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For your information, I just got this via email. This is a heart-breaking documentary of evictions being carried out against families. What kind of an insane society dumps families out into the street and leaves homes vacant to rot?:
Watch the video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28303876#28303876
STOP THE EVICTIONS
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TOMORROW NIGHT!
Activists Work Session and Orientation for March 21 March and Rally - 6th Anniversary of Iraq Invasion
Tuesday, March 17, 7 p.m. at the ANSWER Coalition office, 2489 Mission St., Rm. 28.
On Saturday, March 21st protest marches will take place across the U.S. and around the world on the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. The main themes of the marches are: "Occupation is a Crime - Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine," and "Fund People's Needs - Not War and Bank Bail-outs."
Come to a work session and orientation for the San Francisco march on Tuesday, March 17, 7 p.m. at the ANSWER Coalition office, 2489 Mission St., Rm. 28. We will be painting banners, putting together placards, making alert phone calls and sending out postering teams. There will also be an orientation session for people volunteering at the march and rally. YOUR HELP IS NEEDED NOW!
The San Francisco march will assemble at Justin Herman Plaza (Embarcadero) at the foot of Market St. at 11 a.m. After an opening rally, we will march up Market St. to the Civic Center where a second rally will take place.
Volunteers are needed at both sites starting at 9 a.m. to distribute placards and flyers, staff tables, help with set-up and be march monitors.
For more information, call the ANSWER office at 415-821-6545.
Mass outreach this week to build March 21 Demonstration:
Posters, flyers and stickers are available at the ANSWER office.
Call 415-821-6545 for convenient pick-up times. All are encouraged
to view outreach and talking to your neighbors as crucial
to building this action.
Check out the new MARCH 21 Coalition Website
(An extensive endorsement list is posted here):
http://www.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=M21_homepage
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March against the war on March 21
Dear friends,
During his presidential campaign, Obama's popularity surged with the promise that he would bring the troops home from Iraq within 16 months. But his recently announced plan would continue the illegal occupation indefinitely. It would leave up to 50,000 troops in that war-torn country for who knows how many years. And it would delay the withdrawal of the first batch of troops to 19 months.
"When President Obama said we were going to get out within 16 months, some people heard, 'get out,' and everyone's gone. But that is not going to happen," said a senior military officer.
This plan doesn't "leave Iraq to its people and responsibly end this war", as Obama claimed during his Congressional address of Feb. 24. Instead it entrenches the U.S. in a brutal counter-insurgency war that helped to bankrupt our country and sends an endless stream of Americans to continue dying and killing.
The U.S. government, the American people, and the Iraqi people need to hear our voices of opposition on March 21.
Last week, Sec. of Defense Gates and President Obama announced their plan to deploy an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan - that's a 50 percent increase - despite the fact that the Department of Defense has no exit strategy. And the U.S. is expanding the covert war run by the CIA inside neighboring Pakistan.
We cannot afford another quagmire.
Please join us in Washington, SF, and LA on March 21.
Go to www.pentagonmarch.org for more information
Meanwhile the U.S.-funded occupation and blockade of Gaza continues after an assault in which 100's of civilians were killed and even a United Nations school was not spared from the onslaught of human rights crimes and violations of international law.
The people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine are struggling to rid themselves of deadly, racist occupations. We need to unite in the realization that the movement in solidarity with the people of Palestine is the same as the movements in solidarity with the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Let us stand together with each other and with them, and say:
Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, occupation is a crime!
The people of the world need to hear from Americans that we are against the racist U.S. wars of aggression and occupation. We have an historic responsibility to raise our voices and be heard, to march with our banners held high and be seen, demanding
Bring ALL the troops home NOW!
Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation!
End U.S. support for the occupation of Palestine!
No war on Iran or Pakistan!
The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is joining with a broadening alliance of 100's of coalitions, organizations, and networks in a united MARCH 21 NATIONAL COALITION to mobilize people across the United States to take part in a March on the Pentagon on the sixth year of the military invasion and occupation of the Iraq War: Saturday, March 21.
Demonstrations will also be held on that date in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities across the U.S.
For updated information about buses and the national March 21 coalition, which includes labor unions, peace and anti-war groups, veterans and community groups and more, see: www.pentagonmarch.org
These actions will remind the nation and the world that the U.S. antiwar movement - marching behind a banner demanding "Out Now!' - will intensify its struggle to stop the wars.
The actions are needed to assure the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and other countries threatened by Washington's expansionist policies that tens of millions of people in this country support their right to settle their own destinies without U.S. interventions, occupations and murderous wars. International law recognizes - and we demand - that the U.S. respect the right to self-determination. We reject any notion that the U.S. is the world's self-appointed cop.
The March 21 united mass actions are also needed at this time of economic meltdown to demand jobs for all; a moratorium on foreclosures; rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure; guaranteed, quality health care for all; an end to the ICE raids and deportations; and funding for sorely needed social programs. So long as trillions of dollars continue to be spent on wars, occupations, and bailouts to the banks and corporate elite, the domestic needs of the people of the U.S. can never be met.
For more information about the National Assembly please visit: www.natassembly.org
March 21, in D.C., will culminate in a dramatic direct action where hundreds of coffins-representing the multinational victims of militarism, Empire and corporate greed-will be carried and delivered to the headquarters of the Corporate War Profiteers and Merchants of Death.
From the Pentagon, we will march to the nearby giant corporate offices of Boeing Company, Lockheed Martin Corporation, General Dynamics and KBR (the former subsidiary of Halliburton).
A March 21 Labor Rally and contingent to March 21
will be held in the grassy area just South of Market
Street in Justin Herman Plaza
Saturday, March 21
Rally at 10:30 a.m. // Form contingent to march at 11:45 a.m.
http://uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=18479
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Celebrate the release of the new book by Mumia Abu-Jamal:
"Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners vs. the USA"
Friday, April 24th (Mumia's birthday!), 6:30 P.M.
Humanist Hall
411 - 28th Street, Oakland
$25.00 donation or what you can afford.
Featuring:
Angely Y. Davis
Mistah F.A.B.
Lynne Stewart
Tory Serra
Avotcja
Kiilu Nyasha
JR Minister of Information POCC
Ed Mead
Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia
Molotov Mouths
Prison Radio, 415-648-4505
www.prisonradio.org
www.mumia.org
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Donate to Courage to Resist
A message from Army Spc. Agustín Aguayo,
Iraq War veteran and war resister
Since the day I surrendered to military custody after refusing to return to Iraq, Courage to Resist has been there for me and my family as a constant fountain of support. This support has come in many forms, from a friendly call, to organizing a campaign to cover my legal expenses and basic needs. I believe only an organization with altruistic motives that truly cares would have done this. As someone who has felt the enormous relief of having a strong support group behind me, it is a privilege now as a member of Courage to Resist to help others as I have been helped.
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/26/
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) At A.I.G., Good Luck Following the Money
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Fair Game
March 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15gret.html?hp
2) Has the Economy Hit Bottom Yet?
By VIKAS BAJAJ
March 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/weekinreview/15vikas.html?hp
3) Administration Is Open to Taxing Health Benefits
By JACKIE CALMES and ROBERT PEAR
March 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/politics/15health.html?hp
4) Arrests of 3 Dissidents in Ulster Killings Stir Riots
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/world/europe/15ulster.html?hp
5) The Blackout of the March 21 Mobilizations
Redbaiting on the Left
By JOHN WALSH
March 16, 2009
http://counterpunch.com/walsh03162009.html
6) Race may be factor in police shooting of unarmed elderly man
By Howard Witt
Tribune correspondent
"A 2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey, the most recent available, found that blacks are nearly four times as likely as whites to be subjected to force during police interactions."
"If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names," said Mills [Russel Mills, Homer, Louisiana Police Chief], who is white. "I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested. We're not out there trying to abuse and harass people-we're trying to protect the law-abiding citizens locked behind their doors in fear."
March 13, 2009
The article and a video interview with witnesses and correspondent Howard Witt at this site:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-race-shootings-webmar13,0,7686526.story
7) Shot that hit Grand Valley State University student was fired by Ottawa deputy, state police say
by The Grand Rapids Press
Thursday March 12, 2009, 9:39 AM
UPDATE: GVSU student shot by police during drug investigation was not armed, police reveal
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/03/update_shot_that_hit_grand_val.html
8) Derek Copp family hires lawyer; Fred Dilley questions police tactics
by John Agar | The Grand Rapids Press
Monday March 16, 2009, 10:07 AM
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/03/derek_copp_family_hires_lawyer.html
10) Find out if there is a Rachel Corrie Remembrance Day event near you by clicking here. If not, plan an emergency vigil and let others know by posting your event here. A flyer for use at your vigil can be found here.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=wWPR6SBiQZx3qbTxYhj0lA7xTCA4xcSe
For more information about Tristan's shooting and updates on his condition, including links to news articles, see the website of the International Solidarity Movement. Please note that the video on this website is graphic and disturbing.
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/(http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5324
11) STOP THE EVICTIONS
From the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter
March 16, 2009,
http://activistnewsletter.blogspot.com/
Watch the video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28303876#28303876
12) Bracing for a Backlash Over Wall Street Bailouts
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
News Analysis
March 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/us/politics/16assess.html?ref=us
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1) At A.I.G., Good Luck Following the Money
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Fair Game
March 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15gret.html?hp
WE return this week to the subject of the American International Group, the giant insurer that has received $170 billion in taxpayer guarantees, because the clamor over its rescue continues to grow. Of concern to those on both Capitol Hill and Main Street is the secrecy surrounding the $50 billion funneled to A.I.G.'s counterparties since it nearly collapsed last fall.
Now that we live in bailout nation, why does the A.I.G. rescue rub so many the wrong way? Here is a hypothesis: Even as investors, employees, communities and taxpayers have been battered by the crippled financial system, A.I.G.'s counterparties were saved from losses on deals they struck with the insurer.
Add the fact that the government has resisted revealing these companies' identities or how much federal money they received, and it's easy to see why resentment boils. As a result of the A.I.G. rescue, taxpayers own almost 80 percent of the company. (Friday evening, as this column was going to press, rumors were swirling that A.I.G. might be releasing a list of all of its counterparties.)
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, said she had twice asked for a full accounting from Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, which arranged the A.I.G. rescue. She has not received it.
"They have told others it is proprietary information," Ms. Maloney said in an interview. "But we are the proprietors now. Taxpayers own the store, and we should be able to see the books."
A.I.G., at one time the world's largest insurer, sold contracts to these sophisticated counterparties that theoretically protected them from losing money if the debt they had purchased defaulted. Known as credit default swaps, the contracts offer the same kind of protection a homeowner receives from an insurance policy against fires and other unforeseen calamities.
The arrangements behind the deals produced fees for A.I.G. while the firms buying the contracts got peace of mind. No one thought A.I.G. might have to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in claims. Until, that is, A.I.G. came under financial pressure last year.
When the government stepped in to rescue A.I.G., its main and very reasonable concern was that a collapse of the insurer would drag down with it other big financial companies that were its customers. So the government shoveled taxpayers' money into A.I.G., beginning with an $85 billion loan last September.
Then the rescuer went mum.
Officials at the Fed, who continue to oversee the A.I.G. rescue, have taken the position that the terms of the insurers' contracts are confidential and that it would be wrong for the government to break those promises by naming recipients of taxpayer money. Another concern may have been that disclosures of A.I.G.'s counterparties might make investors and depositors uneasy about the well-being of the firms getting the money.
According to people briefed on the situation who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it, the counterparties that taxpayers have bailed out include Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and two French banks, Calyon and Société Générale. Along with other unidentified entities, the counterparties have received 30 percent of the $170 billion allocated to A.I.G. (Goldman has said that it had insulated itself from any financial damage that might have resulted from an A.I.G. collapse.)
Even A.I.G.'s own independent directors haven't been told which of the counterparties were paid, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter who requested anonymity because of confidentiality agreements.
SUCH secrecy raised hackles because the insurance claims were paid off in full, even though widespread defaults on the underlying debt have not occurred. Why, many people wonder, did the Fed make A.I.G.'s counterparties whole on losses that have not happened yet? Why didn't it force these financial companies to close out the contracts at a discount, making them take what is known on Wall Street as a "haircut"?
Robert Arvanitis, chief executive of Risk Finance Advisors in Westport, Conn., and an expert in insurance, speculated that the United States was afraid that A.I.G.'s foreign bank counterparties would suffer large hits to their capital cushions, the amount they must set aside in case of losses.
"If somebody takes away the A.I.G. guarantee, all of a sudden the banks' capital ratios look bad," he said. "It might have stretched some of these banks."
Still, Mr. Arvanitis said, it is not clear that the government had to pay out 100 percent of the contracts' value to all the counterparties. Healthier institutions could have been persuaded to take a haircut, he said. "That is what tough negotiators do," he added.
The government installed Edward M. Liddy as chief executive of A.I.G. when the company was bailed out. A former chief executive of Allstate, Mr. Liddy was also a director at Goldman Sachs before he joined A.I.G.
And in January, the Fed appointed three trustees to oversee the insurer. Their job is to maximize the company's ability to repay amounts owed to the government and to ensure that A.I.G. is managed "in a manner that will not disrupt financial market conditions," according to the Fed.
The trustees are Jill M. Considine, former chairman of the Depository Trust Company and a former director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Chester B. Feldberg, a former New York Fed official who was chairman of Barclays Americas from 2000 to 2008; and Douglas L. Foshee, chief executive of the El Paso Corporation and chairman of the Houston branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
The trustees have already rankled a big A.I.G. shareholder. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees pension plan, which owns 18,000 shares of A.I.G. common stock, had put forward a shareholder proposal on executive pay that it hoped would be put to a vote at the company's annual meeting in May.
The proposal asked the company to adopt a policy requiring senior executives at A.I.G. to retain a significant percentage of the shares they received as compensation until two years after they left the company. Such a policy would help reward performance based on long-term value creation for shareholders, the pension plan said.
But Richard Ferlauto, the director of corporate governance and pension investment at Afscme, said A.I.G. trustees have indicated they oppose the proposal. But Kevin F. Barnard, a lawyer at Arnold & Porter who represents the trustees, said they were still considering the proposal. "To my knowledge, they are batting ideas back and forth but have not made fixed decisions," he said.
Mr. Ferlauto said the compensation debate at A.I.G. would be yet another indication of how A.I.G. sees its relationship with those who continue to bail it out of trouble: taxpayers.
"If they do vote against a reasonable compensation reform," he said, "then it would be an appalling breach of faith with the American taxpayer."
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2) Has the Economy Hit Bottom Yet?
By VIKAS BAJAJ
March 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/weekinreview/15vikas.html?hp
The economist John Kenneth Galbraith once said, "The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."
Still, we have to ask: was that the bottom we just hit?
After months of punishing economic news, the gloom seemed to lift last week if only for a moment. The stock market shot up 12 percent in four days. Two of the nation's biggest banks said they had returned to profitability. General Motors said it wouldn't need another $2 billion in government help this month. And retail sales were better than expected.
Then again, perhaps that's what passes for good news these days.
The market is still down by more than 50 percent since its high 17 months ago. Yes, the banks made money, but for just two months, and never mind the billions of bad assets that remain on their books. G.M. will still, in all likelihood, need billions in taxpayer help down the road and there's no guarantee it will survive. And those retail sales numbers? They were still bad, just not as bad as analysts were expecting.
Still, there was a sense among some economists and Wall Street analysts that if the bottom was not touched, perhaps the freefall was at least slowing. No less than Lawrence Summers, President Obama's top economic adviser, said on Friday that while the economic crisis would not end anytime soon, there were early signs that it was easing.
Which leads to a question: When we do hit the bottom - this year or years from now - how will we know?
There's no easy answer.
Mr. Galbraith was not the first or last economist to acknowledge fallibility at predicting turning points. (Just think back to assurances by top government officials in early 2007 that the growing problems with subprime mortgages were "contained.")
Forecasting the end of the current recession is even more difficult because it will hinge on how quickly and efficiently governments resolve the crisis in the banking system. Many investors continue to worry that the world's biggest financial institutions are insolvent, despite assurances from Washington that those firms have plenty of capital.
How political leaders diagnose and fix the banks will be critical. Analysts say misguided and erratic government responses exacerbated Japan's "lost decade" in the 1990s and the Depression of the 1930s. "The things that can screw it up are bad policies," said Thomas F. Cooley, dean of the Stern School of Business at New York University.
In the end, there's probably no way to know for sure that we've hit bottom until we're on the rebound. Still, analysts say there are some key indicators that might help in spotting a bottom and recovery at a time when it can be hard to see past the despair.
STOCKS
History shows that the stock market usually hits bottom before the economy does.
In October, Warren E. Buffett, one of the world's most successful investors, said he was buying American stocks because they usually rise "well before either sentiment or the economy." But even he acknowledged not having "the faintest idea" what would happen in the next month or year.
Since then, stocks have dropped by another 20 percent, and with the market at levels last seen in 1997, stocks are cheap by historical standards. The price-to-earnings ratio - which investors use to gauge how much they are paying for each dollar of corporate profit - is around 13, about 20 percent lower than the average of the last 130 years.
But many investors remain on the sidelines. Money market funds have swollen to $3.8 trillion, up from $2.4 trillion two years ago. And the cash banks are holding in their vaults and at the Federal Reserve has more than doubled in the last nine months.
What has made the current recession so pernicious is the eroding pressure of deflation, the general decline in prices that has hurt both businesses and consumers. They earn less and the value of their businesses and homes has fallen, yet they still owe as much as they did before, said Russell Napier, a consultant with Credit Lyonnais and author of "Anatomy of the Bear: Lessons From Wall Street's Four Great Bottoms."
He said he believed stocks would not rise until deflation ended and businesses could charge higher prices to pay off debts. Early indications suggest that this may be happening and that the stock market may be near the bottom, Mr. Napier said. He pointed to three indicators that often signal that economic growth and inflation are on the way - the prices of copper, corporate bonds and inflation-protected Treasury securities. Prices for all three are higher today than they were in November.
"All the indicators suggest you should be buying and not selling," he said. Still, Mr. Napier acknowledged that stocks, while cheap, could fall further. Measured by their 10-year price-to-earnings ratio, stocks were a lot less expensive in the early 1980s, when the ratio fell to less than seven, and in the 1930s, when it was below six.
Nouriel Roubini, the economics professor from New York University who predicted much of the current crisis, has warned that corporate earnings and stock prices could continue to fall, perhaps precipitously.
HOME PRICES
To determine whether home prices are still inflated, economist use ratios that compare the cost of buying a home to renting or to median family income. If the ratios move sharply higher, as they did in recent years, it suggests home prices might be inflated. When they are falling, as they are across the country and particularly in places like San Diego, Phoenix and Tampa, owning a home becomes more affordable.
Barry Ritholtz, a professional investor who writes the popular economics blog The Big Picture, has a simpler, more subjective, approach: Assume a young couple earning two modest incomes is looking to buy a two- or three-bedroom starter home in a middle-income neighborhood in your city. Can they qualify for a mortgage and afford to buy it?
"If the answer is no, then you are not at a bottom in housing," said Mr. Ritholtz, who estimates that the decline in national home prices is only half-complete.
Just as prices in the bubble did not go up uniformly in all parts of the country, they will not reach bottom together, said Ronald J. Peltier, chief executive of Home Services of America, a real estate brokerage firm.
In places like Riverside, Calif., and Miami, where homes are selling for half or less than what they sold for three or four years ago, real estate may be close to the bottom. One telling sign is that first-time home buyers and investors are snapping up homes, though they are mostly buying from banks selling foreclosed properties at deep discounts. Sales of existing homes in California jumped by more than 50 percent in January from a year earlier. But the median price was down more than 40 percent, to $224,000.
At the same time, prices have come down a lot less in urban areas like Manhattan and, not surprisingly, the number of homes being sold is down by as much as 50 percent from a year ago. Prices in these urban areas will have to fall much more before many young couples can afford starter homes.
Of course, those who bought at the peak of the market will suffer the greatest pain if they are forced to sell. But Mr. Peltier and other specialists say the current dismal market will only be resolved by lower prices, easier lending and an improving economy.
CONSUMER SPENDING
Americans like to buy things, and for at least the last decade, many economists assumed they would continue to spend on cars, clothes and the latest digital toy, good times or not. Consumer spending has rarely declined in the post-World-War-II era and when it has, it bounced back quickly.
The current recession is severely testing that article of faith. Personal consumption fell by about 1 percent in the second half of last year - the first sustained decline since 1980. Economists say consumption will be slow to recover because debt-saddled Americans are saving more or paying down debt. The savings rate - the amount of money consumers did not spend - jumped to about 3 percent late last year, from practically zero, still far below its postwar average of 7 percent.
A sign that consumption has hit bottom may come when the savings rate begins to flatten. Spending should then rebound as pent-up demand gives way. Car sales, for instance, have fallen to levels last seen in 1981, when the population of the United States was about three-quarters of what it is today. Many families are deferring car purchases and making do with what they have. Eventually, however, they will have to replace their aging vehicles.
In a study of economic cycles, Edward E. Leamer, an economist at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles, found that auto sales and home building tended to lead recoveries.
An increase in international trade would be another early indicator that consumer spending here and abroad has hit the floor and begun to rebound.
After growing at an average of 7 percent a year for most of this decade, global trade was little changed from March to September last year, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Many large economies including the United States, Japan and China have reported a sharp drop in exports and imports in recent months. There was more bad news on Friday, when the Commerce Department reported that exports from and imports to the United States fell by about 12 percent in January.
"Seeing global trade pick up would be a very positive sign," said Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and now a professor at Harvard.
Tobias Levkovich, chief United States equity strategist at Citigroup, has another indicator for spotting when we have hit bottom: When we stop behaving like children in the backseat of the car asking their parents, "Are we there yet?"
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3) Administration Is Open to Taxing Health Benefits
By JACKIE CALMES and ROBERT PEAR
March 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/politics/15health.html?hp
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system.
The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as "the largest middle-class tax increase in history." Most Americans with insurance get it from their employers, and taxing workers for the benefit is opposed by union leaders and some businesses.
In television advertisements last fall, Mr. Obama criticized his Republican rival for the presidency, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for proposing to tax all employer-provided health benefits. The benefits have long been tax-free, regardless of how generous they are or how much an employee earns. The advertisements did not point out that Mr. McCain, in exchange, wanted to give all families a tax credit to subsidize the purchase of coverage.
At the time, even some Obama supporters said privately that he might come to regret his position if he won the election; in effect, they said, he was potentially giving up an important option to help finance his ambitious health care agenda to reduce medical costs and to expand coverage to the 46 million uninsured Americans. Now that Mr. Obama has begun the health debate, several advisers say that while he will not propose changing the tax-free status of employee health benefits, neither will he oppose it if Congress does so.
At a recent Congressional hearing, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat whose own health plan would make benefits taxable, asked Peter R. Orszag, the president's budget director, about the issue. Mr. Orszag replied that it "most firmly should remain on the table."
Mr. Orszag, an economist who has served as director of the Congressional Budget Office, has written favorably of taxing some employer-provided health benefits and using the revenue savings for other health-related incentives. So has another Obama adviser, Jason Furman, the deputy director of the White House National Economic Council.
They, like other proponents, cite evidence that tax-free benefits encourage what Mr. McCain called "gold-plated" policies, resulting in inefficient and costly demands for health care and pressure on employers to hold down workers' pay as insurance expenses rise. And, they say, the policy discriminates against those - many of whom are low-income workers - who do not have employer-provided coverage.
When Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, advocated taxing benefits at a recent hearing of the Finance Committee, which he leads, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner assured him that the administration was open to all ideas from Congress. Mr. Geithner did, however, allude to the position that Mr. Obama had taken as a candidate.
The administration's receptivity to the idea is owed partly to the advocacy of Mr. Baucus, whose committee has jurisdiction over tax policy and health programs, and to support from Republicans. There is less enthusiasm among Democrats in the House, though the health debate is at an early stage and no comprehensive plans are on the table.
Also, Mr. Obama's own idea for raising revenues for health care - limiting the income tax deductions that the most affluent taxpayers claim - has run into opposition not only from Mr. Baucus but also from his counterpart in the House, Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, who is chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
Mr. Obama's proposed limit on deductions would raise an estimated $318 billion over 10 years, or half of his proposed "health care reserve fund." That is a fraction of the revenues that could be raised from taxing employer-provided health benefits.
In the campaign, Mr. McCain estimated that taxing all health benefits would raise $3.6 trillion over a decade - "a multitrillion-dollar tax hike," one Obama advertisement said.
The Congressional Budget Office says that including health benefits in taxable income could mean $246 billion in additional revenue for a single year. Stopping short of full taxation, as Mr. Baucus and others suggest, would mean less new revenue.
The latest government figures, for 2007, show that 70 percent of the 253 million people with health insurance received at least some of their coverage through employers. Employment-based insurance covers three-fifths of the population under 65.
Those who want to tax benefits in whole or in part make two main arguments. They say the tax exclusion is a generous subsidy that insulates employees from the true costs of health care, leading them to demand more of it and driving up overall costs. Critics also say the policy is unfair because it favors higher-income people. "It's too regressive," Mr. Baucus said. "It just skews the system."
But in a blueprint for health legislation that he issued last November, Mr. Baucus said taking the exclusion on health benefits out of the tax code would go "too far" and "cause widespread disruption in employer-based health benefits." Mr. Obama has also said he wants to preserve employer-provided coverage. Mr. Baucus, in his paper, cited other options, like taxing benefits above some value, taxing only wealthy employees or both.
However the proposal is devised, advocates will not have an easy time selling it.
Republicans, like Mr. McCain and former President George W. Bush before him, tend to favor taxing the benefits to finance other incentives for people to buy their own insurance. But given Mr. Obama's use of the issue in his campaign, Republicans are unlikely to support a change unless the president himself proposes it, a senior adviser to Senate Republicans said.
Many Democrats, especially House liberals, are opposed. "It's a dumb idea," said Representative Pete Stark of California, chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health. "We have to maintain as much as we can of the employer payments."
Administration officials often say they will not repeat the mistakes of former President Bill Clinton, whose plan for universal health insurance collapsed in 1994. But Frank B. McArdle, a health policy expert at Hewitt Associates, a benefits consulting firm, said, "If President Obama agrees to cut back the tax break for employee health benefits, he will risk repeating one of Mr. Clinton's errors by disrupting health insurance for people who have it and like it."
Some big businesses consider nontaxable employment benefits a tool for recruiting and retaining workers. The United States Chamber of Commerce opposes eliminating the exclusion on health benefits, but James P. Gelfand, senior manager of health policy, said the group had not taken a position on limiting it.
Organized labor, a pillar of the Democratic Party base, considers the benefits among the union movement's historic achievements for the middle class. But a split could be developing between the manufacturing unions, which have negotiated rich benefit packages, and the growing service employees unions, which include many low-wage workers without generous benefits.
Alan V. Reuther, legislative director of the United Automobile Workers, said: "These proposals would represent a tax increase on working families. They would undermine good health care coverage."
But at the Service Employees International Union, which was an early supporter of Mr. Obama, Dennis Rivera, the coordinator of the union's health care campaign, said that while his organization was "predisposed not to agree to the taxing of health benefits," he would wait to pass judgment. The union, Mr. Rivera said, wants to see how any tax changes fit into the overall effort to revamp the health care system. "We need to see the total picture," he said.
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4) Arrests of 3 Dissidents in Ulster Killings Stir Riots
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/world/europe/15ulster.html?hp
LURGAN, Northern Ireland (AP) - Irish nationalist gangs hurled gasoline bombs at police officers on Saturday after three suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents were arrested on suspicion of killing two British soldiers in an attack designed to stir up wider violence in Northern Ireland.
Police officers in armored cars and flame-retardant suits said no members of their force were injured during the rising mob violence in the Irish Catholic end of Lurgan, a religiously divided town southwest of Belfast. Rioters also blocked the main railroad that goes between Belfast and Dublin, which runs alongside the town's hard-line Kilwilkie district.
The police also said they arrested a 37-year-old man and 30-year-old woman, and seized a gun and ammunition in the neighboring town of Craigavon, where I.R.A. dissidents shot to death a police officer on Monday.
The police would not say whether those arrests and the arms were connected to the March 7 shooting of the soldiers or the killing of the police officer.
The unrest came in direct response to the arrest on Saturday of Colin Duffy, 41, who was a top I.R.A. figure. The police arrested two other suspected I.R.A. dissidents in the overwhelmingly Catholic village of Bellaghy - all on suspicion of shooting to death the two soldiers.
The police arrested two teenage rioters and advised drivers to stay away from the Catholic north side of Lurgan to avoid having their cars seized and burned as road barricades.
The police long considered Mr. Duffy the I.R.A. godfather of Lurgan and twice charged him with murders in the town in the run-up to the I.R.A.'s 1997 cease-fire, which breakaway factions are now trying to destroy.
Mr. Duffy was convicted of killing a former soldier in Lurgan in 1993, but he was freed on appeal three years later after the main witness against him was identified as a member of an outlawed Protestant gang.
He was back in jail within a year after the police identified him as the gunman who committed the I.R.A.'s last two killings before its cease-fire.
The prosecutors' case against Mr. Duffy collapsed after the main witness withdrew her testimony.
The arrests on Saturday came a week after the Real I.R.A. splinter group fired more than 60 bullets at several unarmed, off-duty soldiers outside an army base as they collected pizzas, the first of two deadly gun attacks against British security forces.
Two soldiers died and four other people were seriously wounded, including two deliverymen.
The I.R.A. dissidents next struck Monday when Constable Stephen Carroll, 48, was shot fatally in Craigavon. A different splinter group, the Continuity I.R.A., claimed responsibility.
A 17-year-old boy and two men have been arrested since Tuesday on suspicion of involvement in the killing of the police officer.
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5) The Blackout of the March 21 Mobilizations
Redbaiting on the Left
By JOHN WALSH
March 16, 2009
http://counterpunch.com/walsh03162009.html
The War on Iraq drags on with no clear end in sight. The war on Afghanistan is being escalated. The war on Pakistan has also been stepped up, a war undeclared by Congress, therefore unconstitutional and the basis for an impeachment. All this has happened since Obama took office.
And yet with one exception, no national antiwar demonstration has been called. Worse, to a large degree the one demonstration called, for this coming weekend, March 21, has been blacked out on the "respectable Left." This ugly fact was brought home to me quite strikingly yesterday at a meeting of single-payer activists, most also antiwar activists. No one with whom I spoke knew about the coming demonstration! Part of the reason is that some have tried to characterize this action as a fringe event, because it has been called by A.N.S.W.E.R., about which more below and with which this writer is not affiliated.
This mobilization has a list of endorsers which are cannot readily be dismissed. For starters: Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Ron Kovic, Edward Asner, Mimi Kennedy, Ramsey Clark, School of the Americas Watch, San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO) and many other labor locals as well as Green Party locals.
Despite this, the official peace movement, sock puppets of the Democrat Party, like MoveOn and UFPJ, is refusing to join or even to publicize this effort in any substantial way.
And this was predicted some time back by no less a monster than neocon McCarthyite David Horowitz who wrote in the Wall Street Journal not so many weeks ago as he gazed fondly on Obama's inauguration:
"Consider: When President Obama commits this nation to war against the Islamic terrorists, as he already has in Afghanistan, he will take millions of previously alienated and disaffected Americans with him, and they will support our troops in a way that most of his party has refused to support them until now. When another liberal, Bill Clinton went to war from the air, there was no anti-war movement in the streets or in his party's ranks to oppose him. That is an encouraging fact for us.
And so it has come to pass.
Now some in UFPJ have characterized A.N.S.W.E.R. as loony lefties because a leading member is a group calling itself "Marxist-Leninist." Zowie, kids! That is really scary! I remind such people that Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King were not deterred from allying with "Marxist-Leninists," nor were any of those who joined in the fight against Nazism and Colonialism. What is the big deal? If A.N.S.W.E.R. is the only group willing to organize a loud and clear street opposition to the Obama version of war and empire, I for one will not be deterred from joining in by a pathetic bit of redbaiting. And if only those who call themselves "Marxists-Leninists" are willing to call such an action, then perhaps there is something in the wisdom of Marx, and Lenin, that remains of value.
So the question really is, Which side are you on? That of the Obamanation and the Democrat Party version of war and empire? Or on the side of public, mass opposition to the war? I hope that as many as possible choose the latter course - in D.C., L.A or S.F.
John Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com
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6) Race may be factor in police shooting of unarmed elderly man
By Howard Witt
Tribune correspondent
"A 2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey, the most recent available, found that blacks are nearly four times as likely as whites to be subjected to force during police interactions."
"If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names," said Mills [Russel Mills, Homer, Louisiana Police Chief], who is white. "I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested. We're not out there trying to abuse and harass people-we're trying to protect the law-abiding citizens locked behind their doors in fear."
March 13, 2009
The article and a video interview with witnesses and correspondent Howard Witt at this site:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-race-shootings-webmar13,0,7686526.story
HOMER, La.-On the last afternoon of his life, Bernard Monroe was hosting a cookout for family and friends in front of his dilapidated home on Adams Street in this small northern Louisiana town.
Throat cancer had robbed the 73-year-old retired electric utility worker of his voice years ago, but family members said Monroe was clearly enjoying the commotion of a dozen of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren cavorting around him in the dusty, grassless yard.
Then the Homer police showed up, two white officers whose arrival caused the participants at the black family gathering to quickly fall silent.
Within moments, Monroe lay dead, shot by one of the officers as his family looked on.
Now the Louisiana State Police, the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department are swarming over this impoverished lumber town of 3,800, drawn by the allegations of numerous witnesses that police killed an unarmed, elderly black man without justification-and then moved a gun to make it look like the man had been holding it.
"We are closely monitoring the events in Homer," said Donald Washington, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana. "I understand that a number of allegations are being made that, if true, would be serious enough for us to follow up on very quickly."
Yet the Feb. 20 Homer incident was not an isolated case. Across the nation, in four cases in recent months, white police officers have been accused of unprovoked shootings of African Americans in what civil rights leaders say are illustrations of the potentially deadly consequences of racial profiling by police.
In the mostly white Houston suburb of Bellaire, a 23-year-old black man sitting in his own SUV in the driveway of his parents' home was shot and wounded on New Year's Eve by police who mistakenly believed he had stolen the vehicle. The case is under investigation.
In Oakland, a transit police officer has been charged with murder for allegedly shooting an unarmed black man in the back while he was restrained and lying face down on a train platform on New Year's Day.
In New Orleans, nine police officers are under investigation in the New Year's Day death of a 22-year-old black man who was struck by 14 bullets after an undercover team stopped his car. The police say the man raised a gun and fired at them, but the man's family disputes that.
"All the anecdotal information demonstrates that African Americans are the most frequent victims of zealous, inappropriate police activity that often winds up in a shooting," said Reggie Shuford, a senior attorney with the racial justice program at the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's a shoot first, ask questions later approach to policing."
The evidence is not merely anecdotal. The most recent national analysis from the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that blacks and Hispanics were nearly three times as likely as whites to be searched by police-and blacks were almost four times as likely as whites to be subjected to the use of force.
Psychologists are stepping up research into the implicit, unconscious racial biases that may be driving such statistics and affecting police behavior.
"If in fact police have implicit biases-if they automatically associate blacks with crime-then that would be relevant to an officer in a split-second, shoot-or-don't-shoot situation," said Lorie Fridell, a criminology professor at the University of South Florida who is creating a new anti-bias police training program with funding from the Justice Department. "Is the officer more inclined to believe he sees a gun in the hand of a black person, rather than a cell phone? I think that is possible."
In Monroe's case, friends and family members say they still don't understand why the beloved neighborhood patriarch ended up dead.
Four witnesses told the Tribune that Monroe was sitting outside his home in the late afternoon of Feb. 20, clutching a large sports-drink bottle, when two police officers pulled up and summoned Monroe's son, Shawn, for a conversation.
Shawn Monroe has a long record of arrests and convictions for assault and battery, and even though he was not wanted on any current warrants, he took off running into the house. One of the officers, a new hire named Tim Cox who had been on Homer's police force for only a few weeks, chased after him, reappearing moments later in the doorway.
Meanwhile, the witnesses said, the elder Monroe had started walking toward the front door, carrying only his drink bottle, to try to intervene. When Monroe got to the first step on the front porch, the witnesses said, Cox opened fire, striking him several times as adults and children stood nearby.
"He just shot him through the screen door," said Denise Nicholson, a family friend who said she was standing a few feet from Monroe. "After [Monroe] was on the ground, we kept asking the officer to call an ambulance, but all he did was get on his radio and say, 'Officer in distress.' "
As Monroe lay dying, the witnesses said, the second police officer, who has not been publicly identified, picked up a handgun that Monroe, an avid hunter, always kept in plain sight on the porch for protection. Using a police-issue blue latex glove, the officer grasped the gun by its handle, the witnesses said, and then ordered everyone to back away from the scene. The next thing they said they saw was the gun on the ground next to Monroe's body.
"I saw him pick up the gun off the porch," said Marcus Frazier, another witness. "I said, 'What are you doing?' The cop told me, 'Shut the hell up, you don't know what you're talking about.' "
The Homer police maintain that Monroe was holding a loaded gun when he was shot, but they are not commenting further on the case.
At least one fact surrounding the shooting is not in dispute: It took place amid long-standing tensions between Homer police and the residents of Monroe's crime-plagued black neighborhood.
"People here are afraid of the police," said Terry Willis, vice president of the Homer NAACP branch. "They harass black people, they stop people for no reason and rough them up without charging them with anything."
That is how it should be, responded Russell Mills, Homer's police chief, who noted the high rates of gun and drug arrests in the neighborhood.
"If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names," said Mills, who is white. "I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested. We're not out there trying to abuse and harass people-we're trying to protect the law-abiding citizens locked behind their doors in fear."
hwitt@tribune.com
Copyright (c) 2009, Chicago Tribune
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7) Shot that hit Grand Valley State University student was fired by Ottawa deputy, state police say
by The Grand Rapids Press
Thursday March 12, 2009, 9:39 AM
UPDATE: GVSU student shot by police during drug investigation was not armed, police reveal
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/03/update_shot_that_hit_grand_val.html
An Ottawa County sheriff's deputy fired the shot that injured a Grand Valley State University student Wednesday night at his off-campus apartment, a top investigator confirmed this morning.
The deputy was among at least five officers executing a search warrant for drugs when he fired the shot through an open sliding door at the rear of the apartment, said Capt. Gary Gorski, district commander for the Michigan State Police.
The 20-year-old student was in stable condition at Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, police said.
"I don't yet know all the details that occurred," Gorski said. "Preliminary indications are the individual was going toward the door. A shot was fired, striking him."
Ottawa County Undersheriff Greg Steigenga said the deputy is a 12-year member of the department, assigned the past two years to the West Michigan Enforcement Team.
The team investigates drug crimes and includes members of many police agencies.
The 9 p.m. shooting at Campus View Apartments caused police to lock down the building, but residents were not evacuated and were never in danger, Gorski said.
GVSU's Web site said police were entering the student's apartment at 10255 42nd Ave. at the time of the gunfire.
Gorski said the warrant was part of a drug investigation conducted with the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department and other agencies.
This is the second shooting involving an Ottawa County deputy in less than a month.
On Feb. 22, a deputy shot and killed a man inside a home he set on fire, a half-hour after the man repeatedly stabbed his estranged wife at her workplace.
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8) Derek Copp family hires lawyer; Fred Dilley questions police tactics
by John Agar | The Grand Rapids Press
Monday March 16, 2009, 10:07 AM
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/03/derek_copp_family_hires_lawyer.html
GRAND RAPIDS -- The family of injured shooting victim Derek Copp has hired a lawyer who is questioning why the Grand Valley State University student was shot by police and the basis of a search warrant to look for marijuana in his off-campus apartment.
"We have some very important questions about what appears to be some shocking police activity," Grand Rapids attorney Fred Dilley told The Press this morning.
Dilley questioned the safety and necessity of raiding a student's apartment, entering through a rear slider, and "manner in which it was served and executed."
"The question is, is that a sufficient basis to use deadly force to enter the apartment? Is that a sufficient basis to use deadly force to enter the apartment when there was no resistance and the officer was in no apparent danger? ... If there was marijuana in the apartment, is that a sufficient basis to use deadly force?"
Copp, 20, who is recovering at Spectrum Health Butterworth Campus, was shot in the chest Wednesday night in his Georgetown Township apartment as the West Michigan Enforcement Team, or WEMET, executed a search warrant. The bullet entered his upper right chest, traveled down and hit his lung and liver, lodging in his back. Doctors removed the bullet.
Copp was unarmed when shot, police say. His family disputes any notion he sold drugs.
Dilley would not say if police found any drugs.
His client was shot by a 12-year Ottawa County sheriff's deputy who was assigned to WEMET, comprised of police from Allegan, Ottawa and Muskegon counties.
"Someone apparently said there was marijuana in the apartment," Dilley said.
Dilley said he is still trying to determine exactly what happened, and said he has confidence that state police will conduct a thorough review.
He would not disclose contents of a search-warrant affidavit. In most affidavits, police use information from confidential informants to get warrants signed by judges.
Dilley represented Joseph O'Brien, who was paid a $1.2 million settlement after a 1987 standoff with Grand Rapids police left him paralyzed after he was shot. Dilley is a long-time president of the Western Michigan Federal Bar Association.
He said that police have to be held accountable.
"The service of a search warrant is a key element of law enforcement, no question about it. When it's done properly and safely, it' s an important law enforcement tool. When it's not done properly, it's a tremendous invasion of people's constitutional rights."
E-mail John Agar: jagar@grpress.com
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9) Feds investigate Inglewood police after officer-involved shootings
The U.S. Justice Department launches a review after officers last year shot and killed four people -- three unarmed -- within four months.
By Ari B. Bloomekatz and Jack Leonard
From the Los Angeles Times
March 13, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-me-inglewood-police13-2009mar13,0,7818388.story
The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the Inglewood Police Department in the wake of several officer-involved shootings of unarmed suspects and other incidents in which the agency has been accused of using excessive force.
A Justice Department spokeswoman described the investigation as a "pattern or practice" inquiry into the Police Department that is being handled by the federal agency's civil rights division in Washington.
The probe marks the second ongoing investigation into the department, which was the focus of community protests last year when officers shot and killed four people -- three of them unarmed -- in the span of four months. The L.A. County Office of Independent Review, which monitors the Sheriff's Department, began probing the Police Department's tactics last year at the request of the city.
The announcement also comes less than three months after a Times investigation found that Inglewood police officers repeatedly resorted to physical or deadly force in the last several years against suspects who were unarmed or accused of minor offenses.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who was among several politicians who called for an outside investigation into possible police misconduct, said she was gratified by the Justice Department's decision.
"I have been extremely concerned about the alarming number of police-involved shootings in Inglewood," she said in a statement Thursday.
City officials said federal investigators plan to examine past procedures and tactics involving force used by Inglewood officers.
"We will cooperate completely in all aspects of this investigation," Inglewood Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said in a statement. "We have been at work for months in implementing reforms aimed at improving how our officers go about their jobs."
The Justice Department alerted the city by letter Wednesday afternoon that the agency was beginning a review of the department, Lt. Mike McBride said.
The purpose of such reviews is to ensure proper management and oversight at police departments and, if needed, to bring federal lawsuits to pressure local authorities into reforming their operations.
The L.A. County district attorney's office is also reviewing each of the shootings for possible criminal charges against the officers -- as it does for all police shootings in the county that result in injuries or death.
Since 2003, Inglewood police have shot and killed 11 people, five of them unarmed, according to law enforcement records reviewed by The Times. Among them was Jule Dexter.
Dexter was shot in the back and the head in June 2005 after being detained for drinking in public. The officer who fired the shots said Dexter was slow to obey an order to remove his hands from his pockets and appeared to fumble with what the officer feared was a weapon.
But witnesses said Dexter, 27, was shot as he reached to pull up his slipping pants. The city paid $725,000 to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by Dexter's family. The officer was suspended for 16 days.
That shooting, along with others, prompted some officers to complain about the department's policy on when to shoot and about a lack of training.
In addition, the department has been criticized over its use of electric stun guns. The Times found that two Inglewood officers were involved in shooting unarmed suspects with Tasers four times in five weeks.
Waters called on the Justice Department to intervene after the Aug. 31 killing of Eddie Felix Franco, a 56-year-old homeless man who had a realistic-looking toy gun in his waistband. Authorities said officers fired at least 47 rounds at Franco when he appeared to reach for the gun. A nearby motorist was struck and grazed in the head by one of the bullets.
Franco was the fourth person killed in as many months. The others were:
* Michael Byoune, 19, who was killed on Mother's Day, May 11, after he went to a hamburger stand with friends. Police officials said officers believed they had come under fire when they killed Byoune and wounded his two friends. None of the men were armed.
* Ruben Walton Ortega, 23, an alleged gang member who was shot and killed July 1 by an officer who said Ortega reached into his waistband as he ran from police. He was unarmed. Last week, prosecutors concluded that the officer "honestly believed he was in imminent danger" when he opened fire.
* Kevin Wicks, 38, a postal worker who was killed inside his home July 21 when police said he raised a gun at Officer Brian Ragan, who was responding to a report of a family disturbance in Wicks' apartment complex. Ragan was also one of two officers involved in Byoune's shooting and remains on paid leave, McBride said.
Inglewood Councilman Daniel Tabor said he believed the Justice Department would find that the city had taken swift measures to reform police training after last year's shootings.
About 70% of the agency's 191 officers have been enrolled in a 120-hour training program to improve tactics, according to the department.
Adrianne Sears, chairwoman of the Inglewood Citizen Police Oversight Commission, said she hoped that the Justice Department's investigation would "help to restore the public's trust in our department."
ari.bloomekatz@latimes.com
jack.leonard@latimes.com
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10) Find out if there is a Rachel Corrie Remembrance Day event near you by clicking here. If not, plan an emergency vigil and let others know by posting your event here. A flyer for use at your vigil can be found here.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=wWPR6SBiQZx3qbTxYhj0lA7xTCA4xcSe
For more information about Tristan's shooting and updates on his condition, including links to news articles, see the website of the International Solidarity Movement. Please note that the video on this website is graphic and disturbing.
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/(http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5324
Everyday, there is more sad and terrible news of people injured or killed in the occupied territories of Palestine. On Friday, just days before the anniversary of the killing of Rachel Corrie by Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza, we heard of the serious injury inflicted by the IDF on Tristan Anderson during a protest in the West Bank. Just like Rachel, Tristan is a young person from the U.S. working to end the Israeli Occupation.
Please join the vigils being organized by -- or plan your own vigil as part of -- the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation's solidarity actions.
Take care,
Judith LeBlanc
UFPJ Organizing Coordinator
Below is the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation's email to its members this morning:
On March 13, 2009, Tristan Anderson, a U.S. citizen from Oakland, CA, was critically injured when he was shot in the head by a high-velocity tear gas canister fired by the Israeli army.
Tristan was shot while photographing a weekly demonstration against the building of the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank village of Ni'lin. The Wall, which was declared to be illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004, cuts off Ni'lin from much of its agricultural lands. Since 2008, Israel has killed four unarmed Palestinians during these weekly protests: Yousef Amira (17), Ahmed Mousa (10), Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22), and Mohammed Khawaje (20).
This incident comes almost exactly six years after the death of U.S. peaceactivist Rachel Corrie. Rachel was killed by the Israeli military with a Caterpillar bulldozer as she was nonviolently trying to protect a Palestinian home from being destroyed on March 16, 2003.
Tristan's family has released a statement informing supporters that Tristan's condition has stabilized and that he has been moved from emergency care to specialized neurological intensive care unit in the Tel Hashomer hospital outside of Tel Aviv. The family is "deeply hopeful that Tristan will recover" and is "looking forward to when he is stable enough that he can return home to the care and comfort of his family and community."
"In the meantime, we are deeply appreciative of the excellent care he's receiving, the amazing support that Gaby [his girlfriend] and his friends are providing, and the thoughts and prayers of those around the world who are holding him in their hearts and minds. It matters tremendously as we all hold faith for Tristan to recover and return home. Again, we are so very grateful for the outpouring of love and support for Tristan and our family."
Cindy and Craig Corrie, the parents of Rachel Corrie, have released a statement on the 6th anniversary of their daughter's death: "On this anniversary, Rachel would want us all to hold Tristan Anderson and his family and these Palestinians [killed in Ni'lin] and their families in our thoughts and prayers, and we ask everyone to do so?.[The] attacks on all the people of Gaza and the recent one on Tristan Anderson in Ni'lin cry out for investigation and accountability."
TAKE ACTION
Across the country, organizations and individuals have planned vigils and actions today to commemorate Rachel Corrie. We call on supporters to join these events and to call for justice and accountability for all innocent victims of Israeli occupation.
Find out if there is a Rachel Corrie Remembrance Day event near you by clicking here. If not, plan an emergency vigil and let others know by posting your event here. A flyer for use at your vigil can be found here.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=wWPR6SBiQZx3qbTxYhj0lA7xTCA4xcSe
For more information about Tristan's shooting and updates on his condition, including links to news articles, see the website of the International Solidarity Movement. Please note that the video on this website is graphic and disturbing.
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/(http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5324
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11) STOP THE EVICTIONS
From the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter
March 16, 2009,
http://activistnewsletter.blogspot.com/
Watch the video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28303876#28303876
STOP THE EVICTIONS!
As the U.S. government spends trillions of dollars to bail out the bankers
and investors whose greed has plunged our country and the world into the
Great Recession, and while companies such as A.I.G. are paying fat bonuses
to executives with taxpayer bailout money, millions of American families
are being evicted from their mortgaged or rental homes and apartments.
MSNBC videographers recently followed the police in various cities as they
evicted some of these families. It's sad to watch it but it is a view of
the often concealed tragedy being inflicted upon our people, and should be
watched. This tragedy is the responsibility of an economic system that sees
human beings as little more than cogs in its productive machinery,
consumers of its products, the source of its profits and, when their usefulness ends,
as disposable trash.
Watch the video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28303876#28303876
STOP THE EVICTIONS
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12) Bracing for a Backlash Over Wall Street Bailouts
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
News Analysis
March 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/us/politics/16assess.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is increasingly concerned about a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street, worried that anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House and could complicate President Obama's agenda.
The administration's sharp rebuke of the American International Group on Sunday for handing out $165 million in executive bonuses - Lawrence H. Summers, director of the president's National Economic Council, described it as "outrageous" on "This Week" on ABC - marks the latest effort by the White House to distance itself from abuses that could feed potentially disruptive public anger.
"We've got enormous problems that need to be addressed," David Axelrod, Mr. Obama's senior adviser, said in an interview. "And it's hard to address because there's a lot of anger about the irresponsibility that led us to this point."
"This has been welling up for a long time," he said.
Mr. Obama's aides said any surge of such a sentiment could complicate efforts to win Congressional approval for the additional bailout packages that Mr. Obama has signaled will be necessary to stabilize the banking system.
As it is, there have already been moves in Congress to limit compensation to executives at banks and Wall Street firms that are receiving government help to survive.
Beyond that, a shifting political mood challenges Mr. Obama's political skills, as he seeks to acknowledge the anger without becoming a target of it. A central question for Mr. Obama is whether his cool style - "in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger," he said in his address to Congress last month - will prove effective when the country may be feeling more emotional.
Even as Mr. Summers was denouncing A.I.G. for the bonuses, he suggested that there was little if anything the government could do to stop them, seconding the conclusion of Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. But even if their reasoning was legally sound, they also risked having the administration look ineffectual in the face of what Mr. Summers said was the worst financial abuse of the last 18 months, since the economy began turning down in earnest.
"Never underestimate the capacity of angry populism in times of economic stress," said Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and labor secretary under President Bill Clinton. "A big challenge for President Obama will be to maintain a rational and tactical public discussion in the midst of this severe downturn. The desire for culprits at times like this is strong."
In a further development, A.I.G. on Sunday named dozens of financial institutions that benefited from its huge rescue loan from the Federal Reserve last fall. The list included Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Wachovia.
On Monday, the White House is expected to unveil proposals to help small businesses, an effort to make clear that the administration is not only focusing its attentions on Wall Street and big corporations like the automakers.
But the financial crisis is the most acute problem facing the administration, one it will not be able to play down. Christina D. Romer, the White House's chief economist, said Sunday on "Meet the Press" on NBC that the administration was close to unveiling details of its plan to remove the worst of the bad assets from the books of banks, a move sure to refocus attention on winners and losers from bailouts.
The disclosure that A.I.G., which has received $170 billion in government assistance to remain afloat and avert a cascade of failures in the financial system, is paying bonuses to its executives is the latest in a series of episodes that Mr. Obama's aides said seemed to be feeding a resurgence of public anger.
The public responded angrily to previous disclosures of large bonuses on Wall Street, to auto executives who flew on corporate jets to Washington for Congressional bailout hearings, and to last week's face-off between Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" and Jim Cramer, the CNBC financial commentator, over the network's reporting on the crisis.
"There's unquestionably a strong populist surge out there," said Joel Benenson, Mr. Obama's pollster, citing his own polls and focus groups. "It's been brewing for close to four years. For the last two years, Americans were clearly indicating that they believe that one of the biggest obstacles to progress on America's toughest challenges - notably health care and energy independence - was the influence of special interests and corporate interests on the agenda in Washington."
A New York Times/CBS News Poll in February found that 83 percent of respondents said the government should cap the amount of compensation earned by executives of companies that are getting federal assistance.
Mr. Obama's advisers argued that to at least some extent, this was a sentiment they could tap to push through his measures in Congress, including raising taxes on the wealthy. They pointed out that in his speech to Congress, Mr. Obama denounced corporations that "use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet."
"The president has been very clear about this," Mr. Axelrod said. "There is reason for anger, but we also have to solve the problem. We need a functioning credit system. That's our responsibility, and he intends to meet it."
Still, aides acknowledged the risks of a backlash as Mr. Obama tries to signal that he shares American anger but pushes for more bail-out money for banks and Wall Street.
For all his political skills and his capturing of the nation's desire for change in the 2008 election, Mr. Obama, a product of Harvard Law School who calls upscale Hyde Park in Chicago home, has shown little inclination to strike a more populist tone. The danger, aides said, is that if he were to become identified as an advocate for the banks and Wall Street, people could take out their anger on him.
"The change now is you have a free-floating economic anxiety that has expressed itself in a kind of lashing out at those being bailed out and people who are bailing out," Michael Kazin, a professor at Georgetown University who has written extensively on populism. "There's not really a sense of what the solution is."
"I do think there's a potential for a 'damn everybody in power' kind of sentiment," Mr. Kazin said.
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