Rania Khalek Dispatches from the Underclass
/ October 3, 2013 / 3 Comments

Florida Awards $1.2 Billion Contract To Deadly Prison Healthcare Provider

Under the leadership of Republican Governor Rick Scott and a GOP-controlled legislature, Florida has embarked on a massive push for the privatization of prison healthcare services.

Most recently, the Florida Department of Corrections awarded a $1.2 billion, five-year contract to Corizon, a Tennessee-based prison healthcare provider that began serving 41 correctional facilities in August. This comes on top of a $240 million, five-year contract awarded to Pittsburgh-based Wexford Health Sources late last year to provide medical services to state inmates at nine South Florida facilities.

But it appears the DOC never asked the companies bidding on its contracts to disclose their litigation histories, which is standard procedure in contract bidding.

Had they done so, they would have discovered that Corizon has been sued 660 times for malpractice in the last five years alone. A Miami Herald investigation found that, “Nearly half of those cases remain open. Of those that are closed, 91 — one in four — ended with confidential settlements that Corizon declined to discuss.” Read More

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/ October 1, 2013 / 3 Comments

Government Shutdown Speaks Volumes About Who And What This Country Values Least

(See drone update at the bottom)

House Republicans are heartless assholes for shutting down the government over a healthcare reform law that isn’t even affected by the shutdown. But the people in charge of determining what gets funded and what gets axed in the event of a shutdown are proving to be even bigger monsters.  Read More

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/ October 1, 2013 / 1 Comment

Stunning Infographic: The Militarization of the Police

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/ October 1, 2013 / Leave a comment

BREAKING: Federal Judge Orders Immediate Release of Cancer Stricken 'Angola 3' Prisoner After 41 Years in Solitary Confinement

Herman Wallace April 2013 (Herman's House)

Herman Wallace April 2013 (Herman’s House)

Chief Judge Brian A. Jackson of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana ordered the state to “immediately release” Herman Wallace from custody, according to his legal team.

Wallace, who is dying of liver cancer and has just days to live, has served over 40 years in solitary confinement for the 1972 murder of Brent Miller, a white prison guard at Louisiana’s infamous Angola prison, formerly a slave plantation.

Wallace was convicted of the murder alongside two others black prisoners. They came to be known as the “Angola 3” and maintained their innocence, insisting they had been framed in an effort to silence their political activism as members of one of the first Black Panther Party chapters. Read More

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/ September 25, 2013 / 6 Comments

Unarmed Black Man Killed By Florida Cop For Driving Without A Seatbelt

On May 8, a Volusia County deputy in Florida tried to pull over Marlon Brown, a 38-year-old father of two, for allegedly failing to wear a seatbelt while driving. When Brown fled on foot, Deland police cruisers chased after him, even though they are not supposed to chase suspects for minor offenses. When Brown cut through a vegetable garden, officer James Harris sped after and ran over Brown, killing him.

Earlier this month, a grand jury decided against prosecuting officer Harris, citing an apparent lack of evidence. Krystal Brown, Marlon’s ex-wife, has since released the police dash cam video of the incident in hopes that it will spur an independent investigation.

Read More

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/ September 25, 2013 / 1 Comment

US Accused Of Blocking Pakistani Drone Strike Survivors From Speaking To Congress

Rafiq ur Rehman and his two children, 9-year-old Nebila and 13-year-old Zubiar, are from the tribal regions of north Waziristan, an area of Pakistan that has been devastated by US drone strikes. Last year, Rafiq’s children were injured by a drone strike that also killed his 67-year-old mother (the children’s grandmother), Mamana.

Rafiq’s story is featured in an upcoming film  by Robert Greenwald of the Brave New Foundation. Here is a clip:

The family has been invited to testify in person about their experience at a Congressional hearing, which marks the first time Congress will hear from survivors of the CIA’s drone war. However, the hearing has been postponed indefinitely because the State Department refuses to grant a visa to Rafiq’s lawyer, Shahzad Akbar, a legal fellow with the British human rights group Reprieve and the director of the Pakistan-based Foundation for Fundamental Rights. Read More

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/ September 23, 2013 / 3 Comments

Rep. Peter King Urges Racial Profiling of Somali-Americans In Wake of Kenya's Terrorist Attack

There isn’t a problem in the world that Rep. Peter King (R-NY) can’t solve by spying on minorities and that includes the threat posed by Al-Shabab, the Somalia based terrorist group that carried out a horrific massacre in an upscale shopping center in Kenya over the weekend.

As former chairman of the congressional Homeland Security Committee, King conducted several controversial (aka bigoted) hearings singling out Muslim-American communities as hotbeds of radicalism and terrorist recruitment. In 2011, one of King’s hearings focused on Al-Shabaab and Somali-Americans, which he derided for not doing enough to combat radicalization among their youth.

King has rehashed these complaints in the wake of Kenya’s mall massacre. Read More

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/ September 20, 2013 / 8 Comments

Half of Food Stamp Recipients Are Children

Last night, House Republicans passed a bill that cuts $40 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps, one of the few safety nets available to the 47 million Americans living below the poverty line.

Nevertheless, a majority of our elected representatives seem to view food as a luxury that the poor are unworthy of, which is stunning considering that nearly half of food stamp recipients are children and another 26 percent are adults living with children. Read More

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/ September 19, 2013 / 4 Comments

A Majority Of Private Prison Contracts Include 'Lockup Quotas' To Guarantee Profits

In the Public Interest (ITPI) released a damning report that reveals an overwhelming majority of contracts between for-profit prisons and local governments include “lockup quotas” and “low crime taxes”, language that basically guarantees a profit.

Sixty-five percent of the 62 private prison contracts ITPI analyzed included bed occupancy guarantees—whereby the state promises to keep 80 to 100 percent of private prison beds filled with prisoners at all times—and taxpayer penalties that force the state to pay for unused beds when they fail to meet an occupancy quota.  Read More

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/ September 16, 2013 / 2 Comments

The Countries Fueling Syria's War Have Done the Least to Help Syrian Refugees

As conditions continue to deteriorate for Syrian refugees, appeals for humanitarian aid are growing louder. Meanwhile, the countries most involved in fueling the violence inside Syria are the least willing to help alleviate the crisis.  Read More

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