People Before Profit blog

Despite tea party senators, government shutdown avoided for now

Mon, 02 Nov 2015 09:51:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The good news: both the House and Senate have approved an agreement negotiated with the White House that will make it more difficult for right wing lawmakers to force government shutdowns for at least two years.

Three tea party senators tried to block the deal and failed.

The agreement includes a federal budget that will guide spending until September 30, 2017. Among other things, the budget suspends arbitrary limits on spending known as "sequestration," a gimmick right wingers forced lawmakers to adopt several years ago.

Moreover, the package raises the debt ceiling until March, 2017, so the U.S. won't default on its debts.

The bad news: government shutdowns are still possible.

The federal budget merely sets the uppermost limits on spending. The House and Senate appropriations committees, both run by right wingers, will now put together an omnibus spending proposal detailing exactly what the government will fund and how much money will be spent.

If the right wingers attach "poison pill" riders to the spending bill, such as defunding Planned Parenthood, Democrats have vowed to block it. If a standoff between lawmakers lasts until after December 11, parts of the government could be shuttered on that date.

More bad news: all three senators who tried to block passage of the spending agreement are running for president: Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.

Obama halts crisis-driven spending deals

For the past several years, the government has been operating on "continuing resolutions," temporary funding measures that last only a short time. As each temporary funding measure has expired, there has been a crisis. More often than not, Republicans have threatened not to fund the government if they did not get their way on something or another.

Early last month, President Obama said: not again.

"Congress has to do its job," he said at a press conference. "It can't flirt with another shutdown."

He said he "won't sign another shortsighted spending bill" and asserted that sequestration was hurting the economy.

Regardless, Republicans gave no indication they were interested in changing their ways until Obama exercised his veto, something he has done only five times. He nixed the Republicans' military spending bill because it continued sequestration.

Then they had no choice. If the Republicans wanted to get their pet military projects funded, they had to do it through the budget process and had to negotiate a deal with the White House. Then-Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did just that.

The budget agreement contains several compromises with the rightists.

It repeals an Obamacare requirement that large employers must automatically enroll new employees into company health insurance plans. (If they want to, employees can still opt in.)

It also raises Medicare Part B premiums for about one third of the recipients. Starting next year, they will have to pay $123 monthly, a hike of $19 a month. (Which is better than the originally proposed hike of more than $55 a month.)

However, the compromises were not enough to satisfy most Republicans. Despite the fact that the government would have to shut down next month if the budget deal didn't pass, the majority of Republicans in both houses voted against it: 167 in the House and 35 in the Senate.

Fortunately, enough Republicans in each house voted with the Democrats to pass the budget with clear majorities, no thanks to Senators Cruz, Rubio and Paul.

The three of them attempted to filibuster the agreement to death, but were shut down at 3a.m. this past Friday when the majority of the Senate called for a vote.

Two hours earlier, Sen. Paul had tried to exhort his colleagues to hold the American economy hostage to right wing demands. Despite the fact that if the U.S. defaulted on its debts the American people might suffer another recession, Paul said, "This is exactly the time we should be using the leverage of the debt ceiling."

Fortunately, in this instance a number of Republican senators put the American people before political advantage and the agreement was approved.

Stan Collender, a former staffer in the House and Senate Budget committees, best summed up the situation. He told NPR News:

"That tells you a great deal about how far budget policy has gone ... where keeping a government funded is considered a great achievement."

Photo: Republican Sens. Rand Paul (l) and Ted Cruz (R), both candidates for the presidency of the United States and GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, also a candidate for the highest office in the nation, led a failed filbuster aimed at torpedoing the federal budget. Had they prevailed the right wing would have succeeded in shutting down the federal government. | AP

House passes highway-transit bill, delays rail safety

Fri, 30 Oct 2015 11:36:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - By voice vote and with little debate, the GOP-run House whipped through a short-term - three-week - extension of federal highway and mass transit programs and the gas tax that funds them, on Oct. 27. The Senate was expected to agree before authority for the programs and the gas tax expired two days later.

The bill, the latest of dozens of short-term extensions of the highway and mass transit programs, keeps the federal gas tax at 18.4 cents a gallon, a level that hasn't changed since 1993. It keeps gas tax money flowing to highway and bridge construction, mass transit construction and operations and some other transportation uses, such as bike paths.

Unions supported the short-term extension while again urging Congress to approve a six-year highway-mass transit bill, with a gas tax hike, so there would be adequate money to fund long-term mass transit and highway projects and employ tens of thousands of workers.

Lawmakers predicted that by the new deadline, Nov. 20, they would have crafted such a permanent bill, but they did not say how they would pay for it. Anti-tax, anti-government GOP right-wing radicals have previously stalled and killed past highway-mass transit bills.

"The need for long-term investments in our transportation system and infrastructure will not 'just go away,'" said AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department President Edward Wytkind, after TTD leaders met top bipartisan lawmakers on transportation issues on Oct. 26. House and Senate committees are making progress on the long-term legislation, solons said.

Laborers President Terry O'Sullivan thanked lawmakers "for putting aside partisanship to work across party lines to pass a multi-year surface transportation package out of committee." He said a six-year bill "will make our roads and bridges safer, and create good jobs...We urge Congress to 'go big' and build sustainable investment into the program," so that "a well-funded multi-year highway bill becomes law."

"We need to increase investments in our infrastructure and focus on the areas that will truly help create jobs and support our economy," Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said after the union leaders' session with the lawmakers. "We also need to protect the men and women who are out there every day making our transportation systems work."

"Transportation infrastructure is at the heart of the U.S. economy," added Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the House panel's top Democrat, who favors raising the gas tax. "Our competitiveness, our businesses and millions of American jobs depend on robust investments in our crumbling network of roads, bridges, highways and transit systems. We must... modernize our transportation infrastructure, create good jobs and enhance the rights and working conditions of the men and women who keep America moving."

The only congressional discussion in the short-term bill was around new legislation, inserted into it, to delay a key rail safety measure, positive train control (PTC) to Dec. 31, 2018.

PTC automatically slows and stops trains that are going too fast, exceeding track speed limits. After a fatal crash in Los Angeles in 2008, Congress told the nation's railroads - its freight railroads, commuter railroads and Amtrak-to install PTC by the end of this year or face a federal crackdown.

Unions and rail workers have pushed hard for PTC, and Railway Workers United, a coalition of rank-and-file rail workers - including members of the Teamsters Rail Conference, the Machinists and Smart's Rail Division - continue to do so.

Freight railroads and shippers, wielding lobbying and campaign contributions, retorted they could not meet the deadline and threatened to halt freight, instead. Amtrak has PTC over almost all of its line - except one stretch of track on the north side of Philadelphia. That's where a speeding train derailed earlier this year, killing eight passengers and injuring 200.

TTD reluctantly agreed to the three-year PTC delay, but no more, Wytkind said earlier. In debate on the short-term bill, some lawmakers warned this delay would be the only one.

"With the exception of some portion of Amtrak, nobody will be able to meet the deadline, which does mean an extraordinary disruption of movement of freight and commuter and passenger rail," DeFazio conceded. While the House and Senate agreed on the three-year PTC deadline delay, "It is tough. It says we are not going to get to this point again. It is not going to be 'Kick the can, kick the can, kick the can,'" he declared.

"All entities required to put in place positive train control will put forward a plan for approval with measurable benchmarks over this three-year period, and will be tracked as to meeting those benchmarks," he said. "So it won't be that, suddenly, we get to the end of three years and we hear from a majority of freight and/or passenger commuter railroads, saying, 'Gee, we just can't make it.'" In the end, DeFazio promised, "They all will have had to install the equipment."

Photo: In this aerial photo, emergency personnel work at the scene of the deadly Amtrak train wreck, May 13, in Philadelphia. | Patrick Semansky/AP

Trial of coal criminal Blankenship finally begins

Thu, 29 Oct 2015 12:32:00 +0000

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Don Blankenship, the accused coal criminal and former CEO of Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine, may finally face justice this month. His trial began here Oct. 1 in the U.S. District Court.

The defendant arrived in an SUV and was quickly escorted into the main courtroom by Homeland Security. Some 300 prospective jurors had filled the courtroom where the trial is to take place.

The media and members of the families of the 29 miners who were killed had to watch the proceedings from an overflow courtroom on several widescreen TVs.

None of the families were happy about being shunted off into an overflow courtroom. They and the reporters had to endure watching at least four days of inaudible bench conferences.

The first few days were spent with jury selection, which continued through Tuesday of the following week. Dismissed prospective jurors were excused for a wide range of reasons including stating that they believed Blankenship was being made a scapegoat for the explosion, expressing sympathy for the miners' families, having a business connection with Blankenship or his lawyers, or knowing a member of a deceased miner's immediate family members.

The trial proper began with the lawyers' opening statements on Wed., Oct. 7. The entire trial is expected to last from four to six weeks. There was at least one happy thing about the first days of watching seemingly endless, muted bench conferences between Judge Irene Berger, the lawyers, and prospective jurors. Most of the family members seemed glad that Donald Blankenship 's trial had finally begun and the then-CEO of Massey's Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County may finally have to answer for his alleged negligence, cover-ups, fraud, and the other charges levied against him.

Judge Berger finally unsealed the main courtroom after a jury of 11 women and four men had been selected and sworn in. The trial proper began with the Prosecution's and the Defense's opening statements late Wednesday morning.

Blankenship faces three felony counts, which were modified from four by combining the original four counts into three. He still faces the same maximum of over 30 years in prison for the three counts as he did for the four counts. The charges he now faces are: conspiracy to violate mine safety standards, impairing government inspectors by covering up hazards to the miners' safety, and making false statements to securities regulators that essentially resulted in securities fraud.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Ruby began the government's opening statement by telling the jury how Blankenship pushed ever harder for increased coal production, personally controlled every move at the mine and endorsed violations that allowed conditions to deteriorate. Ruby asserted that Blankenship had orchestrated a cover-up of safety hazards as he pushed for increased coal production until the mine blew up on April 5, 2010, killing 29 miners in the worst West Virginia mining disaster in four decades.

Ruby stated that the government would bring forth miners and phone recordings that will show how Blankenship put production, profits, and personal wealth above the miners' safety. He wrapped up his opening statement by claiming that Blankenship's actions at the mine were motivated simply by money.

In his opening statement Bill Taylor, lead defense counsel, began by telling the jury that Don Blankenship is not charged with causing the explosion. He cautioned the jury against finding Blankenship guilty simply because he is a "wealthy coal company CEO." He told the jury to ask themselves whether Blankenship is on trial because of what he did or because of "who he is?"

Taylor blamed many of the citations on the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration's [MSHA] "improper" changes forced on the mine. He went on to claim that Blankenship was a "safety innovator" who put in place a program to force Massey's employees to improve their safety performance and claimed that Blankenship believed that, "if people do their jobs, ... you don't have citations." Taylor used the time-worn conservative argument that any mine safety problem lay "with people not doing their jobs."

Photo: John Milam/PW

GOP’s Speaker of the House Paul Ryan vows to unite right wing

Thu, 29 Oct 2015 10:01:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Having won the votes of the majority of Republican representatives, Rep. Paul Ryan, R.-Wis., will start work as Speaker of the House Monday. He's billing himself as a "uniter," not a "divider."

Unlike Dubya, Ryan is not referring to the American people or even to the House as a whole when he talks about "unity." He's pledging rather to bring together clashing factions of right- wing Congressional Republicans.

Whether he can or not remains to be seen.

Either way, he will do nothing to take the American people off the chopping block.

There appears to be two main camps of right-wingers in Congress: the finger-flippers and the finaglers.

The finger-flippers aim to give the American people the finger by doing all they can to stop the government from functioning. They're tea party through-and-through, are members of the so-called "Freedom Caucus," and their ranks are often swelled by other Republicans.

Their followers include people fueled by fear, hate and a sense of hopelessness. Whatever their motivation, when they work to undermine government functioning, the finger-flippers de facto are working to put the running of our country squarely in the hands of billionaires.

The finaglers are the right wingers who are confident they can use legislative and administrative means to hand the country over to billionaires de jure. They're the ones who put the brakes on the flippers last month when the later tried to stop the government from functioning by not approving a resolution to fund it.

Yesterday, the finaglers pushed through a two-year budget deal with the White House even though 167 finger-flipping Republicans voted against it.

If passed by the Senate, the proposed budget, among other things, would protect recipients from having to pay up to 53 percent more for Medicare and would raise the debt limit to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on loans.

It would also suspend arbitrary limits on spending known as "sequestration;" but only for two years.

Ryan-style "uniting"

Ryan's handling of the budget deal might be an indication of what he means by "unifying:" He'll try to satisfy both right wing camps.

At first, Ryan aligned himself with the flippers by implying he would not support the budget proposal.

Yesterday, he voted for it.

However, he said: "About the [budget] process, I can say this: I think the process stinks."

Moreover, he said: "It's time for us to ... get to work on a bold agenda ... ."

Ryan's words can be translated from political-speak to English.

By saying "the process stinks," Ryan is reiterating a pledge he made to the tea party bunch that he'll return to using the "Hastert rule." This is the practice initiated by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert that dramatically thwarts our democracy. Even if a measure was backed by a majority of the House and was clearly supported by a majority of Americans, Hastert would not let it come to a vote unless a majority of Republicans were in favor.

(Coincidently, yesterday as Ryan was being given the Speaker's seat, a court found Hastert guilty; not of subverting democratic procedures, but of not doing the correct paperwork for expenditures that ultimately went to a blackmailer.)

Getting back to Ryan; by calling for "work on a bold agenda," he's reminding right wing lawmakers that in two years they can re-impose sequestration. Furthermore, he's saying that by passing the current proposal, they've bought themselves time to craft a budget that will effectively swell the coffers of the rich and gut programs to help poor and working people.

In other words, Ryan is encouraging the flippers to join the finaglers by assuring them they'll have a better chance of reaching their ultimate goal: an American government freed from the burden of having to serve the American people.

There is absolutely nothing in his record to indicate that Ryan will deviate from his ongoing efforts to hand the U.S. over to billionaires.

Ryan's right wing bona fides

As chair of the House Budget committee in 2011, Ryan promoted a draft budget that would slash funding for public education, roads, and public services.

As Romney's running mate in 2012, Ryan's stump speech railed against the evils of "big government" and extolled the "virtues" of people lifting themselves up by their bootstraps alone.

In 2013, as chair of theHouse budget committee, Ryan came out in favor of $20 billion in cuts that would throw an estimated two million children, elderly, and disabled Americans off food stamps. He also pushed a proposal to take food stamps away from people who have $2,000 in savings, or a car worth more than $5,000. The Congressional Budget Office found that this would strip food stamps away from an additional 1.8 million people.

Ryan's budget schemes helped torpedo the Romney-Ryan ticket and his proposals have been blasted apart by every respected expert.

Nevertheless, in record time Ryan has risen from the House ranks to become Chair of the House Budget Committee, a candidate for Vice President and then Chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

He has now completed his ascension. He's the youngest-ever Speaker of the House.

Ryan's rapid rise should be another in a long series of wake up calls to the American people: our government has been hijacked. It will take work to turn it around from serving billionaires to once again being a government "by the people and for the people."

For the complete low-down on Paul Ryan, go to Peter Dreier's October 21 article in the Huffington Post: "Paul Ryan is a hypocrite, charlatan and right-wing extremist."

Photo: AP

Today in history: First American woman ambassador appointed

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 11:20:00 +0000

On this date in 1949, Helen Eugenie Moore Anderson became the first woman to hold the post of U.S. ambassador when she was sworn in by Pres. Harry S Truman. She served as ambassador to Denmark. She served in that capacity from 1949 to 1953.

Anderson was born as Helen Eugenie Moore in 1909 in Adair, Iowa, one of five children of Rev. Ezekial A. Moore, a Methodist minister, and his wife, FloraBelle. She concentrated in music as a student, and attended the Juilliard School in New York, hoping to become a concert pianist. She married John Pierce Anderson in 1929 and had two children.

A trip to Europe in 1937 sparkedAnderson's interest in international affairs. In Germany she first saw a totalitarian state in action. When she returned, she joined the League of Women Voters and spoke frequently for LWV audiences, fighting the strong isolationist policies of the time. She poured her energy into Democratic Party politics in Minnesota, helping to create the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) in 1944. She became an early supporter of the United Nations.

In 1948 Anderson was one of the few women elected to an office in the national Democratic Party. In that year, as the DFL split from the national Democratic Party in a controversy over goals and ideology, she supported Hubert H. Humphrey.

As U.S. ambassador to Denmark, she quickly endeared herself to the Danish people by learning their language and traveling throughout the country. In 1951, she helped to negotiate an agreement that allowed the U.S. to use air bases in Greenland, a Danish possession. She also helped to draft a new Treaty of Commerce and Friendship with Denmark, and then became the first American woman to sign a treaty.

In 1962, Pres. John F. Kennedy named her ambassador to Bulgaria(1962-64), making her the first female chief of a U.S. diplomatic mission in the socialist bloc. She skillfully negotiated a settlement of U.S. financial claims still outstanding from World War II. In Sofia, she roiled the Bulgarian police by handing out literature about the United States at a local fair.

Beginning in 1965, Anderson served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations and became the first woman to sit on the Security Council.

After her retirement from these posts, Pres. Lyndon Johnson appointed Anderson to the United Nations Trusteeship Council. She then served on the United Nations Committee for Decolonization.

Anderson died in 1997 at the age of 87. Her papers are housed at the Minnesota Historical Society.

Sources: Chase's Calendar of Events, diplomacy.state.gov. The Wikipedia entry on Anderson links to an hour-long television interview from 1951.

Down the rabbit hole: Kochs want an end to corporate welfare?

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 10:57:00 +0000

It felt like I fell down the rabbit-hole when I read that the rabid right-wing oil billionaires David and Charles Koch, along with their Republican cohorts are sick and tired of corporate welfare. What?

Just this past September, Charles Koch, chairman of the board and CEO of Koch Industries Inc., called on corporate leaders to shun government-corporate "cronyism" and oppose "rather than promot[e], corporate welfare."

Again, what?! Just to briefly state the obvious: Koch Industries has been a recipient of corporate welfare in all kinds of ways, including government subsidies and tax breaks. Why would Charles Koch and his brother David launch a campaign against what they have hypocritically benefited from?

The answer may lie in another part of Koch's speech given to a "summit" in California this August. Joshua Watkins, in a blog post on Charles Koch Institute, wrote, "Mr. Koch pointed to the banking industry, which he argued saw big banks take bailouts in exchange for overregulation and now sees smaller banks paying the price, as representative of how corporate welfare is creating irreversible class distinctions. 'We're headed toward a two-tiered society-a society that's destroying opportunities for the disadvantaged and creating welfare for the rich,' Koch said. 'Misguided policies are creating a permanent underclass, crippling our economy and corrupting the business community.'"

What? Did he just call out the banks, corporate welfare and class society? Is he going to go after Chase for their subprime loans that helped set off the 2007-2008 financial crisis and thousands upon thousands of foreclosures?

Is he going to tell Walmart and McDonald's to raise wages to $15 an hour and stop forcing their employees onto food stamps and Medicaid? Or is he going to lobby Congress to end the billions in tax breaks Big Oil receives every year?

Is he going to launch a campaign against the unconscionable concentration of wealth at the top .1 percent, a concentration of wealth that has caused an unprecedented crisis of economic/income inequality compounded, in addition, by racial and gender inequality?

Nope. Instead, the elder Koch bro lashes out at a little known bank backed by the U.S. government.

Join me in going down the rabbit hole to Waukesha, Wisc., where General Electric Co. announced it will close its engine plant there and move it to Canada, costing the area just west of Milwaukee 350 good-paying union jobs.

The company blamed Congress because GOP lawmakers refused to renew the charter of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, a government entity that extends lines of credit to global buyers of U.S.-manufactured goods. (Things changed in the wake of GE's announcement and business and labor political pressure when late yesterday Congress voted to reauthorize the Ex-Im charter.)

Apparently this bank has long been a target of the Kochs because it supposedly facilitates corporate welfare by guaranteeing loans for U.S. exports. Now that Congress is full of their extremist ilk, the Kochs smelled blood and one of their think tanks launched an End Ex-Im campaign, gathering signatures of 95 members of the House of Representatives, all Republicans, including - get this - Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner's, whose district includes Waukesha!

The Heritage campaign called the bank a "slush fund" for a "handful of well-connected special interests."

Then one of their academic-based think tanks issued a report, confirming the corporate "cronyism" but with a twist. The Mercatus Center of George Mason University chose to emphasize the buyers of U.S. exports in their talking points. "A new analysis of government data reveals that Ex-Im Bank's top 10 overseas buyers are large corporations that primarily purchase exports from multinational conglomerates," write the report co-authors, claiming "the subsidies lavished on these foreign firms actually undercut American companies and workers that must compete without such government assistance."

Talking point words like "lavish," "slush funds," "foreign," "overseas," "multinational" jump out at me. The report targets five of the top ten for being "state-controlled" and for being "involved in the exploration, development, and production of oil or natural gas.

"These foreign concerns are collecting subsidies from American taxpayers at the same time that the Obama administration is restricting domestic oil and gas operations."

The impression given here is the Obama administration is favoring "foreign" over the good old Red, White and Blue USA and doing it in an underhanded way with its "slush funds." And who is standing up for U.S. business and jobs? The Kochs and the Republicans, of course!

Back in Realityville, a plant is closing in Waukesha and GE blames the closing of Ex-Im Bank. Wisconsin's Republican political leaders Gov. Scott Walker and soon to be House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan don't seem concerned and said they support abolishing the Ex-Im saying it doesn't help small businesses.

But, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Star, the numbers say differently:

"Since 2007, the U.S. Export-Import Bank has helped support more than 27,000 jobs at 218 Wisconsin businesses, resulting in $5 billion worth of exports, according to government figures. In 2014, the bank supported $210 million in Wisconsin exports, 46 percent of which were from small businesses."

GE and Boeing are definitely giant corporations with political connections and beneficiaries of Ex-Im loan guarantees. But, even according to the pro-Republican Chicago Tribune, reality of global export-import business trumps Trump-styled politics of hypocrisy and hyperbole.

In an Oct. 1 editorial the Tribune says, "Here's why the Ex-Im matters: It fills a crucial niche for both big companies and small businesses. Commercial banks often avoid the export market, or charge extra, because of the unique risk factors and paperwork demands. Many international transactions are privately financed, but for 10 or 15-year loans on construction projects or big capital equipment purchases in dicier parts of the world, government loans or guarantees are often needed. If the Export-Import Bank isn't around, would-be customers will go elsewhere. ('Hello, Beijing? I'd like to apply for a loan.')"

Seems like this fight has caused cracks between sections of corporate rule. Manufacturing realists versus fossil fuel extremists, perhaps? But it also seems that these extremists are readying their ideological explanation for one of the main issues for the 2016 presidential election - income inequality - and appropriating the language of progressives and labor in order to confuse, obfuscate and channel righteous anger in the wrong direction.

To believe the Kochs or the far-gone, far-right Republican Party have your best interest at heart, you'd have to be as mad as a hatter, but anything can happen down the rabbit hole.

Photo: Samantha Marx/Flickr (CC)

Changes in Wisconsin’s John Doe law protect corrupt politicians

Tue, 27 Oct 2015 12:55:00 +0000

Changes to Wisconsin's John Doe law actually eliminate its value. While its GOP backers claim that all they did was preserve John Doe for what they call really big cases, not "lesser crimes" like public corruption, a Republican district attorney told me flatly, "There will never be another John Doe in this state."

Angry Democratic legislators in Madison named it "The Corrupt Politicians Protection Act" even before Gov. Scott Walker, breathing a sigh of relief, signed it into law Oct. 23. That certainly nails the self-serving opportunism of the fearful right-wing but it doesn't address how the real victim is the average citizen who just lost that special protection of name and reputation if they were innocent witnesses or had other information on a crime.

John Doe is the name given to an investigative process existing since territorial times in Wisconsin that insists a judge allow and oversee every step and gives the judge authority if desired to issue gag orders to prevent participants from revealing information. That is to make sure witnesses and targets are not exposed to publicity before charges are issued, though the witnesses on their own can reveal they were called - and targets, too, if they guess who they are. Of course, why would they?

Since most such investigations go after violent crimes, the DA added, "The public is really the one being robbed."

"I guess one way to reduce crime in Wisconsin," said another DA, "is to put out of reach activity that used to be a crime."

Most law officers also take ferocious issue with right-wing claims they are extending free speech protections "while it actually takes them away," said another prosecutor from GOP dominated Waukesha County.

Doesn't it at least protect people from the dawn knock at the door to inspect their computers or other horror stories dragged out to change the law? "No," he laughed, "it just mainly makes it harder to catch criminals moving money under the table or protect innocent parties during the hunt."

The process is more protective to parties involved and their seized documents than the normal grand jury process, where prosecutors impanel ordinary citizens and, with looser admonishments of secrecy, let them hear the evidence and issue a bill of charges. Nationally the grand jury procedure leaks like a sieve because citizens and prosecutors in abundance have access to the information, prosecutors are not reined in by judges, reporters and lawyers are skilled at eliciting information - and punishments are minimal while in John Does they are severe.

The changes now prevent John Doe from being used in cases of political corruption or bribery of public officials. But saying it will still be allowed in larger crimes "is a farce," the Waukesha prosecutor told me. "Look at what else they blocked." He cited mortgage fraud, dealing small amounts of heroin or cocaine, identity theft or stealing only a few million.

"All those are gateways," he and other prosecutors say, for drug gangs, murder rings or large scale consumer fraud. Prosecutors may start there and, like peeling layers of onions, uncover other schemes, such as public corruption. But if you are unsure where the investigation will end, and if a probe could cross into investigations barred from John Doe procedures, no prosecutor would ever start with a John Doe.

Moreover and most unfairly, the new law allows witnesses and targets of past John Does to publicly concoct their own details of what happened while still barring prosecutors and judges from speaking. The law came about from a John Doe that was circling on illegal coordination between third party money and Walker's recall campaign, a case thrown out by a right-wing state high court beholden to money from the investigated parties. That's one of the self-protecting perversions that has "lit the interest" of federal courts and the U.S. Department of Justice, several legal insiders tell me, since it suggests collusion among legislators, financiers, executive branch and courts.

Wisconsin prosecutors now say they will have to revive the grand jury process to fight not only public corruption but also the full range of crimes - something more cumbersome and time consuming if you care about the quality of citizens impaneled and preventing leaks. Even so, many lawyers anticipate, innocent people who may have valuable information will know how easily they can be exposed to suspicion or ridicule and be more reluctant to participate.

This law is a fait accompli - but moving quickly through the GOP dominated state legislature are bills that would split and weaken the Government Accountability Board (supervising campaign ethics and elections) and violently rewrite the state's campaign finance law to allow nearly unlimited giving. Again, this might bring unwarranted attention from federal courts where the size of money involved and the nature of coordination are still live issues.

That was just one October week after multiple attacks on many of the advances that had brought Wisconsin national regard as a pioneer - the civil service system, rules for public and private workers, unemployment compensation, collective bargaining, labor peace.

With both chambers controlled by Republicans eager to either protect a right wing governor or even drive him further to his right, Democrats are feeling impotent. To slow the campaign finance rewrite that directly affects every candidate for public office, they staged a mass recusal in the Assembly. This was not like refusing to vote on the state budget or "fiscal stuff like that," noted Milwaukee Rep. Evan Goyke, "but a personal conflict of interest for a politician to rewrite the rules to favor themselves."

But in fighting against the ugliness of these bills (many started in the bowels of ALEC and other heavily funded right-wing financial centers that provide more staff and resources than the Democrats can command), the Democrats are aware of emphasizing their own weakness. "We can come off as the ineffective gadflies delaying the inevitable," one told me. "They'll brand us the sort of progressive extremists that the GOP loves to poke fun at in their blogs and sneering comments. "

But though they know all this, "we will continue to fight," noted Goyke. "We have to hope the voters will join the resistance," said Rep. David Bowen.

Only intensity and patience bring light at the end of a long tunnel - legislative changes in 2016 can render Walker impotent and in three years with total change in state government restore Wisconsin to social sanity.

Photo: Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

Classmates forced to watch as cop brutalizes South Carolina student

Tue, 27 Oct 2015 11:31:00 +0000

A disturbing video was circulating across social media as of Monday morning, Oct. 26. The video shows the assault of a young female student by a uniformed police officer in Richland County, South Carolina, School District Two.

The assault took place at Spring Valley High School where police were called to escort a student out of the classroom who was allegedly refusing to leave. The video, seemingly recorded by another student in the class, shows a white male officer standing over a black female student sitting at her desk.

The officer is seen grabbing the student, causing the desk and the student to fly backwards onto the floor. The officer then drags the student across the floor, demanding, "Hands behind your back...Give me your hands."

School officials have been noted as saying that an investigation is underway by the county sheriff's office. This hasn't stopped those on social media from developing their own campaign against the assault.

The hashtag #AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh has been trending on various social media platforms, in particular Twitter, for hours at a time, with many users calling for a end to police violence, in particular against people of color.

Many users are urging those concerned to call the Richland County Sheriff's Department and demand that the school officer involved in the assault, officer Ben Fields, be held accountable. Charles F. Coleman Jr, former prosecutor-turned-civil-rights-trial-attorney, tweeted, "There is absolutely no excuse for using that level of abusive force against someone who is not resisting... There is absolutely NOTHING that the student could have done to warrant Ben Fields using that level of force. NOTHING #AssaultatSpringValleyHigh." Another user noted, "I don't want to hear anyone say that she should have followed orders. She wasn't committing a crime. Fire the cop."

A statement released by a parent group called the Richland Two Black Parents Association said, "Parents are heartbroken as this is just another example of the intolerance that continues to be of issue in Richland School District Two particularly with families and children of color. As we have stated in the past, we stand ready to work in collaboration to address these horrible acts of violence and inequities among our children." According to the school website, Spring Valley High has about 2,000 students, with 52 percent of them black and 30 percent white.

Sheriff Leon Lott went on record as saying, "The student was told she was under arrest for disturbing school and given instructions which she again refused...The video then shows the student resisting and being arrested by the SRO." It was also confirmed by the sheriff's department that a second student was arrested during the incident. Aaron Johnson, another student at the school, spoke directly to Gawker, giving further dxetails about the second arrest. Johnson explained, "The girl was asked by the teacher, Mr. Long, to leave the classroom and go to the discipline office. She ignored him.

Then an administrator came in and asked her if he needed to get the resource officer. She ignored him and then the officer came in. He asked if she was gonna go or if he had to make her go. Then he grabbed her and pulled her out of her desk and she fell on the ground with the desk still on her. He then threw her across the room and then got on top of her. Another student tried to stand up for her, which also led to her arrest."

This assault comes just days after a RiseUpOctober protest in New York's Washington Square Park against police brutality. This recent incident also puts back into the spotlight the role of school resource officers (SROs) and the growing reliance on police force in schools.

As the ACLU reported in its study, School to Prison Pipeline, "Many under-resourced schools become pipeline gateways by placing increased reliance on police rather than teachers and administrators to maintain discipline. Growing numbers of districts employ school resource officers to patrol school hallways, often with little or no training in working with youth. As a result, children are far more likely to be subject to school-based arrests-the majority of which are for non-violent offenses, such as disruptive behavior-than they were a generation ago. The rise in school-based arrests, the quick¬est route from the classroom to the jailhouse, most directly exemplifies the criminalization of school children."

The Richland Sheriff's office has confirmed that Fields has been placed on paid administrative leave while the incident is being investigated. Watch the video and weigh in, is the growing police presence in public schools contributing to the School to Prison Pipeline?

Photo: An officer flips over a desk with a student still sitting in its chair. | Jimmy Paradise/Twitter

A people's agenda: Reflections of a progressive's first year in office

Mon, 26 Oct 2015 16:36:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - I ran for office over a year ago with a strong desire to represent "the people." I was a reform candidate, obsessed with a vision of what St. Louis could be if only we had government that served the interests of people.

Over the past year "the people" have experienced a few victories. We successfully passed a historical Civilian Oversight Board, raised the minimum wage for nearly 30,000 low-income families in the City of St. Louis (even through this is currently caught up in court), and made it illegal for landlords to discriminate against Section 8 tenants. Some good strides, but not nearly enough.

At the same time, we've managed to mortgage City buildings to give a potential windfall to a developer with a lackluster record of accomplishing anything, doled out who-knows-how-much-because-it's-not-really-tracked tax incentives to corporations, refused to include people with disabilities in our minimum wage law, and are quickly amassing a mass surveillance system for the City while also working to reinstate the red light camera system without public engagement or input.

Now we're looking to dole out another corporate handout in the form of a bright, shiny new football stadium - without a vote of the people. All the while we have some of the highest poverty rates, racial income disparity, and crime rates in the country. This speaks volumes about our priorities.

At City Hall the voice of the people, and the engagement of the public, is often an afterthought.

We need to get our priorities straight. We need to ensure a representation of the people. We need a people's agenda.

What is a people's agenda?

A people's agenda means truly representing people. Not large corporations. Not special interests. Not millionaires and billionaires. But rather, normal, everyday people who often have the least voice or access to a seat at the table regarding the decisions that most impact them. What does a people's agenda mean?

It means putting people first. It means adhering to the racial equity framework put forth by the Ferguson Commission in all policy making. It means recognizing that at its core #BlackLivesMatter, the labor movement, the gay rights movement, the disability rights movement, the environmental movement and the women's liberation movement are all about creating an equitable society and the need to be working together for the people. It means, as elected officials, we must have the political courage to call out when special interests are usurping our political system and prohibiting a truly representative democracy.

The #BlackLivesMatter movement and the subsequent reports that have been issued by the Ferguson Commission and For Sake of All make it impossible for us to continue to ignore the widening racial disparity in our community. We have to start working in the best interest of people.

What does a people's agenda include?

Being responsible to taxpayers: Priorities begin with budgeting. Where we choose to spend our money and to whom we choose to give subsidies sends a clear message about our priorities. In St. Louis, our priorities are often backwards.

Tax incentive reform: We have to rein in our corporate subsidies through a comprehensive tax incentive reform. Research shows that tax incentives have minimal economic impact, are expensive, and inefficient. We have to recognize that for every tax incentive that we hand out we are robbing our schools and our city of the very basic income they need to operate effectively.

Taxpayer-funded stadiums: Part of responsible fiscal management is allowing the voice of the people to be heard when making major financial decisions. Bloomberg, the St. Louis Federal Reserve, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal, all are in agreement that sports stadiums are rarely good investments for taxpayers or cities. So if St. Louis is to make an investment such as the proposed stadium, it had best do it with the will of the people having been granted through a public vote. We must adhere to the timeline of the people rather than the timeline of a billionaire to ensure we are making the best decisions for the citizens of the City of St. Louis.

Reforming our criminal justice system: Disparity is perhaps most pronounced within our criminal justice system. We need to look to the recommendations of Campaign Zero and the models championed by the National Network of Safe Communities to create a more just community. We need to take a hard look at bail reform, mental health and substance abuse diversion programs, body cameras for all police officers implemented with best practices to protect victims of crimes, creation of a mandatory abuse reporting system for our jails, and a comprehensive public safety plan that includes hotspot allocation of social service resources rather than hotspot policing. We have to implement policing strategies that build trust and connection between law enforcement and our community to make us all safer.

Reforming our housing practices: Stable communities require stable neighborhoods. This means creating economically integrated neighborhoods rather than concentrations of poverty and wealth. This means practicing inclusionary housing across the city. This also means implementing a Tenant Bill of Rights and closing the loopholes in our nuisance property ordinance that allow for victims of domestic violence and people with disabilities to be evicted from their rentals. It also means the creation of Community Benefit Agreements to ensure that new developments serve the needs of local residents, not just the needs of developers.

Promoting economic justice: We must promote a living wage over a minimum wage. We need to fight for mandatory paid sick leave and paid leave for victims of crime, and eliminate employer credit checks. We need to invest in the creation of green jobs that pay a living wage and sustain our city and planet, while making much needed infrastructure improvements to St. Louis. We need to phase out the sub-minimum wage that is paid to people with disabilities to ensure an equal opportunity for a living wage for all.

Government accountability and rights to privacy: In recent years it's becoming more commonplace for "smart cities" to make our lives easier and safer. However, with this technology, and its camera-on-every-corner mentality, there are some severe implications to rights to privacy. To date, these discussions in St. Louis have been happening behind closed doors with police and corporate interests, away from the public eye. We have to bring this discussion to the people. It needs to be the people who determine what freedoms we are willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of safety. Government must be transparent with the people.

The next steps toward a people's agenda

The aforementioned is just the beginning of a people's agenda. Many of these policy recommendations are already in motion in some form. Others will require starting from scratch and building the political will to get it done. Over the coming months, each of the facets of the people's agenda will be explored in greater depth, backed up by research, and championed by the people.

Now is the time to return government to the people. Now is the time for the people to set the agenda.

Megan-Ellyia Green represents the 15^th Ward in the City of St. Louis. Twitter: @Meganellyia. FB: https://www.facebook.com/meganfor15thward?fref=ts Website: meganellyiagreen.com.

Photo: Megan Ellyia Green

Indigenous News: chicken feathers, solidarity, Trudeau, Siksikas

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 15:29:00 +0000

Don't Make Me Rip Those Chicken Feathers Off You

When I look at pictures of my grandmothers from back in their hey day I feel proud. They were all strong women. You could see it in their eyes. I have one picture in particular of my Great, Great Grandma Molly and her daughters, Great Grandmothers Julie and Louise (married names). In the picture they are tired; hands bandaged and holding blades. They were "ga bla-ing" meat, cutting it thin and spreading it out to dry. The sheets of meat are hanging behind them. As much as the boarding school tried to colonize them, they still carried this tradition with them.

Black Lives Matter stand in Solidarity with Indigenous People's Day

Seattle Black organizers and activists stand in solidarity with Indigenous people who denounce Columbus Day. Christopher Columbus was not a hero to be celebrated, but in fact contributed to the ethnic genocide of one people and the kidnapping and enslavement of another. We, Black people, know the history of having our loved ones, cultures, and identities taken from us.

To begin to repair the effects of white settler colonialism on Indigenous and people of African descent we must eradicate the symbols and emblems of the white colonialism that stand today.

With massive win, expectations high Trudeau will deliver on big promises to Indigenous peoples

Justin Trudeau rode a red tidal wave Monday that began in Atlantic Canada before sweeping across the country to give his party a majority government mandate.

Now, with the levers of power at his disposal, Trudeau faces high expectations he will move on the major promises he made during the campaign and some of the biggest were made to Indigenous peoples.

During his victory speech at his Montreal riding of Papineau, Trudeau pledged to build a "nation-to-nation" relationship with the Indigenous peoples in Canada.

The Liberals obliterated the NDP and pushed the Conservatives into opposition. Conservative leader Stephen Harper has indicated he will be stepping down from his leadership post, while NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's future remains unclear.

Siksika Nation Runs Out Of Ballots

Voters from the Siksika First Nation faced long waits and some were even turned away on election day after the Alberta community's polling station ran out of ballots.

Siksika First Nation, located just southeast of Calgary, received 400 ballots for a population of 7,200 residents, reported APTN.

Voters waiting at the Siksika community centre reported on Twitter that there were major issues in casting a ballot.

Chasing Lost Innocence: Healing After Sexual Abuse

Sunny Red Bear lost it all but is still standing tall. At 28, she has overcome years of sexual and emotional abuse by her adoptive white father, a subsequent court trial and guilty plea for her abuser, alcoholism, recovery and the birth of her son. It was only recently, however, that she moved beyond mere survival. She realized that in order to truly heal, she needed to call back her innocence, the spirit that had been chased away by her abuser and all that followed.

"I can't really see you when I look at you," a medicine man told Red Bear. "You are blurry as though standing in a cloud."

She and the medicine man agreed that she needed to go through the Lakota Calling Your Spirit Back ceremony, which she did in 2012.

Photo: Dana Lone Hill's grandmothers, the women of her tribe.

D.C summit addresses emotional impact of racism

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 14:17:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a world where black lives are devalued and the tension between people of color and police officers are at an all-time high, it is only fitting that opportunities are created to share in their celebration. Recently, the Community Healing Network, Inc, in partnership with The Association of Black Psychologists, did just that.

Valuing Black Lives: The Annual Global Emotional Emancipation Summit was two days of framing, group discussions and collective reasoning invoked by the spirit of healing and forgiveness. The session took place at the 45^th Annual Congressional Black Caucus' Legislative Event at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

Over 100 people filled the room to take in the sounds of poetry, music and drumming as a local ensemble serenaded the space with healing music followed by a forgiveness ritual.

"With God's Grace, I erase this space," was the chant that headed the healing. Everyone in the room was invited to the front of the room to wash their bad deeds away or write down on a piece of paper the things they wanted to be forgiven for. Droves of people flooded the front in an effort to reconcile and make good with their ancestors and all those who they have hurt. This action was symbolic to the healing that is needed in the African American community at large.

After the intense healing ritual, framers, people put on panels to set the thematic framework for the small group deliberations, took the stage. The first discussion was set to give a panoramic view of the origin and effects, and a beginning analysis of the lies of white superiority and black inferiority. Europeans of African descent gave their accounts of the racism, injustice and the mistreatment of Africans in their countries.

"The same things that we see happening in America are happening to Africans in Europe," explained Momodou Jallow, a framer of Gambian descent living in Sweden.

From the start of the first panel discussion, the session kicked into high gear. The panelists soon switched their focus from the negative impacts of white superiority to calling for a new narrative.

"We no longer wish to perform to the master's script. We don't want our children to be imprisoned by that script," declared A.J Johnson, moderator and founder of Symphonic Strategies. "We are here to declare that we will do the work to write a new script."

After two hours of panel discussions the groups gathered in their circles to discuss the questions presented to them based on the framers presentations.

The second day had a similar flow, minus the musical ensemble. Framers took the stage to speak on everything from lies that have been propagated and why and how the lies persist to creating a shared vision: imagining a future in which black lives are valued. Framers discussed how psychology, media, religion and education contribute to the persistence of lies that have imprisoned African people for generations.

Erika Totten, a framer, community activist and founder of Unchained LLC, presented a different perspective to what is seen as the barriers to moving the African American community forward. She shared a personal and deeply emotional story about being inappropriately fondled by a black man during the end of a healing circle following a protest.

As tears streamed down her face, she hurtfully exclaimed, "We are fighting for the same people who are victimizing us."

Her pain presented to the session a realness, a reality that cannot be overlooked. The remnants of patriarchy and sexual objectification play a huge role in the prevention of healing as a people.

During the session ageism was also played out when an older woman was unmoving in her disdain for any potential solutions presented by a younger person and the war on individualism vs. collectivism surfaced and demonstrated that though the enemy lurks outside, he also lurks within.

Throughout the two day session, lots of thought provoking information was brought to the table, potential solutions were presented and everyone left knowing there was a great deal of work to do.

Photo: AP

On the trans-pacific partnership, we have to educate

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 09:09:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - A recent poll on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) so-called "free trade" pact tells us that workers and our allies have a massive public education job to do.

While asking about the Democratic presidential hopefuls and their issue stands, the Washington Post-ABC News poll reported on Oct. 21 that by a 44 percent-32 percent plurality, the general public supports the TPP. The other quarter of the electorate had no opinion.

More importantly, 51 percent of Democrats back the TPP. The rest were split between opposition and no opinion. Independents favored TPP by 41 percent-35 percent. So did Republicans: 39 percent-37 percent, within the survey's margin of error.

The Post-ABC poll may be an outlier. If so, it's a dangerous one. Several months ago, a roundup of surveys compiled by Public Citizen - a worker ally against fast-track and the TPP - showed majorities of up to 2-to-1 against fast-track and specifically against allowing the TPP under it. That ratio was solid for years, ever since a January 2014 union-commissioned poll.

"A May 2015 Reuters/Ipsos poll, for example, found that a majority of the U.S. public supports the concept of 'new international trade agreements to promote the sale of American goods abroad,'" Public Citizen reported. "Who would be opposed to trade deals framed as simply boosting exports?

"But the poll did not address any elements of the TPP that made the sweeping deal so controversial. It did not ask, for example, whether respondents support 'new international trade agreements that could offshore U.S. jobs,' despite widespread concern about the TPP's incentives for U.S. firms to relocate abroad.

"According to Ipsos' own data from its other May, 2015 trade poll, had the Reuters/Ipsos survey mentioned the TPP's actual content, the result would have been broad TPP opposition."

If attitudes have flipped between May and now, especially among Democrats, then workers and their allies have an education job to do. Specifically, we must tell the public the TPP endangers their jobs. We need a factory worker to say how he lost his job to China under prior trade pacts and a call center worker to say how she lost her job to the Philippines under prior trade pacts. Both must say that TPP would produce a rerun.

The public must learn about the secret international trade court TPP would set up, with pro-business lawyers as the judges. They could trash your wage laws, your job safety laws, your Buy American laws and your environmental laws, all in the name of ensuring present and future corporate profits. There's no opposition allowed in such cases, and no appeals, either.

People need to know that when President Obama says worker rights are written into the TPP, he's wrong. The TPP tells its member nations to enforce their own labor laws, but there's little penalty if they don't. That means ordering Vietnam to enforce its minimum wage law - of just over 50 cents a day. That means ordering Brunei to enforce its anti-discrimination law, which allows rampant discrimination, or worse, against gays. Those are just examples.

People need to know that the TPP protects corporate patents at consumers' expense. Drug firms are screaming because TPP cuts their exclusive patent monopolies on prescription drugs by several years. Monopolists price prescription drugs at $200 a pop or more. They'd still exist.

We must inform people that the TPP would let South Korean cars deluge the U.S., without tariffs, to compete with U.S.-made cars and U.S. workers.

We must tell the public, in short, why all of us - and our lawmakers-must oppose the TPP.

Photo: AP

Biden not running for president, but vows to fight for justice

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 10:12:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Vice President Joe Biden said yesterday that he will not enter the Democratic Party's presidential primary race, but that he would stay in the fight to move "the arc of this nation toward justice." Biden announced his decision in the White House Rose garden flanked by his wife, Jill Biden, and President Obama.

Just about all political observers agree that Biden is one of the few politicians in Washington who genuinely and wholeheartedly feels called to public service in order to help build a better, more equitable country. His son, Beau Biden, was cut from the same cloth. He had served as attorney general of Delaware and before he got sick was considered a shoo-in for senator or governor.

In his Rose Garden speech, Biden said "... through personal triumphs and tragedies, my entire family - my son Beau, my son Hunter, my daughter Ashley, Jill - our whole family - and this sounds corny - but we found purpose in public life. ...

"So we intend, the whole family - not just me - we intend to spend the next 15 months fighting for what we've always cared about, what my family has always cared about, with every ounce of our being."

Why did Biden turn away from the presidential run?

In his Rose Garden announcement yesterday, Biden said that he had delayed entering the race until after his family finished their period of mourning for Beau, who died of brain cancer earlier this year. Now, Biden said, it's too late to start a campaign.

He said "There is no timetable for this process [of mourning]. The process doesn't respect or much care about things like filing deadlines or debates and primaries and caucuses.

"The good news is ... my family and I have worked through the grieving process ... Unfortunately, I believe we're out of time - the time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination."

Many hard bitten pundits here said that if Democratic Party decision makers had believed that Hillary Clinton's poll numbers were dropping, they would have convinced Biden to enter the race no matter how he was feeling about the loss of his son.

However, starting with the debate between Democratic contenders for the nomination, it was clear Clinton's favorability ratings were on the rise.

Had he entered the race, many observers believe Biden would have sounded more like Bernie Sanders than Clinton.

Along with announcing that he wasn't going to run, Biden said:

"I believe this ...

"We cannot sustain the current levels of inequality that exist in this country.

"The huge sums of unlimited and often secret money pouring into our politics is a fundamental threat to our democracy. The middle class will never have a fighting chance in this country as long as just several hundred families, the wealthiest families, control the process.

"We need to keep [fighting for] the rights of the LGBT community, immigration reform, equal pay for women and ... rooting out institutional racism.

"We need to commit to 16 years of free public education for all our children."

Furthermore, at the recent White House Summit on Worker Voice, Biden said that the most effective tools for fighting economic inequality are strong unions and collective bargaining.

In a poll done by MSNBC immediately after Biden announced he will not run, 73 percent of the respondents said they wished he had entered the race.

However, Biden's decision is firm.

Fundamentally, Biden's decision does not change the tasks before the people of the U.S.

The truth remains that people committed to building a more progressive America have to unite behind a candidate; and they have to organize to make sure the candidate stays accountable and continues to promote a progressive agenda.

Vice President Joe Biden says he will help.

"... while I will not be a candidate," he said, "I will not be silent. I intend to speak out clearly and forcefully, to influence as much as I can where we need to go as a nation."

Photo: AP

October is National Stamp Collecting Month

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 09:52:00 +0000

Stamp collecting, or philately, is not the serious hobby it once was. It seems destined for obsolescence as young people more and more turn their attention to electronic gizmos, fewer stamps turn up in the family mailbox, and international communications are more often conducted through email, Skype, and other platforms.

Sometimes it seems philately is promoted by world postal authorities more as a means of selling product which will never be used for its intended purpose (mailing a letter or package), but will, after producing a certain amount of revenue for the post office, instead sit undisturbed in stamp albums on people's shelves.

Nevertheless, as a lifelong collector, now more nostalgic than active, I want to offer a salute to this pastime that once provided me hours of fascination.

My father had been a lifelong stamp collector. I never asked him just how he started, but he had already built a collection by the time he entered U.S. Army service in 1944. Stationed in Germany, he had access to former Nazi headquarters andgovernment offices in the district he covered. Among the many items available to be snagged by an American soldier with a sharp eye, he picked up hundreds of sheets of now useless mint German stamps impressed with the portrait of Adolf Hitler, and shipped them home.

He introduced me to the habit of stamp collecting, and I say "habit" because it became more than a hobby. I checked the origin of the word "philately" in the Oxford English Dictionary, and stumbled on the related word "philatelomaniac," which describes a little more closely what my father's obsession was like at times, and which he passed on, almost genetically, to me.

I cannot say my life revolved completely around stamps as a child and for perhaps half a century, but the stamp on any envelope always drew my attention. I saved them all, including representative samples of even the most common ones in daily use, and spent months - maybe whole years of my life, added all together - hovering over sinks, soaking stamps off their envelopes, and over broad tables with my albums all spread out ready to receive new additions, which I adhered with tiny rectangles of gummed onionskin hinges.

Starting with the Third Reich stamps sent home as war booty, I soon became aware that these little pieces of paper came from different countries, from different parts of the world, from different cultures and traditions, and celebrated or honored every kind of social system. As a kid I could identify just about any country on a world map (now not quite so much, especially with all the new countries and their frequent name changes), and give some information about it - national capital, prominent statesmen, something about their chief industries, exports, and history.

I wrote to foreign companies and pen-pals abroad asking for stamps for my collection. I was quite the teenage global correspondent! Through stamps I became aware, better than most of my peers, that multiple possibilities for organizing natural and human resources existed.

In those years, the 1950s, '60s and '70s, when I collected most avidly, some of the most colorful stamps, with their fluttering red flags and working people doing unusual jobs on land, sea and space, with odd Cyrillic and Asiatic typography, came from far-off places like Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Mongolia and CCCP, the Russian-language initials for the USSR. These tiny bits of paper all sharing a kind of philatelic egalitarianism, each one deserved a permanent resting home in my albums. I did not judge capitalist stamps as superior in any way, from the standpoint of collectability, to those from socialist or other systems. Even Adolf occupied his place in my books. My fascination with philately led directly to a keen interest in the greater world, and to my later career as a historian and journalist.

Not just a bourgeois pastime

When I first picked up the People's Daily World in the 1960s I noticed a regular stamp column that featured new postal releases and a bit about the history behind them. Yes, philately crossed all ideological borders. As my political consciousness grew, I felt reassured that my habit was not merely a solipsistic bourgeois pastime, but one also enjoyed by people with deep social commitment.

In time I shared my name and address on the pen-pal pages of the World Federation of Youth and Students magazine that came out of Prague, and soon, with my new pen-pals in dozens of places around the world, I exchanged letters with colorful stamps, and occasionally, if we had enough of a common language for it, interesting commentary on studies, career aspirations, travels, family, and more. One young fellow answered my posting from Greifswald, German Democratic Republic, where he was a university student, and I am still in touch with him to this day.

About U.S. stamps I have observed that by and large our commemoratives tend to celebrate the progressive strands of our history. We tend not to advertise to the world our repressive legislation, our foreign military bases and occupations, our suppression of voting rights, our lousy labor policies, restrictions on reproductive freedom, our passion for mass incarceration, our high murder rate, and so on. Most countries engage in the same kind of idealism and self-promotion with their stamps.

The kind of collecting my father did, and which I practiced, led to the amassing of a large, but not valuable holding. We collected anything that came our way, and solicited friends and associates to save their stamps for us. On vacation we'd purchase the currently available stamps in foreign post offices. We never invested serious money or expertise in building what would be more of a treasure, like a complete set of British colonials, or every issue from a certain country, or rare and fine older stamps. Our collections were more generalized, anarchic, incomplete, and in today's market, with very few young philatelists hungry to fill up their albums as I did, effectively valuable only as a teaching tool.

I used to go to stamp shows and find dealers actually selling off sheets of 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-cent commemoratives stamps for 20 percent under face value! I bought them up in bulk and pasted five, six or a dozen of them on my mail to make up the current first-class letter rate. Friends could spot my letters at a glance. But how could these dealers sell stamps for less than their value?

Collecting whole sheets of U.S. stamps was promoted by the philatelic industry as a way of socking away - gradually, one new commemorative at a time - a valuable inheritance for your wife and kids. One day, collectors were told, these stamps would be worth a fortune. Well, over time few people wanted them anymore. Anyone who did already had them. The market was glutted. The poor widow had to dump her precious family legacy at maybe half its face value or even less, which allowed the dealer to sell it to me at 20 percent off and still clear a profit.

A friend recently gave me his extensive childhood collection of mint stamps from Israel. I called a dealer to see what they were worth and I'd share the profit with my friend. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Zip. "What do I do with them?" I asked the dealer. "Give 'em to veterans and disabled groups, they can make lampshades and greeting cards out of them."

So there you have it, comrades. Happy National Stamp Collecting Month!

Photo: Photomaps.ru

Senate rejects bill to discourage “sanctuary cities”

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 11:33:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Democrats and one Republican yesterday blocked a bill that would have cut some federal funding from jurisdictions that have "sanctuary city" laws.

Under such laws, local police departments do not cooperate with attempts by the U.S. Immigration agency to deport people. However, they do not block such attempts.

The so-called Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act passed the House in July even after President Obama threatened to veto any such measure. The bill was promoted by NumbersUSA, a right-wing, anti-immigrant group.

The bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator David Vitter, R.-La., who is running for Louisiana governor. He needed to garner the 60 votes needed to override the promised veto, but was able to get only 54, with Senator Mark Steven Kirk, R.-Ill., joining Democrats in opposing the bill.

Had it passed, the state of California would have been particularly hard hit.

Gabriela Villareal, policy manager for the California Immigrant Policy Center said that the bill "would have taken millions of dollars from cities in California," and that "it would have gone a long way to coerce local communities to act as an immigration authority."

California Senator Barbara Boxer said after the vote that local police officials had warned her that undocumented individuals would be afraid to report crimes if there were a chance they would be deported.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka issued a statement saying that [the anti-sanctuary city bill] "was another attempt to scapegoat hardworking immigrants, enrich for-profit detention facilities, and promote hate instead of unity.

"Punitive legislation like this," Trumka said, "undermines the rights of all working people and enable abuse by unscrupulous employers."

Photo: The right-wing bill that failed in the Senate was intended to punish cities like San Francisco (pictured). | Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

Webb quits Democratic presidential race, mulls independent run

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 09:40:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb announced here yesterday he's dropping out of the Democratic Party primary race because "my views on many issues are not compatible with the power structure and base of the Democratic Party, and frankly, theirs are not compatible with many of mine."

He made his announcement at the National Press Club and fueled speculation he might run as an independent by saying that he said he "intends to remain a voice" in the presidential election.

"How I remain as a voice will depend on what kind of support I'm shown in the coming weeks," Webb said, "as I meet with people from all sides of America's political landscape; and I intend to do just that."

If he runs as an independent, observers believe he will take votes away from the Republican nominee. In fact, he was a Republican until 2006 and had served as Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Navy.

During the recent debate between Democratic Party presidential hopefuls, Webb voiced positions markedly different from mainstream Democratic voters. He said that he supports the coal industry and nuclear power and that although he's for immigration policy reforms, he believes that a country "defines itself" by having "firm borders." Furthermore, he said he is against the anti-nuclear development agreement with Iran.

On the campaign trail, he made clear he is a strong supporter of gun rights.

At a meeting of the International Association of Fire Fighters, he said he dislikes government-enforced equity measures to achieve a healthy middle class. The term "income inequality" is not a useful phrase, he said.

On the other hand, as a senator he worked closely with Bernie Sanders to craft and pass the Post-9.11 GI Bill, the most significant veterans legislation since World War II. He also co-authored legislation that exposed 60 billion dollars of waste, fraud and abuse by private wartime contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Moreover, he was an ardent opponent of the war in Iraq.

As a freshman senator, he famously refused to have his picture taken with President George W. Bush as a protest against the war. At the time, Webb said "leaders do some symbolic things to try to convey who they are and what the message is."

A graduate of the Naval Academy, Webb was a rifle platoon commander during the Vietnam War and was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star Medal, two Bronze Star Medals and two Purple Hearts.

He is also a journalist and novelist. He won an Emmy in 1983 for a report on the Lebanese civil war for PBS NewsHour and has written 10 books.

At his press conference yesterday, a reporter asked Webb if he still considers himself a Democrat.

He answered, "We'll think about that."

Photo: Jim Webb (right). | AP

Tamir Rice's family asks for special prosecutor

Tue, 20 Oct 2015 10:28:00 +0000

CLEVELAND -- In an emotionally charged press conference on the steps of the Cleveland Justice Center Oct.16, the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old Black child shot by police last November, and their attorneys denounced the nearly one-year delay in charging the officers responsible and demanded that Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty either declare his intention to prosecute or step aside and appoint an independent prosecutor.

Tamir was shot last Nov. 22 while sitting alone in a picnic shelter. He had a toy gun in his pocket, but had been seen waving it earlier in the playground by someone who called 911.

"I've had many sleepless nights and days," said Samaria Rice, Tamir's mother, "and I am very disappointed in the way Timothy McGinty has handled this case. He should step down and allow an independent prosecutor carry this forward."

"This was a death that was unnecessary, senseless and preventable," said Jonathan Abady, one of the family's attorneys, as he blasted McGinty for his recent release of two reports by "experts" purporting to have found the police actions "justified" and reasonable."

"We were stunned and outraged to see these reports," Abady said.

Both experts - Lamar Sims, a Denver prosecutor, and Kimberly Crawford, a retired FBI agent, - have shown strong pro-police biases, he charged. In a letter to McGinty detailing these complaints, Abady noted that, prior to being hired by McGinty, Sims had given a television interview saying police would be justified in shooting to kill a child with a toy gun and Crawford had been discredited by the Justice Department for pro-police bias in previous cases. Neither one had interviewed the police involved in Tamir's shooting, the letter states, so "they resort to pure speculation about what they think the officers might have seen, said, or thought, including the central assumption that (officer Timothy) Loehman (who shot Tamir) believed 'Rice posed threat of serious physical harm or death."

"The case is headed in the same direction as in Ferguson and Staten Island," Abady said, referring to the failure of Grand Juries in those cities to indict police who killed unarmed Black men when prosecutors declined to advocate for charges.

"The Grand Jury process is being used as a cover," Abady said. "The prosecutors are abdicating their responsibility."

Former federal prosecutor Subodh Chandra, now also representing the Rice family, confirmed Abady's statement.

"Generally, in cases involving murder, rape or any other crime, he said, "prosecutors instruct the Grand Jury to return a true bill of indictment based on the evidence presented. If McGinty is agnostic about the evidence he would be treating these murder suspects differently from all others."

This is especially the case, he added, in light of the finding by Cleveland Municipal Judge Ronald Adrine in June that probable cause exists to charge Loehman with murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless and negligent homicide and dereliction of duty. Adrine's ruling was based on a review of the widely seen video of the incident, but said his finding was only advisory. Adrine referred the matter to McGinty urging that he file appropriate charges and also said officer Frank Garmback who drove the squad car right up to Tamir should be charged with negligent homicide and dereliction of duty. The video shows Loehman jumping from the car before it even came to a stop and immediately shooting Tamir.

Chandra has said Loehman should also be charged with aggravated murder, which would apply when the victim is under 13.

McGinty has said he would not step aside and the Rice family attorneys said they may file a federal civil rights case with the Department of Justice. Last December, after a two year investigation, the Justice Department issued a scathing report that the Cleveland police department engages in a "pattern and practice" of using unreasonable and unnecessary force including at times unwarranted deadly force.

Photo: In this Nov. 25, 2014, file photo, demonstrators protest he police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File)

Nine governors ask Congress to end Cuba blockade

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 12:50:00 +0000

The governors of nine U.S. states have sent a forcefully worded letter to the House and Senate leadership in Washington calling for an end to the 54-year U.S. trade blockade of socialist Cuba.

The letter, dated October 9, was signed by Republican governors Robert Bentley of Alabama and C.L. Otter of Idaho, and Democratic governors Jerry Brown of California, Steve Bullock of Montana, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Thomas Wolf of Pennsylvania, Peter Shumlin of Vermont, Terry McAuliffe of Virginia and Jay Inslee of Washington. It was addressed to outgoing House Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

The text of the letter emphasizes the benefits that could accrue to U.S. industries, especially agriculture, and workers by greatly increasing U.S. trade with Cuba. The letters point out that although the sale of U.S. farm products has been allowed since the passage of the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, Cuba is still not allowed, under U.S. law, to purchase any U.S. products using credit mechanisms available to all other U.S. trading partners.

This fact causes U.S. exporters to be non-competitive with those of other countries: "Foreign competitors such as Canada, Brazil and the European Union are increasingly taking market share from U.S. industry, as those countries do not face the same restrictions on financing".

Recent news stories indeed show that agricultural exports to Cuba have been declining as the Cubans, able to buy U.S. products only on these difficult terms, look elsewhere for supplies.

The letter adds that to allow sales only of agricultural commodities to Cuba and not products of other branches of U.S. industry limits the benefit of such trade to U.S. companies and workers.

"Ending the embargo will create jobs here at home, especially in rural America, and will create new opportunities for American agriculture. Expanding trade with Cuba will strengthen our nation's agriculture sector by opening a market of 11 million people just 90 miles from our shores".

The letter praises the Obama administration's executive measures toward normalizing U.S. relations with Cuba but points out that Congressional action is required to fully complete this process.

The letter does not mention specific pieces of legislation, but ending the blockade, or embargo as the letter calls it, would entail at least the repeal or radical modification of the Toricelli Act of 1992 and the Helms-Burton Act of 1996. Lobbying is now underway to accomplish this by means of a number of bills currently in Congress.

Cuba has complained bitterly about the impact of the blockade on its ability to get hold of pharmaceuticals and medical devices that it does not produce itself; this has put the lives of Cubans, especially children, at risk. Not only can the Cubans not obtain what they need, the blockade stops companies in third countries from exporting to Cuba, on pain of being sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Cuba, for its part, wishes to be able to export its goods to the United States as well, especially the products of its sophisticated biomedical industry which could be helpful to sick people in the United States. But the blockade also prevents this. So sick people in both countries suffer because of the blockade.

The fact that the nine state governors have spoken out in favor of ending the blockade can be contrasted with the fact that the major Republican candidates for the 2016 presidential elections, with the exception of the unelectable Rand Paul, and, strange to say, Donald Trump (who previously had called for the U.S. to capture Cuba's leaders and put them on trial) not only are in favor of maintaining the blockade but would also roll back President Obama's normalization initiatives. In contrast, all the present Democratic Party candidates have said they would continue Obama's policy.

Photo: Govenors of farm states are among those wanting increased agricultural trade with Cuba. | Bean Blog

Benefit freeze to leave millions on Social Security out in the cold

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 09:58:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The Social Security Administration announced yesterday that there will be no increase in benefits next year because, according to the formula used by the federal government, the cost of living has remained flat.

However, that formula does not sufficiently take into account the rising cost of health care, so even though they will get no Social Security increase, some 7.5 million Medicare recipients will be socked with skyrocketing premiums for Medicare Part B, which covers outpatient services.

To forestall the Medicare cost jump, Sen. Ron Wyden, D.-Ore., has introduced the Protecting Medicare Beneficiaries Act.

Furthermore, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said yesterday that the Administration "is aware of this, frankly, unintended policy consequence resulting from the formula for calculating cost of living adjustments," and is "trying to resolve it."

By law, Social Security benefits are pegged to cost-of-living, or COLA, adjustments, which are based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, a broad measure of consumer prices used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). If prices go up, Social Security benefits go up the following year. If prices drop or stay flat, benefits stay the same.

The BLS largely attributes the current stagnation in the cost of living to the falling price of gasoline.

However, many observers point out that the government's measure of cost of living does not accurately reflect price increases in the goods and services that older people use.

In a letter to lawmakers, Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president of the American Association of Retired Persons, wrote, "The CPI-W reflects the purchasing patterns of workers, many of whom are younger and healthier than most Social Security recipients."

Not everybody is "held harmless"

While Social Security benefits will remain the same, the Social Security Administration stated that the projected 2016 hikes in Medicare Part B costs come from a higher than expected use of outpatient services.

The Social Security Act contains a provision, called the "hold harmless" clause, which protects 70 percent of recipients from being hurt by hikes in the cost of Medicare Part B premiums. For every dollar increase in premiums, these recipients must receive a dollar increase in Social Security benefits.

That leaves 30 percent of all Medicare recipients, an estimated 7.5 million people, out in the cold.

This includes 2.8 million new beneficiaries, 1.6 million whose premiums aren't deducted from their Social Security payments, and 3.1 million people with incomes higher than $85,000. Overall, without new legislation, their premiums will rise by 52 percent, or about $54 a month to $159, according to the Medicare trustees.

What's more, the deductible required before Medicare Part B kicks in will jump to about $223 a year, an increase of about $76, for all recipients.

The Protecting Medicare Beneficiaries Act

Many advocates for seniors want Congress to adopt a new price index that seeks to capture the cost of living as experienced by Americans 62 and older.

Meanwhile, dozens of groups advocating for Social Security and Medicare recipients are pushing for the passage of the Wyden bill. A similar bill was passed in 2009, when Social Security benefits for 2010 were scheduled to remain frozen.

The bill would extend the "hold harmless" provision to 100 percent of Medicare recipients.

"The average American senior simply can't afford a triple-digit increase for their Medicare coverage," Max Richtman, president of the National Committee to preserve Social Security and Medicare, wrote to senators.

"For millions of seniors, this large Medicare hike is devastating and a result of a well-intended 'hold harmless' provision that left out too many Medicare beneficiaries."

Richtman concluded that until a Consumer Price Index that accurately reflects the realities of seniors is developed, "we urge Congress to act quickly to mitigate the devastating Medicare hikes headed for millions of Americans who can't afford them."

Photo: To make ends meet, life-long dairy farmer Glen Mead, 70, works at a Montrose, Pa., rock quarry. For just the third time in 40 years, there will be no cost-of-living adjustment for millions of Social Security recipients. | Brett Carlsen/AP

Calif. governor signs law providing health care for undocumented kids

Thu, 15 Oct 2015 15:19:00 +0000

Among hundreds of bills signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown - many just before the Oct. 11 deadline - were several providing new protections for immigrants.

Senate Bill 4, the Health for All Kids Act, by state Senator Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, will implement a decision taken in this year's state budget, to provide health coverage to all undocumented children in the state. An estimated 170,000 children will be eligible for coverage under Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program, starting May 1, 2016. The measure was backed by all Democrats and some Republicans in the legislature.

"When I began the effort to expand health care coverage to undocumented Californians, many people said it couldn't get done," Lara said. "Just a year later, we are covering all undocumented children, becoming the largest state to do so."

Calling SB 4 "a down payment on achieving true health for all," Lara said the second measure in the legislative package, SB 10, will be considered in the next legislative session. It will include coverage for adults through a capped enrollment program, and a federal waiver will be requested so immigrants can buy coverage through Covered California, the state's health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act.

Sen. Lara's bills were part of the "Immigrants Shape California" legislative package of 10 bills announced by legislative leaders in April, aimed at greatly expanding undocumented Californians' access to labor rights, legal rights and protections against discrimination. All but SB 10 have now been signed by Gov. Brown.

Among them are measures to limit the abuse of E-Verify immigration status probes, bar businesses from discriminating on the basis of immigration status, citizenship or language, strengthen due process for immigrant defendants, and protect immigrants against fraud when they seek help from immigration lawyers and consultants.

Another landmark bill Gov. Brown signed is Assembly Bill 953, the Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015, by Assemblymember Shirley Weber, D-San Diego. It updates California's definition of racial and identity profiling to match recommendations of the President's Task Force on 21^st Century Policing and the U.S. Department of Justice, to include profiling based on race, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, or mental or physical disability. Law enforcement agencies must uniformly collect and report data on stops, frisks and other interactions. An advisory board including law enforcement, community and faith organizations, civil rights activists and a youth representative will analyze the data and develop recommendations to address problems with racial and other forms of profiling.

In a statement Oct. 13, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California called AB 953 "the strongest racial and identity profiling law in the country," and noted that it is the nation's first law mandating collection of data on all pedestrian and vehicle stops. The ACLU noted that nationwide, unarmed black men are seven times more likely to die by police gunfire than are unarmed white men. The organization also cited AB 71, which it called "a strong bill to require reporting on serious use of force by police."

The ACLU and five other organizations - the faith-based community organizing network PICO, the Youth Justice Coalition, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Reform California, and Dignity and Power Now - co-sponsored the measure.

In the months before AB 953 was signed, its supporters organized many demonstrations, including a pilgrimage down the North Coast of California through communities with many Native American residents, and demonstrations by Black Lives Matter activists and others at the State Capitol in Sacramento.

The state Fraternal Order of Police, the Peace Officers Research Association of California, and other law enforcement agencies urged the governor to veto the measure, saying it would be a costly burden on police.

The California New Motor Voter Act, AB 1461, by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego and sponsored by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, would automatically send to the Secretary of State data on every eligible citizen who goes to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get or renew a driver's license. The newly registered voters would then pick a political party status, or could choose to opt out of voting. Information on noncitizens would not be sent to the Secretary of State. The measure is based on a law recently enacted in Oregon.

In commending Gov. Brown for signing the bill, California Public Interest Group (CALPIRG) president Emily Rusch noted that in the 2014 election, 6.6 million Californians weren't registered to vote, including over half the eligible young people ages 18-24. Others have pointed out that in that election, California ranked 43^rd among states in voter participation.

Rusch also called for "voter outreach and education in order to create an electorate that is engaged and informed." She said AB 1461 would enable voting advocates to refocus on voter education.

Late last month 21 California members of Congress urged Brown to sign the bill. Predictably, Republican legislators, and anti-immigrant activists, opposed it, saying citizens would lose their right to remain unregistered, while undocumented people might be enabled to vote.

Photo: On September 2 Day of Action for AB853, hundreds gathered in Sacramento, the state capital, to ask Governor Brown to sign a bill to curb racial and identity profiling in California. Here a sit-in by clergy. | ACLU of Northern California.