People Before Profit blog

Blizzard blues? Relax: it’s hotter than ever

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 12:54:00 +0000

Are you cold? Fingers numb after digging out of this week's East Coast blizzard? Guess what? This year is stacking up as one of the hottest since we humans started keeping thermometer-based temperature records 160 years ago.

So says the World Meteorological Organization.

"The year 2010 is almost certain to rank in the top three warmest years since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850," says the WMO. What's more, it adds, over the past decade from 2001 to 2010, "global temperatures have averaged the highest value ever recorded for a 10-year period."

But what about all that snow outside?

Does it make global warming "junk science," as the Boston Herald's Michael Graham proclaims?

Does that 15-inch snowdrift in your driveway mean - as a tea-party "media" mailing in my inbox argues - that human-caused global warming is nothing but "twisted ‘facts'" marketed by "a cabal of elitist politicians, bureaucrats and activists who front the environmental movement to push intrusive, Marxist-derived policies in a quest to become filthy rich"?

Well, no.

As People's World writer Marc Brodine pointed out last winter, "many people confuse the current weather (cold) with the long-term direction of the climate (warmer)."

"Just because it is cold outside right now doesn't mean that global warming isn't real," he wrote. "Global warming has to do with the climate, with the long-term trend of the world's average temperature. The short-term weather has to do with what is happening this week or next in the part of the world where we currently reside. The two are not identical, and colder weather does not contradict the fact that our climate is warming up."

In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in its annual Arctic Report Card, issued Oct. 19 this year, reports "continued near-record sea ice loss" and warming temperatures in the Arctic this past summer. That Arctic trend appears to be having an impact on "mid-latitude climate" - meaning North America, Europe and Asia - the agency reported.

Dramatic warming in the Arctic over the last several decades may be pushing cold Arctic air southward, scientific studies suggest. Scientists call it a "Warm Arctic/Cold Continents" weather pattern, featuring an abnormally mild Arctic and an unusually cold U.S. and Europe.

"We have a potential climate change paradox," the NOAA says. "Rather than a general warming everywhere, the loss of sea ice and a warmer Arctic can increase the impact of the Arctic on lower latitudes, bringing colder weather to southern locations."

Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters writes, "This pattern is kind of like leaving the refrigerator door ajar - the refrigerator warms up, but all the cold air spills out into the house."

"If the Arctic Report Card is right," says Masters, "we'll be seeing more of this pattern during coming winters - possibly even during the winter of 2010-2011."

Writing in the New York Times this week, forecaster Judah Cohen ties colder winter weather to increasing snow cover in Siberia, caused by global warming.

"As global temperatures have warmed and as Arctic sea ice has melted over the past two and a half decades, more moisture has become available to fall as snow over the continents," says Cohen. "So the snow cover across Siberia in the fall has steadily increased."

That creates an unusually large dome of cold air in the region, changing airflows across the earth's surface, he writes. Cold air flows south into East Asia and southwestward into Europe. In North America, cold air is pushed south from the Arctic on the east side of the Rockies.

"That is why the Eastern United States, Northern Europe and East Asia have experienced extraordinarily snowy and cold winters since the turn of this century," Cohen says.

The experts remind us that one season's weather can fluctuate even while long-term trends continue. And with all the variables out there, weather forecasting is still not an exact science.

Based on the above normal Siberian snow cover, Cohen is predicting below normal temperatures for the East Coast this winter.

On the other hand, when asked to predict this winter's weather Masters says, "Flip a coin. After a year of some extraordinary extreme weather, we are overdue for a relatively quiet season or two of weather."

We'll just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, research on climate and weather is ongoing, and scientists continue to debate the role of various factors.

"This will be an arena generating plenty of research, but also scientific disagreement, for a long time to come," New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin writes in his Dot Earth blog. "What's important, to my mind, is not to confuse this kind of normal, healthy scientific debate with more basic understanding of human contributions to, and responses to, climate change."

And as the PW's Brodine tells us, don't believe the "blizzard of nonsense" from right-wing loons. Global warming is not eliminating winter. In fact, as the scientists are finding, more snow is actually more proof of global warming.

Don't put away your snow shovels yet.

Photo: PW/Tim Wheeler

LA neighborhood councils fight vehicle confiscations

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 11:43:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - A community meeting here last week unanimously called for an end to the impoundment of unlicensed drivers' vehicles at sobriety checkpoints. The South Central Neighborhood Council, at its Dec. 21 meeting, joined other groups who have passed similar resolutions to fight against what many are calling an abuse by sheriffs and police departments specifically targeting poor, minority and immigrant communities.

For several years vehicles belonging to unlicensed drivers have been confiscated during traffic stops including sobriety checkpoints by police and sheriff's departments working with private tow truck companies. An estimated $40 million in revenue has been generated from car impoundment, according to La Opinión.

The South Central Neighborhood Council urged adoption of the policy followed by the city of Oakland, Calif. In Oakland, during a traffic stop where it is determined that the driver is unlicensed, he or she is given the opportunity of parking the car and picking it up within 30 days of the initial traffic stop.

Several cities and counties throughout California have passed similar resolutions, such as Maywood, Santa Clarita and San Francisco.

None are more affected by the traffic stop vehicle impoundment than unlicensed undocumented immigrants.

In the city of Bell, police officers were told to look for old, beat-up cars with religious imagery or symbols on the car or hanging from the rearview mirror, according to Cynthia Anderson-Barker of the National Lawyers Guild.

She added, "If that isn't racial profiling, I don't know what is."

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against the State of California and the California Highway Patrol (CHP) charging illegal confiscation of vehicles of unlicensed drivers. The case is currently before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The National Lawyers Guild cites as legal precedents Miranda v. City of Cornelius and People v. Williams, in which impounding vehicles of unlicensed drivers was found to be unconstitutional.

If three Los Angeles neighborhood councils pass the same resolution it must be added to the Los Angeles City Council's agenda, according to a member of the Olympic Park Neighborhood Council, Joseph Hancock. That is something that immigrant-rights activists and community members eagerly want.

In attendance at the South Central meeting were several members of Central Area Neighborhood Councils of Los Angeles, including Olympic Park. All have expressed the desire and enthusiasm to work to pass similar resolutions in their own neighborhood councils.

Photo: LA's South Central Neighborhood Council meets Dec. 21. PW/Luis Rivas

Finally: aid to 9/11 heroes approved after GOP yields

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 14:32:00 +0000

After nine years, the GOP relented and passed Dec. 22 a health bill for 9/11 responders in what turned out to be the not-so-lame-duck session of the 111th Congress.

The Zadroga Bill, named after James Zadroga, the New York City detective who died after complications from inhaling 9/11 dust, was held hostage by the Republicans right up to the last minute. Even the final bill bears the marks of the Republican Party's drive to cut costs at the expenses of working Americans, the nation's heroes included: the original bill was to span ten years at a cost of $7.4 billion. To win GOP support, Senate Democrats had to make cuts to the bill, which now spans only five years at a cost of $4.3 billion.

The bill, passed first by the Senate and then the House, also compensates survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City. Under immense public pressure, Republicans finally agreed to the smaller $4.3 billion bill. Union leaders, community organizations, churches and media personalities, for days before final passage, had expressed shock over how a political party willing to spend $700 billion for tax cuts for the rich couldn't see its way clear to supporting a few billion dollars in health care for sick and dying national heroes.

Just two days before the final vote, Oklahoma Republican senator Tom Coburn went on Fox News in an attempt to save face for himself and fellow GOP obstructionists by saying the bill was being held up because it had not gone through the committee process. Within hours major news outlets across the country were reporting how the bill had in fact gone through that process and how Coburn had failed, on June 29, to attend a meeting of his own committee, which had held the hearing. Footage of Coburn's empty chair at that hearing, surrounded by the occupied chairs of the rest of its members, was viewed by tens of millions of TV viewers across the nation.

Among those suffering in the nine-plus years since the terrorist attacks are fire fighters, rescue workers, responders, cops, emergency medical personnel, military personnel, construction workers, clean-up workers, residents, area workers and school children. Dozens of firemen and 31 policemen have died since the attacks because of related ailments including rare cancers and emphysema.

The bill covers 71,000 workers and 38,000 others, according to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., the chief sponsor of the measure.

In the weeks before passage, millions of Americans were reminded again of the heroism of the first responders.

They heard from Harold Schaitberger, president of the Fire Fighters, how a fire chief from California flew in and worked 16 hours a day, digging for the remains of the 343 New York fire fighters who were buried when the Twin Towers collapsed on top of them. They heard about the fears sick and dying responders have about caring for families as they, themselves, become increasingly disabled.

The passage of the bill is seen as a crowning achievement for the 111th Congress, which goes down in history as having written more laws affecting more people than any Congress since the Great Society of the 1960s. The legislative achievements include health care reform that gives 32 million Americans coverage, the most sweeping Wall Street reform since the Great Depression, the spending of $1.67 billion to revive the economy, including tax cuts and stimulus to create 3 million jobs, construction of roads and bridges, initial steps towards green energy projects, an end to the ban on gays serving openly in the military, and a massive nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

Polls this week give President Obama an approval rating of 56 percent for his handling of the lame duck Congress, with 41 percent dis-approving.

Observers see a possible weakening of solidarity in the ranks of Republican senators, with a number of them having crossed over on several issues to support President Obama.

Alaska's Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski backed all four of President Obama's signature initiatives in the lame duck session - repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the tax cut compromise, the START Treaty and the DREAM Act.

Image: Phil // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

New START ratified, 71-26

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:50:00 +0000

By a vote of 71-26, the U.S. Senate Dec. 22 ratified the U.S.-Russia New START treaty setting new limits on the two countries' long-range nuclear weapons arsenals, marking a significant foreign policy achievement for the Obama administration during the lame-duck Congressional session.

The two-thirds majority needed to pass the treaty seemed assured after 11 Republican senators earlier defied their top leadership and voted with Democrats to end debate on the treaty.

Though Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and the Minority Whip, Arizona's Jon Kyl, had pledged to oppose the treaty, another top Republican leader, Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, said he would back the pact.

Among New START's backers were the Foreign Relations Committee's ranking Republican, Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, and two other Republican committee members who had earlier voted to send the treaty to the Senate floor.

New START was signed by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last April. It requires each side to limit deployed long-range nuclear warheads to 1,550 - about a one-third reduction from the previous treaty. Deployed nuclear-capable submarines, long-range missiles and heavy bombers are capped at 700, with 100 more in reserve. It also reinstitutes on-site inspections by each country of the other's arsenal - a provision that lapsed when the previous treaty expired over a year ago.

Republicans overwhelmingly backed earlier arms agreements with Russia, and before that, with the Soviet Union. But they were seriously split this time. Some, including McConnell and Kyl, seemed determined to make the treaty a pawn in their struggle to defeat any Obama administration initiative, even though most past and present members of the U.S. military and foreign policy establishment supported the pact.

Republicans also held the treaty hostage to their demands for huge expenditures to modernize the U.S. nuclear missile facilities and for a strong administration commitment to development of missile defense systems. Many analysts regard modernization as unnecessary to maintain the current strength of the U.S. arsenal, and missile defense as potentially leading to a new arms race.

During the debate, Foreign Relations Committee chair Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., successfully held off several efforts to amend the treaty itself, which would have meant reopening negotiations with Russia.

But the Senate did approve several amendments to the resolution of ratification. The resolution doesn't affect the treaty itself or require its renegotiation. One amendment mandates the president to certify to Congress that he supports a broad range of missile defenses. Another requires Obama to promise to negotiate with Russia on tactical nuclear arms. A third instructs him to modernize delivery vehicles for the long-range nukes.

In the days before the treaty's passage, President Obama had sent Senate Republicans letters confirming the administration's commitment to modernization, and to missile defense.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had earlier warned that the treaty "cannot be opened up and become the subject of new negotiations."

And on Wednesday, Moscow News quoted Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, as saying, "In essence, the U.S. Senate will confirm both financially and politically that the global missile defense system will not face any limitations. As a former parliamentarian, I suspect that this could result in similar amendments from the Russian side."

Image: Ratification of the New START Treaty is a step towards Obama's goal of a nuclear weapons-free world, as expressed in his speech in Prague, Czech Republic, April 5, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Kasich declares war on workers

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:33:00 +0000

COLUMBUS, Ohio - At a press conference in Columbus Dec. 10, a full month before taking office, Ohio Republican Governor-elect John Kasich declared war on all public employees and workers employed under state contracts.

Kasich called for repeal of the state's collective bargaining law for public employees passed in 1983, ending binding arbitration for safety forces, firing safety workers who strike and eliminating prevailing wage requirements in state contracts.

"I really don't favor the right to strike of any public employee, OK? That's my personal philosophy. ... They got good jobs, they got high pay, what are they striking for?" said the multimillionaire Kasich, who received a $400,000 bonus as managing director of Lehman Brothers the year they went bankrupt and helped collapse the economy.

The occasion was to announce his nominee for state tax commissioner who, he said, shares his aim of abolishing all state income taxes despite an expected $8 billion budget shortfall. Eliminating the income tax as well as state estate taxes, which he also proposes, would more than double the deficit and require draconian reductions in all public services.

Kasich has said he is exploring the sale of major state assets, including the turnpike and the prison system.

Kasich never mentioned his plans to eliminate union rights during his bitterly contested campaign. If he had, undoubtedly he would have galvanized against him even the more conservative sections of labor including police, firefighters and some of the building trades. As it was, he won with only 49 percent of the vote, a margin of two points over his opponent, incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland.

Kasich's campaign was based on exploiting frustration with the economic crisis, which he blamed on Strickland even though Ohio posted the fifth largest growth in jobs of any state despite the recession.

Kasich has already cost Ohio the loss of over 10,000 jobs when he announced he would refuse $400 million in federal funds for a high-speed rail project. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the money would be reallocated to other states.

Kasich said he would also rescind Strickland's executive orders to allow unionization of 14,000 home health care and day care providers.

He widened his attack on labor at a second press conference in Cleveland on Dec. 15 where he called for state takeover of failing school districts such as the one in Cleveland. Standing at his side was Ronn Richard, head of the Cleveland Foundation, who said his group's top priority is repeal of a law enacted in 1941 requiring layoff by seniority for teachers.

Already the labor movement is fighting back.

A few days before Kasich's opening shots, labor mobilized to beat back an effort to pass a resolution calling on the Ohio General Assembly to reconsider the public employee collective bargaining law. The action came at the Dec. 7 meeting of the city council of Middletown, located between Dayton and Cincinnati. Hundreds of workers from throughout the area packed council chambers when it was learned that a right-wing freshman councilman had introduced the measure. Every speaker at the meeting, including Jon Harvey, president of Middletown Fire Fighters Local 336, blasted the proposal, which was tabled in a 6-1 vote.

AFSCME Council 8, the largest of the public employee unions in Ohio, is planning a meeting after the New Year to consider how to respond to the attack. Discussions are also under way at the Ohio AFL-CIO led by President Joe Rugola, head of the state public school employee union, an affiliate of AFSCME.

Since similar threats have been made by governors of other states, AFSCME has launched a national "Stop the Lies" website with a video countering the effort by Republicans and their media flaks to scapegoat public workers for the economic crisis caused by Wall Street.

"Kasich and his fellow Republicans are setting up a battle royale with union interests," the Cleveland Plain Dealer warned in a Dec. 19 editorial. "What Ohio needs on this," it pleaded, "is civilized debate, not dueling slogans. Some Republicans, for example, deride the purportedly high pay and lush benefits of public employees. But no economy ever grew by arbitrarily driving down the living standards of working people - including those who toil for their fellow taxpayers."

What ever was the Plain Dealer thinking when it endorsed Kasich in the election?

Image: Thomas Lillis IV // CC BY-ND 2.0

Living wage advocate: laws have positive impact

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:25:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - If you walk into Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) next year, you won't find a McDonald's.

They refused to pay their workers a living wage, and dropped out of the bidding for a restaurant concession at LAX, says Madeline Janis, executive director of the L.A. Alliance For a New Economy - who is also a city redevelopment agency commissioner.

Why? McDonald's wanted to pay its workers the minimum wage, not the living wage that a city ordinance mandates. But the chain is the exception at LAX, not the rule. As a result, the ordinance at the airport is a good one for workers there, Janis told a Nov. 30 symposium hosted by the Center for American Progress.

Other restaurant chains weren't afraid to bid for Los Angeles airport food court slots and were willing to pay the workers the living wage - typically $10-$14 hourly plus benefits - she added. Both businesses and workers benefited. Airport food court sites are very profitable. And 20,000 families rose out of poverty via living wage jobs at LAX.

"They're not middle-class jobs, but they put food on the table, let the parents buy their kids school supplies, the families can pay the rent and they have an old car," Janis said at the center's Washington, D.C., symposium on living wage ordinances.

Janis' evidence was backed by a new report by University of North Carolina city planning professor William Lester. He examined 15 cities with living wage ordinances - which have been strongly pushed by organized labor for the last decade or more - with a "control group" of 16 cities, with similar socioeconomic characteristics, where the ordinances were either never proposed or defeated at the polls or in city councils.

His object was to see if there was any negative economic impact of the living wage ordinances, in terms of driving businesses out of the "living wage" cities or deterring them from entering, as living wage foes - usually led by local Chambers of Commerce-claim. Lester found virtually none.

Instead, his study showed two positive effects from living wage ordinances, one for workers and one for businesses. The workers' wages rose, and businesses saw their job turnover decline by 20%. "You get higher-quality labor," Lester added. "I predict the living wage movement will spread, especially as the evidence grows that it's not a job-killer," he declared.

The Chamber of Commerce representative on the panel said that living wage ordinances could help workers, but defended the business group's contention that they also cost jobs. "Making employees more expensive is not a strategy for spurring economic activity," he said.

But he also said the U.S. Chamber leaves local living wage support or opposition decisions to local affiliates. He admitted that some businesses - in the construction industry-have been living with a "living wage" law for almost 80 years. It's called the Davis-Bacon Act. But "the market should set wage rates," he said.

Scientists: society needs power and corruption

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:24:00 +0000

We all have heard of Lord Acton's dictum that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We see it at work every day in our social life and politics. The police abuse their powers by racial profiling and even gunning down minority people with seeming impunity. Elected officials are seen selling out the interests of the people who elected them for lobbyist money and the promise of future favors from the giant corporations that actually rule the country.

But it turns out that all this power and corruption may not be so bad after all. Just last week Science Daily reported on an article recently published in the journal Evolution that indicates that power and corruption may be good for us. I hope they are right because we have such a concentration of power and corruption in our society that it would justify our claim that "USA is Number One."

Let's look at the evidence. Two professors, Francisco Úbeda at the University of Tennessee and Edgar Duéñez at Harvard, say that while "Moral corruption and power asymmetries are pervasive in human societies... [they] may play a role in maintaining overall societal cooperation." Society needs cooperation in order to function.

There have to be some groups that punish non-cooperators and, the professors remind us, there are government officials and law enforcers who have that happy task. However these very groups often fail to cooperate among themselves and with each other because they abuse their power and are corrupt. It's the old problem of who polices the police. The professors also "discovered" that these "law enforcers, by virtue of their positions, are able to sidestep punishment when they are caught failing to cooperate." Who would have thought it?

The bright side is that the vast majority of society does try to play by the rules since they don't want to be punished by the enforcers. Now the important thing is to maintain the optimum amount of social cooperation. We have a Goldilocks problem. Too much abuse of power and corruption and society begins to break down. But, according to the professors, with too little corruption, the enforcers would not do a good job because they don't enjoy the perks of office (shooting you and getting away with it, not paying for their donuts, etc.) "Law enforcers often enjoy privileges that allow them to avoid the full force of the law when they breach it. Law enforcing results in the general public abiding by the law. Thus law enforcers enjoy the benefits of a lawful society and are compensated for their law enforcing by being able to dodge the law."

Wouldn't a pay raise be better compensation for doing your job?

In other words, the professors tell us that society is better off with abuse of power and corruption than without it, since with it the law enforcers have more incentive to do their jobs. So the occasional shake down, bribe taking, unjustified shooting, illegal war even is actually good for society and keeps us safe - it even saves us paying higher taxes in salaries; even an illegal war creates jobs, although this bit of corruption and abuse of power may be from papa bear's bowl of porridge.

This "new" theory on the benefits of having a corrupt society has "far-reaching implications": it could help us understand "corrupt behaviors in social insects" - a pressing problem facing the American people. It may also give us "insights on how to harness corruption to benefit society." I'm sure the new Republican majority in the House will be working on this one.

Image: Ikhlasul Amal // CC BY-NC 2.0

Anger erupts over slash-to-the-bone state budget

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:13:00 +0000

SEATTLE - Public employee unions and the people they serve denounced the Evergreen State budget unveiled by Gov. Chris Gregoire, which terminates immediately or slashes to the bone vital benefits and state services to eliminate a deficit now projected at $5.7 billion.

Gregoire used the word "eliminate" 88 times in announcing the budget Dec. 15, telling reporters she "hates" the spending plan for ending programs she herself fought to establish.

Terminated immediately is Basic Health, a groundbreaking program that serves 66,000 impoverished families and individuals.

The budget sends tuition at the state's system of colleges and universities skyrocketing 22 percent in the next two years, after steadily climbing by double-digit rates in recent years.

Gregoire proposed an additional $2 billion in cuts to public schools on top of $2 billion already slashed from public education in the past two years.

Also terminated is all state funding for Washington's glorious state parks. The budget proposes that the parks be funded exclusively by user fees, and many will be forced to close. Ferry service on Puget Sound and other inland waterways would be cut by 10 percent.

The budget would mean the permanent layoff of 1,800 state employees on top of 8,200 jobs terminated in the current biennial budget. Similar layoffs are forecast for public school teachers across the state if the budget stands.

Public employees are to sacrifice more even though just a month ago state workers agreed to a 3 percent pay cut in the form of furloughs and increases in their share of health insurance premiums from 12 percent to 15 percent.

The Washington Federation of State Employees said in a statement, "We are in the fight of our lives to save health benefits and the quality service we provide the people of Washington. ... It's time to end the lies and fight back against the spineless politicians and so-called 'experts' in the media and anti-state employee think tanks."

The union, an affiliate of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, added, "We are launching a campaign to 'Save Our State' - not just health benefits but the very quality of the services we provide. If we stay silent, we lose."

The state employee union called for a mass rally in the state capital, Olympia, on Jan. 10, the opening day of the legislature, followed by protests across the state on Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 17. Protest actions are slated at the state parks on Jan. 19, to keep them open.

Washington Education Association President Mary Lindquist said, "There is no way around it. We have to recognize that these cuts in K-12 and higher education funding will harm our state and our students. These cuts jeopardize Washington's future."

The Service Employees International Union assailed the governor for caving in to pressure from for-profit nursing homes in proposing reduced training for long-term care workers. At least 45,000 clients and the caregivers who serve them have already received notices in the mail of 10 percent cuts in the hours of care plus cancellation of all dental, vision and other benefits to reduce the state deficit by $600 million.

SEIU and a coalition that includes the Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans staged a candlelight vigil in Olympia on Nov. 18 to protest the budget cuts.

Then on Dec. 15, SEIU Local 775NW caregivers returned to the Capitol and lined the corridor outside Gregoire's office with empty wheelchairs as she announced the horrendous cutback budget. SEIU is planning a lobby day Feb. 8 with busloads of caregivers and their clients descending on Olympia to demand that the funds be restored.

Gregoire was forced to act when tea party Republicans waged all-out war against several initiatives on the Nov. 2 ballot to increase tax revenues. The "Bill Gates Sr. Tax the Rich" I-1098 ballot initiative was among the measures defeated. Washington State has no income tax and relies exclusively on regressive sales and property taxes for revenues, which fell drastically in the current economic recession. But an initiative backed by local ultra-right activist Tim Eyman passed, which requires a two-thirds majority vote by the legislature to increase taxes, or approval of any tax increase by voters in a ballot referendum.

The Puget Sound ARA has adopted a legislative agenda urging the legislature to place on the ballot, next November, an initiative to close some of the 234 tax exemptions that enable banks and corporations to escape an estimated $4.6 billion annually in taxes. The group cites the example of North Dakota, where the State Bank of North Dakota generates tens of millions in revenues for the state, the only state in the nation now running a healthy budget surplus. The Puget Sound ARA is urging support of a bill to be reintroduced by state Rep. Bob Hasegawa to create a state bank in Washington.

More arrests as foreclosure protests spread

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:58:00 +0000

On the heels of homeowner arrests last week protesting bank foreclosure and eviction in Los Angeles, six people were arrested December 20 when they locked arms as they attempted to enter a Bank of America branch at 7800 Forsyth Boulevard in Clayton, Missouri, refusing police orders to turn back.

After an hour of chanting and singing parody Christmas carols by 80 protesters manifesting their solidarity with Mike and Mary Boehm, the six demonstrators headed for BofA's door when bank officials broke their promise to have a representative familiar with the couple's modification request address the group.

The six were then arrested, booked and released on misdemeanor charges that carry a maximum penalty of up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine, according to Nancy Cambria in stltoday.com.

The Boehms said that despite being current on the modified payments the bank had originally granted them, they were notified foreclosure proceedings would begin the day after Christmas.

Out of necessity, the south St. Louis couple had been trying to re-modify their mortgage through the Making Home Affordable Program but the bank kept stalling.

The bank told them the re-modification process would take 45 days to complete. After hundreds of fruitless calls, on day 408 members with Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), the group that organized the action, joined the Boehms for the protest at the bank.

This is one of a number of campaigns MORE has organized on a variety of community-based issues, including more recently similar protests at banks.

In a statement after the protest, BofA said the Boehm's home was not in any immediate danger of foreclosure and would be willing to work with the couple on an alternative modification loan if they did not qualify under the plan they were seeking, Cambria reported.

At the earlier protest in Los Angeles, organized by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), 22 protesters were arrested as they sat-in at the entrance to a Chase Bank branch in that city.

Among the arrested was Julia Botello, an 85-year-old ACCE member and great-grandmother of 32, and a long-time community activist.

"I refuse to sit here and watch my neighbors and their children kicked out of their home with no place to go," Botello said. "These bank CEOs may have the money, but they just don't understand that if we stand together there is nothing we can't accomplish."

"And," she concluded, "I owe it to my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren and my community to keep fighting until they listen."

Photo: Community activist Julia Botello is arrested. Courtesy of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment at http://www.calorganize.org/

FCC approves controversial Internet rules

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 15:31:00 +0000

Al Franken is not happy with the Federal Communications Commission.

The Minnesota senator, an outspoken liberal, says the FCC is failing to protect equality of access to the Internet.

"As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field," Franken wrote at Reader Supported News. "Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate."

"This principle is called ‘net neutrality' - and it's under attack," the senator said.

What he is upset about is a new set of rules the FCC approved today which for the first time govern the behavior of companies who provide the public with Internet service. The rules are aimed at protecting net neutrality, but Franken and others say they fall short of that.

The rules create two categories of Internet access: fixed-line access provided by cable companies like Comcast, and wireless access provided by telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon.

The rules bar fixed-line broadband providers from blocking access to websites and applications. The rules also prohibit wireless companies from blocking websites, but allow these companies to block many applications and services, except for those like Skype that directly compete with the providers' voice and video products.

Franken points out that for many Americans - particularly those who live in rural areas (like much of his state, Minnesota) - Internet access depends on mobile, wireless services. Others note that young people, especially in lower income communities where families cannot afford home computers, often get Internet access solely through their phones. The proposed rules, the senator said, effectively allow discrimination against major sectors of the population.

Speaking on the Senate floor on Saturday, Franken said, "Maybe you like Google Maps. Well, tough. If the FCC passes this weak rule, Verizon will be able to cut off access to the Google Maps app on your phone and force you to use their own mapping program, Verizon Navigator, even if it is not as good. And even if they charge money, when Google Maps is free."

He added, "If corporations are allowed to prioritize content on the Internet, or they are allowed to block applications you access on your iPhone, there is nothing to prevent those same corporations from censoring political speech."

Franken said he was very disturbed that FCC Chair Julius Genachowski had called CEOs of major Internet corporations seeking their public endorsement of the rules.

Genachowski, a Democrat, was appointed by President Obama to head the five-member commission.

The two Republican commissioners, Meredith Baker and Robert McDowell, opposed the rules. Republicans claim that net neutrality rules are a form of government overreach. In a Wall Street Journal op ed, McDowell went so far as to claim that any regulation of Internet service companies would inhibit capital investment, deter innovation, raise prices and kill jobs.

The two other Democratic commissioners, Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn, acknowledged that the regulations are not as strong as they would have liked. But they said the rules had been improved this month as a result of discussions, and they joined Genachowski in voting for them, saying some protection of the public Internet was better than no protection.

Copps said he is not entirely happy with the final outcome, CNET News reported. In particular, Copps expressed concern that, even though the rules prohibit fixed line Internet providers from "unreasonably" discriminating against traffic on their network, service providers could implement "paid prioritization." That would give big corporations or other big money groups a "fast lane" on the Internet, while everyone else is put in the "slow lane."

In a statement issued before the commission's vote, Copps said he wanted to ensure that the Internet "doesn't travel down the same road of special interest consolidation and gate-keeper control that other media and telecommunications industries - radio, television, film and cable - have traveled."

"What an historic tragedy it would be," he said, "to let that fate befall the dynamism of the Internet."

Photo: Yutaka Tsutano CC 2.0

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg named Time’s “Person of Year”

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:53:00 +0000

Mark Zuckerberg, 26, Facebook's founder and CEO was recently named Time magazine's Person of the Year 2010.

In 2004, Zuckerberg created Facebook, the world's most popular social networking site, while attending Harvard. The site became extremely popular and widely influential, reflecting the online revolution changing the way people communicate and share information worldwide.

"Being named Time Person of the Year is a real honor and recognition of how our little team is building something that hundreds of millions of people want to use to make the world more open and connected," wrote Zuckerberg on his Facebook status. "I'm happy to be a part of that."

Time's managing editor Rick Stengal said, "Facebook has merged with the social fabric of American life, and not just American but human life: nearly half of all Americans have a Facebook account, but 70 percent of Facebook users live outside the U.S. It's a permanent fact of our global social reality. We have entered the Facebook age, and Mark Zuckerberg is the man who brought us here."

Time noted that in less than seven years, "Zuckerberg wired together a twelfth of humanity into a single network, thereby creating a social entity almost twice as large as the U.S. If the service were a country it would be the third largest, behind China and India." The site, says TIME, has changed the way human beings relate to one another on a species-wide scale.

This year Facebook added its 550 millionth member. One out of every dozen people on the planet has an account. Its membership is growing at a rate of 700,000 people a day. The site hosts over 15 billion photos and users upload 100 million more daily. Since 2007, it gets more traffic than Photobucket, Flickr or Picasa and has now become the world's most popular website.

Earlier this year Zuckerberg pledged to give $100 million to the Newark, N.J., school system. And in December he joined a campaign pledging to give away at least half of his wealth over the course of his lifetime. Zuckerberg owns about a quarter of Facebook's shares and is "a billionaire six times over," notes Time. Facebook's 2010 revenue is estimated anywhere from $1.1 billion to $2 billon.

Zuckerberg is part of the last generation of human beings who will remember life before the Internet, writes Time's Lev Grossman. Facebook is the realization of a dream. But it's also the death of a dream, one that began in the late 1960s, he adds.

The Internet, he says, was an expression of 1960s counterculture. "No single computer runs the network. No one is in charge. It's a paradise of equality and anonymity, an electronic commune."

When the Web arrived in the early 1990s, it went mainstream. The number of people online exploded, from 2.6 million in 1990 to 385 million in 2000.

"The equality and anonymity that made the Internet so liberating in its early days turned out to be disastrously disinhibiting," says Grossman. "They made the Internet a haven for pornographers and hatemongers and a free-for-all for scammers, hackers and virus writers."

Although Zuckerberg encourages Facebook users to be "open and share," the issue of privacy is a danger, but in a new way, notes Grossman - "Which is that instead of feeling forced to share, we won't be able to stop ourselves from sharing - that we willingly, compulsively violate our own privacy. Relationships on Facebook have a seductive, addictive quality that can erode and even replace real-world relationships." Some authors are even suggesting that a Facebook addiction could eventually become an actual diagnosable ailment.

Facebook, according to Grossman is so big that it's starting to bump up against governments as well including the FBI. "Facebook has a richer, more intimate hoard of information about its citizens than any nation has ever had, and the U.S. government sometimes comes knocking, subpoena in hand, looking to borrow some."

China has blocked the site since 2009 and Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have all banned it at one point or another.

Grossman concludes, "For all its industrial efficiency and scalability, its transhemispheric reach and its grand civil integrity, Facebook is still a painfully blunt instrument for doing the delicate work of transmitting human relationships. It's an excellent utility for sending and receiving data, but we are not data, and relationships cannot be reduced to the exchange of information of making binary decisions between liking and not liking, friending and unfriending."

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg says Facebook is the wave of the future. The next five years are going to be about building out this social platform, he told Time. "It's about the idea that most applications are going to become social, and most industries are going to be rethought in a way where social design and doing things with your friends is at the core of how these things work. If the last five years was the ramping up, I think that the next five years are going to be characterized by widespread acknowledgement by other industries that this is the way that stuff should be and will be better."

The annual Person of the Year award is a staple of American journalism. Others considered for this year's award were Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the trapped Chilean miners, the tea party movement and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who incidentally won the online vote over Zuckerberg.

Melissa Bell with the Washington Post explained why Time chose Zuckerberg. "While Assange attacks big institutions and governments through involuntary transparency with the goal of disempowering them, Zuckerberg enables individuals to voluntary share information with the idea of empowering them. Assange sees the world filled with real and imagined enemies; Zuckerberg sees the world with potential friends."

Photo: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg smiles during an announcement in San Francisco, Nov. 15, 2010. AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

A tale of two struggles

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:22:00 +0000

It was a celebration. It was a disappointment. It was a tearful historic victory. It was a tearful call to keep up the fight.

That's the result of the Dec. 18 Senate votes on two civil rights bills. One was the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law that bans gays and lesbians from openly serving in the U.S. armed forces. The other was the DREAM Act, which would allow young people from immigrant families, brought to the United States without legal papers, a path to legal residence and citizenship through going to college and/or serving the country in the military.

The Senate voted by a large margin, 65-31, to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. That Clinton-era law was actually a reform measure designed to weaken the military's outright ban on gays and lesbians. But the law became a vehicle for more government discrimination, and forced soldiers to lie in order to serve. Some 14,000 military personnel have been forced to leave the service because of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

The battle to repeal DADT has been going on since its enactment in the early 1990s. It has been led by gay and lesbian GIs and veterans in the first place. Repeal gained wide support over the years, reaching into the military rank and file and top brass. The Senate vote - including among the Republicans --reflects the broad support the repeal has among the public.

The repeal of this discriminatory law is a great victory for equality and democracy in our country. It will have wide impact far beyond the ranks of the military, in expanding Americans' understanding of our shared humanity in all its diversity. It will advance other struggles for equality and human rights. And it will help achieve full equality, including marriage equality, for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Americans.

The vote on the DREAM Act, 55-14, came close to moving that landmark bill forward, but fell short of the needed 60 votes to end debate - effectively killing the bill for this session of Congress.

It achieved a historic victory though, when it was passed for the first time by the House last week.

The DREAM Act - the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act - was first introduced in 2001 as an initial step to bring some reform to a broken immigration system, and to provide hard-working, law-abiding young people a path to citizenship and a future. But with George W. Bush, Sept. 11, and the fanning of racist and anti-immigrant hysteria, the fight for progressive immigration reform and civil rights has had its ups and downs these last nine years.

Led by undocumented young people, the movement for the DREAM Act became a nationwide cause for Latino, civil rights, labor and faith groups across the country. These young people "stepped out of the shadows" and stood up - at great personal peril - for their future. In so doing, they stood up for all of America.

But right-wing groups backed by big money have used their media mouthpieces - Fox News and far-right radio - to propagate small-minded and vicious "nativist" ideas that have, unfortunately, gained currency among some of the public. Republican senators parroted these ugly falsehoods on the floor of the Senate.

These right-wingers like to fling around the word "illegal." Let's recall: It was once illegal to help a slave to freedom. It was once illegal to join a union. It was once illegal for women to vote. It was once illegal for black and white people to be together.

Let's talk, instead, about the contributions immigrants - documented and, yes, undocumented, have made and will continue to make to the United States of America. Let's talk about what's right and good for America, and make it "legal."

The Senate vote included flip-flopping by several Republicans who previously had backed the DREAM Act, but chose to block it this time. The far-right successes in November's midterm elections no doubt influenced those votes. But this movement for basic human rights is not going away, and is only gaining in strength and breadth.

Courageous immigrant young people have inspired the nation in this fight. It's up to all of us to stand up with them and continue the struggle. Their fight is our fight.

Two struggles, one goal: to make America a fairer and better country, a rainbow of equality.

Photo: National Equality March, Washington, 2009. Kyle Rush CC 2.0

New START hangs in the balance

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:02:00 +0000

Tension is ratcheting up over the fate of the U.S.-Russia New START treaty on the eve of crucial votes this week. The administration continued to express confidence in Senate ratification by the end of the year. But President Obama was reportedly working the phones Dec. 20, and Senate Republicans appeared increasingly determined to use the pact as a political football in their drive to block all possible administration initiatives.

Speaking on CNN's State of the Union Dec. 19, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pledged to vote against the pact. Though President Obama had just sent the Senate a letter pledging the U.S. will keep working on missile defense systems, McConnell expressed dissatisfaction over the issue. He also claimed the administration was trying to rush the treaty through the Senate confirmation process, though it has already had 18 hearings before Senate committees.

Speaking on the Senate floor Dec. 20, McConnell also contended the pact's verification measures were inadequate - a strange concern considering that no verification measures have been in place since the previous U.S.-Russian nuclear arms pact expired over a year ago.

While McConnell's opposition was no surprise, the administration had held out hope that Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., could be won to join other Republican Senators who do support the treaty. But Kyl, too, declared he would not vote for New START, contending that it had had too little consideration by the Senate. This, of course, would delay a vote until the new Congress convenes with a significantly larger Republican Senate minority.

Meanwhile, among Republicans backing the pact are Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, Ohio's Sen. George Voinovich and Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Utah Republican Sen. Robert Bennett said he is leaning toward support. It was considered likely that the two other Republican Foreign Relations Committee members who voted to send the treaty to the floor would also support it in the final vote.

Over the weekend two amendments were defeated - one affecting language on missile defense and the other regarding tactical weapons. At press time two other amendments, to raise the number of weapons inspectors and to slightly increase deployed nuclear delivery vehicles, were pending.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that the treaty "cannot be opened up and become the subject of new negotiations." Russia's parliament is expected to ratify the pact after the Senate does so.

The treaty, signed by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April, would reduce the long-range nuclear weapons of the two countries to 1,550 each, a cut of about 30 percent. While the treaty itself is modest, it is generally viewed as a vital step on the road to achieving a nuclear-free world. New START is supported by most present and former members of the country's military and foreign policy establishment.

Disarmament advocates have expressed great concern that the Senate Republicans held the treaty hostage to gain a commitment from the administration to spend $85 billion on modernizing the nation's nuclear weapons infrastructure - an effort most arms control analysts consider completely unnecessary to maintain the U.S. arsenal in its current state.

It is now also clear the Republicans have extracted a further ransom by demanding the president state explicit support for missile defense systems.

Observers point out, however, that recent tests of U.S. missile defense components have been conspicuous failures, and warn that the possibility of developing such systems would itself totally destabilize nuclear disarmament efforts.

Image: Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Telstar Logistics // CC BY-NC 2.0

DADT repeal to end discriminatory policy

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:54:00 +0000

In what many are calling a landmark vote for expanding civil rights and equality, the US Senate voted 65-31 to repeal the discriminatory “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy in the military on Dec. 18. The House had voted to repeal the law 250-175 earlier. President Obama will sign the bill this week.

Repeal of the policy means that, for the first time in US history, gays, lesbians and bisexuals will be openly accepted by the armed forces and can serve without fear of being kicked out.

"It is time to close this chapter in our history," President Obama said in response to the vote. "It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed."

“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” stems from efforts during the first year of the Clinton administration in 1993 to lift the ban on gays, lesbians and bisexuals openly serving in the military. The effort failed and Congress reinforced the ban. It has resulted in over 14,000 expulsions of gays, lesbians and bisexual service members.

Since then, public opinion opposing anti-gay discrimination has become widespread and was reflected in decisive support for a repeal of the legislation. A poll done earlier this year showed 80 percent of the public supported repeal and 70 percent of members of the armed forces thought it would be a good thing.

“I am obviously delighted that the day has come when gay men and lesbians will be able to serve without fear of being discharged,” John Affuso, a gay army veteran, told the Rainbow Times Reporter. “I hope all the folks on active duty are heaving a slight sigh of relief as we get closer to the day the policy disappears.”

Affuso and other gay veterans have been lobbying Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., since last spring. Brown, and Republican Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois, George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine, were critical votes in ending cloture and send the measure onto the floor for a vote.

The shift in public opinion allowed eight Republicans to then break ranks and vote with 55 Democrats and two independents, despite the determined opposition led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz..

The repeal had support in the highest ranks of the U.S. military including Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

"No longer will able men and women who want to serve and sacrifice for their country have to sacrifice their integrity to do so. We will be a better military as a result,” said Mullen.

The historic voted was greeted by a broad spectrum of organizations.

“America made history today. After 17 years of this failed and discriminatory law, gay and lesbian service members will soon be able to serve with the full honor and integrity the uniform demands. No longer will patriots be forced to lie in order to serve the country they love and are willing to die for,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign.

“This vote by the United States Senate will have extremely positive ripple effects well beyond ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ Our government has sent a powerful message that discrimination, on any level, should not be tolerated,” he said.

In addition a concerted effort by LGBT organizations, civil rights and civil liberties organizations, the AFL-CIO, veteran’s organizations and countless others mobilized grassroots support directed at Congress.

Pride at Work, the GLBT constituency group of the AFL-CIO hailed the repeal. In a statement the group said, “Any form of employment discrimination is wrong, by any employer – it's that simple, and a wonderful victory to see the House and Senate finally act to change it.

However, Pride at Work also noted it was a bittersweet day, with the Senate’s failure to advance the DREAM Act.

It is a sad travesty that the same body that stood up today for gay, lesbian and bisexual people in the military failed to stand up for young immigrants in our country.

While we are celebrating the repeal of DADT today, we also know there are a lot of struggles ahead – for workers' rights, for the rights of transgender individuals, for same-sex couples, and fighting against employment discrimination and for racial and economic justice for all people. We must support each other across the intersections of our communities. We must stand together as one progressive movement, fighting for justice and equality for ALL members of our LGBT community and our allies.

Photo: With support from top military brass, such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates (l) and Admiral Michael Mullen (r), as well as among rank and file service members, the repeal of the anti-gay "don't ask don't tell" policy marks a historic win for civil rights. (Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff)

DREAM Act lives on, supporters say

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:54:00 +0000

The DREAM Act supporters say the legislative battle for its passage is far from over and, as 2010 comes to an end, the U.S. Senate's refusal to pass the bill Saturday, Dec. 18, will only embolden the powerful grass-roots movement determined to fight until victory.

The bill has seen both historic wins and a painful setback this year. The House passed the measure Dec. 8, but it failed to break a Republican filibuster in the Senate this past weekend. The House victory marked the first time the bill has made it through any chamber of Congress since its inception in 2000.

It gained 55 votes in favor with 41 against in the Senate, a tally short of the 60 votes needed to bring it to the floor for debate. Five Democrats broke ranks to vote against the bill, while only three Republicans voted for it.

The measure would provide undocumented youth who came to the U.S. as children with their immigrant parents a pathway to citizenship if they commit at least two years to higher education or the military.

President Barack Obama called the Senate's vote "incredibly disappointing" and vowed to continue working for the DREAM Act and immigration reform.

"A minority of senators prevented the Senate from doing what most Americans understand is the best for the country," said Obama. "It is not only the right thing to do for talented young people who seek to serve a country they know as their own, it is the right thing for the United States of America. There was simply no reason not to pass this important legislation. Our nation is enriched by their talents and would benefit from the success of their efforts.

"My administration," the president continued, "will not give up on the DREAM Act, or on the important business of fixing our broken immigration system. The American people deserve a serious debate on immigration, and it's time to take the polarizing rhetoric off our national stage."

Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said "democracy lost out" with the Senate's vote. "In the face of extraordinarily committed youth and a nationwide movement, obstinately obstructionist senators refused to allow a bill with obvious and enduring benefits to our nation's future to move forward," he said.

The Republicans knocked "some of our nation's most critical constitutional and guiding principles," Saenz added. "This is a critical political moment, and the Latino community and the entire nation will surely hold accountable the political leaders who cravenly blocked progress today."

According to polls, the bill holds substantial public support - 70 percent of the population are for it. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reports it's passage would cut the deficit by $2.2 billion over the next 10 years. More than 2.1 million undocumented students would have been eligible, and about 65,000 young people yearly could have benefited from it.

Activists note the fact that the DREAM Act has made it so far is a testament to a national, youth-led grassroots movement that has waged a remarkable campaign on its behalf since Obama's 2008 election. It's been a narrative-driven one, a movement to change people's minds about the humanity of immigrants through real people's stories, they add. That, coupled with a lineup of traditional activism - hunger strikes, sit-ins, marches, walk-outs and civil disobedience - has made DREAM activists a force to be reckoned with.

Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, said, "The Republican Party had a golden opportunity to mend its relationship with Latinos ... There is overwhelming support for this modest, sensible legislation. Yet they chose process over principle and politics over progress. It is now crystal clear to Latinos in this great nation who stood with them and who did not."

Meanwhile, the fight for DREAM is not dead - it's merely deferred. A community that is growing not just in size, but also in power and political awareness will not soon forget the recent vote.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the bill's main champion said, "As long as these young people are determined to be part of this great nation, I am determined to fight for them to call America home."

Durbin, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and others vowed that the Democrats would continue the fight in Congress - and the grassroots movement vowed to continue their fight on the ground.

Photo: Undocumented college student Jorge Herrera, 18, center, of Carson, Calif., rallies with students and Dream Act supporters in Los Angeles, Saturday, Dec. 18, 2010. The Dream Act, which failed to pass in the Senate, would have given provisional legal status to undocumented youth brought to the country as children. (AP Photo/Jason Redmond)

Labor, environment, rights groups launch campaign for Internet expansion

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:09:00 +0000

Nearly half of U.S. residents have Internet connection speeds that do not meet the Federal Communications Commission's minimum broadband standards and the U.S. ranks in the bottom half of the world in broadband speed, according to a new report.

As millions of holiday shoppers purchase computers and equipment to service or upgrade the ones they already have a major union, the NAACP and the Sierra Club have come together to launch a campaign for what they say is a much needed faster and more available Internet in the United States.

The 2010 Report of Internet Speeds in all 50 States, released Dec. 15 by the Communications Workers of America, also found that "there are wide areas of the nation, both rural and urban, that do not have any broadband access at all. We even trail countries like Romania in broadband speed."

The labor movement sees improvement and extension of Internet service as key to the entire economy.

"Just as the interstate highway system opened up the nation to fast transportation of goods and services in the 20th century, the road to economic prosperity in the 21st century rides on the Internet highway," said James Parks, a writer for AFL-CIO's national website.

"Improving broadband deployment, connection speeds, and adoption will help facilitate job and business growth across the nation," said CWA President Larry Cohen at a news conference where he released the report and announced that his union was working with the NAACP and the Sierra club in the new Internet campaign.

Hilary Shelton, the NAACP's senior vice president for advocacy and policy, explained why his group sees Internet speed and availability as a civil rights issue: "Every American, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, income or geographic location should have affordable access to high-speed Internet. This is essential to economic growth and will help advance and improve our global competitiveness."

Lack of access to high-speed Internet is part of a continuing digital divide among Americans.

The CWA report shows that in urban and suburban areas, 70 percent of households subscribe to broadband, with only 50 percent of rural households subscribing to the service. For Americans who make more than $75,000 a year, 87 percent get broadband while only 45 percent who earn less than $30,000 subscribe.

Carl Pope, chairman of the Sierra club, was asked to explain why a movement to preserve the environment was joining labor and civil rights leaders to fight for a bigger, faster Internet.

"Broadband helps build sustainable communities by eliminating the barriers of distance, so people in rural areas can have access to information and the 21st century networks needed to strengthen and grow the economy," he said. "It helps conserve energy by cutting travel-related carbon emissions and promotes energy efficiency through broadband-enabled smart grids and smart meters."

The Obama administration, through the FCC, is pushing for completion of a National Broadband Plan, which the commission says, is a top priority. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has actually endorsed the CWA report, saying "it shows the need for investment in higher speed broadband networks to support America's critical applications."

The report shows that the current rate of increase in U.S. Internet connection speed is so slow, it will take the United States 60 years to catch up to current Internet speeds in South Korea, the country with the fastest Internet connections.

Northeastern states topped the graph on Internet speed, with western and southern states staying on the bottom. The five fastest states, according to the report are Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland and New York. Among the slowest were Montana, Wyoming, Arkansas and Mississippi.

Read the full report here.

Photo: Outside an internet café in Romania. Kai Hindry, CC 2.0

DREAM Act hunger strikers to end strike after 40 days

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:25:00 +0000

SAN ANTONIO - Hunger strikers from University of Texas in San Antonio, after going up to 40 days without food to show their determination to get the DREAM Act passed, will end their strike and take their first meal at the United Methodist Church here Dec. 22.

Despite their weakened condition, part of the group went to Washington, D.C., Dec. 18 to urge the senators, especially Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison R-TX to swing her support and vote for the DREAM Act, which she previously supported.

Both Texas senators ultimately voted no.

The Senate refused to take up discussion and so, despite passing in the House, the DREAM Act lost its strongest chance of passage in the lame duck Congress. It will likely be less possible to pass in the Republican-controlled new Congress. The Act was considered to be far easier to pass than more complex and expansive immigration reform bills.

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, as it is officially known, after a number of modifications, would allow eligibility for citizenship after a ten year wait for youths under age 30 brought to this country as children, who had graduated high school and served two years in the military or completed two years of college. It would have affected 825,000 or more immigrant youth.

The students from UTSA began the hunger strike early in November and support spread to other campuses in Arlington, Houston, Austin and Dallas. They drew support of unions, professors, many in the religious community and the San Antonio Express-News.

Reverend Lorenza Andrade-Smith from the United Methodist Church was arrested at the end of November along with 15 others attempting a sit-in at Sen. Hutchison's San Antonio office. The protest began when Hutchison refused requests to speak with her in person or by phone. Rev. Andrade-Smith then joined the hunger strike. The strike spread as part of a national coalition called United We Dream.

The 16 students and supporters who were arrested at Hutchison's office were threatened with large fines and jail. They claimed that the senator called to have them arrested at her office - something she denied, saying the property owners were the ones who had them arrested.

Carlos Guerra, a well-loved journalist who passed recently, wrote that in researching he found the property to be owned by the City of San Antonio and under control of the City Council and commissioners in the specific districts.

Following the expose of this information, the charges against the 16 arrested were dropped.

Sen. Hutchison refused to speak directly with the Rev. Arturo Chavez with the Mexican American Catholic Church in San Antonio. He said at the time that passage of the DREAM Act was a "moral, ethical imperative.

Communications workers, Sen. Harkin lead fight for filibuster reform

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:47:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Saying senatorial filibusters rob workers of legislation they want and need, the Communications Workers are leading a new coalition, unveiled Dec. 15, behind Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin's filibuster reform plan.

And whether they succeed may be up to Vice President Joe Biden, when the new and more-Republican - but still Democratic-run - Senate first meets in January.

The coalition, which includes CWA, other unions, the Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Coalition on Civil and Human Rights, and Common Cause, backs Harkin's plan to continue to allow "extended debate" in the Senate - but to remove the possibility that endless filibusters, or even the threat of them, bring everything to a halt.

There have been 132 filibusters so far this year, Common Cause President Bob Edgar said. All of them have been launched and sustained by the Senate's 40-plus Republicans, sometimes with the help of an occasional Democrat. Senators need only 41 votes in the 100-person Senate to keep filibusters going.

But the filibuster problem is a bipartisan one, speakers said: Senate Democrats used it during the GOP Bush administration when they were in the minority, too.

In this Congress, Harkin and the other speakers said filibusters stalled or killed items ranging from collective bargaining rights for public safety workers to 38 Obama administration judicial nominees to extended jobless benefits. One other, which CWA President Larry Cohen indirectly cited: The Employee Free Choice Act. And the GOP also used the filibuster as leverage to get Obama to yield on tax cuts for the rich.

"CWA's excited about this broad coalition and the broad array of civil rights and environmental groups that have joined it," said Cohen, who has made filibuster reform a top cause for his union and its members.

"What holds this all together is the sense our democracy is broken and working families don't see any path to the social change we voted for in 2008," he added. "We won't have democracy in this country without democracy in the workplace," he declared.

The Employee Free Choice Act, labor's top specific legislative cause, fell victim to an expensive orchestrated business campaign that backed a very-willing Senate GOP into a completely uncompromising plan to filibuster it - and even to filibuster the notion of starting debate on it.

The bill would help level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing and bargaining, restoring some of the workplace democracy Cohen cited. It would legalize validated majority signup of union recognition cards as a way to win a workplace. It would also increase fines for breaking labor laws, mandate first-contract arbitration if the two sides can't agree within 120 days, and make it easier to get court orders against flagrant labor law-breakers.

Faced with the GOP filibuster plan, Harkin, the Labor Committee chairman, tried for months in 2009 to find a compromise that could garner 60 votes, including a Republican or two, as necessary. He eventually had to give up, before being sidetracked by President Obama's massive health care legislation.

Now, Harkin again wants to launch a push, which he first proposed 25 years ago, to make maintaining filibusters harder and to limit their time. His plan, first of all, would require senators to actually debate, as they did in decades past.

The first attempt to end a filibuster would still need 60 votes. If it fails, sponsors could try again three days later, but would need only 57. If that still fails, they could try again in another three days, but need only 54. The final attempt, after three more days, would need only a simple majority of 51.

That would limit the time for filibusters while still encouraging robust debate on major issues, he said - and not the current "disgraceful display" in the Senate.

Right now, a filibuster is the equivalent to "shutting off the electricity, turning off the mike, forbidding anyone to say anything and telling them to sit down," Harkin said.

Biden, briefly part of the behind-the-scenes talks over the Employee Free Choice Act, may hold the key to whether CWA, its partners, and Harkin succeed. That's because the filibuster is in the Senate rules, and senators vote on the rules at the start of every new Congress. Since 1975, the rules have carried over from one Congress to next, changeable only by a two-thirds vote - an impossibility in a Senate that will be 53-47 Democratic next year.

But in 1975, then-Majority Leader Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., said the Senate's rules didn't carry over and needed only a simple majority of 51 for change. The vice president is constitutionally the Senate's presiding officer, even if he's rarely there. Byrd's ruling threw the Senate into temporary chaos, Harkin said.

Harkin said Biden could rule the same way. "That's what we're working on right now," he added. Otherwise, the Senate will be mired, as Harkin said Sen. James DeMint, R- S.C., wants, in, as DeMint put it, "total gridlock."

Photo: Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, (D-IA), during a hearing on the human health impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, June 15. Evan Vucci/AP

NY governor bans fracking - for now

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:26:00 +0000

NEW YORK - Environmentalists and state residents concerned about the safety of their towns and drinking water won a first victory over "fracking" as outgoing Gov. David Paterson signed a Dec. 11 executive order banning the practice until July.

"Fracking" is hydraulic fracturing of rock to extract natural gas. Big energy companies engage in fracking, or hydrofracking, by drilling far down into the Earth's surface to an area called the Marcellus Shale - located primarily in New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia - where large quantities of methane gas have been found. They then turn the drill bits sideways, and extend the wells horizontally for miles.

Opponents say it is an extremely dangerous process. They pushed for an outright ban, siting the state Department of Environmental Conservation's failure to adequately study the safety of the practice. Paterson agreed. The ban is intended to give the DEC ample time to conduct a comprehensive review of the process and its associated dangers.

Some expressed disappointment with the governor. In November, the State Assembly passed a bill, similar to one passed in the State Senate, disallowing all types of hydraulic fracturing through May 15. Paterson, however, vetoed the bill, saying that any blanket ban for any amount of time would harm the state's economy. Instead, he singled out horizontal fracking, but extended the deadline to July 1. The other form is considered less dangerous by the governor, and has not been banned.

Referring to the Assembly bill, passed Nov. 29, Christine Quinn, speaker of the New York City Council, and James Gennaro, the council's Environmental Committee chair, said in a statement that allowing time for a scientific review by the DEC was a "monumental step for the environment."

"As accounts of contaminated water, soil and air due to hydraulic fracturing come in from across the country," Quinn and Gennaro said, "New York is in a unique position to show much-needed leadership on this issue."

As simple as the fracking process sounds, say its critics, it is actually fraught with dangers. As the drill bits go for miles and miles, owners of houses are pushed into signing low-priced leases for land beneath their homes with the energy companies, bringing home values down precipitously. Further, fracking takes place in rural areas, where there are small roads. Many large trucks are necessary for each well, meaning a huge increase in traffic. All of this can disrupt life in small towns.

The drilling itself, which entails injecting millions of gallons of water mixed with poisonous chemicals into the ground, can go dangerously wrong. Explosive charges are used to fracture the underground rock - thus the term "fracking" - in order to release the methane. However, if mistakes are made, water sources can become so toxic that they are considered "dead." In rural Pennsylvania, dozens of miles of stream are now dead due to fracking mishaps. Elsewhere, residents have reported that their tap water has, in some cases, caught on fire due to methane released into their water.

Scott Stringer, Manhattan's borough president, commissioned a report that found that seven states nationwide have been the sites of either extreme incidents of water contamination or explosions near fracking sites.

Even without mishaps there are problems, say environmentalists. The drilling goes so far down that it bores straight through aquifers - naturally occurring filters in the earth that clean water. The chemicals and lubricants used in the fracking process might end up poisoning drinking water.

"From our perspective," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said earlier this year, "drilling in areas that supply more than 1 billion gallons of drinking water a day for more than 9 million New Yorkers is simply a chance we cannot take."

The city commissioned a study in 2009 which found that, if hydraulic fracturing were to continue, it would likely be necessary to build a $10 billion filtration plant - at taxpayers' expense.

The big energy companies defend the practice, saying it is harmless or concerns are vastly overstated.

A Nov. 13 statement from America's Natural Gas, which speaks for the industry, claims, "The reality is that natural gas is produced safely every day in communities across this country and it offers a clean energy future, fueled by abundant and domestically produced energy."

Environmentalists, however, argue that the group is intentionally misleading the public. The industry statement, which is a response to the popular TV drama "CSI," states that fracking is not unregulated. It later on says that natural gas is good for the U.S. economy and is mined every day - though the connection is unclear, as most natural gas produced in America is not done through fracking.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is conducting a study, but there have been very few scientific assessments of the process. This, say New Yorkers, underscores the importance of the state's ban and DEC investigation.

"The eyes of the country are focused on New York and whether we will be the first state to use truly objective and comprehensive scientific analysis to inform policymaking regarding hydraulic fracturing," wrote Quinn and Gennaro. "The moratorium will allow time for such analysis to be commenced."

Image: Ari Moore // CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Families arrested at bank in foreclosure protest [with video]

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 19:45:00 +0000

Fed up with the banks, a group of families facing foreclosure and eviction were arrested Thursday, Dec. 16, in Los Angeles when they refused to move their furniture and themselves from the front of a Chase Bank branch, where they had staged a protest.

"Myself and other families facing foreclosure over the holidays went to jail," Peggy Mears, one of 22 arrested protesters, said, "while the real criminals - the executives of JP Morgan Chase and other major banks - are free and on track to pay themselves over $143 billion in bonuses!"

Bank security locked the building after protesters tried to move furniture from a truck into the bank branch at 4th and Hope Streets in downtown Los Angeles. The families then set up a mattress, chairs, a rug and an end table in front of the bank and held a 120 person-strong rally with their supporters.

After the rally, Mears and group of the homeowners moved the furniture in front of the building's doors and sat down, refusing to move until they were arrested.

Mears and the other protesters are members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a statewide community organization, and the Home Defenders League.

Millicent "Mama" Hill, writing in an ACCE email blast, explained that the organization's members started the Home Defenders League so that "anyone who has been a victim of the foreclosure crisis has a chance to fight back."

The movement to protest foreclosures and evictions is expected to gain momentum and militancy while foreclosures and evictions continue unabated.

Peter Dreier reports in the Huffington Post that 3 million families are facing foreclosures this year and 500,000 families have already been kicked out of their homes.

Meanwhile, in the face of record profits, the major banks are refusing to modify mortgage loans or to make loans to businesses that would result in new jobs.

The largest six banks - Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, CitiGroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley - are sitting on $9.4 trillion, which represent 79 percent out of $12 trillion in total assets, according to Dreier.

Through the Home Defenders League, ACCE members aim to compel banks to stop evictions and advocate for government at all levels to adopt tougher laws.

The group convinced the city of Los Angeles to adopt the LA Foreclosure Registry Ordinance requiring banks to register properties in foreclosure with the city or face penalties of up to $1,000 per day per property, Hill said.

In California, ACCE is calling for legislation to require banks to negotiate with homeowners to modify loans before beginning foreclosure proceedings.

ACCE and groups in other states also have their sights on national legislation to further contain the abusive banking practices that continue despite the new federal financial regulations and the Obama administration's attempts to encourage banks to voluntarily renegotiate delinquent mortgages.

Applying public pressure, ACCE and other groups nationally have forced lenders to agree to permanent loan modifications for a number of individual homeowners facing foreclosure.

This latest action aims to up the ante by bringing together the collective power of the homeowners themselves in alliance with their supporters among labor unions, the religious community and community organizations. Among those arrested was John Tanner, Executive Director of SEIU Local 721.

Video courtesy ACCE.