People Before Profit blog

Federal judges accept all-expense paid junkets to right-wing conferences

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 06:57:00 +0000

Federal judges were attending corporation-sponsored conferences at posh watering holes, at times on the very subjects of cases they have pending before them, a prominent law school dean wrote in a 2008 book of essays.

While at these sessions, “judges not only hear right wing views propagandized to them, but also hob nob with, speak with, drink with, play golf with, and sometimes even meet on Boards with right wing figures, right wing lawyers, and others who have pronounced right wing views,” said Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.

“The conferences are paid for by rich right wing foundations – (Sarah) Scaife, of Pittsburgh, Pa., (Charles) Koch, of Arlington, Va. etc.--- and by wealthy, powerful companies involved regularly in litigation where their side is, at minimum, the conservative side,” he said. After attending these sessions, Vevel noted, judges “have been known to go back home and alter rulings on cases on the issues discussed at a one-sided conference.”

Velvel, who formerly worked as a lawyer in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice in Washington, said, “one of the reasons antitrust is now of such little value in the U.S. is that the judiciary has adopted views taught at the right wing conferences.”

Writing about the seminars, Dorothy Samuels, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times on January 20, 2006, said the seminars are “underwritten by monied interests out to influence judges to rule in favor of corporate interests on issues like environmental protection and liability for harmful products.”

“Conducted under the innocuous sounding banner of ‘judicial education’,” Samuels added, “(i)n reality these slanted multi-day sessions mock the ideal of an independent, impartial judiciary…”

Some justices go beyond what The Times calls “conferenceering” by accepting costly gifts outright. Justice Clarence Thomas was cited by the paper because he “had accepted thousands of dollars in gifts in recent years, including an $800 leather jacket, a $1,200 set of tires from NASCAR, and an extravagant vacation from a conservative activist.”

Velvel said that large corporations and wealthy right wing foundations are not likely to keep pouring money into these conferences---which they call ‘educational’ but which are really transmission belts for unalloyed, unchallenged right wing ideas (read propaganda)---unless they thought a benefit was accruing to them from the conferences. Big corporations pour money into lobbyists to get results, after all. Why would anything less be true of these conferences?”

Efforts to put an end to “conferenceering” were opposed by the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, on grounds of free speech and the right of judges to get educated. But, Velvel wrote, “The idea here is that ideas and alleged facts are being presented at the conferences, and that to stop judges from attending them, to stop judges from accepting all expenses-paid vactioneering junkets to one-sided right wing conferences, is to deny the judges access to speech and to stifle the operation of the marketplace of ideas. This, to put it bluntly, is unalloyed crap.” Velvel added, “If judges want to find out about a subject, (they can) read a book.”

Velvel said he doesn’t usually write about “the semi-obscenity called the federal judiciary” but when he does it is not favorable because the federal bench as a rule is biased against workers and consumers and traditionally decides in favor of business interests. Velvel’s remarks appeared in his latest book “An Enemy of the People”(Doukathsan Press).

The Massachusetts School of Law is purposefully dedicated to the education of minorities, immigrants and students from modest financial backgrounds that would otherwise not be able to afford a legal education and practice law. The school is known for providing a practical, quality education at about half the cost of most New England law schools. Velvel has been cited by the National Jurist as one of the leaders in legal education reform and has been similarly honored by the National Law Journal. Reach him at velvel@mslaw.edu.

The case of the ticking Timex turkey

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 07:44:00 +0000

Jobs come, jobs go.

These days they just seem to be vanishing into the ether.

But back when Nixon roamed the earth, I was young, earnest and curious about the lives of working-class Americans. So I embarked upon a series of entry-level jobs in factories and food-processing plants.

At age 17, I processed peas and sweet corn 12 hours a day for the Jolly Green Giant. In the late '60s, this emerald mascot was a national celebrity, thanks to lighthearted TV ads often seen on “The Tonight Show” and other popular broadcasts.

The Giant was portrayed as nature's benevolent bodyguard who mentored his tiny protege, Sprout. So I expected merry workdays filled with ho, ho, ho's. What I got was Cannery Row.

This was a worm's eye view of America's corporate food industry. The processing plant relied on a small army of Mexican migrant workers along with local laborers to handle the harvests. Although essential to the operation, factory workers seemed virtually invisible to management executives who occasionally toured the noisy plant. Unlike their affable corporate mascot, these fellows were anything but jolly.

Like infants distracted by shiny objects, the “suits” seemed hypnotized by the non-stop parade of flash-frozen yellow Niblets or sweet peas on the conveyor belts. But workers never saw any nods of encouragement, weak smiles or heard a single ho-ho-ho. It was like laboring for grim, humorless undertakers and we were faceless, interchangeable human Dixie cups.

That was when I had two proletarian epiphanies about corporate life: 1. Product was everything and deadly serious. 2. Idyllic or funny advertising images in no way reflect the realities of factory life

Butterball flashbacks Green Giant was an earthly Eden compared to my subsequent job at a Butterball turkey plant. The kill floor where I worked was a bloody, feathered bedlam where hundreds of squawking birds were dispatched daily, hung on hooks and sent on toward eventual Butterballdom.

People are endowed with innate skills and aptitudes. Odds are that today's nimble-minded, grade-school math whiz may manage your retirement portfolio in a couple decades. (Good luck with that.) My major talent? Yanking lungs out of freshly killed fowl.

But spending long days with waxy cold turkey carcasses was not my notion of nirvana. So I welcomed the chance to hit the road to pick up turkeys at area farms. That, too, had its drawbacks. A conveyor belt was used to help us load the birds into cramped cages on the truck. Trust me, you haven't lived until you've had a 45-pound Tom turkey go Bruce Lee on your face with razor-sharp claws. I was always covered with scratches and my clothes were in shreds at the end of each day.

So I welcomed the chance to transfer to the plant's frozen food section. It was a clean, cool place to work and an inviting habitat for a human turkey named Tom: my co-workers were women.

That was distracting, I must confess. My eyes would often wander and, one day, I paid a price for it. While batting my eyelashes at a young co-worker, I suddenly felt a violent tug on my wrist and watched my trusty Timex watch disappear into the cavity of a frozen turkey. Before I could retrieve it, the bird was encased in plastic and yellow netting and disappeared down the assembly line.

Timex broadcast TV ads years ago that featured watches that had been run over by an 18-wheeler or lost underwater for decades. Their spokesman, John Cameron Swayze, would cap off each testimonial with the company's famous motto: It takes a licking but keeps on ticking.

Years after losing my watch, I perked up when a Timex ad would air. Maybe an Ohio family had a shiny, stainless steel surprise in their giblets. Or Little Johnny in Peoria inexplicably “passed” a timepiece after his Thanksgiving feast.

Thank goodness it didn't happen today. In this age of Homeland Security paranoia, a ticking Timex turkey might trigger an elevated terrorist threat advisory and ruin a perfectly good holiday.

Bush justice served

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 07:23:00 +0000

DALLAS — On Nov. 24, Bush administration attorneys got what they wanted from a jury here. The second extended version of the Holy Land Foundation Trial ended with a guilty verdict against five former leaders of the nation's largest Muslim charity.

A hung jury had ended the first trial. The third one will be an appeal that is already under way, according to Hadi Jawad. Jawad, a leader of the Dallas Peace Center and civil rights groups, helped organize coalition support for the Holy Land defendants: Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Mufid Abdulqader, Abdulrahman Odeh and Mohammad El-Mezain. Spokespersons for the coalition included State Rep. Lon Burnam, Chip Pitts of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, and various leaders of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

The American Civil Liberties Union has also entered one important aspect of the case: the government is threatening legal action against a hit list of some '300 unindicted co-conspirators' who represent most of the important Muslim organizations in the U.S.

In both trials, Dallas activists held daily vigils outside the federal courthouse. The support coalition began bringing food and warm clothing for homeless street people in the area, and common cause was made. The conclusion of the second trial came on day one of the third month of vigils. Hadi Jawad says that over 3,000 people took part overall. 'We've had up to 300 at one time!' he pointed out.

The essential accusation is that the Holy Land Foundation of Richardson, Texas, raised money to help the destitute population of Palestine. The government claims that at least some of the money passed through the Hamas organization, which was designated a terrorist organization in 1995. Supporters of the defense say that virtually no evidence was given to show that any donations to Hamas after 1995 can be traced to the defendants.

According to Jawad and other trial observers, government prosecutors were little concerned about justice. Jawad said, 'All their statements to the jury were, 'Don't be concerned about the law.' That was a shocking statement to hear ... that it isn't about the law but that it is about terrorism, and about fear.”

“It was on fear-mongering that the government based their case,” he said. “They scared the jury. They showed videos of fundraisers, and some of them were exciting because the Palestinians are fighting a brutal occupation. People have the right to resist a foreign occupation. They used those videos to create fears in the mind of the jurors and the court ... Justice was not done from the beginning. Their case was based on lies and fear-mongering from the beginning. It was the U.S. government saying to Muslim organizations in the U.S., 'Don't confront U.S. policy in the Middle East, or you will pay the price!’'

Those who watched the trial carefully were particularly incensed that the government relied on an anonymous witness. 'Avi' claimed to be an agent of the Israeli secret police, but no one knows for sure who or what he may be and just how reliable his testimony is.

It is obvious to all that government lawyers consider the case important. Legal proceedings against the defendants have already eaten up millions of dollars and dragged out for 15 years and two long trials.

It is especially ironic that the prosecutors' success came on the same day that the Bush administration announced 14 new presidential pardons of convicted criminals. U.S. Labor Against the War and other organizations are raising a cry for war crime indictments against Bush functionaries. Progressives all over the Western Hemisphere are demanding the release of the Cuban Five who landed in prison after having attempted to end U.S.-based terrorism against their native country. Only a handful of the many victims of the Guantanamo special prison have had any kind of legal hearing. News reports say that the government's number-one 'terrorist' captive, Salim Hamdan — accused of being a chauffeur for Osama bin Laden — has been sent home to Yemen. Americans are hoping that the government being sworn in this January will repair the Bush-distorted definition of 'justice.'

Poll upholds mandate for jobs, change

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:25:00 +0000

WASHINGTON—Pollster Stanley Greenberg confirmed Barack Obama’s sweeping election mandate to create jobs in a Democracy Corps poll that he released Nov. 18 at a conference at the Library of Congress sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future, a Washington-based center for progressive action. The poll found that “Reducing unemployment and getting the economy moving” was named by a whopping 62 percent of 2,000 respondents as either their first or second top economic concern, the poll found.

Voters, Greenberg told the conference, “are viewing the economy through the financial crisis and what has happened to incomes and jobs over a longer period, and they are looking for a new direction, maybe new values that lead to more responsible behavior.”

Their most serious economic concerns are “too much debt, too little savings” and “housing foreclosures” as well as “people at risk of losing their good jobs with health care benefits and fearing the new one will leave them on their own” and “jobs and production being outsourced and nothing made in America” and again, “people’s pensions losing value.”

Speakers at the conference titled “Real Investments in America” were unanimous in calling for a massive, “green” public works jobs program to rebuild the nation’s bridges, highways, schools, and levees. The danger, they warned, was not that such a program would be “too expensive” but rather that the plan would be too small and timid to pull the economy out of the crisis.

The federal government could fund $450 billion “without breaking a sweat” said economist James Galbraith and “$900 billion would be six percent of next year’s GDP (gross domestic product, considerably less than the program just announced by the government of China.)

Ed Schwartz of the Philadelphia-based Institute for the Study of Civic Values said Philadelphia and seven other of the 10 largest cities are all on the brink of bankruptcy. The mayor has just announced a budget that will close libraries, slash school funding, and force mass layoffs “wreaking havoc” on the city. He pointed out that the landslide votes for Obama in the metropolitan centers was key to his victory. “Cities ought to be back in fashion but I’m not hearing much in Washington that holds out much hope for these cities,” he said to strong applause.

Greenberg stressed that on virtually every issue of the liberal-conservative debate, “voters have moved to a new place. They show a new openness for the country to use government for a range of public purposes: restoring taxes on the wealthiest and corporations to bring sustained relief for the middle class and regulate corporate excess to protect the public.”

He adds, “Do not lose sight of the fact that ending the war in Iraq was the single biggest reason to vote for Obama mentioned by 35 percent….Obama took a sustained lead in the race when the financial crisis hit and gave him an advantage over McCain on handling the economy, which grew through the debates and the final ‘Joe the Plumber’ phase when McCain attacked Obama for his redistributionist and socialist tendencies. Obama ended up with a 13-point advantage on handling the economy.” (CAF co-director Robert Borosage drew laughter when he told the crowd that McCain made “socialism” an issue in the election “and socialism won.”).

President-elect Obama is responding to the concerns expressed at that conference and elsewhere. He called for a federal program to create 2.5 million jobs rebuilding schools, bridges, water mains and other infrastructure between now and 2011 at an estimated cost of $175 billion. At a press conference in Chicago to announce his team of economic advisers, Obama repeated his call for a federal jobs program big enough to “jolt” the economy back toward growth. It has emerged as the highest priority on Obama’s agenda after he is sworn in Jan. 20.

Greenberg did not compare Obama’s victory to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1932 election and landslide 1936 reelection that politically realigned the nation for a generation. But if Obama and the Congressional leadership understand the mandate and act to deliver jobs, peace, and other vital needs, Greenberg said, “It will produce an enduring new political balance in the country.”

We can stop the hate, leaders say

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:19:00 +0000

National civil rights groups held a press conference Nov. 24 condemning the rise of hate crimes against immigrants and communities of color during and since the presidential election.

Marcelo Lucero, originally from Ecuador was living in Suffolk County, Long Island, where he was fatally beaten and stabbed to death for being Latino by a group of young men who wanted to attack a “Mexican.”

“We want to express our alarm over the rise of hate crimes on our communities,” said Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza. “This fatal beating of a Long Island Latino man should be a wake up call for all America. Suffolk County mirrors the experience of many communities where hate, fostered on a national scale, has found a new home.”

There have been at least 100 reports of hate crimes since Election Day.

“Thankfully hate did not win in this election and we stand here today united. We marched the last two years not just for the rights of undocumented workers but for the rights of all Americans,” said Murguía.

Murguía said many of these acts are a direct outcome of the anger and hate perpetuated by the anti-immigrant rhetoric in the media.

Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League said, “We’re unified in sending the message that whenever we encounter hate crimes and racial injustice we will speak out.” Morial pointed out that hate crimes affect all communities including Asians, Jews, Arabs and African Americans.

It’s a responsibility for local, state and federal authorities to prosecute those who carry out such crimes, Morial said. “We believe that the Justice Department has to become more aggressive in prosecuting hate crimes,” he said. “As a country, we’ve come a long way, but there is still more change needed,” said Morial.

Asian American Justice Center President Karen Narasaki noted, “It is deeply disturbing to see this surge in hate crimes at a time when we should be celebrating coming together as a country and looking forward to the future.”

“The nation could rightfully celebrate the victory of electing Barack Obama as our next president,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. “But we cannot close the book on the long history for equality just yet,” added Henderson. “Certainly, President-elect Obama’s election speaks volumes about how far we’ve come as a nation, but, make no mistake, it signifies hope, not a final victory over prejudice and racial hostility,” he said.

Peter Zamora, regional counsel with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said hate crimes against Latinos over the last four years have risen by 40 percent. Many young men are influenced by anti-immigrant rhetoric voices in the media including Lou Dobbs, said Zamora.

Michael Lieberman with the Anti-Defamation League agreed, saying, “There is a direct connection between the tenor of the political debate and the daily lives of immigrants in our communities. It is no accident that, as the immigration debate has demonized immigrants as ‘invaders’ who ‘poison our communities with disease and criminality,’ haters have taken matters into their own hands.”

The group cited recent FBI statistics that show hate crimes against people of color have risen steadily over the last several years. A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center detailing of hundreds of incidents of hate crimes, vandalism, and threats committed since Election Day was also mentioned.

Leaders at the press conference are urging Congress to move forward in passing comprehensive immigration reform as well as influence the toning down of anti-immigrant rhetoric. The civil rights groups are also planning to work together to monitor incidents of hate crimes and hate rhetoric. They are also lobbying Congress and the new Obama administration to pass the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act early next year.

For more information about how your community can combat hate crimes go to www.WeCanStopTheHate.org.

plozano@pww.org

Obama projects massive recovery plan

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:12:00 +0000

Although nearly two months remain until President-elect Barack Obama takes office, he has moved onto center stage on the deepening economic crisis, declaring he will launch a massive jobs program to jumpstart the economy where it counts: in Main Street communities across America.

Speaking directly to the American people on Saturday in his second weekly video address, Obama said he has told his advisers to draft an economic recovery plan aimed at adding 2.5 million jobs over the next two years, by investing billions of federal dollars to rebuild roads and bridges, modernize public schools and build wind farms, solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and other alternative energy technologies.

This is exactly the kind of bold step called for by labor and progressive leaders and a wide range of economists.

Just a few days before Obama announced his plan, progressive-oriented economists held a press conference calling for immediate enactment of a big and broad economic recovery package to help the “real” economy and avert massive joblessness.

The economists released a letter, signed by Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Solow and more than 300 colleagues from 36 states, urging immediate, decisive action.

Speakers at the press conference included Alan Charney of USAction, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Eileen Appelbaum from the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University and Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute.

The plan Obama announced goes well beyond the stimulus measures these economists called for, projecting spending what some estimate at up to $700 billion to put Americans back to work in a greening economy.

Change.gov In another indication Obama intends to continue the grassroots participatory approach that characterized his campaign, his transition web site, change.gov, features comments from several Americans who responded online to his recovery plan announcement.

Val T. from Albuquerque, N.M., wrote:

'I am very concerned about the crumbling infrastructure of our bridges and roads, which we are so dependent on for everything ... I am also thrilled that you will create/encourage jobs in alternative energy generation ... Creating jobs while investing in the future — it is a dream come true!'

Janet F. from Depoe Bay, Wis., said:

'Let's treat this mess as a golden opportunity. President-elect Obama has America's attention and goodwill so this is the time to do the hard things ...

“Yes, we need new jobs. Let's make them green. “Yes, we need to help the auto companies. Let's demand green solutions. “Yes, we need to repair our infrastructure. Let's think of green ideas on what to build and repair and on what to do with the waste that will be created. “Yes, we need to repair schools. Let's make them green.

“This is our opportunity to do it right. Now is the time.”

Chet C., a teacher from Staten Island, N.Y., wrote:

'One other area that needs help is local and state governments that are planning absolutely draconian budget cuts and service fee increases over the next year. In NYC, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is planning fare increases of as much as 23 percent and less service. CUNY and SUNY are planning major tuition hikes, and the city Department of Education is cutting school budgets. I am an NYC high school teacher, my school has had its budget cut twice this year alone ... This in the face of an ever increasing enrollment ...

“And I am sure you know, we are far from the only school in this nation facing this situation.”

The change.gov web site invites the public to “share your economic story” online. “Your voices are part of an important dialogue at a crucial moment in our national history. … let us hear from you.”

Economy: job number one Meanwhile, with corporate giants like Citigroup and General Motors on life-support and confidence in the economy continuing to plummet, Obama moved quickly on Monday to announce his pick for Treasury secretary — his first Cabinet announcement, naming New York Federal Reserve chief Timothy Geithner to the post. He also named former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers as director of the National Economic Council, a key White House economics advisory role, Christina Romer, a University of California Berkeley economist, as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, and Melody Barnes, an executive vice president at the liberal Center for American Progress and a former chief counsel to Sen. Edward Kennedy, as director of the Domestic Policy Council.

All are seen as extremely knowledgeable, sharp and able.

Romer, a prominent scholar of the Great Depression of the 1930s and a proponent of strong government intervention in the economy, is said to have a reputation for “pragmatism and center-left policy views,” the Boston Globe reports. 'She'll be weighing in on the side of a large stimulus,' fellow Berkeley economist J. Bradford DeLong told the Globe.

Some are leary of Geithner because as New York Federal Reserve head he has been involved in recent government financial decisions that are now being hotly criticized. It is not clear exactly what role Geithner played in those decisions. He is said to be independent-minded and “non-ideological.”

Summers, while Treasury secretary, backed deregulation of the financial sector, a policy now widely blamed as a major cause of the current crisis. More recently, as Harvard president, he drew a storm of criticism for disparaging comments about women’s math and science abilities. National Organization for Women leader Kim Gandy, nevertheless, responded favorably to his nomination, saying Summers “has written and spoken fairly extensively on the issue of women's wage inequality and the impact that has on the country.”

Geithner, Summers and other Obama economic advisers have connections to former Clinton Treasury Secretary and Citigroup director Robert Rubin, who was a big advocate of deregulation. This has generated some concerns in progressive circles.

However as far back as last August, speakers at an economics forum during the Democratic Convention in Denver noted that sections of the party, such as Rubin and others, who supported deregulation in the 1990s, were shifting away from those policies in response to the new economic realities.

In announcing his top economic team, Obama said there was a 'rare' consensus between conservative and liberal economists 'that we need a big stimulus package that will jolt the economy back into shape,' one that is focused on job creation.

'We have to put people back to work,' Obama said.

Policy, not personnel Following Obama’s press conference, Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, a prominent labor-progressive alliance, acknowledged the concerns about the ties to Rubin, “who opposed the regulation of derivatives and other measures blamed for the economic crisis,” and whose Citigroup “has just received a $20 billion cash infusion and hundreds of billions of dollars in loan guarantees from taxpayers.” But, Borosage said, “It's not the personnel, it's the policy. And on this, Obama has been clear. He's announced a massive recovery plan based on putting people to work with public investment in areas vital to our future.”

“The crisis we face makes Rubinomics irrelevant,” Borosage said. “Deficit spending must go up, finance must be re-regulated, trade imbalances must be reduced and manufacturing can no longer be scorned.

“Obama is choosing experienced hands for the crisis, trusting that their experience does not impede the new thinking needed to get us out of this hole. He'll set the direction. And so far, he’s on course.”

As an indication of today’s dynamics on economic policy, Rubin recently co-authored a New York Times op ed article with Jared Bernstein of the labor-linked Economic Policy Institute, in which he joined Bernstein in citing declining union membership as a key factor in the economic crisis. “The benefits of productivity growth have largely eluded working families,” the two noted. “A true market economy should have true labor markets in which labor and business negotiate as peers. Many years ago, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith argued that collective bargaining was necessary so workers had the countervailing force to bargain for their fair share of the growth they’re helping to produce. To re-establish that force, workers should be allowed to choose to be unionized or not.” This was a reference to the importance of passing the Employee Free Choice Act, a top labor priority, which would eliminate obstacles to workers forming unions at their workplaces.

Obama’s expected choice for attorney general, Eric Holder, would be the first African American to head the Justice Department. He was a Clinton deputy attorney general under Janet Reno. Some have expressed concern that Holder in private law practice has represented Chiquita Brands International in a criminal case related to Chiquita's payments and other support to Colombian death squads. Others worry about positions he has taken on penalizing marijuana users and other issues.

However the right-wing National Review has had a virtual fit over the prospect of Holder’s nomination. Holder is “a conventional, check-the-boxes creature of the Left,” the journal raged. “He is convinced justice in America needs to be ‘established’ rather than enforced; he’s excited about hate crimes and enthusiastic about the constitutionally dubious Violence Against Women Act; he’s a supporter of affirmative action and a practitioner of the statistical voodoo that makes it possible to burden police departments with accusations of racial profiling and the states with charges of racially skewed death-penalty enforcement; he’s more likely to be animated by a touchy-feely Reno-esque agenda than traditional enforcement against crimes; he’s in favor of ending the detentions of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay and favors income redistribution to address the supposed root causes of crime.”

With a checklist like that, it appears there is much for progressives to like in Holder.

Other appointments

Other interesting Obama choices that have not drawn as much attention include:

Patrick Gaspard, former vice-president for politics and legislation at 1199 SEIU, New York’s labor powerhouse health care union, will be Obama’s White House political director, according to several reports. Gaspard, a Haitian American, left 1199 to become national political director for much of Obama’s election campaign and is now deputy personnel director for the transition. In 2004, he was national field director for America Coming Together, a grassroots get-out-the-vote effort.

Listing him as a “rising star” two years ago, New York’s City Hall news monthly said Gaspard’s role with 1199 dated back to his involvement in the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential bid. “The next year he worked closely with the union to elect David Dinkins, the first Black mayor in the city’s history. More campaigns followed: in 1999, Gaspard was working as Council member Margarita Lopez’s chief of staff when Amadou Diallo was shot and killed by police officers in the Bronx. The union was one of the central organizers of the civil disobedience that followed, and 1199 President Dennis Rivera and then-Political Director Bill Lynch asked Gaspard to coordinate those efforts. A position in the political department followed.”

In 2006, Gaspard worked on the union campaign that helped Democrats retake control of the House and Senate. At the time, City Hall reported, “Gaspard sees the potential for change — but only if there is agitation. That, he says, is where he comes in.”

“What is the most important thing you have accomplished so far?” the reporter asked Gaspard. “Raising two children of color in America,” was his response. “Two years from now, what do you want to have done? ‘That's the easiest question I've ever been asked — I want to begin to repair the imbalance in the Supreme Court by electing a Democratic president.’”

Ellen Moran, executive director of EMILY’s List, the political action organization “dedicated to building a progressive America by electing pro-choice Democratic women to office,” will be Obama’s director of communications. Moran’s long record in political campaigning includes managing the AFL-CIO’s Wal-Mart corporate accountability campaign and serving in the labor federation’s political department.

Tom Head, a Mississippi civil liberties and civil rights activist, comments at About.com, “While she will not be the public face of the Obama administration, she will craft its public message … she comes to the position from an unusual activism-focused perspective.”

Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University education professor well known as a progressive public school reform advocate and teachers union supporter, has been named by Obama to head his transition education policy team.

Darling-Hammond is known for her research on effective teachers and schools. At Stanford, she founded and is co-director of the School Redesign Network, which works to improve underperforming schools. She has written more than a dozen books on education, and is sought after as an expert and public speaker.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, some observers believe the selection of Darling-Hammond “shows that Obama is leaning toward a more teacher-friendly approach than has been seen in recent years.”

“It's such a clear change from what we've had,” Marty Hittelman, president of the California Federation of Teachers, told the Chronicle. 'Someone who's friendly to labor. Someone who wants to work with teachers.'

The article reported, “Darling-Hammond had high praise for teachers and their unions at the spring convention of the state's other teachers' organization, the California Teachers Association. ‘This is the most important group in California, as far as I'm concerned,’ she said during her keynote address. ‘The teachers who lead our urban school systems are the folks who will determine the future of this state and the future of the nation.’”

The Chronicle noted, “It's been a long time since teachers' unions have felt so welcomed by federal education officials. Although the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is credited with forcing educators to pay attention to every child's performance, many teachers believe that its tone is punitive and that its emphasis on multiple-choice testing has drained the joy out of teaching.

“Under Obama, Darling-Hammond suggested, things will be different.

“‘You'll see public schools focused on preparing kids to problem-solve, think critically, design research and produce strong intellectual work as a result,’ she said.”

Drowned out in the flurry of economic news this week are other expected high-profile Cabinet nominations, including Hillary Clinton for secretary of state and Tom Daschle, former Senate majority leader, for secretary of health and human services.

More about those later.

Let the nation own Big 3

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:58:00 +0000

When H. Gaylord Wilshire sought the Southern California congressional seat in 1890, he ran on a very simple platform: 'Let the Nation own the trust.' The part time farmer and full time reformer was responding to economic abuses of his era not unlike those of the current period. Just as the economic grievances of millions of American farmers, workers and small businessmen might have been resolved in the 1890s by nationalization, in 2008 government ownership of financial institutions and giant corporations could end our current economic crisis.

In the 1890s, the largely rural Southern California, like much of the rest of the nation, was under the economic domination of giant corporations called trusts. The nation's economy was at their mercy.

Today, economic domination takes another form. In Wilshire's time, the system was controlled by robber barons who actually produced goods. Now the economy is controlled by institutions which only deal in paper. Great banks, some of which are international in scope, have created new paper devices to control the economy. Derivatives, hedge funds, mortgage related securities, and numerous other paper creations now determine the economic fate of America.

Through their control of the credit market, those financial institutions have a life and death dominance over virtually every major American industry, small business, and home owner. Americans cannot buy a car, a home, or goods on credit without the consent of those institutions. The credit crunch caused by the banking giants has driven America to the wall.

When the banks are used to make credit available, the whole economy suffers. The auto industry is the prime example of a failed economic system. Those consumers who would buy a new car find the banks are reluctant to lend the money to do so.

So Congress currently is considering a bail-out deal for General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. The solution is not to loan the Big Three money. The solution is to take them over.

In 1890, Gaylord Wilshire said, 'Let the nation own the trust.' Today, we say let the nation buy the Big Three.

The total value of all the common stock of Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors, is far less than the 25 billion dollars that these corporations are asking for on top of the other 25 billion dollars they have already been loaned. The current market value of the common stock of General Motors is less than two billion dollars. Ford is worth four billion dollars, and Chrysler's real value is small but currently undetermined. All the government needs to buy is a controlling interest in the common stock, not all the stock. Critics will suggest that if the government steps in to buy the stock of these companies, the value will increase significantly raising the price to a point that we could not afford. Not true.

The alternative to a government purchase would be bankruptcy and liquidation whereby stock holders would receive virtually nothing. Consequently, the government should be able to buy a controlling interest in Ford and GM for a total not exceeding five billion dollars. The key would be long-awaited fresh new management attuned to the real needs of American auto buyers, with coordination that was impossible with three separate companies running the industry. Confidence would be restored to the entire American economy.

While there would be major disagreements within the government over the policies to be followed in running the auto industry, at least the public would have a voice in the determination of what those policies would be. This move would represent 'change' which has been the popular national theme throughout the recent presidential campaigns.

If Gaylord Wilshire were still among us, we are sure that would have been his platform in the 2008 congressional election.

Let the nation own the Big Three

Ralph E. Shaffer is professor emeritus Cal Poly Pomona and Norma Jeanne Strobel is professor retired Santa Ana College.

A letter to my brother Newt Gingrich

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:57:00 +0000

From Huffington Post

Dear Newt,

I recently had the displeasure of watching you bash the protestors of the Prop 8 marriage ban to Bill O'Reilly on FOX News. I must say, after years of watching you build your career by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right, I feel compelled to use the words of your idol, Ronald Reagan, 'There you go, again.'

However, I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked.

The truth is that you're living in a world that no longer exists. I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as -- and we embrace what it can be. You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past.

Welcome to the 21st century, big bro. I can understand why you're so afraid of the energy that has been unleashed after gay and lesbian couples had their rights stripped away from them by a hateful campaign. I can see why you're sounding the alarm against the activists who use all the latest tech tools to build these rallies from the ground up in cities across the country.

This unstoppable progress has at its core a group we at HRC call Generation Equality. They are the most supportive of full LGBT equality than any American generation ever -- and when it comes to the politics of division, well, they don't roll that way. 18-24 year olds voted overwhelmingly against Prop 8 and overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. And the numbers of young progressive voters will only continue to grow. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning, about 23 million 18-29 year olds voted on Nov. 4, 2008 -- the most young voters ever to cast a ballot in a presidential election. That's an increase of 3 million more voters compared to 2004.

These are the same people who helped elect Barack Obama and sent a decisive message to your party. These young people are the future and their energy will continue to drive our country forward. Even older Americans are turning their backs on the politics of fear and demagoguery that you and your cronies have perfected over the years.

This is a movement of the people that you most fear. It's a movement of progress -- and your words on FOX News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes.

Then again, we've seen these tactics before. We know how much the right likes to play political and cultural hardball, and then turn around and accuse us of lashing out first. You give a pass to a religious group -- one that looks down upon minorities and women -- when they use their money and membership roles to roll back the rights of others, and then you label us 'fascists' when we fight back. You belittle the relationships of gay and lesbian couples, and yet somehow neglect to explain who anointed you the protector of 'traditional' marriage. And, of course, you've also mastered taking the foolish actions of a few people and then indicting an entire population based on those mistakes. I fail to see how any of these patterns coincide with the values of 'historic Christianity' you claim to champion.

Again, nothing new here. This is just more of the blatant hypocrisy we're used to hearing.

What really worries me is that you are always willing to use LGBT Americans as political weapons to further your ambitions. That's really so '90s, Newt. In this day and age, it's embarrassing to watch you talk like that. You should be more afraid of the new political climate in America, because, there is no place for you in it.

In other words, stop being a hater, big bro.

Fight for working people has just begun, labor leaders say

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:20:00 +0000

To turn economy around, more union members are necessary

WASHINGTON, D.C. – When you approach the building that houses the national offices of the AFL-CIO in the shadow of the Washington Monument here the first thing you notice is the enormous banner draped over the front of the structure, bulging outward as the wind whips it from behind. The letters that spell “We are turning around America” are so large they can be read from a block away. Indeed, the nation’s labor movement is still celebrating the most massive electoral effort in its history which, it says, helped win a historic victory on Nov. 4, sending Barack Obama to the White House and electing a stronger pro-worker majority of senators and representatives.

The leaders of both major labor federations, the 10 million-member AFL-CIO and the five million-member Change to Win coalition, are unanimously warning, however, that for American workers, the election victory isn’t the end of the fight.

Leaders of both labor federations told a gathering of labor journalists here Nov. 21 that now, our elected leaders need to tackle the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. “They have to keep their promises to the people who voted for them,” declared Arlene Holt-Baker, the AFL-CIO’s executive vice president. Holt-Baker, the first African-American ever elected to that top-level position in the U.S. labor movement, said, “We have to give them the support they need to make the tough choices. We need an economic recovery package that will turn around this broken economy for workers with good jobs, green jobs, re-regulation of our financial system and health care.”

The labor movement is warning, however, that even this ambitious program will not bring about the real economic fix that is needed. As Holt-Baker put it, “No matter what else we do, it won’t result in real shared prosperity unless we restore workers’ freedom to form unions so they can bargain for a better life with better wages and benefits.”

To this end the nation’s unions have turned their attention to a campaign to win passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

The bill, essentially, puts real teeth in the laws that are supposed to bar companies from intimidating, harassing and firing workers who want to form unions. It allows workers to form their union when a majority sign cards indicating that’s what they desire. It also requires arbitration to end corporate foot-dragging when workers try to get a first contract. In short, unions see the Employee Free Choice Act as the way to level the playing field that today leaves all the power in the hands of corporations rather than workers. They see it as the key not just to good wages, benefits, a voice in the workplace and as key to a bigger political voice for workers but also as essential to fixing the economy. It is only through the benefits that will follow from passage of the law, they argue, that the economic imbalance will be corrected. It is that imbalance, they say, that caused the current economic crisis in the first place.

Union leaders are hopeful that the drive to win passage of the new law will succeed. In 2007 the House actually passed the measure and it had majority support in the Senate, but a Republican minority killed it with a filibuster, emboldened by President Bush’s vow to veto the legislation. Labor leaders note that now there is an elected Congress that has promised to back the bill and a president who will take office on Jan. 20 who has promised to sign it into law.

At the Nov. 21 “round-table” discussion with labor journalists here they talked about the main arguments that need to be made in the fight for the new law.

“For too long, workers haven’t had the power to get their fair share of the value they create,” said Bob Kelly, director of the Change-to-Win campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act. “As a result, they are struggling, they are finding it harder and harder to stay in their homes, pay for health care and save for retirement. This, in turn, wrecks our economy.

“While workers drag themselves exhausted into a second job just to pay the bills, CEO’s, on average, are earning $6,153 an hour. In Japan CEO’s earn 11 times what the average worker gets and in Germany they earn 15 times what the average worker gets,” Kelly said, “while here in the United States they earn 411 times what the average worker gets.”

Kelly said that when the Employee Free Choice Act becomes law his Change-to-Win federation will, within 18 months, be able to add 5 million workers to the membership roles of its constituent unions.

“That will mean,” he added, “five million people will be earning, on average, 22 percent more than they earned before and that 900,000 people will be lifted out of poverty. The biggest social problems in America,” he declared, “result from low wages that American workers are earning. The Employee Free Choice Act, then, is the solution to our main economic and social problems.”

Kenneth Zinn, who chairs the AFL-CIO’s department for strategic research, said, “Simply put, unions make people’s lives better. The freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life is a basic human right, and it makes a difference. Union members make 30 percent more than workers who don’t have unions. They’re 59 percent more likely to have health benefits and four times more likely to have pensions. Communities with strong unions have higher standards of living for everyone.

While speakers at the “round-table” saw the Employee Free Choice Act as critical to allowing workers to wage the battle to get the fair share of the value they create and critical to enabling them to make their lives better they also put forward other reasons they say the new law is needed.

Not the least of these reasons is that passage will fix what is now a broken labor law system that, according to Zinn, “leaves out more than 60 million workers who don’t have a union but would join one if they could. But under existing law,” he said, “corporations essentially have a veto over the process. In our company-dominated system, workers can be intimidated, coerced and even fired by their bosses for trying to form a union. A decision that should be in the hands of workers is instead in the hands of corporate executives.”

He also stressed that the Employee Free Choice Act will benefit many more people than just the workers who are trying to form a union. “When more workers are in unions, workers have the strength in numbers they need to demand good wages and benefits across communities and industries. That helps all workers bargain for better contracts and counterbalance corporate power.”

Liz Cattaneo, communications director of American Rights at Work, a national labor policy and advocacy group, focused on tactics her group says are important in the fight to win passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. She outlined results of what she said were focus group suggestions about what mattered to workers and to the public, in general, regarding the new law.

“We need to talk about this in an economic frame,” she said. “Americans are hungry for solutions to fix what ails Main Street and the Employee Free Choice Act is the perfect solution. The other thing that came out of our focus groups is that we must tap into the anger abouting the outrageous compensation for CEO’s and how that compares to what little workers get. In terms of fairness,” she said, “when we say CEO’s have contracts isn’t it only fair that workers should have contracts.”

Her group has already acted on the focus group findings with a number of new ads already running on national television. One ad shows a worker being called into the boss’s office. The boss, flashing an evil looking smile, tells the worker he is doing a good job, deserves a raise and deserves better benefits. As he shakes hands with the boss he wakes from his dream finding that he is actually holding the paw of his golden retriever who wants to jump into bed with him and his wife. A voice over tells him that if he thinks he’s going to get wage and benefit increases that way he’s dreaming and then calls for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

The messages everyone involved in the campaign for the Employee Free Choice act seems to agree on are that its passage would mean long term shared prosperity, that it is the key to building an economy that works for everyone and that it is essential to the survival of the American dream.

Freeze foreclosures and heat up jobs plan, spirited rally tells Congress

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:52:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Dozens of labor and community activists rallied here in front of the Federal Building Nov. 21 urging Congress to put a freeze on home foreclosures and to bail out Main Street, not Wall Street, with a stimulus package that includes a national jobs plan.

“We need Congress to take care of the needs of working people and not the rich,” said Carl Rosen, western region president of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. “What we need are policies that are going to keep people in their homes and that includes an immediate moratorium on foreclosures now,” added Rosen. “We need policies that are going to put people back to work. Working people need to earn livable wages so they can have real purchasing power again,” said Rosen.

Katie Jordan is the Chicago president of the Coalition of Labor Union Women and said, “We’re here today in coalition with our partners to raise our voices concerning what is going on with the $700 billion dollar bailout plan for Wall Street,” said Jordan. “Big bankers are expected to benefit from this bailout but more and more working people are losing their jobs and their homes,” she added.

“Home foreclosures are a serious matter and our communities are devastated,” said Jordan. “People’s families are having to split up just to find shelter.” African American and Latino communities are the first and worst ones hit by the foreclosure crisis including the rising unemployment rates, said Jordan.

“Working people’s allies including the labor movement is urging Congress to fix this problem right away including making it a priority to pass the Employee Free Choice Act once Obama becomes president, so that workers at their jobs can organize a union and fight for better working conditions for all,” said Jordan.

Kristen Cox, a consultant with the Institute for Policy Studies, a non-profit think tank noted that homeownership is the number one source of wealth for many Americans. But because of historical advantages enjoyed by whites through the GI Bill and other government programs, the sub-prime mortgage crisis has disproportionately affected African Americans, noted Cox.

“The African American middle class is in danger of losing between $71 billion and $92 billion of wealth due to bad sub-prime loans,” said Cox. “This is an unprecedented transfer of wealth from one community that will have serious consequences for the economic mobility of African Americans.”

Chicago Jobs With Justice organized the rally in coalition with a number of local labor and community groups. The event was organized to call on Congress to issue a freeze on all home foreclosures and support Illinois Senator Dick Durbin in his efforts to allow judicial intervention in restructuring mortgage rates for affected families. Speakers at the rally are also calling for a job-creating economic stimulus package with massive investment in infrastructure rebuilding and mass transit expansion.

“We need a bailout for Main Street that creates jobs,” said Elce Redmond, an organizer with the South Austin Coalition Community Council. “This situation can be an opportunity to create good jobs and deal with global warming at the same time,” added Redmond.

The labor movement along with environmental activists and grass roots community organizations has come together to echo a growing demand that congress seize this moment to create a “green economy” by expanding and pushing conservation policies, noted Redmond. “Congress can simultaneously address climate change and create millions of green jobs. It’s a win-win situation,” said Redmond.

The rally concluded with a small delegation led by James Thindwa, executive director of Chicago Jobs With Justice that delivered a written statement to Durbin’s office.

Thindwa said millions of working families nationwide are becoming victims in a vicious predatory lending system and losing their homes.

“We will go up and deliver a letter to Senator Durbin urging him to continue championing the cause of workers and families,” said Thindwa.

“We want to offer him our support and urge other members of Congress to fight hard for a moratorium on foreclosures and a strong economic stimulus package,” he said.

plozano@pww.org.

Whos on deck for Obama appointments?

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:16:00 +0000

It's Washington's favorite parlor game during a presidential transition: trying to figure out who'll land a top spot in the new administration.

President-elect Barack Obama is weighing an array of Washington insiders and outsiders, including some Republicans, for Cabinet and other top positions, according to Democratic officials.

Just like the stock market, names rise and fall weekly, some zooming to the top, others dropping out of contention. Hillary Rodham Clinton suddenly is considered the top prospect for secretary of state, although other names remain in the mix. It looks like Eric Holder, former deputy attorney general, is on track to become attorney general. Some of those who are the subject of speculation already have been chosen by Obama to serve as part of his transition team. Some names being floated are surprising, such as former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell for education secretary. Others are high-profile governors or members of Congress. Many are also little known to the general public — and may remain so. ___ DEFENSE SECRETARY Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., critic of Iraq war, retiring from Senate. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., member of Senate Armed Services Committee. John Hamre, former deputy defense secretary, now president of Center for Strategic and International Studies. ___ TREASURY SECRETARY Timothy Geithner, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Lawrence Summers, former treasury secretary and one-time Harvard University president. ___ SECRETARY OF STATE Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, former first lady and one-time rival of Obama's for the Democratic presidential nomination. Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., former U.N. ambassador and energy secretary. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., 2004 presidential nominee. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., critic of Iraq war, retiring from Senate. Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. ___ ATTORNEY GENERAL Eric Holder, former deputy attorney general. ___ HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. ___ HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano. ___ CIA DIRECTOR John Brennan, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center ___ NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR Tim Roemer, former Indiana congressman and member of the 9/11 commission. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., chairwoman of House Homeland Security intelligence subcommittee. Jami Miscik, former head of CIA's analytical operations. ___ NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER James B. Steinberg, former deputy national security adviser. ___ ENERGY SECRETARY Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google, former assistant energy secretary in charge of efficiency and renewable energy programs in the Clinton administration. Former Rep. Philip Sharp, D-Ind., president of Resources for the Future think tank. Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. ___ INTERIOR SECRETARY Former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber. Former Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif. ___ EPA ADMINISTRATOR Lisa P. Jackson, commissioner of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Mary Nichols, head of California Air Resources Board. Kathleen McGinty, former secretary of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. ___ HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C. Renee Glover, head of Atlanta's housing authority Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies Shaun Donovan, commissioner of New York City's housing department. ___ LABOR SECRETARY Ed McElroy, former president of the American Federation of Teachers Former Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri Linda Chavez-Thompson, former AFL-CIO vice president Former Rep. David Bonior, member of Obama's Transition Economic Advisory Board. Maria Echaveste, former Clinton White House adviser. ___ COMMERCE SECRETARY Laura D'Andrea Tyson, former chair of White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton. ___ OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET DIRECTOR Peter Orszag, director of Congressional Budget Office. ___ EDUCATION SECRETARY Colin Powell, former secretary of state, former chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Arne Duncan, chief executive officer of Chicago public schools. Inez Tenenbaum, former South Carolina schools superintendent. Linda Darling-Hammond, education professor at Stanford University. ___ TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY Jane Garvey, former head of Federal Aviation Administration. Mortimer Downey, former deputy transportation secretary. Former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt. Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. ___ AGRICULTURE SECRETARY Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. Tom Buis, president of National Farmers Union. Former Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas. ___ VETERANS AFFAIRS Tammy Duckworth, a disabled Iraq war veteran and Illinois veterans affairs director. Former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, a Vietnam veteran who had three limbs amputated after a grenade blast. Current VA Secretary James Peake.

Communists call for urgent action on crisis

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:07:00 +0000

NEW YORK — Communist Party USA leaders meeting here Nov. 15-16 celebrated the election of Barack Obama, the nation’s first African American president, and of stronger Democratic majorities in Congress, saying it opened the way to progressive advances for America’s working families.

They adopted a call to action to carry out the election mandate, including immediate government steps to help Americans hit by the economic crisis and bringing peace to Iraq and Afghanistan. And they said maintaining the unity of the movement that elected Obama will be vital to making gains. Anything that disrupts that unity is “the worst thing that could happen,” an Ohio steelworker retiree declared.

The election outcome represented “the biggest political realignment since the 1930s,” said CPUSA Political Action Chair Joelle Fishman. “We can think back with pride to decades of hard work toward the goal of a big enough, broad enough and united enough labor and all-people’s movement that could overcome the ultra-right blockage to all progress,” she said. “That all-people’s movement has come to life. It is dynamic and it has the potential to grow.”

“This election showed magnificently what our people are made of,” the party’s executive vice chair, Jarvis Tyner, said with tears in his eyes. “This is not just a campaign, it is a movement,” one that has updated and made a reality of the slogan, “black, brown, white, unite and fight,” he said.

CPUSA National Chair Sam Webb said, “The people have taken a necessary first step toward a new society.” Obama is bringing a “reform agenda in a reform era whose character will be decided in the years ahead,” he said. The “biggest challenge” now, he told the meeting, is to “resist efforts by reaction and some on the left” to advocate a break in the coalition that elected Obama and is now led by him. “We will have our differences but they have to be handled so as not to break the overall unity,” he said. The elections showed the possibilities for building a bigger and broader coalition to effect progressive change, based in the labor movement and among women, racial and ethnic minorities and young people, and including small businesses and people who did not vote for Obama, Webb said.

Speakers hailed the role of labor, the African American people, Latinos, women and youth in the stunning Nov. 4 victory.

Activists from battleground states emphasized the key role that trade union leaders and rank-and-file union members played there. CPUSA Labor Commission chair Scott Marshall noted the “near-total unity of labor” in backing Obama, saying it bodes well for further labor unity.

He and others praised the labor movement for taking the lead in confronting the influences of racism, so that, as Fishman put it, “145 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 55 years after Rosa Parks sat down in the front of the bus, workers Black, brown and white helped elect the first African American president of the United States.”

Many said the results demolished the mythology that white workers are mired in racism. One participant recounted his experiences door-knocking in rural Virginia, where white voters welcomed African American campaign volunteers into their homes, including serving them a bountiful Southern breakfast.

Fishman stressed that the election took place in the shadow of the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression and the endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, “people are angry, hopeful and ready to go,” she said. “Our program should be strong and decisive. It should call for taking the profits out of basic needs like health care and energy and explore public ownership. At the same time, we should be part of the movement that puts the wind at Obama’s back.”

Webb said the seeds of today’s economic meltdown were planted in the 1970s with a combination of bad government policies, corporate greed and the destabilizing dynamics inherent in capitalism. The result was a ballooning unregulated financial sector and an economy fueled by government and consumer debt. Along with that came the collapse of manufacturing, mass unemployment, union-busting, wage and benefit cuts, and attempts to privatize public education, Social Security and Medicare. These policies, Webb charged, produced the biggest shift in wealth from working people to the rich in our history.

What is needed to reverse this crisis, he said, “is massive fiscal expansion, large injections of federal money into the economy” to fund public works job programs, extend jobless benefits and food stamps and help Americans hold onto their homes. As immediate priorities, Webb said, “We need to single out jobs and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, joining with others in the struggle.” The EFCA, labor’s top priority, will make it easier for workers to join unions.

The party leaders emphasized combining support for immediate and partial measures and for more advanced and longer-term reforms, along with projecting socialism as a fundamental solution, one that Americans are now open to hearing more about. The economic crisis shows that socialism is a necessity for our country, Webb said. “We need to put out our vision of socialism and how it will come about.”

Fishman cautioned against getting bogged down in disputes over Cabinet appointments. “Our energy and focus should be on building the labor and people’s broad movement at the grass roots,” she said. “That is how we can give a constructive push in a united way.”

Choosing equalitys side

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:04:00 +0000

DALLAS — The amazing election results on Nov. 4 have given North Texans, and probably everybody else, enough confidence to enlist in our own local part of the ongoing class and democracy war. For example, it is nothing unusual for church leaders to preach gay-baiting hatred in Texas, but Dallasites are showing that they don’t intend to lie down for it any more.

When the preacher at one of the bastions of Southern Baptist right-wing evangelical churches, First Baptist of downtown Dallas, decided to preach on “Gay is Not OK,” he drew a hundred-strong protest on Nov. 9. He told reporters that he would continue the topic, and found triple the number of protestors on Nov. 15 when some 300 cities and towns saw thousands of demonstrators for gay and lesbian rights.

People just aren’t afraid any more.

LBGT activists and their straight supporters carried out an enthusiastic rally across San Jacinto Street from the First Baptists’ Criswell Center, where churchgoers enter and exit the mammoth church facilities. They sang the old Baptist Sunday School standard, “Jesus Loves Me,” and a slightly altered version of “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” Chants included, “2-4-6-8 Dallas Doesn’t Want Your Hate!” and “1-3-5-7 Bigots Do Not Go To Heaven!”

Many of the signs reflected the new use of the numeral “eight” in reference to anti-gay Proposition 8 that Californians have accepted. Around 1,000 protested Prop. 8 at Dallas City Hall on Nov. 15. At the Baptist Church, “No H8,” was popular. Many hand-made signs reflected a certain irritation with the evangelicals’ misuse of isolated biblical quotations. “Jesus called, he wants his religion back,” said one of them. Another said, “Holy Bible: Slavery OK, Gays Bad, Women Property, Snakes Talk!”

Divisiveness is not the sole property of one North Texas preacher. A Fort Worth Episcopal Bishop led a split from his international organization because they ordained female priests and a gay bishop. Reporters said that 50 of the 55 congregations would go with him into an Anglican sect based in Argentina. Way down at the end of the article, though, it is revealed that the five remaining churches, less committed to pious bigotry, have over half the membership!

People are choosing sides.

Elsewhere, crowds gathered near public buildings in cities large and small, including Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Fargo, to vent their frustrations on the Prop. 8 vote, celebrate gay relationships and renew calls for change.

“We are the American family, we live next door to you, we teach your children, we take care of your elderly,” said Heather Baker a special education teacher from Boston who addressed the crowd at Boston’s City Hall Plaza. “We need equal rights across the country.”

Connecticut, which began same-sex weddings this past week, and Massachusetts are the only two states that allow gay marriage. The other 48 states do not, and 30 of them have taken the extra step of approving constitutional amendments. A few states allow civil unions or domestic partnerships that grant some rights of marriage.

Protests following the vote on Proposition 8 in California, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, have sometimes been angry and even violent, and demonstrators have targeted faiths that supported the ban, including the Mormon Church.

However, representatives of Join the Impact, which organized Saturday’s demonstrations, asked supporters to be respectful and refrain from attacking other groups during the rallies.

Seattle blogger Amy Balliett, who started the planning for the protests when she set up a Web page three days after the California vote, said persuasion is impossible without civility. “If we can move anybody past anger and have a respectful conversation, then you can plant the seed of change,” she said. “We need to show the world when one thing happens to one of us, it happens to all of us,” she said.

Bold action needed to rebuild America and create jobs, progressives tell Congress

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:10:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — Union leaders and progressive lawmakers at a Nov. 18 conference on Capitol Hill called for emergency action to assist jobless workers and as much as $900 billion for a massive public works jobs program.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told the conference that 250,000 union members had joined in a huge “get-out-the-vote” drive for the Nov. 4 election. “Union votes were a key voting bloc, 67 percent to 30 for change,” she said, calling it “a pretty astounding” record.

“Now the real work begins,” she said. “President Obama needs to dive right in to create jobs and expand the economy,” including extending unemployment benefits and food stamps.

“Every time we open the newspaper, another city is in fiscal crisis,” the AFL-CIO leader declared. “We all know that Wall Street got a bailout. Now it is time — past time — for a rescue plan for working people on Main Street.”

She said the labor movement would work with President Obama to make sure the Employee Free Choice Act is enacted, making it easier for workers to join unions. “President-elect Obama understands that workers need unions,” she said. “We are going to continue the mobilization. Failure is not an option.”

The conference, titled “Real Investment in America,” was sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future, a progressive strategy and action center. It took place, appropriately enough, at the Library of Congress, a public works project completed by the Corps of Engineers in 1897.

“America is literally falling apart, from bridges in Minneapolis to levees in New Orleans,” CAF Co-Director Robert Borosage said. “Our cities face a $100 billion combined deficit, a collapse of property tax revenues,” forcing layoffs of city employees and closings of libraries and schools.

The crisis, he said, requires “not temporary, targeted, timid” federal action but rather “sustained, across-the-board” assistance in the range of $450 billion to $500 billion.

Ron Bloom, a special assistant to United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, said the USW “is at ground zero of the manufacturing economy.” Public investment in infrastructure is fundamental, he said.

“We make no apology for arguing that workers be well paid and work in a safe, healthy environment,” Bloom declared. “The other strategy is a low-road, low-wage strategy … a race to the bottom. We need a race to the top.”

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) assailed the Bush administration’s “Wild West approach” — allowing Wall Street to loot the $700 billion bailout — which has failed to slow the meltdown. “We must do more to keep people in their homes,” she said.

“We must do more to create jobs. Over 2.8 million Americans have lost their jobs this year.” Lee called on Congress to approve a moratorium on foreclosures and $200 billion to help homeowners with unpayable mortgages.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) held up a photo of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed Aug. 1, 2007, killing 13 and injuring more than 100 people.

“Infrastructure projects are an integral part of any stimulus plan,” he said. “When you build a bridge in Minneapolis, you can’t build it offshore.”

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $1.6 trillion is needed to repair the nation’s bridges, highways, water mains, and schools. Ellison urged passage of his bill to create a National Infrastructure Bank to allocate tens of billions for these projects, many of them “ready to go.”

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), chair of the 80-member House Progressive Caucus, said, “It’s time for a new ‘New Deal’ to get America back to work. There’s no better way to do that than to create a green job economy. It will create millions of high-paying jobs that will stabilize our economy.”

The House had attached to the federal budget an extension of unemployment compensation, increased funds for food stamps, and $34 billion for infrastructure repairs, Woolsey noted. But those amendments were blocked by Republican filibustering in the Senate.

Providing $300 billion in federal aid to Main Street “is not so much when you consider the cost of the war in Iraq,” she said. “It can be funded without breaking the bank, by reforming our tax code to make it more progressive, by eliminating $62 billion in waste” in the Pentagon budget.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said Congress should enact her bill to create a National Infrastructure Development Corp., a joint federal-private agency modeled on the European Investment Bank, to fund projects like a “smart” electricity grid, high-speed inter-city passenger trains, and wind and solar power. Obama has endorsed similar ideas, she said.

University of Texas economist James Galbraith called on Congress to pump purchasing power into the economy. He proposed a 30 percent increase in Social Security benefits, dropping the age for Medicare eligibility to 55, and spending $900 billion or more for public works.

Programs like the 1930s WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps put 60 percent of the unemployed to work, he said. The jobless rate fell from about 25 percent in the mid-1930s to 3 percent by 1939. He listed vital projects built by WPA including New York’s Triborough Bridge — “not a bridge to nowhere,” he added. “Will it be necessary to do this again?” he asked. “Yes! Whatever it takes.”

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens loses re-election bid

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:15:00 +0000

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid Tuesday, marking the downfall of a Washington political power and Alaska icon who couldn't survive a conviction on federal corruption charges. His defeat by Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich moves Senate Democrats within two seats of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority.

Stevens' ouster on his 85th birthday marks an abrupt realignment in Alaska politics and will alter the power structure in the Senate, where he has served since the days of the Johnson administration while holding seats on some of the most influential committees in Congress.

The crotchety octogenarian built like a birch sapling likes to encourage comparisons with the Incredible Hulk, but he occupies an outsized place in Alaska history. His involvement in politics dates to the days before Alaska statehood, and he is esteemed for his ability to secure billions of dollars in federal aid for transportation and military projects. The Anchorage airport bears his name; in Alaska, it's simply 'Uncle Ted.'

Tuesday's tally of just over 24,000 absentee and other ballots gave Begich 146,286, or 47.56 percent, to 143,912, or 46.76 percent, for Stevens.

A recount is possible.

Begich said the defining issue in the race was the desire for a new direction in Washington, not Stevens' legal problems.

Alaska voters 'wanted to see change,' he told reporters in Anchorage. 'Alaska has been in the midst of a generational shift — you could see it.'

Stevens' campaign didn't immediately respond to phone calls seeking comment.

Stevens' loss was another slap for Republicans in a year that has seen the party lose control of the White House, as well as seats in the House and Senate. It also moves Democrats one step closer to the 60 votes needed to overcome filibusters in the Senate. Democrats now hold 58 seats, when two independents who align with Democrats are included, with undecided races in Minnesota and Georgia where two Republicans are trying to hang onto their seats.

Democrats have now picked up seven Senate seats in the Nov. 4 election.

'With seven seats and counting now added to the Democratic ranks in the Senate, we have an even stronger majority that will bring real change to America,' Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a statement.

The climactic count came after a series of tumultuous days for a senator who has been straddling challenges to his power both at home and in his trial in Washington. Notwithstanding all that turmoil, Stevens revealed Tuesday that he will not ask President George W. Bush to give him a pardon for his seven felony convictions.

Stevens' future was murky at a time when newly elected members of both the House and Senate were on Capitol Hill for heady receptions, picture-taking sessions and orientation this week. Stevens, speaking earlier Tuesday in Washington, said he had no idea what his life would be like in January, when the 111th Congress convenes.

'I wouldn't wish what I'm going through on anyone, my worst enemy,' he lamented to reporters. 'I haven't had a night's sleep for almost four months.'

Last month just days before the election, Stevens was convicted by a federal jury in Washington of lying on Senate disclosure forms to conceal more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from an oil field services company.

His defeat could also allow Republican senators to sidestep the task of determining whether to kick out the longest serving member of their party in the Senate.

When counting resumed Tuesday, 1,022 votes divided the candidates out of about 300,000 ballots cast. Most of the those votes came from areas that had favored Begich — the Anchorage vicinity and the southeastern panhandle around Juneau.

It is a testament to Stevens' popularity — he was once named 'Alaskan of the Century' — that he won nearly half the votes, even after his conviction. He routinely brought home the highest number of government dollars per capita in the nation — more than $9 billion in 2006 alone, according to one estimate.

With Stevens gone 'it's a big gap in dollars — billions of dollars — that none of the other members of the delegation, Begich, whoever, could fill,' said Gerald McBeath, chair of the political science department at University of Alaska Fairbanks. 'There is no immediate replacement for him.'

Following the trial Stevens said he wanted another term 'because I love this land and its people' and vowed to press on with an appeal. Professing his innocence, he blamed his legal problems on his former friend Bill Allen, the founder and former chairman of VECO Corp., the government's star witness.

In a state where oil and politics have always mixed, the conviction came as part of a long-running investigation into government corruption centered around VECO.

Begich will be the first Democrat to represent Alaska in the Senate in nearly 30 years. He is the son of Nick Begich, Alaska's third congressman, who died in a plane crash 1972 while running for re-election.

Stevens' lawyer demanded a speedy trial, hoping for exoneration in time to fight the first serious threat to his seat in decades. But the trial in Washington not only left Stevens a felon, it deprived him of time to campaign in his home state.

Stevens refused pleas from his own party leaders to step down after the verdict, including Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee who said the Alaska senator had 'broken his trust with the people.'

Stevens' fall came shortly after another Alaskan, Gov. Sarah Palin, emerged as a national figure on the Republican presidential ticket. She had called for Stevens to step aside at one point, but appeared to back away from that the day after the election when returns showed Stevens with an edge.

'The people of Alaska just spoke,' she said.

Associated Press writers Jesse J. Holland and Andrew Taylor in Washington and Rachel D'Oro in Anchorage contributed to this report.

Studs Terkel, an Everyman who loved people

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:57:00 +0000

TUCSON -- I’ve been listening to various tributes about Studs Terkel, and, because he’s someone I met a few times and thought very highly of, I wanted to take a minute to make my own. I’m especially thinking about this as Tucson gets ready to observe its yearly All Souls Procession.

I first heard about Studs Terkel from my Mom, a high school English teacher, when his book “Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression” came out. She loved it and in my family none of us had to read it. For Mom, “Hard Times” was truly an instant classic, and she read portions of it to us at the supper table for several days in a row, I remember. And these were followed by hearing Dad’s and her personal rememberances from that time. “Working” and “The Good War” only cemented his reputation for us.

But, what exactly was his ability? The thing about Studs Terkel is that what you saw in those books was basically the real Studs. He was a man who could tell a good story, and liked to talk. Even more, he was a man in search of a good story, and he liked to listen.

Sometimes in conversations and parlor games, the question will come up, “Have you ever met a celebrity?” And often times, when I say I knew Studs Terkel, many don’t know who he was. When they want to know what he was famous for, I don’t really know what to say. Something like, “Well, he was a good listener. And a good talker. And he lived a life fighting for a better world. And he was always optimistic.” Of course, that doesn’t really tell you much, unless you actually were to hear him or read his oral histories.

But if you wanted to get to know him, you could. All you had to do was call him up. Back when I was in high school, the first political issue I ever worked on was opposing the death penalty, which was about to be reinstated in Illinois. Two luminaries in that struggle were Studs Terkel and Harold Washington, who was then a State legislator. I got to meet them both, and they were both very courteous, kind and gracious. What really impressed me was that in both cases, they stopped what they were doing, were not in a hurry, and listened to me and spoke to me with utter respect. At the age of 16, I was not used to being afforded that much respect by adults.

When I was going to college in Chicago, one would run into Studs just out on the street. Again, he was never in a hurry, it seemed. He always had time to stop and say hello. One would sometimes run into him at movement events. Sometimes he might be talking to a gathering or emceeing an event. Often he was doing nothing other than sitting at the front, collecting the donations.

From the isolated and various times I talked to Studs, and considering how many people he talked and listened to, I doubt he would have had any particular reason to remember me. On the other hand, I also think he was the kind of person that really did care about just about everybody, and was more likely to remember a person than most of us.

Studs was about as accessible as anyone I ever knew. As a young man just getting started in the movement, I got involved in the Clergy and Laity Concerned Anti-Apartheid Task Force and was the coordinator of the World Affairs Program of my college’s student government. There were a handful of times when I just wanted to know more about a subject, or wanted to get a copy of a show Studs had done, and I would call and leave a message at his radio station, WFMT. He always promptly returned my calls, always had time to talk, always sent me a copy of any program I wanted.

The fact is, people like him are rare. He really was the Everyman and not in the sense of a dull, common denominator of humanity. He was the Everyman because he knew that Every woman and man and child had a story -- unique story that nevertheless tells a much bigger unifying story we all share in.

I think the one truest thing anyone could say about Studs Terkel is this:

He loved people.

James Jordan lives in Arizona and is active with Latin American solidarity.

For more on Studs, including links to his interviews:

Lost Thunder: BLM preparing to execute 30,000 wild horses

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:59:00 +0000

The 30,000 wild horses on Death Row are nearly out of appeals. They were condemned by the Government Accounting Office just in time for Veteran's Day - a profoundly cynical act when you consider that countless wild horses perished after being taken from the range and serving in the Civil War, our frontier wars, and World War I. The announcement concluded a dark cycle that began on July 4th as flag-draped horses paraded down Main Street, rekindling our birthday dreams and echoing our heartbeats with the clip-clop of their hooves. At that moment, the Bureau of Land Management stated that it may have to kill the 'excess' mustangs in government housing as a cost-cutting move.

Since 1971, wild horses have been protected under the federal Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, signed into law by Richard Nixon, who quoted Thoreau during a stirring speech about the role of wild horses in America's culture and history. Since then, the livestock industry - which views wild horses as thieves that steal food from cows - has tried to take the law down through five administrations, and under the Bush administration is finally succeeding. The unraveling began three years ago, when a rollback made it legal for the BLM to sell horses in its custody that are over ten or who haven't been adopted on the third try through its adopt-a-horse program to the lowest bidder. This meant a ticket to the slaughterhouse.

Several days after the unraveling began, a number of wild horses were immediately shipped to the killing floors. Now, the BLM says that while it doesn't like having to make tough calls, it may just have to go through with this one. Such is the language of dedicated bureaucrats, and it's not unlike the language that was used in the 19th Century, when the government realized that to vanquish Native Americans, it had to strip them of their horses.

As I document in my recently published book, Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West, in 1858, Colonel George Wright ordered the massacre of 800 horses that belonged to the Palouse tribe, east of what later became Spokane, Washington. The site is now known as Horse Slaughter Camp, and it has a stone marker. On Thanksgiving night in 1868, Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer attacked Black Kettle and his tribe along the Washita River in Oklahoma, killing the chief and many of his people, and then their 800 ponies. The Cheyenne woman Moving Behind, who was fourteen at the time, would later remember that the wounded ponies passed near her hiding place, moaning loudly, just like human beings. 'There would be other horse massacres,' I wrote, 'as if prefiguring the coming government war against the horse itself.'

And now, that war is upon us; what we did to the Indians we are about to do to ourselves - unless the many good citizens who are planning to confront the BLM's wild horse and burro advisory board at its annual public meeting on Monday in Reno can head off the disaster at the pass. 'We may be fighting wars around the world,' I conclude in my book, 'but in the West, to paraphrase the great environmental writer Bernard deVoto, we are at war with ourselves. To me, there is no greater snapshot of that war than we we have done and continue to do to the wild horse. As it goes, so goes a piece of America, and one of these days, bereft of heritage, we may all find ourselves moving on down the road.'

Deanne Stillman's latest book, 'Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West,' will be published June 9 by Houghton Mifflin.

Last minute Bush push threatens workers, consumers and environment

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:21:00 +0000

The Bush administration is in a midnight frenzy, churning out a stream of regulations designed to cement its right-wing legacy of damage to the environment and attacks on workers and consumers. If successful, a virtual dream list of ultra-conservative wishes could go into effect, saddling both the incoming Obama administration and the American people for a long time to come.

The new Bush rules roll back or weaken regulations on job safety, family leave, airline safety and many other areas.

Commenting on the administration’s “midnight move,” Matthew Madia, president of the nonprofit watchdog group OMB Watch said, “It’s environmental regulations, it’s worker safety, it’s reproductive health, it’s traffic safety, but the common theme is that the Bush administration is trying to remove restrictions on business and allow them to operate without any kind of government oversight. It’s intended to make sure that the kind of ideology and priorities that the Bush administration believes in are affecting the country for many years.”

A recent article in the Washington Post noted that at least 90 new regulations are being rammed through in the last minute. Worse yet, the paper noted, if they become final before Bush leaves office, “they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis.”

New regulations of the type Bush is issuing become final after they are published in the Federal register but usually don’t go into effect until a 60-day Congressional comment period expires. In order to sidestep even this review, however, the administration has dropped the comment period from 60 to 30 days.

The shortening of that period ensures that most of the last-minute Bush regulations will actually be in effect when president-elect Barack Obama takes office Jan. 20.

The Washington post said, in an editorial, “That’s why the business community is pressing hard for the Bush administration to move quickly. Lobbyists fear that industry views will hold less sway after the elections. The doors at the Executive Office Building have been whirling with corporate officials and advisers pleading for relief or, in many cases, for hastened decision making.”

Labor, community and environmental groups say, however, that the incoming Obama administration has a tool it might be able to use to unravel the last minute Bush rules – the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Bush himself actually used that act to overturn the Clinton administration’s workplace ergonomics rule that was written near the end of Clinton’s second term.

Under the otherwise never-used CRA, a regulation that is enacted within 60 days of congressional adjournment – Oct. 3 this year – can be reviewed and overturned by a simple majority vote in both houses. Senate filibusters are not allowed.

Congressional Democrats are saying they are considering a CRA strategy for some of the last-minute Bush rules.

OMB Watch warns, however, that numerous right-wing Bush rules have already been issued and that the comment time clock is already ticking. One of the rules already issued makes it more difficult for workers to use family and medical leave and another one lifts many air pollution standards on oil refineries.

Another of these new rules is one that changes the ways exposure of workers to a wide range of dangerous chemicals and toxins is measured. The rule allows many workers to be exposed to levels of the toxins that have not, until now, been permissible.

The rule is now being referred to as the “secret rule.” The regulation is one that Bush operatives have long wanted to put into effect, over the objections of many government health and safety officials. It was actually kept secret until last July when it was exposed in numerous media reports that the plan was to ram it through in the last days of the administration.

While the Bush rules make life a lot easier for big business, his administration continues to block numerous proposals for rules that would make life better for workers.

They continue to block a crane safety standard, rules to protect workers from exposure to silica, which causes serious respiratory disease, rules to protect workers from diacetyl, the flavoring additive linked to “popcorn ling,” and rules to protect metal and dental workers from beryllium, a light metal that causes lung damage.

The administration has also refused to develop combustible dust rules meant to prevent explosions like the one in February in Georgia at an Imperial Sugar plant that killed 13 workers.

Gay rights rallies held across the nation

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:21:00 +0000

BOSTON — Gay rights supporters waving rainbow colors marched, chanted and danced in cities coast to coast Saturday to protest the vote that banned gay marriage in California and to urge supporters not to quit the fight for the right to wed.

Crowds gathered near public buildings in cities large and small, including Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Fargo, to vent their frustrations, celebrate gay relationships and renew calls for change.

'Civil marriages are a civil right, and we're going to keep fighting until we get the rights we deserve as American citizens,' said Karen Amico, one of several hundred protesters in Philadelphia, holding up a sign reading 'Don't Spread H8'.

'We are the American family, we live next door to you, we teach your children, we take care of your elderly,' said Heather Baker a special education teacher from Boston who addressed the crowd at Boston's City Hall Plaza. 'We need equal rights across the country.'

Connecticut, which began same-sex weddings this past week, and Massachusetts are the only two states that allow gay marriage. The other 48 states do not, and 30 of them have taken the extra step of approving constitutional amendments. A few states allow civil unions or domestic partnerships that grant some rights of marriage.

Protests following the vote on Proposition 8 in California, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, have sometimes been angry and even violent, and demonstrators have targeted faiths that supported the ban, including the Mormon church.

However, representatives of Join the Impact, which organized Saturday's demonstrations, asked supporters to be respectful and refrain from attacking other groups during the rallies.

Seattle blogger Amy Balliett, who started the planning for the protests when she set up a Web page three days after the California vote, said persuasion is impossible without civility. Story continues below

'If we can move anybody past anger and have a respectful conversation, then you can plant the seed of change,' she said.

Balliett said supporters in 300 cities in the U.S. and other countries were holding marches, and she estimated 1 million people would participate, based on responses at the Web sites her group set up.

'We need to show the world when one thing happens to one of us, it happens to all of us,' she said.

The protests were widely reported to be peaceful, and the mood in Boston was generally upbeat, with attendees dancing to the song 'Respect.' Signs cast the fight for gay marriage as the new civil rights movement, including one that read 'Gay is the new black.'

But anger over the ban and its backers was evident at the protests.

One sign in Chicago, where several thousand people gathered, read: 'Catholic Fascists Stay Out of Politics.'

'I just found out that my state doesn't really think I'm a person,' said Rose Aplustill, 21, a Boston University student from Los Osos, Calif., who was one of thousands at the Boston rally.

In San Francisco, demonstrators took shots at some religious groups that supported the ban, including a sign aimed at the Mormon church and its abandoned practice of polygamy that read: 'You have three wives; I want one husband.'

Chris Norberg, who married his partner in June, also referred to the racial divisions that arose after exit polls found that majorities of blacks and Hispanics supported the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

'They voted against us,' Norberg said.

In Salt Lake City, where demonstrators gathered just blocks from the headquarters of the Mormon church, one sign pictured the city's temple with a line adapted from former Republican vice president candidate Sarah Palin: 'I can see discrimination from my house.'

More than 500 demonstrators in Washington marched from the U.S. Capitol through the city carrying signs and chanting 'One, two, three, four, love is what we're fighting for!'

A public plaza at the foot of New York's Brooklyn Bridge was packed by a cheering crowd of thousands, including people who waved rainbow flags and wore pink buttons that said 'I do.'

Protests were low-key in North Dakota, where people lined a bridge in Fargo carrying signs and flags.

Mike Bernard, who was in the crowd of hundreds at City Hall in Baltimore, said Proposition 8 could end up being a good thing for gay rights advocates.

'It was a swift kick in the rear end,' he said.

In Los Angeles, protesters gathered near City Hall before marching through downtown. Police said 10,000 to 12,000 people demonstrated.

Supporters of traditional marriage said the rallies may have generated publicity but ultimately made no difference.

'They had everything in the world going for them this year, and they couldn't win,' said Frank Schubert, co-manager of the Yes on 8 campaign in California. 'I don't think they're going to be any more successful in 2010 or 2012.'

In Chicago, Keith Smith, 42, a postal worker, and his partner, Terry Romo, 34, a Wal-Mart store manager, had photos of a commitment ceremony they held, though gay marriage is not legal in Illinois.

'We're not going to wait for no law,' Smith said. 'But time's going to be on our side and it's going to change.'

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Rupa Shenoy in Chicago, Adam Goldman in New York, JoAnn Loviglio in Philadelphia, Sarah Brumfield in Baltimore, Linda Ashton in Salt Lake City, Blake Nicholson in Bismarck, N.D., Tom Verdin in Sacramento, Calif., and Kamala Lane in Washington.

Asians, Latinos, immigrants vote in record numbers

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:04:00 +0000

The We Are America Alliance (WAAA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan national coalition of 14 groups said in a post-election press conference that there was a record turnout of Asian, Latino and immigrant voters on Nov. 4.

Shifting demographics, a rapid growing immigrant population and the ongoing frustration with the tone of the immigration debate has created a shift toward civic engagement within immigrant communities across the country.

An extensive grassroots mobilization that focused on citizenship, voter registration and get out the vote efforts, led by WAAA, targeted various segments of the immigrant community throughout the U.S.

The historic 2006 May 1 marches and nationwide demonstrations for the rights of undocumented workers sparked a growing movement that motivated immigrants to become citizens and register to vote.

Together with local, state and national initiatives for civil, human and workers’ rights WAAA brought together 14 organizations that targeted 13 states and coordinated voter turnout.

Paco Fabián, spokesperson for WAAA said one million people were contacted in an effort to focus on getting these voters to the polls and engage them in the political process.

Fabián said the group registered over half a million people before Election Day and has been mobilizing the immigrant community for the last two years as a direct result from the historic demonstrations in 2006 and 2007.

“This is just the first step in order to continue to keep immigrants and Latinos involved in the political process,” Fabián told the World in a phone interview.

Fabián said the number of Latino voters in 2008 nationwide almost doubled since 2000 and was about 30 percent higher than in 2004. About 40 percent of Latino voters in 2008 were foreign born, added Fabián.

“This turnout says that people who come to this country as immigrants want to be a part of this country’s American dream,” said Fabián who was born and raised in Mexico City but was born a U.S. citizen because his mother was from here.

Latinos helped make a difference in places like Virgina, Indiana, Georgia and other Southern states said Fabián. “And that in itself was a victory,” he said.

Fabián pointed out that the Latino vote went 73 percent for Obama in Virginia and helped turn battleground states like Florida, Colorado and New Mexico from red to blue.

Over 68 percent of the infrequent voters contacted by WAAA either voted early or turned out the vote on Election Day.

Inhe Choi from Chicago’s Korean American Resource and Cultural Center told a Nov. 7 press conference that Obama’s candidacy sparked record voter turnout in Asian American communities. From young people to seniors, she said, Asian American voters have high hopes that life can be better for other minorities with an African American president.“Without a doubt the economy was on the top of the list, not just for immigrants and Latinos but for every American,” said Fabián.

He said McCain lost support from Latinos because he’s Republican and many see his party responsible for all the anti-immigrant rhetoric dating back to 2006.

“Now we’re looking forward to a change in the Bush doctrine and even though we agree the economy is a priority, including more jobs for all, we hope immigration reform is also high on the agenda,” said Fabián.

The recent voter turnout last Election Day has set the bar for an active group of new citizens, children of immigrants, and a new wave of infrequent voters. And this trend is expected to grow, said Fabián.

Meanwhile he warned that if policies are not implemented to help immigrant and Latino families one might see voters in these communities swing the other way in 2012.

“The most important thing is to continue to engage the Latino and immigrant community in the political process even by becoming local school board members or lobbying for legislation on the municipal, state and national levels,” said Fabián. “It’s important that our voices are heard.”

plozano@pww.org