DEMOCRACY NOW! – Thousands of demonstrators flooded the Wisconsin State Capitol building last night after Republican senators took a surprise vote to strip most public employee workers of their right to collectively bargain. The bill could be made law if the Assembly votes today. The state Senate has been at a standstill since all 14 Democratic members fled the Wisconsin to prevent quorum. But on Wednesday, Republicans advanced the measure by stripping it of fiscal measures requiring a 20-member quorum for action. We speak to graduate student organizer Peter Rickman and State Democratic Sen. Chris Larson, who remains in Illinois.

© Copyright DemocracyNow!, 2011

Photography by Lost Albatross

SALON– To follow-up on yesterday’s observations about the prolonged forced nudity to which Bradley Manning has been subjected the last two days:  brig officials now confirm to The New York Times that Manning will be forced to be nude every night from now on for the indefinite future — not only when he sleeps, but also when he stands outside his cell for morning inspection along with the other brig detainees.  They claim that it is being done “as a ‘precautionary measure’ to prevent him from injuring himself.”  

Has anyone before successfully committed suicide using a pair of briefs — especially when under constant video and in-person monitoring?  There’s no underwear that can be issued that is useless for killing oneself?  And if this is truly such a threat, why isn’t he on “suicide watch” (the NYT article confirms he’s not)?  And why is this restriction confined to the night; can’t he also off himself using his briefs during the day? 

Let’s review Manning’s detention over the last nine straight months:  23-hour/day solitary confinement; barred even from exercising in his cell; one hour total outside his cell per day where he’s allowed to walk around in circles in a room alone while shackled, and is returned to his cell the minute he stops walking; forced to respond to guards’ inquiries literally every 5 minutes, all day, everyday; and awakened at night each time he is curled up in the corner of his bed or otherwise outside the guards’ full view.  Is there anyone who doubts that these measures — and especially this prolonged forced nudity — are punitive and designed to further erode his mental health, physical health and will?  As The Guardian reported last year, forced nudity is almost certainly a breach of the Geneva Conventions; the Conventions do not technically apply to Manning, as he is not a prisoner of war, but they certainly establish the minimal protections to which all detainees — let alone citizens convicted of nothing — are entitled.

Read full article about Bradley Manning’s Forced Nudity.

Written by Glenn Greenwald

© SALON 2011

Photo by EPA

GUARDIAN– In the nine years since the opening of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, the country has moved incrementally towards institutionalising the existence of the facility. On Monday, the Obama administration took the process of institutionalisation one step further, issuing both an executive order on detention – the first since the pathbreaking executive order that began his presidency, calling for the closure of Guantánamo and promising a rethink on the detention policy – and the revocation of the ban on military tribunals there.

In contrast to its predecessor, yesterday’s executive order was anything but pathbreaking. It tacitly acknowledged that the premises of detention in the “war on terror” begun by the Bush administration in the fall of 2001 still hold. More tellingly still, it demonstrated that the Obama administration now not only accepts the fact of Guantánamo’s existence as a given, but has also abandoned any debate over whether or not indefinite detention should be the policy of the land.

Under this new detainee review plan, the blueprint set out nearly a decade ago remains. At the outset, the underlying rationale for detention at Guantánamo Bay rests upon the September 2001 Authorisation to Use Military Force (AUMF). So, too, as decreed in the November 2001 Military Order, the department of defence remains the lead player in implementing the guidelines of the executive order, although “consultation with the attorney general” is prescribed. In terms of the procedures for review of the cases, those, too, are essentially new and updated versions of those that constituted the administrative review boards and the combatant status review tribunals, in which each detainee’s status was reviewed and chance for trial or release assessed. The justification for continued detention is familiar also – to wit, “to protect against a significant threat to the security of the United States“.

Read full article about Guantánamo: No Closure For Obama.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2011

Photograph by Brennan Linsley/Pool/Reuters

SALON.COM– Violence escalates in Libya. Unconfirmed reports say Gadhafi has fled as protesters march on compound.

UPDATE (2:10 P.M. EST)
Libyan fighter pilots who defected to Malta earlier this morning told Maltese that they’d been ordered to drop bombs on protesters, the Guardian reports.

UPDATE (1:10 P.M. EST)
A number of sources are reporting that Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi may have fled the country as protesters take hold in the capital city of Tripoli. Reuters reported that a British foreign minister had seen information suggesting that Gadhafi was headed to Venuzuela. The government of Hugo Chavez has denied those reports. 

Meanwhile, as violence mounts, Ibrahim Dabbashi, the Libyan deputy ambassador to the United Nations, has reportedly said that the Libyan dictator “has declared war on the Libyan people and is committing genocide.”

EARLIER
Al Jazeera reports that security forces using fighter jets have opened fire on protesters maching on Libyan President Muammar Gadhafi’s compound in Tripoli. As phone lines have been cut throughout the country, incoming reports are largely unconfirmed, and foreign embassies are evacuating their personnel.

Al Jazeera summed up the events in Libya with an inside report about the regime’s efforts to crush the uprising:

DISTURBING FOOTAGE- Peaceful, unarmed protesters get gunned down by the Libyan army in broad daylight.

Adam Clark Estes blogs the news for Salon. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @adamclarkestes More: Adam Clark Estes

© Copyright SALON.COM, 2011

Photo by flickr user mshamma

MEDIA ROOTS-  In 2002, Jeanmarie Simpson co-adapted the book, Amigas: Letters of Friendship and Exile, a chronicle of correspondence between two Chilean friends separated during the Pinochet era. The theatre adaptation, Amigas, won a 2003 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Later that year, Simpson stumbled across a reference to Jeannette Rankin, lifelong pacifist and the first and only US Congresswoman who voted against US entry into both world wars. Her discovery of Rankin led to the production of A Single Woman, a play that toured worldwide and was subsequently made into a a film featuring the talents of Martin Sheen, Patricia Arquette, Peter Coyote, Judd Nelson and Joni Mitchell.

In 2008 Simpson co-adapted another book called Powder: Writing by Women in the Ranks from Vietnam to Iraq into a solo piece called Coming in Hot. She has performed the show dozens of times in Arizona, California, Washington and Nevada and has garnered rave reviews on Huffington Post. A documentary film about the play is currently in production.

Simpson’s newest solo play, Mary’s Joy: The Anatomy of a Martyr, is ready to meet the public and has already been performed at a school at CU Boulder. I had the honor of sitting down with Jeanmarie Simpson and getting some insight on her work, art, and what it means to be a self proclaimed “artivist”.

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Cynthia Schwartz: How do you choose your characters? How do you decide whose lives are expansive enough, or interesting enough that you could step inside them and actually become that person on stage?

Jeanmarie Simpson: I guess it’s my enthusiasm for clarity and justice and my feminist heart that leads me to the characters I want to write about and play. I love that these women speak for me, they’re a joy to make a case for, as an artist, because I am so moved by them and their lives.

CS: When you get something back from the audience, does that feed you not only as an actor, but do the characters respond differently during different performances?