January 30, 2012

Tea Party 10' Targeted In Multimillion Dollar Campaign By Liberal Super PAC

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/tea-party-ten-targeted-in_n_1241084.html

WASHINGTON -- A liberal super PAC is set Monday to launch what it is billing as a multimillion dollar campaign to "Take Down the Tea Party Ten."

The effort by the progressive outfit CREDO aims to use the new big-spending super PAC model, which can accept unlimited donations, to back extensive local organizing and "education" aimed at defeating 10 members of Congress seen by the left as the worst of the worst.

"We're talking about some of the most odious members of Congress. Even for Republicans these guys are low," said Campaign Manager Matthew "Mudcat" Arnold in a statement.

"We're going to empower local activists to organize their friends and neighbors to lay out the truth about their representatives in the most basic terms," Arnold added. "They are anti-woman. They are anti-science. They are hypocritical, bigoted, and have said and done things that are downright crazy. They've done more to embarrass their constituents than they have to govern or work toward solutions. They are unfit for Congress, and we're going to help their constituents hold them accountable."

..more..

January 30, 2012

On Citizens United Anniversary, Supreme Court Lit with Giant Dollar Signs

Supreme Court Building Covered in Giant Dollar Signs

On the eve of the second anniversary of the much-despised Citizens United ruling, activists with the Other 98% and Backbone Campaign put a giant dollar sign light projection on the Supreme Court building to protest the ruling that undermined government of, by and for the actual people by defining corporations as people and money as speech.

http://other98.com/citizens-united-anniversary-we-lit-supreme-court-with-giant-dollar-signs/

January 30, 2012

Mitch Daniels Joins John Boehner’s Web Of Keystone XL Corruption

http://www.politicususa.com/en/daniels-boehner-keystone-xl

Mitch Daniels Joins John Boehner’s Web Of Keystone XL Corruption
January 30, 2012By Rmuse


It is common knowledge that Republicans engage in misinformation campaigns to curry favor with their supporters whether they are special interest groups, lobbyists, or ignorant Americans unwilling or unable to verify their favorite standard bearer’s statements. Over the past two or three months, Republican machinations to expedite construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline have tied the project to 160 million American’s payroll tax cut extension with fallacious job creation numbers and promises of lower gas prices to force President Obama to grant a construction permit. Speaker of the House John Boehner is TransCanada and the oil industry’s point man on the project and his persistence at parroting wildly inflated jobs numbers provoked a petition demanding his resignation or expulsion from Congress. Last Tuesday, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels joined Boehner in pushing the pipeline during Republican’s response to President Obama’s State of the Union address using anti-Obama rhetoric to enrich the oil industry and Canada’s tar sand industry.

Daniels’ pernicious remarks are standard fare for Republicans seeking to portray the President as a detriment to economic growth, and he said President Obama’s extremism “cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands,” and that his decision was a “pro-poverty agenda.” Besides Daniels’ programmed anti-Obama rhetoric, his remark about the pipeline’s safety and job creation numbers are false according to TransCanada and many independent agencies, but there is more to Daniels’ pack of lies that is stunning and warrants outrage from Indiana taxpayers.

According to recent disclosures, Daniels is part of a concerted Republican effort to lobby Congress to push the tar sands pipeline through prime agricultural land and over the Ogallala Aquifer that supplies groundwater for 20% of America’s agriculture and drinking water for 2 million Americans. It is despicable that Daniels lied to Americans about the pipeline, but it is beyond the pale that his lobbying effort is being funded with Indiana resident’s tax dollars.

Think Progress reports that Indiana’s Washington D.C. representatives were paid with taxpayer dollars to lobby Congress during the fourth quarter of 2011 including “advocacy of the tar sands pipeline.” The Indiana Petroleum Council has pushed the Keystone XL pipeline even though it is unlikely that any Indiana residents will work on its construction. It is one thing to push the pipeline if it created jobs for Indiana residents and one would expect the state to actively lobby for any project to help the unemployed, but not only are there no jobs for Indiana residents, the pipeline does not even pass through Indiana. And yet Indiana taxpayer’s are funding the oil industry’s lobbying effort at a time when Governor Daniels and Republican state legislators have slashed spending for programs like Medicaid and most recently, full day kindergarten and the state fair. Apparently, for Daniels and Republicans in Indiana, it is better to spend tax dollars to enrich the oil industry than fund children’s health, higher education, and K-12 education that suffered Republican’s deep spending cuts.

..more..

January 30, 2012

As long as Oakland police trample on people's rights, the NLG will continue to hold them accountable

(please support the National Lawyers Guild)


As long as Oakland police trample on people's rights, the NLG will continue to hold them accountable
For as long as Oakland police trample on people's rights, the Guild will continue seeking to hold them accountable.


http://www.nlgsf.org/news/view.php?id=173

NLGSF Asks Federal Court to Certify Class Action by Oscar Grant Protesters
January 26, 2012

As OPD comes under increasing scrutiny, the NLG seeks an end to ongoing baseless arrests and incarceration of demonstrators.

In a filing today, a team of National Lawyers Guild attorneys asks the federal court to allow a law enforcement misconduct lawsuit against the Oakland Police and Alameda County Sheriff to proceed as a class action. The four named plaintiffs, including one NLG Legal Observer, seek to represent a class of 150 people who were arrested en masse on November 5, 2010, the day that former police officer Johannes Mehserle was sentenced.


The proposed class action, Spalding et al. v. Oakland, No. C11-2867 TEH, challenges the 2010 mass misdemeanor arrests and the prolonged detention of arrestees in the Alameda County Jails. The case is being heard by U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson as a related case to the ongoing proceedings in the lawsuits brought by victims of the “Riders” OPD gang. Earlier this week, in response to the Department’s glacial pace in completing the reform process agreed on in the 2003 Riders settlement, Judge Henderson stripped decision-making power from OPD, placing the Department under greatly increased oversight by monitors and bringing it one step closer to federal receivership. Last week, the monitor expressed particular concern over the OPD response to Occupy Oakland.

“The Spalding case is more important than ever, because OPD and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office are continuing these same abuses with regard to Occupy Oakland,” commented Michael Flynn, San Francisco Bay Area NLG Chapter President. “Over the past month and a half, the OPD has engaged in a campaign of brutal harassment, making repeated arrests of Occupy Oakland protesters on pretexts, and causing them to be held for days, only to be released without charges.”

“California law requires most misdemeanor arrestees to be released with a citation, but in Alameda County, even very minor charges often result in extended periods of time in jail,” explained Rachel Lederman, one of the lead attorneys on the Spalding case. “The Mehserle sentencing demonstrators were herded by police into a residential block and trapped there, along with neighborhood residents. Then they were all detained for 18-24 hours. There was no lawful basis for the mass arrest, and none of the 150 class members were ever charged with a crime.”

“There was never a dispersal order,” said plaintiff Daniel Spalding. “It was a classic illegal mass arrest. We were boxed in by lines of police officers in riot gear who announced, without warning, that we were all under arrest. I told one officer I was a National Lawyers Guild Legal Observer and showed him my identifying green hat but I was still arrested. Over a hundred of us were left sitting on the street, handcuffed, until we were finally put on a bus, where we kept for hours. One arrestee was begging for medical attention for his dislocated shoulder and the police ignored him. Eventually I was put in a jail cell with 27 other people with no place to sleep. I wasn’t released until 6:30pm - almost 24 hours after we were first detained. I was never charged with anything.”

“We were exercising our First Amendment right to protest the light sentence given to Mehserle, and police brutality more generally, by marching to the site of the shooting,” added Katharine Loncke, another named plaintiff, “but the OPD and their army of other police agencies blocked us all in and arrested us for nothing.” Loncke described that, “At the jail, all the women were made to go into a stall without a door on it and urinate into a cup for a pregnancy test. I was held in a very cold and crowded cell with fifteen other women. No food was provided for more than twelve hours after our initial detention. There was no room to lay down. I sat up against a wall for the entire night.”

In addition to monetary compensation for the arrestees, the Spalding lawsuit requests an injunction to stop the OPD from making unlawful arrests and violating its crowd control policy; require the ACSO to promptly release arrestees absent a legitimate, lawful basis to hold them; and, to provide basic humane conditions for those who are held. In November, the NLG and ACLU filed a second lawsuit against OPD challenging the use of force against Occupy Oakland, Campbell et al. v. City of Oakland, Case No. C11-05498 RS.

The NLGSF has provided legal support to progressive activism for decades, including training and sending legal observers to protests and providing pro bono lawyers to defend accused activists. The NLGSF is the Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild – a national non-profit legal and political organization of lawyers, legal workers, law students and jailhouse lawyers founded in 1937. We represent progressive political movements, using the law to protect human rights above property interests and to attain social justice.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

January 28, 2012

275 Years Later, the Power of Tom Paine

Regaining Common Sense (The Occupied Wall Street Journal)

http://occupiedmedia.us/2012/01/regaining-common-sense/

Frances A. Chiu 27 January, 2012

275 Years Later, the Power of Tom Paine


Although Glenn Beck, Herman Cain and the Tea Party would have us believe that Tom Paine was one of them—a man who supposedly stood for “small government”—this could not be further from the truth. On the eve of Paine’s 275th birthday, on January 29, let’s restore some common sense here: Paine was a progressive to the core. He was one of the first to decry the aristocracy and landed elites of his day—the 1%—while emphasizing the welfare of the masses. True government, as he saw it, ought to be “a delegation of power for the common benefit of society,” founded on the “RES-PUBLICA, the public affairs, or public good,” not the “cavillings of a few interested men.”

By writing in a manner that was easily accessible to the literate and illiterate alike, Paine brought politics to the 99% with Common Sense (1776) and other formative texts. He dared to urge a complete break from Britain when others were still trying to compromise with George III and his Parliament. And he was among the first to question hereditary government; acknowledge women’s rights; support the abolition of slavery and challenge disparities in pay while advocating labor organizing rights. A former corset maker, teacher and excise officer, Paine knew there was something wrong when bishops earned 1,000 times as much as hardworking parish priests—just like we know there’s something wrong when CEOs earn 1,000 times as much as their employees. And he knew there was something wrong when the young were being sent to jails and the elderly forced to continue working, just like know there is something wrong when numerous urban and rural youth continue to wind up in prison while Boomers and the elderly face prospects of deferred retirement.

Interestingly but not surprisingly, Paine was treated like many future left-wing dissidents and radicals. He was burned in effigy by rowdy mobs throughout his native England and sentenced for sedition for his criticism of monarchies and feudal privileges in Rights of Man (1791). In fact, it’s worth noting that the mobs who did so were paid by wealthy nobles and powerful members of the government, not unlike Tea Party mobs who are funded by the Koch brothers and others. As they say, plus ça change.

Yet regardless of the unpopularity of his views, especially after the publication of his controversial Age of Reason (1794-5), Paine never flinched. Unlike many of our Founding Fathers, and would-be liberals today, Paine was not preoccupied with money or the trappings of wealth. He was proud of his little house in New Rochelle, New York, with its collection of farm animals and functional pots and pans. Paine donated nearly all of his considerable earnings from Common Sense and Rights of Man to the Continental Army and British radical organizations struggling as they fought for a new nation. Not least, he enjoyed hanging out in pubs and taverns, where he conversed with ordinary working men. Paine was a man who talked the talk and walked the walk all the way to the finish line.

..more..

January 28, 2012

At Davos, Why Is No One Talking About the Poor?

http://business.time.com/2012/01/28/at-davos-why-is-no-one-talking-about-the-poor/


At Davos, Why Is No One Talking About the Poor?
By Roya Wolverson | @royaclare | January 28, 2012


I first learned about the World Economic Forum at Davos as a greenhorn in college. At the time, I was knee-deep in coursework on economic development, a field that extols the social and economic virtues of tending to the world’s poor.

I was somewhere between Amartya’s Sen‘s 1999 Nobel Prize-winning book Development as Freedom, a cult sensation among wonky Ivy Leaguers and 20-something granolas bound for the Peace Corps, and Joseph Stiglitz‘s 2002 bestseller Globalization and Its Discontents, when I first dreamed of going to Davos to take part in the lofty mission of “solving the world’s problems.”

(LIST: The Heavy Hitters of Davos 2012)

Those were the years when globalization really earned its bad rap. And as a result, a counter movement, rooted in aspirations of global equity and social good, began to take hold. Anti-globalization protests so disrupted the WEF in 2001 that its organizers had to relocate the event to New York the following year. The anti-globalization movement even erected its own conference, the World Social Forum, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to serve as a populist counterweight to the elite Davos powwow. By 2002, Porto Alegre had drawn in 50,000 people, triple the number from the previous year. Even the Economist conceded that, in light of popular backlash, the march toward globalization could yet be reversed:

The economic history of the twentieth century is full of reminders that the move towards globalisation is not inevitable. War in 1914 brought an end to a period of economic openness and integration unparalleled even today. The 1930s were more painful than necessary precisely because of beggar-thy-neighbour policies adopted in the wake of the Depression. It is not impossible that governments today will turn their backs on open trade and capital flows. Many of those in Porto Alegre would welcome such a policy reversal.
In WEF-like circles, the biggest opponents of globalization then were the defenders of the world’s poor, who cited a growing gap between the fortunes of Western economies and those of the developing world. As the Economist noted:



Read more: http://business.time.com/2012/01/28/at-davos-why-is-no-one-talking-about-the-poor/#ixzz1km9HTv5T

January 27, 2012

As long as Oakland police trample on people's rights, the NLG will continue to hold them accountable

For as long as Oakland police trample on people's rights, the Guild will continue seeking to hold them accountable.


http://www.nlgsf.org/news/view.php?id=173

NLGSF Asks Federal Court to Certify Class Action by Oscar Grant Protesters

January 26, 2012

As OPD comes under increasing scrutiny, the NLG seeks an end to ongoing baseless arrests and incarceration of demonstrators.

In a filing today, a team of National Lawyers Guild attorneys asks the federal court to allow a law enforcement misconduct lawsuit against the Oakland Police and Alameda County Sheriff to proceed as a class action. The four named plaintiffs, including one NLG Legal Observer, seek to represent a class of 150 people who were arrested en masse on November 5, 2010, the day that former police officer Johannes Mehserle was sentenced.


The proposed class action, Spalding et al. v. Oakland, No. C11-2867 TEH, challenges the 2010 mass misdemeanor arrests and the prolonged detention of arrestees in the Alameda County Jails. The case is being heard by U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson as a related case to the ongoing proceedings in the lawsuits brought by victims of the “Riders” OPD gang. Earlier this week, in response to the Department’s glacial pace in completing the reform process agreed on in the 2003 Riders settlement, Judge Henderson stripped decision-making power from OPD, placing the Department under greatly increased oversight by monitors and bringing it one step closer to federal receivership. Last week, the monitor expressed particular concern over the OPD response to Occupy Oakland.

“The Spalding case is more important than ever, because OPD and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office are continuing these same abuses with regard to Occupy Oakland,” commented Michael Flynn, San Francisco Bay Area NLG Chapter President. “Over the past month and a half, the OPD has engaged in a campaign of brutal harassment, making repeated arrests of Occupy Oakland protesters on pretexts, and causing them to be held for days, only to be released without charges.”

“California law requires most misdemeanor arrestees to be released with a citation, but in Alameda County, even very minor charges often result in extended periods of time in jail,” explained Rachel Lederman, one of the lead attorneys on the Spalding case. “The Mehserle sentencing demonstrators were herded by police into a residential block and trapped there, along with neighborhood residents. Then they were all detained for 18-24 hours. There was no lawful basis for the mass arrest, and none of the 150 class members were ever charged with a crime.”

..more..

January 27, 2012

Regaining Common Sense (The Occupied Wall Street Journal)

http://occupiedmedia.us/2012/01/regaining-common-sense/

Regaining Common Sense
Frances A. Chiu 27 January, 2012

275 Years Later, the Power of Tom Paine


Although Glenn Beck, Herman Cain and the Tea Party would have us believe that Tom Paine was one of them—a man who supposedly stood for “small government”—this could not be further from the truth. On the eve of Paine’s 275th birthday, on January 29, let’s restore some common sense here: Paine was a progressive to the core. He was one of the first to decry the aristocracy and landed elites of his day—the 1%—while emphasizing the welfare of the masses. True government, as he saw it, ought to be “a delegation of power for the common benefit of society,” founded on the “RES-PUBLICA, the public affairs, or public good,” not the “cavillings of a few interested men.”

By writing in a manner that was easily accessible to the literate and illiterate alike, Paine brought politics to the 99% with Common Sense (1776) and other formative texts. He dared to urge a complete break from Britain when others were still trying to compromise with George III and his Parliament. And he was among the first to question hereditary government; acknowledge women’s rights; support the abolition of slavery and challenge disparities in pay while advocating labor organizing rights. A former corset maker, teacher and excise officer, Paine knew there was something wrong when bishops earned 1,000 times as much as hardworking parish priests—just like we know there’s something wrong when CEOs earn 1,000 times as much as their employees. And he knew there was something wrong when the young were being sent to jails and the elderly forced to continue working, just like know there is something wrong when numerous urban and rural youth continue to wind up in prison while Boomers and the elderly face prospects of deferred retirement.

Interestingly but not surprisingly, Paine was treated like many future left-wing dissidents and radicals. He was burned in effigy by rowdy mobs throughout his native England and sentenced for sedition for his criticism of monarchies and feudal privileges in Rights of Man (1791). In fact, it’s worth noting that the mobs who did so were paid by wealthy nobles and powerful members of the government, not unlike Tea Party mobs who are funded by the Koch brothers and others. As they say, plus ça change.

Yet regardless of the unpopularity of his views, especially after the publication of his controversial Age of Reason (1794-5), Paine never flinched. Unlike many of our Founding Fathers, and would-be liberals today, Paine was not preoccupied with money or the trappings of wealth. He was proud of his little house in New Rochelle, New York, with its collection of farm animals and functional pots and pans. Paine donated nearly all of his considerable earnings from Common Sense and Rights of Man to the Continental Army and British radical organizations struggling as they fought for a new nation. Not least, he enjoyed hanging out in pubs and taverns, where he conversed with ordinary working men. Paine was a man who talked the talk and walked the walk all the way to the finish line.

..more..

January 26, 2012

Newt’s & the neo-Confederate wing of the GOP's no-win political appeal

http://politics.salon.com/2012/01/26/newts_no_win_political_appeal/Thursday, Jan 26, 2012 12:09 PM 12:53:38 EST

Newt’s no-win political appeal
The neo-Confederate wing of the GOP cares more about humiliating Obama than about beating him in November

Look, nobody’s third wife is going to be first lady. In the privacy of the voting booth, American women won’t stand for it. Regardless of how flawlessly the bejeweled Callista enacts the role of pious matron, she remains the embodiment of the Trophy Wife — younger, more adoring, unencumbered by children, a climber on the make. In effect, a successful Monica Lewinsky, although unlike Bill Clinton’s paramour, Callista was no kid.

Even Ann Coulter knows that. Having placed an early bet on Mitt Romney, the GOP’s vestal virgin pronounced herself shocked to hear South Carolina Republicans accepting “Democratic” arguments excusing Newt Gingrich’s serial adultery. On “Fox & Friends,” Coulter said, “I promise you, if Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum had cheated on two wives — that we know, the ‘open marriage’ thing is the only thing he contests, we know he cheated on two wives — I wouldn’t support Mitt Romney.”

Ah, but there were deeper passions at play in South Carolina. So let’s switch metaphors. Judging by the whooping and hollering of the CNN debate audience, the GOP’s neo-Confederate wing wishes for nothing less than an electoral replay of Pickett’s charge — the doomed infantry attack at Gettysburg most historians believe marked the beginning of the end of the Civil War. A sizable proportion of South Carolinians have yearned for a rematch ever since.

..more..

January 25, 2012

State of Our Food and Water: President Obama’s Energy Plan Trades Water for Energy

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/01/25

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 25, 2012
10:51 AM
CONTACT: Food & Water Watch

Darcey Rakestraw, 202-683-2467; drakestraw@fwwatch.org


State of Our Food and Water: President Obama’s Energy Plan Trades Water for Energy

Statement by Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director, Food & Water Watch


WASHINGTON - January 25 - “The president’s energy vision is troubling for our water resources. His speech touted the development of so-called ‘clean energy,’ but it may as well have been written by the oil and gas industry. His plan to open up more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources and to support shale gas development trades clean water for energy.

“President Obama should not confuse offshore oil and onshore shale gas development for clean energy. Although gas companies should absolutely be made to disclose the chemicals they use simply disclosing chemicals does not prevent shale gas development from harming our essential water resources. To keep water safe and rural communities strong, we should ban fracking.

“Furthermore, the oil and gas industry’s job claims for shale gas development are grossly overestimated due to methodological flaws and reliance on economic modeling, rather than looking at the actual number of jobs created in communities with fracking. The only certainty about the expansion of the destructive oil and gas fracking is that it will bring profits to the multinational oil and gas companies. President Obama should look at the facts on how many jobs the oil and gas industry creates rather than writing federal energy policy based on the claims of the industry.

“When it comes to food, the President claimed he will not back down from making sure that our food is safe. But recent actions by his Administration make that claim hard to believe. Just last week, the USDA announced its plan to deregulate the poultry industry by eliminating government inspectors and shifting to privatized inspection in many poultry plants. This is the opposite of making sure consumers are protected from unsafe food.”


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Food & Water Watch is a nonprofit consumer organization that works to ensure clean water and safe food. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and by transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.