People Before Profit blog

Labor ally Donna Edwards leading in Maryland Senate race

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 15:09:00 +0000

Spring came early in Maryland this year - the pollen count is sky high, a G.I. flu has broken out, and there is a red hot election going on. The Senatorial seat of Barbara Mikulski is open as she retires after 30 years in the U.S. Senate. Two Democrats and a Green Party candidate have thrown their hats into the ring, with several Republicans 'also running.' Maryland sometimes elects a Republican governor, but no one is betting that the Senate race will produce anything but a Democratic winner.

In 2006, a community organizer and single mother, Donna Edwards, gave up on getting effective representation from Albert Wynn, the then House of Representatives officeholder in the fourth Congressional district of Maryland. She had helped elect him but had seen him fall short of the leadership needed. After losing the election but garnering some good publicity, Edwards ran again in 2008 and beat Wynn.

Since then, she has easily held on to her 4th Congressional seat and has come out as a strong supporter of women, labor and working families, veterans, and elders. She helped to write the Violence against Women Act, expanded food programs for children to include afterschool meals, and argued against any cuts to Social Security and Medicare. She was an early foe of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and boycotted Netanyahu's speech to the House of Representatives. As soon as Mikulski announced her decision not to run for an eighth term, Donna Edwards made public her intention to run for the Senate seat.

Edwards' opponent, Chris Van Hollen, became a state senator in 1994 and served 8 years in the Maryland General Assembly, winning a U.S. Congressional seat in 2002. While in Congress, he and Rahm Emanuel became close as they chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the fund-raising arm of the Democratic Party in the House. He was picked by Nancy Pelosi to be ranking chair of the Budget Committee. The head of the Maryland State Senate, Mike Miller, has stated that Van Hollen is "born to the job" of U.S. Senator.

With a campaign war chest of over $3 million, Van Hollen has been criticized by Edwards for his funding from corporate sources. He has accepted more than half a million from the National Association of Realtors and from a Wall Street financier, who supported him 'because of his work on Type 1 Diabetes.' Now that Emily's List (a women's PAC that supports candidates who are for reproductive choice) has contributed to the Edwards campaign, Van Hollen has counter charged that she is accepting 'out of state' money.

Edwards' energetic, grass-roots fund-raising campaign, which relies largely on contributions from small donors and some unions, was crucial in boosting her odds against Van Hollen. It has now put her in the lead in the battle to succeed Barbara Mikulski. Her first television ads portrayed her as a strong African-American woman who, because of raising her son alone, understood how supporting families and advancing an adequate social safety net provides a good foundation for the young. Van Hollen's initial ads, by contrast, did not picture him at all, but focused on women, both Black and white, who were supporting him.

While Donna Edwards stands on her record, she has also been forced to defend herself against Van Hollen's charges that she has not brought any big jobs deals to Maryland and does not have adequate experience in foreign relations. With a daily increase in TV and direct mail ads, the odds against Edwards may seem all but insurmountable, but she has continued to maintain a lead in Maryland opinion polls.

Both candidates currently serve the suburbs of Washington, D.C., a very progressive part of the state. Both candidates, at this point, are opposed to the TPP, were against the Iraq War, and are strong on Social Security (although it took Van Hollen a while to get there on each of these issues).

With Donna Edwards in the race, however, the current election not only pushes the progressive agenda, it also educates the electorate in understanding the position of Black Lives Matter - that Black laws and Black leadership matter. And it builds possibility: the possibility that Maryland citizens can play the historic role of electing only the second African-American woman in our nation's history to the United States Senate.

Early voting in the Maryland primary runs from April 14 to 21, and primary election day is April 26.

Photo: Donna Edwards. | Emerge Maryland Facebook page

Catholics and Evangelicals not voting as blocs in 2016 elections

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 14:35:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The 2016 presidential campaign has revealed previously submerged splits within two major groups of religiously oriented voters, Catholics and evangelicals, a panel of political news reporters and analysts says.

Convened March 30 at Georgetown University, one of the nation's leading Catholic universities, the panel was supposed to discuss "Faith, Francis and the 2016 Campaign," referring to the huge impact that Pope Francis I has had in the U.S. and worldwide.

But the group, including veteran columnist and author E.J. Dionne, Lauren Ashburn of the conservative Catholic EWTN network, Michael Winter of the National Catholic Reporter, Emma Green, the 20s-ish Washington bureau chief for The Atlantic, and Gregory Smith of the Pew Center for research, quickly veered away from that topic.

Instead, they focused on the surprising developments, religiously, on the campaign trail - everything from Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind.-Vt., who is Jewish, being the candidate who quotes Francis the most to evangelical voters deserting Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for thrice-divorced billionaire businessman Donald Trump.

Indeed, several panelists said their biggest surprise was evangelicals' devotion to Trump, the runaway leader for the Republican nomination. The GOP campaign took up most of the 2-hour discussion.

"They're disaggregated," Green said of the evangelical voters. "They go for Trump, an adulterer who gambles, who doesn't have Biblical literacy." Cruz, running a distant second to Trump, openly based his campaign on the evangelicals, panelists noted. But Trump wins them.

Dionne noted his research and reporting shows the evangelicals' movement to the New York mogul "is tribal." He added, "That's different from doing Christianity in a public way."

"Concerns that have nothing to do with religion are trumping religious faith," Smith said, while Green said that "anger has trumped religion and religion has trumped politics. I've never seen this before." She added that Trump is handling "a fire hose of fear."

Meanwhile, Catholic voters - many of them unionists - have split into five segments, and Catholic bishops, given the positions of the candidates on all issues, must rethink the whole basis of the Church's political platform for the last two or three decades, abortion.

Smith, drawing on Pew Research data, said U.S. Catholics are "diverse," not monolithic as they were in the 1930s-1950s. Catholics are approximately one-fourth of U.S. voters.

"One third are Latino" predominantly in the West and Southwest, tugging the church's geographic center of gravity westward and its politics towards the left, he noted. Some 67-75 percent of registered Latino Catholics are strongly Democratic, Smith said. And another 8 percent are from other racial or ethnic backgrounds.

Of the rest, fewer than six in 10 are non-Hispanic whites, a record low. But they're in key states around the Great Lakes, such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

A large bloc of those six in 10 "are ideologically liberal," Smith reported. And there's another large bloc of U.S. white Catholics "who are ideologically Republican." All that leaves 30 percent of U.S. non-Hispanic white Catholics swinging in the middle, he said.

But many Catholics, Ashburn contended, still view U.S. politics through the prism of one issue: Abortion. In her interviews on the campaign trail, jobs and the economy run distantly second to pro-life stands among such Catholics. They're a minority, other panelists replied.

That prompted Dionne to bring Pope Francis back into the political conversation. Dionne also noted - in an understatement - that the Pope and Trump "have had a little back-and-forth." Francis has criticized Trump's stands on immigrants and his campaign for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, among other issues. Trump has fired back with tweets.

"There are pro-life, pro-social justice Catholics," Dionne said. "And Francis made the case that abortion is not the one and only issue on which Catholics should vote."

Winter then pointed out that voters who profess no religious ties, the "nones" in the Pew surveys, are actually the group that most identifies with, and follows Francis' teachings. He added "past connections between religion and right wing politics" are driving younger voters into the "nones" camp. They're also the voters, though he did not say so, who go for Sanders.

"They're saying 'If being a religious person means being a right wing Republican, being in opposition to gay marriage, being in opposition to abortion, then I'm not a religious person.'"

Fear, especially of Muslims, is also driving the campaign, the panelists said. And both Trump and Cruz are playing on it, several said. That disturbs Dionne, who is also an historian.

"This is where we miss George W. Bush," who went out of his way not to demonize Muslims after the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, said Dionne. "This is not the America I know, this is not the America I value," Bush said of anti-Muslim hatred in a speech at D.C.'s leading mosque just six days afterwards.

"But now, you've seen on the right a complete retreat, all the way to opposing a mosque at Ground Zero" - the destroyed Twin Towers in New York City - "which wasn't a mosque and wasn't at Ground Zero," Dionne said. "I see a lot of similarities in that to past anti-Catholicism." Added Ashburn: "There are fewer pockets of grace than there are pockets of fear" in the 2016 campaign.

In the Democratic contest between Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Dionne noted that Clinton's huge margins among African-American voters come not just because of her husband's White House record but because "she's comfortable campaigning in black churches, and black churches are where much of black politics are."

Clinton's overwhelming majorities among African-Americans propelled her to primary wins, especially in the South, and a large delegate lead over Sanders.

And "Catholic liberals are really cheap dates for the Democrats," Winter added. "But I don't know how you reconcile the doctrine of grace" that Francis preaches and that he cited in his address to Congress six months ago with the current campaign. "It doesn't resemble anything any of the candidates are saying," Winter concluded.

Photo: Evangelical voters have split between Trump and Criuz this election season. | AP

Progressive budget for Illinois would make the super-rich pay

Thu, 31 Mar 2016 15:11:00 +0000

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (PAI) -- Two documents on budget priorities and governing presented in Springfield, Ill., and Washington, D.C., in recent weeks stress helping everyday people instead of the rich and powerful.

The April 1 wave of strikes and protests In Chicago show there is massive support for solving the Illinois budget crisis without resorting to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's "slash and burn" cuts. The strikers say alternate income sources such as those proposed in these documents are the way to solve Illinois' problems.

In Illinois, the Grassroots Collaborative offers what it calls a new vision to put people back on the agenda in state government. Released late last month, the People's Agenda proposes a plan for the prosperity of Illinois families across the economic spectrum.

Illinois is not spending too much, the report says, but too little. Illinois has the 5^th-largest economy in the country and is the 13^th-wealthiest state, but it ranks 47^th in spending across K-12 education, higher education, health care, public safety, and human services.

"Right now, families are hurting all across Illinois," stated Amisha Patel, director of the Chicago-based nonprofit advocacy group, a coalition that includes the Service Employees, the Chicago Teachers Union, the American Friends Service Committee, and eight other organizations working for the homeless, the hungry, the poor and neighborhoods.

"For over a decade, the state of Illinois has been disinvesting from the vital public services needed to provide opportunity to low and middle income families, create jobs, and bolster the Illinois economy," Patel said.

To bring Illinois in line with other Midwest states, the People's Agenda calls for generating new revenue from those most able to afford it. Its package would close corporate loopholes and pass a graduated income tax, a millionaires tax, and a financial transactions tax.

Together, these proposals would generate billions of dollars for state operations. The report also offers examples of how such new revenue could be invested, such as providing universal pre-K child-care assistance, reducing violence, and ending homelessness.

The People's Agenda shows current funding needs would support $323 million in

additional activity in other parts of Illinois' economy. If its more ambitious investments were enacted, these investments would support $4.2 billion in additional economic activity.

Spending on public services would grow the economy and improve lives, backers said.

"I was homeless and if it hadn't been for a group home and my family I would be dead," said Stefano Medansky with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. "Due to being placed in the health system, I was able to get sober and stay that way. Because of the assistance I received, I have a healthy, happy and productive life. I got married last year and have now been sober for eight years."

The People's Agenda reform package would, sponsors say, invest in communities and create jobs, create an adequate and equitable funding structure for education, provide for real needs in education and human services, modernize the state tax structure, "end protections and preferential treatment of corporations and Wall Street over working families" and "end predatory financial deals" by reforming bank and financial industry regulation.

The Democratic-run state legislature may consider the People's Agenda, even if Republican Gov. Rauner ignores it. But the agenda's national counterpart, from the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is almost sure to be voted down in the GOP-run U.S. House, if those solons ever get around to voting on a budget at all. Their own right wing is rebelling against what it calls too much spending on human services.

The CPC's People's Budget For Fiscal 2017 features a $1 trillion commitment to rebuilding America's infrastructure that includes billions of dollars to replace lead-contaminated water lines in Flint, Mich. It says overall infrastructure spending would create "3.6 million good paying jobs to push our economy back to full employment, which will provide the necessary economic conditions to spur across-the-board wage growth for hardworking Americans."

The CPC also wants to increase spending in virtually every major domestic category, including education, housing and anti-poverty programs. And it would include major strides toward a green energy-based economy to fulfill U.S. commitments at last year's Paris climate change accords. That's a key cause of the labor-created BlueGreen Alliance.

Like Illinois' Grassroots Collaborative, progressives' People's Budget once more proposes making the tax code fairer than it is now. It would raise the tax rate on investment income to be equal to the tax rate on earned wages, and would add tax brackets of between 45 percent and 49 percent for earnings of more than $1 million.

To help fund infrastructure maintenance and improvements, the People's Budget embraces President Barack Obama's proposal to levy a per-barrel tax on oil as an alternative to increasing the gas tax at the pump. And it would close corporate tax loopholes, including ones that encourage corporations to hide profits in foreign tax havens.

The CPC also wants to raise the federal minimum wage, which has been $7.25 an hour for years, mandate paid sick leave, strengthen labor-rights protections, and enact criminal justice reforms. Congress' ruling Republicans have defeated minimum wage hikes and ignored paid sick leave and worker rights bills. Right wingers are delaying criminal justice reform.

"The budget is designed to be a fiscally responsible, economically sound, and common-sense blueprint for how progressive policies can spur economic growth and spread the benefits of economic recovery to communities and families not yet reached by it," said Isaiah Poole of the Campaign for America's Fu ture. "House Democrats in particular will be judged by their willingness to support the budget-at least as a statement of solidarity with its goals."

Bill Knight, The Labor Paper

Photo: Springfield, Illinois, protest against Gov. Rauner, Grassroots Collaborative, Facebook

Obama to Cubans: “Let’s break down the barriers”

Thu, 31 Mar 2016 14:09:00 +0000

Many Cuban observers reacted to President Obama's recent visit to Cuba in terms of Cuban history. But that was precisely what Obama, in his televised address to the Cuban people, urged them to overlook. He recognized that "barriers of history and ideology, barriers of pain and separation" do exist, but he called for removing "the shadow of history from our relationship."

Media in the United States followed suit. Attention to the history of U.S.-Cuban relations was absent or scanty. Instead, many reports focused on alleged political prisoners in Cuba. "[M]ass slaughter and brutal crackdown" sufficed for history in one. Another recalled a "communist hellhole" and "violent military dictator."

In Cuba, historian Fernando Martínez Heredia apparently finds history useful for diagnosing society's problems. In an interview days before Obama's visit, he explained that there exists in Cuba a "rightwing nationalism" which opposes "the U.S. economic blockade and the Revolution too." Its adherents fondly recall Cuba's pre-1959 republic as "working well in terms of elections, representative government, and freedom of expression...but it took the military, political victory of the revolutionaries to bring about agrarian reform. That is an historical experience."

As Martínez has written elsewhere, that sector is heir to "sugar barons that made war against the Haitian Revolution [in 1802] and the bourgeoisie that supported [Spanish general] Weyler exactly 100 years afterwards."

So for Martínez, Cuba is vulnerable "not only to neo-colonial North American domination, but also to rule by the bourgeoisie of Cuba." They were the ones who "before the triumph of the Revolution denied health care and education to almost half of all Cubans."

Martínez regards Cubans' current propensity to attach U.S. flags to clothing and possessions as an example of "symbolic annexation." They think that "because Obama comes to Cuba, the material situation of a lot of Cubans is going to improve." Such symbolic annexation "blinds us and we lose a vision of the present and future."

Journalist Patricio Montesinos warns of a U.S. attempt "to foment divisions between revolutionaries and the Cuban people in general, and create discrepancies between the generations." And unity "has been Cuba's greatest success."

President Obama used more than words in communicating the U.S. approach to Cuba. He proved himself to be a master of showmanship. Prior to the visit, Obama's handlers arranged for an amusing video encounter between Obama and "Pánfilo," the "everyman" star of Cuba's most popular TV show.

In Cuba, Obama projected himself as a regular guy taking days as they came, little concerned about past troubles. The Obamas ate out at a family restaurant (a "paladar"), he attended a baseball game, and his children and mother-in-law accompanied him on a state visit.

He was marketing a compelling story - a poor boy who made good, a black man who "made it" within a racist society. Cubans observers credited him with highly developed acting abilities, dwarfing those even of Ronald Reagan. Someone held up Obama's "Hollywood smile" as representing the "banality of evil." His "hypnotizing oratory" was such that Cubans would be "voting for the Obama candidate."

In short, in Havana Obama was on the campaign trail. Casting himself as their model, he was delivering a simple message to humble, plucky, and intelligent Cubans: as individuals they too can overcome. History no longer matters.

Ex-President Fidel Castro had something to say. In an article, he delved into history: the life and death of José Martí, social achievements of the Revolution, and Cuban soldiers in southern Africa, where "we wrote an honorable page in the struggle for liberation of the human being."

Castro instructed Obama "to think about [this history]" and "try not to elaborate theories on Cuban politics." For the leader of Cuba's revolution, Obama's "sweetened" words heightened the "risk of a heart attack."

Castro reminded Obama of "a despised blockade," the bombing of a fully loaded Cuban airliner in flight, U.S.-inspired sabotage, military incursions, and an invasion. His conclusion: "We don't need the empire to give us anything."

Cardinal Jaime Ortega of the Havana diocese called for "not leaving history behind because history is necessary and is the teacher of life."

Influential Cuban journalist Iroel Sanchez applauded the response of Cuban "intellectuals" to Obama's visit. They are critiquing "the way the North American president underestimated the intelligence of Cubans and thought of them as ripe for manipulation."

Drawing a parallel between Obama's visit to Havana and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's 1989 visit to Berlin prior to the Soviet collapse, Sánchez speculated that Obama was engaged in sending a message to delegates to the 7^th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party set to take place in April.

In the wake of Obama's visit, Cubans unhappy with the United States were pointing to what they interpreted as U.S. duplicity. Obama had told people in Cuba that: "The United States has neither the capacity nor the intention to impose change on Cuba."

Within days, however, the U.S. State Department announced it was seeking proposals from U.S. community organizations ready to provide internships in the United States for "young emerging leaders from Cuban civil society." The program will continue for three years and cost $753,989.

Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Actions planned in D.C. to end blockade of Cuba

Thu, 31 Mar 2016 13:26:00 +0000

The International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity (formerly known as the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5) is returning to Washington next month to increase pressure on President Barack Obama to do more to reduce the impact of the failed 55-year-old blockade against Cuba, and to encourage Congress to pass legislation to eliminate it entirely.

President Obama and the executive branch continue to announce new regulations that ease restrictions against Cuba in such areas as travel and commerce, yet the teeth of the criminal blockade against Cuba remain intact.

The International Committee, accompanied by supporters from across the United States and beyond, will descend on Washington April 18-22 for a second "Days of Action Against the Blockade."

They not only will undertake grassroots advocacy visits to the offices of Senators and members of the House of Representatives, but also stage a community forum, "Through Cuban Eyes," to provide Americans with a Cuban perspective on what's been happening in Cuba and the real state of U.S.-Cuban relations.

The key note speaker at the April 22nd community forum will be Cuban Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas. Invited guests from Cuba include medical professionals who took part in the fight against Ebola in West Africa and in restructuring the health infrastructure in Haiti, the Director of Havana's Literacy Museum, a representative of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People (ICAP), and a Cuban journalism student with his own dramatic story to tell.

Jorge "Jorgito" Jérez was born with cerebral palsy in Cuba in 1993, but today - thanks to Cuba's health care and education system - he has become a "self-sufficient, independent young journalist." The Power of the Weak, a documentary by German filmmaker Tobias Kriele about Jorgito's life and the social supports available to him in Cuba, will be screened during the Days of Action.

While acknowledging the significance of President Obama's decision in December 2014 to end, in his words, the United States' "outdated approach [to Cuba] that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests," and the President's recent historic visit to Cuba, Alicia Jrapko of the International Committee explained there is much more Obama can do to help normalize relations with Cuba:

"Although we applaud many of the steps taken, we urge the President to use his executive power to close Guantanamo Prison and return to Cuba the land it sits on. He should also end the preferential 'wet foot, dry foot' policy that encourages Cubans to embark on illegal and unsafe migration; end the Parole Program for Cuban Medical Professionals that encourages Cuban doctors to abandon Cuba's medical programs abroad; and stop funding USAID and National Endowment for Democracy programs aimed at fomenting dissent in Cuba."

Netfa Freeman from the Institute for Policy Studies, one of the groups organizing the upcoming April events in Washington D.C., noted that a majority of Americans, including Cuban Americans, support ending the blockade. "Part of this support," says Freeman, "is from heightened awareness of the hypocrisy in U.S. claims of wanting to encourage change for a Cuban society that is not experiencing a national epidemic of killings of people of color by police and mass incarceration or social ills like rampant homelessness. The overwhelming majority of Cubans are guaranteed shelter and healthcare as human rights."

Freeman pointed to the success of a recent whirlwind 10-day visit to the West Coast by Miguel Fraga, the first secretary of the Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C., as another sign of the changing mood. Fraga spoke to close to 1,500 people at 20 different events, and was even introduced on the California State Senate floor. "The cold war is over!" declared Los Angeles State Senator Isadore Hall III as the Cuban flag was displayed in the chambers. "It is time to look forward and to look ahead to a future where Cuba is a partner, not an enemy to the United States."

As part of the tour of the Cuban diplomat speaking at a conference in Seattle, veteran 7th District Rep. Jim McDermott urged the audience to "go to Washington in April to lobby to end the blockade."

This article is a slightly edited version of the original, which appeared in Granma International.

Photo: The International Committee

Robin Hood tax “steals” from rich and gives to just about everyone else

Wed, 30 Mar 2016 15:07:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC-- After the 2008 financial crisis, Wall Street firms such as Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase were bailed out while ordinary Americans were left to suffer the consequences. Many lost jobs, homes and businesses in the recession that followed, passing on the weight of debt onward to the next generation. Now a movement, primarily mobilized by youth, is seeking compensation for the losses suffered at the hands of Wall Street bankers.

Student organizations visited the nation's Capitol in March 21, 2016 to lobby for the Robin Hood Tax - a proposed tax on stock trades that has the potential to generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue. The Robin Hood tax is a sales tax on speculative Wall Street trading. A small tax, 50 cents per $100, on individual stock transactions, and even smaller assessments on bonds, derivatives and currencies, could raise hundreds of billions of dollars each year in the US alone. Specifically, $68 billion of the estimated $350 billion raised annually by the tax would fund higher education, making it tuition free.

Supporters of the tax claim that the money could provide funding for jobs to kickstart the economy and get America back on track. "The [tax] is a way of restructuring our economy," said Giovanni D'Ambrosio, an undergraduate at UC Berkeley (Cal), who also works as a campus organizer for both the California Nurses Association (CNA)--a branch of National Nurses United (NNU)--and the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC). "Students understand that the money exists to make higher ed more accessible, to find a cure for HIV/AIDS, to fund affordable housing, build a green infrastructure and more."

The nurses' union has publicly supported the bill and has remained one of most consistent national voices calling for the Robin Hood tax. Members of the CNA/NNU believe that the campaign is one of many necessary steps for students to achieve easier access to higher education. D'Ambrosio notes, however, that the role of colleges and universities is do more than just educate students; it is to provide jobs, housing, research to global and local communities. D'Ambrosio says that the Robin Hood tax functions to de-incentivize the exchange of risky debts and securities that was responsible for the 2008 crash, "It redistributes money from the people profiting off of student and institutional debts to fund our futures."

In addition to student organizations and labor unions, many influential leaders have voiced their support of the campaign as well. Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore, Microsoft Founder Bill Gates, Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, and American business investor and philanthropist, Warren Buffet, are some of many activist that have backed the bill in congress. In 2011 the Vatican even came out with a statement saying "such taxation would be very useful in promoting global development and sustainability according to the principles of social justice and solidarity".

One aspect of the Robin Hood tax that appeals to the general public is that, according to the campaign, it won't affect a majority of Americans, their personal savings, or everyday consumer activity, such as ATM usage. The 0.5 percent tax would be enforced on Wall Street transactions only. If implemented effectively it could raise enough money to fund higher education, housing, local governments, hospitals, essential research, community support,and sustainable energy. This makes the bill favorable amongst student activist groups around the nation. Alejandro Perez, 22, a member of Associated Students at UCSB said that student organizations are supporting the tax because it helps raise money for programs that serves disenfranchised communities, "It'll provide more access to healthcare for all. This [tax] would also allow students to have a greater opportunity to pursue higher education and have health care available for low income families."

The growing popularity of the Robin Hood tax comes at a time when a majority of Americans have voiced distrust in 'big business'. Many have stated that they are dissatisfied with the size and influence of major corporations, as it has become obvious with the current U.S. presidential race. Contenders, such as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, have risen to popularity because their campaigns have challenged the status quo of wall street contributions. Trump recently released public records showing that he is the primary self-funder in his campaign, while Sanders' fundraising efforts continue to break records, with about $75 million raised by small donors.

The legislation is not without its critics. Tim Worstall, a British contributor at Forbes and writer on finance, economics and public policy, wrote a piece in June of 2012 stating that "the tax does absolutely none of the things claimed for it, and does many other undesirable things as well." He went on to address the article written for the Guardian by Rose Ann Demoro, leader of National Nurses United, about the benefits of the Robin Hood Tax. Worstall calls the plan 'unrealistic' and claims that taxing people does not inject money into the economy, but rather moves money around from one group of people to another. At one point exclaiming that it "just isn't the same as increasing the amount of money or revenue in the economy as a whole."

Nevertheless, critics have not deterred students from pushing for the enactment of the bill. College graduates face up to $1.3 trillion in student loan debt; these sums are often borrowed at rates that are set higher than mortgage and car loan rates. It was estimated that as of May 2015 a whopping 13.8 percent of 18-to 29-year-olds are out of work, a number that is more than double the national jobless rate of 5.4 percent. This crushing debt leaves many young adults struggling to maintain their bills, save long term, or invest money back into the economy. The Robin Hood tax campaign's official website states that enacting the tax would fund an additional 9 million jobs and reduce unemployment by 60%. It remains to be seen whether or not this will be the case. For now, students and college graduates in the workforce see the Robin Hood tax as a potential light at the end of a deep and dark financial tunnel.

Photo: Housing Works

Minnesota private prison debate raises issues of race, justice

Wed, 30 Mar 2016 14:55:00 +0000

ST. PAUL, Minn. (PAI and Workday Minnesota) - Issues of race, poverty, and justice bubbled to the surface in an emotional hearing in late March over legislation to re-open a privately run state prison for profit in Appleton, Minn.

After several protesters disrupted the proceedings, the chair of the House Public Safety and Crime Prevention Policy and Finance Committee recessed the meeting to clear the room.

In the end, with 10 Republican committee members voting in favor and seven Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) members voting against, the committee approved HR3223 and sent it the Minnesota House Ways and Means Committee.

While businesses rallied to the side of the private prison firm, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which wants to reopen the Prairie Correction Facility in Appleton, workers have a sharply different view of the matter. They oppose privatizing prisons for profit.

So do Minnesota officials, including its corrections commissioner, Tom Roy.

Private for-profit prisons and how firms that run them have been controversial for years. The AFL-CIO first opposed them at its 2001 convention, and AFSCME, as well as non-profit groups, have issued reports documenting numerous abuses at the facilities nationwide.

"The AFL-CIO remains committed to criminal justice reform, through pushing for an end to the private prison system and advocating for the restoration of voting rights for returning citizens, among other things," federation President Richard Trumka said in November 2015.

AFSCME's report noted CCA and two other leading private prison firms "pour millions of dollars into the political campaigns" of state lawmakers, governors and judges "in hopes of advancing their agenda - establishing more private prisons and reducing the numbers of public ones." AFSCME and other unions have also uncovered abuses within the private prisons, such as inmate overcrowding and rotting food.

In Minnesota, the CCA-operated Prairie Correction Facility in Appleton closed in 2010. At one time, it employed more than 350 people and held about 1,600 inmates.

State Rep. Tim Miller, R-Prinsburg, introduced legislation to require Minnesota to contract with a private firm to lease and operate the facility. Prinsburg said a private prison would ease current overcrowding and create much-needed jobs in an economically depressed area.

"Thousands of businesses, most of them mom-and-pop, most of them family-owned, would benefit from this prison opening again," added Paul Raymo, the local Chamber of Commerce president.

But several groups lined up to oppose the plan, including AFSCME - which represents correctional officers-the religious coalition Isaiah and #BlackLivesMatter. They said more prisons are not the answer and that profit-making corporations should not run prisons.

"This isn't about the people of Appleton," said the Rev. Brian Herron of Zion Baptist Church. "We face the very same dilemma in north Minneapolis about unemployment...Why are we having discussions about building an economy off of black and brown bodies?" he asked.

Minneapolis NAACP President Nekima Levy Pounds said "I have not heard any discussion about the high unemployment in the inner-city communities that are actually fueling the incarceration rate." She urged solons to consider other proposals, such as probation reform.

Both Levy Pounds and Joe Broge, a corrections officer at Stillwater prison and an AFSCME member, cited problems at CCA-run facilities. "Doing business with CCA is like doing business with the devil, because their practices are diabolical," Levy Pounds said. "They have an absolutely abysmal record," added Broge.

The NAACP and AFSCME, along with a number of other organizations, including the Minnesota Public Employees Association, the Minnesota AFL-CIO and the Service Employees, are members of the Minnesota Coalition To Ban Private Prisons.

Broge said a prison in western Minnesota would make it difficult for most prisoners to receive visits from family members. "It's important that you stay connected to your communities" so that prisoners can become productive citizens when they are released, he said.

Some of the most emotional testimony came from people who criticized lawmakers for devoting millions to prisons - but nothing to help people of color who are struggling.

While Appleton faces an 8 percent unemployment rate, the jobless rate for African-Americans in Minnesota is 17 percent, said the Rev. Nazim Fakir of Isaiah. "Where are the $140 million programs?" to help that community, he asked. Some estimates say the state would spend $140 million over 6-10 years to pay for a private prison in Appleton.

"We lose people from drugs. We lose people from suicide," said Vanessa Taylor, a young woman from Hastings. "We have no counselors...You are tearing apart our communities. You are tearing apart our families."

State officials, speaking for Gov. Mark Dayton (D), also opposed the private prison plan.

"Prison expansion, a new building, is not on the Department of Corrections plate whatsoever," Corrections Commissioner Roy testified. "This is the most expensive option that is available.

"The notion that we incarcerate people for profit, for corporate profit, is, I think, the antithesis of America. We would not for a moment think about privatizing police. We would not for a moment think about privatizing courts. Why would we consider privatizing corrections?" he asked.

Photo: Joe Broge, a corrections officer at Stillwater prison, spoke against legislation that would reopen a for-profit prison. Photo captured from Minnesota House video. Workday Minnesota.

Religious right’s latest attack on working women’s privacy reaches Supreme Court

Wed, 30 Mar 2016 14:19:00 +0000

WASHINGTON -- The latest religious-based challenge to the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive care for working women hit the U.S. Supreme Court on March 23, this time from non-profit institutions, rather than companies.

Two years ago, despite the ACA's mandate that health insurance cover comprehensive preventive care, the court in the Hobby Lobby case http://www.peoplesworld.org/supreme-court-allows-corporations-to-deny-birth-control-coverage/ ruled the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) lets for-profit businesses deny women workers contraceptive coverage, if using those contraceptives contradicts the business owners' personal religious beliefs.

Hobby Lobby dealt with for-profit businesses. But ACA regulations already have a loophole for religiously affiliated non-profits, like universities and social-service agencies.

A non-profit with a religious objection to insurance coverage for contraceptives need only file a form stating its objection and identifying its health insurer or third-party administrator (TPA). The federal government then makes an independent arrangement with the insurance company or TPA to provide women workers with contraceptive care.

The insurer or TPA must use separate funds and provide the worker with separate notices, and cannot charge the employer a penny. Meanwhile, women workers get contraceptive care from the same health-care provider, under the same insurance plan, as they receive all other health care. In this way the ACA regulations balance religious liberty with working women's constitutional right to use contraceptives.

But in Zubik v. Burwell and six related cases, a group of religiously affiliated nonprofits claim this ACA accommodation violates RFRA. They insist RFRA requires they get the same blanket exemption from the contraceptive mandate that the regulations give houses of worship. http://www.peoplesworld.org/scotus-takes-on-little-sisters-of-the-poor-challenge-to-obamacare/

A win for these nonprofits would force their women workers to search and pay for alternative contraceptive coverage, probably from different insurance companies covering doctors different from those M.D.s these workers see for all other medical conditions.

Under RFRA, Congress cannot "substantially burden a person's exercise of religion" unless imposing that burden furthers a "compelling government interest" by the "least restrictive means." The Zubik non-profits argue that specifying their insurance company or TPA, and thereby triggering the independent government arrangement to provide their workers with contraceptives, makes them "collaborators" in sinful behavior.

Arguing first on March 23, Paul Clement, speaking for the Zubik non-profits, claimed that, because of the large penalty for noncompliance, the regulations impose a "substantial burden" on his clients' sincere religious beliefs. The regulations don't further a "compelling" interest, he continued. The government already exempts houses of worship, small businesses, and preexisting insurance plans. And because the government could provide contraceptives without "hijacking" the nonprofits' health-insurance plans-for example, by providing free contraception-only plans on federal health-care exchanges-Clement and attorney Noel Francisco agreed with Justice Samuel Alito's suggestion that the government has alternatives that don't burden religion.

Representing the federal government, Obama Administration Solicitor General Donald Verrilli conceded the non-profits sincerely believe that following ACA regulations would make them "complicit" in a "moral wrong." His concession prompted Justice Anthony Kennedy to declare a "substantial burden" under RFRA.

But, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted, by that reasoning any purported burden on religion would automatically be "substantial."

It can't qualify as a "substantial burden," she suggested, when someone just objects to the government's regulating "third parties," like the insurance companies here. If it does, she continued, "How will we ever have a government that functions?" Added Justice Stephen Breyer, to live in a pluralist society, religious people must often tolerate "burdens that they are going to find totally obnoxious."

Verrilli went on to argue the importance of providing workers with contraceptive services "as part of their regular care from their regular doctor." Chief Justice John Roberts retorted this analysis makes the government interest not just providing contraceptives, but providing them "seamlessly," through the same insurance plan or TPA hired by the employers.

For Roberts, forcing workers to find another source of contraceptive coverage would present a mere "administrative burden," just "a question of who does the paperwork," balanced against the employers' "basic principle of faith." Verrilli objected that, far from just a matter of "paperwork," forcing women workers to search and pay for alternative coverage would not equally further the government's interest in assuring preventive care for women workers.

Verrilli did not press a point made in the some of the briefs: Employers who contest the contraceptive mandate object only to health-care options for women. An employer's selective objection to health-care coverage for sickle-cell anemia-an ailment that disproportionately affects African-Americans-would look like discrimination based on race.

Preventing racial or sexual discrimination constitutes a "compelling interest" under RFRA. But the government can only prevent discrimination by requiring equal treatment.

Forcing women, but not men, to seek basic aspects of their health care outside their regular health-insurance plan perpetuates discrimination. Picking up on this argument, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wondered how, if the regulation falls, women students and workers could get "what all the other students [and workers] get for all other health protection."

Justice Anthony Kennedy's views could determine the outcome. If Kennedy votes to overturn the challenged ACA regulation, the eight-member court will probably deadlock. Seven federal courts of appeals have upheld the regulation. One has struck it down. If the court deadlocks, women workers' ACA rights will depend on where they live.

Zubik is the fourth challenge to the ACA to reach the Supreme Court. More legal challenges are on their way. A decision in Zubik is expected in late June.

David Sobelsohn is the PAI Supreme Court correspondent

Photo: Woman wears a birth control pills costume as she joins protests in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, March 25, 2014. The court heard oral arguments in the challenges to President Barack Obama's health care law requirement that businesses provide their female employees with health insurance that includes access to contraceptives. | Charles Dharapak | AP

Bernie Sanders is showing the way to stop Trump

Wed, 30 Mar 2016 13:20:00 +0000

It has become increasingly possible that we are witnessing the death throes of the Republican Party as we have known it. The party is hopelessly splintered and there seems no way for it to unite behind a consensus candidate capable of winning in November.

The GOP has no one to blame for this predicament but itself. For decades, since the days of Barry Goldwater, the party has nurtured and cultivated a racist, xenophobic, ultra-nationalist base in order to get candidates elected and benefit its billionaire funders.

These funders are now horrified by the fact that this base has grown stronger than the rest of the party, has revolted and now has been hijacked by Donald Trump. They are scrambling to stop this vulgar, blatantly obvious con artist from being their nominee. The damage has been done, however, and it is probably too late to put Humpty Dumpty back together.

Trump's rise has also raised serious concerns about the danger of fascism. While this cannot be discounted entirely the Trump phenomena seems more in line with Karl Marx's wry comment that "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." It is true that neo-Nazi elements support Trump and need to be watched, but they are not dominant in his "movement" and Trump, while accepting their presence, is not promoting them. His supporters, by and large, are not, as yet, comparable to the massive, determined strike force that was organized and mobilized in the 20^th century by Mussolini, Franco and Hitler with the support of European finance capital.

Nonetheless, it is incumbent on progressives to act forcefully and effectively to prevent anything like that from happening. Fortunately, we have an important means at our disposal in the campaign of Bernie Sanders, who is moving and, to a growing degree uniting, the entire electorate in a progressive direction.

Sanders is raising consciousness of the real challenges we face and thereby isolating the GOP candidates, all of whom support the right-wing program of war, austerity, curtailment of democratic rights and destruction of democratic institutions like trade unions and public education. He is exposing the rigged nature of our economic and political system and calling for taxing the billionaires to fund social needs.

His use of the term "socialism" and his call for transforming society through a vast democratic movement or "political revolution" are inspiring and energizing hundreds of thousands of people, of all ages, races and demographics and bringing them into the electoral process. Hillary Clinton does not have this ability, but if she is the Democratic candidate, she and all of us will owe Sanders a huge - and I mean huge - debt of gratitude.

Vice President Biden once warned that "the barbarians are at the gate," but the Sanders campaign and the grassroots movement it has generated has greatly increased the potential to soundly defeat that right wing danger.

Photo: AP

North Carolina discrimination law shows limits of corporate conscience

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 15:24:00 +0000

After the city of Charlotte passed an anti-discrimination ordinance that explicitly protected the rights of LGBTQ people, North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory snapped into action with an urgency rarely seen in domestic governance.

At the cost of $42,000 per day, the governor convened a "special session" of the general assembly to whip state Republicans into passing HB2, which not only "supersedes and preempts" local non-discrimination ordinances regarding gender identity and expression, but "any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy... that regulates or imposes a requirement upon on employer pertaining to compensation of employees."

"Ordinance defied common sense, allowing men to use women's bathroom/locker room for instance. That's why I signed bipartisan bill to stop it," tweeted McCrory, seemingly in an attempt to seem as petty and small-minded as possible. Bathrooms are the latest go-to talking point in GOP-LGBTQ panic politics across the country, with legislative fights regarding usage occurring in Indiana, Tennessee, South Dakota and more.

The governor's haste to undo this step forward for civil rights has not gone unnoticed by activist groups.

On Friday, a wide variety of those groups convened at the Winston-Salem City Hall to call on the city of Winston-Salem to pass a vote of "no confidence" in Gov. McCrory. Approximately 150 people gathered outside and chanted, "We won't do HB2!"

"I haven't seen the community come together this fast in a while," said Wooten Gough of GetEQUAL NC, an LGBTQ grassroots network. "In Winston-Salem alone, multiple groups are organizing behind the resolution of no confidence in McCrory and to repeal the bill. To name a few, North Star LGBT Community Center, Raise Up $15, several student groups at Wake Forest University, and El Cambio (an immigrants rights organization)."

MaryBe McMillan of the North Carolina AFL-CIO told People's World that the whole state federation "will speak out against this law and educate our members about its effects." Most important, she continued, "is using this issue to turn out the labor vote this fall in support of candidates who will protect workers from all forms of discrimination."

Surely the governor and state Republicans expected this type of reaction from progressive organizations. What they may not have counted on is the backlash they have come to face from their traditional allies in the business community.

Strange bedfellows and silent partners

Tech companies Google, Apple, and PayPal have taken to Twitter to decry the passage of HB2. PayPal, which is opening a data center in Raleigh, tweeted, "Inclusion is one of our core values and we are proud to champion LGBTQ equality in North Carolina and around the world."

McMillan said that the North Carolina AFL-CIO "welcomes the efforts of any groups who oppose this bill," saying further that they hope to garner a "broad coalition" of organizations to get this law off the books.

Among those corporations who have cited LGBTQ equality as a core value, one has remained conspicuously silent.

The Walt Disney Corporation has a history of backing state-level preemption statutes, while also standing against LGBTQ discrimination. Now that the worst of both worlds have combined into this anti-people chimera, their representatives have been slow to respond.

Just last week, Disney threatened to pull production of their films out of Georgia because of the discriminatory effects of a so-called "religious freedom bill." House Bill 757 would have given organizations which claim to be "faith-based" the option to deny employment to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Disney's threat of boycott, along with solidarity from other corporations, moved Governor Nathan Deal to veto the bill.

Contrast this healthy corporate citizenship with Disney's fight against activists in Florida's Orange County, the seat of Disney World.

Local canvassers had gathered enough petitions to put a referendum to the Orange County charter on the ballot in November, 2012. This was the first time anything like this had happened in Orange County and it drummed up resistance from the Orlando Chamber of Commerce, Darden Restaurants, Mears Transportation, and most crucially the Mouse himself.

Disney's influence over lawmakers proved to be shockingly efficient, just as it has proved itself to be once again in Georgia.

Commissioners Scott Boyd, Jennifer Thompson, and Mayor Theresa Jacobs all received text messages from lobbyists and people associated with Disney corporate during public hearings around earned sick time.

The Orange County commission managed to delay major decisions on the referendum just long enough for the Florida legislature (themselves awash in Disney money) to preempt the effort along with all other possible efforts for locally mandated employment benefits across the state.

Steve Precourt, Florida House representative from Orange County, who introduced the state-wide preemption bill has acted as Disney's hatchet man in the past, killing a bill that would have helped firefighters who protect Walt Disney World in future labor negotiations with the resorts personal government of Reedy Creek.

While Disney has not responded to the People's World requests for a comment, Katey Rich of Vanity Fair managed to publish the following statement from Disney today:

"The legislation hastily enacted by the State of North Carolina today is deplorable and discriminatory, and it runs counter to everything we stand for. Our Dirty Dancing 3-hour filmed musical event, which celebrates the principles of inclusiveness, diversity and tolerance, will go forward given our obligation to the hundreds of people in the state employed by the production. However, we will be hard pressed to continue our relationship with North Carolina if this regressive law remains on the books."

It would seem that the Georgia law was enough to threaten pulling out production of the multi-billion dollar Marvel franchise and to renege on their obligation to the thousands of people involved, but North Carolina's law is insufficient to warrant moving Dirty Dancing elsewhere. Looks like the corporate conscience around LGBTQ equality ends somewhere around the bottom line with Disney.

Photo: People protest outside the North Carolina Executive Mansion in Raleigh, March 24. North Carolina legislators approved a bill Wednesday that prevents cities and counties from passing their own anti-discrimination rules. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory later signed the legislation, which dealt a blow to the LGBT movement after success with protections in cities across the country. Emery P. Dalesio | AP

Long lines in Arizona Primary reflect intentional voter suppression

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 14:45:00 +0000

Let's talk Arizona, the land of reverse abortion bills, gun incentives, racial profiling and right-to-work-for-less laws. The Wild West of American politics, this is where the right-wing warms up its national policies and tests its boldest plans.

This is where the edge of the spear hits back hardest against a constant barrage, where organizers are born and often made against all odds, where protests are held to galvanize the base and solidify.

Let's start with 2008, the gleaming hope that is current President Obama. He brought with him "change." While we were all busy working on his campaign, there was a quiet specter haunting the United States and this was the birth and rise of the tea party.

They ran for small local, municipal, and state offices and were bolstered by entities like the Koch Brothers, ALEC, and then the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. They gained national attention in 2012. By then they had been playing in the land of Barry Goldwater and John McCain for a long time.

That being said here are some facts about voting in Arizona:

2008: In Maricopa County, there were 400 polling locations. But in 2012 there were 200. This past week in 2016 there were 60.

2013: HB2305 almost destroyed independent voters in Arizona which are the largest voting block. This bill was fought thanks to a coalition of 12 nonprofits that work on voting rights, formally known as ONE Arizona.

Fall of 2014: While folks were awed at Selma the movie, many failed to realize the Supreme Court Struck down the Voting Rights Act of 1968. From a legal standpoint it makes sense because the court expects fair and equal justice and this act placed extra restrictions and parameters on southern states -- for their history of voter suppression! The idea was that the Congress would then reenact the act to expand its protections to all states -- which was never done thanks to the current makeup of Congress.

As soon as this happened the Dual-Track Voting system of Arizona was created. The Supreme Court of the United States stated that the federal voter registration form was fine for federal elections. Then Secretary of State Tom Horne therefore pointed out they had implied only federal elections and so he created a state form. Therefore, if you do not have a driver's license in Arizona that matches to a state form or social security number on a federal form you will only be registered for federal elections.

Spring of 2014: The Arizona Students' Association, which registered 10,000 students the previous year, was defunded. This has severely limited voter registration. Note that the Republican-controlled budget committee of the Wisconsin state legislature moved - with little debate, and after refusing a stand-alone vote - to eliminate the primary funding stream of the nation's oldest and most respected statewide student association -- The United Council of University of Wisconsin Students. This appears to be a national trend.

Note also the presidential preference primary which immediately pushed 1.2 million Arizona independent voters away from this election, most first time voters, students and those who prefer the "populist candidates" Trump and more notably Sanders. Bernie Sanders led 70-85 percent of the youth vote in other states.

A few weeks ago our gracious Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill that outlaws ballot collecting (or harvesting depending who you ask), making it a felony.

Proof of Citizenship aka voter ID laws have been proposed and accepted in many of the southern states, but they are being fought because the expense in securing them amounts to a poll tax. Whether the ID is $1 or $1,000 dollars you are being charged for the right to vote, a right fought through the battles of the 15th and 19th and 26th Amendments to the Constitution. As for voter "fraud," there is only one reported case often brought up: Ten years ago a man in Montana who had a summer home here in Arizona accidentally voted twice. So if you can find proof let me know because even that story might not be true.

A conservative, almost passable, argument for reducing the number of polling places may be that most Arizona voters vote by mail -- recently above 60 percent. Nevertheless, there were only 60 polling locations in Maricopa County where it was estimated 20,000 would vote. According to Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, "In Phoenix, a majority-minority city, county officials allocated one polling location for every 108,000 residents. The ratios were far more favorable in predominantly Anglo communities: In Cave Creek/Carefree, there was one polling location for 8,500 residents; in Paradise Valley, one for 13,000 residents; in Fountain Hills, one for 22,500 residents."

Another defense has been the "fiscally conservative" one: They cut about 70 percent of the County Recorder's budget. The 30 percent left allows for 60 of the 200 previous locations to be open -- that is also proof of this by design. If this is meant to be a money- saving measure it did so with disregard for the sacred voting process. To save money one must adjust the current process, if necessary, not cut away from a broken system hoping some solution will arise spontaneously from the broken pieces.

Suppression based on identity is trickier to prove but not so difficult to prove when you examine the areas with the fewest polling sites. They were the Black and Latino communities.

Take Pima County, Arizona that had a bomb threat at four polling locations, closing them each down for about two hours during election day. Take Avondale, with a large Black and Latino community and with NO polling location at all for a population of over 76,000. Take Arizona State University with an estimated 86,000 students (largest public university campuses by enrollment during the 2013-14 academic year) and NO on- campus polling location.

Workers rights were also heavily violated. In Arizona some voting rules apply allowing all workers to vote (three hours paid time off between work and non-work time). Although there are penalties for employers who violate the rules (supervisors face fines of up to $2,500 if they block someone from voting, and the company itself can be fined as much as $20,000), these laws are hidden and often ignored in the workplace leading to lower voter turnout throughout much of the workforce in Arizona.

Others reported "procedural" problems, such as lifelong Democrats being registered as Republicans in the primary as well as the larger number of Independents who re-registered as Democrats -- and some as Republicans -- and lost their right to vote by a "fault in the system."

Photo: People wait in line to vote in the primary March 22, in Chandler, Ariz. Residents in metro Phoenix have been bristling for years over a perception that state leaders want to make it harder for them to vote, and the mess at the pollsTuesday only heightened the frustration. | David Kadlubowski/The Arizona Republic via AP

Rauner’s “turn-around agenda” cheats taxpayers and businesses

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 12:33:00 +0000

When Republican Governor Bruce Rauner delivered his 2017 budget address to the Illinois legislature, Feb. 17, his message to lawmakers could have been summed up as, "Punish the people, or I'll punish the people."

At least Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Rauner does nothing. While Illinois is engulfed in flames and taxpayers are being cheated out of services, there's not even danceable music.

The galling irony of Rauner delivering this ritualistic address is that now into the ninth month of this fiscal year, he has yet to sign and implement a budget for 2016-and he has yet to negotiate seriously with the Democratic-majority legislature. With no budget, agencies that provide vital services to Illinois citizens have received no monies this year and are shutting down, and the very existence of the state's public higher education system is threatened, as none of the state's higher education institutions of have yet to receive the state appropriations they need to operate. Yet citizens are still paying their taxes, which he is holding hostage, and receiving nothing in return.

Thus, while Rauner claims to be protecting the Illinois taxpayer, he is in fact defrauding taxpayers who pay taxes to ensure their children are educated, to receive childcare assistance so they can work, to help their children with autism, to assist the homeless, the disabled, the infirm, and the elderly, among other services their taxes support that help them take care of their families so they can be productive citizens.

While he campaigned on his bona fides as a businessman, claiming he would create a business-friendly environment and a functional economy, he has failed miserably at both. While defrauding the ordinary taxpaying citizen, it's not even clear he has served those 2/3 of Illinois corporations that pay no state taxes!

At this point, Illinois citizens might most benefit from Rauner acting rationally and pursuing a course of governing that is evidence-based and data-driven-because so far his supposedly "pro-business" agenda seems hardly conducive to creating a fertile environment for business or people-unless good business means destroying what was left of Illinois' economic health.

The business environment is hardly friendly, as evidenced by the fact that General Electric, which had been eyeing the possibility of relocating to Illinois, recently decided against it, citing the many economic uncertainties in the state as the reason.

And overall, Rauner's inaction is wreaking havoc not just on Illinois' economic present but on its economic future. Moody's and Fitch's rating agencies have downgraded the state's bond and credit ratings, respectively, making it more difficult and more expensive for the state to borrow money and raise revenues. Similarly, Rauner's recent vociferations about wanting to enact an emergency state take-over of the Chicago public system and to declare bankruptcy resulted in the school system having to pay a higher interest rate for a bond offering. Several state universities just had their credit ratings downgraded by Moody's.

Far from exhibiting astute and responsible economic stewardship, as one might expect of a successful businessman, Rauner's behavior is making the task of properly resourcing and governing the state less efficient and more expensive.

Tim Libretti's article, which continues after the video, was discussed on this episode of the Thom Hartmann Show, starting at minute 4:12.

So, while The Washington Post accurately reports that Rauner "has tied passage of the $36 billion budget to changes in collective bargaining rights for public employees and worker compensation, business-friendly moves he says will help turn around the state's flagging economy," we have to ask if his "turn-around agenda" has any basis in reality.

Is there any evidence or data to suggest that weakening unions or curtailing collective bargaining rights are effective strategies for creating a healthy economy or a pro-business environment?

Studies show that states with a heavily unionized workforce enjoy healthier economies, as organized workers bargaining collectively command higher wages and richer benefits. While one might argue workers earning higher wages is bad for business, in fact, providing workers with purchasing power to fuel spending actually impacts the economy for all, creating a net-gain for businesses. As David Madland and Karla Walter argue in their 2009 study conducted during the recession, "One of the primary reasons why our recession endures is that workers do not have the purchasing power they need to drive our economy."

Rauner also wants to institute right-to-work-zones, or what he calls "economic empowerment zones" in which local communities could vote on whether or not workers had to join a union or pay fair share dues as a condition of employment.

Again, though, the evidence that Rauner ignores indicates that workers in states with right-to-work laws earn less in wages and benefits and that the state economies themselves suffer.

Since Rauner is merely seeking to replicate Scott Walker's union-busting strategies, we don't have to guess at the outcome. Under Walker's reign, Wisconsin has its highest poverty rate in 30 years, ranks 35th in the nation with its anemic job growth, features a cost of doing business higher than the national average, and has slashed spending on education. Only those like the Kochs seem to benefit. The policies aren't good for business or people overall.

Likewise, Rauner seems not to serve business by creating a healthy economy and climate for business, but only to serve the wealthy, like himself. He urged the Illinois legislature not to renew a 1.25% temporary tax increase that was expiring just before he took office. By letting this increase expire, the multi-millionaire Rauner saved himself $750,000 in taxes, while those who earn on average $50,000 per year save only about 50 bucks per month. So you guess who is benefiting most from lowering taxes and destroying revenue for the state as Illinois schools crumble and basic services that make life possible disappear.

Meanwhile, Rauner has also peddled two other very damaging lies. He continues to assault state workers for Illinois' budget problems, claiming they are overpaid, when in fact one study indicates state workers with bachelor's or graduate degrees earn 32 to 40 percent less than they would in the private sector. Moreover, according to this same study, public workers account for just over 13 percent of the state's workforce while generating 16 percent of the state's gross domestic product. "That means," the study concludes, "if Rauner were to cut state spending and trim the workforce, that actually could slow the Illinois economy."

To add salt to Illinois' wound, Rauner increased the salaries of his staff 24% over what previous governor Pat Quin paid his staff. And he recently hired a chief of staff for his wife Diana, who has no official duties, at the cost of $100,000 annually to taxpayers. What happened to state workers being overpaid?

The other damaging lie he tells is that Illinois' taxes are unduly burdensome. Yet, as mentioned 2/3 of Illinois corporations pay no taxes, and as the Illinois Economic Policy Institute indicates, Illinois' state taxes are far less burdensome than those in the surrounding states of Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, and Wisconsin. If it had tax structures on a par with any of these states, Illinois could take in billions more in revenue each year and not be in the fiscal crisis it is.

But just as Rauner cares as little about business as he does the people of the state, he cares as little about the truth. Evidence-based and data-driven governing doesn't interest him, nor does the public good. He has chosen to plunder the state for his own private interest and those of his cronies. That seems to be his only rationality.

This article originally appeared at PoliticusUSA. Follow Tim Libretti on Twitter.

On April 1, a coalition of K-12 teachers, college faculty, staff, students, union and community members will protest both state and local attacks on K-12 and higher education.

Photo: Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner | AP

Bernie Sanders wins landslide in the West

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 11:22:00 +0000

CARLSBORG, Wash. - Savoring landslide victories in Washington State, Alaska, Hawaii, and earlier in Utah and Idaho, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders hailed the vote for clearing a path to his winning the Democratic nomination for President.

"We knew we were going to improve when we headed west," Sanders told a cheering crowd at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, last Saturday.

That was putting it mildly. The Washington State Democratic Party announced that over 230,000 voters attended caucus meetings only a few thousand less than the 244,458 who caucused in 2008 when Barack Obama won the nomination and the presidency.

Bernie Sanders won a landslide 72 percent in the Evergreen State sweeping every one of the state's 39 counties. Hillary Clinton garnered 28 percent of the vote.

Noteworthy were the numbers of young people who turned out for Sanders in all five of the states he won. "He is the candidate I have been waiting for my entire life," Tammy French, a high school teacher in Port Angeles told this reporter as she marched with her child in a Labor for Bernie march in Port Townsend recently.

At Greywolf Elementary School here in this former sawmill town, the line started to form before 9 a.m. for caucuses scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. When the doors were opened, the gymnasium filled to capacity with nearly 300 voters.

Sanders and Clinton supporters were cordial to each other. Earl Archer, a Hillary Clinton supporter and a veteran Democratic Party activist commented aloud as he sat in the hallway of Greywolf Elementary School that he will support Bernie Sanders wholeheartedly if he is the Democratic nominee. A Bernie Sanders supporter answered, "I will go door-to-door for Hillary if she is the nominee. We must all work together to keep Trump or any other Republican out of the White House."

Sanders carried the caucus at Greywolf 62 percent to 21 percent for Clinton.

At Helen Haller Elementary School in Sequim, the line encircled the school twice, a crowd so large they had to convene two caucus meetings, one after the other. There were so many people drawn by the Bernie Sanders campaign, that some precincts caucused in parking lots.

The Bernie Sanders campaign was energized by huge rallies in the Pacific Northwest including two Seattle rallies in one week, one at Key Arena March 19 attended by about 30,000 and the following Friday, March 25 attended by another 25,000 or 30,000.

It seemed to catch the spirit of the moment that a tiny sparrow landed on the lectern as Sanders was speaking at an outdoor rally in Portland, Oregon. Sanders quipped that although it was small, with the wrong colored plumage, it was a "dove" that symbolizes his quest for world peace. The crowd roared.

Sanders ignited a powerful grassroots movement that has swept the West, hammering against the "billionaire class" and their "bought and paid for" henchmen in the U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate, and state and local governments across the nation. While both Democratic candidates have directed most of their fire at Donald Trump and the Republican right, they have held a series of debates in which they spell out their differences.

Clinton's pitch stresses her "experience," but at least here in the Pacific Northwest, that is transcribed by a majority as "baggage." Her campaign has taken heat for close ties to giant banks and corporations, her acceptance of millions of dollars in "speaking fees" from Wall Street firms and for reliance on corporate "SuperPACs." Her vote to authorize President Bush's use of military force in Iraq remains an issue too.

Bernie Sanders, by contrast, voted against that authorization and against the "bail out" of Wall Street banks. He calls for assistance to Main Street, not Wall Street. He vows to block cuts to Social Security and calls for "Medicare for All." He also calls for tuition-free higher education at public universities and immigration reform with a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Sanders has called for an end of the nation's "corrupt political system" in which the corporate rich pour billions in secret money into the coffers of politicians who defend the interests of the rich while betraying the interests of working people.

The Bernie Sanders movement is not resting. They are phonebanking into Wisconsin hoping to galvanize the same kind of huge voter turnout that has given him victories in the West. Sanders is also campaigning hard to win in Oregon and California, states that can dramatically swell his delegate count.

Photo: Tim Wheeler/PW

News Guild campaigns to save NYC’s top Spanish-language daily, El Diario

Mon, 28 Mar 2016 16:01:00 +0000

NEW YORK (PAI) -- The New York News Guild is waging an intense campaign to save the city's top Spanish-language daily, El Diario, from a cost-cutting jobs-cutting owner.

The campaign ranges from public protests to filing National Labor Relations Board charges to enlisting political support and even, at one point, an offer of 20 percent pay cuts for all staffers in order to prevent a 50 percent job cut. El Diario's owners flatly rejected that.

The union's crusade is important not just because it would save newspaper jobs, but because it would prevent decimation of the leading voice and information source-including the print edition and the website-for the two-million-plus Hispanics and Hispanic-Americans in the Big Apple, as well as for the rest of the Hispanic-American community nationwide.

The latest fracas occurred over the last two months, when El Diario's parent company, ImpreMedia-itself now a subsidiary of Argentina's leading daily, La Nacion-arbitrarily announced it would lay off 13 El Diario newsroom staffers.

The paper's newsroom staff was cut to 11, News Guild President Peter Szekely, a former and longtime national labor reporter for Reuters, told the New York City Council. The New York Post added only two of the 11 would be full-timers.

The real impact is on the quality of news the Spanish-speaking community receives, Szekely said.

"Where only a few years ago, the paper was filled with local stories the larger main-stream press wasn't covering, today it is just a shadow of its former self," he testified. "The paper that calls itself 'The Champion of the Hispanics' is today filled with stories aggregated from wire services and other people's reporting. The same goes for the El Diario website.

"Last summer, one of our members who left El Diario"-before the latest cuts-"told us: 'I did not become a reporter to cut and paste from other websites.'"

El Diario's owners say the latest layoffs, on top of buyouts two years ago, and the firing of eight other Guild members in 2014, were needed to stem the paper's losses. They claim the losses were down to $2 million in 2015, from $12 million yearly when they took over, and they expect to break even this year. The National Labor Relations Board later ruled the 2014 firings broke labor law.

Szekely rebutted the cut-losses-by-firings argument by saying that studies show many newspapers have made that mistake and that "it isn't just bad public policy, it's bad business." Other studies, including an analysis at a recent News Guild convention, show readers are willing to pay a premium price for a quality newspaper or newspaper website.

Szekely admitted the La Nacion-owned papers in the U.S., including El Diario, "are private enterprises that need to turn a profit.

"But while it's not written into their charters, they also assume the position of public trusts," he said. "The foreign language press is a pipeline to the city's immigrant communities. They bring to readers news that often can't be found elsewhere...in the language they are most comfortable with.

"Since an informed citizenry is essential to a free society, the press provides a public service," Szekely explained. "It is therefore morally incumbent on the owners of these vital enterprises to continue to do all that they can to continue to inform their readers and it is equally incumbent upon government to do all it can to support these enterprises."

The city council took no action on that implied News Guild request, but several council members joined Szekely in a pro-El Diario press conference on the City Hall steps after the council hearing.

The Guild Reporter contributed the verbatim transcript of Szekely's testimony.

Photo: The NewsGuild of New York, Facebook

Cherokee war chief led armed struggle against white settlers 235 years ago

Mon, 28 Mar 2016 15:33:00 +0000

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Native Americans and others from throughout the state commemorated the life of the great Cherokee war chief, Dragging Canoe, with a celebration February 27. It was well attended by both Indians and non-Indians. The event was entitled Dragging Canoe Day.

It was appropriate that the gathering was held in Nashville as the great leader fought many battles against settler encroachments in the area now covered by the city. In fact, on April 2, 1781, he led Cherokee forces that nearly wiped out Fort Nashborough, the first white settlement in Middle Tennessee, in the Battle of the Bluffs. The fort was sitting on Cherokee treaty land. The settlers sustained such heavy losses that many considered abandoning the area completely.

Dragging Canoe was born around 1732, when the Cherokee Nation was in the nascent stages of turmoil in a rapidly changing world. This period led into the crucible of the Cherokee wars beginning in 1760 and continued almost incessantly until the late 18th century (for tribes east of the Mississippi the 18th century is considered a period of one hundred years of constant warfare). He is noted in Euro-American history annals at the illegal Treaty of Sycamore Shoals in March of 1775, the purpose of which was for land speculators to defraud the Cherokee Nation of 20 million acres of land, including a large portion of present-day Kentucky and most of Middle Tennessee. The war chief quickly saw through their schemes and accurately predicted they would find settlement of the land to be "dark and bloody."

The official Cherokee leadership later repudiated the so-called Sycamore Shoals Treaty and maintained that they thought an agreement was simply being made to permit the colonists to have limited grazing rights in certain parts of Kentucky. Further, they held that the trade goods which the speculators said bought the land in fact had been meant as indemnification for damages Cherokees had sustained from white ruffians attacking Cherokee border towns.

Early in the summer of 1776 tension escalated, with rumors abounding that the colonists were massing armies to destroy the Cherokee Nation. Dragging Canoe expressed sadness and anger when he said that the settlers had "surrounded us, leaving only a little spot of ground to stand upon, and it seems to be their intention to destroy us as a nation."

Dragging Canoe, not waiting for the rumored attack, went on the offensive, and took the battle to the colonists. This was the beginning of the last long and bloody Cherokee War that lasted 18 years. The colonials responded with military force in the late summer and early fall, numbering in the thousands of soldiers, whose orders were: "The utter extirpation of the Cherokee Nation." Their objective was the extermination of the Cherokee Nation. Historical records chronicle the wanton killing of non-combatants --women, children, and the elderly--with horrific barbarity: just about any Cherokee who fell into their hands was hideously murdered. Infants and small children had their brains bashed out by swinging them by their feet against trees, women were decapitated with broadswords and also bound and burned alive in groups in their homes. Atrocities were committed that by today's standards would be war crimes.

But the Cherokee people rallied by their war chief, and fought the invaders tooth and nail. The Cherokee war companies met the invaders at the battles of Cowee Mountain, Twelve Mile Creek, the Black Hole, Esseneca, Nequassee Pass, Tomassee, Sugartown and Wayah Gap. Other battles large and small raged throughout Cherokee country. At night sentries were attacked and often killed or carried off by Cherokees in groups or by lone warriors. The flanks of the colonial armies were constantly haunted by the fire of Cherokee snipers. But, notwithstanding the incomparable valor of the Cherokee warrior companies, the country was ravaged and countless towns and villages were razed. (An interesting aspect of this struggle is that the tremendous Cherokee resistance during this period was largely ignored in books written in the 19^th and 20^th Century by Anglo American historians. Volume after volume contends that there was little or no resistance to the colonial armies when just the opposite was the case.)

Dragging Canoe, in the face of such devastation, refused to concede defeat, adhering to the age-old maxim: "retreat and fight on." He advocated abandoning the ancient towns in upper east Tennessee and relocating to the region of the southeastern part of the state around present-day Chattanooga to continue the war against the genocide-bent white colonists. The majority of the Nation followed his lead and built new towns, giving them the same names of those they had left. This was a mass exodus of Cherokee people- thousands of warriors, women, children, the elderly, the entire populations of towns, irrespective of age or gender, determined to fight on regardless of consequences. This mass migration moved southwestward down the Tennessee River. (Also, most Anglo American historians of the "old school" contended that only a small number of Cherokee dissidents followed Dragging Canoe, when again just the opposite was the case.)

From this position, Dragging Canoe blockaded the entire expanse of the Tennessee River westward from any settler incursion. He utilized the military tactic of a "defense in depth" which meant that any force attempting to traverse the river would find defender/combatants increasing in mass with the passing of each warrior checkpoint. Sentries kept watch for invaders on the river 24 hours a day for over almost two decades.

He also commanded Cherokee war companies against encroaching white settlements all over the South and East, in particular settlers in upper east Tennessee, but also in Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia and North and South Carolina. He continued to lead warriors against the Middle Tennessee settlements, which he kept in a virtual state of siege. His tactic in this instance was to conduct a war of attrition that would so weaken the colonial forces until the time was ripe for the fatal blow that would destroy all of the offending settlements. He planned, directed and led warrior forces in saving the Cherokee people from destruction.

Moreover, Dragging Canoe fostered numerous diplomatic efforts that brought other Indian nations, both north and south, into a war of resistance that virtually engulfed all of the country east of the Mississippi. He envisioned a vast Native confederacy that would stop colonial expansion. Warrior companies were exchanged with other tribes as a show of solidarity in the war. The celebrated Tecumseh, as a youth, fought under the leadership of the brilliant war chief.

Dragging Canoe is called by some 20th century historians "The Red Napoleon." In pioneer days many white settlers, in dread and terror, just called him "The Dragon." The great leader died undefeated. He is now considered by many historians to have been a military genius.

Dragging Canoe changed the course of history in that settler expansion was brought to a standstill in vast areas of the South and adjoining regions for an entire generation.

But "Dragging Canoe's War" was a war to stop illegal, racist settler usurpation of Cherokee land, and moreover all Indian land and the wanton taking of innocent Native lives. If the invasion had ceased and the settlers stayed within the boundaries agreed upon under the treaties, there would have been no war. As historian Pat Alderman, who authored a biography of Dragging Canoe, so fittingly put it, the conflict was the result of "the insatiable lust of the whites for the red man's land."

Among the speakers at the event, Dragging Canoe Day, which this writer moderated, all stood out, but two in particular. One echoed the words of the war chief: "we are not conquered." Another said: "It ain't over."

Dragging Canoe walked on from this world on or about March 1, 1792, and left a legacy that all American Indians can revere with pride. May we carry on his spirit in the struggle for the "cause" with the same courage, resolve and determination.

Photo: Dragging Canoe exhibit at Sycamore Shoals State Park. | Native History Association

African American history event recalls even King had doubts at times

Fri, 25 Mar 2016 10:57:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN, CONN. - "Struggle, it never stops. It moves on. We make progress but we have to keep on fighting." declared Jarvis Tyner, chair of the New York Communist Party to a standing ovation in the packed auditorium at Troup School during the 42nd Annual People's World African American History Month Celebration.

Emphasizing the necessity for all-out unity to make sure Donald Trump does not become president, Tyner's impassioned remarks placed the 2016 elections in the context of the on-going African American freedom struggle from slavery to reconstruction, to the Civil Rights movement and the election of President Barack Obama.

Recalling how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began to doubt himself after his house was bombed during the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1955, Tyner said that it was the people that inspired Dr. King to keep fighting. He concluded, "Leaders are wonderful but it's really the people that are the greatest leaders we have. The people will lead the way."

The multi-racial audience, including many young people, union members and elected officials enthusiastically welcomed Tyner who was a candidate for Vice President on the Communist Party USA ticket in 1972 and 1976.

During the weekend Tyner spoke at five venues in New Haven and Hartford. All were themed around the 65th anniversary of the presentation of the "We Charge Genocide" petition to the United Nations in 1951 by William L. Patterson and Paul Robeson. The petition, which details lynchings, racist terror and crimes against African Americans, is being re-issued this year by International Publishers with an introduction by Jarvis Tyner.

Addressing the still pervasive structural racism in this country, Tyner singled out the water crisis in Flint, Michigan saying, "They can kill you with a gun and they can kill you with chemicals." He said the crisis goes beyond Flint and that "90 percent of coal refineries are near Black and Latino neighborhoods."

Pointing out that Republican presidential candidates deny climate change because of their ties to the fossil fuel industry, Tyner emphasized, "If the voters are inspired and mobilized, the right-wing extremists can't win!"

During the Hartford event, held at the King-Davis Labor Center, Tyner passed around a photograph too painful to view. It was a picture of a child chain gang in the South following the violent overthrow of Reconstruction. He quoted W.E.B. DuBois: "The slave went free, stood a brief moment in the sun, then moved back again towards slavery."

The New Haven event included African drumming led by Brian Jarawa Gray and a welcome from the Troup School principal. Some members of the school choir led the audience in "Lift Every Voice and Sing."

Alfred Marder, president of the Amistad Committee, spoke of the acquittal of the Amistad captives by the Supreme Court 175 years ago. He concluded, "Black lives matter in 1839 and black lives matter now!"

The winners of the People's World African American History Month High School Arts and Writing Competition read their poems and displayed their artwork centered around the question, "What Lessons from the Reconstruction Era for 2016?"

Ice the Beef Youth put on a multi-genre performance culminating in the chant, "We Gotta Stop the Violence with Peace!"

The events gave voice to the outrage at institutionalized racism, and offered hope and inspiration. "We've got to win this one and hand our children a beautiful future," concluded Tyner.

Photo: Video snapshot

Wisconsin an Alamo for both Bernie and the anti-Trump forces

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 14:15:00 +0000

Six months ago, Wisconsin's presidential primary April 5 was to be a ho-hum affair, ignored in the national coverage. Now it is shaping up a line in the sand for the forces of Bernie Sanders on one side and the stop Trump movement on the other.

The March 22 primaries went much as expected - Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton won the biggest prize, Arizona, while Cruz and Sanders picked up delegates in caucus states Utah and (only for Democrats) Idaho.

Sanders' forces need a big win in an open primary state. So they are pulling out all stops in Wisconsin, a border state to Michigan, where Bernie's upset victory breathed new life into his campaign.

Over at the GOP with Donald Trump nearly halfway home in delegates, full blown panic has infected institutional Republicans. Big money, big ad buys and big name anti-endorsements haven't stopped Trump.

Their traditional voter base is clearly stirred up, though no one except Trump has insidiously suggested street riots. But there is a gathering sensibility of voters taking matters into their own hands to halt the Trump baggage car. The Wisconsin polls are being viewed as a watershed moment.

The Republican establishment is hurting itself by sending mixed messages -- give in to Trump at one moment, resist at another. Conservatives who want to rally around Sen. Ted Cruz as the main viable alternative also realize he remains the second most disliked candidate on the Republican side. Even popular House Speaker Paul Ryan of District 1 hasn't expressed a preference - just a constant sense of disgust and Trump avoidance, which puts him clearly in the stop Trump camp. Yet he has resisted supporting Cruz or John Kasich, the Ohio governor.

The Trump people still anticipate a "huuuge" showing in the state where Trump so demeaned Gov. Scott Walker that he abandoned his presidential bid last September and publicly called for other GOP candidates to follow suit if they wanted to beat Trump.. It took them months to listen, during which Walker's grip on state politics seems to be fading almost as fast as the state' economy is. He did not leave the race as a Trump fan - but then again, neither did Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, and Bobby Jindal, who are all now supporting Trump as the inevitable nominee. Walker instead says he's torn between Cruz and Kasich.

That exhausts the remaining choices -- one establishment Republican in the form of Kasich and the second scariest guy in the GOP field, Cruz, who first sold himself as the maverick messiah conservative outsider and now is calling himself the sober conservative establishment insider. No wonder people think politics are weird.

Trump is finding Wisconsin a curiously difficult place to gain traction. In the past it had a reputation for strong evangelical roots and flirtation with George Wallace and other anti-establishment populist movements. But the traditional GOP voters who have been the party bulwark in spring elections express to journalists a tremendous dislike for Trump. Only in northern and western pockets can you find a few blocks of favorable comment, but the sort of blocks that can be chipped away by peer pressure.

A Washington Post piece speculated that if the Trump-Clinton contest emerges as inevitable, it will be decided in the Rust Belt, where Trump's support stems strongly from disenfranchised lower income, lower educated voters who believe Trump is smart (look at his money!) and feel abandoned by the country and both parties. Maybe a businessman can change things, they think. These are the folks who still envision a black and white world of good guys and bad guys in which Trump and the Worldwide Wresting Federation dominate.

Well, Wisconsin typifies the Rust Belt, but is poised to defy the expected. GOP analysts note that Trump leads national unfavorable ratings. In Wisconsin the overall negative view is minus 64 percent overall - and minus 39 percent among self-identified GOP voters.

Rank and file Republicans simply can't believe how party leaders who once spoke in absolute opposition to Trump have bent to his gibberish. While violence on either side is detestable, it's clear that Trump has stirred up such forces - and now faces a backlash. Wisconsin people, clearly distressed at the mental gymnastics of their leaders and skeptical of Cruz, regard the state as too special a place to become yet another scalp on Trump's hair brush.

Is Wisconsin quietly becoming Kasich country? Few talked to here buy the argument made elsewhere that a vote for Kasich is a vote for Trump. They say anything can happen at an open convention. In this state it's Kasich who sounds like a fellow no-nonsense Midwestern - not as absolutist and incalcitrant as Cruz. So predictions are moving from a Cruz-Trump battle at the top to Kasich and Cruz dropping Trump to third place. That would send quite a tom-tom to the GOP convention.

On the Democratic side, Hillary has always had a strong traditional following (even in 2008 when Obama won the primary she picked up 32 out of 76 delegates). But the state also has an outsized coterie of colleges and universities, many quite politically active, the groups that Sanders does well with. Millenials are ferociously angry at Walker's gouging of higher education as well as the national economic system that Sanders pounds about. Many consider themselves a vanguard of a revolution in politics, the spokespeople for an emerging generation. If they can't win this year with Sanders, they are determined to be heard. That's why Sanders is likely to win the April 5 primary despite the pro-Hillary elements.

Down the ballot in an otherwise "nonpartisan" election, the Democrats have more incentive to vote April 5. The only statewide race is almost a stand-in for anger at Walker. Rebecca Bradley, who is running for a full 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, was appointed there just before the election - the third court he has given her by nomination. She has been stung even among Republicans by revelations of what she wrote some 22 years ago in college (overlapping Walker by one year at Marquette University) harshly condemning homosexuals, AIDs and the stupid voters who put Bill Clinton in office. That's why those piling in to vote for either Clinton or Sanders are likely to vote for Bradley's opponent, Judge JoAnne Kloppenurg.

So here is the irony. The April 5 primary may be more important on the GOP side but the most coverage and highest voter interest occurs on the Democratic side.

The people are beginning to take matters into their own hands. That's an emotional response difficult for politicians to channel. But if it is channeled through the polls, this could be a new ballgame.

Photo: Scott Walker. | AP

Senate GOP disses American voters

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 12:34:00 +0000

Senate Republicans are flipping off the President of the United States by refusing to conduct a confirmation hearing for his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

By doing this, the majority party in the Senate is saying it doesn't acknowledge that Barack Obama is the legitimate, twice-elected U.S. President with the right and duty under the U.S. Constitution to nominate justices to fill vacancies on the high court.

Just as significantly, by doing this, Republicans are refusing to accept the decision of 65 million Americans who went to the polls in November of 2012 and re-elected Barack Obama as U.S. President. President Obama is the first commander in chief since 1956 to win 51 percent of the vote twice.

Republicans are thumbing their noses at those citizens, the majority, who voted for President Obama. The GOP is expressing deep derision for the American democratic process by obstructing the duly elected President of the United States from fulfilling his Constitutional obligations.

Before the late Justice Antonin Scalia's body was cold, truly, less than an hour after his death was announced, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kent., placed self-serving politics above grace, sympathy and constitutionality.

Forsaking public expression of condolence to Scalia's widow and nine children, McConnell announced instead that Republicans would prevent the sitting President, who at that point still had a year minus three weeks and three days left to serve in office, from naming a replacement for Scalia.

Rather than "I wish to send my deepest sympathies," McConnell said:

"The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president."

That's because Republicans don't like the guy the American people used their voice to choose to be the current president. So Republicans want to give the American people another chance to do what Republicans want them to do.

Ignoring McConnell's attempt at power-usurping, President Obama last week nominated Chief Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Merrick Garland to fill Scalia's vacancy.

Part of the reason for President Obama's choice is that he knows some Republicans like Garland. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, voted to confirm

Garland's appointment to the appeals court in 1997 and said in 2010 that Judge Garland would be a "consensus nominee" to the Supreme Court who would be confirmed with bipartisan support.

Earlier this month, Sen. Hatch said that if President Obama wanted a real moderate, he would nominate Judge Garland, but predicted, wrongly as it turns out, that the president wouldn't do it.

Despite Hatch's prior support for Garland, the senator has not called on McConnell to schedule the confirmation hearings that are the next step in a normal nomination process. No, like McConnell, Hatch wants to wait to see if he likes the voice of the American people in November better than when they spoke in 2008 and 2012.

The assertion from McConnell and fellow Republicans that the "American people should have a voice" is doubly duplicitous coming from the party that has spent the past five years trying every trick in the book to deny large swaths of Americans their right to express their voice at the ballot box with all manner of voter-suppression legislation.

It is Republicans trying to make students and old people and poor people jump through ridiculous and onerous hoops to exercise their sacred right as citizens to vote. Apparently Republicans don't want to hear these people's voices, probably because so many are the voices of Democrats.

The truth about this let-the-American-people-have-a-voice gambit slipped out of the mouths of indiscreet Republicans after President Obama nominated the moderate Judge Garland. Hatch and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake are among the GOPers who revealed that they might hold confirmation hearings for Judge Garland after the Presidential election.

Not if a Republican is elected, of course. But if the American people choose Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, either of whom is likely to nominate someone far more liberal than Judge Garland, then the Republicans would immediately go for the moderate Garland.

If the GOP Senators did that, they would be ignoring the voice of the American people - people who had just voted for someone more liberal. That would be the voice of the American people that McConnell proclaimed was so very, very important before Justice Scalia's body was cold.

The court McConnell is playing with is crucial to working people. Before Justice Scalia died, for example, there was every expectation that his conservative bloc was going to outlaw fair share fees paid by workers in the public sector who choose not to join their union but who benefit from services provided by collective bargaining. This is a case called Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.

Private sector unions like mine knew that conservative groups would come after us next. Their intent is to starve workers out. If right wingers and their corporate backers can deprive labor organizations of fees for services provided, then workers won't have the money they need for good research before collective bargaining or good lawyers to represent them in grievances against employers. Then big corporations win every time. And workers fall further and further behind.

Now, however, Friedrichs will likely end in a 4-4 stalemate, reverting back to the lower court ruling, where the conservatives eagerly agreed to lose in their excessive hurry to get their appeal before their sure-bet Scalia. In the end, they outsmarted themselves.

The U.S. Constitution states the president "shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint...judges of the Supreme Court." It doesn't say, "except when the president is a Democrat and the majority in the Senate is Republican." It doesn't say, "except in presidential election years."

In fact, the Senate has confirmed six Supreme Court justices in election years since 1912. In the most recent case, when Republican President Ronald Reagan nominated Anthony Kennedy, a majority-Democratic Senate confirmed him, unanimously, in the presidential election year of 1988.

Antonin Scalia prided himself in being a strict constitutionalist. If McConnell wants to stop the late justice from spinning in his grave, then the majority leader needs to order the Senate to perform its constitutionally mandated job by conducting a confirmation hearing for Judge Garland followed by a vote on his nomination to the Supreme Court.

Steelworkers President Leo Gerard heads one of the nation's most politically active and largest industrial unions.

Photo: Merrick Garland with Obama. | Martinez Monsivais/AP

L.A. faith-based leaders arrested in protest against deportations

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 12:22:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - On Wednesday, March 23, in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, outside the very courtroom where Central American children defend their cases for asylum, 21 faith leaders and allies, myself included, got arrested for protesting the detention and deportation of immigrants, specifically U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids targeting Central American refugee mothers and children who have come to the U.S. to flee extreme violence and to seek asylum.

The other arrestees include Rev. Noel Anderson, Father Thomas Carey, Pastor Robert Chao Romero, Pastor Lucia Chappelle, Cathy Deppe, Rev. Alejandro Escoto, Father Richard Estrada, Scott Haskins, Betty Hung, Canon Randy Kimmler, Rev. Joanne Leslie, Rev. Allison Mark, Rev. Chris Ponnet, Angela Sanbrano, Rev. Andy Schwiebert, Shakeel Syed, Rev. Melinda Teter Dodge, Rev. Brenda Vaca, Rev. Heidi Worthen-Gamble and Deacon Robert Vasquez.

I chose to get arrested during Holy Week because too many of our immigrant and refugee brothers and sisters are suffering; too many have been sent back to places where they have fled violence and persecution, and have found death. Young children are being forced to represent themselves in our immigration courts with little to no recourses. Families live in fear because they wonder when ICE might come to their doorstep next and take one of their loved ones away. Our fellow humanity is crying out, and we must respond.

Holy Week is one of the most sacred times of the year for Christians around the world. As a priest, I have committed myself to follow Jesus as he proclaims God's love and liberation in the world. Jesus was not unlike the refugees of today, for he was persecuted and condemned by the imperial forces of his time, and sent to his death. I am also the son of Mexican immigrants, and I know the difficult journey that my parents have traveled to provide for my family. I am risking arrest during Holy Week because the gospel message compels me to proclaim a radically different way - to love my neighbor and to offer hospitality to the stranger. I call on all people of faith and goodwill to challenge the hatred and xenophobia that are captivating our national discourse and our immigration policies, to challenge these unjust policies and hateful messages, and instead to offer welcome and sanctuary to refugee and immigrant families.

Currently, over 300 Central Americans are being detained, many of whom are unaccompanied children. Over the first weekend of the raids alone, 77 people were deported. And it has, so far, been reported that since the U.S. deported these people in January, 83 total deportees have been murdered, many of them shortly after deportation. This is a life and death matter! These mothers, children, and fathers cannot be misclassified any longer. They are refugees who need protection and resources, and they should not be criminalized for being victims of poverty, violence, and having insufficient paperwork.

The protest and witness actions were organized by Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), which collaborates with over 600 religious leaders and 1200 lay people throughout the Los Angeles County area. These faith-based activists represent a very broad range of ethnic and denominational constituencies.

CLUE's faith leaders and allies are demanding:

Sanctuary, not deportation
No more ICE raids
No more targeting children
No 287g and no PEPcomm
Yes to TPS (Temporary Protection Services) for all Central American refugees
End the prosecution of Francisco Aguirre and all the other Central American refugees
Yes to due process legislation that would provide free legal assistance to immigrants.

Santuario Sí! Deportación No!

In this holiest of weeks for many faith traditions around the world, CLUE stands steadfast in solidarity with immigrant families in response to the raids that were launched last Christmas Eve by the Department of Homeland Security and their "Operation Border Guardian" program.

See here for more information about CLUE and its programs.

After Western primaries Democratic leaders urge Sanders to stay in race

Wed, 23 Mar 2016 13:40:00 +0000

While vote totals in yesterday's Western primaries confirmed that Hillary Clinton is speeding toward victory, more and more leading Democrats, including Clinton supporters, are urging Bernie Sanders to stay in the presidential nomination race for the good of the Democratic party.

Clinton won in Arizona, but Sanders' victories in Idaho and Utah gave him 57 percent of the delegates up for grabs yesterday. A day earlier, he also won the vote among Democrats Abroad.

Both Democrats and Republicans held a primary in Arizona and caucuses in Utah yesterday. In addition, Democrats held caucuses in Idaho.

In all three states, Democratic voter turnouts broke all records. The turnout in Idaho was the largest for any caucus in U.S. history.

Among Republicans, the results confirmed that Donald Trump is still in the lead.

Press accounts from across the nation have been spotlighting the fact that Trump has become a magnet for white supremacist groups.

Moreover, several of Ted Cruz's supporters are blatantly anti-Semitic. For example, Cruz has refused to disavow Ted Nugent, a National Rifle Association board member who recently published a broadside implicitly saying that Jews "want to take away your guns."

To date, Clinton has close to 1,700 delegates not counting those chosen in the Utah and Idaho caucuses and Sanders has 895. These totals include 482 super delegates currently pledged to Clinton and 27 pledged to Sanders. To win the Democratic nomination, a candidate needs 2,382 delegates.

It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination. Cruz emerged from Tuesday with about 471 delegates in total and Ohio Gov. John Kasich has 145.

Trump won in Arizona and now has a total of some 743 delegates pledged to him.

Trump channeling George Wallace

Meanwhile, there has been increased national press focus on the white supremacists who have attached themselves to the Trump campaign.

In a CNN interview, news anchor Wolf Blitzer told Trump that the Anti-Defamation League has listed notable racists who support him.

Blitzer asked Trump, "Why do you think these various white supremacist groups are supporting your campaign?" He also urged Trump to disavow and "condemn" all such groups.

Trump denied any knowledge of white supremacist support and refused to disavow any group. Recently Trump gave the same response when asked by a TV interviewer about Ku Klux Klan support. Later, Trump said he couldn't hear the question clearly because of an earpiece malfunction.

He can make no such excuse for his answers to Blitzer.

The same day as the Blitzer interview, the arch-conservative National Review compared Trump to George Wallace, the segregationist Alabama governor who ran for president in 1968.

"At first glance," the National Review said, the comparisons between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler are obvious. ... Both used the disaffection of an angry ethnic majority to gain power. ... And both appealed to xenophobic notions of nationhood to rile up their supporters.

"[However], the precedent for the rise of Donald Trump is not Nazi Germany; the precedent for Donald Trump [can be found] in the United States of America."

The National Review article details similarities between Trump and Wallace. It says that like Wallace, Trump "whips his crowds into an emotional frenzy and silences dissent by encouraging violence against protesters and having security guards remove them by force."

In addition to the National Review, Yahoo News recently ran a piece saying "Donald Trump is luring the country's racist contingent out of the woodwork."

The writer cites a PBS NewsHour segment featuring Trump supporters who have Nazi and white supremacist tattoos.

"Please keep running, Bernie"

In face of the hate-mongering spouted by Trump and Cruz, most Americans can take hope - at least for the present - in the fact that nationwide polls show Clinton beating Trump and Kasich in the general election. The same polls show Sanders beating Cruz in addition to Trump and Kasich.

Clinton is well ahead of Sanders in delegates who will vote for her at the Democratic National Convention in July. However, some of her supporters - including some Democratic Party leaders - are encouraging Sanders to stay in the presidential nomination race.

"I don't think any Democrat should call on [Sanders] to get out," said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D., Ohio. "Almost no Democrat I know would say that. And shouldn't."

Nationally respected political observer and Democratic Party advisor Harvey Wasserman recently wrote "Run, Bernie, please keep running.

"We all win when Bernie Sanders runs," Wasserman wrote. "We need him to continue through the Democratic Convention and beyond.

"He is, above all, educating and energizing a new wave of activists and ordinary citizens of all ages. The impacts are essential and incalculable. They will be with us for decades."

Furthermore, the Politico online newsletter reports that "Democratic senators of all stripes are as impressed as they are surprised by Bernie Sanders' insurgent campaign."

Hillary supporters Sens. Claire McCaskill, D., Mo., and Jeanne Shaheen, D., N.H., both said that Sanders is sharpening the contrast between what Democrats and Republicans stand for:

Senator Chuck Schumer, D., N.Y., added "Bernie is a very constructive person. And he wants to move American politics closer in his direction. He's done that already."

Summing up the thinking of many Democratic leaders, Sen. Brian Schatz, D., Hawaii, said "I think that Sen. Sanders has built a movement. And that whatever happens, the two big tribes of the Democratic Party will be able to unite at the convention and be so much stronger."

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly implied that Hillary Clinton had won the most delegates on Western Tuesday.

Photo: On March 22 Bernie Sanders addressed an enormous night rally in San Diego, California. | Pacific States for Bernie Campaign Facebook page