can still see the incremental in the model. the majority of the rate increase in 2010 is not for nuclear, it is needed for infrastructure etc.
i’m losing battery and i’m getting lost in the rhetoric and proprietary terms…

so they say.

san antonio public utility, CPS Energy, has decided that we need new nuclear power generation reactors to join the two existing ones in bay city, texas. We’ll not get into the disastrous fiasco the building of them was…

This is the FIRST permit request to build a new nuclear reactor in almost thirty years!

Nuclear is Safe, nonpolluting and clean energy that is necessary for san antonio to survive growth projections.

This is what our public utility tells us.

what’s the reality?

SAfe Nuclear - HOW?
uranium mining pollutes permanently at the mining site
terrorist attacks on nuclear plants have been documented by
homeland security to be a significant risk
(http://homelandsecurity.tamu.edu/framework/criticalinfra/keyassets/nuclearpower/nuclear-power-plant-security-and-vulnerabilities.html/)
nuclear waste contaminates for generations and we’ve found
no way to safely deal with permanent storage or deactivating it
american uranium mining is almost nonexistent, so dependency on
foreign uranium makes us safer how?
and more…

NonPolluting
in addition to aforementioned safety issues, there is the fact that the government allows for 12 deaths related to nuclear reactors
carbon emissions are only taken into consideration when looking at the reactors, not the full cycle including mining and transport which does release CO2
the feds allow a certain level of radiation release from nuclear reactors

and i could go on, but let’s move to the motivations and lies driving CPS’ agenda…

“We need more power to meet the needs of growth.”
If that’s the case, why did we shut down 340 megawatts of power generation this year?
What about the new Coal plant being built that’s coming on line next year?
Why does CPS plan to sell more at least half the energy from the proposed nuclear
reactors to the open market?
What about CPS’ own report about how energy efficiency programs would solve
the demand need more than a new polluting plant of any kind?

Jennifer Ramos, CC member District 3 asked about protecting rate payers based on the fact that CPS plans on selling extra energy into the open market.
all i heard was blah blah blah we buy and sell all the time blah blah blah bottom line is we always commit our lowest price fuels to our local customers first…Steve Bartley at CPS
rebut - how much are you looking to sell on the open market - response: stay in project at 40% to give us partnership opportunity. aka NO answer!

“NRG has a lot of expertise in the financial world.” that’s what CPS rep Steve Bartley told us tonight. A bankrupt company has lots of expertise in spending I’d like to see them get a personal loan!

“We are a not for profit entity and we aren’t looking to make a profit.” paraphrase of Paula Gold-Williams. AND that’s why you want to make a profit off of selling excess energy generated by new plants? help me out here.

“what opportunities are available for local small businesses in this project?’ - Dr. Jerry Lin
preliminary list of ops for SB on website. - substantial amount of work and a wide range of opportunities. retain significant amount of ownership so we can have a seat at the table for workforce and vendor ops. skilled labor in SA will have a chance to work on this project. -Jelynne LeBlanc-Burley

ok so, while building the plant creates jobs for the construction industry in a town far away from home for those who are desperate enough to work in a highly dangerous construction environment and then when it’s done, no more jobs. i think like five people work at the existing plants. yay jobs!

According to CPS has four plans:
1. nuclear
2. natural gas
3. natural gas combo plant
4. coal

they claim that there is no other baseload technology in existence today…hmmm…seems they might be averting their eyes from reality maybe?

The cost overrun figures are confidential, was the gist of what Paul Barharm told us today.

We committed to Mission Verde to make San Antonio a leader in Green Technology, Jobs and Sustainability. - mary alice cisneros started her question. (i’m proud of my councilwoman for asking the question, i would have followed up as you’ll see below)

Nuclear is not in conflict with Mission Verde because we will be taking carbon emissions out of the air here in SA. - CPS rep
HOW? Really HOW?

City council people are too nice with CPS - they work for you!!!! don’t thank them for answering your question when they avoid it in their answer!!!!!!!!!

how will fixed income people be protected from these rate hikes? - phillip cortez district 4
john saenz, senior vp retail energy, cps responds - there are rebates in place,
despite generation option there will always be programs for those in need. 1. extended
bill due date - add 10 days to due date for elderly, 2. low income discount, offset
impact to low income folks 3. REAP program, 4. tell them about energy efficiency
and conservation, 5. weatherization program.

hey wait, my power is going to be shut off tomorrow cause i’m unemployed and poor, what’s up with that?

contingency plan if nuclear not implemented? - David Medina, District 5 CC member
Mike Kotara repeated the four options above.

i missed a couple lies in my attempts to transcribe…but why are they so committed to this plan? who knows?

District 6, ray lopez, CC member: alternatives what extent have they studied them, and since tech is developing quickly, when will renewables leap frog ahead? (summary i think)
we’ve studied all nuclear techs in the last three years - Mike Kotara (but we didn’t look at renewables because they aren’t worthwhile)
Cris Eugster - tech is changing. we think energy storage is critical for renewables and we don’t know how to store it…and we need to spend our money wisely, we only have three options, gas, coal and nuclear because renewables aren’t good enough technologically, but in 2030 maybe solar will work…

how much are these guys and gals getting paid to spout this ignorance?
MIT disagrees and i’m sure they don’t have a vested interest in keeping their jobs at CPS by towing the nuclear liine: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

http://www.wickedlocal.com/winchester/homepage/x124593288/QUESTION-ANSWER-with-DANIEL-G-NOCERA-One-of-Time-Magazines-100-Most-Influential

Rates went down by $7billion for ratepayers? WHAT? mine went up and so did those of everyone i know!

ok i’m sick of this dog and pony show.

more to come…stay tuned

Greetings all!

This site will be transitioning from my Presidential Campaign in the coming months.

If you want to help out, let me know.

kat…being vague, i know…

Following is an extremely urgent letter from Leonard Peltier’s sister.

Please do anything you can to help stop Leonard Peltier’s
murder in prison.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info

URGENT ALERT! Leonard Peltiers safety is in jeopardy!
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:20:21 -0800 (PST)

Dear LP Supporters

I am so OUTRAGED!

My brother Leonard was severely beaten upon his
arrival at the Canaan Federal Penitentiary. When he went into
population after his transfer, some inmates assaulted him. The
severity of his injuries is that he suffered numerous blows to his
head and body, receiving a large bump on his head, possibly a
concussion, and numerous bruises. Also, one of his fingers is swollen
and discolored and he has pain in his chest and ribcage. There was
blood everywhere from his injuries.
We feel that prison authorities at the prompting of the FBI
orchestrated this attack and thus, we are greatly concerned about his
safety. It may be that the attackers, whom Leonard did not even know,
were offered reduced sentences for carrying out this heinous assault.
Since Leonard is up for parole soon, this could be a conspiracy to
discredit a model prisoner.

He was placed in solitary confinement and only given one meal, this
is generally done when you won’t name your attackers; incidentally
being only given one meal seriously jeopardizes his health because of
his diabetes. Prison officials refuse to release any info to the
family, but they need to hear from his supporters to protect his
safety, as does President Obama. His attorneys are trying to get
calls into him now.

This attack on LP comes on the heels of the FBI’s recent letter,
prompting this attack by FBI supporters as an attempt to discredit LP
as a model prisoner. Anyone who has been in the prison system knows
well that if you refuse to name your attackers or file charges
against them, then you lose your status as a victim and/or given
points against your possible parole and labeled as a perpetrator.

It is not uncommon, in fact is quite common for the government to use
Indian against Indian and they still operate under the old adage “it
takes an Indian to catch an Indian”. In 1978, they made an attempt to
assassinate him through another Indian man who was also at Marion
prison with LP. But Standing Deer chose to reveal the plot to him
instead of taking his life in exchange FOR A CHANCE AT FREEDOM. When
Standing Deer was released in 2001, he joined the former Leonard
Peltier Defense Committee as a board member. He also began to speak
on Leonard’s behalf until his murder six years ago today. Prior to
his murder, Standing Deer confided with close friends and associates
that the same man who visited him in Marion to assassinate Peltier,
had came to Houston, TX and told him that he had better stay away
from Peltier and anything to do with him.

We are aware that currently, the FBI is actively seeking support for
his continued imprisonment of Leonard Peltier and also also seeking
support from Native People. So please be aware, and keep Leonard in
your prayers. The FBI is apparently afraid of the impact we are
having. If they will set him up to blemish his record just before a
parole hearing, what will they do when it looks like his freedom will
become a reality? We need to make sure that nothing happens to him again!

Please write the President, send it priority or registered mail.
Email to Change.gov or email President Obama. Call your congressional
representatives and write letters, not email, to them. Do what you
can to get the word out to insure that LP is receiving adequate
medical attention for his injuries.

I am asking you, supporters of Leonard and advocates of justice at
this time to help. I don’t know what else to do. Please Help!

Thank you
Betty Peltier-Solano
Executive Coordinator
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee

Also call and request Leonard be treated with dignity and respect.
Canaan Federal Prison
570-488-8000

<><><><><><><><>

Free Leonard Peltier — “Amnesty International considers Leonard
Peltier to be a political prisoner whose avenues of redress have long
been exhausted….Amnesty International recognizes that a retrial is
no longer a feasible option and believes that Leonard Peltier should
be immediately and unconditionally released.” Documents show that
although the prosecution and government pointed the finger at Peltier
for shooting FBI agents at close range during the trial in 1976, for
three years the prosecution withheld critical ballistic test results
proving that the fatal bullets could not have come from the gun tied
to Leonard Peltier. This trial also denied evidence of self defense.

The U.S. Prosecutor, during subsequent oral arguments, stated: “we
can’t prove who shot those agents”.

The Eighth Circuit found that
“There is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard
Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense
been available to him in order to better exploit and reinforce the
inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government’s case.”

Yet, a new trial was denied. Judge Heaney, who authored the denial
now supports Mr. Peltier’s release, stating that the FBI used
improper tactics to gain Mr. Peltier’s conviction.

A good way to
learn about Leonard Peltier is to read his book:

Prison Writings: My
Life Is My Sun Dance. For excerpts, see the following link, under
article by Louise Erdich:
28469,m>Time
for Human Rights on Native Ground. This
YouTube of Leonard
reading his own words to music and photos is really beautiful. For
more resources:
,22139,>Free
Leonard Peltier!
__._,_.___

Colorado Communities for Justice and Peace: http://www.ColoradoPeace.org/
… This is our DISCUSSION list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CCJP-discuss/ … Please consider being a
member of our lower-volume ANNOUNCEMENT list for important event
announcements and CCJP project coordination:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CCJP-announce/

Check out the man who acted to help Katrina survivors in New Orleans when the Government couldn’t do the job.

Malik Rahim is running against yet another politician who will soon be wearing Orange.

Malik Rahim can win this election with your help to Get Out The Vote.

Help out in any way you can - spread the word, donate, volunteer, etc.

A-message-to-the-Hip-Hop-Grassroots-from-former-Political-Prisoner-Black-Panther-Dhoruba-Bin-Wahad

I thought you might be interested in joining the campaign to provide millions of Americans with high-speed Internet access.

Unless we speak out to our congressional representatives, large telephone and cable companies will continue to deny Internet access to millions who cannot access the information superhighway.

Please visit the URL below to check out what’s at stake and send a loud message directly to Congress:

https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?id=273

Within days Congress is expected to vote on a bill that will help head off another credit crisis — stopping abusive credit card tactics that can drive us all into financial trouble.

As we struggle with this economy, credit card companies are exploiting every opportunity to jack up interest rates on credit cards for no reason whatsoever, and to charge outlandish fees, all which drive us deeper in debt. We’re getting pummeled by the aftermath of abusive lending practices in the mortgage market — we can’t afford another credit crisis!

Among other things, the bill would prohibit credit card companies from arbitrarily increasing interest rates on card balances, and make them end ‘bait and switch’ clauses that let them charge fees and change interest rates for any reason whatsoever.

Would you take a moment to send an email to your member to support these common-sense reforms? Time is of the essence — a vote is expected within days and we can’t any longer in this economy to fix these abusive credit card practices.

Take action at: http://creditcardreform.org/