Well, the UCPD finally identified the officer caught on tape electrifying a student in a UCLA computer lab last week. It may come as no surprise to anyone who's watched this blood curdling thing that Terrence Duren, an 18 year vet of the UCPD has a curious history on the force.

Duren came to the UCPD after being fired by the Long Beach Police Department in the late eighties. A few years into the job with UCPD, Duren was nearly dismissed for alledgedly choking a frat guy with a nightstick. According to the LA Times, the dismissal was overturned in favor of a 90 day suspension.

Duren remained on the force to be named officer of the year in 2001, two years before he shot a mentally imbalanced homeless man in a bathroom on campus.

The ironic twist? Immediately following this incident, the UCPD decided to invest $22,000 in tasers. A 2004 article in the Daily Bruin pointed to Duren's assault charge as the primary reason for investing in the tasers, "It is this type of situation - one that can lead to a lawsuit against the entire department - that Tuttle said Tasers can help deter."

Meanwhile, Officer Duren will undergo an independent investigation for discharging that lawsuit-deterring weapon five times into an immobile student.

Young Voter Strategies also has some interesting anecdotes and numbers from the field. As Ben noted, young voters are out in force, despite reports of some real problems in polling places across the country:

MARYLAND (4pm, EST):
There have been long lines at the UMD-College Park Student Union and turnout as of 4pm is already higher than TOTAL turnout in 2002. (Source, Adam Fogel, YVS)

MICHIGAN (3pm EST):
Two of six University of Michigan precincts have already surpassed 2002 turnout totals, and the other four are almost there! (Source, Lindsey Berman, YVS)

OHIO (1pm, EST):
Precinct 16-A at Ohio State University surpassed 2002 totals at 1pm, and several others were close on its heels. (Source, Mary McClelland, YVS, OhioPIRG New Voters Project)

OREGON (3pm EST):
This morning, Building Votes volunteers spent four hours -- from 5am to 9am -- waving signs on a traffic island at the foot of the Morrison Bridge. Thousands of bikes and cars passed by and signaled their support by honking and flashing thumbs-up. A reporter from the local Fox News affiliate also spent the morning getting live footage of the volunteers. The rain was so heavy that two "VOTE" signs disintegrated and one volunteer's clogs filled up with water. BV volunteers are phone-banking all day, and will go on a "dorm-storm" and apartment canvass in the late afternoon to turn out voters in dense apartment precincts. BV has made over 10,000 Get Out the Vote calls over the past 2 weeks to newly registered young voters. (Source-Anna Galland, Building Blocks Building Votes)   Read More »

Having trouble staying on top of all the problems being reported from precincts around the country? Mother Jones has a good rundown by State, courtesy of People for the American Way:

People for the American Way reports the election incident reporting system (EIRS) "is experiencing enormous traffic and is difficult to access. We are working to solve the problem." Some of the hotspots this morning:

Ohio: Confusion over photo ID requirements, delays because of voting machine problems.

Pennsylania: Long lines in Allegheny county where machines did not work this morning. Machine failures resulted in some leaving the polling place without having voted. Voting machine-related delays also in Philadelphia and Lebanon county.

Illinois: In Will County, an election judge failed to show up and a polling place was still closed an hour after polls were supposed to open.

Florida: Voting machine problems and the failure of an election judge to show up in Broward County cause delays. Also, "In Deerfield Beach, one predominantly African American precinct did not open for at least two hours when machines failed, and no paper ballots were available,'' says People.

Indiana: Electronic voting machines were causing problems in Delaware County and Marion County. In Delaware County, computer errors were causing problems in 75 precincts, and in Marion County, touch-screen machines were not working in more than 10 percent of the county's precincts, and voters were using paper ballots instead.

The American University Eagle reported yesterday that "eight protests against military recruitment on college campuses were included among more than 1,500 'suspicious incidents' listed in the Department of Defense's Threat and Local Observations Notice database..."

Luckily, only one of these "suspicious incidents," which occurred on April 5, at UC Santa Cruz, was cited by the Pentagon as a "credible threat."

The April 5 protest drew more than 200 people, who "stormed" (actually a self-described mime-like staccato pace) a job fair where recruiters were stationed, vowing to stage a 'gay kiss-in.' An hour later, the protest ended after the recruiters called it a day and the "threat" to freedom subsided.

Rumor has it that UCSC activists' "international" calls to organize rides to this weekend's ultimate frisbee tournament in NorCal are now being "monitored."

And they say the US is ill-prepared for another terror attack.

Thanks to inside informant EHannon for his lengthy interview with terror suspect and ultimate frisbee champion, J.D. Harry. Unfortunately, it's been subpoenaed by the NSA.

Last night at the George Mason Patriot Center in Fairfax, VA, Campus Progress joined the Foo Fighters and Weezer on the sixteenth show of their 2005 world tour. Campus Progress volunteers across the country have been touring with the Foo Fighters to help spread the word about Campus Progress.

The Foozer/Weefighters (as the bands have affectionately nicknamed themselves for this tour) took it to new heights last night at the sold-out Patriot Center. Both bands seemed to be utterly in their element, but it was a particularly big night for the Fighters of Foo, for whom it was a homecoming show of sorts. Dave Grohl, originally from Fairfax, VA had about thirty friends and family members attend the show as his guests, including his parents and his wife Jordan seated at the soundboard. After the first few songs, both fans and guests alike were treated to stories from the singer's rebellious youth. It was a night of serenades and switcharoos for both bands. Grohl launched into a chilling acoustic Everlong to his wife Jordan that ended with the rest of the band joining in. At one point Grohl apologized to his parents for all of his childhood antics and then sang to them in a darkened Patriot Center with spotlights on the singer at the front of the stage and his parents in the back of the arena. The drummers of both bands took over the mike at points, Hawkins serenading his new wife and Patrick Wilson of Weezer covering Blur's "song 2" while the rest of Weezer collectively took over on drums.

   Read More »

Day two kicked off with a lavish breakfast spread of fresh fruit, eggs, assorted meats, cheeses and pastries, bagels, adorable little jars of jam and a plenary session titled "What's next in the Middle East." All of the plenary panels take place in the main ballroom. The room is set in rounds filled with all the big names - I sat at a table with the head of an organization working to develop an AIDS vaccine, a former editor at the Washington Times and a freelance writer recently embedded in Afghanistan. I must say, all in all, it's a classy affair. The room is sharply decorated in blues and whites and the stage is stark white with modern white arm chairs. The one thing that throws me is the music. It's very Oscars-esque, which is somewhat off-putting. But a grand crowd calls for grand measures I suppose. Scattered throughout the room are Rev. Jesse Jackson, Elie Wiesel, Ted Turner, George Stephanopoulos, Secretary General Kofi Annan, and countless heads of state, current administration officials (yes, that administration), musicians, politicians, CEOs, activists, policymakers and academics. Check out the full list of participants and speakers.   Read More »

I arrived yesterday around 4pm at the Sheraton Towers in New York City, the site of the much hyped Clinton Global Initiative. Coinciding with the Millennium Summit of the UN General Assembly, the Initiative has the ambitious goal of focusing "the world's leading minds on confronting some of the most challenging global dilemmas," and is the brainchild of the great WJC, himself and a project of the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation. For three days, world leaders will come together for the inaugural meeting of the CGI in New York city to participate in workshops and intense breakout sessions to see if they can't wrap their minds around four hefty issue areas: Poverty; Religion, Conflict and Reconciliation; Climate Change; and Governance, Enterprise and Investment. Not only will participants spend hours in endless hash sessions, but each must make a specific commitment to take action in the next year on one of the issues discussed.

A tall order, even for this group of hundreds the world's biggest players, activists, policy and newsmakers, a list which includes everyone from Jeffrey Sachs and Bono to Tony Blair and King Abdullah, II, to Rupert Murdoch and Paul Wolfowitz.

Hold the phone. Did I catch a Murdoch in there? And a Wolfie. Yes, friends, you see, CGI is looking for a non-partisan panacea. Despite the strong taste of bile that comes from the thought of Jeff Sachs sharing space with that king of Fairness and Balance, I greatly admire the goals of CGI as well as the principles of the man at its helm, and am willing to give it a shot. Though it disturbs me that it's come to this, I recognize that in order to take an honest look at the issues CGI hopes to address, it doesn't behoove us to leave out major persons of influence simply because we think (or know, ahem) they've got it all wrong, especially when much of America thinks they've got it at least partly right.

Outside the Sheraton, 53rd Street was lined with black limousines and town cars. The scene inside was somewhat frenzied. The lobby was awhirl with black suits, secret service pins, bomb-sniffing dogs and anxious participants - even Barbra Streisand looked overwhelmed. Once the program began, however, President Clinton introduced both the topics for the next three days and what seems to be the real meat of the Initiative. Hundreds of conferences in a given year deliver big ideas, participants talk about big change, but these same conferences are followed by months of inaction. The goal of the Initiative of course, is to push past the talk of big change and actually achieve big change. As President Clinton introduced four different commitments to take on a major initiative in one of the four focus areas, it became clear to me why tickets to the three day affair went for no less than $15,000 a pop.

The concept is nothing short of genius: gather people with money, conscience, and a desire to do good works, and inspire them to spend their money, time and intellectual capital on aggressive initiatives. These aggressive initiatives come with price tags of millions of dollars and time lines of one to ten years. The response is amazing. The participants are hungry for tangible results and apparently will be pledging throughout the three days to pour time and money into programs that promise to achieve these results. The initiative will be staffing the projects so there are likely to be few empty promises. Among others, Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim, a Nubian from Sudan, committed $100 million to create a fund that will invest in African development. Sir Tom Hunter of the Hunter foundation and the Clinton Foundation pledged another $100 million during a ten-year time frame to create a model for sustainable development.

Kudos to Bill Frist. Seriously. (And, yes, this is the Bill Frist of Nuclear Option fame.) But here at Campus Progress we believe in giving credit where credit is due. Who can say what will eventually come of his speech on the floor of the Senate this morning, but his willingness to voice his opinion about the state of stem cell research and his firm stance to continue supporting it is a refreshing event for a divisive issue. This morning, Dr. Frist announced on the floor of the Senate that he supported a House bill passed this spring that would provide more federal funding to embryonic stem cell research. Frist outlined some changes he felt needed to be made and, above all else, insisted that no embryo be destroyed for research that was not already slated for destruction otherwise.

Frist’s words are momentous in many ways. First, this is a huge political move by the Senate Majority Leader who is considered by many to be the frontrunner of the 2008 Presidential race. During George W.’s time, we have seen how influential the religious conservatives can be and Frist’s announcement comes as a distinct rejection of their views on this issue. The corollary is that Frist may have galvanized the centrists in this country, garnering more support for his future (and hopefully lessening the impact of the radicals in determining the fate of the country).

Second, this is the first time in a long time that an influential leader has made a move to bridge the ever-widening gap between the Left and Right. Democratic senators lavished praise on Frist today and many Republican senators also backed his position. Frist’s statements inspire some hope that the stem cell debate will be the first non-security issue in some time to be decided in a notably bipartisan and forward-thinking manner.

Third, hopefully this will serve as a watershed moment in turning the tide in this nation. The current administration has been largely in the business of legislating morality and deciding on the right and wrong values for Americans. Frist acknowledged his own belief that human life begins at conception, but made the point that funding stem cell research will lead to positive medical breakthroughs and might save many lives in the future. In a deeper sense, this is an acknowledgement that one’s own moral values should not dictate the direction of legislation on an issue surrounded by such intense and often conflicting personal values. Frist’s statements this morning mark a turn away from taking a hard and fast line on policy decisions based on natural or religious law. Instead, by advocating for stem cell research with strict ethical guidelines and oversight, he is in essence acknowledging that though there may be reason for moral pause, the potential public good that may come of the research makes it necessary to investigate the issue further before simply discarding it altogether.

- Jonas Singer

Today, on the 35th anniversary of the first Earth Day, Producer and environmental activist Laurie David has joined forces with other prominent enviros to begin a 365-day march on Washington.

It's not quite as masochistic as it sounds, however. This march is of the virtual variety, and is described as a bi-partisan effort to bring all Americans together in one place, demonstrate the vast consensus among Americans that global warming is for real, and urge our decision-makers to start addressing it.

Using the power of the Internet, the march will move across the country, making stops in areas where the effects of global warming are most alarming as well as where Americans are taking action against it.

Celebrity marchers include Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Senator John McCain (R-AZ), and Leonardo Dicaprio, among many others who make up the star studded cast of activists and environmental leaders. Though these well-known marchers bring a certain clout to the movement, the real work of the march will be done by ordinary Americans all over the country.

The goal of the march is to end up in Washington, D.C. by Earth Day 2006, having used strength in numbers to urge:

1. The president to initiate a real plan of action to address global warming.

2. Congress to enact new laws to reduce global warming pollution from U.S. power plants, factories and automobiles.

3. U.S. businesses to start a new industrial revolution of clean energy products that will reduce our oil dependence and global warming pollution.

The first stop on the march is Shishmaref, Alaska, where the village's 600 residents have a tough choice to make. As their little village erodes as a result of global warming, they will soon have to decide whether to move their community to surer ground or abandon it altogether. This is just one of the many places facing the devastating consequences of global warming to which the virtual march hopes to bring attention.

To join the march or track its progress, go to www.stopglobalwarming.org